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2015-#176
10 September 2015
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"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

"Don't believe everything you think"

In this issue
 
  #1
The "Snipers' Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine. (excerpt)
By Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D.
School of Political Studies
University of Ottawa
Ottawa, ON
K1N 6N5, Canada
[email protected]

[Complete long text with footnotes and photos here https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine]

Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of American Political Science Association in San Francisco, September 3-6, 2015

"Il est d�fendu de tuer; tout meurtrier est puni, � moins qu'il n'ait tu� en grande compagnie, et au son des trompettes; c'est la r�gle."[It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets; it is the rule]. (Voltaire).

Abstract

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.

The question is which side organized the "snipers' massacre." This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.

The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protestors. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 (150 Gigabytes) of videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts by mass media and social media in different countries, news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters' deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the "Euromaidan."

This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of "snipers" targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan "snipers" and spotters in many of these buildings.

The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

The "Snipers'" Massacre Question

The massacre of several dozen Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 represented a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the escalating conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. In particular, the mass killing of the protesters and mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the violent overthrow of the semi-democratic government of Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by the Russian government, by a Maidan alliance of oligarchic and far right parties, supported by the Western governments. This massacre also gave a start to a large-scale violent conflict that escalated into a civil war in Donbas and to and Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas. The conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the Ukrainian media that the massacre was carried out by government snipers on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally shared, at least publicly, by the US and other Western governments, as well as the media in Ukraine and the West before any investigation conducted and all evidence considered. For instance, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in his speech to the US Congress on September 18, 2014, stated that the Yanukovych government's overthrow resulted from mass peaceful protests against police violence, in particular the killings of more than 100 protesters by snipers on February 20, 2014.

The research question is which side was involved in the "snipers' massacre." Related questions include which side broke the truce agreement and killed and wounded protesters and police, and whether this was this was a spontaneous or organized massacre. This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing that led to the escalation of the violent conflict in Ukraine, an overthrow of the government and ultimately a civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Donbas and Crimea, and the annexation of Crimea.

The next section of this paper reviews different narratives concerning the Maidan massacre by the governments and the media in Ukraine, the West, and Russia, results of the official investigation and a trial, and representations of this mass killing in previous academic studies. The second section presents a theoretical framework used in this study and evidence and research methods that it employs. The next two sections analyze, respectively, the mass shootings of the police and Maidan protesters. A brief analysis of other major cases of violence during and after the "Euromaidan" is followed by conclusion, summarizing main findings of this paper and their implications.

Narratives, Investigations, and Previous Studies of the Maidan Massacre
    
The governments and mainstream media in the West generally accepted the Maidan narrative of the "snipers' massacre" as being perpetrated by the government forces on Yanukovych's order, with a possible Russian government involvement, but did not provide evidence of such involvement. These conclusions were mainly based on the manifest content of videos and media reports on the Berkut special company firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters and the absence of similar evidence for armed groups of protesters. The dominant representation of the massacre by governments and the media in the West and Ukraine is a part of the narrative presenting "Euromaidan" as a democratic, peaceful mass-protest movement and a revolution led by pro-Western parties. The role of far-right parties and organizations, such as Svoboda and the Right Sector, is regarded as marginal. The same concerns violence by the Maidan side. Such violence and the presence of arms were represented as marginal, or as in the case of the December 1, 2013, attack of the presidential administration, which was often attributed to provocateurs. In a leaked intercepted telephone call with the EU foreign affairs chief, the Estonian minister of foreign affairs referred to one of the Maidan doctors, in particular Olha Bohomolets, pointing to similarity of the wounds among the protesters and policemen, which served as an indication that the massacre was organized by some elements of the Maidan opposition. However, EU states and the US government showed little interest in an international investigation of this mass killing and did not release their intelligence assessments and other information that they reportedly have concerning this case.    
    
In contrast, the Russian government and media, as well as ex-president Yanukovych and his top officials, who fled to Russia following the massacre, generally presented the mass killing of the police and protesters as a part of fascist coup organized by radical elements of the Maidan opposition and the US government, with help from the Central Intelligence Agency. However, they have not offered any evidence in support of such claims. But the Russian security services likely intercepted a telephone call between the EU foreign affairs chief and the Estonian foreign affairs minister who discussed evidence that this massacre was staged by some elements of the Maidan opposition.
             
Previous academic studies only briefly examined the Maidan massacre. A book-length study of "Euromaidan" offered a generally standard narrative of the massacre and attributes the killings to the government police and security forces, but it also cites a leader of Spilna sprava, a Maidan organization, as saying that one of the snipers was killed at the Hotel Ukraina (Wilson, 2104, 88-90). Many scholars, like the governments and mass media in Ukraine and the West, dismissed as "conspiracy theories" that do not require specific research various accounts of the Maidan massacre as a false flag operation (see, for example, Yekelchyk, 2015, 108-113). In contrast, some scholars suggested that a theory of the massacre as a false flag operation carried out by elements of the Maidan opposition cannot be dismissed and needs to be researched (see, for instance, Sakwa, 2015, 90-92). Some scholars concluded that the far right, specifically, the Right Sector, was involved in the Maidan massacre or that the Maidan opposition was involved in this massacre (Katchanovski, 2015, 2016; Hahn, 2015; Wade, 2015, 365).
             
The "Euromaidan" and the change of the government were generally represented in academic studies as a popular movement, which turned into a revolution, and which was motivated political protest against the authoritarian government, specially its reliance on violence, and by support of integration of Ukraine into the European Union. Many scholars also attributed violent attacks of the presidential administration and the parliament as response to the government violence and political repressions or as provocations by the Yanukovych government or Russia. They regarded the role of the far right organizations during the Maidan as insignificant or marginal. (See, for example, Marples and Mills, 2015; Popova, 2014; Wilson, 2014). Killings of Armenian, Georgian, Jewish, and Polish protesters and the presence of the Right Sector during funeral of Oleksander Shcherbaniuk, a Jewish protester, were mentioned in about dozen stories in major US, Israeli, and Scandinavian media as an evidence of the diversity of the protesters, their massacre by the government snipers, and tolerant or moderate nature of Right Sector, an alliance of radical nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations.
    
The Maidan-led government used the Maidan massacre as a source of its legitimacy and widely commemorated this mass killing and its victims among the protesters. The killed protesters were posthumously awarded Hero of Ukraine titles by President Petro Poroshenko, and the government established February 20 as a day in their honor. A large group of investigators was specifically tasked with solving this massacre case, and their investigation involved the interrogations of more than 2,000 people and more than 1,000 ballistic, medical and other expert reports. Therefore, it appeared irrational that the official government investigation-for a year and a half since the massacre-failed to reveal much of basic evidence and to bring any convictions in such a crucial case.
    
The investigation of the "snipers' massacre" by the Prosecutor General Office in Ukraine and by other government agencies, such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine, concluded that commanders and members of a special Berkut company killed 39 out of the 49 protesters who died on February 20. The investigators announced that this was done by this police unit primarily with AKM assault rifles and with hunting ammunition used in their pump rifles, even thought it would have been irrational to use such ammunition because it was unfamiliar and less powerful and precise than their standard Kalashnikov rifles of 7.62mm caliber. The head of the special parliamentary commission reported that out of 76 protesters killed on February 18-20, at least 25 were killed with 7.62mm caliber bullets and at least 17 protesters were killed with pellets, while one was shot dead by a 9mm bullet from a Makarov handgun. However, the Prosecutor General Office found that 67 out of 77 protesters were killed with firearms and 181 wounded with firearms during the entire "Euromaidan," including 49 shot dead on February 20, 2014. It reported that one out of 39 protesters that the prosecution charged the special Berkut police unit with killing on February 20 was shot with pellets, while 7.62mm bullets of AKM caliber were extracted from bodies of 16 protesters. The prosecution also reported that there were protesters killed with hunting bullets, but not specified their number. It has not been revealed publicly which ammunition killed which protesters, with some exceptions during the trial of two Berkut policemen.  
            
While many Maidan politicians and the Ukrainian media initially claimed that government snipers from the Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) massacred many protesters, the Maidan government investigation produced no evidence that they had shot protesters. In the beginning of April 2013, the Prosecutor General Office issued a statement that a Simonov "sniper rifle" was used in the Hotel Ukraina to shoot protesters, even though the Simonov rifle is not a sniper rifle but a semi-automatic carbine that uses the same caliber bullets as the AKM; the Simonov was generally removed from military and police service in Ukraine and was available as a hunting rifle. However, during the first press conference presenting the investigation's results in April 2014 the Prosecutor General, from the far-right Svoboda party, did not mention that the Simonov carbine was used and that any "snipers" were in this hotel. The same was done in November 2014 at the subsequent press conference by the Prosecutor General Office when it was headed by a Fatherland member. A new head of the investigation, reported the same findings concerning the Berkut involvement but admitted that there might have been unknown non-governmental snipers who shot some protesters from the Hotel Ukraina.
    
The Berkut special company's commander and two members of his unit were arrested in 2014 and the deputy commander of the Berkut regiment in 2015, and they were charged with killing 39 protesters. It appeared irrational that the purported killers would remain in Kyiv and not hide from the prosecution. It was similarly puzzling that the Berkut special company commander was then released and he disappeared. A trial of two policemen from a Berkut special company began in January 2015. The trial proceedings and statements by lawyers of the two arrested Berkut members revealed that the 71-volume investigative file did not identify specific protesters killed by specific Berkut members. The evidence against the policemen relied on their presence in the area of the massacre based on mobile phones records and on videos of masked Berkut members shooting during the massacre. The investigation established the place of the shooting for only half of these 39 protesters.
            
The list of the 39 protesters whose killing the prosecution attributed to Berkut was only made public during the trial of the two Berkut members almost 1 year and a half after the massacre. Official results from the ballistic, weapons, and medical examinations and other evidence collected during the government's investigation of this massacre have not been made public until the trial proceedings started in July 2015.
    
The top Maidan government leaders claimed that Yanukovych and his top officials in the SBU and Ministry of Internal Affairs organized the massacre. However, no such evidence was provided. Interrogations of Yanukovych government officials who did not flee, as well as of police commanders and members, produced no confessions or witness testimonies about such an order or about the involvement of the Berkut and other such formations in the massacre of the protesters. The prosecution stated during the Maidan massacre trial that after an unspecified escalation of the conflict around 8am on February 20, the Berkut commander himself ordered the commander of the special Berkut company to disperse the protesters on the Maidan and block them from advancing to the parliament and presidential administration. It would have been irrational for the Berkut commander to issue such an order on his own and use only about two dozen members of a special company to disperse the Maidan. The prosecution stated that president Viktor Yanukovych and the Minister of Internal Affairs ordered to disperse the protesters on the Maidan by force close to midnight on February 18 after the deadly clashes during a "march" of the Maidan protesters, including Maidan Self-Defense units, to the parliament on February 18. The prosecution charged that following a Berkut commander order, the Berkut special company commander ordered to use AKMs and Fort 500 pump guns with lead pellets, but no specific evidence was presented concerning these orders.
           
The prosecution claimed that around 9:00am on February 20, 2014 unidentified persons of unknown allegiance started to shoot at the police, and that they killed from an unknown weapon one member of the Berkut special company and wounded another. In response to this, the accused from the Berkut company and unidentified members of this company and other law enforcement units became hostile to protesters and started to shoot in the direction of the unarmed protesters with AKMS and Fort 500 with lead pellets in order to kill them.
          
The head of the Security Service of Ukraine alleged in February 2015 that Vladislav Surkov, an aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was personally coordinating foreign "snipers" on the Maidan but presented no supporting evidence. The claims about Surkov's involvement in the Maidan massacre were also made on the first anniversary of this mass killing by President Poroshenko and Oleksander Turchynov, the Head of the National Security and Defense Council, and they were disseminated by the media in Ukraine and the West. However, a member of the Poroshenko's faction in the parliament and the former Ukrainska pravda journalist revealed that Surkov arrived in Kyiv by plane only in the evening of February 20 after the massacre was over. The Prosecutor General stated in his interview in April 2015 that he did not have any information about Surkov's involvement. The head of it unit in charge of the Maidan massacre investigative stated that the investigation did not have any evidence of such involvement and that the documents submitted by the SBU head in support of his claims were in fact unrelated to the massacre.
            
Similarly, Andrii Parubii, who became after the overthrow of Yanukovych the head of the National Security and Defense Council and then the first deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament, claimed that Russian and Belarusian snipers massacred the protesters and that they were located on the roofs of the presidential administration, the National Bank, but he was not certain if they were in the Hotel Ukraine. Oleksander Yakymenko, who headed SBU under Yanukovych, alleged that shooters in addition to the Maidan protestors included hired shooters from Ukraine and snipers from foreign countries, such as the former Yugoslavia. A retired Georgian general claimed that Georgian snipers linked to Mikheil Saakashvili, ex-president of Georgia, and senior members of his party and the government were involved in the Maidan massacre. Janusz Korwin-Mikke, a Polish presidential candidate alleged that Maidan snipers were trained in Poland. However, none of these politicians provided any evidence in support of their claims. And no such reliable evidence has been provided by the governments and the media in Ukraine, Western countries, and Russia.

On November 19, 2014, the Prosecutor General Office claimed during its press-conference devoted to this issue that their extensive investigation produced no evidence of "snipers" at the Hotel Ukraina, Zhovtnevyi Palace and other locations controlled by the Maidan protesters. Crucial evidence, including catalogues of Berkut's bullets and weapons and those of other police units, as well as some 200 investigative cases of specific victims of the massacre, either disappeared or were destroyed under the post-Yanukovych government. The Ukrainian government failed to investigate the killing and wounding of policemen on February 20 and on two previous days.
           
The delayed trial of two Berkut members in the Maidan massacre case in July and August 2015 produced important revelations that unraveled the prosecution case but were not reported by the Ukrainian and Western media. For example, a brother of Andrii Saienko testified that this protester was killed not from a Berkut position but from a top floor of the Hotel Ukraina

The prosecutors and relatives of some of the victims stated during the trial that expert reports in the investigative file established that Saienko and at least 9 other protesters were killed from the same exact 7.62mm caliber weapon. Saienko's brother and his lawyer said that they in October 2014 officially handed to investigators a video showing a crucial moment of the killing, which along with directions of his wounds pointed to shooters at the hotel, but the prosecution charged two Berkut members with the killings of Saienko and other these protesters.
           
Lawyers representing these two Berkut policemen stated in court on August 3d, 2015 that the prosecution case was falsified and that relatives of victims should ask Andrii Parubii and Petro Poroshenko about those who gave an order to massacre protesters, Parubii was the leader of neo-Nazi Patriot of Ukraine in the 1990s and the head of the Maidan Self-Defense during the "Euromaidan," and he is presently the first deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament. Poroshenko, who is currently president of Ukraine, was one of "Euromaidan" leaders. As an example, a defense lawyer said that the prosecution case mentioned an eyewitness, who repeatedly stated that he saw a sniper shooting from the second floor of the Hotel Ukraina and killing Serhii Kemsky a few meters away from this protester. But the prosecution and its on-site reconstruction report ignored this testimony and a medical expert report in the case and stated that Kemsky was killed by Berkut without any justification or any other witnesses provided.       
            
A report of the International Advisory Panel, set up by the Council of Europe, presented in 2015 evidence that the investigation of the "snipers' massacre" on the Maidan has been stalled, in particular by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General office. The report revealed that contrary to the public statements, the official investigation had evidence of "shooters" killing at least three protesters from the Maidan-controlled Hotel Ukraina or the Music Conservatory and that at least other 10 protesters were killed by unidentified "snipers" from rooftops. The prosecution charges against the Berkut policemen for killing 39 protesters simply omitted the killings of the other 10 protesters, even though at least 8 of them they were shot dead at the same time and place. However, the Council of Europe commission, which did not conduct its own investigation, repeated the official investigation conclusions that Berkut policemen were responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters. A Reuters investigation uncovered that the prosecution case against three Berkut members primarily relied on videos and photos and that some key pieces of such evidence were misrepresented or ignored.
             
A report by Euromaidan SOS, other Maidan organizations, and lawyers of the killed protesters in June 2015 also concluded that the government investigation was ineffective and was stonewalled. This report named three protesters, whom the government investigation determined as being likely killed from the Hotel Ukraina or surrounding buildings. The government investigators did not make public the names of these protesters, and stated that they were killed by unidentified shooters, They suggested that the investigation only considers government forces or the "third force" as these unidentified shooters and excludes any possibility that they were Maidan "snipers." Similarly, the prosecution charges announced during the Massacre trial referred to all Maidan protesters as unarmed and peaceful, and to shooters of the police as unidentified persons of unknown affiliation....


Other Cases of Violence during and after the "Euromaidan"
            
The Maidan turned into a an action of mass protests after a violent dispersal by Berkut on the Maidan on November 30, 2013 of a few hundred protesters against the reversal by the Yanukovych government of signing of an association and free trade agreement with the European Union. This violent dispersal that resulted in wounding of many protestors was ordered and carried out by the Yanukovych government. But there is also a certain evidence, such as statement by Anatolii Hrytsenko, one of the Maidan politicians, that the opposition leaders had advance information about this dispersal, because the opposition was able to intercept radio communications of Berkut concerning this operation. In contrast, claims by the Maidan leaders and some scholars that the violent attacks on the presidential administration on December 1, 2013 and the Ukrainian parliament in the end of January 2014 were provocations by the Yanukovych government are not supported by evidence. Specifically, the Right Sector and other far right organizations, admitted their key role in these violent attacks.    
               
The radio intercepts of Internal Troops units and Alfa commanders and snipers confirm that their attempts to seize the Maidan and the Trade Union building on February 18 were stopped by the burning of this building by its defenders and by use of live ammunition by the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector. These seizures of the Maidan and its headquarters were authorized by the Yanukovych government as a part of the "Boomerang" and "Khvylia" plans. These plans were put in force after an attempt by the opposition led by the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector to storm the parliament and their burning of the Party of Regions headquarters resulting in a death of an employee working there in the morning of the same day.

An Alfa officer, who led one of the SBU groups during storming of the Trade Union Building, stated that their task was to seize the 5th floor, which contained a lot of weapons. The Right Sector occupied the entire floor which served as both its headquarters and a base of the Right Sector company of the Maidan Self-Defense.
              
A radio intercept of Alfa commanders contains their report about deploying SBU snipers after two "snipers" or spotters from the Maidan side were noticed on a Maidan-controlled building, their preparation to storm this building, and an order from their superior to Alfa jointly with the Internal Troops to start this attack. This would be consistent with the announcement of the "anti-terrorist" operation by the head of SBU on February 19, 2014. While this order was canceled on the same day following the Yanukovych decision, such plans by him and his government to use force to disperse and arrest the Maidan leaders and activists, and specifically armed protesters, created another incentive to the massacre organizers and armed protesters to use live ammunition against the police and their fellow protesters in a high-stakes game in order also to avoided their planned arrest by the Yanukovych government.
             
The Maidan-led government and the parliamentary commission claimed without providing any evidence that Alfa burned the Trade Union building and that undercover SBU agents burned the Party of Regions headquarters. After these attacks, Berkut, the Internal Troops, and titushki assembled by the Yanukovych government launched a counterassault, and at least five Maidan protesters died as result of being beaten, driven over, or injured by stun grenades.
    
The "sniper massacre" fits a pattern of the politically motivated misrepresentations of the mass killing and other cases of violence by the same Ukrainian political forces and the media involved. At least six Maidan protesters were killed on February 18 and 19 by gunshots, primarily from hunting weapons and pellets, like was the case with three protesters killed in the end of January, 2014. The Maidan opposition and the Maidan-led government asserted without providing any evidence that these protesters were gunned down by the Berkut and snipers, while similarities with the "snipers'" massacre on the Maidan and the failure to find their killers suggest that this was likely a part of the same strategy of false flag violence. For instance, the investigation determined that these protesters were shot from a distance of a few meters, mostly with hunting ammunition, but did not identify any eyewitnesses or suspects (See Koshkina, 2015).
            
Other such cases include the beating of Tatiana Chornovol on December 25, 2013, the abduction of Dmytro Bulatov, the Odesa massacre of pro-Russian separatists on May 2, 2014, and many cases of shelling and killing of civilians in Donbas. The Maidan government investigation and the court verdict concluded that the same suspects, who were arrested in December 2013, were responsible for the beating of Chornovol. The leaked investigation information and the admission of his fellow Automaidan leaders in fall 2014 provide evidence that Bulatov's abduction was staged. The investigation also did not identify any suspects or collected any evidence, apart from the Bulatov's, statement that he was abducted.  
               
While the massacre of pro-Russian separatists in Odesa was blamed by the Ukrainian government on the separatists themselves, videos and other sources of evidence, such as public admissions by the far right organizations and the failure of the government investigation to find those responsible, point to the involvement of the Right Sector, football ultras and the Maidan Self-Defense units in this massacre, specifically starting the deadly fire at the Trade Union building and blocking exits from the building. Similarly, there is various, mostly indirect, evidence of the involvement of the Ukrainian government leaders from the Fatherland party. For example, the May 2 group, which was created by the Odesa Region governor, confirmed almost a year after the Odesa massacre that the deadly fire started in the Trade Union building main entrance. Various videos, specifically, one filmed by the May 2 group leader, show the attackers throwing Molotov cocktails and burning tires into the main entrance and other parts of the building when the fire started there. But the official investigation and the government leaders and officials falsely claimed that the fire was started by separatists or by Russian agents on the roof or in a wing part of the building and falsified investigation of his case. Various evidence indicates that the police and the firefighters were ordered by their superiors to stand by during the massacre, and that such orders came from the top echelon of the Ukrainian government.
               
Contrary to the Ukrainian government claims that nearly all major cases of killings of civilians in Donbas were done by separatists, specifically as false flag operations, the analysis of various sources, such as OSCE mission reports and videos, indicates that the absolute majority of such killings during this civil war were attributable to the Ukrainian government forces and battalions led by the far right parties. However, the separatists were responsible for the most of major deadly attacks during their advance in January and February 2015. While the various publicly available evidence indicates that the Malaysian airliner in Donbas was likely shot down by separatists, there is a question if the Maidan-led government knew that separatists had obtained from Russia such capability to shot down planes at such height but not diverted the passenger air traffic from the war zone, specifically after reportedly receiving information that the separatists were expecting a Ukrainian military transport plane at the same location and time. (See Katchanovski, 2014b).  

Conclusion
      
This paper shows that the Maidan massacre of the protestors and the police on February 20, 2014 involved the far right and oligarchic parties, and it was a key element of the violent overthrow of the corrupt and oligarchic but democratically elected government in Ukraine. The study is based on a theoretical framework of rational choice and Weberian theory of instrumentally-rational action and analysis of a large volume of different sources of publicly available evidence.
              
The various kinds of evidence analyzed from such a theoretical perspective indicate that armed groups and the leadership of the far right organizations, such as the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland, were directly or indirectly involved in various capacities in this massacre of the protesters and the police. This mass killing was a successful false flag operation, which was organized and conducted by elements of the Maidan leadership and concealed armed groups in order to win the asymmetric conflict during the "Euromaidan" and seize power in Ukraine. This study also provides a rational explanation for the failure of the government investigation to find and prosecute those directly involved in this mass killing and for falsification of the investigation. However, specific nature and degree of the involvement of each of these political organizations and specific leaders and armed protesters remains unclear. Such a false flag massacre by its nature could have been organized and successfully carried out only by a small number of Maidan leaders and protesters. The absolute majority of the Maidan protesters, activists, members, and supporters of the "Euromaidan" mass protests and parties that led these protests, including the victims among the protestors, were not aware about the actual organizers and perpetrators of this politically motivated murder and not involved in any other way in this mass killing.  
             
The study shows that concealed armed Maidan groups, which were based in particular in Music Conservatory and the Trade Union buildings, started the massacre in the early morning on February 20 by targeting Berkut and Internal Troops units on the Maidan itself with live ammunition fire, inflicting their mass casualties, and forcing them to retreat. Then the armed Maidan groups, in particular the same ones, massacred the unsuspecting Maidan protestors from concealed positions. The analysis of circumstances, timing, and locations of specific killings of 49 protestors presents evidence that almost all of them were killed from the Maidan-controlled buildings and locations, in particular the Hotel Ukraine and Zhovtnevyi Palace. This study presents direct evidence, such as videos, photos, and witness testimonies, concerning groups of the Maidan "snipers" in these buildings and their shooting from these positions in the directions of the protesters at the same time when the protesters were killed and wounded from these directions from the same caliber and types of weapons.
              
The other evidence includes the following: the Maidan leaders gaining power as a result of the massacre; loss of power and flight by President Yanukovych and his other top government officials from Kyiv February 21, 2014 and then from Ukraine; Maidan protesters sent under deadly fire into positions of no important value and then being killed wave by wave from unexpected directions; and failure of the armed Maidan groups and Maidan leaders to target, neutralize and capture these snipers in buildings under the Maidan control or on their territory. Similarly, snipers killing unarmed protesters and targeting foreign journalists but not Maidan leaders, armed Maidan groups, the Maidan Self-Defense and the Right Sector headquarters, the Maidan stage, and pro-Maidan journalists become rational.
             
The seemingly irrational mass killing of the Maidan protesters and the police on February 20, 2014 turns to be rational from self-interest based perspectives of rational choice and Weberian theories of instrumentally-rational action. The new government that came to power largely as a result of the massacre falsified its investigation, while the Ukrainian media helped to misrepresent this mass killing of the protesters and the police. The analysis found that Berkut was shooting at the Maidan "snipers" and as warning to stop unarmed protesters, but it cannot exclude that the police killed or wounded some of the protesters, specifically armed ones, on February 20 because of lack of information about killings of a few protestors. No reliable evidence about "third force" foreign snipers or organizers of the massacre has been found.
             
This academic investigation also brings new important questions that need to be addressed. Because of various evidence of US government backing of the Maidan opposition, its involvement in the Maidan government selection and policy decisions, and its past record of supporting or organizing regime change in other countries, additional research is needed to examine if there was any involvement of the US government in the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government.
            
This study puts "Euromaidan" and the violent conflict in Ukraine into a new perspective.

While the massacre of the protestors and the police was rational from a rational choice or instrumentally rational theoretical perspective, this mass killing not only ended many human lives but also undermined democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in Ukraine. The massacre of the protesters and the police was a key part of the violent overthrow of the government in Ukraine and a major human rights crime. This violent overthrow constituted an undemocratic change of government. It gave start to a large-scale violent conflict that turned into a civil war in Eastern Ukraine, to a Russian military intervention in support of separatists in Crimea and Donbas, and to a de-facto break-up of Ukraine. The violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government also escalated an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.


 #2
The Guardian (UK)
September 4, 2015
Ukraine's government bears more responsibility for ongoing conflict than the far-right
The question of autonomy in the Donbass has fractured the fragile coalition, but the government must start thinking of solutions - not point fingers at paramilitaries
By Volodymyr Ishchenko
Volodymyr Ishchenko is a sociologist studying social protests in Ukraine. He is the deputy director of the Center for Social and Labor Research, a member of the editorial board of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism and LeftEast web-magazine, and a lecturer at the Department of Sociology in Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.

Violence erupted outside the parliament building in Kiev this week during protests against constitutional changes which could grant more autonomy to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Proposed by president Petro Poroshenko, these changes would decentralise power in Ukraine, allowing local self-government in "certain districts of Donetsk and Lugansk regions", to be determined by a separate law.

The proposals, supported by the US and EU, form part of a promise made at the Minsk peace agreement to grant "special status" to the pro-Russian rebel-held regions to help end the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.

But in reality, these constitutional changes are only a distant relation to the letter of the Minsk agreements. Poroshenko's proposal is not approved by the separatists, nor by the Kremlin. It does not really give any "special status" to separatist areas, and any specific details on autonomous rule in Donbass may later be revised by a simple majority vote in Ukrainian parliament.

Moreover, the so-called "decentralisation" is accompanied by a strengthening of the presidential control over local self-government via centrally assigned "prefects" with broad powers.

The far-right party Svoboda, the Right Sector party and some of the current coalition government parties criticised the changes as a "capitulation" to Russia, and Monday's protests turned bloody after a man - reportedly a member of a far-right battalion, called Sich - threw a hand grenade into a dense police line.

The government reported that more than 130 law enforcement officials had been injured, and three National Guard soldiers - all young draftees - died from injuries.

The Sich battalion, created with the support of Svoboda, is one of many formed in the past year to challenge separatist rebels supported by Russia in the east of the country.

However, in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, Poroshenko claimed Russia was in fact responsible for the deaths. The president claimed the Kremlin's ongoing "campaign of destabilisation" was to blame, despite clear indications that it was far-right nationalist supporters who were driving the clashes with the police.

Bringing the war closer

Responding to the clashes, the Svoboda party claimed the violence was a planned provocation to discredit "patriots", while pro-government groups and the liberal Ukrainian public have in turn hysterically blamed Svoboda for the deaths of the soldiers.

Rare voices from the left are now quickly reminding the liberals - in firm "I told you so" mode - that they warned much earlier of the dangers of prolonged cooperation with the far-right, and this violence, they suggest, is the outcome.

But as usual in cases of tragedy, emotions are selective. Throwing a hand grenade into a dense crowd is hardly the worst act of violence going on in Ukraine today. Even worse atrocities are committed almost every day in the Donbass region by "ordinary" people from the both sides of the conflict.

But during war violence can become trivialised, particularly when it is far from home - and far from Kiev. However, the war takes on new meaning when an angry and armed veterans come back, feeling betrayed by the government.

It is the current government that bears more responsibility for the ongoing conflict than the Ukrainian far-right and its armed groups. It is the current government who are responsible for new repressions, censorship and discriminatory measures.

Though right-wing parties like Svoboda and the Right Sector were indeed prominent in the Euromaidan uprising in 2013, later increasing their resources and forming their own armed units, they have not been able so far to gather mass support behind them.

Today, they merely react to the events - they're not pushing them forward. Even in the case of Monday's violence, Svoboda was just trying to win political points on the eve of local elections, hoping to give their calls of "national betrayal" a greater platform. They are unlikely to have seriously planned an armed attack, they just weren't able to control their extremist supporters in the crowd.

Though the government has already used Monday's violence to discredit Svoboda as irresponsible politicos, it remains to be seen whether they will now attempt to repress the far-right.

But perhaps an even more pressing question is whether the government even has the capacity to suppress the right, given their growing bands of loyal armed units.

As the violence in the western town of Mukachevo suggests - where Right Sector combatants clashed with law enforcement, leaving seven dead - when the far-right have several thousand armed men who can challenge the state monopoly on violence; can call for an open mutiny against the state; and still suffer almost no serious consequences, how powerful really are the government?

Meanwhile, as the government points fingers, the coalition is fracturing. The populist Radical party has quit the government over the decentralisation bill.

Gathering the votes in the parliament for the final approval of the constitutional changes also seemed to be impossible without support from the Opposition bloc, a successor to pro-Yanukovych Party of Regions - a very symbolic fact that will give only more grounds for the far-right to attack the government for betraying the Euromaidan "revolution".

What may emerge in Ukrainian politics is a frightening situation, where the main alternative to a right-wing nationalist government - is an ultra-right, ultra-nationalist opposition.
 
 #3
Moscow Times
September 10, 2015
Donbass Is Clinging to Illusion of Peace
By Tanya Lokshina
Tanya Lokshina is Russia program director with Human Rights Watch.

There was neither shelling nor shooting in Donetsk in the first week of September. The city seemed strikingly normal, with people out in the streets enjoying long balmy evenings, sipping drinks in outdoor cafes, strolling on the river bank. The warring sides appeared to stick to their pledge to observe a cease-fire, so as not to ruin the start of the school year. The air in the city center vibrated with chitchat and music. Not a single blast broke the illusion of peace. However, it was nothing but an illusion as weapons on both sides stand at the ready.

Checkpoints across the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) are still teeming with men in fatigues with no insignia. Some are aggressive and clearly drunk. Two twitchy fighters who stopped our car near Gorlovka were very keen to find out whether we had any cash, especially "dollars or euros." Fortunately, they were too drunk to follow up on their inquiry. Another bunch of fighters went up in arms at the sight of a camera: "Who are you spying for?"

Spy mania is overwhelming. One foreign correspondent told us some local busybody reported him to the rebel security services as "an American undercover agent" - an accusation that almost landed him in one of the irregular jails the insurgent authorities continue to operate. Luckily, his acquaintance in law enforcement saw the just-released "wanted" alert and put a stop to it, flagging that the man in question was not a spy but rather a reporter.

A man in a coffee shop in Donetsk, where I was getting my morning fix, told his friend, laughter mixed with despair, that when the fireworks in honor of the annual City Day festivities resounded in the last weekend of August, elderly women in the courtyard of his apartment building screamed and ran for shelter: "'Grannies,' I yelled after them, 'What in the world are you doing? These are just fireworks! Today's a public holiday! You're supposed to enjoy the show!' But they hobbled down the basement stairway mumbling, 'Right, you'll be singing a different song when those shells start hitting the ground!'"

Military bases and heavy weaponry are located right next to residential buildings. On Chelyuskintsev Street, a group of fighters has taken over an office building right next to several apartment houses. The inhabitants say the fighters go on drinking sprees and run around shooting their Kalashnikov assault rifles at nothing, frightening the children.

One of the residents told us he was sitting outside with his neighbors, by a small wooden table in the yard when an armed fighter flopped down next to them, clutching an open bottle of vodka in one hand and a bottle of Pepsi in the other. When offered a glass, he snorted, "This is not how Russians drink!" - and guzzled his vodka right from the bottle.

Back in July, one of the fighters in that unruly group set off a hand grenade right in the middle of the courtyard, killing himself and scaring the residents half to death. Another two had a drunken fight and started shooting at one another. Both were wounded and taken away by medics.

When we drove up to the fighters' headquarters, we saw several military vehicles parked there, including an armored personnel carrier, just a few meters away from civilian housing. It's hardly surprising that the apartment buildings in the neighborhood have been damaged by shelling - this is precisely what happens when military objects are placed in a densely populated area, and the very reason the laws of war, aimed at minimizing civilian harm, warn the warring sides against this practice.

The locals have complained time and again, but rebel authorities pay no heed to their pleas to move the weapons and rein in the fighters.

The city, pockmarked with traces of shelling, features countless freshly printed posters and billboards with the insurgent leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, in his camouflage uniform, in suit and tie, with schoolchildren, teachers and miners.

The images are accompanied by slogans about "peaceful sky above your head," "building our future together," and other throwbacks to Soviet-era cliches. These omnipresent images are reminiscent of Chechnya at the end of the second war, with its abundance of posters of the Kadyrovs, first the father Akhmad and then the son Ramzan, in similar poses and with similar slogans rising over the ruins of Grozny in 2003 and becoming ever more flamboyant over the years.

The first week of September was a week of quiet in Donetsk. But people are tense from apprehension, suspecting, fearing that fighting will flare up any time soon. The city was last shelled at the end of August and there is little hope the nightmare won't resume as the "start of the school year agreement" supposedly expires in just another few days.
 
 #4
Irrussianality
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
September 8, 2015
Deep settlement
By Paul Robinson
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Paul Robinson holds an MA in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Toronto and a D. Phil. in Modern History from the University of Oxford. Prior to his graduate studies, he served as a regular officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 1989 to 1994, and as a reserve officer in the Canadian Forces from 1994 to 1996. He also worked as a media research executive in Moscow in 1995.

Recently, I have discussed a couple of British and Canadian reports about Russia. But what are Russian commentators saying, in particular about Russian policy towards Ukraine? In August, the Russian International Affairs Council held a roundtable discussion, an account of which you can read in English here. [http://www.russia-direct.org/analysis/will-escalation-donbas-turn-full-fledged-war] Particularly interesting was a paper by Andrei Sushentsov, a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. As this is available only in Russian, here is a summary of what he had to say. [http://www.foreignpolicy.ru/analyses/novaya-ukrainskaya-politika-rossii/]

Sushentsov starts from the fact that in Soviet times the Russian and Ukrainian economies were interdependent. To some degree this remains true today. However, the past 25 years have taught Russia that even supposedly 'pro-Russian' governments in Kiev are in fact nothing of the sort, and that 'constructive partnership with Ukraine is impossible.' Far from trying to pull Ukraine back into its orbit, therefore, Moscow has decided that its best policy is divorce. This means, for instance, reducing the dependency of the Russian military on Ukrainian goods and bypassing Ukraine to sell gas to the European Union. The aim is 'to limit the losses which [internal] Ukrainian processes might bring to Russia'.

Cutting ties with Ukraine cannot, however, be done overnight. While the process is ongoing, 'the fundamental bases of mutual economic dependency make Russia interested in Ukraine's stability.' For instance, Russia wants Ukraine to be economically successful so that it can pay its debts (to both the Russian state and private Russian creditors). So, despite the war in Donbass, Russia has not sought to destabilize Ukraine economically. On the contrary, in December 2014 Russia agreed to provide subsidised coal to enable its neighbour to survive the winter.

The same logic means that, 'Russia, contrary to all suspicions, is really striving to settle [the conflict in] Donbass.' The stable Ukraine which Russia desires is impossible in the long term if Donbass's aspirations remain unmet. This is why Moscow demands the fulfilment of those parts of the Minsk agreements which require special status for Donbass on terms agreed with that region's representatives. Russia, says Sushentsov, 'is insisting on a deep settlement, and so seeks a guarantee of the rights of Donbass and [other] potentially unstable regions in a renewed Ukrainian constitution.' In this way, 'Russia's aim is not Ukraine's defeat and Donbass's victory, but an equitable political settlement between them.' 'Paradoxically', Sushentsov notes, this means that 'Russia, by defending the rights of the Russian community, is a bigger supporter of Ukraine's territorial integrity than the authorities in Kiev. ... Moscow's support for the Donbass militia has a single goal - to show Kiev that a military resolution of the conflict is impossible, and to induce it to sit down with Donbass at the negotiating table.'

I find this logic convincing. It is a more realistic explanation of Moscow's behaviour than that provided either by Western analysts who see Russia as hell bent on destabilizing Ukraine, or by nationalist Russians who claim that the Kremlin would happily throw Donbass under the bus at the first opportunity if only public opinion would let it. But I am not convinced that this policy will work, for the very simple reason that success requires Kiev's cooperation. Not only has Kiev made it very clear that it doesn't want to cooperate, but its Western allies don't seem to be overly keen to persuade it to do so. Sushentsov says that, 'A frozen conflict in Donbass will harm the interests of Russia, which is striving to normalize its relations with Ukraine.' That is true, but Russia may well end up with a frozen conflict anyway. If so, at some point Russian policy will have to change.
 
 #5
Kyiv Post
September 10, 2015
After months of deadlock, some progress made on Minsk II peace accords
By Antti Viktor Rauhala and Euan MacDonald

The prospects for peace in Ukraine's Donbas turned brighter than they have been for months in early September, as a ceasefire finally appeared to be taking hold in the conflict zone.

The warring sides agreed from Sept. 1 to silence their guns, and apart from some isolated incidents, the ceasefire appeared to be holding as of Sept. 10. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, while noting in a report issued on Sept. 8 that it has heard lots of explosions in the conflict zone, has not reported any major fighting there in recent days.

Ukrainian military sources and news websites on the separatist side have also reported a sharp fall in the number of claimed violations of the ceasefire since the latest ceasefire was declared on Sept. 1.

But the dwindling of fighting in Ukraine's east took place on the backdrop of the worst politically motivated violence seen in Kyiv since the Maidan mass public protests forced the ouster of former President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014. More than a hundred riot police were injured and three national guardsmen died when a supporter of the right wing Svoboda Party tossed a fragmentation grenade into packed ranks of police outside parliament on Aug. 31.

The violence came shortly after the Ukrainian parliament voted through a controversial bill on constitutional amendments that could lead to the separatist-held areas in Ukraine's east gaining a special status under Ukrainian law. Many nationalists bitterly oppose the bill, which still has to pass another reading at parliament before it becomes law, seeing it as capitulating to Kremlin demands that Ukraine undergo a form of federalization.

Adding intrigue to the mix were reports of a "coup" in the separatist-controlled part of Donetsk Oblast, in which the hardline separatist leader Andrey Purgin was replaced as speaker of the area's pseudo parliament by the reputedly more pragmatic Denis Pushilin.

Commenting on the move on the Euromaidan Press website on Sept. 5, Russian journalist Kirill Mikhailov speculated that Purgin's ouster might indicate that the Kremlin is seeking to end the deadlock over the Minsk peace process by removing from its proxy authorities in Donetsk those leaders who oppose the deal.

"Reacting to the controversial Ukrainian constitutional amendments providing for Donbas's special governance as per the Minsk agreement, Purgin outright rejected them, while Pushilin talked of dialogue with Kyiv over local elections (which are also part of Minsk agreement, that Pushilin, being part of the peace talks, may have actually read)," Mikhailov wrote.

In a further indication that separatist leaders might be softening their stance on implementing the Minsk accords, another separatist leader, Alexander Zakharchenko, said on Sept. 5 that "there is no alternative to the Minsk agreements."

That was a marked change in rhetoric from Zakharchenko, who has previously said the Minsk agreements should be considered canceled. He has also threatened on several occasions to use military force to take the key strategic government-held city of Mariupol in the south of Donetsk oblast, and expand the area his forces control up to the edge of Donetsk Oblast, a move that would certainly deal a fatal blow to the Minsk agreements.

On the diplomatic front, French President Francois Hollande on Sept. 7 called for another meeting the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in Paris later in the month to build on the progress made with the recent ceasefire. He also raised the prospect of lifting sanctions on Russia if progress were to be made on implementing the Minsk peace agreements.

"The process has moved forward. There has been progress in the last few weeks. The ceasefire has almost been respected," Hollande said at a news conference, Reuters reported.

"The foreign ministers will speak in the coming days, and I propose a meeting (of leaders) in Paris before the U.N. General Assembly (on Sept. 28) so that we can evaluate the process and lead it to its end."

"If the process succeeds I will support the lifting of sanctions."

Hollande made no mention of Crimea, the invasion and illegal annexation of which by the Kremlin was the original cause of Western sanctions being imposed on Russia.

Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that following the implementation of the ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weapons, the next sticking point for the peace process could be the eleventh and twelfth articles of the Minsk agreements, which stipulate the granting of a special status to the Russian-occupied parts of the Donbas and the holding of local elections in the occupied territories under terms agreed between the warring sides.

"It's very unlikely that the elections will go ahead (in this way)," he told the Kyiv Post.

He described the proposed upcoming elections in the occupied territories as a "time bomb" that had the potential to "destroy" the Minsk peace process.

As for Hollande's statement about lifting sanctions - this should not worry Kyiv overly, according to Wilson, as such a decision is not for the Elysee Palace to make alone.

"France is not Europe," Wilson told the Kyiv Post. "Italy is of a similar opinion, but Germany is key. The UK is unfortunately absent from the debate for other reasons. But the sanctions were prolonged for six months, not longer. (But) there are some signs that the EU's relative consensus on sanctions after the MH17 tragedy may be wearing off."

Despite the Minsk peace process essentially being in deadlock for the past few months, meetings of subgroups set up under the agreements have continued, with the latest being held on Sept. 8. However, there were reports that at the latest meeting the sides failed to agree on the withdrawal of heavy weapons - the next key stage of implementing the Minsk agreements after the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, the reduction in violence in eastern Ukraine coincided with reports that Russia was upping its military presence in another war-torn country - Syria. A video purporting to show Russian troops fighting near Latakiya, in which a latest-model Russian APC is seen and what sounds like Russian instructions being shouted among soldiers over the radio.

Russian military supply ships were spotted passing through the Bosporus in early September, and the New York Times reported on Sept. 5 that Russia had sent prefabricated houses for 1,000 troops to Syria, as well as a mobile air-traffic control system for a Syrian airbase.

Groups fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad have also reported the activity of Russian drones and warplanes in the skies over Syria, although this has not been confirmed.

Some analysts have suggested a link between the decrease in Russian military activity in Ukraine, and the alleged increase in Russian military activity in Syria.

Karl Volokh, writing in Ukrainian news magazine Novoe Vremya on Sept. 7, said "Russia's actions in Syria create a good bargaining chip in negotiations with the West on Ukraine. If Europe wants to get rid of Assad or ease the flow of refugees, it has to deal with the Kremlin."

Kirill Martinov, writing in Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta on Sept. 5, agreed with Volokh.

"The Russian expedition is an attempt to form an international coalition in which Russia could cooperate with the West, ease Western (sanctions) pressure on Russia, and gain concessions on Ukraine," Martinov wrote.

"If the plan is successful, at least in part, the Rusian authorities will have everything that they could dream of: Normalization of relations with the West, and the prospect of negotiations on the status of Crimea. At the same time, Russia can make a show of force in the world, (saying) 'in contrast to the weak-willed Western democracies we are even able to attack the terrorists in the Middle East.' Pride in the country will push the president's approval ratings to new heights."

But Russian open-source investigative journalist Ruslan Leviev, who published his team's investigation into Russia's involvement in Syria on LiveJournal on Sept. 5, sees more pragmatic reasons for Russia upping its military activities in Syria.

According to Leviev and his team, in the face of advances by Syrian rebels, Russia is moving to protect Latakia airbase, from which Russian warplanes and drones are launched in support of the Assad regime's military. The loss of Latakia would also threaten Russia's naval depot at Tartus, and Russia is taking preemptive measures to guard against this, Leviev wrote.

"For (Russian President Vladimir) Putin it is especially important not to allow the loss of Latakia and to maintain Assad's control over it. Should Assad lose Latakia, he'd also lose the airbase near it, and the fighting would move to Tartus. In that case, Russia would have to fully commit to fighting to defend the Tartus depot.

"We believe Russian servicemen in military vehicles are taking part in the fighting, since Putin realizes that Assad won't hold Latakia on his own.

"The Tartus depot has suddenly become important for Russia once again, and there is renewed talk of turning it into a naval base; Tartus is seeing an influx of military vehicles and Russian soldiers. The Tartus depot used to house just four Russian seamen, who serviced it. Now it has hundreds of soldiers and heavy vehicles."
 
 #6
Kiev's policy leads to further separation of Donbas - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, September 10. /TASS/. Kiev's policy leads to further separation of Donbas, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mariya Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.

"It is becoming evident that the policy of the Ukrainian authorities, based on absence of dialogue with Donetsk and Luhansk, is leading to separation of the regions," Zakharova said.

"Organizing direct dialogue [between Kiev, Donetsk and Luhansk] has key significance for peace and stability to be achieved in the southeast of Ukraine," she underscored.
Russia hopes deal on weapons withdrawal in Donbas will be reached

According to the spokeswoman, Moscow expects a deal on withdrawing weapons with the caliber of under 100mm will be reached and will contribute to the long-term settlement in Donbas.

"The signing of an agreement on withdrawing armaments with the caliber of under 100mm, mortars and tanks and a supplement to it on verification measures will decrease tensions and create preconditions for the long-term settlement," Zakharova told reporters.

Moscow hopes that the continuing effort in this direction "will be successful and all the participants of the process will put their signatures on the documents," she said, adding that the ongoing economic blockade of Donbas worsens the humanitarian situation in the region.

The diplomat noted that the ceasefire is generally observed, adding that "this is a very important step towards deescalating the situation." Both Russian and Ukrainian representatives of the joint center for control and coordination (JCCC) and the OSCE monitors confirm that over the past two weeks the situation remains calm in Donbas, she said.

The Contact Group on resolving the crisis in southeastern Ukraine agreed at the meeting in Minsk, Belarus, in late August to ensure ceasefire starting from September 1.
 
#7
http://gordonhahn.com
September 7, 2015
Minsk 3: Keep It Simple Stupid
By Gordon M. Hahn
Gordon M. Hahn is an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View - Russia Media Watch; and Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor, MonTREP, Monterey, California.

As fighting continues to flare up intermittently in Donbass, and Kiev's Maidan regime continues to meltdown in economic depression and Wiemar-like neo-fascist terrorism, the Minsk 2 accord appears doomed to failure at some point. The threat to the agreement comes largely from the war party in Kiev made up of neo-fascists and national chauvinists from parties in and out of parliament. The process hammered out in Minsk in February while admirable in its ambition is too complex, especially for Maidan Ukraine's difficult Weimar politics. The required multi-tasking distracts and diverts the parties directly involved - Kiev and Donbass - and their allied participants/mediators - the West and Russia - from the most fundamental and immediate goal - a ceasefire that holds. Things need to be simplified.

The parties should convene a 'Minks 3a' either immediately or at least when it becomes clear that Minsk 2 is dead with the sole goal of achieving an inviolable ceasefire. Once a ceasefire is consolidated, talks on other issues can be finalized in a new agreement - Minsk 3b.

The key points of the Minsk 2 accord increasingly appear to be impossible to implement. Sporadic fighting continues with civilian and military killed and wounded. Kiev refuses to negotiate directly with the rebels, which allows it to continue to blame Moscow for the civil war. Moscow continues to supply the Donbass rebels, and a few thousand Russian forces remain inside Donbass prepared to assist the fighters. Perhaps most importantly, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's proposed amendments to Ukraine's constitution mandated by Minsk 2 that would ostensibly give the Donbass regions, Donetsk and Luhansk, power-sharing with, or autonomy from the central government in Kiev in fact do nothing of the kind. The single amendment addressing the issue simply allows for a law on decentralization. For decentralization to be actually implemented, therefore, the Rada must pass a special law. The only amendment among those approved in a first reading of a package of amendments related to the 'decentralization' merely states that the Donbass regions will be given a share of power on the basis of a special law. If that law is never passed, Donetsk and Luhansk will not have autonomy of any sort.

Moreover, the package of constitutional amendments includes clauses that centralize power in Kiev and the federal executive, constituting institutions more akin to a centralized unitary rather than limited federative one. They establish the office of appointed regional prefects in place of governors. The new prefects will be appointed and strictly subordinated to Ukraine's president - an executive vertical of power of the kind Putin has tried to build in Russia at the expense of federalism. Similarly, as Putin once had the power to do, the amendments give the Ukrainian president the power to disband regional legislative assemblies under certain circumstances. The fact is, however, that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has held out the possibility of significant markups to the draft amendments after the first reading. The demonstrations scuttle any hope that the marked up amendments will be changed in the direction of further decentralization/autonomy and not less. Indeed, in a nationwide television address in the evening Poroshenko seemed to give in to the neo-fascists' pressure, noting that the final decision on decentralization would depend on the situation in Donbass (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2015/08/31/7079679/).

The amendments are crucial if there is any hope at all of bridging the gap between Kiev and the Donbass rebels. One of the central clauses of the Minsk 2 agreement signed on 12 February 2015 required the Maidan regime to amend the constitution to provide for a decentralization of power in the Donbass. The Donbass rebel regimes (DNR and LNR) are so suspicious of Kiev's willingness to actually carry out a decentralization of power and provide the Donbass with some degree of autonomy has prompted them to schedule their own elections in the region rather than allow Kiev-organized elections to proceed this autumn as planned for the rest of the country. On the other hand, Kiev might be additionally reluctant to decentralize given that should Donbass receive special powers at the local level, other regions may demand the same. Transcarpathian areas with their large Hungarian populations might seek autonomy. In addition, many of Ukraine's regions have their own unique characteristics and often an independent self-identity that might prompt many non-ethnic areas to  pursue such autonomy. Those with large minority, including ethnic Russian minority populations, might be expected to lead the way. Unstable Odessa would be a prime candidate, among others.

Despite the tentative and limited nature of the proposed decentralization amendment, it provoked a near neofascist revolt and bloody violence near the building of the Supreme Rada when the package of amendments went before the parliament in a first of three readings on August 31st. After the violence President Poroshenko seemed to back down telling the nation in a televised address that ultimate decision on decentralization would depend on 'the situation in Donbass.' (http://gordonhahn.com/2015/08/31/ukraines-neo-fascist-tea-party-throws-grenades-shoots-at-police-attempts-storm-of-rada/).

Regardless of the complications, failure to bridge the gap between Kiev and Donbass on the decentralization issue is likely to leave the Minsk 2 ceasefire agreement a dead letter and make renewal of heavy fighting in Donbass almost inevitable at some point. This is part of the calculus in the ultra-nationalist and neofascist parties in opposing the amendments. They constitute the core of Kiev's war party intent on taking back Donbass by force and that party of neofascists and ultra-nationalists threatens not just the peace agreement but the Maidan regime itself.

The only partial description of the issues and challenges facing the numerous stipulations and goals set out in the Minsk 2 agreement demonstrate that the processes created thereby are too ambitious and complex. They divert the immediate parties and their allied mediators from the most immediate task: an actual ceasefire. The energy and focus of leaders, bureaucrats, and institutions are diffused, overburdened, and drained by the necessity of having to design and organize planned measures, secure the agreement of all parties on the specifics of those measures, and then coordinating the actual execution of the implementation of more than ten very difficult goals spelled out in Minsk 2. Delays and disagreements on one issue complicate preparation and implementation on others. Rather than burdening an embattled Kiev and Donbass with such a complex set of tasks, it would be better to proceed more slowly in general and keep it simple by focusing on the most fundamental goal - the one that will end the bloodshed - the ceasefire.

It follows, therefore, Minks 3 should focus on solely on achieving an inviolable ceasefire. Issues such as constitutional reform should be negotiated but not concluded until the ceasefire is fully consolidated, with no casualties for some designated period of time. Once the ceasefire is deemed to have been consolidated, negotiations and signing of Minsk 3b on constitutional and/or perhaps other issues can proceed.

Minsk 3a should concentrate on the details of constructing a viable ceasefire. First, it should seek agreement on a deeper pullback of all forces and weapons types. Second, it should develop the most comprehensive technical and human intelligence regime for monitoring the ceasefire, the location and any movement of troops and equipment in and around the Donbass, including inside Russia. Drones, national-technical means (satellites), and OSCE monitors should be deployed to construct a web of detection to seek out violators. Each of these monitoring means needs its own sub-agreement signed by all parties. US, NATO, Ukrainian, and Russian national-technical and human means should be deployed and their data sent to a central command center manned by OSCE and/or UN personnel fro analyzing and publishing the monitored and collected data when disputes over possible violations arise.

Talks on the issues raised but not settled by Minsk 2 can proceed on a secondary basis, but they should drain time, energy, resources and personnel from the task of achieving a lasting ceasefire. Continued talks on the other points can help build trust between the parties that might help in achieving a good faith implementation of the ceasefire. Of the other points, the most important would be getting Kiev to talk directly with the Donbass rebel leaders. If Western parties and Kiev are interested in limiting Moscow's role in the crisis, this is one sure way of accomplishing that goal and may induce the Kremlin to be more cooperative with its Western partners in the overall process in order to keep skin in the settlement game.

At the same time, exhaustive monitoring should assist consolidation of the ceasefire or at least leave no doubt as to who the violators are. More positively, we can hope that the monitoring regime can ensure that such a ceasefire holds and issues of rebuilding the failing Ukrainian state and democratizing its embattled, neofascist-infused regime can be resolved. Later, perhaps, sanctions can be eased.  Then the 'new cold war' so many are eager to embrace will put to rest before it causes a larger conflagration in Europe and perhaps beyond.
#8
Carnegie Moscow Center
September 9, 2015
Supporting a War that isn't: Russian Public Opinion and the Ukraine Conflict
By Denis Volkov
Denis Volkov is a sociologist and an expert at the Levada Center in Moscow

Russian public opinion on the Ukraine crisis is poorly understood. In most of the discussion of opinion polls, there is a strong focus on the very negative views Russian citizens express toward Ukraine and their general satisfaction with the takeover of Crimea.

However we gain a much more nuanced picture and some unexpected revelations if we study the poll data collected by the Levada Center since the first protests in Kiev in November 2013.

This data shows a Russia much less aggressive on Ukraine than outsiders might suppose. According to the most recent polls, 64 percent of respondents believe that Russia would benefit from having good-neighborly relations with Ukraine as an independent state. Even as fighting was raging in Ukraine at the end of last year, 60 percent of those polled had neutral views on Ukraine's membership in the European Union, believing that the country should make up its own mind on this issue; only 22 percent disagreed.

In December 2013, most Russians supported a policy of non-intervention and were against giving Ukraine money or sending troops there. Today most Russians would like to see their country remain within its current borders (57 percent as of March 2015, the highest figure in the 17 years in which the question has been asked). 64 percent believe Russia shouldn't keep the former Soviet republics under its control. Over half of the people (55 percent) think that the country should focus on its domestic problems, while 31 percent say that "geopolitical" and "strategic" interests trump economic and social issues.

How is it possible to reconcile these attitudes with the fact that Russians also unequivocally approve of the annexation of Crimea and continued aid to the rebels in Donbass, including sending arms there (but not Russian troops)?

 To understand this paradox, we must understand how Russians generally characterize the Ukraine conflict. In focus groups most respondents displayed a noticeable reluctance to discuss the topic and the most common answer was "officially, there is no war." Only about 25 percent of respondents agree that there is a war between Russia and Ukraine, while 65 - 70 percent complete deny this (in Ukraine these numbers are completely reversed).

 It is telling that only 11 percent of those polled are certain that there are absolutely no Russian citizens fighting on the side of the Donbass militants. But the majority believes that these men are either volunteers (48 percent) or mercenaries (24 percent) rather than actual Russian troops.

Russians are virtually unanimous (95 - 96 percent) in denying their own country's responsibility for anything that's happening in Ukraine: the ongoing conflict, breaches of the Minsk Agreements, the shooting down of MH17 etc.

The West, and chiefly the U.S, is blamed for what has happened. This trend had already emerged by the end of the 2013, when the Russian reading and viewing public was convinced that the Ukrainian Maidan was orchestrated by the West. Just as in the Georgia-Russia war of 2008, most Russians believe that their country is opposing the United States rather than a neighbor. Three quarters of respondents believe that the West is taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine to "weaken and humiliate" Russia.

The general consensus is that Vladimir Putin's policies in Ukraine are just a reaction to the expansion of NATO expansion and the threat faced by the Russian-speaking population of Donbass (46 percent and 43 percent, respectively). Both quantitative and qualitative research reveals the same responses--"Russia is not at fault", "we were forced", "we are defending ourselves"--which correspond closely with the words of high-ranking officials: "We didn't start it; the other side did."

State-run television is key in shaping opinion. For 90 - 95 percent of Russians it is their main source of information about the events in Ukraine and no more than a quarter of viewers doubt the objectivity of what they are seeing--in fact overall trust in objectivity of the media is actually rising. More than half of the population reports frequently (12 percent) or occasionally (46 percent) hears a point of view that strongly diverges from the official message, but dismisses it as untrustworthy Ukrainian propaganda.

However, the flood of information on Ukraine does not result in a better understanding of the events there. Only one third of the population is certain that they understand what is happening in Ukraine "well" or "very well." Russians learn about the deaths of the Pskov paratroopers in Ukraine and other such stories, but only 14 - 15 percent of them are ready to believe that they were active-duty troops. Yet, as negative information accumulates, some changes in public opinion are occurring.  For instance, right after Russia's takeover of Crimea, half of the people thought that Donbass should follow suit; today only 19 percent support that scenario.

So most Russians follow events rather passively and without even strong sentiments about the loss of life. Overall we can identify two distinct groups in the general population. Around 20 - 25 percent of the public can be described as "hawks" who support the Russian military intervention in the east of Ukraine; they think in in terms of "geopolitics" and "national interests", oppose Ukraine's integration into the EU, sympathize with Yanukovych, etc.

On the other hand, approximately 10 percent of the population have sympathized with the Maidan protestors from the outset and support Ukraine's moves towards European integration. The majority are simply indifferent: they don't want to analyze the situation and take a particular position. When asked who were the men wearing green unmarked military fatigues in Crimea in 2014, the majority (53 percent) said that "it could have been anyone."

A propaganda machine can only exploit sentiments and fears that are already present. The issue of Crimea was almost never publicly discussed, but in May 1998 77 percent of Russians wanted Crimea to be "returned to Russia" (half of them believed this should be done by referendum).

In June 1994, about 70 percent of respondents believed that Russia "should defend the interests of Russians" in the post-Soviet space. In late 2014, the same percentage supported the takeover of Crimea because it is "Russian land" and to protect it from Ukrainian nationalists. The popular belief that we need to protect "our own" and return "what's ours" helped the Russian leadership overcome their reluctance to intervene abroad. In other words, we generally shouldn't intervene, but we can when it's "for a good cause." Around half the public holds this rather crafty position now--up from one quarter a year ago.

Finally, for the majority of people (about 80 percent) the takeover of Crimea is proof that Russia regained the great-power status it lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Focus group participants euphorically reported, "Just two days and Crimea was ours!" or "Putin used to talk about the greatness of our country, now he proved it!"

The joy occasioned by the takeover of Crimea had somewhat diminished by end of 2014--but 80 percent of the public still believes that it was the right move. They see the continued standoff with the West and the exchange of sanctions and accusations as proof of the country's significance on the global stage. "They don't love us, they fear us, they want to weaken us, " Russians believe, and that means "They are taking us seriously."

So the authorities have used their propaganda on the Ukraine conflict for numerous purposes. They want to discredit the Euromaidan in the eyes of Russians, some of whom recently protested against the regime and they want to present themselves as the defenders of the country and their adversaries as tools in the hands of external forces.

Russian television's portrayal of Ukraine as a failed and disintegrating state overrun by nationalist forces has mostly had the desired effect. "Just look at the Ukrainian horrors!" our respondents say. The takeover of Crimea combined with the great-power rhetoric has allowed the Russian authorities to reverse the long trend of falling popular support.

The strength of Russian propaganda rests on certain intrinsic core factors: a mistrust for the West that began to grow in the second half of the 1990s, the passive consumption of television content by the majority of the population, and a nostalgia for lost superpower status. Russians possessed these traits long before the onset of the Ukraine crisis. All the Russian authorities had to do was to identify them and exploit them--and they did so without thinking twice.
 
 #9
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
September 10, 2015
BOOK REVIEW: Six 'must-read' books on Russia from last 25 years
Chris Weafer in Moscow
Chris Weafer is a founding partner of Macro-Advisory, which helps investors cut though the noise & focus on underlying trends, real political risks, & opportunities in Russia/CIS, Eurasia Union, & Mongolia. Follow him on @ChrisWeafer

A great many books about Russia are published each year. Most are entertaining and informative in some respect. Far too many simply offer the perspective, and the bias, of the author rather than presenting a balanced view of the subject, be it historic or current. I get asked quite often to recommend some books which somebody unfamiliar with but curious about Russia should read to get an understanding of where the country is today in terms of economy and politics... and how it got there.

I am excluding all the works of Russia's literary giants that one should read to get an understanding of what makes people tick and of the fabled "Russia soul". I also avoid all the books covering the Tzarist and Soviet eras, but instead cover the period since 1991. Instead, I am focused on books that cover the economic and political developments of the past 25 years. Detailed here are the top six - in my opinion - on that list.

The first book on the list is David Remnick's "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire" (1993). Even though I avoid books about the Soviet-era, it is important to understand how and why it ended. The author lived in the country during the transition and offers first-hand impartial observation. Not only was this one of the defining global events of the past 100 years, but many of the players involved in the process are still very influential today. It is important to understand their background and ideology.

While Remnick's book covers the political transition, the second book on my list covers the economic changes and the still highly controversial shock-therapy strategy. The recommended book covering this subject has only just been published. It is "Gaidar's Revolution: The inside account of the economic transformation of Russia" (2015). It is not so much a book as a series of transcripts of interviews carried by Petr Aven and Alfred Kokh with ten people who were at the core of government in the early 1990s. Each of the interviewees explains how decisions were arrived at why the actions taken were necessary, ie. albeit more often the lesser of two evils. The interviews also cover the privatization process of the 1990s and why it was deemed the correct path to follow. There are plenty of books covering the intrigues of the process, ie. who got what, for how much and how they did it etc., which make for interesting beach reading. But "Gaidar's Revolution" covers the subject more from an ideological perspective and helps explain why the privatization process clearly grates on the current administration and why it is still far from a fait accompli.

The third book on the list is "Strongman: The struggle for Russia" (2012) written by Angus Roxburgh. As the title suggests this book is focused on Vladimir Putin; his background, how he came to power, what drives him, his view of the world and how he views Russia in a global context. There are actually quite a few good books in this category that have been written by journalists living in Russia through at least some of the Putin period, eg. Andrew Jack's "Inside Putin's Russia" (2005) and Anna Politkovskaya's "Putin's Russia" (2004), but the advantage that Roxburgh's book has over the others is it covers a much longer period and also the author worked for a time on the "inside" as part of the Kremlin's PR team (2006-09) and later scripted the BBC series "Putin, Russia and the West" (2012).

The best book to explain how modern Russia has been shaped and, especially, how it is controlled today is "The New Nobility: The restoration of Russia's security state" (2010). Authored by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, this book is informative and depressing in equal measure. Essentially it explains how the security services, having been marginalized during the Yeltsin presidency, have now returned to be the core of the power structure in the country. The title is derived from the author's description of Vladimir Putin as a latter-day Tzar and, therefore, the security forces are his noblemen who owe their loyalty solely to their Tzar.

Moving on from the control aspect of government, the book which best, by far, explains how and why decisions are made at the top of government is Alena Ledeneva's "Can Russia Modernise?: Sistema, power networks and Informal Governance" (2013). It has to be said that this is hardly beach reading - it has been written in a very academic style. This work explains how all the complex parts of government work, the relationships between all the major players and what sustains them. She focuses on four categories of informal networks which both sustain Putin's power and the current system of government: the inner circle, useful friends, core contacts, and the more informal ties and connections. Reading this book will help you better understand why events happen the way they do and why some actions are taken, or not taken.

The sixth book on the recommended list has just been published and, in my opinion, best explains the political backdrop in Russia today. Vladimir Gel'Man's "Authoritarian Russia: Analysing post-soviet regime changes" (2015). The author looks at the actions taken by Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to the Yeltsin regime and, in turn, the actions taken by Yeltsin that inevitably led to the Putin regime. He then identifies actions and changes made by Putin aimed at extending his position of power at least through another term. He looks at how the trappings of democratic institutions (such as elections and a legislature) have been used, especially by Yeltsin, to create the system of power the country has today. The book is also one of the very few which leaves emotion and bias out of the analysis, and looks pragmatically at what may happen next and what factors, over what period, may lead to changes.

As stated, these are the top half-dozen books I believe best explain the political and economic transition of the past 25 years and, therefore, what are the most important factors to pay attention to today. There are many other books which flesh out some specific aspect of the transition or explain some topic in greater detail and which are very interesting to read. The list includes Yeltsin's "Midnight Diaries" (2001 - essentially his autobiography in which he explains why he took certain actions and also what led to his resignation on New Year 's Eve 1999 and the ushering in of the Putin regime. Martin Sixsmith's "Putin's Oil: The Yukos affair" (2010) is the best narrative about one of the most notorious events in modern Russia and which is very far from over. David Hoffman's "The Oligarchs: Wealth and power in the new Russia" (2002) reads like a movie script only it is very real. Who are the oligarchs and how they became so wealthy, albeit the power side of the equation started to evaporate with the arrival of Putin. The book was updated in 2013 and remains a very entertaining read. "Putin's Kleptocracy: Who owns Russia" (2014) by Karen Dawisha (bne IntelliNews reviewed here) covers the broader topic of how wealth in Russia has been stolen or redistributed over the past 20 years, by whom and how. It also fills in the backdrop to modern Russia.
 
 
#10
Running for Office in Siberia: Part V: Let the Games Begin
A series on the District #35 Election for Novosibirsk City Council
By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova
[Founder, Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center 1995 - 2014. Helped to establish this as the hub for the first civil society development support network in the former Soviet Union.]

Article with pictures:
https://medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/running-for-office-in-siberia-let-the-games-begin-485d1a797ed9

Democracy is an oceanic earthquake zone. Elections are the condition of the shoreline that will tell you if there has been a tectonic plate shift and a Tsunami is coming. The shoreline position in District #35 is cynical, but it is not a deadly cynicism, there is, if not hope, a desire to hope.  Proof of this came in a dialogue inspired by candidate Natalia Pinus's Facebook announcement there was going to be a debate.

Male Cynic: What's the point of debates and elections if  ITS ALL the SAME whoever is elected? (emphasis cynics)

Natalia: If it is all the same to you, then don't come to the debate.

Male Cynic: I'll give you a "5" (the highest grade in Russian schools) for campaigning

Natalia: Thanks☺ I understand who it makes sense to agitate (a play on the word that means both campaign and agitate) and who it doesn't!!! You have already decided everything without a campaign, or am I wrong?

Male Cynic: Not totally. Making a decision and ignoring something as a genre are slightly different things. I WILL NOT be against if they elect you and I WILL NOT be against if it isn't you. Either way, it is all the same to me.

Natasha:  You are a confuser.

Male Cynic: Not a confuser, a cynic.

Natasha: All the same, the debate has intrigued you a little bit, admit it.

The banter continues with a few more exchanges before ending:

Male Cynic: As a compliment: I am not interested in you, but I am not against. If there was another well known  female public activist, I would be against.

Natasha: That is a mega-compliment, I now feel I know you a little bit, I am inordinately grateful.

Male Cynic: Success (sincerely)

Natalia: Thanks!

More evidence of a cynicism vacation was the debate and not just because it happened.  How it happened was important, the Association of Novosibirsk State University Alumni deciding to play an active role promoting increased information about the candidates. A local news-service joined in to provide live streaming for people at home. A local news-service joined in to provide live streaming for people at home. The way it was conducted set a standard for honesty, fairness and civility that no one could disagree with. This included candidates picking numbers in public to establish speaking order, strict adherence to response limits (the microphone was turned off) and there were opportunities for the moderator, candidates and audience members to ask questions.  The moderator Alexander Filurin, Director of a large advertising company, set the following criteria for himself, the discussion should be pointed but not "fall into a communal squabble".

Two of the eight registered candidates did not show up for the event and do not appear to be conducting campaigns. Running for the United Russia and LDPR parties, this indicates they are only filling out party lists.  The demeanor of the six who were there proved sufficient to represent the range of interests and ethos in Akademgorodok.   Their slogans capture this perfectly:

"For warmth in your home!"  The Soviet man is head of the state heat and water utilities monopoly. A graduate of the USSR Higher School for KGB, he is running as an independent but has been associated with the United Russia and Communist parties.

"Continue the work of Lavrentiev!" (the scientist, founder of Akademgorodok). The Science man is the candidate from the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences and works in one of the institutes. He is also running for the nationalist Rodina party with additional support from the Communist Party because he wants economic development on the basis of reindustrialization with an emphasis on the military industrial complex.  He also serves as head of his building's owners association.

"I achieve change. For sure!"  The Psychologist/lawyer/searcher man was active providing legal advice to those in need and is now working for an engineering firm that focuses on bridges and tunnels. He has explored a number of ways to achieve change running for office twice for the nationalist Rodina Party and then for the United Russia Party and now for the socialist democratic A Just Russia Party in a district where he was not born, did not study, does not live or work.  

"Choose one of your own! People are intregrating."   The Classic Akadem liberal man representing the center-left Yabloko party. He is dedicated to preserving the soul (60's Khrushchev thaw) of the community as he builds his hospitality and real estate business. The debate was held in one of the clubs located in his building "Integral". It was named for the legendary 60's Akademgorodok club that was shut down by the Soviet government when Brezhnev came to power. Recently, he was elected head of the district Committee for Public Self-Governance.

"I love Gorodok!" The female, Natalia. The head of the Akademgorodok Community Development Foundation, well to do wife, mother and former business woman now dedicating herself to volunteer work. This is a new type around here.
 
"I do it now!" The businessman, head of a construction company undoubtedly started with the help of his successful construction businessman father. His company is located in the City.

This  29 year old businessman and independent candidate made an announcement in his opening and only statement. He had a more important engagement and was sorry he could not stay to participate. This was not a big surprise to anyone. Phones and alarm bells had been ringing since the day before the debate when notices appeared inviting people to meet the candidate, Nikita Galitarov, at the same time as the debate. What caused alarm, the game changer, was the teams of workers wearing t-shirts with his name that also appeared bringing his slogan to life filling in potholes and stamping the finished smooth surface with "For roads, for Galitarov".   Soon, it was the banners hanging from apartment buildings and  enormous billboards that rose like phoenix from the ashes and the public transportation mini-buses (the #62) advertising his candidacy that raised serious concerns among residents as well as the other candidates.

If Natalia had upped the ante forcing candidates into the courtyards to meet voters, Nikita was setting the bar for money and he obviously had a lot of it. Now, he would be unavailable to answer questions about where his money came from, what he was planning to do as a City Council Deputy and why he was running at all since there was no trace of a public profile before he announced his candidacy.

His absence was soon forgotten as the five remaining candidates responded to questions put to all of them about programs and priorities.   The answers were as obvious as the questions:

Heating/water man = heat and water;
Science man = science;
Classic Akadem hospitality man = hotel;
Psychology/lawyer/bridge and tunnel man = alternative road to the City;
The female head of Community Foundation = comprehensive social and economic development plan.

All useful and important but most significant was recognition by everyone a "day one" priority was getting information about citizen priorities, even Soviet man.   Natalia took it a step further by announcing an open conference that will take place five days before the election. Residents will be asked to review and adapt the program she developed, in part, on the basis of recent courtyard citizen meetings.   

The individual questions posed by the moderator, as well as candidate to candidate, targeted the primary legitimate concern related to four of the five candidates:
Heating/water man: How will you, as Deputy, balance the conflict of interests involved when the enterprise you head constantly raises rates and the pensioners your are elected to serve "clutch their hearts" when they see the utilities bill?

Science man: Scientists are not a homogenous mass. There are scientists who live in dormitories as researchers and the science elite who support you and live in large cottages. How can you as a representative of a small group protect the interests of 27,000 residents?

Classic Akadem hospitality man: For five years wherever you go you talk about building a hotel. Why should we vote for a candidate with a very specific business interest and not the public interest?

Psychology/lawyer/bridge and tunnel man: No one knows you here, you have no strong connection here, why do you think you can be our Deputy?

The questions for Natalia, as the only female and head of the Community Foundation, were disappointing because it was the first indication of smallness all evening (actually second after Galitarov's fear to participate). The concern was that because her family is financially well off (a fate shared by at least 3 others on stage) and she has "bohemian" friends and an ability to work with anybody (including people who in recent times have legal problems) would she be interested in working for pensioners who are primarily concerned with the cost of utilities and medicine?

There was no gotcha to be had as the candidates answered these questions.  Everyone provided reasoned and reasonable responses, demonstrated respect towards their opponents and the rigors of the debate process.  They were all decent people.  The unanswered questions remained for Nikita Galitarov, "How are you going to pay off the estimated 10 million rubles invested in your campaign?", "What are your construction plans for Akademgorodok?" and from an audience member, "Who is going to pay for all this asphalt?".  

The quantitative results of the debate from studio and on-line voting are certainly not a reliable predictor of what will happen on September 13.  Still, the studio process provided more evidence of the hope over cynicism struggle for a fair outcome when the 115 audience members demanded the organizers prove the voting box was empty and observers monitor the vote count.  The final tally: Classic Akadem man (28), Heating/water man (27), the Female (25), Science man (24), Psychologist/lawyer/bridges and tunnels (8) and the absentee Businessman (4).  Online, 300 people voted giving Natalia first place, Heating/water man the silver and Science man the bronze followed by Classic Akadem, Psychologist/lawyer/bridges and tunnels and the absentee Businessman.

Qualitative results, the desired goal of any political debate was achieved. The citizens of this District learned everything they needed to know to make an educated decision about who to vote for.  The shoreline of cynicism receded just a bit as everyone on stage felt justifiably proud.  Science man characterized the experience as "like an entrance exam for starting politicians" and the moderator reflected about it all on Facebook the next day.  "Yes, Russia is moving in complex ways to democracy. The debate was organized suddenly so only 120 people out of 27,000 voters came.  If you looked at their faces people were amused and angry, skeptical and credulous, inspired and frustrated but they were not bored. Democracy, this is where we are going to discuss our problems, argue politely, bring our positions a little closer together and find a compromise. The Anglo-Saxons are studying this for 800 years, from the time of the Magna Carta, and we have just started to learn. We'll have to catch up."

After the debate, the appearance of big money raised concerns about the need to insure an honest vote count. This became more urgent when it was announced that the 15 District polling places would be open 4 hours a day for 11 days allowing people unable to vote on the 13th to participate.  Natalia took the lead getting the other four debate candidates to support training for election observers. Over 30 people took part.

Next week, Part VI "The Home Stretch"
 
 #11
Christian Science Monitor
September 8, 2015
No flowers for teacher on the first day? Russians feel the pinch.
School costs - uniforms, notebooks, gym clothes - are soaring in recession-hit Russia, and pupils and parents are griping over the unwelcome changes in their classrooms.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

Moscow-The first day of school is always a really big deal in Russia.

Parents and pupils gather in schoolyards around the country to hear speeches and watch often-elaborate performances prepared over the summer by teachers. There are flags, balloons, and, sometimes, sing-alongs. There is the symbolic ringing of the first bell, and each school's oldest students traditionally seek out the youngest kids, take them by the hand, and lead them to their very first class.

Little about that ritual has changed in decades. The unprecedented prosperity Russia has enjoyed over past 15 years or so brought bigger education budgets and better equipped schools. The crowds of parents on the first day began to appear much better dressed, while the kids began to look just like their Western counterparts, decked out with designer backpacks, and usually lugging iPads or smartphones. And school-opening ceremonies became more extravagant.

The spirit this year was much the same, but with an inescapable undertone of worry.

Russia's deepening recession, and the soaring inflation brought on by the sharp ruble devaluation, has pushed the poverty rate for Russian families to 16 percent - reversing a key Putin-era trend. An August poll by the VTsIOM public opinion agency found that the cost of outfitting a child for school jumped by more than half in the past year, to about $350, an increasingly onerous sum for many Russian families.

"It's certainly more expensive than previous years," says Alsu Diktyasheva, a Moscow-area mother, who says she managed to outfit her first-grade son with requisite uniform, gym shoes, notebooks, and other school supplies for about $200.

Many observers noted far fewer bouquets this year in the hands of pupils heading into school. Bringing flowers to teacher on opening day is a deeply rooted custom. But with 80 percent of flowers on the Russian market imported from Europe, the prices have doubled while the Kremlin's policy of counter-sanctions has severely restricted supply. It may not have helped that, a couple of weeks before first day of school, Russian authorities ordered the destruction of 183 shipments of "infected" Dutch flowers, apparently as a political warning to the country that supplies much of Russia's $2.5 billion annual flower market.

Thanks to a mini-baby boom amid the Putin-era prosperity, the total number of school kids is set to grow from around 14 million to over 16 million in the next five years, putting fresh stresses on the system. The country's 1 million teachers, who earn an average $600 monthly, have yet to start complaining, but some experts warn it's only a matter of time.

Over the past decade Russian schools have been partially freed from tough Soviet-era requirements to hew to a single curriculum, creating a surprisingly wide spectrum of choices for parents, particularly in large cities like Moscow.

But with the new choices have come added costs, and many schools demand fees for security, sports, musical classes, and other "extras."

"The problem with these extra payment requirements is that they are not transparent," says Yevgeny Bunimovich, ombudsman for children's rights in Moscow. "In the past we received a lot of complaints about that, but the situation is changing in positive ways. There's been a real growth in parent-teacher-student councils, where these issues can be raised. In Moscow we see these councils everywhere now, and I think this tendency for more parental control is on the rise. Schools now have their own Internet sites, where they are obliged to make full reports on expenditures."

German Avdyushin, chairman of a parent's organization in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, says that with the economic downturn, struggles are growing over the extra fees many schools demand.

"Parents are becoming much more conscious about this, and we get a lot of calls about whether they should pay or not," he says. "Some agree to pay, but a lot of people remember that the constitution says education is supposed to be free in this country, and think school staff and local authorities should work harder to make it so."

More recent efforts to restore a single basic curriculum are generating controversy. Some government initiatives have been well-received, such as a new requirement that all Russian schoolchildren will study at least two foreign languages.

A few years ago the Kremlin mandated the teaching of "religion" as a subject in Russian schools. But implementation has been spotty and, not surprisingly, has given the powerful Russian Orthodox Church unprecedented access to Russian classrooms at the expense of other faiths. The idea of introducing a single history textbook for Russian schools has led to major disputes, and a few almost comical excesses, such as a new text that claims Russians founded Jerusalem and Babylon.

Polls suggest that most Russians remain dissatisfied with their school system. Asked by the independent Levada Center last month whether they think their children are receiving better schooling that they got, only 12 percent of parents said yes. A third believed it was about the same, but 48 percent thought it was worse.
 
 #12
TASS
September 6, 2015
Pro-Kremlin movement criticizes state of Russia's health care system

The All-Russia People's Front for Russia (ONF) has presented poll results suggesting that Russia's health care system has become less available to the general public, Russian state-owned TASS news agency reported on 6 September.

"Most pressing issues for the public are related to how the operation of the first link [medical clinics] is organized: there are queues and the reception of patients is badly organized," Nikolay Govorin, Russia's honoured doctor and one of ONF's experts said, speaking in Moscow at a forum on accessibility of health care in the country.

Although Russia's population is gradually growing, the number of patients Russian clinics received in 2014 decreased by 7.7m compared to 2013, Govorin said, adding that at the same time refusal to render emergency health service increased by 22 per cent.

Also, "about 51 per cent of patients polled by the ONF in March-April 2015 said that subsidized medicine were not always available in pharmacies and they had to be ordered, waited or searched for," Govorin said.

ONF activists also established that a shortage of qualified personnel is the main reason behind the decline in accessibility of health care, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 6 September.

Only in 37 per cent of cases the citizens could see a cardiologist on first request and more than half of the patients had to wait for admittance to the specialist from several days to up to two weeks. At the same time observers note an exodus of young specialists from socially important professions, including psychiatry and pestilent diseases, RIA Novosti added.

Russia's Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova admitted the criticism, although not fully. "Some things have been exaggerated or misrepresented but it concerns details and does not affect the overall picture," she said, as quoted in a separate TASS report. While she did not agree with the numbers on provision of subsidized medicine, Skvortsova admitted that the problems with health care do exist and the government will work with the ONF to find solutions.

 
 #13
Kremlin.ru
September 4, 2015
Vladimir Putin answered Russian journalists' questions

The President answered journalists' questions on current issues, in particular, the Russian economy's development outlook, oil prices, Russia's social policy, the situation in Ukraine, Europe's response to the flood of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and the fight against terrorism.

Earlier in the day, the President took part in the first Eastern Economic Forum and addressed a meeting of oil and gas sector workers.

Responses to journalists' questions

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon. Go ahead, please.

Question: Looking at today's Eastern Economic Forum, do you think it has been a success in sounding out some growth spots? What sorts of prospects do you see opening for the region?

Vladimir Putin: This region has tremendous potential and so there have always been areas of growth and development here. Our task though is not to simply find individual growth spots, but to establish a favourable climate in general and a good business environment for developing the Far East's economy and social sector. The people here are very talented, energetic and active, and we simply need to give them the right conditions.

Today's event, the Eastern Economic Forum, is one step in this direction. More important though is what we have been doing lately, discussing the Far East's development and taking the decisions that I spoke about at the forum. As I explained, this includes the priority development areas, preferential loan rates, the Vladivostok Free Port and a whole range of other support measures.

We hope very much that this will bring results, but judging by the number of contracts and deals signed right here during the forum, we can say that these measures look to be working. I hope very much that we will start seeing the tangible results very soon.

Question: Mr President, this trip has also taken you to Chita, and to China, where the main event was the anniversary of the end of World War II. How would you describe the situation with the results [of World War II] in light of your contacts with your colleagues, with veterans and others? Is the meaning and significance of these dates and events being diluted and eroded?

Vladimir Putin: I think we are all witnessing attempts to erode the importance of World War II and its events, and sadly, this is happening in Europe and in Asia too, where we can see similar tendencies. It is therefore very important for everyone who fought Nazism and militarism to uphold in humanity's consciousness the true meaning of what took place in the fight against Nazism and militarism.

I think that in holding such large-scale events to mark this anniversary of the end of World War II, our Chinese friends are moving in precisely this direction, the right direction, and are maintaining among their people a correct understanding of the significance of the fight against these things. The real sense of all this is to only make sure that nothing like this ever happens again in human history.

For our part, we will continue to do all we can to make sure that the truth about the Great Patriotic War, the truth about those who fought for our independence and freedom and brought freedom to the peoples of Europe, will remain not only in our minds, but in the hearts of our people and people in other countries, too.

China held very large-scale events, and we sensed that not only the Chinese leadership, but also the people deeply cherish and preserve the memory of what their forebears did to free their homeland.

Question: In your speech earlier, you did not give an assessment of the current economic situation in Russia. We see though that the ruble continues to fall as oil prices slip. What is your assessment and your forecast, and do you plan any new measures to stabilise the market?

Vladimir Putin: This work is conducted publicly. The Government conducts its work publicly, and I meet regularly with the Government members responsible for the economy. I had a detailed discussion of all these issues with the Prime Minister in Sochi just recently.

The Government has a package of measures and proposals on what to do in this kind of situation and how to go about it. This is not some kind of extraordinary situation for us. We already went through a similar situation in 2008-2009, and in earlier years too. Our measures for supporting the economy and business are known and ready. The only question is which instruments to use and to what extent.

As I said at the forum just before, our general line is that we will not simply burn through our reserves or use only budget money to support industrial sectors or individual companies. Our general line is about expanding entrepreneurial freedom, freeing our economic system from red tape and improving the decision-making system and the business climate. This is our general development line, and our policy in this particular case.

In general, in a crisis situation, the best response is always to give business more freedom. This is the direction we will move in, but at the same time, there will be no avoiding targeted support measures for specific industrial sectors, the labour market and the social sector. As I said, we will proceed very carefully, based on the market's demands. The Central Bank is reacting quite effectively.

As for the volatile prices for energy resources, our traditional export goods, yes, this is happening, but this is not within our control. It depends on processes taking place in the global economy as a whole and on the Asian markets. I discussed this issue with our Chinese friends too, and we do not see anything dramatic in this situation.

I think these market adjustments were not unexpected. Of course, they have an impact on energy prices, but this is not the whole issue. It is also a question of excess production of energy resources and the entry of new players with sizeable reserves onto the global market, including expected arrivals, such as Iran.

I think this is all a natural process. The global economy, including the energy sector, needs to follow its natural development and be in a normal state, not come under pressure from external or political factors. I am sure that everything will take a fully normal and natural turn. I think that Russia's economy has already more or less adapted to the situation. There are still some aspects we need to work on, of course, the Government and the business community, and we will do this.

I think it perfectly justified that the Government is moving over to an annual budget in this situation, because in these conditions it is harder or even impossible to predict exactly how global markets will behave and how this will affect federal and regional budget revenue.

The Government will continue to set target figures for subsequent years, the second and third years, and will continue to make its forecasts, which we will take into account, but in these conditions, trying to predict more or less accurately what will happen and how we should respond is possible only for a year ahead.

I think the Government is making the right decision in going over to a one-year budget, and I will ask the Parliament to support this approach. As for our social commitments, we will do everything necessary to ensure that they are met.

Question: On the subject of Ukraine, we know the events that took place yesterday at the Verkhovna Rada in Kiev, when law enforcement officers were killed and demonstrators clashed with police. This took place as the Parliament voted on amendments to the Constitution. How do you assess these events and what is your prognosis?

Vladimir Putin: I remind you that in accordance with the Minsk Agreements, amendments were to be made to Ukraine's Constitution, but this would be done through discussion, dialogue and coordination with the Donbass region and the unrecognised Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic. Unfortunately, the authorities in Kiev are not taking any such steps today and there is no dialogue and coordination on the amendments to Ukraine's Constitution. This is of principle importance.

If we are talking about carrying out the Minsk Agreements, let me remind you that amendments to the Constitution must be discussed and settled with the Donbass region for a start, and second, the law on local government elections also needs to be settled with the Donbass region. Third, a law on amnesty is supposed to be passed, but this has not happened, and a law on special status for these regions is supposed to come into force. This law has been passed, but its entry into force has been postponed. These are four basic conditions for political settlement that our colleagues in Kiev have not implemented, unfortunately. They are simply not being carried out.

As for the tragic events that took place, I think this is not linked to amendments to the Constitution, because everything proposed today as amendments is purely declarative in nature and essentially changes nothing in the way state power in Ukraine is organised.

I will not go into the details now. You can talk with the experts. All of this is clear enough to see. Simply, what we are seeing today is the next round of political confrontation in Ukraine, and the amendments to the Constitution are being used only as a pretext for intensifying the political battle for power.

Question: What do you think will happen from here?

Vladimir Putin: That will depend not on us but on Ukraine itself, on the Ukrainian people and how long they are prepared to put up with this chaos.

I have already said that the fact that Ukraine has been placed under outside governance and foreigners hold all the key posts in the Government and now in key regions too is, I think, an insult to the Ukrainian people.

Are there really no decent, honest and competent managers in Ukraine? Of course, there are. I repeat; it does not depend on us. The way events develop in Ukraine depends on Ukraine itself and on the Ukrainian people.

Question: In the past few days, the refugee crisis has reached a critical point in Europe. The situation is very tense. What is your assessment of this situation, why do you think it is happening? What do you think will happen next?

Vladimir Putin: We talked about this on numerous occasions a long time ago. I believe this is an absolutely expected crisis. If you remember, or look it up in your archives, we in Russia, yours truly in particular, said a few years ago that we are in for large-scale problems if our so-called western partners continue with their misguided foreign policy, as I always referred to it, especially in Muslin regions, in the Middle East, North Africa - the policy they are actually still conducting.

What is this policy? That of imposing their standards without taking into consideration the history, religion, culture or national characteristics of these regions. This is, primarily, the policy conducted by our American partners; Europe blindly follows the lead, complying with its so-called allied commitments, and then it bears the brunt.

I am surprised to see certain American media outlets criticising Europe for its excessively tough, as they say, attitude to migrants. However, the United States does not have to deal with such a flow of migrants, while Europe, after it blindly followed instructions from America is now bearing the brunt of the crisis.

I am not saying this to say how smart we are and how shortsighted our partners turned out to be, or to bait anyone; we simply need to see what to do next. What is it? The answer is very simple.

First, together, and I would like to stress this word, together we need to combat terrorism and extremism of all sorts, primarily in the problem countries, to resolve this issue - without that any further progress is impossible. How can we make any progress in regions controlled by the Islamic State? It is impossible, people are fleeing those regions, they kill hundreds of thousands, blow up cultural monuments, burn people alive or drown them, cut the heads off living people. How can one live there? Of course, people are fleeing.

First, we must efficiently combat terrorism and extremism together.

Second, we need to restore the economy of those countries and their social sphere. Only this way, by showing respect for the history, traditions and religion of these peoples and countries, we can restore their statehood and provide large-scale economic and political support.

If we join our efforts in all these areas, we will have positive results. If we act separately and keep arguing among ourselves over some quasi-democratic principles and procedures on certain territories, this will get us into a greater deadlock. However, I pin my hopes on a positive development and on joining efforts with all our partners.

Question: Mr President, I would like to clarify something with regard to the Islamic State, because Russia has been speaking of the need to create a political coalition, and the United States has been urging the same thing. There is no agreement on Syria, for example, and so forth. How do you see the creation of such a coalition?

Vladimir Putin: We are taking specific steps, and doing this publicly. If you want to know the details, I can explain once again. It is true that we want to create an international coalition to combat terrorism and extremism. With this aim in view, we are holding consultations with our American partners, I personally discussed this over the telephone with the President of the United Stated, Mr Obama, and I also discussed this with the President of Turkey, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, with the King of Jordan, the President of Egypt and other partners. Our military agencies are in close contact, only recently the heads of the general staffs of the countries neighbouring on these conflicts met in Moscow.

We continue our political efforts to create a certain coalition. If today it is impossible to organise joint work directly 'on the battlefield', so to speak, involving all the countries interested in combatting terrorism, we should at least achieve certain coordination between them. We are trying and making certain efforts in this direction. Our first steps show that overall this seems possible.

We know that there are different positions on the developments in Syria. Incidentally, people are not fleeing from the Bashar Assad regime - they are fleeing from the Islamic State, which has occupied vast territories in Syria and Iraq and is committing atrocities there. That is what people are running away from. However, we understand that political change is also required. We are also working with our partners in Syria.

There is an overall understanding that such joint efforts to combat terrorism should go side by side with certain political processes inside Syria. The Syrian President agrees with this too, including, say, holding early parliamentary elections and establishing ties with the so-called 'healthy opposition' and involving them in running the country. This is primarily a matter of Syria's internal development. We are not imposing anything, but we are ready to assist in an internal Syrian dialogue.

Question: Mr President, just to clarify: is Russia ready to take part in a military operation if the coalition does take shape? Particularly since we have a certain moral responsibility - there are Russians within the Islamic State. Some media are already saying that our aviation is being deployed in the area.

Vladimir Putin: You know, this is a separate issue and we see what is going on. Say, the American aviation is making certain strikes. So far, their efficiency has not been very high, but it is too early to say that we are ready to do it. However, we are providing Syria with significant support anyway, both in equipment and armaments and in personnel training.

We signed major contracts with Syria some 5-7 years ago, and we are complying with them in full. Therefore, we are considering various scenarios, but so far, what you have mentioned is not on our agenda. However, we will continue our consultations both with our friends in Syria and with the countries in the region. I have already told you who we are having an exchange with on this matter, and the parties we are in dialogue with.

Thank you very much.
 
 #14
War on the Rocks
http://warontherocks.com
September 7, 2015
PUTIN'S STRATEGY IS FAR BETTER THAN YOU THINK
By Michael Kofman
Michael Kofman is a Public Policy Scholar at the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute and an analyst at the CNA Corporation. Previously he served as Program Manager at National Defense University. The views presented here are his own.

Is Vladimir Putin a strategic genius or not? In a recent War on the Rocks article, the scholar Joshua Rovner comes down hard in the "not" camp, arguing that Putin is a terrible strategist and laying out the ramifications of his strategic incompetence for the United States and its NATO allies. This is another salvo in a long-running debate between competing Western narratives of Russia: an alarmist position perpetually worried that "the Russians are coming," and a dismissive one that believes Russia is a giant Potemkin village destined to fall apart as a result of self-defeating behavior. Unfortunately both views are wrong, but Western analysis often see-saws between these two perspectives as soon as one falls out of favor. One of the shortfalls of Rovner's article is that it fails to explain what Russia's strategy is, which in turn raises a more important question: Does American failure to understand Russia's strategy make it a poor one?

Russia in perspective

First, there needs to be a more balanced and informed understanding of Russia. A quote, variously attributed over the years to Churchill, Talleyrand, or Metternich sums it up well: "Russia is never as strong as she looks, nor as weak as she looks." Russia is a regional power in structural decline, but retains a remarkable capacity to muddle through, hang around, and cause trouble. It has often appeared to be the sick man of Europe (a term originally used to describe the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century), technologically backwards, with a political system that does not meet the demands of modern society. Napoleon and Hitler, among others, have made the mistake of assuming that Russian weakness and backwardness made the country an easy mark.

Since early 2014, Russia has suffered from a recession followed by an economic crisis, largely due to a sharp decline in oil prices. While Western sanctions have multiplied the hardship, Russia's economic problems are structural and its current economic crisis a result of global factors that have nothing to do with events in Ukraine. They are due, in fact, to Saudi Arabia's efforts to keep oil prices low in an effort to crush the U.S. shale extraction industry (and from a U.S. point of view, this is nothing to be happy about, even if it comes at Russia's expense). China's economic downturn is also little cause for cheer.

Whether a good or bad strategist, Putin is no economist. Even his close associates like former finance minister Alexei Kudrin reminded him of this on a regular basis. Russia's budget is inexorably tied to the price of energy, as was the Soviet Union's. Vladimir Putin did not invent this dependence, but he has done little to improve it beyond some technological bright spots and the defense industry. Yet Putin's domestic support is somewhat explained by the fact that Russia experienced an economic boom for much of his rule, which translated into higher standards of living and expendable income.

Despite economic weakness, Russia is militarily the strongest it has been since the Cold War, fielding the most capable, modernized, and well-funded force it is likely going to have for the foreseeable future. This year, spending on defense as a share of GDP will likely peak at 4.2 percent, up from 3.4 percent in 2014. The total force has been growing and could be over 800,000 today, with a consistently increasing percentage of contract soldiers that are tested through snap drills and exercises. No NATO country is increasing defense spending, the size of the force, and its readiness, and procuring new equipment, at the rate Russia has been since 2009. Due to the current economic crisis, Russia's modernization programs will take a haircut, but its main limitations are technical rather than financial. Russia may not be able to defeat NATO, but its conventional power is sufficient to impose major costs in a conflict with the West or crush any former Soviet republic.

The Kremlin knows how to use force

Rovner argues that Russia's annexation of Crimea is "ham-fisted" and states that Putin lacks understanding of the "relationship between military violence and political objectives." This is a puzzling assessment given that Russia has consistently demonstrated its ability to use military force to achieve desired political ends. Russia's counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism campaign in Chechnya was by all accounts brutal, but successful. It stabilized a notoriously restless region to the point that Russia could be bold enough to host the Sochi Olympics nearby in 2014. Russia's brief war with Georgia in 2008 demonstrated terrible military inadequacies, but still achieved its strategic purpose by ending any serious consideration of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. Eventually, that defeat also resulted in an inglorious end to President Mikhail Saakashvili's political career in his country; Georgia seeks him on political charges and he now serves as governor of Odessa in Ukraine.

Compared with the war in Georgia, Russia's annexation of Crimea demonstrated a decisive and competent use of force to achieve political ends. Without losing a single soldier, Moscow seized the most strategically important part of Ukraine, from which it can control almost the entire Black Sea. This secured basing rights for its fleet, and will allow it to deploy anti-access and area-denial weaponry, covering most of the sea and southern Ukraine. In and of itself, the loss of Crimea creates a permanent territorial dispute in Ukraine's borders - a frozen conflict of sorts with strategic consequences for its aspirations of Western integration. In eastern Ukraine, Russia has demonstrated flexibility and willingness to escalate. In the span of only a few months, it has cycled from political warfare to state-sponsored insurgency, hybrid war, and limited conventional war. Granted, the first three proved ineffective in getting Ukraine and the West to negotiate a compromise that would lead to federalization, but they were economy of force measures, leaving room for escalation and improvisation as necessary.

Lawrence Freedman has also criticized Putin's strategy in War on the Rocks. These assessments often fall victim to reading Putin's speeches and statements as though Russia's strategy can be found therein. Putin's statements are not official declarations of policy, but instead a supporting theatrical role to whatever strategy is being implemented. Freedman believes it is unhelpful to call Putin a good strategist, but it is even more problematic to underestimate and misunderstand your opponent. From a purely analytical standpoint, Russia has done reasonably well in pursuit of his objectives in Ukraine. Whether weak or strong, Russia faced a basic challenge: how to impose control and influence on Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe. Certainly Moscow lacks the military strength to occupy all of Ukraine, but that is a null point. The point is to control Ukraine without owning it. The memory of the Soviet war in Afghanistan is still fresh in Russia, and its leadership has no interest in a costly proxy war with the West, especially one that would also destroy Ukraine in the process.

Even if Moscow had requisite military strength, the United States has aptly demonstrated by invading Afghanistan and Iraq how difficult it is to get an occupation right. What Russia could have done easily is invade, beat Ukraine's army, and fragment the country in a number of pieces. This was likely debated in the Kremlin, but ultimately Moscow wanted all of Ukraine in its orbit, not ownership of a few defunct pieces and a geopolitical mess. This approach would largely nullify the Maidan's ability to govern Ukraine and reorient it towards the West, while allowing Russia to retain influence.

In February 2014, Russia capitalized on local agitation and discord in eastern Ukraine through informal networks. Many in the West see this as a pre-planned contingency, but it is difficult to understand the basis for this theory. If it was a well planned-out special forces mission, a pudgy historical re-enactor named Igor Girkin, with a paramilitary rabble from Crimea, would not be leading it.

Instead Moscow tried to leverage the networks of business elites, oligarchs, and pro-Russian agitators that had been on the fringe of Ukraine's politics. Ukraine was an oligarchy, with plenty of powerful non-state actors in the east that lost big when the president was ousted. They worked with Russia to take advantage of the confusion and public anxiety, setting up "people's" mayors and governors, with Russian intelligence helping to orchestrate the protests. These self-declared anti-Maidan leaders barely lasted days and were arrested by local Ukrainian authorities. The effort was cheap political warfare, hardly the professional special forces operation that is often described in the West. The investment was actually quite low compared to what Russia hoped to gain out of it: Ukraine's capitulation to a federalization scheme. One can conclude that this was either the worst planned and executed subversion effort in recent history, or more likely, the best Russia could come up with in a hurry.

Separatism in eastern Ukraine began as an ad hoc approach to get Ukraine on the cheap, and Russia simply kept escalating in a quest for the lowest price. After political warfare failed in March, Russia switched to direct action in April and May in the hope of scaring Ukraine into believing that a large-scale secession of "Novorossiya" was possible. Putin's speeches were part of the effort to convince and frighten Kiev, not official statements of Russian strategy. A brief "hybrid war" followed from June to August, when Russia understood that Ukraine did indeed have the will to resist and still had some functioning military capability, enough to take on a small force of insurgents. At that point, only overt use of force would accomplish what Moscow wanted, hence it openly invaded.

Freedman calls this process poor strategy, but the quest for achieving strategic objectives in another country at the lowest price is probably borne out of witnessing the American experience of trying to achieve them - and failing - at the maximum possible price. When we ask "compared to what" and survey recent military history, the strategy does not seem so poor in retrospect. Russia's assumptions that Ukraine had no sense of national identity, could not muster resistance, and lacked the will to fight proved incorrect. However, this flexible approach ensured that the price paid for each false assumption was minimal, and the Kremlin's political ownership of the war from the perspective of its own citizens remained negligible. Instead of staking his regime, the country's wealth, and its military power, by diving head first into Ukraine, Putin chose a cautious approach with opportunities for an exit.

Rovner, along with numerous other commentators, have suggested that Russia might not take seriously NATO's collective defense guarantees enshrined in Article V. In his view, Russia may try similar tactics against the Baltics, where they would likely prove ineffective. Although Rovner sees little threat, because Russian "hybrid war" wouldn't work in the Baltics, the more important point is that all these hypothetical scenarios have a domino theory sound to them. There has never been evidence to support the argument that Moscow does not take NATO's Article V guarantees seriously and there is almost nothing in common between how Russia views Ukraine and how it perceives a country like Estonia. The lack of faith in Article V seems largely on the alliance side. This is a confidence and assurance problem.

What most discussions of a possible Russian invasion of the Baltics share in common is their inability to explain what is in it for the Russians. Exactly why Russia would risk war against the most powerful military alliance in the world led by the United States in order to seize something in the Baltics remains an analytical quandary. Russia's cautious and measured approach against a relatively weak, incapable, and non-aligned Ukraine offers little support to the notion that it would risk war with NATO. Russia is acting aggressively on its periphery, but the prospect of nuclear war still outweighs whatever it is Moscow supposedly stands to gain from invading the Baltics.

The U.S. military has internalized that war remains an uncertain and chaotic business. Russia changed approaches in Ukraine four times in less than one year until it found a winning strategy, and has beaten Ukrainian forces in every battle in which its soldiers were in the lead. Putin's 15-year track record of achieving political ends through force does not look bad compared to the U.S. experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Indeed, the Kremlin understands quite well the interaction between violence and politics. It has to, because it does not have access to strong alternatives compared to countries like the United States. Russia's economic, information, and diplomatic powers are highly contextual and often geographically limited.

Russia's response to Ukraine revisited

The Maidan's unexpected victory in February 2014 caught both Russia and the West equally by surprise. For Moscow this was a geopolitical defeat in the largest and most prominent country that Russian elites consider within their "zone of influence." Ukraine served as an important buffer state for Russia, and one where it had consistently drawn a red line when it came to NATO expansion. Putin had warned in the past that he saw the country as largely artificial and might not respect its integrity if it was pulled so sharply to the West.

Accepting such a defeat would mean Russia could forget about being a global or even a major regional power. The countries on Russia's periphery only respect hard power. Their political systems are shades of autocracy and clan rule politics, while their leaders are on the same frequency as Putin. Why should any former Soviet Republic listen to Moscow or participate in Russian led economic and security institutions if Russia couldn't even secure its interests in Ukraine? Russia was looking into a geopolitical abyss unless it could nullify and reverse this Western victory.

Seizing Crimea was not a strategy, but a reaction. Just as the United States chose to follow a CIA plan for Afghanistan as a first response after 9/11 and came up with the Global War on Terror afterwards, Russian leaders pulled out what was probably the only contingency plans they had on the books at the time: In the event Ukraine became hostile, Russia would execute the invasion and annexation of Crimea. Full stop. Moscow then launched a campaign in eastern Ukraine designed to neutralize the post-Maidan government, prevent Western integration, and retain Russian influence in the country. Some have argued that Russia might have been better off not using force and letting the Maidan peter away as the 2004 Orange Revolution did, but that analysis assumes very little of Ukrainians and their agency. Force was Moscow's best and likely only reliable option in an unfolding crisis.

By August of 2014, the conflict in the Donbas had escalated into a limited conventional war in which Russia had almost complete operational control and the ability force Ukraine to sign the Minsk protocol. The initial deal only gave the parties breathing space; Ukraine rearmed while Russia consolidated. In February of 2015, Russia inflicted a more strategically costly defeat for Ukraine and imposed another ceasefire agreement that was highly favorable to its interests. This ceasefire has clear sequencing for implementation that places the political burden on Ukraine first. Kiev must carry out decentralization and grant some sort of status to the separatist regions prior to any elections, and later hope that it might get control of the border restored. In all likelihood, Ukraine will not see a restoration of the border, but the occupied Donbas will be granted legal status and therefore shape the direction of the country.

Even if the terms of this deal are not implemented, the annexation of Crimea and a frozen conflict in the East will make integration into NATO and the European Union a distant, if not impossible, prospect for Ukraine. It is the West now that has to see Ukraine succeed. Russia only needs to make it fail. In the Kremlin's view, Western leaders will eventually grow tired of dealing with Kiev, allowing Russia to pick up the pieces.

Russia appears to have largely achieved the strategic gains it sought in Ukraine, but is still calibrating the use of military force to get the political concessions it wants from Kiev in order to freeze the conflict on favorable terms. In July, Kiev began to address its obligations under the Minsk II agreement, launching the political process to grant special status to the Donbas and carry out decentralization. If this falls through, the West has no alternative to the Minsk II agreement and therefore will not declare it a failure even if fighting resumes. Russia may not close out a victory, but right now it can't lose, either.

Putin doesn't seem to be doing too badly

From the perspective of domestic politics and regime survival, this conflict with the West is a paradoxical success story for Moscow. The invasion of Ukraine may have even saved Putin's presidency. In January 2014, he was looking at 65-percent approval ratings (great for any democratic leader but dangerously low for a populist autocrat), a creeping recession, and a sclerotic political system. Instead of wilting away, Putin became the glorious leader who returned Crimea and its famed city of Sevastopol to Russia, along with facing down the West in Ukraine. Now the Russian people are mobilized as part of the confrontation and Russia's economic woes are blamed almost entirely on the West instead of resting on Putin's shoulders.

Despite the disastrous state of Russia's economy, his approval hovers at 80-90 percent with the Russian people. Putin is the most popular leader in Europe, and rather than weaken him, Western sanctions have achieved a remarkable consolidation of opinion across Russian society behind him. Detractors have said that his approval has nowhere to go but down, but these sentiments have been pronounced since Crimea, and at each turn his support has remained steady.

Broadening the lens

Russia challenged the Western-dominated rules-based international system and largely got away with it, demonstrating that geopolitics and hard power are still the best currency in today's world. Putin made NATO's eastern members worry about their security guarantees, while his own neighbors were disabused of any doubts that friendly relations with Moscow might be optional. Rovner suggests Putin could have integrated into the European economy while chipping away at the unity of the European Union, but the limiting factor on integration was Russia's primitive economy and absence of rule of law. Arguably, Russia was as integrated as it possibly could be given its systemic limitations.

European nations did not impose damaging economic sanctions on Russia when it annexed Crimea, but only after the shooting down of MH17. When they did so, many western European members grudgingly went along with Germany. The price of extending sanctions this July was a serious reconsideration of their merits this winter, and they may not be renewed again, given the surface-level initial consensus. It is important not to confuse the temporary success of Germany's leadership and good old-fashioned arm-wringing with a collective European belief in the need to face down Russia.

European unity and NATO's renewed sense of purpose are largely semblance masquerading as substance. The European response to Russia, the Greek debt crisis, and more recently the migrant crisis, shows more discord than solidarity behind the scenes. Meanwhile, NATO's invigorated sense of self seems to consist mostly of exercises and speeches. Even messaging components, like the Baltic Air Policing mission, have been cut in half. The United States is deploying companies on rotation to NATO states on the alliance's eastern flank, an indicator that it will stick by the commitments in the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act not to station permanent or substantive forces in those countries. Little appears to have changed on the ground. For most NATO members, the funding isn't there to match this rhetoric. Conventional military capability has been steeply cut, and threat perceptions of Russia vary substantially within NATO.

If there is a visible Russian strategy today, it is to appear aggressive, particularly against the United States, in order to impart the belief that conflict escalation up to and including nuclear exchange is a real possibility. The objective is to deter a forward-leaning Western policy on its periphery, limit the NATO military response to exercises and symbolism, and effectively retain a free hand to shape events on the ground in Ukraine. By all accounts, this approach is working. Moscow still considers conflict with NATO as highly unlikely, thus giving up nothing of its own security, while NATO increasingly sees conflict with Russia as a real contingency solely based on Russia's change of intent, and must scramble to figure out a way forward.

Russia's long-term goal is to accelerate the decline of U.S. power in the international system, even if it chiefly transfers to China. On the international stage, Moscow has traded the prestige and trappings of Western integration for being feared. Prestige is great for pursuing opportunities, but fear is much more useful when defending core geopolitical interests. These are not strategies, but maneuvers, that have proven effective in the interim, though they could prove unbearably costly in the long term.

Long-term consequences are the known unknown

Moscow is not isolated as Rovner suggests. This is another slogan in defiance of objective reality. Not only does Russia continue to figure prominently at major international forums, but the overwhelming majority of countries continue to deal with Vladimir Putin - who will be at the UN in September to rub it in America's face. In reality, Russian "isolation" is equally a strategic problem for the West. Russian integration into a Western-dominated international system was how the United States hoped to keep Moscow's behavior normative and encourage its adherence to a rules-based order. This policy was implemented in place of including Russia in a European security or economic framework.

For Moscow, this confrontation is probably a more comfortable and normal state than the past two decades of cyclical relations with the United States. Punitive sanctions and containment have replaced integration, but where exactly does that leave the West's strategy for Russia? The United States is not ready to commit to containment and regime rollback, while Europe is wholly unprepared to return to a Cold War-like adversarial relationship with Russia. Nobody wants Russia's collapse, either. Blaming Putin's lack of strategy seems to be a knee-jerk response for the rapid conclusion of two decades of Western policy toward Russia and the absence of any replacement.

There are real costs here for Russia, just not the frivolous ones often described. Vladimir Putin ruined his best and most important Western relationship with Germany's Angela Merkel. Russia was surprised by Germany's strong reaction to its invasion of Ukraine and the leadership Berlin showed in corralling a diplomatic and economic European response. Putin will likely outlast Merkel in power and seek to make amends with the next leadership, but his dishonesty in recent dealings has permanently damaged Russia's credibility.

Russia is also in deep economic trouble - the worst it has seen since the 1998 financial crisis - and there is no way of knowing if the Kremlin will be able to navigate through these waters. Moscow seems unprepared for the numerous legal challenges and lawsuits to come as a result of its actions, and in these hard times desperately needs access to the West's banking system to recapitalize corporate debt. Those sanctions are taking their toll as long as oil prices continue to fall. No surprise that Vladimir Putin, who does not believe in rule of law, has a poor appreciation for the legal consequences of Russia's actions and the financial costs it could bear later on.

Ultimately, 18 months cannot be considered sufficient time to determine the success or failure of Moscow's strategy. Analysts and commentators have been calling this game too soon at every turn. Great strategy or not, Russia retains the initiative in Ukraine and in its confrontation with the West. Thus far, reports of Putin's strategic incompetence, along with his imminent overthrow, appear to have been greatly exaggerated.
 
 #15
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
September 7, 2015
USSR Foreign Minister: NATO Broke Its Promise. Russia Did Not 'Lose' the Cold War
It was the USSR which liberated Europe from the Cold War, not NATO, ... Europe is profoundly ungrateful for this
Russia didn't lose the Cold War, it ended it
By the end of the Gorbachev era, Russia was a free and open country
Yeltsin was a catastrophe for Russia
Today there is a vacuum of strategic thinking in the West
By Boris Pankin

In August 1991 Boris Pankin, then Ambassador to Prague, was the only high-ranking Soviet diplomat to denounce the attempted coup against Gorbachev. Subsequently Gorbachev appointed him Foreign Minister. After the breakup of the Soviet Union Yeltsin made him the first Russian Ambassador to the UK.

This paper was submitted to a Harvard University symposium held at Stockholm University on September 3, 2015 in Stockholm.

It was the USSR which liberated Europe at end of 80s, and for the 2nd time

The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was not an isolated phenomenon. It was a direct result of events which followed one after another in the course of perestroika in the USSR, since 1985.

It amounted to a denouncement of Brezhnev's doctrine of limited sovereignty; to the dismantling of the Berlin wall, and to a refusal to support the communist regimes that led to their fall in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It led to the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of Comecon, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from German Democratic Republic (GDR), Poland and Hungary.

What is often forgotten is that it was radical domestic political reforms in the USSR that gave a start to it all.

All these grandiose social and political processes were begun and developed at the initiative of the Soviet side, more particularly, of the new leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). This happened after three predecessors of Gorbachev had died one after the other.

If it were not for this initiative of the new Soviet political elite supported by the majority of the population of all constituent republics of the Soviet Union, the so called brotherly socialist commonwealth would continue to exist further, as well as the two German states.  Soviet armies would have stood in Central and Eastern Europe, just as American troops are still stationed in Western Europe, and the Iron Curtain would still have been dividing the two worlds. And the Cold War would not have ended.

Russia did not lose in the Cold War.

There is one trivial understanding around, that all these great changes are nothing else but the West victory in the Cold War. Former US President George Bush Sr. even made an attempt to personify the phenomenon by saying that it was he who ended the Cold War.

Let me say that this claim has no ground whatsoever. Moreover, wide dissemination of this concept all over the world offended millions of people in the ex-USSR who had actively and energetically by word and in deed supported dismantling of the Communist regime. James Schlesinger was absolutely right when he stated, "[O]ur triumph in the Cold War has led to an arrogance of power in US dealings with the rest of the world."

The phenomenon of Mikhail Gorbachev and his democratically minded colleagues who brought about the fall of totalitarianism, was the result of deep spiritual changes inside Soviet society.

The Soviet Union under Gorbachev was a democracy.

It is also incorrect, as is often the case, to name December, 1991 with its Belovezhskaya Pusha and disintegration of the USSR, as a reference point of changes in my country.

Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to have realized that Soviet system was on the verge of a profound crisis or rather catastrophe. The system, but not the country, let me emphasize.

Despite all his failures, Gorbachev cleared the ground for those who succeeded him.

By the time Yeltsin came to power in the sovereign Russian Federation, the basic political reforms, both internal and international had already been implemented in the USSR.

To a considerable extent, people could believe and read what they liked, speak what they liked, chose their way of life and of work and, above all, free do decide where to live. This opening to the outside world was perhaps the most important break with the past, as it created openness unknown in Russian history.

In other words Russians already enjoyed most civil rights.

Radical change of political and ideological map of Europe that I call the second liberation of Europe, was a common victory for us all, victory of democracy, freedom, humanity, of common sense after all.

The bitter fruit of victory.

The other thing is who used this historical victory for better or worse, and how they did so.  I am afraid Russia's post- Gorbachev leaders have not much to be proud of.

True, if not for Boris Yeltsin the country would have had few chances of quelling the August 1991 putch, a rebellion of the partocracy, KGB and stiff-necked generals. Boris Yeltsin's speech on top of a tank in front of the White House was exactly the gesture the historical moment demanded. People in my country recall those days with tears in their eyes; it was a time when the whole nation seemed to be united against the threat of return of totalitarianism.

But after saving the country for democracy Yeltsin wished to impersonate the whole state. In order to get rid of Gorbachev as his superior, he decided to get rid of the Soviet Union (SU) as such. According to a recent Gorbachev interview (I am quoting), "The (Soviet) Union was destroyed against the will of the majority of the people and that was done absolutely deliberately by the Russian leadership, on the one hand, and the coup leaders, on the other.

It was the very communist model that went bankrupt, but not the Soviet Union as such," - he continued. "The country could have been preserved if it had been decentralized and democratized in a timely manner. We were close to setting up a new foundation."

Alas, struggle for democracy was substituted by the fight for independence.

Thus, for newly born Russia and other republics of the former SU it's difficult to call the 1990s a successful transition. Especially, compared to what was happening in Central Europe, where a lot of countries adapted to democracy better.

The break in economic and cultural ties between the former Soviet republics has been accompanied by wars, terrorism, increased crime, unemployment, hyperinflation, primitive nationalism, chauvinism, extremism and separatism.  
Yeltsinite disaster.

It is a paradox that the political imperatives to stand for democracy in the "struggle with communism" had suddenly revealed how deeply the authoritarian and antidemocratic tendencies were ingrained in the reformist camp. Whatever you speak about - be it political or economic aspects of the transition.

The first Russian constitution (December 1993) and re-election of a democratic Boris Yeltsin as a President in 1996, virtually turned him into absolute monarch with little or no checks on his power. In other words he found himself at liberty to interpret the mandate of the voters as he wished.

To advance the arguments that I am going to develop further let me present one important conclusion:

To sum up, politicians both in the East, and in the West have appeared not to be up to those historical possibilities that have resulted from cardinal changes in the USSR and then in Central and Eastern Europe. They failed use them in full, and partly even have compromised them. The policy makers appeared not ready to recognize properly new risks, challenges and taboos, including ethnic and religious ones.

Vacuum of strategic thinking.

What we face today is not a vacuum of security, but a vacuum of strategic thinking.

After the Soviet regime and so called Socialist camp ceased to exist, geopolitical interests or rather appetites have been holding the stage.

Politicians and state leaders have abandoned the principles of new thinking (Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, then Gorbachev) and collective security (the Commission of Olof Palme with Soviet academician Georgy Arbatov as a member) that were extremely popular and effective in the days of perestroika.

They returned to the notorious slogan of English viscount Palmerston: we have no permanent friends and permanent enemies, we have just permanent interests.

Paradoxically, but the fact, that the euphoria, in which people in my country and abroad were bathing soon after the defeat of the August putsch of 1991, was  soon replaced by more sour mood. Scepticism, disappointment, suspiciousness, thirst for revenge prevailed.

In other words - the era of mutual trust which has arisen during an epoch of perestroika and glasnost, was soon replaced by an era of mutual mistrust, and a calculation of former griefs and future suspicions.

Central and Eastern Europe proved ungrateful for their liberation by Russia.

Perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to say that the tone was set by the countries of Central and the Eastern Europe, as well as by the Baltic States that have obtained independence and sovereignty thanks to the Second Liberation of Europe I mentioned above.

No nation can be free if it suppresses other nations. It was true said with regard to the annexation the Baltic Republics by the then USSR. It is also true in relation to the situation in the present Baltic States, first and foremost in Latvia and Estonia where Russian and other minorities had been officially deprived of some of their core civil rights. New ridiculous status was invented - non citizen. It appeared to have been nonsense when it was born. It is even more ridiculous 25 years after.

The fear, sincere or speculative, still exists that events could turn back. The aspiration to reach a so-called point of no-return as soon as possible dominated and dominates the world politics.

Internationally, dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in June 1991 appeared to have been not enough. An urge to join NATO, has arisen, as strong, as a draught in chimney.

More than that. To become a NATO member came to be regarded as not only expedient, but also prestigious. As a symbol and a sign of quality. A brand of belonging to the West. The very term neutrality started sounding as somewhat indecent. It was rather recently when Sweden helped Baltic States join EU. Now their leadership put Sweden and Finland to shame for not being in NATO.

Expansion of NATO: broken promises.

Meanwhile in the process of German unification we in the Soviet Union heard quite clear statements from the Western side that the military structure of Euro-Atlantic community, NATO, would never expand to the East.

I remember how in October 1991, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, one of the pillars of post-war German diplomacy, shared with me as Soviet Foreign Minister his and the US Secretary of State James A. Baker, idea.

They wanted to explore the possibility of setting up so called North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) that alongside NATO countries would comprise the USSR, the newly born independent Baltic States and the Eastern and Central European nations. They saw it as a substitute for NATO in the nearest future.

As a participant of the ceremony that dissolved the Warsaw Treaty Organisation I found this Genscher and Backer idea attractive. I have been convinced that the elimination of one military block would inexorably result in a drastic transformation of the other.

After some considerations Gorbachev was quick to give a go ahead to the Soviet participation in the military and political structure we were discussing and thus NACC was safely born.

But soon under the influence of so called New Europe, the Old West abandoned this idea and resorted to the Partnership for Peace which became just a next step towards NATO.

Promises given to Gorbachev, and, by the way, to me, not to move NATO's infrastructure close to borders of the USSR - RF had been broken.

70 years ago when Europe lay in ruins and Stalin's tyranny was in full swing, the USA came up with Marshall Plan. Now it came up with plans of NATO expansion.

True, it was the Russian leadership's foreign and security policy which remained so chaotic and conceptually erratic that made its neighbors and partners uneasy. But would the enlargement of NATO serve as a panacea, or just a palliative?

A spiral of reactions and counter-reactions appeared to be endless.

But like a coin, expansion both of NATO and EU has two sides - the more some countries of Europe unite, the stronger others feel alienated, left out.  An explosive mixture.  The intensified cooperation among the EU countries should not entail marginalisation of others.

True, today's confrontation in the world has no ideological accents, as it was before. At the same time religious, ethnic tensions became hundred times stronger. Nobody seems to accept neutrality

The pillars of a genuine partnership are common security, democracy, openness, political and economic cooperation, an expansion of trade and a functioning legal system.

PS

All what I have said above would be right and make sense providing that all the parties then had been sincere, and believed what they preached. If not, if all the good intentions declared were nothing else but hypocrisy, we need a different framework to understand what was going on.
 
 #16
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.como
September 9, 2015
Should the US worry about closer Russia-China cooperation?
RD Interview: Russia Direct sat down with Fyodor Lukyanov, head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, to understand whether the Moscow-Beijing partnership presents a challenge for American foreign policy makers, as well as how it might impact the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
By Pavel Koshkin
Pavel Koshkin is Executive Editor of Russia Direct and a contributing writer to Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH). He also contributed to a number of Russian and foreign media outlets, including Russia Profile, Kommersant and the BBC.

The debate over the U.S.-China-Russia triangle and its impact on the world order is commonplace among foreign policy experts in the United States. And this discussion of Russia's growing relationship with China has only been fueled by Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to China in early September to attend the military parade dedicated to the 70th anniversary of World War II.

However, the warnings about a stronger Russia-China relationship came from Western foreign policy experts even before Putin's visit to China. Foreign Affairs assessed the risks of a Sino-Russian alliance for the United States, while The National Interest was more outspoken. "America's Worst Nightmare: Russia and China Are Getting Closer," reads the headline of one of its recent articles. In 2014, The Economist called Moscow and Beijing "best frenemies."  

Amidst the ongoing debates on the impact of the Russia-China relationship and the recent visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing, Russia Direct sat down with the head of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Fyodor Lukyanov, to understand if Washington should perceive the Moscow-Beijing rapprochement as a threat to American national interests.   
     
Russia Direct: There are a lot views that the Russia-China alliance might pose a threat to the U.S. and is going to be a nightmare for Washington. Is that really the case?

Fyodor Lukyanov: The notion of an alliance as it is normally understood is simply not applicable to the relations between Russia and China. There is no goal and no interest on either the Chinese or Russian side to get involved into binding alliances, especially ones with military commitments, for one simple reason: Russia and China are two countries which view freedom of action and full sovereignty of behavior as the most important value in foreign policy.

And even for friendly countries, as Russia and China are to each other, they are not ready to limit or restrict their actions by self-imposed binding agreements. To put it briefly, neither Russia nor China are interested in a relationship which may be called an alliance. This, of course, doesn't exclude a very intimate and very close political, economic and cultural relationship and a certain degree of cooperation in the field of security. It is very normal for two countries that share such a long border, with views that largely coincide on international relations.

What is strange to me is the U.S. policy: We see now a new round of talks in Washington about sanctions that will be imposed on China and Russia, especially on China, for cybercrimes, or for what they believe are hostile activities from the Chinese side. In the Russian case, we see new sanctions all the time.

The core of strategic behavior for any country is not to push your hypothetical opponents towards each other by putting pressure on both of them. This is what the biggest minds in U.S. foreign policy like Mr. Kissinger or President Nixon understood very well, when they tried to separate China from the Soviet Union 40-45 years ago.

And they understood that was a very important precondition for successful U.S. policy. What the American administration today does is exactly the opposite: They push Russia and China together [although there is] no willingness [from Russia and China] to form an alliance; however, the U.S. policy seems to be at least provoking them to be closer to each other.

I don't think it is a very wise policy on the U.S. side. And it will not generate a Russian-Chinese alliance, but it will strengthen the political will to work closer between those two countries.

RD: But Russia and China are usually described as "best frenemies." To what extent could their differences hamper their cooperation and political will?

F.L.: The problem in China-Russia relations is obvious: They are very asymmetric, but they are asymmetric in very different ways. In certain areas China dominates. Of course, economically China is much stronger than Russia. Meanwhile, politically in terms of experience with "big diplomacy," Russia has a lot of advantages that China doesn't have.

The nature of Russian-Chinese relations remains to be seen. I don't believe we have any chance of increasing hostility, so that relations would become worse or even unfriendly. But limits of cooperation are there. We don't know where we are. But what we can read in the Western press is to me an attempt to influence this trend rather than a description of the real situation.  
    
RD: Although it is too early to tell about the results of the U.S. presidential campaign, there could be some trends that are gaining ground among U.S. presidential candidates in their approaches to China and Russia. In this regard, what are the possible impacts of the U.S. presidential elections on Washington's relations with Moscow and Beijing?

F.L.:  The election campaign in the United States is not the best time to judge what kind policy will be conducted because during the election campaign candidates have completely different tasks: they need to engage with people, they need to electrify the audience and they need to address the most vital and most popular topics.

Usually, after the campaign, when the contender becomes president, he or she needs to re-evaluate election rhetoric toward a more moderate and more balanced position.

So, we don't have enough of a basis to analyze future policies [with respect to Russia and China] of any potential candidates. But, in general, looking at trends in U.S. political development, I don't think that we can expect much in the way of positive changes vis-�-vis Russia and China. The next administration can correct some of the dimensions of the current approach, but not change the overall line.
 
 #17
Moscow Times
September 8, 2015
No Reason for Russia to Deploy Troops to Syria, Experts Say
By Daria Litvinova

Media reports of a Russian military presence in Syria have stirred high-profile accusations that Russia is reinforcing its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, President Vladimir Putin's long-term ally who has been battling opposition forces in his country since 2011.

The reports, which are sketchy and not substantiated by any solid evidence, were quickly rebuffed by Putin himself, who stated on Friday that it was premature to talk about a military intervention into the conflict in Syria in order to fight the Islamic State terrorist group there, although he admitted that Russia was supplying the Syrian army with military equipment and weapons.

Assad's regime is embroiled in intense fighting against Western-backed opposition groups and, in the meantime, against the Islamic State. The Kremlin has repeatedly called on the U.S.-led coalition of Western and Gulf states that has called for Assad's ouster to consider the Syrian president an ally in the fight against Islamic State, which it refuses to do.  

But while selling equipment under governmental contracts is a common international practice, deploying troops to the area would take the conflict to a different level, which the Russian ruling elite has no intention of doing because it might draw the country into a drawn-out and expensive war, pundits told The Moscow Times.

"After the Soviet operation in Afghanistan, our public opinion has certain prejudices against sending troops to fight for ideals that are foreign to us," said Nikolai Kozhanov, an international relations expert at the Moscow Carnegie Center think tank.

Troops or No Troops?

Several Western media outlets claimed that Russian military were fighting alongside pro-Assad forces in Syria last week, citing photos posted on social networks of what was reported to be a Russian armored vehicle and Russian airplanes.

The media also attributed their conclusions to a YouTube video containing footage from an unidentified Syrian TV channel in which a soldier can be heard shouting something that resembles two Russian words. In addition, an unidentified activist from a rebel group was cited as telling British newspaper The Times of London that "the Russians have been there a long time."

On Friday Putin denied the claims.

"To talk about us being ready to do it [carry out a military operation and deploy troops to Syria] is premature. We're supplying enough support by [providing the Syrian army] with military equipment, training troops and arming them," he was cited as saying by state news agency RIA Novosti.

The next day, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to "voice concern" over the possible Russian military build-up in Syria suggested by media reports. The State Department said that an increased Russian military presence could provoke an escalation of the conflict by creating a risky confrontation with the international coalition that is fighting the Islamic State in Syria.

But Lavrov reiterated Putin's statement in conversation with Kerry, the foreign minister's spokeswoman said Monday. He also called on the U.S. to collaborate with the Syrian government in order to fight the Islamic State, calling the Syrian government army "the most effective force."

Not Worth It

Russia's number one interest in Syria is protecting the regime of Assad, whom Putin has supported all along, agreed experts polled by The Moscow Times, and providing state forces with weapons and equipment is aimed at doing just that. The status quo is important, because among other things, Russia operates a naval station in the Syrian city of Tartus, - the country's only military outpost in the Mediterranean - and doesn't want to lose it.

"There's been a shift in the quality of the equipment we are supplying - we have started to sell more and better equipment to the Syrians," Kozhanov from the Carnegie Center told The Moscow Times. "Apparently Russian officialdom is raising the stakes in the game, but it's unlikely they would change the strategy [and deploy troops]," he said.

Right now there's simply no need to: The situation may be difficult, but Assad is still a long way off defeat, Kozhanov said.

Drawing Russia into a long war would be a serious risk for the Kremlin, if it were to deploy troops to Syria, even with a loyal leader at stake, said Alexei Makarkin, deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow-based think tank.

"We could recall Afghanistan, when the U.S.S.R. entered it in order to replace one ruler with another and then leave. It took them more than nine years [to leave]," he told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

Right now the goal is to protect Assad with limited involvement, "and to ensure there are prospects for Assad after the [civil] war ends," Makarkin said.

Mystery Explained?

Since Russia is selling equipment to the Syrians, there are certainly some military personnel present who are responsible for maintaining the equipment and teaching local troops how to use it, Kozhanov said.

The photo circulating in the media that purportedly shows Russian military personnel in Syria was taken from the VKontakte social media account of Ivan Strebkov, who Internet users speculated could be a member of the Russian military. The military men in the photo could be those assigned to work with the equipment, said Yevgeny Buzhinsky, a military expert at the Moscow-based PIR Center think tank.

"Or maybe one of our ships was entering the Tartus port, and the sailors were disembarking onto land," he told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

On the photo, four uniformed and armed men are pictured with a military vessel seen behind them. A red star is painted on the vessel, and the photo location is tagged as Tartus, Syria. The photo was posted on Sunday.

Buzhinsky also believes there might be military advisors and experts present in Syria - but that is not the same as having troops there, he said: They help with the equipment Russia sells to Syria, which is completely legitimate.

"Getting involved in a military conflict by sending troops is extremely shortsighted, especially now," the military expert added.
 
 #18
The Independent (UK)
September 9, 2015
Only a US-Russian agreement can spur a settlement in Syria
Russia is Assad's main arms supplier and has so far prevented all-out Western intervention
By Patrick Cockburn
Patrick Cockburn was awarded Foreign Reporter of the Year at the 2015 Press awards and Foreign Commentator of the Year at the 2013 Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards. He's an Irish journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979 for the Financial Times and, presently, The Independent.
    
A couple of years ago, an Iraqi minister was speaking to a senior American general about the war in Syria and why President Bashar al-Assad was still in power when Muammar Gaddafi had been swiftly overthrown and killed by rebels in Libya in 2011. "The big difference between now and then is that Russia is back as a great power," replied the general, recalling that, in Libya, Russia had assented to Nato military intervention to save Benghazi falling to Gaddafi's tanks. Russian compliance opened the door to a determined and successful Nato campaign to give enough support to Libyan rebels to defeat the regime.

In Syria, by way of contrast, Russia has given the Assad government enough military and diplomatic support to avoid defeat. Russia is Syria's main arms supplier and has prevented all-out Western intervention along the same lines as Libya. Vladimir Putin's Russia is nowhere near as strong as the Soviet Union, but the US and Britain have also lost strength in the Middle East over the past decade because of the failure to achieve their ends in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over the past year, the US has compounded this sense of weakness by failing to stem the advance of Isis despite a year of air strikes against its fighters.

It is important to take on board this failure of current policies to stop Isis before assessing what should now be done by the US, UK, Russia and their allies. Wishful thinking has so far predominated: President Barack Obama responded to news of the first Isis successes last year by comparing the extremist group to a junior basketball team playing out of its league. Soon afterwards Isis captured most of northern and western Iraq.

In May this year, at the very moment the US military was boasting that its air strikes had stopped Isis expanding, the jihadi militants captured Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria. Their advance is still going, Isis fighters capturing the Christian town of al-Qaryatayn last month, bringing them within 22 miles of the crucial north-south highway, the loss of which would be a crippling blow to Assad. On Monday, Isis fighters captured the regime's last major oilfield at Jazal.

In other words, there are two international crises stemming from the catastrophic civil war in Syria: one is the exodus of Syrian refugees arriving in Europe; the other is the expansion of this so-called Islamic State (Isis), which already controls half of Syria and will soon control more.

There was a flurry of diplomatic activity in August, but overall there is an astonishing lack of action by the main powers to bring the conflict to an end, though it becomes ever more essential to do so. The strongest parties within Syria are not going to negotiate a peace because the armed opposition is dominated by Isis, Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, al-Qaeda-type movements that plan to kill their enemies, not talk to them. For his part, Assad shows no real willingness to share power with anyone - though power shared institutionally or geographically is the only way this civil war can be ended.

There is something hypocritical about US criticism over the weekend of possible increased Russian military aid to Syria, though the Russians deny this is happening, because nobody would be more horrified than Washington if the Syrian army collapses and Isis and al-Qaeda become the dominant force in Syria. The US request to Greece to deny Russia permission for overflights by planes, likely to be carrying weapons to fight Isis, is a depressing sign that Obama has yet to come up with a sensible policy in Syria.

Western leaders have a curiously ambivalent attitude towards Russia in which it is, at one moment, a diplomatic mouse that can be safely ignored and, at another, a reborn Soviet Union whose imperial ambitions must be restrained. In handling the Syrian crisis, Russia is bound to be a leading player in stopping Isis because it supplies the weapons to do so and, similarly, in negotiating a peace because Assad must keep in step with Russia if he is to survive. Moscow does not have the strength to bid for a hegemonic role in Syria or the Middle East, so this is not a moment for knee-jerk Cold War reactions.

Without Russia joining with the US to press their allies inside and outside Syria towards a settlement, the war will go on and the only winner will be Isis and the al-Qaeda clones.
 
 #19
www.rt.com
September 9, 2015
Make bombs, not refugees
By Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of 'Globalistan' (Nimble Books, 2007), 'Red Zone Blues' (Nimble Books, 2007), 'Obama does Globalistan' (Nimble Books, 2009) and a contributing editor for a number of other books, including the upcoming 'Crossroads of Leadership: Globalization and the New American Century in the Obama Presidency' (Routledge). When not on the road, he alternates between Sao Paulo, New York, London, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Well, the Russians are always coming. The Russians never stopped coming since those heady Cold War days. The Russians are "invading" Ukraine. Every day. For over a year now. Now the Russians are "invading" Syria.

That's just a prelude. Soon the Russians will be invading the whole Middle East, the whole of Eastern and Western Europe, the whole Arctic. And then, one day, surreptitiously, they will be back in Cuba, ready to invade Florida and then the whole homeland.

History now repeats itself under the eternal recurrence of farce. About the best illustration of the propaganda modus operandi underlying the current exceptionalist hysteria over Russia's alleged "military incursion" in Syria was penned way back in 2011 on Counterpunch by the late, great Alex Cockburn. Enjoy:

"Suppose the CIA leaks a national security review concluding that the moon is actually made of cheese, and the Chinese are planning to send up a pair of gigantic bio-engineered rats to breed in numbers sufficient to eat the cheese and thus sabotage US plans for Missile Defense radar deployment on the moon's dark side.

The headlines will initially proclaim, "Doubts on Chinese Rat Threat Widespread. Many scoff." The lead paragraph in news stories in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal will quote the scoffers, but then 'balance' will mandate respectful quotation from 'intelligence sources', faculty professors, think tank 'experts' and the like, all eager to dance to the government's tune: Many say rat scenario 'plausible', etc.

Lo and behold, by the end of a couple of days of such news stories, the Chinese rat plot is firmly ensconced as a credible proposition. News reports then turn to respectful discussion of the US government's options in confronting and routing the Chinese rat threat: Vice President says 'all options are on the table,' etc."

There you go. China - as well as Russia - are of course major threats, according to the Pentagon's military doctrine; as bad if not worse than ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. So Russia must have a rat threat of its own. Which brings us to the "The Russians are Coming" Syria plot, which has submerged think tanks such as the CIA front Stratfor in profoundly thoughtful speculation, everything of course based on prime, second-hand, ideologically-corrupted, lousy - and fake - intel.

That power-sharing dilemma

Virtually all key aspects of the nonsense of a Russian military intervention in Syria have been thoroughly debunked by The Saker in this piece.

Moscow simply won't involve itself in a new Afghanistan. Besides, 66 percent of Russians are even against a military intervention in nearby Donbass; oh yes, that "invasion" NATO and Western corporate media alarmingly announce with utmost certainty virtually every week.

The problem for what we may describe as the NATO-GCC Warmonger Party is that Moscow is actually trying to coordinate a real, anti-regime change, peace plan that simultaneously tackles the two key problems of the Syrian tragedy: power-sharing in Damascus and the ascension of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

As President Putin confirmed on the record, Bashar al-Assad has already agreed to new elections and power-sharing with the non-Salafi-jihadi opposition. This was already discussed in detail with Washington, Ankara, Riyadh and Cairo. Even a paranoid Riyadh - which, by the way, continues to conduct the illegal bombing and now invasion of Yemen - had been at least open to discussion.

The first step of the plan would be to form a real coalition to fight the fake "Caliphate" - including Russia, Iran, the Syrian government in Damascus, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as Washington.  

There's the rub. The Obama administration's plan A remains regime change. A plan B with co-Russian leadership and with Assad on board remains anathema. After all Obama himself has never abandoned his "Assad must go" mantra.    

Watch the M5

The M5 highway is the absolutely strategic artery connecting Damascus with the north and west of Syria. Those were the days - during Hafez Assad and then Bashar, up to 2011 - when everyone could be back and forth on the M5 like it was a safe autobahn.

A month ago, though, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh captured the strategic, mostly Christian town of al-Qaryatain, northeast of Damascus. The overstretched Syrian Arab Army, so far, has been hopeless in trying to recapture it.

This is particularly worrying because the fake "Caliphate" is now a mere 30km away from the M5 highway. OK, the highway had been under threat in the past, on and off, by a few snipers holed up in the wasteland of north Damascus. But if ISIS/ISIL/Daesh ever manages to cut it in half, then this would signify nightmare territory for Damascus.

The chances arguably are minimal, because a possible fall of the M5 would be prevented in the first place by a hardcore line of defense - comprised of Hezbollah and Iran military advisers and Special Forces. These would take care of the trouble - without involvement of Russian military experts/advisers which the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed are indeed in Syria.

They'd have to be; after all they are implementing existing military contracts between Moscow and Damascus, and must teach Syrians how to operate Russian hardware.

So Damascus, even in a critical situation, does not need Russian boots on the ground. What they may rely on is sound advice by GRU and SVR special adviser teams. "The Russians are coming" meme parroted by lousy Western/Israeli intel may in fact refer to these teams coupled with some Russian marines deployed to beef up security at Tartus and the airbase close to Latakia.

R2P is back

Meanwhile, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh continues to annex territory like clockwork. It's one of the wonders of the geopolitical heavens that Pentagon/NATO drones can pinpoint and surgically obliterate the odd fake "Caliphate" operative while un-surgically ignoring those gleaming, stealth white Toyota convoys parading havoc across 'Syraq' concealed by desert storms.  

ISIS/ISIL/Daesh can now operate over a huge territory. And every territory lost by Damascus' forces is now instantly occupied not only by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh but also by Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a Al-Qaeda in Syria, or Ahrar al-Sham. All of them hardcore Salafi-jihadis. Not a single US-trained/weaponized "moderate rebel" in sight.  

What this implies, politically, is zero possibility of a power-sharing agreement in Damascus. It's either total victory against the fake "Caliphate", all across 'Syraq' - or death. The precedents are grim. When the Syrian Arab Army was winning against the Caliphate goons, they retreated into Iraqi territory.

This also implies that the current US-led-from-behind bombing campaign is a worthless videogame - with futility reaching Walhalla dimensions with Britain and France now merrily joining the bombing. The only realistic way this beheading-demented motley crew of Salafi-jihadi takfiris may be soundly defeated, on the ground, is by an alliance of Syrian, Hezbollah, Iran and Iraq forces coordinating with precision bombing guided by first-hand intel gathered in the theatre of operations.

It's not going to happen. Because the White House, the Pentagon, the House of Saud and Sultan Erdogan - beyond any uplifting rhetoric - simply don't want it. For them, it's the regime change way, or the highway (as in allowing the fake "Caliphate" to take the M5 highway.)        

The bottom line: "The Russians Are Coming" Syria intervention plot is nonsense. It would be simply pointless militarily, apart from politically unsustainable in Moscow. Advising Damascus, yes - that will go on.

Meanwhile, the number of "regime change refugees", as analyst Vijay Prashad coined them, will keep on swelling. Vast swathes of European-wide public opinion - which has just 'discovered' there's a real, nasty civil war raging in Syria - are already demanding that "something" should be done. As in even more bombing of Syria (thus the French and the British "joining" the action.)

What may be on the cards though is something even more sinister: Libya remixed. Remember the responsibility to protect the would-be victims of a would-be Gaddafi-conducted, massacre of civilians? In this post-Orwellian world, a new R2P war is slouching towards Damascus to be born masking, once again, an obsession with regime change.

That's what Russia is trying to prevent. For the NATO-GCC Warmonger Party, Make Love, not War will never protect regime change refugees. Their code is crystal clear: Make Bombs, Not Refugees.
 
 #20
Fort Russ/Reseau International
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
September 9, 2015
Refugees out of Ukraine: Migrants that they don't want to see
But Russia welcomes refugees. Without cameras, without staging, because it must respect the real pain of those fleeing, fleeing the bombs dropped by the army of their own country.
Reseau International [http://reseauinternational.net/les-refugies-ukrainiens-ces-migrants-que-lon-ne-veut-pas-voir/]
Translated from French by Tom Winter
[Photos and charts here http://fortruss.blogspot.com/2015/09/refugees-out-of-ukraine-migrants-that.html]

Usually when a boat is sinking, when a disaster occurs, or whenever we are in the face of serious danger, it's "women and children first!" This is normal human behavior, found even among animals, to the point that one might describe it as organic. But what do we see in the current migration? It's not even a "Every man for himself!" [Sauve qui peut!] it is "young men first!" This does not exist anywhere in nature!

Real refugees fleeing war are there before our eyes. These are the more than two million Ukrainians the Russians are assisting and the millions of Syrians put under the protection of the Syrian government in secure areas by the army. And when the Russians (them again!) try to send humanitarian cargo to them, Washington seeks to block it by ordering their lackeys to close their airspace.

While Europe is drowning in the steady stream of refugees from the countries she herself has bombarded, Russia assumes virtually by herself the humanitarian consequences of a conflict that the Americano-centric EU policy has caused. In June of this year, 2,503,680 Ukrainians were living in Russia. In the general indifference of European self-righteousness.

Certainly, you will not see media hyping of the migration in Russia. An issue of modesty. Journalists in their waves are not embedded with these migrants throughout their journey, to end on an ecstatic note: the welcome applause by a jubilant population. Germany sets the "deplorable" tone at the Budapest Station. Good against Evil. The loop is closed, the story ends well, the good guys win, the bad guys are dismissed to the dustbin. Good Hollywood script. Even worthy of Pravda in its finest hours, but it is true that the difference has gotten a bit thin. Let's review these heartwarming images, wherein these people seem so sincere! Will they in fact come come every night and every day to greet the other trains? Or is it enough now that we've got the footage? We'll have to hold three eight heartily.

And the message is clear: It is inevitable that the influx of migrants will change Germany, and the change will be positive. Merkel said that in insisting that the process should not just matter to Germany.

Translation: Europe, not the EU, but Europe, its culture, traditions, habits - good and bad - all that we have built and that our parents have built - this civilization must belong to history. Europe must die, long live the European Union.

And some wonder why Russia does not accommodate these migrants in its territory. It would be a nice gesture, without even getting back to the statements of Fox News, which accuses Russia of helping Assad provoke the flood of refugees into Europe.

But Russia welcomes refugees. Without cameras, without staging, because it must respect the real pain of those fleeing, fleeing the bombs dropped by the army of their country. On them. Voluntarily. For they live in caves like animals. So they die, or they leave. Just so they are no more.

Russia by itself is shouldering the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis caused by the US-dependent policy of the European Union, this trans-Atlantic-funded Maidan that caused the revolt of the people of Donbass and the civil war launched by the new power to silence them.

Before the conflict, there were about 4 million people living in the Donbass. By May 2015, best available figures: 6400 dead, 15,900 injured and 1.45 million displaced..
From June to September 2014, that is to say from the beginning of the "anti-terrorist" operation directed at civilians who were defending their land, half a million people fled to Russia. Now more than a million people have left the conflict zone, of which 600,000 have decided to settle in Russia. Currently 500-600 people arrive in Russia every day.

Few request official "refugee" status: 6000 applications and 292 granted. A large part, 355,000 people, have requested temporary refugee status. 209 000 have requested a temporary residence permit. 114 000 have decided to enter the repatriation program as expatriates -- and more easily obtain Russian citizenship. 43,600 applied for a permanent residence permit. And, according to data from the Federal Migration Service, 95,800 have applied for Russian citizenship. So, for 2014, according to the High Commissioner for Refugees UN, Russia is the first country affected by a flood of migration. These figures, of course, relate only to persons lawfully on Russian soil. No accounting is taken here of illegal immigration.

Diagram of the number of Ukrainians in Russia from January 2014 to June 2015 (source: Federal Migration Service):

Thus, if Russia has welcomed more than one million Ukrainians who fled areas of conflict, she has in June 2015, 2,503,680 Ukrainians on her soil. But this is not spoken in the countries of the European Union. For there is no war in Ukraine, there is a conflict-between-Kiev-and-those-terrorist-backed-by-Russia.

And no matter what regions host Ukrainian refugees, they always have the same profile.

Surprising, right? So let us ask questions about this mass migration that is happening in the European countries. This immigration is staged like a bad movie. This immigration is largely composed of young men in their prime. Who choose to flee to earn money instead of staying to defend their country.

These modern heroes, in step with the times: the cult of flight and not of one who defends his land. That is why the Ukrainian refugees are not goods, and invisible to the Western media. Too many women, since the men stay, and fight, or have died.
 
 
#21
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
September 6, 2015
FOLLOWING THE IMF BILLIONS IN AND OUT OF UKRAINE
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Charts, footnotes, links and photos here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=14037]

In Kiev on Sunday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko complained that he isn't getting cash from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) fast enough. Christine Lagarde, the IMF's managing director, told him to stick to the Fund conditions, but she also promised to go soft on whether the IMF will stop the money if Ukraine decides not to repay the $3 billion bond owed for repayment to Russia in December.

"So far, we have received only 38 percent of the total funds earmarked [for Ukraine] under the Fund's program," Poroshenko claimed [1] at a press conference following the round of meetings with the IMF delegation. "We have agreed on a strict schedule," he added, referring to the first two payments the IMF has transferred to Kiev, totalling $6.7 billion so far, in what is being called the Extended Fund Facility (EFF); this replaced last year's aborted Stand-By Agreement (SBA). The Ukrainian president implied he wants to go faster than the IMF schedule, published in August, allows.

The Fund schedule provides for the next payment to Kiev of $1.7 billion on September 15, after the IMF staff complete their assessment of the Ukrainian government's compliance with the "performance criteria" as of end-June.

In fact, according to Poroshenko, the timing has slipped; there will be no Fund payment this month; and he doesn't like it. "The IMF mission is due to arrive in September and will work here until October 2, and we have agreed that after its work is done it may present its offers at a meeting of the IMF board of directors as early as in October." That is an admission that there won't be fresh cash this month, and maybe not until October, or November.

The assembled reporters from the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg failed to detect the slippage, so noone asked why.

Lagarde, accompanied by her spokesman Gerry Rice, released a statement [3] congratulating the officials she had met - Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Governor Valeria Gontareva, Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, and Economic Development Minister Aivaras Abromavičius. Lagarde paid "a tribute to the courageous work of the Ukrainian authorities. Policies are on the right track and have started to yield results. The fiscal position is getting stronger, the foreign exchange market has stabilized, and the banking sector is being repaired so that banks are sounder and can start to provide credit again. The recent debt restructuring agreement is a vital complement to economic reforms, and an essential step toward creating fiscal space, external sustainability, and improved confidence."

Lagarde added: "an independent and capable anti-corruption agency with broad powers has been launched."

At the press conference noone asked what that line meant for the Ukrainian court proceedings now under way in which at least $1.8 billion in IMF "emergency liquidity assistance" (ELA) to the National Bank of Ukraine has disappeared through Privatbank and related-party accounts offshore. Ukrainian investigators and reporters claim local prosecutors and the anti-corruption agency refuse to open a formal case against the bank or its control shareholder, Igor Kolomoisky. For that story, read this [4].

Poroshenko and Lagarde were asked what they mean by the "recent debt restructuring agreement". In that deal, announced [5] on August 27 between Jaresko and commercial holders of Ukraine government bonds, the creditors insisted on, and got, significantly more for their paper than the IMF had advised Kiev to concede. The terms provide a 20% "haircut" or reduction for Ukrainian government repayment of $8.9 billion in commercially held sovereign bonds. That's just $1.8 billion - far less than the western media have been reporting from the script issued by the Ukrainian Finance Ministry.

The face value of the commercial bonds comes to less than half the $19.3 billion aggregate which the IMF calculates Ukraine must repay in sovereign obligations. The short-term "haircut", which has been announced, and the extension of time to repay have been offset in the longer term by an increase in the coupon interest rate, plus a bonus (that's to say, a wager) tied to a Ukrainian economic growth target.

The IMF has been calculating that about $15 billion in debt repayment cuts are required to meet the capacity to repay conditions of the EFF How the small commercial bond deal will impact on the IMF calculations of Kiev's capacity to repay the bigger number has not been explained in the IMF staff documents released so far.

Russian Finance Ministry statements have consistently repeated the position that repayment of the $3 billion bond issued to the Ukrainian government for two years from December 2013 is an official, or government-to-government obligation, not a commercial one; and it is not negotiable with the private, mostly American bondholders - Franklin Templeton, TCW and T. Rowe Price. For more, read this [6]. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov (below, left) responded to the August 27 announcement of the commercial bondholder agreement by saying [7]: "We won't agree to a restructuring. We will insist the funds are returned in full in December."

Russian tactics for dealing with the IMF loans to Ukraine, as they have been discussed at the inter-government level on the IMF board, is that there will be no Russian objection to the EFF, nor even to the conversion of IMF loan money to spending on the war in eastern Ukraine. In return, the extra flow of Fund cash must also be spent, among other things, on repaying the Russian bond in December, as well as Ukrainian debts for gas deliveries by Gazprom.

"If this is the Russian government calculation, it's foolhardy", comments an international banker who was directly involved in restructuring talks following the Argentine and other government defaults. "What must happen before the Kremlin puts the Finance Ministry on a war-footing? It's folly not to realize that the old rules of international debt workout between governments will not be applied to Russia."

On Sunday Poroshenko told the IMF he means not to repay the $3 billion owed on the Russian bond. That is a commercial debt, not a government debt, he is claiming [8]."Under no circumstances Ukraine will provide any benefits to the Russian loan. The Russian side had all the facilities needed to join the negotiations, we were open to express our positions. The talks [on debt restructuring with the creditors' committee] have been held, there is no and will be no default. Russia should decide before the end of the year...whether it goes with commercial creditors or it holds a separate position...when it decides, Ukraine will also define its position."

The IMF has said its lending rules and the EFF loan conditions for Ukraine allow the Fund to keep supplying Kiev with cash even if the commercial bond reduction falls far short of the "performance criteria". The rules don't allow IMF lending to continue if Ukraine defaults on a government obligation. That's the rub for the Russian bond.

Lagarde ought to have corrected Poroshenko when he made the Russian obligation look like a commercial one. Instead, she ducked, saying [9] the decision is for the country directors and control shareholders of the Fund to make on how to designate the Russian bond, and whether the rulebook can be rewritten. "It is up to the [IMF] board to determine the characterisation of one bond or the other and I think it will be for the board to decide." Personally, she implied, she is going along with Poroshenko. "It is really up to all creditors to take advantage of [this] debt restructuring ... We believe it is a very good arrangement ... We doubt very much that anything better could have been obtained." By all creditors, Lagarde meant Russia - not the IMF, the World Bank, the US, or the European Union.

As for Poroshenko's request to hurry up with the cash, Lagarde was more cautious [10]: "What's critically important is to restore confidence...and to deliver on the promises that have been made, to stay within the parameters of what has been agreed."

Lagarde's remark on junking the Russian bond was impromptu - it wasn't in the draft press release Jerome Vacher was carrying in a briefcase, as he trailed behind the managing director and the president. Vacher is the IMF's resident representative in Kiev.

According to Lagarde's official statement to the press, "the recent debt restructuring agreement is...an essential step toward creating fiscal space, external sustainability, and improved confidence."

Vacher was out of sight when Lagarde met Poroshenko. Later, he and spokesman Rice were seated on Lagarde's left when Poroshenko was joined by other Ukrainian officials.

Covering up for political and financial favouritism for individual Ukrainian oligarchs and their banks has been charged against Vacher and Rice. They refuse to respond to the evidence. For more on their violations of the IMF Code of Conduct for Staff, click here [4]. Following publication of this report, the IMF's chief of media relations, Simonetta Nardin, removed photographs of her political partisanship from the internet.

A response has followed from the US Department of Justice (DOJ), after a spokesman for the Department confirmed an investigation of the IMF money trail through the Ukraine banking system and offshore. Anna Iemelianova, a Foreign Service National Legal Specialist, according to DOJ records, said she had been misidentified in photographs of her and Mary Butler attending official meetings in Ukraine. She requested a correction. According to an intramural awards announcement from DOJ's Criminal Division last December, Iemelianova has received a Certificate of Appreciation [13] for the significant contributions she has made in her work on Ukraine.
 
 #22
Wall Street Journal
September 10, 2015
The Rewards of the Obama Doctrine
Offering a helping hand to America's enemies in Iran, Russia and Cuba will ruin lives and many more will die.
By GARRY KASPAROV
Mr. Kasparov, chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, is the author of "Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped," out next month from PublicAffairs.

A quick glance at the latest headlines suggests a jarring disconnect from the stream of foreign-policy successes touted by the Obama White House and its allies. President Obama has been hailed by many as a peacemaker for eschewing the use of military force and for signing accords with several of America's worst enemies. The idea that things will work out better if the U.S. declines to act in the world also obeys Mr. Obama's keen political instincts. A perpetual campaigner in office, he realizes that it is much harder to criticize an act not taken.

But what is good for Mr. Obama's media coverage is not necessarily good for America or the world. From the unceasing violence in eastern Ukraine to the thousands of Syrian refugees streaming into Europe, it is clear that inaction can also have terrible consequences. The nuclear agreement with Iran is also likely to have disastrous and far-reaching effects. But in every case of Mr. Obama's timidity and procrastination, the response to criticism amounts to this: It could have been worse.

Looking at the wreckage of the Middle East, including the flourishing of Islamic State, it takes great imagination to see how things would be worse today if the U.S. had acted on Mr. Obama's "red line" threat in 2013 and moved against Syria's Bashar Assad after he defied the U.S. president and used chemical weapons.

Or farther east, one would need to have believed Moscow's overheated nuclear threats to think that Ukraine would be worse off now if NATO had moved immediately to secure the Ukrainian border with Russia as soon as Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea in 2014.

Over the past year, especially in the past few months, Mr. Obama's belief that American force in the world should be constrained and reduced has reached its ultimate manifestation in U.S. relations with Iran, Russia and Cuba. Each of these American adversaries has been on the receiving end of the president's helping hand: normalization with Cuba, releasing Iran from sanctions, treating the Putin Ukraine-invasion force as a partner for peace in the futile Minsk cease-fire agreements.

In exchange for giving up precisely nothing, these countries have been rewarded with the international legitimacy and domestic credibility dictatorships crave-along with more-concrete economic benefits.

When dealing with a regime that won't negotiate in good faith, the best approach is to use a position of strength to pry concessions from the other side. But instead the White House keeps offering concessions-while helping its enemies off the mat. That such na�vet� will result in positive behavior from the likes of Ayatollah Khamenei, Vladimir Putin and the Castro brothers should be beyond even Mr. Obama's belief in hope and change.

Dictatorships, especially the one-man variety like Russia's, are unpredictable, but they do operate on logical underlying principles. They often come to power with popular support and a mandate to solve a crisis. Once a firm grip on power is achieved, the junta or supreme leader blames his predecessors for any problems, and he cracks down on rights. With democracy dead and civil society hunted to extinction, the only way left to make a legitimate claim on power is confrontation and conflict. Propaganda is ratcheted up against mythical fifth columnists and the usual scapegoats, like immigrants and minorities.

The next and usually final phase arrives when other tricks have become stale. Domestic enemies are never threatening enough-and eventually there is no one left to persecute, as in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin-so the dictator looks abroad, inevitably finding a "national interest" to defend across a convenient border.

This external-conflict phase is especially dangerous because there are very few examples of aggressor nations moving away from it peacefully. War and revolution are the more frequent ways it burns itself out. The Soviet Union altered its confrontational course after Stalin's death, but it was a unique and gigantic superpower with enough resources for its leadership to believe that it could compete with the Free World instead of declaring war on it.

As it turned out, the Soviets were wrong, something that more-recent autocrats, including Mr. Putin, no doubt understand. They have watched and learned that their people will eventually begin to compare living standards and see the truth if left unmolested by war and strife. This window on the Free World is even larger in the Internet age, so the conflicts and propaganda have to be even more extreme.

Iran has been operating in the confrontational phase for years, with America and Israel as the main targets, in addition to Tehran's regional Sunni rivals. Mr. Putin moved into confrontation mode with the invasion of Ukraine and he cannot afford to back down.

The dictatorship that Nicol�s Maduro inherited from Hugo Ch�vez in Venezuela is approaching the final stage as well, as seen from the country's recent launch of a border and immigrant conflict with Colombia. The emptier the shelves in Venezuelan supermarkets, the more threatening the Colombians must be made to seem. China has relied on tremendous growth to forestall internal unrest for human rights, but if its economy falters substantially, last week's giant military parade in Beijing will be seen as prelude, not posturing. Taiwan, always in China's sights, has good reason to be troubled by the West's feeble responses in Syria and Ukraine.

Power abhors a vacuum, and as the U.S. retreats the space is being filled. After years of the White House leading from behind, Secretary of State John Kerry's timid warning to the Kremlin this week to stay out of Syria will be as effective as Mr. Obama's "red line." Soon Iran-flush with billions of dollars liberated by the nuclear deal-will add even more heft to its support for Mr. Assad.

Dead refugee children are on the shores of Europe, bringing home the Syrian crisis that has been in full bloom for years. There could be no more tragic symbol that it is time to stop being paralyzed by the Obama-era mantra that things could be worse-and to start acting instead to make things better.
 
 #23
Washington Post
September 9, 2015
Editorial
Mr. Putin makes moves in Syria, exploiting America's inaction

IN JULY, President Obama said he had been "encouraged" by a telephone call Russian President Vladi�mir Putin had initiated to discuss Syria. The Russians, Mr. Obama confidently declared, "get a sense that the Assad regime is losing a grip over greater and greater swaths of territory" and "that offers us an opportunity to have a serious conversation with them." Not for the first time, Mr. Obama was supposing that Mr. Putin could be enlisted in a diplomatic settlement to the Syrian civil war along lines Washington and its Arab allies support. Not for the first time, the president appears to have badly misread the Russian ruler.

Far from abandoning its support for the Assad regime, Moscow appears to be doubling down. According to numerous reports, Russia is establishing a base at an airfield near an Assad stronghold on the Mediterranean coast and has filed military overflight requests with neighboring countries. Analysts believe Russia may be preparing to deploy 1,000 or more military personnel to Syria and to carry out air operations in support of Assad forces. Syrian rebels already have reported seeing Russian aircraft over territory they control.

The intelligence is serious enough to have prompted Secretary of State John F. Kerry to call Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday and to release a statement saying that he had warned that Russian actions "could further escalate the conflict...and risk confrontation" with the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State.

In reality, Mr. Putin's strategy in Syria has been consistent. All along he has aimed to block any U.S.-backed move to remove Bashar al-Assad from power and aimed to force the West to embrace the regime as a partner in fighting the Islamic State. On Friday, Mr. Putin said his plan for a political transition in Syria, including parliamentary elections and a coalition government with "healthy" opposition factions, had Mr. Assad's full support, which tells you all you need to know about it.

By preparing to deploy Russian ground and air forces to Syria, Mr. Putin is acknowledging a truth that Mr. Obama has refused to accept: Any political agenda for Syria's future is meaningless unless it is backed by power on the ground. Mr. Assad will depart, as Mr. Obama has been predicting and urging him to do for four years, only if the balance of military force makes an opposition victory inevitable and imminent. If the United States had provided even the modest support to Syrian rebels that Mr. Obama promised but did not deliver - much less the more muscular effort proposed by many of his advisers - Moscow probably would not risk its own troops and aircraft.

As it is, Mr. Putin likely believes that U.S. weakness gives him an opportunity to tilt the military balance back toward the Assad regime. As Mr. Kerry's statement put it, the result would be "greater loss of innocent lives" and increased refu�gee flows. But Moscow, like Damascus, will not be swayed by U.S. rhetoric. If Mr. Obama wishes to see the U.S. vision for Syria prevail over Russia's, it will take more than phone calls.


 
 #24
Reuters
September 9, 2015
Why do Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin cronies look so nervous?
By Andrei Kolesnikov and Andrew S. Weiss
Andrei Kolesnikov is a senior associate and the chairman of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Andrew S. Weiss is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment. The opinions expressed here are their own.

Sept 9 (Reuters) - Russia's three-year electoral cycle has gotten started with a bang.

One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest KGB cronies from his St. Petersburg days and a co-founder of the exclusive Ozero dacha housing cooperative was recently dumped from his cushy post as head of the state railway monopoly. This raised yet more speculation that Putin feels he needs to reshuffle his inner circle. The next day, Putin staged another of his trademark photo ops - piloting a mini-sub off the coast of Crimea. The Kremlin propaganda machine continues in overdrive, celebrating the destruction of banned (and allegedly toxic) foodstuffs smuggled in from the West.

Putin's resort to theatrics clearly indicates he is gearing up to run for re-election in 2018. The annexation of Crimea and surge in Russian patriotism have pushed his approval rating to levels no Western leader can hope to replicate. The only place they can really go is down. Yet despite having no serious domestic political opponents, Putin's path to re-election may prove complicated.

At the top of his agenda is how to manage Russia's elites. The Kremlin has sent a clear message that it needs the elites to help manage the fallout from the current economic crisis - though the threat of public discontent with the regime or significant street protests looks manageable. That helps explain, however, the endless barrage of aggressive anti-Western rhetoric and initiatives, which resonates with a patriotically inclined electorate.

The large Moscow street protests of 2011 and 2012 illustrated the connection between economic growth and demands for greater political participation by the chief beneficiaries of Russia's then-prosperity. Now, as the collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions undermine the economy, the mood inside Russia could hardly be more different. The creative class in big cities like Moscow is depressed and increasingly disengaged from political life. Some have given up and are just leaving the country. The combination of economic crisis, heavy propaganda, patriotic mobilization and hybrid war inside Ukraine have produced conformism, passivity and insensitivity.

Average Russians, who represent Putin's political base, likely believe that they are again living in a besieged medieval fortress. Why should they protest against Putin who, according to the official narrative, is defending them against the West's evil plots to destroy Russia?

It doesn't hurt that Putin is also responsible for the distribution of social benefits. Far better to wait for handouts, money and food from your leaders - and to keep your eyes peeled for foreign agents and fifth columnists inside Russia.

The average Russian has now absorbed most of the impact of Western sanctions. It's a far tougher situation, however, for Russian businesses abruptly cut off from the international financial system. Yet Russian companies can also turn to the Kremlin for handouts and subsidies from the state budget. Unluckily for most of them, the size of those handouts depends largely on their connections to the Putin entourage and the price of one commodity - oil.

The political reality is different. Soaring inflation and painful budget cuts contradict what average Russians see on their television sets. For the moment, though, the luridly jingoistic TV programming is an effective substitute for high quality, moderately priced food.

The Kremlin's political team believes, for the time being at least, that this new social contract - let's call it, "Crimea and patriotism in exchange for freedom" - works. They believe it will continue to pay off through the end of Putin's presidential term in 2018.

Then why do Putin and the ruling elite seem so worried and insecure? They probably sense that they are in a vision trap. During the 2000s and 2010s, the ruling elites became complacent - thanks to high oil prices, steady economic growth and an all-too-easy-to-manipulate domestic political system. While the elites initially cheered Moscow's aggression against Ukraine, they know that the war is costing Russia dearly and that all of the Kremlin's options to resolve the crisis are unpalatable to Putin and his war cabinet.

So today, the elite is basically at a loss when it comes to strategic thinking.

What exactly will Putin's 2018 re-election platform be? Will he drape himself in patriotism, the xenophobia of the Russian Orthodox Church and the mythology of the Stalin era? That may not do the trick.

Adding new territories in the Arctic, as the Kremlin apparently hopes to do with its recent claim to the United Nations, would be a pale imitation of the recent triumph in Crimea.

What else is there? An economic rebound seems improbable in the absence of high energy and commodities prices, new sources of growth or the return of the external factors that benefited Russia's middle class during most of Putin's time in office. Investment has declined, and this is Russia's first post-Soviet crisis in which consumption is contracting even faster than investment.

So, even though his poll numbers remain astronomically high, Putin looks increasingly vulnerable. Western sanctions and the end of his on-again, off-again romance with the West have left him isolated internationally.

The Kremlin's successful campaign to build a besieged fortress has imprisoned its chief architect.

 
 Putin Can't Annex Donbas, Two Russian Analysts Say
Paul Goble

Staunton, September 9 - Vladimir Putin not only doesn't want to annex the Donbas but can't do so, according to Yevgeny Ikhlov; and that means the region will become another edition of Transdniestria, creating ongoing problems for both Russian and Ukraine but opening the possibility Kyiv will be able to follow the Baltic path to the West, according to Dmitry Oreshkin.

Ikhlov points out today that Putin faces a very different situation in the Donbas than he did in Crimea. Crimea was annexed as a whole, but the pro-Moscow forces of the DNR and LNR do not control all the Ukrainian oblasts of which they form a part, thus leaving the Kremlin with no good choices (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=55EEC91811752).

If Moscow simply annexed what the DNR and LNR now control, "for the first time, the Russian border would become undefined for hundreds of kilometers," creating a bureaucratic, political and security nightmare for the Russian state, Ikhlov suggests.

He argues that Moscow would in fact have to do one of two things if it wanted to pursue Putin's original policy of "reuniting the Russian world with Holy Rus." Either it would "have to consider both oblasts entirely the subjects of the Old Russian Fedration which would mean the official lodging of territorial demands against Ukraine."

Or, he continues, it would have to "take a decision about the voluntary self-demolition of each of these 'peoples' republics' and about giving February 12, 2015 ceasefire line the status of a state border, which would mean not only Russia's withdrawal from the Minsk accords but also the complete destruction of the mythology about 'supporters of federalization'" in Ukraine.

Doing either would undercut Russian policy in Ukraine, exacerbate relations between Moscow and the West which would beyond any doubt impose even more serious sanctions, and create problems at home not only among Russian nationalists who would feel betrayed but also among those who have been fighting in the Donbas and would not return home.

Meanwhile, Oreshkin points out that because Putin cannot either force Kyiv to take the territories of the DNR and the LNR back into Ukraine in a way allowing Moscow to have an effective veto over Kyiv or annex them, his only alternative is "a second Transdniestria" (nv.ua/opinion/oreshkin/proschet-boevikov-i-hudshij-koshmar-putina-67783.html).

"Russia does not have real political, diplomatic or economic resources to annex these territories," the Russian analyst continues.   "The na�ve peasants in the Donbas supposed that first in Russia everything is good and it will be glad to take them in and second that Vladimir Putin is a real guy and will not surrender them."

"But it has turned out," Oreshkin says, that "in Russia everything is bad and there is no money, and that Vladimir Putin is indifferent to the fate of the Donbas peasants: he needs an instrument to influence Kyiv, and the ideal instrument [or at least the best available to him] is a constantly smoldering conflict like those in the style of the Karabakh or Transdniestria."

Putin in no case "will take the Donbas into the Russian Federation." He can't afford it at home or in terms of his policies toward Ukraine. Thus, the Kremlin leader will continue to try to force Kyiv to take responsibility for them and to get Western governments to support him in that in the name of territorial integrity.

That is because, Oreshkin argues, "the worst nightmare of Russia is a Ukraine" will be able to form a normal economy and a democratic state as the three Baltic countries and thus become part of the West.

Of course, he says, "it is possible to continue to tell lies about the Baltic countries being a fascist nest; but the people living there, including the [ethnic] Russians understand very well that they live better than their counterparts in Moscow. The average monthly pay in the Baltic countries is approximately 1,000 euros." In Russia, it is just over a third of that.

And that situation obtains, Oreshkin continues, despite the fact that "in Russia, there is gas, oil, gold, timber, diamonds and other things, and in the Baltic countries, there are not any of these things."

"If something similar occurs in Ukraine, that would be a catastrophe for the Kremlin because while one can still tell lies about the Baltics and their oppression of [ethnic] Russians, it is far more difficult to lie about Ukraine - there are too many links and it is too close a country." And that is yet another reason Moscow is trapped and cannot annex the Donbas.
 
 #26
Eurasian Geopolitics
http://eurasiangeopolitics.com
September 6, 2015
A response to Tim Ash's "The big call on Ukraine" in the Kyiv Post
By Edward W. Walker    
Edward W. Walker is Associate Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science and Executive Director of the Berkeley Program in Eurasian and East European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Standard Bank's Timothy Ash has an excellent "on the one hand, on the other hand" analysis of Ukraine's political and economic prospects in The Kyiv Post. He begins by laying out reasons why investors (particularly those considering buying Ukrainian sovereign debt) might have reason to be optimistic about Ukraine's future, and then lists equally compelling reasons why they should be wary and put their money elsewhere. [http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/timothy-ash-the-big-call-on-ukraine-397252.html]

Referring to Ukraine's recent debt restructuring deal, he summarizes his take as follows: "Like warrants, Ukraine and the bonds are in my view a binary call at this stage. You can quite easily construct both very positive and very negative scenarios..." So Ukraine's future could be very bright, or it could be dismal.

He continues: "With peace in the east, and if the current pace of economic reform continues - Ukraine can be the next Poland over the next decade - I really believe this line."

With respect to reform, he argues that Kyiv is making considerable progress (with the partial exception of measures to limit corruption). This, too, is the view of Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, who today told Ukraine's President Poroshenko at a Kyiv press conference in Kyiv that she is "extremely encouraged by the progress that has been achieved in the past few months... To have achieved what you have achieved in such a short period of time is just nothing but astonishing."

So my take on Ash's analysis - and here I agree with him - is that he thinks on balance Ukraine's economic prospects, and somewhat less clearly its political prospects, are good if, but only if, it can contain the fighting in the east, or better yet if it can arrange a lasting ceasefire.

That, however, is where Ash's pessimism enters, and where I begin to disagree with him. His summary of the pessimistic take on Ukraine begins as follows:

    "Russia is never going to leave Ukraine alone. According to this view (which I share), tearing Ukraine out of its current Western orbit and back within Russian geopolitical/strategic control is the number one policy priority for President Putin. Ukraine is part of the Russian psyche, its history, tradition, culture, economy, language (dating back over 1027 years to the founding of "Rus", in Kiev) - and Putin, and Russia/Russians simply cannot imagine Ukraine taking a quite different direction/path. According to this view, Putin simply will not and, arguably, cannot afford to let Ukraine go on a separate course to Russia."

He then cites two arguments about why "further Russian intervention is very likely, almost inevitable." First, a Ukraine that started to look like Poland (economically robust, generally liberal, democratic) would be a threat to Putin's illiberal authoritarian order. And second, a Ukraine that looked like Poland would be a military threat to Russia. He then suggests that a Russian assault is likely to happen sooner rather than later because the next U.S. president is going to be considerably more hawkish than Obama.

My take is that while these are all factors in the Kremlin's calculations, a major offensive in the east or a Russian assault on Ukrainian military assets is nonetheless quite unlikely. As Ash argues in the optimistic part of his analysis, the costs of such a move would be very high - more military assistance for Kyiv, more sanctions, and more NATO forces moving closer to Russia's borders. Ash implies, however, that the Kremlin might decide to accept those costs because keeping Ukraine within its orbit is what matters most, and that can only be accomplished by decisively precluding economic and political stabilization in Kyiv through a large-scale invasion.

I have a rather different take, however, on what is driving Russia's Ukraine policy. I don't think, as Ash puts it, that "tearing Ukraine out of its current Western orbit and back within Russian geopolitical/strategic control is the number one policy priority for President Putin." In fact, I don't believe that Kremlin policy is the result of Putin's deep affinity for ancient Rus' or reflects an effort at "gathering of the Russian lands." While Russia's state media promotes this line, and many Russians doubtless believe it, I don't think Putin himself considers Ukraine an essential part of eternal Russia which has no right to independent statehood (despite what he has sometimes said). As with his embrace of Russian Orthodoxy, I believe his embrace of the "Kievan Rus" trope and related discourse is instrumental - it dresses up what he wants to do for other reasons.

If that were not the case, I would agree that the risk of a major offensive in Ukraine would be a good deal higher than I think it is. But my guess is that Putin is much more Soviet multi-nationalist and a great power statist than he is a Russian ethno-nationalist and imperial traditionalist.

I also doubt that he or his advisors worry much about Ukraine on its own becoming a significant security threat at some point down the line. That would only be the case if Ukraine were to join NATO, or if cooperation between NATO and Kyiv became so extensive that the Kremlin felt NATO could use Ukraine as a launching point for an assault on Russia. In any case, I suspect that the Kremlin realizes that Ukraine is not going to be in a position to join NATO as long as Russia controls Crimea and prevents Kyiv from restoring sovereignty over all of the Donbas and securing its side of the border with Russia.

Finally, I agree that a Polish-type outcome for Ukraine would threaten regime stability in Moscow in the long run. But that is not going to happen soon, if at all. Moreover, Moscow has the option of trying to keep the pressure on Kyiv by keeping the pot boiling in the east and other forms of relatively low cost subversive efforts. Finally, the Kremlin no doubt is aware that a major offensive in Ukraine would itself pose great risks to regime stability in Moscow, even if it went well (which I very much doubt).

In any case, my take is that the Kremlin's Ukraine policy is driven primarily by what it sees as Western encroachment on its rightful sphere of influence, by outrage over NATO expansion, and by genuine security concerns about the reinforcement of NATO's eastern defenses and growing military cooperation with "partner" countries like Sweden, Finland, Georgia, and indeed Ukraine. If so, the Kremlin is going to respond where its sees the cost-benefits relationship as most advantageous, and that I think is no longer in Ukraine.

In effect, I imagine Kremlin decision-makers looking at a map that tracks the growing hard power assets of NATO and NATO partners near its borders. What the Kremlin sees is not only U.S. forces in Narva, some several hundred meters from the Russian border, but also Poland's increasingly capable military, increased military spending in the Baltic republics, increased military spending and greater cooperation with NATO in Sweden and Finland, and two neighbors that it has warred with, Ukraine and Georgia. Countering those moves, or heading them off, is in my view the "number one policy priority for President Putin," not bringing Ukraine back into the fold, which in any case is no longer possible (if it ever was).

The question, then, is what will Russia do, if anything, to try to mitigate what it perceives to be a dire and growing hard power threat from NATO and its partners.

As I've argued in previous posts, I believe that Russia is already hard-pressed, especially but not only economically, to sustain its current level of operations in Ukraine. A major offensive in Ukraine would make that problem worse, indeed much worse if you consider the enormous long-term cost of trying to occupy and pacify more territory. It would also guarantee more sanctions, including the possibility of removing Russia from the SWIFT international clearance system. But most importantly, it would make Russia's NATO problem worse.

So I don't think it will happen.

What can Russia do? I continue think that it will likely to ratchet up its conventional arms brinkmanship (e.g., more large-scale snap exercises, take measures that increase the risk of some kind of accidental confrontation in, say, the Gulf of Finland, etc.), and intensify its nuclear saber rattling.

I should be clear that I don't think it will engage in nuclear brinkmanship. The intent of saber rattling is to threaten, not to raise the risks of an accidental nuclear exchange. Russian military aviation entering Swedish or Estonian airspace is not the same as risking nuclear war. What Moscow can do is deploy nuclear weapons that target Western Europe, which is no more likely to lead to an accident than targeting the United States with its existing strategic arsenal. It would, however, likely cause a considerable political storm in an already highly stressed Europe.

I likewise think that at this point there is very little risk Russia will send troops in the Baltic republics, Finland, or Sweden (although Georgia somewhat at risk in this regard, and provocative "island grabs" in remote areas are also possible.)

Instead, if it decides to emphasize intimidation, it will try to increase the perceived risk of conflict while avoiding anything that actually crosses the kinetic threshold. That, however, will be a delicate and dangerous balancing act.

It is also possible, however, that the Kremlin will decide to adopt a "Mr. Nice Guy" strategy ("nice" in the relative sense). That would mean taking steps to ensure that a ceasefire takes effect in the Donbas. It might also mean allowing a symbolic presence of Ukrainian border guards on the DPR/LPR border, although I think there is almost no chance that Moscow will allow Kyiv to actually control the border. Moscow might also organize "elections" in the breakaway regions, albeit ones that don't comply with Ukrainian law (what's the likelihood that Ukraine's central election officials will be allowed any say, for example, in compiling voter lists in the DPR/LPR). Moscow would then argue that it had carried out its obligations under Minsk (despite that fact that there will still at least some Russian regulars serving as advisors and technicians with the separatists, and arms and "volunteers" will continue to cross the border).

To make a Mr. Nice Guy strategy work, however, Moscow would have to go further and cut back on conventional forces brinkmanship (fewer provocations, smaller military exercises, no more "snap" exercises, etc.) and nuclear saber rattling. The goal would be to make it easier for anti-system parties to gain strength and take office in Western countries. It would also be to help pro-Russian forces and business interests press for the lifting of economic sanctions. Most importantly, it would be to deepen divisions between hawks and doves in Western Europe, and between the United States some of its key NATO allies, notably Germany and France.

It strikes me that Europe's refugee/migrant crisis makes it rather more likely that the Kremlin will try this kind of a Mr. Nice Guy strategy, at least for some time. The Kremlin is doubtless hoping - and this is not a frivolous hope - that the crisis will improve the prospects for euroskeptic and far right/far left parties across Europe.

If that doesn't work, however, the Kremlin is likely to turn once again to intimidation.

To sum up, I think a big Russia offensive in Ukraine is a good deal less likely than suggested in the Ash article because I don't think Ukraine is the Kremlin's top priority - NATO is. And Russia's NATO problem can't be solved in Ukraine.

I could be wrong of course - forecasting is about identifying alternatives and assessing risks. One can get those risks wrong. And unlikely things happen all the time.


 
 #27
Kyiv Post
September 9, 2015
Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute shapes US view on Ukraine
By Ilya Timtchenko

Cambridge, MASSACHUSETTS - Located next to Harvard University's massive government and international studies center, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute has been helping to shape Ukraine's image in the United States since 1973.

As a humanities institute that focuses on Ukrainian history, language and literature, it has eight students currently and hosts conferences and speakers. Political scientist Alexander Motyl is a frequent guest. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Applebaum is currently a research affiliate. Historian and author Timothy Snyder attended its summer program during the late 1990s, and America's third ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, visited the institute for briefings.

Since its founding, the institute has published around 100 books that have shaped how Westerners think of Ukraine today.

"We publish scholarly books that give a correct interpretation, correct information," associate director Lubomyr Hajda told the Kyiv Post.

Hajda, a pioneer of Ukrainian studies in the United States, has watched the institute's development ever since he was a graduate student at the university in 1966. The institute was started with student fundraising campaigns and support from Harvard professor Omeljan Pritsak.

The institute's first seeds were planted in the 1950s by political refugees from Ukraine after World War II. "There was a very large contingent of young people who were entering universities, and everyone... was faced with having to explain (to friends, neighbors, teachers) that we are Ukrainians and not Russians," Hajda says.

But the ad hoc process of educating Americans one-by-one had its limits. A scholarly authority was lacking on the subject, so diaspora university students started raising money to establish Ukrainian studies at a leading U.S. university "that would provide authoritative, academically proven information to the academic world," according to Hajda.

Harvard University was the respected institution chosen. Students were able to raise enough money and collaborated with Pritsak, who had a very well "conceptualized and developed intellectual project" of Ukrainian studies, Hajda says.

Today, the institute holds numerous conferences on such topics as denuclearization, language politics, economic reforms, the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, and information wars and propaganda. In the spring of 2016, Hajda and Motyl are to conduct a comparative analysis of "good and bad nationalisms" at a symposium hosted by the institute.

The institute also became a popular reference point when the Euromaidan Revolution started in November 2013.

"There was a lot of interest in those events and people were turning to us," Serhii Plokhii, HURI's director and a Harvard history professor, told the Kyiv Post.

Sometimes Plokhii received three to four interview requests per day during those events. "On a certain level we were struggling because the institute was created as a humanities institute with a focus on history, language and literature."

But the media bubble burst after Russia's annexation of Crimea.

"It looks like the focus of the media changed, because now it became not a Ukrainian story, but a Russian story," Plokhii said.

Russian specialists were more in demand afterwards. "But again, we were very much part of this general effort to discuss, illuminate, to educate the public," he added.

The Ilovaisk tragedy - when invading Russian forces killed 366 Ukrainian soldiers in August 2014 - was another media peak. But afterwards, the institute went back to its traditional role of holding academic events, publishing articles and books, and offering course study.

The institute's operating budget for this year is $1.7 million consisting of 74 endowments, all coming from U.S. citizens. This includes money for salaries, funding for research, and spending on holding conferences and various events.

Tymish Holowinsky, the institute's executive director, says that last year the institute spent $90,000 alone on funding students for its summer program. "For eight units (two courses) and living on campus it costs almost $11,000 for seven weeks... That's only really (enough) for nine students," Holowinsky says.

The Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute plan to open a branch in Ukraine was put on hold because of funding issues, since endowments can only come from Ukraine, according to Harvard's policies.

"We can't generate interest in the business community in this particular project at this particular time," Plokhii says. "We're getting some hints that some foundations would give, but that is coming from foundations that we'd prefer not to work with right now."

Graduate students from some of Harvard University's departments have shown increased interest in Ukrainian studies. "The strategy is not to turn them into specific experts on Ukraine, but have people who study Ukraine in a broader context," Plokhii says.

Overall, the circle of U.S. scholars in Ukrainian studies has grown, Holowinsky says, more acknowledge Ukraine as a separate entity. Although the institute does not take a political stance on Ukraine's situation, there is a fundamental consensus among all of the staff members.

"For everyone it is absolutely clear that Ukraine is under attack, that it is being invaded," Plokhii says. "Everyone certainly believes that the West has to help Ukraine get out of this situation, and that the only way out is comprehensive reform."