#2
National Public Radio (NPR)
September 13, 2015
As Warm Days Wane In Moscow, An 'Air Of Desperate Celebration'
By Corey Flintoff

NPR's correspondent in Moscow, Corey Flintoff, has been covering Russia since February 2012 and just got his Russian visa renewed for another year. He applied for it August, when the summer was nice, and received it in September - when, he says, the weather starts to give a person second thoughts.

It's fall in Moscow. Promptly on the first of September, someone turned on a tap and the rains began.

The sun got a few light-years further away, and the young women who'd been strolling around in shorts and flip-flops suddenly showed up in fleece coats and boots.

There are signs of autumn everywhere - a last-minute rush to get repairs done before winter sets in. Many of Moscow's 19th century buildings are getting fresh coats of plaster and paint - in pastel pink and yellow and powder blue, colors that'll look wanly pretty when the city is blanketed in snow.

The sidewalks are all torn up as workers scramble to replace the asphalt with fancy paving blocks. Cynical Muscovites pick their way between the rubble and the puddles, muttering that the wife of a city official owns the company that produces that pricey pavement. The mayor himself apologized for the inconvenience, but said it's all about building a modern metropolis.

Moscow is the world's northernmost megacity - it's as if you dropped the population of greater Los Angeles, say 15 million people or so, onto the plains of northern Canada.

There was an air of desperate celebration in the city as the short summer slipped away. Every weekend in August, there was a festival celebrating something or other - food or jazz or theater in Gorky Park.

The culmination of all this was the city's 868th birthday last weekend. Budgets may be tight because of low oil prices, but the city splurged more than $7 million on its birthday party, with lots of live music from street performers and popular bands.

And despite all the anti-Western rhetoric on Russia's state-owned media, the headliner was an aging band from Boston: Aerosmith.

Front man Steven Tyler, who's part Ukrainian, said he was looking forward to a nice bowl of borscht. Soon we'll all be looking forward to a big serving of beet soup - with a dollop of sour cream, white as the winter that's waiting, just around the corner.

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 #3
Lavrov: Putin will speak at UN of Western abuses of sanctions' mechanism

MOSCOW. Sept 13 (Interfax) - The obsession of the West with sanctions and not only with regard to Russia will become one of the subjects of the speech of President Vladimir Putin at the jubilee session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has announced.

"We assume that Putin will express our principled evaluations of the most pressing problems of the world today," Lavrov said in an interview with Voskresnoye Vremya (Sunday Time) current events' show.

Among such problems Lavrov named "the problem of unilateral compulsion measures, of course, and not only with regard to Russia."

"Now our Western partners, primarily under the influence of American psychology are losing the culture of dialogue and diplomatic solutions. The Iranian nuclear program was a striking and very rare exception," Lavrov believes.

"In most other cases in conflicts that continue flaring up in the Middle East and North Africa they attempt to resort to direct armed interference the way it was in Iraq and Libya in violation of UN Security Council resolutions or to sanctions," he pointed out.

Lavrov named the examples of Yemen and South Sudan "where the process of domestic settlements was stimulated from abroad and largely imposed on them."

"Such a pattern, if it had been solidly based on the understandings of the sides instead of outside advice and recipes, would have become more lasting. And as soon as such a pattern starts faltering which is inevitable when hasty solutions are imposed, they immediately take out their 'sanction big stick' and suggest punishing those who don't want to cooperate according to this pattern," Lavrov said.

"This is a long story, a certain recurrence and obsession with sanction measures. As soon as something does not fit the molds of our Western partners they immediately resort to sanctions as an instrument," he felt.

"President Putin will speak on this subject," he said.

According to Lavrov, the Russian president will also speak of "the problem of fragmentation of the world economic space because in the framework of WTO talks are faltering on guaranteeing a generalized approach to new spheres of economic and technological ties between states."

"He will also speak of concrete aspects such as Syria and the Ukrainian crisis," the minister said stressing that "all these crises stem from systemic problems related to attempts to freeze the process of forming a polycentric world."

Lavrov added that the pressing problems that Putin is going to evaluate will include widely-debated themes such as resistance to terrorism. This resistance "should be free of dual standards, from dividing terrorists into good and bad, from supposing that it is possible to interact with some of these bad extremist-minded people for achieving some specific temporary geopolitical objectives," he said.

Lavrov said that the Russian president will be visiting the UN General Assembly because it will be a jubilee, not a routine one and because the overwhelming majority of world leaders will attend it.

The president of Russia will be speaking at the UN General Assembly for the first time in ten years.

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 #4
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
September 13, 2015
Russian public opinion takes the temperature of the sick man of Europe
Despite the Kremlin's lack of strategic thinking and economic difficulties, Russians are still supporting President Vladimir Putin. To explain why, experts have advanced a number of different scenarios and theories about the way Russians view their country after Crimea.
By Pavel Koshkin and Sofia Grebenkina
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. Sofia Grebenkina is an intern at Russia Direct. She is a second-year English Literature and Theology student at Durham University. She is the Politics Editor of the 'Palatinate' Durham University newspaper and a columnist for 'The Bubble'.

Russians tend to focus on President Vladimir Putin's achievements in office rather than his failures, according to a new poll released by Levada Center, an independent Russian pollster, last week.

Levada presents a list of fields where the Russian president has either succeeded or failed, according to the Russian people. Among the top 10 most successful fields for Putin are defense and military reform (33 percent see it as Putin's major achievement, while 7 percent view it as a failure); domestic political stability and order; Russia's strengthened international record; the improvement of living standards and wages and, paradoxically, the country's economic development.

However, if one looks at the people's assessment of Putin in retrospective, it is easy to see that, from 2009 to 2015, there has been an almost two-fold drop in the percentage of Russians who believe that increased living standards and wages can be attributed to Putin. In 2009, 22 percent believed that Putin's strong point was improved living standards, but 6 years later, the number has plummeted to 12 percent.

At the same time, the Levada poll pays attention to the number of skeptics of Putin's domestic policy. Those who point fingers at Putin's failures are outpacing his supporters in the following four fields: fighting corruption (29 percent vs. 14 percent), curbing the oligarchs (16 vs. 12), increasing morality and spirituality in the country (10 vs. 5) and improving relations with the West (9 vs. 7 percent).

Without any long-term strategy, there is only inertia

Nevertheless, in general, the Levada poll indicates that most Russians are still supporting Putin despite his flaws and mistakes. This data is even more relevant in the context of the Carnegie Moscow Center's presentation of the report "The Russian Regime in 2015: All Tactics, No Strategy" that took place on Sept. 9 in Moscow.

In contrast to ordinary people, many economists and political experts are raising their eyebrows at Putin's economic policy. And one of the manifestations of Putin's inability to conduct effective economic policy is the lack of strategic thinking, they argue.

For example, Carnegie Moscow Center's Andrei Kolesnikov, the author of the report, sees the Kremlin's current policy rather as "tactical, not strategic."  He is concerned that this policy doesn't live up to reality and that the Russian president doesn't have a vision of the future after 2018.

According to Kolesnikov, Russia is going to face gradual and long-term economic depression and a decrease in economic and political freedoms - a combination that he describes as the "inertia scenario" of Russia's future development. In addition, he warns against any strengthening of the anti-Western vector of the Kremlin.

The Kremlin's "inclusive strategy"

In contrast, Dmitry Orlov, general director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communication, sounds more optimistic. He sees 2015 as a sort of crossroads that might determine the future development scenario of Russia. He expresses hopes that the Kremlin will stick to its so-called "inclusive strategy" that is based, primarily, on the support of Putin's conservative majority. However, he doesn't rule out the involvement of the skeptical minority (socially active citizens who seek to improve the situation in the country).

One of the major characteristics of such a strategy is the intention to attract investment and maintain an open-door policy, Orlov argues, pointing out that the anti-corruption agenda and increasing patriotism will remain as major trends.

At the same time, the Kremlin is aware of the risks of the inclusive scenario: the unpredictability of the socially active minority amidst the inertia of the conservative majority. And this asymmetry does matter, according to Orlov.

The besieged fortress is still a powerful metaphor for Russia

Another scenario is the besieged fortress scenario. According to Kolesnikov, the metaphor is still relevant for Russia.

"As long as the authorities are maintaining a half-cold and half-hot hybrid war and sanctions exist, people will feel that they are living inside of this fortress," Kolesnikov said in an interview with Russia Direct. " And it is important for the mobilization of the people around the authorities"

However, Orlov pins hopes on the inclusive strategy. There is demand for future development and an alternative political coalition that will bring together an active minority, he points out. One of the indications of this demand is the attempt by Russian intellectuals to come up with a long-term approach to the future, known as Strategy 2030.

In contrast, Leonid Gozman, a democratic activist and a fellow of the National Endowment for Democracy, is skeptical about the emergence of an independent new coalition that will be a game-changer, because this is not beneficial for the government. At best, the authorities will foster such a coalition and then dissolve it.

However, Orlov is also realistic, because he doesn't rule out the besieged fortress scenario as well. "The authorities are still undecided," he said. "They were at a crossroads last spring, and they are a crossroads this fall. "

Meanwhile, Vasily Zharkov, head of the political science department at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, is skeptical about the Kremlin's capability to think strategically despite its previous (Strategy 2020) and current (Strategy 2030) attempts to resolve this problem. He sees these documents as declarative: The authorities set goals, but then don't fulfill the tasks to reach these goals.

At the same time, Zharkov argues that the inertia scenario played a positive role in Russia, given Russia's turbulent history for the last 100 years (the 1917 revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Empire). According to him, the inertia strategy is relevant during times of oil booms and sharp vicissitudes of fortune.

Russia as the sick man of Europe

One of the reasons why Russia doesn't have a strategy is what he calls the "catastrophe syndrome" - the doubt of the Russian political elites that any strategy will be able to save the country from disaster.   

In addition, Zharkov believes that Russia has a problem with its self-identity, "We don't really know who we are." This brings about psychological trauma. He calls Russia "the sick man of Europe, who is under a medicine dropper," due to its memories about its great history and the collapse of the Soviet empire.  

And during the Ukraine crisis, which was accompanied by the incorporation of Crimea, this "sick man" fell from the hospital bed. While most international players were aghast at this fall, the sick man himself was in a state of euphoria that resulted from his distorted perceptions about himself and imperial yearnings.   

With this, Zharkov states, the previous balance achieved with the West was undermined by this surge of newfound patriotism. This balance that Russia held when it came to the West, he believes, is one where Russia was "able to have a dialogue with the West" but "did not join the coalition." Moreover, he sees the Crimean conflict to be "unsolvable on the international stage."

The inclusive strategy might help Russia from plunging into imperial dreams and minimize the impact if the Ukrainian impasse. He warns the Kremlin against taking irrational decisions based on its perception of historical justice.

Kolesnikov echoes Zharkov and argues that the Kremlin should avoid decisions based on history and emotions, something that is very difficult to do in the current political and psychological atmosphere. As Gozman says, the Russian political elites feel themselves very offended by the West, a factor that should not be underestimated.

"Revanchism for them is a psychological rescue," he said, implying that the Kremlin might isolate itself to a greater extent in the future.

Russia searches for myths and symbols after Crimea

In this situation, Kolesnikov expresses concerns that the Kremlin's decisions might be replaced by mythological clichés. And Crimea's incorporation into Russia has been seen as a symbol or a myth that mobilized Russians around Putin. Crimea provides for the Russian people a "symbolic foundation" for the legitimization of the nationalistic and anti-Western rhetoric advocated by the Kremlin.

But soon this myth might lose its mobilizing effect, as Kolesnikov warns, and the authorities will have to look for other myths to help maintain society in a state of psychological euphoria. That might drive the authorities to find a new symbol and Kolesnikov assumes that the "Arctic mythology" might be used as a new symbol: exploration of the region and defending Russia's interest there might become a source of pride.

Another myth that the Kremlin might come up with is the symbol of Russian as a great international stakeholder that resolves global problems, Kolesnikov argues. And its recent policy in the Middle East and, particularly, in Syria, is a sign of such shifts. And the myth of an economic miracle might also be used as an attempt to grant a sense of optimism to ordinary people. But Kolesnikov sees this model as utopian because of Russia's economic challenges.
 
These new mythological clichés and anti-Western sentiments are directed to meet the demand of the people, but such tactics might result in a backlash. The reason is that, post-Crimea, the typical Russian individual is "a man of impatience," to quote Orlov. And any attempts by the authorities to play up to this impatience could be dangerous.

As Russia's well-known sociologist Aleksei Levinson, head of Levada Center's Analytical Department, and other speakers who attended Carnegie Moscow center's discussion noted, now Russian society is almost living in a state of war, while still clinging to the motto "Just avoiding the war."

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 #5
AP
September 12, 2015
Few jobs and little hope, but rural Russia sticks with Putin
By NATALIYA VASILYEVA

GALICH, Russia (AP) - When asked if Vladimir Putin is to blame for their economic squeeze, residents of the small town of Galich overwhelmingly say: "He doesn't know."

More than 15 years after Putin became president, Russians like these, part of what is known as "Putin's majority," still see no alternative to him. At the same time, their faith in positive change is diminishing and many are resigned to seeing no improvements in their lifetime.

Voters will cast ballots Sunday across Russia to elect local legislators and governors, and the Kostroma region, which includes Galich, was alone among 11 regions voting for regional parliaments in allowing the anti-Putin opposition to run.

Kostroma, an economically depressed area ranked 79 out of the 83 Russian regions in average income, is best known for the unkempt beauty of its crumbling medieval churches and weedy banks of the Volga River. Once the heartland of the medieval Russian state, its capital Kostroma is a typical provincial city with potholed roads.

The Russian opposition was hoping to run in four regions, including more cosmopolitan areas like Russia's third-largest city of Novosibirsk. But with election authorities refusing them registration elsewhere, opposition activists were left to canvass in Kostroma and places around it, like the sleepy medieval market town of Galich with 17,000 people.

Small towns like Galich, 400 kilometers (240 miles) north of Moscow, have been the foundation of Putin's popularity. In the 2012 presidential election, Putin won about 53 percent of the vote in the Kostroma region, with turnout at about 61 percent. On Sunday, most voters are likely to stay home.

"What's the point?" 26-year-old Alexander Shatunov said with a smile, even though he was at his wits' end trying to fix the engine on his 2005 minivan. "They will have decided everything for me anyway."

This is a recurrent sentiment in these parts, reflecting the helplessness and apathy resulting from the Kremlin's paternalistic policies and control over the political process.

Russia's oil-driven economic boom has transformed big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg into cosmopolitan centers where you can get a Frappuccino even in the most remote neighborhood. Life in Galich, however, has remained largely unchanged. Most people still live in one-story wooden cottages with slanted roofs and carved window frames and rely on the food grown in their gardens.

The main difference is that many young men now go to Moscow to work on construction sites or as security guards in one of the dozens of shopping malls. "Half of Galich goes to Moscow," Shatunov said.

But with the economic downturn, aggravated by Western sanctions and flagging energy prices, jobs are more difficult to come by, even in Moscow. Shatunov spent April to October last year outside Moscow, building summer cottages and bathhouses. This year, he said, demand was low and he was there just for a couple of weeks.

His neighbor, 57-year-old Natalya Gruzdeva, helps her son and daughter-in-law with their three children since she is out of work and past retirement age, which is 55 for women in Russia. She was making 11,000 rubles ($160) a month as a cook in a local cafe when she retired. With the family's combined income they bought a crumbling house without a roof years ago, a small one-story stone structure with a wood stove and no running water. They took out a loan of 500,000 rubles ($7,400) to pay for the repairs and new roof. These loans are now overdue.

"I wake up in the morning and I think: I don't know how to repay the loans," Gruzdeva said. "Banks keep calling and they threaten me. I tell them I can't pay and I won't able to pay." She thought about going to Moscow and getting a job as a nanny, but was needed at home to help with her grandchildren.

She is discouraged but convinced that Putin is not to blame. If only, she sighs, he could visit Galich and see it for himself, rather than relying on what local officials tell him.

"He doesn't see the scale of the problems, they cheat him," he said.

The opposition RPR-Parnas party has been one of Putin's fiercest critics. But here in the Kostroma region, its candidates have been careful to steer the conversation away from politics and focus instead on concrete issues.

Ilya Yashin, a Moscow political activist and ally of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, said the Kremlin allowed them to run in Kostroma because of how difficult it is to campaign here, with 60 percent of the population living in villages and small towns.

"You cannot win without those village votes," said Yashin, who has held more than 130 meetings while campaigning in recent weeks. Even though village voters have never supported the liberal opposition, he said he has been well received because he travels to places so remote that local bureaucrats rarely venture there.

Standing under the roof of a whitewashed medieval market arcade, opposition activist Nikolai Levshits hands out leaflets and asks passers-by to vote for RPR-Parnas. He says their real opponents in this election are "indifference and a lack of faith that you can change anything."

What's more, state television, which is what everyone in Galich watches, describes the opposition leaders as revolutionaries bent on destroying Russia.

During a chat with the police chief in the village of Antropovo, Levshits said he was asked what he thought about the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

"I told him," Levshits said, "you know it's really weird to be talking about Crimea in the village of Antropovo, where there is no hot water, where there are no roads, where there is no physician, the maternity ward does not work and you have to travel 150 kilometers (93 miles) to Kostroma."

With the Crimea land grab in March 2014, Russian state television ramped up its patriotic message. Coverage has glossed over pressing domestic problems such as poor health care and crumbling housing, focusing instead on international issues and largely portraying the world as a hostile and dangerous place.

A year on, the strategy seems to have paid off as residents of struggling towns like Galich say their problems are nothing compared to the violence in Ukraine or Syria.

"Everybody here says 'Thank God, at least, there's no war, we're so glad,'" said 53-year-old Valentina Solovyeva, who sells clothes at the market and whose son travels to Moscow for work. "There are no clashes, no terrorist attacks in our country, but what if those migrants start coming here?"

Solovyeva, unlike her neighbors, says she will vote on Sunday. She won't say for whom - although it's clear where her loyalties lie.

"There's no war, it's good," she said. "I'm for Putin. I've always been for Putin."

 #6
www.politico.eu
September 13, 2015
Letter from Russia
Why Russia still loves Putin
The ruling party will win in Sunday's elections. And that's not just because of its dirty tricks campaign against the opposition.
By ALEC LUHN
Alec Luhn is an American journalist based in Moscow.

It's a weekday afternoon in Kostroma, a drowsy provincial center 250 miles northeast of Moscow, and something is stirring in a quiet apartment yard on the city outskirts. Upbeat instrumental music is pouring out of a sound system, summoning residents-most of them military families-down for a campaign stop by Ilya Yashin, an opposition candidate for the regional parliament. As mothers with strollers and pensioners with shopping bags walk by, two surly young men with vests reading "Patriots of Russia" make sure to hand them and about a dozen gathered for the speech fliers labeled "We're against the Moscow opposition."

"The USA is trying to destroy Russia not only with sanctions, but also with the help of its henchmen, the 'Moscow opposition' that's participating in the elections," the flier begins. It identifies Yashin as the leader of this group, accusing him of selling information to the U.S. State Department and trying to return Crimea to Ukraine, "dooming to repression 2 million residents who want to be part of Russia."

The Patriots of Russia men claim they have every right to campaign here, although they can't name their party's candidate when asked by a journalist. After a Yashin volunteer snatches the fliers away from one of the young men, police arrive and take both the volunteer and the sullen Patriots in for questioning.

Yashin begins his stump speech, focusing on local issues like bad roads and utilities rate hikes, but is soon interrupted by a woman yelling that he's disturbing the peace. "Every rally there are people who come, sometimes the same people, and try to shout us down and disrupt the event," Yashin remarks.

Welcome to the campaign trail in Russia, where two dozen provinces will elect regional representatives on Sunday. With the ruble worth a little over half what it was this time last year and the economy falling into recession, it would seem that now is the perfect time for the liberal opposition, which has been largely frozen out of politics and which president Vladimir Putin suggests wasis a "fifth column" of traitors, to gain a toehold in an out-of-the-way regional parliament.

But Russians aren't mad at Putin for incurring Western sanctions by deploying troops to Crimea and eastern Ukraine. In the eyes of your average Russian voter, in fact, Putin is the one standing up to aggression by that old nemesis, the United States. If the Russian president has "won" his war in Ukraine then he's also won at home. There had been some hope for truly competitive elections this time, but as the race in Kostroma is showing, international reproach and economic problems have only increased Putin's control over Russia. Rather than an opportunity for the liberal opposition, Kostroma has become a trap: Unlike in other provinces, regime critics haven't been shut out of the elections here, but everything from voters' conservatism to the smear campaign against them almost guarantees they'll lose.

It's been a long road to Kostroma for Yashin and company. On May 6, 2012, Yashin and his close friend Boris Nemtsov, leader of the opposition party Parnas, were among those who led tens of thousands of people on a protest on Moscow's Bolotnaya Square against Putin's return to the presidency for a third term. After clashes broke out between police and protestors, two dozen demonstrators were eventually arrested and put on trial for charges like inciting mass riots. Eight of them were given prison terms.

As the trials dragged on, the number of people attending demonstrations dwindled. A further chill came after mass "Maidan" demonstrations brought a pro-Western government to power in neighboring Ukraine in 2014 and anti-Western sentiment began to rise in Russia, fueled by state television's greatly exaggerated depiction of the "fascist coup" by U.S.-backed nationalists in Kiev. Analysts had long been predicting a recession, but as the economy flagged amid falling oil prices and sanctions, most Russians placed the blame on Barack Obama-and were proud to see their country stay defiant. When Nemtsov was gunned down near the Kremlin in February 2015, it seemed a symbolic end to the anti-Putin street protests he had once led.

Kept out of parliament and off the streets, the liberal opposition parties found a new purpose in this month's elections, in which two dozen regions and cities around Russia will elect local representatives and governors. The ruling United Russia party is the favorite almost everywhere, although the left-of-center A Just Russia, the Communist Party and the nationalist LDPR-who sit in parliament but rarely vote against Kremlin initiatives-are also fielding candidates. Vyacheslav Volodin, Putin's first deputy chief of staff and his curator of internal politics, told officials in June that electoral results should be more unpredictable, suggesting the Kremlin was open to more competitive elections. Putin had just fired more than a dozen governors. There was a sliver of hope that some challengers would be allowed to run for the sake of legitimacy and to let voters release steam as the economy worsened.

Several opposition parties, including Parnas and anti-corruption campaign Alexei Navalny's Party of Progress, banded together for the first time, creating a Democratic Coalition to compete in four regions. But the electoral commission disqualified it in two regions, saying it couldn''t verify thousands of voter signatures the coalition turned in, putting it below the threshold needed to get on the ballot. The coalition itself withdrew from a third region after discovering that several locals it had hired to gather signatures had engaged in mass falsification.

In Kostroma, the local electoral commission refused to register Yashin's Parnas party, which was representing the Democratic Coalition there, and police arrested campaign head Andrei Pivovarov for alleged fraud. But in a surprise move, the central electoral commission in Moscow overturned the Kostroma branch's decision, albeit with only a month to go before the vote.

At the campaign stop on the city outskirts, retired soldier Konstantin Shyastakov, one of the rare die-hard supporters that have occasionally shown up to the rallies, voices the question on everyone's mind. "Ilya, why did the Kremlin let you run?" he asked. Yashin replies without hesitation: "To set up a demonstrative loss for us."

Of the four regions it had wanted to campaign in, Kostroma is the most difficult for the opposition, which draws its support mostly from affluent urbanites and is frequently derided as a small group of "marginals" that can't exist outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. Unlike more centralized Novosibirsk, the Kostroma region is largely rural, with only 40 percent of voters in the regional capital. It also holds a military base that reportedly lost several men during deployments to eastern Ukraine.

"It's often very difficult to talk with people, it's often hard to find common ground," Yashin told me after a stump speech. "In the Kremlin, they're expecting that we won't be able to handle this work and will lose the election, that we won't get the necessary amount of votes (5 percent of the total is needed to win a seat) ... It's a Kremlin experiment, if you like."

According to analysts, after the street protests of 2011 and 2012, which were initially sparked by widespread reports of fraud during parliamentary elections, the only real tactic left to the Kremlin is to let these activists run in elections, while making sure they don't win. The race in Kostroma prevents the opposition from claiming it was completely shut out of the elections.

"For the regime, it's more comfortable to bring the opposition into a real political battle rather than push them onto the streets, because it understands they will likely lose," said analyst Yevgeny Minchenko.

According to analyst Stanislav Belkovsky, Volodin has put the responsibility for "unpredictable" elections onto the regional administrations, who must encourage competition enough to appear legitimate but not so much that they are voted out.

By all indications, the full weight of the "administrative resource"-incumbents wielding their positions and access to television to win-is being brought to bear in Kostroma. Was it just a coincidence that workers were repaving the sidewalk and installing railings along Soviet Street, the main drag, a little more than a week before the election?

Yashin's campaign has complained of being shut out of television coverage, except for during a round of debates stipulated by law. They're also not allowed on the local billboards, they say, which all feature the ruling United Russia party and the other Kremlin-loyal parliamentary parties. Even the sides of public minibuses are emblazoned with the slogans of United Russia.

Added to the administrative resource are what Yashin calls "black technologies," such as the U.S. agent fliers. At a Yashin rally this week, a black man arrived in a car with fake diplomatic plates, claiming in broken English to be from the U.S. embassy. At another, a group of young men who reportedly arrived in cars with Moscow plates started a conflict with opposition activists, eventually punching one Yashin volunteer and sending him to the hospital with a concussion.

A mysterious new party called "Against all" has been listed first on the ballot and will likely siphon off some opposition-minded voters. Its fliers look surprisingly similar to those of Parnas, which is listed on the ballot at number 15 of 15. In addition, the party "Parzas" has been registered in an obvious attempt to confuse potential Parnas voters. It's possible fringe activists could be behind these tricks, but it seems unlikely they could work without at least the tacit approval of the regional authorities.

Meanwhile, state television channel NTV this week debuted "Pathology of a Protest," the latest in a series of smear pieces about the opposition, which claims Democratic Coalition campaigner Navalny planned the violent clashes between police and protestors on Bolotnaya Square in May 2012.

But the main challenge the liberal opposition faces, and what is likely to defeat it at the polls in Kostroma, is not smear campaigns and black technologies. It's Russian voters' genuine and deep-seated support for Putin's regime, bolstered by state television's aggressively pro-Kremlin coverage, as well as low name recognition for the Democratic Coalition and Parnas. "In the regions, people prefer to vote for the calm people they know," rather than the more radical opposition, analyst Alexei Mukhin said. "It's always been that way. We have a conservative country."

Putin has long been credited with bringing stability to the country after the mob wars and privatization scandals of the 1990s while overseeing a period of unprecedented economic growth. (Rising oil prices also helped, but Putin is the one shown on state television.) Despite the collapse of the ruble and the recent recession, a recent poll by the independent Levada Center found that 61 percent of respondents still credit Putin with the country's economic success and rise in living standards.

The latest economic and political turmoil has only strengthened support at home for Putin, whose approval ratings have shot up from 65 percent at the start of 2014 to 89 percent in June 2015. If there's any anger among voters over the worsening economy, it seems to be directed not at him but rather at the West, which is associated with the opposition in many people's minds, thanks in no small part to its demonization on state television. "Prices are going up, but what can you do if it's a crisis in connection with Ukraine? The Americans are stirring up trouble," said Mikhail, an auto parts salesman who declined to give his last name as he fished along the Volga River on a recent afternoon.

Given the latest numbers, even analysts sympathetic to the Democratic Coalition don't expect it to get the 5 percent needed for a seat in parliament. According to survey results published this week by the state pollster VTsIOM, 58 percent of decided voters in Kostroma plan to vote for the ruling United Party, and only 1 percent plan to vote for Parnas.

Several residents who said they planned to vote for the ruling party repeated the same rationale: The current authorities had built new kindergartens, they were planning to build a new bridge, they bought new medical equipment.

Mikhail the fisherman said he hadn't heard anything about Parnas or Yashin. He wasn't sure if he'd vote for the ruling party for parliament, but he planned to vote for the acting governor, also a member of United Russia. The roads were still bad and wages could be higher, but overall things were better than during the mafia wars of the 1990s, he said.

"They bought new equipment for the hospital," Mikhail said. "I saw it on TV."

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 #7
United Russia loses four district head elections in Tomsk Region

TOMSK. Sept 14 (Interfax) - Four United Russia candidates failed to win district head elections in the Tomsk Region, the party's Tomsk regional secretary Sergei Ilyinykh told an Interfax press conference on Monday.

"United Russia candidates won in six districts; independents won in four - Bakchar, Krivosheino, Zyryansky and Alexandrovsky," he said.

There are several reasons why the party's election campaign failed in these districts, he said.

"Our candidates in the Bakchar and Alexandrovsky Districts were not incumbents and sought voters' support for the first time. Our candidates in the Krivosheino and Zyryansky Districts were incumbents, yet despite their obviously successful tenure, they failed to win because often people want a meeting, dialogue from a candidate. Not enough attention was paid to this work," Ilyinykh said.

"This (talking to voters) is the weak spot that continues to remain the reason for the failure in a number of election campaigns at various levels," he added.

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 #8
Moscow Times
September 14, 2015
Russia's Regional Elections Marred by Pressure on Observers, Fraud
By Ivan Nechepurenko

Multiple violations were registered by independent elections watchdogs during Sunday's regional elections across Russia, and in the most drastic development, the office of an observers' organization was raided by police who said they had reason to believe it was a murder scene.

The Central Elections Commission (CEC) said it had received only five complaints.

More than 189,000 candidates ran for different posts in Russian regions ranging from regional governors to municipal deputies on Sunday, according to a statement by the CEC. Eighty-three of Russia's 85 regions held elections on Sunday, including Crimea, which is recognized by most international states as being part of Ukraine.

These are the last elections before those for the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, which are scheduled to take place one year from now. The last State Duma elections in 2011 were followed by allegations of widespread rigging that provoked a wave of mass anti-government protests across Russia.

Sunday's votes were also the first elections since the onset of an economic crisis triggered by a plunge in oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine.

According to preliminary results published by the CEC, members of the pro-Kremlin ruling United Russia party were set to win gubernatorial elections in the four Far East regions - Russia's earliest time zones - garnering more than 50 percent of the vote in each of them. No other preliminary results were available by the time of publication.

Election observers had catalogued more than 1,500 violations according to a "Map of Violations" project published by the independent elections watchdog Golos.

In the town of Abinsk in the Krasnodar region, an unidentified woman stuffed the ballot box with ballots, one observer reported, adding that the police had not attempted to detain the woman.

In the city of Nizhny Novgorod, a local man, Adik Shakirov, was offered 500 rubles ($7) to go and vote for a designated candidate, according to an interview with Shakirov recorded by another Golos observer.

Most of the campaigns were heavily dominated by pro-Kremlin candidates. Only one region - Kostroma - went ahead with the participation of opposition members openly critical of Putin, putting the region east of Moscow in the media spotlight.

Ilya Yashin, a close ally of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov who was shot dead in central Moscow earlier this year, headed the list of the People's Freedom Party (Parnas) for the elections in the Kostroma region. Parnas had also submitted candidates for elections in three other regions, but they were refused registration on technical pretexts.

On Sunday, the offices of the Otkrytye Vybory (Open Elections) organization in Kostroma were stormed by police who said that the premises had to be vacated as they were a crime scene where a murder had been committed, according to a live video broadcast. Elections observers and the media were forced out of the building, despite multiple complaints.

In addition, filled-in ballots were discovered in booths at an election precinct in the Kostroma region, observer Anastasia Zotova wrote on her Facebook account, posting accompanying pictures of the completed ballots.

The real Russian opposition that is fiercely critical of the Kremlin - as opposed to several alternative parties that toe the government line - has been marginalized to the fringes of Russian politics in the last decade. Most Russians know little about opposition leaders, or associate them with the turbulent 1990s that are widely regarded as the most troubled period in recent Russian history.

While the posts of 21 regional heads were up for election, with the final results unknown by the time of publication, the heads of three other regions were elected by the local legislative assemblies from a list of candidates compiled by President Vladimir Putin - an alternative system to public elections introduced following the return of gubernatorial elections in 2012.

In two of the three regions voting under that system Sunday - the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district and the republic of North Ossetia - acting governors from United Russia were confirmed in their posts by the local legislature. The results of the third - the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district - were not known by the time of publication.

Most of the leading candidates in the public elections did not publish manifestos. Only five acting governors published original electoral manifestos, the Petersburg Politics think tank found in the run-up to the vote.

The manifestos that were published mostly focused on previous achievements and promised stability instead of development, the think tank found.

"Some of the manifestos are written in such a way as though the candidates have already won the elections," the report said.

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 #9
Russia sums up Sunday's local election results
 
MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. Russia is summarizing Sunday's single voting day results that will test the mood of the country's electorate before the September 2016 polls to the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.

Voters cast ballots on Sunday in a total of 84 Russian regions (except for the North Caucasian Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria) at elections of various levels. Eleven regions elected their legislatures, and 21 regions had direct elections of their governors.

Governor of North Ossetia and in the Khanty-Mansi autonomous area were elected by regional parliaments. In all, a total of 10,700 elections of various levels were held across Russia. Ten regions had more than 70 local referendums.

A litmus test for parties

Konstantin Kostin, who heads Russia's Foundation for Civil Society Development, said the parliamentary parties' performance on Sunday was rather confident.

"It is evident that the United Russia is winning the elections, but it is also clear that one of the results of these polls is that the Communist Party is regaining the [status] of the main opposition force," Kostin said.

Besides, A Just Russia Party has also shown good results, the expert said.

The main intrigue at the elections is the situation on the liberal flank. According to the latest preliminary results, the right-wing parties have not overcome the 5-percent threshold at the elections to regional legislatures.

The Parnas party, which only took part in the elections to the regional Duma in Kostroma, in central European Russia, has gained just 2% Another liberal party Yabloko is also showing unconfident results.

Parties evaluate election results

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the leader of the ruling United Russia party, has highly assessed his party's standing at Sunday's elections across Russia. "I would even say, good results," Medvedev said at the party's headquarters.

"On the one hand, such results reflect the United Russia's actual influence in regions, voters' preferences, but on the other hand, they show that Russian democracy is developing, proving that the parliamentary parties conduct their election campaign rather successfully," Medvedev said. "Elections were held at a high competitive level."

The leader of A Just Russia Party, Sergey Mironov, said citing the preliminary results and independent exit polls that the party has overcome threshold in all 11 federal subjects where elections to the legislatures were held.

"The party is strong, it was confident before these elections and will be confident at the elections to the State Duma in 2016," Mironov said. "After the results of the single voting day of September 2015 no one should doubt that our party will be in the State Duma of the 7th convocation," he said.

The first deputy chairman of the Communist Party's central committee, Ivan Melnikov said the elections have shown that "the rivalry between the United Russia party and the Communist Party is ongoing." "The Communist Party remains the main competitive party," he said.

The leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, said in general the election campaign was "calm."

Voter turnout

According to the Central Election Commission, the highest turnout was recorded in the Kemerovo region in Siberia (83.51%) and the Volga republic of Tatarstan (57.76%).
The lowest turnout was seen in the Smolensk region, in central European Russia (18.57%) and the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia (13.92%).

Campaign does not end

Although the key outcome of elections is clear, the campaign itself does not end on Sunday. "There is still time to sum up the results, to challenge the outcome and hand over financial reports," Vladimir Churov, who heads the Central Election Commission, said.

"The election campaign will end at least in two weeks," he said.

Vice President at Center for Strategic Communications Dmitry Abzalov said: "In fact, this campaign will open the election campaign of 2016.".

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 #10
Golos reports numerous electoral violations

MOSCOW. Sept 14 (Interfax) - The movement Golos, which campaigns for voters' rights, said in commenting on the outcome of the unified voting day that the elections in Russia had taken place with numerous violations, and that use of administrative technologies had been involved.

"Bearing in mind the outcome of the public monitoring of the September 13 elections, we believe it is necessary to come to the conclusion that the institution of elections in Russia was discredited by the unpunished use of administrative technologies, which negatively reflects on election campaigns, makes them non-free and unequal, and, consequently, distorts the election outcome, which eventually casts doubt on their genuineness and legitimacy," Golos said in a statement posted on its website on Monday.

The observers believe that "the election outcome in most election campaigns was largely predetermined by decisions and actions made by the current administration and electoral commissions organizing the elections at the stage of the nomination and registration of candidates and parties, and also during election campaigns."

"These elections have demonstrated that the regional and local authorities and election organizers are still pursuing their interests by virtually ignoring the federal administration's declarations calling on them to guarantee 'competitive elections with unpredictable outcomes' and prevent electoral violations," the authors of the statement say.

The document says that elections commissions organizing elections make selective and biased decisions at all stages of election campaigns and virtually in all regions where elections have been held by denying candidates and parties their right to an equal and fair approach.

"The opposition election participants find themselves in situations where their nomination and registration are directly opposed by elections commissions organizing the elections, and [by] regional and local administrations," the statement says.

Golos has made recommendations to various branches of public administration to improve the situation.

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 #11
Regional elections in Russia a test in run-up to parliamentary elections
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. Analysts do not expect any major uproar at the regional and local elections that will be held on Sunday, September 13, in a number of Russian regions, although they do not rule out certain surprises.

No one is calling into question the relatively high popularity rankings of the ruling United Russia Party and the regional governors who are going to be re-elected. But the elections are interesting, first and foremost, owing to the number of participating parties that has grown noticeably after liberalization of the election laws.

On the whole, the expert community regards the Sunday polls as a tryout ahead of the federal parliamentary election in the autumn of 2016.

On September 13, which is the so-called Unified Day of Voting in Russia, regional governors will be elected in 21 regions and deputies of legislative assemblies, in eleven regions. Also, municipal elections will be held in many constituent territories of the country.

All in all, there will be 10,700 elections of various levels in 83 constituent territories of the country. As many as 55 political parties of the 74 officially registered ones.

"The main peculiarity of these elections is found in the fact they are the last presentation of all the political forces ahead of the 2016 federal elections," Dr. Leonid Polyakov, the chief of the of the chair for general political science at the Supreme School of Economics in Moscow said. "All the participants in this election campaign interpret it much along these lines," he said.

The latter factor offers an explanation for why it has been held at a high competitive level, Dr. Polyakov said. "Plus the availability of an ever-increasing number of political parties. As a result of a political reform that was initiated in 2011 and 2012, the number of parties is by an order of magnitude bigger than it was five years ago and this intensifies the current election campaigns."

Still, although the number of new participants in the election race has hiked sharply and new personages and organizations are flooding the political scene, the old grand quartet of parties that have caucuses in the State Duma - the ruling United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDPRF) and A Just Russia party that position themselves as opposition political forces - has managed to stand firm in practically all the regions, Dr. Polyakov indicated.

"Their current position isn't as much unproblematic as it used to be in some places, though, and they've come to grips with an apparently more powerful competition," he said.

"The regional political systems will not get a new impulse of legitimacy as a result and the masses of voters will perceive these changes as only logical ones," Dr. Polyakov said.

Although the Presidential Administration demands observance of three crucial criteria at all the elections - competitiveness, openness, and legitimacy - these principles are sometimes disregarded in the regions, said Igor Bunin, the head of the Center for Political Technologies.

"Our Russian bureaucrat has long lost the habit of competition and is striving to get a 100% confidence of his or her victory in an election," Izvestia daily quoted him. "The bureaucrat doesn't want any emotional disturbances. And that's why in spite of all the moves taken by the federal authorities to bring in the elements of competition and legitimacy a number of regional red-tapers got into mishaps that had to be rectified."

For instance, pressures officials in Omsk in western Siberia was needed to make them include a representative of the Communist Party in the competition.

The electoral ticket of the PARNAS rightwing liberal party was registered in Kostroma on the Volga River after protracted tribulations.

PARNAS failed to get registration in Nobosibirsk but it was allowed to nominate its members in majority precincts.

"Big-stick methods are very handy today in making regional governors or local electoral commissions, which they control, rectify their own errors," Bunin said.

"On the whole, the main intrigue of this election is bigger than the nationwide electoral successes of the United Russia that has fair enough rankings, but how the election will be perceived by the political class at the federal and regional level and by the ordinary voters in the final run," Dr. Mikhail Remizov, the President of the Institute of National Strategies told TASS.

"Will the regional people of clout overuse the administrative levers and how will the federal center and the courts react to it?" he said somewhat rhetorically.

Unexpected surprises may occur at any election but big surprises are scarcely in the cards this time, Dr. Remizov believes. "The authorities have a big resource in the form of the President's high popularity rating, which serves as a drive engine of people's trust in the government on the whole," he said.

Dr. Lydia Timofeyeva, a senior staff member at the Moscow-based Presidential Academy of Government Service told TASS she did not expect any stunning surprises either.

"The economic situation is tense but not tragic," she said. "The liberal opposition is gradually, albeit slowly, expanding its electorate."

"And if the economic situation continues worsening, we will likely see some interesting moments during the 2016 parliamentary election," Dr. Timofeyeva said. "But their likelihood right now is practically zero."

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 #12
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
September 14, 2015
Russia's liberal opposition is dead, long live the ruling party!
bne IntelliNews

Russia's liberal opposition parties failed to muster enough votes to pass the 5% threshold in nationwide regional elections for local posts held on September 13. The poor showing highlights the death of liberalism in Russia, which is gripped by a wave of nationalism stoked by President Vladimir Putin's stance on Ukraine.

The pro-Kremlin ruling party United Russia barely scraped 50% in parliamentary polls in 2011 and had been on course to do worse in the next general elections.

However, as counting got underway - and despite low turnout and reports of voting violations including ballot stuffing - it was clear that United Russia was on course for a clean sweep,  prevailing in first results of various types of polls that took place in almost all of Russia's 85 regions. (Two North Caucasus republics did not participate, North Ossetia where the governor is appointed by Moscow, and Kabardino Balkaria, where the governor was elected in October 2014 after his predecessor resigned).

The current fierce nationalist-patriotic mood keeps Putin's popularity at all-time record highs of around 90%, despite the fact the economy has fallen into deep recession and real incomes have started to fall for the first time on his watch.

Still, the establishment hailed the elections as a success for Russian democracy, and while they are a major set back-back for the opposition they do reflect the mood of the people, who have clearly chosen to stand behind in Putin in his show-down with the West over Ukraine.

'Democracy developing'

According to initial data, United Russia's showing was "rather satisfactory", its leader Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said. The results reflected voter preferences but also that Russian democracy is developing, Medvedev said, adding that the the elections "were held at a high competitive level".

Of the 83 participating regions, 21 elected governors and 11 elected local legislatures. More than 189,000 candidates ran for different posts ranging from governor to municipal deputies. The polls were also held in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March 2014 but is still recognised by most countries as being part of Ukraine.

According to preliminary results published by the Central Election Committee (CEC), United Russia candidates were set to win gubernatorial elections in the four Far East regions, Russia's earliest time zones, taking 50% of the vote in each.

In 4 regions out of 21 the acting governors were winning as counting continued. United Russia kept its lead in most regions, its worst showing being 45.16% in Novosibirsk in Siberia. In the Irkutsk region, also in Siberia, no candidate had won more than 50% after 99% of ballots were counted, requiring a run-off election.

Low turnout, violations reported

The polls were the first since the start of an economic crisis triggered by a global slump in oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

They were also the last before Russia elects a new State Duma, the lower chamber of parliament, in September 2016. The last Duma elections in 2011 drew allegations of widespread rigging that sparked a wave of mass anti-government protests across Russia.

Turnout this time was patchy, however, While the Kemerovo coal mining region posted a record turnover of 83.51%, its highest since 2001, turnout elsewhere was generally around 20-30%, Igor Lebedev, a deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma lower parliament house, told TASS news agency.

While the CEC said it had received just 60 complaints over the entire election campaign, multiple violations were registered on voting day by independent election watchdogs.

Only in one region, Kostroma, did the polls go ahead with participation of opposition members openly critical of Putin. Various violations were observed in the region, including piles of already filled in ballot papers found at one polling station, media reported. Police also stormed the local offices of the Otkrytye Vybory (Open Elections) organisation in Kostroma saying it was the scene of a murder and had to be vacated.

Communists are back

The polls did more than simply underscore the country's pro-Kremlin political current, experts said.

"It is evident that the United Russia is winning the elections, but it is also clear that one of the results of these polls is that the Communist Party is regaining the [status] of the main opposition force," said Konstantin Kostin, the head of Russia's Foundation for Civil Society Development. And in a small diversification of the pro-Kremlin line, another pro-presidential party Just Russia also showed good results, Kostin said.

But a key development in the polls is the situation on the liberal flank. According to latest preliminary results, these parties could not overcome the mandatory 5% threshold to take seats in the regional legislatures. The same threshold applies to national elections too.

Manifesto void

Meanwhile, most leading candidates in the polls did not publish manifestos, the Moscow Times reported, citing the Petersburg Politics think tank. Only five acting governors published original electoral manifestos, it found in the run-up to the vote. Those published mostly focused on previous achievements and promised stability instead of development, the think tank said in a report. "Some of the manifestos are written in such a way as though the candidates have already won the elections," it said.

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 #13
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
September 11, 2015
2016 could be the moment of truth for Russia's political system
With Russia running elections in 83 out of 85 regions on Sept. 13 and significant attempts by the Kremlin to manage the democratic process within Russia, there is growing concern that the 2016 Duma elections might finally expose the weaknesses of the ruling party.
By Yury Korgunyuk
Yury Korgunyuk is the head of Political Science at the Moscow-based Information Science for Democracy (INDEM) Foundation.

On Sept. 13 Russia will run elections in 83 out of 85 regions, which gives a good reason to think over the nature of Russia's political system. Developed democracies, in which the procedures are defined but the results uncertain, are the mirror image of President Vladimir Putin's Russia, where the procedures are constantly revised in order to guarantee a foreordained outcome.

Ever since Putin came to power, no parliamentary election in Russia has been held according to the same rules as its predecessor. On each occasion without fail, significant changes have been made to the legislation.

First up was the nationwide introduction of a proportional representation system with a simultaneous reduction in the number of participating parties. This was to ensure the dominant position of United Russia in parliaments of all levels across the country. After the excessive fervor with which the authorities tried to ensure maximum votes for the "party of power," leading to a wave of protests in 2011-12, the decision was taken to change tactics.

The so-called "party reform" lifted the restrictions on the creation and registration of political parties. As a result, their number increased by an order of magnitude - from seven in 2011 to 78 in 2015. Moreover, in 2012-2013 all these parties were allowed to compete in elections without having to collect signatures from the electorate (previously only parliamentary parties were exempt from the rule).

At the same time, the Kremlin decided to abandon the universal introduction of proportional representation. Most significantly, the Moscow and St. Petersburg City Dumas were allowed to hold elections solely under a majority system. The authorities believed that the proportional system had swung too much in favor of United Russia's opponents.

Gubernatorial elections were also reinstated. However, candidates had to pass through the "municipal filter," which meant enlisting the support of a certain number of municipal deputies, most of who are under the strict control of the executive.

Whereas before, regional authorities would nonchalantly engineer maximum turnout (uncast ballots were generally awarded to United Russia), starting in 2012 pre-election campaigns have quietly come on-stream, so to speak. A single nationwide voting day was scheduled specially for the second Sunday of September, since most Russians are at the dacha or on vacation in summer. That significantly reduced turnout, but the calculation was that opposition supporters would ignore the elections, while state employees (teachers, doctors, civil servants) would obediently come out and vote for the "right" candidates.

With a few rare exceptions, the tactic can be said to have paid off. Turnout was indeed very low, and all regions holding gubernatorial elections posted wins for Putin's erstwhile appointees, while United Russia retained control of all regional and municipal assemblies bar none. In the main, the newly formed parties took votes not from the "party of power," but from the parliamentary opposition, i.e. the Communist Party (CPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and A Just Russia.

But most such parties had been set up for that explicit purpose and registered without any hitch, while genuine opposition groups found the process very difficult or even prohibitive (Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Progress Party, for instance, was barred from the elections and later deprived of its registration).

Beginning in 2014, the "party reform" took a new turn: parties without representation in regional parliaments were again required to collect signatures from the electorate in support of their nomination. This greatly reduced the number of participants in the elections under the proportional system, mainly genuine opposition parties (spoiler parties were not impeded).

The same model is being applied to the current regional elections. The four parliamentary parties (United Russia, CPRF, LDPR, A Just Russia) qualify by default. No particular obstacles have been put in the way of Patriots of Russia (a spoiler against the Communist Party) or the left-liberal Yabloko, which owes its privileged position to the fact that it will help keep the Russian liberal movement split for some time to come. Various spoiler projects are also on the ballot paper.

But the Democratic Coalition - an informal bloc of liberal parties campaigning under the brand of former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's People's Freedom Party (PARNAS) - has faced all sorts of barriers. Besides PARNAS, the coalition includes four other parties, including Navalny's Progress Party. To all appearances, it is the non-systemic liberal movement that the Kremlin fears the most.

Of the three regions or oblasts in which the Democratic Coalition decided to run for parliament (Novosibirsk, Kaluga and Kostroma), its list of candidates was registered only in the latter, because that is where its chances are considered minimal: Most of the inhabitants of the Kostroma region live in villages, while liberals in Russia generally only make inroads in cities, and large ones at that.

Yet it was not just the liberals who encountered hurdles, but some "patriots" too. A number of regions refused to register the party lists of pro-Kremlin Rodina, the higher-ups evidently having decided that the party would not spoil the opposition, but instead, United Russia.

It seems that the authorities will once again carry the day: United Russia is set to secure a majority everywhere, with CPRF, LDPR and A Just Russia the only other representatives in the regional and local assemblies. The success of other party players will be incidental and inconclusive. But if the scenario does not play out as planned, it will be a wake-up call for the Kremlin - if the vehicle rolled out in 2012-14 starts to splutter, a new one will be urgently required.

However, even if the engine is still running smoothly, does that mean it can be used at next year's elections to the State Duma? After all, that was very much the reckoning when the vote was moved from December 2016 to September 2016.

It is hard to say. The country has entered a protracted economic crisis, and so far the Kremlin has only contained public dismay over declining living standards by expending former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin's accumulated reserves and diverting attention to Ukraine and "Western plots." But if the reserves dry up in the coming year, and the shine comes off the propaganda machine, then anything could happen; the moment of truth, avoidable this year, could fall right on the eve of the elections to the federal parliament.

In other words, there is the risk (for many, the hope) that the dress rehearsal of the profanity that post-Soviet Russia calls "elections" could itself become an profanity.

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 #14
Moscow Times
September 14, 2015
Russia Must Face Up to Economic Reality
By Mark Adomanis
Mark Adomanis is an MA/MBA candidate at the University of Pennsylvania's Lauder Institute.

Every policy has a cost. Whether seen or unseen, any government action will inevitably have a range of impacts on the economy. Some of these costs are easy to calculate. When the U.S. government, for example, buys an aircraft carrier, it's not a terribly complicated exercise to determine how much money was spent: even if there isn't a single budget line-item you can just add up all of the contracts and purchase orders.

It's the unseen costs where things can get a little tricky. There is an economic cost to purchasing an aircraft carrier as opposed to paying for a new highway or bridge, just as there is an economic cost to having the government take money away from the private sector to pay for anything at all. By changing the calculus in which private actors engage, government policy can have a real economic impact orders of magnitude larger than the direct costs of implementation. Hidden costs, in other words, matter a lot.

That's pretty basic as far as it goes, the roughest of rough outlines of economic reasoning, but the idea that everything has a price is a profoundly depressing one. And so, from time to time, someone appears and advocates on behalf of a plan that will supposedly resolve all sorts of complicated problems without any "cost." Free lunches for everyone! Presidential economic adviser Sergei Glazyev is the latest in a long line of such figures and will not be the last.

According to a recent report in RBC, Glazyev has prepared a comprehensive strategy to "overcome the effect of the West's economic sanctions" and to "stabilize the course of the ruble." As far as goals go both of these are entirely understandable, if not entirely praiseworthy (an exchange rate is best thought of not as a goal in and of itself, but as an output of other kinds of policy).

The real problem, though, isn't in Glazyev's goals but in how he proposes to go about attaining them. Russia could conceivably "overcome Western sanctions" by engaging in a widespread liberalization of its own business sector, freeing entrepreneurs from the conflicting (and very expensive!) demands of an out-of-control regulatory apparatus. By making Russia's domestic economy more dynamic, flexible, and resilient, such a step would clearly undermine the West's current policy, which is designed to maximize Russia's economic vulnerability.

Glazyev's ideas, however, are based on explicitly anti-liberal grounds, and envision a wide-ranging government crackdown on a number of different types of economic activity. Glazyev's plan, for example, would ban the "unjustified" purchase of foreign currency by legal entities. (It is taken for granted that the government would be able to determine which purchases were "justified" and which were not.)

Glazyev also proposes a "temporary" (which, given the nature of government, is to say "permanent") tax on foreign currency translations and cross-border payments. Glazyev would additionally ban loans in foreign currency for all non-financial corporations as well as introduce compulsory sales (on in less polite terminology "expropriations") of any foreign currency-denominated revenue. Just for good measure, he would also "temporarily" freeze prices as well as empower the Federal Antimonopoly Service to establish and enforce a margin somewhere between producers' cost and the market prices.

Perhaps my favorite idea, though, was the proposal to "allow" Russian companies to default on any debts owed to banks from countries which have introduced sanctions against Russia. Now there's not actually anything preventing Russian companies from walking away from these debts. Companies go bankrupt all of the time, it's just a part of the natural cycle of the business world.

But what is absolutely not in the Russian government's power to "allow" is the consequences of walking away from a debt. Any Russian company that refuses to pay back what it owes will immediately, and quite justifiably, be sued. And if any such company tried to cite Glazyev's law as "justification" for their non-payment they would (again, quite justifiably!) be laughed out of court.

There is simply no other way to say it: Glazyev's "plan" is a compendium of lazy, irrational thinking that, were it ever put into practice, would quickly set Russia on the road to economic apocalypse. Literally every action Glazyev proposes would make the problems he is attempting to solve worse. Take inflation. As ought to be obvious, freezing prices at some arbitrary, government-established level will not "stabilize prices."

Inflation is a basic part of any economic system, and trying to ban it will be about as effective as banning sunrise or sunset. It simply isn't possible. The Soviet government also froze prices and the result was that the (inevitable) impact of inflation was reflected in pervasive shortages. If the Russian government tried to do this again, the results would, sooner or later, be exactly the same.

Glazyev has not, apparently, had much discernible influence on Russia's actual economic policies. After oil prices collapsed, the Central Bank wisely decided to let the ruble float, and the government has so far avoided any attempts to introduce capital controls. It is true that there has been some tinkering with foreign currency purchases by state-owned companies, but so far these have been quite limited in scope.

Maybe the purpose of Glazyev's report was simply to rally the Russian business community to the government's side by reminding them that, despite the manifest flaws of the status quo, there are far worse options. But Glazyev's plan reflects exactly the same sort of "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality that is ever more evident in the political sphere. Unfortunately, it shouldn't surprise anyone if many of these ideas are actually put into practice.

The reality, though, is that Russia is in for a great deal of economic pain. It is unavoidable. Pretending that more government control will avert this will only make the very real problems facing the country that much worse.

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 #15
Carnegie Moscow Center
September 14, 2015
Just an Oil Company? The True Extent of Russia's Dependency on Oil and Gas
By Andrey Movchan
Movchan is a senior associate and director of the Economic Policy Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. He is one of Russia's best known financial managers.
[Tables here http://carnegie.ru/eurasiaoutlook/?fa=61272&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonva3NZKXonjHpfsX57OwpWK6g38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YIERMV0aPyQAgobGp5I5FEIQ7XYTLB2t60MWA%3D%3D]

In March 2014, Lindsey Graham, the outspoken U.S. Republican senator who is now running for president, referred to Russia as merely "an oil and gas company masquerading as a country." Graham is known for making alarmist and controversial statements-he recently said that falling oil prices were the result of a plot by Sunni Arabs against Iran and Russia-and it would be easy to dismiss this one as yet another outlandish bid for publicity.

Before we quickly dismiss Graham, however, we should recall the words of Leonardo da Vinci, "We derive more benefit from having our faults pointed out by our enemies than from hearing the opinions of friends." Given that the fall in oil prices appears to be a long-term trend, if Graham is actually right, Russia is facing an economic crisis the like of which it hasn't seen for many years.

At first glance, it is absurd to call Russia "merely an oil and gas company." The share of hydrocarbon production in the country's GDP has not exceeded 26.5 percent for 25 years and the share of oil and gas export has not risen above 14.5 percent of GDP. Those who champion Russia's underlying economic stability point to these very reasonable numbers. But things aren't quite so simple. Although three quarters of Russia's official GDP is not pouring out of its oil wells, the country is still heavily dependent on oil. We also need to identify how the non-oil components of Russian GDP are financed.

A more detailed analysis is less rosy. Trade accounts for 29 percent of Russian GDP, but Russia imports about 60 percent of its total consumption and pays for imports with earnings from exports, which are overwhelmingly dominated by oil and gas. That means that the share of hydrocarbons in the GDP is in effect 17.5 percent higher.

Next, 20-22 percent of GDP is comprised of state budget expenditures. At least 60 percent of consolidated budget revenues come from the mineral extraction tax, excise duties, export duties, value-added tax on imports and other taxes attributable to the oil and gas sector directly or indirectly. This adds an additional 13 percent to our calculation of the oil-based GDP.

By this rough tally, 57 percent of Russia's GDP already depends on oil. But we also need to factor in the direct influx of petrodollars that is converted into investments and spending in other sectors of the economy and additional consumption. It is hard to put a number on this, but by various estimates it has ranged between 10 and 13 percent of GDP in recent years. So our overall figure is now up to 67-70 percent.

The nature of the oil dependence is illustrated in Table 1 by tracking changes in Russia's consolidated budget revenues against WTI oil prices. No explanation is needed. Table 2, which compares the rise and fall of Russia's gold and foreign-exchange reserves with changes in oil prices, paints exactly the same picture. And, as Table 3 shows, if we take Russia's dollar denominated GDP growth rates and track them against changes in oil prices, the curves again practically coincide.

Official statistics suggest that Russia's oil and gas industry accounts for only a quarter of the country's GDP. However, when other factors are factored in, the economy is seen to be much more heavily dependent on hydrocarbons. With oil prices looking set to stay low for a long time, this is bad news for the Russian economy.

This begs the question: What are the effects of this dependence? An indirect answer can be found by measuring Russia's GDP in terms of barrels of oil. In 1992, when Russia was almost at the bottom of a structural crisis, its non-oil GDP (GDP minus actual production of oil) was equivalent to 19.5 billion barrels of oil in 1992 prices. In 1999, when oil prices were at their lowest, Russia's non-oil GDP dipped below the equivalent of eight billion barrels. However, even today, in 2015, Russia's non-oil GDP is still only worth 16.7 billion barrels in current prices (see Table 4). During the same period, Poland's non-oil GDP increased by 37 percent, while Norway, which has almost halved its oil production in the last 25 years, has maintained its non-oil GDP calculated in barrels of oil at the same level (see Table 5).

Even the ruble, it transpires, is ruled by the world oil market, not the Central Bank. When the oil price is above 60 U.S dollars a barrel, the real ruble exchange rate is higher than the inflation-adjusted exchange rate. When the oil price is below 60 dollars, the ruble is cheaper (see Table 6). The oil price is currently below 60 dollars, so the ruble has caught up with its inflation rate for the first time since 2005 and the value of dollar measured in rubles is rising above the "inflation curve." Furthermore, the extent of the ruble's deviation from its theoretical value, based on historical inflation, can be determined almost exactly by the oil price. (See Table 7).

This time at least, it turns out that Senator Graham got it right. The health of Russia's economy depends not on domestic policies, sanctions, technological innovations, the decision to seek rapprochement with the West or friendship with China. The only factor that influences Russia's economy is the price of oil and gas.

There is more bad news. The fall in world oil prices is not, as Graham believes, a plot by Sunni Arabs. The world oil supply exceeded 95 million barrels per day (mbpd) at the end of 2014, while demand plateaued at 93 mbpd. The trend looks set to continue. Over the last five years, the increase in oil supply in percentage points has outpaced demand by a factor of almost two. All indicators suggest that we are at the start of a long phase of low oil prices. By the end of this period, the oil industry will encounter better solar panels and super-batteries, more efficient car and aircraft engines, a mass market for electric vehicles, more energy-efficient construction materials, and other innovations.

Maybe in ten years' time we will remember today's oil prices as having been unreasonably high and think of Lindsey Graham's provocative comment about Russia as a friendly warning, which we sadly failed to heed.

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 #16
Newsweek.com
September 8, 2015
Forget Ukraine. It's Business As Usual Between Europe and Russia
Europe's big energy companies want to return to business as usual with Russia, despite the continuing conflict in Ukraine and the EU's continuing sanctions on Russia.
By Judy Dempsey
Judy Dempsey is a nonresident senior associate at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of Strategic Europe.

It was just like the old days before the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014. At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostokc Gazprom clinched three major deals with some of Europe's biggest energy companies.

One of the most important was the revival of a lucrative asset swap between the Russian energy giant and Wintershall, the energy division of BASF, a German chemical company. BASF had abandoned that swap arrangement in December 2014 because of the geopolitical consequences of Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea.

The asset swap and other deals signed in Vladivostok show how German as well as Austrian energy companies are loath to quit Russia. They also show how Gazprom wants to tie Europe's lucrative gas market more closely to Russia. In 2013, Russia supplied the EU's 28 countries with 30 percent of their gas needs.

But more importantly, the deals confirm how Russia is determined to end Ukraine's role as the major transit route for Russian gas to Europe. Half of the Russian gas imported by Europe crosses Ukraine.

Under the terms of the deal between BASF and Gazprom, BASF's subsidiary Wintershall will obtain a stake of 25 percent plus one share in the Urengoy natural gas fields in Siberia. Both firms will develop the fields.

In return, Wintershall will transfer to Gazprom its jointly owned gas storage and trading business in Germany as well as a stake in its business in Austria. Through the asset swap, Gazprom will also receive a 50 percent stake in Wintershall's exploration and production of oil and gas in the North Sea. These activities amounted to sales of over $13.4 billion in 2014, according to BASF.

The second deal agreed to in Vladivostok involves Gazprom and a European consortium building a second Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea. This will enable Russia to send more of its gas directly to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.

The consortium consists of BASF, German energy company E.ON, French electricity company Engie, Austrian oil and gas firm OMV and Royal Dutch Shell. Gazprom will own a 51 percent share of a new company called New European Pipeline AG, which will develop the project. The other partners will have a 10 percent stake, except for Engie, which will own 9 percent.

"The fact that the global energy majors participate in the project bespeaks its significance for securing reliable gas supply to European consumers," stated Alexey Miller, chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee.

Tell that to Poland and the Baltic states-and Ukraine. They had criticized the first Nord Stream pipeline, which was agreed to under the then German chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 2005. At the time, Warsaw argued that the deal increased Europe's dependence on Russian energy.

Since then, however, Europe has been diversifying its energy supplies, spurred by the 2009 Ukraine gas crisis, which disrupted supplies to Europe because of a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over energy prices.

Also, through its Third Energy Package, the European Commission is introducing more competition in the energy sector by breaking the hold any one company can have over the production, distribution and trading of gas. That is one of the main reasons why in December 2014 Russia pulled out of the South Stream project, which was to transport gas across the Black Sea to Southeastern Europe. Under the terms of the commission package, Russia would have had to open up the gas pipeline to competition.

The third deal reached in Vladivostok involves OMV's participation in the Urengoy oil and gas fields. When the deal is concluded, OMV will acquire a 24.8 percent stake in the project in exchange for Gazprom obtaining some of the assets of OMV.

"This agreement is another step towards cooperation along the entire value chain with Gazprom," said Rainer Seele, chief executive officer of OMV. "We are importing gas from Russia for our European customers. We are investing together into the security of supply realizing the Nord Stream 2 project and we are now extending our trustful partnership towards the production of natural gas in Siberia," he added.

Together, these deals mean that Europe's big energy companies want to return to business as usual with Russia, despite the continuing conflict in Ukraine and the EU's continuing sanctions on Russia.

But Russia too has its reasons for forging ahead with such deals. It needs the technology. It needs Europe's reliable markets. And does it really want to depend on China for its gas exports and its trade?

So even though Europe is diversifying its energy sources and the European Commission is insisting that Gazprom play by the EU's competition rules, sanctions or not, Europe is too lucrative for Russia to ignore.

So much for the nationalist rhetoric to the contrary from the Kremlin. And sanctions or not, Russia's underdeveloped gas fields are too lucrative for Europe's energy companies to ignore.

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 #17
The Independent (UK)
September 14, 2015
Elton John should talk to Putin about gay rights. But will Russia listen?
If the singer does meet Russia's president, their discussion could be longer and more serious than he might expect
By Mary Dejevsky
Mary Dejevsky is a writer and broadcaster. She is a former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington, and a special correspondent in China and many parts of Europe. She is a member of the Valdai Group, invited since 2004 to meet Russian leaders each autumn, and a member of the Chatham House thinktank. She is a past honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham and contributed the introductory essay to The Britannica Guide to Russia

Over the weekend, Sir Elton John expressed his interest in a meeting that any fly on the wall would be privileged to observe. Interviewed by the BBC, he said he would welcome a chance to talk to Vladimir Putin, to discuss what he called the Russian president's "ridiculous" attitude to gay rights.

The scene might, just might, now be set for John to play Red Square - the president's views would not deter him from performing in Russia, he added. Then he could take time on the side for a "free and frank" exchange, in the diplomatic parlance, with the Russian leader. John said, in essence, that he was prepared to be laughed out of court, but it was worth a go.

And there you have it. A small but diverting tale which has an element of absurdity, but for all that, contains possibilities. The general picture in the western public mind will be of John flying in to Moscow and convincing Putin of the error of his ways - best of all on live television - after which Putin declares a new age of liberalism across Russia. Or more likely carries on exactly as before, reinforcing the stereotype of the bigoted hatchet man.

In a way, it is the simplicity and the stereotypes, or the expectation of them, that make the story. And if some good comes of it, so much the better. But this is a classic case where it is worth looking a little distance behind the headlines, where things are less black and white than they might at first appear.

Take the focus on Putin and Russia. John was actually in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, when he made his comments about meeting Putin. He had been invited to provide the celebrity diversion at the Yalta European strategy forum, which was held this year, as last, for obvious reasons, in Kiev. The brainchild of the Ukrainian oligarch, arts patron and philanthropist Viktor Pinchuk, the annual forum is a gathering of Ukraine's movers and shakers, business people and international region watchers.

Making an entrance - as he has always done so well - was John, to talk on the subject of "tolerance". His audience hardly looked like your average rock concert-goers (though you never know), but John is a seasoned campaigner as well as an artist. He related his own hesitation about "coming out", told business leaders that they were missing out on talent if they excluded gay people, and warned Ukrainians in general to "wake up", as they risked falling behind the rest of Europe on gay rights.

The burden of his message, though, was much broader: that guaranteeing equal rights for LGBT citizens was part of tolerance of difference, an aspect of human rights generally, and an intrinsic part of being European. This was a salutary message for Ukraine, whose 2014 revolution was fought in the name of Europe, and which has seen some particularly vicious attacks on gay individuals and a gay march in recent months.

Indeed, intolerance, both of gay people and difference generally, tends only to grow as you move further east from Berlin. We may criticise bans on gay marches or heavy policing, but the bans and the police partly reflect the physical danger that openly gay people still face from some of their fellow citizens.

In both Ukraine and Russia, homosexual acts were decriminalised only relatively recently (in 1991 and 1993 respectively); in the Baltic states it was around the same time. But decriminalisation is only a part, albeit a key part, of progress towards acceptance.

Popular attitudes are much harder to change, and where discrimination is ingrained in the teaching of the dominant church - as it is with the Orthodox churches in Russia and Ukraine, and the Catholic church in Poland and elsewhere - attitudes are that much harder to shift. Pope Francis has initiated a tonal change at the very top, but it will take time to seep down into parishes, if it ever really does.

If Russia is not unique in its failings on gay rights, nor is Putin quite the singular villain he is so often presented as. Before the Sochi Winter Olympics he insisted that he was not homophobic, that he knew gay people and had gay individuals in his administration. In much of Europe that might sound tame, but for a Russian leader to say that in public was quite a departure. Outside the biggest cities, the Russian public, like the Russian Orthodox church, is deeply conservative.

It is also worth noting that the Russian law regularly cited as evidence of institutionalised homophobia is little different from the UK's notorious section 28, which banned the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools. When was section 28 repealed? In Scotland in 2000, and three years later elsewhere. We then traversed the path from section 28 to civil partnership and now gay marriage in just 12 years.

So, if - and why not be optimistic and say when - Sir Elton John meets Vladimir Putin, their discussion could be longer and more serious than the singer expects. And John might also learn that it is not primarily Putin's mind he needs to change, but that of the wider public - as in Ukraine, and many other countries besides. So let him take his music to Red Square, bring his family along, and appeal to the fans directly. Putin would probably not come and sing along - despite his apparent love of crooning - but he might just sneak a look from behind a Kremlin curtain.

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 #18
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
September 14, 2015
Russia's net delusion: How Russian online media distract people from reality
To distract attention from urgent economic problems and the mistakes of Russian authorities, the Russian media are looking for ways to send out alternative messages.
By Eugene Bai
Eugene Bai is an expert in Latin America and an experienced international journalist, contributor to The New Times, Novaya Gazeta and Expert magazine.

With the deepening economic crisis, Russian media outlets seem to be trying to divert public attention from the country's acute problems. Some of them use highly clickable headlines conveying very little actual news and serious news pegs to impose an idea that Russia is not the worst place to live regardless of all the economic woes.

For instance, during the last two months, "earth-shattering" reports discussed the Russian President Vladimir Putin's workout with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, renowned Russian oppositionist Maria Gaidar's decision to join the team of the governor of Odessa, and the wedding of the Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. And all this on the background of urgent topics of the refugee crisis in Europe and the destruction of the sanctioned food products in Russia.

In fact Russian media are making much ado about nothing in the case of easy news or gossips about VIP persons, politicians or celebrities, while shifting focus from serious ones like refugee crisis in Europe (As the independent Slon wrote, some Russian media is increasingly exaggerating the problems with refugees to distract attention from difficulties in Russia and to focus on the West's failures and weaknesses).

The new opium of the people

Of course, no country has escaped the increased focus on the lives of VIPs and celebrities. But in today's Russia, such "earth-shattering" news items, as dubbed sarcastically by journalist Mikhail Melnikov, are being artificially churned out into the blogosphere.

"The problem is not so much that Russia is in a difficult situation, but the fact that many of us choose to live under the narcotic smoke of such dazzling newsflashes, which are deliberately leaked online and to the media by both the government and the opposition," he writes. As a result, Melnikov believes that the Internet has become an El Dorado for windbags and gossips.

Even the president is not immune. The head of state's "small joys of being" were a daily feature in social networks. One of the main news of this summer has been Putin's descent in a bathyscaphe to the bottom of the Black Sea offshore Crimea, where he miraculously discovered many ancient amphorae.

For many Russians, it was a case of deja vu. Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky recalls that it was a repeat of 2011, when Putin plunged to the bottom of the Black Sea offshore Sochi.

"Back then he found one amphora, this time a whole of shipful," says Belkovsky. "I get the feeling that the ship and the artifacts do not belong to the same period; quite possibly the latter were plundered from Crimean museums."

U.S.-based PR specialist Dmitry Klimentov notes that unlike Western politicians Putin does not care about how such stories are perceived.

"Putin does what he wants. He likes boyish toys because that's how he was brought up," says the expert.

Klimentov also notes that many politicians in the West - as opposed to the Middle East and Latin America - are less inclined towards machismo: "Imagine Angela Merkel in a submarine."

Most Russian Internet users were amused by Putin's latest stunt. True, there was also much criticism. The main leitmotif was: "Putin sinks to the bottom as surely as the Russian ruble."

The fall of the national currency is in fact one of the hottest topics in Russia at the moment. The ruble has hit a low since the start of the year, when it was effectively devalued.

Presidential aide Andrei Belousov warns that, "Russia's reserves are extremely low, and money to stabilize the exchange rate does not exist. The only way out for the regulator is to raise the key interest rate once again."

"Economists believe that the Central Bank could avoid many problems if it took the time to explain its actions to the public once in a while. It seems that drastic measures are now in order," he says.

VEB chief economist Andrei Klepach paints an even gloomier picture. Reduced consumer demand this year has turned out to be even worse than in crisis-hit 1998 and 2009, he said live on-air with RBC. He remarks that the current downturn in the economy is due to falling demand, especially in retail.

"This is a very big shock. It's more severe than what we went through in 1998 and in 2009," said Klepach. "Whereas in 2009 household incomes did not fall in real terms, now incomes and wages are indeed falling in real terms."

But Russian media and bloggers are obscuring the very real challenges faced by Russian citizens who have lost their jobs or suffered wage cuts, while supermarket prices continue to rise. They are given only a cursory mention by state media, if that.

It is perhaps a calculated response to public demand for such distracting information, which carries a strong emotional impact.

In the words of Maxim Trudolyubov, a columnist for business newspaper Vedomosti, "Higher-quality information sources would be like broccoli to a child raised on jam, like a Greek salad to a person hooked on hamburgers, like water to an alcoholic."

Distractions from reality

Some see such attempts to distract people from real problems through the dissemination of mind-numbing or entertaining information as a tool of state propaganda, which the Russian authorities are adept at wielding.

However, political analyst Dmitry Solonnikov, director of the Institute of Contemporary State Development, asserts that propaganda presupposes the creation of customized content with a vivid ideological tinge. The expert believes that it is folly to label all processes in the media environment, some of which can happen at random, as propaganda.

"There are certain thought patterns and ways of assessing global events, and by no means all come from the Kremlin. 'Kremlin propaganda' is like a brand, but a lot of what goes on in today's information space does not fall into that category," the expert believes.

According to Solonnikov, "Very many individuals and organizations have their own well-established opinions on a number of contemporary issues. Accordingly, the views they broadcast in the media space often dovetail with what the Kremlin says. Such people and structures are numerous, but they cannot be said to be Kremlin mouthpieces. In this sense, 'Kremlin propaganda' as a brand implying a certain ideological direction is largely independent and lives by its own laws."

Four years ago The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Boston-based Belarussian author Yevgeny Morozov was published in the United States. A Russian-language edition was recently released in Russia.

In it, the author writes that, "The events of the past four years in Russia point to a shift in government policy towards crude measures such as blocking websites. There have also been thinly disguised attempts to seize control of the country's largest social networks."

Morozov believes that, "For now the Kremlin is not too worried about its image, and until that changes no one should be surprised by the increasingly frequent methods of direct control it employs." A common thread that runs through the book is how the government exploits media, social networks and the entertainment industry to distract attention from urgent problems and its own mistakes.

At the same time, Solonnikov's words about how the traditional Russian way of thinking and the stereotypes entrenched in the Russian mind are largely responsible for turning the Internet into an "illusory" phenomenon, lending itself to easy manipulation, should also be heeded.

For this reason, social networks that create a feeling of "being out-of-control" through the sheer number of pointed comments directed at the authorities can hardly be regarded as a broad democratic platform for exchanging views in a civilized society.

Until such society is formed, and as long as Russia lacks meaningful political opposition and genuinely free media, the trending topics in social networks will continue to be watches on the wrists of Russian officials, and Grecian pottery at the bottom of the Black Sea.

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 #19
New York Times
September 13, 2015
Why Russians Hate America. Again.
By SABRINA TAVERNISE

MOSCOW - ON a warm August evening, I found myself sitting with three educated young Russians at the Beverly Hills Diner, a chain restaurant whose gaudy décor includes human-size figures of Porky Pig and Marilyn Monroe.

They had invited me to join their table, inside a green convertible car, after I had asked a few reporter-type questions about their country. But all talk of Russia kept leading to America.

"America is trying to encircle us," said Kristina Donets, 29, swabbing a slice of dessert waffle in banana compote. "We have finally risen out of chaos and you don't like that."

Reporting in Russia after more than a decade away felt a lot like visiting an old friend. It is where I owned my first car (and had it stolen), met my husband and first worked as a journalist.

But the friend had changed.

In some ways, it was for the better. People were wealthier - despite the recent decline in the ruble and jump in inflation - and better traveled. The kindhearted woman who hosted me when I first moved to Moscow in 1997 said it best: "We don't have to wash out our plastic bags anymore." Her tiny salary had quadrupled since I'd last seen her. She had taken her first trip abroad - a package tour to Tunisia.

But there was a darker side. Society had grown more defensive, and self-conscious, like a teenager constantly looking at herself in the mirror. Oligarchs had always had exit ramps - a house in London and a second passport - but now my own friends were looking for escape routes.

Intellectuals pointed me to books on Berlin in the 1920s and the concept of "ressentiment,'' a philosophical term that describes a simmering resentment and sense of victimization arising out of envy of a perceived enemy. It often has its roots in a culture's feeling of impotence. In Berlin in the early 20th century, it helped explain the rise of German fascism. In Russia in August, it seemed to have many targets: Ukraine, gay people, European dairy products and above all the United States.

"America stuffs its democracy in our face," bellowed a cabdriver named Kostya in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. (His main beef was with the "propaganda of pederasts," using a derogatory word used to describe homosexuals, a few weeks after the Supreme Court's approval of gay marriage.) "If you're saying yes, yes, yes, all the time and nodding your head, well sometimes you have to say no," he said, explaining that Russia had finally stood up to the United States.

There is, of course, a lot of history behind such sentiments. In the 19th century, Slavophiles and Westernizers clashed over the right path for Russia. There was obviously the fierce rivalry with the United States in Soviet times. Since then, there have been low points, often connected with American actions in the world. (The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 and the American invasion of Iraq are examples.) But nothing like the current opinion of America, which this year sank to its lowest level since the Soviet Union collapsed nearly 24 years ago, according to polling by the Levada Analytical Center in Moscow.

Anti-Americanism is more potent now because it is stirred up and in many ways sponsored by the state, an effort that Russians, despite their hard-bitten cynicism, seem surprisingly susceptible to. Independent voices are all but gone from Russian television, and most channels now march to the same, slickly produced beat. Virtually any domestic problem, from the ruble's decline to pensioners' losing subsidies on public transport, is cast as a geopolitical standoff between Russia and America, and political unrest anywhere is portrayed as having an American State Department official lurking behind it.

"America wants to destroy us, humiliate us, take our natural resources," said Lev Gudkov, director of Levada, the polling center, describing the rhetoric, with which he strongly disagrees. "But why? For what? There is no explanation."

DURING my visit, Russians were thinking about America a lot, which was a kind of compliment, but in the way of a spurned lover who keeps sending angry texts long after the breakup.

"Tell her how well we all live, how much better than in Europe and how wonderful Crimea is now," hissed a woman in a skintight dress to someone I was interviewing. She was referring to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed last year. That of course, was the other big change I encountered.

Inside Russia, Mr. Putin's actions in Crimea have broken friendships and split families, leaving society as divided as I have ever seen it. Politics, once everyone's obsession, now seems like a distant land no one visits. Those who do, pay a price. Mr. Gudkov said he felt like "a Jew in Hitler's Germany" when he opposed the Crimea annexation.

The move also caused the biggest break in relations with the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"It's like a divorce," said Keith Darden, a political-science professor at American University. "They are saying: 'the relationship we had is over. We've had enough of your efforts to change us. We're doing our own thing now.' "

He added, "But they don't know what their own thing is."

What is the Kremlin's grand strategy? Many Russian liberals I talked to believe there isn't one. Mr. Putin and his inner circle are simply lurching from crisis to crisis. How else to explain Russia's sanctions on imported food, which have driven up inflation at home, or Crimea, which has lost a chunk of its tourists and saddled Moscow with expensive new social obligations.

Dmitry Volkov, a journalist who took part in the 2011 protests against Mr. Putin, compared the annexation, and Russia's subsequent military action in eastern Ukraine, to a mugging that ends in accidental murder.

"They keep crossing boundaries only to find that once they are across, it's only logical to cross the next one," he said. "That's not a strategy. That's a behavioral pattern."

Others believe that the government is unraveling, and that the shrillness of the nationalist narrative is a harbinger. Oil prices have plunged, shrinking the pie that Mr. Putin's loyalists had been feasting on.

"It's like before Pompeii, when all the springs dried up," said one Russian friend, a former journalist who is a keen observer of the political system. "The ground is hot."

The low opinion of America, Mr. Gudkov said, is not a permanent condition. The resentment seems to have more to do with Russians themselves than with any American action, a kind of defensive, free-floating expression of current anxieties.

But the biggest question is where it is all leading. Some Russians aren't sticking around to find out.

"I don't like what's happening now," said Alexander Yeremeyev, an Internet entrepreneur, walking with his family in Sokolniki, a park in central Moscow. "Now we're all supposed to unite against what - the U.S., Europe, cheese?"

He said he was considering leaving. "I have friends who say, 'it's great to do business in Russia.' But you know what they all have in common? Foreign passports."

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#20
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
September 14, 2015
The Murmansk Express
By Anatoly Karlin
[Map here http://www.unz.com/akarlin/murmansk-express/]

The vast bulk of the Syrian (and not so Syrian) immigrants to the EU have been making their way through the "sluice" countries of the Med such as Greece and Italy. Germany has joined Sweden Yes! in the level of its enthusiastic affirmativeness, while the Visegrad countries are locked in a surly and impotent position that is only made tolerable for them by the fact that none of the "refugees" actually want to settle in their welfare-less countries.

Russia has been largely in the sidelines, but not entirely so.

Like most countries outside the Hajnal zone, it is not very enthusiastic about giving out refugee status; to date only 2,000 Syrians have been granted temporary asylum, with a mere one case being given the status of a refugee. The actual numbers of refugees without status is considerably more, perhaps 10,000 (I wrote about the phenomenon back in February 2013, though that concerned persecuted Egyptian Christian Copts).

Russia has a Visegrad-level GDP per capita, with even less in the way of welfare, so naturally the vast bulk of immigrants are only interested in it as a transit country. This is a burgeoning industry, albeit one beginning from a very low base. See the map to the right via the WSJ.

"When Ali Al-Salim and a fellow Syrian arrived at the port city by train from Moscow earlier this year, they were greeted by officers from the FSB, Russia's domestic security agency.

"'We said we were visiting the place but they replied: Nobody comes here for tourism, it's a military city,' Mr. Al-Salim said, adding the officers made him and his friend buy a return ticket to Moscow.

"Days later, as Mr. Al-Salim prepared to travel from Murmansk to the Norwegian border, the FSB officers came to his hotel. Mr. Al-Salim said he disclosed his real plans.

"'We don't have any problem with that, but you must get a ride there yourself,' one of the FSB officers said, according to Mr. Al-Salim.

"For $150, the two Syrians found a driver who took them to the border."

And according to a Komsomolskaya Pravda report, apparently it's really good days for Russian taxi drivers and bicycle retailers near the Norwegian border.

"'My colleagues take $200-$800 from foreigners. The more people, the more expensive. I personally take $500-$600,' says Oleg, a taxi driver from the border town of Nickel.

"The prices for rides straight from Murmansk are even wilder. Syrians are ready to pay up to $1,400 and not even all taxi drivers agree to that sum. The Norwegians can take away visas for transporting refugees or even take apart their cars and be completely in their legal rights to do so... Bicycles in Nickel are becoming short in supply. They can be found at twice the price of those in Murmansk at one local shop..."

Even with the recently inflated prices, though, the Arctic Route is still far cheaper and far safer than traveling in an overcrowded dinghy organized by shady mafia types who don't really much care where you make it to your destination in one piece. There are also even fewer bureacratic obstacles. Hungary and Co. at least have to abide by the formal requirements of European treaties, whereas Russia quite rightly considers Schengen issues to be none of its concerns and just let's them go on their merry way, the sooner the better.

With Mutti apparently having some second thoughts on all this, the prominence of the Arctic Route may well increase in the months ahead.

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#21
Tbilisi says Russia promises not to hinder Georgia-EU Association Agreement

TBILISI. Sept 14 (Interfax) - Georgia did not coordinate with Moscow its association agreement with the European Union, Special Envoy of the Georgian Prime Minister for Relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze has said.

"What is more, representatives of the Russian administration said they would not hinder Georgia's signing of that document," he told the Georgian newspaper Kviris Palitra in an interview.

In the opinion of Abashidze, Georgia "would have hardly been able to achieve that success and to sign the association agreement" in the period of office of former President Mikheil Saakashvili.

As to whether Russia softened its position on the Georgia-EU Association Agreement because of the Georgian promise to resolve the problems of Abkhazia and South Ossetia shortly, Abashidze said no such promises were given. "Just the opposite, we said those problems would not be resolved rapidly," the Georgian prime minister's envoy said.

He said that the negotiations he had been conducting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin in Prague did not touch upon political matters but were limited to economic and humanitarian issues.

New Georgian Foreign Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili told Georgia's Channel One that the Abashidze-Karasin negotiating format needed to be preserved, but that there were no plans to include political subjects in it.

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 #22
Christian Science Monitor
September 11, 2015
Russia in Syria: Ghosts of Afghanistan may limit Kremlin's options now
Memories of the Soviet Army's failure in Afghanistan still haunt the Russian public - making a major deployment to Syria almost unthinkable, Russian experts say.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - Russia is stepping up its involvement in Syria according to multiple reports, and may launch air strikes against Islamic State forces opposing the Bashar al-Assad regime.

But despite the Russian activity in Syria, a range of Russian security experts insist that Russia's military intentions there will be constrained by one powerful condition within the Russian public's psyche: "Afghan Syndrome."

The syndrome had much the same effect as the Vietnam War on the US public. The former USSR's painful intervention in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 - which killed 15,000 Soviet troops - scarred a generation of Russians, arguably contributed to the collapse of the state, and left Russia with an abiding public aversion to using force beyond its borders.

"The Russian population does not want our Army taking part in active military operations anywhere, period," says Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Center, Russia's only independent polling agency.

Even in Ukraine, where opinion polls show most Russians support their country's official policies of allowing volunteers and other forms of assistance to the Ukrainian rebels, the Kremlin has gone to great lengths to conceal involvement of Russian troops over the past year, including secret burials of the inevitable casualties.

"Polls consistently show they don't want Russian troops in Ukraine," says Mr. Grazhdankin. "The attitude to introducing Russian forces in Syria will be negative."

A new airbase

Syria has been Moscow's client state for more than 40 years. At any point in that time there would be plenty of Russians on the ground in Syria, in training and advisory capacities, says Alexander Golts, an independent military expert. Russia has maintained a naval supply station at Tartus and possibly intelligence-gathering facilities in other places for decades.

What is apparently new, says Mr. Golts, is construction of a Russian airbase near Latakia, from where it's possible that Russian-piloted helicopters and jets could launch attacks against advancing IS forces.

"I think this new activity is in connection with [Vladimir] Putin's upcoming speech at the UN General Assembly, where he plans to propose to the West a grand anti-terrorist alliance, of which Russia would be a key part," says Golts. "So there is an effort to show some activity on the ground, proof that we are serious."

He and other experts dismiss "newspaper reports" of Russian troops going into action in Syria, but say that one marine battalion - about 500 men - has been sent aboard three assault ships out of Sevastopol to defend the new airfield.

"This is an escalation, no doubt about it. But there will be no big intervention there; Putin knows the Russian public will simply not understand this," says Golts.

A Vietnam-like trap?

Some experts warn that the Kremlin could be stepping onto a very slippery slope.

"The idea is to help protect the Alawite population around Latakia, to stabilize the situation and deter IS," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the independent Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. "No large-scale operation is planned. But, as happened to the Americans in Vietnam, one thing can lead to another, and troops who are advisers one day can find themselves fighting the next."

Mr. Makarkin adds that "the 'Afghan Syndrome' is not as sharp and fresh as it used to be. A similar thing happened to Americans, who got over their 'Vietnam Syndrome' and went on to invade Iraq and Afghanistan."

While Russians tend to venerate World War II veterans and extoll the USSR's role in defeating Nazi Germany, those who fought in Afghanistan have not fared so well in the public eye. Aside from virtually bloodless interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan was the first time in the postwar period that Soviet forces were deployed abroad, starting in December 1979.

That conflict introduced the Soviet public to a different kind of war. Its goals seemed incomprehensible; it lasted twice as long as WWII, turned into a bloody quagmire, and ended in humiliating defeat.

"Of course we didn't go into Afghanistan with the goal of making war. We meant to help those people, restore national accord, defend their southern frontier," says Oleg Tikhonov, deputy chair of the Sverdlovsk regional chapter of Afghan war invalids. "From the point of view of high politics, it sounded like the right thing to do."

But the lessons of that failed war have struck deep in the national psyche. "Public opinion will never support [military intervention in Syria]. Never," he says.

The threat of the Islamic State

Most Russian security experts say that something should be done to stop the spread of IS. They say the radical group could commit genocide if it breaks into the minority-inhabited pro-Assad strongholds of Syria. IS looks to Russians increasingly like a gathering threat not far from their own borders.

No one advocates deploying Russian troops to Syria. But many say air strikes, increased arms supplies, and more logistical and intelligence aid to the Assad regime will probably be acceptable to the Russian public.

In a trenchant article this week, one of Russia's top foreign policy experts, Fyodor Lukyanov, said that Russia should help to build a "fortress" for Syria's Christian, Druze, and Alawite minorities around Damascus and Latakia against the advance of IS. And he argued the West is not likely to oppose this. "The course of events [over the past four years] has demonstrated that Russia has a clearer understanding of Syria's specifics than the West does," he writes.

Many Russian experts also express bewilderment over US opposition to Russia's intentions, including Washington's efforts to get countries like Greece and Bulgaria to close their airspace to Russian air supply flights. They say that dozens of Western air forces are already bombing IS, with insufficient impact, and that bolstering Assad's beleaguered forces on the ground is the only way to seriously counter the burgeoning challenge from IS.

"I'm really shocked at the way Americans say that Russia is one of the principle threats to the world along with IS, and then turn around and claim we're not doing enough to counter IS," says Viktor Baranets, a former Defense Ministry spokesman and military columnist.

"It's time to understand that we need put aside political differences and forge a real united front against IS. People need to wake up today, because tomorrow it may be too late."

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 #23
Consortiumnews.com
September 13, 2015
Who's to Blame for Syria Mess? Putin!
By Robert Parry
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

Exclusive: Official Washington's new "group think" is to blame Russia's President Putin for the Syrian crisis, although it was the neocons and President George W. Bush who started the current Mideast mess by invading Iraq, the Saudis who funded Al Qaeda, and the Israelis who plotted "regime change," says Robert Parry.

Sen. Lindsey Graham may have been wrong about pretty much everything related to the Middle East, but at least he has the honesty to tell Americans that the current trajectory of the wars in Syria and Iraq will require a U.S. re-invasion of the region and an open-ended military occupation of Syria, draining American wealth, killing countless Syrians and Iraqis, and dooming thousands, if not tens of thousands, of U.S. troops.

Graham's grim prognostication of endless war may be a factor in his poll numbers below one percent, a sign that even tough-talking Republicans aren't eager to relive the disastrous Iraq War. Regarding the mess in Syria, there are, of course, other options, such as cooperation with Russia and Iran to resist the gains of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda and a negotiated power-sharing arrangement in Damascus. But those practical ideas are still being ruled out.

Official Washington's "group think" still holds that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "must go," that U.S. diplomats should simply deliver a "regime change" ultimatum not engage in serious compromise, and that the U.S. government must obstruct assistance from Russia and Iran even if doing so risks collapsing Assad's secular regime and opening the door to an Al Qaeda/Islamic State victory.

Of course, if that victory happens, there will be lots of finger-pointing splitting the blame between President Barack Obama for not being "tough" enough and Russia's President Vladimir Putin who has become something of a blame-magnet for every geopolitical problem. On Friday, during a talk at Fort Meade in Maryland, Obama got out front on assigning fault to Putin.

Obama blamed Putin for not joining in imposing the U.S.-desired "regime change" on Syria. But Obama's "Assad must go!" prescription carries its own risks as should be obvious from the U.S. experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine. Ousting some designated "bad guy" doesn't necessarily lead to some "good guy" taking over.

More often, "regime change" produces bloody chaos in the target country with extremists filling the vacuum. The idea that these transitions can be handled with precision is an arrogant fiction that may be popular during conferences at Washington's think tanks, but the scheming doesn't work out so well on the ground.

And, in building the case against Assad, there's been an element of "strategic communications" - the new catch phrase for the U.S. government's mix of psychological operations, propaganda and P.R. The point is to use and misuse information to manage the perceptions of the American people and the world's public to advance Washington's strategic goals.

So, although it's surely true that Syrian security forces struck back fiercely at times in the brutal civil war, some of that reporting has been exaggerated, such as the now-discredited claims that Assad's forces launched a sarin gas attack against Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21, 2013. The evidence now suggests that Islamic extremists carried out a "false flag" operation with the goal of tricking Obama into bombing the Syrian military, a deception that almost worked. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case."]

Even earlier, independent examinations of how the Syrian crisis developed in 2011 reveal that Sunni extremists were part of the opposition mix from the start, killing Syrian police and soldiers. That violence, in turn, provoked government retaliation that further divided Syria and exploited resentments of the Sunni majority, which has long felt marginalized in a country where Alawites, Shiites, Christians and secularists are better represented in the Assad regime. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Hidden Origins of Syria's Civil War."]

An Obvious Solution

The obvious solution would be a power-sharing arrangement that gives Sunnis more of a say but doesn't immediately require Assad, who is viewed as the protector of the minorities, to step down as a precondition. If Obama opted for that approach, many of Assad's Sunni political opponents on the U.S. payroll could be told to accept such an arrangement or lose their funding. Many if not all would fall in line. But that requires Obama abandoning his "Assad must go!" mantra.

So, while Official Washington continues to talk tough against Assad and Putin, the military situation in Syria continues to deteriorate with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda's affiliate, the Nusra Front, gaining ground, aided by financial and military support from U.S. regional "allies," including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Sunni-led Persian Gulf states. Israel also has provided help to the Nusra Front, caring for its wounded troops along the Golan Heights and bombing pro-government forces inside Syria.

President Obama may feel that his negotiations with Iran to constrain its nuclear program - when Israeli leaders and American neocons favored a bomb-bomb-bombing campaign - have put him in a political bind where he must placate Israel and Saudi Arabia, including support for Israeli-Saudi desired "regime change" in Syria and tolerance of the Saudi-led invasion of Yemen. [See Consortiumnews.com's "On Syria, Incoherence Squared."]

Privately, I'm told, Obama agreed to - and may have even encouraged - Putin's increased support for the Assad regime, realizing it's the only real hope of averting a Sunni-extremist victory. But publicly Obama senses that he can't endorse this rational move. Thus, Obama, who has become practiced at speaking out of multiple sides of his mouth, joined in bashing Russia - sharing that stage with the usual suspects, including The New York Times' editorial page.

In a lead editorial on Saturday, entitled "Russia's Risky Military Moves in Syria," the Times excoriated Russia and Putin for trying to save Assad's government. Though Assad won a multi-party election in the portions of Syria where balloting was possible in 2014, the Times deems him a "ruthless dictator" and seems to relish the fact that his "hold on his country is weakening."

The Times then reprises the "group think" blaming the Syrian crisis on Putin. "Russia has long been a major enabler of Mr. Assad, protecting him from criticism and sanctions at the United Nations Security Council and providing weapons for his army," the Times asserts. "But the latest assistance may be expanding Russian involvement in the conflict to a new and more dangerous level."

Citing the reported arrival of a Russian military advance team, the Times wrote: "The Americans say Russia's intentions are unclear. But they are so concerned that Secretary of State John Kerry called the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, twice this month and warned of a possible 'confrontation' with the United States, if the buildup led to Russian offensive operations in support of Mr. Assad's forces that might hit American trainers or allies.

"The United States is carrying out airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State, which is trying to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, as well as struggling to train and arm moderate opposition groups that could secure territory taken from the extremists."

Double Standards, Squared

In other words, in the bizarre world of elite American opinion, Russia is engaging in "dangerous" acts when it assists an internationally recognized government fighting a terrorist menace, but it is entirely okay for the United States to engage in unilateral military actions inside Syrian territory without the government's approval.

Amid this umbrage over Russia helping the Syrian government, it also might be noted that the U.S. government routinely provides military assistance to regimes all over the world, including military advisers to the embattled U.S.-created regime in Iraq and sophisticated weapons to nations that carry out attacks beyond their own borders, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, the Times believes that what is good for the U.S. goose is not tolerable for the Russian gander. Indeed, if Russia's assistance to the Syrian government leads to a "confrontation" with U.S. forces or allies, it is Russia that is held to blame though its forces are there with the Syrian government's permission while the U.S. forces and allies aren't.

The Times also defends the bizarre effort by the U.S. State Department last week to organize an aerial blockade to prevent Russia from resupplying the Syrian army. The Times states:

"The United States has asked countries on the flight path between Russia and Syria to close their airspace to Russian flights, unless Moscow can prove they aren't being used to militarily resupply the Assad regime. Bulgaria has done so, but Greece, another NATO ally, and Iraq, which is depending on America to save it from the Islamic State, so far have not. World leaders should use the United Nations General Assembly meeting this month to make clear the dangers a Russian buildup would pose for efforts to end the fighting."

Given the tragic record of The New York Times and other mainstream U.S. media outlets promoting disastrous "regime change" schemes, including President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003 and President Obama's bombing campaign in Libya in 2011, you might think the editors would realize that the best-laid plans of America's armchair warriors quite often go awry.

And, in this case, the calculation that removing Assad and installing some Washington-think-tank-approved political operative will somehow solve Syria's problems might very well end up in the collapse of the largely secular government in Damascus and the bloody arrival of the Islamic State head-choppers and/or Al Qaeda's band of terrorism plotters.

With the black flag of Islamic terrorism flying over the ancient city of Damascus, Sen. Graham's grim prognostication of a U.S. military invasion of Syria followed by an open-ended U.S. occupation may prove prophetic, as the United States enters its final transformation from a citizens' republic into an authoritarian imperial state.

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 #24
Defense One
www.defenseone.com
September 12, 2015
US and Russian Forces in Syria Aren't Talking to Each Other
CENTCOM says it has "no military-to-military contact" with Russian forces sent to help the embattled Assad regime.
By Molly O'Toole

In Syria, where the U.S. is leading an air campaign against Islamic State targets and Russian military advisors are arriving to help the Assad regime, the two militaries aren't talking to each other.

"Coalition forces are focused on conducting counter-ISIL operations, and so to my knowledge there is no military-to-military contact at this point," Air Force Col. Pat Ryder, spokesman for U.S. Central Command, told reporters Friday morning.

"We're keeping an eye on the Russian situation there, but right now again there's really no deconfliction to do," Ryder said, answering a question about how U.S. and anti-ISIS coalition forces and the Russian military are keeping out of each other's way in Syria. "I think what you're getting at is: [deconfliction] in the event there's some type of Russian military or air activity, but again, I'm not going to speculate or talk about hypotheticals. Certainly, we have very professional air forces, and the coalition is going to ensure the safety of those forces where we operate."

But Russia's military presence in Syria, at least, is no longer hypothetical. Just hours before Ryder's press briefing, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed that Moscow had sent troops and equipment to help its longtime client, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, fight ISIS. Lavrov declined to confirm a Reuters report that the Russian troops had seen combat, but he did warn the U.S. about a growing risk of "unintended incidents" if the countries' militaries did not cooperate in Syria.

When Ryder was asked specifically about deconfliction between coalition and Russian forces, the Pentagon spokesman referred the question to the State Department. But State Department spokesman John Kirby tossed it right back: "You have to talk to DOD about air coordination over the skies of Syria. That is not a State Department function."

Kirby did note that the Pentagon has "routine military-to-military exchanges and dialogue with Russia, just as a matter of course."

And he said that while the U.S. is hardly coordinating the air campaign with Assad or his government, it is using back channels, such as the Syrian representative to the U.N., to notify Damascus of imminent actions.

"There's no coordination with the air campaign and the Syrian regime, but yes, they have been notified in the past about air activity and advised to stay clear of it," Kirby said.

James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, said the absence of military-to-military contact is troubling.

"It is very dangerous to have both Russian and U.S. troops in a confined battle space, essentially on opposite sides of a civil war, without contact for deconfliction of any combat or support activities," Stavridis said. "Open communication at the strategic and tactical level are both important."

Kirby noted that there are diplomatic channels for broader contact with Russia. "There are many vehicles through which we communicate with Russian leaders about their activities and their intentions," he said, citing two phone calls between Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Kerry in the past week. The U.S. embassy in Moscow "routinely talks to Russian leaders and officials about all manner of issues, particularly those that are of concern to us," he said.

"We'll continue to keep the lines of communication open as we feel we need to to gain better clarity," Kirby said. "While the intent isn't perfectly clear, our concerns remain valid and we're going to continue to have these discussions with Russian leaders going forward."

Risk Is Growing

Lavrov blamed Washington for severing military ties after Russia annexed Crimea and invaded Ukraine, fracturing a "professional" relationship that had for years been "important for the avoidance of undesired, unintended incidents."

"They understand each other very well," he said of U.S. brass and their Russian counterparts. "If, as John Kerry has said many times, the United States wants those channels frozen, then be our guest."

Meanwhile, the risk of "unintended incidents" between U.S. and coalition forces and Russian and Syrian government forces appears to be growing. The U.S. is deepening agreements with Turkey to use its bases and clear its border of ISIS fighters. It is also training and equipping Syrian fighters and reinserting them into the fight in Syria, where it has vowed to defend them against ISIS or Assad.

U.S. officials also say Moscow has stationed about 200 naval infantrymen near the Syrian city of Latakia, and has sent in SA-22 anti-aircraft missiles to be operated by Russians. Meanwhile, Lavrov confirmed that the Russian Navy is beginning exercises off the Syrian coast, home to its only Mediterranean naval base, at Tartous. At least five missile-armed ships will take part, Reuters reported.

Stavridis noted that the Soviet and U.S. navies shared detailed action plans during the Cold War to avoid accidental, escalatory interactions, and said this might serve as a model in the new conflict. "We will need similar dialogue, and possibly such protocols, to avoid incidents in Syria," he said.

Russia's latest moves caught the U.S. and NATO by surprise. "I know of no prior notice that was given to the United States with respect to these additional activities that Russia has taken," the State Department's Kirby said.

So what's next? Kirby said later Friday that the U.S. opposes "any actions in Syria that empowers the regime to escalate the conflict."

"We'd welcome constructive anti-ISIL efforts by Russia, but it can't start with, and it can't be a function of, continued support to the Assad regime," Kirby said. He said Russia has not been asked to join the 60-plus nations now fighting ISIS, and added, "It wasn't an implied invitation."

But earlier in the day, White House spokesman Josh Earnest had seemed to suggest that the coalition's door might be open to Moscow.

"Any efforts that anybody would take, including the Russians, to offer material support to the Assad regime would be counterproductive," Earnest said in a briefing. "So at the same time, we would welcome constructive Russian contributions to our anti-ISIL campaign. There are more than 60 countries who are participating in that effort, and we would welcome constructive Russian support for those efforts."

Stavridis agreed, saying, "Far better than sending troops to bolster the failing Assad regime would be Russian participation in the anti-Islamic State coalition alongside more than 40 nations who seek to destroy ISIL."

Earnest said that the U.S. remains unsure about Russia's intentions in Syria. (Critics say this inability to understand President Vladimir Putin prevented the Obama administration from anticipating the invasion of Ukraine, or responding effectively to the conflict that followed.)

"At this point, it's hard to tell exactly what they're planning to do," he said. "We've, I think. tried to make clear what we would like to see them do, but ultimately they'll have to decide."

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 #25
New York Times
September 12, 2015
Editorial
Russia's Risky Military Moves in Syria

Over the last few months a series of diplomatic meetings from Moscow to Washington raised hopes for a serious new push toward a political solution to the vicious war in Syria that has killed more than 250,000 people and forced thousands more to flee to Europe. That optimistic idea has been put in doubt by Russia's recent moves to significantly bolster military support for Syria's ruthless dictator, Bashar al-Assad, whose hold on his country is weakening.

Russia has long been a major enabler of Mr. Assad, protecting him from criticism and sanctions at the United Nations Security Council and providing weapons for his army. But the latest assistance may be expanding Russian involvement in the conflict to a new and more dangerous level.

Russia has sent a military advance team to Syria and transported prefabricated housing units for hundreds of military personnel to an airfield near Latakia, the Assad family's ancestral home, The Times's Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt have reported. Russia also sent a portable air-traffic station and filed requests to make military flights over neighboring countries through September.

The Americans say Russia's intentions are unclear. But they are so concerned that Secretary of State John Kerry called the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, twice this month ) and warned of a possible "confrontation" with the United States, if the buildup led to Russian offensive operations in support of Mr. Assad's forces that might hit American trainers or allies.

The United States is carrying out airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State, which is trying to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, as well as struggling to train and arm moderate opposition groups that could secure territory taken from the extremists.

Russian officials add to the tensions and growing suspicions when they play down or lie about what they are really up to, as they did in Ukraine. In the case of Syria, they initially said the shipments carried only humanitarian aid; later, they admitted deploying military advisers and hardware, but insisted it was all part of a longstanding military agreement with the Assad government. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also said the Kremlin was weighing its options in terms of intensifying the fight against extremist groups like the Islamic State.

Russia is obviously concerned about the fate of Mr. Assad and his regime, which is struggling to sustain an army after four years of war and is suffering such serious battlefield defeats that the state may not survive. The relationship with Syria dates to Soviet times and is one of Russia's last levers of influence in the Middle East. Russia operates a small naval base at Tartus on the Mediterranean and is keen to preserve it.

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, may also be using the buildup to strengthen Russia's hand in any political outcome in Syria and to constrain America's military options there. The constructive way to have an impact is for Mr. Putin to drop his opposition to Washington's and its allies' insistence that Mr. Assad be replaced as part of a negotiated political settlement that includes a transition to a new government.

The United States has asked countries on the flight path between Russia and Syria to close their airspace to Russian flights, unless Moscow can prove they aren't being used to militarily resupply the Assad regime. Bulgaria has done so, but Greece, another NATO ally, and Iraq, which is depending on America to save it from the Islamic State, so far have not. World leaders should use the United Nations General Assembly meeting this month to make clear the dangers a Russian buildup would pose for efforts to end the fighting.

For the United States, Russia and many other countries, including Iran (Mr. Assad's other major ally), defeating the Islamic State, ministering to the millions of Syrians forced from their homes and salvaging what is left of the Syrian state should be shared goals. None can be achieved without a political solution that installs a more inclusive and competent government in Damascus.

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 #26
Washington Post
September 14, 2015
Putin shifts fronts in Syria and Ukraine
By Jackson Diehl
Deputy editorial page editor

Throughout the summer, Russia's forces in eastern Ukraine kept up a daily drumbeat of attacks on the Ukrainian army, inflicting significant casualties while avoiding a response by Western governments. On Sept. 1, following a new cease-fire, the guns suddenly fell silent. Optimists speculated that Vladi­mir Putin was backing down.

Then came the reports from Syria: Russian warplanes were overflying the rebel-held province of Idlib. Barracks were under construction at a new base. Ships were unloading new armored vehicles. Putin, it turns out, wasn't retreating, but shifting fronts - and executing another of the in-your-face maneuvers that have repeatedly caught the Obama administration flat-footed.

It's not yet clear what Russia's intentions are in Syria - or, for that matter, in Ukraine, where it continues to deploy an estimated 9,000 regular troops and 240 tanks on top of more than 30,000 irregulars. Some analysts claim that a floundering Putin is meddling in the Middle East out of desperation because his bid for Ukraine has failed. But another way to see it is this: Putin's use of force succeeded in inducing the West to accept his Ukraine demands - and he is trying to repeat his triumph in a second theater.

Certainly, no one looks more fooled by the latest Kremlin stunt than the man assigned to call Moscow to protest, Secretary of State John F. Kerry. In May, Kerry traveled to Putin's favorite resort, Sochi, to confer with him on Iran, Ukraine and Syria. When the meeting was over, Kerry publicly recommitted himself to the proposition that the wars in Ukraine and Syria could be solved through U.S.-Russian cooperation. To begin with, a special diplomatic channel was set up between Moscow and Washington for coordination on Ukraine, with the goal of ending the conflict by the end of the year.

Over the summer, while Washington was preoccupied with the Iran nuclear deal, U.S. and European diplomats quietly leaned on the democratically elected, pro-Western Ukrainian government of Petro Poroshenko. In Sochi, Kerry had offered full-throated U.S. support for the implementation of an accord known as Minsk 2 - a deal hastily brokered by Germany and France in February, at a moment when regular Russian troops were cutting the Ukrainian army to ribbons. The bargain is a terrible one for Kiev: It stipulates that Ukraine must adopt a constitutional reform granting extraordinary powers to the Russian-occupied regions, and that the reforms must satisfy Moscow's proxies. That gives Putin a de facto veto over Ukraine's governing structure.

Though Russia wasn't observing point one of the Minsk deal - a cease-fire - Poroshenko was pushed hard by the Obama administration to submit a constitutional amendment to the Ukrainian parliament. He did so, then won preliminary approval for it by warning legislators that his fragile administration risked losing U.S. support. The cost was high: Violent demonstrations outside the parliament resulted in several deaths. But it looked like the United States had delivered on Kerry's commitment to Putin.

Putin, however, rejected the concession. The reform, he publicly complained, had not been worked out with his proxies and did not "change the essence of Ukraine's structure of power." His demand to dictate Ukraine's political system could not have been more blatant. Yet rather than dismiss it, Western leaders are promising more appeasement. "It is imperative to overcome those differences" with Russia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her most recent meeting with Poroshenko, according to her office. Kiev is now being pressed to allow elections next month in the occupied territories, even though they remain under the control of Russian troops and much of the Ukrainian population has been displaced.

How does this translate to Syria? There, too, Putin has an agenda as clear as it is noxious. He wants to block any attempt by the West and its allies to engineer the removal of Bashar al-Assad and force his regime's acceptance as a partner in a new "coalition" fighting the Islamic State. Putin apparently pitched that idea to Obama during a phone call in June. Obama, like Kerry, concluded - wrongly - that Putin was ready to cooperate.

Now, suddenly, Russian boots are appearing on the ground in Assad's ethnic stronghold, Latakia . Some analysts say Russian planes and drones could be used to carry out attacks on the regime's behalf. Kerry's protests have been brushed off.

Perhaps Putin really is improvising or bluffing in desperation. But maybe he is calculating that the Obama administration will respond to his belligerence in Syria the same way it did to that in Ukraine: by broadly conceding his demands and trying to get its Syrian and Arab allies to accept them. Of course, Putin has yet to get his way fully in Ukraine, in spite of the West's lobbying, and he's unlikely to succeed in saving Assad. But if one of his aims has been to show that he can push the United States around, he's doing pretty well.

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 #27
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 14, 2015
Moscow accused of obstructing Syrian chemical weapons dossier
Russia has proposed extending the mandate of the UN mission on chemical weapons in Syria to Iraq, where it claims ISIS militants may be behind production. However, some media see this as Moscow diverting attention from the actions of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and delaying a resolution on chemical weapons in Syria.
Alexey Timofeychev, RBTH

Some Western media are accusing Russia of delaying the establishment of a new UN body to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria, arguing that Moscow is trying to shift the focus of the investigation to what is happening in Iraq.

Western countries have traditionally accused the Syrian authorities of using chemical weapons and see Russia's attempts to hold up the process as an effort to shield Syria's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad.

Earlier, on Sept. 2, Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said that the Security Council might need to adopt a new resolution that would concern the investigation of the use of chemical weapons not only in Syria, but also in Iraq, in this case - by Islamic State (ISIS) militants.

Churkin also said that Russia wanted clarifications of some aspects of how the international body, which is being established by the UN to assign blame for chemical attacks in Syria, will work.

In early August, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on the need to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Later, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, sent a letter to members of the Security Council, in which he proposed the establishment with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of a joint investigation mechanism (JIM) for dealing with such crimes in Syria. It was assumed that the decision to establish this mechanism would be approved within five days.
 
Russia's concerns

Churkin said on Sept. 2 that the Russian Federation has questions about how the new body should operate, and Moscow has already addressed its concerns to the general secretary. According to the diplomat, Russia now wants Ban's clarifications to be put in writing and circulated to the members of the Security Council "so that everybody has the same kind of understanding" about the way the JIM will function.

According to Sergei Demidenko, an analyst who specializes in the study of problems of the Middle East at the Institute of Strategic Studies and Analysis, a nongovernmental expert center, the accusations against Churkin and Russia look unfair.

The analyst recalls that it was Russia that initiated two years ago a program to remove chemical weapons from Syria, which was supported by the United States.

All the organizations that control this process, including the UN, said then that all chemical weapons had been removed from Syria, and the suspicions of the use of chemical weapons by Assad were not confirmed.

"All these accusations [against Russia] should be considered in the context of the international situation that has now formed around Russia," said Demidenko.
 
Fragile balance

The analyst stresses that there is a very delicate balance inside Syria and around it. According to Demidenko, Churkin upholds the principle that "you should not greatly weaken the regime of Bashar al-Assad, otherwise he simply will be eaten."

"If the actions of this [UN] body suppress only the actions of Bashar al-Assad, this balance may be disrupted," Demidenko told RBTH, emphasizing that Assad is accepted by Russia as the embodiment of "the struggle ... of a progressive Syria against dark forces advancing from Iraq."

At a press conference dedicated to the start of Russia's presidency of the UN Security Council, Churkin mentioned one of the reasons why Moscow had appealed for the UN Secretary General for clarifications on the new initiative regarding use of chemical weapons and defer the consideration of this issue for the time being.

It was assumed that the new body should operate based on voluntary donations. Churkin wondered whether this would influence its impartiality and whether it would depend on who is funding it. At the same time, Churkin stressed that it would take no more than a few days to clarify the group's principles of operation.

Commenting on claims against Russia's steps on the initiative as voiced by Churkin, Yevgeny Satanovsky, director of the independent Institute of Middle East, called them "part of information warfare."

Satanovsky drew attention to the question of the "origin of the chemical weapons used both on the territory of Iraq against the Kurds and in Syria." According to him, "this is clearly one source - laboratories in Iraq. They produce primitive but effective chemical weapons such as mustard gas." Clearly, Assad cannot control these particular laboratories.

Russian experts were keen to emphasize that in the situation of chemical weapons, as is the case of other issues related to Syria, Moscow's support for Assad is not an end in itself.

The main goal is not to let Syrian statehood finally collapse and to prevent the situation descending into uncontrolled chaos. At the same time, some analysts point out that the position of the U.S., which alleges that the key to solving the problems of Syria is the departure of Assad, is not without reason.

"If, hypothetically, Bashar al-Assad wins in Syria, then there is no one to restore the country," said Demidenko. "Nobody will give loans while Assad is in power, while Syria alone will not cope with such problems. Assad will still have to go. But not now."

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 #28
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
September 13, 2015
So What Are the Russians Really Doing in Syria?
By The Saker

I think that a week after Ynet broke the story about a Russian military intervention in Syria we can confidently say that that this was a typical AngloZionist PSYOP aimed at inhibiting the Russian involvement in the Empire's war against Syria and that it had no basis in reality.

Or did it?

It turns out that there was a small kernel of truth to these stories. No, Russia was not sending "MiG-31s to bomb Daesh", nor is Russian going to send an SSNB (submarine armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles) to the Syrian coast. All these rumors are utter nonsense. But there are increasing signs that Russia is doing two thing:

1) increasing her diplomatic involvement in the Syrian conflict

2) delivering some unspecified but important military gear to Syria

The second item is the one which is most interesting. Needless to say, as is typical in these cases, the actual contents of the cargo Russia is sending by air and sea is not made public, but we can speculate. First, we know that Syria needs a lot of spare parts and equipment repairs. This war has been going on for 4 years now and the Syrians have made intensive use of their equipment. Second, the Syrians lack some battlefield systems which could greatly help them. Examples of that include counter-battery radars (radars which spot where the enemy's artillery is shooting from) and electronic warfare systems. Furthermore, Russian sources are saying that Syria needs more armored personnnel carriers.

We know that Russia and Syria have long standing military contracts and we know that Russia is now delivering her heavy equipment by sea and the lighter systems by air. Does all that indicate some kind of game changer?

No. At least not at this point in time.

So why the AngloZionist panic?

My feeling is that one thing which makes them so nervous is that the Russian apparently have chosen the city of Latakia as their "delivery point". Unlike Damascus, Latakia is an ideal location: it is safe but not too far away from the frontlines, and it is relatively near the Russian base in Tartus. The airport and naval port are also reportedly easy to protect and isolate. There are already reports that the Russians have lengthened the runways and improved the infrastructure at the Latakia airport and that heavy AN-124s have been observed landing there. As for the Russian Navy - it has been sending ships to the Latakia airport.

In other words, instead of limiting themselves to Tartus or going into the very exposed Damascus, the Russians appear to have created a new bridgehead in the north of the country which could be used to deliver equipment, and even forces, to the combat area in the north of the country.

This, by the way, would also explain the panicked rumors about the Russians sending in their Naval Infantry units from Crimea to Syria: Naval Infantry forces are ideal to protect such a base and considering that the front lines are not that far, it would make perfect sense for the Russians to secure their bridgehead with these units.

Furthermore, while heavy equipment is typically sent by the sea, the Russians can deliver their air defense systems by air: The AN-124 is more than capable of transporing S-300s. That fact alone would explain the AngloZionist panic.

What appears to be happening is this: the Russians are, apparently, sending some limited but important gear to provide immediate assistance to the Syrian forces. In doing so, they have also created the conditions to keep their options open. So while there is not massive Russian intervention taking place, something has definitely shifted in the Syrian conflict.

I would like to add here that while the government forces have recently lost the Idlib air base in the north of the country (and not too far from Latakia), all my sources confirm to me that the Syrian forces are in a much better position than Daesh and that the war is going very badly for the Takfiris. The Syrians have recently freed the city of Zabadan and they are on the offensive in most locations and while it is true that Daesh still controls a lot of land, most of that is desert.

To summarize the above I would say this: the AngloZionists are freaking out because their war against Syria has failed; while Daesh has created havoc and terror in several countries, there are many signs that the local countries are gradually becoming determined to do something. The US has also failed to get rid of Assad, the massive refugee crisis has triggered a major political crisis in Europe, and now the Europeans are looking at Assad in a dramatically different light than before. Russia has clearly decide to get politically involved with all the regional powers, effectively displacing the USA, and there are pretty good indications that the Russians are keeping their options open. And while there are absolutely no reasons to suspect that Russia is planning a major military intervention in the conflict in terms of quantity, there are signs that the Russian support has risen to a new qualitative level.

Two things need to be stressed here:

First, on a political level, it is still exceedingly unlikely that Russia would take any major unilateral action in this war. While Syria is a sovereign country and while a Syrian-Russian agreement is enough to legally justify any military move agreed to by both parties, Russia will try hard not to act alone. This explains why Foreign Ministery Lavrov is trying so hard to create some kind of coalition.

Second, on a military level, the country to look at is not Russia but Iran. The Iranians have a safe and secure land-line to Syria (via northern Iraq) and they have the kind of combat forces which could be successfully engage against Daesh. The same goes for Hezbollah which has, and will in the future, send its elite forces to support the Syrians in strategically vital areas. Should there be a need for a major ground operation in support of the Syrian forces, these are the forces we should expect to intervene, not the Russians.

In conclusion I would say that what we see taking place it "typical Putin": while western leaders typically prefer high visibility actions which bring immediate (but short term) results, Putin prefers to let his opponent inflict the maximal amount of damage upon himself before intervening in gradual, slow steps. The unleashing of Daesh by the AngloZionists was a kind of a "political shock and awe" which did almost overthrow the Syrian government. When that initial "fast-acting" but short term strategy failed, Assad was still there, but Daesh had turned into a Golem monster which threatened everybody and which nobody could control. As for Assad, he was gradually downgraded from being a "new Hitler" gassing his own people into somebody who will clearly be a part of the solution (whatever "solution" will eventually emerge).

The lesson for all those who resist the Empire is obvious: the hardest thing is to remain standing after the first "blow" delivered by the imperial forces. If you can survive it (as the Donbass and Syria have done), then time is on your side and the position of the Empire will begin to weaken slowly but surely because of its own internal contradictions. When that process being, you must not fall into the trap of over-committment, but gradually occupy each position (political or other) given up by the Empire in the process of the disintegration while securing your own each step of the way.

It is way too early for any triumphalism - Daesh is still here, and so are the Ukronazis in Kiev, and the Empire has not given up on them quite yet. The good news is that the tide has now visibly turned and while there is still a long struggle ahead, the eventual defeat of the Takfiris and Nazis appears to be inevitable.

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 #29
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 11, 2015
Russian experts: No new Maidan revolution in Ukraine
In the wake of clashes outside the Ukrainian parliament in late August that claimed at least three lives, observers have started talking about a new round of political crisis in Ukraine and its possible consequences. RBTH asked Russian experts whether a new Maidan-style revolution is possible in Kiev.
Alexey Timofeychev, RBTH

Back on Aug. 31, after the adoption by Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, in the first reading of the amendments to the country's constitution proposed by President Petro Poroshenko to give more autonomy to the Donbass region in the east, clashes between radicals (supporters of a unitary state) and law enforcers erupted near the building, which resulted in the deaths of three national guardsmen.

Poroshenko later promised to reveal details about those behind the riot, saying on Sept. 8 in a speech to the cabinet that "the details to be provided by investigators will be unveiled very soon, and it will be a shock when you hear of the terrorists' plans, what they had been going to do."

"A part of the Ukrainian political elite decided that external risks were no longer relevant and that "now is the right time to incite internal conflicts," he said.

For the first time since the events on Kiev's central square, the Maidan, at the turn of 2013 and 2014, protests in the center of Kiev led to casualties. However, Russian analysts do not see these events, which have already led to a restructuring of the ruling coalition (Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party has left the grouping), are the forerunner of some catastrophic scenarios in Ukrainian politics in the short term.
 
Poroshenko's resources

The political crisis that began in Ukraine in late 2013 is now escalating once more, says Boris Shmelyov, head of the Center for Political Research of the Institute of Economics at the Russian Academy of Science.

"The struggle is growing between the Ukrainian oligarchs for the areas of political influence and access to the "financial pie," which is controlled by the state. At the same time, the political standoff within the ruling coalition and between the political parties has been aggravated. Dissatisfaction of the public with their economic position is growing," he said.

Shmelyov says Ukraine has several options to resolve the crisis, but the most likely scenario is that Poroshenko will choose to concentrate power in his hands. This will lead to a tightening of control over the political situation and the suppression of opponents of the president, represented by the Opposition Bloc party and radicals from the nationalist party Right Sector, who supported him during the Maidan uprising of winter 2013-2014.

Since Poroshenko has control over the country's financial and administrative resources and enjoys the support of the West, Shmelyov predicts victory for the Ukrainian president in this confrontation with his opponents.

At the same time, according to the analyst, to distract the population from the real socio-economic problems, Poroshenko will continue a massive political campaign directed against the Russian Federation and the self-proclaimed republics of eastern Ukraine.
 
'Stable instability'

Boris Kagarlitsky, head of the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements, also believes that the conflict in Ukraine will grow. However, in his opinion, nothing will change dramatically over the next few years.

"As of today, a typical rule for Ukraine is the chronic and stable reproduction of instability," Kagarlitskiy told RBTH, saying that this will continue until a political force that can put an end to this appears in Ukraine.

According to the analyst, the current Ukrainian political class itself cannot give rise to something like this because of its "subjectlessness"; Ukraine's paralyzed society does not include any particular social group with a complete development project that could represent this class.

Therefore, the initiators of the changes can only be forces outside Ukraine's political class - either the military or some external, foreign players. However, they also need time to take action.
 
'Poroshenko is a hostage to war'

Ukrainian analyst Andriy Yermolayev, director of the New Ukraine Institute for Strategic Studies, told RBTH that the development of events in Ukraine is directly connected with the effects of the Minsk agreements signed in February, according to which a formula for Ukrainian domestic dialogue should be worked out and a political solution to the ongoing conflict between government forces and Russia-backed rebels in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine should be found.

However, Kiev continues to demonstrate an unwillingness to offer any reasonable political constitutional formula.

"Poroshenko has become a hostage to the situation," said Yermolayev. "He is afraid of losing rating. He may have understood the need for dialogue, but he is a hostage to war."

At the same time, the president's compromise proposals on decentralization, which formed the basis for the hopes of resolving the conflict, have split the Ukrainian political world into several parts. In these circumstances, the topic of peace and intra-dialogue has become more symbolic than real - it is not even discussed.

Yermolayev notes the importance of the upcoming local elections; they will be held both in Ukraine and Donbass, but in the latter case, under the control of the authorities of the breakaway regions.

According to the expert, in case of the mutual non-recognition of the elections, the split between Kiev and the Donbass will deepen, and by November, after the elections, the situation will have aggravated significantly.

The question of a "new political design in the region that leaves Ukraine" will become obvious, said Yermolayev, who compared the potential situation to that of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, which currently enjoys close ties to Moscow.

After the election and "even greater failure of the Minsk accords," said Yermolayev, the crisis of power is likely to deepen in Kiev - it is already seen now in the example of the coalition - and prerequisites will emerge for early elections in 2016.

At the same time, the preparation for these polls will take place in an environment in which, according to Yermolayev, "there are already signs of collective dictatorship": some political forces, such as Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk's parties, have occupied high positions in the government and are doing their best to minimize the influence of opposition.

However, Yermolayev does not believe a policy of monopolization of power will bear fruit and predicts the emergence of new political players in Ukraine by the spring of 2016.

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 #30
Poroshenko says ceasefire main precondition for implementing Minsk accords

WASHINGTON, September 14. /TASS/. Ceasefire is the main and the most important precondition for launching an implementation of the Minsk agreement on the settlement of the situation in south-east Ukraine, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told The Washington Post (US), The Independent (UK) and Die Welt (Germany) in an interview published on Monday.

If election is held in Donbas without coordination with Kiev, "this is a red line," Poroshenko said. "First, the Minsk process and the peace process will be in a big danger, because that will be in direct violation of Minsk. And it should be a reaction. What kind of reaction are we talking about? Sanctions. We do not expect that our international partners go into a war. We are doing an almost impossible thing, we built up one of the strongest armies on the continent," he added.

"Of course, we are asking for defensive weapons, if it happens," the Ukrainian president continued. "We don't talk about the lethal weapons. Ukraine is an industrialized nation that can produce their own weapons. We're talking about the defensive weapons, which help us just defensively," he stressed.

Minsk agreements on Ukraine

The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called Normandy format in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

The Minsk accords envisage ceasefire, weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local election in Donbas, constitutional reform in Ukraine and establishing working sub-groups on security, political, economy and humanitarian components of the Minsk accords.

The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.

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 #31
Putin: question of Donbass future should be decided not by Russia

SEVASTOPOL, September 12. /TASS/. Russia's President Vladimir Putin says Donbass future should be decided not by Russia.

"Our souls and hearts are with Donbass," he told reporters. However, he said, "this serious matter is not decided by Russia".

"The most important is that there should be established a direct contact" between the Kiev authorities and the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk "in order to implement the Minsk agreements."

He said those agreements "read both the changes to the constitution, and the elections should be done with approval from Donbass."

"However, it (approval) is not organised," Putin said, stressing the importance of amnesty and "at last to implement the law adopted by Rada (on changes to the Ukrainian constitution regarding de-centralisation)."

The president pointed to the economic aspects of Minsk2.

"Coal from Donbass is being supplied now, and this means we also may begin supplies."

"I believe, we shall settle the issues regarding gas supplies, too," Putin added.

Putin: It may be possible to consider delaying execution of Minsk agreements

Vladimir Putin does not rule out delay of implementation of the Minsk agreements.

"A delay may be considered," he told reporters, adding most important is that the agreements are observed.

"Mister Kuchma (representing Kiev at the peace talks) told me they do not manage everything in time," he said. "In fact, it may be possible to consider some review of the timing, but it is much better to be implementing what we have achieved in Minsk."

"It is extremely important today that the shelling of Donbass from the positions of the (Ukrainian) military and from the volunteer battalions has stopped. I believe it is the most important recent achievement," the president said.

Minsk accords on settlement of crisis in Ukraine

A peace deal struck on February 12 in Minsk, Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian forces and people's militias starting from February 15, followed by withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of military engagement and prisoner release.

The package of measures envisages the pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometres wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and for Tochka-U tactical rocket systems.

The Ukrainian forces and the self-defence forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics (DPR and LPR) have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the violence in Ukraine has killed 6,500 people in the past year, wounded 16,000 and left 5 million people in need of humanitarian aid. With more than 1.3 million registered IDPs, Ukraine has now the ninth largest number of internally displaced in the world, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

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 #32
Kremlin.ru
September 12, 2015
Answers to journalists' questions

During his tour of the Chersonesus Tavrichesky national preserve, Vladimir Putin and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi answered to journalists' questions.

Question: Mr President, whose idea was it to come to Crimea?

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Berlusconi asked to see it. He wanted to see Crimea, what is happening here, how people live and what they think of what is going on, he wanted to meet representatives of the Italian community.

Incidentally, as we were meeting with representatives of this community yesterday (there turned out to be a lot more of them than I thought), the head of the community drew my attention to the fact that the executive order on rehabilitation of repressed peoples never mentioned Italians.

They were forgotten, despite the fact that the other peoples - Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Bulgarians and Germans - were all listed there. I promised to set this straight and I would like to inform my friend that today I have signed amendments to that executive order that speak of the need to rehabilitate the Italian community, the Italians living here.

Silvio Berlusconi (retranslated): I personally saw this happen.

Question: Silvio, what impressed you most during these two days in Crimea?

Silvio Berlusconi: I think the Crimean land is beautiful. Everything impressed me: the nature, the sea, and the mountains that are hundreds of meters tall - a beautiful backdrop for this wonderful nature. It sometimes took my breath away when I looked at it! President Putin is showing me very interesting places. Thus, the place we are at now, where Christianity in Russia actually started.

I like the idea of creating a historical and cultural centre here. I can see, of course, that a lot needs to be done here. I believe that if Mr Putin finds this necessary I would be ready to send Italian architects here so they could help, or maybe bring some Italian plants to restore the understanding of the significance of this place, which certainly deserves it.

Question: Mr President, yesterday on the esplanade people from Donbass were shouting to you asking to take in Donbass. The situation with the Minsk agreements is very complicated now. In your opinion, should you respond to these calls from the people of Donbass or should the Minsk agreements be extended?

Vladimir Putin: We are with Donbass in our hearts, but unfortunately, such matters are not resolved in the street. There are serious issues that have to do with the future of all of Russia and of the people living in Donbass.

As regards the implementation of the Minsk agreements, I believe there is no alternative to bringing calm and peace to this territory. The most important thing that should be done is establishing direct contact between the Kiev authorities and the authorities in Donetsk and Lugansk republics to implement the Minsk agreements.

I would like to remind you that they say clearly that amendments to the constitution and the law on local elections should all be adopted upon approval from Donbass. Such approval is not being sought, and this is the main problem.

Besides, there should be a law on amnesty in place. How can you have a dialogue with people who are under criminal prosecution? And the fourth is that the law on the special status of these territories, approved by the Rada earlier, should finally be made effective. These are all key elements of a political settlement.

Besides, this territory needs rehabilitation in socioeconomic terms. Thank God, coal, as I know, is now coming to Kiev from Donbass. This means that we can also start with extra supplies of coal.

I believe we will also resolve the issues dealing with gas and power supply, if necessary. Overall, we need to restore the entire range of relations.

Question: Should the term of the Minsk agreement be extended?

Vladimir Putin: Mr Kuchma said they probably cannot get everything done within the given timeframe. Generally speaking, we could consider some sort of extension, but it would be best to try to achieve everything we agreed on in Minsk - to try to get everything done in time.

It is good to know, of course (this is probably most important) that the shelling of Donbass by Ukrainian army and so-called Ukrainian volunteer battalions has ceased - there are no more strikes. I believe that this is the main achievement for today.

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 #33
http://newcoldwar.org
September 12 2015
Poll shows little confidence by Ukrainians in economic 'reforms' of present government

Sept 12, 2015, published poll by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation

Few Ukrainians, it turns out, believe Russia to be an obstacle to economic reform

The Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation has published the results of polling of Ukrainians conducted from July 22-27, 2015. The polling was conducted in conjunction with the Razumkov Center.

A total of 2,011 respondents aged 18 and older were polled, not including people in Crimea and in the people's republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The polling was conducted within the framework of the Civil Social Consortioum with the support of the European Union.

Among the results reported in the charts (go to weblink to view the charts) is the view of respondents of "the main driving force" preventing economic reform in Ukraine and the "main obstacle" to reforms. Less that two per cent said "Russia" was a main driving force, and only 12 per cent said it is an obstacle.

Enclosed is the full text of the announcement of the published poll. Click on the weblink to see the charts of results of the specific questions asked.

Basically every Ukrainian felt the consequences of the current financial-economic crisis: 59%- very seriously and another 37% - to a certain degree. The main economic consequence of the crisis for the majority of the population was the rise in prices (75%) and the reduced purchase of clothing and other items (72%) associated with this, the decrease in consumption of food products (67%) and the limitation of purchase of medications and medical services (55%). Every fourth citizen felt a reduction in wages.

The overwhelming majority of Ukrainias do not believe in the success of reforms tht the government is trying to implement: 32% have certain hopes, although they do not believe that this will happen and 30% are totally hopeless. However, only 30% on the whole believe that reforms will be successful.

Nearly half of Ukrainians (48%) feels that the new Ukrainian leadership did not achieve any progress in implementing reforms. Every fourth citizen feels that approximately 10% of that which should have been done was achieved, every 10th felt that no more than a third of the reforms were implemented and 3% - no more than half. Finally, 0.6% of citizens believe that the government implemented more than half of the planned reforms..

In the opinion of citizens, the government and oligarchs are the greatest obstacles to the conducting of reforms (51%). On the other hand, in the opinion of 32% of Ukrainians, the government is not an obstacle to reforms, rather on the contrary fosters the conduct of reforms. Conversely, only 7% of Ukrainians have such an opinion a it pertains to oligarchs. Accordingly, the conditional balance of the attitudes towards the role of oligarchs in conducting reforms is the worst among agents in this process (-44%). Ukrainians give an extremely low assessment of the analogous influence of state officials (-38%) as well as political forces that are part of the composite of the coalition (-22%). The number of those who feel that the president is the driving force and the brakes on reform is approximately equal: 37% і 39% respectively. Non-government organizations and volunteers can boast the highest balance of the attitudes of citizens in the context of influence  on the conducting of reforms: 22% feel that they foster reforms,, while only 0.5% - that are obstacles to such reforms. Ukrainian citizens demonstrated a similar balance overall: 18.5% feel that the president is the driving force of reforms, while only 3% feel his is an obstacle to them.

The main reason for the current socioeconomic crisis in Ukraine is the corruption among representatives of the ruling power (72% of Ukrainians are convinced of this). Besides that, in their opinion the oligargization of the economy was also an important (54%), incompetent administration of the social and economic spheres on the part of the political leadership of the country (47%) and the absence of a strategy of socioeconomic development (35%). 30% of the polled believe the military actions in the Donbas region are the cause of the crisis.

The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians (54%) support the continuation of market reforms for the sake of overcoming the socioeconomic crisis in the country. 20% of the polled named the transition to a planned economy a panacea.

The most important reform for Ukrainians is anti-corruption measures - 65% of citizens feel this. In addition to that, on the list of priority reforms respondents of the poll mention reform of law enforcement bodies (58%), pension reform and reform of the social security system (40%) and reform of the healthcare system (36%).

Only 9% Ukrainians are fully satisfied with the state of the government informing them about its work. In the opinion of 39% of citizens, the information that the government provides often does not correspond to reality, 28% feel that such information is not sufficient and 24% complain that the information is not understood. At the same time, 12% are convinced that experts and not the average citizen should be interested in such information.

Ukrainians are split in their attitudes towards the appointment of citizens of other countries to state positions, first and foremost Georgia. The equal number of the polled - 42% - support and do not such staffing decisions. Moreover, in the western and central oblasts of Ukraine the polled support such appointments (58% and 49% assess them as positive, respectively), while in the southern and eastern oblasts and the Donbas region  the people for the most part do not support such appointment (33%, 29% and 26%, respectively). The attitudes towards the appointment of Mikhail Saakashvili the head of the Odesa Oblast State Administration (OSA) are slightly better: 44% gave a positive assessment, while 38% gave a negative assessment. At the same time, the regional differences are equally expressive: in western and central oblasts the majority of the population supports such a decision (62% and 53%, respectively), while in the southern and eastern oblasts and the Donbas region - the minority (35%, 30% and 28%, respectively).

Slightly more than a third of Ukrainians (36%) are ready to tolerate a further decline in their standard of living for the sake of the success of reforms (of them 8% are ready to tolerate as much as it takes, while 28% - no more than a year). At the same time, every third Ukrainian cannot tolerate it any longer as their material status today is intolerable and every fourth citizen cannot tolerate any longer as it does not believe in the success of reforms.  Only in western regions of the country the majority of residents are ready to tolerate material hardships for a certain period of time (overall, 57%). In all other regions of the country such residents were in the minority (in the central region - 37.5%, in the southern region - 25%, in the eastern region - 23%, in the Donbas - 28%). Over the past half year, the number of those who are ready to tolerate hardships for the sake of the implementation of reforms decreased by 8%, while the number of those who are not ready to tolerate such hardships increased by 11%.

Nearly 30% of Ukrainians are aware of the civil initiative "Reanimation Package of Reforms": 4% a well aware of it, while 25% heard something about it.

A relative majority of Ukrainians (51%) admitted that it is not ready to make personal efforts for the sake of the success of reforms in the country: 28% - because they feel that bodies of the state should engage in them, while 23% - because they do not believe in the success of reforms. On the other hand, 28% are ready to attentively observe information about the progress of reforms in the mass media, 13% are ready to gain knowledge necessary for orienting themselves regarding reforms and 11% are ready to participated in public debates.

Here are results of the public opinion poll: http://dif.org.ua/en/publications/press-relizy/reformi-v-ukselennja.htm

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 #34
http://newcoldwar.org
September 12, 2015
Sharply increased mortality rates in Ukraine

Alina Bondareva, Vesti.ukr, September 10, 2015, translation by New Cold War.org

The population of Ukraine, irrespective of emigration flows, declined during the past year by 164,800, according to a new study by the State Statistics Service of Ukraine (SSSU). The decline was caused by increased deaths relative to births. It says there is no region in the country that saw a decline in mortality rates.

The worst hit regions were Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa and Kharkiv. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the number of deaths for the year increased by 181,000; in Odessa by 140,000 and in Kharkov by 9,000 inhabitants. The statistics for Volyn and Chernivtsi regions were unchanged and they were slightly changed in Kirovograd, where mortality increased by 7,000.

Experts blame increased mortalities on the war in the east of the country and the economic crisis.

In general, according to the statistics service, the mortality rate in Ukraine rose to 14.7 per cent per thousand people in the period from July 2014 to July 2015. That's a rise of more than four per cent compared with the previous period, July 2013 to July 2014.

According to the chief researcher of the Institute of Demography of SSSU, Natalia Rynhach, an important factor was deaths caused by the war. "In 2014, the mortality of working age men from external factors was 160,300 compared to 134,100 in 2013," she says. Those are both direct losses and indirect ones. Kyiv reports that 3,394 men died as a result of military actions in 2014." [1]

"If the war continues," the Ukrainian demographer says, "this will become a most serious problem in Ukraine, considering that mortality among men is three times greater than among women for the age cohort between 20 and 60." That will affect marriage patterns and thus the number of children born.

As for the leaders of mortality, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa and Kharkiv region, there are several reasons. "These are industrial regions where there are problems with ecology. Also, as a result of the crisis many have lost work and do not have the means to maintain their earlier standard of living. And of course, the war."

"In Dnepropetrovsk," sociologist Pavel Korniyenko adds, "there are many military units, and there are many deaths among them." He says that the regions doing relatively better have fewer environmental and economic problems and also have fewer military personnel within their borders.

A third specialist, Oleksandr Okhrimenko, says that the crisis has affected mortality in another way: medicines have become more expensive, and some cannot afford the drugs that they need.

Note by New Cold War.org

[1] One of the features of the latest, biased report on the human right situation in Ukraine of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is its low estimate of deaths caused by the civil war in the country. The UN office claims that approximately 8,000 people have died in the war during the past 18 months. Yet the above Vesti news report cites the Ukrainian government as saying in 2014 alone, 3,394 of its soldiers died in the war! Kyiv keeps a very tight lid on reporting its war deaths.

Read also in Vesti.ukr:
Only five per cent of Ukrainians are confident in future success of economic reforms

Vesti.ukr, Sept 9, 2015 (translation by New Cold War.org)

According to a published poll of Ukrainians by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, more than half of Ukrainians do not believe in the success of economic reforms of the present government. The numbers are divided as follows:

    30 per cent of those polled do not expect any success from reforms
    32 per cent of citizens still feel little hope for their success
    25 per cent of Ukrainians believe in the reforms in general but doubt their success
    Only 4.8 per cent of respondents are "fully confident" in reforms

Forty eight per cent of respondents believe that none of the proclaimed economic reforms have been implemented, 24 per cent believe that only ten per cent has been done and nine per cent that that no more than one third have been made. Only 0.6 per cent of respondents believe that the better part of reforms has been implemented.

Fifty one per cent of citizens say that the government and oligarchs are the greatest obstacles to the conduct of reforms. Thirty two per cent believe the government is a positive factor in the conduct of reforms whereas only seven per cent h. Conversely, only 7% of Ukrainians have such an opinion of the wealthy oligarchs.

President Poroshenko says that that economic growth in the country will resume in the future and the high inflation rate will gradually decrease.

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 #35
Sputnik
September 13, 2015
Poroshenko Caught Calling for Renewed Operations in Donbass

On Friday, speaking at the Yalta European Strategy forum, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appeared to hint at the possibility of renewing Kiev's military operation in Donbass. Later the same day, he told journalists that he said nothing of the kind, and that his words "may have been mistranslated." So what did the president really say?

Opening the forum in Kiev, given that Yalta has since returned to Russia after the Crimean peninsula broke off from Ukraine following the Maidan coup, Poroshenko announced, in a speech given in English, that "now it is high time to discuss the possibility to deploy an operation in the Donbass to support due implementation of the Minsk Agreement. It can help us to achieve two key objectives for restoring peace in [the] Donetsk and Lugansk regions: Full withdrawal of the occupation forces, of the Russian forces from Ukrainian territory, and clos[ure] of the Ukrainian-Russian border. These are the two main preconditions for peace and stability in Donbass."

Later in the day, when a journalist asked the president to clarify what he meant about such an "operation," Russia's RIA Novosti quoted Poroshenko to have claimed that he did not make such a statement. "I did not say anything about a liberation operation, excuse me. This may have been an incorrect translation. Thank you for this question."

Appearing to emphasize that the president's claim wasn't really just a case of a broken telephone mistranslation, Ukraine's tv channel 112 highlighted the moment, translating it into Ukrainian, and retranslating it back into English via subtitles, with the message turning out to be nearly identical, confirming the need for "an operation" to support implementing the Minsk Accord.

It is not clear at this point exactly what Poroshenko meant, although tough talk about the "withdrawal of occupation forces" (referring to the Donbass militia) and the closure of the Ukrainian-Russian border seems to hint at the threat of force. This sentiment seemed to have been confirmed at the forum itself, with Poroshenko emphasizing that he had asked Ukraine's Trilateral Contact Group representative Leonid Kuchma not to extend the Minsk Agreement to function into 2016.

"No," Poroshenko bluntly noted. "Everybody should fulfill their obligations in the year 2015, because Ukraine pays a huge price for not implementing the Minsk agreement. This is point number one. Point number two [is that] time plays for Ukraine, not for Russia, and this is for sure. Peace plays for Ukraine, not for Russia." The president boasted that Kiev's decision to open a channel for humanitarian aid to the civil war-torn areas had opened residents' eyes to the fact that Kiev was not their enemy.

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 #36
Sputnik
September 13, 2015
Kiev Vows to Crush Donbass With Professional Unit of Volunteers

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has announced plans to create a new special forces brigade and deploy them to eastern Ukraine.

A new brigade of the Ukrainian special forces, which is already being formed as part of the country's National Guard, will be deployed to eastern Ukraine to take part in its so-called "anti-terrorist operation" against the breakaway Donbass region, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

According to his Facebook page, the brigade will be trained in line with NATO standards and will only include volunteers, mostly those with combat experience.

He also said that the brigade's chief of staff had studied military science for two years in the United States.

According to Avakov, the creation of the brigade, endorsed by the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief, should become the first step towards converting the National Guard into a professional army.

More than 7,900 people have already died in the armed conflict in Ukraine that began in mid-April 2014, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Kiev and the West have repeatedly pointed the finger at Russia, which they said allegedly backs the independence fighters who control eastern Ukraine's Donbass region. Moscow vehemently denies these accusations.

Earlier this week, the Contact Group on Ukrainian Settlement failed to agree on the withdrawal of tanks and other weapons of a caliber of less than 100mm from the line of engagement in Donbass.

The group, which comprises representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, was set up in 2014 in a bid to promote a direct dialogue between the conflicting parties.

The extended format of the Contact Group talks includes envoys from self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's republics in eastern Ukraine.

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 #37
www.opendemocracy.net
September 11, 2015
Communication breakdown in Ukraine's east
A recent survey conducted by Telekritika, a Ukrainian media watchdog, reveals just how hard it is for Kyiv to communicate with the 'People's Republics.'
By Marina Denysenko
Marina Denysenko is a journalist with experience reporting in Ukraine and the UK. In 2004, she reported Ukraine's Orange Revolution for the BBC World Service. In 2014, she directed London's Ukrainian Investment Summit, and is currently researching Ukraine's institutional response to the challenges of the information war for the Legatum Institute.
 
'The locals told us that MH17 had either been shot down by a Ukrainian jet or it was a set-up by Kyiv and all the bodies were already dead and loaded onto the plane before take-off.' This is how Sabra Ayres, an American reporter covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine, remembers talking to locals in the aftermath of the plane crash last July.

Indeed, Sabra was struck by how quickly the villagers picked up the lead coming from Russian TV broadcasts, which pinned the blame for the disaster squarely on the Ukrainian armed forces. 'We heard almost every crazy theory being presented by the Russian media immediately after the crash. The weirder the theory, the more it stuck. Ukraine's voice has not been heard at all, at least not on the ground,' she tells me.

Sabra's experience illustrates all too well the information bubble surrounding the inhabitants of the so-called 'People's Republics' of Donetsk and Luhansk, the separatist states set up on the territory of the Donbas. Many people here buy into the narrative of 'Kyiv fascists' and 'civil war in the east of Ukraine' spun by the Russian 'propaganda machine.'

Messages received

A recent survey conducted by Telekritika, a media watchdog based in Kyiv, provides evidence of the uptake of these messages. The report showed that 71% of respondents in the 'People´s Republics' largely shared the view that the Kyiv government is fighting against its own people.

Meanwhile, only 13% of respondents in adjacent regions, only a couple hundred kilometres away, supported that statement.

Similarly, 49% of respondents in Donetsk and Luhansk agreed that the Maidan Revolution of 2014 in Kyiv was 'a fascist coup', compared to 19% outside.

The data is hardly a surprise considering that over 30 Russian TV channels broadcast in the Donetsk region, compared to five Ukrainian channels (their reception is patchy).

The situation in Luhansk is more skewed. 'On Ukraine-controlled territories, Ukrainian media sources are viewed as mostly trustworthy, while Russian ones are biased. The opposite is true in eastern occupied territories,' the report says.

This comes as a blow to the government in Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine, which - for the most part - sees the conflict as a lawful campaign to restore control over its legitimate territory by fighting the Russian-backed insurgency. Across the whole of Ukraine, except for separatist-controlled regions and Crimea, the Maidan Revolution of 2014 is regarded as a 'people's revolution', its victims glorified as heroes.

Fake news

The perception in the east that the Ukrainian government is fighting against its own people is actively encouraged by fake Russian news stories. And these fake stories have a very real effect. For example, many locals admit they joined separatist militias after believinglurid claims on Russian TV about the Ukrainian army's reprisals against civilians or about NATO troops fighting alongside Ukrainian troops.

The most notorious fake dealt with a story of a boy allegedly crucified by Ukrainian troops on a town square in Slavyansk. The story was later convincingly debunked.

Ukrainian media have been tempted to answer these fakes in kind, but have largely managed to avoid it. One of the reasons is Ukraine's media landscape, which, with its oligarch-controlled media and grassroots media outlets, is reminiscent of Russia, though far less centralised in recent years. No powerful media vertical, similar to that in Russia, has been built here, and so, it is much harder to set a well-oiled propaganda machine in motion here. Unlike Russian media outlets, Ukrainian state media have little experience in producing sleek propaganda gimmicks.

'Ukrainian media do not produce lies, but they do cover up certain kinds of "uncomfortable" information,' Dmytro Tymchuk tells me. Tymchuk is a popular war blogger and leader of the Information Resistance initiative. 'Uncomfortable information' typically includes reports about corruption and incompetence of the army brass, the scale of war casualties and who is to blame for the shelling of civilian areas.

Russian media routinely accuses the Ukrainian army of such shelling, and Vladimir Putin reiterated the claim, when speaking to western leaders on 29 August. Ukrainian media, on the other hand, is full of reports on countless ceasefire violations by the separatists. Ukrainian journalists trying to get to the bottom of the issue of civilian shelling are confronted with difficulties of obtaining first-hand accounts or even getting into the area. In addition, they face a dilemma of journalistic integrity: reporting the truth or staying faithful to the cause their country is fighting for.

'The Ukrainian army has shelled civilian areas and this is understandable because we are at war. The Ukrainian media stayed silent about it, while official sources blamed the separatists. Lots of locals have now lost faith in Ukrainian media because they caught them telling lies so many times,' says Polish reporter Pawel Pieniazek, who reports from Donbas. But Tymchuk disagrees: the shelling of civilian areas should be discussed, but only once the war is over. This discussion merely demoralises the Ukrainian army, he says.

But with Ukraine's competitive media landscape, Ukrainian TV coverage of the civilian life in the war zone has comes under increasing scrutiny.

For instance, Telekritika recently analysed 700 TV reports and concluded that many of them lacked depth: while reporting about human suffering, housing and food shortages, they overlooked a number of other important issues, such as the 'black market' economy flourishing in the war zone, issues of (dis)loyalty to the Ukrainian government among locals, as well as interactions between the army and civilians.

What's more, Telekritika points out, Ukrainian media often end up stigmatising 'the Donbas people', often portraying them as backward, passive, brainwashed and unsuccessful. This stigmatisation only contributes to further social divisions inside the country, deepening the wounds that will take years to heal.

Real impact

The 'information war' often has two consequences in the real world. As the insurgency in the east unfolded, kidnappings of journalists in 'the People's Republics' multiplied. Many endured harsher treatment: beatings, forced injections of unknown substances and threats of execution.

Dmytro Potekhin, a Kyiv journalist and blogger, was detained at Donetsk railway station in August 2014 as he was to take a train back to Kiev. He was to spend the next 49 days in captivity. 'They did not beat me, but they interrogated me many times, on some occasions with the involvement of what appeared to be a Russian intelligence officer,' he recalls.

Ukrainian journalists are forced to compete with their Russian counterparts, as Russian media reports are immeasurably more popular with the locals. And they lose out, as Russian journalists are typically better equipped, trained and paid. They also have better access to the self-proclaimed separatist leaders, militia and civilians, who are ready to back their message.

But the kidnapping of journalists is just one element in a broader picture of what appears to be a sweeping cleansing campaign of the information space in the region. Since the Kyiv government lost control over the region, Ukrainian TV channels have been cut off, a 250-metre high regional TV transmission tower brought down, three regional TV companies taken over by separatists and independent papers chased out or closed down.

As one journalist from Donetsk who recently relocated to Kyiv tells me (she declines for her name to be published for the fear of reprisals): 'All the print publications that Donetsk had before the war are no longer in circulation. These include Donbas, an independent paper, Vechernyi Donetsk, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, and the city paper Zhizn.'

'There are just two types of publications on offer in local kiosks these days: separatists' official publications and regional off-shoots of Russian papers, such as Komsomolskaya pravda [a prominent Russian tabloid],' she says.

New media

It is not just the 'occupied territories' that the Kyiv government has trouble connecting with. The same could be said of frontline towns and villages nominally under control of the Ukrainian government. Telekritika's survey data indicates that Russian media is still popular here, and a large share of locals support its propaganda messages.

'Not only are Russian media in abundance here, but the rebel forces opened their own new outlets too,' says Tetyana Story, an activist with the Donetsk Press Club, an NGO dedicated to Ukrainian journalists displaced from Donetsk.

'The Ukrainian state doesn't seem to be making much of an effort to bring its message across. People know very little about government policies here, they have little understanding where the country is moving these days, and haven't heard anything about the reforms.'

As part of civil society's move to fill the gaps left by weak state institutions, Tetyana works in a volunteer group publishing a free weekly newsletter, Govorit Donbas (The Donbas Speaks), which is funded by the Renaissance Foundation. One day, Tetyana hopes it will grow into a 'proper' independent regional paper.

Several more programmes have recently been launched to improve Kyiv's communication with the conflict-affected areas, such as The Donbas Chronicles on Hromadske Radio and a special programme devoted to the east on Hromadske TV, which shot to the fore last year with its innovative, independent coverage of Maidan. Both the radio and television wings of Hromadske are civil-society projects, supported by western grants and crowd-funding, broadcasting online and priding themselves for their independence from the government.

Whether in the long run these initiatives will improve communication between Kyiv and the inhabitants of the People's Republics remains to be seen.

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 #38
http://readrussia.com
September 11, 2015
On the Streets of Kiev
By Mark Adomanis

The last time I was in Kiev was the fall of 2013. I didn't know it at the time, but it was the city on the precipice of disaster. Barely two months after I was there, in the aftermath of Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign the association agreement with the European Union, Kiev was alight. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets demanding a change in government policy.

Things started off peacefully enough, but the situation soon deteriorated into open violence, violence by the government against protestors and, to a lesser but not insignificant extent, by the protestors against the government. Eventually, under circumstances that are still the source of enormous and extraordinarily contentious dispute, the protestors succeeded in dislodging Yanukovych from power and Ukraine's new government soon signed the association agreement that had been the original source of such tension.

I've lost count of the number of headlines and articles which boldly proclaim that Kiev is "transformed." It's become one of those standby journalistic clichés: "transformed" Kiev is right there alongside wealthy London, brash New York, bleak, oppressive Moscow, and technologically-advanced Tokyo as short-hand. There has been such an unending sea of media comments that even people who have never set foot in Eastern Europe know all about the "new" Kiev.

The reality, as is almost always the, case, was an awful lot less dramatic than the narrative. Kiev, in almost every sense, looked exactly the way I remembered it: recognizably Eastern European in its architecture (both old and new), but far more humane, and far more attractive, than Moscow in its scale.

Jetlagged almost to the point of madness, I made a point of wandering around the central parts of the city so that I could see with my own eyes what had become of the place. Along most of the streets I visited, you'd be forgiven for thinking that nothing at all had changed. It certainly didn't look as if there had been an enormously consequential, epochal shift in the country's political, social, and economic outlook.

Particularly when I considered what has happened to Ukraine's economy since the annexation of Crimea and Russia's launch of a "hybrid war" in the East, before I arrived I frankly expected Kiev to look and feel very much like a city under siege. Shuttered shops, empty shelves, long lines, that kind of thing. I certainly expected that the country's recent trauma would leave some kind of visible impact.

But outside of a few very narrow examples, the most noticeable of which was the vastly heightened level of security at the conference itself, Kiev looked like the very epitome of normalcy. There were cars on the streets, people in restaurants, and products in the stores. Sure the prices looked a little different than they did last time (the hryvnia's collapse wasn't imaginary!) and the Ukrainian flag was rather more prominently displayed in public places, but in terms of big, sweeping changes there really wasn't much on offer. Even the Maidan, left a smoking ruin after the protests against Yanukovych, looked exactly the way it had before.

While there wasn't much in the way of change, there was even less evidence of "Europe" or "Europeanization." On the way from the airport I saw a sculpture that was intended to be the EU's insignia (I think it was actually of the Euro, but whatever) but that was pretty much the only physical manifestation of what was supposed to be a society-transforming change in consciousness. That doesn't mean the changes aren't real or that they haven't taken place, but it does mean that the daily rhythm of life seems fundamentally the same.

Indeed, the parking and driving habits on display still had a distinct note of Russianness about them: even on the block where the conference attendees were being housed (a rather posh part of downtown) cars were left haphazardly on the sidewalk. I even found an intersection where several Mercedes S-classes had been parked directly in the middle of a cross-walk. There are live-fire combat exercises that take less physical courage and skill than navigating that particular intersection.

Kiev wasn't a den of fascists or of radical nationalists from Lvov, as Russian propaganda would have it. There might have been marginally more Ukrainian as opposed to Russian language signage since the last time I had visited (I don't' have any hard data, but this was certainly my perception) but there was never any doubt that it was a place with very deep Russian linkages.

It was frankly a relief that, at a time when Moscow is ever more consumed with hysterical politicization and when the economy is faring worse than any other time in recent memory, that everyday life in Kiev goes on much the same way it always has.

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 #39
Ukraine not to buy coal from South Africa, opting for Donbas - energy company

KIEV, September 11. /TASS/. Ukraine's biggest energy company, DTEK said on Friday it will not buy coal for the forthcoming heating season in South Africa.

"I will be frank: we got our fingers burnt last year when we brought expensive coal from South Africa and had a tariff [from heat plants] that covered 70% of our expenses. So, now we have a principally different position that we are not ready to use imported coal," DTEK's CEO Maxim Timchenko told journalists on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy in Kiev.

He said the company had about two million tonnes of coal in territories of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that were out of control of the Kiev authorities.

He said Ukraine was unable to bring coal from uncontrolled territories of Donbass for two days in a row due to problems with diesel fuel, material and locomotive supplies to the Donetsk Railway. Timchenko said it was a "great progress" that coal supplies from Donbas had been resumed in the past two months. Thus, in his words, up to 40,000 tonnes of coal is daily delivered from Donbas by rail.

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 #40
www.rt.com
September 14, 2015
Europe's $500mn lifeline to Ukraine to buy Russian gas not enough - Gazprom

Europe has agreed to unlock funds from the World Bank so Kiev could buy an additional 2 billion cubic meters of Gazprom gas which are essential to live through the winter period. However, Moscow says that's not enough.

On Friday, Gazprom CEO Aleksey Miller, Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak and European Commission Vice President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic negotiated a draft deal on a new winter package for Ukraine. Apart from the $500 million from Europe, Ukraine will also be granted a discount for gas supplied in the next two quarters.

The amount of the discount is not known, but Novak said the pricing will be similar to Ukraine's neighbors such as Poland.

However, Novak says Ukraine needs double the amount of gas to make it through the winter.

"We have the same assessment with the European Commission here. Up to date Ukraine has pumped 14.7 billion cubic meters of gas into underground storage facilities. For a normal winter period - and it is unlikely it will be warm for the third year in a row - Ukraine needs at least 19 billion cubic meters of gas. Thus, there are 4.3 billion cubic meters to be pumped," he said in an interview to Rossiya-24 TV channel.

Earlier this month, Miller said the preliminary price for Ukraine without a discount would be $252 per 1,000 cubic meters.

According to Kommersant's estimates, in the current circumstances Ukraine will be able to pump another 400-500 million cubic meters by mid-October. The 17.4 billion cubic meters of gas will be bigger than the 16.8 billion of reserves in 2014. Nonetheless, Gazprom's CEO is concerned that the coming winter could be unusually cold like the one saw in 2005-2006.

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 #41
Kyiv Post
September 13, 2015
Saakashvilli says Ukraine run by 'shadow' oligarchic government
By Oleg Sukhov

Ukraine is de facto run by a "shadow government" whose strings are pulled by oligarchs behind the scenes, Mikheil Saakashvili, ex-president of Georgia and governor of Odesa Oblast, said on Sept. 12 at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv.

"We certainly have the reality of some kind of shadow, parallel government," he said. "You can describe Ukraine as a joint-stock company owned by oligarchs... Every oligarch owns his own judges, prosecutors and paramilitary units."

Saakashvili, who accused Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's Cabinet of serving oligarchs last week, said that the government had failed to reform the economy and law enforcement system.

"(People) assess it through their own experience," he said. "And that was my thing about the government. People don't see concrete results for themselves, and then they get annoyed, and then they get frustrated, and civil servants get even less respected, and the whole thing is going towards disintegration."

In an apparent reference to the Right Sector and other nationalist groups, Saakashvili said that, as a result of a lack of reform, paramilitary groups were emerging to fill the void.

"This will create a further wave of chaos," he said. "What we need to do is to speed up reform. It's about whether Ukraine exists as a state or not."

Thomas O. Melia, executive director of Democracy International, a U.S. election monitoring group, agreed with Saakashvili, saying that "this is not just about better governance in Ukraine but about the survival and sovereignty of this independent country."

Serhiy Leshchenko, a Verkhovna Rada member from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, also concurred that reforms were going slowly, saying that he preferred a revolutionary approach, for example the dismissal of all judges under Saakashvili in Georgia.

"Unfortunately for me the current president decided to use the evolutionary approach and to do it step by step," Leshchenko said. "One result of this approach is that the leadership of Ukraine is losing support day by day."

One reason for the slow pace of reforms is that half of parliament consists of representatives of oligarchs, businessmen and corrupt people, he argued. This is possible due to parliamentary immunity, which protects them from prosecution, he added.

Nothing will change as long as law enforcement agencies go after small fry and leave "big fish" alone, Leshchenko said.

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 #42
Kyiv Post
September 13, 2014
Poroshenko-Yatsenyuk going way of Yushchenko-Tymoshenko in corruption fight
By Brian Bonner
Brian Bonner has served as the chief editor of the Kyiv Post since 2008.

Bandits of Ukraine, keep stealing with impunity. Nobody in authority is going to stop you -- especially if you're rich, powerful or able to pay hefty bribes to the right person.

That's my conclusion after listening to two days of panel discussions at the 12th annual Yalta European Strategy taking place for the second year in Kyiv, since Crimea's Yalta remains under Russian occupation.

I have been in Ukraine for a long time. But I can still appreciate the sad irony of a conference run by a billionaire oligarch, Victor Pinchuk, with another billionaire oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK, as a special partner, organizing a round-table talk called: "Rule of Law, De-Oligarchization, Fighting Corruption: Any News?"

Let me answer the question: No. There is no news. There is no de-oligarchization campaign under way and there is no fight against corruption under way -- at least not one from the institutions that should be waging it: judges, prosecutors and police.

Ukraine has 18,000 prosecutors and they are all so worthless or corrupt or both that they cannot make a single big criminal case stick in a nation that is swimming in corruption.

How bad is the situation?

It is so bad that Davit Sakvarelidze, a new deputy prosecutor general, is hiring hundreds of more new prosecutors to replace the useless ones in power.

It is so bad that there is nobody to investigate the prosecutors, especially the long-running and unanswered accusations that the nation's former prosecutor generals, including Oleh Makhnitsky and Vitaly Yarema, continued the practice of soliciting bribes to open and close criminal cases.

It is so bad that Artem Sytnyk, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, has no idea when or if his agency will be running because only now are lawmakers and prosecutors getting around to appointing a commission to appoint an anti-corruption prosecutor. Let me cut to the chase about why the foot-dragging: Politicians and prosecutors have no intention of appointing truly independent and effective persons to prosecutorial posts, because it would surrender their control of the institution.

To say this situation is ridiculous is to state the obvious: All 18,000 of the nation's prosecutors should be anti-corruption prosecutors.

The longer this goes on, the more the National Anti-Corruption Bureau will look like mere window dressing to create the harmful illusion that something is happening in the corruption fight.

Speaking of cosmetic, let's look at the new police force -- 2,000 new uniformed patrol officers in four cities, an innovation led by the photogenic and articulate Deputy Interior Minister Ekaterine Zguladze-Glucksmann. I agree it's a long overdue improvement. But the nation has 150,000 law enforcement personnel. What are they doing? Nothing in the way of investigating white-collar or organized crime, which should be the nation's priority.

Yuriy Lutsenko, ex-interior minister and current lawmaker with the president's dominant faction, told the Kyiv Post that Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is blocking the hiring of more new police officers and investigators, charges denied on Sept. 13 by a ministry spokesperson.

And the courts, well, nothing has changed there -- the same old corrupt judges, the same opaque procedures, the same lack of jury trials.

Of course, the two people most deserving of blame are President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Poroshenko deserves blame for not firing Prosecutor General Victor Shokin and, as one of his bloc's lawmakers Sergii Leshchenko said at the YES conference, for taking an evolutionary approach to reform rather than a revolutionary one. "The evolutionary approach isn't working," Leshchenko said at YES as the government becomes more unpopular.

But there is a war on, so Ukrainians are still reluctant to be too hard on their commander-in-chief. But Poroshenko will have a lot of answer for when the stalled and impotent anti-corruption drive instead of Russia's war becomes the public's focus again. Unfortunately, three of the most honest and toughest anti-corruption lawmakers -- Leshchenko, Svitlana Zalishchuk and Mustafa Nayem -- are in the presidential faction, and I fear they will pull their punches when it comes to legitimate criticism of Poroshenko.

If Leshchenko is right, half the parliament is still made up of corrupt lawmakers or representatives of oligarchs.

If the anti-corruption drive doesn't get going soon, Poroshenko will be on his way to a one-term presidency, ala ex-President Viktor ("Bandits to jail") Yushchenko.

Meanwhile, Yatsenyuk is going the way of one of his predecessors and a former political ally, Yulia Tymoshenko, in the blame game. He said he was only able to name three people to the Cabinet of Ministers and has only 80 members of the 423-seat parliament from his People's Front party.

Yatsenyuk's hawkish and popular stance against Russia's war got most of the media attention from from his speech and interview with moderator Stephen Sackur at the YES conference. But the prime minister essentially blamed everyone else for the nation's stillborn corruption fight.

"I am not responsible for the prosecutors office...nor for judiciary. I am doing my jobs: to fix the economy, to be back on track in terms of reforms, to provide energy efficiency reform, to provide financial resources for the Ukrainian military, to improve corporate governance for state-owned enterprises, " Yatsenyuk said. "I would be happy to be both prime minister, chief justice, general prosecutor and chief of the anti-corruption bureau ... Everyone is to make its own job."

I've got news for Yatsenyuk -- all his reforms in other areas will be for naught if there is no rule of law or properly functioning and independent judicial system.

Yatsenyuk also blamed attacks on him for pressure he has put on oligarchs who own televison stations, although Sackur said people think the opposite is true -- that he continues to safeguard the interests of the oligarchic and bureaucratic system.

This is reminiscent of the the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko dysfunctional rule, but also a reflection of Ukraine's confusing division of powers between the president and prime minister, a recipe for conflict, as American economist Roger Myerson has noted.

"You name me one big, big fish in this particular sea who has been held to account, put through the courts and brought to justice for criminal corruption," Sackur challenged. Yatsenyuk could not.

Not only that, Leshchenko told the YES conference that Ukraine is not helping Switzerland's authorities with requested information regarding corruption allegations they are investigating against a main ally of Yatsenyuk, lawmaker Mykola Martynenko. Martynenko has never answered the Kyiv Post's requests for response, but we welcome it.

While the discussion at YES was useful, the nation's top law enforcement officials -- general prosecutor, interior minister and Security Service of Ukraine chief -- did not speak at the conference. I am checking to see if it is because they were not invited or that they just did not accept.

Perhaps they had nothing to say. The best and pithiest advice came from Anders Aslund, the Swedish author and expert on Ukrainian politics, who told the YES conference that the entire top leadership of all law enforcement bodies should be removed and replaced by people who will make the institutions truly independent.

The longer the delay, the more the stealing will take place in an atmosphere of impunity and the less likely that Ukraine will recover any of its stolen billions or bring to justice those who robbed its people.

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#43
Washington Post
September 14, 2015
Why Ukraine's debt deal is important not just for Ukraine, but for the West
By Lawrence H. Summers
Lawrence H. Summers, the Charles W. Eliot university professor at Harvard, is a former treasury secretary and director of the National Economic Council in the White House. He is writing occasional posts, to be featured on Wonkblog, about issues of national and international economics and policymaking.

I have spent the last two days in Kiev attending the Yalta European Strategy meeting, where I have had the chance to discuss Ukraine's economic reform efforts with key officials, including the finance minister and prime minister. I was encouraged to see a country where, despite huge challenges, including Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, economic reforms are being carried out and receiving support from the international community.

The Ukrainian parliament will this week vote on a historic debt reduction agreement that finance minister Natalie Jaresko negotiated with Ukraine's private-sector creditors. The case for approval is overwhelming, both because Ukraine has made a good deal and because disapproving the deal would be catastrophic for Ukraine's economy. But approval of the debt deal is only one component of the ambitious economic cooperation among Ukraine, Europe and the United States - cooperation that is essential to the geopolitical moment.

I have been watching debt negotiations closely for more than 30 years, since the Latin American crisis of the 1980s. Ukraine has gotten as good and fast a deal as any I have ever seen.

The deal has many virtues:

It reduces the principal value of Ukraine's debt and eliminates principal payments for the next four years.
It unlocks substantial support from the International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions on a large-scale.
It brings forward the day when Ukraine can attract significant private capital flows.
It establishes clear principles that will enable Ukraine to defer all principal payments on its obligation coming due to Russia.

Even if Ukraine's economy does very well, the "value recovery instrument" issued as part of the debt deal, which aligns debt repayment with economic growth, is shrewdly designed so that the vast majority of future growth will still flow to the Ukrainian people, not to its creditors. This is because: (i) the instrument only kicks in at scale in a decade; (ii) it is subject to repurchase on the open market and to subsequent renegotiation; and (iii) it is carefully designed to ensure that only the initial benefit and not the continuing benefit of Ukraine's growth flows to creditors.

In the unlikely event that Ukraine's parliament disapproved the deal, all these benefits would be lost. International financial support would dry up as Ukraine would be seen as unable to carry through on commitments. Confidence in the stability of Ukraine's currency and banking system would be put at risk. And its leverage vis-a-vis its debt to Russia would vanish.

So I hope and expect that the Ukrainian parliament will ratify the debt deal in the very near future. To paraphrase Churchill, this may not be the end, or even the beginning of the end of Ukrainian economic reform, but it may be the end of the beginning.

Make no mistake - the United States and Europe have an immense stake in Ukraine's economic success. Our leaders rightly assert that military force is often not the right solution to international conflict. Enabling Ukraine to provide greater improvements in living standards for its citizens than Russia does would be a major triumph for the West. In this regard what we do for Ukraine is likely more important than what we do to Russia.

Support for Ukraine should not be seen as foreign assistance to a striving economic reformer, though it is that. Rather, with Ukraine invaded, support should be seen as investment in forward defense of core U.S. and European security interests. If Ukraine succeeds economically, investments will pay for themselves several times over as loans are paid back with interest, and as Russia's government is both deterred by Ukraine's stronger economy and pressured by its economic example.

Historians will wonder why the international community has invested more than 10 times as much money in supporting a recalcitrant Greece as in supporting a reforming Ukraine, since the start of their crisis. Perhaps intra-European Union loans are in some special category, but as of this moment the IMF's potential exposure to Greece is $41 billion compared to only $22 billion for Ukraine.

Now is the moment for Ukraine at long last to embrace the market and the rule of law. It has the best, most market-oriented economic team in its history. And it is the time for global community to do whatever it takes-much more than is being done today-to provide support at a critical juncture.

 

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 #44
Kyiv Post
September 12, 2015
Yatsenyuk says he can't do much about corruption in Ukraine
By Brian Bonner

A lively exchange over corruption took place on Sept. 12 between Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and BBC HARDTalk host Stephen Sackur.

On the final day of the Yalta European Strategy, Sackur asked Yatsenyuk to name one person who has been convicted of major corruption in Ukraine since ex-President Viktor Yanukovych fled power on Feb. 22, 2014.

"Name on big fish who has been held to account put through the courts for corruption - name me one," Sackur said.

Yatsenyuk could not name a single person, although he cited the arrests of two top directors of the state emergency service on suspected corruption. They were released on bail two days later.

"I am not responsible for prosecutors office nor the judiciary," Yatsenyuk said. "I would be happy to be the chief justice, the general prosecutor and head of the anti-corruption bureau. Everyone should do their own job."

Yatsenyuk said his government and Cabinet of Ministers have paved the way for the corruption fight by financing a new anti-corruption bureau, ensuring debt reduction and finding enough money in the budget to keep Ukraine's army strong in the fight against Russia's war. He also named instilling professional governance of Ukraine's vast state-owned enterprises as another priority.

Every time Yatsenyuk touted achievements, Sackur tried to return the discussion to Ukraine's failing rule of law and inability to confront oligarchic power.

Sackur said that average Ukrainians would ask: "Why are you not doing more on that front - corruption and de-oligarchization?"

Sackur also confronted Yatsenyuk with Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili's accusations that the prime minister is blocking reforms and defending the oligarchic, bureaucratic system - particularly billionaires Rinat Akhmetov and Igor Kolomoisky.

"I am not on a campaign track to president of Georgia," Yatsenyuk said, a reference to the public campaign under way to get Saakashvili appointed as his replacement.

Yatsenyuk rebutted the allegations.

To the contrary, Yatsenyuk said that he has raised taxes on raw materials important to Akhmetov's businesses and wrested control of a state-oil trader from Kolomoisky.

Lawyer Bate C. Toms asked from the audience why the state customs service remains so corrupt in the Odesa port, with inexcusable delays and demands for bribes. He asked Yatsenyuk whether he would support Saakashvili's proposal for electronic clearance within one day.

Yatsenyuk said his government is promoting such laws, but said that as long as public employees make such low salaries, they will always take bribes.

"Corruption in Ukraine definitely concerns me," Yatsenyk said. "If the average salary is $100 per month, (the public employee) will definitely take bribes."

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 #45
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
September 13, 2015
MH17 - DUTCH PREPARE MISSILE ATTACK ON MOSCOW
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Photos and links here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=14084]

The Dutch Government has decided to launch a missile attack on Moscow in October. By suppressing all evidence obtained from the bodies of victims of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17, officials of the Dutch Safety Board and associated Dutch military officers, police and prosecutors are preparing to release a report on the crash with a gaping hole in its veracity.

At the same time, and apparently unknown in The Netherlands, an Australian coroners' report on the identification and forensic testing of the bodies carried out in The Netherlands reveals post-mortem evidence to show that in their public statements the Dutch government officials have been lying about metal evidence they claim to have found. This evidence has not only been buried with the passengers' remains. It has been buried by the Dutch Government and by coroners in the UK and Australia, who are now legally required to investigate independently what caused the deaths of citizens in their jurisdiction. All are withholding the CT scans, X-rays, autopsy and other post-mortem results, including metallurgical assays, the documentation of which accompanied the coffins of the aircraft's victims from The Netherlands to their homelands.

Erwin Muller (below, left), co-chairman of the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), the official aviation accident body, and Fred Westerbeke (right), a Dutch police officer heading the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), a forensics unit of the Dutch prosecution authority, have announced that on July 1 a draft "final" report on the destruction of MH17 was issued to the states participating in the investigation.

There are 7 of these states, according to the DSB: The Netherlands, Malaysia, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia The JIT is a more restricted group comprising Dutch, Ukrainian, Australian, and Belgian security and intelligence officers. The Dutch officials also claim they have been considering comments from officials of the other governments, and have scheduled October 13 for public release of the DSB document.

What the DSB report means now hinges - government officials, pathologists and lawyers say - on four lookalike words with fundamentally different meanings. The "first [1]" is onderdelen (parts) which DSB officials have been using to refer to a Buk ground-to-air rocket. The second term [2] is "metallfragmente" and "metalen deeltjes [3]", which Westerbeke and his spokesman have been using interchangeably to mean metal from outside the MH17, and also from the fuselage itself. The third key word is "missile", which Australian coronial investigators say refers, not to a Buk or any other type of explosive ordnance, but to "flying objects which strike the body". The fourth term is "raket", which Dutch investigators, including those engaged in the official identification of the MH17 victims, say applies to air-to-ground rockets like Buk, as well as to air-to-air, infrared and other rockets fired by aircraft.

For the Dutch to make the case that MH17 was shot down by a Russian-made and Russian-deployed Buk ground-to-air missile, the metal in the corpses and body parts is the only certain evidence which has been recovered from the crash site; analysed painstakingly in the record of the Dutch investigations; and repatriated in certified dossiers Dutch and other sources say accompanied the coffins when they were flown home. This documentation is now held in files in The Netherlands and in the coronial agencies of all the countries to which remains and coffins have gone.

Over the past week Dutch, British, and Australian officials all refuse to confirm they are holding this evidence. Nor will they answer questions about when, or if, they plan to commence inquests at which this evidence must be presented publicly.

Dirk Huyer, the chief coroner in Ontario, home province of Andrei Anghel, the lone Canadian passenger to lose his life on MH17, says Canada is not going to investigate. "It is very uncommon for the death investigation system to become involved in a death that occurred outside of the province... Our authority for investigation is limited to Ontario-we do not have any authority to direct investigation outside of our provincial jurisdiction." Accordingly, his office has not been involved in the MH17 investigation, "and therefore there will be no inquest."

If the inquest evidence does not substantiate the difference in meaning of the ambiguous terms issued publicly so far - and if the inquests themselves are postponed indefinitely so the evidence is kept secret, then one conclusion is certain - there is no evidence that a Buk missile explosion struck MH17 and caused the death of those on board.

Professor George MaatA Dutch pathologist, Professor George Maat (right) who had participated directly in the identification of the bodies at Hilversum military base, was fired in April [4] by the Dutch government for presenting medical students studying identification techniques with illustrations of the records he made. Last month Maat wrote to contradict claims circulating on Ukrainian websites that an X-ray showing metal fragments originated from either an MH17 victim, or from the Dutch investigation. The fabrication can be examined here [5]. Maat presented no X-rays at his controversial lecture, and has aired no claim that missile shrapnel was identified in victim bodies.

An Australian coronial investigation, reported at a professional meeting [6] of international coroners and pathologists in Melbourne, Australia, last November, has reported the only authenticated details of the process which the Dutch undertook after the crash. The two authors of the report are David Ranson (below, left) and Iain West (centre); the first is an associate professor of forensic pathology and deputy director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine [7]; the second is the deputy state coroner at the Coroners Court of Victoria [8]. This is the official agency in charge of receiving all 27 Australian victims of the MH17 crash. The Victoria state coroner, Judge Ian Gray (right), is also in charge of conducting investigations and inquests on 18 victims who were residents of Victoria, and who have been returned for burial to families in the state.

Reporting "the features of the remains", Ranson and West say that "fire damage" was pervasive: "all patterns [including]...complete incineration, partial incineration, unburned". The injuries they identify include those which destroyed the body "variably" and "completely". There were, they report, "massive internal injuries with little external signs" and "no haemorrhage round fractures". According to sources involved in the MH17 investigation, this means there was no blood pressure, and the victims were dead before they hit the ground.

Most importantly, the Australian experts report: "missile injuries [were] rare but present." An Australian expert source who is familiar with the evidence covered by the Ranson-West report but who spoke on background, warns: "Don't confuse the meaning of the word missile. It means flying objects which strike the body." It is not known whether Ranson and West were shown X-rays or CT scans of the Australian victims. Their full report can be read here [9].

When MH17 was downed over eastern Ukrainian territory on July 17, 2014, a total of 298 people were on board. To date, remains of 296 have been recovered and officially identified, according to Dutch reports. The nationalities of the victims, reported from airline releases, are Dutch, 193; Malaysian, 43; Australian, 27; Indonesian, 12; British, 10; German, 4; Belgian, 4; Philippino, 3; New Zealanders, 1; and Canadians, 1. The identities of the 2 unrecovered individuals have not been released.

The Australian report spells out the problems of gathering and authenticating evidence in Ukraine, where there was "no forensic control"; where the international air crash guidelines issued by Interpol weren't followed; and where there was "inappropriate interim storage and body preservation." When the bodies reached the Dutch military barracks, where investigation took place, there was, according to Ranson and West, "CT scanning of contents of coffin." They describe the triage procedure followed: "If suspicious foreign objects [identified on the scans], Proceed to Limited Forensic Autopsy. If no suspicious foreign objects - Proceed to DVI [Disaster Victim Identification] examination area."

This reveals that CT scans were done of all remains, and thus a CT scan has been recorded for every victim whose body has been recovered and repatriated or transferred to the next of kin. There is no reference to X-rays at this stage of the Dutch procedure; they may have been taken during the "limited forensic autopsy". One reason for suspecting that X-rays appearing in Ukrainian media are fakes is that the Dutch procedures used CT scans instead.

Ranson and West explain the steps followed for the main nationalities and the kinds of testing and evidence collected for identification.

The Australian report does not reveal what evidence was gathered in the "limited forensic autopsy". But Ranson and West reveal that "suspicious foreign objects" detected in the CT scans as "missile injuries" were "rare". Just how rare has been admitted, inadvertently, by the Dutch prosecutor Westerbeke.

What is certain, medical pathologists say, is that the Dutch autopsied remains in order to remove what the Australians are calling "suspicious foreign objects" when they were spotted. The timing of the repatriation process also indicates that Westerbeke had taken control of these "objects" and had tested them, assaying the metals and comparing the results with munitions specifications, by the time in October when the last repatriations to Australia took place. There can be no doubt, says a Dutch source, that "by then Westerbeke knew exactly what metal or metals he was dealing with."

When the Dutch DVI process was completed, and to ensure that remains were reliably identified before repatriation, the Australian report says there were "documents and identification label checks." For each individual, these materials included "CT scan and photography."

Australian sources report these materials were then attached to each coffin for repatriation. All the Australian coffins were flown to Melbourne, transported to the Victorian coroner's morgue, and re-certified. Those victims whose residence and next of kin were in other states were flown on to those destinations.

Australian sources say the Australian forensic and coronial court process is "alive and ongoing, but not yet started." The sources say also "there have been meetings with the Australian Federal Police" (AFP), and this process is also continuing. Included in this police and government intelligence investigation are the Australian pathologists who worked on the DVI line in Holland, as well as other experts. The AFP has already collected a dossier of evidence, covered by a summary brief, which is circulating for discussion at meetings the AFP has called with the experts. This process and the brief are secret; some of the experts and investigators involved in the ante-mortem and identification process have been excluded. According to one expert, "there is enormous variation among the victims. Lots of possibilities [on cause of death] are being canvassed."

Victorian coroner Gray was asked to say whether he has decided that the inquests he will hold will be restricted to identification of the victims, or will be extended to cause of death and forensic issues. Inside sources believe Gray will be guided by the AFP report. Gray was asked to say whether he will "be taking and considering evidence of victim injuries, including X-rays, CT scans, and reports of the Dutch authorities (LTFO, JIT, DSB) which accompanied the remains on repatriation? Will [he] be taking testimony from the Australian Federal Police (AFP)?"

His spokesman, Nola Los, replied: "Judge Gray will need to approve the release of any information relating to details regarding the Victorian victims of MH17. Unfortunately he will not be available to do so until next week."

Los and Gray confirm the Australian count of 27 victims in all; 18 Victorians. Their cases are "open", adding "that an inquest date is being considered for later this year."

In the UK, where press reporting of the alleged Buk missile attack is widespread - as it is in Australia and Canada - there is a similar blackout in the coronial system. Altogether, 10 British nationals or residents have been identified on board the aircraft. However, because some were dual nationals or resident in other countries, the UK media have reported [10] just 4 burials in the UK. Others may have been buried in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The government in London has announced [11] that "special arrangements were made by the Chief Coroner [Judge Peter Thornton QC], following the Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 disaster in Ukraine in July 2014. Coroners have a duty to investigate violent or unnatural deaths which occur overseas where the body is returned to England and Wales. In this case, with the consent of all families concerned, all repatriated bodies were received first in one central coroner area where one senior coroner co-ordinated all arrangements with the assistance of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the police. The coroner's co-ordinated investigations will be subject to the outcome of the extensive Dutch inquiries."

The coroner in charge is Catherine Mason (right), who heads the coroners court in Leicester [12]. A lawyer and nurse by training, she previously served in junior coroner posts in other regions, and has been chief coroner in Leicester for 6 years. A check of her court records for the MH17 victims' names reveals that on September 22, 2014 [13], the inquest into Richard Mayne's death was opened, then immediately adjourned without a new date. A month later, on October 27 [14], the inquest into the death of John Alder was also suspended. The legal authority cited for Mason's action was Schedule
1 Paragraph 5 of the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009 [15]. This provides carte blanche: "a senior coroner may suspend an investigation under this Part of this Act into a person's death in any case if it appears to the coroner that it would be appropriate to do so."

Last week Mason was asked how many MH17 victim inquests she is conducting and their individual names. What circumstances, she was asked, "have you deemed to be appropriate for suspension in these cases? Have you delegated authority for evidence gathering and forensic testing in these cases to another body, British or foreign? To whom has this delegation been made, and on what authority?" Finally, Mason was asked what post-mortem or autopsy evidence of the victims' remains she is holdng. Mason refuses to answer. A source at her court says Mason is deferring "while inquiries are conducted abroad." The source implies the British Government has decided to rely on the Dutch for evidence.

In The Netherlands, the aviation accident body, the DSB, published its preliminary report [16] in September 2014. For details of what evidence it identified and what conclusions it drew, read this [17]. The day after the DSB release, the principal Russian official responsible for Russian participation in the Dutch investigation, Oleg Storchevoy (below), Deputy Head of the Federal Air Transport Agency (RosAviation), said the DSB had missed crucial evidence.

"The investigation should further study the data from the radars and post mortems of the victims. All these steps are widely regarded as a must in civil aviation and no preliminary conclusions are usually made before completing all of them. Regrettably, significant time has been wasted, and some of the data will be unavailable - I now refer to the remains of the victim's bodies and the plane's debris which are not secured enough and located in the zone of an armed conflict. Nevertheless, this work must be done to ensure a speedy and unbiased investigation into the cause of the crash."

Storchevoy was telling the DSB what it was already admitting in the preliminary report. On page 4, the report claimed it would include the "result of the pathological investigations" in "further work...to substantiate the factual information." At page 32 the DSB repeated the promise that for "Further Investigations" it would analyse "results of pathological investigation".

On September 25, RosAviation released the text of the letter Storchevoy had sent to DSB itemizing the evidence the DSB investigation should cover for its final report. Here is the 24-point release [18]. Point 3 is a priority for evidence: "Pathological examination of the dead passengers and crew members, including the presence of submunitions and other foreign bodies and substances."

At DSB Chairman Muller was asked to confirm he had read Storchevoy's letter, and to say what reply he had sent. He refuses to say. He was then asked: "When the remains were released to relatives and repatriated, what death certificate was issued by the Dutch authorities? What was given as cause of death? Were X-rays taken of all victims' remains? What other pathology tests were conducted on remains and tissue samples? What official documents accompanied the remains on repatriation, and did these include X-rays and other pathological investigation results?"

Muller's spokesman Sara Vernooij (right) replied, saying "as long as the investigation is ongoing we can't give any information or details. The Dutch Safety Board will publish the final report on 13 October, before that we won't issue any information concerning investigation material or sources." But that cannot be true, she and Muller were told, since in recent days the DSB has issued news releases disclosing "information or details" on the purported discovery and investigation of Buk missile parts [19]; and on the manner [20] and consciousness of victims ahead of their deaths.

Vernooij then conceded these were "information or details", but she now claims: "I can't give any more details than we already gave." As for the questions to Muller about what evidence had been collected before repatriation, and what went on the Dutch death certificates, Vernooij said: "The repatriation and the identification is done by the forensic team of LTFO, spokesperson is Mr. Fransman (j.s.t.fransman@minvenj.nl )."

The Landelijk Team Forensische Opsporing (National Forensic Investigations Team, LTFO) in the Netherlands is a police and military organ of the Dutch Government, headed by Arie De Bruin (right). In investigating the MH17 victims' remains, the Dutch were joined by a German officer of the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the Federal Criminal Police, and the equivalent AFP officer from Australia.

According to a Malaysian government release [21], the MH17 victim identification operation was "assisted by Executive Officers of (a) logistic and accommodation, (b) Ante-mortem (AM) Process, (c) post-mortem (PM) Process, (d) Reconciliation process and (e) Release Process . The other countries involved in the MH17 operation were Malaysia, Belgium, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany and Indonesia. The team leaders of the 6 countries were officially appointed as executive officers in the DVI MH17 Organisation. A team of international forensic experts led by Dutchman Gert Wibbelink of the Dutch National Forensic Investigations Team, or LTFO, was handed control of the investigation in Kharkiv. The LTFO has eight staff members [22] in Ukraine, including Mr. Wibbelink. "We have been collecting DNA samples, hair, fingerprints, information about scars or tattoos or moles," from the victims' first-degree relatives, Jos van Roo, the LTFO team leader in the Netherlands, said in an interview."

LTFO, spokesman Jean Fransman (right) was asked on Friday whether the LTFO procedures for the MH17 victims included an autopsy to determine cause of death and find shrapnel, bullet or other metal fragments; and to attach CT scan, X-ray and other pathological test results to the repatriated remains. Fransman claimed: "I'm not the spokesperson for the LTFO. But I will forward your questions to my colleagues." The first point was false; the second, a deadend. When informed that he had been identified as LTFO spokesman by the DSB and on the signature line of his own email, and that he was making a record of misinformation and evasion by LTFO, Fransman stopped responding.

Fransman, like his boss de Bruin, did not know that the questions they refuse to answer have already been published by the Australians. This is the only public disclosure [23] by LTFO of what it has been doing.

The remaining Dutch official to be asked the questions the Australians answered last year is Westerbeke of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). The Dutch, Ukrainian, Australian and Belgian governments have announced that the JIT is bound by its founding agreement on August 7, 2014, to keep confidential [24] the evidence it has been finding. Westerbeke's record is one of leaking to the Dutch and German media, and to the BBC, details DSB claims to be withholding until next month. Westerbeke has made a record too of leaking one detail, and then contradicting it later.

According to this graphic, published by Westerbeke's men, one of the key forms of evidence in his criminal investigation is "metal particles from victims' bodies".

On September 12, 2014, Westerbeke told a Dutch paper, De Volkskrant, that metal fragments had been found in victims' bodies. According to this report [3], Westerbeke (and a police spokesman, Patricia Zorko) counted 500 samples that had been taken; this appears to be a count of what the Australians are calling the "limited forensic autopsy". Explaining why the Australians have reported "missile injuries rare but present", Westerbeke told the local newspaper there were 25 "metalen deeltjes" - that's to say, "metal particles", just as Westerbeke had put into his chart. If 25 of 500 samples had tested positive for metal, that was a rate of 0.05%. Another way of estimating the rarity of the metal found is to estimate that the "particles" were recorded in 0.08% of the identified bodies or body parts. That appears to be a very small incidence in a jet aircraft struck from outside the fuselage.

The Ranson-West report confirms that for timing, these pieces of evidence had been collected early in the triage process at Hilversum barracks, possibly weeks before Westerbeke leaked the details. The DSB failed to mention them in its September report. Westerbeke himself omitted to say what testing he had already done on the "metal particles" to identify the metal.

A BBC version [27] of what Westerbeke said on September 12, 2014, adds detail: "At a news conference in Rotterdam on Friday, Fred Westerbeke...said that the investigation was particularly interested in the origin of 25 pieces of iron [sic], drawn from 500 samples. 'The most likely scenario was that the plane was shot down from the ground,' he said. 'If we can establish that this iron is coming from such a missile, that is important information of course,' he said. 'At this moment we don't know that, but that is what we are investigating.'"

Two other reporters listening to Westerbeke detected ambiguity in what he was actually claiming about the metal evidence. A DutchNews website [28] claimed to have heard Westerbeke say the metal was found "between the wreckage [on the ground] and in some of the bodies, which could come from a missile." A Reuters reporter [29] claimed the metal particles had been found in passenger luggage, as well as in bodies. The location of both Westerbeke omitted to say, concealing thereby whether they were concentrated in a pattern of shrapnel, and whether the metal samples were identical in all 25 cases.

A month later Westerbeke tried again, this time for German consumption. On October 27, 2014, Der Spiegel [2] quoted Westerbeke as conceding the "Metallfragmente" could be "shrapnel from a Buk missile, possibly also parts of the aircraft itself." Between Westerbeke's two press leaks, the reporters had failed to notice that Westerbeke had taken 45 days not to confirm the nature of the metal he was holding. But he was conceding the original leak was losing its initial meaning. If the metal had been tested and compared against the aluminium, titanum and other alloys in the aircraft wings, walls and floor, then Westerbeke must have known whether "iron" was ruled in, or out.

Nine months then elapsed before Westerbeke started leaking again. Here he is in an interview [30] obligingly scripted in advance by the BCC, and broadcast on July 17. This time Westerbeke omitted to say anything at all about "metal"-and the BBC forgot to ask. Notwithstanding, there was no hesitation in London to headline the story: "MH17 investigator: Missile strike most credible scenario".

Last week Westerbeke was asked to explain where all the missile metal had flown. Specifically, the Dutch policeman was asked questions to which the Australian coronial investigators had already revealed the answers. "Were X-rays taken of all victims' remains? What other pathology tests were conducted on remains and tissue samples? What official documents accompanied the remains on repatriation, and did these include X-rays and other pathological investigation results? What release to any party of the investigation, including next of kin, has there been of these data, the so-called metal particle data?"

Westerebeke refuses to answer. This is the black hole the Dutch have created in their own investigation, but they are unable to fill it with "iron", and they cannot explain how the alleged detonation of a Buk warhead could release so little recovered shrapnel; possibly none at all.

URLs in this post:

[1] first: http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/nl/onderzoek/2048/onderzoek-crash-mh17-17-juli-2014/onderzoek/1648/onderzoek-naar-mogelijke-onderdelen-buk-raket
[2] second term: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/mh17-ermittler-westerbeke-ueber-den-absturz-in-der-ukraine-a-999193.html
[3] metalen deeltjes: http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/metalen-deeltjes-op-lichaam-slachtoffers-mh17-onderzocht~a3746732/
[4] in April: http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/08/12/fired-mh17-pathologist-wants-apology-reparations/
[5] here: http://m.censor.net.ua/resonance/344238/unichtojenie_rossiyiskoyi_armieyi_malayiziyiskogo_boinga_17_iyulya_2014_goda_rezultaty_ekspertizy_pozvolyayut
[6] meeting: http://www.asiapacificcoroners.org/assets/2014Presentations/1200DavidRanson.pdf
[7] Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine: http://www.vifm.org/our-services/forensic-services/medico-legal-death-investigation/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-forensic-pathologist/
[8] Coroners Court of Victoria: http://www.vic.gov.au/contactsandservices/directory/?ea0_lfz149_120.&organizationalRole&e8aae0d8-f0de-4d0d-b937-e999676474a6
[9] here: http://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MH17-Vic-coronial-study-paper-Nov-2014-DavidRanson.pdf
[10] reported: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/hundred-loved-ones-attend-funeral-8031824
[11] announced: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/443090/chief-coroner-report-2015.pdf
[12] Leicester: http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/MH17-year-Parents-crash-victim-Richard-Mayne/story-26915400-detail/story.html
[13] September 22, 2014: http://coroners.leicester.gov.uk/current-inquests/?entryid78=582178&p=10
[14] October 27: http://coroners.leicester.gov.uk/current-inquests/?entryid78=583172&p=1
[15] Act of 2009: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2009/25/schedule/1
[16] report: http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/uploads/phase-docs/701/b3923acad0ceprem-rapport-mh-17-en-interactief.pdf
[17] this: http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13071
[18] release: http://old.favt.ru/favt_new/?q=novosti/novosti/novost/4238
[19] missile parts: http://johnhelmer.net http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/onderzoek/2049/investigation-crash-mh17-17-july-2014/onderzoek/1650/investigation-into-possible-buk-missile-parts
[20] manner: http://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/onderzoek/2049/investigation-crash-mh17-17-july-2014/onderzoek/1633/is-it-possible-to-say-whether-or-not-the-persons-on-board-flight-mh17-were-aware-of-the-crash#fasen
[21] release: http://kpkesihatan.com/2014/08/21/mh17-what-is-dvi-team/
[22] staff members: http://www.wsj.com/articles/dutch-forensics-team-starts-its-probe-1405992428
[23] disclosure: https://www.politie.nl/en/themes/qa-flight-mh17.html#alinea-title-are-next-of-kin-allowed-to-see-the-remains
[24] keep confidential: http://rusila.su/2015/09/12/zakulisnyj-torg-malajzijskij-boeing-mh17-god-spustya/
[25] Image: http://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/criminal_investigation_l.jpg
[26] https://www.politie.nl/binaries/content/assets/politie/documenten-algemeen/mh17/mh17_web_engels.pdf: https://www.politie.nl/binaries/content/assets/politie/documenten-algemeen/mh17/mh17_web_engels.pdf
[27] BBC version: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29180887
[28] DutchNews website: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2014/09/mh17_investigators_find_metal/
[29] Reuters reporter: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/12/us-ukraine-crisis-mh17-investigation-idUSKBN0H718K20140912
[30] interview: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33563137

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 #46
Strategic Culture Foundation
www.strategic-culture.org
September 12, 2014
U.S.-Installed Ukrainian Regime Now Fears Return of Donbass to Ukraine
By Eric Zuesse

On September 6th, Ukraine's Apostrophe news-site headlined, «Putin will try to return the Donbass to the Ukraine - Gerashchenko», and quoted a prominent member of Ukraine's parliament who is also a member of the committee overseeing Ukraine's national security, Anton Gerashchenko, as saying that for Ukraine to re-absorb the breakaway region, Donbass (its two districts Donetsk and Lugansk), back into Ukraine, would be politically disastrous, unless the residents there are eliminated: he said, «Putin will do everything to return the Donbass to the Ukraine ... in order to allow pro-Russian inhabitants of Donetsk and Lugansk regions to vote and change the configuration of power in our country». He didn't want them to be able to vote in Ukraine's national elections.

This influential Ukrainian government official said:

"Putin has thrown all his energy into splitting Ukraine from the inside. First of all, the split of the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] to conduct new parliamentary elections. As soon as he sees that these plans are real [i.e., that Donbass will again be voting in Ukrainian national elections], he is sure to try to return the Donbass to the Ukraine, the residents there will be able to participate in them [Ukraine's elections]. Due to the fact that the voters of Crimea and Donbas did not participate in last year's parliamentary [and Presidential] elections, the structure of government in Ukraine has changed dramatically. The majority in Parliament has been owned by pro-European forces [the U.S.-installed government]. But if voters in Donbass again have the opportunity to vote [in Ukraine], it is clear that they will support pro-Russian politicians. This can seriously change the balance of power in the country. Therefore, once again I repeat, if Putin really feels that Ukraine could split from the inside and hold early parliamentary elections, he will do everything he can in order to restore to us Donbass."

He's not saying that Donbass does not need to be seized and restored to be again part of Ukraine's land; he is saying that the residents of Donbass cannot be part of Ukraine; they cannot again be Ukrainians - they cannot be people who are allowed to vote in Ukrainian national elections. He is saying that those people must be eliminated if and when Donbass is restored to Ukraine.

A look at the electoral-voting map of Ukraine for the final Ukrainian election before the February 2014 coup, which is the last electoral map in which the entirety of Ukraine voted for President, is here, and it shows that the Donbass residents voted more than 90% for Yanukovych and less than 10% for Tymoshenko. Donbass residents are overwhelmingly the people who placed Yanukovych into the Presidency; they are overwhelmingly the reason why Yulia Tymoshenko, the person that U.S. President Obama had hoped would win the 25 May 2014, the first post-coup, election, wasn't already elected as Ukraine's President in 2010 (which would have made Obama's coup unnecessary for him, because she already wanted Ukraine to be in NATO).

That map shows what Gerashchenko is talking about here: Donbass people were overwhelmingly the people who had prevented the far-right, pro-Western, pro-Gladio, rabidly anti-Russian, Tymoshenko, from being elected as Ukraine's President in 2010. Although Obama didn't get his #1 choice elected in the 2014 vote (because too much was known about her by then), Poroshenko was sufficiently far-right, and sufficiently compliant, for him; and what Gerashchenko is now saying is that no leader like that would stand a chance in any Ukrainian national election in which the residents of Donbass would vote.

On September 1st, the U.S.-installed Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Tymoshenko's protégée, whom Obama's agent Victoria Nuland selected originally to be only the interim Prime Minister until Tymoshenko would be elected as the new President, but who was kept on in office once Poroshenko won), delivered a speech in Odessa. That city had been the site of the government's massacre (by Dmitriy Yarosh's Right Sector) of pro-Russian (anti-coup) demonstrators on 2 May 2014, which massacre of coup-opponents had started Ukraine's civil war; and he said there, to an audience which included the U.S. Ambassador and the Commander of the U.S. 6th Fleet, that they would all go to war together against Russia to «turn the Black Sea into a safe area and to make the Russian Federation, which illegally annexed Crimea, realize that any illegal actions will be curbed by our joint efforts».Yatsenyuk has often publicly endorsed a war by Ukraine against Russia, in order to restore both Donbass and Crimea.

However, since Donbass voted over 90% for the Ukrainian President that the Obama Administration overthrew in February 2014, and Crimea voted over 75% for that President (see that map), the residents in those two regions would need to be eliminated, if the land is restored to Ukraine, because otherwise the residents there would vote the U.S. regime out of office, just as Gerashchenko fears. Yatsenyuk obviously knows this, he knows what got him into power, and he wants the weapons and financial assistance to get rid of those people, who, as voters, would remove him from power.

The only solution for the United States plan for Ukraine is therefore to restore the land but to eliminate its residents, and this has been the plan. This solution has been recommended by propagandists for America's aristocracy, on both the right and the left sides of that aristocracy; the U.S. government is united behind it. Here are some examples of such propagandists:

On the right side of America's aristocracy, the Koch brothers established the Cato Institute, whose Andrei Illarionove has said that the residents in breakaway areas should be simply ignored, and that the land has been stolen by Russia and needs to be retaken by Ukraine. For example: «the crimes that have been committed or are being committed by the Kremlin - stealing Crimea», must end, and the land must be restored to «the owner of that territory, namely Ukraine. Only this subject [the Ukrainian central government], and no one else, has necessary legal rights to change this territory's jurisdiction», regardless of what the residents there think - the residents don't have that right; they should have no say-so over who rules them.

On the left side, George Soros was (along with the U.S. Government and the Netherlands Government) one of the three founders of Hromadske TV, which presented a commentator who said (and he was not contradicted or opposed there):

Donbass, in general, is not simply a region in a very depressed condition, it has got a whole number of problems, the biggest of which is that it is severely overpopulated with people nobody has any use for. Trust me, I know perfectly well what I am saying. If we take, for example, just the Donetsk oblast, there are approximately 4 million inhabitants, at least 1.5 million of which are superfluous. That's what I mean: we don't need to [try to] 'understand' Donbass, we need to understand Ukrainian national interests. Donbass must be exploited as a resource, which it is. I don't claim to have a quick solution recipe, but the most important thing that must be done - no matter how cruel it may sound - is that there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated.

The Kochs are among the main fundraisers for America's Republican Party, while George Soros is among the main fundraisers for America's Democratic Party. There is near-100% support in the U.S. Congress, bipartisan support, for supplying weapons, military advisors, and everything short of the U.S. armed fighting forces, into Ukraine, in order to help the Ukrainian government kill the people in Donbass. These aristocrats just want the land, not the people. (That's why Ukraine's racists-fascist anti-Russians, Ukraine's nazis, have been so essential to the coup, the massacre, the aftermath, and even to the pogrom of Korsun, against anti-coup Crimeans, during the coup. They want the land, not the people.)

On 20 September 2014, I headlined, «Russia's Leader Putin Rejects Ukrainian Separatists' Aim to Become Part of Russia», and reported that, contrary to Western news-reports which alleged that Russia's President Vladimir Putin wanted Donbass to become part of Russia, Putin had firmly rejected the request by Donbass leaders for Russia to accept Donbass into Russia. Putin had already figured out that, in the interests of Russia's own national security, it would be far better for Donbass's voters to be voting in Ukraine, not in Russia. Putin had already arranged for the men in Donbass to be trained and armed to overcome the invasion by the Ukrainian government, so that some people would be able to survive there, but they'd need to stay in Donbass; they'd not be Russians. Virtually all of what the Western news-media were saying about the war in Ukraine (e.g., that Russia was trying to grab that land) misrepresented the truth. The truth was the exact opposite.

When Putin helped Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Francois Hollande to establish the Minsk II agreement suspending Obama's war against the Donbassers, Putin managed to have inserted into the agreement its 11th paragrpaph, which requires Donbassers to stay in Ukraine but to be granted local autolonomy there, and to be able to vote in Ukraine's national elections for President and parliament. Gerashchenko's recent comments against that idea, are a reflection of the Ukrainian government's refusal to adhere to this agreement, though Ukraine had signed it. (There were conflicts within the Obama Administration over whether or not Ukraine should comply with Minsk II, but Obama slammed down his Secretary of State John Kerry for having demanded compliance.)

The United States is pushing on with its efforts to restart the war, and to eliminate the Donbass residents. The U.S. had nothing to do with the Minsk II agreement; the Obama Administration shunned it and wants the war to resume. Obama has the support of Congress on this. Gerashchenko's fear is also Washington's fear: the Donbassers must be eliminated, in their view. But Putin, equally strongly, wants them to stay in Donbass, and to survive, as Ukrainians there. This is what Minsk II is basically about.

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 #47
Sputnik
September 12, 2015
Yay for Irredentism! Victoria Nuland Promises Yalta's Return to Ukraine

Speaking at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kiev on Saturday, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland raised quite a stir among Ukraine's irredentist politicians, saying that the city of Yalta would one day return to Kiev's control.

The forum, concluding Saturday, is a virtual who's who of the post-Maidan coup Ukrainian elite, as well as their foreign backers and supporters. Following the Maidan, the conference has been forced to relocate to Kiev from Yalta, a city situated in southern Crimea, the peninsula which broke off from Ukraine in March 2014 to join Russia.

Nuland's remarks featured rhetoric on stopping Russian aggression, praise for the Ukrainian leadership's great successes in reforming Ukraine's economy and tackling corruption, and promises that the US would continue to assist Ukraine, including its armed forces.

"You have stopped the Novorossiya project in its tracks, stabilized the financial system and created a new police force...Many challenges remain ahead. There will be losses in the fight against corruption. But there should be no tolerance for the oligarchs," Nuland noted, cited by Ukrainian newspaper LB.ua. "We are providing Ukraine with continuous assistance. The United States, more than any other country, has supported the Ukrainian army. This is part of the reason why Ukraine has been able to stop the offensive in the east."

But the remarks which caused the most excitement among Ukrainian officials and foreign hawks alike was a statement Nuland made at the beginning of her speech about the Yalta European Strategy forum one day returning to its home city of Yalta, Russia.

The forum's official Twitter account proudly tweeted the statement, reading "#victorianuland one day you will return to that great #Ukrainian city #Yalta" and "#victorianuland happy you didn't change name of this conference - it is the Yalta European Strategy conference."

Others, including former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, promptly joined in, in comments retweeted by US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt.

Naturally, not everyone was supportive of the assistant secretary of state's remarks.

Nuland's commentary kept up with the vaguely belligerent and occasionally downright absurd tone of the conference, with speakers bragging about the important successes of Ukraine has seen in its programs of economic and anti-corruption reforms, ramping up the rhetoric about Russian aggression, calling on Moscow to free suspected murderer Nadiya Savchenko, etc.

Swedish Member of European Parliament Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, wife of former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, showing off her 'Free Savchenko!' t-shirt.

Ms. Nuland wasn't alone in fantasizing about Ukrainian irredentism over Crimea, with one forum participant suggesting that it's already time for Kiev to start planning on how to reintegrate the region into Ukraine.

Earlier Saturday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk made an appeal for the West not to flinch, to keep maximum pressure on Moscow, and to keep Ukraine "on their radar," because Russia is really "fighting not only against Ukraine; the Russian president is fighting against the free world."

Yatsenyuk grudgingly admitted that the Minsk Agreement is the only option for peace available at the moment, but declared that relations between the West and Russia should not be allowed to stabilize until Russia's phantom 40,000 troops pull out of eastern Ukraine and Moscow returns Crimea to Ukrainian control. The prime minister also boasted that Russian leadership, including President Putin, has "trapped" itself in Donbass, adding that "if [Putin] attacks the Ukrainian army and tries to capture more territories, he will die."

The prime minister's words follow on similarly provocative commentary made by President Poroshenko on Friday. In comments which he has since declared were misinterpreted, the president announced that "now it is high time to discuss the possibility to deploy an operation in the Donbass to support due implementation of the Minsk Agreement." The president noted that peace could be achieved only when "Russian occupation forces" withdraw from Donbass and Ukraine closes its border with Russia.

Conducting polling among the forum's participants, the forum's press service had reported Friday that just over half of the forum's Ukrainian participants (51 percent) and nearly a third (32 percent) of its foreign guests favored the expansion and strengthening of the NATO alliance as a method of enhancing European security. 32 percent of Ukrainian participants and 24 percent of foreign guests also supported the creation of new security institutions. Only seven percent of the Ukrainian officials and 18 percent of the forum's foreign guests considered it a priority to find a new format for partnership relations with Russia.

Founded by Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk in 2004, the Yalta European Strategy forum has served to promote Ukraine's membership in the European Union, featuring high-level talks between Ukrainian and EU officials.

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#48
Putin Changing Tactics in Ukraine But Not Strategy, Shevtsova Says
Paul Goble

Staunton, September 14 - The current lull in the fighting in the Donbas is "one of the tactical elements in the Kremlin's efforts to get out of open confrontation with the West and offer the West a new deal - the idea of a global anti-terrorist coalition," Liliya Shevtsova says; but it does not represent a change in Vladimir Putin's strategy.

That strategy remains exactly what it was: to ensure that Moscow has sufficient leverage to block Ukraine from becoming part of the West, she says. But now that effort is likely to take the form of economic and political pressure, although the threat of military force will remain as blackmail (apostrophe.com.ua/article/politics/2015-09-14/kreml-vyibiraet-novuyu-taktiku-chto-budet-s-dnr-lnr/2252).

"The partial ceasefire and lull in the Donbas clearly testified to the exhaustion of a particular model in Kremlin policy," the Russian analyst says, "the model of forcible pressure on Ukraine." Moscow has recognized this for some time and sought a way out "without the loss of face" and "with the preservation of a mechanism for influence on Kyiv."

Shevtsova adds that she does not think that "the return of the DNR and LNR to Ukraine is something real in the near future given the maintenance of an open border with Russia and separatist control over these formations." Moreover, "the Kremlin is hardly read to completely surrender these enclaves." Whether Ukraine really wants them back is another question.

What is clear is this: "Moscow wants to get out from the sanctions regime," and it "doesn't need 'a black hole' in the Donbas" which it would have to continue to put money into.  Thus, she says, the Russian authorities will tighten their control of the border with Ukraine to "prevent the flow of arms and separatists with arms into the territory of Russia."

According to Shevtsova, the Kremlin understands that it has gotten itself into a dead end and that the use of more force now would be counterproductive. But it also understands that it will be able to achieve what is wants - keeping Ukraine "in a neutral strategic zone outside of NATO guarantees" - if uses other means, while keeping the threat of force in place.

No one should be fooled by what Putin is doing, she suggests. "For Moscow, Ukraine remains a part of the domestic agenda" of his Russia. And thus "the lull means only a change of Kremlin tactics but not of its strategy."

 

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 #49
Kyiv Post
September 12, 2015
Analyst says Russian propaganda destroyed border between fact, fiction
By Oleg Sukhov

Russian propaganda has become efficient in Ukraine and elsewhere by sowing confusion and destroying the border between facts and fiction, Peter Pomerantsev, a Kyiv-born media expert at the Legatum Institute, a British think-tank, said late on Sept. 11.

"Back in the 20th century we had a very clear perception of what propaganda was," Pomerantsev said at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv, adding that back then propaganda stemmed from the absence of information. "It was about getting the truth through the Iron Curtain."

But since then the nature of Kremlin propaganda has drastically changed, Pomerantsev said. He cited his research among Russian-speaking communities in the Baltic states.

Now they have access to local, Russian and Western media.

"Instead of a lack of information, they almost have too much," Pomerantsev said. "The reaction is not to believe anyone but they said: we go with the Russians because they are more emotional and the stories they tell are more exciting. They are more objective because they are more like the cinema."

Pomerantsev believes that the "essence of disinformation has always been to muddy the waters and sow confusion."

"So people would say 'I don't really know what's going on. Ukraine is far away. Why should I care?'," he said. "The point of Russian propaganda is that they've destroyed any border that was remaining - and it was really pretty damn shaky - between facts and fiction."

The Kremlin narrative now is that "there is no truth out there, and you'll never find it but go with us because our emotional content is more vital," Pomerantsev said.

"Cynicism breaks down critical thinking, at the root of cynicism is something quite medieval and emotional - a world of myths and storytelling," he said. "When you don't believe in facts, you are just left with that."

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 #50
Pravda.ru
September 14, 2015
Yatsenyuk, Europe and the Ukrainian dream
By Ruslan Vesnyanko

The government of Arseny Yatsenyuk has promised a lot during two years of its existence - from raising the standard of living in Ukraine to establishing a visa-free regime with the EU. Apparently, it is only Yatsenyuk's standard of living that has improved. As for traveling to the EU, getting a visa to go to the European Union has become quite a hardship for Ukrainians. Most Ukrainians do not go to Europe nowadays - this is the point of Yatsenyuk's visa-free regime.

Here is a state of affairs in today's Ukraine, complied on the basis of international ratings and taking account of many promises of the Ukrainian government.

Education: The last top ten

Judging by the activity of Ukrainian ministers for education, this area of life in Ukraine needs reforms most. Each new minister is committed to changing the duration of school education. Thus, schooling in Ukraine changes from 11 to 12 and 10 years every now and then, as ministers replace each other in the office.

In addition, they rewrite textbooks, especially history books, and radically reform universities. The ranking of national higher education systems around the world in 2015.

This rating (calculated by the method of the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research of the University of Melbourne) evaluates national systems of higher education on 24 key indicators. Ukraine is ranked 41st among 50 countries - between Brazil and Romania.

Corruption: Rising and shining

Anti-corruption struggle has been all the rage in Ukraine for several years already. Practically all Ukrainian officials trumpet about their efforts in this direction. However, international studies prove the opposite.

As of late 2014, in the ranking of Transparency International Corruption Perceptions, Ukraine was ranked 142nd out of 175 places. In 2013, the country took the 144th on the list of 177 places.

The studies conducted by Transparency International Ukraine, GfK Ukraine and other organizations show that corruption in Ukraine is blooming.

Investments: Nothing at all

The talk about the inflow of foreign investment in Ukraine is just as popular as the talk about the struggle against corruption. Yatsenyuk's great expectations were associated with the money from the IMF. The sitting Ukrainian Prime Minister was promising to bring at least $3.5 billion in the country's economy. Yet, neither business nor experts have seen any improvement of the investment climate in Ukraine.

In the first quarter 2015, Ukraine's index of investment attractiveness of the European Business Association (EBA) made up 2.51 points out of possible five. Although this is not the worst result, it is below the average score in 2014.

Eighty-five percent of respondents pointed out the poor state of business investment climate in the country, with nearly a half of executives saying that the business climate in today's Ukraine has worsened in comparison with late 2014. Forty-seven percent of respondents do not expect the situation to improve in the near future.

Salary: This is rock bottom

To this day, no Ukrainian can see even a sign of European salaries. In addition, the living standard in Ukraine has hit its bottom. Previously, Ukrainian salaries were lowest in Europe. Nowadays, salaries in Asian and African countries are even higher.

After the promised raise, salaries and pensions in Ukraine will remain minuscule. The minimum pension will reach the level of 49 dollars (1,074 hryvnia), whereas the minimum salary - $63 (1,378 hryvnia) at the rate of 22 hryvnia per dollar.

The poverty line, according to UN standards, makes up $5 a day or $150 a month! For comparison, the minimum salary in Nicaragua is 94 dollars, in Haiti - 89 dollars. As for EU countries, the lowest level of salary is registered in Bulgaria: 184 euros - that is three times higher than in Ukraine. The minimum salary of Luxembourg (1,923 euros) is only a dream for Ukrainians.  

The losses of large and medium-sized companies in the country as of the end of 2014 amounted to 408.2 billion hryvnia. In 2013, Ukrainian companies reported the  profit of 38 billion hryvnia.

Visa-free travel: No visas at all

The Ukrainians have been hearing promises about the visa-free regime for nearly ten years. At first, the free entry to Europe, was "expected" after the signing of the association agreement with the EU, then - from 1 January 2015 and then - right with the introduction of biometric passports.

Meanwhile, going to Europe has been getting a bigger problem for most Ukrainians. Many Schengen countries refuse to approve visas to Ukrainians. What is worse, some countries annul open visas to citizens of Ukraine. To crown it all, consulate offices check the solvency of Ukrainian travelers to the EU more carefully. The share of Ukrainians who can demonstrate "appropriate" official salaries for a visa is less than one percent.

Ukraine's position in the global ranking of freedom of travel has remained unchanged. Ukraine takes the 53rd place. For Ukrainians, visas are not required  for 79 countries of the world. For comparison, residents of Macau can travel to 122 countries without visas, Honduras - to 116 countries, Guatemala - 114, Trinidad and Tobago - 103.

Russian residents, despite all sorts of sanctions, may freely travel to one hundred countries of the world. As for the leaders of the list, citizens of Great Britain, Germany, Finland, Sweden, the United States can travel to 174 countries and they do not require to obtain a visa.

Level of stability: Below average

The rating of weakness made by The Fund for Peace, US-based think tanks and influential US magazine Foreign Policy reflects the ability of the authorities to control the integrity of the country, as well as political, economic and demographic situation. In the study, experts rated conflicts on 12 criteria.

South Sudan takes the lead with 114.5 points. South Sudan is followed by Somalia, Central African Republic, Congo and Sudan. In all these countries, ruled by tiny elites, there are combat actions, their economies are close to a catastrophe, and the population lives in extreme poverty.

On the list of 178 countries, Ukraine takes the 84th place.

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 #51
Antiwar.com
September 11, 2015
The Knot At the Heart of the Ukraine Crisis
By Ted Snider
Ted Snider writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

The origin of the Ukraine crisis is consistently reported in the West as an unfortunate and unpopular choice by President Viktor Yanukovych to go with an economic alliance with Russia over the economic alliance offered by the European Union. The package offered by the European Union is portrayed as benign and Yanukovych's rejection of it as a betrayal.

But it was the European Union's offer, not Yanukovych's rejection of it, that was the betrayal.

It has often been reported that when Russia agreed to allow Germany to become part of NATO, NATO and the U.S. agreed not to move "one inch" further east than Germany. The history of the promise isn't that clear or that simple, but there was a promise.

At a February 9, 1990 meeting, George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State, James Baker, promised Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany "there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction one inch to the east." But according to Professor of Russian and European Politics, Richard Sakwa, this promise meant only that NATO would not spill over from West Germany into East Germany. The promise of not "one inch to the east," meant only that NATO wouldn't militarize East Germany.

But the logic of the specific assurance implies the larger assurance. Russia wouldn't have it as a security concern that East Germany not be home to NATO forces if there were NATO forces in all the Soviet Republics between East Germany and the western border of the Soviet Union. The value of the promise not to militarize East Germany is contingent upon the understanding that NATO won't militarize east of East Germany.

So the question of militarizing east of Germany never had to explicitly come up: it was implicitly understood. Sakwa says, "The question of NATO enlargement to the other Soviet bloc countries simply did not enter anyone's head and was not discussed."

The promise was made on two consecutive days: first by the Americans and then by the West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. According to West German foreign ministry documents, on February 10, 1990, the day after James Baker's promise, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, told his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze "'For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.' And because the conversation revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: 'As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.'"

Former CIA analyst and chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch Ray McGovern reports that the US ambassador to the USSR at the time of the promise, Jack Matlock - who was present at the talks - told him that "The language used was absolute, and the entire negotiation was in the framework of a general agreement that there would be no use of force by the Soviets and no 'taking advantage' by the US ... I don't see how anybody could view the subsequent expansion of NATO as anything but 'taking advantage. . . ."

Mikhail Gorbachev thinks there was a promise made. He says the promise was made not to expand NATO "as much as a thumb's width further to the east." Putin also says the promise was made. In 2012, Putin said, "And what happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them."

Putin then went on to remind his audience of the assurances by pointing out that the existence of the NATO promise is not just the perception of him and Gorbachev. It was also the view of the NATO General Secretary at the time: "But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. [Manfred] Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: 'the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.' Where are those guarantees?"

McGovern says that when he asked Viktor Borisovich Kuvaldin, a Gorbachev adviser from 1989-1991, why there was no written agreement, Kuvaldin replied painfully, "We trusted you."

The significance of this agreement today is that this strand of history becomes tangled in a knot when it combines with the contemporary strand of the European Union economic offer to Ukraine. The offer was not the benign one presented by the Western media. It was not just an economic offer.

According to Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies at Princeton, Stephen Cohen, the European Union proposal also "included 'security policy' provisions . . . that would apparently subordinate Ukraine to NATO." The provisions compelled Ukraine to "adhere to Europe's 'military and security' policies." So the proposal was not a benign economic agreement: it was a security threat to Russia in economic sheep's clothing.

So, after NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004 and Albania and Croatia in 2009, the economic offer made by the European Union to Ukraine was, in fact, the most recent and most serious security threat to the Russians and the most recent and most serious betrayal of the cold war promise.

Russia had no problem with E.U. expansion. Russia was willing - even anxious - to work with and cooperate with Europe. Sakwa says, " . . . there was no external resistance at this point to EU enlargement. On its own it posed no security threat to Russia, and it was only later, when allied with NATO enlargement . . . that enlargement encountered resistance." And that is the problem with the E.U. offer to Ukraine: it is allied with NATO.

Sakwa says "EU enlargement paves the way to NATO membership" and points out that, since 1989, every new member of the E.U. has become a member of NATO. It's not only that the E.U. package subordinated Ukraine to NATO, since the E.U. Treaty of Lisbon went into effect in 2009 all new members of the E.U. are required to align their defense and security policies with NATO.

The E.U.'s Association Agreement with Ukraine was not just an economic agreement, as consistently presented in the Western media. Article 4 says the Agreement will "promote gradual convergence on foreign and security matters with the aim of Ukraine's ever-deeper involvement in the European security area." This article is a betrayal of the cold war's closing promise and a violation of NATO's "firm security guarantee" to Russia.

Article 7 speaks of the convergence of security and defense, and Article 10 says that "the parties shall explore the potential of military and technological cooperation".

So the knot at the heart of the Ukraine conflict is the entanglement of two agreements: the first agreement - between NATO and the U.S.S.R. - promises that NATO will not metastasize into the Russian sphere of concern, while the second, between the E.U. and Ukraine commits the country that holds the paramount position in the Russian sphere of concern to moving into the NATO sphere.

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