#2
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 16, 2015
10 pearls of wisdom on world culture from the Hermitage director
A new book published in Russia called "Mikhail Piotrovsky" consists of an interview with the renowned director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, who is an authoritative Middle East and Arabic scholar. RBTH has selected 10 quotes on world culture and heritage from the book and from the presentation in Moscow.
Oleg Krasnov, RBTH

On saving the monuments in Palmyra

I think that Palmyra could have been saved from destruction. It had taken the ISIS militants a long time to get there. It was clear that they were going there precisely so that they wouldn't be bombed. They crossed the desert where they could have been obliterated. The European countries decided not to do so because that would have helped [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad. But for the sake of culture it is possible to do things that in other cases it's not reasonable to do.
 
On the Koran and Syria

The Koran is a book that I keep on my desk. But I never respond to the question of which is my favorite Sura, just like I don't respond to the question of which is my favorite painting in the Hermitage. My Koran was a wonderful gift that I received from the Mufti of Syria. It contains a little stick, a qalam, which, when put on a certain letter, reads the letter out loud. When you press another button it analyzes the grammar. Another button analyzes the pronunciation, the next - comments on it. Everything makes a sound. You want a translation in five languages - here! And this was made in Syria. The country is living normally, or so it wants to.
 
On the Louvre pyramids

There will be no architectural interference in the external or internal aspect of the Hermitage whatsoever. First and foremost this is a house, an imperial palace in which people once lived. When they were designing the pyramids in the Louvre and I was asked to comment, I said that for Paris it doesn't make a difference - it already has the Eiffel Tower.
 
On the role of money in culture

It must always be remembered that there are many things that cannot be done for the sake of money. These things vary, depending on the museum. For example, the Hermitage cannot be rented for a reception, while at the Metropolitan [Museum of Art, New York] this will not upset anyone. But we won't allow this. You cannot create an exhibition for money. We can assiduously look for funds to exhibit an artist that we are interested in, but we will never allow anyone to exhibit at our museum for money!
 
On museums as cities

The city can learn how to live from a museum. Today museums are often city-forming "enterprises." They are surrounded by trade, educational centers and universities. As a sort of social institution the museum sticks its nose everywhere, trying to teach people how to inhabit a city and how to preserve its monuments. People say that they can't understand what they can do and what they can't in a historical city. I tell them to start doing what the museum does.
 
On the place of museums in society

The museum teaches and gives joy and is therefore somewhere, as is often said, between Disneyland and a temple. The general vulgarization of society and the diffusion of the right for everyone to judge art and culture have helped museums throughout the world careen towards entertainment. Experience has shown that museums must (and they are doing it) strengthen their role as temple and holy place. In our world we need certain intellectual and aesthetic refuges, sacred grounds, which have their own rules and where culture implements its own rights.
 
On the Scythian gold seized in the Netherlands

Concerning the "Scythian gold," I say once again, and this is important, that this is not gold but the most diverse archeological monuments from Crimean museums found in Crimea. The preservation of these museums' high status is an important factor in the juridical discussion raging around the return of the collection. And the moral position has been clear for a long time: Things must return to where they were. That is, to the Crimean museums.
 
On the dialogue between cultures

The "dialogue between cultures" is a funny phrase, despite being constantly used. A dialogue is a discussion between two people around a mug of beer. Especially since in certain spheres dialogue is impossible. For example, dialogue between religions is impossible, even though many thought light-heartedly that if representatives of the Abrahamic religions sat down at a negotiating table and agree to what is needed, everything would be fine. But the self-confidence of the organizers of these dialogues ran into three, four, five points of disagreement. And disagreeing on these points, there is really no sense in talking about anything else.
 
On detective novels

My hobby is reading detective and thriller novels. Through them I learn about the world and its languages. But the main reason for reading this literature is that you find out a lot of wonderful details that leave you with the impression that you have learned so much about the country that it's not necessary to go there. For a long time I was reading the Scottish writer Ian Rankin. All the plots of his novels are set in Edinburgh. And when I visited the city for work, I realized that I knew everything there. It was great.
 
On the British Museum

You ask me about the people without whom I would not be me. Write this down: the British Museum. The British Museum for me is a person.

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#3
The Guardian
September 15, 2015
How St Petersburg is creating a permanent home for street art
The Street Art Museum in St Petersburg is the first of its kind - a fixed home for a transitory art form. Can this space help the city reinvent itself for a new era?
Aaron M Renn in St Petersburg, Russia
[Photos here http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/15/st-petersburg-permanent-home-street-art-museum]

The world of street art abounds with irony. Supporters of this art form (which is largely predicated on defacing other people's property) have protested plans to demolish the graffiti-covered 5 Pointz building in Queens, New York. The "outlaw" Banksy is a savvy self-promoter whose new Dismaland project, in the English seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, has been described as "the most shameless commercial art project since Disneyland".

So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that this outsider art form now has its own official cultural venue in the Street Art Museum in St Petersburg, Russia. If such an institution seems a contradiction in terms for an art form that, by definition, is supposed to take place on the street, curator Nailya Allahverdiyeva seems to be its biggest opponent. "In general, I hate street art expositions, because I consider that to be a profanation of street art," she told the Moscow Times. "I have done everything I can to drive artists out on to the street."

And yet, Allahverdiyeva is one of the co-curators of this year's exhibition at the Street Art Museum. "The idea that a street art museum couldn't exist is very popular among the people," says Albina Motor, the museum's producer. "But we are not a museum in the conventional sense. It's just a name for much more."

Most visitors looking for art in St Petersburg will check out the Hermitage or the Mariinsky theatre. The Street Art Museum is certainly not yet on the agenda - nor, as Motor says, is it a typical museum. For one thing, it's located inside an active factory, the Sloplast plastics laminate works, in an industrial zone far outside the city's central tourist core.

A working factory is, of course, a perfect setting for a street art museum, as factories are a typical "canvas" for street art performances. But beyond the art itself, the museum is seeking to create a cultural identity in a district that's currently mentally, as well as physically, a world away from the city's historic core. St Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 as a "European-style" capital, with architecture that exudes the refined charm of western European cities. It is also endowed with a legacy of renowned cultural institutions, which help make it the most-visited Russian city for foreign tourists.

But the tourist zone in the city centre is fairly small. St Petersburg was also developed into a huge industrial centre: it is ringed with miles of factories, many of them now closed. As with many post-industrial cities, "Piter," as Russians call it, needs to reinvent itself for a new era.

So how do you refresh an industrial district in the middle ring of this classical city? With street art, of course. The Street Art Museum engages with both functioning industry and the world of art - for which the city is already well-known. Even the museum's logo - a spray can styled as a classic architectural column - playfully draws on the city's high-culture reputation. But this a different kind of art for a different kind of district, one that is drawing tourists and international attention to the kind of urban zone that seldom sees much of either.

Whereas the more well-known institutions in St Petersburg are oriented towards the past, the Street Art Museum is engaging with the present - not just in terms of street art, but also contemporary issues facing Russians. Vladimir Putin's authoritarian turn has lent a degree of seriousness and importance to Russian street art that transcends the mere posturing and thinly veiled commercialism too often present in the west. Examples range from the anti-Putin works of the late P183 to the street performance of art-collective Voina.

It was the factory owner himself, Dmitry Zaitsev, who created the museum, and his son Andrey is the museum's director. Because it's in a factory, a good deal of the "permanent collection" comprises murals overlooking active factory floors full of workers, such as God at Work by Roman Kreemos or Supreme (in homage to suprematism) by Petro.

"The original idea was to make this place cosy for working," says Motor, highlighting the industrial logic behind these works, which are normally off-limits to museum-goers and require special advance arrangements to see. The relationship between factory and museum goes the other way, too: the chairs in the museum cafe were made from the factory's products and assembled by its workers.

But is street art something the workers actually like, or just something the creative class thinks they should like? Motor recalls a conversation between two workers about street artist Kirill Kto's artwork Sometimes Yes, Sometimes No: "Sometimes yes, sometimes bullshit" - a sentiment to which anyone who's ever been to a museum can probably relate.

A massive outdoor area and decommissioned parts of the factory, like the boiler house, are used for temporary exhibits, such as The Cage by Zuk Club, Toy Group's humorous "flyers", or an enormous wall-sized manifesto called Everything I Know About Street Art by Timothy Radya.

The venue also provides street artists with the opportunity to work experimentally in forms they have never used before, and the space to create work that won't immediately be disregarded as disposable. For example, Andrey Olenev exhibits a series of charred logs that encircle a room. The charred smell is still present, lending an extra dimension to this piece - and, as with many of the best works of contemporary art, it has an ambiguity that captures your attention: it is not immediately obvious whether it is art or debris, or indeed exactly which parts of the room are art, which are "gallery" and which are factory. You can't simply drift past these exhibitions like so many paintings on a wall.

Could the idea catch on? A group in New York called the Street Museum of Art tours exhibits on the street, while Amsterdam's Street Art Museum is a walking tour. The V&A in London has a street art collection, and there are plans afoot for something similar in New Jersey; but, in general, the paradoxical nature of the idea helps explain why the Street Art Museum is the first of its kind.

Meanwhile, as with all street art, it's an idea that is constantly changing, as the gallery mixes up the collection, and the fortunes of the factory itself fluctuate. "Some people think that museums are kind of cemeteries for art," Motor says. "We have no intention of becoming a graveyard for street art."

 

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 #4
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 15, 2015
Why do diasporas in Russia want more political representation?
The Eurasian Network of Political Studies (ENPS) NGO carried out a study earlier in 2015 called "Russian Social Organizations of Eurasian Diasporas: An Analysis of Influence Mechanisms," interviewing more than 60 diaspora leaders. The results show that Russia's diasporas want to participate in politics more actively. RBTH spoke about the study with ENPS president, Vitaly Merkushev.
Marina Obrazkova, RBTH
 
RBTH: How did you determine what is a diaspora and what isn't?

Vitaly Merkushev: We determined what a diaspora is according to the broad sense of the term: as a part of a people that lives outside the borders of its historical motherland.

RBTH: What are diasporas concerned about?

V.M.: In general, the first thing is the protection of businesses. Mainly small and medium businesses.

Another interest is social diplomacy, in the sense of maintaining ties with their native countries and the countries' relations with Russia. It is important for these people that their native countries and Russia do not quarrel, so that family ties can be maintained. For example, because of the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict people could not see their friends or relatives for 5-6 years. This is something that the diasporas want to avoid.

Thirdly, power, obviously. The diaspora leaders wish to participate in making political decisions, especially in foreign policy decisions concerning their motherlands.

RBTH: Which diasporas are the strongest?

V.M.: The Armenian, the Azerbaijani... the Georgian is still rather strong. The influence of the Kyrgyz and the Uzbek diasporas is growing. Most want to strengthen their positions in Russia. Currently there is a small outflow, but in general for objective reasons, in people from Central Asia. Russia is a country that represents enormous opportunities for diasporas. The leaders say so.

RBTH: How many diaspora members approximately are there in Russia?

V.M.: We divide the members into three circles, according to the broad interpretation of the term "diaspora." The first circle consists of Russian citizens of foreign origin. Official statistics from 2010 say that five percent of the Russian population, or seven million people, identified themselves with a foreign nationality. This 2010 census does not correspond to the reality concerning certain nations: "There are about twice as many of us (diaspora members)," said the diaspora leaders. Particularly unrealistic figures were attributed to people from the South Caucasus. But no one seriously considers the figures from the 2010 census, according to which in Moscow alone there were 106,000 Armenians, that is, one percent of Muscovites.

The second circle consists of people who officially live and work in Russia, those from the Eurasian Economic Union. These are Belarusians, Kazakhs, Armenians and soon this category will include the Kyrgyz. This is a huge number of people, about 2.5 million.

The third circle consists of an enormous number of legal and illegal migrant workers. There are at least 11 million of them. This was the figure that many experts were naming recently. Now, of course, after the introduction of work licenses, there are fewer of them. But it is doubtful that the figure has decreased by more than 25 percent.

Practically all the heads and leaders of the diasporas in the first circle have a Russian passport.

RBTH: How do diasporas view migrants?

V.M.: Diasporas are mostly critical of the increase of flows of migrants. Except for the Uzbeks and Tajiks. They're for it. The diaspora leaders think that in Russia they have to concentrate on the people who are already here. Expanding the diasporas would only aggravate the situation.

RBTH: Are they loyal to Russia?

V.M.: On the whole, yes. They feel the power of Russian authority. And it's not in their interest to oppose it. But diaspora leaders still have big demands, which are not related to security, since Russia is already safe for the diasporas. The demands are related to their dream of a European living standard. They have traveled a lot abroad, as tourists, and many see that Russia will never have such standards, while in their historical motherlands there may be a breakthrough. There is a certain historical envy here.

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 #5
Moscow Times
September 16, 2015
Keeping an Eye on the Russian Financial Market
By Chris Weafer
Chris Weafer is a senior partner with Macro Advisory, a consultancy advising international companies and investors working in Russia and across the Eurasia region.

Those promoting good news from Russia are focused on the fact that Russia's equity indices are among the best performing in the world this year. The RTS Index is up 11 percent while MICEX is 18 percent ahead of where it started the year. That compares with a loss of 16 percent for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index (MSCI EM) and a drop of 4.5 percent for the U.S. S&P 500 index.

The bad news is that the main reason the indices have performed relatively well is because valuations were already very low coming into this year as foreign investors, i.e. those who did not need to have Russian exposure, had long since departed. So that combination of relatively few active investors and cheap valuations meant that the indices have basically been drifting with low volumes.

Taken over the past five years, the U.S. dollar-denominated RTS is down 45 percent while ruble-based MICEX is up 22 percent or slightly ahead of the 20 percent rise in China's benchmark Shanghai Composite Index in the same period. The quick conclusion is that, smoothing out the volatility of the past few years, Russian equity indices have largely followed EM peers but with the major difference being the ruble devaluation hit on the dollar priced indices. In other words, the oil price impact.

That five-year period covers the U.S. Fed's quantitative easing program during which there has been steady hemorrhaging of liquidity from the emerging market asset class into U.S. equities. The result has been that the S&P 500 Index was the best major equity index in that period with a 75 percent gain.

There is an obvious contradiction in this year's relatively good market performance with the fact that the economy has slipped into recession. In reality there is no contradiction because equity investors mostly deal with anticipation rather than wait to react to facts. Markets are usually out of sync with economics.

So, taking all of that into account, what should equity investors be doing now or, for those of a more cautious disposition, what should they be watching most closely as an early indicator that a more sustainable rally in Russia's equity indices may be in the offing?

It would be no surprise if, at this stage, a large number of skeptics are thinking that such a notion as buying equity risk in Russia today is ridiculous. History suggests otherwise. The big decision an investor has to make is whether there is a bigger risk of valuations becoming cheaper or of a knee-jerk move higher.

Currently, Russian equities are trading at a discount of 50 percent relative to the MSCI EM average. That discount is less, at 40 percent, when the always discounted oil and gas stocks are excluded. There is a lot of bad news and poor expectations built into the market discount. One would have to be unusually pessimistic to assume that valuation gap gets much bigger.

The issue is that when such a thinly traded and tightly held market, as Russia has now become, jumps it can do so very quickly and certainly more quickly than a majority of investors can react. We saw that in the first half of 2009 when the RTS Index doubled between end January and early June even as the economy slipped further into recession.

That was the anticipation effect as investors reacted to the bottoming of the oil price and started to price in the earnings recovery expected in 2010. It basically means that if investors are less fearful of a further big fall in valuations than they are of losing the first leg of a big rally then they need to be very focused on the few big issues which can lead to that knee-jerk move higher.

So, what are the factors that can have that propulsion effect? I suggest the best way to consider the question is via valuation bands; what events may move the equity market to different levels of risk perception?

The three categories are a) what can eliminate the exceptional risk premium which widened the valuation gap from a more usual 35 percent to 50 percent from late 2013? b) what can return the valuation gap back to the 20-25 percent range it traded at before the 2013 growth slowdown? and c) what are the circumstances which could eliminate the valuation gap entirely?

For the first of those questions only two factors matter; the oil price and when financial sector sanctions may start to be eased. Positive movement in either would produce the first knee-jerk reaction and move the market back to the middle-valuation band while of course a further worsening for either would further depress sentiment, albeit with only limited downside movement because negative scenarios are already largely priced in.

Cutting that down to even earlier indicators means focusing on the supply trend for oil and whether the currently hopeful signs of extending the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine hold and lead to further talks with the aim of delivering a workable longer-term deal. Any sign of a cut in oil supply, especially from the U.S. shale sector, or an agreement to start a new round of peace talks, would be very quickly reflected with a tightening of the valuation gap.

An oil price rally and/or optimism that the financial sector sanctions may start to be withdrawn by the middle of next year would take the equity market out of the "sin-bin" but to restore valuations to the longer-run average will need optimism that earnings can again start to grow. That means there will have to be an assumption that the recession will only last one year and even modest recovery can be delivered next year and in 2017.

Forward momentum in the earnings can further reduce the valuation gap, albeit not without the pre-condition of oil price recovery - or stability at or above the $50 per barrel level - plus a re-opening of international capital markets to Russian borrowers. Hence the trend in the monthly macro indicators will also have to show that the recession did indeed bottom in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

So, an oil price rally and sanctions easing plus positive macro trend indicators, even if modest, are all capable of getting the valuation gap back to where it started. To make the final leap to the third valuation band, i.e. close to parity with EM peers, will require real solid evidence that this is the crisis which starts to shake the Kremlin's policy complacency and leads to some deliverable changes to the economy and to industrial policy.

The last time the market reached the parity valuation band was in May 2008 when the leadership transition generated a lot of optimism about reforms, etc. That turned out to be not much more than smoke and mirrors and was easily blown away when the oil price collapsed over the following seven months. Next time investors will want to see solid evidence of change if they are to push valuations out of the discount bands

 #6
Ulyukayev not expecting 'major shocks' from potential rate hike in U.S

SOCHI. Sept 16 (Interfax) - Because financial markets have largely priced in the effect of a potential rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev does not expect any major shocks if the U.S. Fed does approve a rate hike.

"It seems to me that for the most part the markets have included the rate hike decision in their expectations. If it is not accompanied by any strong statement, that this is the beginning of a series of hikes, then I think in this case there will not be any major shocks," Ulyukayev told journalists in Sochi on Wednesday.

The minister said that expectations for a rate hike have notably fallen.

"I remember that the majority of analysts lowered their expectations on an increase this month. If already in the summer more than half thought that there will be [an increase], then now only 20% of analysts think so," Ulyukayev said.

"But the matter doesn't only concern this. The matter is that, if one understands the Fed, that this is part of the cycle of raising rates, or it will be simply limited by a one-off step, it isn't important when it is done, in September or in December. So, how the announcement will be made at a Fed press conference, this is very important," the minister said.

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#7
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
September 15, 2015
Foot traffic at Russia's leading shopping malls tumbles
Ben Aris in Moscow
[Charts here http://www.bne.eu/content/story/foot-traffic-russias-leading-shopping-malls-tumbles]
 
Foot traffic at Russia's leading malls is collapsing because of the grinding crisis that has seen real incomes fall the first time in a decade and a half, according to the most accurate index measuring Russians' shopping habits.

Moscow boasts some of the biggest and most profitable malls in the world on a square-metre (sqm) basis. The spend per sqm at the modern Europa mall next to Kievskaya railway station in central Moscow is the highest in Europe and in the top five in the world, outstripping giants like the Mall of the World in Dubai and the Golden Resources Mall in Beijing. Indeed, colossal malls is very much an emerging market phenomenon; the biggest mall in the developed world is the US' King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania that only ranks at number 30 on a Wikipedia list of the world's largest.

As most emerging markets, and especially Russia, have only recently created a significant middle class that love to shop, these markets have gone straight from empty corner stores, or produkti in Russia, to titanic state-of-the-art buildings in strategic urban locations, each with billions of dollars of turnover a year.

As malls take about three years to build, the first half of 2015 saw a record number of new floor space come on the Russian market. With development starting in 2012 when the economy looked like it was bouncing back from the 2008 crash, in the first six months of this year 342,000 sqm of new mall space was added to Moscow, up 41% from the same period a year earlier, to bring the overall volume of quality shopping centres in the capital to 4.5mn sqm, according to real estate consultants Jones Lang LeSalle. This increase has pushed Moscow into the first place in terms of supply of shopping centres in European cities in 2015, ahead of Paris, Madrid and St Petersburg, in that order.

Shopping index

The fact that so many modern malls are being built at once has created an opportunity for Russian research company Watcom to create an integrated information system based on buildings' security cameras, which is unique to Russia, claims Masha Vakatova, commercial director at Watcom. "We have created software that uses the security cameras to count the number of people shopping in a mall in real time. This information is then correlated with sales in stores and other information including some personal data on location if a customer logs into the free WiFi in the building. You can then follow their movements and see how much time they are spending where, which again can be tied back to the revenue of the locations they are in."

"For example, when the ruble dramatically devalued in December, the next day you saw the Shopping Index collapse as well," adds Vakatova, referring to the company's main shopping traffic index.

Thus, the index shows there is a very direct link between the health of the macroeconomy and shopping volumes. And things are going from bad to worse in Russia.

Foot traffic was already slowing from 2011, despite the fact real incomes were still rising, but that fall really started to accelerate in 2014, the year Western sanctions were imposed on Russia. And things are going to get even worse for the high-end retailers that populate these malls after real income growth turned negative for the first time since President Vladimir Putin took office in 2000 in December last year.

As the index not only shows how many people there are in a mall at any one time, but also where they spend their time and how they spend their money, it also gives a pretty accurate insight into how spending habits are changing. "Buyers now increasingly study the price tag, try to buy at discounted rates, and actively respond to all kinds of promotions and bonuses to which chains and shopping malls carefully prepare for," Watcom president Roman Skorokhodov said in a recent report.

As the chart below of superimposed annual cycles from January to New Year's Day shows, the Shopping Index for Moscow's leading malls has fallen every year since 2011, with the tumble accelerating in 2014. Faced with even more volatility on currency markets as the summer comes to an end, and the most recent report from Watcom showing nearly all the indicators are pointing downwards, the index for this year will only be worse.

 

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 #8
www.rt.com
September 16, 2015
'Like weather report': Duma chief plays down importance of new anti-Russian sanctions

The lower house speaker has reacted to EU's decision to prolong sanctions against Russian companies and citizens calling it a minor importance event and expressing hope that reason would one day prevail among European politicians.

"The prolongation of these sanctions has been announced quietly and apparently the decision had been made quietly as well, without any discussion. The attitude to such decisions and announcements should be like to a weather report. Various people show different attitude towards weather reports - some find them interesting and some not. One fact is for sure - in newscasts this block is always on the last place," Sergey Naryshkin told reporters at a press conference dedicated to OSCE's Parliamentary Assembly session in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The Duma speaker added that he personally hoped that "one day common sense would return into the heads of those who make these decisions."

The comment came after the EU Council approved the prolongation of asset freezes and travel bans on 149 Russian citizens and 37 companies over their alleged part in "the endangering of the territorial integrity of Ukraine" - the formula used by Western politicians to describe the reunification of the Crimean Republic and the Russian Federation, approved by legally-elected bodies of power as well as a nationwide referendum.

When EU first introduced the anti-Russian sanctions in 2014 Naryshkin called them "an emotional step" in an interview with RT and suggested that the European body made it on orders from the United States.

Naryshkin told RT that the personalized sanctions targeting Russian lawmakers including himself were "strange, or even absurd" since Europeans "have always prided themselves on their democratic tradition," while the personalized sanctions are "absolutely at odds" with that.

Top Russian state officials have repeatedly stated that the continued pressure would never affect Moscow's foreign or internal policy. In particular, Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov has called the sanctions "a double-edged sword" that, although causing certain discomfort to the Russian economy, was also hurting businesses in the countries that had introduced them, not to mention the world economy as a whole.

In mid-April this year Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stated in a parliamentary speech that the events of the past year have demonstrated that Russian society and authorities can withstand any political or economic pressure from abroad.

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 #9
Moscow Times
September 16, 2015
Football and the Russian Middle Class
By Konstantin Sonin
Konstantin Sonin, a columnist for Vedomosti, is a professor at the University of Chicago and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

It is easy to conclude when reading economic news or commentary that the government's activities dominate the economic life of the country. That is far from true. The most important activity occurs at the grassroots level.

However, that area receives far less media attention, even when important trends develop there. For example, the rapid economic growth of the early 2000s resulted not only from high oil prices and responsible economic policy, but from the efforts of millions of businesspeople and workers. The fact is that each individual step of creating a company, opening a branch office or even offering a new service is too small for the media to comment on.

However, it is important to single out individual bits of good news - especially when they would otherwise get carried away by the torrent of bad news flooding in from all economic fronts these days. For example, I see it as good economic news that attendance is way up at Spartak Moscow football club matches.

It is good news not only for fans of the Premier League team, but for everyone who believes in the audience potential of Russian football and, if I can be so bold - for the future of the Russian middle class.

Last year, attendance averaged 25,000 spectators for Spartak games - significantly more than for any other Premier League teams.

However, the comparison here is not with other teams, very few of which have such a historic "brand" as Spartak. The point is that the number is much higher for the Spartak club itself, and even higher than it was during the team's more successful seasons.

In addition, Spartak was almost the only team to experience significantly increased attendance in a year when it fell for the Russian league as a whole and for most teams individually.

What's more, the "quality" of attendance has also risen: Almost half of the seats at the Otkrytiye Arena where Spartak plays were filled by season ticket holders.

Football fans like me who have been around for 30 years or more remember what happened in British stadiums in the 1980s - how the presence of violent groups of fans from the lowest social stratum either led to tragedy, as in the 1985 European Cup final, or at least markedly decreased the desire of middle class fans to attend the games.

And now, 30 years later, the fans have become much more civilized - in part because both the quality of the show and the price of tickets have risen significantly and now an entirely different contingent of people attends the games.

So far I have yet to see a single serious sociological study of the changing structure of spectators attending games of the Spartak, Zenit or Krasnodar clubs, one that pays adequate attention to the increasing number of spectators in the stands.

However, seeing those changes firsthand gives me the impression that something positive is happening. That is good news in and of itself, but it also indicates the great potential for positive change in other cities - especially in those that will host World Cup matches three years from now.

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 #10
AP
September 15, 2015
Former Kremlin insider expects 2-year economic downturn
By KATE DE PURY and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

MOSCOW (AP) - A close associate of Vladimir Putin, who recently lost his job as Russia's railways chief in a reshuffle seen as a sign of increasing Kremlin infighting, says the nation's economic downturn will last at least two more years amid ongoing Western sanctions.

Speaking in his first interview with a Western media outlet since being relieved of his duties last month, Vladimir Yakunin accused the United States of introducing the sanctions in a bid to prevent Russia and Europe from forging closer economic ties.

"In terms of global competitiveness, the collaboration between Europe and Russia will bring a new powerful source of economic development," he told The Associated Press, adding that the U.S. would resent such a prospect.

The U.S. and the European Union introduced a series of economic and financial sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and Moscow's continuing support for an insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Yakunin was among the members of Putin's inner circle who faced a U.S. travel ban and saw their assets abroad frozen.

The Western sanctions, coupled with a plunge in the price of Russia's valuable oil exports, pushed the Russian economy into recession this year. Asked how long he expects it to continue, Yakunin said he agrees with those who believe the downturn will last "not just for this year, but at least for two more years."

Like other Russian officials, Yakunin argued that while the sanctions severely limited Russian companies' access to Western capital markets, they have also created opportunities for domestic growth.

"If we are deprived of normal communication with the financial market, normal communication with the global economic market, then we should start to introduce our own technologies and our own products," he said in English.

Yakunin, 67, strongly defended his 10-year record at the helm of the state-controlled Russian Railways, saying that critics' allegations of systemic overspending and inefficiency are unfounded. He claimed that his company was actually more cost-efficient than most other state-controlled conglomerates.

Observers in Moscow see Yakunin's dismissal as a sign of an intensifying struggle for power in Putin's inner circle as resources dry up, and predict more reshuffling of posts.

Asked if Moscow and Washington could still cooperate on some global issues, Yakunin held out hope for joint efforts in combating the Islamic State group and other challenges and threats.

"Russia and America, Russia and Europe, we have a lot of major problems to be settled only together," he said.

There have been recent signs of an ongoing Russian military buildup in Syria, with U.S. and Israeli officials saying they expect Moscow to set up an air base in Latakia. Moscow says that Russian troops have been in Syria to help train its military to operate Russia-supplied weapons in the fight against the IS. Putin hasn't ruled out joining the fight against the terror group alongside the U.S.-led international coalition.

Asked whether Russia could send its troops to Syria to help fight the IS, the prerogative of the upper house under the Russian constitution, Yakunin said he doesn't expect such a move. "To my mind, nobody is foreseeing that kind of development of the situation," he said.

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 #11
http://readrussia.com
September 16, 2015
Yakunin and the Systemic Virtues of a Generous Retirement
By Mark Galeotti

Vladimir Yakunin seems to be collecting "formers" - the "former head of Russian Railways" is now also the "former candidate for the Federation Council's Kaliningrad seat" and, according to some scenarios, a "former candidate for higher office." Instead, he has decided that in the aftermath of his did-he-fall-or-was-he-pushed departure from RZhD - Russian Railways - not to accept the honorable sinecure of a senatorial seat after all, which some touted as a route for greater things.

Instead, he can contemplate his immense wealth, his mansion, and his nationalist thinktank, the Dialogue of Civilizations. As he put it, "I hope I will be able to continue being useful to society by concentrating on academic and public activities, primarily in the area of international relations and intercivilizational dialogue."

This very definitely underlines the limitations of punditry. We didn't know at the time why he had left RZhD. Was it primarily because of Putin's own dissatisfaction with the performance of a man who, after all, was a personal friend? The subsequent leaking of what sounded like the bad-tempered way Putin had encouraged him to leave ("so go") certainly sounded like it. Was it because a new technocratic elite was being groomed for office, or clients of the even-richer Rotenberg brothers were moving in? Is it that he craved the immunity from prosecution that a senatorial seat would grant? (I never bought this was a primary issue: if Putin is still your protector, you don't need it, and if he is your enemy, it won't save you.)

The risk of this is that pundits build up their own assumptions as to what is going on, and when something changes - as with Yakunin's decision to decline the Kaliningrad seat - they are left asking what has changed, is some plan in crisis? The fact of the matter is that we don't know there ever was a plan, so much as a rich man out of a job and wondering if he wanted another.

At the time, I speculated that maybe "he wants to spend more time with his money" and this may prove to be the case. Perversely, if that is what is happening, I wonder if that might be a positive sign. Let me explain.

One of the key weaknesses of kleptocratic regimes with no rule of law is that there is no safe provision to retire from the elite. Everything you have, you have not because it is yours and protected by the law, but because of political power and protection. Just as a shark will drown once it stops swimming, a kleptocrat runs the risk of being savaged and impoverished as soon as she (or she) relinquishes power, however informal or formal it may be.

In the Soviet era, it led to the obscene gerontocracy that led to figures such as Brezhnev surviving in office beyond the time in which they had the mental capacities almost to appreciate where they were, and a Politburo line-up on top of the Kremlin mausoleum that looked as if the zombies had come from their crypt for the day.

Later, it meant options were differently limited. You could try and shift as much of your money abroad as possible - a route now rather harder - but even then risked being targeted for legal actions or even perhaps physical harm. But power was never reliable, security only transient - just ask Khodorkovsky, or Berezovsky, or Gusinsky - and thus you needed to stay in the game just to protect what you had.

What if things might be changing? What if Yakunin really will back out of direct political life, play with his vanity thinktank project, give the odd interview (and some of his views are very odd), buy some more furs and hunt some grouse? And what if no one comes after him? On one level, it may stick in the craw to wish a long and pleasant retirement to a man whose assets have been won first and foremost through patronage, and spent with little regard for the lot of his country and its people. But is it better for Russia to force its kleptocrats to fight to the death, or to encourage them into a gilded irrelevance, which tightening the rules behind them to ensure the next generation are less able to steal with such abandon.

There's little evidence of the second element of the equation yet, and frankly it will probably rest with Putin's successor. But this generation of oligarchs, while as arrogant and acquisitive can be, are at least less brazen, violent and exploitative than their 1990s counterparts. Arguably, the Yeltsin generation just stole; the Putin generation stole, but also built. Who knows, maybe the late-Putin or post-Putin generation will build more than they steal, and then head off to go fishing on their private yachts without feeling they need to rig another election to keep them.

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#12
http://gordonhahn.com
Septmber 14, 2015
Putin Is No Stolypin
By Gordon M. Hahn
Gordon M. Hahn is an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View - Russia Media Watch; and Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor, MonTREP, Monterey, California.

At the beginning of Vladimir Putin's first term as Russia's President in the early 2000s he demonstrated some interest in the great historical Russian figure Pyotr Stolypin and holding him up as a model for his own presidency. Stolypin served as Tsarist Russia's Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister (1906-1912) and proposed fundamental, wide-ranging liberal and pro-democratic reforms of Russia's state, political system, economy, and society. He was assassinated in September 1911 by an anarchist in Kiev, having only just begun to implement most of the planned reforms. By contrast, Putin, has eschewed liberalization for the most, and the only Stolypin-like legacy he can rightly claim at this point is a tough policy against terrorism (jihadism).

Stolypin's legacy was greatly distorted by seventy years of Soviet communist propaganda, which focused exclusively on the 'Stolypin necktie' and his record of cracking down harshly on the terrorism carried out by anarchist and socialist revolutionary groups who killed thousands of Tsarist officials in the decades leading up to the catastrophe of 1917.

Putin Invokes Stolypin

In Putin's first 'state of the union' address as Russian president 8 June 2000 to a joint session of the State Duma and Federation Council, Putin referenced only one person, Stolypin. Putin noted: "(W)e do not always manage to combine patriotic responsibility for the future of the country with what Stolypin once described as civil freedoms." He then added that this explains "why it still is so difficult to find a way out of false conflicts between the values of individual freedom and the interests of the state." Putin went on to propose economic liberalization, reining in the power of the regions, and questioning whether independent Russian media were really free given the oligarchs' ownership and usage of them for propaganda and inter-clan conflicts.

Three months Putin visited the great Russian writer and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, after the president had phoned and suggested the meeting, and raised the issue of propagating Stolypin's. They sit to begin a discussion that, according to his words, Putin wished to have after comments of Solzhenitsyn apparently made during the phone call and with which the president to discuss face-to-face and "perhaps even argue a little." They switch gears to focus on photographs of the White Army general Kolchak and of Stolypin hanging on the wall in Solzhenitsyn's working library. Solzhenitsyn describes Stolypin as "the greatest figure in Russia in the twentieth century," and Putin immediately raises the issue of founding a center or some mechanism for spreading Stolypin's ideas and pueveying his legacy, which he considers "a good, not a bad idea," lamenting there is not even something like this in Putin's native St. Petersburg (where Stolypin spent his career as a Russian official). Solzhenitsyn notes that he has a chapter on Stolypin in his mammoth historical masterpiece novel Krasnoe Koleso and the video edits away to dinner, so we do not know if they agreed on any joint effort in this regard. For a video from the first Putin-Solzhenitsyn meeting and the brief exchange about Stolypin and a center dedicated to him, see the first part of Sergei Miroshnichenko's biographical documentary trilogy on Solzhenitsyn's life and career: Sergei Miroshnichenko, "Trilogy 1: Live Not By Lies," YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h4RH02NHzE, last accessed on 10 September 2015, at the 37-minute mark.

In 2001 the Foundation for the Study of the Legacy of P.A. Stolypin was opened in Moscow with the Russian government's support. On occasion Putin continues to honor Stolypin's legacy. On 27 December 2012 he and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev laid wreathes at the new monument to Stolypin in Moscow.

But Stolypin no longer figures in Putin's speeches, and the Russian president never placed the great reformer at the center of a political platform or ideological program. Indeed, Putin's more limited focus on Stolypin's legacy in recent years matches the limited similarity between his political record and Stolypin's actual and potential legacy.

Putin Is No Stolypin

Among the other reforms Stolypin initiated or planned before his assassination, included: political liberalization through reforms of the zemstvo councils; the granting of equal rights to ethnic and religious minorities, including the Jews trapped in the Pale of Settlement; protecting workers' rights, including limits on the working age and working hours; the granting of independence to Finland and Poland by 1923; and the creation of a new government structure, including new ministries for labor, for local self-administration; for nationalities, for social security, for the religious confessions, for natural resopurces for health, and a reorganization of Russia's traditional ministries; and a radical reform of education to guarantee all Russians a public education (Z.M. Chavchavadze, ed., P.A. Stolypin - Zhizn' i smert' za Tsarya (Moscow: Rurik, 1991) and Aleksandr Serebrennikova and Gennadii Sidorovnin, eds., Stolypin: zhizn' i smert', (Saratov: Privolzhnoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo, 1991). Only a few of these help us in making a comparison between the two leaders.

Similarities

In the economy especially, Stolypin began to carry out an ambitious overhaul that would create a large middle class on the basis of widespread peasant land ownership. The peasants, left with nothing but freedom from the gentry, were left landless, in poverty, and in debt, becoming an even greater burden on the state as a result of Tsar Alexander II's hastily-implemented liberalization of the serfs in 1861. Under Stolypin's reforms, direct land ownership resulted in a reform of the common ownership of land under the obshchina and an end to inefficient land rotation practices, and the new peasant middle class was set up and supported by financial, technological, and other means of support. In addition, peasants were encouraged to move into southwestern Siberia by giving them free land and loans. This led to the migration of hundreds of thousands of peasants to the region and the establishment of an effective agricultural culture in the region and an upsurge in Russian agricultural production and exports.

In this area, there are some similarities in Putin's policies. Since 2000, Russia has become an agricultural power again, exporting large amounts of grain. Internally, a free market domestic agricultural goods production and consumers' market has been established under state encouragement and financial support for farmers and the creation vertically integrated agricultural companies that carry out the entire cycle from farming to manufacturing, transportation, marketing and sales. In addition, the government has initiated a new program to attract Russians to the sparsely populated Far East by offering free land (http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russia-giving-away-free-farmland-12-acres-family/ri9653). However, only small portion of which is likely to be devoted to farming given the poor climate and quality of most of the land.

Like Stolypin, Putin has carried out a tough policy against terrorism.

This is largely where the similarity between the two ends.

Differences

Stolypin's era saw considerable liberalization of Russia's overall political system, despite the monarchy's increased control over the new State Duma. Stolypin's began a reform of the zemstvo or land councils that would allow more peasants to vote and participate in zemstvo work. The zemstvo councils were to be extended into the territories of occupied Poland and the Pale of Settlement. Stolypin also planned the granting of full and equal rights to all ethnic minorities, including the granting of the right of freedom of movement and other rights to the oppressed Jews. This Stolypin thought would help spread the Jewish entrepreneurial spirit across the realm and help boost the economy. Civil society was allowed to self-organize more openly, as long as it refrained from terrorism. Freedom of speech and the press were expanded, and the universities were given broad autonomy, becoming unfortunately not just havens of free speech and association but for radical parties' and terrorists' conspiratorial activity.

By contrast, Putin has eschewed political liberalization, except for the interregnum between his second and third terms during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev (see Gordon M. Hahn, "Perestroika 2.0: Towards Non-Revolutionary Regime Transformation in Russia?," Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol. 28, No. 4, October-December 2012, pp. 472-515, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2747/1060-586X.28.4.472#.VNIAL53F-uw). However, upon his return to the Kremlin Putin repealed or countered many of Medvedev's reforms and intensified pressure on the democratic opposition and civil society (see Gordon M. Hahn, "The Russian Federation in 2012: From 'Thaw' and 'Reset' to 'Freeze'," Asian Survey, Vol. 53, No. 1, Winter 2013, pp. 214-223). Putin's legacy thus far is one of a soft authoritarian regime with little economic reform or overall modernization to lay claim to and increasingly involvement in international conflicts. It includes a roll back of Russia's hyper-federative relations by over-centralizing power in Moscow. He also asserted the Russian state's control over television media.

Stolypin was less interested, though rather competent in foreign policy than in domestic reforms. But he repeatedly stressed one key point: Russia's involvement in wars would make it impossible to implement reforms and could bring down the regime. Putin, on the other hand, has been extremely, some might say excessively active on the foreign policy front. However, his activeness in foreign affairs has been imposed on him to a considerable extent by patterns of international politics not of his choosing but rather that of the West, China, the Muslim world, and the much greater degree of interdependence that exists globally today than in Stolypin's time.

Most importantly, perhaps, Stolypin went against the grain of the Tsarist regime's majority and its basic political instinct of autocracy and centralization and, in general, the stick. His policies would have saved the Tsarist order from revolution - as Lenin, the revolutionary left, and liberals all acknowledged - and paved the way for a transition to democracy and a limited or symbolic monarchy as in today's Spain and United Kingdom. Putin, on the other hand, harnessed a long-simmering strain of thought within Russia's post-Soviet elite that seeks to take revenge on the West for taking advantage of Russia's weakness in the post-Cold War period by expanding NATO among other measures. Thus, Putin reached out to these elements, including some members of the old Soviet regime's authoritarian-oriented elite, to counterbalance and then squeeze from power Russia's politically hapless, albeit, democrats as well as radical nationalists and communists as well. Regarding the latter, there perhaps is some similarity with Stolypin, who also eschewed both the radical nationalists of the Black Hundreds or Union of the Russian People and radical communists like the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Putin elite is divided between those more or less indifferent to democratization and integration into the West and those outright rejecting such a course, favoring the reestablishment of more traditional forms of Russian rule or the development of some 'third way' at home and the formation of a broad anti-Western front abroad.

Conclusion

I have studied Stolypin, I have admired Stolypin, and Putin is no Stolypin. Both men have their political strengths and weaknesses, but the latter appear most strong in Putin.

Whereas Stolypin's policies if fully implemented would have been a strong counter to the revolutionary trends sweeping Russia and the world in his era, Putin's policies tend to make a regime transformation in the long-term inevitable - whether revolutionary or transitional, it is impossible to tell. The potentially disastrous consequences of a failure to reform politically and economically combined with growing involvement in international conflicts or worse, an actual war, are plain to see when looking at Russian history. Three years after Stolypin's assassination and Tsar Nikolai II's failure to find a suitable reformist replacement, Russia entered another disastrous and - for the reforming Tsarist regime - ultimately fatal war. Like its war with Japan in the Far East a decade earlier, World War I would bring revolution, civil war, and Soviet totalitarianism in its wake. If Stolypin had been given fifteen years as Russia's top leader rather than a mere five years (1906-11) as the Tsar Nikolai II's subordinate as Prime Minister, then Russia would have unrecognizable in 1921 and today's Russia would be very different.

Now under Putin, there has been a failure both to restructure Russia's economy away from heavy reliance on commodity, especially oil exports and to liberalize the political order after resolving the very real problems of hyper-federalism and oligarchic control of the state handed over to Putin by his predecessor. This has left Russia vulnerable to the perfect storm of falling oil prices and Western sanctions in response to Putin's Ukraine policies. At the same time, Putin appears to be allowing or at least failing to avoid or prevent Russia from being drawn gradually into various military conflicts, for example, in Ukraine and now Syria. ISIS's successes globally and recent events in Tajikistan remind us of Central Asia's weak regimes and the dangers of an ISIS threat or a resurgent Al-Qa`ida/Taliban threat in that region. So the key question appears to be whether Russia is moving gradually and almost imperceptibly towards a repeat of last century's disaster?


 

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 #13
www.opendemocracy.net
September 15, 2015
Knocking back Russia's nationalists
The conflict in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea has brought the Kremlin and Russia's ultra-nationalists closer together. Recent prosecutions show that their ideas still have the government worried.
By Vyacheslav Koslov
Vyacheslav Kozlov is a journalist for daily newspaper Kommersant. He writes on international relations, nationalism, extremism, narco-politics, the Russian opposition and the problems facing Russia's NGOs. He has at various times worked for Vremya Novostei, Moskovskiye Novosti and the online publication Gazeta.ru. His work has also appeared in Novaya Gazeta and Lenta.ru.

'We imagine that the people in power are there because they have a right to it. But that's not the case. Those in power must be able to punish their subordinates. And for the people to make their "servants" act in their interests, they should have the ability to punish them.' So speaks Yuri Mukhin, a long-time proponent of radical political change in Russia and founder of the newspaper Duel, a cult read among the country's conservatives and far left between 1995 and 2009, when it was banned on grounds of extremism.

Indeed, it is this kind of thinking that underpins much of Mukhin's writing, and is a quote from the manifesto of the People's Will Army (AVN), a group founded by Mukhin in 1997. AVN's stated aim was to change Russia's constitution via a referendum, allowing the populace to put the president and members of the Federal Assembly on trial and send them to prison. AVN was banned in 2011, again with the help of Russia's extremism laws.

The banning of Duel and AVN would probably have been the end of Mukhin's political activity had it not been for the long arm of the FSB and Russia's Investigative Committee. In late July, Mukhin, along with two associates, was arrested by Russian security personnel on a beach in Crimea, and transferred to Moscow on charges of 'organising an extremist group'.

People's will

Two other people, Valery Parfyonov and Aleksandr Sokolov, were charged alongside Mukhin with trying to implement AVN's programme despite its prohibition. If convicted, all three may end up in prison, and could face up to eight years.

According to the FSB, Russia's security service, the accused had attempted to 'destabilise the political situation' by setting up the Initiative Group to Campaign for a Referendum for Responsible Government - an informal organisation that basically continued the activities of the AVN. The investigators consider Mukhin the group's leader and organiser and Sokolov - its propaganda chief. The group's website is evidently registered in the latter's name.

Sokolov has in fact been able to balance this radical political activity with work for RBK, one of Russia's most prestigious online business news platforms. Sokolov investigated the multi-billion rouble embezzlement of public funds in the building of Vostochny Space Centre in Russia's Far East (a pet project of Vladimir Putin), as well as reporting on Russia's military volunteers in the Donbas.

The third member of the group, Valery Parfyonov, is charged with recruiting new supporters online. All three were initially held in a remand prison after their arrest. Mukhin is now under house arrest.

'Delokratiya'

With its hostility to all systems of government, AVN remains a pretty obscure movement. Its press organ, Duel, also failed to reach a wider public, although it was popular among a narrow circle of conservative journalists, political analysts and writers.

In recent years, AVN averaged one mention in the media per year, often after Kirill Karabash, another associate of Mukhin's, organised an alternative 'Russian March'. Karabash is at present awaiting trial on charges relating to statements made at a rally in 2013.

AVN's activities were based on a theory developed by Mukhin in the 1990s, which he called 'Delokratiya' (the term recalls demokratiya (democracy) - the Russian word 'delo' means 'action' - ed). At the core of Mukhin's thinking was the idea that 'action' should take priority over 'bureaucracy': he believes that labourers should be free to organise their work in the most efficient way, and not be subject to the whims of bosses and bureaucrats.

Mukhin also believes that management and the authorities should not be responsible for assessing the quality of employees' work and whether it is necessary. This should be down to the ordinary consumer - and the workers who produce the goods.

Mukhin, whose views also include the denial of Katyn, has proposed that any official activity, including that of the president, prime minister, parliamentary deputies and senators should be subject to the will of the people, who have the right to bring them to justice for their misconduct.

The seriousness of these crimes, and consequently, the punishment, should also be decided by 'the people' through a rigorous trial. An AVN pamphlet, 'You elected them - you judge them' stated, for example, that if an official's crime was serious enough, he or she should be killed by 'the people'.

Joining the fifth column

Aleksandr Verkhovsky, director of the independent SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, has monitored the use of anti-extremism laws for many years. Verkhovsky tells me that Mukhin's patriotic movement 'has been unable to recruit members for a long time. It has completely passed its sell-by date.'

For Verkhovsky, the only reason he can see for the arrest of Mukhin and his associates is 'a police clampdown on places where patriotic forces could crystallise following the war in the Donbas.'

According to Verkhovsky, over the past few years the Russian security services have been ramping up their operations against groups professing radical-patriotic and ultra-nationalist views. As well as arresting well known far-right figures such as Aleksandr Potkin, leader of the Movement against Illegal Immigration and Dmitry Demushkin, co-founder of Russians, an association of ultra-nationalist groups, they have been harassing obscure figures who are even more loyal to the Kremlin.

'For example, they searched the flat of Yevgeny Valyayev, a member of the nationalist organisation Russian Image,' says Aleksandr Verkhovsky. 'What was that about? Valyayev gets presidential grants to write books, and is generally loyal to Putin, but still his flat got searched.'

The head of the Sova Center believes that the government is afraid that patriots returning from the Donbas-now with military experience-might align with fringe political groups and thus shake off Kremlin control. Verkhovsky believes that, as a result, the ultra-nationalist sphere is being purged: 'the fact that the security services went for Mukhin's Initiative Group is a sign that so far the strategy is working'.

But the prosecution of Mukhin and his associates shows that despite the piecemeal meeting of minds between the Kremlin and the far right following the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia's nationalists may soon join its democrats in the Kremlin's 'Fifth Column'. Verkhovsky expects further arrests and trials of radical patriots and nationalists in Russia in the next few years. Only time will tell if the strategy will work.

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#14
www.rt.com
September 16, 2015
Most Russians don't expect major protests, don't plan to participate - poll

The proportion of Russian citizens who think mass anti-government protests are possible continues to fall, while those who say they would never take part in such events is constantly rising, reads the latest research by independent pollster Levada Center.

According to the research results 76 percent of Russians think that mass protests caused by the fall in living standards are currently very improbable. In April this year the share of respondents who held this opinion was 73 percent.

The share of those who expect mass protests with unspecified economic demands to the authorities was down from 20 percent in April to 17 percent in the end of August.

Overwhelming majority of Russians told researchers that they absolutely rule out personal participation in protest rallies (80 percent in late August and 78 percent in April). Those who said they were ready to protest was 13 percent (down from 15 percent in April).

The research shows that the attitude to protests with political demands was approximately the same: 79 percent of Russians maintain that at present such protests are very unlikely (78 percent in April), 10 percent said they would personally take part in such protests (11 percent in April) and 84 percent said they had no plans to participate (82 percent in April).

The research results were published after the Russian Party of Progress - a relatively young political project backed by popular anti-corruption blogger Aleksey Navalny - had a rally in support of "rotation of power" approves by Moscow City authorities. The event is scheduled for September 20 and the activists have set the maximum number of participants at 40,000.

Earlier this month Levada Center released a research according to which half of Russians with voting rights planned to definitely participate in State Duma elections in September 2016, and 61 percent who have made their choice say they will support the current parliamentary majority United Russia party.

Ten percent of respondents said they would back the Russian Communist Party, 7 percent promised to support the nationalist-populist LDPR party, 3 percent would vote for the leftist Fair Russia party and 2 percent back the pro-business Civil Platform party.

Navalny's Party of Progress has so far secured about 1 percent of votes, on par with the nationalist Motherland and veteran liberal Yabloko.
 

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#15
Fort Russ/PolitRussia
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
September 15, 2015
Navalny is a Political Corpse
Ruslan Ostachenko, PolitRussia
http://politrussia.com/society/navalnyy-politicheskiy-669/
Translated for Fort Russ by Soviet Bear

Dear friends, today I was going to sum up the results of elections in the city of Kostroma, but the circumstances say otherwise. Instead of summarizing the elections, the funeral of the Russian non-systemic opposition is held today. After what happened yesterday in Kostroma, you can only speak in the past tense about the political prospects of the "PARNAS" party of Navalny and Kasyanov.

What can you say about these political dead men? I think it is symbolic that the heirs of Ivan Susanin (Russian hero of the 17th century) see them off their last journey. Kostroma voters gave Navalny, Volkov and Yashin tickets to political oblivion.

Yesterday, in the Kostroma office of the foundation "Open Russia" funded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the police were actively looking for the corpse, which was reported by the oppositionists, but police did not find anything except 500 thousand "dirty" rubles. Actually, there was a corpse in the office of the Khodorkovsky, but it was the corpse of the Russian liberal opposition.

Orphaned supporters of Kasyanov, Navalny and Khodorkovsky habitually accuse the Kremlin of stifling freedom and democratic opposition, but the Kremlin is absolutely innocent here. The party of Khodorkovsky and Navalny was broken not by the presidential Administration, but by ordinary Kostroma pensioners. These cute Kostroma grandmothers came to the meetings organized by the "PARNAS", listened to Yashin and Navalny, nodded, agreed, gave Moscow hipsters and liberal political strategists hope, and then... still voted for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Still a resident of Luxembourg and, concurrently, the chief political strategist of the  "PARNAS" party, Leonid Volkov is infinitely far from the aspirations of ordinary people of the province. From the point of view of western experts, there was something absolutely incomprehensible, because "PARNAS" has built its campaign on the topics that were important to the Kostroma electorate: housing and utility services, medicine, roads and corruption. It would seem that sitting at the tables of Moscow "Jean Jacques" (a French café in Moscow), our creative opposition has made the perfect program for fooling provincial voters, pushing all the hot subjects of Russian provincial life, but nothing came out of it.

It may well be that after this devastating defeat, the American diplomats will visit Kostroma not to meet with Navalny, but in order to understand how in the heck were locals able to determine that the "PARNAS" was lying to them. Here it is, the mysterious Russian soul, incomprehensible for the liberal western mindset!

The most annoying thing for sponsors of the opposition is that in Kostroma there were absolutely perfect conditions for work.

First, they could bring up all of their political technologists, creators, writers, sociologists and speakers directly from Moscow. In fact, all forces of the Russian Pro-Western opposition were concentrated in one region.

Secondly: very low prices for services of agitators, distributors of leaflets, advertising and printed materials in Kostroma. With the financial support of Khodorkovsky, "PARNAS" could glue the entire city and the entire region with their leaflets.

Thirdly: Kostroma region is a region with traditionally low election attendance, which dramatically increases the chances of marginal parties to pass the five percent barrier.

Fourth, compared with other regions, the rating of "United Russia" in the Kostroma region leaves much to be desired, and the percentage of protest vote is always high. It would seem that under such ideal conditions, "PARNAS" would take at least one mandate, and under favorable circumstances - arrange a small regional Maidan, which Leonid Volkov hinted in his tweet:

For this scenario to work, Navalny, Yashin and Volkov sacrificed a great deal. Perhaps for the first time they tried... I'll tell you a terrible thing. So, Navalny, Yashin and the Volkov tried to make it work. The fact is that these guys usually don't work, work is for the "vatniks". They just "spend grants" and "are embedding in the scheme". Navalny, as we know from the sentences of the court, engaged in fraud. Volkov - smuggled Russian technology abroad. Ilya Yashin - just a professional slacker. For them there is nothing worse than work, the real systematic work. To them this is especially frustrating due to the fact that first time in their lives they really put in a lot of time and effort, to fulfill their political agenda in Kostroma, with a hope of making the election campaign to the state Duma easier for themselves, but the result is another shameful failure.

Again, according to the tradition, some activists accuse some "kremlinbots" and Pro-Kremlin media of using dirty technologies against the Pro-Western opposition. I want to explain my position, which, incidentally, is based on purely liberal principles. The cornerstone of liberalism, real liberalism, not the simulacrum, which Navalny promotes, is the firm belief that if something is not prohibited by law, it is permitted. Explain with an example: in the legislation of the Russian Federation it is not said that journalists are prohibited to film an event in a small bar, where 30 people from the "PARNAS" and the first Secretary of the Embassy of the United States gathered.

Also nowhere in the legislation is written that "PARNAS" has right to get black money from Khodorkovsky's political strategists. No need to be offended. "On offenses we carry water" (Russian proverb), and in the Duma, they just don't cut it. If someone thinks that for the meeting with American diplomats, representatives of the "PARNAS" were subjected to defamation in the media, we suggest looking at what the Western media does with politicians who dare to formally meet with representatives of the Russian authorities. Non-systemic opposition want elections, as in the West, and it received them in full. As the saying goes: be careful what you wish for because it may come true.

The administration of the President many times and very clearly explained the rules of the game to political parties and regional authorities. Elections must be fair, transparent and competitive. Overall, the result was good. The number of reported violations has become smaller, and, in General, even the most ardent opponents of the government have nothing to show as arguments against the legitimacy of elections. The government has shown itself to be a tough referee, forcing regional leaders, and political parties to abide by the rules. Those who do not abide by the rules, get slapped by the hands, which is good.

I noticed that in the Patriotic blogosphere there is some concern about the election results in Kostroma. Some patriots are worried that now, after the final discrediting of the opposition in the elections, Americans will go to the coup attempts with the use of force and riot. There is a reason for this concern, but no reason to panic, I do not see it. The situation in Kostroma has shown that the opposition is allowed to work only in the legal field. As soon as they exit from this legal framework, national traitors are in trouble, well-prepared and very painful trouble.

Maidan [color revolution tactic - .ed] as technology is a product of American military thought, and the vulnerabilities of any Maidan are the vulnerabilities of the U.S. army. Maidan without money does not work, just as the American army without money is not at war. If the supply of money is blocked, the Maidan deflates by itself that we have observed it in Kostroma.

Now the non-systemic opposition is to make a critical choice: to work for the idea, or continue to hope for the arrival of the life-giving dollars, which Mikhail Khodorkovsky distributes. I'm afraid that they will choose the dollars, and then finally turn into a political zombie that will cause only disgust among Russian voters, no matter how active they will be promoted by the BBC, "Dozhd" or RBC.
 

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 #16
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
September 15, 2015
Litvinenko Death Blamed on Carelessness
Polonium poisoning is a needlessly elaborate and complicated way of assassinating someone
By William Dunkerley

A new documentary digs into the mysterious 2006 polonium death of reputed KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko. It's titled "The Case of Alexander Litvinenko - Through Sherlock's Eyes."

Many have suspected that Russian president Vladimir Putin was behind the alleged murder. But producer Alexander Korobko chalks up the death to sheer carelessness.

He says, "I think it was a sales operation that went wrong." The producer's theory backs up earlier speculation that Litvinenko had been involved in trafficking the radioactive polonium. Korobko adds, "Litvinenko was known to be careless." For instance, he says, Litvinenko even recklessly "played with his gun in his pocket."

Korobko is quick to point out that the documentary does not portray the Russian government's point of view. "This is a film that uniquely represents both sides, where people agree," he asserts. Featuring more British and American contributors than Russians, "this is an independent endeavor involving many people passionate about the subject" Korobko explains.

The film is narrated by the renowned Russian actor Vasily Livanov MBE. He is famous for his portrayals of Sherlock Holmes. His Holmesian style is well suited to raising questions about Litvinenko's death that were ignored in the voluminous media coverage over the years.

My own research attests to many deficiencies in that news coverage. In 2007 I was commissioned by the organizers of the International Federation of Journalists World Congress to investigate the media's reportage on Litvinenko. I found that almost all coverage in the West was one-sided. What made things worse is that the one side was based on a massive fabrication perpetrated by Putin's political enemies.

For instance, there was a widely-publicized deathbed statement in which Litvinenko fingered Putin. Subsequently that story was proved to be a hoax. The hoaxer ultimately confessed that the words were his own and not Litvinenko's. He even admitted there was no factual basis for his allegations. Yet media outlets continue to cite the so-called deathbed statement even today.

The media have addressed only the part of the Litvinenko affair that lies on the surface. That means if readers have relied upon news reports they've gotten only half the story.

My latest research has found a compelling solution to the case. It involves a surprising mystery behind the murder mystery. I present the whole story in my new book titled Litvinenko Murder Case Solved. It spells it all out in clear and authoritative terms.

It took nearly ten years for the British government to open an official public inquiry into Litvinenko's death. The Russian Embassy in London has suggested that this inquiry is as one-sided as all the media reports. I agree. The inquiry only came about amidst the sanctions frenzy against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. It was a political act, not an honest search for the truth. For his part, British prime minister David Cameron put the weight of the UK government behind the fabrications in order to get at Putin.

Meanwhile, Alexander Korobko hopes his documentary will "clear the air." I hope so too.

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 #17
BBC
September 16, 2015
Russia in 'information war' with West to win hearts and minds
By Stephen Ennis. BBC Monitoring

The crisis in Ukraine has unleashed what some see as a new bout of information warfare between Russia and the West.

For nearly a decade, the Kremlin has been busily striving to win hearts and minds around the world mainly through its flagship international broadcaster RT (formerly known as Russia Today). These efforts have been increased since the onset of the Ukraine crisis in 2014.

Now Western media and governmental organisations are stepping up their efforts to reach out to Russian speakers.

Just last week, the BBC said it was looking at plans for a new Russian satellite TV and video service.

Meanwhile the EU's European External Action Service (EEAS) is preparing to launch a special anti-propaganda task-force aimed at Russian speakers in the EU and other parts of Eastern Europe.

In January the European Parliament had urged the EU to develop "a communication strategy to counter the Russian propaganda campaign", in a strongly-worded resolution.

The German and US-funded international broadcasters Deutsche Welle and Radio Liberty, as well as Euronews - part-funded by the EU - have also been boosting their Russian operations.

But the evidence suggests that these attempts to influence opinion in alien media-spheres are unlikely to make a great impact.

During the Cold War there was intense media rivalry between Russia and the West to influence global opinion.

Against 'Anglo-Saxon monopoly'

In 2015, Russia significantly increased its spending on RT. The channel's budget rose 75%, to 20.8bn roubles (around £202m; $300m).

The other arm of the Kremlin's international media operation, the news agency Rossiya Segodnya (Russia Today), also got a big rouble boost. It now gets the equivalent of $89m.

These increases were needed to offset the recent slump in the rouble's value. But they also underline the increasing importance the Kremlin attaches to its international media operations. They now account for 34% of total central government media spending, compared to 23% a year ago.

When President Vladimir Putin visited RT's offices in 2013, he praised its success in helping to break the "Anglo-Saxon monopoly" on the international media market.

No reliable figures are available for RT's audience worldwide. But evidence from the UK tends to belie Mr Putin's words.

Data from the Broadcast Audience Research Board (BARB) shows that in August RT's average weekly reach was around 450,000 or 0.8% of the total audience. That is some 100,000 less than in June 2012, when BARB started publishing data for RT.

Moreover, RT is losing out to one of its main international rivals, Al-Jazeera English (AJE). In June 2012, it was marginally outperforming AJE. Now it gets less than half the audience of the Qatar-owned channel.

But RT will draw some comfort from the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. Mr Corbyn has in the past expressed approval of RT and has made numerous appearances on the channel.

The picture on social media is somewhat different. On Twitter and Facebook, RT is comfortably outgunned by the international giants, BBC News and CNN. But on YouTube it is the clear market leader, with more than 1.5m subscribers and nearly 1.5bn views on its main channel.

But what do YouTube viewers mostly watch on RT?

More than any of the other big international broadcasters, RT depends for its large number of views on disaster/novelty videos with little or no input from its journalists. All of the top 20 on its main YouTube channel (accounting for some 300m views) can be said to fall into this category.

When it comes to videos about major political events its viewership is much smaller. Only a handful of its top 100 videos can even loosely be described as "political" and none of them refers to the crisis in Ukraine.

'Pitchforks v tanks'

But RT and Rossiya Segodnya are by no means the limit of the Kremlin's foreign media operations. It also has the international versions of its main domestic channels, with their powerful mixture of lavish entertainment and emotive news coverage.

These are widely believed to have influenced public opinion ahead of Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

Now there are Western fears that those state-run channels could pave the way for pro-Russian interventions elsewhere, especially the three Baltic states, where they have combined average audience shares of up to 25%.

Large ethnic Russian minorities remained in the Baltic states after independence in 1991, when the Soviet Union broke up.

There are also concerns about pro-Kremlin comments spreading on social media - many allegedly planted by "trolls" paid by the Russian state.

Latvia and Lithuania have responded to the challenge posed by Russian TV by tightening media regulations and even temporarily banning some channels.

Estonia, on the other hand, is preparing to launch a new channel aimed at its 350,000 Russian speakers, forming nearly 30% of the population.

But with just a fraction of its Russian competitors' funding it is not expected to make a great impact.

The head of the Lithuanian public broadcaster has likened ventures of this kind to using "pitchforks to oppose tanks".

The same might be said of the efforts of Western broadcasters to influence opinion in Russia.

A recent survey by state-funded pollster VTsIOM and Western academics found that 45% of Russians backed censorship against foreign media. The same survey found that just 2% named foreign media as one of their main sources of information.

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 #18
RFE/RL
September 15, 2015
U.S. Envoy Tells Russia's Neighbors: Having Putin As Your Only Friend Not A Good Idea
by Pete Baumgartner

PRAGUE -- The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says there is a very important lesson for former Soviet republics to have learned from the devastating conflict in eastern Ukraine: Don't be too reliant on Russia.

"Having [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin as your only friend is a terrible position to be in," Daniel Baer told RFE/RL in an interview in Prague.

"I think Moscow has proved time and again that it likes to use and manipulate political forces to its own end and has very little regard for what people actually experience," Baer said. "It doesn't care about the way citizens experience their government -- it likes to manipulate governments to meet its own objectives."

Baer suggested that Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's release last month of opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mikalay Statkevich and five other activists was motivated by a desire to improve relations with the European Union and not have Moscow as its only, or best, friend.

"Whether [the prisoner releases by Lukashenka are the result of] the continued messaging and engagement from the European Union as well as the United States with President Lukashenka to say: 'Look, there is a different path for Belarus, there is a European path for Belarus, but it requires significant, dramatic changes' -- whether that is happening, [whether there is] some appeal, only [Lukashenka] can answer," he said.

But Baer said it was "in the interests of the citizens of Belarus that a [European] trajectory is...the one that is taken."

The U.S. diplomat said the October 11 presidential election was "another test" for Belarus and added that he was "hopeful" that it will be "more free and more fair" than previous votes, which have been condemned by the West as unfair and marred by irregularities and widespread claims of vote-rigging.

Lukashenka -- in power in Belarus for more than 21 years -- is expected to easily win a fifth term in the election.

"I am hopeful that President Lukashenka will take the opportunity to avoid some of the egregious missteps and violations that have characterized previous elections -- crackdowns on the press, on civil society, on freedom of expression, of association," Baer said.

But he added that "a lot of democratic development" needed to take place in order for Belarus to have truly free and fair elections.

Separatist 'Black Hole'

Baer said the recent sustained reduction in fighting in eastern Ukraine -- the first real observance of a February cease-fire agreement -- has led to an improvement in the ability of the OSCE's Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to gain access to areas in the conflict zone that were previously off-limits to the unarmed observers.

But he blamed Russia for the continued refusal to allow OSCE monitors into large parts of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are controlled by separatist fighters.

"There have been massive restrictions in separatist-controlled territory that has covered about 50 percent of that area where the OSCE SMM has not been able to have reliable access at all," he said. "This has been a black hole where who knows what's going on."

In addition, he said that "the entire Ukraine-Russia border that is not under Ukrainian control has been effectively off-limits to the SMM."

"This has been a failure of Russia to implement the Minsk [agreements] for many months now," Baer said.

Baer said the cessation in fighting was welcomed and that the United States and others have been "working now for more than a year to have an end to violent Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine."

He said that although Russia signed the initial Minsk protocol in September 2014, Moscow had "repeatedly" violated the agreement in the past year.

Baer said one of Kyiv's biggest challenges will be to "build a strong Ukraine and to do the reforms -- none of which will be easy, some of which will be painful -- that will set Ukraine up as a prosperous democracy for the long term."

Commenting on the ongoing anticorruption movement and mass protests in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, Baer said people were protesting "for similar reasons that people in Kyiv have protested, who are protesting for similar reasons that people in cities in the United States have protested in years past. People come out when they are fed up with something."

The disappearance of some $1 billion from Moldovan banks last year has angered citizens of the poor former Soviet republic.

He added that the appeal to Chisinau of joining the European Union is to create a Moldova that "entails a future with democratic institutions that are reliable, that don't steal from people, that deliver services, that people are able to fulfill their potential in a society that is governed by solid rule-of-law institutions."

'Terrible Waste'

Baer rejected accusations that Washington has not been forceful in criticizing the steep increase in political repression in Azerbaijan against opposition activists and journalists in the past year.

He said those being imprisoned on what international rights groups and Western governments say are politically motivated charges were "committed to the future of their country -- they are patriots, they want to build a stronger, more prosperous, more democratic Azerbaijan."

Baer said he tells Azerbaijani officials that the issue "isn't about [the United States] -- this is about you [Azerbaijanis]. This is about the future of your country. People like [investigative journalist and RFE/RL contributor] Khadija [Ismayilova], people like [activist] Rasul Cafarov, people like [activist] Intigam Aliyev, people like the Yunuses [activists Leyla Yunus and Arif Yunus] -- these are people who believe in a stronger future for their country and to have them in prison is a terrible waste."

Likewise in Turkmenistan, Baer was critical of the July 7 detention of RFE/RL freelance journalist Saparmamed Nepeskuliev and attempts in recent months by the Turkmen authorities to intimidate several other RFE/RL correspondents via threats, warnings, and interrogations in an attempt to stop them from reporting.

"Turkmenistan is a participating state in the OSCE and all of the OSCE participating states have a series of commitments with respect to free and fair trials, openness, treatment of prisoners as well as there are commitments related to media freedom and, certainly, wherever it happens -- when there is an attack on an independent journalist -- that's an issue of grave concern not only to the U.S. government, but to many other participating states within the OSCE," he said.

Nepeskuliev has been held incommunicado since being detained in or near the town of Avaza near the Caspian Sea. His mother was told he was arrested on drug charges and some reports said he has been given a three-year sentence.

Nepeskuliev has been detained by Turkmen authorities several times before and warned to stop his work as a journalist.

Baer said Turkmenistan has boycotted a key OSCE annual forum in Warsaw at which rights issues are discussed. He said Turkmenistan should "come to that meeting and engage and to listen to the concerns [about its human rights record]."

The U.S. ambassador hinted that the OSCE's "Moscow mechanism" could be used in an effort to gain information about the rights situation in Turkmenistan.

Moving to OSCE member Kyrgyzstan, Baer said the United States was disappointed with recent legislation in the Kyrgyz parliament that mirrors Russian laws that labels certain NGOs as "foreign agents" as well as one banning the promotion of homosexual "propaganda."

"We see Kyrgyzstan as an important player in a strong Central Asia and we think that the path forward that is available to them by making the right choices, by building democratic institutions, by preserving fundamental freedoms -- not restricting them -- is one that has a lot of promise for the people of Kyrgyzstan and we'll continue to make that case," he said.

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 #19
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
September 15, 2015
The Kremlin still prefers the East to the West, at its own risk
The Kremlin's attempts to strengthen economic ties with the East could put at stake Russia's future economic prosperity. Experts argue whether Russia should risk its future on the East and turn away from the West.
By Sofia Grebenkina
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'.

The precipitous drop in global oil prices has already affected trade turnover between Russia and China, which decreased by about 30 percent in the first half of 2015. Together with the economic and financial instability in China, the weakening of trade and economic ties seems to weaken the Kremlin's claims of a pivot to the East as well as its attempts to attract investment from Asia-Pacific countries to Russia's Far East region.

At the two-day Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin made it clear that Russia is decisive about strengthening its relations with the Asia-Pacific countries. Russia's Far East region has already been identified for prospective investment from these countries. This conference may be a sign that Russia has chosen to entrust its future economic growth to the East.

This view, which places emphasis on the East's ability to drive economic growth, echoes what was discussed at the presentation of the new book, "The Modern World and Its Origins," by Vyacheslav Nikonov, who is the dean at the School of Public Administration at Lomonosov Moscow State University (MGU) and the president of the Russian World Foundation.

As one of Russia's well-known thinkers with an impact on the thinking of the country's political elites, Nikonov argues the benefits of such a shift towards the East and away from the West. According to him, "the human race began in Africa," while "Asia provides us with the origins of human development." Nikonov believes that, although the "West positions itself as the global community," it is now facing a decline of its political influence. He claims that the West is now responsible for "only 40 percent of the world economy," whereas before it was "responsible for 80 percent."

In contrast, Richard Sakwa, the professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, argues that it is a mistake to speak of such a decline in the West. In his opinion, for the West "any decline is relative," and furthermore the West "will remain the single most powerful entity in the foreseeable future."

Meanwhile, Petr Topychkanov, associate in the Carnegie Moscow Center's Nonproliferation Program and expert on the Asia-Pacific region, argues that to talk of a shift from the West to the East in terms of global influence is a very "simplistic" view.

As it currently stands, in his opinion, "nations are united by many complicated links" so that no one nation can say that it is the "center of the world." In his opinion, one nation cannot achieve something without the help of others, and he cites the example of Russia's ability to meet technological demands of its trade of military equipment with India partly with the help of the West.

Counterbalancing a West-centric viewpoint

Nikonov argues that he tries to offer a counterbalance to what he calls "a West-centric viewpoint." This idea came to him on his visit to Australia, where he chanced upon a map of the world with the South Pole at the top of the map and the North Pole at the bottom. This is a map that visually marginalizes the West, making it one that Nikonov considers to be a more faithful representation of how Russia should come to view the world. According to him, Russia is a different area entirely, a "Euro-Pacific country," which holds it back from embracing either the West or the East.

However, the problem is that the West has become a less appealing option for partnership for Russia than the West, as indicated by recent polls. The Russian Public Opinion Center (WCIOM) released a study, questioning members of the Russian public across 46 different regions on who they view to be friends and enemies of Russia.

The results show that in 2014, 73 percent of Russians consider the U.S. to be a country with which "at the present time we have the most tense, inimical relationship." Meanwhile, 51 percent of those asked believe that China is the country with which Russia "at the present time has the most strong, friendly relationship," the highest value for any foreign country.

In fact, this poll echoes Nikonov's view, who argues that the Russian public's outlook is "what is shifting" today.

Russia and the West: Is there really a divide?

The shift in Russian public opinion might stem from the fact that Russians could feel offended by the negative image of their country in Europe. As Nikonov claims, "In Europe they see the image of Russia they have created in their heads," one which fails to comply with reality and is based on a Russia "500 years ago."

However, Sakwa warns about creating such a strict mental divide when it comes to the concept of Russia and the West.

"The very concept of the West is now increasingly tenuous, and instead Russia should look for new and viable patterns of Europeanism embedded in a larger continental Euro-Asian vision," Sakwa said.  

Moreover, he believes that Russia should not brand itself as either a political or an economic outsider to the West. "There are many Wests, and Russia is one version of that," he said.  

In contrast, Leonid Reshetnikov, the director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, believes there is a fundamental problem, which would prevent the fulfillment of Sakwa's vision. He considers there to be the mistaken "stereotype of two types of civilization - the West and the East," that exists in the West and is perpetuated by its educational literature.

According to him, this stereotype identifies the West as a "positive" force and the East, of which he considers Russia to be a part, as a "negative" force in the global community.  He sees "The Modern World and Its Origins" as part of the current "fight for the change of public opinion," because of the book's divergence from the mainstream idea that Russia is part of a "negative" East and cannot assimilate the culture and values of the West.

The East may not be strong enough economically to boost Russia

Nikonov believes that it is the East, which has become the leader in economic growth, with the economy "in China growing at 7 percent and in India at 11 percent per year." To illustrate his point, he cited the fact that China had overtaken the U.S. as the largest world economy in 2014.

However, the forecast appears to be less optimistic for the potential growth of the Eastern region than Nikonov presumes. Although the economic growth in China continues to be at the 7 percent benchmark cited by Nikonov, it is only appealing at face value. Chinese growth for the year 2014 had to be revised to 7.4 percent from the government's target of 7.5 percent.

More recently, Christopher Hartwell, the president of the Center for Social and Economic Research in Warsaw (CASE), noted in his column for Russia Direct that China was undergoing other economic troubles.  He wrote that China has experienced a "three percent devaluation of its currency on August 11" of this year, alongside a plummeting stock market.

For him the "severity" of the devaluation is "dangerous," not only for the economic wellbeing of China but for its neighbors, including Russia, too. In his opinion, the Russian policy of "free-riding off of China in the short-term" combined with the fact that "China's woes [are] dragging oil lower" can lead to further devaluation of the Russian ruble.

Jack Goldstone, Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, supports the view that China is "very unlikely to help the Russian economy," as he told Russia Direct in a June 11 interview.

Furthermore, Topychkanov points out that Russia has yet to fill the gap between official statements it has made about the Russian pivot to Asia and actual trade and relations. To talk of Russia examining ways to build a relationship with the East is to ignore the long-term experience and the deep roots that Russia has in Asia. There is only possibility of a "return" but not a "pivot" to Asia on the side of Russia.

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 #20
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
September 16, 2015
Restoring Relations Between Russia and the European Union
By Jonathan Holslag
Jonathan Holslag is Professor of International Politics at the Brussels Free University.

Is Russia becoming bolder in asserting its interests in the West? This is one of the important security questions in Europe today. There is no reason to expect a major conflict to break out soon. But to make sure that this will continue to be the case, a genuine strategic partnership between the European Union and Russia is a key.

Assertiveness

One of the reasons why so many Europeans are alarmed is Russia's military posturing. One indicator concerns Russian air patrols. The number of NATO interceptions of Russian aircraft has dropped from 25 per month in the first half of 2014 to 20 in the first half of this year. We have entered a tit-for-tat game in which both sides blame each other for being assertive.

There is no doubt that the number of large-scale military exercises has increased, but, from a Russian viewpoint, NATO holds more exercises as well. Moreover, Russian exercises have increased across the board, in an effort to boost readiness, and thus also in the Central and Far Eastern Military Districts. Since 2012, Vostok, a military drill in Siberia and the Far East, simulates conventional war with an eastern neighbour. So-called offensive drills are thus not limited to the West. Finally there is the modernization of military equipment. Whereas most of the new fighter jets, navy ships, and air defense systems used to be stationed in the South and the East, but the priority has clearly shifted to the West since last year. It remains to be seen whether this becomes a trend, though.

The same ambiguity exists in Russia's diplomacy. Besides the question of the Crimea, Russia has been constructive in the Minsk II negotiations and, thus far, the agreement has survived even though the OSCE reports breaches of the heavy arms withdrawal and the cease-fire on both sides. Russia also continues to send humanitarian convoys into Ukraine that are not legal. From a Russian viewpoint, though, Kiev also falls short in meeting the agreement, because it has failed to change its constitution so that it gives more autonomy to the Donbas Region. Given the large anti-Russian resentment in Western Ukraine, it will be difficult for President Poroshenko to live up to expectation, but until then, the Russian leadership might want to use instability in the East to exert pressure, which on its turn will again lead to more suspicion in the West. Both secessionist rebels and nationalists, meanwhile, will seize this as an opportunity to strengthen their position.

Interpreting Russia's behaviour

All this testifies of a tense relationship, a huge degree of distrust and a clear willingness of Russia to assert its influence. I want to state clearly that Russia has already changed the status-quo, in Ukraine. The point is, however, that there is not much evidence that it is seeking to change it elsewhere - at least not yet. But it does not yet show desire from Moscow's side to escalate the situation, to challenge the territorial status quo in other parts of Eastern Europe, or to provoke an arms race with the West.

The ambiguity of Russia's behaviour is often explained as a deliberate campaign of misinformation and manipulation, meant to break the resolve of the West and to create discord between Western European countries and hardliners, including the United States. It is also said to be part of a nibbling strategy with which Russia slowly gains influence and territory and chips small parts of Eastern Europe into a revived Russian empire. This could be true in the Caucasus, but I do not see it repeating that strategy elsewhere. There is an important difference, still, between being provocative and being aggressive. We should be watchful, I conclude, but not alarmist. Russia will go on to assert its interest and try to benefit from weaknesses in the West, but I do not yet see it pushing for a major, violent confrontation with the West.

This does not mean that we should exclude such a scenario. Wars of nerves between great powers tend to spiral out of control. The ability to prevent escalations also depends on the domestic political climate. Vladimir Putin has tied his legitimacy to a tough foreign policy and the more problematic the domestic economy becomes, the more he could be inclined to harden his position. But the same is true in the West, especially in the United States, were a presidential campaign could prompt candidates to take a tough line on Russia. Lesser powers and small countries can also deliberately play up tensions and invite the major powers to intervene.

Interests

Escalation is neither in the interest of Russia, nor in the interest of the West. Consider, to begin with, the personal interest of Vladimir Putin. Putin is a patriot and wants, I assume, to go into the history books as the restorer of Russia's status, not as the one who drove the country into an unequal partnership with China or exhausted it in a new Cold War. Without an unequal alliance with China, it is unlikely that Russia can fight a new Cold War. Compared to the previous Cold War, Russia's economic power base is much smaller, if only as a consequence of the loss of control over other Soviet states. Weakening Europe makes sense as a tactic to extract concessions in Ukraine and to get Russia's interests in the rest of Eastern Europe recognized, but it does not make sense in light of the long-term challenges from emerging powers in the East and changing political and demographic realities along Russia's porous Southern frontier.

Deterioration or a new Cold War is unnecessary. It is true that the West has not always respected Russian sensitivities, as it was also the case the other way around, but this is more a matter of status than of core interests. There is competition - in terms of economic interests and values for instance, but I do not see Russia's security or core interests being threatened. Both Russia and Europe are facing enormous domestic challenges and the task to find new sources of prosperity. Neither state capitalism nor naked capitalism can be a solution. The search for an alternative is a quest that Russia and Europe face together. From the viewpoint of our main interests, Russia and Europe are natural partners, rather than rivals.

If tensions were to intensify, they would be a product of folly rather than coldblooded power politics. Right now, we are not making progress to reduce tensions and find new common ground. This brings us to one of the most disconcerting aspects of the long turbulent history of international politics: coolheaded strategic calculations rarely prevail. In most great power tragedies of the past, one could almost predict that policies would end badly, and many did so, but policies were still not adjusted. It could happen again.

Europe's options

Europe from its side could consider several steps. Most important is to strengthen consensus between the member states about their security environment. The unanimity in approving the sanctions was remarkable, but it is not enough. The revision of the European Security Strategy, which is ongoing, should be an opportunity to strengthen geopolitical unity: in their tiny corner between two vast continents, all member states are in the same boat.

It is evident that Europe will have to stick to non-recognition of the Crimea, like Russia and others, including EU member states, do not recognize the secession of Kosovo. It has to support the investigation of the crash of MH17 and make sure that those directly responsible are put on trial. It has to support the implementation of the Minsk Protocols and be more active in facilitating the agreed constitutional adjustments in Ukraine. Sanctions will remain in place until, but the EU must persuade Kiev to fulfil its promises.

Meanwhile, the EU should find ways to start interaction with Russia about long-term relations. This could start with informal discussions between experts, policy advisors and between officials in the sidelines of multilateral meetings.

One important issue in our future relation will be Europe and Russia's common neighbourhood, including Eastern Europe, Greece and Finland. Both sides should put the prosperity, stability and sovereignty of the countries in this region first. Russia and Europe must agree on equal and cooperative efforts to promote economic development through trade, investment, financial aid, regulation, and so forth. Military presence should be limited. With the accession of Belarus to the CSTO (1994), and the three Baltic states to NATO (2004), the idea of a neutral zone is no longer plausible. Both sides could agree, however, on allowing defensive alliances but with important limitations to the deployment of troops, the deployment of equipment, the size of exercises, and so forth. Both sides must reach an agreement also on the treatment of minority groups. The main goal is not to create a buffer, but to promote stability while ensuring the balance of power.

Russia and Europe could also join forces to promote a new international framework for arms control. All major powers, the vested powers and the emerging powers, have contributed to the erosion of Cold War-treaties: the ABM treaty, the INF treaty, the NPT, the Outer Space Treaty, etc. Meanwhile, new weapon systems emerge. The lack of clarity increases the risk of miscalculations and incidents.

It is also crucial that Europe and Russia come to understand that, being two stagnant powers from a demographic and economic viewpoint, they have to work together to defend their interest in regard to the rising powers and the young, restless South.

Energy security is another issue. On the one hand, it is normal that both Russia, being a supplier, and Europe, being a consumer, seek to diversify their external energy relations. Many energy-producing countries maintain state-controlled or state-guided energy champions. This will not change. While consumers can understandably regret this, the best option to handle the situation is to limit imports and to diversify supply.

Bilateral relations can be strengthened in several ways. It is in Europe's interest to encourage people-to-people exchanges and to develop an efficient Visa-regime. Particular focus should be on student exchanges, exchanges between opinion leaders, business associations, and so forth. Europe should investigate the possibility to recommence negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement and at the very least an update bilateral investment treaty. Official relations should be gradually restored, pending the fulfilment of the Minsk Protocols.

Much more can be done to rebuild a pragmatic partnership. The baseline remains that it would be damaging to both parties not to do so. In a rapidly changing geopolitical context, they would both be the main losers if they fail.

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 #21
Christian Science Monitor
September 16, 2015
Russia as safe zone for Syrian refugees? It's not as odd as you'd think.
A centuries-old imperial conquest, along with an unusual route to Norway, may lead Syria's migrants to wash up on Russia's shores.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

Moscow - As Europe struggles to handle the inundation of Syrian refugees in recent weeks, Moscow has so far looked on with a touch of schadenfreude. While Russia is allied to Syria - and has the resources to accommodate many of its people - so far the Kremlin shows little recognition that the migration crisis is a common problem that should be solved collectively.

But as Russia's military involvement in Syria escalates, a debate is stirring over its obligations to Syria's beleaguered ethnic and religious minorities. There is growing pressure to repatriate at least some of Syria's 100,000 strong Circassian community, who were brutally expelled from Czarist Russia 150 years ago, but who regard Russia's north Caucasus region as their historic homeland.

And even for those Syrians not looking to their ancestral lands, Russia offers another opportunity: a far more circuitous, but possibly much safer, route to Europe - by bicycle over the border with Norway.

Either factor could bring the Syrian refugee problem to Russia's doorstep, without regard to Moscow's wishes.
Test your knowledge Sochi, Soviets, and tsars: How much do you know about Russia?

"So far Russia makes it very hard for Muslim refugees to come; it puts a lot of bureaucratic obstacles in their path. But this needs to change," says Maxim Shevchenko, a well-known Russian journalist and member of the Kremlin's presidential council on human rights. "In the present situation, where minorities in Syria are threatened with genocide at the hands of IS, Russia has the ability and the responsibility to do something about it."

With a population of 144 million spread over a vast territory and a standard of living on par with the likes of Hungary and Poland, Russia has the resources to absorb new arrivals, should it chose to. Over the past 18 months, it has taken in more than a million Ukrainians fleeing the war next door.

"Russia seems ready to digest large numbers of people, but politicians are not ready to take responsibility," says Konstantin Kalachyov, head of the independent Political Expert Group in Moscow. "Russia only thinks about this issue in the context of bigger politics."

The Circassian quandary

Circassians present a special problem for Russia, since accepting them back would require acknowledging the harsh treatment their ancestors endured. During the 19th century, the Russian Empire drove the Circassians out and absorbed their lands in the northwest Caucasus.

Since Syria's civil war began in 2011, about 1,000 Syrian Circassians have moved to the north Caucasus republics of Karacheyevo-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, where their ancestral language is understood. But most report that they have received little official help.

"Many people here have been good to us, and we do feel wonderful to have regained our homeland," says Natai Achmez, an architect from Damascus who brought his family to Nalchik, in the north Caucasus, in 2012. "But economically, it's very hard. Many of our people prefer to go to Europe, or America, though I would like to stay and make it work for my family here."

Russia demonstrated its considerable evacuation capabilities a couple of years ago, when it carried out a limited airlift of Russian citizens, mainly women married to Syrians and their dependents, from threatened areas of the country. There are an estimated 40,000 Syrians with Russian ties, and it's probably not a coincidence that near-continuous Russian naval war games near Syria - including those currently underway - have all featured several large amphibious assault ships capable of bringing out thousands of people.

"We need to change our views and become concerned about not only those who are Russian, or married to Russians, and start helping more people," says Mr. Shevchenko. He says he believes this message is being heard in the Kremlin. "I have been pressing for it, and I believe Russia will take more action."

There are currently about 12,000 Syrian refugees in Russia, according to the Federal Migration Service, only 2,000 of whom have so far received legal residency papers. Human rights activists say the bureaucratic logjam is unacceptable and point out that most of the Ukrainian refugees also lack legal documentation.

"There is no policy on refugees in our state," says Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the Committee for Civil Assistance, a nongovernmental organization that works with migrants. "When large numbers of Ukrainians started coming here, they were at first met with kindness. But soon all official interest in them disappeared."

Russia already has a huge and largely underground population of Muslim migrant workers, mostly from former-Soviet central Asia. Experts say that any Syrian refugees who have made it to Moscow are probably blending in with that group.

An Arctic route to Europe?

But that could change. A summary of press reports in the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda suggests that increasing numbers of savvy Syrians are entering Russia on student or tourist visas, hopping on the train to Murmansk, and then heading directly to Norway's single border crossing with Russia.

Fewer than 200 people have been so far recorded using this unique method of escape, to Russia's far north by train and into Norway, often by bicycle from nearby Murmansk, high above the Arctic Circle.

The paper says that local taxi drivers are charging over $1,000 for the two-hour drive, while the price of bicycles has soared.

If the route becomes more popular, it could force Russia to deal with a problem that it has so far tried to ignore.

"It's time for Russia to start taking a hard look at this," says Shevchenko. "If we're going to support Assad, we need to help the Syrian people too, and for that we should have some clear plans in place."

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 #22
New York Times
September 16, 2015
Putin Defends Russian Military Aid to Syria
By ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW - President Vladimir V. Putin on Tuesday forcefully defended Russia's military assistance to Syria, describing it as aid for a government fighting "terrorist aggression" and saying the migrant crisis in Europe would be far worse without it.

The United States has expressed concern about a recent Russian airlift to Syria that is believed to have included military hardware and soldiers.

"If Russia had not supported Syria, the situation in this country would have been worse than in Libya," Mr. Putin said, and the flood of refugees would have been even higher." .

Pentagon officials say that Russia has sent some of its most modern battle tanks and other equipment to an airfield near President Bashar al-Assad's hometown, Latakia, in western Syria, possibly to secure the area as a base for airstrikes in support of the government.

Speaking at a regional security conference in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, Mr. Putin did not address those assertions, but he said that Russian efforts to stiffen the military backbone of Mr. Assad's government were the best hope to defeat Islamic State militants.

"It's obvious that without the Syrian authorities and the military playing an active role, without the Syrian Army fighting Islamic State 'on the ground,' it's impossible to drive terrorists from this country and from the region as a whole," Mr. Putin said.

"We are supporting the government of Syria in the fight against a terrorist aggression, are offering and will continue to offer it necessary military and technical assistance," he added.

Mr. Putin urged other nations and moderate elements in the Syrian opposition to follow Russia's example by aligning with the Assad government to defeat the Islamic State, saying Mr. Assad was ready for political compromise with "the healthy part of the opposition."

Russian officials have characterized the airlift as a humanitarian aid mission, while openly acknowledging, as they have for years, that the government is providing weapons to the Syrian military, a longtime client of the Russian arms industry.

The newspaper Vedomosti, citing an unidentified official described as being close to the Defense Ministry, said on Tuesday that a Russian "military guard" had accompanied an Antonov cargo aircraft to the Latakia field.

The immediate goal in Latakia is to secure and improve the landing strip with new lighting and radio equipment so that it can receive humanitarian aid and military hardware shipments, the newspaper reported.

It said a similar "technical" upgrade was planned at a Russian naval base at Tartus, a Syrian city on the Mediterranean.

"The provision and unloading of Russian cargo was accompanied by a military guard of servicemen, but we are not talking about their participation in combat in Syria," the newspaper reported.

Critics of the Russian military presence have suggested that Moscow has covertly sent combat troops to Syria in unmarked uniforms or without an official acknowledgment. But Ruslan A. Pukhov, a co-author of an analysis of the Russian military deployment in Ukraine called "Brothers Armed," said it would be impossible to do that, because Russians could never blend in with a local, Arabic-speaking force.

"We don't just stand out, we are like aliens," in Syria, he said.

In comments this summer, Mr. Putin appeared to leave open the possibility of Russian forces entering the fight against the Islamic State, saying, "we are looking at various options."

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 #23
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
September 16, 2015
The Syrian Factor: Is There a Way out of the Political Deadlock?
By Veniamin Popov
Veniamin Popov is Director of the Center for the Partnership of Civilizations at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).

The Syrian crisis is more than four years old. In its early years, Western countries, primarily the United States, openly placed their bets on overthrowing the Bashar al-Assad government. In the process they were directly or indirectly arming the opposition, despite realizing that the number of extremists in its ranks was steadily growing.

At that time President Barack Obama and the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly declared that al-Assad's days were numbered and that his regime was illegitimate.

New nuances appeared in Washington's position with John Kerry's appointment as Secretary of State. He began talking about the need for political settlement, which Moscow had supported from the very outbreak of the conflict.

Owing to an initiative by President Vladimir Putin, an agreement was reached in 2013 on the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria and the holding of a Geneva conference on settlement in that country. Alongside other international players, Russia and the United States actively cooperated to ensure the implementation of the agreement on eliminating chemical weapons. Washington cooperated with Damascus in this regard (an example of double standards: when necessary, the Syrian government turns out to be legitimate).

Regrettably, the Geneva conference failed to produce the desired effect. Nevertheless Russia actively supported the efforts to find a political solution to the problem. This year Academician Vitaly Naumkin and I twice took part in consultations between the Syrian opposition and the al-Assad government, which were organized by the Russian Foreign Ministry. Both the authorities and sensible opposition forces proceed from the premise that everything should be done to preserve Syria's territorial integrity and unity, and to rebuff the wild cutthroats from the so-called Islamic State (ISIS).

In the past year and a half it has become clear to the entire world that the main threat to peace and stability in the Arab East and, in particular, Syria and Iraq, is emanating from extremists who want to create a caliphate from Portugal to Pakistan under the guise of religious slogans. In the process, according to US secret services, they are planning to stage a number of terrorist acts in the West and are not concealing their desire to get hold of weapons of mass destruction. (Many ISIS military operations are planned by Iraqi officers from Saddam Hussein's army that was disbanded after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.)

Tensions in the region are running very high, with ISIS militants having seized considerable territories of Syria and Iraq. The Syrian army is the main military force that is opposing them single-handedly, because the Iraqi armed forces are not yet strong enough.

In this context, the entire world is discussing the Russian proposals to unite all robust forces - the Syrian and Iraqi armies, the Kurdish self-defense fighters and all regional states - and render them effective international support. This idea is becoming increasingly popular. This is why some Western media have staged an uproar over Russia's regular arms supplies to the al-Assad government, although Moscow has never concealed its military support for Syria.

As The Washington Post wrote the other day, President Putin's position is fairly consistent. From the very start, he has been trying to block all US-backed attempts to oust al-Assad from power and compel the West to make his regime a partner in the struggle against ISIS.

At present, many Western capitals are continuing to debate the Russian proposals. They believe these proposals may become a real way out of the current deadlock, which is fraught with unpredictable risks considering the migration issue.

According to Bloomberg commentator Josh Rogin, some advisers in the Obama administration intend to seriously coordinate their efforts with Moscow on this issue. The hawks also maintain strong positions. As the London-based Times wrote, they are rejecting these ideas only because they are coming from Moscow.

Some European newspapers wrote that many European capitals are beginning to realize that it will be impossible to cope with this monstrous evil - ISIS - without agreements with Moscow and Iran. Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said as much the other day. Former French President Nicholas Sarkozy spoke in the same vein.

Now the ball is in the Western court, but there is no time to waste. Tomorrow may already be too late.

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 #24
Consortiumnews.com
September 15, 2015
How Russia Can Help in Syria
By Graham E. Fuller
Graham E. Fuller is a former senior CIA official, author of numerous books on the Muslim World; his latest book is Breaking Faith: A novel of espionage and an American's crisis of conscience in Pakistan. (Amazon, Kindle). [This story originally appeared at www.grahamefuller.com]

Despite Official Washington's annoyance, the Russian involvement in Syria could work in favor of U.S. national interests by adding forces experienced in dealing with Islamic extremists and capable of restoring some stability, a prerequisite for a political settlement, writes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.

Washington has been wrapped in confusion and indecision for years now in trying to sort out just what its real objectives are in Syria. The obsessive and ultimately failed goal of denying Iran influence in the Middle East has notably receded with President Barack Obama's admirable success in reaching a deal with Iran on the nuclear issue and gradual normalization of Iran's place in the world.

But while the Israel lobby and its Republican allies failed to block Obama's painstaking work in reaching that agreement, they now seem determined to hobble its implementation in any way possible. This is utterly self-defeating: unable to block Iran's re-emergence they seem determined to deny themselves any of the key payoffs of the agreement - the chance to work with Iran selectively on several important common strategic goals: the isolation and defeat of ISIS, a settlement in Syria that denies a jihadi takeover, the rollback of sectarianism as a driving force in the region, a peaceful settlement in Iran's neighbor Afghanistan, and the freeing up of energy/pipeline options across Asia.

But let's address this Syrian issue. There's a new development here - stepped-up Russian involvement - that poses new challenge to the American neocon strategic vision. So here is where Washington needs to sort out what it really wants in Syria.

Is the main goal still to erode Iranian influence in the region by taking out Iran's ally in Damascus? Or does it want to check Russian influence in the Middle East wherever possible in order to maintain America's (fast becoming illusory) dominant influence? These two goals had seemed to weigh more heavily in Washington's calculus than Syrian domestic considerations. In other words, President Bashar al-Assad is a proxy target.

There are two major countries in the world at this point capable of exerting serious influence over Damascus - Russia and Iran. Not surprisingly, they possess that influence precisely because they both enjoy long-time good ties with Damascus; Assad obviously is far more likely to listen to tested allies than heed the plans of enemies dedicated to his overthrow.

The overthrow of Assad seemed a simple task in 2011 as the Arab Spring sparked early uprisings against him. The U.S. readily supported that goal, as did Turkey along with Saudi Arabia and others. As the Assad regime began to demonstrate serious signs of resilience, however, the U.S. and Turkey stepped up support to nominally moderate and secular armed opposition against Damascus, thereby extending the brutal civil war.

That calculus began to change when radical jihadi groups linked either to Al Qaeda or to ISIS (the "Islamic State") began to overshadow moderate opposition forces. As ruthless as Assad had been in crushing domestic opposition, it became clear that any likely successor government would almost surely be dominated by such radical jihadi forces - who simply fight more effectively than the West's preferred moderate and secular groups who never got their act together.

The Russian Card

Enter Russia. Moscow had already intervened swiftly and effectively in 2013 to head off a planned U.S. airstrike on Damascus to take out chemical weapons by convincing Damascus to freely yield up its chemical weapons; the plan actually succeeded. This event helped overcome at least Obama's earlier reluctance to recognize the potential benefits of Russian influence in the Middle East to positively serve broader western interests in the region as well.

Russia is, of course, no late-comer to the region: Russian tsars long acted as the protector of Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Middle East in the Nineteenth Century; the Russians had been diplomatic players in the geopolitical game in the region long before the creation of the Soviet Union.

During the West's Cold War with the Soviet Union the two camps often strategically supported opposite sides of regional conflicts: Moscow supported revolutionary Arab dictators while the West supported pro-western dictators. Russia has had dominant military influence in Syria for over five decades through weapons sales, diplomatic support, and its naval base in Tartus.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Russian influence in the area sharply declined for the first time as the new Russia sorted itself out. America then began declaring itself the "world's sole superpower," allegedly free to shape the world strategically as it saw fit.

And the significant neoconservative and liberal interventionist factions in Washington still nourish the same mentality today - predicated on the belief that the U.S. can continue to maintain primacy around the world - economic, military, and diplomatic. In this sense, any acknowledgment of Russian influence in the Middle East (or elsewhere) represents an affront, even "a threat" to U.S. dominance and prestige.

For similar reasons Iran's long-time open challenge against American ability act with impunity in the Middle East has always constituted a deep source of American strategic anger - viscerally surpassing the more Israel-driven nuclear issue.

Today the combination of Russia and Iran (whose interests do not fully coincide either) exert major influence over the weakening Assad regime. If we are truly concerned about ISIS we must recognize that restoration of a modicum of peace in Syria and Iraq are essential prerequisites to the ultimate elimination of ISIS that feeds off of the chaos.

Russia appears now to be unilaterally introducing new military forces, stepped up weapons deliveries, and possibly including limited troop numbers into Syria specifically to back the Assad regime's staying power. Washington appears dismayed at this turn of events, and has yet to make up its mind whether it would rather get rid of Assad or get rid of ISIS. It is folly to think that both goals can be achieved militarily.

Even More Chaos

In my view, the fall of Assad will not bring peace but will instead guarantee deadly massive long-term civil conflict in Syria among contending successors in which radical jihadi forces are likely to predominate - unless the West commits major ground forces to impose and supervise a peace. We've been there once before in the Iraq scenario. A replay of Iraq surely is not what the West wants.

So just how much of a "threat" is an enhanced Russian military presence in Syria? It is simplistic to view this as some zero-sum game in which any Russian gain is an American loss. The West lived with a Soviet naval base in Syria for many decades; meanwhile the U.S. itself has dozens of military bases in the Middle East. (To many observers, these may indeed represent part of the problem.)

Even were Syria to become completely subservient to Russia, U.S. general interests in the region would not seriously suffer (unless one considers maintenance of unchallenged unilateral power to be the main U.S. interest there. I don't.) The West has lived with such a Syrian regime before.

Russia, with its large and restive Muslim population and especially Chechens, is more fearful of jihadi Islam than is even the U.S. If Russia were to end up putting combat troops on the ground against ISIS (unlikely), it would represent a net gain for the West. Russia is far less hated by populations in the Middle East than is the U.S. (although Moscow is quite hated by many Muslims of the former Soviet Union.)

Russia is likely to be able to undertake military operations against jihadis from bases within Syria. Indeed, it will certainly shore up Damascus militarily - rather than allowing Syria to collapse into warring jihadi factions.

What Russia will not accept in the Middle East is another unilateral U.S. (or "NATO") fait accompli in "regime change" that does not carry full UN support. (China's interests are identical to Russia's in most respects here.)

We are entering a new era in which the U.S. is increasingly no longer able to call the shots in shaping the international order. Surely it is in the (enlightened) self-interest of the U.S. to see an end to the conflict in Syria with all its cross-border sectarian viciousness in Iraq. Russia is probably better positioned than any other world player to exert influence over Assad.

The U.S. should be able to comfortably live even with a Russian-dominated Syria if it can bring an end to the conflict - especially when Washington meanwhile is allied with virtually every one of Syria's neighbors. (How long Assad himself stays would be subject to negotiation; his personal presence is not essential to 'Alawi power in Syria.)

What can Russia do to the West from its long-term dominant position in Syria? Take Syria's (virtually non-existent) oil? Draw on the wealth of this impoverished country? Increase arms sales to the region (no match for U.S. arms sales)? Threaten Israel? Russia already has close ties with Israel and probably up to a quarter of Israel's population are Russian Jews.

Bottom line: Washington does not have the luxury of playing dog in the manger in "managing" the Middle East, especially after two decades or more of massive and destructive policy failure on virtually all fronts.

It is essential that the U.S. not extend its new Cold War with Russia into the Middle East where shared interests are fairly broad - unless one rejects that very supposition on ideological grounds. The same goes for Iran. We have to start someplace.

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 #25
Kremlin refutes reports of suggesting plan envisaging Assad's resignation

SOCHI, September 16. /TASS/. Russia has said from the very beginning of the Syrian crisis that only the Syrian people themselves can determine their future, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday. He commented on Finland's former President Martti Ahtisaari's statement in an interview with The Guardian that Moscow allegedly offered in 2012 a plan envisaging Bashar Assad's resignation from the post of Syrian president.

"This can be very easily checked by date - from the very beginning of the Syrian crisis Russia has repeated at various levels that only the Syrian people and only by means of democratic procedures can determine their future," said the Kremlin spokesman.

"I can only confirm once again that Russia is not engaged in regimes' change, and Russia has never practiced offering graceful or disgraceful stepping down scenarios," Peskov said.

At a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, commenting on the rampage of terrorism and extremism in Syria, that "elementary common sense and responsibility for global and regional security require concerted efforts of the international community against this threat." "We should put geopolitical ambitions aside and abandon the so-called double standards and the policy of using either directly or indirectly certain terrorist groups to achieve own opportunist goals, including the change of governments and regimes undesirable to someone," the Russian leader said. According to him, "If Russia had not supported Syria, the situation in the country would have been worse than in Libya and the refugees flow would have been even greater." "But today, as I've already said, it is essential to pool efforts by the Syrian government, the Kurdish militias, the moderate opposition and other countries in the region in the struggle against the treat to the very statehood of Syria and against terrorism," Putin said.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Russia's support to Syrian President Bashar Assad was fraught with dragging out of the internal armed conflict in Syria. Kerry also said that the United States would welcome Russia's constructive role in the efforts aimed against the Islamic State terrorist group. According to Kerry, in general, there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict. He said that the situation could be settled only by a political transition from Assad to a new government in Damascus.

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 #26
Why is US fighting not against Islamic State but latter's main opponent?
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. While positioning itself as the leader of the international coalition waging a war against the Islamic State, the United States appears to be fighting not so much against IS militants as the Bashar Assad government, which it is determined to topple. In the meantime, it is Assad's Syria that remains the sole real force capable of confronting the IS in earnest, polled Russian experts said. The Americans have not only dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal for creating a wide international coalition incorporating Syria's government troops to fight against IS militants, but been putting pressures on Russia in a bid to terminate its humanitarian and military-technical assistance to Damascus. Analysts believe that the far reaching political aim is to throw Syria off balance and create a permanent hotbed of tensions there.

Russia has evidence that the locations of IS terrorists' positions are well-known to the United States, but the Americans avoid issuing orders to attack them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a televised interview last Sunday. In fact, he accused the United States of merely pretending it is really fighting with the Islamic State. "Our US partners either created the coalition without giving proper thought to how to go about that business, or configured it to pursue certain aims very different from the originally declared ones," he said. "Some of our partners affiliated with the coalition are saying that when they do receive information where specifically certain IS forces are deployed at the moment, the commander of the (US-led) coalition refuses to give consent to dealing a strike."

Lavrov believes that the western coalition should coordinate its actions with the Syrian army and abandon the biased policy of replacing the regime in Damascus. "In the first place assistance is to be extended to those who are at war with bandits on the ground, in other words, the Iraqi army, the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrian army and the Kurdish militias in Syria," he said.

"It is nakedly clear that without the Syrian authorities' and military's involvement in the struggle against the Islamic state there will be no chance of driving the terrorists out of that country and the whole region," Russian President Vladimir Putin told the CSTO summit in Dushanbe on Monday.

"The strikes the coalition has been dealing against IS forces have proved very ineffective," leading research fellow Viktor Nadein-Rayevsky, of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), has told TASS. "The recent row in the US intelligence community confirms this. Some reports have had to be rigged and edited to create an impression the US has achieved something."

Nadein-Rayevsky believes that in fighting with the Islamic State the emphasis should be made on combat-ready units on the ground.

"No air raids have ever been able to yield unequivocal victory. It is troops on the ground that win wars. And Assad is the only one who has an effective ground force at his disposal," he said.

"The Kurdish Peshmerga (the military forces of the autonomous region of Kurdistan), Syria's Kurds and Assad's army are the forces that should be cooperated with in the clash with the terrorists," he said. "There is no chance of beating the IS without them and this is precisely what Putin's idea of a wide coalition stems from."

"At first sight the United States' official stance looks paranoid," assistant professor Andrey Fenenko, of the Moscow State University's world politics department, has told TASS. "In other words: we wish to fight against the IS but at the same time to oust Assad, who is the Islamic State's main opponent. One has the impression they do not realize that should Assad step down, the Islamic State will be in Damascus the next day."

Fenenko has several explanations for this.

"Reason one (the most probable). The Americans' plan is to throw Syria off balance, to create a permanent hotbed of war there, with a view to Turkey and possibly Israel being involved in it with time. In this way the Americans will achieve a double aim. Turkey will be punished, for the Americans believe it has gone too independent and it might be a good idea to plant some major problem on its doorstep to make Ankara easier to control. On the other, this will bury the European Union's hopes for ever laying a gas pipeline from the Middle East countries. That's a plot against the European Union's economic potential."

Explanation two, Fenenko says, may look like this: "The Americans are interested not just in chaos in Syria's territory, but in creating a strong quasi state - Islamic State - in Syria's territory in order to re-carve the Middle East's political map altogether."

"If one assumes that the United States wants to see Syria fall apart and a big war flare up, then all of its actions fit in perfectly with this logic. This explains why the Americans do not like the idea somebody else may stop the Islamic State and why they threaten Russia for supporting Assad," Fenenko said.

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 #27
The Independent (UK)
September 16, 2015
The West is culpable for the bloodshed in Ukraine and Syria - and Putin holds the key to any breakthrough
By Kim Sengupta
Kim Sengupta is Defence Correspondent at The Independent.

There are significant developments in two proxy wars in which the West is involved. The ceasefire in eastern Ukraine now appears to be holding, with flickering hopes of a future peace. New efforts are meanwhile under way to reach a settlement in Syria's savage strife, but that is unlikely to be for some considerable time.

Russia, too, is involved in these wars and, at present, is in a strategically strong position. A frozen conflict in the Donbas will suit the Kremlin, which wants sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea and activities in the Donbas to be eased. In Syria it is openly stepping up its military presence while, at the same time, taking a leading role in diplomatic initiatives.

Ukrainian public figures bemoaned at a recent conference in Kiev that the international community is losing interest in their country. There is some truth in that. There is exasperation in the West at the seeming inability of the government of Petro Poroshenko to tackle endemic corruption and halt the economic slide.

But, above all, what is moving Ukraine on to the back-burner is the grim shadow of Syria, the tide of refugees flowing to Europe, and the rise of Isis.

Failure of Western policy has helped to create the violent and unstable conditions for this chaotic state of affairs. Britain has played a leading role, from its part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq to military intervention in Libya, now the main conduit for refugees crossing the Mediterranean. David Cameron was the chief cheerleader for bombing Libya. He was also the first to cry "Assad must go" (just as he had cried "Gaddafi must go") at an early stage of the Syrian uprising when it could, perhaps, have been settled peacefully.

Having encouraged the uprising, the West did nothing to help the moderate rebels when they were still around in some numbers among opposition fighters.
Read more: Russia has 'positioned tanks in Syrian airfield,' say US officials
Comment: The Russians are coming to Assad's aid - or are they?

I spent the summer of 2012 with them covering the battle for Aleppo, when such help might have turned the tide against Bashar al-Assad's forces. But that did not happen, and instead this paved the way for the Islamist extremists of Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, with their wealthy backers in the Gulf States, to take over the rebellion.

We now discover that the West had turned down a Russian plan which could have led to President Assad's removal a few months earlier. Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, disclosed that while he was holding talks with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council over Syria, Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador, presented a three-point plan which would lead to Assad relinquishing power after negotiations began between the regime and the opposition. Mr Ahtisaari recalled how Mr Churkin had spoken about the urgent need to start a dialogue and finding an "elegant way for Assad to step aside". But this was rebuffed by the US, Britain and France, all convinced that President Assad faced imminent defeat. The Finnish leader, a Nobel Peace Prize holder, spoke of his regret at the "opportunity lost in 2012".

The consequence of failing to seize that opportunity was the continuation of a war which had cost 220,000 lives by February this year, leaving seven million people homeless. More than four million others have fled the country, tens of thousands heading in recent weeks for Europe.

Mr Ahtisaari described the refugee  crisis as a "self-made disaster", adding: "We should have prevented this from happening, this flow of refugees to our countries  into Europe. I don't see any other option but to take good care of these poor  people... We are paying the bills we  have caused ourselves."

It is this social and economic bill, the bitter divisions within the EU provoked by the refugee crisis, as well as jihad coming to the streets of Europe and North America, which has led the West finally to seek a solution to Syria after doing little as the country slid to the jagged edge of anarchy.

Russia, snubbed by the West three years ago, is now viewed - especially in Washington - as having a key role in seeking this solution. Senior former British and American commanders openly call for an alliance with Russia, and even an understanding with Assad, to fight Isis - a view echoed privately by serving commanders.

Saudi Arabia has, belatedly, concluded that some Sunni extremist groups, especially Isis, cannot be controlled.

There has been a flurry of meetings between Russian, Saudi and American officials. Iran, which wants to join the anti-Isis coalition after coming to an agreement with world powers over its nuclear programme, is being kept informed by Oman, which maintains good relations with its Sunni and Shia neighbours.

It is against this background that Russia has not hesitated to confirm its growing military capability in Syria. American objections to this have been relatively muted. Vladimir Putin claimed that he  had talked to Barack Obama about it, and the Kremlin stresses the imperative of  co-operation with the US.

The Saudis still hold that Assad cannot be part of the solution, as does the Syrian opposition in exile - and there are reports that the Kremlin may be considering another plan for him to step aside elegantly, something the West would now seize with alacrity. Mr Putin, however, is robust about Russia's military support for the regime.

"Without an active participation of the Syrian authorities and the military, it would be impossible to expel the terrorists from that country and the region as a whole," he declared. "Without Russia's support for Syria, the situation in the country would have been worse than in Libya, and the flow of refugees even bigger."

What happens in Syria will continue to be played out in the coming days. But it is Russia's President, increasingly the man of the moment, who seems to be holding most of the aces.

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 #28
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
September 15, 2015
In Syria Russia Is Backing the Side With More Justice on Its Side
One the one side you have a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional coalition of Alawites, Christians, moderate Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and Druze.
On the other side you have the most vicious, looniest radicals since the Khmer Rouge.
Who do you want to win?
By Marko Marjanović
Marko Marjanović is a deputy editor at Russia Insider. He is a native of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Before Russia Insider he worked as a CNC operator in a heavy machine factory. He speaks Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian. He is a Rothbardian anarchist and a voracious reader of history.

For some reason western governments and chattering classes continue to pretend that there is such a faction as "moderate Syria rebels".  

This is a bizarre and willful self-delusion. 'Moderates' do not exist as an actual armed faction on the ground in Syria. They have long either declared for the jihadists or have been annihilated by them.

The only rebels in Syria are the jihadist extremists of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar ash-Sham and some smaller groups allied with the latter two.  

Moreover all of these are exactly alike in what they want - their differences amount to leadership disputes and questions of strategy.

They all want a Salafist Caliphate stretching over at least one half of the planet and ruled by Sharia law - their only point of disagreement is technical - how to get there.

In this context al-Nusra which is the local Al Qaeda affiliate is theoretically willing to postpone the implementation of some of its most radical policies until the goal of a vast Caliphate has been achieved. Meanwhile ISIS wants to unleash the full extent of its vision right away. Ahrar ash-Sham seems the most pragmatic and conniving of the three since it is the most willing to work with the Saudis who have at one point aided all three.

These groups have occasionally clashed between themselves and have assassinated each other's leaders and commanders - but that is factional infighting between people who uphold the same ideals, role models and causes. In other words, there is no hard separation between them - tomorrow they may easily patch up their differences or else one group may prevail against another and incorporate its fighters in its own ranks.

The order they want to impose is probably the most severe form of Sharia that has ever been practiced for an extended period of time. For example conquered Shia are offered only the choice to convert or be massacred on the spot. It's an utterly vicious, restrictive and dehumanizing system.

It's true that Syria itself is a police state but we're talking entirely different levels of repression here. At least under the Syria government there is a distinction between the political and private. There is heavy policing of some aspects of life - but as long as ordinary citizens tread carefully in politics they are largely free to live their lives as they wish. Under Salafists on the contrary every minute aspect of private and public life is heavily regulated.

According to the Bahrain-based 'Syrian Observatory For Human Rights' the Syrian army has so far been responsible for more civilian deaths than the jihadis. Since most civilian deaths seem to have been due to artillery fire - and since the government has more heavy weapons this is entirely plausible (despite the obvious pro-rebel sympathies of SOHR and likely exaggeration). This is also the assesement of Patrick Cockburn the journalist who has perhaps done the best work on Syria.

It should be said that government forces killing their own citizens in this way is cowardly, morally reprehensible, as well as strategically questionable since it doubtlessly serves to alienate many who may have otherwise supported the government.

It definitely means that elements of Syrian forces and the government are criminals who would be ideally brought to justice by their victims. However, it does not mean that Syrian pro-government forces as a whole have less justice on their side in relation to the jihadis.

Firstly, while jihadis may have killed fewer people with artillery that is only because they lack heavy firepower. But when they've had artillery they have shown to be positively eager to shell government-controlled residential areas. There is every reason to believe that given equivalent firepower the jihadis would be inflicting just as many, or more civilian casualties as the government.

Secondly, the jihadis positively thrive on massacres. They have been known to eradicate entire villages that happened to follow the wrong faith. Also they have restored slave markets, sexual slavery and rape - including of children as an accepted practice and an integral part of their order. In a qualitative sense their crimes are even far more depraved than those of Syrian artillerists. There is no doubt that a victory for the jihadists - which means the likes of ISIS descending on Christian and Alawite home regions would be far, far bloodier than a victory for Damascus and the flight of jihadis from Syria.

Moreover, the very fact that Syria government is still around is a very good reasons to believe this is exactly how Syrians feel and that Assad has real popular support - not as a great leader, but as the preferable alternative to the likes of ISIS and as a unifying symbol that religious minorities and secular and moderate Sunnis can all (reluctantly) rally behind together.

Meanwhile, on the Islamist side nearly one half of the fighters are non-Syrians.[1] This is in no way surprising since we know that Turkey and Saudi Arabia have facilitated the influx of Salafis from all over the world - and since we know that ISIS started out as an entirely Iraqi-based entity (at the time named ISI or the Islamic State in Iraq).

Indeed, in a very real sense the conflict in Syria does not look so much as a civil war as an invasion of Syria by internationalist jihadis and the Iraq-based ISI, backed materially by Saudi Arabia, militarily by Turkey and diplomatically and morally by the United States.

Despite all of this, western chattering classes continue to demonize the Syrian regime and to present it as the primary tormentor of Syrians.  

Let us recall these are the very same people whose eagerness to buy into western moral superiority over Saddam Hussein was instrumental in enabling the invasion and occupation of Iraq.[2] This then led to the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of (mainly) Sunnis in the Shia-Sunni civil war and the virtual disappearance of the ancient Iraqi Christian communities.  

Even though Syria's religious minorities are now threatened with the same these narcissists would ignore the ISIS/jihadist elephant in the room and pretend this is a time for a simplistic and false morality tale of a 'murderous tyrant' and hapless, pathetic and completely agency-less Syrians suffering under his yoke. - It isn't.

At least Russia understands the stakes for millions of people from Syria's many distinct and ancient confessional minority communities as well as for majority Sunnis are far too big to base policy on whether it is emotionally satisfying to grandstand against a secular Middle Eastern dictator.

[1] This is according to the Bahrain-based pro-Islamist 'Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' which claims 28,000 foreign Islamists have been killed in the war alongside 40,000 Syrian Islamist rebels.

[2] Even though west was by that time already responsible for the deaths of up to one million Iraqis under the UN comprehensive sanctions regime.

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 #29
Forbes.com
September 13, 2015
Ukraine Takes On 'Mission Impossible' In Push Westward
By Kenneth Rapoza

In their own words, the Ukrainian government has undertaken an impossible mission: to reform an old, Soviet style economy and make it more European. That requires changing hundreds of years of business and political practices as alien to Western business culture as ET. It also means reforming an economy that Ukrainian political leaders have promised to fix since the fall of the Soviet Union back in 1991. If the new leaders are to be trusted, then this time it's for real.

Judging by the attendees of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference in Kyiv, which ended on Saturday, Ukraine is on the right track. Perhaps true. But the train that's on that track is carrying a lot of dead weight. This is no bullet train. This is more like a choo-choo in a child's amusement park.

None of the Ukrainian government representatives on hand at YES will deny the fact that since breaking from Russia's sphere of influence, Ukraine has been a nation in chaos.

Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaks at the Yalta European Strategy conference on Saturday Sept. 12. Yats promises debt restructuring and ongoing austerity measures despite dwindling coalition. (Pool photo by Sergei Illin, Aleksandr Indychii, Aleksandr Pilyugin and Valentіna Tsymbaliuk from YES. Used by permission.)

Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk speaks at the Yalta European Strategy conference on Saturday Sept. 12. Yats promises debt restructuring and ongoing austerity measures despite his dwindling coalition. (Pool photo by Sergei Illin, Aleksandr Indychii, Aleksandr Pilyugin and Valentіna Tsymbaliuk from YES. Used by permission.)

Prime Minister Arseniy "Yats" Yatsenyuk's coalition is shrinking. He started with five allied parties. He now has four. "The reforms have been unpopular, but I would say necessary and no Ukrainian government in the last twenty years has done the type of job this government has done," he says. Lately, Yats is on the defensive. His popularity is next to nothing. But, he points out, they've gotten rid of energy subsidies and now are only subsidizing the poorest Ukrainians. This opens the door to more efficiency in the energy market. They've made cuts on social spending, and have streamlined 90 tax codes into a flat tax system of 20% across the board. They've built up a new Ukrainian Army and National Guard, much of it thanks to funding from partners in the U.S. and E.U.

"We passed all necessary bills despite attacks from the opposition and from a dwindling coalition," he said. "I've past three austerity programs and we will definitely pass the debt reconstruction deal. This is the best deal and I believe that Ukrainian politicians will support it," he said.

Ukraine has been a basket case for over two years. Besides Greece, Ukraine news helped to drive the direction of oil markets last year. Their violent divorce from Russia led to sanctions, including sanctions on some Ukrainian businesses.

It's also led to a loss of territory. Crimea is now Russian. The Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine is slowly switching to rubles. The recent cease fire is fragile and unlikely to last for long given tensions between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine has one of the worst rules of law than any emerging market. It is more corrupt than Russia, according to Transparency International. An estimated 20% of the wealth of Ukraine is in the hands of less than a dozen people. State controlled energy company Naftogaz is 8% of Ukraine GDP, and this juggernaut struggles to pay its bills with Russian partner Gazprom.

Living standards are falling nationwide and the economy is expected to decline 8% this year...at least.

That is the bad news.

The good news is Ukraine's government seems serious about turning Ukraine into a new Poland. That is particularly the case in Kyiv. But to move Westward requires a "de-oligarchization" of Ukraine's economy. It requires transparency, and business rules that investors can understand. Fair play is a unique concept in Ukraine. Bribery is rampant. Exports often arrive in Odessa ports opened, with customs workers asking for bribes.

"One way to make money in Ukraine, for example, was to buy natural gas cheap and sell it for five times the price. So thanks to gas price reforms in April, the main source of corrupt money in Ukraine is now gone," says Anders Aslund, senior fellow for the Atlantic Council in Washington. "This is Ukraine's third shot at reform."

Over the last year, Ukraine created an anti-corruption bureau; a new, younger "bribe-free" police force; and it announced a new procurement system for government contracts, via auctions awarding the lowest bidder. Yet, public opinion is not on the side of this government.

Ivan Miklos, Minister of Finance of Slovakia between 2010 and 2012 and now a consultant for the Ukrainian government's economic cabinet, says reforms here are more political than technical. "This is the price you pay for 70 years of communism. The hardship is because of the lack of reforms, and they have to communicate that to the public. Populism is growing now.  They don't nervous about change, when that means they are losing income and paying more for services. I suspect populism will grow more."

Rich oligarchs who don't want their monopoly businesses blown up are paying journalists to write negative reports on reform-minded Ukrainian ministers, says Andriy Pyvorarksyi, the 30-something year old new Minister of Infrastructure and an ex-investment banker.

"Bureaucracy and corruption are my main enemies," he says, staying on message. "I know that the changes that I make have to be institutionalized. It is extremely important that when I exit here, the changes I've made are either institutionalized or the legislation is in parliament ready to become law. We cannot change Ukraine by decrees."

Central bank governor Valeriya Gontareva said the Ukrainian banking sector has survived the worst of the crisis. "We are in the process of reloading the banking sector, and buying up bad assets. We're not being political. This is a technocrat position now," she says, adding they have cleaned house in upper bank management and at the lower levels as well. She said they will institute an inflation targeting monetary policy by next year.

Moving Westward depends less on the geopolitical strategy of Russia, more on the Ukrainian voter. That's where the Mission Impossible theme comes in. This is not a young demographic.  Older Ukrainians remember socialism. Ukraine needs investment to attract young entrepreneurs and keep them here. Ukraine's jet-setting elite may have plans to become the next Poland, but it all depends on the locals, some of which are just as willing to lean East.

"The Ukrainian people are our only ally," says Yatsenyuk, emphatically. "To get them on our side, we have to deliver tangible results."

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 #30
www.opendemocracy.net
September 16, 2015
The dark side of Ukraine's constitutional reform
'Bloody Monday' raised the stakes for Ukraine's constitutional reform. The new law not only affects the state's relationship with the east, but threatens austerity measures and infringements on human rights.
By Vitaly Dudin
Vitaly Dudin is a legal analyst at Ukraine's Center for Social and Labor Research, which was created in 2013 as an independent not-for-profit institution dedicated to the analysis of socio-economic problems, collective protests, labour relations and conflicts.

265 votes 'for'. Three people dead. This is how most of us will remember Ukraine's current constitutional reform, which passed its first reading last Monday. For the second reading, however, President Petro Poroshenko will need 300 votes-and thousands of police officers.

Widely billed as a change to Ukraine's system of local self-government and one motivated by the Minsk II agreements, Ukraine's new constitution has other important provisions. This reform is designed to correct the shortcomings of the constitution, so apparent after Maidan. A closer look reveals the potential for increased political and socio-economic tension within the country.

Special status

For many people, the first question they ask about the constitutional reform is: does the amended constitution give special status to separatist territories in the east? A direct answer is hard to come by, but the language of Point 18 ('complexities of local self-government in certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions') of the draft constitution hints at the granting of autonomous status to the Donbas.

The scale of concessions to the 'People's Republics' can already be seen in the decentralisation law passed in September 2014, which grants them more influence in the process of appointing judges and prosecutors for local government officials, the possibility to create a 'people's militia' from local people, the right for towns and villages to sign agreements on cross-border co-operation with regions of the Russian Federation, and a ban on criminal investigations into 'participants of the events' in the Donbas.

The government insists that the amnesty won't include those who have committed serious crimes.

None of these provisions are yet to be realised, however, as Ukraine does not control these territories.

Decentralisation

A large portion of this new law concerns the organisation of local government. Several experts believe that these amendments will turn Ukraine into a presidential republic, thus overriding the main achievement of the 'Revolution of Dignity'.

Naturally, some of these amendments are justified by the need to intervene in outbreaks of separatism on Ukrainian territory-at least, that's what the president says to citizens with nationalist beliefs.

The president and government still retain some control, however, with the institution of prefects, who answer only to the president and central government, and the presidential right to disperse local councils in instances of non-constitutional legislation remaining.

At the same time, the base unit of self-governance is due to become the 'community' (obshchina), rather than town or village. In practice, this amendment will lead to the creation of enlarged neighbourhood districts, and is designed to save financial resources.

For instance, several neighbourhoods could be amalgamated into a single 'community', and then served by a single hospital or school (the numbers of which are due to be cut by 5% in 2016), whereas in the past each neighbourhood might have had its own polyclinic. Fundamental social provisions such as education, healthcare, transport and road repair could also be transferred to local council budgets. These measures are in complete accordance with the austerity policies thrust upon Ukraine by the IMF.

Nationalist rhetoric, meanwhile, focuses on the idea that the new constitution will legitimise the separatist republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. But the regulation of 'special zones' won't change in comparison with their current position, as their status will become the focus of a normal political negotiation.

In effect, President Poroshenko is blackmailing us: offering a path to peace, he is cutting back citizens' constitutional and economic freedoms.

Financial independence

A further hallmark of the reform is its focus on granting greater financial independence to Ukraine's regions.

These moves towards implementing budgetary independence have been greeted with enthusiasm by the wider Ukrainian public, but they will be successful only given the necessary resources.

While the government has stated that, since the beginning of 2015, Ukraine's regional governments are enjoying a budget surplus (13m hryvnya by February 2015), it's hard to say where this extra money is going, as citizens are yet to see improvements in municipal services.

The surplus is likely connected to a decrease in expenditure, for instance, on making transport companies profitable, as well as housing and utilities. Tariffs on these services have risen in many towns and cities to an 'economically viable' level, and they may rise even further.

Customs duty contributions to the state budget will drop after the free trade zone with the European Union comes into effect in January 2016, and the income from the 'single social contribution', a blanket social payment introduced by the Yanukovych government, will also decrease due to decreasing wages. According to the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine, social security funds will see a deficit of 140 billion hryvnya in 2016, or £4.1 billion.

The state is therefore likely to assign more expenditure to local council budget; the possibility of making state institutions such as schools, universities, and hospitals financially 'self-sufficient', as Russia did in 2010, cannot be discounted.

Local budgets are also going to fall, with more utilities services transferred to private ownership. Companies are currently lobbying to lower payments on leases for oil and gas extraction.

Earlier this year, local councils received the right to regulate property taxes, and in Kyiv, parliamentary deputies with ties to business have already lobbied for these taxes to be set at the minimum rate, and the tax to be payable only from May 2016.

Ultimately, the question of financial guarantees to local self-government can only be discussed when big business pays its fair share. Why should talking about decentralisation for the tax system if large corporations still pay their dues via offshore schemes (and not where they make their money)?

Attempts to intervene

The attempt to alter Ukraine's constitution has polarised society, last week's violence merely confirms that polarisation.

For instance, on 13 August, conservative constitutional experts, politicians and public figures sent an appeal to Poroshenko, asking him not to change the constitution when war still rages in the east.

While these people had previously called on the public to vote for Poroshenko, now they claimed these amendments would violate Ukraine's territorial sovereignty. Instead, the signatories, largely conservative, demanded a moratorium on constitutional reform until Russian troops withdraw from Ukraine.

Right-wing politicians in Ukraine are concerned that the separatists will win the war of symbols, but, in any case, Luhansk and Donetsk won't be able to use the powers given to them. Instead, the Ukrainian authorities 'make concessions' to the Donestk and Luhansk 'People's Republics', and then accuse them of not wanting to negotiate or observe the ceasefire.

These accusations of treachery from the right sound naïve at best: Ukraine has been negotiating with representatives of the DNR and LNR for almost a year.

What do the separatists need?

Back in 2004, Ukraine's oligarchs were promoting the idea of Ukraine as a country suffering from a regional split-a Russian-speaking east (nostalgic for the Soviet system) versus a Ukrainian-speaking west (oriented towards Europe).

As a result, the right to use the Russian language in eastern Ukraine became a political slogan, and protest on socio-economic grounds became practically impossible. As the country became more and more centralised, Kyiv appointed public officials in the east, causing dismay among the locals, and budget centralisation rose to the levels of the former USSR.

The danger of implementing IMF-backed reforms was viewed as a threat to stability, and nationalists, increasingly influential, became the catalyst. The Donbas answered by turning to conservatism and pro-Russian sentiment. Ultimately, the Donbas' slogans of linguistic and cultural self-definition were justified, as was the desire to gain influence over the appointment of judges and other officials.

But the demands of the separatists, such as the creation of a 'people's militia', reflect the fact that these groups are never going to find a system of governance which would meet their expectations.

Previous attempts at autonomy, such as Crimea, haven't been so successful either. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as it was under Ukrainian state control, did not use its powers particularly effectively. Indeed, the peninsula's poverty simplified the process of annexation for the Russian Federation.

New human rights

For most people, though, it's the second section of the constitution, the section on human rights, that is going to affect them most of all.

The human rights chapter contains some conservative provisions, including a whole series of articles limiting the rights of citizens through the 'defence of morality'. On this basis, interference into private life is permitted (Article 27), as well as limits on the activities of political parties (Article 32).

But 'morality' isn't the only grounds for limiting freedoms. For instance, Article 31 authorises limits to freedom of speech when it comes to personal reputations, or the authority of the courts. Article 26 extends the grounds for detention without trial, in particular, for non-fulfilment of a court order, or to prevent a likely terrorist act.

Meanwhile, Article 32 bans fascist, Nazi and communist political parties. This is, unfortunately, another attempt to promote hysteria against Ukraine's left-wing parties. If the new Constitution remains the only amendment to the recent laws on 'decommunisation', then this new provision could open the way for ideological repressions.

Though the exact implementation of this law remains unclear, the April 'decommunisation' law de facto criminalises justifications of the Soviet period. The Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) and other 'communist' political groups have already been deprived of the opportunity to participate in October's local elections. The ban even affects the 'renewed' Communist Party of Ukraine, which was set up by the Kuchma government in 2000 to draw votes away from the CPU.

But if the constitutional amendments are passed, political groups professing 'the ideology of communism' could also be banned. This isn't a threat only to left-wing parties, but political parties as a whole. Any party that calls for de-oligarchisation, for instance, could risk liquidation.

Article 46 is another instance of increasing bureaucratisation of the right to strike. In the new constitution, the right to strike is understood exclusively in collective terms-individual pickets are not discussed. Even the liberal labour codes of Georgia and the Russian Federation enshrine the right of workers to down tools if they fail to receive compensation.

The Ukrainian authorities wish to force a situation where a strike becomes possible only after numerous agreements and negotiation procedures-even when employees are well within their right to strike. Despite appeals by civic activists, the Constitutional Commission has also done away with strikes in solidarity with other workers.

The rights of business owners are also likely to improve, with the constitutional working group guaranteeing foreign investors the ability to take profits and invested capital out of the country. Confiscation of property is being made more complicated: any court order should meet international law, making it easier for oligarchs to defend their property from confiscation in a London court. That said, the right to entrepreneurship has improved in its legal basis, with simplified procedures included in the new constitution.

Finally, the Constitution is due to lose Article 49, which protects the existing network of state health institutions from cuts. According to Vsevolod Rechitsky, a constitutional specialist, 'free medical care will be accessible only in extreme cases.'

Current rights

The current constitution, in contrast, fosters social struggle and the development of civil society in Ukraine. It forbids restrictions to constitutional rights, and provides reasonable standards of defence for several of them. Currently, passing laws commercialising medicine, including the closing of hospitals, is practically impossible.

The current constitution allows civic organisations to demand concessions from the authorities and business under the guise of constitutional guarantees. This practice will be lost after the amendments take effect.

Of course, social movements in Ukraine are weak, but neoliberal reforms are pushed through parliament without difficulty. For instance, take March's pension reform, which included another raising of retirement age for workers in harmful industries, or the law permitting arrests without court orders in the anti-terrorist operation zone.

These changes, by and large, aren't anything new. The Yanukovych government wished to carry out many of the most unpopular reforms, including the removal of Article 49, which guarantees free medical care, as well as economic liberalisation.

It's not a given that the government will be able to pass the new section on human rights, as the proposals are yet to be made into a draft law. Instead, the government is focusing on the decentralisation changes, which will be hard enough to get through parliament. The current constitution is rather demanding in this regard: 300 Rada deputies have to vote for this bill twice.

Uncertainties ahead

We don't know whether the second reading of these constitutional amendments will lead to the end of the war in the east. There's no certainty that the government will be able to muster 300 votes in December, when the second reading is due to take place, though following 'Bloody Monday' public opinion has definitely sided against the opposition.

But it's worth noting that Ukraine has made efforts at peaceful regulation of this conflict. Meanwhile, the fact that far right groups have come out against these changes should be an important signal for residents of the Donbas. In this sense, Kremlin myths about the 'Kiev junta' are exposed for what they are-inventions of the Kremlin.

Separatist leaders have, of course, expressed dissatisfaction with these amendments, but this is rather a reflection of their investment in the continuing war, and might have negative consequences for their support. (The plans for integration of the separatist territories into the Russian Federation are also likely to harm the current leaders.)

Instead, Ukraine's new constitution should include provisions for direct democracy, regional autonomy, giving citizens legislative initiative, radical de-oligarchisation, anti-discrimination and decentralisation, which is socially just.

Is it possible to make constitutional changes in war time? It is not only possible, but it is necessary if it leads to a cessation of conflict. While these amendments are far from a guarantee of peace, they should be made together with moves to liberate Ukrainian society from oligarchic power and extend the possibilities for every citizen as an individual.

At the time of writing, the ceasefire in the Donbas had lasted three days. Perhaps this is no accident.

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 #31
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions following a meeting of the Normandy four foreign ministers, Berlin, 12 September 2015

In accordance with instructions of the Russian, German, French and Ukrainian leaders, we held long and serious Normandy format talks at the level of foreign ministers. This meeting was agreed upon during a telephone conversation between the four leaders on September 9. We were instructed to primarily concentrate on the compliance with the Minsk agreements, particularly political regulatory aspects, such as constitutional reform, Donbass' special status and local elections.

We also touched upon other aspects of the Minsk agreements that are the subject of talks and agreement as part of the Contact Group and four subgroups, which were specially created to this end. There are individual incidents of this regime's violations but, in general, our assessment of what is going on is quite positive. It is in line with the assessment that was expressed during a telephone conversation between the leaders of Russia, France, Germany, and Ukraine.

A draft agreement on the withdrawal of weapons of a calibre under 100mm is being discussed by the Contact Group's subgroup on security issues currently held in Minsk. In his report, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Ertugrul Apakan confirmed that the draft agreement is 90-per cent ready. There are some details left to be agreed upon, but as always, "the devil is in the details." Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany, the meeting's host country, already said that we had called for an early agreeing and signing the document on all details concerning the withdrawal of weapons under 100mm calibre as part of the working subgroup on security. This allows for close monitoring by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission. We hope the remaining issues will be agreed upon during an upcoming meeting of the subgroup on security issues to be held in Minsk on September 15-16.

The second topic of our discussion that we have agreed upon is overcoming various inconsistencies in the Minsk agreements, which arose during the work of the subgroup on political issues and concerned the modality of holding local elections in the proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). We welcomed the efforts by Pierre Morel, the coordinator of the working subgroup on political issues who came up with the solutions that do not fully satisfy the Ukrainian government and representatives of the proclaimed DPR and LPR; according to the overall impressions of Russia, France and Germany, though, these inconsistencies can be overcome. We advocate for the corresponding working subgroup to promptly hold further consultations based on the ideas that were expressed by the Pierre Morel, so this issue can be resolved no later than October 2 (a summit of the Normandy four was scheduled on this date). We agreed on specific recommendations, that the Normandy four minister can submit to the Russian, French, and Ukrainian presidents and the German chancellor.

We discussed humanitarian issues. We are deeply concerned that there are still obstacles preventing the delivery of the necessary goods and services across the contact line. We urged the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission that it should focus more on the contact line situation, so that the essential items could be delivered to Donbass without impediment. Our colleagues and us focused on water supply in Donbass. Recently, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission issued a report on this issue. A situation is developing, which the OSCE qualifies as a violation of international humanitarian law. It demands to provide unfettered access to fresh water for civilians in non-international conflict zones.

We also considered positive steps in the work of the subgroup on economic issues. There is progress in terms of dealing with coal supplies from Donbass to the rest of Ukraine. There are also other specific projects taking shape that are designed to restore the supply of water and other infrastructure that is necessary to ensure the normal life (or, at least, close to normal life) for those in the DPR and LPR.

My impression of today's talks is rather positive. We again underscored the key condition of success for implementing the Minsk agreements, which is establishing a direct dialogue between Kiev and the representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk. This is stipulated in the Minsk agreements and must be strictly observed.

We thoroughly considered the full spectrum of political issues. There were some arguments regarding the sequence of steps regarding the constitutional reform, the necessary actions by the Kiev authorities to ensure the standing special status of Donbass; our arguments, we believe, were heard.

Today an important step was taken to prepare for the Normandy four summit, which is set to take place in Paris on October 2. For this, we are willing to stay in touch and to do everything in order to ensure that the decisions made at the summit will make the implementation of the Minsk agreements obligatory and allow for no deviations whatsoever from these important documents.

Question: Did you discuss the possibility to extend the Minsk agreements?

Sergey Lavrov: We touched upon this issue. We are proceeding from the fact that the most important thing is to preserve a firm balance secured in the Minsk documents, approved and signed on February 12; all the more so, as the package of the Minsk agreements was approved by a UN Security Council resolution. I believe that this is an issue that will still be discussed. The essence of agreements a€" rather than some artificial deadlines a€" is important to us. They, first and foremost, depend on the effectiveness of a direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk and Luhansk.

Questions: What are your impressions from the talks?

Sergey Lavrov: Positive, overall. I already said that the atmosphere was good. We don't see eye to eye on all issues, but we have a strict criterion - the text of the Minsk agreements approved by the leaders of our respective states, signed by the representatives of Kiev and Donetsk and Luhansk, and signed off by the representatives of Russia and the OSCE. I think this is the beacon that should guide us. The most important thing is to stay the course.

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 #32
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
September 14, 2015
Winter freeze looms as "transit-less" Ukraine scrabbles for Russian gas
Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv

With the approach of winter, the government in Kyiv is trying to muster funds to stockpile Russian natural gas ahead of the heating season and secure an affordable gas purchase price under a new "winter package".

Meanwhile, one of its chief bargaining chips and money-earners seems to have been snatched from its hand: Kyiv is incensed by the recent decision of European energy companies to sign a shareholders' agreement with Russia's Gazprom about the planned Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.

"What does the construction of Nord Stream-2 mean for Ukraine? First, it absolutely excludes Ukraine from transit supplies to the EU," the country's prime minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, told journalists in Bratislava on September 10. Consequently, Ukraine will lose the opportunity to pump around 140bn cubic metres a year (cm/y) of Russian gas to Europe, which would mean losing $2bn in revenue per year, Yatsenyuk added.

Gazprom currently supplies around a third of EU energy needs, and approximately half of the gas imported by the EU is piped through Ukraine's territory. The Russian company on September 4 announced that it had formed a consortium for the €9.9bn project with E.ON, BASF/Wintershall, OMV, ENGIE and Royal Dutch Shell.

Nord Stream-2, which will transport 55bn cm/y via two new pipelines running alongside the existing two pipelines of Nord Stream, which runs from northern Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, is due to start operations by the end of 2019.

As a result, the new route will not only put a hole in Kyiv's pocket, but remove a potential pressure point in its economic and political negotiations with the Kremlin. This is especially significant given the current conflict between Ukraine and Russia over the 2014 annexation of Crimea and Russia's support for rebels in the Donbas, Ukraine's industrial heartland.

Other gas transit countries also Poland and Slovakia condemned the deal, with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico branding it a "betrayal" that would cost his country and Ukraine billions of euros, and which ran against Europe's official position on Ukraine.

Pragmatic shift

"The European side is showing the determination of EU companies to normalise or even strengthen their relations with Gazprom," Agata Loskot-Strachota, chief expert in Russian oil and gas at the Warsaw-based Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), tells bne IntelliNews. "They [European companies] share a common problem with Gazprom related to the situation on the EU gas market, specifically: low gas demand. They also have a history of fruitful cooperation and lots of infrastructure in place."

The move also indicates that the European energy companies don't seem to expect any lasting solution to the Ukrainian gas transit issue to be achieved in the near future, the expert adds, and that the complexity of EU-Ukraine-Russia negotiations over the past year strengthens this view. "Western companies seem also to understand that Russia is determined to find a solution that enables Gazprom to fully bypass Ukraine, and so they prefer to co-shape this solution and make it profitable for themselves. Nord Stream-2 seems to be such a solution that enables gains for both sides," Loskot-Strachota says.

Unless there is "strong and effective opposition" to the deal, it could reinforce Shell's role in the EU and global gas markets, whilst providing a chance for Austria's OMV to develop its Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) after the failure of the EU-backed Nabucco gas project and against the background of constant gas tensions over Ukraine.

Just after the North Stream-2 deal was signed, US energy envoy Amos Hochstein criticised the move, saying that it was more about politics than economics, just like Russia's previous plan for the South Stream pipeline that was abandoned by the Kremlin in late 2014. "It carries the risk of allowing Gazprom to cut off Ukraine," Hochstein said in an interview with Reuters, adding that this would be "devastating for Ukraine and damaging to European energy security as a whole, but particularly for Eastern and Central Europe".

Victor Logatskiy at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Centre think-tank believes that the US "evaluates the situation and potential of Ukraine" better than the EU. "The EU has difficulties in developing a common policy, because decisions are taken there on the basis of consensus between the member states. Therefore, the EU's position towards Ukraine is more amorphous," the expert tells bne IntelliNews, adding that this shows again that Ukraine should rely on its own resources.

Still not last word for Ukraine route

Loskot-Strachota agrees that losing payments for Russian gas transit would be "devastating" for Ukraine. "At the same time, the possibility to earn big money by acting as an intermediary in the sale of Russian gas to the EU was one of the sources of corruption in Ukraine, and has always been one of Russia's leverages in bilateral relations," she adds.

Nord Stream-2 would potentially allow Gazprom to almost fully bypass Ukraine in its exports to Europe. But it is not clear that, once built, it would be used to reroute 100% of the gas currently going through Ukraine. "Maybe it will be used as leverage - as was the case when Gazprom gained control over the Belarusian gas network by using the first line of Nord Stream," the expert says, noting that Belarus sold its gas pipelines system to Gazprom for $5bn in 2007-2011 under Russian political pressure.

Disappointing progress in Russia's efforts so far to boost gas exports to its new best friend China, as well as agree export terms via new routes under construction, also cast doubt on Russia's ability to completely forego the Ukraine route in the coming years.

Logatskiy also notes that Gazprom's interest in gas transit through Ukraine could partially remain for the time being, in part due to the functioning of the Kyiv-based Gastransit joint venture. Established in 1997, the company is responsible for gas transit to the Balkans and Turkey. "That is why some volumes of gas transit, at least in the southern direction, should remain," the expert says.

According to Gastransit's website, Gazprom and Ukraine's state gas company Naftogaz each control a 40.2% stake, while the Turkey-registered Turusgaz (Gazprom controls a 45% share of the firm) holds a 19.6% stake. Logatskiy says that all stakeholders have invested up to $250mn in the company, where Gazprom holds directly and indirectly a 49% stake.

Bring on the 'winter package'

On September 11, the European Commission announced that it had held "constructive" talks in Vienna on winter Russian gas supplies to Ukraine and gas transit to the EU with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller. Russia, Ukraine and the European Commission will finalise a new "winter package" in the near future, the sides said.

Meanwhile, to prepare for a possible harsh winter, Ukraine needs to increase its gas stockpiles by around 4bn cm from the existing reserves of around 15bn cm. The country needs more than $1bn to buy 5bn-6bn cm, and the Kyiv government is mainly relying on financial support from international financial institutions.

Western backers have not rushed forward to provide additional financial support to Ukraine for this purpose. The governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Valeriya Gontareva, has said that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) will only be able to allocate up to $500mn to Naftogaz to buy gas in the upcoming heating season.

However, Miller said on September 11 that the EU might provide Kyiv with $500mn for gas purchases of about 2bn cm. According to the Russian side, the trilateral meeting at which this question might be discussed could take place within a few days. Ukraine and the European Commission did not comment on the issue.

Ukraine suspended its Russian gas purchases in early July, citing its inability to secure a heavily discounted price from Gazprom for the third quarter of the year. According to Volodymyr Demchyshyn, Ukraine's minister for the energy and coal industry, the cost of Russian gas for the fourth quarter could be around $250 per 1,000 cm, but Kyiv will try to secure a significant discount. Currently, Ukraine imports natural gas from Russian clients in Europe, like Slovakia and Poland, by reverse flow, and with a mark-up, according to the Russians.

"It is common knowledge that the reverse gas they [Ukraine] receive from several European countries costs $20-30 more [per 1,000 cm] to consumers," Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said earlier in September, adding that this means paying $270-280 per 1,000 cm.

Brinkmanship continues

Other analysts said Kyiv is already treading a thin line on the issue, having rejected a 14% discount while pushing for the up to 30% reduction it had enjoyed since 2010. "On the one hand, the price of Russian gas for [the fourth quarter], even without a discount, will be the lowest in the last five years," analyst Alexander Paraschiy of the Kyiv-based Concorde Capital investment house wrote in a note to clients. "On the other, Ukraine will create a dangerous precedent by agreeing for the first time on a smaller-than-ever discount."

Kyiv also still has some useful supply leverage in the talks. The analyst Logatskiy notes that the EU and Russia know that if they want to have normal supplies during the winter, they should provide funding to Ukraine for obtaining Russian gas that will be pumped to underground gas storage facilities. "Ukraine has enough gas stockpiles for its own consumption during the winter season. If the winter is warm, it will be sufficient to have 16bn-17bn cm of gas; if the winter is cold, it will need 18bn-19bn cm," he says, adding that volumes above these levels are necessary to secure stable supplies of Russian gas to European countries. "As an option, European countries could buy Russian gas using their own funds and pump it into our storage facilities."

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 #33
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
September 14, 2015
Ukraine: Gabon with Snow
By Anatoly Karlin

I have always loved falsifiable predictions. Let's look at some that Ukrainian policians have made for Ukraine.

President Leonid Kravchuk, 1991: In 10 years, we will become the richest country in Europe. We will be a second France!

President Viktor Yushchenko, 2004: In 10 years, we will live like Poland!

Leader of the Opposition and Mayor of Kiev Vitaly Klitschko, 2013: In a year you won't recognze Ukraine!

Ex-Head of Foreign Ministry Vladimir Ogryzko, 2013: "In 22 years Ukraine will be one of the leading countries of the civilized North Atlantic community. And in Europe there will be a Paris-Berlin-Warsaw-Kiev axis that will determine the fates of all other countries."

Former Georgian President (wanted for crimes in Georgia) and Governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili, June 2015: Ukraine is poorer than Moldova, previously the poorest country in Europe, is poreer than Armenia, Albania, Kosovo...

Former Georgian President (wanted for crimes in Georgia) and Governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili, June 2015: In 20 years, we will return to Yanukovych-era living standards.

Ukraine's Finance Minister and US Citizen Natalie Jaresko, August 2015: In 25 years, Ukraine's GDP might reach Switzerland's level.

Former Georgian President (wanted for crimes in Georgia) and Governor of Odessa Mikheil Saakashvili, September 2015: "Ukraine's GDP has fallen from $184 billion to $115 billion, that is we have fallen close to Gabon's level. With all due respect to Africa, Ukraine is Gabon."

Forget about Khrantsiya. Forget even about Polan stronk. Ukraine is now Gabon with permafrost!

And I do apologize for my calumny against Gabon. As a cursory glance at IMF statistics shows, its GDP per capita is actually now about 3 times that of Ukraine.

And poor, unfortunate Switzerland - what an economic catastrophe Jaresko is forecasting for you! Are we really looking at a full Africanization of the Helvetic highlands as soon as 2040?? Even I'm not that pessimistic on the longterm effects of the current refugee crisis, but apparently Ukraine's American Finance Minister is!

Though by then, even Africa might well be an improvement. As befits an oligarchic regime relying on Euro-Atlantic cargo cultists and iodine-deficient inbred stormfags for its support, it isn't all that surprising to see Ukraine registerering as many polio cases as all of continental Africa combined in 2015.

    "Two children in southwestern Ukraine have been paralyzed by polio, the first outbreak of the disease in Europe since 2010, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, in a setback for a global eradication campaign.

    "The WHO said Ukraine had been at particular risk of an outbreak because of inadequate vaccination coverage. In 2014, only 50 percent of children were fully immunized against polio and other preventable diseases, it said.

    "The risk of further spread within the country is high, although the threat to nearby Romania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia is low, a WHO statement said."

Note that this is happening in the svidomy south-west of the country that is completely untouched by the war. The only region of the world where there are more polio cases is the tribal areas of Pakistan/Afghanistan swarming with mujadeen fighters. So it is not that surprising to also the natural sense of brotherhood tying svidomy Azov fanatics to the Mohammedan invaders who are fighting to drag Novorossiya back into the Banderastan lunatic asylum, and whose presence even the NYT has by now been forced to acknowledege.

And why is Novorossiya fighting? So as not to have to listen to:

High Gauleiter of Galicia-Volhynia Dmytro Yarosh, 2020: We are now back in our golden age when the Proto-Ukrs dug out the Black Sea. We have arrived at our destination and we intend to stay here forever!

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 #34
http://readrussia.com
September 15, 2015
The King Is Dead, Long Live the King!
By Mark Adomanis

This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting in Kiev. A broad range of Ukrainian and Western experts (with a smattering of Russians from the "non-systemic" opposition) discussed an equally broad range of topics including security, economic reform, and politics.

The conference started off with an address by Ukrainian president Poroshenko and a subsequent Q&A with British journalist Gideon Rachmann, the Financial Times' primary foreign correspondent.

It all started off simply enough, with Poroshenko making broad, sweeping statements about Ukraine's "democratic and European choice." It was a stump speech that he has had to deliver with great frequency over the past year, and he has become quite efficient at doing so.

However, Poroshenko's address soon moved past such abstractions and transformed into a highly enlightening exchange. When pressed by Rachmann, who to his credit asked a series of remarkably frank and difficult questions, on his failure to fulfill a campaign promise and divest his business holdings, Poroshenko basically admitted that he hadn't sold off his businesses because he wasn't going to get a very good price.

Now, on the one hand, this is true! There is currently not very much appetite among Western investors for Ukrainian confectionary manufacturers or media companies. It seems obvious that the valuation of Poroshenko's businesses is quite a bit lower than it was just a year or two ago. As a future banker, I totally understand and sympathize with his frustration: even for someone as wealthy as Poroshenko, watching money disappear in such a manner is positively infuriating.

The problem, however, is that Poroshenko's promise to divest wasn't contingent on getting a good deal or a favorable price. You never hear politicians say "I will get rid of my business holdings, but only so long as I make even more money in the process. Otherwise I'll continue to own them"

In advanced democratic countries getting out of the business world is considered a non-negotiable requirement for being in public office, a cost, so to speak, of being a public figure.

It's worth remembering that no one forced Poroshenko to become president. He chose to run in the election because he wanted to do so and because he (accurately) figured he had a decent chance at winning. He knew, at the time, that if he won he would be obligated to divest his business empire. If he considered this an unacceptable cost, or if he was only willing to do so within a particular price range, he should never have run for office in the first place.

Poroshenko's open, and rather unapologetic, refusal to get out of business is a particularly clear example of the collective holiday from reality that people so often seem to take when it comes to Ukraine. Obvious, blatant violations of previously negotiated agreements, like Poroshenko's iron-clad promise to divest his business empire, somehow "don't count" because the economic situation is tough and because Russia is bad.

But as Ukraine ought to know given its fixation on "Europe," that's not how the rule of law actually works. You don't get to pick and choose which laws to follow, and you don't get to break certain rules because they're difficult, expensive, or inconvenient.

Poroshenko isn't a bad guy and, as anyone who has heard him speak for more than thirty second seconds can attest, is quite obviously not the fanatic Nazi he is sometimes portrayed as in Russian propaganda. Considering the circumstances which he inherited, he's actually done a quite respectable job of holding things together. Certainly Ukraine's domestic economic and political situation could be a whole lot worse than it is at the moment.

But Poroshenko's failure to get out of business is a crystal clear example of the current Ukrainian government's desire to have its cake and eat it too. The country's leadership wants to get all of the credit for enacting "tough reforms" without actually doing anything.

It is also a handy reminder that, for all of the incessant talk about Ukraine's "transformation," the rules of the game remain depressingly similar. Yes Poroshenko's companies are much more transparent and better run than the murky, quasi-criminal, business empire that Yanukovych and his family cobbled together when they were in power. But at the end of the day, absent all of the political rhetoric, the person running Ukraine continues to own a rather large portion of it.

The commingling of economic and political power was a big problem for Ukraine in the past, and it hasn't stopped being a problem now. That simple fact can't be changed by rhetoric and shamanic invocations of "Europe," it can only be changed by actions.

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 #35
Vineyard of the Saker
http://thesaker.is
September 15, 2015
Listening to the crazies gunning for Poroshenko (and the USA?)
By The Saker

I sat down and listened to the full four hours of the infamous "Shuster Live" show of September 4th.  This was not easy (if only because to a Russian ear Ukrainian sounds roughly like Klingon to a English speaker.  Except that Ukrainian is really easy to understand, as it is basically a mix of rural Russian, Polish and some old Slavic words).  But it was also very interesting (if you understand Russian, or Klingon-Russian, you can watch the full show here). [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04qwTGXhzgc] For one thing, my personal Ukronazi favorite - Oleg Liashko - was invited.  I also had the opportunity to listen to the bona fide Nazi Oleg Tiagnibok (the leader of the "Freedom" party).  The topic was what happened during the protests, who was responsible for the grenade attack and whether or not the Rada has the right to change the Ukrainian constitution.

Very interesting stuff.

There were also supporters of Poroshenko invited.  It was quite amazing to see the contrast between them and the "Ukronazi opposition" (i.e. Liashko, Tiagnibok & Co.).  While the supporters of the current Adminisration looked extremely defensive and uncomfortable, both Tiagnibok and Liashko looked moved by a sincere sense of outrage.  They were confident, very articulate and, in their own way, logical.  Now, please do not construe what I just said as an endorsement.  Hitler was also confident, articulate and logical his own way.  All I am saying is that while all these politicians have very low ratings of popular support, the Urkonazi opposition looks far more credible than the Poroshenko fanboys.  Again, the SS was clearly far more credible than the SA, but to state that does not imply an endorsement of either one.

One of the arguments put forth by the Ukronazi opposition is this: considering that the Rada's support right now is in the single digits, this body has no right whatsoever to reform the Constitution of the country.  Furthermore, if the Donbass is to get any kind of special status, it ought to be approved in a popular referendum.  A very nice and "democratic" idea for sure.

Except that all the changes resulting from the implementation of the Minsk-2 Agreement (M2A) must be negotiated with the representatives of the Donbass

Except that no such negotiations took place.  In fact, the junta has specifically rejected any such negotiations.

Except that the deadline for the implementation of M2A is the end of 2015.

Except that M2A was ratified by the UN Security Council and is now mandatory for the Ukraine.

[Sidebar: In other words, the delaying tactics used by Poroshenko are, in fact, having a fatal impact upon M2A and the Ukraine will soon be in material breach of a UN Security Council resolution.
What would that mean practically?  Well, since Uncle Sam has his veto power over any UNSC resolution, there is no danger from any consequences for the junta in power, at least not coming from the UNSC.  However, and this is important, there are two major consequences which will result from such a situation:
1) Russia would legally keep the control of the Russian-Ukrainian border (M2A foresees that Russia would relinquish the control of that border only after all the other terms of the M2A are fully implemented; M2A is not a list, it is a sequence)
2) Russia could declare that M2A has officially failed due to the refusal of the junta to abide by its terms.  At this point in time, Russia would have all the options on the table, including a possible recognition of the Lugansk and Donetsk Republics (although there would be problems with that considering that the actual territory of these republics has not been defined yet) and moving in peacekeepers, possibly as part of a SCO operation].

My gut feeling is that the grenade tossing in Kiev was a carefully set up false flag and that the Poroshenko people (i.e. the USA) are really behind it.  The purpose is to make those who oppose the (even partial) implementation of M2A as violent terrorists.  And since Poroshenko obviously has no desire to really abide by the terms of M2A, I can only conclude that the current crisis is not triggered by the pseudo-implementation of M2A but by the desire of both sides to use M2A as a pretext to get rid of the other.  It was quite amazing to see Avakov, the Minister of Internal Affairs, immediately blame the Freedom Party and Oleg Tiagnibok even though no investigation had been completed (it reminded me of how the US immediately blamed Osama Bin Laden on 911).  Oleg Liashko and his Radical Party correctly read the writing on the wall and immediately left the coalition in power and joined the opposition.

Poroshenko is now in a very difficult situation.  The Radicals have left him and Yulia Timoshenko is now openly saying that she could replace Iatseniuk ("our man Iats"). She also sided with the Freedom Party against Avakov and Iatseniuk.   As for Iatseniuk - he is hated by everybody except the US Embassy and his future appears to be very gloomy at best.

Last, but most definitely not least, our friend Saakashvili, the current governor of Odessa, publicly went on air to declare that he had been lied to by everybody and that the regime is corrupt and run by oligarchs!  Considering that it was Poroshenko who appointed Saakashvili to replace Igor Palitsa - the man who organized the Odessa Massacre and who used to be "Kolomoiski's man in Odessa" - it is rather strange (if immensely gratifying) to see Saakashvili now turn against the regime.

My sense is that things are now becoming extremely dangerous for the junta.  While Poroshenko did succeed in wrestling Odessa away from Kolomoiski (at least officially), Saakashvili has now turned against him while Kolomoiskii is now free to run his huge empire, including Privat Bank and the various death squads Privat Bank pays for, in any way he sees fit.

Could it be that the Uncle Sam is losing his grip over the Ukraine?

Here is what I see:  First, who were the main "our SOBs" in the Ukraine?  It's a long list for sure, but I would include the following at the top: Iatseniuk, Poroshenko, Avakov, Turchinov, Nalivaichenko.  The last one has already been given the boot, and the four other are now in deep trouble.  At this moment in time it appears that the following figures are all in support of regime change: Tiagnibok, Timoshenko, Liashko,  Kolomoiski, Iarosh and, apparently, Saakashvili.  Add to this that none of these figures appear to have any real popular support, and you get a very unstable dynamic and a real potential for regime change.

It could even be that for the USA regime change might be a desirable option.  If the US has concluded that the current team of "our SOBs" has failed and is unable to get anything done, then getting some real crazies in power might be a good option as it would most definitely result in even more chaos and violence, all of which can then be used either as a pretext to intervene directly or indirectly or, alternatively, to be presented as a rationale to "protect Europe" from the chaos in the East.  If you think Libya and Syria can generate a lot of refugees, wait until 42'000'000+ Ukrainians start running from the latest "success" of "democracy"!

It is too early to make any predictions yet, if only because the situation is very unstable.  But listening to Tiagnibok and Liashko I get the feeling that these guys are not just going to pack and leave for Israel or the USA.  They are going to stay and fight.  And in a fight between, basically, non-entitites like Poroshenko, Turchinov, Avakov and Iatseniuk on one side and strong personalities like Tiagnibok, Liashko, Iarosh, Timoshenko and Kolomoiskii on the other - my money is definitely on the 2nd group.

The next few months are going to be very, very interesting.

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 #36
Bloomberg
September 16, 2015
Ukraine Lobbies Lawmakers With Debt Vote Said at Risk of Failing
By Natasha Doff and Daryna Krasnolutska

Ukraine's government has stepped up last-minute lobbying because of growing concern that lawmakers won't back an accord to restructure $18 billion of foreign debt.

Government officials have met with ruling and opposition parties before a vote Thursday that's supposed to give final approval to the debt deal, according to Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. There are risks that the legislation will fail, according to a person familiar with the restructuring, who asked not to be named because the details are private. Another person familiar with the situation put the chances of approval at 50-50.

Rejection of the debt pact would risk complicating Ukraine's default and its $17.5 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, which set restructuring as a condition for the aid. Support for President Petro Poroshenko and his government has ebbed as the coalition seeks to meet the terms of a peace agreement designed to end the 18-month insurgency in Ukraine's east. Political parties are also being influenced by local elections, set for October.

"There are risks and they are high," Alexander Valchyshen, head of research at Investment Capital Ukraine in Kiev, said by phone. "Lawmakers are populists from their roots. They won't have a clear understanding of what is happening, what's needed to bring the economy out of recession."
Debt Writedown

The debt accord, sealed in August after months of talks with creditors,  envisages a 20 percent writedown to the face value of the bonds, higher average coupons and warrants tied to a recovery in Ukraine's shrinking economy. After lawmakers approve the deal, Ukraine must give bondholders 21 days to vote on the terms. A self-imposed deadline of Sept. 15 to launch this process has already been missed.

While Ukraine can schedule additional votes in parliament, failure to back the deal this week would mean Ukraine must impose a moratorium on a bond payment due Sept. 23, rather than suspending payment as agreed in the restructuring pact, one of the people said. That security has a 10-day grace period.

"Technically, it's a default either way,"  Fyodor Bagnenko, a Kiev-based bond trader at Dragon Capital, said by e-mail. "But there's a difference between the default being part of a fully agreed upon process, or as a result of a last-minute rejection by parliament. The latter course wouldn't look good."

The $1.25 billion bond maturing April 2023 kept declines, falling 0.6 cents to 76.75 cents on the dollar by 1:17 p.m. in Kiev, the lowest in a week on a closing basis.
'Populist' Reasons

Poroshenko has faced a backlash over plans to grant pro-Russian separatists more autonomy over the lands the control in Ukraine's east, part of a February peace accord signed after mediation from Germany, France and Russia. The passage of legislation on the issue last month prompted violence in Kiev that killed three police officers and prompted a minority party to quit the ruling coalition.

The party of former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko met Tuesday with Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, though won't say which way it will vote on the restructuring deal, according to spokeswoman Natalia Lysova. IMF chief Christine Lagarde met with Ukrainian political parties this month in Kiev and urged them to accept the debt plan.

If a lawmaker doesn't back the debt accord "because of political, populist and false reasons," it means they don't support Ukraine's reforms, which are "backed by the entire free world," Yatsenyuk said.

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 #37
Antiwar.com
September 14, 2015
Ukraine President Under Pressure to Install Saakashvili as New PM
Former Georgia President Best Known for Starting 2008 War With Russia
By Jason Ditz

In his interview today with The Independent, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tried to talk up the possibility of peace with Russia, a dramatic shift for a politician whose whole term in office has been built around talking up the idea of a full-scale war with Russia.

The bigger news, however, is that Poroshenko is facing growing pressure to oust current premier Arseny Yatsenyuk and install former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in his place. A petition is ongoing which shows growing support for the Georgian as a "reformer."

Ukraine's struggles with corruption are only growing, and since being installed as Odessa's governor Saakashvili has been very outspoken in his opposition to "oligarchs" who the government are blaming for the corruption. Poroshenko insisted Saakashvili has his support on the matter.

But when asked pointedly about Saakashvili becoming the new premier, Poroshenko was a bit more coy, saying he believes Saakashvili would make a "great prime minister of Georgia" but not addressing directly the possible job opening.

If Poroshenko wants to resolve tensions with Russia, Saakashvili couldn't be a worse choice, as the Georgian President was best known for his 2008 attack on breakaway South Ossetia, during which the military hit Russian troops that were known to be positioned in the area, starting the brief Russo-Georgian War, during which most of Georgia's military was destroyed.

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 #38
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
September 15, 2015
Spying, corruption scandal grips Poroshenko
September 15, 2015 -
Olya Talova, Antifashist
http://antifashist.com/item/uho-poroshenko-sudya-chernushenko-obvinil-vlast-v-proslushke-obse-mvf-i-posolstv-francii-germanii-i-belarusi.html
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

"New Watergate: Poroshenko listened in on OSCE, IMF, and German, French, and Belarusian embassy phones"

Head of the Court of appeals Anton Chernushenko has again delivered a video-address in which he describes how the Ukrainian government listens in on the IMF mission, the OSCE, and also monitors conversations in the Belarusian, German, and French embassies.

Does it need to be said that his disclosures have been a bombshell? Judge the full text of the video message, which can rightfully be called an indictment, for yourselves:

"There are many examples of how investigators and prosecutors appeal to the Court of Appeals with cases concerning the illegal restriction of constitutional rights and the freedoms of citizens. In particular, eavesdropping and wiretap monitoring. There is ample evidence that state policy is difficult to understand in principle. But, in my opinion, this is explained exclusively by the political regime that emerged in the country and the intentions of the country's leadership to use such methods in solving political issues.

How else can one explain the fact that methods of monitoring and wiretapping are even used against international organizations which are working in Ukraine? This can be explained only by a political decree, and this is especially apparent in cases where there is a political will to obtain information from, say, the IMF, or when a foreign delegation arrives in Ukraine...or from OSCE representatives, the Adenauer Foundation, or a number of embassies such as, for example, the Belarusian, German, French, and other ones.

On the one hand, the Ukrainian leadership has stated that the country is committed to Europe, to European norms and standards, and is constantly begging with an outstretched hand for another loan. On the other hand, they use methods that cannot be characterized as anything other than a specific tool which is used to obtain confidential information on the activities of international agencies, organizations, and embassies. This shows a complete distrust of policies in Ukraine. Thank you for your attention."

There is no reason not to believe judge Chernushenko. All the statements are based on specific facts, but specific names are not mentioned. However, Chernushenko is speaking about the leadership of Ukraine, so it is fully understood that the organizing of wiretapping IMF missions and the OSCE was ordered by the main faces of the country, and, above all, Petr Poroshenko.

Judging by everything, this is a continuation of revelations started by the former head of the Court of Appeals concerning illegal actions and pressure on the judicial system by the Presidential Administration. In his last video-appeal, Chernushenko stated that President Poroshenko and Head of the Presidential Administration Oleksiy Filatov ordered him to close several cases. In particular, they mentioned the jewelry store "Graf," which is owned by the first lady of Ukraine, as well as the percentage of Poroshenko in the "Oil and Gas" corporation which belongs to the scandalous politician and oligarch, the nominal owner of the Socialist Party, Mykola Rudkovsky.

"When I was once again summoned by the deputy head of the Presidential Administration concerning this case, Mr. Filatov said that the decision of the court needs to support and leave unchanged the ruling of the investigating judge, because this case concerns the interests of the President of Ukraine. I told him that I studied the case, and saw no legal grounds for seizure of the property of the oil and gas company," Judge Chernushenko said in his first video.

Chernushenko stated that Poroshenko, in the 1990's, along with "Mr. Rudovsky, was the founder of this company. But Mr. Poroshenko sold his share, and thus lost the right to property in the company." And, as President, having great authority, he decided to restore his corporate rights to the property of the oil and gas company, the head of the Court of Appeals explained.

Let's remind ourselves that the war between the head of the Court of Appeals and the Ukrainian government began two months ago. On July 1, the Chairman of the Court of appeals, Anton Chernushenko, didn't appear at his workplace after the Rada gave permission for his detention and arrest. The wife of Chernushenko said that her husband was on vacation. Representatives of the press service of the court were also reluctant to talk to the press.

After that, the GPU, together with the SBU, raided the homes of Anton Chernushenko. They found $6.5 thousand, 26 thousand hryvnia, keys to four cars, as well as SMS texts in which he was given instruction as to which judicial decisions to make. The judge himself said that the money was going to be used for dental work and a trip to the store. In principle, $6.5 thousand is quite small for quality prosthetics and looks quite funny against the background of revelations in which the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Shulmeyster, "forgot" to declare luxury properties, yachts, and cars belonging to civil servants, or against the background of ordinary deputy Tanya Chornovil of the "Popular Front" faction's recent acquiring of a car for a quarter of a million hryvnia.

So the authorities have failed to present judge Chernushenko as a corrupt, malicious briber, although the General Prosecutor's office reported suspicion that Chernushenko has committed serious criminal offenses under the criminal code of Ukraine: under part 2 of article 376-1 (illegal interference in the operation of the automated court document circulation system) and part 2 of article 375 (the imposition of knowingly unfair sentences).

Attempts to put pressure on the disgraced judge failed to result in a decision in favor of the family of Poroshenko. Even attempts on his son didn't work. On July 3, the son of Anton Chernushenko, Dmitry, was arrested. He was accused of authoring the SMS messages which indicated which sentences were to be passed. On July 8, he was released on a bail of 6 million hryvnia.

In other words, the "Poroshenko regime" has quickly realized its mistake in terms of pressuring representatives of the judiciary, who have tons of dirt on all of the current government. But it was too late. Chernushenko himself left abroad, according to some reports, and has opened a "Pandora's box." The latest revelations of Chernushenko about the bugging of embassies and foreign missions by Ukraine directly resonate with recent revelations in the German press that the NSA had bugged the phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2002 for intelligence activities.

There is no doubt that the monitoring of telephone conversations of the OSCE and the IMF, as well as the ambassadors of Belarus, Germany, and France were carried out by the intelligence services of Ukraine at the request of the US, which actually runs the "united, independent country." Moreover, both the American and Ukrainian flags hang at the SBU building in Kiev's city center. The wiretapping targets were not chosen by the American masters of Ukraine by chance. In Minsk, there are meetings and negotiations of the contact group on settling the crisis in Donbass, the IMF essentially keeps the dying Ukrainian economy afloat, and the German and French embassies are negotiating with Russia and other sides interested in ending the war in Eastern Ukraine. The US, on the contrary, is striving to maintain and fuel the conflict. Getting information from illegal wiretaps allows the US to fully influence Ukrainian politics and politicians, as well as manipulate European policies in their own interests.

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 #39
www.rt.com
September 16, 2015
'Ukraine should not count on US military aid' - Russian security chief

The head of Russia's Security Council has said that US military aid to the Kiev regime was very unlikely as Washington is not interested in its success. It only intended to use the conflict in Ukraine as leverage for US influence on the European Union.

"As for military aid to Ukraine, I think this is not something to count on. Washington has no need of Ukraine's military success just as it is not interested in the economic prosperity of this country," Nikolai Patrushev told reporters on Tuesday.

He also noted that the United States were directly influencing top Ukrainian politicians and had used the crisis situation in the country, including the military conflict in Donbass, for its own geopolitical ends.

"It depends on the Department of State if the Minsk agreements will be observed. The White House emphasizes Europe's dependence when decisions on international relations are made. It also uses sanctions in attempts to break Russia, which carries out independent internal and external policies," Interfax quoted the security official as saying.

"The war started by Kiev gives Washington an opportunity to radically influence the policies of EU nations and demonstrate their 'exceptionalism' in solving any issues in any region of the world," Patrushev told reporters.

Patrushev also said that according to his information all key decisions on staff issues in Kiev were made only after approval from the United States. "Failure to comply will lead to the replacement of the Ukrainian President and cabinet with politicians that most eagerly heed any orders from Washington.

"Every visit to Ukraine by [US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs] Victoria Nuland is a proof that Ukraine is not an independent country but remains under Washington's external management. It is obvious that these visits are not connected with advice and consultations on regional security as Western propaganda wants us to believe, but with direct orders on how the Ukrainian leaders should act," he said.

He noted that the United States had extensive experience in destroying entire nations and currently it seeks not only to put an end to historical unity between Russians and Ukrainians, but also to sow ethnic discord inside Ukraine.

"Washington's policy heats up nationalist sentiments against compact ethnic groups that live there - Russians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles and others and this could result in Ukraine's breakup into several parts," the Russian security chief warned.
He added that US politicians had already succeeded in using this approach with several countries, in particular Yugoslavia. "Once a powerful multi-ethnic state, now it is split into several small countries that cannot follow an independent course in foreign politics."

"Washington is currently pursuing similar goals in North Africa and in the Middle East," Patrushev noted.

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 #40
The National Interest
September 16, 2015
How to Resolve the War in Ukraine
"A different approach is needed, one that goes to the heart of the problem by creating a new security architecture for central Europe that all can accept."
By Michael O'Hanlon
Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at Brookings, member of the Africa Security Initiative there, and author of the new book, The Future of Land Warfare.

As the fall of 2015 unfolds, the Russia-Ukraine crisis is not generating nearly as much news attention as it created throughout most of 2014.  But in fact, it is still very serious-which is why the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, told Congress in his recent confirmation hearings in July of this year that no issue concerned him more. The hope that the so-called Minsk II agreement, negotiated last winter, will produce a durable solution seems very unlikely. That plan called for greater autonomy for eastern Ukrainian provinces in return for a verifiable ceasefire, with the lifting of western sanctions on Russia to follow. But Kiev is showing little interest in granting such autonomy and Moscow is showing little interest in reducing its inflammatory behavior towards the conflict. The fighting continues at a relatively steady pace.  Meanwhile, the underlying issues that helped provoke the crisis in the first place in late 2013 and early 2014-fundamental disagreement over Ukraine's future strategic orientation-are no closer to resolution.

The western world's response to the crisis in Ukraine has been measured so far, relying primarily on targeted economic sanctions against Russia, modest military reinforcement for the easternmost members of NATO, modest economic help for Ukraine, and support for the Minsk process noted above. Assistance to Ukraine's military has been quite limited.  However welcome such restraint has been, it seems unlikely to endure once Barack Obama is out of the White House-especially if the Minsk II accord has demonstrably failed by then. I foresee a distinct possibility that come early 2017, some NATO countries will seek to arm the Ukrainian military with lethal equipment. However justifiable such a course of action might seem, it would be strategically perilous and probably counterproductive, since the most likely result would be Russian military escalation in eastern Ukraine and perhaps beyond.

A different approach is needed, one that goes to the heart of the problem by creating a new security architecture for central Europe that all can accept. It would envision permanent neutrality for those former Soviet republics not now in NATO-a concession to Moscow-but would demand in return that Russia commit to help uphold and guarantee the security of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and other states in the region, and allow them freedom to associate economically and diplomatically with whomever they chose.  The Crimea issue could be finessed separately in various ways.  Once such a plan was verifiably implemented, sanctions on Russia could be lifted. Such a basic strategy might or might not work, to be sure. But it attempts to wrestle with the fundamental challenges before us in a way that current policy does not-and to do so while a window of diplomacy before the 2016 U.S. presidential elections is still open.

This proposal will strike some in the West as distasteful or worse. It would allow Vladimir Putin-who has squelched Russian political and civil society and escalated unnecessary conflicts near his own borders-to claim that he was the Russian leader who had stopped NATO in its tracks, preventing any further expansion.  But we need to keep our eye on the ball.  NATO membership for Ukraine and other nearby countries is not a viable means of settling the current crisis in any event; not even the most hawkish voices within NATO are calling for near-term alliance membership for Kiev or any other central European state. Moreover, NATO expansion never was designed as a way to pressure or punish Russia.

A negotiated settlement would reduce the risks of direct NATO-Russia conflict-which, while still small, have grown significantly over the last two years.  Efforts to assign blame for how we got to this point must not be allowed to stand in the way of addressing problems that could impose enormous costs and risks if left unresolved.  For example, a recent report by the European Leadership Network details how the intensity and gravity of incidents involving Russian and Western military forces have increased, raising the risk of an accident or military escalation between nuclear superpowers.

A deal could also substantially improve the prospects that Ukraine can find peace and begin to refocus on economic recovery.  Our present collective indignation at the recent actions of President Putin should not blind us from seeking a deal that would, if achievable, be good for all.

Historical Perspective:

It is not necessary to validate or vindicate Vladimir Putin's view of the world to understand how many Russians came to view NATO as a malevolent force. Whether most truly consider it militarily threatening, a large number do consider it psychologically offensive and insulting. That attitude may not justify recent Russian behavior.  But it behooves western policymakers to understand these predictable Russian reactions and actions if they are to reduce the chances of conflict-not only in the current crisis but in the years ahead.

At the end of the Cold War, the prevailing view in Washington was that the United States was strong, and Russia was weak. We disregarded Russia's opposition to NATO expansion, arguing that the alliance's gradual eastward movement was designed to help new members consolidate their democracies and form a community of peaceful nations. We meant it sincerely, but Russia did not see it that way, even at the time.  Then came the U.S.-led military intervention in Serbia for the independence of Kosovo.  Then we withdrew from the ABM Treaty.  Then the Iraq war.  Next, we even suggested for a time that Ukraine and Georgia join NATO. We went back on our assurances to Russia that the air war on Libya was limited to saving civilian lives and did not envision regime change. Whether or not some of the above policies were justifiable, they all sat badly in Moscow-and some were interpreted as direct deceptions by the western world at Russia's expense.

With each rejection, Russia's resentment grew. Confronted by the West's support for the pro-Europe protests in Independence Square in 2013 (Euromaidan) and the deposition of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, Russia's accumulated uneasiness over the West's intentions increased, and its military intervention in Eastern Ukraine soon began.

There are no easy mechanisms to resolve these problems diplomatically at present. Sometimes Russia and the West cooperate on problems, as with the Iranian nuclear crisis and Afghanistan, but sometimes their dealings outside of Europe only intensify animosities, as with the Syrian war to date.  The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been deeply engaged in Ukraine, but it lacks the political mandate to address, let alone resolve, core issues. The NATO-Russia Council, set up to create a more equal and effective partnership, has been recently suspended-just when it is needed most.

How Europe Sees the Crisis Today:

The current context of the situation was well summarized in a recent poll, released June 10, 2015, that the Pew Research Center conducted over the previous several months. It underscored that the West has a number of strengths in dealing with Putin-but also a number of serious vulnerabilities that will not get better just by ignoring them. The survey, led by Bruce Stokes and Katie Simmons, found that majorities of citizens in a number of key NATO states would not favor the use of force to protect another alliance member in the event of Russian aggression against them. That would seem, on its face, to ignore Article V of the NATO alliance's founding charter, the Washington Treaty of 1949, which states that an attack on one is an attack on all, and should be treated accordingly.

This may appear to some as tantamount to an invitation to renewed Russian aggression. It seems to raise the scenario of Vladimir Putin again employing his patriotic cyber attackers and "little green men," not just in Crimea but perhaps in Latvia or Estonia-former republics in the Soviet Union turned independent nations and, since 2004, members of NATO.  Each also has significant populations of Russian speakers that Putin can claim want to be reunited with the motherland; each is too far east for NATO easily to mount a military defense in any case. Are such parts of the Western alliance, and perhaps other countries like Poland, now vulnerable to Russian aggression?

In fact, it would be a mistake to reach this conclusion based on the Pew survey or any other recent polling. While there are indeed some troubling findings in the Pew results, on balance what emerges is the picture of an alliance that still provides the West with considerable cohesion, and considerable leverage, in addressing the problem of Putin-but also underscores that western publics wisely see this crisis as one that fundamentally should not be solved by military means.

Before trying to chart a path for the future, it is important to summarize not just the headline-dominating findings noted above, but several other key results from Pew:

- The NATO publics have negative views of Russia and Putin. They seem to have little doubt of who is primarily responsible for the crisis in relations of the last two years, dating to the immediate aftermath of the Sochi Olympics when protests in Ukraine forced out the country's previous leader, President Yanukovich.

- Five of eight NATO countries surveyed (the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Germany) oppose sending weapons to Ukraine to defend itself in the current crisis.

- NATO countries remain more than willing to employ sanctions against Russia over its behavior. This was true in every alliance member-state that was polled, including Germany, the most pro-Russia NATO state that was included in the polling.

- Indeed, although just 38 percent of Germans favored a military response in the event of a hypothetical Russian attack against another NATO member, they remained in favor of sanctions against Russia. Only 29 percent favored a loosening of the current sanctions, unless Russia's behavior were to change. This helps explain why the EU reauthorized sanctions against Russia earlier this summer, with even Greece in support.

- Putin remains extremely popular in Russia, with favorability ratings approaching 90 percent; Russians currently blame the West, and falling oil prices, for their current economic woes, and not their own government or its policies.

- Forebodingly, most Russians believe that eastern Ukraine, where the current fighting rages, should not remain part of Ukraine but should either become independent or join their country.

Two more key points are crucial to remember.  First, the type of hypothetical Russian attack against a NATO country that formed the premise for the Pew question about Article V was not clearly specified. Perhaps respondents were in some sense wondering if a takedown of several Latvian or Estonian computer networks really needed to be met with NATO tanks?  For most western publics, the advisability of a major military response might well, understandably enough, depend in detail on the nature of the perceived Russian attack as well as the other options available to the alliance.

Second, and relatedly, it is important to remember that Article V does NOT demand an automatic, unconditional military response by each alliance member. It says, rather, that an attack on one should lead to a response by all-involving whatever means the individual states determine. This ambiguity may risk complicating deterrence, to be sure-but it worked during the Cold War and, if NATO leaders are sufficiently clear in their dealings with Putin, it can and should work now. Yet at the same time, military deterrence per se is not an adequate policy for handling the current crisis in NATO-Russian relations.

A New Plan for Europe:

In light of the causes and circumstances of the Ukraine crisis, a bigger idea is needed than simply arming the Ukrainian military, slapping additional sanctions on Russia, or hoping against hope that the current Minsk II diplomatic process will succeed. I propose the following plan:

As a complement to the Minsk concept, with its focus on autonomy for eastern Ukrainian provinces, NATO should offer Moscow a proposal for a new central European security architecture for non-NATO states. The central idea would be to have Ukraine and other former Soviet republics that are not now part of NATO remain neutral permanently.

Under this plan, Russia would be expected to co-guarantee the sovereignty of the neutral states along with NATO. This idea would not weaken Ukraine's formal sovereignty; no long-term "Hong Kong handover" solution is needed. But all would understand that Ukraine would not formally join the West in geostrategic terms, though it certainly could accept western help out of its current economic malaise once the right policy foundation was established.

Several additional stipulations would need to be added to this basic construct, since Russia's good faith in not only negotiating but then implementing the plan cannot be assumed. First, the basic concept would be a package deal-if one part of it failed or were violated, and redress could not be achieved, the entire deal would dissolve. In other words, if for example Russia again invaded Ukraine, the United States and NATO more broadly would retain the rights to reimpose economic sanctions, to provide lethal arms to Ukraine's military, and also even to consider NATO membership for Ukraine. This is not necessarily an outcome that we would advocate. But other Americans and NATO leaders might advocate it. Moscow would need to understand that they would have the prerogative to do so should Russia violate its obligations.

Second, a neutral organization like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe would need to have the capacity and the formal responsibility to monitor compliance with the agreement, to handle any future disputes about security challenges faced by any of the central European countries covered by the accord, and to investigate and adjudicate complaints.

While negotiations are ongoing, most aspects of current western policy should not change. Notably, sanctions should be sustained but, unless Russia escalates its military activities further, they should not be expanded.

The proposed approach implies that the United States and other NATO countries should not send weapons to Ukraine's military at this juncture. Such shipments may be morally justifiable in some sense, but the most likely consequence would be a Russian counter reaction, including additional buildups of arms in eastern Ukraine, followed by even more deadly fighting for all sides there. Minimal training and providing of some defensive arms to Ukraine can continue, but should not be expanded while a broader peace deal is pursued.

The United States and other NATO member states could continue to adopt the Pentagon's recent proposal to station modest amounts of equipment in the easternmost NATO countries-a proposal that is harder to oppose at this juncture given Putin's continued stirring up of the conflict. Ideally, equipment from not only America but also other NATO countries would be part of the initiative. However, efforts should be taken to clarify that the only intention here is to signal resolve and create in effect a tripwire force; the military positioning should be modest in scale and avoid weaponry with significant offensive potential.

But again, the essence of the proposal would be to move away from a military-first solution to the Ukraine crisis. If a deal could be reached, NATO's new deployments of equipment in its eastern member states could be gradually reversed.

In conclusion, even if things seem relatively quiet on the Ukraine-Russia front at present, we should not be lulled into complacency. Current American and NATO policies are far from adequate to the task at hand. They need to be improved now, with a bold and creative approach to a new security plan for central Europe that would protect Ukraine and other regional states-but without bringing them into any existing military alliance. It is important to get moving on such a plan before the situation escalates further, and before the 2016 U.S. presidential race reduces Washington's room for maneuver politically as well. There is little time to waste.

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 #41
Kyiv Post
September 15, 2015
With Poroshenko - more than ever
By Bernard-Henri Lévy
French playwright and philosopher

Another meeting with Petro Poroshenko at the presidential palace in Kyiv - in the same office with the slightly kitschy decor in which he has received me on previous occasions.

He is under strain but unperturbed.

Wearing the same look of an alert fighter but, this time, with a gleam of confidence in his eyes that was not there when I saw him last in Paris.

He begins as Natalie Jaresko, his minister of finance, began with me the night before: by mentioning the press conference in which French President François Hollande appeared to be considering a softening of sanctions against Russia.

I explain that this is a misunderstanding, that what we are seeing here is a prime example of the art of Muscovite propaganda that was discussed earlier in the day (Sept. 12) at the Yalta European Strategy forum sponsored by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

"Russian press services," I say, "were the first to pick up Hollande's words and set the tone by framing the statement as a victory. The French president meant exactly the opposite. If there's pressure, it's on Putin, not on you."

He cocks his head as if to indicate that he is not surprised, that he suspected as much.

He has confidence in Hollande, confidence in the Normandy Format established 15 months ago, on the D-Day beaches, when France invited him-and Russian President Vladimir Putin-to participate in ceremonies marking the defeat of Nazism. Some would like to change the format, but he likes it the way it is. He likes the idea of the Franco-German unit, the engine of Europe and guarantor of Ukraine's integrity.

"Watch out, though," he continues, his expression hardening. "We haven't heard the last from Russia. It's true that the cease-fire is holding, and it's indeed a wonderful thing to know when you get up in the morning that no brave Ukrainian soldier has died during the night. All the same ..."

He goes still, reminding me of how Alija Izetbegovic looked in October 1993 when, his eyes bright with renewed pride, he announced to me Bosnia's first victory over the Serbs.

"Do you know why and when Putin eased off? It was when he realized that we had succeeded over the past few months in building an army that was not only determined but strong, one of the strongest and most powerful on the continent. And the price was getting too high for him."

An aide brings him a folder containing purchase orders for paramilitary equipment that he is financing from his personal fortune in order to save time. He signs the orders then turns back to me.

"Then there is the question of elections in November in the eastern provinces," he says. "As you know, we are committed to holding those elections. And they will be a prelude to an unprecedented decentralization of power."

"I know," I say. "That was a courageous decision. And it's rare, in the midst of a war, to forge ahead with a program of deep reforms."

"Perhaps. But imagine if the separatists follow through on their pledge to organize fake elections a month earlier. That would be a violation of the Minsk accords, one just as serious as a resumption of military hostilities. And every one of the four members of the Normandy Format would be accountable."

Seeing that I am taking notes, he elaborates.

"Starting with Putin, who can't just shrug it off by saying, as he likes to do, 'Hey, it's not my fault.'"

He said the last phrase in French, with a twinge of irony.

"And if that happens, Hollande and Merkel will have to come up with Plan B in a hurry. Because Minsk, don't forget, is a package. And the idea of free, transparent elections held under Ukrainian law is part of what the four of us committed to."

He breaks off to introduce me to Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, his new diplomatic adviser (fluent in French), who has brought him a dispatch and whom he invites to stay for the rest of the interview.

"That Plan B would mean new sanctions. An effective presence of the European Union in the zone of confrontation. And deliveries of defensive weapons-exclusively defensive-such as radar and communication equipment, electronics, and so on. I'm sorry, but there wouldn't be any other solution."

He gets up and parts one of the curtains that divides his office from the main courtyard, as if to see if night has fallen. When he returns to his desk, he is smiling.

"Anyway, I'll tell you, every cloud has a silver lining. Our army, courageous as it has become, remains a 20th century force. At least Plan B would help it into the 21st century!"

We discuss the refugee crisis, which deeply moves the Christian in him but which he seems to fear will monopolize the world's attention.

We talk about Greece. He finds it strange that Greece receives 20 times more aid than Ukraine while Ukraine is making 20 times more effort to bring itself into compliance with the standards of the European Union.

It is getting late.

I tell him that I plan to travel to Uman the day after tomorrow to take part in the annual pilgrimage of tens of thousands of Jews from all over the world to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, one of Judaism's greatest thinkers.

"That's good," he murmurs. "Very good."

Before we say our goodbyes, his face takes on the same reflective expression that it had in Paris when he laid out his plan for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre, the symbol of the Holocaust by bullets that took place in his country. "That is a beautiful ceremony, you'll see-and it, too, is part of the new Ukraine."

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