Johnson's Russia List
2015-#181
17 September 2015
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"We don't see things as they are, but as we are"

"Don't believe everything you think"

You see what you expect to see

DJ: Why are many issues of JRL, including this one, so long? Because understanding complex and controversial subjects requires work. There are far too many over-confident journalists and "experts" who don't do the work.  
In this issue
 
#1
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
September 17, 2015
bne:Chart - Corruption is Putin's biggest failing, finds poll
Lottie Millington in London
[Charts here http://www.bne.eu/content/story/bnechart-corruption-putins-biggest-failing-finds-poll]

Corruption is Vladimir Putin's biggest presidential failing, according to a survey by Russia's independent Levada Center.

According to the survey respondents, some of Putin's biggest failures were dealing with the "fight against corruption and bribery", and improving "relations between Russia and the West". This shows that the sanctions imposed on Russia and Putin's staunch responses have not gone unnoticed by the Russian public.

In the last 18 months of Vladimir Putin's rule, Russia has suffered sanctions, international isolation and economic decline. When asked who held the primary blame for these problems, the second most popular answer was Vladimir Putin, just one point behind the Russian government/minsters. Putin also came top, by a landslide, as the party most responsible for Russia's economic success.

Russians labelled Putin's greatest achievement four years into his first presidential term in 2004 as "raising living standards and growth in wages and pensions". This, compared to his biggest achievement in 2015, "increasing the combat capability of the armed forces", suggests a Russian attitude more in line with Putin's dogged outlook. 4% of respondents saw no achievements whatsoever.

The poor, intellectuals, and the cultural and scientific elites were deemed to be bottom of Putin's list of priorities, harking back to the communist era, which saw dissident artists imprisoned and swathes of rural poor left wanting. Only 1% of respondents believed that the interests of the poor were addressed by Putin.

While millions of Russians live below the poverty line, Putin is blockading imports and disposing of foreign food as a reaction the EU- and US-led sanctions. Following this, the survey reports the perception that employees of the security services, army and Ministry of the Interior come top of Putin's political priorities.

Many were also unimpressed with Putin's recent aqua excursion, with mixed views over his involvement in a stunt that saw him descend into the Black Sea in search of ancient relics. 27% said they were either surprised, confused of irritated by the event.


 
 #2
Levada.ru
September 16, 2015
Most Russians think protests unlikely, not willing to take part in any - poll

Only about one in six Russians believe political or economic protests are likely in their region at present, and even fewer are willing to take part, according to the results of the latest opinion poll published on the website of the Russian independent polling organization Levada Centre on 16 September.

Asked whether "mass protests against falling living standards and in defence of your rights" were likely in their town or rural district, 17 per cent answered "quite possible" and 76 per cent, "unlikely". Only 13 per cent said they personally were likely to take part, while 80 per cent said they were unlikely to do this.

Asked about the possibility of "protests (demos, rallies, strikes) with political demands" in their town or district, 15 per cent said they were "quite possible" and 79 per cent, "unlikely". Only 10 per cent said were themselves likely to take part in political protests, while 84 per cent said they were unlikely to.

The figures showed little change from five previous polls taken between August 2014 and June 2015; only on the question of the possibility of economic protests was there a brief upsurge from December 2014 to February 2015 in the share of those who thought these possible (23-24 per cent).

The latest poll was conducted on 21-24 August among 1,600 urban and rural residents aged 18 and over in 134 population centres in 46 Russian regions, Levada Centre said. The margin of error was given as 3.4 per cent.
 
 #3
Interfax
September 16, 2015
Kremlin spokesman suggests prankster should apologize to Elton John

The well-known Russian impersonator who claimed he tricked Elton John into thinking that President Vladimir Putin had phoned him to discuss LGBT rights should apologize to the singer, Putin's spokesman said on 16 September, in remarks reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax.

Asked whether Vladimir Krasnov, better known as Vovan, should apologize to the Kremlin, Dmitriy Peskov said: "I would actually advise him to apologize to Elton John, who's a performer who's pretty respected and loved in our country. It probably wasn't very good to play him this way."

Peskov added that Putin remains willing to meet John if asked.

"I will repeat once again: I am convinced that, if Elton John makes the request, I don't doubt that the Russian president will be ready to meet him and to provide any explanations for the questions he has," the spokesman said.

Earlier, Elton John said on his Instagram account that he had been contacted by Putin to discuss LGBT rights. The Kremlin denied this was the case, and Krasnov subsequently admitted he was involved, telling the BBC and Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that he made the call with his sidekick Aleksey Stolyarov, known as "Lexus".
 
 #4
Reuters
September 16, 2015
Russia's Nabiullina named central bank governor of 2015 by Euromoney

Russia's Elvira Nabiullina was named central bank governor of 2015 by Euromoney magazine on Wednesday for helping stabilise her country's economy at a time of collapsing oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

Under her leadership, the central bank rolled out a series of emergency measures late last year to deal with turmoil on Russian financial markets, including an overnight interest rate hike and refinancing tools to help out dollar-starved banks.

Russia's economy is still expected to slide into recession this year, but its decline is less steep than some analysts had expected.

Euromoney said in an article announcing the award that prudent monetary policy under Nabiullina was allowing the real exchange rate to move towards levels justified in the medium term and praised her for cleaning up the banking sector.

"Shock therapy worked," it said.

Euromoney's view contrasts with that of some Moscow-based analysts, who say the central bank was slow to take several key policy decisions last year, including raising interest rates in December and floating the rouble in November.

Nabiullina, who has headed the Bank of Russia since the summer of 2013, said in comments e-mailed by the central bank's press office that the award was "a great honour".

"Our economy is currently facing serious challenges for its financial system, and this demands from us difficult decisions both in monetary policy and in regulation of the banking sector," she said.

Wednesday's prize comes after the Indian central bank's Raghuram Rajan won last year's Euromoney award for helping buttress his country while the United States was tapering its quantitative easing programme in 2014.

Russia's Alexei Kudrin was named Euromoney's finance minister of the year in 2010.

Kudrin is credited with steering Russia through the 2008/09 global financial crisis and helping to build up Russia's rainy-day sovereign wealth funds, an important source of stability during the current crisis.

Euromoney said Nabiullina would be given the award in person at a private reception during the World Bank/IMF meetings in Peru in October.
 
 
#5
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 17, 2015
Sanctions: Russia braces for long haul
Russia, already facing recession and falling oil prices, prepares for the possibility that Western sanctions may remain in place for years to come.
David Miller, Jared Feldschreiber, special to RBTH
 
Russia is girding itself for the possibility of a long haul under Western economic sanctions, as officials in Moscow warn that they see no near-term end to the campaign of economic punishment that the International Monetary Fund has said could shave off almost a tenth of Russia's economy.

A year and a half after the U.S. and European Union launched an effort to punish Russia over its role in the Ukrainian dispute, about 150 individuals have been targeted with travel bans and asset freezes, while dozens of Russia's biggest banks and energy firms have been cut off from access to Western finance.
Russia has retaliated by banning imports of U.S. and European food products, a blow that fell especially hard on European farmers. Albert Jan Maat, president of the European farmers group Copa, told the Reuters news agency that sanctions against Russia had led to the loss of about 5.5 billion euros' worth of agricultural exports last year.

Yet as the dispute drags on and the economic damage piles up, observers said there seems to be no end to the standoff in sight.

"It looks as though the country is gradually adjusting to a new old reality: life under permanent sanctions, as it was in the Soviet Union," bemoaned economists at Russia's largest savings bank, Sberbank, itself a target of sanctions, in an analysis published this month.

The E.U. and U.S. initially imposed measures against Russia in March 2014, following the annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea. Western countries also accuse Russia of continuing to support Ukrainian separatist militants, a charge Russia has repeatedly denied.

"We should proceed from the premise that sanctions will last for a long time," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told journalists during a visit to the Russian city of Nizhny Tagil on Sept. 9. "We, at least the Russian Foreign Ministry, are under no illusion that the sanctions may be lifted or alleviated in the near future."

The U.S. added 29 people to the sanctions list on Sept. 2 in a move aimed at tightening restrictions already in place by extending the sanctions on people and entities that are already covered, such as Russian arms maker Kalashnikov.

Overall trade between the U.S. and Russia fell by about 10 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, to $34.3 billion from $38 billion in 2013.
On the European side, however, the damage looks to be far greater. Europe may lose a total of 100 billion euros due to sanctions, according to an independent study published by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research in Vienna this summer.
 
Exxon's $1 billion loss

While trade levels between Russia and the U.S. were low even before sanctions kicked in, one of the highest-profile U.S. firms dealing with the fallout is America's biggest oil company, ExxonMobil.

The Irving, Tex.-based firm said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Committee that it lost a maximum of $1 billion due to U.S. sanctions on the Russian energy sector.

Exxon was forced to back away from a massive joint venture with Russia's top oil producer, Rosneft. The two companies had planned to start drilling for oil in the far-northern Kara sea this year.

Sanctions also mean Exxon has been unable to collect revenues from its 30 percent ownership stake in the Sakhalin 1 oil and gas project on Russia's Pacific coast.

"In compliance with the sanctions and all general and specific licenses, prohibited activities involving offshore Russia in the Black Sea, Arctic regions and onshore western Siberia have been wound down," Exxon said in the 10-K filing with the SEC. Exxon's "maximum exposure to loss from these joint ventures as of Dec. 31, 2014, is $1.0 billion."

Nevertheless, Exxon has continued to quietly acquire new drilling rights in Russia, apparently with a view to expand its operations in Russia when, and if, sanctions are lifted.

Exxon boosted its total stake in Russia to 63.7 million acres last year from 11.4 million acres in 2013, the Bloomberg News agency reported, citing data from U.S. regulatory filings. While Exxon has been forced to halt operations in Russia, sanctions don't prevent the firm from taking out rights to new fields for future development, according to Bloomberg.
 
Oil just makes it worse

For Russia, the impact of the sanctions has been magnified by the decline in the value of the country's main export: crude oil.

Russia, a key global energy exporter that gets about half its state budget revenue from oil exports, entered recession this year after crude prices tumbled to about half their value compared to the previous year.

Economists broadly agree that both sanctions and oil prices are damaging Russia's economy, but many say it's hard to say which is having a greater impact.
"It is difficult to disentangle the impact of sanctions from the fall in oil prices," the Washington, D.C.-based I.M.F. said in a statement in August.

The agency said current estimates indicate sanctions clipped Russia's economy by about 1-1.5 percent in the early stages, and that "the cumulative output loss could amount to 9 percent of G.D.P. over the medium term."
---
18 months of U.S. sanctions

March 17, 2014
31 Russian officials were added in the initial U.S. sanctions list, which included travel bans and the freezing of their U.S. assets.

April 2014
NASA announced the cessation of all cooperation with Roscosmos except for the ISS. On April 28, the U.S. imposed a ban on business transactions within its territory on 17 Russian companies and seven officials, including Igor Sechin of oil major Rosneft.

July 17, 2014
U.S. extended its transactions ban to two major Russian energy firms, Rosneft and Novatek, several banks and arms maker Kalashnikov.

December 17, 2014
Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Crimea by executive order, prohibiting exports of U.S. goods and services to the peninsula.

March 2015
Sanctions from March and December 2014 were extended for an additional year. The U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against eight Donbass militants, one youth organization and one bank operating in Crimea.

July 31, 2015
The U.S. added new companies and individuals to its sanctioned list including state-owned Vnesheconom bank and more parts of Rosneft.

As the dispute drags on and the economic damage piles up, observers say there is no end in sight.

Overall trade between the U.S. and Russia fell by 10 percent in 2014, to $34.3 billion from $38 billion.
 
 #6
www.rt.com
September 17, 2015
Lukoil is Russia's biggest private company - Forbes

Russian oil major Lukoil has topped a list of the country's 200 largest private companies compiled by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.
In the mid-2000s Lukoil was Russia's biggest oil producer, it's now second to Rosneft.

Lukoil is first among the world's private oil and gas companies in terms of proven oil reserves and is second in terms of extraction. The company accounts for one percent of world reserves of hydrocarbons and for more than two percent of the world's crude production.

Lukoil had earnings in 2014 of 4749.2 billion rubles ($73 billion), has outpaced oil and gas producer Surgutneftegaz which is the third largest explorer in the country's oil and gas sector. It accounts for about 12 percent of oil production in Russia and for about seven percent of the volume processed. Surgut's trade turnover averaged 890.57 billion rubles ($13.7 billion) last year, Forbes said.

Retail chain Magnit was third in the rating; the company's revenues rose almost 32 percent in the last year to 763.5 billion rubles ($12 billion). It is the only Russian firm in the Forbes America list of the world's 100 most innovative companies. Magnit CEO Sergey Galitsky is #15 in Forbes' rating of Russia's wealthiest businessmen this year, with a fortune of $8.3 billion.

French retail group Auchan became the largest of the foreign companies working in Russia. Last year its turnover in Russia rose by 19 percent to 371 billion rubles ($5.7 billion), according to Forbes data.
 #7
www.rt.com
September 17, 2015
Russia's ultimate lethal weapon
By Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of 'Globalistan' (Nimble Books, 2007), 'Red Zone Blues' (Nimble Books, 2007), 'Obama does Globalistan' (Nimble Books, 2009) and a contributing editor for a number of other books, including the upcoming 'Crossroads of Leadership: Globalization and the New American Century in the Obama Presidency' (Routledge). When not on the road, he alternates between Sao Paulo, New York, London, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Let's start with some classic Russian politics. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is drawing up Russia's economic strategy for 2016, including the government budget. Siluanov - essentially a liberal, in favor of foreign investment - will present his proposals to the Kremlin by the end of this month.

So far, nothing spectacular. But then, a few days ago, Kommersant leaked that Russia's Security Council asked presidential aide Sergei Glazyev to come up with a separate economic strategy, to be presented to the council this week. This is not exactly a novelty, as the Russian Security Council in the past has asked small strategy groups for their economic assessment.

The Security Council is led by Nikolai Patrushev, the former head of the Federal Security Service. He and Siluanov are not exactly on the same wavelength.
And here's where the plot thickens. Glazyev, a brilliant economist, is a Russian nationalist - sanctioned personally by the US.

Glazyev is arguably going no holds barred. He is in favor of barring Russian companies from using foreign currency (which makes sense); taxing the conversion of rubles to foreign currencies (same); banning foreign loans to Russian firms (depending if they are not in US dollars or euro); and - the smoking gun - requiring Russian companies that have Western loans to default.

Predictably, some sectors of US 'Think Tankland' went bonkers, stating with utmost certainty that "the Russian energy sector would not be able to find much financing without connections to the West." Nonsense. Russian firms would easily find financing from Chinese, Japanese or South Korean sources.

Whatever measure of attention Glazyev will get inside the Kremlin, the whole episode already means that Moscow harbors no illusions in the near future regarding the exceptionalists (one just has to look at the presidential candidates, from 'El Trumpissimo' to 'The Hillarator'); as Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov recently put it, "[we] should expect toughening of the sanctions pressure."

Once thing though is absolutely certain; Moscow won't bend over backwards to "pacify" Washington.

Neo-Tsarism, anyone?

One might be tempted to see Glazyev drawing up plans to return to some sort of Tsarist self-sufficiency while cutting off ties with the West. Assuming some version of that would be approved by the Kremlin, what's certain is that it may turn into a huge blow the EU might not recover from.

Imagine Russia defaulting on all its foreign debt - over $700 billion - on which Western sanctions have raised extra, punitive costs in terms of repayment.

The default would be payback for the twin Western manipulation of oil prices and the ruble. The manipulation involved unleashing on the oil market over five million barrels a day of excess reserve production that were held back by a few usual suspects, plus derivative manipulation at the NYMEX, crashing the price.

Then, the derivative manipulation of the ruble crashed the currency. Almost all imports to Russia were virtually blocked - as oil and natural gas exports remained constant. In the long run though, this should create a significant balance of trade surplus for Russia; a very positive factor for long-term growth of Russia's domestic industry.

Vladimir Yakunin, the former head of Russian Railways, now out due to a reshuffle, recently told AP in no uncertain terms how the aim of US sanctions was to cut off Russia economically from Europe.

Sanctions, coupled with speculation on oil and the ruble, pushed the Russian economy into recession in 2015. Yakunin, like most of the economic/business elite, expect Russia's economic troubles to last at least until 2017.

Currently the only products that the West needs from Russia are oil and natural gas. A possible Russian default on its debt would have no effect on that demand in the short-term; and most probably in the long-term as well, unless it would contribute to a new financial crisis in the West, something that nearly happened in 1998.

We all remember August 1998, when a Russian default shook the entire Western financial system to the core. If a Russian default is now the object of serious consideration by the highest powers that be - and that includes, of course, the FSB, SVR, GRU - then the specter of The Mother of All Financial Crisis in the West is back. And for the EU, that would be fatal.

It's your fault we can't loot

Enter Iran. The lifting of sanctions on Iran - arguably by early 2016 - ultimately has nothing to do with the nuclear dossier. It's a 'Pipelineistan Great Game', as in having everything to do with oil and natural gas.

The US - and EU - wet dream remains to replace Russia with Iran in terms of natural gas and oil imports to the EU. Every serious analyst knows this might take at least a decade, and over $200 billion in investment; not to mention Gazprom would fight it with the formidable - commercial - weapons in its arsenal.

At the same time Western financial powers in the New York-London axis did not anticipate that Moscow would not bow down and accept their demands that Putin lay off Ukraine - so that they could loot Ukraine's mostly agricultural lands at will. They obviously didn't learn from history; Putin also did not back off when he stopped them from looting Russia.

So the entire, sorrowful Kiev episode, as much as an infinite NATO expansion gambit, was also an attempt to stop Putin from preventing the Western looting of Ukraine.

What we had as a result was a tectonic geopolitical shift; the reconfiguration of the entire world balance of power as Russia and China deepened their strategic partnership - based on a mutual external threat coming mostly from the US, with the EU as accessories. Russian intelligence very well knows the alliance now makes Russia and China invulnerable, whereas separately they could easily fall victim to trademark Divide and Rule.

As for the counter-NATO angle, Russia has had plenty of time to remilitarize, focusing on defensive and offensive missiles; the key to the next major war, and not obsolete US aircraft carriers. Russian defensive missiles such as the state-of-the-art S-500 and the offensive Topol M - each with ten MIRVs - can easily neutralize whatever the Pentagon may have in store.

After Russia, Western financial 'Masters of the Universe' went after China for allying with Russia. The usual financial suspects rigged the Chinese stock market in an attempt to crash the economy, using Wall Street proxies manipulating cash settlement mechanisms to first raise up the prices of the Chinese A shares, creating a giant boom, and then reversing the cash settlement rig to crash the market.

No wonder Beijing, very much aware of what was happening massively intervened; is actively studying cash settlement moves; and is carefully reviewing the records of major stock operators in China.

Round up those central bank suspects

The Kremlin's got to do something about the Russian Central Bank.

The Russian Central Bank kept interest rates high, forcing Russian oil and natural gas producers to finance their operations from Western sources, and thereby plunging the Russian economy into a debt trap.

These loans to Russia were part of the New York-London financier axis control mechanism. Were Moscow to "disobey" the West, the West would call in their loans after crashing the ruble, making repayment almost impossible, as they did with Iran.

This is the mechanism through which the West - and its institutions, the IMF, World Bank, BIS, the whole gang - rule. Beijing is moving either to complement or replace this set-up with new and more democratic international institutions.

If the Russian Central Bank had operated under sounder principles, it would have lent money at interest rates below the West's, and linked each loan to productive investment. A modus operandi totally different from the US - where much of the central bank credit goes to banks and financiers for their speculative scams.

Michael Hudson, among others, has already made the case that the entire Fed only serves the interest of its financial rulers and does not give a damn about American industrial infrastructure, which was progressively shifted to colonies and/or vassals, as well as to China.

So the 'Masters of the Universe' thought hardcore pressure on both Russia and then China would work. It did not. There are reasons to be alarmed; the 'Masters of the Universe' will keep raising the ante, higher and higher.

The scenario ahead spells out Russia further moving east while simultaneously moving to extricate itself from most of the West's institutional architecture.
The merger of the China-driven New Silk Roads, a.k.a. One Belt, One Road and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, although slow and full of pitfalls, is irreversible. It's in their mutual interest to invest and develop a pan-Eurasian emporium.

Iranian natural gas will go mostly to the Asian part of Eurasia, and not the EU. And the Chinese economy will at least triple over the next fifteen years as the US continues to de-industrialize.

Whatever Putin and Obama discuss at their possible meeting at the end of the month in New York, exceptionalist pressure over the bear won't abate. So it pays for the bear to keep a lethal financial weapon in storage.
 
#8
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 17, 2015
Regional elections: What's behind the success of Russia's ruling party?
On Sept. 13, the ruling party United Russia won convincing victories in regional elections as the non-parliamentary opposition failed to make an impression. Political analysts are divided in their opinions: some say the authorities pressured the opposition during the election campaign, others are convinced that we are witnessing "a quality leap in Russia's electoral system."
Alexey Timofeychev, RBTH

Russia's ruling party United Russia has underlined its continued dominance, emerging the clear winner in regional elections across the country on Sept. 13. In 11 regions Russians elected deputies to the regional parliaments while 21 regions received new gubernatorial mandates.

Governors were chosen from the ruling party United Russia in 19 regions, from the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) in one - and one region will see a second round.

In most cases regional parliamentarians were chosen from, besides the LDPR, two other parties that are represented in the State Duma: the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and A Just Russia. The CPRF obtained better results than LDPR and A Just Russia, although in most regions it still lags significantly behind United Russia.

Many observers focused their attention on the parliamentary elections in the Novosibirsk and Kostroma regions, which saw the participation of candidates from the PARNAS party, a party uniting supporters of oppositionist politician and anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny. In the end, the oppositionists did not win a single mandate in either of the two legislative assemblies, garnering fewer than two percent of votes in the Kostroma elections.
 
Turnout and violations

Observers note the low turnout in the elections: just 30 percent of the electorate came out to cast their vote. According to Yury Korgunyuk from independent analytical center INDEM, the authorities are interested in a low turnout, counting on their mobilized electorate to secure the desired result.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) Leonid Ivlev said on Sept. 14 that the turnout for gubernatorial elections has increased in the last several years. According to him, in 2013 the average turnout was 34 percent, 46 percent in 2014, and 51 percent in 2015.

The CEC says that there were extremely few violations during the elections. Boris Moiseyev, representative of the formerly influential liberal party Yabloko, agrees with Ivlev.

"We did not receive statements about large violations from our friends... The elections were calm, there were few complaints," said Moiseyev.
 
Abuse of administrative resources?

Experts are divided about the last elections. According to Korgunyuk, the election results are "more than predictable." He attributes United Russia's victory to an "active use of administrative resources and the monopolization of the informational sphere," which leads to "very low political competition."

Korgunyuk believes that the government intentionally changed the date of the elections to the second Sunday in September, when many Russians are at their dachas and out of town, so that the turnout would be lower.

"It was all done to guarantee government representatives maximum support and oppositionists minimum support," remarked Korgunyuk, explaining that this was the reason that PARNAS received few votes.

Meanwhile, other experts note that this year there were far fewer scandals in respect to the past.

"It appears that the CEC's efforts to form the kernel of the election commissions and educate them has yielded positive results - there was no coarseness, no blatant violations of the legislation," said Mikhail Muzulin, political analyst and member of the Scientific Council of the Russian Association of Political Sciences.

Experts underline that gross violations were not noted, though there were many observers and volunteers present at the elections.

"It is difficult to use administrative resources when public control is so intense," said Muzulin.

In Muzulin's opinion, the electors' support for the government bears witness to the fact that in the regions where the elections took place the economy is showing signs of growth, people are not feeling the effects of the economic crisis and the authorities speak to the population in a familiar way.

PARNAS's loss can be explained, according to Muzulin, by a mistaken approach by oppositionists concerning psychology.

"When an upbeat, temperamental Muscovite [the campaign in the Kostroma Region was carried out by mostly Moscow activists - RBTH] approaches these people, he does not understand their mentality...They needed to work at a grass-roots level, not in a way that shows Moscow's understanding of things."

In Korgunyuk's view, these election results may give an idea of the outcome in the upcoming 2016 State Duma elections, if the economic crisis does not change Russians' outlook.
 #9
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
September 14, 2015
Commentator says regional elections produced "no sensations"
Leonid Radzikhovskiy, No Particular Subterfuge

Election day happened on 13 September. As expected, with no sensations.

A few well-known things were confirmed.

In one region someone dreamed up the electoral slogan "Vote, don't fret." It expresses very accurately the majority attitude towards elections - not only these ones, but generally in recent years.

This apparently innocuous slogan contains two ideas.

First, we should not attach overly great significance to elections. And this matches how people feel. No matter how much enthusiasts may explain how much is embedded in the word "elections" and how much they mean, people with their basic common sense know one thing very well. Their real life depends on a multitude of things - from the oil price to the president's policy, from the weather to decisions by various top officials about issues relating to state examinations or bus fares. But the one thing on which it - life - pretty much does not depend is whether and specifically how a person votes in given elections.

People have heard all the loud talk about how "we deserve the authorities that we elect," how "the authorities need to feel responsibility to the voters," and so on and so forth. But they know that there is virtually no connection between any given election result (and specifically in regional elections) and social life.

So no matter what the turnout may be, there is no mass excitement about elections. There is no basis for it.

The second meaning of this same slogan is different.

"Don't fret" - in general everything is going in more or less the right way in the country. Admittedly it is slow, but it is happening. Crisis, recession? Well, things have been worse, we will get through it, everything is falling into place.... Wrecked relations with the West? This is the price for our independence, we will survive, we will not cave in. This is the official viewpoint, and it is precisely how the overwhelming majority - the "Putin majority" that comprises between 80 and 90 per cent of the population - feel. These people sincerely "support and approve," as official parlance puts it, Putin's foreign and military policy and himself personally. There are many factors at work here - both precise conformity with good old "archetypes" and our "historical code" and skilful work by TV and the "conformist circle" effect, when a person knows (feels) that the majority thinks in such a way that he involuntarily seeks to align himself with them, thereby reinforcing the "majority effect." In any event, in such a situation it requires strong personal motivation to swim "against the tide" for some reason - and it is understandable that few people have such motivation.

But this same factor also determines the entire political jigsaw puzzle. The "official opposition" parties are congenitally not conspicuous for being overly critical of the regime. But  in the last year and a half, against the backdrop of the Crimean events and society's genuine closing of ranks around Putin, they have definitively stopped opposing the regime POLITICALLY [preceding word published in all uppercase in original]. In foreign and military policy, and in their attitude towards state-patriotic ideology and Putin personally, they are in total solidarity with United Russia, only sometimes they are even blunter in their comments about the United States, NATO, and so forth. Sarcastic comments about an "unbreakable bloc of Communists and nonparty people" may not be totally appropriate - after all, in other, social matters the "establishment opposition" criticizes the ministries concerned (which did not happen in the USSR, of course) - but it is indisputable that there are not very great fundamental differences between the establishment parties. Incidentally, this is also evidenced by votes on political issues in the Duma. The practical result of this  consensus is a pact among the parties in a whole number of regions, for example in Smolenskaya Oblast, where they all supported Governor Ostrovskiy (LDPR [Liberal Democratic Party of Russia]) and so in practice he had no rivals.

As regards the nonestablishment opposition parties, they are fighting for a narrow circle of "anti-Putin" voters. And the narrower the arena, the more ruthless the internecine struggle. As expected, the real opponent for Yabloko was their rivals from PARNAS, and vice versa. Both parties seek success by utterly and "comprehensively" defeating each other (back in the 1990s and early 2000s the effect of a "fight between wiener brothers" was graphically manifested in the rivalry between Yabloko and the SPS [Union of Right-Wing Forces] , with equally brilliant results for them both). And indeed, when observing the "high-minded relations" among the "parties of decent people" viewers feel deep sympathy - for both sides....

There is yet another aspect to the election campaign.

In fact, as is known, elections are needed for the following purposes - to legitimize and renew the authorities. Legitimization undoubtedly happens in Russia, but, to be honest, it has been a long time since figures of authority have been replaced as a result of losing elections.

And the little interest in elections is linked specifically to this - to a feeling that the result is essentially predetermined. Because elections are also a TV show, a game, a subterfuge.

And what kind of "game" is it that has a predetermined outcome? "Conflict-free stage plays" did not enjoy great success even in Soviet theatre....

It is clear that there is subterfuge in Russian politics (and how!) and there is competition for seats, primarily within the ruling party. But they are usually "backstage contests" while the performances on the stage are increasingly for show. This is a long-standing Russian tradition. The people know about it and do not expect anything else. But a "need for Subterfuge" [preceding word capitalized in original] nevertheless exists, and it is simply being shifted to foreign policy (which for some reason is paramount for our society), a geopolitical football game in which people fervently support Our Guys [preceding two words capitalized in original] even in elections in other countries (for example, our politicized public is traditionally interested in pre-election subterfuge in the United States).

The elections are over. The next elections will be for the Duma, in a year's time. It is hard to say what scenario they will follow - it depends on too many circumstances - in the economy, politics, and so forth. But I believe that some Systemic [preceding word capitalized in original] features of elections will remain unchanged.

 
 #10
Moscow Times
September 17, 2015
Russian Opposition Must Stop Playing the Fool
By Ivan Sukhov
Ivan Sukhov is a journalist who has covered conflicts in Russia and the CIS for the past 15 years.

It was almost painful to read the comments made by Russia's opposition leaders in response to the national elections held on Sept. 13. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny said it best when he compared the elections in Kostroma - the only region where the Democratic Coalition was permitted to take part in the gubernatorial race - to a chess game at which the opposition sat down to play with its hands tied and its eyes blindfolded. Navalny said that now the opposition will have a tough time explaining itself to those who had earlier warned that it was pointless to take part in any contest under such conditions.

Frankly, it is not clear that the opposition can have a meaningful conversation with anyone at this point, and it will be an incredible accomplishment if the Democratic Coalition can muster more than a handful of supporters at the protest march in Moscow slated for Sept. 20.

However, there is nothing new in people turning out to protest the status quo, and not in support of the individuals who positioned themselves as opposition leaders. That was the case at the peak of the protest movement in 2011-12. Those demonstrators were more protesting election fraud than they were voicing support for Navalny, Ilya Yashin, or other opposition figures.

The point is not that the opposition's resounding defeat came as a surprise to anyone. It was entirely expected, and even elicits feelings of empathy considering the imposing administrative machinery it was up against.

Perhaps the behavior of the opposition leaders was also predictable, although there was some hope that they would break free from that pattern. Instead, they reacted to the election results as if nothing unusual had happened. Once again, they explained to their supporters why they took part in elections that they had no chance of winning and shared their plans for the future.

And, of course, they plan to remain leaders of the opposition as part of that future. At least Yashin announced that they have no plans to leave Russia and that they invite everyone to join their small band of freedom fighters. In other words, opposition leaders are saying that nothing has changed.

That same tiny band of freedom fighters will take part in the next elections also, knowing in advance that they will have to voluntarily don handcuffs and a blindfold.

It remains unclear as to how this band of freedom fighters plans to ever achieve victory with this tactic. Their promise that "Russia will be free!" sounds about as convincing as the government ministers who claim that the economy will soon rebound, despite doing nothing to reverse the negative trend.

It would brighten the mood of many Russians if, on the morning after such an election defeat, some of these charming, educated and intelligent opposition leaders would say to themselves: "Enough of playing the fool in this highly orchestrated Kremlin farce. From now on, we will do everything differently."

That does not mean the opposition should refuse to play such a chess game at all and, before its feet are also tied, stand up, flip over the board and call for the overthrow of the constitutional order.

No, they should continue to play, but they should first untie their hands.

That is an extremely difficult task, but it is not impossible.

There is an obvious problem with the fact that the Russian opposition sees itself as an absolute minority. No one speaks more often than the opposition of the notorious 86 percent support that the ruling regime enjoys and the tiny 14 percent for "those with common sense."

But that is the same as saying that victory is impossible because 14 percent of the vote is the most any opposition candidate could ever hope to garner. What's more, that 86 percent majority would categorically refuse to talk with representatives of the insignificant 14 percent. That minority is like an entirely different people who just happen to live in Russia along with everyone else.

But that ghetto where the Russian opposition resides came into existence not only through the paradoxically massive efforts by the authorities to quash such an inconsequential opponent, but also as a result of the snobbish attitude the opposition has held toward the very people whom it purports to represent and whose support it must somehow win.

As for the members of the majority, they would not vote for Yashin or Navalny even if the presidential administration gave the opposition unrestricted access to elections throughout the country. And yet, they are also not overly pleased with the officials whom they continually vote into office.

Therefore, opposition leaders should focus not on maintaining their image as handsome, smart guys who would transform Russia if only the tyrannical powers would let them and the indifferent population would support them.

There are mountains of work to be done: They need to get out and ask the people - including members of that 86 percent - what they really want and don't want. And they should strive to finally understand why the Russian people were so jubilant over the annexation of Crimea but show no reaction to the crackdown against independent NGOs and oppositional political parties.

They should then develop a new platform based on whatever the people demand - even if that means formulating it in the language of Channel One commentators rather than the more eloquent phrasing of opposition columnists. If one set of tools does not get the job done, set it down and pick up another.

They should search for information channels, investors within the business community - while it still exists - and sympathizers among officials of all levels. They need to build an electoral machine as efficient as that of United Russia.

That might seem like an almost impossible task, but it is the only option if the opposition has any hope of achieving political victory, and not simply playing court jester at Kremlin-controlled elections for several more years.

After that, they can follow the example of those before them by emigrating abroad and selling their memoirs as charismatic politicians whom the forbidding and unruly Russian mob had driven from their homeland.
 
 #11
Putin Model 3.1 - Stanovaya on the Kremlin Leader's Modus Operandi after Crimea
Paul Goble

Staunton, September 17 - When Vladimir Putin first appeared on the Russian political Olympus, people asked "Who is Mr. Putin?"  In the years since that time, they have continued to ask because the Kremlin leader has changed fundamentally at least three times, a reflection of the situation he has found himself in and his own agendas.

Now, in the wake of the Crimean Anschluss, he has changed again, Tatyana Stanovaya says, and it is important to consider who "Putin 3.1" is, especially since this latest version represents a radical departure from the inertial moves "toward oligarchic state capitalism of an authoritarian type" (ng.ru/ng_politics/2015-09-15/14_putin31.html).

To make her point, the head of the Moscow Center for Political Technologies analysis department traces Putin's evolution up to now, an evolution which shows him to be "a very flexible individual" and one that has presented to the world "three 'editions' of Putin and his policies," editions, she points out, that have "not always corresponded with his terms in office."

Putin 1.0 existed only from 2000 to the beginning of 2003, she says. It was a time when Putin's hands were tied, when everyone was waiting to see what would happen, and of small conflicts with Berezovsky and others.  It was also time when Putin "adapted himself to his new political and human mission."

He and Russia had great hopes nationally and internationally, for major changes at home and for Russian-American friendship and full membership in the G7. But this idyl was ended in 2003 both at home, as a result of the YUKOS case, and abroad, because of the Iraq war.  And a new and very different Putin emerged.

"It is difficult to say which was primary: the transformation of the Putin regime into a conservative-monocentric" one or "blows to the regime including disappointment in the US and challenges from Khodorkovsky." But "one thing is clear: after 2003," Russia was headed in a very different direction under Putin 2.0.

This version of Putin reduced the liberals to a marginal position, liquidated the oligarchs as a class, constructed the power vertical, sharply simplified the party system, and marginalized all of Putin's major opponents, Stanovaya says.  As such, it was a time of political institution building even if the new buildings were being put up over others that were destroyed.

During this period, Putin gradually "concentrated in his hands the real levers of influence and administration," often without an apparent road map but reflecting his preferences in response to evolving circumstances.  One can say that his 2.0 agenda "bore in large measure an inertial character."

Real reforms were clearly needed at this point, Stanovaya says, "but the political will [to choose and implement them] became ever less."  As a result, decisions were increasingly "reactive," that is, those who were most impressive in Putin's eyes were the ones who won at any particular point.

Then there was a three year break in this process of Putin's evolution. Nominally, Dmitry Medvedev was president from 2008 to 2012, but in fact, the successor was really in office only "until September 2011."  And that period, Stanovaya argues, "was one of the most interesting periods of contemporary Russian history."

Within its parameters, there was a thaw, new life in the elites, a struggle with corruption, and an agenda that was clear and understandable. "But now four years after September 2011, who remembers this?" Instead, people view it as "the anti-matter of the Putin regime," and it might have become that: a second Medvedev term might have turned Russia in a new direction.

"Perhaps," the Moscow analyst says, "that is why Putin returned." But when he did, he came back as Putin 3.0, something "the country understood immediately," leading to the wave of protests of the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012.

Putin 3.0 presents a mystery in one sense: His agenda was anything but clear because "the declared goals and programs did not correspond with the collection of political and administrative tasks dictated by life itself," and at the same time, they weren't simply about restoration but about insuring the regime against any challenges to its position.

Under Putin 3.0, a new political establishment was formed whose main goal was to "occupy positions and distribute resources. The conservative wave became the political result and inevitable condition of this establishment," and it was something Putin was in harmony with, especially as he came to view the West not as a partner but as a threat to his Russia.

The latent cold war "broke out with new force touching not only issues of competition on the post-Soviet space or the problems of strategic security but provoking a conflict over values," no longer about human rights in Russia but about civilizational "degradation of the West itself."

"The real 'historic task' of the system under Putin 3.0," Stanovaya says, "was the rehabilitation of the regime after the Medvedev experiments but in a harsher and more defensive form." No one can say "how long this process might have lasted had it not been for the Ukrainian crisis of 2014."

That crisis and the use of force it involved led to the birth of "a new Putin, Putin 3.1," she argues.  It wasn't necessarily Putin's choice but his response to Russia's loss of status in the G8 and to the loss of resources for the complete construction of a corporate state.  Putin thus found himself in a new position.

He turned out to be "at the head of a state without resources sufficient for the inertial continuation of its former movement and a leader who has practically no remaining foreign policy partners with which the country can feel comfortable."

"However paradoxical it may seem," Stanovaya says, "the historical situation today is pushing Russia toward a [new] 2008. Only the president is Putin, and the reformers have been driven underground." Thus, no one should be surprised by "the rehabilitation of Medvedev. The times require it."

The Crimean Anschluss thus was "an all-embracing process of the destruction of the old model of political engineering" and one that involved "an outburst of Russian nationalism, isolationist trends, [and] the neutralization of the extra-systemic liberal opposition." And in that environment, Putin 3.1 is taking shape.

A key aspect of this Putin is that politics is directed "not at the achievement of tasks but at avoiding critical points," not at changing the economy but at lifting or at least preventing new sanctions, and to do so in order to avoid any revolution, something that has led to an ever greyer political scene.

One important aspect of this, Stanovaya says, is that the current system is distinguished "from previous anti-orange lines" by the fact that "there is no understanding of what the vertical should be or how the political architecture should be arranged under conditions of political turbulence and social and political risks."

As a result, many of the institutional arrangements are degrading and splitting into various parts. But somehow, the Russian people "remain on the side of all this. The people is swallowed up by television but ever more often looks at the emptying shelves of the refrigerator ... Of course, the Americans are guilty of all this." The people accept this for now.

"The mistake of many observers is that they are waiting for the time when the people will fall out of love with Putin and become disappointed in him. But this will happen only later. First will be anger toward the boyars, the corrupt, and the bureaucrats. And the bourgeoisie, for social solidarity is indivisible from corporatism."

When that happens, Stanovaya concludes, Putin 3.0 will have to choose between the elite and the people; and on that choice will depend more than the regime. It could lead to a repetition of "'the greatest catastrophe of the century,' if the authorities do not find in themselves the political will for a modernized agenda."
 
 #12
Russian economy ministry more optimistic than CBR about oil prices

SOCHI. Sept 17 (Interfax) - Russia's Economic Development Ministry is somewhat more optimistic about the outlook for the oil market than the Central Bank in its baseline scenario, which assumes an oil price of $50 per barrel in the next three years.

"Our hypothesis is that it might be a little higher, but this is absolutely not crucial," Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told reporters on Wednesday.

Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina said at a press conference last Friday that the Central Bank's baseline scenario assumes that the oil price will be $50 per barrel in the next three years.
 
 #13
Carnegie Moscow Center
September 17, 2015
Russia's Long-Term Oil Blues
By Mikhail Krutikhin
Mikhail Krutikhin is a partner at the independent RusEnergy consulting agency

Russia has a long-term problem that it cannot avoid: a heavy dependence on oil and gas, amidst falling prices and ever bigger technical challenges for its inefficient energy industry.

Brent crude oil prices have edged up recently, but for the foreseeable future we can expect an average oil price in the range of 45 dollars. In September in Berlin, energy experts told me they expected the period of low prices to last until 2025.

The IMF is calculating that oil and gas revenues will contribute a mere 15 percent to the Russian national budget this year and that the country's GDP will fall by 3.4 percent. (Many Russian economists believe that the decline will be much more serious.) This comes even as the price of other key export commodities, such as steel and coal, is also falling.

In oil-importing countries, such as the United States, low energy prices are stimulating economic growth. But for oil-exporting countries, which have gotten used to years of plenty, this drop in prices is proving even more painful than previous ones.

In Russia, even a privileged company like Rosneft cannot obtain assistance from the National Wealth Fund and is warning that its production will fall. Lack of investment is forcing companies to cut spending; there are reports of workers being laid off.

The problem is not just that the ruble exchange rate tracks the oil price. Russia is so dependent on foreign technology and machinery (it comprises up to 70 percent of the equipment in the oil and gas industry) that all import substitution programs are doomed to fail, in the manner of the "modernization" program launched under the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev.

Years of high prices made the oil and gas industry especially corrupt. The dominant role of the state allowed government officials to initiate gigantic and incredibly wasteful projects, allocate hugely expensive contracts to their contractor cronies, and write off the losses at the government's expense.

These arrangements ran counter to a healthy profit-oriented business mentality and therefore necessitated the creeping deprivatization of Russia's oil and gas sector. Privately-owned efficient companies like YUKOS, Udmurtneft, TNK-BP, and ITERA gave way to the bloated bureaucracy of Rosneft.

In the gas market, this mentality created mass money-losing pipelines, such as Forces of Siberia, Altai, Turkish Stream, and Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok, and handed Rosneft and Gazprom a monopoly. Small independent businesses lost out and draconian laws prevented foreign investors from entering the country.

The forecast of long-term low oil prices deals a heavy blow to this corruption-driven system. The earnings of the bureaucrats who "regulate" the export of raw materials have declined sharply. International sanctions have deprived Russian companies and banks of long-term loans and access to cutting-edge technologies. Many people close to the regime and state coffers have taken a personal hit.

But the problem is bigger than this. Even if oil prices were to defy expectations and rise again, it would only postpone the collapse of this system. Russian oil production will continue to decline for other reasons. Low prices have accelerated the depletion of easily accessible oil deposits and made the exploitation of more challenging fields impossible.

In those oilfields that have yet to be exploited, around 70 percent of deposits are hard to recover. Some oil-in the Bazhenov Formation, for example-cannot be recovered at all, even though the government still categorizes it as a commercial project.

In Russia's official Energy Strategy the "conservative" scenario forecasts a decline in output from 526 million tons to 476 million by 2035. That already looks optimistic-but all can agree that Russia's supply of commercially viable oil is running out.

Gas from East Siberia is also falling victim to low energy prices. Efforts to give it to the Chinese at cost have failed, despite much official fanfare declaring the contrary. Demand for Russian gas in Europe is not rising. Production and export of liquefied natural gas (LNG)-which is insignificant in global terms-is flagging. The same is true of domestic consumption in Russia. Therefore, Russia's gas sector cannot promise any increases in revenue either, although it must be said that Gazprom's inefficient monopoly is a major factor in the decline.

Under these circumstances, there are two roads the Russian economy can take. The first involves a drastic overhaul of the system to bring it line with market principles, genuine privatization, the creation of a stable tax system, and a program to stimulate domestic and foreign investment, as well as small and medium-sized businesses. But this cannot be done without dismantling the current political system.

If Russia follows the second road, the government will need to mobilize people under dictatorial rule. Market principles will be abandoned, and the people will be asked to endure hardship in the name of vanquishing internal and external enemies.

The first scenario would prove exceptionally difficult during the time of transition but would eventually bring the country back to the fold of modern civilization with its market principles and relations. The second path would inevitably lead toward an economic catastrophe. The country would move from a situation of protracted crisis into something much more urgent, with dire results for both the authorities and the public.

Of course, there is also a third option: let the status quo continue and stand back as the system undergoes an ever-increasing decay. However, this merely postpones but does not eliminate the hard choice between the two alternatives.
 
 #14
Moscow Times
September 16, 2015
American Head of Russia's Silicon Valley University Quits
By Matthew Bodner

After four years at the helm of one of Russia's most high-profile applied research universities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Edward Crawley will step down and return to the United States, according to a letter obtained by The Moscow Times on Tuesday.

Crawley, a member of several senior NASA advisory councils and an aerospace engineering professor, was one of the co-founders of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, or Skoltech, when it launched under MIT's tutelage in 2011. He has served as its guiding hand ever since.

The brainchild of then-President Dmitry Medvedev, who wanted a Russian analogue to Silicon Valley in a west-Moscow suburb, Skoltech has spearheaded Russia's innovation and economic modernization effort. The university is located on the grounds of a larger science, technology and innovation hub known as Skolkovo, which includes business incubators and an investment fund.

In a letter sent to Skoltech faculty and students on Friday, Crawley said he would return to MIT "and take on a role there helping to further develop its innovation system," but that he "will continue to be a proud member of the Skoltech community."

The resignation is not expected to disrupt the Russian university's relationship with MIT. According to the RBC news agency, the two universities plan to sign an agreement extending their cooperation for another three years.

Crawley's unexpected exit provoked rumors of tensions at the institute. RBC reported late Monday evening that the departure was connected to the professor's failing performance since the start of the Ukraine crisis in early 2014. The report cited two unidentified sources at Skoltech and the Skolkovo Foundation - the managing body of the broader Skolkovo project.

Western sanctions on Russia have not targeted Skolkovo, but the university has lost foreign faculty. According to RBC, Dutch professor Anton Berns left the university following the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine last year.

Other universities have also been affected by the bad blood around Ukraine. In July, American professor Kendrick White was pushed out of his position as vice rector for innovation at Nizhny Novgorod's Lobachevsky State University after a prominent Russian TV host denounced White's work as an unwanted foreign influence on Russian academia.

RBC quoted one of its sources as saying about Crawley's resignation: "We understand that it is difficult to work under the conditions of [Western] sanctions, but it was hoped that Skoltech would have developed more dynamically."

Skoltech vice president Alexei Sitnikov denied that, telling The Moscow Times that, "contrary to some allegations, this [Crawley's sudden departure] has nothing to do with sanctions, performance, or any such stuff."

Crawley could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

In his letter, Crawley wrote that it was time to move on from Skoltech: "I am a founder - having founded 11 companies and academic organizations. Founders have an important role: to create a vision, build an initial team and get things moving."

Crawley wrote that the "desirable date" for his exit was before June next year to allow his successor a summer transition period.

"By that date, we will have hired nearly one-third of all planned Skoltech faculty, and likewise have built nearly one-third of the student body," the letter said.

Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who along with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has been one of Skoltech's most prominent supporters, told the Skoltech community in a letter dated Monday that Crawley would continue to work with Skoltech after his return to MIT.

"In order to provide continuity of purpose and governance I have asked Ed Crawley to remain connected to Skoltech in the role of its founding president," Dvorkovich said in the letter, which was obtained by The Moscow Times.

"This will allow for his invaluable experience of building Skoltech in its startup stage to be shared with Skoltech leadership and community in the future," Dvorkovich said, adding that a search committee has been formed by the board of directors and faculty to find a new president.
 
 #15
Moscow Times
September 17, 2015
Russia's HIV Patients Struggle to Get Treatment
By Daria Litvinova

When Russian health care officials announced last week they would start replacing foreign HIV medication with drugs produced in Russia, patients' rights advocates were quick to point out that HIV patients have complained that domestic drugs are ineffective and have undesirable side effects - but patients themselves say that drug shortages are a far bigger problem for them.

Medical experts and NGO activists agree that the move over to domestic medication - announced as part of the import substitution campaign sweeping Russia - pales in comparison with frequent drug deficits all over the country that force patients to wait for months for their treatment.

"The number of HIV patients [in Russia] is increasing faster than the funds to finance treatment, and the worsening economic situation is contributing to it too, so the lack of funds is an issue [in drug shortages]," said Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Moscow-based Federal Center for Fighting AIDS and Russia's most renowned specialist in the matter.

The number of registered cases grows every year and is very likely to reach one million by 2016, Pokrovsky told The Moscow Times in written comments.

"The number of registered HIV patients has reached 950,000. ... Forty-thousand new cases were registered in the first six months of 2015, so it's very likely that in 2016, or even by the end of 2015, we will register the millionth patient," he said.

At the same time there are a certain number of patients who have HIV but who haven't been officially diagnosed with it yet, Pokrovsky said, so the overall number of people living with HIV in Russia could be as many as 1.3 million already.

The shortfall between funding and patient numbers is one of the reasons that thousands of patients in Russia who rely on state-funded treatment often suffer from a shortage of drugs, said Andrei Skvortsov, a coordinator at the Patients In Control initiative that launched Pereboi.ru, a project that monitors medication supplies all over the country and helps HIV patients cope with shortages.

Fixed Budget

As the number of HIV patients grows, the demand for medication increases too, but the state budget for treating them - a three-year plan drawn up by the Health Ministry - remains the same, said Skvortsov.

"We wrote a letter to Skvortsova [Russia's Health Minister], asking for an increase in funding for HIV medication, but shortly after we submitted it she claimed in public that it wasn't necessary," he told The Moscow Times.

Right now HIV patients in 30 Russian cities are complaining about a shortage of drugs, Skvortsov said. The situation is particularly difficult in Crimea and Sevastopol, where health care officials are struggling with the transition from Ukrainian treatment standards to Russian ones following Russia's annexation of Crimea last year.

"Before, [HIV patients in Crimea and Sevastopol] were treated under the Ukrainian system - they were taking different medication, different drugs were used and so on. And now [health care officials] are having a hard time figuring out what to procure," he said.

Difficulties in obtaining medication around the country became significantly worse in 2013, after the procurement of medication was decentralized.

"The Health Ministry used to collect requests from the regions and carry out all the necessary tender procedures. In 2012 it became the responsibility of regional administrations," Skvortsov said.

After that, drug shortages became a common problem. Tenders were conducted late, complicated logistic schemes proved ineffective, prices grew, and regions sometimes spent different amounts of money on the same medication.

Homegrown Solution?

As prices for foreign brand-name medication have grown, exacerbating the situation, producing cheaper generics in Russia as part of the import substitution strategy might be the solution, experts say.

"The production of generics is one of the cheapest methods of providing treatment to most of the patients," Pokrovsky from the Federal Center for Fighting AIDS told The Moscow Times.

"Generics are dozens of times cheaper to produce [than brands] because there are not the expenses of creating a drug, developing it and conducting clinical trials usually included in the price of a brand-named medication," he said.

There are Russian-made generics, and some patients have already started taking them, but according to a member of the Public Council of the Health Ministry, Alexei Starchenko, they're less than happy with them.

"We have received dozens of complaints from patients saying that [the effect of] the [Russian] medication can be compared to [that of] water," he said, claiming that patients had started experiencing the same symptoms they had had before they started receiving treatment, he told the Russian News Service radio station earlier this month.

"It's a disaster. A mistake was made, the wrong decision was made," he added.

But not all those living with HIV agree.

"I've been taking Russian drugs since December [2014], and have experienced no negative side effects," said Maxim, an HIV patient who asked for his last name to be withheld.

"I can say the same thing about a lot of people I know who are on Russian medication now," he told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

Another HIV patient, Lyudmila, who also asked for her surname not to be published, said that some Russian-made drugs made her feel worse, but others didn't.

"There's a Russian drug Nikavir - I almost died after taking it. I complained a lot [to my doctors] about it and they replaced it with Russian Tenofovir, and it's OK," she told The Moscow Times in written comments.

"There are quite good Russian medications, but some really good [foreign brand-name] drugs aren't produced here," Lyudmila added.

At the moment there is no solid evidence that Russian generics are worse than the brand-name medications, said Pokrovsky. "But since there are complaints - however subjective - research into the matter should be conducted," he told The Moscow Times.

"There have been maybe five complaints [to activists of Pereboi.ru] about Russian generics," but they mostly concerned individual reactions to certain medication - the same type of reactions a lot of people experience after taking imported drugs, so it's currently stretching the truth to call it an issue, agreed Skvortsov.

Pills, Pills, Pills

"The thing that concerns me more is the lack of dialogue between a doctor and a patient," said Maxim. "The attitude is 'you're going to take what we give you,'" and no one cares, for instance, that it might be inconvenient to take nine pills a day instead of five, which often happens when a foreign drug is replaced with a Russian analogue, he said.

One of the most important things in treating HIV is precision, Maxim said: Patients have to take the pills at the right time every day, and when there are twice as many pills, it prompts the urge to take a break from constantly taking them.

Pokrovsky from the Federal Center for Fighting AIDS agreed.

"In Russia, combination medications - one pill that contains all three necessary substances - are rarely used, meaning Russian patients have to take from nine to 12 pills a day instead of one or two, which is very inconvenient," he told The Moscow Times.

The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service is to blame, the expert added: It forbids the purchase of combination medications, which are usually more expensive than the same three substances put into three different pills.

Another problem with generics, according to Skvortsov from Patients In Control, is that often the prices set for them in Russia aren't much cheaper than the brand-name drugs.

"A generic may cost one ruble cheaper, but not 15 percent cheaper like in Europe," he said.

"Pharmaceutical companies want to make money and so they set high prices, the Health Ministry says they can't do anything about it and won't increase the budget [for HIV treatment]. It's a vicious circle," Skvortsov said.

Tackling the Causes

The spreading of HIV could be slowed down by preventive measures, said Pokrovsky.

There should be widespread educational campaigns about the disease, including ones dedicated to safe sex practices, as well as specialized programs for drug addicts to stop them from sharing syringes, he said. Ideally, he added, they would also be given substitution therapy - but such treatment, in which heroin is substituted by a legal alternative such as methadone - is currently banned in Russia.

"At the moment, these measures are either not carried out enough, or they are not carried out at all," Pokrovsky said.

"In the grand scheme of things, that's what bothers me a lot too," agreed Maxim, the HIV patient. "HIV continues to spread, despite the things officials say out loud," he said.

Instead of scientifically proven methods like substitution therapy for drug addicts or sex education lessons in schools, officials promote obscurantism, he said. "They talk about loyalty [to your partner], Orthodoxy and spirituality and claim they will treat everyone," Maxim told The Moscow Times.

But even after thorough treatment that leads to a remission, a lot of patients who are former drug users return to their addiction, he said, making preventive measures important at every stage.

Moscow health care officials disagree.

"Sex education in schools will increase children's interest in sex and spark an outbreak of HIV and other sexually transmitted deceases," Lyudmila Stebenkova, a deputy in the Moscow City Duma and the head of its health care commission, was cited by Kommersant newspaper as saying in May.
 
 #16
Moscow Times
September 17, 2015
Russian Authorities Close Down American Center in Moscow
By Anna Dolgov

The Russian government has shut down the U.S. Embassy's American Center in Moscow after 22 years in operation, Ambassador John Tefft said, warning the Kremlin is eroding ties that were preserved even during the Cold War.

"The U.S. Embassy in Moscow deeply regrets the Russian government's unilateral decision to close the Embassy's American Center at M. Rudomino All-Russia State Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow," Tefft said in an online statement Wednesday.

"These latest unilateral steps further call into question the Russian government's commitment to maintaining people-to-people ties between the Russian and American people, which continued even during the Cold War and other complicated moments in our countries' long history," Tefft said.

The American Center in Moscow is the largest and oldest of its kind in Russia, according to its website.

The center had received a notice from the foreign-language library, ending the agreement on the U.S. Embassy's "support," and saying the center's director would be replaced as the library would "take full control of all of the center's activities," Tefft said.

Financing

The library portrayed the move as targeting the U.S. Embassy's financing of the center, rather than its activities.

Library director Vadim Duda said in his own statement Wednesday that the library administration wanted the American Center to continue its work, all its employees to keep their jobs, the center to retain the offices and facilities it had been leasing, and preserve its programs.

"But we must put our cooperation in compliance with the demands of Russian law," Duda said. "A state-run federal library cannot maintain the current agreement on the financing of the American Center, which, in effect, is the lease of facilities."

The library proposed a "new scheme of contract relations," Duda said, adding the library was "willing to support [the center's] activity even without financing from the American side."

A new deal allowing the center to continue "independent work" could still be worked out, Duda said. But the new arrangement, if it is reached, could curtail U.S. involvement in the cultural center.

'Heartbroken'

The center's employees expressed dismay at the decision to shut down the American Center "as you know it."

"We are all heartbroken by the news," the center said in an online statement, adding: "Many questions and details are still being resolved."

The programs scheduled for September remain in effect, but the prospects for future operations were in limbo, the center said.

The attempt to reshape the work of the American Center comes at a time of souring relations between Russia and the West over the crises in Ukraine and Syria. Moscow has been curtailing Western programs in the country, forcing Russian non-governmental organizations that receive funding from abroad to register as "foreign agents," and passing a law banning foreign organizations Russia deems "undesirable."

The U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy was the first organization to get axed under that Russian law, when Moscow proclaimed the group "undesirable" this summer.

The move against the U.S. cultural center also comes a year after Russia shut down the largest student-exchange program with the U.S. - the Future Leaders Exchange Program, or FLEX.

Duda, the library director, said he agreed with Tefft on the importance of maintaining cultural ties and hoped the center would "not serve as a bargaining chip in the political situation."

"We are ready to support [the center's] activity even without U.S. financing," Duda said. "We believe this activity is exceptionally important for maintaining connections between our countries in such a complicated political situation."

The foreign-language library's late director, Yekaterina Geniyeva, said in an interview published shortly before her death this summer that Culture Ministry officials had asked her to shut down the American Center.

Geniyeva had responded that the authorities could do as they pleased, but had demanded a written order stating that the authorities were shutting down the center "in connection with tense relations between the two states [U.S. and Russia]," she told Meduza news portal. The riposte seemed to have stalled a crackdown on the center - at least for a few months.

The American Center received more than 50,000 Russian visitors and held more than 400 cultural and educational events over the past year alone, hosting scores of prominent American speakers, including astronauts, actors, athletes, academics, politicians and authors, Tefft said in his statement.
 
 #17
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 16, 2015
American Center to close in Moscow
U.S. regrets Kremlin's 'decision,' says Ambassador John Tefft
Anna Sorokina, RBTH

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow regrets what it describes as a unilateral decision by the Russian government to close the embassy's American Center at the State Library of Foreign Literature in Moscow, said U.S. Ambassador John Tefft.

"The Library recently terminated the formal agreement for Embassy support of the Center, informed us of its intention to replace the American Director of the Center, and its intent to take full control of all of the Center's activities", he said in the statement posted on the embassy's official website.

However, director of the Library Vadim Duda said that they are interested in continuing the work of the American cultural center and had not planned to close it, "but we must transfer our engagement in accordance with the requirements of the law of the Russian Federation."

"The library cannot maintain the existing agreement on funding the American center," he said. "That's why we asked our American partners to develop a new contractual relationship, the relevant requirements of Russian law."

The decision comes nearly a year after Russian authorities canceled the largest U.S.-Russian educational exchange program - the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program.

"These latest unilateral steps further call into question the Russian government's commitment to maintaining people-to-people ties between the Russian and American people, which continued even during the Cold War and other complicated moments in our countries' long history," said Tefft.

The American Center, which opened in 1993, is a cultural center that provides materials and reference services based on a U.S. library model and hosts daily cultural and educational programs.

The Moscow Center is the largest and oldest American Center in Russia.  In the last year alone, the American Center hosted over 400 cultural and educational activities and welcomed over 50,000 Russian visitors.
 
#18
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
September 16, 2015
Putin unlikely to make waves in Turtle Bay
The Russian president is scheduled to speak at the UN for the first time in a decade. Will he use the opportunity to mend fences with the international community, or further defend his controversial foreign policy positions?
By Ivan Tsvetkov
Ivan Tsvetkov is an associate professor of American studies in the international relations department of St. Petersburg State University.

According to the pundits, the 70th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, which opened yesterday, could be the scene of a blazing rhetorical battle. The General Debate, which begins Sept. 28, is currently slated to feature speeches in succession by U.S. President Barack Obama, China's leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran head Hassan Rouhani on the very first day of the gathering.

In today's turbulent times, the U.N. General Assembly is perhaps the only place where such a diverse range of speakers can gather under one roof for such a discussion.

Of course, the ceremonial nature of the 70th anniversary of the event will leave a mark on the content of the speeches, and the leaders of the great powers are unlikely to set about listing their grievances without prolix preambles and platitudes. Rather, attentive listeners will have to read between the lines and fish out their own interpretations from the stream of evasive phrases and allusions.

It has become common in recent years for one maverick speaker to shake up the rhetoric and bring some life to the staid proceedings. Previously, this role has been played by the presidents of Iran and Venezuela. But at the 70th Session of the General Assembly the bookies' odds-on favorite is Vladimir Putin.

All eyes and ears will be tuned to the Russian president on Sept. 28, expecting juicy denunciations of the United States and its allies, and off-the-wall solutions to international exigencies. But all told, such grand expectations may well be in vain. Not only should obsevers consider that Putin may not make such declarations - he may decide not to make an appearance at all, instead deciding to send a subordinate to give the speech.

The fact is that in today's international climate, particularly in the U.N., it is hard for the Russian president to take the moral high ground over his opponents. And without the certainty of victory, Putin will not act - or will at least limit himself to a formal address.

Over the 70-year history of the organization, relations between the United Nation and Russia have fluctuated wildly. For most of the first decade of its existence, the United Nations in the eyes of Moscow was an enemy stronghold and a tool for the Western countries who had a firm majority in the General Assembly to exert pressure on the Soviet Union.

The Soviet delegation during this period (as, indeed, any period) actively used its right of veto, mainly to block the accession of new "pro-American" members.

After the death of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev's rise to power, the Soviet attitude to the U.N. made an about-face. The admission of new countries was now welcomed, and the Kremlin began to view the General Assembly as the ideal platform from which to spread its influence among the newly independent countries of the developing world.

In the fall of 1960, Khrushchev's visit to New York to attend the 15th Session of the General Assembly lasted three weeks, during which time the Soviet leader actively engaged in the discussions and attracted global attention. Suffice it to recall the infamous shoe-banging incident in protest against what he regarded as "anti-Soviet" statements.

Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union sought to utilize the U.N. General Assembly largely as a platform to promote its ideas in the area of disarmament and international security. These ideas appeared more sober in comparison with the projects put forward by Khrushchev for "general disarmament in four years," and allowed the Soviet Union to present itself as the "bastion of peace," especially at a time when the United States was bogged down in Vietnam.
But this carefully built construct began to crumble in the late 1970s, when the aging Soviet leadership embarked on its own foreign policy misadventure in Afghanistan.

As a consequence, the U.N. General Assembly swiftly turned from being a champion of Soviet foreign policy into its harshest critic. Forceful intervention in the affairs of small and medium-sized countries unable to resist was not to the liking of most members of the General Assembly.

The Soviet Union's reputation in the U.N. was restored by Mikhail Gorbachev and his "new thinking" in matters of foreign policy. Gorbachev's speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Dec. 8, 1988, was one of the most striking episodes in the organization's history and seemed to herald a new era of international cooperation.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new Russia tried for a while to preserve and build on the political capital gained from "the Gorby effect," persistently calling for the U.N. to play a greater role in international affairs. This position was welcomed, especially in light of the openly disdainful attitude toward the U.N. on the part of the United States.

But in the second decade of the 21st century, Russia has decisively waved goodbye to the legacy of Gorbachev's foreign policy. If Putin decides to devote his speech at the 70th Session of the U.N. General Assembly to the need for strict observance of international law and a more prominent role for the U.N., he might simply be catcalled.

For many years, Moscow subjected Washington to legitimate criticism, but now the Kremlin has demonstrated by example that it recognizes no other means in the defense of national interests other than power politics in circumvention of all international institutions.

Having made this "coming-out," Russia has effectively nullified the many years of image-building in the eyes of the U.N.; the goodwill toward Brezhnev's Soviet Union in the late 1970s is but a distant memory. Fast forward to today and the reality is that appeals by the Russian president to the anti-Americanism of some delegations in the hall will not work. For many, modern Russia is no better than the United States - it, too, is a great-power predator that is only looking out for No. 1.

This being the case, Vladimir Putin's best option when speaking from the U.N. podium is to refrain from making bombastic statements about respect for international law, and from accusing the United States of numerous mortal sins. In any case, there is no way that he can surpass the oddball rhetoric of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As the leader of a great power, Putin should deliver a realistic assessment of the current threats, primarily the Islamic State, and show a commitment to creating a mechanism of international cooperation that can withstand them, preferably under the auspices of the U.N.. However, given the present state of Russia-West relations, such cooperation is wishful thinking.
 
 
 #19
www.politico.eu
September 17, 2015
EU splits in Russian media war
New EU task force hobbled by low funding, lack of political support.
By James Panichi

Even as the EU mobilizes to fight Russian propaganda, European governments are fighting each other over the best way to go about it.

A new effort by Brussels to monitor and respond to the perceived bias of Kremlin-controlled media such as Russia 24 or Sputnik has exposed familiar fissures on the Continent.

As the Russia media task force known as East Stratcom begins operating at the end of this month, a new alternative project has emerged and is gaining some traction with countries that are dissatisfied with the existing EU initiative.

Narrow mandate

The divisions reflect deep-seated foreign policy differences within the 28-member bloc that came to surface after Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea last year and stirred up a violent conflict in eastern Ukraine.

People involved with East Stratcom say the team has been told to stick to a narrow mandate so as not to upset the delicate balance on Russia. The media rapid-response unit is part of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's version of a foreign ministry.

According to one East Stratcom member, the office culture is "cautious" and the Russian-language experts are under orders to "fly under the radar" to avoid antagonizing EU governments that are looking to tone down tensions with Russia.

Those on the unit say the lack of a separate budget for it, insufficient resources and lukewarm support from some EU countries are hindering the counter-propaganda campaign.

"Not all member states wanted this team - we are not even sure that [former Italian foreign minister and current EU foreign affairs chief Federica] Mogherini wanted this team," a member of the unit said.

EU leaders called for the unit's establishment in March, as part of what they described as a "first step" in challenging Russia's "ongoing disinformation campaigns" broadcast to countries in the EU's eastern neighborhood.

The unit, established in April, will initially monitor and analyze Russian-language media reports, particularly those broadcast in the EU's six "Eastern Partnership" countries - former Soviet satellites with large Russian-speaking populations, including Ukraine and the three states in the Caucasus.

Then the team will develop a response strategy, which may include social media.

The EEAS has not released details of the team's make-up. It is headed by Giles Portman, a British career diplomat who has spent the past eight years working on EU relations with Turkey. Portman reports to Michael Mann, the head of the EEAS's strategic communications team who was a spokesman for former high representative Catherine Ashton.

'Not enough'

EEAS spokesperson Maja Kocijancic told POLITICO Wednesday that the suggestion that the EEAS or Mogherini are not fully behind the project is unfounded. "With everything [Mogherini] has done she has demonstrated her commitment," Kocijancic said. "The team is embedded in the EEAS, it is a permanent set-up. This is a sign of clear commitment that we will deliver on everything we have promised we would do."

The sources said the unit includes five Russian-language specialists sent to Brussels from EU states: a Czech, a British national (in addition to Portman), a Dane, an Estonian and a Latvian. They will not become permanent members of staff, but have signed one-year contracts which can be extended for up to four years. Their salaries are paid by their individual governments. Sources say the EEAS has provided four of its own staffers to work with the task force.

EEAS refused to comment on staffing arrangements.

A Polish diplomatic source said his government had planned to contribute a Russian-language expert to the team, but withdrew its offer after being told that Portman, rather than the Polish candidate that Warsaw had put forward, would head the unit.

Critics say the lack of support has already hobbled the effort.

"It has to be equipped with a budget to start investing in different solutions and different media, as well as investing in research and monitoring," said Jerzy Pomianowski, a former Polish diplomat who heads the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), an EU-funded think-tank. "If Europe limits itself to [the East Stratcom] unit and simply produces communication about Europe, then it will not be enough."

The EED recently completed a feasibility study that called for "a range of coordinated, cooperative and cost efficient initiatives" supported by international donors to respond to the threat of Russian propaganda.

The group's report proposed an alternative: The creation of a "news hub" to produce Russian-language news content, with a range of Russian-language programming, alongside a "content factory" which would provide non-news programming such as talk shows and drama.

Pomianowski is on a barnstorming tour of European capitals to raise funds to get the broad, content-producing initiatives outlined by the EED feasibility study off the ground. Pomianowski met officials from 35 donor countries in Warsaw last week and walked away with a €1 million pledge from Poland, with the Netherlands promising a further €1.5 million to support the EED's Russian-language media initiative.

Krzysztof Bobinski, the president of Polish think-tank Unia & Polska, said that even though the European Council had pushed in March for a response to Russian media bias, there now appears to be a "diminishing appetite" for doing anything that might antagonize the Russians.

Sanctions fight ahead

"Why they no longer appear interested I am not sure," said Bobinski, who is the co-chair of the Civil Society Forum, a network of eastern European NGOs. "Maybe it is about Ukraine or maybe they want help on Syria. But for NGOs, not annoying the Russians is not a priority."

"Propaganda poses a danger for world peace and it should be countered," he said, adding that the EU should consider putting Russian media firms and journalists on an EU sanctions list.

Eugene Rumer, the director of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment's Russia and Eurasia program, said that while he is not familiar with East Stratcom, any attempt to counter propaganda with counter-propaganda will misfire.

"Looking back at the days of the Cold War, the success of our broadcasting efforts to the Soviet bloc was not in its propaganda quality, but in its ability to bring information to the peoples of the Warsaw Pact," Rumer said. "Propaganda does not work. The best answer is an effective policy."

The fight over the media response takes place against the background of a renewed but so far low-key debate over the future of sanctions that the EU imposed on Russia last year. Diplomats from Hungary, Greece, Italy and France, among other countries, want the EU to reconsider the sanctions in place at the new year, pointing to a recent ceasefire in eastern Ukraine as a possible sign of Russian willingness to lower tensions. The Baltic states, U.K. and eastern European countries favor a tougher stance on Putin's Russia.

Mogherini came under fire from eastern European countries at the time of her appointment last year, over what they said was the pro-Russian stance of the Italian government.
 
 #20
Wall Street Journal
September 17, 2015
Pentagon Takes a Back Seat to State Department on Russia
Defense officials say shift followed breakdown in relations amid Ukraine crisis
By DION NISSENBAUM

WASHINGTON-When Russia started massing troops on the Ukraine border last year, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called his counterpart in Moscow to voice U.S. concerns.

This year, as Russian cargo planes began flying military gear into Syria, Defense Secretary Ash Carter was in St. Louis, touring a plant of defense-contracting giant Boeing Co.
The shift in styles means the Pentagon has taken a back seat to Secretary of State John Kerry in shaping relations with Russia-forgoing an important connection that in the past has been used to defuse tensions or express American discontent.

During his two years in office, Mr. Hagel made his relationship with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu a priority. The two leaders spoke by phone four times last year as ties with Russia deteriorated. When Russian troops prepared to seize control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, Mr. Hagel was at the forefront of the American pushback.

This time around, it has been Mr. Kerry who has taken the diplomatic lead. Since taking office in February, Mr. Carter has had no contact with Mr. Shoygu.

The decision, defense officials said on Wednesday, was strategic.

When it came to the crisis in Ukraine, the calls between Messrs. Hagel and Shoygu proved to be pointless. Mr. Shoygu denied Russia was sending troops into Crimea, even when it was clear that they were there, said former Hagel aides. At one point, Mr. Hagel was unable to get the Russian defense minister to return his call.

"The phone call was oftentimes an alternative universe from the facts on the ground," said one former Hagel staff member.

Over time, defense officials concluded that Mr. Shoygu was "ineffective or not being entirely truthful," the staffer said. The calls reinforced the view that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the one calling the shots and prompted Mr. Hagel to cut off the channel of communication.

In March 2014, the Pentagon suspended military relations with Russia to protest Moscow's intervention in Ukraine. That led to a halt in bilateral meetings, military exercises, port visits and planning conferences involving Russia.

But Mr. Hagel didn't cut off contact completely. In August 2014, even after the suspension was in place, Mr. Hagel called Mr. Shoygu to express his concerns about Russian meddling in Ukraine.

Mr. Hagel said he urged President Barack Obama to keep the lines of communication open because he saw no way for the U.S. to resolve the problems in the Middle East without Moscow.

"I wouldn't characterize my conversations with Shoygu as fruitless," Mr. Hagel told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. "I didn't see any downside in continuing to talk. I didn't expect any immediate or dramatic results, but if we could open up some channels of communication, that would bring some avenues into play where we could get the Russians off the track that they were on."

One former Hagel official said the calls between the two leaders might not have produced breakthroughs in relations, but were an important channel of communication during the Ukraine crisis.

"Did it change Russian behavior in the aggregate? No, but it was good that they had a relationship," the official said. "They were respectful, they were candid, they did not always agree. I think both of them felt they understood each other's perspectives. Hagel still thought it was important to send a message to him, and the Russians, and to the American people, that this was important to him, that he was putting a marker down."

When Mr. Carter took office this year, he decided that establishing contact with Mr. Shoygu wouldn't do much good, said current and former defense officials.

"This has been a calculated decision not to re-engage, based on Russian actions, based on a view that it would not be productive," said one senior defense official. "And the secretary wants to make calls that are productive."

That decision placed Mr. Kerry at the forefront of outreach to Russia when the Pentagon wanted to send a message. When a Russian jet buzzed a U.S. Navy ship in the Black Sea in May, for instance, the Defense Department channeled its concerns through the State Department, said U.S. officials.

Mr. Carter's approach to Russia has come under increasing criticism from current and former officials who want to see the defense secretary play a more proactive role, especially now that Moscow appears to be stepping in to play a larger military role in the Syrian civil war.

Current and former U.S. military officials in Europe have questioned the wisdom of the restrictions on contacts between Russian and American officers. If they restrictions continue, they warned, they could exacerbate tensions and extend the sense of mistrust even after Mr. Putin leaves the world stage.

On Wednesday, there were signs of a possible shift in U.S. policy. Mr. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed a resumption in military connections between the two countries, and Pentagon officials were debating whether the time had come to lift the suspension.
 
 #21
Wall Street Journal
September 17, 2015
Will Obama Look Weak If He Meets With Putin?
By STEPHEN SESTANOVICH
Stephen Sestanovich, a professor at Columbia University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of "Maximalist: America in the World From Truman to Obama." He is on Twitter: @ssestanovich.

It looks as though President Barack Obama will sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the United Nations later this month. In a New York Times report Wednesday, journalists Peter Baker and Andrew E. Kramer described the administration's internal debate about whether to schedule the meeting. Some officials, it seems, worry about making the president look weak and undercutting efforts to isolate Russia. Others insist there is no other way to find out what Moscow's "supreme leader" thinks. Avoiding him only marginalizes the U.S.

So, what's the right answer? There is plenty to be said for talking to the other guy when you have a clear and effective policy.  That's an easy call. Engaging adversaries enables you to show them why they should stay out of your way or, perhaps, cooperate. The only risk is that others not in the room-your domestic critics, or partners you've been cultivating, or clients unsure of your support-will read a meeting as a sign that you're wavering and may cut a deal with the bad guys. But as long as your overall policy makes sense, this risk should be manageable. You announce before the meeting that its purpose is to make clear the price your opponent will pay if he doesn't change course.

This, as I said, is the easy case. But suppose you don't have much of a policy. In that case, isn't sitting down with your tormentor another way of advertising your confusion? And won't it show others-your critics, your partners, your clients-that they shouldn't count on you?

Sadly, if you don't know what you're doing, talking to your adversary may not help much. In dealing with Russia, especially regarding Syria, this administration has sometimes seemed to hope that talk could substitute for policy-that Mr. Putin might want to do Mr. Obama a favor. Secretary of State John Kerry's trip to Moscow in May 2013 and to Sochi this past spring showed that that's not how Mr. Putin operates.

In the runup to the U.N. meeting, then, watch for two things: First, does Washington prepare for the encounter by sharpening its policy? As long as the administration's Syria strategy flounders, Mr. Obama will get no further with Mr. Putin than Mr. Kerry did.

Second, where Washington does have a better story to tell-and its Ukraine policy is working far better than its Syria policy-can the administration put Russia more on the defensive? If President Obama walks into his meeting with Mr. Putin having just announced strong new support for Ukraine, he is far more likely to have a productive conversation.
 
 #22
Sputnik
September 17, 2015
US Presidential Hopeful Fiorina Promises to Rule Out Talking With Russia

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said during the Republican presidential debate that she would refuse to talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin if elected and would engage in a massive US rearmament program.

"We've talked way too much to him," Fiorina said during the debate held at the Roland Reagan Presidential Library in California on Wednesday night, adding that, if elected president, she would carry out aggressive military maneuvers in the Balkans and rebuild US missile defense forces in Poland.

"What I would do immediately, I would begin rebuilding the Sixth Fleet, I would begin rebuilding the missile defense program in Poland, I would also conduct military exercises in the Baltic states, I'd probably send a few thousand more troops to Germany," she said.

Fiorina added that she would send weapons to arm the Kurds against Islamic State (IS) militants and would supply US bombs to Jordan.

"We could give the Jordanians what they've asked for, bombs and material. We have not supplied it, I will," she added. "We could arm the Kurds; they have been asking for this for three years. This is in our control."

This combination of file photos shows Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton(R) speaking at New York University in New York on July 24, 2015 and US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump exiting the New York Supreme Court after morning jury duty on August 17, 2015 in New York

Fiorina has been running with only around 3 to 4 percent support among US Republican voters in recent opinion polls.

Moscow's relations with the United States have deteriorated dramatically since 2014 over Crimea's reunification with Russia and the ongoing Ukraine crisis.

Russia has repeatedly expressed concerns over NATO's recent military buildup along its borders. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the "Cold War mindset" still prevails in the bloc, which ceased what it refers to as "practical cooperation" with Russia in April 2014, when the armed confrontation in Ukraine's southeast began.
 
 #23
Antiwar.com
September 16, 2015
US Foreign Policy Goes Retro: Hating On Russia
Forget the "war on terrorism": it's back to the cold war
By Justin Raimondo
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute.

Francis Fukuyama's famous essay "The End of History" - often cited, less often actually read, and frequently misunderstood - is commonly thought to have been rendered irrelevant and proved wrong. After all, aren't we perpetually at war - and didn't 9/11 show that history, far from having ended, seems not to have noticed Fukuyama's obituary of Clio? Yet if one actually reads what Fukuyama wrote, it's clear he foresaw the continuation of conflict in what we used to call the Third World, and that his thesis - the end of the cold war signaled the end of ideological conflict between rival universalist creeds in favor of Western neo-liberalism - retains much of its persuasive power. In any case, I bring this up because I am haunted by Fukuyama's final paragraph:

"The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands. In the post-historical period there will be neither art nor philosophy, just the perpetual caretaking of the museum of human history. I can feel in myself, and see in others around me, a powerful nostalgia for the time when history existed. Such nostalgia, in fact, will continue to fuel competition and conflict even in the post-historical world for some time to come. Even though I recognize its inevitability, I have the most ambivalent feelings for the civilization that has been created in Europe since 1945, with its north Atlantic and Asian offshoots. Perhaps this very prospect of centuries of boredom at the end of history will serve to get history started once again."

Surely one of the largest exhibits in Fukuyama's Museum of Human History, and the one most accessible to our understanding, is devoted to the cold war between the Western powers and the old Soviet Union. And if boredom, nostalgia, and the desire to restart history is what motivates our political class, then this final paragraph perhaps explains the current revival of the cold war.

Shorn of viable enemies against which to test their mettle - and their bloodstained "idealism" - Western elites are opting for historical reenactment, like those suburban burghers who don Civil War uniforms and reenact the Battle of Appomattox around this time every year.

Of course this sort of reenactment has one vital difference - it brings with it the risk of a real war.

The Warfare State, by definition, requires a constant supply of enemies, and with the passing of Osama bin Laden and our apparent working alliance with the Islamists we once held up as a Dire Threat to the "homeland," Russophobia is the latest fashion that's all the rage in the corridors of power. Putin is an ogre both right and left can agree to hate. Indeed, you'll recall that the Clinton administration faced down Putin in the Balkans, and of course the neocons have hated Putin and all things Russian ever since the Russian leader drove out the oligarchs with as much dispatch as St. Patrick ridded Ireland of snakes.

The cold war is being reenacted on two fronts: Europe, where Ukraine sits at an uneasy midpoint between the NATO powers and Russia's front door, and Syria, where a Russo-Iranian alliance is facing off against the US, the UK, Turkey, and their Islamist allies amongst the Syrian rebels - including al-Nusra, the Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

While the Islamic State, or ISIS, is supposedly Washington's main target in the region, efforts to degrade and destroy them aren't going all that well, at least according to dissident intelligence analysts in the national security bureaucracy, and this is perhaps no accident. For the military reality is that the Syrian rebel forces we spent so much time funding and training have largely gone over to ISIS, and to the extent that our efforts to isolate and bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad succeed, ISIS is, in effect, Washington's silent partner. As it turns out, a top ISIS commander was trained by the US military when he served in the Georgian army: his talents, honed by US taxpayer dollars, are now being put to use in the service of the Islamic State.

Israel, by the way, is playing an important role here, treating wounded Syrian rebels at its hospitals and helpfully transporting them back to the battlefield. Former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren has said ISIS is the "lesser evil" in its conflict with Assad. ISIS, for its part, has gained a foothold contiguous to the Jewish state, but for some reason there seems to be a d�tente between the two supposedly mortal enemies.

As I pointed out in my last column, Washington has been far more concerned with destroying the Ba'athist regime than with bringing peace to Syria and defeating ISIS. Indeed, as the Guardian reports even as I write:

"Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.

"Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal.... Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.

"But he said that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal."

Of course they ignored the Russian proposal: they didn't want anything to get in the way of their regime-change operation. Back when Ahtisaari met with Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin and the Russians made their proposal the Syrian death toll was around 7,000. That our "humanitarian interventionists" are today shedding crocodile tears over the hundred-thousand-plus killed to date in the Syrian civil war - not to mention the floodtide of refugees inundating Europe - underscores their criminal hypocrisy. It also highlights their real goal in the region: the end of the Ba'athist regime, at any price - even if they have to use our alleged mortal enemies in order to accomplish their goal.

This was made clear by the release of a formerly secret 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency memorandum defining the Syrian opposition as Salafist and oriented to Al Qaeda, and predicting the rise and consolidation of a radical jihadist state that would span the Syrian-Iraqi border. Yet Washington went ahead and aided the oppositionists in any way it could . That this was a deliberate policy, and not just unintended "blowback," has now been confirmed by then DIA director Michael T. Flynn in a rather amazing interview with Al-Jazeera's Mehdi Hasan, in which Flynn bluntly states that cooperating with Al Qaeda was (and is) Washington's policy:

"Hasan: You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn't listening?

Flynn: I think the administration.

Hasan: So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?

Flynn: I don't know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision.

Hasan: A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?

Flynn: It was a willful decision to do what they're doing."

Remember this the next time you see news reports of fleeing Syrians clamoring to get into Germany and/or the US: remember it when you hear about how we have to intervene in Syria in order to stop ISIS from beheading Western journalists and aid workers, destroying priceless artifacts, and threatening the US "homeland."

Just as we aided bin Laden and the embryo of Al Qaeda during the cold war by arming the Afghan mujaheddin - Reagan, you'll recall, met with them at the White House and touted them as "freedom-fighters" - so today we are reenacting that tragic mistake in Syria. Again, the target is Russia, which is trying to prop up a beleaguered secular client state against an Islamist assault.

I would also point out that ISIS is fighting side-by-side with Washington on the European front: in Ukraine, where - as The Intercept reported - brigades of Islamists are waging war against Russian-backed secessionists.

Ukraine is where the cold war reenactment takes on its period regalia, and then some: it isn't just the cold war that's being reenacted but also World War II. The Ukrainian government has recently passed a law forbidding the public display of Communist and Nazi symbols, but which pointedly paid tribute to the World War II collaborators with Nazi Germany who fought against the Soviet invasion - and made it a crime to criticize them! And of course the notoriously pro-Nazi Azov Brigade - the battle-tested volunteer unit that has done a lot of the fighting in Ukraine's "anti-terrorist" war against the rebellious Eastern provinces - still proudly sports its Nazi symbols.

However, as in the cold war era, the Europeans are presenting the US and Britain with a problem: the Germans, for one, are caught between Russia and the West, and just as we are seeing the revival of cold war hostility to the Kremlin in Washington and London so the resurrection of Euro-neutralism is arriving fast on its heels.

Washington has largely dropped out of the Minsk peace process and the Europeans are taking the lead in tamping down the embers of the smoldering conflict, lest it turn into a fire that would soon rage out of control. Angela Merkel and the Euro-crats are distancing themselves from the provocations coming out of Washington and the mouths of NATO's military establishment by sticking to the letter of the Minsk agreement and forcing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to rein in his mad dogs, grant the Eastern provinces some degree of autonomy, and prepare for local elections in rebel-held territory. The ceasefire has held up, so far, perhaps because the militant rightist factions based in the Ukrainian military are now turning the guns around, so to speak, and aiming their fire - so far mostly rhetorical - against Poroshenko, who they accuse of "appeasing" Putin and selling out "the revolution."

And so even as the target of the West's unappeasable wrath shifts from "the terrorists" to the Russkies, so the scene of the cold war revival shifts, at least for the moment, from Ukraine to the Middle East. It's an ever-changing kaleidoscope of enemies turned into allies and old antagonists turned into fresh targets, and you need a scorecard to keep up. But one factor remains constant: the relentless push of Washington to "restart" history and push the boundaries of empire ever outward in a constantly expanding arc of conquest and ruthless bloodletting.

Yes, history may have "ended" in the sense that none of these adversaries offer an ideological alternative universally applicable outside their particular realms of control and influence. Putinism, if we can speak of such a thing, is applicable only inside Russia and its "near abroad." Islamism has no chance of spreading outside the Muslim world, despite the crazed rantings of the "sharia is coming to America" crowd. Yet that doesn't mean the West will occupy itself solely with "economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns, and the satisfaction of sophisticated consumer demands." Far from it!

Fukuyama and his ideological mentor, Alexandre Kojeve, foresaw the establishment of what they called a "universal homogenous state" at History's End: a world government, dominated by the Western powers, that would police the globe and lead us to a Hegelian utopia. Yet no State has ever been founded in peace: all States are the result of a struggle to the death between contending actors, and in this case what we are seeing is a war waged by the West and its client states against the rest.

That's why the identity of the "enemy" shifts so rapidly, according to the strategic and tactical considerations of the moment: when global hegemony is the goal, there is no dearth of possible targets. Yesterday it was Al Qadea, then it was Iran and ISIS, and now, coming just around the bend, looms the Russian Threat, a nuclear-armed adversary with a long history of conflict with the West. Think of all the out-of-work Sovietologists who will find new meaning - and gainful employment - in this latest phase of our empire-building project!

As US foreign policy goes retro, Russia is the ideal bogeyman: it's big, it's "bad," and Putin is easily caricatured. Both the "liberal" and the "conservative" wings of the War Party can unite against this bogus "threat," finding common ground in voting for an ever-expanding military budget while money from the military-industrial complex flows into their coffers. The discontent of restive voters can be funneled into war hysteria and hating "foreigners" - while the political class continues to rule over us all, laughing all the way to the bank.
 
 #24
Interfax
September 17, 2015
Russia ready to resume constructive dialogue with NATO - envoy Grushko

It is NATO that ought to take the first step towards resuming constructive dialogue between military officials of Russia and the alliance, Moscow's Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko has said.

"Signals have recently been heard from different 'corners' in NATO that it would be a good idea to revive Russia-NATO contacts at the military level, at least starting by establishing some 'hotline' to exchange information with the aim of preventing dangerous military incidents. The Russian side holds no prejudice against such a form of contacts," Grushko was quoted as saying by the official Twitter account of Russia's representative office at NATO.

It wasn't the Russian side that "cut off these channels," he added.

"For this reason, if NATO seriously thinks that dialogue between the military is a serious stabilizing factor, in this case, certainly, it is NATO that should take the first step towards resuming the normal dialogue that has existed within the Russia-NATO Council for many years," Grushko said.
 
 #25
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
September 16, 2015
Putin Explains Russia's Syrian Policy
Dushanbe speech slams west's regime change agenda - calls for closing ranks against Islamic State
By Alexander Mercouris

A summit meeting of Eurasian States in the Tajik capital Dushanbe has provided Putin with a platform to set out Russia's position on the Syrian crisis.

As is often the case with Putin's speeches, the Western media has barely reported it. Instead there continues to be the usual ill-informed speculation "about what Russia is doing in Syria", founded on farfetched claims of grand Russian geopolitical strategies spiced up with false reports of Russian military activity.

In essence what Putin is saying is very simple: the Islamic State is an existential threat to everyone and all those involved in the Syrian civil war should put aside their differences and their geopolitical strategies to combine against it.

To that end Putin proposes a revival of what is in essence the peace plan to bring an end to the Syrian conflict proposed by Kofi Annan at the Geneva Conference in 2012 - that there should be negotiations between the Syrian factions to set up a power sharing government until a final settlement of the conflict can be agreed.

As Putin points out, Assad has accepted this proposal ("President Assad is ready to involve the moderate segment of the opposition forces in these processes, in managing the state").

At the same time Putin restates that Russia will continue to provide the Syrian military with the supplies it needs to sustain itself, though he is careful to say that this is "necessary military technology assistance" - not (so far) active involvement in the fighting by the Russian military.  Putin does not rule that possibility out but it is clear he only envisages it taking place as part of a broad international coalition against the Islamic State.

Above all Putin remains adamantly opposed to regime change.  He points out that it is the West's relentless pursuit of regime change that has destabilized the entire region, and which has caused the refugee exodus.

Besides, as Putin points out, defeating the Islamic State "....without active participation by the Syrian authorities and military, without participation by the Syrian army, as the soldiers fighting with the Islamic State say...." makes no sense at all.

As we have discussed previously, this is the Russian position.

If defeating the Islamic State is indeed the overriding priority, then Putin's logic cannot be faulted.

The problem is - as has become very clear over the last few weeks - for the US and for the other members of the regime change coalition it is not.

It seems that for them overthrowing the government of President Assad remains the priority.

As the falsity of the claims of direct Russian military action in Syria became too strong to argue away, the Western government and media emphasis has shifted over the last few days to claims that the Russians are instead focusing on building a military presence in Syria, possibly as some sort of bargaining tool.

There has been much talk - including production of satellite photographs - concerning Russian construction of an air base in Latakia.  There has also been talk of the deployment of advanced T90 tanks and S300 anti aircraft missiles to Syria.The US has also made attempts to prevent the flight of Russian cargo planes to Syria, which the Russians claim are carrying humanitarian supplies but which the US thinks - or wants people to think - are in reality carrying weapons.

It is certainly possible - and even likely - that in the face of the crisis caused by the rise of the Islamic State the Russians have stepped up their military supplies to Syria.

However some of the claims that are now being made do not look especially compelling.

The Russian presence in Latakia for example is nothing new.  The Russians have long maintained a listening station there, and it makes sense in view of the deteriorating situation to extend the nearby airstrip and to deploy a small number of troops to secure it.

Whilst it is just possible the Russians are indeed establishing some sort of bridgehead, the Russian moves are equally consistent with precautionary steps for a possible hurried evacuation of the personnel manning the facility in case of a further deterioration of the situation, and this frankly looks like a more plausible explanation of what we are seeing.

As for the deployment of S300 missiles in Syria, no evidence of such a deployment exists, and these reports are certainly false.

In the light of Putin's comments it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, as we discussed previously, the disinformation campaign about the Russian military build-up in Syria is intended to discredit the current Russian diplomatic initiative before it properly gets going, rather than because of any genuine concerns that the Russian military presence in Syria is increasing.

Whether that is so or not, the alarm expressed in Western capitals about the Russian military presence in Syria is nothing short of extraordinary.

Putin is surely right that the Islamic State poses a danger to everyone and that the way to deal with it is to combine against it.  That this logic is being so vehemently resisted is bizarre and frankly tragic, and shows how fixated with their geopolitical plans Western leaders have become.

The following are extracts from a speech made by Putin in Dushanbe taken from Russia's Presidential website:  

    I mentioned the situation in Syria and Iraq; they are the same as the situation in Afghanistan, in that they worry all of us. Please allow me to say a few words on the situation in this region, the situation around Syria.

    The state of affairs there is very serious. The so-called Islamic State controls significant stretches of territory in Iraq and Syria. Terrorists are already publicly stating that they have targets set on Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Their plans include expanding activities to Europe, Russia, Central and Southeast Asia.

    We are concerned by this, especially since militants undergoing ideological indoctrinations and military training by ISIS come from many nations around the world - including, unfortunately, European nations, the Russian Federation, and many former Soviet republics. And, of course, we are concerned by their possible return to our territories.

    Basic common sense and a sense of responsibility for global and regional security require the international community to join forces against this threat. We need to set aside geopolitical ambitions, leave behind so-called double standards and the policy of direct or indirect use of individual terrorist groups to achieve one's own opportunistic goals, including changes in undesirable governments and regimes.

    As you know, Russia has proposed rapidly forming a broad coalition to counteract the extremists. It must unite everyone who is prepared to make, or is already making, an input into fighting terrorism, just as Iraq and Syria's armed forces are doing today. We support the Syrian government - I want to say this - in countering terrorist aggression. We provide and will continue to provide the necessary military technology assistance and urge other nations to join in.

    Clearly, without active participation by the Syrian authorities and military, without participation by the Syrian army, as the soldiers fighting with the Islamic State say, you cannot expel terrorists from this nation, as well as the region overall, it is impossible to protect the multi-ethnic and multi-faith people of Syria from elimination, enslavement and barbarism.

    Of course, it is imperative to think about the political changes in Syria. And we know that President Assad is ready to involve the moderate segment of the opposition, the healthy opposition forces in these processes, in managing the state. But the need to join forces in the fight against terrorism is certainly at the forefront today. Without this, it is impossible to resolve the other urgent and growing problems, including the problem of refugees we are seeing now.

    Incidentally, we are seeing something else: we are currently seeing attempts to practically put the blame on Russia for this problem, for its occurrence. As if the refugee problem grew because Russia supports the legitimate government in Syria.

    First of all, I would like to note that the people of Syria are, first and foremost, fleeing the fighting, which is mostly due to external factors as a result of supplies of arms and other specialized equipment. People are feeling the atrocities of the terrorists. We know that they are committing atrocities there, that they are sacrificing people, destroying cultural monuments as I already mentioned, and so on. They are fleeing the radicals, first and foremost. And if Russia had not supported Syria, the situation in that nation would have been even worse than in Libya, and the flow of refugees would be even greater.

    Second, the support of the legitimate government in Syria is not in any way related to the flow of refugees from nations like Libya, which I already mentioned, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, and many others. We were not the ones that destabilised the situation in those nations, in whole regions of the world. We did not destroy government institutions there, creating power vacuums that were immediately filled by terrorists. So nobody can say that we were the cause of this problem.

    But right now, as I said, we need to focus on joining forces between the Syrian government, the Kurdish militia, the so-called moderate opposition, and nations in the region to fight the threat against Syria's very statehood and the fight against terrorism - so that together, with our efforts combined, we can solve this problem.
 
 #26
Wall Street Journal
September 17, 2015
U.S. Weighs Talks With Russia on Military Activity in Syria
Pentagon leaders grilled over strategy to deal with regime of Bashar al-Assad
By PHILIP SHISHKIN

WASHINGTON-The Obama administration is considering discussions with Russia on military activities Syria in what would mark a shift in approach as U.S. policy comes under growing criticism at home.

Moscow proposed the talks, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday after U.S. officials voiced concerns this week about a new Russian buildup of military support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a scorching attack on the U.S. strategy in the Senate, members of the powerful armed services committee grilled senior Pentagon officials over how the administration intends to deal with the Syrian regime. It is an issue that Washington has largely sidestepped but is now forced to confront with Moscow's escalating military support for Mr. Assad.

While the U.S. has insisted that Mr. Assad must step down as part of any resolution to Syria's multi-sided war, the White House has chosen not to attack the regime militarily. Instead, the Pentagon has pursued a bombing campaign against extremist group Islamic State, one of the strongest opponents of Mr. Assad.

Questions about the complex array of forces on the Syrian battlefield-and about a lack of clarity of what an endgame might look like-have become even more challenging with Russia's decision to step up support for Mr. Assad recently.

"Into this vacuum has now stepped Vladimir Putin," Sen. John McCain, the committee chairman, said of Russia's president. "As in Ukraine and elsewhere, he perceives the administration's inaction and caution as weakness, and he is taking advantage."

Lawmakers questioned the Pentagon's claims of progress against Islamic State and ridiculed the U.S. program to train and equip handpicked Syrian rebels to fight the terrorist group-an effort that by the Pentagon's own admission now has only four or five fighters on the battlefield.

The debate brought into relief long-standing contradictions and disarray surrounding U.S. policy in the 4� -year-old conflict, which has left a quarter million dead and generated a global refugee crisis, with an estimated 4 million fleeing Syria to escape the violence.

"We are witnessing a buildup of forces by Russia," Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of the U.S. military's Central Command, said in testimony in the Senate.

The U.S. suspects Russia is building up an air base near the coastal Syrian city of Latakia-an Assad political stronghold-possibly in preparation to fly airstrikes against Islamic State and rebel groups fighting the regime.

Russian leaders have said they are aiding Mr. Assad's government in the fight against Islamic State.

That has drawn mixed reactions from U.S. officials, who welcomed action against Islamic State but urged coordination with the U.S.-led coalition that has been conducting airstrikes against the group in Iraq and Syria for a year. Those officials said Russia can't play a constructive role as long as it supports the regime militarily.

American officials have also said they don't understand the Russian leader's thinking.

"Russia is not very transparent. We really don't know what their true intentions are," Gen. Austin said. Russian combat flights-if they happen-"could increase the friction in that battle space significantly."

Mr. Kerry said the U.S. was considering Russia's proposal for talks. But beyond tactical coordination, it is unclear what such discussions might accomplish, given U.S. and Russian differences in the Middle East-and the broader rupture in relations that followed Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

"If Russia is only focused on ISIL and if there is a capacity for cooperation...there still is a way forward to try to get to a political negotiation and outcome," Mr. Kerry said.

If U.S.-Russia talks do take place, the two sides are bound to address Mr. Assad's political future.

Christine Wormuth, undersecretary of defense for policy, suggested that Moscow could play a role in launching a political transition that would see Mr. Assad step down "while preserving a government structure to avoid chaos."

The U.S. rushed to dismantle Saddam Hussein's regime and military in 2003 only to see parts of it later metastasize into the insurgency that helped beget ISIS.

Moscow has long been critical of the U.S. policy in the Middle East-particularly the regime change in Iraq-and it is unclear how receptive Moscow would be to helping Washington edge out another Middle Eastern strongman.

A number of former U.S. officials said a muted American response to Russia's growing footprint in Syria was dangerous for the balance of power in the Middle East.

James Jeffrey, who served as the Obama administration's ambassador to Iraq until mid-2012, said Mr. Putin's moves into Syria marked the first time the Kremlin has moved major arms into the Middle East since the early 1970s.

"We have to respond," said Mr. Jeffrey, who's now a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an American think tank. "Everyone is watching what we might do about it.

U.S. officials are grappling with how to respond ahead of a meeting of world leaders at the United Nations later this month, which both Mr. Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to attend. The U.S. hasn't said whether Mr. Obama will meet with his Russian counterpart.

Though it has sustained heavy military losses, the Assad regime still has significant lasting power, Ms. Wormuth said.

"The regime has considerable strength. It is still the most powerful military force on the ground," she said. "The regime is not in imminent danger of falling."

With Russian and Iranian diplomatic and military support, Mr. Assad may well calculate that he can outlast his opponents on and off the battlefield, and launch even more indiscriminate attacks. This would increase the civilian death toll and exacerbate the refugee crisis that has overwhelmed parts of Europe.

Like the Assad regime, Islamic State terror group faces no risk of collapse despite a year of U.S.-led bombing both in Syria and in Iraq. While Gen. Austin said the U.S. and its allies "continue to make progress" against Islamic State, he also noted the fight "will take years" and said "there haven't been any dramatic gains on either side."

Lawmakers also turned their attention to the Pentagon's train-and-equip program designed to give carefully vetted Syrian fighters training outside Syria and reinsert them back into the battlefield against Islamic State.

The program was initially envisioned to include thousands of fighters. But so far the U.S. has been able to recruit between 100 and 120 people, Ms. Wormuth told the Senate hearing.

Of those, only the four or five are in the fight, Gen. Austin said.

Upon hearing the number, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R., NH) said: "Let's not kid ourselves. It is a joke."

Pentagon leaders acknowledged the program had challenges.

"The program is much smaller than we hoped," Ms. Wormuth said. The effort has been hobbled by the extensive U.S. vetting of the Syrian candidates, risks they face upon returning to Syria, and the U.S. insistence that the trainees only fight Islamic State-and not the Assad regime.

Gen. Austin pointed to other U.S. efforts to partner with local forces-such as the Syrian Kurds-as an example of a more successful enterprise.
 
 #27
www.rt.com
September 17, 2015
Russia doesn't rule out airbase in Syria, but has no plans for construction

Russia has no plans for the construction of an airbase on Syrian soil, but at the same time does not rule out that such a possibility may arise in the future, a deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian military said.

"For the moment, there [are] no such plans. However, everything could happen," the First Deputy Chief of General Staff, Nikolay Bogdanovsky, told Russian media.

So far, Russia only has a logistical support base in the Syrian port of Tartous.

Earlier, a number of Western media outlets reported that Russia has been creating an air base in an airfield near the Syrian city of Latakia with the US officials expressing their "concern" over reports of Russia's alleged military presence in Syria.

The Pentagon refused to comment on the media reports pointing out the fact that US intelligence data was not subject to disclosure. However, the Pentagon's spokesman alleged that Russia might be setting up an air base in Latakia.

"We have seen movement of people and things that would indicate that they plan to use that base there, south of Latakia, as a forward air operating base," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told a news briefing.

At the same time, the Pentagon admitted that Russia had sent neither combat aircraft nor striking helicopters to the airfield.

Riad Haddad, the Syrian ambassador to Russia, called the Western allegations of Russian military involvement in Syria "lies" in an interview with Russian TV Channel Russia24 on Monday.

"The talk of your (Russian) troop presence on the Syrian territory is a lie spread by Western countries, the United States," he said adding that Syria has been "cooperating with Russia for 30-40 years in various areas, including the military sphere" and emphasizing that "all this is done in line with agreements sealed between [the two] countries."

Earlier, Russia confirmed the presence of its military specialists in Syria, who work as advisers.

"Russia has never made a secret of military-technical cooperation with Syria. Our country has long been supplying weapons and military equipment to Syria under the existing bilateral contracts," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week. "There are also Russian military advisers in Syria who provide training in the use of the arriving equipment," she added.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, also spoke of Russian aid to Syria and stressed that Russia has been acting in compliance with international law as well as with contracts signed between the two countries.

"We are providing Syria with significant support anyway, both in equipment and personnel training, and armaments. We signed major contracts with Syria some five to seven years ago, and we are complying with them in full," he said at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok on September 4.

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, has also repeatedly emphasized that Russia supports Syria in its fight against Islamic State adding that Moscow's main goal is fighting terrorism.

"We support the fight of the Syrian government against so-called Islamic State, which neither represents Islam, nor happens to be a state," Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

"I can tell you once again, that our servicemen and military experts remain there [in Syria] for the maintenance of Russian [military] hardware and assisting the Syrian army in using this hardware, there's training under way," he added, stressing that military hardware supplies will continue.
 
 #28
Counterpunch.com
September 17, 2015
Putin's Line in the Sand: No Regime Change in Syria
By MIKE WHITNEY

"Obama administration officials, who have been negotiating with Turkey for months, said Thursday that they had reached an agreement for manned and unmanned American warplanes to carry out aerial attacks on Islamic State positions from air bases at Incirlik and Diyarbakir. The agreement was described by one senior administration official as a "game changer."
New York Times, July 23, 2015

The Syrian war can divided into two parts: The pre-Incirlik period and the post-Incirlik period. The pre-Incirlik period is roughly the four year stretch during which US-backed Islamic militias and al Qaida-linked groups fought the Syrian army with the intention of removing President Bashar al Assad from power. This first phase of the war ended in a draw.

The post-Incirlik period looks like it could produce an entirely different outcome due to the fact that the US will be able to deploy its drones and warplanes from a Turkish airbase (Incirlik) that's just 15 minutes flying-time from Syria. That will boost the number of sorties the USAF can able to carry out while increasing the effectiveness of its jihadi forces on the ground which will conduct their operations under the protection of US air cover. This will greatly improve their chances for success.

The New York Times calls the Incirlik deal a "game-changer" which is an understatement. By allowing US F-16s to patrol the skies over Syria, Washington will impose a de facto no-fly zone over the country severely limiting Assad's ability to battle the US-backed militias that have seized large swaths of the countryside and are now descending on Damascus. And while the war cannot be won by airpower alone, this new tactical reality tilts the playing field in favor the jihadis. In other words, the Incirlik agreement changes everything.

The Obama administration now believes that regime change is within its reach. Yes, they know it will require some back-up from US Special Forces and Turkish combat troops, but it's all doable.  This is why Obama has shrugged off Russia's plan for a transitional government or for forming a coalition to defeat ISIS.  The US doesn't have to compromise on these matters because, after all, it has a strategically-located airbase from which it can protect its proxy-army, bomb cross-border targets, and control the skies over Syria. All Obama needs to do is intensify the war effort, put a little more pressure on Assad, and wait for the regime to collapse. This is why we should expect a dramatic escalation as we begin Phase 2 of the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin knows this, which is why he's sending more weapons, supplies and advisors to Syria. He's signaling to Washington that he knows what they're up to and that he'll respond if they carry things too far. In an interview with Russia's state Channel 1, Putin said, "We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops toward the use of force or otherwise. We have our plans."

The administration is very nervous about Putin's plans which is why they keep probing to see if they can figure out what he has up his sleeve. Just days ago,  Secretary of State John Kerry phoned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to express his concerns about "an imminent enhanced Russian military buildup" in Syria. The call was a clumsy attempt to trick Lavrov into volunteering information that might shed light on what Moscow intends to do if Washington goes ahead with its regime change strategy.  But Russia's foreign minister didn't take the bait. He stuck to his script and didn't tell Kerry anything he didn't already know.

But the fact is, Putin is not going to allow Assad to be removed by force. It's that simple. Obama and his advisors suspect this, but they are not 100 percent certain so they keep looking for confirmation one way or the other. But Putin is not going to provide a clear answer because he doesn't want to tip his hand or appear confrontational. But that doesn't mean he's not resolute. He is, and Washington knows it. In effect, Putin has drawn a line in the sand and told the US that if they cross that line, there's going to trouble.

So it's up to Obama really. He can either seek a peaceful solution along the lines that Moscow has recommended or push for regime change and risk a confrontation with Russia. Those are the two choices.

Unfortunately, Washington doesn't have an "off" switch anymore, so changing policy is really not in the cards. Instead, the US war machine will continue to lumber ahead erratically until it hits an impasse and sputters to a halt. Once again, the immovable object will prevail over the unstoppable force (as it did in Ukraine), albeit at great cost to the battered people of Syria, their nation and the entire region.

Keep in mind, that the imperial plan for Syria is subtler than many people realize. As the Brookings Institute's Michael E. O'Hanlon states in his piece titled "Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America's most hopeless war":

"The plan... would not explicitly seek to overthrow him (Assad), so much as deny him control of territory that he might still aspire to govern again. The autonomous zones would be liberated with the clear understanding that there was no going back to rule by Assad or a successor. In any case, Assad would not be a military target under this concept, but areas he currently controls... would be. And if Assad delayed too long in accepting a deal for exile, he could inevitably face direct dangers to his rule and even his person." ("Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America's most hopeless war", Michael E. O'Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

This is the basic plan: To seize major cities and large parts of the countryside,  disrupt supply-lines and destroy vital civilian infrastructure, and to progressively undermine Assad's ability to govern the country. The ultimate goal is to break the state into a million disconnected enclaves ruled by armed mercenaries, al Qaida-linked affiliates, and local warlords. This is Washington's diabolical plan for Syria. It is strikingly similar to the Zionist plan to "effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states." ("The Zionist Plan for the Middle East", Israel Shahak) In fact, it is virtually identical.

It's clear that Obama is emboldened by the Incirlik deal and believes that, with Turkey's help, he can achieve US imperial ambitions in Syria. But it's not going to happen.  Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are prepared to defend their ally Assad and stop Washington dead-in-its-tracks.  Obama will have succeeded in destroying another sovereign nation and scattering its people across the Middle East and Europe. But the US mission will fall short of its original objectives. There will be no regime change in Syria. Putin, Nasrallah and Khamenei will make sure of it.


 
 #29
New York Times
September 17, 2015
Putin Sees Path to Diplomacy Through Syria
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and ANDREW E. KRAMER

LVIV, Ukraine - To much of the world, Syria is a scene of unending tragedy, but to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia it is a golden opportunity, a way out of the isolation he and Russia have endured since the West imposed sanctions over Ukraine - with the added bonus of wagging an "I told you so" finger at the White House.

His opening gambit to ingratiate himself with the West after a year of ostracism began with a singular gesture that Washington could hardly miss: dispatching a pronounced new flow of military hardware to Syria.

This week, Mr. Putin unleashed a diplomatic offensive, pushing to meet with President Obama, offering to hold military-to-military talks on Syria, and planning a big rollout for a Syrian peace plan when he speaks at the United Nations later this month.

The stakes for Mr. Putin are high - perhaps the highest in his career. The Kremlin has been on the defensive, diplomatically isolated after its adventures in Ukraine and battered economically by sanctions, low oil prices and a weak ruble that is cutting into living standards. Rapidly depleting the rainy day funds that have staved off financial disaster so far, Mr. Putin knows he needs to get back in the West's good graces in a hurry, or at least change the conversation.

Syria provides an ideal vehicle for that, while also giving Moscow a significant role in the Middle East and promoting Mr. Putin's long-term ambitions of re-establishing Russia as a player on the world stage.

"Putin dreams of the restoration of Russian power everywhere, not just in the former Soviet space," Aleksei Malashenko, a military analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in an interview. "The activity in Syria and around Syria means Russia is able to come back to the Middle East, not as a superpower, but as something that can balance the power of the West and the United States."

Wednesday brought a new welter of developments surrounding Mr. Putin's plan. In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Moscow had suggested holding talks between the United States and Russian militaries on Syria and the continuing buildup of Russian forces there. Mr. Kerry said the administration was considering the offer, adding that the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, had presented the talks as a way to coordinate with the Pentagon to avoid "unintended incidents."

In Jerusalem, the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a statement saying that he plans to travel to Russia next week for talks with Mr. Putin about the stationing of Russian forces in Syria and the possible transfer of weapons to Israel's enemy, Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group.

In Damascus, Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, gave a collective interview to six major Russian news organizations in which he echoed Mr. Putin's proposals but gave them a domestic twist.

He called on insurgents fighting his government to join with his forces instead, to battle as allies against the Islamic State. Only after that group is defeated can there be a political solution to the war that has devastated Syria, Mr. Assad said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday.

"The political parties, the government and the armed groups that fought against the government, we must all unite in the name of combating terrorism," Mr. Assad said.

The Syrian leader, whose forces now control only about a quarter of the territory of Syria, did not comment on the Russian military moves, and the Russian reporters did not ask him about attacks on civilians.

He did describe Russia as an impartial intermediary, however, a characterization that many of his opponents would consider laughable, given Russia's support for the president, an important ally and longtime arms client. Many opposition groups, as well as key Western countries like the United States, have set his removal from office as the first step toward a political solution, but Russia has rejected that as a condition.

Mr. Putin is expected to speak at the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 28, his first such visit in a decade, and to use that global platform to emphasize the Syria strategy he has sketched several times already.

He has already said that he envisages a two-track effort involving an international coalition to defeat the Islamic State, as well as a renewed effort to forge a domestic political compromise among Syria's many squabbling factions and bring them into the coalition. He has parried questions about the direct involvement of the Russian military in fighting.

As for Ukraine, it has settled down into the frozen conflict that many anticipated from the beginning. The lull in fighting in the east that took hold on Sept. 1 is expected to last at least through the end of the month when Mr. Putin speaks at the United Nations.

At the same time, Ukraine has virtually disappeared from its starring role in the mainstream, state-run Russian news media, which is now focused on Syria all the time.

Mr. Putin's Syria proposal has put the West in something of a bind. While they have sought to isolate Russia over its annexation of Crimea and military meddling in Ukraine, Western capitals have been struggling to contain the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

The Obama administration has been "trying to sit on two chairs," noted Konstantin von Eggert, an independent political analyst. It has been both slamming Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, while saying it seeks to cooperate with Russia on the Iran nuclear deal, the Middle East and other issues.

If Mr. Putin manages to forge a coalition on Syria, it would be increasingly difficult for Washington to argue that the Kremlin deserves isolation. There is an inconsistency in the message, Mr. von Eggert noted, and "Putin always exploits those inconsistencies."

Mr. Putin and his senior diplomats have said repeatedly in recent weeks that they warned the Obama administration that its policies in Syria would lead to disaster, and that they were determined to shore up Mr. Assad to avoid a repeat of places like Libya and Yemen after long-established authoritarian rulers were deposed.

"The situation was misjudged; it was allowed to deteriorate," Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview. "How far it can go I don't know. You recall in Washington they said Assad has two to four months to last."

Mr. Churkin also suggested that the American policy of saying Mr. Assad had to go while trying to defeat the Islamic State using air power alone was difficult to sustain.

"This is something we share now with the U.S. government: They don't want the Assad government to fall," said the Russian ambassador. "They want to fight ISIL in a way that won't harm the Syrian government. On the other hand, they don't want the Syrian government to take advantage of their campaign against ISIL."

Some analysts suggested that Mr. Putin would prevail in the end, because the overwhelming threat presented by the Islamic State would trump concerns over the future of Ukraine, Mr. Assad, or even of Russia gaining greater influence in the Middle East.

Mr. Churkin told reporters on Wednesday that Mr. Putin's proposal had generated "great interest" and could well become the major focus of the gathering of world leaders at the United Nations during the last week of September.
 
 #30
The National Interest
September 17, 2015
Like It or Not, America and Russia Need to Cooperate in Syria
"The Obama administration is unlikely to fall for the Putin plan of a grand coalition with Moscow, Tehran and Damascus to accomplish that, but a degree of coordination is advisable."
By Dmitri Trenin
Dmitri Trenin is Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Many outside observers view the Russian military buildup in Syria as a way for President Putin to force his way through to the negotiating table with Barack Obama ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. There is some truth to that. To be effective, diplomacy should be backed by facts on the ground, and Moscow is busy creating them-in the face of mounting U.S. concerns. However, coercive diplomacy is just another form of diplomacy.

The current spike in Russia's involvement in Syria, however, does not need to be linked solely to UNGA. Even without it, Moscow would now be sending more weapons and more instructors to Syria. As the Islamic State has expanded its control over more territory in Syria, it has posed more of a threat to the survival of the Russian-backed regime in Damascus. Thus, Moscow's Plan A now is to help Bashar al-Assad keep his remaining strongholds; its Plan B is to help him secure the Alawite enclave around Latakia.

The Kremlin's upping the ante in Syria is explained by its vision of IS as a threat to Russia itself, and Putin's view of Assad as one who stands up to that threat and refuses to give up. Fighting the enemy abroad, by bolstering an ally is preferable, of course, to having to fight in the Caucasus or Central Asia. It is also important not to appear weak under pressure: in Putin's memorable phrase, "the weak get beaten."

The expansion of Russia's military role in Syria has real risks. Both Russian political and military leaders and the Russian people still remember Afghanistan. The Kremlin, however, is probably calculating that the risks in Syria are manageable. Russia is sending advisers and technicians, crews to operate weapons systems, some support personnel and it may send pilots, but not combat troops: the pro-Assad fighters on the battlefield will continue to be Syrians, Iranians or Hezbollah.

Another risk is a potential collision with the United States and its allies, who have long been striking IS targets in Syria and who can also bomb Assad's forces and potentially hit their Russian advisers. Russian weapons-and warplanes, if it comes to that-can in turn hit Western-backed Syrian opposition. Finally, Israel may not tolerate advanced weapons in the Syrian arsenal that can endanger the Jewish state's security.

Diplomatically, the collision has already occurred: Washington is angry with Moscow's policies. The Kremlin, for its part, likely believes that its firm stance would make the White House accept Russia as a player and negotiate with it on the following: de-conflicting of their parallel engagements or even on a division of labor as both countries execute their strategies in Syria; a broad anti-IS coalition, which Putin has proposed; and eventually the future of postwar Syria.

Moscow certainly hopes that cooperation with the United States and the West on Syria would blunt their confrontation over Ukraine, the Kremlin's overriding concern. It is probably not a mere coincidence that since September 1, shelling in Donbass has died down, the leadership in Donetsk has been purged of recalcitrant figures and progress is expected on the issue of local elections next month. Right after UNGA, Vladimir Putin will be meeting in Paris with Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande and Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko.

So far, Western reactions to the Russian activism in Syria has been largely negative. Emotionally, this is understandable. Moscow's actions are clearly at odds with Washington's policies on an issue very sensitive to the Obama administration. Russia is not asking for permission when it moves troops and borders in Ukraine, or when it ramps up military support for a regime that the United States has said needs to go. Moscow is visibly upgrading its politico-military presence in the key region of the Middle East. While doing so, Russian officials miss few opportunities to sneer at U.S. policies in Iraq, Libya, Yemen-and Syria.

Yet, in a deeper sense, Russian, U.S., European, Iranian, Saudi, Chinese and Indian interests are on the same side against an enemy that threatens all of them. Everyone agrees that IS must be defeated, even though they disagree on how to do it. The Obama administration is unlikely to fall for the Putin plan of a grand coalition with Moscow, Tehran and Damascus to accomplish that, but a degree of coordination is advisable. Alas, Syria as the world has known it for the past seventy years probably cannot be restored. It will have to be put together again in a wholly new way. This can only result from negotiations among the various Syrian players (minus IS), with the assistance of the international community, including the West and Russia.
 
 #31
AP
September 17, 2015
Russian who 'saved the world' recalls his decision as 50/50
By Lynn Berry

FRYAZINO, Russia (AP) - The elderly former Soviet military officer who answers the door is known in the West as "The man who saved the world."

A movie with that title, which hits theaters in the United States on Friday, tells the harrowing story of Sept. 26, 1983, when Stanislav Petrov made a decision credited by many with averting a nuclear war.

An alarm had gone off that night, signaling the launch of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it was up to the 44-year-old lieutenant colonel to determine, and quickly, whether the attack on the Soviet Union was real.

"I realized that I had to make some kind of decision, and I was only 50/50," Petrov told The Associated Press.

Despite the data coming in from the Soviet Union's early-warning satellites over the United States, Petrov decided to consider it a false alarm. Had he done otherwise, the Soviet leadership could have responded by ordering a retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States.

What made this even more dangerous was that the Soviet Union appears genuinely to have feared a surprise U.S. nuclear attack during what was an exceptionally tense period of the Cold War. That month, the Soviets had shot down a passenger plane flying to South Korea from the U.S., suspecting it of spying. The United States, after a series of provocative military maneuvers, was preparing for a major NATO exercise, called Able Archer, which simulated preparations for a nuclear attack.

In the movie, "The Man Who Saved the World," by Danish director Peter Anthony, actors portray the events of that night in 1983. The dramatic scenes are interwoven with footage of the real Petrov as an older man at his home in Russia, and on a 2006 trip to the United States, where he receives an award at the United Nations and meets with movie stars, including Kevin Costner, Matt Damon and Robert De Niro.

In his homeland, Petrov's role in history has won him little fame. He still lives in Fryazino, a town on the outskirts of Moscow, in a simple, unkempt apartment that looks much as it does in the movie, down to the long strip of yellow fly paper hanging from the ceiling. Unlike in the movie, where Petrov is shown angrily chasing out foreign journalists who have come to hear his story, he proves a gracious host, welcoming guests into his kitchen.

When Petrov, now 76, looks back on that night at the secret Serpukhov-15 control center, he remembers the sound of the alarm that shattered the silence shortly past midnight.

"It was this quiet situation and suddenly the roar of the siren breaks in and the command post lights up with the word 'LAUNCH,'" he said. "This hit the nerves. I was really taken aback. Holy cow!"

He stood up and saw that the others were all looking at him in confusion. "My team was close to panic and it hit me that if panic sets in then it's all over." He needed to make a decision.

In the movie, Petrov speaks of not wanting to be responsible for setting off a nuclear war. But in the AP interview he suggests this was more of the filmmakers' poetic license.

"Sorry, I didn't have time to think about whether I would be the one who started World War III," he said. "I had to decide how reliable the information sent by the computer was."

Within minutes of the first alarm, the siren sounded again, warning of a second U.S. missile launch. Soon, the system was reporting that five missiles had been launched.

Petrov reported to his commander that the system was giving false information. He was not at all certain, but his decision was informed by the fact that Soviet ground radar could not confirm a launch. The radar system picked up incoming missiles only well after any launch, but he knew it to be more reliable than the satellites.

The false alarm was later found to have been caused by a malfunction of the satellite, which mistook the reflection of the sun off high clouds for a missile launch.

Petrov was not rewarded for his actions, most likely because doing so would have brought to light the failure of the Soviet's early-warning satellites. Although his commanding officer did not support Petrov at the time, he was the one who revealed the incident after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. If Col. Gen. Yury Votintsev had not spoken out, Petrov said he himself "would have forgotten about it like a bad dream."

Ret. Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, an expert on Russia's strategic nuclear forces, played down the importance of the decision forced on Petrov, saying the Soviet leadership in any case would have waited for confirmation from the radars before launching a retaliatory attack.

What's more, Dvorkin said, Russia no longer even has full satellite coverage of the United States, and relies fully on its radar network to monitor U.S. nuclear forces.

"The situation in Russia today is such that the satellite system doesn't work at all, and this doesn't frighten anyone too much," he said. "As you can see, everyone is living peacefully, without panic."
 

 #32
Military.com
September 16, 2015
US to Begin Training Ukraine's Active-Duty Military
By John Vandiver

U.S. paratroops will soon begin training members of Ukraine's active-duty military, expanding a program in western Ukraine that began by providing support for the country's newly formed national guard.

Troops with the Vicenza, Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade will train up to five battalions of Ukrainian soldiers as operation Fearless Guardian enters a second phase in November, U.S. Army Europe said.

"The training is part of our ongoing efforts to contribute to Ukraine's long-term military reform and professionalism and to help improve Ukraine's internal defense capabilities and training capacity," said Donald Wrenn, a USAREUR spokesman.

Since April, the 173rd has been rotating soldiers through Ukraine for Fearless Guardian I, providing support for the country's national guard.

The training was initially conceived as a beefed-up boot camp, with a focus on marksmanship and small unit tactical planning. But because many of the trainees are already hardened from front-line fighting against separatists in Ukraine's east, the U.S. training has begun incorporating new subjects, including tips on how to counter drone surveillance.

The curriculum for Fearless Guardian II is still being developed, but instruction for Ukrainian soldiers will likely resemble the course work from previous training, USAREUR said.

"This training is part of our long-running defense cooperation with Ukraine and is taking place at the invitation of the Ukrainian government," Wrenn said.

This additional program is expected to bring total security assistance committed to Ukraine since 2014 to more than $244 million.

Russia, which continues to back separatist fighters in Ukraine, has been critical of the Army's training effort, calling it an unnecessary provocation.

U.S. military support for Ukraine has been on the rise since Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014. However, the U.S. has so far declined to provide the lethal arms that Kiev seeks.
 
 #33
Irrussianality
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
IS MINSK DEAD?
By Paul Robinson
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. Paul Robinson holds an MA in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Toronto and a D. Phil. in Modern History from the University of Oxford. Prior to his graduate studies, he served as a regular officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 1989 to 1994, and as a reserve officer in the Canadian Forces from 1994 to 1996. He also worked as a media research executive in Moscow in 1995.

The peace agreement signed in Minsk in February 2015 prescribed a path towards a permanent settlement of the war in Ukraine by the end of this year. To date not one of its clauses has been fully put into effect. While the scale of the fighting is much reduced compared with the start of the year, there is still not a complete ceasefire; Kiev has not passed a law providing the promised amnesty; prisoner exchanges have taken place but are incomplete; and the Ukrainian government has not restored social and economic connections between government and rebel-held territories (indeed it has done the opposite by tightening its blockade of the latter).

These violations of the agreement would perhaps not matter if progress had been made on the agreement's most important sections - those which deal with the final political settlement. If those can be sorted out, the rest will probably fall into place. Unfortunately, both sides have taken steps which raise serious barriers to such a settlement.

The first of these steps relates to the constitutional reforms which the Minsk accord obliges Kiev to undertake. The Ukrainian government claims that the reforms it has introduced in parliament satisfy this obligation. At the same time, though, it reiterates that they do not involve any form of 'special status' for Donbass. The entire point of including constitutional reform in the Minsk agreement was to satisfy the rebels' demands for local autonomy. Because Kiev's plans don't do this it is extremely hard to see how they can form the basis of a political settlement. Indeed, rather than facilitating a settlement, they block it.

Now, Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the rebel Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), has thrown up a barrier of his own, by issuing an order stating that the republic will hold local elections, starting with town mayors on October 18. The Minsk agreement obliged both sides to 'Launch a dialogue ... on modalities of local elections in accordance with Ukrainian legislation and the Law of Ukraine "On interim local self-government order in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions".'  Ukraine is holding its own local elections on 25 October. Those in the DPR will clearly not be 'in accordance with Ukrainian legislation'. Because of this, Kiev regards them as a breach of the agreement. Furthermore, Kiev sees local elections under Ukrainian law as a crucial step towards reintegrating its lost territories, and it has been urging its Western allies to make the elections a sort of 'red line' which the rebels must not cross without serious consequences. In particular, President Petro Poroshenko has been trying to persuade his allies that they should increase sanctions against Russia and provide weapons to Ukraine should the rebels hold elections which are not in accordance with Ukrainian law. If the votes in the DPR go ahead, they could be the final nail in Minsk's coffin.

As noted, the Minsk accord demands 'a dialogue ... on modalities of local elections in accordance with Ukrainian legislation', and then in paragraph 12 states that, 'questions related to local elections will be discussed and agreed upon with representatives of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group.' No such dialogue has taken place, and there has been no agreement 'with representatives of particular districts of Donetsk and Lugansk'. The reason is simple - Kiev refuses to talk to the rebels.

In Crimea last week, Vladimir Putin remarked that, 'The most important thing to do is to establish direct contacts between Ukrainian authorities and authorizes of Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics so that the accords can be fully implemented.' Poroshenko seems to cling to the hope that Western pressure on Russia will force Moscow to abandon the rebel republics. That way, Kiev will be able to regain control of Donbass without ever having to negotiate with the rebel leaders. Judging by Putin's statement and Zakharchenko's announcement, this doesn't seem likely to happen.
 
 #34
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
September 17, 2015
The hard choices facing Ukraine as it balances between Russia and the West
Sergey Markedonov, political analyst and professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities, talks to Russia Direct about the conflict in Ukraine and the choices the country faces while struggling between pro-Russian and pro-Western sentiment.
By Ksenia Zubacheva

The crisis resolution process for Ukraine has resumed once again. The foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany met in Berlin on Sept. 12 in the format of the Normandy Four and agreed to step up talks between Kiev and the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov assessed the results of the talks quite positively. "We, first of all, expressed satisfaction that the ceasefire is observed more or less. Separate cases of violation of this regime are taking place, but in general we have a positive assessment of what is happening," Lavrov told reporters in Berlin.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also expressed his enthusiasm about the recent summit and shared his willingness to further the settlement of the conflict. As he pointed out, "I will do everything I can to prepare the 'Normandy format' meeting to the best possible standard so that it can produce the first sprouts of stabilization we are witnessing today..."

The talks are expected to resume in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in late September. The meetings will be aimed at discussing the agenda and draft decisions of the upcoming Normandy Four summit scheduled to take place in Paris on Oct. 2.

Against this backdrop of possible progress in the Ukraine crisis, Russia Direct asked Sergey Markedonov of the Russian State University for the Humanities to share his opinion on whether Ukraine could reach a final settlement of the conflict and find a way out by balancing between Russia and the West.

Russia Direct: What would you say are the main obstacles that prevent a resolution to the Ukrainian crisis? What hampers the efforts of the Minsk Agreements?

Sergey Markedonov: Currently, most experts recognize that Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 have not given concrete results in terms of resolution of the conflict. I think we have many obstacles. First of all, Minsk-1 and Minsk-2 were not the result of compromises, but a result of the failure of different maximalist demands of all sides. For Russia, it's receiving guarantees that Ukraine would be a non-NATO country, a neutral country.

For the Ukrainian side, it's a kind of repetition of the Serbian Krajina scenario. I mean here the events of 1995 in Croatia when the non-recognized entity Serbian Krajina was destroyed completely by the Croatian security forces and military troops. It's a kind of pattern for the Ukrainian side.

As for the West, they are eager to punish Russia because in terms of the American approach, Russia violated the rules of the game. It's not a violation of the rules of the game in principle, but a violation of American dominance. This is why the West, especially the U.S., tries to punish Russia and to push it from Ukraine.

The sides didn't realize their goals and as a result they try to make a deal. But at the same time, behind those failures, all sides engaged in the conflict are not interested in its resolution, meaning here reaching a compromise not victory or absolute defeat of one of the sides of the conflict.

This is why both Minsk agreements are very contradictory. One side could appeal to the territorial integrity of Ukraine while the other side - to negotiations between the sides of the conflict. For example, Russia can quote Article 11 of the Minsk-2 agreement, but the Ukrainian side supported by the West will appeal to the territorial integrity of the country. In addition, we have a lack of trust between Russia and the West.

Speaking about the crisis in general, I suppose we have two kinds of crisis at the moment: the Ukrainian crisis itself and the wider problem concerning the European security architecture. Maybe we can reach a point when the conflict will 'freeze' and become a frozen conflict, but the 'unfreezing' of it could be repeated from time to time, after Minsk-3 or Minsk-4, who knows. But we need to speak about the security architecture because after the end of the Cold War, some principles of this time were reproduced.

Many arguments of Russia concerning the enlargement of NATO, cooperation between NATO and the EU and countries representing Russia's so-called Near Abroad were ignored. This way we need to speak about other principles of European security architecture, incorporating Russia in it and treating it as an equal partner. The problem is not only negotiation and membership of Russia in different structures but understanding its motivation and taking it seriously. That is why we have two crises: the war in eastern Ukraine and the crisis of the European security architecture.

RD: Is a scenario in which Kiev could become a bridge between Russia and the West possible?

SM: Recently, the National Democratic Institute, which is not part of Putin's propaganda, published the results of a sociological poll, which demonstrated that about 40 percent of the Ukrainian population is in favor of NATO membership. They see the alliance as a guarantor of their territorial integrity and an obstacle for any Russian penetration. But about 30 percent of the country's population doesn't share those approaches and they see Russia not like an enemy and they are rather suspicious of NATO membership.

That is why we have a split in the country. The same citizens who maybe are critical of Russian policies are not in favor of NATO. That would be an ideal situation if Ukraine becomes a bridge between Russia and NATO, not an area of competitive interests and proxy war, but it's too ideal.

Currently it's problematic. In my opinion, it is the crucial mistake of many post-Soviet countries that follow the principle of choice - making a final choice between Russia and the West. Countries who prefer a complementary approach, like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan or Armenia, received more advantages.

In my opinion, in the Ukrainian situation, the choice between Russia and the West looks like the choice between mother and father. It's a hard choice, sometimes people face this choice, but it's not so pleasant. This is why we need to discuss the rules of the game because after the end of the Cold War, these rules didn't integrate different actors. And the crisis in Ukraine and the war in Georgia in 2008 were the consequences of the lack of shared responsibility, shared rules of the game.

RD: So the best choice for Ukraine will be to balance between the interests of Russia and the West?

SM: It's impossible to escape from geography: the West as well as Russia will always remain Ukraine's neighbors. It's better for the country to have normal balanced relations with its neighbors. Being an arena of clashing interests is not in the interests of the country.

RD: In regard to the government in Kiev, would you agree that it's caught between two fires: on the one hand, it tries to accommodate to the interests of Europe, while on the other, to the mood of the public in Ukraine?

SM: Now no, because currently the authorities in Kiev are interested in being part of the West. If we look at the Concept of its National Security, Ukraine blames Russia as a potential threat to its security.
 
 #35
USAToday.com
September 17, 2015
Fighting eases in east Ukraine as Russia backs off support for separatists
By Oren Dorell

A long-sought cease-fire appears to be holding in eastern Ukraine, raising hopes that a truce negotiated in February may finally bring peace between Ukrainian national forces and Russian-backed separatists.

No Ukrainian troops died in combat so far this week, the Ukrainian military said, and international monitors report that fighting has fallen to the lowest levels in more than a year, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Ukrainian government and separatist forces continue to maintain large forces close to each other, but the current calm "is quite unprecedented," Michael Bociurkiw, an OSCE spokesman in Kiev, told USA TODAY. "Since the signing of first Minsk accord (cease-fire) in September of last year, I can't recall a period like this."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting in Moscow with his French, Russian and Ukrainian counterparts on Saturday that the ministers agreed to start removing land mines, according to the Associated Press. He said he hoped the warring parties will pull back heavy weapons from the front.

Fighting broke out in April 2014 after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimea province and annexed it. Since then, about 8,000 people have died in the fighting, according to U.N. estimates.

The new calm comes as Russia appears to be ramping down its support of separatist forces in Ukraine's breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to analysts who follow the conflict closely.

Russia has denied sending weapons or troops into eastern Ukraine, although numerous journalists and officials from the U.S. State Department, NATO and European nations have documented Russian support to the separatists and participation in the fighting.

John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said there's no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun to implement the terms of the cease-fire. "There's been no movement of Russian equipment or soldiers out of Ukraine, so he could raise the temperature back up very quickly," Herbst said.

A former NATO commander, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, said the easing of tensions could be durable or "a head fake." Russia still has 50,000 troops in Ukraine and until they pull out, "we don't know," Clark said.

The Ukrainian government sought to ease tensions in August, when its parliament approved a draft constitutional amendment to grant greater autonomy to regions now held by separatists.

In Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov added his voice to extending the calm last week, when he said separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, two rebel strongholds in eastern Ukraine, are ready to hold elections according to Ukrainian law, but doing so requires direct talks between the separatists and Kiev government. Currently, separatists plan to hold municipal elections on Oct. 18, a week earlier than national elections.

The separatists also are showing signs of seeking a peaceful resolution, possibly because a separatist-sponsored poll conducted in August found that only 29% of Donetsk residents support the rebel government. Several separatist leaders who have balked at working with Ukrainian authorities have been ousted or arrested by rebel authorities.

Herbst cited reports from Ukrainian officials that Russia is recruiting fighters in eastern Ukraine to deploy to Syria, where Russia says it has sent armored vehicles and aircraft to support Syrian President Bashar Assad in a civil war against Islamic State militants and other rebel groups.

The change in direction comes after Russian-backed forces ran into unexpectedly stout resistance in Ukraine, Clark said.

At the time of Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimea province in February 2014, many in the West believed Ukrainians would not put up an effective fight because of a weakened military and government in disarray, he said. Since then, Ukraine's new European-oriented leadership has reorganized and strengthened its military "and it's shown it can stand and fight," Clark said. Putin's project in Ukraine "has not been successful," he added.

Herbst described the fighting as "a stalemate that favors Ukraine."

Putin "is in a rough spot," Herbst said. "And he's seen no movement by Ukrainian authorities to move their policies in his direction."
 
#36
Reuters
September 17, 2015
Ukraine parliament approves debt restructuring deal

Ukraine's parliament on Thursday approved three laws needed to pass a debt restructuring deal that the country's international backers have described as essential for its financial stability.

The International Monetary Fund's multi-billion-dollar bailout program hinges on Ukraine finding $15 billion through a deal with its creditors.

"This is a victory for Ukraine," parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Groisman said after the ballot.

Lawmakers debated the laws heatedly before the vote, but in the end the bills were passed comfortably, with over 300 'yes' votes for each law compared with the 226 minimum required, prompting a rise in bond prices.

"Voting 'yes' means voting for economic growth, foreign investment, increasing the number of jobs and a rise in social standards," Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk told parliament.

Over the past few days the government has conducted a fierce lobbying campaign to persuade lawmakers to back the deal, which aims to cut Ukraine's debt to 71 percent of annual economic output (GDP) by 2020 from an estimated 100 percent now.

Some members of parliament have said the agreement provides insufficient debt relief for Ukraine, which was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by years of economic mismanagement, corruption and a conflict with pro-Russian separatists.

"We have to vote for this disgrace through tears," former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said.

Ukraine's dollar-denominated bonds rose as much as 1.2 cents after the laws were passed.

Nomura analyst Tim Ash said the strong majority indicated support for the pro-EU reform agenda and the IMF program.

"Even with concerns as to whether this deal is good or bad, if it turns ugly, Ukraine can always come back to the table further down the line to renegotiate terms," he said in a note.
 
 
 #37
Reuters
September 16, 2015
Ukraine's Poroshenko says rebel elections threaten peace deal, extends sanctions
By Alessandra Prentice

(Reuters) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on Wednesday to extend sanctions on over 400 individuals and 90 legal entities in response to a decision by separatist rebels to set a date for what Kiev sees as "illegal elections".

Violence is at its lowest ebb since the Minsk ceasefire agreement was signed seven months ago, but the latest altercation highlights how far the two sides are from finding common ground and a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Under terms of the much-violated peace deal, local elections were meant to be held in the separatist regions in tandem with the rest of the country, but Kiev has said they cannot take place due to security and monitoring concerns.

The separatists, who have unilaterally set up their own mini-republics, have instead scheduled their own ballot, the results of which Kiev is unlikely to recognise.

Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko signed a decree to hold the elections starting on Oct. 18, separatist press service DAN reported.

Ukrainian authorities will hold their local elections in most regions on Oct. 25, but will not conduct voting in some regions bordering separatist territory or in the rebel regions.

Poroshenko swiftly denounced the rebels' move in a meeting with foreign ambassadors.

"The leaders of the so-called DNR (Donetsk People's Republic) and LNR (Luhansk People's Republic) have announced a decision, which they have taken in coordination with the Russian Federation, to hold fake illegal elections, which contradict the Minsk agreements," he said.

"This risky and irresponsible decision requires our firm and coordinated reaction to the threat created to the Minsk agreements, such as prolongation and widening of sanctions."

The so-called LNR has previously said it would hold elections on Nov. 2.

Poroshenko later signed a decree to apply or extend restrictive measures on people and entities "of Russia and other countries related to the annexation of Crimea and aggression in Donbass (east Ukraine)," according to a statement on the presidential website.

The list of sanctioned individuals posted on the presidential website mentions members of Russia's parliament and senior rebel figures.

Companies affected include Russian airline Aeroflot , security company Kaspersky Lab and banks Gazprombank and Bank of Moscow.

The list includes a number of journalists, including three BBC employees based in Moscow and reporters for Germany's Die Zeit newspaper and several Spanish outlets, as well as some Israeli correspondents.

Senior rebel official Denis Pushilin, who is the separatists' envoy to the Minsk peace process and also was named on the published sanctions list, condemned the action by Ukrainian authorities.

"Sanctions essentially undermine the foundations of the Minsk agreements," DAN quoted him as saying.

Fighting has frequently punctured the ceasefire over the past seven months, but violence has died down noticeably in the past week with the Ukrainian military reporting not one violation from the rebel side on Wednesday.

Close to 8,000 people have been killed since fighting erupted in April last year. Ukraine and NATO have accused Russia of supporting rebels with troops and weapons, a charge the Kremlin has denied.
 
 #38
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
September 17, 2015
What if Ukraine's reforms don't work?
Mark Adomanis in Philadelphia
Mark Adomanis is a Wharton MBA by day, Russia analyst by night. Follow him on @MarkAdomanis.

September 10-12 saw the Yalta European Strategy (YES) conference, an annual gathering put on by Ukraianian tycoon Viktor Pinchuk. In the past this conference was held in the Livadia palace in Crimea, site of the infamous Yalta conference, but in the aftermath of Russia's annexation of that territory it has been "temporarily" moved to Kyiv.

The theme of this year's conference, "How New Ukraine's Fate Affects Europe and the World", was characteristic of the optimism and ideology on display. Note how the conference's very title takes not one but two very controversial propositions for granted. First, that there is a fundamental break between Ukraine in 2015 and Ukraine in years past, and second, that the development of Ukraine, a lower-middle income country with a rapidly shrinking population of 44.9mn, substantially impacts "the world".

The conference's title was a faithful reflection of its content: all of the discussions over the course of the weekend were based on the dual assumptions that Ukraine had been fundamentally transformed and that the fight over Ukraine's future was of first-order importance for the rest of the world. Dissenting from either proposition in even the most oblique and polite terms was considered about as intellectually reputable as creationism.

Another even more important operating assumption of the conference was that Ukraine's current round of economic reforms would stoke rapid, self-sustaining economic growth. The efficacy of "reform" was taken as so obvious and self-evident that no discussion of content was deemed necessary. Reform would happen, it would succeed, it would strengthen the economy, and this success would have a transformative impact on both Ukraine and its large, angry, authoritarian neighbour to the east.

What no one seemed to consider was the following scenario: Ukraine passes "reform" but, due to a combination of political risk, poor demography and bad luck, nothing happens. Consider the rather uninspired economic performance of Croatia since it first signed its association agreement with the EU in 2001. From 2001-2014, Croatia grew at a paltry 1.3% compound annual growth rate.

Croatia actually joined the EU during that stretch, and so it was forced to reform its political, economic and legal institutions far more comprehensively than Ukraine is likely to. Maybe someone else can look at that graph and see the transformative impact of "reform", but I certainly can't.

This isn't to adopt a Sergey Glazyev-like view that would have Ukraine devolve to a Zaire-like level of poverty and dysfunction by virtue of its embrace of Europe. Ukraine's disastrous economic situation can't get much worse, and if it did get worse, it would almost certainly be due to some kind of direct Russian military intervention, not due to any attempt to integrate more closely with the EU. All things being equal, free trade with a market as huge as Europe's is a clear benefit for Ukraine and its citizens.

But the Yalta conference saw a belief in "reform" that often bordered on the religious. Again and again "reform" was invoked by both Europeans and Ukrainians in much the same way that believers invoke a higher power, sometimes with the exact same language ("we can only fail if we lose faith").

Inflating expectations to this degree strikes me as extremely dangerous. It would be almost impossible for any country to meet the lofty goals set out at the YES conference, let alone one facing challenges as extreme as Ukraine's. But the Ukrainian elite, which was extremely well represented at YES, appears to have decided that the risks from stoking popular expectations are negligible. The president, prime minister, minister of finance: all of them spoke about the rapid growth that "reform" would soon bring.

Whether hyping reform to such an extreme degree is the right decision remains to be seen. But the lesson from Kyiv could not have been more clear: damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
 
 #39
More than half of Ukrainians believe political parties represent business interests

KIEV, September 17. /TASS/. Almost a half of all Ukrainian citizens believe their country does not have a single political party representing their interests, suggest results of an opinion poll taken by the opinion research service of the Alexander Razumkov Center in connection with the forthcoming local elections.

Respondents were asked, among other things, if Ukraine had a party which they could describe as the one reflecting their interests.

"As many as 48.3% of those polled believe there are no such parties while 33.8% gave a positive answer and 17.9% were undecided or had no answer," UNIAN news agency quoted the poll.

Along with it, 57.4% respondents said they had not heard anything about the activity of local cells of any parties in their regions.

The poll also exposed the confidence of 57.7% Ukrainians that political parties represent the interests of financial and business corporations. A total of 37.3% said the same about the interests of party leaders and 24.2% related the parties to the interests of state power.

Only 11.2% respondents said the parties represented the voters' interests and 15.6% admitted they had no answer.

The first poll was taken from April 29 through to May 5, 2015, in all regions of Ukraine except the areas of the south-east Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not under the control of pro-Kiev armed units and constitute the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk and Luhansk republics.

The research embraced more than 5,000 people all in all. The Razumkov Center experts used a sampling that reflected the Ukrainian population's basic social and demographic parameters.

On October 25, Ukraine will hold local elections. An overhauled election law forbids participation of party blocs and makes a demand for one fixed candidature on the open electoral tickets.

The deputies of rural and village councils will be elected on the basis of the majority system. The vote threshold for political parties has been raised to 5% from the previous 3%.
 
 #40
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
September 16, 2015
Ukrainian MOD bought 4 tons of Roshen chocolate for the Ukrainian army
Mariya Serbuk
KievVlast
http://kievvlast.com.ua/news/minoboroni_zakupilo_shokolad_u_roshena30542.html
Translated by Kristina Rus

The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine purchased 4 tons of chocolate from LLC "Kyiv Confectionery Company" on September 2, also known as the official distributor of the Roshen Corporation. The total transaction amounted to 995 520 UAH [$45,923].

LLC "Kyiv Confectionery Company" will deliver to Kazatin of Vinnytsia region 4 thousand kg of dark chocolate, according to the "KievVlast" referring to the report from the "Bulletin of public procurement".

According to data of the Unified State Register, "Kiev Confectionery Company" is registered at Novokonstantinovskaya st. 22/15, Kiev. The authorised capital of the company amounts to 46 thousand UAH.

Its founder and director is Svetlana Ivanovna Kondratyuk.

According to KV, a person with the same name, surname and patronymic was previously a member of the Board of Directors of OJSC "Liconf" and worked in DP "Roshen Confectionery Corporation" owned by the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. This can be seen from the annual report of the Open joint stock company "Lipetsk Confectionary Factory "Liconf" for fiscal year 2007.

Note also that in the job ads on the largest Ukrainian recruiting sites LLC "Kyiv Confectionery Company" was listed as the official distributor of Roshen Corporation or it just places ads for job search on behalf of Poroshenko's corporation.
 
#41
Moscow Times
September 17, 2015
Will Maidan Devour Its Own Children?
By Jonathan Power
Jonathan Power was a foreign affairs columnist for the International Herald Tribune for 17 years.

Late last month right-wing demonstrators hurled themselves against police in Kiev's Maidan square. A grenade was thrown, three people died and 120 were hospitalized - mostly policemen. In an address to the nation, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko blamed the clashes on nationalistic forces, calling their actions "a stab in the back." Many in the West condemned the attacks, though there has been little criticism of the rightist militias and parties in Ukraine over the past year.

That is perhaps because it would interfere with the Western narrative on Ukraine - that the demonstrators that overthrew former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 were of a liberal, democratic hue. The overwhelming majority were. But the fact is that many of the people who led the crowd during the "Euromaidan" protests and fired bullets when the demonstrations turned ugly were these very same rightists.

The BBC's Ukraine correspondent, David Stern, reported on Sept. 1 that "the explosion in Maidan comes weeks after another armed incident involving volunteer militia with ties to the extreme right - a shoot-out between members of the so-called Right Sector and the local police in southwestern Ukraine. Although the militias have been nominally integrated into government structures, many wonder how much control Kiev actually exercises."

The main gripe of the protestors is a bill that would give a measure of autonomy to the eastern Donbass region where pro-Russian rebels are fighting Ukraine's central government. But their violent action comes at the worst of times when progress is finally being made on the Minsk agreement of February that seeks to end the conflict. Besides the introduction of the devolution bill in parliament, the cease-fire seems to be working.

Russia, on the other hand, thinks too little devolution is on the table. A more satisfactory outcome, in my view, would be to compare the Ukrainian parliament's plans with the devolved powers that have been given to Scotland in Britain. If that amount of devolution can work in Britain then why not in Ukraine?

But the rightist, anti-devolution, nationalists, although only gaining 5 percent of the vote in the last election are determined to be the tail that wags the dog. This is a fearsome prospect as it means the violence they unleash will become more serious and more regular, especially as the bill goes to its second reading and as members of parliament may attempt to strengthen the bill to allow a greater degree of devolution.

The neo-fascist militias have plenty of battlefield experience. Their soldiers have often been the only ones holding their own in the fight against the separatists. The Ukrainian army, although showing more determination of late, has often been close to shambles. This has made the militias popular right across Ukraine.

Despite this, the government has no choice but to outlaw and imprison these rightist militias before the revolution destroys its own children. The West and Russia must stand together on this.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government has drawn up - in collaboration with the West - a list of policies it demands from the eastern rebels. Among them is full and immediate access to rebel-held areas for international monitors. Failure to deliver on these conditions, argues the president, would put the entire peace plan at risk, "with clear consequences and sanctions" for the Russian side.

Poroshenko is adamant that "fake" elections in separatist-controlled areas, currently planned for October and November, would draw such a response. All elections must be under the authority of Kiev with international supervision. Indeed, Russia must agree to persuade the separatists of this, as long as the Ukrainian side agrees to a Scottish-type measure of devolution for eastern Ukraine.
 
 #42
Luhansk republic leader says 60% of residents support accession to Russia

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. Actions of Kiev authorities is pushing the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) out of the process of integration with Ukraine, the republic's head Igor Plotnitsky told a round table on "Ways of Donbas Integration into Russia" on Thursday.

"Developments underway and Kiev's attitude to us discourage and push us out of the process of integration with Ukraine," he said.

"Today, we have only one way left - a return to our own family. LPR's integration into Russia is an objective and most likely inevitable process that meets vital interests and aspirations of the Luhansk region," LuganskInformCentre news agency quoted him as saying.

Citing opinion polls, he said Kiev's attitude prompted local residents to look to Russia. Last year's surveys said about 20 to 23% supported accession to Russia, but currently this figure had reached about 60%, Plotnitsky said.
 
 #43
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
September 16, 2015
Zakharchenko appeals to citizens ahead of elections
Novorossiya
http://www.novorosinform.org/news/id/37258
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

"Appeal of the head of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, to residents of the Donetsk People's Republic"

"Dear compatriots! Respected citizens of the Donetsk People's Republic!

Today, I signed a decree on elections to the local self-governing bodies of the DPR, and soon citizens of the country will be able to open a new chapter in the history of our independent state. In a referendum on May 11, 2014, the people of Donbass already spoke. On that day, we stepped into the future, made the choice of all of our lives, and created a country - the Donetsk People's Republic. Independence has been costly for the people of Donbass, but we achieved the main thing: we successfully built a state in which power belongs to the people.

This feat was accomplished by yesterday's doctors, teachers, and coal miners, who took up arms and went into battle for the supreme idea of justice, freedom, and the happiness of our children.

Innocent people died from wounds in our hands, and enemy shells mercilessly destroyed churches, schools, hospitals, and homes. The suffering of the people has been horrific, but we all understood that the choice was made and that there is no turning back.

We have buried our loved ones and mourned the dead, but the sons and daughters of Donbass knowingly gave their lives. In battle, we have wrested from the enemy the right to proudly call ourselves the bosses of our land. Today, some of our "friends'" voices have found the courage to accuse us of treason, of surrendering the interests of the republic, and of cowardice. Supposedly, we have concluded an agreement with the enemy and, there, you are staring, we will return to Ukraine. I will say straightforwardly: this is a lie. Every citizen of the Donetsk People's Republic should firmly know that we are negotiating with the insidious and treacherous enemy in Minsk. They are not "partners," not mere rivals. We are forced to conduct diplomatic battle with a ruthless terrorist gang. Ukrainian fascism - this is the name of an enemy for whom nothing is sacred, for whom lying is a virtue, and for whom betrayal is a matter of pride. But we went to the negotiations because the life of every citizen of the republic is priceless, and the Minsk agreement allowed us to stop the war and end the suffering of the people.

Now, a historic moment has come for all of us. At the helm of the state should stand those chosen by the people to lead the republic on the path of peace, prosperity, and progress. This is our right and our duty to those who have laid down their lives for the freedom and independence of the republic.

I want to emphasize: all citizens of the DPR can elect and be elected, and elections will be held according to the laws of the DPR. I urge all citizens of our country to be responsible and take the fate of our homeland into their hands. I guarantee that parasites who cowardly lounge around at resorts and betray their people will not be admitted to government in the People's Republic. The honorary right to be elected will be received only by those citizens who, in tumultuous times, remained loyal patriots of their land and shared all the hardships of war with their people. We will hold elections fairly and openly so that the whole world will see what democracy and people's power is. I know that we will soon be able to proudly say to ourselves: I made my choice, I am a citizen of the free and independent Donetsk People's Republic."
 
#44
Moscow Times
September 17, 2015
Russians Tiring of Ukraine Coverage, Poll Shows

Russians are becoming less interested in what is happening in neighboring Ukraine amid reports of decreased military activity in the country, state-run pollster VTsIOM reported in a survey published Wednesday.

According to the poll, 71 percent of Russians are currently following events in Ukraine, including 25 percent of respondents who say they are following them closely. In January, 83 percent said they were following events in Ukraine, with 38 percent doing so closely.

Of those 71 percent who said they follow events in Ukraine, only 36 percent characterized the events in Ukraine as a civil war, down from 50 percent at the beginning of the year. Only 6 precent said that what is happening can be qualified as genocide and terror, compared with 17 percent saying so in January.

Thirty-four percent of those following events there said that the situation in Ukraine has not changed recently, while 6 percent said things were gradually getting back to normal. At the beginning of the year, 25 percent said that it hadn't changed and only 4 percent said that things were getting better.

Ukraine has been at the top of Russia's media and political agenda since mass protests in Kiev toppled President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Since then, Russia has engaged in a bitter conflict with Ukraine and the West over the country's fate.

The poll was conducted among 1,600 respondents with a margin of error not exceeding 3.5 percent.
 
 
 #45
Transitions Online
www.tol.org
September 16, 2015
Whatever Happened to... Viktor Yushchenko?
Do you remember Viktor Yushchenko? Of course you do.
by Vazha Tavberidze
Vazha Tavberidze is Editor in Chief at the Georgian Journal weekly newspaper, and Deputy Editor in Chief at Kviris Palitra weekly newspaper in Tbilisi, Georgia.

If not, here's a quick reminder: He was the Ukrainian president who rode the wave of so-called color revolutions, along with Georgia's Mikheil Saakashvili - the Rose Revolution in Georgia, and Orange in Ukraine, were meant to transform the ex-Soviet states into modern democracies.
 
While Georgia's Rose Revolution has been hailed as a resounding success, the Orange one, which brought Yushchenko to power, didn't quite work out. It floundered largely due to the country's sheer size and its deeply entrenched oligarchs, who are none too keen on letting the reins of power slip from their grasp.
 
But let's get back to the subject - in 2004, the whole world (well, almost) turned its head toward Yushchenko when he claimed that he'd been poisoned by his opponents and political enemies. While the claim remains unproven, the severely pockmarked face caused by toxin exposure became his most memorable feature - far more memorable, for some, than his political achievements.
 
Speaking of which, Yushchenko was no stranger to Ukrainian politics before becoming president; he previously served as chairman of Ukraine's national bank, and as prime minister. But his successful political record took what could only be called a spectacular fall from grace with his own electorate, party and former colleagues.
 
The miserable 5.5 percent of votes scrambled in the 2010 presidential elections (the worst result for any sitting president in history) and 1.1 percent in parliamentary elections are enough of a testimony of that. Whether his fall was orchestrated with outside help or was all of his own doing is a matter of perspective, but one thing is certain - Yushchenko didn't live up to what was expected from him by the West, the good graces of which he won through his promises of sweeping reforms and steering the country towards the path of Euro-Atlantic integration.
 
But fortunes change, and those who persevere can rise again. That's exactly the case for ex-President Saakashvili, who, after having to flee Georgia due to facing possible detention and having Interpol (temporarily) out for his blood, is now attempting to repeat the success of the Rose Revolution on a larger scale, acting as a governor of Odessa, Ukraine's largest port city. Some say he's even eyeing the post of Prime Minister.
 
Is there a realistic scenario of similar resurgence for Yushchenko? Apparently not. Among other things, he doesn't seem very keen. Unlike comrade-turned-rival Yulia Timoshenko, Yushchenko remained largely silent and inactive during the Maidan events, opting for self-imposed political exile.
 
"He's living like a szlachta (a collective name for Polish and Ukrainian nobility), in his country estate, surrounded by beehives (Yushchenko is an avid apiarist, to the point of being derisively nicknamed "Pasechnik", or Beekeeper, by the Russian-speaking population) and windmills, frothing over his collection of antique items," says Irakli Gogava, his former adviser.
 
Indeed, political turmoil seems to be the least of his worries now. He spends his days with his family in a village not far from Kiev, tending to land, trees, and livestock, and eating only what he grows himself in his vast fields.
 
"He had principles that he was reluctant to part with and that cost him dearly many times. But now he can live as he wants and he seems to have found his inner peace," concludes his former advisor. It's hard not to agree - it does look like Yushchenko, after bidding politics farewell, and all the wiser from past shortcomings, is enjoying his retirement.
 
It's not the triumphant happy ending that he would surely have liked, but still, it's a fate some of his contemporaries might be envying.
 
 
#46
Euromaidan Press
http://euromaidanpress.com
September 16, 2015
Luhansk Governor to dismiss all teachers who support "LPR"

Luhansk Governor Heorhiy Tuka said he would seek the dismissal of all the teachers who have supported Russian-backed proxies of the self-proclaimed "Luhansk People's Republic".

"I will never get tired of fighting with the teachers who were actively involved in pro-Russian protest movements and campaigned in favour of the pseudo-referendum, but continued working at their schools and teaching children." said the governor.

He added that the dismissal of these people was one of his top priorities and that he would carry out this task very meticulously.
 
 #47
http://toinformistoinfluence.com
Ukraine SBU blocked the broadcast of Russian programs in the Kharkiv region
September 12, 2015
 
Provider retransmit television programs produced in Russia, which are forbidden to appear on the territory of Ukraine

The Security Service of Ukraine together with the police blocked the illegal activities of one of the cable TV providers in the Kharkiv region.

As the press-service SBU, company officials provided cable and IP-TV on the territory of one of the districts of Kharkov region.Provider retransmit television programs produced in Russia, which do not meet the requirements of the European Convention on Transfrontier Television and forbidden to appear on the territory of Ukraine.

Also, attackers grossly violated copyright and related rights of a number of owners of media content, broadcasting their programs without license agreements.

During searches in the industrial and office space provider company server equipment seized, accounting records. Checks the possible involvement of officers of the company to evade taxes.

Open criminal proceedings under Art. 176 (violation of copyright and related rights) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Operational-investigative actions are underway.

Source: http://news.liga.net/news/politics/6617970-sbu_zablokirovala_translyatsiyu_rossiyskikh_peredach_na_kharkovshchine.htm


 
 #48
The Guardian (UK)
September 17, 2015
Ukraine bans journalists who 'threaten national interests' from country
BBC correspondents Steve Rosenberg and Emma Wells among those sanctioned by president, along with Russian state media channels
Alec Luhn in Moscow

President Petro Poroshenko has banned two BBC correspondents from Ukraine along with many Russian journalists and public figures.

The long-serving BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg and producer Emma Wells have been barred from entering the country, according to a list published on the presidential website on Wednesday. The decree says those listed were banned for one year for being a "threat to national interests" or promoting "terrorist activities".

BBC cameraman Anton Chicherov was also banned, along with Spanish journalists Antonio Pampliega and �ngel Sastre, who went missing, presumed kidnapped, in Syria in July.

The list targeted people involved in Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and the aggression in eastern Ukraine, Poroshenko said, referring to the conflict with Russia-backed rebels that has continued in certain hotspots this year despite a February ceasefire.

Andrew Roy, the BBC's foreign editor, said: "This is a shameful attack on media freedom. These sanctions are completely inappropriate and inexplicable measures to take against BBC journalists who are reporting the situation in Ukraine impartially and objectively and we call on the Ukrainian government to remove their names from this list immediately.'

The reason for the BBC correspondents' ban was not clear, but media coverage of the conflict with the rebels - whom the authorities and local media often call "terrorists" - has been a sensitive subject.

Russian television has covered the Ukrainian crisis in a negative light, frequently referring to the new Kiev government as a "fascist junta", while international media has focused on civilian casualties and the use of cluster munitions in populated areas by both sides.

According to the United Nations, more than 6,500 people, the majority of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict, but the real figure is likely to be higher. The new list expands sanctions adopted earlier this month and includes more than 400 people and 90 organisations.

Poroshenko announced the new round of sanctions in response to the rebels' plan to hold local elections in October and November in territory they control. "This adventurism and irresponsible decision requires our exact, coordinated reaction to the threat that has been created to the Minsk (peace) agreements," he said at the time.

Among the Russians sanctioned were Dmitry Kiselyov, a television host known for his anti-western statements, who is also barred from entering the European Union. The major Russian state news channels Rossiya-24, Channel One and NTV have all been banned.

Defence minister Sergei Shoigu, parliamentary speaker Sergei Naryshkin and foreign affairs committee head Alexei Pushkov were among the Russian officials who were banned, as well as Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechnya republic.

Others include Activist Alexander Brod, a member of the presidential human rights council and director of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, and journalists and businesspeople from Israel, the United States and several other countries.

French actor Gerard Depardieu was banned from Ukraine for his statements in support of Russian president Vladimir Putin and singer Iosif Kobzon, who is banned from the EU, has also been included in the new ban.

Poroshenko said the new sanctions would "strengthen the defences not only of Ukraine but of Europe as a whole, because a war is going on here".
 
 #49
www.rt.com
September 17, 2015
#JesuisBBC: Poroshenko bans western journalists from Ukraine
By Bryan MacDonald
Bryan MacDonald is a journalist. He began his career in journalism aged 15 in his home town of Carlow, Ireland, with the Nationalist & Leinster Times, while still a schoolboy. Later he studied journalism in Dublin and worked for the Weekender in Navan before joining the Irish Independent. Following a period in London, he joined Ireland On Sunday, later re-named the Irish Mail on Sunday. He was theater critic of the Daily Mail for a period and also worked in news, features and was a regular op-ed writer. He has also frequently appeared on RTE and Newstalk in Ireland as well as RT.
[Graphics here http://www.rt.com/op-edge/315666-poroshenko-bans-foreign-journalists/]

Maidan is eating itself: President Poroshenko has distracted the Western media from its important role as a cheerleader for his government. Banning BBC journalists was a big mistake for the chocolate king.
Crazy rulers are not a new phenomenon. Back in the 6th Century, the Byzantine Emperor, Justin II was forced to abdicate after he began devouring people.

Then there was King Charles VI of France who refused to bathe because he believed he was made from glass.

Also, lest we forget Russia's own Feodor I who used to wander the country ringing church bells. For fun.

Justin developed a taste for flesh by biting lesser folk while being pushed around on a wheeled throne. There is no record of the Emperor eating himself. However, Ukraine's 'Maidan' government is doing this now. The coup, or 'revolution' if you prefer, has turned cannibal.

If you were a PR adviser to Ukraine's leaders and they asked you to compile a list of things they must not do, banning journalists would be high up there. Perhaps even at number one. While those who understand Ukraine know that the regime is even worse than its horrible predecessor, Western media has not reported this reality. Hence, the general public in Europe and North America doesn't have the foggiest notion. Firing cluster bombs at civilians would be prominent too. Nevertheless, Kiev has already done that. Luckily for them, the western press doesn't seem to mind.

On Wednesday night, President Poroshenko signed a decree banning 388 people from Ukraine. That was not a major surprise. After all, the Kiev government has been jailing domestic critics for some time. Like Ruslan Kotsaba for instance. So banning a few hundred Russians and others from minor Eastern European nations like Poland or Hungary, would barely get any attention.

Why Steve Rosenberg?

However, Poroshenko included 41 international journalists and bloggers on his blacklist. They came from countries as diverse as Germany, Israel, Russia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. If they had been fringe hacks, Western media representatives in Kiev and Moscow would have merely stroked their hipster beards. A few might have even expressed regret. One or two might have made a half-hearted attempt to get a "#jesuis" hashtag going on Twitter.

Poroshenko wasn't that smart. The billionaire president of Europe's poorest country (per capita) decided to go for a few really big fish. Wielding his oligarchical pen, he signed a decree that included two prominent BBC journalists: Steve Rosenberg and Emma Wells. The reason? For being a "threat to national interests".

I've never met Steve Rosenberg. He may be the nicest man since Gandhi. Or a bad egg. I've no idea. Emma Wells used to work for RT, before joining the BBC. Again, I haven't interacted with her.

This is not the point. The fact is that Rosenberg, Wells and the entire BBC team have been more than fair to the Maidan regime. Many would say too kind altogether. While the BBC, unlike most Western outlets, make some attempts to show both sides in Ukraine's civil war, it is pretty obvious that the network sympathizes with Poroshenko's administration. As does the British government, with great enthusiasm. Indeed, a number of BBC employees are openly hostile to Russia. That usually goes down well in Kiev.

Take for example, BBC World Service news editor Olexiy Solohubenko. The intrepid Olexiy has been running a one-man Twitter propaganda campaign for the Maidan crew for almost two years, blocking and ridiculing critics of the coup. Strangely, Olexiy didn't take to Twitter last night to support his BBC colleagues. On the other side of the coin, the BBC's Fergal Keane brought guile and nuance to coverage of the Donbas conflict that beat hacks could not match in a million years.

Rosenberg seems a curious choice for Poroshenko's conniption. He has never exhibited any signs of being particularly pro-Russian. Indeed, only 13 months ago, he was framing Russian troop movements on Russian territory as something sinister.

That white truck is a DAF commercial lorry, by the way, not a Kamaz. Also, a BBC team headed by Rosenberg were allegedly attacked in southern Russia last year.

The Spanish angle

Meanwhile, Poroshenko didn't stop at the BBC. He also banned two prominent Spanish journalists, Antonio Jose Rodriguez Pampliega and �ngel Sastre of El Pais. Sadly, neither Antonio or Angel are likely to visit Ukraine any time soon. Both are missing in Syria, presumed captured by ISIS. Their families probably could have done without Poroshenko's insensitivity and downright stupidity.

There are also a number of Russian reporters and bloggers on the chocolate king's list -one that is more Schindler's than Willy Wonka's. The BBC's Daniel Sandford did not seem concerned about them. In a Twitter exchange with RT's social media chief, Ivor Crotty, he said: "it would be hard to use words "honourable" and "excellent" to describe LifeNews coverage for example." I'm no fan of LifeNews myself but you are either for press freedom or you are not. If you are, you cannot divide journalists into different categories to suit yourself.

Herein lies the whole problem. When Russian journalists of great integrity like Andrey Mironov were killed in Ukraine, their Western colleagues, with some exceptions, showed little solidarity. Whether they see Russians as some kind of untermensch or simply don't care is unclear. Nevertheless, there has been more noise about two BBC journalists receiving bans from Ukraine than there has been about numerous Russian reporters being murdered.

Nothing is real, not much is possible

That said, rather than angrily condemning Poroshenko's move, Western hacks on the Russia/Ukraine beat used puzzling language. "Worrying," said Mashable's Christopher Miller.

Freelancer Oliver Carroll, frequently seen in The Independent, felt it was "quite a pickle".

The pair then hooked up with the American neocon activist Michael Weiss to soft-soap Poroshenko's foolishness.

Kiev has been harassing, blacklisting and imprisoning reporters since the Maidan coup. Reporters hostile to the regime have even been murdered, like the unfortunate Oles Buzina. All along, their Western peers have turned a blind eye. Last night, they shamefully attempted to exculpate Poroshenko for his blacklist by pinning the blame on his 'advisers.' Do they really imagine that he wasn't told that there were BBC journalists on the list? If he wasn't and he signed it without even glancing at the 388 names on it, he's a bigger fool than we ever imagined.

Poroshenko will probably backtrack. Some minor lackey will take the blame. Then the Western media can get back to the important things. Like wholeheartedly supporting the pro-US/NATO administration in Kiev and ignoring its sins. It'd be a lot more productive if a number of journalists stared into a very large mirror for a long time.
 
 #50
The Independent (UK)
September 9, 2015
Voices in Danger: What happened to Andrei Stenin in Ukraine?
Many questions still remain over the Russian photographer's death
By Anne Mortensen
Anne Mortensen is a writer and photographer. Her investigations focus on human rights, society and community.

Russian forensics experts confirmed last week that human remains found in a burnt-out car near Donetsk, Eastern Ukraine were those of 33 year old Russian photographer Andrei Stenin. Despite last week's conclusive forensic report, speculation around his death still remains.

Alexander Shtol is Director of Photography at the agency Stenin worked for in Moscow, and describes him as a "highly developed photographer who was very deep for his age."

He recalls when Stenin's enthusiasm to cover the world's hotspots began. "Two years ago he covered the demonstrations in Egypt," he says. "After that, he asked me if he could be an exclusive photographer for the hotspots around the world. I said a definite no. He would have to stick to stories of children and animals."
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But Stenin's enthusiasm eventually prevailed. In May 2014 he travelled to Sloviansk where he took "very, very good pictures," according Shtol. But when the frontline moved into Sloviansk, Stenin and other journalists journeyed to Donetsk.

Shtol implored him to leave Ukraine in July, but Stenin wanted to stay in Ukraine as long as it took to capture the whole story. "What bothered him more than anything else was the end of the story, but the story ended differently for him," says Shtol.

Stenin went missing in eastern Ukraine on August 5. By mid-May, Stenin was reportedly captured by the Ukrainian Army. He later launched a public campaign in support of the missing photographer. Kiev never officially confirmed the information.

However, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, said, "As far as I know he has been arrested by our security service." He later retracted his statement.

Questions surrounding Stenin's death remain. No side has claimed responsibility for firing the bomb. It is also unclear how many bodies were found in the burnt-out vehicle that is said to have formed part of a convoy.

"We are deeply saddened by the results of the genetic expertise, which we had been anxiously waiting for," said Johann Bihr, Head of Reporters Without Borders (RWB) Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. "As far as we know, Andrei Stenin is the sixth media professional killed while covering the conflict in Eastern Ukraine."

RWB calls for the belligerents to take all necessary measures to protect journalists and civilians as enshrined in resolution 1738 of international law set out by of the UN Security Council.

They also call on all competent authorities to carry out full and impartial investigations into the death of Stenin and other journalists killed in this conflict.

According to RWB, at least four journalists are currently detained by the Luhansk People's Republic and one by the Donetsk People's Republic. Several journalists have also been arbitrarily detained by Ukrainian forces and voluntary battalions recently.

I attempted to contact the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Security Service of Ukraine, but no one was willing to give a statement.
 
 #51
AP
September 17, 2015
Ukraine Takes BBC Journalists Off Its Sanctions List

MOSCOW - Ukraine's president has instructed security officials to strike the names of three BBC journalists off the country's sanctions list, a day after he signed the decree, his spokesman said on Thursday.

Petro Poroshenko late on Wednesday signed a sanctions list barring nearly 400 individuals from entering Ukraine, including long-serving Moscow-based BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg and producer Emma Wells, both British, and Russian cameraman Anton Chicherov.

The decree which was published on the president's website said the reporters and media executives on the list presented an unspecified "threat to national interests, national security, sovereignty or territorial integrity."

Faced with a barrage of criticism over the ban, Poroshenko backtracked on Thursday. His spokesman Svyatoslav Tsegolko said Poroshenko asked the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, which was responsible for drafting the list, to take off the names of the BBC staff. Poroshenko announced his decision to the new British ambassador to Ukraine who presented her credentials to him on Thursday, Tsegolko said.

Ukraine's security council promptly issued a statement saying it "has supported the president's suggestion" to lift the sanctions from "selected European journalists." The council said it will remove from the list three BBC journalists, two Spanish reporters and a German journalist.

The Spanish pair, Antonio Pampliega and Angel Sastre, disappeared in Syria in July and are believed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic State group.

The German, journalist and author Michael Rutz, said before his name was removed that he had no idea how he got on the list.

"I have never been to Ukraine and don't have any intention of traveling there in the near future," he told German news agency dpa.

This is the first sanctions list against Russia and foreign individuals that Kiev has introduced since a conflict broke out in April 2014 in eastern Ukraine, claiming more than 8,000 lives so far.

The BBC's foreign editor, Andrew Roy, described the move against the BBC journalists as "a shameful attack on media freedom."

The Russian news agency Tass on Thursday described the decision to blacklist three of its reporters, one based in Washington, D.C., one in South Africa and one in Moscow, as "odd" since two of the three do not even cover Ukraine.

Poroshenko said in a statement accompanying the list that the sanctions were introduced against people and companies "linked to the annexation of Crimea and aggression in Donbass" in eastern Ukraine.

Most of the people on the sanctions lists are Russian politicians and political activists who have called for the annexation of Crimea and advocated for Russia's greater involvement in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine has barred entry to Russian journalists in the past, accusing them of inciting unrest in the Russian-speaking east.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that it is "dismayed" by Poroshenko's actions.
 
 #52
Kyiv Post
September 16, 2015
Yatsenyuk fires back at Russia, oligarchs and those who thwart reform
By Johannes Wamberg Andersen,

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk hardly left anyone out during a televised government meeting on Sept. 16. He charged at Russia, parliament, government coalition partners, local authorities and the customs and tax services.

Reacting to the Kremlin's threat of imposing a blanket trade embargo on Ukraine if the country and the European Union went ahead with a free-trade deal on Jan. 1, Yatsenyuk said: "We are ready. Neither the Russian Federation nor any other country has right to alter our decision on European integration."

Pleased that Ukraine received a second $500 million loan from the World Bank on Sept. 16 to reboot the credit market, Yatsenyuk said that "this is only because we are conducting reforms." The prime minister has come under criticism lately for being in impediment to reforms, an accusation he categorically denies.

Echoing a statement by the international lender, Yatsenyuk made it clear that more change was needed. Citing "political unity between his government, the presidency and parts of the (governing) coalition," Yatsenyuk hinted that those who would not vote for reform measures were playing into the hands of the country's enemies - the Russian Federation and the oligarchs.

"If you don't vote - you are against reform - so you are for default," Yatsenyuk said, complaining that only a third of proposed reforms got passed by parliament. "We need real reforms ... leaving no place for oligarchs," he said.

Calling for more cooperation in parliament, he said that "the more we do, the more we get" from the West.

Yatsenyuk also addressed a boycott by the Batkivshchyna and Radical parties in parliament, in effect since Sept. 15.

Batkivshchyna had declared that the party wouldn't vote in parliament before the price of natural gas levied on the nation's households was lowered. The move was widely seen as populism ahead of the local election scheduled for Oct. 25. The gas price, Hr 7.3 per cubic meter, had increased more than three-fold since 2014, and were scheduled to rise until they reached cost-recovery levels.

Batkivshchyna had also asked that the 70-percent rent payment for gas extraction be lowered in order to boost domestic production. That demand made sense, gas analyst Mykhailo Honchar, president of the Centre for Global Studies Strategy XXI said.

Yatsenyuk called for an open hearing on the pricing policy, where he would prove that the price hikes were well founded. He accused Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and current leader of Batkivshchyna, of reaching a bad gas deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2009.

Yatsenyuk went on to demand that parliament pass a law that would raise pensions and salaries of more than 12 million individuals by 13 to 20 percent. Tymoshenko had said inflation had reached 73 percent, far more than the prime minister's proposed hike.

The World Bank loan was designed to strengthen the capacity of the Deposit Guarantee Fund and assist under-capitalized banks, a statement by the international lender said.

Yatsenyuk also told parliament to ratify a foreign debt restructuring deal that would cut almost $4 billion of Ukraine's foreign bond obligations. The deal was controversial because the bondholders would get parts of the so-called haircut back if Ukraine's gross domestic product would increase by more than three percent.

Yatsenyuk, moreover, called on local governments to end a reported Hr 53 million backlog in paying out pensions and salaries across the country. "You have money in your accounts, so get them out to people," he almost shouted.

He pledged a pool of Hr 2 billion to support poor areas but at the same time urged local authorities to do a better job. "You have untaxed land plots, business in the shadows," he said, pointing to sources of funding for local administrations.

Yatsenyuk went on to demand that all bosses in customs and tax authorities should be fired and new heads of local branches be recruited via open and competitive testing based on merit, similar to the hiring process for the new police force.

"We will not get effective state institutions just by changing the bosses though," he said. He praised a recent "more than Hr 2 billion increases in value-added tax revenue, but that was only the beginning."

Yatsenyuk didn't exclude that existing customs personnel could fulfill the vacant positions, but "you will have to undergo testing and change the approach to the citizens, if you want to serve the country," he said.
 
 #53
Embassy of the United States Kyiv
September 12, 2015
Remarks by Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland at a Panel Discussion "Ukraine's East and Crimea: Solving the Unsolvable"

12th Yalta European Strategy Annual Meeting

Kyiv, Ukraine

MODERATOR:  Victoria Nuland, if I may just turn to you. Obviously, you work for the State Department.  You represent the U.S. Government.  I think Ukrainians look at Barack Obama's policy toward Ukraine and toward Putin and Putin's strategy in Ukraine and they do not feel, perhaps, that the President has been as strong as he might have been, particularly in terms of support and military support that many in Ukraine would like to see from the United States.  Is there any prospect of that, or is the Obama Administration's message that this absolutely has to be a diplomatic negotiated settlement and that frankly the best Ukraine can hope for is a lull, a long-term ceasefire, and some sort of messy frozen conflict.

NULAND:  Well, Steven, before I get to your specific question, I hope you'll let me make a couple of general points.  First, just to say how pleased I am to be here - to thank you for the invitation, Victor and friends - but also to say how happy I am that you didn't change the name of this conference, because the name is a very important reminder to all of us.  First of all, that it's the Yalta European Strategy Conference, and it reminds us that someday this conference needs to return to that great Ukrainian city.

Second, the word "yes" itself is badly needed - as in "yes, we can."  Coming into Ukraine again for my, maybe, 11th visit in two and a half years, you can feel the concern, you can feel the tension.  And I just wanted to take a moment to remind everybody how far you've come in just 19 months, that less than two years ago, people from across all walks of life were standing in the snow on the Maidan demanding a better future.  Less than a year ago, Ukrainian soldiers were dying by the hundreds on the front line.

But because Ukraine said, "yes, yes we can," to a better future, you've had two rounds of free and fair elections.  You preserved unity in this country.  You have stopped the Novorossiya project dead in its tracks.  Kharkiv, Mariupol, Slovyansk are proud Ukrainian cities still.  You have an IMF agreement, including now a landmark debt rescheduling better than anybody expected Ukraine would be able to negotiate with its creditors.  You've laid the foundation for economic growth, for cleaning up this country - the banking system, the energy and agricultural system.  You're well on your way.

You have clean police now in Kyiv, in Odesa, in Lviv, and you're cutting the bloated bureaucracy.  There is no question that lots of hard sacrifice lies ahead, especially in fighting corruption, in cleaning up the justice sector and the Prosecutor General's office, and in bringing true rule of law to this society, which the people of the Maidan, people across Ukraine, fought for and still say is their highest priority.

As you perform, we will continue to support you.  And with regard to the President's policies, Steven, the United States has contributed - I think you know - since this conflict began, more than a half a billion dollars for reform efforts, and two $1 billion dollar loan guarantees.  That's more than $244 million dollars for the security of Ukraine, including training Ukrainian National Guard troops, and now moving on to training the Ukrainian army and providing essential equipment.  

And now $38 million dollars for rule of law, including funding these clean police that we're so proud to be a part of.

We know how hard this is.  We also know that when a crisis is acute, when the struggle is new, the fight is fueled by passion, it's fueled by adrenaline.  But later, in this period that you're in now, when you are slogging for every meter of clean progress, people get tired, they get cynical, they doubt each other, they doubt their leaders.  But that's exactly when Ukraine has to say again, "yes we can."  Yes, we can get the dignity we deserve.  Yes, we can have the European future that we deserve and prove the skeptics wrong.

Outside aggression - outside pressure - is still a great threat to this country.  But an equally great threat is complacency, defeatism, infighting among Ukrainians.  That will only result in mutual assured destruction.  So today, when every Ukrainian household is making sacrifices, is economizing, when your young men are still fighting on the front, those who hold the public trust - whether they are in government, whether they're in business, whether they're in the judicial sector - they have to prove their worth to the people of this country.  There must be zero tolerance for oligarchs who don't pay their taxes.  Zero tolerance for bribery, for graft, for corruption.  Zero tolerance for anyone who would use violence to achieve political means in this country.

MODERATOR:  Sorry, Victoria - I just wonder if I might ask one specific question, please.  You've made very important points about the domestic challenges - but if we just to stick to security - stick to the specific question - Prime Minister Yatsenyuk in his encounter with me this morning made it quite clear that for him, the issue of being strengthened militarily is not about offensive ambitions, it is simply a way of strengthening Ukraine's defensive position so that it can, in the negotiations that are coming with the Russians under international auspices, really credibly make a stand for what is right in Ukraine's view - and which you, I think share.  So the specific question is, are you prepared to accede to the Prime Minister and the President's continued request for significant, defensive military assistance.

NULAND:  We are providing continued, defensive, military assistance.  As I said, $244 million.  We're doing more than any other country to train and equip Ukraine.  I think it has had a significant impact on the battlefield.  As I said, Ukraine has been able to stop the offensive.  Even in the last four or five months, as the separatists, with Russian support, have tried to take new towns like Maryinka, etc., the increasingly capable Ukrainian forces have pushed them back.  They have raised the cost for Russia.  And I think that's why we have a ceasefire now.

MODERATOR:  But with respect, it's not training and Humvees that he wants.  It's firepower.

NULAND:  Again, we will continue to look at Ukraine's needs.  What's most important is that Ukraine has stopped it in its tracks and that we give diplomacy now and the Minsk Agreements - that we insist that Russia and its proxies live up to the agreements that they signed.

MODERATOR:  As Chairman I'm going to take unilaterally the decision to ask one more question myself of Victoria, because it's great to have a member of the Administration here, and Victoria, as we've got you here, I want you to sort of reflect on what we've heard from the panel - not least from Refat - about the message that stuff is happening all the time on the ground - bad stuff - and that, you know, there isn't time just to constantly kind of talk without making meaningful actions as well.

So just look across the short to medium term for me.  What do you believe we can we expect to see from the Obama Administration in terms of Ukraine policy and strategy in the short to medium term.  Is the focus now all on diplomacy or is there still consideration of new sanctions, of new military assistance options?  Try to sum up for me what the message from Washington to Ukraine is right now.

NULAND:  Well first, on overall support to Ukraine, as long as Ukraine stays on the path of reform, on the path of democracy, on the path of Europe, we will strongly support with technical assistance, with economic assistance, but it requires the unity of all reformist forces, as I said.  With regard to peace and security and the Minsk process and the future of Crimea, we've been very clear that sanctions will stay in place until Minsk is fully implemented.  If and when Minsk is fully implemented, including return of Ukraine's sovereignty of its border, we can begin to roll back some sanctions, but if Minsk is further violated, there will be more costs and we will push with our European partners for that.  And with regard to Crimea, sanctions stay in place on Crimea unless and until its sovereignty is returned to Ukraine.

We will continue with our security support to ensure that the Ukrainian military continues to grow in its capability to defend its territory, but we will also stay involved in the diplomatic process.  We are not parties to the Normandy format, or to the Minsk format, but we are very much involved as partners and allies of the European Union, of France and Germany, and obviously working with both Ukraine and Russia.

The most important thing now is to take this moment of relative quiet and turn it into a full withdrawal of weapons.  We are six months behind.  What's happened now was supposed to happen in the first couple of days of Minsk.  We now need to see those weapons pulled back verifiably, and we need to move on to a real election in the Donbas under Ukrainian law and with full OSCE verification.

The people of Donbas should not be left behind.  They also deserve the right to live in a more democratic, prosperous way, not under the barrel of a gun from the outside and oppressed as they are.  We need to keep faith with those people, we need to push for full implementation of Minsk, we need to use the carrot of sanctions rollback, the stick of further sanctions.  We need to stay unified as a Transatlantic community in defense of our values, in defense of a European Ukraine, because that is about our own future, our own values, our own way of life.

MODERATOR:  And what Ukrainians would probably add to that would be you need to keep making it your absolutely top foreign policy priority.  But you know, we look at the mess in the Middle East, we look at the challenge that comes economically with the sense of the Chinese economy turning down in a big way, and we wonder whether the Obama Administration really is - I know you personally are, you know, because that's sort of your job - but whether the Administration as a whole is really that invested in Ukraine right now.

NULAND:  Well, as I said, if you look around the world at who's made the largest financial and political contribution to this challenge, the United States, I think, is second to none.  But I would also say that if you look at all of the other challenges we're facing, whether it's from ISIL or whether it's from more autocratic, oligarchic economic models beginning to be under stress, the challenges are all of a piece.  Are we, as stewards of this planet, going to support the right of individuals to have a say in how they are governed, to live democratically, to live openly, to live in tolerance.  The way Ukraine goes will be emblematic of the way that struggle on the larger planet goes.  And that is why Ukraine will always stay at the top of our priority list, but why it's also connected - and I think when our President speaks at the UNGA, you'll see him connect these dots - about standing up for global rules of the road, standing up for free people and their right to self-govern.

MODERATOR:  Alright - well, Victoria, thank you very much for that.
 
 #54
Dances With Bears
http://johnhelmer.net
September 16, 2015
MH17 - INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE FOR WHAT CANNOT HAVE HAPPENED
By John Helmer, Moscow
[Links, footnotes and photos here http://johnhelmer.net/?p=14117]

Political responsibility and legal liability, like fish rot, start at the head. President Barack Obama's and President Vladimir Putin's heads, to be exact.

For evidence of the destruction of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, and of the 298 people on board, what the two presidents knew from the start - before the start, in fact - was revealed in a telephone conversation the two of them held three hours after the crash. Today, fourteen months later, it is now certain what they didn't know, and didn't discuss, because it didn't happen. One of those things was an explosion of a Buk ground-to-air missile on the port (left) side of the aircraft. Why that didn't happen has now been revealed in the only direct physical evidence admissible so far in international courts of law. This is the post-mortem evidence of the 296 individuals, and 700 body parts recovered from the aircraft.

The coroners of the UK and Australia say they will not test this evidence for the foreseeable future; by a loophole in the coronial law they may refuse to consider it at all. In Germany and The Netherlands, lawyers say there is no independent coronial court for investigation of cause of death . German state police and the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) are not independent of their governments; nor of the Ukrainian Government's right as a JIT member to veto what is investigated, what is disclosed, who to convict.

The only courts in which it will be possible to consider this evidence are the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, and the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The first is now the venue of a case brought by the daughter of Wilhelm Theodore Grootscholten, 55, a Dutch victim of the MH17 crash. The second is to decide who is responsible for the death of Fatima Dyczynski, 25, also Dutch. The defendants charged with culpability in the loss of their lives are the Government of Ukraine; Dutch officials at the time of the crash, Minister of Security and Justice Ivo Opstelten and Fred Teeven, the State Secretary for Security and Justice; the International Civil Aviation Organization; and the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Euro Control).

On July 17, 2014, according to the Kremlin transcript [1], Putin and Obama spoke by telephone at 20:30 Moscow time. Taking into account the one hour difference in summer time that year between Moscow and Kiev, the Kremlin clock shows that three hours and ten minutes had elapsed [2] since the crash.

The Kremlin statement is more revealing than the White House releases. It opens: "In line with a previous agreement, Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the United States Barack Obama." It closes: "The Russia leader informed the US President of the report received from air traffic controllers immediately prior to their conversation about the crash of a Malaysian airplane over the Ukrainian territory."

Putin had initiated the call, both sides agree. But what previous agreement was this? A general one concerning hotline communication [3] in early-warning or emergency situations? Or a specific one relating to the fighting in eastern Ukraine? If the latter, then had the two presidents already discussed and agreed there was a danger of collateral damage? Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked to explain whether the time stamp on the Kremlin release was the time the telephone call started; when it finished; or, some time later, when the release was issued. Peskov was also asked to explain the reference to "a previous agreement". He won't say.

Fyodor Yakovlev (right) is a veteran officer of Soviet foreign intelligence. He has published two detailed analyses of the evidence that has accumulated to date - the first on September 12 [4]; the second on September 15 [5]. They are the most comprehensive and authoritative presentations available in Russian since Russian generals Andrei Kartapolov (Army) and Igor Makushev(Air Force) briefed the media on July 21, 2014. For details of that, click [6].

In Yakovlev's first presentation, he concluded: "after a year from this tragic day, we must note that, perhaps the only one piece of official information about the crash, which can be considered certain, clearly proven, and therefore absolutely reliable and accepted by all sides without exception, it is only that Boeing MH17 did fall from the sky; and that all the passengers and crew members did die. On the other circumstances of the tragedy it is only possible to assume, since all these circumstances, including information from the official authorities, there are mainly at the level of unstated assumptions, rumours, speculation and deliberate disinformation, principally with the aim of diverting attention from the crash of the aircraft and the restriction of the disaster investigation."

On this point there is widespread agreement among non-government, non-Russian experts, though not unanimity. Yakovlev and others have reported that evidence of the aircraft pieces itself, of the civilian and military air traffic control traces, and of satellite and ground photo records are incomplete and unverified. Just 40% to 50% of the aircraft pieces have been collected by investigators in The Netherlands. The black box data are inconclusive [2].The only air traffic control data, civilian or military, to have been released come from the Russian General Staff briefing; the counterpart Ukrainian records have not been released at all. A 24-point inventory [7] of the evidence required was issued a year ago, in a letter to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB), by the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (RosAviation); the Dutch investigators won't say how they have responded. Rosaviatsia does not believe the DSB report scheduled for release on October 13 will fulfil the 24 points.

The White House reports [8] of what Putin and Obama had discussed started with a statement from the White House press office conceding "we do not yet have all the facts". It also pointed the first finger of blame: "this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fueled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, materiel, and training." The White House has timed this release at 10:38 Eastern Time. That's 18:38 Moscow time.

Najib RazakBy then, also according to separate White House releases [9], Obama had telephoned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (right). These calls reportedly took place before the White House statement on the Putin call. It appears therefore that Obama spoke to the Ukrainian and Malaysian officials at least an hour before speaking to Putin.

By the evening of July 17, US East Coast time, US news agencies [10] were reporting the White House press secretary Josh Earnest as saying: "I can confirm that President Putin near the end of this morning's phone call [actually 12:30] with President Obama noted the early reports of a downed passenger jet near the Russia-Ukraine border." Later still in Obama's day - by then about 4 in the morning Moscow time - Obama said [11]: "It looks like it may be a terrible tragedy. . Right now we're working to determine whether there were American citizens on board. That is our first priority.''

No hint of evidence of cause or culpability surfaced in Obama's remarks. The first allegations [11] of that sort came from officials in Kiev and from Vice President Joe Biden. Poroshenko told the press the crash was "an act of terrorism". Anton Geraschenko (below, left) at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry announced "on his Facebook page that the plane was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher."' A taped intercept allegedly between separatist figures claiming credit for downing the aircraft was issued by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). Biden (right) claimed the crash was "not an accident'' and that the aircraft had been ''blown out of the sky.'

A group of European investigators led by Max van der Werff [12], has developed a large corpus of evidence to expose fabrication of evidence of the supposed Buk launch point, trajectory, plume, transporter truck and its route, witness sightings, photographs, telephone tapes and internet logs of what they told each other . Arguing in defence of the Ukrainian claims is Eliot Higgins, an Englishman who publishes as Bellingcat [13] and also on a London website called Byline [14], motto, "nothing between you and the news".

Gabriele Gordon, a veteran German prosecutor, has reviewed the evidence made public to date by the Dutch Safety Board and the Joint Investigation Team regarding the Buk missile theory. On August 11 [15], the two Dutch agencies issued the statement that they are investigating - note present tense - "several parts, possibly originating from a Buk surface-air-missile system. These parts have been secured [note past tense] during a previous recovery-mission in Eastern-Ukraine [sic] and are in possession of the criminal investigation team MH17 and the Dutch Safety Board." From a forensic perspective, Gordon interprets this to mean that the DSB's final report on crash, released for government review two months earlier, cannot have referred to the Buk, and cannot have been final. "When DSB and JIT said on August 11 that the evaluation of a possible missile fragment is still going on, how can the DSB report draft from June 2 provide any evidence?" In short, the attempt is being made to find the evidence on the ground that has eluded detection in the bodies or in the aircraft pieces.

The evidence on the ground continues to appear, its provenance and authenticity as unproven and inadmissible as the half-airplane assembly in a Hilversum hangar.

According to a release by the Donetsk General Prosecutor yesterday [17], 2,500 pieces of aircraft and passenger debris, freshly gathered from the crash scene, have just been despatched to The Netherlands.

Two reports by Australian coronial investigators, David Ranson, a pathologist from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) and Iain West, deputy coroner for the state of Victoria, have revealed the cause of death of the victims, ruling out shrapnel from an exploding Buk missile warhead. The first Ranson-West report, released in November 2014, can be read here [18]. A second report, eight pages in length and written by Ranson, followed a month later. This was sent to the Victorian State Corner, Judge Ian Gray. He then circulated it to families of the Australian victims, and also to MH17 victims in countries abroad.

Ranson, who had participated in the post-mortems of MH17 victims at the Hilversum Barracks in The Netherlands, has concluded: "I believe they died in the air. They died from the effects of aircraft disruption at altitude. And I believe it was instantaneous." From the post-mortem evidence Ranson gathered himself at Hilversum and from his review of the identification files held by JIT: "Occupants became unconscious immediately after mid-air disruption. Occupants died within seconds - long before they entered the lower atmosphere. There was no evidence of haemorrhage or bruising associated with injuries from a high altitude fall suggesting death had already occurred. The absence of clothing on most victims indicated body acceleration/deceleration after catastrophic disruption of the aircraft, exposure to high-speed airflow during a long distance fall from a high altitude, blast injury or explosive decompression. Causes of death from explosive decompression - similar to the pressure wave from a bomb - included hypothermia, hypoxia, massive internal organ injury, embolism and heart attack. Exposure to very low temperatures, airflow buffeting and low oxygen at 30,000 feet would also result in death in seconds. Fatalities could also have occurred by high-speed debris movement."

Ranson (below) expressly rules out the inference that the recorded injuries to bodies, or the cause of death, resulted from metal penetration from a Buk warhead or other ordnance. "Don't confuse the meaning of the phrase [in the November 2014 report] 'missile injuries'. That means flying objects that strike the body."

In interview Ranson says that for burial in the UK, "you need a determination of cause of death". In Australia, by contrast, "you don't need a cause of death for burial or cremation." What was on the death certificates issued in The Netherlands, Ranson was asked, for the repatriation of the non-Dutch victims? "I can't recall," Ranson said. Dutch officials refuse to say.

The Australian coronial evidence is direct; having been prepared for the Coroners Court of Victoria, it has been tested for legal admissibility. There is also a great deal of it. It is supported by Dutch prosecutor and head of JIT, Fred Westerbeke who has acknowledged that 25 metal particles, shards, or fragments have been found. For Westerbeke's statements, click here [18]. Dutch sources, who ask for anonymity, do not believe Westerbeke is deliberately lying. They believe he is making a public record of the verifiable evidence, and also the interpretation which the Ukrainian and US Governments are insisting upon. The Dutch sources credit Westerbeke with exposing the contradiction.

Ard van der SteurOther Dutch investigators believe the reason the current Dutch Minister of Security and Justice, Ard van der Steur (right) dismissed pathologist George Maat after he gave a lecture on the identification of the MH17 victims, was that the government wanted to warn the Dutch against revealing what the Australians had already reported - that there was no evidence of more than 7,800 pieces of shrapnel in a Buk warhead. Details of that case, and Maat's pursuit of van der Steur for a retraction, can be read here [19].

The record by Maat's Australian team members at Hilversum is that no Buk detonation could have taken place without filling the bodies of passengers on the left (port), forward side of the cabin, but the evidence of the bodies shows this didn't happen. Direct testimony [20] from the sister of the pilot of MH17, Captain Wan Amran (Hamrin), corroborates that whatever detonated to destroy the aircraft, it released little shrapnel, and none struck her brother. The pilot was seated on the left side of the cockpit. Verified site photographs of pieces of the cockpit's outer panels, compiled in this montage by BellingCat, show the damage to the fuselage.

Wan Lailatul Masturah, the pilot's sister (below left), went to Hilversum to identify the body of her brother (right). Representing his wife, she escorted his coffin home for burial near Kuala Lumpur.

"They showed me the pictures on the camera. It was full length picture and he wasn't damaged, just slightly burnt. I was able to identify him. The person who cleaned the bodies told us our brother's body was in the best condition with nothing missing [20]."

Malaysia not only disallows inquests. It has forbidden family members of the 43 Malaysian victims from opening the coffins. None of the kin of those killed was permitted to view the victims in their coffins, Wan Lailatul Masturah said. "We were not allowed by the government, nobody must see. All the corpses who came back were not allowed to be opened."

The co-pilot, Capt Eugene Choo, appears to have been cremated in The Netherlands, before his remains were repatriated.

The public evidence of Arie de Bruijn, one of the lead Dutch investigators on the JIT, has been that of the 298 victims in all, the bodies of 176 were recovered "more or less complete". Here is the Dutch Government publication [23]. Another 527 body parts were "filed". As of August 8, 2014, twenty-three bodies had been identified. Following press reporting of the repatriations and funerals of those individual names most swiftly identified, it is possible to correlate them with the seating plan published from Malaysian Airlines by the Wall Street Journal [24].

To date, the consensus identification of the external blast source is a point to the left of the aircraft, forward of the left wing. This suggests that, in addition to the pilot seated on the left side of the cockpit, the passengers in seats A, B and C in rows 1 through 17 should have been the most injured, and so slowest to identify. Individuals in the corresponding seats on the right (starboard) side of the aircraft should have been least impacted, and to have remained most intact and quickest to identify and repatriate.

A review of British, Australian, Malaysian, and Canadian press reports suggests that the first repatriations and funerals were of individuals seated on the right side. Those repatriated early, who had been seated on the left side, were at the rear of the aircraft, behind the blast zone. As evidence goes, this is no more than inferential and circumstantial, based on incomplete data.

However, the report to the victims' families, written by Ranson in December last, provides the only official and explicit source of evidence for cause of death. Ranson and Coroner Gray were asked to provide a copy of the report. They refused. Ranson was asked to say if the report had carried an official classification as secret when it was released to the victims' families. He replies: "The report is for the coroner so is subject to the court processes and as I understand has not been released yet by the court." Asked when the classification was introduced, since it had not been in effect in December, when it was reported to have been sent to victims' families, Ranson now claims: "I don't believe it has been sent to families." Just how recently the report was classified, he won't say.

Carolyn Ford, the local reporter who interviewed Ranson in December and who reports being given a copy of his report, says it was not classified or otherwise restricted when she read it, and when she reported in the Law Institute Journal (LIJ) of the Law Institute of Victoria, a professional association of lawyers in the Australian state. Her article, titled "Grim Homecoming tests new morgue", is closed to non-members of the institute [25]. She has made available this copy [26]. Ford remembers Ranson telling her that copies of his report had been sent to families of the victims.

Claim papers for the two litigations which have commenced in Europe do not mention the Australian evidence on the bodies. Elmar Giemulla (right) from Berlin is the lawyer acting for the family of Grootscholten - he was in seat 11D [27]. Giemulla has so far sidestepped the coronial evidence and the explosion impacting MH17. Giemulla's submission to the ECHR can be read here [28].

This opens by saying: "The observed damage to the hull and the cockpit indicates impacts of a large number of objects that hit the aircraft from the outside. The aircraft broke apart due to these impacts in the air. Note: The account of the facts is essentially based on the findings of the English version of the preliminary investigation report of the competent Air Traffic Investigations Department (Dutch Safety Board: Preliminary report / Crash Involving Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 Flight MH17)". Additional evidence, including witnesses, is being sought, the claim states.

However, the legal foundation and focus of Giemulla's case is that Grootscholten's death was "caused due to negligence by the Ukrainian government. Contrary to its legal obligations, [the government] did not close the airspace including the flight level. The Ukrainian government acted deliberately... due to its negligence people have died." Compensation of €1 million is sought.

In the case of Dyczynski (right) before the International Criminal Court (ICC) - she was in seat 20D - the lawyers have also skirted the post-mortem evidence and controversies over the causes of the detonation, of the aircraft break-up, and of the deaths of the passengers and crew. The Dyczynski case focuses, like Giemulla's at the ECHR, on government culpability for allowing MH17 to enter the war zone airspace, when officials - Ukrainian, Dutch, and international aviation regulators - already knew of the risks to the aircraft's safety.

According to reporter Bensmann's summary [29], there had been a conference in Kiev on July 14, three days before the crash, when Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and officials from President Poroshenko's office had explicitly issued a warning that the airspace above the warzone was dangerous for aircraft. A month before, a Ukrainian military troop transport, an Ilyushin-76, had been shot down as it was landing at Lugansk; the same day of the conference another Ukrainian transport, an Antonov-26, had been struck [30] at an altitude of 6,200 metres. The evidence on which the Dyczynski lawyers are making their case is that the Dutch officials in charge at the ministry of security and justice had received the warning by an official internal communication, but had been culpably negligent in failing to act on it, and order airlines departing from Amsterdam not to enter the affected airspace.

The Dutch officials named in the court papers, Opstelten (below, left) and Teeven (right), left their offices in March. They are asking the court to reject jurisdiction and dismiss the Dyczynski claim.

European lawyers who have been following these cases and the international debate over blame say there are ample grounds for criminal and civil proceedings. They note that the political and media debate has been focused almost exclusively on the chain of events leading to the fatal detonation, followed by the passenger deaths and the aircraft crash. "Primary responsibility", says one, ""ought to focus on who caused MH17 to fly above a war zone. UkSATSE thus allowed 300 airliners a day to continue to pass over that war zone. UkSATSE as a joint civil military ATC was fully aware of the risks. UkSATSE issued the NOTAM which continued to allow civil airliners above 10km. UkSATSE approved the flight plan submitted by MH17 and controlled MH17 within Ukrainian air space till it was downed. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) only the national authorities have the responsibility and the obligation to close national air space if necessary."

UkSATSE stands for Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise, a unit of the Ministry of Infrastructure in Kiev. NOTAM stands for Notice for Airmen, the standard warning issued by aviation authorities alerting aircraft pilots to potential hazards along flight routes.

In a statement issued on July 15, 2015, UkSATSE declared: "The day of the 17-th of July became a bitter proof of the highest level of cynicism of those who had caused this tragedy and perished lives of innocent people. The whole world is waiting for the investigation of reasons and circumstances of the crash to avoid similar tragedies in the future. All guilty of this crime must be convicted. This tragedy has deeply saddened the specialists of the aviation sphere for whose activity the safety of the air traffic is a top priority. Nevertheless, even facing hard times when the Antiterrorist operation has been conducted on the East of our country for more than a year, Ukrainian Government, aviation authority and UkSATSE specialists do their best to provide the flight safety in the airspace of Ukraine."