#2
Interfax-Ukraine
October 13, 2015
PGO verifying info on shooting of Maidan activists from Hotel Ukraine
 
The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine (PGO) is verifying information about the shooting of Maidan activists from Hotel Ukraine in February 2014.

"We really are verifying information about a possible shooting from Hotel Ukraine on February 20, 2014," chief of the PGO department on special investigations Serhiy Horbatiuk said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.

He added that he cannot disclose all the details of the investigation, however the investigators are verifying reports given by MPs on the Maidan events.

He said that some offices have been searched as part of the investigation, in particular the offices of deputy heads of Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union: former deputy prime minister of Ukraine Oleksandr Sych, former MP Oleh Pankevych, and head of the party court Ihor Yankiv, but they haven't been questioned.

"They were called for questioning on Friday, on October 16. The investigator is considering the procedure of investigative actions," Horbatiuk said.

As reported, on October 12 police searched the apartments of three deputy heads of Svoboda.

Subsequently, assistant to the prosecutor general of Ukraine, Vladyslav Kutsenko confirmed that the searches are related to the investigation into the events of Euromaidan in February 2014 and stressed that Sych, Pankevych and Yankiv are not considered to be suspects.

Pankevych said that during the search he was shown an original of the video of events which occurred on February 20, 2014 that were shot from the window of a hotel room, and a hunting carbine, which was bought after the events on Maidan.

 

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#3
Facebook
October 12, 2015
Maidan Shootings
By Ivan Katchanovski
University of Ottawa

Ruslan Koshulynsky, Oleh Pankevych, and Ihor Yankiv, Svoboda leaders, revealed during today's press-conference that a hunting version of Kalashnikov was found during a house search of Pankevych, the former head of the Lviv Regional council, in the Maidan massacre case. Pankevych admitted that he filmed the beginning of the massacre from his 1131 room in the Hotel Ukraina, and that prosecutors and the state security service found and took this recording. The court order stated that his hotel room was next to the 1132 room used by snipers to shoot at the protesters. One of the Svoboda leaders lived in the 1132 room used by Maidan snipers, who were filmed shooting at the protesters in the BBC and ICTV videos. Koshulynsky said that the prosecution concluded that snipers fired from rooms of Svoboda deputies, whose houses were also searched, i.e. Sych and Yankiv. Yankiv admitted that he is investigated because of snipers in his hotel room.
 
My study, the ongoing Maidan massacre trial, and even, partially, the official investigation revealed that many protesters were killed from the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations from the same 7.62x39 caliber weapons. The Svoboda leaders also revealed for the first time during today's press-conference that the majority of Svoboda parliament members, including Koshulynsky (room 1105), Tiahnybok, Farion, Sych, Pankevych (room 1131), and Lopachak, lived on the 11th floor of the Hotel Ukraina at the time when snipers from the same hotel floor massacred the protesters. My paper stated that these and other members of Svoboda faction lived in Hotel Ukraina suits after the 2012 elections and were filmed witnessing, protecting, and accompanying Maidan shooters in this hotel during the massacre, but they have not publicly mentioned presence of Maidan shooters in the hotel, and the Prosecutor General from Svoboda did the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=6&v=4qhzgJAUZC8
 
Обшуки у керівників ВО "Свобода": подробиці від Олега Панькевича та Ігоря Янківа - 12.10.15
Прес-конференція щодо обшуків у помешканнях...

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 #4
http://off-guardian.org
October 12, 2015
Searches in Kiev: Svoboda party members suspected of Maidan mass murder
[Graphics here http://off-guardian.org/2015/10/12/searches-in-kiev-svoboda-party-members-suspected-of-maidan-mass-murder/]

About one hundred people, including 18 police officers, were shot to death by snipers in Kiev's Independence Square on February 20 2014.

Con l'Ucraina antifascista reports:

    Aleksandr Aronets, spokesman of Svoboda in Kiev, reports [see below] that this morning there were raids against members of Svoboda, on suspicions of mass murder during the Maidan - murders that were attributed to "snipers of former President Yanukovitch" and to Berkut [the police]. Among the materials in the hands of investigators is a video [see below] where you see someone shoot from a window of the hotel "Ukraine" on Independence Square, protesters and police. The room in question (no. 1132) was occupied by the Svoboda deputy Oleg Pankevich.

    Recall that the National Fascist party Svoboda was one of the main organizations to take part in the violence that led to the coup, with the not hidden support of the EU and US. In fact its leader Oleg Tjagnibok had numerous meetings with John McCain, Victoria Nuland and European representatives, like the then High Representative for EU Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton.

    In recent months, however, Tjagnibok's party  (who also formed a battalion of volunteers sent to the Donbass) entered into a collision course with Poroshenko and the majority of the Verkhovnaja Rada [Parliament]. In September, the militants of Svoboda, along with other fascist groups, arranged a fight [in front of the Rada] which resulted in three deaths and hundreds of injured.

    The searches do confirm what had surfaced from wiretaps between Ashton and Foreign Minister Paet of Estonia, which showed that the snipers were not "governmental", but professionals hired by the far-right organizations.

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 #5
Putin: West sees that resolution of all problems in Donbas not in Moscow's competence

MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. Western countries see that the resolution of all problems in Donbas is not in the competence of Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday at VTB-Capital's investment forum "Russia Calling!"

"There are many problems there but the majority of them are not in our competence. Do our colleagues in Europe and the United States see it? I think they do," Putin said. "I have reasons to assume that they see it but it is uncomfortable for them to say that the current authorities in Kiev are unable to solve them," he added.

"It is much easier to pass it on to us and say: 'Look, you need to strengthen there, to increase by three times and six times'," Putin noted. "It is needed that our partners fulfill their commitments as well," he added.

Answering a question about anti-Russian sanctions, Putin said: "You should ask Europe or those who gives such commands, in another place."

Search for compromise on Donbas elections to be hard

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the process to search for compromise on elections in Donbas will be complicated but Kiev should do that.

"This will be a complicated process to seek compromise, but there's no other way. And there are no problems on our part there. Despite all intra-political restrictions, our colleagues in Kiev should do that," Putin noted.

Putin calls ridiculous demands that Russia implement Minsk Agreements

Russuan President called ridiculous, not serious and unfunny constant demands that Moscow implement the Minsk Agreements.

"There's no alternative to the Minsk deals. But speaking all the time that Russia should implement them becomes ridiculous," Putin said.

"This is already becoming not serious, unfunny, just ridiculous," he stressed.

Putin said the key thing that should underlie the settlement of the situation in Ukraine's south-east is "political process".

Minsk agreements on Ukraine

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

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

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

 #6
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
October 12, 2015
With its grand past and difficult present, Russia's future still unclear
The Russian government's shift from a three-year to a one-year budget indicates that the planning horizon of the Russian government has been narrowing even further, making the success of any long-term strategy even more doubtful.
By Pavel Koshkin
Pavel Koshkin is Executive Editor of Russia Direct and a contributing writer to Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH). He also contributed to a number of Russian and foreign media outlets, including Russia Profile, Kommersant and the BBC.

Last week the Russian government endorsed the draft version of a one-year federal budget for 2016. That's a significant step, because ever since 2008 - the previous time period when the Kremlin had to deal with a serious economic crisis - the Russian government had been creating a three-year budget.

So, such a shift from longer-term planning to shorter-term planning indicates that the Russian authorities are becoming less confident in their capability to tackle the nation's increasing economic challenges in a time of increasing uncertainty, volatile oil prices and geopolitical instability.

At the same time, such a move seems to contradict the Kremlin's effort to switch to strategic thinking, taking into account its recent attempts to outline Strategy 2030 at the Sochi Investment Forum that took place in early October.   

Alexander Auzan, dean and professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University's Faculty of Economics, is concerned with such a decision. He argues that the major reason for shying away from three-year planning, or what he refers to as "narrowing the planning horizon," is the lack of financial resources for the federal budget. Yet he decisively doesn't agree with such a stance and sees it as a "categorically wrong measure."

"Withdrawal from three-year planning horizon, based on difficulties in this planning, is absolutely the wrong move, because this very decision led, for example, to another freezing of pension savings," he told Russia Direct during the Oct. 9 conference at Lomonosov Moscow State University's Faculty of Economics. "In my view, any narrowing of the planning horizon is very bad. Understandably, it stems from the lack of resources, but it should not be the justification of such a move."

Shlomo Weber, the professor of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the rector of the New Economic School in Moscow and the manager of a research laboratory at Moscow State University's Faculty of Economics, is also skeptical about the Kremlin's decision to switch to a one-year budget. He argues that "it is better and easier to do three-year budgeting" despite the current pressing challenges.

"It is necessary to understand what needs to be done tomorrow," he told Russia Direct.

According to him, understanding history and mistakes of the past is what can help to understand the future and overcome the path-dependence problem, the vicious circle of repeating the past mistakes. And this is impossible without investing in education and human capital.

"If we want to think in the long-term, it is necessary to invest in education today, not the day after tomorrow,"he said at a meeting with journalists. "Without resolving this problem, it is impossible to move forward."

Likewise, Auzan argues that Russia won't be able to shoulder effectively the burden of the current crisis if its authorities are not mindful about the direction, where they are moving.

Our past is grand, our present is difficult and our future is unclear," Auzan told journalists during the Oct. 9 conference at Lomonosov Moscow State University's Faculty of Economics. "The challenge we are trying to resolve is called the path-dependence problem: how to overcome the trap of repeating unsuccessful reforms and situations, which we have been in several times; how to change the trajectory."

In Russia, there are interesting discussions and research about a new strategy - the strategy, most likely, until 2035. This strategy will differ from the previous ones. As Auzan, who also contributes to creating the new strategy, explained, this time the Russian government will try to determine where the country is heading.

"Unlike in previous strategies, we don't think that people care only about pure economy," he said. "We believe that there is culture as well as demographic changes, increasing technologies. And all this should be taken into account. Thus, it requires interdisciplinary research."  

That's the reason why Auzan finds it important to involve in the discussion those who deal with society and culture, not just pure economics. Former Minister of Culture in the Moscow government Sergei Kapkov, who now heads the Center for Research of Economy of Culture at Moscow State University's Faculty of Economics, is among those who are helping to broaden the discussion and offer different approaches.

"It is already senseless to talk about the current problem, it is necessary to discuss the model of the future, the very point B, from which we will be heading to during the upcoming five or 10, and them 15 years," he told journalists at the conference.

If the country's decision makers who possess all necessary information don't have a clear model of the future, "the population - major consumers and cultural producers, the majority of citizens of the country - doesn't have clear understanding of future, at least, for 10 upcoming years as well," Kapkov added. "They believe in strong ruling authorities, but they are not aware where each of them and their families will be in 10 years. And this is the problem."

However, coming up with long-term strategies in the times of increasing instability - what some describe as "black swans," or highly unpredictable events - is becoming even more difficult. When asked about this challenge, Auzan said that the origins of this unpredictability stem from the narrow planning horizon, from the lack of long-term thinking.

"The root of the problem is the length of the [planning] horizon," he told Russia Direct.

If decision makers have the short planning horizon, if there are no intersection points about the future between elites and ordinary people, the planning horizon is squeezed and any decision about the future turns out to be immediate, he concluded.

"That's why we need to make a shift," he said. "We need to make our remote goals and dreams, which we [the authorities and the population] agree on, meet with our current interests, which are different, through sophisticated institutes, tools and incentives, which will draw current and remote goals closer together."

According to him, the need to come up with new approaches to a strategy may stem from any challenge: from a catastrophe, a crash, a military defeat, or an economic crisis.

"Strategy is nothing more than that trajectory, which you try to go through, if you understand where you are heading," he told in a response to the question from Russia Direct, pointing out that Russians are reluctant to make a choice between several options, when it is necessary to make a sacrifice.

"If we start dreaming concurrently about becoming a great power, about spatial development, about the growth of the gas and oil sector, about human capital and won't make a choice, all our dreams will collapse, because there is only one budget and gross domestic product (GDP) is small," he said.

At the same time, he admits that the difficult situation makes the Kremlin look for a solution. This challenge is seen as a stimulus to outline the model of the future, which spurs the aspiration of the Russian government to find a sort of a guiding light in the form of Strategy 2035.

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 #7
Levada.ru
October 12, 2015
Most Russians think economic crisis will last for years - poll

Most Russians agreed that currently Russia is undergoing an economic crisis, as was revealed by the poll results published on Russian independent polling organization Levada Centre's website on 12 October.

The poll was conducted on 18-21 September 2015 among 1,600 respondents of age 18 and older in 134 settlements in 46 regions of Russia. Out of those polled, 77 per cent either mostly agreed or rather agreed with the statement that Russia was in a state of an economic crisis. Similar results were recorded in December 2014.

At the same time 23 per cent thought the crisis would last a year or a year and a half, 24 per cent said it would continue for no less than two years and another 23 per cent were convinced the crisis would be very long and its consequences would be felt over the course of many years. Only, respectfully, 19, 21 and 16 per cent of respondents thought the same in 2014 when most also agreed the country was going through an economic crisis! .

Almost a third of those polled, or 34 per cent, said the crisis was caused by external factors, such as falling oil prices and overall global economic downturn while 26 per cent said the turmoil was the result of internal problems, including a particular structure of Russia's economy and high level of government interference. Another 36 per cent said the crisis was caused by a combination of these factors.

Some 57 per cent of respondents said the government was doing a mediocre job fighting the crisis and its consequences while a third of them, or 32 per cent, said that job was done badly.

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 #8
Putin: Russian Government and Central Bank show ability to achieve results in crisis

MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. The Russian government and the Central Bank showed consistency and the ability to achieve results in a crisis, the Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at the "Russia Calling!" investment forum.

"I would like to give a word of encouragement to the Government and the Central Bank. Despite all the difficulties and challenges that the Russian economy has faced, our management team in the economic sector has shown a high level of responsibility, consistency and the ability to achieve results. I think it is also good opportunity to believe that Russia is a good place to cooperate and invest," Putin said.

According to the president, Russian authorities do not plan to limit capital flow.

"I want to repeat that limitations of capital flow are not planned," he said.

The President also noted the fact that Russian authorities gave a sign that they do not intend to limit capital flow in the country, triggered inflow of direct investment into the Russian economy. "For the first time since the second quarter of 2010 we recorded inflow of direct investment emerging in the third quarter of this year," Putin said.

Peak of crisis has been reached

The peak of the economic crisis has been reached and Russian economy has adjusted to new conditions, President Vladimir Putin believes.

"Naturally, we faced some crisis developments. However, some experts believe, and I agree with them, that the peak of the crisis as a whole has already been achieved, and the economy as a whole has adjusted or is confidently adjusting to the changing economic conditions," the president said.

He added that" this means first signs of stabilization, despite the fact that there has been recession in some sectors of economy except agriculture."

"Let me say this carefully, some colleagues believe that the peak of the crisis is left behind and our plans for the coming years imply that we will not only pass this route, not only come out of the state of depression in the sectors of the economy but will restore positive dynamics in general. I have no doubt that it will happen," Putin said.

Putin said that the processing sector of the national economy "already feels confident enough".

"At a time when our economy is adjusting to lower prices of raw materials, including hydrocarbons, opportunities open up for other sectors: for mechanical engineering, agriculture, processing and so on," the president said.

Putin added that this is the first factor that could attract potential investors not only in the oil and gas sector but also in other sectors of the Russian economy.

Introduction of floating rate turned to be proper and timely for national economy

According to Putin, introduction of a floating rate turned to be proper and timely for the national economy.

"This step became proper and timely for the country on the whole, for its economy, and ultimately for Russian citizens," the president said.

As far as the floating rate is concerned, "certainly, downsides for some participants in economic activity are in place," the head of state said. "There are some disadvantages for Russian citizens, for individuals, I mean that this affected prices and inflation accordingly. That is, certain consequences of negative nature for citizens exist," Putin added.

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 #9
Kremlin.ru
Russia Calling! Investment Forum
October 13, 2015

Vladimir Putin took part in the 7th Russia Calling! Investment Forum organised by VTB Capital.

The theme of the plenary session was "Building Long-term Cooperation and Developing Opportunities for Economic Growth." The discussion focused on ways of adapting the Russian economy to the changing macroeconomic conditions that open up new opportunities for strengthening the Eurasian Economic Union and creating strategic integrational projects within the framework of the Silk Route Economic Belt, as well as other issues of importance for the Russian and global economies.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I would like to begin by thanking you for the invitation and for organising such a representative forum. I believe it is both interesting and useful - definitely interesting and useful for this country. I hope those participants who came from abroad will also find it beneficial.

Actually, all those who spoke here have already said everything - and we have a very representative board here on stage: the best economists, the best financiers, the best bankers in the world - so I doubt that I will be able to add anything of substance. The entire idea of having me here actually boils down to saying that I support them and that we will conduct the policy they spoke of.

The policy that was declared, in detail and in numbers, I believe, is not something frozen. Our economic policy reacts to developments both in the global economy and in this country, and some adjustments are made, of course. However, the fundamental principles mentioned by my colleagues will remain.

We will do everything to ensure macroeconomic stability and respond to what is going on, as I said, in international finance and economy, on the world markets. If there is anything you would like to ask or clarify - go ahead, please, I will try to provide you with answers.

VTB Bank Chairman and CEO Andrei Kostin: Thank you very much, Mr President. I am certain there will be many questions.

The live discussion that takes place at our forums, when you answer questions from the public, is truly worth a lot and, in fact, it is the reason many people come here. If you allow me, as the host I would like to ask the first question.

This year we have been hearing that for the first time in 27 years money is being withdrawn from developing markets in general. There has always been an influx, while now we will have a pure outflow: money is being withdrawn from China, Brazil and Turkey. Incidentally, the drain from Russia this year is half of what we had last year, which is seen as a rather positive tendency.

Given this background, how much does Russia need foreign investment? Generally, are we expecting an inflow, do we need foreign investors, or will we replace them with some resources of our own?

My second question is if we do need them and if Russia is indeed calling, as our forum's name says, then where is it calling? What are advantages can Russia and the Russian economy offer that allow us to say to investors: you can invest here, and here you will get some extra 'chocolates' or 'carrots' - something that would attract investors to this country, to this economy rather than let them look in other countries? What do you think is the greatest attraction of the Russian economy?

Vladimir Putin: There is no need to discuss the reasons for the capital drain from developing markets with the people gathered here. This could have been brought about by a change in the US Federal Reserve System policy or many other factors, like a drop in prices on traditional export goods in the developing countries. At the same time, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in this country we have been experiencing a capital drain since the second quarter of 2010, while in the third quarter of this year we have seen an inflow, and absolute inflow of capital. I believe our colleagues have mentioned this here. If this is the case, it means the market is responding quickly to the developments in this country and in its economy.

So what is going on? Clearly, we have come across a crisis. I have already named the causes, and there are actually more of them, but these are the main ones. Nevertheless, some experts maintain, and I tend to agree with them that we have generally reached the peak of the crisis and overall our economy is gradually adapting to these new economic circumstances, not all of it, but generally, it has adapted.

These are the first signs of stabilisation. Despite the fact, say, that many sectors of the economy are still going through a slump, except for agriculture, the situation nevertheless is becoming more stable. The processing industry is gaining confidence. In conditions when the economy is adapting to lower raw materials prices, including hydrocarbons, opportunities open up for other branches of the economy: for machine building, agriculture, processing and so on.

This is the first factor that can attract potential investors not only to the oil and gas sector of the Russian economy, but to the other ones as well. In additional to that, as we always say, and this is true - here in Russia, we have a sufficiently well educated population and well trained personnel. This, of course, requires a lot more work in a professional sense, but we have a good pool of skilled personnel.

Finally, I would like to say some kind words about the Government of the Russian Federation and the Central Bank. Despite all the difficulties facing the Russian economy, our management team in the economy has demonstrated a high degree of responsibility, consistency and the ability to achieve results. I think this is also a good reason to believe that Russia is a good place for cooperation and investment.

As for Russian investment, there is a certain decrease in investment into basic capital; however, overall we are retaining a rather high level of investment, including investment from the federal budget. While last year it reached 1.5 trillion rubles, this year the amount will be greater, but without violating as much as possible the main macroeconomic parameters. Both the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank are trying to conduct a more flexible policy.

You have probably heard here about the relevant Central Bank programmes directed at so-called project financing to reduce interest rates for the end loan consumer. You have probably also heard about the various funds that we are creating. As you may know, or may not know, there are some positive trends in cutting red tape in the economy and raising Russia's ratings in these areas. These are all good signs demonstrating that Russia is a comfortable and very promising place for cooperation.

To be continued.

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 #10
Forbes.com
October 13, 2015
'Resurgent' Russia Is Actually Starting To Show Worrying Signs Of Decline
By Mark Adomanis
[Charts here http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/10/13/resurgent-russia-is-actually-starting-to-show-worrying-signs-of-decline/]

It's not entirely clear why, but Western impressions of Russia have always veered between the apocalyptic and the overly-optimistic. Russia is either collapsing or about to take over the world.

For most of the 2000's the West was very much in agreement on the "Russia is doomed" thesis. This, it should be noted, was a thoroughly bi-partisan affair. Centrist Democrats like Joe Biden and conservative Republicans like Dick Cheney painted strikingly similar portraits of a rapidly depopulating moonscape, a ravaged and devastated husk of a nation that would soon be trampled underfoot by the Chinese. There were a few outliers, but the general expert consensus was that Russia was finished as a great power and that, sooner or later, the Kremlin would realize this inescapable fact.

However, largely due to its recent intervention in Syria and to a lesser extent due to its annexation of Crimea, the media consensus has very suddenly and rapidly shifted to a "Russia is a resurgent great power."  It's hard to separate the the desire for additional budget funding from the dispassionate analysis, but high-ranking US military officers have recently taken to calling Moscow an "existential threat" to the United States and have even gone so far as to warn that, if we ever had to go to war with the Russians, we might lose.

Virtually overnight, then, Russia has gone from being seen as a faded a laughingstock to a revamped (and perhaps even more threatening!) version of the Soviet Union.

The reality, though, is that any country's influence on the world stage is based almost entirely on its economic power. America's dominant international role would be impossible to sustain without its large and dynamic economy, and China's growing power is due to its still-rapid (if slowing) economic rise. It's not exactly a secret that, mostly because of a historic swoon in commodity prices, Russia's economy is not faring particularly well at the moment.

No that doesn't mean that Russia's economy is "collapsing," absent some kind of huge external shock it seems likely to resume very modest growth as soon as next year, but it is obviously not experiencing the kind of growth necessary to underwrite a major global power play. The hawks who are concerned that Russia is "replacing America as the dominant power in the Middle East," should take a very deep breath: even if it wanted to do so, which is itself in doubt, Russia totally lacks the resources necessary to take on such a role.

Even outside of the famously stressed economy, a supposedly "resurgent" Russia is showing signs of additional problems. Throughout 2015, births are down and deaths are up, and the country is currently on track to record the first year-over-year deterioration in natural population growth in a decade. Even more worrying is a modest uptick in the number of alcohol poisonings (which, through August, were up 1.5% year over year). The death rate from alcohol poisoning has served as a kind of societal warning light, generally increasing during times of social strain like the Brezhnev era stagnation and the "shock therapy" reforms of the 1990s.

This doesn't mean that the "Russia is collapsing" thesis was right, but it does suggest that Russia is extremely ill-equipped to play the role of hegemon throughout the Middle East. Russia, in other words, is taking on an increasing foreign policy burden at the precise time that its ability to shoulder such a burden is declining.

In one sense the zigs and zags of Western opinion are darkly amusing: when Russia was actually resurgent throughout the early and mid 2000's, when its economy was galloping along at a China-like rate, the consensus was that the country was in the midst of an unstoppable collapse. Now that the foundation of Russian power (i.e. its economy) is under greater strain than at any point since the messy debt collapse of the late 1990s, the consensus has rapidly become the exact opposite: that without dramatic actions from NATO, Russia will overturn the entire global order.

Russia remains what it has been ever since the collapse of communism: a country with enormous amounts of power and influence within the boundaries of its former empire, but with only a modest global role outside of the former Soviet Union.

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 #11
Sputnik
October 12, 2015
Enormous Oil, Gas Reserves Found in Russia's Arctic Region

The Arctic Region boasts oil and gas reserves similar to those of Western Siberia.

According to preliminary estimations, the Arctic reserves have nearly 100 billion tons of fuel, Alexei Kontorovich, Director of the Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told journalists.

"As for oil and gas reserves, the Artic is the new Western Siberia. According to geologists, the reserves have 100 billion tons of fuel - oil and gas. But the proportion of oil and gas is a point for discussion," he said.

Kontorovich added that currently the reserves are believed to 80 percent gas.

"Now it is premature to make conclusions. I think the share of oil could increase," he said.

Currently, the institute is exploring vast Arctic territories, including the areas from the Pechora Sea and the Barents Sea to the mouth of the Lena River. These are the regions which are now thought to be the largest oil fields.

Kontorovich underscored that Russia's two largest energy companies - Rosneft and Gazprom - are also actively involved in the exploration, but they do not share information with scientists.

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#12
Moscow Times
October 13, 2015
Justice Ministry Wipes 10 NGOs Off 'Foreign Agents' List

Russia's Justice Ministry has deleted 10 NGOs from the list of "foreign agents," the Gazeta.ru news website reported Monday. Four of them were excluded from the list because they "stopped performing the functions of a foreign agent," while the other six were removed because they had closed down for good.

The report didn't specify which organizations had been deleted from the list, which currently comprises 94 NGOs.

President Vladimir Putin signed the so-called foreign agents law in 2012, requiring all NGOs that receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activity to declare that their materials were produced by a "foreign agent," a term widely associated in Russia with espionage.

The law has been broadly criticized for its loose definition of what constitutes "political activity."

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#13
Moscow Times
October 13, 2015
Lawmakers Move to Force Russian Media to Report Foreign Funding
By Daria Litvinova

Russian media will be obliged to report funding they receive from abroad to the media watchdog Roskomnadzor, if an inter-party group of deputies get their way.

A bill to that effect was introduced to the State Duma, the lower chamber of the country's parliament, last week by deputies from the LDPR, Communist and A Just Russia parties.

The bill states that if a media outlet accepts funding - except for money that comes from advertising and for money from the organization's founder - or property from abroad, it should report it to Roskomnadzor within 30 days or be fined.

The individual responsible would have to pay a 30,000- to 50,000-ruble fine ($460-$770), while legal entities would be obliged to pay the same sum of money they had failed to declare, the bill stipulates.

The legislative initiative is part of a broader initiative to cut off Russian media from foreign financing, experts say.

Part of the Trend

Last year, a law was adopted limiting the stake of foreigners in Russian media outlets to 20 percent.

It comes into force on Jan. 1, 2016 and affects most of the country's publishing houses, although they will have another year's grace period to comply with the legislation.

"This [new initiative] is a small amendment [to the basic media law], it targets those media outlets that the ownership law hasn't covered, and those not covered by the 'foreign agents' law" that targets NGOs accepting foreign funding, said Yekaterina Shulman, an expert in legislative processes at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

It's not revolutionary, and is unlikely to contribute to the changes the market is being forced to undergo because of the ownership law, Shulman told The Moscow Times in a phone interview, adding that it has good chances of being passed during the autumn session of the Duma.

"One of the authors of the bill [Vadim Dengin, an LDPR deputy and first deputy head of the State Duma committee for information policy] has already introduced amendments to [media] law [including the media ownership law] that he previously worked on in the committee, and this doesn't contradict the trend," Shulman said.

The fact that the ruling United Russia party is not among the authors of the document doesn't interfere with the bill's chances of being passed, she added.

"The main idea is that the bill is an addition to [last year's] ownership law. It's even supposed to come into force on Jan. 1 - the same day as the ownership law," she told The Moscow Times.

Dengin was unavailable to comment on the bill last week.

Symbolic Power

The initiative won't change much; it's simply designed to send a signal to the media, said Ivan Zasoursky, a professor at Moscow State University's journalism faculty.

"It's an attempt to put a sign out there: a very simple sign [saying] 'if you're planning to take foreign money, be prepared to have a talk about it with certain people, or better still - think twice,'" Zasoursky told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

"If we're talking about political control over foreign funding in the press, that has already been achieved. There are restrictions targeting NGOs and there are restrictions that apply to media outlets which are serious enough and difficult to bypass," he said.

At the same time, there are currently a lot of loopholes in the bill, Zasoursky said.

"What if you're a blogger equated to media [under Russian law] - will you have to report foreign funding to Roskomnadzor? Or you're selling goods on the website [of your media outlet] to Amazon - will that be considered foreign funding? Or what if some Syrians subscribe to the Dozhd [opposition-leaning] TV channel [that sells subscriptions] and pay for it, is that foreign funding?" he said.

Nevertheless, the bill is a success as a political act, the expert said. "Its propaganda goals have been achieved," Zasoursky concluded.

Several major publishing houses have already sold or closed their Russian operations as a direct result of the ownership law.

The U.S. Hearst Corporation, which had a major stake in the Russian publisher of glossy magazines like Elle and Marie Claire, sold part of its share to its local partner this summer.

Switzerland's Edipresse and Germany's Axel Springer said in September they would withdraw from the Russian market over the law.

Denmark's Egmont Media Group announced it would transfer its Russian magazine business to a local company.

Further Crackdown?

In August, the Communications and Press Ministry suggested forbidding NGOs labeled as "foreign agents" from launching and registering media outlets.

The proposal stipulated that nongovernmental organizations registered as "foreign agents" - a label with strong connotations of espionage in Russia that is applied to organizations which receive funding from abroad and are engaged in loosely defined political activity - cannot be founders of media outlets.

There are some 20 existing media outlets that are owned by NGOs registered as "foreign agents."

For example, elections watchdog Golos runs the newspaper Grazhdansky Golos (Civic Voice), while Memorial, an NGO that advocates the rehabilitation of victims of Soviet-era repression, runs Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasus Knot), one of the most prominent media outlets in the North Caucasus.

That proposal is still under consideration.

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 #14
Moscow Times
October 12, 2015
Most Russians Want Homosexuals 'Liquidated' or Ostracized - Poll
By Peter Hobson

More than half of Russians think that gay people should be either "liquidated" or isolated from society, according to a poll published Friday that showed a hardening of attitudes toward many minority groups in Russia in recent years.

The survey by the Levada Center, an independent pollster, is the latest in a series charting Russians' views on marginal social groups since 1989. It reveals a broad pattern of softening public opinion during the 1990s, followed by growing intolerance since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000.

Gay people, prostitutes, homeless people and members of fringe religious groups have all become less welcome in Russia during the past 15 years - a period that has seen democracy diminished, tighter state control of information and growth in the power of the Russian Orthodox Church.

However, intolerance toward those born with disabilities fell dramatically. In 1989, 23 percent of respondents thought disabled children should be liquidated and another 9 percent said they should be separated from society. Now, 2 percent advocate liquidation and 4 percent want separation.

Attitudes to Russia's LGBT community, on the other hand, have gotten worse. The data set begins in 1989, when sex between men was criminal under Soviet law and could carry a five-year jail sentence (the law didn't mention women). At the time, 35 percent of respondents to the Levada poll thought LGBT people should be liquidated, and 28 percent said they should be isolated from society.

Russian law became more liberal during the 1990s, largely thanks to Western political pressure, and public opinion seemed to follow. Gay sex was decriminalized in 1993 and in 1999 homosexuality was removed from a list of mental disorders. In that year, 15 percent of Russians wanted gay people liquidated, and 23 percent wanted them ostracized, while another 16 percent said they should be "helped."

But since then, intolerance has grown. Now, 21 percent of people want to see LGBT people liquidated, and another 37 percent advocate separating them from society, the poll found.

The increase reflects a bout of public homophobia in recent years. While Putin insists that gay Russians enjoy equal rights, hardline politicians and Orthodox clergy have damned gay people as "godless" and "non-human."

A law banning "gay propaganda" to minors was passed two years ago, and incidences of violence against homosexuals are common. One 23-year-old man was sodomized with a beer bottle and beaten to death in 2013 after telling friends in Volgograd that he was gay.
Earlier this year, two Russian journalists who filmed themselves walking hand-in-hand around Moscow were repeatedly insulted and manhandled by passers-by.

Another Levada poll in May found that 37 percent of people thought homosexuality was a disease that needed treating.

The fastest rise in intolerance recorded in the Levada study was toward religious sects.

Fewer than 20 percent of Russians wanted to liquidate or ostracize members of such sects in 1994, the first year the poll was held after the collapse of the Soviet Union and when religious movements were flourishing.

Now, 57 percent of those polled said they would liquidate or separate those people from society.

The survey polled 1,600 adults across Russia from Sept. 18-21. It had a margin of error of no more than 3.4 percent.

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 #15
Washington Post
October 12, 2015
Did U.S. weapons supplied to Syrian rebels draw Russia into the conflict?
By Liz Sly
Liz Sly is the Post's Beirut bureau chief. She has spent more than 15 years covering the Middle East, including the Iraq war. Other postings include Africa, China and Afghanistan.

BEIRUT - American antitank missiles supplied to Syrian rebels are playing an unexpectedly prominent role in shaping the Syrian battlefield, giving the conflict the semblance of a proxy war between the United States and Russia, despite President Obama's express desire to avoid one.

The U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW missiles were delivered under a two-year-old covert program coordinated between the United States and its allies to help vetted Free Syrian Army groups in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad. Now that Russia has entered the war in support of Assad, they are taking on a greater significance than was originally intended.

So successful have they been in driving rebel gains in northwestern Syria that rebels call the missile the "Assad Tamer," a play on the word Assad, which means lion. And in recent days they have been used with great success to slow the Russian-backed offensive aimed at recapturing ground from the rebels.

Since Wednesday, when Syrian troops launched their first offensive backed by the might of Russia's military, dozens of videos have been posted on YouTube showing rebels firing the U.S.-made missiles at Russian-made tanks and armored vehicles belonging to the Syrian army. Appearing as twirling balls of light, they zigzag across the Syrian countryside until they find and blast their target in a ball of flame.

The rebels claim they took out 24 tanks and armored vehicles on the first day, and the toll has risen daily since then.

"It was a tank massacre," said Capt. Mustafa Moarati, whose Tajamu al-Izza group says it destroyed seven tanks and armored vehicles Wednesday.

More missiles are on the way, he said. New supplies arrived after the Russian deployments began, he said, and the rebels' allies have promised further deliveries soon, bringing echoes of the role played by U.S.-supplied Stinger antiaircraft missiles in forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The hits also plunged Washington into what amounts to a proxy war of sorts with Moscow, despite Obama's insistence this month that "we're not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia."

"It's a proxy war by happenstance," said Jeff White of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who counted at least 15 tanks and vehicles destroyed or disabled in one day. "The rebels happen to have a lot of TOWs in their inventory. The regime happened to attack them with Russian support. I don't see it as a proxy war by decision."

Whether it will become one is one of the key questions confronting the Obama administration in the wake of President Vladimir Putin's decision to throw Russia's support behind Assad's regime.

The TOW missile program overseen by the CIA is entirely separate from a failed program run by the Pentagon that was intended to influence the outcome of the other war being waged in Syria, the one in the northeastern part of the country against the Islamic State.

The CIA program got underway before the Pentagon one, in early 2014, with the goal of propping up the flagging rebellion against Assad's rule by delivering training, small arms, ammunition and the antitank missiles, which have proved instrumental in eroding the government's key advantage over the lightly armed rebel force - its tanks and heavy armor.

Supplied mostly from stocks owned by Saudi Arabia, delivered across the Turkish border and stamped with CIA approval, the missiles were intended to fulfill another of the Obama administration's goals in Syria - Assad's negotiated exit from power. The plan, as described by administration officials, was to exert sufficient military pressure on Assad's forces to persuade him to compromise - but not so much that his government would precipitously collapse and leave a dangerous power vacuum in Damascus.

Instead, the Russian military intervened to shore up the struggling Syrian army - an outcome that was not intended.

"A primary driving factor in Russia's calculus was the realization that the Assad regime was militarily weakening and in danger of losing territory in northwestern Syria. The TOWs played an outsize role in that," said Oubai Shahbandar, a Dubai-based consultant who used to work with the Syrian opposition.

"I think even the Americans were surprised at how successful they've been," he added.

[The Syrian rebels who received first U.S. missiles of war]

It was no accident, say U.S. officials and military analysts, that the first targets of Russian airstrikes in Syria were the locations where the rebels armed with TOW missiles have made the most substantial gains and where they most directly threaten Assad's hold over his family's heartland in the coastal province of Latakia.

Those areas were also where the first offensive since the Russian intervention was launched, with columns of Syrian armored vehicles and tanks setting out from government strongholds into the countryside of the provinces of Hama and Idlib.

What the TOWs have done, White said, is "offset the regime's advantage in armor. The TOWs have cut away at that edge, and that's what we've seen playing out. It's like the Stingers in Afghanistan."

It is unclear whether the TOWs will be able to change the course of the war, as did the Stinger antiaircraft missiles introduced in the 1980s by the CIA in Afghanistan, where they were used by the mujahideen to shoot down Russian helicopters and paralyze the Soviet army.

Now that the Russians have introduced more intensive and heavier airstrikes and, for the first time, combat helicopters have been seen in videos strafing villages in the Hama area, the TOW missiles may only be able to slow, but not block, government advances.

The rebels have appealed for the delivery of Stinger missiles or their equivalents to counter the new threat from the air, but U.S. officials say that is unlikely. The Obama administration has repeatedly vetoed past requests from the rebels, as well as their Turkish and Saudi allies, for the delivery of antiaircraft missiles, out of concerns that they could fall into extremist hands.

But the TOW missile program is already in progress, and all the indications are that it will continue. Saudi Arabia, the chief supplier, has pledged a "military" response to the Russian incursion, and rebel commanders say they have been assured more will arrive imminently.

Under the terms of the program, the missiles are delivered in limited quantities, and the rebel groups must return the used canisters to secure more, to avoid stockpiling or resale.

The system appears to have helped prevent the missiles from falling into extremist hands. Robert Ford, who was serving as U.S. envoy to Syria when the program got underway, said he was aware of only two TOWs obtained by the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, while "dozens and dozens" have been fired by moderate groups.

"Nusra made a big public display of having these two missiles," said Ford, who is now a fellow at the Middle East Institute. Had they acquired more, he said, "they would be using them now."

The supplies of the missiles, manufactured by Raytheon, are sourced mainly from stocks owned by the Saudi government, which purchased 13,795 of them in 2013, for expected delivery this year, according to Defense Department documents informing Congress of the sale. Because end-user agreements require that the buyer inform the United States of their ultimate destination, U.S. approval is implicit, said Shahbandar, a former Pentagon adviser.

But no decision is required from the Obama administration for the program to continue, Shahbandar said. "It doesn't need an American green light. A yellow light is enough," he said. "It's a covert effort and it's technically deniable, but that's what proxy wars are."

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 #16
New York Times
October 13, 2015
U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia
By ANNE BARNARD and KARAM SHOUMALI

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Insurgent commanders say that since Russia began air attacks in support of the Syrian government, they are receiving for the first time bountiful supplies of powerful American-made antitank missiles.

With the enhanced insurgent firepower and with Russia steadily raising the number of airstrikes against the government's opponents, the Syrian conflict is edging closer to an all-out proxy war between the United States and Russia.

The increased levels of support have raised morale on both sides of the conflict, broadening war aims and hardening political positions, making a diplomatic settlement all the more unlikely.

The American-made TOW antitank missiles began arriving in the region in 2013, through a covert program run by the United States, Saudi Arabia and other allies to help certain C.I.A.-vetted insurgent groups battle the Syrian government.

The weapons are delivered to the field by American allies, but the United States approves their destination. That suggests that the newly steady battlefield supply has at least tacit American approval, now that Russian air power is backing President Bashar al-Assad.

"We get what we ask for in a very short time," one commander, Ahmad al-Saud, said in an interview. He added that in just two days his group, Division 13, had destroyed seven armored vehicles and tanks with seven TOWs: "Seven out of seven."

Spirits are rising on the government side as well. Weapons and morale are "at a new level," said an official with the newly revived alliance of Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah that is fighting on the behalf of Damascus.

Instead of a dim light at the end of a tunnel, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military matters, the alliance is seeking something closer to victory. The aim now is to retake Syrian land that had been given up for lost, take the ouster of Mr. Assad off the table for good and reach a far more advantageous political solution after establishing "new facts on the ground."

But as Russian airstrikes against Syrian insurgents have picked up, so have insurgent attacks, documented in online videos. TOW missiles weave across fields, their red contrails blazing, chasing Russian-made vehicles used by Syrian government forces and blowing them up.

At least 34 such videos have been posted in just the last five days from the battlefield in Hama and Idlib Provinces, where TOWs have helped blunt the Syrian government's first ground offensive backed by Russian air power.

One official with a rebel group that is fighting in Hama called the supply "carte blanche."

"We can get as much as we need and whenever we need them," he said, asking not to be identified to avoid reprisals from rival Islamist insurgents he has criticized. "Just fill in the numbers."

He said he believed Russia's entry into the conflict had made the difference.

"By bombing us, Russia is bombing the 13 'Friends of Syria' countries," he said, referring to the group of the United States and its allies that called for the ouster of Mr. Assad after his crackdown on political protests in 2011.

The C.I.A. program that delivered the TOWs (an acronym for tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missiles) is separate from - and significantly larger than - the failed $500 million Pentagon program that was canceled last week after it trained only a handful of fighters. That was unsuccessful largely because few recruits would agree to its goal of fighting only the militant Islamic State and not Mr. Assad.

Rebel commanders scoffed when asked about reports of the delivery of 500 TOWs from Saudi Arabia, saying it was an insignificant number compared with what is available. Saudi Arabia in 2013 ordered more than 13,000 of them. Given that American weapons contracts require disclosure of the "end user," insurgents said they were being delivered with Washington's approval.

Equally graphic videos of new Russian firepower have been posted by pro-government fighters and journalists embedded with them.

Russian attack helicopters swoop low over fields, seemingly close enough to touch, then veer upward to unleash barrages of rockets, flares and heavy machine-gun fire. Explosions pepper distant villages, with smoke rising over clusters of houses as narrators declare progress against "terrorists."

They appear to be using techniques honed in Afghanistan, where the occupying Soviet Army fought insurgents who were eventually supplied with antiaircraft missiles by the United States. Some of those insurgents later began Al Qaeda.

That specter hangs over American policy, and has kept Syrian insurgents from receiving what they most want: antiaircraft missiles to stop the government airstrikes that have been one of the war's largest killers of civilians.

Now, they want them to use on Russian warplanes as well.

Mr. Saud, of Division 13, said he and other commanders renewed their requests for antiaircraft weapons 10 days ago to the liaison officers they work with in an operations center in Turkey.

"They told us they would deliver our requests to their countries," he said. "We understand that it is not an easy decision to make when it comes to antiaircraft missiles or a no-fly zone, especially now that Syrian airspace is filled with jets from different countries."

Both Russia and the United States have declared they are fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, but the two global powers support opposite sides in the battle between Mr. Assad and the Syrians who rebelled against his rule.

With air support from Russia, the government of Mr. Assad is trying to retake territory seized this year in Idlib and Hama Provinces by insurgent groups that include both the Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and American-backed units calling themselves the Free Syrian Army - but not ISIS, which is strong in northern and eastern Syria into Iraq but has little presence in the west.

Instead, the advances there, which have posed the most immediate threat to Mr. Assad, have come from a coalition of Islamist insurgents called the Army of Conquest, which includes the Nusra Front but opposes the Islamic State.

Advancing alongside the Islamist groups, and sometimes aiding them, have been several of the relatively secular groups, like the Free Syrian Army, which have gained new prominence and status because of their access to the TOWs.

Even in smaller quantities, the missiles played a major role in the insurgent advances that eventually endangered Mr. Assad's rule. While that would seem like a welcome development for United States policy makers, in practice it presented another quandary, given that the Nusra Front was among the groups benefiting from the enhanced firepower.

It is a tactical alliance that Free Syrian Army commanders describe as an uncomfortable marriage of necessity, because they cannot operate without the consent of the larger and stronger Nusra Front. But Mr. Assad and his allies cite the arrangement as proof that there is little difference between insurgent groups, calling them all terrorists that are legitimate targets.

Either way, the newly empowered Free Syrian Army, long a marginal player as Islamist groups have risen in influence, is playing a more prominent role.

"Islamic groups have always labeled us as agents, infidels and apostates because of our dealing with the West," Mr. Saud said. "But now they can see how effective we are because of our dealing with the West."

Several American-aided units have come under direct fire by the Russians. But they claim to have held their territory, with the help of TOW missiles, better than their Islamist counterparts.

In a further shift of American aid to fighting groups already operating inside Syria, American cargo planes on Sunday dropped the first shipment of small-arms ammunition to Syrian Arab fighters combating the Islamic State, a military spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said on Monday.

He declined to identify the groups or their locations, citing operational security, but said American officials had screened them. The likely recipient was a coalition of mixed Arab and Kurdish groups that have been battling Islamic State fighters in northeastern Syria alongside Kurdish militias, now calling itself the Syrian Arab Coalition.

Syrian government troops advanced on Monday toward a strategically important highway held by insurgents, taking several villages in the central province of Hama with the help of Russian airstrikes, according to Syrian and Russian state news media, antigovernment activists and fighters.

But the front lines remained heavily contested, according to activists, with each side making liberal use of its new weapons.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, and Karam Shoumali from Istanbul. Maher Samaan contributed reporting from Beirut, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

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 #17
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
October 10, 2015
Week One of the Russian Military Intervention in Syria
By The Saker

The speed at which the Russian military operation in Syria was conducted what a big surprise for the US intelligence community (which I can hardly blame as I was just as surprised myself). Make no mistake here, the Russian force in Syria is a small one, at least for the time being, and it does not even remotely resemble what the rumors had predicted, but it is especially the manner in which it is being used which is very original: as a type of "force multiplier" for the Syrian military and a likely cover for the Iranian one. This is a very elegant solution in which a small force achieves a disproportionately big result. This is also a rather dangerous strategy, because it leaves the force very vulnerable, but one which, at least so far, Putin very successfully explained to the Russian people.

According to the most recent poll, 66% of Russian support the airstrikes in Syria while 19% oppose them. Considering the risks involved, these are extremely good numbers. Putin's personal popularity, by the way, is still at a phenomenal 85% (all these figures have an margin of error of 3.4%). Still, these figures indicate to me that the potential for concern and, possibly, disappointment is present. The big advantage that Putin has over any US President is that Russians understand that wars, all wars, have a cost, and they are therefore nowhere as casualty-averse as the people in the USA or Europe. Still, while combat footage taken from UAV is a good start, Putin will have to be able to show something more tangible soon. Hence, probably, the current Syrian army counter-offensive. Still, the current way of triumphalism in Russia makes me nervous.

The reaction in the West, however, has been very negative, especially after the Russian cruise missile attacks (which mark the first time ever that the Russians have used their non-nuclear but strategic forces in a show of force aimed less as Daesh than at the USA).

On October 8th, the US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, declared:AshCarter

"We have not and will not agree to cooperate with Russia so long as they continue to pursue this misguided strategy. We've seen increasingly unprofessional behavior from Russian forces. They violated Turkish airspace, which as all of us here made clear earlier this week, and strongly affirmed today here in Brussels, is NATO airspace. They've shot cruise missiles from a ship in the Caspian Sea without warning. They've come within just a few miles of one of our unmanned aerial vehicles. They have initiated a joint ground offensive with the Syrian regime, shattering the facade that they're there to fight ISIL.

"This will have consequences for Russia itself, which is rightfully fearful of attack upon Russia. And I also expect that in coming days, the Russians will begin to suffer casualties in Syria." (Source: http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/622454/press-conference-by-secretary-carter-at-nato-headquarters-brussels-belgium)

On the next day, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov replied by saying:

"Representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry, in their evaluation of the actions of the US military and the various operations they are engaged worldwide, have never sunk down to the level to publicly express the hope for the death of US servicemen or, even less so, of ordinary Americans. Today's announcement by Pentagon chief Ashton Carter, unfortunately clearly illustrates the current level of political culture of some representatives of the US government or, should I say, their level of cynicism towards the rest of the world. I am sure that no US general would ever have allowed himself to express such feelings." (Source: http://tass.ru/politika/2331242)

Does that not remind you of something? Does that not sound like a repeat of the threat made by Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan's threat to unleash 'Chechen' terror attacks against Russia? At the very least, this is, yet again, a sign that the US controls or, rather, thinks that it controls the Wahabi crazies and can unleash them against any opponent.

Typically, there are two basic ways the West handles any Russian military operation: they are either presented as mass murder and butchery or as gross, primitive and ineffective. CNN chose the second option and reported that "A number of cruise missiles launched from a Russian ship and aimed at targets in Syria have crashed in Iran, two U.S. officials told CNN Thursday". Both Russia and Iran immediately denied that, as for the State Department and the Pentagon, they have refused to confirm or deny these reports.

Maria Zakarova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry reacted with disgust to these reports on her FB account and wrote: "I have read the CNN reports claiming that "Russian cruise missiles fell in Iran." I wonder, do they write that out of impotent anger, or what? As for the constant references to "sources" they remind of the channeling of water from the sewer".

Clearly, the Russians are rather disgusted with the rather pathetic US reactions to the Russian military operation. As for US officials, they appear rather clueless as to what do do next.

However, these appearances can be deceiving: this "game" is very far from being over.

As I have written in a recent column, the notion that Russia has established a no-fly zone over Syria is plain false: four SU-30MS, even if backed by six SU-34s are not enough to establish any kind of no-fly zone. The real mission of these SU-30MSs is to protect the Russian Air Force from any overzealous Turkish or Israeli fighter, not to establish a no-fly zone. In fact, according to the commander of the USAF operation over Syria, the US flies many more sorties than the Russians. What he does not add is that most of these US sorties do not include the release of weapons whereas all the Russian ones do. But, really, this is comparing apples and oranges. The USAF can fly as many sorties as it wants, only the Russian aircraft are operating in close coordination with Syrian and Iranian ground forces.

What worries me most is that people on both sides like to engage in cheap bravado and say things like "the Americans/Russians would never dare to attack a Russian/American aircraft". This is a very dangerous way of thinking about what is going on because it ignores all the historical evidence for decision-makers making very dumb decisions to try to avoid appearing humiliated by the other side (Ehud Olmert in 2006, immediately comes to mind). The fact that Obama and the USA look totally out-smarted is nice, of course, but also potentially very dangerous.

The good news is that, at least for the time being, neither Russia nor the USA are directly threatening each other, at least not on a military level. The USAF apparently has decided on a 20 miles "avoidance radius" and while the Russians have not made any statements about this, I am pretty sure that they also go out of their way not to interfere with the Americans, much less so threaten them directly. Still, this situation is inherently dangerous.

Since this is a real combat zone and not just some peacetime patrol area, Russian and American aircraft have to use radar modes which are normally associated with a hostile intent: not just scan the skies for any potential enemy, but also actively track any detected aircraft. This is a very delicate situation because once a radar has acquired an aircraft and is actively tracking it all the pilot has to do to attack is press one button. For the pilot in the aircraft being tracked, this is similar to having a gun pointed at you - it makes you very nervous. To make things worse, modern aircraft can actually engage each other without using these radar modes and they can try to hide their radar signals, but that only adds to the tension. It is precisely because the US and Russia are two nuclear powers that it is crucial that neither side count on the other one to "blink first" or play any game of chicken. The politicians can indulge in this kind of nonsense, but I hope that the generals on both sides will do everything in their power to avoid any such situation. Right now, the situation appears to be under control, but it could get worse very fast. Hopefully, the Pentagon and the Russian General Staff will come to an "de-conflicting" agreement soon.

There are numerous reports that Iran is preparing a major intervention in Syria. These reports come from many sources and I consider them credible simply because there is no way that the very limited Russian intervention can really change the time of the war, at least not by itself. Yes, I do insist that the Russian intervention is a very limited one. 12 SU-24M, 12 SU-25SM, 6 SU-34 and 4 SU-30SM are not a big force, not even backed by helicopters and cruise missiles. Yes, the Russian force has been very effective to relieve the pressure on the northwestern front and to allow for a Syrian Army counter-offensive, but that will not, by itself, end the war. For one thing, should things get really ugly, the Daesh crazies can simply repeat what they have already done in the past: cross the border into Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. Furthermore, you cannot hold any ground from the air. For that, "boots on the ground" are needed and Russian boots are not coming - Putin has unambiguously stated that (although he did leave a small door open for a future change of strategy by saying that a ground intervention was not in the "current plans"). Regardless, anything short of a minor or very short intervention would be fantastically hard to sell in Russia and I therefore still don't believe that it will happen. My bet is on the Iranians. Well, when I say "Iranians" I mean Iranians and their allies, including Hezbollah, but not necessarily in Iranian uniforms.

Chances are, the Iranians and the Syrians will want to keep the magnitude of the Iranian involvement as hidden from view as possible. But, of course, they won't be able to fool the USA, Turkey or Israel for very long, at least not if a large Iranian force is involved.

So the big question for me is this: what will the USA do if (when?) Iran intervenes in Syria?

Chances are that the Iraqis will request the Russian help to defeat Daesh exactly at the moment when the Iranians make their move. If the Russians agree, and it looks like they might, the Russian Air Force will, in fact, be providing air cover for the Iranian forces moving across Iraq towards Syria. My guess is that the Russians will try to get some UNSC Resolution to allow an international intervention in Syria or that, failing that, they will try to get some kind of deal with the USA. But that is going to be awfully hard, as they Neocons will go ballistic if the Iranians actually make a big move into Syria.

Right now the Russian Air Force does not have the resources needed to support an Iranian move into Syria, and that might be the reason for a reappearance of the rumor about "six MiG-31s" going to Syria. I personally have seen no evidence for that, at least not form any halfway dencent source, but if that does really happen, then this will become a major game-changer because one thing is certain: MiG-31s will never be used against Daesh or even a few isolated Turkish or Israeli fighters; if the MiG-31s ever really show up in the Syrian skies, their goal will be to keep control of the Syrian airspace and that implies a direct and credible threat against the US and its allies. The same goes for the actual deployment of S-300s. Thank God,we are not there yet. But unless the Syrian Army manages an extremely successful offensive against Daesh, a large Iranian intervention will become very likely. Then things will become very dangerous indeed.

In the meantime, NATO is still busy making big statements about being "ready to defend Turkey" while McCain declares that the US and Russia are engaged in a "proxy war". We ought to be grateful for such loud emissions of hot hair because, hopefully, as long as the western leaders feel that their empty talk makes them look credible, they will not be tempted to do something truly stupid and dangerous.

These are definitely dangerous times.

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 #18
Moscow Times
October 13, 2015
War Is Peace: Russia's Orwellian Propaganda
By Alexander Golts
Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.

The Russian authorities have achieved remarkable success in the Syrian war. According to a poll by state-run VTsIOM, 66 percent of citizens approve of sending Russian combat aircraft to Syria, even though more than half have no idea what Moscow is fighting for there.

Think about it: The majority of Russians approve of the war without even taking the trouble to understand its purpose. It's just that the average citizen gets a big kick out of watching television footage of Russian planes locking in and destroying their targets exactly as if it were a video game. The armchair audience likes watching the General Staff issue its daily report listing the number of terrorist command and control centers destroyed and the ever-increasing number of terrorists killed.

It seems as if the producers at state-controlled television channels are using George Orwell's "1984" as a handbook. The modern-day Orwellian war of Oceania against Eurasia - aka Russia versus fascist Ukraine - is already over and forgotten, and now Moscow has launched a new battle between Oceania and what Orwell called Eastasia.

And yet, the Defense Ministry does not even try to give a semblance of plausibility to its communiques of military triumph. After all, what type of aerial reconnaissance could confirm that Russian aircraft have destroyed a factory producing belts for suicide bombers? Do those belts explode differently than other munitions, or can Russian drone aircraft peer into windows and straight through brick and concrete walls?

The fact that Russians gave such enthusiastic support to the annexation of Crimea and Moscow's "secret war" in Ukraine revealed their deep inferiority complex over the collapse of the Soviet Union. The seizure of Crimea and the hybrid war in Donbass served as potent psychotropic drugs that allowed Russians to finally feel like citizens of a great empire - and therefore happy. However, like any powerful drug, it proved addictive. A new dose was needed. And one appeared, in the form of a safe little war in Syria that carried no risk for Russia.

That drug works on Russia's ordinary citizens and military chiefs alike. To help celebrate President Vladimir Putin's recent birthday, they launched 20 of Russia's most advanced Caliber cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea fleet to hit terrorist targets in Syria. Military observers were simply overcome with joy. For the first time in its military history, Russia used long-range cruise missiles to hit targets 1,500 kilometers away. That was a convincing demonstration of "the long arm of Moscow" and its long-awaited ability to "project force" abroad.

Of course, those same analysts who are simply bubbling over with happiness begin to stammer and mumble when trying to explain why those missile attacks were necessary in the first place.

It was clear why the United States used cruise missiles in its operations in Yugoslavia and Iraq - namely, to employ its full military might to send the enemy into confusion, destroy its reserves, interrupt communications and diminish its will to resist.

Russia's air operations are a bit different. In a campaign that is far from intense, the air squadron stationed in Syria carries out extremely limited strikes against targets that are most likely selected by the Syrian army. There are no targets in Syria that Russian aircraft cannot reach, and so there was no need to use cruise missiles against them.

The show that Russia has staged in Syria is essentially a historical reenactment of U.S. operations in Iraq. I can imagine how humiliated and envious Putin must have felt 12 years ago as those damned Yankees sent volley after volley of cruise missiles to destroy pinpoint targets thousands of kilometers away. Now Putin has shown that not only can Russia play that game, too, but under his visionary command, can perhaps outperform the Yankees.

Putin was not the only one to indulge his militaristic fantasies. Retired admiral and Duma Defense Committee head Vladimir Komoyedov argued that there was simply no stopping those "Komsomol volunteers" in their desire to ensure the happiness of the Syrian people. He implied that Moscow should create brigades, or perhaps even a battalion of volunteer Russian forces, and that fighters languishing in the Donbass for lack of a war could immediately relocate to Syria.

He even suggested that those intrepid Russian volunteers, so eager to bring happiness to their downtrodden Syrian brethren, could earn paychecks far surpassing standard military salaries. What Komoyedov forgot to mention is that "volunteers who fight for money" are actually called mercenaries.

Many years ago, after the tragedy in Vietnam, the U.S. developed the so-called "Powell Doctrine" that spells out criteria for the use of military force abroad. According to that doctrine, U.S. leaders can resort to military force only when, among other things, they have a clear and attainable military objective. However, Russia's war in Syria is primarily a propaganda stunt and lacks an end goal that could be achieved by military means.

What's more, it is fraught with the risk of entanglement. If the current air operations do not secure victory for the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Iranian colleagues, Russia's military chiefs might risk launching ground operations. In fact, such plans were already developed as part of the large-scale Center 2015 military maneuvers. First, an airborne regiment flies in and prepares a base for the main forces. They are followed by a division of troops, and then the general army.

True, it is not clear how Moscow plans to deploy infantry to Syria, but in the end, it can commandeer civilian aircraft. It was a stroke of luck in this regard that private Russian air carrier Transaero went bankrupt recently, allowing state-controlled Aeroflot airlines to buy a 75 percent stake in the company.

Russia's military brass continues to insist that it has no plans for ground operations in Syria. However, for some reason the Defense Ministry hurriedly pushed through amendments to the law on the punishment for evasion of reservist training ...

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 #19
AP
October 12, 2015
A Putin craze takes hold in the Middle East, praising his 'personality and charisma'
By ZEINA KARAM and VIVIAN SALAMA, Associated press

BEIRUT (AP) - Amid the ornate walls of Damascus' famed Omayyad Mosque, preacher Maamoun Rahmeh stood before worshippers last week, declaring Russian President Vladimir Putin a "giant and beloved leader" who has "destroyed the myth of the self-aggrandizing America."

Posters of Putin are popping up on cars and billboards elsewhere in parts of Syria and Iraq, praising the Russian military intervention in Syria as one that will redress the balance of power in the region.

The Russian leader is winning accolades from many in Iraq and Syria, who see Russian airstrikes in Syria as a turning point after more than a year of largely ineffectual efforts by the U.S.-led coalition to dislodge the Islamic State militants who have occupied significant parts of the two countries.

The reactions underscore that while the West may criticize Putin for supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad, there is some relief in the region at the emergence of a player with a coherent - if controversial - strategy.

"Putin does more than just speak," said Sohban Elewi of Damascus, summing up the views of Syrians on opposing camps who regard U.S. policy in Syria and Iraq as fumbled and confused.

Russia began its air campaign in Syria on Sept. 30, joining the fray of those bombing Syria at a critical time for Assad and his embattled troops. The Syrian army's loss of the northern province of Idlib opened the way for rebels to come dangerously close to the coastal Alawite heartland, leaving his soldiers there vulnerable and dejected.

Russia insists it is targeting the Islamic State group and other "terrorists." But Syrian rebels and opposition activists say Moscow's warplanes in recent days have focused on Idlib and the central province of Hama, hitting U.S.-backed rebels in areas with no IS militants.

The planes also have provided air cover for Syrian ground troops who launched an offensive in central Syria, reinforcing the belief that Russia's main aim is to shore up Assad's forces.

In addition to the warplanes taking off from a base in Latakia, Russian ships in the Caspian Sea have fired cruise missiles that fly nearly 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) over Iran and Iraq to strike Raqqa and Aleppo provinces, in what many see as a show of force meant to portray muscle more than serve a specific military goal.

Among Assad's war-weary and frustrated supporters, such elaborate displays of support provide a much-needed psychological boost, and have injected new hope that their flailing battle against rebel factions and the Islamic State group can still be won.

"The (Russian) intervention has raised the morale of the Syrian army and the Syrian people alike," said Dr. Samir Haddad from the central city of Homs.

"President Putin has a distinguished personality and charisma, and it has become clear that world leaders have gradually started approving, openly or secretly, of this intervention," he said.

In Iraq, where the U.S.-led war against IS has stalled, many say they want Russian airstrikes against IS to extend to their country.

Buried between paintings of Baghdad architecture, mosques and landscapes, some art shops in Baghdad have begun selling portraits of Putin, a tribute to his intervention in what Iraqis see as the new military front against IS.

"Russia does not play games. They are problem solvers, and they do it quietly and efficiently, not like the Americans who prefer to do everything in front of the cameras," said Hussein Karim, a 21-year-old medical student from Baghdad.

In one cartoon widely distributed among Iraqis on Facebook and Twitter, U.S. President Barack Obama is dressed as a Sunni sheikh, while Putin as a Shiite imam, suggesting the two are taking sides.

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 #20
http://america.aljazeera.com
October 12, 2015
Has Russia saved Lebanon from ISIL?
Analysis: With the arrival of Russian jets in Syria, possibility of an ISIL push on Lebanon seems remote for now
By Nicholas Blanford

RAS BAALBEK, Lebanon - Russia's military intervention in Syria has alarmed the West and dismayed regional opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but it may have spared neighboring Lebanon from the advances of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

With the western edge of ISIL's self-declared caliphate having reached the town of Qaryatayn, a mere 35 miles from Lebanon's mountainous northeastern border, many Lebanese have fretted whether the group's fighters might make a move on tiny Lebanon.

But with the arrival of Russian warplanes and helicopters in Syrian skies and Kurdish forces poised to advance on Raqqa, the capital of ISIL's territory, any notion of an ISIL push on Lebanon seems to have evaporated - at least for now.

"All the minorities in the Middle East are thanking [Russian President Vladimir] Putin right now," said Rifaat Nasrallah, the head of a local defense militia in the predominantly Christian village of Ras Baalbek.

For the past 12 days, Russian aircraft, based at a military airport near Latakia on the Syrian coast, have been staging multiple airstrikes across western Syria. Moscow says it is aiding Damascus in its struggle against terrorists, most notably ISIL, which has seized a swath of territory across Syria and Iraq.

But most of the airstrikes appear to be targeting anti-Assad Syrian groups, including one that has received weapons and training from the United States. The airstrikes are focused on the juncture of Idlib, Hama and Latakia provinces in Syria's north, where rebel groups have gained ground this year. With Russian air support, the Syrian army (reportedly backed by paramilitary forces from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan) launched an offensive last week in the northern province of Hama in an attempt to roll back recent rebel gains and safeguard the core government-controlled areas along the Mediterranean coast. On Saturday the Russian Defense Ministry said that warplanes carried out 67 combat missions in Syria - the highest daily tally since the airstrikes commenced on Sept. 30.

Still, the intensity of the Russian airstrikes and the evident determination of Putin to preserve the rule of his Syrian ally could compel ISIL to reconsider any plans it may have drawn up to extend its caliphate westward.

In May, ISIL captured the ancient town of Palmyra in central Syria. By early August, its fighters advanced 60 miles to the southwest to seize Qaryatayn. From there, ISIL could head west toward the central government corridor between Homs and Hama, move south toward Damascus or southwest into the mountainous Qalamoun region that straddles the border with Lebanon.

The key highway linking Damascus to Homs and the Mediterranean coast passes through Qalamoun. The Assad government has long been concerned that if rebel forces cut the highway, the capital would be effectively sealed off from the core government-controlled areas in the coastal mountains.

Underlining the importance of Qalamoun, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia group in Lebanon that has been a key ally of Assad's, has spearheaded two operations since November 2013 to drive rebel forces out of the region's towns and villages and the surrounding mountains. A few hundred rebels, mainly from ISIL and Jabhat Al-Nusra (the Nusra Front), Syria's Al-Qaeda franchise, are still holed up in rugged mountains on the Lebanese side of the border near Ras Baalbek and the neighboring town of Arsal.

Even if ISIL abandons a push toward Lebanon from Qaryatayn, the few hundred fighters tucked into abandoned farms and quarries near Ras Baalbek still pose a threat. Barely a day goes by without an exchange of fire between the fighters and the Lebanese army, which mans a series of fortified outposts and checkpoints to block any incursions into populated areas of Lebanon. The nearest ISIL positions to Ras Baalbek are less than 3 miles to the east. Nasrallah and his men, with support from Hezbollah, man a number of observations posts, keeping a wary eye on the barren sepia-colored mountains that rise east of the village.

"We are hearing that Daesh [ISIL] has been able to bring in a few reinforcements lately," said a Western intelligence source in Beirut.

As Russian airstrikes escalate conflict, non-ISIL Syrian rebels call for a united front and more help from allies

Last week five Lebanese soldiers were wounded when ISIL mortar rounds hit their post. On Friday the U.S. announced the delivery of 50 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles and 560 artillery rounds, some precision laser guided, to bolster the Lebanese army's defense of the country's eastern border.

Hezbollah's focus of late has been on seizing the rebel-held town of Zabadani, in the southern Qalamoun area in Syria near the border with Lebanon. A cease-fire agreement reached last month has effectively ended the battle with surviving rebels and civilians permitted to depart. That leaves Hezbollah free to finish clearing the remaining pockets held by ISIL and other rebels in Qalamoun.

"We will go back to Qalamoun. We have no choice. We cannot leave them there," says Abu Khalil, a thickly bearded, shaven-headed veteran Hezbollah fighter who has served more than 20 combat tours in Syria.

On Sunday the Lebanese army said it had killed several fighters when it heavily shelled their positions in remote valleys east of Arsal close to the border with Syria. Early Monday, Syrian helicopters staged a rare cross-border incursion into the same area.

Still, tackling ISIL in Qalamoun is a relatively minor endeavor compared with the scale of the Assad government's offensive underway in northern Hama, the first conducted by the Syrian army in months.

The Russian intervention in Syria has been warmly greeted by Hezbollah and has provided a boost of confidence to the Assad government and its allies on the battlefield. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, said on Thursday, "We have crossed the phase of danger" in Syria that could lead to a settlement of the conflict.

"The Syrian cause will take a new turn, and it might be possible to put it on the track of a serious political solution, because the world has started to look at it realistically," he told Iran's Ahwaz TV.

Hezbollah fighters are participating in the offensive in northern Hama. Hassan Hussein al-Haj, a senior Hezbollah military commander, was reported killed on Saturday during a battle for the village of Mansoura in Hama province. Hezbollah's seasoned combatants are fighting alongside Syrian troops and Iraqi and Afghan Shia paramilitaries, with air support from Russia, against rebels backed by Turkey and some Arab Gulf states. Also roaming the increasingly busy airspace above Syria are U.S., British and French aircraft as part of an anti-ISIL coalition.

"What we have now in Syria is truly a world war," says Abu Khalil.

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 #21
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
October 12, 2015
DOES THE CREATION OF A BROAD COALITION IN SYRIA STAND A CHANCE?
By Vladimir Yevseyev, head of the Eurasian Integration and SCO Development Department at the Institute of CIS Countries.

The antiterrorist coalition it created in the autumn of 2014 to fight ISIS proved ineffective because it confined itself to air strikes against highly mobile and well-trained militants.

It is increasingly clear that the US has no Syria strategy of its own. The antiterrorist coalition it created in the autumn of 2014 to fight ISIS proved ineffective because it confined itself to air strikes against highly mobile and well-trained militants. The hope that the US-trained moderate armed opposition would fight ISIS was dashed as well.

For example, a 75-man squad, Division 30, which the Pentagon armed and trained to fight ISIS at a camp in Turkey, joined a radical organization, Jabhat al-Nusra, as soon as it crossed the Syrian border in the early hours of September 18, 2015. The US-trained militants surrendered all their weapons, including 12 machinegun vehicles. In so doing, their commander, Anas Obaid, said that he had tricked the Americans because he needed weapons.

Presumably, this is how the Americans arm and man Syria-based pro-Saudi radical groups to strengthen their Washington-oriented centralizing nucleus. Thus, the US and Saudi Arabia are putting into practice a plan to create a "new Syrian opposition" on the basis of the available Islamist segment. The same thing is taking place in Jordan, where the Americans, jointly with the Jordanian secret service, have long supplied weapons and personnel, including former members of the Jordanian special forces, to Ahrar ash-Sham, an Islamist group that has recently joined Jabhat al-Nusra (the Syrian division of Al Qaeda).

Interestingly, the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have suggested a "peace plan" for Syria of their own, which implies an involvement in peace consultations with Damascus a number of small Islamist groups which signed, on September 18, 2015, a Declaration of the Document of the Five Principles of the Syrian Revolution under the aegis of an obscure Syrian Islamic Council. These groups have put forward the following mandatory preconditions for talks with Damascus: resignation of the present Syrian Government; disbandment of the Syrian National Army and the secret services; and renunciation by the Alawites of their privileged status. As is clear, all of this cannot serve as a basis for further talks. Actually, they are simulating the negotiating process.

These developments are taking place against the backdrop of radical Islamists absorbing the so-called "moderate" opposition.

Under the circumstances, Russia had to interfere in an emerging situation that was shaping up unfavorably for the entire Syrian people. It launched massive arms supplies to the Syrian National Army and sent technical specialists and advisers. But this proved insufficient for containing the radical Islamists, who were approaching Syria's most densely populated areas. This was why Russia decided to provide air and fire support, including by delivering strikes by ship-based cruise missiles.

Nevertheless, the Russian army will not conduct large-scale land operations against the radical Islamists. This role is reserved for the Syrian National Army, units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and allied forces contributed by the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Syrian Kurds and Druze and Iraqi Shia and Hazara. It is their successful combat operations that provide a chance for peace in Syria. A peace process in the country, including in the context of a contemplated Geneva-3, is only possible against the background of their victories.

They are opposed by the radical opposition, which receives support from Turkey and the Arabian monarchies of the Gulf. Currently, the "Islamic State" controls 40 percent of the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR) and Jabhat al-Nusra, another 15 percent (more than half the country in all). The Syrian Army holds a mere 20 percent of the national territory, but it is home to between 80 and 85 percent of the entire population of Syria. The Kurdish militias control 15 percent of the country. Its desert areas are controlled by local tribal militias allied with some party or another to the conflict.

To support the Islamists, the Arabian monarchies use not only their huge financial resources but also their control of the media. Saudi Arabia, for example, is fully in control of 80 percent of the Arabic media, with Qatar controlling another five percent. Under these circumstances, it is quite easy for them to wage an information (or rather disinformation) war against the Syrian Government. Damascus is opposing this onslaught with the help of the Syrian Electronic Army. President Bashar al-Assad is supported by Moscow and Tehran, but the Western media are still demanding his resignation despite the absence of any real alternative to him. In this way they are actually supporting the radical Islamists.

As a consequence, the US finds itself in a difficult situation. Its simulated fight against ISIS and other radical organizations forced Russia and Iran to become more involved in the Syrian armed conflict. This leads to the emergence of a real coalition composed of the Syrian and Iraqi national armies, the Kurds and other allied armed groups, including the moderate opposition, against radical Islamists. Supported by Russia and Iran, this coalition is fully capable of restricting the activities of ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, if not defeat them.

Under these circumstances, Washington has to maneuver to prevent Syria's transformation into a second Libya, while doing all it can to remain on good terms with the Gulf monarchies and Turkey. And even the Incirlik Air Base that Turkey put at America's disposal failed to give the Americans an edge in Syria, because they had to accept the existence of the Islamic State's stable logistical corridor to Turkey, their actual rear base, and the Turkish air force attacks on the positions of the Syrian Kurds, who are continuing their fight against the radical Islamists.

The Russian-led real antiterrorist coalition is behaving differently. The Syrian National Army and its support forces have launched a mass-scale counteroffensive simultaneously in the Idlib, Haleb (Aleppo) and Hama provinces with air and fire support from the Russian Armed Forces. Similar support will be provided for the Syrian Kurds pushing towards the city of Raqqa, the main logistical outlet for smuggling Iraqi oil to Turkey. In this situation, the Americans fear ending up on the sidelines and losing the initiative in Syria. This is why they stepped up the intensity of their air strikes in the Raqqa province.

Thus, it is hardly possible in the short term to form a broad international coalition in Syria to fight ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other radical Islamist organizations. The reason is not only that Russia has launched a military operation. A more important factor in this context is that the radical Islamists continue receiving extensive support from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Militants are still trained in Jordan, but their training in Turkey has been suspended. Notice that all these countries are members of the US-led antiterrorist coalition. This practically rules out any possibility of pooling all forces in the fight against the "Islamic State" and other radicals, but it enables a coordination of this effort, primarily between Russia and the US.

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 #22
Reuters
October 13, 2015
How to respond to Russia in Syria while avoiding World War Three
By Josh Cohen
Josh Cohen is a former USAID project officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He contributes to a number of foreign policy-focused media outlets and tweets at @jkc_in_dc

As Syrian rebels face an onslaught of Russian bombs ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, back in Washington President Barack Obama faces incoming volleys himself.

Critics claim Obama's lack of response to Putin's bombing campaign makes Obama looks "weak" in comparison. Others argue that American "credibility" is at stake in Syria, and that the United States must now "reestablish deterrence" against Russia. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski even claims that because Russian forces in Syria are "geographically vulnerable" they could be "disarmed," though without explaining how.

The fact is any escalation would be dangerous by definition, and of dubious benefit to the United States.

For starters, none of Obama's critics explain how Putin's actions in Syria threaten American "credibility" or its deterrence posture vis-à-vis Russia. Risking credibility, in this case, means that if the United States does not counter an adversary in one place, this adversary will be tempted to threaten more vital American interests elsewhere. This was the logic behind the Vietnam War, where the United States' expenditure of blood and treasure was meant to reassure our NATO allies that Washington would protect them from a Soviet attack in Europe.

That logic was misguided then and is equally misguided now. Putin is not threatening American allies such as Israel or the Gulf States, nor does he appear willing to risk a serious military confrontation with America's NATO allies. Indeed, the United States already announced plans to station hundreds of tanks, howitzers and other armor in the Baltics, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's secretary general just stated that "we are implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War," and that "NATO is on the ground. NATO is ready."

While Putin may be prickly, he is not crazy, and no evidence exists that the United States' caution in Syria will tempt the Russians to strike core American interests in other parts of the world.

In addition, those demanding a strong response to Putin's Syrian campaign ignore a key fact: Even if Obama did favor an escalation in Syria, he faces a buffet of policy choices ranging bad to worse. For example, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) urges Obama to supply Syrian rebels with surface-to-air missiles capable of shooting down Russian planes. This ignores the fact that in Syria's confusing mishmash of overlapping alliances, its "moderate" rebels frequently cooperate with al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate. Since surface-to-air missiles can shoot down commercial airliners - as al Qaeda has narrowly missed doing previously - McCain's idea is a recipe for disaster.

Another option for Obama is to revisit arming Kiev with billions of dollars of American military hardware. It's difficult to see how this might induce Russia to stand down in Syria, and this idea also ignores how Putin may respond. As Obama rightfully concludes, Putin would likely react by increasing Russian support for the separatists; thereby make a bad situation worse. What is the point of causing a major flare-up in Ukraine if doing so won't solve anything in Syria?

Finally, the very notion of "disarming" Russian military assets in Syria by military force lies somewhere on the spectrum between crazy and suicidal. Russia would almost certainly respond by striking American or NATO military forces - perhaps in Eastern Europe - so unless Obama suddenly feels a hankering to start World War Three this is an idea the president can safely ignore.

None of this means the United States should ignore Putin's Syrian military campaign, but it does demonstrate that Obama is right to respond cautiously. Nevertheless, the president can take certain steps - just not the type that will satisfy Washington's legion of escalation.

First, the White House must not act like the sky is falling every time Putin does something it disapproves of. Beyond propping up Russia's longtime ally Bashar al-Assad, Putin's Syrian campaign also allows him to stick his thumb in America's eye. The best way to respond is not hysterically, but calmly. Russia does not possess anything near the military strength of the Soviet Union, and exaggerating Russian power serves no useful purpose. Indeed, if Russia is dragged deeper into the Syrian quagmire - particularly if its forces suffer casualties - Putin may come to rue his Syrian gamble. Thankfully, this type of attitude fits perfectly with Obama's "play it cool" persona, and in fact during the president's recent news conference he noted that Putin went into Syria "out of weakness, not strength." It would be nice to see the rest of Washington follow Obama's lead.

Second, Obama should ensure that the Pentagon continues its policy to "de-conflict" Russian-American air operations in Syria. An accidental clash between American and Russian forces could not only produce unpredictable military consequences, but would also allow Putin to raise the rhetorical temperature several notches - which fits precisely with his desire to ratchet up support at home by aggressively confronting the United States.

Lastly, Obama should redouble efforts to find a solution that ends the slaughter in Syria. One worthwhile idea is to duplicate the P5+1 strategy that worked so well in the Iran negotiations. This strategy would require that the interests of all stakeholders in Syria are taken into account, including the Iranians. Obama would need to stop demanding Assad's departure as a pre-condition for successful talks, but this is a price worth paying if it stops the slaughter. Syria will almost certainly never return to its status as a unitary state with strong centralized control over its entire territory, but all parties share a common fear of Islamic State and this should serve as a common starting point for P5+1 Syrian talks.

The Syrian conflict presents no ideal outcome for the United States, but by proceeding cautiously Obama can prevent a dangerous military clash with Russia - and also avoid making a bad situation worse.

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 #23
New York Times
October 13, 2015
A Road to Damascus, via Moscow
By GORDON ADAMS and STEPHEN M. WALT
Gordon Adams is a professor emeritus of international relations at American University. Stephen M. Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard.

WASHINGTON - FOR four years, American policy toward Syria has been built on a wish and a prayer: a wish that President Bashar al-Assad would leave and a prayer that the "moderate" Syrian opposition would be more than it is. Now Russia has stepped up its game, and the response from the American government and many commentators seems to be to wish harder and pray more, while condemning Russia for intruding where it supposedly doesn't belong.

As much as many Americans and Europeans may abhor what President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did in Crimea and Ukraine, Moscow's intervention in Syria may offer the first glimmer of hope for ending the quagmire there. Mr. Putin is right that only stable governance and security will allow Syrian refugees to return home.

Rather than pursue decisive victory, America must seek to end this war with a less dramatic, less satisfying settlement.

The United States should have two goals in Syria. First, bring order to those parts of the country that the Islamic State does not control. Second, strive to build a coalition of forces that can contain the Islamic State and eventually replace it. Russia's "intrusion" could offer a chance to achieve both.

This means setting aside American prejudices and heated political rhetoric. Russia isn't an intruder in Syria; it has been involved there for decades, just as America has been involved throughout the Middle East for more than 60 years. Mr. Assad is Russia's protégé, and Syria is an operations base for the Russian military. The United States has its own, significantly larger set of friends and operating facilities in the region.

At present, both powers have an interest in regional stability. Violent jihadist movements pose more of a threat to Russia than to America; many Russians have already died at the hands of terrorists, and thousands of Russian-based jihadists have flocked to the Islamic State with the intent to return home eventually.

Russia also has valuable leverage in Syria that America lacks: a military presence on the ground, a link with a weak but operating regime in Damascus, working ties with the Iranian and Iraqi governments, and an intelligence-sharing agreement with both that could well include Iranian allies like Hezbollah.

The United States still has hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops in the area, as well as strong ties to the Kurds. But it has few links with Iran, a troubled relationship with the weak Iraqi government, very poor intelligence in Syria and a military training program for the moderate Syrian opposition that - recognized as a complete failure - has now been abandoned.

With proper safeguards and caution, a broader regional coalition could be a powerful tool against the Islamic State. American officials should acknowledge these realities and use the assets still available to them to advance their humanitarian and anti-extremist goals.

Russia must face reality as well. Mr. Putin will have to accept that Mr. Assad can't remain in office in perpetuity and that his regime must change. The alternative is chaos, an opportunity for the Islamic State to embed itself and expand its operations, and an end to any role in Syria for Mr. Assad's minority Alawite sect (an offshoot of Shiite Islam). A rump coastal state with Mr. Assad in charge, which may be Russia's fallback option, wouldn't remove the larger threat the Islamic State poses to Russia's security.

There is a risk that Russia might overreach, as the United States did in Iraq and as both countries did in Afghanistan, if Mr. Putin imagines that outside military force alone can defeat the Islamic State. American hawks like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham make this same mistake. They've forgotten that opposing outside military interference is a critical ingredient of extremists' recruitment efforts.

America and Russia must accept that as outsiders, they will never be able to confront, contain and eliminate the Islamic State alone. Only a regional coalition could do so.

Working together, Washington and Moscow could take advantage of their respective ties with the regional powers that actually have the manpower and operating space to act: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the Gulf states and the Kurds. While any coalition would have internal tensions - most notably between Turkey and the Kurds - combined Russian and American pressure could help convince all parties to focus on the Islamic State today and leave other concerns for later.

To be sure, Russia's main aim at the moment is bolstering Mr. Assad by attacking various anti-regime forces and leaving others to deal with the Islamic State. But groups like the Nusra Front - Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria - are not America's friends either, and there is potential for an effective division of labor. Coordinating our actions could ensure that Russia does not focus on the groups America supports and could prevent the dangerous accidents that tend to arise in the fog of war.

A joint Russian-American effort may fail to solve the Syrian problem. It's not a perfect remedy, but the partial overlap in American and Russian interests is the most promising route toward a solution. American officials must end their table-thumping about Russian intrusion, recognize that we are past the Cold War, and get down to the business of statecraft.

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 #24
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
October 9, 2015
Poroshenko is running out of options in Ukraine
The question is not whether Poroshenko will implement the Minsk agreements, but whether the Ukrainian regime will survive any attempt to implement them.
By Nikolay Pakhomov
Nikolay Pakhomov is a geopolitical risk consultant and an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC). He is a commentator in a number of Russian and international media outlets.
 
The recent Normandy Four meeting in Paris confirmed the viability of the Minsk agreements. Avoiding all sensationalism, the presidents of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia rejected high-minded diplomatic statements in favor of emphasizing the working nature of the meeting.

However, apart from demonstrating the commitment to implementing Minsk-2, the talks in Paris delivered a very important result: they showed that the Ukrainian political system has no choice but to demonstrate its viability. And Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko cannot rely on foreign help to pass this test.

Kiev and the separatists, looking for a compromise

The Normandy Four talks in Minsk will undoubtedly go down in diplomatic history for their duration, intensity and abundance of post-event interpretations. There is genuine competition between analysts to have their voices heard.

On one side are the pro-Ukrainians, and on the other, those sympathetic to the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republics (LPR). They all point to various elements of the agreements, asserting that Kiev or Donetsk and Luhansk (in accordance with their sympathies) should be the first to start implementing the agreements.

Over time, officials from Kiev and the self-proclaimed DPR and LPR weighed in. Kiev demanded that Donetsk and Luhansk hand over control of the border with Russia, and in response the rebels framed plans to hold their own elections, since Kiev was in no hurry to introduce a special electoral procedure for the rebel territories or to offer an amnesty for their leaders.

The mutual demands could have run to infinity. In the meantime, the tension was growing. The DPR and LPR planned to hold elections without regard to the upcoming Oct. 25 local elections across Ukraine.

But on the eve of the Paris talks, the head of the tripartite contact group for peaceful settlement, Pierre Morel, proposed a plan that defined the procedure for the implementation of the February agreement in Minsk.

Under the plan, Ukraine must adopt specific legislation that, first, defines the procedure for elections in the DPR and the LPR, and, second, offers an amnesty for the leaders of the breakaway territories, which will then have the right to take part in the elections.

The elections will then be held under international observation, and if the monitors recognize them as valid, Ukraine will get what it wants: control over the sections of the border with Russia that are presently in the hands of the DPR and LPR. That was the plan that emerged during the Paris talks.

The limited nature of Poroshenko's power

On the eve of the summit, President Poroshenko and Ukrainian officials rejected the French diplomat's plan out of hand. That is understandable, since they could not be seen to be making concessions on Donetsk and Luhansk.

Even those sympathetic to the Poroshenko regime note that the Ukrainian president's power is limited and conditional. The abundance of weapons in the country, the erosion of legitimacy, the presence of semi-official paramilitary forces and the absolute power of the Ukrainian oligarchs clearly demarcate the limits of Poroshenko's influence.

Not only that, over the past 18 months Ukraine's new rulers, with wholesale media support, have supercharged nationalist sentiment, gearing the population for a struggle to the bitter end. Now the Paris talks have posed the question as to what Poroshenko will offer voters by way of a victorious outcome.
According to some statements by Ukrainian officials, the country is at war with Russia. However, Poroshenko will have to explain to a public fired up by chest-beating rhetoric why and how there can be an amnesty for DNR and LNR rebels which Kiev sees as terrorists.

Moreover, Poroshenko's position in Ukraine's parliament, the Rada, which will pass the necessary laws to implement Morel's plan, is shaky. So it is hard to understand when and how these laws will be adopted.

Why Germany and France reassessed their approach to Ukraine

But give Poroshenko his due. He arrived in Paris, survived the four-hour talks, accepted the results and did not resign on returning home. Will he now work on implementing the Paris agreements?

The assessments of numerous observers suggest an affirmative answer to this question. In their view, the position of Berlin and Paris has changed fundamentally in recent months. Realizing that full and unconditional support for Kiev would not bring any quick and lasting rewards, but only further tension with Moscow, France and Germany assumed the role of dispassionate arbitrators.

Note that it was German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande who talked to reporters after the talks in Paris. The Kremlin's spokesman said later that Russian President Vladimir Putin had declined to speak to the press specifically to avoid any erroneous interpretation of the outcome.

That approach is clear. One of the sides in the Ukrainian civil war looks to Russia for support, so Moscow cannot be an impartial arbitrator, but can play an active part in the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Recall that since the start of the Ukraine crisis in February 2014, Berlin and Paris have tried to play the role of arbitrators. However, as soon as the arrangements on the transfer of power by former President Viktor Yanukovych were violated, France and Germany, together with the United States, began to offer support to the new Kiev authorities.

But it is clear today that Poroshenko and his allies can deliver neither victory on the battlefield, nor successful reforms, nor a properly functioning political system. For Russia, the Ukraine crisis is not a geopolitical project or a diplomatic game, but a civil war in a neighboring, kindred country.

Given the illusory nature of Ukrainian progress towards democracy and full membership of the European Union, the deterioration of French and German relations with Russia over the Ukraine crisis has been real. It seems that both Berlin and Paris have weighed the pros and cons of backing Poroshenko and concluded that the original idea of arbitrating the conflict is far more advantageous.

The shift in attitude is no secret to Poroshenko. Given that Washington neither joined the Normandy Four, nor fully sponsored Ukraine's state project, nor offered its own settlement solution, the Paris talks dispelled any remaining illusions that the Ukrainian president might have had in respect of Western assistance (or lack thereof), not to mention aid that might have been used in the confrontation against Russia.

Time for a political settlement to the crisis

The Normandy Four summit gives reason to suppose that the tug-of-war over the integration of Ukraine could be, if not stopped, then at least paused. The Western-backed overthrow of Yanukovych not only failed to launch the process of Ukraine's full integration with the European Union with clear terms and conditions, but also called into question the very preservation of Ukrainian statehood.

Less than two years later, the agenda is dominated not by Ukraine's European integration or even the majority-backed reforms, which have yet to materialize, but by how to end the civil war and reintegrate the Donbas region with the rest of Ukraine.

Implementation of the Minsk agreements is the sole mechanism for addressing these issues. The past months have seen the end of active combat in the Donbas. Both sides recognize the legitimacy of Minsk-2 and are committed to the withdrawal of weaponry.

Next up are the political arrangements. Focused as they are on Russia, as a result of the Paris talks, the DPR and LPR promptly announced the postponement of independent elections, adding to the pressure on Kiev to adopt laws on an amnesty and a new electoral procedure.

Given the position of Berlin and Paris, Poroshenko is running out of options and potential diversions. The question is not whether he will implement the agreements, but whether the Ukrainian regime will survive any attempt to implement them.

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 #25
Sputnik
October 12, 2015
Russia Won't Leave Ukraine Without Gas Despite Accusations of 'Aggression'

Russia has resumed gas supplies to Ukraine after a three-month suspension. However, the resumption of the supplies is unlikely to resolve all problems in the trade relations between both countries, economist Alexander Dudchak told Radio Sputnik.

According to Dudchak, Russia had no other choice, but to resume Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine.

In October, Gazprom received a $234 million pre-payment from the Ukrainian Naftogaz and resumed gas exports to Ukraine after the three-month break, head of Gazprom Alexey Miller told reporters.

However, economist and political scientist Alexander Dudchak believes that it is premature to claim that all the problems with Russian gas supplies to Ukraine have been resolved. He argued that all Ukrainian activities related to the gas deliveries are determined by political motives and show that Ukraine is an unreliable partner.

According to the expert, Ukraine constantly uses shady schemes.  It is never clear whether the country will be able to pay off its debts and fulfill its financial obligations, the expert said, adding that all these problems are likely to continue.

"Ukraine is still dependent on Brussels and its loans; it does not want to consider any pragmatic solutions that would benefit both Ukraine and all the parties involved," the economist said.

At the same time, Dudchak argued, Russia won't leave Ukraine without gas.

In any case, "Ukraine won't be left with nothing. We will help it, it will still receive the assistance despite the fact that the Ukrainian media and the leadership of Ukraine view Russia as an aggressor," Dudchak stated.

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#26
The Hill
www.thehill.com
October 12, 2015
Caught between nationalists and Yanukovych alums, Ukraine's future more uncertain than ever
By Polina Popova
Popova is a Russian-British freelance journalist with a focus on Eastern European politics and society.

Ukraine's past is coming back to haunt the troubled country in more ways than one. While ultra-nationalist militias widen the divide between left and right, East and West, exiled officials from the Yanukovych era are preparing to make a bold re-entry into the gulf created by Ukraine's political polarization.

In early August, Mykola Azarov, once prime minister under former President Viktor Yanukovych and now exiled in Russia, created a "Salvation Committee" committed to "total regime change" in Ukraine. Azarov wants to schedule early elections to replace President Petro Poroshenko's government and restore order in our home." Azarov appointed Volodymyr Oliynyk, a former legislator with Yanukovych's now-defunct Party of Regions, as chairman of the Salvation Committee and its candidate for president. Bold plans from wanted men: In April, Ukraine's counterintelligence and anti-terrorism agency, the SBU, accused Azarov, Olinyk and other former officials of "destabilizing the situation in Ukraine."

Some suspect Azarov may be setting up a de facto government-in-exile in advance of a coup d'etat. Many Ukrainians are dismayed by the violence and political polarization that has taken over the country, and Azarov cites protests in Kiev as a sign that the days of Poroshenko's government are numbered. Although Azarov's Salvation Committee is based outside of Ukraine, he told reporters that many of its members were still in the country and thus could not be named for fear of further reprisals and purges.

While figures like Azarov will likely prove too divisive to make any meaningful impact in Ukraine's post-Maidan political climate, a second group of younger ex-government officials exiled in Russia are also plotting their homecoming. Chief among this group of "young reformers" is Oleksandr Klymenko, one of the so-called "Children of Yanukovych." Previously known only as the technocratic minister of taxes and revenues who crusaded against tax evasion, Klymenko has recently released a series of online videos in which he castigates Poroshenko for exiling the country's best and brightest, protests against the sanctions Brussels has aimed at him, and hints at returning to unify the country and reform the government.

Increasing partisanship and political polarization in Ukraine has led Klimenko and other to feel that they can play the role of unifier, reconciling eastern and western Ukraine once again. Kiev has consistently indulged ultra-nationalist militias like Right Sector, which has undermined its legitimacy in the eyes of many Ukrainians and played right into the hands of the Russian propaganda that paints Poroshenko's government as fascists. Especially after Maidan, where groups such as Right Sector played a pivotal role, Kiev has consistently been unable to decrease the sway of ultra-nationalist militias. A deadly shootout between Right Sector activists and police officers in Mukacheve on July 11 laid bare the simmering conflict between nationalists and Kiev.

In late May, under pressure from nationalist groups, the Verkhovna Rada passed two laws which have further divided the country and will could even pave the way for the Children of Yanukovych to return. The new laws make criticizing or questioning the actions of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) criminal offenses. Many Ukrainian nationalists see the OUN and UPA as their ideological forebears and want to suppress any criticism of their heritage. The OUN and UPA both collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, a fact that their descendants have alternately denied or tried to cover up.

Meanwhile, the laws also try to erase Ukraine's Soviet past, as well: praising perestroika, selling Soviet-era memorabilia or even singing old communist hymns can now land Ukrainians in prison for up to five years. This is an extremely divisive move in a country where half the population speaks Russian and identifies heavily with Russia and the Soviet era. Harsh laws rewriting history lend weight to the charge of "fascism" leveled by Russian President Vladimir Putin against Poroshenko's government, and help set the stage for former Yanukovych officials to return from exile to "restore order."

Azarov's Salvation Committee will likely try to use the bellicose actions of Right Sector and the recent laws passed by the Verkhovna Rada as a pretext to reenter Ukrainian politics, with former Yanukovych officials cast as "saviors" coming to "restore order" by ousting a government ruled by "fascists" and right-wing, ultra-nationalist and out-of-control militants. With menacing nationalists on the one hand and Azarov or other former Yanukovych officials waiting in the wings to step in and save the day, the only question is which side will make the first move.

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 #27
www.opendemocracy.net
October 12, 2015
The Crimean blockade: how Ukraine is losing Crimea for the third time
Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 was not the first time that Ukraine lost the peninsula. In fact, Ukraine has been losing Crimea for 23 years.
By Anton Shekhovtsov
Anton Shekhovtsov is an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation (Ukraine) and a PhD student at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UK). He is also editor of the Explorations of the Far Right book series at ibidem-Verlag (Germany).

Since the renewal of Ukraine's independence in 1991, no Ukrainian President or government had ever tried to integrate Crimea into a wider Ukrainian society. Crimea was always a special region, and not in any good sense of the word. For the 'pro-Russian', oligarch-controlled political forces, Crimea - with its predominantly Russian ethnic population - was a source of an 'easy electorate' that readily provided a significant share of votes against the 'pro-western' national democratic forces.

For the latter, Crimea was a perpetual headache: Ukrainian national democrats simply did not know what to do - in terms of socio-political integration - with 1.5 million ethnic Russians and hundreds of thousands of largely Russified Ukrainians. The national democrats, however, seemed to get along well with the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, an executive-representative body of the Crimean Tatar ethnic minority. The national democrats and the Mejlis shared scepticism towards the domination of the Russian culture in Crimea.

Pro-Russian sentiments - ranging from the insistence on the recognition of the official status of Russian language to outright secessionism - were always a prevalent 'faith' among the politically active citizens in Crimea. Not that they constituted a majority of the Crimean population, but the general political atmosphere, generated and sustained by Russia's soft power, media and the Ukrainian 'pro-Russian' parties, was always pro-Russian.

The failure of the national democrats to offer an integration project to the predominantly ethnic Russian population in Crimea was hardly a deliberate misdeed.

The problem was that the Ukrainian national democrats themselves - Yuliya Tymoshenko's Fatherland, Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine, and generally 'Orange' political forces - did not have any genuinely all-Ukrainian national project. In fact, nobody had. The Ukrainian politics has always been a power play between the oligarchs (who controlled political parties and certain MPs) and the ruling elites. Ideas and ideals rarely mattered, unless in the run-up to the elections when particular elements of the electorate needed to be mobilised under a particular 'ideological' banner.

Thus, a pro-Ukrainian sentiment required a certain intellectual effort in Crimea.

Political allegiance to Ukraine, unless one was not an ethnic Ukrainian, has always been a conditional, rather than an unconditional, 'reflex' developed through discussions of, and reflections on, international politics, European integration, and the meaning of democracy. Yet only a minority dared to challenge the general pro-Russian consensus in Crimea.

Without firing a shot, the Ukrainian authorities had lost the battle for hearts and minds of the majority of the Crimean population well before Russia occupied and annexed it.

Confused and disoriented national democrats who came to power after the revolution did not even resist the Russian occupation of the republic, and easily surrendered it to Moscow.

No doubt, some national democrats even breathed a sigh of relief: their headache was over, while their opponents from the 'pro-Russian' political camp lost a significant share of their electorate.

The blockade and its raison d'etre

After the annexation, Crimea adopted a Russian legal system, which led to the significant suppression - in comparison to the 'Ukrainian period' - of civic rights of the Crimean population.

Many left for what became known as 'mainland Ukraine'. Crimean Tatars loyal to the Mejlis, especially those who openly expressed their allegiance to Ukraine and the national democrats, suffered the most. Unlawful arrests and abductions became a regular element of Russia's state terror against its political opponents. Some missing people were later found dead. Pro-Ukrainian non-Tatar activists suffered too, the most infamous case being the prosecution of Oleh Sentsov and Oleksandr Kolchenko.

In response to the repressions and the annexation of Crimea, the leaders of Mejlis, who had been banned from entering Crimea by the Russian authorities, launched, on 20 September, a land blockade of the Crimean peninsula denying transit of shipments of food and goods. The Mejlis publicised the goals of the blockade in a communique.

According to this communique, the main goal of the current blockade is the 'de-occupation of Crimea and restoration of the territorial integrity of Crimea'. Then the communique lists the demands, including the efficient protection of the right and freedoms of the Ukrainian citizens in Crimea, immediate termination of repressions against and discrimination against them, and the release immediate release of political prisoners, including Crimean Tatar activists, Nadezhda Savchenko, Oleg Sentsov, and Aleksandr Kolchenko. It also called for the lifting of the entry ban for the leaders of the Mejlis, stopping all unwarranted criminal prosecutions of civic activists, and a permanent presence of the international missions, including the UN mission, in Crimea.

The final goal of the blockade was addressed to the Ukrainian authorities: the repeal of the Law on making Crimea a free economic zone, which was criticised by a number of human rights organisations.

The Ukrainian authorities tacitly agreed with the blockade initiative, and the police was deployed to the three entry points to Crimea from 'mainland Ukraine'.

The fallacies of the blockade

The blockade, however, was not only doomed to failure from the very beginning, but has also turned out to be detrimental to the interests of the Ukrainian state and its citizens.

To make it clear, the blockade will not lead to the 'de-occupation of Crimea'. Putin annexed the republic not because there was a threat to the Russians in Crimea (as claimed), but only to consolidate his regime at home. Therefore, no matter how difficult the blockade may be for the Crimean population, Putin will not give Crimea back, as this will undermine his legitimacy and end his regime. Most of the Ukrainians also seem sceptical about the efficiency of blockading Crimea. According to the recent public opinion poll, only 12.9 percent of the respondents believe that Crimea can be returned to Ukraine through non-military, non-violent acts of resistance.

Furthermore, the Russians will meet no demand of the blockade, because this will set a precedent and, therefore, encourage further pressure of a similar kind on the Russian authorities.

If the organisers of the blockade hoped to reinvigorate the 'Crimean question' in the western media, then they failed too, as the Syrian case and the refugee crisis will now overshadow many other questions. Besides, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has recently voiced something that was an open secret among Western political experts and politicians: Crimea is not part of the Minsk deal.

There are also a number of serious questions regarding the blockade as such.

First, the very idea of a blockade seems to be profoundly wrong. If Ukraine considers Crimea its lawful territory and the population of Crimea - its own citizens, then blockading the republic is a rather odd approach to the fellow nationals. The blockade has already resulted in the price rise in some food groups, so it is the population of Crimea that suffers from the blockade, not the state that annexed the republic. If the Ukrainians in Crimea are victims of the Russian occupation, then the blockade is punishing the victims.

Second, the blockade leads to the alienation between Crimea and 'mainland Ukraine'. It is textbook knowledge that economic integration leads to political and cultural convergence, while the discontinuation of the economic relations between the regions results in their political and socio-cultural estrangement. When the Russians occupied South Ossetia, they cut it from the rest of Georgia by ending all economic relations between them and, thus, undermining any possible rapprochement. The Georgian authorities, too, reduced contacts between Georgia proper and the occupied territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Naturally, this only consolidated the Russian control over the territories.

Third, the blockade created a collapse of the Ukrainian state authority on 'border' with Crimea. The Mejlis activists and their supporters acted as a substitute of the state power - a development that further weakens, rather than consolidates, feeble state institutions in Ukraine. As German political scientist Andreas Umland argues, blockades such as this should either be imposed by the state only or not imposed at all.

The Mejlis activists' thesis that economic collaboration with the occupiers is unacceptable does not stand up to scrutiny. Ukraine and Russia have reduced, yet not eliminated, trade and economic relations with each other, and Ukraine, in particular, supplies food products to Russia. One of the main three initiators of the blockade, Lenur Islyamov, would call the food supplies to Crimea 'a trade made in blood', but his position is morally problematic: not only is he a Russian businessman (he holds a Russian passport), but he also has business interests in Crimea and Moscow, as well as being a former 'Vice Prime Minister' of Russia-annexed Crimea.

Adding insult to injury

One of the organisations that joined the Mejlis activists in the blockade was the notorious Right Sector, and its participation in the blockade raised many a brow.

The Right Sector is an ardently racist and homophobic organisation that opposes the Ukrainian authorities. Its members were involved in the attacks on police in July this year, while some of their members even threaten the Ukrainian state with acts of terrorism. On their website, the Right Sector explicitly acknowledged that they considered the blockade of Crimea as 'a double blow' to Moscow's interests and the current political system in Ukraine. The Right Sector contacted one of the organisers of the blockade, Lenur Islyamov, and offered their assistance that was eventually accepted.

During the blockade, the activists of the Right Sector, joined by the members of the infamous extreme right Azov detachment, have been involved in multiple violations of human rights and laws of Ukraine, as reported by the Crimean Human Rights Field Mission. The violations include unwarranted searches, illegitimate detentions, and physical abuse.

The Mejlis activists not only contributed to the political legitimation of the right-wing extremists, but also endangered Crimean Tatars in Crimea.

As Deutsche Welle's journalist Anastasia Magazova correctly reminded, the Right Sector is declared a banned extremist organisation in Russia, so the cooperation of the Right Sector and the Mejlis activists poses a threat to Crimea-based Tatars who may now be accused of extremism.

Yet the cooperation of the Mejlis activists and the Right Sector seems to go beyond the tactical, blockade-related alliance. While there are no similarities between the ideas behind the Mejlis and Right Sector, they do have one thing in common: they are both nationalist organisations that oppose the domination of 'Russophone' culture in Crimea, while the Right Sector supports the idea of creating a Crimean Tatar autonomy in Crimea.

One of the foundational documents of the Mejlis is the Declaration on the National Sovereignty of the Crimean Tatar People that states that 'Crimea is the national territory of the Crimean Tatars who have the exclusive right to self-determination in this region', and that Crimean Tatars strive to establish their own nation-state on the entire territory of Crimea, although the Tatar minority constitutes only 10 percent of the population of Crimea.

This idea may even resonate with particular elements of the anti-Russian far right. Ukrainian national democrats never knew how to deal with the distinctive features of Crimea, the Ukrainian far right - even more so.

The future of Crimea

Naturally, all the current discussions about the future status of Crimea are largely useless. The republic is annexed by Russia, and Putin's regime will not return it to Ukraine voluntarily. Moreover, it is not a given that Russia will return Crimea even if the moderate nationalist opposition comes to power.

However, by the time Russian society matures its democratic culture and realises the inadmissibility of infringement of sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries, Crimea may already be lost for Ukraine in terms of social, cultural and family ties. Today's blockade will not be the primary reason for this, but its contribution to the alienation between Crimea and 'mainland Ukraine' is already significant. The extreme right element of the blockade only makes the situation worse.

Before discussing the potential reintegration of Crimea, the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian society need to understand that the key to the reintegration of Crimea is Ukraine's soft power. Soft power implies not only a healthy economy, a vibrant democracy, a strong civil society, and a consolidated and inclusive national project, but also a will and ability to make these an instrument of political attraction.

An even more challenging issue is that, by the time Ukraine is potentially ready to re-integrate Crimea, Crimean society will have changed dramatically. Not only will Crimean society differ from the society that Ukraine abandoned in March 2014, but it will be even less loyal to Ukrainian statehood.

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 #28
New York Times
October 13, 2015
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Most Likely Hit by Russian-Made Missile, Inquiry Says
By NICOLA CLARK and ANDREW E. KRAMER

PARIS - A 15-month inquiry into the disintegration of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in the skies over eastern Ukraine has concluded that the aircraft was most likely attacked from the ground by a Russian-made missile, Dutch air accident investigators said on Tuesday.

The findings - based on distinctive metal shrapnel and traces of paint in the bodies of crew members in the cockpit, near where the missile hit - are the most detailed evidence so far from a five-nation investigative team that has retrieved and sifted through several tons of debris and human remains.

"Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane above the left-hand side of the cockpit," said Tjibbe Joustra, chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, using a common reference to the flight number. The explosion tore off the forward part of the plane, which broke up in the air. The crash killed all 298 people aboard; the investigation found that many died instantly, while others lost quickly lost consciousness. "It is likely that the occupants were barely able to comprehend their situation," the board found.

While the findings stop short of assigning responsibility for the crash, a task that has been left to Dutch prosecutors, they appear consistent with a theory widely promoted by the authorities in the United States and Ukraine: that the plane, a Boeing 777, was shot down by Russian-backed separatists armed with an SA-11, or Buk, surface-to-air missile.

Russia has vehemently disputed that theory, and it continued to do so on Tuesday with a competing presentation, saying that the missile must have been fired from Ukrainian-held territory, and that it was of a type that is no longer found in Russia's arsenal.

The report on the July 17, 2014, crash was presented at the Gilze-Rijen Air Base in the Netherlands. The flight's passengers and crew members came from about a dozen countries, but two-thirds of those on board were Dutch citizens.

The board was sharply critical of the Ukrainian authorities for failing to close the airspace above the conflict zone. It found that 160 civil aviation flights went through on the day of the crash, until the airspace was closed.

"Why was Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 flying over an area where an armed conflict was taking place?" Mr. Joustra asked. "The question was on the minds of many people after the crash. The answer was as straightforward as it is disquieting: almost all operators were flying over that area. And why? Because nobody thought that civil aviation was at risk."

There was sufficient reason to close the airspace as a precaution, but "the Ukrainian authorities failed to do so," he said.

The team of investigators was led by the Netherlands but included members from four other countries heavily affected by the crash: Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine. In addition to what brought down the aircraft, the safety board has examined why the plane was flying over a region in conflict; whether the passengers would have been conscious as the plane went down; and why some relatives had to wait as long as 14 days before getting confirmation that their loved ones were on board.

In addition to studying the causes of the crash, the Dutch report will also identify a number of shortcomings in the systems that governments have in place for communicating risks to commercial airliners when flying over conflict zones.

From the outset, the Russian government has tried to offer alternative versions of what caused the plane to break up over eastern Ukraine.

Initially, the Defense Ministry presented what generals said was radar data indicating that a Ukrainian fighter jet had flown nearby, possibly shooting down the Malaysia Airlines flight. This year, officials with Almaz-Antey, the state corporation that manufactures the Buk antiaircraft missiles, held a news conference in Moscow to say that they believed one of their missiles had shot down the plane, but that an analysis of the angle of impact showed it must have been fired from territory controlled by the Ukrainian Army.

To coincide with the Dutch announcement, Almaz-Antey scheduled a news conference on Tuesday to reveal the results of what the company said was its own investigation, which it added was an "expensive" experiment in which a Buk warhead was detonated near the fuselage of a passenger jet.

Then, this month, after a Ukrainian security official had suggested in an interview with the Dutch news media that shrapnel removed from the bodies of the victims proved a Buk was to blame, Tass, the Russian state news agency, quoted an independent expert objecting that it was too early to conclude such a missile brought down the plane.

Tass quoted the expert, Ivan P. Konovalov, the director of a Moscow research center, the Center for Strategic Trends, as saying that if the Dutch Safety Board indeed "reaches a firm conclusion that the Boeing was struck by a Buk antiaircraft rocket, then it should be taken into consideration that at that time only the armed services of Ukraine had these complexes and the People's Republics of Donbas had no such complex systems then or now." He was referring to pro-Russian separatist governments set up in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in arming separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine or the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines flight.

The crash has highlighted concerns among aviation authorities about the risks posed to civilian aircraft by missiles fired from the ground.

Little more than a week after the crash, American and European regulators briefly banned their airlines from flying to and from Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv after a missile fired from Gaza landed near it.

The European Aviation Safety Agency recently published a warning to airlines alerting them to the potential risks of flying through portions of Iranian and Iraqi airspace after Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired cruise missiles into territory held by the Islamic State in Syria.

Nicola Clark reported from Paris, and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow.

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 #29
www.rt.com
October 13, 2015
MH17 shot with BUK missile, Ukraine failed to close airspace
[Graphics here https://www.rt.com/news/318536-mh17-investigation-dutch-report/]

The Dutch Safety Board says a BUK missile with a 3N314M warhead was responsible for downing MH17. It also noted that Ukrainian aviation regulators admitted that arms were being in the east of Ukraine which were capable of striking passenger aircraft.

"In the months before the crash, at least 16 military airplanes and helicopters were shot down in the eastern part of Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities were aware of this. They stated that, occasionally, weapon systems were used that could reach the cruising altitude of civil airliners. Yet, despite of all this, Ukraine did not close its airspace," said Tjibbe Joustra, the Dutch Safety Board chairman.

The announcement at an airbase in Gilze Rijen in the Netherlands mentioned that civil aviation aircraft should not have been allowed to fly over the east of Ukraine, due to the risk of a plane being struck.

Tjibbe Joustra, the Dutch Safety Board chairman stated that there were more than enough reasons to close the airspace of eastern Ukraine and that Kiev should have taken these steps.

"It is clear that Ukraine already had sufficient reason to close the airspace over the eastern part of Ukraine as a precaution before 17 July 2014. None of the parties involved recognized the risk posed to overflying civil aircraft by the armed conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine," a press release from the Dutch Safety Board stated.

No such precautions were taken and 160 different commercial aircraft were flying along the same corridor from which MH17 was downed.

Immediately after the tragic accident took place, airspace over the region was closed.

The Dutch Safety Board also mentioned that they have been unable to determine who was in control of the particular area where the BUK missile was fired from. They added that the warhead was detonated from somewhere within a 320 sq km area in the east of Ukraine.

However, they did agree that it was a 9N314M warhead launched by a BUK surface-to-air missile was responsible for downing the Malaysia Airlines plane.

It detonated to the left and above the cockpit and the forward section of the aircraft was penetrated by hundreds of high energy objects, which came from the warhead. This caused the airplane to breakup immediately and wreckage was distributed over an area of 50 sq km.

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 #30
Wall Street Journal
October 13, 2015
Russian State Arms Maker Preempts Dutch Report Into Downing of Flight MH17
By PAUL SONNE

MOSCOW-The Russian state arms maker that produces Buk antiaircraft missile systems pre-empted Tuesday's release of a Dutch report into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 with an elaborate news conference designed to deflect blame.

Russian state arms maker Almaz Antey gathered hundreds of journalists Tuesday morning in a complex in outer Moscow, where it showed dramatic video footage of experiments that it said disproved the primary theory that a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from rebel-held territory near the Ukrainian city of Snizhne downed the Boeing 777 in July 2014. Among those experiments: The explosion of part of an Ilyushin 86 aircraft with a Buk missile.

The company, which had hoped to test the missile on an identical Boeing 777 but settled for the Ilyushin, argued that its analysis undercuts the primary theory about the downing of MH17-one that is likely to be repeated in a long-awaited report due to be released later Tuesday by the Dutch Safety Board in the Netherlands.

"The results of the experiment completely refuted the conclusions of the Dutch commission on the type of missile and the place of its launch," Almaz Antey Chief Executive Yan Novikov said, at the outset of the news conference.

He said the company's experiments showed that if MH17 was downed by a Buk system, it was hit by a different type of missile than Dutch investigators specified and launched from near the village of Zaroshchenske, not Snizhne.

Rebels held Zaroshchenske at the time of the MH17 disaster. Mr. Novikov declined to comment on whether that meant his company was accusing pro-Russia rebels or Ukrainian forces of shooting down the plane.

The top executive of the state firm said Almaz Antey had conducted the experiments-which were explained via slides and videos analyzing shrapnel impacts-to protect its reputation amid accusations that one of the weapons the firm produces downed the civilian airliner. The Russian state defense firm has fallen under Western sanctions that Mr. Novikov described as "unfair and unrelated to the Malaysian Boeing disaster."

MH17 was shot down over territory held by pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people aboard, most of them Dutch citizens.

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 #31
Experts say MH17 might have been downed by Ukraine

MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. The modification and type of the Buk missile, as well as the position of the Buk missile system that brought down the Malaysian Flight MH17 Boeing in 2014, suggest that the Ukrainian Armed Forces might have downed the airliner, Alexander Luzan, a former deputy chief of the Russian army air defense, said on Tuesday.

"The 9M38, 9M38M, 9M38M1 missiles are former modifications of the Buk system missiles, but they all have the same warhead. They are not in service with the Russian Armed Forces, but Ukraine has them. And we have been for the past 15 years using missiles of another type - 9M317," Luzan said.

"This Buk does not belong to the militias [of the self-proclaimed Donetsk republic - DPR], the more so it had not been transferred to the militias by Russia, we simply have no such modifications of Buk missiles. Based on the modification and type of the used missile, as well as its location, this Buk belongs to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By the way, Ukraine had three military districts - the Carpathian, Odessa and Kiev, and these three districts had more than five Buk anti-aircraft missile brigades of various modifications - Buk, Buk-M, Buk-M1, which means that there were more than 100 missile vehicles there," Luzan said.

Chief of the flight-test centre of the Research Institute of Civil Aviation Ruben Yesayan told TASS that according to the rules of the International Civil Aviation Association (ICAO), if hostilities are underway in a country, it must close its routes for civil aircraft. Furthermore, if a plane falls in a country, this country should organise an investigation, but "instead, Ukraine conducted combat operations there, its Su-25 planes were flying in bombing raids in the area of Donetsk.".

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 #32
Business New Europe
www.bne.eu
October 13, 2015
EU said close to lifting sanctions on Belarus as Lukashenko's landslide win satisfies
bne IntelliNews

The EU is close to lifting sanctions on Belarus after its authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, won a fifth term in polls on October 11 with 83% of the vote, making some concessions to the political opposition in the process.

While there hasn't yet been any formal announcement of a limited sanctions suspension, individual ministers said it could happen quickly, with a lifting of visa bans and blacklists from as soon as the end of the month. "For the next four months, the decision is to suspend the sanctions," said Harlem Désir, France's Europe minister, the Financial Times reported. "But they can be reimposed immediately if this is justified."

Whether this is an official EU decision remains unclear, with some commentators suggesting Désir was speaking for himself and not the EU as a whole.

However, a temporary suspension of sanctions would come as no surprise, as relations between Minsk and Brussels have been warming since June, as bne IntelliNews reported at the time. While Minsk remains heavily dependent on Moscow for anti-crisis loans, the talk of ending sanctions became explicit in August at a previous EU foreign ministers meeting after Lukashenko released a number of political prisoners as a gesture of goodwill.


"The decision of President Lukashenko on releasing jailed opposition leaders creates conditions for suspending the sanctions," an unnamed diplomat close to the situation said in remarks quoted by Russia's TASS news agency back on August 24.

Test drive for Belarus

Such a move would clearly be distasteful to some parts of Europe. Although this presidential election was not marred by violence like the previous vote in 2010, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said it did not meet international standards of fairness and transparency - a sentiment echoed by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who said the elections weren't perfect.

Yet the election was a test and Lukashenko seems to have passed it - although the bar was set pretty low: just don't repeat the oppression that followed the last election. In 2010, his previous landslide victory was marred by the violent suppression of street protests in Minsk by citizens enraged that the vote had been rigged. This time around there was only a tiny protest in the main square in Minsk on ballot day.

"The elections are a test case for the possible development of our cooperation with Belarus," said Steinmeier in a statement. "We expect that repressions such as those seen in 2010 will not be allowed to recur."

The reason the EU is holding its nose and contemplating lifting sanctions is that it is playing Russia at its own game of divide and rule. Russian President Vladimir Putin has successfully introduced a great deal of division into the EU over his campaign in Ukraine by playing his cheap energy card and Russian credit largesse.

Brussels is now hitting back by attempting to drive a wedge into Putin's Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) - a sort of anti-EU - which has been subject to tensions between its three founding members: Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

And Brussels is being explicit about its gambit to weaken Putin's economic alliance. "If we close the door to Europe, then Belarus' future will have just one direction... Russia," Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said after an EU foreign affairs meeting in Luxembourg, EUobserver reported.

Poor showing

Closely watched for electoral violations, the election was also characterised by a poor showing of the cowed opposition.

Leading opposition candidate Tatiana Korotkevich garnered just 4.42% of the vote; the head of the little-known Belarusian Patriotic Party Nikolai Ulakhovich 1.67%; and the head of the pro-government Liberal-Democratic Party Sergei Gaidukevich 3.32%. Around 6% of participants voted against all candidates, the Central Election Committee (CEC) said, claiming an 87% voter turnout.

"I didn't think that such a high proportion of voters would take part in 'protest voting'," CEC head Lidia Ermoshina said.

Lukashenko's landslide secures him five more years as the republic's only post-Soviet leader. The 61-year-old former state farm director came to power in 1994 in fairly free elections on an anti-corruption platform. Since then, his rule has become increasingly authoritarian, clamping down on civil society, the political opposition and independent media, and earning himself the reputation in the West as "Europe's last dictator" - a moniker that European politicians have pointedly not been using recently. (Lukashenko once retorted: "better to be a dictator than gay".)

Poll approval "would be good"

The legitimacy of the polls does not depend on recognition or non-recognition by other countries, CEC Secretary Nikolai Lozovik stressed during counting. But he said, "it would be good if the election is recognised by foreign organisations, as this is one of the components for the more successful international relations for the president-elect," BelTA news agency reported.

However, an umbrella observer mission comprising the OSCE and other institutions said that while it saw "specific improvements and a welcoming attitude" in the polls, Belarus "still had a considerable way to go" in meeting its OSCE commitments to hold democratic elections.

"Some significant problems, particularly during the counting and tabulation of votes, undermined the integrity of the election," officials of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said in a statement as results emerged.

Swedish MP Kent Harstedt, who led the mission, said in Minsk: "I was especially disappointed by shortcomings during counting and tabulation". The ODIHR said the vote count was "bad or very bad" in 30% of the 169 counts it was allowed to observe. It cited "ballot box stuffing", bogus voter lists, exclusion of some opposition candidates, and media bias for Lukashenko. "The campaign and election day were peaceful," its statement added, while noting the need for "political will to engage in a comprehensive reform process" in Belarus.

The Belarusian practice of starting voting in the days running up to election day also still raises questions, with 36% of voters casting ballots since stations opened on October 6. This is to allow people who cannot make the main day of voting to still participate, but has in the past fuelled suspicions of vote rigging. The number of such voters broke earlier records: in 2010 just 23% of electorate took part in early voting.

'Putin's mouthpiece'

Lukashenko has raised the spectre of what is happening in Ukraine taking place in his country as a means to pressure the EU into lifting sanctions.

The bloodshed in Ukraine has "shown how fragile peace is and that if you start doing thoughtless things here in Belarus, the country may 'burst into fire' as well", Lukashenko said, according to the presidential media centre. "It is in the centre of Europe. Suddenly everyone has sobered up."

However, opposition forces have denounced Lukashenko as merely a Russian puppet. "This process [of lifting EU sanctions] will take more than a day," political activist and prominent poet Vladimir Nekliaev said during an anti-government rally the day before the election that drew around 900 people. "But let's ask, what will [Lukashenko] do in Europe? He will deliver a lecture written in the Kremlin... He will be the mouthpiece of [Russian president Vladimir] Putin," said Nekliaev, who also ran for the presidency in 2010 and was detained on election night.

Putin was the first foreign leader to congratulate Lukashenko on his re-election, saying on October 12 that his "decisive victory" indicates his "high political authority and trust from the population". Putin said the Kremlin's strategic ally on Russia's western boarders will strengthen the "Belarusian-Russian strategic partnership".

The Russian leader faces tricky negotiations with Lukashenko in the coming months over Moscow's wish to establish an air base in the Belarusian city of Baranovichi. This presents Minsk with a strong opportunity to profit from giving its consent, including eliciting cash injections into the still heavily state-dominated and recession-plagued Belarusian economy.

Lukashenko has been cagey over the issue in recent days in an apparent bid to strengthen his bargaining position, saying: "We don't need any bases," and that Belarus instead needs Russian up-to-date air defence systems.

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#33
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
October 12, 2015
Online reading of Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' to be open to all
Any Russian speakers can apply to take part in December event.
Oleg Krasnov, RBTH
 
Anyone on the planet who speaks Russian will be able to read a chapter from Russian writer Lev Tolstoy's classic War and Peace directly online as part of an upcoming event

The "War and Peace: Let's Read The Novel" event will take place between Dec. 8 and 11 as part of the Year of Literature in Russia. The beginning of the reading of the volumes is set for 10 a.m. Moscow time.

The "War and Peace: Let's Read The Novel" event will be the sequel to the online reading project of another Tolstoy novel, Anna Karenina, which took place in October 2014 on the initiative of Google and the Yasnaya Polyana Lev Tolstoy House-Museum.

The event entered the Guinness Book of World Records in the "Largest audience for an online reading marathon" category (it was watched by viewers from more than 106 countries).

According to Fekla Tolstaya, one of the project's organizers and the great granddaughter of Russian writer, "the readings will take place in various parts of Russia and abroad: from a nuclear icebreaker, from Lake Baikal, from an orbital space station..."

Participants need to register on voinaimir.com before Nov. 18, fill in the application and send in a sample video recording. The jury will select 1,300 participants.

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