#2
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
October 28, 2015
A Night at the Perm Ballet
Immaculate ballet performance confirms Urals's city's vibrant cultural life and shows that culture in Russia's regions is thriving
By Alexander Mercouris
Alexander Mercouris is a writer on international affairs with a special interest in Russia and law.  He has written extensively on the legal aspects of NSA spying and events in Ukraine in terms of human rights, constitutionality and international law.  He worked for 12 years in the Royal Courts of Justice in London as a lawyer, specializing in human rights and constitutional law. His family has been prominent in Greek politics for several generations.  He is a frequent commentator on television and speaker at conferences.  He resides in London.

Russia Insider recently republished an article from Moscow Times drawing attention to the active cultural life of Yekaterinburg, the biggest city east of the Urals.

One particular sentence in the article stood out for me

"If you ask the average person what comes to mind when they think of Yekaterinburg, they'll probably say that it's a highly polluted industrial city and the site where the Romanov family was executed."

I don't know who this "average person" is, but given that the article was written in an English language newspaper published in Moscow, I strongly suspect that he or she is someone who is "average" in Moscow.

It is unfortunately true that many people in Moscow - Russians as well as foreigners - have a remarkably disdainful attitude towards the regions. When I told some of my Russian friends in Moscow that I had recently visited Perm, the response was a knowing laugh.

This cultural arrogance - as if life in the regions is still stuck in the world of "The Government Inspector" - has no justification.

This became immediately obvious to me as soon as I arrived in Perm.

Though Perm cannot compete in economic terms with Yekaterinburg - which is a much bigger city - its cultural life is at least as rich.

I realised this when I visited its art gallery, which is mainly known - unfairly in my opinion - for its collection of the Christian art work of the Komi people.

Though this is indeed very striking, it detracts attention from the very fine collection the gallery has gathered of paintings extending back to the eighteenth century and reaching forward to the present day.  

The centre-piece of cultural life in Perm is however the opera house.  

This is housed in a fine neoclassical nineteenth century building that could compete with many in Europe.  

It is actually more fit for purpose than the Royal Opera House in London, which was built in the nineteenth century as a result of a private initiative to provide a venue for visiting opera stars from Italy. Its management has struggled to adapt it to the needs of opera and ballet performance ever since.

Perm's opera is not only extremely fine but under its dynamic Greek born director, Theodor Currentzis, it has achieved an international reputation for his highly innovative and intense performances of Mozart's operas. Recordings of his versions of the Da Ponte operas have been released, using a special orchestra (Musicaeterna) of musicians specially selected by Currentzis from the orchestra of the opera house. These recordings are attracting rave revues.

I did not attend an opera performance whilst I was in Perm, but I did see the opera house's ballet company perform Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

The Mariinsky (or Kirov) ballet was evacuated to Perm during the Second World War, and the ballet company in Perm follows the St. Petersburg rather than the Moscow tradition of ballet.  

The performance of Romeo and Juliet I saw uses the original choreography made for the ballet by the Leningrad master Leonid Lavrovsky. It is the choreography once danced by the great Galina Ulanova. It is the version of the ballet that continues to be performed by the Mariinsky ballet in St. Petersburg.

This version of the ballet only works if it is danced well and with total conviction.  

That was exactly what I saw in the performance in Perm. None of the dancers are known to me, but every part of the performance - including the orchestra - was outstanding, and could compare well with anything I have seen anywhere else.  

One dance - that of Juliet's mother following the death of Tybalt - was performed better than I have ever seen.

What was however even more impressive than the performance was the audience.

The house was full, as it sometimes is in London. However in London I have become used to attending ballet and opera performances where, with a few solitary exceptions - usually children - the whole audience is over 60.

In Perm the greater part of the audience seemed to be under 40, with many of them under 30. It was by some distance the youngest audience for a ballet performance I have ever seen.  

Moreover it was an audience that was clearly very well educated in what it was seeing, being both properly critical and appreciative in ways that audiences in London today rarely are.

To those who might think that it is an audience whose ideas of ballet are frozen in time, I would say that the company's repertory includes several modern ballets, as well as several ballets by Balanchine. A television screen in the bar showed excerpts of performances of these ballets during the intervals.

Moreover it quickly became clear that interest in the opera and the ballet was not limited to a small group of people in the city, as it tends to be in England.  

Throughout my visit people were constantly bringing up the subject of the city's opera and ballet company and of their pride - and interest - in what Currentzis is achieving with the opera company.

Cultural life in Perm is not confined to the art gallery and the opera house.  

Most - though not all - of my connections were with people connected to the university - both teaching staff and students.  

It was clear that the university is itself a major cultural hub, with any number of sports and cultural societies. The students were in fact in the process of staging a major arts festival - principally for themselves - whilst I was there.

In other words, far from being plunged in provincial darkness, Perm is a city with a rich cultural life - far richer than that of many British towns today.  

Since I was visiting the city whilst the university was hosting an academic conference, I was able to meet with people from all over Russia. It was clear to me that though other Russian cities may not have the good fortune of having their local opera directed by someone like Currentzis, in terms of the general interest in culture Perm is by no means exceptional.

Just as generalisations about the supposed economic backwardness of Russia's regions have no justification, the same is therefore true of generalisations about levels of culture there.  

Talk of "provincialism" is out of place. On the contrary, far from being cultural backwaters, I would not be surprised if cultural life in the regions is sometimes more intense and dynamic - and better appreciated - than it is in the two capitals.

For example I suspect that the standard of performance of Mozart's operas in Perm under Currentzis's direction is now actually higher - or at least more exciting and innovative - in Perm than it is in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

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 #3
Transitions Online
www.tol.org
October 28, 2015
Russia Unveils Moon Landing Plans
Private companies to be allowed into the Russian space services market within five years.

Russia's updated space exploration program for the next decade will reach President Vladimir Putin's desk "in the near future," Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has announced.
 
Rogozin, the government's space chief, earlier said the program would be submitted to Putin in November, although his remarks on 27 October did not specify a date, TASS reports, according to The Moscow Times, which said the plans had to be rewritten several times over the past year.
 
The report adds that the final draft was delayed by a combination of the plummeting value of the ruble, a series of launch failures, and shakeups at the federal space agency Roscosmos.
 
Roscosmos also revealed specifics of its plan to send cosmonauts to the Moon by 2029.
 
The head of the agency's spacecraft construction arm, Vladimir Solntsev, said the Moon vehicle will have its first test flight in 2021, RT reports, citing Sputnik.
 
Rogozin also announced the end of the state monopoly in the space industry.
 
Roscosmos will allow private companies to enter the space services market by 2020, Sputnik quotes him as saying.
 
After its 2021 maiden flight, the Moon vehicle will dock with the International Space Station in 2023. An unmanned trip to the Moon will follow in 2025.
 
The European Space Agency (ESA) recently said it could help the Moon landing expedition by providing technical expertise, RT said.

The latest draft space program includes a 10 percent funding cut, to 3.4 trillion rubles ($52 billion) for the 2016-2025 period, according to The Moscow Times. Sputnik gives a much lower budget figure of $37 billion.
 
Roscosmos also announced that it will build 48 stations in 36 countries for its GLONASS satellite navigation system, Sputnik reports.

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 #4
Christian Science Monitor
October 27, 2015
Russian church-state mystery: Who is buried in Romanovs' tomb?
At the insistence of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, the Kremlin is trying to determine if the remains of Czar Nicholas and his family are who there are said to be - despite little doubt among historians.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

Moscow-The Kremlin's Investigative Committee, Russia's highest law enforcement body, is hot on the heels of a murder mystery.

No, it's not the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov earlier this year, nor any of the other unsolved post-Soviet killings that still haunt Russian politics.

Rather, it's a far older case, and one that many had thought solved: Are the remains identified as those of the last Romanov czar and his family, who were slaughtered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, indeed who they are said to be?

Curiouser is the force behind the inquiry, as historians say the issue has been long since settled to their satisfaction and polls suggest the public doesn't care about the case. Rather, it's the powerful Russian Orthodox Church which remains stubbornly unconvinced of the authenticity of the remains of Nicholas II, his wife, and their five children.

No one is sure why the church is so insistent. But at its request, Russia's top investigators are using modern DNA techniques to try to conclusively prove that remains dug out of a pit near Yekaterinburg after the demise of the USSR, are the Romanovs.

The Romanov mystery

The former czar, czarina, and three of their daughters were buried with great pomp in the Romanov crypt in St. Petersburg in 1998. The Kremlin had planned to bury the last two family members, the princess Maria and the crown prince Alexei, whose bones were retrieved in 2007, at a gala ceremony in St. Petersburg this month. Surviving members of the Romanov family were scheduled to attend, along with current Kremlin and church leaders.

But the church slammed on the brakes, and demanded conclusive proof that the remains of the late czar and his family - who were canonized by the church in 2000 - are genuine. The ceremony is now on hold until next February.

There have long been rumors that at least some of the Romanovs survived the massacre. The legend of Anastasia, Nicholas' youngest daughter, has been recycled constantly over the past century, including as a Hollywood animated movie.

Last month the Investigative Committee took DNA samples from Nicholas and his grandfather Alexander II from the family vault in St. Petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral. This week they announced that Nicholas' father, Alexander III, will also be exhumed to gather more genetic evidence for the widening probe.
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According to the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, the exhumation of Alexander alone will cost about $300,000 and could damage his ornate 19th century tomb.

Why now?

The church argues it's absolutely necessary to ascertain whose bones are in the crypt. "These people have been canonized, and if their remains are found they will be considered holy relics that believers will pray to, for this reason it's very important to make sure," Father Vsevololod Chaplin, a church spokesman, told journalists last month.

No one knows why the church is being so obstinate about this - since hard DNA evidence has never been available for past saints - but there is no doubt that they are holding up a ceremony the Kremlin would like to finish with.

Some historians say it's enough. "We went through all this in the 1990s, with the participation of foreign scientists. The remains found near Yekaterinburg were found to be those of Nicholas and his wife," says Roy Medvedev, one of Russia's most venerable historians. "It's not clear what the church even wants. More scientific evidence? The church isn't known for its reliance on science in the first place. Do they expect a miracle? Let's just bury them and move on."

Experts say the Kremlin really would like to see the end of this controversy, but can't afford to offend the church, whose political support it has courted at the expense of secular society for years. The Kremlin has angered professional historians by closing museums and handing property, including dozens of famous churches, monasteries, and precious artifacts, back to the church for its own uses.

Digging up the past

The dispute also comes at a time when the Kremlin is courting members of the Romanov family, who have lived in exile since the Revolution.

Last week the presumptive heir to Russia's throne, Grand Duke Georgi Mikhailovich Romanov, pledged to visit Crimea to demonstrate his support for Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian territory last year. That's a major boost for Vladimir Putin, who has achieved unprecedented popularity at home by creating the image of a resurgent, united Russia under his leadership.

And some Russian politicians have suggested the Romanovs could return to Russia and perhaps be given one of their former palaces in St. Petersburg, or Crimea, to live in.

"For Putin, it's really time to solve this issue," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the independent Center for Political Technologies in Moscow. "It's a bizarre situation, where the Russian state has recognized the Romanov family, and paid honor to the last czar, but the church refuses. Nowadays the church is trying to get closer to the state, they consider Putin the protector of the church, they support Russia's operation in Syria, but they're standing in the way of wrapping up this issue."

But others say it's worth going the final mile to prove it one way or the other.

"If the end result of all this is that the church is finally convinced, then it's probably worth all the money we're spending on it," says Yury Petrov, director of the official Institute of History in Moscow, and a member of the commission that is authenticating the remains. "Some things are more important than money."

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 #5
Moscow Times
October 28, 2015
Putin's Movement Not Taking On Bigger Role Until 2016, Say Experts
By Daria Litvinova

The All-Russian People's Front (ONF), the organization created in 2011 on the eve of the State Duma elections and headed by President Vladimir Putin, made the headlines this week as federal and some regional authorities announced plans to give it more power in various decision-making processes.

The Economic Development Ministry introduced a bill Monday obliging executive authorities, including regional and municipal ones, to discuss "strategic planning documents" with the ONF.

The next day, Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, governor of Russia's republic of Buryatia, tasked his local government with getting the organization's approval before going forward with procurements worth more than 500,000 rubles ($7,700).

But the actual intention is not to give the ONF more decision-making powers: It is waiting for 2016 to take on a bigger role in the State Duma elections, pundits told The Moscow Times.

"It is the left leg of authority, as [Vladislav] Surkov [the former deputy head of the presidential administration said to be behind the most notorious political projects of the noughties] used to say 10 years ago, that is needed in case the right leg - the United Russia party - goes numb," Dmitry Oreshkin, an independent political analyst, told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

United Russia Alternative

The ONF was created in the spring of 2011, seven months prior to the State Duma elections, and was quickly identified by media and analysts as an alternative to the United Russia party, which was losing popularity. In the December elections marred by allegations of mass rigging, the party barely scraped together a majority of votes, and its popularity has continued to decline, especially in urban areas.

The ONF describes itself as a "public movement," but is an officially registered organization with a charter and fixed structure that includes central headquarters, regional headquarters and an executive committee. The official website of the ONF states that its creation was Putin's initiative, and the president has met with its members regularly since 2012.

The idea of a public movement as opposed to political parties that have discredited themselves in the eyes of society belonged to Vyasheslav Volodin, Surkov's successor, Oreshkin said.

"The United Russia party is losing its popularity, and the Kremlin has acknowledged that for some time now. Volodin had been contemplating this project for about five years," the analyst added.

During the very first meeting right after the presidential elections in 2012 Putin set the goals for the ONF: monitoring of the implementation of his decrees and the fight against corruption.

"The All-Russian People's Front should indeed become a broad public movement in order for all citizens to have the opportunity to set tasks, make sure they're completed ... [and] directly introduce suggestions that would later become laws and government decisions," Putin was cited on the website as saying a year later.

ONF members range from the prominent film director Stanislav Govorukhin, one of Putin's most passionate supporters, and Yaroslav Kuzminov, rector of the Higher School of Economics and the husband of Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina, to numerous State Duma and regional legislature deputies.

"It could work out [as an alternative to United Russia]: It's a non-political organization that proclaims it doesn't participate in elections, and they use openly leftist rhetoric, like fairness, fighting against oligarchs, public interests etc.," Oreshkin told The Moscow Times.

New Tasks

Currently the People's Front is known for holding numerous congresses and conferences devoted to society's most pressing problems, like health care and education, as well as for monitoring state procurements and exposing corruption in them.

In light of the latter activity, the Buryatia governor Nagovitsyn ordered his government to get the ONF's approval for any procurements worth more than 500,000 rubles.

"I'm telling everybody, including district heads, to sign agreements with the People's Front and, whatever tender is launched, let the activists participate in decision making. The Russian president commissioned them to monitor [it] - let them monitor it," the governor was cited by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

The initiative was not greeted with immediate enthusiasm in the ONF.

Anton Getta, head of the ONF's "For Fair Procurements" project, said ONF activists shouldn't do the job of government officials.

"Specialists who deal with procurements ... get paid for their job, and their main task is to carry out open, competitive procedures, [and be] effective in terms of spending budget funds," Getta was cited as saying Tuesday on the ONF website.

A day earlier the Economic Development Ministry introduced a draft decree suggesting discussing all important state documents and plans with the ONF, including the president's address to the Federal Assembly (both chambers of parliament), budget prognosis and national security strategy.

The proposal is based on the federal law that allows the involvement of public organizations or unions in drafting such documents, but to involve just one - the People's Front - would be odd, said Yekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist and associate professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

"It can't be outlined in an actual law - that one particular public movement will have power in discussing government plans," she told The Moscow Times in a phone interview.

"The People's Front is a public movement. It doesn't have any legal powers, the only influence it has is its meetings with the president and other top-ranking officials," she added.

The ministry's initiative, according to Schulmann, might turn into meetings and discussions, but these discussions would not obligate anyone to make particular decisions. "Decisions are made by other people: government officials, presidential administration staff and State Duma deputies," she said.

At the same time it could simply be a way of keeping the movement afloat in people's mind, said Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the Petersburg Politics think tank. "They are trying to make people remember that in addition to United Russia, there's the People's Front," he said.

"I don't see any real activity of the People's Front at the moment," he told The Moscow Times.

Waiting in the Wings

Both Schulmann and Oreshkin agreed that while at the moment the ONF might not take on any serious role, it certainly will in 2016.

"The whole idea seems to be to have a back-up plan lined up before 2016, in case United Russia continues to have relatively low popularity," said Schulmann. If that happens, the ONF will support candidates in the single-member districts -as opposed to party list candidates - and pro-Kremlin forces will eventually get a majority in the State Duma, she said.

Oreshkin echoed her statement. "United Russia is wearing itself out, that's why the single-member constituencies system was returned," he said.

At the same time the movement can hardly be considered a replacement for United Russia, said Schulmann: It is more of an addition to it. "It is sometimes presented as United Russia's competition, but it's more for show," she said.

If Putin decides to run for the presidency in 2018, the ONF could also help. "They can imitate a broad public movement, rather than a party, that could help the candidate to not be associated directly with the United Russia party, which by that time might be even less popular than in 2016," Schulmann said.

The ONF did not respond to a request for comments sent by The Moscow Times.

 #6
Anti-corruption measures in Russia may force many legislators to leave their seats
By Lyudmila ALEXANDROVA

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin-initiated campaign that some instantly dubbed "nationalization of the elites" is gaining momentum. In the near future anti-corruption measures will encompass legislators of all levels. The public at large believes that corruption in the bodies of state power has eased, while most experts have welcomed greater transparency in relation to civil servants and legislators.

The State Duma last Wednesday approved in the second reading the ruling party United Russia's bill tightening anti-corruption rules that the elected officials of all levels, from federal to municipal, will be obliged to abide by. They will now be liable to the operation of the ban on having bank foreign bank accounts and securities. The bill's final approval is due on Friday. According to the daily Izvestia, about 1,000 legislators from various parties are faced with the risk of saying good-bye to their seats when the new anti-corruption measures come into force.

The bill's brain-fathers hope that after the bill is signed into law the nationalization of the elites will encompass all tiers of government. The main thrust of the future legal act, they believe, is to issue "a moral message to the federal, regional and local elites and society about the rules of political conduct to be followed, the impermissibility of mixing business and politics, the duty of all those taking official posts to protect the country's interests, and the impermissibility of dependence on the so-called offshore democracy and other countries that influence decisions made in the territory of Russia.

The first deputy chief of the presidential staff, Vyacheslav Volodin, told a conference that brought together the heads of United Russia factions in the regional legislative assemblies that in the past the rule of filing income and property declarations implied no responsibility. As a result most legislators just ignored it. Now the responsibility will be imminent and those legislators who fail to file declarations will lose their mandates. Volodin said that United Russia was responsible for compliance with anti-corruption legislation to a greater extent than any other, because 62.3% of lawmakers across the nation were from the ruling party and keeping the party's ranks clean should be number one priority for its members.

In the meantime, as a poll by the national public opinion studies center WCIOM has found, the public at large believes the degree of corruption in the bodies of state power and local self-government has shown a noticeable decline. Whereas in March 2015 34% of the questioned said that local authorities were corruption-riddled, in October the group of such respondents shrank to 17%. The same trend is observed in relation to the federal authorities' scale of corruption: the rates were down from 17% to 9%.

Most pundits have welcomed the new bill by and large, although some of its provisions do raise many eyebrows.

"On the one hand, the lawmakers are obliged to declare their property and divest of assets and real estate abroad for the period they take elective posts," assistant professor Yekaterina Shulman, of the public administration department of the presidential academy RANEPA, has told TASS. "This rule as such does make sense, for it increases the transparency of representative bodies of power, which must be directly dependent on the opinion of voters."

But the risk of losing one's seat for defaulting on this duty is something very different, she believes. "This heralds progress towards what is sometimes called imperative mandate. It is a legal system where an elected legislator of any level can be stripped of one's powers at the decision of one's own faction, party or any other body of power, which runs counter to one of the principles of parliamentarianism - the principle of popular representation. A deputy should be accountable only to the electorate. Throughout one's term of office the legislator enjoys all sorts of immunity. This makes elected deputies independent of superiors or executive or investigative authorities. If this or that person refuses to declare one's property or declares possession of a luxurious castle, the chances of being elected next time are very slim." But for the period of performing one's duties a legislator must enjoy a free hand," Shulman believes.

Assistant professor Igor Zagarin, of the RANEPA academy, argues that the imperative mandate is "something slightly different." "It implies that a legislator will vote in parliament the way the whole faction will. Otherwise, such a politician may be 'suspended'. The legislators must be transparent to the population. This will prevent administrative resource manipulations," he told TASS.

Zagarin is certain that the campaign for the "nationalization of the elites" is moving in the right direction.

"To keep the state stable the elites must be oriented towards internal Russian processes first and foremost. This will now apply not only to federal level legislators, but those of the municipal level, too. What makes it still more important is a certain message is issued with a view to the 2016 parliamentary elections. United Russia members are among those who should turn an attentive ear to it," he believes.

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 #8
Hard to call Russian banking system healthy - Sberbank exec

MOSCOW. Oct 28 (Interfax) - It is currently difficult to call the Russian banking system healthy, Sberbank (MOEX: SBER) deputy CEO Bella Zlatkis believes.

"If two or three banking institutions in the country close per week, if this number increases by tens in a year, if a whole number of banking institutions are having problems with capital and liquidity, I suppose that it's difficult to call the banking system healthy," Zlatkis said at a press conference at Interfax's head office on Wednesday.

Zlatkis was responding to the comments of the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Alexander Shokhin, who recalled the opinion of VTB head Andrei Kostin that there is no crisis in Russia.

"The banking system is having very great difficulties related to both [the depreciation of the ruble] and sanctions," Zlatkis added.

VTB (MOEX: VTBR) head Andrei Kostin said earlier that he believed there was no crisis in Russia. "It seems to me that those who believe that there is a crisis in Russia today are either too young to remember 1998 or 2008, or they just have a short memory. Because we do not currently feel like we are in a crisis by any circumstances, although the situation, including in the financial sector, is not easy," Kostin said at the Russia Calling! forum earlier this month.

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 #9
Russia climbs 11 positions in Doing Business ranking

WASHINGTON, October 27. /TASS/. Russia's Doing Business ranking rose by 11 positions during the year, according to a new international ranking of business environment, which is prepared annually by the World Bank.

In 2015, Russia climbed from the 62nd to the 51st place. It is only 0.02 points below the 50th position which is occupied by Peru.

In 2013, Russia ranked 92-th.

Improvement of business environment is one of the strategic tasks of the state.

In May 2012, the Russian president signed a decree on long-term government economic policy. This May decree sets the guidelines for improvement of the business climate in the country.

The decree sets the task to raise the country's position in the Doing Business ranking from the 120th in 2011 to the 50th in 2015 and the 20th in 2018.

According to the World Bank, during the current year Russia carried out five economic reforms, which contributed significantly to the advancement of the country's rating.

The greatest success was achieved for such indicators as "registration of property" /Russia has entered the top ten of the countries with the best performance/ "power supply reliability" and "transparency of electricity tariffs".

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 #10
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
October 27, 2015
World Cup 2018: sporting bonanza or own goal?
Russia's economic crisis can help or hinder the World Cup, depending on how host cities see the opportunity.
ANDY POTTS, SPECIAL TO RBTH

It could be a marketing exec's dream: hundreds of thousands of visiting football fans, a TV audience of billions, all focused on enjoying themselves against a Russian backdrop. But will that dream come true? Two cities, Kazan and Kaliningrad, sum up the differences in opinion about whether 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia will be a triumph or a disappointment.

The Barcelona approach

In Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan and host for group-stage games and a quarter-final, big sporting events are helping to transform the city's economy and its reputation in Russia and beyond. Encouraged by the success of the city's ice hockey, football, volleyball and basketball teams, Kazan has enormous big-match experience - and is thirsting for more. Hosting Universiade in 2013 and last summer's FINA World Aquatic Championships has transformed the city's visitor infrastructure and sent out a message to the wider world that Kazan is open for business. Mayor Ilsur Metshin likes to compare the impact with the post-Olympic renaissance of Barcelona.

"In the last two years we've opened 88 new hotels," the mayor said during the FINA Championships. "They have well-trained staff and they are running at 90-95pc capacity. The growth is like Barcelona's: before the Olympics in 1992 there were about one million tourists a year, but now it's 12 million."

Kazan's numbers aren't quite so impressive, but the trend is encouraging. The city now has 156 hotels and Metshin said that Kazan would welcome two million guests in 2015 - a big rise from 460,000 when he took office in 2006. Speculating on sport has brought financial rewards as well, with Metshin adamant that this summer's grand festival of water sports more than recouped its 3.5 billion ruble (£37m) budget.

Selling 350,000 tickets and attracting around 120,000 visitors to the city - including more than 3,000 members of international delegations - also got the thumbs-up from retailers, with cafés, bars and restaurants estimating a 30-40pc increase in business. Sergei Koshkin, manager of the Kofein coffee bar on Kazan's busy Bauman Street, reckons that about 40pc of his customers during the championships were foreigners - and he is hoping for a similar upswing in 2018 and during the 2017 Confederations Cup, which is a warm-up event for the World Cup itself.

Metshin believes that sport is putting Kazan on the international map. "During the World Championships I had calls from Singapore, Australia, France, the USA, South Africa and Brazil to congratulate us on how well we hosted them," he added. "It's a great way of showing that Russia is more than just Moscow and St. Petersburg. People can see that Kazan is our nation's third capital."

Baltic uncertainty

Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost point, will play its part in welcoming the world to Russia in 2018 - but, unlike Kazan, has some way to go to convince everybody that the efforts are worthwhile. The city's close historic ties to Germany and central Europe should make it a natural fit for a major international tournament. Yet progress on building a World Cup arena is slow and local attitudes dominated by cautious scepticism. In a region where 90pc of visitors come from elsewhere in Russia, staff in local bars and hotels treat the prospect of a World Cup bonanza with a fatalistic shrug.

Plans for a new stadium have also run into difficulties. Last month, 500 people gathered to protest against compulsory purchase orders affecting the site of the new stadium on Oktyabrsky (October) Island. In particular, local people are angry about the proposed future use of the city centre site, which is currently home to the Baltic-Expo complex.

Pyotr Gritsenko, the chief executive of the exhibition centre, told Radio Liberty that far from meeting the needs of staging the World Cup, much of the new building looks like six-storey houses. He accuses the authorities of "lies and outright fraud".

Work has barely started on Kaliningrad's new stadium, with the first stones laid as recently as 17 September. Even then, there was still no formal contract in place to build the arena; at the start of October, Aras Agalarov's Crocus Group was seeking guarantees that the project cost would not exceed 17.5 billion rubles (£184m). Plans have also been scaled back: the initial 40,000-seater venue will now house 35,000 for the World Cup, with 10,000 of those seats removed after the competition. Even so, the proposals are set to run over budget, according to Russia's sports minister Vitaly Mutko, although he's confident the venue will be ready in time for its November 2017 opening.

Mixed messages

Regional governor Nikolai Tsukanov has spoken warmly of the benefits for contractors in Kaliningrad. At a ceremony to mark the start of building work, he praised the quality of the locally sourced concrete piles. Yet Tsukanov has not always been eager to promote football in his city. In 2013, with the local Baltika team pushing for promotion to the Russian Premier League, he found himself embroiled in scandal. According to local Novosti Kaliningrada news portal, Tsukanov said he had asked the team to avoid promotion from the second tier because "we don't have enough money to support Premier League football". Baltika duly suffered a loss of form, failing to win in the closing games of the season and missing out on a play-off place.

Refurbished airport

Kazan and Kaliningrad are not the only cities to get a new look as the World Cup approaches. St. Petersburg has a modern, refurbished airport and work is under way on a new 60,000-seat football stadium. Sochi's Olympic regeneration continues, with the Black Sea restort establishing itself on the F1 Grand Prix circuit. The challenge now is to ensure sporting benefits are shared more widely among other cities in Russia.

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 #11
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
October 27, 2015
What Obama and Putin should know about each other
Russia Direct sat down with Vladislav Zubok, a professor from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a fellow of the Wilson Center, to understand what U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin get wrong about each other.
Pavel Koshkin

Signs that the current confrontation between the U.S. and Russia could lead to a new, full-fledged Cold War appear to be increasing by the day. The latest source of tension is a report from high-profile U.S. military and intelligence officials claiming that Russia's submarines and spy ships appear to be operating near undersea cables that carry up to 95 percent of the world's Internet communications.

Moreover, Russia's direct military involvement in Syria and the intransigence of both sides about the future of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad only aggravate the situation, with the chances for effective cooperation in the Middle East now fading away.

Amidst this background, Russia Direct sat down with Vladislav Zubok, a professor from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a fellow of the Wilson Center, to discuss the U.S.-Russia relationship in the context of the events in Syria.

In addition, Zubok shed light on mutual misperceptions between Russia and the United States and explained what specifically U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin get wrong about each other. At the same time, he warns Russia against waking up what he calls the "demons" of American democracy.

Russia Direct: What are the most important events that have had a significant impact on U.S.-Russia relations in 2015?

Vladislav Zubok: The most dramatic event in 2015 is by far the appearance of the Russian military in Syria. It is hard to top that event, because it shifted attention in Russian-American relations from Ukraine (which dominated headlines and preoccupied everyone during the previous year) to the Middle East. This is a different geography, a different history.

And that came as a surprise to the United States. Yet, now if you think about it, it shouldn't be such a surprise. I think that the United States falls victim to its own conception of what Russia can and cannot do. So, no wonder, their first reaction was: "Oh, they can do it." Then came the reaction: "Oh, how dare they do it?"

And then they began to give all kind of advice from their own recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan: "Don't do it, Russians: You will find yourself in a quagmire and will get killed."

So, that [Russia's direct military involvement in Syria] kept U.S. experts busy since the end of September. I cannot think of anything comparable to it, because, after all, the Middle East remains the most important strategic priority, though such a headache, for the United States, despite their pivot to China. I would say it is even much more important than Ukraine, although Ukraine remains a major preoccupation.

RD: What is your assessment of the impact of Russia's direct intervention in Syria on Moscow-Washington relations?

V.Z.: It is clear that, from what Putin says at the Valdai Discussion Club, he keeps prodding the United States to reconsider the context for U.S.-Russia relations. For instance, he raised the issue of a missed opportunity for U.S.-Russia cooperation at the end of the Cold War or after the Sept. 11 terror attack in 2001.

For me, it is really important. After all, we are still living in an era, where at least Russia has been grappling with the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. From the start, the Russian leadership expected to play a role of allies or partners of the United States, while the U.S. was not prepared to give that role to the Soviet Union and then to Russia. They were not ready and, most importantly, were not willing.

So, gradually, the obvious gap between Russia's perceptions and American's intentions came to the fore. Under Russian President Boris Yeltsin, tensions between the two were growing in 1999 over Yugoslavia, Kosovo and the Belgrade bombing. And President Vladimir Putin came to power. The first years of his presidency was an attempt to return to that idea: "Let's be important and equal partners." But then, gradually, Putin got disappointed and frustrated.

We focus too much attention on personalities and the change of personalities, but here we have a very important structural and contextual issue in the Russian-American relations: the inability of Russia to achieve the desired status of a partner of the United States as a leader.

RD: So, Russia's campaign in Syria should be interpreted as a signal to the West that Russia should be seen as an equal partner of the U.S., right?

V.Z.: Yes. At least, it should not be seen as a subordinate power or as a declining regional power, the way Obama described Russia immediately after the crisis in Ukraine erupted. This irritated the Kremlin.

RD: Obama's presidential term is coming to an end as well and there is a lot of talk about his foreign policy legacy. What did Obama get wrong and right about Russia, from your point of view?

V.Z.:  I think Obama gets many things right when he said that Russia is a declining regional power from the point of view of demography, economy and even finance, which were pretty good until recently. And he is right in the sense that whatever the Russian military can do in Ukraine has only tactical, not European implications, in pure military terms. However, he doesn't know very much about Russian history and I don't think he wants to know about the depth of that history going back. That explains something you cannot calculate: those imponderable things about Russia's ambitions and Russia's frustration, when all these ambitions are dashed and shattered.

That's why many Russians came up with that feeling that, no matter what we do, the United States is unhappy with a strong Russia and happier with a weak Russia. And this perception is very strong and very difficult to shatter for various reasons. It has been building for decades, or even more.

So, Obama should have paid more attention to that. Being Obama, he avoids issues he cannot resolve. He focuses pragmatically on very difficult issues that he can resolve, including Cuba and so on. He simply does not see right now how he can make Russia happier, how he can go in this direction without heavily undermining his own political positions in his own party vis-à-vis the Republicans, who keep blaming him for being weak against Putin.

So, American politics tends to personalize bilateral relations to a ridiculous degree: It is a contest between a macho and ex-KGB Putin versus "who knows what kind of man Obama is." So, it is always a question of machismo that comes forth. And Obama knows it pretty well and, basically, he decided to pass this problem to the next administration.

RD: What about Putin: What does he get wrong about the U.S.?

V.Z.: I can only speculate. Looking at how Putin operated lately, even though I don't exactly know, I dare say there might be one fundamental problem with Putin's understanding of the United States: He perceives Obama as weak and indecisive, which may be actually true as far as his foreign policy is concerned - after all, Republicans say the same thing (laughing).

What Putin should take more into account is two important foreign policy trends in U.S. history: Wilsonianism [President Woodrow Wilson's view of the world that advocates for more rigorous promotion of democracy, capitalism, and interventionism] and Jacksonianism [named for U.S. president Andrew Jackson, the Jacksonian model encourages defending national interest abroad, abiding by commitments, standing with allies, fighting to win or not fighting at all, respecting only those opponents that fight by the same rules as the U.S. does - Editor's note].

In the Jacksonian tradition, the United States just comes out and smacks its opponents very, very brutally in a very, very hard way. This is a part of the American logic of trying to integrate someone. And when they decide that a guy [they try to integrate] is just a fraud or such a disappointment, so they cannot deal with this guy, they might propose a radical measure: destroy him. And if this guy leads the country, let's destroy the country that is behind him.

And this is an extremely dangerous trend in America's perception of the world, because, inherently, Americans are half-Wilsonian and half-isolationists: They want to fix the problem and if they cannot do it through negotiations and integration of a country or making it more democratic and peaceful, then they just come out with all their force and do a lot of damage.

And this is what I am afraid we see today.

If I were Putin, I would not tease the United Sates too much. The right approach to the United States is not to wake up the demons that exist in American democracy: One has to be careful in that.     

RD: What would you recommend to the next American president: How to deal with Russia?

V.Z.: However difficult it is, you have to start with summitry and personal contacts with the country's leader which, I suspect, will be Vladimir Putin. They need a realistic approach and limit their expectations of what the opposition can do to Putin. Americans limited these expectations quite substantially, but they still keep their own rhetoric about Russia's moving in the wrong direction, although they themselves inadvertently contributed to that direction during the last 25 years.

And even sanctions definitely contributed to various fatal changes to Russia's policy and economy that takes Russia further away from the development of small business, a prosperous middle class and democracy. So, it is always difficult to advise: But I would recommend to give it a little bit more time, there shouldn't be any pressure right now to solve any issues.

In this sense, Obama is doing the right thing by not prioritizing Russian-American relations, because in the current climate if you are prioritizing the relations, then the pressure from Washington is likely to be tough. So, we have to take a step back. The question of sanctions, of course, comes up and the Putin government increasingly desperately wants to get rid of those sanctions. And it is a very, very tricky issue, because it is connected to the question of Ukraine for obvious reasons. So, it is important for the next leadership to show much more clearly whatever America does is not against the Russian people.

RD: Do you believe in a new "reset" and how do you assess the first "reset" of U.S.-Russia relations?

V.Z.: I was very skeptical about the reset from its very start, because it addressed, primarily, the one issue that America was interested in: nuclear arms control. It didn't have an impact on the issues that Russia was interested in very much. So, the agenda of the reset was created in Washington and presented with the wrong language, peregruzka ("overcharge" in Russian). So, the Russian response was highly skeptical and for obvious reasons it could not include the issues that Russia cared about, such as its relations with Ukraine.

RD: What should we expect in U.S.-Russia relations in 2016?

V.Z.: More surprise that come from Moscow. If you interpret its logic for the last two years, Putin reacted to an unexpected situation in Ukraine, which was completely unexpected for him and for everyone. And then the status quo has been shattered. Now this is the crisis with potentially dangerous moves from the other side. And in this crisis Russia is much weaker than the other side. Russia is put in a position, when it cannot afford a kind of Cold War attrition, or a sort of confrontation, when financial and economic levers are in the hands of the West, when Russia is denied access to financial capital, for instance.

So, in this situation,the Kremlin has to design a proactive game - using a chess metaphor- to move figures on the chessboard in such a way as to accelerate the game, not to prolong the game, to create a new combination somehow where the West will have to deal with Russia and lift the sanctions. And I would say, according to some experts, events in Syria [and Russia's participation in the conflict] diminished the unity of the Western states about the prolongation of sanctions on Russia.

If it is not enough, then we can expect something new from Putin. I don't know what else we should expect. So far, Putin tries several obvious things: he tried to turn to China and tried to play on the Syrian ground.

RD: Well, when should we expect U.S.-Russia relations to be in better shape?

V.Z.: The better question to ask is: When were U.S.-Russia relations ever in good shape? During the last 25 years, or if you'd like, the past 45 or 55 years? Can we find such a moment? I don't think there was such a moment, because if you now would say that Moscow-Washington relations were in excellent shape in the early 1990s, when presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin were good friends, then people would tell you it was exactly because the Soviet Union was collapsing and Russia was in a vulnerable position, being dependent on the U.S. It was an unequal relationship. When one can point to an equal partnership with a good relationship, I cannot give you such an example. And this is troubling.

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 #12
Sputnik
October 27, 2015
Calm Down: Nuclear War Between US-Russia Not in the Cards

Neither the United States nor Russia wants to restart the nuclear arms race, that's why both Washington and Moscow will stick to the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), Russian political scientist Sergei Mikhailov told Radio Sputnik.

According to Mikhailov, we can all relax and take a deep breath now, as the United States and Moscow aren't going to nuke each other off the face of the earth.

"I think that in the short term, the agreement [INF] will remain in full force, because right now it is beneficial both for Russia and the United States," the expert said.

Mikhailov said that the ongoing accusations coming from both countries against each other come amid the overall deterioration of relations between the two countries. The United States first claimed that Russia violated the treaty in 2008, but real accusations didn't start until 2013, when the political relationship between the two countries began.

Therefore, the issue here isn't merely about the actual arms race, but the diplomatic element of a broader political confrontation between Washington and Moscow, Mikhailov explained.

The US side can't clearly formulate their accusations. Within the US government itself different administrative bodies can't even agree among themselves just what exactly Russia is doing wrong and how it's violating the INF treaty. In other words, a lot of hearsay, but no concrete evidence, Mikhailov said.

Both the United States and Russia have levelled mutual accusations that each side has violated the INF Treaty.

The INF Treaty, signed by the United States and the then Soviet Union in 1987, bans nuclear and conventional ground-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500-5,500 kilometers (300-3,400 miles).

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 #13
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
October 27, 2015
Russia's all-inclusive diplomacy over Syria
In the last week Moscow has ratcheted up its diplomatic campaign in Syria, hosting Bashar al-Assad as well as meeting representatives of the Syrian opposition and making overtures to other regional players to join negotiations. Does this diplomatic offensive spell an end to Russia's international isolation?
SERGEI STROKAN, VLADIMIR MIKHEEV, SPECIAL TO RBTH

Moscow's diplomatic moves to kick-start the process of political settlement inside Syria and over Syria, launched by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's visit to Moscow on Oct. 22, seem to be paying off. In the wake of the talks in Vienna and days after Assad was welcomed in the Kremlin, the ad hoc quartet comprised of the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey has inched forward. Washington has not ruled out broadening the format of talks by adding Iran, the lord protector of Bashar al-Assad, and the archenemy of the Sunni axis nations.

What's more, Moscow, which until the last month had kept a low profile in the conflict, has stolen the show for the moment by bringing more and more regional actors into the picture.

Moscow has spearheaded the idea of holding parliamentary and presidential elections in the war-torn country, which have remained unreported in the pro-government Syrian media, as a Moscow-based expert on the Arab world revealed to Troika Report. It has also declared its readiness to engage with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army rebels.

In sum, these moves highlight the Kremlin's pro-active double-track policy of setting the stage for a final settlement of the Syrian drama, hoping to avoid being bogged down in the hostilities as the USSR was in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It also gives Russia a chance of overcoming its present isolation by engaging the West in a political process in which it has a high stake.

In the aftermath of Assad's surprise visit to Moscow, the flurry of diplomatic activities has overshadowed the military gains made by the Syrian government troops, which have taken control over the strategic highway linking Damascus to Homs. But just maybe, the shift towards round-table negotiations was the projection of changing realities on the ground, and Moscow's demonstrative signal that it still regards Assad as the legitimate national leader.

Notably, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did not exclude the presence of an Iranian envoy at the next talks over Syria, saying, quote: "We want to be inclusive."

As a follow-up to the Vienna talks, the Kingdom of Jordan, the region's staunchly pro-West nation, has opted to start receiving updates of Russia's military action in neighboring Syria. Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani clarified that "the military coordination mechanism between Jordan and Russia concerns southern Syria and aims to ensure security of the Kingdom's northern frontiers."

In the space of just one week several landmark events have propelled the chances of a political settlement around Syria to heights unprecedented in the last four years of the civil war. Tacitly positive statements have been voiced by top officials in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. New rounds of talks on the future of Syria involving major international actors are in the pipeline. Would we be right to suspect that something is 'in the air,' or is this a delusion?

Grigory Kosach, an expert on the politics of the Arab world and professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities, added a large pinch of salt to these optimistic forecasts in his comments to Troika Report, pointing out that the changing realities on the ground might devalue current diplomatic gains:

"Indeed, there is something 'in the air.' But suppose the Syrian army manages to establish control over large areas and helps Assad to consolidate power, then all the expectations linked to elections can evaporate in no time. It would be a mistake to view Assad as Moscow's 'puppet.' He has a game of his own to play...

"Larger expectations of a prompt settlement might be wishful thinking as well. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. agreed to surge supplies of military hardware to the Syrian opposition. Besides, Riyadh reiterated that there was no place for Assad in the Syria of tomorrow. You see, this is a clear indication that despite some encouraging smoke signals in the area, it is all too fragile and the process could be easily derailed."

No less cautious in his assessment and forecast was Andrei Fyodorov, an expert on Russia's foreign policy and a former deputy minister of foreign affairs, who made a comment to Troika Report:

"Russia has proposed to bring Iran and Egypt as participants of such meetings. It is obvious that without them, especially without Iran, no progress can be achieved. In terms of elections: parliamentary elections are theoretically possible, but we should take into consideration that there are a lot of preconditions to be met. As for the presidential elections, the West insists they must take place without Bashar al-Assad as a candidate. The latter disagrees. In any case, neither of them can be organized in the months to come."

- Since Russia and the West cannot agree on the basic terms and conditions of such elections, does it mean that they face many new rounds of gruelling negotiations?

"Much depends on the Syrian army's advances on the ground. If it were successful, it would strengthen Assad's position. What's more, Russia has proposed to assist the Syrian moderate opposition if it is ready to fight Islamic State. To my mind, this will not happen. But the diplomatic process should go hand in hand with the operations on the ground."

Despite Fyodorov's understandable pessimism, in response to Moscow's offer of assistance on the ground (and in the air) one of the founding members of the Free Syrian Army, Fahad Masri said: "We need to facilitate a new meeting, so we can express our position and discuss our joint actions.... We can make a joint decision on what kind of assistance Russia might provide to the Free Syrian Army."

This is simply additional evidence that the re-alignment and re-configuration of the alliances involved in the multi-layered conflict inside and around Syria is not something out of the question. The positive engagement of formal foes and dubious allies is already rendering previous scenarios of what was to become of Syria redundant.

What's more, on its Syrian track Russia is showing a willingness and readiness to engage the West in sensible cooperation over a regional crisis that has acquired global overtones. In some way, for Moscow it could be a fast track out of isolation.

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 #14
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
October 26, 2015
Russian legislators interviewed on meeting Syrian president
Mikhail Zubov, Al-Asad Thanked Russia for Saving Christians and for 'Sukhoi Storm'. Russian Deputies and Senators Talk to Moskovskiy Komsomolets About Their Visit to Syria

Russia will not be getting any "gruz 200" [body bags] from Syria. Senators and State Duma deputies who are visiting Syria are sure of this. On Sunday [25 October] they met with Syrian legislators and the country's president Bashar al-Asad in Damascus. Al-Asad declared a readiness to hold parliamentary elections with the participation of all opposition forces that want peace and stability, call early presidential elections, and participate in them. In addition, he called on Russia for economic cooperation and the post-war restoration of the country. State Duma deputy Aleksandr Yushchenko and senator Dmitriy Sablin, who took part in the talks, talked to Moskovskiy Komsomolets about how long the Russian military's presence in Syria could be and about the Russian legislators' mission in Damascus.

"Our main mission in Syria was humanitarian," Aleksandr Yushchenko told Moskovskiy Komsomolets. "We brought over three tonnes of freight: powdered milk, medicines... They will be distributed by the spiritual leaders of the Christians and by the muftis. But the political goal is to discuss how the situation in Syria has changed since the decisions adopted by Russia with our colleagues on the National Council and the chairman of the government and the president of Syria. In addition, we visited holy shrines including the Christian Cathedral where parishioners greeted us."

[Moskovskiy Komsomolets] Everyone in Russia is worried by the question of how long Russia's military presence is going to last, whether it will drag on, and whether it might not expand.

[Yushchenko] President al-Asad and all the leaders that we met with highly appreciate Russia's contribution to stabilization in the country and talked about how effectively our military space forces are working. In al-Asad's words, this operation has already been dubbed among the people 'Sukhoi Storm' with a positive emotional slant. Some of the terrorists' facilities that they failed to deal with for years were reconnoitred and destroyed in a short time. This has boosted the Syrian army's combat spirit and increased the optimism of ordinary people that we mingled with in Damascus. And everyone said how important it is to protect the lives of Syria's Christians who were in danger. In conversation with us, Bashar al-Asad stressed that the survival of representatives of moderate traditional Islam is also impossible without the preservation of the Christians on Syrian soil. The country's president is interested in ensuring that the Christians' voice is strong and representative and Russia is helping directly in this. The Christians felt protected and many have begun to return from flight to their homes.

Returning to your question on the timetable for the presence: we are in no hurry to go anywhere. Space reconnaissance is successfully fulfilling its tasks and aviation is fulfilling its tasks: precision strikes against the terrorists' facilities. Russia is urging other forces prepared to combat evil to join in with the anti-terrorist coalition on the basis of Russia, Syria, and Iran. And how long this is going to take is also clear: until the complete liberation of Syria's territory from international terrorism.

[Moskovskiy Komsomolets] Could there be a ground operation with the threat of Russian military deaths?

[Yushchenko] There cannot be any ground operations involving the participation of Russian soldiers. They are being conducted by the Syrian army and we are helping it from the air and from space. And we are coordinating collaboration between the Syrian regular troops and other combat units (Kurdish organizations and so forth) who are fighting against ISIL. At the meeting with us Al-Asad stated that many areas have already been liberated and he is now looking to the future - to their restoration. He is counting on Russia's assistance in this and has invited Russian business structures to participate in the revival of the republic's economic potential.

[Moskovskiy Komsomolets] But will it be advantageous for Russian entrepreneurs to invest in Syria's economy?

[Yushchenko] Of course! Al-Asad stressed that the restoration work alone is worth 200bn dollars. And it is also possible to explore hydrocarbon deposits and build main gas transport pipelines... And Al-Asad said to us: "Ask any peaceful Syrian whom he wants to see as the main investor and he will reply: Russia."

Moskovskiy Komsomolets asked senator Dmitriy Sablin, the other participant in the meeting with Al-Asad, how the early Syrian presidential elections might turn out:

"Russia is clearly interested that Al-Asad should confirm his legitimacy via presidential elections. He will win them in any event because apart from him there isn't even one contender for the post of president of the country in Syria today who is responsible and his equal in terms of popularity. But as for the date it is necessary to coordinate it with the other participants in the political process. Al-Asad is ready to call the elections for tomorrow, for example, but his rivals must be ready for the fight and give their consent to the start of the campaign."

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Russian upper house speaker: US ground missions in Syria would violate international law

MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/. Speaker of Russia's Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko has said one should not take seriously statements about the US ground operation against the Islamic State terrorist group [banned in Russia] in Syria and Iraq.

"I would not take such statements seriously. This is unacceptable, that is too much," she told reporters.

The senator noted that "the United States was flagrantly violating international law," since its air force operations in Syria were conducted illegally without the authorization of the UN Security Council or a request from the authorities. "If we talk about ground operations, that would be another gross violation of international law," she added.

Earlier, some media reported that the United States was considering ground operations against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. In particular, they referred to a statement of US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

"We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Carter said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee.

According to media reports, a decision may be taken at an early date on sending US special operations forces to Syria.

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 #16
Brookings Institution
www.brookings.edu
October 23, 2015
Russia's military is proving Western punditry wrong
By Garrett I. Campbell
Federal Executive Fellow, Brookings Institution; United States Navy, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence

Ever since the first indications that there were Russians encamped at the airfield in Latakia, theories have proliferated around Russia's strategy in Syria, its intentions, and questions on just how far they (and others) will go. There are lots of things that these theories get wrong.

Many analysts have called Russia militarily weak, with some pointing specifically to its shortcomings in air and naval forces in Syria. But based on Russia's battlefield performance so far, this assessment seems off: To the contrary, Russia has shown that it has the capability and capacity (not to mention willingness) to employ its conventional forces to achieve limited political objectives.

In the air

The Russians are flying a significant number of sorties with recognizable successes. Current estimates range from 48 to 96 daily. This is a lot-as a recent New York Times article put into perspective:

"Russia's fighter jets are, for now at least, conducting nearly as many strikes in a typical day against rebel troops opposing the government of President Bashar al-Assad as the American-led coalition targeting the Islamic State has been carrying out each month this year (emphasis added)."

In the process, they have hit a significant number of targets among the anti-Assad rebels. There are reports, for instance, that Russian airstrikes killed First Coastal Division Chief of Staff and former Syrian Army Captain Basil Zamo, a notable rebel leader, on October 19. The commander of the Nour al-din al-Zinki Brigades was also killed in separate fighting.

Can Russia sustain this level of air campaign? Maybe. Almost none of our NATO allies could match what Russia has done so far in the skies. This was an unfortunate lesson of both NATO air campaigns in Kosovo and Libya.

At sea

Russia's navy has been called "more rust than ready." But Russia is, impressively, both retrofitting older vessels and procuring newer ones. And the navy has unveiled a significant capability: Its Caspian Sea corvettes and frigates can fire cruise missiles at targets over 900 miles away. This is a previously unknown capability. To put things in perspective, the two variants of the U.S. Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom and Independence, are substantially larger at roughly 2,900 tons and 3,100 tons respectively-but they do not possess any cruise missile or similar power projection capability.

This was, therefore, a major revelation. It sent the West a strong message, even prompting one commentator to suggest that the Russian Caspian Sea fleet is a game-changer. With small, inexpensive, technologically simple, and easily-produced ships, the Russian navy is displaying a unique capability and is highlighting the results of its naval modernization efforts, much of which are unknown.

Observers have also cast doubt on the notion that the Russian navy, and specifically the Black Sea Fleet, can sustain prolonged operations. But over the last three years, there has been a steady wagon train of ships delivering supplies to Assad's forces via Latakia and Tartus, and it shows no signs of waning. With a greater commitment on the part of Russian ground and air forces, the West should expect Russia to augment its naval logistical capacities to meet the changing demand from the pro-Assad coalition partners, and by all accounts they are doing just that.

In fact, the Black Sea Fleet has proven invaluable for Russia and its Syrian partners. The Black Sea Fleet's flagship, the guided missile cruiser Moskva, and an accompanying number of surface combatants, have deployed off of Syria to provide air and missile defense from the Mediterranean. The criticism is that these are older vessels with aging technologies. Compared to many NATO vessels this is true, but they are more than adequate for the job they have been deployed for. Moreover, their employment portends both a Russian capability and an intent aligned to achieving Russian limited foreign policy objectives. Thus they represent a significant threat which cannot be dismissed by NATO naval planners.

By all accounts, the Russians have been building up their navy over the last few years, which seems to align with their stated and demonstrated foreign policy objectives. Time will surely tell, but until we have evidence that a collapse of the Russian navy is actually imminent, we should be careful about throwing around rash predictions that don't reflect reality.

The implications of doubting Russian capabilities

Many assessments of what the Russian military can and cannot do have been inaccurate. This isn't just problematic for the facts' sake-more troubling, it risks skewing our assessment of how far Moscow will go in its Syrian intervention. When Western analysts-and in turn, Western leaders-seek to discredit Russian military capabilities, Moscow will likely continue to take the opportunity to prove them wrong.

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 #17
Moscow Times
October 28, 2015
Path to Peace in Syria Runs Through Moscow
By Josh Cohen
Josh Cohen is a former USAID project officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. He is a business development professional and also contributes to a number of foreign policy-focused media outlets.

Love him or hate him, President Vladimir Putin continues to surprise the West. The president's latest surprise occurred last week, when Syrian President Bashar Assad suddenly turned up in Moscow.

At first glance, it appeared that this was just a situation where Putin once again was taking an opportunity to thumb his nose at his Western critics. As U.S. President Barack Obama continues to assert that "Assad must go," perhaps Putin was reaffirming his loyalty to Assad as a riposte? The answer is yes and no.

By hosting Assad, Putin succeeded in bolstering the Syrian regime, while also sending a message to other autocrats in the region that "unlike those fickle Americans, you can count on us." This was not the only purpose of the meeting though. Behind the theatrics and expressions of mutual loyalty, Putin also sent numerous signals of his willingness to explore a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

According to the transcript of the meeting from the Kremlin's website, Putin asserted that "positive results in military operations will lay the base for then working out a long-term settlement based on a political process"

Putin added that Russia was "ready to make our contribution not only to the military operations and the fight against terrorism, but also to the political process. We would do this, of course, in close contact with the other global powers and with countries in the region that want to see a peaceful settlement to this conflict."

By continuing to reference the possibility of a political settlement in Syria, Putin placed himself clearly in the center of any ongoing political process. Russia's interests in Syria run deep and wide, and the Kremlin sent signs that it intends to be a key interlocutor involved in any discussions of a political solution to the crisis.

While this may seem far-fetched - after all, how can Russia be an honest broker while standing so strongly behind Assad - in reality ample scope exists for Russia to play a leading role in any political discussions on Syria.

There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, Assad is increasingly dependent on Putin, not only for military and political support, but - as Assad's transport to Moscow on a Russian military plane demonstrated - even for his personal safety. It is Assad's very dependence on Russia that provides Putin the leverage to force Assad to the table.

Second, behind the scenes, Putin has sent clear signals that Russia does not see itself as forever tied to Assad personally.

Putin ultimately wants to keep alive a functional Syrian state that protects Russia's interests in Syria - which leaves room for reducing Assad's role in the country. This could involve any number of scenarios. Replacing Assad with a secular Sunni strongman capable of taking the fight to the Islamic State; establishing an agreed upon transitional period leading to Assad's eventual departure; or reducing Assad's responsibilities so he takes on a face-saving ceremonial role.

Third, Putin is clearly attempting to present himself to the leading Sunni states in the region as a man with whom they can do business. Immediately after Assad's departure, Putin reportedly spoke with the major Sunni leaders in the Gulf states and Jordan to brief them on his conversations with Assad. Putin also recently hosted both the foreign minister and defense minister of Saudi Arabia.

The Kremlin understands that for the Saudis, Iran is the main enemy. By taking small steps to reach out to Saudi leaders, Putin successfully distinguishes himself in Riyadh's eyes from the Mullahs in Tehran. The Sunni states' first preference undoubtedly remains the removal of Assad and a complete defeat for the Iranians. However, a scenario in which Assad stays on in some capacity but where Russia rather than Tehran emerges as the dominant outside power may well be a compromise with which Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies could live.

Unlike Shiite Iran, with its ideological and religious determination to export its revolution to other states in the region, Russia is a status quo power, with no agenda beyond preserving its economic and security interests in Syria.

Russia has moved quickly to follow up on the momentum from Assad's visit. First, a Russian Foreign Ministry official asserted that the moderate rebels from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - the same group supported by the United States - recently visited Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also publicly offered to provide air support to the FSA in its ongoing fight with the Islamic State.

Obviously, there is a strong element of theater here. Putin has repeatedly demonstrated his tactical mastery over the last two years, repeatedly leaving Western leaders flummoxed by his twists and turns. Indeed, at the same time Lavrov offered support to the FSA, Russia's main weekly television show was paying homage to Assad, clearly sending a conflicting signal.

Despite these obvious contradictions though, the West and its Sunni allies should at least explore with Moscow the possibilities for some kind of political settlement in Syria that both could support.

At a bare minimum, despite their numerous differences, all sides agree on the need to destroy the Islamic State, providing at least some basis for cooperation. Wisely, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Lavrov and the Saudi and Turkish foreign ministers have already met once in Vienna. Although progress was reportedly minimal, there is nothing lost by continuing to feel the Russians out.

While Western policy-makers' frustration over Putin's longtime support for Assad is understandable, for now at least the path to a settlement in Damascus runs through Moscow.

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#18
The Jordan Times
October 27, 2015
Russia now holds key to political settlement in Syria
By Osama Al Sharif
The writer is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.

Ever since Russia decided to intervene militarily in Syria it has become the main interlocutor in the conflict and the party that is primarily responsible for undertaking a political conclusion that is acceptable both regionally and internationally. The focus has shifted from Washington and its Western allies to Moscow, which is now trying to generate a political process that would go in parallel with its military operations in Syria. It goes without saying that Moscow's direct intervention came as the Russians believed that the embattled regime of Bashar Assad was on the brink of collapse. Damascus had requested Russia's help after surmising that neither Iran nor Hizbollah will be able to prevent a wholesale defeat.

President Vladimir Putin's decision to double down in Syria was a calculated one. Assad's fall would have led to the collapse of the Syrian army and state institutions, leading to chaos, geopolitical upsets and giving Daesh the upper hand there. The West and the regional parties that are backing various opposition groups inside Syria clearly had no day-after scenario. A repeat of what happened in Iraq, Libya and Yemen worried some of Syria's neighbours, like Jordan, and others such as Egypt and the UAE.

Moscow's intervention has divided the anti-Assad bloc. The European position deviated over what role the Syrian president should have and whether he should preside over part of the transitional phase. Even the US is now looking into options that would allow Assad to stay on for a short period of time before his ultimate exit. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey and Qatar, stuck to their position that the only acceptable formula for a political solution would be for Assad to depart now. All were critical of Russia's military involvement and its consequences.

But after more than three weeks of Russian air strikes, which critics say targeted mainly the Syrian opposition and not Daesh, it became apparent that the demoralised Syrian army was unable to achieve breakthroughs in Homs, Aleppo, the Damascus countryside and Sahl Al Ghab. Few villages were retaken only to be abandoned some days later. Iranian advisers and Hizbollah fighters suffered heavy losses in the latest counteroffensives. Daesh and Al Nusra Front, once bitter enemies, are now considering joining forces to confront the "Russian aggression". Clearly the military campaign is not going as Moscow had wished.

Assad's surprise visit to Moscow last week raised questions about its real objectives. Yes, President Putin reiterated his support for the regime but he also talked about the need for a political process. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on his US counterpart, John Kerry, to work together to find a political solution in Syria. Putin was quick to brief the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan about Assad's visit.

While Russia continued with its air strikes in Syria, Moscow began to shift the focus from the military to the political. The four-way meeting in Vienna last Friday, which excluded many parties including France, laboured with one single point: the fate and role of Assad. The meeting may have been a failure, but clearly the various parties were homing in on possible compromises. Russia struggled with its position that the fate of Assad would be decided by the Syrian people. But a political process would ultimately decide that controversial point, Russian analysts argued.

Already some see Russia's intervention in Syria as a political breakthrough for President Putin. The rewards go beyond Moscow's increasing role in Syria. It has now closer ties with Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; all close allies of the United States. Lavrov, who at one stage doubted the existence of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is now ready to help the anti-Assad group in its fight against terrorism. Reports said that a proposal was put forward by Lavrov on Friday to freeze fighting between the pro-regime Syrian army and the FSA and hold early elections to determine a transitional government.

A day later Assad was quoted as saying that he was willing to run in an early presidential election, hold parliamentary elections and discuss
constitutional changes, but only after the defeat of "terrorist" groups. This came after he was urged by Moscow to open dialogue with the moderate opposition.

Most parties remain in a state of denial. The Syrian National Coalition has condemned Russia's military intervention and rejected calls for opening channels of communication with the regime. Turkey's position may be swayed by internal challenges and growing fears of the creation of Syrian Kurdish enclave along its borders. Jordan's main concern is to contain Daesh and protect its northern borders even if that meant a more durable role for Assad in the transitional phase.

Saudi Arabia's position remains solid but things could change as a more expanded meeting on Syria is expected to take place at the end of the month. One thing is clear for now: Moscow is pushing for a political solution and the future of Assad is no longer off the table as long as the process guarantees the integrity of the Syrian state and its institutions.

 

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#19
www.rt.com
October 27, 2015
Moscow demands US-led coalition in Syria 'prove or deny' allegations Russia is 'bombing civilians'

The Russian Ministry of Defense has summoned military attaches of NATO countries and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, asking the officials to clarify their countries' allegations that Russian airstrikes in Syria have hit civilian targets.

"Today we invited military attaches from the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the NATO bloc to ask them to give official validation to their statements, or make a rebuttal," Defense Ministry deputy head Anatoly Antonov said on Tuesday.

It particularly touches upon Western media's "outrageous accusations" that the Russian Air Force has allegedly bombed hospitals in Syria, the military official said.

Information attacks on Moscow's anti-terror efforts in the region have intensified recently, Antonov said, adding that the Russian military is "blamed not only for conducting airstrikes on the 'moderate opposition,' but also on civilian buildings, such as hospitals, mosques and schools."

The MoD official stressed that such blame is put upon Russia not only by the media, but also officials and politicians from a number of Western states, including US Secretary of State John Kerry, US Department of Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the UK's Defense Secretary Michael Fallon and France's Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Allegations will be considered "stove-piping" should Russia not receive proof in the next following days, Antonov said, adding that the Defense Ministry "closely monitors and analyzes such statements."

The MoD deputy head once again called on foreign military officials to join efforts in fighting Islamic State, saying that a wider international coalition should be immediately formed to defeat terrorists in the region.

"We are still waiting... for cooperation in defining concrete targets to be bombed in order to annihilate ISIS bases, or [providing] coordinates of facilities that should not be targeted by the Russian Air Force," Antonov said.

Reports of a field hospital in northwestern Syria destroyed by Russian airstrikes, killing civilians, emerged last week, based on information provided by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Russian Foreign Ministry has disputed the media reports, having questioned the credentials of the source, which is based in Britain, has no direct access to the ground in Syria, and is run by one man.


 

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 #20
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
October 27, 2015
Bellingcat Shows He Doesn't Understand a Damn Thing About Russia's Syrian Campaign
He can see the picture, but cannot come anywhere close to grasping why it looks like it does
By Jay Vogt

Eliot Higgins, AKA Bellingcat, is back at it again, scouring the Russian Defense Ministry's webpages to show the world that Russia's Syria campaign to date has mostly been against various rebel groups and not ISIS. In and of itself, that's fair enough. Less fair - both to his audience as well as to himself - is the manner in which he presents his findings.

Higgins correctly finds that the clear majority of Russia's strikes so far have been on the rebel-held lands bordering Assad's regime-controlled territory, while a clear minority of the strikes have been inflicted on ISIS. Unfortunately, this is all he finds.

After a tedious presentation on the process he used to arrive at his findings, Higgins sums up as follows:

'Based upon the evidence provided by the Russian Defence Ministry itself, it is clear that the bulk of the air strikes undertaken by the Russian Air Force have consistently targeted areas where non-ISIS, anti-regime armed groups operate.'

And?

You see the entire point of Bellingcat's endeavor here is to try to expose Putin as a dishonest and disingenuous charlatan whose sole goal is to prop up a wicked dictator by attacking certain of his enemies under the false pretext of attacking certain of his others. However, this is nowhere close to the case. In fact, the only thing that Higgins really accomplishes by this approach is to reveal that he is a half-witted moron, utterly void of the slightest ability for critical thought and analysis. Or so it would seem.

Let us examine the map, as it were, and see if we can't use a bit of cold logic to figure why this campaign is unfolding like it is.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRJfeXOWsAAUumf.png

What Higgins is clearly missing here - intentionally or not - is that taking out the so-called 'moderate rebels' and their Jabhat An-Nusra terrorist cohorts is a prerequisite to destroying ISIS. It's something that has to be done at the initial phase of the operation. This is called strategy, and strategy is something that this Bellingcat character clearly does not understand in any meaningful way whatsoever.

Looking at the map, it's perfectly clear that in order to destroy ISIS, you first have to eliminate the the stronger and more immediate fronts (the rebel groups and Nusra). Only after these collective forces have been successfully neutralized can the full brunt of the attack be focused on ISIS.

A likely scenario here is that the intense bombing campaign will continue until ground forces of the Syrian army, Iranian army, Hezbollah, and the Kurds can clear the areas north and south of current regime territory and establish full control on the ground. This is what's known as 'draining the swamp'.

Once accomplished, the allied forces could focus all their attention and resources on destroying ISIS. They would be free to advance through the regime-controlled corridor leading to Palmyra under Russian air cover. That city - relatively isolated - would surely fall fairly quickly, which then opens the path to Deir al-Zour, which would most likely be even less of a problem.

With rebel groups and Nusra no longer an issue and Palmyra and Deir al-Zour rolled up, where on the map do you see ISIS? You see them trapped like rats in their Raqqa nest waiting to be finished off. Surrounded on all sides and cut off from their Iraqi contingent, they are utterly doomed. What's left is little more than a cakewalk in Syria. Simultaneously, with Syria and Iraq effectively cut off from one another, the path is open for a large ground force of Shi'ah militias, Kurds, and the Iranian army to focus on ISIS' Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.

All of this appears to be lost on Eliot Higgins. For him, analyzing the locations of Russia's initial bombing runs is rather like a mule gazing at the Mona Lisa. The beast sees the masterpiece; he sees it. He's knows it's there and he knows it's something. But that's all he sees and knows. He cannot grasp the method of its creation or any kind of meaning behind it.

The same goes for Bellingcat. He sees the maps. He sees the sites and their numbers and can make basic deductions therefrom. But that's where it stops. And while comparing Mr. Higgins to a mule is admittedly unkind, it is nevertheless apt; for he works within the greater corporate media apparatus in a very mule-like manner. He performs certain tasks that achieve certain ends for certain others while bringing little to no benefit to himself. That being said, he is still at the same time quite distinct from the more traditional beast of burden in that he gets to choose to do what he does. His unhappy counterpart should be so lucky.

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 #21
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
October 28, 2015
Russian Defense Ministry demands proof of Syria hospital bombings
Military attachés from NATO and Saudi Arabia summoned by Kremlin.
YEKATERINA SINELSCHIKOVA, RBTH

The Russian Defense Ministry is demanding proof or an official retraction of statements made in Western media about Russian jets bombing hospitals in Syria. Russia wants a reply within "several days" but Russian experts believe that it is unlikely any proof will be presented.

On Oct. 27 the Russian Defense Ministry summoned military attachés from NATO and Saudi Arabia for explanations. Russia is demanding proof to corroborate the announcements that the Russian air force has hit hospitals in Syria as part of its campaign of airstrikes, which Moscow says is aimed at destroying positions held by Islamic State (ISIS) militants.

"We invited military attachés from the U.S., the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and NATO and asked them to officially provide proof for the statements or deny them," said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov after the meeting.

The ministry believes that "several days will be enough" for providing proof or denying the announcements. In turn, Russia will thoroughly investigate the strikes that its air forces have allegedly carried out on civilian targets, said Antonov.

According to Sergei Karaganov, honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and dean of the World Economy and Policy Department at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, the proof does not exist.

"I would not exaggerate the significance of this move for now. It is one of dozens that NATO and its allies make against us and it is all part of the propaganda war. But when they lie, they must be told that they lie," he said.

Karaganov pointed out that NATO forces have already destroyed two hospitals - one in Afghanistan and another in Yemen - and said this move is "certainly" an attempt to cover up these failures.

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#22
Talk: Alleged Russian strike on Sarmin hospital:

Click:
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Russian_strike_on_Sarmin_hospital
 

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 #23
Forbes.com
October 25, 2015
It's Nice!' How Borat Saved Kazakhstan
By Kenneth Rapoza

Let's face it, no one but a few geographic whiz kids and jet setters knew where Kazakhstan was in 2006, let alone how to pronounce it. Is it Kazakhstan, emphasis on the "ahh" in the first "a"? Or is it more like "Kazakistan"? It's the former, by the way. For most of us normals out there, the only time we heard about the place outside of a grade school text book was when British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen introduced it to us via his character Borat.

It wasn't a flattering first impression. The mass marketing of the fictional Kazakhstan showcased a country full of anti-Semitic subsistence farmers. Besides bigotry, the only other problem the country had was logistics, apparently.

And we bought it. The world bought it. Borat was Kazakh. We loved him. The country, on the other hand, was depicted as an old Soviet backwater. Sure, Borat was make-believe, but the country was real. It must be just like this!

For the past 9 years, the Kazakhstan government has spent time and treasure lobbying the western world against Borat. To those who have been there, the government is not embarking on some sort of false advertising campaign. It's now known more for what its government is doing to modernize the economy than what Borat did to make it the funniest country no one's ever heard of.

The government has followed in the footsteps of Russia, post-Soviet Union. It's a few years behind them, policy wise, but it is letting its currency, the tenge, free-float against the dollar and euro now. Russia started this last year.

Its market is open to investors. It's implementing institutional reforms to make it more capitalist friendly. And speaking of friendly, its government, led by the authoritarian ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev, likes Russia; likes China and Nazarbayev likes the United States and Europe, too. In other words, along the new Silk Road that China wants to create, Kazakhstan has the promise to be something special. If it plays its cards right, it can be the Silk Road Switzerland.

Of course, that's wishful thinking. This is still a relatively poor country with a lot of land, and not a lot of people, and only two significant cities - Astana and Almaty. But here is what Kazakhstan has managed to become post-Borat: the best of the old Soviet states that hasn't gone Euro. It is the only Soviet 'Stan in the MSCI Frontier Markets Index, which is not likely to change anytime soon. For guys who like putting money to work in exotic places, Kazakhstan "is nice!"

Ilya Brodsky likes it so much, he's launching a new investing product focused on the country. Brodsky is head of private equity at Moscow-based Specialized Research and Investment Group. They're putting together a fund with a large European development bank to buy into traditional and green Kazakhstan energy projects.

"It's a good country, actually," says Brodsky, who could not reveal the bank's name on the record because the first round of the fund had not yet closed. "They are implementing reforms and trying to imitate the Russia story. I like to think of it as Russia in the year 2000," he says during a lunch interview just outside of Red Square in Moscow. "When you look at the other Russian satellites, this is so much better than all the others. Look at Ukraine. Changes are happening, but it is poor. It's in rough shape. Kazakhstan is a much better story."

Nazarbayev: Take That, Borat!

It's as if Nazarbayev has spent the past decade trying to prove that Kazakhstan was not full of Borat's.

On July 27, the General Council of the World Trade Organization accepted it as a member of the club. Since 2006, the year the Borat movie put Kazakhstan on the layman's world map, the country has brought in around $185 billion in foreign investment as of the end of 2014, most of it coming from Italy, Russia, the U.K., France, China, Switzerland and the U.S. Corporations are mostly pumping money into mining operations, oil and gas, and manufacturing. Siemens is there. So is Microsoft. Americans don't need a visa to travel to the country. They need one to get into Russia, though.

Good luck with that, by the way.

Borat the broadcaster lived a modest life. He just had a small TV, a large VCR "record" and a cassette player. According to A.T. Kearney, Kazakhstan is one of the world's top 10 largest luxury retail markets.

Who saw that coming?

Besides becoming an attractive economy, it's politically well-positioned and plays nice with the West, Russia and China.

"Kazakhstan is stepping up to become a political player in Central Asia," says Aiya Tulemaganbetova, a Kazakh woman and vice president of the Alpha Consulting Group in New York. The firm works with high net worth individuals in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in the region looking to do business with the U.S. "I think Nazarbayev is a very interesting leader; a pragmatist," she tells FORBES in her office in midtown Manhattan. "If you go to Astana you'll see skyscrapers; you'll see an educated population with people that are cosmopolitan and have visited other countries. It's not stale. It's not the sticks. The people are not Borat."

Still, this is a tribal country, diverse in their religious beliefs. What's amazing is that in a world with artificial borders, Kazhakstan has managed to preserve hers.

For the locals that aren't working in the coal mines and drilling for fossil fuels, the daily bread comes mainly from small, rural-based businesses. There are tended gardens and chickens, geese and small cattle ranches. It's also a fairly corrupt economy, ranking 126 out of 175 on Transparency International's corruption scale. That puts it on par with Pakistan, but is surprisingly better than Russia, which is on the receiving end of much more foreign capital than Kazakhstan.

Oil and gas wealth have not trickled down. Kazakhstan is now looking at the lowest projected GDP growth since 2009, only worse. Back then, the economy was on an upswing. Today, the economy is lucky to grow 1.7% and is on a downward trend. Prior to the Western-world's Great Recession, Kazakhstan hasn't grown that slowly since around 1999.

Nevertheless, Nazarbayev is on a tear, Borat be damned. This is a serious country, after all, and he is going to sell it that way. Shortly after getting re-elected without any real opposition in April, he went on to outline 100 policies to make Kazakhstan a full-fledged emerging market within a generation. Target: 2050.

He's also promised to streamline the judicial system, and is taking steps to improve property rights and protect contracts.

"I can assess this document on 100 steps by Nazarbayev," Herman Gref, the outspoken, non-traditional CEO of Russia's Sberbank told reporters in May. "If at least 50 of these 100 steps are completed, and I hope most of them will be, it is obvious that Kazakhstan will turn into a fundamentally different country."

Investors far from Astana are taking notice, too.

Martin Charmoy, director of Prosperity Capital Management, a $2 billion asset manager in London, says he is invested in Kazakhstan. "There are very good opportunities there," he tells us.

Alas, we can all get a little carried away on the 'next big thing'. Kazakhstan is not ready for the big time. Almaty wanted to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. Bejing beat them to it. This would have been a chance for Kazakhstan to be on the big screen. To date, its 15 minutes remain in comedian Cohen's hands.

Nazarbayev is busy building his capital city, Astana. The Japanese futuristic architects are having fun, designing space-aged buildings and plopping them in the middle of nowhere. It's minus 30 in the winter. Astana is Mars.

"You know, this whole Eurasian Economic Union that (Vladimir) Putin talks about was all Nazarbayev's idea way back in 1994," says Casey Michael, a recent Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan and now doing research on Eurasian studies at Columbia University's Harriman Institute. "The thing is that Nazarbayev is getting old," he says. The Kazakh president turned 75 in July. "From where I sit, he is looking tired and there is no one to replace him so there is political risk there."

In fact, just as it was hard to know what Kazakhstan was prior to Borat's arrival on the silver screen, it is even harder to know what Kazakhstan will become after Nazarbayev's departure. He's been in power since 1991. His biggest claim to fame so far might end up being turning the country into something other than fodder for a British funny man. His policies are setting the country up for better days. He seems to be more of an economic animal than a political one, unlike his colleague Putin in Moscow.

Yet, if not for Borat, one could easily wonder if Nazarbayev would have had the impetus to remake the country the way he has. And done so in overdrive in fact, over the last decade. Maybe Borat was right. Kazakhstan... 'is nice!"

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 #24
http://readrussia.com
October 26, 2015
Russia Isn't a Superpower, It Just Plays One on TV
By Mark Adomanis

Russia is famous for the practice of "whataboutism," a rhetorical tactic cum intellectual fallacy in which each and every criticism of a particular Russian policy is met with "but what about" and then an endless litany of Western sins. To put it bluntly, whataboutism drives people absolutely nuts. There's been a long series of editorials and articles by Westerners bemoaning the practice, and critiquing it is almost its own cottage industry (just google "Russia whataboutism" for a sampling).

Why does whataboutism get people so worked up? It is partly because on certain occasions whataboutism can be an extremely effective tactic. For example when the US government criticizes the Russian government for "supporting a Syrian regime that horrifically violates human rights" the Kremlin will predictably and immediately retort: "oh yeah, but what about your support for Saudi Arabia?" No one ever has a good answer to that because...well, because everyone knows that, despite being a close US ally, Saudi Arabia is actually one of the world's most repressive regimes. That's a pretty awkward position to be put in and there's understandable resentment at the Russians for doing so.

But, while it can occasionally be a useful corrective, whataboutism is, at its heart, an intellectual fallacy, a way of avoiding argument rather than clarifying a policy stance. Take the above example with Syria and Saudi Arabia. Note that the Russians are not actually offering any kind of affirmative defense of their policy. They're not arguing that giving weapons to Assad is actually the right thing to do. There's just a sneering "well, you do that too!" Left unmentioned is the (extremely likely!) possibility that both Russia and the US are funneling lots of weapons to countries that probably shouldn't receive them in the first place.  

Why this extended meditation on whataboutism? Well, because it seems to me that one way of understanding the ongoing Russian intervention in Syria is as a sort of double-reverse-whataboutism.

What do I mean by that? Well, over the past decade the Russians have shouted themselves hoarse attacking the Americans for their seemingly never-ending series of military interventions. Whether it was in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria, the Russians said that the use of force would only exacerbate the political problems that were causing conflict in the first place.

This argument, on its own, was not necessarily wrong! It is hard to look at the after-effects of American military intervention in any of those benighted countries and see much lasting good. In fact, it's easy to find quite a lot that went wrong. Even the "successful" case of Kosovo resulted in a country that is badly misgoverned, poverty-stricken, and deeply, deeply corrupt (indeed, the situation has gotten so desperate that tens of thousands of Kosovars are fleeing to the European Union).

With Syria, however, the Russian position has been rather different than in the past. The rhetorical innovation from the Kremlin was to simultaneously point out the inevitable failure of Western military intervention while then announcing a Russian intervention instead. It's a novel (and frankly pretty strange) argument: "you Americans, you always send your military into conflicts that it doesn't understand only to make the situation worse than it was to begin with. You and your military ruin everything! It's such a terrible idea, in fact, that we're going to do exactly the same thing! We will commence bombing in one hour"

The problem, of course, is that Russia is exceedingly ill-equipped to play the role of regional hegemon. Even for America, which is more than twice as populous as Russia and has an economy roughly seven times larger, controlling the Middle East is a goal that is increasingly out of reach. America lost thousands of troops and spent roughly two trillion dollars trying to transform Iraq, only to result in a government that is increasingly friendly with America's primary regional antagonist, Iran.

If expending resources on that titanic of a scale didn't bring America greater regional influence (and it didn't, America's position in the Middle East has clearly deteriorated since the beginning of George W Bush's time in office) why would anyone expect that Russia's much more modest and limited intervention would have any kind of significant or lasting impact?

Russia's Syria policy seems to almost be a combination of the worst of both worlds, all of the political problems and heightened risk of terrorism that accompany the use of military force but without any realistic chance to actually transform the situation to Russia's advantage. It's like throwing rocks at a beehive, but without any equipment or preparation.

America's military missteps in Iraq, Syria, and the rest of the Middle East have obviously been problematic, but the United States as a country is large, wealthy, and dynamic enough to shrug off even a catastrophe like the invasion of Iraq. The Russian Federation is not in nearly so privileged a position. The Russian government can pretend that it's just as capable of throwing its weight around the Middle East as the United States, but it isn't. The longer it pretends it is, the bigger the problems and the more wrenching the inevitable reaction.

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 #25
The Japan Times
October 26, 2015
Russia unfairly demonized
By Gregory Clark
Gregory Clark is a former Australian diplomat and president of Tama University. He recently made a fact-finding visit to Russia at the invitation of the Russian authorities. The initial report of that visit can be found at www.gregoryclark.net/jt/page126/page126.html

In Cold War days Moscow probably deserved all the demonization it got. Domestic repression was severe. The military were out of control; the number they killed in Afghanistan could well have rivaled the U.S. in Vietnam.

Their security people were also on a rampage. The two years I once spent in Moscow trying to learn the language and know the people ended up as little more than an invitation for the hard-eyed men in the KGB to constantly harass me and persecute anyone who tried to help me. And that was during the so-called Khrushchev liberalization period of the early 1960s.

But there were also times when Moscow deserved some understanding. Even in Afghanistan it did at least try to create something more progressive than the mess we see today. At home there was a genuine willingness to allow non-Russian peoples to keep their culture and languages. The "evil empire" of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's imagination was not quite as evil as it was made out; it was at least able to throw up a leader of Mikhail Gorbachev's quality. Meanwhile the best our allegedly superior democratic West could do was, well, Reagan.

Today it is clear the demonization goes much too far. The post-1991 efforts to reach out to the West were remarkable to anyone who knew what went before. Vladimir Putin with his KGB background is no Gorbachev. But the invitation to join the Group of Seven industrialized nations meant much for the Russians. Finally Russia had the acceptance as a Western-oriented nation it had always wanted.

Today all that has been thrown away by the meaningless effort to demonize Moscow over the Ukraine civil war and Crimea. From the beginning Putin had made it clear Russia was not seeking territory, that it was only supporting the moves for autonomy by the Russian-speaking peoples in the eastern Ukrainian provinces - moves sparked by the inefficiency and then breakdown of the central government in Kiev, and by the foolish attempt to ban the use of Russian. Putin rejected his critics who said Moscow should annex those historically Russian territories. His move would also be justified by the recent Western concept of R2P - the responsibility to protect peoples being suppressed by superior central government force.

Yet for some strange reason this move was made out to be Russian aggression and a denial of Ukrainian sovereignty. The aggression claim continues despite acceptance by all sides of the Minsk agreement of February this year, where Ukraine and Russia agreed on a cease-fire and "local self-governance in particular in the districts of Donetsk and Luhansk." Ukrainian sovereignty and some administration rights were specifically endorsed. What's more, the area to be "self-governed" by the separatists is much less than they had originally demanded. Legislation to authorize these arrangements has already been introduced in the Ukrainian Parliament over violent protests by the ugly, pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic groups that to date have done so much to prolong the fighting in eastern Ukraine, and which through their policy of random destruction have forced some 1 million Russian speakers to flee into Russia - ethnic cleansing with a vengeance.

Yet all Moscow gets from its very considerable concessions at Minsk and its acceptance of those refugees is a continuation of sanctions and an escalation of NATO military pressures. This, even though two senior NATO members, Germany and France, were present to endorse the Minsk agreements that are now being implemented. NATO once saw fit to bomb Belgrade to force a transfer of sovereignty to Kosovo. Moscow is condemned for much less.

Even as the Ukraine situation winds down, the anti-Moscow sanctions continue and NATO still blows hot. Maybe this is justified by the Crimea takeover. If so, I suggest the people involved should visit the Crimea.

Historically, it has always been Russian (remember the Crimean War?). It remains Russian. In two visits, one very recent, I have never heard a word of Ukrainian spoken. Crimea was gifted to Ukraine by Moscow in 1954 as an act of Soviet convenience, despite the problem of having to retain the Soviet fleet in Sevastopol. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 it should automatically have been returned to Russia. Its seizure during the 2014 troubles in Kiev was inevitable and for most, welcome.

As for that other excuse for NATO pressure - alleged aggressive Russian pressure against the three Baltic States - does anyone in NATO know about the severe language and other discrimination against the Russian-origin minorities stranded in this area by the 1991 Soviet breakup? Details provided by Moscow have been thoroughly ignored. If Moscow's unhappiness on this account amounts to aggression then we need a new definition of aggression.

Ingrained Cold War fears and NATO expansionism explain some of the illogicality of Western anti-Russia moves. Ignorance is another factor. The people who accuse Moscow of trying to suppress the native Tartar language in Crimea need only to turn on the TV in Crimea to discover daily programs teaching Tartar. How many in NATO really understand what is going on in the Baltic States?

But Moscow also shares some of the blame. Its vigorous denials of any responsibility by the pro-Russian separatists for the March 2014 destruction of the Malaysian airliner MH17 helped early on to push Western opinion in an anti-Moscow direction. I spent some time in August in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a highly intelligent and very senior official who tried with genuine sincerity to convince me that the theories blaming Ukraine were correct. True, seeming bullet holes in the fuselage gave some credence to what she and quite a few others were saying. But Moscow now accepts a missile was responsible. It should not have wasted our time with elaborate theories and radar scans that said Ukrainian fighter planes were responsible.

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 #26
RFE/RL
October 27, 2015
Putin's Mafia Statecraft
by Brian Whitmore

In the past couple years, Russian hackers have launched attacks on a French television network, a German steelmaker, the Polish stock market, the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. State Department, and The New York Times.

And according to press reports citing Western intelligence officials, the perpetrators weren't rogue cyber-pranksters. They were working for the Kremlin.
Cybercrime, it appears, has become a tool of Russian statecraft. And not just cybercrime.

Vladimir Putin's regime has become increasingly adept at deploying a whole range of practices that are more common among crime syndicates than permanent members of the UN Security Council.

In some cases, as with the hacking, this involves the Kremlin subcontracting organized crime groups to do things the Russian state cannot do itself with plausible deniability. And in others, it involves the state itself engaging in kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, bribery, and fraud to advance its agenda.
Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda has noted that the activities of Russian criminal networks are virtually indistinguishable from those of the government.

"It's not so much a mafia state as a nationalized mafia," Russian organized crime expert Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University and co-host of the Power Vertical Podcast, said in a recent lecture at the Hudson Institute.

Hackers, Gangsters, And Goblins

According to a report by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies, Russia is home to the most skilled community of cybercriminals on the globe, and the Kremlin has close ties to them.

"They have let loose the hounds," Tom Kellermann, chief security officer at Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based security firm, told Bloomberg News.

Citing unidentified officials, Bloomberg reported that Russian hackers had stepped up surveillance of essential infrastructure, including power grids and energy-supply networks, in the United States, Europe, and Canada.

Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of the security firm CrowdStrike, noted recently that the Russian security services have been actively recruiting an army of hackers.

"When someone is identified as being technically proficient in the Russian underground," a pending criminal case against them "suddenly disappears and those people are never heard from again," Alperovitch said in an interview with The Hill, adding that the hacker in question is then working for the Russian security services.

"We know that's going on," Alperovitch added.

And as a result, criminal hackers "that used to hunt banks eight hours a day are now operating two hours a day turning their guns on NATO and government targets," Kellermann of Trend Micro told The Hill, adding that these groups are "willingly operating as cyber-militias."

The hacking is just one example of how the Kremlin effectively uses organized crime as a geopolitical weapon.

Moscow relied heavily on local organized crime structures in its support for separatist movements in Transdniester, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Donbas.
In the conflict in eastern Ukraine, organized crime groups served as agents for the Kremlin, fomenting pro-Russia unrest and funneling arms to rebel groups.
In annexed Crimea, the Kremlin installed a reputed gangster known as "The Goblin" as the peninsula's chief executive.

And of course there is the case of Eston Kohver, the Estonian law enforcement officer who was investigating a smuggling ring run jointly by Russian organized crime groups and the Russian Federal Security Service.

Kohver was kidnapped in Estonia September 2014, brought across the Russian border at gunpoint, and convicted of espionage. He was released in a prisoner exchange last month.

The Geopolitics Of Extortion

But Putin's mafia statecraft doesn't just involve using and colluding with organized crime groups.

It often acts like an organized crime group itself.

In some cases this involves using graft as a means of control. This is a tactic Moscow has deployed throughout the former Soviet space, involving elites in corrupt schemes -- everything from shady energy deals or money-laundering operations -- to secure a "captured constituency."

This is a tactic Russia attempted to use in Georgia following the 2003 Rose Revolution and in Ukraine after the 2004 Orange Revolution, where "corruption and shadow networks were mobilized to undermine the new leadership's reform agenda," according to James Greene in a 2012 report for Chatham House.

This was particularly successful in Ukraine, where opaque gas deals were used "to suborn Ukraine's post-Orange Revolution new leadership," Greene wrote.
And Putin is clearly hoping to repeat this success in eastern Ukraine today -- especially after elections are held in the rebel areas of Donbas.

"His bet in the eastern Ukraine local election, if it ever takes place, won't be on the rebel field commanders but on local oligarchs who ran the region before the 2014 'revolution of dignity.' Through them, he will hope to exert both economic and political influence on Kiev." political commentator Leonid Bershidsky wrote in Bloomberg View.

In addition to graft, Moscow has also effectively utilized blackmail -- making the international community a series of offers it can't refuse.

It's a neat trick. First you create instability, as in Ukraine, or exasperate existing instability, as in Syria.Then offer your services to establish order.

You essentially create demand -- and then meet it. You get to act like a rogue and be treated like a statesman.

It's how protection rackets operate. And it has become one of the pillars of Putin's foreign policy.

"It's the geopolitics of extortion, but it's probably working," Galeotti told Voice of America in a recent interview.

"He's identifying a whole series of potential trouble spots around the world, places that matter to the West, and is essentially indicating that he can either be a good partner, if they're willing to make a deal with him, or he can stir up more trouble."

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 Euromaidan Press
http://euromaidanpress.com
October 28, 2015
The last year of Putin's Russia
By Vitaliy Portnikov
Vitaliy Portnikov is a Ukrainian editor and journalist. Born in Kyiv in 1967. Since 1989, he works as the analyst of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, specializing in post-Soviet countries, and cooperates with the Russian and Ukrainian services of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Russia's Finance Minister Anton Siluanov stated at the parliamentary hearings in the Federation Council that in 2017 Russia will no longer be able to cover  budget deficits from the Reserve Fund.

"2016 is the last year when we will be able to spend our reserves that way," he said. "And then we will no longer have these reserves. Therefore the question about consolidating the budget is the number one task on our agenda."

If Siluanov's words are translated from the language of budgets, it would be possible to draw a simple conclusion. The year 2016 is the last year in the existence of modern Russia. The last year when Putin will still be able to pay his subjects money they have not earned. Because what is the situation today? In the Russian budget, despite all the cuts, there are still substantial social expenses, money allocated for public sector wages, including law enforcement officers - huge expenses for the army and the security services, this greedy apparatus of a mad regime. But what happens if the price of oil goes down or money is withdrawn from the budget for Putin's adventures, such as war in Ukraine or Syria? Nothing special - the deficit is covered by funds from the reserve fund.

But in 2017 these opportunities will be gone. And perhaps even earlier. Given that Russia is governed by kleptomaniacs, Siluanov's words could become a real trigger for them. Confirmation that the looting of Mother Russia needs to happen as soon as possible before Russia gives out her last breath under the Chekist (KGB - Ed.) boot. And they will finish looting her, rest assured. I believe in them.

By the end of 2016, delays in the payments of salaries and pensions will begin. Of course, the first ones to suffer will be doctors and teachers, but events will catch up with the police and security officers as well. All social programs will fold, enterprises will close down, workers will be dismissed. The service sector will collapse because the purchasing power of the population will shrink. This will become the last nail in the coffin of Russian small and medium businesses and will throw new millions of the unemployed into the street. The government will try to control the situation primarily in Moscow because, in fact, when the entire country eats grass and Moscow eats caviar this is equivalent to stability in Russia. But before the end of 2017 there will not be enough money for Moscow or for anything else, not even the army. Soldiers will be begging in the streets. Police will demand bribes, will engage in robbery, will hire out as guards to criminals. The security services will diligently begin to serve the new mafia. Oligarchs will flee the country. Social unrest will begin, the crime level will rise. Russia will plunge back into the early 1990s, with protests, strikes, criminality and hopelessness - but with a far more brutal regime than the Gorbachev government.

By that time people will already begin to forget about Putin's political adventures. The territorial integrity of the Ukrainian mainland will be restored. The impoverished Crimea will still be controlled by Russia, but negotiations about its return to Ukraine - allowing Putin to save face - will be going full swing. Other geopolitical projects of the last emperor of Russian chauvinists will fold as well.

And all this will only be the beginning of the end.

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 Russia, Lacking Transportation Net, 'Only Nominally a Single Country,' Orekh Says
Paul Goble

Staunton, October 27 - "A country which is not linked together by a transportation network is in fact not a single country," Anton Orekh says; and that is what Russia now is, a place where it is far easier and less expensive to travel abroad than domestically and where the only thing linking the country together is Moscow television.

In a blog post on Ekho Moskvy yesterday, the Russian commentator observes that he will be unlikely ever to have the chance to visit Vladivostok, at least at his own expense. There are ever fewer flights, and prices for those that remain have risen astronomically, far beyond the ability of most Russians to afford (echo.msk.ru/blog/oreh/1647270-echo/).

Russians "don't know what to do with such an enormous territory; they don't understand how to administer or understand it," he suggests. And the situation is only getting worse as it appears that all airlines except Aeroflot are going to die. At the very least, "no other firm can be certain about its future."

In Soviet times, the government put up signs saying "'Fly the Jets of Aeroflot'" as if someone had a chance. Now, a choice exists: "it is possible to fly abroad," Orekh writes; and "it has turned out that it is cheaper to fly to Paris or even the US than to another city in one's own country.

Within Russia, however, things are very different. "In order to reach a neighboring city, one has to fly first to the capital and then from the capital to where he wants to go," travelling "thousands of kilometers" out of his way. Moreover, "in the majority of cities, there is no normal airport." In many, there isn't a train station; and between them, there aren't decent roads.

With the onset of winter, these various places nominally within the borders of the Russian Federation will be isolated from one another as if by an ocean, Orekh says.

Moscow is encouraging Russians to vacation within the country, and "who would be against that?"  But it may not be possible: "there is no normal infrastructure, no communications network, and no chances to expect help if God forbid something happens."

"In such circumstances," he argues, "Russia is only nominally a single country, but in fact for a long time has been split into parts which exist autonomously but uninterruptedly receive valuable directives from the center where they even do not understand what the real requirements of the regions are."

Indeed, Orekh concludes, "the only thing which connects us all together on a firm basis is the television."

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 #29
www.rt.com
October 28, 2015
First Amendment flop: McCain & gang calls for 'shutting down' RT
By Robert Bridge
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist based in Moscow, Russia.

The First Amendment suffered a beating in broad daylight this week as a neoconservative think-tank headed by Senator John McCain released an article calling for the US government to put the squeeze on RT's assets.

In the latest 'McCainikaze' attack on President Putin, RT and anything else that happens to inhabit the 11 time zones from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka, David J. Kramer offers an embarrassingly reckless plan to "knock Putin on his heels."

Yes, at the very same time the Russian leader has his hands full battling Islamic terrorists that US smart bombs just aren't smart enough to hit, Kramer, senior director for human rights and democracy at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, has decided it's a good time to go after RT.

"Wouldn't it be nice to go on the offensive, in a non-military way, to knock Putin on his heels, while also shutting down his odious propaganda machine? Here's how it can be done," schemes Kramer.

Personally, having been forced to watch the US military trailblaze across an unsuspecting planet for the last 15 years, it would be great to see the United States "go on the offensive, in a non-military way." But ever since the 'War on Terror' mindset took hold, the book known as 'Diplomacy for Idiots' has been tossed in the backseat of the global juggernaut. Today, the only language America understands is the language of brutal force, and this will become more apparent as we delve further into this latest contender for 'Russia hit-piece of the year' award.

But before we consider Kramer's creepy call for shutting down RT and, by extension, the freedom of speech, it is crucial to consider his opening splash, which is so incredibly sloppy one must wear an apron and goggles while gazing upon it. And I quote: "Even before Russian President Vladimir Putin deployed forces to Syria, US military officials described his regime as an 'existential threat' in light of his invasion of Ukraine."

Immediately out of the gates Professor Kramer has fallen from his horse. Russia was not labeled an "existential threat" by the Pentagon due to 'Russia's invasion of Ukraine' - an 'invasion' that only existed in the tall grass and strangling weeds of the neoconservative brain. Rather, Russia was labeled an "existential threat" due to its nuclear arsenal. This was admitted by no less a civilian warlord than Ashton Baldwin Carter back in August.

"Russia poses an existential threat to the United States by virtue, simply, of the size of the nuclear arsenal that it's had. That's not new," Carter says, before adding, almost as if suddenly remembering something he forgot on his grocery list: "For a quarter-century or so, since the end of the Cold War we have not regarded them as an antagonist."

If owning a nuclear arsenal (as opposed to conducting an non-existent "invasion of Ukraine") is all it takes to get nominated into the "existential threat" hall of fame, then it would be more honest to include room on the podium for Team USA, which also has some very shiny, efficient and deadly accurate nuclear missiles, many of which are pointed directly at Russia.

Or should we assume that "existential threats" where Russia is concerned do not matter.

Second, Kramer seem overly keen on awarding the Russian military more accolades than it can really make fair claim to: "Putin, who oversees one of the most corrupt, kleptocratic regimes in the world [groundless generalizations without examples certainly would not pass muster at Harvard, Professor Kramer] has been driving the international agenda of late - from Ukraine to Syria - while Western leaders, including President Obama, have been reactive and defensive."

"From Ukraine to Syria?" Yes, from the slippery steppes of Ukraine to the sultry suburbs of Damascus, and every square inch of lush land in between, the Russian military has been in a hot, impetuous gallop, inciting fear in the hearts of women and orphans as they go, while "Western leaders, including President Obama, have been reactive and defensive," Kramer wails.

America? "Defensive?" Are you joking? If anything, after 15 years of very offensively pursuing bogeymen and phantoms around a shell-shocked planet, you would think Western leaders and their war-weary citizens would welcome the chance to put down their bayonets and bravado, allowing Russia a fair chance to whack the nasty boys of Islamic State. After all, the Middle East is in Russia's backyard, not America's or the EU's. Yet sadly, and not a little strangely, the West refuses to cooperate with Russia against the baddies of Islamic State.

The fact that the US and its collared EU lapdog refuse to work in tandem with Russia in eliminating this global scourge points to some very unsavory unmentionables, which we must nevertheless mention: Exhibit 1: Why does the US take exception to Islamic State actually being hit by bombs as opposed to military aid packages? Certainly a good many of those Russian sorties are hitting the intended target. But I digress.

A rock-solid US-Russia partnership is not so-far fetched that aspiring US politicians - 'renegades' like Donald Trump and Rand Paul, for example, who are not fully owned lock, stock and barrel by the military industrial complex - can fully appreciate (and which explains why they'll never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office).

Now this brings us to the really ugly part of the article, where Professor Kramer (who forever stained his academic record by working as a fellow at the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the group that pushed the US into the illegitimate war in Iraq following the terrorist attacks of 9/11) forwards a call to silence what he calls the "odious propaganda machine" - more popularly known to its millions of dedicated viewers and readers as RT.

Media Monsters, Inc.

If there is one thing that the severely monopolized, homogenized and fanaticized US corporate-owned media despises more than anything, it is competition. But the reason has surprisingly little to do with money. No, the extra voice on the airwaves does not noticeably detract from the MSM's bottom line (GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS control over 90 percent of US media, an empire worth about $300 billion dollars annually). Rather, the extra voice detracts from the MSM's mass-produced message.

Just 10 years ago, US media enjoyed a virtual monopoly over the hearts and minds of the global village to promote the 'NATO narrative,' as it were. Now the US media 'masters of the universe' want to return to the vaulted golden days of journalism when they ruled the airwaves.

Today, when Western audiences watch a program that delivers a new perspective or frame of reference outside of the Big 6 script, it throws into stark contrast the nakedness of the MSM - news stories that are mass produced and delivered like a cold pizza minus the toppings into US homes. RT, however, provides Western audiences with a daily reminder as to what is so woefully lacking from their corporate-owned broadcasts - namely a variety of opinions on which to build a more balanced view of the world. Anchovies and pepperoni, if you will.

Thus, the not entirely surprising backlash and baseless claims of "propaganda." Here is Kramer in full histrionic mode, decrying RT's global reach:

"RT is the key to Putin's propaganda effort to discredit the West and obfuscate the truth of Russian actions. It has a global reach through cable and the internet and claims an audience, likely exaggerated, of 700 million people in 100 countries. It has a large studio in Washington and bureaus throughout the United States and Europe. Russian government financing for RT and similar propaganda outlets, including Sputnik news, is roughly half a billion dollars."

The intelligent reader will immediately see through such mindless rants. To believe that a channel could become so successful by peddling nothing but lies and propaganda - in an age when every statement and comment can be verified by the reader at lightning speed - is not only disingenuous, it is insulting to the intelligence of the audience. Simply put, millions of people appreciate the additional voice that RT provides on the global media stage.

But not Professor Kramer, it seems.

Freedom of Speech fallout

Kramer and the McCain Institute have grand designs for making the American media space - not unlike America's military space - unilateral and univocal once again: "Freeze the assets of Putin's state-funded RT cable network, not because of the odious things it spews but in compliance with two court rulings against the Russian government involving the multibillion dollar Yukos oil company."

Kramer is referring to a ruling last year by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that said Russia should pay $52 billion in damages to shareholders of the now-defunct oil company.

(Yukos was acquired by Mikhail Khodorkovsky during the controversial "loans for shares" bonanza following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In May 2005, Khodorkovsky's fortunes reversed dramatically as he was found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison. In December 2010, while serving his first sentence, he was found guilty of embezzlement and money laundering. He was released from prison on Dec. 20, 2013).

Such a suggestion on the part of an American academician is startling to say the least. As even Kramer admits in his piece, "Russian authorities have appealed The Hague ruling." In other words, to even suggest grabbing Russian property anywhere in the world is simply madness, and more so given that the court case has effectively been effectively frozen.

This fact does not deter Kramer in the least since he has turned into something of an academic with a crystal ball as he risks a prediction: "[Russia's] prospects for overturning it are slim because appeals are limited to 'technical' issues." So essentially Kramer is advocating that the US government break the law, to say nothing of the hallowed Constitution, and move to freeze RT's assets over a court case which is still being played out.

Kramer's anti-Russia rhetoric throughout this latest hit piece - which represents such an ominous threat to the future of the First Amendment that it regrettably cannot be ignored - demonstrates that he is more concerned with silencing RT's voice at a time when the West is desperate to control the information space than he is with Yukos' shareholders being awarded billions of dollars in compensation.

The only truly redeeming part about Kramer's article was the correction it provided regarding a serious misstatement in the original piece:

"Correction: An earlier version of this op-ed incorrectly stated that British authorities froze the accounts of the RT television network in July in response to court findings against the Russian government over the breakup of the Yukos oil company. The British action instead targeted the Rossiya Segodnya news agency."

Nice gesture, but it is doubtful that many readers took the time to read the scandalous op-ed piece a second time to catch the correction. Damage done, mission accomplished. Another pathetic piece of jingoistic journalism apparently aimed at Russia, but in reality it is aimed directly at the American people in what amounts to keeping their informational options as limited and concentrated as possible.

Meanwhile, the US military continues with its global misadventures to the detriment of every person on the planet.

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 #30
Subject: The Black Sea and Beyond
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 201
From: Stephen Blank <traininblank@aol.com>

David could you please place a notice of my new article The Black Sea
and Beyond in the Proceedings of the US Naval Institute,
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015-10/black-sea-and-beyond
The naval and strategic consequences of Russia's invasion of Ukraine cast a long shadow over Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Russia's war in Ukraine continues and even escalates. As this conflcit overturns the entire structure of world politics it poses new military challenges to the United States, its allies, and its partners that we and they are ill-equipped to meet. This war's consequences for the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean require serious and immediate attention, because the naval and other contingencies unleashed by Moscow generate a broad range of new opportunities for Russia while challenging Western navies and interests....

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 #31
www.foreignpolicy.com
October 27, 2015
Revenge of the Oligarchs
Last Sunday's local election was Ukraine's first chance to show that things have changed. But it looks like the moguls still rule.
BY HANNAH THOBURN
Hannah Thoburn is a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute, and observed last year's Ukrainian parliamentary elections with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America in the city of Mykolayiv.
 
Ordinarily, the election of a new mayor in Miami or Scranton or Salzburg is of no concern to the international community. But Sunday's local elections in Ukraine marked the first time since the 2013-14 Euromaidan uprising (which deposed former president Viktor Yanukovych and brought about a change in government) that Ukrainian citizens have been able to vote to change their local leadership. (In May 2014, some localities did have local elections; the victors of those elections had to stand again on Sunday.)

The local elections were widely seen as a kind of referendum on the leadership of pro-European President Petro Poroshenko, who has faced the monumental task of restructuring Ukraine in line with the inflated hopes of the Euromaidan protesters and their supporters. The reforms promised by his eponymous party, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, and its allies in the parliament, have been slow in coming. Many suspected that his party would lose significant support. But, in fact, they did reasonably well throughout the country, with only a slight decline of their vote count compared to their total in last year's election. Official results are not yet available for most races, but the president's allies also appear set to hold onto key positions like the mayoralty of Kiev, the country's capital.

It seems that Ukrainians have chosen to place most of the blame for the slow pace of reforms on Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.Ukrainians have chosen to place most of the blame for the slow pace of reforms on Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Polling numbers for his National Front party were so low that it chose to not even field local candidates, rather than risk the prime minister's position. A trouncing at the polls could have meant a move in parliament to remove Yatsenyuk and replace him with someone from a more popular party.

So, on the whole, Ukrainians seem willing to give their president more time to act. Commentators' worst fears - that the slow pace of reforms would turn people against the revolution, perhaps even in a more Russian direction - proved largely unfounded. But there are other indications that not all is well.

Yes, voter turnout was relatively high by western standards, averaging 46.6 percent across Ukraine - far higher than the turnout for most American local elections, which hovers in the low twenties. But it was the lowest turnout in the history of independent Ukraine, a worrisome indicator that this nation that has recently gone through a small-scale political revolution may be slowly growing jaded with its new leaders, the slow pace of reforms, and, more importantly, the stagnation of the political process.

In reality, the Maidan movement has made little impact on local administrations, the level of politics that affects a Ukrainian citizen's daily life the most. Certainly, there has been an influx of new, younger candidates and a flowering of civic activity, but in most cases, the status quo - in which local political positions are considered the personal fiefdoms of oligarchs or political bosses - remains. That status quo was only reinforced by Sunday's elections, which far were uglier than the 2014 elections for parliament or president.

Oligarchs like Ihor Kolomoisky and Rinat Akhmetov still maintain outsize influence in the political world; their massive, ill-gotten gains allow them to sponsor two or three seemingly antithetical political parties at a time. One only needs to contrast Kolomoisky's patriotic-themed, pro-Ukrainian Ukrop Party with one of his other rumored projects, the Renaissance Party, which is seemingly pro-Russian. For his part, Mr. Akhmetov supports the Opposition Bloc, which consists largely of alumni of Yanukovych's old political party, and is thus widely viewed as responsible for the deaths of Euromaidan protesters in early 2014.

The two faced off in the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk, where Sunday's mayoral voting narrowed the field down to two candidates. Borys Filatov of the Ukrop Party is backed by Kolomoisky; the other candidate, Oleksandr Vilkul, is considered a kind of protégé of Akhmetov. A run-off race between the two is set to take place on November 15 and, in the interim, the politicking is sure to be fierce. It has already been reported that President Poroshenko, an oligarch in his own right, has chosen to support Vilkul, a symbol of the old regime, simply to spite Kolomoisky.

Smaller-scale competition between entrenched interests and pro-reform groups in the port city of Odessa resulted in huge numbers of election violations, including allegations that some voters were instructed how to vote, and may have received payment. Lawsuits are set to be filed over the city's mayoral race results. Russian-American journalist Vladislav Davidzon, who observed the election, said: "Every sort of violation was seen, short of the election being stolen outright. It was the worst election in a long time.""Every sort of violation was seen, short of the election being stolen outright. It was the worst election in a long time."

In the city of Mariupol, which lies not far from the front line with Russian-backed separatist fighters, the involvement of Rinat Akhmetov ended up scuttling the entire election. Activists found out that the ballots were set to be printed by a print shop owned by him and intervened to have the voting halted, citing concerns about falsification and the spoilage of ballots. Similar circumstances in least two other cities in the region caused them to postpone their votes as well. Dates for the make-up election have not yet been set.

All in all, Sunday's elections felt rather like a return to older, wilder, less democratic days. While many regions were free of the kinds of electoral violations that were rampant in Odessa, the larger trend is discouraging.

Ukraine's politicians have adjusted their tactics for a polity that has declared its desire to become more European but is still unsure how to get there. The scenery has changed, but many of the old characters and their rapacious charms still remain. Poroshenko seems to have bought himself some time to make the changes that Ukrainians are demanding, but his window of opportunity is rapidly closing. The scions of the old system are circling the wagons.

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 #32
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
October 27, 2015
Ukraine's Local Elections Expose Poroshenko's Weakening Grip
Victories of Opposition Bloc in the east and Svoboda in the west and poor showing of the 'mainstream' Maidan parties confirms growing disenchantment and polarisation
By Alexander Mercouris

The Western media has barely reported them but local elections took place in Ukraine on Sunday.

The elections took place in conditions of economic crisis, defeat in the Donbass and political violence.

Though the OSCE has, with some reservations but predictably enough, given the elections a fairly clean bill of health, it is impossible to call them free or fair.

The Communist Party, Ukraine's oldest political party and once its biggest party, which was a serious contender for power as recently as the Presidential elections of 2000, has been banned.

Attempts were made to ban the only remaining legal anti-Maidan party, the Opposition Bloc, which is banned in parts of Western Ukraine, from contesting the elections in Kharkov.

Elections did not take place in two towns in eastern Ukraine - Krasnoarmeysk and the key port city of Mariupol - in the case of Mariupol supposedly because of a dispute with the local oligarch Rinat Akhmatov, but in reality almost certainly because the Opposition Bloc would have won a sweeping victory there.

In Kiev the biggest opposition newspaper was closed after months of relentless harassment, an event which follows closely upon a series of murders of opposition politicians and journalists.

Meanwhile Right Sector continues its rampage, and ultra-right groups have now taken to protesting violently - and regularly - in Kiev near to the parliament building.

Needless to say, scarcely any of this is reported in the West.

The elections took place against this backdrop and though they cannot because of it be considered an accurate reflection of opinion in Ukraine, they do nonetheless provide some information about the state of opinion there.

Firstly it is clear that despite regular claims of a political consolidation around the Maidan movement, opinion in those parts of southern and eastern Ukraine that formerly voted for Yanukovych and the Party of the Regions remains unchanged and continues to oppose Maidan.

The Opposition Bloc, made up largely of politicians who previously belonged to the Party of the Regions, won sweeping victories in those parts of southern and eastern Ukraine where the elections took place.  It claims to have won majorities in 17 regions including Odessa, Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk.

The election also demonstrates the collapse of support for what might be called Ukraine's official government parties.

The party headed by Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk declined to take part in the elections at all. With Yatsenyuk's support in low single figures, it obviously feared a wipe-out.

As we have discussed previously, the only thing keeping Yatsenyuk in office appears to be the fact the US still supports him.

Batkivshchyna, the party of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, once a leading contender for power, seems to have done dreadfully - confirming that her popularity has collapsed.

The collapse of support for Yatsenyuk and Tymoshenko might once have been expected to work to Poroshenko's advantage.  Instead support for his party nationally seems to have fallen to just 18%.  

In Odessa the candidate for mayor backed by former Georgian President Saakachvili - the man Poroshenko appointed to run the place - was conclusively defeated.

In Kiev Poroshenko's ally Klitschko - once widely expected to be the Maidan movement's candidate for the Presidency - has been forced into a run-off in the elections for mayor.

By contrast in Kharkov, Gennady Kernes, a former Party of the Regions politician with an uneasy relationship with Poroshenko and the central government, retained the mayoralty by a landslide.

In Dnepropetrovsk neither of the two politicians who will compete in the run-off in the elections for mayor is a known ally of Poroshenko's.

Most worrying for Poroshenko is that such support as he still retains seems to be increasingly concentrated in the small towns and regions of central Ukraine. In the politically crucial region of western Ukraine support for him seems to be collapsing.

In Lviv the ultra-nationalist - in fact neo-fascist - party Svoboda, which is increasingly defining itself in opposition to Poroshenko and the government, came first in the region and second in the city.

Svoboda also seems to have won a substantial share of the vote in Kiev, though the vote there has come under particular criticism for electoral rigging from the Opposition Bloc, and may not be fully representative of opinion there.

Taken together this means that what passes in Ukraine for the political "centre" - Poroshenko's Bloc, Yatsenyuk's party and Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna - is not holding.   Both in the east and the west it is being repudiated, by the anti-Maidan Opposition Bloc in the east, and by the growth of right wing ultra nationalist parties in the west.

Two facts, perhaps more than any others, show the degree to which Ukrainians are recoiling from mainstream politics.

Officially the turnout was 46.6% - a figure which, as Leonid Bershidsky rightly says, might appear respectable in Europe but is scarcely so in a country that is supposed to be in the grip of a revolution.  

Yanukovych's former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, currently in exile in Moscow, has however cast doubt even on this figure, claiming that actual turnout may have been only half that.

Whilst Azarov is hardly a reliable source, the state of politics in Ukraine today means he may even be right.

Even more indicate of the general disenchantment is the election to a seat on Odessa's council of an individual who calls himself "the Emperor Palpitane" - one of a group of individuals that includes people who call themselves names like Darth Vader and Chewbacca.

This is hardly serious politics, and the fact people who call themselves by such names are actually in places getting elected speaks volumes of what many people in Ukraine think their politics have become.

Where does Ukraine go from here?

There is a certain tendency to write-off the Opposition Bloc as a bunch of oligarchs and political has-beens.  

That underestimates the risk in today's Ukraine of associating oneself with such a party. Standing as a candidate for the Opposition Bloc when Right Sector is on the rampage takes courage, and it seems there are people in Ukraine who have it.

The Opposition Bloc is however hardly in a position to challenge the government. It simply lacks access to the necessary levers of power to mount such a challenge, and it would face violent repression if it tried.

No government in Kiev has to date been overthrown by protests in the country's east, and the Opposition Bloc is in no position to change this.

What the Opposition Bloc's success shows is that the people of southern and eastern Ukraine remain as distanced from the aims of the Maidan movement as ever. When given the option, they vote overwhelmingly for whatever anti-Maidan party is on offer.

In light of this one can say with reasonable confidence that opinion polls that purport to show that only 8% of Ukrainians favour rapprochement with Russia are almost certainly wrong.

Given the strength of anti-Maidan feeling on the ground, in the event of a government crisis in Kiev, the centre's ability to control Ukraine's southern and eastern regions and to prevent them going their own way must now be in doubt.

It is however from the ultra-nationalist ultra-right forces that any challenge to the government is more likely to come.  

As support for the government crumbles, it is the ultra-nationalist and ultra-right neo fascist parties who are gaining support in the west of the country and in Kiev - the places where protests have traditionally led to Ukrainian governments being overthrown.

These forces are already in de facto opposition to the government. They make no secret of their hostility to many of its politics, and of course they staunchly oppose the peace plan agreed in Minsk.

The government's failure to crack down on Right Sector shows how precarious its grip on the security situation has become, whilst the violence of some of the recent ultra-right protests in Kiev shows how willing to use violence the ultra-right forces are.

As Ukraine's economic situation deteriorates, and as the conflict in eastern Ukraine remains deadlocked, the political situation in Ukraine is becoming increasingly volatile and unstable.

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 #33
AFP
October 28, 2015
Ex-Georgian president's Ukraine ambitions suffer blow

Ex-Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili's nascent but ambitious career in Ukraine got off to an inauspicious start Wednesday when his candidate for mayor of Odessa was beaten badly in the historic port.

The 47-year-old foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin was voted out of office in ex-Soviet Georgia after losing a brief but disastrous 2008 war with Kremlin forces that saw the tiny Caucasus nation lose disputed territories to Moscow's control.

But Saakashvili was a prominent member of three months of winter protests from 2013-14 that ultimately swept a Moscow-backed leadership from power and appeared to set the former Soviet republic on its current westward course.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko rewarded Saakashvili in May by unexpectedly appointing him as governor of Odessa -- a Black Sea region that remains under firm government control and enjoys a rich cultural history as well as a thriving port.

Saakashvili's approval ratings in the war-scarred nation soared thanks to his local anti-corruption drive and history of being able to transform Georgia's notorious bribe-taking police into a transparent force that won the public's trust.

The fluent Ukrainian speaker soon began attacking Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk for his alleged ties to criminal oligarchs and was frequently mentioned as a possible future cabinet chief himself.

But Odessa's mayoral election commission said Wednesday that incumbant mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov -- allegedly tied to the vast business interests of Saakashvili's great foe Igor Kolomoyskiy -- was re-elected with 52.9 percent of Sunday's vote.

Saakashvili-backed candidate Sasha Borovik placed a distant second by picking up just 25.7 percent of the ballots cast.

The former Georgian leader denounced the vote as grossly mismanaged and marred with violations.

"All the exit polls clearly showed that the acting mayor did not cross the 50-percent threshold," Saakashvili said in televised remarks.

"We have records from more than 80 precincts and there are violations in almost each of them."

Some of the cast "ballots were changed in favour of the acting mayor," he said.

Odessa's police said they had already launched a pre-trial investigation into the cheating charges.

They also confirmed that election "commission members appeared to be fixing the official protocol figures in favour of one of the candidates."

Trukhanov was a member of the now-disbanded Regions Party that brought Russian-backed president Viktor Yanukovych to power in a tightly fought 2010 race.

He also supported pro-Kremlin protests in the ethnically mixed city after Yanukovych's fall from power and subsequent flight for safety to Russia.

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#34
Sputnik
October 27, 2015
Minsk Deal? Never Heard of That! Ukrainian Forces Shelling Donetsk Airport

DONETSK (Sputnik) - Ukrainian military forces are firing at the Donetsk Airport with mortars and gunfire, the head of Donetsk's Kuibyshevskiy District said Tuesday.

"About a half hour ago the Ukrainian forces opened fire on the territory of the Donetsk Airport. Fire is being conducted with mortars and gunfire," Ivan Prikhodko was cited by Donetsk News Agency as saying.

According to Prikhodko, the mortars being fired at the airport are of 120mm caliber.

In April 2014 the Ukrainian Armed Forces started a military campaign to suppress Donbass residents who rejected the "legitimacy" of the new coup-imposed government.

The Ukrainian government and independence supporters in the state's southeast agreed to withdraw heavy artillery with a caliber of over 100mm from the line of contact in February, moving in September to extend this withdrawal to weaponry with a caliber of under 100mm.

The airport in Donetsk saw some of the most violent clashes in the Ukrainian conflict that have left its buildings virtually in ruins.

Numerous ceasefire breaches have been registered in Donbass since the Minsk peace deal was signed in February, worked out by the leaders of Russia, France, Ukraine and Germany.

In early September, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine was being observed, signifying that the February's Minsk peace agreements between Kiev and Donbass independence supporters were finally taking hold.
 

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#35
Ukraine Today
http://uatoday.tv
October 28, 2015
Rotten vegetables and stale bread: Ukrainian army promises probe into poor frontline conditions

Soldiers complain they have been left to rely on volunteers and their own money to survive

Rotten vegetables, stale bread, and a sense of hopelessness surround Ukrainian soldiers stationed at a checkpoint near the south eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

This is a regular dugout where soldiers from Ukraine's National Guard along with volunteer fighters are on duty around the clock keeping a watchful eye over the strategic port city of Mariupol.

They say living in these quarters hasn't been easy as the months get colder: "The problem with this dugout is that it's not meant to be lived in. When it rains, the roof leaks and our matrasses become wet."

Some of these men are not used to complaining, they served for several weeks in one of the most dangerous places so far in the conflict in eastern Ukraine. They took part in the siege of the Donetsk airport in February, which was dubbed as 'little Stalingrad' because Ukrainian troops were outnumbered and underequipped.

Now they are left to depend on volunteers to bring them fresh food and military gear.

One soldier says, "We are lefty to buy everything with our own money, boots, and uniforms. The things they give are not good for winter. These are the thermal undergarments I was given."

The troops also showed us an aid kit they were provided with which is over 50 years old they say. But what really frustrates them is the indifference shown to them by their commander.

Read also Frontline medical personnel in east Ukraine missing battlefield ready ambulances

Mitya, National Guard soldier: "Our commander doesn't even visit us, if he does come he doesn't address all of us so that we don't ask him any questions. He gets into his car quickly and leaves."

A few hours after we arrive to speak with the soldiers, their commander finally makes an appearance. He promises us that he will work on all the soldiers' issues but declines to answer some of our questions about what we saw that day.

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#36
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
October 28, 2015
Progress stalls over debt repayment and flight bans
Moscow's demand for repayment of Ukrainian debt has caused discord on the ground. Now, following the imposition of tit-for-tat airspace closures, the dispute has escalated to the skies.
ALEXEI LOSSAN, RBTH

The Ukrainian authorities have agreed a debt-restructuring plan with private creditors. Prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Oct. 15 that the private creditors of Ukraine had decided to write off $3 billion and reconstruct another $8.5 billion. According to Mr. Yatsenyuk, the Ukrainian authorities offered the same pattern to Russia: the cancellation of 20 percent of the debt, the extension of payments toward the principal of the loan, and the establishment of the coupon rate at 7.75 percent per annum instead of 5 percent. However, the Russian president's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Oct. 15 that the existing debt of $3 billion must be repaid, otherwise it would mean a sovereign default. The Russian authorities will demand the return of the money in the London Court of International Arbitration.

IMF involvement

According to credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's (S&P), the Ukrainian authorities have two ways to repay the Russian government. First, Ukraine could repay the debt at the expense of its foreign exchange reserves, amounting currently to about $12 billion. In practice, however, it cannot take this step, because at the request of the IMF, its gold and currency reserves not only should not be reduced, but should reach $17 billion by the end of 2015.

Second, the country could default on these bonds. In this case, according to S&P, the necessary funds can be provided to Ukraine by the IMF. Since the beginning of 2015, Ukraine has already received $9.7 billion from international organisations and, as Ukrainian finance minister Natalie Jaresko announced on Oct. 16, the country plans to receive another $4 billion from international partners until the end of 2015. However, in this situation, the IMF loan would effectively go to the payment of Ukraine's debt to Russia, a scenario unattractive to the western creditors.

"The IMF is unlikely to go for the provision of a loan to Ukraine to repay its debt to Russia," says Andrei Margolin, vice-rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. According to Mr. Margolin, politics dominates economics in this issue, and Ukraine's debt to Russia falls into the category of sovereign debt.

"In accordance with the rules of the IMF, the programme of financial support for Ukraine would be suspended until the settlement of the public debt," Mr. Margolin explains.

A similar position is shared by Verum Option analyst Alexander Krasnov, who maintains that the IMF's statute prohibits lending to countries that do not repay their public debt.

Defining the debt

The Ukrainian authorities understand that the sovereign nature of the debt is a problem and try to challenge it, explaining that it had been issued to the previous regime. In late 2013, Moscow decided to support the Ukrainian economy, and agreed with then-president Viktor Yanukovych a loan of $15 billion.

At the expense of Russia's National Wealth Fund (it consists of the revenues from the sale of hydrocarbons abroad), it was supposed to redeem the Ukrainian bond loan. The repayment of the bonds was scheduled for Dec. 20, 2015, and the coupon rate was 5 percent. At the same time, one of the conditions of the loan was the obligation to return the funds early if the total Ukrainian debt exceeded 60 percent of gross domestic product.

The Russian government only had time to transfer the first tranche of $3 billion to Mr. Yanukovych before Ukraine was hit by a political crisis, which led to the ousting of the president and a regime change.

Despite the loud rhetoric, however, Kiev seems to have an understanding that to deny the sovereign nature of the debt will be difficult in practice. Adam Derrick of the American Enterprise Institute sees a possible solution to the problem in offering Moscow a renegotiation on the terms of the loan, offsetting a preferential rate (5 percent compared with the market 12 percent) and at the same time placing it into the commercial category. However, judging by the current rhetoric in Moscow, it is unlikely to agree.

Air travel ban

The restructuring of Ukrainian bonds is not the only stumbling block for economic relations between the two countries. On Oct. 25, 2015, direct flights between Russia and Ukraine were halted. "We have received an official notification that all Russian companies will be prohibited from the use of Ukraine's airspace," Russian transport minister Maxim Sokolov told RBTH.

According to Oleg Panteleyev, head of analytical services at the Aviaport agency, "the decision to ban flights of Russian airlines to destinations in the territory of Ukraine is connected with Kiev's objections against flights to Crimea conducted by these airlines".

At first the ban did not extend to the airline UTair, which does not carry out flights to the peninsula, but later it was also included in the list. As a result, the sanctions will take effect against all Russian carriers. In response to these measures, the Russian authorities closed Russian airspace to Ukrainian aircraft. According to Mr Sokolov, the passenger traffic between Russia and Ukraine - despite its continued decline since the end of 2013 - amounted to 100,000 people per month in the first eight months of 2015.

"Given that Russian airlines made several times more flights between the countries than Ukrainian carriers, it is clear that their nominal losses from the closing of regular flights will be higher," says Boris Rybak, a civil aviation expert with Infomost. "However, the loss of Ukrainian direction for Russian airlines is a loss of maybe half a per cent of the total passenger traffic. Of course, in real economic terms, any loss is bad, since air carriage teeters on the brink of profitability, and the situation is not healthy. But if Russian carriers are able to survive the closing of the Ukrainian direction, it is not a fact that the Ukrainian companies will survive the loss of the Russian route."

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 #37
Bloomberg
October 28, 2015
Ukraine Has 'Long Way to Go' in Graft Fight, World Bank Says
By Volodymyr Verbyany and Daryna Krasnolutska

Ukraine must step up efforts to fight graft, even after improving its position by four places in the World Bank's annual report on the business environment, the lender said.

"If one looks at the issue of corruption, Ukraine still has a long way to go," Qimiao Fan, head of the World Bank's Ukrainian office, told reporters Wednesday in Kiev.

Ukraine ranks 83, below Guatemala and Saudi Arabia, of 189 countries in the World Bank's latest Doing Business survey, released this week. Its improvement from last year stemmed mainly from easing the process of business registration. Other criteria were largely unchanged, with a slight worsening in paying taxes and protecting minority investors.

President Petro Poroshenko, who came to power after anti-graft protesters toppled his predecessor, has suffered a dip in popularity as Ukrainians complain about delays in reform. Stamping out corruption is a key requirement for Ukraine to maintain the flow of cash from lenders and donors including the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. government.

Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius said Ukraine will target a top-50 berth in the World Bank survey within two years.

"We were in a swamp, but we've left the swamp and are moving in the right direction," he told the same news conference. "Our government is committed to promote reforms actively."

'Very Indicative'

Poroshenko has pledged to accelerate reforms and efforts to stamp out corruption after the conclusion of local elections, which took place of Sunday. The coming quarters will reveal his administration's commitment, according to BNP Paribas SA-owned Ukrsibbank.

"The next three to six months may be very indicative in terms of the government's resolve to embark on structural reforms, especially as calls for early parliamentary elections are getting increasingly louder," analysts Serhiy Yahnych and Yevgeniy Orudzhev said Wednesday in an e-mailed note. "Creditors are unlikely to tolerate any excessive sluggishness from Ukraine on its reform agenda, including anti-corruption practices."

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#38
New York Times
October 28, 2015
Ukraine Ban on Russian Symbols Fuels Fight Over National Identity
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

SEMYONOVKA, Ukraine - A young policeman knocked on Ivan M. Papchenko's front door one recent afternoon, brandishing a complaint from the National Memory Institute of Ukraine and demanding to know why this village had resurrected Lenin.

Semyonovka stood accused of being a "de-communization" scofflaw.

Mr. Papchenko, the local Communist Party chief, refused to concede that anything was remotely amiss. The Lenin statue, he said, was long gone from the town's Red Square. The expanse of naked asphalt, even more dreary without the statue, does not exactly conjure up the grand Moscow version.

Instead, Semyonovka's 12-foot, silver-colored Lenin with his right arm extended had been propped back up on a plinth tucked away in a leafy park. "We want to preserve this small corner of Soviet history," said Mr. Papchenko, 67, a stout former school principal whose multiple gold molars attested to his own life in the U.S.S.R. "If they destroy all signs of the past whenever the ideology changes, what will be left?"

Ukraine has embarked on a quest for a new identity, a fallout from the hybrid war that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia unleashed in early 2014. The country is trying to separate itself from the long historical baggage of the Russian and Soviet empires.

Vladimir Vyatrovich, 38, a historian and the head of Ukraine's National Memory Institute, predicted somewhat rashly that if the effort succeeded in Ukraine, it would cause fateful reverberations next door.

Russia's modern identity basically started with the 17th-century invasion of what is now Ukraine, Mr. Vyatrovich said. "So the moment when Ukraine finally manages to become a totally independent state will also be the moment when Russia's imperialistic identity ends."

Mr. Vyatrovich helped push four "memory laws" through Parliament last spring.

The laws dumped the Soviet traditions for commemorating World War II, opened up what K.G.B. secret police archives remained in Ukraine and sought to rehabilitate certain Ukrainian independence fighters whom Moscow had long pilloried as Nazi collaborators.

The fourth law, the one with arguably the most tangible effect nationally, required the removal of all names and symbols linked to the Communist or Nazi past.

A fight has emerged over the Communist symbols, however, not unlike that between supporters and opponents of the Confederate battle flag in the southern United States.

For opponents, the Lenin statues might as well be Russian agents.

"A concentration of Lenin statues is a sign of danger where 'polite people' might appear," Mr. Vyatrovich said in an interview. Polite people is the Russian euphemism for the anonymous Russian Special Forces troops who seized Crimea.

His allies argue that the statues clash with the democratic values that Ukrainians want to instill in the next generation.

Fans of the Communist-era symbols tend to be older Ukrainians who still long for the Soviet era. They and others argue that Ukraine faces far more severe problems, like an economic nose dive, that should take precedence, and furthermore that the state should not mandate historical interpretation.

"They behave like Bolsheviks: 'We have to wipe out the past!' " said Georgiy V. Kasyanov, a historian and education reform activist. "They think the Soviet legacy can be destroyed by destroying statues of Lenin or by renaming streets, which is false. They are wrestling with ghosts."

Critics call destroying the symbols a sop to the small but vocal right-wing movement. The main font of a new identity, they argue, should be a definition of citizenship that incorporates Tatars, Jews, Poles and others ostracized for centuries.

Lenin statues and Lenin streets used to be ubiquitous. "This was Leninland," Mr. Vyatrovich said, with 5,500 statues in Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

By the time of the Maidan uprising in Kiev that toppled the pro-Russian government in February 2014, Ukraine was down to about 1,300 Lenins, he said. Five hundred more have come crashing down since.

Many towns hit on the idea of selling the statues - often bronze - for scrap and paying wage arrears or buying new streetlights or even, occasionally, armored cars for volunteer fighters.

Some efforts proved more successful than others. One of the largest Lenin statues in Ukraine, in the city of Kharkiv, was dismembered.

Activists hoping to pay for military equipment for volunteers fighting separatists in eastern Ukraine tried to auction it off piecemeal online, including an ear that weighed nearly 80 pounds. The sellers rue the day they rejected a $2,000 offer for the ear as too low - they never got another bid, according to one organizer.

Apart from the statues, 910 cities and towns need new names, as do tens of thousands of streets.

Some places have balked at rebranding. Dnipropetrovsk, for example, Ukraine's third-largest city, was named in 1926 in honor of Grigory Petrovsky, a now forgotten leader of the Russian Revolution. It became famous as the Soviet Union's "rocket city" with that name and wants to keep it.

Each City Hall has until Nov. 21 to make the changes. If they do not, Parliament will do it for them by Feb. 21. Many towns established websites where residents can vote on new names.

In Kiev, a television comedy show suggested the modern landmark Moscow Bridge be renamed the Not Moscow Bridge.

City Hall in Kiev said it would pull down about 100 statues.

In the southern port of Odessa, one sizable Lenin statue was recast as Darth Vader, complete with a Wi-Fi router in his headgear.

In Semyonovka, in northeastern Ukraine some 10 miles from the Russian border, about 20 street names need changing. They have not gotten very far. One proposal would rename Collective Farm Street after Maxim Grachov, a 29-year-old who died fighting the separatists.

In some ways, Semyonovka is a typical Ukrainian town that time forgot. Farmers clop along on horse-drawn carts. Dozens of little log cabins grace the unpaved side streets. The toilet for the squat apartment block that houses the Communist Party office is in an outhouse.

Semyonovka's Lenin statue survived its initial removal intact, lifted by a crane and carted off Red Square.

"I wept," said Ivan Kovalenko, 69, a retired engineer. "The West said it could not defeat us with weapons, so it decided to destroy us from within with prostitution and democracy."

An outcry ensued, at least among older people who remember when Semyonovka had 15 thriving factories and 15,000 people. Most of the factories are shuttered, and the population has shrunk to around 9,000.

Did bringing down Lenin suddenly make their lives better, statue lovers have asked bitterly. City Hall initially quieted the debate in April 2014 by erecting Lenin in the secluded spot. Then the issue came roaring back to life along with the memory laws.

Members of the committee assigned to deal with the Communist symbols started hearing from anonymous phone callers who growled that if the committee did not remove the statue, someone else would.

Still they resisted.

And continue to. A woman wearing a navy blue bathrobe, hearing why foreigners were visiting recently, came bowling over, shaking her fist.

"You think Lenin's statue is the biggest problem we have?" she yelled. "Try living on a pension of $40 a month. How much do you live on? At least Lenin organized the electrification of this country. Pretty soon we will be back to the conditions that existed before Lenin."

Young residents shrug off the statue's fate. The stalwarts, however, plotted to save it. They hit on the idea of historical value, declaring their silvery Lenin part of a small local history museum.

The National Memory Institute will not have it, Mr. Vyatrovich said. "If it is in a public place, it is still totalitarian propaganda."


 

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#39
http://gordonhahn.com
October 27, 2015
Weimarization of the Maidan Ultra-Nationalist/Oligarchic Regime Rolls On
By Gordon M. Hahn

Contrary to the Washington consensus or party line emanating from Washington-based media, think tanks, and the government, the democratization of Ukraine has stalled rather than accelerated after the Maidan revolt/revolution. Neo-fascist and ultra-nationalist parties remain strong and may be gaining in popularity, corruption is rampant in the highest offices of the land driven by state and private oligarchs, and the population continues to suffer from a collapsing economy. The Maidan regime is best conceptualized as an ultra-nationalist-oligarchic dyarchy with some overlap between its oligarchic and ultra-nationalist elements.

Maidan Ukraine's Fascist Problem Persists

According to a survey conducted by sociological research agency 'Rating Group', if presidential elections in Ukraine took place in October, among voters planning to vote, 26 percent would support President Petro Poroshenko, Batkyvshina (Fatherland) Party (BP) leader, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko - 16 percent, Opposition Bloc (OP) chairman Yuriy Boiko - 12 percent, Self-Help (Samopomish) Party (SHP) leader and Lviv Mayor Andrey Sadovyi - 9 percent, Radical Party (RP) leader Oleh Lyashko - 7 percent, former Army General and Civic Position (GP) party leader A. Hrytsenko - 6 percent, Right Sector (RS) leader Dmitro Yarosh - 4 percent,  and Svoboda (Freedom) Party (SP) leader Oleh Tyahnibok - 4 percent. The rest of the voters would support the other candidates. Thus, presidential candidates from Ukraine's neo-fascist parties (RP, RS, and SP) would take at least - 15 percent of the vote. If neo-fascist parties were to back a single presidential candidate and if he were to win all of that 15 percent of the vote, he would finish third in the voting or, depending on how their respective percentages were rounded out, perhaps second. Ultra-nationalist candidates (Tymoshenko and Sadovyi would receive 25 percent ["Electoral Moods in Ukraine: October 2015," Rating Group (Ukraine), 19 October 2015, http://ratinggroup.ua/en/research/ukraine/elektoralnye_nastroeniya_naseleniya.html and http://ratinggroup.ua/files/ratinggroup/reg_files/rg_electoral_102015_press.pdf%5D. In the 2014 presidential elections, Lyashko, Yarosh, and Tyahnibok together took only 10.2 percent of the votes.

If elections to Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada or simply the Rada, took place in October, 20 percent of decided voters would support Poroshenko's Bloc of Petro Poroshenko 'Solidarnist' (BPPS), Tymoshenko's BP - 15 percent, the OB - 14 percent, Sadovyi's SHP - 10 percent, Lyashko's RP - 6 percent. These parties would break the 5 percent barrier and receive seats in the Rada. Parties with a chance to exceed that barrier and get into the parliament on the party list basis include: Svoboda - 5 percent, Civic Position - 4 percent, Ihor Kolomoiskii's 'Ukrop' party - 4 percent, Right Sector - 4 percent, Rebirth (Vidrodzhennya) - 3 percent, and Our Region (Nash Kray) - 3 percent. These results indicate that the same three neo-fascist parties - RP, RS, and SP - have at least 15 percent of the vote at present. In the 2014 Rada elections, these three neo-fascist parties garnered less than 13 percent of the vote.

It should be added that there are neo-fascist politicians and leaders in some of the other parties and that some of these other parties, as indicated above, can be characterized as ultra-nationalist or more moderately national chauvinist. These parties (BP, SHP and Yatsenyuk's National Front) would garner 26 percent of the votes. Yatsenyuk's ultra-nationalist National Front is likely to get much more than 1 percent of the vote. Also, oligarch and Poroshenko nemesis Ihor Kolomoiskii's party project 'Ukrop', with its 4 percent, might be characterized as partially ultra-nationalist, given Kolomoiskii's close ties to RS leader Yarosh. This boosts the ultra-nationalists' take to some 30 percent. Thus, neo-fascists and ultra-nationalists would take nearly half the vote, 45 percent, in Rada elections if they were held in October. This is a slight decline from the Rada elections one year ago, when these parties received 53 percent. However, many do not regard the National Front as an ultra-nationalist party. It includes ultra-nationalists, more moderate national chauvinists, some democrats, and even a few neo-fascists (Aleksandr Biletskiy, for example). If it is removed from that category, the neo-fascist-ultra-nationalists' take in the party voting will have increased significantly in the past year from 31 to 44 percent. Either way, the ultra-nationalist/neo-fascist part of Ukraine's political spectrum remains too strong for a healthy civil society.

The survey also shows that opposition to the Maidan regime is as strong as it was to the Yanukovich regime near its demise. A majority, 53 percent, believes that it is better to go out to protest in the case of a significant deterioration in living conditions rather than be patriotic and remain at home. This percentage is greater than that recorded in December 2013, 50 percent, on the eve of the Maidan's overthrow of the Viktor Yanukovich regime. Over the past six months, support for the idea of dissolving parliament and calling new Rada elections has increased from 34 to 47 percent, the idea of new presidential elections - from 31 to 43 percent.

Maidan Corruption

As under Yanukovich and even the dreaded "Putin's Russia", the Maidan regime's politicians accrue illegal financial benefits of public office, helping to grow the radical opposition, as the population struggles in a collapsing economy with no recovery in sight. Since Poroshenko's PPB lost its majority coalition after key party factions, the RP and SHP, defected two months ago, corruption scandals have begun to envelope Poroshenko's administration and PPB party. On October 16th a Rada committee agreed to open an investigation into corruption charges, including money laundering, against the PPB faction's deputy chairman and Poroshenko's business partner Igor Kononenko. Poroshenko's name appears along with Kononenko's on at least one of the incriminating documents (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2015/10/16/7085044/). Earlier, Austrian authorities initiated an investigation into alleged illegal activity by the head of Poroshenko's presidential administration Boris Lozhkin.

A driving force in recent corruption charges against the Poroshenko regime has been Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, chief of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) until June 18th. He recently spoke at a Rada hearing on corruption where he aired details about Kononenko's alleged machinations, and it is rumored that it was Nalyvaichenko who planted the materials in the press that prompted the hearing. It is very possible that he is working hand-in-hand with the neo-fascist groups, like the RS, SP, and RP, the propaganda of which emphasizes the Maidan regime's ongoing corruption and calls for a second, this time fully 'nationalist revolution' to clean house and 'purify' the Maidan revolution. The fact of the Rada hearings themselves underscores the declining fortunes of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc in parliament; its coalition now further weakened by the nosedive in the popularity of its main coalition partner, Yatsenyuk's National Front.

Weimar Economy

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian people remains mired in a struggle for survival in a collapsing economy that Kiev appears unable or unwilling to reform. Despite improvement in some economic data, September was the 21st month of economic decline, with a 5.1 percent fall. Overall, Ukraine's outlook continues to worsen, with GDP forecast to decline 0.5 percent in October and by 11 percent in 2015 for the year. Investment aas well as private consumption remain extremely depressed. At the same time, the Yatsenyuk government continues to cut off its nose to spite its face. It has cancelled all aviation communications with Russia, broadening a sharp cutoff of the Ukrainian economy from Russia, the source of more than a third of its trade. At the same time, Kiev must purchase coal from the Donbass rebels and natural gas from the Muscovite invader (at s discount price) in order to stay afloat and survive a winter expected to be much colder than in recent years.

Hope Against Hope

One hope for improvement in the Maidan regime's fortune is that the ceasefire in Donbass has stabilized. However, the absence of war only further angers the neo-fascists, many of whom remain armed and dangerous to the regime and social order, most of all Dmitro Yarosh's Right Sector. Most disconcerting are recent signs that the neo-fascist parties are beginning to cooperate rather than compete, as evidenced by the joint march in Kiev on October 14th to honor World War II's neo-fascist Ukrainian organizations, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its Ukrainian Partisan Army - a shot over the bow of Poroshenko's version of the Maidan regime (http://pravyysektor.info/news/news/999/marsh-geroyiv-u-stolici.html

http://vesti-ukr.com/kiev/119107-marsh-nacionalistov-v-kieve-v-akcii-uvideli-nachalo-protivostojanija-s-vlastju).

The regime itself responded with its own shot over the bow by opening up investigation into the RS's and SP's participation in the 20 February 2014 Maidan 'sniper' massacres blamed by the new regime on the Yanukovich regime - a founding myth that crumbles with each day. The threat of that myth's demise prompted General Prosecutor to pull back days later, saying there is no evidence that pro-Maidan elements did the shooting. He also rejected the view once championed by Nalyvaichenko that Moscow was behind the sniper massacres, saying there was "no evidence" to support this view. To the contrary, there is a mountain of evidence supporting this view, and it points to the non-viable nature of the Maidan regime, which stands on a few very shaky pillars, all of which are in danger of tipping over and bringing it all to come tumbling down.

The results of Sunday's city and local mayoral and assembly elections, still being counted, are unlikely to show any improvement in the slow-moving meltdown of the Maidan regime.

Of course, if you ask the minions of the Washington consensus, all of this is no more than a reflection of numerous moving parts in a devious Putin plan for the conquest of Europe and the world. Ukraine has no neo-fascists and never has. Ukrainians are white and furry innocents and any despoiling is solely the result of the Soviet (read: Russian) occupation. (Please excuse the sarcasm; the last paragraph can be deleted for the faint-hearted or purposes of re-posting.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gordon M. Hahn is an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California; and an Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View - Russia Media Watch, http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com. Dr Hahn is author of three well-received books, Russia's Revolution From Above (Transaction, 2002), Russia's Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), which was named an outstanding title of 2007 by Choice magazine, and The 'Caucasus Emirate' Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014). He has been a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2011-2013) and a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution and Kennan Institute. He has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, San Francisco State, and St. Petersburg State (Russia) Universities and the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey, California. Dr. Hahn has authored hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and other publications on Russian, Eurasian and international politics.

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#40
Brookings Institution
www.brookings.edu
October 27, 2015
One more time on avoiding a new Cold War
By Steven Pifer
Director, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative. Former ambassador to Ukraine.

I do not want to unduly extend my debate with Jeremy Shapiro and Sam Charap about the trade-off between avoiding a new Cold War and negotiating with Russia over Ukraine. Their most recent blog post, however, misses two key points. [http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/order-from-chaos/posts/2015/10/20-really-avoiding-new-cold-war-shapiro-charap]

Paying dues

First, the Budapest Memorandum-in which Russia, Britain, and the United States committed to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and not to use force against Ukraine-regards security assurances, not security guarantees. A security guarantee embodies an obligation on par with what NATO allies have: a commitment to use U.S. military force in their defense. Neither the George W. Bush nor Clinton administrations were prepared to extend that kind of commitment to Ukraine.

So Jeremy and Sam are correct that the Budapest Memorandum imposes no obligation on the United States to send the 82nd Airborne to fight for Donetsk. But they suggest, in their desire to avoid a new Cold War, that the United States owes Ukraine nothing.

That was not what U.S. officials communicated to Ukrainian officials in 1994. The purpose of drawing the distinction between a security assurance and a security guarantee was to ensure that Kiev understood that an American response to a Russian violation would have an upper bound, not that there would be no response. Financial help to promote reform and military assistance for Ukraine certainly fall well within that bound.

One should recall that Washington was prepared to extend Kiev a security assurance because it was key to achieving something about which the U.S. government cared greatly: the elimination of nearly 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads in Ukraine that were capable of striking the United States.

And this is not just about Ukraine. The Kremlin's gross violation of the Budapest Memorandum unfortunately has discredited security assurances as a tool in future nuclear non-proliferation efforts. Jeremy and Sam's approach would discredit that tool further.
A compromise that has no bounds?

Second, I did not mean to suggest that the United States should not negotiate with Russia. But the United States should not negotiate with Russia the status of Ukraine over the heads of the Ukrainians. Nor should the United States negotiate with Russia out of an inordinate fear of a Cold War strawman.

Ukraine needs a negotiated settlement that Russia accepts if it is to enjoy peace and normalcy. Moscow has too many levers to pull to destabilize Kiev if it wishes. Kiev may have to compromise some of its sovereignty to achieve a settlement.

But what I find troubling in Jeremy and Sam's blog posts (and other articles that they have written on this question) is how far they seem prepared to go in compromising Ukraine's sovereignty in search of a settlement. They do not set or imply any bound.

NATO is a touchy issue with Russia, no doubt. But it has been clear for at least the past five years that NATO has no enthusiasm for putting Ukraine on a membership track. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko suggested in summer 2014 that he was prepared to kick the NATO issue well down the road. The Russians never engaged him on that.

Russia's seizure of Crimea in February 2014 was triggered by the appointment of an interim leadership in Kiev that set signing an association agreement with the European Union as its primary foreign policy goal. The association agreement, by the way, excludes an EU membership prospective for Ukraine. Do we now ask Ukraine to give up the association agreement?

And what if that does not satisfy the Kremlin? A number of analysts believe that Russia's aggression against Ukraine is motivated in major part by fear in the Kremlin that, if Kiev succeeds in building a normal, European, democratic, market economy-a big if to be sure-that country could become a model that Russians might envy and even wish to emulate. So do we ask Kiev to give up trying to become a successful state based on European values?

A negotiated settlement of the Ukraine crisis is ultimately necessary. But Jeremy and Sam's writings lack any apparent bottom line in what they would ask of Kiev in order to secure that settlement or to achieve a new security order with Russia. That kind of negotiation would be bad news for Ukraine. It would also set a dangerous precedent. Were the United States and the West to show readiness to compromise so much on Ukrainian sovereignty, why would Moscow not conclude that such compromises would be possible elsewhere...and began advancing demands on, say, Estonia or Latvia?

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