#2
More tragedies to follow Paris massacre if humanity fails to present common front
By Tamara Zamyatina

MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. Last weekend's Paris massacre may well have replays elsewhere if the international community fails to present a common front against terrorism, polled experts have told TASS.

The deputy chairman of the international affairs committee of Russia's Federation Council (upper house of parliament), Andrey Klimov, believes that after the Paris shock politicians have developed deeper awareness of the problem of "scattered terrorism" and "sleeping cells" of the Islamic State, but have not derived the proper conclusions so far.

"After 9/11 in New York and last Friday's Paris attacks a great deal was and is still being said to the effect the world has changed. But during the period between these two bloody events radical Islamists staged massacres in Moscow, Volgograd, London, Paris (the raid against the office of Charlie Hebdo magazine), Turkey and Lebanon... But the world has not displayed greater unity in the struggle against terrorist threats," Klimov told TASS.

He believes that number one conclusion the politicians should make today is security cannot be selective. "The West is unable to ensure its security only by maintaining cooperation within NATO. Russia - its president, Foreign Ministry and parliament - have been making calls at all international forums for struggle against terrorism. At this point, with the Islamic State," he recalled.

After the Paris attacks the Vienna talks on a settlement in Syria showed a positive shift towards the understanding that without destroying the Islamic State there will be no peace in the Middle East, Europe or any other part of the world. But towards the end of the latest round of the Vienna talks US Secretary of State John Kerry again raised the issue of Syrian President Bashar Assad's future. But all what he said on that score was utterly out of place.

Don't our US partners distinguish between the real scale of the threat the Islamic State poses to entire humanity and the meager role of one personality in the Syrian conflict?" Klimov asked.

"For devising a system of comprehensive cooperation in resistance to radical Islamism it is essential at the level of the UN Security Council to declare as rouge states those countries which connive with terrorists, provide them with financing, training and medical care and do nothing to upset the operation of their websites. The international community must establish measures for punishing terrorists identical to the Nuremberg tribunals for Nazi war criminals," Klimov believes.

The director of the Political Studies Institute, Civic Chamber member Sergey Markov, believes that in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris the West is unlikely to change its attitude to Russia as a possible partner in an anti-terrorist coalition.

"Yet, it is quite possible that the US-led NATO countries will devise an algorithm of coordination between the Western anti-terrorist coalition and Russia. A historical parallel is quite appropriate. During World War II the Soviet Union's western allies in the anti-Hitler coalition - the United States and Britain - opened a second front. And they won together. These days the hope remains that politicians will pool efforts to provide a resolute response to the terrorist challenge to the security of humanity," Markov told TASS.

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 #3
Valdai Discussion Club
http://valdaiclub.com
November 15, 2015
PARIS EVENTS WILL FURTHER TIGHTEN THE MIDDLE EAST KNOT
By Fyodor Lukyanov
Fyodor Lukyanov is Academic director of the Valdai Discussion Club, Chairman, Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Editor-in-Chief, Russia in Global Affairs journal.

The attacks will almost inevitably lead to an escalation of war in Iraq and Syria, as well as to changes in the balance of forces in the Middle East as a whole.
Although it will take time to truly evaluate the consequences of the November 13 massacre in Paris for the French, European and world politics, some conclusions can be made now.

The attacks will almost inevitably lead to an escalation of war in Iraq and Syria, as well as to changes in the balance of forces in the Middle East as a whole. The French government has been challenged with such audacity that it does not have the right not to respond; Paris has found itself in the same position as Washington after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The millions marching for solidarity in January after the killings at the office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine might have mimicked national mobilization, but the government also cannot avoid launching a major retribution. It might include more intensive attacks on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and a clearer and more coordinated allied strategy will certainly replace the rather haphazard attacks. Since France is unlikely to rally enough capabilities, even with the help of major European countries, for an effective response, Europe is likely to appeal to the United States, which has so far preferred to distance itself from the Middle East developments. Or, more precisely, minimized its involvement or limited it to anti-ISIS rhetoric.

It is now time the United States, despite President Obama's reluctance to get drawn into any military action, showed proper leadership and the ability to provide effective and strong support to its allies. It is essential for its own sake, if not so much for relations with Europe - perhaps, primarily for maintaining its reputation in Asia, where it is gradually creating a pattern of competition with China, - and Washington should confirm its own capabilities and reliability to its partners in the region.

The alignment of forces in the Middle East may change. The Gulf monarchies actually seem to believe that Iran's expansion and stronger foothold are more dangerous than the success of ISIS. Until recently, the Syrian conflict largely revolved around the fate of Bashar al-Assad, which meant that his opponents were fixated on regime change in Syria, giving it priority above anything else. At a time when leading Western countries start seeing ISIS as an even more dangerous threat, Saudi Arabia and its allies might be growing increasingly at odds with this belief. Yet, Arab monarchies cannot blatantly dissociate themselves from opposing the Islamists. Suspicions will be further fueled by the results of the investigation which should clarify the identity and background of the attackers. Much will depend on how connected they are to certain forces in that region (if at all). Be that as it may, a new round of the "big game" in the Middle East is inevitable, and if France tried to avoid it, the country would simply lose its reputation in that critical part of the world, probably along with Europe losing its influence there altogether.

As for Europe, it is likely to do a U-turn in its attitude to the refugees and further strengthen its commitment to a police-dominated handling of migration issues; a rise of right-wing sentiment can be expected there.

It so happened that I left Paris on the afternoon of November 13, after asking everyone there on the previous day at informal meetings the same question I had been asking them over the last three years - whether Marine Le Pen could become president. Until then, the answer was always no, no matter how high her popularity. The pragmatic French were unlikely to support her at the elections. This was the first time I heard: "Yes, it is possible." The carnage unleashed the next day will most likely increase this possibility.

The focus of migration policy will now shift to concern about a significant number of active or latent Islamists potentially present in the current flow of refugees wishing to move to Europe - a concern voiced even at the beginning of their flight. Until now, that concern was pushed to the sidelines of public debate and mainly interested the security services. Now the public sentiment can change appreciably. Germany will have to change its approach most dramatically after Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed an open-door policy back in the late summer and early fall. The country gradually began shifting away from it several weeks ago, but the Paris tragedy will certainly speed up the revision of this view dramatically. Even if far-right parties do not see a qualitative rise in popularity in leading European countries, mainstream politicians will have to adopt a large part of their slogans to retain the loyalty of terrified voters.

In general, we can say that, firstly, Europe continues to be faced with signs of a systemic crisis of their institutional and political model, and the need for transformation has become ever more obvious. Secondly, the largely familiar concept of "European security" in the OSCE's interpretation is becoming completely meaningless. European security is now inseparable from the crumbling Middle East developments, something that poses problems and dictates actions, something almost impossible to control.

For Russia, it may mean that its operation in Syria, if not a new model to follow, will make much more sense to many in the West. Its impact on the political and diplomatic process around Syria is difficult to predict, but if the United States, France and other participants try to step up the fighting, Russia's logic of choosing a partner on land and joining the fight against their enemies begins to make more sense as well. Until recently, strikes by the Washington-led coalition were not intended to dramatically change the situation in the theater of war, but were rather intended to assert its presence. If they decide to deal a crushing blow to ISIS, they would need to reduce the pressure on Assad, actually acknowledging the fact that the coalition is fighting on his side. Moreover, they would need to involve the "moderate opposition." How it could be done given the resistance of the hardline anti-Assad countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey is difficult to say, but the pressure on them will grow. Among Western countries, France is most implacable in its resentment of Assad, but some changes are possible now.

Moscow, at least, has the right to tell the rest of its partners in the Syrian process that the events have confirmed that its priorities are correct. Being the most capable foreign military force in the region, Russia is also quite able to convert that capacity into political influence. Ukraine, until now a major irritant in relations between Russia and Europe / the West, is gradually taking a backseat.

The Paris events will further tighten the Middle East knot, but an attempt to sever it in one powerful stroke, like the one the United States made in 2001 after 9/11, is likely to have the same "success" as that one. The masterminds of the Paris attacks will be rubbing their hands, as bin Laden once was, watching the stone they threw cause an uncontrollable avalanche.

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#4
www.rt.com
November 16, 2015
Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members

President Vladimir Putin says he's shared Russian intelligence data on Islamic State financing with his G20 colleagues: the terrorists appear to be financed from 40 countries, including some G20 member states.

During the summit, "I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them," Putin told the journalists.

Putin also spoke of the urgent need to curb the illegal oil trade by IS.

"I've shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products," he said.

"The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon," Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.

It's not the right time to try and figure out which country is more and which is less effective in the battle with Islamic State, as now a united international effort is needed against the terrorist group, Putin said.

Putin reiterated Russia's readiness to support armed opposition in Syria in its efforts to fight Islamic State.

"Some armed opposition groups consider it possible to begin active operations against IS with Russia's support. And we are ready to provide such support from the air. If it happens it could become a good basis for the subsequent work on a political settlement," he said.

"We really need support from the US, European nations, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran," the president added.
 

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 #5
Huffingtonpost.com
November 15, 2015
Putin's Russia: Claims Versus Reality
By Simon Saradzhyan
Research fellow, Harvard's Belfer Center

When Barack Obama attends the G20 summit in Turkey on November 15-16, he will meet a man who, in the U.S. president's own words, leads "a regional power" that has become "isolated", and "doesn't make anything" with its "economy in tatters" and immigrants shunning it. Some of America's leading policy-shapers share their president's view of Vladimir Putin and Russia. Stephen Kinzer of Brown University believes Russia is "on the brink of economic collapse" while Rajan Menon of the City College of New York maintains that "Russia has been reduced to a regional power." Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Brett Stephens even sees "the beginning of Mr. Putin's undoing" while former deputy U.S. Treasury secretary Roger Altman asserts that "Russia is on the edge." "Its population is small and declining, life expectancy is falling," according to Altman. Jeffrey Gedmin of Georgetown University too sees negative demographic trends in Russia, arguing that "in Mr. Putin's Russia, infant mortality is up and life expectancy is down." But how much do these claims correspond with reality? Let us examine them one by one:

Russia is isolated: While some Western governments do shun the Kremlin over the crisis in Ukraine, others eagerly visit Russia to profess their friendship. India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told her host and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in October that "Russia is India's tried and tested partner and a real friend" while China's ambassador to Russia Li Hui has rowed that "China and Russia are together now like lips and teeth." Both India and China are Russia's partners in the BRICS organization as well as in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). When Vladimir Putin decided to organize back-to-back summits of BRICS, SCO and the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth in Ufa earlier this year, not only all of the participating countries were represented by their leaders at these events, but leaders of India and Pakistan sought and received membership in SCO for their countries. All in all 14 heads of states attended the events in Ufa. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is probably exaggerating, but his estimate that 40 countries and unions would like to be partners of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union does cast doubt on claims of Russia's isolation. These July 2015 summits were then followed by visits of Jordanian, Egyptian and Abu Dhabi leaders who came to see what Russian-made warplanes and air weapons would be exhibited at MAKS-2015 outside Moscow in August 2015.

Russia is a regional power: If Russia were a regional power, then what exactly were Russian diplomats doing, helping their American counterparts to secure an agreement to dismantle Syrian chemical weapons in the fall of 2013 and to look for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Syria in the fall of 2015? And how come America's new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his deputy refer to Russia an "existential threat" while NATO's secretary general is calling Russia is a "global actor?" Can the country with the largest number of nuclear weapons that can destroy the planet many times over be described as a regional power?

Russia doesn't make anything: If this claim were true, then whose cruise missiles have recently traversed the Caspian Sea and two countries 1,500 km to hit targets in Syria? Russian companies make and sell enough weapons for Russia to remain the second largest exporter of arms in the world with the portfolio of outstanding orders for Russian-made arms exceeding $40 billion. In the meantime, Russia's nuclear corporation Rosatom reports that its order book consists of overseas projects worth more than $100 million. Not all common Americans might be aware of the Russian weapons and nuclear power plants, but surely at least some of the U.S. policy makers must know that the only way U.S. astronauts can get to and from the International Space Station is ask the Russian space agency to give them a ride in Russian-made Soyuz-TMA crew craft launched by a Russian-made Soyuz rocket. It can also be noted that the Russian RD-180 engines have been powering U.S. Atlas rockets - that the American government relies upon to launch military cargos into orbit - for years while Russian-made nuclear fuel has been used to power U.S. inter-planetary missions. Russia has also held a record for the sharpest satellite imaging of the Earth with a resolution of 121 megapixels.

Russia's economy is in tatters and on the brink of collapse with immigrants are shunning the country: The World Bank's baseline scenario for Russia as of September 2015 does anticipate contractions of Russian GDP by 3.8 percent in 2015 and 0.6 percent in 2016 before the economy recovers to post a growth rate of 1.5 percent in 2017. That's obviously bad news for the Russian economy, which has been battered by decline in oil prices and, to a less extent, by Western sanctions, but not exactly catastrophic, especially if compared to neighboring Ukraine, whose GDP is forecast to shrink by 12% this year. As ex-first deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank Sergey Aleksashenko, who has no love lost for Putin's ways of managing the Russian economy, notes, the collapse of the Russian economy is not in the cards and it's "more stable than many believe." It is true that the current economic contraction in Russia has prompted many foreign citizens to leave this country, but it would still be wrong to claim that "immigrants aren't rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity" as Mr. Obama has done. Some 2 million foreign citizens are officially registered as residing in Moscow as of 2015, accounting for more than 16% of the Russian capital's population, according to the city police force's estimate. And Russia was second only to US in the number of immigrants living in it as of 2013. U.S. hosted 45.8 million immigrants while Russia hosted 11 million and Germany hosted 9 million that year, according to the United Nations' population division.

Russia's population is declining: While Mr. Altman and others claim that Russia's population is declining and life expectancy is falling, the opposite is actually true. Russia's population grew from 2008 to 2014, which is the latest year that the World Bank' databases offer information on population of Russia as of November 2015. Moreover, Russia also registered the so-called natural population increase in with the number of births exceeding the number of deaths in June - October 2014, if Russia's state statistical service were to be believed. Though this positive trend discontinued in November 2014, but Russia's population nevertheless grew in the first seven months of 2015 thanks to the inbound immigration, according to Russia's statistical service. Neither do Mr. Gedmin's claims -- that infant mortality is up and life expectancy is down in Russia -- hold water. Life expectancy has been growing in Russia since 2004 while infant mortality has been declining since the 1990s. Finally, would you call the population of a country which is in the Top 10 of the world's most populous countries and which is home to 140 million people, "small" as Mr. Gedmin does?

Putin's political end is near: If that was the case, then how come polls conducted by Russia's most respected independent pollster Levada Cente show that the share of Russians who approve of the activities of Vladimir Putin has grown from 61% in late 2013 to 88 percent in late 2015? While the Russian economy is in recession, the World Bank expects it to start growing again in 2017 and Putin's government has accumulated enough hard currency reserves to ride out 2-3 years to pay public servants and pensioners until the economy improves.

Russia's leaders and population are facing a number of long-term adverse trends, including inefficiency of the economy, insufficient quality of governance, pervasive corruption, fragility of demographic improvements, home-grown and transnational terrorism, instability in neighboring countries and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction But the existence of these long-term trends, confluence of some of which, if unaddressed, could eventually come to pose very serious challenges to the Russian statehood, is no excuse for misunderstanding or distorting the current realities in Russia. A sound policy toward any country begins with clear understanding of key facts that characterize it. When crafting policies toward Russia, U.S. and other Western leaders would do well by keeping that in mind.

PS See some of the graphs I have drawn using data from the World Bank to illustrate how wrong could be some of the claims on Russia here:
http://saradzhyan.livejournal.com/55589.html

#6
http://readrussia.com
November 15, 2015
Demographic Crisis, American Style
By Mark Adomanis
[Links here http://readrussia.com/2015/11/15/demographic-crisis-american-style/]

Angus Deaton has had himself a pretty darn good 2015. An economist at Princeton, Deaton won the Nobel Prize a little over a month ago. That, by itself, would be a signal accomplishment, a far more impressive achievement than even the best of economists could hope for. But he hasn't stopped there: he recently published an article that, by itself, could very well revolutionize American political discourse.

Deaton doesn't, at first glance, seem the most likely person to spark a political firestorm. A soften-spoken 70 year old Scotsman and career academic, to the extent that he has a reputation, Deaton's is as an extremely careful, thorough, and methodical empirical researcher. That might sound like faint praise or, even a bit redundant as a description for a professor (shouldn't we expect all of our economists to be detail oriented?) but the reality is that most economic models employ sweeping sets of assumptions in order to function. So, in great contrast to the output of famous economists like Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman, Denton's work has primarily focused on trying to understand what has happened in the world as opposed to what his models say should happen.

The paper in question, the one that has caused such an uproar, was co-written by Deaton with Anne Case, his wife and fellow Princeton professor. It has the somewhat unexciting title of "Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife Among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21St Century."

Although, by the standards of academic publications the paper, at just 6 pages, is extremely short, its findings are nothing less than earth shattering. In contrast to all other groups of the US population, and in even bigger contrast to recent experience in other industrialized countries, Deaton and Case discovered that since the mid 1990's middle-aged white Americans have seen their mortality rate increase substantially.

Even more startling was the cause of this mortality spike. Given recent trends in obesity, it would be natural to assume that Americans were being felled by the maladies that are most often associated with it: heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. As Deaton and Case showed, however, this was not actually the case. Over the past two decades diabetes mortality was essentially steady, while deaths from lung cancer decreased substantially.

Instead, white Americans were dying from a potent brew of social maladies including suicide, drug overdoses, and the chronic liver disease that is associated with alcoholism: they were killing themselves by drinking too much and taking massive amounts of opioid pain medicines. Most tragically of all, the mortality that was increasingly rampaging through the middle-aged white population was entirely preventable.  

If Deaton and Case's list of maladies sounds a bit familiar to Russia watchers it should: it is essentially the exact same social problems that wreaked such horrible havoc on working-age Russians during the 1990s economic collapse. America, where the ideas of equal opportunity, upward mobility, and social progress have long reigned supreme, and where Russia's experience during the 1990s is viewed with equal parts fascination and contempt, must suddenly deal with a new, and very ugly, reality in which a large section of its population is much less healthy than the preceding generation.

Now, just to be clear, the magnitude of the mortality crisis in America is (so far!) much less significant that was the case in Russia during the 90s. Deaton and Case's best proxy for excess deaths (the number of deaths that would not have occurred if the mortality rate among US Whites had stayed the same that it was in 1998) is in the range of 100,000. That is a significant, tragic number, one that should not be understated or minimized. But, as awful as it is, it is far smaller than the best estimates of Russia's excess mortality during the post-collapse years (which are somewhere between 1 and 2 million among a population less than half the size of America's).

Why do I think Deaton's article is so transformative? First because it so clearly puts the idea of "American exceptionalism" on the defensive. Particularly among the political elite, but also among a health section of the press corps, it is simply taken for granted that the US is an example for the rest of the world. At an absolute minimum, the huge deterioration in white Americans' health since the mid 1990's makes this position a bit more difficult to defend. It takes an awful lot to penetrate politicized discourses, but the facts are so ugly (and at such odds with the usually upbeat mainstream narrative) that a bit more humility and circumspection should be in order.

The second reason I think Deaton and Case's article is so important because, with any luck, it will substantially improve the quality of the public discourse about Russia. I know this is a personal concern more than it is an issue with genuinely mass appeal, but American Russian analysis has been badly distorted by the "dying nation" meme, the remarkably widespread idea that any country with an increasing mortality rate is an unimaginable, nightmarish hellscape. It might also get people to think a bit more critically about the issues plaguing Russians. Since white Americans are suffering from broadly similar, if muted, versions of the same maladies, I would suggest that they are unlikely to be directly related to "democracy" or "autocracy." As simple and obvious as that observation might be, there is a pervasive tendency to analyze Russia's mortality crisis through the lens of its unresponsive and hierarchical political system.

 

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#7
Subject: USRBC Russia Monthly Economic Review
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 09:05:00 -0500 (EST)
From: USRBC Updates <update@usrbc.org>

USRBC Russia Monthly Economic Review (US-Russia Business Council/www.usrbc.org)

We are pleased to present the first edition of USRBC's revamped monthly economic review series, offering a snapshot on the Russian economy and some insights into near-term developments. We welcome comments and suggestions in order to tailor this report to meet your needs. Below is an overview of the report, but to read the full edition, please click here >>

Russia Monthly Economic Review
November 2015
Overview

Russia's economic contraction is slowing and the downturn may have bottomed out in 3Q2015. The Purchasing Managers' Index for Manufacturing in October showed signs of tentative growth. That said, the economy's overall performance remains flat and the modest recovery projected for 2016 is likely to be sluggish.

    GDP Likely to Shrink by 4% This Year: Russia's economic contraction slowed to 3.8 percent in September after a 4.6 percent contraction in July and August. The economy shrank by 4.3 percent in 3Q15 after a 4.6 percent decline in 2Q15.
    YOY GDP Growth Unlikely To Exceed 1% Next Year: Falling oil prices and economic uncertainty in China have damped the Russian government's optimism. The Ministry of Economic Development has revised its 2015 economic forecast downward to a 3.9 percent contraction and downgraded its outlook for 2016 to 0.7 percent growth.
    Real GDP Growth More Likely In 2017: The consensus of private economists surveyed recently by Bloomberg was for the 2015 contraction to be about 4 percent and for economic stagnation through 2016.
    Sanctions Cut GDP Growth by 1%: The IMF estimated that Western sanctions would reduce Russia's economic growth by 1.0-1.5 percent in the near-term and 9 percent over the medium-term.
    Central Bank Not Ready For Interest Rate Cuts: The Central Bank declined to cut interest rates at its meeting on October 30 due to high inflation and inflation expectations.
    Ruble Volatility Continues: The ruble continues to be fairly volatile, tracking the swings in the price of oil as energy markets try to find equilibrium.
 

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 #8
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
November 16, 2015
How Sanctions Are Strengthening Russia's Financial System
Falling capital outflow suggests deleveraging is ending and with it dependence on Western financial markets
By Alexander Mercouris

As confidence grows that the Russian economy has turned the corner, the Russians have been taking an increasingly hard line on sanctions.

Economics Minister Ulyukaev has said - echoing what Putin's Chief of Staff Sergei Ivanov has also said - that Russia is not asking for the sanctions to be lifted. That is purely a decision for the Europeans.

More to the pont Ulyukaev twisted the knife a little but saying that the longer the sanctions remain in place the less effective they become.

That is true.

The major consequence of the sanctions - the only one that in economic terms matters - is that Russian companies have been unable to borrow in Western financial markets.

The result of that was that during the recession caused by the oil price fall Russian companies were unable to roll over their foreign debts, or increase their debts. Instead they were forced to go on paying them.

One important company - the airline company Transaero - which had over borrowed in Western financial markets - has been forced to close.

As I predicted a year ago, the government has however refused to bail out private companies like Transaero that have found themselves in this position - and neither it should it do so.

The great majority of companies have managed to pay their debts.

The result is that whereas the fall in oil prices would normally lead to a rise in the foreign currency debts of Russian companies, we have actually seen a sharp fall.

Total foreign debt has fallen by around a third, from $730 billion at the time sanctions were imposed in July 2014, to less than $500 billion now.

Meanwhile the sanctions are having a transformative effect on Russia's financial system.

Certain much needed technical steps have been taken.

An alternative interbank payment to SWIFT has been created. A Russian credit agency is being set up. MasterCard and Visa have been obliged to locate transfer hubs in Russia and an alternative Russian card system is being created.

Even more important, the sanctions are changing the financial situation inside Russia.

The sharp fall in indebtedness means that money is increasingly staying within Russia.  

The Central Bank says that total capital outflow will be only $70 billion this year (half the level of last year).  

The bulk of capital outflow - around $50 billion - took place in the first two quarters. It seems in the third quarter there was even a small capital inflow.

The fall in capital outflow is a result of the fall in the level of foreign debt.

What is called "capital outflow" in Russia's case is mostly debt payment.  

The popular image of rich Russians dashing for the exits with suitcases full of money is a myth. That did happen in Russia during the 1990s. However what was different about the crises of 2008 and 2014 is that such capital flight - which should not be confused with normal capital outflow - did not happen to any great degree.  

A lot of people converted their roubles into dollars. However they kept their money in Russia in dollar and euro accounts.

There will be more capital outflow in the last quarter as companies have to pay more foreign debts  during the traditional debt payment period at the end of the year.  However the fact the rate of capital outflow is declining is a further sign that the period of the economy's deleveraging on its foreign debt is drawing to a close.

What that means is that the Russian economy's long period of dependence on foreign capital is finally drawing to a close.  

Russian companies are awash with cash. Instead of having to use this cash to pay foreign debt, they will increasingly keep it in Russia.  Not only will that cause the rouble to strengthen, but it will cause the financial system to strengthen as well.

The Russian authorities meanwhile are taking more steps to strengthen the financial system.

The Russian banking system is seriously unbalanced.

At the top end it is heavily concentrated in a small number of giant largely state owned banks like VTB and Sberbank. These traditionally - and unsurprisingly - find it easier to work with big companies than medium sized or smaller ones.  

It is however precisely more medium sized and smaller companies that Russia needs.  

The trouble is that it is precisely the kind of banks needed to support such companies that Russia most lacks. Whilst Russia does have many private banks, not all of them are financially sound or well run.

Steps are now being taken to sort out this problem and to plug this gap.

Ever since Nabiullina was appointed Chairman, the Central Bank has been cleaning up the banking system by revoking the licences of weaker banks. Hopefully those that survive the cull will be better able to do their job properly.

At the same time the Russian Post is developing a project to offer the population banking services.

This was originally launched in 2013 as part of a plan to reorganise and increase the efficiency of the Russian Post, which has until recently been beset with problems.

If done intelligently this should however also provide Russians with a safe publicly owned banking service alongside VTB and Sberbank .

Since it would be a lot more decentralised than VTB and Sberbank are, it could  in time become - and is probably intended to become - something like the public banking service, which exists in Germany and which is a key provider of credit to the Mittelstand - the small and medium sized businesses that form the core of Germany's economy.

That is for the long term. In the nearer term the improving financial conditions in Russia make it less likely Russian companies will turn to European financial markets once sanctions are lifted to anything like the extent they did before.

Already European financial markets are worrying about a loss of international business. A report just issued frets that the City of London is losing out to New York and to the new financial centres in Asia.

For that the Europeans - and the British especially - have no-one to blame but themselves.  

Whilst Russian business is only a very small part of their business, using financial centres as weapons of economic warfare is a guaranteed way of harming their reputation. In Britain especially it contradicts the City's key principle: that it is always open for business.

As Ulyukaev says, the longer the sanctions remain, the less effective they become. Over time they will be so ineffective they will not matter any more.  

At that point there may even be some hard-bitten old siloviki in Russia who will say they have in fact done their work very well, and that they were imposed on the country just when they were most needed.

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 #9
Forbes.com
November 15, 2015
Russia Getting More Money From Asia As Sanctions Scare Europeans
By Kenneth Rapoza

Thank God for China.

The Chinese lead the roost of Asian companies that have been investing in the Russian economy since the Europeans have stepped back on account of Ukraine-inspired sanctions.  At this weekend's G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Vladimir Putin gave the Europeans a little jab in the ribcage when he touted the fact that Asia is now 90% of the foreign direct investment in Russia.

"Cooperation with Asian partners in attracting funds gains special relevance in the current situation," Putin told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 summit. "Approximately 90 percent of investments in the Russian market came from Asia this year," he said.

Russian banks and energy companies were sanctioned in July 2014. Many domestic companies have also been banned from obtaining euro credit from European banks, forcing them to take on Russian double digit yield instead, or abstain from credit. The sanctions were put in place due to Russian involvement in east Ukraine's separatist movements.

Putin can tout Asia, and China, all he wants. FDI in Russia has collapsed over the last several years, based on external sector statistics published the Russian Central Bank. Russian FDI, including equity, reinvestment, and foreign credit to Russian firms, went from $69.2 billion in 2013 to $22.8 billion in 2014. According to the latest stats on the Bank's website, Russian FDI was just $1.3 billion in the first quarter compared to $12.9 billion in the first quarter of 2014.

Russia's biggest European trading partner, The Netherlands, has cut its investment in Russia four-fold. In 2013, FDI from there was $5.7 billion and fell in 2014 to $1.23 billion. In the first quarter of this year, The Netherlands took $526 million out of Russia compared to inflows of nearly a billion dollars in the first quarter of 2014. Germany, Russia's second biggest European partner, put just $335 million to work in Russia in 2014, rising minimally to $349 in 2014. This is down from over $2.2 billion in 2012. Germany has come back somewhat when comparing first quarter 2014 to first quarter 2015.

China's FDI for the first quarter was just $159 million compared to Germany's $585 million in inflows. China inflows into Russia was $1.27 billion last year, making it Russia's biggest source of foreign capital. China's FDI into Russia is nearly double that of the United States.

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 #10
Russia Beyond the Headlines/Gazeta.ru
www.rbth.ru
November 16, 2015
Russians still buying American despite economic hardships
Despite economic sanctions and the crisis, U.S. companies are continuing to increase their presence in Russia. The cornerstone of American success is the inexpensive fast-food market, which has only grown more popular during the crisis.
AVEL CHERNYSHOV, GAZETA.RU

Companies from the United States are continuing their active expansion into the Russian market.

At the end of the period between the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2015, the share of U.S. brands accounted for 64 percent of the new outlets opened in Russia, according to a study carried out by the company Magazin Magazinov. The share of the United States' nearest rivals (Sweden and Spain) accounted for only 8 percent.

According to experts, 2015 saw a negative trend in Russia's retail sector for the first time - more international stores closed than opened (1,024 outlets closed and 991 opened).

However, this trend did not affect the Americans. Over the year, American brands closed down 165 outlets, but opened 364. Such brands as Carl's Junior, American Eagle Outfitters, Diane von Furstenberg and Wendy's left the market (although Carl's Junior, incidentally, announced its return to Yekaterinburg soon afterward).

However, they were replaced by a whole galaxy of new players. Dockers, Forever 21, Charley's Philly Steaks, Great American Cookies, Magnolia Bakery, Pretzelmaker, Schlotsky's, Twin Peaks, Crate & Barrel and others opened their doors in Russia for the first time.

As specified by Olga Yasko, director of the research department at Knight Frank (Russia and CIS), a total of 14 new American brands entered the Russian market during this period.

As noted in the study, the activity of foreign chains declined due to a sharp drop in retail turnover (minus 7.9 percent, the biggest drop since 1991) and the weakening of the national currency against the dollar.

Another obvious reason is the decline in real incomes of the population, which amounted to 3 percent. The chains hit hardest were those operating in the mid-price segment, which according to the study accounted for almost 90 percent of the outlets that have closed.

Political factors - worsening relations with the West, sanctions, the crisis in Ukraine - these all played their role as well. However, this did not hinder U.S. retailers from continuing to develop their presence on the Russian market.

The list of products that U.S. companies offer to the Russians is quite wide and includes luxury brands. For example, the world-famous jeweler Tiffany opened its first wholly owned retail store in Russia in 2014, though in August this year it announced that it had postponed the opening of a second outlet.

However, the most active is public catering, which, according to Russian analysts, was quite predictable - sales of cheap fast food always go up in times of crisis.

"Relatively high activity was seen in the American fast-food players - Dippin' Dots, Krispy Kreme, Nathan's Famous," said Valentin Gavrilov, director of market research at CBRE.

The top five brands that have shown the most activity consists solely of American fast-food chains (KFC, Burger King, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Baskin Robbins opened the most new outlets in Russia this year).

Burger King and KFC have also been active in continuing their expansion, opening outlets in seven and five new cities, respectively. This is despite the fact that in general, the number of outlets in the cities with a population of one million people has decreased by 15 percent compared to 2014.

"New players will continue to come and test the Russian market for interest in their products," said Gavrilov. "Entrance into the market is quite cheap now, as commercial conditions for tenants have improved significantly compared to the pre-crisis situation."

At the same time, according to Yulia Sitnikova, senior research consultant at Magazin Magazinov, U.S. retailers will maintain their presence in the market despite the political problems.

"It is unlikely that American brands will leave the market completely," she says.

"The Russian market is a big sales market, pretty well developed by them (for instance by restaurant chains). Perhaps, sanctions and complications in the international situation may affect the mood of retailers and somehow restrain their expansion. But they will not by any means exit from the market."

Given current trends, street food and cheap clothes will retain the best positions.

"Most likely, fast-food chains will continue to grow," Gavrilov says.

"As for fashion-retail, development plans will be mostly in the low-price segment brands. The rest are likely to maintain quite a conservative policy of waiting for the stabilization of the population's incomes and retail turnover."

First published in Russian by Gazeta.ru

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 #11
Bloomberg
November 13, 2015
Half of Russia's Richest People Are Planning to Cash Out
By Alexander Sazonov
[Charts here http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-13/putin-s-gilded-cage-russia-s-rich-are-facing-cash-out-conundrum]

It's been a quarter century since the fall of the Soviet empire triggered one of history's greatest wealth transfers. Now bankers are preparing for another as Russia's first generation of capitalists makes way for the next.

Confidential surveys of dozens of millionaires and billionaires conducted since European and U.S. economic sanctions began last year show Russia's wealthy are finding little support within the country's legal framework to pass down businesses. A majority say they're taking the issue of succession seriously for the first time.

"Owners of major enterprises are basically hostages," said Alena Ledeneva, a professor of politics at University College London, who has studied the workings of power networks in Russia for two decades. "They can suggest their kids as hostages to take their place, but only Putin's system will decide whether to incorporate them or not."

Family Dynasties

The result could be a surge in transactions for Russian businesses in coming years, according to Phoenix Advisors, a Moscow-based investment firm that helps entrepreneurs navigate succession and transition planning challenges.

Half of the respondents to a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP study released in 2014 said they plan to sell their holdings, more than double the global average. More than half the respondents to a survey from the Moscow Skolkovo School of Management Wealth Transformation Centre that was released in February believe that "large Russian companies will not become family dynasties."

The PwC study surveyed 2,484 executives and directors in 40 countries, including 57 in Russia. The Skolkovo survey surveyed 39 Russian business leaders. The center is based in a tech and educational hub in Moscow championed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and supported by billionaires Viktor Vekselberg, Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov and Petr Aven, who are part of its affiliated experts group.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn't respond to requests for comment.

Expensive Problem

For the country's richest people it's a pricey problem. The 22 Russians on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index daily ranking of the world's 400 wealthiest people control about $200 billion combined and more than half of that -- $115 billion -- is tied up in closely held or publicly traded companies operating in Russia.

The problem they face is one that's unique to the country's particular brand of capitalism. Russia's tradition of dynastic wealth ended when the Bolsheviks swept to power a century ago, and the post-Soviet economy that has been shaped under Putin favors cultivated personal relationships and a mastery of rules that are for the most part unwritten.

Power Ties

"The combination of an aging generation of entrepreneurs with the tendency to exit rather than pass on to the family is a specific characteristic of the Russian market," said Ilya Solarev from UBS Wealth Management, which manages nearly $500 billion for high net worth individuals.

As a result, the vast majority of wealthy Russians have had to nurture ties to people with various kinds of power -- from lawmakers and tax officials to regulators and other owners -- for years and even decades. This creates a form of "intangible capital" that can't be "automatically transferred to the next generation," the Skolkovo center said.

"The most important thing is law enforcement," one respondent is cited as saying in the survey. "Why earn another billion if the first one will be seized?"
Contrast that with the rest of the world, where the rich have long benefited from legal structures that safeguard the transfer of wealth between generations.

In the U.S., people have used the ever-growing sophistication of the legal system to safeguard the transfer of wealth between generations for decades. Sam Walton, for example, handed ownership of Wal-Mart to his four children in the 1950s, creating the world's largest family fortune. His offspring use charitable annuity trusts to maintain control of the retailer through a family investment vehicle.

One-third of the 400 billionaires on the Bloomberg index inherited the fortunes they control. A quarter of the 125 billionaires from the U.S. in the ranking inherited their wealth while half of Europe's 106 biggest fortunes were passed down at least one generation.

With little of the legal framework in place to protect their assets, at least two wealthy Russian businessmen are attempting to pass their hard-won aristocracy to an heir, including Andrey Guryev, who is currently the only billionaire among the country's richest who has appointed a child as chief executive of his core business.

Political Consequences

A former partner of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man, Guryev helped expand Phosagro OAO into Europe's largest maker of phosphate fertilizers, and did so while sitting in the upper house of parliament for more than a decade.

Guryev controls a fortune valued at $4.5 billion. Khodorkovsky, the former main owner of Yukos Oil Co., was convicted of tax evasion, money laundering and oil embezzlement in 2005. He has maintained his innocence, saying the charges against him were retribution for financing political parties that opposed Putin, an allegation the government denies. He spent a decade in prison and now lives in exile in Switzerland.

Guryev declined to comment. Olga Pispanen, a spokeswoman for Khodorkovsky, said he declined to comment.

Passing Control

Guryev quit politics in 2013 as a series of measures designed to force officials to repatriate overseas assets was being debated and passed control of his London-listed company to his son, Andrey Guryev Jr., appointing him to be its chief executive officer. To ensure a smooth transition, Guryev, 55, became deputy chairman to oversee the company's strategy.

"I talk with my father very often," Guryev Jr., 33, who graduated from University of Greenwich in London, said in an interview. "It would be difficult for me if he didn't supervise the company's management."

David Yakobachvili is taking a similar approach. The 58-year-old businessman sold a majority stake he held with three partners in juice producer Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods to PepsiCo in 2010 for $3.8 billion. His son, Mikhail, moved back to Moscow after graduating from New York University last year to learn the nuances of investing from his dad.

Real Life

"The university of real life is the most useful," Yakobachvili said. "The more my son sees, the better."

He said his son helped negotiate the sale of 49 percent of his energy company, Petrocas Energy Group, to state-run Rosneft for $144 million last December.

"I am looking at how my father talks with other people," Mikhail Yakobachvili said at the family's headquarters, where the pair have neighboring offices.

This attempt at a succession strategy is out of step with most moneyed Russians. When asked to identify the critical challenges to their businesses, 61 percent of owners cited "government and regulation," almost double the average in PwC's survey. Limiting property rights is a defining characteristics of "Putin's system," according to University College London's Ledeneva.

There are some 60,000 business owners who will grapple with the transfer dilemma over the next several years, according to Ruben Vardanyan, chairman of the expert council for the Skolkovo center. Vardanyan, who sold Troika Dialog investment bank to state-run Sberbank for more than $1 billion in 2011, created Phoenix Advisors this year to help entrepreneurs navigate ownership changes.

"Few Russian business owners are thinking of transferring their assets to the next generation, so selling is on their agenda," Phoenix Advisors Managing Director Alexey Stankevich said. "We expect this to trigger a surge in M&A."

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 #12
Russia stands for adopting legally binding agreement at climate change conference

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/. Moscow stands for adopting at a climate change conference in Paris of a legally binding agreement for a period after the year 2020, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.

"Russia considers the forthcoming 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP11) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol due to be held in Paris on November 30-December 11 as an international event of milestone importance, which is to outline prospects for sustainable development on our planet," the ministry said. "We stand for adopting a comprehensive legally binding agreement for a period after 2020 that would pool efforts of all countries, first of all, key greenhouse gas issuers, and would be a solid basis for a lasting climatic regime balanced in all its aspects, both ecological, economic and political."

Russia "has been considerably contributing to international efforts to prevent climate change," the ministry said. "We have exceeded the target of the first period of liabilities under the Kyoto Protocol - we have been keeping greenhouse gas emissions at a level that is by a third lower than the basic figure of 1990 for two decades. It compensates for emission growths in other countries and regions of the globe. Thus, emissions from Russia's energy sector have reduced by 37% in the past twenty years, which equals to the five-years' emissions of all European Union states and the United States' emissions in three years."

"Moreover, Russia's GDP has growth by almost 80% in the past 15 years while greenhouse emissions growth, thanks to modernization and regulation, is only 12% It refutes allegations that Russia is only reaping the fruits of the economic slump of the 1990s," the ministry stressed.

Being a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, over its second period, "Russia will continue to implement all of its liabilities, except quantitative [taking into account its potential signatories, Kyoto Protocol-2 embraces only 13-14% of the entire global greenhouse gas emission, which makes it impossible to solve the climate problem]," the ministry stressed.

Moscow supports the steps of the international community to mobilize financial assistance and technology transfer on climate-related purposes to developing countries. "It is a guarantee of invigoration of their own efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change," the foreign ministry said. "In this context, we attach greater significance to decisions on the financial and technological block of issues, adopted at the climate conferences in Copenhagen, Warsaw and Lima, including measures on the Green Climate Fund."

Legal Framework in Russia

Russia is pursuing a consistent policy towards reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. "Russia has adopted a Climate Doctrine and a comprehensive action plan on its implementation. The normative base includes the presidential decree on measures to enhance energy and ecological efficiency of the Russian economy, the federal law on energy saving, Russia's Energy Strategy for a period till 2030, the presidential decree on reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of September 30, 2013 and the Russian government's resolution on its implementation of April 2, 2014," the ministry noted. "All these measures are called to ensure cumulative reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in a volume of more than 30 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2020."

"Russian was among the first UNFCCC signatory parties to announce in March 2015 parameters of its possible liabilities for the post-Kyoto period, namely reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions at a level of 70-75% of the 1990 emissions by the year 2030, given the absorbing capacity of forests is maximally taken into account," the ministry added.

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 #13
Center for Global Interests
http://globalinterests.org
November 10, 2015
Paris Climate Talks Should Include Russia's Lake Baikal
Preserving the Lake Baikal ecosystem is a matter of regional security that must be addressed at the international and grassroots levels
By James Neimeister
James Neimeister is a freelance writer and journalist. He was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Russia from 2013 to 2014.

Following this year's unnaturally dry summer, wildfires of an intensity not seen in decades have roared across the shores of Russia's Lake Baikal. At their peak, they raged across nearly 150,000 hectares of land, an area roughly equivalent to that of the Houston metropolitan area. Greenpeace Russia estimates that over the course of July and August alone, up to 1.5 million hectares burned - that is, over 5.5 thousand square miles.

The image of Siberia burning is deeply unsettling, especially given its reputation as one of the coldest places on earth. Though wildfires in the region occur each year, their recent size and severity reveal broad ecological stress in the region. Of equal concern is Lake Baikal's declining water level, which in early 2015 dropped below critical levels for the first time in more than three decades.

As one of the world's most unique and precious natural wonders, the Lake Baikal ecosystem must be protected as a matter of global obligation. The lake also holds up to 20 percent of the world's unfrozen freshwater reserves, making its long-term security a lynchpin of regional and global stability. But as various competing interests line up to stake their claims to Baikal's resources, securing an equitable future for Baikal and the life it sustains will require international cooperation. After all, nearly half of the Baikal watershed is located in Mongolia.

There are several ways the international community can be involved in protecting the Lake Baikal ecosystem. First, the international community must urge the Russian and Mongolian governments to take their ecological responsibilities seriously. Second, it must make considerable investments in scientific cooperation. Finally, the international community must ensure that Lake Baikal will be a topic of discussion at this year's United Nations Conference on Climate Change (Paris Climate Talks for short), which begin November 30 and where world leaders are expected to make their boldest commitments to new sustainable development goals to date.

Shallow waters mark deepening troubles

Lake Baikal's dipping water levels first came to the world's attention in early 2015, when several major news outlets picked up the story that the water level had reached the designated "critical" 456 meters above sea level. The water level dropped lower in March, to 455.92 meters, a figure not seen since 1982.

Several factors have contributed to this decline in water levels, but few more so than the surrounding region's dependence on hydroelectric power. The four hydroelectric stations situated on the Angara River, the only river flowing out from Lake Baikal, generate 70 percent of the electricity for residents living on the lake's Western shores. Energy demand has kept water flowing through the Irkutsk station's turbines at a constant rate, even as the leadership of the neighboring Republic of Buryatia, on Baikal's Eastern shore, called on hydroelectric companies to stymie the flow of water out of the lake.

Of even greater concern is the potential fallout from a proposed dam system to be built on the Selenga River in Mongolia. The Selenga supplies up to 50 percent of Lake Baikal's water supply and is vital to various species of endemic wildlife. Damming the Selenga would further restrict the flow of water to Baikal and displace many unique varieties of species, such as the Baikal Omul, that only spawn in this specific delta. Preliminary research also suggests that the flow of water from the Selenga is what keeps the deepest parts of the lake oxygenated and clean. Marianne Moore, an environmental scientist and biology professor at Wellesley College, urged caution about the proposed project, noting that "If those dams are constructed... that could affect deep water ventilation" with potentially disastrous consequences. Both Baikal and the Selenga Delta are listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites due to the biodiversity they sustain. As Anson Mackay, a scientific researcher and professor at University College London emphasized, "75 percent of the life that lives there lives nowhere else." Disrupting these ecosystems would be inadmissible.

Industrial activity in the region has also taken its toll. Both Moore and Mackay point to mining operations in the region that may be polluting Lake Baikal with heavy metals, such as mercury. Additionally, tourist operations along the lake's shores lack proper sewage systems, dumping waste directly into the lake. This, according to Moore, is the primary culprit behind the invasive algae spirogyra that has recently flourished in the lake's shallow coasts. Oleg Tymoskhin, a senior researcher at the Baikal Liminological Institute who has been studying the "disgusting black slime" that is now washing up on Baikal's shores because of a mysterious sponge disease, told the Siberian Times that the human factor is largely to blame.

The recent wildfires could multiply the many issues the Lake Baikal ecosystem already faces. For one, there will be less forested area to capture and filter water into the lake and smaller habitats for forest-dwelling creatures. Svetlana Budashkaeva, who helped organize and coordinate volunteer firefighters through the group SoS Buryatia, gave a vivid example of the wildfires' early effects by pointing to what is currently happening to the bear population:
"They have been running from flames instead of storing fat for the winter; they're raiding villages," she said. "The locals have no other choice but to shoot them. And even if they didn't, they would die from starvation." According to the volunteer firefighter Solbon Sanzhiev, not only has the bear population suffered, but "as we got closer to the fires, you could see the birds and lizards escaping the flames." The effects of this depopulation promise to ripple throughout the food chain.

This encapsulates one of the more disturbing elements of climate change and prolonged anthropogenic stress on the biosphere: failure to act inevitably condemns plants, animals, and even human beings to desperation and death. By the time the consequences of inaction become abundantly clear, it is often already too late to act.

Responding to wildfires on the ground

Despite the dire consequences of inaction, local policymakers in Russia are often slow to address environmental issues. For one thing, they lack the knowledge and tools necessary to decipher environmental problems and the many layers of causation which bring them about. For another, when immediate threats such as wildfires arise, there are scarce resources to allocate towards putting them out. Local policymakers tend to drag their feet and often downplay the size of the wildfires in hopes of rain or intervention from the federal government. Such hesitation only allows wildfires to grow and spread.

This was certainly the case with this year's wildfires, as the Federal Ministry of Emergency Situations and civil society organizations stepped in to respond where regional authorities could and did not. Even then, Minister of Emergency Services Vladimir Puchkov promised to have the wildfires "liquidated" within two and a half days after arriving in Siberia. When that did not occur, his statement was promptly removed from the Internet.

Volunteer organizations ultimately provided crucial support on the ground. Svetlana Budashkaeva of SoS Buryatia said that "the situation is such that even the federal services lack proper equipment." In addition to sending their own volunteers to help put out forest and peat fires, "we helped feed emergency workers, clothe them, and do their laundry." Some 400 people donated funds and essential supplies to send to firefighters in the region through the group, Budashkaeva said. Their group has also stood alone in its efforts to put out peat fires, which have been particularly bad in the region this year since the lower water levels caused bogs and wetlands to dry out and catch fire.

However, within days of forming their group, the organizers of SoS Buryatia were contacted by officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs on suspicions of "fraud." Though there was no further investigation (fortunately the group's leadership includes several well-known local personalities), this more or less exemplifies local authorities' skepticism towards grassroots initiatives in the current, post-sanctions political environment characterized by heightened paranoia and siege mentality. There is no small irony to it either, as Budashkaeva said: "personally, I support working within the system... planning protests or actions might attract attention in the short-term, but to create qualitative change we must work with the system we have."

The story of SoS Buryatia raises an important question for the role of the international community in protecting Lake Baikal. How should the international community cooperate with partners in Russia in an atmosphere where any outside influence, no matter how interested in the common good, is viewed with distrust and even outright hostility?

Towards an international response: helping to balance competing interests

Citizens, local authorities, businesses, civic organizations, and national governments all have a role to play in protecting Lake Baikal, but each actor has competing interests and varied levels of responsibility. A prudent approach to securing Baikal's future would first encourage Russia and Mongolia to reconsider damming the Selenga River and stop pollution. After addressing the immediate threats to the lake's ecosystem, the international community should focus on promoting avenues for scientific cooperation and ensuring that Lake Baikal is a topic of discussion at the Paris Climate Talks.

According to Marianne Moore, the Selenga River dam, benthic eutrophication (the scientific cause for algae growth), and sponge problems are the most serious immediate problems facing the lake. To address these threats, the United States and the European Union should use their significant leverage with the Mongolian government and the World Bank to propose a renewable alternative to current plans to dam the most important source of water for Lake Baikal.

Regarding the growth of algae and spread of sponge diseases, Marianne Moore explains that the problem has to do with a lack of accountability. Cities, towns, and tourist operations on Baikal's shores lack proper sewage treatment facilities, and local authorities lack the resources and motivation to enforce regulations. When outside forces press change on Russia, they are often met with considerable pushback and accusations of hypocrisy. Therefore, tackling the dam issue at the national level while supporting grassroots-level calls for more accountability would be an effective strategy to secure Lake Baikal's ecosystem in the immediate present.

Scientific research initiatives are invaluable avenues for promoting long-term international cooperation while simultaneously addressing threats to Lake Baikal's ecosystem. During the 1990s, international scientific cooperation had a considerable effect on present-day climate research. As Anson Mackay shared, "Baikal brought together lots of people, stimulating a whole field of paleoclimate research in lakes, and it helped develop the technology... It was massively influential." However, funding for research and monitoring efforts in Lake Baikal has largely dried up. Restoring such programs and cooperating on conservation efforts would contribute to securing not only Lake Baikal's future, but the future of other environmentally critical areas.

Finally, in the context of multiple international conflicts dividing Russia and the West, it is all too easy to lay aside seemingly peripheral issues like Lake Baikal. However, it is worth remembering that the Syrian crisis was precipitated by widespread drought and massive spikes in food prices. In the long term, preventing future resource conflicts will prove to be a prudent and proactive security policy. The upcoming Paris Climate Talks are an opportunity for world leaders to make environmental commitments towards this goal. As one of the world's oldest lakes, home to a unique ecosystem currently threatened by negligent human action, it is imperative that Lake Baikal be a part of the conversation.

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 #14
RFE/RL
November 15, 2015
Putin's Pioneers: Push For Russian Youth League Stirs Debate, Doubt
by Andrei Shary

As a youth growing up in Leningrad in the 1960s, Vladimir Putin was one of the few children in his school class who was not a member of the Soviet Young Pioneers. Now he seems determined not to let future generations of Russian children face such a fate.
 
On October 29, the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Soviet Komsomol youth organization, Putin signed an executive order on the creation of a national "public-state children's-youth organization" under the name the Russian Movement of Schoolchildren.
 
The vague decree seems to fit into a pattern of restoring Soviet-era social regimentation that Putin's government has pursued in recent years. However, it remains unclear to what extent the new organization can resurrect Soviet models.

"You can be nostalgic about such things, but it's impossible to restore the past," says Aleksandr Adamsky, head of the Evrika education-policy institute in Moscow. "Our life has completely changed and children are completely different. You can force children to study in school and you can force them to participate in after-school groups -- although I can hardly imagine how this could be done! -- but you have to have something to attract them."
 
Under the Soviet system, the ruling Communist Party created a ladder of organizations for children, beginning with the Little Octobrists, informal groups in which children aged 7 to 9 prepared to become Young Pioneers. The Pioneers -- officially called the All-Union Pioneer Organization Named For Vladimir Lenin -- was created in 1922 for children aged 10 to 15. Taking the official Pioneer oath, the children promised "to passionately love my fatherland and to cherish it as well as I can, to live, study, and fight as the Great Lenin instructed, as the Communist Party teaches me, and always to carry out the laws of the Pioneers of the Soviet Union."

At its peak, the Pioneers counted 25 million members in 118,000 chapter groups. The organization ran 40,000 summer camps that hosted 10 million children annually.
 
Next came the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, or Komsomol, which, although formally independent, was considered "the helper and the reserve" of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- the only legal party and the one that ruled the country. It was for people aged 15 to 28. It was considered a pathway to Communist Party membership and -- since only a minority of Soviet citizens were in the party -- had a much smaller membership than the Pioneers, which was nearly universal.
 
Education specialist Adamsky is skeptical that Putin's decree will result in anything as massive and universal as what was seen in communist times. He says those who pushed for the decree don't agree among themselves as to the "values" the new organization should promote and an ambiguous organization will be unable to attract a mass membership.
 
"And that's not even considering resources," he adds. "To create such an organization covering the entire country would demand enormous sums [of money]. Remember the enormous resources that were poured into the Pioneer organizations, beginning with the Pioneer Palaces and ending with the Pioneer camps. And I'm not just talking about [prominent national camps like] Artek or Orlyonok. There were such camps in every oblast."

Mikhail Barannikov, on the other hand, is heartened by the decree. Barannikov is the editor of the children's newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda, the heir to the official Soviet-era organ of the Pioneer movement.

Barannikov recalls how his newspaper hosted a meeting in 2005 with Lyudmila Shvetsova, who headed the Soviet Pioneer movement in the 1980s.
 
"The children asked her what she thinks about the creation of a single public organization for children in the country," Barannikov recalls. "Shvetsova said, 'It isn't time yet.'"
 
"But now the conditions are right for uniting the public movement for children into one big organization," Barannikov adds. "Naturally, it won't be the same organization that existed in Soviet times."
 
Barannikov remembers his own days as a Pioneer and a Komsomol member as "a very good, nice, and positive experience."
 
He says he hopes Putin's new organization will be based on "children's desire to do good things for the organization and their country" and on "the struggle for good and for justice."
 
"Of course, today's youth organizations -- unlike the Komsomol -- didn't build the Baikal-Amur Mainline railway or the Magnitigorsk steelworks, but in Russia even now there are young people who are ready to come together for the sake of good, necessary, and useful projects," Barannikov adds.
 
He sees the new youth organization as only the beginning.
 
"The all-Russia children's organization will be something useful and necessary for society," he says. "But in creating such a children's organization, you must understand that children grow up. In the Soviet Union, there was a definite vertical: A child first became a Young Octobrist, then a Pioneer, then he joined the Komsomol, and then they entered the adult world. Now we need to define what will happen to a child when he grows out of his membership in the new organization."

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 #15
Forbes.com
November 13, 2015
U.S. Clobbers Russia In Asking Facebook For User Info
By Kenneth Rapoza

If you want to know just how bad censorship of the internet is in Russia, you'll have to ask the owners the country's biggest social network Vkontakte and not Facebook. Based on Facebook's Government Requests Report, released on Friday, Russian authorities asked Facebook only once between January and June 2015.

By comparison, U.S. law enforcement reached out to Facebook 17,577 times, leading the company to look into the accounts of 26,579 users. Roughly 80% of the time, user data was turned over to authorities for further review or as evidence in police or official investigations.

When governments believe something on Facebook violates their laws, they contact social media and other web-based entities and ask them to restrict user access to specific content. Facebook says that whenever it receives a request, it is scrutinized to determine if the specified content does indeed violate local laws. If they determine that it does, then Facebook makes it unavailable in the relevant country or territory.

For example, Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany so if a user is posting content on that topic to their personal webpage, it can be washed by Facebook under German law.

Russia has 28 restrictions on its books, while the U.S. has none. But despite those restrictions, the majority of the locals are okay with internet censorship, according to polls.

Check this out on Russian netizens:

The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), said that 49% of respondents supported censorship of the interwebs. Some 42% of Russians are online junkies while another 38% are say they're never plugged in.

Seventy-three percent of respondents said "negative information" about state employees should not be published on the internet (read: government officials, as in Vladimir Putin), while 42% said that foreign governments were using the web as a means to sell propaganda to Russians. Forty-five percent said they support the idea of blocking the websites of foreign media outlets.

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 #16
Wall Street Journal
November 16, 2015
Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin Agree on General Path for Syria, U.S. Officials Say
Obama also 'noted the importance of Russia's military efforts in Syria,' officials add
By CAROL E. LEE

ANTALYA, Turkey-President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on a broad process for achieving a political resolution to the civil war in Syria, White House officials said.

Mr. Obama also "noted the importance of Russia's military efforts in Syria" focusing on Islamic State, a White House official said. The tone is a change from the U.S. position that Russia's airstrikes in Syria are "counterproductive" because they have focused broadly on any opponents of the Assad regime, rather than narrowly on Islamic State.

The shift comes as Mr. Obama is seeking to intensify the international military approach to Islamic State and mount a response to Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris.

The 35-minute meeting between Messrs. Obama and Putin took place during the Group of 20 summit in Turkey, where the crisis in Syria had dominated the discussions. It was the first time they have spoken since Russia began airstrikes in Syria in September.

The leaders "noted diplomatic progress" on a political transition in Syria, citing the outlines of a plan that was agreed to Saturday in Vienna.

"Specifically, President Obama and President Putin agreed on the need for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition, which would be proceeded by U.N.-mediated negotiations between the Syrian opposition and regime as well a cease fire. as the diplomacy continues," the White House official said.

Mr. Obama also expressed his condolences for the downed Russian passenger jet in Egypt, which killed 224 people. A bomb suspected to have been planted on the plane by Islamic State is believed to have caused the crash

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 #17
Bloomberg
November 15, 2015
Putin Goes From G-20 Pariah to Player at Obama Turkey Talk
By Ilya Arkhipov

The sidelines of summits are full of talks between leaders, their ministers and aides, but the huddle between Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 in Turkey Sunday was heavy with significance.

The meeting on Syria lasting more than 30 minutes was the first since the Russian president surprised his American counterpart in September by sending in his warplanes to prop up Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader the U.S. wants deposed. Since then, Islamist terrorism has taken over the global agenda and provided common purpose.

"We have all seen the horror that took place recently in Paris and we sympathize with the affected people," Putin said in the Turkish coastal resort of Antalya before he met with Obama. "We are always in favor of joining efforts to deal effectively with the terrorist threat. Of course it is necessary to act in strict accordance with the United Nations charter."

After leaving last year's G-20 summit in Brisbane early following a berating from world leaders over stoking conflict in Ukraine, Putin arrived in Turkey with a narrative of collaboration over his vision for ending the Syrian war and tackling terrorism. His deputy foreign minister overseeing U.S. relations talked earlier on Sunday of how the atrocity in Paris can shift priorities in Washington, while another Russian official said ties with the west already have strengthened in recent days.

Russian Military

Since Putin and Obama last met, militants linked to Islamic State have bombed Ankara and Beirut and were blamed for downing a Russian passenger jet. In multiple attacks in Paris on Friday evening, they slaughtered 129 people.

Obama welcomed efforts by all nations to confront Islamic State and noted the importance of Russia's military efforts in Syria focusing on the group, a White House official said after the meeting with Putin. Both leaders endorsed a plan for a political transition in Syria forged by diplomats in Vienna Saturday who were galvanized by the Paris attacks into reaching a deal.

Both the U.S. and Russia are increasing their military activity in Syria, raising concerns the war may morph into a proxy fight between the two powers reminiscent of Cold War conflicts. Putin's intervention shifted the balance of power, forcing the Obama administration to reassess its strategy of supporting Syrian opposition fighters who are battling Islamic State and Assad's military.

In their talks, Obama and Putin agreed on the need for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition, which would be preceded by UN-mediated negotiations between the Syrian opposition and regime as well a ceasefire, according to the White House official. The international meeting in Vienna on Friday yielded agreement on a Jan. 1 deadline for talks to start between Assad and his opponents.

Still, core disagreement over the Russian support for Assad remains. While the two leaders agree on the strategic goal of combating Islamic State, they differ on the tactics, Putin's foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, said Sunday, according to state news service RIA Novosti.

Assad's Future

When Putin met Obama at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, he discussed with his U.S. counterpart whether there is a candidate to replace Assad. Obama didn't have an answer, further bolstering the Russian leader's resolve to back Assad, according to two people who heard Putin's personal account of the meeting.

The rise of Islamic State has become a defining foreign policy challenge for both Putin and Obama. An Islamic State affiliate claimed it blew up a Russian airliner that crashed in Egypt on Oct. 31, killing 224. The group has beheaded Americans and continues to take territory and recruit fighters despite daily airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition.

The Paris killings have raised the stakes further.

Speaking at the G-20 summit as the attacks overshadowed scheduled meetings on the economy and trade, European Union President Donald Tusk said Russia should focus its force more on jihadists.

A dinner of leaders in Antalya took place later on Sunday with terrorism, the Syrian war and refugees the official topics of conversation. Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser, underscored the new tone with a Russian official.

He'd left a gift bag behind after the meeting, and it was handed to the U.S. by the Turkish organizers. "Normally, we would steal this," she laughed. She returned it "in the interests of mutual cooperation."

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 #18
Reuters
November 15, 2015
U.S.-Russia cooperation key to fighting Islamic State in Syria: EU
By Jan Strupczewski and Lidia Kelly

BELEK, Turkey (Reuters) - The United States and Russia must cooperate in fighting Islamic State in Syria, the president of the European Council said on Sunday, stressing Russia should focus its military actions there on the radical Islamists and not the Syrian opposition.

At a news conference on the sidelines of a summit of world leaders in the Turkish coastal province of Antalya, Donald Tusk said that Russian bombing of President Bashar al-Assad's opponents was only increasing the wave of refugees to Europe.

"It should be our common aim to coordinate our actions against Daesh and for sure the cooperation between the United States and Russia is a crucial one," Tusk said, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

"But we need not only more cooperation, but also more good will, especially from Russian action on the ground in Syria. It must be focused more on Islamic State and not - because we cannot accept it - against the moderate Syrian opposition," Tusk said.

Europe is facing an inflow of 1 million refugees from the Middle East and Africa this year alone as a result of the Syrian conflict, which pits the forces of Islamic State, Assad and the Syrian opposition against each other.

Russia joined the conflict a month and a half ago with air strikes in Syria, but has been targeting mainly areas controlled by forces opposed to its long-term ally Assad, rather than by Islamic State.

"We have no doubt that from actions against the Syrian opposition the only result will be a new wave of refugees and we have started seeing that, in fact it has started," Tusk said.

"This is why the cooperation between Russia and other countries, especially the United States, is so important also in this context of the refugee crisis," he said.

Russia, the United States and powers from Europe and the Middle East outlined a plan on Saturday for a political process in Syria leading to elections within two years, a day after gunmen and suicide bombers from Islamic State went on a rampage through Paris, killing 129 people.

Tusk said that after attacks in Paris, the G20 had to step up efforts to cut off financing to terrorists.

"Terror networks cannot plan or operate without the money that moves through the financial systems of many countries. Only if we fully cooperate on exchange of information about suspicious transactions, will we be able to stop this threat effectively," Tusk said.

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 #19
U.S., West begin to understand intl problems cannot be resolved without Russia - Matviyenko

MOSCOW. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The United States and the European Union are beginning to realize the impossibility to disregard the Russian standpoint on world problems, Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko has said.

"They are beginning to understand both in Europe and in the United States that the efficient resolution of any international problems is impossible without the participation of Russia," Matviyenko said in an interview published by the newspaper Izvestia on Monday.

In her words, the events in Ukraine and Syria and the need to coordinate efforts in the fight against international terrorism are the best proof of that.

Concerning the forthcoming presidential election in the United States, the Federation Council chairperson said that, "irrespective of who, either a republican or a democrat, wins, the understanding that they cannot try to stalemate Russia and it is impossible to disregard our standpoint on every complex international affair will be rising."

"It just seems it is already hard for the incumbent U.S. president to make any drastic change. Time will show whether our relations will become warmer and better. But I am confident that the pointless confrontation will not escalate," Matviyenko said.

The fact that there are candidates in the United States openly declaring their wish to be friends with Russia "reflects the opinion of certain U.S. population strata" because "neither candidate will express one's personal view unless it is shared by his voters to one degree or another," the chairperson of the Russian parliament's upper house said.

Many severed relations between Russian and Western military and diplomatic agencies are now being restored, and interaction between our countries is growing, she said.

"So, the first step has been made to resolve the communication impasse. We call for the soonest abandonment of any mutual claims and for beginning to listen to and understand positions of each other," she added.

"It is an illegal and, most importantly, unpromising way to pressure Russia and to achieve a modification of our principled position by sanctions. The West is slowly beginning to realize that. There are rather many sober-minded people there, in particular, amongst politicians and diplomats. The number of those wishing to resolve disputable issues in dialogue, personal communication is especially large amongst parliamentarians," Matviyenko said.

In her opinion, "the cooling period will come to an end and common sense will win. This process is already underway."

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#20
Lowy Interpreter
November 13, 2015
www.lowyinterpreter.org
Russia's Syria operation reveals significant improvement in military capability
By Dmitry Gorenburg
Dmitry Gorenburg is a senior research scientist in the Strategic Studies division of CNA, a not-for-profit research and analysis organization, where he has worked since 2000. In addition to his work at CNA, Dr. Gorenburg is the editor of the journals Problems of Post-Communism and Russian Politics and Law and an associate at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Although relatively small in scale, Russia's military operation in Syria has highlighted some major improvements in Russian military capabilities.

Compared to the 2008 Georgia War, which was the last time the Russian Air Force operated in a combat environment, the Russian military appears to have made great strides in increasing operational tempo and improving inter-service integration. It has also made significant advances in its ability to carry out expeditionary operations and showcased its recently developed stand-off strike capability.

The initial air strike campaign successfully targeted weapons and equipment depots that opposition forces had captured from government forces earlier in the conflict. Once these targets were eliminated, Russian air forces then coordinated with Syrian and Iranian forces conducting ground operations against opposition forces in the northwestern part of the country.

The operation has highlighted advances in Russian weaponry, but also the limitations of these new capabilities. During this operation, Russian aircraft have used precision-guided munitions (PGMs) in combat for the first time. But only about 20% of strikes have used such modern weaponry, while the rest have been carried out with older unguided bombs. The operation has allowed the Russian air force to test its new capabilities, including both PGMs and the ability to carry out nighttime sorties, and to highlight their existence to potential opponents.

At the same time, the Russian military has sought to limit the amount of new weapons expended because these munitions are expensive when compared to unguided bombs and because the air force has limited quantities of PGMs in its arsenal and does not want to expend them on targets where the use of such weapons is not necessary.

A similar calculus was evident in the land-attack cruise missile strikes against Syrian targets launched from relatively small missile ships in the Caspian Sea, which were primarily intended as a demonstration of this capability to potential opponents. They were not necessary for the success of the operation, which could have been carried out perfectly well by Russian aircraft already present in Syria. The real goal was to show military planners in NATO member states and Russia's other neighbours that Russia could threaten targets in their countries from ships that could not easily be destroyed by enemy forces.

The operational tempo of Russian air operations in Syria has been quite high, with an average of 45 sorties per day in October carried out by a total of 34 fixed-wing aircraft and 16 helicopters. Furthermore, the pace of the operations increased over time, rising from approximately 20 sorties per day at the start of the operation to around 60 per day at its peak later in October. It has since declined, most likely because the easiest and most obvious targets have all been hit already while opposition forces have adapted to Russian air attacks and are not operating out in the open as much as they were in September and October. The high operational tempo was especially surprising considering the rash of crashes Russian military aircraft suffered earlier in 2015, which had been blamed by many experts on the strain put by an increase in operations on an aging fleet of aircraft.

The operation in Syria has highlighted advances in integration among Russia's military services. This was one of the goals of the military reform undertaken after notable failures in this area revealed during the war in Georgia. While the air force is carrying out the active combat operations in this effort, it has shown an ability to work with both other services and with foreign forces.

The Russian Navy, for example, has not only provided sealift for the operation, but is also responsible for providing long-range air defence with the S-300 system based on the Black Sea Fleet's flagship Slava-class cruiser Moskva. Having a ship-based long-range air defense system allows Russia to provide defence against potential attacks by Western strike aviation operating in the area while avoiding tensions with Israel, which would be unhappy if Russia provided such systems to Syrian forces.

Although Russian ground forces have played a relatively limited role in the conflict so far, they have been important for defending the air base. More significantly, the Russian air force has shown an ability to coordinate its operations with Syrian and Iranian ground forces units, which have begun an offensive against opposition positions with the Russian air force providing air support.

Until September, most analysts (including myself) argued that Russia was not capable of conducting a military operation away from its immediate neighborhood because its military lacked the ability to transport significant numbers of personnel or equipment to remote theatres of operations. The Russian military was able to transport the necessary equipment and personnel by pressing into service the vast majority of its large transport aircraft and almost all of the naval transport ships located in the European theatre. Furthermore, it reflagged several Turkish commercial cargo vessels as Russian navy ships and pressed them into service to transport equipment. While it remains the case that Russia remains almost completely dependent on its rail network for military transport, the operation in Syria has shown that it has sufficient sealift and airlift capability to carry out a small operation away from its borders and that it can increase that capacity in innovative ways when pressed to do so.

Beyond its purely geopolitical goals, Russia's operation in Syria has been designed to test improvements in Russian military capabilities that have resulted from the military reform carried out over the last seven years and to highlight these improvements to potential adversaries. While the jury is still out on how successful the operation will be in helping the Syrian government turn the tide against its various opponents, it has already shown that the military reform has resulted in a significant increase in Russia's warfighting capability.

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 #21
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
November 15, 2015
Week Six of the Russian Intervention in Syria: a First Major Success for the Syrian Armed Forces
By THE SAKER

Finally. After weeks of grueling combat the Syrian armed forces have liberated the Kuweyres air base in northern Syria. This is a huge victory for the Syrians because during the 2.5 year long siege of the airbase it had become an important symbol of the Syrian determination to resist the Takfiris in general and, especially, because Daesh which had deployed its best fighters to maintain the siege of the base and prevents its liberation. In fact, the Takfiris did resist with everything they had up to the last moment. For those of you interested in video and photos of the combats and liberation of Kuweyres I would recommend the site of Colonel Cassad and specifically these posts: (in Russian)

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2472071.html

http://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/2470426.html

Many of these images and videos are for a "mature audience" only, but they do convey the sense of victory for the Syrian side and I highly recommend watching them. Up to this moment all the succeses of the Syrian armed forces were limited in importance whereas the liberation of Kuweyres not only represents a huge moral victory for the Syrians, but it also has an "operational significance" meaning that it actually changes the shape and dynamic of the front (click here for a high resolution map of the area). Put simply: the Syrian have now seized the initiative from Daesh and they are now on the offensive. As for Daesh, they now have to allocate their forces to prevent the Syrians from further exploiting their success in Kuweyres. Most observers, including myself, were hoping for, or even expecting, such a development, but now it has finally happened. This is very, very good news.

There was, by the way, an interesting if little noticed side story to this event: according to the Russian military, the "moderate opposition" gave key intelligence to the Russian to target the "terrorists" around the airbase. Here is what RT reported about that:

Syrian government forces received intelligence on terrorist positions around the besieged Kweires airbase from opposition sources, which helped them lift the two-year blockade, the Russian Defense Ministry has revealed. "This airfield had been surrounded by ISIS [the former name of the Islamic State terrorist group] for two years," Major General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the Russian defense ministry, said in a daily briefing. "Intelligence on the locations of the terrorist fire positions and support points around Kweires was provided by the Syrian opposition and cleared by the communication center in Baghdad." Lifting the siege on the airbase in Aleppo provinces has been one of the biggest victories for Damascus since Russia started providing air support for Syrian government forces. The opposition also provided data to help target a big weapons depot of the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, near the village Mheen in the Homs province, Konashenkov revealed.

For one thing, as far as I know, the so-called "moderate opposition" is mostly a myth, and to the degree that it does exist, it is in Turkey and in London. Furthermore, I don't remember the so-called FSA playing any major role around Kuweyres. So what is going on here?

Well, maybe the Russians just made up this putative intelligence sharing in order to show that they are working hand-in-glove with the "moderate opposition" or, which is far more likely, some folks associated with Daesh felt that the tide was turning and decided to re-brand themselves as "moderates" and gave the Russians some intel in exchange for money and life. This kind of sudden "coat turning" is typical of the Takfiris and the Russians saw plenty of that in Afghanistan. If my guess is correct, then this further goes to show that Daesh is beginning to seriously hurt under the combined effects of the Russian and Syrian offensives. Again, this is very good news indeed.

Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, also immediately declared that the liberation of the Kuweyres airbase shows the "resilience, strength, determination, and vigor of the soldiers and officers of the Syrian Arab Army". He is right.

There is no overstating the heroism of the Syrians who fought and refused to surrender even though they had no meds and minimum food and supplies But then, since they would not surrender, their only options were to fight to the end or die. And they fought, alone, for over two years. This is why the first Russian reporter who got into Kuweyres wrote "У сирийцев теперь есть свой Сталинград" (the Syrians now have their own Stalingrad).

Having taken Kuweyres, the Syrian army continued its offensive and, according to the latest reports, the Syrians have no also liberated the towns of al-Hader and al-Heis. Following this latest Syrian victory, a Takfiri commander blamed it on the Russian Air Force and declared "The heavy aerial bombardment of Al Hader and the surrounding area gave us no choice but to retreat, but these are to-and-fro battles, where we win ground one day and the next day we lose it". Maybe.

Still, it is way too early to celebrate. Following weeks of intense fighting and only tactical victories, the Syrians have now achieved their first operational breakthrough, but they will need several more before they can contemplate a strategic offensive against Daesh. This is something which the USA and, even more so, Turkey and Qatar are going to try to prevent with everything they have got. Here again, it is important to repeat, that the very small Russian force in Syria does not have the means to, for example, prevent Turkey from moving its forces into Syria.

At this point in time, I would judge Turkey and Qatar as even more dangerous than the USA. Why? Because they both put way too much prestige and, especially, money into ousting Assad and building a pipeline across Syria to link their two countries and they know that as long as Assad or any other secular regime remains in power in Damascus they can forget about it. In fact, if the Russian-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hezbollah alliance is successful in flushing out Daesh from Syria, were will all the Takfiri freaks go? The risk here is not only for Turkey, but even for the Saudis!

In contrast, Obama will soon be gone anyway and its not like the USA has a real national strategic interest in Syria (unless you assume that pleasing AIPAC is such a vital goal). Yes, it would be humiliating for the "indispensable nation" to miserably fail only to have a "local power" like Russia brilliantly succeed, but this humiliation can always be blamed on the outgoing Administration and used to get more votes. As for the US "deep state", it knows that it can work with Assad only because it used to work with him very nicely before it decided to dump him (Assad even tortured "rendered" suspects on behalf of the CIA!). So keeping Assad in power might be humiliating but not much more than all the other humiliation the AngloZionst Empire already had to suffer at the hands of Putin.

Speaking of Putin, he made an important statement this week: while initially Russian officials had declared that the Russian military operations would last approximately 3 months, Putin has now declared that "the duration of stay of our military will be determined solely depending on the time this objective is achieved". This could indicate a far longer Russian involvement.

I might be mistaken, in fact, I hope that I am, but I don't see how Daesh could be defeated without an increase of the size of the Russian military force in Syria and, especially, an increase in the number of Iranians supporting the Syrians on the ground. Nobody will be happier than me if I am proven wrong, believe me.

Final event this week: it appears that the Russians are further digging in and that they have now deployed S-400 missile system on their base in Khmeimim. Depending on how you look at it, this either doubles the air defense capabilities of the Russian naval task force off the Syrian coast, or frees the guided missile cruiser Moskva for other tasks. Curiously, Russian officials have denied that S-400s are deployed in Syria. Either way, this is good news as the the deeper the Russian dig in into their positions, the harder it will be to threaten them. All in all, a very good week for the resistance to Empire and there is real possibility that the next couple of weeks will see even bigger progress.

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 #22
Analysts: NATO unlikely to change strategy even if it agrees to cooperate with Russia
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, November 16. /TASS/. There is a great deal of hope that the terrorist attacks in France entail a rapprochement in relations between Russia and the West, but it is very unlikely such cooperation may last long enough to become strategic, analysts say.

The Russian Foreign Ministry hopes that NATO countries will revise their priorities after the terrorist raids in the French capital, says Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.

"We do hope that the events in Paris will put everything in its proper place and change the scale of priorities our counterparts in Washington and other NATO capitals prefer to adhere to," he said.

In the meantime, the former commander of NATO's forces in Europe, James Stavridis, has pointed to the need for changes, in particular, to enhancing cooperation with Moscow for struggle against terrorists in Syria.

The head of the European security section at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Europe, Dmitry Danilov, sees certain reasons to expect NATO's priorities will be revised in favour of cooperation with Russia, and not of confrontation with it.

"It is clear to the naked eye that such threats are on the top of the list and resistance to them must be common, despite the existing fundamental differences on other issues. But it is of the essence to discuss the specific parameters of future interaction. For the time being nothing of the sort is in sight. Nobody cares to lifts a finger."

"For now I see no prospects for a fundamental change in NATO's stance, although as 9/1 showed, such stunning shakeups require fundamental reconsideration of political approaches. Russia demonstrated precisely this kind of attitude in 2001, when it proposed assistance and cooperation to the United States. These days Putin is offering assistance to France. This is the political basis that may come in handy for starting a dialogue on joint resistance to terrorism."

"Russia is NATO's strategic opponent. These are the strategic concepts that have existed starting from 1991, Professor Vladimir Shtol, of the presidential academy RANEPA, told TASS. "But at certain moments in history, when the West in general and NATO, in particular, are having a hard time, they may turn to Russia for assistance and solidarity. That's what happened in 2001, when the US saw a terrible tragedy. But now, that everything is more or less calm and bright, Russia is number one opponent for the West again. Moreover, just recently the US president mentioned us as a threat on the same list with the Islamic State."

Aware that in the struggle with terrorism concerted action by secret services and armed forces is essential, the West has made it clear that it counts on cooperation with Russia in this respect, Shtol said. "But I have very big doubts that such cooperation may last. True, cooperation is crucial and there is no sound alternative to it. But it would be wrong to regard it as a long-term development and a change in NATO's strategy. Everything will remain unchanged by and large."

"We had rather constructive cooperation with NATO before the Ukrainian crisis," recalls the head of the situation analysis section at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergey Utkin. "There was the Russia-NATO Council and there were ad-hoc groups. So it is to be hoped that the implementation of the Minsk Accords will help achieve a political settlement format. This is a prerequisite for putting the relations on the original track, possibly, without restoring the levels of trust that existed in the past, though. Syria and the Islamic State are common concerns and they surely provide extra arguments why normalization should not be delayed any more."

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 #23
www.rt.com
November 14, 2015
Wake up, Europe: Russia is not the enemy
By Danielle Ryan
Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance journalist and media analyst. She has lived in the US and Germany and is currently based in Moscow. She previously worked as a digital desk reporter for the Sunday Business Post in Dublin. She studied political reporting at the Washington Center for Politics & Journalism in Washington, DC and also has a degree in business and German.

In the aftermath of the slew of horrific terror attacks in Paris last night, European nations must come to admit that, with their continuous and blind support of US foreign policy, they are sowing the seeds of their own demise.
For more than a year and a half, Washington, with little concern for consequences, has used Europe as a tool in its futile attempts to batter Russia into submission. First in Ukraine, now in Syria - and each time Europe has sided with Washington against its own interests, it has suffered for it.

That US-driven rift between Europe and Russia must not be allowed to widen any further. The risks to Europe now are far too great for Paris, Brussels and Berlin to be squandering allies in favor of fickle friends - and Friday's attacks in the French capital highlight the total absurdity of the West continuing to treat Russia as its enemy in the face of such a menacing common threat.

Threat of an overreaction looms

Naturally, the focus today remains on grief, anger and confusion. But as the dust settles over this latest tragedy, Europeans will continue to question the wisdom of foreign policy that results in this kind of bloody blowback in their capital cities. Whether their leaders can listen to reason is another question entirely.

Threats like IS cannot be dealt with until we are honest with ourselves about how they evolved, and the role we played in that evolution. There is, as we will no doubt hear many times in the coming days, no excuse for terror. That is true, but it is also unfortunately a simplistic and idealistic mentality - and when spouted from the mouths of missile-happy Western politicians, there is an almost macabre hypocrisy to it. It's a mentality that makes us feel better in justifying our own terror and violence, in the name of combating the terror and violence of others - and it is a vicious circle.

Terror attacks like these allow the worst instincts of the Western establishment to rise to the surface. The collective fear and trauma caused by such horror is cynically harnessed by governments to shift public opinion towards supporting more war and violence, which results only in more fear, more death, more destruction and more terrorism. This cycle has become the new normal.

French President Francois Hollande's first comments after the Paris attacks demonstrate as much: "We will continue to lead the fight, and it will be merciless," he said. It's sentences like that which should give Europeans even more reason to fear where this will all lead.

Attacks shift agenda at Vienna talks

As another round of multilateral talks on Syria begins in Vienna today, the agenda will surely be affected by this latest string of attacks. But there is an opportunity here for European nations, including France, to go against their worst instincts and orders from Washington, and to more seriously consider Russia's recent eight-point plan for a Syria peace deal.

The alternative - supporting Washington's failed policy of arming, training and aiding "moderate" rebel groups - has clearly not been in Europe's best interests.

We have seen knee-jerk overreactions which exacerbate violence all before. We know where they lead. France's response should not focus on exacting some sort of American-style 'shock and awe' revenge, but should be about doubling down on its efforts to achieve a peace deal in Syria. That must involve a broad reassessment of its strategy in the war-torn country and a serious reconsideration of Russia's proposals - or at least a greater openness to cooperation with Moscow. Russia has not put forth its plan as an iron-clad ultimatum. It is open to suggestions.

The pressure from the US side however, might be too great. The Obama administration has demonstrated, for whatever reasons, that cooperating with Russia on an equal footing is not something they feel they can lower themselves to. Washington will attempt to seize the moment and dominate the Vienna talks. The fact that Barack Obama yesterday evening took to a podium to comment on the Paris attacks while the siege was still ongoing - and before even the French president himself had spoken publicly - is evidence enough of that.

But as Europe deals with the blowback that the US has avoided thus far, the balance may tip out of Washington's favor. The French people are focused on mourning today, but soon they will begin asking questions. They will question the sanity of the government which flirted with radical groups in Syria at some other nation's beck and call. They will question the competence of the security and intelligence services, which despite monitoring the hundreds of French citizens returning from Syria, still did not see this coming. They will question Europe's open-doors policy to migrants and refugees, fearing justifiably, that among the mostly normal humans fleeing terror, there will be those intent on doing them harm.

The root of the problem

Of course, the roots of this go much further back than Syria. The US handed the EU the pen to sign its own death warrant when George Bush invaded Iraq and paved the way for a group as horrifically barbaric as the Islamic State to rise from the carnage and destruction.

Terrorism is a global threat. The heinous attacks in Paris prove that nowhere is safe from this menace. Not a small concert venue on a Friday night. Not a friendly football game between neighboring nations. Not an inconspicuous Cambodian restaurant in a Parisian neighborhood.

There is a lesson for France from last night's horrible events. You cannot simultaneously publicly battle against extremism and cozy up to the worst extremists of all as a matter of foreign policy. Nor can you, to serve selfish geopolitical interests, pick and choose which terrorists are bad and which ones are good. It doesn't work like that.

The US foreign policy class has an aversion to learning from its mistakes - whether that is intentional or not is a discussion for another day. Either way, Europe must not follow in its footsteps any longer.

Truth be told, no one knows how to deal with ISIS. Not Washington, not Paris and not Moscow. There isn't a rulebook - but there is certainly a list of tried and tested failures that can inform our decision making. What is also clear is that this threat does demand solidarity among nations who should be able to put their minor differences aside to face a common threat.

To allow Washington to fan the flames of a useless rift between Europe and Russia is pure insanity. The longer Europe remains blind to this reality, the longer we treat Russia as an enemy rather than a partner in dealing with IS, the longer we must prepare ourselves for endless violence - in Syria and in our own front yards.

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 #25
Vedomosti
November 11, 2015
Russian public said adapting to threat of terrorism in post-A321 situation
Andrey Kolesnikov, programme director of Moscow Carnegie Centre: Terror becomes everyday routine

The combination of the letter A and the figures 321 should have become for Russians a symbol analogous to 9/11. But despite the almost official recognition by the Russian authorities of the terrorist act theory, far from even a weak suspicion concerning a link between the operation in Syria and revenge for it in Egypt has arisen in the mass consciousness - on the contrary, something like the transformation of terror into an everyday routine is occurring.

The presumed fact of the terrorist act itself evokes no surprise. The blame lies [in the public perception] with the employees of the airport and the Egyptian security services, who are slovenly, like typical southerners, and prepared to be easily corrupted. As if petty everyday corruption were not a way of life and a cultural dictate in Russia itself.

The evacuation itself began only after a semantically convincing construct like "the recommendations of the FSB [Federal Security Service]" had been presented to the public - it at once became clear who the highest authority in our country is. But before this, the "responsible elites" had assessed, for example, the concern of the British authorities for the safety of their citizens as a method of trolling a Russia that had already taken offence at something in advance.

Terrorist acts cannot threaten the safety of Russia's elites. And this is perhaps the main reason that they apparently underestimated the threat of terrorist acts as a direct result of the Syrian bombings. They had summed it all up excellently: No oligarch from the security services, no minister, and no representative of the president's innermost circle has suffered even once as a result of terrorist attacks. In view of the security measures, which outline, as it were, a magic chalk circle, forming yet another bullet-proof "boulevard ring" around several hundred people in the country, this is perhaps even technically impossible.

And for the undefended citizens, the usual methods remain: shifting the blame (for example, onto the careless Egyptians), television whispers and cries, the stepping up of "security" inside the besieged fortress with the equation of internal opposition to terrorism and discussions of human rights to jihadism, and the preparation of the corresponding restrictive legislative measures (no Duma-smoke without fire [there is a play on words in Russian between dyma (smoke) and Duma]). And of course, the continuation of hybrid bombings in response to the requests of temporarily fraternal peoples.

The mass consciousness has become accustomed to a background war and adapted to background inflation and even to that gastronomic oxymoron, "Egyptian Maasdam" [Maasdam is a Dutch cheese; as a result of the sanctions war, it has been replaced on Russian shelves by homemade and, apparently, Egyptian varieties]; it is adapting to terror as well. This "backdrop" on the Russian political stage greatly enhances mobilization and a suspicious attitude to everything foreign.

The authorities should not expect outrage from the "post-Crimea majority." In a situation of an economic crisis, it does not protest, but waits for Supreme High Command to supply its provender - and who bites the hand that feeds them, which is splendidly clad in an iron sleeve? Exactly the same applies to security - [people think that] they should simply passively endure a difficult period.

The mass public consciousness has descended another rung down the ladder, refusing with its last ounce of strength to see the connection between policies and crisis, between political actions and threats to security. The fixation of psychological damage is occurring - everything around is once again the new normal. Reduced expectations, movement with the current of the mainstream. Simply in the hope that it does not lead to plunging into a waterfall.

 
 
#26
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
November 16, 2015
Obstacles for Russia-West anti-ISIS cooperation after Paris attacks
The Paris attacks have shocked the globe and left world leaders stunned. But the small step needed to unify Russia and the West in the fight against ISIS might prove to be too much of a giant leap.
By Ivan Tsvetkov
Ivan Tsvetkov is Associate Professor of American Studies, International Relations Department, St. Petersburg State University. He is an expert in the field of historical science and contemporary U.S. policy and U.S.-Russian relations. Since 2003, he has been the author and administrator of the educational website "History of the United States: Materials for the course" (http://ushistory.ru)

In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris, it is becoming a moral imperative in the eyes of almost all normal people that the civilized world must unite in the fight against radical Islam. However, in the cold light of day, this quite understandable emotional outburst runs into formidable obstacles when it comes to Russia's complex relationship with the West.

Obstacle #1: Ukraine, Crimea and sanctions

What is hindering the formation of a new "anti-ISIS" coalition? Lots of things, unfortunately. From the Russian perspective, the most obvious is Western sanctions over Ukraine. However, many people in Russia think that there has never been a more opportune moment to overturn them.

The "reason will prevail" sentiment is gathering momentum across the Russian ideological spectrum. If the Kremlin feels that Europe is indeed close to decisive action, it is possible that Moscow will try to nudge its partners in the right direction by abolishing Russian counter-sanctions, for instance, or demonstrating solidarity in some other way.

However, if fear of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) and desire for revenge are to overpower the European political elite's sense of self worth, something more than the Paris attacks needs to happen. It appears that the EU's principled stand and condemnation of Russia's actions in Ukraine will not become a bargaining chip in the fight against ISIS.

In any event, politicians who are constrained by past rhetoric and unable to change tack without severe reputational damage cannot use this strategy. This means that only Russian President Vladimir Putin can initiate a drastic reversal in Russia-EU relations.

Putin's key advantage is that he is far less tightly bound by postulated principles and moral sermonizing than the Europeans. During his tenure, the Russian president has constructed a political reality in which he himself defines what is moral and what is amoral, where the line between good and evil lies, and what Russia's national interests are.

Therefore, only Putin has the capacity to change the modus operandi of Russia-Europe relations by sacrificing some asset - like a chess grandmaster who sacrifices a piece before unleashing a devastating combination (indeed, Putin has a reputation for unexpected "gambits").

However, there are limits here too. Moscow will not return Crimea to Ukraine for the sake of anti-ISIS unity, even if terror attacks rage across Russia from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.

Obstacle #2: NATO's reluctance to wage war against ISIS

Another aspect to the problem of creating an anti-ISIS alliance is the situation inside NATO. This situation is no less complex than the one surrounding Russia-EU relations. A large question mark hangs over U.S. leadership and willingness to lead its allies in a ground operation against ISIS. A major new military campaign in the Middle East is certainly not how U.S. President Barack Obama would like to see out his presidency.

Incidentally, the climate change conference due to be held in Paris in late November (which until recently was high up the U.S. foreign policy agenda) is now also in jeopardy. If one recalls the wait-and-see attitude that Obama has adopted in all previous international crises, it is difficult to suppose that this time he will behave any differently.

All that can be expected from the present U.S. administration is a strengthening of security measures, new supplies of arms to the anti-Assad opposition in Syria, and words of encouragement for Europe in its fight against ISIS. That, incidentally, could correspond to the objective interests of the United States, since in contrast to the September 11 attacks on New York's world trade centers in 2001, the country is not at the epicenter of events.

NATO members unlikely to team up against terrorism

Are Europe's NATO allies capable of organizing an anti-ISIS operation without the direct involvement of the United States, similar to the Libyan campaign of 2011? Russians are inclined to think that the Europeans not only can, but must - and in cooperation with Russia at that. However, on closer examination, such a scenario looks fanciful, to say the least.

First, the operation in Libya was not of an anti-terrorist nature. To eliminate ISIS (if indeed that is possible through military intervention) requires very different resources, including boots on the ground. Despite the shock of the Paris attacks, not even France is wholly ready to start an all-out war, not to mention those European NATO members that have not yet suffered a direct attack.

Second, to organize a ground operation against ISIS, a common language somehow has to be found with the current Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad. NATO's European partners, especially without the direct involvement of the United States, will never be able to agree on a military operation that would effectively re-colonize the Middle East and establish a NATO protectorate over the territory of Syria or northern Iraq.

Third, Russia's military presence in Syria hinders rather than helps any potential anti-ISIS consolidation, muddying the waters and making the situation almost unsolvable.

Moscow's underlying idea - to return everything to the way it was before the U.S. intervention and the "color revolutions," to restore the Assad regime's control over Syria, and to support the government of Iraq so that it can fight the cancer of ISIS by itself - is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

New solutions are needed, for which something extraordinary needs to happen. The great powers had better forget about their old assets in the Middle East and start the game from scratch, believing ISIS, and more broadly Islamic terrorism, to be the common and only real threat.

Taking the first step towards reconciliation

The ISIS terror attacks are a clarion call for leaders of the civilized world to come to their senses and unite. The explosions and shootings are not so much attacks by a foreign enemy as symptoms of the internal disease that plagues the West.

Russia, having evolved throughout its history as the eastern edge of this huge civilizational space, finds itself in the strange and awkward position of being at once the opponent of Western civilization (trying to split U.S.-European unity, rejoicing at the political failure of Western leaders, attacking the West's "low values") and its last hope and savior in the face of the threat of radical Islamism.

Russia is wholly unsuited to both roles, and neither offers the country hope or promise. Regrettably, there is nothing else available at present in the international picture.

The unanswered question here is whether the leaders of Russia, the United States and Europe have the wisdom to recognize that it is not the particular interests of individual countries, peoples and political elites that are at stake, but the interests of Western civilization, to which they all still belong.

Someone has to take the first step forward, but it remains to be seen which side will take that crucial first step.

 #33
www.culturalvistas.org
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The program accepts up to 18 American, British, and German citizens per year. The program includes intensive Russian language training, seminar series, and extended professional experience. Fellows receive a monthly stipend, language training, coverage of all program-related travel costs, housing, and insurance.

The Alfa Fellowship Program aims to expand networks of American, British, German, and Russian professionals, develop greater intercultural understanding, and advance knowledge of Russia in the West.

Program Benefits

Drawing upon extensive contacts throughout industry, media, public, and nonprofit organizations in Russia, the Alfa Fellowship Program works together with the fellows to identify suitable work placements at leading institutions.

The Alfa Fellowship Program endeavors to secure positions that meet the interests of both the fellows and host institutions. Fellows' progress is closely monitored by the Fund for International Fellowships and Cultural Dialogue in Moscow.

In addition to individualized professional assignments, the Alfa Fellowship Program includes:

Four-month Russian language tutoring program in the U.S., U.K., or Germany
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 #39
Campaign against Minsk peace accords continues in Ukraine

KEIV, November 15. /TASS/. A campaign against the Minsk peace agreements has been developing in Ukraine. On television, many speakers say it's unacceptable to agree with terms imposed on Ukraine, and which only two months earlier were proudly referred to as "Poroshenko's Plan" of settling the crisis in Donbas.
"The Verkhovna Rada (parliament) should express the public opinion: we do not need terms imposed by Germany or France in Minsk. We should quit Minsk, we need Budapest-2," former legislator Inna Bogoslovskaya said in People. Hard Talk programme on 112. Ukraine television channel.

On the same television channel, Nikolai Siryi of Ukraine's Institute for State and Law expressed a similar opinion. Many experts say about a necessary "Budapest process" and talks of the Budapest Memorandum parties plus the US and the UK. Saying so, those experts claim Russia is "violating the Budapest Memorandum."

In early March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the signing of the memorandum only signaled that Russia, the US and the UK were committed "not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and not to threaten to use them."

"This was done in exchange for Ukraine's voluntary abandonment of the nuclear arsenals of the former Soviet Union. Russia took no other commitments and neither did the other countries that signed the memorandum," Lavrov said.

The Budapest memorandum did not oblige Russia to agree to the coup in Ukraine in February 2014 and to the actions of the Ukrainian radicals that undermined the sovereignty of the Ukrainian state, Lavrov said.

Several days earlier, Kiev's international institute for sociology research conducted a survey about the situation in Donbass and ways to settle it. The results show 78% of the polled Ukrainians supported the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Minsk accords

The Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising senior representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE on February 12, 2015, signed a 13-point Package of Measures to fulfil the September 2014 Minsk agreements. The package was agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four, namely Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.

The Package of Measures, known as Minsk-2, envisaged a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and people's militias in the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Luhansk starting from February 15 and subsequent withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line of engagement. The deal also laid out a roadmap for a lasting settlement in Ukraine, including local elections and constitutional reform to give more autonomy to the war-torn eastern regions.

 #41
Wall Street Journal
November 14, 2015
Ukraine Separatists Feel Abandoned as Moscow's Attention Shifts
Eastern region becomes gray area, part of Ukraine but economically cut off
By JAMES MARSON

DONETSK, Ukraine-This separatist-held city is staggering back to its feet after a two-month lull in fighting, the longest in a 19-month conflict between government forces and Russia-backed rebels in the industrial east.

But as Moscow's strategic focus shifts to Syria, people here are wondering what comes next for them.

The fighting has left deep scars, and the city is in an uneasy limbo: Separatist dreams of a rapid annexation or recognition by Russia have faded, and a return to Ukrainian authority seems distant.

"Russia doesn't need appendices," said Valentin Venglovsky, a 48-year-old former scrap-metal merchant who is now a major in the separatist army. "And too much blood has been spilled to go back to Ukraine." Asked what he would do if Ukraine regained control, he drew his pistol from a belt holster and held it to his head. "It will be easier to shoot myself," he said.

Mr. Venglovsky joined small anti-Kiev protests here in April 2014 that morphed into an armed conflict that has cost some 8,000 lives.

A peace deal signed in February foresees the area returning to Ukraine with additional local powers and properly elected leaders. Still, fighting around Donetsk, the largest city under separatist control, raged through the summer, with both sides trading heavy shellfire.

Both sides now say they have pulled back their big guns and some other hardware, including tanks. But the dynamic really shifted perceptibly after Russia in late September began a bombing campaign in Syria. While clashes have increased in recent days, they are still well below levels seen in the summer.

Some here now say the Kremlin is intent on using the region as a bargaining chip, possibly in the hopes of lifting Western sanctions imposed after Moscow annexed Crimea last year or to hobble Ukraine's attempts to integrate with the West. Many feel they are in a gray zone.

"Most people don't care if it's Russia or Ukraine," one restaurant owner said. "They just want it all to end."

On the front lines around Donetsk airport, where gunfire flares occasionally, some rebels are disgruntled with the stalemate.

"I'm sick of it," said a rebel fighter in his mid-30s who goes by the name Gnome. "What's the point of this? The guys are tired. We sit in concrete cellars: damned cold, no electricity, no television, no girls and not much to eat."

In town, a tenuous normalcy has returned. A furnace at the steel mill has fired up again, saturating the air with a familiar, pungent smell. Restaurants are filling up again with patrons other than armed men in camouflage, and the opera house recently opened its winter season.

Mr. Venglovsky, who works for the separatist security service, said the situation with looting was improving.

But dangers remain. The restaurant owner said he sold his SUV after another businessman was snatched by unidentified gunmen and held until he handed over the keys to his car. Another local entrepreneur recently paid a ransom to gunmen who had kidnapped his 7-year-old daughter, the restaurateur said.

The economy is limping, and many residents are living from hand to mouth. Ukraine has limited most cargo entering separatist regions. Goods are cheaper in government-controlled territory, but getting back home means waiting in lines of cars several miles long at de facto border checkpoints.

Owners of large factories here still pay taxes in Ukraine to avoid legal problems, but the rebel leaders allow them to keep operating-and paying salaries-to head off discontent.

The Russian ruble is now the main currency, but businessmen complain that Moscow has been slow to open up trade. Many downtown shops have closed because of lack of demand, security issues or impossible logistics.

"It's more circuses than bread," said Sergei Baryshnikov, a history professor and doyen of the tiny separatist movement that existed in Donetsk before the conflict.

Mr. Baryshnikov is one of several local ideologues and independent-minded military commanders who have been gradually purged from leadership positions. He was fired as dean of the university just as he had been appointed last year: by a rebel government minister flanked by two men with automatic rifles.

"They tossed out the ideas people," empowering more malleable satraps, he complained.

Russia's influence is pervasive. The Kremlin has plenty of experience managing frozen conflicts on former Soviet territory, including separatist territories in Georgia and Moldova.

Donetsk is developing the trappings of those zones, such as television channels mixing propaganda with entertainment, a porous dividing line with semi-legal flows of goods, and a nascent banking system created with the help of another largely unrecognized region, South Ossetia.

Separatist leaders head across the border to the nearest large Russian town of Rostov-on-Don for consultations. Posters are still plastered across the region advertising elections of mayors and local councils that were canceled last month after Russia held talks with Western leaders.

On a road into Donetsk one recent day, 50 trucks marked "Humanitarian aid from the Russian Federation" rumbled toward the city. Along another road from the east, a dozen new Kamaz trucks with young, professional-looking soldiers in fresh uniforms without insignia headed toward Donetsk.

The peace deal obliges the separatists to hand control of the border with Russia back to Ukraine, but many here say that would mean the end of their venture.

"We will die without the support of Russia," said Mr. Venglovsky, the rebel army major.
 

 [return to Contents] 

 #47
New Eastern Outlook
http://journal-neo.org
November 14, 2015
Will Western Ukraine Become the new Northern Ireland?
By Konrad Stachnio
Konrad Stachnio is an independent Poland based journalist

On 15.10.2015, a "March of heroes" was held in Kiev to mark the Day of the Defender of Ukraine, a holiday established by President Poroshenko which falls on the anniversary of the founding of the UPA. During the march, Nazi symbols were seen on display. In this context, the sociological research group "Rejtynh" reported that in Ukraine more and more people are perceiving the genocidal UPA formations as heroes. For the first time in the history of the UPA, supporters are more than mere opponents. I talk with Dr. Andrzej Zapałowski, a Polish State Security expert, historian and lecturer, about how the situation in Ukraine is likely unfold.

Q: Why does the Ukrainian nation have this great desire to cultivate parts of their criminal history, such as the OUN and the UPA, for example?

I would like to emphasize one thing - if we refer to the issue of genocide, we must identify clearly that we are talking about Ukrainians, but only those from Western Ukraine. This matter does not concern Central and Eastern parts of the country. We cannot perceive the whole of Ukraine through the prism of what Ukrainians did in Western Ukraine. Another thing which is very important is that the UPA leadership, which in the earlier incarnation of OUN, collaborated with Germans in 1942, actively participating in the genocide of the Jewish population. They practiced their killing skills on their Jewish neighbours, and a year later used this knowledge to kill Polish nationals in Volyn. So this primary element in this community is very worrying. Today, the youth in Western Ukraine are unable to understand that the matter of the struggle for national liberation is one thing and another is referring to the tradition of the original murder of their neighbours. The first were the Jews. This is a legacy that really brings this community closer to some primitive reflexes rather than to a civilized society.

Q: Ukrainian nationalists are increasingly speaking about Poles as their friends, saying that currently they are 'new Banderovites' and they 'like' Poles. Is this true?

The situation Right Sector is in at present, it has no choice but to take a tactical stance in relation to Poland. Currently, their main enemy is Russia and so Poland is now a friend. Why? Because Poles naively, selflessly fight for the interests of Ukraine, incurring only the cost of the aid. Today, nationalists in Western Ukraine are looking for a strategic friend. It turns out that, because of border issues, only Poland is likely to be their ally, as Hungary definitely cares more about the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. The Hungarian State clearly expresses its anti-Bandera attitude. What happens when, for example, in the event of federalization, western Ukraine secures very high autonomy? If Russia takes control of people's minds in Ukraine, then it will want to push out Western Ukraine from the area of its influence because they no longer want Western Ukraine. So Western Ukrainians have only one way out, and this is Poland. Therefore, at this point they need to edit out all territorial claims in relation to Poland from their political programme, along with any anti-Polish statements. Because in the end it may turn out that Poland is the only neighbour through which they can have some cooperation with Western Europe. For some time now, I have watched feigned gestures from Right Sector in relation to Poland. They want to drop anchor here, on the basis of cooperation with some Polish national organizations. These nice gestures are purely a technical action on their part.

Q: Right Sector enabled a recent attack on an institution which issues Ukrainian documents. As a result, 8000 Ukrainian identity documents fell into the hands of ISIS. Will Ukrainian nationalists therefore cooperate with ISIS?

At the time of the annexation of Crimea, representatives of these Tatar organizations, which in Russia were recognized as terrorist organizations, fled from Crimea. A substantial group of these people were given premises and stopped in Lviv, in Western Ukraine. Chechens also fought on the side of Ukrainian nationalists, and were really were involved in terrorist attacks in Moscow or Budyonnovsk. Besides, as one of the leaders of this organisation boasted, twice he crossed the Polish border illegally to get to meetings of the group in Denmark. This could not be done without the organizational support and perhaps even administrative support in Western Ukraine. So it is clear that this cooperation has been active for over a year, and especially at this time it will further develop as a result of the fact that Russia has started to intervene in Syria.

Q: Do you allow for a scenario in which Ukraine experiences something like a revolution?

In the event of an outbreak of a social revolution in Ukraine, nationalists will definitely want to take over these movements. Please note that there is an estimated hundred thousand automatic firearms in Ukraine, outside the control of the State, and which is likely to be under the control of the nationalists. Approximately sixteen thousand soldiers have deserted from Donbas to the Ukrainian side, and most of them took a gun with them. So there is potential in Ukraine for a public uprising on the social background. The worst case scenario, which I fear is likely to happen, is that there will be a civil war and a real threat in the form of penetration or attempts to create logistics for some radical movements in Poland. People who remain in Ukraine with nothing to live on and with weapons will become involved in organized crime.

Q: Are Ukrainian nationalists able to take over the governments in Kiev?

In Ukraine, as it is today, there is no chance of this. Why? It is the only country in Europe where about a hundred oligarchic families govern the entire State. These people treat Ukraine as their area of influence, which they can divvy up as in business if they have to. The seizure of power by Ukrainian nationalists in any form would be associated with what nationalists say in their political programs. First of all, these are social circles, so they want to get wealth back and socialization of the means of production. Therefore nationalists beyond certain limits of influence will be the enemy of the ruling oligarchs. For this reason, I don't predict this to happen in the whole of Ukraine. Since the oligarchs can simply tactically begin to cooperate with Russia, and Russia absolutely does not wish for morbidly and fanatically anti-Russian circles to hold a substantial part of power over Ukraine.

Q: Can Western Ukraine break away from Ukraine, considering this part of Ukraine is definitely pro-Bandera?

I fear that the process of forcing out Western Ukraine will continue. Please remember that in February 2014, years before the constitutional assassination in relation to President Yanukovych, Lviv authorities publicly declared that if Yanukovych remained in power the whole region of western Ukraine would leave Ukraine and strike for independence. There, such an awareness exists. Up until the Eighties, the chief adviser to the cell of CIA was Mykoła Łebed. This is the person who was in the government of Ukrainian nationalists. He was one of those people who took a political decision on the genocide of Poles in Volyn and later worked for the US government. The United States use Ukrainian nationalists in the fight against Russia. For me, Ukrainian nationalists coming to power is only possible in western Ukraine - should they fall into the process of becoming autonomous or completely exit from Ukraine, and I am afraid that this process of pushing out western Ukraine will continue. The area around the Ukrainian-Polish border may then become territory where various terrorist groups will penetrate. Assassinations could take place. In the event of any action by oligarchs against nationalists, armed groups in the framework of escape can penetrate frontier areas in order to hide. Here you can list an entire catalog of threats to national security. We will have to deal with the development in western Ukraine of a situation we had in Northern Ireland. So that means a creeping conflict which is very real and this conflict could spread to the entire border area.