#2
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 8, 2015
Putin's address, a new corruption scandal and protests by truckers
Weekly media roundup: The most important topics of last week, through the eyes of Russian journalists.
By Anastasia Borik

Last week, Russian media actively discussed the annual message to the Russian Parliament made by President Putin, the scandal around the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, the execution of a Russian citizen by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) and the ongoing truckers' strike within Russia.

Vladimir Putin's annual address to the Federal Assembly

On Dec. 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual address to the Federal Assembly of Russia. In this address, every year the president not only sums up the work done during the passing year, but also offers his vision on the further development of the country, proposing to politicians and public figures the most pressing issues on domestic and foreign policy agendas of Russia.

The current address took place against a difficult background - Russia's continued battle against terrorism in Syria, Turkey's shoot-down of a Russian warplane and the West being in no hurry to forget about Ukraine and remove sanctions against the country.

The business newspaper Vedomosti discussed items that the president talked about and those that he avoided. This publication's editors said that they did not see any particularly new ideas - the same old emphasis on socioeconomic issues, the fight against terrorism and the need for the international community to work together on this issue.

Putin also avoided some topics, such as domestic policy and the situation in Ukraine, about which the President did not say a word. Experts interviewed by Vedomosti believe that the absence of domestic policy in the address was a good sign, meaning that the government, in the near future, is not planning any "crackdowns." The omission of the Ukrainian theme also seems to be a positive sign, clearly showing that the Russian government does not want any escalation in eastern Ukraine.

Kirill Martynov, political columnist with the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, believes that the absence of any sensational items in the message is good news for everyone. Nevertheless, Mr. Martynov sees as the biggest positive factor Putin's promise to become "a president for all." For the first time in a long time, in such a major keynote speech, the president made no mention of the "fifth column" or "groups undermining national unity." Mr. Martynov believes that this is a good sign for Russian opposition groups.

In addition, the address did not contain the traditional hints at the perfidy of "Western partners." To the contrary, Putin does not want to see Russia in isolation, and intends to cooperate with world powers, including the United States.

Alexander Gorniy, blogger at the Echo of Moscow radio station, was somewhat disappointed by the socioeconomic part of the president's address: it is not clear why Putin praised the work of the government during the crisis, because people have not started to live better than in the preceding year. Moreover, from his message, one cannot draw any clear idea of what to expect from the government, such as what kinds of socioeconomic measures, what specific works.

Russians, emphasizes the blogger, are tired of the inefficient work of the executive branch of the government during the crisis, and were waiting for decisive action by the president in this regard; however, they got exactly the opposite.  

The scandal surrounding the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation

The most discussed topic of the week, partly eclipsing even the president's address, was the scandal around the Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chayka. On Dec. 1, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) of the opposition leader Alexey Navalny published its investigation into the activities of Yury Chayka and his family.

Initially, suspicions of the activists were raised by the fact that one of the sons of the prosecutor owned a hotel in Greece. As a result of the investigation, what emerged was the most talked about topic today, and perhaps the most important success achieved by Navalny and his ACF to date.

The hotel turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg, compared to the evidence uncovered - that the subordinates of the prosecutor general and his family were doing business with the very Tsapka Gang, the mention of which terrifies every Russian citizen, who remembers the events of five years ago.

We should recall that in 2010, during an investigation into a massacre in the village of Kushchevskaya, uncovered was the organized crime group of Sergey Tsapka, which had kept practically an entire region (Krasnodar Krai) in fear. In essence, this means that the long existence and impunity of the Tsapka Gang was due to their direct links with senior officials of the Prosecutor General Yury Chayka, including direct subordinates Gennady Lopatin and Alexey Staroverov. The Prosecutor General himself has denied all the allegations, calling them "falsified."

Opposition journalist Oleg Kashin, in an article for the independent Slon argues that, for the first time in a very long time, Navalny and his ACF have carried out a really important investigation. This is not just about illegally acquired property, but about having actual ties with the bloody underworld, and providing "protection" for violent criminal activities and destruction of competitors.

Kashin believes that now the main question is: What to do next? After all, it is clear that the scale of activity of the Prosecutor General is hardly confined to just one region, and corruption affects the entire country.

The business publication RBC wrote about the reaction of Russian parliamentarians on the publication of materials about Mr. Chayka. Despite the fact that many have expressed support for Mr. Chayka and consider this investigation as a "hired project," there were also those who want to find out the truth. Among the latter are representatives from the Communist Party and the United Russia Party, who are calling for an investigation and calling for the Prosecutor General to appear at "Parliamentary Hour."

At the business newspaper Vedomosti, they believe that the situation cannot be reduced only to competition within the Russian elite, where one side has "dumped" dirt on its opponent Mr. Chayka. Corruption is corruption, stresses the newspaper, and society is sending a clear message to the authorities, demanding that limits be finally placed on this corruption, because it has outgrown all imaginable and allowable borders.

The execution of a Russian citizen by ISIS

Last week, ISIS published a video alleging that it had executed a Russian spy uncovered in the ranks of this terrorist organization. The execution was conducted also by a native of Russia, presumably from Siberia. Before cutting off the head of the captive Magomed Khasiyev, the jihadists issued threats of new terrorist attacks against Russians, and saying that Russians will never ever again feel themselves safe, because of their military operations in Syria. The recording received almost instant responses from many politicians and public figures, and especially Muslims.

The pro-government newspaper Izvestia writes about the reaction of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who acknowledged that the executed man was a resident of Chechnya. Kadyrov promised ISIS militants retaliation for the death of this Chechen. The newspaper also noted that the identity of the executioner is also already known - he is a native of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, 28-year-old Anatoly Zemlyanka, who is on the federal wanted list in Russia.

The online publication Gazeta.ru suggests that the victim Khasiyev could be among those volunteers who came from Russia to fight for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Gazeta.ru notes that more and more such people are arriving, they are of different religions - among them are Muslims, Christians, and Jews - and in most cases these are people motivated by ideology, who are not fighting for money, unlike paid mercenaries.

Moskovsky Komsomolets interviewed the half-brother of the executed Khasiyev. The brother claims that he knew of no links between his relative and terrorists or intelligence agencies, but he did not maintain close ties with Khasiyev, so he cannot say anything for certain. The newspaper also published data on the executioner, who, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets, has already been dubbed "Jihadi-Tolik," by analogy with "Jihadi-John."

Again the truckers

The strike of Russian truck drivers continues. Last week, the column of trucks came to Moscow, paralyzing traffic on the Moscow Ring Road (MKAD) with their "Snail" protest (slowing vehicular traffic down to 10 km/h). However, the promised mass blockade of traffic movement in Moscow did not materialize.

The government finally agreed to hold talks with the strikers, and the first result of these negotiations was a significant reduction in fines for violations of the Platon system (from 450,000 to 5,000 rubles or $6,489 to $72). There were also promises heard to revise or even cancel this system. However, the Russian President has remained silent on this issue, with his press service noting that this problem is outside the scope of responsibility of the Kremlin.

The opposition Novaya Gazeta, in an article by political columnist Kirill Martynov, said that the authorities took way too long to enter into dialogue with the protesting drivers. Perhaps, suggests Mr. Martynov, state officials have "lost their grip" and are unable to determine the correct moment when they really should sit down at the negotiating table. In this case, according to the author of the article, we are not talking here about a moral duty to society, but the banal preservation of the system, something that, apparently, the state apparatus is not capable of doing.

The business newspaper Kommersant writes about the motives of the truckers: the drivers want a reasonable approach to the introduction of the Platon system and they want the government finally to listen to them. The truck drivers expressed particular frustration with the fact that the issue of the Platon system was not mentioned in President Putin's address to the Federal Assembly - the truckers were waiting for some kind of signal and solutions for themselves in this speech.

Anton Nosik, blogger at the Echo of Moscow radio station, believes that it is absurd to identify with the long-distance truckers. The potential of their movement, the author stresses, is zero, and the union that leads them is a fully "purchasable" structure, which is only seeking a monetary proposal from the government. Protests of truckers are not capable of changing a country that is overrun with corruption and run by an inefficient management system, at the very least because the drivers are only interested in pursuing their own economic interests.

Quotes of the week:

Vladimir Putin on Turkey in his address to the Federal Assembly: "If anyone thinks that after committing a heinous war crime - the murder of our people - they can get off easy, by just us placing an embargo on the import of their tomatoes or placing limitations in the construction or other sectors, they are deeply mistaken. We will often remind them about what they did. And they will regret what they have done more than once. We know very well what needs to be done."

Opposition leader Alexey Navalny on the results of the investigation into Mr. Chayka: "It is impossible to seriously assume that the 'business' of the prosecutor's family, with all its wonderful dealings - from forcible takeovers of enterprises to mysterious killings, from state contracts to business partnerships with the Tsapka Gang, could have gone on, unnoticed by the political leadership of the country, including President Putin."

Yury Chayka on the investigation into his affairs: "For me it is obvious that this was a purchased investigation, not performed using the money of the investigators. Big Money was involved! The presented details are deliberately deceitful in character, and are fully groundless."

Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation on the ACF's investigation of Chayka: "I do not wish to comment on this matter, as this information was published by the CIA. And everything the CIA publishes has not yet been of benefit to us."

The ISIS militant threatening Russia during the execution of a "Russian spy": "People of Russia, you have once again been dragged into an unwinnable war. You will not be safe. We will kill your children for each dead child here, and we will destroy your homes for each destroyed house here. Oh, Russian mothers, hold on to your sons, otherwise they will face the same fate."

Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya, on the execution of the Russian citizen: "Whoever did this, will get a one-way ticket from us."

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 #3
The Economist
December 8, 2015
Vladimir Putin's presidential address
As Russia's economy shrinks, Vladimir Putin softens his tone
A popular president muffles his anti-Western rhetoric

RUSSIA'S political system is often called a "power vertical", with authority concentrated in the man at the top. So Vladimir Putin's yearly presidential address carries a special weight. The address "is not a conversation with the people," writes Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a think-tank, but a set of coded ideological guidelines for the Russian elite. This year's speech on December 3rd was curiously subdued, a departure from the confrontational course Mr Putin has charted since returning to Russia's presidency in 2012.

To be sure, Mr Putin started off with the threat of terrorism. As usual, he implied that America was to blame for "decid(ing) to oust the unwanted regimes (in the Middle East) and brutally impose their own rules", precipitating civil war. He lashed out against Turkey, Russia's new nemesis since it shot down a Russian fighter-bomber two weeks ago, threatening that further measures would follow the trade sanctions Russia has already imposed.

But most of the speech was more pacific, focusing on the economy, the need to prepare for low oil prices, and social issues. Ukraine was not mentioned; Crimea appeared only briefly. Anti-Americanism was nearly absent. No one expects the Kremlin to make an about-face in its opposition to the West, but the shift in tone was notable.

Mr Putin may simply be reading the weather. Recent polling by the independent Levada Centre finds that 75% of Russians think relations with the West should be improved. Mr Putin may also be reconsidering the wisdom of further antagonising the outside world. Russia's economy is in a precarious state, as he came close to acknowledging in his speech: "By changing nothing, we will simply run out of reserves and the economic growth rates will linger around zero."

The economic hardship is beginning to hit groups normally loyal to the Russian leadership. A nationwide protest by lorry drivers has been slowly rolling across Russia since mid-November. The drivers have come out against a new toll system for heavy cargo on federal highways. They also object to the fact that the man paid to run the system is Igor Rotenberg, the son of Arkady Rotenberg, one of Mr Putin's oldest cronies. "Rotenberg is worse than ISIS (Islamic State)," read the banner on one lorry in southern Russia.

This confrontation between self-employed entrepreneurs and the cronyistic system of Mr Putin's Russia has powerful political overtones. Russian state media have avoided the story, unable to dismiss the working-class lorry drivers as liberal sell-outs or traitors. The drivers say they simply want some response from the government. "We're not asking for much, we're just asking for a back-and-forth between us and the authorities," Alexander Rastorguev, one of the protesters, told a Russian blogger. Yet such a dialogue is exactly what Mr Putin's power vertical cannot allow.

While the drivers are unlikely to get their way, their protest is emblematic of problems bubbling below the surface of Mr Putin's sky-high approval rating. The economic situation is deteriorating. The 2016 state budget has been cut by 8% compared with the year before. Disposable incomes are falling for the first time in Mr Putin's presidency. Although no Russian officials have dared to take up the lorry drivers' cause, Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician, has tried to capitalise on the protests.

Even more explosive, however, are the accusations Mr Navalny and his Anticorruption Foundation made last week regarding the family of Russia's prosecutor-general, Yuri Chaika, in a sleek 44-minute film distributed on the internet. The film opens with footage of the opening ceremony of a lavish resort hotel in Greece, complete with fireworks, performances by Russian pop stars and the attendance of Russia's minister of culture. It then alleges that the hotel is partly owned by Mr Chaika's son, Artem, one of a series of business holdings it says Mr Chaika's sons have amassed via privatisation deals and state tenders.

Mr Chaika denies the entire story, and charges Mr Navalny with carrying out a hit job at the behest of unnamed paymasters; he plans to sue for libel. Mr Navalny, in turn, says he will sue Mr Chaika for slander. Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesman, refused to comment on Mr Navalny's film last week, saying that the Kremlin had been too busy preparing for Mr Putin's address to watch it.

That standoffish response may be a sign of tension in the ruling elite. But Mr Putin is unlikely to abandon Mr Chaika, and a real crusade against corruption is out of the question; it would mean dismantling the entire system of "vertical" power. For the same reason, Mr Putin finds it impossible to take the advice of those pushing for liberalisation of the economy, scaling back bureaucracy and promoting competition. Instead, the president may have to opt for more distractions. Russians adore their president in part for making their country a "great power" again, and when asked what makes a country great, they name two qualities: wealth and military strength. The less Mr Putin can provide of the former at home, the more he must demonstrate the latter abroad.

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#4
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 8, 2015
Putin Just Gave His Super Important State of the Nation Address - Here's What He Said
Not that you heard about it from the western mainstream - Russia president signaled a new economic course emphasizing tech and agriculture
By Alexander Mercouris

On 3rd December 2015 Putin delivered his annual State of the Nation address to a joint meeting of the two houses of the Russian parliament.

As is now almost always the case with anything that Putin says, in the West his speech went almost unreported.

This was especially so because the format of the speech means it focused on domestic issues.

Despite Russia's importance, these are of slight interest to Western commentators.

This is a serious mistake. As will become clear, Putin's State of the Nation address charts a clear and ambitious course for Russia. If its objectives are fulfilled then this will have a major impact on the international situation.

On foreign policy, Putin focused exclusively on the Syrian campaign.

There has been some comment about the absence from the speech of any reference to Ukraine. Some appear to see this as evidence of diminishing Russian interest in Ukraine.

That is certainly wrong. Since the speech was not about foreign policy the Ukrainian conflict had no place in it. The only foreign policy issue the speech touched on was the Syrian conflict because, following the deployment of a Russian military force to Syria, that conflict is now a Russian domestic issue.

That this is so is shown by the way the speech handled the issue. It did not discuss Russia's Syrian policy - whether political or military. There was no word about conflict resolution or the state of the diplomatic negotiations. President Assad was not mentioned at all.

The purpose of this part of the speech was (1) to praise Russian servicemen fighting in Syria; (2) to explain why they are fighting there; and (3) to condemn those countries which through their disastrous pursuit of geopolitical goals have brought about the catastrophic situation which have caused them to be sent there.

The most important part of this section of the speech was the one where Putin explained why jihadi terrorism is a threat to Russia, making Russia's military intervention in Syria necessary.

Putin knows that whilst the Russian public broadly supports the intervention, this support is not unqualified, and many Russians are quietly uneasy about it.

Putin accordingly pointedly reminded Russians of Russia's recent history of jihadi terrorism, showing why it is a threat to Russia:

"We know what aggression of international terrorism is. Russia faced it back in the mid-1990s, when our country, our civilian population suffered from cruel attacks. We will never forget the hostage crises in Budennovsk, Beslan and Moscow, the merciless explosions in residential buildings, the Nevsky Express train derailment, the blasts in the Moscow metro and Domodedovo Airport.

"It took us nearly a decade to finally break the backbone of those militants. We almost succeeded in expelling terrorists from Russia, but are still fighting the remaining terrorist underground. This evil is still out there. Two years ago, two attacks were committed in Volgograd. A civilian Russian plane was recently blown up over Sinai."

He then explained how victory by the jihadists in Syria would bring the nightmare back:

"The militants in Syria pose a particularly high threat for Russia. Many of them are citizens of Russia and the CIS countries. They get money and weapons and build up their strength. If they get sufficiently strong to win there, they will return to their home countries to sow fear and hatred, to blow up, kill and torture people. We must fight and eliminate them there, away from home.

"This is why it has been decided to launch a military operation there based on an official request from the legitimate Syrian authorities. Our military personnel are fighting in Syria for Russia, for the security of Russian citizens."

There have been many comparisons - especially in the West - between Russia's intervention in Syria and the USSR's intervention in the 1980s in Afghanistan. One such was recently made by none other than Obama himself

The two interventions have however been explained by the respective Russian leaderships in completely different ways.

The Soviet leadership in the 1980s justified the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as an act of internationalism - an expression of the USSR's ideological duty as the leader of the world's socialist and progressive forces to defend the Afghan Revolution from international "reaction" and "aggression".  Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan were "soldier internationalists".

Today's Russian leadership defends Russia's intervention in Syria on the basis of Russian security and of Russian national interest. Russian soldiers are - in Putin's words - "fighting in Syria for Russia, for the security of Russian citizens".

Putin knows Russian soldiers and Russian society will support a war fought for the protection of the Russian homeland and people. He also knows they are not prepared to support a war fought to achieve vague ideological or geopolitical goals.  

He has chosen his ground carefully, and - for the moment - most Russians accept the case he is making, and support the war.

The bulk of the speech was however about domestic questions.

Putin had much to say about the education and health systems, and about social security - vital issues of great concern to many Russians - but the main weight of his speech was about two other issues.

Firstly, Putin pointedly reminded everyone that Russia is due to hold parliamentary elections in 2016.  

Last time such elections took place - in 2011 - Russia's liberal opposition made hay with allegations of corruption. The liberal opposition leader Alexey Navalny even labelled the ruling party - United Russia - the "party of crooks and scoundrels" - a label that stuck and which quickly went viral.

The elections were also marred by allegations of vote rigging.  

The result was a series of protests immediately following the elections that caused world headlines, even if their size and importance was grossly exaggerated.

Putin has no intention of letting the same thing happen again.  

On corruption Putin is not going to let the liberal opposition once again take ownership of the issue.   In his speech he made that crystal clear - setting out to defuse the issue by announcing a series of steps to deal with it:

"I expect that a considerable part of the parliamentary candidates' election programmes will be devoted to the issue of corruption, which is a major concern for society. Corruption is hindering Russia's development.

"Officials, judges, law enforcement officers and deputies at all levels are obliged to submit their income and expense declarations and declare their property and assets, including outside Russia.

"From now on, state and municipal officials will also have to disclose information about the contracts they plan to sign with the companies of their relatives and friends. Situations with a possible conflict of interest will be closely monitored by the regulatory and law enforcement authorities, as well as civil society.

"Just recently participants in the Russian Popular Front's project For Fair Public Procurement told me about the instances of abuse and blatant violations they have uncovered. I ask the Prosecutor General's Office and the law enforcement authorities to promptly react to this information."

As for vote rigging, Putin is also clearly determined to allow no scope for claims of election fraud to gain credibility:

"The election campaign must be honest and transparent and respect the law and the electorate. At the same time, it must be conducted so as to win public trust in the election results and legitimacy."

The most interesting part of Putin's speech by far however was the section about the economy.

Russia has just been through a recession.  

A Western leader in a pre-election address made in a  Western country coming out of a recession would give an optimistic message, with words of reassurance that the worst is over and that prosperity is round the corner.

He would also congratulate himself for his success in dealing with the recession, and his "courage" in taking "the tough decisions" that were needed to end it.

Putin did say something like that, but his words were almost perfunctory:

"The current situation is complicated but, as I have said before, not critical. In fact, we can already see some positive trends. Industrial production and the national currency are generally steady. There is a slight decline in inflation. We can see a significantly lower capital flight as compared to 2014".

In every other respect Putin however did the opposite of what in a similar situation a Western leader would do.

Firstly, he acknowledged the harsh effect on living standards of the recession:

"I know that many people are experiencing hardships today. These economic issues are affecting incomes and the general quality of life. I understand very well that people are wondering when we are going to overcome these hardships and what needs to be done in order to accomplish this."

These words are intended to reassure Russians that Putin remains in touch with reality, and that he has a genuine knowledge and sympathy for the hardship ordinary people are experiencing.  

Putin did not blur this message by making the mistake of reminding people how much better off they have become under his leadership.

He knows - even if politicians in the West too often don't - that people support leaders not for what they have done in the past, but for what they are doing now.

Secondly - and far more importantly - Putin made clear that mere recovery from the recession is not enough. Nothing less than an economic breakthrough is needed.  

His words here are direct and urgent:

"This doesn't mean that we just calm down and wait for everything to miraculously change, or that we can just sit quietly in expectation of rising oil prices. Essentially, such an approach would be unacceptable.

"We must be prepared for low commodity prices and external restrictions to last much longer. By changing nothing, we will simply run out of reserves and the economic growth rates will linger around zero."

Putin then outlined what he has in mind.  

The focus is to be on improving the country's manufacturing and agricultural sectors, with a strong emphasis on high technology and - in the case of agriculture - clean GM free food products.

The objective is to satisfy internal demand from domestic production, though Putin made clear he wants Russia to become an exporter of high-end manufacturing and food products. His focus on clean GM free foods for example seems at least in part intended to establish Russia as a niche exporter of these types of food products.

The emphasis on developing production does not signal a slackening of financial discipline.  

Putin knows that the most common cause for the failure of industrial modernisation programmes, especially in Latin American countries, is the absence of financial discipline.

This causes high inflation that dissipates the effect of higher investment spending.

As it happens, the single most striking feature of Russian economic management during the Putin era has been the extraordinary level of financial discipline Russia's government has imposed on itself.  

This is to continue. In his speech Putin ruled out a budget deficit of more than 3% of GDP.

Putin did not spell out the details of his programme, save that he placed heavy emphasis on improving the country's business climate. The only specific measure he otherwise mentioned was for a change in the administration of the tax system.

Putin did however hint at an increase in state directed investment in key sectors:

"We need to bear in mind that a number of industries are now at risk, including primarily the construction, automotive, and light industries, as well as railway engineering. To address this, the Government will need to come up with special support programmes. Financial resources for this purpose have been set aside."

In addition to those sectors Putin listed, we know Russia is planning to rebuild its aerospace, shipbuilding and machine tool industries, whilst a curious meeting between Putin and Sergei Chemezov, the chief executive of RosTec, highlights Putin's interest in and support for high technology industries.

A state directed investment programme drawing on state funds in conditions of strict financial discipline in a market economy will need careful planning.

Putin has in fact been talking about bringing back state planning for some time. Here is what he said during a meeting with industrialists in St. Petersburg back in June:

"I have already heard from some liberally minded people of the need to reinstate state planning.

"This is no joke. Obviously, it is impossible to revive the old, Soviet model in modern conditions.

"However, we should consider some elements of planning, primarily in developing the infrastructure.

"If we consider the tasks facing the state, there should be some strategic elements pertaining to providing certain benefits to specific territories - and we have some priority development areas that have been granted certain preferences, as well as free economic zones.

"We need to consider all of this and discuss it, bearing in mind (as we keep saying over and over again) mandatory compliance with macroeconomic parameters and maintaining a balanced budget policy."

What is being discussed here is not a recreation of the USSR's Gosplan system.

Rather it is the sort of long range industrial planning used very successfully in the past by the Asian industrial giants - Japan and South Korea - and used by China today.

To that end the government has recently been soliciting opinions from supporters of state planning like the economist Sergey Glazyev, even if in Glazyev's case what he proposed - capital controls and the end of convertibility for the rouble - go far further than what Putin and the government are prepared to contemplate.

The programme Putin is working towards has been in gestation for a long time as he and the government gradually free themselves from the free market dogmas of the Kudrin era.  

Far from being complacently content to float on the rents of high oil prices, Putin has in fact always hankered for a productive technology based economy.  His election programme during the 2012 Presidential election reflects that fact.

What has changed is that Putin and the government have now finally come round to accepting the fact that it is not enough simply to create the necessary macroeconomic conditions for an industrial take-off to take place. The government itself has to lead the process.

The crisis of 2014, with the collapse of oil prices, the halving of the rouble's value, and the freezing out of Russian companies from Western financial markets, has accelerated a process that was already underway.  

The economy's recovery of competitiveness and the choking off of imports caused by the rouble's devaluation and the ban on food imports from the EU has made the process both more urgent and easier.  

It has also made it easier to rally both public and elite opinion behind it.    

This is important because one side-effect of directing investment into the productive economy will be that there is less money available for social programmes.  

That the government intends to tighten spending on social programmes as its focus increasingly shifts towards manufacturing and agriculture is in fact clearly signalled by Putin in his speech. Henceforth, in place of blanket provision, social spending will become more targeted:

"It is imperative to support low-income households and socially vulnerable groups of citizens, and finally adopt fair principles of providing social assistance that is made available to those who really need it. In particular, it is necessary to take into account the individual needs of people with disabilities, and focus on their training and employment."

In considering Putin's programm it is impossible for the historically minded to avoid comparisons with the last occasion when a Russian leader committed the country to a major programme of industrial and agricultural modernisation. That of course was in the 1930s under Stalin.

Even the urgency in some of the language is similar.

Compare Stalin in February 1931:

"We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us"

With Putin in December 2015

"Russia has no right to be vulnerable. We must have a strong economy, excel in technology and advance our professional skills. We must fully use our current advantages, as there are no guarantees that we will have them tomorrow."

The parallel should not be pressed too far. Though there is something of the same urgency, Russia's situation today is very different from what it was in the 1930s.  

Not only is the country immeasurably richer but - in contrast to the isolated and beleaguered Russia of the 1930s - today's Russia is fully integrated in the world economy and is firmly anchored in a powerful and actively developing Eurasian system that is becoming stronger by the year.  

The result is that for all the talk of a return to planning, the road being taken is completely different. Where in the 1930s there was massively intensified repression, today the emphasis on the contrary is on improving the business climate and the rule of law.

For the moment the Russian government's immediate priority has to be navigating the end of the recession. However, as I recently wrote, as the recession draws to an end, economic conditions increasingly point to a boom.

Putin is not only determined this boom should take place. He is also determined that it should lead to higher investment in the productive side of the economy, and not just to a further increase in consumption.

It is an austere vision - trading short term increases in living standards for economic gains over the longer term.

However it is also a farsighted one. Time will show how successful it will be.
 

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 Carnegie Moscow Center
December 7, 2015
Putin's Theater: Signs and Slogans for the Russian Elite
By Andrei Kolesnikov
Andrei Kolesnikov is a senior associate and the chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. His research focuses on the major trends shaping Russian domestic politics, with particular focus on the fallout from the Ukraine crisis and ideological shifts inside Russian society. Kolesnikov also works with the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy and is a frequent contributor for Vedomosti, Gazeta.ru, and Forbes.ru. He sits on the board of the Yegor Gaidar Foundation and is a member of the Committee of Civil Initiatives (the Alexei Kudrin Committee). Kolesnikov has worked for a number of leading Russian publications. He previously was the managing editor of Novaya Gazeta newspaper and served as deputy editor in chief of Izvestia and The New Times.

President Putin's annual national addresses are short of ideas, but serve the purpose of sending signals to the Russian elite. This year, Putin underlined the idea of Russia as a nation under siege.

President Vladimir Putin's annual "state of the nation" speeches have gotten briefer. The one he delivered in the Kremlin on December 3 was 12 minutes shorter than the one he gave in 2014.

The address contained no new ideas, but that was not its purpose. It was a piece of theater that sent signals of ideological guidance to the Russian elite about the state of their nation under siege.

Finding something original to say in a speech of this type is not a new problem. Putin's team of writers would sympathize with the plight of Alexander Bovin, who worked as Leonid Brezhnev's speechwriter in even more restrictive times. Once Bovin was so bored that he composed a poem about his work:

Another speech, another dacha,
Drink after drink-with none to spare-
With tears and laughter, simple structure,
When every day is a nightmare.

The General Secretary of the Communist Party apparently did not like the poem.

The idea of an annual presidential address to the nation was devised in 1993, reportedly by President Boris Yeltsin's then adviser Yury Baturin, with another vision, as a kind of conversation between the leader and the nation.

The current master of the Kremlin does not want a conversation. Putin uses the occasion to conquer his audience with populist sound bites that solidify his "tough guy" image. In that spirit, he told his audience that "Allah has decided to punish the ruling clique in Turkey by taking away their mind and reason."

More importantly, the speech also served the purpose of warning the elites to maintain their vigilance in an era when Russia is at odds with almost the entire Western world and part of the East as well. It was a set of instructions on the need to consolidate around their leader and his now-hopelessly-besieged fortress.

For instance, Putin called for the development of import substitution programs and set the goal that the domestic market should be fully provided with Russian-produced foods by 2020. This suggests that his Russian fortress will need to be completely outside the world's supply chain by then.

The address neatly fitted the spin doctors' construction of "Putin the Savior." It matched well with the news of the evening before, in which Putin visited Crimea to open the first phase of an "energy bridge" with the Russian mainland to save the peninsula from dependence on Ukrainian electricity. The next morning Putin was already skirmishing verbally with his foreign adversaries in Moscow.

The background to the speech is the slogan of "permanent war," which Putin has inculcated in Russia and which is meant to serve as a substitute for a lack of economic prosperity. Crimea, Donbas, Syria, terrorists, and Turkey all form a chain of events that obviates both the need for an economic miracle and any critical reflections on the nature of the Russian political regime.

An already-standard arsenal of PR techniques was on display. The president drew direct analogies between the anti-Hitler coalition of World War II and the anti-Jihadist coalition of today. He equated patriotic sentiments with moral ones. He advanced the concept of a preventive and just war, which was very reminiscent of Lenin's thesis of just wars waged by the proletariat.

Myths and symbols got the better of actual facts. The president ostentatiously thanked the engineers and workers of Russian defense companies for providing technology for the military operation in Syria in language that was reminiscent of the Soviet Union's Great Patriotic War against the Nazis. He praised Russia's farmers for catapulting Russia into a world club of food exporters, disregarding the fact that Russia's villages and farms are actually decaying.
The president also attributed Russia's growing birthrate to the government's maternity program, whereas the evidence suggests that the country is at the top of a long-term demographic curve that started a long time ago in the twentieth century and is about to fall again.

The president looked to the future by saying, "We have repeatedly faced a historical choice of which road to take to further development. We crossed another milestone in 2014, when Crimea and Sevastopol were reunified with Russia. Russia resoundingly reaffirmed its status as a strong state with a millennium-long history and great traditions, as a nation consolidated by common values and common goals."

This conclusion will be especially worrying to the 10-15 percent of the population who believe Russia is on a road to ruin and see no place for themselves in the president's vision of the future.

The notion of "common values and common goals" was declared, but its meaning was only hinted at, just as Russian television viewers were told in confidential tones about the weather in the Syrian war zone. The military operation in Syria, the takeover of Crimea, and the backlash against the Turks all reflect a new poorly-articulated but commonly and intuitively felt idea of Russian national consolidation.

 #6
Gazeta.ru
December 3, 2015
Editorial
'This Is Not What We Agreed Upon.' Why President's Message to Elites Turned Into Collection of Good Wishes

Despite a tough start, the president's message proved peaceful on the whole. Even liberal in some respects. Even too liberal, considering the situation in the country. The president essentially repeated what he said both one year and 10 years ago: The country needs free business, the struggle against corruption, and an improving quality of life. But each time, for some reason, the addressees in the hall greet the president's message with applause and... inaction. As a result, the message itself has turned into a ritual rather than a strategy for the country's development that someone intends to implement.

Vladimir Putin devoted the central part of his message to children, old people, and the disabled and said a lot about agriculture, maternal capital, and centres for gifted young people. On the one hand, it is good that the main aspects of the first person's speech were not military challenges but the building precisely of a peaceful life in the country and reflections on what needs to be done to improve the quality of life of its citizens here and now -particularly those in the most vulnerable sections of society. On the other hand, it is embarrassing that the selfsame words have been spoken at the level of a mantra for many years now. In his message the president himself reflects on this: "How much we have spoken about this," "Listen, how many years have we been talking about this?" "As I have said many times before...."

But declarations remain just declarations: Their result is very modest, it does not exist at all in many spheres, and in some it is altogether the direct opposite. Despite the fact that the head of state noted several positive points - the small reduction in inflation (a slowing up, in actual fact, rather than a reduction), the slowing of the outflow of capital, the increase in population growth and length of life -for some reason this is not making life in Russia any better, and there is a suspicion that it will not do so in the very near future.

At the same time, whereas a year ago Putin was sure that oil prices would "leap up" over two years and that everything would "inevitably" sort itself out almost of its own accord, today he urged us to prepare for a different development of events: "The period of low raw material prices may drag on, and drag on for a long time."

If we sit with our arms folded, the president said, we will "eat away the reserves" and there will be no growth rate. Something must be done.

The question is: Just what? But no clear-cut answers to it were heard.

The president did not even criticize officials for excessive sluggishness. Against a background of very tough rhetoric in respect of foreign policy -particularly the Turkish incident ("this was treachery," "they will repeatedly regret what they did," "they will not get away with tomatoes") - Putin admonished his subordinates in an emphatically mild manner ("we did not agree on this," "I understand that there are problems, but...").

Having heard nothing about the Platon system in the president's message, truckers started gathering in columns on the approaches to the capital -evidently planning to continue the protest actions.

Of course, a message to the elites does not necessarily give a specific reply to all the country's acute problems, but it does, at least, send out information that the president knows about them, deems them important, and does not intend to ignore them next year.

Otherwise you get the impression that for now either there is no solution to these problems or the first person does not regard as at all important the truckers' protest, the disastrous state of powered-down Crimea, compliance with the Minsk agreements, on which the sanctions depend, or Russia's further policy on Ukraine as a whole.

It also remained unclear whether we have got bogged down in Syria for long and how many widows, God forbid, may be sitting in the hall next year. Only it is possible to assume from the uncompromising first part of the speech that the war in the Near East will not end soon.

The brief injunction to fight corruption and nepotism (at this point the cameramen providing the Rossiya 1 relay zoomed in on the face of Prosecutor Yuriy Chayka) contained nothing specific either. Apart, evidently, from allusions to the rivalry between the Investigation Committee and the General Prosecutor's Office.

It is unclear just which priorities the country is choosing for its further development or, to put it more honestly, for extrication from the impasse in which our economy finds itself. We can hardly describe as such the wishes to provide Russia's entire food market with home-grown, ecologically clean, good-quality food by 2020 (the face of Agriculture Minister Aleksandr Tkachev filled the screen) or to develop not only the raw materials industry (the camera took in half the hall).

The president did not make a single allusion either to full-blown administrative reform, although he did address the government commission on administrative reform, or to any possible cadre moves at all. With surprising long-suffering the president has been addressing his message to the selfsame people for many years now, and he himself speaks about a failure to fulfil much of what he has already spoken about repeatedly before.

But if the president's team to all intents and purposes fails to fulfil the first person's orders (the keynote speaker complained repeatedly that "things have not moved an inch"), then it would seem necessary to change the personnel and maybe even certain actual institutions of power.

Towards the end of 2015 the system of state management has, to all appearances, boiled down, rather, to pointed haggling over preferences for itself -at best, for its own sector or enterprise. The people in the system that they are terribly afraid of dropping out of have long been failing to work as a common team for a common good.

As in the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma," according to which players will not always cooperate with each other even if this is in their interests, the "prisoner" tries to increase his own advantage while showing no concern for the good of others. So in our country, despite the seemingly stable and steady "unity" of the regime and the people as reflected in the monthly support ratings, for some reason there is still no cumulative effect.

As politics itself began to seem a succession of performances by individual speakers, so the at first sight substantive message of the first person becomes meaningless in real time, melting away in the solemn silence of the Kremlin's St George's Hall. It is as though all of this long ago became a ritual: The president speaks, and the hall listens. We meet in the same place one year later.

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 #7
The Kremlin Stooge
https://marknesop.wordpress.com
December 7, 2015
Turn On Your Receiver
By Mark Chapman

Turn on your receiver,
I'm gonna lay it on the line;
'cause I'm a great believer
in hangin' on to what is mine
So come over here and listen;
I don't want you to be missin'
What I say:
And I ain't gonna waste my time
sayin' it all again:

Turn on your receiver,
There's a message comin' through...

Nazareth, from "Turn On Your Receiver"

This blog has been running for about five years now, long enough for me to think back a little nostalgically on why I started it. I had become fed up, like many others, with the relentlessly negative coverage of Russia in the English-speaking press, and some of it I knew to be false from having been there. Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, was singled out for particularly constant vitriol, and the descriptions of him as a money-grubbing plunderer and authoritarian dictator are greatly at odds with his public appearances. The silly trope that he is the richest man in Europe, and possibly the world, on money he has stolen from the Russian people has been debunked time and again - yet the western press, particularly in the UK, tirelessly and patiently rebuilds the legend of his breathtakingly-opulent Italianate palace, his penchant for crazy-money wristwatches, his secret shares of Russian energy companies and his equally-secret gymnast lover whom his nepotism has granted political office, so she will be close by in case he fancies a quick knee-trembler up against the wall in between hiking taxes on pensioners and giving himself another pay raise.

I started out cautiously, being only mildly critical, bearing in mind that I am a westerner myself and that on the whole, I like living where I live - I have no intention of fleeing to Moscow to be an angry dissident. I kept as my credo that once the press began to show some fairness, and once its coverage of Russia and Putin became somewhat more in line with the way it complains about everyone else, I would stop. I have things to do, after all.

But it didn't improve. If anything, it got more strident and hectoring and comically absurd, I often wondered why people didn't just burst into laughter and say, "Enough!" It's so predictable now; prior to the winter Olympics at Sochi, the western press could not even show up for work without painting its car and its clothing and itself in the colours of the rainbow, and the drumbeat message was all-gay, all the time - Putin despised homosexuals, he had authored and approved draconian anti-gay laws so that the poor gay people could not even express their love for one another without being arrested and sent to prison. No examples were given, of course, because it was all another western tempest in a teapot, and I said several times, you watch; as soon as Sochi is over with, the gay issue is going to get dropped like a hot rock. And it was - don't hear a word about it now, do you? It served its purpose, or served at least the effort to get the Olympics taken away from Russia and held someplace more gay. But the press lost interest as soon as that cause was hopeless, and as soon as it was no longer useful to make people stay away.

The west persistently and comically miscasts and misrepresents both Russia and its leader, and it has a captive audience because Russia makes only limited inroads on the English-speaking domain, mostly through RT, and even that is too much for the west and it regularly threatens to revoke its license because of all its "propaganda". Meanwhile the U.S. State Department is caught lying on almost a daily basis in its media conferences, and confesses to relying on social media and activists' reports to build its intelligence picture. Most recently, it has stood by NATO ally Turkey after that country shot down a Russian military aircraft which even the Turks stipulate was in its airspace for a total of 17 seconds. There is some doubt it was in Turkish airspace at all. As recently as 2012, when the Syrians shot down a Turkish F-4 which they said had violated Syrian airspace, Recep Erdogan - now President and then Prime Minister - grated angrily that a penetration of another country's airspace which was of a short duration was "never an excuse for an attack". Except now it is. Accusations by Putin that Turkey is involved in the illegal trafficking of oil stolen by ISIL or ISIS or Daesh, or whatever acronym we're going to settle on, were backed up by solid satellite and video imagery. But they were airily dismissed by Washington, which would not stipulate even to having seen the evidence, referring to it as "pictures the Russians allegedly showed".

The west does not listen. It is stuck permanently on "transmit", and is too busy loudly broadcasting its own narrative and inventing ever-more-bloodcurdling tales to pay any attention to what Russia is saying. It has its fingers in its ears to prevent it from hearing anything which is at odds with The Narrative, and is so determined not to listen that it has gradually ceded the moral high ground, international law and global respect in exchange for a lot of roaring and screaming which it hopes will cover it until it has gotten its way. There will be time later to make believe that it was all about freedom and democracy.

Well, turn on your receiver, muttonheads. It might be your last chance.

So I was reminded upon reading a post sent to me by our resident Australian, or one of them, Jennifer Hor. This is a piece she did on Putin's speech Final Plenary Session of the Valdai International Discussion Club, back in October of this year. Contrast Putin's message of peaceful reconstruction and empowerment of the national population in Syria with the west's cries to smash it and reapportion it so that various players get their own states, which can be set at convenience to warring with one another, a recipe for endless conflict. Jen?

"Compared to his speech at XI Meeting in 2014, this 2015 speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't quite as ground-breaking; but it is full of fire nevertheless. In his speech, Putin spiked the United States government and its elites for following a path that has not only led to war and instability around the world, and continues to do so, but which has the potential to spread poverty, ignorance, distrust and a degraded culture as well, one that celebrates and encourages even more chaos and brutality.

"The theme of the XII Meeting was war and peace, and Putin had plenty to say about the current global drive towards war, driven in the main by the United States and its allies. Starting from a general perspective on the role of war as a catalyst for relieving tensions and re-organising and establishing new political, social and economic hierarchies in the world, Putin observed how the threat of war diminished in the period after the end of World War II in 1945 - a period in which diplomacy under the threat of nuclear war prevailed - until the Cold War ended in 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union. Since then, diplomacy as a tool for resolving long-simmering tensions and conflicts has increasingly fallen by the wayside and the use of force by the United States to achieve its aims in different parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, has come to be the first resort. Along with this flexing of military muscle and the chaos, violence and brutality that have followed, comes the creation of economic blocs, based on neo-liberal economic ideologies, between and among nations with the signing of treaties whose details and implications are deliberately hidden away from the public and never discussed or mentioned until long after the ink used to sign the documents has dried. At the same time, governments, corporations and the media actively seek to withhold and censor information, analysis and opinion that oppose the aims of their agendas; plus they use databases and database networks to gather and share information about citizens and their families for various purposes which can include blackmail, psychological manipulation, marketing and pushing products and services for profit. Constant wars against terrorists and terrorist movements - themselves the consequence of US-led invasions of countries (and in the case of ISIS, possibly the creation of the US government and its agencies, to serve as a substitute army keeping Middle Eastern countries weak and divided) - result in the displacement of people in those countries, leading them to flee in their thousands to Western countries, usually by any means available (no matter how hazardous and expensive), which are not only reluctant to offer safe haven to them but actively and aggressively throw them back into the seas or imprison them in detention centres where they face abuse, violence and death from fellow refugees or prison guards working under stress. The refugee crisis is used by Western governments to whip up hatred and prejudice against refugees, and to encourage and escalate public support for more invasions of the countries being destabilised to "stop" the refugee flow.

"Putin singled out the example of Syria where the process of regime change, starting in 2011 with the aim of ousting President Bashar al Assad, in ways similar to the Kiev Maidan revolution against President Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine over 2013 and early 2014, is in full swing with takfiri fighters belonging to groups such as Islamic State, Jabhat al Nusra and other al Qa'ida offshoots, all funded and armed by foreign governments, fighting the Syrian Arab Army. Putin observed that such terrorist groups are hard to fight if they are being used as a de facto army to overthrow governments that, coincidentally, the US and its friends do not like.

"Putin went on to say that Russia launched a military operation in the form of airstrikes on the Islamic extremists at the request of the Syrian government. Russia understands that if the terrorists in Syria win, they will send many of their number to Russia itself, in particular into the vulnerable region of Dagestan and its surrounds. Putin emphasized that the world must support the revival of Syria and Iraq, and assist in their reconstruction and revitalization of their institutions. A plan must be developed for these countries' reconstruction, for the restoration of their infrastructures, their hospitals, housing and schools. This is an opportunity for all countries throughout the world to come together and offer assistance to these two long-suffering nations. What is most noteworthy about Putin's speech at this point is its emphasis on the Syrian people as the major party in deciding Syria's future and deserving respect, civil treatment and autonomy in the decisions they make about their institutions and future from the rest of the world.

"While the theme of the XII Meeting may have been war and peace, the theme of Putin's speech is that for peace to reign, nations must co-operate together, respect one another and trust one another and in the rule of international law. This is very much a speech that follows from his speech at the XI Meeting in 2014. The fact that Putin ended his 2015 speech by speaking of renewal, restoration, hope and opportunity, and the hard work that must be done to achieve revival, demonstrates that he and his government are looking beyond helping Syria get rid of ISIS and other terrorists, and stabilising the country. An opportunity for Syria to become a model of reconstruction, renewal and reconciliation for the Middle East and the wider world is present and ready for the taking. How many Western politicians can be said to be as forward-looking as Putin? Given the way in which the US has blundered in the Middle East and north Africa over the past decade and how Germany brought chaos and confusion when it offered a haven to thousands of Syrian refugees stuck in Turkey, with no apparent thought for how to bring them over or how they would be settled, it seems that having a vision of the future and achieving it is something beyond Western leaders' capabilities - to the detriment of the West."

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 #8
CNBC.com
December 8, 2015
Can Russia stave off social unrest?
By Kalyeena Makortoff

Russians have experienced a fair degree of hardship in the past but it's unclear how much economic turmoil citizens will tolerate, according to the chairman of UBS' Russian operations.

Speaking to CNBC ahead of the Moscow Exchange Financial Markets Conference in London Tuesday, UBS Russia Chairman Rair Simonyan said it was important that the country's authorities took care of domestic concerns amid growing geopolitical tensions.

"The Russian people have a long history of suffering and tolerance, and with the geopolitical tensions growing, people are much more prepared to have lower standards of living for a certain time," he said.

"The question is: for how long?"

Simonyan said there are "no hints yet" as to whether economic conditions alone could lead to social unrest, especially given growing patriotic fervor during a period of tension with regional neighbors and the West.

"But....to be real power, or a super power, you need to have a healthy and efficient and modern economy, and that is a huge task."

Russia's resource-focused economy is already under pressure amid floundering oil prices, which are down over 41 percent in the last 12 months alone.

According to a September World Bank report, average wages fell by 8.5 percent in the first half of 2015 in Russia, which along with food price inflation helped to increase the poverty rate by 2 percent to 15.1 percent, representing around 21.7 million people.

However, Simonyan is optimistic about Russia's prospects, given market performance over the past 12 months.

"People were so gloomy about this year. It was not that bad," he explained. "(Russian stock) was the best performing stock in the emerging markets," he added.

The country's MICEX Index gained around 13 percent over the past 12 months. That's against an 18 percent slide in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

Though Simonyan admitted the Russian crisis wasn't necessarily over, he said "investors are surprisingly positive."

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 #9
Protesting Russian truckers focus anger at Putin's friends
By Gleb Stolyarov

STUPINO, Russia, Dec 7 Like most Russians, the truck drivers parked up at the "Doughnuts" roadside cafeteria south of Moscow care little for opposition politics, but a new government policy has made them rethink their attitudes to Vladimir Putin.

As of last month, the state has started charging a fee for every kilometre that trucks over 12 tonnes in weight drive over Russian roads. Drivers angry at the extra charge have staged protests and go-slows around the country.

Compounding their anger is the fact that the company awarded the contract to collect the fees is co-owned by Igor Rotenberg, son of Putin's judo partner and part of a generation of people close to the Russian president who have acquired fabulous wealth.

At the Doughnuts cafe, 90 km (55 miles) outside the capital, truckers grumble about Putin. "We vote for him unanimously, and he does this bad stuff to us?" said Vladimir, on a run from the southern city of Volgograd.

The economy is in recession because of low prices of oil, Russia's main export, and Western sanctions imposed over the conflict in Ukraine. The authorities have had to tighten their belt, prompting protests over issues such as car parking fees and hospital closures.

Most of these are divorced from politics: demonstrators focus on narrow issues, they may blame local officials, but rarely do they target their anger on Putin or the system he has built during 15 years in power.

Any political protests aimed against Putin's rule tend to be small, restricted to the urban intelligentsia, and quickly peter out.

The drivers at the truck stop, most of them dressed in tattered track suits, do not belong to that group. Yet their protests have taken on a political flavour, making them an unusual phenomenon in Putin's Russia.

"Why this Rotenberg character? This person, who is he to us?" asked another driver from Volgograd, who did not give his name. "We don't want a revolution. We don't want things to be like they were in Ukraine," he said. "(But) the state cannot treat people this way."

PUTIN'S FRIENDS

In April 2013, the Russian government opened a tender to find an operator for its new road-charging system. The idea, the government said, was to follow European countries such as Germany in making the heaviest road users contribute most to their upkeep.

After announcing the closure of the bidding, then re-opening it, the state roads agency announced in August last year it was scrapping the tender altogether. The following month it said it was in talks to award the contract, without an open competition, to a company called RT-Invest Transport Systems, which had been specially created for the contract.

According to its Internet site, the firm has two co-owners.

One is RT-Invest, a unit of Rostec, a state industrial conglomerate whose chief executive is Sergei Chemezov, a close associate of Putin who is subject to European Union and U.S. sanctions imposed over Russia's intervention in Ukraine.

The other is Igor Rotenberg. He is the son of Arkady Rotenberg, a friend of Putin from his days in Russia's second city of St Petersburg who was also his regular sparring partner in judo sessions.

Arkady Rotenberg has earned millions of dollars from contracts awarded by state entities, and, with his brother Boris, is subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions imposed over the Ukraine conflict.

Arkady Rotenberg was among dignitaries who played an exhibition ice hockey match with Putin on his birthday on Oct. 7 this year.

Asked if Arkady Rotenberg's relationship with Putin had helped his son win the contract for the road tariff system, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "No, it didn't help."

He referred other questions about the deal to the transport ministry and the roads agency.

A spokesman for the ministry said the international tender to find an operator had to be called off because of the "geopolitical situation". He said the selection of the operator had taken place in the most open and transparent way possible, with the media, truckers, and trade unions all involved.

The state roads agency said the operator does not get the fees that road users pay, but simply passes them on to the state budget for the upkeep of roads.

RT-Invest, the unit through which Rostec co-owns the road-charging operator, said in a statement that Igor Rotenberg was a partner because he had experience of major transport projects, his company had technological know-how, and he had put up a significant amount of capital.

The operator itself did not respond to Reuters questions.

TIDE OF PROTEST

Gauging the scale of the truckers' protest is difficult. They are not organised into a single group, the sector is dominated by small players who often own only one truck, and their protests are unannounced and short-lived.

Drivers last month in the southern region of Dagestan formed a column of dozens of trucks that obstructed traffic on a major highway, according to local media. Demonstrations and go-slow protests have been reported in the central regions of Perm and Yekaterinburg, and in Rostov in the south.

Protest leaders have been talking about driving to Moscow and jamming up the capital's ring-road, but that has failed to materialise.

Drivers said the police were listening in to truckers' radio communications and intercepting any vehicles they suspected were heading to a protest.

The government has made some concessions. It has reduced the rate of the tariff to 1.5 roubles ($0.0215) per km, from 3.5 roubles, and also slashed the fines for non-payment.

The affair is unlikely to turn public opinion against Putin. According to Levada Center, an independent pollster, his approval rating is 85 percent, near its highest level.

Most people see the new tariffs as a problem for truckers only, that does not concern them.

However, the protests could be the beginning of a tide of discontent, as the government cuts social spending and - blocked by sanctions from borrowing on Western financial markets - tries to raise more revenue from citizens.

"In conditions where budget spending is being reduced, injustice, inequality, disparities between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak ... will be exposed even more," Levada Center wrote in an analytical note.

"New groups are appearing which recognise their own interests and demand that the authorities take them into account." ($1 = 69.6350 roubles)

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 #10
Moscow Times
December 8, 2015
Ruble Sinks to New Lows As Oil Prices Plummet

The Russian ruble has continued its slide to dramatic lows, falling to 69 against the U.S. dollar on Monday for the first time since September, according to news reports. The euro, too, reached a two-month high, climbing to 75 rubles on Monday evening, with Russian analysts linking the ruble's downward spiral to struggling oil prices.

The official exchange rates set by Russia's Central Bank mirrored the developments on the Moscow stock exchange, with the ruble crashing to 68.5 against the dollar and 74.4 against the euro on Tuesday, the RBC news site reported on the same day.

Analysts attributed the ruble meltdown - as well as continued downward pressure on the Russian currency - on falling oil prices, with the benchmark Brent crude sliding from $44.64 to $44.76 after OPEC failed to raise production quotas despite earlier predictions on Friday, Russian media wrote.

"The oil price dynamics and strong U.S. stock market statistics published last Friday were the key drivers of the ruble's fall," analyst Ivan Kopeykin from the VKS Express business news agency said, RBC reported.

He added that strong U.S. job growth and stable unemployment levels were crucial to the dollar rally, and that recent tensions between Russia and Turkey were likely to undermine both the ruble and the Turkish lira, the report went on to say.

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 #11
Forbes.com
December 7, 2015
Russians Actually Think Oil Prices Will Hit $50 By Summer 2016
By Kenneth Rapoza

This may be wishful thinking.

After approving a preliminary budget for 2016 that bases Russian fiscal accounts on $50 oil, Russian Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Monday that their target will be hit by next summer.

"Beginning in the second half of next year, there is a high probability oil prices will return to positive dynamics with lower volatility," Ulyukayev said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 broadcaster. "In general, I think the $50 forecast for the year is fully justified," the minister said.

Somethings get lost in translation, so it is possible that he meant the government is sticking to its $50 target for next year's budget. It may be wiser to redo that and try budgeting the government based on worst cases instead of base cases for oil. As it is, Brent and WTI crude oil currently trade below $40 and $45 per barrel.

Weaker oil also presents problems for Russian inflation, still high at 15% despite some tailwinds taking it lower over the last few months. The ruble is locked into oil prices. The Russian currency slipped to 69.67 to the dollar on Monday after OPEC made it clear the sky was the limit on oil production. Any oil glut in world markets will keep the ruble weak and put pressure on Russia state finances, regardless of the fact that the country - and most of its corporations - are not overly burdened by dollar and euro-denominated debt.

Ulyukayev said in August he expected the Russian export blend crude oil, known as Urals oil, to average around $52 per barrel in 2015. Urals oil generally runs somewhere between WTI and Brent.

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 #12
OPEC keeps oil output quotas unchanged to beat rivals
By Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. Member states of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will possibly increase the oil output quota rather than reduce it in the near future, considering that sanctions against Iran will be lifted, Russian experts say.

The member countries of the oil cartel, which accounts for about 40% of global oil production, primarily Saudi Arabia, are ready to sacrifice their oil revenues for the sake of keeping their share on the market. Competition on the world energy market will intensify and Russia should be prepared for this.
A regular OPEC meeting was held in Vienna on Friday. Despite low oil prices and a surplus of crude oil on the market, the oil cartel made no decision on cutting the output quota and left unchanged the actual production level, which exceeds the quota by an average of 1.5 million barrels a day.

OPEC's official quota has stood at 30 million barrels a day since 2011 but the oil cartel regularly exceeds it. Today, OPEC member states produce 31-32 million barrels a day.

The news on OPEC's decision immediately caused a fresh fall in oil prices: the price of Brent crude dropped below $43 per barrel on the market. Analysts say oil prices may fall even further. Specifically, Goldman Sachs does not rule out that oil prices may plunge to $20 per barrel.

Russia's Economic Development Ministry has calculated key parameters for the scenario of an oil price plunge to $20 per barrel.

Energy Development Fund Director Sergei Pikin believes that OPEC acts in the interests of Saudi Arabia. "In this way, it is forcing rivals out of the market, expecting that these rivals will go bankrupt while the share of Saudi Arabia will not only decrease but will possibly increase," Actual Comment web portal quoted him as saying.

"They are ready to continue extracting the maximum oil volume and are ready for a price of $40 and even less per barrel," he said.

"OPEC has a key task to keep its share on the markets," Analytical Department Head of the National Energy Security Fund Alexander Pasechnik told TASS.

"So far, some cartel members, first of all, Saudi Arabia, are ready to produce more to the detriment of their social sector," the expert said.

Besides, they are seeking to stifle the shale oil revolution in the United States, he added. "They don't want to limit the quotas, all the more so as they don't understand yet what Iran's share will be."

Meanwhile, no discipline can be seen within OPEC, the expert said.

"It has been decided to keep the quota at its current, actual level. The word 'actual' is a key word. This means they admit that they produce more than they are bound by their accords. According to various estimates, excessive output amounts to 1.2-2 million barrels. They may even decide on expanding the quota in the summer of next year, considering that the sanctions against Iran will be lifted soon," the expert said.

There can be no global consensus on oil output volumes in the foreseeable future, the expert said.

An oil price fall is not so essential for Americans, he added. "Well, shale production may cease to exist on certain sites. But, generally, cheap energy resources are a boon for the US economy," the expert said.

For Russia, however, cheap energy resources mean problems with export revenues, he added.

Competition on the world energy market will intensify, considering OPEC's policy, and Russia should be prepared for this, the expert said.

"Companies are prepared for such challenges from the viewpoint of output - the cost of oil production in Russia remains one of the lowest in the world. But from the viewpoint of federal budget revenues, there are certain risks, of course."

Oil prices may fall dramatically for a short period, the expert said. "Much will depend on Iran's position. But so far, their internal markets [in Iran] experience a shortage."

"Oil production in Russia will decrease after all," Associate Professor of the Higher School of Economics Oleg Anashkin told TASS.

"A low oil price means that there will be no investment. If there is no investment, then there will be a natural decline in output. Moreover, this decline will be considerable," the expert said.

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 #13
Reuters
December 8, 2015
Bond investors eager for return of Russian companies to scarcity-plagued market
By Sujata Rao

Russian companies planning a return to global bond markets in 2016 after a long absence may expect an eager welcome from fund managers who are starved of new emerging debt issues and reckon such deals will remain scarce.

A host of companies such as Lukoil, Aeroflot and Sistema are meeting investors in London on Tuesday, led by the Moscow Exchange and Alexei Kudrin, the influential former finance minister who is credited with building up Russia's hefty rainy day savings funds.

So far this year, Russian firms have raised less than $3 billion in debt overseas, a far cry from the $60 billion or so they issued annually before 2014. Bank of America Merrill Lynch expects it to pick up next year, but still be a comparatively light $10 billion to $15 billion.

The meagre tally is mainly down to Western sanctions that bar investors from buying new securities from borrowers seen linked to Moscow's role in the Ukraine crisis.

Economic recession and low global oil prices also mean that Russian firms need less money for expansion. Oil's continued fall this week after OPEC nations failed to agree a production ceiling on Friday suggests that a recovery may be some way off.

But the few non-sanctioned Russian companies that have ventured back into the debt market, such as Norilsk Nickel and Gazprom back in October, saw their bonds snapped up. Steel firm Evraz, said to be planning a $500 million deal soon, should see good demand, investors say.

"The market is open for the Russians," said Marcelo Assalin, head of emerging debt at NN Investment Partners. "There is money on the sidelines looking for good opportunities. If solid Russian companies come to market they will find buyers."

He said signs of better relations between Russia and the West, finding common cause against Islamic State fighters in Syria, meant investors were less worried than last year about the risk of sanctions being extended.

"It goes beyond the economic outlook or oil prices, it's more about the improvement in relations with the West."

Sberbank analyst Alexei Bulgakov predicts no more than $11 billion to $12 billion in new issuance in 2016, with companies that used to account for around 40 percent of issuance, such as Rosneft, Sberbank, VTB and Transneft, still under sanctions.

But with new debt scarce from emerging market companies outside Asia - due not only to the lull in Russia but also to an 80 percent drop in new issuance from crisis-hit Brazil - there will be money on the table for those that seek it.

Emerging companies have sold $215 billion worth of bonds this year, versus $345 billion in 2014, Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates. That will rise only marginally in 2016 to $225 billion.

As bonds mature and coupons are paid, investors will have some $200 billion in hand to plough back into markets.

"There would be demand for new Russian corporate debt. If you look at corporate dollar debt issuance in emerging markets it's 40-45 percent down on the same time last year," said Steve Cook, co-head of emerging market fixed income at Pinebridge Investments.

FALL IN VOLUMES

Cook said the lack of new issuance had been compounded by the sharp fall in trading volumes on emerging bonds, making it harder for funds to buy debt in secondary markets. Both factors have supported prices for corporate debt, he added.

Russian companies' dollar bonds are among the world's best performing assets this year, having returned around 26 percent on JPMorgan's CEMBI index, which shows their yield premiums over U.S. Treasuries contracting more than 4 percentage points.

Some of this represents a recovery after drastic losses in 2014, but the sharp fall in the volume of debt has helped. Total outstanding Russian corporate debt has fallen by around $30 billion this year to $145 billion, a consequence of maturities and bond buybacks by companies that are not issuing new debt, according to investment bank Renaissance Capital.

Cook of Pinebridge says that given this year's tremendous rally, his allocation to Russia is around the same as its CEMBI weight.

He predicts investors will expect new deals to pay a bit of extra yield compared to older bonds and similar credits from other countries, suggesting a premium of 25 bps for an investment grade firm and 50-75 bps for a junk-rated credit.

Some say even such comparatively modest premiums may be unnecessary. Bulgakov of Sberbank says that since August, Russian bond prices have not reflected any extra premium for geo-politics. Gazprom raised one billion euros in early October at 4.625 percent, paying virtually nothing extra above its existing bonds.

With 2 billion euros in orders, Gazprom was able to tighten the yield by 35 bps from where it initially marketed the issue.

"Supply and demand have not been in balance for about a year as far as Russian bonds are concerned so I don't think they will have to pay much new issue premium. A bit to entice investors would be nice but 40-50 bps, probably we won't get that," said Claudia Calich, head of emerging debt at M&G Investments.

Moreover, according to Calich, Russian metrics compare favourably with many other emerging markets, especially Brazil.

"Russian companies have deleveraged considerably, they are cash flow positive," she said. "From a bondholders' perspective that's a good thing."

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 #14
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 8, 2015
How Russian women succeed in business management
Leading businesswomen tell RBTH that the keys to success for female managers in Russia are being client-oriented, persistent and experienced.
ALEXEI LOSSAN, RBTH

When it comes to Russia's economy, experts believe that women are mostly active in consumer-oriented sectors. "A lot depends on the sector in which the company operates," says Ekaterina Rumyantseva, director of the Kalinka Group, a real estate company. She adds that heavy industry, minerals, construction and agriculture are more male-dominated fields, whereas beauty services, fashion and light industry are mostly suited to women.

"There are sectors in the economy, for example real estate, finance, the media, trade, catering and others where men and women can equally succeed," says Rumyantseva. For instance, managing a real estate business that deals with apartment sales on the secondary market is easier for women, while working with serious investors in the construction market is more of a male job.

A manager of a large public relations agency in Moscow who spoke on condition of anonymity said that PR in Russia is generally considered a woman's field. Yet to work with large companies headed by former armed forces personnel, agencies hire male managers. "Once, we arrived at a meeting and the general director of a large company sat with his back to us the whole time because he did not want to negotiate with a woman," she says.

There are exceptions, however, in the Russian market. "Electrical engineering is a rather conservative and male sector," says Elena Semenova, general director of Phoenix Contact Rus. "But if you follow certain rules and understand how the sector functions, then it does not matter if the company is managed by a man or a woman," Phoenix is the Russian branch of a German company that supplies automatic management systems to large oil and gas companies in Russia.

The general director of Basic Element, which manages the assets of the billionaire Oleg Deripaska, is Gulzhan Moldazhanova, who was one of the 25 highest paid managers in Russia in 2015. According to Forbes, her overall income in 2015 is estimated to be $6 million, and she started with the company in 1995 as a secretary. She is the only woman on the list of the country's highest paid managers.

In its four-year history, the Forbes Russia rating has only had one other woman. In 2013, the general director of Nafta Moskva, Anna Kolonchina, earned $6 million. Her company manages the billionaire Suleiman Kerimov's assets.

"Managing a business in Russia is not easy in general, regardless of the gender," says Irina Dobrokhtova, chair of the Board at BEST-Novostroi, a large construction company. "Perhaps it's more difficult for women since they always have to combine business and taking care of the family," she says. "Fortunately, this can be done without either side losing out."

Dobrokhtova says she is capable of balancing work and family life since her husband is also involved in the business.

"If someone is capable of managing, it doesn't matter if it's a man or a woman," says Oxana Vrazhnova, chair of the Board at MIEL, the largest network of real estate agencies in Russia. "Nevertheless, there are far fewer female managers, since women, in most cases, must also take care of equally important matters such as looking after the house and family."

Working mothers earn respect

All the women interviewed by RBTH compare business strategy with maternal instincts. "If business is perceived as your own child, then attention to the clients and the satisfaction of their demands will have the highest importance," says Kalinka's Rumyantseva. She is convinced that a woman's approach to business is client-oriented from the start, as that is what makes the company stable.

"Men do business more dynamically," she says. "For them it is natural at every stage of their personal development to learn new ways to deepen and expand their influence on the market. Which is why today they have one target audience, tomorrow another and the day after, yet another."

Rumyantseva says that her company has successfully worked in the elite real estate market for 16 years, while peer companies established by men either closed down or changed their profiles, since their owners took an interest in politics or were absorbed by construction or banking businesses.

"There is strong competition in our business," says BEST-Novostroi's Dobrokhtova. "We try to win major tenders, and when I come to these tenders, I am usually surrounded by men." She is certain that her solid experience helps her compete equally with men. As evidence of her success, Dobrokhtova has built 39 residential complexes in Moscow.

Rumyantseva says when she first started working, businessmen avoided discussing serious issues with her, but with time that attitude has changed.

Vrazhnova says the respect that working mothers enjoy in Russia is an advantage when managing. "Very often it is women who find a common language with clients, since they can identify and understand the demand quicker than men, and they can also propose a more effective way of solving problems," she explains.

She adds that age is much more important than gender. "Even a very successful 25 to 30-year-old woman may not always evoke trust. It needs to be earned and deserved. But when the client finds out that I have three children, then some issues are left out or are resolved faster."

Heavy industry, minerals, construction and agriculture are among the more male-dominated professions.

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 #15
Interfax
December 7, 2015
Russia's Supreme Court overturns ruling to fine "foreign agent" NGO

The Russian Supreme Court has revoked a ruling to fine a St Petersburg-based NGO, Institute of Regional Press, over its refusal to be labelled a "foreign agent", privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 7 December.

"The judges failed to find formal components of the crime in the actions of the rights activists. It is the first time that a court at this level has cancelled a ruling to fine a so-called 'foreign agent'," lawyer Ivan Pavlov was quoted as saying. He added that the activists would seek to obtain a refund of the money that had already been paid.

The "foreign agent" title should be assigned to politically-inclined NGOs that receive foreign funding, according to Russian law. The term bears negative connotations from the Soviet era.

The Institute of Regional Press had earlier been fined for R400,000 (about 5,800 dollars at the current exchange rate) by a St Petersburg court, according to Interfax.

Meanwhile, the Nizhniy Novgorod Regional Court dismissed a complaint by the Dront environment NGO over a fine for the violation of the law on noncommercial organizations, according to another Interfax report later on the same day. The Dront head, Askhat Kayumov, told Interfax that the ruling for a R300,000 fine had been upheld by the higher authority. The court hearing lasted 15 minutes, Kayumov said. "It was all expected," he said.

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 #16
www.rt.com
December 8, 2015
Khodorkovsky faces new charges within 1998 assassination case - report

Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky claims that investigators have summoned him for interrogation as a suspect within the probe into the 1998 assassination of a Siberian city mayor.

The news initially appeared on Khodorkovsky's own Twitter. He published a scan of the summons that ordered him to appear in the Investigative Committee - Russia's federal law enforcement agency dealing with especially important crimes - "for questioning as a suspect."

The summons mentioned the criminal case that was opened after the murder of Vladimir Petukhov - the mayor of the Siberian city of Neftyugansk who came into conflict with Khodorkovsky and other Yukos stakeholders and managers and was killed on June 26, 1998 - Khodorkovsky's birthday.

There is also a handwritten note on the document saying that it was not served due to the fact that Khodorkovsky was out of the country. The ex-tycoon currently permanently resides in Switzerland since his 2014 pardon by President Vladimir Putin, when he hurriedly left Russia.

The ex-tycoon called the law enforcers' fresh move "a boring attempt to change the subject" He also assured his readers that he had no intention of meeting with investigators.

Russian police have already solved Petukhov's assassination. In 2007 former head of Yukos security department Aleksey Pichugin was sentenced to life in prison for organizing the hit. In 2008 Russian court ruled that the killing was ordered by a key Yukos shareholder and Khodorkovsky's personal friend Leonid Nevzlin. Nevzlin was also sentenced to life in prison for his role, but fled to Israel, which does not extradite criminals to Russia, and lives there to this day.

In June this year, the Investigative Committee spokesperson announced that the agency had reopened the Petukhov murder case in order to reexamine Khodorkovsky's part in. In August, investigators attempted to question Khodorkovsky's father, but he refused to talk to them, quoting the part of the Constitution that allows Russian citizens not to testify against themselves or their close relatives.

Investigators did not immediately comment on the summons sent to Khodorkovsky this week, but TASS news agency quoted a "well-informed" and unnamed source as saying that Khodorkovsky had been charged in absentia with complicity in the killing of the Neftyugansk mayor.

Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on fresh charges against Khodorkovsky on Tuesday, saying that reporters should address their questions directly to investigators. He added that when the president pardoned Khodorkovsky in 2013, he knew nothing about his possible role in Petukhov's assassination.

"The information did not exist back then. It only surfaced now and became the reason for the actions currently taken by investigative bodies," RIA Novosti quoted Peskov as saying.

Once Russia's richest person, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003. Following a lengthy trial, in 2005 he was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to nine years in prison. In 2009, Khodorkovsky was charged with embezzlement and money laundering. The second trial ended in late 2010 with a sentence of another 14 extra years, minus the term that he had already served. After another legal battle, the final ruling cut the sentence to 11 years.

In December 2013, Khodorkovsky was pardoned by Putin and left Russia for Germany to visit his elderly mother.

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 #17
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 8, 2015
No, Virginia, Russia Won't Dethrone King Dollar
Despite years of harebrained conjectures, Russia-alone or in tandem with China-has neither the strength nor the interest to challenge U.S. financial hegemony.
By Jacob Dreizin
The author is a native Russian speaker and Washington, DC metro area resident with experience in the U.S. military, civil service, Congress, and the lobbying and contracting sectors.  He holds an MBA and a Masters in International Relations and has lived for at least one year in six different countries.

Talk of Russia and/or China burying, destroying, unseating, dethroning, etc., the U.S. Dollar has been bounced around for years, perhaps most recently here on Russia Insider, which yesterday carried a piece by F. William Engdahl on this topic. [http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/05/russias-dollar-exit-takes-major-new-step/]

Mr. Engdahl did a good job hitting most of the clichés of the genre.

Oftentimes, bury-the-dollar prognostications involve Russia and China selling off their U.S. Treasury debt holdings, leading to a "crash" in the Dollar.

Although Engdahl did not use the word "crash", he did suggest that Russia's inclusion of a small proportion of Chinese yuan in its reserves would be "to the detriment of the dollar."

He also claimed that Russia and China can eventually precipitate "a snowball exit from the U.S. dollar"-a "crash" by another name.

This reverses-shifting-away-from-the-Dollar line is so widely-discussed and so fundamental to the genre that I can't fail to debunk it before moving to other points.

Fact is, China has already sold most of its long-duration U.S. bonds-which were quickly and painlessly mopped up by the Federal Reserve's "QE" operation-and nothing happened. We can see that any slack in demand is immediately compensated for by the Fed and other central banks.

As for Russia, its U.S. bond assets-now somewhere under $200 billion-are inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. A few years ago, the Fed was buying that volume of bonds about every three months, and it can (and probably will) start doing so again.

So if Russia wants to move a few billion of its Dollars into yuan, that's not even worth talking about. It's not to the "detriment" of anything at all.

As for the hypothesized crash, snowball, or what-have-you, keep in mind that rates move inversely to prices. Thus, given the pull of Treasuries over the rest of the Dollar debt market, a cataclysmic sell-off of U.S. bonds would lead to skyrocketing yields on all Dollar-denominated bonds and interest rates on all Dollar loans generally.

This would crash all Emerging Market economies-where rates fluctuate much more sharply in response to the same global stimuli, and where Dollar loans and the need to constantly roll them over have ballooned in recent years-and perhaps even the yen and euro, leaving the U.S. as almost the only man standing, even if not too firmly.

So if you thought the Fed raising its Funds rate by ¼ percent would be bad for the developing countries (including Russia), just wait until "doomsday for the U.S. dollar."

Hence, the economic and financial illiteracy of the "Russia and China bury the dollar" folks making this argument is apparent.

Yet this cultish crowd of zombified mantra-chanters-most of them with not the slimmest background in Russia, China, or finance-has a few more arguments up its sleeves.

For example, there has been much talk-repeated by Engdahl-about the significance of Russia and China signing gas contracts to be settled in their own, respective currencies.

Great! I wish them well. But this has nothing to do with ending the Dollar's supremacy. It is not symptomatic of "an accelerating process of de-dollarization", as Engdahl claims.

It is what it is, for what it is, but it's nowhere near anything that could affect the Big Picture.

In truth, the Dollar couldn't care less what currency sign Gazprom prints on its gas bills.

Because when Gazprom takes on new debt from the Global Financial Market (though sanctions have made that difficult for the time being), of course it takes out those loans or sells those bonds for Dollars. Or euro. But not rubles. Or yuan, for that matter.

And Gazprom must also repay those loans in Dollars.

Not only are the "money center" banks and institutional investors not interested in Gazprom's ruble-denominated debt, but no foreign private company is going to sell high-tech gear or provide its services to Gazprom for rubles. Because those companies owe Dollars (or euro, or yen) to their suppliers and creditors, both domestic and international, and so on down the chain.

And that's a global currency for you! It is a deeply entrenched monster that in its current iteration took a hundred years to develop.

So unless or until the entire Global Financial Market implodes and fragments into dozens of stand-alone currency/debt markets or is replaced by a "one world", SDR-type master currency-with the Dollar being just one currency of hardly greater import than the ruble-then Russia can have no impact whatsoever on the Dollar.

Put another way: The Dollar will be the world's Reserve Currency until it is no longer the world's Reserve Currency for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia. Russia is a bit player in global finance, and cannot impact the master trends one way or another. At most, Russia can seek to ensure its own sovereignty by, for example, further working out its own national payments system, so that no one can suffocate Russia through financial sanctions. But the master trends will continue to move independently of Russia.

Anything else is fantasy.

Beyond that, Engdahl speaks of gold and the ruble. In that context, he gets confused, and his facts are off.

First, contrary to his writing, Washington does not "adamantly hold to the story line that the Federal Reserve sits on 8133 tons of gold reserves."

That figure refers to all alleged U.S. Government gold, over 95 percent of which is held by the U.S. Mint, part of the Department of the Treasury.  Over half of that is allegedly stored at the Fort Knox bullion repository, which is a Treasury, not a Federal Reserve, facility.

The Fed does maintain a vault under Manhattan Island, New York. This vault "safeguards" not only the alleged five percent balance of U.S. gold not held by the Mint, but also the gold of many foreign states, including Germany.

It is some of this gold that, as Engdahl mentions, Germany asked to be returned in 2012.

Yes, the Fed is dragging its sulfurous hoofed feet on that, probably because it has loaned most of the gold out to other central or even private banks.  After all, no one ever expected a call on the stuff.

But again, this has nothing to do with Treasury's hoard at Fort Knox or any other U.S. Mint storage site.

If Engdahl can't differentiate between the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve System, then all of his other claims are suspect as well. You just can't be this sloppy.

Nor does it really matter if Fort Knox is empty.  Proving that the gold is not there would not, in Engdahl's words, "spell curtains for the dollar as reserve currency", simply because that gold (if it's there) has been sitting untouched for generations and makes no difference to anyone at this point.

It is not a part of the economy or the financial system. Bond traders in New York, London, or even Moscow do not wake up thinking about it.  It can't possibly have anything to do with the Dollar's reserve status.

But let's move back to Engdahl's talk of a "gold-backed ruble."

Notice that although one of his headings reads, "The Golden Ruble is coming", in his text Engdahl does not actually speak of a "golden ruble", per se. Rather, he merely claims that Russia's build-up of its gold reserves may ultimately strengthen the ruble.

I don't disagree. At the same time, it may not. You see, this is not the 19th century. In a world in which currencies are not convertible into gold or anything else except each other, there is no direct relationship between the size of a state's gold reserves and the strength of its currency.

Even more importantly, today, Russia needs a weak (but stable) ruble to stimulate its domestic production in the context of Western sanctions and the Kremlin's renewed drive for economic sovereignty.

In short, a strong ruble would sabotage much of what Russia is now working to build.

Thus, Engdahl seems to be repeating banter and clichés for which the shelf-life expired with the dawn of the Ukraine crisis. He is not speaking to current economic and political realities.

Our world is in deep, systemic crisis, and we are in desperate need of genuinely new ideas, not the sort of warmed-over, pseudo-"freethinking" mush where one blogger presents ideas from some other blogs that got their ideas from perhaps a YouTube home video or a "Billionaire insider says buy gold, crisis coming!" pop-up ad from three years ago.

Because that's nothing more than a mirror image of the flawed, religiously-fanatical conventional wisdom that readers come here to avoid.

As for a real, gold (not gold-backed) ruble, which even Engdahl (despite his heading) did not dare propose, actual gold ruble coins would be price-arbitraged out of circulation almost immediately upon release. Likewise for any type of gold-convertible ruble, even in digital form.

Millions of Russian citizens would become speculators overnight, seeking to profit from even minor fluctuations in the world gold price and/or the ruble exchange rate.

Indeed, the paradox of the Gold Standard is that the first countries to leave it (e.g. the UK in 1931) came out ahead, whereas the first country to come back on it would simply be giving its gold away to the rest of the world, i.e. it would be sabotaging itself and ensuring that no others follow in its footsteps.

So I am glad that Engdahl at least did not go there.

In conclusion, I wish to point out that unlike Engdahl and Co., Russia's leadership is fully-informed and sober and has no wish to dethrone King Dollar, nor do they think they could ever do so.

Rather, they are taking small, wise steps towards some level of financial and economic sovereignty for their nation, as they have been doing since 2000, albeit now at a faster clip.

And that is good enough.

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 #18
Financial Times
December 8, 2015
Russia and radicalization: Homegrown problem
Moscow seeks to prevent the war in Syria from fueling its Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus
By Katherine Hille

Every time Albina's mobile phone buzzes, she winces. "It could be my sister, from Syria," says the young woman, sitting in the kitchen of the small apartment she shares with her mother in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan.

In October, her brother-in-law, his wife and their three children disappeared, leaving a message that they had gone to live in the Islamic State. Since then, Albina and her mother have been taking turns staying at home to make sure they will not be overheard if the family calls to tell them they are safe.

Albina's family is one of many in the North Caucasus brooding over the fate of their loved ones as hundreds, if not thousands, from the troubled southern fringe of Russia have followed the call of Islamists to go to Syria.

As in Europe and other western countries, Russia is struggling to stop the radicalisation of young Muslims and their recruitment by Isis or other jihadist groups. But Moscow has an even more urgent and difficult task at hand: to prevent the war in Syria from fuelling its homegrown Islamist insurgency in the republics of the North Caucasus.

Even though Moscow won the war in Chechnya, an Islamist underground continues to exist, and young men continue to join up, or, as the locals say, "go into the forest".

Last week, President Vladimir Putin said security forces were hunting for Russian citizens classified as international terrorists. "Our servicemen were working in this area to prevent the possible return of these people to Russian territory to commit crimes," he said.

According to Russia's Federal Security Service, the number of Russian citizens fighting with Isis has risen from 1,700 in February to 2,400 in September. And while some analysts say these figures are exaggerated, there is consensus that the North Caucasus republics of Dagestan and Chechnya are the epicentre of the problem in Russia. The Chechen government says 405 of the republic's citizens have left to fight with Isis. Dagestan has not published confirmed statistics, but an official estimates that more than 1,000 of its citizens are in Syria.

Many Central Asians seeking to fight in Syria travel through Russia. Some 80 to 90 per cent of Isis fighters from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are radicalised and recruited while in Russia as migrant workers, according to estimates by Noah Tucker, author of a report on Central Asian involvement in the conflict in Syria and Iraq.

"In these countries, local or regional identity is much more important than the national one. When they move to Russia, they lose their community and replace their local identity with a Muslim one," he says.

Radicalising factors

The radicalisation of people from Central Asia and the North Caucasus is closely intertwined: thousands of young men from Dagestan and Chechnya, driven from home by struggling economies and high unemployment, are on the move elsewhere in Russia. They mingle with central Asian workers in big cities from Moscow to Vladivostok, and also in Tyumen and Khanty-Mansiysk - oil producing regions in the northern Urals that are reliant on migrant labour.

As a result, the non-traditional Salafist strand of Islam is on the rise in these areas, providing fertile ground for radicalisation, experts say.

"Some people from the North Caucasus get radicalised not at home but when they go out to other regions of Russia as migrant workers," says Varvara Pakhomenko, a Caucasus expert at the International Crisis Group. "Many Central Asian migrant workers in Russia in turn get radicalised by people from the North Caucasus, recruited by them to go to Syria." There is also a problem among Tatars and Bashkirs, two other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in Russia, she adds.

Among the ranks of both Isis and groups affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra, fighters from the North Caucasus often stand out because of their battlefield experience either in the Chechen wars or the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

The risks of radicals flowing across borders were long ignored in Moscow. Initially, security officials acquiesced to or even encouraged Islamists from the North Caucasus leaving for Syria.

Yekaterina Sazhneva, a columnist at the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily who has long reported on the North Caucasus and the Middle East, says: "I find it very strange that they managed to leave Russia in the first place. The security services had many of these people on their lists, and their exit should have been blocked. But the idea behind it is clear: these people are radicals, we don't need them here, and as long as they are in Syria, they're not causing us any trouble back home."

Troublemakers return

Such export of potential radicals seems to have been facilitated by Moscow's efforts to guarantee security at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. "Before the Olympics, there was very, very strong pressure on regional security officials in the North Caucasus to make sure there was no security risk to the Games," says Ms Pakhomenko.

Whether or not it was official Russian policy to use Syria as a pressure valve for the local insurgency, it appears to have worked - at least in the short term. Dagestan has not registered any terrorist attacks since early 2014.

But government officials and experts are wary that the problem of Islamist radicalism is coming back to haunt the region. "The Russian government has changed tack since the middle of 2014, long before they started looking into a military operation in Syria," says a European official involved in police and intelligence exchanges with Russia. "They saw our problems with jihadi recruits, and they woke up to the risk of people returning with more friends, weapons and money."

Since the summer of 2014, Russian immigration officials have drastically stepped up exit checks of Russian citizens leaving for Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, the main countries through which jihadi fighters are known to travel to Syria. "Security officials have been asking people who want to travel to Turkey their passwords for social media and checked their phones for jihadi videos," says Ms Pakhomenko.

According to the interior ministry, 477 criminal cases were opened last year alone on individuals charged with fighting in an illegal armed formation abroad - almost double the number in 2013.

Since Russia started its military operation in Syria in late September, the crackdown on radical Islamist groups has been advertised as a part of the fight against Isis rather than an effort to root out homegrown terrorism.

In October, Chechen strongman ruler Ramzan Kadyrov, the man Mr Putin relies on to keep the republic stable, said a group of young men inspired by Isis had conspired to assassinate him. In a meeting broadcast live on state television, Mr Kadyrov told the men and their parents that the ignorant youngsters had been seduced by the treacherous teachings of Islam. Following this public shaming, the alleged participants of the plot promised to change their ways and were then forgiven by the ruler.

Authorities in Moscow are also trying to block the fast-changing social media channels through which terrorist groups in Syria recruit young Russians.

The Safe Internet League, a pro-government body, last month launched a hotline on which internet users can report extremist content related to Isis for blocking. In another initiative, a Moscow-based institute believed to be backed by the security services is trying to identify and locate Isis recruiters through data-mining software.

But experts complain that Moscow's high-profile push does little to address the root causes of radicalisation, warning that the heavy-handed approach to homegrown Islamist insurgents risks driving even more young people into the arms of Isis. "Russia is not giving any ideological answers to the calls of radical Islam," says Yana Amelina, an expert on the Caucasus and co-author of Russia's first comprehensive report on Isis.

Security experts say Russia's long and painful experience with terror attacks has bred a reflex to throw money and military hardware at the problem.

"Profiling Isis recruiters is fine, but what needs to be done at the same time is profiling their targets," says Alexei Filatov, vice-president of the International Alpha Veterans Organisation, a club of former anti-terror special forces members. "We must find those members of our society who are vulnerable to such propaganda, and find out why they are vulnerable - that's the only way that we can protect them and all of us."

Distortions in Dagestan

In Dagestan, those working with young people face this challenge everyday. Gasan Osmanov, head of a youth centre in the Babayurt region, is worried about some of the secular students he meets at sports and other activities organised by his centre. "The level of knowledge about our religion is very low, and the children soak up all sorts of distorted stuff way faster than you can imagine," he says. "Much of the time, we have no clue what's going on in their heads."

Videos circulating under the "Unexpected jihad" meme and featuring the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants are all the rage among Mr Osmanov's students. But while such videos - remixes featuring explosions, cries of "Allahu akbar" and Islamic prayer song - were produced as a mockery of jihadism, many Dagestani youngsters watch them without any sense of irony. "Yes, they think this is funny, but in the sense of cool. They pick up 'Allahu akbar' as something they can identify with," says Mr Osmanov. "They need to be taught what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. But we don't know how to reach them."

Such descriptions mirror the personal histories of many young men from Muslim immigrant families in western countries who fall for Isis. Many of them know little about the religion of their ancestors but absorb jihadist ideology in search of an identity as they feel marginalised in the country they grew up in.

In the Russian North Caucasus, the local insurgency and the government's campaign to stamp it out have instilled a sense of disaffection at least as strong.

To quash the rebellion, Moscow largely relies on omnipresent security forces and brutal crackdowns on those identified as insurgents and everyone connected with them. Mr Kadyrov has gained notoriety for expelling the families of Chechen insurgents and destroying their homes. Since 2013, Dagestan has adopted these practices as well, while turning away from programmes to rehabilitate insurgents.

Local experts believe that this practice is backfiring and driving young Dagestanis into the arms of Isis. "Our problem is how we deal with our own terrorists, the men who get caught and imprisoned or killed in special operations," says Patimat Omarova, dean of the special education department at Dagestan State Pedagogical University. "If we don't work with their families, we will get many more fighters. We will lose an entire generation."

Educators, psychologists and muftis (Islamic scholars) in Dagestan argue that death or imprisonment transforms local insurgents into heroes in the eyes of their children and inclines them to view the state and its representatives as enemies. In this situation, they warn, the government's persistent talk of the Islamic State will only make it more attractive.

"Our men used to go into the forest," says a Salafi preacher with reference to the insurgency. "Now Syria has taken the place of the forest."
---

Neighbours share fears as estimates of fighters vary

Just how many Russians are fighting in Syria is the subject of fierce debate. While there are Russian-speaking battalions among jihadi groups and some of the most prominent foreign fighters are Chechens, many of them are not Russian citizens.

The most famous example is the red-bearded Isis commander Abu Omar al-Shishani, who has several times been reported dead, only to resurface again every time. He is frequently referred to as Chechen but is in fact a Kist, a member of an ethnic group close to the Chechens, from the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. Many members of Russian speaking battalions, on the other hand, are from Central Asia.

As a result, estimates of Russian fighters in Syria diverge wildly. Peter Neumann, director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, estimated the number of Russian citizensfighting with Sunni groups in Syria and Iraq at between 800 and 1,500 in January this year.

The Russian government's own figures are much higher, and have risen fast over the past few months.Sergei Smirnov, deputy head of the Federal Security Bureau, in September put the number of Russian citizens fighting with Isis alone at 2,400, up from 1,700 in February.

The FSB says that another 2,600 militants from Central Asian countries are fighting with Isis, an estimate also vastly higher than ICSR's. Independent observers doubt the Russian figures, arguing that Moscow is using the threat posed by Isis to justify its intervention in Syria and increase its security role in Central Asia.

"Some of these numbers are created out of thin air by the FSB, as are claims that Isis has territorial ambitions in central Asia through Afghanistan," says Noah Tucker, managing editor of Registan, a website focused on Central Asia.

"They are then carried and spread by previously unknown news outlets in Central Asian countries and serve as an argument to restore a Russian presence on Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan."

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 #19
www.thedailybeast.com
November 7, 2015
Russians Are Joining ISIS in Droves
Jihadists from Russia and Central Asia are pouring into the caliphate, four times more than a year ago.
By Kate Brannen
Kate Brannen is a national security reporter based in New York. Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security.

Across the globe, the number of foreign fighters traveling to Iraq and Syria continues to climb, but Russia and Central Asia have experienced the most dramatic change over the past year, with some estimates suggesting a 300 percent increase.

Russia, with an estimated 2,400 fighters, is now believed to be the third biggest supplier of foreign fighters to radical Islamist groups fighting in Iraq and Syria, according to new analysis from the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm based in New York.

In June 2014, it was estimated that Russia had around 800 foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria.

"Comparatively speaking, this increase is far more substantial proportionately than that seen in Western Europe over the same time span," the Soufan Group says in a report it plans to release tomorrow. The Daily Beast obtained an early copy.

The only two countries who currently supply more fighters are Tunisia, with an estimated 6,000, and Saudi Arabia, with 2,500. Jordan also continues to rank among the top nationalities fighting with the so-called Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda franchise, with somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 Jordanians leaving home to fight in Iraq or Syria.

The majority of Russia's foreign fighters is coming from the North Caucasus-Chechnya and Dagestan, areas with long histories of Islamic extremism.

"Local grievances have long been drivers of radicalization in the Caucasus, and as the strong centralized security apparatus of the Russian government limits the scope for operations at home, the Islamic State has offered an attractive alternative," the Soufan Group report says.

But news investigations have also revealed that Russian authorities have encouraged local jihadists to travel to Syria. The logic being: better terrorists fight abroad than make trouble in Russia. According to a report in Novaya Gazeta, Russia's domestic intelligence agency-the Federal Security Service or FSB-facilitated the travel of Russian fighters headed to Syria.

With the terrorist attacks in Paris carried out by French and Belgians who'd traveled to Syria to fight, and with the Islamic State claiming responsibility for the bombing of a Russian airliner in Egypt in October, Russia may be rethinking its strategy to export local fighters. Rather than guaranteeing more safety at home, Russia could be sending men and women off to collect valuable combat skills on the battlefield that can be brought back home to carry out attacks.

Addressing the threat in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said a task force would be established to strengthen the borders of former Soviet republic states, who have also seen its foreign fighter numbers quickly climb over the last year. The Soufan Group has identified credible reports of foreign fighters in Syria from 12 of the 15 former Soviet states.

Approximately 2,000 militant fighters hail from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, according to the report.

Putin said between 5,000 to 7,000 people from Russia and the former Soviet states had joined the Islamic State. The Soufan Group report says that number is likely closer to 4,700. Either way, an alarming number of people are leaving the region to join the Islamic State, and did so before Russia began its bombing campaign in September against groups that oppose Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It is too soon to tell what effect Russia's more aggressive approach in Syria could have on its own population. Over the past 18 months, recruits from North America have not escalated dramatically, despite the anti-ISIS bombing campaign led by the United States.

"This suggests that the motivation for people to join violent extremist groups in Syria and Iraq remains more personal than political," the Soufan Group report says. "A search for belonging, purpose, adventure, and friendship, appear to remain the main reasons for people to join the Islamic State, just as they remain the least addressed issues in the international fight against terrorism."

Just 18 months ago, the number of foreign fighters in Syria was believed to be somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000. Now, that number appears to have doubled.

Through its own investigation, the Soufan Group found that in total between 27,000 and 31,000 people have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State and other violent extremist groups from at least 86 countries.

This is line with a recent U.S. intelligence assessment that estimates nearly 30,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Iraq and Syria from more than 100 countries since 2011.

Western European countries have seen its foreign fighter numbers double over the last year, jumping from 2,500 in June 2014 to roughly 5,000 today. France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium contribute the biggest numbers to this tally, making up almost 3,700 of the total.

As for fighters traveling from the United States, FBI Director James Comey has said that approximately 250 Americans have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria. In 2014, that number was closer to 70.

"There are no significant patterns of locally based recruitment in the Americas-nor recruitment hot spots-as seen in Europe and the former Soviet republics," the Soufan Group report says.

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#20
Washington Post
December 8, 2015
Stakes in Syria much higher for Putin than Obama
By Walter Pincus
Walter Pincus reports on intelligence, defense and foreign policy for The Washington Post. He first came to the paper in 1966 and has covered numerous subjects, including nuclear weapons and arms control, politics and congressional investigations. He was among Post reporters awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
 
The United States and Russia are on slippery slopes with increasing their military involvement in the Syrian civil war and pursuit of Islamic State fighters in reaction to separate terrorist provocations.

Despite last week's horrific San Bernadino shootings, the stakes at home for Russian President Vladimir Putin are much higher than they are for President Obama, and the prospects for Moscow eventually getting more deeply involved in the ground war fighting are therefore much greater.

"The militants in Syria pose a particularly high threat for Russia" because "many of them are citizens of Russia" or from former Soviet republics, Putin told his Federal Assembly on Thursday in what was his equivalent of the annual State of the Union address in the United States.

"We know what aggression of international terrorism is," Putin said, referring back to attacks and suicide bombings in the mid-1990s that involved Islamic extremists and "took thousands of lives....This evil is still out there."

In October, Putin put the number of Russian and former Soviet republic fighters who had gone to Syria to join the Islamic State at "an estimated 5,000 to 7,000." He added at that time, "We certainly cannot allow them to use the experience they are getting in Syria on home soil."

During his Nov. 26 joint news conference with French President François Hollande, Putin returned to the direct threat to Russia. He described Russian nationals in Syria as "international terrorists" and justified Russian military actions in northwest Syria as "working in this quadrant to prevent the possible return of the people to Russia's territory to commit crimes."

Putin further explained: "This is why it has been decided to launch a military operation there based on an official request from the legitimate Syrian authorities. Our military personnel are fighting in Syria for Russia, for the security of Russian citizens."

Russia has faced internal threats before from Islamic radicals who are part of the overall Muslim population that make up between 10 percent and 15 percent of Russia's 140 million people.

In response to Russia initiating bombings in Syria in September, the Islamic State issued a series of videos threatening a response, including one Nov. 12 that said there would be attacks in Russia "very soon."

On Nov. 17, the Islamic State took credit for the bomb that blew up the Russian airliner Oct. 31 over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. That forced Putin, who had earlier withheld judgment on the cause of the crash that killed 244 Russian men, women and children, to respond by saying, "We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them." At the same time, he ordered missile attacks in Syria and sent more Russian aircraft and protective ground troops there. Russia's intelligence agency, the FSB, announced a $50 million reward for help in discovering the perpetrators.

The Islamic State has continued its anti-Russian campaign.

On Wednesday, one day before Putin's state of the nation speech, the Islamic State released a video that allegedly showed the beheading of a Russian from Chechnya who, on the video, claimed to have spied on behalf of Russian intelligence in Syria. The bearded individual, who said he was 23-year-old Magomed Khasiev from Gronzy, claimed he worked undercover in Syria and Iraq for the FSB collecting information on Russians who had joined to fight for the Islamic State.

Washington and Moscow have a mutual interest in destroying the Islamic State leadership and overcoming their appeal to Islamist militants who may attack Russian or U.S. citizens anywhere in the world. Both have responded to recent Islamic State terrorist acts outside Syria by sending in modest special forces units.

Iran's Fars New Agency reported Sunday that more than 60 Russian marines had arrived in Syria's Homs province to advise and assist Syrian army units fighting near Palmyra. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter last Tuesday announced a "specialized expeditionary targeting force" would be going after Islamic State leaders in Iraq and Syria.

These minimal force increases and stepping up of Russian and U.S. coalition air attacks do not solve the basic internal problems in Syria and Iraq that feed the Islamic State's attraction.

"There is no meaningful official reporting on the progress in creating effective Iraqi government forces, the strengths and weaknesses of the Iraqi Army to date, the success or failure of efforts to create Arab Sunni forces, and the strengths and weaknesses of Iraqi Kurdish forces," Anthony H. Cordesman, the strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an essay released Thursday. He added that there also was no "credible plan or mix of U.S., Arab, and Turkish efforts or...a meaningful rebel force in Syria to deal with ISIS - or the Assad forces."

That's been the dilemma for the administration the past three years, developing local forces in Iraq and Syria. As Obama put it Sunday, "The strategy that we are using now - airstrikes, Special Forces and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country - that is how we'll achieve a more sustainable victory."

The question is whether Russia and/or the United States can avoid what Obama described as being "drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria." He correctly said the Islamic State leaders "know they can't defeat us on the battlefield....But they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops, draining our resources and using our presence to draw new recruits."

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 #21
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 7, 2015
In the fight against ISIS, perception trumps reality
In an interview with Russia Direct, prominent Middle East expert Georgi Mirsky explains how Russia's involvement in Syria complicated the situation in the region, why ISIS is so hard to defeat and why political settlement of the conflict is impossible.
By Pavel Koshkin

Amidst growing tensions in the Middle East, Russia Direct sat down with Georgi Mirsky, a Valdai Club member and professor and chief researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) at the Russian Academy of Sciences, to understand the impact of Russia's involvement in Syria.

In the interview below, Mirsky discusses how Russia has shifted the balance of power in the region, why the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) is almost impossible to defeat and the odds of political settlement of the Syrian conflict.   

Russia Direct: What factors make Russia's involvement in the Syrian conflict so dangerous and unpredictable?

Georgi Mirsky: Why unpredictable? Everything is possible to predict to a certain extent. However, we made a mistake when we thought that our airstrikes would allow the Syrian army to carry out a serious attack [on the opposition and ISIS]. Putin said that Russia's air bombing would go on as long as the Syrian army needs to  take the offensive.

But the Syrian army has been failing to advance seriously since Russia started its campaign on Sept. 30. And here is a very strange situation. How long should bombings go on? There is nothing to bomb in Syria anymore: Everything is destroyed. But the Syrian army [even with Russian military support and its airstrikes against the opposition] cannot change the situation. So what? Does it mean that we should stop bombing?

And here is another inconvenient question that comes about: For what reason has Russia launched this campaign, given that it was followed by the terrible catastrophe with our passenger plane in Egypt and Turkey's downing of the Russian jet. So, how can the Kremlin stop its airstrikes in Syria now after all these incidents happened? Thus, Russia turns out to have failed to calculate the consequences of its Syria campaign. Does it mean it is necessary to go on? But how to do it given recent events?

It is easy to carry out bombings from the sky, but what about putting boots on the ground? Nobody does this. Several times the Russian leadership said that it would not deploy its troops in Syria. So, the Syrian army is failing and nobody cares: not Saudi Arabia, not Jordan, nobody.

ISIS is possible to defeat by military means. And if Obama sent 200,000 soldiers to Iraq and if Putin sent 200,000 soldiers to Syria, they would have finished with ISIS. After all, there are not invincible armies. But nobody will send them. So, this is the dead end.    

RD: Some are inclined to believe that the Vienna 2 talks are the start of the political settlement of Syria. How do you assess the odds of diplomacy in resolving the conflict?

G.M.: There are no chances. It is clear that creating conditions for political settlement requires compromise between "the first force" (the Assad army) and "the third force" (the opposition and the Free Syrian Army). It is necessary that they reconcile and unite to defeat "the second force" (ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra). In this case, they might defeat ISIS troops, with the support of Russian military aviation. But never ever will they unite. That's why there is no reason to believe in political settlement of the conflict.     

Russia has already said that it will not turn its back on Assad. Even if we succeeded in persuading France (which is not difficult because French President Francois Hollande is in such a situation that he is ready to yield) and the U.S. to come up with a compromise, nobody will be able to persuade Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to accept such trade-offs.

Even though you try to imagine such absolutely unbelievable scenarios and they finally agree, how in this case to deal with those who have been fighting and shedding their blood for four years, who are burying their friends and loved ones. Never ever will they be able to unite under the leadership of Assad. Never.   
     
RD: According to some opinions, Russia's direct intervention in Syria didn't have a significant impact on the situation in general, because it had been severely unstable long before. Do you agree?

G.M.: The situation has become even more complicated, because long before there were expectations that sooner or later the Syrian army would lose, even if fighting on its last legs. Obviously, it won't happen because it is a matter of principle and honor for Putin to defend Damascus and the Syrian people.

There was another scenario: opponents were expected to unite and defeat ISIS together. It is clear today that this won't happen. So, the balance of power is so bad, such that it is difficult to imagine a worse one.  

Look at ISIS. Everybody hates it and is afraid, but nobody fights with it in reality - they only pretend, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. Assad does pretend that he fights with ISIS, but, in fact, he fights with "the third force" - the Free Syrian Army. Iraq does pretend that it fights with ISIS, but, in fact, the Iraqis defend themselves and Baghdad. Likewise, the Kurds defend their territory.

The West and, particularly, the Americans do pretend that they fight with ISIS, but, in fact, they are bombing selectively to avoid big casualties and safeguard President Barack Obama from accusations that he is responsible for the deaths of the Syrian people.

You see, all pretend, because all have double or triple agendas and their own interests.    
        
RD: There is an opinion that we are exaggerating the potential of ISIS as a state. Some argue that it is just a project, an attempt to create a state without clear long-term vision.

G.M.: It is a real state with all necessary ministries, all necessary agencies, bodies of administration and propaganda. It has armed forces, even though it lacks air power and tanks. But, in general, it has almost everything that a state should have.  

RD: To what extent is it correct to compare the anti-ISIS coalition with the anti-Hitler one?

G.M.: Well, Hitler posed a real threat to the entire world and everybody understood this. All understood that only united forces would be able to cope with him; otherwise it could lead to a nightmare: the end of civilization. Regarding ISIS, it is clear that it won't be able to conquer Europe, the U.S. or China: Its reach is relatively short. So, I don't see why we should compare anti-Hitler and anti-ISIS coalitions.
    
RD: So, you see such comparisons as populist rhetoric?

G.M.: No, why? The matter is that it is natural for human to compare something and seek different analogies. Otherwise, he or she understands nothing. But if he or she finds analogies, everything is clear.
 
RD: And we keep looking for analogies: when Russia started its bombing in Syria, comparison with the 1979 Soviet campaign in Afghanistan abounded in the media.

G.M.: I am not a big fan of analogies, because amateurs try to find them and over-simplify instead of looking for deep understanding and knowledge about history, sociology and religion. They believe they can explain with these analogies everything.  
 
RD: Do you believe that the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris and the crash of the Russian charter airplane in Egypt can bring together Russia and the West?

G.M.: No way. The West clearly understands that Putin came to Syria not to fight terrorism, but to save Assad. But their goal is to overthrow Assad. So, it is out of the question to talk about an alliance in such a situation.

RD: So, what solutions and recommendations would you propose to diplomats and politicians?

G.M.: No solutions, no recommendations. It totally doesn't make sense to talk about it, because you can give recommendations only to those people, who have common sense and see beyond the end of their nose, who put universal human values and interests above the interests of their own states, their party, their Congress, their tenure, their audience. Only such people can listen to your recommendations. But there are no such people in the world of [politics], so it makes no sense to recommend something [to politicians].         

Everybody thinks, first and foremost, about his approval ratings and popularity. Everybody thinks what the opposition would say, what people would say, what allies would say, what partners would say. This, after all, preoccupies the decision-makers, not peace. Everybody thinks how to portray oneself. It's a matter of perception. Perception trumps reality, not vice versa.

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 #22
Counterpunch.org
December 8, 2015
Putin Adopts Netanyahu's Twisted Logic
by JOSHUA FRANK
JOSHUA FRANK is managing editor of CounterPunch. His latest book, edited with Jeffrey St. Clair is  Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter @brickburner.

"I believe that the progressive supporters of the war have confused a 'just cause' with a 'just war.' There are unjust causes, such as the attempt of the United States to establish its power in Vietnam, or to dominate Panama or Grenada, or to subvert the government of Nicaragua. And a cause may be just-getting North Korea to withdraw from South Korea, getting Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, or ending terrorism-but it does not follow that going to war on behalf of that cause, with the inevitable mayhem that follows, is just."

- Howard Zinn, A Just Cause, Not a Just War

Black smoke billowed and rubble smoldered after Israelis incinerated a Gazan home that took the lives of nine members of the Dalu family in July 2015. The Dalus, of course, were not associated with Hamas or any other "terror" organization. It was one of many such bombings during that horrific 50 day stretch of killing. In the weeks leading up to Israel's attacks, leaflets were dropped, warning residents that their homes would be targeted by Israeli missiles. "Those who fail to comply with the instructions will endanger their lives and the lives of their families. Beware," read one leaflet that landed on the battered streets of Beit Lahiya, an impoverished Gazan border town.

The justification for why Israel was targeting civilian infrastructure was that Hamas resided in those locations, or near them, using civilians as cover. Like Bashar al-Assad in Syria today, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu argued that he was simply defending his country's sovereignty against outside actors. Of course, Netanyahu's rationale for killing innocent "human shields" was based on pure propaganda, which has been largely discredited. Israel, of course, is always good at blaming the victim. In all, Israel's Operation Protective Edge destroyed or severely damaged nearly 900 homes, 138 schools, 26 health facilities and killed almost 1,500 civilians.

Fast forward to 2015 in Habeet, Syria, a dusty border town near Idlib, a stronghold of the Western-backed Syrian opposition. Since October, Habeet and the surrounding areas have suffered from intense Russian bombing raids. Reports are beginning to trickle out about the impact these campaigns are having and the death toll is mounting fast. Airwars, an independent public interest group that tracks impacts of bombings against Islamic State, reports that since October, Russian bombs have taken the lives of more civilians in Syria than IS has killed there.

"Airwars presently assesses 44 Russian incidents as having likely killed civilians in Syria to October 30th - which between them reportedly killed 255 to 375 non-combatants," writes Chris Woods of Airwars. "This is roughly ten times the level of credible allegations against US-led Coalition operations in Syria [during this period of time]."

It's also been alleged by Syrian Civil Defense and others, including Doctors Without Borders, that medical facilities and schools have been struck where Russia is carrying out its bombing. Putin's justification for attacking the area, while not as blatant as Netanyahu's (Putin doesn't directly acknowledge he's targeting rebel factions), is virtually indistinguishable: opposition forces (terrorists according to Putin and many of his sympathizers) occupy and reside in civilian enclaves, therefore these areas are legitimate targets, a-la Hamas in Gaza. Civilians are necessary collateral damage.

As Russia's air assault drags on, there is no question more innocents will perish as a result. Nonetheless, many continue to support Putin's efforts in Syria, despite the rising death count (or they just write it off entirely as being propaganda, only US bombs kill innocents!). They view Putin's actions as a legitimate response to American belligerence and imperialist machinations. Heck, Russia was even invited by Assad to bombs away! Russia's actions must be just, because the cause is just. However, as I've argued before, it's a devil's bargain to ride shotgun with Putin.

Russia's entrance into the Syrian crisis has not made the situation better, or brought us closer to a tangible resolution. In fact, Putin has pulled Western powers in deeper. NATO is now on watch after its member state Turkey shot down the Russian fighter jet. The UK is set to bomb. France is upping the stakes (no, Putin isn't responsible for the Paris attacks) and the US isn't going to back off supporting opposition forces. One can only imagine how far Hillary Clinton will take this if she's elected-where Obama backs down it's likely Clinton will escalate. Bottom line: Putin's involvement hasn't forced the US and its allies out of Syria. Even if you believe it's not Russia's fault for any of this, it's clear Putin hasn't been able to stop it from happening. Thus far the Russians have only been able to help Assad reclaim 0.4% of the country.

Moral imperatives and human rights concerns aside, from a strategic standpoint Russia has thus far not accomplished what it set out to do. Assad's reign may be safe in the short run, but his long term prospects are still bleak. It's hard to imagine how killing more Syrians in a small border town and elsewhere-those who aren't associated with the opposition or the regime-is going to change that outcome. Why would someone embrace a government that bombed their apartment building, killed their kids and ruined their lives? Killing Palestinians hasn't made Netanyahu many new friends in Gaza, just plenty of new enemies.

As Russia wages war abroad, the scene in the homeland is also not looking very promising. Just last week truckers began a large-scale protest of a new proposed tax hike and blocked the main artery into Moscow. It was the first industrial unrest Russia has experienced since Putin came to power. Truckers, many from family owned operations, are upset that they will now be required to pay a fee that will be pocketed by a company owned by the Rotenberg family, with whom Putin is close. The Rotenbergs will reportedly take a hefty 20 percent commission. With Russia's economy on the fritz, largely due to the drop in global oil prices (Russia's #1 export), it's likely more people will begin to turn on Putin's government.

While Putin has long been accused of being a crony-capitalist, many continue to embrace him as the best chance to challenge US power. Really? No matter that Putin's actions in Syria aren't forcing the US out, or that more Western countries are now coming to aid US imperial efforts. No big deal that working people in Russia are turning against him. Sorry to say, Putin is no Chavez. It's a sad state that so many support a man that has adopted Netanyahu's brutal tactics, and write off civilian casualties because those killings don't fit the narrative that Russia's war is a just war. Putin doesn't even have the courtesy to drop leaflets.

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 #23
Washington Post
December 8,  2015
What life looks like in the dying villages of the remote Russian Urals (photos)
Kenneth Dickerman is a photo editor at The Washington Post.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2015/12/08/what-life-looks-like-in-the-dying-villages-of-the-remote-russian-urals/]

Far out in the Russian Urals region of Sverdlovsk sits a cluster of tiny villages connected by an old, decrepit railway. At one time, the forestry industry was thriving there but it collapsed when the Iron Curtain fell. The population of the villages declined as more and more people left them in search of work in urban areas like Yekaterinburg where there is a steel industry. At the end of this rail line is the village of Kalach whose total population is about a dozen people, all of them adults. There is no phone service in the tiny place, and electricity only runs for a few hours a day. Residents might hop the train and travel to some of the connecting villages like Sankin, where they can get their mail and pick up their pension checks and sometimes buy clothes. Life is difficult for the residents of this area, but they make do the best they can by growing most of their produce and shepherding sheep.

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 #24
Moscow Times
December 8, 2015
Is Russia Ready for Modern Dance? Ask Diana Vishneva
By Olivia Bagnall

Moscow just closed the curtains on the third international festival of contemporary choreography and dance, "Context. Diana Vishneva." Performances from leading international dance companies from Argentina, Holland, Israel and the United States took place at various venues around the city.

During the festival, the audience could also attend screenings of the best films from the International San Francisco Dance Film Festival. A series of lectures, master classes and presentations were also included in the packed schedule. This year the festival was held in honor of Maya Plisetskaya, the world renowned ballet dancer and trustee of the previous two festivals who died on May 2.

Among the most noteworthy performances in a schedule filled with illustrious dance companies and performances were works by the Argentinian Brenda Angiel Aerial Dance Company, in Russia for the first time, and a show of new work from the celebrated Israeli choreographer Itzik Galili. Russian ballerina Diana Vishneva, who established the festival in 2013, debuted the piece "Live" by acclaimed Dutch choreographer Hans Van Manen to mark the opening and closing of the festival.

"Classical ballet in Russia has a long tradition, but the the history of modern dance is being written in the here and now," said festival founder Diana Vishneva. "Our festival aims to show the best there is in the world of contemporary choreography, and the main thing is to help talented Russian directors establish their place on the world stage and include Russia in the context of the world of contemporary dance."

Diana Vishneva

Diana Vishneva is one of most famous and celebrated dancers in Russia and the world. She is a prima ballerina at the Mariinsky Theater, principal dancer of the American Ballet Theater, and is now the founder and ideological inspiration for the festival "Context. Diana Vishneva." In 1995 she graduated from the Academy of Russian Ballet and in 1996 debuted at the Bolshoi Theater, where she continues to appear as a guest ballerina. Although trained in the classical art of Russian ballet, Vishneva is interested in expanding the creative boundaries of Russian dance. "Context" is part of her plan to support and nurture young choreographers and introduce audiences to the full range of contemporary dance.

Vishneva's career has brought her numerous awards and prizes, including the People's Artist of Russia Award, six Golden Masks and the Ballerina of the Decade Prize. In 2010 she established the Diana Vishneva Foundation, a cultural charity that works in Russia, the United States and Japan to increase access to ballet for all social classes, promote it as a modern art form, establish new dance projects and provide financial support to young and retired performers.

Samuel Wuersten, artistic and general director of the renowned Holland Dance Festival and co-director of "Context" with Diana Vishneva since 2013, said in an interview to The Moscow Times that working with Vishneva was "in a nutshell - wonderful! For someone like myself whose main theme in life is to share my passion for dance, it is such a pleasure and a privilege to work with someone as passionate and as gifted as Diana. She is very authentic and full of integrity, no nonsense, no falsities. Just a very accomplished and great artist."

Russia and Contemporary Dance

Classical art forms, especially ballet, are the global cultural trademarks of Russia. But "Context" aims to change this stereotype. The Moscow Times caught up with Samuel Wuersten and asked him how he saw the future of Russian dance. He said that the festival has been met well by the Russian audience despite his initial apprehension. "I was curious as to how the Russian public would react to our program. You never quite know beforehand. It feels a bit like having people over for dinner and cooking for them! But from the two previous festivals I can safely conclude that lots of people came over for dinner ... and loved what we served up."

Wuersten certainly believes that Russia is ready to embrace contemporary forms and sees the country's passion embodied in the spirit of his colleague. "Having Diana set the tone as a true ambassador of dance is an invaluable endorsement. She is full of curiosity when it comes to exploiting dance. On stage she is a magnificent adventurer. Off stage, she is passionate, inquisitive and open minded."

And the Winner Is...

The key event of the festival was a competition of young Russian choreographers on the stage of the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre. There were six participants in the final, and the winner was Konstantin Semyonov whose piece, "Forgotten Sacrifices" won over the jury. Semyonov dances in the corps de ballet of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater, and this was not his first work as a choreographer. He will receive an internship in the Center of Choreographic Development, which is located in Carolyn Carlson's Atelier de Paris in France.

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 #25
Transitions Online
www.tol.org
December 8, 2015
Georgia Strips Saakashvili of Citizenship
Now a Ukrainian citizen, the ex-president says the decision exposes the authorities as 'scared and failed.'

Four years ago Mikheil Saakashvili, then the president of Georgia, stripped upstart rival Bidzina Ivanishvili of his citizenship, arguing that a Georgian could not become a national of another country.
 
Now his successor has returned the favor.
 
President Giorgi Margvelashvili's office said 4 December that Saakashvili and several other Georgian nationals had lost their citizenship because they had taken citizenship in foreign countries. The constitution prohibits dual citizenship except in unusual cases, Civil.ge writes.
 
Saakashvili recently became a Ukrainian citizen, shortly being named governor of the Odessa region by his friend, President Petro Poroshenko. He has kept up a barrage of invective against Ivanishvili and the Georgian government since his presidential term ended in 2013, accusing them of furthering Russian interests.
 
Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream party came to power in 2012 and immediately launched criminal cases against many Saakashvili loyalists. The former president himself faces multiple criminal charges.
 
A month ago Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili accused Saakashvili of having discussed "plans to organize disorders" in Georgia during a wiretapped conversation in which he allegedly talked of staging violent protests against a change of management at a television station friendly toward him.
 
Speaking to Radio Free Europe's Ukrainian service, Saakashvili said the decision was "the political act of scared and failed authorities" in Tbilisi who do not serve [Georgia's] national interests," Eurasia Review writes.
 
Tbilisi is "well aware" that many Georgians hold multiple citizenships in spite of the ban against it, he said: "Many [Georgian] citizens are working [in Ukraine] and have also taken Ukrainian citizenship."
 
Saakashvili and the United National Movement party, now in opposition, could attempt a political comeback someday, he said on his Facebook page, EurasiaNet.org says.  
 
"Saakashvili is variably seen as either a boon or a bane for the party's chances [in next year's parliamentary elections]. Some of its sympathizers would like the group to move beyond Saakashvili and his tendency to dominate the stage, and form a compromise-based system of internal governance," EurasiaNet writes.

The BBC in a profile of Saakashvili said that his background "has all the ingredients of a successful career on the international stage and helps explain his appeal to Brussels and Washington." But it says those opposed to him in Georgia accused him of "exhibiting the very authoritarianism of which he has accused Kremlin leaders."

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 #26
The Guardian
December 7, 2015
Security chiefs block release of report on 1983 Soviet nuclear scare
US has released several documents relating to Able Archer crisis but Cabinet Office has released just the title page of joint intelligence committee report
By Richard Norton-Taylor
Richard Norton-Taylor writes for the Guardian on defence and security and until recently was the paper's security editor.

Security chiefs are trying to block the release of documents that would shed fresh light on how Britain and the US came close to provoking a Soviet nuclear attack.

They are insisting that a report, The Detection of Soviet Preparations for War Against Nato, must remain secret. The report was drawn up by the joint intelligence committee (JIC) after a Nato military exercise codenamed Able Archer 83.

The US has released a number of documents relating to the crisis, specifically about Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB officer who defected to Britain. He played a key role in warning Washington about the effect of president Ronald Reagan's dangerous rhetoric on Moscow, and the Kremlin's equally dangerous paranoia.

The latest American document to be released describes how US-Soviet relations were on "hair-trigger" alert in 1983, with a watchful air force general acting "out of instinct, not informed guidance" to prevent the crisis from escalating, and Reagan calling the situation "really scary".

Officials in the Cabinet Office have agreed to release just the title page of the JIC document but nothing more. The document was requested more than a year ago by Nate Jones, of the US National Security Archive attached to George Washington University. His request has been supported by the former head of GCHQ's Soviet division.

After months of internal debate, the Cabinet Office said the document was covered by section 23 of the Freedom of Information Act, which imposes an absolute exemption from disclosure - with no public interest defence - of material "directly or indirectly supplied" to the security and intelligence agencies.

Jones appealed to the information commissioner, Christopher Graham, who rejected his request on the grounds of national security. Graham accepted there was "a public interest in understanding the lessons learned from Able Archer 83, and that disclosure could potentially add some value to what was already publicly known regarding the exercise." However, he agreed with Cabinet Office security and intelligence officials that there was "a strong public interest in safeguarding national security", and said the JIC report was "still relevant to national security today".

The dispute over the JIC document comes at a time when Nato is resuming "transition to nuclear strike" exercises.

A heavily censored witness statement by Dominic Wilson, director of operational policy at the Ministry of Defence and previously a senior official in the National Security Secretariat, says the JIC report must remain firmly closed.

Last month, Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, told the Labour MP Paul Flynn: "It would not be appropriate to release this [the JIC report] on grounds of national security."

One of those calling for the release of the report is Michael Herman, former head of GCHQ's Soviet division. He said last year: "A weakness in the UK was that the [intelligence] assessors didn't know the extent of US confrontation/provocation in Reagan's first administration. The Russians were quite right to be frightened. But how big was the crisis? Until all the evidence is declassified how do we judge?"

Jones argues that while it was the British - mainly through Gordievsky - who discovered the dangers of the Nato war game, it has been the US that has released much more information about what its National Security Agency described as "the most dangerous Soviet-American confrontation since the Cuban missile crisis".

Roger Smethurst, head of the Cabinet Office knowledge and management unit, told Jones: "Other states and UK government departments are entitled to make their own judgments as to what of the information they hold on a subject it is appropriate to make public."

Records previously released in the US include photographs of Gordievsky debriefing Reagan. It was Gordievsky who originally alerted the UK and US to Operation Ryan, launched by the Kremlin in 1981 to detect and pre-empt a western "surprise nuclear missile attack". The existence of Operation Ryan contributed to the risk of nuclear war through miscalculation during the 1983 Able Archer scare.

Jones has now appealed to the information rights tribunal for the release of the JIC report in the interests of what he calls "governmental accountability and transparency".

The British government released one file in 2013 in response to an FoI request from Peter Burt, of the Nuclear Information Service, an independent UK-based research group. It showed that the JIC report was drawn up in response to what the MoD called "an unprecedented Soviet reaction to Able Archer 83 and other reports of alleged concern about a surprise Nato attack".

Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, was reported to have instructed officials to "urgently consider how to approach the Americans on the question of possible Soviet misapprehensions about a surprise Nato attack".

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 #27
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 8, 2015
Will hybrid warfare doctrine draw NATO and Russia further apart?
NATO has adopted a new doctrine aimed at conducting a swift response to any attempts to use hybrid warfare against its member states, including the possible use of "little green men" to effect a change of power. Where does this leave relations with Russia, which is clearly perceived by the alliance as a potential instigator of such activity?
Sergei Strokan, Vladimir Mikheev, special to RBTH

The foreign ministers of the NATO nations, conferring in Brussels, have adopted a new hybrid warfare strategy, targeting the so-called "little green men" who gained prominence in 2014 during the Russian takeover of Crimea, in which key buildings were seized by men wearing green uniforms without any insignia. NATO has determined that if there is ever a re-emergence of "little green men" in any member state, it would automatically activate the alliance's Article Five and lead to concerted military action.

NATO Review magazine quoted Peter Pindjak of Slovakia's Foreign Ministry: "Unlike conventional warfare, the 'center of gravity' in hybrid warfare is a target populace. The adversary tries to influence influential policy-makers and key decision makers by combining kinetic operations with subversive efforts. The aggressor often resorts to clandestine actions, to avoid attribution or retribution. Without a credible smoking gun, NATO will find it difficult to agree on an intervention."

Will the new doctrine facilitate NATO action if someone spots "little green men" or perceives what they believe to be them? What is the new strategy all about? Is it genuinely a response to changes in warfare, or is it merely lip service? Talking to Troika Report, Leonid Ivashov, a retired three-star general and president of the Moscow-based Academy on Geopolitical Affairs, who was formerly a key interlocutor in relations with NATO, claimed the novelty should be "taken seriously."

"The concept of "hybrid warfare" is simply one element in the policy of containment of Russia. In February, the National Defense Strategy, adopted in the United States, asserted that there is no alternative to American primacy and there is no place for a multi-polar world. In this document Russia is mentioned at least a dozen times as the main security threat to mankind. It is echoed in the British military doctrine, and now NATO has basically supported the same premise."

- The concept of "hybrid wars," is this a real novelty?

"The innovation is relative, because the existing U.S. strategies stipulate an assortment of measures which precede military action. They are aimed at weakening any particular government and creating instability. This involves subversive actions targeting the financial system, disrupting the system of administration, etc."

- What do you make of the hints to revive the NATO-Russia Council?

"This comes amid robust political and psychological pressure on Russia, thus making it feel inferior, a sort of 'junior' among the 'seniors' of NATO. It is also aimed at domestic audiences in order to show that NATO is open to dialogue."

How viable is the application of the new NATO strategy? What might be the repercussions for the already strained relations between the Western military and political alliance and Russia? Dmitry Polykanov from the Center for Policy Studies in Russia, a Moscow-based independent think tank, made this comment to Troika Report:

"This doctrine is kind of a NATO response to new challenges and to the new types of war which we have seen not only to the east but also to the south of the alliance's zone of interest. Russia is only one of the targets. NATO is trying to adapt to the 'new reality,' in which there are no official wars and no clear understanding of who is the adversary, and decision-making should be faster, etc."

- The new "hybrid warfare" is clearly not restricted to Russia but it is Russia that most NATO member states had in mind. The Ukrainian delegation claimed it was taking an active role in shaping the new strategy...

"It is an alarming trend that Russia is becoming more and more the main enemy for NATO. The emergence of the 'hybrid warfare' doctrine was largely caused by the developments in Ukraine. NATO was facing a new kind of war, including propaganda, cyber warfare, and non-regular paramilitary units fighting on each side in the conflict. Russia is evidently one of the major reasons for adopting such a strategy, but not the only reason."

It cannot be overlooked that confusing signals are coming from NATO HQ. On the one hand, the alliance approves the new doctrine, aimed largely at Russia. On the other hand, it does not rule out the resumption of talks within the NATO-Russia Council. The conflicting messages can be interpreted as an adaptation of the alliance, a robust remnant of the Cold War, to the new realities on the ground.

This assumption is shared by Ivan Konovalov, director of the Center for Strategic Trend Studies in Moscow, who pointed out that the "hybrid war" cliché is now fashionable and is often applied without due understanding of its meaning, like in the case of the unrecognized rebel republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine.

Talking to Troika Report, Konovalov claimed that disregard of the popular defiance in these two regions of the forceful change of regime in Kiev obscures the causes of the present hostilities. At the same time, he does not see NATO's new strategy as a formidable obstacle to engaging Russia.

"Hybrid war does not preclude cooperation. It might be used against a strategic adversary who at the same time might have value as a partner on a particular dossier."

Nevertheless, the solidifying geopolitical threat of Daesh, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS), striking against targets from Egypt to Paris to London, has only strengthened support for Russia's air campaign against what it says are terrorists of all brands, including ISIS targets, in Syria.

Notably, Boris Johnson, mayor of London, a Tory MP and pretender to succeed David Cameron as Conservative Party leader, has called on the West to strike a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he described as a "ruthless and manipulative tyrant," for the sake of eradicating the "evil death cult" of ISIS from the territory it now controls in Syria and Iraq.

Whether the old-new NATO doctrine of hybrid warfare will deter cooperation with Russia in the battle against ISIS remains to be seen, however.

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 #28
NBCNews.com
December 7, 2015
Why the Suwalki Gap Keeps Top U.S. General in Europe Up at Night
By JIM MACEDA

RUKLA, Lithuania - A 60-mile long sliver of flat land just inside NATO member Poland gives the U.S Army's commander in Europe sleepless nights.

It's called the "Suwalki Gap" and should Vladimir Putin decide to invade, it would be perfect for advancing Russian tanks. Sandwiched between Moscow-ally Belarus to the east and Russia's far western enclave of Kaliningrad, it's also why the military alliance is training harder - and faster.

If the Russian president gave the order to sweep across Suwalki, his forces would initially split the Baltics from the rest of NATO before the West could do anything to stop it.

While ISIS in Iraq and Syria may preoccupy his peers, Lt. Gen Ben Hodges worries about the growing number of "snap" Russian war games on NATO's border - live-fire exercises with units at fighting levels, unannounced and unmonitored by Western observers. Several have been held right next to the tiny Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - NATO'S soft underbelly.

Gesturing from his Black Hawk helicopter while flying over the potential flashpoint, Hodges explained the nightmare scenario. "You get thousands of Russian troops in exercises on both ends of the Suwalki Gap, and now everybody's in the field," he said. "They have equipment - so there's a potential for them to transition from an exercise to an operation - that's our concern."

Since he took command in 2014, Hodges has counted dozens of violations of NATO airspace by Russian fighter jets and bombers, often flying with their transponders off, making them difficult to track.

Earlier this month, NATO amassed more than 30,000 troops and hundreds of aircraft and warships in the largest display of Western military strength and speed since 9/11. The exercise included a 5,000-strong rapid-reaction force.

It also offered a message to the three Russian observers - invited by NATO to witness the exercise - to take back to the Kremlin.

"We can mobilize brigades and divisions within days. So this should be quite clear to any potential adversary that NATO is the strongest military alliance that exists today," said Lt. Gen. John Nicholson, NATO's allied land commander and one of its key strategists. "That ability to respond, we think, will actually prevent conflict ... we think it will give them pause before they choose to do anything rash or [make] a mistake or miscalculation."

In a sign that the alliance isn't backing down, on Wednesday it invited tiny Montenegro to join - in defiance of Russian warnings that such a move would be a provocation.

Still, if deterrence doesn't stop Putin, NATO commanders agree that any counterattack to take back the Baltics would be extremely bloody. Russian military vehicles have already moved scores of Iskander missiles into Kaliningrad - each nuclear-capable and with a range of 250 miles.

"We are committed to the sovereignty of Lithuania, the sovereignty of Poland and all the other countries, so we will do whatever it takes to reestablish that," Hodges said. "[But] it's not inevitable that it goes to a Third World War. Nobody wants that, including the Russians."

Meanwhile, Polish soldiers man watchtowers around-the-clock along the Suwalki Gap, looking for suspicious Russian border activity. It's an echo back to the Cold War days when some 300,000 U.S. troops waited for a Soviet tank invasion across the Fulda Gap in central Germany.

Today, Hodges has about one-tenth the number of U.S. soldiers to carry out the same mission: deterring a Russian attack on a NATO state.

But there are many voices - even in Russia - who say that an invasion of the Baltics by Putin is the stuff of fantasy.

It's true, they admit, that Kaliningrad is highly weaponized, but only in reaction to NATO's encroachment of Russia's western border.

"I'm very, very surprised that people are talking in the West from a position of weakness, because the West [NATO] is dozens of times more powerful than Russia," said Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "It just defies normal logic to think in terms of a country being overwhelmed by the Russians."

Hodges agreed that a Russian invasion of a NATO country appears unlikely. "It would make no sense to us," he said. "But I was surprised when [Putin] went into Crimea [which was later annexed by Moscow]. That didn't make sense to me. I was surprised when he went into Syria."

And while Putin recently joined the U.S. in the fight against ISIS, few see any signs of a long-term improvement in relations.

"After this particular issue is solved, everybody will just revert to the previous confrontational phase," said Fyodor Lukyanov, a political analyst and editor of "Russia in Global Affairs."

He added: "This is how the modern world works - enmity is not all-encompassing and can be suspended when it benefits the players."

NATO member Turkey's downing of a Russian jet it claimed had violated its airspace last month triggered an angry response from Putin - who called it a "stab in the back". His tough talk resulted in "World War III" trending on Twitter.

Hodges, who was a captain based in Germany at the height of the Cold War, is among those once again worrying about what Putin will do next.

"It's surreal, 35 years later," the Florida native added. "But the Russians have been the Russians, when they were under Peter the Great, Stalin, or now under Putin. They respect strength. It's in their DNA."

Jim Maceda is a former NBC News foreign correspondent and author of "Scythes & Rounds" and "Kamila & Yossi," published by Cyberpress at www.stageplays.com.

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Foreign Affairs
December 4, 2015
The Best of 2015: Putin, the Myth and the Politician
Featuring Interviews with Stephen Kotkin, Gregory Feifer, and Nussaibah Younis.
[https://www.foreignaffairs.com/audios/2015-12-04/best-2015-putin-myth-and-politician?]

Part I of a two-part series highlighting the best Foreign Affairs Unedited podcasts of 2015, we revisit some of our favorite interviews on Putin: his motivations, his strategy, and his ideology. Featuring interviews with Stephen Kotkin, Gregory Feifer, and Nussaibah Younis and hosted by Deputy Managing Editor Katie Allawala.

Don't miss an episode of Foreign Affairs Unedited, subscribe on iTunes or on PodBean to have this podcast delivered right to your audio player of choice.

To learn more on the subject, check out these related articles:
The Resistable Rise of Vladimir Putin by Stephen Kotkin
Putin's Throwback State by Gregory Feifer
Putin's Next Conquest by Nussaibah Younis and Andrea Taylor
Expert poll: Should the United States Work With Russia in Syria?

This podcast has been edited and condensed. A rush transcript is below. Music credit: FreeMusicArchive.org / The Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionisio, Podington Bear

HOST: Looking back over 2015, one figure towered above the others: Russian President Vladimir Putin. From his country's continued activity in Ukraine through its intervention in Syria, we at Foreign Affairs have spent hours pouring over Putin's motivations, strategy, and ideology. Many of our authors have painted Putin as a man bent on confrontation with the West. Some of them have urged caution, arguing that the best way to protect Western interests is through containment. Others have urged confronting him head on. Of course, with the United States and Europe now ramping up their own involvement in Syria, things are set to get even more complicated in the year ahead.

We'll be covering those stories as they unfold, but for now, we want to take a look back at some of our best Russia stories from 2015, including interviews with Gregory Feifer on U.S. cooperation with Russia in Syria and Nussaibah Younis on Russia's strategy in Russia. But we begin the show today with a look at Vladimir Putin, the myth and the politician.

KOTKIN: Vladimir Putin is the kind of guy where if you had a whole bunch of 25-year-olds sitting around a table in Burbank and they were trying to figure out what was the ideal villain for a movie, this is for central casting, and they began to throw ideas around the table, how about KGB? KGB? How about a permanent scowl? Permanent scowl. And they went on and they went on, they would produce a figure like Putin.

That's Russia expert Steven Kotkin. In February, he sat down with Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose.

ROSE: Some people say that he's just a nonentity. He's been riding the forces of history and is not really a driving player himself. Do you buy that?

KOTKIN: Yes, this reminds me of what the Trotskyites used to say about Stalin, the outstanding mediocrity of the party. Here's a guy, Putin, who's been in power for, what, 15 years now with no end in sight. It's very hard for a nonentity to last that long at the top of any political system.

ROSE: Do you buy the argument that some people make that this is the 1930s all over again, an expansionist power coming to take over Europe?

KOTKIN: Russia is just not that important anymore. Russia is a state with very little global importance for the international economy. Russia has significantly declined in the weight that it has in the international system. It would be wrong to exaggerate Russia's position, its threat, danger, its evil.

On the other hand, Russia has what we would call spoiler capabilities. And it also has the only real army in its neighborhood. And so in dealing with Russia we're kind of in a harder place in some ways than the cold war.

If you want to stand up to Russia in its region, you have to put a countervailing force that's equal to Russia's into the region. You cannot do it with any of the countries around Russia. No country among Russia's neighbors has Russia's capabilities.

This is why Europeans -- and I believe correctly -- are pursuing some type of negotiation strategy because they live there, first of all, and also because they understand that nobody wants to commit the resources from outside to face the Russians down.

Of course, things have changed a lot since February. I recently asked Kotkin whether any of this past year's events have altered his thinking. He said that France and the United states would rightly like to elicit Russia's participation in a solution to the horrific Syrian mess.

And he noted that after all, during negotiations for the Iranian nuclear deal - whether one admires or fears it - the Europeans and Americans did manage to cooperate closely with Russia.

Still, he says, finding common ground with Russia, in Syria or elsewhere, remains a tall order in part because of the role that anti-Westernism plays in Russian domestic politics and self-identity. And, just as "America the enemy" looms far too large in the Russian imagination, "Russia the enemy" looms far too large in the American imagination.

Whether Russia is an enemy or not, the ISIS attacks in Paris have forced the United States to get serious about the possibility of working with-or at least next to-Russia in Syria and Iraq. In recent days, the Obama administration announced the deployment of more Special Forces to region, where Russia continues to conduct airstrikes. Not surprisingly, the move was greeted by criticism, both from those who want Obama to do more and those who want him to do less. For more on the U.S. response to Russia's activities in Syria, we go to Foreign Affairs' Brian O'Connor.

O'CONNOR: Everyone seems to have an opinion about the U.S. response to the intervention in Syria, but we at Foreign Affairs were curious about what the top experts would have to say. And so we asked dozens whether they agreed that the United States should work with Russia to fight ISIS.

In the end, 33 responded, with 14 agreeing, 14 disagreeing, and 5 remaining neutral. The responses themselves ranged from, quote, Strongly Agree, Working with Russia is the only way to end this conflict anytime soon" -- that's from Chicago University Professor John Mearsheimer -- to, quote, "strongly disagree, Russia's main military objective in Syria is to complicate the situation on the ground rather than help seek a resolution that would undermine ISIS. Propping up Assad, Russia's sole Middle East ally, is part of Moscow's effort to take international center stage."

I talked with the author of that last response, Gregory Feifer, to learn more.

FEIFER: I think that Russia's main goal is to essentially trap the US and its Western allies in Syria. After the fall of a whole series of Russian allies, Slobodan Milosević in Belgrade, Victor Yanukovych in Kiev, and others, Putin is trying to avoid the humiliation of having propped up Assad for a number of years only to see him fall. But he's also been able to essentially further expose the pitfalls of America's having a lack of strategy in Syria.

He's caught us again on the back foot. He is testing NATO's commitment to collective security by sending cruise missiles into Syria, and as it apparently happens, Iran, the day before a NATO defense ministers' meeting. And so, his whole modus operandi is to complicate the situation, and I think that in fact, he's already succeeded in his aims, because Putin is at the center of attention. Everybody is talking about Putin. The images of Russian missiles and bombs dropping from planes are going viral in Russia.

O'CONNOR: Do you think that Putin can envision a scenario in which Russia fares better in the Middle East than the United States has?

FEIFER: I don't think he thinks that far. I think Putin is a very good tactician. He's caught us on the back foot, but he is no strategist. And I don't think he's actually interested in Russia's long-term prosperity and influence. His actions are, at the end of the day, incredibly reckless.

O'CONNOR: One thing that we found interesting in terms of some of the responses we got to the poll was the number of people who said that if Russia really were fighting ISIS, that the United States should take some sort of role. I'm wondering if there's any credence to that in your mind, or if that's something that seems too far-fetched to be plausible?

FEIFER: Well, I think that's the opposite of what we should be doing. I think that's exactly what Putin wants. Putin has for many, many years, in fact, from the very beginning of his role in the year 2000, has been playing at both creating the image of somebody who is moderate on the world stage and wants to cooperate, and yet carrying out actions that are very aggressive and geared toward essentially consolidating and expanding his own personal authority at home, which again, I think is his overriding aim. I actually think that the best way, in fact, the only way to deal with Putin, especially after what he's doing now in Syria is to revisit George Kennan's policy of Containment, which was actually a very nuanced, very long-sighted, and ultimately successful proposal for dealing with the Soviet Union.

FEIFER: Containment has been mischaracterized. In fact, George Kennan has very famously criticized how it was implemented, and in later years, sought to essentially increase cooperation with the Soviet Union. He was very concerned about nuclear war. But I think as it was initially formulated, Kennan saw Joseph Stalin's regime as not only unwilling to cooperate with Western powers, but essentially going on foreign adventures as the only way to shore up an intellectually bankrupt authoritarian regime at home. I think there are a lot of parallels between Stalin's regime, especially foreign policy, and Putin's today. Not, of course, in the extent of their authoritarianism and their adventures abroad, of course, that's an important distinction to make, but I think the nature of their rules. And I think that the policy of Containment from 1947, 1948, as it was formulated, that we should revisit it now and institute a similar policy to contain Putin, not necessarily militarily, but politically and economically in order to put the West, and especially the US in a position of strength to be able to negotiate some sort of relationship, some sort of dealing with Putin until his regime, inevitably as it will, collapses or ends in one way or another, because it is not sustainable what he's doing politically and economically at all.

This is a long-term strategy, and it will only succeed if we stick to it just like we did during the Cold War. Now, I don't mean to sound hawkish. I think it's dreadful. I wish that we could extend a hand to Putin as we have many, many times in the past, and not only during Obama's initial Russia Reset policy, but it simply doesn't work. Putin is not interested in cooperating in Syria, in Iraq, in Ukraine, or anywhere else. In fact, his entire tactic is to try to trap the West into trying to cooperate and catching us on the back foot. It's a losing proposition. It's failed from the very beginning, and it will not succeed. I just don't think it's an option.

O'CONNOR: What steps should other Western countries take to make sure that if Containment were to happen again, that perhaps, this time it was a bit more successful?

FEIFER: Well, I think Containment was successful ultimately, and I think that there's no predicting how long Putin will stay in power, how long he will be able to keep his regime in place. As I said, ultimately, politically and economically, it is not sustainable, and Putin's regime will fall one way or another, in the long-term.

HOST: If Russia is, indeed, bent on antagonism with the West, then it stands to reason that its interventions won't end with Ukraine and Syria. To learn more, I went to the co-author of a recent Foreign Affairs article.

NUSSAIBAH: I'm Dr. Nussaibah Younis and I'm a Senior Resident Fellow at The Atlantic Council where I focus on Iraq and ISIS.

HOST: In her piece, Putin's next conquest, she makes the case that, for Moscow, Iraq may be next.

NUSSAIBAH: The Iraqi government is really very frustrated with the slow place of US Military engagement in the country. Iraqis feel that they are battling a threat from ISIS that is not only directed at them, but is directed at the region as a whole and also directed at the Western world. And they believe that the US and other Western countries should be doing more to help them to fight ISIS. The Iraqi government really present themselves as being on the front lines fighting against a global threat. And they feel that the US has not been meeting its obligations. They feel that the pace of weapons delivery is too slow, that there are too many conditions on who can use the weapons that are supplied and how they can be used.

Meanwhile, the Russians offer a very tempting alternative. They don't have the same kind of legal infrastructure, they don't have the same kind of concern for human rights and fear of causing collateral damage. They're not as cautious and they're much more willing to respond to requests from Iraq for weapons deliveries and supplies. And given their recent performance in Syria where they've conducted an extraordinary number of strikes in a very limited time period as compared to the much more cautious US approach the Iraqis are now wondering whether Russia might be more a better ally for them in this war against Islamic State.

HOST: In fact, since I spoke to Younis in October, the Iraqi government authorized Russia to strike ISIS targets inside the country and, in late November, temporarily closed airspace in the Kurdish north in anticipation of Russian cruise missiles aimed at ISIS targets just over the border. That marks a striking contrast to its more tepid response to the possibility of U.S. forces on Iraqi soil for which, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said, there was "no need."

For her part, Younis was not optimistic about how a Russian campaign in Iraq would turn out.

NUSSAIBAH: The Russians believe that going in hard and strong simply bombing territories that are being held by terrorist groups that that's going to be enough to defeat an Islamic State, and we know it's much more complex than that.

And Russia doesn't have any such complexity in its view of the counter-insurgency effort. It's shown absolutely no indication that it's interested in reaching out to those political factions who feel excluded by the current Iraqi government, and it's shown really no aptitude for taking part in what's ultimately a delicate and nuanced counter-insurgency effort. And rather, they're enjoying the shock and awe moment. And it's something that frustrated Iraqis who're very tired of the Islamic States atrocities want to see. They want to see these people being hit hard, but that's not a solution. And we've been here before and so we know it's not the solution.

HOST: That was Nussaibah Younis on Russia and Iraq. We'll be back in two weeks with the second part of our "Best of Series." Until then, read the site, check out our ebook, and let us know what you think of the podcast. You can leave a review on iTunes or drop us a line at editor@foreignaffairs.com

 

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 #31
Institute of Current World Affairs
'Russia: Adversary or Ally' - a Debate between Marvin Kalb and Gregory Feifer

December 10, 2015 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM EST

Johns Hopkins SAIS - Rome Auditorium
1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC  

Is Vladimir Putin's Russia an unalloyed menace - to its neighbors, to its people, and to the United States?  Or is it, warts and all, a great power that must be reckoned with if we are to achieve key foreign policy goals?  If we fail to stand up to Putin in Ukraine, will we see Russian attempts to provoke conflict with NATO member states in the Baltics?  Or is backing Kiev a policy doomed to fail, indeed, likely to put us on a collision course with a nuclear armed Russia?  Should we work with Putin in Syria - or would doing so simply make the US an even bigger target for Islamist extremists?

Please join us as Marvin Kalb and Gregory Feifer - two of the sharpest minds writing about Russia whose views diverge - will debate these and other urgent questions before a live audience.  The fault lines in US thinking about Russia, and the pressing decisions facing the Obama Administration, will be exposed in stark relief.

Edward P. Joseph, Executive Director of the Institute of Current World Affairs, and Lecturer & Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies will moderate the debate.    

Attendees will also be able to ask questions.  The event will be filmed.

Marvin Kalb is the Pulitzer Center's senior advisor. His career spans three decades of award-winning reporting and commentary for CBS and NBC, including a turn as host of Meet the Press. For nearly an equal amount of time he was founding director and senior fellow of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is also the Edward R. Murrow Professor (Emeritus) at Harvard, James Clark Welling fellow at The George Washington University and guest scholar in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He recently completed the 22nd season of The Kalb Report, a series of radio/TV forums on ethics and excellence in journalism, produced by the National Press Club Journalism Institute and several academic institutions. Kalb's latest book, Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War, takes a critical look at the recent political history of post-Soviet Russia.

Gregory Feifer is a journalist and author whose book Russians (Twelve, 2014) explains the social behavior behind the country's political culture. He reported about Russia's resurgence under Vladimir Putin as NPR bureau chief in Moscow. His other books include The Great Gamble (2009), a history of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. His work appears in various publications, including POLITICO, Foreign Affairs and Reuters.com. An associate of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies, he is working on a book about anti-Americanism. He is a former Institute of Current World Affairs Fellow, and current trustee.

Register here:
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ebxtey6y4791d1a2&llr=l7mheadab

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 #32
UN.org
Desperate farm families in eastern Ukraine forced into 'difficult choices' to survive - UN agency

7 December 2015 - The absence of financial, physical, social and human resources has left some 700,000 farm households extremely vulnerable in conflict-torn eastern Ukraine, the results of a United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) household survey revealed today, and also warned of food insecurity among those families due to "skyrocketing" commodity prices.

Painting "a bleak picture" for small-scale farming families in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the FAO survey noted that to cope with the dire circumstances, people are skipping meals, migrating to find work, borrowing to pay for necessities, selling household goods and vehicles, killing their livestock for lack of feed, and even planting less for lack of seed and fertilizer.

"Family farms in the conflict area have shown resilience in the face of very difficult conditions, but this cannot last," said Farrukh Toirov, FAO emergency response coordinator in Ukraine, stressing that while "difficult choices" may make sense in the short term, "it means we can expect to see consequences."

The FAO household survey also warned of "skyrocketing" prices for animal feed and agricultural inputs such as seed, fertilizer and tools, among others.

"We believe there is a significant and urgent need to support the subsistence production needs of the affected populations and stabilize their agricultural activities," said Vladimir Rakhmanin, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia.

FAO has carried out the timely distribution of potato seed, animal feed, and live broiler-layer chickens to needy farm households in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, the agency is boosting operations to reach more families and enabling them to continue production.

Immediate-term solutions to tackle food insecurity such as providing agricultural inputs and animal feed to ensure crop and livestock production are recommended in the report.

The majority of survey respondents produce crops for their own consumption. While there is a growing trend of migration, the capacity to self-sufficiency is declining for those remain on the land, according to the survey.

"People should not become dependent on food hand-outs in a land that can produce most of the population's food needs," said Mr. Rakhmanin.

In late February 2014, the situation in Ukraine transcended what was initially seen as an internal Ukrainian political crisis into violent clashes in parts of the country, later reaching full-scale conflict in the east. Nevertheless, despite a September 2014 ceasefire agreed in Minsk, the situation has since deteriorated, with serious consequences for the country's unity, territorial integrity and stability.

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 #33
New York Times
December 8, 2015
Joe Biden Urges Lawmakers in Ukraine to Fulfill Promise of Uprising
By PETER BAKER

KIEV, Ukraine - Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. urged Ukrainian leaders on Tuesday to curb the power of the business moguls dominating society and to fulfill the promise of the popular revolution that pushed out a pro-Moscow government last year.

Addressing the Ukrainian Parliament, Mr. Biden sternly lectured lawmakers to put aside their own self-interests and to transform this former Soviet republic into a model of democratic change.

Citing the failure of the Orange Revolution of 2004 to deliver enduring change, the vice president urged Ukrainians not to let this opportunity slip by as well.

"This is your moment," he told them. "This is your responsibility. Each of you, if you'll forgive me for speaking to you this way in your body, each of you has an obligation to seize the opportunity that the sacrifices made in the Maidan, the sacrifices of the Heavenly Hundred. Each of you has an obligation to answer the call of history and finally build a united, democratic Ukrainian nation that can stand the test of time."

By invoking the memory of the roughly 100 protesters killed during protests in Maidan Square last year, Mr. Biden hoped to infuse today's legislative battles with the moral imperative of the uprising, which led to a pro-Western government. Many in Ukraine worry that the new leaders have become so paralyzed by their own power struggles that they will squander the chance for change.

For Mr. Biden, who has made it his mission to nurse Ukraine through its transition, it was a classic performance from the lectern in the grand chamber of the Parliament, known here as the Rada. At times, he shouted at the lawmakers, gesturing sharply. At other points, he practically whispered. At still other moments, he wagged his finger.

Citing John Adams, Thomas Paine, Edmund Burke and Daniel Webster, Mr. Biden talked about the United States' own struggles to build democracy. He also cited a quotation from an American politician he did not identify: "In your heart, you know it's right," he said. (The phrase is actually a variation of the slogan in an ad made for the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964.)

But it was not clear whether Mr. Biden's message really got through. Lawmakers, many listening to an interpreter through earphones, sat silently during the long lecture on corruption and applauded only when Mr. Biden assailed Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. The one standing ovation they gave Mr. Biden came when he said that Russia had infringed on Ukrainian sovereignty and that the United States would never recognize the annexation of Crimea.

"Russia has violated these ground rules and continues to violate them," he said. "Today, Russia's occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory. Let me be crystal clear: The United States does not, has not, never will recognize Russia's attempt to annex Crimea."

He added that he would tell the world about Nadiya V. Savchenko, the Ukrainian helicopter pilot being held in Russia; her picture was displayed on a poster on the lectern from which Mr. Biden spoke, with the slogan, "Freedom for Nadiya Savchenko."

And the vice president committed to keeping American sanctions on Russia until Moscow complies with a cease-fire brokered in Minsk, Belarus. "There can be no sanctions relief unless and until Moscow meets all, all of its commitments under Minsk," Mr. Biden said.

But his main message to the Ukrainians was, in effect, to get their house in order. The day before, he had suggested that many in Europe were waiting for Ukraine to fail so that they would have an excuse not to continue confronting Russia.

Mr. Biden specifically called for an overhaul of the office of prosecutor general, change in the energy sector, transparency about official sources of income, disclosure of conflicts between government responsibilities and business and other measures.

"If you fail, the experiment fails," he said. "It's no exaggeration to say the hopes of freedom-loving people the world over are with you."

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 #34
Wall Street Journal
December 8, 2015
Ukrainians See Conflict in Biden's Anticorruption Message
Vice president's son serves on board of closely held Ukrainian oil firm
By PAUL SONNE And  LAURA MILLS

KIEV, Ukraine- Joe Biden is on his fifth trip to Ukraine as vice president, pressing the pro-Western government to root out widespread corruption, but activists here say that message is being undermined as his son receives money from a former Ukrainian official who is being investigated for graft.

Since May of last year, Hunter Biden, the vice president's son, has served as an independent director of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma Holdings Ltd., a closely held company run by a former government official whom Ukrainian and British authorities are investigating for alleged criminal wrongdoing.

Mykola Zlochevsky, who served as ecology and natural resources minister under the Ukrainian government that was ousted in last year's pro-Western uprising, hasn't been charged and denies wrongdoing.

Mr. Biden's visit to Ukraine this week, which will include a formal address to Parliament on Tuesday, comes against the backdrop of increasing exasperation over corruption that has persisted in the two years since the country's pro-Western uprising and the general prosecutor's office tasked with prosecuting such wrongdoing has come under fire for inaction.

The vice president's office defended Hunter Biden's right to serve on the board of Burisma.

"Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer. The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company," said Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for Mr. Biden.

Hunter Biden said his work with Burisma aligns with his father's anticorruption message. A spokesman for the younger Mr. Biden said he joined the board "to strengthen corporate governance and transparency at a company working to advance energy security for Ukraine...These are also goals of the United States."

But some anticorruption campaigners here worry the link with Mr. Biden may protect Mr. Zlochevsky from being prosecuted in Ukraine. The general prosecutor didn't respond to multiple requests for comment on the investigation into Mr. Zlochevsky.

"If an investigator sees the son of the vice president of the United States is part of the management of a company...that investigator will be uncomfortable pushing the case forward," said Daria Kaleniuk, head of Ukraine's Anti-Corruption Action Center.

Hunter Biden has been working on geothermal energy initiatives that Burisma is pursuing and carrying out customary board member duties including company oversight.

"The situation raises a question mark about integrity," said Viktoria Voytsitska, a member of Parliament and former employee of a rival gas company to Mr. Zlochevsky's. " There should be integrity at all levels, irrespective of whether these are of a public or private level."

Mr. Zlochevsky is under investigation in the U.K. on suspicion of money laundering, according to British authorities. He is also under investigation in a Ukrainian unlawful-enrichment probe and a separate Ukrainian into alleged abuse of power, forgery and embezzlement, according to letters from the general prosecutor reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

"Mr. Zlochevsky has followed the letter and spirit of the law in his role as civil servant," Burisma said. "He has, at all times, held himself to the highest moral and ethical standards of fairness and decision making."

The firm said investigators hadn't produced any evidence of misconduct. Anticorruption campaigners and Ukrainian lawmakers have criticized the general prosecutor's office for lack of progress in the investigation against Mr. Zlochevsky and others involving high-profile former officials, some two years after the uprising on Maidan that promised an end to Ukraine's widespread corruption.

In March 2014, BNP Paribas reported Mr. Zlochevsky to U.K. authorities on suspicion of money laundering after his companies tried to move $23 million to Cyprus from their British account at the bank, according to court documents.

A judge in the U.K. unfroze the $23 million in January and chastised the U.K. Serious Fraud Office for holding the funds for months in their money-laundering probe without presenting sufficient evidence of a suspected crime. Burisma hailed the ruling as confirmation that Mr. Zlochevsky's assets were legally acquired.

The U.K. authorities are still pursuing the investigation.

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt singled out the mismanagement of Mr. Zlochevsky's case by Ukrainian prosecutors as an example of the country's failure to hold to account officials from the ousted government suspected of corruption. Mr. Pyatt suggested the court unfroze the money not because of Mr. Zlochevsky's innocence, but rather because of the incompetence of Ukrainian authorities.

Behind the relationship between Mr. Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden is an effort to anchor the future of a controversial Ukrainian company amid shifting political and economic tides, according to people familiar with the company's thinking.

In his political career, Mr. Zlochevsky allied with Moscow-leaning factions in Ukrainian politics, only to re-emerge after last year's uprising with high-profile Westerners on his company's board. Burisma now promotes its business as an antidote to Ukraine's reliance on the Kremlin for energy.

Twice, Mr. Zlochevsky served in top Ukrainian government positions that oversaw the allocation of gas licenses-first under President Leonid Kuchma from 2003 to 2005, as chairman of the since-disbanded State Committee for Natural Resources, and later under President Viktor Yanukovych from 2010 to 2012, as Ecology and Natural Resources Minister.

All the while, companies now part of Burisma rose to become the largest private gas producer in Ukraine. A review of Mr. Zlochevsky's activities by The Wall Street Journal found his oil and gas production businesses flourished by winning crucial permits while he was in office.

Ukrainian records indicate that Burisma's main subsidiaries-Esko-Pivnich and Pari-received all their exploration permits for fresh fields during his two stints in the top posts, excluding extensions on existing fields. Those exploration licenses were awarded without public auctions, according to a review of the records and an official at the State Geological and Mineral Resources Service of Ukraine.

In many cases, the companies made use of a provision in Ukrainian rules, known as an "integral property complex," which allowed the firms to receive a license to gas fields without auction if they already owned or rented some type of asset on the field, as simple as a pipe network or dwelling. Burisma says all its permits were issued in accordance with Ukrainian law.

Apart from Burisma, other companies connected to Mr. Zlochevsky also received licenses during his time in office. In 2004, Mr. Zlochevsky's committee revoked a Ukrainian state firm's license to one of Ukraine's biggest gas fields, crippling a Polish-Ukrainian joint venture that had been harvesting deposits. It then awarded the license to a little known firm called Ukrnaftoburinnya, which counted companies tied to Mr. Zlochevsky among its beneficiaries, according to Ukrainian public records and its former CEO. Those firms later sold out. Burisma said there was no conflict of interest.

The Ukrainian constitution prohibits ministers from combining public service duties with any work except for teaching, research or creative activities. Four people, however, said they met Mr. Zlochevsky to discuss Burisma investments while he was minister. Two said he sometimes conducted the business-related meetings in his office at the ministry itself.

Since Ukraine's uprising, anticorruption crusaders and officials have regularly pointed to Mr. Zlochevsky as an example of Yanukovych-era excess.

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 #35
Wall Street Journal
December 7, 2015
Joe Biden's Mission in Ukraine  
By STEPHEN SESTANOVICH
Stephen Sestanovich, a professor at Columbia University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of "Maximalist: America in the World From Truman to Obama." He is on Twitter: @ssestanovich.

Vice President Joe Biden is in Ukraine for two days of meetings and a speech to parliament. Such visits typically combine warm reassurance with hair-on-fire exhortation: "We've got your back," plus "You've got to do more."  That will doubtless be Mr. Biden's script this week. But there's nothing pro forma about the message. Although Ukraine has long since lost its page-one prominence, its situation-economic, political, and strategic-remains dire. It could be back on the front page in a hurry.

So what does the vice president need to say in Kiev? The crisis of the moment involves a political impasse over the budget. Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a tough reformer, has presented a tax package that would clean up a corrupt code, embrace a 20% flat tax, narrow the deficit, and sustain support from the International Monetary Fund.George Soros has endorsed it, but key parliamentary leaders have not. They've proposed an alternative (reformers call it "populist") that will cut rates, explode the deficit, and kiss IMF money good-bye.

U.S. leaders hate telling friendly countries that they have to accept the IMF's medicine, and Mr. Biden surely loathes this part of his assignment. What he needs to do in Kiev is make populism his friend. Yes, it's crucial to satisfy the IMF. (Who except Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to stand alone?) But satisfying the Ukrainian people is equally important. The country's future depends on their support, far more than on the support of international financial institutions.  

Fortunately, the two can still be reconciled. Part of Mr. Biden's job in Ukraine this week is to avoid letting himself become the IMF's enforcer. He needs to give Ms. Jaresko's plan a boost and to make plain the U.S. government's view that her plan can succeed only if married to a vigorous assault on the corrupt and still unreformed institutions of pre-Maidan Ukraine. (As a senior member of the Kiev government growled to me not so long ago: "People need to go to jail.")

That's the you've-got-to-do-more half of Mr. Biden's mission. As for the reassurance half, the vice president will tell Ukrainians-loudly and emphatically-that the United States and Europe will not sell them out in order to forge an anti-terrorism alliance with Russia.  He shouldn't let himself be guilt-tripped on this issue or make concessions just to soothe nerves in Kiev. Still, the current lull in eastern Ukraine is a good moment to think about how to keep the peace whenever fighting threatens to resume. To prolong the lull, Ukraine needs a more capable and professional military. Now-not when new violence erupts somewhere down the line-is the time to think about security.

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 #36
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.com
December 8, 2015
Confirmed: Joe Biden extensively "counsels" Poroshenko; his visits mean Donbass escalation
 
Semen Doroshenko, PolitNavigator
http://www.politnavigator.net/bajjden-pokhvalilsya-chto-derzhit-ukrainu-na-ruchnom-upravlenii-s-poroshenko-ya-obshhayus-chashhe-chem-so-svoejj-zhenojj.html
Translated for Fort Russ by J. Arnoldski

"Biden boasts that he keeps control over Ukraine in his hands: 'I talk more with Poroshenko than my wife'"

The current visit of the vise president of the US, Joseph Biden is the fourth since the coup in Ukraine.

Biden shared some words on this in Kiev today at a joint meeting and briefing with Petro Poroshenko.

According to Biden, besides 4 visits, he has additionally had more than 1000 hours of direct phone consultations with the Ukrainian president.

"I probably talk with your president more than with my own wife," Biden said, speaking to Ukrainian journalists.

In turn, Poroshenko noted that Biden's visits to Ukraine have always been "very timely and extremely symbolic."

We recall that observers have noted an interesting coincidence. Just before each visit of Biden, an escalation of the armed conflict in Donbass is observed and blood is spilled during and after his visit.

Petro Poroshenko himself confirmed these observations when he noted that over the past day 8 fighters of the UAF had been wounded.

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 #37
Facebook
December 7, 2015
Biden
By Ivan Katchanovski
University of Ottawa

The US vice-president during his visit to Ukraine calls for a reshuffling of the Ukrainian government and firing Prosecutor General of Ukraine. This is another evidence that Ukraine is treated by the US government as its client state and that the US policy towards Ukraine is driven primarily by geopolitical interests and not by support of democracy, sovereignty, and Western values.

Байден требует уволить Шокина - нардеп
В США недовольны борьбой генпрокурора с коррупцией.
BY KORRESPONDENT.NET

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 #38
U.S. to never recognize 'annexation' of Crimea - Biden

KYIV. Dec 8 (Interfax) - U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden has reaffirmed the unwavering position of his country and said the United States will never recognize Crimea's accession to Russia.

The United States will never recognize attempts to 'annex' Crimea, Biden said in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday.

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 #39
AFP
November 8, 2015
Kremlin warns no more debt deal offers for Ukraine

The Kremlin on Tuesday insisted Russia has made its last offer to Ukraine on restructuring its debt as the clock ticks down on a deadline this month that could see Kiev pushed into default.

"Russia put forward an offer for restructuring... unfortunately our interlocutors have not accepted this initiative," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"There will be no other proposals by Russia."

Moscow and Kiev are locked in a dispute over $3 billion (2.8 billion euros) Russia loaned Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych in 2013 before pro-European protests that led to his ouster.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month said that Moscow was ready to spread out the repayment over three years after initially demanding that Kiev make good on the full amount by late December.

The dispute has been hampering the IMF's $17.5-billion rescue plan for Ukraine, which restricts Kiev's ability to restructure billions of dollars in debt, including some held by Moscow.

In mid-October, Ukraine reached a deal with its private creditors to write down $3.6 billion and restructure future debt worth $8.5 billion.

The crisis-torn nation also offered Moscow the same 20-percent debt cut condition regarding its $3.0 billion loan.

But Russia views the bond as a sovereign loan that is not subject to the commercial terms agreed with Western funds.

The IMF is expected to rule soon on whether Kiev or Moscow is right about the commercial or sovereign nature of the disputed loan.

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 #40
Kyiv Post
November 7, 2015
Ukrainian journalists object to Poroshenko's transfer of Mezhyhirya residence

Investigative journalists are objecting to President Petro Poroshenko's transfer of the billion-dollar Mezhyhirya complex used by ex-President Viktor Yanukovych to the Defense Ministry.

We, the Ukrainian investigative journalists who united around YanukovychLeaks project that saved tens of thousands of documents from the residence of Viktor Yanukovych, are extremely concerned about the events that are taking place around Mezhyhirya now.

We consider President Petro Poroshenko's initiative to transfer the former residence to the domain of the Defense Ministry to be a dangerous mistake.

It has no legal grounds, but at the same time it's indicative of how decisions are currently taken in Ukraine.

The president came out with this initiative on Oct. 13.

While we fully share his concern with the state of medical aid and rehabilitation of the Ukrainian soldiers who have been fighting in the war, attempts to solve the problem in the way he suggested are not acceptable, in our opinion.

We don't think that the president should single-handedly take decisions abou the future fate of Mezhyhirya for the following reasons: Such a decision would come in violation of procedures and laws, since Mezhyhirya residence is under arrest and is part of crucial body of evidence in a criminal case against former President Viktor Yanukovych.

So, any decisions on further changes of ownership can only be taken by court.

According to the documents found on the territory of the residence on Feb. 21, 2014 and published by yanukovychleaks.org, the residence was built using income acquired though corrupt means, and which was essentially stolen from the citizens of Ukraine.

This is why Mezhyhirya residence should become a national park, an open monument to corruption that would remind present-day and future officials about the fate that awaits the thiefs who hide behind a tall fence.

The decision to transfer the former residence to the Defense Ministry would close Mezhyhirya for public and, instead, lead to its financing at taxpayer's cost.

There has been no estimate of potential cost of this initiative, nor the cost of transformation of the property into a rehabilitation center. Such a decision contains high risks of corruption and is equal to the return of abuses we had seen during the Yanukovych era.

As of Feb. 21, 2014, when the residence was open to the public, it has not received a single kopeck from the state budget of Ukraine and has been sustained though entrance fees, guided tours and events organized on the territory of Mezhyhirya, such as the international festival for investigative journalists MezhyhiryaFest.

Moreover, Mezhyhirya can set a precedent for creation of national trusts for running parks and recreation zones.

This type of legal entity does not exist in Ukraine, but is popular in the world, and is used to ensure that socially important infrastructure is maintained by trusts that have supervisory boards of activists, local communities and government, and which are able to raise money and conduct business activity to sustain the important properties and ensure their development.

We negotiated with an international law firm that volunteered to write a bill on trusts for Ukraine on pro bono basis.We appeal to all players in Ukraine who have rights of legislative initiative to address challenges of Mezhyhirya in a way that can set a precedent for the return to the public of a property that was obtained though corrupt means.

At the same time, we stand ready to give practical assistance in creation of the legal base and concept for further functioning of Mezhyhirya. We believe that its future fate should be decided by the public.

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 #41
Consumers in Crimea get full power supply - Russian Energy Ministry

MOSCOW, December 8. /TASS/. Consumers in Russia's Crimean Federal District were getting full power supply as of 07:00, Moscow time, Tuesday, the Russian Energy Ministry reported.

According to the ministry, the 220 KW Kakhovskaya-Titan-Krasnoperekopsk high-voltage powerline was connected at 01:37 on December 8. The total power generation in Crimea, including power supply from the Russian and Ukrainian grids is 769 megawatts.

The power crossflows from Ukraine's national power company Ukrenergo reached 104 megawatts.

A total of 2,677 reserve power sources with aggregate capacity 272.29 megawatts have been switched on for resuming electricity supply of socially important and infrastructure facilities. The work to connect consumers to electricity supply continues.

Crimea was receiving electricity from Ukraine's Kherson region through four power transmission lines. However, all the powerlines were damaged as a result of actions of Ukrainian radicals on November 22 that disrupted the power supply.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched on December 2 in the evening the first line of the power bridge to Crimea, which linked the peninsula to the mainland Krasnodar region.

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 #42
Activists of energy blockade of Crimea split

KIEV, December 8. /TASS/. Following a split among activists of the so-called energy blockade of Crimea, Right Sector radicals said they will withdraw their blockade activists to send them to the Crimea's border, the 112 Ukraina television channels said on Tuesday, citing the Right Sector website.

According to 112 Ukraina, the split was triggered by the blockade organizers' decision to let repair teams finally reach the damaged Kakhovka-Titan electricity transmission line the feeds Crimea with electricity from Ukraine. Right Sector said this decision had not been agreed with it "and other public organizations, volunteer battalions and patriotic movements which are members of the headquarters of the 'Crimean maidan' [the word 'maidan,' or the name of Kiev's central Independence Square, a venue of grass-roots protests, is used to refer to protest movements of all types - TASS] led by Lenur Islyamov [a member of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, who claims to be the coordinator of Crimea's blockade - TASS]."

"We consider resumption of electricity supplies via one of the electricity transmission lines as another anti-Ukrainian step made by the current regime and as flirting with our enemies by some of our partners and allies," Right Sector said. "This step is a concession to our external and domestic enemies."

Electricity supplies via the Kakhovka-Titan transmission line which feeds two districts in Ukraine's Kherson region and some of Crimean localities were resumed overnight to Tuesday, after 16 days of energy blockade of Crimea. According to Russia's energy ministry, Ukrenergo's electricity supplies to Crimea on December 8 stood at 104 megawatt (out of 769 megawatt of Crime's overall generation).

Electricity supplies to Crimea from Ukraine's Kherson region were interrupted on November 22 when Ukrainian radicals blew up transmission pylons at all the four electricity transmission lines. Ever since one of the damaged lines - Kakhovka-Titan - was restored, energy blockade activists have been blocking its use. Russia's Federal Security Service initiated a criminal case on charges of subversive activities.

The first electricity transmission line with a capacity of more than 200 megawatt of the so-called energy bridge linking Crimea and mainland Russia was commissioned in the evening on December 2 in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Another line with a capacity of 250 megawatt is expected to be commissioned on December 15. The energy bridge is geared to make Crime independent from electricity supplies from Ukraine.

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 #43
Kyiv Post
December 7, 2015
Boozing takes soldiers' lives in war zone
By Oksana Grytsenko

STANYTSIA LUHANSKA, Ukraine -- The commander of a military unit, who goes by the name Vympel, shows the iron cage for the worst "avatars," the nickname for heavy-drinking soldiers.

It came from the bluish skin color of an alcoholic -- the same as of the heroes of James Cameron's popular science fiction "Avatar."

Vympel, the commander of a military unit in Stanytsia Luhanska, looks at the cage for "avatars" at his redoubt on Dec. 5. (c) Anastasia Vlasova

Vympel's battalion is located just miles from the territory controlled by Russian troops and their separatist proxies, struggles with mass alcoholism just like the rest of the Ukrainian army. The problem has become more visible since the tentative ceasefire reached by the second Minsk deal in February.

When the open hostilities are infrequent, some soldiers start drinking just out of boredom.

Vympel remembers how two soldiers of his unit were so deadly drunk last year that they missed the retreat of their forces and got trapped by separatists. The separatists captured one of them and left the other one as he was both too heavy and too drunk to move.

Drinking often brings tragic consequences.

In mid-November, a drunk Ukrainian soldier shot dead three other soldiers before being shot dead himself, military journalist Yury Butusov wrote on his Facebook page. In late March, a drunk soldier drove his armored vehicle on a pavement, killing an eight-year-old girl in Donetsk Oblast's Kostiantynivka.

As of October, the number of non-combat related losses in the army since the beginning of the war was almost 600 people, according to the General Staff. They include suicides, accidents, murders and security breaches. Officially, every sixth case of them is alcohol-related.

"When they are drunk the soldiers may try to hang, shoot themselves, cut their veins. The worst is that they are armed," said Oksana Chorna, a soldier-paramedic of 28th brigade, who dealt many times with alcohol-related casualties. Once a drunk soldier lost his arm and leg cut off by a train after he fell asleep on the rails, Chorna remembers.

The officers admit in private conversations that the number of drunk-related deaths has increased by several times since the ceasefire. "Alcoholism and land mines are now the biggest problems for the soldiers," said Petro Bilyan, press officer of the 128th brigade.

The bars and restaurants in the cities of the war-torn Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts often have the announcements: "We are not selling alcohol to soldiers" or "People with guns are not allowed in."

In March, the Ministry of Defense issued a long and detailed brochure on how to detect and cope with the alcoholics in the army. The commanders may order to stop paying a salary for the drinking soldiers. In the most notorious cases, the soldiers may end up with criminal charges for disobedience to their commanders.

But the military commanders on the spot developed their methods of punishment for drinking, which include cold, isolation and heavy work.

Vympel said that just several hours of standing still alone in a vertical cage outside in cold Donbas winter makes many to take pity for violation of the army discipline. He orders to place the less malicious boozers to sleep in a dirty barn, next to a pig.

In the other military base also located in Stanytsia Luhanska, the soldiers caught up drinking are forced to live in a garage and construct a pigsty.

When seeing a photographer the detained drunks swiftly turned their backs begging: "Please don't take our photos." They don't want their families to know.

A military chaplain, Father Oleh, who didn't give his last name for safety reasons, is the one in charge of looking after the boozy soldiers. He remembers the case when he had to placate a drunk soldier, who came into the chapel brandishing with the two knives in his hands in Krasnohorivka of Donetsk Oblast.

In Stanytsia Luhanska, Father Oleh often has to take the bottles with vodka away from the soldiers, survey the construction of pigsty by the troublemakers, and perform the special anti-drinking prayers. He believes the tough discipline measures may bring the alcoholics back on track.

"The excessive pity sometimes only harm," he said.

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 #44
Atlantic Council
December 7, 2015
Take It to the Next Level: Create a Biden-Poroshenko Commission
BY ANDERS ÅSLUND AND JOHN HERBST
Anders Åslund is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of "Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It" and John Herbst is a former US Ambassador to Ukraine (2003-6) and Director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.   

Ukraine has made great strides in the last two years. The democratic and pro-Western Ukrainian leaders that gained power in February 2014 have returned democracy to Ukraine and have conducted three free and fair elections at all levels of power. The Ukrainian nation has come together and successfully defended itself against Russian aggression. After two years of decline caused by Russian warfare, the economy appears to have bottomed out.

Yet the situation is far from secure. Ukrainians are tired of poverty and suffering. The United States has provided the new Ukrainian leadership a fair amount of support, but more is needed. Our proposal is a bilateral inter-governmental commission under the leadership of Vice President Joe Biden and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko.

In September 1996, Ukraine and the US established the Gore-Kuchma commission, which is fondly remembered by the many Americans and Ukrainians who participated in it. It provided a vehicle for more effective cooperation between our countries than ever before or since then. This kind of formal cooperation is needed once again.

Biden is the anchor for US policy on Ukraine. In the last eighteen months, he has visited Ukraine no less than three times, and he is currently in Kyiv on his fourth trip. He is on the phone with Poroshenko or Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk virtually every tenth day. It would be natural to formalize this cooperation.

For no good reason, the United States has been excluded from Ukraine's multilateral negotiations with Russia, Germany, and France. These negotiations have led to two ceasefire agreements in Minsk, which Russia has consistently violated. Officially, the United States has supported this Minsk process, but it needs to provide Ukraine with stronger political support.

A Biden-Poroshenko Commission could reinforce the beneficial role of the United States as a counterweight to Russia. It helps that the United States has just authorized $300 million in military assistance to Ukraine, showing Russia some reason for more military restraint.

The United States has been deeply engaged also in Ukraine's economic reforms, which have gone further than at any time since Ukraine's independence, with major energy reform, major fiscal adjustment, and a cleansing of the banking system. The US government has supported the International Monetary Fund four-year lending program of $17.5 billion and provided $3 billion in badly needed loan guarantees that have helped to replenish Ukraine's rundown international reserves.

Ukrainians are tired after eighteen months of arduous reforms, whose result are only now becoming visible, but without more assistance Ukraine has to maintain fiscal discipline. US Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew has just visited Ukraine, and Biden's trip will be vital to persuade the Ukrainian parliament to adopt a new tax code and realistic budget that make sense and can satisfy the IMF, on whose funding Ukraine depends.

Judicial reforms have proven much more difficult to enact than economic reforms. Multiple vested interests have blocked reforms of prosecution and courts and the establishment of new anticorruption bodies. The European Union is trying to persuade the Ukrainian government to do the right things, but with limited success. With a commission scheduling regular meetings, the US Vice President would be well positioned to use his influence to help resolve these difficult issues.

Last July, US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, whose family hails from Ukraine, hosted a major US-Ukraine investment conference in Washington, and she has visited Ukraine twice after the country's revolution of dignity. The interest among American corporations in investment in Ukraine is considerable and welcomed by the Ukrainian government. A commission would provide a regular forum for investment promotion, another pillar of US-Ukrainian cooperation.

US-Ukraine cooperation is already very good; but given Ukraine's still dire circumstances, the US should make it better by creating a high-level commission with five working groups each led by cabinet members: the secretaries of commerce, defense, justice, state, and the treasury.

In 2016, Ukraine will face the critical challenges of Moscow's aggression, a slippery diplomatic process, corruption, poverty, and economic stabilization, and growth. The US has a vital stake in Ukraine's success. A Biden-Poroshenko commission would focus US and Ukraine's efforts to ensure that those challenges are met and Ukraine is able to eventually join the West.

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