#2
The National Interest
December 14, 2015
Putin's Popularity, Explained
By Matthew Dal Santo
Matthew Dal Santo is a Danish Research Council post-doctoral fellow at the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, where he is leading a project on history and identity in modern Russia. This article was originally published on the Interpreter.

If nothing else, Vladimir Putin is a great political survivor. When protests broke out in Moscow four years ago against his return to the presidency, many in the West wrote him off (a widely cited work proposed to tell How Russia Fell in and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin). However, on December 3 Putin delivered yet another annual 'State of the Nation' address as President of Russia. Rarely has he been so popular.

Even today, Western commentators often give the impression that they've 'seen the future and the future is not Putin.' But surveys by Russia's independent Levada Centre provide little evidence of a brewing people's rebellion. On the contrary, the Kremlin is one of only three institutions that more Russians trust than distrust (the army is at 64 percent, and the Church and other religious organizations are at 53 percent). Fully 80 percent of respondents said they 'completely trust' Putin.
How should this be understood?

Mainstream Western media usually cast Putin's popularity as the result of Russians' heavy reliance on government-controlled television, i.e. 'brain-washing.' But such a one-sided view may misrepresent the relationship between power and public opinion. Tellingly, only 34 percent of Russians say they trust the media.

The 'brain-washing' theory also misses what is possibly the most significant feature of modern Russia: for the first time since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union (if not the 1917 revolution) government policies reflect the attitudes and opinions of the conservative majority of Russians rather than a Westernizing, neo-liberal (or Marxist) elite.

Since 1996, the Levada Centre has been asking Russians what they want of their presidents. Their expectations have changed little. In 2012 (that is, even before the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis), Russians' top four priorities were: restoring Russia's great-power status (57 percent versus 54 percent in 1996); law and order (52 percent versus 58 percent); a fairer distribution of the national wealth (49 percent versus 37 percent); and increasing the state's role in the economy (37 percent, unchanged).

Such attitudes reflect continuing nostalgia for elements of the Soviet system and dissatisfaction with the Westernizing path followed after the USSR's collapse. In 2012, only a minority (16 percent, up from 13 percent in 1996) believed Russia should continue to pursue the liberal reforms of the Yeltsin era and even fewer (5 percent down from 6 percent) thought convergence with the West something to be desired.

Today, however, 70 percent of Russians say they're proud of their country, whereas less than half did so a decade ago. Significantly, since 2014, 68 percent of Russians believe their country to have regained great power status.

Overwhelming support for 'buying Russian'-above all, when it comes to groceries (91 percent)-confirms consensus around import substitution (a self-imposed response to Western sanctions) as a long overdue helping hand to Russian industry and, especially, farms.

Of course, this coincidence of government policies and public opinion doesn't make Russia a democracy. But such polls frequently function as democracy's proxy in the West, so why not in Russia?

The main point is, however, that Russia's 'conservative turn' since Putin's return to the Kremlin in March 2012-widely deplored in the West as a creeping authoritarianism with roots only in the wiles of Putin's mind-may be closer to the world view of Russia's conservative and patriotic majority than most Western governments would care to admit.

In foreign and economic policy, Russia's post-Soviet government may never have cleaved as close to the views of the majority as it does now. That's the view of Igor Okunev, a vice-dean at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, whom I spoke with recently in Moscow.

"Historically, the Russian government has always been more liberal than the Russian population. Unlike Gorbachev and Yeltsin, what I think Putin has decided to do is accept this and use it as the basis for his support. That's been his strategy since the protests of 2011. That was when he decided to abandon the liberal minority and embrace the conservative majority."

Mikhail Remizov, director of Russia's Institute of National Strategy, shares this view, saying in a recent interview: "Russian democracy must by definition be conservative, populist, nationalist and protectionist." Until 2012, he said, the conservatives "who really enjoy the sympathies of the majority of the nation occupied the place of an opposition. Real power remained in the hands of the neo-liberal elite that had run the country since the 1990."

This has now changed. "Putin is falsely presented as a nationalist," said Remizov. "In a Russian context, he's a sovereigntist. But in general, the agenda of the Kremlin today is formed by the opposition of the 2000s: the conservative, patriotic majority."

Yet Western governments often treat Russia's minority liberal opposition as the avant-garde of a hidden liberal majority. To Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, however, this is betting on the wrong horse. "This isn't just about Putin," he told a group I was with in Moscow. "It's about the nature of society as a whole. Putin has been able to rule this country in an authoritarian way with the consent of the governed." The imagined liberal majority looking to the West for emancipation doesn't exist. Russian liberals, he said, "have the same problem the revolutionaries have always had in Russia: they look down on the rest of the country as dupes."

But Trenin is just as pessimistic about the ability of Russia's present rulers to address the country's underlying problems. "We will have to expect some sort of upheaval. The dams will have to be broken somehow."

For all his popularity, then, has Putin returned Russia to its pre-revolutionary impasse?

In tsarist times, a bourgeois, liberal elite eager to imitate Western Europe socially, politically and economically clashed with the conservative and collectivist world view of an Orthodox peasantry (and their educated Slavophile patrons, most famously Dostoyevsky) unwilling to see Russia renounce its distinctive ways.

Between them, the Imperial government arbitrated ham-fistedly until, in 1917, the First World War swept it away, and a disciplined band of revolutionaries seized power in the name of a different Western ideology, Marxism.

Some think revolution will be Russia's fate again. Others (notably Chatham House expert Richard Sakwa) believe Russia's path to democracy lies in modifying the system that Putin has created. Indeed, the country's very consensus behind its president could mean that the next step in such a 'democratic evolution' is closer than we think. "This could be an ideal moment for Putin to experiment with political competition," says Remizov, "precisely because of the strength of his position."

All the same, Western governments shouldn't have too many illusions. If Russians' present sentiments are anything to go by, the catch-22 of Russian democracy, when it arrives, may be that it looks rather like Putin's Russia.

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 #3
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
December 13, 2015
Most Russians Consider Themselves "Free"
By Anatoly Karlin
[Charts here http://www.unz.com/akarlin/russians-say-theyre-free/]

76% of them, to be precise (Levada polling). This is not surprising to close observers of Russian society but even apparently obvious things need to be repeated now and again.

But what is more remarkable is that this figure has almost never been higher, especially compared to the glorious 1990s that Russian liberals love to praise so much. Here is the net percentage of Russians saying they feel themselves to be a "free person in our society" over the past 25 years ago.

poll-russians-who-say-they-feel-free

Is this a function of the all-encompassing power of pro-Putin TV?

In actual fact, Russia has long since become an Internet society - penetration is now around 70%, which is no different from almost all of the rest of Southern and East-Central Europe. And the Russian Internet is, rhetoric aside, almost entirely unregulated. If you want access to the most unapologetically anti-Putin and pro-Western news source, any number of them are a mouseclick away.

So it must be doubly crushing to people who imagine Russians living in fear under the shadow of their ruthless authoritarian regime to learn that there is essentially no difference in responses to this question between people who get their news from TV versus the Internet.

poll-russians-who-say-they-feel-free-tv-vs-internet

This is the context in which Khodorkovsky's renewed energetic agitation for the "inevitability" of a Russian revolution must be viewed.

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 #4
Medvedev suggests adopting Internet behaviour code as soft law

MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev suggests adopting the Internet behaviour code in the form of soft law.
On the eve of his visit to China he said on Sunday in an interview with Renmin Ribao:

"Clearly, until it is too late, we should not allow criminalisation of the Internet, we should guarantee human rights are observed in the digital sphere."

"Doing so is extremely complicated due to the lack of the full-fledged international legal base on cooperation in the information security, thus there, in formation of the international security system in the sphere, the first step could be adopting of a code or rules regulating behaviour in the form of soft law."

He said, unified rules for responsible behaviour of countries in the information space could be the most requested and promising form of international cooperation in fighting the threats in the sphere of the international Internet security. Medvedev said that was the idea countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Agreement used in the work on rules regulating behaviour in the international Internet security. The prime minister said the document is open for suggestions and notes from all parties.

"The basic idea of this initiative - to prevent conflicts and aggression in the information space, keeping it peaceful and free - is supported by the overwhelming majority of countries," he said. "This fact proves we are moving in the right direction.".

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 #5
Forbes.com
December 14, 2015
Russia's Recession Hasn't (Yet) Had Much Of A Demographic Impact
By Mark Adomanis

The last time I checked in on Russia's demographic situation, things didn't look too great. Early in the year, the death rate was showing alarming signs of a broad-based increase, as deaths from heart disease, cancer, and respiratory ailments were all up by more than 3% on a year-over-year basis. The birth rate hadn't moved very much (it was down, but only fractionally) but the general situation looked rather scary: as Russia's economy was entering recession, it seemed that many long-term and unaddressed health problems were reasserting themselves with ever-greater force.

The idea that recessions have a negative impact on population movements is, by this point in time, broadly accepted, even here in the US. Census data clearly show that the "great recession," exerted massive downward pressure on the birth rate, a decline which has substantially outlived the recession itself. Recent scholarly work by Angus Deaton and Anne Case (while not immune from controversy!) also suggests that deep-seated economic problems are increasingly wreaking havoc with the health of working class whites. Basically, even in rich democracies, big changes in the economic environment can have significant impact on birth and death rates.

With all of that as background it would be perfectly reasonable to assume that the demographic situation in Russia was continuing to deteriorate. Rosstat data show that the economy saw quarter-over-quarter growth in Q3, but that obscures the larger reality that the economy has been shrinking since the beginning of the year and is more than 4% smaller than it was at this point in 2014. So although the economy as a whole might have already bottomed out, the damage done to Russians' pocketbooks is significant. Real wages are down by roughly 11%, unemployment is on the rise, and inflation is running at well over 10%. Declining wages, rising inflation, and increasing unemployment is not a propitious formula for demographic stability.

Rosstat's latest population figures, however, show that the terrible performance of early 2015 might very well have been a statistical blip. Through the first 10 months of the year, there has been no meaningful statistical change in the death rate. Total deaths are up by 2,500, or roughly 0.15%. The 0.7% decrease in the birth rate is slightly more disconcerting, but the data doesn't suggest the kind of mortality surge that accompanied the post-default recession of the "transformative recession" of the 1990s.

Indeed, given the continued aging of Russia's population (which, all things being equal, would be expected to exert upward pressure on the crude death rate) it now seems likely that Russian life expectancy will set a new record in 2015.

Different people will, of course, come to different interpretations about the meaning of the data cited above. Personally, I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the (temporary?) stability of Russian demographic trends amidst a significant deterioration in the economic environment. Things can change quickly, and it's entirely possible that, by early 2016, the data will look entirely different.

But what clearly seems to be the case is that the Russian population is more resilient to economic fluctuations than was the case in the 1990s. Back then, the sharp post-default downturn in the Russian economy caused an enormous spike (roughly 8%!) spike in the death rate and a further nose-dive in births. That's simply not happening today, as Russia is in essentially the exact same demographic position that it was in 2014, which itself was better than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Maybe Russia will enter a "death spiral," but the data show that it's not there yet.

#6
Over one-third of Russians expect big changes in country following 'shift to the East' - poll

MOSCOW. Dec 14 (Interfax) - Russians believe that Russia and Asian countries are being drawn together primarily through common interests in political (20%) and economical (25%) areas, a public opinion poll conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) suggests.

However, almost half of the respondents (47%) could not decide what mostly gives a common ground to Russia and Asia right now.

An overwhelming majority of Russians (70%) believe that some more intense cooperation between Russia and Asian countries will change life in our country to some extent (39% believe that the change will be 'very strong", 31% "very weak").

These changes, in their view, will materialize in enhancement of Russia's trade and economic ties with countries of the East, as well as in emergence of new goods and services on the market (12%), Russia's economic development and exiting the crisis (8%), lower prices and inflations (4%), higher standards of living (2%), and also in the growth of Russia's political influence and authority in the world (3%).

Meanwhile, 30% of respondents are of the opinion that the change of the orientation for the East will not affect the life of the Russian society, the October poll suggests. The survey involved 1,600 people residing in 130 communities in 46 Russian regions.

More than half of Russians (59%) are in favor of some continuation or even intensification of such policies: more than one-third (37%) support the current trend of the Russian authorities drifting towards a "new Eastern policy", while every fifth Russian (22%) tends to think that we should be moving faster in this direction. Still, 23% suggest that we should "slow down and act more cautiously". Another 5% would absolutely abandon the idea of the "shift towards the East".

Russians expect that once realized, the "shift" will be primarily beneficial for our country ("Russia" 10%, "authorities" 8%, etc.) and countries of the East, while being absolutely adverse for the West ("Europe" 14%, "America" 8%, etc.). The cooperation between Russia and China are considered as mutually profitable by 60%.

Nevertheless, sociologists note that despite the positive trend towards Asia, there are some negative stereotypes and concerns remaining over certain matters. In particular, Russians fear an increasing flow of low-quality products (64% believe that this can happen within next 5-10 years) and an influx of migrants (61%).
 

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 #7
Consortiumnews.com
December 11, 2015
Cornering Russia, Risking World War III
By Alastair Crooke
Alastair Crooke is a British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, which advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West. [This article also appeared at the Conflicts Forum's Web site and is republished with permission.]

Official Washington is awash with tough talk about Russia and the need to punish President Putin for his role in Ukraine and Syria. But this bravado ignores Russia's genuine national interests, its "red lines," and the risk that "tough-guy-ism" can lead to nuclear war, as Alastair Crooke explains.

We all know the narrative in which we (the West) are seized. It is the narrative of the Cold War: America versus the "Evil Empire." And, as Professor Ira Chernus has written, since we are "human" and somehow they (the USSR or, now, ISIS) plainly are not, we must be their polar opposite in every way.

"If they are absolute evil, we must be the absolute opposite. It's the old apocalyptic tale: God's people versus Satan's. It ensures that we never have to admit to any meaningful connection with the enemy." It is the basis to America's and Europe's claim to exceptionalism and leadership.

And "buried in the assumption that the enemy is not in any sense human like us, is [an] absolution for whatever hand we may have had in sparking or contributing to evil's rise and spread. How could we have fertilized the soil of absolute evil or bear any responsibility for its successes? It's a basic postulate of wars against evil: God's people must be innocent," (and that the evil cannot be mediated, for how can one mediate with evil).

Westerners may generally think ourselves to be rationalist and (mostly) secular, but Christian modes of conceptualizing the world still permeate contemporary foreign policy.

It is this Cold War narrative of the Reagan era, with its correlates that America simply stared down the Soviet Empire through military and - as importantly - financial "pressures," whilst making no concessions to the enemy.

What is sometimes forgotten, is how the Bush neo-cons gave their "spin" to this narrative for the Middle East by casting Arab national secularists and Ba'athists as the offspring of "Satan":  David Wurmser was advocating in 1996, "expediting the chaotic collapse" of secular-Arab nationalism in general, and Baathism in particular. He concurred with King Hussein of Jordan that "the phenomenon of Baathism" was, from the very beginning, "an agent of foreign, namely Soviet policy."

Moreover, apart from being agents of socialism, these states opposed Israel, too. So, on the principle that if these were the enemy, then my enemy's enemy (the kings, Emirs and monarchs of the Middle East) became the Bush neo-cons friends.  And they remain such today - however much their interests now diverge from those of the U.S.

The problem, as Professor Steve Cohen, the foremost Russia scholar in the U.S., laments, is that it is this narrative which has precluded America from ever concluding any real ability to find a mutually acceptable modus vivendi with Russia - which it sorely needs, if it is ever seriously to tackle the phenomenon of Wahhabist jihadism (or resolve the Syrian conflict).

What is more, the "Cold War narrative" simply does not reflect history, but rather the narrative effaces history: It looses for us the ability to really understand the demonized "calous tyrant" - be it (Russian) President Vladimir Putin or (Ba'athist) President Bashar al-Assad - because we simply ignore the actual history of how that state came to be what it is, and, our part in it becoming what it is.

Indeed the state, or its leaders, often are not what we think they are - at all. Cohen explains: "The chance for a durable Washington-Moscow strategic partnership was lost in the 1990 after the Soviet Union ended. Actually it began to be lost earlier, because it was [President Ronald] Reagan and [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev who gave us the opportunity for a strategic partnership between 1985-89.

"And it certainly ended under the Clinton Administration, and it didn't end in Moscow. It ended in Washington - it was squandered and lost in Washington. And it was lost so badly that today, and for at least the last several years (and I would argue since the Georgian war in 2008), we have literally been in a new Cold War with Russia.

"Many people in politics and in the media don't want to call it this, because if they admit, 'Yes, we are in a Cold War,' they would have to explain what they were doing during the past 20 years. So they instead say, 'No, it is not a Cold War.'

"Here is my next point. This new Cold War has all of the potential to be even more dangerous than the preceding 40-year Cold War, for several reasons. First of all, think about it. The epicentre of the earlier Cold War was in Berlin, not close to Russia. There was a vast buffer zone between Russia and the West in Eastern Europe.

"Today, the epicentre is in Ukraine, literally on Russia's borders. It was the Ukrainian conflict that set this off, and politically Ukraine remains a ticking time bomb. Today's confrontation is not only on Russia's borders, but it's in the heart of Russian-Ukrainian 'Slavic civilization.' This is a civil war as profound in some ways as was America's Civil War."

Cohen continued: "My next point: and still worse - You will remember that after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Washington and Moscow developed certain rules-of-mutual conduct. They saw how dangerously close they had come to a nuclear war, so they adopted "No-Nos,' whether they were encoded in treaties or in unofficial understandings. Each side knew where the other's red line was. Both sides tripped over them on occasion but immediately pulled back because there was a mutual understanding that there were red lines.

"TODAY THERE ARE NO RED LINES. One of the things that Putin and his predecessor President Medvedev keep saying to Washington is: You are crossing our Red Lines! And Washington said, and continues to say, 'You don't have any red lines. We have red lines and we can have all the bases we want around your borders, but you can't have bases in Canada or Mexico. Your red lines don't exist.'  This clearly illustrates that today there are no mutual rules of conduct.

"Another important point: Today there is absolutely no organized anti-Cold War or Pro-Detente political force or movement in the United States at all -- not in our political parties, not in the White House, not in the State Department, not in the mainstream media, not in the universities or the think tanks. ... None of this exists today. ...

"My next point is a question: Who is responsible for this new Cold War? I don't ask this question because I want to point a finger at anyone. The position of the current American political media establishment is that this new Cold War is all Putin's fault - all of it, everything. We in America didn't do anything wrong. At every stage, we were virtuous and wise and Putin was aggressive and a bad man. And therefore, what's to rethink? Putin has to do all of the rethinking, not us."

These two narratives, the Cold War narrative, and the neocons' subsequent "spin" on it: i.e. Bill Kristol's formulation (in 2002) that precisely because of its Cold War "victory," America could, and must, become the "benevolent global hegemon," guaranteeing and sustaining the new American-authored global order - an "omelette that cannot be made without breaking eggs" - converge and conflate in Syria, in the persons of President Assad and President Putin.

President Obama is no neocon, but he is constrained by the global hegemon legacy, which he must either sustain, or be labeled as the arch facilitator of America's decline. And the President is also surrounded by R2P ("responsibility-to-protect") proselytizers, such as Samantha Power, who seem to have convinced the President that "the tyrant" Assad's ouster would puncture and collapse the Wahhabist jihadist balloon, allowing "moderate" jihadists such as Ahrar al-Sham to finish off the deflated fragments of the punctured ISIS balloon.

In practice, President Assad's imposed ouster precisely will empower ISIS, rather than implode it, and the consequences will ripple across the Middle East - and beyond. President Obama privately may understand the nature and dangers of the Wahhabist cultural revolution, but seems to adhere to the conviction that everything will change if only President Assad steps down. The Gulf States said the same about Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq. He has gone (for now), but what changed? ISIS got stronger.

Of course if we think of ISIS as evil, for evil's sake, bent on mindless, whimsical slaughter, "what a foolish task it obviously [would be] to think about the enemy's actual motives. After all, to do so would be to treat them as humans, with human purposes arising out of history. It would smack of sympathy for the devil. Of course," Professor Chernus continues, "this means that, whatever we might think of their actions, we generally ignore a wealth of evidence that the Islamic State's fighters couldn't be more human or have more comprehensible motivations."

Indeed, ISIS and the other Caliphate forces have very clear human motivations and clearly articulated political objectives, and none of these is in any way consistent with the type of Syrian State that America says it wants for Syria. This precisely reflects the danger of becoming hostage to a certain narrative, rather than being willing to examine the prevailing conceptual framework more critically.

America lies far away from Syria and the Middle East, and as Professor Stephen Cohen notes, "unfortunately, today's reports seem to indicate that the White House and State Department are thinking primarily how to counter Russia's actions in Syria. They are worried, it was reported, that Russia is diminishing America's leadership in the world."

It is a meme of perpetual national insecurity, of perpetual fears about America's standing and of challenges to its standing, Professor Chernus suggests.

But Europe is not "far away"; it lies on Syria's doorstep.  It is also neighbor to Russia. And in this connection, it is worth pondering Professor Cohen's last point: Washington's disinclination to permit Russia any enhancement to its standing in Europe, or in the non-West, through its initiative strategically to defeat Wahhabist jihadism in Syria, is not only to play with fire in the Middle East. It is playing with a fire of even greater danger: to do both at the same time seems extraordinarily reckless.

Cohen again: "The false idea [has taken root] that the nuclear threat ended with the Soviet Union: In fact, the threat became more diverse and difficult. This is something the political elite forgot. It was another disservice of the Clinton Administration (and to a certain extent the first President Bush in his re-election campaign) saying that the nuclear dangers of the preceding Cold War era no longer existed after 1991. The reality is that the threat grew, whether by inattention or accident, and is now more dangerous than ever."

As Europe becomes accomplice in raising the various pressures on Russia in Syria - economically through sanctions and other financial measures, in Ukraine and Crimea, and in beckoning Montenegro, Georgia and the Baltic towards NATO - we should perhaps contemplate the paradox that Russia's determination to try to avoid war is leading to war.

Russia's call to co-operate with Western states against the scourge of ISIS; its low-key and carefully crafted responses to such provocations as the ambush of its SU-24 bomber in Syria; and President Putin's calm rhetoric, are all being used by Washington and London to paint Russia as a "paper tiger," whom no one needs fear.

In short, Russia is being offered only the binary choice: to acquiesce to the "benevolent" hegemon, or to prepare for war.

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#8
Valdai Discussion Club
December 14, 2015
COP21 CONFERENCE IN PARIS: CONSENSUS ON NEW RULES OF THE GAME
By Igor Makarov
Igor Makarov is Research fellow at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University-Higher School of Economics.

A key outcome of COP21 conference is not the text of the agreement itself, but the fixed consensus on the new rules of the game.

On December 12, after two weeks of discussions the COP21 conference in Paris adopted a new global climate control agreement. It will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which was the basis of the international climate control regulation for nearly two decades. Despite the fact that the Kyoto Protocol was the first and therefore particularly valuable attempt to limit emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gas, in general many consider it as a failure. First of all, the emission reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol were carried out by the developed countries, but main emissions increase was observed in developing countries, first of all in China. A new universal agreement was long overdue, but too many differences between states did not allow to adopt it. In Paris, it's finally happened.

At first glance, the adopted document hardly looks very ambitious. Despite the fact that it includes the goal to prevent the temperature increase by more than 2 ° C, and if possible - even by 1,5 ° C, compared to pre-industrial era, there are not so many objective reasons to believe that these goals are feasible. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, based on the "top-down" principle (first the goal set up, then the burden of its implementation is divided among the countries), the Paris Agreement provides the "bottom up" approach (the countries themselves determine the amount of efforts that they exert). To date each country has offered their own plans to reduce emissions. Calculations show that their implementation will limit the temperature rise of about 3 ° C, and although it was agreed to review plans every five years, the goal of 2 ° C is hardly feasible, and by 1.5 ° C - really utopian.

The focus of the international regulation was shifted from the emission reductions to financial assistance to the developing countries. The latter will amount $ 100 billion by 2020, but the exact parameters of its assignment (for example, the ratio between the state money and help from the private funds) were not placed on record. The Paris Agreement does not determine the details of the "loss and damage" mechanism, which presumes compensations to the poor countries for the unadaptable damage caused by the effects of climate change (for instance, flooding areas due to sea level rise or natural disasters).

In general, the agreement is written with quite a common language and contains not so many specifics. This is a conscious decision - any fixed obligations required necessary ratification of the agreement by the US Congress with little prospect because of the Republican majority opposition in the Senate.

As a result, there is a paradoxical situation: an agreement is not also quite abstract, but objectively is unable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to an acceptable level. Key decisions on the adaptation mechanisms and help to poor countries have been taken a few years ago, but their financial aspects were not identified in Paris. Despite this, the adoption of the agreement is regarded as a great success, not only by politicians because of their professional duty, but even by environmental organizations, usually critical to any results of climate negotiations.

However, positive assessments have their own logic. We have to admit that the Paris Agreement has a maximum of what was possible to reach in an environment control agreement, taking into account the differences of interests between many countries. The main thing is that the function of the Paris Agreement is not the same that was in the Kyoto Protocol. The latter once was a cornerstone of human efforts to reduce emissions, and the Paris Agreement today - only one element of a multi-layer system of institutions, and not the key one. Thus, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are taken at the national level, which is reflected in particular in the "bottom up" approach.

A key outcome of COP21 conference is not the text of the agreement itself, but the fixed consensus on the new rules of the game. There were no demarches and scandals In Paris, no accusations of use of climate issues for political purposes. Paris conference paved the way to persistent and constructive work based on mutual respect and common goal. Such a consensus, especially in the current tense political situation is well worth much. It is stronger than any legal obligations, and ensures that greenhouse gas emissions are a factor to be reckoned with by all the participants. And now, international companies one after another come out with "green" initiatives, big investment funds withdraw from the coal projects, and even the Catholic Church changes position related to the birth control, recognizing it as essential means in combating climate change. In the coming years there could be more and more examples of it.

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 #9
www.opendemocracy.net
December 11, 2015
We need to find the common ground between climate change and civil society
To combat Russia's industrial polluters, public indifference and limits on NGO activity, we need to link climate change and civil society. Русский
By Gleb Paikachev
Gleb Paikachev is an activist with the Nature and Youth organisation, Murmansk.
 
Murmansk, a region just shy of the Arctic Circle, has its share of both global and local ecological challenges. A major centre of heavy industry, Murmansk has a high level of environmental contamination and, like many regions, it faces a dilemma: its industrial plants are both the basis of the local economy and the chief polluters of its air, water and soil.

The most prominent of these polluters is the Pechenganikel mining and smelting complex, part of the Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company, a division of Norilsk Nickel, which supplies about 20 per cent of the world's nickel. There are regular disputes with neighbouring Scandinavian countries over toxic substances drifting across their borders, and Bellona-Murmansk, a local environmental organisation, claims that Pechenganikel contravenes regulations on maximum permitted emissions.

The company's management denies this, and their statements are confirmed by checks carried out by various state bodies. There is, however, some doubt as to the objectivity of such checks given that the inspectors confer with management on their timing. Russia's Meteorological Centre has also recorded a high concentration of sulphur dioxide in the air around the complex, evidence that maximum permitted emission rules are indeed being contravened.

In general, the land around the plant has a lifeless air, like a scene from a post-apocalyptic film. Even if all emissions were to be halted immediately, the local environment would take a long time to recover and a huge amount of work to make it productive again.

Don't drink the water, and don't breathe the air

Over the last three years, toxic emissions from industrial plants in Murmansk have led to an increase in the contamination of the atmosphere by suspended matter and carbon monoxide.

Some water sites near the metallurgical complex are chronically heavily polluted. In 22 bodies of water, 165 instances of high, and 45 of extremely high levels of typical indicators such as nickel, molybdenum, copper, sulphates, flotation reagents, nitrogen compounds and organic and other substances have been recorded. The state of the topsoil in industrial areas of places like Monchegorsk, Zapolyarnny and Nickel also falls short of public health standards.

In terms of environmental safety, the distinctive feature of the Murmansk region is the fact that the Kola Peninsula has a high concentration of radiation hazardous installations. The town of Polyarnye Zory houses the Kola nuclear power plant, whose four reactors are well past their projected lifespan (the first was commissioned in 1973). There have been no government checks on the impact of the plant on the local environment, and the reactors work above their quota, at 104-108 per cent of their recommended load.

And that isn't the whole story, either. The reactors are not encased in containment domes that would prevent the emission of radioactive substances into the atmosphere, and their cooling systems are considered unsafe. The spent nuclear fuel is sent to the Mayak plant in the Urals for reprocessing, which also involves the dumping of radioactive waste in reservoirs.

Discussions are currently taking place about building a second nuclear power plant here, with governor Marina Kovtun giving her personal assurance that this will happen.

However, there is still some hope that common sense will triumph: the Kola Peninsula offers enormous opportunities for harnessing renewable energy sources, and these too are being discussed, albeit less vigorously.

Northern grassroots eco-activism

In Russia, and Murmansk, in particular, the climate change movement is only just beginning to take shape. Here, the 'abstract' nature of climate change-the fact that its impact isn't obvious to the general public-is the main reason climate isn't on the table.

Urban dwellers especially see the issue as something unreal, or so complex that they have no motivation to start doing anything about it. It is difficult to galvanise people to get involved in what little anti-climate change action there is.

But that doesn't mean that nothing is happening. Grassroots work is going on in various regions of Russia, including Murmansk. The Russian Socio-Ecological Union (SEU), for example, has been working for a long time, developing networks of climate activists and information resources for NGOs working in the area.

Campaigners from small regional NGOs are involved in publicising initiatives designed not only to change prevailing attitudes towards climate change, but also to change people's behaviour and encourage climate-friendly habits. For example, in the run up to the COP21 talk in Paris, the Nature and Youth and Aetas organisations worked to mobilise people in the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk by holding meetings and activities to inform the public about upcoming events of global significance.

The Murmansk organisation Nature and Youth runs regular international environmental camps based on the principle 'Think globally, act locally', encouraging people to reject short-sighted carbon-heavy policy and switch to renewable sources of energy and energy conservation measures. The organisation also runs the 'Barents Sea Eco-Art Academy', an educational platform for projects at the interface of ecology and art, with specialists in different areas working with artists to enhance the impact and effectiveness of solutions to environmental problems.

Young people are a particular target. Regular Youth Climate Forums bring together environmental campaigners, members of small indigenous peoples and interested members of the public. The eco-activists work with schoolchildren and students to encourage eco-friendly habits in the rising generation and reduce our carbon footprint-an effective way of attracting more people who are ready to make practical changes in their lives.

A vicious circle

New laws passed in Russia to restrict freedom of speech, assembly and association have, however, made environmental and climate change activism more difficult.

Protest activity among many environmental NGOs has been reduced to a minimum: 21 environmental organisations have had to register as 'foreign agents' because they engage in so-called 'political activity' and receive funding from abroad. The Bellona-Murmansk organisation, for example, was registered on the Foreign Agent List after it produced a report on industrial pollution in the Barents Sea. As a result, it is becoming almost impossible for these organisations to receive any funding.

Some NGOs have closed down, others are trying to overturn their designation as 'foreign agents', but for the moment their activity is mostly restricted to matters unconnected with the environment, which has had a big impact on the effectiveness of the anti-climate change movement.

The government clampdown on environmental activism has, to a large extent, been made possible by the mindset of the Russian public. People are used to having everything done for them by the authorities, but if the authorities fail to sort something out, the eco-activists and human rights campaigners are expected to take responsibility. Thus, a contradiction of sorts: the authorities are happy to have some kind of civil society that can deal with its own problems, but, at the same time, they promote the philosophy of hyper-consumption and the principle of 'every person for themselves', which entrenches social problems and tensions in Russian society.

Meanwhile, the elites don't want to use their capital to solve social problems. Today there are only a handful of socially responsible entrepreneurs - most only think about how they can get richer, and not about the harm they cause to the environment.

All these factors contribute to people's belief that nothing can be changed. When environmentalists try to persuade people to be more conscious of their consumption, people refer to the state's lacklustre approach to industrial pollution and the effect of big business on our environment and climate to excuse their own inertia. People behave like sheep, only changing their habits when others do it as well. You can persuade a few people to follow your own example, but by the time everyone catches on, it'll be too late to save the earth's climate.

Global events such as the Paris talks could have provided the impetus for increasing public awareness of environmental issues. A burst of activity, media coverage, parallel local events and a general sense of identification with the problem could have shown that the government, the elites and a huge number of ordinary Russians were ready to make changes to their lives to save the planet.

However, in a country where the government is prepared to deprive its citizens of their rights and freedoms for the benefit of the political elite, this kind of citizen mobilisation is merely a dream. All we can hope for is that the Paris summit will take positive decisions that can influence our leaders. Environmental organisations here still have a long way to go before they can persuade their fellow Russians to embrace change.

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 #10
www.rt.com
December 14, 2015
Russian Prosecutor General names Browder as man behind latest smear campaign

The Russian Prosecutor General has told the press that the recent web video accusing him of mafia ties was ordered and sponsored by the international investor William Browder in revenge for uncovering illegal financial schemes.

In a long letter published by Kommersant daily on Monday, Yuri Chaika wrote that the film released by Aleksey Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption was a very expensive project and therefore its sponsors must be "people with great financial resources." The prosecutor opined that due to the investigations into their illegal activities, these people must also hate Russia as a whole and Russian prosecutors in particular.

"Of course, there are a lot of people who are unhappy with the results of our work. But I think that this particular film has been ordered by a particular person with powerful people backing him. Since 2004, law enforcers have been investigating the criminal embezzlement that drained Russia of tremendous sums of money between 1996 and 2006. These schemes were masterminded by US special services and organized by the US citizen who is now a subject of the United Kingdom, William Browder," Chaika wrote. "This person knows about our probes and he fears them," he added.

The prosecutor general explained that the embezzlement Browder was involved in concerned various schemes to bypass a Russian presidential decree that banned foreign companies and citizens from purchasing equities in Gazprom. These schemes allowed Browder to gain a seven-percent stake in the company and start blackmailing its top managers in order to get his representatives on to the board.

"I think you can imagine what could have happened if he had succeeded with this operation. All documents, including classified ones, of the country's largest corporation would have become available to foreign special services and to Gazprom's American competitors," Chaika wrote in the letter. "This created a real threat to national security and to the foundations of the national economy. Luckily, these plans didn't work out, due to reasons that Browder had no control over."

The prosecutor reminded that a court in Russia has already convicted William Browder of large-scale tax evasion and sentenced him to 10 years in absentia. He added that the investigation into financial crimes was ongoing and had been recently intensified. "The probe is taking place in several countries and it will definitely result in extremely unwanted consequences for Browder, and not for him alone."

Chaika also revealed that several of Browder's business partners in Russia had died under controversial circumstances. This had caused two people who had participated in the illegal schemes to turn themselves in to Russian law enforcement bodies. These people have already given testimony revealing Browder's crimes, he said.

The prosecutor also referred to a US court process between William Browder and a Russian businessman, in which the international investor refused to openly give testimony saying that this could compromise 20 years' work. "He does not want to disclose his agents in Russia and I am convinced that he is now conducting the campaign against us through these very people."

Aleksey Navalny commented on Chaika's statement saying that he could not understand William Browder's connection with the case. He suggested the sole purpose of the letter was to distract public attention from the facts revealed by the film.

William Browder is known for his role in the so called Magnitsky Case. Sergey Magnitsky was a lawyer who worked for Browder's investment company Hermitage Capital Management. He was arrested on charges of alleged tax evasion, and died of a heart attack while in a Moscow pre-trial detention facility in November 2009. After his death, Hermitage Capital said the lawyer's death was the result of deliberate maltreatment or even murder, because Magnitsky had allegedly threatened to reveal criminal schemes involving Russian law enforcers. The company eventually influenced the adoption of the so-called Magnitsky Act in the United States -sanctions against about 60 Russian nationals who, according to Hermitage Capital, were linked to Magnitsky's death. Later, the bill was expanded so that now it punishes, with an entry ban and asset freeze, anyone who according to the US commits human rights violations in Russia.

Russia reciprocated with a bill that introduced similar sanctions against US officials implicated in violating the rights of Russian citizens and human rights in general.

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 #11
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
December 9, 2015
Russian PM's comments on prosecutor corruption row seen indicating regime split
Andrey Kamakin, Nuances of Chayka study: Scandal over prosecutor-general has split the regime; Medvedev's words about Chayka can be assessed however you like, but not as giving heart to the protagonists

The scandal provoked by the new investigation by the Foundation for Fighting Corruption has reached the top state level: The accusations against Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka and his sons have for the first time been commented on by the man who holds the number two post in the Russian power hierarchy. The words uttered by Dmitriy Medvedev can be assessed however you like but not as giving heart to the protagonists in the scandal. It is true that it is far from a fact that the man who holds the number one post adheres to the same position.

The traditional pre-New Year interview with the head of the cabinet of ministers touched twice on the "Chaykagate" subject. The first time, Dmitriy Medvedev expressed himself extremely elliptically: "As regards any investigations, there have been, are, and will be investigations. But the most important thing is that they should be based on objective materials." But that supremely diplomatic turn of phrase is in sharp contrast to the statements by the president's press secretary two days ago.

Let us remind you that according to Dmitriy Peskov, the information was of no interest to the Kremlin since it was not about the prosecutor-general himself but "about his two adult sons who are engaged in business utterly independently." As for the head of the family, there are no grounds at all for doubting that his activity complies with the requirements of the law.

Meanwhile we can conclude from Medvedev's utterance at the very least that the story told by Aleksey Navalnyy and company is by no means uninteresting to the prime minister. That suspicion is backed up by his return to this subject - naturally, at the urging of journalists. This time, it is true, there was no escaping the customary moralizing: Charges, he said, can be brought "only by the law-enforcement system," otherwise "we will be going backward a long way" while "all kinds of publications" are very often of a "made-to-order nature." The finale to this sermon was all the more unexpected. "If no one is saying anything at present, it does not mean that there is no reaction," Medvedev said, answering a question about the authorities' possible actions in connection with the scandal that has erupted. It is simply that "the reaction should not be instantaneous."

In general, feel the difference, as they say. Medvedev had various options for conducting himself in this situation. He could have said nothing at all about the scandal, citing the fact that it is not within his purview. He could have followed Peskov's example and supported the prosecutor-general, assuring us that he had no complaints about him personally, and his children were adults. But he said what he said. And about children, incidentally: According to the prime minister, he is certainly not against examining the question of including the incomes of their adult children in functionaries' declarations.

Two theories stem from this. The first is that Medvedev's words express the regime's common position, which has turned 180 degrees in the past two days. From complete indifference towards the published facts to very lively interest in them. The second, far more likely, theory is that there is no unity on this issue at the top of the power vertical. The bottom line is the regime's reputation. Which involves the lesser expenditure - allowing the systemic opposition to take the lead, thus displaying weakness but extinguishing the fire of public dissatisfaction, or acting according to the "the dogs bark and the caravan moves on" principle, running the risk of the scandal's escalation?

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 #12
Interfax
December 12, 2015
Russian Finance Minister Siluanov expects oil price to go under $30 per bar

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov anticipates that price for oil in some periods of time in 2016 could drop to $30 per barrel.

"We had hardly passed the budget before we saw that the macroeconomic situation was changing. It's changing not for the better. We based our budget on the presumption that the price would be $50 per barrel, and now it's about $36-$37 per barrel. Nobody knows what's going to be next," Siluanov said at a board meeting of the financial, treasury, and tax agencies of Tatarstan on Saturday.

The oil price can be affected, in particular, by global oil overproduction and Iran's entry into the market, he said.

"Everything shows that low oil prices are likely to dominate next year, and it's possible that this could be $30 per barrel or even lower in some periods - we don't know. Because if someone had told us a year ago that it was going to be under $40, everyone would've probably laughed. Therefore, we should be preparing for not very easy times for ourselves," he said.

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 #13
Forbes.com
December 10, 2015
Fearless Investors Should Seriously Consider These Three 'Putin-Land' Stocks
By Kenneth Rapoza

There's a saying in Russian investment circles that goes like this: If you bought at the bottom, you get the second bottom for free. I got that from David Herne, the 44 year old Russian culture fan turned portfolio manager for the Specialized Research and Investment Group in Moscow. We profiled him and his Russian equity fund for the latest FORBES Investment Guide.

He's managing money for long-term institutions, like European sovereign wealth funds, and for qualified investors who are so diversified that Russia isn't as scary as the headlines suggest.

We chatted over tea at a café in Crowne Plaza, a hotel in the financial heart of Moscow, a city more known for Red Square than for its skyscrapers. They're the tallest skyscrapers in Europe, by the way, as the Russians will surely point out. In fact, Russia was always home to the tallest structures in Europe. The Hotel Ukraina, one of Josef Stalin's Seven Sister look-a-like architectural homages to the Russians for their defeat of the Nazis, was the tallest European building for years. It was even the tallest hotel in the world until the U.S. took over that world record with the Westin Peachtree in Atlanta in 1976, at the height of the Cold War. Yeah, take that Russkies...

If there is one thing's the Russian's can do, and do well, it's real estate. The tallest towers in Europe are under construction along the Moscow River. And one stock in Herne's portfolio is building on an area so massive that it rivals Tesla's Gigafactory in size.

So because we couldn't cram all of Herne's insider wisdom in one article, I've included some edited out material regarding three of his favorite stocks.

These are all Micex listed stocks and not easily accessible to retail investors. Pay attention, hedge fund managers, this one's for you:  the LSR Group (Micex: LSRG).

The stock is up 50.9% year-to-date in ruble terms and 30.7% over the last 12 months. They're trading at a forward multiple of 6.1 times and pay a dividend yield of more than 11% in rubles. This is a good bet for investors who believe the ruble will strengthen down the stretch and don't mind the risk inherent to this oil-backed free-floater.

"They have an enormous mixed-use development project being built that I don't think is priced in at all," Herne says of their 951,000 square meter (10 million square feet) Zil commercial and residential complex along the Moscow River. One of the project's residential properties, Zil Art, won an award in Russia in November for Debut Project of the Year.

It's not easy to follow the British born, American raised hedge fund manager when he's talking stocks in public. You need him one on one, maybe in a board room or in a locked closet. People walk by him a the table we're seated at, shaking his hand, saying hello. An older man in a sherpa wool lined corduroy jacket stops by and sparks up a convo. Herne's investor relations manager, Yana Starovoytova, smiles, shrugs and pours herself a cup of jasmine tea. This is how it is, her face suggests. "He's a busy man," she reminds me. When the sherpa man leaves, Herne reminds Yana that the man owes him money from a real estate deal.

Herne knows Russia. He's been there since 1994. He served on the board of over a dozen Russian companies. He helped privatize one of them. And he hasn't been kicked out of the country! Which is no small feat for a foreign hedge fund manager operating in what the West likes to think of now as Putinstan.

Here's another pick. Oil firm Bashneft (Micex: BANE). It made headlines last October when Russia expropriated it from AFK Sistema, its majority shareholder controlled by billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov. Herne said the market didn't seem to mind the take-over; himself included.

"The stock didn't collapse because nothing bad happened to the company and minority shareholder rights were all protected," he says. "If you owned 1% of Bashneft before it was expropriated, you owned 1% after it was expropriated. It's still run the same as it was under Sistema."

Their share price is up 69.4% year-to-date in rubles and 70.% over the last year. Take that weak oil prices! The stock trades at just around 4.2 times earnings and yields 5.3%.

"I like it because it is the only Russian oil company for growth equity," he says. By comparison, Rosneft is up around 27%, Lukoil is up 9.89% and Gazprom Neft is up only 3.7% as of Dec. 10. That's in rubles, so in dollars it's a wash.

The third pick for Herne is a Russian automaker called SOLLERS. The call is based on valuation and the latest sales trends.

SOLLERS shares are trading at just 3.2 times forward earnings and are up 18.3% in rubles. Russian automakers have been getting killed all year. On balance, national auto sales fell by more than 30% year-to-date, but the consolation is that they are now falling less. Of the two models where sales are increasing, one is a Bentley (oh, Moscow...) and the other is the SOLLERS sport utility UAV.

"They have a competent management team that has been in place for 10 years" he tells me, slipping into his sport coat and getting ready for a meeting. "What I like about them, beside the value, is that I get a clear message every time I talk with them."

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 #14
http://readrussia.com
December 14, 2015
Russian Central Banker Cares More About the Price of Milk Than the Ruble
By Louise Dickson

Russian Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina sent a strong signal when she kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged Friday, demonstrating the Central Bank is dedicated to bringing down inflation and is unfazed by damage oil prices are unleashing against the ruble.

On Friday December 11, 2015, the central bank kept the key interest rate unchanged at 11%, thus finishing off the year 50 basis points away from the 10.5% level of last year.

In a speech following the decision not to change the benchmark lending rate, Nabiullina said that inflation in 2015 will be close to 13%. In the next year, she wants to cut inflation in half.

Even though food prices have more or less stabilized, food prices still race ahead of inflation with price increases of 20% since this time last year.

Inflation is the official reason, the Central Bank gave in its decision to keep the interest rate at 11%. Inflation in October was recorded at 15.6%, having cooled off significantly since the peak of 17% in March of this year. As of December, consumer prices have improved to 14.8%. A year ago, it was 11.4%. The goal is to bring it down to 6% by the end of 2016 and 4% in 2017, according to the statement.

That's going to more than difficult, given the variety of economic challenges Russia is facing, both from abroad and at home. So-called 'foreign threats' include depressed oil prices, a slowing China, and agricultural sanctions against Europe, and now Turkey. Inside Russia, the mining industry continues to suffer, as do most consumer-driven markets, such as automobiles - car sales dropped 43% last month.

Rewind to one year ago. On December 16, 2014, central bank governors convened an emergency meeting at 1:00 am, and hiked Russia's key interest to 17% from 10.5% to tame the ruble, which had lost nearly 20% of its value the previous day.  Since the gigantic surprise increase, the central bank has been gradually cutting the rate back to return to the 10.5% rate.

Their plan to tame the ruble with a gigantic interest rate increase didn't only fail, it backfired. Higher interest rates in theory make people more willing to hold onto their rubles, but the velocity of money is unpredictable.

In the short term, the Central Bank's plan last December backfired: lack of trust in the ruble to recover, coupled with panic, sent people running to either convert their rubles into hard currency, or spend their existing rubles on cars, laptops, or other tangible assets before the Russian currency lost even more of its value.

This December, Russians are having a bit of déjà vu, except the currency isn't losing 27% per day, but has lost about 14% since the end of July, the last time the Central Bank lowered the main lending rate.

Hovering at about 69 against the US dollar, the ruble is again a victim to dropping oil prices, which like the ruble, have lost more than half its value this year. This still pales in comparison to this time last year, when during trading, the ruble hit 80.

Currency spot rates don't affect the average Russian, it is inflation that can be felt by the everyday citizen. Many have accepted the new weak currency as the new normal, but the populace is most concerned with inflation. While a trip to Europe over the New Year holiday may be out of the question, the reality remains that mandarins are 60% more expensive than they were a year ago.

As noted by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, any reduction in the key rate will lead to higher inflation.

The increase in consumer prices is directly linked to Russia's anti-sanctions policy that bans imported agriculture from European countries and elsewhere. After the Turkish downing of a Russian jet, similar sanctions have been established against Ankara.  The Bank of Russia believes that sanctions against Turkey will add between 0.2-0.4 percentage points to inflation in 2015.

It's been a busy few years for Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina, who only took over the central bank governor position in the summer of 2013, just months before the Maidan revolution played out in Ukraine and Russia reclaimed Crimea.

Nabiullina even won an award for her handling of the Russian ruble crisis, which besides managing interest rates included a number of other measures, such as refinancing some of the countries' largest banks. Many in Russian liberal economic circles praise her for outright saving the economy.

Still, Russia's economy will shrink 3.7 percent this year, according to the latest estimate by Economy Minister Alexey Ulyukayev.

Russian Central Bank key interest rate changes, 2014-2015

2014

March 1: Increased to 5.5%
April 25: Increased to 7.5%
July 25: Increased to 8%
November 5: Increased to 9.5%
November 20: Announced free-float regime
December 12: Increased to 10.5%
December 16: Increased to 17%

2015

January 30: Decreased to 15%
March 13: Decreased to 14%
April 30: Decreased to 12.5%
June 15: Decreased to 11.5%
July 31: Decreased to 11%

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 #15
Wall Street Journal
December 12, 2015
How Russia Gets Back Into the Rio Games  
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

Track and field's world governing body Friday set the conditions for Russia's athletes to re-enter competition.

In a memo released Friday morning the International Association of Athletics Federations outlined a series of criteria, including the termination of any employee connected to anti-doping violations, hiring of new personnel, term limits for officials, the disclosure of all disciplinary cases, full investigations of officials, coaches and athletes that will be subject to review by an independent third party, and the development a reliable program of random, unannounced, out-of-competition testing that meets international standards.

The IAAF said it has set up a committee to evaluate the progress in the coming months, with an initial in-person report set for March.  If the IAAF does not approve of Russia's progress, its athletes will not be able to compete in the Rio Games next summer.

The IAAF suspended Russia's athletics federation last month following a report that showed a widespread, state-sponsored doping program had existed in the country for several years.  The program included doctors who blackmailed athletes to cover up failed drug tests and pressure on athletes to use performance enhancing drugs. The report was issued by a special investigative committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

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 #16
Sputnik
December 14, 2015
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev begins his four-day official visit to China on Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - During the visit that will last through Thursday, December 17, Medvedev will take part in the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of Government Council in Zhengzhou, and will make a speech at the opening ceremony of the Second World Internet Conference in Wucheng.

On the last day of his trip, Medvedev will have a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Li Keqiang in Beijing.

The prime minister is expected to hold a number of bilateral meetings, including with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Afghan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah in the framework of his visit to China.

As part of his visit, Medvedev is expected to discuss bilateral investments with Chinese officials.

SCO Heads of Gov't Council

A meeting of the SCO prime ministers is set to take place on December 14-15 in China's Henan province.

During the meeting in Zhengzhou, the participants will focus on the status of and prospects for diverse cooperation between the SCO countries in the context of global political and economic processes.

The participants are planning to review the program for multilateral trade and economic cooperation between SCO countries and a list of measures on the further development of SCO projects in 2012-2016. The key topics of the upcoming summit will also include investment and transport.

A joint communique and statement on regional economic cooperation will be adopted and a number of decisions on SCO activities will be made, including the endorsement of the SCO budget for 2016. As part of an established practice, the SCO heads of state will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The SCO is a political, economic and military alliance comprising six member states, namely Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as five observer states and three dialogue partners.

World Internet Conference

The Second World Internet Conference will take place in China's Wuzhen on December 16.

Medvedev and Xi are expected to speak at the opening ceremony of the conference on "A Common and Jointly Governed World and the Development of Internet Community With Common Destiny."

Bilateral Meetings

On December 17, during the 20th regular meeting of the Russian and Chinese heads of state, Medvedev and Li will discuss a broad range of issues related to trade, economic, scientific and investment cooperation, as well as bilateral humanitarian and cultural exchanges.

The signing of bilateral inter-government, inter-department and corporate documents will be timed to the regular meeting of the prime ministers.

Beijing will also host the closing ceremony of China-Russia youth exchange years (2014-2015), and the opening of the years of Russian and Chinese media (2016-2017).

Russia-China Relations

China is the leading economic partner of Russia. In 2014, trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $88.4 billion.

Moscow boosted its cooperation with Beijing, negotiating gas delivery contracts and intensifying diplomatic ties, after Russia's relations with the West deteriorated following the beginning of the 2014 Ukraine crisis.

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow and Beijing were set to intensify their financial cooperation, specifically, they plan to start using national currencies in mutual payments, intend to expand interregional ties and cross-border cooperation, as well as improving cross-border transport infrastructure.

In November, Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukaev said that Russian-Chinese bilateral cooperation was showing a positive development trend, with large-scale projects in transport infrastructure, the aviation industry, and nuclear energy underway.

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 #17
Government.ru
December 13, 2015
Dmitry Medvedev's interview with Renmin Ribao

Ahead of his visit to China, Dmitry Medvedev gave an interview to the Chinese daily.

Question: Russia and China are good neighbours, reliable partners and friends. The leaders of the two countries frequently meet each other and are consistent in their efforts to strengthen bilateral relations as a comprehensive strategic partnership, which has already become a model for peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial partnership. Mr Prime Minister, could you share your perspective on the relations between Russia and China?

Dmitry Medvedev: Russia and China have taken their trust-based partnership and strategic cooperation to an all-time high. These relations are in line with Russia's national interests and have become a model of genuine good neighbourliness and mutual respect. These relations facilitate all-round modernisation of both countries, who are living to the rhythm of a new age. The proactive dialogue and cooperation between Russia and China encompass absolutely all areas.

Over the centuries, the peoples of our countries have learned to understand each other, to work together and be friends. Accordingly, we can be regarded as long-time friends. Today, the multidimensional ties between Russia and China are at their peak. This is mutually beneficial cooperation, in the true sense of the term, where there are no superiors or underlings, those who lead or those who follow.

We intend to strengthen our strategic partnership across the board. Not only does this make political or economic sense, but also most importantly the people of the two countries are interested in developing these ties. You are probably aware of the fact that more and more people in Russia are learning Chinese. Russian courses are also spreading across China, which means that people want to learn more about today's Russia.

Since 2010, China has firmly established itself as Russia's biggest trade partner. Strategic energy projects are being implemented, and we are developing our cooperation in hi-tech areas such as space, aircraft manufacturing, nuclear power and military-technical cooperation. We are attaching special attention to investment and financial aspects of our everyday ties. We are also committed to facilitating contacts between non-governmental institutions and people-to-people ties.

There is a saying in Russia that a close neighbour is better than a distant relative. It fully applies to the relations between Russia and China. The long border dividing our countries has long become an area of durable peace, friendship and multidimensional cooperation.

I think that in recent years we have been able to devise a clear framework for coordinating our joint efforts and long-term development plans. The regular contact between the leaders of our two countries, dating back to 1996, is a perfect example. During my visit to China, Mr Li Keqiang and I will hold the 20th anniversary meeting. We have agreed in principle to link integration processes within the Eurasian Economic Union with the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. This will provide additional opportunities for creating a single economic space.

Let me emphasise that Russia and China maintain their global strategic cooperation in international affairs, and their relations are an increasingly important factor in international relations. Russia and China are efficiently working together in a number of multilateral platforms, first and foremost in the UN, the Group of 20, BRICS and SCO. We approach the most urgent issues of today's world in a balanced and pragmatic manner, and respect the right of every people to self-determination. We are staunch opponents of pressure against sovereign countries, including through unilateral sanctions, the use of force or double standards.

I believe that the world would have been a much better place if more countries interacted with each other as Russia and China do. As an ancient Chinese saying goes, the greatest victory is the battle not fought.

Question: Russian and Chinese economies are characterised by a high degree of mutual complementarity, which is one of the drivers of steady development of bilateral relations in the spirit of mutually beneficial partnership. What new points of growth, in your view, will appear in future in Russian-Chinese trade and economic cooperation?

Dmitry Medvedev: Our Chinese partners and we are unanimous in assuming that a high level of trust and mutual understanding in the political sphere should help cooperation in trade, economic, humanitarian and other spheres.

Our contacts have been stepped up at all levels recently. A mostramified and multi-level bilateral cooperation mechanism has been created with China. We don't have a mechanism of this kind with any other country. Apart from a Russian-Chinese commission preparing regular meetings of heads of government, the recent years have seen the creation of intergovernmental Russian-Chinese commissions on energy, humanitarian and investment cooperation at the level of deputy prime ministers.

Since 2010, China has been the leader in mutual trade with Russia. Both countries are facing a large-scale task of increasing bilateral trade to $200 billion by 2020. And we are firmly resolved to fulfil this task.

The world economic situation is complicated and this affects all countries without exception. A tendency has emerged earlier this year towards a decline in the general volume of trade between Russia and China. This has happened mostly because of a drop in oil prices. The pattern of trade has changed as well, with Russian exports increasingly dominated by agricultural produce and high value-added products. Specifically, during the first ten months of 2015, Russian exports to China were characterised by an increased share of food and agricultural products, metals and metallic manufactures, chemicals and even textiles.

This phenomenon facilitates Russian economic diversification. Companies are encouraged to be more actively open to the world economy, find their production niches, and promote high value-added products to potential markets.

Our common goal is to remove barriers in mutual trade and investment. We hope to launch major projects within a few years, which will add tens of billions of dollars to our trade and will make it possible to regain a steady positive trajectory.

Bilateral investment cooperation, one capable of giving an impetus to trade, is gaining momentum. An effective basic infrastructure has been created for its successful development. I mean 58 major joint investment projects that were approved in St Petersburg on June 18 of this year at the second meeting of the Intergovernmental Russian-Chinese Commission for Investment Cooperation.

Our interaction in the context of the Eurasian Economic Union is being stepped up.  Since 2012, an early warning mechanism for sensitive goods in mutual trade has been in operation. An Agreement on an Exchange of Information concerning  Goods and Motor Vehicles Crossing the Customs Border of the EAEU and the PRC is being coordinated. This agreement will help to minimise the use of "gray" schemes in trade.

A decision has been adopted on launching talks with regard to preparing an agreement on EAEU-PRC trade and economic cooperation. This agreement is expected to ensure favourable conditions for promoting practical cooperation and attracting long-term investment, to create mechanisms for simplifying and encouraging trade and to approximate our practices in the sphere of standards, technical regulations, and customs administration rules.

Question:Russia and China have ample experience in interstate thematic years. What do you think of the outgoing Youth Friendly Exchanges Years? What do you expect of the approaching Cross Years of Mass Media?

Dmitry Medvedev: Personal contacts in the modern world are becoming an ever-stronger factor in international relations and a tool for confidence-building and mutual understanding. "Nothing helps and inspires people better than friendship," Chinese modern classic Ba Jin said.

The latest ambitious interstate thematic events are an impetus to strengthening the Russia-China cultural dialogue.

We began with an exchange of national Years to be followed by Language and Tourism Years. They were all great successes. They helped our nations to learn more about each other, and provided a wealth of information about each other's history, culture and contemporary life. What matters most, they allowed us to start  building friendships.

Another essential bilateral action, one that focuses on young people, is coming to an end. The Youth Friendly Exchanges Years have become a sort of relay race by the elder and younger generations as we Russians seek to know China better.

It is hard to enumerate all the 600 plus related events - summer schools and camps, young researchers' and businesspeople's meetings, Russian and Chinese language contests, forums, conferences, concerts, film weeks, art shows, athletic contests, and student exchanges. The concert by a combined Russian-Chinese youth symphony orchestra conducted by Russia's celebrated Valery Gergiev was a landmark.

The Youth Friendly Exchanges Years involved all fields of Russia-China cooperation - politics, the economy, culture, sport, tourism, research, education and, last but not least, IT.

A project for annual youth delegation exchanges, for 100 delegates a year, was launched in 2014. Our joint efforts have increased youth contacts on a massive scale and provided a footing for regular contact.  

Joint 70th WWII Victory celebrations were of tremendous importance, and prompted a new look at current global problems from the point of a generation that will soon bear the brunt of decision-making.

The closing gala of the Youth Friendly Exchanges Years has been timed to coincide with the 20th Russia-China prime-ministerial meeting and to the opening of the Cross Years of Mass Media - another breakthrough joint project.

We are finishing work on a detailed plan for the Media Years' 100 plus events. There are feature and documentary films to make, TV series to show, books to translate and publish, and book exhibits to arrange. Partnership in high-tech media also has breathtaking prospects. While on a visit in China, I will attend the World Internet Conference in Wucheng.

I am sure our projects will not be limited to the Media Years, with so many fields to launch effective dialogue in. We will work together to open up new spheres of cooperation.

Question: The Ufa Declaration, which the SCO leaders adopted in July of this year, says that the participating countries support China's Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. How is Russia cooperating with China and other member countries within the SCO framework to implement this initiative? What role can Russia play in this?

Dmitry Medvedev: China is not only a friend but also one of the key economic partners of Russia. This is why we have been actively implementing the initiative to integrate the Eurasian Economic Union with China's Silk Road Economic Belt. We have set out several priority spheres for our cooperation, such as the encouragement of mutual investments, the joint implementation of large projects, and the creation of industry parks and cross-border economic cooperation zones.

We have not been trying to promote integration in one sphere by neglecting it in other areas. Of course, our priority is the Eurasian Economic Union. But we have also started interacting with China within the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB). At the same time, we haven't abandoned the idea of a common economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok. We believe that all of these projects can develop harmoniously.

The delegations of the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries for the first time discussed the practical coordinated implementation of the EAEU and SREB projects during a meeting that was held in August of this year. A modern transit system and infrastructure is one of the main elements of this coordination. We must prioritise the routes that will enhance the safety of our transport corridors, including the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Vladivostok Free Port Zone, which is an area in Russia's Far East that will comprise the region's key ports. Another priority is the EAEU territory and the development of transport corridors from China to the EU via Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus.

In terms of doing business, the conjugation of the EAEU and SREB projects should simplify trade and improve the protection of mutual investments by the EAEU countries and China. In other words, we must simplify the transfer of goods across the border, remove regulatory barriers and promote cooperation in high-tech industries, such as information technology, healthcare and education, electronic commerce and energy efficiency.

The creation of a co-development area in Eurasia will provide an example of responsible and practical partnership in the sphere of integration and help us boost cooperation, not only in energy supply, but also in the high-tech spheres of the transport, production, construction, communications and agriculture industries.

Question: The SCO gives high priority to Internet security cooperation. At the beginning of this year, SCO member states submitted to the UN a draft International Code of Conduct for Information Security. What, in your opinion, is the key to international cooperation in the sphere of Internet security?

Dmitry Medvedev: The importance of ensuring information security today is difficult to overestimate. Modern information and communication technology is being increasingly used in military and political confrontations. In addition, terrorists and criminals have adopted Internet technology. Many countries are constantly encountering these problems.

These threats cannot be ignored. Obviously, before it is too late, it is crucial to prevent the criminalisation of the Internet and guarantee human rights in the digital sphere. It is extremely difficult to do this without a comprehensive international legal framework for international information security cooperation. So the first step in creating an international information security system could be the adoption of a code or rules of conduct in the form of "soft laws."

Universal rules of responsible conduct in the information space are the most in-demand form of international collaboration in fighting international information security threats. This was the SCO countries' rationale in drafting the International Code of Conduct for Information Security. The document is open to suggestions and comments by all interested parties. The absolute majority of states support the main idea of this initiative, that is to prevent conflicts and aggression in the information space and keep it peaceful and free.

This fact shows that we are moving in the right direction. The relevance of such unifying initiatives, aimed at preventing conflicts in the digital sphere, increases every day. Politics and politicians should stay ahead of technological progress and find effective solutions before technology creates new reality.

Question: The AliExpress online marketplace, a subsidiary of Alibaba - a company founded by Chinese entrepreneur Ma Yun - is the largest e-commerce platform in Russia today. AliExpress is the first company that facilitates cross-border shopping for people living in remote regions and villages, and many Russians are starting to buy Chinese goods on AliExpress. This means the Internet Plus programme has become an engine for economic development, which benefits both Russia and China. What is Russia's stance on cooperation through the global network during the Internet Plus era? What is Russia's policy in this regard?

Dmitry Medvedev: We value our relationship and work to establish an even closer cooperation in the most promising areas, including e-commerce, which has recently seen booming growth worldwide.

Russia also appreciates the convenience of e-commerce. We have a lot of on-line-stores, which deliver inside the country, and some to the CIS countries. It provides quicker and better deals for both buyers and sellers. During 2014, more than 8 million Russians bought clothing and footwear online. We also have online procurement for state and municipal needs (the business-to-government segment), with the exception of non-public purchases.

For the moment, there is no major Internet platform for promoting Russian brands abroad. This year we launched a web project that enables the Russian manufacturers of clothing and footwear to use the AliExpress platform free of charge to sell their products. Russian goods are marked made in Russia in the AliExpress catalogue, with the prices quoted in roubles. About 100 Russian brands of clothing and accessories are expected to be presented on AliExpress by the end of this year. I am sure they will be of interest to both Russian and foreign buyers.

We will certainly try to create our own projects as well. Therefore, we are now improving the logistics system and the export legislation. Even the retail goods export procedures have been simplified. Exporters are already exempt from certain customs duties (the customs duty for the export of goods not subject to export tax and shipped by international mail). Express cargo declarations can also be submitted online.

Your country's experience in online selling to distant markets is very useful for us. We are carefully studying China's experiment with setting up a pilot area of cross-border e-commerce in Hangzhou, which involves building a whole industrial chain of e-commerce and creating a legal framework and rules in this field.

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 #18
Politico.eu
December 14, 2015
Obama officials are talking to Putin more than ever
But do they have anything to show from their stepped-up dialogue?
By MICHAEL CROWLEY

An Obama administration debate about whether to engage Vladimir Putin or treat him like a pariah has tilted in the engagement camp's favor-even as critics and some officials worry that it's become too easy for the Russian president to get a stature-enhancing meeting with U.S. leaders.

When Secretary of State John Kerry heads to Moscow on Tuesday for a planned sit-down with Putin, it will be his second visit to see the Russian leader since May. It also follows three face-to-face encounters between Putin and President Barack Obama since late September. Some critics of engagement fear that Putin has, in effect, used his military intervention in Syria to win a seat at the diplomatic table, while others doubt that the increased dialogue is achieving anything.

"The skeptics are still skeptical," said Evelyn Farkas, who departed as the Pentagon's top official for Russia and Ukraine this fall and pushed for a generally harder line on Moscow than the White House has adopted. "You don't have any results yet for the engagement people."

For now, sources say, Obama and Kerry in particular believe the costs of interacting with Putin are relatively low and that discussion-whose tone a senior administration official described as "not warm but not hostile," and "businesslike"-is more likely than a freeze-out to yield progress on disputes over a peace deal for Syria and Russian aggression in Ukraine.

"The president has always said that he will work with Putin, he will talk to Putin, when it's our responsibility to solve something really important on global security," says a senior administration official.

The frequent meetings with Putin now contrast with the months after Russia's March 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. During that period, Obama spoke several times by phone with Putin but spurned face-to-face meetings. Pro-isolation officials held that Putin should change his aggressive behavior before meeting Obama and hoped that shunning him would diminish the prideful Russian on the world stage.

More recently, a pro-engagement camp spearheaded by Kerry has argued that ignoring Putin won't change his behavior-and that, like it or not, the U.S. has to coordinate with Russia on global security issues.

"There's no doubt that the Russian military intervention in Syria has given them a seat at the table" in the emerging Syria peace process, said Andrew Weiss, a Russia specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served on Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff. "We can't wish that away. Putin has created facts that the rest of the world now has to reckon with-including John Kerry."

Kerry last saw Putin on a mid-May visit to the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, where he spent hours talking to Russian officials about a range of security issues. Pro-Russian media outlets depicted that trip as a softening of the Obama administration's stance toward Putin.

Weiss called this week's Moscow visit "classic John Kerry." He said the diplomat is "throwing himself into Syria diplomacy with total force and vigor," much as he did in pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal and the failed effort to win a Middle East peace settlement, though he warned that the U.S. might lack diplomatic leverage because of Obama's cautious approach to military involvement in the Syrian conflict.

Speaking with reporters in Paris last week, Kerry insisted that Russia "is playing a constructive and important role" when it comes to reaching a political agreement that could end Syria's civil war.

But U.S. officials remain frustrated that Putin, who supports the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, continues to focus most Russian airstrikes on rebel fighters in Syria who are unaffiliated with the Islamic State but who post a more direct military threat to the Assad regime.

And they note that Putin has yet to honor a peace agreement Russia struck with European powers in February to end the conflict in Ukraine, fueled by pro-Russian separatists whom Moscow has aided with equipment and manpower. December 31 is the deadline for the implementation of that agreement, known as the Minsk accords, but Russia is far from meeting its provisions, which include the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Ukraine and full restoration of Kiev's control over its eastern border.

Writing recently in The American Interest, David Kramer, a George W. Bush State Department official who handled Russian and European affairs, complained that "by chasing after Russia's leaders yet again ... Kerry reinforces the impression the Obama administration has created throughout its tenure that we need Russia more than Russia needs us."

Obama officials insist that's not the case, arguing that Putin has been cornered by sanctions imposed after his annexation of Crimea and meddling in eastern Ukraine, and his thus-far inconclusive Syria intervention.

In an email, Kramer also noted that Obama boasted in his January State of the Union address about isolating Putin over his aggression in Ukraine, but has since met with the Russian leader several times-while making time for only a quick "pull-aside" with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.

Obama can compartmentalize his approach to Putin, the senior official said, by dealing with him in areas of possible agreement while pressuring him on points of conflict. The official pointed to the recent cooperation between Obama and Putin on a September 2013 deal to remove chemical weapons from Syria and on the July nuclear deal with Iran, even as they locked horns on other topics.

Obama's last two meetings with Putin have been far more casual than the formal bilateral meeting they held at the United Nations in late September. At the mid-November G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, the two leaders "ran into one another" around a group luncheon "and agreed to have a quick word," according to the senior official. That led to a 35-minute chat around a small table in a luxury hotel lobby that included National Security Adviser Susan Rice and a Putin aide. Television footage showed Obama and Putin leaning in, their faces about two feet apart, with intent expressions.

Last week, Kerry suggested that his main focus in Moscow will be the Syrian conflict, specifically winning Russian support for a peace settlement among the regime and rebel groups that would usher Assad from power. Putin has yet to commit to a timeline for Assad's exit, a core demand of many rebel factions and outside powers such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Obama says only a political settlement that guarantees Assad's exit can end Syria's civil war and isolate the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, which has drawn strength from the Syrian conflict. The U.S. is open to a transition period for implementing a peace deal and holding elections during which Assad would be allowed to stay in power, but it is not clear for how long Obama would tolerate Assad's continued reign.

"It may be that Kerry wants to look Putin in the eye and say, 'No kidding: What's the plan for moving Assad out? Are you going to give him a dacha or what?" Farkas said. (Many observers speculate that Putin might offer his ally Assad sanctuary in Russia should the Syrian step down.)

Kerry's visit comes ahead of a Dec. 18 meeting the U.S. is trying to arrange in New York City for the parties involved in the Syria peace talks. Last week, an array of rebel groups meeting in Saudi Arabia selected a delegation for any potential talks with the Assad regime, something Kerry called "an important step forward." But Russia's foreign ministry responded skeptically, questioning whether the rebels who attended the Saudi conference were representative of the opposition and complaining that their ranks included "terrorists." Assad likewise reiterated on Friday that he refuses to "negotiate with terrorists," a word he uses to describe all rebel groups in his country.

The U.S. official underscored that Kerry will also address the subject of Ukraine, which Vice President Joe Biden visited last week. That is likely to be a testy subject. The European Union could vote to extend Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia as soon as this week, according to European diplomats.

Putin blames the Ukrainians for failing to honor their end of the agreement, In a recent interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov bitterly complained about continued U.S. pressure on the subject.

"As long as Obama's deputy Joe Biden goes around Europe recommending continued sanctions against us without taking into account how Kiev is behaving under Western pressure, we will not be able to reach any understanding," Lavrov told the paper.

U.S. officials concede that Kiev hasn't behaved perfectly. But they say it's Russia and its nostalgia for it's superpower status that has become the main obstacle to a lasting peace in a conflict that has now claimed more than 9,000 lives on Europe's eastern edge.

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 #19
The Unz Review
www.unz.com
December 12, 2015
Week Ten of the Russian Intervention in Syria
The "Assad must go" policy implies war with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah
By the Saker

The "news" that Israel and Turkey are systematically violating international law is hardly news at all. After all, we all know that Turkey has been regularly bombing the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, that Turkey still illegally occupies northern Cyprus just like the Israelis have been bombing Syria and Lebanon for decades and that they are still illegally occupying Palestine. The interesting development this week is that France, the UK and Germany have all officially decided to join these rogue states and act just like the Turks and Israelis by illegally intervening in Syria - in direct violation of international law - supposedly to fight Daesh. And even though Daesh is the official enemy, it "just so happens" that Syrian army positions were bombed by the USAF while the Israelis bombed Hezbollah missile depots. Apparently, the "Assad must go" policy is still the order of the day. In a way, one could argue that the West has now (re-)affirmed the principle that "might makes right" and that threats and violence are still the only "policy" of the Empire in lieu of a legal, negotiated, policy. The problem with that is that the "other side" strongly feels that surrendering to the Empire's demands is simply not an option.

The Russian warning:

In reality this has been going on for years. From the decision to bomb Serbia to the recent decision by the IMF to bail out the Ukraine in direct violation of IMF rules (which, apparently, shall now be re-written), the AngloZionist Empire has now been violating its own so-called "rules" and "principles" for decades against the background of a quasi-general indifference to the end of the international world order agreed upon after WWII. The big difference today is that the Empire's reckless arrogance has now brought it in direct contact with the Russian Armed Forces which, apparently, are not willing to accept that kind of thuggery and who will fight back if attacked: in his annual address to expanded meeting of the Russian Federation Defense Ministry Board Putin has clearly indicated that the fact that Russia chose not to strike back at Turkey was a one time exception saying:

"I want to warn those who might again try to organize any kind of provocation against our troops: we have taken additional measures to ensure the security of Russian troops and air base. It is reinforced by new air force squadrons and air defenses. All our strike aircraft are now flying with fighter cover. I order you to act with very extreme resolve. Any targets that threaten Russia's group or our terrestrial infrastructure are to be immediately destroyed."

What Putin is doing here is warning Turkey and, really all of NATO and the Empire that next time Russia will shoot back, immediately. This also shows that the authority shoot back has now been given to the Russian forces in Syria and that no top-level decision will have to be requested to return fire. It is true that this is not a first. The RAF was also given similar order in October already, but since the notion of antiquated Tornados shooting down a SU-30SM is rather far fetched (even if the British press insist that their 1970s-era aircraft "are capable of blasting any aircraft out of the sky"), the capability of the SU-30SMs and even the SU-34s to shoot down Western 4th generation aircraft is not in doubt. The Russians have the resolve and the means.

But will the West take the Russian warnings seriously?

The Israeli counter example:

The contrast between the NATO countries and Israel could, in this case, not be bigger. Bibi Netanyahu, by far the most intelligent actor in the AngloZionist Empire, immediately traveled to Moscow to sit down with his Russian counterparts to hammer out some kind of deal which would allow the Russians and Israelis to pursue their objectives without risking a shootout. When the first Russian Air Force incursion into the Israeli airspace occurred the Israelis handled it as a completely harmless event. Israeli Defense Minister Ya'alon declared:

"There was a slight intrusion a mile (1.6 kilometers) deep by a Russian plane from Syria into our airspace, but it was immediately resolved and the Russian plane returned towards Syria. It was apparently an error by the pilot who was flying near the Golan. Russian planes do not intend to attack us, which is why we must not automatically react and shoot them down when an error occurs".

Later, an Ya'alon aide, General (res.) Amos Gilad, stated at a weekly event in Tel Aviv that Russian planes have occasionally crossed into Israeli airspace - but that the "very close cooperation between Russia and Israel" vis-a-vis operations in and around Syria had prevented any misunderstandings.

The counterpart on Russia side was just as obvious, if not officially admitted: when the Israelis bombed a Hezbollah weapons depot near Damascus the Russians "looked the other way". Considering that almost at the same time Hezbollah operatives were risking their lives to rescue a downed Russian airman, this kind of deal is of less than exemplary morality, but Hezbollah people are also realists: just look at the way they put up with Assad even while he was torturing people for the CIA (the infamous "rendition" program) or when Imad Mughniyeh was murdered with obvious complicity of high-ranking members of the Assad regime). The leaders of Hezbollah understand what is happening here: like it or not, but Russia and Israel do have a "special relationship" which, while hardly a love fest, does include a unique combination of hard realism, often bordering on cynicism, and a mutual recognition that neither side wants an overt conflict. In this case, the Israelis were told in no uncertain terms that the Russian intervention to save the Syria from Daesh was not negotiable, but that Russia does not intend to protect Hezbollah from Israeli actions as long as these actions do not threaten the Russian objectives in Syria. Being a realist, Netanyahu took the deal.

Though there was some confusion about this, it is my understanding that while the Russians have deployed the S-400 in Syria, there is also some evidence that the Syrians were finally given at least some S-300 batteries and that they might have used them against the Israelis on at least one occasion. What is absolutely certain is that under international law the Syrians will have the right to shoot at any US, French, German, Turkish or other aircraft flying in Syrian airspace and that if that happens the countries in violation of international law will not have a legitimate self-defense argument to make. By extension, this also means that Russia does also have the right to shoot down any aircraft or land or sea based weapons system targeting Russian aircraft. Unfortunately, western politicians and propagandists (aka "journalists") are going to extraordinary lengths to avoid ever even mentioning these facts. And if somebody dares to actually ask the right question, western officials have a fit. This is exactly what happened recently between RT reporter Gayane Chichakyan and State Department spokesman John Kirby. See for yourself:

The Iranian warning:

Russia is not the only country which has been repeatedly warning the West about the dangers of remaining stuck in a "Assad must go" policy: Iran has also repeated such warnings. The latest one came directly from the foreign policy advisor to the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ali Akbar Velayati, who openly stated that Bashar al-Assad is Syria's lawful president and that "Iran considers him as its redline". Velayati also said that "only Syrian people, who elected Assad, are entitled to decide the future of their country (...) and no foreign country will be allowed to interfere in Syria's internal affairs". Furthermore, another senior Iranian official, Iran's Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani, said that "Russia does not need prior agreement to use Iranian airspace to bomb sites in Syria" - in other words, such an agreement has already been negotiated. Considering that Larijani and Velayati are amongst the most influential and authoritative officials in Iran, one can only conclude that the Iranians are openly declaring that they are fully backing the Russian efforts in Syria. And that, in turn, means that Iran will send as many "boots on the ground" as needed to prevent Daesh from taking Damascus. This is the other crucial factor which the West is desperately trying not to think about.

The western narrative currently tries to show that it is Russia (and only Russia) which is keeping Assad in power. But this is completely false. The reality is that both Hezbollah and Iran are fully committed to preventing Daesh from overthrowing the Syrian government and their commitment has gone way further than words: Hezbollah has send hundreds of its best fighters to Syria and Iran has committed thousands of soldiers, mostly of the al-Quds Brigade, to the war in Syria. What this level of determination shows is that, just like Russia, Iran and Hezbollah have concluded that their vital, existential, interests are at risk and that they have no choice than to take the fight to Daesh. I believe that this assessment is absolutely correct.

So this is the key question here: do the deep state elites which run the US Empire understand that neither Russia, nor Iran or Hezbollah believe that they can back down and accept a Daesh victory in Syria? Do the western leader realize that Russia, Iran and Hezbollah cannot let the Empire overthrow Assad? Is there anybody out there who does not realize that the "Assad must go policy" implies a war against Russia, Iran and Hezbollah? The only way to avoid a war is to finally give up, even if that is initially denied publicly, on the "Assad must go" policy.

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 #20
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 11, 2015
Russia-Turkey relations are slipping into chaos
A confrontation between Russia and a NATO member once seemed unthinkable. But the Syrian conflict threatens to drag in regional actors in ways that were not originally foreseen.
By Shah Rukh Hashmi
Shah Rukh Hashmi is pursuing his Ph.D. in international relations at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Jilin University, China. He holds a Master's degree in international relations from the Islamia University of Bahawalpur and is a research fellow at the Institute of Peace and Diplomatic Studies, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently warned that cruise missiles "equipped either with conventional or special nuclear warheads" might be used in the confrontation with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) - a warning that was immediately seized upon by the Western media that the nuclear option was on the table in the Middle East.

On the top of that, on Dec. 11 Putin ordered Russia's army to be as tough as possible in Syria and destroy everything that threatens Russia's Armed Forces in the Middle East, because the terrorism in Syria is the direct threat to Russia, according to him. However, his order seems to be very ambiguous, with no clarity who might pose the threat to Russia's armed forces in Syria: terrorists or those countries who might down another Russian jet like it was in the case of Turkey.

Russia-Turkey brawl is going on

These warnings come against a deteriorating situation in the region triggered by tensions between Russia and Turkey. Russia recently imposed economic sanctions on Turkey and brought its visa regime for the country to an end. Both measures are outcomes of the accelerated momentum generated by the incident of the Russian Su-24 jet shot down by a Turkish F-16.

The Russian president earlier referred to the incident as a "stab in the back" committed by "accomplices of terrorists," while the Turks justified their action by emphasizing the claim that the plane was engaged in communication and had neglected several warnings before it was shot down. The incident attracted massive attention, staggered the geopolitical panorama and appeared to be an exclusive example of confrontation between Russia and a member of NATO in the post-Cold War era.

Despite centuries of antagonism and adversarial engagement, Ankara and Moscow succeeded in forging cooperative bilateral relations in recent times. Nevertheless, the shoot-down of the Russian plane shifted the pragmatic engagement into an uncertain pattern once again.

Putting the current confrontation into context, more than three million annual Russian tourists to Turkey could be seeking alternate destinations now, as Russian tour operators have already closed routes to Turkey. The rapidly expanding numbers of restaurants that are serving Turkish cuisine in Moscow are also more likely to be boycotted. Economic sanctions are usually considered less effective, yet it is evident that the ambitious goal of enhancing bilateral trade up to $100 billion by 2023 is out of the question and current trade at a level of $30 billion will be hampered also.

Why Turkey is defiant toward Russia

It's important to assess why Turkey risked its embryonic relationship with the Kremlin and what might be the motives of Ankara for such maneuvering against a state that is potentially capable of responding firmly.

Back in September, after failing to reach a consensus in the annual session of the United Nations, Russia unilaterally decided to attack, hunt down and dismantle the network of ISIS terrorist groups and rebels fighting Assad's regime. The move generated a debate in the West: The United States had failed to keep the promises and pledges which were made in its capacity as a global power.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt evacuated the Persian Gulf. Indeed, it was obvious for the allies of the U.S. to be alarmed by the huge military presence of its historical rival - Russia - in the region at a time when the U.S was backing away from the front.

At first, Russia had succeeded in garnering public opinion to its favor as a liberator and peace guarantor in the Middle East. Secondly, the conflict in Syria took the crisis in Ukraine out of the global spotlight and changed the course of action towards the Middle East and Syria, in particular.

The millions of refugees from Ukraine are given little or perhaps no attention because the Syrian refugees have become one of the biggest global issues of contemporary times. The West seems to have adopted a neo-appeasement policy and this choice leads them to ignore the Russian territorial expansion and the annexing of the Crimean peninsula, an event that appears to have fallen by the wayside.

Earlier, when strikes were initiated by Russia to consolidate Assad's regime and root out rebels, there were several intrusions into Turkish airspace. Ankara not only called upon the NATO council but also summoned the Russian ambassador to Ankara for these violations. The council condemned the intrusions and pointed out that such mistakes could ignite a regional war as the effects of these actions spill into neighboring countries.

Additionally, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave Moscow an ultimatum, stating that if Russia prefers hostility and an adverse relationship with Ankara, the Kremlin would suffer a great loss, adding that any further violations in the future could result in engagement with NATO.

The situation was seen, primarily as either a scuffle between Assad's regime and groups involved in the Syrian territory or between the U.S. and Russia. At the same time, Turkey and France, having historically larger stakes and a greater impact in the region, were ignored. The Levant - the geographical landmass of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel, Palestine and northwest Iraq - remained under Ottoman suzerainty prior to World War I, followed by French control as mandate systems in the post-war settlement. To reiterate, it was Tsar Nicholas I of Russia who referred to the Ottoman Empire as "the sick man of Europe" in 1853 and sought territorial expansion at the cost of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, opening another front in Syria has ignited tensions and fed apprehensions in Ankara, which felt marginalized.

Considering Turkey's stance in the immediate vicinity and Syria's as well, the physical positioning of Russian ground and air presence is open to concerns in Ankara. This shifted the balance against Turkey; additionally, the terrorist mayhem in Paris allowed the French to jump in.

Although France and Turkey are both members of NATO, the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century have witnessed great power politics in the territories of the Levant. The actors in that game were none other than Russia, France and Turkey, yet with a different form of statehood - as imperial Tsarist, French and Ottoman powers.
France is striking ISIS in the aftermath of the Paris carnage and bombed the Syrian city of Raqqa two days after the attack on French soil. Reportedly, this was France's most aggressive strike against ISIS yet. There were possibilities to initiate collaboration amongst the air forces of France, Russia and the United States to dismantle and destroy bases held by ISIS and other rebels.

Such possibilities could have been ignored in the event President Hollande of France hadn't declared "universal war" against an "army of terrorists." Alternatively, having an identical enemy in the Turkish neighborhood, Russia and France were more likely to cooperate, while Ankara felt nervous apprehension.

In such an environment, Turkey responded firmly and shot down a military aircraft. Otherwise, it was inevitable that a deeper incursion in Turkish airspace would be made under the excuse of the hot pursuit of rebels and ISIS terrorist groups. Ankara needs the engagement of NATO to sustain the enormous pressure from the Kremlin to normalize the situation.

Slipping into chaos?

However, the newly announced installment of S-400 missiles at the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia, Syria, could cause more unrest and panic in Ankara. Yet, the U.S. Air Force Central Command states its firm and determined position to continue air strikes regardless of the changing scenario. By mid-December, the Persian Gulf will host the carrier USS Truman and four of its escort ships; thus the U.S. presence with a larger fleet will reposition the balance of power.

In any case, an extended war in the region would be lethal, and escalations could flare up in the Near East. Nevertheless, the chances of such an escalation and ignition of a larger war in the region are fairly low. Diplomacy and engagement are the best modus operandi to end up with a stable and lasting solution. In the mutual contest for a zone of imperial influence, Russia had enjoyed greater leverage over Turkey.

This is an undeniable truth of contemporary politics in the Near East also. Multiple actors and their respective interests have to be analyzed and the legitimate concerns of Turkey must not be ignored either by Russia or the coalition forces of the West. In a similar way, there are the apprehensions and reservations from Russia and the West towards Ankara.

Ankara and Moscow must take advantage of any future scenario and negotiate their differences at the diplomatic table, since restraining from diplomatic solutions is hazardous for both parties. The disintegration of Yugoslavia produced a matrix that was uncontrollable and had devastating effects by mushrooming conflicts within conflicts. The same is the case in the territories of the Levant: multiple actors are involved with multi-dimensional links (ethnic, racial and religious). Careful assessment of the conflict is required; otherwise, the ISIS quagmire can encircle the region in violence and conflict.

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#21
Pressure on Transdniestria is meant to harm Russia
Bt Lyudmila Alexandrova

MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Moldova has been repeating demands for the removal of Russian peacekeepers from Transdniestria with amazing regularity for the past few years, but they are meant rather for the domestic audience, Russian experts believe. Nevertheless, Chisinau still hopes for the reintegration of the self-proclaimed republic. In pursuit of this aim it uses economic pressures first and foremost. In doing this Moldova has the backing of Ukraine, which jumps at every opportunity to take a dig at Russia. Analysts expect no important changes regarding the future of the self-proclaimed Trans-Dniestrian Republic, because Moldova is in permanent political crisis, which can be settled somehow only after a new president is elected.

Moldova's President Nicolae Timofti said last Saturday all Russian peace-keepers should be removed from Transdniestria. He argues that an international civilian mission must be invited to keep an eye on the situation in the region. Moldova's Prime Minister Valeriu Strelet voiced a similar proposal at the UN General Assembly session early last October.

At present, the self-declared Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic houses a contingent of Russian peacekeepers (one battalion - a little more than 400 men) and the limited group of Russian troops (two more army battalions having a total strength of one thousand men). The limited army group is responsible for guarding the munitions warehouses that have remained there since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Transdniestria, whose population is Russian and Ukrainian 60%, had pressed for cessation from Moldova before the breakup of the Soviet Union for fear the surge of nationalism would result in Moldova's adhesion to Romania. In 1992, after the Moldovan authorities' unsuccessful attempts to address the issue from the position of strength Transdniestria in fact shrugged off Chisinau's control.

As they put forward the demand for the removal of Russian peace-keepers, the authorities in Chisinau emphasized their pro-European bias," the leading research fellow at the Russian presidential Academy RANEPA, Sergey Bespalov, said. "But the problem is in the context of the ongoing internal political crisis Moldova can hardly offer Transdniestria any acceptable reintegration terms," he believes.

Russian peace-keepers have been in Transdniestria for the past 20 years. They managed to put a bloody conflict to an end. "Over the years the two sides were trying hard to devise a peace settlement draft. One of the most well-remembered proposals to this effect was the Kozak Plan of 2003 (Dmitry Kozak was Russia's prime minister then), which envisaged Transdniestria's gradual reintegration with Moldova and a simultaneous constitutional reform in Moldova. The presence of Russia's peace-keepers was to be prolonged significantly. The then Communist authorities of Moldova changed their mind at the last moment to refuse to sign the agreement. At the end of last decade the nationalist forces regained power in Moldova. By now they have formed an Alliance for European Integration. The situation in Moldova has turned still more strained.

In the meantime, economic pressures on Transdniestria have soared. Moldova and Ukraine have in fact established a blockade. "The Ukrainian military group in areas bordering on Transdniestria is being built up. There are no immediate benefits for Ukraine from this. "It's just anti-Russian policy on all fronts, including the Transdniestrian one."

A policy of creating economic problems for Transdniestria is continuing, this is a hard fact," the head of the Moldova and Transdniestria section at the CIS Studies Institute, Sergey Lavrenyov, has told TASS.

"This is Russia's sore spot. Pressures will keep mounting. I am not certain that any major events will follow, though. The more so, since presidential elections in bothTransdniestria and Moldova are due next March. Moldova remains in the state of a permanent political crisis," he said.

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 #22
Washington Post
December 13, 2015
Russia's TV talk shows smooth Putin's way from crisis to crisis
By Andrew Roth

MOSCOW - Just hours after Russia announced in September its intervention in Syria, state television producers here were rushing to book guests for a raucous televised discussion on Russia's latest adventure abroad.

It was not unusual for Moscow-based American journalist Michael Bohm, a rare foreign veteran of the Russian political talk show circuit, to go on air. But even for him, it was a particularly rough day.

"They invited about six Syrians - all pro Assad!" he said after the show, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. "All praising Putin for 'saving Syria.' All thanking Putin for being the greatest president on Earth."

That is a common complaint from the overmatched outsiders who brave Russia's rough-and-tumble talk show circuit, the westerner defending the United States or NATO, the Ukrainian nationalist who decries Russian aggression, and the handful of Russian pundits who oppose President Vladimir Putin.

Their conservative opponents call them traitors and spies. Other opponents of Putin consider them whipping boys, props in a nationally televised affirmation of Russia's righteousness.

But they say their goal is to harness the power of television in Russia to reach viewers in their own homes.

"It's an ability to present an opposing point of view," Bohm said, adding that while he was shouted down by other guests and occasionally the host of the show, he had never been explicitly censored.

"It's clear why they invite me," Bohm said. "It says right on the show I'm a journalist, but for Russians, journalist, State Department, Pentagon, it's all the United States."

With the odds stacked against him, he considered it a victory when he "won" 15 percent of the discussion.

"Winning is when you make an argument and you look at your opponents and they have a bland look on their face and nothing to say," Bohm said.

Russia did not invent the television genre of middle-aged men jawing over politics, but it may have come closest to perfecting it. The country's premier political talk show, "Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov," features eight guests, a browbeating host, prompts for the audience to applaud, and a prime-time presence comparable to Sunday Night Football in the United States.

The shows are popular, particularly when the public is digesting big news. "Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov" is regularly in the top 10 for ratings among all television shows, according to data compiled by the agency TNS Global, along with more traditional news shows.

Even in the midst of an economic crisis, some say that it is the power of television and propaganda that has enabled Putin to attain his highest ratings ever. "The television is more powerful than the fridge" is a common explanation among Kremlin-watchers.

In a recent op-ed in the Vedomosti newspaper, Denis Volkov, a veteran pollster for the independent Levada Center, argued that Putin's high ratings are dependent on widespread apathy, meaning Putin's support is broad but not necessarily deep.

"Most Russians simply have no opinion at all on most issues," Volkov wrote. "This is why it's so easy for the average Russian to latch on to whatever is suggested on television."

Polling seems to bear that out. The week before Russia began airstrikes in Syria more than two months ago, 14 percent of Russians said they supported direct intervention in the country's civil war. A week later, after Bohm and others were scrambled onto hastily arranged shows, 72 percent of Russians said they supported airstrikes.

While the change in word choice from intervention to airstrikes mattered, analysts said, television also played an important role in selling the conflict to the public.

While policymakers and straight news shows define the agenda, the political talk shows provide "emotional support," said Anna Kachkayeva, the head of the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics' Media department.

"They just support the atmosphere that exists and heat it up," Kachkayeva said. "I don't think it truly changes minds. This is about supporting emotions. It supports the overall feeling of accepting this public consensus."

It is a tool that has led Russian public opinion from one crisis to the next over the past two years, from the revolution in Ukraine, to the annexation in Crimea, the downing of the Malaysian airliner over east Ukraine, Russia's intervention in Syria, and more recently Turkey's downing of a Russian jet over the Syrian border.

"And then there is always some pariah, it doesn't matter if it's a Ukrainian, an American, or someone else, someone who doesn't agree," Kachkayeva said.

"Everyone attacks him, proving the strength of the majority."

Dmitry Nekrasov, a businessman and moderate opposition activist, joked that Bohm is seated near him on television in order to discredit him.

He said that most shows air live in Russia's far east, giving producers in Moscow eight hours to edit out any questionable bits before it reaches the main audience in Moscow.

But he continues to go on the shows.

"I make arguments for Uncle Vanya in his apartment block, how to disagree with his neighbors, how to explain [to] them the right opinion in the right way," Nekrasov said.

"Those people who are in the minority now in my country, they are in isolation, and some of them feel as though they are alone," said Leonid Gozman, a Russian politician and democratic activist. "This is the message that the government is sending to them with these television shows."

The animosity between the show's guests can occasionally spill off the air.

Igor Korotchenko, an outspoken supporter of the government, needles Bohm on Twitter, writing "people like Bohm dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they lynched Negroes."

But outside the world of television and social networks, there is respect. Sometimes, Bohm and others who know him said, he is stopped on the street by admirers.

Civil debate often follows.

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 #23
The Kremlin Stooge
https://marknesop.wordpress.com
December 12, 2015
Admiral Kirby Buys a Farm
By Mark Chapman

The British navy was involved in some peacetime maneuvers at sea, involving a column of cruisers. They were steaming along in formation when a signal was given to execute a ninety-degree turn. The maneuver went off flawlessly, except for one cruiser, whose captain missed the signal. The ship almost collided with the one in front, and when it swerved to avoid a collision, the whole convoy was thrown into confusion. Only some very skillful seamanship by the other captains prevented a serious accident.

When some order had been regained, the Admiral on the flagship sent a message to the captain who had caused all the trouble; "Sir, what are your intentions?" Immediately, the reply came back, "Sir, I plan to buy a farm." He knew without being told that one missed signal had terminated his naval career."

From, "Hearts of Iron, Feet of Clay; Practical and Contemporary Lessons From the Book of Judges", by Gary Inrig
--

Former Rear-Admiral John Kirby currently serves as the spokesman for the United States Department of State, replacing colourful and ditzy airheads Jen Psaki and Marie Harf. Known affectionately on this forum as Psakipath and Harfwit, their...ummm...moving on to greener pastures was likely precipitated by their comic confusion under the relentless cross-examination of Matthew Lee - reporter for the Associated Press - during those press conferences the State Department regularly hosts for international journalists. Perhaps the State Department thought the presence of a dignified and experienced former military professional would offer a change of course from the hilarious Roman circuses those pressers were becoming, as the spokespersons regularly found themselves pinned like a butterfly to a collection card by questions they could not answer honestly. After all, it worked for CNN.

That's just a guess on my part, but if their reasoning was something like that, it was a success like the Hindenburg. Driven into a corner by determined questioning from RT's Gayane Chichakayan (thanks for the link, Tim!), Kirby spontaneously combusted and burned up like a gasbag zeppelin. [https://www.rt.com/usa/325550-iraq-turkey-kirby-dodgy/]

Let's take it from the top. Mr. Kirby is plainly bracing himself for an unwelcome or unpleasant experience; his hand gestures and the sigh before he says, "Okay, go ahead" suggest he is only putting up with this because he is such a nice guy. Start the clock. When she says "concerns", click stop. 41 seconds. Knock off 5, because she begins to frame her question at the 5-second mark. That's 36 seconds to deliver the entire question, and subsequent attempts are all shorter than that. Yet Mr. Kirby moans and grumbles about "another 10-minute question, and I'm supposed to get the grain...get the grain out of that". I certainly hope when he was in uniform, he was better at making a time appreciation than this performance indicates. There are occasional situations in military service - such as, "How long do I hold this thing after I pull the pin before I throw it?" - where if you were off by 564 seconds, it could have some consequences.

Let's get back to the question. Ms. Chichakayan sets the background to the question thus;

1. The USA's official position is that it is up to Turkey and Iraq to sort out the situation with the uninvited Turkish troops;
2. The USA assumes unto itself, without invitation from the Iraqi government, the right to invite other countries into Iraq to participate in the fight against ISIL (that seems to be the consensus acronym, at least for now);
3. U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter (I refuse to refer to him as "Ash", as if we were old buddies, like everyone else seems to do) reported to Congress that he had personally reached out to other countries to invite them to commit Special Operations forces to the battle in Iraq; and
4. Iraq has announced a review of the defense security agreement with the United States, with some lawmakers calling for its cancellation.

She then asks the question, which is "What does the US do to address their concerns?"

She says the Turkish troops are univited. Is that so? Yes, it is. Who says so? AL Monitor's "Turkey Pulse" says so. Where's it based? Washington, DC. She says the United States gub'mint invited other countries to come to Iraq to fight ISIL. Is that true? Why, yes; it is - here's Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in the very hearing Ms. Chichakayan describes in her question, recounting for all who wish to listen that he spent part of the week "reaching out" to 40 countries to press them to do more... in some cases, much more. Remember that.  He says he solicited Special Forces, strike aircraft, munitions and support. He does not say this was done at the behest of the Iraqi government, and in the case of at least one supporting nation, Australia, it reportedly "responded to a request from the United States". Interestingly, CNN references not only acknowledge air strikes in Syria "may be illegal without Assad's agreement or unless he requests assistance of a western nation" - although this will not stop a Washington that claims a right to "take the fight to ISIL wherever it appears", it merely means it will not work with Assad - they report that Washington heavyweights have been putting serious pressure on Turkey to do more against ISIL.

Is it not possible Erdogan perceives this as a green light to move his forces into Mosul? It certainly sounds like it to me, and for his part, Erdogan still declines to withdraw his troops and tanks. If I were a suspicious man, I might speculate that is because the nation that claims to be coordinating this whole Global War On ISIL told him to stay put, whatever the Iraqi government says. If you were not yet suspicious, I invite you to go "hmmmm..." along with me at the announcement that Turkey will partake in a trilateral meeting on December 21st with Northern Iraq Kurdish leaders and US officials. It was the Kurdish regional authority - which is not a nation, they are part of Iraq - who allegedly invited Erdogan's forces in. Erdogan continues to insist his forces are there only to act as "instructors". He has already thought ahead to say he needs his tanks there, too, to protect his instructors from ISIL, because the armored forces of Turkey and Iraq are in no way the same - don't have a single type in common, in fact - which would beg the question of why the Turkish tanks are necessary. To instruct the Kurds in the operation and tactics of a tank they don't have?

Finally, Ms. Chichakayan avers that Iraq has ordered a review of the defense security agreement with the United States, and that some lawmakers have called for its cancellation. That true? Uh huh, it is.  Everything Ms. Chichakayan purported in her question as fact, is fact.

It is not known whether the USA's invitation to other countries to come on in to Iraq was negotiated with the participation and at the behest of the Iraqi government. But Ms. Chichakayan never introduced that line of inquiry - Mr. Kirby did. Apparently not content with merely muffing his own role, he appeared to take over hers, and go on a rant about what she might be implying. Cha-ching! said RT, I'll bet - give Gayane Chichakayan a raise; she sure as hell earned it, the State Department spokeshole is falling apart in glowing cinders right before our very eyes.

For the record,. because everyone has probably forgotten by now, but the "grain" that Mr. Kirby was unable to extract from a 36-second question was, "What does the US do to address their concerns?"

Fuck-all, apparently, because the deadline for Ankara to withdraw has come and gone without Erdogan budging, which he insists he will not, and the furious Iraqis have gone over their "security partner's" head and petitioned the UN to order the removal of the Turkish troops. That likely will be to no avail, since Washington controls the UN through the clownish invertebrate Ban Ki-Moon. But the significance of the December 21st snuggle between the US, Ankara and the Northern Region Kurdish administration should be lost on no one. Meanwhile, Erdogan - never one for keeping his head down - has moved on from that provocation and begun signing gas deals with the regional Kurdish administration as well. Washington's strategy is laid bare at last, and what is going to be the result of it, if everyone is not very, very careful, is a civil war in Iraq as the central government reminds the Kurds that they do not have their own state within the borders of Iraq. I thought Washington was all about the sanctity of regional borders, but apparently that only applies to Ukraine.

It seems pretty clear that Washington is flying by the seat of its pants here, and is working some sort of Plan B. It is unlikely Erdogan would not only up the ante - considering the shitstorm he caused to blow up by shooting down a Russian fighter in Syria - but when ordered out by a sovereign government, would refuse to leave...unless he knew that somebody who swings a lot of weight was in his corner. Washington is plainly not listening at all to Iraq's increasingly-frantic calls for Turkey to get out, and if it has been approached by the Iraqis to facilitate Erdogan's removal it has, equally plainly, declined to act. Gayane Chichakayan and RT were right on the money; Washington and Ankara are up to something, and if they are allowed to normalize the presence of a thousand or so Turkish troops in the area of Mosul, their needs and infrastructure will only grow and grow. We may well be looking at a lunge for a Kurdish state, brokered by Turkey and the United States and guaranteed by a Turkish military presence. Why? Because Turkey can act as a gas hub for Europe, only pumping gas from Kurdistan. Has American control over Europe's energy supply been a Washington dream since forever? Why, yes; yes, it has.

A lot of details would still have to be fleshed in, because the forecast supply was only 20 BCm by 2020, and that would nowhere near supply Europe's gas markets. But it would be a foot in the door. It's something to think about.

Still, I suppose it was mean of the State Department to push an innocent like John Kirby into the ring with a seasoned propagandist like RT, wasn't it?

Not really. Not only was Kirby a Rear Admiral pulling down somewhere between $8,045.70 and $11,609.10 per month - plus a housing allowance if he lived off-base - when he was in uniform, he gave up maritime surface operations in favour of Public Affairs in the early 90's; he was Public Affairs Officer in USS FORRESTAL (the same Carrier as the legendary John "Wet Start" McCain, in fact, although he would have served there much earlier, during the Vietnam War), and FORRESTAL was taken out of service in 1993. John Kirby was editor-in-chief for the US Navy's flagship monthly magazine, All Hands, special assistant for Public Affairs to the Chief of Naval Operations, and Deputy Assistant secretary of Defense for Media Affairs before he was tapped to be State's spokeshole. He was the US Navy's Chief of Information and, as such, led a department of more than 2,700 active and reserve officer, enlisted and civilian communication professionals. He was the Pentagon's Press Secretary. In short, John Kirby had about as much experience in media relations as it was possible for a military man to have, most of it acquired and practiced in the upper levels of government. The notion that he was unable to follow RT's question because it was too complicated is ludicrous - he didn't answer because in order to do so he would have had to lie, or give away information that the world has no business knowing because it is classified to a fare-thee-well. And the idea that he had not seen any reports about Iraqi concerns is frankly insulting - he eats, sleeps and breathes media and current events.

I don't know how old Ms. Chichakayan is, but I would hazard a guess that she was not out of her teens when John Kirby was getting his start in Public Affairs. The advantage of media experience was weighted heavily in his favour. And he fell apart. You can bet they have their heads together at State, desperately looking for a way to yank RT's license without looking too dictatorial, or at a minimum, an excuse to ban them from such press conferences.

I only mentioned how much money he makes so his fans will be comforted knowing he could easily afford even this magnificent farm in Florida, his home state. Because farming is shaping up like a good career choice for him.

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 #24
http://off-guardian.org
December 12, 2015
RT parody video: How Kremlin propaganda works

RT: How Kremlin propaganda works, or Simonyan, a bear and some gopher juice

With English subtitles.

Video: http://off-guardian.org/2015/12/12/rt-self-parody-video-how-kremlin-propaganda-works/

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 #25
Putin's Russia on the Way to Complete and Proud Barbarization, Regnum Commentator Says
Paul Goble

Staunton, December 13 - Russia didn't succeed in modernizing itself, Sergey Shelin says; instead, "on all fronts, archaic forms and values are triumphing;" and Russia is achieving ever greater "successes in the construction of feudalism" and the promotion of ignorance as a value to the point that one can speak of the formation of "an integral and mature system."

In a strikingly bitter commentary yesterday, the Regnum observer suggests this is shown by the statements of Russia's leaders and even more by the reaction of ordinary Russians, a reaction that he says cannot be blamed on the work of Kremlin-controlled media alone (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2015/12/12/1470681.html).

Vladimir Putin speaks about the possible use of nuclear weapons, but his words "do not generate any societal concern." He transforms Turkey from a friend to an enemy overnight, and Russians accept this "new reality if not with delight then with understanding. More corruption at the top is revealed and Russians react not with anger but "with philosophical calm."

Moreover, Shelin says, when there is there is a "grandiose" commemoration of the death of two soldiers in Syria and "almost a complete absence of such in connection with the loss of 220 citizens" in the airliner downed by terrorism, no one in Russia appears to think that something is amiss.

Are all these things "normal?" he asks. Twenty years ago, a media manager in Moscow said that Russian was experiencing "a broad normalization of all sides of its life."  But "now," Shelin continues, that individual "lives in another country and about his old motherland responds in an extremely skeptical way."

Now, "normalcy" in Russia is "precisely what was earlier considered madness," a shift that cannot be blamed on the work of the government's propaganda machine alone. There is no monopoly of information if people will take the time to use the Internet which is "still open" or to think about what they are being told.

These "changes" in Russia lie deeper and form a whole system," Shelin says. "The signs of feudalism with its monarchical spirit, with the revelry of the bosses of all levels and the conversion of the rest of the population into a mass of individuals reduced to the lowest status already were visible a long time ago."

"But now feudalism has won out also in people's souls. Whether this will last a long time or not is uncertain, but for the time being it is the case." Ordinary Russians sees themselves as fit only to be ordered about and those "in the upper classes" as their appropriate "masters." They don't have to be told this again and again, Shelin says.

The Russian people "know it themselves," and they in general accept what the masters decide without question. "The tsar decides with whom to fight and how to fight. That is now our affair," they feel. "And the deaths of soldiers is something entirely different than the deaths of ordinary people. And in fact, the two must not be compared."

But to call this "'feudalism'" is "to say far from everything" that is going on. "The movement backward, to archaic forms and values is going along a much broader front." And Shelin suggests that it is already possible to "call it barbarization," where ignorance is celebrated and knowledge denigrated and where charlatanism is ever more widespread.

Indications that this is the way to go are being sent from Putin on down. The Russian president has said "we in general do not make distinctions between Shiites and Sunnis," an indication that he has no need for those who can make this distinction and that no one else should be concerned either.

The attacks on the status of the Academy of Sciences are part of this as are the falsehoods and inventions like the suggestion that Madeleine Albright hates Slavs and that when no quotation to that effect can be found, the work of Russian mediums is invoked and that no one is supposed to challenge - and only rarely does anyone do so.

Instead, such things get picked up and then repeated, often by Putin himself, and thus legitimized for the population.  Such things contribute to the barbarization of thought. Russia isn't unique in this, of course, Shelin says, but its move in this direction is clearly "the most grandiose of all," something that some Russians may even take pride in.

"Will it be possible to turn back?" Shelin says he hopes so, and he points to one reason that this may in fact happen. "People some time ago said that modernization was irreversible," and they were wrong about that.

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#26
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 12, 2015
3 major Russian books of 2015
The Big Book Prize has been presented in Moscow
ALEXANDRA GUZEVA, RBTH

1. Guzel Yakhina. Zuleikha Opens her Eyes

This sensational debut novel is the main talking point of this year's award, which saw a newcomer to the literary scene take first prize ahead of such established writers as Victor Pelevin and Alexei Varlamov.

Guzel Yakhina was born in Kazan in 1977 and now lives in Moscow. She used to work in PR and graduated from the Moscow Screenwriting Academy this year. Zuleikha Opens her Eyes has already received the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Prize and the Big Book online readers' selection.

The novel is about Zuleikha, a peasant living in a remote Tatar village in the 1930s. The villagers are sent to a Siberian camp along with dispossessed residents from neighboring settlements. At its heart, this is a family story, which the author herself is keen to emphasize. Jury member Lisa Hayden describes it as a "moving novel" that "deserves all the praise and awards it has won", while the critic Pavel Basinsky writes that in this novel "relating what the grandmother says is not enough; the author has had to actually become the grandmother for a while."

2. Valery Zalotukha. The Candle

Valery Zalotukha had planned to spend a year writing a novel about the suffering of a modern-day job, Moscow vet Evgeny Zolotorotov. However, it ended up taking him almost 12 years. He passed away in February 2015, at the same time as the publication of his long-awaited novel, which claimed second place in this year's Big Book Prize.

Zalotukha was born in a mining town in Tula Region (125 miles from Moscow) in 1954. He moved to the capital, where he worked as a journalist and screenwriter. He won the Nika National Cinema Prize for his screenplay of the film Muslim, which was directed by Vladimir Khotinenko, before turning to prose in 1992. His novella The Last Communist was nominated for the Russian Booker in 2000.

The Candle is a 2,000 page novel about faith and faithlessness. It relates the story of a man who enters a church to light a candle and ends up falsely accused and imprisoned. The book caused intense discussion and a mixed critical response. According to the critic Mikhail Edelstein: "It makes an audacious claim on the epic form, with obvious biblical allusions, and the desire to respond to the most pressing questions of modern life. Its less obvious narrative weaknesses are a treasure trove of material for discussion and interpretation."

3) Roman Senchin. The Flood Zone

Roman Senchin has been shortlisted for the Big Book Prize on several previous occasions, but this is the first time he has placed in the award.

The Flood Zone is an homage to the novel Parting with Matera by Valentin Rasputin, an exponent of the so-called "village prose" genre. The novel is set in contemporary Siberia and follows the tragic lives of villagers who are forced to leave their homes and move to the city to make way for a hydroelectric power plant that will result in the entire area being flooded.

The novel's overriding subject is the helplessness of ordinary people in the face of all-powerful oligarchs, and can be compared to Andrei Zvyagintsev's film Leviathan, which was a hit with viewers last year.

In 2009, Roman Senchin gained wide recognition for his novel Yeltyshevy, which was shortlisted for all the major Russian literary prizes, from the National Bestseller to the Big Book. It did not win any, however.

Senchin's novels have been translated into many languages and he often visits large international book fairs. He presented the Chinese translation of Yeltyshevy at this year's Beijing Book Fair.
 

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 #27
Interfax-Ukraine
December 14, 2015
Poroshenko welcomes initiative to deprive citizenship of Ukraine for separatism
 
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has welcomed an initiative of the authors of the petition regarding a possibility to deprive a citizenship of Ukraine for separatism.

"I can express its position as a president: I think that under conditions of war the country must have this instrument. I'll ask MPs for them to discuss this opportunity and to back the authors of the petition and president of Ukraine," he told the journalists in Kyiv when visiting Ukraina Polygraph Combine state-run enterprise.

The president reminded that a respective petition, which was supported by many Ukrainians, has been already sent to Verkhovna Rada.

Poroshenko explained that under the Constitution of Ukraine it is impossible to deprive a person of Ukrainian citizenship if he was born in Ukraine and is its citizen.

"But another thing is when the citizenship of Ukraine is acquired, there are certain rights, and it requires amendments into Constitution and legislation of Ukraine," he said.

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 #28
Irrussianality
December 12, 2015
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
'THE ALTERNATIVE REALITY OF PROPAGANDA'
By Paul Robinson
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, and the author of numerous books on Russia and Soviet history, including 'Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: Supreme Commander of the Russian Army'

One of the advantages of working at a university is having access to a large number of academic journals. In this post, therefore, I will take the opportunity to highlight a couple of recent articles from these.

The first is from the latest edition of Survival, the journal of a prominent British think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The author is Elizabeth Pond, described as 'a Berlin-based journalist and author', who worked for 20 years for the Christian Science Monitor and in 1981 published a book about the Soviet Union entitled From the Yaroslavsky Station. Entitled 'Will Ukraine Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory?' the article begins with the words: 'In holding Russia's military behemoth to a stalemate in President Vladimir Putin's undeclared war on Ukraine, Kiev has won an improbable victory.' According to Pond:

"The rebels kept edging the front line west during the year of the poorly observed truce [from September 2014 onwards], kilometre by kilometre, and tried for one last major breakthrough in January and February 2015. Yet the Ukrainian lines basically held. For a few months more Putin continued to talk about his original dream of reconquering Novorossiya, the eastern 40% of today's Ukraine that Catherine the Great had seized from the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century. By May he had dropped the subject, however, and by the end of August there was a sudden change in leaders among his Donbas proxies that brought the less militant Denis Pushilin to the fore in time to approve the new 1 September 2015 truce. ... As provisional peace breaks out, the 1,000 Russian officers and trainers in the Donbas and 50,000 troops still massed just over the Russian border no longer seem menacing to Kiev."

Pond continues her article by expressing concern that Ukraine's oligarchs may now squander their country's 'victory' by renewing their internecine squabbles. Still, she voices the hope that oligarchic competition 'might eventually lead, in conjunction with the current anti-corruption drive and with decentralisation on the highly successful Polish pattern, to real political parties instead of today's patron-client clans devoid of policy content. ... They might even capitalise on the new Ukrainian identity that Vladimir Putin has bestowed on them by war to reconcile western and eastern Ukraine politically.'

The second article appeared in what is probably the most prestigious academic journal in the field of Russian and Eastern European studies, Slavic Review. The journal's current edition begins with an article by Yale professor Timothy Snyder entitled 'Integration and Disintegration; Europe, Ukraine, and the World.' Snyder starts by writing that, 'It is not so often that a true revolution takes place in Europe, mobilizing more than a million, provoking counter-revolution and mass killing'. Snyder looks at Ukrainian history through lenses of colonization v. decolonization and integration v. disintegration. He argues that the First World War was the first step in decolonization and disintegration as multinational empires fell apart, but the Soviet era then witnessed a new era of colonization. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the colonial era came to an end, and Ukraine is now seeking reintegration into Europe through the European Union. But whereas the EU is a force of integration in Snyder's analysis, Russia is a force for disintegration, seeking to tear Europe apart. Thus Snyder writes that,

"In the summer and autumn of 2013, Russian foreign policy shifted, taking the disintegration of the European project as an explicit goal. ... the Kremlin defined the EU as an opponent. ... in the first weeks of authentic surprise at Ukrainian preferences, the impulse was to call Europeans and Ukrainians homosexuals. The origin of the anti-Maidan policy was the anti-EU policy, of which it was a constituent part. ... the war [in Donbass can be seen as] ... unfolding from a larger campaign of disintegration. ... Russia shows no inclination to annex Luhan'sk or Donet'sk oblasts, preferring instead to leave them in a permanent state of disaster. ... Russia's proposal seems to be to subjugate to destroy."

'The Russian project to destroy Ukraine and the European Union in the name of an alternative global order should not shock or confuse,' says Snyder, 'If the Maidan was about agency, sovereignty, and Europe, Russia's anti-Maidan is about propaganda, conspiracy, and empire.' He ends by urging readers to distance themselves 'from the alternative reality of propaganda, whose tropes can otherwise serve as a tempting substitute for thought'.

In my opinion, there are several things wrong with these two articles: errors of fact; omissions of fact; and highly disputable conceptual foundations.

Elizabeth Pond gets important facts wrong. In the excerpt above, for instance, she claims that in January and February 2015, 'the Ukrainian lines basically held'. Yet this was the period in which the rebel forces in Donbass successfully surrounded the Ukrainian Army at Debaltsevo and then eliminated the Debaltsevo pocket. If this was a Ukrainian 'victory', I would hate to see what a Ukrainian defeat looks like. Pond then says that for months after Debaltsevo Putin 'continued to talk' about conquering Novorossiia. For an academic article I have just written, I have examined public statements which Putin made about Donbass in this period. In not one of them did he talk about conquering Novorossiia. Pond is just plain wrong.

Snyder also makes errors. For instance, his claim that the 'disintegration of the European project' has been an 'explicit goal' of Russian foreign policy since 2013 is false. Senior officials such as President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have never said this. One might argue (with some difficulty) that destroying the EU is a hidden or implicit goal, but it certainly isn't an 'explicit' one.

Both authors omit uncomfortable facts. For instance, in talking of 'Russia's military behemoth' Pond ignores the fact that the Ukrainian Army wasn't for most of the time fighting that 'behemoth' but rather was fighting fellow Ukrainians, who have always made up the vast majority of the rebel forces. This is at least better than Snyder, who claims that the local rebels consisted primarily of 'criminals and local right-wingers and Nazis'. Snyder also manages to mislead by omission. In his second paragraph he mentions that the revolution in Kiev provoked 'counterrevolution and mass killing' and later writes that, 'Russia was forced to use its own troops. Ukrainians have died in the thousands in these two oblasts'. The juxtaposition of words within these two phrases suggests that it was the counterrevolutionaries and Russian troops who did the killing. In fact, the Ukrainian Army is almost certainly responsible for the majority of deaths in Donbass through its shelling of rebel-held towns. Snyder doesn't tell us this.

Finally, both articles suffer from conceptual problems. They assume a greater degree of Ukrainian unity than probably exists, given that the country is engaged in civil war. Pond writes of 'the new Ukrainian identity that Vladimir Putin has bestowed'. There might be something to this, but one should be careful about exaggerating the extent of this unified identity. As recent elections have shown, the south and east of the country continue to vote in a different way to the rest of Ukraine, and the idea that Donbass shares in any 'new Ukrainian identity' smacks of wishful thinking. Snyder similarly falls into the error of assuming a unitary Ukraine, talking, for instance, of the European 'aspirations of Ukrainians in 2013 and 2014', as if all Ukrainians shared these aspirations. They obviously didn't, or there wouldn't have been a war.

Equally problematic, I think, is Snyder's description of the Russian-Ukrainian relationship as a colonial one. Given the interconnectedness of Ukrainian and Russian history over hundreds of years, colonialism doesn't seem to me to be a useful way of looking at it. And while it is fair to point out the suffering of Ukrainians under Soviet rule, this needs to be balanced with all the Soviets did to expand Ukrainian language education, foster the promotion of Ukrainian elites, and so on - acts which don't easily fit the colonial model. All in all, Snyder's conceptual framework strikes me as promoting a rather simplistic view of Russian-Ukrainian relations.

If you can access these articles, I urge you also to read the reply to Snyder written by Bulgarian academic Maria Todorova, which appears in Slavic Review immediately after Snyder's article. Todorova hits the nail on the head. She writes that what Snyder has produced is 'a simple, not to say simplistic argument, wrapped in an obfuscating scholarly garb. ... It is disappointing that a historian ... should present a monolithic, almost anthropomorphic Ukraine, without any internal diversity, in his discourse. ... We have come full circle to what Snyder himself warns against: "the alternative reality of propaganda".'

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 #29
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
December 11, 2015
Brawl erupts in Ukrainian parliament as MP attempts to carry out prime minister
Fighting breaks out among members of Ukraine's ruling coalition after a member of President Petro Poroshenko's bloc physically picked up prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and pulled him from the podium
By Matthew Bodner
[Video here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/12045941/Brawl-erupts-in-Ukrainian-parliament-as-MP-attempts-to-carry-out-prime-minister.html]

A fight erupted in Ukraine's upper house of parliament on Friday when a member of the legislature attempted to drag prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk from the floor's podium after giving the government leader a bouquet of flowers.

Mr Yatsenyuk was delivering an annual report recapping the work of his government when a deputy representing president Petro Poroshenko's political bloc in parliament approached the stage to drag Mr Yatsenyuk away. The incident sparked a wider fist fight between deputies on the floor.

Mr Yatsenyuk's own faction in parliament has been at odds with a group loyal to Mr Poroshenko amid growing concern and public discontent over Ukraine's still-rampant levels of corruption. Mr Yatsenyuk in his speech insisted the government does not have the power to prosecute corruption cases.
"Who prosecutes? Prosecutors do. So who is in charge? The General Prosecutor's office. The president appoints the prosecutor general" Mr Yatsenyuk was quoted as saying in his report by the Kiev Post, a local English-language newspaper.

Meanwhile, outside the parliament building, up to 1,000 protesters gathered to demand the resignation of the Ukrainian government and its head - Mr Yatsenyuk - according to Russian media reports on Friday. The Poroshenko Bloc in Parliament has also called for his resignation.

But responding to a question from a Poroshenko Bloc MP, the Prime Minister said he would only resign if the legislature voted to remove him from his post.

The head of the Poroshenko Bloc, Yury Lutsenko, later apologised to Mr Yatsenyuk for the brawl.

"Being a supporter of Yatsenyuk's resignation myself, I believe that the flowers incident and fight will only increase his chances to stay in the position," Mr Lutsenko wrote on his Facebook page.

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 #30
Russia Insider/Yurasumy
www.russia-insider.com
December 12, 2015
In Kiev Biden Was Talking, But Was Anyone Listening?
The US Vice President told the Ukrainians to accept decentralization and local differences, but the post-Maidan parliament dominated by chauvinist extremists has other ideas
Yurasumy (LiveJournal)
http://yurasumy.livejournal.com/796697.html

The author is a popular Ukrainian blogger who also  has a big following in Russia. This post originally appeared at his LJ blog. Translated by Svetlana Kyrzhaly and Rhod Mackenzie

This was the first time the US Veep appeared publicly in the Ukrainian Parliament, where State's Victoria Nuland has been a familiar figure, (she's the woman who was seen handing out cookies on the Maidan). Biden's funeral dirge was heard not only by Ukraine's President and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk and full cabinet but also by the US Ambassador to the Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt and the ever present Nuland. Before he arrived, the Ukrainian flag in front of the building was replaced by the American banner, making clear who's in charge.

Biden  proposed Ukraine be divided into separate federalized states whose governments could solve their own problems. (The leader of the "South-East" movement Yuri Apukhtin is serving a prison term in Kharkov for having made this same demand.) Given that the USA is a federal state, the Ukrainian leaders could only sit in stony silence as Biden intoned:

"It's important to have autonomous, independent states that solve their own problems, determine their own educational system and government in the framework of a united Constitution,"
(Bear in mind that the Vice President's main job is to represent the President of the United States.) Mentioning the Federal Republic of Germany as an example, Biden reminded the Junta that federalization works fine in Europe, without threatening  national sovereignties or democratic principles.

Biden noted that it's not enough to create a special office in order to fight corruption. In the two years since the Ukraine campaign began, it has only gotten worse.

While assuring his listeners that the United States would always regard both the Crimea and Donbass as part of the Ukraine, he demanded the full implementation of the Minsk Agreement. under which Kiev must amend the Constitution in agreement with the separatists by the end of this month. The problem is that were Donbass to become part of a federated Ukraine, the Junta would collapse, together with its nationalist ideology and Russophobia. And these ill winds would blow back toward the western borders, confirming  Galicia as a backward region with a strong Polish influence.

Interestingly, Biden drew parallels between what is happening today in what had been the most prosperous Soviet republic and the US Civil War, confirming the fact that Ukraine's citizens are on opposite sides of a front,

He also remarked that there were outside influences in the US Civil War as well as in the Spanish civil war. No nation is an island; and if it is economically weak and politically impotent, as is Ukraine today, then outside intervention is inevitable.

Is this Piper's tune, then, a funeral march?

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 #31
Interfax-Ukraine
December 14, 2014
Poroshenko speaks for preserving current coalition in parliament
 
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has supported the preservation of the current coalition in the Verkhovna Rada.

"The preservation of this coalition as the key political construction for the introduction of reforms and for maintaining political stability is the key to the adoption of decisions, including staff reshuffles," the head of state said at a forum of Petro Poroshenko Block representatives in local councils in Kyiv on Saturday.

He stressed that the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, People's Front, Samopomich and Batkivschyna were responsible for the fate of the country.

"This coalition is somehow able to take decisions that the previous convocation of the Verkhovna Rada were unable to take," the president said.

According to him, the unity of the coalition is the key to the success of reforms.

"I have been doing and I will do everything I can to strengthen the coalition," Poroshenko said.

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 #32
Washington Post
December 13, 2015
Editorial
Ukraine's leadership skirmishes undermine its efforts for true democracy

UKRAINIANS, PERPETUALLY and justifiably concerned that their pro-Western, pro-democracy revolution will be abandoned by the West, have recently had some reasons for reassurance. The European Union has backed most of the government's terms for making peace with Russian-backed rebels and will likely renew sanctions against Russia in the coming weeks while moving toward implementation of a free-trade agreement with Kiev.

For its part, the United States is training Ukrainian military forces and Congress just appropriated another $300 million in military aid. This week, Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine and assured its parliament that "the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine against Russian aggression."

There is still more the West could do; President Obama has yet to provide the defensive weapons funded by Congress. For now, however, the biggest challenges to Ukraine's consolidation as an independent state and liberal democracy lie with the country's political leaders - as an outbreak of brawling in the parliament Friday vividly illustrated.

The punches flying between loyalists of President Petro Poroshenko and his coalition partner and prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, testified to a creeping dysfunction that must delight Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, who has been counting on a Ukrainian political collapse. The parties in the ruling coalition have been at odds over the terms of a crucial tax reform and budget for next year, and also over their mutual failure to move against the country's predatory oligarchs and the massive corruption they foster.

Mr. Poroshenko stubbornly refuses to replace the country's chief prosecutor, who has been blocking corruption investigations, while Mr. Yatsenyuk has been protecting oligarchs in his party who hold parliamentary seats. Their mutual suspicions and recriminations are reminiscent of the power struggles that caused Ukraine's first pro-Western regime to stumble a decade ago.

Mr. Biden recalled that bitter failure in bluntly urging the parliament to pass a budget that meets the tough criteria of the International Monetary Fund and to begin "a historic battle against corruption." He spelled out a number of necessary steps, starting with "reform" of the chief prosecutor's office and an overhaul of the judiciary - where just a handful of 8,000 judges have been replaced though thousands are known to be corrupt. Oligarchs, Mr. Biden said, must be forced to pay taxes, observe laws and settle their disputes in court; politicians must separate their personal business interests from those of the government.

Ukrainians who joined the massive demonstrations that brought down Ukraine's previous, pro-Russian government last year increasingly are questioning whether the necessary reforms can be pushed through by Mr. Poroshenko - himself a big businessman - and Mr. Yatsenyuk, a veteran of the failed post-2004 government. For now, though, there is little choice: Mr. Poroshenko is about 20 months into a five-year presidential term, while a parliamentary no-confidence vote in Mr. Yatsenyuk would probably lead to snap elections and months of turmoil that Ukraine can ill afford.

That means Ukraine's best hope probably lies in the two leaders and their followers quickly taking measures that will restore international confidence and offer Ukrainians hope; encouragingly there were reports Friday that they had renewed their alliance. As Mr. Biden put it with remarkable candor, "anything else will... drive down support for Ukraine...which is always tenuous."

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 #33
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
December 9, 2015
Moscow daily: VP Biden's visit shows Ukraine is no longer US "favourite toy"
Pavel Dulman, Biden comes to judge between them. Maydan completely places Ukraine under America

Local experts and politicians had been expecting a great deal from US Vice-President Joe Biden's two-day visit to Kiev: The moderates were expecting a complete change of the cabinet of ministers, and the radicals the resumption of combat operations in Donbass. In the end, the representatives of both poles lost out: Arseniy Yatsenyuk was favoured with verbal praise, while the militant Russophobes listened to a speech about the unshakable nature of the Minsk agreements.

Biden's visit most resembled a landowner's visit to a little village that he has happened to buy along with its serfs. It should be remembered that this was already the American vice-president's fourth visit to Ukraine in less than two years. Probably no country in the world has been vouchsafed such close attention from Washington during this time.

But such frequent inspections should not please the present rulers in Kiev: After all, two years on from the coup the United States is still obliged to manage Ukraine in a hands-on manner. The US ambassador to Kiev is not embarrassed to interfere publicly in Ukrainian domestic politics almost weekly. The US vice-president's sentence to the effect that he has more frequent contact with the Ukrainian president than with his own wife - something Mrs Biden is very displeased about - translates from American diplomatic language as a statement of his interlocutor's muddleheadedness, lack of independence, and importunity. However, Ukrainian media failed to understand this subtle gibe and were quick to proclaim Poroshenko Washington's new "beloved wife" in Ukraine.

However, the actual results of the top-level talks attest, rather, that Ukraine has ceased to be the United States' favourite toy in foreign policy. Thus, Biden promised Poroshenko 190m dollars in financial aid - "for the fight against corruption," which Ukraine's American master has unequivocally called the country's main problem. To say that this sum is insultingly small, compared with Kiev's debts, requirements, and appetites, is to say nothing. I can only remind you that, on the list of countries to which the Pentagon has decided to give financial and material support in 2016, Ukraine with its 300m dollars is at the bottom of the first 20: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and even some African regimes will receive exponentially larger sums.

In addition, both within the framework of his meetings with Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk and during his speech to the Supreme Council Biden said that Ukraine must fulfil all its obligations under the Minsk agreements. Biden did not venture to take on the role of arbiter of Ukrainian strife. It was in vain that nationalists mounted pickets outside the Council and along the route from the airport into Kiev, demanding Yatsenyuk's dismissal. The sensational exposes of corruption in the government made by Odessa Region governor Saakashvili, who  plainly stated his wish to be Ukraine's prime minister, also made a false start. Biden, on the contrary, expressed hope in fruitful cooperation with Yatsenyuk, and so, after 12 December, when the period of his government's parliamentary immunity runs out, he retains every chance of remaining at the head of the cabinet of ministers.

Meanwhile:

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are continuing to hold population centres in the neutral part of the security zone in Donbass - which may entail a full-scale resumption of hostilities. Such a statement was made by Denys Pushylin, plenipotentiary representative of the Donetsk People's Republic [DPR]. "We have asked Martin Sajdik, special representative of the head of the OSCE, to convey to the 'Normandy format' the fact that the status quo has been upset as a result of these steps. Such actions may be followed by a resumption of hostilities," the republic's representative said. Eduard Basuryn, spokesman for the DPR Army, had earlier stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had taken the neutral population centres of Pyshchevysk, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Shyrokyne, and Zhovanka.

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 #34
Sputnik
December 10, 2015
US Has Sent More Than $250Mln in Weapons to Ukraine - Senior NATO General

The US government has sent the Petro Poroshenko regime in Ukraine more than a quarter of a billion dollars in weapons and other army ordnance, US Army Europe Commanding General Ben Hodges told a Department of Defense briefing.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - He also noted that Ukraine would be involved in the 2016 NATO Trident Juncture exercises. This year's Trident Juncture exercises involved 36,000 personnel from more than 30 nations across the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and other regions.

"More than $250 million of equipment has been delivered to Ukraine," Hodges told the briefing on Wednesday.

Hodges, who directly commands all US ground forces deployed in Europe under NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove, said the massive expenditure meant the United States was fully committed to defending Poroshenko's regime and army.

"We're here. We're with you. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars," Hodges said.

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 #35
Carnegie Europe
December 14, 2015
Ukraine's Fragile Status Quo
By JAN TECHAU
Techau is the director of Carnegie Europe, the European center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Techau works on EU integration and foreign policy, transatlantic affairs, and German foreign and security policy.

Ten months after the Minsk II agreement of February 2015, which aimed to end the unrest in eastern Ukraine, a strange and delicate status quo has emerged. It seems that all the major strategic players involved in the conflict-Russia, the government of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the West, the Ukrainian oligarchs-can well live with the current precarious state of affairs. The big wild card that could break the standstill is the Ukrainian people.

The conflict over the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk, where so-called rebels, equipped and directed by Russia, claim to have established autonomous regions to "protect" ethnic Russians from hostile action by the Kiev government, has all but disappeared from the headlines. This is not just because a relative calm has emerged on the frontlines, or because the war in Syria now hogs all the attention. It is also because all the major players in the Ukrainian conflict seem to have achieved roughly what they can realistically expect to achieve. All except the Ukrainians themselves.

Let's look at Russia first. Through its proxy presence in Ukraine's east, Moscow can ensure that Ukraine delivers the strategic goods that Russia wants from Ukraine. Moscow's de facto veto power over Ukrainian constitutional reform will ensure that the country can't properly settle its territorial and minority issues, thereby withholding a key success from the Poroshenko regime.

Russia can also prevent Kiev from veering too far to the West, as NATO and EU membership are basically impossible without a resolution of Ukraine's existential internal conflict. Moscow can also escalate or de-escalate the war at will and therefore owns a powerful tool to punish Poroshenko should he go too far for Moscow's taste.

Then there is the Poroshenko government. Kiev is not really reforming Ukraine with much vigor but can get away with it because all local alternatives look even worse to the president's Western supporters. Despite his own shortcomings, the West is committed to Poroshenko. He has no interest in whipping up anti-Russian sentiments by getting robust in the east because he knows he is in the weaker position and does not want to see himself embarrassed by an additional Russian escalation that would only demonstrate his powerlessness.

Poroshenko, though not an oligarch in the classic, rent-seeking sense, can also expand his personal business. He can (rightfully) claim that state authority and economic activity have been restored after the meltdown that followed the ouster of former president Viktor Yanukovych. And enough superficial reform is going on for Poroshenko to claim that he is trying to improve things, and that all he needs to finish the job is more time.

In the West, Europeans can assert that their diplomacy has prevented the war in the east from boiling over to other parts of the country. They can stick to the Minsk agreement as the only plan for peace that gives them standards for organizing a technical diplomatic process, something Europeans are good at. Europeans can also continue their support for Kiev's reform effort without having to face the ugly realities of the geopolitics behind the conflict, something they are not good at.

European investment in Ukraine is moderate, and as long as the calm holds, the EU can maintain a consensus to continue that investment. Under this status quo, Europeans can even work with Russia again, as Moscow is needed, via Syria, as a partner in the refugee crisis, an issue that is much more important to Europeans than the fate of the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian oligarchs, in turn, have lost some influence and wealth, but essentially their business model remains intact. They not only control key industries, but they have also "learned to speak the language of the new times," as one Ukrainian analyst put it. The oligarchs control most political parties and a large number of parliamentarians. They run their own NGOs.

Ukraine's constitutional reform process is plotted, for the most part, by a nontransparent group outside the parliament, attached to the presidential administration, in which oligarchs have seats and decisive influence. They are the leaders of the unofficial sector, as they are now known in Ukraine-and in fact have always been in the past twenty-five years. The oligarchs don't want to fall under Moscow's spell, but nor do they want the boat rocked too hard. For them, some sort of middle position between the West and Russia is most lucrative. Poroshenko delivers just that. The oligarchs want it to stay that way.

The only party involved that does not like the status quo is the Ukrainian people. All of that power balancing among the big players comes at their expense. The economy is not really recovering, and nor is corruption on the way out. The culture of impunity in Ukraine remains in place, which is perhaps the most aggravating factor of all. EU membership is a distant dream, even though visa-free travel for Ukrainians entering the EU is finally forthcoming.

Observers and analysts in Kiev speak of widespread unhappiness and discontent among the Ukrainian population. That should be taken very seriously. Russians, Americans, and Europeans have been surprised before by Ukrainians who just don't play along (at least, not all of them) in the geopolitical chess game that assigns them the role of pawns of other people's strategies, not of players in their own right. But can the Ukrainians rise again?

Romantic Western thinking has it that Ukraine's Maidan antigovernment movement is just waiting on the sidelines, like Jedi knights protecting the old republic, ready to come back in and save the country should things go appallingly wrong. But locals dismiss this as an illusion. "The Maidan was simple: everybody against Yanukovych. That brought together liberals, nationalists, oligarchs, students. Next time, it will not be peaceful, and it will be everybody against everybody else," said an analyst I recently interviewed on the matter. "And there are a lot of arms in the country."

Maybe that is slightly too dramatic a scenario. But it seems clear that the only party involved in this big game that wants real positive and substantial change is the Ukrainian people. Or at least a growing number of them. If no one else delivers on that promise, they might take things into their own hands again. The consequences could be grave, ranging from another economic implosion to increased Russian intervention to civil war. In absence of any real coercive power or willingness to change things in Ukraine, Western diplomacy should at least be mentally prepared for that kind of outcome.

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 #36
Reuters
December 11, 2015
The embroiderer strikes back. Meet Ukraine's Darth Vader
By Valentyn Ogirenko

Darth Vader was bent on galactic domination, but his Ukrainian namesake enjoys more mundane pursuits - local politics, walking the family dog and embroidery.

While audiences around the world have had to wait 10 years for the latest film in the Star Wars franchise - due to be released next week - residents of the Ukrainian port city of Odessa have become used to regular sightings of Lord Vader in his famous masked helmet and floor-length black cape.

The Ukrainian citizen, who officially changed his name to Darth Mykolaiovych Vader, ran in October for the post of mayor, backed up by a phalanx of supporters dressed as Star Wars Stormtroopers.

The Sith Lord beat out more traditional candidates to place 15th out of 42 candidates in the mayoral race, while an online petition to appoint him prime minister later gained more than 25,000 signatures.

His popularity is probably less a result of any significant support for the Dark Side among average Ukrainians than a sign of public frustration with the political status quo amid economic crisis and a violent separatist conflict.

Some Odessa residents, meanwhile, clearly prefer the evil Galactic Empire to their Communist past. In October a local artist refashioned a monument to Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin into a statue of Darth Vader.

Asked about his plans for the future, Darth Mykolaiovych Vader said he was taking things slowly, but had not abandoned hope of gaining a top government job.

"Considering the more than 25,000 signatures on the petition, (one plan is) to oust (Prime Minister Arseny) Yatseniuk and put me, Darth Vader, on the throne as prime minister," he said by email.

When not campaigning for public office, Vader enjoys his embroidery, home improvement and caring for his golden retriever in the large apartment he shares in Odessa with his wife and children.

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 #37
BBC
December 14, 2015
EU resists Russian overtures on Ukraine
By Tom Burridge
BBC News, Brussels

When Russia began air strikes in Syria in September, it said it was fighting terrorism, targeting so-called Islamic State (IS) fighters. But Moscow also had geopolitics in mind.

And while it clearly had other foreign policy goals, could Moscow now be using its involvement in Syria as leverage over EU sanctions linked to the crisis in Ukraine?

Diplomats in Brussels are adamant that that's just what Russia is doing.

Since IS claimed responsibility for the Paris terror attacks and the downing of a Russian airliner over Sinai, EU officials say Moscow has been working diligently to try to convince individual member states that now is the time to engage with Russia and end its isolation linked to the war over eastern Ukraine.

The official collective position in Brussels, though, is that there will be no trade-off of issues.

The bloc will work hard to engage Russia on many issues without giving up its "very clear position" on Ukraine.

And that will change only when all parts of the so-called Minsk peace agreement are implemented.

But in the current climate that is more a fanciful aspiration than a realistic desire.

Flexible approach

It is nearly two years since the crisis in Ukraine began and the conflict in the east goes on, even though the firing of artillery is sporadic and restricted to specific parts of the front line.

Nine thousand is a conservative estimate of how many people have been killed.

EU sanctions on Moscow are due to be renewed this month for another six months and few in Brussels think that getting the necessary European consensus will be a problem.

Russian state banks are excluded from raising long-term loans in the EU
Exports of dual-use equipment for military use in Russia are banned
Future EU-Russia arms deals are banned
The EU will not export a wide range of oil industry technology
Three major state oil firms are targeted: Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom Neft, the oil unit of gas giant Gazprom, with limits placed on their access to capital markets
Dozens of senior Russian officials and separatist leaders are now subject to Western asset freezes and travel bans

How far do sanctions go?

However, wind the clock on a further six months, when the sanctions will be up for renewal again, and it is harder to predict what the thinking of European governments will be.

For a variety of economic and political reasons, southern European nations favour a more flexible approach.

Of the two main players, France wavers more than Germany.

Corruption

Europe's so far unflinching stance over Ukraine - and the alleged involvement of Russia in the war there - is partly explained by a principled protection of Ukraine's sovereignty.

However, the unprecedented EU investment in the country, both in financial and political terms, means Europe's reputation is at stake.

A huge team of European politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats is carrying out what it calls "impressive" reforms to overturn the Soviet-era hangover of bureaucracy, poor governance and ensuing corruption.

Since Ukraine's former President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in February 2014 after violent demonstrations in Kiev, Ukraine's new European-leaning political class has been on the receiving end of more than €7bn (£5bn; $7.7bn) from the EU in the form of loans and financial support.

If everything goes to plan, that figure will have risen to nearly €13bn over the next few years.

However, the EU's support is conditional: Ukraine has to deliver its side of the deal.

Take corruption. The Ukrainian government has established new anti-corruption bodies but in reality they are still not up and running.

EU officials want to see real results. For example, they expect proper and transparent investigations into cases of fraud, embezzlement and other types of corruption.

In Ukraine, justice can no longer be a question of buying off the right prosecutor or judge.

So the European Commission is pushing through reforms of the judiciary - but it cannot be reinvented overnight.

Current officials need to be vetted, corrupt ones fired, and new ones recruited and trained. This all takes time.

Ukraine has also been slashing the number of state-owned agencies, which were supposedly used to regulate the economy or civil society, but in reality were often used to exact bribes.

Trade deal

There are some carrots as well as sticks.

On Tuesday the European Commission is expected to give the green light for Ukraine to be added to the list of countries whose citizens enjoy visa-free travel within the EU. This is expected to come into force by the middle of next year.

And a new free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine will take effect in January.

Russia claims the deal is damaging to its own interests.

European officials say Russia has failed to produce any evidence that this will be the case, and point out that Moscow has been party to 13 rounds of talks on the issue.

So almost two years since former President Yanukovych backed out of an "association" deal with the EU, which sparked the current crisis, the deal is about to take effect.

In October the conflict in the east de-escalated to something resembling a real ceasefire. However, the tit-for-tat exchanges along the frontline, which have characterised the war throughout much of this year, have returned.

All eyes will be on whether this potentially landmark moment in EU-Ukrainian relations will see another escalation of violence.

Brussels believes Moscow has total control over the pro-Russian unrecognised rebel republics in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow denies that. However, Russia clearly has incredible influence in eastern Ukraine, and the ability to prevent, or not to prevent, the conflict from escalating again.

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 #38
The Independent (UK)
December 12, 2015
Ukraine crisis: Nostalgia leads rebel-held region back to Soviet era
The collapse of industry and descent into civil war have left people longing for old certainties
By Jack Losh Pisky

"It's a different time zone over there," said Oleg, an officer with the Ukraine Army's 93rd Brigade. "They follow Russia's clocks."

The soldier gazed towards rebel positions down the deserted highway, now a no-man's land strewn with debris, shrapnel, tank traps and unexploded munitions. Troops in the frontline village of Pisky have a nickname for this desolate stretch: Doroga smert. The road of death.

Driving a further wedge into Ukraine's bitter divide, separatist authorities have imposed a new time zone on their breakaway republics to keep them in line with Moscow. Just a few hundred metres from this frontline position, it is no longer GMT+2, but GMT+3.

While this only lasts during the winter months, prompted by Russia's decision to reject the European habit of setting the clocks back, the change underscores the growing gulf between Ukraine and its rebel-held statelets as fighting flares once more. More than 9,000 people have been killed in clashes between the pro-Russian separatists and government troops since April last year, despite numerous attempts at a ceasefire.

Some in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk have welcomed the altered time zone. "We are Russia now - why stick with Ukraine's clocks?" said Vasily, a pensioner in his 60s, identified solely by his first name due to ongoing security concerns. For others, it is purely of practical benefit. "It's nice that it stays lighter longer though I feel like a foreigner in my own country" said Maria, an office worker in her 30s.

But pro-Russia rebels have not only synchronised the clocks with Moscow's present.  They continue to revive a shared Soviet past as a means of forging a new identity to shape public space and policy.

Long considered taboo, Stalin's cult of personality has been resurrected. Portraits of the dictator appear in Donetsk's main square and adorn most separatist commanders' offices. Rebels have rewritten school history books to take a pro-Russian slant and airbrush Stalinist atrocities.

Eduard Basurin, the rebels' Deputy Minister of Defence, pins a badge of Stalin to his military fatigues and is defensive when questioned why. "I respect this man," he said. "I suggest you read your own history - English kings are far from perfect."

Such nostalgia in the restive east is understandable. The collapse of the USSR sent Ukraine's industrial heartland into a spiral of decline; demand for coal dried up and inflation ruined miners' pensions. For years many in the region have yearned for Soviet-era stability.

Disenchantment and industrial paralysis thus provided an ideal incubator for Soviet nostalgia. The hammer-and-sickle is now a regular sight throughout rebel-held territory, flaunted alongside Russian flags and the banners of various militant factions.

Soviet fervour is perhaps most extreme in the Luhansk People's Republic (LNR), which straddles the Russian border and centres on the forlorn city of Luhansk, Ukraine's best preserved Soviet-era city.

The emblem of this separatist territory is the embodiment of Soviet kitsch, complete with red star and sheaves of wheat. A smaller eight-pointed star is a simultaneous nod to Slavic paganism, Orthodox Christianity and the Eurasian Economic Union. The LNR parliament's powerful communist faction is understood to have pushed through this heraldic symbol in favour of one based on Catherine the Great's coat of arms and a more neutral one modelled on the shape of the Luhansk region.

Taras Kompaniets, the designer of the emblem and a former senior official in the LNR's Ministry of Information, told The Independent on Sunday: "The Soviet system got inside every aspect of life. Even after the USSR was deconstructed 25 years ago, the same inner system remained... Soviet culture remains the main basis for people's identity here and is stored deep in their subconscious."

Local councils in sovereign Ukraine continue to act on a raft of new laws which prohibit the display of Soviet symbols and have led to the toppling of numerous Lenin statues. This controversial, nationwide overhaul has prompted horror among rebels, with the LNR's autocratic leader, Igor Plotnitsky, branding it "moral genocide".

Looking ahead, the clock is ticking for a resolution to when, and in what form, the rebel-held east will hold local elections, postponed after the rest of the country went to the polls in October, something required by the peace deal agreed in Minsk earlier this year. Back on another stretch of the front line, government soldiers stationed in Mariinka seem unfazed by the unsolicited time zone that appears just one hundred metres away. In an abandoned cottage on the edge of no-man's land, a platoon commander laughed it off as an opportunity amid a war that is proving as intractable as it is incessant.

"The separatists will be celebrating New Year one hour before us," said Chester, in his 30s. "When they raise a toast, I'll be ready to pick them out with my rifle."

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 #39
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 15, 2015
Russian analysts: IMF response to Ukraine debt hurts global finance system
The International Monetary Fund has allowed lending to countries that are in arrears on their debts to sovereign creditors. This decision will allow the fund to continue the program of assistance to Ukraine, even if the country does not return the $3 billion it owes to Russia. Russian experts claim the new policy undermines the foundations of the global financial system.
By Alexei Lossan

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has decided to review its policy toward countries that are in arrears to sovereign creditors, Bloomberg reports, citing IMF spokesman Gerry Rice.

Previously, the organization's charter prohibited the provision of financial assistance to countries that are in arrears on already existing loans.

The IMF's Dec. 8 decision was opposed by Russian representatives in the organization, but they could not influence the vote, since they have a total of 2.39 percent of the vote in the council, the Russian business newspaper RBK Daily reports.

"The decision of the IMF provided the opportunity for other debtors as well to freely interpret obligations on sovereign debt. By doing this, it has laid a mine under the entire system of international finance," said Andrei Margolin, vice-rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.

According to Margolin, "the risks of lenders have increased significantly, and this suggests that the reform of the IMF is not far off."

At the end of 2015, on Dec. 20, the Ukrainian authorities will have to repay the debt of $3 billion to Russia, but as Kiev has repeatedly stated, it has no intention of doing this.

In the case of non-repayment of funds, according to the old rules of the IMF, the organization would have had to stop its assistance to the country holding the debt.

Lack of guarantees

In November 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed restructuring Ukraine's $3 billion debt; the country would receive a year's respite and then have to return the funds of $1 billion a year over the next three years.

However, in order to do this, Russia needed financial guarantees from the other countries, including the U.S. and the E.U., or financial institutions, including the IMF.

As Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said at his Dec. 9 meeting with Putin, Russia was unable to obtain such guarantees.

"We received an official denial from the U.S. government to provide a guarantee for the obligations of Ukraine," said Siluanov.

According to the Finance Ministry's official report, the Russian authorities are planning to apply to the London Court of International Arbitration if they do not receive payment in full from Ukraine.

"Apparently, the E.U. and the IMF are trying to distance themselves from this conflict, so that it is resolved solely between Moscow and Kiev," said Sergei Ilyin, an analyst of the investment company Premier.

According to Ilyin, by and large, everyone understands that the provision of these guarantees will mean that Europe will have to pay for Ukraine.

"Non-payment of this debt will fall heavily on Ukraine in any case, so it will be better for all if they pay or are able to agree on restructuring," he said.

In turn, the Ukrainian authorities explain their position by saying that they cannot provide Russia with better terms than other creditors, who previously agreed to write off part of the debt.

IMF 'traditionally stalling'

The last time the IMF amended its lending rules was in 1998, when the fund allowed lending to countries that do not pay debts to commercial banks - holders of their sovereign bonds.

However, a debt owed to international institutions and other states did not allow the debtor to receive funds from the IMF.

At the end of October 2015, The Wall Street Journal - citing Douglas Rediker, a former U.S. representative to the IMF Executive Board - reported on the IMF's intention to change the rules "to avoid an outcome where Russia could hold the fund program hostage."

However, according to Ilyin, "the IMF is traditionally stalling in the hope that the problem will be solved by itself."

"Ultimately, the problem is to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine, as everybody will lose as a result. However, the precedent by itself, of course, can have a negative impact on the reputation of the entire institution in the business community," he said.

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 #40
Reuters
December 13, 2015
Russia-annexed Crimea faces long road to power security
By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Alexander Winning

The Kremlin is trying to reassure residents of Crimea, left in the dark after electricity supplies from Ukraine were cut off, that it is coming to their rescue by installing a power link with Russia.

But the reality is that it will take many months of complex engineering before Russia can provide Crimea with a secure electricity supply, while Western sanctions over the peninsula's annexation have made it more difficult to buy the best equipment for the job.

The electricity problems are a stark reminder that when Vladimir Putin last year decided to make Crimea part of Russia he was not just courting international outcry but also taking on huge practical problems about how to sustain a peninsula that is physically cut off from Russia.

Crimea was plunged into darkness around three weeks ago after electricity pylons in southern Ukraine that carry the four lines that supply Crimea with the bulk of its power were blown up by unidentified people.

The authorities in Ukraine, where anger over the annexation last year is still raw, have shown little urgency in restoring the power supplies.

Russia has flown in emergency generators that cover some of Crimea's power needs, and Ukraine has partially restored power. But until Crimea is fully hooked up to the Russian grid, it will be vulnerable to power disruptions.

Moscow's response has been to speed up work on a so-called "energy bridge" - a series of cables along the seabed - it is building across the Kerch Strait that separates Russia from Crimea.

That project was launched by Putin on a visit to Crimea on Dec. 2, but its transmission capacity remains limited and Russian officials have largely glossed over the huge engineering challenges the remaining work will entail.

"The issue is really pressured. The energy bridge is not just an underwater cable, you see," said Sergei Pikin, director of Russian consultancy Energy Development Fund. "It's difficult work that normally takes years to complete."

ENERGY BRIDGE

Russia has hired a Chinese firm, Hengtong, to supply the power cables to be laid across the Kerch Strait, a source at a Western electrical corporation said. Russia's Kommersant newspaper also reported the Chinese firm was supplying the cables. The Western source also noted, however, that Chinese companies have much less experience in this field than those cut off from the project due to sanctions.

The previous time Russia laid an undersea cable for such a project, in 2011 between the Pacific port of Vladivostok and the island of Russky, it contracted a Japanese firm to supply the cable. A French company supplied the cable for a link under Lake Baikal in Siberia, completed in 2005.

Hengtong did not respond to questions submitted by Reuters about its role in the project. Russia's Energy Ministry declined to say who was supplying the cables.

If everything goes to plan, by June next year all the cables planned for the energy bridge will be laid.

"850 Megawatts is what it will be possible to send via the energy bridge from May 2016, without any risk to the energy system of the south of Russia," Deputy Energy Minister Andrei Cherezov told Reuters.

That should allow Crimea to plug its electricity deficit with supplies from Russia, according to Vladimir Sklyar, director for utilities research at Renaissance Capital.

But the challenges don't end with the undersea cables.

Russia must also build electricity substations and lay new transmission lines on either side of the Kerch Strait to connect the new cables to the existing networks.

Analysts say that because Crimea's power has always come from the north, via a neighboring Ukrainian region, its grid is set up to handle north-to-south flows, and now will have to be re-configured to take in power from the east.

Work must be done too on the Russian side of the bridge to ensure there is sufficient spare capacity in the southern portion of Russia's grid to supply power to Crimea.

E.ON Russia (EONR.MM), controlled by German firm E.ON (EONGn.DE), said on Thursday it was interested in building generating capacity in the Krasnodar region, which Russian authorities have said could be used to send power to Crimea.

Maxim Shirokov, E.ON Russia's head, told journalists: "It will supply electricity to the wholesale market. ... The same thing that we're doing at the moment. Therefore I don't see any risks linked to this."

ENDURING SOLUTION

Experts say power stations in Crimea itself offer a more enduring solution to the peninsula's energy needs.

Russia plans to build these near Crimea's capital Simferopol and Sevastopol, home to its Black Sea fleet.

The first blocks at those stations are due to come online in September 2017, and their generating capacity is to be doubled to around 940 Megawatts the following year.

That will ensure Crimea is self-sufficient and can use the bridge as backup or during times of peak consumption, when around 1.3 Gigawatts of electricity are needed.

But the power plants are some way from being completed, and sourcing machinery could present problems.

With a few exceptions Russian firms do not produce the powerful gas turbines often installed in Russian power stations. Such turbines are usually bought from Germany's Siemens (SIEGn.DE), France's Alstom (ALSO.PA) and General Electric (GE.N) of the United States.

Alstom said it had received no requests to supply equipment to Crimea and declined to comment on whether it was prepared to deliver supplies there. Siemens did not respond to a request for comment, and GE declined comment.

If those suppliers were to sign contracts to provide equipment for power stations in Crimea, they run the risk of violating sanctions. Finding an alternative solution is liable to be time-consuming and expensive.

On top of that would be the challenges of upgrading a power network that was already creaking after years of under-investment from Kiev.

"There is several years' work to bring the system into a good, stable condition," a source in Russia's utilities sector said. "No one has managed such a task over the past 50-60 years. Of course it won't be easy."

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#41
Land Destroyer Report
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com
December 11, 2015
Crimea Loses Power Temporarily, Ukraine Loses Crimea Forever
By Tony Cartalucci

In an under-reported incident in which Russian Crimea's power lines were severed from Ukraine, leaving the peninsula and over 2 million residents in darkness for over a week, it has become clear to the world the tenuous grip Kiev and its NATO backers actually have over the "Ukraine" they claim they preside over.

It would be Russia through an underwater cable that would begin restoring power to Crimea. While rhetoric regarding Crimea is still strong on both sides, it is the actions of both Ukraine and its NATO backers versus Russia that appear to finally be answering the "Crimea question" if there even was such a question.

Russia Restores Power, Asserts Sovereignty

In the first week of December, the International Business Times would report in their article, "Vladimir Putin inaugurates Crimea energy bridge during surprise visit," that:

"President Vladimir Putin has inaugurated the first leg of a power line between the Russian mainland and Crimea in a surprise visit to the peninsula. His visit to the strategically important territory comes after the region plunged into darkness over widespread power outage.

"Crimea, which Moscow claims to have been hit by Ukraine's energy blockade, will start receiving power supply from Russia once the "electricity bridge" is completed. The undersea cable project was scheduled to have been completed by the end of December but it has been brought forward after Crimean power supply was knocked off."

While Crimea's dependency on Ukraine for power and other necessities could have been used as a means of proving that the peninsula exists as an integral part of Ukrainian territory, by cutting power and being unable to rein in the terrorists who for over a week blocked repairs from the Ukrainian side, Kiev has all but proved it has no interest or ability to administer the region.

That the terrorists in fact are backed by not only special interests now occupying Kiev, but by NATO and the United States in particular, illustrates the punitive measures Ukrainians and their neighbors face for falling on the wrong side of NATO and its proxies in Kiev. It also illustrates once again the impetus that drove the people of Crimea to wisely choose ascension into the Russian Federation rather than to remain a part of Ukraine in the first place.

US Insists on the "Return" of Crimea

In a pattern that is becoming all too familiar, the United States continues to make statements contrary to reality. US Vice President Joseph Biden was reported to have called on Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine - despite the obvious act of terrorism carried out against the people of Crimea and Kiev's clear role behind the terrorism.

Bloomberg in its article, "Biden Says 'Illegal' Russian Occupation of Crimea Must End," would report that:

"Vice President Joe Biden called Russia's annexation of Crimea "illegal" in a demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine's government that signaled the U.S. won't bargain away its support for the country to win Russian cooperation in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

"The United States stands firmly with the people of Ukraine in the face of continued -- and I emphasize continued -- aggression from Russia and Russian-backed separatists," Biden said in Kiev on Monday, following a meeting with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko."

Papers like the Moscow Times with deceptive headlines like, "Activists Block Crimea Power Line Relaunch," would reveal in the bodies of their articles that these "activists" were in fact the heavily armed, Neo-Nazi paramilitary organization Right Sector, notorious for its front line role in NATO's proxy war on eastern Ukraine.

The Moscow Times would report:

"Activists have prevented Ukrainian repair crews from relaunching one of the four power lines supplying Crimea with electricity from the mainland, despite Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko stating earlier that Kiev would allow power flows to resume, Russian and Ukrainian media reported Monday.

"Members of the far-right paramilitary Right Sector group blocked the first attempt at re-activating the Kakhovskaya-Titan line on Sunday night, the RIA Ukraine news agency and depo.ua news site wrote the following morning."

Either Kiev has no control over what takes place in its own territory or it has ordered Right Sector and other groups to initiate the blockade of Crimea. Either way, Vice President Biden's calls for Russia to return Crimea to Ukrainian control appear irresponsible at best. With literal Neo-Nazis cutting power to 2 million civilians - a blatant war crime - seems only to further vindicate Russia's actions regarding Crimea and the decision of the people of Crimea themselves to seek a place within the Russian Federation.

Sovereignty Games  

The illegitimacy of not only the regime in Kiev, but of NATO who created it and to this day perpetuates its existence, has helped erode the very principles both are now trying to appeal to in order to maintain the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Beyond Ukraine, similar scenarios are developing across all of Eastern Europe, where as NATO attempts to expand closer and closer to Russia's borders, it is finding it increasingly difficult to find allies who are not extremists with ties to fascism and/or Nazism.

By allying itself with these radical elements, those populations subjected to their NATO-backed domination of politics, economics, and security are more likely to turn toward Russia either as Crimea did, or as the break-away republics of Donetsk and Lugansk have.

Beyond Eastern Europe, the continual violation of Syria and Iraq's sovereignty by NATO is making it exponentially more difficult to appeal to sovereignty and territorial integrity in regards to Ukraine. The West has repeatedly called for the "Balkanization" of Syria into several weaker regions. As the balance of power turns in the region, and even globally, the West may find this contempt it has shown toward national sovereignty and the territorial integrity of existing nations backfire on it when its own allies face the same prospect of being carved up.

Some may argue that Crimea's ascension into the Russian Federation itself  was only possible because the NATO-driven lawlessness that it occurred in the midst of. As this lawlessness continues, it is all but guaranteed that Crimea will only be driven deeper within the Russian Federation.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine"New Eastern Outlook".   

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 #42
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 14, 2015
The Donbass Diary: Kiev Is Gearing up for a New Offensive
But all it wants is to blame Russia and see new sanctions imposed
Zakhar Prilepin (LiveJournal)

The author is a famous Russian writer and left-wing activist whose books have been translated into seventeen languages. He reported widely from the war torn Donbas, and is there right now.

In this excerpt from his diary that originally appeared in his LJ blog he responds to his readers' concerns that Russia is not providing enough assistance to Donbas
http://prilepin.livejournal.com/365901.html

Brothers and sisters!

I see some confusion in your comments.

Let me again say what I've said forty times:

1. Only one country is friendly to the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. Russia invests more money there than in Syria, Chechnya and Cuba combined. And nobody betrays anybody.

2. The fact that Ukraine is amassing troops on its side of the border doesn't mean that here in the Donbass, nobody is prepared to resist them. If  Ukraine launches an offensive, it has every chance to end closer to Kiev.

3. There is no need for the People's Republics' troops to advance toward Kiev until  the Ukrainian population begins to see them as liberators from the Kiev regime.

But things are moving in this direction. If you think the Ukrainians are not little by little getting sick of the Kiev authorities - you are wrong. There are reports that many companies ask job seekers if they were on the Maidan, and if they say yes,  the interviewer writes "moron" on the application and trashes it.

Right now, the army of the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics does not have the strength and or resources to control  5-7 cities in different regions. On the other side is the Ukraine with 40 million people - an inexhaustible supply of recruits. Maybe you can't see this from the sofa, but if you stand up you will.

4. People close to the Ukrainian government brag that they will soon be coming to  Donbass. Almost certainly in the New Year. "Everything has been decided".

But they won't get to Donbas.

5. Russians who talk about "losing  Donbass", don't know the situation at all. And no one in the Red Towers of the one big country (the Kremlin - ed) does more for the Donbass than those who are accused of losing  it.

Last but not least, the war could go on, but Kiev only has one goal: making sure no one  notices it was started by the Ukrainian Army.

Because when these forces start to lose, Kiev will call for new, continued  and more effective sanctions against Russia. "Ah-ha! You see, they've taken another city! They're marching on Kiev!"

Kiev has one ( silly) hope: - to crush the Russian economy before their own collapses. But those hopes are in vain. The Russian economy is not great, but Ukraine's is on its death bed.

That's the picture.

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 #43
Ukrainian National Security, Defense Council head dismisses Russia's accusations on Ukraine's violation of Minsk agreements

KYIV. Dec 14 (Interfax) - Ukraine is fully implementing the Minsk agreements on the settlement of the situation in Donbas and Russia's statements on their violation by the Ukrainian side are provocative, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksandr Turchynov said.

"When Russian representatives in the United Nations say that Ukraine breaches the Minsk agreements, this is another provocation. Ukraine is consistently implementing the Minsk agreements and all the international commitments it assumed," Turchynov told reporters in Kyiv on Monday.

Commenting on the accusations by the Russian side that the Ukrainian army is taking under its control several settlements in the buffer zone in Donbas, the secretary of the council said: "I want to say that all the cities are Ukrainian."

"The point is what the Russian army is doing on the Ukrainian territory and why they are doing everything to foil the Minsk agreements. Meanwhile, the Russian occupational troops and their under-controlled terrorist groupings breach the Minsk agreements every day, particularly this is the waging of the constant fire on Ukrainian positions [...] To our great misfortune, not a single day passes in our country without shellings, including by weapons, which are banned by the Minsk agreements," Turchynov said.

"Ukraine is honoring its commitments assumed in Minsk and all the actions by our armed forces are exactly in line with the implementation of the Minsk agreements [...] We understand the Minsk agreements as a full liberation of the Ukrainian territory from Russian invaders," Turchynov said.

The Russian political and military leadership has previously repeatedly rejected the presence of the Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.

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 #44
Facebook
December 12, 2015
Maidan Snipers
By Ivan Katchanovski
University of Ottawa

More evidence of snipers killing protesters from the Hotel Ukraina and far right Svoboda party and Maidan Self-Defence controlling this hotel before and during the Maidan massacre:

A Belgian RTBF video shows protesters loudly shouting in the Hotel Ukraina lobby in presence of Svoboda deputies, the commander of a Maidan Self-Defense unit, which was guarding the hotel, Maidan medics, hotel security, and foreign journalists about snipers shooting from a top part of this hotel at the back of the protesters. http://www.rtbf.be/video/detail_kiev-hotel-ukraina...

Synchronization of the content of this video with timestamped videos shows that it was filmed between 9:47am and 9:49am, within few minutes after a large of the protesters was massacred near this hotel. Killing of this group was filmed by the Belgian VRT TV from the Hotel Ukraina, This video was broadcast by numerous Western and Ukrainian TV channels and social media. http://deredactie.be/.../videozone/programmas/journaal/2.32091

In contrast to the RTBF video, various versions of the VRT video were broadcast on major TV channels in Ukraine and many Western countries, such as the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Norway, as the evidence that government snipers or the police killed these protesters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fns42rViXlA The US vice president visited the very same spot a few days ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j9TTFw48fE

The previously unreported content of the RTBF video provides direct evidence that not only Maidan protesters but also Svoboda deputies and medics, who could be seen in this and other videos at the Hotel Ukraine at that time, knew almost immediately about snipers shooting protesters from top floors of this hotel. But they, with a few exceptions, ignored this information or acted if there were no hostile snipers in their hotel. Moreover, the analysis of the numerous videos shows that Svoboda deputies, the Maidan guards in the hotel, and the hotel security blocked attempts by some ordinary protesters to enter the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre to search for snipers there. Such choices would be irrational and life-threatening if these snipers were from the government forces, but rational if these shooters were from the Maidan side.
For example, a French TF1 video, included in a timestamped video synchronization, shows that around 9:46am-9:50am one protestor was pointing at the hotel entrance towards the snipers at the top of the hotel to the leader of the Khmelnytsky regional organization of the Svoboda party, who was also the member of Ukrainian parliament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYjEp1C4hzI

However, a BBC video cited in my paper shows this leading Svoboda activist guarding along with a few Maidan protesters the entrance to the stairways and the elevators in the hotel shortly after Serhii Trapezun, was brought there at 9:51am after being wounded several minutes before. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2658245 (p. 46) http://www.bbc.co.uk/.../20.../02/140220_kiev_maidan_wounded_bbc

The RTBF video shows Borys Aseeev being treated for his wounds. The VRT video, his TV interview and directions of his wounds indicate that Aseev, was shot in his feet a few minutes before when he along with other members of the same group tried to hide behind a wall shielding them from the Berkut barricade in front, and then run away. He was seen with a black backpack in various videos during this shooting. His wound location in his foot indicates a gunshot from a top direction, which is consistent with the Hotel Ukraina. But he did not reveal this location of snipers in various media interviews. His shooting was presented in a Daily Beast report as the evidence that the SBU Alfa snipers massacred the protesters. http://www.thedailybeast.com/.../exclusive-photographs-expose...

The location of shooters in the hotel and killing of the protesters by them were confirmed by numerous evidence. Much of the evidence was cited in my APSA paper, such as interviews by Trapezun and Tityk, who were wounded during this shooting spree and reported witnessing snipers firing at their group from the Hotel Ukraina. (p. 35).  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVyYuqQk0ZM

Information recently revealed during the Maidan massacre trial confirms these findings. It includes a testimony of Parashchuk's sister, who stated in court that based on forensic medical reports concerning his entry wound and the VRT video showing the moment of his killing, he was shot dead in the same spot at 9:48am in the back of his head from this hotel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUqHEVRcnMo (1h57m)

Similarly, a forensic ballistic analysis of bullets concluded that Anatolii Zhalovaha, who was shot dead at the same location at 9:43am, was killed by the same exact AK-caliber weapon or its hunting version as 10 other protesters. The information revealed during the trial, including testimony of brother of one of these killed protesters, corroborated my paper findings that they all were shot from this hotel. https://www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/posts/1125228067507078

A German reporter wrote on Facebook at 9:54am Kyiv time that he saw protestors with guns on 14th floor in Hotel Ukraina when people were shot by snipers next to this hotel. He also wrote that he saw these protesters shooting in that direction shortly before that time.
https://www.facebook.com/moritz.gathmann/posts/514085842043684
http://ostpol.de/.../3874-reporter_auf_dem_maidan_der_moment_...

His publications also corroborate my analysis which shows that the Berkut policemen were shooting at the 13th/14th floor stairways at or shortly before 9:43am and the first and second floor stairways around the same time. Maidan shooters were filmed by Ukrstream and Ruptly journalists on the 14th floor of Hotel Ukraina at that very time. For instance, a Facebook post by an Ukrstream journalist at 9:43am local time states that a journalist was shot at Ukraine hotel. Based on the content analysis of the videos and photos, this was a Ruptly reporter hit by a ricochet bullet in his bulletproof vest on the 14th floor of this hotel. While the Ruptly video claimed that he was shot by a Maidan sniper, the bullet holes in the window point to a Berkut barricade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8734-ITxeohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzq1xUGnzIs

Ruptly and ZDF videos showed the commander and members of the special Maidan company accompanied by one of Svoboda leaders when at least one of them was shooting in the direction of the protesters from the same 14th floor of the Hotel Ukraina at 10:20am-10:22am and then moving to a lower floor because of presence of journalists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2PTeUBCPAQ
https://www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/videos/vb.100000596862745/989716864391533

The General Prosecutor Office of Ukraine (GPU) recently launched an investigation into this group of Maidan shooters. They are now officialy named as possible suspects in shooting Maidan protesters and the police from the Hotel Ukraina. http://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/52239946

Svoboda in its official statement stated that its activists took the Hotel Ukraina under their control and guard on January 25, 2014. http://www.old.svoboda.org.ua/diyalnist/novyny/046864/
A similar statement was made by the Svoboda leader from the Maidan stage in presence of other Maidan leaders and thousands of protesters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUwoaANSX5Y

These statements were republished by many Ukrainian media and broadcast by TV channels and Internet sites. Svoboda also stated that on February 18, 2014 that Berkut only blocked the Hotel Ukraina from the outside. https://twitter.com/vo_svoboda/status/435780021148745728

Numerous videos show that the outside perimeter of the hotel was unblocked by protesters around the time when the massacre of the protesters started at 8:59am on February 20. This is consistent with videos from the hotel and statements by the commander of the Self-Defense unit and hotel staff cited in my APSA paper (p. 23). The Belgian RTBF video shows that a Maidan Self-Defense unit commander hear and saw when protesters were shouting about snipers in this hotel. After the massacre he confirmed that the Hotel Ukraina was under control of the Maidan during the massacre on February 20, but he denied that any shooters were in the hotel. He stated that he personally and his unit members guarded the Hotel Ukraina since January 26, 2014 and checked bags of those who entered the hotel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHv-IpBRb8k
Similarly, a senior Hotel Ukraina staff member stated that the Maidan protesters controlled this hotel before and during the massacre and that no police entered the hotel. She also denied that any snipers were there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU6pRq5U3sI

Such evidence shows that Svoboda and the Maidan Self-Defense controlled and guarded the Hotel Ukraina before, during, and after groups of concealed shooters killed a large number of protesters from this hotel. However, the Maidan leaders, including Svoboda leaders, the heads of law enforcement agencies, including the General Prosecutor Office (GPU) head from Svoboda, and the official investigation until this year, publicly denied that Svoboda and the Maidan Self-Defense controlled the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre and that there were snipers in this hotel.

The General Prosecutor Office has not revealed results of their investigation of Svoboda deputies, who at the time of the massacre lived on the 11th floor of the hotel in or near a room from which a sniper was filmed by ICTV and BBC journalists at 10:25am-10:28am shooting at a BBC crew and protesters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjR3FlvRdsk (6m)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg3R_BSz0Cc (7m)

The GPU prosecutor in charge of the investigation said that these Svoboda deputies were reluctant to provide information during their interrogations. An official database of court decisions shows that the prosecution finally requested a month ago cell phone tracking information to establish whereabouts at the time of the massacre of the Svoboda deputy who lived in that room: http://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/53416572

But the official Ukrainian line continues to be that a special Berkut police unit massacred from their open positions on the ground at least 39 out of 49 protesters. This line even contradicts recent statements by US government officials that the protesters were massacred by government snipers from rooftops of surrounding buildings. But they have not revealed whether their statements referred to the Hotel Ukraina. https://medium.com/.../notes-from-ukraine-day-three-the-honor...

Kiev Hotel Ukraina du 20 février 2014, Info - Monde : RTBF Vidéo
Kiev Hotel Ukraina
RTBF.BE

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 #45
Facebook
December 12, 2015
More unreported revelations from the Maidan massacre trial
By Ivan Katchanovski
University of Ottawa

Two crucial videos from my Maidan massacre study were demonstrated as evidence during the Maidan massacre trial on December 8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOKamN5Uvvk (1h48m-2h01m). These publicly available videos were officially accepted by the court as evidence after lawyers stated during an early trial session that they found about them from my APSA conference paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2658245 (pp. 47-48). The videos show armed members of the Parasiuk-led special Maidan Self-Defence Company entering the Hotel Ukraina in presence of Svoboda deputies during the killing of the Maidan protesters from this hotel: https://youtu.be/0YUDbQ-4r6w?t=2m35s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHCFF58zwM8

Results of another forensic ballistic report, which was only made public during this session of the trial, provided new evidence that protesters were killed by hunting ammunition from the Hotel Ukraina. A forensic ballistic report, which was made public for the first time at this trial on December 8, concluded that Serhii Baidovsky was killed either by a military type 7.62x39 caliber bullet with a steel core or by a hunting expanding HP (hollow point) bullet of the same caliber (43m-52m). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOKamN5Uvvk

The bullet type is significant since this report and another forensic ballistic report, made public during the trial last month, found that the same exact weapon, which killed Serhii Baidovsky was used to kill 11 protesters out of 16 of protesters, from whom bullets of the same caliber were extracted. The forensic report made public on December 8 concluded that 9 protesters, including Baidovsky, were killed by this weapon but stated that this was not the same weapon which killed Kharchenko and Bliok. There was no explanation for the different findings concerning these two protesters, but the second forensic report was made on April 2014 soon after a press conference of heads of three law enforcement agencies announcing charges against Berkut. It coincided with GPU loosing Pastushok's testimony that Kharchenko was killed from this hotel from a hunting gun. A witness in the Zhalovaha killing stated that the investigation determined that 11 protesters were killed from the same weapon. http://www.volynnews.com/.../batky-vidshukaly-zahybloho-syna-...

In any case, both these forensic ballistic reports indicate that the absolute majority of the 39 protesters were killed from the same weapon since no bullets were recovered from bodies of the absolute majority of killed protesters.

An image of this bullet core and its metal jacket in an ICTV documentary, separation of the jacket from its steel core, and absence of a tip part of the full metal jacket used in military-type bullets indicates that Baidovsku was more likely killed by a hollow point expanding hunting 7.62x33 bullet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgm-9u11wjE (47m)

A bullet of this type and caliber has a hole in the tip of its metal jacket. These expanding bullets are designed to deform and expand its jacket upon impact, in contrast to full metal jacket military-type bullets, and cause far greater damage, compared to its military version. The expanding bullets are prohibited for military use by international treaties, but they are available for hunting use in Ukraine and many other countries. The forensic report is consistent with various other evidence, which I cited in my paper, which pointed to use of expanding bullets and other hunting ammunition and weapons to kill protesters. Such evidence included reports by eyewitnesses and medics, large wounds and sever damage associated with these type bullets, whip-like sounds of gunshots different from sounds of AK gunshots, and videos and photos of Maidan concealed shooters with hunting rifles and Kalashnikov assault rifles and their hunting versions.

The last trial session revealed that the official investigation did not determine exact time of his killing and found an incorrect place of his shooting. The trial also produced new evidence corroborating findings of my paper that Baidovsky and other protesters, who were shot dead from the same weapon, were killed from the Hotel Ukraina. A forensic medical report made public during the trial found that he was wounded in his left chest side from a high position slightly from a back (33m). His position in a video seconds before and after he was gravely wounded while trying to run back is consistent with the Hotel Ukraina position. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7TZMjrkAB4 (1:42-1:46)

My paper and the trial presented various evidence that the other 10 protesters were also killed from this hotel. For instance, in his court testimony, Saienko's brother stated that his position in the moment of his killing and similar wound direction and angle indicated that this protester was killed from this hotel.

Mainstream Ukrainian and Western media again generally completely ignored these revelations from the latest session of the trial or only published cryptic references to the two crucial videos shown during this trial. http://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2015/12/8/7091826/
http://ru.tsn.ua/.../prodolzhayutsya-doprosy-po-delu-berkutov...
http://www.radiosvoboda.org/content/news/27414300.html

The Economist was the only major Western media that covered the December 8 trial. But it also did not report about these videos, the forensic ballistic results, and that Baidovsky was killed from the Maidan-controlled hotel and not from Berkut barricade positions. http://www.economist.com/.../21679858-ukraine-not-punishing-i...
Засідання від 08.12.2015 у справі про «Вбивства 39 людей 20.02.2014 під час Євромайдану»
Онлайн трансляція засідання «Вбивства 39 людей 20.02.2014 під час Євромайдану»

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 #46
www.thedailybeast.com
December 13, 2015
Putin Puts Heroic Female Pilot on Trial
Russian President Vladimir Putin may well regret the decision to put Nadiya Savchenko on trial for murder.
By Anna Nemtsova

MOSCOW - The Russian trial of a Ukrainian pilot, Nadiya Savchenko, was interrupted for a break because the prosecutor felt sick, RIA Novosti reported on Wednesday. The accused, on the other hand, was doing just fine. In the defendant's glass box, the 34-year-old wore a black shirt with a white trident, Ukraine's national symbol, and said she was ready to proceed any time with a trial in which she's accused of murdering two Russian journalists. If convicted, her sentence could be anywhere from eight years to life.

It's been a long, tough year for Savchenko, but also for her Russian accusers. She has been on multiple hunger strikes, even on a "dry" one, without water. Her only family in the courtroom on Wednesday, younger sister Vera, was also under an accusation for shouting at a judge. But Savchenko looked calm, anything but beaten. She smiled when she saw Vera, who appeared as a witness wearing the same shirt as Savchenko's, but white with a black trident on her chest. "Vera enters, Ukrainian anthem plays," Savchenko joked happily, greeting her sister and ignoring the gloomy faces of security officers, according to a transcript of the trial published by the website Media Zona.

Everything about Nadiya Savchenko is a statement, the declaration of a fighter going to war: The strong posture of a trained soldier, the firm look in her piercing blue eyes, her comments, even her jokes. Savchenko, a national hero in her home country, an enemy and defendant in Russia, just keeps smiling, and thanks reporters and foreign diplomats for coming.

Before the Russia-Ukrainian conflict in Crimea and Donbass, Savchenko was little known in the wider world, but Ukraine knew about her as its only woman veteran of the war in Iraq, where Ukrainian troops served as part of the "coalition of the willing."

Then, in June 2014, by her account, she was captured while serving in eastern Ukraine and turned over to Russian officials. They accused her of involvement in the death of two Russian journalists. The arrest made her world famous.

Ukrainian activists and politicians put Savchenko on their flags, elected her in absentia to the state parliament. Top politicians discussed her fate. This week Savchenko's lawyer were publicly debating the best way to use U.S. Vice President Joseph R. Biden to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Speaking in Kiev, Biden promised he would tell the world about Nadiya Savchenko.

From the first days of her arrest last year, those who knew Savchenko were impressed by her stamina. In her solitary cell, Savchenko worked on her autobiography and folded origami animals for Russian orphanages.

"She was never going to accept the lies by Russian officials," Zoya Svetova, an independent prison observer, told The Daily Beast. "They claimed that she was arrested in Russian territory, but she said Russian officials had grabbed her outside of Luhansk, then drove her with an escort of six vehicles to the Russian town of Voronezh, where she was first kept at a hotel as a witness, then arrested."

As the trial continued on Thursday, witnesses were questioned about how, exactly, Savchenko ended up in Russia. One defense witness, Nadiya's sister Vera, told the court about the day pro-Russian rebels detained Savchenko in Donbass, and how her sister disappeared later. Another defense witness, Vladimir Ruban, a Ukrainian general responsible for swapping prisoners of war, talked about his negotiations trying to free Savchenko in the rebel-controlled territories. He found it hard to believe the official version, that rebels let Savchenko go and she crossed the Russian border by mistake.

Such anomalous accusations have led to comparisons between Shavchenko's trial and those of some other famous Russians seen to be railroaded by the authorities, like billionaire Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the activists of Pussy Riot.

Svetova remembered the words she heard from the pilot at one of their multiple meetings in jail: "We Ukrainians are not slaves, we fight for our freedom," Savchenko said.

There are 10 Ukrainian cases in Russia at the moment, Svetova added, but Savchenko's is the most well known by far. "She is the most famous political prisoner because she is a woman who is melting to bones on hunger strikes," Svetova said.

It was the rejection of injustice that motivated Savchenko to go on hunger strike, Svetova said. "Though she realized how useless it was to try and push Putin that way, a hunger strike was the only way she knew to maintain her innocence."

Savchenko insisted she had nothing to do with the deaths of Russian reporters Anton Boloshin and Igor Kornelyuk. She told reporters that maybe one day she had killed somebody innocent in Iraq, which she was willing to go on trial for, but not for the two Russian reporters, who she insisted she had never killed.

When a prosecutor made a comment about Savchenko yelling in court on Wednesday, she sharply waved to him with an open palm, as if saying, "Calm down." The prosecutor threatened to remove Savchenko from the courtroom for her behavior, to which the defendant answered she would begin a new hunger strike.

For Russian officials in prisons, courts, hospitals, Savchenko is like a hot potato that nobody wants to hold for too long. In Russia even some hard men have admitted that the Ukrainian pilot's character is made of iron. In her previous hunger strike, last winter, she lost 15 pounds before Russian authorities realized it would be scandalous to see Savchenko die of hunger in a Russian jail.

Savchenko's lawyers hope that the Kremlin will extradite the pilot to Ukraine, since she'll be about as hard to handle as Pussy Riot in any Russian complex that tries to hold her.

The court's verdict is expected before the end of this year.

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