#2
The National Interest
December 15, 2015
Kremlin Caricature: Washington's Distorted View of Russia and Putin
Gleeful jokes come as more thoughtful consideration of the U.S.-Russia relationship is sorely needed.
By Paul Starobin

The American national political elite is increasingly vexed, it seems, by Russia and especially its president, Vladimir Putin. Consider the challenge to "fight Putin any time, any place he can't have me arrested," issued on social media by Benjamin Wittes, a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a black belt in taekwondo. Putin excelled at judo in his youth and is sometimes photographed these days in a white judogi uniform, but Wittes, as he tweeted back in August, said that Russia's leader is "a fake martial artist. I can take him any time." It would be easy to dismiss this as theatrics in the service of mockery-except that the State Department's highest-ranking official on human rights, Assistant Secretary Tom Malinowski, has shared the "fight Putin" challenge on his Facebook page, and both former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul and State's former policy-planning chief, Anne-Marie Slaughter, have promoted the invitation on Twitter. Soon enough the Senior Fellow in Governance Studies was expounding, over the course of a nearly ten-minute interview on NPR's Here & Now program, about how Putin's displays of "hypermasculinity" are directly linked to how he "menaces his neighbors" in countries like Ukraine.

At the same time, the Daily Beast has branded as "Putin Bootlickers" those in the U.S. seeking a "new détente" with Russia. And the publication has asked of a group recently cofounded by Stephen F. Cohen, the American Committee for East-West Accord, which has former U.S. senator Bill Bradley and former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack F. Matlock Jr. as board members, whether it constitutes "Putin's New American Fan Club."

Too much of what passes as reportage and analysis of Russia today indulges in such casual pugnacity, as well as in an eerie glee that caricature is an acceptable, comfortable vehicle by which to explore this nation and its interests. Most worrying, it comes at the precise moment when more thoughtful, measured consideration of the U.S.-Russia relationship is sorely needed.

The backdrop, of course, is an atmosphere redolent of the Cold War: The Pentagon's alarm about Russian submarines "aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications," according to the New York Times; Washington's concerns that the Kremlin intends to check American influence in the Middle East; and NATO's anxiety that Moscow's murky role in Ukraine, with its real, but masked, military support for the pro-Russian separatists that have carved out an enclave in the Donbass, might be repeated with a similar operation in the Baltics.

Certainly there is plenty to worry about. But employing labels like "bootlickers" is a way of trying to suppress debate-a rhetorical maneuver, moreover, that can only make it harder for America and Russia to join together on vital matters of common interest, such as combating Islamic militancy, ending the Syrian civil war and keeping Iran from building nuclear weapons. It pays, then, to offer some perspective on how the U.S. might best think about today's Russia-and to consider whether our attitudes about Russia reflect certain unhelpful habits of mind that make it hard for us to see Russia clearly.

In the first place, the fixation with Putin's character and with how Putin is presented to the Russian public (bare-chested with a rifle in hand, etc.) is a distraction. Perhaps he truly is "a bully," as Jeb Bush has called him, but it is an elementary mistake in the analysis of any nation-state to attribute its behavior simply to the personal makeup of its leader, even a very powerful leader. In "The Accidental Autocrat," a profile of Putin published in the Atlantic in 2005, I suggested that his rule was "re-enacting distinctive Russian political traditions." Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, in his 2014 book, World Order, situated Putin within the mainstream of Russia's traditional approach to the outside world. "Its policy has pursued a special rhythm of its own over the centuries, expanding over a landmass spanning nearly every climate and civilization, interrupted occasionally for a time by the need to adjust its domestic structure to the vastness of the enterprise-only to return again, like a tide crossing a beach," Kissinger wrote. "From Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, circumstances have changed, but the rhythm has remained extraordinarily consistent."

To acknowledge this, though, is not to say that an expansionist-minded Russia never settles for peace-Tsarist Russia was a key part of the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815, the most durable peace ever created for Europe. Today's broad-brush critics of Russia and of those in the United States (Bootlickers!) advising engagement with Russia tend to be in denial, or perhaps are willfully ignorant, of how certain post-Cold War U.S. policies have contributed to a Russian sense of insecurity. The great issue in this respect is NATO expansion, which began in the 1990s, with Russia on its knees, and under George W. Bush added to the alliance the former Soviet Baltic republics, on Russia's borders. George F. Kennan, the father of containment and American's most astute analyst of Russia ever, called this policy "a tragic mistake" back in 1998. "I think it is the beginning of a new cold war," he said. "I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies."

With the collapse of the pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovych government in Kiev in 2014, and its replacement by a pro-Western regime, of course the Kremlin felt anxious that Ukraine, seen by Moscow as the cradle of Russian Orthodox culture, might be next on the NATO expansion agenda. Washington should have anticipated this worry-especially considering Moscow's already-proven willingness to go to war, with Georgia in 2008, to keep another former Soviet Republic from joining NATO. Given that warnings on expansion went unheeded, it seems fair to ask, are there those in the U.S. national political elite who desire a new cold war? It may seem a strange question-there is no one giving active voice to such a longing. And yet a felt need can be a kind of conditioned reflex. Nations, like people, think in familiar patterns: Imagination, or better, reimagination, is hard to come by. The Cold War shaped several generations of American policy makers and established an enduring national popular culture, seen in bestselling novels and Hollywood blockbusters (see today's Bridge of Spies), depicting Russia and Russians as duplicitous and menacing. This mind-set seems as good as explanation as any for the strange comment of Mitt Romney during the 2012 campaign-his assertion that Russia was, "without question, our number one geopolitical foe. They fight every cause for the world's worst actors." A greater foe than the Islamic jihadists that target our homeland and a revolutionary regime in Tehran that has embraced "Death to America" as its legitimizing slogan?

Just as it has proved difficult to think past the Cold War, it has been difficult for America's leadership class to grasp that "the unipolar moment," as Charles Krauthammer, in 1990, called "the immediate post-Cold War world," with America as "the unchallenged superpower," was not apt to endure. Indeed, even that supposed moment was something of a fiction, since at that time, China, twelve years into the economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping, was already well along on its path to becoming a great power. The reality, in any case, is that the geopolitical world today is a decidedly multipolar one. And in the hot theatre of the Middle East, multiple outside powers, including Russia, have core interests.

Russia's interests can be seen in its new military campaign in Syria to keep the Bashar al-Assad regime from collapsing. For one thing, the Kremlin is acting, not simply to embarrass a dithering Washington, but to preserve the Russian Navy's use of the port of Tartus on the Syrian stretch of the Mediterranean. The Kremlin negotiated access to Tartus in 1971, in the Brezhnev era, and with no other Mediterranean facility available, Russia will not give up Tartus lightly. Russia also has an interest in taking the battle directly to Islamic fighters in Syria and across the border in Iraq. Jihadists from Russia, after all, are among those aiming to overthrow the government in Damascus and maybe also the one in Baghdad. "For Vladimir Putin, it makes much sense to pin down and kill as many of these enemies as possible now before their anticipated homecoming," Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, recently noted in Tablet.

The "tragic mistake," in this instance, might be the failure of the U.S. and Russia to realize their joint interest in cooperating to thwart the jihadists that threaten their respective homelands. Since he first came to power, at the end of 1999, Putin has been alive to the possibilities of collaboration. After 9/11, he agreed to U.S. and NATO flights over Russian airspace to assist in the campaign in Afghanistan and acquiesced to new U.S. bases in former Soviet Central Asia. In today's Syria, the triumph of radical extremist combatants, funded by the likes of Saudi Arabia, would be a bad outcome for Russia and America alike, not to mention France and the rest of Europe. But with Washington hampered in its ability to talk to Tehran, "Moscow is better situated to move Iran, Turkey and the Persian Gulf monarchies toward compromise," Vali Nasr, dean of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, recently suggested in Politico.

What lies ahead? Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton likened Putin's Crimea adventure to Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland-a morsel on the way to a full meal, in other words. On the Republican side, there seems to be a campaign competition for who can be toughest on Russia. Carly Fiorina has called for "regular, aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States" and vowed to not even talk to Putin. Ted Cruz has voiced support for expanding the U.S. law, the Magnitsky Act, that imposes visa and banking restrictions on Russian officials accused of human-rights abuses. Marco Rubio, who has branded Putin a "gangster," has backed a proposed U.S.-policed "no-fly" zone in Syria even at an explicitly acknowledged risk of armed confrontation with Russia. With only 22 percent of Americans, according to the Pew Research Center, holding a favorable view of Russia, the hard line on Russia is the choice of least political resistance. No candidate from either party is bringing forth bold, fresh ideas for putting U.S.-Russian relations on a new footing-and that goes for President Obama, too. How about a bilateral summit between the leaders to see whether, as the Kremlin has hinted, it is ready to move beyond the Assad regime in Syria? Or directly involving Russia in a discussion at the United Nations Security Council to arrive at a plan of action against ISIS in the wake of the Paris attacks?

The lesson for the ages in how to deal with a difficult leader of the Kremlin was provided by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his relationship with Josef Stalin. Roosevelt was well aware that the young Stalin, as a Bolshevik, was involved in robbery and even murder, and was well aware, too, of "indiscriminate killings" of innocent Soviet citizens under Stalin's rule. "The Soviet Union," he said in a speech in 1940, "is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world." Still, he did not permit himself to be diverted from the core U.S. objective of working with the Kremlin to defeat the Nazis. Toward this end, he did not even stoop at flattery: "The American people are thrilled by the magnificent fighting of your armed forces," he wrote Stalin in April of 1942. To his personal physician, Roosevelt said of Stalin, "I bank on his realism."

It is admittedly a gamble to depend on anyone's realism, since leaders, and their countries, at times do behave irrationally. But there is nothing better to bank on. If a U.S. president can use his or her charm to get a bare-chested Putin to flatten ISIS, then three cheers. The task, as ever, is for clear-eyed understanding. Just as it was wrong to think in the 1990s that a feeble Russia, confronted by an expanded NATO, was apt to stay weak, so it is foolish to think now that a more confident Russia, bent on asserting its interests in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, is beyond the reaches of productive engagement. And those who point this out are no guiltier of appeasement than was the realist-minded Brent Scowcroft, denounced by neoconservatives for his prophetic warning, nearly one year after 9/11, of the folly of a war in Iraq. In order to see Russia clearly, America must see itself without illusions. It is when a great power fails to have a good understanding of its limitations that it can be most dangerous-to itself.

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 #3
RFE/RL
December 15, 2015
New Study Links Putin's 'Gunslinger's Gait' To KGB Training
[Video here http://www.rferl.org/content/putin-gunslinger-gait-kgb-training-british-study-neurologists/27427829.html]

A team of European neurologists says in a new study that Russian President Vladimir Putin walks with a peculiar "gunslinger's gait" -- a reduced swing in his right arm -- possibly related to weapons training he received in the Soviet KGB.

The study, published December 14 by the weekly peer-reviewed British medical journal The BMJ, notes that Putin has shown in public appearances a "clearly reduced right-sided arm swing," the type of asymmetrical arm movement that can be an early sign of Parkinson's disease.

But the authors -- researchers based in Portugal, Italy, and the Netherlands -- say that Putin has displayed no other tell-tale signs of the disease.

In fact, they write, he shows "excellent motor skills" as evidenced by video footage of him enjoying athletic activities like judo and swimming -- a key component of his public image that has long been fodder for fawning Russian state media coverage -- and signing official documents.

Citing a KGB training manual they obtained, the researchers posit that his style of walking is instead linked to training that Putin underwent in the feared security agency, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring at the twilight of the Soviet Union.

"According to this manual, KGB operatives were instructed to keep their weapon in their right hand close to their chest and to move forward with one side, usually the left, presumably allowing subjects to draw the gun as quickly as possible when confronted with a foe," they write.

To test their hypothesis, the neurologists studied YouTube videos of other Russian officials.

Bastiaan Bloem, a professor of movement disorder neurology at Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, who led the study, said his team was "stunned" by what they saw.

They found the same characteristic walk in Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in former Russian defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Sergei Ivanov, and in senior Russian military commander Anatoly Sidorov.

Like Putin, Ivanov is a former KGB officer who served in Europe during the Cold War. Serdyukov and Sidorov both received military training, the researchers note.

The outlier in this group is Medvedev, a lawyer by training who has no clear ties to the KGB and did not serve in the military, though he underwent brief reservist training during his university years.

Since Putin handpicked him to serve as president from 2008-12 -- between Putin's second and third terms -- Medvedev's body language has often resembled that of his mentor, as has the cadence of his speech.

Citing Western media reports, the researchers write that "substantial evidence suggests that Medvedev is being coached to sound, look, and importantly, walk like the president."
The study asserts that Putin's asymmetrical arm swing is likely "a behavioral adaptation resulting from military or intelligence training."

Bloem told AFP that the Russian leader's reduced arm swing could "in part be overlearned."

"It's like saying, 'Look, folks, I've had KGB training, I'm a real man,'" he said.

Bloem conceded that researchers do not have access to Putin's medical records or his doctors. But he said Putin's unusual walk is the subject of a small but growing debate among medical specialists.

"It is an unusual study, but there is a very serious message to it" about neurological observation, he told AFP in a telephone interview.

Bloem added that Putin's "abnormal gait has been noted before."

"What we are putting forward, but very cautiously, is a new hypothesis," he said.

With reporting by AFP

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 #4
Irrussianality
https://irrussianality.wordpress.com
December 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
PUTIN. HITLER. DICTATOR. EVIL.
By Paul Robinson
Professor, University of Ottawa. Paul Robinson holds an MA in Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Toronto and a D. Phil. in Modern History from the University of Oxford. Prior to his graduate studies, he served as a regular officer in the British Army Intelligence Corps from 1989 to 1994, and as a reserve officer in the Canadian Forces from 1994 to 1996. He also worked as a media research executive in Moscow in 1995. Having published six books, he has also written widely for the international press on political issues. His research focuses generally on military affairs. In recent years, he has worked on Russian history, military history, defence policy, and military ethics.

Former world chess champion and current Russian opposition politician Garry Kasparov has a new book out, entitled Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must be Stopped.  Russians aren't its target audience. Rather, it is aimed at readers in the Western world who might be thinking that it would be better if their countries talked to Russia and tried to find common ground in order to solve mutual problems. Forget it, says Kasparov. Don't be deluded. Talking is a sign of weakness, and Russia's president Vladimir Putin will exploit any weakness to expand his 'dictatorship' and 'invade' even more neighbouring countries. The West, Kasparov argues, has to abandon its 'cowardice' and unite firmly against Russia and Putin before it is too late and 'winter' arrives.

Kasparov advances this thesis by means of a rapid history of Russian politics from the late Soviet era onwards, interspersed with personal anecdotes. But although the book is notionally about Russia, it is really about Putin, with whom Kasparov appears to be obsessed. In fact, Winter is Coming is little more than a prolonged expression of hatred against the Russian president. The title of this blog post tells you all you really need to know about it. Kasparov thinks that Putin is Hitler; he is a dictator; and he is evil. In fact, the word 'Hitler' appears 32 times in the book. Kasparov also regularly uses words such as 'dictator', 'dictatorship', 'totalitarianism', 'autocrat', and 'despotism', and pursuing another theme, likes to talk about 'appeasement', 'appeasers', and 'Chamberlain'. Subtlety is not his forte.

Thus we learn from Kasparov that:

-The 'mafia state with Putin as capo di tutti capi' uses 'blatantly fascist propaganda and tactics' (p. xi) and the Kremlin uses 'overtly fascist rhetoric. ... Some of these speeches ... closely resemble those of Nazi leaders' (p. xxiii).
'Putin respects only power' (p. 8), and his 'only goal is to stay in power. ... He needs conflict and hatred now' (p. 69).
-Putin 'wants only to keep us all in perpetual darkness', and aims 'for the totalitarianism of one person: himself' (p. 91).
-'Putin's regime operated on an amoral scale', and Putin has established 'full-blown dictatorship' (p. 159).
-Russia has returned to 'the rule of an all-powerful single-party state' (p. 168).
-Russia has returned 'to outright despotism' (p. 172).
-'Putin had become a dictator, full stop' (p. 178).
-Russia is 'a modern one-man dictatorship spreading fascist propaganda' (p. 235).
-'I find it impossible to believe that a man like Putin ... is not the richest of them all. ... Putin is likely the richest man in the world' (p. 185).

Putin, claims Kasparov, is little different from Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). All of them, he says, are united in 'their rejection of modernity. ... This is the common thread connecting Putin's attack on Ukraine and the murderous Islam-derived ideology that drives Al-Qaeda and ISIS.' (p. 254-5). Putin, therefore, poses a serious danger to the West, which needs to stand up to him while it still can.

Unfortunately, Kasparov says, the West has failed to show the required resolve. 'Instead of standing on principles of good and evil, of right and wrong ... we have engagement, resets, and moral equivalence.' (p. xii) Engagement is the same as appeasement (p. 252). 'Dictators only stop when they are stopped, and appeasing Putin with Ukraine will only stoke his appetite for more conquests,' Kasparov writes. (p. xxiv) Complaining about the 'vocabulary of cowardice' (p. 244), he comments that Putin 'and his repressive regime are supported directly and indirectly by the free world due to this one-way engagement policy' (p. 248). This weakness, he says, has to end.

In its place, Kasparov calls for 'the moral clarity and stubbornness of Ronald Reagan' (p. 33) (a call which ignores the fact that Reagan engaged regularly in negotiations with the Soviets). Kasparov's universe is one of black and white, of good and evil, without any nuance. 'We cannot compromise', he writes (p. 256). Any compromise is a sign of 'cowardice' which 'dictators' will use against us. This leads to strange readings of history. Most people, for instance, probably regard President J.F. Kennedy's support for the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 as a huge mistake. Not so Kasparov, who thinks that Kennedy's error was to not press on further. 'In 1961, JFK recalled US airplanes from supporting anti-Castro forces, leaving them to be massacred by the Soviet-led Cuban army' (p. 109), he complains. 'Détente ... [was] a euphemism for appeasement', he writes later (p. 116), and 'Russia's invasion of Georgia was the direct result of nearly of decade of this combination of helplessness and self-delusion in the West. Being left unpunished over Georgia invited Putin into Ukraine six years later' (p. 174).

'The Cold War ended,' Kasparov claims, 'not because Western leaders merely defended their values but because they projected them aggressively.' (p. 190) He believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union put the West in an unparalleled position of hegemony, which it should have exploited to destroy dictatorships wherever they were found. With the end of the Cold War, 'UN-crafted compromises were no longer necessary, and often dangerous,' he writes, 'Democracy was ascendant, and it was time to formally recognize this and to press the advantage.' (p. 66) 'The free world had overwhelming momentum after the fall of the USSR', he says elsewhere (p. 193). Unfortunately, although US President George W. Bush showed his willingness to use US power to spread democracy, his successor, Barack Obama, 'stopped pressing the advantage' (p. xxi) According to Kasparov, after invading Iraq, the United States should have kept on going. He writes:

"Preemptive strikes and deposing dictators may or may not have been a good plan, but at least it was a plan. If you attack Iraq, the potential to go after Iran and Syria must also be on the table. Inconsistency is a strategic deficiency that is nearly impossible to overcome" (p. 192).

Wow!

Kasparov ends his book by recommending that the West should 'stand up to the Kremlin and promote regime change' (p. 207), and 'declare in the strongest terms that Russia will be treated like the criminal rogue regime that it is for as long as Putin is in power. Call off the sham negotiations. Sell weapons to Ukraine that will put an unbearable political price on Putin's aggression. Tell every Russian oligarch that there is no place their money will be safe in the West as long as they serve Putin' (p. 259). The United Nations is obsolete, he claims. In its place he calls for 'the creation of a united Democratic nations', which can use 'military intervention to protect human lives and the greater good' (p. 260). 'The free world possesses wealth and power beyond imagining and it must be used,' he concludes. (p. 261).

Kasparov's book has one great value - it shows how unhinged his view of international politics truly is. He is, without doubt, an out-and-out true believing neoconservative, who sees the world in simple terms of good and evil, and who believes that the West has such overwhelming power that if it just had the will to use this power, it could bend the world to fit its desires. Indeed, Kasparov admits his neoconservative leanings, by showering praise on one of the idols of the neocon movement - the late Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson - as well as on Senator John McCain, the uber-hawk of contemporary America, whom Kasparov lauds for his 'moral clarity' (p. 196). 'Can anyone ... not believe that the world would be a safer, more democratic place today had John McCain been elected? ' writes Kasparov, adding that, 'In the universe where McCain is president, Putin does not invade Ukraine' (p. 197).

Kasparov's view of Russia is extremely simplistic. It is all 'Putin, Putin, Putin'. He denies that the Russian leader or his policies have any popular support, and ignores entirely the possibility that Putin is a product of his country's system as much as he is the creator of it. It is certainly the case that Russian politics and government leave a lot to be desired, but they are hardly 'totalitarianism of one person', 'a full-blown dictatorship', 'an all-powerful single-party state,' or 'outright despotism'. Political competition is limited, but it exists; state media channels dominate, but there are alternatives; the president's power is substantial, but it is not unrestricted.  Russia is just not 'a modern one-man dictatorship spreading fascist propaganda'.

Equally simplistic is Kasparov's view of the wider world. Some governments are indeed more oppressive than others, but it isn't a sharp contrast; between black and white there are many shades of grey. World politics aren't simply a matter of democracy versus dictatorship. The West may have some legitimate grounds for complaint against Russia. But Russia also has some grounds for complaint against the West. If we are to live in peace together, we need to take each other's perspectives into consideration. As its failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, the West doesn't have the unfettered power that Kasparov seems to think that it has. There are limits to its powers which no amount of will or 'moral clarity' can overcome. Consequently, we have no choice. We have to engage. We have to compromise. And it is simply not true that any compromise is a signal of weakness, which will encourage aggression. Deals can be struck. Engagement can make the world a better place.

Winter is Coming is a dangerous book. Were Western leaders to follow its advice, the result would be unnecessary, prolonged, and costly conflict between Russia and the West. We must hope that saner counsels prevail.

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 #5
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 15, 2015
The secret of Putin's high ratings as seen by an American expert
RD Interview: John Pat Willerton, a professor at the University of Arizona, gives his take on recent developments in Russian society and the reasons why President Vladimir Putin is so popular in Russia.
By Pavel Koshkin

Russia Direct continues to publish interviews with foreign experts on Russia who participated in the 2015 convention of the Association of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Philadelphia.

John Pat Willerton, a professor of the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona, gives his take on recent developments in Russian society, analyzes why Russian President Vladimir Putin is popular among Russians and offers insights into the weakness of Russia's political system.

Russia Direct: How can you account for Putin's popularity among Russians despite the current economic challenges?

John Pat Willerton: It seems to me that many people look at the current economic problems in the context of what's going on in Russia over the last 25 years. In other words, Russians understand the current environment and the economic challenges have to be looked at from a long-term perspective. After all, many people are aware where the Russian economy was in the 1990s.

They see that Putin's policy improved the economic lot of average citizens in general. You judge a government by its overall program over time. Of course, we are most concerned by today and the immediate future, but, in fact, most Russians know that their economic positions improved dramatically over the last 15 years, during Putin's term.

At the same time, let's be honest about it, some other factors are contributing to the downturn. International conditions, over which, it seems to me, no one country has complete control - the lower value of oil, or the issues that came up over the struggle over Ukraine, a country which has long-term historical significance to Russia.

When you look at the sanctions, the counteractions, the energy prices, we have a lot of things going on and, I think, an average Russian believes that the economy is affected by these numerous factors and doesn't simply reflect the policy of the Russian government. Russians are just judging their government according to the complexity of the domestic situation and the complexity of the international system.

RD: How do you think that Russian society has changed since the Ukraine crisis, in terms of ideology?

J.P.W.: Russia has gone through what I call a quadruple revolution: there was political, economic and social change that began in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, and those three challenges joined with what I would call the forced challenge of finding a new national idea after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia's elites understand that they are not going to back to the Soviet Union and try to find a new identity: What is Russia in the 21st century? What does it mean to be a Russian? What is the role of Russia in the world?

RD: Do you consider Putin to be a good strategist?

J.P.W.: As a student of Russian politics, I think that his team has been extremely effective. Yes, he and has team has a long-term vision and there is a logic to a program that has evolved over 15 years. I am not a person who sees things as black or white, that Putin is great or terrible. I am somewhere between. To me, his policy and legacy is grey. It is a mix of things.

Is he a strategist? Yes, there is a strategy. After all, the Putin government has a whole range of policies and the discussion has evolved every time. This is how Putin presented himself when he came back as president. Again, you can look at general policy, you can look at budget decisions or the whole range of [his measures], and you see logic, a vision, and a strategy. So, he is a strategist, and I also mean his team. I prefer to talk about his team.

RD: Yet some would argue: "What Russia wants to do is what Putin wants to do." To follow their logic, it is Putin who makes decisions: His team just fulfills his will.

J.P.W.: To me, it is a very simplistic approach. I understand it is common for the West, because we usually view Russia as an authoritarian country. So, when you are dealing with an authoritarian country, you describe it in terms of the leaders of the country. We've been talking about American policy in Syria and Putin's policy there.

The reason we don't do this is because U.S. President Barack Obama is not seen as a dictator in an authoritarian country. So, you see, literally, the very logic of our words presents an image - the image that you have a strong man, a dictator, who has makes every decision. And I live in a country where we have a president who is elected, who has a team. Well, the truth is that you have a team and we have a team.

The matter is that, obviously, Russia is guided by what I call a paramount leader: This is a leader who is very strong, who enjoys strong support from both the population and the elite. He seems to have an ability to balance the forces of power in Russia and in that regard he is really powerful. He has a power that Obama would never have in the United States.

RD: But is it really fair and good to be such a paramount leader? Some people say that Putin's team uses this idea as a robust political tool to keep afloat and stay in power, to persuade people that there is no alternative to Putin.

J.P.W.: I think it does not come from the Kremlin. I am not motivated by such arguments. I prefer to look at Russia survey research, ratings, [the record of] insinuations and certain individuals. The performance of his team or other politicians on different policy areas is below his rating.

Every government actor is below Putin. So, when I look at this, Russia's major public opinion centers WCIOM and Levada show the same results. Take 2008, when Putin leaves office and Medvedev becomes president. But Medvedev's presidency was not successful, while Putin has a certain standing. He always rates higher than Medvedev.

He comes back [in 2012] with a solid victory. The reason is that he brought to average Russians and to the elite the sense of confidence. I understand that some in Russia are very troubled with him, but I do think that his standing is solid and this is the way it will remain.

A critic would say it is because Russia is basically an authoritarian country and he is a dictator. In my standpoint, as long as he chooses to be engaged, he would be the figure of power, the way that we could rely on someone as a paramount leader.

RD: If his policy fails, can he lose this standing?

J.P.W.: I am skeptical about it. I think he is almost in an untouchable position. And that would probably mean that if you oppose him, it must be absolutely maddening, frustrating, infuriating. I don't see how this is going to change. Let's say that one of his policies doesn't go well - I don't see him gone, but rather people would blame the government, Medvedev and others, not Putin. Is this because the Kremlin is spinning [the news]? I don't know.

RD: What is the most important challenge for Russia's political system?

J.P.W.: As an observer, I've always been struck that you have a one-thousand-year history and your country had often strong leaders. I am also struck by the fact that if you have a strong leader, usually you have trouble having another one. So, there is a weakness in your system

 #6
Carnegie Moscow Center/Vedomosti
December 15, 2015
Russia Needs a Plan C
By Dmitri Trenin
Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, has been with the center since its inception. He also chairs the research council and the Foreign and Security Policy Program.

In the middle of a prolonged confrontation with the West, Russia cannot revive its Western-oriented or Eurasianist foreign policy concepts. In foreign relations, crisis-avoidance mechanisms must be the priority while Russia seeks a new strategic concept. That rethink must be underpinned by domestic reform; otherwise, the Russian state could share the fate of the Romanov regime in World War I.

In 2014, a quarter of a century of mostly cooperative relations among the great powers came to an end. In Ukraine and Syria, Moscow has essentially thrown down a gauntlet to what it sees as Washington's global domination.

Yet this assertive Russia is also fragile. Russians should turn their minds back to 1914, when amid a clash of world powers the old Russian regime came crashing down. If it wants to escape the fate the reform-averse Romanovs endured in World War I, the current ruling elite needs to prioritize domestic change and carry out a comprehensive overhaul of the country's institutions.

The current global clash of interests looks like a return to a period of old Great Power competition. The United States and China have much to quarrel about, and Washington and Moscow are now in a phase of extended confrontation. Russia's recent actions challenged the world order that the United States was trying to shape after the end of the Cold War.
The political conflict between Russia and the United States is fundamental. There may be moments when tension eases and cooperation is possible, but there are no obvious options for strategic compromise.

Moreover, Russia has entered a phase of mutual estrangement with a large part of Europe; and it has, for the foreseeable future, acquired a hostile Ukraine on its border, whose new foundation for nation-building is based on hostility to Russia. Finally, Russia has been sucked into the permanent theater of conflict that is the Middle East. This is the price to pay for its bid to return to the world political arena after a twenty-five-year break.

In its recent history, Russia has sought to embrace one of two competing overarching foreign policy concepts-but both have shattered.

The first aimed to bring Russia-on terms it deemed acceptable-into the fold of the collective West (Euroatlantic or Greater Europe). The latter again sought to unite the Eurasian space through Russian leadership under new principles, first within the framework of the CIS, then through the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and finally as the Eurasian Union.

Both concepts-we can call them Plan A and Plan B-came into jeopardy in the first half of the 2010s, and were ultimately torpedoed by the Ukraine crisis.

What is to be done? First of all, Russia must accept reality and not regret the might-have-beens; then, it should decide what is possible in this rapidly changing world, and what is impossible, however desirable it may look. We should put several grand ideas into the "desirable but impossible" category: another "reset" in relations with the next U.S. presidential administration; a revival of Mikhail Gorbachev's concept of a Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok; and a big, tightly-coordinated coalition against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, analogous to the anti-Hitler coalition of World War II.

Instead, Russia should focus on more achievable and important goals, chiefly, preventing a direct confrontation with the United States, the likelihood of which is now significantly higher than zero. What happened with the Russian airplane over Syria was very unfortunate; a similar fiasco above the Baltics or the Black Sea would be even more dangerous.

This new fragile international security environment is not ready for new arms control measures. The main concern in this field must be to maintain existing agreements on strategic offensive weapons and medium-range missiles. The immediate priority is even more critical: mechanisms are needed to avert unintended conflicts.

That means we need to change the operating regime of currently frozen institutions such as the NATO-Russia Council. These institutions should become permanent mechanisms for crisis diplomacy, with hotlines and secure communication channels. They also need small groups of trusted individuals who can maintain a confidential dialogue.

The key strategic objective must be to develop a new Russian foreign policy concept-a kind of Plan C. This concept should be based on a balanced understanding of both Russia's need for self-sufficiency and its necessary engagement with the rest of the world.

It is not worth modern Russia's while either to join the integrationist alliances of the West or the East, or to try to create its own bloc. Russia's current borders allow it to hold an important place in the world in any case. But Russia does need to develop a new regional strategy to deal with the challenge of a Westward-looking China, which is in the process of forming a Greater Eurasia that stretches from Beijing to the frontiers of Europe.

Yet all this is not the main thing. The key point is that Russia will be completely unable to revitalize itself as a world power if it does not address its own internal failings.
Russia needs to unambiguously prioritize domestic development-not just for the sake of having an international role, but to give itself any kind of future. Russia's current political and economic order, if it persists, will sooner or later doom it to a tragic failure as a state.

In that sense, the current standoff with the United States holds many parallels with the way World War I brought about the collapse of old imperial Russia-except that this time the challenge to the Russian regime is more economic than political.

This critical situation could also be the spur to make long-overdue domestic changes. That means asserting the right of all to equality before the law; making government at all levels accountable to its citizens; removing artificial obstacles for the development of Russian business; setting as a priority the development of health care, education, science, technology, and innovation; and achieving, through dialogue, nationwide agreement on what are the key issues for Russia's development and foreign policy.

Changing Russia's model of economy and government requires overhauling its ruling elite, which now primarily serves specific corporate and personal rather than national interests. It means creating conditions for ensuring meritocracy within the ruling class and for making the rule of law supreme in the economy and society as a whole.

In principle, Russia can begin to carry this out from above while keeping the country under control and protecting it from destabilization. Yet the last days of the Romanovs have some somber lessons. If there is insufficient political will for comprehensive reform, then, just as happened with the last imperial regime a century ago, an acute foreign policy crisis could trigger the collapse of not just the system, but the entire country.

This article originally appeared in Russian in Vedomosti.

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 #7
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
http://carnegieendowment.org
December 14, 2015
Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia at Twenty­Five-A Baseline Assessment
By Eugene Rumer and Paul Stronski
Eugene Rumer, a former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council, is a senior associate and the director of Carnegie's Russia and Eurasia Program. Paul Stronski is a senior associate in Carnegie's Russia and Eurasia Program, where his research focuses on the relationship between Russia and neighboring countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
[Text with tables here http://go.carnegieendowment.org/Xon0HlP0V000VM0kI00lPg0]

Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of the countries of Eurasia remain in the midst of difficult transitions and face unpredictable futures.

Overview

For nearly twenty-five years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the former Soviet lands now collectively referred to as Eurasia defied the best and the worst expectations of students of the region's history. Unfortunately, the worst case has now come to pass with the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine. The conflict has cast a long shadow over the entire region, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has put Russia on a dangerous, confrontational course with the United States and Europe that is likely to last for many years.

Central Asia-the region viewed at the outset of its independence as the most likely to fail-has remained relatively stable, or to be more precise, stagnant. The three countries of the South Caucasus remain plagued by the threat of war-the only common feature they share. Georgia continues on its Western trajectory, Armenia is firmly (albeit unhappily) under Russia's thumb, while Azerbaijan has become an authoritarian kleptocracy that has difficult relations with Russia and the West. The war in Ukraine and the collapse in Moscow's relations with the West have deeply unnerved the leaderships of all of the Eurasian countries, highlighting the risk of further Russian meddling and aggression-and the inadequacy of Euro-Atlantic security structures. Each of Russia's neighbors feels vulnerable and uncomfortable about the possibility of getting caught between Moscow and the Western powers in an increasingly zero-sum environment.

Russia

Russia's erratic course continues to have far-ranging effects on the entire region. The story of Russia in the past quarter century is one of dramatic change, rapid gains in national wealth (see table 1), and a persistent undercurrent of resentment and hostility toward the Western-led political and economic order. Putin's lengthy tenure has continued several of the centuries-old patterns in Russian domestic politics and foreign policy.

Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of the countries of Eurasia remain in the midst of difficult transitions and face unpredictable futures.
The dichotomy between the new and the familiar in contemporary Russia can be broken down into a handful of contradictions that neither Putin nor the country at large has been able to resolve and that will remain at the top of Moscow's agenda at home and abroad:

-Russia has made the difficult transition from central planning to market, but has yet to resolve the tension between its tradition of heavy-handed state involvement in the economic life of the country and free market principles.
 
-Russia owes its recovery from the economic collapse of the 1990s to a combination of important economic reforms adopted early in Putin's tenure and the dramatic rise in the price of commodities during the first decade of this century. But the country's long-term development will depend on the government's and elites' ability to wean themselves from the Russian economy's overwhelming dependence on commodities exports, especially oil and gas.
 
-Geographically, Russia is the largest country in the world. It has also faced major demographic problems and has suffered a population decline of some 7 million since 1991.
 
-In the wake of the Soviet collapse, Russia embraced democracy. Today, a majority of Russians believe that democracy is the right form of government for Russia. But they accept suppression of civil society and endless manipulation of the constitution in the name of stability. Russians accept a rubber-stamp parliament and a tsar-like presidency that towers above all other branches of government.
 
-In foreign policy, Russia has insisted on the primacy of the United Nations but has repeatedly violated the organization's founding principles, all the while accusing others of doing the same.
 
-Russian elites bristle at their exclusion from Europe, while at the same time telling their people that Russia is not of Europe.
 
-Putin has embraced a partnership with China and pivoted to Asia, but the Russian elite mistrusts and fears Chinese dominance. Moscow has no long-term Asia strategy beyond taking a subservient position vis-à-vis China-a prospect some Russian policymakers see as risky.
 
-The Russian military handily defeated Georgia and Ukraine, and is challenging the United States in Syria. But these battlefield victories have resulted in new, long-term security challenges and threaten to alienate the populations and elites of post-Soviet neighboring countries.

Having found itself between two global gravitational poles-Europe and the United States in the west, and China and the Asia-Pacific region in the east-Russia appears adrift, still searching for a comfortable and secure place in the world. Russia aspires to be a rule maker, not a rule taker. But its current weight in global affairs is modest and, looking out a decade or more, it will decline (see table 2).

Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of the countries of Eurasia remain in the midst of difficult transitions and face unpredictable futures.
Russia's position in the world rests on its nuclear arsenal, its seat at the table of major powers, as it was constituted at the end of World War II, and its size. None of these three factors is likely to retain its importance in the future. The new revolution in military affairs is making nuclear weapons increasingly obsolete. Cyber, space, and high-precision conventional capabilities are crowding out nuclear weapons from future arsenals. Russia remains an important military actor whose ability to project power around its periphery will remain a serious challenge for the West to reckon with, but over time, its bleak economic prospects will make competition with China and the United States and their far better resourced militaries an uphill struggle. As other countries and nonstate actors acquire better kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities, Russia will face more, not fewer security challenges.

Russia's status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council too is an impermanent foundation on which to rest its major power claim. The inability of the United Nations to address key international problems-with Russian and Chinese obstructionism often being a major obstacle-may continue to erode the organization's stature and Russia's importance with it. As coalitions of the willing take shape, the United Nations' relevance-and Russia's leverage-may fade.

Russia's size, which makes it such an important presence in both Europe and Asia, too promises to become a source of its weakness rather than strength. Located between two gravitational poles-Europe and Asia-both possessing far greater economic dynamism, military capabilities, and global clout, Russia will find it increasingly difficult to project economic and political power or shore up its international standing.

There is only one plausible strategy for Moscow to tackle these challenges-modernization of the country's political, economic, technological, military, legal, and societal foundations. Russian elites, including Mr. Putin, have been well aware of this imperative for decades. Without modernization, Russia can neither compete with the West nor be a partner to China. Without modernization, it is bound to be a "raw materials appendage" to Europe, or Asia, or both.

But therein lies the biggest dilemma facing Russia over the next decade: Can it modernize but not destabilize? It failed to do so on Gorbachev's watch. Mr. Putin has acted in a contradictory fashion during his long tenure. He was an advocate of modernization early in his first term as president, but proceeded to build an increasingly unmodern system on the twin pillars of petrodollars and his personal power. He gave a mandate to Dmitry Medvedev to pursue economic modernization. But he pulled back abruptly when he reclaimed the presidency in 2012 in the face of street protests by the country's nascent middle class-the chief beneficiary of his rule.

If Putin can modernize the country in the next ten years or at least undertake meaningful reforms that keep Russia economically prosperous and politically stable, his legacy as a great leader will be assured. At the moment, his chances for success look bleak, as he is taking the country farther into the past rather than into the future.

The outlook for Russia's relations with the West is equally bleak and offers few signs of change in the foreseeable future. Mr. Putin's current term ends in 2018. He can then run for reelection and in all likelihood be reelected for another six-year term. The liberal opposition in Russia has been decimated by the Kremlin's relentless campaign against it. The antiliberal opposition unleashed, encouraged, and, for the time being largely controlled by the Kremlin makes Putin appear as by far not the worst leader Russia could have. The Putin era could easily last for another decade or longer.

Putin's record since his return to the presidency-the crackdown at home, the war with Ukraine, and the intervention in Syria-has been described as a series of reactive moves that betray the absence of a strategy on his part. But these reactive moves have a great deal of internal consistency and a common logic. In domestic affairs, they are aimed at consolidation of an increasingly rigid authoritarian system buoyed by a xenophobic, anti-Western ideology. In foreign affairs, they are aimed at the restoration of the Soviet empire and the positioning of Russia as a leading adversary of the West.

Predicting Russia's trajectory at home and abroad over an entire decade is an impossible task, but the internal consistency of this course and the persistence with which Putin has followed it leave little prospect for a significant change. Putin's actions have repeatedly surprised the West-in Georgia in 2008, in Crimea in 2014, and, most recently, in Syria. At every point along this trajectory, Russian actions have defied conventional wisdom and predictions that relations with Moscow can't possibly get worse. Putin is not done yet, which warrants looking beyond conventional wisdom about Russia.

The same can be said about potential developments in other parts of the former Soviet Union. The speed of the Maidan revolution in Ukraine surprised all observers, including a great many Ukrainians. After many years of taking the status quo in this region for granted, Western policymakers should brace themselves for any number of crises, disruptive events, and reversals.

Ukraine

Ukraine is likely to remain in the spotlight for the foreseeable future. The largest and most important of Russia's neighbors, Ukraine's first quarter century of independence was largely squandered. By the time the street protests against the government of then prime minister Viktor Yanukovych began in late 2013, Ukraine was well on the way to joining the ranks of increasingly authoritarian kleptocracies. However, the 2014 Maidan revolution generated a sea change in the country's direction. The new, postrevolutionary government of Ukraine has implemented many substantial reforms and is attempting to implement an even more ambitious agenda of change. The fact that the war in eastern Ukraine has come to an uncertain stop is potentially beneficial to the reform effort, but Moscow retains a great many levers over its adversaries in Kyiv and can opt to escalate the conflict at any time of its choosing.

Besides the unresolved conflict in eastern Ukraine, the country faces many other obstacles-a powerful and entrenched oligarchy; a Russian economic blockade; an underperforming, unreformed economy; and the ever-present threat of Ukraine fatigue among key Western partners, to name just a few. Nonetheless, Ukraine's record to date is impressive. It has stood up to Russia in the east. It has conducted several free and fair elections. It has concluded a debt-restructuring deal with creditors and-despite many dire warnings-avoided defaulting on its obligations. The way forward promises to be very difficult, as none of Ukraine's accomplishments to date has the quality of permanence.

If reform in Ukraine succeeds, the country could emerge over time as a powerful barrier to further Russian expansion and, perhaps, a security provider to its neighbors; it could become a regional economic player with important links to Europe and Asia; and it could act as a magnet for attempts to counter Russian influence in Eastern Europe from Belarus to Georgia. In sum, it could emerge as a truly pivotal state in European security. But that moment is still far in the future, and any number of downside scenarios may yet materialize.

Central Asia

Central Asia is another part of the post-Soviet world that at first glance appears stuck in the past. The leaders of the region's two most populous and most important states-Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan-have ruled their countries since before the Soviet breakup. Both Nursultan Nazarbayev and Islam Karimov are in their seventies; they were reelected in 2015 with over 90 percent of the vote. Kyrgyzstan, the region's most democratic state, is also its least stable, having survived two government overthrows and a major outbreak of interethnic violence in the past decade. Tajikistan is a semifeudal state run by the same leader since 1992, surviving thanks to the lucrative illicit drug trade that passes through it from Afghanistan and remittances from Tajik migrant workers-the vast majority of whom work in Russia-who contribute nearly half of the country's GDP. Turkmenistan is a reclusive dictatorship that sits atop the world's fourth-largest gas reserves and follows a doctrine of positive neutrality, which translates into near isolation from the outside world. A potential security problem may be brewing as a result of the increasing activity of Islamic extremist elements across the border in Afghanistan.

However, despite the appearance of being frozen in time, Central Asia is changing. Kazakhstan has emerged as the undisputed economic and political leader of the region. Its GDP of well over $400 billion exceeds the combined GDPs of all of its neighbors in Central Asia, and Astana's skilled and active multivector foreign policy has earned it widespread recognition. The prospect of leadership change in the next decade raises questions about the country's untested mechanism for political succession, but with its vast wealth, a record of significant economic reforms, a new generation of elites (many of them educated abroad), and a relatively soft form of authoritarian governance, the country stands the best chance of sustaining its leadership in the region and enhancing its position beyond it.

Kazakhstan's foreign policy has enabled its leaders to adapt to the changing geopolitical environment around Central Asia and pursue a form of nonalignment that is the exact opposite of Turkmenistan's disengagement. Kazakhstan has pursued a policy of active international engagement with Russia, China, and the United States-the three major powers that have sought to project their influence into Central Asia in the past quarter century-yet has carefully avoided getting too close to any of them.

Uzbekistan, with its large security establishment and history of intervening in its neighbors' affairs, is likely the only regional country, besides Russia, with the capabilities to respond to a security threat in the region. Such threats could include the rise of extremist elements in Central Asia, the political or economic collapse of a Central Asian government, or the type of ethnic conflict that has twice inflamed the densely populated Fergana Valley-a region split between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. With its own mounting economic problems, a rigid authoritarian government, and a leadership transition on the horizon, it is uncertain whether Tashkent actually could serve as a security provider-or if such moves would be compatible with Western interests.

The most significant change in Central Asia's geopolitical environment is the emergence of China as the dominant player in its economic and increasingly political affairs. In the past two decades, China has become a leading investor in the region's energy sector, built multiple infrastructure projects, and financed several major pipelines that now account for 20 percent of China's domestic natural gas consumption. Chinese trade with Central Asia has increased hundredfold in the past two decades and has surpassed $50 billion annually. The One Belt, One Road giant project to build overland links from China to Europe and South Asia announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping promises to generate further infrastructure investment resources for Central Asia-and, not coincidentally, secure the region's place as an economic satellite of China.

With the United States and Europe looking to disengage from Afghanistan, which for nearly a decade and a half has been the key anchor for their engagement in Central Asia, Western interest and presence in Central Asia are likely to fade. Russia, lacking the economic resources to compete with China, has been steadily losing ground in the region. The possibility of Iran coming out of its international isolation raises the prospect of another key neighbor restoring ties to the region. In sum, these developments promise to reduce the influence of Europe and the Euro-Atlantic community on Central Asia, and to increase the role of Asia, and especially China, in its development.

The impact of these changes is uncertain. It holds out the possibility of greater economic resources flowing to Central Asia and the region developing ever-closer political ties to Asia and to China in particular. At the same time, there is likely to be less external pressure for political reforms. The net result overall may be a region that enjoys somewhat greater prosperity, but at the price of political stagnation. The inevitability of political succession and the possibility of future regional instability raise uncomfortable questions about the prospect of security vacuums and disorder. High-level Russian rhetoric about Eurasian integration and restoring historical, Soviet-era ties looks increasingly anachronistic and unrealistic against this backdrop.

The Gray Zone

The six countries of the South Caucasus and Eastern Europe-Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus-do not at a glance represent a coherent group. Upon closer examination, however, they share many common features, chief among which is their geopolitical in-between place-their position between Russia and the West.

The past quarter century has been a time of great dislocation for all of these countries. Five out of six-Belarus is the sole exception-have lived through wars, some more than once. None has fully recovered. The region is home to five so-called frozen conflicts, although these conflicts are anything but frozen. Instead, they simmer and occasionally flare up, as was recently the case between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Violence and war easily could engulf the region again. All six countries have, at various times, attempted to sever their ties to Russia and move closer to the West. None has succeeded. None has been welcomed in the West with promises of membership in NATO and the European Union. All six have had to confront the unhappy realities that are part and parcel of so-called buffer zones located between various former and present empires-between the Russian empire and the Persian, the Ottoman, the Austrian, and the German empires, as well as the European Union, which may not have imperial aspirations but nonetheless is the center of its own geopolitical universe. All experience simultaneously the competing gravitational pulls of different historical legacies, cultures, and economic and military spheres of influence. For all, transition to the post-Soviet has been exceedingly difficult.

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, despite the trauma of the war with Armenia and loss of nearly one-fifth of its territory, in its early postindependence period showed promise as a secular, predominantly Muslim country with great wealth potential and hope for a transition from an authoritarian system to a more tolerant and open society. Instead, it has retreated into an increasingly rigid, oppressive, authoritarian kleptocracy that has turned away from both the West and Western values.

Armenia

Armenia, having defeated Azerbaijan on the battlefield, has paid a heavy economic and political price for that victory, and for the two decades since then, it has limped along with a fragile economy, a modest democratic record, and a questionable security guarantee as a client state of Russia. It at times has aspired to closer relations with the West, but has been hemmed in by its economic, political, and military dependence on Moscow. With the economies of both Azerbaijan and Armenia deteriorating, recent months have seen a worrying spike in violence and skirmishes between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces.

Georgia

Georgia emerged from the 2003 Rose Revolution full of promise and achieved considerable progress. However, an ambitious push to join the West ran into two obstacles-the 2008 war with Russia and the long-term, heavy burden of building Western-style institutions in a country that had never had them before. The country had a peaceful transition of power when former president Mikheil Saakashvili and his party went into opposition in 2012. Georgia's leadership remains committed to a Western path. But Georgia remains plagued by personality politics, a stagnating economy, and Saakashvili's controversial legacy. A significant minority of the population (about 30 percent according to recent polling) looks to Russia as the country's preferred partner. It is these internal challenges that are proving even more difficult for Georgia to overcome than the legacy of its two frozen conflicts-in Abkhazia and South Ossetia-and the war with Russia.

Moldova

Moldova's brush with war was relatively brief, but its legacy has endured. The country has the dubious distinction of being this region's poorest. It has had multiple competitive elections and inched closer toward the EU and NATO-though membership in either is not even a remote possibility. Moldova's political stability is hamstrung by weak rule of law, endemic corruption, and perennial rounds of political protest-all of which raise questions about the country's long-term direction.

Belarus

Belarus-written off early and often as the last dictatorship in Europe-has survived for the quarter century as a Russian dependent. Belarus is joined with Russia in a construct called the Union State. Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashanka has been able to maintain domestic political calm through a combination of repression and multibillion-dollar energy and economic subsidies extracted from the Russian government. However, his room for maneuver is narrowing in the wake of the war in neighboring Ukraine. The leaders and people of Belarus have no illusions that Russia is prepared to use force against its closest allies and neighbors in order to maintain its regional dominance. Lukashanka has tried to put some distance between himself and Moscow and rehabilitate his tarnished image in the West, but even in the best of circumstances, Belarus's path to the West is certain to be long and arduous.

Conclusion

Russia and Eurasia twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union comprise a region in the midst of a major, historic transition. None of the twelve countries has put its Soviet legacy firmly behind it. All can backslide in the next decade, due to either domestic or external factors. All remain a work in progress.

This assessment was prepared for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace-Chicago Council on Global Affairs task force on U.S. policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. The views expressed here are solely of the authors and do not represent the views of any of the task force members.

 [return to Contents]

#8
Politkom.ru
December 7, 2015
Russian pundit notes absence of "anti-US rhetoric" in Putin's keynote speech
Tatyana Stanovaya, New Old Agenda

On 3 December Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his traditional address to the Russian Federation Federal Assembly. This was the first address in Putin's third term in which there was practically a complete absence of anti-American rhetoric. In Putin's speech there was also not a single mention of the subject of Ukraine, which until September 2015 had filled up practically the entire political agenda. The president returned, albeit very selectively, to questions of institutional liberalization, which was originally Dmitriy Medvedev's agenda, and he also paid far more attention to questions of support for the development of business.

Vladimir Putin's address showed that at a tactical level the foreign policy framework has completely changed as compared with 2014 and the first half of 2015: The geopolitical crisis that involved the war in the Donets Basin [Donbass], sanctions, and a policy of restraint on the part of the West, has practically disappeared from the address. The words "Ukraine" and "sanctions" were not mentioned at all, but essentially appeared in the speech in the form of "not always easy circumstances," which means Putin's detachment and a certain neutrality regarding the restrictive measures of the USA and the EU. In other words, the sanctions have been transferred from the geopolitical agenda to the macroeconomic agenda and are now being seen solely in the context of possibilities of support for domestic producers.

At the moment this is happening at the level of rhetoric and is a part of the change of tactics in foreign policy behaviour rather than a general revision of the attitude to the West, which remains consistently negative, with a very low level of trust (mutual). In foreign policy Putin concentrated on anti-terrorism problems, but by and large was pointedly rational. This also concerned the thorniest issue as of today - relations with Turkey. Putin said that Ankara will not be able to "get away with just tomatoes" [reference to Russian import ban], but at the same time he promised not to "rattle sabers." It is very important for the Russian president to contain the countermeasures, not allowing the Russian-Turkish crisis to influence the Syrian process and relations with Western partners.

Putin started specifically with the subject of fighting against ISIL, which is banned in Russia, and this emphasized that the country is in a state of war. This state has become customary for the elite, but the enemy has changed: Now, instead of the USA and its "puppets" (as the Kiev "junta" has usually been classed) - it is international terrorism, and now also Turkey. However, unlike the confrontation with the USA, in this case it is not a question of ideological or value-based confrontation in the context of the domestic political agenda. This may to a certain extent help in the reduction of the overall degree of aggression in the pro-authorities mass media (which certain circles are also interpreting as the chaotization of information policy on the Syria set of problems, particularly taking into account the emergence among pro-Putin journalists of a certain amount of criticism of Russia's Syrian campaign). In any case, this is a question of Putin's attempt to replace confrontational tactics with more careful rhetoric.

A contradictory trend can be observed in the country's domestic life. On the one hand, in questions of domestic political administration, conservative priorities are being kept up, which although not strongly expressed, sounded clear. Several times Putin emphasized the importance of unity between the authorities and society. "Everyone should understand their responsibility: the authorities, political parties, civil society structures, and the mass media," he said, a bit later also calling for society's unity in the context of preparations for the 2016 Duma campaign. Finally, Putin ended his address with questions of consolidation, citing Dmitriy Mendeleyev. "Uncoordinated, we will immediately be destroyed. Our strength is in unity..." the head of state said, no doubt considering the priority of the political integrity of the system to be an inevitable and essential constant. This also means that political changes are unlikely in 2016: New experiments may be seen as extra risks for a country that is in a state of war. At the same time, the president mentioned the need for the legitimacy of the 2016 elections - this means that the Kremlin is not interested in scandals like the one in which the 2011 election campaign ended. Particularly since there is currently no need to maximize One Russia's result at any price - the move to a mixed electoral system makes it possible to increase the number of pro-authorities deputies by means of the single-seat district deputies.

On the other hand, the liberal agenda concerning structural institutions for running the economy and innovation development received the president's support perfectly clearly (although this is a question of selective support). This means the decriminalization of a number of articles of the Criminal Code, and also reducing grounds for using arrest as a pre-trial restriction. The liberalization of the Criminal Code has always been a politically difficult subject - the siloviki in particular have been opposed to this, claiming that this would play into the hands of the criminal community (clearly these measures reduce the security organs' resources). Until recently the reverse trend had been observed in Putin's policy: The modest "Medvedevite" reforms of criminal legislation were de facto reversed and condemned (and it was this that the so-called "experts' case" [an attempt to bring criminal charges against experts who advocated the humanization of criminal justice] was aimed at in particular). Many appeals by the head of state to reduce pressure on the business world which were made in last year's address were repeated again, which testifies to a lack of progress in this sphere. At the same time, a "counterreform" of the institution of trial by jury has been proposed, which human rights activists are taking very negatively, since a reduction in the number of juries expands the possibility of pressure being put on them.

In the economy, a strong industrial policy and elements of dirigisme have been combined with attempts to influence the improvement of the business climate. But unlike in last year's address, in which domestic subjects were almost completely pushed out by foreign policy problems, this time Putin changed the priorities practically altogether and paid far more attention to questions of economic and social development. The president for the first time directly answered a number of critical observations that have been made over the past two years against the authorities: They have been accused of a lack of action, of being in danger of using up reserves, and relying on a single strategy in the form of expecting a resumption in the rise of world oil prices. Putin made it clear that he understands the seriousness of the situation, although he does not consider it to be critical, and he gave assurances that the state will decrease dependence on the foreign economic conditions.

One of Putin's proposals, which has made people talk about his return to the agenda of Medvedev-as-president, has been his proposal to set up the Agency for Technological Development - the subject of the import of technologies was also an important point in Medvedev's presidency.

However, a comprehensive programme for boosting economic growth and anti-crisis measures did not appear at all. At the same time, it is worth noting a certain U-turn towards foreign markets. In 2014 and 2015 the idea of import substitution effectively turned into an instrument used by industrial lobbyists to win for themselves more protectionist conditions within the country through the administrative reduction of imports. This was received very pessimistically as a version of closing the economy, its Sovietization, as a risk of a scarcity of goods emerging and their quality deteriorating. Now Putin has placed the emphasis on moving Russian commodities onto foreign markets, which looks more reasonable, although a multitude of questions remains about implementing this task. This is a question of a mechanism for investment contracts with the regions, in which the business world would be exempt from profit tax, the government would buy around 30 per cent of new output, and the rest would go onto the domestic and foreign markets. However, experts have seen this as a new option for getting rich though state orders. "I would stress again that we will specifically support competitive domestic production units. No one should be under the illusion that, under the guise of import substitution, you can palm off onto the state and citizens substandard or unsalable goods, and moreover charge an arm and a leg for them," Putin said, predicting such concerns. No doubt, within the framework of this initiative it is also planned to set up a private company to sell Russian commodities abroad through an online medium.

But Putin is not only not giving up protectionism and a strong industrial policy with a regulating role by the state, he is also proposing to strengthen it. The president asked the government to select special programmes for supporting sectors in the risk zone: construction, the motor industry, light industry, and railroad machine-building. Production incentives are based on measures of state financial support rather than the development of competition and the removal of internal barriers. Small and medium businesses, as Putin recalled, receive support through a new relevant state corporation - through the Fund for the Development of Industry, which Putin proposed funding by another R20bn.

At the same time, the present address, like the previous one, practically avoided questions of budget policy. Putin supported the Finance Ministry's conservative policy, calling on the deficit to be maintained at a level of no more than 3 per cent. However, as a whole, budget policy, which previously was reflected strategically in budget messages, has been taken out of the sphere of public politics.

Administrative reform was touched on very superficially: Putin did not go into details, merely outlining separate subjects, the elaboration of which is being handed over to the government (and this reduces the effectiveness and speed of adopting decisions). Putin suggested "forming a single, integrated mechanism for the administration of tax, customs, and other fiscal payments." This is a question of creating a single automated system which would aggregate data from the Federal Tax Service and the Federal Customs Service, a federal official told Vedomosti. The press has written about this earlier, calling it the first step on the path of transferring the customs service, the Federal Tariff Service, and the tax service to the control of the Ministry of Finance. A decision was probably made to take the path of the less radical option. No comprehensive administrative reform was suggested either.

A lot of attention was paid to issues regarding the business climate, but mainly in the context of carrying out or optimizing previous decisions. Putin reminded entrepreneurs of the setting up of a state corporation for the development of medium and small businesses, and he also promised to scale down supervisory and monitoring bodies. There has been a very great deal of talk about this in the past few months too, but Putin did not go into details here either, or take on responsibility for specific decisions. Furthermore, all the liberal rhetoric concerning the position of private business commands practically no confidence among the business community. The authorities have been talking about decreasing pressure on business since 2000, but in recent years the state of affairs has deteriorated so much that the problem of the business climate is now seen as an inevitable attribute of the present regime.

Social policy was presented as good news, and the president tried to avoid the thorniest issues. Putin promised targeted assistance to the poor (which, however, may also be interpreted as a reduction in general social commitments), and the extension by two years of the programme of subsidies for multiple-child families. In the thorniest subject in social policy today - health care - Putin merely proposed to create within the compulsory medical insurance system a special federal section for funding complex operations in federal establishments. Talking about equipping the emergency medical care service, Putin admitted that the renewal mechanism is not working now, and called on the government and the regions to "solve" the problem. Having raised the very sensitive issue of merging hospitals, schools, and other social establishments, Putin merely drew attention to the closure of medical and obstetric centres in remote villages, on the subject of which the president appealed for more caution.

In his address, for the first time in three years, Putin returned to questions of state administration and economic and social policy, avoiding aggressive conservatism, anti-Americanism, and "spiritual bonds." However, it is not proving possible at the moment to present a comprehensive approach or a structural reform of the economy. There are two inherent contradictions in the president's approach. In the economy, this is an underestimation of the importance of developing initiative, protecting ownership and freedoms, the presumption of innocence, and decreasing pressure from the state. Stimulating economic growth is again seen through mechanisms of state support. In domestic policy, the firm conviction of the need for the consolidation of society and the authorities is maintained. Putin is reckoning on giving up radical decisions, preferring cautious, "selective" actions. This is not surprising - neither society nor the market economy will withstand rigorous mobilization, and large-scale liberalization demands significant political changes, for which the system is not ready. There remains a desire to keep going until there is a change in the foreign economic state of affairs (which, however, may not happen even in the medium term) and the 2018 presidential election, after which possibilities may open up for conducting a tougher and more unpopular economic policy.


 

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 #9
New York Times
December 16, 2015
NATO Nations No Longer Question Need for Alliance
By STEVEN ERLANGER

LONDON - NATO is the alliance that keeps finding reasons to exist, to the surprise of some and the annoyance of Moscow.

With the Russian annexation of Crimea and incursions in eastern Ukraine, NATO found renewed rationale in at least two-thirds of its old mantra for European security: Keep the Russians out, the United States in, and the Germans down.

NATO recently opened its doors to a new member, tiny Montenegro, which has been eager to join for nine years. But the invitation, six years after the organization's last enlargement, NATO officials and analysts say, is a direct message to Moscow after the annexation of Crimea that NATO will continue to welcome countries that want to join, no matter the anger in Moscow.

"Before Ukraine, the question on Montenegro was, 'What's the point? It's so small,' " said Derek Chollet, a former United States assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. "After Ukraine, it was, 'Why not?'"

There are always existential questions for NATO, which was formed in 1949 to defend Western Europe from any Soviet invasion.

With a NATO summit meeting scheduled for early July in Warsaw, security officials from the 28-member alliance are deep in talks about how to deal simultaneously with current and potential threats from Russia and from the chaos in the Middle East.

For Mr. Chollet, now at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, "the question isn't whether NATO is relevant, but what is NATO relevant for?" With the "re-emergence of the Russian threat, Ukraine, concerns in Central Europe and the Balkans, we need NATO," he said. "But how relevant is NATO for the threats from the south? That's the big subject now."

The pressure from an openly revanchist Russia has brought new American military and budgetary commitments to the defense of Europe, in the interests of deterrence and reassurance, the Obama administration says.

At the same time, Turkey's shooting down of a Russian fighter jet has pulled NATO closer to engagement in the south - the battle against the Islamic State, which has carried out an attack on the civilians of at least one NATO country, France.

Tensions between NATO members bordering Russia, like Poland and the Baltic nations, and members closer to Syria and the migrant flow, like Greece and Italy, have been eased by Russia's direct military involvement in Syria.

"There has been a tug of war between eastern and southern members about priorities, but now the east sees a Russian threat in the south, too, while the south sees a new conventional threat, as in the east," said Rem Korteweg of the Center for European Reform, a research group based in London.

"Now we see a decision to boost air defenses off Turkey and put guided missile destroyers in the Black Sea and have more naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean - it's a similar program of reassurance as the one for the east."

After years of studies about threats outside Europe and worries that NATO would have little meaning after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the commitment to collective defense of member states in Europe itself has again become central.

"Ever since Russia went into Crimea and eastern Ukraine, people see NATO's traditional mission of Article 5 as more important again," a senior Obama administration official said, referring to the principle that an attack on one of the members is an attack on all of them. "It was always in the background, but people were sitting around doing contingency planning on possible threats. Now that's changed."

So the main conversation at the meeting in Warsaw will be how to carry out decisions made in 2014 in Wales - how many troops to put in the east, with what equipment and where to position them. The Poles, for example, want troops and equipment in their east, close to the Russian border, while other NATO countries, mindful of Moscow, want them closer to the German border.

"There's a new urgency" about reassuring eastern members like Poland and the Baltics, "which feel under a lot of pressure," Michael Fallon, the British defense secretary, said in an interview. "NATO has just woken up in time, but it has woken up."

There are contentious debates about how to speed up NATO decision-making in times of crisis, while preserving the principle of unanimity. Should the NATO commander, an American general, be given "preauthorization" by NATO members to deploy new rapid reaction forces, still on national bases and under national command, and move equipment without getting further approval from national governments? Should the representatives of those governments, who sit on the North Atlantic Council, NATO's decision-making body, reduce the number of intermediary steps necessary before action is taken?

For example, Mr. Korteweg said, the council must approve each stage. If intelligence sees a threat, the council must discuss it and unanimously agree to start military planning. It must then meet to approve the plans and vote again to generate forces, and then again to deploy them. All that now takes at least several days.

As for preauthorization, even the United States is wary, acknowledging issues of sovereignty.

Poland's new right-wing government is pushing for permanent deployments of NATO troops, preferably American, on Polish soil. But Washington and Britain still prefer what officials call "a persistent and continuous presence" of NATO troops under various national commands to a "permanent" presence.

And Washington is not happy with loud calls by the Poles for nuclear weapons to be based in Poland, even if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia talks more often than Soviet leaders used to about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons.

"The more searching conversation has to do with the south, and what NATO can do to backstop the counter-ISIL campaign," the Obama administration official said, referring to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, "to backstop Turkey, to help partners in the Mediterranean, the Gulf and northern Africa" on issues like terrorism and the uncontrolled flow of migrants.

As usual, there will be pressure from the United States for NATO members to live up to their pledge to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense, as Britain finally agreed to do this year. "I hope that will be welcomed in Washington," Mr. Fallon said, also citing Britain's decision to join the campaign against the Islamic State in Syria.

But the United States still accounts for some 75 percent of all NATO military spending; Germany, for example, spends only about 1.3 percent of G.D.P. on defense.

Mr. Fallon noted that while only five members currently spend 2 percent, seven more have increased their military spending since the events in Ukraine and the last summit meeting in 2014, citing France, Poland, Norway, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania.

Russian military exercises have many countries anxious, which is their point. One exercise in March practiced an invasion of the Baltic States including the seizure of nearby territory from Finland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, intended to show NATO how hard it would be to retake the Baltic nations, even under Article 5, should they be occupied by Russia.

Russian actions, however, are prompting countries like Sweden and Finland, which have never been NATO members, to study it seriously. With other Balkan countries also seeking membership, Montenegro is unlikely to be the last.

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#10
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 16, 2015
How to improve the Russian economy: Create a safe space for investors
Former Deputy Finance Minister and former deputy governor of the Russian Central Bank Sergei Alexashenko speaks about the economic challenges currently facing Russia, including sanctions, crisis management, the need for reform, and the country's dependence on oil.
MIKHAIL BOLOTIN, SPECIAL TO RBTH

RBTH: Recently economic experts have been speaking about a thaw in relations between Russia and the West. Does this mean the situation will now improve?

Sergei Aleksashenko: I personally don't see any rapprochement. There is some limited dialogue on Syria, but the problems in relations are much more profound. And until the Minsk Agreements [on resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine - RBTH] are fully realized the sanctions will stay in place.

RBTH: Let's say the sanctions are lifted. Will this help the economy?

S. A.: In my view, the problems in the Russian economy are not mainly due to the sanctions and the low oil prices. Back in 2013, when there were no sanctions and oil prices were high, we saw an economic growth of only 1.3 percent. External factors had nothing to do with this.

Concerning the technological sanctions in the energy sector, they are basically not producing any results because they are aimed at offshore production, which with today's oil prices is unprofitable anyway. If the financial sanctions are lifted, this will obviously lead to short-term improvement. However, without an increase in investments long-term economic improvement is impossible.

RBTH: A year ago, when the ruble was falling fast, many spoke of Russia's economy collapsing. Why didn't it happen?

S. A.:  What happened a year ago can indeed be called a perfect storm. Many factors coincided at that time: oil prices, the sanctions, a peak in payments of external debt. This led to the collapse of the national currency. But we shouldn't overestimate the role of the financial market in general.

It was clear that a reasonable policy formulated by the Central Bank would be able to calm the situation. The apocalyptic forecasts came from those who don't understand how the monetary system works. Certainly, the fact that oil prices rose a bit at the beginning of the year helped. Also, today the Central Bank is commiting fewer errors than it did last year. The bank's biggest problem now is its inability to clearly explain its inflation-regulating actions to the public.

RBTH: How do you evaluate Russia's economy this year?

S. A.: I can't say that it has been catastrophic. In comparison to the 2009 crisis, its position is much better. Also, this year it became evident that the Russian economy is relatively stable because it has indeed become a market economy.

Sure, corruption persists, but there are also free market prices, a free exchange rate. When the exchange rate and prices adapt, in the end market forces always restore their balance. This obviously involves the reduction of consumption and the patience of the population, which is still ready to stoically endure the burden.

The fact that in the last 15 years there were no significant attempts to regulate prices means that President Putin is familiar with this market advantage.

RBTH: Are all the sectors in Russia's economy in equally bad shape at the moment?

S. A.: Not at all. The differences are great. The defense industry is doing exceptionally well - defense orders are growing consistently. This in part has led to growth in industrial production in the last months. The agrarian sector traditionally finds itself in a good state. In the beginning of the 2000s Russia created a more or less functional agrarian subsidy system, thanks to which this sector is growing today at a rate of 2-3 percent.

The ban on import products benefited the agrarian system even more. The raw material and transportation sectors were able to preserve their stable levels because the physical demand for Russian raw materials did not decrease. The consumer market, however, is not doing so well: trade, the car industry, development projects, real estate

RBTH: You mentioned investments. This year Russia was ranked 51st in the Doing Business Ranking, while five years ago it was 120th on the list. Were the reforms really so successful?

S. A.: Sure, there were successful reforms, even though they were related more to electronic services for interacting with fiscal organs or to the acceleration of separate bureaucratic procedures. But such ratings often measure only technical parameters, that is, how fast and at what price a citizen can receive a service from the government.

However, the rating does not pay attention to the quality of the institutions. Based on the fact that the Russian court is faster than, let's say, the American one, it cannot be said (as the Doing Business Rating says) that agreements and property are better defended in Russia.

On the one side of the scale there are the technical parameters; on the other you have the entrepreneur's risk of losing his property in court. For investors the latter is more important.

RBTH: How do you evaluate the Russian government's crisis management at the moment?

S. A.: The right cure requires the right diagnosis. And with this there are problems. Russia's main problems are a poor investment climate and inadequate legal protection for private property. The government is mostly concentrating on external factors. It sees problems with the sanctions and is trying to make the economy autonomous, which actually can be harmful. Not one country has been able to create long-term growth with import substitution.

RBTH: How do you see the Russian economy in the next year?

S. A.: It's difficult to make short-term predictions. Basically, it is rare that an economy experiences a recession for more than two consecutive years without some kind of catastrophe. For this reason alone Russia should return to growth. The problem is that without a growth in investment this dynamic will be rather unstable.

RBTH: But the investment climate was not any better in the past. Yet there was growth.

S. A.: This began in the last 10 years and the Yukos case worsened matters even more [Yukos investors claim that the Russian court was not acting in good faith when criminal proceedings against Yukos resulted in bankruptcy. Shareholders are trying to win back more than $100 billion in various international court cases - RBTH].

The economy is rather unwieldy and depends not on the decision of several investors but on thousands of entrepreneurs. That is why events such as the destruction of Yukos gradually have an impact on the economy.

Before the beginning of the financial crisis Russian banks and enterprises could borrow abroad an amount equal to 7-10 percent of GDP. The economy was growing. After the crisis, in 2010-2011, Russia experienced a rebound effect and only in 2012 did we reach a pre-crisis level. From that time there has been no growth.

RBTH: Would an increase in oil prices help?

S. A.: Russia's dependence on oil is obviously great but it shouldn't be overestimated. If the price reaches $100 certainly things will get better. For a year or two. But in principle nothing will change.

The government's strategy cannot be based, bluntly speaking, on weather forecasts. What's necessary is the improvement of framework conditions for doing business and the increase of legal protection, guaranteed by an independent judiciary. For this, political competition and an independent media are fundamental. Without them it will be difficult for the Russian economy to get out of the quagmire.

His story

Sergei Aleksashenko is Russia's former deputy minister of finance and former deputy governor of the Russian Central Bank. A previous scholar-in-residence in the Carnegie Moscow Center's Economic Policy Program, he is currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

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 #11
Forbes.com
December 16, 2015
Russia Might Have Made Budget Blunder
By Kenneth Rapoza

Russian president Vladimir Putin signed the 2016 budget into law on Tuesday. His math may be off. Way off.

Why the Russian government believes oil will rise next year to an average of $50 is anybody's guess. The world's biggest oil and gas producers are not retreating from production. The U.S. is producing. Russia is producing. The Saudis are sucking the desert dry. And Iran is expected to come on line next year. Oil is now under $40. There is no indication anywhere among those oil producers of slowing down. Everyone is willingly contributing to petroleum's oversupply.

Russia budgeted its 2016 economy based on $50 oil prices, down from an $80 budgeted oil price in 2015. Worth noting, Russia had to knock $20 off that budget mid-year, redoing the budget to account for $60 oil. It didn't take too long before oil fell another $20. Has Russia learned nothing? It is probably wiser to prepare for worst case scenarios than base-case ones. The base case of oil recovering next year to a $50 average looks more like the miracle case.

Russia is willing to accent a budget deficit of 3% of GDP next year, or are $33 billion.

Inflation in Russia is still expected to hover around 6.5% to 7% from current levels of 15%. But if oil weakens to the low $30s, the ruble will surely follow. A weaker ruble will put the central bank's inflation target on hold, because that makes imports more expensive. Unless Russia can replace those imports with locally made goods, Russian companies will be spending more rubles for euro and dollar denominated goods from abroad. A weaker currency increases inflation.

The ruble fairly closely tracks the fortunes of oil. The direction is the same, though oil tends to underperform. The iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil exchange traded fund (OIL) is down 52% in the last 12 months while the ruble is down just 17%. Over the last three months, the ruble slipped 5.2% against the dollar, while the iPath Oil ETF is down 22.7%.

Putin's presidential aide, Andrei Belousov, said yesterday that the government is aware that oil will probably never see $50 again. "We think there is reason to believe that this may last quite a while," he said of oil under $40.

So why budget your economy based on oil at $50? If oil averages below that, which Belousov and market consensus believes, Russia may actually miss its deficit target of 3% next year.

The good news is that Russia is unlikely to go broke.

It has over $350 billion in reserves. The deficit as projected would account for just 10% of that.

The government also put a limit on foreign debt for 2017, which stands at $55.1 billion, according to state media numbers.

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 #12
Forbes.com
December 16, 2015
Sanctions On Russia: They'll Be Around For Awhile
By Mark Adomanis

In a political and media environment that often seems to have a severe case of attention deficit disorder, where heroes and villains appear and disappear with shocking rapidity, the durability of the EU's anti-Russian economic sanctions is almost shocking.

First implemented in March 2014, and then strengthened and re-approved several times in the interim, the European Union's sanctions have caused some genuine pain and difficulty for the Russian Economy. In my estimation, the most painful measures, in terms of their impact on the average Russian citizen, have probably been the "self-sanctions" that Russia imposed on itself, but the EU has certainly exacerbated an already difficult economic situation and caused a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of people in Moscow. In other words if the goal is to make Russia "pay a price" for its adventurism in Ukraine the EU sanctions have done a reasonably good job.

But, as the Eurozone's never-ending economic crisis ought to remind us, the institutions that make and implement Europe-wide policies aren't in rude health at the moment. The EU is suffering through a systematic crisis of legitimacy and the Russia issue is a very divisive one. That is to say that different countries in the EU view the Russians very differently.

For example it's not at all clear why a relatively pro-Russian government like Hungary would be in agreement on the need for extended sanctions with rather more  straightforwardly anti-Russian one like Estonia. Cyprus and Poland, Italy and Latvia, Greece and Lithuania: these are not countries we would expect to follow the same "line" on Russia. Noting these huge differences in underlying opinion, a number of analysts have remarked on the relative fragility of the anti-Putin coalition, and have predicted that, with the tentative detente of recent months and the post-Paris focus on terrorism, the sanctions were likely coming to the end of their natural lifespan.

So when Italian Prime Minister Mateo Renzi said last week that the "package of sanctions will be reviewed" over the coming months, a lot of people thought that it presaged a full-scale shift in the EU's policy towards Russia. Russian state media certainly enjoyed Renzi's remarks, and such a public display of discord inspired a fair degree of consternation among foreign policy hawks.  

The most important voice in the debate however belongs to a certain Angela Merkel, and she isn't changing her mind. In what can only be seen as a quite deliberate rebuke of Renzi's freelancing, she pointedly noted in an address to the Bundestag that "a possible lifting of the sanctions against Russia is linked to the full implementation of the Minsk package. We are not there yet." This is entirely in keeping with all of Merkel's other words and actions over the past year and a half.

Merkel's determination, of course, does not mean that squabbling among the Europeans will cease. There's now an increasingly nasty squabble about a pending German-Russian gas pipeline that seems certain to draw lots of ire. But so long as the German government is firmly insistent on the need to sanction Russia (an insistence which has not  changed and seems unlikely to) the sanctions will continue. They won't be enthusiastically embraced by some of the more skeptical capitals like Athens, Rome, and Budapest, but the leaders of those respective countries aren't going to cause a big, unnecessary fight with Germany in order to help out Russia.

Sanctions have lasted, then, because in the current environment the are actually a perfect compromise policy between the various blocs within the EU. Many of the Eastern members want to aggressively invest in and subsidize Ukraine's ongoing reforms as well as provide it with substantial military assistance: they want the "Eastern Partnership" to be dramatically expanded and scaled up. Many Western members, on the other hand, want nothing to do with Ukraine, viewing it as a needless distraction from their far more pressing economic problems.

In this deeply polarized political environment, "helping" Ukraine by punishing Russia is roughly in the middle of the two sides. This is why such a seemingly divisive and unsteady position has been the EU's policy for nearly two years and while it won't change anytime soon.

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 #13
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 16, 2015
No Debate Allowed as EU Readies to Extend Russia Sanctions
EU diplomats and officials have outlined the undemocratic means by which the decision to extend the sanctions will be imposed
By Alexander Mercouris

Recently I wrote a piece for Russia Insider discussing how the EU really works.

I pointed out that the veto small states supposedly have over key EU decisions is a fiction.  

Decisions are made by a small group who decide things between themselves and who because they control the EU's bureaucracy can impose their decisions on everyone else.

An EU official - someone described as "close to the European Council" (the EU's main policy making body) has basically confirmed as much in an interview with the Russian news agency TASS.

The subject discussed was the sectoral sanctions the EU has imposed on Russia, which are due to expire on 31st January 2016.  

A political decision to extend the sanctions was made by the five big EU states - France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Spain - after consultations with the US at the G20 summit at Antaliya in Turkey.  

Italy subsequently delayed announcement of this decision saying more discussion was needed.

In my piece I said Italy's decision should not be taken seriously. The Italians were simply putting a marker down.

The source who has spoken to TASS has all but said the same thing. These are his words as TASS reports them:

"It is as simple as this: the EU Council has related the limiting measures with implementation of the Minsk accords.

"It is not an issue to be discussed, it is a political objective we have now. By and large, the Minsk accords are not implemented as of today, thus sanctions are to be extended. They say, for another six months.

"At present, the work continues at the level of working groups. The plans are, the EU ambassadors approve it (decision) in a written procedure, though later on the procedure was postponed (at Italy's insistence - AM) as the work still continues.

"Nobody is really in a hurry, since the sanctions expire only in late January.

"No, this topic is not on the agenda (of the European Council meeting on 14th December 2015 - AM).

"I do not think any discussion will take place, and the reason is very simple: the agreement is the sanctions will remain until the Minsk accords are implemented. In fact, there is nothing to discuss, which is clear to everyone.

"It is tough to say now on what day, as it is not clear yet what procedure will be used. But I do not think it will happen very soon. Anyway, there is quite a time to January 31.

"The very fact of the sanctions' extension is a ready decision now.

"Right, some EU countries speak for discussing the sanctions package at the level of ministers (including Italy, Luxembourg - TASS), others are ready to extend them automatically so that not to waste time discussing the Ukrainian crisis at the last meetings of this year, which will be aimed at settlement of many problems related to migration; however, as of today not a single EU country out of the list of 28 has spoken against extension of the limitation measures."

Though these comments say no more than what I previously reported, their cynicism still takes the breath away.

The sanctions are to go on being extended until the Minsk Accords are "fully implemented".  

No explanation is given as to what "fully implemented" means or who will decide that - especially since there is to be no discussion of the question (see below).  

It is the Ukrainians who are not implementing the Minsk Accords - a fact now acknowledged by everyone including the German and French governments.  Nonetheless it is the sanctions on Russia that are to be extended.  

Taken literally this gives Kiev a veto over when the sanctions will be lifted.

No discussion of whether or or not the sanctions are to be extended is to take place.  

The only question to be decided - by whom one wonders since there is to be no discussion? - is the purely bureaucratic one of whether there will be a simple announcement that the sanctions have been extended, or whether there will be a statement to that effect following a meeting of the EU Council of Ministers - where however the subject of the sanctions will not be discussed.

The source does say that no EU member state has "spoken against extending" the sanctions.

Since there is no discussion one wonders how he knows?

TASS also reports another almost identical conversation with another European diplomat:

"Another European diplomat also confirmed to TASS the sanctions 'are bound to be extended.'

"He said the issues of milder or tougher sanctions 'even have not been raised.'

"'Nobody is going to review each of the sanctions. This work is very effort-consuming, and it is not reasonable to begin it under the conditions, where the situation in the zone of the Ukrainian conflict has not changed radically in either direction,' he said."

Apparently even relaxing the sanctions is not going to be discussed because this is "very effort-consuming" - a bizarre comment given the pain the sanctions and Russia's counter sanctions are causing European businesses and European agriculture.

Though information about how the EU works today is abundant, it still surprises me that there is still so little awareness of this. Even alternative media rarely touches on the question.  

Instead one repeatedly comes across meaningless head counts of which countries supposedly oppose the sanctions as if that really mattered.

If the big five states agree that sanctions are to be extended, extended they will be. A decision to that effect will be published by the EU bureaucracy - which they control - as if all the EU states had agreed to it.  

None of the smaller EU states can veto this decision because - since it is not going to be discussed by the European Council or by the EU Council of Ministers - they are not being provided with a proper forum where they could exercise such a veto.  

If they publicly objected to the way the decision was made - or if they ever were to try to impose a veto whether through their permanent representative or at a meeting of the European Council or of the Council of Ministers - their objection and their veto would be simply ignored and would go unreported.  

There would however be serious repercussions, with threats made in private that their structural funds might be cut if they continued to rock the boat by publicly defying the official line.

Only two EU states are powerful enough to ensure their vetoes are always respected.  These are Germany and France.  Precisely because these two states control the EU they scarcely ever need to wield a veto since it barely conceivable that the European Council or the Council of Ministers would ever take a decision they objected to.

Italy and Spain are strong enough to be listened to, but are not strong enough to veto a decision by themselves without some support from other EU states save in very exceptional circumstances which scarcely ever arise.

Britain is in an intermediate position. It has shown that it can veto decisions relating to the EU's budget - to which it is a major contributor - but that it cannot veto anything else. The British have been unhappy about the process of EU integration the Germans and the French have been pursuing for the last twenty years ("ever closer union") but despite possessing a veto they have been unable to prevent it.

None of the other EU states has any power of veto at all. Even when their electorates have voted against EU decisions in elections or referendums their objections have been ignored.  

What invariably happens is that if the results of such elections or referendums go against what the EU authorities want, they simply overrule them (as was the case with Greece) or instruct the state that held the elections or the referendums to hold them again (as happened with Denmark and Ireland) until their people vote the "right" way.

This is how the EU works. To dispute it is to engage in denial.

It is why for all their cynicism the EU officials TASS spoke to are right: the sanctions against Russia will be extended before they expire on 31st January 2016 whatever objections some of the EU's smaller countries may have against them.

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#14
Consortiumnews.com
December 15, 2015
How 'Obscure' Bureaucrats Cause Wars
By Jonathan Marshall

Exclusive: Official Washington's anti-Russian "group think" is now so dominant that no one with career aspirations dares challenge it, a victory for "obscure" government bureaucrats, like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

History isn't just made by impersonal forces and "great men" or "great women." Sometimes relatively obscure men and women acting in key bureaucratic posts make a real difference.

Thus, the international crisis in Syria traces back in part to the decision of President Barack Obama's first ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, to reject peaceful rapprochement with the Damascus regime in favor of "radically redesign[ing] his mission" to promote anti-government protests that triggered the civil war in 2011.

In much the same way, Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland did her best to foment the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch against the democratically elected Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych, "while convincing the ever-gullible U.S. mainstream media that the coup wasn't really a coup but a victory for 'democracy,'" as journalist Robert Parry wrote last July.

Nuland, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and wife of neoconservative luminary Robert Kagan, helped achieve in Ukraine the kind of "regime change" that her husband had long promoted in the Middle East through the Project for a New American Century.

Nuland now has a new counterpart in the Department of Defense who bears close watching for signs of whether the Obama administration will keep escalating military confrontation with Russia over Eastern Europe, or look for opportunities to find common ground and ease tensions.

On Dec. 14, Dr. Michael Carpenter started work at the Pentagon as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, with added responsibilities for the Western Balkans and Conventional Arms Control. He replaced Evelyn Farkas, who stepped down in October.

Farkas was a firebrand who accused Russia of "shredding international law and conventions that have held firm for decades." In a call to arms straight out of the early Cold War, she wrote recently, "Russia's challenge is so fundamental to the international system, to democracy and free market capitalism that we cannot allow the Kremlin's policy to succeed in Syria or elsewhere."

In a remarkable display of "projection" - ascribing to others one's own motives and actions - she declared that "Russia has invaded neighboring countries, occupied their territory, and funded NGOs and political parties not only in its periphery but also in NATO countries." Its goal, she asserted, was nothing less than "breaking NATO, the European Union and transatlantic unity."

Farkas declared that the United States must continue its military buildup to deter Russia; provide "lethal assistance" to countries on Russia's periphery, including Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova; and step up economic sanctions "to pressure Russia . . . so that U.S. national security interests and objectives prevail."

With people like that helping to shape official policy over the past three years, it's no wonder U.S.-Russia relations have hit such a low point. Might her replacement, Michael Carpenter, take a less confrontational approach?

Carpenter moved to the Pentagon from the office of Vice President Joe Biden, where he was special adviser for Europe and Eurasia. Previously he ran the Russia desk at the National Security Council and spent several years in the Foreign Service.

Carpenter has kept a low public profile, with few publications or speeches to his name. One of his few quasi-public appearances was this April at a symposium on "Baltic Defense & Security After Ukraine: New Challenges, New Threats," sponsored by The Jamestown Foundation.

His prepared remarks were off the record, but they were greeted warmly - "you've hit it right on the head" - by discussant Kurt Volker, former NATO ambassador under President George W. Bush and foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain. McCain has demanded that the United States arm Ukraine to fight Russia and he helped inflame the Ukraine crisis by meeting with the anti-Semitic leader of the country's right-wing nationalist party for photo-ops in 2013.

During a short Q&A session at the symposium, captured on video, Carpenter declared that "Russia has completely shredded the NATO-Russian Founding Act," a choice of words strikingly reminiscent of Farkas's denunciation of Russia for "shredding international law." He accused Russia of "pursuing a neo-imperial revanchist policy" in Eastern Europe, inflammatory words that Sen. McCain lifted for an op-ed column in the Washington Post a couple of months later. Carpenter also indicated that he would personally favor permanent NATO bases in the Baltic states if such an escalation would not fragment the alliance.

The fact that Carpenter chose to make one of his few appearances at the The Jamestown Foundation is itself highly telling. According to IPS Right Web, which tracks conservative think tanks, the foundation's president, Glen Howard, "is the former executive director of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, a largely neoconservative-led campaign aimed at undermining Russia by bolstering U.S. support for militant nationalist and Islamist movements in the North Caucasus." Howard has also been a consultant to the Pentagon and to "major oil companies operating in Central Asia and the Middle East."

The foundation was formed in 1984 by "a leading Cold Warrior close to the Reagan administration," with the blessing of CIA Director William Casey, to provide extra funding for Soviet bloc defectors to supplement meager stipends offered by the CIA. Its board members today include former CIA Director Michael Hayden, and previous board members included Dick Cheney and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a prominent neoconservative activist.

All this matters hugely for several reasons. Increased confrontation with Russia, particularly along its highly sensitive Western border, will continue to poison relationships with Moscow that are crucial for achieving U.S. interests ranging from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria. Ratcheting up a new Cold War will divert tens or hundreds of billions of dollars into military spending at the expense of domestic priorities.

Most important, the action-reaction cycle between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe is dramatically increasing chances for an unwanted, unneeded and disastrous war involving the world's great nuclear powers. Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network, noted in a recent commentary for the Arms Control Association:

"Despite protestations by both sides that the exercises are aimed at no particular adversary, it is clear that each side is exercising with the most likely war plans of the other in mind. The Russian military is preparing for a confrontation with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a confrontation with Russia. This does not mean either side has the political intent to start a war, but it does mean that both believe a war is no longer unthinkable. . . .

"Too few appear to recognize that the current cocktail of incidents, mistrust, changed military posture, and nuclear signaling is creating the conditions in which a single event or combination of events could result in a NATO-Russian war, even if neither side intends it."

In such a way, the actions of relatively minor figures in history - if their provocations are not reined in - can lead the world to cataclysm.

Jonathan Marshall is an independent researcher living in San Anselmo, California.

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#15
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 15, 2015
Delusional Gessen and Khordokovsky Call for Putin's Overthrow...Again
Two of the West's most darling Russian opposition 'leaders' have launched brand-new appeals for ridding the world of the nefarious Putin - including starving the whole population of Moscow
By Lisa Marie White
[Text with links here http://russia-insider.com/en/delusional-gessen-and-khordokovsky-call-putins-overthrowagain/ri11850]

Masha Gessen's opinion piece for the International New York Times, "A Russian Revolt, Delayed," features her lamenting the fact that Vladimir Putin has yet to be overthrown in a mass protest/violent coup/cookie war. Apparently, no one gave her the memo that very few people in Russia actually want their government overthrown.

That can't be. She just spoke with anti-Putin activist Leonid Volkov:

"He [Volkov] was predicting the regime's impending collapse when he glanced at his iPhone and said, 'In fact, right now, as we speak, the long-haul truck drivers are blocking the beltway' around Moscow. The protest had been awaited for weeks, and it was expected to be big, possibly historic."

Nowhere in the article does Gessen admit that Putin's administration is actually nowhere near collapse, but she does go on to call for the protesting truck drivers to - get this - blockade Moscow because she thinks this could lead to Putin's downfall:  

"With the beltway closed to them, the drivers could still blockade Moscow by clogging the dozen or so highways that lead to it. They have the numbers to do this. But they may lack the level of organization and trust necessary to carry off such a complicated protest."

Yes, gentle readers, you read it right here. Masha Gessen is ready to fight Putin right down to the last Russian. What does it matter of Muscovites are cut off from work, school, friends, and loved ones? That's notwithstanding the silliness of the proposal - there's a rather large international airport in Moscow, and it is connected to St. Petersburg and other metropolitan areas by rail. No seriously, a blockade of Moscow would definitely bring Putin to heel. That worked so well in Crimea.

"Even if they overcome those obstacles, state-controlled media will likely continue to ignore them, allowing Mr. Putin to continue ignoring them as well. And if it's not televised, the protest will not be a revolution."

Obviously, she is hoping these protests will lead to something greater, which is highly unlikely. What Masha Gessen is suggesting would be like McDonald's workers blockading Pennsylvania Avenue until Obama signs an executive order to raise their wages, and then D.C. citizens joining the protest and demanding his resignation because of an angry mob. That is how insane she sounds.

And why do the truck drivers need to switch their goal from a change in legislation to demanding Putin step down? Because human rights/democracy/freedom (circle one). Masha, here's some food for thought: You lived in Russia until 2013.  If you weren't arrested for calling Putin a dictator, he's probably not a dictator.

Gessen goes on to complain that the truck driver protests aren't covered in Russian state media. Gee, that's funny, Masha. I read about the protests here and here and here.

Her rant's main trope is an odd allusion to Gil Scott Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," and she uses up about a page of copy demonstrating that she completely misunderstands  the point of the song. How, she laments, can the long-awaited Russian Spring happen if protests are not televised?

It's true that Russia's Channel 1 has come under fire from Russian netizens for their limited coverage, but Gessen must be unaware that Russians also have this magical information tube called the internet, and they have taken it upon themselves to complain to the network. Kids these days with the Google.

Russian authorities have made concessions to the truckers.

The truckers definitely have some valid concerns that deserve some intelligent discussion in Western media.  The downfall of Tsar Putin has never been on their list of demands.

It's worth noting that the protests have been going on for a month and the reincarnation of Stalin there in the Kremlin hasn't imprisoned or publicly executed anyone for protesting a tax hike. One fatality occurred because a truck crashed into a curb. So perhaps Masha Gessen ought to take her messianic crusading elsewhere. Gessen has to know what she is suggesting is unrealistic. When that fails to materialize, she can fall back on her usual complaints about Russians and Putin.

The protests are beg a more serious question. Are Russians only delaying their inevitable revolution merely because they fear the collapse of their society for the fourth time in the last hundred years? Don't worry, old girl. Uncle Mikhail Khordorkovsky's got you covered.

Khordokovsky has crawled back from out under his rock to testify as a friendly witness at HUAC give a press conference. The usual suspects in Western media, taking a break from their freak-outs over Ukraine and Syria, are applauding the felon/murder suspect's comments. (Note: In the West, billionaire criminal = hero.)

So, Russia, here's the deal. The West's favorite fraudster, embezzler, and tax evader who helped plunge your country into poverty and desperation 20 years ago is calling for your government to be overthrown against your collective will in the name of...wait for it...democracy. The good news is that they are going to make sure it's peaceful.

No worries, guys. The people who were in charge of the peaceful transitions of power in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, and (fingers crossed) Syria and Yemen will make sure you get the nice revolution. The velvety one. And we promise not to let your nuclear arsenal fall into the hands of terrorists.

'Cause, you know, we're, like, totally responsible and stuff.

So please join Masha Gessen's and Mikhail Khordokovsky's appeals to donate pitchforks to the oppressed Russian populace.  Russians will be trained in proper pitchfork handling and unruly mob protocol, and unlike previous reader-funded regime change programs, will be discouraged from getting stabby. Drones optional.

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 #16
Christian Science Monitor
December 15, 2015
Kerry in Moscow as pressure grows for US-Russia compromise on Syria
If the United States and Russia can overcome their two main sticking points - on 'moderate' rebels and Assad's role in future talks - Syrian diplomacy can move forward, analysts say.
By Fred Weir, Correspondent

MOSCOW - Secretary of State John Kerry met with Russian leaders here Tuesday amid broad smiles and firm handshakes - and some hope of breaking a deadlock over how to settle Syria's nearly five-year-old civil war.

Both sides say momentum is building ahead of the next key meeting of countries with a stake in the devastating conflict, to be held in New York Friday.

Moscow and Washington are stuck on two main points: how to separate "moderate" rebels from the "terrorists," with only the former being granted a place at the projected peace talks; and how to define the role of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in that process and provide assurances that he and his top officials will leave power at some reasonable point. The latter is the single demand that unites the entire Syrian opposition.

Analysts say it is critical for Russia to acknowledge that "moderate" rebels exist if it is to play a credible role as mediator at any upcoming talks. Moscow will also have to bring along its ally, Mr. Assad, who insisted over the weekend he would not sit down with any opponents engaged in armed rebellion.

If the US and Russia can hammer out an understanding, experts say, there is a chance to move forward with plans drawn up in Vienna last month for a cease-fire, talks between Assad's regime and at least some of his armed opponents, and then constitutional reforms and fresh elections.

That's a pretty tall order, but analysts say the US and Russia may be inching toward compromise.

"Something has to give," says Sergei Strokan, foreign affairs columnist with the Moscow daily Kommersant. "Both sides are reluctant to back down, and each has a lot of pressure on him not to. But the meetings are happening in great numbers, and expectations are growing."

Russia trying to change the narrative

This is Mr. Kerry's 20th meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, so far this year, and his second face-to-face with President Vladimir Putin. President Barack Obama has met with Mr. Putin three times since September alone.

Since Russia began its campaign of airstrikes in Syria more than two months ago, it has gradually expanded the scope of its attacks, including cruise missile salvos and raids against Syrian rebels with giant Russia-based strategic bombers. Military officials in Moscow have denied persistent rumors that they intend to introduce ground forces, or open a second major airbase in the country.

But Moscow has been roundly criticized in the West for bombing "moderate" rebels who might be suitable partners for peace talks. In an apparent effort to change that narrative, Russia's defense ministry claimed Monday that it is providing air support to elements of the US-backed Free Syrian Army in their battle against the self-declared Islamic State and Al Qaeda-linked forces. If true, that would represent a key shift, say experts.

"There have been contacts between the Free Syrian Army and Russia, but I haven't heard of them moving forward," says Alexander Golts, an independent military expert. "But the FSA is not really a single, united army. It's a lot of different groups, and Russia may be trying to engage with some of them."

Limiting Assad's future

There are some indications the FSA is deeply fragmented and exhausted, and that some factions might be induced to negotiate with the Assad regime. But Mr. Golts says he doubts Russia has sufficient intelligence resources on the ground in Syria to differentiate between factions and identify those that might be influenced.

"This kind of covert operations are very delicate and complex. I just don't think we have the human resources down there to pull it off," he says. "I suspect this is mostly just talk."

Analysts say neither Russia nor the US will succeed in bringing any major rebel forces to the bargaining table unless there is clear agreement that Assad must leave, or at least not be a candidate in projected new elections.

Russian officials have insisted that they are not "wedded" to Assad, but they have never spelled out conditions under which he would go.

"There is not a single substantively new statement out of Moscow to suggest compromise on Assad," says Mr. Strokan. "And why should Assad agree to go? The Russian intervention has bolstered his regime, and removed the specter of imminent defeat. It's very positive that Russia and the US seem to be sincerely wrestling with this, at last, but it's still an almost impossible conundrum."

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 #17
www.rt.com
December 16, 2015
'We see Syria fundamentally very similarly' - Kerry after talks with Putin, Lavrov

Russia and the US have agreed on a number of 'critical' issues, particularly with regard to Syria, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following talks in Moscow.

"The US stands ready to work with Russia," Kerry told journalists after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Lavrov on Tuesday. He added that the two countries' officials had "a productive day" and the discussions had been "constructive."

"Despite our countries' differences, we demonstrated that when the United States and Russia pull together in the same direction, progress can be made," Kerry said.

Calling the effort "good diplomacy," the top US diplomat said that the whole global community benefits from such cooperation.

Moscow and Washington confirmed their previous agreements to work together to fight "the evil" of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, Lavrov told journalists, adding that some "practical steps" to advance this effort had been agreed upon at the meeting.

"We confirmed the agreements reached by the Russian and US militaries, including the agreements that also apply to the US-led coalition working against ISIL, and in practical terms agreed on some further steps which will help make our parallel work more coordinated and effective," the Russian foreign minister said.

"We see Syria fundamentally very similarly, we want the same outcomes, we see the same dangers, we understand the same challenges," Kerry said. He added that the two nations have been "honest with differences," but in general agree that the crisis in the Middle Eastern country "requires political process."

"Russia and the United States agree that you can't defeat Daesh without also de-escalating the fight in Syria," the Secretary of State said, adding that both Moscow and Washington are "focused on political process" and that "Syrians will be making decisions on the future of Syria."

Kerry also said that Moscow and Washington have found "common ground" on which opposition groups should participate in the Syrian peace talks.

RT's Ilya Petrenko confronted Kerry with a question asking him about threats to isolate Russia, which were repeatedly voiced by Washington in the past. The head of the US State Department replied that there was no such US policy in place.

"We don't seek to isolate Russia as a matter of policy," Kerry said. "But we have consistently said that the world is better off when Russia and the US find common ground and an ability to be able to work together."

Meanwhile, Lavrov has confirmed that a meeting of world powers on Syria penciled in for New York on Friday would go ahead.

A project for a resolution on Syria is expected to be ready for presentation to the UN Security Council after Friday's meeting, Lavrov said.

"We met here today not as Russia and the US behind the back of other members of the international group on Syrian support, but as co-chairs of this group," Lavrov said, adding that only an "inclusive format" and the collective efforts of all the members of the Syria group can lead to success in solving the crisis in the region.

Russia and the US are seeking solutions to the most critical crises together, Putin said earlier at the start of the meeting, adding that he "is happy for the opportunity to meet and talk."

"Today you've had comprehensive talks at Russia's Foreign Ministry," Putin said to Kerry, referring to an earlier meeting with Lavrov. "Minister Lavrov has reported to me in detail on your proposals and on some issues that require additional discussions. I'm very happy with the opportunity to meet with you and talk."

'Good discussion about Ukraine'

The crisis in Ukraine was also on the agenda, with both Russian and US officials reiterating their support for the Minsk agreements.

"There are concrete ideas on how to most actively implement" the peace deal in the region, Lavrov said, adding that Moscow hopes to remain in close contact with its US partners concerning the matter.

When obligations stated in the accord are met, "US and EU sanctions can be rolled back," Kerry said, adding that he had had "a good discussion about Ukraine" with President Putin.

"It is always better to be able to sit down in person and spend the significant amount of time that we were able to do today to hash out details and not feel the pressure of another meeting at a multi-level event," the top US diplomat told reporters after more than three and a half hours of talks with Putin and Lavrov, after thanking them "for the amount of time both of them have afforded."

US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, the White House National Security Council's senior director for Russia Celeste Wallander and US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft were also present at the Kremlin meeting. On Russia's side, Sergey Lavrov and Putin's aide Yury Ushakov also attended.

This year, Kerry has already paid a visit to Putin in Russia. In May, the two met at the Russian president's Sochi residence. That meeting was originally planned for some 90 minutes, but lasted for over four hours.

Prior to the Kremlin meeting, Kerry was spotted wandering along the tourist hot-spot Arbat Street in central Moscow. The US Secretary of State did some souvenir shopping and was warmly welcomed by locals and fellow visitors who recognized him in the street.

"I want to wish that the Russian people and the American people are good friends and that our countries come together in peace," Kerry said when chatting to a group of people.

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 #18
Military.com
December 14, 2015
US-Backed Syrian Rebel Group on Verge of Collapse
By Slobodan Lekic

IRBID, Jordan -- The main Western-backed Arab rebel group in Syria appears on the verge of collapse because of low morale, desertions, and distrust of its leaders by the rank and file, threatening U.S. efforts to put together a ground force capable of defeating the Islamic State and negotiating an end to the Syrian civil war.

"After five years of this war, the people are just tired ... and so are our fighters," said Jaseen Salabeh, a volunteer in the Free Syrian Army, which was formed in September 2011 by defectors from the army of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Free Syrian Army, or FSA, some of whose members are trained by the Central Intelligence Agency, is the biggest and most secular of the scores of rebel groups fighting the Assad government. Although defeating the Islamic State is the focus of Western attention, the U.S. believes there can be no lasting peace in Syria, and no elimination of the Islamic State there, as long as Assad remains in power.

In order to deal with both the Islamic State and the future of Assad, Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have brokered a plan to bring the Syrian government, which Russia supports, and all "moderate" rebel groups to the negotiating table in Vienna next month. The aim is to build a coalition to wage a counterterrorism campaign against the Islamic State militants and prepare for democratic elections within the next 18 months.

With an estimated 35,000 fighters, the FSA remains the biggest rebel group and is a key element in the U.S. strategy. Islamic State fighters are believed to number about 30,000 but spread over a wider area of both Syria and Iraq.

If the FSA can't be relied on as a strong partner, however, the U.S. and its Western partners would have to turn to an assortment of smaller hardline Islamic militias -- backed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar -- that the West fears are too militant to reconcile with the secular government. Kurdish rebels, known as the YPG, have fought well in Kurdish areas but are not considered a viable option in Arab parts of the country.

Unlike the Islamic State and other more extremist groups, however, the FSA has failed to achieve any significant victories or create a "liberated" zone of its own. On many occasions, its former fighters say, FSA units have cooperated closely with the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, which is strong in the north and shares the same battlespace as the FSA in southern Syria.

"The lack of battlefield success has mitigated against them," Ed Blanche, a Beirut-based member of London's International Institute for Strategic Studies and an expert on Middle Eastern wars, said of the FSA. "They haven't been getting significant (outside) support because they haven't been showing results."

Among other problems, Salabeh and others say, FSA fighters are losing faith in their own leaders.

"They regularly steal our salaries," said Salabeh, who came to this city in northern Jordan after being wounded in battle and now intends to stay here. "We're supposed to get $400 a month, but we only actually receive $100."

He also complained of lack of support for those killed or wounded in battle. Fighters who lost legs in the fighting were reduced to begging inside the massive refugee camps in northern Jordan.

"If somebody is wounded, they just dump him in Jordan and abandon him," he said. "Widows of martyred fighters also receive nothing after their deaths."

As a result, many FSA men in southern Syria were abandoning the group, usually leaving for Jordan or joining the estimated 15,000-strong Nusra Front, according to Saleh and other Syrians interviewed in northern Jordan. By contrast, the Nusra Front reportedly pays its fighters $1,000 a month and cares for its wounded members, paying their medical bills and providing for the families of those killed in combat.

The situation has gotten so bad, Salabeh said, that some FSA fighters are questioning the reason for continuing the conflict. He said a growing number believe the time has come for a cease-fire, even it means cooperating with Assad.

"After all, Bashar isn't all that bad," Salabeh said.

Karim Jamal Sobeihi, a refugee from southern Syria and a self-described FSA supporter, said the opposition's main problem was that various groups owed their allegiance to foreign governments that provide the money and, therefore, the rebels cannot agree on unified positions. This included the FSA, which itself consists of many different factions, he said. That made the radicals -- with their Islamist ideology and independent streak -- more attractive to those willing to fight the regime, he said.

"There is total disunity. Syria has become a battleground for America, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries and terrorists of all kinds," Sobeihi said.

Analysts in Jordan and Lebanon, which both host huge numbers of Syrian refugees, have blamed the FSA for allowing the revolution that broke out in early 2011, to be taken over by hardline jihadist groups.

Hisham Jaber, a retired Lebanese general and military analyst, said the international focus on fighting the Islamic State rather than ousting Assad indicates the West and its Arab allies recognize that Assad cannot be overthrown by military means -- especially after Russia's intervention on the Syrian president's behalf.

This has in turn demoralized FSA troops, Jaber told Stars and Stripes during an interview in Beirut. He said FSA units in both the north and south were cooperating more closely with the better-organized and better-funded Nusra Front, regardless of its al-Qaida connections.

"In contrast, Nusra is winning the hearts and minds of the people, and positioning themselves as moderates despite their al-Qaida links," said Elias Hanna, a former Lebanese general and professor of geopolitics at the American University of Beirut.

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 #19
Bloomberg
December 15, 2015
Ukraine's Politics Descend Into Slapstick
By Leonid Bershidsky

Less than a week after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden asked Ukraine's political leaders to play nice, the quiet war between the teams of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and President Petro Poroshenko has turned publicly and comically violent.

The situation is growing increasingly reminiscent of Ukraine's previous attempt to break with Russia's dominance and embark on a European path. From 2005 to 2010, then President Viktor Yuschenko's faction clashed repeatedly with that of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, rampant corruption undermined the economy and reforms proved fake. This led to the election of President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted last year in a bloody uprising.

Biden's plea was timed to preempt a crucial moment: On Dec. 11, Yatsenyuk's year-long immunity from dismissal as prime minister expired, rendering him vulnerable to political attack. Biden warned Poroshenko that Ukraine's Western allies want to avoid the political upheaval that Yatsenyuk's firing would entail. Without the support of the prime minister's faction -- the second biggest in parliament -- the ruling coalition would fall apart, triggering an early election. The resulting campaigning could sideline reforms, sorely testing the patience of impoverished and often armed voters.

On Dec. 12, Yatsenyuk was defending his government's record in parliament when legislator Oleg Barna, a member of the presidential faction, approached him with a bunch of flowers. Nonplussed, Yatsenyuk took the bouquet. Barna then lifted him up in a body lock and attempted to drag him from the rostrum. Yatsenyuk clung to it, so Barna changed his grip, seizing the prime minister between his legs. Legislators from the Yatsenyuk party were already running to intercept Barna like a rugby team in suits. Soon, fists were flying all over the floor. Many Ukrainian legislators have risen through the ranks in mob-controlled coal and steel towns, and their Brioni attire is only a thin veneer.

"Possibly, this wasn't a very European way to act, but I couldn't do otherwise," Barna later explained. "If he won't leave of his own accord, people will carry him out."

That's not all. On Monday, Poroshenko called together his National Reform Council. According to some reports, his aim was to follow Biden's advice, erase the Barna incident and announce that he was going to work together with Yatsenyuk. It didn't turn out that way.

One participant was Mikheil Saakashvili, former president of Georgia and now the Poroshenko-appointed governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine, who earlier this month accused Yatsenyuk of involvement in financial schemes that, he claimed, drained $5 billion a year from Ukraine's coffers. Saakashvili's presence angered Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, a Yatsenyuk ally. According to an account he posted on Facebook, Avakov asked Saakashvili about a recently leaked video purporting to show a secret meeting between the governor and a Russian businessman interested in buying an Odessa chemical factory.

"The Odessa governor grew hysterical and started screaming at me," Avakov wrote. "I refrained from hitting him and splashed some water in his face." The minister went on to call the governor "a militant scumbag who is looking for a pretext to resign with a loud bang, having failed in his job."

Saakashvili's version is, of course, different. He gave a press conference after the incident, claiming that Avakov got mad after the governor openly called Yatsenyuk and his team corrupt, that Avakov "attempted to toss a glass at him" and demanded that he leave "their country." "I am here with serious intentions and for the long haul," Saakashvili said, holding up his recently acquired Ukrainian passport. "I'm not going to leave them alone."

Both Avakov and Saakashvili demanded that Poroshenko's administration release a video of the meeting, which had been filmed. Presidential spokesman Svatoslav Tsegolko refused. "Such street-style altercations disgrace the country," he wrote on Facebook. He was not alone in his embarrassment. "What is going on is truly a shame, a disgrace, a paucity of both spirit and ideas," Volodymyr Omelyan, who resigned last week as deputy transport minister, wrote angrily. "I'd resign again today if I could."

Bureaucrats drafted from the private sector after Ukraine's "Revolution of Dignity" are probably tempted to leave, too. Some, though, are trying to keep calm and carry on. "The government has been accused of corruption, and it denies the charges," said Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, a U.S. citizen responsible for Ukraine's debt reduction deal with private creditors. "Though this is a coalition government, we work as one team. Don't try to split it."

Poroshenko can't say the same, even though he should. If he openly backs Yatsenyuk, Saakashvili may revolt and challenge him. The explosive Georgian is popular in Ukraine, and has more political experience. The president would probably prefer Saakashvili to Yatsenyuk as prime minister. Siding with the Odessa governor, though, would mean ousting Yatsenyuk , triggering an early election and irritating the U.S., where Yatsenyuk and Jaresko are popular figures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's minions are enjoying the show. "The spiders are beginning to devour each other," Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian parliament's  foreign affairs committee, tweeted on Tuesday. A dysfunctional, scandal-ridden Ukrainian government is just what Putin needs. Unfortunately, the combatants appear to be past caring. Saakashvili sees himself as a fearless anti-corruption crusader, though he hasn't accused anyone on Porosheko's team of graft despite numerous opportunities. Yatsenyuk is trying to keep his job and defend his record. Poroshenko is torn between remaining on good terms with the U.S. and consolidating power.

If this circus continues, another revolt could break out. The politicians in Kiev ought to realize that the whole country is watching. Their primitive aggression and venality could quickly become too much to endure.

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 #20
Kyiv Post
December 15, 2015
Avakov tosses water in Saakashvili's face
By Olena Goncharova

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov threw a glass of water in the face of Mikheil Saakashvili, Odesa Oblast governor and ex-Georgian president in Kyiv on Dec. 15.

A session of the National Reforms Council ended with Odesa Oblast governor and ex-Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili getting a glass of water thrown in his face by Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov on Dec. 14.

Meanwhile, President Petro Poroshenko's office has refused to publish a video recording of the incident public despite calls from both parties to do so.

The water tussle erupted during a discussion of the Odesa Portside Plant, a major state-owned chemical producer whose sale the government has postponed numerous times. It recently has been at the center of numerous corruption allegations.

After Avakov asked Saakashvili about whether he had any links to Russian businessman Dmitri Mazepin, who owns the Uralchem fertilizer company, the pair engaged in a heated exchange of insults and curse words. Avakov's comment was apparently a veiled accusation of corruption against Saakashvili, who has repeatedly accused both Avakov and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of profiting from graft schemes.

Both - Avakov and Saakashvili - later called on the presidential administration to publish the video footage of the National Reforms Council's meeting.

However, Dmytro Shymkiv who is the deputy head of the presidential office, said in a TV interview that the video won't be publicly released, because "it's a personal matter of these two politicians."

Shymkiv, who previously headed Microsoft in Ukraine, also said it's up to the president to decide on whether to suspend Avakov, Saakashvili and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk from the National Reforms Council.

The incident provided a dramatic display not only of lingering suspicions of corruption at the highest levels, but also a deepening rift between Saakashvili on the one hand and Avakov and Yatsenyuk on the other.

While Saakashvili denied Avakov's allegations after the spat on Dec. 14, Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko on Dec. 15 posted video footage purporting to show Saakashvili and Mazepin meeting in Odesa.

The footage, originally uploaded on Dec. 7, prompted a statement from Uralchem on Dec. 9 in which the company denied that such a meeting took place and called it an "orchestrated provocation."

"Dmitri Mazepin doesn't know Mikheil Saakashvili and the Uralchem company has no interest in buying any assets in Ukraine," read a statement published by the Lenta.Ru news agency.

Shevchenko said that Avakov wouldn't resign after the incident.

Avakov's accusation against Saakashvili caused him to "break into hysterics," the interior minister wrote on his Facebook page following the row.

He implied that Saakashvili's statements against corruption were little more than a show.

"You need to put corrupt people in jail, not just talk about them. You need to work, not talk!" Avakov wrote.

Meanwhile, Saakashvili said during a briefing after the meeting that Avakov had claimed he was corrupt and abusing power.

"(Avakov) started telling me about (some) stolen billions - which is a favorite phrasing of Russian propagandists - and told me to 'leave the country,'" Saakashvili was quoted as saying.

Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili to run Odessa in May. He was seen by many experts as a figure who might have success at rooting out corruption in the region. Saakashvili has been involved in an ongoing public spat with Yatsenyuk for the last several months, publicly accusing the prime minister and his associates of corruption.

At the meeting on Dec. 15, he also mentioned alleged links among Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, Mykola Martynenko, a lawmaker from the prime minister's People's Front party, and the Odesa Portside Plant.

Other accusations Saakashvili made during the meeting included Avakov's alleged financing of volunteer armed groups.

The Interior Ministry denied on Dec. 15 that Avavov runs or finances private paramilitary groups.

"He (Avakov) dared to make absolutely direct threats against me. This is a man who exercises practical control over paramilitary units," Saakashvili was quoted as saying.

"Then Yatsenyuk called me a visiting performer," Saakashvili said, adding that he has no plans to leave Ukraine and "won't give them a chance to keep robbing the country."

Poroshenko, who was present at the meeting, hasn't commented on the situation so far.

However, his spokesman Svyatoslav Tseholko has scolded Avakov and Saakashvili for the water-throwing and arguing. "Such street-style clashes shame the country," Tseholko said in a Facebook post.

Tseholko was not available for further comment.

Political analyst Vitaly Bala of the Situations Modeling Agency believes it would be good for Poroshenko to suspend both Avakov and Saakashvili pending an investigation into the matter.

He also said the accusations made by Saakashvili should be considered by the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office.

"It could be a good test for them - whether they manage to find out the truth or not," Bala told the Kyiv Post. "Even though the situation is a shame and doesn't do any good for the country's image, it's a good thing, because it shows that a clean-up in the highest (political) echelons can start."

Taras Berezovets, head of the Berta Communications consulting company, was less forgiving, however. According to him, no one - not even a political figure like Saakashvili - should directly accuse a prime minister without concrete facts.

"It's time either to show documents or resign," Berezovets said.

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 #21
Fort Russ
http://fortruss.blogspot.ca
December 14, 2015
US has a plan if Ukraine collapses -- Ischenko
Ukraine is no longer sustainable and no longer a state, but keeps on being a state only to the extent that it is recognized by international players.

Россия новая
http://russnov.ru/rostislav-ishhenko-u-vashingtona-est-plan-v-sluchae-raspada-ukrainy-14-12-2015/
Translated from Russian by Tom Winter

The president of the Center for System Analysis and Forecasting, Rostislav Ischenko, explains why it better suits the world power-centers to keep Ukraine in its present state, in which the power is of the regional elites, and what sort of plan Washington has in case of the collapse of Ukraine.

In politics you can never talk about any outcome; it can not leave off on December 31 and re-start on January 1st. Those processes, which began earlier, will go on in 2016. If we talk about the stability of the Ukrainian state, it is no longer sustainable and no longer a state, but keeps on being a state only to the extent that it is recognized by international players. For Brussels and Paris, and Berlin, it is unprofitable to preserve Ukrainian statehood, but to admit its dissolution/destruction is an even more losing option.

Once we admit its destruction, the question immediately arises, what to do next. Necessarily, create something new to replace it, but that would need a clear understanding of how to create, what to create, and what orientation the new formation would have. But the world's major players have completely different views on the subject.

If the US, the EU and the IMF have not found 3 billion to pay for Russian debts, they simply won't find the tens and hundreds of billions over 5-10 years for a new project.

At the same time, everyone understands that the regime is not something that is sustainable -- it isn't alive anymore, the local elections in Ukraine have shown that the regime can not compete even with regional elites: In all regions the elections returned local and regional elites. Therefore Biden, when he came to Ukraine, said that there was no longer a need to hold elections, let everything remain as it is.

His words relate to the fact that the politicians of the US, who have more education and experience than their Ukrainian counterparts, are well aware that any subsequent elections will lead to the disintegration of Ukraine, international community notwithstanding. This process can slow down, but it cannot be ignored, and though it may be possible to to maintain the integrity of the state with intravenous injections, it is no longer possible to stop the process of decay and reverse it.

The sprawl is inevitable, although the world's centers of power can pretend that Ukraine exists as a country, for some time, even if nominally. A state is not just an anthem, a coat of arms, a flag, and international recognition. In the very fact, it is an internal consensus, and it is possible only when the internal power meets the needs of its people. It does not just collect taxes from you, but you know that your taxes are accomplishing something.

Now there is such a situation where the central government has lost the function that it can play in the interests of the whole country, and is no longer able to attract external funding. The economy is in ruins, and making a budget through taxes and fees is impossible. The center has lost its importance for the regions and the process of decay depends only on the uptake of the regional elites, and their real and powerful capabilities. As crumbled as at the time of the Kievan Rus. The center only takes, but gives nothing in return.

Though giving money to Kiev, the regions decide all questions on their own - they protect themselves, solve the problems of the administration, and even are set to enter foreign markets on their own. And why do they need Poroshenko?

The collapse is hampered by two things in one basket. First, the US interest -- that controls the Ukrainian government and the general policy -- is to maintain a single player, which they can show to the world and say: here is Ukraine. Not Odessa, Zaporizhia, Lviv, Zhytomyr, but the whole Ukraine. The other is the spastic rhinestones of the local regional elites in the face of the Americans. But the regional elites do not realize that the Americans depend on them to a much greater extent than they depend on the Americans: If Washington will face a collapse in Ukraine, they will play with Filatov in Dnepropetrovsk, Baloga in Transcarpathia, Saakashvili in Odessa and just forget about Kiev. Of course, it is more profitable to play with Kiev, but that will not change their interests.

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 #22
Kyiv Post
December 16, 2015
In Crimea, Putin now seen as the lesser of two evils
By Allison Quinn

Weeks after the lights went out in Russian-occupied Crimea, the Crimean Tatar activists responsible for the blockade declared their mission a success and patted themselves on the back for a job well done.

They did so loudly, with jubilance, all over Ukraine's main TV channels in early December, even as some Crimea residents were forced to huddle around bonfires to keep warm.

While the economic blockade that began in late September forced Kyiv to finally sever trade ties with the occupied peninsula, it also gave the Kremlin the upper hand in the propaganda war - especially after the blackout on Nov. 21. If the Crimean Tatars' intention was ever to "return their homeland," as they claimed, they failed miserably.

After weeks of little to no electricity supplies, a visit to Simferopol revealed that residents had overwhelmingly turned towards Moscow, saying they'd prefer not to be used as fodder in a tiresome tug-of-war. Even those who voiced criticism of the Russian-backed authorities on the peninsula said they had lost all trust in Kyiv.

The most common response to a question about the blockade and Kyiv's handling of the situation was, "Why does it matter? We don't need Kyiv anymore anyway. Moscow will help us."

Some asked why they should pay any attention to a government that has treated them like they were less than human.

For them, given a choice between authorities in Kyiv and those in Moscow, Putin became the lesser of two evils. And you know things are bad when Putin has become the sane choice.

As soon as the electricity blockade began, Putin and all things Russian became the only constant in residents' lives.

Trolleybuses stopped running. Hotels and businesses operated in the dark. Fuel at gas stations became a luxury, and nothing was guaranteed.

Except, of course, for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose grinning face dotted Simferopol's main streets on massive billboards, some of which remained lit even despite the rationing of power supplies.

"Crimea. Russia. Forever," said one billboard featuring the Russian president's portrait. For some reason, this billboard had sprouted up repeatedly along numerous city blocks, as reliable and consistent as cracks in the sidewalk.

Shops in the city center offered patriotic portraits of Putin, Crimean leader Sergey Aksyonov and Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

All of these things had long been available in Simferopol; the billboards and portraits were nothing new.

But they gained power after the blackout, they sent the unsettling message that the Kremlin had won, even as the Crimean Tatar leaders behind the blockade declared victory.

It was hard not to see the billboards of Putin and think he was actually laughing with glee, that the grin on his face was one not of patriotic pride but gloating.

Sure, one resident said, Putin may not be the best leader, but he at least kept his word - he had sent generators to the peninsula to save the day. The Ukrainian authorities, on the other hand, spent months railing against numerous human rights abuses on the peninsula ... only to commit their own human rights violation in response.

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 #23
Kremlin.ru
December 14, 2015
Plenary session of St Petersburg International Cultural Forum

Vladimir Putin spoke at the plenary session of the IV St Petersburg International Cultural Forum.

The IV St Petersburg International Cultural Forum is taking place on December 14-16, 2015. Every year the forum brings together experts in culture, politicians, representatives of state bodies and business people, and this year's event is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of UNESCO.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome participants and guests in the IV International Cultural Forum honouring UNESCO's 70th anniversary to Russia.

Following tradition, the forum is held here in St Petersburg. And the value of this city as one of the jewels of world cultural heritage is undeniable. But our Northern Capital is known for more than just its outstanding architecture and rich artistic achievements.

This is a city with a grandiose destiny that has experienced its share of triumphs and terrible trials. It remembers the enormous force of its residents' spirit during the years of World War II and is itself a symbol of victory of life over death, the victory of human dignity over barbarity and cruelty. Here, we can feel the importance of UNESCO's mission with a special strength: the world unites to preserve and develop humanity for the sake of the values of humanism and enlightenment.

These processes are of principal importance for Russia. Our nation was historically built as a civilisation where every ethnic group preserved its cultural identity. We are ready to share this experience of interaction between traditions, languages and cultures openly and kindly with the world; at the same time, we strive to take into account and enrich our own lives with humanity's best achievements.

And that is why we fully share UNESCO's principles. Today, this respected, influential organisation is literally a humanitarian buttress for the entire complex of international cooperation, a defender of the most important universal values, spiritual and moral foundations, as well as the heritage of nations and peoples.

We are grateful to UNESCO for its constructive cooperation and assistance in resolving key issues in developing Russian education, science, culture and information sector. In turn, the majority of UNESCO projects are implemented with Russian support.

We actively cooperate in implementing programmes to preserve global heritage, cultural diversity and ethnic identity. Together, we work to strengthen intercultural dialogue, develop the foundations of scientific and technical progress, and ensure journalists' safety.

We are prepared to further build up our partnership with UNESCO and see prospects for joint work in important areas such as ensuring sustainable development for modern civilisation and improving international relations.

Today, the entire global community is facing serious challenges and threats such as terrorism, growing intolerance, xenophobia and social problems. The fields of communications and information exchange require particular attention. Modern technologies have not only opened up unprecedented opportunities for communication and access to knowledge, but unfortunately, are also used as an instrument of manipulation to negatively affect people's minds and souls. It is our common objective to withstand these destructive processes.

UNESCO programmes aimed at humanizing the information environment, filling the global information space with high-quality scientific and cultural content, as well as educational and information resources, are very much needed. Russia is prepared to become an active participant in such programmes.

We have clearly stated our position on preserving and protecting global cultural heritage, first and foremost in conflict zones where unique historical monuments are being savagely plundered and destroyed. We value UNESCO's enormous contribution to implementing the UN Security Council resolution initiated by Russia, banning trade in antiquities and items of cultural value.

We know that money raised from this criminal business, as well as the sale of drugs and stolen oil is, among other things, used to finance terrorists and extremist activities. We expect that the global community will be able to join forces to cut off these funding channels to bandits.

UNESCO's desire to turn culture and cultural diversity into a powerful instrument for sustainable development and thus implement the agenda recently adopted by the UN General Assembly in this area through to 2030 deserves particular attention.

The organisation has not only achieved recognition of the role of cultural factors in social, economic and other areas of life in the global community, but also promoted integration of culture in nine of the seventeen goals for sustainable development.

Another area of UNESCO's activity that we find particularly significant is developing the fundamental sciences. This is another field for our joint work.

It is significant that the session of the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary-General is being held in St Petersburg at the same time as our forum. It's a kind of 'Council of the Wise' called upon to develop scientifically founded recommendations on the most significant questions in modern life, from global development and the role of science in making political decisions to climate change issues.

In conclusion, I would like to once again stress that UNESCO and the members of this prestigious organisation will always find Russia to be an active and engaged participant in its programmes and projects.

I wish the International Cultural Forum success in its work and all its participants - good and bright impressions of their visit in St Petersburg.

Thank you for your attention.

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 #24
Moskovskiy Komsomolets
November 23, 2015
Analyst assesses legacy of Russia's first president
Andrey Kamakin interview with Georgiy Satarov, the head of the INDEM Foundation: 'A Kind of Fashion for Yeltsin is Arising' - Revelations of First President's Aide, Georgiy Satarov -on Boris Nikolayevich's Historical Role

The first presidential centre in Russia will be ceremonially opened on 25 November in Yekaterinburg -the Boris Yeltsin Centre. The main part of it will be a museum. According to information on the Yeltsin Centre's website, thanks to modern multimedia technologies, the exhibition will convey "not only the essence of that dramatic time but also the spirit of the 1990s". Moreover, the centre will house a library, the Yeltsin family's archive, educational and children's centres, and exhibition halls. However, it is not only and not so much the appearance of the Yeltsin Centre that deserves attention as the attitude of the country's leaders towards this event. It is expected that the president and prime minister will honour the opening ceremony with their presence, as well as a host of foreign statesmen. Those invited include Bill Clinton, George Bush Senior, Helmut Kohl, and Jacques Chirac. Is this evidence of any changes in the regime's ideology? We asked Georgiy Satarov, the head of the INDEM Foundation, to answer this question. From 1993-1994 Satarov was a member of the Presidential Council, and from 1994 to 1997 he occupied the post of presidential aide. His duties included preparing presidential messages, political analysis, and contacts with parliament and the parties. Georgiy Satarov shared with Moskovskiy Komsomolets his thoughts about Yeltsin's historical role, and attitudes towards his political legacy in modern Russia.

[Interviewer Andrey Kamakin] Georgiy Aleksandrovich, judging by the scale and status of the event, the first president of the new Russia is remembered and honoured in the corridors of power. At the same time, the ideology of the current regime is based on contrasting the achievements of the Putin era to the troubles of the "turbulent 1990s". Is there not a contradiction here?

[Satarov] Your question is absolutely rhetorical: of course there is a contradiction. However, I do not see anything specific here. The current regime has always been quite loyal towards rituals of this kind, something that has not in any way affected political practices.

[Kamakin] In theory, people in Putin's Russia cannot help but honour Yeltsin, if only because without Yeltsin there would have been no Putin. From this point of view, Boris Nikolayevich is to a significant degree the creator of the current political system. Do you agree with such an assessment?

[Satarov] I categorically disagree. This assessment is a manifestation of a more general trend, which is already 15 years old. When something negative is pointed out to representatives of the Putin regime they usually answer: we have nothing to do with it, all of that started during Yeltsin's time. In fact, any historical period creates something new -in politics, economics, and the social sphere. But then these innovations undergo a selection. Some fall away, others pass on to the next era. The whole question is what moves on and what stays behind. In a system of filters.

So when people say that this or that nasty thing was taken from the Yeltsin era, we must always ask the question: but was there something positive in the Yeltsin era in addition to that nasty thing? It is very easy to answer it: yes, there was. Under Yeltsin an institutional revolution occurred, these years were years of freedom -for the media, for political and entrepreneurial activities... Think back to the 1998 economic crisis: free businesses pulled the country out of this mess. And it was under Yeltsin that the conditions were created for them to emerge. That is also his contribution. However, nothing positive from the Yeltsin era was carried over, unfortunately. Only innovations of a certain kind were taken.

[Kamakin] What do you mean?

[Satarov] Well, for example, the corporate raids on enterprises. They quite indisputably came into being in the Yeltsin era, at the end of the 1990s. And they became the norm in the 2000s. Under Yeltsin the phenomenon of forming parties arose. And under Putin artificially formed -or carefully controlled -parties became the main participants in the political process.

[Kamakin] The phenomenon of the oligarchs can probably also be included here.

[Satarov] No, that is something quite different. The oligarchs of the Yeltsin era were not old friends of Yeltsin. Can you name even one who was? Don't try too hard: you won't be able to. Those oligarchs became oligarchs by going down a long road, starting with the cooperatives and trading in faded jeans. Such people no longer exist. The current oligarchs are Putin's friends. That is an invention of the 2000s. Like many others. It is under Putin that, let us say, the form of corruption of a bribe for the right to do business arose. It is under Putin that huge pointless -in the best case scenario -state corporations started to be created. Well, and so on, this list could go on and on.

[Kamakin] If we were to talk about the mistakes made by Yeltsin, which ones were the most important, in your opinion?

[Satarov] It is very hard to weigh things up here. We cannot assess, for example, the consequences of not introducing troops in Chechnya, or the consequences of refraining from storming the White House on 4 October 1993. Would it have been better if everything had happened how it happened? There is no answer. But talking about quite obvious things, I would name, firstly, belittling the role of the judiciary and concentrating on the economic institutions. Secondly, the delay in reforming the bureaucracy. In 1997 when this attempt was finally made, Yeltsin no longer had sufficient political resources to "push through" his decisions. And thirdly: the fact that he did not break up the Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviet on time. This should have been done after the 1993 April referendum, which Yeltsin effectively won.

[Kamakin] But Yeltsin violated the constitution. Thus, many people think, laying the foundation for the tradition of the supreme authority's disdainful attitude towards the constitution and the law as a whole.

[Satarov] Nonsense. At that time there was no constitution in the country in the sense of this term today. There was the cobbled-together and re-cobbled-together Brezhnev constitution -a completely worthless, toothless document that had been repeatedly changed for the sake of political expediency. Pick up the transcripts of the congresses of people's deputies and look at the frequency with which amendments were adopted: the interval at times was a matter of minutes. Moreover, this document recorded the congress's effectively monopoly power. The officially declared separation of powers was not backed up by anything and no system of checks and balances existed.

If Yeltsin was a little late at that time, then the congress would meet and impeach him. And off it went. Incidentally it would be naive to think that in the event that Yeltsin had lost the winners would have been Khasbulatov and Rutskoy. They were "dogsbodies" in the hands of Makashov and people like him. There would not have been any more elections, we would have got a dictatorship. Incidentally, no-one can reproach the Kremlin for hit lists having been drawn up there. In contrast to the opposite side.

As for the reproaches that Yeltsin had supposedly "usurped power", the president had every reason and opportunity not to organize Duma elections immediately after the October events. When passions had not yet subsided and many people had negative feelings towards Yeltsin and the democrats. He could quite easily have announced a temporary transition period under his control. But Yeltsin did absolutely the opposite. And as you know, the regime, to put it mildly, did not get a majority in the new parliament. Yeltsin had a load of problems with the Duma, but he strictly followed the constitution adopted in 1993.

I will cite a typical example: in February 1994, the Duma adopted a decision on an amnesty for the members of the GKChP [State Committee for the State of Emergency] and participants in the October coup. And Yeltsin was not in a position to oppose this. He summoned me at the time and asked whether we could do anything. I answered: "According to your constitution this is the exclusive prerogative of the Duma. And we do not have any possibility of intervening." He said: "Well then, we will live in line with the constitution."

[Kamakin] Nevertheless, we know that Yeltsin almost dispersed parliament again. I am talking about the events of 17-18 March 1996. According to some eyewitnesses, the country was at that moment one step away from civil war. Do you agree with such an assessment?

[Satarov] Yes, we understood this very well. I remember that this was preceded by a Duma decision on denouncing the Belovezhskaya Pushcha agreements. This was of course complete nonsense, because in such a case the first thing that deputies would have to do is resign. But it was not only a matter of the decision -Duma members "got to" Yeltsin through a set of circumstances. The red majority that had just appeared -the elections took place in December 1995 -was ecstatic about its victory and had no sense of limits at all. It is not surprising that Yeltsin turned nasty. And then someone tossed up an idea: you have to dismiss these bastards, they said, and everything will be fine. And then there would be no need to hold a presidential election.

[Kamakin] People say that Korzhakov and Soskovets were behind the idea.

[Satarov] That seems to be true, although I have no corroboration of this information. The situation was, of course, very alarming. I was called to the Kremlin together with Yeltsin's other aides on the night of 17 March 1996. We went through to Boris Nikolayevich, he said: "Prepare a decree on dissolving the Duma". When we met after this the first thing we did was to decide to prepare two documents simultaneously. A draft decree and an explanation of why it categorically must not be signed. The next morning Yeltsin started to summon the security agencies. They came to us first and we shared our thoughts with them. Then they went to Boris Nikolayevich and also expressed their doubts to him. He got terribly angry, but in the end our united stance won.

[Kamakin] According to Sergey Stankevich, Yeltsin did not initially intend to stand in the 1996 presidential election. And Anatoliy Sobchak, the mayor of St Petersburg at the time, was considered his successor by some of Yeltsin's entourage. Is this true?

[Satarov] I know only that in 1995 Yeltsin told his inner circle that he did not real want to stand in this election, and if he could find a worthy successor then he would gladly cede this right to him. Someone who Boris Nikolayevich himself spoke to about such plans told me this. But I know nothing about whether Sobchak or anyone else was considered as his successor.

[Kamakin] In any case, this explains the subsequent persecution of Sobchak. According to Stankevich this was initiated by the forces "who the very possibility of a change of leader, even in the long term, did not suit for personal or clan reasons".

[Satarov] That is one of the possibilities for solving this puzzle. But in real life there are usually several ways of solving puzzles.

[Kamakin] Did the president's team have any "plan B" in the event of Yeltsin losing?

[Satarov] I never took part in any discussion of any alternative plan linked to a defeat. And I did not see any signs of such a plan. Perhaps because I was not sufficiently close. I can only assure you that there was no panic. Generally speaking we understood how this election could be won, what was needed for this. The model for the election campaign was clear.

[Kamakin] Arguments about how fair the 1996 election was have still not subsided. Many people doubt that Yeltsin won it at all. Have you yourself, incidentally, never had any?

[Satarov] Never. The only "crime" that we, Yeltsin's headquarters, committed against society at that time was that we lowered Yeltsin's poll results when they were published in the interval between the first and second rounds.

[Kamakin] For what purpose?

[Satarov] The aim was very simple: preventing people from becoming complacent. We had a very good, high-quality sociological analysis, which did not have leave any doubts that Yeltsin had to win in the second round. But we feared the demobilization of the electorate, that the Yeltsin voters would decide that the president would win even without them. And they would not go to vote.

[Kamakin] So you mean that these elections were absolutely fair?

[Satarov] No, I do not mean that at all. Of course there were various kinds of manipulations. But, firstly, according to analysts' assessments their influence on the overall result was in any event insignificant. And, secondly, those who complain about the fairness of the 1996 election forget that right up until the 2000s there was no hierarchy of electoral commissions in Russia. A great deal was determined by the position of the local authorities, which were far from always loyal to Yeltsin. You probably remember that the "red belt" phenomenon existed during those years -regions supporting the CPRF [Communist Party of the Russian Federation].

Incidentally, I can tell you about an interesting event, which, inter alia, yours truly was responsible for at Yeltsin's election headquarters. Before the first round we had data indicating -in relation to the results of the previous election -significant fraud at a large number of polling stations. Naturally, not in our favour: these were mainly "red belt" villages. I got an idea in connection with this: recruit students and send a party of trained observers in to these "anomalous zones". Establish legal terror there, as it were. This project was implemented and we were able largely to remedy the situation.

In short, asserting that these elections were "managed" means sinning greatly against the truth. There was no "management", there were competition between administrative resources. Which, incidentally, is also corroborated by the elections of regional heads that took place some time later. Every Monday morning we met with Chubays who headed Yeltsin's Presidential Staff after the victory. And Chubays started almost every briefing with the words: "Well, how will we present our next defeat as a victory?" -meaning the latest results of the governor elections. Of course, we had our favourites but we could do nothing here.

[Kamakin] There is the opinion that after the 1996 election Yeltsin no longer took independent decisions. That the entourage, the family, drove everything. Can you confirm that?

[Satarov] Complete nonsense. The family had just one moment of ascent -the moment when the government was formed after the 1996 presidential election. At that point Yeltsin was preparing for a heart operation. Then there was the operation and the post-operative period... For several months Yeltsin was virtually incapable of normal regular work, and during this time he really was represented by his family, who thus gained symbolic administrative resources. I am referring to Tanya and Valya (Tatyana and Valentin Yumashev, Boris Yeltsin's daughter and son-in-law -Moskovskiy Komsomolets). But then Yeltsin returned fully to active life.

[Kamakin] So the rumours were exaggerated, as it were?

[Satarov] Much exaggerated.

[Kamakin] And how true are the rumours about Boris Nikolayevich's well-known weakness?

[Satarov] Are you asking about his drinking?

[Kamakin] Yes.

[Satarov] I did not drink with him. I only saw him with a glass in his hand once. And he was just holding it and put it on the table. But there is no doubt that he drank. The main reason is that he was a terrible introvert. Since he did not pour out his anger, problems, pain... it all burned inside. But he did not drink at all from the end of 1995.

[Kamakin] Is that accurate information?

[Satarov] Absolutely accurate. At the end of 1995, he had a little-known but major heart attack, after which he spent a long time resting. He was in hospital and then at the sanatorium in Barvikha... I remember going to celebrate the New Year with him in 1996. Champagne was brought in, one glass was darker and taller than the others. He took this glass, came up to us, and said sadly: "well, you drink champagne, and I will drink a substitute". He spoke brusquely.

[Kamakin] What is your remaining impression of Yeltsin as a leader?

[Satarov] He was of course a terrific boss. I am a person who has virtually no complexes but I still have a couple. One of them is this: I do not really like to bother people who are busy with important matters. As a result, I was once waiting for a call from Yeltsin. He said: "Georgiy Aleksandrovich, do you not need the president anymore? I have not met you for a long time. I no longer even remember if you have a beard or not..." His main quality as a leader was his ability to trust people. If he chose you, appointed you, then he trusted you completely. No-one could interfere in your work apart from him. But such trust of course meant tough demands in terms of the work assigned.

[Kamakin] Why did you leave the Presidential Staff?

[Satarov] For a reason generally connected to the reason I arrived. At the end of 1992, after the Congress of People's Deputies that had been a failure for Boris Nikolayevich -he was forced at that point to give up Gaydar -the idea arose in the Kremlin that a new category of person needed to appear in the president's entourage. Not politicians and not officials, but experts, analysts -those who, it was thought, understood this absolutely incomprehensible political situation. Well, and they decided that I was one of these experts, the career bureaucrats called us -this "draft" included Yuriy Baturin, Sergey Karaganov, Andranik Migranyan, Leonid Smirnyagin, and Emil Pain in addition to me -the "eggheads". But after the 1996 election, the feeling developed in the corridors of power that the point of no-return had passed and that everything now was more or less clear. This was felt quite clearly, so I took the decision to leave my post. I did not have any grievances, and I said goodbye to Boris Nikolayevich on very good terms.

[Kamakin] In March 1997, Vladimir Putin, who had become head of the Presidential Staff's main control administration, appeared in the Kremlin. Did you have anything to do with him at the time?

[Satarov] Yes, of course. I sat next to him at all of Chubays's briefings -at the opposite end of the long table to Anatoliy Borisovich. Putin sat there because he did not say a single word in these briefings, during all that time. And I sat there because in this case I had an official reason for raising my voice to Chubays. I had rather little business contact with Putin, mainly linked to preparing presidential messages. From time to time information was needed from the control administration and it was provided -precisely, thoroughly, and on time. But to be honest, I did not form any definite idea about Putin during that period.

[Kamakin] In his book Presidential Marathon, Yeltsin explains in quite a lot of detail why he chose Putin as his successor. According to Boris Nikolayevich, he "noticed" Putin back when he headed the control administration. Does this resemble the truth?

[Satarov] Well it is a completely indisputable fact that Putin knew how to make a good impression. I know many people I respect a lot who were very impressed by their first contact with Putin.

[Kamakin] But for some reason you did not fall under the magic of Putin's charm.

[Satarov] It is possible that this is not to my credit, because Putin did not try to win me over.

[Kamakin] It is clear that there are no "what ifs" in history, but nevertheless, could Yeltsin's rule have had some different ending? In other words, was such an ending logical or accidental?

[Satarov] A good question. I think that here, as usual in life, there is a mixture of logical and accidental elements. It is natural that a member of the security agencies became Yeltsin's successor. It was the result of the default and the financial and economic crisis provoked by it, on which a political crisis was later also superimposed. All of this was a huge shock for Yeltsin. After all, he had publicly promised the citizens that nothing terrible would happen and this terrible thing happened almost immediately. After "Black August", Yeltsin, firstly, virtually withdrew from managing the economy. And secondly, his image of his success or changed. Before when a positive economic dynamic was observed, Yeltsin saw his successor as a young reformer, who would continue the reforms.

[Kamakin] Nemtsov?

[Satarov] I suspect so, yes. I do not have any direct evidence of it, but a lot of circumstantial evidence. Well, and after the default Yeltsin decided that a conservative was needed. And then he started to sort through the candidates. In short, the type is logical but the fact that Putin was chosen is to a certain extent coincidental. He was just the last in the series of successive prime ministers before the election. Undoubtedly, the weakness and sleepiness of society also played their role in Putin's approval, and the formation of the Putin regime. Which should also be categorized as logical since this is characteristic of a post-revolutionary period. No-one has revoked the well-known maxim that says a regime is as loathsome as society allows it to be.

[Kamakin] Yeltsin's constitution, which concentrated immense power in the hands of the head of state, also played a significant role. Was Yeltsin's team aware, by the way, that such a bias carried inherent risks to the democratic development of the country?

[Satarov] The constitution approved in December 1993 undoubtedly had a big influence on the political situation. Yes a serious imbalance in powers arose, in the direction of the presidency. We saw these shortcomings. Moreover, in the course of the work on one of his messages we suggested to Boris Nikolayevich that he come up with an initiative to improve the constitution. This concerned making the system of checks and balances more stable, supplying it with new elements. But Yeltsin was categorical: there are problems, but the constitution must not now be touched. He did not explain his refusal in any way, but I suspect that he feared that in an extremely polarized and uncertain political situation we might obtain a result that was the direct opposite of what we expected. We would be opening a real Pandora's box.

[Kamakin] Was he right?

[Satarov] I think so, yes. The problems that we have today are not linked to the text of the constitution, but to political practice. Remember, we have had three completely different presidents under one and the same constitution.

[Kamakin] There are different opinions about Boris's Yeltsin's attitude towards how events developed in Russia after his resignation. What information do you have?

[Satarov] I can cite what I witnessed myself. On 1 February every year, we, the team of Yeltsin's former aides, went to visit him at Barvikha to wish him on a happy birthday. Vladimir Nikolayevich Shevchenko, who continued to act as Yeltsin's master of ceremonies always placed us between the patriarch and Putin. He did this deliberately because Putin never arrived on time and our meetings continued longer than planned. To our mutual satisfaction. So I think it was 1 February 2003. We were sitting drinking tea. And then Kostikov (Vyacheslav Kostikov, the president's press secretary from 1992-1994 -Moskovskiy Komsomolets) asks: "Boris Nikolayevich, how would you rate your successor?". Yeltsin's answer: "I didn't fear exchanging my popularity for unpopular reforms. But this one fears it..." Moreover, eyewitnesses talk of his extremely negative reaction to the decisions taken by Putin after the Beslan act of terrorism. Amongst other things, if you remember, the elections of regional heads were cancelled. But I only know about this from hearsay.

[Kamakin] And what precisely is known?

[Satarov] Boris Nemtsov phoned me at the time: "Zhora, come, I want to tell you something." I went there. "Listen, a mutual friend has just phoned me," Nemtsov said. "And he said that Boris Nikolayevich has summoned a car and gone to Ostankino -to demand air time". But Tanya and Valya allegedly rushed after Yeltsin and at the last moment convinced him not to cause a row.

[Kamakin] But was Yeltsin's silence one of the c! onditions during the handover of power?

[Satarov] I have not found any sign of any accords. Of course, I did not undertake any special investigations but it is very difficult to hide such things. I think that the abandonment of public discussion of the political situation was an independent decision by Boris Nikolayevich. He said, I can advise Putin about some things but he must do everything himself, there is no need for me to interfere. Moreover, accords of this type are possible, in my view, only with people who have used their power for personal gain, but Yeltsin did not take anything for himself, as if were, throughout the entire period of his presidency. He did not become an oligarch, he did not set himself up with luxury real estate -either in Russia, or in Spain, or in America... So I do not think it was possible to put pressure on him.

[Kamakin] The attitude of the majority of our fellow citizens towards Boris Yeltsin today is not the best! , to put it mildly. How likely is it that this will change?

[Satarov] I think the likelihood is quite high. And I even suspect that this will occur sooner than in 50 years. There are no monotonous processes in life and this is especially so in socio-political life. There are things that Yeltsin can be cursed for, and there are things that he should be thanked for. This ratio will not change as time passes. But interest in the positive aspects of the Yeltsin era -as something that we are sorely lacking at the current time -will inevitably grow. Incidentally, it is already possible today to see how a new fashion for Yeltsin, for the 1990s, is arising in Russia. And I am sure that this trend will only increase.

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