#2
Rossiya 1 TV
December 20, 2015
Putin interviewed at length in Russian TV film "World Order"
[Complete video can be seen here http://russia.tv/video/show/brand_id/60032/episode_id/1259972/video_id/1422135/]

Russian state-owned Rossiya 1 TV has premiered a film "World Order" which includes extensive clips from interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The report below includes all statements by Putin.

The film by Saida Medvedeva and Vladimir Solovyev was shown in prime time on Sunday 20 December and lasted one hour and 40 minutes. It was produced by "Masterskaya" film company.

In the preview of the film, Vladimir Solovyev said that the film included material from three interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the latest of them was conducted on 17 December after Putin's annual news conference.

The film starts with Solovyev and Putin walking into a studio for an interview and Solovyev asking: "Vladimir Vladimirovich, will there be a war?" Putin responded by asking: "Do you mean a global war?"

This was followed by brief clips from interviews with film director Oliver Stone, German MP Sahra Wagenknecht, IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn and former US presidential assistant Thomas Graham.

One should not try to mechanically impose one's values on other countries

Video showed archive footage of Putin at the UN asking "those who created this situation: Do you at least now understand what you have done?" Video shows a funeral among ruins of an Arab town.

Solovyev asked Putin: "New York, UN General Assembly and you go to the rostrum in not the most friendliest atmosphere, US president spoke before you, I don't know whether you knew what Obama had said - "

Putin interjected: "Frankly, I didn't know, I had just arrived".

Solovyev continued with the question: "And you told him in his face: ' Do you at least understand what you have done?"

Putin replied: "I didn't tell him in his face." He continued: "You know, I have spoken to many leaders, both European and American, over many years. And when it came to various operations, in Afghanistan, or in Iraq, or later in Libya, my position always was that one should tread carefully and should not apply their own schemes and notions of good and evil, in this case about good, about democracy, automatically, simply mechanically, to other countries and nations with a different culture, religion and traditions. However, frankly, no-one is listening.

Solovyev asked: "Why?"

Putin replied: "Because, apparently, they consider themselves to be infallible, to be great, yet there is zero responsibility."

Video showed interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange who said that nearly half of Syrian population became refugees or were killed. Assange said that his website had been publishing documents attesting to the fact that US strategy had been to try to topple Al-Asad's government at least since 2006.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf recalled in an interview that almost the entire Muslim world had been colonized and when the countries became independent, religion became essential to illiterate masses. He explained his proposal for strategy for the Muslim world. Assange noted documents regarding Syria, said that military structures of USA needed the war in Syria to justify their budgets.

Pundit Vyacheslav Nikonov complained about violations of international law in Syria.

Yalta Conference in 1945

Putin's spokesman Dmitriy Peskov recalls the complicated situation during Yalta Conference in 1945 which led to a new world order.

Solovyev asked Putin: "When did the Yalta construct for the world started to develop cracks?"

Putin answered: "I think after the Soviet Union ceased to exist."

Solovyev noted: "You were witnessing the fall of [Berlin] wall."

Putin said: "Not quite, I had already returned to the Soviet Union, I had left by the time the wall fell. But this is not about the wall. The thing is that Yalta Conference fixed the real balance of forces at that point, in 1945. The victor countries built a system that was consistent with the alignment of political forces at the time.

"Since then, much has changed, there are now nuclear weapons, which is a significant factor in world affairs, they have spread to several other countries, new global giants have grown up, such as India and China, and the Soviet Union has left the political stage. And so the bipolar system suddenly collapsed," Putin said.

"That is, our partners ought to have thought about how to take advantage of this situation and become moral leaders in the world affairs the way they are shaping up. But they continued to act and think the old way, and the Cold War cliches remained in their heads," Putin added.

Solovyev suggested: "Was it really morality that was on the basis of Yalta agreements? After all, we naively thought that they were moral but they were only afraid of our power."

Putin replied: "No, no, I don't agree with this. I think that it was not the moral values that laid in the foundation of Yalta Conference and Yalta agreements but first of all the considerations of the real balance of power and the experience of the previous decades, including the sad experience of the so-called League of Nations, which had been created to regulate relations between states after World War I. It quite quickly stopped its existence in substance. Why? Because it did not have the instrument that could have been used to prevent conflicts. A new concept was put forward - the Organization of United Nations and the UN Security Council, first of all, and Chapter VII, which outlines the possibility of use of force against the states that violate the world order. However, it also said that this was possible only with a unanimous agreement of the members of the Security Council and the permanent members of the Security Council have the right of veto. What does this mean - this means that one cannot take such harsh decisions against anyone if a complete consensus, a complete agreement does not exist on the issue. This is the key thing in the entire modern system of international law."

Yugoslavia

Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic said that Yugoslavia was the first victim of the newly-established world order. Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica recalls how George Bush had said in 1992 that all republics of former Yugoslavia can establish diplomatic relations with the USA only if they exit Yugoslavia. Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic noted that it took only a campaign lasting a few months for citizens of Yugoslavia to want its disintegration. The film recalls the massive bombing of the country. Nikolic sarcastically noted that nowadays when a larger country attacks a smaller country, it always says that it does this for the sake of fairness and morality, for the sake of higher aims, in the interests of democracy, only to help the other nation have a better life.

Lord David Owen, a former British foreign secretary, said: "All this was in violation of the UN Charter. We did not have the right to start a war.

Oliver Stone recalled how he believed in what he was doing when he fought in the war, and that the Vietnamese war change American society for the worse.

Afghanistan v. Vietnam, USA not worried about negative consequences

Solovyev asked: "Vietnam, us in Afghanistan. Does this mean that things did not always work?"

Putin replied: "One should not confuse us in Afghanistan with Vietnam. After all, we were in Afghanistan on the request of the incumbent government president. This is a big difference. Should we have got bogged down in Afghanistan the way we got bogged down in the Afghan events - this is different question, one should think about this, here not everything is clear-cut either, you see. Also, one cannot say that this was the right thing to do or not. For sure, loads of mistakes were made. Whether the decision itself was correct or incorrect - one should look closely into this."

Solovyev continued: "What would one compare the mistakes with? If one compared this with US Vietnam campaign - we made not that many mistakes."

Afghan campaign was a mistake by Soviet Union

Putin responded: "I think so. But, as a whole, the Afghanistan campaign, if one may call it this, was a mistake by the Soviet Union - this is obvious."

Solovyev noted: "But the Americans, with the experience of Vietnam, nevertheless did not stop interfering in all international affairs while, for a long time, we have been afraid to, even though as our experience is much more positive."

Putin responded: "We are not afraid, we simply behave with more restraint and if we do something, we try to maximally protect ourselves against possible negative consequences. But they [the USA] are not thinking about this - they are great, they sit on the other side of the ocean, the dollar is the world currency, they are the largest economy in the world." While simulating with his hand gestures a surgeon operating on a patient, Putin said: "They are doing an operation - oh, well, it didn't work out again - let's do the next one."

9/11 and Iraqi invasion

Video shows George W. Bush vowing revenge on the site of the collapsed towers of the World Trade Centre.

Former French PM Dominique de Villepin recalled the worsening of US-Iraqi relations, and how in 2002-2003 France worked together with Russia and Germany in order not to allow US military to intervene in Iraq. Video showed the hanging of Saddam Husayn, an excerpt from Al-Qadhafi speech at Arab League summit in 2011, where he warned laughing Arab leaders that one of them will be next - video also shows Al-Asad laughing at his warning. Video showed Al-Qadhafi being killed, Hillary Clinton being victorious and laughing.

Solovyev asked: "In 1991, in 1992, without a permission from the UN Security Council, they [USA] sort out Iraq, they find their methods and they get away with everything."

Putin responded: "As I said, impunity - this is one of the reasons for the extremely reckless behaviour on the international arena - who are you accountable to? The largest and the most powerful superpower both in economic and military sense - therefore there is the temptation to act in circumvention or declare that the current structure of international relations is obsolete.

"The foundation of the modern architecture of international relations is, of course, the Charter of the United Nations. This is the foundation, the basis of the modern and public international law."

Solovyev continued: "But it is being adhered to when there are at least two powers and when we started to have power again, it became clear that one could start talking about the role of the Security Council and of the role of the UN."

Putin responded: "Not always, Volodya. I would not get into sharp polemics. Of course, disputable moments arise very often when the interests of states clash or are artificially made to clash or this happens for objective reasons - and as a result of this clash, one could end up with a violation of the UN Charter."

Nuclear weapons

Putin continued: "Sometimes, however, they coincide. Say, regarding the issues of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - here with the Europeans, Americans and with our Chinese friends there is complete consensus. No-one wants the expansion of the number of countries possessing nuclear weapons - we see that this is a danger for international peace and security."

Solovyev said: "However, the USA is already intending to deliver to Germany [pauses]"

Putin smiled and asked: "What?"

Solovyev continued: "its aircraft that will be equipped with tactical nuclear weapons."

Putin: "The tactical nuclear weapons of the United States of America have always been there after World War II after America became a nuclear power. Now they are simply renewing them. There is no novelty in this. But this is, of course, a dangerous thing. Why? Because our tactical nuclear weapons are not of strategic nature in terms of the USA - they do not reach their territory. However, the tactical nuclear weapons of the USA in Europe can reach our territory. And in this sense, they are of a strategic nature for us and represent a greater threat to us than our tactical nuclear weapons to them."

Lord Owen praises Putin

Lord Owen said: "I don't know Putin but I am convinced that his policy is the bravest among all Russian politicians. Putin indeed closed the military base in Cuba, he closed a military base in North Korea, he has sorted out two, three or four problems that in his view caused the most tension in relations - he showed the initiative."

Assange said that USA was an empire of military bases - it has over 1,400 military bases across the world while Russia has only 12 bases - mainly near its southern border.

The report looks at the creation and problems of the Israeli state, Putin at various meetings.

New world order held back by cliches

Solovyev asked: "What is not working out? Why does one not manage to find the recipe for world order?"

Putin replied: "As I already said, it is the rudiments of the Cold War and of the past that hinder the active movement forward. After all, Europe was enlarged, extended through adding East European countries, which were always hugely suspicious, at least during the last decade, of the Soviet Union, and transposed this to modern Russia. I even heard from some leaders of the West European countries when we debated some issues - they told me: You did this to us. I said: We never did this - the Soviet Union did. They still have these cliches. They think that we are Soviet Union - this is not so. They either cannot understand this or don't want to understand this because this is more advantageous. In many East European countries, anti-Russian propaganda and politics have become factors of domestic competition - it is simply being used to come to power or to stay in power - and these sentiments are being blown out of all proportion, which is very harmful and counterproductive."

Export of Revolutions

Solovyev said: "In addition, what is interesting, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all those who we unable to defend themselves were forced to disintegrate into smaller parts, they were, like, ground into dust."

Putin responded: "This is convenient. After all, this kind of policy - divide and rule - has been conducted since the times of the Roman Empire. One needs to divide and divide into smaller parts and it is easier to rule over them. As it turned out, it is quite simple to carry out a policy of this kind because one can always find - particularly in countries that are not doing well from economic and social point of view - find those who are ready to support this separatism and constant division and chiasm on the corresponding territories."

Video showed clashes in Ukraine, German MP Sahra Wagenknecht said that she did not think it would be right to accept any more weak countries to the EU because EU accession does not help these countries.

Dmitriy Peskov drew parallels between events in Ukraine, and Middle East and North Africa, noted technologies for imposing a system camouflaging as democracy. Video shows ISIS murdering Coptic Christians on the seashore. Oliver Stone complained about the mistakes made by the USA in the Middle East.

Pundit Vyacheslav Nikonov said: "Iran, Syria, Libya - a huge number of people ended up living in countries that ceased to be countries. These were stable countries, by the measures of the Arab World, by the measures of Africa, they were very stable and even prosperous states. This is no more."

Solovyev asked Putin during an interview: "Have we acquired recipes against export of revolutions?"

"No. The only way there is, is to reinforce the foundations of modern international law, which I mentioned. There can be no double or triple interpretation, to do as one pleases, as to what sovereignty is and whether to respect it," Putin said.

"New things are being thrown in, for example regarding Syria or regarding some other countries. After all, it is very easy to declare that this or that leader of this or that country is illegitimate, but what are the criteria of this illegitimacy, who has thought them up and who decides this?"

"If we act and think using such voluntaristic categories, not laid down in understandable, clear, transparent and uniformly interpreted language, then there will be chaos," he said.

Solovyev said: "But there is chaos and what is happening with the new vast movement of peoples. After all, this breaks the entire legal picture of the world. How can one deal with this?

Putin responded: "Not only legal but it can break also the ethnic and religious picture of the world. Europe could lose its identity. Generally speaking, one should help those who have found themselves in a difficult situation and one should help refugees - this is totally obvious. In this sense, the humanitarian essence and the motives that arose deserve complete support.

"However, this is not the most important thing, I also spoke about this at the General Assembly of the UN. The most important thing is not to rock legitimate governments, not to destroy statehood, even if it seems imperfect. Even if this is how they are seen by someone, what could one do without violating international law? To help these forces inside the country - using legitimate means - which stand for your values. Help them financially, help them with information, politically, but do not go there like a bull in a china shop and trample on everything there willy-nilly. Do not rock these countries, do not break their statehood. I already said: help if you think that this people is worthy of something better than the rule of government it lives under, help those citizens inside the country who are ready to fight from inside for the ideals you share."

Solovyev asked: "Are you being heard when you speak about this?"

Putin responded: "They are listening but I would not be able to say whether they hear me. Given what is happening, they are not hearing much.

Libya

Putin went on to discuss Libya's example. He said: "A well-known resolution on Libya was adopted - I can't recall its number. What did it say? A no-fly zone. What started to happen in reality - they started to launch strikes at the territory and facilitate the toppling of the authorities. They toppled, poor [Mu'ammar] Al-Qadhafi was killed, and he we killed in a brutal manner. Then what? Did democracy come? An ambassador of the USA died, he was also killed in a brutal manner. What was achieved? Why did they do this? Now the UN announced the forming of a united government. How long will it last? This is also a question.

"Simply, dividing up property is under way, the re-dividing of natural resources.

"Could this have been done differently? This would have required more time, this would probably have required more efforts, more attentive attitude towards people. However, sooner or later the transformation would have happened without these catastrophic consequences and without hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Video showed Al-Qadhafi interview on 9 March 2011 in which he warned that "disregard to stability in Libya will lead to a meltdown in the world through instability in the Mediterranean Sea. Should our power in Libya be forced to come to an end, millions of Africans will illegally flood to Italy and France and Europe will be black in a short space of time. We are preventing migration and restraining the advancement of Al-Qa'idah." Video shows footage of refugee crisis, looks at problems with migrants in Paris, extreme right protesting in Germany. Former Federal Chancellor of Austria, Wolfgang Schuessel, said that in Vienna for half of the schoolchildren German was not their mother tongue.

European Union

Solovyev said: "Look what is happening in Europe: On the one hand there is a flood of migrants and on the other the growth of nationalist sentiments and people are losing orientation."

Putin responded: "One should not write off Europe. United Europe is over 300 million people, a huge economy and the euro is maintaining its position in a stable manner and is conquering - and this is very good - is conquering for itself a space as a global reserve currency. This is good because if there is only one reserve currency - the dollar - it narrows the opportunities for manoeuvre for the entire world economy. Today's Europe is what it is - with all its internal contradictions and all the positive trends of its development."

Pundit Fedor Lukyanov noted that the model of European integration was a good one but it has exhausted itself. "European integration was never in the history a democratic project, it was always an elitist project," Lukyanov said and added that people no longer understands what the establishment is doing.

US influence over EU

French Politician Yvan Blot said that Europe was constantly under American influence since the end of World War II. German MP Sahra Wagenknecht said that Germany was powerful enough to object to USA but it simply does not do this or does this extremely rarely.

Julian Assange said that most of the UN events are held in New York, and communications services are provided by AT&T, which is very close to the US government and has a secret agreement with the National Security Agency.

Yvan Blot said that such pressure is common in international politics, especially in the field of economic policy.

US in global affairs

Putin was shown addressing Valdai International Discussion Club on 22 October 2015, saying:

"As an example, I will cite the outright epidemic of fines imposed on companies, including European ones, by the United States. Flimsy pretexts are being used, and all those who dare violate the unilateral American sanctions are severely punished.

"Last year alone, a fine of almost 9bn dollars was imposed on a French bank, 8.9bn, I believe. Toyota paid 1.2bn dollars. The German Commerzbank signed an agreement to pay 1.7bn dollars into the American budget, and so on and so forth.

"Is that the way one treats allies? No, this is how one treats vassals who dare act as they wish - they are punished for misbehaving."

Vyacheslav Nikonov said the United States have assumed the right to interpret and enforce international law.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that, when he headed the IMF, his biggest problem was the US Congress. Solovyev said that Strauss-Kahn's political career was destroyed by false accusations made in the United States.

Julian Assange said that the United States is taking part in an ambitious project to reach a trade agreement among countries with a total population of more than 1.500bn people. The narrator said that the United States is building Trans-Pacific Partnership that does not include China and Russia. Assange said that major US corporations always wanted this, using national security arguments to promote their interests.

Solovyev asked Putin: "Is the world being run by corporations?"

Putin replied: "The world is being run by objective laws of economic development. Yes, of course, international multi-profile corporations with no borders should function in order to increase both the quality of production and the volume of production, increase the workforce productivity, achieve more results, bigger profits. They do not need borders. That is precisely why GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, was created at first, and then the World Trade Organization, which essentially blurred borders. But now other realities have emerged, new players have appeared. They stopped being afraid, they stopped saying, as the joke goes - I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared - and started stating firmly that it is necessary to observe their rights, their legitimate rights within the World Trade Organization where everyone was accepted. And when another round of negotiations, the Doha round, reached an impasse, and for years now it has been impossible to make progress because developing countries started to demand their place under the sun, which they believed was legitimate under the WTO rules and procedures, that is when this idea apparently emerged [briefly interrupted by Solovyev] - why should we jostle against them here, we will agree among ourselves there, on new rules that will only apply to us, and since we are the leading economies of the world, sooner or later they will again be forced to work according to the rules that we will set, but within other organizations."

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres said that the world is changing.

Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf said the geopolitical focus was shifting from Europe to Central Asia.

Lavrov said the world is multipolar.

The film recalled the Paris terror attacks.

The following excerpt from Putin was shown: "As early as 50 years ago, I learnt one rule on the streets of Leningrad: If a fight in inevitable one must strike first."

"One must not impose values"

In his question, Solovyev spoke of "hordes on our borders" in a reference to Islamic State, the importance of values in world affairs, and Tsar Alexander I's "bid to unite Europe on the basis of Christian values, which unfortunately failed".

Putin: "I think that no-one must ever impose on anyone any values they might think right. We have our own values and our own notions about justice. I don't want to deal with definitions now - it's just not worth it and those in the know will always find something to reproach me for. As a whole, though, it's clear what I mean. This concerns our traditional values above all, our history, culture, traditions and all the rest of it. To impose this on anyone, however, would not be right, as in the past the Soviet Union tried to impose Communist values and maintain them by force. I think, however, and I'm sure that many will agree with me, it was not so much about these Communist values as about the geopolitical interests of the Soviet Union, of Russia which was then called the Soviet Union. That was what it was about, although it was all coached in ideological terms."

"To start with, though, it was about values. Soviet Russia, it seemed, offered a new, just world order," Solovyev interposed.

Putin: "Exactly, you are right when you said Soviet Russia. It was right after 1917, after World War I. Back then, it was the height of fashion among the democratically minded intelligentsia as a whole, worldwide, in the US, in Europe, everywhere. Soviet Russia was a fashionable state and the way it put forward, formulated its new values, it was very attractive. From my previous career, I still remember what those who analysed for example the activity of the Soviet intelligence service said, back at the time of the Foreign Section, about the array of renowned Soviet agents, be it the Cambridge Five, Sorge and others. So, one of the researchers said that these people had selflessly served and worked for the benefit of their ideological motherland. Later, though, it all started to be diluted, started to lose its attraction and future."

Solovyev: "And what about now? Is Russia not now talking about traditional values, amid the profound crisis of these traditional values?"

Putin: "Well, yes. You know, I can assure you there are a great many nations and people in the world who are fully behind us and share our point of view. Even when we are criticized by some of the world leaders, it does not at all mean the citizens of those countries side with their leaders and criticize us. On the contrary, I daresay that most of the citizens in the countries whose leaders are critical of us, the majority support us."

Contributions followed in particular from Thomas Graham of the US, Ban Ki-moon, Pervez Musharraf, Emir Kusturica and Julian Assange, mostly about justice vs inequality.

Apocalypse - no

Solovyev asked Putin about the instability of the present day, complete with the "ambitions of the US" and the rise of Islamic State.

Putin said: "We have what we have today. I wanted to say something else now, though, that our new political nouveaux-riches have lost all sense of reality, it seems to me. They are even yet to understand that irreversible processes have begun inside their own world. And if right now everyone's standing to attention and giving the salute, it does not mean that this will last forever. The fact is that there are countries and nations that inside themselves will never put up with a secondary role, the role of an occupied country or the role of a vassal of some kind. Sooner or later, this will pass, and I think quite quickly. In order to prolong one's leadership, however, you must not humiliate others. A great many elements in the foreign policy of our friends from across the ocean [America], meanwhile, take the form precisely of pushing their position through by force. And that of course is bad.

"On the other hand, however, I do not think that we are on the brink of an apocalypse of some kind, because people are after all intelligent, and they are intelligent everywhere, in Europe, across the ocean and in Asia, and the moment they sense that a breakdown of some kind has occurred, it seems to me that they too will realize this."

Solovyev: "And will start to blame you straight away."

Putin: "As to the fact that some who, to put it mildly, are critical of me, and it concerns not just the leaders of foreign, faraway countries but it also sometimes happens with those who are quite close to us, so we hear, when I at any rate hear unfair criticism, to put it mildly, in relation to me [Solovyev: "Outright rudeness ["khamstvo"]"], from some of the leaders of the nations close to us, this is simply a manifestation of political culture or a lack thereof."

Solovyev: "So, emotionally you are unfazed by it completely."

Putin: "I am unfazed by it."

Solovyev: "The streets of Leningrad taught you that."

Putin, laughs: "You know, I have my own style, my own attitude to all these things. I think that I have no such right because I have to work with everyone in the interests of our country."

Foreign contributors then spoke of the need to work with Russia to ensure security in Europe.

An excerpt from an earlier Putin followed, from his remarks at a security meeting held on 16 November following the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt: "Russia is facing barbaric terrorist crimes not for the first time. In most cases they happened without any visible reasons, either external or internal. Thus it happened when a blast occurred in the hall in Volgograd at the end of 2013. We have not forgotten anyone and anything. The killing of our people in Sinai is one of the bloodiest crimes in terms of the number of casualties. And we won't wipe away tears from our soul and heart. This will stay with us forever. But this won't prevent us from finding and punishing the criminals. We should do it without the time limit, know all of them by name. We will look for them anywhere they might hide. We will find them in any place on earth and punish them."

Footage from the Russian air strikes in Syria followed.

Solovyev: "Perhaps Islamic State is that kind of absolute evil to defeat which the world will have to unite in order to come up with the terms for a new Yalta, notionally, to come about."

Putin: "The terrorist organization called Islamic State is of course a big threat, and not only to us but also to the Islamic world itself. When you and I started this conversation, you asked me what the attitude of various countries to this is, and I told you that even those countries where the population is Sunni Muslim, even they are fearful. Why? Because the so-called Islamic State has already laid claim to Mecca and Medina. Already, they want to create an enormous caliphate. That is to say, they are a threat to a great many. It is not, however, the pivotal point which everything essential for future development will go around. What is essential for future development is to build relations in what is called the geopolitical struggle. The struggle is inevitable, this is normal. The thing is, however, that it should be pursued on the basis of civilized rules, which, let me underline once again, must be civilized, clear, transparent, uniformly interpreted and controlled."

The UK's David Owen spoke about the importance of key players for peace on Earth. Shimon Peres spoke about there being few great leaders. Footage of Putin with Obama and Ban, and of an Obama-Putin handshake, followed, as Peres spoke about Moses, who "chose his moral duty over all the delights of the world", and Putin advanced along a corridor towards the camera alone.

Final part filmed 17 December: Europe, Ukraine, Syria, "war"

In the final part of the film, Solovyev said that as the work on the film drew towards conclusion, another meeting with Putin became necessary. Two months had passed but "lots of tragic events" had happened. So, Solovyev came to Putin's residence on 17 December, Thursday, "1900 hours".

First, Solovyev asked Putin about the "notes of personal disappointment" discernible in his latest speeches. "You have always been able to hit bull's eye, but lately you've been calling a spade a spade. The impression is that all pretence has been dropped. Is there still anything of honour and decency left in politics, when accords are honoured? Who is left of the world leaders with whom agreement can be reached, with whom long-term relations can be secured, if even those who yesterday seemed like-minded, are today stabbing us in the back? What is Europe's problem in particular? Why can it not build its policy in reasonable, constructive, clear and understandable terms?"

Putin said: "As for notions such as honour, decency, love, honesty, of course it'd be good if they applied to politics but it's something that primarily underpins or should underpin relations between people, between young men and young women, between men and women, between men and between women. In relations between nations, interests are paramount. And for these interests, I repeat, to be balanced, it is necessary to have some kind of common rules, uniformly interpreted and transparently applied. As for people with whom one can or cannot deal, I think that we can deal with everyone and we must deal with everyone. Whether we like them or not, we'll work with everyone.

"As to what Europe's problem is, which was your question, Europe's problem is that it does not pursue an independent foreign policy at all. It in effect has given it up and has given up some of its sovereignty, maybe one of the most important parts of its sovereignty, to a bloc. In principle, it is quite normal when some of the sovereignty of the members of a politico-military bloc is transferred to supranational bodies. But the trick in this case is that it is not just a supranational body but that Europe has in effect given up this part of its sovereignty not even to NATO but NATO's leader, the United States.

"Do you remember Iraq, a topic we've revisited repeatedly, when US troops were sent in? Back then, Germany, with the then chancellor, Schroeder, at the head, and France's Chirac, the president of France, opposed it. Let me underline that it was not I who tried to convinced them but they were the ones who wanted me to join them. Then, when it was invaded and Saddam Husayn was destroyed, as was Iraq which was also destroyed, do you remember what they were told? They were told that they were wrong. I was also told: You see, we have won, while you were sidelined.

"If, however, you look one move ahead, it turned out that they were the ones who were in fact right. It turned out that the very same Chirac, who had a very close relationship of trust with the Sunni part of the Middle East, foresaw it even then, by the way a man of encyclopedic knowledge, foresaw then what it would bring. And that is what it has led to now, the destruction of the state in these countries. This has led to the fact that terrorism is thriving, with strikes against Paris. Chirac thought about it then and he was right, just as Schroeder was. We consider him Russia's friend, and so he is, but Schroeder is not a pro-Russian politician. He is pro-German. He is, in fact, an Atlanticist. He always, in our private conversations too, always told me openly and honestly about the importance of NATO for modern international relations. I do not always agree with him, but that is what he believes in. And he did not do anything that would prejudice the interests of his country, but on the contrary, always fought for these interests.

"Consider Nord Stream 1. I was amazed, you know, to see how he was attacked when he in effect initiated it. It was the German side that in effect initiated it. Yes, we actively backed it. And then he fought for its implementation. Now everyone says: Oh, it's a good job we have built it. It was he who built it. Moreover, we are now being told: Let's build Nord Stream 2. Everyone understands that Germany itself needs it, after it gave up nuclear power and is unlikely to be able to go back to it. Russia has a vast quantity of this raw material, ecologically clean and essential, and we are ready to supply it. So why say no to this? In addition, Germany will become a pan-European hub, by the way, but that is another question.

"We do not expect our partners in Europe to abandon their Euro-Atlantic orientation, but I think it would be right for our partners in Europe, without abandoning it, at least to be involved in decision-making, rather than simply stand to attention [Russian: "brat pod kozyrek", literally salute someone military fashion, say "Yes, sir!", or such like] every time instructions are issued from over the ocean somewhere.

"Yes, everyone understands what this led to for Schroeder and Chirac, but one needs to be guided either by their domestic political interests or their national interests. And it seems to me that it is in the interests of European countries - maybe I'm wrong, let them say otherwise if I am - to join forces with Russia economically, politically and in the fight against terror, in the fight for solutions to ecological problems, against organized crime. We are ready for this work, we are open, we are not going to sulk because of these sanctions. We are waiting. We are patient."

Solovyev: "But not waiting for everyone."

Putin: "We are waiting for everyone."

Solovyev: "What about Turkey though, and what it did?"

Putin: "Turkey is not Europe, that's the first thing. Second, I have already said in the address [to the Federal Assembly on 3 December] and I want to repeat it here and now: we regard the Turkish people as friendly people. And we do not want to cut relations with the Turkish people. Well, as for the current leadership, nothing is forever."

Solovyev: "So, what we have is that on the one hand, Europe, the US and Russia have joined forces against the international terrorist threat, but on the other they are extending sanctions against our country, with sometimes even new ones. Yet they seem to be the same partners. What amazes me is that to suit political, immediate interests, they even change the basic principles of the operation of seemingly stable international institutions like the International Monetary Fund. I mean Ukraine. Could you please comment on that?"

Putin: "As for Ukraine and all the former Soviet Union, I am convinced that the position of our Western partners, both European and American, is driven not by the protection of the interests of Ukraine but is an attempt to prevent the restoration of the Soviet Union. And nobody wants to believe us that we have no such aim as to recreate the Soviet Union. Even the hypothetical possibility itself, however, that Russia and Ukraine might join forces as part of modern, primarily economic integration processes which would certainly make both Russia and Ukraine more competitive in the global economy and would allow both Ukraine and Russia to claim a worthier place in today's system of the division of labour in the world's markets - even this hypothetical possibility itself is causing our partners to have sleepless nights it seems [literally: "is not letting our partners have a good, deep sleep"].

"I think that their main aim is to prevent this joining of forces. It is indeed an open secret that the West did everything in its power to prevent the creation of the Single Economic Space between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, to prevent the creation of the Customs Union, as up till now they did not even want to talk to the Eurasian Economic Union as a full member of international life. Somehow, it's OK to create the European Union but not the Eurasian Union. Nevertheless, the realization that this position is destructive [counterproductive] is now gradually dawning on our partners.

"As for Ukraine, why did they back the coup? I have said this many times before. I think that today, many of our partners can see that they made a mistake but simply do not want to admit it. They took advantage of popular discontent with the way things were in Ukraine, by the way not just under Yanukovych but ever since they gained independence: corruption, low standards in the functioning of the law enforcement and the judiciary, much worse than what we have. We have many problems there but they have it even worse. Brazen behaviour by the officialdom. We cannot even imagine to what extent that annoyed the people there. And of course it was easy to tap into this discontent.

"You cannot change things for the better through coups, however. So, is it better now? Power remains in the hands of oligarchs, the country has been placed under external management, all key managers have been brought in from neighbouring countries and from overseas, from across the ocean, people's living standards have fallen catastrophically. Ukraine's GDP has fallen by an order of magnitude - we've just said that ours has fallen but theirs has fallen by an order of magnitude more than ours - and Ukraine's complete de-industrialization is under way.

"What are they getting in exchange? Maybe, the right to visa-free travel to Europe will be granted. Maybe, or maybe not. But it is not even the right to work, not even a working visa. But even if it were a working visa, work as who? Nannies, gardeners or construction workers? Grab more and throw farther. Is this the fate and the future of such a beautiful country and such remarkable people as Ukraine and Ukrainians? Of course not.

"Ukraine has everything needed to become a highly industrialized country, moreover with a modern level of development in the high-tech sectors of the economy, such as rocket-building, space, aircraft manufacture, shipbuilding, microelectronics, a developed science, education. Where is all this? It is degenerating.

"And nobody wants to pay for Ukraine's expenses. They will give a billion or two, will promise some guarantees, and at the same time they want to shift the financial burden onto Russia, and do not want to repay loans, even though we have proposed very good, I think comfortable solutions to the debt problem. Let's jointly share the risks, we said. We are ready to restructure our loan to Ukraine over four years, with nothing at all to pay in the first year and then a billion at a time. What's wrong with that? Yet they do not even want to share this risk, however. What does this mean? That they do not believe in Ukraine's credit-worthiness and the stabilization of its economy. This is a very bad signal.

"Still, they are changing the rules in the IMF. It is not the US, however, that funds it but the IMF, all the members of this international organization. That is to say, the financial burden for the political mistakes made is again being shifted to the entire international financial community. They do not want to carry this burden on their own.

"It seems to me, nevertheless, that the realization that one must act within the confines of civilized rules, rather than flout them, this realization should sooner or later come to everyone if it has not come already.

"Take these Minsk accords, about which we have heard and said a lot, including the extension of these restrictions by the West against Russia. Come on, it is not we who have to pass changes to the constitution [in Ukraine to comply with Minsk-2], is it? Of course not. Everyone realizes this full well but thinks that they need to put some more pressure on Russia so that we make more concessions somewhere. It's nothing to do with us - we cannot be asked to make concessions or to insist on something. Our sole concern is that we cannot abandon those people who live in the southeast of the country, not just Russians but also the Russian-speaking population that aligns itself with Russia, to be devoured by the nationalists. There is nothing extreme in this position."

Solovyev: "As we saw, they even swear in Russian in the Ukrainian reform commission, while the local president [as said; "mestnyy president"] tries to separate them also in Russian."

Putin: "The fact that they swear in Russian is good. At least it's not in Georgian or Ossetian. It is a joke, however. It's tragicomic when representatives from the Caucasus [reference to a clash between Ukraine's Avakov and Saakashvili] present themselves as more of a defender of the interests of the people of Ukraine than representatives from the people of Ukraine themselves, as though they know better what the Ukrainians need, having come from Georgia or being, as one would say now, a second-generation immigrant from Armenia or Ossetia. Do they really think that people from the Caucasus know better what a Ukrainian needs? It's just laughable. It would have been laughable had it not been so sad."

Solovyev: "Sovereignty is the main theme now, every time we talk about the new world order. National sovereignty is a cornerstone point, then one can seek to reach agreement with nations. Nevertheless, are there still some basic principles left, or can anything be changed today, can anything be betrayed for the sake of immediate interests? You are always saying: interests, interests. You, however, act differently. Apart from interests, you always keep your word. Even at the toughest of times, you remain true to this logic. At your news conference, you spoke about complications in relations with Turkey. Nevertheless, you still did not break the agreement and did not say what had been said [presumably between Russia and Turkey]."

Putin: "Well, thank you for this complement. Indeed, I try to honour the commitments I make, honour the commitments which we make as our country's commitments. That is not just because of some high moral principles but, rather, it is pragmatic. That way, it's easier to work.

"In relation to the Syrian crisis, for example, we find it easy to work both with [Syrian] President [Bashar] Al-Asad and the American side, recently I spoke about this with [US] President [Barack] Obama, and with our friends from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Why easy? We don't suck up to anybody, nor do we change our position. We did not rush. Before we formulated our position, we heard everyone out. Then we chose a line which we thought was acceptable to everyone, and not just as we thought but after all, we asked people first: yes or no, do you agree or not? In principle, on the basic parameters of the settlement, everybody said yes, yes, yes, yes. But if yes, yes, yes, then we formulated our position on the basis of those components that were common and acceptable. And we don't need now to jump from side to side, like a flea on a leash, pardon me, because we have no need to do this. It has been formulated based on our dialogues, which gives our position strength. So, this kind of not just openness but consistency and, why be coy about it, honesty in our position gives its strength.

"As for the basics which you mentioned, as in whether there still are some or there aren't any, there is no other foundation than international law underpinned by the UN Charter. Of course the world changes. The UN Charter and the world order as we know it now came into being based on the results of World War II. The balance of forces has clearly changed, and we must no doubt take this into consideration. That is so. Take the Federal Republic of Germany. We cannot deprive every generation of Germans of rights for what the Nazis perpetrated. There were Germans who fought Nazism and fell victim first in the fight against Nazism, be they Christians, Communists, all sorts of others, the antifascist movement was a major force. We also need to think about that. And I think that I am entitled to say so, not only as the Russian president and head of state but also as a member of a family which lost many killed and injured. On my mother's side and my father's side, I have more people who lost their lives in than those who survived World War II. For the international situation today to change towards greater stability, the role of Germany today, which it can and should play in the international arena, cannot be discounted. All this has to be taken into consideration, and international relations have to be developed towards making them more stable."

Solovyev: "When the terror attack took place over Sinai and then when our lads were killed in Syria, your reaction was very emotional. It was obvious you took it as a personal tragedy. And when the Paris attacks came, you were also among the first to have telephoned. To what extent does this affect decision-making? To what extent does this pain influence you and determine Russia's policy?"

Putin: "Emotions are inevitable but they must not affect the quality of the decisions that are taken, because these decisions affect the interests of millions of people, millions of Russians. So, each decision must be weighed with an eye on the present day as well as must yield a positive result in the medium and longer term."

Solovyev: "Vladimir Vladimirovich, will there be war?"

Putin: "If you mean a global war, I hope not. At any rate, in the current international context, that would be a planetary catastrophe, and one would hope that no-one will be crazy enough on Planet Earth today to decide to use nuclear weapons. As a deterrent, Russia, as one of the leading nuclear powers, will continue to improve these weapons, as the nuclear triad underpins our security policy, but we have never brandished and will never brandish this nuclear big stick, although in our military doctrine, it is given its proper place and proper role."

Solovyev: "Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich."

Putin acknowledges this with a nod.

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 #3
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 21, 2015
In search of what's next for Syria, Ukraine and the Russian economy
Russian media roundup: Putin's annual press conference, the UN resolution on Syria, Ukraine's debt moratorium, and the prolongation of sanctions against Russia all made headlines this week.
By Anastasia Borik

Last week, Russians paid particular attention to President Vladimir Putin's year-end press conference for potential clues about what to expect in 2016 for both domestic and foreign policy. The media paid close attention to events that could influence the fate of Ukraine, the current situation in Syria and the future of Western sanctions against Russia.

Vladimir Putin's press conference

On Dec. 17, the Russian president held his traditional year-end press conference, in which he spent several hours answering questions from journalists from across the country. Each year, Putin's communication with the media attracts the attention of not only ordinary citizens, but also political experts - from the head of state, they expect a summary of the passing year and signals of what to expect in the coming year.

Kirill Martynov, political columnist at the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, believes that at this time, the press conference was devoted to the construction of a new personal image of Vladimir Putin - the image of being the only man who can save Russia from the crisis the country finds itself in today.

For the first time in a long time, stresses Martynov, the really important questions for the Russian people have dominated this conference - the economy, the price of food and housing, corruption, Donbass, and relations with Turkey.

Observers believe this was generally a good thing, because to maintain his image of an anti-crisis manager, Putin will be forced to pay more attention to domestic politics, leaving aside foreign adventurism.

The analytical portal Aktualnye Kommentarii in its editorial section pointed to the absence, during the press conference, of any political promises for the upcoming 2016 elections. The president and his entourage are playing a dangerous game in the de-politicization of society, which will eventually lead only to the fact that political participation forms will become mostly radical (if not revolutionary). In this sense, this press conference, being called upon to reassure the population, has not fulfilled its task.

A special correspondent of the business newspaper Kommersant, and a journalist of the Kremlin press pool, Andrey Kolesnikov believes that this was the most sincere press conference that Putin has ever given. In it, he not only said what he thought, but also appealed to the broadest possible segment of the population - in a language that was clear and well known to all people. Kolesnikov notes that not all questions are obviously of interest to the President - the internal policies upset the president, while the Turkish and Ukrainian problems livened up the Russian leader.

The portal of the Echo of Moscow radio station gave the word to opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who was surprised by Putin's reaction to questions from journalists about the corrupt activities of Prosecutor General Yury Chaika and his family. Navalny had assumed that Putin would be repeating the version already voiced by the President's press service - that "the Kremlin was not interested in this issue."

However, at this moment, Putin showed hesitation and became lost in thought, which Navalny perceives as the leader's fatigue from having to "take the rap" from the public, for more and more of his supporters.

UN resolution on Syria

On Dec. 18, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution on the Syrian conflict. This is the first document of its kind since the start of the Syrian civil war. Until now, Russia had consistently blocked all previous resolutions in the Security Council, pointing to their inconsistencies. The main provisions of the resolution were related to negotiations between the Assad regime and opposition forces, as well as the conduct of elections and changes to the Constitution of Syria.

The business publication RBC discussed the possible obstacles in the implementation of the resolution: in particular, the negotiations themselves are very unlikely to happen, until a list of opposition groups, which may take part in them, is defined, Namely it is here where lie the many differences between the major powers involved in this conflict.

In addition, the publication stresses, the resolution does not determine the fate of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has become a major stumbling block in the settlement of the Syrian crisis. Perhaps, suggests RBC, Moscow is ready to abandon its support for Assad, but is not yet ready to say this publicly.

The online newspaper Gazeta.ru, with references to experts, also believes that Moscow and Washington have finally managed to agree on the fate of the Assad regime, which has made it possible to unanimously adopt the resolution. Middle East experts, interviewed by Gazeta.ru, have suggested that a transitional figure could become the former Prime Minister of Syria Riyad Farid Hijab, the best compromise figure in Syrian politics (for a long time he supported the Assad regime, but then switched to the opposition).

The pro-government Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported numerous difficulties in negotiating this resolution, particularly on the question of the future fate of Assad. The publication stressed that in this regard, the negotiations reached an impasse, as none of the parties was ready to drop their vision of his future. Rossiyskaya Gazeta believes that the issue of Assad has been left on the sidelines, in order to get the historical document, required for joint action against terrorists in Syria, to be passed.

Ukrainian moratorium on the repayment of Russia's loan

On Dec. 18, the Ukrainian government, headed by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, declared a moratorium on the payment of the "Russian" Eurobonds worth $3 billion, and maturing on Dec. 20, 2015. The Russian Ministry of Finance, in response, is threatening to go to the courts for recovery of the debt, and also reminded people that the IMF has recognized that this was considered as the sovereign debt of Ukraine, and not commercial debt.

The pro-government TV network Channel One is outraged by the actions taken by the government of the neighboring country: Russia had offered Ukraine rather favorable terms on the debt, via installment payments, but the Ukrainian side has ignored them and refused even to negotiate on this issue.

Channel One underlines that the fate of Ukraine will now be dealt with in the international courts, where Russia has a better chance to defend its interests and get the debt repaid. Experts interviewed by Channel One believe that Ukraine's decision on the moratorium is misleading, because it only worsens the climate in its relations with Russia, and the country will be forced to spend money on litigation, without any clear prospects for winning the case.

The business newspaper Vedomosti also reminded its readers that Russia had offered Ukraine a chance to restructure its debt with a guarantee from its foreign partners of "independence," but this proposal was rejected. The moratorium, stresses the newspaper, plays into the hands of Russia, because it increases the chances of recovering this debt through international courts.

Moskovsky Komsomolets published the opinions of several Russian entrepreneurs, who believe that the situation with the repayment of debts by Ukraine increasingly is starting to resemble the not-so-funny anecdote of the "theater of the absurd."

Obviously, Russian entrepreneurs say, Ukraine is not able to pay its debts now, but that does not mean that Russia should abandon its claims. On the contrary, we must be prepared for a long confrontation on this issue, according to the publication.

Extending sanctions against Russia

On Dec. 18, the European Union decided to extend sanctions against Russia for another six months. Such a decision was expected one week before, but the representative from Italy voted against the automatic renewal of sanctions, and demanded discussions to be held, which, however, did not affect the results of the final vote.

The business newspaper Kommersant noted that no one in Russia had any illusions about the possible lifting of sanctions. The newspaper's sources in the European Commission stressed that the EU is now faced with many other problems, in addition to Russia and Ukraine, and so this extension of sanctions - was more of a technical and formal nature, rather than political.

With reference to Russian and foreign experts, the newspaper predicts there will be a lack of unity in the ranks of the EU when the next discussions on anti-Russian sanctions are held in July 2016. The Europeans are gradually becoming tired of the Ukrainian agenda, and for them it is becoming increasingly clear that the blame, for the delays in implementing the Minsk Process, lies not with Moscow, but with Kiev.

The pro-government Rossiyskaya Gazeta, with reference to the Russian Ministry of Finance, is confident that for Russia, the extension of sanctions really means nothing. The economy "needs to adapt to changes," they underlined at the Ministry of Finance. Moreover, the authorities believe that these sanctions are even having a healthy effect on the financial and economic sectors of the country.

Quotes of the Week:

Vladimir Putin, responding to a question about the downed Russian Su-24: "You asked - Maybe there was some third party behind this? - and I understand what you are hinting at. We do not know. However, If someone in the Turkish leadership has decided to lick the Americans in a certain place, I do not know, was this the right way to do it, do the Americans need this or not."

Putin on U.S. presidential elections race and Donald Trump: "He is the absolute leader in the presidential race. He is a very outstanding person, talented, without any doubt."

The opposition leader Alexey Navalny on Putin's response concerning the investigation into activities of Prosecutor General Chaika: "Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I have the feeling that the Kremlin would be very happy to gather up all these "Chaikas" and drop then from aircraft on ISIS positions, as payment for those unexpected problems that they have brought."

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on Ukraine's debt: "The announcement of a moratorium does not affect the obligations of Ukraine to repay its debts. The obligations remain in force, and Russia expects that they will be fulfilled in their entirety."

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk declaring a debt moratorium: "We are ready for court proceedings with Russia".

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs, on the extension of the EU sanctions: "If you in Brussels share an illusion that these sanctions have any practical effect here (in Russia) or produce some psychological impression, then you are absolutely far from the truth, and from any understanding of the real situation."

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 #4
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 22, 2015
Russia's nascent middle class feels the squeeze in economic crisis
Russia's middle class, which was growing in the early 2000s, has born the brunt of the economic downturn along with small-business owners.
ALEXANDER BRATERSKY, SPECIAL TO RBTH

They created their wealth in the 1990s, enjoyed the fruits of the oil-rich 2000s and hoped to give  their children a better future. They are the Russian middle class, once a rapidly growing segment of society in Moscow and other big Russian cities. Made up of those of both liberal and conservative political bents, these people opened small businesses, bought comfortable foreign-brand sedans and ate out in nice restaurants.

Today this middle class, already hit hard during the 2008 global financial crisis, is rapidly shrinking, due to an unstable economic situation, Western sanctions and the Russian government's own economic policies.

"The creative, free, peaceful, nonaggressive, open-minded person feels like a victim today - a sheep who has had the last of her wool removed," said Irina Khakamada, a liberal politician and a  member of the presidential council on human rights, during a meeting of the group in October.

Nowhere to turn

The middle class is suffering the most from the country's current economic downturn. Their purchasing power decreased rapidly as the dollar value of their salaries halved with the collapse of the ruble. A person who worked for a private company and earned a comfortable salary of $3,000 per month before the crisis is now making $1,500.

How is the Russian middle class defined? Sociologists say a middle class Russian should have enough income to do the following five things: buy a good quality car, such as a Toyota; take a foreign vacation; pay for their childrens' educational needs; get a mortgage to buy an apartment; and pay for private insurance.

In 2013, about 18 percent of the population fit this criteria. Today that number is around 13 percent and falling, according to a recent government study on the middle class.

A particularly Russian middle class

While some sociologists say that the middle class existed in the "classless" Soviet society and was made up of doctors, engineers and university professors, others think that the term was not really applicable in Russia until after the fall of the Soviet Union. The concept of the middle class in the Western understanding was really absent from Russia for most of its history. During the imperial and Soviet periods, the role played by the middle class in questioning authority and its rules was instead filled by the intelligentsia - welleducated people who did not come from the artistocratic classes. They questioned the political establishment from an ideological perspective rather than an economic one. According to this theory, Russia began to develop a Western-style middle class only in the 2000s, when the market economy truly took hold.

High prices, few customers

Small- and medium-sized businesses are also disproportionately affected by the economic downturn. Many entrepreneurs who started small businesses a few years ago now find themselves unable to meet rent payments, many of which are still set in euros or dollars, or make any profit selling items imported from abroad.

In an interveiw with Russian News Service radio last month, business ombudsman Boris Titov said that the number of medium-sized businesses was down 13 percent from 2014.

Olga Promptova, C.E.O. of dd-atelier.com, a company that sells lingerie online, said that she feels that harder times are coming: "I see fewer and fewer possibilities for development. People have less money, they are economizing and they rarely go on a shopping spree," Promptova said.

Promptova, an energetic, stylish businesswoman, founded her business in 2007 because she had problems finding lingerie she liked. She said that the fall in the value of the ruble has made the cost of the foreign-made fabrics she uses go up 20-30 percent, increasing the prices of her items, and consequently turning many clients away.

"Those were the woman who bought the same products two years ago without thinking much," she said.

Still, there have been some positives, too, since the cost of producing the items in Russia has not grown. "Now we can have a partial win, but this cannot last forever," Promptova said. "In order to give people the price they want, we have to buy cheaper materials to make cheaper products. But that means producing things of different quality and we don't want to do that."

A helping hand?

For another Russian businessperson, Boris Akimov, the government's policy of import substition has been a helping hand.

An artist and former editor of the Russian edition of Rolling Stone, Akimov's company, Lavka-Lavka, sells locally produced produce and meats.  "We have an audience that is loyal to us, and there always will be people who want to buy quality farm products," said Akimov.

He added that his business has grown 25 percent since last year, thanks to Russian sanctions that banned imports of most fresh foods from Western countries.

To illustrate his business success, Akimov said that his company is opening its own market of farm products at an IKEA-run supermarket near Moscow: "Even a middle-class buyer will be able to afford to shop there," he said.

Viktor Yermakov, head of an organization that supports small- and medium-sized businesses, said that import substitution strategies can help these kinds of operations, but they need more government support.

"You have to have the best product on the market and in order to increase your quality you need loans," said Yermakov, noting that there are government programs available that allow business people to take out loans at a rate of 10.5 percent for projects that fit a specific criteria.

However, Yermakov said that despite some efforts made by officials to help small- and medium-sized businesses, bureaucracy and red tape remain the major source of concern.

"Even when the president gives orders not to put extreme pressure on businesses, officials on the ground are doing the opposite and that kills business," he said.

According to Yermakov, only half of Russia's regions have tax incentives for small business ventures.  "Despite the fact that those regions that have done so had an increase in tax collection, many regional officials are afraid to take responsibility to do similar measures. I don't think they are some kind of saboteurs; they are just people who care less," he said.

A new government agency has recently been set up to help small- and medium-sized businesses. The  new Corporation for Small- and Medium-sized Business Development is headed by an energetic pro-business official, Alexander Braverman. His goal is to help businesses get government loans, and to help them work through the red tape associated with government invcentives. Nevertheless, when announcing Braverman's appointment, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev emphasized that there's only so much the government can do. "The state will never be able to as much as business could do ... ", Medvedev said.

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 #5
Bloomberg
December 21, 2015
Another False Start for Russia as Oil Spells Longer Recession
By Anna Andrianova

A renewed sell-off in oil means the Russian economy will be testing new lows for much of next year.

With crude trading near the lowest since mid-2004, banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. say a second year of recession is all but inevitable. JPMorgan reversed its call for 0.5 percent growth next year, predicting a 0.2 percent contraction instead, while the World Bank worsened its forecast to a decline of 0.7 percent. Barclays Plc said last week's batch of consumer data also signaled an "extended recession."

The collapse of crude prices remains a challenge to President Vladimir Putin, who said last Thursday that Russia had put the worst of the economic crisis behind it. While gross domestic product contracted at a slower annual pace last quarter, the dropoff in oil can stop the recovery in its tracks by eroding budget revenue, crippling the ruble and stoking inflation, forcing the central bank to withhold monetary easing.

"The recent slide in commodity prices will likely delay Russia's recovery into the second half of 2016," Anatoliy Shal, an analyst at JPMorgan in Moscow, said in an e-mailed note. "The Bank of Russia easing cycle looks likely to restart only in the second quarter of 2016 due to the weaker ruble and slower disinflation."

Ruble, Inflation

The Russian currency closed at a record low against the dollar as Brent crude fell toward $36 a barrel. The ruble has lost more than 9 percent in the past month against the dollar, the world's worst performer after the currencies of Azerbaijan, Argentina and Kazakhstan. Based on historical data, Societe Generale SA estimates that a 10 percent ruble depreciation adds about 50 basis points to a full percentage point to annual inflation in Russia.

Brent crude, used to price Russia's main export blend, touched $36.04, the lowest level since July 2, 2004. Prices are down 37 percent this year, set for a third annual loss.

A drop in oil of $10 per barrel cuts Russia's annual export revenue by about $25 billion, equivalent to 2 percent of 2015 GDP, according to Capital Economics Ltd. Since gas closely tracks the price of oil, Russia stands to lose about $5 billion more, or 0.4 percent of GDP, as a result of smaller gas sales, it estimates.

'Very Optimistic'

A two-year recession would mean the longest slump for Russia in two decades. The country has to be prepared for "any scenario," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Dec. 16. Putin said during his annual news conference last week that a price of $50 per barrel for 2016 is "very optimistic." Next year's budget is based on oil at $50.

GDP will contract as much as 3 percent next year under the central bank's "risk scenario," which sees crude at $35. As the slump in oil prices triggered a new bout of ruble weakness, policy makers kept their benchmark interest rate unchanged at 11 percent for a third consecutive meeting this month.

The central bank estimates the economy will shrink 0.5 percent to 1 percent in 2016 before expanding as much as 1 percent the following year. GDP will contract 3.7 percent this year, according to Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev. Lower oil prices give grounds for reviewing a forecast for 0.7 percent growth next year, RIA Novosti reported Monday, citing Ulyukayev

 #6
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 22, 2015
Russia avoids revolution again
Naysayers are keen to predict Russia's demise, but despite a difficult year politically and economically, the country has failed to fall apart.
By Bryan MacDonald
Bryan MacDonald is a Moscow-based commentator.

For at least the past decade, every year some expert inside or outside of Russia has predicted that the country will erupt in revolution, or at least that it is ripe for "regime change." Numerous books and articles are published annually specializing in forecasts of imminent doom for the Kremlin.

Starting in 2014 analysts began to look for signs of this revolution in the country's economic troubles. Last year, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, spoke of "turn(ing) the ratchet" on Vladimir Putin and suggested that Western sanctions would "permanently" damage Russia's financial health.

This trend only continued in 2015. In January, U.S. President Barack Obama declared the Russian economy "in tatters" and in September, CNN reported that Russia's economy was "failing." Just this month, opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky warned that a revolution is "inevitable" in Russia.

However, despite the warnings, the country somehow manages to go on.

What revolution?

In 2015, there were numerous potential triggers for a political breakdown. The murder of prominent opposition voice Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow in February was one. It produced prevailing sadness at the horrible end of this public figure, but little else.

Another flashpoint could have been this winter's protests by long-haul truckers, which have threatened to block major roads across the country. But so far their displeasure has remained confined to a small disruption of traffic on Moscow's ring road and a very calm meeting with police.

The blackout of Crimea might have sparked restlessness on the peninsula, which Russia absorbed last year, but there was hardly a peep of vitriol against Moscow.

The publication of documents by newspaper Novaya Gazeta and opposition activist Alexei Navalny accusing Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika's family of being involved in deep-seated corruption could have caused some rage. Chaika's son has been linked to the mafia and reportedly owns expensive homes in Switzerland and Greece. The general public, however, seems to accept official reassurances that Chaika himself is not involved in any illegal acts and the investigation is the product of dirty political intrigues.

Then there is the currency crisis. Last year, a dollar was worth around 35 rubles; now it's around 70. Many Russians have lost much of their savings. Opportunities to travel abroad have been snatched away and imported goods have more or less doubled in price. Inflation stands at around 19 percent and 6 million people are expected to fall out of the middle class, which has been the mainstay of Putin's personal popularity; the number of Russians living below the poverty line has risen to 14 percent.

A different reality

And yet none of these issues has provoked comprehensive protests or popular resistance to the government. Instead, recent opinon poll data from the analytical Levada Center shows that, rather than hurtling into disarray, Russia is actually pretty stable. More than 80 percent of Russians believe that Russian citizenship is preferable to any other, and two-thirds consider themselves "free'." Fifty-seven percent hope to see Putin re-elected to another presidential term in 2018.

The reasons for such calm are pretty elementary. Firstly, the mixed results of Ukraine's revolution and the dramatic collapse in living standards there has spooked Russians. They genuinely fear that violent upheaval could lead to a repeat of the chaos of the 1990s.

Another problem is the weakness of the liberal opposition. Sure, the Kremlin makes life tough for its opponents. State TV doesn't acknowledge them to a great extent and official newspapers largely ignore them. However, the Internet is open, and liberal Dozhd TV and Ekho Moskvy radio allows opposition figures to express their views. But the main obstacle is their lack of unity and the deep fractures in the liberal movement, in addition to a lack of a clear leader and a specific policy platform.

Instead, the opposition offers hopes and dreams with no tangible explanations of how they might actually work and who would direct the policies. Furthermore, leading personalities, with the exception of Navalny and a few others, seem to spend more time courting foreign attention than domestic audiences.

Then there is Putin's genuine personal popularity and a belief that, no matter how bad things are presently, Russia has improved immensely during the 15 years that he has been in power.

Many Russians who spend time abroad speak of almost entering a parallel universe when they compare Western media coverage of Russia and their own practical experiences at home. Most Russians would never claim their country is perfect by any measure, but they do largely believe that foreign impressions of Russia are far too negative. Without question, these are challenging times in Russia, but the people are already accustomed to upheaval and don't seem to be panicing. The revolution has been postponed. Again.

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 #7
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
December 14, 2015
From tabloids to state-run dailies: A tour of the Russian press
By George Butchard

In early December a group of young journalists from over a dozen countries attended the New Generation program in Moscow, where they had the opportunity to tour some of Russia's key media publications and ask questions about the way the state media apparatus works.

First on the agenda was Komsomolskaya Pravda, an old Soviet stalwart that is still going strong, apparently having the highest web traffic of any paper in Russia. The members of the editorial board were quick to point out that they are, in fact, not state run, which differentiates them from the other papers included in the program. However, they also made much of the fact that "KP", as it is known, is President Putin's favorite paper, which drew raised eyebrows from some participants.

After KP, the attendees moved on to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, where there was a lively debate about what freedom of speech means in Russia. "Yes, we reflect the government position," said the editor, "but luckily the government never agrees with itself, so we always have many views to put forward." He also emphasized that he does not have any ministers watching over his shoulder for what the paper writes and feels that he does have a remit to criticize the government when necessary.

The tour of Rossiyskaya Gazeta also included a trip upstairs to its subdivision Russia Beyond the Headlines, a government-sponsored English-language project to inform foreigners about a side of Russia that they may not get to read in the western media, which tends to reduce Russia to oligarchs, Putin and vodka. Vsevolod Pulya, RBTH's editor-in-chief, insisted that the paper is largely left to its own devices and urged the program's participants to read it for themselves and judge its objectivity that way.

Freedom of speech was the hot topic for the entire program, with some participants pointing out that, while the majority of papers in Russia are government-owned, western papers tend to be corporate-owned. Hence, neither arguably holds their respective backers to enough account. One participant from Central Asia pointed out that all journalists must walk a tightrope between what their editors, financial backers or advertisers want - particularly in an age of shrinking circulations.

The program definitely stimulated some interesting discussions, and the participants left with a better understanding of Russian media culture - and Russian culture in general. They came to appreciate the vast changes that have taken place in Russia since the middle of last century and understand that the Russian press is not as unrelentingly constrained as it might appear to a western observer.

Aleksandr Kupriyanov, the editor of Vechernyaya Moskva (Evening Moscow), the paper belonging to the Moscow municipal government, said: "I was born under Stalin, was a young pioneer under Khrushchev, a committed communist under Brezhnev, an advocate of perestroika under Gorbachev, and now I am a government man." Like Kupriyanov, Russia and the Russian media cannot be pigeonholed, and that was the take-home message from the program.

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 #8
RFE/RL
December 19, 2015
In Forgotten Karelian Village, Frustration With Moscow Runs High
by Sergei Khazov-Cassia

VEGARUS, Russia -- The stream bounces gaily on its bed of pebbles as it passes through this tiny village in Russia's republic of Karelia, some 70 kilometers from the Finnish border.

Up until 1939, the pristine, wooded area was part of Finland.

Today, despite its proximity to one of Europe's most affluent countries, Vegarus is one of the myriad villages dying a slow death in Russia's provinces.
Russian authorities are unpopular here.

Many local residents say they are left to fend for themselves, and they accuse President Vladimir Putin of waging quixotic campaigns in Ukraine and Syria at the expense of Russian citizens like them.

Officially, 200 people are registered as living in Vegarus.

In reality, the village is home to only about 50 people. Many of them were born here. Others were brought to Vegarus as children in its Soviet heyday.
The village was founded in the wake of World War II. The Soviet Union was actively rebuilding itself after the war, and Vegarus quickly grew as a base for logging.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, logging companies were privatized. Machines gradually supplanted manual labor, prompting locals to move to cities in search of employment.

Vegarus emptied and fell into disrepair.

"We once had a school, a kindergarten, a clinic, a canteen, a services center, a grocery store, a department store, a garage, and a gas station," recalls pensioner Tatyana Bogdanova, gesturing toward the snow piles lining the deserted road.

Bogdanova was brought to Vegarus by her parents in 1952, when she was just 3 years old.

She never left.

'Nothing To Do But Drink'

A former nurse and projectionist at the local community club, she now lives on a monthly pension of 15,000 rubles ($216) -- generous by local standards.
She says she would live relatively comfortably were it not for her son, who is unemployed and drinks away much of her pension.

"What else is there to do here?" Bogdanova sighs.

For a long time following the Soviet collapse, Vegarus had no grocery store; villagers had to travel to the nearest town to stock up on food. Since only a handful of them owned a car, most relied on the bus that comes to their village twice a month.

Hwne Moscow investors finally opened a small store in Vegarus, local residents breathed a sigh of relief.

Bogdanova's biggest gripes are now the electricity blackouts that routinely hit Vegarus. Help is usually slow to come. Sometimes, she must wait two full days for power to be restored.

"It's bearable, but I'm afraid to go outside because of the wolves," she says. "They drag the dogs away. But I don't need to go anywhere, I've lived my life. Now I'm preparing to die."

Bogdanova's house is warm but rundown. The wallpaper is dotted with rust stains, and old linoleum covers the bumpy floors.

She never privatized her house when the Soviet Union disintegrated, and continues to receive bills for maintenance and repairs. She doesn't bother paying them -- the last time someone fixed anything in her house was in 1975.

The pensioner spends much of her time watching television from a shabby armchair. This day, Putin is delivering a speech to lawmakers in Moscow.

Asked what she thinks of the president, she shakes her head for a long time.

"I don't trust anyone," she finally answers. "Of course I feel sorry for people in Ukraine, but not that much. Russians need help, too. And now we will go to Syria. We are always helping everyone but not our own people."

Not So Splendid Isolation

Outside the house, her neighbors Tatyana Sergeyeva and Yelena Morozova are taking a walk down the lane.

The two women complain about life in Vegarus, and their grievances closely echo Bogdanova's: the power blackouts, the isolation, the snow that no one bothers clearing.

Medical care has also been an issue since the clinic shut down.

A medic now visits the village once a week. But in case of emergencies, villagers often find themselves unable to call for an ambulance because of the blackouts. They have to climb up the nearest hill and try to catch a signal on their mobile phones.

First-aid medics almost never make the journey to Vegarus anyway, frequently advising patients over the phone to take a painkiller and get some rest.
"She once fell badly on her back," Morozova recalls, pointing to her friend. "I climbed up the hill and called, I said she needed to be taken to the city.

They answered that the medic was scheduled to come the next day. I told them that she needed to be taken to the city for X-rays. She has no husband, no car.... They never came."

Several of the men in the village have vehicles, but Morozova says they charge hefty fees for the trip to town.

"During bank holidays you can forget about it," she complains. "They may have cars, but you just try and catch them sober!"

The two neighbors also share Bogdanova's misgivings about Putin.

The embargo on food imports, imposed in response to Western sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and support of separatists in eastern Ukraine, has gone unnoticed in Vegarus -- Western delicacies have never been available here.

But like many locals, they feel let down by Moscow and Putin.

"I have the feeling that ever since Ukraine started, it's been his only concern," charges Sergeyeva. "Just like Syria now."

Morozova nods.

"I don't like him either," she chimes in. "He's not doing anything for us, especially for pensioners."

Overpowering Stench

Life is only marginally more comfortable in the district's main city, Suoyarvi, some 40 kilometers away from Vegarus.

Just under 10,000 people live in this town, most of them in rundown Soviet-era apartment buildings.

There are two types of housing in Suoyarvi: with amenities and without.

Lyubov Yegorova lives in the latter, which means there is no running water and no toilet in her apartment building.

Residents relieve themselves in a hole in the basement that has not been cleaned since the house was built in 1954. Despite the freezing temperatures, the stench is overpowering.

"Nothing has been fixed since they settled me in this flat," she laments. "The walls are crumbling, they are completely moldy, and the floors are moldy, too."

Yegorova has lived in this 40-square-meter apartment since 1996. This is where her two sons grew up before leaving Suoyarvi in search of work.

Her meager pension of 12,000 rubles ($170) is barely enough to make ends meet.

In the summer, she makes some extra money by picking berries that grow in abundance in the surrounding forests.

But the winters are hard.

"All I eat is black bread and instant noodles," she says. "I sometimes buy potatoes at 10 rubles ($0.14) a kilogram and some oil, but that's all. I don't have money for anything else."

Yegorova has access to the Internet and knows about the corruption scandals swirling around top officials in Moscow, including close allies of Putin.

But she pins the blame for her woes squarely on Karelia Governor Aleksandr Khudilainen, whom she accuses of embezzling state funds and letting the republic fall into ruin.

She fervently backs Putin, although she says he may have neglected Russia's provinces in his pursuit of foreign policy goals.

"He's a fine president, I support him," she says. "But 70 percent of the houses here are dilapidated. How to draw his attention to this problem? If I record a video appeal, will he watch it?"

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 #9
www.rt.com
December 22, 2015
Searches conducted in homes of Khodorkovsky's Open Russia movement members

The Open Russia public movement, created and sponsored by former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has reported searches in apartments of its members, which investigators say are connected with the 2003 embezzlement case in the Yukos oil company.

Russia's top federal law enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, confirmed that its agents were searching the apartments of several Open Russia members and Mikhail Khodorkovsky's press secretary Kulle Pispanen on Tuesday morning.

"The searches in the Open Russia are being conducted within the framework of the Yukos criminal case instigated back in 2003," chief spokesman for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin told Interfax. The picture of the search warrant that Open Russia activists posted on the social networks also had the number of the 2003 embezzlement case on it.

This case was started against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner and friend Platon Lebedev. Authorities suspected the two businessmen of defrauding the state of about $280 million in the process of privatization of the Apatit fertilizer company in the first half of 1990s. The probe has led to the trial in which Khodorkovsky and Lebedev received their first prison sentences in 2005. The court also ordered the dissolution of the Yukos oil company in order to compensate the damages to the state.

Human rights activist Vladimir Chikov noted in Facebook comments that the statute of limitation on the Apatit case expired in 2013.

In comments to Echo of Moscow radio, Khodorkovsky called the searches "inevitable pressure," adding that all activists in his group were ready for such developments.

The Open Russia NGO was founded by Khodorkovsky and his close allies in 2001. The organization oversaw many projects all over Russian territory, but after the dissolution of YUKOS it was deprived of funds and practically ceased to exist. When Khodorkovsky was released from prison in December 2013 and left the Russian Federation Open Russia was re-launched as a network structure with a declared goal to assist the "Europe-oriented part of the Russian society." The group has not been registered in any way and exists as a public movement, which Russian law allows, but its members promised that it would be officially registered register as soon as it becomes engaged into any activities that require such move.

Open Russia's website claims it was formed "on Mikhail Khodorkovsky's initiative," but says nothing about the sources of its funds.

In May this year, the Justice Ministry initiated the prosecutors' probe into the Open Russia public movement in order to clarify its ties with former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and foreign sponsorship. In April, MP Aleksandr Sidyakin, who represents the parliamentary majority United Russia party, asked law enforcers to check if the Open Russia public movement could be categorized as a foreign agent and, if so, to see that it duly registers as such.

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#10
Interfax
December 22, 2015
Magnitsky's mother asks Chaika to confirm publicized facts concerning her son

The mother of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died at a Moscow jail in 2009, has asked the Russian Prosecutor General, Yury Chaika, to provide evidence for the claims he made in a letter to the Kommersant daily regarding her son and the activity of the fund's head, William Browder.

"The information you disseminated causes pain to a mother who lost her son, it is not based on any factual circumstances, nor established by a court, and is disproved by documents, including the criminal case files pertaining to Magnitsky's death," Nataliya Magnitskaya said in her letter to Chaika, a copy of which was released on Tuesday by the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Program, an organization.

Magnitskaya asks whether "the information disseminated by Y. Chaika was his personal inference or his conclusion as the prosecutor general who has personal charge of the Magnitsky case;" she also asks "to provide documents based on which conclusions were made harming the name of S. Magnitsky."

In early December the Kommersant daily published Chaika's letter concerning a film-inquiry into his family members, which was made by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). According to the FBK inquiry, Chaika's close relatives and some of his subordinates are engaged in unlawful activity.

In his letter to the newspaper, Chaika called the film false and said it had been ordered by the co-founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital, W. Browder, and the U.S. intelligence agencies which were behind him.

According to Chaika, Magnitsky's death in 2009 was for Browder "a lifesaving ring, and the U.S. intelligence agencies took advantage of the tragedy to launch yet another special operation of discrediting Russia in the eyes of global community."

Magnitsky, who was arrested on tax evasion charges, died at a Moscow jail on November 16, 2009. His colleagues W. Browder and the head of the British firm Firestone Duncan, Jamison Firestone, said that Magnitsky had been arrested after he exposed the corruption schemes involving a number of senior police officials and staff.

On July 11, 2013, Moscow's Tverskoi District Court sentenced Browder in absentia to nine years of imprisonment for not paying over 522 million ruble in tax by way of falsifying tax declarations and abuse of disability benefits. The court also found the late Magnitsky guilty on the same charges.

Two weeks later Russia put Browder on its international wanted list.

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#11
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 22, 2015
What factors will determine Russian foreign policy in 2016?
Russia Direct presents its new end of the year report, which analyzes the main results of Russian foreign policy over the past year and makes forecasts for Moscow's strategy in 2016.
By Ksenia Zubacheva

The year 2015 has not been easy for the world and Russia. After all, there's still the unresolved conflict in Ukraine, the growing threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) in the Middle East and, of course, the crisis in Syria. All of these put the stability of the international security system at risk. Will these challenges be resolved in the coming year? Is it possible for the global community to join efforts and find common ground? What will the role of Russia be in addressing these questions?

The new Russia Direct report "Russia and the World: Foreign Policy Outlook 2016" provides an opportunity to assess these questions and presents prospective scenarios for Russia's relations with the United States, Europe, China and the countries of the Middle East. Authors of the report outline the key trends and developments to watch in 2016, the potential impact of the 2016 presidential elections in the U.S., and the risks of heightened instability in Ukraine or a geopolitical clash in Central Asia.

Russia Direct Brief: 'Russia and the World: Foreign Policy Outlook 2016'Starting with the results of the survey, carried out by Russia Direct among its readers, the report looks into the main results of Russian and U.S. foreign policy over the year. The respondents assessed the key geopolitical achievements and failures of policymakers in Moscow and Washington and presented their opinion on what will be the most important challenge facing the world in 2016.

Dmitry Polikanov, a board member of the PIR Center (Russian Center for Policy Studies), then offers his look at the main takeaways from the confrontation between Russia and the West over the year. According to the expert, there were four problems evident in relations between Moscow, on the one side, and Brussels and Washington, on the other.

What we are seeing now, he says, is fundamental distrust between Russia and the West, the institutionalization of confrontation, collapsing rules of the geopolitical game and a permanent exchange of blows. By analyzing each of these characteristics, Polikanov argues that there is no reason to think that the crisis between Russia and the West will be resolved any time soon.

"Russia and the West are doomed for cold relations, at least, for the next couple of years and it will be quite difficult for the new generation of politicians to take the parties out of this crisis of trust," he says.

Sergey Utkin, head of the Department of Strategic Assessment at the Center for Situation Analysis (Russian Academy of Sciences), offers three possible scenarios for how Russia-West relations might develop in the near future. From his perspective, key topics to watch in Euro-Atlantic area will include Ukraine, U.S. presidential elections and NATO-Russia confrontation.

Speaking about Russia's pivot to Asia, the importance of Moscow's ties with Beijing will remain through 2016 and beyond, argues Larisa Smirnova, senior research fellow at the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute (Russian Academy of Sciences) and lecturer at Xiamen University in China. The cooperation between the two countries could follow different paths, the least desired of which is a scenario when common threats to political stability in Russia and China push them towards forming a strategic alliance. "If the trend for Russia-China strategic alliance prevails, the extent to which it will be anti-Western and confrontational will also depend on the stakes that the West puts on regime change in Russia and China," the author writes.

The situation in the Middle East and Russia's role in Syria is also presented in the report by Alexander Kornilov, professor of International Relations and head of the Regional Studies and Local History Department at Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod. While discussing different foreign policy pillars of Russian involvement in the region, he offers his take on what to expect from Moscow in Syria in the future and how the situation in different countries of the region might evolve in the coming year.

What are the key lessons for the Kremlin from its military intervention in the Middle East in 2015? Is an international coalition against ISIS inevitable?

What are the main areas where Russia is most likely to act in 2016? Find out in our new report:
http://www.russia-direct.org/archive/russia-direct-brief-russia-and-world-foreign-policy-outlook-2016

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 #12
Interfax
December 22, 2015
Expert skeptical on prospects of getting information from Su-24 black box

The chances of obtaining information from the black box of the Russian bomber Sukhoi Su-24, which was downed by the Turkish Air Force, are extremely low because of the severe damage to the recording device, says Oleg Smirnov, a prominent Soviet pilot and chairman of the civil aviation commission of the Public Council at Russia's state transport regulator Rostransnadzor.

"Based on the available information, we are still looking at this case as one that has no prospects. Chances of obtaining true information are very low because, as was already stated and shown live on air, the damage to the mechanism [the black box] is very serious," Smirnov told Interfax on Dec. 22.

There is still a hope of obtaining information from the flight recorder after the crystals of the damaged circuits are examined at the molecular level.

"The next stage now begins. This is not an entirely hopeless case. Specialists from the design bureau, which make such products, are to ascertain and take information from the crystals already at the molecular level. This is a very subtle scientific job, we hope for a result. But no one can give a 100 percent guarantee," he said.

The black box contains information that might help establish the exact location of the bomber at the time of being hit by a Turkish anti-aircraft missile, he said.

"Using the readings that are there, for example, the height, the speed, the flight course - with all these data it is not difficult to determine the location of an aircraft. And that is the most important goal: to prove objectively that the aircraft was over such and such territory," Smirnov said.

In his view, the damage to the recording device was caused by the heavy impact a result of the crash, and fire. "The aircraft was falling vertically, at an enormous speed, burning at the same time. All this affects the metal of the aircraft, all the accessories inside the aircraft. Plus, the colossal impact at an enormous speed. All this caused the product to go out of order," the expert said.

The fact that the bomber's black box has been preserved after such physical effects speaks volumes of its high viability, Smirnov said.

"It is good that this box has survived at all. It points to the high viability of the product, to the fact that the flight recorder is in the right place. But you can't cheat electronics because it is not designed for such pressures and high temperatures, and all that occurred at the same time," the expert said.

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#13
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 22, 2015
Get Used to It - Assad's Not Going Anywhere!
The Western public just has to get used to it - Assad's not going anywhere, and not because of what Russia or Iran says, but because he's Syrians' choice
By David Macilwain

On Sunday Syria's President Bashar al Assad went with his wife Asma to a Christmas Mass concert in Damascus. For  many people in the West, the photos that soon appeared of Bashar and Asma hugging and being hugged by small children, old men and young women would probably cause consternation or apoplexy - if they were to see them.

But this is unlikely, as Western media would exercise its duty of care to protect people from such an upsetting sight, and the public disorder that might result. It shouldn't worry however that people's perception of the Syrian leader might change for the better; it is simply not possible for this to happen, any more than it is possible that Syrians would change their minds about President Assad.

The Western media apparatus has strange standards of propriety - often finding it necessary to obscure the images of the wrong people. When some footage emerged of the now infamous 'heart-eating rebel', it was not his face which was blurred out to protect his identity but the body of the poor Syrian soldier this 'freedom fighter' had just disembowelled.

Showing how little things have changed in the two years since that event - one that should have been a 'wake-up call' for the 'Free Syrian Army's' Western cheers squads - we saw a repeat of it only weeks ago following the shooting down of Russia's bomber by Turkey. In deeply shocking footage of the Turkish insurgents celebrating over the bloodied body of the Russian pilot they had just murdered, it was his identity our media chose to protect us from. And those media - CNN Turk and Fox news - had no compunctions about revealing the identity of the leader of this group despite it spoiling their whole story, as he was immediately identified as not even Syrian, and anything but a 'moderate rebel'.

Again this echoed the story of 'Abu the organ-eater' - who was interviewed at the time by Paul Wood of the BBC, and given rather a sympathetic hearing for his beliefs - that 'all of Bashar's Alawite dogs' should meet the same fate as his victim.

When we consider how it is, how on earth it can be - that such false and misleading narratives about President Assad and the nature of the Syrian war still persist, we are examining the heart of the conflict. Maybe the very simplicity of this narrative is the key, as it is one which could so easily take hold in the minds of the unthinking masses. No amount of argument or reasoning, or even the evidence of their own eyes seems able to dislodge it from the collective psyche.

It is not just a simple, but rather a simplistic narrative, like one in a fairy tale - 'once there was a big and very very bad tyrant who lived in an ancient castle with his terrible family, and rained down fire upon his unfortunate subjects, who only wanted to be free to practice their faith...'  And it is a fairy tale. Bashar al Assad's family are Alawite muslims, like a million others in Syria, and millions more across the border in Turkey. But Syria has long been a proudly secular society - the Syrian 'Arab Republic' - where such distinctions of religion or ethnicity are not a basis for discrimination. Until the stirring up of sectarian tensions by the foreign fomenters of the armed insurgency many Syrians didn't even know, or care about their neighbours' religious affiliation - much as in the secular democracies of the West.

Emphasising this secular character of Syrian society, and quite contrary to the pervasive western fairy tales, the religious affiliations of both government and army members broadly reflect that of the community as a whole, with a majority being Sunni muslim. And apart from leading a government which is not 'Alawite', President Assad has led by example - his wife Asma is a Sunni muslim too.

Considering the attention given to 'peace talks' and plans for a 'political solution' to the Syrian conflict by Western governments, media and NGOs over the last four years, the passing of last week's UNSC resolution with a 'road-map' for Syria's future received astonishingly little attention. The actual details of what was agreed received even less, and we might imagine this was partly because some parties agreed under duress and were loathe to admit that they had actually agreed to a plan they had previously rejected. (The 'duress' could have been following Russia's laying down the rules on who gets targeted in Syria, when the deployment of its SA-17 air defence system grounded US bombers supporting their 'rebel forces fighing Da'esh'.)

Betraying the reality of the new plan, the media wasted no time in returning to familiar themes. 'Russia was bombing 'moderate rebels' instead of Islamic State.' 'Russia was just propping up Assad'. 'Assad was killing civilians again'. But we also had new interpretations on what had been agreed, before the ink was even dry on the paper, and before Kerry had time to contradict what he'd last said.

And one by one the leaders and representatives of the US, UK, France and Germany got back into the familiar groove - 'Assad has lost all legtimacy' - 'a man who has killed his own people cannot be leader' - 'Assad can be part of the transitional government, before leaving'. How soon they forgot what even they had repeated, - as some great democratic aspiration - that 'Syrians should decide who will be their leader'.

Which is of course what Sergei Lavrov, Vladimir Putin and Bashar al Assad himself have been saying for years. And Syrians have already decided - Assad is their man, for now and into the future, helping to rebuild the society he has worked so hard to save from the terrorist armies of the 'Western allies'.

Syrians know that their survival is because of Assad - not in spite of him.

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#14
Washington Post
December 22, 2015
Editorial
A U.N. resolution on Syria is shattered - and Russia is to blame

THE U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Friday demanding that "all parties immediately cease any attacks against civilians and civilian objects" as well as "any indiscriminate use of weapons, including through shelling and aerial bombardment." Less than 48 hours later, Russian planes carried out at least six airstrikes on civilian targets in the northern Syrian provincial capital of Idlib, killing scores of people. It was a blatant violation of the resolution Russia had just voted for - and an indication of how Vladimir Putin actually regards the diplomatic deals on Syria the Obama administration has been pushing.

According to local sources cited by Reuters and The Post's Hugh Naylor, the Russian bombing struck a marketplace in the heart of Idlib as well as a courthouse. Rescue workers told Reuters they had confirmed 43 dead and that dozens more bodies had yet to be identified or pulled from the rubble. While the town is controlled by a rebel alliance composed mostly of Islamist factions, it is nowhere near territory held by the Islamic State. And few would argue that a souq was not a civilian target.

Not just the Security Council's ambassadors should be embarrassed by this outrage. There is also Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who just last Tuesday emerged from a meeting with Mr. Putin saying that the Russian ruler would "take on board" Mr. Kerry's objections to airstrikes on Syrian targets outside Islamic State-held land. Perhaps Mr. Putin tossed the U.S. concerns back overboard once Mr. Kerry had left Moscow. More likely, he never had any intention of altering Russia's policy of proclaiming war against the Islamic State while focusing its fire on the forces opposed to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

In fighting Mr. Assad's war, Russia has embraced his tactics, which include bombing not just rebel forces but also civilian installations in any area under rebel control. According to a recent U.N. report, Russian bombing has hit dozens of hospitals and bakeries in northern Syria - again, far from the Islamic State. Aid workers believe the facilities have been targeted deliberately, The Post's Liz Sly reported.

On Sunday, a new report by Human Rights Watch said that Russian and Syrian forces are using cluster munitions in civilian areas, in violation of another U.N. resolution on Syria. The report said that cluster bombs were used on at least 20 occasions since Russia and Syria began a joint offensive on Sept. 30. Reporting on attacks in nine locations documented the deaths of at least 35 civilians, including 17 children.

Mr. Kerry is touting the fact that the U.N. resolution for the first time establishes a timetable for a political transition in Syria, under which a new constitution would be written and elections held within 18 months. More realistically, it calls for an early cease-fire, which if realized could give Syrian civilians badly needed respite and allow all sides to focus on fighting the Islamic State.

For the resolution to have any meaning, however, Russia and Iran must be willing to impose its terms on Mr. Assad and drop their campaign to destroy opposition groups backed by the West. Following Sunday's events, we'll go with the assessment of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said of the new resolution: "I'm not too optimistic about what has been achieved."

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 #15
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
December 21, 2015
What Russia must do to find common ground with the West in 2016
Russia Direct continues to publish interviews with prominent Western experts who participated in the 2015 convention of the Association of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). This time, RD sat down with University of Toronto's Aurel Braun to discuss Russian foreign policy in 2015-2016 and its complicated relations with the West.
By Pavel Koshkin

Aurel Braun, a professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto and an associate of the Davis Center at Harvard University, discussed with Russia Direct a number of important geopolitical situations with far-reaching implications for Russian foreign policy.

Braun starts off by analyzing the impact that Russian-Turkish tensions may have on the Kremlin's foreign policy in 2016. In addition, Braun proposes a way of resolving the Ukrainian crisis and explains what Russia should do in the future to be integrated into the Western community of democratic nations. Finally, Dr. Braun discusses the major milestones of Russia's foreign policy in 2015.

Russia Direct: Given that Russia relied on Turkey previously when its relationship with the West was not in the best shape, what are the implications of Russian-Turkish tensions on Russia and its foreign policy in 2016?

Aurel Braun: Indeed, Russia and Turkey had an important relationship that was growing significantly before the shooting down of the Russian fighter jet by a Turkish F-16.
The prospects of further development, which would have seen a tripling of trade and the possible construction of a huge pipeline to carry energy from Russia to Turkey and Europe, are very much in doubt now given that the dictatorial leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has indicated that he has no intention to apologize for the incident.

As the Kremlin has threatened additional economic and possible political measures, relations are likely to worsen. The problem is further complicated by the fact that Mr. Erdogan has used foreign confrontations in the past to enhance his domestic standing, playing on ultra-nationalism in order to push forth domestically with his Islamist agenda.
Also, NATO support for him, even if unenthusiastic, has merely emboldened him.

Given that the shooting down of the Russian aircraft has been such an affront to Russian pride and military credibility and that Mr. Erdogan is not likely to make the concessions demanded by Moscow, Russian-Turkish tensions are likely to persist into 2016 and this in turn will probably damage the interests of both countries.

RD: What are the risks for Russia from its schism with Turkey?

A.B.: Consequently, Russia, which may have very good reasons to exact a price from Turkey for shooting down a Russian jet and because Ankara is refusing to properly apologize, may well see its relations with the West damaged in part as a consequence of the Russian-Turkish confrontation.

RD: Well, Russia has fallen out with Turkey. So, with which countries will the Kremlin choose to cooperate?

A.B.: Russia was clearly enhancing its cooperation with the Assad regime in Syria and with Iran. This again is problematic in the longer term because the Assad regime is really not viable and Iran's long-term interests, both in pursuing Islamism and ultimately in its desire to become a nuclear power, are incompatible with Russia's best national interests.

Whereas one can understand Moscow's weariness of seeing Libyan style chaos in Syria, it may be productive for the Kremlin to encourage a transition away from Mr. Assad to another leadership, even if the structure of the current government is maintained, and it would be wise for Moscow to treat its relations with Tehran with considerable skepticism and caution.

Moscow seems to be under impression that it is in control of that relationship. But I think it s wrong: The leaders of Iran are not friends of Russia, they use Moscow as a tool [to get closer to implementing their nuclear program].

RD: So, how will Moscow deal with the U.S. and the EU in this context?

It is a crucial question and it should be a focus of the Kremlin's foreign policy attention. Ultimately, Russia's true national interests lie with Europe and the West rather than with rogue leaderships like that of Iran, Syria, and earlier with the increasingly repressive Erdogan.

Repairing relations with the EU and U.S., however, does require a reorientation of Russian policy, where Moscow views relations, particularly with the United States (but also with the West in general), in less of a binary fashion. The West might also be wise to be more forthcoming if Russia indicates its willingness to compromise on a number of issues ranging from Ukraine to the Middle East.

RD: Could you give a positive and negative scenario regarding Russia's schism with Turkey?

A.B.: As matters stand right now, the prognosis at least for the immediate term, does not look particularly positive. Russia's anger at Turkey, even if justified, is having deleterious effects not just on its economic relationship with Ankara but over the long term, on its relationship with the U.S. and EU, both of which are in a sense being forced into Turkey's arms.

Such a negative outcome, however, is not preordained, for both Moscow and Western capitals do have it within their power to implement new policies and dramatically reorient that relationship in a way that would better reflect and help Russia's true national interests.

RD: In you view, what have been the major drivers of Russia's foreign policy in 2015?

A.B.: What seems to be driving Russia's foreign policy more than anything else is the domestic situation. Mr. Putin seems to believe that he needs to demonstrate that the government is strong internationally, that he protects Russia from external threats, that Russia is in fact under external threats and that Russia is being victimized by other countries.

Mr. Putin seems to believe that the legitimacy of his government depends on the international security it provides to the Russian people. While assuring security is important I think this is not the most productive way to achieve his other goals of internal political legitimacy and economic progress.

Yes, Russia is rightly worried about radical Islam - it is a threat both externally and internally. But the most important goal for Russia should be to try to become a successful politically modern and economically competitive state. But the Russian government emphasizes security over economic progress. And this, it seems, is the main driving factor of Russia's foreign policy.

RD: Should we expect that it is going to be the case in 2016?     

A.B.: It is difficult to predict. It depends on the patience of the Russian people. It depends what happens internationally.  At the moment, the government has a high level of public support, because people are thinking about security much more after the plane crash in Egypt [that resulted from a terror attack].

People just turn to the government and say: "We want you to keep us safe, we want you to make certain that we are not attacked, we want to be respected internationally."

But eventually people may begin to ask: "Why is it that when we travel to France and Germany, we are so much poorer? Why is that when we go a shop in Moscow we see laptops from everywhere around the world but we don't see Russian laptops? Why is that when we want to buy high quality medicine, we need to purchase foreign products despite all the scientific talent that we have at home?"

RD: What are the major failures and achievements of Russian foreign policy in 2015?

A.B.:  Clearly, Russia has ensured that it is not ignored. The Western countries made a mistake of moving from the Soviet era where the Soviet Union was their number one preoccupation to actually almost forgetting about Russia and not realizing that Russia is an important player and Russia needs to be respected and consulted.

And to that extent Russia's foreign policy has been successful and understand the change, we have the example of the French President Francois Hollande going to Moscow to consult with Mr. Putin [after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks]. Clearly, Russia cannot be ignored.

But the problem is that given the methods used by the Kremlin this kind of Russian success has been achieved at a very heavy cost [sanctions, ruined reputation, harsh criticism and attempts at isolation from the West]. What is so very important for the Russian people is to understand that those in the West who may criticize the Russian government are not necessarily anti-Russian, that many of us do care deeply about Russia, like the Russian people and would like to see the Russian people have a better future.

RD: What are the missed opportunities to cooperate for the West and Russia in 2015?

A.B.: There have been many missed opportunities and one of the problems is that the Russian government tends to view international events as a zero-sum game: Whatever Russia gains, America loses, and vice versa. Such an approach creates missed opportunities.

For instance, there is the belief, at least in the case of some Russian policy makers,  that if Russia succeeds in making the United States weaker in the Middle East, Moscow gets stronger there. But such approach is counterproductive in international affairs: It is possible in some instances that both parties get weaker and it is conceivable in other that they both could get stronger.

There are possibilities for real collaboration. And the Kremlin should answer the question: What is most important to Russia - Is it to have naval bases or air bases in Syria's Latakia and Tartus? Or is it to defeat the Islamic radicals [ISIS]?

And here is the missed opportunity. Russia has been so intent on saving the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, it has not realized that the Assad regime partly caused the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) and defeating ISIS is much more important than bases in Latakia and elsewhere.

After all, Russia's security is not dependent on having military bases in the Middle East; it depends on Russia becoming a more successful state. The Middle East is a very expensive adventure and having relations with Assad is damaging to Russia's relations with the United States and others.

RD: Obama's presidential tenure is coming to an end; however, Putin seems poised to remain at the helm for a long period of time. What would you recommend to future American and Russian leaders of how to deal with each other?

A.B.:  It is very important to find the common interests, where both sides can emerge as winners. It is necessary to look in terms of a non zero-sum game - of a multi-sum game, if you will.

And that is possible, because there are joint interests: radical Islam is a threat to everybody in the world; environmental issues are a threat to the entire world; exploration for energy resources in the Arctic is a common interest, I mean keeping the Arctic area environmentally safe, and a nuclear-armed Iran would also be a threat to Russia.

In terms of China, there are mutual interests: The interests of Russia and the United States in many key areas are closer than the interests of Russia and China. Russia, moreover, is making a mistake if it believes that it could use China as a tool, because a powerful China is not a natural ally of Russia.    
 
RD: Do you believe that Russia and the U.S. will be able to find common ground over Ukraine in the foreseeable future or will it be long-standing crisis in which both sides remain intransigent?  

A.B.: It's not likely that they will find common ground on the problem of the annexation of Crimea. That will always be a sticking point. But there may be possibilities for some kind of improvement of relations if Russia pulls back its support for rebel forces in Eastern Ukraine and disengages from that region.

In this case, it might be possible that there could be a kind of modus vivendi, with the West, which is still protesting against the annexation of Crimea.  In order to improve relations with the West in 2016, there should be a change not only in the Kremlin's tone, but also in its attitude towards its geopolitical ambitions.

If Russia gives up its dream of becoming a superpower, it will give the right signal to the West that it wants to be much more integrated into the community of democratic states, especially if Russia were to begin major needed reforms domestically. After all, countries such as Japan and Germany gave up the dreams of being superpower and they became very successful major modern economic powers.

For its part, what the West would need to do is to open its markets to Russia, and thus would have to be generous and allow access for Russian goods and services. The West also should strongly emphasize that it would very much welcome a truly democratic and realistic Russia into the community of democratic states.

But there is currently too much misunderstanding on the part of the West and on the part of Russia. Hopefully, there will be no major incidents [in Eastern Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics]. Otherwise relations could deteriorate very, very sharply.

RD: Yet, if the U.S. sends weapons to Ukraine and increase military assistance there, it may worsen the relations a great deal. What are the odds of such a scenario?

A.B.: They are not sending weapons yet.

RD: Yet some American politicians and officials like the current Defense Minister Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford seem to be very outspoken about increasing military assistance to Ukraine, a move that Obama has been opposing.

A.B.: He [Carter] talks about it, but under President Obama this is highly unlikely. What will make it highly likely would be if separatists move to Mariupol [in Eastern Ukraine]. In this case, I think, the U.S. would start sending weapons. That would be a different situation.

RD: And what's next in that case?

A.B.: We just don't know, because when you take a military step, you can't predict what outcome there will be. It would very unwise consequently for Russia to take new military steps in Ukraine. Russia would have to ask itself some fundamental questions as well: What is most important in terms of Russia's national security (and national interest) - is it Crimea or Eastern Ukraine, or is Russia itself?

By this, I mean that Moscow might do best by focusing foremost on domestic matters. Russia covers the largest landmass in the world, it doesn't need more territory, and Russia has enormous scientific talents and natural resources. It should exploit all that potential. So, it should concentrate on what it already has; it does not need to keep looking at the former Soviet Union - it's gone.

Again, Japan abandoned its World War II aspiration to be a superpower and has become more economically successful than ever. It was defeated and it yet won. It has emerged better than ever before, it has achieved a level of development it could never gain through an empire. It concentrated foremost on what it has at home. And Russia would be wise to do the same.

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#16
www.opendemocracy.net
December 22, 2015
Sino-Russian energy relations reversed: a new little brother
Don't be fooled. Russia's growing ties to China may not be what they seem.
By Morena Skalamera
Morena Skalamera is a post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University, where she researches the geopolitics of energy and European-Russian energy co-operation.

In the year since Russia and China signed a landmark $400bn natural gas pact in May 2014, rapid developments in the energy sector and the geopolitical situation offer a chance to re-examine the deal. Indeed, the aftermath of the pact saw a return to a world of cheaper oil-a situation driven by a number of factors outside of Russia's control. The buffeting winds of broadbrush western sanctions have deepened the uncertain fiscal outlook for Russia's hydrocarbon-driven economy, calling its financial resilience into question.

We must ask whether Russia's aspirations to make itself into an Asian power are doomed to failure. In lieu of infusions of vital technology from the west, Moscow's ability to honor the existing contracts with China remains unclear. In fact, despite grandiose plans, great political fanfare and the narrative of an emerging strategic alliance between Beijing and Moscow, any benefits of the progressively deepening trade integration will be increasingly uneven-and in China's favor.

Russia resurgent?

After the Sino-Soviet split came to an end in 1991, Beijing began to express interest in Russian oil. In 1996, Boris Yeltsin visited China for the second time. The atmosphere was cordial, but no energy deals accompanied the florid rhetoric. Only with time-the gradual onset of domestic calm for post-Soviet Russia and the unbridled growth of China's gas-guzzling economy-did trade in oil increase to significant levels. Between 2000 and 2010, Sino-Russian trade increased nearly tenfold, reflecting an increased demand for Russian oil.

Meanwhile, the long-anticipated Sino-Russian gas deal was still delayed. Then, abruptly, Gazprom and CNPC inked a deal in 2014 to deliver 38bcm of natural gas a year through the Power of Siberia pipeline. Considering the long and strained history of Sino-Russian gas relations, it seemed a sudden and astonishing turnaround.

Since then, Chinese demand for Russian hydrocarbons has intensified faster than many expected-with the prospect of eventually outpacing the energy trade between Russia and the EU. Many have speculated that the eventual deal was facilitated by Russia's desire to quickly strengthen its lifeline to the east in the face of western opposition to Russia's Ukrainian adventurism and the attempts by the US and the EU to isolate Russia economically.

Despite the geopolitical crisis, I contend that there were other powerful drivers in place to make the deal happen in May 2014. These incentives were in place long before the Ukraine crisis. The shift reflected a combining of two parallel circumstances: in 2013, Russia's long-standing business model in Europe started to crumble; and just at this time, China, under the effect of disruptive air pollution needed additional gas, a cleaner fossil fuel.

The deal seemed a geopolitical victory for Russia, which was searching for tangible political victories in the wake of mounting opposition over its actions in Ukraine. However, there were significant strings attached by the Chinese. The long-running price dispute that had stymied the deal for years was resolved in China's favor, most likely bringing the price down to the levels that China enjoyed from its main Central Asian supplier, Turkmenistan. The deal is also notable for the troubling trends it predicts for Russia, given Moscow's traditional reticence to allow investment in its upstream.

Closer Russo-Chinese energy ties mean that China may agree to take up the slack of investment in the wake of sanctions, pouring money into energy field development in exchange for increasing stakes in Russia's upstream, already seen in CNPC's recent acquisition of a 10 per cent stake in Rosneft's subsidiary Vancorneft. In practice, China is committed to provide the financial liquidity that Russian companies desperately need in light of collapsing investment and severe recession.

Thus, Russia's geopolitical victory offered Putin a desired dose of grand visuals to bolster the regime's narrative of an easy Asian pivot. But the realities of Russia's position vis-à-vis China belie a different and less advantageous set of emerging paradigms. Any equity stakes that China may see as a result of the deal will weigh significantly on the profitability of the deal in practice.

Since China does not depend on Russian gas the way Europe does, price guarantees and upstream stakes will most likely become sine qua non in future deals. The same is likely to be true for making Russia's pipelines conform to preferred Chinese routes, as seemed to happen in October 2014 when Gazprom announced the potential cancellation of Vladivostok LNG. This giant project is likely to be substituted with a third gas pipeline to China, in addition to the agreed Power of Siberia and the planned Altai pipeline, thus greatly refocusing Russian resources on bolstering supplies to China.

In turn, this would signal the abandonment of Gazprom's strategic aspirations to diversify its energy ties to the Asian-Pacific market to service Japan as well as South Korea, putting all of the proverbial eggs in the China basket.

All of this points to a scenario in which Russia will come to operate as a resource appendage to China-one that, in order to supplant western partnerships, accedes to China's seniority in the energy partnership in exchange for the loans and investments necessary to drive energy development and production. Thus, the picture of what is likely to happen if the price of oil stays low, if western sanctions against Russia do not abate, and if China continues to develop at a relatively robust pace, is not a pretty one for Russia.

Ironically, as the Russian economy degenerates, Russian power brokers are increasingly convinced that energy reform should be postponed: what Russia needs instead are powerful corporations closely tied to the Kremlin in order to negotiate from a position of strength. In such a situation, Russia's state-owned giants like Gazprom and Rosneft may gain even higher status and political clout.

There is a growing resemblance between Putin's Russia and Brezhnev's Soviet Union, associated with rising economic stagnation but also political stability. This does not mean that Russia is flirting with the end of the Putin era. Yet it does bode ill both for the stability of the Sino-Russian relationship and for Russia's broader geopolitical influence. Russia will be more hostage than ever to movements in the price of oil (where Russia is a passive price-taker) and its strategic partnership with China.

Looking to the future, if the price of oil stabilises for some time ($35 a barrel at the time of writing), Beijing may well continue to assist in Russian resource development, but will also worry about Moscow's ability to deliver on existing agreements.

This situation could gradually modify the Sino-Russian energy relationship in ways that could increase China's energy angst and galvanise tensions in their still strengthening though unbalanced bilateral ties. Such a state of affairs, as a result, points to an environment that is unlikely to foster any strategic alliance that could alter the balance of power with the United States.

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 #17
Novaya Gazeta
December 18, 2015
Russian-US relations seen improving following Kerry-Putin talks
Politics and Economics Desk editor Kirill Martynov, Nuclear War Cancelled; Russian Diplomats Ready for Breakthrough in Relations With United States

US Secretary of State John Kerry's visit to Moscow began as a pre-planned, working visit, but its importance in the end markedly exceeded that of an ordinary diplomatic mission. To judge by the joint statements made by the Russian side and by American functionaries, a real breakthrough has emerged in bilateral relations - the first in several months, if not in the past two years.

At the end of this fall events in the international arena were developing so rapidly that relations between the two countries had no chance of being stabilized. Following the extreme cooling off, a brief rapprochement was observed following the 13 November Paris terrorist acts, when the West started talking about the inevitability of the creation of a single antiterrorist coalition. But later the Russian Su-24 downed on the border with Turkey again tipped the scales in the opposite direction. Although the United States officially distanced itself from the incident, it had to take account of the opinion of Ankara as its official military ally in NATO. The number of antiterrorist coalitions operating in the Middle East continued to multiply, and each, in addition to its publicly declared aim - destroying ISIL (a terrorist organization banned in Russia) - was pursuing several other tasks of its own. Hotheads on Russian television started in parallel to expatiate routinely on the prospects of a nuclear strike against Istanbul - if the Turks were to close the straits and "leave us with no other choice."

Lavrov and Kerry have now prescribed a cold compress for the hotheads. There will be no nuclear war and the radioactive ashes fantasies have been consigned to the archives.

Kerry met with President Putin the day before the next round of talks on a settlement of the conflict in Syria to be held in New York on Friday 18 December. The Russian side agreed for the first time to recognize representatives of the Syrian opposition as a party to these talks as long as they acted under UN auspices. To all appearances, the Americans in turn are no longer insisting on Al-Asad's immediate exclusion from the game. A compromise could be Al-Asad leaving his post after early elections to be held next year.

The settlement of the differences over the Syrian issue in turn means there is a possibility of creating a real international coalition against ISIL in which Russia is seen as a fully entitled and independent partner. Which is as far as it is possible to be from the status of "number one threat to US interests." This will not be to the liking of many, but the Americans are proving that their actions in the international arena are dictated exclusively by pragmatic considerations. As of today it is ISIL which is generating key risks to the United States and its allies in Europe, and if Russia is prepared to fight it, American di! plomacy is ready to make use of that assistance, forgetting for an unspecified time the confrontation in Ukraine. When talk turns to national security, the Americans are prepared to defer the conversation about democratic values until later - essentially no one actually seriously doubted that.

The risky game undertaken by the Kremlin in the Middle East for the time being seems to be producing results: Russia has succeeded in achieving a warming of relations with Washington even though this seemed a fantasy scenario to some experts.

The threat from ISIL has given us a chance of remaining among the civilized Western powers, and the Russian political elites have rushed to take advantage of that opportunity. Here it is also worth remembering the persistent quest for direct contacts with the American military in Syria and the haste with which the FSB [Federal Security Service] recognized the downing of A321 over Sinai as an act of terrorism following the terrorists' attack in Paris. A military alliance between the United States and Russia in the Middle East now looks natural, even. It is to the advantage of the former to fight the terrorists with the aid of a foreign air force, while our side needs a bridgehead to raise the issue of lifting the Western sanctions.

Several changes have also emerged on this latter issue. After the Paris acts of terrorism it seemed that the United States and its EU allies were offering Moscow a kind of "Trotskiy tactic" in the spirit of the Brest [Brest-Litovsk] Peace - the sanctions would not be discussed and would not be lifted, but there would be a pretense that the problem does not exist. Italy has now cast doubt on the need to automatically extend the sanctions, and so each subsequent extension will require special consultations. So far the serious Western press sees no prospects for lifting the sanctions entirely, but is discussing their possible easing.

It is curious how our latest "U-turn over the Atlantic" (this time in the direction of Washington) is being played up by our own propaganda. Only yesterday Obama was our bitter enemy, with Russian "experts" on TV shows arguing that the United States was worse than ISIL. Now, at their meeting, Putin and Kerry are discussing overcoming crises and seeking mutual understanding on all the complex issues of mutual relations. News agencies are circulating the touching scene of Kerry's meeting with Muscovites on the Arbat. The US secretary of state buys some souvenirs, some matryeshki [Russian dolls] on a Moscow street - and it is all reminiscent of speeded-up film about the "detente" of the late 1980s. So is Obama the good guy now?

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 #18
Izvestia
December 16, 2015
Russian analyst views return of US neoconservative ideology
Political analyst Dmitriy Drobnitskiy, Drums of proxy war. Cries of hawks in period of arrival of doves

The visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow has engendered certain hopes for a warming of Russo-American relations: the meeting with the minister of foreign affairs was very warm and, by all accounts, constructive. All in all, it is obvious that Russian diplomacy could work, if not with the entire present administration, then, with the State Department.

In the United States also there are, in fact, politicians and interest groups which represent a voice of reason and peace, but with a year ahead of the presidential election, the main poser will be the possible return to power of so-called neoconservatives or their mirror brothers - liberal interventionists.

Ronald Reagan formerly attempted to keep the neocons at arms' length and even dispatched one of their principal ideologues, Paul Wolfowitz (originator of an eponymous doctrine of American superiority), as ambassador to Indonesia.

But under Bush Sr and later, under his son also, the neocons acquired unprecedented influence. It would be no exaggeration to say that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were of their doing. But the neocons are not embarrassed, today either, by the fact that after these wars and also the downfall of the regimes in Egypt and Libya, chaos, out of which the toxic ISIL hydra crawled, reigned.

They believe that simply more troops, weapons and money should have been employed - and then all would have been "as it's supposed to be".

On the whole, the neocons lost the foreign policy debate in the 2010s. Even the patriarch of American foreign policy realism, Henry Kissinger, said so.

But the neoconservatives are a very tenacious political group. They remain close to the elites of both parties, have an "in" with all the influential research centres and, as earlier, they are very efficient at recruiting young politicians to their ranks.

An article entitled "Proxy Wars" recently appeared in the reputable American foreign affairs foreign policy publication. The author was Tom Cotton, Republican senator from Arkansas. His work was published, it follows from the official annotation, under the sponsorship of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The latter fact is of particular interest in that just five days before the appearance of Cotton's article, it was this influential think-tank which with great piety welcomed at its conference Hillary Clinton, likely Democratic Party presidential candidate.

Hillary made paramount the Middle East, Senator Cotton, the "Russian threat". His main postulate is that Russia and the United States are in a state of proxy war, both in Syria and in other regions of the world, what is more, and the United States has to win this war.

Having listed all the standard charges against Russia, Cotton concludes: "Putin's aggression serves many goals and they are all contrary to those of the United States. What is most important, is that Putin wants to restore Russia as a global superpower," which, the senator maintains, would be "humiliating to the United States".

Well, this is at least honest.

And is very reminiscent in its shameless candour of the notorious Wolfowitz doctrine (1992), according to which the United States must not permit this "humiliating" position, when some state can oppose it on an equal footing.

In and of himself Senator Cotton is small fry. He was elected to the upper chamber of Congress for the first time only in November 2014, but senior comrades have taken him under their wing. Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Senator Marco Rubio, who is one of the present contestants for the highest public office, specifically, campaigned for him.

Rubio bases his foreign policy programme on neocon ideology. Its name - New American Century - precisely coincides with the name of the neoconservatives' think-tank founded by Wolfowitz.

But to return to Cotton's article.

How does he propose winning the proxy war with Russia?

First, it is necessary not only to fittingly arm all allies and withdraw from the SALT, the CFE and other "unnecessary" agreements, but also to bring all NATO troops under an integrated operational command in order to respond with counter-exercises to each snap inspection of the readiness of the troops in Russia and to each of its exercises. A missile defence system should be completed and the air defence systems reinforced and the latest American F-22 fighters should show up at military airfields in Eastern Europe. Smacks of 1983, does it not?

Second, it is essential to introduce the "endangered country" concept. This is a country where Russia has its interests or (sic!) where it could have interests. It is essential to grant such an endangered country all possible US and NATO assistance. And it is immaterial whet her the country wants to be assisted - if there are (or could be) Russian interests somewhere, there NATO should be to ensure that it is impossible to realize these interests.

Third, it is essential to immediately begin supplies of all types of arms to the Ukrainian army and the Syrian insurgents. The NATO forces in Syria should establish a no-fly zone (we would note that this is also a point of Hillary Clinton's programme articulated in the CFR).

Fourth, economic sanctions against Russia should be stiffened. Cotton believes that they are today affecting too few members of the Russian elite and enterprises. Particularly strong pressure should be exerted on the energy sector of the economy and the military-industrial complex.

Fifth, it is essential to adopt amendments to US legislation enabling "victims of the Putin regime" to bring actions against Russian government officials and businessmen and their overseas partners in American courts. The purpose is to force Russian and foreign capital to think twice before investing in Russia.

Sixth and finally, it is essential to intensify efforts in the information field. Russian-speaking pro-West media outlets must operate in Russia more efficiently and with greater coverage in order to "build a counter-narrative to the state-controlled news media".

At the end of the article Cotton acknowledges that his measures will to many people seem provocative, but, the senator believes, there's no alternative. More precisely, there is, but horrifying: direct nuclear confrontation with Russia.

Well, I partially accommodated the wish of Cotton and his senior comrades and briefly stated his "counter-narrative" in Russian.

Beating the drum of proxy war - let it be heard. Knowledge of the plan of operations of influence centres most hostile towards Russia is relevant.

And knowledge of which US presidential candidate and members of their teams will follow this plan, and which, on the contrary, will consider it absurd and harmful is, perhaps, the main knowledge concerning America in 2015-16. What America will be like after 2016 is, perhaps, the main question of the present day.

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 #19
Washington Times
December 20, 2015
Does America have any leaders left?
Where is the new American leader who can inspire the country and the world to save civilization?
By Edward Lozansky
Edward Lozansky is President of the American University in Moscow.

Time is running out; the jihadists are on the verge of getting access to chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons. Even if we destroy ISIS in the Middle East, the danger will not disappear.

It does not take too many dedicated fanatics to create total havoc and mass killings. Less than a couple of dozen implemented the 9/11 atrocity, and about the same number committed horrific acts in close succession, in France, the United States, Mali, Lebanon, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, and other places. Imagine what can happen when lots more terrorists go into action. Their numbers increase daily and substantially, including home-grown radicals plus infiltrators into refugee hordes, plus the rise of sympathizers and followers around the world with highly motivated and well educated jihadists in their ranks.

Presently, it seems that the US can neither offer a solution at home nor provide the kind of world leadership it claims to deliver.

I'm not sure who said this first, but it is definitely to the point: "A good leader inspires confidence in the leader; a great leader inspires people's confidence in themselves." Can we say honestly that this is the case with today's America?

Where is NATO in the Middle East to fight ISIS, Al-Qaeda and affiliates? It keeps expanding and demanding more money, but it seems that instead of fighting terrorists they are busy beefing up their forces in Eastern Europe against imaginary Russian aggression. One can call Putin any names, but he is not insane. The obvious explanation for NATO's behavior is that it is far more comfortable to take up quarters in Riga, Tallinn or Warsaw, than to fight ISIS in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

At the same time, NATO member Turkey continues to defy Washington and Brussels, not only by openly helping the jihadists but by attacking the Kurds who are among the few groups prepared to fight on our side. A Turkish force has even invaded Iraq, which is supposed to be our ally.

And when Vice President Biden during his Harvard address found the courage to blame Turkey for helping terrorists he was forced to apologize to Turkish President Erdogan.

The existential question is always "What can be done?"

I'd leave the domestic answer to the NSA, FBI, Department of Home Security and other agencies whose job is to protect us from terror.

As for the international effort at this point, the best choice is to form a real and not a fake anti-terrorist coalition led by the US, the EU, Russia and possibly China, with their respective allies ready to tackle the problem and not just wait for others to do the job for them.

As British MP and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who has a good chance of becoming the next Prime Minister, has recently said, "This is the time to set aside our Cold War mindset. It is just not true that whatever is good for Putin must automatically be bad for the West. We both have a clear and concrete objective - to remove the threat from ISIS. Everything else is secondary."

Similar statements have been made by the French and Italian leaders, the German foreign minister and even some prominent Americans across the spectrum, like former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders and, if I understand his words correctly, the current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

There were even some encouraging words pronounced by John Kerry during his December 15 meeting with Putin in Moscow when he said that  "The United States and our partners are not seeking regime change in Syria. We see Syria fundamentally very similarly and want the same outcomes; we see the same dangers, we understand the same challenges."

It remains to be seen if this is indeed a real change in Washington's thinking or just due to Kerry's exhaustion, since judging from Obama's statements he is still in a state of denial regarding the disappearance of a unipolar world ruled by Washington.

There are some who think it's too late and the train for our civilization as we know it is hurtling downhill to the abyss, but we must prove that this is not the case.

However, the main question remains: where is the new American leader who can inspire the country and the world to save this civilization?

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 #20
MTV.com
December 21, 2015
Pussy Riot Warns That Trump - Like Putin - Is No Laughing Matter
'Everybody was joking about it' when Putin first came into power, too.
By Kristina Marusic

Super badass Russian musician-activist-artist collective Pussy Riot, who made headlines earlier this year with their "I Can't Breathe" tribute to Eric Garner, has issued an important message about Donald Trump: It's time to stop laughing.

Pussy Riot member Maria Alekhina, AKA Masha, recently told the Huffington Post, "If you want in your country to have your own [Vladimir] Putin, you can vote for Donald Trump."

Masha went on to tell the Huffintgon Post that this really isn't a joke. "Everybody [is] joking about Donald Trump now," she said, "but it's a very short way from joke to sad reality when you have a really crazy president speaking about breaking every moral and logic norm."

She also suggested that the media should "seriously think about giving a microphone and opportunity of public speaking to persons like Donald Trump. Because we have so many serious problems and to follow and comment [on] every word of this man is really not the best idea," and noted that people used to treat Putin - who recently called Donald Trump "bright and talented" - in much the same way.

"When Putin came to his first term or second term, nobody [in Russia] actually thought that this is serious," she said. "Everybody was joking about it. And nobody could imagine that after five, six years, we would have a war in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea and these problems in Syria."

Trump is proud to to have the Russian president's endorsement - he has said that having Putin's support is a "great honor" - which has left even some of Trump's Republican contemporaries baffled.

When a journalist recently asked Trump whether he was concerned that Putin has been accused of having journalists and political opponents assassinated (Up to 300 journalists have been have been murdered in Russia since 1993), Trump defended Putin, saying that "Nobody has proven that," and shrugged off further questions about Putin by saying, "Our country does plenty of killing, too."

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 #21
The Unz Report
www.unz.com
December 20, 2015
Trump Is Factually Right on Putin and Journalists
By Anatoly Karlin
[Text with graphics here http://www.unz.com/akarlin/trump-right-on-putin/]

In the past few days there has been a sort of alt-singularity as Putin and Trump exchanged compliments, as one might think befits mature heads of powerful states (one actual, one potential). Naturally, one of these men has been taking a lot of heat for it from all the empty suit punditry and the Cuck-in-Chief himself:

Jeb Bush ✔ @JebBush
Does Donald even know Putin backs Iran/Assad? Does he care? We must stand up to Putin not coddle him #ChaosCandidate https://twitter.com/jonahnro/status/677827245264781312 ...

Far from apologizing and backing down, Trump has instead doubled down. This is really encouraging, because it suggest that his opposition to invade/invite the world is borne of genuine convictions, and that increasing numbers of Americans are beginning to wake up to the scams the elites run on them. And of course it doesn't hurt that the facts are solidly, incontrovertibly on Trump's side, regardless of how much the presstitutes might hate it.

(1)

Putin's approval rating, from National Review:

"Donald Trump: Well, he is a strong leader! What am I gonna say, he's a weak leader? He's making mincemeat out of our president. He's a strong leader. You would like me to call him a weak leader. He's a strong leader, and I'm not gonna be politically correct. He's got an 80 percent approval rating done by pollsters, from I understand this country, okay? So it's not even done by his pollsters, he's very popular within Russia!"

That is correct. A Gallup survey conducted in 2014 showed Putin with an approval rating of 83%. The latest poll from the (liberal-leaning) Levada Center gives him 85%. A recent study by four American political scientists confirm his genuinely high level of support at around 80% or more.

(2)

No evidence Putin kills journalists, from Breitbart:

"Stephanopoulos said, "Here's what Mitt Romney tweeted, 'there's an important distinction, thug Putin kills journalists and opponents our presidents kill terrorists and enemy combatants."

"Trump said, "Does he know for a fact? It's possible that he does. I don't think it's been proven. I'm not trying to be -"

"Stephanopoulos interjected, "Allegations he was behind," then Trump continued, "Sure, there are allegations. I have read those allegations over the years. But nobody's proven that he's killed anybody ... If he has killed reporters, that's terrible. He's always denied it. He's never been proven that he's killed anybody. You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty at least in our country. He's not proven that he's killed reporters." ...

"Trump answered, "I'm not saying anything. I'm saying when you say a man killed reporters I'd like you to prove it.I have never seen any information or any proof that he killed reporters, George, you're just saying, he killed reporters. You and other people killed reporters. I don't know that. I haven't seen it. If he did it's despicable. It's horrible. You're making these accusations, I don't see any proof. By the way, he totally denied that he killed reports are. He totally denied it."

This particularly enraged Establishment commentators, but once again Trump is completely right and cannot be stumped. There is absolutely no evidence that Putin ordered the assassination of a single journalist.

Moreover, according to figures from the Committee to Protect Journalists - hardly a bastion of Putin apologists - journalist murders have plummeted in Russia under the reign of the Dark Lord of the Kremlin relative to the "free" and "democratic" 1990s when the US was best buddies with Russia, or at least the oligarchs pillaging it, and for that matter whacking any journalists who dared report on their activities.

Literally MORE Russian journalists were murdered for their reporting under 8 years of Yeltsin than 15 years under Putin.

cpj-journalists-killed-in-russia-1992-to-2015

Note also the following:

(1) Russia has a lot of journalists - according to UN data, it has twice the number of newspaper journalists as the US (despite having half the population). Adjusted for per capita rates, Russian journalists have always been far safer than any number of "democratic" countries that get on with the US such as Brazil, Mexico, India, Colombia. Even in the 1990s. And this is despite the fact that under Putin, the CPJ has been actively trying to tie any murder of a Russian journalist it feasibly could to his or her professional activity, even where such connections are questionable or altogether non-existent. According to a 2008 analysis by blogger Fedia Kriukov, considerably more than 50% of the Russian journalists the CPJ claims were killed for their professional activities - that is, angering business interests, local authorities, etc. - actually turned out to be wholly or partially falsified. Note that Putin doesn't even begin to enter into this.

(2) As of this year, Russia imprisons only one journalist. It usually veers in the 0-1 range. Although even one is too much, but within the 1-3 range that even developed Western countries occasionally stray into. That consistently includes Israel; Italy in 2013; and for that matter, the US itself in 2013, though for some reason, the CPJ doesn't count Barret Brown. (Another curious exception is Ukraine and the case of Ruslan Kotsaba, who is in prison and almost a year on still awaiting trial for calling the war in the Donbass a civil war and expressing his opposition to conscription). In contrast, Erdogan's Turkey imprisons 14 journalists (an improvement from 40 in 2013). Of course that minor matter didn't stop Jeb Bush from enthusiastically affirming his support for them when the Turks knocked a Russian warplane out of the sky for an accidental infringement of their territory for a few seconds.

On Russia as on most other things Trump steers a blazing path through Establishment lies. If he or his aides read Steve Sailer, as seems to be within the realm of possibility, it is perhaps not an entirely empty fancy of mine that they might have skimmed over a bit of my stuff as well.

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 #22
Washington Post
December 22, 2015
The complicated reality behind Trump's claim that there's no proof Putin had journalists killed
By Adam Taylor
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.

In recent weeks, the unlikely camaraderie between Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised eyebrows among many commentators. On Friday, Trump pushed his support for Putin even further, apparently endorsing the violence against journalists that has become routine in Russia with a glib comment: "At least he's a leader."

Here's the transcript of the exchange, which took place on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

TRUMP: When people call you "brilliant," it's always good, especially when the person heads up Russia.

HOST JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, I mean, also is a person who kills journalists, political opponents and ...

CO-HOST WILLIE GEIST: Invades countries.

SCARBOROUGH: ... and invades countries, obviously that would be a concern, would it not?

TRUMP: He's running his country, and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country.

SCARBOROUGH: But, again: He kills journalists that don't agree with him.

TRUMP: Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.

In the clip, Trump does go on to say that he "absolutely" condemns the alleged killing of journalists by Putin. However, critics of the GOP contender seem to view this as too little too late. The idea that a man vying to be the U.S. president could openly express admiration for a world leader accused of killing journalists left many feeling deeply uncomfortable.

On Sunday, Trump took the opportunity to defend himself. "Nobody has proven that he's killed anyone. ... He's always denied it. It's never been proven that he's killed anybody," the American billionaire explained during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." He added: "You're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country. It has not been proven that he's killed reporters."

Trump has earned a reputation over the past few months as someone who is willing to say outlandish, sometimes patently untrue things. However, Russia watchers would have to begrudgingly admit that his latest comments about Putin and Russian journalists do not fall into this category. In fact, on the face of it, he is right: There really is little evidence to suggest that Putin "kills journalists that don't agree with him."

No one denies that journalists critical of Putin have been killed in Russia. There have been a number of cases over the years. The Committee to Protect Journalists has described Russia as "one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists," with 36 journalists killed since 1992.

Perhaps the most well-known case is that of Anna Politkovskaya, a writer who was critical of Putin's role in the second Chechen war. Politkovskaya was fatally shot in her apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006 - the same day as Putin's birthday. Opposition politicians also have been killed: Boris Nemtsov, a high-profile figure in post-Soviet politics, was shot just steps from the Kremlin in February.

There are plenty of people who suspect that Putin ordered the killings. The evidence, however, isn't there. Although it's certainly possible that he did play some role, it might be more likely that individuals loyal to him acted without his knowledge or permission, or that another group in the complicated, multifaceted world of modern Russia was behind the acts. After Politkovskaya's death, Putin played down her influence on Russian politics, describing her as a "minimal" figure and suggesting that her killing hurt his government rather than helped it. "In my opinion, murdering such a person certainly does much greater damage from the authorities' point of view, authorities that she strongly criticized, than her publications ever did," he said.

Given that few of these cases ever find closure in Russia's flawed justice system (five men have been sentenced in Politkovskaya's killing, but it's still not known who ordered it), we may never know whether Putin had any involvement. Nina Ognianova, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, says that about  90 percent of killings of journalists in Russia go unpunished. "A fact that stands in stark contrast with a 2014 statement by Russia's top investigator, Aleksandr Bastrykin, that 90 percent of all homicides in the country are solved," she says.

Scarborough's suggestion that Putin kills journalists is evidence of a widespread misunderstanding of Putin's Russia - that he is directly responsible for every bad thing that happens in the country. That idea of Russia desperately lacks nuance: Putin may set the tone for everything that happens in the country, but he doesn't necessarily order every politically charged murder. Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the book "Mr. Putin," notes that it's actually regional journalists who have suffered the most violence in Russia, rather than Moscow-based or national journalists.

"That's primarily because of the activity of local and regional governments and leaders," she says.

There's a key difference between ordering the murder of a journalist and creating an environment in which journalists can be murdered. And while Putin may not be guilty of the former, he is certainly guilty of the latter. "Trump is technically right but wrong in spirit," says Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor who studies the Russian security state. "There is indeed no proof Putin has journalists killed. But he presides over a regime in which journalists are beaten, harassed and murdered, often with impunity."

Oleg Kashin, a prominent journalist who was almost beaten to death in 2010, recently told WorldViews that a regional governor, Andrei Turchak, was the man responsible for the attack (Turchak did not respond to the allegations). While Kashin didn't directly link Putin to his case and praised Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev for his work to find the attackers, he did say that the Kremlin had helped foster an atmosphere in which the powerful felt they could have their critics killed. "Any politician will tell you that you have to answer for your words," Kashin said. "And I indeed believe that the real reason for that atmosphere, the criminalization of society, it comes from Putin, as everything flows from the top down."

Violence is not the only threat Russian journalists face. Their attackers are often emboldened by official hostility to independent journalists and the aforementioned weak justice system, but Russian journalists also find themselves squeezed by a media world in which the state plays an increasingly large role. Independent outlets that dare to criticize Putin are increasingly rare. Prominent critics, such anti-corruption blogger and activist Alexei Navalny, can find themselves entangled in costly and time-consuming legal cases that have the potential to land them in jail for lengthy periods.

That's why Trump's comments remain galling, even if vaguely accurate. It may be true that there's no evidence that Putin plays a direct role in state killings. It may be true that Trump would never support state-ordered killings of journalists. But journalists living in the Putin-led Russia that Trump admires can have their lives and careers threatened in several ways. There's a reason that groups such as Freedom House consistently rank Russia as "not free" in its rankings of press freedom: The bar for that freedom is higher than just "the head of state doesn't directly order the murder of journalists."

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 #23
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 22, 2015
That Time Vladimir Putin Endorsed Barack Obama
That awkward moment
By Lisa Marie White

I wrote briefly last week about Westerners in general and Americans in particular putting their outrage panties on about Vladimir Putin's endorsement of Donald Trump. Well, the crazy train was just boarding. Everybody has an opinion, from Pussy Riot to your fourth-grade teacher.

Lost in the berserk sanctimony was the inconvenient fact that this was not the first time in recent history that Putin has weighed in on presidential candidates. Most recently, he did so in 2012 and his chosen candidate at that time was...gasp...Barack Obama.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin said the re-election of President Barack Obama could improve relations with the U.S., but that he was also prepared to work with Mitt Romney, calling the Republican candidate's tough stance on Russia "pre-election rhetoric."

"In contrast to what had been viewed as a chilly attitude toward Mr. Obama, Mr. Putin called his U.S. counterpart "a genuine person" who "really wants to change much for the better." Speaking to Russia's state-run RT television channel, he said a second Obama term could help solve disputes over missile defense."

Putin may have since come to regret that decision, but the fact remains. Keep in mind, that this was 2012, after Putin supposedly invaded Georgia in 2008, and post his alleged poisoning of Aleksandr Litvinenko. However, at the time, Putin found Romney (despite the latter's investments in Gazprom and Yandex) to be more anti-Russian than Obama, thus endorsing Obama's re-election:

"Although President Vladimir Putin recently thanked Romney for his openness regarding the 'No.1 foe' comment, he also indicated that it would be hard for the Kremlin to work with Romney as president, especially on sensitive security issues such as the missile defense system.

During Putin's interview with RT state television, he also called Obama an 'honest man who really wants to change much for the better.' This comment was widely viewed as Putin's most direct endorsement of Obama in the presidential race."

Certainly it's been long forgotten that Putin endorsed Obama three years ago. The "leftist" press has gone on a bender, babbling about Putin's journalist-murdering and general despotism. Peasants distracted. Mission accomplished. The WaPo pooh-poohed Putin's approvals of Obama and Trump  to be meaningless, lumping Putin's advocacy of both candidates in with public statements of support from undesirables from North Korea to random al-Quaeda members. (Not our al-Quaeda, mind you. Bad al-Quaeda.)

Despite that, here at Russia for Grown-Ups, Putin's "endorsement" of Donald Trump appears to be consistent behavior on his part.

Putin obviously believed after Romney called Russia America's number one geopolitical foe that Obama was the better choice as far as U.S.-Russia relations were concerned.  

Putin's comments on Trump reflect the same sentiment: He took a positive position toward the candidate whom he thought would give Russia the best partnership. He was definitely wrong about Obama, and he might very well be wrong about Trump's intentions.

If Putin's blessing is such an insult, and such a vilification of the presidential candidate he is complimenting, it really is odd that Americans did not lose their minds when Putin endorsed Obama in 2012. There were no pronouncements to the effect that Putin endorsed Obama because both are arrogant bullies. In the land of divisive partisan politics, Putin's endorsement of Trump has given way to a floodgate of apocalyptic hand-wringing from all corners. At least we can be comforted by the fact that it's "business as usual" among the media elites.

Putin doesn't have a bad track record of picking election winners. He backed Bush in 2004 and Obama in 2012. Maybe we can hire him as our next groundhog if he proves right again.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. A Pussy Riot bandmate issued a dire warning (and demonstrated her lack of arithmetic skills and awareness of recent Russian history) that if Donald Trump gets elected, the U.S. will magically transform into today's Russia.

Cool! Does that mean we get sensible gun legislation and four weeks of paid vacation? Sweet!

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 #24
www.rt.com
December 18, 2015
Putin 'endorsing' Trump - 'twofer for American media'

The Western media spin about Putin 'endorsing' Donald Trump is an attempt to slam both of them with one blow, says Richard B. Spencer, editor and founder of Radix journal.

RT: Why did the American media become so excited about Putin's remarks on Donald Trump?

Richard B. Spencer: I know it is very unusual for the American media to be hysterical and shrill; they are usually so calm and collected and rational. In all seriousness, Trump has been this force that I think the mainstream media doesn't feel like it can really control. And so they are attacking him by basically saying that Putin "endorsed" Donald Trump. He didn't really endorse him. He said some diplomatic things about Donald Trump, not endorse him. And again the American media has been demonizing Vladimir Putin, in particular, and really Russia, in general, as a country and as a society for quite some time, at least five years probably going on a decade. So, this was a kind of twofer for the American media. They could slam Trump, who they don't trust, they don't feel he's the force they can control and they could also slam Putin and Russia.
'
RT: Why is so much attention being paid to relations between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump?

RS: I think that Putin and Trump in a way offer an alternative to what's going on at the moment. They offer an alternative what you call neo-conservative or neoliberal foreign policy. I would stress that Vladimir Putin didn't endorse Donald Trump. But I would say that Vladimir Putin probably sees Donald Trump as a positive phenomenon in a sense that the way different world leaders interact, really they interact through foreign policy. Donald Trump does not seem to be an ideological person, someone who would want to spread democracy, to overthrow dictators, spread the American truth, justice and American way to the world, particularly the Muslim world. He doesn't seem to operate on this ideological basis. He seems to operate on the idea of "there're other powers, we are going to have to get along with them, we are going to have to deal with them." I think Trump would probably be sympathetic, I actually know he would be sympathetic because he is set so exclusively towards many of Putin's and Russia's actions against ISIS. I don't think Trump exclusively says that he does not want to simply overthrow Assad in Syria as some gesture towards the wonderful nest of democracy. Trump would be - whatever you might think about Trump, you think he is bombastic, he is vulgar, I get it, he is kind of this - but if you actually look at his statements carefully, I think he would be a much more realistic actor in foreign affairs. And I think he would be a much more peaceful actor in foreign affairs. Believe it or not.

RT: Putin praised Trump's desire to "move to a different level of relations, to more solid, deeper relations with Russia." How can he be criticized for that?

RS: This is another thing where the American media doesn't really understand Putin. Because Putin is not a shrill ideologue like they are. Putin will speak diplomatically, will speak carefully and they just don't get that. I think what Putin is saying when he says that Trump might deepen relations is that Trump is not going to treat Russia as an enemy. Remember, Mitt Romney who wasn't even the craziest of the conservative bunch said that our number one geopolitical adversary is Russia. That is ridiculous. Anyone who would say that is not looking at the world as it is; they are looking at the world through some 1980's Cold War rosy glasses. Trump, I think, would really deepen the relations in a sense he wouldn't treat Russia as the Soviet Union or as Nazi Germany or some rogue state. He would treat Russia realistically as a state that has its interests, that has interests that might align with the US in certain situations and I think he would treat that where conflicts would be Trump would make a deal. He would deal with Russia as a real, legitimate actor of a legitimate state. So, in that sense, I truly do hope Trump gets elected. I think the world would be a more peaceful place with this bombastic man in power.

RT: What significance is the media reading into Putin's remarks? Are these fair enough assumptions or are they reading too much into it?

RS: They are not reading his remarks at all. They are basically spinning his remarks ... So; again Putin said some reasonable diplomatic things about Donald Trump. He said things that I don't anyone could really objectively disagree with...

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 #25
The National Interest
December 21, 2015
What Trump Gets Right About Putin
The GOP frontrunner somehow sees what the vast majority of establishment denizens can't seem to perceive.
By Robert W. Merry
Robert W. Merry is a contributing editor at the National Interest and an author of books on American history and foreign policy.

Donald Trump has a problem, perhaps best defined as a tendency to wrap worthy observations in outlandish language, thus undermining his rhetorical force and subjecting him to severe criticism. So far this weakness doesn't seem to have held him back in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, but it could catch up with him in coming weeks and months.

Take, for example, the recent exchange between Trump and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough about Russian President Vladimir Putin, who thinks Trump is the cat's meow of American politics. When Trump welcomed recent praise from Putin, Scarborough said, "Well, it's also a person who kills journalists, political opponents and invades countries. Obviously that would be a concern, would it not?"

Trump: "He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country."

Scarborough: "But, again, he kills journalists that don't agree with him."

Trump: "Well, I think our country does plenty of killing, also, Joe, you know. There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world now, Joe, a lot of killing, a lot of stupidity."

When Scarborough suggested that Trump obviously must condemn Putin's killing of journalists and political opponents, the GOP frontrunner replied, "Oh, sure, absolutely." It seemed to be a kind of afterthought.

But then he also said Putin's Russia could be a "great asset" to the United States if the two nations had a better relationship-"a positive force," particularly in battling ISIS, the bloodthirsty Islamic State that has consolidated territory in Syria and Iraq and is bent on attacking the West whenever possible.

Herewith a post-mortem on that exchange and its aftermath, including the plastering that Trump sustained from establishment thinkers, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and former GOP presidential standard-bearer Mitt Romney. There are three areas of interest that deserve inquiry-the question of U.S. relations with Russia; the matter of Putin's approach to ruling Russia; and the lessons in political discourse posed by the exchange. All were intermingled in the Trump-Scarborough interview.

Suppose Trump had handled the exchange more along the lines of this hypothetical exchange:

Scarborough: "Well, it's also a person that kills journalists and political opponents, invades countries," etc.

Trump: "Well, Joe, I don't have any independent knowledge of Putin actually killing journalists, do you? Everyone in the media says so, but can you confirm it? Marco Rubio accuses Putin point-blank of shooting down the Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine, without any evidence at all. Is that responsible? As for invading foreign countries, he has operated strictly within his traditional sphere of influence, just like America did when it invaded Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Granada. We were trying to protect our national interest in what might be called our near abroad. So I don't know that this should be disqualifying in terms of dealing with Putin."

Scarborough might then have noted that, after all, Russian journalists and other Putin opponents have indeed been killed in Russia and abroad. What's Trump's explanation for that?

Trump: "Well, Joe, Russia went through a complete humiliation in the 1990s, after its defeat in the Cold War. I'm glad of that defeat. I'm proud of our victory. But Putin is trying to bring Russia back to a place of respect and influence in its crucial Eurasian region. In doing that, he has embraced a political system that combines some economic and cultural freedoms with something approaching a state monopoly on politics. The stakes are huge in Russia right now; people get killed in those situations. It's certainly not my kind of system; I'm glad we don't have that here in America. But we have dealt with all kinds of countries in our history with all kinds of governmental systems, and I think our geopolitical interests should take precedence over any ideological purity."

That would have provided a foundation for Trump's most intriguing point, which is that Russia perhaps could be a positive force in the world and a possible asset to America if managed with some foreign policy adroitness.

To understand this potential, it's necessary to understand Putin and his Russia. A good place to start might be a 2012 book (since updated) by Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution, entitled Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin. Elements of their thesis appeared in the January/February 2012 issue of the National Interest. In that piece they explore what they call "two central elements of the Putin persona: his firm conviction that his personal destiny is intertwined with that of his country; and his resolve to fashion the Russian destiny through slow, methodical decision making over a long period of time."

Certain convictions and traits illuminate these elements. First, he is a statist, in the tradition of Russian history going back far beyond the Soviet era and extending through the 300-year Czarist period. "In the United States," write Hill and Gaddy, "the state exists to protect the rights of the individual. In Russia, the state is primary. The state stands above the individual, who is subordinate to the state and its interests." This is almost impossible for many Americans to understand and appreciate, but it is central to understanding Putin and also to understanding the reality that his statist views "have broad resonance in Russia," as Hill and Gaddy put it.

Another element is the Russian obsession with survival, born of the country's geopolitical vulnerability to invasion and its history of struggle (often to fend off the multiple invasions it has experienced over the centuries). This bolsters the country's statist impulse as people there look for a strong government to protect them from the vicissitudes of fate. Write Hill and Gaddy, "The 'survivalist' may be the mentality that is the most widespread among Russians of nearly all backgrounds and ages, given the shared experiences of war and privation."

The authors also explore Putin's embrace of free market principles. Many Russians were prepared to toss aside these convictions after the disastrous 1990s, when, in the name of free enterprise, the country was essentially auctioned off to well-positioned citizens who got fabulously rich in the process. Putin went after these people-the so-called Oligarchs-while clinging to his view, formulated during the disastrous final Soviet years, that central economic planning could not work. Thus, he emerged, as Hill and Gaddy put it, "as a statist who determines the state's interests but protects entrepreneurs, gives them a free hand, and only intervenes in businesses' decisions and operations in extreme cases that appear to threaten state priorities."

Thus, he forged a classic authoritarian system, preserving the state's control over politics while opening up other facets of civic and personal life. It was and remains a far cry from the totalitarian Soviet system, with its assault on the country's traditional religion and cultural heritage, the freezing of artistic expression, and its gulag of dreary prison camps to enforce its total dominance over the private life.

Through this lens it can be seen just how foolhardy it was for the West to push eastward toward the Russian border after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to seek to lure into NATO countries that for centuries had constituted a buffer zone between Western Europe and Orthodox Russia-or, worse, had been part of Russia's sphere of influence for centuries.

Particularly incendiary was the effort to pull Ukraine, right on the Russian border, out of Russia's influence zone, where it has resided for nearly four centuries. No self-respecting country could allow that, particularly given that the crucial strategic enclave of Crimea, Russian territory through most of modern history, was part of Ukraine. Russia promptly took back Crimea and extended support to Eastern Ukraine, populated largely by Russian-speaking people with deep Russian sympathies.

The result of all this has been the widespread demonization of Vladimir Putin throughout America, expressed in harsh, dismissive language by journalists, academics and politicians of all stripes and both parties. He's a killer, they say, a tyrant, a gangster.

And then along comes Donald Trump, a brash, undisciplined developer with no political background or foreign policy sophistication. But somehow he sees what the vast majority of establishment denizens can't seem to perceive. He says, essentially: There's something wrong here. Putin seems to be doing what any effective leader would do in the same circumstances. He could easily take Ukraine's eastern regions militarily and nobody could stop him, but he hasn't. His proposals for a negotiated settlement have been summarily rejected by the West. He's true to his allies in the Middle East, such as Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, in sharp contrast to President Obama, who threw over Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for no particular reason. He could become a significant geopolitical counterweight to a rising China, which is emerging as a major U.S. adversary. So, I think I could get along with the guy, and I certainly think it's worth a try.

It's unfortunate that Trump doesn't know how to press his case with finesse. But his instincts merit some respect, as does his fortitude in taking on a foreign policy outlook that is so thoroughly embedded in elite thinking throughout the country. But then, one reason Trump seems to beguile so many Americans, as reflected in the polls, has been his willingness to slam the elites that have left the nation mired in such a civic mess.

Of course the West must always fortify itself against any possible encroachment by the Russian bear, as it has had to do for centuries. But that doesn't mean America and Europe need to pursue their own policies of encroachment or employ the kind of bellicose diplomatic language that destroys prospects for finding common ground on matters of mutual interest. The country is on the wrong course on this powerful diplomatic matter. Nobody in politics seems to see it or care about it-except Donald Trump. Kudos to him.

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#26
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
December 21, 2015
A Brief Compendium of Nonsense About Putin
Brief? I had to force myself to stop at vampire rumours.
I mean, what's next? Darth Vader (AARGHH! He is).
By Patrick Armstrong
Patrick Armstrong received a PhD from Kings College, University of London, England in 1976 and retired in 2008 after 30 years as an analyst for the Canadian government, specializing in first the USSR and then Russia. He was a Political Counselor in the Canadian Embassy in Moscow from 1993 to 1996. He has been a frequent speaker at the Wilton Park conferences in the UK.
[Text with links here http://russia-insider.com/en/brief-compendium-nonsense-about-putin/ri11969]

If there is an upper limit to Putin Derangement Syndrome, no one has found it yet.

Health and psychology

-Experts (BTW, "expert" is to be understood in a sneering and contemptuous usage) have diagnosed him with Asperger's Syndrome, cancer of the spinal cord, personality disorders, gayness and Parkinson's Disease.

-And as a psychopath.

-Expert psychologists believe that he spends so much time with animals because most humans don't like him very much.

-He leads a "sinister, lonely life".

-He fears his own people.

-He was in the KGB and, of course "Once a KGB man, always a KGB man." His thumb, your eye.

-He has a contempt for law.

-Experts who have studied his actions in Ukraine and relationship with ISIS have concluded that he is not only a murderer and "mentally unstable, but so bloodthirsty that he constitutes a threat to the Middle East, America and the world."

-His slouching posture shows that he is envious and resentful of Obama.

-Maybe he's "just a jerk".

-The view that he is actually dead is a minority one but the rumours that he is immortal may be a preparation for revealing that he is the reincarnation of Dracula.

Putin spends a lot of time...

-Practising with a personal weapon, selection of everyday carry weapon and training his flunkies on how to do a "gunslinger walk".

-Choosing today's watch from his extensive watch collection.

-Picking out "Putin puppies" to sent to little girls.

-Given the assumption that he controls everything in "Putin's Russia", I am looking forward to seeing RT's clever and witty satire quoted as evidence that he is consulted on the most trivial matters: even telling the RT cleaning staff to mop up a mess. (I mean to say: it's out there on social media, so it must be true.)
-
Weekly meeting with religious leaders to give sermon guidelines.

-Writing editorials for newspapers and TV stations and carefully monitoring media sources to make sure they conform to his decrees.

-Drawing up lists of journalists to be threatened or, if they don't take the hint, assassinated.

-Carefully monitoring and controlling what Russians see on the Internet.

-Analysing Western media coverage and plots how to counter it with his weaponised information matrix funded with "huge amounts of money".

-Preparing daily instructions and themes for his network of troll factories which dominate social media.

-Planning and directing disinformation operations like fooling a US Senator with faked photos. A similar operation was carried out on the New York Times. (Otherwise you would have to think they were nincompoops and swallowed anything they were fed. No! No! Putindunnit!)

-Direction and fabrication of the elaborate numerical "statistical" backup required to sustain the "myth of 89%".

-Meeting with military chiefs to plan today's invasion of Ukraine and latest plans for the conquest of Lithuania; precise details of stationing of "little green men" there and other warlike expansionist plans.

-Personally choosing bombing targets in Syria, especially hospitals and schools.

-Planning new aggressive weapons.

-Stealing weapons technology from Ukraine.

-As the centre of the enmity to the World Community and International Law, he spends many hours plotting with an informal alliance of lawless regimes.

-Dreaming of re-creating USSR, or is it the Russian Empire? Or same-same, whatever.

-He hates NATO because it has incorporated "rightful Russian lands".

-He is so omnipresent that anytime a Western reporter doesn't see him, there must be some enormous crisis that deserves excitable headlines.

-Enormous efforts shoring up the "Putin regime" which is always on the edge of collapse. (But Russia has always been doomed (here's Time in 1927) and it was altogether finished in 2001, but it seems that the intensity of the doom saying has been stepped up as if wishing so made it so. Has an 'open society' doomed Russia to fail? (September 2012); Russia Is Doomed (March 2014); Why Putin's Adventure in Ukraine Is Doomed (April 2014); Putin's Nationalism and Expansion Strategy Is Doomed to Fail (September 2014); Sorry, Putin. Russia's economy is doomed (December 2014); Remember Russia? It's still doomed (January 2015); Morgan Stanley thinks Russia's doomed (February 2015)).

-In preparation for one of his long interviews or TV Q&A sessions, he chooses the questions, nominates and rehearses the actors who will ask them and memorises the answers. Obviously these sessions are stage-managed because no Western leader would even attempt to answer unscripted questions for several hours on live TV. Therefore, Putin has to be faking it.

-So-called elections are carefully managed down to the last detail with numerous dirty tricks, managed media campaigns and pressures applied where necessary. Putin directs and supervises these factors.

Finally, after work...

-Recreation period - wrestling with tigers, diving for antiquities, catching record-breaking fish, flying fighter jets or some other over-compensatory bare-chested he-man stunt.

-Plays with his dogs - see why he prefers animals to people above.

-Dalliance with latest girlfriend and secret family.

-Designs his palaces.

-And, as the richest man in the world, counts his loot.

And then to bed

-Where, as he says, you have to sleep a lot to be president.

Where does he find the time to do all this?

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