#2
Kremlin.ru
January 11, 2016
Interview to German newspaper Bild [Part 1]
[As published in Bild: http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/wladimir-putin/russian-president-vladimir-putin-the-interview-44092656.bild.html]

The interview was recorded on January 5, in Sochi.

Question: Mr President,

We have just marked the 25th anniversary of the end of the Cold War. Last year, we witnessed a great number of wars and crises across the world, something that had not happened for many years. What did we do wrong?

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: You have started just with the key question. We did everything wrong from the outset. We did not overcome Europe's division: 25 years ago the Berlin Wall fell, but Europe's division was not overcome, invisible walls simply moved to the East. This created the foundation for mutual reproaches, misunderstanding, and crises in the future. Many people, including in the Federal Republic [of Germany], criticise me for my well-known speech at the Munich Conference on Security. But what was so unusual that I said?

After the Berlin Wall fell, there were talks that NATO would not expand to the East. As far as I remember, the then Secretary General of NATO, national of the Federal Republic Manfred Woerner said that. By the way, some German politicians of that time gave warnings and proposed their solutions, for example, Egon Bahr.

You know, before meeting with German journalists I, naturally, thought that we would anyway come to the issue you have touched upon now, so I took archived records of talks of that period (1990) between Soviet leaders and some German politicians, including Mr Bahr. They have never been published.

Question: Are these interviews?

Vladimir Putin: No, these are working discussions between German politicians Genscher, Kohl, Bahr and Soviet leadership (Mr Gorbachev, Mr Falin, who, I think, headed the International Division of the Central Committee of the Communist Party). They have never been made public. You and your readers will be the first to learn about this talk of 1990. Look what Mr Bahr said: "If while uniting Germany we do not take decisive steps to overcome the division of Europe into hostile blocs, the developments can take such an unfavourable turn that the USSR will be doomed to international isolation." That was said on June 26, 1990.

Mr Bahr made concrete proposals. He spoke about the necessity to create a new alliance in the centre of Europe. Europe should not go to NATO. The whole of Central Europe, either with East Germany or without it, should have formed a separate alliance with participation of both the Soviet Union and the United States. And then he says: "NATO as an organisation, at least its military structures must not extend to include Central Europe." At that time, he already was the patriarch of European politics, he had his own vision of Europe's future, and he was telling his Soviet colleagues: "If you do not agree with it, but on the contrary agree with NATO's expansion, and the Soviet Union agrees with it, I will never come to Moscow again." You see, he was very smart. He saw a deep meaning in that, he was convinced that it was necessary to change the format radically, move away from the times of the Cold War. But we did nothing.

Question: Did he come to Moscow again?

Vladimir Putin: I do not know. This talk took place on February 27, 1990. This is a record of the conversation between Mr Falin representing the Soviet Union and Mr Bahr and Mr Voigt representing German politicians.

So what has actually happened? What Mr Bahr had warned about - that's what has happened. He warned that the military structure - the North Atlantic Alliance - must not expand to the East. That something common, uniting the whole of Europe must be created. Nothing like that has happened; just the opposite has happened what he had warned about: NATO started moving eastwards and it expanded.

We have heard a thousand times the mantra from our American and European politicians, who say: "Each country has the right to choose its own security arrangements." Yes, we know that. This is true. But it is also true that other countries have the right to make decisions to expand their own organisation or not, act as they consider appropriate in terms of global security. And leading NATO members could have said: "We are happy that you want to join us, but we are not going to expand our organisation, we see the future of Europe in a different way."

In the last 20-25 years, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union when the second centre of gravity in the world disappeared, there was a desire to fully enjoy one's sole presence at the pinnacle of world fame, power and prosperity. There was absolutely no desire to turn either to international law or to the United Nations Charter. Wherever they became an obstacle, the UN was immediately declared outdated.

Apart from NATO's expansion eastwards, the anti-ballistic missile system has become an issue in terms of security. All this is being developed in Europe under the pretext of addressing the Iranian nuclear threat.

In 2009, current President of the United States Barack Obama said that if Iran's nuclear threat no longer existed there would be no incentive for establishing the ABM system; this incentive would disappear. However, the agreement with Iran has been signed. And now the lifting of sanctions is being considered, everything is under the IAEA control; first shipments of uranium are already being transported to the Russian territory for processing, but the ABM system is being further developed. Bilateral agreements have been signed with Turkey, Romania, Poland, and Spain. Naval forces that should operate as part of missile defence are deployed in Spain. A positioning area has already been created in Romania, another one will be created in Poland by 2018; a radar is being installed in Turkey.

We strongly objected to developments taking place, say, in Iraq, Libya or some other countries. We said: "Don't do this, don't go there, and don't make mistakes." Nobody listened to us! On the contrary, they thought we took an anti-Western position, a hostile stance towards the West. And now, when you have hundreds of thousands, already one million of refugees, do you think our position was anti-Western or pro-Western?

Question: As far as I understood, you have summed up the mistakes made by the West with regard to your country. Do you believe that Russia on its part has made any during these 25 years?

Vladimir Putin: Yes, it has. We have failed to assert our national interests, while we should have done that from the outset. Then the whole world could have been more balanced.

Question: What you just said, does that mean that starting from 1990-1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all the years after it, Russia has failed to clearly assert its national interests?

Vladimir Putin: Absolutely.

Question: We know that you have special attitude towards Germany. Ten years ago in an interview given to us on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II you said: "Russia and Germany have never been so close to each other as they are now."

What do you believe has been left of that closeness to this day?

Vladimir Putin: Our relations are based, most importantly, on mutual attraction of our peoples.

Question: So nothing has changed in this respect?

Vladimir Putin: I think, no. Despite all the attempts (you and your colleagues have been making) to upset our relations using mass media and anti-Russia rhetoric, I believe that you have failed to do this to the extent that you wanted to. Of course, I do not mean you personally. I refer to the media in general, including German ones. In Germany, the media are under a strong foreign influence, first and foremost from the other side of the Atlantic.

You have said that I have summed up everything that we see as the mistakes made by the West. That was far from everything, I have named but a few most important points. After the Soviet Union collapsed, equally adverse processes emerged inside Russia itself. Those included a drop in industrial production, the collapse of social system, separatism, and the most evident onslaught of international terrorism.

Certainly, we are responsible, there is no one but us to blame. At the same time, for us it was an obvious fact that the international terrorism was also used as a means of fighting against Russia, while everyone either turned a blind eye on that or provided support to terrorists (I refer to political, information, financial or in some cases even armed support to the actors fighting against the Russian state). Certainly, at that moment we realised that discussions and geopolitical interests are completely different things.

As for the Russian-German relations, indeed, they reached an excellent level in 2005, and would have developed successfully further. The trade turnover between our two countries grew to over $80 billion.

In Germany, a huge number of jobs were created thanks to Russian-German cooperation. We tried to prevent negative developments in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, together.

We made major steps in furthering our energy cooperation. A lot of German entrepreneurs opened businesses in Russia, and thousands of enterprises were established. Exchanges between our citizens expanded, and humanitarian contacts developed. The Petersburg Dialogue public forum was also established at that time.

As I have said, our trade turnover used to reach $83-85 billion, and in the first months of 2015 it fell by half. I believe as of the end of the year it will stand at about $40 billion, at 50 percent of what it was. Nevertheless, we maintain relations, and the Federal Chancellor and I meet regularly at various events. I think, I met her seven times, and had 20 telephone conversations with her in 2015. We still hold reciprocal Years of the Russian Language and Literature in Germany and Years of the German Language and Literature in Russia. This year is to be the year of youth exchanges. So the relations are still developing, thank God, and I hope they will develop further. We will overcome the difficulties we are facing today.

Question: If I got you right, NATO should have told the East European states there and then that it would not admit them? Do you believe NATO could have survived that?

Vladimir Putin: Certainly.

Question: Yet this has been set forth in the NATO Charter.

Vladimir Putin: The Charter is written by people, isn't it? Does the Charter say that NATO is obliged to admit everyone who would like to join? No. There should be certain criteria and conditions. If there had been political will, if they had wanted to, they could have done anything. They just did not want to. They wanted to reign.

So they sat on the throne. And then? And then came crises that we are now discussing. If they had followed the advice the old wise German, Mr Egon Bahr gave them, they would have created something new that would unite Europe and prevent crises. The situation would have been different, there would have been different issues. Perhaps they would not have been that acute, you see.

Question: There is a theory saying that there are two Mr Putins: the first one was young pre-2007 Mr Putin who showed solidarity with the United States and who was friends with Mr Schroeder, and then, after 2007, another Mr Putin came. Back in 2000 you said, "We should have no confrontations in Europe, we should do everything to overcome them." And now we have found ourselves in such confrontation.

May I ask you a straightforward question? When we are going to have the first Mr Putin back?

Vladimir Putin: I have never changed. First, I still feel young today. I was and I continue to be Mr Schroeder's friend. Nothing has changed.

My attitude to such issues as the fight against terrorism has not changed either. It is true, on September 11 I was the first to call President Bush and express my solidarity. Indeed, we stood ready to do everything to combat terrorism together. Not so long ago, after the terrorist attacks in Paris, I called and then met the President of France.

If anyone had listened to Gerhard Schroeder, to Jacques Chirac, to me, perhaps there would have been none of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, as there would have been no upsurge of terrorism in Iraq, Libya, or other countries in the Middle East.

We are faced with common threats, and we still want all countries, both in Europe and the whole world, to join their efforts to combat these threats, and we are still striving for this. I refer not only to terrorism, but also to crime, trafficking in persons, environmental protection, and many other common challenges. Yet this does not mean that it is us who should agree with everything that others decide on these or other matters. Furthermore, if someone is not happy with our stance, they could find a better option than declaring us an enemy every time. Would not it be better to listen to us, to critically reflect on what we say, to agree to something and to look for a common solution? That was what I referred to at the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations in New York.

Question: I would like to express the view that today the fight against Islamic terrorism is such an acute issue that it could bring Russia and the West back together in this fight, but the problem of Crimea arises. Is Crimea really worth putting cooperation with the West at stake?

Vladimir Putin: What do you mean when you say 'Crimea'?

Question: Redrawn boundaries.

Vladimir Putin: And what I mean is people - 2.5 million of them. These are the people that were frightened by the coup; let's be frank, they were worried by the coup d'état in Ukraine. And after the coup in Kiev - and it was nothing but a coup d'état, no matter how the extreme nationalist forces, the forces that were coming to power at that moment and largely stayed there, tried to sugar it up - they just began to openly threaten people. To threaten Russians and Russian-speaking people living in Ukraine and in Crimea in particular, because it was more densely populated by Russians and Russian-speaking than other parts of Ukraine.

What was our reaction? We did not make war, nor did we occupy anyone; there was no shooting, no one got killed during the events in Crimea. Not a single person! We used the Armed Forces only to stop more than 20,000 Ukrainian service members stationed there from interfering with the free expression of will by the residents of Crimea. People came to the referendum and cast their vote. They chose to be part of Russia.

Here is a question: what is democracy? Democracy is the will of the people. People voted for the life they wanted. It is not the territory and borders that I am concerned about but the fates of people.

Question: But borders are a component of the European political order. You have previously said that this is actually very important, including in the context of the NATO expansion.

Vladimir Putin: It is important to always respect international law. In Crimea, there was no violation of international law. Under the United Nations Charter, every nation has the right to self-determination. Concerning Kosovo, the UN International Court of Justice ruled that, when it comes to sovereignty, the opinion of the central government can be ignored. If you are a serious periodical that is honest with its readers, find the transcript of the statement made by the German representative in the International Court of Justice in the archives and cite it. Take the letter, which I believe was written by the US Department of State, or the statement made by the British representative. Find them and read them. Kosovo declared its independence, and the whole world accepted it. Do you know how it in fact happened?

Question: After the war?

Vladimir Putin: No, it was done by a decision of the Parliament. There was even no referendum held.

What happened in Crimea? Firstly, the Crimean Parliament was elected in 2010, that is when Crimea was still part of Ukraine. This fact I am talking about is extremely important. The Parliament that had been elected while Crimea was part of Ukraine met and voted for independence and called a referendum. Then the citizens voted at the referendum for reunification with Russia. Moreover, as you pointed out quite correctly, the events in Kosovo took place after several years of war and the de-facto intervention by NATO countries, after the bombing of Yugoslavia and missile strikes targeting Belgrade.

Now I want to ask you this: if the Kosovans in Kosovo have the right to self-determination, why don't the Crimeans have the same right? If we want the relations between Russia and our friends and neighbours in Europe and around the world to develop in a positive and constructive manner, at least one condition must be observed: we need to respect each other, each other's interests and follow the same rules instead of constantly changing them to suit someone's interests.

You asked me if I was a friend or not. The relations between states are a little different from those between individuals. I am no friend, bride or groom; I am the President of the Russian Federation. That is 146 million people! These people have their own interests, and I must protect those interests. We are ready to do this in a non-confrontational manner, to look for compromise but, of course, based on international law, which must be understood uniformly by all.

Question: If, as you say, there was no violation of international law in Crimea, how can you explain to your people that because of that step the West, including at Ms Merkel's initiative, imposed sanctions against Russia that the Russian population is now suffering from?

Vladimir Putin: You know, the Russian people feel in their hearts and understand in their minds very well what is happening. Napoleon once said that justice is the embodiment of God on earth. In this sense, the reunification of Crimea with Russia was a just decision.

As to the reaction of our western partners, I believe that it was wrong and it was not aimed at supporting Ukraine but at suppressing the growth of Russia's capabilities. I believe that this should not be done and this is the main mistake; on the contrary, we need to use each other's capabilities for mutual growth, to address common issues together.

You have mentioned sanctions. In my view, this was a foolish decision and a harmful one. I have said that our turnover with Germany amounted to $83-85 billion, and thousands of jobs were created in Germany as a result of this cooperation. And what are the restrictions that we are facing? This is not the worst thing we are going through, but it is harmful for our economy anyway, since it affects our access to international financial markets.

As to the worst harm inflicted by today's situation, first of all on our economy, it is the harm caused by the falling prices on our traditional export goods. However, both the former and the latter have their positive aspects. When oil prices are high, it is very difficult for us to resist spending oil revenues to cover current expenses. I believe that our non-oil and gas deficit had risen to a very dangerous level. So now we are forced to lower it. And this is healthy...

Question: For the budget deficit?

Vladimir Putin: We divide it. There is the total deficit and then there are non-oil and gas revenues. There are revenues from oil and gas, and we divide all the rest as well.

The total deficit is quite small. But when you subtract the non-oil and gas deficit, then you see that the oil and gas deficit is too large. In order to reduce it, such countries as Norway, for example, put a significant proportion of non-oil and gas revenues into the reserve. It is very difficult, I repeat, to resist spending oil and gas revenues to cover current expenses. It is the reduction of these expenses that improves the economy. That is the first point.

Second point. You can buy anything with petrodollars. High oil revenues discourage development, especially in the high technology sectors. We are witnessing a decrease in GDP by 3.8 percent, in industrial production by 3.3 percent and an increase in inflation, which has reached 12.7 percent. This is a lot, but we still have a surplus in foreign trade, and the total exports of goods with high added value have grown significantly for the first time in years. That is an expressly positive trend in the economy.

The reserves are still at a high level, and the Central Bank has about 340 billion in gold and foreign currency reserves. If I am not mistaken, they amount to over 300. There are also two reserve funds of the Government of the Russian Federation, each of which amounts to $70 to $80 billion. One of them holds $70 billion, the other - $80 billion. We believe that we will be steadily moving towards stabilisation and economic growth. We have adopted a whole range of programmes, including those aimed at import replacement, which means investing in high technologies.

Question: You have often discussed the issue of sanctions as well as the issue of Crimea with Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. Do you understand her? Do you trust her?

Vladimir Putin: I am certain that she is a very sincere person. There is a framework within which she has to work but I have no doubt that she is sincere in her efforts to find solutions, including to the situation in southeast Ukraine.

You spoke of sanctions. Everyone says that the Minsk Agreements must be implemented and then the sanctions issue may be reconsidered. This is beginning to resemble the theatre of the absurd because everything essential that needs to be done with regard to implementing the Minsk Agreements is the responsibility of the current Kiev authorities. You cannot demand that Moscow do something that needs to be done by Kiev. For example, the main, the key issue in the settlement process is political in its nature and the constitutional reform lies in its core. This is Point 11 of the Minsk Agreements. It expressly states that the constitutional reform must be carried out and it is not Moscow that is to make these decisions.

Look, everything is provided for: Ukraine is to carry out a constitutional reform with its entry into force by the end of 2015 (Paragraph 11). Now 2015 is over.

Question: The constitutional reform must be carried out after the end of all military hostilities. Is that what the paragraph says?

Vladimir Putin: No, it is not.

Look, I will give you the English version. What does it say? Paragraph 9 - reinstatement of full control of the state border by the government of Ukraine based on the Ukrainian law on constitutional reform by the end of 2015, provided that Paragraph 11 has been fulfilled, which stipulates constitutional reform.

Consequently, the constitutional reform and political processes are to be implemented first, followed by confidence building on the basis of those reforms and the completion of all processes, including the border closure. I believe that our European partners, both the German Chancellor and the French President should scrutinise these matters more thoroughly.

Question: Do you think this is not so?

Vladimir Putin: I think they have a lot of problems of their own. But if we are addressing this matter then we must scrutinise it. For example, it says here that changes to the Constitution should be permanent. The Ukrainian Government introduced the law on the special status of those territories, a law that had been adopted earlier, into the transitional provisions. But this law, which they incorporated in the Constitution, was adopted for the duration of three years only. Two years have already passed. When we met in Paris, both the German Chancellor and the French President agreed that this law should be changed and included in the Constitution on a permanent basis. Both the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany confirmed that. Moreover, the current version of the Constitution has not even been approved and the law has not become permanent. How can demands be made on Moscow to do what in fact must be done inline with the decisions of our colleagues in Kiev?

Question: What is your attitude towards the Federal Chancellor now? You said some time ago that you admired many of her personal qualities. How do things stand now?

Vladimir Putin: When did I say that?

Question: That you respect her.

Vladimir Putin: I feel the same way now. I have already said that she is very sincere and highly professional. In any case, I think the level of trust between us is very high.

Question: Let me ask you a personal question. When the Federal Chancellor visited you in Sochi in January 2007, did you know that she was afraid of dogs?

Vladimir Putin: No, of course not. I did not know anything about that. I showed her my dog because I thought she would like it. I told her so later and apologised.

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 #3
www.rt.com
January 11, 2016
World would be more balanced if Russia asserted national interests from outset - Putin

The fall of the Berlin Wall and USSR did not unite Europe, but only moved the division line eastwards. The West still declares Russia an enemy each time that Moscow takes an independent stance and asserts its national interests, President Putin told Bild.

"We did everything wrong from the outset," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with German newspaper Bild. "We did not overcome Europe's division: Twenty-five years ago the Berlin Wall fell, but Europe's division was not overcome, invisible walls simply moved to the East. This created the foundation for mutual reproaches, misunderstanding, and crises in the future."

Russia's most crucial mistake during these years was a failure to clearly declare and actively protect national interests from day one, Putin said.

"We have failed to assert our national interests, while we should have done that from the outset. Then the whole world could have been more balanced," Putin said.

German politicians had foreseen that antagonism between Cold War opponents would only grow unless the format of international relations and balance of power in Europe changed radically, the Russian President said, citing archived records of talks which took place between German and Soviet diplomats at the time.

The "patriarch of European politics" at the time, German diplomat Egon Karl-Heinz Bahr said on June 26, 1990: "If while uniting Germany we do not take decisive steps to overcome the division of Europe into hostile blocs, the developments can take such an unfavorable turn that the USSR will be doomed to international isolation."

The whole of central Europe, either with East Germany or without it, according to Bahr's concrete proposals, should have formed a separate alliance with the participation of both the Soviet Union and the US, Putin said.

"If there had been political will, if they had wanted to, they could have done anything," Putin said. But no common alliance, truly uniting the whole of Europe has been created, with NATO instead acting in breach of all promises by expanding eastwards.

"They wanted to reign," the Russian leader said. "In the last 20-25 years, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union when the second centre of gravity in the world disappeared, there was a desire to fully enjoy one's sole presence at the pinnacle of world fame, power and prosperity. There was absolutely no desire to turn either to international law or to the United Nations Charter. Wherever they became an obstacle, the UN was immediately declared outdated."

The world today is facing numerous common threats and challenges, from international terrorism to human trafficking and refugee crises, and Russia, according to Putin, would be pleased if all countries joined their efforts in overcoming them.

"Yet this does not mean that it is us who should agree with everything that others decide on these or other matters," Putin said, reiterating his remarks at the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations in New York.

"Furthermore, if someone is not happy with our stance, they could find a better option than declaring us an enemy every time. Would not it be better to listen to us, to critically reflect on what we say, to agree to something and to look for a common solution?"

In order to develop relations between Russia and neighbors in Europe, as well as partners around the world, in a constructive manner, one simple condition must be observed:

"We need to respect each other, each other's interests and follow the same rules instead of constantly changing them to suit someone's interests," Putin said, emphasizing that the 146 million people of the Russian Federation also have their own interests which he has vowed to protect. "We are ready to do this in a non-confrontational manner, to look for compromise but, of course, based on international law, which must be understood uniformly by all."

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#4
From: John Evans <EvansinAmerica@aol.com>
Date: January 5, 2016
To: letters@washpost.com
Subject: Putin's Crude and Desperate Propaganda

To the Editor:

With all due respect to Paula Dobriansky and David Rivkin, and with prior apologies for engaging in "Whataboutism," I question the authors' one-sided excoriation of Russian media and officials (Op-Ed, Jan. 5) for some racist and decidedly off-color remarks and representations, particularly those aimed at President Obama.  To my knowledge, President Putin himself has never disparaged President Obama or any other foreign leader (except Mikheil Saakashvili); however, our President has made public fun of Putin's characteristic slouch.  I have seen much worse racist cartoons and comments about President Obama in American media (and by American politicians, who ought to know better).  Joe Scarborough's libelous (and untrue) comment on Morning Joe to Donald Trump that Putin "kills journalists" was perhaps the low point of a demonization campaign against Mr. Putin that has been evident long before the Sochi Olympics, when it was nothing short of frenzied.  Putin no more controls every outburst of bad taste or racism in Russia than the White House does here, and admittedly, he can swear like a sailor, but the criticism is unfair, even if the political goal of the Op-Ed is a noble one.

John Marshall Evans
Former U.S. Consul General in St. Petersburg

No one put me up to writing this letter, and it reflects only my own experience and point of view.  I knew Mr. Putin when he was First Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, and I was Consul General, 1994-97.

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#5
Kremlin.ru
January 8, 2016
Meeting with Russian national judo team

Vladimir Putin met with Russia's national judo team at the Southern Federal Centre for Sports Training Yug-Sport.

During the meeting, the President presented the Russian passport to national judo team head coach Ezio Gamba.

Earlier, Vladimir Putin took part in a training session with judo players.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends,

Thank you very much for this training session. There is just over 100 people on our national team, but if we take into account the junior and youth teams, we have 477 people. This is a very large group, which gives us a very good choice as we pick the most promising athletes. And all of you here are promising; today, I saw that for myself.

When we asked today about the main competitor at the upcoming Olympics, many people said it would be the Japanese. We have a great deal of respect for the Japanese; they are the founders of this sport. However, I asked one of our athletes, "Where are you from?" and he said, "I am a Kabardian." The Kabardian people are more "hard-core" than the Japanese; with all due respect, each of you is more hard-core than your opponents in character and ambition for victory. We all sincerely wish you success.

I would like to thank Mr Anisimov, the President of the Russian Judo Federation. He is doing a great deal to develop this sport.

Today, I spoke with the Prime Minister of Italy over the phone for a fairly long time concerning our current affairs. But among other things, he said, "Our citizen Ezio Gamba is now working in Russia. He is the one who led our Judo team to an amazing result in 2012 - an outstanding success at the Olympic Games, the best result in Olympic history. No other national team has ever achieved this result: five medals, including three gold." The Prime Minister asked me to say hello to you, Mr Gamba, on his behalf.

However, our conversation did not end there. I said to the Prime Minister, "In addition to everything else, I would like to let you know that Mr Gamba expressed a desire to become a Russian citizen." I have brought a Russian passport with me, but in order for this document to become real, you need to sign it. Ezio, if you will.

Let us congratulate the head coach of the national team on this step. If Mr Gamba has made this decision, it means that there are more things connecting him to this country than just judo. He and I have spoken at length about Italy, Europe and Russia. I think that people like himself are more powerful in bringing together nations, people, and countries than most demagogues who are used to sharing their thoughts on semi-political topics.

People like Mr Gamba are doing specific work and are truly helping people to become closer to one another, to understand one another, to develop friendships, find love, achieve results, and follow a common path toward common goals. Thank you very much. Congratulations.

Head Coach of Russian Judo Team Ezio Gama: Sorry if I speak in the English language, but for me it's easier to explain in the proper way.

Thank you very much for this, because this is a really special present. First, I want to inform the President, because, all the time, I have information about him from the media, the European media. And most of the time, the information is not really like what is in reality. For me, it's difficult to understand if it's true or not, but I feel from the team, everyone really trusts in his behaviour. In this case, for us, it is really important to be here today, at this meeting, before the Olympic Games. This is the last step, it's really done and finished.

The results are already done, because in our feeling, we know exactly what we can do. In this case, now, it's just the last race. We must stay quiet, don't increase too much. We must stay in this 5%, not more, not less.

In this case, I want to say officially, what I feel from the team, and also, what is my impression of the President. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: When I spoke with the Prime Minister of Italy - he and I speak casually, we are on very good friendly terms - I said, "You know, he will get Russian citizenship, but that will not make him stop being Italian, and thanks to him, we will love Italy even more." So once again, thank you very much.

Mr Anisimov, what results will we have at the Olympics?

President of the Russian Judo Federation Vasily Anisimov: We will have good results. I feel we have achieved our first objective, our "import substitution" - we now have another Russian citizen who, as you have correctly noted, loves Russia and loves the team.

I believe the most important thing we have all created is a normal psychological climate. I promised six medals, which we absolutely must win at the Olympics. Clearly, this is setting a high bar, but I believe that it is very important today for our flag to rise and for Russia's national anthem to be played in Brazil more than once.

I think we are all ready, the guys and gals are set on it. The entire team, as well as the coaches headed by Ezio, are working daily on a rigorous schedule. We are grateful to Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and [First Deputy Speaker of the State Duma and President of the Russian Olympic Committee] Alexander Zhukov, who also help and provide financing.

We are very grateful to you that you have gathered our team today ahead of their departure for Brazil - I think you understand how this lifts the athletes' spirits.

We can all see what is happening and we are confident that the Almighty will help us implement all our plans and we must simply bring them to fruition. Thank you again, and thanks to the entire team. I think the team will not let us down.

Vladimir Putin: Mr Anisimov said that the Almighty would help us - this is a generic image that works for people from different ethnic groups and religious backgrounds. I am very pleased that we have such a multi-ethnic team, who share common goals and a common country. This greatly unites us and motivates us toward good results.

I have no doubt - I do not know how many medals we will have, let us not try to guess in advance - but I do not doubt for even a second that you will fight in every sense of that word - beautifully, harmoniously, commendably - you will fight as judoka and as individuals, showing your best qualities on the tatami mats.

And Mr Mutko will help all of us. Please tell us about it.

Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko: First of all, I would like to congratulate our new Russian citizen, and thank you for your support and quick decision.

Overall, Mr President, I would like to say that we have provided everything for the team. I agree with Ezio, only the last step remains; everyone has great potential and it must be realised. The athletes have enormous objectives; each of them represents a region, with all of Russia truly covered here, from the republics in the Caucasus to central Russia, with representatives from every region in the nation.

We will create all the necessary conditions. You asked two years ago, "What do we have for judo in Sochi?" Today, we are at a sports centre built on your instructions. We are completing the construction of a large centre in Kislovodsk - the athletes already have the opportunity to train at middle altitudes, it is a wonderful centre.

We have provided everything from a material standpoint; the team's athletic calendar, all the targets set by the coaches - we will meet them, so I do not see any problems here.

The athletes and I were talking before your arrival; of course, there needs to be equal attention given to all the regions. Overall, as far as the national team is concerned, I can assure you, the coach and the team that we will do everything to ensure that the last phase of training is held at the highest level. In addition, I want to wish the team success; they have taught us to expect victories. Olympic competitions always begin with judo and wrestling, they create a good psychological mind-set.

We will be a large, proper Olympic national team of about 400 people. I hope, Mr President, that we will bring track and field back to the heart of the team. Right now, we are competitive in about 22 or 23 sports out of 38, so I wish everyone luck.

Vladimir Putin: Ezio, what else needs to be done? What should be done by the Sports Ministry, our National Olympic Committee and the Judo Federation?

Ezio Gamba: We do not need anything special, we need - just like what you say, it's not important now to think about results, how many gold, how many silver, how many bronze - but to keep quiet in time for arriving at the Olympics in a perfect atmosphere. It's enough. The picture of the guys, it's clear, just watch their eyes. In this case, they know their plan, and every one of them is ready to realize themselves for the better.

Vladimir Putin: I felt that today as I was talking to the athletes. They have a very serious attitude.

I want to wish everyone a happy New Year, and wish you all the very best, success, a good fighting spirit, good health, to avoid injuries, and to proceed to the Olympic Games calmly and show your worth. Good luck.

Thank you!

 #6
Moscow Times
January 11, 2016
Law Guaranteeing Phone Call After Arrest Comes Into Force in Russia

A law outlining the right of a detainee to make a phone call no later than three hours after being arrested has come into force in Russia, the Rossiiskaya Gazeta state-owned newspaper reported Sunday.

"A suspect as soon as possible, but not later than three hours after he [or she] was arrested, has a right to have one phone conversation in Russian in the presence of an investigator or an interrogating officer, in order to inform relatives or close [friends] about his detention and whereabouts," the law reads, as cited by Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

A detainee can be denied a phone call in exceptional cases, when the investigation needs to remain a secret, the report said. In such cases investigators should give a written explanation of why a phone call must be denied and the document should be approved by a prosecutor, the newspaper reported.

The draft law was introduced to the State Duma, Russia's lower chamber of parliament, by several senators from the Federation Council, Russia's upper chamber of parliament - Vadim Tyulpanov, Andrei Klishas and Konstantin Dobrynin - in 2013. Before this law, it took relatives of those who were arrested hours to find out what had happened, Dobrynin stated, according to Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

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 #7
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
January 11, 2016
10 facts about the Russian Internet
Desktops are beginning to become a thing of the past: In the past year the number of Russian users going on-line from mobile devices has increased by 90 percent. RBTH has sifted some more curious facts about the Internet.
YEKATERINA SINELSCHIKOVA, RBTH

1. 11.8 million Russian users (14%) go on-line from mobile devices only
According to TNS, in 2015 the amount of people going on-line from desktops has not increased and has even begun to decline for the first time. By comparison, the quantity of mobile devices users has increased by 90 percent. Nevertheless, PCs are still the most popular means of access to the Internet.

2. The penetration level of the Internet in Russia is higher than in the CIS and in the BRICS countries

82 million people - 66 percent of Russia's population - use the Internet. However, active growth in users has, experts say, now stopped. In 2014 the number of users increased by only 5 percent (in 2013 - 7 percent).

3. The Moscow metro was the first in the world to launch free Wi-Fi on its trains

Since December 2014 a free Wi-Fi network MosMetro_Free operates on all metro lines in the Russian capital. The baud rate is more than 100 Mb/s for each train. The metro's provider "MaximaTelekom" stresses that in some cities in the world Wi-Fi is available on station platforms but not in the tunnels, so the project remains unique. However, Moscow metro stations are yet to be wired for Wi-Fi.

4. Russia possesses 3 domains: .RU, .РФ, .SU

At the moment the .RU domain takes first place by the number of its registered websites. By November 2015 more than 5 million websites were registered under this suffix. In second place is .РФ - 888 008 websites, and .SU has 119, 257.

5. The Russian Internet does not have a 'kill switch' function yet

The Kremlin does not yet have the power to disconnect Russia from the global Internet, like - for example - Egypt did during civil unrest in 2011. Kremlin press spokesman Dmitry Peskov says this is out of the question and it is not under consideration. However, Moscow still works on protective measures in the area of the cyber security in view of what is seen as the "unpredictable" behavior of western partners.

6. The most popular search engine in Russia is Yandex

Yandex remains Russia's most popular search engine, though Google has been making headway in gaining market share. Analysts Morgan Stanley says that in early 2015 Yandex was down 2.8 percent in Russia while Google was up 5 percent.

7. Russian social network Vkontakte is more popular than Facebook

Vkontakte is the most popular social network in Russia and the VK.com website is the country's most visited. The record number of 'hits' for the site was 70 million people in one 24-hour period, Andrey Rogozov, head of development at Vkontakte says. In second place is Facebook, with 28 percent of users. The social network of choice for older Internet users is "Odnoklassniki" - with 13 percent market share. YouTube has 7 percent and Twitter 4 percent - with very little growth evident in Russia.

8. Russia has five 'black lists' for the Internet

Russia has a register of forbidden websites; the reasons a site can be blocked differ. They include dissemination of extremist materials, child pornography, promoting information about suicide methods, drug making and distribution. A website can be closed if it promotes illegal activity - for example copyright piracy and publishing information about other illegal subjects.

9. The first site in RU appeared in 1990

The www.ru web site launched in 1990 was the first website in the country. In the same year Russia developed its own e-mail system of computers connected by phone. The system was only ever used by academic institutions. The first Internet providers appeared in 1992-1993.

10. Fiber optic cable DREAM passes through 7 countries

The Diverse Route for European and Asian Markets (DREAM) fiber optic cable, 5,400 miles long, is the biggest Internet traffic highway between Europe and Asia. The route goes through China, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Slovakia. At the same time, no more than 15 percent of Europe-Asia traffic passes the territory of Russia: Currently underwater cabling is more popular than terrestrial.

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 #8
Russia Beyond the Headlines
www.rbth.ru
January 11 2016
Moscow homeless treated to free film shows
"Cinema for the homeless" was born in the summer: the homeless were shown French film 1+1 and classical Soviet comedy Operation Ы. The screenings are organized by volunteers from the Friends on the Street Movement, which since 2002 has been helping people without a home of their own. The movement feeds them, helps them socialize and carries out various events.
OLEG YEGÓROV, SPECIAL TO RBTH

The Friends on the Street Movement's main principle is that the homeless are ordinary people who have just been unluckier in life than others. We meet Natalya Markova, one of the movement's coordinators, near Moscow's Yaroslavl railroad station and walk towards the facility where emergency social assistance is given, and where the films are shown.

Both the volunteers and the homeless have already assembled at the premises and are happily chatting with each other.

These homeless people are among the organization's old acquaintances. Some of them have known the volunteers for several years and have indeed formed strong friendships.

"How are things, Masha?" Natalya affectionately asks a short swarthy woman in a shabby sports suit.

 "Very well, thank you," Masha responds. "Which film will be shown today?"

"Groundhog Day".

Buffet and film

The assistance facility is a platform that is surrounded by a green slatted fence, inside of which there is a large white tent. A few people in 'Social Patrol' uniform, from the Department of Social Protection of Moscow's Population, greet us. Here volunteers provide the homeless with food and drink and show them the films.

Before the film the volunteers organize a buffet. Together with their homeless friends they carry tables out of the tent and organize a food distribution point. The menu consists of bread, vegetables, plov (Caucasian/Central Asian pilaf usually with lamb), buckwheat, tea and mineral water.

A crowd of homeless people gradually gathers outside the fence waiting for their dinner. Some of them come only to eat. They sullenly push their way onto the platform.

They are permitted to enter slowly, in small groups. A volunteer tells me that those who curse or behave aggressively are refused entry or sent to the back of the queue. One homeless man with a beaten-up face covered in bandages enters last because he had tried to push in front of others.

Having eaten, most leave and only a minority remains to watch Groundhog Day. The cinema lovers go into the white tent where they sit down on the chairs provided. The volunteers position a computer to project the film onto the tent wall, which serves as the screen. Then Bill Murray's face appears.

Street friends

"The idea for the movement was created by a group of friends who decided that it would be great to help other people," says Andrey Volkov, another coordinator of Friends on the Street. "Walking around outside and getting to know the homeless, we understood that they have a very difficult life. One aspect involves the constant need for food and clothes, which we help them obtain - we bring them hot meals, tea and when it's cold we give them clothes. We buy all this with our own money. But besides this, the homeless are in great need of simple human communication, warmth and friendship. That is why we hold these events - soccer and now film screenings."

Homeless woman Masha agrees with Volkov and is thankful for the Friends on the Street Movement:

"When I found myself in difficulty - my husband was beaten up.... I called Andrey and told him, 'Well, yeah, that's how it is, we're on the street, help us out,' and they really helped us. It's not even that they feed us - many organizations can do that. They communicate with us, support us morally. This is very important. I used to drink a lot. They helped me stop. I also stopped stealing. Now I also try to help them."

While we are speaking one of the guests, who has just finished eating, starts causing trouble and shoving the others. A few burly fellows from Social Patrol immediately approach him and he is escorted outside the fence.

"Sometimes people who are drunk come here and start acting rudely," Volkov sighs. "But I think that this is not the problem of the homeless, this is the whole country's problem. But obviously people who have found themselves on the street have it hard. Not everyone in such conditions can be psychologically normal."

Homeless cinema

Gradually the number of viewers in the tent reduces and no more than ten people are left watching Groundhog Day.

"The idea of the film screening is wonderful," says homeless man Yury Sergeevich, "the only thing was that you couldn't see well. And then, as you saw, most people only watch the beginning and then leave. I think that the audience should select the film. For example, we would love to see Wedding in Manilovka (a Soviet comedy from 1967). I am convinced that this place would be packed. And if the screen was better, that would really be great."

It is difficult to provide a precise number of homeless people living on the Moscow streets. According to various estimates, the number is in the tens of thousands.

Services for the homeless are organized by charity organizations:

- The Angar Salvation Assistance Center opened a hair salon where volunteers cut homeless people's hair. The salon was established thanks to funds from the Miloserdiye (Mercy) Center of the Russian Orthodox Church;

- The Department of Social Protection of Moscow's Population helps non-Muscovites who have found themselves without money and documents to return home.

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#9
Foreign agents to join monitoring group at 2016 elections in Russia - media

MOSCOW, January 11. /TASS/. Representatives of observer organizations declared "foreign agents" will join a special monitoring group at elections this year, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Monday citing Mikhail Fedotov, who heads Russia's presidential human rights council.

Under the law passed in July 2012, non-profit organizations which engage in "political activity" and receive funding from abroad are required to register as "foreign agents."

The elections in the country can be monitored by public organizations that are not "foreign agents." In order not to violate the law, the representatives of the "foreign agents" will join the group not as legal entities but as individuals.

"It is very important to note that the monitoring group of observer organizations will include those who will not politicize the process of controlling and monitoring the elections. This will be independent people who will give unbiased information aimed at assisting the protection of constitution rights of citizens," Fedotov told the newspaper.

The council will draw up recommendations for the monitoring group at a special meeting in March. It will also define the regions where the control over the monitoring group will be implemented by the members of the council and "foreign agents." The elections to Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, will take place on September 18, 2016.

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 #10
President Putin says Russia's 2015 GDP drop stands at 3.8%, inflation hits 12.7%

SOCHI, January 11. /TASS/. The Russian economy will gradually recover despite the drop of GDP at 3.8% over the last year, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with German daily Bild.

"We believe that gradually we will reach the stabilization and the growth of the economy," Putin said.

According to the Russian president, "we are now facing the drop in GDP at 3.8%, the decline in industrial production at 3.3% and the inflation growth of up to 12.7%"

At the same time, according to Putin, Russia's foreign trade surplus remained at the same level "and for the first time in many years we have increased the export volume of value added products."

"This is undoubtedly the positive trend in our domestic economy," the president said.

Putin also said that the Russian economy keeps maintaining a high level of reserves.

"The Central Bank currently boasts $340 billion in gold and currency reserves, I may be wrong, but the figure is definitely over $300 billion," he said. "Two state reserve funds have about $70-80 billion each - one $70 billion and the other $80 billion."

Early this year Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a government resolution on the 2016 federal budget.

The document stipulated a common procedure for providing federal subsidies, grants and other purposeful inter-budgetary transfers to the budgets of Russian regions.

The government resolution also set common requirements for the procedure of providing federal budget subsidies to legal entities from among the producers of goods, works and services, as well as to government corporations and other entities.

Russia's federal budget projected revenues of 13.738 trillion rubles (about $196 billion) and expenditures of 16.099 trillion rubles ($229.9 billion) with a budget deficit of 2.36 trillion rubles ($33.9 billion) or 3% of GDP.

The 2016 budget is based on the inflation rate of no more than 6.4% (December 2016 on December 2015).

Russia's GDP is projected at 78.673 trillion rubles ($1.12 trillion) in 2016. Russia's Reserve Fund established to cushion the budget against a plunge in oil prices is projected at the level of 5.5 trillion rubles ($78.7 billion) this year.

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 #11
Moscow Times
January 11, 2016
Russian Oil Prices Drop 50% in 2015

The average price of Russian oil dropped almost 50 percent last year, the Interfax news agency reported Monday, citing Finance Ministry analyst Alexander Sakovich.

In 2014, the average price of Russia's key export, Urals crude oil, stood at $97.6 per barrel, while last year it price fell by 47.5 percent to $51.23, Sakovich told Interfax, citing data from oil pricing agencies.

In December 2015, Urals oil traded at $36.42 a barrel, down from $42.11 in November, Interfax reported.

Russia's 2016 budget projects the average price of Urals oil at $50 per barrel. With an oil price baseline of $40 per barrel, the country's budget deficit is expected to reach 1.5 trillion rubles ($19.8 billion), Deputy Finance Minister Maxim Oreshkin said last month, according to Interfax.

As of Monday morning, the price of global benchmark Brent crude oil fell to $32.83 per barrel, according to Interfax.

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 #12
True Economics
http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com
January 10, 2016
Russian Banks: Licenses Cancellations Galore
By Constantin Gurdgiev
[Chart here http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/01/10116-russian-banks-licenses.html]

Why Russian Central Bank's chief Elvira Nabiullina deserves title of the best central banker she got in 2015? Why, because she sticks to her stated objectives and goes on even in challenging conditions.

When Nabiullina came to office, Russian banking system was besieged by underperforming and weak banks - mostly at the bottom of banking sector rankings, but with some at the very top too (see ongoing VEB saga here http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2016/01/1116-another-veb-update-things-are.html). And she promised a thorough clean up of the sector. I wrote about that before (see http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/12/22122014-elvira-nabiullina-roubles-last.html and http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2013/03/1432013-comment-of-appointment-of-new.html).

But times have been tough for such reforms, amidst credit tightening, rising arrears and economic crisis. Again, majority of the problems are within the lower tier banks, but numbers of loss-making institutions has been climbing over 2015. January-November 2015 data shows that almost 30% of Russian banks are running operating losses and overdue loans have risen by nearly 50% to RUB2.63 trillion. Still, this constitutes less than 7 percent of total credit outstanding. Stressed (but not necessarily overdue) loans rose from 7 percent of total credit in January 2015 to 8 percent at the end of December 2015. Notably, both stressed and overdue loans numbers are surprisingly low. And on another positive side, bank's own capital to assets ratio averaged 13 percent. The aggregate numbers conceal quite some variation within the banking sector, as noted by Bofit: "At the beginning of November, 129 banks had equity ratios below 12%. Large deficiencies in calculating the capital have come to light in several bank insolvencies."

Amidst this toughening of trading conditions, CBR continued to push our weaker banks from the market. Over 2015, 93 banks lost their licenses, almost the same number as in 18 months prior with just 740 banks left trading the market as of December 2015. As the result, banking sector concentration rose, with 20 largest banks now holding 75 percent share of the market by assets. In January-October 2015, some 600,000 depositors in Russian banks were moved from banks losing licenses to functioning banks, per report here.

Chart from Bofit illustrates the trends in terms of banking licenses revoked:

Overall, this is good news. Russian banking system evolved - prior to 2009 - into a trilateral system of banks, including strong larger (universal) banks, medium-sized specialist and foreign banks with retail exposures, weak and sizeable fringe of smaller institutions, often linked to industrial holding companies. Aside from VEB - which officially is not a bank - larger banks are operating in tough conditions, but remain relatively robust. Smaller banks, however, having relied in previous years on higher risk consumer credit and holding, often, lower quality capital, have been impacted by the crisis and by the lack of liquidity. Shutting these operations down and consolidating the smaller banks' fringe is something that Russian needs anyway.

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#13
Sputnik
January 11, 2016
Cautious Optimism: Forecaster Predicts the Worst is Over for the Ruble

A financial analyst from a team whose predictions have been praised by Bloomberg as the best among 34 forecasters on a four-quarter rolling basis now suggests that ruble is poised for a recovery, and will perform "as strong as 67 against the dollar over the next three months from 74.7475 Friday and [will reach] 65 by year-end".

Russian ruble banknotes of different denominations

Dmitri Petrov from Nomura International Plc, a securities broker/dealer in the UK, whom Bloomberg calls "the most-accurate ruble forecaster" is convinced that the ruble's fall may soon be over.

"We think we are approaching the bottom in USD-RUB and our bias is to look for opportunities to buy the ruble in the coming weeks," the agency quotes Petrov as saying from London. "If you have a portfolio and need to add some risk and are willing to stomach the volatility, it's a very attractive case for 2016."

The analyst expects "a recovery that could make the exchange rate as strong as 67 against the dollar over the next three months from 74.7475 Friday and bring it to 65 by year-end."

"That compares with a consensus that puts the ruble at 69 for most of 2016," the agency specifies.

The agency explains that Petrov's forecast of 67-70 rubles per dollar in the first quarter assumes that crude prices steady at $35-$40 a barrel.

"Since sanctions triggered an exodus from Russia by foreigners, domestic players are exerting greater influence on the ruble," he said.

Companies have less need to hoard US dollars, as payments on foreign debts shrink to less than half the $30 billion they repaid in 2015 while sanctions froze Eurobond markets.

As Russians gravitate toward their own currency, foreign investors might also boost holdings of ruble assets, according to Petrov.

"The demand factor has really changed," Petrov said. "The trend perspective in the currency from current levels is towards appreciation."

Other market watchers, including Barclays Plc, "cut its first-quarter ruble forecast to 76 per dollar from 71, as high domestic liquidity, low oil prices and poor economic performance weigh on the currency, according to a report on Jan. 6, the day before Brent crude fell to a 2004 low of $32.16 a barrel."

The bank forecasts the ruble will reach 78 per dollar by the year's end.

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 #14
Deutsche Welle
January 10, 2016
Return of Russia's economic rollercoaster
By Fiona Clark

As Russia begins the New Year, two recent events - an inability to pay salaries and a new law on currency exchanges - show the country is hurtling rapidly back to the future. Fiona Clark sees troubled times ahead.

On Christmas Eve we couldn't get a taxi using any of the usual apps, so we decided to hitch home after dinner. That's not such an unusual practice in Russia, in fact since Soviet times it's been an accepted way for people to subsidize their incomes by picking up strangers and charging them a small fee to drop them wherever they want. Foreigners call them "gypsy cabs."

The man who picked us up was very pleased to finally get a fare. "You're the first people to put your hands out for ages. No one puts their hands out anymore," he said, lamenting the effect of the taxi apps that are killing the ordinary man's revenue supply. "I used to make 5,000 rubles (62 euros; $68) a night doing this, now I'm lucky if I make 2,000 a week." Then he went on to explain why he needed the money.

His son is a captain in the fire brigade. His salary was 60,000 rubles a month but he had told his father that the ministry in charge of the emergency services had just announced to its employees that their salaries would be slashed to 15,000 a month - around 190 euros.

In February the government announced its members would take a 10-percent cut from their 250,000 ruble a month pay packets, but this goes far beyond that.
"I'm so mad I just want to punch the minister in the face," the driver said, wondering how on earth his family would survive.

Tough times

On hearing this we rang a friend who works for the fire department, albeit at a lower rank. His story was worse. He hadn't been paid for December. He won't be paid in January and said he'd be lucky if he was paid in February - and if he is, it won't be at his usual rate.

The reason the men at his brigade were given for the lack of payment was that Crimea was costing the country too much and cuts had to be made to help. The catchcry of "our Crimea" or "Krim Nash" that was so popular after Russia's annexation of the peninsula in March 2014 wasn't ringing happily in his ears. To add insult to injury, the employees' passports had been confiscated as they are considered to be part of the country's defense forces and as such can't leave the country in these difficult times, he was told.

News agency Interfax has reported incidents of wages being withheld to emergency services in other regions of Russia as well, and cited the country's economic difficulties as the reason. It also said the servicemen were told budget reallocations were expected to resolve the situation in the new year.

It's been quite some time since Russia hasn't been able to pay the salaries of its government employees. The last two times in recent history were after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 and again during the financial crisis of the late 1990s. It was the 1998 economic crisis - when the ruble lost a third of its value and inflation was running at 300 percent - that finally destroyed the popularity of Russia's first post-Soviet and democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin.

Inflation is nowhere near that at the moment, hovering in the mid-teens, but the ruble has lost 50 percent of its value against the dollar and the pound, and with the price of oil dipping below the $40 a barrel mark, that's unlikely to change.

Clearly the government is worried that what little money is left in the country will disappear. Between 2014 and 2015 - as the economic crisis started to bite - there was capital flight estimated to be worth around $151 billion. A few months back staff at airports actively started asking if passengers were carrying cash out of the country since amounts above $10,000 must be declared. The last time they asked me, my reply was simple: "Unfortunately not," but the border guard said I'd be surprised how many people were carrying bags of cash in their hand luggage.

Currency checks

Last week legislation came into effect that says banks must ask people exchanging more than 15,000 rubles for foreign currency where they got the money from and collect their passport details and tax numbers. The government is clearly extending its crackdown on corporate tax evasion to individuals. But the reaction from people on local radio stations was that this move will only serve to fuel the rise of the black market again.

Russians don't trust banks. They've seen them collapse too often, taking their savings with them, so they keep their money in their mattresses, so to speak. They are unlikely to take kindly to having to provide an explanation as to how they came up with the equivalent of about 200 euros.

So far veterans and military personnel I've spoken to haven't been affected by pay or pension cuts, but the inability to pay emergency services and the crackdown on small money exchanges does not send good signals about the strength of the economy and the state of the government's coffers.

2016 may well become Russia's annus horribilis: All the signs suggest the country's economic roller-coaster history will repeat itself.

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 #15
Reuters
January 10, 2016
How the oil collapse stole Russia's Christmas
BY SUJATA RAO AND JASON BUSH

A plunge in the oil price to 12-year lows during Russia's New Year and Orthodox Christmas break means the country returns to work on Monday with its economic recovery and once-mighty savings war chest on the line.

The equity and currency turmoil in China that rippled through world markets during Russians' 10-day festive holiday pushed Brent crude futures to around $32 a barrel, down from $45 at the start of December and a step closer to the $20 price trough predicted by Goldman Sachs.

Crude's collapse from $100 a barrel since mid-2014 has already pummeled Russia, which relies on energy for about half its budget revenues and 40 percent of its exports. The latest slide compounds the problems facing President Vladimir Putin ahead of elections in 2018.

Due to thin local holiday trading, the rouble fell only 2 percent last week, but the 75-per-dollar rate is not far now from the 80.1 record low hit 13 months ago.

Back then, Russia defended the currency by raising interest rates by 500 basis points overnight; a sharp rouble move lower in coming weeks could force a repeat of that action.

Inflation would surge, and the recession that the government had forecast ending this year would be extended.

In the worst-case scenario with oil staying at or below $30 per barrel, Russia's coffers would empty in just over a year, leaving little to show for a decade of bumper oil earnings.

For Putin, the $100 billion-plus Russia still has in two rainy-day funds, is "the ultimate insurance policy to navigate the election," says Christopher Granville, managing director of Trusted Sources, an investment consultancy.

Granville notes this year's planned budget deficit of 3 percent of annual economic output hinges on $50-a-barrel oil, a gap the government had hoped to fill by borrowing and dipping into the national reserve fund.

But oil at $30 would blow the hole out to 5 percent or more, Granville says. If that happens, Putin may have to risk irking voters with tax hikes and savage spending cuts that throw the economy deeper into recession.

Or he must dig even deeper into rapidly-dwindling savings.

Borrowing on international bond markets or privatizations are also possible but neither is attractive in view of depressed share prices and high borrowing costs.

Investors' appetite for Russia is further dampened by continuing Western sanctions imposed to punish Moscow's actions in Ukraine, although the sanctions do not directly prevent Russia from borrowing.

The two sovereign funds are already being depleted. In early December, they contained $130 billion, down from mid-2014 peaks around $180 billion. The government also has to find a trillion roubles, some 1.2 percent of GDP, that has been promised to bail out state development VEB.

"The national savings buffers are worth around 6.5 percent of GDP at present and that's the basis of saying they will run out of cash by the middle of next year - unless the oil price goes up," said Granville, who had adjusted the paper value of the funds to reflect off-budget commitments.

"But to eke out the buffers until the election will require meaningful spending cuts now... Desperate times call for desperate measures."

Many Russians will return from the holidays only too aware that life is about to get harder.

Civil servants' salaries will be frozen for the third year, pensions are to rise less than inflation; foreign goods and vacations will become even more expensive.

The blow to living standards is leading some to draw parallels with Russia's previous financial crisis in 1998, when the government defaulted and the rouble lost three-quarters of its value.

"It feels like the 1998 crisis all over again. My salary's value in dollars has more than halved, I now earn less than I did in 1997," said Yelena, a Moscow-based newspaper journalist who asked that her surname not be used.

FORECASTS IN DANGER

Investors who fled Russia after the rouble collapse have gradually been returning, encouraged by double-digit bond returns last year, a slight thaw in ties with the West and signs the economy was over the worst.

Expectations interest rates would fall further after 600 bps in cuts over 2015 allowed the government to predict economic growth of 0.7 percent and 1.9 percent this year and the next.

Those forecasts will be in danger if oil does not recover, admits David Hauner, head of CEEMEA debt and strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch who has been bullish on Russian bonds.

"As long as oil keeps falling, Russia will keep falling," Hauner said. "We do need to acknowledge that if the market gets disorderly, everything could change quickly and the ice is getting somewhat thin now."

Hauner remains positive on Russian bonds however, noting BAML expects crude to bounce to $50 per barrel later in 2016.

But oil markets are bracing for bigger falls, partly on fears China's economy is in worse shape than it appears.

Investors have started acquiring "put" options that give them the right to sell Brent futures at $25, reflecting expectations of falls below that price. And Russia's Urals crude blend usually trades $2-$3 below Brent.

UBS strategist Manik Narain is one of many analysts reviewing his Russia forecasts - late last year he estimated the rouble would average 75 per dollar in 2016.

The lower oil goes, the harder it is to predict outcomes for the rouble and the economy, he said.

"The big risk is of non-linear currency moves because oil going from $30 to $20 will provoke a very different rouble response from a $40-$30 move," Narain said, citing a likely panic effect among citizens and businesses.

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#16
Russia Direct
www.russia-direct.org
January 8, 2016
Russia's new national security strategy has implications for the West
A close reading of Russia's new national security strategy shows how the Kremlin perceives the situation in Russia and abroad.
By Artem Kureev
Artem Kureev is an expert from the Moscow-based think tank "Helsinki+" that deals with protecting interests of Russians living in the Baltic countries. Kureev graduated from Saint Petersburg State University's School of International Relations.

At the end of December, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the executive order On Russia's National Security Strategy, which overrides the former National Security Strategy approved in May 2009 and effective until 2020. [http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/ru/l8iXkR8XLAtxeilX7JK3XXy6Y0AsHD5v.pdf]

The new National Security Strategy contains 116 clauses that identify major threats and spell out possible solutions. It is important to point out that even though the Strategy is a very broad document, it lays the foundation for specific measures meant to enhance Russia's national security across the board. Essentially, it is a road map, and a close analysis of it shows how the Kremlin perceives the situation within Russia and abroad.

The National Security Strategy is not the first core document that had to be updated due to the rapid changes in global politics in 2014. On Dec. 30, 2014, Putin approved the new edition of Russia's Military Doctrine, which constitutes "a system of official state adopted views on the preparation for the armed protection and defense of the Russian Federation." As for the Strategy, it does not just cover military defense issues, but is much more comprehensive, even though it reiterates many Doctrine clauses, such as the development and strengthening of the collective security system.

At the same time, the Strategy approved on Dec. 31 is a lot more specific than the Doctrine in its description of external threats to Russian national security. For example, only one clause of the Doctrine discusses the threat of NATO expansion and the Alliance getting closer to Russian borders. The Strategy openly states that the U.S. and its allies are hampering Russia's independent foreign policy and that Washington and Brussels are responsible for supporting the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine, which created military conflicts close to Russian borders.

Similarly, according to the Strategy, the formation and strengthening of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Greater Syria (ISIS) would not have happened had it not been for the policy of double standards, which is a clear reference to U.S. involvement in the region.

Naturally, the new Strategy was widely discussed in the West. Several days after its publication, Jeff Davis, the director of Press Operations at the United States Department of Defense, claimed that the U.S. did not see Russia as a threat in spite of the lack of agreement on a number of issues. On Jan. 5, Oana Lungescu, the principal spokesperson for the North Atlantic Alliance, also stated that NATO was not acting against Russia's interests.

Simultaneously, Brussels and Washington - both officials and experts - started pointing out that analogous U.S. and NATO strategies did not so much as mention "the Russian military threat."

However, neither does Russia's Strategy, which does not refer to NATO and the U.S. as "possible adversaries" and does not imply the possibility of military confrontation. For example, Section II Clause 12 of the Strategy states that Washington uses various methods to put pressure on Russia, and Western politicians have repeatedly professed the necessity of exerting pressure on Moscow through various means. Thus, it is difficult to pretend that no such pressure exists.

Section II Clause 15 is dedicated to relations with NATO and speaks of the disruption of the balance of power due to the Alliance's expansion and NATO's attempts to defy international law. Of course, the degree to which NATO breaks the law is debatable, but the Alliance is never referred to as "the aggressor" directly.

It is necessary to point out that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama passed two documents analogous to the Russian Strategy, the U.S. National Security Strategy in February 2015 and the U.S. Military Doctrine in June 2015.

Many experts believe that the Obama administration developed and approved these documents in an attempt to avoid accusations of implementing rash and inconsistent foreign and domestic policies.

Still, the U.S. updates its strategic documents quite often, and it is rather remarkable that these core U.S. security documents feature bolder claims than their Russian counterparts.

Washington essentially states that it is the world leader, means to maintain its status, and if it comes to it, will propagate its values from a position of strength. Since the U.S. claims that Russia is responsible for violating the sovereignty of Ukraine and actively speaks of the need to ensure the energy security of Europe, Russian Security Council experts state that, "The U.S. Doctrine and Strategy are anti-Russian."

American core security documents approved in 2015 appear to be a lot more vague and imprecise compared with their Russian counterparts. Analysis of the U.S. Strategy and Doctrine indicates that Washington is trying to impress upon the world its readiness to assume a stronger role and Obama's success in resolving multiple issues ranging from the American economy to the promotion of democracy and stability throughout the world.

Another important contributing factor is the significance that both the White House and the Kremlin attribute to cooperation with countries of the Asia-Pacific region. By the way, the U.S. Strategy has already translated into a major breakthrough: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was signed, though it has not yet taken effect.

Russia also emphasizes the development of cooperation with China, which is perceived as the key player for maintaining stability in the region and worldwide, an opinion shared by a leading Chinese media source, the People's Daily newspaper. Actually, American and Russian strategies only make clear that in the near future Moscow and Washington will be competing for influence in India and the Far East. For Russia, after its partial economic break with the EU, U.S., and Canada, this region is of paramount importance.

Russia also talks about its values, but in a tone that is dramatically different from that of Washington. First and foremost, the Kremlin focuses on supporting the Russian language and acting against the falsification of history. Moscow is not intending on spreading its way of life, while the propagation of the American way is what is implied under "values" in the American documents.

Still, what will Russia actually gain from adopting a new Strategy? Many experts and politicians deem the Strategy isolationist and say that it is nothing but useless self-promotion and a series of slogans.

At the same time, the Strategy contains instructions for the Russian political establishment. The carefully crafted document sets state priorities straight and provides a detailed analysis of threats to Russian national security and preferred solutions.

Even though the Strategy does not list specific people or organizations responsible for certain areas, Russian federal and affiliated agencies are used to reading between the lines and will adjust their plans rather quickly, if necessary.

At the same time, the Strategy sends a clear message to the global community and explains the Kremlin's stance on the issues that are of interest to Russia. It is necessary to point out that a large part of the document is dedicated to further cooperation with the U.S. and NATO in various areas. Under the circumstances, it is hardly a self-isolationist document. The Kremlin is ready for dialogue, but only if Russia's interests are taken into account.

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 #17
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
www.sras.org
How the News is Reported in Russia
December-January
By Andrei Nesterov
[Text with television news clips here http://www.sras.org/russian_journalism_december_2015]

Outcomes of Year

Russia's Place in Today's World Political System

First Channel states that every major event in global politics in 2015 impacted the life of Russian people. This included sanctions, mourning those who were killed by terrorists, and cancelled flights to Turkey and Egypt. According to the channel, the events of 2015 demonstrated that in the last 25 years, no new world order was built, but the old world order, inherited from World War I, continued to disintegrate. The channel reported that this was a bad thing and showed a clip of President Putin at the UN saying: "Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty, and social disaster. Nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life."

First Channel named the following major political events of 2015: Lifting sanctions from Iran disappointed the Gulf monarchies and Turkey as it added complications to achieving their goal of regime change in Syria. Information warfare against Russia was used following the explosion of the Russian aircraft and downing of the Russian bomber. Russian-Turkish relations deteriorated, with the visa-free regime cancelled unilaterally by Russia on January 1. The channel states that in 2015, the USA expanded the list of sanctions against Russia, with the EU following the US lead.

Main Events in Russia's Life, 2015: New Ruble Exchange Rate, Import Replacement, Power Grid to Crimea

First Channel states that "judging by official statements," the government did everything in 2015 to alleviate the economic crisis, and the Russian economy was able to withstand very difficult conditions of economic sanctions, absence of long-term loans and external threats. Further, in 2015, some corrupt officials were imprisoned, with United People's Front taking the lead in revealing cases of corruption. Russia started actively replacing imports by developing its own production, with notable success in agriculture, machine-building, clothing, and footwear. Other major events of 2015 were the tragedy in Krasnogorsk where the businessmen killed two high-ranking officials of the local government, and the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. In 2015, Russia hosted two major summits - of BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The past year also saw the start of population growth in Russia, primarily due to the implementation of maternal capital program initiated by president Putin in 2006, the channel concluded.

Immortal Regiment as New Reality: We, Together Brought Victory

First Channel states that one of the brightest moments of the year of 2015 was when "hundreds of thousands" of Russians marched with photographs of family members who fought in World War II. Interestingly, a similar march where people carried photos of war veterans, took place in Kiev on May 9, First Channel reports.

Russia Channel states that 12 million people participated in Immortal Regiment event, which demonstrated the commonality of Russians and the links between generations.

Patriarch Kirill: Modern Christianity is Most Oppressed Religion

On January 7, Russia Channel broadcast an interview of Patriarch Kirill, in which the Patriarch expressed his concerns about the standing of Christianity in the world, saying, in particular, that "today Christianity is the most oppressed religious community, and not only in those places where clashes with Islamic extremists occur, but also in many other places, including well-to-do Europe. When public manifestation of Christian and religious feelings, let's assume, by means of wearing a cross, can openly result in such a person being laid off. In many countries today the word "Christmas" isn't used already."

Turkey

Iraq to Address UN Security Council if Turkey does not Withdraw Troops

First Channel quoted RIA Novosti as citing the Iraqi Prime Minister, who is protesting Turkish military units deployed near Mosul.

Russia Sanctions Turkish Food

First Channel states that in 2016, the Russian authorities will ban the import of vegetables and fruit from Turkey, including tomatoes and citrus fruit. The channel quoted President Putin as saying that a goal should be set for Russian farmers - to cover Russia's agricultural needs by 100 percent by 2020.

West Ignores Oil Traffic of Erdogan

Russia Channel states that the Russian military provided irrefutable proof that "the Turkish regime of Erdogan helps terrorists export oil." There are several routes to a refinery and to a transshipment base in Turkey. 9,000 trucks are engaged in oil transportation to Turkey. Russia's Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov claims that "the highest political leadership of the country (Turkey) is involved in this business."

Istanbul is Becoming Training Base for Terrorists

Russia Channel reports that Istanbul neighborhoods such as Fatikh are became meeting points, places of rest, and training sites for jihadists. The Turkish authorities ignore calls for stopping such hospitality to Islamic State terrorists, and have imprisoned five reporters who have criticized the inaction.

Turkey Can Close Bosporus and Dardanelles only in Case of War with Russia

Russia Channel states that, according to international law, Turkey cannot close the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, which are essential for Russian shipping, because The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits obliges Turkey to allow transit of foreign vessels through the straits. The closure of the straits would be possible only in case of war, but neither Russia nor Turkey currently want war.

Russian Ship Fired Warning Shot at Turkish Boat

First Channel reports that the Russian guard-ship opened fire from small arms on a Turkish seiner which was approaching it and reached the distance of 600 meters. The Turkish seiner changed its course only after Russian crew started shooting in the air. Russian military men stated that the incident could be a provocation.

From supporting Grey Wolves, Erdogan Passed on to Fugitive Tatar Radicals

Russia Channel states that the blockade of Crimea, which has disrupted deliveries of food and electricity to the peninsula, were organized by "Crimean Tatar impostors" ant "their long-standing friend Erdogan is helping them" by giving them shelter in Turkey and providing other types of support.

America

Vladimir Putin "Enters" US Election Race

Russia Channel reports that "discussing Russia and Putin has become a mandatory talking point for both Democrats and Republicans in the course of the US presidential election race. While Donald Trump supports the intention of the Russian President to destroy the Islamic State, another candidate, Carly Fiorina, states that she would act from a posture of strength while dealing with the Russian President."

Kerry Left Russia with Santa Claus

Russia Channel states that US Secretary of State John Kerry had a successful visit to Moscow, stating at the end of the visit that "we do not seek to isolate Russia." The channel assumed that the issue of Ukraine took the majority of time during the discussions between John Kerry, Vladimir Putin, and Sergey Lavrov, and Mr. Kerry could say that the USA would like to dismiss this subject from the bilateral relations agenda.

Competitors believe Trump an "Idiot, Fascist, and Recruiter for ISIS"

Russia Channel reports that the presidential candidates from the US Democratic Party jointly attacked Donald Trump, with Hillary Clinton calling him a "recruiter for ISIS" and Governor O'Molli called him a "fascist." Meanwhile, the channel states that one third of Americans agree with Trump's idea to impose a temporary ban on Muslims coming to the USA. Meanwhile, as of today, Donald Trump is losing to Hillary Clinton who has a higher popularity rating.

Other Reports

Fall in Line, Comrades: Right-Wing Parties Gain 40 Percent in France

In France, the far-right National Front won the first tour of the regional elections in 6 regions out of 13, Russia Channel reports, interpreting this outcome as voting against President Hollande's policy of supporting migrants. Russia Channel states that for the same reason, right-wing parties are rapidly gaining popularity in many other European countries, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Italy, and others.

Russia and India Draw Closer

Russia Channel reports that India is implementing many joint projects with Russia, such as the construction of Kudankulam nuclear power station, the assembly of "smart" cruise missiles in Bramos, as well as the construction of submarines, aircraft, and joint development of a fifth generation fighter aircraft.

Moslem Countries Refused to Participate in Saudi's "Shady Enterprise"

Russia Channel reports that Saudi Arabia announced the start of an anti-terrorist military coalition with the participation of 34 countries. The channel sarcastically states that this coalition of Sunni countries might become a counterbalance to Iran or "an assistance to ISIS" which has shortage of money and human resources. Some Islamic countries quickly denied their involvement in the coalition, such as Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Vladimir Putin: Preserving Assad's Regime is not the Goal of Russian Operation

Russia Channel quotes President Putin as stating to reporters that the preservation of Assad regime are not and have never been the goals of Russia's operation in Syria. The Russian President hopes that at a later stage, a political settlement process will start in Syria.

Climate Forum in Paris Became Political Event

Russia Channel reports that, instead of discussing climate issues, the participants of the climate summit in Paris discussed the aftermath of Turkey's downing of a Russian bomber and the chill in the relations between the two countries. At the forum, President Putin was avoiding Turkish president Erdogan in every possible way. According to the channel, the Russian authorities are expecting an apology from the Turkish leader.

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 #18
Sputnik
January 10, 2016
Russian Foreign Ministry's Take on Main Successes & Setbacks of 2015

Last week, in an interview for Russian radio station RSN, Foreign Ministry Human Rights Ombudsman Konstantin Dolgov outlined what he believes were the main victories and setbacks of Russian diplomacy in 2015. Sputnik takes a closer look at the diplomat's comments, and complements them with an analysis by one of Russia's leading political analysts. [http://rusnovosti.ru/posts/403316]

In his interview with RSN, which took place Thursday, Dolgov wasted no time in getting to the year's main events. "I think that the biggest success of 2015, when it comes to foreign policy, was our military counter-terrorist operation in Syria, our country's real blow against Daesh (ISIL/ISIS), al-Nusra Front, and other terrorist groups, and our demonstration of Russia's leadership in the fight against terrorism," he noted.

Syria: Russia Demonstrates Leadership in the Fight Against Terrorism

Russia, Dolgov suggested, has provided "real, and not imaginary leadership, as in the case of the US-led coalition, which has done very little of note -anything tangible or practical, to suppress the hotbeds of terrorism and extremism in the Middle East and North Africa."

The official went further, noting that Russia's leadership in the fight against terrorism, a phenomenon "which today without exaggeration is a central issue for the international community," has "served as an example on how to solve the problem."

"We will hope," Dolgov noted, "that in 2016, the fight against terrorism will become even more effective, and that progress will be made in uniting the efforts of multiple nations in the creation of a broad coalition, something Russia has called for."

"We have many supporters in this area, and this is extremely important, because every day that the terrorists are active means new civilian casualties - the killing of women, children, old people, civilians, destroyed churches, shrines and mosques, casualties among the Kurds, Sunnis, the representatives of different ethnic and religious groups. This is all a colossal price to pay for the international community, by the world at large."

"Against this background," the official noted, "any move - any increase in the effectiveness of efforts to combat terrorism and extremism are of great importance. It is of huge importance that those approaches which Russia has formulated and expressed in this area have been met with growing support."

Double Standards on Human Rights

Asked by his interviewer what he believed was the 'main foreign policy failure' of 2015, Dolgov suggested that it was a global one - specifically, the contradictory positions taken by many Western countries on the issue of human rights.

"I believe that the main failure has been the double standards which continue to be displayed in the area of human rights and the rule of law - the double standards of Western nations - the United States, the European Union and other Western countries," the human rights ombudsman said.

"So far," the world "has not been able to get rid of these corrupted approaches. Among the leaders of Western countries there seems to be no political will to bring about a turning point. There are many examples, but one of the most vivid and negative is Ukraine" (a country whose rights situation Mr. Dolgov has been reporting on since shortly after the beginning of the political crisis there in 2014).

Unfortunately, the official explained, "2015 began with a torchlight procession of the Banderites, the Right Sector and other radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in Kiev and other cities in Ukraine, and ended with the same processions in several Ukrainian cities."
"Authorities clamped down on freedom of speech and expression and threw political opponents into jail at the start of the year, and continued to do so at the close of 2015, and I consider this a negative result."

For their part, Dolgov suggested, Western politicians, international organizations and human rights group, "who Kiev listens to very carefully," have not made an effort to resolve these abuses.

A Ray of Hope?

Not wanting to leave the Ukrainian issue on a sour note, Dolgov pointed out that 2015 did also see a few rays of sunshine, specifically by the signing of and efforts to implement the Minsk Agreements. In 2016, Dolgov hopes that the agreements "will pick up momentum, resulting in real progress on their implementation, which will undoubtedly have a positive impact in the area of human rights."

Democracy Cannot Come by Bomb

Commenting on RSN radio's nominations for the foreign policy quote of the year, where President Putin's statement at the UN General Assembly in September - 'Do you realize what you have done?' was a big hit among listeners, Dolgov recalled why that may have been the case.

"This is a key precept of the president - his assessment of the flawed practice on the export of democracy - the export of Western templates, issues of human rights and the building of democratic, civil societies."

"All of these attempts," Dolgov noted, were part of an effort "to impose these templates by force -via the overthrow of legitimate governments -whether in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, or what almost happened in Syria, had it not been, first and foremost, for Russia's principled stand."

"The West's policy line has a huge price, and this price is measured in the blood of civilians killed, including those losing their lives to Western bombs and missiles, and by the complete mess in terms of human rights which we see in a number of countries -take Libya for example. This is all destabilization on a regional and international scale."

Suggesting that the time has now arrived for the world to start sorting through the mess which has resulted, Dolgov noted that for its part, "Russia is actively involved; we cannot do anything except participate, as we feel a sense of responsibility... Therefore, the president's assessment is not just a collection of pretty words. It is a straightforward, clear signal to the West on the need to curtail its harmful policy -its double standards, and its policy of overthrowing regimes it considers undesirable."

Analysis

In his analysis of Mr. Dolgov's interview, published on the website of popular Russian business magazine Expert, Russian journalist and geopolitical analyst Gevorg Mirzayan generally agreed with the rights representative's assessment, suggesting only that some of his formulations could use a bit more nuance.

On Syria for instance, Mirzayan suggested that when it comes to Russia's success in Syria, "what's important is not the status of 'leader', which the world never offered to Russia and which, for the most part, Russia does not need."

Instead, he noted, "Russia is entirely satisfied with its current status as a key player in the concrete anti-terrorist operation in Syria and Iraq...It is precisely the limited nature of Moscow's participation, coupled with the limits it has set for itself as far as aims go (not the fight against terrorism broadly, but support for the Syrian army and its offensives) which are keys to a successful campaign."

"The dividends of this success have come, first and foremost, with the sharp improvement of Russia's image in the international arena," the journalist noted.

"The image, created by Western propaganda, of a Russian bogeyman looking to seize Ukraine, the Baltics and other neighboring countries, has been chipped. And through the crack, the people of Western countries have seen a country that has rolled up its sleeves and taken up the fight against the terrorists - not against disagreeable dictators or rebel movements fighting for power, but real terrorists who profess an anti-civilizational and misanthropic ideology."

"Moreover," Mirzayan noted, "the Kremlin did not just join the fight, but joined politely -agreeing on its participation with the US and Europe, searching for common ground and reaching a framework for agreement regarding the Syrian president and the opposition. This is not a sign of weakness, but the behavior worthy of a mature and responsible power. This serious blow to Western propaganda itself is what has served as the main achievement of Russian foreign policy over the last year."

The same, the analyst noted, can be said of the Minsk Agreements surrounding Ukraine. "Contrary to the wailing of patriots, who called the document a capitulation, Moscow managed to force its Western partners and Ukraine's leadership to sign a roadmap on the federalization of Ukraine, including agreement that if such a federalization does not take place, neither Lugansk or Donetsk will return to Ukraine. Now all that is necessary is to wait until conditions are favorable for the agreements' implementation."

"As far as failures are concerned," Mirzayan noted, "2015 did not see any outright failures. Mr. Dolgov's suggestion of the West's 'double standards' are actually a common practice in diplomacy...And that the West has not given up the practice of double standards in Ukraine is not a failure of Russian diplomacy, but, in the worst case, the failure of someone's dreams or expectations."

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 #19
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
December 24, 2016
Senior Russian MP sums up international developments in 2015
Ariadna Rokossovskaya interview with Aleksey Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee: World Players Placing Their Bets - Aleksey Pushkov: Russia Has Re-Shuffled Absolutely the Entire 'Syrian Game of Patience'

Summing up the year's results in an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Aleksey Pushkov, the chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, spoke about how the alignment of forces in the world had changed since the start of the Russian air strikes on extremists' positions in Syria, what NATO was striving for, and who the continued tension in Ukraine suits.

[Interviewer Ariadna Rokossovskaya] Aleksey Konstantinovich, we are seeing a surge in contact between Russia and America. Last week Secretary of State John Kerry stated in Moscow that Washington was not conducting a policy of isolating Russia. The Western media are wondering: what might this mean? What signal are the Americans sending to their foreign partners?

[Pushkov] I think that for America this was largely a forced re-activation in the Russian sphere, linked first and foremost to the fact that they had lost leadership in resolving the Syrian crisis. This "leadership", although it had been proclaimed by the country's president, Barack Obama, was not supported by any serious action by America, including from the point of view of combat action against Daish (Arab name of the ISIL group banned in the Russian Federation -editor's note). The American coalition, which officially includes 64 countries, has not taken any real actions against the "Islamic State" in Syria in over a year.

Meanwhile, a new political, to be more precise military-political, leader has emerged in the Middle East in the guise of Russia. And this was a surprise for America. Obama was trying to persuade himself and others that the Russian economy was "torn to shreds" and that Russia was just a regional power, which was incapable of action beyond the boundaries of its own region. America thus found itself facing a choice: trying to continue to conduct its policy of "isolating" Russia, which has clearly failed, or intensifying its involvement in all the processes surrounding Syria, including the negotiating track with the Russian Federation, because otherwise America risked dropping out of the main flow of events and giving the initiative to Moscow. At the same time, however, America is for the moment prepared to cooperate with Russia on only one matter -Syria. In the European sector their policies are not changing -they are insisting on their sanctions policy, continuing to put pressure on their European allies.

A genuine and not a fictitious threat to Europe comes from the Middle East -from Daish. And the EU is starting to understand this

Let us not make any mistakes. The policy of "isolating" and containing Russia was proclaimed by President Obama in the spring of 2014. I do not remember him having publicly abandoned it. I think that Secretary of State Kerry personally is sceptical about the policy of isolation and understands very well that it is impossible to implement it. But it has not been abandoned as the official doctrine of the current administration. America tried to isolate us on Syria, tried to force us to join the American coalition. They did not succeed. And so now Kerry, as an experienced diplomat, is putting a good face on things. So far we are seeing a stepping up of limited dialogue between Moscow and Washington at the highest political level, but we are not seeing a switch to a new quality in Russo-American relations. This is a dialogue in which the sides' positions do not coincide in many areas. Bu the sides are willing to listen, and inform one another, and to start to coordinate their positions. This stepping up of the political dialogue, largely forced for America, gives some grounds for hoping that the most acute phase of the confrontation is behind us. But serious new aggravations cannot be ruled out. The extension of the sanctions against Russia by the Obama administration on New Year's Eve is another sign that America has essentially not changed its policy with regard to Moscow. However much John Kerry strolls along the Arbat and buys Matryoshka dolls, there should not be any illusions: America only applies sanctions against those it considers its opponents.

[Rokossovskaya] Well and the question of the future of Bashar al-Assad is still causing great controversy...

[Pushkov] Yes, this issue has been withdrawn from the immediate agenda, but there is no agreement on it. They simply agreed to disagree on al-Assad for some time to come, he was effectively taken out of the context of the negotiations because we have completely different positions here. America thinks that it can determine who heads Syria, while we think that the Syrians themselves should decide this. Incidentally, Kerry stated in Moscow that in principle he agrees with this but in the sense that the Syrians should decide how America considers that they should. Although at the end of last week, a resolution on Syria was adopted unanimously at the UN Security Council in New York, this is just a "road map", which conceals the major differences. On the whole, a very cautious assessment can be given on Syria with elements of optimism. No major shifts in the American position are occurring, there are only pragmatically opportunistic shifts linked to the fact that America does not want to be disregarded in the very important processes that are occurring in this country.

[Rokossovskaya] How has our international position and the alignment of forces in the world in general changed since the start of Russian air strikes on the positions of the extremists in Syria?

[Pushkov] Our actions were a revelation both for America and for the EU. In the West people had long been trying to persuade themselves that Russia was just a large fragment of the Soviet Union. But that is not the case. Let us not compare ourselves with the USSR, which was a recognized superpower. But at the same time our country is, of course, one of the leading world powers in terms of the totality of factors of power. And in terms of its capability for independent action, it is among the top three leading world powers. At the UN General Assembly these three are clearly designated: America, Russia, and China. These are the three world centres taking independent decisions. For example, America does not need to call Paris, Berlin, or London to decide something. It can take a decision itself and then, if the French, Germans, or British want to join it, they can do so. America can of course turn to various countries for support, but it is capable of acting without regard for its allies as well. In exactly the same way, Putin does not have to phone anywhere in order to start an operation in Syria. China has no less potential either, but it is placing the main emphasis on its economic development. And it is not over-emphasizing its role in the Syrian issue, as in many others. Thus, the operation in Syria has just confirmed this new multi-polarity. It is now customary to say that more and more new "poles" are arising in the world: not only America and the EU, but also China, Russia, India, Brazil, Iran... Yes, this is largely the case, but when we look at a mountain range we note that two or three are higher than the rest. It is the same in world politics as well.

[Rokossovskaya] Were the American authorities aware that we were starting a military operation in Syria?

[Pushkov] I think that Obama was informed about it. But it is one thing when you are informed about the start of an operation, and quite another when you see how it unfolds. I am sure that the military and operational capabilities demonstrated by Russia were a shock for America. People there thought that only America and NATO had the capability to conduct such a massive missile-bomb war. Note the reaction of the most insignificant American presidential candidates. They shout: "we need to rap Russia on the knuckles", "we need to place our bases right in their backyard", "we need to show them who's boss"... This is the reaction of wounded people, it shows the bewilderment of a section of the American political elite in the face of our country's actions. And in reality Russia has re-shuffled absolutely the entire "Syrian game of solitaire". And the fact that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was unable to contain himself and took the decision to down the Russian aircraft is a reaction to the fact that Russia has also confused the game for Turkey, which clearly hoped to use Daish as a tool to extend its influence in the Middle East. Income from oil is Daish's main funding mechanism. When our aerospace forces dealt with this mechanism Erdogan had a crisis of nerves, as a result of which he took an absolutely inappropriate, ill-conceived, and purely reflex decision. This was an attempt to carry out an act of deterrence in order to limit our resolve to conduct a military operation, but it led to the opposite result. Firstly, we doubled strikes on the territory on the border with Turkey. Secondly, we demonstrated to Ankara that this act of deterrence had no consequences apart from Turkey having to pay several tens of billions of dollars for its strike against the Su-24. We have of course also muddled the cards for other regional players. But these players were playing very selfish, destructive, irresponsible games, as a result of which the armed opposition to al-Assad was transformed into the most brutal and dangerous radical Islamic movement that the modern world has ever known.

[Rokossovskaya] It was reported recently that Saudi Arabia is creating a Muslim coalition against Daish. Does this have any significance for us?

[Pushkov] Yes, it does. Saudi Arabia wants to be the leader of the Muslim coalition, in its own Muslim region, as it were. It is thus increasing its weight, it is apparently stating that it will be the representative of the Muslim world in the political battle that will inevitably start -and it already being conducted -surrounding the future nature of the regime in Syria. Saudi Arabia is becoming the main state among all the Sunni countries, apart from Turkey and Egypt, and it is evidently hoping to speak on behalf of them. And it is no secret how this country achieved such a dominant position: it has greater financial resources, enabling it to provide direct and indirect financial assistance, and many Arab states are poor. But this is a purely declarative coalition. The overwhelming majority of the 35 states that are members of it are incapable of conducting any military action far from their border, and do not have such intentions. There is information that the states of the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia are forming a military land force, which they intend to send to Syria to fight against Daish. Let us see how large and combat-capable this force will be. But the most important thing is what Saudi Arabia's tasks are: defeating Daish, or a presence on the ground in order to try to dictate the conditions of the future settlement in Syria. There are many powers now that think that they should have an opportunity to influence Syria's future, and that have decided to officially join the fight against Daish under the influence of Russia's military operations. So, having sensed that this region may take a path that is not to their advantage, the major world players, with the exception of China, are making their bids.

[Rokossovskaya] There is still tension in the east of Ukraine. What, in your view, interests the authorities of this country more -the cessation of military action and carrying out the promised reforms, or preserving the smouldering conflict on part of their territory?

[Pushkov] It would of course be advantageous to Ukraine as a country and a nation to implement the Minsk Agreement and move towards the cessation of tension. But what is objectively to the advantage of Ukraine is absolutely not to the advantage of the Kyiv regime. Maintaining the conflict is advantageous to the Kyiv regime because it is absolutely not independent and it is not capable of engaging in creative activity. Understandably, investments are no longer going to Ukraine, the economy has long been on the verge of default -a technical default is, in fact, already evident. Ukraine is surviving today only thanks to injections from the International Monetary Fund, which is adjusting its policies and rules to suit it, thus demonstrating the strategic importance that America attaches to this country. But the Kyiv regime itself will be in an extremely difficult situation if tension is reduced. First and foremost, Kyiv will not be able to appeal to the West any more as a "victim of Moscow". And this means that interest in Ukraine will be lost. Barack Obama, not wishing to deal with Ukraine personally and avoiding Poroshenko, has obviously directed his vice-president, Joe Biden, towards this sector. Biden is playing the role of overseer or, rather, procurator of Ukraine, showing that this is a distant province in the great American empire, to which they are willing to devote some attention since it can be used against Russia. Apart from this task, Ukraine is not of any interest to America. Incidentally, this country, which constantly demands financial aid and has got bogged down in scandals, has already virtually disappeared from the sightline of the majority of Europeans. If only the Europeans could still be confident that their money was being spent on something good! But they are sure of the opposite, which seriously reduces their desire to help Ukraine financially. "We do not intend to invest money in a completely corrupt country," those are the words of an eminent Western European parliamentarian.

In these circumstances, the conflict in the east of the country is, on the one hand, the only way of retaining the interest of the West and that means financial injections as well and the possibility of using them for corrupt purposes. And on the other hand, the possibility of saying constantly to the  people of Ukraine that there country is in a state of war. In conditions of war -what serious rallies, demands, and demonstrations can there be? A sluggish crisis is thus to the advantage of the Kyiv regime. The modern international situation is very dynamic: no one problem remains the focus of attention for long since new topics emerge, new challenges, moreover, very serious ones. Daish emerges. What can the French think after the acts of terrorism in Paris? That this is the main enemy. And what about Ukraine? That it is a country that has some problems with its eastern section and with Russia. But, in the final analysis, this does not concern the French, the Italians, and more than half of Europe at all. And for the Kyiv regime, a loss of interest on the part of the West is the equivalent of death.

[Rokossovskaya] Recently, some NATO countries who are among our neigbors have been questioning the need for the 1997 Russo-NATO founding act, in Poland the issue of participating in the Nuclear Sharing programme is being openly discussed, and they are demanding Germany's blessing for the placement of permanent NATO bases in their country. Is there a deliberate NATO strategy here, and what might it comprise?

[Pushkov] In my view, a long-term NATO strategy has been implemented since the middle of the 1990s, with the aim of promoting the alliance in the east of Europe and placing its military infrastructure near our borders. I happened to be an active participant in the international discussions on the expansion of NATO in the second half of the 1990s. The conditional nature of the founding act was also clear to me, although I am not sure that we could have countered it with anything serious at the time. At that time Primakov was conducting sustained negotiations but at a certain point he received an instruction from President Boris Yeltsin: sign. Yeltsin thought that this was the only thing that he could get from the West. A cooperation mechanism was recorded in the act, but no legal guarantees were proposed. There were several provisions in it that exclude the deployment of nuclear weapons at our borders, and of large military contingents, and they operated for a certain time. But when evaluating military-political alliances, not only their practical actions but also their potential needs to be viewed. And from this point of view, NATO has created everything to make it possible for it to place both military contingents, and nuclear weapons, and air defence systems, in close proximity to the Russian borders within an extremely short period of time. And this means accepting more and more new states as NATO members, and its moving closer to our border. Ukraine and Georgia are included in its strategic plans. In 2008, Viktor Yushchenko and George Bush left the NATO summit in Bucharest with nothing, only because France and Germany blocked the start of the procedure for accepting Ukraine as a NATO member. Yes, these plans have now been shelved, but this does not mean that they have been discarded. Both America and some forces in Europe think that Ukraine should be turned into a strategic counterweight to Russia. And they have taken advantage of the Ukrainian crisis to increase NATO's anti-Russian potential, to reach agreement on creating rapid reaction bases in Poland, and the accelerated deployment of air defence system on the territories of a number of countries of Eastern Europe.

NATO is building its entire structure on the myth of the "Russian threat". But in fact no threat to Europe comes from Russia. A genuine and not a fictitious threat to it comes from the Middle East -from Daish. And people in the EU are starting to understand this. When I was in Paris in mid-December, where I had a meeting with the French parliament's foreign affairs commission, I noted that posters with Putin's portrait from the latest edition of the well-known magazine Le Point were plastered over all the newspaper kiosks. And the caption under the photo was: "Vladimir Putin -Our New Friend".

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 #20
Vedomosti
December 14, 2015
Commentary looks at poll results on Russians' view on relations with China
Pavel Aptekar, Turn to East Remains Incomprehensible to Citizens. Inconsistent Policy of Cooperation With China Does Not Enable Elimination of Old Fears

The famous thesis about a "turn to the East" is threatening to become history, but Russians still do not really understand what it is all about. According to the VTsIOM [All-Russia Centre for the Study of Public Opinion on Social and Economic Questions], 47 per cent of respondents do not now know what is drawing Russia and Asia together (10 per cent believe it is the economy, 6 per cent "the fight against the United States" and 6 per cent "market relations," and the remaining proportions are even smaller). The answers to other questions are split in roughly the same way. How could a sharp turn to the East change life in Russia? - a lot (39 per cent), a little (31 per cent), it will not change (30 per cent). What policy should Moscow follow? - step up activity (22 per cent), do the same as now (37 per cent), it should slow down (23 per cent).

Yes, Russians have become more accustomed to China, especially against the background of worsening relations with the majority of Western countries. According to the Levada Centre, the proportion of those who consider China an ally more than doubled in 2013-2015 - from 20 to 43 per cent. But we do not know how an ally is useful for us. Moreover, Russians' traditional perception of China as a threat persists. Sixty-four per cent of the VTsIOM's respondents fear that the result of stepping up cooperation will be an inflow of substandard cheap goods, 61 per cent expect a mass influx of migrants, and 53 per cent are afraid that China will exploit Russia to strengthen its own influence. Roughly half of the respondents (44 per cent) fear the replacement by migrants of the Russian population from Siberia and the Far East; 47 per cent are not frightened by this threat.

The survey's results show that Russians support political rapprochement with China but fear the everyday risks associated with it, VTsIOM Communications Director Aleksey Firsov says.

The Kremlin's foreign policy is inconsistent and opportunistic. This "turn to the East" is not the first in recent years; before this, one was proclaimed after the crisis in 2009 and on the eve of the APEC summit in 2012. The current one started after the Western sanctions of spring 2014, sinologist Aleksandr Gabuyev notes.

The survey's results reflect old phobias and ignorance of the situation in the Far East, where the Chinese are no longer considered a threat. There are not many of them in Russia (around 0.5 million); northeast China is better off than our Far East and its inhabitants do not want to go to Russia. A positive perception of China and the Chinese will appear when ordinary people see the real benefits of the two countries' cooperation. But for this to happen, cooperation should not depend on immediate geopolitical needs.

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 #21
Financial Times
January 8, 2016
Russia helps shift balance against rebels in southern Syria
Erika Solomon in Beirut and John Reed in Jerusalem

President Bashar al-Assad's forces are making a new push in southern Syria with the help of Russian air cover in a move that could not only weaken one of the country's remaining rebel strongholds, but also threaten the balance of power on a combustible border with Israel.

The growing Russian role in the south has surprised many regional diplomats who believed Moscow had an understanding with Syria's southern neighbours, Jordan and Israel, not to extend into their sphere of influence.

Rebels from Syria's Southern Front alliance say they too were surprised to become the target of the new campaign: their forces are directly supplied by the Military Operations Command (MOC), an operations room staffed by Arab and western military forces, including the US.

"They (MOC) should be nervous," says Abu Ghayath al-Shami, a spokesman for the Southern Front's Seif al-Sham Brigades. "This area was one of their last cards, the one area where there was still a functioning relationship between the rebels and the international community."

The warring sides of Syria's five-year civil war are expected to head into peace talks in the coming weeks, and rebels believe Mr Assad and Russia want to gain as much territory - and with it, leverage - ahead of them.

Syria analyst Joshua Landis, at the University of Oklahoma, argues Damascus's aims go further. "The regime is not going to compromise on talks. They now think they're going to win on the battlefield, and that Russia is taking them to the finish line," he said.

For Israel, there are more immediate concerns. Along with Syrian military forces trying to advance come a vast array of militia that rebels and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights say is composed of Iranian-backed militia - mostly the powerful Lebanese Shia group Hizbollah. Israel believes Hizbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard seek to open a front against it.

"If the Assad regime takes the entire Golan back, that could be Iran's way to put in a second front and a second Gaza or a second southern Lebanon, to keep Israel busy," says Daniel Nisman, an Israeli security analyst with the Levantine Group.

The battle is focused on the town of al-Shaikh Maskin, a strategic area that lies on one of the main supply routes from the capital Damascus to the southern city of Deraa. "Losing al-Shaikh Maskin would be like losing the entire south," Mr Shami said.

Both Israel and Russia are keen to avoid conflict, and many analysts suspect Moscow communicated some kind of guarantee that Iran and Hizbollah would stay away from the Golan Heights. But if rebel reports of increased militia involvement are accurate, Russia may not be able to keep that promise.

That risks sparking a much messier cross-border conflict in the south. Israel has carried out several unacknowledged air strikes inside Syria against Hizbollah and Iranian forces - including since Russia's entry into the war, when suspected Israeli strikes struck a residential building outside Damascus and killed Samir Kantar, a prominent militant close to Hizbollah. Most Israel observers believe it will continue such operations if it feels threatened.

Not all of Syria's neighbours seem worried. Amman, which has facilitated the Southern Front's work, could be content for Russian-backed forces to secure the area. Jordan may even see Moscow as a better guarantor of its security than the rebel groups who currently control the south.

"When Russia intervened in Syria, Jordan was among the few Arab countries that were not against this intervention," said Oraib Al Rantawi, director of the Al-Quds Centre for Political Studies in Amman. "Jordan has strong ties with Russia...there is a feeling we can deal with one of the superpowers in this area better than the way we did with the others."

The Southern Front was long seen as one of the last bastions of Syria's moderate rebel forces, which have largely been overtaken by radical jihadi groups such as Isis and Kurdish militia carving out territory in the north. But a much-hyped offensive to retake Deraa this summer failed due to internal fragmentation and disorganisation that angered their backers, especially Jordan.

Rebels have managed to regroup and push back, which they say shows they still have the upper hand. But other observers say that success may not hold. With a US-led coalition fighting off the jihadi threat of Isis for him, Mr Assad can focus more on the rebels seeking his removal. Even with Russia helping it strike western-backed forces, there has been no response.

"America basically conceded to Russia," Mr Landis said. "How can Russia lose?"

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 #22
The Atlantic
January 8, 2016
The Danger of Putin Losing in Syria
If Russia's military adventure unravels, what happens next?
By DOMINIC TIERNEY  
DOMINIC TIERNEY is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an associate professor of political science at Swarthmore College. His latest book is The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.

Last September, Russia deployed dozens of jets to Syria to rescue the ailing regime of Bashar al-Assad. Vladimir Putin aimed to protect one of Moscow's few foreign allies and gain leverage for the coming peace negotiations over the Syrian Civil War. Russian media presented the mission as a heroic attempt to save the civilized world from Islamic terrorism. In Washington, however, Putin was widely seen as wading into a quagmire. According to The Economist: "If America's Syria-watchers agree on anything it is that the Russian campaign, which has enabled Mr Assad's forces to make only minor gains, will fail, and thereby encourage Russia to give up on its proxy. That would be a huge boost to the UN-backed peace talks John Kerry, the secretary of state, is brokering, with the aim of replacing Mr Assad with a transitional government early next year."

But would a loss for Putin really be good news? While it's tempting to take satisfaction in the Russian president's travails in Syria-what you might call Putinfreude-Syria-watchers should question their assumptions. If Putin's military adventure unravels, the result may not be peace.

It's certainly easy to imagine the Russian intervention deteriorating. In recent weeks, Assad's forces have made some limited gains around the Syrian city of Aleppo. But the overall strategic situation for Damascus remains highly precarious. Last year, the Syrian regime suffered a string of battlefield defeats, and Assad publicly admitted to "fatigue" and "a lack of human resources [in the army]." The regime pulled back to defensible territory and was left in control of a rump coastal strip representing around one-sixth of the country. Russian jets are not enough for victory. It would likely take tens of thousands of troops to recapture and hold cities like Aleppo and Raqqa.

Russia is in a perilous position, internationally isolated and enduring economic turmoil. And now Putin has plunged into the unknown. Moscow doesn't have experience coordinating military operations with Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah. This is Russia's first military expedition outside of its immediate sphere of influence since the end of the Cold War. Putin has also pinned his fortunes on a highly incompetent dictator; Assad's policies of systematic torture and barrel bombing of civilians brewed the hell broth in Syria.

And two can play at the great game of proxy warfare. Patrons of the Syrian insurrection, like Turkey and the Gulf states, may match Russian intervention by stepping up their own assistance to rebels-in the form, for example, of anti-aircraft missiles. During the 1980s, the Soviet Union's counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan unraveled in part because the CIA provided ground-to-air Stinger missiles to the mujahideen.

To get a sense of what could await Putin, look at Iran's experience in Syria. When Tehran first chose to aid Assad, it likely didn't realize that Syria would become a sinkhole that would cost hundreds of Iranian military personnel and tens of billions of dollars. Or consider Iran's Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, which marched over the border to save Assad and subsequently lost around 1,200 to 1,700 fighters in a seemingly endless morass.

In other words, Putin's war may very well fail. But if it does, will he make concessions and abandon his ally? If the Russian president acts rationally, he should cut his losses. Putin, however, may not act rationally. When I researched my book on military disaster, The Right Way to Lose a War, I was struck by how poorly governments tend to handle battlefield reversals. From the United States in Vietnam to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, leaders often respond to defeat with disastrous decisions that only worsen their plight. Rather than coolly looking for a way out of the predicament, they rage against the dying of the light.

Part of the problem is what psychologists call "loss aversion." Losing hurts twice as bad as winning feels good-whether in a tennis match or a war. The idea of accepting even a small loss can seem intolerable, and people are tempted to risk greater losses for a shot at the win. The gambler who drops 20 bucks in a casino doesn't walk away; he doubles his bets. In a similar vein, the president who loses 1,000 soldiers in Vietnam doesn't end the war; he sends half a million Americans into the mire.

It's hard to imagine Putin accepting defeat. He has cultivated an image as the father of the Russian people, who is restoring the country as a world power. If Assad's regime falls, Russia could lose its only military installation outside the former U.S.S.R.-the naval base in Tartus, Syria. Therefore, if the war effort collapses, Putin may want to salvage something from the wreckage, potentially moving the conflict into a dangerous new phase. He could intensify Russian air strikes or deploy "little green men"-as the Russian soldiers serving unofficially in eastern Ukraine were called. Once Russian troops start dying in Syria, all bets are off.

Putin, moreover, has repeatedly responded to the potential loss of client regimes with military force. In 2008, the Russian military intervened in Georgia to punish pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and protect the independence of the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Six years later, in 2014, Putin aided Ukrainian rebels and annexed Crimea following the toppling of pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. In late 2015, with Assad's forces reeling, Putin once again intervened to stabilize a client regime.

And Putin has already raised the prospect of further military escalation, saying that Russia is using "far from everything we are capable of" in Syria and that "We also have other things as well and will use them if necessary."

What's the solution? If Russia's defeat could trigger hazardous escalation, this doesn't mean a Russian victory is preferable. After all, if Assad somehow assumed a winning position, why would he negotiate a compromise peace that recognized the interests of all Syrian groups? Instead, the optimal opportunity for a peace deal may be a situation in which Putin believes a decisive triumph is not possible, but he can still save face by spinning the outcome as a success. In other words, he needs a story to tell the Russian people about the positive results of the mission. This narrative doesn't need to be true, but it does need to have truthiness, or a seeming plausibility. And so, to get Putin out of Syria, the United States might need to play along by avoiding boastful claims of a major Russian debacle. In 1989, after the Berlin Wall fell, U.S. President George H.W. Bush deliberately refused to declare the development a win-to avoid complicating the life of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

Putin needs a victory speech. And Washington may have to help him write it.

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 #23
RFE/RL
January 10, 2016
Bad News Trumps Glad Tidings During Russia's Long Vacation
by Tom Balmforth

MOSCOW -- A lot can happen in 10 days, and during Russia's long winter holiday, it usually does.

From bizarre, bloody attacks to lethal combinations of bad weather and alleged government negligence, the long Russian New Year and Orthodox Christmas break has brought plenty of grim news -- along with a few rays of sunshine.

Much of the mayhem reported by Russian media since the start of 2016 has been fueled by alcohol.

In a village in the Chelyabinsk region, prosecutors say a conflict that erupted when a drunken woman barged in on neighbors and refused to leave ended with four men lying dead in the snow -- shot by the host after they showed up and started throwing punches, investigators say.

In the same region, authorities said that "drunken hooligans" opened fire on several minibuses as passengers were getting off, shattering windows but causing no injuries.

There was also physical harm done when a sailor who had "clearly overdone it with alcohol" threatened fellow passengers and crew on a flight from the Pacific port of Vladivostok to Kamchatka and said he would blow up the plane, the daily Izvestia reported.

The "drunken sailor" was arrested after the plane landed safely at its destination.

In Moscow, a man died of alcohol poisoning in an ambulance, and police said they found eight empty vodka bottles in his apartment. In Novosibirsk, five homeless people were found dead after consuming a 3-liter bottle of brown liquid they had found on a trash heap, local media reported.

In Kerch, on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, two boys aged 13 and 15 were hospitalized after they got drunk in a sewer and fell while climbing out, authorities said.

Before the long holiday, in December, media reports said three women in a village in the northwestern Arkhangelsk region tried to burn down a neighbor's house -- while she was inside -- after accusing her of being a witch. Or, at least, of "bewitching" men.

Harrowing Holiday

Few countries have official holidays that are as long as Russia's January vacation.

For the last few years, it has stretched from New Year's Day until a few days after Christmas, which falls on January 7 under the calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church. This year, many Russians don't return to work until January 11.

Critics of the long vacation say it leaves people with too much time on their hands and too little to do -- a problem that is aggravated by Russia's economic troubles and tense foreign ties, which make travel abroad more complicated and costly.

One harrowing ordeal this holiday season showed that travel inside the country can turn deadly.

On January 2, just 100 kilometers outside Orenburg, a city near the Kazakh border, more than 80 people were stranded on a snowbound highway for 16 hours before help finally arrived. One man died, his body found near the road a day after the rescue, and dozens suffered frostbite.

Pavel Gusev, 25, who was caught in the storm with his pregnant wife, made a YouTube appeal to President Vladimir Putin on January 4 in which he lambasted the emergency services for failing to come to their aid sooner.

On Orthodox Christmas Eve, as the mercury sank to minus 30 degrees Celsius in the Arctic region of Murmansk, there were disruptions to gas supplies, reportedly because the frost -- most probably the reason residents needed heating -- had caused a build-up of condensation in the pipes.

In St. Petersburg, the Emergency Situations Ministry had some advice for people hoping to stay safe and healthy as the temperature fell below minus 20 degrees Celsius: stay inside.

Falling icicles have been known to kill people in St. Petersburg, but the ministry's warning prompted residents to joke that this winter, the danger is from the falling Russian currency. "Petersburg residents have been advised to remain indoors because of the ruble falling from the roofs," one quipped on Twitter.

The ruble hit its lowest level in a year on December 31, falling to about 73. 4 per U.S. dollar, and has slid further during the holiday. Russia's economy has been hit hard by low prices for oil, its key export, and Western sanctions imposed to punish Putin and the Kremlin for Moscow's interference in Ukraine.

Not All Doom, Gloom

One reason for the seeming surge of bad news may be that Russian media have fewer official events to cover over the holiday, prompting them to pay closer attention to police blotters and seek out strange stories.

One that occurred days before the New Year but was not reported until later was caught on camera: A doctor in the city of Belgorod attacked and killed a patient after accusing him of hitting or kicking a nurse.

In footage on YouTube, the burly doctor knocks the man down with a punch in the face; the victim falls to the floor and does not move again.

This season, there were tales that had all the trappings of tragedy -- but somehow clawed back, as if from the dead, to end happily.

On December 30, before the holiday even began, a man was reportedly pronounced dead from alcohol poisoning and taken to a morgue in the Russian Far East -- only to wake up hours later and rejoin his drinking partners.

Since few newspapers are published during the holiday, Russians can avoid the grim tidings by changing the channel on the TV or refraining from clicking on Internet headlines that promise gruesome information.

Also, as in other countries, there is plenty of upbeat information out there.

Gargantuan Christmas cakes have been baked at locations across the country, including one unveiled on Soviet Square in the Siberian city of Kemerovo that weighed 68 kilograms.

And this year, it looked like Russians could turn to the surprising saga playing out a national park in the Primorye region, home of a tiger named Amur and a goat named Timur. Initial reports suggested that last year, park conservationists brought the live goat to the tiger as a meal but instead of eating Timur, Amur befriended him, starting a blossoming bromance that has become the subject of a webcast and received close coverage in the state media.

The tiger-goat friendship was later revealed to have been a carefully orchestrated PR stunt, however.

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 #24
Christian Science Monitor
January 9, 2016
Why NATO says it's time to stop hugging the Russian bear
After the cold war, America hoped that European security was permanently solved, but Russia's recent forays into Ukraine and Syria have been followed by a shift in US rhetoric.
By Anna Mulrine, Staff writer

WASHINGTON - In little-noticed remarks this week, NATO's supreme allied commander, US Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, said that for too long, the United States has "hugged the bear" of Russia. But now, he said, it's time to get tough.

This toughness should come in the form of more US troops to Europe, he said, and more "high end" training to prepare American forces for a potential battle against the former cold war foe.

The remarks, made while Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visiting Europe this week, have struck some as a bit alarmist. True, Russia has invaded Crimea and used agents provocateurs, covert operations, and even some of its own Red Army forces in Ukraine.

Defense officials do not believe, however, that Russia is poised to run its tanks through the Fulda Gap - the lowland corridor in Germany where the US military was prepared to intercept a surprise attack from the Warsaw Pact during the 4-1/2 decades of the cold war.

Still, the comments of General Breedlove and others mark a shift in thinking, argues John Herbst, ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006 and former director of the Center for Complex Operations at National Defense University in Washington.

"I think it's fair to say that six to eight months ago, if Breedlove had headed off in this direction he would have been walked back by the White House," and told to tone down his rhetoric. "But not now," says Mr. Herbst, who briefs US military commanders, "there's been an evolution in attitudes, among our military but within the administration as well."

Much of this is due to Russia's recent intervention in Syria, as well as its aggression in Crimea and Ukraine, in which it made use of undercover Russian soldiers in unmarked army fatigues, known as "little green men," to wreak destruction on the ground.

This marks a notable shift since the end of the cold war, when the US quickly began operating on the assumption that European security was solved.

"We thought we could check that box, focus on other things - that Europe would become a provider of security, rather than a consumer of it," says Jeffrey Mankoff, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The US view of Russia has changed dramatically - and quickly. "We went from that to 'Russia is a defeated enemy,' and not only that, but they're in total collapse," says Christopher Harmer, who served on the Pentagon staff developing strategic plans for Europe, NATO, and Russia from 2005 to 2008.

"We thought we could love them into the NATO alliance, and hug them into being responsible state actors," adds Mr. Harmer, who is now a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War.

Even given Russian intervention in Crimea and Ukraine, as well as Syria, a move such as rolling Russian tanks into the Baltics would be "extremely risky" and would be the kind of move on Russia's part that would be "low probability," says Dr. Mankoff.

Yet the rhetorical arguments that Russian President Vladimir Putin used to justify Russian intervention in Ukraine "could apply equally well to the Baltic states," says Herbst, who is now director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. The populations of Estonia and Latvia, for example, are roughly a quarter Russian, and that subset has in the past complained that those countries are treating them badly.

Russia might invade in the guise of protecting Russian citizens, or send undercover military personnel in civilian garb and begin some sort of hybrid war. "I don't think it's likely, but I'd put it at a 5 to 15 percent possibility," Herbst adds.  

"The kinds of things you need to be more worried about are agents provocateurs - which are more likely but less escalatory - as well as different kinds of intelligence operations involving little green men," Mankoff says. "That's where the challenge really lies."

The question is how to counter these moves, particularly those that appear to be remote possibilities. Breedlove has suggested that the answer lies in more US troops in Europe, lauding the recent decision by the Army to rotate a brigade-size unit to Europe.

This could contribute to good, old-fashioned deterrence, Mankoff says: "I think the logic of deterrence that existed throughout the cold war is still relevant. We're less likely to fight if Russia understands that we have the capability and willingness to fulfill our obligations to our NATO allies."

But troop resources in the US military are scarce and commanders fight over them, even if the Defense Department is the most lavishly funded in the US government.

"Breedlove won't say this publicly, but he really is engaged in a resource struggle with the other combatant commands," notes Harmer of the Institute for the Study of War. "At the same time Europe wants more forces to counteract Russian shenanigans, I can guarantee you that Pacific Command is saying that, 'At least the Russians are predictable bad actors,' " but the Pacific Command needs the forces because it has to grapple with a volatile North Korea.

Likewise US Central Command, which runs the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, would probably say, "That may be all well and good, but we're fighting an ongoing war," Harmer says. "They are all patriotic enough not to have that fight publicly, but the fight is going on every day."

But Russia doesn't simply present a military challenge, Mankoff says. "It's much broader than that." The potential solutions, too, go beyond the military, and involve "promoting resilience in potentially vulnerable countries, by making their networks more resilient to penetration, by shining light on dubious financial flows that are potentially undermining financial institutions in these countries, or by revealing parties or movements that may have hidden agendas."

What's more, it's important to keep in mind that the problems the US currently has with Russia are not necessarily long term, Herbst says.

"I think domestic problems in Russia are growing, and it'll lead to changes in their very aggressive foreign policy," he says. "Elites in Moscow are getting very unhappy" with Mr. Putin's policies, particularly as the domestic economy contracts, he adds.

In this case, "Either the policies will change, or the leadership will."

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 #25
Russians Thinking about Future after Putin Too Often Include Putin Elements in It, Kashin Says
Paul Goble

Staunton, January 9 - Ever more Russians are thinking about a future for themselves without Vladimir Putin, a positive development because it shows that they no longer imagine he will be as eternal as he thinks and because it is allowing them to consider many issues now that will have to be addressed once he's gone, Oleg Kashin says.

But even as they look beyond Putin, their visions of the future often include aspects of Putin's approach, either because they observe what the current Kremlin leader is doing and decide they must do the opposite or because they assume the only way to move beyond him is to use some of his methods (svoboda.org/content/article/27470299.html).

That pattern is nothing new: after the demise of the Soviet system, many in Russia and the former Soviet republics adopted an approach that some labelled "anti-communist Bolshevism" because they wanted to use Soviet methods to achieve anti-Soviet goals, without recognizing the ways in which these means often subverted the ends.

Russians now living "remember how 1989 differed from 1984 or even how 1957 did from 1952," the journalist says. "Once five years pass, Russians burdened with concerns about the new time ... will only laugh at what seemed important in 2015." A post-Putin Russia will come and now one can only argue about how soon that will be.

"People dissatisfied with Putin are beginning to draw a picture of the future, but so far this is too difficult for them: they portray Russia without Putin and they get Putin," given how long he has been in power and how "even the most progressive Russians simply don't know how a non-Putin Russia can look."

That is clear from the efforts of Vladimir Ashurkov whose project "Remediation of Law" would impose some of the same odious methods of existing Putinist legislation to achieve very different ends.  But it is even more obviously on display in the writings of opposition figure Garry Kasparov about what he would do after Putin.

He wants to impose a Putin-style dictatorship to "cleanse" Russian society, an approach that subverts itself and that appears to confirm what many supporters of the current regime believe: "yes," they say, "Putin is bad in many ways, but there is the risk that without Putin things will be worse."

"To lay on Russians responsibility for Putin is the same Stalinist logic according to which were sent to the camps those who were prisoners of the Germans." It is "unfreedom in exchange for no freedom, no freedom, no freedom in the name of no freedom, senseless and absurd cruelty."

Such an approach is wrong, Kashin says. Not only has the bestiality of the Putin state not reached the levels of Hitlerite Germany, but "more more important, the Putin regime over its 16 years never was the result of the free choice of Russians."  He was appointed, and blaming Russians for him is just as cynical as "Putinist 'sociological polls' about Crimea's energy."

Such proposals suggest, he continues, that the opponents of Putin share the same fear which he undoubtedly has: "a fear of losing power, a fear of being face to face with an uncontrolled political process."

"The temptation to replace a 'bad' dictator with a 'good' one is idealism and shamefulness at one and the same time. There won't be any good dictators" because the supporters of a "good" dictator will use methods that even he would not approve or, if he approved, would subvert his proclaimed goals.

"If the image of the future that Russian opposition figures have is limited to a model of 'a liberal Putin,' who only in details must be different from Putin ... then why do we need a new one?" Kashin asks.

"An opposition which is afraid of democracy and the people is a bad and worthless opposition," he argues.  And that is just what an opposition is if it begins by looking for "loopholes" that will allow it to do what Putin has done but only better.

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#26
Business Insider
www.businessinsider.com
Bill Clinton once told Tony Blair that Vladimir Putin had 'enormous potential'
By Natasha Bertrand
 
Former President Bill Clinton once praised Vladimir Putin's "enormous potential" in a phone call with then-Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, according to new transcripts of their phone conversations released by Clinton's presidential library. [http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/07/us/politics/clinton-blair-transcripts-document.html]

"We're trying to resolve this bilateral issue with Russia and kind of get this Chechnya thing resolved," Clinton told Blair on October 13, 1999, referring to Russia's air campaign over Chechnya in August 1999 that escalated into the Second Chechen War.

"Putin has enormous potential, I think," Clinton continued. "I think he's very smart and thoughtful. I think we can do a lot of good with him."

Clinton went on to espouse some skepticism about Putin's intentions.

"I think he is a guy with a lot of ability and ambitions for the Russians," he told Blair. "His intentions are generally honorable and straightforward, but he just hasn't made up his mind yet. He could get squishy on democracy."

Putin served as prime minister of Russia from 1999-2000 after serving 16 years as an officer in the KGB - the main security agency in the Soviet Union that was later succeeded by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). He became president in 2000, just as Clinton was wrapping up his time in office.

More recently, in a 2014 interview, Clinton spoke about Putin's patriotism with respect to Russia, but said the country's involvement in Ukraine was a "very dangerous situation."

"He is highly intelligent, deeply, deeply patriotic in terms of Russia, but he sees it more in terms of the greatness of the state and the country than what happens to ordinary Russians," Clinton told Fareed Zakaria in March 2014, shortly after Russia annexed Crimea.

"The one thing I will say about him is he was always pretty transparent," Clinton said. "He never pretended to be what he wasn't. ... If he wants to keep pushing the envelope and going in now to eastern Ukraine, I don't know what's going to happen. It's a very dangerous situation and it's unnecessary."

The transcripts between Clinton and Blair were released shortly after Clinton hit the campaign trail earlier this week for his wife, 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton was a key player in President Barack Obama's "reset" policy with Russia, which aimed to cool tensions with the nation following its 2008 invasion of Georgia, a former Soviet republic.

Still, she noted in a CBS interview in 2014 that she "was among the most skeptical of Putin" during her time in the State Department, "in part because I thought he had never given up on his vision of bringing 'Mother Russia' back to the forefront."

"I think that what may have happened is that both the United States and Europe were really hoping for the best from Putin as a returned president, and I think we've been quickly, unfortunately, disabused of those hopes," she added.

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 #27
Washington Post
January 8, 2016
Letter to the Editor
How we can foster a new generation of Russia experts

Regarding the Jan. 4 PowerPost blog excerpt, "In U.S., a shortage of Russia experts ":

It is ironic that the State Department discontinued its program of support for fellowships on Russian, East European and Eurasian studies in 2013. For many years, this small program housed in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research fostered the growth of expertise in Soviet studies and successors. Although the program lost its funding, it has not been abolished and could be reactivated.

John Hammer, Washington
The writer is a senior adviser in humanities at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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 #28
The Observer (UK)
January 10, 2016
Bolshoi Babylon review - offstage war zone of Russia's 'secret weapon'
The Bolshoi may look beautiful from the stalls, but this documentary reveals it as a tinderbox of broiling personal and political rivalries
Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
[Trailer here http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/10/bolshoi-babylon-ballet-documentary-film-review]

The opening voice tells us that Bolshoi is one of two brand names that represent Russia, the other being Kalashnikov. There's certainly something of the war zone about this portrayal of the behind-the-scenes battles that climaxed in a shocking acid attack on the Bolshoi's ballet director, Sergei Filin, in January 2013. As the film unpicks broiling internecine struggles among performers and management, we learn of the uncomfortably close relationship (physical and political) between the theatre and the Kremlin. Prime minister Dmitry Medvedev calls the Bolshoi Russia's "secret weapon", dispatched to foreign countries to "achieve our goals" like some quasi-military intervention. When new general director Vladimir Urin is installed to restore order to the theatre, it's clear that his appointment comes from the highest office. Despite demands of independence, he must attend meetings with Putin, who clearly takes a very personal interest in this national treasure.

Elsewhere, we hear from the performers, for whom life in the Bolshoi is a constant struggle between the contorted whims of favouritism, the perceived horrors of ageing ("when an older woman appears on stage, it's ugly..."), and the terror of snapping a tendon in front of 2,000 people and never being able to return to the stage. Like the ballet itself, the Bolshoi may look beautiful from the stalls, but behind the scenes it's blood, sweat and tears - a tinderbox of combustible elements to which personal and political rivalries lend a dangerous spark. As one interviewee ominously observes: "If the Bolshoi is sick, it's because Russia is sick."

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#29
Financial Times
January 9, 2016
What Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' can teach us
Henry James called it a 'monster', Sergei Bondarchuk almost died trying to turn it into a film - yet each generation feels compelled to take on the epic. As a new BBC adaptation unfolds, Simon Schama explains why
By Simon Schama
Simon Schama is an FT contributing editor

How should we live? That's the not unimportant question posed by Leo Tolstoy's masterpiece, and it makes War and Peace-niks terrible bores. But we can't help it: we need to evangelise, spread the word that there is no book quite like it; no book that encompasses almost the whole of humanity, and which collapses the space between ink and paper and flesh and blood so completely that you seem to be living it rather than reading it.

You emerge from this total immersion with your emotions deepened, vision clarified, exposure to the casual cruelty of the powerful sharpened. Which is not to say that the book is therapy for anything. In its pages the historical cavalcade looks like an unavoidable bad joke, while the search for a happy and meaningful life, embarked on by the clumsy hero Pierre Bezukhov, invites one torment after another. Only when he hits rock-bottom does a tantalising glimpse of light appear. And yet when Pierre backs into love, so do we, and the experience is overwhelming.

My first reading was a half-century ago. Weary of being told by a Cambridge friend that it was the best book ever written, that everything men and women do to each other was its subject, I gave in. I was stuck in a dull vacation job, the only straight in the village that was the soft furnishings department of a big West End department store. Every so often I would emerge from the back office cubbyhole to flog a thousand feet of plush curtaining to interior decorators for third-world dictators. But where I wanted to be was Bald Hills, Moscow, St Petersburg, the sanguinary, smoke-choked fields of battle.

Around the corner from the store was a salad-and-brown-rice lunch bar where you sat at tables of scrubbed pine and toyed with vinegary mounds of alfalfa sprouts. "Excuse me young man," said someone parked opposite. The voice came from an elderly gent, salt-and-pepper whiskers, country-pub suit, regimental tie; not the brown rice type at all unless retired brigadiers were going vegetarian in 1965. I put the book down, trying not to seem put out by the interruption. "I hope you don't mind," said the brigadier, adopting the courtly tone of Count Rostov transplanted to Tunbridge Wells. "But I see you are setting off on the Long March." (I was perhaps on page 100.) "Would this, by any chance, be your First Time?" Indeed it would. "Ah, so fortunate to have all that ahead of you." His eyes shone with the benevolence of a gratified apostle. "Do you know, I myself will be setting off for the 12th time this summer?" Sure, I thought, not believing him for a second. Now I do; the next time will be my ninth.

So if the BBC's new dramatisation sends millions to the book, we must rejoice and try not to wince when Andrew Davies's script Improves on Tolstoy. Early in the second episode the newly married Pierre trawls his hand through the conjugal bedsheets. "What are you looking at?" Hélène asks, as though baffled by a peculiar hobby. "My lovely wife," he whispers breathily, spectacles fogging with passion, "you are an inexhaustible treasure full of wonderful, wonderful secrets and delights. The more I discover, the more it seems is left to discover, more secrets, more delights." "Actually," says Hélène, glued-on smile going with the Notting Hill diction, "one can get a bit tired of having one's secrets and delights discovered all the time over and over."

This 50-shots-of-vodka approach manages to miss the one passage of high erotic voltage that Tolstoy wrote describing the exact moment of Pierre's entrapment. At a dinner organised to get him to pop the question, an *"aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Hélène, behind her back. Hélène leaned forward so as to make room and smiling glanced round. As always at soirées she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she breathed." And that's how to script a sexual ambush.

But much of the essence of War and Peace is there in the new BBC adaptation, thanks to deeply thought-through performances by Brian Cox (Kutuzov), Jim Broadbent (Prince Bolkonsky), Stephen Rea (Kuragin) and brilliant Jessie Buckley in the thankless part of Marya Bolkonsky - all of whom give unmistakable signs of having read the book, as does the perfectly pained Pierre (Paul Dano), whose every blink is a sonata of bewilderment. And if the casting director decided that the most frightening thing that could be done with Napoleon was to make him the spitting image of Malcolm Tucker, then that certainly works for me.

Never mind that adapting the "monster", as Henry James lovingly called War and Peace, is an invitation to hubris; every generation must have a go and sometimes it costs them dearly. The Russian director Sergei Bondarchuk, who cast himself as Pierre in the seven-hour epic he made in the 1960s, survived two massive heart attacks towards the end of filming, during one of which he was pronounced clinically dead for four minutes. Touch War and Peace and you play with fire.

When he composed his War and Peace opera in the 1940s, Sergei Prokofiev knew he had to appease Stalin's taste for patriotic bombast but somehow managed to smuggle in the exquisitely poignant waltz so that the endurance of tenderness registers amidst the dull boom of autocratic cannon. At the other end of the musical scale, the immersive "electro-pop opera" Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, which I saw performed in a tent two years ago (with an on-cue snowstorm falling on Manhattan), hits everything important about the Andrei-Anatole-Natasha triangle with manic brilliance. Did we well up at the crucial moment of Pierre's speech to Natasha? You bet we did and it was nothing to do with the thin vodka and cardboardpirogis that come with the show.

Film and television versions of War and Peace have to steer a tricky course between romance and reverence. The 20-part BBC dramatisation in 1972 may have been a bit too much, beginning ominously with three minutes of a footman setting dinner plates on Count Rostov's table, though Anthony Hopkins inhabited Pierre's fumbling big-heartedness as though born for it, which is more than can be said for Henry Fonda in the 1956 King Vidor picture, basically Gone with the Balalaika. Bondarchuk's stupendous movie has been the most faithful to the book and, with 13,000 Soviet soldiers and a budget of at least $70m in today's money, you certainly knew you were in a war zone. I first saw it in Paris in 1966 in two parts; the first ending with the battle of Borodino, after which the audience exited ashen-faced, not unlike the remnant of the Grande Armée departing Moscow. Later, it was hideously dubbed and butchered for anglophone audiences. But I screened a sumptuously restored, uncut print at my local indie movie house on a hot July day a few years back, with only a 15-minute intermission for a compassionate dose of Stoli. Not a soul departed before the end. Bondarchuk used breathtaking helicopter photography and dizzy crane shots. His cameramen roller-skated through the dancers in the ball scene, synchronising their movements with the lilt of the waltz. The battle sequences, in their chaotic din and hacking slaughter, are the most historically credible ever filmed and the Borodino sequence, nearly 20 minutes long, ends with one of the most astonishing aerial shots in all of cinema: cavalry charges performing an endlessly looping ballet of carnage, while fire blooms from the cannon and infantry stagger back and forth in blind futility. That Olympian top-shot, both omniscient and despairing, exactly translates into film Prince Andrei's brutal eve-of-battle exclamation to his ingenuous friend Pierre (come to see the battle dressed in a white topper). "War", says Andrei, "is the vilest thing in the world...[men] come together to kill each other, they slaughter and maim tens of thousands...and then they say prayers of thanksgiving for having slaughtered so many people...how does God look down and listen to them?"

Bondarchuk was also brilliant at the intimate moments and understood how important soundscape was to Tolstoy. We are first introduced to Andrei's father, the martinet Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky, as he walks through the autumnal woods of his estate. A Haydn minuet plays over the action; all very pretty. But then the camera tracks back to reveal an actual quartet playing for the prince beneath the trees, which is precisely what a serf orchestra used to do every time Tolstoy's maternal grandfather chose to go for a stroll. When the walk was over, as Rosamund Bartlett's fine biography of Tolstoy tells us, the serf violinists went back to feeding the pigs.

The uncanny physical immediacy of War and Peace is the result of Tolstoy bringing together personal memory, family history and dense archival research into the making of his narrative. His hero, he said, was truth. Before writing the Borodino chapters he walked the battlefield in the company of a 12-year-old boy for several days. But other kinds of memory-archive came into play, too. His presence at the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean war, both as soldier and war reporter, gave Tolstoy first-hand knowledge of what it felt and sounded like when shells landed and bullets came flying like "flocks of birds". The figure of his rustic "Uncle"'s Tatar mistress is drawn from Tolstoy's earlier service in the Caucasus, plus his own affair with the wife of one of his serfs, who bore him a child. Earthiness was everything. Where sensation was most intense in his memory, as in the book's wolf hunt or the Christmas Eve sleigh ride, fake moustaches applied with burnt cork, his prose takes wing.

With typical preference for honesty over kindness, Tolstoy insisted that he and his wife Sophia, not long after their marriage, read each other's diaries; his, of course, full of his sex escapades recorded in hurtful detail. And yet the early years of that marriage - he began War and Peace in 1863, just a year after their wedding - he believed to be his happiest. Tucked away in Yasnaya Polyana, the estate he inherited from his mother's family, he was, with Sophia's crucial help as amanuensis (for his handwriting was so illegible he could hardly read it himself), at liberty to create a masterwork. Six years on, the 5,000 pages of manuscript, 600 characters, three changes of title and a complete alteration of plot (1805 was originally the back-story to a tale of the doomed Decembrist uprising of 1825) were delivered to the world. By this time Tolstoy was already a successful writer and had committed himself to changing Russia, freeing and educating the serfs, rather than indulging himself in further fiction. So the moral zeal bled into the pages of the book. In fact, he indignantly refused to call it a novel at all, "still less a poem and even less a historical chronicle", but what the author wanted and was able to express in the form in which it was expressed. Stylistically, it was also unlike anything anyone else had written before: raw, richly inelegant, sometimes directionless, bursting through the confines of good literary form yet stained on every page with the juice of life.

Strenuous physical immediacy is but half of the book; its deep core is concerned with the rest of us, the inner life, especially of the passions and what happens to them when abraded by the force of ambition, cupidity, vanity and violence. Accordingly, the most radically exhilarating passages document the workings of that inner life in broken diction, interior monologues (you even get inside the wolf's head) and the repetitions and linguistic contortions that form and unform in our minds. One such passage has the young hussar Nikolai Rostov, on the eve of the impending disaster of Austerlitz, fighting off sleep while still mounted on his horse, peering dimly at some sort of white spot in the darkness - a tache.

[text missing here]

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 #30
Moscow Times
January 9, 2016
New York Public Library Releases Fascinating Russian Historical Images
By Katrin Scheib
[Photos here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/new-york-public-library-releases-fascinating-russian-historical-images/555127.html]

You'd almost think the good people at the New York Public Library were waiting for Christmas.

Russian Orthodox Christmas, that is.

On January 6, as faithful Russians were getting ready to celebrate the holiday, the library released a staggering 180,000 images for public use. All in the public domain, these archive pictures include a wealth of Russia-related material.

Drawings, etchings and photographs. Portraits, maps and landscapes. We've trawled the newly released images in order to bring you some of the most striking examples. Consider it a starting point for your own investigation.

1. Military dress in 19th-century Russia

This image from 1896 is part of a wide collection of pictures intended to show all the different varieties of Russian military dress. A hand-colored photograph, it may not always use the most subtle colors. But then again, who's to say these sailors didn't just have a ruddy complexion from their work on deck?

2. When the Bolshoi felt even bigger

In the 1830s, Moscow's Bolshoi Theater already existed in all its magnificence. But as opposed to today, the surrounding buildings were significantly smaller, making the theatre look much more imposing. Note also the rather basic pavement in the foreground of the picture. Today, you have lanes and lanes full of car traffic here.

3. Women at work

We've come to think of women in the workplace as a somewhat recent development. But the truth is, they have been doing so for centuries, simply because they had to. The New York Public Library's archives hold many images that give an idea of what clothes various woman would wear. Here, you can see a market woman's colorful yet practical clothes.

4. An English dinner in Russia - with French food

Imagine being invited to a formal dinner by the English ambassador to St. Petersburg in 1899. What delicacies would await you? Sole and pheasant are both on the menu, as well as "Consommé Princesse" soup and, for dessert, orange mousse and various pastries. And of course, they served their spinach "à l'anglaise" - lightly blanched, then cooled with ice water so that it retains its bright green colour.

5. Russia and its neighbors

In 1863, S. A. Mitchell's new general atlas showed Russia and some of its neighboring countries. While Norway and Sweden can both be seen, there is no trace of Finland. In fact, it would still be several decades before it became a country of its own.

6. Female fashion in hard times

Many Russians suffered financially from World War I. But for those who could afford it, dressing well and following the latest trends was still de rigeur. As you can see from this magazine clipping, lace, furs and ostrich feathers adorned the rich women of war-time Petrograd.

To start your own search, go to the library's archive research page:
http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=

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 #31
Interfax
January 11, 2016
Putin: Constitutional reform should underlie peace process in Ukraine

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Holland, who are part of the Normandy Quartet, should pay more attention to implementation of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

Speaking in an interview with the German Bild newspaper, Putin said that the constitutional reform in Ukraine should underlie the political process of settling the Ukrainian crisis.

"The constitutional reform and political processes are to be implemented first, followed by confidence building on the basis of those reforms and the completion of all processes, including the border closure. I believe that our European partners, both the German Chancellor and the French President should scrutinise these matters more thoroughly," Putin said.

When asked whether he thinks Merkel and Holland are not paying enough attention to the Ukrainian peace process at the moment, Putin said: "I think they have a lot of problems of their own. But if we are addressing this matter then we must scrutinise it."

Putin also described as absurd the situation where the West introduces sanctions against Russia to prompt it into implementing the Minsk agreements whereas their implementation depends full on Ukraine.

"You cannot demand that Moscow do something that needs to be done by Kiev. For example, the main, the key issue in the settlement process is political in its nature and the constitutional reform lies in its core. This is Point 11 of the Minsk Agreements. It expressly states that the constitutional reform must be carried out and it is not Moscow that is to make these decisions!" Putin said.

He pointed to the need for changes in the Ukrainian constitution to be permanent.

"The Ukrainian Government introduced the law on the special status of those territories, a law that had been adopted earlier, into the transitional provisions. But this law, which they incorporated in the Constitution, was adopted for the duration of three years only. Two years have already passed," he said.

"When we met in Paris, both the German Chancellor and the French President agreed that this law should be changed and included in the Constitution on a permanent basis. Both the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany confirmed that," the president said

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#32
Putin: Western sanctions against Russia after Crimea's reunification 'silly decision'

SOCHI, January 11. /TASS/. Western sanctions, which came as a result of Crimea's reunification with Russia, was a "silly and damaging decision," but the sanctions have a positive effect for Russia as well, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with German daily Bild.

"You know, the Russians feel clearly with their hearts and minds what is going on at the moment," Putin said. "Napoleon once said that justice is the image of God upon the Earth. The reunification of Crimea with Russia was a just decision."

The president added that the reaction of the Western partners on the reunification was "wrong and rather aimed to restrain the abilities of Russia's further growth instead of Ukraine's support."

"It seems to me that it should have never been done and that is where the grand mistake rests as, on the contrary, we must make use of mutual possibilities for the further growth, for mutual solution of problems, which we are facing," Putin said adding that the Western choice of imposing sanctions against Russia was "a silly and damaging decision."

Crimea and Sevastopol

The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean peninsula, where most residents are Russians, signed reunification deals with Russia on March 18, 2014 after a referendum two days earlier in which an overwhelming majority of Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.

In the Soviet Union, Crimea used to be part of Russia until 1954, when it was gifted to Ukraine by Soviet Communist Party leader Nikita Khrushchev.

The Russian leader admitted that the sanctions bore a negative impact on the Russian economy, particularly in the sphere of restrictions for the country and its companies to work on foreign financial markets.

"Speaking about the greatest damage, inflicted by the current situation, is, first of all, the damage to our economy and it is brought by the decline in prices for our traditional export goods," Putin said speaking about the drop of crude prices over the last year and a half.

However, according to the president, "as strange as it may seem, some tendencies of positive nature also emerged" for Russia under the current difficulties.

"When the crude prices are high it is very hard for us to refrain from spending oil profits on accrued expenses," he said. "In my opinion, our oil and gas deficit hit a very dangerous level. We are now forced to lower it. This is very invigorating."

According to Putin, "it is very difficult to abstain from covering the accrued expenses by means of profits from natural gas and oil."

"When the profit from [oil and gas sales] is high we see a discourage of the domestic development, particularly in the high technology spheres," Putin said adding that the decrease in spending of oil and gas profits plays a revitalizing role for the country's economy.

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 #33
www.rt.com
January 11, 2016
Kiev bar stages execution of Russian pilot as part of 'stab in the back' theme party (VIDEO)
[Video here https://www.rt.com/news/328476-russian-pilot-execution-kiev/]

A themed party in a Kiev nightclub praised Turkey's downing of a Russian jet near the Syrian border. Guests of the event were offered a "smoked pilot" snack and saw a mock execution performed to tunes used in Islamic State propaganda videos.

As Ukraine entered the New Year a step short of economic default and with bleak prospects for the future, organizers of the celebratory feast found reason for celebration.

A person dressed in a sailor suit was brought to the stage and forced to his knees in front of an intoxicated anti-Russia crowd, as the presenter announced they would proceed to "execute a Russian pilot."

"Every Russian will be punished," the host said before music featured on numerous Islamic State propaganda videos started playing. A second later, a person who appears to be a restaurant guest enjoying the show, pretends to slash the throat of the individual impersonating the Su-24 bomber pilot.

In the footage, as the "victim" falls to the ground and is dragged off the main floor, the 'executioner', content with his part in the play, shows a victory sign. People are heard shouting "Glory to Ukraine."

Following the twisted humor of the organizers, the host says: "Now I propose we continue to celebrate, and be more cheerful than this Russian."

The club has also introduced a special dish and named it "smoked pilot", as part of a New Year theme event called "Stab in the back" in reference to Vladimir Putin's blast against Turkey's downing of a Russian jet over Syria.

The Russian Su-24 bomber involved in the military operation in Syria was downed by a Turkish F-16 fighter on November 24. One of the bomber's two pilots was killed by the Turkmen militants, while the second was rescued.

Following the incident, Russia imposed sanctions on Turkey, including banning Turkish companies from working in Russia and prohibiting Russian companies from hiring Turkish employees. Moscow also suspended the visa-free regime and introduced an embargo on a number of Turkish goods.

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#34
Ukraine Today (Kyiv)
http://uatoday.tv
Inflation in Ukraine hits 20-year high in 2015 of 43.3%
January 6, 2016

New figures from the state statistics office show inflation in Ukraine reached a 20-year high of 43.3% in 2015.

That represents an increase of nearly 20% on 2014's figure of 24.9%.

Items which saw the biggest jumps include gas, which rose in price nearly four times, hot water and heating, whose prices increased by nearly 80% and vegetables, which were almost 70% more expensive in 2015 than they were in 2014. In annual terms, no goods saw price falls between the two years.

Read also Ukraine's 2015 inflation rate second worst in the world

Ukraine's state statistics service says the figures do not include the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula or parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of east Ukraine which are occupied by Russian-backed militants.

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 #35
Financial Times
January 9, 2016
Ukraine: dismal economic prospects, great sovereign bond
Country's external bonds had the highest returns of any sovereign debt last year, says John Dizard
By John Dizard

For all Ukraine's troubles, its external bonds had the highest returns of any sovereign debt last year. The optimists who actually held on to the paper through continued civil war, depression, devaluation, restructuring, and, finally, at the end of December, selective default, would have made a 41 per cent profit on their position.

Or perhaps I should say "alleged default", since an arcane court battle over a $3bn Ukraine bond issue held by the Russian government is looming in the coming months. This is not only a bond, but an extremely cleverly done piece of geopolitical manoeuvring.

The $3bn two-year, 5 per cent Eurobond was not completed under the most auspicious circumstances. The prospectus is dated February 17 2014, and the final bits of documentation were only completed on February 19. Just to refresh your memory, what the present Ukraine government would call the Euromaidan revolution and the Russian government a coup d'état, took place between February 18 and February 23. Shootings in a public square, collapse of state control, head of state fleeing with henchmen and family; altogether not the usually desired background for a closing ceremony.

Yet the customers of VTB Capital, the sole lead manager, were nothing if not contrarian. Also, they had some very good documentation on their side. I have gone over the 219 page prospectus, which is a credit to the names of counsels White & Case and Clifford Chance, as well as Citibank, not to neglect the local counsel and the Law Debenture Trust Corporation.

The prospective holder of the notes is given good disclosure of the dismal economic prospects for Ukraine and the widespread allegations of government corruption, along with a briefing on the nation's not entirely happy history. Ukraine's sovereign immunity is explicitly waived (except in the US), and the duly elected government accepts English law and arbitration. The "use of proceeds" is given as "general budgetary purposes", which in Ukraine were pretty open ended.

Along with the standard Eurobond clauses and financials, there were a couple of innovative conditions. One was a clause allowing the holder (Russia or its successors) to declare a default if Ukraine's government debt to gross domestic product exceeded 60 per cent. The other allowed the holder to "cross-default" the Ukraine bonds on any indebtedness owed to the noteholder or to any entity majority owned or controlled by the noteholder. Such as, say, Gazprom.

So the bonds, which were listed on the Dublin stock exchange, were both well documented and prospectively enforceable market instruments and bilateral sovereign debt. That has meant that for the past two years Ukraine has faced not only territorial seizure, violent separatism and economic collapse but the possibility of Argentina-like grinding international litigation.

Which is now a reality. On January 1, the Russian Ministry of Finance announced that "Ukraine is now legally in default on the Eurobond", and that it "has initiated procedures...with a view to commencing legal proceedings as soon as possible".

Whitney Debevoise, an experienced sovereign debt lawyer at Arnold & Porter in Washington, says: "Arbitration like this can be done in six months, but Ukraine may try to delay. Ukraine is likely to throw up some trial balloons, perhaps say they were invaded or they have been under duress, but at the end of the day, those arguments are not likely to succeed."

The Russians have not been entirely unyielding on the Ukraine Eurobond. The ministry added in its January 1 statement: "The commencement of legal proceedings does not preclude a constructive dialogue with a view to reaching an acceptable solution."

Also, Russia has, arguably, had some openings to allege a default on the Eurobond's covenants before it matured on December 20. But rather than accelerate the due date of the principal, it just waited for the more outright event of default. The Russians did not, however, go along with the haircut that Ukraine's private sector bondholders accepted in the autumn.

Even Ukraine's friends among academic lawyers do not think Cristina Kirchner-style bluster about "odious debt" would work in fending off the Russian claim. Anna Gelpern, professor of law at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Affairs says: "I think Russia did a very, very smart thing. Do I think it is good for the system? No. If I represent Russia, then I am pleased and proud."

Most probably Russia and Ukraine will eventually agree a negotiated solution as part of a broader package deal that would include a settlement of the "civil" war. As Mr Debevoise points out: "[President] Putin has already suggested a willingness to accept payment in instalments, which implies a net present value reduction."

The significance of the Ukraine-Russia Eurobond goes far beyond the $3bn or the particulars of the dispute. As Prof Gelpern says: "What people keep missing [about the bond] is that when governments have the market tools at their disposal, while at the same time having access to all the multilateral institutions, there are huge arbitrage opportunities for them. The governments can come in when they want ahead of your claims. Your readership should wake up to that big time."

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 #36
Politico.eu
January 11, 2016
Dutch voters overwhelmingly reject agreement with Ukraine: poll
Commission President Juncker says it could spark 'continental crisis.'

A majority of Dutch voters is opposed to the Netherlands' ratification of the European Union's association agreement with Ukraine, a new poll ahead of an April 6 referendum on the issue showed Saturday.

The poll, conducted by the Dutch public broadcaster's program EenVandaag, is the first barometer on the April 6 vote. It found that over 50 percent of voters "are certain" to reject the Ukraine agreement, while another quarter of respondents said they'll "likely" reject the deal.

Over half of respondents also said they will certainly cast a ballot, while another 17 percent said they'd "most likely" vote. The threshold for the referendum to be taken into account is a turnout of 30 percent.

A rejection of the agreement "could open the doors to a continental crisis" in Europe, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad in an interview published on Saturday. He added Russia "stood to benefit the most" from a "No."

"Let's not change the referendum into a vote about Europe," Juncker said. "I sincerely hope that [the Dutch] won't vote no for reasons that have nothing to do with the treaty itself."

In the Netherlands, political campaigns for the referendum have yet to begin.

The Dutch referendum was triggered by a petition organized by the website GeenStijl that reached over 450,000 signatures last September. All Dutch petitions with over 300,000 signatures force the government to put an issue to a vote.

"[Ukraine] is on the brink of full EU membership. We think that the people should be consulted about EU expansion," Jan Roos, a journalist from GeenStijl, said at the time.

The final parts of the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine were signed in June, 2014 and was then called "a first step towards EU membership" by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko. It governs economic and political ties between the bloc and its eastern neighbor.

Ukraine is not formally an applicant to join the EU, although the bloc does recognize Ukraine could ask to become a member in the future.

The association agreement went into force provisionally on January 1, but it has to be ratified by all 28 EU members in order to become permanent.

It is unclear what a "No" vote in the referendum would mean for Dutch policy, as both the government and the country's other leading parties have said they plan to campaign in favor of the association agreement. The referendum result has to be considered by the government, but isn't binding on it.

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#37
Russia Insider
www.russia-insider.com
January 11, 2016
Ukraine May Get Two Christmases as National Identity Debate Begins
Proposal could divide country amid battle for influence between Russian and Ukrainian branches of Orthodox church
By Enrico Braun
There are several points to be made about the article below:

-Putsch leader Oleksandr Turchynov is a member of Ukraine's tiny protestant minority. He was a baptist minister before entering politics. He therefore does not represent the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, who are members of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine

-The 'Ukrainian branch' of the Orthodox Church, which is not really explained here, may refer to the so-called 'Kyiv Patriarchate' - a schismatic church based on Ukrainian chauvinism not faith, supported by the government of Ukraine, and not recognized as legitimate by any other orthodox church in the world

-'Greek Catholics' are Orthodox in form and appearance, concentrated in western Ukraine, who were forced to adhere to the Roman papacy during centuries of Polish rule. Roman Catholics of the western variety are a very small minority

-This is yet another example of an attempt to annihilate the true culture and history of Ukrainians, who are with Russians and Belarusians, common descendants of orthodox Rus, replacing it with a pastiche of western imitation and subservience
--
This article originally appeared at The Guardian [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/31/ukraine-two-christmases-orthodox-church-russia]

Ukraine, which marks Christmas on 7 January in accordance with Orthodox Christian tradition, has begun a national debate about whether it should also celebrate on 25 December, a step that would bring it into line with western Europe.

The debate, reflecting the country's re-examination of national identity under the impact of the falling-out with Russia, could sharply divide opinion and comes amid a heightened battle for influence between the Russian and Ukrainian branches of the Orthodox church.

After Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region last year and pro-Kremlin separatists launched a rebellion in the east of the country, some Ukrainians began to re-examine their historically close cultural ties to Russia.

Activists in favour of making 25 December, an ordinary working day in Ukraine, an official holiday have launched two petitions that have appeared on the presidential website.

If they garner enough support, the president, Petro Poroshenko, will have to consider the matter, though the Ukrainian parliament would have the final word.

Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of Ukraine's security council, has backed the idea, saying he favours a transition period during which Ukrainians could celebrate Christmas on both 25 December and 7 January.

The Russian Orthodox church dominates Ukraine's central, eastern and southern regions, while Catholics and Greek Catholics are concentrated in the west of the country.

"We, Christians of different confessions of Ukraine, without abandoning their own traditions and wanting to celebrate Christmas with the whole Christian world, ask for a holiday to be established in Ukraine on 25 December in honour of Christmas," one of the petitioners said.

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 #38
www.foreignaffairs.com
January 7, 2016
Euromaidan Dreams Deferred
Poroshenko, Corruption, and Stalled Political Progress in Ukraine
By Taras Kuzio
Taras Kuzio is a senior fellow at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, and author of "Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism."

This winter marks the second anniversary of Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, more commonly known as the Euromaidan revolution. That winter's stand against former President Viktor Yanukovych culminated in violence against Ukrainians, leaving over 100 protesters dead. Nearly two years after Yanukovych left power, however, little has been done to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice. President Petro Poroshenko has not demonstrated the political will needed to fight Ukraine's oligarchs and high levels of corruption. Poroshenko, it seems, like his predecessors, may fail to bring justice, respect, and humanity that Ukrainians demanded in the revolutions in 2004 and 2013-2014.

Not surprisingly, many Ukrainians are skeptical of Poroshenko's intentions. Poroshenko is unpopular in just about every region of Ukraine: a recent poll showed that only 17 percent of participating Ukrainians support him. These anemic poll numbers give the president less support than Yanukovych had when he was ousted from power. Although 88 percent of Ukrainians view corruption as being widespread in the country, as few as five percent of those polled believe that the nation's authorities are implementing policies aimed at reducing it. Little wonder that two-thirds of Ukrainians believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction.

Support for the government in Ukraine is at its lowest level in a decade as its citizens feel the squeeze of unpopular economic, social, and fiscal reforms. The nation's economy is in the middle of a depression, and one of a few potential signs of progress-prosecutions against corrupt oligarchs and senior members of Yanukovych's old regime-has not materialized. It appears that Poroshenko lacks the political will to pursue criminal charges against former allies who were responsible for bankrupting Ukraine through corruption, political repression, and the murder of his opponents.

Although Poroshenko's ascendance to power was hoped to bring in an era of political transparency, he has not appeared to seek real changes to fundamental power dynamics between Ukrainian business leaders and politicians. Political power is still viewed as a money making operation to many within Kiev, as evidenced by Poroshenko's failure to make good on his promise to sell personal business interests once he assumed power. Instead, Poroshenko kept his holdings, and was one of the only business leaders in the nation to increase his business assets in 2015, becoming the sixth-richest business executive in Ukraine. Both Poroshenko and former parliamentary chief whip Ihor Kononenko have been implicated in a real estate scandal, and Koroneko faces damaging allegations of money laundering upwards of $300,000 from 2012 to 2015 through offshore tax.

Poroshenko has also shared business relationships with Ukraine's last three presidents, stretching back to Leonid Kuchma in the 1990s. Borys Lozhkin, Poroshenko's Chief of Staff, facilitated the sale of Poroshenko's stake in Ukraine Media Holdings to Serhiy Kurchenko, a close associate of Yanukovych. His ties to Ukraine's political and business elites are no secret, either. In 2000, Poroshenko became one of the founding members of the Party of Regions, which appointed former Ukraine Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov as party leader. Interpol is currently seeking Azarov and Kurchenko for corruption during Azarov's term as prime minister from 2010-2014, and Kurchenko for being a major beneficiary from sweetheart deals with the Azarov government.

Now Ukraine's public has lost faith in Poroshenko's ability to lead. His past relationships and current business interests have prevented him from pursuing cases against his current and former allies, and will likely prevent him from serving a second term as well. Poroshenko's appointees to the Security Service (SBU) have all but doomed ongoing investigations into accusations of murders and corruption that occurred during Yanukovych's counter-protest efforts. In so doing, the president has all but given immunity against indictment to his closest allies.

At the heart of the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions was a demand by average Ukrainians for justice and dignity. Two years after Yanukovych fleed to Russia and abandoned his position, the Ukrainian justice system is largely unchanged. Poroshenko is unwilling to dismantle Ukraine's corrupt, oligarchic system that he helped build two decades ago, and is refusing to seek criminal charges against former allies and current business partners. Earlier this year, Ukrainian civil society groups, journalists, and lawyers representing Euromaidan protesters and families whose members were killed or injured released a lengthy report entitled "A Year of Impunity." And since the release of the report, nothing has changed: not a single official from the Yanukovych era has been criminally convicted of any crimes during the former president's reign.

LOWERING EXPECTATIONS

The United States is far from alone in its skepticism toward Poroshenko and his political inner circle. International organizations and the Ukrainian public have little trust in the official claim that the government is investigating 274 instances in which law enforcement officials repressed or murdered protesters during the Euromaidan. Poroshenko's government has made similar claims before: in August 2015, Poroshenko claimed that 2,702 Ukrainian officials were charged with corruption. Both lists have since been proved to be fictitious.

Additionally, Amnesty International has repeatedly attempted to shed light on Ukraine's deeply ingrained culture of impunity towards police abuse, and the state's seeming inability to investigate and prosecute police officers. At the root of this, however, is a deep structural inability to prosecute crimes related to high-level abuse of office and the Euromaidan crackdown, as well as no political will to do so at the presidential level. Ukraine's ruling elites continue to defend each other using state institutions they control while continuing the opaque culture of close corrupt business ties to politicians.

Amnesty International is joined by the Council of Europe's International Advisory Group and the UN Commission on Human Rights in condemning Ukraine's lack of progress on postrevolutionary justice. These international groups have also chastised Kiev for the dragged-out investigations and incompetent policing and prosecutorial work involved in these cases. Amnesty International has said those responsible for human rights violations "continue to enjoy almost complete impunity for their actions." The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) described Ukraine's approach to the rule of law as an "accountability vacuum." The Council condemned the "widespread perception of impunity" held by law enforcement and the government's "unwillingness or inability" to bring them to justice for murders committed during the Euromaidan protests, as well as deaths during the conflict between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces in Odessa in May 2015.

So as long as Poroshenko controls the positions in key state institutions that are constitutionally mandated to fight high-level corruption-the prosecutor-general, SBU chair, and National Security and Defence Council (NRBO) secretary-these pillars of justice will go unreformed and will continue to protect ruling elites, rather than the rule of law. Poroshenko emerged as an oligarch under a system where presidents dole out protection from the PGO and the SBU to friends and patrons; to expect these groups to change their focus toward protecting the people against corruption is an unlikely possibility. In the last 25 years of Ukrainian independence, the PGO has failed to successfully prosecute a single member of the country's ruling elite. This abysmal track record will not change under Poroshenko.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

On paper, Ukraine looks to be making progress in instituting the rule of law and rooting out corruption. This, however, is due to pressure from international organizations and Ukraine's civil society rather than from presidential political will. There are some judicial reforms taking place, and a new national police force is beginning to replace the Soviet-era militsiya police force. Kiev has also installed a National Anti-Corruption Bureau as well as a new anticorruption prosecutor. Finally, a new asset recovery agency is being established to expropriate stolen assets from convicted high-ranking felons.

Despite these signs of progress, however, there are political, institutional, and implementation issues that will stand in the way of the radical political reforms that are required to satisfy the widespread public hunger for justice, dignity, and humanity. Ukrainian leaders still seek to micromanage and control law enforcement practices and officials prefer Ukraine's old system of close, opaque ties between politics and business.

Although the term "selective use of justice" was originally used to Yanukovych's jailing of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, but the term continues to resonate in Poroshenko's Ukraine. The PGO's prosecutorial decisions continue to be decided by politicians, rather than the rule of law. Three Ukrainian politicians, Hennadiy Korban, Ihor Mosiychuk, and Yuriy Syrotyuk, all from pro-Western political parties, were publicly and aggressively arrested for falling out of favor with Poroshenko. Meanwhile, corruption investigations against pro-Russian politicians such as former Ukrainian Vice President Yuriy Boyko, former Ukrainian parliamentarians Serhiy Kluyev and Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, and oligarch Rinat Akhmetov have been similarly stymied due to an immunity deal forged in 2014 between the latter three and the president.

At the helm of the PGO are two Poroshenko-appointed prosecutor generals, Vitaliy Yarema and Viktor Shokin. Both have been met with scathing criticism from Euromaidan activists and the Ukrainian branch of the anti-corruption watchdog group Transparency International for the lack of high-level criminal prosecutions coming from their office. Former United States Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst has said, "It's an absolute scandal that Mr. Shokin is the prosecutor general." The current U.S. ambassador, Geoffrey R. Pyatt, has accused the PGO of undermining reforms, protecting corrupt prosecutors, and blocking criminal investigations. The United States, Pyatt has said, "needs honest partners who are committed to the rule of law." Pyatt has called upon the PGO to abandon its Soviet legacy of political control that permits the powerful "to get away with influence peddling and human rights abuses."

Even outside of the PGO, government officials have done little to aid those who suffered and died during the Euromaidan. The PGO has presented weak criminal cases to Interpol for Yanukovych, as well as his officials and the oligarchs he supported. In fact, some have even been removed from the international wanted list for their suspected involvement in Yanukovych-era crimes.

Reforms on paper and the creation of new institutions will not satisfy Ukraine's widespread hunger for justice, dignity, and humanity after the atrocities following the Euromaidan and the nation's costly war with Russian-backed separatist proxies. The Ukrainian population would be more willing to share the burdens of painful economic, social, and fiscal reforms if they saw justice being served, and that real reforms had taken place under Poroshenko's watch. In the absence of presidential political will to change Ukraine's deep seated corruption, Ukrainians are increasingly taking matters into their own hands by reactivating Euromaidan protests, this time outside Poroshenko's grand palace. Protesters are creating new political forces aimed at challenging the president at the polls. With massive disillusionment and radicalization growing, Ukrainian sociologist Iryna Bekeshkina has warned that Ukraine needs "radical transformations." If these reforms do not happen, Poroshenko could be overthrown in a country that is now awash with weapons and more tolerant of political violence.

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 #39
http://gordonhahn.com
January 11, 2016
REPORT: Maidan Ukraine, the Ultra-Nationalist Tradition, and Anti-Semitism (Part 3)
The Yanukovich Regime
By Gordon Hahn
Gordon M. Hahn is an Analyst and Advisory Board Member of the Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Adjunct Professor and Senior Researcher, Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group, San Jose, California; a Contributor for Russia Direct, www.russia-direct.org; and an Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View - Russia Media Watch, http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com.
[Complete 3 parts with footnotes here
http://gordonhahn.com/2016/01/11/report-maidan-ukraine-the-ultra-nationalist-tradition-and-anti-semitism-full-version-parts-1-3/]
[Parts 1 and 2 in JRL 2016#2, January 7]

Viktor Yanukovich

Viktor Yanukovich won a narrow victory over Tymoshenko in the second round of the 2010 presidential election. For this and other reasons he was not aggressive in seeking to replace the Yushchenko legacy of Galician myths with eastern Ukrainian Soviet nostalgia or Russophilia. However, some of what western Ukraine saw as gains for its nationalist agenda-in particular, those that were most odious for the southeast-were rolled back under Yanukovich, aggravating east-west tensions. At the same time, Yanukovich's presidency was hampered by the aftermath of the 2008-2009 Ukrainian financial crisis and the perception and reality of massive corruption on the part of his administration and key oligarchs who supported it. In order to mollify public opinion, Yanukovich decided to pursue an EU association agreement, proimising economic recovery and revitalization on the road to EU membership. At the same time, he did not foredlose the possibility of a deal with Moscow on joining the EEU, which began to gain momentum during this period.

Historiography

Yanukovich moved to reverse Yushchenko's Galician myth-making and historical revisionism. Yushchenko's orders designating Bandera and Shukhevych as national heroes in the Ukrainian national liberation struggle were nullified by Ukrainian courts, and the orders retracted. Yushchenko's nationalistic ideologists Viatrovych and Yukhnovskiy were dismissed from the posts, Yanukovich appointed new directors to both the SBU Archives and INP. In response, the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada and the U.S. has feted Viatrovych with speaking engagements where he has continued his denial of OUN-UPA involvement in the Holocaust. Among other things, he was awarded a fellowship from the diaspora-dominated Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. The diaspora also began to inflate the number of Holodomor victims, citing a figure of 10 million, and initiated a vitriolic campaign against Yanukovich and cut off all relations with his government, regarding it an "occupation regime." A noisy demonstration was organized for Yanukovich's visit to New York for the UN General Assembly, with protestors chanting "Russian butchers, go to hell!" Slava Ukrainy! Heroiam Slava!" (Glory to Ukraine! To the Heroes Glory!"). One of the demonstrations organizers and a prominent Ukrainian diaspora activist deployed openly anti-Semitic rhetoric, asserting "an...overwhelming amount of Soviet accomplices during the Soviet's two years in Western Ukraine from 1939-1941 were Jews." He also claims Jews control the Canadian media and those who research anti-Jewish violence by the OUN and UPA are in the pay of a Jewish lobby.[74]

Language

Although Yanukovich failed to fulfill his campaign promise to designate officially Russian as Ukraine's second state language, he implemented a measure that satisfied southeastern Ukrainians aspirations on this score. In July 2012 he pushed the Kolesnichenko-Kivalov law through the Rada establishing the requirement that in any region of Ukraine where any ethnic minority composed more than 10 percent of the population then the minority's language must be declared an official language in that particular region. As a result of this law, 13 of Ukraine's 27 regions established Russian as a second state language.[75] All 13 of these regions were located in the eastern half of the country.

With the Yanukovich regime's reversal of historiographical and language policies the east-west polarization process began to peak. Much like Yushchenko's alienation of the east through his historico-ideological and language policies, Yanukovich's language policies alienated the west. Thus, with each change in power between pro-southeastern and pro-western governments, Ukraine's body politic was being bent back and forth. Like a piece of metal repeatedly bent to one side and then the other, the stress was bringing the country to abreaking point.

In addition the high level of corruption that existed under Yushchenko and his predecessors became even more prounced under Yushchenko. Moreover, the regional elite and oligarchs in the already far richer east, southeast, and south were the main beneficiaries of official largesse. This fed the west's resentment of its own relatively low standard of living and the corrupt regime. The former was aggravated by the even better off regions just over the border in EU Poland, to which Galicia had once belonged. A perfect storm would be created by additional stresses caused by the geopolitical struggle over Ukraine on the international level.

The Rise of Anti-Semitism After Maidan

I have detailed on this site the violence used by neo-fascist groups like the SP and Right Sector to overthrow the Yanukovich regime-the destructive phase of the Maidan revolution-and to seize full control over the post-revolutionary Maidan regime during the constructive nation-building phase of the Maidan revolution. I have also shown on this site the growing cohort of national chauvinist, ultra-nationalist, and neo-fascist elements in the post-Maidan government and parliament. Here, I will focus exclusively on manifestations of anti-Semitism which appeared to be gradually on the rise in 2015, especially as the ultra-nationalist wing of the Maidan revolution parts ways with the oligarchic wing, making a clash between the two increasingly likely.

In May, the news agency Vesti, which has been attacked numerous times by 'Right Sector' and other neo-fascist groups since the February 2014 Maidan revolt, reported rightists' plans to desecrate the monument erected at Babi Yar.[76] This past summer in Lviv (Lvov), the hotbed of Ukrainian ultra-nationalism and neo-fascism, an ultra-nationalist group demonstrated for the removal of all Jews from government office and a leading Polish Holocaust scholar, Robert Kuwalek, was found dead.[77] In September, the news agency Vesti uncovered a plot being organized by a radical rightist organization to release pigs into a synagogue in Uman during Rosh Hashanah.[78]

The most recent advance for anti-Semitism in Ukraine came in Ukraine's October 2015 local elections. The SP managed to improve on its poor showing in post-Maidan national elections, having been drained of support by other neo-fascist groups like Right Sector (RS) and the Radical party (RP).  In recent municipal elections, however, the SP won some 10 percent of the vote in the capital of Kiev and finished second in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. "It is a sad, but a reality when anti-Semites are being elected in local governing bodies, even mayors promoting hate and intolerance," warns Eduard Dolinsky of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee.[79]

In another town, Konotop, Sumy Oblast, the SP won a majority on the city council and its candidate, radical battalion commander Artyom Semyonikhin, won the mayoral race. Semenikhin reportedly drives around in a car bearing the numerological reference - 14/88. This a frequently used neo-fascist and skinhead numerical code for the phrases "we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children" and "Heil Hitler".[80] The new mayor also replaced the picture of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in his office with a portrait of Bandera.[81] He also reportedly ordered the placement of a monument to the late neo-fascist Right Sector deputy leader Sashko Biliy, who was killed by Ukrainian police in a shootout as they sought to apprehend him for illegal activity in Kiev in 2014.[82] Semenikhin also reportedly refused to fly the city's official flag at the opening meeting of the city council because he objected to the star of David emblazoned on it (Sokol, "Ukrainian Jews shocked after city elects neo-Nazi mayor"). Semenikhin is also said to have conducted a "short master class on how to spot 'vatniki' during a meeting as mayor with entrepreneurs. He told the businessmen that a car with the bumper sticker 'Thank you for the Victory, Grandpa' a reference to the Soviet victory over the Nazis in World War II, belongs to a 'separ' (derogatory term for a pro-Russian separatist) and instructed police to track down the car's driver.[83] Semenikhin has a history of fraud, having been arrested in 2012 for posing as an electricity company worker in order to extract payments from businesses.[84]

Jewish media note that Semenikhin, consistent with the SP's strealth Nazism, is careful not to cross over into outright anti-Semitism publicly, allowing his listeners to infer the anti-Semitic message. One example cited is Semenikhin's refusal to apologize for anti-Jewish crimes committed by OUN-UPA during the Second World War while he implies that his refusal is motivated by the responsibility for the Holodomor famine of the 1930s born by allegedly the largely Jewish Bolsheviks. "The community is discussing the situation and they understand that the mayor is balancing between anti-Semitism- he isn't crossing a red line with statements but saying borderline things that can be understood as antisemitic," community activist Igor Nechayev told The Jerusalem Post. While the Jews are not scared, Nechayev says, they are "wary" as "Svoboda has a lot of activists [and] fighters in region and [they] can be dangerous."[85]

President Petro Poroshenko has followed the lead of his predecessor Yushchenko in supporting the policy of building Ukrainian national identity based on the pro-Galician exclusivist myth that the Bandera, Shukhevych, Stetsko, the OUN and UPA were primarily or solely national liberationists and freedom fighters, not xenophobes or anti-Semities. In early 2015 his administration and the Rada restored Kiev's official recognition to the OUN-UPA first established by Yushchenko and repealed by Yanukovych. At the same time, Poroshenko at times has tried to have it both ways by acknowledging Ukrainian participation in the Holocaust, sparking divisions between the oligarchic and ultra-nationalist wings of the pro-Maidan camp. When asked by the Jerusalem Post about the decision, Poroshenko said the government was paying tribute to those who fought for Ukraine's national independence, adding: "Let's not try to find the black cat in the black room, especially if there is nothing there."[86]

In November 2015 residents of the western Ukrainian city of Uman unveiled a statue honoring Ivan Gonta and Maxim Zheleznyakov, leaders of a 1768 uprising against Poland and pogrom, which killed as many as 20,000-30,000 Jews. Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch Filaret blessed the monument at the unveiling ceremony. According to Vyacheslav Likhachev of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, Jewish groups in the country had put pressure on Filaret to make reference to the Jews killed in Uman during the ceremony, which he did not do. Built with funds donated by local businesses, the monument outraged the Jews of Uman, a once thriving Jewish community. Uman's economy rests in large part on tourism connected with the annual high-holiday pilgrimage to the grave of the hassidic master Rebbe Nachman, who requested that he be buried there to be close to the pogrom's martyrs. Russian Jewish Congress president Yuri Kanner charged that building such a memorial near the mass grave of the pogrom victims was "not just blasphemy [but] savagery" and "glorification of those whose hands are stained with blood." Eduard Dolinsky of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee blamed the project on the SP, which has also been accused of attacking a Jewish tent city in Uman immediately prior to Rosh Hashana in 2015 and fomenting tension between Jewish pilgrims and Ukrainian locals. He also castigated the silence of the government and civil society, noting: "No comment from the government or from civil society has been made about this. Everyone is calm and this is a shame."[87]

Poroshenko's alliance with the ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists facilitates such things as the spurt of Holocaust apologism and anti-Semitism that emerged in the wake of President Poroshenko's December 2015 visit to Israel. As part of Kiev's effort to induce Tel Aviv to abandon its neutral position on the Ukrainian civil war and Ukrainian-Russian conflict, Poroshenko in a speech to the Knesset asked for Israel's forgiveness of the participation of some Ukrainians in the Holocaust, though he avoided mention of the OUN and UPA, stating that "we must remember the negative events in history, in which collaborators helped the Nazis with the Final Solution. ... When Ukraine was established [in 1991], we asked for forgiveness, and I am doing it now, in the Knesset, before the children and grandchildren of the victims of the Holocaust... I am doing it before all citizens of Israel."[88]

The public relations gain that might have accrued to Kiev's benefit was erased within days when a video emerged of a member of Oleh Lyashko's ultra-nationalist Radical Party singing praise to Hitler and Lyashko himself then lashed out against Poroshenko's apology. The video showed former commander of the government-backed Luhansk-1 Battalion and Radical Party member Artyom Vitko sitting in the backseat of a car in camouflage fatigues singing a song by a Russian neo-Nazi band extolling the virtues of the Nazi dictator including the following verse: "Adolf Hitler, together with us, Adolf Hitler, in each of us, and an eagle with iron wings will help us at the right time." Vitko sang and saluted the camera as the car's sound system blared "Heil Hitler." Dr. Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center responded: "The sight of a member of the Ukrainian Parliament singing a song praising Hitler, underscores the extremely deep problem in today's Ukrainian democracy regarding the ongoing efforts in that country (and elsewhere throughout post-Communist Eastern Europe, especially in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Hungary) to rewrite the narrative of World War II and the Holocaust. ... The fact that the Ukrainian authorities honor groups which actively participated in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust and glorify their leaders sends a message that delegitimizes the accurate historical narrative, and paves the way for disgusting scenes like this one. The Ukrainian leadership should not feign surprise or astonishment, they're the ones at least partially responsible."[89]

Prior to Vitko's outburst, his party's leader, Oleh Lyashko denounced Poroshenko apology for Ukrainian complicity in the Holocaust, noting on his Facebook page: "This kind of humiliation of Ukrainians has not been recorded in our history yet. During a visit to Israel, President Poroshenko apologized for the 'Ukrainian participation in the Holocaust.' ... This is exactly situation if we would accuse Georgians and Jews in the Holodomor, appealing to the atrocities of Dzhugashvili, Beria, Kaganovich, etc." He added: "The Knesset has not recognized the Holodomor as the genocide of the Ukrainian people. That is a goal for Ukrainian authorities visiting the Holy Land rather than belittling Ukrainians [and] proclaiming inferiority of his people on the international level." Lyashko's comments, which echoed the historical Ukrainian nationalists's apologism for the Holocaust and remicriminations against Jews for responsibility in the Holodomor. In response, chairwoman of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel Colette Avital commented: "Even though we are not surprised by the comments of the radical leader, Oleh Lyashenko (sic), we are nonetheless shocked by the kind of strange and irrelevant comparisons he brings up and by his negation historical facts. By now even leaders like Mr. Lyashenko should understand that the tragedy which befell the Jewish people in Europe in general, in Ukraine in particular should be condemned by all, including by him." Ukrainian Chief Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich responded calling Lyashko a populist who says only "what he thinks people want to hear" and said the real disgrace comes not in apologizing but when "one cannot face up to history."[90]

Conclusion

Although much of Ukrainian ultra-nationalism today has moved from the ideational and ideological phase to concrete political action, including violence, none of the latter has been directed at Jews to this date. The sense is that this is in the offing, especially should these elements defeat the oligarchic authorities that be and their atomized democratic allies. As in the Arab 'Spring', the West-in particular America and its revolutionist ideology-is producing anything but the expected or at least wished for democratic outcome, posing the threat of political decay, further radicalization, and the possibility of an authoritarian or even totalitarian regime outcome.

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