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[OS] 2011-#214-Johnson's Russia List
Released on 2012-10-11 16:00 GMT
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Johnson's Russia List
29 November 2011
A World Security Institute Project
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In this issue
1. www.opendemocracy.net: Vadim Kononenko, Russia beyond 2012: the challenges of
the network state.
2. Interfax: Medvedev Denies Putin Will Install Authoritarian Regime.
3. Interfax: Russia Moves Towards Modern, Developed Political System - Medvedev.
4. Interfax: Medvedev suggests functionaries contest for "most idiotic decision"
5. www.russiatoday.com: Viral politics: Medvedev - Orc, Putin - Troll.
6. Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Putin's 'Simple Values' Highlighted at United Russia
Nomination 'Ceremony'
7. Trud: PUTIN 3.0. WHAT IS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA?
8. Kommersant: PROGRAMMED FOR MODERNIZATION. RUSSIAN POPULAR FRONT'S PROGRAMME
9. RBC Daily: NEW PUTIN'S FAMILIAR IMAGE. Vladimir Putin's new image bears a
suspicious resemblance to Josef Stalin's.
10. Interfax: Certain Forces in West Want to Prevent Putin's Re-election For
President - Parliamentarian Markov.
11. BBC Monitoring: Pundit says One Russia in disarray, Putin needs to reinvent
himself. (Gleb Pavlovskiy)
12. BBC Monitoring: Pundit says internet destabilizing Russia's political status
quo. (Yuliya Latynina)
13. Interfax: Russians Losing Protest Steam As Duma Election Draws Closer, Poll
14. ITAR-TASS: 649 international observers accredited to monitor parliamentary
vote in Russia.
15. Moscow Times: Electoral Mutiny in TV Ad Ban.
16. Russia Profile: The Vote of the Young. Young Voters Are United Against United
Russia, But Divided on All Else.
17. Moscow News: Dmitry Babich, A race of fear and irritation.
18. Moscow News: Yulia Ponomareva, Seeing no evil? (re nationalists)
19. Moscow News editorial: It's that 1913 feeling.
21. Moscow Times: Report: Lawyer Beaten to Death. (Sergei Magnitsky)
22. Interfax: Emigration Moods Exaggerated - Medvedev.
23. BBC Monitoring: Russians pin high hopes on emigrating to improve their lives,
talk show finds.
24. Moscow Times/Vedomosti: Emigration From Rublyovka Tangible.
25. Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin): Lana Peters. Stalin's daughter lived
in Wisconsin quietly.
26. Kommersant: Russian TV Expert Lysenko on Censorship, Television's Future.
(interview with Anatoliy Lysenko, the founder of VGTRK)
27. Interfax: Times of Negative Rhetoric Towards Business Gone - Medvedev.
28. ITAR-TASS: Medvedev says privatisation unleashes economy.
29. Moscow News: Return of the five year plan?
30. Moscow Times: Investment Estimated at $36Bln.
31. Interfax: Lavrov Protests Forcible Overthrow of Arab Regimes.
32. BBC Monitoring: Russian TV report condemns 'militants' in Syrian city.
33. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Leonid Radzikhovsky, The post-imperial syndrome.
("Foreign policy has gone almost unmentioned in the elections debates.")
34. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Expert Comments on Medvedev's Remarks on Russian Missile
Defense Stance. (Vyacheslav Nikonov)
35. ITAR-TASS: Duma wants reset between Russia and US to be linked to MD talks.
36. Moscow Times: Alexander Golts, Medvedev Mollifies the West.
37. Kommersant: 'Russia is underrepresented in Asia.' Editor-in-Chief of the
Russia in Global Affairs Magazine, Fyodor Lukyanov, talks to Kommersant's
correspondent Aleksandr Gabuyev about what role Russia plays in Asia.
38. www.russiatoday.com: Konstantin Kosachev, Togetherness: Russia's new national
39. Vedomosti: Commentary: Russia Must Choose Between West and China, Eurasian
Union 'Doomed.' (Konstantin Smirnov)
40. RIA Novosti: S. Ossetia Supreme Court annuls presidential elections.
41. Russia Profile: Waiting to Be President. A Tense Calm Hangs Over South
Ossetia as the Republic Awaits the Presidential Election Results.
November 28, 2011
Russia beyond 2012: the challenges of the network state
By Vadim Kononenko
Vadim Kononenko is a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International
In a Russia that is neither a traditional authoritarian regime run by hereditary
dynasty, nor a true democracy with power focused in official institutions, the
distribution of power is best understood as a web of unofficial networks. This,
explains Vadim Kononenko, is why the return of Putin to the presidency is more
important to the circles he patronises than to the man himself.
There are two things that strike any student of Russian government. The first is
the perpetual lack of order in the country and its politics. The second is the
clear gap between declared intents and outcomes; between rhetoric and practice.
This leads to many puzzling contradictions about the nature of political power
and governance in Russia. At any moment in its history the Russian state seems to
be at once omnipresent in society, while also and severely estranged from it;
strong and concentrated around the figure of the rule, while at the same time
fragmented and dispersed among powerful courtiers and their networks.
Despite the clear lack of order or efficient management, the Russian state has
historically proved itself viable enough to withstand enormous external and
internal pressures.
There have been two protracted internal conflicts in Chechnya in 1994 and 1999,
two major economic recessions in 1998 and 2008, as well as a series of
technological catastrophes, terrorist acts and other accidents, all of which have
been accompanied a shockingly high number of casualties and appallingly low
performance on the part of the state institutions.
How is it that the Russian government managed to maintain legitimacy and ensure
its survival amidst such turmoil?
Network-ization of the state
The answer to this question is often presented as the direct consequence of
Vladmir Putin's policy position of strengthening the state - the imposition of a
so-called "power vertical". Of course, the prevailing concern at the end of
Yeltsin's 1990s was indeed the fragility of the Russian state, which was
over-dependent on a group of well-placed oligarchs. Putin was reasonably
successful in restoring the authority of the state over these magnates.
However, while under Putin the state has indeed been re-centralized and Russia
has regained sovereign power, the actual qualities of the state, the logic and
rationality of policy-making changed, and in a very peculiar way. Power returned
to state offices from corporate ones, but it was brought back by personal,
informal networks. These are not the same oligarchic clans which were calling
shots in the 1990s, but rather elite groups which are now located within the
state itself. This, once again, makes the border between the public and private
impossible to draw in Russia. Furthermore, it makes it difficult to distinguish
the state from the ruling networks because during the time they have been
enjoying direct access to power, the ruling groups have begun to identify
themselves with the state, which acts as their protector.
Russia's ruling groups can be region-based (and the main example of this is the
infamous "St Petersburg group", which emerged around Putin and became source of
many functionaries and key officials in the top of state administration). More
often, however, they are based on personal loyalty to a patron and informal
exchange of information and resources. The most influential groups are formed in
strategic sectors of the economy: natural resources (e.g. those networks
associated with the state gas giant Gazprom or the state oil company Rosneft),
the military-industrial sector, and transport and communications.
What you see in Russia is a sort of symbiosis between such informal groups and
the formal institutions of the state. Elite groups foster their own special
interests by infiltrating institutions in effect merging with the state while
at the same time being able to maintain their own position as unaccountable to
these institutions. The state is thus chronically weak and subordinate to the
networks, yet kept afloat as a sort of institutional carcass that the networks
A sustainable system?
So far, these structures have proved unusually durable. Rumours that some
networks were gravitating towards an alternative leader in President Medvedev
have, for example, been shown to be highly exaggerated. Throughout the course of
the Medvedev term, Putin remained the unquestioned leader of the networks in
power; Medvedev himself professed personal loyalty to Putin, preferring to
identify himself as a member of the ruling network rather than its leader. By the
same logic, Putin's return to the presidency can be interpreted not as a move to
secure his position as the supreme arbiter of elite networks (he would be able to
exert his enormous influence from any office of state administration), but rather
to strengthen both the authority of the presidency and his own popularity with
the Russian people.
That said, both Russia's ruling networks and their leader will face unusual
pressures in the months and years ahead. First, the economic development and the
long-lasting effect of the financial crisis of 2009 (coupled with the ongoing
recession in the west) will be a major external source of insecurity. According
to government reports, there are enough budgetary resources to sustain the
current level of expenditure, but it is absolutely insufficient to finance
planned modernisation reforms in infrastructure, energy efficiency, healthcare
and education. It is also obvious that the regions are developing at greatly
different rates and it will be difficult to manage the growing gap between the
regions and the federal centre.
The other challenge lies in legitimacy. There has been always a discrepancy
between image and reality, and rhetoric of the strong independent state and
actual policies reflecting special interests of the networks. The favourable
economic development of the past decade made this discrepancy easy to conceal, in
particular when compared to the real and painful decline in the 1990s. Hence the
importance of big "national projects" such as the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and the
Skolkovo high-tech business area in the Moscow region. However, if the economy is
not going to develop fast and the criticism towards the system increases, the
ruling networks will have to seek legitimacy elsewhere. This is possible for
example through integration projects with other ex-Soviet states but will again
require significant financial resources.
Challenges from within
Lastly, there is the challenge of how the networks renew themselves, and how new
members are promoted to leading positions. Because such networks are very tight
and opaque, it is difficult to see new ideas and fresh faces emerging in this
kind of system. In more authoritarian and isolationist systems, members of the
ruling network renew themselves through internal purges and infighting. In
clan-based societies, ruling networks are renewed through hereditary succession.
In democracies, elite networks are renewed through free and fair elections and
party competition.
In the Russian system, none of these options seem to be fully feasible, although
all take place to a limited extent. There has been some infighting between
competing members of the ruling networks (as shown in the ousting of former
Moscow mayor Luzhkov), yet this competition is neither so common nor so pervasive
as to enable new, younger members to force their way through. Meanwhile there are
indeed signs of a new "aristocracy", with many members of the elite linked
through their children's marriages, but it is not yet clear whether the heirs,
who spend a great deal of their time abroad, will have the same hunger for power
as the parents. Finally, the political competition is so limited that promotion
through political institutions such as the United Russia party is not guaranteed
for newcomers, even those with the right connections.
Russia: ahead of the network curve?
Interestingly, Russia is not the only state that has evolved into a network
state. Ever since Michel Foucault suggested that modern political power has less
to do with domination and control than with managing and manipulating, many
commentators have predicted the decline of the institutionalised, formal state
and the emergence of informal network-based politics around the world. Niall
Ferguson used a recent issue of Prospect magazine to suggest networks represent a
more effective form of governance than the top-down approaches of the traditional
Russia, in its typically contradictory fashion, combines traditional statist
approaches to power and the latest political technologies of network governance.
Ultimately, the future of Putin's network and with it the future of the Russian
state itself depends on how effectively it is able, over the next six years, to
address the economic and political challenges and, above all, the challenge of
its own internal renewal.
[return to Contents]
Medvedev Denies Putin Will Install Authoritarian Regime
YEKATERINBURG, Russia. Nov 28 (Interfax) - President Dmitry Medvedev has
dismissed allegations that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who will run for
president in 2012, is taking Russia into an authoritarian era.
"It's not serious to say that some kind of authoritarian regime has taken shape
that has spread far and wide and is embodied by the presidential candidate who
has been put forward by United Russia, because there is no such trend," Medvedev
told reporters on Monday.
Nor is it true, the president argued, that Russia's political future is
determined for the next 12 years.
"People will make the final assessment on December 4," he said in reference to
elections for the State Duma, which has five-year terms. "If the United Russia
candidate, Vladimir Putin, gets a chance to govern the state, it will be for six
years, and no one knows what will come after that," Medvedev said.
"Over the past 12 years various kinds of things have been happening in the
country," Medvedev said. "Some were absolutely necessary - without them the
country would simply have fallen apart," he said, mentioning anti-terrorism
efforts and measures to strengthen government. "There have been some extremes,
but it was absolutely correct."
"For the past 12 years we have been able to bring Russia to a state that is
fundamentally different from what was the case in the 90s," Medvedev said. It has
become a top league country, a country that is reckoned with not only because it
possesses missiles but also because it is a country where wages and pensions are
"There has been no abandonment of the rights and freedoms established by the
Constitution," Medvedev said.
"Some of the democratic institutions have changed," he said, citing the
replacement of regional gubernatorial elections with a system where governors are
appointed by the president.
"Some people consider this to be correct, others don't, but it doesn't mean that
constitutional principles were trampled upon," Medvedev said.
There have been suspicions that in some respects control has been tightened too
much, he said. "But the state system in itself has not undergone any radical
changes," Medvedev said.
As for the United Russia party, "if it receives the majority (of votes in the
December 4 elections), it will represent majority interests, but if its policy
differs from the ideas of the majority, it will lose its majority support," he
He also dismissed the point that United Russia has held power for too long.
"I can't see it as a disaster that there is a political force that can win
elections only three times in a row," Medvedev said.
In Germany, the Christian Democrats were in power for about 20 years. In Britain,
the Conservative Party had been at the helm for 18 years before Labour leader
Tony Blair won the 1997 general election. "Nobody said this was against the
trend," Medvedev said. "So there's no tragedy about that."
[return to Contents]
Russia Moves Towards Modern, Developed Political System - Medvedev
YEKATERINBURG. Nov 28 (Interfax) - Russia has a stronger and more developed
political system now than it had in the 1990s, President Dmitry Medvedev told
reporters from the Urals Federal District on Monday.
"I think that our party system has become stronger in recent years. It's not just
about United Russia, which is the strongest and largest party that makes
political weather, but in general," he said.
The existing political parties have their own programs, structures, financial
sources and dedicated supporters, Medvedev explained.
"This does not mean they will exist forever... ... In my opinion, various flows
will still be taking place inside our political system anyway: the left will get
stronger, the right will restructure themselves, the center, in this case United
Russia, will also undergo some changes... ... Everything changes in this life,"
the president said.
He stressed that the existing party system "is more developed than in the middle
or the end of the 1990s".
Russia has parties with a pronounced ideological component as the Communists, for
example, whose supporters vote for party ideology, rather than party leaders,
Medvedev said. He added that "the same could be said about Right Cause".
"I think that the existence of parties associated with the left flank or the
right flank or the center will still matter to us for a long time in the future.
Perhaps it will not be so in a hundred or fifty years, but today it still isn't
our choice", Medvedev concluded.
[return to Contents]
Medvedev suggests functionaries contest for "most idiotic decision"
YEKATERINBURG, November 29 (Itar-Tass) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has
proposed to hold a national contest for "the most idiotic administrative
During the meeting with representatives of small businesses and United Russia
party activists, the president expressed the hope that it would help in the fight
with functionaries who hamper the development of entrepreneurship activities.
"There is an idea regarding administrative regulations, various "interesting"
administrative rules that hamper business development."
"It seems to me another contest may be held in our country for the most foolish
administrative regulations or the most idiotic administrative decision," he said.
Medvedev suggested the participants in the meeting should nominate candidates
from functionaries and bureaucrats for the prizes.
A contest commission may be formed for the purpose, he added.
[return to Contents]
November 29, 2011
Viral politics: Medvedev - Orc, Putin - Troll
Politics may not be top-of-mind among most young voters, but some are turning
popular pastimes into political playgrounds, attracting attention from their
Russia's two main political figures have been set against an entirely different
backdrop from the battlefield of top-level politics.
Young cartoonist Sergey Kalenik sees them battling it out in the fictional realm
of The World of Warcraft.
"I cast Medvedev as an Orc. Putin plays the Troll. The personalities of the two
leaders excellently match their Warcraft characters. Putin is tough and
aggressive. Medvedev is calm, quiet and clever, he is brutal although he looks
very much like an intellectual," says Sergey.
The online fantasy role-play game is hugely popular in Russia, players here
making up the lion's share of the 10 million subscribers worldwide. Plenty of
potential fans for the comic book adventures of the president and the PM.
There are not too many people who would take being depicted as one of these guys
as a compliment, but the man at the top seems happy with his Orc persona.
"President Medvedev laughed sincerely when he saw my comic. I think he is going
to read it to the end. Or he is going to give it to his son, who also plays
Warcraft. I think he would be happy to learn that a comic starring his father has
been made in Warcraft," Sergey says.
From the gruesome to the glamorous, both Medvedev and Putin have drawn unusual
fan groups in the past.
"Medvedev's Girls" and "Putin's Army", both collectives of young attractive
women, have made headlines around the world.
And one rally this summer literally stopped traffic in the Russian capital.
"Our main goal is to support Medvedev's initiatives, and to inform the general
public, especially young people, about them. Recently we attended a meeting with
Medvedev, and our girls' dream came true we got to kiss our President," says
Alisa Meshcheryakova, the head of "Medvedev's Girls".
These groups have come under attack from some political experts, who say a lack
of policy is being hidden behind pretty faces.
"These girls are one way of entertaining people. Obviously they do not raise
serious political issues and they do not appeal to the intellect of the voters.
But they keep them entertained," David Satter from Johns Hopkins University says.
In response, the girls say they are sincere in their admiration for Russia's
political big guns.
"Unfortunately, people do not seem to believe that anyone could do something like
that from their heart. We are working on breaking this stereotype, and hopefully
we are succeeding in this work," Alisa Meshcheryakova says.
[return to Contents]
Putin's 'Simple Values' Highlighted at United Russia Nomination 'Ceremony'
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
November 28, 2011
Article by Aleksandra Samarina and Aleksey Gorbachev: "Vladimir Putin's Simple
Values. Future President Explains Why People Should Vote for United Russia"
Yesterday (27 November) Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as expected, was
officially nominated as presidential candidate by the United Russia party. Putin
accepted the proposal "with gratitude." Thus, for the first time Putin will not
be collecting 2 million signatures in his support. The nomination procedure was
surrounded by the utmost ceremony -- more than 11,000 people, including 1,500
journalists, gathered at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Experts emphasize the
electoral nature of the event and doubt its effectiveness.
The essence of the event was well known, the finale of the nomination was well
understood back on 24 September, and the organizers of the event faced a
difficult task: to inject fresh blood into a subject that had been announced at
the previous session of the (United Russia party) congress. The total absence of
suspense or even any hint of it affected the journalists' work: NTV anchor
Vladimir Kondratyev, previewing Dmitriy Medvedev's speech, made a slip of the
tongue, calling him prime minister.
Serious efforts were made to whip up the air of ceremony. A crowd of many
thousands filled the stadium to bursting point. Flags and pennants of various
sizes fluttered above their heads. Young people chanted, in places determined by
the script, two types of slogan: "People -- Medvedev -- Putin" and simply
The excitement reached its pinnacle when Medvedev and Putin appeared among the
participants. The top people were accompanied by Boris Gryzlov, State Duma
speaker and chairman of the party's Higher Council, who at a certain point
modestly separated himself from the tandem. The president and the prime minister
merged into the ranks of the delegates, taking seats in the stalls among lucky
participants in the event.
Movie director Stanislav Govorukhin was entrusted with nominating Putin as
candidate. He announced that "Russia needs a leader who is bold, strong,
intelligent, capable not only of defending citizens' rights and freedoms but also
of reminding everyone of their duties and making them fulfill those duties, first
and foremost the most sacred duty -- to observe the laws of the Russian
Federation." "We have such a person -- it is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,"
Govorukhin uttered the most important words. After him, the speeches went on for
a long time, from representatives of business, pensioners, women, and other
categories of Russian citizens who wholly shared the United Russia party's view
of this issue.
But its best campaigner and propagandist was President Dmitriy Medvedev. His
speech was structured according to all the laws of the orator's art. For
instance, several times he broke off the narrative with calls to vote for United
Russia. And it was clear that he was not addressing the auditorium, where there
was nobody who needed persuading, but exclusively the television viewers. "I have
had the good fortune to become head of the most responsible political force in
the country," the head of state said. He could have added: "to become head of the
(election) list." Or: "to become head in the elections." But he did not. Medvedev
was forceful, confident in himself and in the party of which he has "become
Vladimir Putin spoke in a lower tone: "...And of course I accept this proposal
with gratitude." He announced that the foundations of the state have been built
and now it is necessary to "build a strong, rich, prosperous Russia -- the Russia
of the 21st century -- on those foundations." To citizens who have forgotten
neither the pompous CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) congresses nor the
phased building of socialism (first the foundations, then developed (socialism),
and then (socialism) "with a human face") may have observed the similarity of
Putin has learned the main lesson of the orator's art even better than Medvedev.
At the right moment he switched from a moderate tone to a tough one, demanding
more energy from the audience chanting the slogan: "I need to hear the entire
auditorium! Come on, one more time!"
And he threw a punch, showing how one should focus on the main direction of the
Then there came the most important message to society from yesterday's event,
showing what slogan Putin's presidential campaign will take place under. The
prime minister enumerated the "simple values" that he will place first: truth,
dignity, and justice. With the emphasis on the last: "The main issue is to ensure
justice." And he announced that taxes on the rich will be increased.
It should be recalled that this is the first time Putin has been nominated
without collecting 2 million signatures. Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Institute
of Problems of Globalization, has his own explanation of the reasons for what has
happened: "The collection of signatures is a powerful propaganda event. It is
implicit that the contender should tell people about his achievements. But what
can United Russia's signature collectors tell people if the party is being
criticized at local level? There is a danger that along with 2 million signatures
they will collect 20 million protests... And then this procedure would act as
counterpropaganda for the party and for the future president."
The expert believes that the nomination is an important means for United Russia
to strengthen its prestige ahead of the elections. After all, the prime
minister's 70% popularity rating (according to the latest Levada Center figures)
considerably exceeds the modest figures of the party of power (officially 39%
across the country). Delyagin attributes Putin's high personal rating to the fact
that there is no alternative to the prime minister: "This is a diagnosis of the
relationship between the authorities and society. Society lives according to this
principle -- it will all be okay when you get used to it, leave us alone, we have
our own concerns..." Delyagin considers this situation dangerous -- the gulf
between society and the authorities could result in the growth of radical
Vladislav Inozemtsev, director of the Center for the Study of the Post-Industrial
Society, attributes the lavish nature of the event at Luzhniki to the fact that
Vladimir Putin must first and foremost confirm his loyalty to the party: "(He
must) emphasize that the party is not going anywhere, that it remains the central
force of the power hierarchy, that he is not trying to make distinctions between
himself and the party." In the view of Nezavisimaya Gazeta 's interlocutor Putin
is doing everything to emphasize continuity in the management of United Russia:
"He wants to demonstrate that those who believe that Medvedev is head of the
party and he (Putin) is a nonparty person are mistaken. Citizens should form the
impression that Putin and United Russia are one and the same thing. That will
support the United Russians ahead of the elections."
The expert attaches no great significance to the president's declared intention
of relying on the People's Front and its program: "The ONF (All-Russia People's
Front), in my view, was an artificial formation from the outset. I do not really
understand how it will be used. As far as the ONF program is concerned, it has
not been used in the elections... Nobody has seen it. It is simply that Putin
never abandons his own initiatives, and this organization will exist formally for
a certain time. But United Russia can achieve success without it."
Boris Makarenko, head of the directorate for sociopolitical problems of
development at the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR), notes that the
collection of signatures was rejected by the prime minister for another reason:
"Since Medvedev was nominated by United Russia, Putin could not do otherwise.
Because that step would have looked like an expression of lack of confidence in
the United Russians. And, moreover, a week before voting day." "It would have
been possible not to put Medvedev at the head of the list this year, it would
have been possible to hold the nomination of the presidential candidate after the
parliamentary elections... But the structure was honed on the premise that 'Putin
and the party are one.' And today they have no alternative," Nezavisimaya Gazeta
's interlocutor points out.
There were unprecedented security measures at the United Russia Congress.
Journalists were allowed in only after a careful study of the photograph on their
badge, and your Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent was even asked to take a trial
photo with the camera that was in her bag: "That's right!"
Before the congress your Nezavisimaya Gazeta correspondent was able to talk with
a few representatives of Putin's vertical power hierarchy.
Kogan Oblast Governor Oleg Bogomolov informed Nezavisimaya Gazeta 's
correspondent: "From the long-term viewpoint, today the party is making the right
choice." He expressed confidence that 10 years with Putin will not bring the
country to yet another stagnation, with a nod in the direction of the general
secretaries in the Soviet Union: "Today there is opposition and it is gaining
strength." It would be good if it was constructive and not unfounded, was the
governor's dream.
Vologda Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalev told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that
everyone who is talking about stagnation is lying. Changeability of the
authorities should exist, the governor acknowledged, but only through evolution.
"Russia is in an unstable position and any sharp movement could plunge us back
into the 1990s," Pozgalev warned, explaining that Russia's future is the
two-party system. The governor was unable to say which will be the second party
if United Russia is the first.
[return to Contents]
November 29, 2011
Author: Andrei Kompaneyets
[Political scientists and economists expect nothing new from Putin the
United Russia nominated Vladimir Putin for president. Trud
approached several political scientists for comments on what they
expected from and during Putin's third term of office.
Shall anything new be expected from Putin? Yes and no. As always,
the answers will encourage some people and disappoint others.
Political Information Center Director General Aleksei Mukhin
said that he expected Putin's team to launch a new project, New
Putin, in the course of the presidential campaign. The project in
question would define the future president's policy.
Mukhin said, "I'm nearly certain that Putin will actively
promote political and economic integration in the post-Soviet
zone. The matter concerns the Customs and Eurasian unions, of
The premier will probably abandon leadership in the ruling
party and let the incumbent president take over. "As for the
important administrative decisions, I reckon that Putin will have
something like a ministry for ethnic affairs established."
Mukhin said as well that he expected Putin to continue
Medvedev's initiatives regarding modernization and innovations. He
explained, "Everyone seems to think for some reason that
modernization of economy is something invented by Medvedev. It is
not. Putin was promoting economic modernization during the last
two years of his second term of office. I'm sure that he will
continue this work when he is back at the Kremlin."
Yevgeny Minchenko of the International Institute of Political
Expertise also mentioned an emphasis on integration within the
Commonwealth. "There will be no dramatic changes in the domestic
policy... but Putin's economic program will be quite serious. I
dare say that it will be the best thought-out part of his whole
policy," said Minchenko.
Aleksei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Center reckoned
that some changes would take place indeed but said that it would
be social stagnation all the same. "Try as I might, I do not see
Putin initiating or carrying out political reforms. It is going to
be stagnation."
Neither did Malashenko entertain any illusions in connection
with the economic policy of the future president. "Had Putin been
of the mind to initiate economic reforms, he would have done so a
decade ago. So, abandon all hope..."
On the other hand, Malashenko called the reforms a must and
said that Putin certainly knew how to introduce painful but
necessary changes.
Economist Yevgeny Yasin subscribed to the opinion that
Putin's presidency was going to bring stagnation with it. "The
premier's latest statements make it absolutely clear I think that
he does not intend to change anything. Maintenance of the status
quo is all he cares about," said Yasin.
Yasin questioned the premise that Russia was on the threshold
of any serious changes. He said, "It was Putin who set up the
political and economic system we have in Russia these days. This
system suits him perfectly. Why would he want to change anything?"
Mukhin said that Russia's foreign policy under Putin was
going to resemble that of Medvedev's. "Sure, Putin said in his
time that foreign policy was the president's prerogative but that
was only his way of being polite. It is common knowledge that he
went on defining the nature of Russia's relations with foreign
[return to Contents]
November 29, 2011
Author: Victor Khamrayev
[Candidate for president Vladimir Putin presented his programme.]
Here is the gist of the programme Vladimir Putin is using in his
presidential campaign: Russia will be a united and strong country,
one where every person is guaranteed a job and worthy life and
where "freedom is based on justice". The opposition already
dismissed Putin's programme as "another bunch of promises, made
but never kept." Experts suggested that even its own authors would
forget all about the programme right after the election in March
United Russia had a programme drawn for it even before
nominating Putin for president. The document was drawn by the
Institute of Socioeconomic and Political Studies founded in May
2011 in order to draw a programme for the Russian Popular Front
(RPF). Nearly 600 experts working day and night produced by late
September a document 135 pages thick. Titled "Popular Programme",
it generated within the ruling party the feeling that it was ready
for election of the president.
As a matter of fact, candidate Putin's presidential programme
appeared from the same source. In fact, the two documents have a
lot in common. Like the RPF's "Popular Programme", Putin's begins
with "results of the decade" (they include triumph over separatism
and other legacy of the rampant 1990s). Counting on "support from
the RPF and society", Putin the candidate now intends to get down
to modernization of the country, resolute and dramatic. Mention is
made of the importance attached to "spirituality and unity of the
Russian people" - and of the necessity to defend them in the
media. (No ways and means of this defense are suggested though.)
The document called individual development "the primary
value" and promised "worthy and decent lives" to citizens of "the
great country". Family, health care, healthy way of life, public
education, pays and pensions, tariffs, and so on were
ritualistically mentioned in the document. Mention was also made
of the free choice "based on justice" and of the necessity of
effective public control over the powers-that-be. All of that was
to be based on the economy modernized on the basis of innovations
so that productivity of labor in it would double within the next
decade. Once again, mention was made of the plans to create 25
million jobs over the two decades that followed.
"That's a fine bourgeois program," said Mikhail Rogozhnikov,
Institute of Social Projects Assistant Director General. "What
makes it bourgeois are the theses on the priority of freedom,
family values, private property and its protection, reduction of
the repressive nature of law enforcement agencies...
Unfortunately, not a word is said anywhere in the programme on the
mechanisms its implementation will require." Rogozhnikov reckoned
that the three remaining months would be used for "promotion" of
these mechanisms.
Yevgeny Gontmakher of the Institute of Contemporary
Development said, "This programme is... but a promise of a better
life. An empty promise, for that matter. The way I see it, a
candidate for president ought to give a picture of the future
Russia in his programme... of how he perceived this future Russia.
And that requires more than a reference to a strong or united
Sergei Belanovsky of the Center of Strategic Studies admitted
that Putin's election programme posted on the web site of the
ruling party reminded him of the documents of congresses or
plenums of the erstwhile CPSU. He said, "The documents I'm talking
about were meant for bureaucrats and functionaries only. They were
never meant to persuade anyone of anything. That's why people
never read them... Neither will they be reading this programme
now. In fact, even authors of the programme will forget about it
right after the election."
Spokesmen for political parties of the opposition suggested
that even United Russia was bound to forget all about this
programme. Dmitry Novikov, Secretary i/c ideology of the Central
Committee of the CPRF, recalled that a war on corruption had been
promised society in 2007 and 2008 too. And yet, the regime and
United Russia never ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption
in full (even though the CPRF faction had submitted the necessary
draft law in spring, as Novikov could not help mentioning).
LDPR faction deputy leader Maxim Rokhmistrov said, "United
Russia promised before the previous election that tariffs in the
communal and housing sphere would go down. Well, you know what?
They've been showing a 30% rise annually."
Oksana Dmitriyeva of Fair Russia said that reading United
Russia programmes was a waste of time in any event. "After all, we
all know their candidate and what is to be expected from him."
Yuri Shuvalov, Assistant Secretary of the Presidium of the
General Council of United Russia, said that the convention had
adopted "the draft programme" and that last minute corrections
were introduced in it these days. Shuvalov said that the final
draft would be made public "in a matter of days".
[return to Contents]
RBC Daily
November 29, 2011
Vladimir Putin's new image bears a suspicious resemblance to Josef Stalin's
Author: Svetlana Makunina
Premier Vladimir Putin's speech at United Russia convention
revealed the future mode of his performance as the president.
Image of Josef Stalin as an efficient manager will be used during
the presidential race scheduled to culminate in election in March
2012. Political scientists believe that it will enable Putin to
kill two birds with one stone. He will retain the image of a
strong ruler and even probably get some votes from the Communists
whose leader Gennadi Zyuganov will be running for president too.
Putin's speech at United Russia convention ended in the
phrase "The truth is with us! Victory will be ours!" His speech-
writers clearly based it on one of Stalin's most famous appeals to
the Soviet people made at noon on June 22, 1941, the day the Great
Patriotic War had begun.
Sociologists compliment Putin's image-makers on a successful
choice of a leader for their patron to emulate. More and more
Russians tend to praise Stalin and his role in history. The number
of the Russians who call Stalin's role in history positive rose
from 15% to 26% in several short years. The number of those who
think differently dropped from 33% to 24%. Most respondents
meanwhile (33%) call Stalin's role controversial. (Results of the
opinion poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research
Center in April 2011.)
Levada-Center sociologists discovered in October 2011 that
most Russians (42%) long for a heavy hand. Twenty-nine percent
respondents said that there certainly occurred situations when the
ruler had to invoke all his powers. Only 22% denounced rule with a
heavy hand in principle.
Undeniably controversial, Stalin does appeal to voters from
different categories. The Russians aged 35-44 both praise him for
what he did (42%) and condemn him for it (again, 42%). Up to 40%
elderly respondents and 41% CPRF followers believe that Stalin was
the kind of leader the country needed then. These are the people
whose votes Putin hopes to poll, considering that Zyuganov will be
running for president too. On the other hand, 28% United Russia
followers and activists called Stalin a negative influence and
Putin had better remember it.
So, Putin's image will keep developing and showing the traits
of the father of the nation, so that everything is more or less
clear where he is concerned. No so Dmitry Medvedev whose image
raises new and new questions. Addressing the United Russia
convention, the going president used the slogan "The truth is the
power" that belonged to the Right Cause party. Aleksei Mukhin of
the Political Information Center said, "Well, the premise is
correct, and the slogan is popular even though its author [Mikhail
Prokhorov - RBC Daily] is gone from politics, probably for good."
In any event, this lack of certainty is playing into Putin's
hands. "People are dissatisfied with the economic situation.
Nobody knows what to expect in the future. The situation being
what it is, most Russians believes that a strong and resolute
ruler will come in handy," said Denis Volkov of the Levada-Center.
"And they will welcome one, as long as their privacy is not
violated. People tend to react violently to it."
[return to Contents]
Certain Forces in West Want to Prevent Putin's Re-election For President -
Parliamentarian Markov
MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) - The statement made by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin on the futility of outside attempts to influence the election campaign in
Russia is a warning to political forces in the West, which are trying to carry
out an "orange revolution scenario" in Russia, Sergei Markov, a State Duma deputy
and director of the Institute of Political Research, said.
"Essentially, it's Putin's response to the attempts made by some forces in the
West to carry out the 'orange' scenario in Russia. Of course, these forces
understand that an orange revolution is impossible in Russia because there is no
candidate for that. For this reason, foreign centers are recruiting those whom
Putin has called grant recipients," Markov told Interfax on Sunday.
The expert said the main purpose of such activities is to gradually create a
foundation for "an orange revolution."
"The main dream of those who give grants is to keep Putin from becoming president
again," the expert said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has recently said that attempts to
influence the outcome of the Russian election campaign from abroad will fail.
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Pundit says One Russia in disarray, Putin needs to reinvent himself
Ekho Moskvy Radio
November 26, 2011
Gleb Pavlovskiy, the president of the Effective Policy foundation, has said that
the current electoral campaign has highlighted that the ruling One Russia (United
Russia) party was in a state of flux and that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would
need to reinvent himself to ensure a successful term as president. He was
speaking to host Mikhail Barshchevskiy on editorially-independent Ekho Moskvy
radio on 26 November, as a studio guest in the regular weekly feature Dura Lex.
On the existing opposition
Speaking about voters choosing between parliamentary opposition parties,
Pavlovskiy said: "Both CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and LDPR
(Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) are One Russia's partners of sorts, this has
to be borne in mind. But they are partners with differing qualities, with diverse
functions: LDPR sort of buys, scoops up and sells off, in inverted commas of
course, the electorate that is inclined towards nationalism - in the good sense
of this word - a part of the middle class. Incidentally, these are not
necessarily marginal elements, there is small business there too. CPRF does the
same thing with the partially leftist social protest (segment), with those who
would vote against all, maybe. So here is this protesting (segment), in rough
terms, this is also a protest electorate. And it too buys it and sells it,
without trying to turn this into a form of government."
Contemplating non-parliamentary opposition candidates, Barshchevskiy conceded
that Yabloko and its ticket top Grigoriy Yavlinskiy had been omitted from their
discussion. This, Pavlovskiy said, was Yabloko's biggest problem: "Everyone has
forgotten. Even as a joke, no one gives him (Yavlinskiy) a second thought - this
is a tragedy, in essence."
On the current election campaign
Pavlovskiy saw that One Russia had erred in alienating direct ways for people to
exercise political influence upon it: "One Russia is partially at fault for not
establishing some sort of backup ways to influence itself when it is at a loss.
In my view, it is, judging by the electoral campaign, at a kind of loss - there
is this sort of flaccid electoral campaign. But I think there are no longer
party-based ways to influence this election".
Extending this notion, Pavlovskiy highlighted the denial of registration for the
People's Freedom Party, Parnas, as a mistake: "Our authorities constantly
underestimate, particularly in recent years, the colour factor - a campaign has
to be multi-coloured." Picking up on this idea, Barshchevskiy highlighted that
the "the electoral campaign and the elections have to be interesting because
elections are one of the ways to let off steam".
BOTh Barshchevskiy and Pavlovskiy agreed that there can be very sharp and
dissenting criticism of the current policies pursued by One Russia within the
ranks, behind closed doors. However, Pavlovskiy said that such discussions "carry
no political weight. These are discussions in offices, behind the scenes and they
can be extremely liberal, but they are working conversations. These are not
debates, you are not accountable for them. You can express a very radical
position in an office - I can say this for sure - but you do not have any
political responsibility for this, this is a working moment."
On Putin
Moving on to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in his capacity as the next Russian
president, Pavlovskiy recalled that the origin of Putin's legitimacy in the eyes
of most people in the country originally was that he was very much the people's
choice ten years ago, so notwithstanding the absence of significant political and
administrative clout, he was able to bend governors to him, since the governor's
"voter chose Putin and they could not say anything against Putin".
Barshchevskiy then asked about whether the current political strategy in the
grander scheme of things was not about fighting against Putin, but fighting for
Putin: "I don't mean fighting for Putin in the sense of fighting for his victory,
but fighting for influence over him. To fight for his ideology and his views, in
this sense fight 'for' Putin, to get him on your side." Pavlovskiy said: "That
was last decade. Today there is a need, I think, for Putin to open an internal
battle front himself, to think about what is being done correctly and what is
not. He cannot be a contact point for different forces. We can see that besides
everything else, it does not lead to a growth in his (popularity) rating."
Pavlovskiy continued: "I really believe in his inner potential - he is a real
tilting doll (Rus: Vanka-vstanka). I have seen him cross frontiers on numerous
occasions for which there were no ostensible reasons. Yes, he conquered heights,
he is at a great height right now. Only he can conquer it. I will repeat that he
is pulling himself together, he is taking a long time to think this through. If
there is no new Putin, then I fear it will be a very low-spirited and most
probably largely unsuccessful presidency. There is no path of inertia."
On crises
Pavlovskiy expressed the view that the incumbent Russian authorities are
particularly good in crisis situations: "In a certain sense, one can point to the
fact that our authorities emerged in a crisis as one of the stronger points -
let's not forget, they did not come about just because, but from a series of the
toughest crises. This is one of the few things that they know how to handle. In
fact, they feel more comfortable during crisis times."
At the same time, he stressed the significance of a crisis inside the authorities
and also that "we have a communications crisis today. We have a crisis inside the
system of political communication. Incidentally, this takes us back to the issue
of a Big Government. And if this project has serious strategic significance,
rather than just to attach the Public Chamber to the government in some new way,
it should be about resolving communication problems. To triangulate the
authorities, the political class and the population, rather than just the
authorities the people."
In this sense, Pavlovskiy saw that a Dmitriy Medvedev-led government would be
faced with major challenges: "His (Medvedev's) tasks may be more difficult than
for Prime Minister Putin during the crisis. Because today the public is lost, it
sees no prospects. Where are we heading? Obviously, there was a global crisis, we
got through it, now what? Where are we going now? What are we building? There is
currently no clear political proposal. On the part of the authorities, the part
of the ruling party, he will have to start this from scratch."
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Pundit says internet destabilizing Russia's political status quo
Ekho Moskvy Radio
November 26, 2011
The flurry of on-line activity surrounding One Russia (United Russia) and Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin's recent public appearances has become a major factor
that undermines the political status quo that has been established over the past
11 years and casts serious doubts onto the plausibility of a peaceful transfer of
power in the country, pundit Yuliya Latynina said on Kod Dostupa, her regular
slot on Gazprom-owned, editorially-independent Ekho Moskvy radio, on 26 November.
Authorities vs the internet
According to Latynina, the internet's growing significance as a mass media outlet
makes the current leadership's decisions look "unproductive". This was
highlighted by the "the decision to fob Putin off instead of (mixed martial arts
champion Fedor) Yemelyanenko on fans" at the 21 November fight when Putin's
post-fight speech was accompanied by persistent booing from the audience.
"It is not just about Putin being booed. It is rather about the situation
changing drastically in the country, literally before our eyes, for several
months now. During the 10 previous years it (the situation) was changing only for
the worse, the vector was negative, there was less freedom, more arbitrariness.
And for the past few months, the situation in some ways has changed dramatically.
Not only Putin was heckled," she said. She then recalled a number of popular
music events when performers had to apologize to the audience following One
Russia representatives publicly attributing said events to the party's
"The internet is a qualitatively new environment," the journalist said, adding
that "either the regime will destroy the internet or the internet will destroy
the regime". Recent high-profile stories - the jailing of Russian pilots in
Tajikistan, car accidents involving high-ranking officials, protests in defence
of the Khimki forest - have generated a major response from bloggers, which made
a certain impact on how the said stories developed. "For 11 years, the news was
only what was shown on TV. The rest was commentary. Now the situation has started
to change, with news being what is happening on-line," Latynina said.
Destabilizing factors on the rise
The journalist outlined four factors that underpin the stability of the incumbent
authorities, with high oil prices, which allow "to fill all gaps", being the most
important. Second is a shortage of young people, followed by policies that
encourage emigration for people seeking "freedom and independence" and the
continued propagation of the notion that protesting is not a means of solving
However, there exist even more factors gradually disrupting the existing
government order. Corruption, nationalism, Internet, public opinion - "in Russia
it's becoming fashionable to despise the regime" - are among the destabilizing
factors, in Latynina's view. In addition, there are few people able to prop up
the existing authorities. "That layer of FSB (Federal Security Service) officers,
which the regime is based upon, is populous enough to pillage Russia, but I don't
think it is strong and motivated enough to save the regime in case of real
disorders. The siloviki (security and law-enforcement structures) that the system
relies upon are using the regime but they are not supporting it", Latynina said.
She went on to add that "stabilizing factors have remained unchanged over the
past 11 years, whereas destabilizing factors are rising very dramatically". After
the 24 September One Russia congress that saw Dmitriy Medvedev and Vladimir Putin
announce their job swap plans, it become evident, Latynina concludes, that
"changing the regime in a peaceful way is impossible in Russia moving forward".
[return to Contents]
Russians Losing Protest Steam As Duma Election Draws Closer, Poll Shows
Moscow, 28 November: The level of protest potential among Russians has been
stable for three weeks already and is trending downwards a week before the (State
Duma) election, VTsIOM (All-Russia Centre for the Study of Public Opinion)
sociologists say.
At present, around a quarter of all Russians (23 per cent) consider mass
demonstrations in their city or region against a drop in their standards of
living in defence of rights to be quite likely. This is considered unlikely by
the majority (68 per cent) of the 1,600 people polled on 19-20 November across
138 settlements in 46 regions, territories and republics (with a statistical
discrepancy of no more than 3.4 per cent).
Sociological studies show insignificant fluctuations over the course of November
for the dominant share of respondents who consider such rallies unlikely (68 to
70 per cent) and those who believe them to be possible (23 to 25 per cent).
The belief that protests are possible is held chiefly by CPRF (Communist Party of
the Russian Federation) supporters (32 per cent), 35 to 44-year-olds (28 per
cent) and the residents of medium-sized cities (35 per cent). Such demonstrations
are considered unlikely in the view of the supporters of One Russia (United
Russia) (73 per cent) and non-parliamentary parties (74 per cent), young people
(74 per cent), residents of Moscow and St Petersburg (72 per cent), as well as
the dwellers of small cities (74 per cent) and villages (72 per cent).
According to VTsIOM data, in the last week, the share of Russians personally
ready to take part in protests has dropped from 27 to 22 per cent. Accordingly,
the share of those who see little likelihood of such rallies has grown from 66 to
71 per cent.
Among the potential protesters are first of all supporters of CPRF (34 per cent),
LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) (31 per cent) and A Just Russia (30 per
cent), as well as low-income earners (31 per cent). Those siding with One Russia
(77 per cent), Muscovites and Petersburgers (85 per cent) and high-income earners
(79 per cent) are not prepared to support such rallies.
The highest level of protest potential among Russians in the current year was
registered in March-May, at 31-32 per cent, VTsIOM polls, received by the
Interfax news agency on Monday (28 November), show.
[return to Contents]
649 international observers accredited to monitor parliamentary vote in Russia
MOSCOW, November 29 (Itar-Tass) A total of 649 international observers have been
accredited to monitor parliamentary elections in Russia on December 4, chairman
of the Russian Central Election Commission Vladimir Churov said on Tuesday.
According to Churov, these observers were delegated from the missions of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), the Council of Europe, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), and the Northern Council. Apart from that, heads of election
commissions from more than 20 world nations have also been invited to monitor the
elections in Russia, Churov added.
He also reiterated that international observers will monitor early voting in
remote and hard-to-reach areas of Russia's Far Eastern Khabarovsk territory.
Earlier, the chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission invited
representatives from mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe (PACE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States to visit such
localities. "So, delegates from these missions will do that," he added.
Churov also said that the full list of international observers will be posted on
the Central Election Commission's website on December 2.
The chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission also reminded that the
Russian legislation is among world's rare ones that regulate the rights and
liabilities of international observers.
"It is a must to observe their rights but we should not forget that international
observers, along with domestic observers, have certain liabilities," he stressed.
According to the chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission, observers
are to have permits of local election commissions to make photo or video coverage
of balloting at polling stations. In his words, more than once he saw
international observers "rushing brassily to polling stations with cameras at the
ready." He noted that under the current rules, international observers are
required to introduce themselves to the local election commission and show their
accreditation cards.
He also expressed concern over reports about "two fake written rules of behavior
for observers" and called to display due vigilance.
Russia will elect a new, sixth, State Duma, or lower house of the national
parliament, on Sunday, December 4.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
November 29, 2011
Electoral Mutiny in TV Ad Ban
By Alexey Eremenko
Campaign ads by opposition parties have been banned on state television by order
of the head of the Central Elections Commission, who has no authority to do so,
Vedomosti reported Monday.
Vladimir Churov's actions prompted a mutiny among the commission's working group,
whose job is to review such videos, but which was only asked to do so after they
were banned, the newspaper said.
State-owned broadcaster VGTRK announced last week that it was banning videos by
Yabloko, A Just Russia and the Liberal Democrats following a letter from Churov,
who said he suspected the ads promoted extremism and targeted other parties.
But only police or prosecutors can ban a video, while all the Central Elections
Commission is authorized to do is request that a questionable campaign ad be
examined, said the Communist Party's head lawyer, Vadim Solovyov.
Elections officials also only asked the working group which consists of
unspecified media figures and elections experts to review the videos slated for
a ban last Thursday, after they were already de facto banned.
In protest, members of the group refused to make any ruling on the videos,
robbing the ban of any expert backing, Vedomosti reported.
Attempts to clarify the matter failed Monday. VGTRK deputy head Dmitry Kiselyov,
who oversaw the videos' removal, was not available for comment, his press office
said. A spokeswoman for the Central Elections Commission, when reached by
telephone, asked for an e-mailed request for comment, which was not returned in
time for publication.
Anonymous Kremlin sources and election officials told Vedomosti that the ban had
been arranged by the Office for Presidential Affairs. The office had no comment
on the allegations.
One banned ad by A Just Russia accused authorities of hiking utility tariffs
faster than state pensions a move that elections officials ruled fanned hatred
toward "persons responsible for such tariffs." By contrast, an online ad by the
ruling United Russia party that slammed "An Unjust Russia" dodged prohibition.
[return to Contents]
Russia Profile
November 28, 2011
The Vote of the Young
Young Voters Are United Against United Russia, But Divided on All Else
By Dan Peleschuk
Ahead of Russia's first Duma vote since 2007, millions of Russian citizens have
become eligible to vote for the first time. They are the voices of a new
generation those with no memory of the Soviet Union, who have come of age in an
era of managed democracy. And although their electoral preferences vary, many
young, educated Muscovites seem to be united by a common thread: on December 4,
they will vote for anyone but United Russia.
"All of my university classmates share the same inclination anyone but United
Russia," said Yulia Agryzkova, an 18-year-old student at Moscow's Higher School
of Economics (HSE). "I don't know a single person in my age group, from 18 to
about 22, who is willing to vote for United Russia."
It has been a difficult election season for the party of power. Amidst a steady
decline in its ratings, a string of public embarrassments and, in general,
growing discontent over the current political situation, United Russia has never
seemed quite so vulnerable. A lion's share of the criticism has come from the
Internet, the consummate meeting place for a generation of young, educated and
increasingly disenchanted youth who voice their concerns or the latest
anti-establishment jokes through outlets such as LiveJournal, VKontakte and
This, however, hasn't stopped United Russia from attempting to rally young
voters. Most recently, it released a controversial online ad featuring a young
woman at a polling station pulling a male interlocutor into the booth, then
emerging with him, disheveled and smiling, under the slogan, "Let's do it
But campaigns such as these seem to have had little effect on young voters. And
while many doubt the honesty of the upcoming elections, they nevertheless said
the best way to voice their discontent is by going to the polls in support of
other parties. "I don't have the feeling that my vote will count, unfortunately,
but I think it's better to go and show them United Russia that they don't have
a majority like they used to have," said Bogdina Buvaeva, an 18-year-old law
student at the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO). "They
don't like the youth, and you can see [signs of] it on the Internet in blogs,
Twitter, and wherever else."
But while many first-time voters seem solidly against United Russia, the
similarities end there. They diverge on a range of other issues the parties they
support, the primary influences on their voting choice, and their opinions of
Russian democracy and cast the image of the oft-heralded "young, liberal voter"
in a more complex light. Many are frustrated, but while some vote with economic
interests in mind, others vote in line with their family's political leanings.
Still more are torn between parties, or about whether to vote at all.
Twenty-two year old Yevgeniy Popov said he will vote for the nationalist Liberal
Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), headed by the notoriously vocal Vladimir
Zhirinovsky, because he feels that job opportunities in Moscow have been
drastically limited by the influx of migrant workers. LDPR has increasingly taken
up the anti-immigration mantle, and its posters can be found around Moscow
emblazoned with Zhirinovsky's face and with the slogan "For Russians!" "It's
becoming more difficult for people who live in Moscow to find good work," he
said. "And LDPR promises to deal with this issue."
Popov, a student at the Moscow State Road-Transport Institute, said his
professors at university influenced his decision to vote in the upcoming
elections. By explaining to him the "mechanism," he said, by which his otherwise
uncounted vote would likely end up going to another party, they underscored the
importance no matter how seemingly futile of voting.
Others seem to follow the family trend, despite the widely perceived gap between
the Soviet and post-Soviet generations. Agryzkova, a journalism student at HSE,
said she will vote for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), and
although she was leaning toward voting for Yabloko, a social liberal party once
popular in the Boris Yeltsin era, her family's tradition of supporting communists
won her over. She also believes the KPRF, Russia's second most popular party, is
the only viable challenger to United Russia. "Throughout my childhood, my family
would always tell me about how the quality of living for them [under communism]
was so high," she said. "Although I understand all the minuses, all the horrors
of the socialist era, I think many people still lived very happily."
Buvaeva, the MGIMO student, said she has also been influenced by her family. The
Republic of Kalmykia native said her family's deep-seeded distrust of the
communist party, which is rooted in the Soviet regime's mass deportation of the
Kalmyk people in the early 1940s, plays a major role in both their collective
memory and voting habits. "For my family, it was a very tragic event," she said.
"We would never support the communists."
Instead, Buvaeva said, she will likely vote for Yabloko, though she had
considered spoiling her ballot to ensure her vote "wouldn't be cheated." She
ultimately settled on Yabloko because it supports social programs from which she
said her native village in Kalmykia could benefit.
If there is a second prominent trend among young voters, however, it is perhaps a
sense of resignation over what they feel is a limited range of choice in the
electoral landscape. It is a sort of dangerous apathy, a degree of which has
always lingered in the minds of young voters in Russia, whether during the
chaotic democracy of the 1990s or today. Due in most part to their mistrust of
the authorities, many believe that the fate of the elections and other
participating parties will be decided in the Kremlin, and not at polling
Piotr Baranov, a 21-year-old student at Moscow State University, said he and his
peers are discouraged by what they feel is a largely staged competition in which
their voices matter little. It is a sentiment echoed by Buvaeva and many of her
friends as well. "If there was an option to vote against all of them, I would
vote against all," Baranov said. "I just don't see any party that's determined to
develop things, or any with its own ideas. They're all playing their little games
with one another, and not one of them has a united and justified position."
Recent polls have confirmed a rising tide of passivity among young voters.
According to a survey by state pollster VTsIOM, published by Interfax on November
28, about 74 percent of Russian youth do not expect any sort of political
protests in the lead-up to the elections almost tied with United Russia
supporters, 72 percent of whom feel the same way.
In a wide-ranging case study on Russian youth published by the Levada Center
earlier this year, researchers found that 54 percent of Russian youngsters are
disinterested in politics, while only 22 percent discuss politics with their
friends. The same study also found drastically low levels of trust in state
institutions: 36 percent of respondents trust the government, 22 percent trust
the State Duma, and only 19 trust political parties.
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Moscow News
November 28, 2011
A race of fear and irritation
By Dmitry Babich
As we come to the final stage of the election race, campaign rhetoric has become
more open and direct, including for the race's favorite, the United Russia party,
and its leader, Vladimir Putin. He said at a meeting with United Russia leaders
last week that only the ruling party can help steer the country through the
"What our European friends and U.S. partners are facing [in the economy] also
results from a lack of social cohesion, when the leading political forces are
unable to find common ground," Putin said in Novo-Ogaryovo. "If we fragment
parliament and find ourselves unable to take the right decisions at the right
time, making promises instead and living at the expense of future generations,
this could take us as close to the brink as our partners and friends in Europe
are now."
"Along with President Medvedev's statement on the ballistic missile shield, this
is part of United Russia's fight for traditionalist voters, that is, people who
are afraid of the future and who trust neither the West, nor reforms nor change
in general," said Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the St. Petersburg Policy
Foundation. "The goal of such statements is to win over part of the traditional
Communist and LDPR electorates."
Lev Gudkov, head of the Yury Levada analytical center, said that taking advantage
of the public's fears could succeed, because "Russians' political culture is
focused on anxiety." According to the center, what Russians fear most are rising
prices and unemployment, which translates directly into fear of a crisis.
Gudkov also said that these anxieties are especially strong among women aged
40-50. According to the Levada Center, up to 70 percent of Russian families have
no savings, while two-thirds of the remaining 30 percent have reserves that could
only keep them afloat for three or four months if they lose their jobs or if
inflation soars.
The St. Petersburg Policy Foundation published an expert forecast which promises
that United Russia would receive 57 percent of the vote, and spotlighted the
strong points of its election campaign. For example, the party has stolen the
Communists' idea of reviving the Soviet Union, manifesting the idea throught the
so-called Eurasian Union put forth by Putin. However, the party began its
campaign a bit late, the ratings of its leaders have been falling for most of
2011, and so redirecting the flow of this trend on the eve of elections could
prove to be impossible.
St. Petersburg Policy Foundation's Mikhail Vinogradov praised United Russia's
tactic of luring over Communist and LDPR voters, adding that this situation could
also benefit Just Russia, which has an opportunity to become a fourth
parliamentary party in the next State Duma.
Just Russia party is eroding the Communist opposition and hence can hope for at
least a neutral attitude from the authorities.
However, the main enemy of United Russia is not the KPRF, or Just Russia or the
LDPR, but public disappointment fuelled by the party's overuse of pressure. The
irritation of regional officials with the slogan of an opposition party, "For a
Russia without crooks and thieves," was interpreted by bloggers and the general
public who monitor political events as proof that "the hat fits."
Many experts believe that a different medium should have been chosen for
broadcasting President Medvedev's meetings with bloggers and social network
users. These meetings were shown on TV, which bloggers don't watch, but the
traditionalist electorate does, and it dislikes people talking about that alien
device, the Internet.
As a result, Medvedev's electorate has been demoralized and can hardly be counted
on to help United Russia. Those who viewed Medvedev as an alternative to Putin
were disappointed by the September announcement of the reshuffle in the ruling
tandem, and may refuse to take part in the elections. As for Putin's former
electorate, the party will have to work very hard to convince it to come out to
the polling stations and not to vote for the Communists or any other opposition
[return to Contents]
Moscow News
November 28, 2011
Seeing no evil?
By Yulia Ponomareva
Ahead of the December 4 elections, Russian nationalists are joining some other
prominent opposition movements in urging voters to cast their ballots for anyone
but the ruling United Russia party but even as United Russia sinks in the polls,
nationalist leaders say they remain realistic about the prospects of immediate
change in the country.
"I'm thanking United Russia for uniting the nation everybody hates them,"
Konstantin Krylov, an icon of the Russian nationalist movement, told an
anti-United Russia rally held in front of the Government House in Moscow last
Saturday. The protest against "the party of crooks and thieves," as United Russia
has been dubbed by opposition, brought together nationalists, liberals and
Communists, which would have seemed inconceivable just a couple of years ago.
With over half of their legal organizations banned this year, nationalists are
radicalizing and aligning themselves with other political forces in an attempt to
subvert the government in the current election campaign. Their rhetoric has come
to focus on social and political issues recently. "The country's main problem is
its corrupt and anti-nationalist government, which oppresses Russians," Krylov
told The Moscow News.
Another leader of Russian nationalists, Vladimir Tor, agrees with Krylov: "The
government with its police and prosecutors is perceived as a threat to society,"
he told The Moscow News.
Both nationalist leaders noted that the government and the ruling United Russia
party are skirting around the issue of nationalism, which only serves to heighten
tensions in the country.
In a report published earlier this month, a renowned expert on European
nationalism, Andreas Umland, Associate Professor at the Ukrainian Kyiv-Mohyla
Academy, said that Russian officials and mass media have eagerly berated
neighboring countries for their alleged support of "fascist" tendencies, ignoring
far more serious extremist trends here.
Administrative measures against nationalists are on the books in Russia. Natalia
Yudina, an expert with the Moscow-based SOVA NGO, which monitors xenophobic
activity, told The Moscow News that "nationalism is banned by law, but the
government has made an exception for one party LDPR, whose rhetoric is regarded
as moderately nationalistic."
Tor, meanwhile, does not mind it when other political forces take up nationalist
rhetoric, because they are helping promote nationalist ideas. "LDPR is allowed to
say whatever it wants, but is limited in what it can actually do," he said.
"Communists are in limbo: They don't really know how to combine this powerful
political tool [nationalistic rhetoric] with the idea of internationalism they
have always upheld."
Umland estimates that LDPR may get the second best federal election result in its
history when Russians go to the polls on December 4. "The party got 23 percent in
the 1993 elections and may get around 13 percent on December 4, 2011 since the
relevance of nationalism has grown in Russia's population at large" he told The
Moscow News.
However, Umland does not see any relevant political force that may adequately
address the issue of rising racial hatred in Russia. "Instead, all political
parties are playing with ethnic stereotypes to blame domestic or foreign
critiques of Russia's current regime," he said.
Repeatedly knocked back in their attempts to register a political party,
nationalists are seeking political participation through municipal elections. "We
need legislative representation," Pyotr Miloserdov, an ideologist of the
nationalist movement, told a press conference earlier this month. "The very fact
of our participation will be a good means of propagating our ideas."
As for their tactics in the upcoming parliamentary elections, Tor and Krylov call
their supporters to vote for any party but United Russia. "We understand if they
want to destroy their ballots or take them home, but it'll be no use in this
case their vote will go to United Russia," said Tor. He is certain that vote
results will be rigged and is planning to gather his supporters for a rally at
Moscow's Revolution Square on election day after polling stations close.
Neither Tor nor Krylov believe that the regime will change following elections.
At the same time, neither thinks that the government can be toppled by street
protesters. "Russian nationalists are not plotting an uprising," Tor said. He
thinks the country will be instead hit by a disaster, which will cause a crisis
the government will be unable to control. "Chernobyl once prompted the collapse
of the Soviet Union," Tor said. "A disaster similar to that at Fukushima can
easily sweep a weak regime."
[return to Contents]
Moscow News
November 28, 2011
It's that 1913 feeling
By Tim Wall , editor
At United Russia's triumphalist convention this weekend, the chants were of
"People, Medvedev, Putin!" "Putin, Putin!" and "Russia, Russia!"
And in his new role as cheerleader- in-chief, President Dmitry Medvedev called
for a "long-term" second period of rule for his mentor, Vladimir Putin.
Analogies have been made to Stalinist, Soviet-era congresses, but the feeling is
probably more like 1913. Then, the Romanov dynasty was celebrating three
centuries of absolutist rule with pomp, bombast and cries of "Long live the
In some ways, the Romanov tricentennial resembles the United Russia celebration
of Putin's three terms in power, in that both systems claimed to be at their
History was not kind to the Romanovs, however, as the tsarist system was already
in decline and 1913 was just the calm before the storm. Four short years later,
the ancien regime had crumbled under the weight of a crippling world war, the
inner contradictions of a backward, largely feudal system and an increasingly
revolutionary working class.
At Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium this Sunday, there was also a certain fin de siecle
feeling in the air. The country faces an uncertain future as a new global crisis
threatens the economic equivalent of world war.
Tough austerity measures planned for after the elections could also provoke a big
wave of protests from ordinary Russians, and recent polls suggest that United
Russia could struggle to reach 50 percent, never mind a constitutional twothirds
It may seem alarmist to suggest that a crisis of 1917 proportions is in the
cards, but certainly a 1905 could happen if the oil price collapses as it did in
Back in 2008, Putin told the Luzhniki faithful, "the authorities showed
themselves competent in dealing with economic turmoil." But Putin's next bold
statement, that he and his team "know better (than anyone else) what needs to be
done" could turn out to be unwarranted hubris if the economy implodes.
How the history books judge the continuation of the Putin era is not yet written.
But if there are to be more cheers than jeers, the premier and his team must be
hoping that their luck holds better than the Romanovs'.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
November 29, 2011
Report: Lawyer Beaten to Death
By Natalya Krainova
New evidence released Monday added weight to suspicions that Hermitage Capital
lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by prison guards in 2009 and did not
die from health problems as previously claimed by the authorities.
A report by Hermitage Capital, once Russia's largest foreign investment fund,
found that the 37-year-old lawyer was left to die on a cell floor after suffering
a brain trauma in the beating apparently ordered by prison officials.
The report, which runs at 75 pages in English and 100 pages in Russian, offers
gruesome photos from the morgue that depict bad bruises on what it says are
Magnitsky's wrists and legs.
The Kremlin's human rights council backed the report, but government officials
maintained a stony silence, fueling long-running suspicions of a cover-up in the
death of Magnitsky, who was arrested by officials whom he had accused of stealing
$230 million in government money. He died in November 2009, 11 months after his
arrest on dubious tax charges.
The Kremlin's human rights council announced in its own report in July that
Magnitsky was beaten before his death, but offered few details.
Monday's report, published at Russian-untouchables.com, reproduces what it says
is a photocopied order from Fikhret Tagiyev, head of the Matrosskaya Tishina
pretrial facility, to handcuff Magnitsky and beat him with a rubber baton.
Magnitsky had been sent that day to Matrosskaya Tishina, which has a prison
hospital, from another pretrial detention center to receive treatment for "acute
pancreatitis, cholecystitis and gallstones," the report said.
But "instead of hospitalizing him, a team of eight prison guards placed him in an
isolation cell, handcuffed him to a bed and beat him with rubber batons," the
Russian version says.
Prison officials have explained that they needed to use handcuffs because
Magnitsky was "swearing, waving his hands and threatened to kill or harm
himself," rights activist Valery Borshchyov told reporters Monday, Interfax
But the self-harm allegations are lies, said Borshchyov, who headed the Kremlin
human rights council's investigation into the death, at a news conference in
Moscow also attended by rights veterans Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Kirill Kabanov and
Mikhail Fedotov.
It also remained unclear how a suicide threat mandated the need for the rubber
Then there is also the matter of Magnitsky's death certificate, which has been
released in two versions, a Hermitage spokesman said by telephone.
The first, presented in court during a check into his death in late 2009,
identified a traumatic brain injury as the cause of death, he said. But this
conclusion was doctored out of a 2011 version of the same document, also
presented in court, he said.
Prison officials also have said Magnitsky died on the resuscitation table, but
Hermitage reiterated Monday suspicions that he was left in his cell after the
beating and died before help arrived.
An ambulance from a civil psychiatric hospital was inexplicably summoned to
examine Magnitsky, and the paramedics found him in his cell with the handcuffs
beside him, dead for at least 15 minutes, according to a transcript of a
paramedic's statement not found in the report but provided by Hermitage by
The report indicates that Magnitsky died 63 minutes after the beating.
Hermitage also released a copy of a 2009 report by a district investigator who
said a criminal case should be opened into the death. The report was apparently
ignored at the time.
Newly released records of Magnitsky's court proceedings also show that he
repeatedly complained to the judge of health problems. Law enforcement officials
involved in the case have, on the contrary, claimed that he never spoke about his
health in the courtroom.
True to his lawyer's calling, Magnitsky actually filed more than 450 complaints
from behind bars, his colleagues said in an obituary published in 2009 in
The Hermitage report was presented to Investigative Committee head Alexander
Bastrykin last week, prior to its public release, rights activist Borshchyov said
by telephone.
Bastrykin promised to look into the report, Borshchyov said.
Bastrykin made no comment on the issue Monday.
The Magnitsky case has marred the Kremlin's image like no other in recent years,
prompting accusations that corrupt officials enjoy a de facto immunity from
Indeed, although President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a check into Magnitsky's death
in 2009, it produced few visible results. Only two prison doctors have been
charged in connection with the death, and several police officials whom he
accused of involvement in the $230 million theft have received promotions.
Hermitage has released a string of exposes detailing multimillion-dollar assets
owned by midlevel officials linked to the embezzlement case. No investigations
have followed.
Hermitage has also drawn up a list of 60 officials implicated in Magnitsky's
death, urging countries nationwide to introduce sanctions against them.
Legislators in Canada and several European countries are considering the
sanctions, while the U.S. State Department has blacklisted dozens of officials,
prompting the Russian Foreign Ministry to ban unidentified American officials
from Russia in retaliation. Russian diplomats said at first that their list is
longer than the U.S. one, but admitted this month that it only has 11 names.
[return to Contents]
Emigration Moods Exaggerated - Medvedev
YEKATERINBURG. Nov 28 (Interfax) - President Dmitry Medvedev believes that the
problem of brain drain is exaggerated.
"There is no such issue for the majority of people, no matter what is said or
written about that," Medvedev said at a meeting in Yekaterinburg on Monday.
He acknowledged, however, that the problem partially existed.
"We haven't yet created optimal conditions that would enable all talented people
to realize their ambitions," he said.
Besides, there is a natural migration of labor resources both from and into
Russia, the president remarked.
He dismissed allegations about mass emigration moods as something "made out of
thin air".
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Russians pin high hopes on emigrating to improve their lives, talk show finds
November 23, 2011
For an overwhelming majority of Russians, emigration is a way to improve their
lives, a discussion show on privately owned Russian Ren TV channel has concluded.
The 23 November edition of the "Time to speak!" (Rus: khvatit molchat) programme,
which is broadcast live Monday to Friday and is presented by film director Tigran
Keosayan, considered what is pushing an increasingly greater number of Russians
to mull leaving the country for good. The topic was discussed with three studio
guests - One Russia (United Russia) deputy Ivan Savvidi, entrepreneur Yana
Yakovleva and political analyst Dmitriy Oreshkin - and other incidental
The programme started by offering some emigration statistics. It was said that in
2010, 7,000 Russians left the country to permanently reside in another country -
that is, for emigration in the classic sense of the word - compared to some
100,000 people annually in the 1990s. Oreshkin said he had serious doubts about
these statistics, instead citing Russia's official statistics body, Rosstat, as
pointing to annual figures of 30,000 to 35,000 people. However these figures are
also understated, he said, and in reality, some 150,000 Russians swap Russia for
another permanent place of abode each year. At the same time, he said that the
emigration paradigm has largely become obsolete, since many people do not
consider that they are leaving forever - instead, they are pursuing employment
and study opportunities, or seeking medical treatment and so on. Nevertheless, he
pointed out that the major pitfall of this is that it is the skilled cream of
society that is leaving thus. In particular, he said, if on average 13 to 14 per
cent of Russians hold university degrees, among those emigrating, that share
stands at 30 to 40 per cent. Savvidi said there was "no need to dramatize" these
figures and that migration flows were part of a global trend that was
attributable to the fact that "there are no geographic boundaries" any longer.
Vox pop in the street, both among younger and more mature people, produced
heterogeneous results. While a number of people said that they would not dream of
leaving, being patriots who are unable to imagine life outside of Russia, others
said that setting up home in another country would be a fix-all for their
Yakovleva chipped in, saying the yearning to leave became particularly pronounced
after 24 September - the One Russia party congress that saw the announcement of
the Vladimir Putin-Dmitriy Medvedev anticipated post-election job swap - since
"the constantly repeating situation is very depressing".
Oreshkin cited yet more alarming statistics, saying that a recent survey by
national pollster VTsIOM showed that around 40 per cent of Russian under
35-year-olds were contemplating leaving, albeit "not forever", versus 20 per cent
two years ago.
Yakovleva offered her view as to the motivation for such moods: "Why does a smart
person leave? Because feels that he is working in spite of (circumstances). The
same as an entrepreneur. He lives and works and has his business despite
everything that happens around him," - namely bureaucracy, the ambiguity of laws
and unreasonable prices.
Keosayan asked his guests whether the adverse migration flows were a tragedy for
the country. Oreshkin was unequivocal, saying that it "undoubtedly" was, since on
competitive terms, "our environment loses out to the foreign environment".
Meanwhile, Savvidi once again downplayed the seriousness of the trend, saying
that this was "a misfortune but not a tragedy".
The discussion then saw brief comments from prominent opposition politician
Eduard Limonov, who said that Russia had become a "caste-based society", however
this was no reason to swap countries. Instead, he called for effecting change in
Oreshkin asked Savvidi what One Russia was specifically doing to stop the outflow
of skilled Russians abroad, however Yakovleva fervently opposed channelling the
discussion down this path. Instead, she said the focus should be on what "we as
Russian citizens can do to counterbalance One Russia".
At the end of the programme, the results of a phone-in and SMS vote were
revealed, with 81 per cent of respondents saying that they saw that leaving was a
way to improve their lives (the number of voters is unknown). Savvidi said these
figures were "unfortunate" and shaped the agenda for the work of future
parliamentarians. Oreshkin, meanwhile, warned that this was but a sign of things
to come and that "in the mid-term, this process will continue".
Keosayan wrapped up the discussion by saying that the figures were "startling"
but nevertheless urged Russians to recall that "we are the masters of our
country" and accordingly should be more proactive about solving existing
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times/Vedomosti
November 29, 2011
Emigration From Rublyovka Tangible
This fall, many residents of cottage settlements on Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Shosse
are finding themselves short on neighbors. "One neighbor has an apartment in
London, and his family has already received passports. They are now living either
[there] or at their dacha in France," said a businessman who lives in both Russia
and Britain.
"My daughter goes to school here," said the wife of another businessman. "The
[children of] Khodorkovskys, Beryozkins, Gromov's daughter, Alyoshkins from
Sberbank and Dvorkovich all studied at this school. Previously, it was not
possible to get in. Yet now the three groups of 60 students have turned into two
groups of 24 students the rest left the country."
"Some families are going abroad," said Lyubov Mashina, director of the private
school President, which has been teaching students of Rublyovka families since
2003. Out of the 300 pupils who studied at the school last year, 21 families went
abroad, Mashina said. In all, 7 percent of President's students have left. "I
write them recommendations and see that they are intending to study outside of
the country, primarily in England," she said.
An outflow of clients has also been noticed by Rublyovka's service industry.
"The working year for recruiting personnel begins at the same time as the school
year Sept. 1," said Viktor Astashov, director of Na Rubylovke domestic staffing
company. "Each family here possesses the means to go to Cyprus or Greece for the
summer, where they have a second home. Usually everyone returns around Sept. 1."
This year, not all the families returned.
It looks like 2011 could be the worst year yet. Turnover fell 50 percent as
compared with 2007, Astashov said. "I have friends who work in landscaping here
and those who sell real estate all of their incomes have left," he added.
There are possible political aspects to migration.
"For example," said Penny Lane Realty general director Georgy Dzagurov, "they
cleared out the Luzhkov team, and a significant number of city functionaries fell
out of favor." There were a lot of members of city institutions who were attached
to the mayor's office. And as a result some go to the West, Dzagurov said.
"It is impossible to be an oligarch and not become friends with the authorities.
Right? If your relationship with the authorities is good, why would you leave?"
Astashov said.
"Those who got rich in the 1990s settled in Rublyovka. They are getting older,
their children are moving abroad. As a general rule, children who studied abroad
don't return," Astashov said.
Upon leaving the country, very few Rublyovka residents sell their homes. Realtors
have not noticed any dramatic changes in sales. "The owners remain the same," a
source told Vedomosti. "One drives by and sees that the windows are all empty, no
one is there, there are no cars. If these people needed to sell their property,
they would, and then some new Russian official would buy it."
"One of my acquaintances who left not long ago lives with his family in Italy. He
returns on short trips to do business here. People are continuing to earn money
here, but just to be safe they are striving to take their family and create a
base in the West to have a dependable supply and logistical base there," the
businessman's spouse said.
[return to Contents]
Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
November 28, 2011
Lana Peters
Stalin's daughter lived in Wisconsin quietly
By Meg Jones
Josef Stalin's daughter lived an unusual and peripatetic life - defecting during
the Cold War, living in numerous countries, writing a bestselling memoir - and
when she succumbed to cancer last week at the age of 85, she died in relative
obscurity in southwestern Wisconsin.
Svetlana Alliluyeva, who was known as Lana Peters since 1970, died of colon
cancer Nov. 22, Richland County Coroner Mary Turner said.
She first came to Wisconsin in 1970 and though she traveled often, she returned
to Wisconsin and lived here off and on after becoming a U.S. citizen, moving from
Spring Green to Richland Center a few years ago.
Peters ended up in Wisconsin through the intervention of Frank Lloyd Wright's
widow. Olgivanna Wright wrote her letters following her 1967 defection from the
U.S.S.R., inviting her to visit Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in
She was married four times, the last to William Wesley Peters, Wright's chief
apprentice. The couple married in 1970 - after knowing each other only 20 days -
and lived with Olgivanna Wright at Taliesin West. Peters, known as Wes, had been
married to Olgivanna Wright's daughter, also named Svetlana, who died in a car
crash in 1946.
The couple divorced in 1973, with Lana Peters gaining custody of their young
daughter, Olga, who now lives in Portland, Ore.
Peters gave a rare interview to the Wisconsin State Journal last year after a
documentary about her life was released. The film was shown at the Wisconsin Film
In the interview she said she no longer thought about her famous father, the
brutal Soviet dictator responsible for the deaths of millions before he died in
1953. As a teenager, she was devastated when her father sent a man she loved to a
labor camp. She was upset when she wanted to study literature at a Soviet
university but her father insisted she study history.
"He was a very simple man. Very rude. Very cruel," Peters told the Wisconsin
State Journal. "There was nothing in him that was complicated. He was very simple
with us. He loved me and he wanted me to be with him and become an educated
Born in 1926, Alliluyeva was the only daughter of Stalin, whose purges of
political enemies and forced starvation led to the deaths of millions of Soviets.
In the early 1940s she drew his wrath when she fell in love with a Jewish
filmmaker. An anti-Semite, Stalin sent the man to Siberia for 10 years. She
married a different man in 1944, had a son, got divorced, married again in 1949,
had a daughter and got divorced.
Then in 1963 she met an Indian man and fell in love again. The Soviet government
refused to let her marry the man, and when he became seriously ill, refused to
let her take him to India. After his death, Soviet authorities eventually allowed
her to take his ashes to his home country.
While she was in India, Alliluyeva stunned the world when she walked into the
American embassy in New Delhi and asked for asylum. A few weeks later, in April
1967, she flew to New York.
Her defection was embarrassing to the U.S.S.R., and the Soviet press attacked her
character, describing her as a sick woman. It was big news in the United States
at a time when America was fighting communism in Vietnam and the Cold War was
particularly frosty. Her adult son and daughter remained behind in the Soviet
"I fully expected to return to Russia within one month's time. However, during my
stay in India I decided I could not return to Moscow," she said when she arrived
in New York. "It was my own decision, based on my own feelings and experiences,
without anyone's advice or help or instruction."
She brought with her a manuscript, which she had sent to India with the help of
friends because she feared it would be confiscated. She completed her memoir
"Twenty Letters to A Friend" later in 1967. The bestseller gave an intimate look
into the life of Stalin, graphically describing his executions of friends and
"I switched camps from the Marxists to the capitalists," she recalled in a 2007
interview for the documentary "Svetlana About Svetlana." But she said her
identity was far more complex than that and never completely understood.
Alliluyeva wrote three more books, including "Only One Year," an autobiography
published in 1969.
Her father's legacy appeared to haunt her throughout her life. She denounced his
brutal policies but often said other Communist Party leaders shared the blame.
After living in Britain for two years, Alliluyeva returned to the Soviet Union
with her American-born daughter Olga in 1984 at age 58, saying she wanted to be
reunited with the son and daughter she left behind. Her Soviet citizenship was
restored, and she denounced her time in the U.S. and Britain, saying she never
really had freedom.
But more than a year later, she asked for and was given permission to leave after
feuding with relatives. She returned to the U.S. and vowed never to go back to
Her son died in 2008 and her Russian daughter is now a scientist in Siberia. Her
American daughter, who changed her name to Chrese Evans, said in an email that
her mother died at a Richland Center nursing home surrounded by loved ones, but
she declined to comment further.
Last year Peters told the Wisconsin State Journal that she enjoyed living in
Richland Center, spending her days sewing, reading nonfiction books, talking to
her daughter by phone and listening to public radio. She also said she knew that
she would never be able to shake her family history.
"Wherever I go," she said in the Wisconsin State Journal interview, "here, or
Switzerland, or India, or wherever. Australia. Some island. I always will be a
political prisoner of my father's name."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
[return to Contents]
Russian TV Expert Lysenko on Censorship, Television's Future
November 22, 2011
Arina Borodina interview with Anatoliy Lysenko, the founder of VGTRK: "'The Less
Professional the Regime, the More Stupidly and Clumsily Censorship Operates' --
Anatoliy Lysenko about Today's Television"
Anatoliy Lysenko is one of the most influential people on Russian television. The
head of Vzglyad and the founder of VGTRK (All-Russia State Television and Radio
Company) and Center TV. His book TV Live and Recorded was published at the
beginning of November. And on Thursday(17 November), Dmitriy Medvedev presented
Lysenko with an award For Services to the Fatherland Rank III at a reception to
mark the 80th anniversary of Russian television. Anatoliy Lysenko spoke to
Kommersant observer Arina Borodina about his new book, the relationship between
television and the regime, censorship, and the future of the media.
(Borodina) This anniversary for national television was invented five years ago.
And I discussed it with you at the time in an interview for Kommersant-Vlast.
How, in your view, did these two receptions - Putin's and Medvedev's - differ
from one another? Only in so much as five years ago Vladimir Putin did not just
speak at the reception but also sat around the table with television presenters
for an hour and talked, listened to a concert, and only left afterwards, while
Dmitriy Medvedev just welcomed everyone officially, gave them their awards - all
in all a matter of around 20 minutes - and immediately left?
(Lysenko) I think that is the only difference. I altogether got the feeling that
the president was incredibly tired. But he had already met those he was giving
awards to separately before the ceremony. We were invited into a room, there was
a conversation, and you know he said quite calmly that he understood that there
was nothing more difficult than the work of the president. He said that whatever
happened, it was always possible to blame the boss. To shift decision-making or
responsibility onto him. But this was impossible in the president's work.
(Borodina) And did Medvedev say anything else to you, apart from the fact that he
thinks there is no work harder than that of the president?
(Lysenko) I love to observe, and have been doing so for many years, the top
officials, the people who govern us. Their appearances on television, their
photographs. They have changed a lot in the past year, two years, or three. Their
faces are becoming harder, drier... More gaunt. I looked at the president, and I
realized that it really is a lousy job.
(Borodina) Well, yes. And that is probably why he has decided to resign
(Lysenko) We did not talk about that. But no-one lavished compliments on one
another. It was a normal conversation with a normal guy. Because of my age I can
afford to talk about him like this.
(Borodina) What did you think of the actual atmosphere at the reception that took
place in the Kremlin Palace?
(Lysenko) I am completely in favor of these receptions. They are a sign of
respect for television. Only the lazy do not curse television today - and I spoke
about this at the reception. But as Churikova's heroine said in the film Big
Sister, and I love these words - "even a cat likes to hear kind words". And
people who work in television actually do have psychologically fragile natures.
And there are different types of TV: both good and bad. Yes, and then it is also
simply an opportunity for all of us to see one another. We are spread out now
over the different channels, television companies, and holding companies...We do
not know who is doing what now. We barely know one another by sight. I was
sitting with Sasha Maslyakov and we were asking of virtually every other person,
who is that, who is that... But we are all of us, including TV veterans,
concerned about our work. We have been spoiled by television.
(Borodina) And what did the veterans say about television today?
(Lysenko) Everyone grumbles.
(Borodina) What do they not like?
(Lysenko) There is not enough thought. We are after all used to thoughtful
television. Today, television is entertainment. And it is not entertaining enough
either. The same thing is replicated everywhere, the copying of foreign formats
is annoying.
(Borodina) And the ideology does not bother anyone?
(Lysenko) You know, no. And how can it bother anyone if none exists in the
country? You cannot be bothered by something that does not actually exist. It is
like Lieutenant Kizhe.
(Borodina) You have just brought out a book of reminiscences TV Live or Recorded,
and its presentation has already taken place. But why did you decide to write?
Because everyone is writing now, or did you simply want to preserve the memory of
the television you made?
(Lysenko) Since I love all kinds of memoirs, I have read an incredible number of
them, and I consider myself an expert in this matter. I split memoirs into
several groups. The first group writes to show everyone that they were right,
that they were the smartest. And that if people had listened to them...
(Borodina) Are you talking about memoirs of Oleg Poptsov here?
(Lysenko) I am not going to name names. The second group writes in order to
settle scores, throw mud at those they do not like and, again, to praise
themselves. The third group - because they do not know why. They have nothing
else to do so they write. Why did I write? I do not know. Possibly because we do
not have a history of television. It has all gone, and little has been preserved.
But I was also motivated to write the book because I wanted to leave something of
myself for my grandson, who is now nine years old, to remember. I remember when
my daughter was little, she saw my father on Railway Workers' Day. He had put on
his dress uniform, his awards. I came home from work, and she said to me with
such enthusiasm: "Dad, look, that is my grandfather, and he has awards as well.
And I thought he was just my grandfather." So I want my grandson also to know
when he is grown up, and I will obviously no longer be alive by then, that his
grandfather was not just his grandfather but someone who had done something in
(Borodina) But it is important for a grandson to know about his grandfather. Does
modern television really need a history today?
(Lysenko) I will say immediately - today's television does not.
(Borodina) Why do you say that so categorically?
(Lysenko) Today is a point in time when people are all more interested in
themselves. It seems to many people even now that they are the history of
television. But time will pass and it definitely will be needed. Oleg Dobrodeyev
(the general director of the VGTRK - Kommersant) phoned me recently. It turns out
that he was the first reader of my book after Mikhail Seslavinskiy (the head of
the Federal Agency for the Press). And Oleg immediately phoned and he said:
"Assemble a team. The history of television needs to be written."
(Borodina) And will you write it?
(Lysenko) Well, I liked the idea. I will assemble the people. While we still have
at least some of the pterodactyls who can remember how it was in the beginning -
we need to write it...
(Borodina) I absolutely cannot imagine how an encyclopaedia on the history of
television could be written today. I can still understand what it was. But about
television today? There is such disunity, and extremely complicated opaque
working relations among people working in television, and tough competition plus
personal antipathy between those who shape, make and head television. I am not
even talking about the political context of the last twenty years, which has
changed constantly and has resulted in very few people today believing what is
said on television. How can all this be summed up to produce an objective picture
of television life? It is like a patchwork quilt.
(Lysenko) You are right. It will possibly not be an encyclopaedia, but tens,
hundreds of chapters written by different people with one idea, "how I have seen
television". But you were speaking about a patchwork quilt. That is a very
accurate image. After all, patchwork quilts are fashionable all of their lives.
They can be both high fashion and every-day fashion . They are always beautiful
and bright. Let it be like this. Let people now start to talk, record their
memories, who worked with whom, and how. As everyone remembers it. Archives will
be assembled. Some time will pass and people will read these little scraps and
remember and know how television was made.
(Borodina) Over the last ten years, and now especially, everyone has been
outraged by the censorship on TV. But you write in your book that there has
always been and there always will be censorship: "there is the censorship of the
viewer, there is censorship of the owner, and there is censorship of the state".
And you specify, by the way, the form it takes: "phone call censorship". And that
is how it all is. Today, people also phone the channel's managers from the
Presidential Staff, and it all gets passed down further along the chain, and we
see the result of "phone call censorship" on the television. Do you think that
these are equivalent things - the censorship of the viewer and the censorship of
the state? We will exclude the second point because the owner and the state are
almost identical concepts today.
(Lysenko) I wrote that no television company in the world is possible without
censorship. The censorship of the viewer is generally the supreme censorship.
Because we who work in television are forced to adapt to the tastes of our
(Borodina) But it is hard to determine what comes first: whether the audience
wants what it is shown, or whether this is imposed on it by television. Both
things happen. And what about literal censorship? When one-sided reporting of
events is presented on the television news, when items and whole programs are
taken off the air? And this is all, as a rule, for political reasons.
(Lysenko) Well that is, of course, the regime. The less professional the regime
is, the more stupidly and clumsily censorship operates.
(Borodina) Is the current regime clumsy?
(Lysenko) It is unprofessional.
(Borodina) Including the top personalities and Vladimir Putin?
(Lysenko) The professionals are leaving. I am not at all a supporter of the
theory of the top personalities. It cannot be said that this is a top figure, and
this one is a secondary figure. They are all people in power, hostages of a kind.
Hostages to what exists around them, and the apparatus of power that they have
created. People say that the retinue plays at being the King, but the retinue is
created by the King.
(Borodina) You have worked in television for a long time. You have managed
socio-political programs and the state radio and television company. Well if
censorship cannot be avoided there are mechanisms to make propaganda more seemly,
aren't there? So that is no longer quite so blunt, flagrant, and dull. So as not
to stoop to such obviously stupid things as spy-rocks or twenty-minute items in
the news from the United Russia congress or Putin finding ancient amphorae
planted beforehand for him at the bottom of the sea?
(Lysenko) There is only one solution - professionalism!
(Borodina) Do you think that the first decade of the 21 st century was the era of
the unprofessional?
(Lysenko) Of course. You know that I have no great sympathy for the Soviet
regime. Although there was much that was useful about it. But a system for the
emergence of a bureaucracy was very clearly built into the Soviet system.
Bureaucracy is eternal, it is always necessary. From the Komsomol to the party,
then growth along the party line. Man has evolved in this system, with all its
advantages and disadvantages. But by evolving in it, he knew all of its
convolutions, and he could figure out its various turns. Today, a generation of
politicians have arrived who became ministers instantaneously. Who knows them
today? Where did they come from? Some of them are actually businessmen, and they
became billionaires overnight. So the presence of jobs in the KGB on the c.v.s of
some of them, whether we like it or not, is sometimes, in my opinion, even an
advantage. At least they did not keep fools there.
(Borodina) But that depends on which administration...
(Lysenko) Well, probably. But they were mainly professionals there, totally
cynical, but with an excellent education. Today, government has become amateur in
nature. Something of a hobby. And that cannot be allowed. But that is where such
decisions come from, including on television.
(Borodina) There is a bit of the book which really hooked me. You recall there
the episode concerning Sukhov, the first deputy chairman of State Radio and
Television, who said to you: "You journalists are the servants of the party". And
you tried to argue and said, "it seems to me that you could say 'party rank and
file', 'soldiers of the party', but 'servants of the party' - that is
humiliating!" But Sukhov did not let up and told you that servants were what you
were. Can you tell me why the definition of "servant of the party" is offensive
for a journalist but "soldiers" is not?
(Lysenko) Because it is not offensive to be a soldier or a member of the rank and
file. At the time there were no other options.
(Borodina) What about now?
(Lysenko) It seems there are not many options now either.
(Borodina) What are the current heads of the main TV channels in your opinion:
servants, soldiers or the rank and file of the party?
(Lysenko) It is hard for me to talk about today's heads.
(Borodina) But when you see an interview between the heads of the three federal
channels with Putin or Medvedev, how, in your view, are the roles set out in this
(Lysenko) I do not accept this television format. And I would not recommend it at
all in life.
(Borodina) To no-one? Neither to the one nor the other?
(Lysenko) Yes. I have little doubt that it was the wish of those at the top to
broadcast it like that. The idea of interviewing the top person is okay. But this
should not be done by the head of the channel. And under such conditions as well.
Subordinates should not interview their bosses.
(Borodina) Do you think that they were ordered to do this?
(Lysenko) They are managers. Professionals in their field. But a manager should
not interview his boss.
(Borodina) Boris Yeltsin appointed you at VGTRK. Did Yeltsin ever ask you to
interview him?
(Lysenko) Me - no. But Oleg Poptsov (the chairman of VGTRK until February 1996 -
Kommersant), interviewed Yeltsin. But even then I argued with him that the
interview should be done by journalists at the company. And I consider it a
mistake that Poptsov interviewed Yeltsin.
(Borodina) But Oleg Maksimovich with his political activeness, evidently, was not
himself against this?
(Lysenko) Naturally, Oleg, as a man who considers himself a major political
figure, wanted to present this as a conversation between two politicians. Which,
incidentally, Boris Nikolayevich did not like at all.
(Borodina) But could Yeltsin not have refused, explaining that the interview
would be conducted by so-and-so and not by so-and-so?
(Lysenko) When I was working, Yeltsin was absolutely indifferent about who
interviewed him.
(Borodina) So, you think that the system changed?
(Lysenko) Of course.
(Borodina) But in your book you remember that the Lord deflected you a second
time from a new appointment at VGTRK, otherwise you would have put the tape "with
a man resembling the naked prosecutor" on air and not Mikhail Shvydkoy, who was
then appointed. This is just one of the episodes showing the desire of the
Yeltsin government to use television as well...
(Lysenko) When a political war is underway, all means are good.
(Borodina) That is, of course, a controversial justification. Does that mean that
at some point you all do actually become soldiers of the party?
(Lysenko) When a war is underway, there is universal mobilization.
(Borodina) And the elections scheduled for 4 December in Russia also mean the
mobilization of television?
(Lysenko) Looking at our politicians, I have not believed in the political
struggle for a long time now. It does not exist. It is political clownery.
(Borodina) Then why is television at this time, to use your terminology of war,
being placed at full combat readiness? Why is it stepping up its role, if all
this is clownery?
(Lysenko) You know, television fits in with the overall situation and the rules
of the game. That have already been created, and not by it. There is this good
trick in the theater. When an animated conversation needs to be depicted on
stage, a massive argument, the actors come out and talk to each other: "what do
we say when there is nothing to say?" And this is what creates such animation.
One person may say these words angrily, another joyfully, a third surprised, and
a fourth will even wave his hands around. Today the press, and television
especially, is in the same situation as these actors: "What do we say when there
is nothing to say?"
(Borodina) Correspondents working at various TV channels are complaining today in
unofficial conversations that they have been banned from dealing with social
topics in any form, even in non-political programs, for the period of the
election campaign. No regional protests can be shown. Not in the news. Or
anywhere else. So that there is no negative background. And many people are
moaning that it is already impossible to work on air.
(Lysenko) But that can be explained. And I understand that this is the case. In
the absence of any political struggle, any social program, any social issue,
immediately develops into a critique of the regime.
(Borodina) And when you were working, was it normal to remain silent about social
and political problems on the television?
(Lysenko) This has always happened. Lapin (Sergey Lapin - the chairman of State
Radio and Television in the 1970s and 1980s - Kommersant) had a favorite
resolution. When he wanted to wriggle out of things and not cover an event, he
wrote: "Let us digress".
(Borodina) Great wording. Now they just take it off air and that is it. In the
1990s, did the regime also ask you to suppress social topics and other negative
(Lysenko) Of course. Everyone tried to get out of it as best they could.
(Borodina) They phoned you up?
(Lysenko) The law of the telephone existed and it will always exist.
(Borodina) As Igor Kirillov said when Dmitriy Medvedev presented him with his
award "our TV was, is, and will continue to be the best TV in the world".
(Lysenko) Russian Television really is good. There can be unpleasant situations.
You know there is another kind of censorship, which worse for me than all the
others. That is the censorship of friends. Each of us is a member of some team.
Political, social, any kind of team. And so a friend, a teammate, calls you. And
he says: this cannot be touched now because it will lead... And then a
description begins of the huge tidal wave that will destroy the person because of
this if you say what he is asking you not to say about him. And sometimes you
cannot even work out who is right and who is wrong. And a decision needs to be
taken quickly. And damaging your relationship with the person calling is also
another story. You are part of the same team.
(Borodina) Not that long ago, I wrote in Kommersant about how an item on the
torture and kidnapping of people in Chechnya had been taken off the air in the
program Tsentralnoye Televideniye on NTV. It was broadcast in the Far East but it
was taken off the air in Moscow. Vladimir Kulistikov, the channel's general
director, gave us comments in which he said, among other things: "I decide what I
will put on where". Technically, he is right. As a media boss he decides. But
everyone also understands that the item removed from the air destroyed the
illusion of the splendor of life in Chechnya.
(Lysenko) And, generally speaking, when they were filming this material, did the
authors understand what the Caucasus actually is like?
(Borodina) The facts were set out, with eyewitness accounts. There was no
ad-libbing, at least, I did not notice any.
(Lysenko) You want my opinion? You cannot even touch on such issues now. And
especially during elections.
(Borodina) Why? Are we not supposed to talk about what is happening in Chechnya
at all?
(Lysenko) You know, there are things that we are simply not able to show. I will
say more, our television does not know how to talk about the ethnic question at
all. Either then or now.
(Borodina) Despite the fact that this is the most painful subject in society? And
the longer things go on, the more dangerous nationalism is becoming.
(Lysenko) It is very difficult to talk about the ethnic question, about the
Caucasus. We do not really understand what it is at all. There are a handful of
people who understand what Islam is. Very profound knowledge is needed to talk
about this.
(Borodina) And what, in your view, is the way out of remaining silent about this
on TV?
(Lysenko) My prescription is this: if you do not know - do not meddle.
(Borodina) Okay, then what should be shown about the Caucasus? Groznyy's
anniversary with Hollywood stars and a laser show, the skyscrapers that Ramzan
Kadyrov built? Should we show how Chechnya is flourishing?
(Lysenko) That is also nonsense. And it is first and foremost a political
decision not a television decision. This is all due to a lack of professionalism.
It is all the responsibility of the politicians.
(Borodina) How do you see the television of the future?
(Lysenko) I read Konstantin Ernst's (the general director of Television First
Channel - Kommersant) speech, which he gave at Cannes. There are a lot of
interesting things in it. I liked the Kostin television Darwinism most. But he
rightly said there was no need to panic.
(Borodina) Will the Internet destroy television?
(Lysenko) I do not think so. They will merge in some ways, but television will be
around for a very long time to come. It is more likely that the Internet will
take news away from television. This is noticeable even now, although for the
time being the Internet is of course behind television in the most important
thing: it does not have the same scale or scope.
(Borodina) And do you watch the news on any channel?
(Lysenko) To be honest, I read the news on the Internet.
(Borodina) What do you mean? Do you not trust television at all?
(Lysenko) You know, I am an experienced television person, I am very well
acquainted with the reality. And I more or less know how the pictures will be
constructed in the news, what they will say the next minute. And then I do not
have so much time left that I can spend thirty minutes on what I can find out in
five by reading everything on the Internet.
(Borodina) And are you watching Dozhd?
(Lysenko) I have watched them several times. It is a good channel. If the owners
have enough resources and capabilities, then they will go further.
(Borodina) The presence or lack of professionalism there is not the most
important thing?
(Lysenko) Visible seams are of course noticeable in the work there. But this will
pass. Like youth also passes. But young enthusiasm must not overlay everything
else or disappear altogether either. There is a remarkable poem by Marshak about
how the piglets were worried that adult pigs said "oink oink", while they could
only squeal "squeak-squeak". And they were told: "Well just squeal louder then".
(Borodina) Ernst in his report says that the mission of the television is to
bring people together and keep them in a single space. Do you also think that
this is the mission of television? And does television have a mission at all
(Lysenko) In 1995, I had a big argument in the government with a very well-known
official. In the heat of it, he shouted at me and s tarted to say: we will turn
off your television station now, and kick you all out, and we will find new
people. I told him: "You kick us out and turn off the TV station. But the next
day it will be turned on by another government". It may be slightly less the case
today, but only television is capable of connecting and gluing together this
enormous territory, I am not talking about the state, this territory, the entire
conglomeration of people with their habits, ethnic characteristics and religions.
(Borodina) I also think that television is a very powerful communicator. And in
times of tragedy and disasters, the majority of people still rush to their
televisions and not to their computers. But surely it is to the advantage of the
authorities to assemble a gray mass on the other side of the television screens
precisely in order to take advantage of this tremendous scope?
(Lysenko) If it is to the regime's advantage for there to be grey mice there,
this shop needs to be shut and the last one out should turn off the light. There
is a brilliant American science fiction story, I have forgotten the name of the
author. All the Americans there are crazy about what is average, everything is
average there: height, weight, size ... They decided to construct the life of the
country according to the average. There are five candidates for this post. Again
the average one is chosen. According to the indices. The president is average.
The senators are average. The whole country lives according to the principle of
the average. After a few generations they became monkeys. Because if you build
what is average, there is degeneration.
(Borodina) And are things not like that now here?
(Lysenko) Things may be like that here, but I am an optimist. I am counting on
the youth. I look at my students, yes a lot about them irritates me. It
infuriates me, for example, that they do not know who Paustovskiy is. And I waste
half my time in lectures by having to explain first who this is, and then why.
But this generation is not counting on anything. Either on the Komsomol or the
party. They do not expect anything either from the dear Tsar or the dear colonel
or the dear lawyer. If they expect anything, then they expect it most of all from
[return to Contents]
Times of Negative Rhetoric Towards Business Gone - Medvedev
YEKATERINBURG. Nov 28 (Interfax) - President Dmitry Medvedev has called for
combating a negative attitude towards business in Russian society.
"At some point, we were carried away by rhetoric that provoked a negative
attitude towards business. True, there are swindlers among businessmen, but most
of them are honest people," he said at a meeting with businessmen and United
Russia party activists Yekaterinburg on Monday.
"The government should do everything to make successful business an example for
many citizens to follow," he said.
"You are the example of success. Looking at you, people won't think that this
something unattainable, that these are oligarchs of sorts. It's important that
people have successful examples before their eyes," Medvedev stressed.
[return to Contents]
Medvedev says privatisation unleashes economy
YEKATERINBURG, November 28 (Itar-Tass) President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed that
the government will reduce its presence in the economy.
"We must do everything we can to ensure that the state has a sufficient but
necessary presence in the economy," Medvedev said at a meeting with mass media of
the Urals Federal District in Yekaterinburg on Monday, November 28.
He recalled that the government plans to earn 40 billion U.S. dollars from the
sale of its property. "But what is more important is that this unleashes the
economy," the president said.
Medvedev said earlier that the government's privatisation plans were "very
"The government's privatisation proposals look very modest. I think we should act
much more boldly," he said.
According to Medvedev, "Everything boils down to the fact that all companies will
remain under control until 2016" and "I gave instructions to draft new proposals
by August 1 regarding the disposal of excess state property".
Russian presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said that the Russian authorities
would accelerate and expand the privatisation of state-owned companies.
He said the government might sell a part of its stake in the state-owned oil
company Rosneft a year sooner than was initially planned -- in 2012 rather than
in 2013.
"We want Rosneft to be a normal commercial public company," he said. "The
original government proposals were to start [the share sale] in 2013 but maybe
now it will be brought forward to 2012."
"It's not up to me to say what the best timing would be. That is up to the
company itself and investment banks working on this," Dvorkovich said.
Under previous plans, the government has talked about raising 10 billion U.S.
dollars annually from such sales over five years. But Dvorkovich said that figure
might now be raised by 50 percent to 15 billion U.S. dollars, meaning the Kremlin
could be looking at a target of up to 75 billion U.S. dollars over five years.
He indicated that the money-raising might happen in London but alternatively
could be done in New York, Hong Kong or even Shanghai - or a combination of
these. He said initial or further privatisation was on the cards for the grid
operator FGC, former pride of the Soviet industrialisation programme, which
quietly listed some existing shares in London three months ago.
There are similar possible plans for the shipping group Sovcomflot, banks such as
VTB and possibly some airports.
"Rosneft would continue to talk to companies such as Shell about Arctic drilling
deals but few expect the kind of share swap that had been proposed with BP," the
aide said
The government's privatisation plan includes more than 850 organisations, such as
VTB bank, Sovcomflot, the United Grain Company, RusHydro, Sberbank, Rosneft,
Rosagrolizing, Rosselkhozbank, Russian Railways Company, and others.
Russia will continue to privatise state-owned banks after 2015.
According to the privatisation plans, the government intends to reduce its share
in Sberbank, VTB and Rosselkhozbank to 50 percent plus one share before 2013.
The Russian government has suggested privatising about a thousand enterprises and
will present the relevant report to the president immediately.
"The government has adopted the final decision, but we will be able to start
acting upon then when the president signs relevant decrees because the majority
of assets are strategic ones," First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said.
"We hope that all proposals will be approved. The report will be sent to the
president immediately," he said.
"According to preliminary estimates, the state will receive 1.8 trillion roubles
from the privatisation programme if the plans are implemented in full," Shuvalov
"On the whole, the list includes around 900 enterprises," he added.
"Privatisation will proceed on all fronts. In other words, we will sell companies
that are directly owned by the Russian Federation, companies that belong to
Russian regions, and companies that are controlled by the Russian Federation,"
Shuvalov said.
"Regions have to prepare for a large-scale programme of privatisation that should
generate an income as big as that at the federal level," he said.
"We are working actively with regions so that they could determine as soon as
possible a list of assets subject for privatisation up to 2015," the official
Demand for Russian assets subject to privatisation will exceed supply, Kudrin
[return to Contents]
Moscow News
November 28, 2011
Return of the five year plan?
By Oleg Nikishenkov
Russian lawmakers, it seems, have been digging around in the countrys Soviet past
for economic policy ideas and are looking to reintroduce aspects of a planned
The Economic Development Ministry announced last week that it had drawn up a bill
on strategic planning of the economy for approval by the Duma after the
forthcoming elections.
The bill aims to ensure that the regional and federal authorities coordinate
their planning of strategic programs to increase the effectiveness of budgetary
The ministry has been working on the bill for the past two years, but its
finalization was blocked by former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, whose policies
focused on long-term budget strategies over strategic planning.
Kudrin resigned earlier this fall after a fall out with President Dmitry Medvedev
over budget spending policies.
The paper noted that the passing of the bill very much depends on who is
appointed as the next finance minister after the presidential elections in March.
But as the daily points out, such measures would have very limited functionality
since the private sector makes up more than 65 percent of the Russian economy (a
greater share than in France.)
Are we talking here about capitalist Stakhanoviks? asked Finam chief economist
Alexander Osin, with ironic reference to the Communist workers movement which
overachieved state production quotas in the 1930s.
Our state has only maintained control of a few strategic sectors like banking
and oil and gas everything else is in private hands. So if they are trying to go
down the Chinese path, they should bear in mind that the state there controls
around 80 percent of the economy.
Other experts say that more structural planning would be positively perceived by
foreign businesses working in Russia.
Foreign investors need to see a low risk opportunity in Russia, therefore a
laissez-faire economic model might be even less attractive, said Kendrick White,
head of the Marchmont Capital Partners investment consultancy. The government is
to plan actively, especially when it comes to infrastructural issues, but a
return to five year plans is a complete contradiction to a market economy, White
Both experts said it is impossible to reintroduce an economic planning process
without coordinating it with trends in other countries.
It will work if we see a tendency of growing role of state planning on the world
level, said Osin from Finam. Developing countries are actively using state
leverages, which is causing huge disproportions in growth rates between
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
November 29, 2011
Investment Estimated at $36Bln
By Khristina Narizhnaya
Foreign direct investment in Russia reached $36 billion in the first 10 months of
the year, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday during a meeting of the
government's commission on foreign investment, citing the Central Bank.
Last year the amount of foreign investment for the same period was $32.2 billion,
Putin said.
During its final meeting of the year, the commission approved eight foreign
investment requests, Federal Anti-Monopoly Service deputy director Andrei
Tsyganov said.
French IT company Atos gained approval to provide services for the 2014 Olympics
and the 2018 football World Cup. Atos will invest more than 1.5 billion rubles
($48 million) in the Russian economy by 2014.
Putin said it was a "smart" decision by Atos, adding that the nation needs more
of such investments.
The commission approved an investment from the European Bank of Reconstruction
and Development, or EBRD, in Moscow firm Belaya Dacha Trading to develop existing
and new facilities for packaged salad processing. The EBRD's purchase of shares
in several Russian financial services companies was also approved.
Other smaller deals blessed by the commission include foreign investment in
cobalt mining and the tire industry. A review of Polyus Gold's plan to change its
registration to Britain was delayed and will be conducted next year, Tsyganov
Polyus, part-owned by Mikhail Prokhorov, is seeking a premium listing on London's
prestigious FTSE Index, but it must first register as a legal entity in Britain
before it can qualify.
Several amendments to federal laws that ease foreign investment will come into
effect in 2012.
Amendments include lifting government control from investment deals where
international organizations such as the EBRD and the International Finance
Corporation are investors. Another amendment exempts foreign companies from
getting government permission to buy stocks in Russian oil, gas or mining
companies if the total share remains under 25 percent.
The government's objective is to create a favorable environment for foreign
companies to invest in Russia, in areas such as food, medicine, banking and
mining, Tsyganov said.
The liberalization in investment will be good for competition, he added.
"Russian markets have always been open in some way for international investment,"
Tsyganov said. "For more than a decade we are living in strict competition with
foreign entrepreneurs who either invest in Russia or sell their services and
products on the Russian market."
Business will work under the new laws starting next year. The commission has
approved 128 of 136 investment proposals since its creation in 2008, Tsyganov
Last week the State Statistics Service published a report that put the value of
direct foreign investment for the first nine months of this year at $11.7
billion. The discrepancy lies in different calculating methods used by the State
Statistics Service and the Central Bank. While the State Statistics Service uses
figures companies proposed to invest, the Central Bank uses actual numbers
gathered from financial documents, Trust National Bank chief economist Yevgeny
Nadorshin said.
[return to Contents]
Lavrov Protests Forcible Overthrow of Arab Regimes
MOSCOW. Nov 29 (Interfax) - Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated on Monday
that Russia is against the use of public unrest in Arab countries as the reason
for the forcible overthrow of their rulers.
"Russia sympathizes with the desire of Arab and other peoples to have a better
quality of life, democratic reforms and greater involvement in the life of their
societies. However, such goals must not be achieved in a violent way," Lavrov
said at a reception marking the Islamic New Year.
"Violence cannot be a method either for governments or for the opposition or for
the international community," he said.
There is "a trend in which, in the current situation, internal processes in
countries of the region are used to change regimes," the minister said.
"We are against it. We are against false practical interpretations of decisions
of the UN Security Council that aim to save people's lives and protect civilians,
and against some of the members of the international community becoming a party
to a civil war. We are against this becoming widespread and normal practice," he
"It is essential to return to the solid basis of the UN Charter and respect the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of states," Lavrov said. "As for states
themselves, they must respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and guarantee
the observance of those rights."
"It is absolutely unacceptable to try to drive a wedge into one society or
another, to dictate from without how individual peoples must organize their life,
and to decide who should govern which country," Lavrov said.
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Russian TV report condemns 'militants' in Syrian city
Excerpt from report, entitled "Syrian Kandahar", by state-owned Russian news
channel Rossiya 24 on 28 November
(Correspondent Anastasiya Popkova) The Syrians themselves describe the city of
Homs (Hims) is another Afghanistan. Every day, there are shooting incidents and
abductions here. Almost no-one uses taxis, because getting into a taxicab is like
surrendering yourself, as almost all taxi drivers are already in cahoots with
militants, while the city itself is provisionally divided into zones of
influence: there are relatively calm areas, where one can walk in daylight, and
there are areas where even locals are afraid to go.
The symbol of Hims, four columns, are located near the entrance to the city. They
are like the stone in a fairy tale about (Russian folk tale hero) Ilya Muromets,
saying: If you go to the left, you will find your death; If you go to the right,
you will lose your horse or your car. The road to the left goes to the Bab Amr
neighbourhood, which turned into a bandit-infested area six months ago. Cars come
under fire even in daylight, and houses are riddled with bullet holes. After long
negotiations, our guide agreed to drive past a ruined shopping centre quickly.
Radical Islamists and foreign mercenaries are hiding in these houses. According
so some reports, there are 400 hundred of them in Hims alone. (President Bashar)
Al-Asad's supporters here live in constant fear.
(Passage omitted: a local man says traders have been receiving death threats;
another local man says, in Russian, that his Ukrainian wife was killed while
travelling in a car.)
(Correspondent) The number of people hit by stray bullets is increasing daily.
Human rights organizations in London describe them as victims killed in the fight
against the regime, but in reality most of them had nothing to do with politics.
(Passage omitted: another local man says his brother, a bus driver, was killed
after being accused of being a "wrong Muslim")
(Correspondent) Pretending to be army or police officers, militants raid houses
at night and abduct people, then kill them or demand ransom.
(Passage omitted: a local woman says her nephew was killed by militants.)
(Correspondent) The rector of Hims University, one of the largest universities of
the country, was also taken hostage. The army freed him after storming (the
building). However, the extremists responded by firing at one of the departments
from a grenade launcher.
(Passage omitted: a student recalls the attack; the correspondent says a student
dormitory is close to the Bab Amr neighbourhood; a woman says locals want the
army to protect them; a man says that militants have nothing to do with Islam.)
(Correspondent) Several months ago, troops and tanks entered the city and cleared
restive neighbourhoods. However, under pressure from the West, the equipment was
withdrawn. Only a few checkpoints remain. Sometimes the police are lucky: Several
days ago, they seized a lorry with weapons intended for militants, including
assault rifles, grenade launchers, rifles, shotguns, cartridges and explosives,
which were American and European-made.
(Passage omitted: two patients at a military hospital describe attacks by masked
gunmen and "terrorists")
(Correspondent) In the last eight months, 557 soldiers have been killed and over
2,000 military personnel and police have been injured in Hims alone. The mayor of
the city thinks that the bandits are following a clear plan. It is laid out in
documents obtained by special services. He keeps copies in his desk drawers.
(Ghassan Abd-al-Al, captioned as mayor of Hims, with Russian translation
superimposed) For bandits, Hims is convenient because it is close to all the
borders. Arms are being smuggled, while the militants themselves want to paralyse
the city. They attack government buildings. People, police, military personnel
are killed.
(Correspondent) In Hims, there is a clear feeling that someone wants to provoke a
civil war by setting Alawites, Sunni Muslims and Christians on each other. Local
elders are already struggling to keep the citizens from exacting bloody revenge.
[return to Contents]
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
November 29, 2011
The post-imperial syndrome
By Leonid Radzikhovsky
Foreign policy has gone almost unmentioned in the elections debates.
First, foreign policy details are of little concern to the voters. Second, the
four "big parties" are basically unanimous on these topics and could,
theoretically, create a "dominant bloc". The principles of the "bloc" generally
correspond to the beliefs of an overwhelming majority of voters. Indeed, "the
people and the parties are one" when it comes to the idea that: "Just as decades
ago, we continue being surrounded by a hostile world, by 'geopolitical
Darwinism'. And, in this jungle, Russia's allies are the army and the Navy."
The main potential adversaries are NATO countries, and particularly the United
States. They are encroaching on our borders, wanting to steal our natural
resources, just like they did from Iraq (incidentally, all of the Iraqi oil
belongs to the Republic of Iraq, just as it did before, while concessions for oil
development are given to various companies, including Lukoil. However these are
trivial matters).
Such a worldview is not simply a result of TV propaganda. Here, the historic
memory of numerous wars, hot and cold, comes into play. However, it is also true
that the European states were not only in a continuous war with Russia, but with
each other as well and have since been able to unite and put an end to the
"European history of wars". Meanwhile, our generals, politicians, and voters
continue preparing for wars past for a nuclear June 22...
Though foreign policy details are of little concern to people, the "defense
anti-Western complex" is the foundation of social consciousness.
In reality, a "war on the Western front" is impossible the EU and the US cannot
attack Russia (nor Russia them), as it would be nuclear suicide. There is no need
for war. Meanwhile, we will gladly sell oil, gas, and other natural resources to
the EU, and have no ideological or territorial conflicts with NATO.
But if we finally realize that a nuclear war between Russia and NATO is
impossible, just as it is between the countries of NATO, then our entire
worldview shifts.
Russia (the leadership and the people) assess most countries based on the
anti-NATO logic: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". This was the main
rationale, based on which Russia sympathized with Saddam, Gaddafi, and now Chavez
and Ahmadinejad. Russia does not feel any sympathy for these people per se, but
the "anti-NATO navigation" is pointing to them. And if this navigation stops
working, it will immediately become clear that by far not all of NATO's enemies
are our friends. And there are no special reasons to sympathize with them, or
support them. We can trade with them if it is beneficial (and even then, perhaps,
it would be more advantageous to seek a strategic partnership with the US rather
than direct monetary profits from Iran or Venezuela). Russia has disputes with
the West over gas and oil pipelines (such as Nabucco). But all of these are
matters of political and economic bargaining rather than military threats or
sacred ideology. Russia's desire to sell more of its oil and gas to the EU is not
a reason for military confrontation with Europe.
The "anti-NATO" tones determine our relations with the former Soviet states.
The very thought of Georgia's accession to NATO was so intolerable that it played
its role, albeit minor, in the military confrontation with Georgia.
(Incidentally, the NATO Charter does not allow the accession of a country with
unsettled territorial disputes, so Georgia's path to NATO was closed either way).
The fact that Russia has a business relationship with NATO and, from time to
time, we hear talks that we, ourselves, would not mind joining the despicable
NATO, makes things all the more interesting. However, no one is inviting us to
join. In the 1990s, it was made clear to us that no one in NATO awaits for
But if we acknowledge that there is no threat of a military attack from NATO,
then why should NATO's possible expansion worry Russia? You want to expand be my
It's hard to let go of the preconceived notions, thought there is little
rationale behind them and plenty of emotions. Countries of the Eastern Europe,
the Baltic States had all entered NATO so what? It was the 1990s, the oil and
gas sector was being privatized, and the Western states were not allowed to get a
share of the pie. If NATO is ready to fight for our resources, then why did it
not put pressure the weak Russia of the 1990s? There has not been a single
military threat. So who, or what, is it that we are afraid of? And why?
With this approach, the "asymmetric response" to the US deployment of missile
defense looks different. India and Brazil, for example, are not fighting against
the US missiles why should we?
India and Brazil, which are not dependent on the United States, are its
competitors-partners. Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and the Gulf countries which the
US is paying vast amounts of money for oil none of these countries have missile
defense systems, even remotely similar to ours. Neither are they trying to
acquire them as, for some reason, they are not afraid of being shelled by the US.
In reality, for Russia, relations with the West are not so much a matter of
external security, but inner peace. We need an image of an enemy alas, there is
not much else that can unite society.
If the feeling of constant threat from the West disappears, if the anti-NATO
stilts collapse, then our self-esteem will plummet. It is one thing if we are
living to struggle against "prestigious competitors", such as NATO, and another
if "we exist just because", on our own. The "intrigue of confrontation"
disappears, and the question: "Do you respect us, are you intimidated by us?" is
answered by an echo. Living without this National Idea is boring, while another
common idea does not exist.
The e "battle of strength" with the country (other than Iran and North Korea), or
play the perpetual zero-sum game against the US, or consider "competition against
the US" our Mission and the core of our policy.
Moreover, many political constructions within the country (including the vertical
power structure) could tremble, if the "anti-NATO scaffolding" is removed.
Without the anti-Western glasses, the country's real problems become much clearer
the "anti-NATO correction", which assumes that things may be bad here, but the
main thing is to stand up to the "Western influence", disappears. What other
universal excuses are there for unpleasant questions?
Anti-Americanism is a system-forming component in our System.
The entire world, including us, is perfectly aware of the fact that Russia has
not been the Alternative Center of the World for a long time. Our confrontation
with the US is virtual and one-sided the US does not consider us the Main
Adversary we do not hold the central place in its strategy (and this beastliness
will not be forgiven!). Global rivalry with the United States is irrelevant in
this multi-polar world, where there is not a "global vertical structure". Each
year brings more doubt that the all-powerful and horrible Unites States is that
"Center" (incidentally, the "Global Policeman" complex is also inadequate and is
ruining America).
But great power ambitions are a drug. There is a craving to imagine and portray
what doesn't exist, the soul demands high intrigues, the Great Game. "The
darkness of the low truths is more valuable to us than the elevating lies."
So as not to lie to ourselves, to adequately accept ourselves, not to act "in
spite of an arrogant neighbor", not to fight with prestigious pseudo-threats, but
limit ourselves to the prose of our life there needs to be a paradigm shift of
But our society is full of resolve not to capitulate to common sense and continue
the "stand-off against NATO-US". It's hard to let go of the preconceived notions,
especially when there is little rationale behind them, and plenty of emotion.
[return to Contents]
Expert Comments on Medvedev's Remarks on Russian Missile Defense Stance
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
November 25, 2011
Interview with political expert Vyacheslav Nikonov by Irina Omelchenko: "Finding
the Point of Equilibrium. Vyacheslav Nikonov: I Am Not Expecting Any Shifts in
the Americans' Position"
Rossiyskaya Gazeta asked political expert Vyacheslav Nikonov to comment on
President Dmitriy Medvedev's statement in which he announced Russia's position
concerning plans for the deployment of a European antimissile security system.
(Omelchenko) Vyacheslav Alekseyevich, why was Dmitriy Medvedev's statement made
specifically now? What was the last straw that made Russia formulate its position
so harshly on the US national holiday, Thanksgiving Day?
(Nikonov) The Russian president's statement did not spoil the holiday for
ordinary Americans -- they are not very interested in politics.
The fact that Medvedev announced Russia's position on missile defense right now
is absolutely logical. The stimulus was the conversation between Dmitriy Medvedev
and Barack Obama at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in
Honolulu, in the course of which it became clear that the United States does not
intend to concede on a single point relating to the question of the deployment of
the missile defense system in Europe. The fact that the United States adopted a
rather uncompromising stance was, I think, the last straw.
(Omelchenko) Will this tough line by the sides not lead to complications in
Russian-American relations and the start of an arms race, which in the conditions
of the world financial crisis is too costly for both countries' budgets and
carries the risk of creating a new seat of political tension?
(Nikonov) I do not think so. Nobody is talking about an arms race. In this case
Moscow is simply indicating that the creation of a missile defense system
directed against Russia is unacceptable. At one time there was the ABM Treaty,
from which the United States seceded unilaterally, but this did not change the
initial logic of signing that treaty, namely the logic of the interconnection
between offensive and defensive arms systems. The one cannot be separated from
the other. If you create a threat to the other side -- and naturally the missile
defense system is a threat to our deterrent potential -- then you are thereby
creating the prerequisites for the other side to adopt countermeasures.
Incidentally, these need not be too costly for Russia. The proposals contained in
the president's statement do not yet envisage any additional expenditures on our
side. It is a question of our devoting greater attention to those components of
the armory that could neutralize the missile defense system. It means the
development and commissioning of the radar that is being built in the territory
of Kaliningrad Oblast and the stationing of the Iskander system, production of
which is envisaged in any case. In addition, the creation of strike systems of
ours, and correspondingly warheads, that would be less vulnerable to missile
defense systems is possible. This is not so expensive, since the technologies
have been undergoing development over at least the past 30 years, since Ronald
Reagan announced the "Star Wars" plans. As you see, they were thinking about this
quite a long time ago. Thus far, everything Medvedev mentioned would not lead to
an increase in our real expenditures on the maintenance of the strategic
In the future, the possibility of seceding from the START Treaty has also been
announced. First, this is not yet a fait accompli. And second, in principle,
"ceilings" are set in the START Treaty that we do not intend to reach in any
(Omelchenko) But when will the point of no return be passed?
(Nikonov) To a certain extent it has already been passed. The United States is
continuing the deployment of missile defense systems. It is impossible to imagine
that Obama, or the next American president if Obama is not reelected, will
abandon the missile defense system. The abandonment of this system is politically
unacceptable, the Americans will build it anyway. Therefore from this viewpoint
the point of no return has been passed. But on the other hand one could say that
it will never be passed, sinc e at any specific moment in time there will always
be the possibility of continuing a dialogue on security issues, which will enable
arms control to survive anyway.
(Omelchenko) And could there be any progress after the NATO Summit in Chicago?
(Nikonov) I am not expecting any shifts in the Americans' position. Because the
NATO summit will take place in the heat of the presidential election campaign
anyway. Naturally no contender for the job in the White House will be able to say
that the United States is going to abandon missile defense.
(Omelchenko) Any treaty is a kind of system of compromises. What concessions is
Russia willing to make in this story and what steps could America make to resolve
the issue? Where is the point of equilibrium that suits both countries?
(Nikonov) On the US side the position is unequivocal: They do not want to make
any compromises. This has already been stated repeatedly. The only thing they are
offering us is to inform us of the flight codes of the missiles that they intend
to deploy. That does not suit Russia. Moscow proposes dividing the sphere of
sectoral responsibility for missile defense. But the Americans are refusing,
justifying this on the grounds that Russia is not a NATO member. Therefore at the
moment both positions remain extremely consistent.
There is a view that Russia should show flexibility. But why? Certain actions are
being taken against Russia that Russia perceives as unfriendly or as threatening
our security. What compromises should we make? And why should the compromises be
only on our side? We are not siting missile defense components against the United
States of America. Then, no doubt, it would be possible to talk about compromises
of some kind.
(Omelchenko) So what format would suit Russia, is there only the scenario of
distribution of sectoral responsibility?
(Nikonov) Any scenario not involving the development of the missile defense
system would suit Russia. The US arguments that the European missile defense
system is needed to counter Iran's nuclear missile weapons are not convincing. It
is laughable, because Iran simply has no weapon that could reach Europe, to say
nothing of the United States of America. Incidentally, I would like to remind you
that the final decision on the creation of the missile defense system was adopted
after our clash with Georgia in South Ossetia.
(Omelchenko) And when will we be ready for any concrete steps?
(Nikonov) These steps have been announced. The first of them, I think, will be
the commissioning, most likely at the beginning of next year, of the radar
station in Kaliningrad Oblast. And then the deployment of the Iskander system
will follow.
[return to Contents]
Duma wants reset between Russia and US to be linked to MD talks
MOSCOW, November 28 (Itar-Tass) The State Duma has suggested linking reset
between Russia and the United States to the outcome of the missile defence talks.
"If we come to a common denominator on missile defence, then we can talk of
reset, of not, then each side will have to act on the basis of its own
realities," First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee
Leonid Slutsky said.
By consistently carrying out own European missile defence plans, the United
States has minimised the positive effect from the reset, the MP said after a
roundtable of missile defence on Monday, November 28.
"The biggest success of this new chapter in Russian-U.S. relations was the
signing of the New START Treaty. But this treaty links strategic offence weapons
to missile defence. But the American administration, acting in circumvention of
all agreements, is now trying to deploy systems near Russian borders that
threaten our strategic nuclear deterrence forces," Slutsky said.
In his opinion, reset will continue only if the missile defence talks are put
back on track in compliance with the agreements that were meant when the New
START Treaty was drafted and signed.
The Duma earlier cautioned against "burying" Russian-U.S. reset over the missile
defence disagreements, but said President Dmitry Medvedev's statement on the
issue was a legitimate result of the deadlocked talks with the United States and
NATO on missile defence.
Medvedev said in a televised address on November 23 that Russia would take strong
measures, such as enhancement of its strategic capabilities and deployment of
attack systems, in response to further implementation of U.S. plans to create
missile defence in Europe.
He said Russia would reserve the right to give up further disarmament and arms
control measures and might withdraw from the START Treaty.
Medvedev stressed that if other measures prove insufficient, Russia would deploy
modern attack systems in the west and south of the country which will be able to
destroy the U.S. missile defence elements in Europe. He mentioned in particular
Iskander systems in the Kaliningrad region.
"Dmitry Medvedev's statement is a legitimate result of the deadlocked talks on
missile defence," Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party said.
In his opinion, the of results is direct proof that "there is no cooperation as
such", and yet he thinks "it is too early to say that reset has come to a
complete stop".
"There will be no return to the Cold War," State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee
Deputy Chairman Leonid Kalashnikov echoed him.
However he admitted that he was "pleased" by Medvedev's statement because "it is
no longer possible to talk to the U.S. in the language of concessions".
"Otherwise they will simply crush us," he added.
When asked about the consequences of Russia's possible withdrawal from the START
Treaty, Mikhail Nenashev of United Russia, who is a member of the State Duma
Defence Committee, said this would be an undesired scenario for all sides,
including for global security.
If the American actions force Russia to pull out of the START Treaty, this will
only "spur arms race and the development of nuclear and other weapons of mass
destruction in other countries", he said.
"Adverse effects will be felt by the whole world," Nenashev added.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
November 29, 2011
Medvedev Mollifies the West
By Alexander Golts
Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal.
For the last several weeks, President Dmitry Medvedev and senior Russian
officials have tensely been promising to reveal which measures Moscow will take
if Europe deploys a missile defense system. They have been so overwrought that
even I began to wonder whether Russia was going to try to scare the West with
some type of new weapon. And when Medvedev finally made his announcement,
everyone breathed a sigh of relief. The "threat" from the Russian president
should calm whatever anxieties the West might have had.
Russia has threatened to start the operation of an early warning radar station in
Kaliningrad. However, it is difficult to understand the logic of those who claim
that a station designed to warn of enemy missiles flying toward Moscow can be
considered a response to the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe
designed to intercept enemy missiles. Both are defensive in nature and pose no
threat to the other. In fact, if the early warning station in Kaliningrad poses a
threat to anybody, it is to Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. When the
Kaliningrad station begins operations, it will eliminate the need for the early
warning radar station that Russia has been using in the Belarussian region of
Baranovichi a station that Lukashenko regularly uses to blackmail Moscow. What's
more, Oleg Ostapenko, commander of the Space Forces, promised one month ago to
put the Kaliningrad station online. In effect, Medvedev's "response" is to do
something that was already planned.
The president also issued an order to "strengthen the protection of elements of
the strategic nuclear forces." However, the U.S. Standard-3M missile cannot now
and never will be able to strike the starting position of Russia's nuclear
missiles. Moreover, such "protection" can only be provided by intercepting the
enemy's incoming ballistic missiles. It has been said the S-400 air defense
system is capable of achieving that. However, the Almaz-Antei firm has been
unable to start serial production of that weapon system. Thus, Medvedev will have
to wait for the construction of two missile defense factories to be completed
before he can make good on his "response."
Medvedev also said Russian missiles would be equipped with highly effective new
warheads and promised new capabilities for overcoming missile defenses. We have
been hearing all of that for the last eight years. Apparently, the reference is
to "planning warheads" that will be able to maneuver after their return to the
Earth's atmosphere. The problem is that the United States could only hope to stop
such warheads by deploying interceptor missiles on or near U.S. territory: the
planned deployment of U.S missile defense system elements in Poland, Turkey,
Romania and Spain that has so badly agitated Moscow would be useless against such
Moreover, Medvedev has now threatened to develop the means to disrupt the
information and control systems of Western missile defense installations if
necessary. This does not refer to nuclear missile attacks on those systems, but
to the need for Russia's military to develop the capacity for a cyber attack
against U.S. missile defense systems. However, considering Russia's extremely
modest achievements in the field of information technology, a U.S. counterattack
along the same lines could be devastating.
In addition, Medvedev has threatened to deploy modern attack systems in Russia's
western and southern regions that could destroy the elements of the missile
defense system in Europe. One step toward that goal would be the deployment of
Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad special district. However, if Russia
decides not to violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the Iskander
will not be able to fly further than 500 kilometers. In that case, the missiles
could only reach part of Poland but none of Romania. Moreover, from a military
point of view, the best single way to destroy missile defense systems is with a
preemptive strike. That means Medvedev is threatening the possibility of starting
a war against NATO.
And finally, the most ridiculous threat: in a worst-case scenario, Russia
reserves the right to reject further steps toward disarmament and, accordingly,
arms control. What's more, according to Medvedev, "there might be grounds for our
country to withdraw from the New START treaty." At a time when the United States
and other NATO states have a significant numerical superiority in both
conventional and nuclear weapons, this "arms control" is especially beneficial
for Russia. For example, consider the New START treaty from which Russia is now
threatening to withdraw. If to use the rules for calculating weapons from the
previous treaty, the United States has almost two times more delivery vehicles
for nuclear weapons than Russia (and one-third more according to the current
rules). In either case, Russia could reach the maximum number of weapons
permitted in the new treaty only by 2028 at the earliest. Under such conditions,
Moscow would only be shooting itself in the foot if it withdrew from the treaty.
Thus, all of Medvedev's statements have no relationship to any real military
threat or to Russia's current capabilities. It seems that the proposals for a
"response" to the West were prepared by the top brass in the same haphazard way
that a list was made of individuals responsible for a series of unfulfilled state
defense contracts that Medvedev had angrily demanded from his subordinates
several months ago. That list included the names of all the people who had
already been fired over the previous 18 months. In a similar fashion, Medvedev
has responded to the "cunning schemes" of the West by listing everything that the
Defense Ministry had already been planning in the fields of nuclear weapons and
missile defense.
[return to Contents]
November 29, 2011
'Russia is underrepresented in Asia'
Editor-in-Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs Magazine, Fyodor Lukyanov, talks
to Kommersant's correspondent Aleksandr Gabuyev about what role Russia plays in
Kommersant: Could we say that Russia is one of the leading players in Asia?
Fyodor Lukyanov: There is no way Russia can be considered a leading player in the
region. Though Russia's potential leadership role in Asia is noted by other
counties, so far, no one is really seeing this role being plaid out or has any
major expectations of our country. However, that's understandable: Russia is
underrepresented in Asia.
K: But Russia is a member of all Asian associations.
FL: That's true. Russia has long strived to take part in the work of all of the
regional organizations, and now were we are included in every organization as a
fully-fledged member, or an observer, or a dialogue partner. This is definitely
an achievement of the Russian diplomacy. But it seems that no one in Moscow knows
just what to do with all of these riches, how to position ourselves.
K: Does Russia have a clear Asia policy?
FL: Officially it always has, even in the 1990s. And yet, the focus has been made
exclusively in the Western direction. One could say that the shift toward Asia
began with Dmitry Medvedev suffice to look at the geography and the number of
his visits.
Objectively, Moscow is forced to look at this part of the world for two reasons.
First, the global power center both political and economic is located in the
Asia-Pacific region. Second, Russia needs to do something with its Far East and
Siberia. And when it comes to that, we cannot do without an Asia policy.
K: Why hasn't Asia been a priority in the past?
FL: Before, our activities in Asia were usually perceived as an element in the
game with the West. Meanwhile, in their subtext, visits to Asia had always
harbored a desire to show off to NATO and demonstrate to the US and Europe that
we have friends in other corners of the world. But now, Russia can no longer
afford its policy in Asia to be based on some third factors, such as a desire to
sniff at the US, instead of the real state of affairs. For Moscow, the Asia
policy is now valuable in itself and that is already a great achievement.
K: Is this shift linked to the crisis and the different ways Russia and our
eastern neighbors experienced it? Could it be said that Russia has stopped
looking at Asia with arrogance?
FL: The crisis has certainly played its role. Under Medvedev, for the first time,
Asia started being mentioned as a source for Russia's modernization second after
the West. In other words, the leadership has for the first time realized that
Asia is more developed than we are.
But there are other, more significant reasons. The Asia-Pacific Region and the
Indian Ocean are now becoming the main venue for world politics. And if you are
even slightly underrepresented there, you cannot claim the role of a global
Moscow understands this. It's no wonder the first purchased French Mistral
warship is being deployed to the Pacific Ocean. Clearly, by doing so, Russia
wants to demonstrate its presence in the Asia-Pacific Region. And we are not
waving our flag before the Japanese, as much as we are in front of the Chinese.
K: If Russia is underrepresented in Asia, then what role can it play in the
regional division of labor? Are we at least in any way in demand by anyone?
FL: Economically, we are needed in Asia mainly as a source of energy products
and other mineral resources. Meanwhile, at this time the interest is also
hypothetical: we practically have no infrastructure, necessary for the export of
resources to Asia. So China, for example, though it has Russia by its side,
continues buying gas from just about anyone but us.
K: So our only role is provider of natural resources?
FL: Not only. From a geopolitical viewpoint, Russia could act as a participant in
the alignment of intricate balances in the region.
The current environment in Asia is extremely confrontational; competition between
the US and China is rising. In these conditions, there may be a need for an
independent weight that could be placed on various sides of the scale, depending
on the situation, and maintain a balance. Of course, given the territorial scales
and all other realities, it's strange to call Russia a weight, but if we consider
our real influence in Asia we are currently unable to claim a larger role.
K: Many are getting the impression that Russia is too closely tied to China, and
that creates some serious risks for the RF.
FL: It would be very dangerous if China and Asia were equivalent in the minds of
our leaders. The inclination toward China is explainable: it is a lot more
powerful than all of our other neighbors. But now, Russia's main objective, if it
wants to develop Siberia and the Far East without any risks to sovereignty is
maximum diversification of contacts.
[return to Contents]
November 29, 2011
Togetherness: Russia's new national idea?
By Konstantin Kosachev
Konstantin Kosachev is Chairman of the Committee for Foreign Affairs in the State
Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament.
The last decision on Russia's foreign policy of the parliament of the fifth
convocation (the last before a new State Duma is convened after the election on
December 4th) was to ratify the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Commission.
It's my deep belief that the recent decision by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to
set up a Eurasian Union is a step on from previous integration attempts on
post-Soviet territory. It's not about the number of customs checkpoints that are
now gone, or the quality of the newly-appointed trade and economic regulators.
What makes it different from previous efforts is that the Union is established on
equal terms, and this time we are talking about genuine equality, not just
equality on paper. This is the first time in Soviet, as well as post-Soviet
history, that this has happened. When each party within the Commission has three
votes and in theory, any two parties can outvote the third, when all the
decisions of its superior body the Council are taken by consensus, no-one will
be able to pressure the others.
Those who are eager to point fingers at every move by the incumbent power were
yelling during the ratification procedure, "What equality are you talking about?
Russia is way stronger and wealthier than Belarus and Kazakhstan combined."
As I listened to them, I remembered a very fitting story that a renowned German
politician once told me. Here is what he said, word for word: "As Europe
integrates, we, the Germans, can use any tone as we argue with our neighbors the
French. We can shout and scream, trying to prove we are stronger and dominate
them, but the truth is, our countries are on an equal footing. At the same time,
we would never talk down to our other neighbors, Denmark for instance, in the
same situation. They are weaker and we would endanger the integration process if
we talked to them in a manner they might see as condescending. We can only regard
them as equals."
Russia lacks that acute political wisdom. Wisdom that, I suspect, came to my
German friend at a price. We may be stronger than all our post-Soviet neighbors,
perhaps stronger than all of them put together, economically at least. But can we
really consider ourselves strong when we are on our own? Is such strength a sign
of wisdom?
Modern integration alliances are durable because they are built on a parity
basis, NATO being the only exception, clearly dominated by the US. I suspect
however that European states have always been attracted to the US because it is
ready to donate and sponsor. First came the Marshall plan, which revived Western
Europe's economy, then the nuclear shield which sheltered Europe's cities from
the Soviet threat, again, at no charge.
Even today, NATO's global superiority (or claim to it) comes at the price of the
United States incurring 75 percent of all the Alliance's expenses a startling
individual burden, considering some 10 years ago the expenses were split 50/50
between the US and its allies. From the smaller allies' point of view, you should
probably go with this kind of inequality.
Although Russia may wind up in a similar position as sponsor for some of its
neighbors and allies with regard to security (as with the multilateral Collective
Security Treaty Organization), what is acceptable for security purposes does not
necessarily work for economics.
Leaving the Euro-Atlantic dimension aside, Russia's European neighbors have
learned to live not only side by side, but genuinely together despite a history
of two world wars (both touched off in Europe) and hundreds of local conflicts.
This required the European heavyweights to change their mentality and abandon the
Orwellian principle of some community members being "more equal" than others.
Remarkably, this change has made the European nations stronger and happier, not
weaker and more miserable. The Eurasian Union, while still in the making, already
looks increasingly attractive for new aspiring members. And it seems to me that
the Union owes a good deal of its appeal to Russia's non-imposing attitude.
I would like to think that Russia is finally on the right track. And if that is
true, way to go, Russia!
What if this is the national idea that Russia has finally found for its foreign
policy: being together with your neighbors rather than merely side by side?
[return to Contents]
Commentary: Russia Must Choose Between West and China, Eurasian Union 'Doomed'
November 25, 2011 (?)
Commentary by Konstantin Smirnov: Current Situation: Eurasian Umbrella
The election campaigns that are drawing to a close are making both United Russia
and Vladimir Putin seek answers to the question of what goals they see as the
fundamental ones in the next political cycle. Integration processes in the
post-Soviet space have come out into the leading position. This has been
reflected both in a number of keynote statements and in the recent signing of the
Declaration on Eurasian Economic Integration and the Treaty on the Eurasian
Economic Commission.
However, the jubilance of the Eurasians that has started is clearly premature.
The idea of a third way and the formation of a new center of economic and
political power on the world map is doomed to failure. Integration with the
countries of the near abroad is an important and significant process. But it
cannot become Russia's main foreign policy project.
This, incidentally, is confirmed by Putin himself. Let us look attentively at his
interview with the heads of the three federal TV channels. The prime minister
gives quite an honest answer to the question of what China is to us -- a threat
or a partner. Putin notes that he is constantly telling Western partners: In the
modern world the main struggle is taking place for world leadership and "here we
do not intend to argue with China. Here China has other rivals."
Thus integration in the post-Soviet space is just an opportunity to strengthen
our negotiating position in the dialogue with the participants in the struggle
for leadership. But it in no way rids us of choosing between the West and China.
In the struggle between the two most powerful players, we can only strengthen one
of them. The question is which one. This is actually the key question on today's
Plus our post-Soviet leadership does not look too obvious today. As ill luck
would have it, examples are pouring in as if from the horn of plenty. The story
of the pilots in Tajikistan; the elections in South Ossetia and the Dniester
region. The recent statement by Nikolay Makarov, the chief of the General Staff,
on growing threats of local military conflicts on the borders of the Russian
Federation which could lead to the use of a nuclear weapon was extremely curious.
Let us look at the map. A military conflict with China can hardly be local; for
the moment I imagine with difficulty a military conflict with Mongolia; and it
does not seem that the chief of the General Staff meant a nuclear war in the
Baltic region either. It turns out that we could use a nuclear weapon on that
Eurasian space. Especially since Makarov recalled attempts to draw Ukraine and
Georgia into NATO. Incidentally, it is not for the moment working out for us with
Ukraine, and without it Eurasianism is somehow incomplete.
Or let us take the situation with Turkmenistan. In actual fact it is not
important who is sitting in the Kremlin. Under any administration, even an
ultraliberal one, the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline contradicts Russian interests.
But we are fighting it strangely -- either we altogether pretend that there is no
problem, or we hurriedly come out with brutal statements and then shut up again.
No systematic work on the Caspian topic is being conducted.
So the Eurasian umbrella is leaking in places. But even if we do patch it up, we
will still not be able to take cover under it from the choice between the West
and China.
[return to Contents]
S. Ossetia Supreme Court annuls presidential elections
TSKHINVALI, November 29 (RIA Novosti)-South Ossetia's Supreme Court on Tuesday
declared null and void the outcome of the November 27 runoff presidential
elections because of violations, court spokesman Atsamaz Bichenov said.
New elections have been slated for March 25, a parliamentary spokesman said.
With the official outcome of the runoff unannounced, the two candidates - former
Eductaion Minister Alla Dzhioyeva and Emergencies Minister Anatoly Bibilov - have
both claimed victory.
South Ossetia's Supreme Court on Tuesday reviewed complaints over violations
during the runoff. They were filed by the ruling Unity party. Dzhioyeva and her
staff boycotted the court hearing.
Oposition candidate Dzhioyeva will be unable to take part in the new elections,
Bichenov said."Alla Dzhioyeva cannot take part in the new presidential elections.
She is deprived of this right as the court established violations."
A spokesman for Dzhioyeva's election staff described the Supreme Court's decision
as a "power takeover."
"We did not take part in this [Supreme Council] meeting... we are not responsible
for how the situation will develop," Dzambulat Tedeyev said.
Some 200 supporters have gathered near Dzhioyeva's staff headquarters to discuss
a plan of action with the former presidential candidate.
As of Monday, Dzhioyeva had 56.74 percent of the vote with 74 of 85 districts
tallied, the Central Electoral Commission said. But Dzhioyeva's rival Bibilov
claimed to have a seven-percentage point lead in the voting.
Unity party will make a decision whether its candidate Bibilov will take part in
the new elections, Bibilov's election staff spokesman, Oleg Kudukhov, said.
"The decision whether Anatoly Bibilov will take part in the next elections will
not be made by him personally. This issue will be reviewed by a party congress
and the candidate's election staff within ten days," Kudukhov said.
Bibilov himself is inclined not to take part in the new elections, he added.
Bibilov was seen as Moscow's favored candidate and was widely expected to win.
The politician called for "a new beginning" in the region, which still carries
scars from the war between Georgia and Russia in 2008.
[return to Contents]
Russia Profile
November 29, 2011
Waiting to Be President
A Tense Calm Hangs Over South Ossetia as the Republic Awaits the Presidential
Election Results
By Andrew Roth
Today, depending on a supreme court decision in the breakaway republic of South
Ossetia, the North Caucasus may see its first female president. UPDATE 5:10PM:
South Ossetia's Supreme Court, chaired by Atsamaz Bichenov, announced its ruling
today that Alla Dzhioyeva's victory in the elections was illegitimate. RIA
Novosti reported that the court upheld charges by the conservative "Unity" party
against Dzhioyeva supporters for illegal campaigning and bribing. New elections
should be announced within one day, but with one caveat Dzhioyeva will be barred
from participating in the upcoming elections.
UPDATE 5:10PM: Kommersant reported that local security services are on high alert
and the parliament has been urgently convened. Hundreds of Dzhioyeva's supporters
were out in the streets earlier for what she called a "victory march, and not an
'orange revolution,'" adding that there would be no revolution of any kind,
reported RIA Novosti. At the same time, Gazeta.ru reports that members of
Dzhioyeva's staff have accused acting president Eduard Kokoity of "seizing power"
in North Ossetia away from the seeming president-elect.
According to partial polling results from the South Ossetian Elections commission
released a little before noon yesterday, opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva, the
former education minister in the republic, had a more than 16 percent margin over
her opponent in Sunday presidential election runoff with 74 of 85 electoral
districts reporting. Her oppoenent, Emergency Situations Minister Anatoly
Bibilov, is protesting the vote, sparking worries that the elections could
devolve into violence in the republic of just 70,000 people.
In the last act of what many saw as a highly unlikely, oppositionist, dark horse
candidacy, Dzhioyeva claimed victory and called on her opponent to concede. "We
won and that's a fact that everyone should recognize," she said yesterday, the
South Ossetian government news agency IA RES reported.
That has not happened so far. Shortly before the Central Elections Commission
released the preliminary results of the vote yesterday, the chairman of the South
Ossetian Supreme Court announced that the conservative Unity party, which
supports Bibilov but does not count him among its membership, had accused
Dzhioyeva's supporters of bribing election officials and of illegal campaigning
at voting sites. Yet the Chairwoman of the Central Elections Commission Bella
Plieva went ahead and announced the results a short time later, saying that the
Elections Committee had not received any formal complaint.
Vadim Mukhanov, a senior researcher at the Center for Caucasian Studies in
Moscow, noted that while the accusations of fraud may seem like preludes to
destabilization or an attempt to annul the election results, similar attempts
were made in past elections in other Caucasus republics, including Georgia, and
were simply a stalling tactic to "buy more time" before Bibilov would be forced
to admit defeat. "Right now the most likely conclusion is that the Supreme Court
will announce the results in a day, and that will be it," said Mukahnov.
As the Supreme Court makes a final decision, both of the candidates began to
address the possibility of an outbreak of violence between camps. Yesterday
afternoon Dzhioyeva called for calm in the republic, while issuing a stern
warning in Bibilov's direction. "Any responsibility for the destabilization of
the situation rests on our opponents, if they do not concede defeat," said
Young and fragile, the South Ossetian state was embroiled in a war between Russia
and Georgia several years ago, and remains vulnerable to instability. "In such a
small society that is widely armed, the danger of violence is real," said
Alexander Krylov, an analyst with the Academy of Science's International
Relations Institute, reported the Moscow Times.
Bibilov has not called for mass uprisings on the contrary, in public statements
he has said that he will respect the Supreme Court decision and has publicly
disavowed violence and conflict as an extension of his politics. "We always said
that we are subordinate only to the law. Any law for us is accepted, and radical
measures are absolutely inadmissible. Statements by some that bloodshed is
assured show that they're ready to do this. This is unacceptable," Bibilov said
Last night RIA Novosti's correspondent in South Ossetia Vitaly Denisov told
Russia Profile that the situation on the ground remained calm, and that both
sides continued to wait for the results. Nonetheless, the atmosphere had been
tense earlier in the day, he said, when it was first announced that the Supreme
Court would be making a decision on the case the next day.
Bibilov has been widely recognized as an "establishment candidate" in the
elections, after being supported not only by current President Eduard Kokoity
(which some say may have hurt his candidacy, considering the president's low
popularity), but also by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who met with Bibilov
during a recent trip to Vladikavkaz. Dzhioyeva, in the meantime, culled support
from the opposition, including barred candidate Dzhambolat Tedeyev, the widely
popular Russian national wrestling team trainer. Nonetheless, many thought that
Dzhioyeva's gender would automatically discount her as a possible contender: "Our
society has a high respect for women, but the Caucasus are still the Caucasus,"
Kokoity said on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio.
Disappointment with the country's experience under Kokoity, with whom Bibilov is
closely associated, formed the crux of the vote today. "There was only one
question in this election: are you satisfied with the current authorities in
South Ossetia today," said Mukhanov. "It had little to do with how much people
liked a Bibilov or a Dzhioyeva candidacy. It was a choice between systems, or
Dzhioyeva herself described her victory as follows: "[South Ossetian] society has
pronounced its sentence on an epoch that should vanish into oblivion."
[return to Contents]
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