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[OS] 2011-#191-Johnson's Russia List
Released on 2012-10-12 10:00 GMT
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Johnson's Russia List
24 October 2011
A World Security Institute Project
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In this issue
1. The Daily Telegraph (UK): Medvedev clashes with Putin... on the badminton
2. Pravda.ru: Forbes names 50 Russians who conquered the world.
3. Russia Profile: A Quiet Separation. Russians Choose to Emigrate Unofficially
for Professional and Spiritual Development.
4. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Vladimir Babkin, A liberal tandem in action.
5. Gazeta.ru: 'Herd' Mentality of 'Apathetic' Russians Who Will Vote for Putin
Bemoaned. (Semen Novoprudskiy)
6. Interfax: Russian President Advocates Soviet Practices In Resolving
Interethnic Problems.
7. Interfax: Medvedev's Annual Income Around 3.4 Mln Rubles.
8. Interfax: About Half Of Russian Population Want Medvedev As PM, Poll Shows.
9. ITAR-TASS: The Russians have a pessimistic attitude to life, but this will not
affect the election returns.
10. Interfax: Medvedev, Putin Urged United Russia to Be Closer to People.
11. ITAR-TASS: Putin's Front issues liberal program.
12. Moscow Times: Medvedev Vows 2nd MSU Visit.
13. New York Times: Social Media Raise Curtain on Staged Event in Moscow.
14. Moscow Times: Victor Davidoff, MGU Is No Place for Discussion.
15. Vedomosti: Tandem Castling Seen Triggering Self-Destruction of Political
System. (Mikhail Dmitriyev)
16. BBC Monitoring: Russian TV tries to make sense of Medvedev's 'big government'
17. Moscow Times: Vladimir Frolov, The Legitimacy Deficit Is Getting Even Larger.
18. Izvestia: Evolution of Russian Presidential Staff Since 1991 Traced. (Boris
19. BBC Monitoring: No point in voting - result is known beforehand, says Russian
20. RFE/RL: Moscow's Bitter Ex-Boss Luzhkov Lashes Out At Kremlin, Calls United
Russia 'Shameful'
21. BBC Monitoring: Medvedev says North Caucasus protects Russia from terrorism.
22. Russia Profile: Medvedev 2.0. Medvedev Announces He'll Be Joining Facebook to
the Delight of His Internet Satirists.
23. Svobodnaya Pressa: Demokratiya 2 Co-Founder Krasheninnikov on the Internet
Political Platform.
24. Moscow Times: Michael Bohm, Why Some Russians Need the West's Help.
25. Moscow News: Liberal-Schmiberal Navalny on Russian March Committee.
26. Los Angeles Times: Ex-tycoon writes of life in Russian prison. Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, an ardent foe of Vladimir Putin in prison since 2003, takes up a
Russian literary tradition. It's too early to judge him as a storyteller, but his
prose is poignantly political.
27. Wall Street Journal: Russia Nears WTO Membership, Clearing EU Hurdle.
28. Moscow Times: Dvorkovich Joins Prophets of Economic Gloom.
29. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Alexei Moisseev, No pain, no gain in times of
30. Novaya Gazeta: Nikolai Vardul, CHAOS IN HEADS. RUSSIA: POLITICAL EXPENSES
31. RIA Novosti: Russia's anti-corruption watchdog to check state companies in
32. Svobodnaya Pressa: Spokesman Details Severe Problems Facing Russian Farmers.
33. Interfax: Russia "will Kick in The Teeth" If Its Citizens' Rights Abroad Are
Infringed - Medvedev.
34. Gazeta.ru: Lukyanov Assesses Russia's Foreign Policy Record Under Medvedev.
35. Moscow Times: In Eye for Eye, U.S. Citizens Banned.
36. BBC Monitoring: Russian Foreign Minister Accepts US Interest in Former USSR
37. Moscow News: Experts: what Gaddafi's death means to Russia.
38. BBC Monitoring: Russian pundit says Al-Qadhafi's death removes unifying force
in Libya. (Lukyanov)
39. Interfax: NATO operation in Libya sets dangerous precedent for Balkans -
The Daily Telegraph (UK)
October 24, 2011
Medvedev clashes with Putin... on the badminton court
While ex-KGB agent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is known for his black belt in
judo and love of martial arts, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev revealed himself
on Monday as a fan of the game that involves shuttlecocks and shoulder-high nets.
By Howard Amos
[DJ: See video here http://en.rian.ru/video/20111024/168059741.html]
Dressed in a sky blue sports T-shirt and clutching a badminton raquet, Medvedev,
46, told the audience of his video blog that, "badminton is known to everyone
because badminton is played at home, on the street and in school and university
sports halls."
But, he added, "those who can really play badminton are few in number."
Amidst accusations that he had simply been a chair-warmer for his political
mentor, Medvedev announced last month that he would stand aside to allow Putin to
run for the presidency in 2012, an election he is almost certain of winning.
In the online clip, Medvedev pointed out that people had been playing badminton
in China, ancient Greece and India before the sport came to Europe.
"Those who play badminton well can make quick decisions," said Medvedev. "It's
not just a game."
He claimed it is the sport not only of presidents, but of Russia's first
cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.
"Gagarin also loved this game and played it well," he says.
Russia ranks eleventh place in the world for badminton, one place above Britain
and one below Thailand.
Medvedev's direct address to the camera in an empty sports hall is followed by
footage of him hitting a shuttlecock back and forth with Putin. The action is
accompanied by a swelling soundtrack with keyboard and drums.
It is not clear who won their various matches - although the video shows a
grim-faced Putin lobbing a shuttlecock across as Medvedev leaves his court
dangerously open, apparently winning the first point.
For a sport to flourish in Russia it often requires the support of a high-profile
figure. Russia's first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, was a well-known
tennis enthusiast.
It is not the first time Medvedev has expressed an interest in physical exercise.
During his campaign for the presidency in 2008 Medvedev said he enjoyed yoga, and
was even able to stand on his head.
[return to Contents]
October 24, 2011
Forbes names 50 Russians who conquered the world
The Russian edition of Forbes magazine has published the list of 50 Russian
people, who managed to achieve great success abroad and become internationally
Forbes prepared the list of 50 Russians, who conquered the world. The respectable
magazine wondered whether the natives of the USSR and Russia could create
competitive enterprises, invest in foreign assets, conquer world markets, win
popularity and fame.
The magazine did not distinguish immigrants from the USSR/Russia and Russian
citizens, Finmarket reports.
Forbes divided the participants into five groups: the largest Russian investors
abroad, entrepreneurs, who built their business outside Russia from nothing, most
quoted Russian scientists, most popular and top-earning artists, musicians,
producers and athletes. The magazine apparently decided to follow the saying "Any
person who speaks and thinks Russian is a Russian." As a result, Forbes decided
not to separate immigrants from Russian citizens, The Russian Times said.
As a result, the list of largest Russian investors in international assets is
topped by an American of Russian origin Leonard Blavatnik, aged 54. He is ranked
80th on the global list of Forbes magazine with $10.1 billion. The rating also
includes Aleksei Mordashov, Alisher Usmanov, Viktor Vekselberg, Vladimir Potanin,
Mikhail Fridman, Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich.
The list of Russian entrepreneurs, who built their business from scratch,
includes such figures as Israeli oligarch Lev Levaev, who took part in the
diamond business, and Valery Gapontsev, who deals with innovative projects.
According to Dni.ru, six members of this category holding the fortunes of over
$1.2 billion each, graduated from the Moscow Physical and Technical Institute.
They work with high-tech developments.
The list of top ten most successful Russian scientists include Andre Geim and
Konstantin Novoselov (physics), Maksim Kontsevich (mathematics), Andrei Kravtsov
(astrophysics), Evgeni Kunin (biology), Ruslan Medzhitov (biology), Atyom Oganov
(geology), Sergei Odintsov (physics), Grigori Perelman (mathematics), Stanislav
Smirnov (mathematics), and Gleb Sukhorukov (chemistry). Nearly all the
scientists, except for mathematician Perelman, work in leading research centers
outside Russia.
When working on the list of cultural figures and athletes, Forbes took account of
the frequency of search queries and the level of income of internationally
recognized Russian stars. The list includes opera singer Anna Netrebko and tennis
star Maria Sharapova, who is recognized as one of the most popular sports stars
on the Internet.
The list of athletes includes Alexander Ovechkin, Andrei Kirilenko, Andrei
Arshavin, Evgeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Fedor Emelianenko, Ilya
Bryzgalov Vera Zvonareva.
[return to Contents]
Russia Profile
October 24, 2011
A Quiet Separation
Russians Choose to Emigrate Unofficially for Professional and Spiritual
By Svetlana Kononova
A popular recruitment portal recently published a strange advertisement: an
amateur writer seeks an editor to help him finish his book as he cruises the
world on his personal yacht. It turned out, the weekend Hemmingway was, in fact,
a Siberian businessman who said he was fed up with his life and had decided to
change his lifestyle for good. "Half-immigration," where one spends as much time
abroad as possible without changing citizenship, is a trend among rich Russians,
and it has become chic to manage your business from abroad, travel and feel like
a "citizen of the world." But while a decade ago only the rich could exercise
this opportunity, the Russian middle-class has also recently begun to adopt this
Sergey Tugarinov, a specialist in Internet marketing and editor in chief of the
anti-smoking, healthy-lifestyle Ne-kurim.ru Web site, called his emigration a
"typical" attempt to change his lifestyle. "The moment [when I emigrated]
coincided with deep soul searching. I was changing my daily routine: I gave up
smoking and drinking. I got tired of being in the same place and wanted to see
something new."
Tugarinov now lives with his family in Thailand and is content with his new life.
"Internet marketing is the most convenient profession for a traveler. I like
Asia. I have been interested in it since my childhood. I feel comfortable in hot
weather; I like the spicy local food, and I quickly got used to left-hand drive
and motorbikes now I can't imagine my life without it. Generally I didn't face
any serious difficulties after moving there, except the high price of
healthcare," he said.
"Half-immigrants" are not illegal aliens; rather, they use legal ways to stay in
a chosen country for a long time. Like a separation without divorce, it gives
weary citizens a chance to get some distance without the onerous paperwork. The
idea of "half-immigration" is also closely tied to new lifestyle philosophies,
like down-shifting and other personal development credos. People who choose this
way of life have different reasons for leaving Russia, but many seem to be happy
with their decisions. "Moving to a new country opens new markets, opportunities,
and professional and personal contacts. It is also advantageous for raising
children. I have two. They are growing up more open-minded than they would have
in Russia. If a child lives in a multicultural and multinational society, he
can't become a grey, mediocre person. And it is well-known that talented
exceptional people move the world. Knowing foreign languages is also very
important. My children speak fluent Thai, English and, of course, Russian,"
Tugarinov said.
While the total number of Russian-speakers outside of Russia is estimated at more
than 20 million, it is difficult to say how many middle-class people with Russian
or CIS citizenship live abroad permanently or most of the time, and don't use
traditional immigration schemes. About half of Russia's emigre community keeps
its citizenship, but it is unclear how many are actually "half-immigrants."
However, as many countries develop more stringent immigration policies and limit
opportunities for naturalization, it is possible that "long-term tourism" and
"alternative immigration" will come into greater demand.
Polina, a programmer from a small town in central Russia, moved to Turkey because
she didn't see any prospects for professional development in her hometown. "I
graduated from the university and got a diploma with a focus in programming, but
couldn't find a job because seven years ago employers in my town didn't want to
hire women for these positions. I taught computer science in school but my salary
was too little to survive on, and I always wanted to develop myself and to do
something creative. I needed to move, but to where? I didn't want to go to
overcrowded Moscow or St. Petersburg. I decided to move to Turkey. At least there
I could use my knowledge of English. Also, there was the sea and the good
climate," she explained.
Polina is now self-employed. She edits a local English-language newspaper,
teaches English and Turkish and creates and develops Web sites, including her
favorite project a Russian-language Web site about Turkey. For her, the change
was not only professional, but about a chance for personal development and
"self-actualization:" "Moving to a new country gives people the opportunity to
break the cycle of everyday routine, look at their native country from the
outside, compare life in different countries and to find new jobs. It inspires
self-development because it is necessary to learn new things a new language,
culture, mentality, and people. I have more opportunities for self-actualization
than I did in Russia," Polina said.
Those benefits also carry on for the next generation, she continued. "On the one
hand, a society teaches children to have respect for their elders and traditions.
On the other, children in the resort regions are growing up in a mixed
international environment. It is a good way to prevent racism and to continually
broaden their outlook," she added.
Both Polina and Tugarinov believe that the most difficult and most important
aspect of "half-immigration" is to learn and understand the mentality of local
residents. "This is the kind of information that you can hardly ever find in
books, but it is a must," said Polina. "It is necessary to be tolerant of local
ways and manners. Intolerance is a typical mistake of many tourists and some
immigrants," added Tugarinov.
[return to Contents]
Russia Beyond the Headlines
October 21, 2011
A liberal tandem in action
By Vladimir Babkin
Vladimir Babkin is retired deputy editor-in-chief of Russian daily "Izvestia".
Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev won't give up their hold on power in Russia
for the next 10 to 15 years, as they've explicitly stated several times over the
past three weeks. While liberals fear a new stagnation, like the one during
Leonid Brezhnev's reign in the 1970s, pragmatists argue that only a policy
pursued by Putin and Medvedev in tandem can gradually turn Russia into an
economically developed democracy.
President Dmitry Medvedev promised "not to give up power but to continue work"
before suggesting that in about 10 to 15 years the "current government team" will
be replaced by people "better and smarter than us."
"Everything is hanging by a thread, in politics and the economy," said Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin as he warned that "two or three missteps" could quickly
return Russia to a situation similar to the 1990s, when political instability
resulted in armed conflicts, the economy could not function without the help of
foreign loans, and Russia was on the verge of collapse.
These explanations, as well as Medvedev and Putin's intention to "swap seats,"
has exasperated free-thinking Russians, who don't want to live in an
authoritarian state, but are unable to offer any alternative that would be backed
by the majority. That's why they are allegedly "voting with their feet."
Sociologists confirm that the number of Russians who want to leave the country
for good keeps rising. However, this trend can hardly be viewed as political
protest. The same sociologists have established that emigration from Russia today
is almost always driven by economic considerations. People go abroad for money,
not for democracy.
According to CIA data, Russia is ranked 7th in the world in terms of GDP but
only 71st in terms of GDP per capita. Russians' average monthly salary is just
over $450. Most people have no significant savings, and their real estate assets
are mostly small apartments and tiny plots of land with a shabby country cottage.
Add to this misery the traditional superpower ambitions of most Russians and
you'll get an electorate voting for nationalization, for Communist-style
dictatorship of the proletariat, and for the revival of the powerful Soviet
Union, be it a guarantor of peace or a threat to it.
Medvedev and Putin can't help indulging those voters in their rhetoric. But their
real agenda (and they keep saying that they have the same one) is as liberal as
possible in the context of modern Russia. Granted, for now they are mostly
talking about social and economic reforms: healthcare, education and social
welfare are slowly but surely moving towards a market-based system. There has
been some progress in efforts to make the law enforcement system more humane. But
there is no denying it: liberalizing state government is not on the agenda.
One would like to hope that the economic modernization plan that's been conceived
will help most Russians earn enough, so that they don't think only of taking
money from the rich and sharing it. Poor democracies cannot be stable. They are
swept aside and replaced by cruel dictatorships.
This is why there should be no rush: first we have to become a bit wealthier, and
only then should we discuss deeper liberal reforms. And it would probably be
wrong to chastise Jim Turley, Ernst & Young's chairman and CEO, who flatteringly
endorsed Putin's decision to run for Russian president.
[return to Contents]
'Herd' Mentality of 'Apathetic' Russians Who Will Vote for Putin Bemoaned
October 14, 2011
Report by Semen Novoprudskiy: Art of Belonging to People
Vladimir Putin being in demand among ordinary people is declared as all but the
main ideological grounds for him turning into the lifelong president of Russia
before our eyes. Apparently, he is the president of ordinary provincial Russians,
and only the cheesed-off inhabitants of the metropolises are unhappy with his
return to the presidential seat (as if he had gone anywhere). However, the trick
is that with the current state of the people any placeman of the existing
authorities could become the supposed "people's" president of Russia. A
full-fledged sovereign herd-ocracy has been created in the country -- the power
of the apathetic common folk.
The interview of Dmitriy Peskov, the press secretary of our for now still prime
minister, to the Dozhd (Rain) TV channel (which after the return of Putin to the
presidency could for gravitas be renamed the Vozhd (Leader) channel, stuck in the
mind above all thanks to the Brezhnev analogy -- particularly amusing in
connection with Peskov's acknowledgement that Brezhnev "did not leave in time."
Putin is not yet Brezhnev -- above all physiologically, but he is a definite
product of the Brezhnev era. And in the condition of remaining in power for two
six-year presidential terms, he is perfectly capable of leading the country into
a Brezhnev-style pre-collapse degeneracy, although he could bring it down much
earlier too. However, there was a far more important part in this interview --
the definition of Putin's actual electorate.
In the opinion of Mr Peskov, "the Moscow set is indeed inclined to such
judgments" (that Putin is Brezhnev today -- S.N.). The press secretary set the
rest of Russia against these people: "These moods are dramatically different to
the non-Moscow set. We constantly travel a great deal around Russia, and there
are completely different problems there than there are for those who live within
the limits of the Sadovoye Koltso and those who can afford to spend two or three
hours a day writing on blogs and social networks." Peskov designated Putin's
electorate very specifically: "It is those people who in actual fact live for far
more practical questions... It is small businessmen who are trying to get on
their feet but are being suffocated by the local authorities. It is regional and
district officials whose salary is not sufficient and who are wondering when it
will be indexed. It is mothers who cannot put their children in kindergartens."
The flawed nature of this logic is not even that people will vote for Putin en
masse for as long as the suffocation of small businesses by the local authorities
which are entirely representatives of United Russia -- which is headed by you
know who -- persists. Or for as long as salaries are not sufficient for district
officials. Or for as long as mothers are unable to put their children into
kindergartens. That is to say that Putin, according to the version of his press
secretary, is the de facto president of the preservation of hopeless provincial
penury. The problem is much sadder: Those who are really ready to vote again for
Putin, as if 11 years in power were insufficient to adequately appreciate his
managerial abilities, will vote in general for any placeman of the authorities.
If Medvedev stood from the authorities, they would vote for Medvedev.
If Putin had said at the United Russia congress that he supports Boris Nemtsov
(that would have been a wonderful test for the people's ability to say "no" to
the authorities), Nemtsov would have become president. And the point is not only
the readiness of the authorities to falsify the people's will but the utter
absence of this will.
For the emergence of the habit of voting against the authorities (and not
overthrowing them by force, when everything has already gone totally rotten),
which is useful from the point of view of the development of any state, it is
also necessary to revive gubernatorial elections, bring back normal political
competition at the federal level, and dismantle the state propaganda machine,
transforming it int o an objective media.
The essence of the sovereign herd-ocracy is as simple as pie. Our people are
still not a subject of power, contrary to the constitution, but its object, which
it can use as it sees fit. And it is not worth cursing when we are called a herd.
Alas, I am as much one of the herd as you who are still prepared to support these
authorities are. This is not cursing but a statement of fact, a medical
diagnosis. While "ordinary people" think that their whole life is practical
problems that Putin should resolve, nothing will change. His task is to create
conditions under which we will ourselves be able to resolve these problems or
will not encounter them at all. As soon as "ordinary people" understand that
there is a direct dependence between the limitless presence in power of this
person and the total lack of progress in resolving their personal practical
problems -- the suffocation of small businesses in the localities; the siloviki,
who are at times more frightening than the local bandits; lines for
kindergartens; the lack of passable roads in the country financed from the super
profits from oil and gas, and so on -- hope will appear. Without the habit of
saying "no" to the authorities there can be no normal development. The current
authorities have had enough time to show themselves in all their beauty.
Our authorities have undoubtedly arranged their own lives in this time. But there
are no signs that they will allow the electorate itself consisting of ordinary
provincial people to do this.
So the guarantee of their durability is that as many people as possible,
irrespective of their place of residence, remain ordinary and provincial.
[return to Contents]
Russian President Advocates Soviet Practices In Resolving Interethnic Problems
Moscow, 20 October: Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev believes that Russia
should use the best practices of the Soviet Union, as well as the most successful
examples in international practice, to resolve its problems in interethnic
"We need to try to combine all those reasonable things which were in the Soviet
times and the world's experience," the president said at a meeting with young
people today.
Medvedev shared his memories of life in the USSR, in which he had never
encountered ethnic-related problems. "This is the best proof that any country in
which different ethnic groups live can be internally balanced - not by police
actions, by bayonets, but because of the right set of mind," the president said.
However, he does not idealize the ethnic policy of the Soviet Union, and he cited
Iosif Stalin as an example, who at one time headed the Ministry of Nationalities,
which "did not want to build a federal state, but this shell was used from the
In addition, Medvedev recalled how during the Soviet era, many ethnic groups had
been repressed. Nevertheless, the president was confident that "some of the
mechanisms that were in use in the 1970s and 80s, the ideology that was present
at the everyday level, was correct".
"Today the country is different, there are 180 ethnic groups in Russia countries,
today we have a real federation, and there is no other federation like this in
the world," the president said.
"When some of my foreign colleagues are beginning to teach me - they are all
teachers - they tell us how to develop democracy, the political system,
interethnic relations, - they do not take into account one factor - that all
their federations are mono-ethnic and very rarely are based on the quasi-ethnic
(as received) principle. Our situation is different," Medvedev said.
He cited the United States as an example of a successful solution to ethnic
problems. "Forty-fifty years ago, the Americans had a very problematic society in
which a rather large category of people were offended and humiliated. They were
able to overcome this stage, and now their society is quite harmonious, and they
suppress all sorts of attempts at dividing people, because this is very
dangerous," the Russian leader said.
He also gave advice to young people who soon will have to solve problems at the
state level. "Do not let the country get bogged down in interethnic conflicts.
Even more so, don't provoke its disintegration." "Unfortunately, there is always
this danger," the head of state said.
[return to Contents]
Medvedev's Annual Income Around 3.4 Mln Rubles
MOSCOW. Oct 20 (Interfax) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who leads United
Russia's list at the elections of the sixth State Duma, has a total income of
nearly 3.4 million rubles, according to the data obtained by the Russian Central
Election Commission.
Medvedev's total income is 3,378,673.63 rubles, according to the data.
The incumbent head of state has a 367.8 square meter apartment in Moscow and two
garages, 16.2 and 16.3 square meters, the data said.
Medvedev has two cars, a 1962 GAZ-21 and a 1948 GAZ-20.
Medvedev has 771,569 rubles on his account with the VTB Northwest bank, 71,200
rubles with Alfa-Bank, 540,369 rubles with Sberbank and 2,883,540 rubles with
VTB, according to the data obtained by the CEC.
According to the submitted data, State Duma Speaker and senior United Russia
member Boris Gryzlov has a total annual income of 3,771,510 rubles. Head of the
presidential administration Sergei Naryshkin has an annual income of 4,584,747
First Deputy Prime Ministers Igor Shuvalov and Viktor Zubkov have an annual
income of 14,652,037 rubles and 5 942,334 rubles, respectively; Emergency
Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu - 4,416,060 rubles.
Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev has a total income of 114,746,083 rubles.
Sergei Neverov, Secretary of the United Russia General Council Presidium, has a
total income of 1,961,840 rubles, the same as the head of the party's Central
Executive Committee, Andrei Vorobyov.
As for the regional governors on the United Russia ticket, Moscow region governor
Boris Gromov, for instance, has an annual income of 3,073,686 rubles, Ingushetia
leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has an income of 2,670,228 rubles, Chechen leader
Ramzan Kadyrov - 4,191,138 rubles, Tatarstan President Rustam Minikhanov -
7,433,555 rubles, Governor of the Altai Territory Alexander Karlin - 2,371,327
Famous singer Iosif Kobzon, also featuring on the party's election ticket, has an
income of 12,816,807 rubles. State Duma member and journalist Alexander
Khinshtein has an income of 4,134,643 rubles.
As for other famous public figures on the United Russia ticket, Oleg Mitvol, for
example, has an income of 5,298,360 rubles.
The richest person on the United Russia ticket is State Duma member Grigory
Anikeyev, whose income is estimated at 878,282,525 rubles. According to the
submitted data, Anikeyev earned his money from selling and renting out property,
interest income, revenues from securities and business interests, as well as his
State Duma salary.
[return to Contents]
About Half Of Russian Population Want Medvedev As PM, Poll Shows
Moscow, 20 October: Russians are on the whole positive about the idea that
(incumbent President) Dmitriy Medvedev may become new head of government after
the 2012 presidential election.
According to a nationwide poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM)
on 15-16 October, 70 per cent of Russians know that if (current Prime Minister)
Vladimir Putin wins the presidential election next year, Dmitriy Medvedev will
lead the new cabinet.
Almost half of those involved in the poll (47 per cent) said that they were
positive about the idea. Some 28 per cent of respondents were negative about the
prospect. About two-thirds of the population (66 per cent) believe that
Medvedev's appointment as prime minister will not mark a change in government
policy, even though 41 per cent of Russians would want this to occur, including
33 per cent who expect the government policy to change significantly.
As for areas of government policy which Russians believe need to be improved
first of all, those mentioned by respondents most often included social issues,
the financial well-being of the nation, industry and agriculture development, the
fight against unemployment and corruption, price and housing and utilities tariff
control, law and order, and housing problems.
Russians were divided on the possibility of the government make-up changing under
Medvedev's leadership. Some 39 per cent though it would stay the same and 38 per
cent expected changes.
A total of 34 per cent of respondents said they felt positive about the current
cabinet, with another 37 per cent expressing a negative attitude and 29 per cent
being undecided.
Russians mostly wanted Emergencies Minister Sergey Shoygu and Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov to keep their posts (35 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively).
Some 16 per cent wanted Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev to be reappointed,
with nine per cent opposing the idea.
As for ministers Russians would not want to see in the new cabinet under
Medvedev, the three names mentioned most often included Education and Science
Minister Andrey Fursenko (20 per cent against him), Health and Social Development
Minister Tatyana Golikova (18 per cent) and Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov
(11 per cent). Russians were also against Agriculture Minister Yelena Skrynnik
and Transport Minister Igor Levitin keeping their posts (9 per cent in both
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The Russians have a pessimistic attitude to life, but this will not affect the
election returns
MOSCOW, October 21 (Itar-Tass) In late September the Levada Center conducted a
sociological survey on changes in the life of the Russians for the last 12 years,
the Vedomosti writes. Most respondents stated that the situation worsened in
moral values and culture (63%), education, health care systems and the housing
and utilities sector (61%), employment and remuneration (59%), social security
(53%), life security and legal security (51%), administration system and law
observance (45%) and the life level of most people (47%).
Russian citizens, which were questioned in a public opinion poll, admitted some
improvement only in two spheres: Russia's situation on the international scene
and in the relations with neighboring countries (43% and 36%, respectively). The
North Caucasus situation, the situation in the freedom of speech and human rights
in Russia, as well as the life level in the families of respondents remained
unchanged for the last 12 years, according to the relative majority of pollsters.
In the future Russian citizens also do not expect any improvement, just probably
in the relations with other countries. In other spheres from 34% to 47% believe
that no changes can be expected.
Levada Center Deputy Director Alexei Grazhdankin cited by the newspaper noted
that the expectations for the next 12 years are more optimistic than the actual
assessments of the past 12 years. Russian citizens expect that they will live
better, though they consider the prospects for the country vague in general. A
growing irritation is linked not with a direct deterioration of the situation,
but with the tiredness from politics and the lack of prospects.
The dissatisfaction does not lie in the political dimension and does not affect
the election returns, a political scientist Rostislav Turovsky believes. Russia
has a low level of society organization, the society structure is
individualistic, therefore, no protests can be expected.
A political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov said that the growth of negative
assessments affects Putin's rating, but however the sympathies to the opposition
do not grow and the political alignment in the country remains stable in general.
The expectations of no changes show the recognition of stagnation in the country,
the expert underlined.
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Medvedev, Putin Urged United Russia to Be Closer to People
MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin, who visited the United Russia Party's headquarters on Friday,
have urged all party members and supporters to heed the wishes of citizens, not
to "stick their nose up in the air," but not to surrender to indiscriminate
criticism either.
Medvedev, who leads the United Russia Party's ticket at the forthcoming
parliamentary elections, has addressed everyone, who identifies themselves with
United Russia or sympathizes with this political force.
"I would like all of you to communicate more with ordinary people during this
period, not to fear criticism from our citizens and not to shut yourselves from
it," Medvedev said.
At the same time, it is necessary "to answer to those loafers and unprincipled
politicians, who have done nothing themselves yet, but are trying to sound smart
on every issue," he said.
United Russia must be a party of real deeds, the president said.
For his part, party leader Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged "all United Russia
supporters and members, everyone who is not indifferent toward efficient gradual
and dynamic development of the country" to show voters what the United Russia has
achieved. "One must communicate to voters in an articulate, competent and
coherent manner what has been done in recent years and what has been done well.
We do have something to show to the country," Putin said.
At the same time, one "must never stick one's nose up in the air and always bear
in mind that somewhere all of us could have done better," Putin said.
"One must be sensitive toward the expectations of the country's voters,
generalize these wishes and put them on the practical agenda. At the federal
level, we will do everything to achieve the utmost result," the prime minister
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October 24, 2011
Putin's Front issues liberal program.
By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila Alexandrova
MOSCOW, October 24 (Itar-Tass) The All-Russia Popular Front (ONF) created by
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the basis of the ruling United Russia Party for
the December 4 parliamentary election published the Program of Popular
Initiatives which contains major liberal promises. However it is unclear whether
they will be implemented in case United Russia wins the polls.
The bulky edition placed on the United Russia website was drafted by the
Institute of Social, Economic, and Political Research headed by Senator Nikolai
Fedorov. It was specifically created to design the election program for the
ruling party. However the United Russia has already approved its election program
at the congress on September 24 which is based on the speeches delivered by its
leader Putin and the #1 on the party ticket Dmitry Medvedev.
However party officials say the ONF program will also be used. "The Popular
Program will be split into legislative guidelines and we shall work along them in
the coming five years," said United Russia presidium secretary Sergei Neverov.
The ONF was initiated by Putin in May 2011 as a coalition of public organizations
which is to bring new forces to the party faction and expand its social support
on the eve of the election. The ONF does not run in the election itself and its
members will be elected by the United Russia ticket.
"The Program of Popular Initiatives is no wishful thinking but a concrete plan of
priority actions to improve the life of the Russians. It determines the
guidelines and priorities of legislative activity of the State Duma of a new
convocation for the coming five years and determines the Russian development
vector," the document said.
The priorities include the creation of decent living standards in Russia,
modernization of economy, decreased inflation, regional development, the fight
against corruption, and upgraded political system.
There is a proposal to completely change the Criminal Code and expand the use of
bail, reconciliation, home arrest, mitigate criminal legislation in the economic
sphere, introduce criminal responsibility for legal entities, and exclude
investigators from the litigating party. "The current Criminal Code acquired
non-systemic and patchwork character because of numerous amendments and
additions," the program said and proposed to institute within the courts of
general jurisdiction the administrative court which would consider claims of
citizens to the government. It also called for a patent court that would deal
with copyright protection.
Besides, the ONF proposed to create a single investigative agency by merging the
Investigative Committee with investigation staff of the interior ministry, the
Federal Security Service, and the Federal anti-drug agency.
The ONF suggested the Russians shall be given the right to choose pension
retirement age themselves. "The government will guarantee higher and growing
pensions to those who continue active labor and retire three, five, seven or ten
years later as the person may choose," the document said.
Increased pension age is a major political problem for Russia. Former Finance
Minister Alexei Kudrin and other government members said the increase was
inevitable. However Putin said the issue is not on the agenda at present while
Medvedev opposed the increase in general.
ONF proposed to introduce compensations to citizens for the non-fulfillment by
officials of their duties or for delayed fulfillment. The program insists
officials should have to prove the lawfulness of both incomes and spending of
their own and of their family members.
It also called for personal responsibility of officials for bad roads and for
decreased number of cars with flash lights.
ONF also wants United Russia lawmakers to annually report to the Front. "We want
members from the United Russia in all legislatures to annually and publicly
report to the ONF coordinating councils about the results of their work in the
legislative bodies of authority," the document said.
However the Program of Popular Initiatives is only a recommendation rather than a
binding document. Therefore it is hard to say which recommendations may be really
implemented. Some liberal experts are even skeptical about the future of the ONF
after its plays its role in the election. Thus, Board Chairman of the Institute
of Modern Development Igor Yurgens said in summer: "I believe the ONF is a
publicity move before the election. We shall not see it or hear about it after
the polls."
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Moscow Times
October 24, 2011
Medvedev Vows 2nd MSU Visit
By Alexey Eremenko
National politics are notoriously devoid of public discussion, but President
Dmitry Medvedev pledged on Saturday to change that by meeting with young
journalists and fielding any questions they might have.
The promise, relayed by Medvedev's spokeswoman Natalya Timakova, came after his
trip to the journalism department at Moscow State University ended in scandal
Medvedev's trip was billed as a "meeting with students," but most journalism
students were barred from talking to him by the Federal Guard Service.
The 30 students allowed to attend the meeting, dedicated to the "national
question," were ardent Kremlin supporters. The other attendees were members of
pro-government youth groups, including Nashi.
Actual journalism majors were relegated to waving hello to Medvedev as he walked
into the building. Many students and professors were then shut out of the
building, which is located on Mokhovaya Ulitsa, across the road from the Kremlin.
Several students attempted to ask hard questions, holding signs with statements
such as "Why do you tweet while Khodorkovsky rots in jail?" But seven of them
were promptly marched off by the Federal Guard Service, which locked some in an
auditorium and others in a police vehicle and threatened all with expulsion.
The treatment of the students caused a storm in the Russian blogosphere,
generating dozens of Twitter posts with the Russian-language hashtag #zhalky, or
"pitiful." On Saturday, critical-minded students staged a "subbotnik," or a
voluntary cleaning, of the department to protest Medvedev's visit.
Timakova said later that a meeting with journalism students was never in the
cards, and the department had been chosen as a convenient venue, department head
Yasen Zasursky wrote on his LiveJournal blog.
But she promised another visit, this time specifically to "meet department
students and answer any questions from them," Zasursky wrote.
No time frame was given for the event.
Medvedev also came under fire last month when he visited the Peoples' Friendship
University and toured selected dorms that students likened to a Potemkin village.
"Medvedev's visit, and everything that has been written about it, is a lie," two
students wrote to The Moscow Times in a letter titled "Dmitry in Wonderland."
[return to Contents]
New York Times
October 22, 2011
Social Media Raise Curtain on Staged Event in Moscow
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW At about 4 p.m. on Thursday, Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev,
stepped into a packed lecture hall at Moscow State University's venerable
journalism department. Applause washed over him, proof that progressive, social
media-savvy young people still look to him as a standard-bearer.
Except it wasn't.
Starting that morning, journalism students had been complaining over Twitter that
the 300 people in the audience were outsiders, chosen by Kremlin-connected
organizers and brought to the university. They included contingents from
pro-Kremlin youth movements, while only a tiny number of students from the
department were allowed in. When several journalism students were detained for
holding up pieces of paper with critical messages, the Twitter hashtag "zhurfak,"
or journalism department, began trending upward.
By Friday, the newspaper Vedomosti had derided the event as "a practical exercise
in the history of the U.S.S.R." A group of students declared an "unscheduled
Subbotnik," after the Soviets' mandatory public cleaning projects, to sanitize
the grand staircase where Mr. Medvedev had entered. A petition circulated,
reading: "Mr. Medvedev! Do not come to Moscow State University again."
The episode underlines the challenge that the authorities face at the start of
two back-to-back electoral campaigns. Stage-managed events are a mainstay of
politics here, but this year they are being greeted with sourness, especially
among people who get their news from the Internet.
"There was a suspicion that they wanted to insure themselves against our
students, who are not members of pro-Kremlin organizations," said Oleg Gervalov,
20, the coordinator of a student group.
"There were many people here who trusted the government, who say that their
relationship has changed a little now," he said.
Mr. Medvedev himself has expressed disdain for the political showcases known as
Potemkin villages, after the fake settlements erected by the minister Grigory
Potemkin to ingratiate himself with Catherine the Great. Mr. Medvedev's
spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said that she was aware of the journalism
students' grievances and that he might return to the journalism department to
meet with them.
Ms. Timakova said that the journalism department's auditorium was being used for
the event because of its location, and that many students in attendance were
ethnic minorities who attend other universities, since the topic was interethnic
It is difficult to imagine this playing out so publicly in years past, before the
center of political discussion swung to the Internet. Social networks have forced
the authorities to respond to unorthodox critiques: two weeks ago, Prime Minister
Vladimir V. Putin's press secretary explained on a Web-based news channel that
some of Mr. Putin's televised exploits had been staged.
Online, every week brings a new witty, lacerating poem satirizing Russian
leaders, part of the "Citizen Poet" series. A viral video clip has the rock star
Andrei Makarevich performing a song about Potemkin-esque preparations for Mr.
Putin's visit to a backwater called "Kholuyovo," or "Bootlickerville." A song
called "Our Asylum is Voting for Putin" began circulating a few days ago.
By Friday evening, criticism over the journalism department event was so sharp
that the ruling party, United Russia, stepped in to defend the measures taken by
the president's security service. A spokeswoman for Nashi, the pro-kremlin youth
movement, said the affair had been orchestrated by a small group of
antigovernment students.
"It's three students and 20 of their comrade journalists," said the spokeswoman,
Kristina Potupchik. "It is a standard situation for us, when 20 liberal
journalists rock the boat."
Mr. Gervalov said students had learned of Mr. Medvedev's visit from a news Web
site the day before, around the time administrators asked him for a list of eight
journalism students to invite and the questions they wanted to ask. He was told
to give the list to Vladimir Tabak, an alumnus who published "Happy Birthday, Mr.
Putin," a calendar featuring scantily clad female journalism students, and
founded an online group called "I Really Like Putin."
Shortly before Mr. Medvedev arrived, Mr. Gervalov was told that the Federal Guard
Service had not been able to approve any of the names on his list.
Three students were detained outside the university building and several more
inside, all for holding up papers with critical questions for Mr. Medvedev. One
19-year-old said she was detained after she held up a piece of paper bearing the
words, "Press is derived from Oppress?"
She was questioned mainly about whether she belonged to a specific opposition
group and whether someone had paid her to hold up the sign, she said, speaking on
the condition of anonymity for fear of further consequences.
"I figured we would have the opportunity to say something to the president," she
said. "This was the only possibility because they did not allow us into the
conference room."
Michael Schwirtz, Olga Slobodchikova and Anna Tikhomirova contributed reporting.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
October 24, 2011
MGU Is No Place for Discussion
By Victor Davidoff
Victor Davidoff is a Moscow-based writer and journalist whose blog is
The dramatic events that took place on Thursday in Libya will ensure that this
date will be remembered in history. An important event took place in Russia on
that day, too, and while although it was far less dramatic than the death of
Moammar Gadhafi, it was rich with symbolism.
On Thursday, President Dmitry Medvedev met with students and representatives of
youth organization at the journalism department of Moscow State University.
The choice of venue and conditions of the meeting were a vivid indicator of the
current status of freedom of speech in the country at present and what it is
likely to be under a continuation of the ruling tandem.
First, the event wasn't announced anywhere and was planned in absolute secrecy.
The students at the journalism department didn't know about it, and even the
dean, Yelena Vartanova, was informed about the president's visit only the day
before. She was just asked to make sure that two auditoriums were free one for
the meeting and the other for a buffet.
On the morning of the meeting, hungry students drooled over a huge amount of food
and drink that was brought in for the buffet hungry in the literal sense because
the Federal Guard Service, which provides security for the president, closed the
departmental cafeteria as a security precaution.
The security detail closed off the entire building and carried out its own
special face control, not letting in students whose names were on their
blacklist. Some faculty members were barred from the building, too.
But that was a minor inconvenience, as one student, D-lindele, wrote on his
LiveJournal blog, : "That was nothing compared with what happened next. The
journalism students were shocked to learn that the 'students' at the meeting with
the president would really be dozens of activists from Nashi and other similar
But the author was mistaken. In fact, there were about 30 students from the
journalism department about one-tenth of the audience. Only the most trustworthy
students were invited, including the attractive girls whose half-nude photographs
graced a calendar made for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's birthday last year.
Other less-trusted journalism students were only allowed to greet the president
when he entered the hall and went up the stairs.
In a video on YouTube showing the meet-and-greet episode, you can see an
unidentified student about a meter from Medvedev holding up a hand-made sign the
size of an A4 sheet of paper. Then security guards close in on him, and he
disappears behind their backs.
That wasn't the only protest that the president chose to ignore. Student
Igor_malinin wrote on his LiveJournal blog: "Just then a group of enterprising
guys held up oppositional signs, like 'Press isn't from the word oppress' and
'Why do you tweet while Khodorkovsky rots in jail?' Right now they've been
detained by the Federal Guard Service and are being held in the auditorium.'
Three female students were detained for protesting by the entrance to the
building and spent several hours in a police precinct. Altogether, seven
journalism students were detained. Typically, the detention of protesters was not
mentioned in any of the television news reports.
Budur, a blogger from the journalism department, wrote: "Citizen Medvedev
humiliated and insulted the dignity of seven members of our community. The seven
did not organize a rally or do anything against the law or against university
bylaws. They were just doing their civic duty. This is the first time since the
1930s that people were arrested right on the campus of the university."
After the meeting, one of the journalists managed to ask Medvedev what happened
to the students who had been detained. "Is someone being detained some place?"
Medvedev asked. Apparently he was the only one who didn't know.
And that evening, Medvedev sent out a cheery tweet on Twitter: "The meeting at
the journalism department was good. I see that everyone had a good time. Thanks
for the comments. Sweet dreams."
Perhaps Medvedev actually thinks that a staged event with a paramilitary security
operation during which protesters were arrested in his presence was a "good
meeting." And perhaps he thinks that it was held with full respect for the law
and everyone's civil rights. Or perhaps he thinks that the most important aspect
of the event was that everyone had a good time.
If so, it shows how little he understands the country that he is ruling, where an
increasing number of people have a completely different notion of civil rights
than Medvedev and his security advisers. And eventually they will find a way to
make the authorities play by their rules in politics.
In the meantime, sweet dreams, Mr. President.
[return to Contents]
Tandem Castling Seen Triggering Self-Destruction of Political System
October 20, 2011
Report by Mikhail Dmitriyev, president of the Strategic Developments Center: "The
Point of No Return: The Stolen Sun"
The events of September have much more importance for the country's development
than a simple clarification of the list of future top officials and Duma parties.
The narrowing of the portfolio of potential parliamentary parties and the sudden
castling of the tandem lead to the restricted representativeness of the system
and the closing off of the last remaining channels of political competition
within the framework of the election process. In that way those hypothetical
scenarios that permitted the self-development of the system of government in the
direction of more openness and competition have been chopped off.
But the chances for an accelerated political transformation are not declining but
growing. A slow-down could have occurred in a scenario of the mimicry of the
system where the persuasive appearance of greater openness and representativeness
without real progress in this direction would have been created. Chances for the
realization of such a scenario would have perhaps been preserved if the project
with the revival of Right Cause under the leadership of Mikhail Prokhorov, who
could have attracted protest voters on the right flank, had been successful and
the policy of driving Just Russia from the left flank had been abandoned. But
after the resignation of Mikhail Prokhorov, the right flank became deserted, and
the left of center Just Russia, if it is in fact represented in the Duma, will be
too small to have any significance.
Such an approach leaves no room for illusions: further development can occur only
based on the scenario of the alienation of the government and society and greater
confrontation between them. Pressure from society in the direction of changes
would build up until real representation of a broad spectrum of public interests
would be ensured.
Many people whom I talk to every day are people 45 years of age or older. Their
reaction to the self-appointment of the tandem is negative, purely personally,
and, if you will, existential. They understand that they perhaps have 10 to 15
years of an active professional life left, but then pension age will come. And
most of them ask the question: are we really going to live with all this for
another 12 years? That is the source of the wave of malicious anti-Putin jokes,
poems, and video clips on the Internet which people gladly exchange both on the
Net and in personal dealings. Now people whom it was difficult to suspect of
being disloyal to the authorities just recently gladly tell them to each other.
This response is understandable from a human perspective: they feel that they
(the authorities) want to take away their future. On the level of archetypes, the
poem by Chukovskiy "The Stolen Sun," which is well known to our generation since
childhood, surfaces. The plot of it is simple: a crocodile has swallowed the sun,
and the confused beasts run around the dark forest in search of a "rallying
center." In the end this role is taken by the bear, who frees the sun after a
short battle. Unlike the children's fairy tale, in Russian political realities,
the castling move deprived Dmitriy Medvedev of the possibility of becoming a
center of consolidation even of the limited number of people who are disposed to
In the autumn, the spontaneous search for possible centers of opposition to the
authorities became a mass phenomenon. One and the same question -- "Whom should
we rally around?" -- is heard from the most varied people most of whom in the
recent past showed no interest in political activity. It is especially
interesting that the traditional differences between the right-wingers and the
left-wingers and the liberals and the state-minded people are quickly erased.
Entrepreneurs close to the siloviki (security officials) size up Mikhail
Prokhorov with interest, while the liberally minded intellectuals discuss the
possibility of the transformation of the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian
Federation) into a European-type social democratic party. One gets the impression
that in the atmosphere of the "stolen future," not only is opposition to the
authorities expanding but conditions for the broad consolidation of opponents are
also emerging. The common denominator for everyone is becoming experience -- both
positive and negative -- of life in a market economy.
In the larger picture, what needs to be done to make certain that the development
of the country is not halted is approximately clear to everyone. Of this what the
existing government will be able to do is approximately clear (for example,
create centers for attracting investors on the example of Kaluga Oblast), and
what it cannot in principle do (restrict corruption and ensure the protection of
property and the independence of the judicial system). While three years ago
people in my circle could with difficulty make themselves page through any
program economic work by the supporters of state-mindedness -- the mutual lack of
understanding was so great; now many documents that come from this milieu draw
unfeigned interest. Such potential for consolidation on the grounds of
constructive opposition is even more dangerous to the government than any
organized opposition. As late Soviet experience showed, stopping the forcible
intellectual separation of society from the government is practically impossible,
and it gave a push to the dissolution of the Soviet system in the absence of any
oppositionist structures.
But the problems created by September are not exhausted by that. The mechanism of
party manipulation did irreparable damage to the interests of the political
system itself that it was created to support. In conditions where the demand for
openness and party pluralism is growing, intervention in the activities of
parties led to the opposite result. The portfolio of Duma parties is narrowing to
a state where it no longer serves real public interests, with the exception of
the interests of the authorities themselves. The political process has moved to
the stage of self-destruction in the same way as the French Revolution at one
time began to "devour its own children." It is well known how this ended in
France: the revolution ended with another profound restructuring of the political
In an even more closed and unaccountable political system, the authorities find
themselves alone facing potential public dissatisfaction and will be unable to
effectively counter it. In the meantime, the political risks for the authorities
continue to build up.
The ratings of support for the tandem and the ruling party have steadily dropped
for many months. On the electoral level, a distinct change in preferences in
favor of the CPRF is observed. It reflects not so much the greater support of the
Communists as the spread of oppositionist sentiments and the lack of other real
party alternatives.
The second wave of the economic crisis has not yet begun, but the economic
expectations of the population, according to Rosstat (Russian Federation Federal
State Statistics Service) data, have remained in the negative zone since late
2008. The impending slowdown in the economy will mean that they will continue to
fall. Pensioners' economic expectations are the lowest as compared with other age
groups, despite the fact that the growth in pensions in real terms came to 35% in
2010. That speaks of the exhausted potential for retaining popularity through
growth in social expenditures. Especially since as our research shows, the main
requirements of the urban middle class, which is the basic nourishing environment
for growth in oppositionist sentiments, are to restrict corruption and ensure the
equality of everyone before the law, the quality and accessibility of state
services, and the conditions for doing business and for vertical social mobility.
In the existing system, it is much more difficult to satisfy such demands than
the demand of pensioners for social payments.
The universal growth in protest activism of the urban middle class in countr ies
with developing markets serves as an additional factor of risk to political
stability. In the last few months, the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China)
countries have encountered this phenomenon (protests against the construction of
the chemical plant in the Chinese city of Dalian, the movement against corruption
in India, and the protest actions in Brazil), as well as in North Africa and in
the Near East. This is a relatively new phenomenon the reasons for which are
sometimes linked with the spread of Internet technologies. In Russia protest
activism of the urban middle class is not yet widespread in character. But based
on sociological data, the inclination toward protests of the middle class of
large Russian cities is higher than for the population as a whole.
The situation is becoming more explosive. For the first eight months of 2011, the
level of protest sentiments gauged by the question -- "Do you believe that people
close to you and your friends and acquaintances are willing to participate in
protest actions?" -- was on average one-fifth higher than in the same months last
year and comes to about 40%.
According to some data, in September a multiple increase in the number of mass
labor conflicts was observed as compared with the relatively stable level of the
previous months.
We will have to forget about the stability of the political system in these
conditions. The time of profound changes in it is approaching.
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Russian TV tries to make sense of Medvedev's 'big government'
Excerpt from report by privately owned Russian television channel REN TV on 21
(Presenter) In the last few days (Russian President) Dmitriy Medvedev explained
twice to his supporters how he would work as prime minister. He also explained he
understands by a big government, which he is planning to set up. Medvedev hinted
when he is be prime minister, even opposition politicians could be included in
the government. The big government, which will include members of public, must
become a platform for operational coordination between ministers, parties and
institutions of civil society. (passage omitted) Does this mean new additional
management structures, the more the better?
According to Medvedev, the extended government is needed because even governors
cannot reach some ministers. For instance, the Public Chamber, which includes the
best people in the country, cannot reach them. If this did not work, why will the
big government be more successful?
(Sergey Markov, political analyst) There will be no new perestroika. There will
be a slow, gradual, step-by-step modernization of current political, social, and
economic institutions in Russia. Dmitriy Medvedev is arguing with those
opposition politicians who believe that the Russian people have been denied the
right of choice in the parliamentary and presidential elections. On the contrary,
Dmitriy Medvedev is convinced that the Russian people have the right to choose,
and he, Medvedev, must fight for the Russian people's choice, One Russia (United
Russia) and Vladimir Putin.
(Mikhail Kasyanov, politician) There is no longer the same support, which was
even, let's say, four years ago when there were expectations that some positive
changes would be initiated from above. People's hopes have vanished. There is no
competition or freedom of political activity in the country.
(Marat Gelman, political analyst) Instead of trying to argue whether this is a
short-term trend or not, we should try to use it. The parliamentary elections
will be held soon, then the presidential election. We should try to use this time
to set up social institutions, and if today the current president and future
prime minister makes any pledges, it is necessary to note them.
(Presenter) (passage omitted) Maybe attaching the Public Council (initiated by
Medvedev) to the government is an attempt to overcome bureaucratic paralysis.
(Sergey Markov, political analyst) It is important to create a big government, as
an interface between the state and government officials, the cabinet of ministers
and society, through which an ongoing dialogue should be maintained. We have seen
that during Medvedev's presidency a body of his supporters has been formed.
However, many of his supporters met without enthusiasm his transition from the
office of president to the office of prime minister, and it was very important
for Dmitriy Medvedev to reset his relations with his supporters. This is what he
is doing now, and I think, quite successfully.
(Tina Kandelaki, TV presenter) Our journalists often run ahead of the facts, and
often, unfortunately, make up things. If you've been following these meetings,
you must know that only yesterday Mikhail Abuzov was instructed to start setting
up the so-called big government. I mean that these meetings were just
consultations and just, well, let's say, meetings between the president and
people who have met him and, in varying degrees, supported him throughout his
presidency and continue to support to this day.
(Marat Gelman, political analyst) Medvedev is talking about the government as his
future work and discusses how he is going to work. As for how it will be formed,
I think the most important idea here is that it will be new.
(Presenter) Director of the (Moscow-based) Centre for the Study of Elites Olga
Kryshtanovskaya has conducted an interesting study at the Academy of Sciences.
She found out that 51 per cent of the staff in the presidential administration
had come from the law-enforcement agencies, including a third from security
services, and in government structures there are 37 per cent people from the
law-enforcement agencies. So maybe the idea of ??big government and social
control is also an attempt to create a counterweight to the law-enforcement
officers and to squeeze them out. However, the opposition believes that it is
difficult to achieve any major changes in personnel matters when social activity
has come to a stall and there is practically no political life in the country.
(Sergey Markov, political analyst) Of course, social activity has not stalled. Of
course, social activity is present on various levels. It is those who want to
stage an "orange revolution" in Russia, it is their activities that have died out
because they realized that no colour revolution, orange and others, will not be
supported in Russia by an absolute majority. Their chances are zero, nil, zilch.
(Tina Kandelaki, TV presenter) When I start arguing with people, in blogs, they
tell me: we are not happy about this or that; the president has set trends but
did not carry them to the end. And I tell them; excuse me. We were such a
backward country. Look how our lives have changed. Do you want these changes to
occur instantly, do you want Medvedev and Putin to build you a comfortable
super-powerful, ultra-modern space ship?
(Mikhail Kasyanov, politician) There is a tool to solve problems, I stress,
problems that exist today, the problem of communications between the government
and the citizens, the people. It's called parliament. They destroyed the
democratic system of the Russian state, namely the separation of powers; the
parliament, because now it is manipulated, and independent judiciary. So now they
are trying to replace the destroyed parliament as an independent legislative body
by an imitation of buffer or a bumper through which they will communicate with
(Presenter) The idea of ??big government means one more thing - that the spending
on officials will be even greater. Russian officials already cost 20 times more
to the budget than the American ones. These are the findings of a research that
have been published in the press. Experts are saying that the best way would be
to radically reform and streamline government structures rather than multiply
them. There are already so many bosses around that they get into each other's way
and annoy people by their apartments, dachas and cars with flashing lights. More
and more new clips on this subject appear in the internet every day.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
October 24, 2011
The Legitimacy Deficit Is Getting Even Larger
By Vladimir Frolov
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR
In a prophetic speech in February, then-Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin warned
that Russia's modernization could only be carried out by a government that enjoys
full political legitimacy from the Russian people and that such popular
legitimacy could only be secured through genuinely competitive elections.
In September, the country's ruling tandem embarked on a path toward a regime of
limited political legitimacy.
This is because many Russians are uncomfortable with the thought that the future
of their country has been decided for them.
The legitimacy deficit will determine the mix of drivers and constraints that
will shape the new regime's policies, pushing it to err on the populist side.
President Dmitry Medvedev's political credibility as an incoming prime minister
has been diminished. He has been exposed as someone who does not make his own
decisions. His ability to produce meaningful change with reduced powers of a
"small prime minister" is in doubt.
Both members of the tandem are aware of the legitimacy deficit, but they pursue
different strategies to close the gap. Medvedev seeks redemption through
televised therapy sessions with carefully screened friendly audiences that have
only pleasant things to say about him.
This makes him feel good but destroys the remnants of his leadership. He comes
across as weak, indecisive, bitter and desperate for approval.
Medvedev's ill-prepared initiatives, such as his "larger government" proposal,
only further reduce the legitimacy of his tenuous claim to power. What popular
mandate would this "larger government" have?
As Medvedev's legitimacy disintegrates before our eyes, Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin's legitimacy grows. While Medvedev is showing signs of hysteria, Putin
keeps his cool and projects cynical toughness.
His strategy is to further justify his decision to run for the presidency in 2012
by showing that Medvedev was not fit for the office, particularly in these
turbulent times.
Dumping the ossifying and increasingly unpopular United Russia on a reluctant
Medvedev as the party heads for a trouncing in the December elections allows
Putin to preserve his unquestioned primacy as a national leader.
United Russia's failure to secure the constitutional majority in the State Duma
would let Putin focus on new succession plans and arrange for Medvedev's quiet
exit from the political scene.
[return to Contents]
Evolution of Russian Presidential Staff Since 1991 Traced
October 20, 2011
Article by Boris Mezhuyev, political analyst: "The Possibility That the Cabinet
and the Presidential Staff Will Have Duplicate Agencies Cannot Be Excluded:
Political Analyst Boris Mezhuyev Addresses the Future of One of Russia's Main
Political Institutions"
The future outlines of Russia's political system are more or less distinct. We
already know that we should not expect a radical coup, and if the electoral cycle
of 2011-2012 turns out as planned, Russia will continue to be an
ultra-presidential republic for the next six years. Furthermore, the future
cabinet's dependence on parliament evidently will be just as minimal as it is
now. The "big" and "expanded" cabinet President D.A. Medvedev has promised now
resembles a club of the head of state's supporters, institutionalized in keeping
with his preferences and established primarily for the purpose of expanding
United Russia's electoral base.
The future of one of present-day Russia's main political institutions is still
uncertain, however. This is the Russian Federation Presidential Staff. So far,
only one thing is certain: The present chief of staff, S.Ye. Naryshkin, is
unlikely to stay. He has already expressed his wish to become the governor of
Leningrad Oblast. Therefore, we probably can expect new cabinet personnel and new
personnel in the offices of the presidential staff.
We do have to wonder about something else, however: Will it keep its earlier
position in the system of government or will its functions be transferred to the
new cabinet? The presidential republic in Russia, after all, has always been
based not only on the constitutional powers of the head of state, but also on the
presidential staff's colossal role in the administration of fundamental political
processes in the country.
The post-Soviet regime in Russia was almost an exact copy of the American one at
the time of its birth in 1991. I think the architects of the First Republic --
1991-1993 -- believed that the American democratic model was the standard, and
they did their utmost to imitate it. In essence, this model consisted of separate
legislative and executive branches of government and an independent judicial
branch. The nationally elected president formed a cabinet and headed it at some
point, and the legislative branch belonged to the Supreme Council, which the head
of state could not dissolve under any circumstances. Russia also acquired
counterparts of the U.S. vice president and secretary of state, but these
positions were of no functional value and were eliminated soon afterward.
The model revealed its total lack of viability in Russia in 1993 and was replaced
gradually with a new model, in which the president clearly prevailed over the
parliament in the establishment of an executive branch of government. The role of
the presidential staff changed when the pseudo-American model was transformed
into a pseudo-French model. The presidential staff ceased to be the president's
personal office and became a political center outweighing parliament and the
cabinet. In short, the presidential staff was like a liberal Politburo in the new
republic, which we will call the Second Republic of 1993-2003. The administration
heads and other personnel of the presidential staff quite often were
distinguished members of the liberal segment of the bureaucracy or simply
prominent liberal intellectuals who wanted to use the influence of the
ultra-presidential system for the continuation and acceleration of market reform.
This semi-ideocratic system probably reached its peak in 2000, when the country
was divided into seven federal districts. In essence, seven regional branches of
the presidential staff came into being.
In the Third Republic -- 2003-2007 -- the ideological objectives of this
institution changed more than its functions did. The presidential staff was still
the political center of the government, the place where the country's ideology
was shaped, the personnel of regional administrations were chosen, and the
electoral process was overseen. In addition, the presidential staff was still
something like the headquarters of the liberal political class, or at least of
the part receptive to "new trends."
The Fourth Republic -- 2008-2011 -- seriously challenged the presidential staff,
and the institution's ability to sustain its earlier influence was uncertain at
one point. It was soon obvious, however, that the bicentric system of government
with a highly reinforced cabinet and a separate "government party" required some
administrative and ideological fine-tuning. There were so many rumors that the
tandem would be split, that the president would argue with United Russia, and
that the agenda of the cabinet and the president would have nothing in common. It
turned out that one agency in this entire mechanism could work daily with all of
the other government institutions, guaranteeing their coordinated functions, and
it was the presidential staff.
What role will the presidential staff play in the Fifth Republic, which is just
beginning to take shape now? On the one hand, no one has any illusions that if
V.V. Putin becomes the head of state again, he will give up the levers of routine
management and turn them over completely to Medvedev's cabinet. On the other
hand, as we already said, the presidential staff was not only the head of state's
personal office, but also a "guiding and directing" force in the society,
something like the headquarters of the liberal segment of the ruling class.
The distribution of roles in the Putin-Medvedev tandem made Medvedev responsible
for the future of our society by setting appealing goals, while Putin symbolizes
reliability and stability. This distribution probably corresponds to the personal
psychological qualities of our leaders, and these qualities are unlikely to
change quickly. We therefore can expect the presidential staff in the Fifth
Republic to be comparable to the Greek Areopagus, which will keep the younger
cabinet from taking excessive risks.
It seems more plausible, however, that the cabinet and presidential staff will
have duplicate agencies. This will create numerous difficulties, of course, in
the distribution of powers and responsibilities, especially in view of the fact
that the presidential staff, in contrast to the Politburo of the CPSU Central
Committee, is a fundamentally nonpartisan agency even if it does set the agenda.
In view of all this, we should not agree with the experts expecting the decisions
of 24 September to simplify Russia's political system. Simplification is the very
thing we are not seeing, because governmental authority is not concentrated in
one spot and is doubling, tripling, and multiplying in general. All of this
ultimately will reach a point of equilibrium and will stabilize, but until that
moment arrives, I think we can expect much more improvisation from the architects
of our new political system.
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
No point in voting - result is known beforehand, says Russian opposition
Text of report by privately owned Russian television channel REN TV on 22 October
(Presenter) Those who oppose authorities have gathered at a protest in central
Moscow. This is one of the first recent events, organized by the opposition and
sanctioned by the Moscow city mayor's office. The opposition calls on people not
to vote at the upcoming December (State) Duma election. What does it dislike
about the election, our correspondent Anastasiya Pak tried to find out.
(Correspondent) Whether you vote or not - you will get the authorities that are
far from being ideal - these were the slogans under which 2,000 people had come
to the Novopushkinskiy Skver (park). They are calling on people to come to
polling stations on 4 December and put a large cross on the ballot paper, thus
giving up on an unfair election, in their view.
Under the orange flags of the Solidarity movement, black-and-white banners of
Strategy 31 and red-and-white flags of the People's Democratic Union people were
raising money to help political prisoners, naming among them (opposition
activist) Sergey Udaltsov, arrested recently.
(Boris Nemtsov, captioned as co-chairman of unregistered Party of People's
Freedom (Parnas)) I know Udaltsov, and not only because I spent some time behind
bars with him, but because we use to talk. We beg to differ on some issues but I
must tell you he is a dignified, decent lad, a real patriot.
(Eduard Limonov, captioned as chairman of unregistered party Other Russia) I
cannot understand why Udaltsov is persecuted in such a tough and silly way. I can
see no political sense or anything else here, really.
(Correspondent) The main idea of the rally is the absence of an honest election
in the country. There is no opposition party among the candidates.
(Ilya Yashin, captioned as a member of the Solidarity movement political council)
What election? There is no election in the country. There exists a procedure with
a voting element that imitates an election but the result is known beforehand. We
stand for the opposition to have a right to take part in the election and for the
rules to be the same for everyone.
(Mikhail Kasyanov, captioned as co-chairman of unregistered Party of People's
Freedom (Parnas)) Today there is no political competition in Russia. This why
there is no point in talking about turns (as received).
(Correspondent) The rally began with a song by the Kino band "It is us who will
act now". After this there was a change in background music. Rapper (?Denancy)
sang a rap, so to speak, to which (writer) Dmitriy Bykov wrote verses.
One could not get along without provocations. Some people carrying packs of cards
depicting opposition politicians, with far from flattering captions under the
cartoons, came up to the fence around the park. To the surprise of those
gathered, they were detained some time later. As young people say these days,
troll (provocators) detected!
(Video shows excerpts from rally, slogans "No more of lies!", people speaking
from stage)
(About 500 people, together with journalists, took part in the opposition protest
in central Moscow, Russian RIA Novosti news agency reported, at 1321 gmt on 22
Oct 11, quoting a spokesman of the Moscow Interior Directorate.
Eight protesters were detained and taken to Tverskoye police station, Russian
Ekho Moskvy news agency reported, at 1215 gmt on the same day, quoting Sergey
Davidis, a member of the Solidarity movement. They wanted to march towards the
Kremlin after the rally came to and end when riot police detained them rudely,
Davidis said.)
[return to Contents]
October 22, 2011
Moscow's Bitter Ex-Boss Luzhkov Lashes Out At Kremlin, Calls United Russia
In September 2010, longtime Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov was removed from his post
at the order of President Dmitry Medvedev, following weeks of scandalous
accusations against him in the Russian media. His successor, Kremlin-appointed
insider Sergei Sobyanin, took office one year ago today.
In an exclusive interview with RFE/RL's Russian Service correspondent Mumin
Shakirov, Luzhkov describes what happened last summer, giving a rare inside look
into the ways of Russian politics. He also speaks candidly about his assessment
of the ruling United Russia party, of which he was a founding leader back in
RFE/RL: It is now one year since you were removed as mayor of Moscow. Can you
tell us how it started?
Luzhkov: The whole system of piling on -- as they figured it -- started working.
I returned too late, supposedly. Although the prime minister [Vladimir Putin]
said I returned in a timely way, an unidentified source in the Kremlin said it
was bad, that I returned late, abandoned the people of Moscow...
RFE/RL: You mean that Moscow was choking in the smoke of the forest fires last
Luzhkov: Smoke and fires, yes. And it was as if it was Moscow's fault! And then
there were a whole bunch of other insinuations about me and about my wife. I
understood that all this wasn't happening by chance. What's more, I know the
background and that background also has its interesting beginnings, moments. I
participated in a congress of trade unions, gave a speech. After me, Putin spoke
to close the congress. The organizers arranged things so that I was not able to
meet with Putin. And then I was invited to the presidential administration, to
[see presidential chief of staff Sergei] Naryshkin. And Naryshkin essentially
told me directly, "Yury Mikhailovich, the decision has been made. The decision
has been agreed to by Putin, the president has made the decision to dismiss you."
RFE/RL: Tell us what happened when you met with Naryshkin.
Luzhkov: In principle, after this series of provocations by the administration,
by the president's press secretary, I understood why I was summoned to the
administration. And I asked Naryshkin what the reason was. But there was no
reason: "It's the president's decision." I said, "Tell me the reason. Did I not
cope with the work of running the city? Did I not manage the social system? Is
there a problem with the development of the city? Did I commit some crime that
would disqualify me morally?"
"No, Yury Mikhailovich, you have to resign. If you resign voluntarily, everything
will be fine. Everything will be OK. Everything will be quiet. There won't be any
more questions for you."
I said, "I don't understand the reasons. There is very little time until the end
of my term." There was less than a year left. "So I don't see any basis for
making such a hasty decision. When my term is up, I won't seek another and
everything will be settled naturally. Why is there suddenly such a hurry?"
"Well, you see, the pre-election work is beginning and so on. And this is
important for us."
"Well, fine. Fine," I said. "And what if I don't agree with this?"
"The decision has been made," Naryshkin told me in a quiet voice, looking away
from me. "I recommend, purely on a personal basis, not to resist."
And I said, "You know, that isn't my way. Not my way. I am a manager and I always
have to understand the reasons and then, according to those reasons..." He didn't
explain anything to me, so I told Naryshkin that I would write a statement. But I
asked him for time to celebrate my birthday. It was less than a week later --
from the 17th to the 21st [of September 2010].
RFE/RL: It was a personal request?
Luzhkov: Of course. He said, "Yury Mikhailovich, I will talk with the leadership"
-- and the leadership, as always, made such decisions from afar -- "I will talk
with the leadership and most likely we will agree to your request -- out of human
decency." So we agreed that I would think over this decision and after I returned
from a short vacation to celebrate my birthday abroad, I would write my
But I warned Naryshkin that it wouldn't be a resignation letter. It would be my
statement about all that had happened during the period of piling-on in relation
to me. He asked me not to discuss this conversation with anyone. I promised and I
kept that promise. He said that "on our part, we will make a pause."
I should say that I had a strange birthday. All of it happened against the
background of my knowledge that the decision had been made and that 20 years
after first running the city as mayor or, before that, chairman of the executive
committee, I must leave my post. For me, this was not a tragedy, and inwardly I
was calm. Although, as anyone would say, it was a tense calm, calmness under
conditions of tension. So I sat down and wrote my statement. Of course, I told my
wife about this and asked her not to tell her friends. Then I told my children.
In our family, we always consult with our children, and I think that is correct
-- the understanding of children about what is happening to their parents is no
less important than the understanding of parents about what is happening to their
RFE/RL What was in the statement?
Luzhkov: I wrote my statement -- in fact, I wrote it all out by hand and,
strangely enough, practically without changing a word. It is on the Internet and
has been published. I showed it to Lena, to my wife [Yelena Baturina]. It was
forceful, my statement. It touched on several topics.
First, was that the first conflict that happened with Medvedev was public: On
television I said that we should return to the election of governors and mayors,
and Medvedev the next day said that anyone who doesn't agree [with the current
practice] should resign. I thought he was talking about me, so I wrote another
statement -- it was about a year earlier -- and asked for a meeting. He agreed
and I gave him my statement. He said he wouldn't accept it and told me to throw
it away. He said he had confidence in me and that his words were not aimed at me.
To be honest, I was quite surprised.
But I wrote in my statement that, unfortunately, the situation in the country
today is bad. We don't have discussion. We don't have consultations. Such
declarations by the leaders of the sort that anyone who disagrees and expresses
their opinion should resign remind me of the beginning of 1937. And in 1937, the
nation was terrified right down to its genes. And that fear doesn't go away. And
it is unacceptable for the leadership of the country to intensify that fear with
such declarations. That was the first part of my statement.
The second part was about his personal statements that sounded rather
dictatorial, like: "My words are etched in granite." Remember that? And so on.
The third part was about the lack of media freedom. I said that all our media
today unfortunately are almost entirely subservient to the presidential
administration and that is absolutely unacceptable in a country that proclaims
the principles of democracy. Everything is done under orders, and I saw that in
the campaign that unfolded against me.
And, fourth, I said the calls to remove Luzhkov were coming from the mouths of
figures like [opposition politician and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris]
Nemtsov -- and it isn't that I consider him a joke, I consider him totally weak,
a political failure with a demagogic spirit. The president can proceed in one of
two ways: Either he can go ahead on the leash of such Nemtsovs, or he can act
like a man. In the end, I wrote it is up to you to make a decision, but I don't
intend to submit any letters of resignation.
RFE/RL: In addition to being mayor of Moscow, you were a leader of the United
Russia party, the party of Putin and Medvedev. But you were also a major
political player back in the Yeltsin era and, back then, the leader of the very
popular Fatherland party. How did you end up joining United Russia?
Luzhkov: I was always a white crow when I was in power. But they tolerated me
until a certain time. In 1999, the attacks against me began because it was time
for a change of the country's leadership and they needed to create conditions for
me in which I had no prospects for the future.
RFE/RL: Do you now regret that Fatherland merged with the pro-Kremlin Unity party
to form United Russia?
Luzhkov: I regret it. Fatherland found itself in a situation where everyone was
running to support Unity. We lost our material base. Every party requires not
only leadership and public support money, resources so that it can continue
working. But everyone abandoned Fatherland. Everyone who promised to support us
abandoned us. And we were expected to get about 40 percent of the vote, at least.
RFE/RL: What is your opinion of United Russia now?
Luzhkov: As far as United Russia is concerned, here there are two things to say.
The first is the people in United Russia, who are weak -- I mean, the leaders of
that party are weak and gray in terms of their potential -- organizational,
intellectual, and so on. And the party itself -- maybe as a result of those
personal qualities of those people -- the party became a party of comfort....
The leadership of United Russia made decisions that were convenient for
themselves. It is convenient to be a servant; that is always easier. It is easier
than having your own point of view on the situation in the country. The ability
to object also must be connected to potential, to strength, personal strength,
the strength of a group of people. [Duma speaker Boris] Gryzlov, as the boss of
the party -- not the leader, but the boss -- is a gray personality, a person who
has always been a servant and who is incapable of having an independent position.
Not only in terms of disputes with the higher leadership -- such disputes simply
don't exist because he is weak -- but even in disputes with his own colleagues.
[Former Federation Council Chairman Sergei] Mironov -- several times that Mironov
disrespected him, maybe with the help of the higher leadership, so much that it
was distressing for us, people in the leadership of the party.
All of this is sort of a two-pronged look. The first is a look at the people --
and that is sort of a foundation -- and the second is what they do -- those
people couldn't, not having any leverage or their own positions, couldn't do
anything about the independence of the party.
RFE/RL: But...
Luzhkov: My view of United Russia is extremely negative. It is not a party. It is
some sort of structure that does not have its own face, that holds a shameful
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Medvedev says North Caucasus protects Russia from terrorism
Rossiya 24
October 20, 2011
Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev has said that people who support the campaign
Stop Feeding the Caucasus are either not very bright or outright provocateurs.
Medvedev was speaking at a meeting with young people and student at the
journalism department of Moscow State University on 20 October. His remarks were
broadcast by Russian state-owned news channel Rossiya 24 on the same day.
Medvedev said: "There are different moods in our society. One of the views is
expressed in a simple phrase, Stop Feeding the Caucasus. Such statements are
usually made by not very bright people or outright provocateurs, because you just
have to recall what happened in our country, our united country in those days, at
the end of the 80s.
"I remember all this talk, that we should stop feeding Central Asia, we should
stop feeding Ukraine, Belarus, or the Baltic states. And what happened? The
country disintegrated. But do we not feed them? We do, only in a veiled form. All
the same, our partners somehow get our support. But the economic power of our
country has changed significantly - it has reduced. Our present unity - and this
is no secret - is paid for by the blood of a huge number of people, those who
built the united country. Current attempts to divide everything are very
"They say there is not enough money for anything, but, for example, the Caucasian
republics receive big subsidies, they are subsidized. There are 83 regions in the
country, and only 11 of them are donors and do not receive subsidies. And the
other 72 regions all receive subsidies, i.e. they are fed from the federal
budget. So our problem does not lie in the money which is spent on the Caucasus,
but in the lack of culture and skills of living together."
Medvedev believes that the North Caucasus works as a kind of fortress against
international terrorism, Interfax news agency reported.
"In the late 80s - early 90s, when our country fell apart, we were flooded with
all kinds of extremists, not ours but from overseas. And, unfortunately, they
still give us a big problem, because they have found home in some Caucasian
republics, and not only in the Caucasus, and in the centre of the country, too,"
Medvedev said at the meeting.
"Our Caucasian republics are a fortress against international terrorism, strange
as it may sound. They will help us all in the fight against international
terrorists, who, unfortunately, are quite numerous and who come here from some
countries," he added.
He said: "Our strength lies in our unity, and we must not allow anyone to destroy
[return to Contents]
Russia Profile
October 20, 2011
Medvedev 2.0
Medvedev Announces He'll Be Joining Facebook to the Delight of His Internet
By Andrew Roth
Inevitably, everyone you know will join Facebook. While friend requests from your
acquaintances, colleagues, and even parents have become an unfortunate part of
life, your authority figures are also joining in, popping up in news feeds across
the world. So when Russian President and noted technophile Dmitry Medvedev
announced via Facebook that he would be writing in Facebook, the Russian
blogosphere took it as cause for celebration and a chance to poke the president
as well.
Medvedev's Facebook page is nothing new, he just hasn't been writing in it. The
page has been active since June 2010 and has more than 200,000 followers. Until
now, it's been used principally as a clearing house for materials from other
government Web sites, but the president, it seems, has officially decided to take
up the task himself, writing today: "I have decided to also write in Facebook.
Read it!"
"I have decided to also write in Facebook, that I have also decided to write in
Facebook. Read it!" retorted KermlinRussia, the fake Kremlin Twitter account that
famously once had more followers than Medvedev's real account, KremlinRussia.
In a political landscape that is, in a word, monotonous, the Russian blogosphere
is a breath of fresh air. On everything from Twitter and Facebook accounts to the
aging LiveJournal platform, Russians post candid thoughts and also troll (insult)
other users, all under the democratizing anonymity of their avatars.
The president's post has already garnered close to one and a half thousand
responses. Many of them are supportive, telling the president they'll continue to
read him, and that they appreciate a more direct link to the Kremlin in Russia.
More, however, have been dismissive, asking him if he has a little more time on
his hands since saying he won't be running for president. Among them, user Anna
Malina stated a fairly common response that said the problem was more about the
dearth of information from the government than about places to post it: "The same
messages will be put here as on the other sites, for example LiveJournal, Twitter
and others, whereas it would be nice to have some real discussion. Moreover, the
president's time is too valuable to waste in the virtual world," she said.
Facebook is Medvedev's fourth venture into social networks. He already posts
short blogs on YouTube, uses Twitter and has a LiveJournal. Many shared the
opinion that Medvedev has little more to do than increase his supposed exposure
by expanding his range of online activities. Dozhd television channel, probably
the most independent television station in a country, put out a series of polls
via Facebook concerning the president's somewhat hazy statements about joining
Facebook. "Isn't Medvedev too engrossed with social networks and gadgets?" asked
Dozhd. The majority of people responded: "Well you've got to relax somehow."
Criticism, almost all satirical or sarcastic, came from other sources as well.
Vkontakte founder Pavel Durov tweeted at Medvedev: "Your patriotism inspires the
Russian Internet industry," in an apparent reference to Medvedev's decision to
establish an account with the Palo Alto-based Facebook instead of developing a
personal site on Vkontakte, a Russian Facebook clone.
There's a sense that Medvedev's preoccupation with Internet sites is a reflection
of his weaknesses as a politician. One of Russia's best known bloggers, exler,
posted an anecdote today echoing that deeper seated criticism of Medvedev's
political activities:
- Have you heard? Medvedev's on Facebook.
- At this rate he'll be on World of Warcraft soon.
- He's already been playing for more than three years. It's a local version
called "Russian Federation."
Sooner or later, however, the fun will come to an end. That will most likely
happen in March, when Russia's next and previous President Vladimir Putin will be
elected by a large majority. Putin does not use social networks. Asked whether
the next president would put out blogs similar to Medvedev's in the future, press
secretary Dmitry Peskov said no, adding that it was "seen as unsuitable."
While Medvedev will likely take the backseat in the political arena, his major
competition in the virtual world continue to be his detractors and satirists:
"Medvedev and I already decided four years ago that I will be running this
Twitter," tweeted KermlinRussia.
[return to Contents]
Demokratiya 2 Co-Founder Krasheninnikov on the Internet Political Platform
Svobodnaya Pressa
October 18, 2011
Interview with Fedor Krasheninnikov, co-founder of website Demokratiya 2,
conducted by Dmitriy Treshchanin in a Moscow cafe; date not given: "Democracy Not
Only for Democrats -- How To Make Real Politics Out of Virtual"
The voting stalls, the ballots, the absentee voting authorizations, and other
attributes of elections are already the stuff of yesterday. As is counting by
hand with the inevitable "mistakes" -- accidental or deliberate. The world is
experimenting with electronic voting -- in the home and through the computer.
"Elect the government with one click" -- in 10 years or so that will become the
Estonia was the first to switch to electronic voting. The country is small and
communications are quite well developed. The first experiment took place in 2005
-- at that time only 1,000 voters of the million with the right to vote took
advantage of this opportunity. In the last elections, in 2011, there were already
140,000 -- 24% of the total turnout -- who chose the "electronic voting" service.
In Russia this experiment was conducted once, in Uryupinsk. It seems that
everything was done to make it fail -- a not too "information supported" city,
and those wishing to vote had to obtain certain incomprehensible "discs."
Generally speaking the procedure was in no way simpler than ordinary voting.
The government, of course, is the least interested in modernizing this system --
why should they be if everything has been "taken under control" as it is. "The
main thing is not how people vote but who counts" -- can you really hand this
function over to a soulless machine that ignores the plan for votes?
Hence, the citizens themselves must launch this process. Strictly speaking, the
first attempt has already taken place. At this point there is no question of
electronic voting in the Demokratiya 2 project. However, the creators acknowledge
that the final goal is the "battle of legitimacy." When the turnout in virtual
elections is greater than in real ones -- especially when more and more posts are
becoming appointed rather than elected -- then it will already be difficult to
say whose powers to consider the real ones.
In Demokratiya 2 now, there are only about a thousand registered users. Its
creators are two Urals politicians, Leonid Volkov and Fedor Krasheninnikov. We
met with one of them, Fedor, in a Moscow cafe near the Christ the Savior
Cathedral. Parallel with the interview, he was putting new users into the system
from his notebook -- at this point the petitions are being accepted manually, and
the system itself looks extremely crude and untidy. In terms of convenience, it
is a long ways even to the Vkontakte (Russian Facebook) of five years ago. But
against the background of the half-dead political life in Russia, it has already
become an event.
(Treshchanin) Fedor, who will take advantage of this? It is clear that various
political activists are now registering very quickly. I even saw a line for
applications at Poslednyaya Osen (civil activists forum) -- a kind of classic
Soviet queue for passports.
(Krasheninnikov) No, just the opposite. I even expected that a lot of strange
individuals, the so-called "demshizy" (schizophrenic democrats), would come
running there, but everything did not turn out that way. There are a great many
people who write directly: "I have not done anything for a long time, I have not
even gone to the polls for a long time."
What is more, these people have begun to come at times when we did not at all
expect them to. We actually thought that they would come later.
Here are a few quotations: "An engineer, I work in the satellite communications
sphere. I was only in the Komsomol, and I in fact remain a member." "I am a
student and I am now staying home with my child." "A business consultant from
Kaliningrad." "I live in Germany" -- by the way, a great many people are from
abroad. Active people from the entire country, of different ages. But there are,
of course, also schizophrenics -- they are everywhere.
The first thing that amazed us was that the people absolutely do not hold on to
anonymity. They are completely calm and not afraid of writing down their real
(Treshchanin) They have been taught by Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki (Classmates --
social network service), and Facebook.
(Krasheninnikov) I think it is something else -- people understand that in order
to obtain something, they must first give something, and in this case -- personal
information. The flip side of the consumption society -- first you tell about
yourself, and then you receive what you need, and practically delivered to your
home. Market experts have registered you.
(Treshchanin) Well then, look, let us say that some mass media have talked about
your project, and 10,000 people or more are registered there. What then? What
should be done with this?
(Krasheninnikov) I think that there will be many more.
(Treshchanin) But after a while, the bulk of them cool down and obstruct the
project, and you once again get a narrow circle of activists who wander off into
micro-groups. Is there some kind of common background ?
(Krasheninnikov) We do not want to do some mono-directional project because it
frightens everyone. What is more -- we do not want it to be a purely
oppositionist project. An opportunity must be given to start a conversation about
what bothers all of us.
For example, our past and future president writes an article about how Russia
will develop later on. And it turns out that, in his view, the most important
thing now is the "Eurasian union" with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. I just came
from the radio where I received a lethal dose of radiation from people who
categorically do not want this!
The question follows -- who really needs that? In our country the government is
on one planet, and the people are on another. Some people want to make friends
with Europe and go there without visas. Some people do not want to make friends
with anybody at all. So is anybody interested at all in the opinion of these
(Treshchanin) Is it then a sociological instrument?
(Krasheninnikov) It can be measured sociologically even without a website. Here
it is something else. Let us take, for example, isolationists -- they exist, some
significant number, but they do not show themselves at all. They believe that the
borders should be closed, no one let in and no one let out, nor pay a kopeck,
just raise the standard of living in the country because we are living poorly. In
contemporary Russia can they somehow assemble and create some kind of
association, unity? Not at all!
Let us say that one of these people has started a blog and writes there.
Supporters come and agree -- "Well, that is right." One lives in Orel, and
another -- in Vladivostok. They have no common field. The government says -- so
who are you? Look, there are the two of you for all of Russia, and the rest are
your little hamsters. You don't exist, there is no problem, and people want
something else, and we know what they want. And we want people to have the
opportunity to up and join together.
To join together without worrying about the existing rules -- without papers and
without going to the Ministry of Justice. People feel like joining together
around any problem -- the worship of Perunu, anti-Semitism, hatred of America:
any absurdity has the right to exist. But, of course, we hope that people will
join together on the grounds of something constructive and good.
(Treshchanin) That already enters into some conflict with state policy -- you
would simply be closed down for extremism.
(Krasheninnikov) Yes, thank God. We are talking about a virtual project that
lives in a parallel world.
(Treshchanin) But the security structures certainly will want to put members of
certain groups and parties in prison -- there is no anonymity.
(Krasheninnikov) The only normal way to fight extremism is to give people the
opportunity to calmly express their opinions. When you receive the right to
publicly express your position, your radicalism declines. Say some person is
running some blog where he writes that "the worthless Tajiks are pouring in." At
that very moment, migrants from Central Asia work in his firm. As long as he is
anonymous, he can do this as much as he wants. When he writes this under his own
name, there will already be questions for him -- for example, from the clients of
his store. That is then accountability, and the person begins to behave more
I am absolutely certain that we will have extremist groups. Perhaps we will see
25 such parties -- but with five members in each. They will spend 90% of their
time clarifying relations -- to find "traitors" and "secret Jews" in the
competitors' ranks. When there are 100,000 people in the project, these 150
people will not call the shots. Let them sit in their corner and fight with one
It is exactly the state that is now engaged in producing extremists under the
label of the "struggle." Those people we are deceiving -- go onto the Internet,
and all this is there. And what is more, they are nameless hamsters who declare
that "there are millions of us." Well then, forward march -- gather a million
real people on our resource.
The existing Internet anonymity plays against everyone: it allows the government
to say "Navalnyy -- you are a nobody." The state does not need to reckon with
your opinion. And you do not need to behave seriously because you yourself are
sitting in the bushes hiding behind a nickname. What should we talk with you
We want everyone who wants a serious conversation to come out of the bushes and
introduce themselves and begin to talk. You want to create a Liberal Party or any
other -- so create it. We will see how many supporters you gather.
(Treshchanin) There is one other problem -- in 2005, when the movement Nashi
(Ours) was being created, activists were ordered to run blogs on Zhivoy Zhurnal
(LiveJournal). At that time bots were not yet used, they were based on living
people. And a mass invasion of these teenagers simply made any debate at the site
meaningless. The government has a million officials, a million policemen, and all
kinds of loafers with computers who can be committed and mobilized. Aren't you
afraid of an invasion of people with an "official point of view"?
(Krasheninnikov) Let them come. Let them create United Russia. I am not opposed
-- I even want it to happen. Let there be a Nashi movement. Something else is the
problem -- if people do something with enthusiasm, it will live. But if it is
under compulsion -- it will quickly die.
Yes, I agree with the idea that Putin has supporters. There really are millions
of them. I am morally prepared for the majority in this system to be for United
Russia. Because the United Russians themselves are learning a lot that is new and
interesting about their organization. Their phony "primaries" did not reveal any
leaders, but through our system it will quickly become clear that Putin's real
main fan, let us assume, is the worker Petrov in Samara Oblast rather than the
official who is now occupying that place.
But now I am certain that each will run and try to create 200 parties apiece. We
will not impede, on the contrary, we will create all the conditions. But you
cannot force people to play your game if they are not interested in it.
Later truly large groups with hundreds of thousands of participants -- supporters
of United Russia, the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), and
Navalnyy -- will have already emerged, and they are the ones who will already be
fighting for real with one another.
(Treshchanin) But isn't this all the same a game, a virtual world?
(Krasheninnikov) Our real politics and our state are much more virtual than these
organizations will be. Might some swear that the Right Cause Party exists? Then
is it as prescribed in the law -- 50,000 people in more than half of Russia's
regions? There are a bunch of examples -- when yet another "oppositionist"
structure was being created, an acquaintance of mine found out that a meeting was
taking place in Yekaterinburg. He asked where and found out that people simply
were physically unable to gather at the address indicated. People were intending
to fight the regime by creating a phony party.
It would be simpler in a normal situation -- here are elections, and they will
confirm who is real and who is hollow. Of course, every bird likes its own nest
best, but I am absolutely certain that the unregistered and unpermitted Parnas
(People's Freedom Party) exists, while Right Cause does not.
That, by the way, is what is disadvantageous for the entire existing political
elite -- it will be evident right off how many supporters the particular person
really has. A politician can say: "My supporters do not want." But do they truly
not want that? And why not? And did you ask them? If a leader begins to behave
inappropriately -- his supporters will either abandon him (and that will
immediately be evident) or they will vote against him. For example, the leader of
Aleksey Navalnyy's group would be (Vasiliy) Sidorov rather than Navalnyy.
(Treshchanin) The state would all the same become interested in you -- sooner or
later. They used to put people in prison for blogs, and they continue to do so.
(Krasheninnikov) We take that into account, and those will be our problems. But
something else bothers us more now -- to explain to people that this is not a
game of two people, me and Leonid Volkov, and not of people who gave money to the
project and helped at various stages. We have beliefs and we do not hide them,
but we do not impose them either. There is the emotional statement: "I do not
share your convictions, but I am willing to die for your right to express them."
I am not willing to die, but I want people to express their opinions.
I am certain of the sound judgment of my fellow citizens. I want people to
receive the opportunity to speak on any topics. To vote for any parties and for
any initiatives and on any issue. People do not like extremes, and they will not
support radicals.
If several million people form up in our system, it will be impossible to ignore
them. If there are 500,000 people in Moscow who in their minds will elect Petrov,
for example, as mayor, this man will automatically become an influential figure,
possibly even more legitimate than the gray official appointed by the president.
One can, of course, even then say that there is no website and all this is
virtual -- but any official will understand that he is dealing with reality.
(Treshchanin) You have a sponsorship project, and the sponsor is well known. (The
former businessman Sergey Kolesnikov, who built a palace on orders from the
President's Administration of Affairs and became angry at the size of the
kickback, acted as a sponsor -- Svobodnaya Pressa.)
(Krasheninnikov) This man read the booklet and was inspired and decided to give
money. It is not a large sum for him.
(Treshchanin) Not large -- what does that mean?
(Krasheninnikov) About 3 million rubles (R) were earmarked, and less than 2
million spent.
(Treshchanin) In other words, it is less than what Navalnyy spent on his Rospil
(graft website)? (Aleksey Navalnyy collected about R8 million through the
Internet and at this point has spent slightly more than 2 million -- Svobodnaya
(Krasheninnikov) Less. He gave it under one condition -- he is not the proprietor
and not the owner and has nothing to do with the project. Otherwise we would not
be interested in working under an obligation either. And we are also conducting
negotiations with other people in the very sa me way -- we do not owe you
anything, you simple give us money because you like the idea.
(Treshchanin) Are you going to collect money the way that Navalnyy did?
(Krasheninnikov) We are.
(Treshchanin) To my understanding, you in one way or another are counting on
introducing an "electronic digital signature" as a legal instrument.
(Krasheninnikov) One should not be in a rush with that. It is a technical
possibility. We do not want to frighten people with the complicated character and
expense of this process. First we will start the system, and if the process takes
off and there are a lot of users, then we can think about it. Or -- do it all
over again.
And when 100,000 people with an ETsP (electronic digital signature) appear, the
entire state system will collapse. Because we say, let us assume: "We want to
form a party." And the government will no longer be able to say, "You do not
We want to force the government to recognize the fact that people live in Russia
and they have ideas and they think altogether differently than the government
thinks for them. And modern technologies will permit them to express their
(Treshchanin) I will repeat the question once again -- with a real threat, the
government will respond with repressions. Certainly the very same digital
signature will be left in the project anyway -- and this instrument simply will
not exist. So let us fall behind again but we are not about to yield to some
rag-tag citizens.
(Krasheninnikov) As soon as the state begins to fight against our project, it can
expect incredible, colossal success. Facebook will die of envy. The only way to
make our people do anything is to prohibit it. And we will achieve what we in
fact want -- the self-organization of people.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
October 21, 2011
Why Some Russians Need the West's Help
By Michael Bohm
Michael Bohm is opinion page editor at The Moscow Times.
"The West will help us."
Ostap Bender's famous phrase from Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs" may have been
on Konstantin Fetisov's mind when he met with Michael Posner U.S. assistant
secretary of state for the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor in the
Moscow region a week ago.
Fetisov is a leader of the movement opposing the construction of the
Kremlin-supported $8 billion Moscow-St. Petersburg highway that will travel
through the Khimki forest. He was beaten badly by unidentified assailants last
November, leaving him with impaired speech and memory loss.
During his meeting with Fetisov, Posner said the United States needs to
"redouble" its efforts to press Russia on protecting human rights.
Posner's six-day human rights tour across Russia once again raises the question
of whether the United States and its European allies have an obligation or even
the right to criticize Russia on its democracy record and support Russian
victims of human rights abuses.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's position on the matter is clear: Russia's human
rights record is an internal matter. "Don't poke your noses in our internal
affairs," is how Putin put it, referring to the United States, during an
interview with CNN's Larry King in December.
But Putin's stance is a direct contradiction of Russia's commitments under
several international conventions that the country has signed, including the
European Convention on Human Rights. It also contradicts Russia's membership in
the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The foundation for all these international agreements and organizations covering
human rights is grounded in three basic principles: Human rights are governed by
international law, they serve as the basis for world order, and all signatories
are obliged to adhere to their principles.
If this were not enough, Putin should take a closer look at Article 15.4 of
Russia's own Constitution, which states that international agreements that Russia
has signed, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, are an inalienable
part of the country's laws. It also states that if an international agreement
contradicts Russian law, the international agreement takes precedence.
Thus, the Kremlin cannot hide behind the bankrupt argument that human rights
abuses are "internal matters." There is no such thing as a government's
"sovereign right" to commit human rights abuses.
Despite Putin's opposition to Western "interference," there are many cases in
which the West has, indeed, helped Russian victims of human rights abuse. This
was true for Soviet dissidents and remains true for Russians today.
Take, for example, former Yukos vice president Vasily Aleksanyan, who was not
given adequate treatment for cancer and other AIDS-related illnesses while he was
held in pretrial detention from 2006 to 2009. Although the Russian courts ignored
three injunctions by the European Court of Human Rights to free Aleksanyan until
trial, he was finally released in January 2009 after the European court found
Russia had violated four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. In
this case, unfortunately, the West's help was too little and too late. Aleksanyan
died due to complications from AIDS on Oct. 2.
As the Aleksanyan case shows, it often takes several years and many attempts to
convince Russian officials to respond to allegations of human rights abuses
particularly when law enforcement officials are the ones abusing human rights and
when they are protected by senior government officials.
Similarly, a U.S. bill may ultimately help the family members of Sergei Magnitsky
achieve justice. Magnitsky, a lawyer who represented Hermitage Capital, died in
pretrial detention after being denied medical care. Versions of the bill,
sponsored by U.S. Senator Ben Cardin and aimed at sanctioning 60 government
officials implicated in Magnitsky's death, are also being considered in several
European countries. These sanctions, which include visa restrictions and asset
freezes, are particularly effective because they hit corrupt Russian officials
where it hurts most.
There are also many less-known cases, as Washington Post journalist Kathy Lally
reported on Saturday. Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, for example, who heads the
Russian-Chechen Friendship Society that investigates mass murders and abuses by
Russian soldiers in Chechnya, was convicted on dubious "extremism" charges in
2006. He told The Washington Post that he was able to avoid a prison term largely
because European and U.S. agencies, including the National Endowment for
Democracy, supported his case.
Putin's other false argument, which borders on conspiracy theory, is that Western
forces meddle in Russian affairs in an effort to undermine the current regime or
even topple it in an Orange-like revolution. Many Russians who fall for this myth
believe that the United States actively funds opposition parties, such as Parnas,
despite the fact that this is strictly prohibited by both Russian and U.S. laws.
But what Washington does partially fund, through agencies like USAID, is several
hundred Russian nongovernmental organizations, with an average grant amounting to
about $50,000. Some of the recipients include:
The Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, which helps stop hazing and other abuses in
the army;
Memorial, a human rights organization;
Perm-36, which is devoted to helping Russians learn more about the gulag;
The Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, which defends Russian
journalists' constitutional rights, including helping them pay for a lawyer when
they are wrongly accused or otherwise persecuted for their investigative work;
The Murmansk Association of Female Journalists.
This is hardly the stuff to make an Orange Revolution.
If the Kremlin wants victims of human rights abuses to rely less on the West for
help, there is one way to achieve this by the Russian government helping them
instead. But this will require an independent court system and an open,
democratic state that is committed to protecting human rights and prosecuting
those who violate those rights.
Unfortunately, Russia's "sovereign democracy" model is committed to the direct
opposite: increasing the government's power, limiting the ability of civil
society to fulfill its democratic role and covering up human rights abuses under
the cynical pretext that these cases are "internal Russian matters."
As long as Russia's democracy remains "sovereign," Russians like Konstantin
Fetisov will have no other choice than to rely on the West for help.
[return to Contents]
Moscow News
October 21, 2011
Liberal-Schmiberal Navalny on Russian March Committee
By Tom Washington
Alexei Navalny, the blue-eyed boy of anti-corruption campaigning, is on the
committee of Moscow's forthcoming nationalist Russian March, but has little to
say about his new role.
"Well what can I say? The Russian March will happen and that's a good thing,"
Navalny told Snob magazine about the planned Nov. 4 event that expects to see
20,000 25,000 take to the streets to fly the nationalist flag.
A determined nationalist
Navalny has become the poster-child for observers, especially Western observers,
of corruption in Russia, with his popular blog and accounts of fraud in Russia's
monolith monopolies. As a fervent critic of Putin, United Russia and the
authoritarian image they project, his fan base often overlooks his political
track record.
"I clearly supported this long-held idea of mine, if you don't like those who
will go on the Russian March, go there yourself and make it better. There they
will talk about real problems and 'liberal-schmiberal' labels are nonsense,"
Navalny told Snob.
The march looks set to be popular despite memories of December 2010's racially
motivated disturbances, where 5,000 turned violent on Manezh Square. This year's
march is expected to see about 7,000 participants who are "prepared to fight,"
Vedomosti reported Friday.
'Glory to Russia!'
In 2007, Navalny described himself and his now defunct Narod (nation) movement as
nationalist-democrats, Agentstvo Politicheskikh Novostei reported at the time.
After the recent news came through of his appointment to the Russian March
committee Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group and god-mother of
Russian human rights, had her concerns. "I think that liberal ideals and
nationalism are incompatible," she told Politonline.ru.
She had expressed similar concerns in 2008 after Narod and other nationalist
groups signed a pact, promising solidarity.
Navalny had clashed with the liberal opposition party Yabloko's council in 2007,
when he was sacked for going on the Russian March and for his involvement in
Narod. He was voted out of the party and as he stormed out of the room he shouted
"Glory to Russia!" council member Boris Bishnevsky wrote on the Yabloko website.
[return to Contents]
Los Angeles Times
October 24, 2011
Ex-tycoon writes of life in Russian prison
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an ardent foe of Vladimir Putin in prison since 2003, takes
up a Russian literary tradition. It's too early to judge him as a storyteller,
but his prose is poignantly political.
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from MoscowAlready imprisoned for nearly eight years, the inmate who
once was Russia's richest man must still see at least 1,800 more sunrises from
behind his barracks window, his view of the real world beyond the camp fence with
barbed wire on top.
But armed with a pen and pencil, Mikhail Khodorkovsky is following in a grand, if
grim, Russian literary tradition: writing about his life in a gulag-style camp he
has described as "an anti-world" where "lying is a norm and truth an exception."
Russian leader Vladimir Putin's ardent opponent, whose convictions on fraud, tax
evasion and money-laundering charges were widely seen as politically motivated,
once wrote that the only thing he was missing in prison was a computer "but my
penmanship has improved."
Just five months after special forces stormed his plane at an eastern Siberian
airport in late 2003 and arrested the head of the Yukos oil giant, Khodorkovsky
wrote his first article in captivity, headlined, "The Crisis of Liberalism in
Since then, the 48-year-old former billionaire has contributed more than 100
articles, interviews and short stories to media organizations in Russia and
abroad. In the writings, he not only defends his honor and denies all the charges
against him, but also responds to the political, economic or moral challenges
that Russian society faces.
In recent weeks, Khodorkovsky has started a series of columns called "Prison
Folk" for the New Times, an influential Russian weekly political magazine. In
them, he approaches his characters with the sharp eye of an intellectual observer
but also the compassion of a fellow prisoner, giving his prose a touch of the
desperate hope prevalent in Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic "One Day in the Life
of Ivan Denisovich."
"Often you feel literally terrified from the sense of utterly wasted human lives,
fates broken by one's own hands or by the heartless system," he writes in one of
his most recent columns, which his lawyers say he files through the prison mail
system subject to censorship or dictates to them.
In a matter-of-fact way that makes the account even more wrenching, Khodorkovsky
tells the story of Kolya, a young man caught with drugs. Investigators, hoping to
write off an unsolved case, also want the man to confess to a petty robbery he
didn't commit.
Kolya agrees in exchange for a promise that he can choose a prison camp to his
liking and meet with his family. But when he finds out that he is going to
"confess" to robbing an old woman of her cellphone, he refuses. The man is a
criminal, but he has his principles.
The investigators beat him up and throw him back into a cell to think,
Khodorkovsky writes.
"In a short while, he knocks on the door and when the feeder [a small window to
get food] opens up, his intestines flow into it. Kolya cut himself up for real.
"I look at this man many times convicted and think with bitterness about many
people outside who value their honor much cheaper and don't consider robbing an
old man or an old woman for a couple of thousand [rubles] a special sin, even if
their robbery is covered up by smart words. They are not ashamed. And
involuntarily I am proud of Kolya."
The novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who faced a death sentence that was changed at
the last moment to a prison term that included hard labor in a Siberian prison
camp, laid the foundations of Russian prison prose in the 19th century. Since
then, that tradition has been upheld by many prominent authors in a country with
an old saying that loosely translates as "beware of prison and poverty"
painfully true for Khodorkovsky.
It is too early to seriously judge Khodorkovsky's literary merits as a
storyteller, says Russian literary critic Benedikt Sarnov. But "he is growing
fast both morally and spiritually, and the way he notices things around him,
singles out stories and their heroes, carries visible grains of writing that may
eventually put him close to such pillars of Russian prose as Alexander
Solzhenitsyn and Varlam Shalamov," revered authors who experienced the Russian
prison system.
Popular Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, who has exchanged several letters with
Khodorkovsky, says he is "an exclusively talented man" and that his writing has
quickly improved.
"Khodorkovsky is already writing his book, which he publishes in small chapters,"
she says. "Unfortunately, the fate of Russia is such that the topic of crime and
punishment and also the prison theme are the core motive of Russian literature."
Much of what Khodorkovsky writes and says remains poignantly political. Far from
surrendering under the Kremlin blows, he continues to lash out at the government,
pointing out its political and economic errors and comparing Putin to Stalin.
"The continuation of Putin's era is a step toward the past," Khodorkovsky says in
an article this month in the independent daily Vedomosti. "For any political
system and political elite, a movement back into the past is bad as it kills
Political experts evaluate his influence as marginal, given that his support in
polls has remained static at 6% to 8%, but Khodorkovsky argues that "any heroes
are always marginal by definition."
"A hero begins from opposing the habitual, routine way of life, the inertia of
mainstream sucking you in," he said earlier this year in an interview with the
magazine Vlast. "Look at what is happening now in Tunisia, Egypt and countries
which didn't know a democratic tradition either," he added, comparing the Russian
leadership with autocrats who think they will rule forever.
Khodorkovsky may become a conspicuous figure in Russian politics when, or if, he
comes out of prison at the end of 2016, says Maxim Shevchenko, a conservative
political analyst and member of the Public Chamber, a presidential advisory
board. But he would face obstacles.
"The prison has failed to break him but turned him into a man of steel, and the
Russian people are traditionally sympathetic to people sitting in prison
regardless of their former oligarchic status," Shevchenko says. "However, should
he choose politics after his release, his one big problem will be his marginal
support base."
Khodorkovsky's supporters are mainly a group of intellectuals living in Moscow
and St. Petersburg, whereas the rest of the population largely remains
indifferent toward the imprisoned ex-oligarch, said Boris Dubin of the
Moscow-based independent Levada Polling Center.
"Unless there are major economic and political upheavals rocking Russia, chances
of Khodorkovsky to become a Russian Nelson Mandela are miserable," Dubin says.
"The authorities don't even try to prevent Khodorkovsky from his writing because
he poses no political threat for them and they can't care less what he writes
about them or Russia from his prison camp," Shevchenko points out.
Khodorkovsky argues that even if Stalin's gulag is gone, the penal system hasn't
changed much. Instead of correcting criminals, he writes, it hardens them or
destroys them altogether.
In one of his most recent "Prison Folk" stories, he muses on that destruction and
its final stage: death: "This is the system. These are the people. Before the
threshold. On the threshold. Which is in store for all of us one day."
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Wall Street Journal
October 22, 2011
Russia Nears WTO Membership, Clearing EU Hurdle
By JOHN W. MILLER
BRUSSELSRussia and the European Union said Friday they had removed their final
bilateral barriers to Moscow's accession to the World Trade Organization.
The deal puts the biggest economy outside the WTO the closest it has ever been to
membership since it started negotiations 17 years ago.
The final hurdle is the opposition of Russia's enemy Georgia. It belongs to the
Geneva-based organization, which requires unanimous consent before welcoming new
members, and is threatening a veto.
Russia has been a tortoise in its path to the WTO. But the deal announced Friday
clears away significant obstacles that, for the first time, make membership more
likely than not, say trade officials and analysts.
"Now it actually looks like they have a path to join in 2012," said Nikolay
Mizulin, a trade lawyer with Chicago-based Mayer Brown LLP.
Russia is the EU's third-biggest trade partner, with $306.2 billion in total
trade last year. The deal announced Friday removes some headline hurdles to even
more exchange.
Russia taxes car companies, including Western firms including General Motors Co.
and Volkswagen AG, that don't buy parts domestically. Moscow has refused to
eliminate the program. As a compromise, Russia agreed to offer the EU extra
tariff cuts on car parts if there is a decline in its imports of car parts from
the EU.
Russia has promised to end its tax on European planes flying over Siberia "in the
coming weeks," a deal which could save European airlines hundreds of millions of
euros a year. The EU also claimed "good outcomes" on "clearer rules for exporting
agricultural products and foodstuffs to Russia, and a reliable quota regime for
wood exports."
"We have struck a deal on the final outstanding bilateral issues, leaving the way
open for Russia to join the WTO by the end of this year," said Karel De Gucht, EU
trade commissioner. WTO officials said that while a deal may take more time than
that, Mr. De Gucht has reason for optimism.
Trade delegates will meet at WTO headquarters in Geneva next week to review a
700-page document outlining Russia's progress in rewriting its customs rulebook.
It has been "substantial" and a cause for new optimism, said WTO officials.
They will keep meeting regularly in next month before a major summit of trade
ministers on Dec. 15. If Russia is voted in, it will have six months to ratify,
followed by a month of preparation before it formally joins.
"The technical work has actually been good. It's all about Georgia now," says a
WTO official.
Georgia, which is loath to give up territory in any way, is demanding that Russia
cede information on trade, and some control of it, involving South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, Russian-controlled enclaves within Georgia that drove the two countries
to war in 2008.
Switzerland has been mediating a compromise in Genevait has suggested a permanent
independent monitor of tradebut the divisions and tensions run deep. Talks broke
down once again on Thursday.
Moscow needs to solve its Georgia issue before the December WTO summit, the first
since 2009. Russia has the option of demanding a majority vote at the WTO, but
U.S. and EU officials say they would oppose that. The U.S. has said it supports
Russia's accession, although that would involve permanently excluding Russia from
the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a 1974 law that keeps tariffs high on countries that
restrict emigration. The White House has promised to push Congress to repeal
Jackson-Vanick, but it hasn't happened yet.
Russia's attitude toward its own application has often been tepid. It could have
more to lose than gain, because its main exports, oil and gas, aren't subject to
tariffs or WTO rules. Joining the WTO opens its doors to a massive influx of new
imports without necessarily compensating with new exports, potentially worsening
a trade deficit.
Russian officials say they are sincere about wanting to join, but its leaders are
holding on to the negotiating tactic of saying they are not yet entirely
If Russia doesn't get it, "we will survive this," president Dmitry Medvedev said
Wednesday in televised remarks.
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Moscow Times
October 24, 2011
Dvorkovich Joins Prophets of Economic Gloom
By Howard Amos
As European leaders scrambled to solve the continent's sovereign debt crisis
Sunday, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich joined the ranks of those predicting
that the world is facing a long period of slow economic growth.
The forecast aligns Dvorkovich who has said he would like to serve in a cabinet
if President Dmitry Medvedev becomes prime minister in 2012 with other top
Russian figures who have predicted a bleak future for the economy, including
former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
To expect international growth of 3 to 4 percent was "pointless," Dvorkovich told
a conference held by Alfa Bank on Friday. Two percent growth for at least five to
seven years was more realistic, he said.
A global slowdown would hit demand for Russian goods, particularly hydrocarbon
and metal exports. But it is not just the economy that would suffer. A $1 drop in
the price of oil results in a 55 billion ruble ($1.8 billion) fall in government
revenue, acting Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said earlier this month.
"If nothing serious is done, [there will be] a low growth rate for the Russian
economy," Dvorkovich said. "Of course, this will manifest itself in all indexes
budget policies, budget expenditure, all those indicators that are connected with
social development and everything linked with the financial sector."
Gross domestic product plunged 7.8 percent in 2009 but grew 4 percent last year.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said last week that the country could expect growth
of more than 4 percent in 2011.
Speaking at the same event, Deputy Economic Development Minister Stanislav
Voskresensky said the basic prognosis for Russian growth was 3 to 4 percent. But,
he added, the ministry had conducted stress tests that showed if oil averaged $80
a barrel, growth would be 2.5 percent. If oil were at $60 a barrel, he said,
growth would be 1.4 to 2 percent.
The current price of Urals crude, the benchmark for Russian oil, is $109.83.
Dvorkovich is not the only high-level member of the Kremlin establishment to
believe the global economy is set to stagnate.
Two days before his departure from the Finance Ministry on Sept. 26, Kudrin made
a similar prediction. "We're in for a lost decade," he said. "It's already
clearer that growth rates will be low and the fight to keep growth from dying out
will take many years. Most likely, about five to 10 years."
While he was negative about long-term prospects, Dvorkovich said he thought that
European leaders would succeed in addressing the immediate financial crisis
engulfing their countries. Heads of European Union member states agreed Saturday
on a $150 billion bank recapitalization plan and are set to hammer out a broader
rescue package, focusing on Greece's debt woes, by Wednesday.
Dvorkovich stressed that the main obstacle to finding a solution to the financial
problems was political, and he identified "an absence of political will to tell
the truth and say what is really going on."
Pyotr Aven, head of Alfa Bank, was more blunt. "Today's world crisis is a
political crisis, not an economic crisis," he said.
Russian stock markets appeared to concur that a solution to Europe's problems was
imminent. MICEX rose 1.1 percent last week to 1,447.01. The dollar-denominated
RTS climbed 2.4 percent to 1,456.73.
An ongoing stagnation in the world economy has been much-discussed in recent
months. In an Oct. 19 report, investment bank Goldman Sachs put the chance of a
"Great Stagnation" for developed economies at 40 percent.
Experts have been quick to point to signs that Russia might also be entering a
period of low growth and economic stagnation, like that presided over by Leonid
Brezhnev in the 1970s and 1980s.
Russian industrial production in September grew at its slowest pace since it
began expanding in October 2009, after the end of the 2008 financial crisis.
Vladimir Tikhomirov, chief economist at Otkritie Capital, said that whether
Russia will enter a period of slow growth and economic stagnation depends on
whether its politicians undertake large-scale reform.
"It's very easy to come to the conclusion that there are no major drivers capable
of pushing Russia's growth," he told The Moscow Times.
"If the government does nothing on reform, then stagnation will come and
structural imbalances will increase, leading to social and political
[return to Contents]
Russia Beyond the Headlines
October 21, 2011
No pain, no gain in times of crisis
By Alexei Moisseev
Alexei Moisseev is head of macroeconomic analysis at VTB Capital.
The question of Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries,
in particular Russia, offering Europe salvation evokes historical parallels.
Among others, we are reminded of how Emperor Nicholas I's troops rescued the
Austrian Empire from popular uprisings in 1848/49. It seemed then that Russia
was, in the words of the Emperor, "the most powerful country in the world", just
as it had been in 1814, when Russian troops entered Paris.
But even then, Russia's military strength concealed the urgent need for
modernising its economy, which only occurred a full seven years later in the
aftermath of the Crimean War. The Crimean campaign revealed that behind the
brilliant fac,ade was an economy that, overall, could not match up to those of
Britain and France.
A somewhat similar fac,ade exists today. The country has almost no external debt,
falling inflation, a decent rate of economic growth, a balanced state budget,
current account surplus, and huge international reserves. But just as almost 200
years ago, all of this conceals the same urgent need for modernising Russia in
nearly every area of life. However, in contrast to Emperor Nicholas I, our
current leaders, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev,
speak openly about it.
So then, can Russia help Europe? Yes, but not so much with money. Yes, the Brics
have astronomical foreign exchange reserves, which can, and probably should be
invested in Eurozone bonds if those appear, after all. But Russia's experience
during the second half of the Nineties shows that foreign financial aid reduces
the incentive for tough reforms, generates hope that all problems will resolve
themselves and, most importantly, only makes the inevitable decline more
difficult. Herein lies the answer to the question of what countries like Russia
can do to help Eurozone nations. It can offer the benefit of its experience.
In Russia in 1998, it had long been hoped that foreign financial aid would
somehow solve all the problems, but that didn't happen, and in August of that
year the government defaulted. After that, it became clear that there was no one
else to depend on. Tough financial reforms were carried out, backbreaking social
obligations were scaled back and, in general, the country finally realised that
it had to roll up its sleeves and get to work.
It was against this background that a political consolidation of society took
place, which allowed the reform process to continue. As a result, Russia had its
highest period of growth for almost 40 years, which was only partially and only
in the later years the result of high oil prices.
Russia's experience showed that in times of financial crisis there is no
alternative to painful reforms and no one can save you from that.
[return to Contents]
Novaya Gazeta
No 118
October 21, 2011
Author: Nikolai Vardul
[Several voices are raised that promote budget caution but the
authorities remain stubbornly convinced that the budget will be
okay just because they themselves can do no wrong.]
Adoption of the budget is under way in Russia. Budgets are
adopted by the Duma, a structure Vladimir Putin calls "effective"
meaning that the national legislature is ready to adopt the budget
either just in the first reading or in all four readings at once.
And yet, the budget process demonstrates another road fork,
probably the last before the crisis.
That the road fork is there does not mean that there is a way
to detour around the crisis. It means a chance to select the route
that will permit Russia to prepare itself for the crisis in the
best possible manner.
Budget is about parity between revenues and expenditures.
Also importantly, it is about parity between politics and
economics. Unfortunately, that's where Russia always encounters
Vladimir Putin is on one pole. He claims that the national
economy is recovering and not sinking into another crisis as some
alarmists maintain. There is the other pole as well, one where we
see economists and some state functionaries including ex-minister
of finances and Sergei Stepashin with Sergei Goreglyad of the
Auditing Commission. They warn that the budget cannot manage under
the weight of so many populist promises, that the oil price
expectations ($100) are way too optimistic, and that something
ought to be done to prepare Russia against the eventuality that
oil prices will be lower than that.
Stepashin said, "We cannot help adopting the budget. No need
to introduce any radical corrections into it. And yet, we need a
contingency plan because there is a possibility that oil markets
and prices will crash." Goreglyad called what his patron was
proposing Plan B or Parallel Budget. In a word, the matter
concerns a plan of sequester of the expenditures.
Attending the meeting of the Budget Committee of the Duma on
October 18, Stepashin confirmed that the government was thinking
of measures to be taken if and when crisis struck. He said, "Sure,
there are these scenarios but they only exist in the heads of
[some functionaries within] the Economic Development Ministry and
Finance Ministry. They exist nowhere else."
It is administrative crisis, no more and no less. There is
common sense, and there is bureaucratic logic. Even when the
former compels state functionaries (not all of them, of course) to
map out some anti-crisis measures, these contingency plans remain
right there - in the minds of some state functionaries.
Formulating them and offering for a discussion means going against
bureaucratic logic. And this logic is centered around two maxims:
do what you are told and no more (1) and initiatives are punished
(2). Aleksei Kudrin's example is too fresh in everyone's memory.
It means that Stepashin might keep saying what he wants to the
Duma but everything depends on what order will be given. It is
Putin who gives orders in Russia and Putin is convinced that the
budget can handle the burden and that no sequester is needed.
Time is flying. Kudrin wrote in an article published in
Kommersant that time for anti-crisis maneuvering was slipping
away. Stepashin appealed to lawmakers to be wary of repeating the
mistakes made three years ago... Before learning from one's past
mistakes, however, one has to admit that mistakes were made in the
first place. The powers-that-be in Russia are not good at
admitting that they might be wrong.
The state is prepared to pour colossal money into national
defense and, specifically, into the military-industrial complex.
Effectiveness of this move is iffy but... The powers-that-be
cannot back out now because it will be a blow at Dmitry Medvedev's
prestige that will do irreparable damage. In short, it is economy
vs politics all over again. In Russia, political considerations
always outweigh economic.
[return to Contents]
Russia's anti-corruption watchdog to check state companies in 2011
MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti)-Transparency International Russia, the country's
center for anti-corruption research and initiative, will examine the
effectiveness of anti-corruption measures in state companies this year, the
center's head, Yelena Panfilova, said on Friday.
"We plan to check all Russian state corporations concerning corruption in their
business in 2011," Panfilova told reporters, adding that a systematic method to
control business transactions of state companies was needed.
"The system of purchases at state companies stands apart from other forms of
economic life ... because they are established by the government, financed by the
government, they meet state challenges but they are commercial corporations. This
is why this sphere was shadowy for a long time," Panfilova said.
The Russian state-run civil nuclear corporation Rosatom was the first which was
checked by Transparency International Russia this year. The center elicited
violations in purchases at public markets and sent recommendations to the
corporation to eliminate them.
"Our list concerns many questions, including ... setup of objective mechanisms
which regulate starting prices during trading and instruments which help to
develop competition in trading to the increase level of information
transparency," she added.
[return to Contents]
Spokesman Details Severe Problems Facing Russian Farmers
Svobodnaya Pressa
October 17, 2011
Interview with Aleksandr Rodin, president of the Don Valley Association of
Peasant Farms and Agricultural Cooperatives of Russia, by Aleksandr Sitnikov:
"New 'Landowners' Will Feed Us with Expensive Meat. In the Last 20 Years the
Number of Cattle in Russia Has Declined to the Level of... 1861"
Last Friday (14 October) President Medvedev met with agricultural workers in
Moscow. The Kremlin administration was concerned to ensure that the country folk
looked urbanized and spoke civilly at the meeting. The meeting itself was more
reminiscent of a jubilee meeting. And indeed it was actually pegged to
Agricultural Workers Day. The rest of the time it is somehow not the done thing
to think about "kolkhzniks" (collective farm workers). Evidently because the
agrarian sector, or rather its development, is nothing to be proud of. Villages
are being abandoned, the shelves of food stores are now filled with imports, and
the biggest harvests across the expanses of Russia are being grown by the
All of this is the consequence of the agrarian policy pursued in the last 20
years. The Third Congress of People's Deputies on 3 December 1990 set the task of
establishing a system of Russian peasant farms. The plan was specifically that
these new landowners would feed the country. But it did not happen.
"If we are talking about reforms in the countryside," Aleksandr Rodin, president
of the Don Valley AKKOR (Association of Peasant Farms and Agricultural
Cooperatives of Russia), says, "they have not stopped for the last 150 years,
since the beginning of the abolition of slavery. The country lurches from
communal to individual production and back again. No matter who has carried out
the reforms -- whether it be Czar Aleksandr I, Stolypin, Lenin, Stalin, or
Chubays and Gaydar -- they fundamentally changed the tenor of rural life: People
were first corralled into a communal system, which was then destroyed. The task
now being set is to finally eliminate the communal system in the next 2-3 years.
"I am talking about the so-called agrofirms created on the basis of collective
farms. As a rule they are headed by former collective farm chairmen. It is they
who are starting to turn into a class of landowners, whom Stolypin wanted to get
rid of. Formally speaking former collective farm workers have their own share of
the land and part of the property. But in reality this land has not been
categorized in any way and constitutes a virtual share. So the result is that if
a collective farm worker wants to leave a collective agrofirm and obtain the plot
to which he is entitled, in practice he is foisted off with the worst land. And
if he wants to sell, then the land -- in this case the best land -- is bought up
by the director of the agrofirm or structures close to him. The new "landowners"
behave like lords toward the ordinary workers. They are not generous with their
wages. In the Don Valley, hired villagers received 6,000 rubles a month but have
to do an awful lot of work.
(Sitnikov) Could it be that these are the costs of agricultural reform? After
all, Russia has again started selling grain abroad, as was the case in czarist
(Rodin) Present-day agriculture is a long way away from what it was in czarist
Russia or even the Soviet Union. During Soviet times there was parity between
livestock farming and grain production. The number of head of cattle in 1990 was
estimated to be 57 million. Naturally a powerful feed base was required, and
enormous areas were allocated to it.
In 2010 the number of cattle totaled only 20.4 million head. This is less than in
1861, immediately after the abolition of serfdom, when peasants had 21 million
head of cattle. As for the grain yield, in 1991 it totaled 38.8 quintals per
hectare in the Don Valley, whereas this year the figure is 37 quintals.
Things are even worse in terms of sunflower production. In Soviet times they used
to grow 18 quintals per hectare, whereas now the figure is 11 quintals. There is
a clear imbalance in agricultural production. We sell grain with a lower added
value abroad and buy expensive meat -- frozen meat, at that. The grain crop
harvest is being obtained at the expense of land taken out of feed crop
cultivation. This is significantly eas ier than developing costly and
labor-intensive livestock farming.
(Sitnikov) Is the result that the market track has led in the wrong direction?
(Rodin) In this connection I can say that there is no pure market economy in the
West, either. I studied the experience of livestock farming in Germany, on the
spot. There, a young person who has decided to start up his own farm is granted a
30-year low at an annual rate of interest of 3 percent, with repayments starting
after 5-10 years, and the volume of output that the state pledges to buy at a
previously agreed price, if it cannot find a market, is clearly specified. This
guarantees the livestock farmer a certain decent level of profitability and
protects the market against overproduction. It is essentially a planned economy.
You can sell processed products -- sausages, yoghurts -- only on your own farm or
in your own shop. Among Western economists at that time there was a very
fashionable model of "pure market relations," but they did not dare to test it in
their own countries. But here Chubays turned around and wondered why we should
not experiment in Russia.
(Sitnikov) What was the essence of the 1991 reform?
(Rodin) It was considered that the market would itself regulate everything and,
no matter what kind of owner there might be, he would be better than a socialist
economic manager in any case. Time demolished these illusions. In the last 20
years the "new Russians" who obtained socialist property for nothing have only
been exploiting the Soviet legacy, period! Only those who have come from nothing
have become effective owners.
The same is also true of pricing. Currently so-called "purchasing interventions"
and "pledge operations" are employed. In both cases the state sets a minimum
price. It is impossible to talk about a "pure market." The experiment did not
succeed. In the USSR a price also used to be set, but it enabled agriculture to
develop. For example, the purchase price of grain in 1885 totaled 12 kopecks per
kilogram, which ensured a 130 percent rate of return, whereas in 1990 grain was
being bought for 30 kopecks per kilogram. And the rate of return at that time
totaled as much as 220 percent. That said, the rate of return in livestock
farming was only 7.5 percent, but economic managers would reinvest part of their
profits in this sector.
For comparison, in 2011 the state price threshold came to 5,000 rubles per tonne
of Class 3 wheat. The maximum rate of return that our average farmer can make
does not exceed 50 percent. This is very low. And I'm talking about successful
farmers, who account for no more than 10 percent of the total. The rest are
barely surviving.
(Sitnikov) Is it difficult to be a farmer in our conditions?
(Rodin) It is difficult; he encounters a whole slew of problems. First, the
imbalance between the price of agricultural products and industrial products.
This imbalance is snowballing. For example, a MTZ 82 tractor cost 180,000 rubles
in 2001 but costs 660,000 today. Diesel fuel used to be sold at 4,700 rubles a
tonne as against the current 21,000. At the same time the grain price has risen
from 3,000 to 5,500.
Money is thereby being leached out of farmers to the benefit of industry and
dealers. This is compelling rural folk to sell their crop to an army of dealers
even before it has ripened. At an enormous discount. The banks too are not
providing long-term loans. One-year loans have become widespread. Whether you
like it or not, grain has to be sold even if the market conditions are
Whereas in the United States, for example, a farmer divides his crop into two
parts. He sells one part in the autumn and stores the other part in grain
elevators and sells it in the spring. He thereby ensures himself against price
fluctuations. But if the price is very low, the farmer carries out a pledge
operation and waits for the price to rise -- during a drought the followin g
year, for example. But if even beyond that the market conditions still do not
favor the farmer, the American Government sells the pledged grain abroad,
exploiting its influence.
As you can see, there is not a market economy in its pure form in the United
States either. Incidentally, elevator capacity in America totals 120 percent of
the average harvest, whereas in our country the figure is only one-half. So
pledge operations are extremely disadvantageous for the Russian farmer because of
high storage costs, which cannot be said about the Americans.
(Sitnikov) The Russian countryside is dying. But how is the demographic situation
shaping up in the Don Valley?
(Rodin) Until 2006 negative population growth could be observed in only 17
districts, whereas now the figure is already 33. The people are fleeing to the
towns, where they are not welcome. In terms of the figures the situation looks
like this: At the beginning of the reforms there were 335,000 villagers working
in the countryside. Now 90,000 words in agrofirms and 40,000 on peasant farms. A
further 190,000 people work in towns but have a smallholding. As a rule they own
up to 15 hectares of land and are engaged in vegetable growing.
(Sitnikov) In S. Minayev's novel LESS (SOULLESS), in which the author depicted
the spiritual way of metropolitan life, "kolkhozan" (Chechen word for a
collective farm worker) is considered to be just about the most terrible insult.
Surely it is not really insulting to be a collective farm worker (a synonym for a
(Rodin) What is insulting is the Russian way of life in the countryside, not the
peasant. In America "cowboy" has a proud ring to it. It all depends on the
economic environment. And today it is not in favor of the rural producer.
[return to Contents]
Russia "will Kick in The Teeth" If Its Citizens' Rights Abroad Are Infringed -
MOSCOW. Oct 20 (Interfax) - President Dmitry Medvedev has warned that Russia is
always ready to retaliate for infringements on its citizens' rights abroad.
Should "they" attempt to do so, "we will kick in the teeth," Medvedev said,
meeting with youth in Moscow.
He was commenting on a story told by a Moscow businessman, Georgy Ovakimov, who
thanked Medvedev for "kicking Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in the
teeth" after he unleashed a war in August 2008.
Medvedev acknowledged that he was astounded by what's happening in some former
Soviet republics.
"I read materials - materials prepared by special service, cables - and just
can't understand how one can make one's own people a counterweight to other
citizens," Medvedev said.
The result is a colossal exodus of the population, he added.
Such behavior is an example of the "criminal use of the national card," the
president said.
He mentioned Georgia, where "confrontation grew from the cold phase into an open
"Those who behave in such a way will run into trouble," Medvedev promised to a
rousing applause.
[return to Contents]
Lukyanov Assesses Russia's Foreign Policy Record Under Medvedev
October 20, 2011
Article by Fedor Lukyanov, chief editor of Rossiya v Globalnoy Politike, Russia
in Global Affairs: "Transitional-Period Interlude"
The events of the recent period -- the announcement of the new configuration of
power and the public statements by the members of the former tandem -- have
finally convinced people that a new political situation has taken shape in
Russia. And although important international trips still lie ahead for President
Dmitriy Medvedev, including trips to the G8 and G20 summits, these will most
likely be of a protocol nature. The attention of his partners and interlocutors
has refocused on his mentor Vladimir Putin. Be that as it may, one can sum up the
results of the period of Russian foreign policy that is associated with the name
of Medvedev.
What foreign policy steps and statements will be remembered from this period? The
initiative on a new European security architecture, put forward during the visit
to Germany in June 2008. The five-day war with Georgia and the subsequent
statement about a "sphere of privileged interests," as well as the recognition of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The reset with the United States and the signing of
the Strategic Offensive Arms Reduction Treaty. The cancellation of the contract
to supply S-300 systems to Iran. The marked increase in attention toward Asia,
and not only China, and the proposal of a fundamentally new approach toward
resolving the problem of the Korean peninsula -- through a major energy project.
The personal showdowns with the presidents of Ukraine (Yushchenko) and Belarus,
including a forceful media campaign against the latter. The unexpected consent to
the military intervention in Libya. The visit to the South Kurils, which provoked
a sharp deterioration in relations with Tokyo. Theoretically one could add to
this list the Customs Union and progress in relations with Poland, but in these
cases Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's leading role is obvious. In fact, in
analyzing the period from spring 2008 through fall 2011, it is of course
necessary to bear in mind that, strictly speaking, Dmitriy Medvedev's foreign
policy course did not exist, it was the course of the ruling tandem.
With the possible exception of Libya, none of the decisions conflicted with the
position of the head of government. But it must be admitted that the latter
observed the formal division of powers quite strictly, only rarely intervening
openly in the president's prerogatives, which include foreign policy. So it is
justifiable to regard Medvedev as the symbol of the line that was pursued.
If one looks more carefully at the list of milestones, a paradoxical conclusion
can be drawn. From the outset the president was categorized as a Westernizer --
because of his friendly style and thanks to his rhetoric of modernization, which
is pleasing to Europe and the United States. Both these things distinguished
Medvedev strikingly from his predecessor and successor. However, the net result
is that specifically in the Western vector, in essence there was no progress at
all. Meanwhile the avenues that could hypothetically be called anti- or
alter-Western proved more successful.
This does not mean that, for instance, the reset ended in failure, as it is now
fashionable to assert both in our country and in the West. On the contrary, it
was successful within the narrow limits that were assigned to it. Its essence lay
in the normalization of relations with the United States, the breaking of the
profound impasse into which they had fallen by the end of George Bush's rule, and
their return to a more or less functional form. Which was indeed achieved: It
proved possible to remove a considerable proportion of the negative "hangover"
and to settle several old issues.
The reset did not set the objective of formulating a new model of
Russian-American relations, and no miracle happened. That is to say, anticrisis
management had an impact, but no more than that. There is nothing to boast about
in relations with Europe -- with NATO and particularly with the EU. In three and
a half years nothing happened at all, except for the uttering of fine w ords. The
European security initiative proved to be a passing element in the endless game
of trying to confuse one another. The meaningless "Partnership for Modernization"
with the EU and the similar effectiveness of the declaration on European missile
defense remained no more than ticks on paper. To be fair it must of course be
noted that the blame is by no means only on the Russian side. Given the condition
in which the EU and the European part of the North Atlantic Alliance currently
find themselves, there is no room for large-scale projects. However, toward the
end of the period it has become clear that relations with, say, the EU can hardly
even be described as neutral: The coordinated attack on Gazprom and the latest
sharp increase in pipeline competition demonstrate the scale of the conflicts.
The most successful act in relations with the West was in fact the operation that
was most criticized there -- the war in South Ossetia. Despite the initial shock
and threats to isolate Moscow, it became clear quite quickly that the ability to
demonstrate force in good time can at the very least remove certain unnecessary
questions and have a sobering effect on partners. In fact, paradoxically, it
could happen that from the standpoint of history the Georgian war will look like
Dmitriy Medvedev's most important foreign policy action, although this is at odds
with his public image.
Russia achieved successes specifically in Asia under Medvedev. At any rate, the
geography of visits and the intellectual activeness noticeably shifted in that
direction. People in Moscow began talking a lot about the need to formulate an
all-embracing strategy to combine the task of restoring positions in the
Asian-Pacific region with the development of the Russian Far East. The
trans-Korean gas project is a bid to propose a fundamentally new paradigm for a
settlement, while the Kurils move is a reminder that Russia has no intention of
leaving Asia. And this reminder is not, in principle, addressed to Japan.
Under Medvedev a line took shape that will apparently be continued under Putin:
the transformation of Russia into a power with, first and foremost, a regional
horizon (although the region is the whole of Eurasia, which by definition also
gives it a global dimension). The statement about the sphere of privileged
interests (that is, the recognition that interests have delimited borders), the
detached position on Libya, and the markedly increased efforts to give impetus to
post-Soviet integration structures (the Customs Union, the CSTO (Collective
Security Treaty Organization), the CIS free-trade zone) are actions of one and
the same order. Russia is gradually localizing its priorities, they are
distributed along its borders, and everything else is small change. This is not a
linear process and it has only just begun, but there are more and more symptoms
of it.
To sum up, the past three years (after the Georgian war, which of course was a
late manifestation of Putin's course) could be called a period of foreign policy
stabilization. This is a natural interlude. By the fall of 2008 Russia had
exhausted the possibilities of a "reconstructive" political upsurge after the
breakup of the USSR and a reinterpretation was needed, followed by the
formulation of new tasks. This process has not ended. However, the polite and
outwardly affable president of Russia moderated passions, crowding out his brutal
mentor. At the same time many people wanted to interpret his politeness as
pro-Westernism, whereas in fact it was more like indifference. Which is also
useful against the background of Putin's heightened and generally negative
In general the foreign policy of 2008-2011 can be assessed as successful -- once
again taking into account the fact that Russia and the world were and are in the
midst of a tumultuous and dangerous state of transition to nobody knows where.
Vladimir Putin faces a much more difficult task -- to move on to the
implementation of a new p olicy in the context of the growing unpredictability of
everything that happens. But he knew what he was taking on when he made the
decision to return.
[return to Contents]
Moscow Times
October 24, 2011
In Eye for Eye, U.S. Citizens Banned
By Alexander Bratersky
An unpleasant surprise might await the next White House or Pentagon official who
decides to go sightseeing in Moscow or take a dip at Sochi's beaches: no visa.
The Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday that it has banned entry for
unspecified senior U.S. officials, "mirroring" a ban imposed by the U.S. State
Department on Russian officials linked to the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer
Sergei Magnitsky.
The ministry hinted that the blacklist tit-for-tat could endanger a U.S.-Russian
reset in relations. But an independent analyst said Russia's ban was largely
ceremonial because Moscow, if it were serious, would have targeted U.S.
businesspeople in Russia.
The Russian blacklist includes officials implicated in "the legalization of
torture in American special prisons, the abduction and torture of terrorism
suspects, the indefinite detention of Guantanamo prisoners, and the
uninvestigated murders of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan," ministry spokesman
Alexander Lukashevich said.
He also criticized the U.S. blacklist as direct pressure on the Russian
authorities and "a political provocation," the ministry's web site said.
Lukashevich did not name any blacklisted officials, but said some of them were
involved in the torture and abuse of Russian nationals. This was an apparent
reference to the cases of Viktor Bout, a businessman being tried in a New York
court on arms trafficking allegations, and Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot
convicted of drug smuggling. Both were extradited to the United States from third
countries against Russia's wishes.
The United States barred dozens of unidentified Russian officials over the summer
in connection with the death of Magnitsky, who was detained in 2008 by law
enforcement officials whom he had accused of defrauding the Russian government of
millions of dollars. He spent 11 months behind bars, dying of health problems
and, according to an independent, Kremlin-ordered investigation, a beating
administered by prison guards hours before his death. Two prison doctors are
under investigation for negligence, but no senior officials have been charged
over his death.
The State Department imposed the sanctions in what is widely believed to have
been an attempt by the White House to prevent a tougher blacklist, complete with
a freeze of U.S.-based assets, from being passed by U.S. Congress.
Several other national legislatures in Europe and Canada are considering similar
Russia has repeatedly denounced all attempts at visa blacklists as interference
in the country's internal affairs. In July, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the
Foreign Ministry to draft the blacklist that was announced by Lukashevich on
The ministry did not explain why the implementation of the Russian list was only
announced now, after weeks of threats.
But the move came shortly after the State Department reprimanded Russia for human
rights failings. A week earlier, department official Michael Posner spoke to
Russian opposition activists outside Khimki and pledged to step up human rights
efforts within the "reset."
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also denounced the Magnitsky blacklist on Friday,
calling it "an attempt to destroy the line pursued by President Barack Obama." He
promised that it would not stop the reset.
But ministry official Lukashevich was less decisive, saying continued "political
games with blacklists" might destroy the "positive dynamics" in relations.
Lavrov, who gave a joint interview to three national radio channels, also called
Magnitsky's death a "national tragedy" that was "unworthy of Russia." He declined
to speak about why no one has been punished over it.
The U.S. government did not comment on the Russian blacklist over the weekend.
The embassy in Moscow declined to speak on the issue.
Independent political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky called the Russian blacklist
"laughable," pointing out that Russian officials might have assets or business
interests in the United States or even plans to emigrate, but the reverse was
"It is obvious that those [U.S.] officials have no assets or property in Russia,
and this list is just a ceremonial measure," Belkovsky said by telephone Sunday.
"If the task would have been to act seriously, they could have found U.S.
citizens with financial interests in Russia to blacklist," he said.
A Washington-based lobbyist for the Russian government said the Foreign
Ministry's blacklist was "more logical" than the State Department's.
"The Russian list is more objective because it contains people who have done harm
to Russian citizens. People on the Magnitsky list, meanwhile, haven't violated
the interests of U.S. citizens," said the lobbyist, who asked for anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki rights group, said neither list
would have been drafted if Magnitsky's death had been properly investigated.
She also downplayed the significance of the blacklist tit-for-tat. "These are
just diplomatic counterstrikes," she said, Interfax reported. "I don't think
things will change for better or for worse."
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Russian Foreign Minister Accepts US Interest in Former USSR Republics
Ekho Moskvy Radio
October 21, 2011
Moscow Ekho Moskvy Radio in Russian continued its live relay of an interview with
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, broadcast by three nationwide radio
stations, as noted in CEP20111021950144.
During his remarks, Lavrov said that Russia understands the interest of the
United States in the former republics of the Soviet Union -- it does not claim
monopoly for relations with these countries and respects their right to choose
their own partners. He noted that it was in the common interest of Russia and the
USA to work together and not against each other.
Working together with USA
Lavrov praised working relations with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and
outlined the extensive scope of the agenda of their regular meetings: "The
international agenda is also very saturated. What is happening in the Middle
East, in North Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin
America - everywhere there are the interest of both the USA and Russia and both
countries are actively present there.
"Of course, it is in our common interest not to try to work against each other
but to try to use our significant joint potential for the benefit, first of all,
of the peoples who live in these regions and, secondly, of course, for the
benefit of our states, bearing in mind the mutual benefit as a principle of
international communications."
Russia accepts US interest in Central Asia, South Caucasus
Lavrov accepted US interest in Central Asia and in the South Caucasus: "The same
applies to the activities that the USA is carrying out very, very actively in our
neighbouring countries in Central Asia and in the South Caucasus. We said a long
time ago - many, many years ago - that we do not have the monopoly for relations
with these countries - after they became independent, we treat them with full
respect as sovereign states who have the right to choose their partners.
Therefore, the interest that the USA, European countries and other states have in
Central Asia and in the South Caucasus, interests dictated by the importance of
these regions from the point of view of the terrorist threat and narcotics
threat, which are actively demonstrated here, and then also concern Russia,
Europe and even the United States, as well as from the point of view of energy
and transportation communications that go through these regions and connect the
East with the West.
"We understand these interests. The only thing we want is that these objective
interests of the players from outside the region were realized on this territory,
in this geopolitical space with respect for the interests of these countries
themselves and, of course, with respect for the interest of the Russian
Federation, bearing in mind the very close ties that unite us with our Central
Asian, South Caucasus and European neighbours, former republics of the Soviet
Union. This is the key in which we are trying to build our dialogue with the
United States and I think that this is the only possible way."
Commenting on the death of Lawyer Sergey Magnitskiy, Lavrov said that moves in
the US Senate to penalize officials allegedly involved in Magnitskiy's death are
more about US domestic politics than concern for Magnitskiy himself.
They amount to interference in Russia's domestic affairs but will not damage the
Obama administration's "reset" of relations with Russia, Lavrov stressed.
Magnitskiy's death is "our own tragedy", Lavrov said. He described the issue of
pre-trial deaths in Russia as "unworthy of our society or any other", and noted
that President Medvedev and others are working to resolve it.
However, he added, "none of our partners abroad are entitled to take a decision
on behalf our judicial system or to impose on us a decision that must and can
only be taken by our judicial system. No guilt has been proven regarding those
who have been named. Whatever might float around in the media, the presumption of
innocence remains in place until a court decides. Senator Cardin's move is a
direct and gross violation of a principle that is sacred to any American, the
presumption of innocence."
Russia is always willing to discuss human-rights issues with other countries,
Lavrov said. And it has issues with what goes on in some of those countries. But
when it comes to the reset in relations, "we have managed to create an edifice
under the auspices and daily monitoring of the two presidents that is stable
enough to resist the very many attempts to disrupt it," he went on. "The
Magnitskiy list is an attempt to interfere in our internal affairs and also to a
large extent, I believe, to undermine President Obama's policy direction. That is
probably what the authors of the list are interested in, the party political
battle in the USA ahead of the election, more than the issue itself. This
attempt, to undermine the basis of Russia-US relations, will not succeed."
Lavrov also said that an investigation should be carried out into the
circumstances of former Libyan leader Al-Qadhafi's death. Lavrov also pointed to
NATO's role in the killing of Al-Qadhafi and added that Russia was "interested"
in NATO's actions in Libya "from the point of view of international law".
Lavrov said: "I have heard statements by many world leaders with the expression
of satisfaction and even joy over the fact that the dictator is dead. I'm not
going now to provide an assessment of these statements. We have to - whether we
want it or not - rely on facts and international law. There is no other criterion
in international affairs, as well as in any other affairs. And international law
says that during armed conflicts - and it is precisely an armed conflict that
there was and still continues in Libya - international humanitarian rules are in
force. These rules are enshrined in the Geneva Conventions which were adopted at
the end of the 1940s and were subsequently supplemented with various protocols.
These conventions clearly say that, as soon as a participant in an armed conflict
is taken prisoner, special procedures should be applied to them, including
providing aid to them. If they are wounded, they should be given medical
assistance and in no way, categorically, can they be killed.
"The footage that we have seen on TV says that he was indeed taken prisoner while
being wounded and that after that, he, as a prisoner, was deprived of life. It is
not accidental that today the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
stated that an investigation should be carried out into all the circumstances of
his death. And I am convinced that such an investigation should be carried out."
Lavrov then said that Al-Qadhafi had been taken prisoner and subsequently killed
after a NATO attack on a convoy moving from the city of Sirte to the Libyan
border. "Today I heard a statement by the French defence minister who had said
that the aim of this attack was not to destroy the convoy, but to halt its
movement, disperse it and after that, it - the convoy, as well as passengers were
captured by rebels. But I have to recall once again - the Russian leaders have
already talked about this - the NATO forces have a mandate from the Security
Council to ensure a no-fly zone, that is not to allow the aircraft of the Libyan
Air Force under Al-Qadhafi's command to take off, because they had already showed
themselves in the past from the bad side, they bombed peaceful citizens. The
attack on targets on the ground, including convoys, has nothing to do with the
no-fly zone, all the more so that in this particular case, one cannot even talk
about protecting the lives of peaceful residents because the convoy was not
attacking anyone. They were simply fleeing, at the end of the day. Therefore,
NATO's actions are also of interest to us from the point of view of international
law," Lavrov said.
He added that he was "not saying all this to try to defend Al-Qadhafi" or "vent"
Russia's "concerns, which have not been taken on board by the North Atlantic
[return to Contents]
Moscow News
October 21, 2011
Experts: what Gaddafi's death means to Russia
By Evgeniya Chaykovskaya
On Thursday it was announced that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was killed in the town
of Sirte after he was captured by rebels on the outskirts of the city.
The Libya's regime change will deeply affect Russian businesses in the region.
Contracts will have to be renegotiated, and not always with sympathetic local
companies and authorities.
Russia is set to lose contracts
Vice-president of International Crisis Group, Alain Deletroz, told Kommersant
that "in the new Libya, Russian companies will not feel as free as during
Gaddafi's reign," adding that the best contracts would be given to countries who
supported the rebels the most.
Other experts say that Russia will have to hold talks with those countries,
rather than the rebels.
"At best Western companies will invite Russian companies as partners," editor in
chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine Fyodor Lukyanov told Kommersant. "The
British, the French, the Italians did not risk their money, reputation, etc to
then share the Libyan market with companies of the countries who did not take
part in the operation."
Russia a key player
Georgy Mirsky, leading fellow of the World Economy and International Relations
Institute, however, thinks that Russia played a big part in overthrowing Gaddafi.
"In reality, Gaddafi's regime fell a long time ago, and the colonel's death was
just its death-throes," he told Komsomolskaya Pravda.
"His death was a full stop for an absolutely artificial regime that did not fit
the spirit of the times, or the 21 century in general. Gaddafi lost everything.
Now an acute fight for power will start. Those, who are in the national
transitional council, are unlikely to keep their positions for long."
"Speaking of Russia, Libyans should remember that namely thanks to it, Gaddafi
was removed from his Olympus. If in March, Moscow did not abstain in the UN
Security Council vote, then the colonel would still be in power now. Practically
we gave the Western allies an opportunity to hold this operation that started
with a set up of a no-fly zone over the country, and ended with a bombing of all
of Libya and the rebels' win with the help of France and Great Britain. But
without the fateful decision by Russia to abstain from the vote, history could
have been completely different."
NATO finished Gaddafi
Andrei Fedyashin, RIA Novosti's political analyst, thinks that NATO played too
big a role in the whole affair.
"It is indicative that the former leader of Jamahiriya and dictator died not in a
fight with the rebels, but as a result of NATO's aviation's latest 'surgical
strike'," he wrote.
"Thus NATO put a full stop where the bloc has no right to sign: no one gave NATO
sanction to hunt Gaddafi and bomb the suburbs of Sirte under siege."
People will mourn
President of FIDE and former head of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, told RIA
Novosti the world would be upset by the former Libyan leader's death.
"If it is true, then his death will be seen as a misery in many countries. People
understand the real undercurrents of this war, where he fought not only against
the rebels, but against NATO forces too," Ilyumzhinov said.
Ilyumzhinov visited Libya as part of his tour of Africa as FIDE president and
played chess with Gaddafi and his son.
War in Libya will go on
Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of Middle East Institute, told Komsolskaya Pravda
that there is and will be a civil war, just like it goes on in Iraq even after
Saddam Hussein was executed.
"By the way, with Gaddafi three-quarters of the oil went to Europe, and the
contracts were allocated to Western companies (plus China and a little bit to
Russia), arms were bought from the West and a little bit from Russia and China.
It will not go on."
[return to Contents]
BBC Monitoring
Russian pundit says Al-Qadhafi's death removes unifying force in Libya
Center TV International
October 21, 2011
Fedor Lukyanov, chief editor of the Rossiya v Globalnoy Politike (Russia In
Global Politics) magazine, has said the death of ex-Libyan leader Al-Qadhafi
removed the single unifying force in Libya.
Lukyanov was speaking on Moscow city government owned Centre TV's "25th Hour"
programme on 21 October.
Lukyanov said he did not know what would happen next in Libya, after the killing
of Al-Qadhafi.
Lukyanov said: "Al-Qadhafi was, oddly enough, the main unifying force, while he
was alive, even after his ousting."
"Now the most interesting period begins, but also most dangerous for any
coalition government, such as this interim council, - there will be jostling for
powers and oil profits," he said.
Lukyanov believes that people inside the coalition will start compete for power,
"because the coalition is a totally mixed bunch". "I'm not sure that Islamists
will come out on top, because there are many groups there, and Islamists are one
of them. Libya is an extremely heterogeneous country based on a tribal principle.
Al-Qadhafi held that country together in a very artful way. Of course he used
violence, it cannot be denied that he was a cruel ruler. But at the same time he
used negotiations and bribery in relations with tribes whose support he needed.
This was a complex, delicate system. It remains to be seen to what extent these
new people are able to reproduce it," Lukyanov said.
Lukyanov said it is unlikely that supranational corporations will be able to
appoint loyal Libyans to run the country.
"I think this idea certainly exists, but frankly, for some reason I think that
may fail, because the situation has got out of control in the whole region, and
in Libya too," he said, adding that he did not believe in the West's and NATO's
abilities to manage the situation. "To fight for more than six months with the
absolutely outdated army of a rather provincial dictator is not, I'm sorry, a big
achievement for the greatest military-political alliance in the history of the
world," he said.
[return to Contents]
NATO operation in Libya sets dangerous precedent for Balkans - Primakov
MOSCOW. Oct 24 (Interfax) - The threat of inter-ethnic and inter-religious
conflicts remains in the Balkan countries experts define as "the European
tinderbox," which means the Libyan scenario may be repeated, ex-Russian Prime
Minister, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yevgeny Primakov said at
an international conference in Montenegro on October 17.
The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article based on his speech on
"I fear that the NATO operation in Libya may cast shadow on the Balkans. Such a
scenario is not so unrealistic, and ways to avoid it must be found," he said.
The precedent set by the NATO operation in Libya is extremely dangerous
especially for turbulent regions and countries whose policy does not meet the
wishes of NATO, he said.
The threat of inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts in the Balkans mostly
exists in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Primakov said.
There had been armed clashes between the NATO KFOR and Serbians who live in
Kosovo's Metohija, and NATO forces sided with Pristina, which wanted to separate
Kosovo Serbs from Serbia and to open customs posts on the currently non-existent
border, he said.
Primakov recalled the position of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
expressed at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in
September. Lavrov strongly rejected the opinion that Libya might become "a model
for the future."
Russia has a principled stand on "the problem zones", which remain since the
disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the academician said.
It does not recognize the independence of Kosovo and Metohija and views these
territories as an organic part of Serbia.
"If the West welcomes the separation of Kosovo from Serbia due to the
independence demands of local Albanians, why not apply the same approach to the
compact Serbian areas in the northern part of Kosovo and Metohija?" he wondered.
There is a realistic chance to avoid tensions with the division of Kosovo, he
Russia also opposes the transformation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into a unitary
state and says this transformation will not follow the Dayton Agreement. "If we
speak about the development of the Dayton Agreement, apparently, it is necessary
to strengthen sovereign rights of Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian
Muslims within the framework of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Any other way will lead
to bloodshed," Primakov said.
Those who think that Russia opposes the accession of the Balkan countries to the
European Union distort its position intentionally or unintentionally, Primakov
"Moscow is perfectly aware of the reasons why the Balkan countries want to join
the EU. At the same time, Russia seeks to prevent the weakening of its economic,
cultural and political relations with the Balkan countries by their involvement
in the EU," he said.
The Balkans are a junction of three civilizations: West European, East European
and Asian Muslim. Stability and security of the forming multi-polar world depend
on the solution of pressing problems of the peoples populating that special
region, Primakov said.
[return to Contents]
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