Russia's prosecutor-general has defended the investigation into the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya by saying his team is closing in on both the assassin and the person who ordered the killing.
More than two years after the murder of the reporter who was critical of the Kremlin, three men are on trial for helping the suspected assassin in the politically sensitive case.
But the suspected killer and the person who paid for the murder are still on the run, leading to complaints the investigation is incomplete. "Work on the main criminal case has not been suspended, we know who committed the crime and he is now the subject of an international search," Russia's chief prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, told the Vesti television station in a programme to be aired today, according to Interfax news agency. Ms Politkovskaya was best known for her human rights reporting from wars in the south Russian region of Chechnya.
Her murder caused outrage in the West and the investigation is considered a test of Russia's commitment to freedom of speech and its justice system which has failed to convict the main suspects in several high-profile murder cases. Two Chechen brothers and a former policeman are accused of helping the assassin to shoot Ms Politkovskaya in the head in her central Moscow apartment building after she returned from a shopping trip.
Another Chechen brother is suspected by police of being the gunman. No one has been charged with ordering the murder. But Mr Chaika said Russian investigators were also closing in on the person who ordered the murder. "The Prosecutor-General's office has not reduced pressure on the investigation to identify the person who paid for the murder," he said. "We're on the right track."
zondag 30 november 2008
zondag 23 november 2008
RIC Litvinenko - 2 years dead
Thirty Russian opposition activists have paid tribute to Russian ex-agent Alexander Litvinenko on the second anniversary of his death of polonium poisoning in London, accusing Russian authorities of having ordered the murder.
Protesters brandished placards reading: "He was poisoned at the order of Russian authorities" and "We call for a trial of the murderers and those who ordered it," as they rallied at Chistye Prudy Boulevard in downtown Moscow and lit candles in Litvinenko's memory.
The rally had been authorised by city authorities, though the police at the site asked one protester to put down a slogan criticising President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic, died in a London hospital on November 23, 2006, three weeks after being poisoned with radioactive substance polonium 210 while taking tea at a hotel in the capital's Mayfair district.
His death prompted a crisis in Russo-British ties as Moscow refused to extradite a suspect in the case, former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, which triggered an expulsion of diplomats from both sides in the summer of 2007.
Earlier Saturday, Lugovoi declared in an interview to the Times that he was ready to cooperate with British justice and could send his friend Dmitry Kovtun, one of the last people to see Litvinenko before his illness, to London for talks with investigators.
Alex Goldfarb, president of the Litvinenko Fund and his widow's spokesman, denounced the interview as a ploy to improve Russia's image.
Protesters brandished placards reading: "He was poisoned at the order of Russian authorities" and "We call for a trial of the murderers and those who ordered it," as they rallied at Chistye Prudy Boulevard in downtown Moscow and lit candles in Litvinenko's memory.
The rally had been authorised by city authorities, though the police at the site asked one protester to put down a slogan criticising President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic, died in a London hospital on November 23, 2006, three weeks after being poisoned with radioactive substance polonium 210 while taking tea at a hotel in the capital's Mayfair district.
His death prompted a crisis in Russo-British ties as Moscow refused to extradite a suspect in the case, former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, which triggered an expulsion of diplomats from both sides in the summer of 2007.
Earlier Saturday, Lugovoi declared in an interview to the Times that he was ready to cooperate with British justice and could send his friend Dmitry Kovtun, one of the last people to see Litvinenko before his illness, to London for talks with investigators.
Alex Goldfarb, president of the Litvinenko Fund and his widow's spokesman, denounced the interview as a ploy to improve Russia's image.
Russia threatening Ukrain to cut off gas.
Russian energy company Gazprom on Saturday threatened to cut off gas deliveries to Ukraine starting January 1 unless Ukraine pays $2.4 billion of debt and finalizes new contracts for future deliveries.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov, quoted by the Interfax News Agency, dismissed arguments from Kiev that payments had been delayed due to the ongoing financial crisis.
"If the Ukrainian economy were really in a crisis, they would need less energy from us. There has been no sign of that," he said, adding that Ukraine cannot expect to receive billion-dollar bail- outs from the International Monetary Fund on the one hand and refuse to pay its debts to Russia on the other.
"We assume the problem will be resolved by the end of the year," said Kupriyanov. "Without contracts, Gazprom cannot deliver."
However, the Russian state company cannot enter into a new contract for future deliveries until all outstanding payments, plus late fees, are paid.
Russia cut off gas shipments to Ukraine three years ago after a political dispute. The cut-off was felt across Europe, since much of the gas western Europe imports from Russia flows through Ukraine. Kupriyanov said the company hopes to avoid "radical measures like a delivery blockage."
Moscow has argued that the regular gas disputes with Ukraine only highlight how important it is for Russia and western Europe to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov, quoted by the Interfax News Agency, dismissed arguments from Kiev that payments had been delayed due to the ongoing financial crisis.
"If the Ukrainian economy were really in a crisis, they would need less energy from us. There has been no sign of that," he said, adding that Ukraine cannot expect to receive billion-dollar bail- outs from the International Monetary Fund on the one hand and refuse to pay its debts to Russia on the other.
"We assume the problem will be resolved by the end of the year," said Kupriyanov. "Without contracts, Gazprom cannot deliver."
However, the Russian state company cannot enter into a new contract for future deliveries until all outstanding payments, plus late fees, are paid.
Russia cut off gas shipments to Ukraine three years ago after a political dispute. The cut-off was felt across Europe, since much of the gas western Europe imports from Russia flows through Ukraine. Kupriyanov said the company hopes to avoid "radical measures like a delivery blockage."
Moscow has argued that the regular gas disputes with Ukraine only highlight how important it is for Russia and western Europe to build a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine.
zaterdag 22 november 2008
Russia has problems paying wages
Russians have begun to feel the chill of the financial crisis, as it triggers layoffs and wage-payment delays reminiscent of the economic collapse in the late 1990s.
Russians are becoming more pessimistic about the economy, polls show; above, a protest against the government in Moscow last month.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised new measures, including lower corporate taxes and higher unemployment payments, in addition to an existing bailout package.
Government data show that wage arrears jumped in October to over four billion rubles ($145 million), their highest level in a year, and that firms owe back pay to 300,000 people. Economists say the real figures are likely to be higher, though far below those seen in the 1990s, when tens of millions of people were affected. Then, workers went without salaries for months on end, sparking nationwide protests.
A Moscow-based advertising executive said she hadn't been paid her salary of 40,000 rubles a month since September. "I keep going to work because I don't want to lose all the money I've earned," she said. "I'm hoping I might get paid before the New Year."
The government has insisted there is no serious crisis and that Russia is much better off than Western countries, airing public reassurances on state television. But as the banking system stutters, the ruble falls and firms dismiss staff, that storyline is becoming harder to sell.
Opinion polls show Russians are becoming more pessimistic about the economy, though some surveys show that many remain convinced the country isn't yet in crisis.
The independent Levada polling center found a fifth of people said their wages weren't being paid on time, and a fifth of those surveyed said that they or family members had recently been laid off.
Economic data also are getting grimmer. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said falling oil prices mean Russia may run a budget deficit of 1% next year, while the central bank said Wednesday that it had spent $57.5 billion propping up the ruble in the last two months.
Earlier this week, government data showed growth in industrial output was 1.6% in October. Data from the Moscow-based Romir market-research agency show that consumer spending, while still high, has begun to decline as banks have curbed lending.
Mr. Putin addressed the growing economic storm on Thursday at a congress of the ruling United Russia party, which he leads.
The party's political future "will directly depend on how we cope with the problems that our country and citizens are facing today," he told party members. Opposition politicians have forecast that social discontent will boost their own ratings and begin to eat away at the once-solid popularity of Mr. Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. So far, there's little sign of that in opinion polls.
Violence continues in Georgia, Russia and analysts say tensions could increase again after a five day conflict that saw Russia launching a massive counter-attack against Georgia. Courtesy Reuters. (Nov. 21)
In his speech, Mr. Putin said he'd do "everything" to prevent an economic collapse of the kind Russia suffered in 1998, when the government defaulted on its debt and the ruble lost two-thirds of its value overnight.
"We have amassed sizable financial reserves which will give us the freedom to maneuver, allow us to maintain macroeconomic stability," Mr. Putin said. Russia's international reserves, the third-largest after China's and Japan's, have dropped by more than $122 billion since early August. Government officials insist the reserves, which stand at $450 billion, will last.
Mr. Putin pledged fresh measures in addition to an existing bailout package valued at more than $200 billion. He promised lower corporate tax rates, higher payments for the jobless, and said the Kremlin would keep spending to keep the ruble stable. He avoided talk of layoffs, warning of what he called "structural changes in the labor market."
But as oil prices continued to fall, his words failed to soothe capital markets, underlining Russia's acute dependence on oil. Oil and gas account for two-thirds of Russia's export earnings. Stocks on the ruble-denominated MICEX exchange dropped almost 7% on Thursday, while the dollar-denominated RTS exchange fell nearly 7.5%.
The price of oil Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $4.00 a barrel, or 7.46%, to close at $49.62, down for the fifth straight trading day.
Russians are becoming more pessimistic about the economy, polls show; above, a protest against the government in Moscow last month.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised new measures, including lower corporate taxes and higher unemployment payments, in addition to an existing bailout package.
Government data show that wage arrears jumped in October to over four billion rubles ($145 million), their highest level in a year, and that firms owe back pay to 300,000 people. Economists say the real figures are likely to be higher, though far below those seen in the 1990s, when tens of millions of people were affected. Then, workers went without salaries for months on end, sparking nationwide protests.
A Moscow-based advertising executive said she hadn't been paid her salary of 40,000 rubles a month since September. "I keep going to work because I don't want to lose all the money I've earned," she said. "I'm hoping I might get paid before the New Year."
The government has insisted there is no serious crisis and that Russia is much better off than Western countries, airing public reassurances on state television. But as the banking system stutters, the ruble falls and firms dismiss staff, that storyline is becoming harder to sell.
Opinion polls show Russians are becoming more pessimistic about the economy, though some surveys show that many remain convinced the country isn't yet in crisis.
The independent Levada polling center found a fifth of people said their wages weren't being paid on time, and a fifth of those surveyed said that they or family members had recently been laid off.
Economic data also are getting grimmer. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said falling oil prices mean Russia may run a budget deficit of 1% next year, while the central bank said Wednesday that it had spent $57.5 billion propping up the ruble in the last two months.
Earlier this week, government data showed growth in industrial output was 1.6% in October. Data from the Moscow-based Romir market-research agency show that consumer spending, while still high, has begun to decline as banks have curbed lending.
Mr. Putin addressed the growing economic storm on Thursday at a congress of the ruling United Russia party, which he leads.
The party's political future "will directly depend on how we cope with the problems that our country and citizens are facing today," he told party members. Opposition politicians have forecast that social discontent will boost their own ratings and begin to eat away at the once-solid popularity of Mr. Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. So far, there's little sign of that in opinion polls.
Violence continues in Georgia, Russia and analysts say tensions could increase again after a five day conflict that saw Russia launching a massive counter-attack against Georgia. Courtesy Reuters. (Nov. 21)
In his speech, Mr. Putin said he'd do "everything" to prevent an economic collapse of the kind Russia suffered in 1998, when the government defaulted on its debt and the ruble lost two-thirds of its value overnight.
"We have amassed sizable financial reserves which will give us the freedom to maneuver, allow us to maintain macroeconomic stability," Mr. Putin said. Russia's international reserves, the third-largest after China's and Japan's, have dropped by more than $122 billion since early August. Government officials insist the reserves, which stand at $450 billion, will last.
Mr. Putin pledged fresh measures in addition to an existing bailout package valued at more than $200 billion. He promised lower corporate tax rates, higher payments for the jobless, and said the Kremlin would keep spending to keep the ruble stable. He avoided talk of layoffs, warning of what he called "structural changes in the labor market."
But as oil prices continued to fall, his words failed to soothe capital markets, underlining Russia's acute dependence on oil. Oil and gas account for two-thirds of Russia's export earnings. Stocks on the ruble-denominated MICEX exchange dropped almost 7% on Thursday, while the dollar-denominated RTS exchange fell nearly 7.5%.
The price of oil Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell $4.00 a barrel, or 7.46%, to close at $49.62, down for the fifth straight trading day.
Heide Tagliviani - leading European operation in Georgia
Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini will lead an EU investigation into the origin and progression of the Georgia-Russia conflict in August, the official Swissinfo news website reported Friday.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has agreed to the request by the French-led EU presidency, according to the report.
The 58-year-old career diplomat has extensive regional knowledge and experience, Swissinfo said.
She was deputy head of the UN observer mission in Georgia (1998-1999), the Swiss ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001-2002) and a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s first assistance group to Chechnya (1995).
Georgia reportedly initiated a military offensive to regain control over its breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7. In response, Russia, which has granted passports to most South Ossetians, sent in soldiers to defeat the Georgian troops.
A preliminary cease-fire mediated by the European Union was signed on Aug. 12, although fighting did not stop immediately.
Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region of Georgia, soon after the fighting.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has agreed to the request by the French-led EU presidency, according to the report.
The 58-year-old career diplomat has extensive regional knowledge and experience, Swissinfo said.
She was deputy head of the UN observer mission in Georgia (1998-1999), the Swiss ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001-2002) and a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)'s first assistance group to Chechnya (1995).
Georgia reportedly initiated a military offensive to regain control over its breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7. In response, Russia, which has granted passports to most South Ossetians, sent in soldiers to defeat the Georgian troops.
A preliminary cease-fire mediated by the European Union was signed on Aug. 12, although fighting did not stop immediately.
Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region of Georgia, soon after the fighting.
vrijdag 21 november 2008
Anti-AIDS official: HIV spreading fast in Russia
Russia's anti-AIDS coordinator says the number of registered HIV cases is growing 10 percent a year despite increased government funding.
Vadim Pokrovsky says Russia must spend the funds more wisely by focusing on prevention as well as treatment in order to slow the spread of HIV.
He says he fears the global economic crisis could threaten future funding.
Pokrovsky says Russia has registered a total of 471,000 people as HIV-infected, including more than 50,000 who have died of AIDS-related causes. He told reporters Friday that the actual number of people with HIV was likely higher than 1 million.
The government says it budgeted 10.7 billion rubles ($445 million) for the cause last year — at least 50 times more than in 2005.
Vadim Pokrovsky says Russia must spend the funds more wisely by focusing on prevention as well as treatment in order to slow the spread of HIV.
He says he fears the global economic crisis could threaten future funding.
Pokrovsky says Russia has registered a total of 471,000 people as HIV-infected, including more than 50,000 who have died of AIDS-related causes. He told reporters Friday that the actual number of people with HIV was likely higher than 1 million.
The government says it budgeted 10.7 billion rubles ($445 million) for the cause last year — at least 50 times more than in 2005.
woensdag 19 november 2008
Military court barres the public from Politkovskaya trial
Moscow military court has barred the public from a trial of three men accused of involvement in the 2006 killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
The presiding judge told a hearing Wednesday that he took the step because jury members were too afraid to enter the court in the presence of the media. Monday the court had decided to keep the trial open to the public.
A lawyer for Politkovskaya's family, Karina Moskalenko expressed disappointment at today's ruling. Lawyers for the defendants also criticized the decision.
The editor, Dmitri Muratov of Politkovskaya's newspaper, Novaya Gazeta called the ruling "shameful," saying it will prevent society from learning more about the unsolved murder case.
A gunman shot and killed Politkovskaya October 2006 in her Moscow apartment building.
She was a strong critic of then Russian President Vladimir Putin and accused Russian forces of major human rights abuses in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.The three defendants have denied involvement in Politkovskaya's murder.
The defendants include two Chechen men, Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makmudov, who are brothers of the suspected killer, Rustam Makhmudov and a former Moscow police officer, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.The Chechen defendants are accused of monitoring the journalist's movements before she was killed.
The suspected shooter is thought to have fled the country, while the mastermind of the killing has not been identified.The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says Russia is the world's third most dangerous country for reporters after Iraq and Algeria. It says 49 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992.
dinsdag 18 november 2008
Bad data entry led to sub deaths
The deadly release of fire suppression gas in a Russian sub this month was caused by a crew member entering wrong data into a temperature sensor, sources say.
Twenty people died Nov. 8 aboard the Nerpa when its fire suppression system was accidentally activated, sending Freon into its living quarters and suffocating the victims while the nuclear submarine was in the Sea of Japan.
The Russian business daily Kommersant, quoting unnamed sources, reported Monday that the incident was triggered when the crew member's faulty data entry caused temperatures to rise quickly, triggering the fire safety system, RIA Novosti said.
Some former Russian navy officers, however, disputed that report as unlikely, telling Kommersant it isn't possible for a single crew member to activate the system because it is protected by several layers of authorizations.
A spokesman for Russia's prosecutor general's office said last week investigators had determined one crew member was responsible for the accident, saying he had, "without permission or any particular reason," activated the fire system, RIA Novosti reported.
Twenty people died Nov. 8 aboard the Nerpa when its fire suppression system was accidentally activated, sending Freon into its living quarters and suffocating the victims while the nuclear submarine was in the Sea of Japan.
The Russian business daily Kommersant, quoting unnamed sources, reported Monday that the incident was triggered when the crew member's faulty data entry caused temperatures to rise quickly, triggering the fire safety system, RIA Novosti said.
Some former Russian navy officers, however, disputed that report as unlikely, telling Kommersant it isn't possible for a single crew member to activate the system because it is protected by several layers of authorizations.
A spokesman for Russia's prosecutor general's office said last week investigators had determined one crew member was responsible for the accident, saying he had, "without permission or any particular reason," activated the fire system, RIA Novosti reported.
Russian marijuana
Drug police in Russia's Far East Amur Region have seized 100 kilograms (220 lbs) of marijuana, a police spokesman said on Tuesday.
The drugs, worth over 200,000 rubles ($7,200), were discovered in the house of a family in the village of Anosovo.
Marijuana packages were kept in the attic, in a water cistern, and elsewhere in the house, a spokesman said.
Criminal charges have been brought against a 51-year-old woman and her 31-year-old son.
According to drug control authorities, the price of marijuana has gone up tenfold in northern regions of Russia's Far East in recent months.
The drugs, worth over 200,000 rubles ($7,200), were discovered in the house of a family in the village of Anosovo.
Marijuana packages were kept in the attic, in a water cistern, and elsewhere in the house, a spokesman said.
Criminal charges have been brought against a 51-year-old woman and her 31-year-old son.
According to drug control authorities, the price of marijuana has gone up tenfold in northern regions of Russia's Far East in recent months.
Constitutional changes that pave the way for Putin
A series of constitutional changes that critics allege are meant to consolidate one-party rule and perhaps pave the way for Vladimir Putin's early return to the presidency are set to pass the Kremlin-dominated State Duma early this week.
In a stunning demonstration of the Kremlin's control over Russia's political process, the first-ever amendments to the country's 1993 constitution were suggested by President Dmitry Medvedev in a Nov. 5 speech, then crammed through their first reading in the Duma on Friday.
The measures, which passed by 86 percent of the votes in the lower house of parliament, will extend a president's term in office from four years to six, prolong terms of Duma deputies from four years to five, and require the government – for the first time – to report on its work annually to parliament. Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said the final two readings are set for Tuesday.
Following that, the bill will be sent to the Kremlin-controlled upper house for the needed three-quarters approval. Since the vast majority of Russia's 81 regional legislatures are dominated by the United Russia party led by Mr. Putin, the required endorsement of two-thirds of them also seems likely.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, warning of Kremlin power greater than that of "any czar," said Friday his party will challenge the legality of the amendments in the Constitutional Court.
Even some deputies who say longer presidential terms could be a stabilizing move at a time of economic uncertainty, worry about the use of the Duma's pro-Kremlin majority to make hasty innovations to fundamental law.
"It's a very troubling precedent," says Ilya Ponomaryov, a deputy with the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party. "The Constitution envisages a long and complex procedure, with plenty of discussion, before changes are made. But here it's being rewritten in a few days, virtually without debate."
Mr. Medvedev argued that the current four-year presidential term is too brief for one man to master the complexities of leading a huge country like Russia. In an interview last week he insisted that the new rules will apply starting with his successor, who is due to be elected in 2012.
Putin, speaking to journalists last week, said the amendments had "no personal dimension" and were intended to "foster the development of democracy."
But critics say the muscular haste with which the changes are being pushed through belies routine explanation. Some recall the stage-managed Kremlin operation that vaulted Putin's handpicked successor, Medvedev, into the presidency with himself as prime minister last year. They warn that a similar power play may be in motion.
"I think Putin will return next year," perhaps through emergency presidential elections, says Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former independent Duma deputy. "A classic authoritarian regime prolongs itself endlessly, using imitation democratic methods."
Some critics argue that the Kremlin's urgency is tied to the galloping economic crisis, which threatens to ignite social discontent for the first time since Putin came to power almost nine years ago. Amid signs of economic distress, Medvedev's popularity rating slipped from 83 percent in September to 76 percent the next month.
"The power of Putin and Medvedev is based on a social contract: The Kremlin delivers economic prosperity and the population forgets about political freedoms," says Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister and leading liberal oppositionist. "Now, because of the crisis, that contract is in question. That's why they're trying to close the deal immediately."
The economic crisis is certainly on Russian leaders' minds. Speaking to a group of police chiefs last week, Medvedev urged them to stamp out any protests. "We have a stable state," he said. "We do not need a return to the 1990s when everything was boiling and seething."
But Yevgeny Yasin, a former Kremlin official, says the public political awareness that characterized the 1990s is missed in today's "ho-hum" acceptance of the Kremlin's ability to rewrite the Constitution. "I am astonished that there is so little coverage of this process," says Mr. Yasin, head of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "Not so long ago we were discussing the question of whether Putin will run for a third term. Now we've received our answer. Here we are watching it happen, but we can do nothing about it."
In a stunning demonstration of the Kremlin's control over Russia's political process, the first-ever amendments to the country's 1993 constitution were suggested by President Dmitry Medvedev in a Nov. 5 speech, then crammed through their first reading in the Duma on Friday.
The measures, which passed by 86 percent of the votes in the lower house of parliament, will extend a president's term in office from four years to six, prolong terms of Duma deputies from four years to five, and require the government – for the first time – to report on its work annually to parliament. Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said the final two readings are set for Tuesday.
Following that, the bill will be sent to the Kremlin-controlled upper house for the needed three-quarters approval. Since the vast majority of Russia's 81 regional legislatures are dominated by the United Russia party led by Mr. Putin, the required endorsement of two-thirds of them also seems likely.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, warning of Kremlin power greater than that of "any czar," said Friday his party will challenge the legality of the amendments in the Constitutional Court.
Even some deputies who say longer presidential terms could be a stabilizing move at a time of economic uncertainty, worry about the use of the Duma's pro-Kremlin majority to make hasty innovations to fundamental law.
"It's a very troubling precedent," says Ilya Ponomaryov, a deputy with the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia party. "The Constitution envisages a long and complex procedure, with plenty of discussion, before changes are made. But here it's being rewritten in a few days, virtually without debate."
Mr. Medvedev argued that the current four-year presidential term is too brief for one man to master the complexities of leading a huge country like Russia. In an interview last week he insisted that the new rules will apply starting with his successor, who is due to be elected in 2012.
Putin, speaking to journalists last week, said the amendments had "no personal dimension" and were intended to "foster the development of democracy."
But critics say the muscular haste with which the changes are being pushed through belies routine explanation. Some recall the stage-managed Kremlin operation that vaulted Putin's handpicked successor, Medvedev, into the presidency with himself as prime minister last year. They warn that a similar power play may be in motion.
"I think Putin will return next year," perhaps through emergency presidential elections, says Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former independent Duma deputy. "A classic authoritarian regime prolongs itself endlessly, using imitation democratic methods."
Some critics argue that the Kremlin's urgency is tied to the galloping economic crisis, which threatens to ignite social discontent for the first time since Putin came to power almost nine years ago. Amid signs of economic distress, Medvedev's popularity rating slipped from 83 percent in September to 76 percent the next month.
"The power of Putin and Medvedev is based on a social contract: The Kremlin delivers economic prosperity and the population forgets about political freedoms," says Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister and leading liberal oppositionist. "Now, because of the crisis, that contract is in question. That's why they're trying to close the deal immediately."
The economic crisis is certainly on Russian leaders' minds. Speaking to a group of police chiefs last week, Medvedev urged them to stamp out any protests. "We have a stable state," he said. "We do not need a return to the 1990s when everything was boiling and seething."
But Yevgeny Yasin, a former Kremlin official, says the public political awareness that characterized the 1990s is missed in today's "ho-hum" acceptance of the Kremlin's ability to rewrite the Constitution. "I am astonished that there is so little coverage of this process," says Mr. Yasin, head of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. "Not so long ago we were discussing the question of whether Putin will run for a third term. Now we've received our answer. Here we are watching it happen, but we can do nothing about it."
maandag 17 november 2008
Rabbi mugged in Vladivostok
The chief rabbi of Vladivostok was beaten and robbed near his home.
Isroel Zilbershtein, an American citizen and Chabad rabbi, was walking home Nov. 13 in Vladivostok when a man hit him in the head three times. The rabbi was knocked unconscious and found when he awoke that his laptop had been stolen.
Police in Vladivostok, Russia’s main port city on the Pacific Ocean, have opened a criminal case.
The rabbi said he did not think the attack was related to anti-Semitism, only that the attacker wanted his laptop computer.
After the attack, Zilbershtein made his way home and called an ambulance. He was taken to a hospital and treated for a broken nose and other injuries.
The next day he left Vladivostok for Moscow and then on to Paris, according to Jewish.ru
Isroel Zilbershtein, an American citizen and Chabad rabbi, was walking home Nov. 13 in Vladivostok when a man hit him in the head three times. The rabbi was knocked unconscious and found when he awoke that his laptop had been stolen.
Police in Vladivostok, Russia’s main port city on the Pacific Ocean, have opened a criminal case.
The rabbi said he did not think the attack was related to anti-Semitism, only that the attacker wanted his laptop computer.
After the attack, Zilbershtein made his way home and called an ambulance. He was taken to a hospital and treated for a broken nose and other injuries.
The next day he left Vladivostok for Moscow and then on to Paris, according to Jewish.ru
zaterdag 15 november 2008
Russia doesn't support new sanctions against Iran
Russia is against fresh sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme as demanded by some Western powers, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov said on Friday.
"Russia is against the sanctions pushed forward by some of the six" powers involved in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear programme, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
"The Western countries are for the sanctions. China like Russia did not back it," he added, a day after a meeting in Paris over the issue.
The political directors from China, Germany, Russia, Britain and the United States along with France and a representative for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana Thursday reaffirmed their twin-track approach of dialogue and sanctions.
A French foreign ministry statement stressed that the UN Security Council "reaffirmed the importance of the dual-track approach," namely talking with Tehran while also considering imposing more sanctions on the regime if it fails to halt sensitive nuclear work.
Tehran maintains that it is enriching uranium only for peaceful purposes to generate power, while Western powers, especially Washington, suspect Iran of trying to develop an atomic bomb.
"Russia is against the sanctions pushed forward by some of the six" powers involved in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear programme, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
"The Western countries are for the sanctions. China like Russia did not back it," he added, a day after a meeting in Paris over the issue.
The political directors from China, Germany, Russia, Britain and the United States along with France and a representative for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana Thursday reaffirmed their twin-track approach of dialogue and sanctions.
A French foreign ministry statement stressed that the UN Security Council "reaffirmed the importance of the dual-track approach," namely talking with Tehran while also considering imposing more sanctions on the regime if it fails to halt sensitive nuclear work.
Tehran maintains that it is enriching uranium only for peaceful purposes to generate power, while Western powers, especially Washington, suspect Iran of trying to develop an atomic bomb.
Russian military prosecutor attacked
Unidentified assailants attacked the military prosecutor of the Vladivostok garrison Oleg Demin. The incident occurred on Monday evening.
Demin was rushed to a resuscitation ward with a heavy cranial injury, regional police chief Andrei Nikolayev said on Wednesday.
The military prosecutor was attacked in the entrance to the apartment house where he lives. Investigators are considering two versions: professional activity or robbery. The latter is given less credence because no personal items have been stolen.
Oleg Demin is a well-known figure in the city. He investigated criminal cases against Pacific Navy officers, over procurement schemes and dumping of oil by warships into the sea.
Demin was rushed to a resuscitation ward with a heavy cranial injury, regional police chief Andrei Nikolayev said on Wednesday.
The military prosecutor was attacked in the entrance to the apartment house where he lives. Investigators are considering two versions: professional activity or robbery. The latter is given less credence because no personal items have been stolen.
Oleg Demin is a well-known figure in the city. He investigated criminal cases against Pacific Navy officers, over procurement schemes and dumping of oil by warships into the sea.
Submarine accidents in Russia - an overview
A recent deadly accident aboard a Russian submarine has fuelled complaints about the poor state of the country's military.
Submarine's name: K-152 Nerpa
Akula Class
Type: Nuclear-powered attack submarine
Crew: 208
Speed: 20 knots (surfaced): 35 knots (submerged)
Diving Depth: 600 m
The Nerpa was on sea trials when the accident occurred. A fire extinguishing system went off accidentally, releasing freon gas that removes oxygen from the air. Seventeen civilian contractors and three sailors died of suffocation.
SELECTED RUSSIAN SUBMARINE ACCIDENTS
-Sept. 6, 2006: Two died after fire in Viktor-ill class Daniil Moskovsky
-Aug. 28, 2003: Nine die after November class K-159 sinks
-Aug. 12, 2000: 118 die in sinking of Oscar-II class Kursk
-Apr. 7, 1989: 42 die after fire in Soviet-era Komsomolets
-October 6, 1986: Four die in fire on K-219 Yankee I Class submarine
vrijdag 14 november 2008
Russia threatening Europe
Russia will pull out of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty if ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia are set on the path to NATO membership, Interfax news agency quoted a government official as saying on Friday.
"If Ukraine and Georgia are granted NATO Membership Action Plans (MAP), then the revised CFE treaty will be doomed," Interfax quoted the unnamed official, whom it described as a senior military diplomat.
"If MAP starts being implemented for Ukraine and Georgia, Russia will not only continue the moratorium it imposed on the CFE, but will ultimately pull out of it."
Georgia and Ukraine are seeking action plans, which are seen as road maps to eventual membership of NATO, at an alliance summit in December, though diplomats say it is unlikely either will be granted MAP.
Russia, which is fiercely opposed to NATO's expansion toward its borders, suspended its compliance with the CFE treaty last December but remains a signatory.
Moscow says the treaty, designed to limit battlefield weapons, such as tanks and armoured vehicles, on either side of the old Iron Curtain, is a Cold War relic which gives too much scope for an enlarged NATO to beef up its forces.
Russia's biggest grievance with the CFE pact is the limit on deployments west of the Ural mountains, while armaments are not capped in new NATO members in eastern Europe.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at talks in the Estonian capital on Thursday that Ukraine should press ahead with defense and security reforms to gain membership to the alliance.
"If Ukraine and Georgia are granted NATO Membership Action Plans (MAP), then the revised CFE treaty will be doomed," Interfax quoted the unnamed official, whom it described as a senior military diplomat.
"If MAP starts being implemented for Ukraine and Georgia, Russia will not only continue the moratorium it imposed on the CFE, but will ultimately pull out of it."
Georgia and Ukraine are seeking action plans, which are seen as road maps to eventual membership of NATO, at an alliance summit in December, though diplomats say it is unlikely either will be granted MAP.
Russia, which is fiercely opposed to NATO's expansion toward its borders, suspended its compliance with the CFE treaty last December but remains a signatory.
Moscow says the treaty, designed to limit battlefield weapons, such as tanks and armoured vehicles, on either side of the old Iron Curtain, is a Cold War relic which gives too much scope for an enlarged NATO to beef up its forces.
Russia's biggest grievance with the CFE pact is the limit on deployments west of the Ural mountains, while armaments are not capped in new NATO members in eastern Europe.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at talks in the Estonian capital on Thursday that Ukraine should press ahead with defense and security reforms to gain membership to the alliance.
donderdag 13 november 2008
Iskander- M tactical missiles in Kaliningrad
Antagonism between the Kremlin and the Bush administration over the deployment of missile systems in Europe deepened yesterday after the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, accused President Dmitry Medvedev of "provocative, unnecessary and misguided" plans to station short-range ballistic missiles in Russia's Baltic exclave, Kaliningrad.
Speaking on a visit to Estonia, Gates said the plans to place Iskander-M missiles in eastern Europe were "hardly the welcome a new American administration deserves".
Medvedev revealed his intention to move Iskander-M tactical missiles into Kaliningrad during his first annual speech to parliament on November 5 - hours after Barack Obama was elected. He said the deployment was necessary to "neutralise" interceptor missiles and a radar station that Washington wants to site in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The announcement caused anger in Washington, with Nato and the EU both expressing trenchant opposition. There were attempts at conciliation at the weekend, when Medvedev and Obama spoke on the telephone, expressing a wish to meet soon and mend relations. Separately, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, met on the sidelines of Middle East peace talks in Egypt for what the state department described as "good and productive" discussions.
But yesterday Gates bluntly criticised Medvedev's announcement on moving Iskanders into Kaliningrad, saying: "Such provocative remarks are unnecessary and misguided." The US defence secretary rejected calls by the Kremlin for Washington to throw out its European missile shield plans, saying the shield was vital to meet threats from rogue states such as Iran, which had made "active efforts" to develop nuclear weapons.
"Frankly I'm not sure what the [Russian] missiles in Kaliningrad would be for," he told journalists in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. "After all, the only real emerging threat to Russia's periphery is Iran, and I don't think the Iskander missile has the range to get there from Kaliningrad."
Moscow has made clear that its weapons in the Baltic exclave would be pointed at the US defence shield, which it believes could be used offensively against Russia. However, earlier yesterday Medvedev suggested in an interview with French journalists that the Kremlin might review its Kaliningrad deployment if Washington backed off on its missile defence plans.
"We could reverse the decision if the new US administration re-examined the effectiveness of deploying these rockets and radars," Medvedev said. "In particular, how adequate a means they would really be for reacting to threats from so-called rogue states."
Gates also pushed strongly yesterday for Ukraine to be given a roadmap to Nato membership at a meeting of the alliance's ministers next month. The Germans and French are strongly opposed to this. But Jaak Aaviksoo, the Estonian defence minister, told the Guardian after seeing Gates: "The US was very persistent on this."
He said of Moscow's threat to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad: "When you put missiles near our borders, it's not a friendly move. I think the Russians will reconsider."
Speaking on a visit to Estonia, Gates said the plans to place Iskander-M missiles in eastern Europe were "hardly the welcome a new American administration deserves".
Medvedev revealed his intention to move Iskander-M tactical missiles into Kaliningrad during his first annual speech to parliament on November 5 - hours after Barack Obama was elected. He said the deployment was necessary to "neutralise" interceptor missiles and a radar station that Washington wants to site in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The announcement caused anger in Washington, with Nato and the EU both expressing trenchant opposition. There were attempts at conciliation at the weekend, when Medvedev and Obama spoke on the telephone, expressing a wish to meet soon and mend relations. Separately, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, met on the sidelines of Middle East peace talks in Egypt for what the state department described as "good and productive" discussions.
But yesterday Gates bluntly criticised Medvedev's announcement on moving Iskanders into Kaliningrad, saying: "Such provocative remarks are unnecessary and misguided." The US defence secretary rejected calls by the Kremlin for Washington to throw out its European missile shield plans, saying the shield was vital to meet threats from rogue states such as Iran, which had made "active efforts" to develop nuclear weapons.
"Frankly I'm not sure what the [Russian] missiles in Kaliningrad would be for," he told journalists in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. "After all, the only real emerging threat to Russia's periphery is Iran, and I don't think the Iskander missile has the range to get there from Kaliningrad."
Moscow has made clear that its weapons in the Baltic exclave would be pointed at the US defence shield, which it believes could be used offensively against Russia. However, earlier yesterday Medvedev suggested in an interview with French journalists that the Kremlin might review its Kaliningrad deployment if Washington backed off on its missile defence plans.
"We could reverse the decision if the new US administration re-examined the effectiveness of deploying these rockets and radars," Medvedev said. "In particular, how adequate a means they would really be for reacting to threats from so-called rogue states."
Gates also pushed strongly yesterday for Ukraine to be given a roadmap to Nato membership at a meeting of the alliance's ministers next month. The Germans and French are strongly opposed to this. But Jaak Aaviksoo, the Estonian defence minister, told the Guardian after seeing Gates: "The US was very persistent on this."
He said of Moscow's threat to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad: "When you put missiles near our borders, it's not a friendly move. I think the Russians will reconsider."
In Russia's Putin-Medveded shuffle, Putin is the lead dancer
The question has all but disappeared from Russian discourse after months of feverish debate: Who is in charge, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin or President Dmitry Medvedev? It's been nearly a year since Putin, faced with the end of his presidency, endorsed his long-loyal underling to succeed him in the Kremlin. The speculation that once rattled around the capital after Putin restyled himself as prime minister -- whether the two men would clash; whether Medvedev would try to eclipse his onetime mentor -- has fallen away.
These days, there is a broad perception that Putin remains the dominant politician.
Analysts variously describe Medvedev as a spokesman, a yes-man or, more generously, a just-slightly junior partner in Russia's vertical rule.This is all gleaned from political body language, of course.
Few can say with any certainty who gives the orders behind closed doors - and many Russians now argue it's an irrelevant question. In public, the two leaders operate in almost flawless tandem, as two complementary arms of the power structure built by Putin.
The past few weeks, as Medvedev pushed parliament to prolong the presidential term and doled out steely threats to counter American plans for missile defense, he appeared even more Putinesque than Putin himself -- more hostile toward America, more enthusiastic about alliances with anti-American governments in Venezuela and Cuba, and less concerned with the niceties of constitutional preservation.
"Medvedev has made himself even more harsh," said Lilia Shevtsova, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center. "He's following the logic of Russian power. He has to look macho and demonstrate his muscle, especially having Putin in the background, continuing to call the shots."
It was Medvedev who, during his state of the nation speech last week, unveiled plans to change the constitution. Explaining that the parliament and Kremlin need "enough time" to "maintain a high level of authority" and carry out complicated development plans, he proposed lengthening the presidential term from four to six years and drawing out service in the ruling party-dominated parliament from four to five years.
He also suggested granting more power to parliament to oversee the government.These are not fresh ideas. The proposed changes are a resurrection of a plan that was championed in the twilight of Putin's presidency by some of his most ardent supporters, who pushed him to amend the constitution to stay in the Kremlin longer.At the time, Putin demurred.
The constitution was sacrosanct, he insisted, and should not be altered. Now it is Medvedev who is pushing the changes -- and Putin who's staying in the background, while telling reporters he supports the amendments.Some in Moscow speculate that the two men are laying the groundwork for Putin's extended return to the Kremlin; Medvedev has made it plain that the lengthier term would not apply to his own rule.Others argue that it doesn't matter which of the two men occupy the presidency."I don't think the investigation into who's the leader in this duet is relevant," said Garry Kasparov, former chess champion and leading opposition figure. "The core message is both for a Russian audience and for the West: They're saying, 'We are staying. Forget about it; we'll decide between us who's in charge.' "The proposed changes carry undeniable gravitas, marking the first time the post-Soviet Russian Constitution has been amended since its adoption in 1993. But the amendments are racing through the usually laborious legislature -- the first reading is scheduled to be heard this week in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.The changes are expected to meet little resistance in parliament, which is stacked with Putin loyalists. Still, some eyebrows have been raised even among Putin's supporters.Ruling party lawmaker Sergei Markov said that criticism of the amendments as vehicles to harden the duo's hold on power were "partly true, because really it's an increase in power.""It's a change in the constitution with unclear, uncertain purposes," he said. "I think eight years is enough for any president to change the country. It's all tactical, and that's my major point of criticism -- I think to change the constitution for some small, tactical things, it's not too reasonable."Markov argued that Medvedev's eagerness to change the constitution is rooted in uncertainty over shifting global dynamics, especially Russian wariness of America in the wake of its war with U.S.-backed Georgia. By ruling longer, he argued, Medvedev hoped to create greater stability.Medvedev has already signaled that he's ready to play tough with Washington, threatening to deploy short-range Iskander missiles in the far western Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in response to U.S. deployment of a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. He also has blamed the United States for the global financial crisis."These are initiatives of tandem rule, and the continuation of Putin's paradigm of rule," Shevtsova said. "This is a ruling corporation, and within this corporation they can change hats."
These days, there is a broad perception that Putin remains the dominant politician.
Analysts variously describe Medvedev as a spokesman, a yes-man or, more generously, a just-slightly junior partner in Russia's vertical rule.This is all gleaned from political body language, of course.
Few can say with any certainty who gives the orders behind closed doors - and many Russians now argue it's an irrelevant question. In public, the two leaders operate in almost flawless tandem, as two complementary arms of the power structure built by Putin.
The past few weeks, as Medvedev pushed parliament to prolong the presidential term and doled out steely threats to counter American plans for missile defense, he appeared even more Putinesque than Putin himself -- more hostile toward America, more enthusiastic about alliances with anti-American governments in Venezuela and Cuba, and less concerned with the niceties of constitutional preservation.
"Medvedev has made himself even more harsh," said Lilia Shevtsova, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center. "He's following the logic of Russian power. He has to look macho and demonstrate his muscle, especially having Putin in the background, continuing to call the shots."
It was Medvedev who, during his state of the nation speech last week, unveiled plans to change the constitution. Explaining that the parliament and Kremlin need "enough time" to "maintain a high level of authority" and carry out complicated development plans, he proposed lengthening the presidential term from four to six years and drawing out service in the ruling party-dominated parliament from four to five years.
He also suggested granting more power to parliament to oversee the government.These are not fresh ideas. The proposed changes are a resurrection of a plan that was championed in the twilight of Putin's presidency by some of his most ardent supporters, who pushed him to amend the constitution to stay in the Kremlin longer.At the time, Putin demurred.
The constitution was sacrosanct, he insisted, and should not be altered. Now it is Medvedev who is pushing the changes -- and Putin who's staying in the background, while telling reporters he supports the amendments.Some in Moscow speculate that the two men are laying the groundwork for Putin's extended return to the Kremlin; Medvedev has made it plain that the lengthier term would not apply to his own rule.Others argue that it doesn't matter which of the two men occupy the presidency."I don't think the investigation into who's the leader in this duet is relevant," said Garry Kasparov, former chess champion and leading opposition figure. "The core message is both for a Russian audience and for the West: They're saying, 'We are staying. Forget about it; we'll decide between us who's in charge.' "The proposed changes carry undeniable gravitas, marking the first time the post-Soviet Russian Constitution has been amended since its adoption in 1993. But the amendments are racing through the usually laborious legislature -- the first reading is scheduled to be heard this week in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.The changes are expected to meet little resistance in parliament, which is stacked with Putin loyalists. Still, some eyebrows have been raised even among Putin's supporters.Ruling party lawmaker Sergei Markov said that criticism of the amendments as vehicles to harden the duo's hold on power were "partly true, because really it's an increase in power.""It's a change in the constitution with unclear, uncertain purposes," he said. "I think eight years is enough for any president to change the country. It's all tactical, and that's my major point of criticism -- I think to change the constitution for some small, tactical things, it's not too reasonable."Markov argued that Medvedev's eagerness to change the constitution is rooted in uncertainty over shifting global dynamics, especially Russian wariness of America in the wake of its war with U.S.-backed Georgia. By ruling longer, he argued, Medvedev hoped to create greater stability.Medvedev has already signaled that he's ready to play tough with Washington, threatening to deploy short-range Iskander missiles in the far western Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in response to U.S. deployment of a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. He also has blamed the United States for the global financial crisis."These are initiatives of tandem rule, and the continuation of Putin's paradigm of rule," Shevtsova said. "This is a ruling corporation, and within this corporation they can change hats."
Russian missiles: provocative
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has sharply criticised Russian plans to deploy short-range missiles on its western border.
The missiles will be based in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania, but the Kremlin says it is willing to cancel the project if the US scraps its plans for a missile shield in central Europe.
Mr Gates says Russia's actions are provocative and misguided, adding that it is hardly the welcome a new US administration deserves.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced his plans the day after US President-elect Barack Obama won the election.
The missiles will be based in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania, but the Kremlin says it is willing to cancel the project if the US scraps its plans for a missile shield in central Europe.
Mr Gates says Russia's actions are provocative and misguided, adding that it is hardly the welcome a new US administration deserves.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced his plans the day after US President-elect Barack Obama won the election.
woensdag 12 november 2008
Putin says term-extension bill not meant for him
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a bill that would extend the Russian president's term to six years was not tailored for him and would be a boost for democracy in the country.
The measure could pave the way for a new 12-year presidency for Putin if he decides to seek Russia's highest office again. Lawmakers are moving to fast-track the constitutional change that President Dmitry Medvedev submitted to parliament Tuesday.
Putin said the change "has no personal dimension" and cast it as aiding democracy — which critics say was rolled back dramatically during his two four-year presidential terms.
"We are seeking instruments that would enable us to guarantee sovereignty, to implement our long-term plans, and that would not only not damage but would foster the development of democracy in this country," he said in televised comments at a meeting with the Finnish prime minister.
"As far as I know, the president of the Finnish Republic is elected for six years," Putin said, adding that for decades, France's presidential term was seven years. "In this sense, Mr. Medvedev has not proposed anything unusual."
Putin wouldn't say whether he would seek to return to office.
"As for who will run for office and when, it's too early to talk about that now," Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
The widely popular Putin — who was barred constitutionally from seeking a third straight term as president — tapped longtime protege Medvedev as his favored successor, ensuring his election in March.
Putin then became prime minister and leader of the United Russia party, which dominates the Duma, and is still widely seen as the man calling the shots in Russia.
He is not barred from running again after a break, and Medvedev's move to extend the presidential term sparked speculation that Putin might not wait until scheduled elections in 2012 to seek a return to the office.
The measure could pave the way for a new 12-year presidency for Putin if he decides to seek Russia's highest office again. Lawmakers are moving to fast-track the constitutional change that President Dmitry Medvedev submitted to parliament Tuesday.
Putin said the change "has no personal dimension" and cast it as aiding democracy — which critics say was rolled back dramatically during his two four-year presidential terms.
"We are seeking instruments that would enable us to guarantee sovereignty, to implement our long-term plans, and that would not only not damage but would foster the development of democracy in this country," he said in televised comments at a meeting with the Finnish prime minister.
"As far as I know, the president of the Finnish Republic is elected for six years," Putin said, adding that for decades, France's presidential term was seven years. "In this sense, Mr. Medvedev has not proposed anything unusual."
Putin wouldn't say whether he would seek to return to office.
"As for who will run for office and when, it's too early to talk about that now," Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
The widely popular Putin — who was barred constitutionally from seeking a third straight term as president — tapped longtime protege Medvedev as his favored successor, ensuring his election in March.
Putin then became prime minister and leader of the United Russia party, which dominates the Duma, and is still widely seen as the man calling the shots in Russia.
He is not barred from running again after a break, and Medvedev's move to extend the presidential term sparked speculation that Putin might not wait until scheduled elections in 2012 to seek a return to the office.
Lavrov vs the US
Russia's foreign minister has said it will abandon plans to station missiles in Kaliningrad if the US does not base part of a missile shield in Europe.
Sergei Lavrov said short-range Iskander missiles would only be deployed in the western enclave, which borders Poland, to neutralise any perceived US threat.
President Dmitri Medvedev unveiled the planned counter-measure a week ago.
The US insists the planned shield is designed solely to guard against attack by "rogue states", such as Iran.
At present, the system will include a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in northern Poland. Moscow says they could threaten its own defences.
These would be in addition to radars and interceptors in Alaska and California in the US, and another radar at Fylingdales in the UK.
'Third zone'
At a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Mr Lavrov was asked whether the Russian plans to deploy Iskander missile systems in Kaliningrad might affect Friday's EU-Russia summit and renewed talks on a new partnership and co-operation agreement.
The US plans a global missile shield to protect against "rogue states"
"I don't see any connection between what was announced in the message of our president to the Federal Assembly and relations between Russia and the European Union," he said.
"We said… that if the third zone of positioning of the US anti-missile shield is created, one of the measures to neutralise the threats to Russia's security that would inevitably arise will be the deployment of Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad region."
The Iskander systems would therefore be deployed "only if the third zone of positioning really takes shape", Mr Lavrov added.
EU leaders warned Russia on Friday that the decision to base missiles in Kaliningrad would not contribute to creating a climate of confidence or to the improvement of security.
On Saturday, a senior aide to US President-elect Barack Obama said he had "made no commitment" to go ahead with plans to base the interceptors in Poland, despite an earlier statement by the Polish president saying that he had made such a promise.
Sergei Lavrov said short-range Iskander missiles would only be deployed in the western enclave, which borders Poland, to neutralise any perceived US threat.
President Dmitri Medvedev unveiled the planned counter-measure a week ago.
The US insists the planned shield is designed solely to guard against attack by "rogue states", such as Iran.
At present, the system will include a tracking radar in the Czech Republic and 10 missile interceptors in northern Poland. Moscow says they could threaten its own defences.
These would be in addition to radars and interceptors in Alaska and California in the US, and another radar at Fylingdales in the UK.
'Third zone'
At a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Mr Lavrov was asked whether the Russian plans to deploy Iskander missile systems in Kaliningrad might affect Friday's EU-Russia summit and renewed talks on a new partnership and co-operation agreement.
The US plans a global missile shield to protect against "rogue states"
"I don't see any connection between what was announced in the message of our president to the Federal Assembly and relations between Russia and the European Union," he said.
"We said… that if the third zone of positioning of the US anti-missile shield is created, one of the measures to neutralise the threats to Russia's security that would inevitably arise will be the deployment of Iskander missile systems in the Kaliningrad region."
The Iskander systems would therefore be deployed "only if the third zone of positioning really takes shape", Mr Lavrov added.
EU leaders warned Russia on Friday that the decision to base missiles in Kaliningrad would not contribute to creating a climate of confidence or to the improvement of security.
On Saturday, a senior aide to US President-elect Barack Obama said he had "made no commitment" to go ahead with plans to base the interceptors in Poland, despite an earlier statement by the Polish president saying that he had made such a promise.
dinsdag 11 november 2008
Melik Kaylan - Georgia, Russia and the new administration
We can ask the world to give Obama breathing space to get his thoughts in order before, as Joe Biden had it, other countries "test" him with all manner of impossible crises. Not as preposterous as it sounds, this notion of asking the world to hold off, considering Obama generates so much genuine goodwill abroad and, after all, his decisions will shape other countries' futures significantly.
Any countries found to be misbehaving prematurely will instantly get the dog-in-a-manger treatment, for with George Bush gone, whose fault could it be but their own? But no, the Taliban won't stay their barbarism an extra hour for popularity's sake.
Perhaps we can adjust our view of the world, instead, so crises just don't seem as imminent or morally exigent. The latter approach seems to be prevailing. Witness the recent sudden uptick in media noise about the Russia-Georgia conflict.
On Nov. 6, in a long expository article, The New York Times informed us that, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Tbilisi had (a) initiated the hostilities and (b) done so with indiscriminate bombing of the South Ossetian capital without regard to civilian casualties--despite Georgian claims to the contrary. All sides consider the OSCE to be a highly dependable, impartial, monitoring body with long experience in the region.
On Nov. 8, the BBC Web site carried an oddly inchoate report that the OSCE had failed to warn member countries of the impending conflict. It quoted a senior OSCE official, who has since resigned, as saying he had "warned of Georgia's military activity before its move into the South Ossetia region" and his bosses failed to pass it on. His bosses deny his claims.
Whatever the BBC is pretending to report there, their subtext sneaks through loud and clear--Georgia invaded first. If Georgia invaded first, Russia was provoked, Russia could not but respond, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is a trigger-happy maniac, we should back off from confrontation with Moscow, this is no incipient or even full-fledged Cold War casus belli to test Obama, he can press the refresh button and the new world will pop up as a tabula rasa.
In the G.W. era this would fall under "faith-based" as opposed to "reality-based" reasoning. The Times and BBC can lay out their dream narrative all they want, but it's unlikely that Obama--as sober and intentional a politician as it's possible to wake up to with a hangover--will buy into it. Biden certainly won't.
Either way, they won't have a choice as Ex-President Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev ply their brutalist imperial course. Medvedev made his sentiments clear when he delivered his Moscow State of the Union speech sans any single reference to the U.S. election results. Meaning: Russia acts unilaterally no matter what happens elsewhere.
And Georgia? I have publicly defended Georgia's actions in this space, and others and I count Georgian President Saakashvili as a personal friend. Nothing has changed. Here's the real continuum of events, as I can best decipher them, that led to Aug. 7 and Aug. 8 when the hostilities escalated into full blown conflict.
First off, I cannot dispute the OSCE and the Times reports that the Georgian attack resulted in civilian casualties. I certainly never thought the Georgians carried out precise bombardments and I don't think they're capable of it. Neither are the Russkies.
I also believe the Georgians radically upped the confrontation--in effect, they attacked first. But they did so because they knew about the column of Russian tanks coming in through the Roki Tunnel that connects North and South Ossetia, that is, connects Russian territory to the breakaway region. A Russian invasion was in progress. The Times report addresses this glancingly toward the end:
"Neither Georgia nor its Western allies have as yet provided conclusive evidence that Russia was invading the country or that the situation for Georgians in the Ossetian zone was so dire that a large-scale military attack was necessary, as Mr. Saakashvili insists.
"Georgia has released telephone intercepts indicating that a Russian armored column apparently entered the enclave from Russia early on the Aug. 7, which would be a violation of the peacekeeping rules. Georgia said the column marked the beginning of an invasion. But the intercepts did not show the column's size, composition or mission, and there has not been evidence that it was engaged with Georgian forces until many hours after the Georgian bombardment; Russia insists it was simply a routine logistics train or troop rotation."
This is disingenuous. It makes no sense that the Russkies had some 200 fully armed, fueled tanks halfway into Georgia within two days, as a spontaneous and unplanned response to aggression. They're not that efficient. Both sides knew what was going down.
There is an argument that in shooting first, Saakashvili lost the moral propaganda advantage. It instantly looked like he had provoked a reaction. The other option was to let the Russkies invade and complain later from atop the moral high ground. He decided to fight first. He knew he wasn't going to win. The Russians owned the air. But worse, he knew that his allies were going to do nothing either way.
My bet is, he contacted the White House and they told him, as they'd done consistently up to then, that he was on his own. Think of the timing--Bush is in Beijing, the U.S. has an election coming, Saakashvili is abroad, everyone is on vacation--including all his allies. So the Georgians decide to attack South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali? No, I don't think so.
There is an additional misconception that underlies much of the programmatic left/right, Democrat/GOP, détente/Cold War binary thinking on the matter: that the Bush administration encouraged Saakashvili to confront the Russians or at least bolstered his sense of allied support.
This is manifestly untrue. Tbilisi insiders told me that Georgia had been asking the Bushies for anti-aircraft missiles for some years. The Bushies consistently refused. Georgia had managed to acquire some from Israel, but the supply abruptly stopped in early summer this year--nobody knows why but it's likely that the Russians had a conclusive word with Israel. The Russkies regularly overflew Georgian territory as constant provocation, dropping a stray bomb here and a missile there, by mistake, in open countryside.
Furthermore, the Bush administration had no practical measures in train for interceding Moscow's invasion. It wasn't until the scathing Wall Street Journal editorial of Aug. 12--"so far the administration has been missing in action"--that Washington was stung into taking practical measures. The White House even issued a press release specifically citing the Journal's editorial claims as inaccurate. But it followed the Journal's menu of suggestions precisely: send in Condi, supplies, boatlift and the like.
We probably have the Journal's editorial board to thank for Condi's hurried departure to Tbilisi at a time when Russian warplanes were still flying overhead--and with her arrival, perhaps even the halting of Russkie tanks short of Tbilisi.
The Georgians were always way down on the list of priorities for a fumble-prone White House. Saakashvili was never Washington's irreplaceable ally, at any rate never enough to keep the Russians at bay. Putin knew it. It may be a brave new post-Bush world, but he still knows it.
Any countries found to be misbehaving prematurely will instantly get the dog-in-a-manger treatment, for with George Bush gone, whose fault could it be but their own? But no, the Taliban won't stay their barbarism an extra hour for popularity's sake.
Perhaps we can adjust our view of the world, instead, so crises just don't seem as imminent or morally exigent. The latter approach seems to be prevailing. Witness the recent sudden uptick in media noise about the Russia-Georgia conflict.
On Nov. 6, in a long expository article, The New York Times informed us that, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Tbilisi had (a) initiated the hostilities and (b) done so with indiscriminate bombing of the South Ossetian capital without regard to civilian casualties--despite Georgian claims to the contrary. All sides consider the OSCE to be a highly dependable, impartial, monitoring body with long experience in the region.
On Nov. 8, the BBC Web site carried an oddly inchoate report that the OSCE had failed to warn member countries of the impending conflict. It quoted a senior OSCE official, who has since resigned, as saying he had "warned of Georgia's military activity before its move into the South Ossetia region" and his bosses failed to pass it on. His bosses deny his claims.
Whatever the BBC is pretending to report there, their subtext sneaks through loud and clear--Georgia invaded first. If Georgia invaded first, Russia was provoked, Russia could not but respond, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is a trigger-happy maniac, we should back off from confrontation with Moscow, this is no incipient or even full-fledged Cold War casus belli to test Obama, he can press the refresh button and the new world will pop up as a tabula rasa.
In the G.W. era this would fall under "faith-based" as opposed to "reality-based" reasoning. The Times and BBC can lay out their dream narrative all they want, but it's unlikely that Obama--as sober and intentional a politician as it's possible to wake up to with a hangover--will buy into it. Biden certainly won't.
Either way, they won't have a choice as Ex-President Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev ply their brutalist imperial course. Medvedev made his sentiments clear when he delivered his Moscow State of the Union speech sans any single reference to the U.S. election results. Meaning: Russia acts unilaterally no matter what happens elsewhere.
And Georgia? I have publicly defended Georgia's actions in this space, and others and I count Georgian President Saakashvili as a personal friend. Nothing has changed. Here's the real continuum of events, as I can best decipher them, that led to Aug. 7 and Aug. 8 when the hostilities escalated into full blown conflict.
First off, I cannot dispute the OSCE and the Times reports that the Georgian attack resulted in civilian casualties. I certainly never thought the Georgians carried out precise bombardments and I don't think they're capable of it. Neither are the Russkies.
I also believe the Georgians radically upped the confrontation--in effect, they attacked first. But they did so because they knew about the column of Russian tanks coming in through the Roki Tunnel that connects North and South Ossetia, that is, connects Russian territory to the breakaway region. A Russian invasion was in progress. The Times report addresses this glancingly toward the end:
"Neither Georgia nor its Western allies have as yet provided conclusive evidence that Russia was invading the country or that the situation for Georgians in the Ossetian zone was so dire that a large-scale military attack was necessary, as Mr. Saakashvili insists.
"Georgia has released telephone intercepts indicating that a Russian armored column apparently entered the enclave from Russia early on the Aug. 7, which would be a violation of the peacekeeping rules. Georgia said the column marked the beginning of an invasion. But the intercepts did not show the column's size, composition or mission, and there has not been evidence that it was engaged with Georgian forces until many hours after the Georgian bombardment; Russia insists it was simply a routine logistics train or troop rotation."
This is disingenuous. It makes no sense that the Russkies had some 200 fully armed, fueled tanks halfway into Georgia within two days, as a spontaneous and unplanned response to aggression. They're not that efficient. Both sides knew what was going down.
There is an argument that in shooting first, Saakashvili lost the moral propaganda advantage. It instantly looked like he had provoked a reaction. The other option was to let the Russkies invade and complain later from atop the moral high ground. He decided to fight first. He knew he wasn't going to win. The Russians owned the air. But worse, he knew that his allies were going to do nothing either way.
My bet is, he contacted the White House and they told him, as they'd done consistently up to then, that he was on his own. Think of the timing--Bush is in Beijing, the U.S. has an election coming, Saakashvili is abroad, everyone is on vacation--including all his allies. So the Georgians decide to attack South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali? No, I don't think so.
There is an additional misconception that underlies much of the programmatic left/right, Democrat/GOP, détente/Cold War binary thinking on the matter: that the Bush administration encouraged Saakashvili to confront the Russians or at least bolstered his sense of allied support.
This is manifestly untrue. Tbilisi insiders told me that Georgia had been asking the Bushies for anti-aircraft missiles for some years. The Bushies consistently refused. Georgia had managed to acquire some from Israel, but the supply abruptly stopped in early summer this year--nobody knows why but it's likely that the Russians had a conclusive word with Israel. The Russkies regularly overflew Georgian territory as constant provocation, dropping a stray bomb here and a missile there, by mistake, in open countryside.
Furthermore, the Bush administration had no practical measures in train for interceding Moscow's invasion. It wasn't until the scathing Wall Street Journal editorial of Aug. 12--"so far the administration has been missing in action"--that Washington was stung into taking practical measures. The White House even issued a press release specifically citing the Journal's editorial claims as inaccurate. But it followed the Journal's menu of suggestions precisely: send in Condi, supplies, boatlift and the like.
We probably have the Journal's editorial board to thank for Condi's hurried departure to Tbilisi at a time when Russian warplanes were still flying overhead--and with her arrival, perhaps even the halting of Russkie tanks short of Tbilisi.
The Georgians were always way down on the list of priorities for a fumble-prone White House. Saakashvili was never Washington's irreplaceable ally, at any rate never enough to keep the Russians at bay. Putin knew it. It may be a brave new post-Bush world, but he still knows it.
The Death of the Dissident - Newsweek
By Owen Matthews and Anna Nemtsova
For centuries, a good majority of Russia's young and well-educated elite have looked westward for inspiration and role models—some of them revolutionary like Karl Marx, or more recently free marketers like Margaret Thatcher. Even during the years of Boris Yeltsin's chaotic reforms, most educated Russians still believed on some level that Russia's best hope for becoming a "normal" country was to follow the West's course of democracy and capitalism. A significant core of liberal democrats remained well into the eight-year rule of Vladimir Putin,and his relentless campaign to restore Russia's position as a great power.
But the August war in Georgia and the ongoing economic and financial collapse mark a tipping point. For the first time in generations, a mood of patriotism, jingoism and staunch Russian nationalism have become pervasive among even educated Russians who once considered themselves pro-Western liberals. Yes, most Russians have been reflexively patriotic all along. But Russia has seldom in living memory been more nationalistic—and seldom have Russia's brightest and best found themselves more in agreement with the people—as well as the Kremlin—on their country's greatness. In the spring of 2008, 65 percent of Russians felt "generally positive" about the United States, according to the Yuri Levada opinion polls center in Moscow. But after the war in Georgia, that indicator dropped to just 7 percent. At the same time, Putin's approval ratings have climbed eight points between July and September to 88 percent; Dmitry Medvedev's increased 13 points, to 83 percent.
The sharp increase underscores the "quick evolution of Russian empire complex," says Levada expert Natalya Zorkaya. "After the war the general feeling in society was, Hurrah! Russia, get up off your knees!" she says. Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Mozkvy, the last liberal national radio station still broadcasting opposition voices, says the patriotic mood has pervaded the elite to a remarkable degree. "I do not know a single Russian who would like to see his country dependent or weak—we all want Russia to be strong, wealthy and happy." Even the Union of Right Forces, once a radical free-market liberal party, last week split into pro- and anti-Kremlin factions, with the pro-Kremlin wing keeping the lion's share of the party members and offices.
The reasons for the change run deep. Rich or poor, a whole generation of Russians has gone from naive infatuation with the West's ideals in the 1990s to a deep disappointment and resentment fueled by perceived Western hypocrisy in ignoring Russian objections over the bombing of Serbia and the Iraq War—plus the widely held belief that Western economic advice during the 1990s was deliberately designed to weaken and dismember Russia. Now, for the first time in a generation, Russians have a short, victorious war to crow about, after defeats in Afghanistan and Chechyna. The financial crisis, even though it is hitting Russian markets hard, has given the Kremlin fodder for gloating that the West had finally received its comeuppance, and that finally, America will have to share the pedestal with other countries. "Putin inspired a kind of state-nationalism—he gave people hope that Russia can become a big player again," says Alexei Makarkin, vice-president of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
Among those who have turned: former Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, a founder of Memorial, a civic association devoted to the victims of Stalinism, as well as the liberal Yabloko Party. Jailed in the '80s for anti-Soviet activity, he was a classic dissident, a liberal and, in the jargon of the day, a "progressive intellectual." But like many of his fellow travelers, he experienced a disenchantment with the West, which crystallized, he says, after NATO supported Georgian "aggression" in Ossetia. Similarly, Sergei Markov, a one-time liberal dissident who "fought for freedom" in the 1980s by trying to overthrow communism and bring Russia's democrats to power, is now a Duma member for the Kremlin-created United Russia Party. He says the West "has lost all its authority for Russian intellectuals," by supporting Kosovo's independence but not Ossetia's, and because of the financial crisis, which undermines the Western free-market ideal. Now he advocates that "Russia should be preaching its own nationalistic and patriotic ideas in defense of the West's anti-Russian aggression," and the Kremlin has charged him with the task of organizing a series of initiatives to help, in Markov's words, "clean up the morals of the Russian elite" and create an ultrapatriotic breed of leaders who will help make Russia "a Christian, conservative European country, with genuine human and moral values."
Russia's leaders have done their utmost to promote a passionate nationalism. Putin promised this summer that the state would fund a new generation of patriotic films and television programs. News of this plan was rapturously received by an audience of academics and journalists at St. Petersburg State University. "The state should be taking a lead in forming the intellectual and spiritual life of Russians," says Alexander Zapesotsky, president of St. Petersburg's Trade Union Humanitarian University. The Kremlin has also continued to promote the ideologically motivated youth gangs it hatched in the aftermath of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004. Their intent at the time had been to prevent the same kind of movement that had helped bring down Ukraine's government. Now these movements have spawned a network of ideologically correct organizations to organize—or, in their own terms, "modernize"—Russian business and society. The focus is on attracting young professionals and embryonic think tanks, which have proved effective in attracting ideas if only because of the promise of state funding for successful applicants. In July, Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov unveiled a plethora of new offshoots to Medvedev. Among them: "Nashi Builders," a group of young architects and designers who would brainstorm ideas for construction companies. Three years ago, management professor Vladimir Nechayev founded the Moscow Higher School of Management to train a new generation of Nashi leaders in universities across 45 regions of Russia. The core idea: "I value the success of my country as much or even more than my own success and ambitions." Some 50,000 students have since passed through its various courses—including a class of managers of the state-owned Russian Railways.
There are, of course, profound risks in the Kremlin's nationalistic tack. The NGO Sova, which monitors hate crimes, reports that 75 foreigners have been killed as a result of racist attacks and 291 wounded in Russia from January to September 2008, a steep increase over previous years. Medvedev's anti-U.S. rhetoric is dangerous too, largely because as the financial turmoil continues the temptation to shift blame onto a foreign enemy grows greater. Economic crises have historically led to ugly upsurges in nationalism—and the Kremlin is stoking the fire, a cynical ploy with sinister precedents, made all the more dangerous because there are now so few Russians left willing to oppose it.
For centuries, a good majority of Russia's young and well-educated elite have looked westward for inspiration and role models—some of them revolutionary like Karl Marx, or more recently free marketers like Margaret Thatcher. Even during the years of Boris Yeltsin's chaotic reforms, most educated Russians still believed on some level that Russia's best hope for becoming a "normal" country was to follow the West's course of democracy and capitalism. A significant core of liberal democrats remained well into the eight-year rule of Vladimir Putin,and his relentless campaign to restore Russia's position as a great power.
But the August war in Georgia and the ongoing economic and financial collapse mark a tipping point. For the first time in generations, a mood of patriotism, jingoism and staunch Russian nationalism have become pervasive among even educated Russians who once considered themselves pro-Western liberals. Yes, most Russians have been reflexively patriotic all along. But Russia has seldom in living memory been more nationalistic—and seldom have Russia's brightest and best found themselves more in agreement with the people—as well as the Kremlin—on their country's greatness. In the spring of 2008, 65 percent of Russians felt "generally positive" about the United States, according to the Yuri Levada opinion polls center in Moscow. But after the war in Georgia, that indicator dropped to just 7 percent. At the same time, Putin's approval ratings have climbed eight points between July and September to 88 percent; Dmitry Medvedev's increased 13 points, to 83 percent.
The sharp increase underscores the "quick evolution of Russian empire complex," says Levada expert Natalya Zorkaya. "After the war the general feeling in society was, Hurrah! Russia, get up off your knees!" she says. Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Mozkvy, the last liberal national radio station still broadcasting opposition voices, says the patriotic mood has pervaded the elite to a remarkable degree. "I do not know a single Russian who would like to see his country dependent or weak—we all want Russia to be strong, wealthy and happy." Even the Union of Right Forces, once a radical free-market liberal party, last week split into pro- and anti-Kremlin factions, with the pro-Kremlin wing keeping the lion's share of the party members and offices.
The reasons for the change run deep. Rich or poor, a whole generation of Russians has gone from naive infatuation with the West's ideals in the 1990s to a deep disappointment and resentment fueled by perceived Western hypocrisy in ignoring Russian objections over the bombing of Serbia and the Iraq War—plus the widely held belief that Western economic advice during the 1990s was deliberately designed to weaken and dismember Russia. Now, for the first time in a generation, Russians have a short, victorious war to crow about, after defeats in Afghanistan and Chechyna. The financial crisis, even though it is hitting Russian markets hard, has given the Kremlin fodder for gloating that the West had finally received its comeuppance, and that finally, America will have to share the pedestal with other countries. "Putin inspired a kind of state-nationalism—he gave people hope that Russia can become a big player again," says Alexei Makarkin, vice-president of the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.
Among those who have turned: former Duma deputy Vyacheslav Igrunov, a founder of Memorial, a civic association devoted to the victims of Stalinism, as well as the liberal Yabloko Party. Jailed in the '80s for anti-Soviet activity, he was a classic dissident, a liberal and, in the jargon of the day, a "progressive intellectual." But like many of his fellow travelers, he experienced a disenchantment with the West, which crystallized, he says, after NATO supported Georgian "aggression" in Ossetia. Similarly, Sergei Markov, a one-time liberal dissident who "fought for freedom" in the 1980s by trying to overthrow communism and bring Russia's democrats to power, is now a Duma member for the Kremlin-created United Russia Party. He says the West "has lost all its authority for Russian intellectuals," by supporting Kosovo's independence but not Ossetia's, and because of the financial crisis, which undermines the Western free-market ideal. Now he advocates that "Russia should be preaching its own nationalistic and patriotic ideas in defense of the West's anti-Russian aggression," and the Kremlin has charged him with the task of organizing a series of initiatives to help, in Markov's words, "clean up the morals of the Russian elite" and create an ultrapatriotic breed of leaders who will help make Russia "a Christian, conservative European country, with genuine human and moral values."
Russia's leaders have done their utmost to promote a passionate nationalism. Putin promised this summer that the state would fund a new generation of patriotic films and television programs. News of this plan was rapturously received by an audience of academics and journalists at St. Petersburg State University. "The state should be taking a lead in forming the intellectual and spiritual life of Russians," says Alexander Zapesotsky, president of St. Petersburg's Trade Union Humanitarian University. The Kremlin has also continued to promote the ideologically motivated youth gangs it hatched in the aftermath of Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004. Their intent at the time had been to prevent the same kind of movement that had helped bring down Ukraine's government. Now these movements have spawned a network of ideologically correct organizations to organize—or, in their own terms, "modernize"—Russian business and society. The focus is on attracting young professionals and embryonic think tanks, which have proved effective in attracting ideas if only because of the promise of state funding for successful applicants. In July, Nashi leader Nikita Borovikov unveiled a plethora of new offshoots to Medvedev. Among them: "Nashi Builders," a group of young architects and designers who would brainstorm ideas for construction companies. Three years ago, management professor Vladimir Nechayev founded the Moscow Higher School of Management to train a new generation of Nashi leaders in universities across 45 regions of Russia. The core idea: "I value the success of my country as much or even more than my own success and ambitions." Some 50,000 students have since passed through its various courses—including a class of managers of the state-owned Russian Railways.
There are, of course, profound risks in the Kremlin's nationalistic tack. The NGO Sova, which monitors hate crimes, reports that 75 foreigners have been killed as a result of racist attacks and 291 wounded in Russia from January to September 2008, a steep increase over previous years. Medvedev's anti-U.S. rhetoric is dangerous too, largely because as the financial turmoil continues the temptation to shift blame onto a foreign enemy grows greater. Economic crises have historically led to ugly upsurges in nationalism—and the Kremlin is stoking the fire, a cynical ploy with sinister precedents, made all the more dangerous because there are now so few Russians left willing to oppose it.
maandag 10 november 2008
The gas troika
Energy powers Iran, Russia and Qatar will hold talks on Wednesday in Doha on gas cooperation, Iranian gas officials said on Monday.
Russia, Iran and Qatar -- which are respectively ranked first, second and third in the world in terms of gas reserves -- agreed to boost coordination at a meeting in Tehran last month.
After the meeting, Iran said there was consensus to set up a gas grouping like the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), drawing criticism from the European Union which opposes any group that could act like a cartel.
Russia referred to a "big gas troika", which should become a permanent body holding regular meetings.
"The second round of negotiations between Iran, Qatar and Russia on expanding cooperation between the three sides will start on Wednesday, Nov. 12 in Qatar's capital Doha," the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) said in a statement on its website.
Gas officials told Reuters NIGEC managing director, Reza Kasaeizadeh, would head the Iranian team.
Kasaeizadeh told Reuters last month that creating a group of exporting countries would help harmonise pricing formulas and bring security to the growing market for the fuel.
Analysts say a gas body would not be able to turn gas taps on and off as OPEC does with oil, but it could share insights on upstream contract terms when it deals with gas investors.
Gas consumers like the United States and European states have opposed the formation of any gas body like OPEC, arguing that the market should set prices.
Russia, Iran and Qatar -- which are respectively ranked first, second and third in the world in terms of gas reserves -- agreed to boost coordination at a meeting in Tehran last month.
After the meeting, Iran said there was consensus to set up a gas grouping like the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), drawing criticism from the European Union which opposes any group that could act like a cartel.
Russia referred to a "big gas troika", which should become a permanent body holding regular meetings.
"The second round of negotiations between Iran, Qatar and Russia on expanding cooperation between the three sides will start on Wednesday, Nov. 12 in Qatar's capital Doha," the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) said in a statement on its website.
Gas officials told Reuters NIGEC managing director, Reza Kasaeizadeh, would head the Iranian team.
Kasaeizadeh told Reuters last month that creating a group of exporting countries would help harmonise pricing formulas and bring security to the growing market for the fuel.
Analysts say a gas body would not be able to turn gas taps on and off as OPEC does with oil, but it could share insights on upstream contract terms when it deals with gas investors.
Gas consumers like the United States and European states have opposed the formation of any gas body like OPEC, arguing that the market should set prices.
zondag 9 november 2008
Samogon - moonshine
The Russian name for any home-made distilled alcoholic beverage is called samogon, literally translated as "self-distillate". The most popular source for samogon is sugar as it is quite effective. Other sources include beets, corn, potatoes and even plywood (Fictional sort of samogon, called Tabouretovka, which has to be made from wooden tabourets. Recipe of it was sold by Ostap Bender to ingenuous American tourists. Possible origin of this myth - early industrial alcohol was often made from wood scraps).
Samogon of one distillation only is called pervach (ru: первач), literally translated as "the first one" - it is well known for its impressive smell. The production of samogon is widespread in Russia. It is legal only for personal use, and sale is prohibited. Samogon often has a strong repulsive odor but, due to relatively cheap and fast production and ability to personalize the flavor of the drink, it is of relative popularity. It was common during the Soviet era, when products were scarce and supply unstable. Samogon of 2-nd and 3-rd distillation, filtered through birch charcoal loses its specific smell and taste and can hardly be distinguished from Vodka by taste.
Samogon of one distillation only is called pervach (ru: первач), literally translated as "the first one" - it is well known for its impressive smell. The production of samogon is widespread in Russia. It is legal only for personal use, and sale is prohibited. Samogon often has a strong repulsive odor but, due to relatively cheap and fast production and ability to personalize the flavor of the drink, it is of relative popularity. It was common during the Soviet era, when products were scarce and supply unstable. Samogon of 2-nd and 3-rd distillation, filtered through birch charcoal loses its specific smell and taste and can hardly be distinguished from Vodka by taste.
Alcoholism in Russia
ST. PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Russia should revive the Soviet-era practise of compulsory treatment for alcoholics, the interior minister said on Friday.
Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told President Dmitry Medvedev that there were 253,000 alcoholics registered with police but that the actual number must be higher.
"The real picture is much worse," he told Medvedev at a meeting of law enforcement agencies in St. Petersburg.
The Moscow Serbsky Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry says more than 10 percent of Russia's population of 142 million could be alcoholics.
"I propose returning to the idea of compulsory treatment for alcoholism," Nurgaliyev said, adding that alcohol-related crime was an acute problem.
Russians are some of the world's heaviest drinkers.
Demographers often cite high alcohol consumption as a major factor in the low life expectancy of Russian men.
Russians consume the equivalent of 15 litres of pure alcohol per head each year, chief public health official Gennady Onishchenko said in a newspaper interview last year.
The Kremlin has for decades tried to get a grip on the problem but Russians' love of vodka and illegally made liquor -- known as samogon -- has always overcome government measures to combat alcoholism.
In the 1960s, alcoholics were forced into labour camps. Soviet authorities said hard work would cure alcoholics.
Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told President Dmitry Medvedev that there were 253,000 alcoholics registered with police but that the actual number must be higher.
"The real picture is much worse," he told Medvedev at a meeting of law enforcement agencies in St. Petersburg.
The Moscow Serbsky Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry says more than 10 percent of Russia's population of 142 million could be alcoholics.
"I propose returning to the idea of compulsory treatment for alcoholism," Nurgaliyev said, adding that alcohol-related crime was an acute problem.
Russians are some of the world's heaviest drinkers.
Demographers often cite high alcohol consumption as a major factor in the low life expectancy of Russian men.
Russians consume the equivalent of 15 litres of pure alcohol per head each year, chief public health official Gennady Onishchenko said in a newspaper interview last year.
The Kremlin has for decades tried to get a grip on the problem but Russians' love of vodka and illegally made liquor -- known as samogon -- has always overcome government measures to combat alcoholism.
In the 1960s, alcoholics were forced into labour camps. Soviet authorities said hard work would cure alcoholics.
Russia's discontent
RUSSIA'S response to the election of Barack Obama came in an address Wednesday to Russian legislators by Vladimir Putin's handpicked successor, President Dmitry Medvedev - a discourse truffled with threats and allegations. If he is wise, Obama will resist the temptation to respond to the Russian rant. He should keep his own counsel because he is not yet president, because Medvedev was playing to a domestic audience, and because anything Obama might say now could complicate the task of undoing the knots President Bush has tied in US-Russian relations.
Medvedev threatened to station missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, near Poland, if the United States went ahead with Bush's plans to install a defective missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. He attributed the August war with Georgia to the "arrogant course of the American administration." And for good measure, he blamed America for Russia's market collapse and drastic capital flight, saying, "a local emergency on the US domestic market" was the cause of declining financial markets worldwide.
France vs Russia
In a move which was partly an audacious bluff and partly a complex legalistic gambit, the French president faced down determined opposition from Lithuania and Poland to open the door to normalizing the EU-Russia relationship three months after the Georgian conflict.
The European Union's French presidency has said the bloc is in a position to relaunch Partnership and Cooperation Treaty talks with Moscow that were broken off in the wake of the war between Russia and Georgia.
The announcement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Russia has complied with EU demands in Georgia stunned some Eastern European leaders who were in Brussels for an EU crisis summit on the global economy.
The talks are now all but certain to resume on November 14 when the EU and Russia meet for a summit in the French city of Nice.
Eastern European Opposition
In a move which was partly an audacious bluff and partly a complex legalistic gambit, the French president faced down determined opposition from Lithuania and Poland to open the door to normalizing the EU-Russia relationship three months after the Georgian conflict.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus had arrived at the summit threatening to veto any such move. In an article published on November 6 in the Brussels weekly, "European Voice," he said it would be a "disaster" to act before Russian forces had quit all of Georgian territory.
Adamkus had the public backing of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, and the sympathy of a number of other leaders.
Addressing a post-summit news conference on November 7, Sarkozy effectively said Adamkus and his supporters misunderstand what they had agreed to on September 1, when an emergency EU summit broke off talks.
"Let me remind you that these negotiations were never suspended -- because [the EU] points the way here -- because if there had been a suspension, there would have had to be a summit decision," Sarkozy said. "Together with [European Commission] President [Jose Manuel] Barroso, we simply postponed the date."
However, the EU said in a summit statement on September 1 that "till troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to August 7, meetings on the negotiation of the Partnership Agreement [with Russia] will be postponed."
As it turns out, "postponement" can be read to mean that EU member states never withdrew their prior underlying consent for the negotiations, leaving it up to the bloc's executive -- the presidency and the European Commission -- to proceed as it sees fit.
Any decision as momentous as this one requires some justification, however. Recognizing this, Sarkozy on November 7 resorted to a fudge -- or something which unkind observers might be inclined to see as an act of diplomatic vandalism.
He said Russia had met all the commitments it had undertaken under EU mediation with respect to Georgia: they implemented a ceasefire, allowed EU observers to deploy, and launched international talks on the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russian Withdrawal
But, most controversially, Sarkozy also said Russia has fully complied with the requirement to withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions, as required by the EU-mediated accords of August 12 and September 8.
"The second commitment -- the retreat of Russian forces to pre-conflict borders before the crisis on August 8. Has this been fulfilled? Yes," Sarkozy said.
Everything hinges on Sarkozy's substitution of the word "borders" for the original -- and correct -- term, "lines." According to Sarkozy's interpretation, Russia was never obliged to remove any troops from the separatist regions.
Georgian claims to areas held by its forces before the conflict within Abkhazia and South Ossetia are thus also without merit.
The impression that Sarkozy's remarks -- appearing as they did as an afterthought in the margins of a summit devoted to an entirely different subject -- are part of a carefully crafted master plan is borne out by reports that behind closed doors, the French leader placated his opponents with a different view.
One official present at the meeting said Sarkozy had assured his EU colleagues he would express the bloc's dissatisfaction with Moscow's insufficient compliance with the bloc's terms when the two sides meet in Nice on November 14.
The French diplomatic offensive was assisted by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said he had warned the Lithuanian and Polish leaders that, if prevented from acting in concert, individual member states would start striking separate deals with Moscow.
Aiming his news conference remarks directly at Warsaw and Vilnius, Barroso said, "You may not like the common EU position entirely, but it is in your own interest to have one rather than three or four different positions."
Both Barroso and Sarkozy represent a school of thought within the EU which holds that keeping lines of communication open with Moscow is crucial for the bloc's broader interests, which range from securing energy provisions to cooperation with Russia in the UN Security Council on issues such as Iran.
Conceding defeat, Lithuania's and Poland's backers in the EU said they would now set their sights on the November 10 meeting of the foreign ministers in a bid to secure a joint statement which makes clear that although the partnership talks will continue, Moscow has not fully met EU conditions.
Fearing intractable divisions, France is resisting the adoption of any EU statement at the meeting.
Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told RFE/RL that he and like-minded leaders within the EU will also strive to get the bloc to acknowledge that pragmatic cooperation, not a fully fledged partnership, is the most it can hold out for Russia.
"We can talk about cooperation with any country in the world. In Russia's case, we're not in a position now, considering its military attack on a sovereign neighbor, to talk about a partnership or the sharing of common values," Ansip said.
Adamkus emerged from the summit insisting that there could be no talk of renewed partnership talks with Russia before it has withdrawn its troops from all of Georgian territory, but he did not elaborate.
The European Union's French presidency has said the bloc is in a position to relaunch Partnership and Cooperation Treaty talks with Moscow that were broken off in the wake of the war between Russia and Georgia.
The announcement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Russia has complied with EU demands in Georgia stunned some Eastern European leaders who were in Brussels for an EU crisis summit on the global economy.
The talks are now all but certain to resume on November 14 when the EU and Russia meet for a summit in the French city of Nice.
Eastern European Opposition
In a move which was partly an audacious bluff and partly a complex legalistic gambit, the French president faced down determined opposition from Lithuania and Poland to open the door to normalizing the EU-Russia relationship three months after the Georgian conflict.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus had arrived at the summit threatening to veto any such move. In an article published on November 6 in the Brussels weekly, "European Voice," he said it would be a "disaster" to act before Russian forces had quit all of Georgian territory.
Adamkus had the public backing of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, and the sympathy of a number of other leaders.
Addressing a post-summit news conference on November 7, Sarkozy effectively said Adamkus and his supporters misunderstand what they had agreed to on September 1, when an emergency EU summit broke off talks.
"Let me remind you that these negotiations were never suspended -- because [the EU] points the way here -- because if there had been a suspension, there would have had to be a summit decision," Sarkozy said. "Together with [European Commission] President [Jose Manuel] Barroso, we simply postponed the date."
However, the EU said in a summit statement on September 1 that "till troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to August 7, meetings on the negotiation of the Partnership Agreement [with Russia] will be postponed."
As it turns out, "postponement" can be read to mean that EU member states never withdrew their prior underlying consent for the negotiations, leaving it up to the bloc's executive -- the presidency and the European Commission -- to proceed as it sees fit.
Any decision as momentous as this one requires some justification, however. Recognizing this, Sarkozy on November 7 resorted to a fudge -- or something which unkind observers might be inclined to see as an act of diplomatic vandalism.
He said Russia had met all the commitments it had undertaken under EU mediation with respect to Georgia: they implemented a ceasefire, allowed EU observers to deploy, and launched international talks on the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russian Withdrawal
But, most controversially, Sarkozy also said Russia has fully complied with the requirement to withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions, as required by the EU-mediated accords of August 12 and September 8.
"The second commitment -- the retreat of Russian forces to pre-conflict borders before the crisis on August 8. Has this been fulfilled? Yes," Sarkozy said.
Everything hinges on Sarkozy's substitution of the word "borders" for the original -- and correct -- term, "lines." According to Sarkozy's interpretation, Russia was never obliged to remove any troops from the separatist regions.
Georgian claims to areas held by its forces before the conflict within Abkhazia and South Ossetia are thus also without merit.
The impression that Sarkozy's remarks -- appearing as they did as an afterthought in the margins of a summit devoted to an entirely different subject -- are part of a carefully crafted master plan is borne out by reports that behind closed doors, the French leader placated his opponents with a different view.
One official present at the meeting said Sarkozy had assured his EU colleagues he would express the bloc's dissatisfaction with Moscow's insufficient compliance with the bloc's terms when the two sides meet in Nice on November 14.
The French diplomatic offensive was assisted by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said he had warned the Lithuanian and Polish leaders that, if prevented from acting in concert, individual member states would start striking separate deals with Moscow.
Aiming his news conference remarks directly at Warsaw and Vilnius, Barroso said, "You may not like the common EU position entirely, but it is in your own interest to have one rather than three or four different positions."
Both Barroso and Sarkozy represent a school of thought within the EU which holds that keeping lines of communication open with Moscow is crucial for the bloc's broader interests, which range from securing energy provisions to cooperation with Russia in the UN Security Council on issues such as Iran.
Conceding defeat, Lithuania's and Poland's backers in the EU said they would now set their sights on the November 10 meeting of the foreign ministers in a bid to secure a joint statement which makes clear that although the partnership talks will continue, Moscow has not fully met EU conditions.
Fearing intractable divisions, France is resisting the adoption of any EU statement at the meeting.
Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told RFE/RL that he and like-minded leaders within the EU will also strive to get the bloc to acknowledge that pragmatic cooperation, not a fully fledged partnership, is the most it can hold out for Russia.
"We can talk about cooperation with any country in the world. In Russia's case, we're not in a position now, considering its military attack on a sovereign neighbor, to talk about a partnership or the sharing of common values," Ansip said.
Adamkus emerged from the summit insisting that there could be no talk of renewed partnership talks with Russia before it has withdrawn its troops from all of Georgian territory, but he did not elaborate.
Fire on Russian nuclear submarine kills at least 20
At least 20 sailors and shipyard workers have died following a fire on a Russian nuclear-powered submarine which was undergoing sea trials. A further 21 were injured when a fire extinguishing system in the bow of the vessel failed, and they have been ferried ashore by support vessels.
The submarine has been ordered to suspend trials and return immediately to port in Russia's far-eastern Primorye territory.
The name and class of the vessel, and its location when fire broke out, have not been released. But it was assisted by the Russian destroyer Admiral Tributs,which is normally based at Vladivostok, Russia's main Far Eastern naval port on the Sea of Japan.
The fire broke out in the nose of the vessel and its nuclear reactor, situated in the stern, was not affected by the fire, said Russian Pacific Fleet spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo. There were no radiation leaks, he added.
"I declare with full responsibility that the reactor compartment on the nuclear-powered submarine is working normally and the radiation background is normal," he said.Of the 208 people on board when the fire broke out, 81 were servicemen.
The Admiral Tributs took some of the injured back to port.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was last night being kept abreast of developments, and Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Kolmakov and Navy Commander-in- Chief Vladimir Vysotsky were flying to the scene.
Russia's worst submarine disaster was the sinking of the Kursk,which went down in the Barents Sea in August 2000with the deaths of all 118 people aboard. The submarine, which was the most sophisticated nuclear-powered in the Russian fleet, was swept by a fierce fire after one of its torpedoes exploded. Temperatures would have reached 8,000C. Looking at the twisted wreckage which had been raised from the sea bed, Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov described what happened in the affected compartments as "hell".
The submarine was found 108 metres down the day after losing contact with Russia's Northern Fleet Command, and survivors were heard knocking on the hull. Three days later, unofficial reports claimed the knocking had ceased. Ten days after the explosion, Norwegian divers found the hull flooded and the Russian Navy declared the crew dead.
Efforts to rescue survivors would have been futile, Mr Ustinov said. They had died of carbon monoxide poisoning or would have drowned as water seeped into the damaged hull, filling the vessel within hours of the explosion.
Relatives of the dead crewmen protested after Mr Ustinov's two-year inquiry found that no-one was directly to blame for the accident, and claimed the authorities had tried to silence them.
The inquiry ruled that a fuel leak in a faulty torpedo caused the disaster, but that because no-one could have forseen the accident, naval commanders could not be prosecuted for the loss of the ship or the death of its crew.
The submarine has been ordered to suspend trials and return immediately to port in Russia's far-eastern Primorye territory.
The name and class of the vessel, and its location when fire broke out, have not been released. But it was assisted by the Russian destroyer Admiral Tributs,which is normally based at Vladivostok, Russia's main Far Eastern naval port on the Sea of Japan.
The fire broke out in the nose of the vessel and its nuclear reactor, situated in the stern, was not affected by the fire, said Russian Pacific Fleet spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo. There were no radiation leaks, he added.
"I declare with full responsibility that the reactor compartment on the nuclear-powered submarine is working normally and the radiation background is normal," he said.Of the 208 people on board when the fire broke out, 81 were servicemen.
The Admiral Tributs took some of the injured back to port.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was last night being kept abreast of developments, and Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Kolmakov and Navy Commander-in- Chief Vladimir Vysotsky were flying to the scene.
Russia's worst submarine disaster was the sinking of the Kursk,which went down in the Barents Sea in August 2000with the deaths of all 118 people aboard. The submarine, which was the most sophisticated nuclear-powered in the Russian fleet, was swept by a fierce fire after one of its torpedoes exploded. Temperatures would have reached 8,000C. Looking at the twisted wreckage which had been raised from the sea bed, Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov described what happened in the affected compartments as "hell".
The submarine was found 108 metres down the day after losing contact with Russia's Northern Fleet Command, and survivors were heard knocking on the hull. Three days later, unofficial reports claimed the knocking had ceased. Ten days after the explosion, Norwegian divers found the hull flooded and the Russian Navy declared the crew dead.
Efforts to rescue survivors would have been futile, Mr Ustinov said. They had died of carbon monoxide poisoning or would have drowned as water seeped into the damaged hull, filling the vessel within hours of the explosion.
Relatives of the dead crewmen protested after Mr Ustinov's two-year inquiry found that no-one was directly to blame for the accident, and claimed the authorities had tried to silence them.
The inquiry ruled that a fuel leak in a faulty torpedo caused the disaster, but that because no-one could have forseen the accident, naval commanders could not be prosecuted for the loss of the ship or the death of its crew.
zaterdag 8 november 2008
Russian foreign policy
WASHINGTON — To the extent that he focused on Russia at all, Barack Obama’s attention was concentrated primarily on the need to keep Soviet nuclear weapons stockpiles out of the hands of terrorists.
But now, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia has thrown down a gauntlet intended to demonstrate to the American president-elect that the post-cold war era may not be so post after all.
On Wednesday, while leaders around the world were falling over themselves to hail Mr. Obama’s election, Mr. Medvedev delivered a harsh welcome-to-the-new-cold-war speech in Moscow.
He never mentioned Mr. Obama by name, but Mr. Medvedev said he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO territory if the United States pressed ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe, something that Mr. Obama has said he supports.
Mr. Medvedev put Mr. Obama on notice on the Georgia crisis as well, vowing that “we shall not retreat in the Caucasus.”
Even his one-paragraph congratulatory telegram to Mr. Obama was brusque. “I hope for a constructive dialogue with you, based on trust and consideration of each other’s interests,” Mr. Medvedev wrote.
“It was a giant, ‘Hey, welcome to the game,’ ” said George Friedman, chief executive at Stratfor, a geopolitical risk analysis company. “While Obama would like to deal sequentially with Iraq, Afghanistan and, when he gets to it, the Russians, the Russians themselves want to be a burning issue at the top of his list.”
Mr. Obama, for his part, has yet to respond to the Russian chest-thumping, and he probably will not do so until after his inauguration, his advisers said.
“We only have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference on Friday, responding to a question about whether he would soon meet with foes of the United States. “I want to make sure that we are sending the world one message.”
Since winning the election, the Obama team has taken pains not to say anything publicly that could signal Mr. Obama’s thinking on the many major foreign policy issues lined up before him.
The reasons are twofold.
Many of those advisers are privately hoping for positions in his administration, and they do not want to jeopardize their chances by talking freely with reporters.
More significantly, Mr. Obama himself is still making the transition from campaign oratory — and in the case of Russia, very strong campaign oratory — to the more nuanced approach that many advisers say will be necessary for him to navigate what are bound to be contentious relationships.
But some of his comments during the campaign may already have boxed him in.
When Russia invaded Georgia in August, Mr. Obama’s initial response, drafted just before he left for vacation in Hawaii, was nuanced, urging both nations to exercise restraint. His statement was similar to the State Department’s initial, equally nuanced response, which also did not immediately blame Russia.
The Republicans’ presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain, responded with a hard-line approach, saying that Russia had crossed “an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia” and should “unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces.”
When the McCain camp criticized Mr. Obama’s response as too measured, Mr. Obama hardened his position. His next statement accused Russia of encroaching on Georgia’s sovereignty. The next day, he said that Russia bore responsibility for the escalation.
By the time of the presidential debates in the fall, Mr. Obama had moved even closer to Mr. McCain on Russia and Georgia, voicing support for Georgia’s entry into NATO, a line in the sand that Russia had dared the West to cross.
Stephen Sestanovich, who was President Clinton’s ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union from 1997 to 2001, said that Mr. Obama’s election may have caused some disquiet in Russia.
“This is a leadership that is not super-comfortable with grass-roots politics,” Mr. Sestanovich, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations who advised the Obama campaign, said of the Russians. “I had a Russian friend e-mail me right afterwards, a short e-mail, and one of the one-word sentences used was ‘envy.’ So that’s how a real democracy works.”
Mr. Obama has options to distance himself from his hawkish remarks on Russia during the campaign, foreign policy experts said. For one thing, while he can continue to support the idea of Georgia becoming part of NATO, the reality is that for now the Europeans will not go along.
Beyond that, Mr. Obama could try to strike more benign agreements that Russians might find soothing, like pushing again for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization and working with Moscow toward a way out of the missile defense morass. One possibility would be to offer to delay deployment of a missile shield in Poland until an Iranian nuclear threat — which Washington says is its reason for existing — has actually materialized, instead of doing so immediately.
The Bush administration might even lend a hand; it offered several new proposals to the Russians on Friday, including an offer for Russian military officials to inspect the new installations planned in Poland and the Czech Republic for the new missile defense system.
What Mr. Obama will not be able to do, foreign policy experts said, is cede the former Soviet republics and satellites in Eastern Europe back into the orbit of what the Russians like to call their near abroad.
It is a full plate, and all a long way from Mr. Obama’s first dip into Russia policy, when he joined the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee and traveled to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan on a 2005 summer tour with Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican foreign policy statesman.
At the Council of Foreign Relations later, the men described their trip, during which they hiked through nuclear weapons storage sites, picked through piles of mortar rounds and land mines, and toured missile elimination facilities.
Mr. Obama deferred to Mr. Lugar often, according to people who attended the session; it was clear, they said, who was the old foreign policy hand, and who was the junior senator. Shortly after, Mr. Obama joined Mr. Lugar in introducing legislation designed to keep stockpiles of weapons in the former Soviet Union from getting into the hands of terrorists.
Mr. Obama’s focus on “loose nukes,” foreign policy experts say, seems almost quaint today.
But now, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia has thrown down a gauntlet intended to demonstrate to the American president-elect that the post-cold war era may not be so post after all.
On Wednesday, while leaders around the world were falling over themselves to hail Mr. Obama’s election, Mr. Medvedev delivered a harsh welcome-to-the-new-cold-war speech in Moscow.
He never mentioned Mr. Obama by name, but Mr. Medvedev said he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO territory if the United States pressed ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe, something that Mr. Obama has said he supports.
Mr. Medvedev put Mr. Obama on notice on the Georgia crisis as well, vowing that “we shall not retreat in the Caucasus.”
Even his one-paragraph congratulatory telegram to Mr. Obama was brusque. “I hope for a constructive dialogue with you, based on trust and consideration of each other’s interests,” Mr. Medvedev wrote.
“It was a giant, ‘Hey, welcome to the game,’ ” said George Friedman, chief executive at Stratfor, a geopolitical risk analysis company. “While Obama would like to deal sequentially with Iraq, Afghanistan and, when he gets to it, the Russians, the Russians themselves want to be a burning issue at the top of his list.”
Mr. Obama, for his part, has yet to respond to the Russian chest-thumping, and he probably will not do so until after his inauguration, his advisers said.
“We only have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference on Friday, responding to a question about whether he would soon meet with foes of the United States. “I want to make sure that we are sending the world one message.”
Since winning the election, the Obama team has taken pains not to say anything publicly that could signal Mr. Obama’s thinking on the many major foreign policy issues lined up before him.
The reasons are twofold.
Many of those advisers are privately hoping for positions in his administration, and they do not want to jeopardize their chances by talking freely with reporters.
More significantly, Mr. Obama himself is still making the transition from campaign oratory — and in the case of Russia, very strong campaign oratory — to the more nuanced approach that many advisers say will be necessary for him to navigate what are bound to be contentious relationships.
But some of his comments during the campaign may already have boxed him in.
When Russia invaded Georgia in August, Mr. Obama’s initial response, drafted just before he left for vacation in Hawaii, was nuanced, urging both nations to exercise restraint. His statement was similar to the State Department’s initial, equally nuanced response, which also did not immediately blame Russia.
The Republicans’ presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain, responded with a hard-line approach, saying that Russia had crossed “an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia” and should “unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces.”
When the McCain camp criticized Mr. Obama’s response as too measured, Mr. Obama hardened his position. His next statement accused Russia of encroaching on Georgia’s sovereignty. The next day, he said that Russia bore responsibility for the escalation.
By the time of the presidential debates in the fall, Mr. Obama had moved even closer to Mr. McCain on Russia and Georgia, voicing support for Georgia’s entry into NATO, a line in the sand that Russia had dared the West to cross.
Stephen Sestanovich, who was President Clinton’s ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union from 1997 to 2001, said that Mr. Obama’s election may have caused some disquiet in Russia.
“This is a leadership that is not super-comfortable with grass-roots politics,” Mr. Sestanovich, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations who advised the Obama campaign, said of the Russians. “I had a Russian friend e-mail me right afterwards, a short e-mail, and one of the one-word sentences used was ‘envy.’ So that’s how a real democracy works.”
Mr. Obama has options to distance himself from his hawkish remarks on Russia during the campaign, foreign policy experts said. For one thing, while he can continue to support the idea of Georgia becoming part of NATO, the reality is that for now the Europeans will not go along.
Beyond that, Mr. Obama could try to strike more benign agreements that Russians might find soothing, like pushing again for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization and working with Moscow toward a way out of the missile defense morass. One possibility would be to offer to delay deployment of a missile shield in Poland until an Iranian nuclear threat — which Washington says is its reason for existing — has actually materialized, instead of doing so immediately.
The Bush administration might even lend a hand; it offered several new proposals to the Russians on Friday, including an offer for Russian military officials to inspect the new installations planned in Poland and the Czech Republic for the new missile defense system.
What Mr. Obama will not be able to do, foreign policy experts said, is cede the former Soviet republics and satellites in Eastern Europe back into the orbit of what the Russians like to call their near abroad.
It is a full plate, and all a long way from Mr. Obama’s first dip into Russia policy, when he joined the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee and traveled to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan on a 2005 summer tour with Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican foreign policy statesman.
At the Council of Foreign Relations later, the men described their trip, during which they hiked through nuclear weapons storage sites, picked through piles of mortar rounds and land mines, and toured missile elimination facilities.
Mr. Obama deferred to Mr. Lugar often, according to people who attended the session; it was clear, they said, who was the old foreign policy hand, and who was the junior senator. Shortly after, Mr. Obama joined Mr. Lugar in introducing legislation designed to keep stockpiles of weapons in the former Soviet Union from getting into the hands of terrorists.
Mr. Obama’s focus on “loose nukes,” foreign policy experts say, seems almost quaint today.
Split over Russia grows in Europe
BERLIN, Nov. 7 -- Russia sent President-elect Barack Obama a message this week when it threatened to "neutralize" the proposed U.S. missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. But analysts said the tough talk from Moscow had another aim as well: to exploit a festering divide within Europe.
Many Eastern European countries have become increasingly alarmed over what they consider Russia's aggressive attempts to re-create a sphere of influence over satellite states of the former Soviet Union. Such concerns soared after Russia sent troops into Georgia in August, sparking a brief war.
The worries worsened Wednesday when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the Kremlin would move short-range missiles into Kaliningrad, a sliver of Russian territory on the Baltic Sea bordering Poland and Lithuania, if the United States proceeds to base parts of a missile-defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus called the Russian threat "beyond comprehension."
In contrast, Germany, France and other countries in Western Europe play down any security risks posed by Moscow and instead see Russia foremost as a lucrative -- if unpredictable -- trading partner. These countries, which former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once derided as "Old Europe," generally consider the U.S. missile defense project to be an unnecessary irritant.
Peter Struck, a former German defense minister and now parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, one of Germany's two ruling political parties, called Medvedev's speech "understandable" and blamed the Bush administration for provoking Moscow. In a radio interview, he said he hoped Washington would soften its "intransigent position" on the missile shield.
As a protest over the war in Georgia, the European Union withdrew in August from negotiations with Russia over a "strategic partnership" agreement. On Wednesday, just hours before Medvedev gave his speech in Moscow, E.U. officials reversed their position and indicated they would soon resume talks. The shift was led by French and German officials who argued that engagement with Russia was more likely to succeed than isolation.
In Brussels on Friday, during a European summit on the global financial crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy defended the diplomatic approach. He said that he had already raised objections to Medvedev's speech but that fueling public tensions with Russia would be counterproductive. To "raise questions, it's better to see one another and talk," Sarkozy said.
In Eastern Europe, however, some leaders have lobbied for a harder line. In a joint statement this week, the presidents of Poland and Lithuania said negotiations should remain frozen because Russia has not lived up to an E.U.-brokered agreement to defuse the military conflict in Georgia.
"There is a general feeling that the Western allies are too tolerant, especially France," said Oldrich Cerny, director of the Prague Security Studies Institute and a former Czech national security adviser.
The U.S. military says the shield is designed to track and shoot down any ballistic missiles fired at Europe or the United States from a "rogue state," such as Iran.
The system would be built on several legs, with components in the United States, Britain and Greenland. More controversial has been the Pentagon's effort to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
Moscow has objected vehemently to the plan, saying that the system could be converted into an offensive weapon and aimed at Russia someday. U.S. officials say that Russia's fears are groundless and that the shield would be overwhelmed by Russia's enormous stockpile of nuclear and conventional missiles.
The Bush administration has invited Russia to participate in the shield, but talks have fizzled.
Russia has previously threatened military reprisals against Europe for supporting the shield. In August, a Russian general said Poland was "exposing itself to a strike -- 100 percent" if it agreed to host the interceptors. But Medvedev's comments were the first time that the Russian government itself has made a tangible threat to take military action against Europe since the end of the Cold War.
Russia's statements have led to increased support for the shield in Poland. After months of fitful negotiations with Washington, officials in Warsaw signed a preliminary agreement in August to accept the base.
Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said public opinion shifted in favor of the shield after Russian troops moved into the Caucasus.
"Prior to the crisis over Georgia, the public was rather skeptical, and the government hesitated quite a bit," he said in a telephone interview from Warsaw. "The concern is that the rhetoric of Russia may not just be words, but that deeds may follow."
Officials in Prague also signed a preliminary accord this year to join the missile shield. But the Czech and Polish parliaments still need to approve the deal. Passage is particularly uncertain in the Czech Republic, where surveys show that a majority of residents are opposed.
Adding to the uncertainty is the forthcoming change of administrations in Washington. Obama has expressed skepticism about the project. In an interview with Fox News in September, he said the shield was "appropriate," but added, "I want to make sure it works, though."
Polish and Czech officials said they would not seek legislative approval until Obama gave his full support. For the moment, they said they are assuming the project remains on track.
"We haven't so far received any signals that the project may be changing in a negative way for us," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday at a news conference.
Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states belong to NATO, and officials acknowledge that Russia is highly unlikely to invade.
At the same time, each of the countries is dependent on Russian gas and oil, and they fret that Russia might turn off the valves someday as political retribution, just as it did to Ukraine in the winter of 2006.
Germany also relies heavily on Russia for its energy supplies. But rather than pull away, Berlin has tried to strengthen ties with Moscow in recent years and has been reluctant to criticize the Kremlin in public. Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, for instance, heads a consortium of energy companies that reports to the Kremlin and is building a giant pipeline that will connect Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Klaus Segbers, a political science professor at the Free University of Berlin, said Eastern European countries should take a lesson from Germany and tone down their anti-Russian rhetoric. He said that although it may not be easy to deal with the Kremlin, there is no real alternative.
"We cannot get rid of Russia," Segbers said. "You can't put the Russians in a cage. To keep isolating Russia for an unspecified period of time is not something that will bring us any gains."
Many Eastern European countries have become increasingly alarmed over what they consider Russia's aggressive attempts to re-create a sphere of influence over satellite states of the former Soviet Union. Such concerns soared after Russia sent troops into Georgia in August, sparking a brief war.
The worries worsened Wednesday when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the Kremlin would move short-range missiles into Kaliningrad, a sliver of Russian territory on the Baltic Sea bordering Poland and Lithuania, if the United States proceeds to base parts of a missile-defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus called the Russian threat "beyond comprehension."
In contrast, Germany, France and other countries in Western Europe play down any security risks posed by Moscow and instead see Russia foremost as a lucrative -- if unpredictable -- trading partner. These countries, which former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld once derided as "Old Europe," generally consider the U.S. missile defense project to be an unnecessary irritant.
Peter Struck, a former German defense minister and now parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, one of Germany's two ruling political parties, called Medvedev's speech "understandable" and blamed the Bush administration for provoking Moscow. In a radio interview, he said he hoped Washington would soften its "intransigent position" on the missile shield.
As a protest over the war in Georgia, the European Union withdrew in August from negotiations with Russia over a "strategic partnership" agreement. On Wednesday, just hours before Medvedev gave his speech in Moscow, E.U. officials reversed their position and indicated they would soon resume talks. The shift was led by French and German officials who argued that engagement with Russia was more likely to succeed than isolation.
In Brussels on Friday, during a European summit on the global financial crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy defended the diplomatic approach. He said that he had already raised objections to Medvedev's speech but that fueling public tensions with Russia would be counterproductive. To "raise questions, it's better to see one another and talk," Sarkozy said.
In Eastern Europe, however, some leaders have lobbied for a harder line. In a joint statement this week, the presidents of Poland and Lithuania said negotiations should remain frozen because Russia has not lived up to an E.U.-brokered agreement to defuse the military conflict in Georgia.
"There is a general feeling that the Western allies are too tolerant, especially France," said Oldrich Cerny, director of the Prague Security Studies Institute and a former Czech national security adviser.
The U.S. military says the shield is designed to track and shoot down any ballistic missiles fired at Europe or the United States from a "rogue state," such as Iran.
The system would be built on several legs, with components in the United States, Britain and Greenland. More controversial has been the Pentagon's effort to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic.
Moscow has objected vehemently to the plan, saying that the system could be converted into an offensive weapon and aimed at Russia someday. U.S. officials say that Russia's fears are groundless and that the shield would be overwhelmed by Russia's enormous stockpile of nuclear and conventional missiles.
The Bush administration has invited Russia to participate in the shield, but talks have fizzled.
Russia has previously threatened military reprisals against Europe for supporting the shield. In August, a Russian general said Poland was "exposing itself to a strike -- 100 percent" if it agreed to host the interceptors. But Medvedev's comments were the first time that the Russian government itself has made a tangible threat to take military action against Europe since the end of the Cold War.
Russia's statements have led to increased support for the shield in Poland. After months of fitful negotiations with Washington, officials in Warsaw signed a preliminary agreement in August to accept the base.
Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said public opinion shifted in favor of the shield after Russian troops moved into the Caucasus.
"Prior to the crisis over Georgia, the public was rather skeptical, and the government hesitated quite a bit," he said in a telephone interview from Warsaw. "The concern is that the rhetoric of Russia may not just be words, but that deeds may follow."
Officials in Prague also signed a preliminary accord this year to join the missile shield. But the Czech and Polish parliaments still need to approve the deal. Passage is particularly uncertain in the Czech Republic, where surveys show that a majority of residents are opposed.
Adding to the uncertainty is the forthcoming change of administrations in Washington. Obama has expressed skepticism about the project. In an interview with Fox News in September, he said the shield was "appropriate," but added, "I want to make sure it works, though."
Polish and Czech officials said they would not seek legislative approval until Obama gave his full support. For the moment, they said they are assuming the project remains on track.
"We haven't so far received any signals that the project may be changing in a negative way for us," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday at a news conference.
Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states belong to NATO, and officials acknowledge that Russia is highly unlikely to invade.
At the same time, each of the countries is dependent on Russian gas and oil, and they fret that Russia might turn off the valves someday as political retribution, just as it did to Ukraine in the winter of 2006.
Germany also relies heavily on Russia for its energy supplies. But rather than pull away, Berlin has tried to strengthen ties with Moscow in recent years and has been reluctant to criticize the Kremlin in public. Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, for instance, heads a consortium of energy companies that reports to the Kremlin and is building a giant pipeline that will connect Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Klaus Segbers, a political science professor at the Free University of Berlin, said Eastern European countries should take a lesson from Germany and tone down their anti-Russian rhetoric. He said that although it may not be easy to deal with the Kremlin, there is no real alternative.
"We cannot get rid of Russia," Segbers said. "You can't put the Russians in a cage. To keep isolating Russia for an unspecified period of time is not something that will bring us any gains."
Post cold war - not so post
To the extent that he focused on Russia at all, Barack Obama’s attention was concentrated primarily on the need to keep Soviet nuclear weapons stockpiles out of the hands of terrorists.
But now, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia has thrown down a gauntlet intended to demonstrate to the American president-elect that the post-cold war era may not be so post after all.
On Wednesday, while leaders around the world were falling over themselves to hail Mr. Obama’s election, Mr. Medvedev delivered a harsh welcome-to-the-new-cold-war speech in Moscow.
He never mentioned Mr. Obama by name, but Mr. Medvedev said he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO territory if the United States pressed ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe, something that Mr. Obama has said he supports.
Mr. Medvedev put Mr. Obama on notice on the Georgia crisis as well, vowing that “we shall not retreat in the Caucasus.”
Even his one-paragraph congratulatory telegram to Mr. Obama was brusque. “I hope for a constructive dialogue with you, based on trust and consideration of each other’s interests,” Mr. Medvedev wrote.
“It was a giant, ‘Hey, welcome to the game,’ ” said George Friedman, chief executive at Stratfor, a geopolitical risk analysis company. “While Obama would like to deal sequentially with Iraq, Afghanistan and, when he gets to it, the Russians, the Russians themselves want to be a burning issue at the top of his list.”
Mr. Obama, for his part, has yet to respond to the Russian chest-thumping, and he probably will not do so until after his inauguration, his advisers said.
“We only have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference on Friday, responding to a question about whether he would soon meet with foes of the United States. “I want to make sure that we are sending the world one message.”
Since winning the election, the Obama team has taken pains not to say anything publicly that could signal Mr. Obama’s thinking on the many major foreign policy issues lined up before him.
The reasons are twofold.
Many of those advisers are privately hoping for positions in his administration, and they do not want to jeopardize their chances by talking freely with reporters.
More significantly, Mr. Obama himself is still making the transition from campaign oratory — and in the case of Russia, very strong campaign oratory — to the more nuanced approach that many advisers say will be necessary for him to navigate what are bound to be contentious relationships.
But some of his comments during the campaign may already have boxed him in.
When Russia invaded Georgia in August, Mr. Obama’s initial response, drafted just before he left for vacation in Hawaii, was nuanced, urging both nations to exercise restraint. His statement was similar to the State Department’s initial, equally nuanced response, which also did not immediately blame Russia.
The Republicans’ presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain, responded with a hard-line approach, saying that Russia had crossed “an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia” and should “unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces.”
When the McCain camp criticized Mr. Obama’s response as too measured, Mr. Obama hardened his position. His next statement accused Russia of encroaching on Georgia’s sovereignty. The next day, he said that Russia bore responsibility for the escalation.
By the time of the presidential debates in the fall, Mr. Obama had moved even closer to Mr. McCain on Russia and Georgia, voicing support for Georgia’s entry into NATO, a line in the sand that Russia had dared the West to cross.
Stephen Sestanovich, who was President Clinton’s ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union from 1997 to 2001, said that Mr. Obama’s election may have caused some disquiet in Russia.
“This is a leadership that is not super-comfortable with grass-roots politics,” Mr. Sestanovich, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations who advised the Obama campaign, said of the Russians. “I had a Russian friend e-mail me right afterwards, a short e-mail, and one of the one-word sentences used was ‘envy.’ So that’s how a real democracy works.”
Mr. Obama has options to distance himself from his hawkish remarks on Russia during the campaign, foreign policy experts said. For one thing, while he can continue to support the idea of Georgia becoming part of NATO, the reality is that for now the Europeans will not go along.
Beyond that, Mr. Obama could try to strike more benign agreements that Russians might find soothing, like pushing again for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization and working with Moscow toward a way out of the missile defense morass. One possibility would be to offer to delay deployment of a missile shield in Poland until an Iranian nuclear threat — which Washington says is its reason for existing — has actually materialized, instead of doing so immediately.
The Bush administration might even lend a hand; it offered several new proposals to the Russians on Friday, including an offer for Russian military officials to inspect the new installations planned in Poland and the Czech Republic for the new missile defense system.
What Mr. Obama will not be able to do, foreign policy experts said, is cede the former Soviet republics and satellites in Eastern Europe back into the orbit of what the Russians like to call their near abroad.
It is a full plate, and all a long way from Mr. Obama’s first dip into Russia policy, when he joined the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee and traveled to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan on a 2005 summer tour with Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican foreign policy statesman.
At the Council of Foreign Relations later, the men described their trip, during which they hiked through nuclear weapons storage sites, picked through piles of mortar rounds and land mines, and toured missile elimination facilities.
Mr. Obama deferred to Mr. Lugar often, according to people who attended the session; it was clear, they said, who was the old foreign policy hand, and who was the junior senator. Shortly after, Mr. Obama joined Mr. Lugar in introducing legislation designed to keep stockpiles of weapons in the former Soviet Union from getting into the hands of terrorists.
Mr. Obama’s focus on “loose nukes,” foreign policy experts say, seems almost quaint today.
But now, President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia has thrown down a gauntlet intended to demonstrate to the American president-elect that the post-cold war era may not be so post after all.
On Wednesday, while leaders around the world were falling over themselves to hail Mr. Obama’s election, Mr. Medvedev delivered a harsh welcome-to-the-new-cold-war speech in Moscow.
He never mentioned Mr. Obama by name, but Mr. Medvedev said he would deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO territory if the United States pressed ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe, something that Mr. Obama has said he supports.
Mr. Medvedev put Mr. Obama on notice on the Georgia crisis as well, vowing that “we shall not retreat in the Caucasus.”
Even his one-paragraph congratulatory telegram to Mr. Obama was brusque. “I hope for a constructive dialogue with you, based on trust and consideration of each other’s interests,” Mr. Medvedev wrote.
“It was a giant, ‘Hey, welcome to the game,’ ” said George Friedman, chief executive at Stratfor, a geopolitical risk analysis company. “While Obama would like to deal sequentially with Iraq, Afghanistan and, when he gets to it, the Russians, the Russians themselves want to be a burning issue at the top of his list.”
Mr. Obama, for his part, has yet to respond to the Russian chest-thumping, and he probably will not do so until after his inauguration, his advisers said.
“We only have one president at a time,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference on Friday, responding to a question about whether he would soon meet with foes of the United States. “I want to make sure that we are sending the world one message.”
Since winning the election, the Obama team has taken pains not to say anything publicly that could signal Mr. Obama’s thinking on the many major foreign policy issues lined up before him.
The reasons are twofold.
Many of those advisers are privately hoping for positions in his administration, and they do not want to jeopardize their chances by talking freely with reporters.
More significantly, Mr. Obama himself is still making the transition from campaign oratory — and in the case of Russia, very strong campaign oratory — to the more nuanced approach that many advisers say will be necessary for him to navigate what are bound to be contentious relationships.
But some of his comments during the campaign may already have boxed him in.
When Russia invaded Georgia in August, Mr. Obama’s initial response, drafted just before he left for vacation in Hawaii, was nuanced, urging both nations to exercise restraint. His statement was similar to the State Department’s initial, equally nuanced response, which also did not immediately blame Russia.
The Republicans’ presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain, responded with a hard-line approach, saying that Russia had crossed “an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia” and should “unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces.”
When the McCain camp criticized Mr. Obama’s response as too measured, Mr. Obama hardened his position. His next statement accused Russia of encroaching on Georgia’s sovereignty. The next day, he said that Russia bore responsibility for the escalation.
By the time of the presidential debates in the fall, Mr. Obama had moved even closer to Mr. McCain on Russia and Georgia, voicing support for Georgia’s entry into NATO, a line in the sand that Russia had dared the West to cross.
Stephen Sestanovich, who was President Clinton’s ambassador at large for the former Soviet Union from 1997 to 2001, said that Mr. Obama’s election may have caused some disquiet in Russia.
“This is a leadership that is not super-comfortable with grass-roots politics,” Mr. Sestanovich, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations who advised the Obama campaign, said of the Russians. “I had a Russian friend e-mail me right afterwards, a short e-mail, and one of the one-word sentences used was ‘envy.’ So that’s how a real democracy works.”
Mr. Obama has options to distance himself from his hawkish remarks on Russia during the campaign, foreign policy experts said. For one thing, while he can continue to support the idea of Georgia becoming part of NATO, the reality is that for now the Europeans will not go along.
Beyond that, Mr. Obama could try to strike more benign agreements that Russians might find soothing, like pushing again for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization and working with Moscow toward a way out of the missile defense morass. One possibility would be to offer to delay deployment of a missile shield in Poland until an Iranian nuclear threat — which Washington says is its reason for existing — has actually materialized, instead of doing so immediately.
The Bush administration might even lend a hand; it offered several new proposals to the Russians on Friday, including an offer for Russian military officials to inspect the new installations planned in Poland and the Czech Republic for the new missile defense system.
What Mr. Obama will not be able to do, foreign policy experts said, is cede the former Soviet republics and satellites in Eastern Europe back into the orbit of what the Russians like to call their near abroad.
It is a full plate, and all a long way from Mr. Obama’s first dip into Russia policy, when he joined the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee and traveled to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan on a 2005 summer tour with Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the Republican foreign policy statesman.
At the Council of Foreign Relations later, the men described their trip, during which they hiked through nuclear weapons storage sites, picked through piles of mortar rounds and land mines, and toured missile elimination facilities.
Mr. Obama deferred to Mr. Lugar often, according to people who attended the session; it was clear, they said, who was the old foreign policy hand, and who was the junior senator. Shortly after, Mr. Obama joined Mr. Lugar in introducing legislation designed to keep stockpiles of weapons in the former Soviet Union from getting into the hands of terrorists.
Mr. Obama’s focus on “loose nukes,” foreign policy experts say, seems almost quaint today.
vrijdag 7 november 2008
Russia Studies New US Missile Defense Proposal
The United States has presented Russia new plans for a missile defense system in the hopes of mollifying Moscow's objections to the program and salvaging nuclear control accords between the two nations.
Russia's Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday, Nov. 7, it has received the proposal and a spokesman said Moscow was studying it. It will be discussed when the US and Russian defense and foreign ministers meet for their next round of two-plus-two format talks. No date for the talks has been scheduled yet although Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, said they could take place within the next two weeks.
Washington's overture comes after Russia threatened action, should the United States set up components of the missile defense system in eastern Europe. Relations between Moscow and Washington have plummeted during George W. Bush's presidency, especially after the military conflict between Russia and US ally Georgia in August.
On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev lashed out at the United States in a hawkish state-of-the-nation speech and said Moscow would deploy short-range Iskander missiles in its European enclave of Kaliningrad on the border with Poland to "neutralize" the planned US shield.
New access
John Rood, US Under Secretary of State for arms control and international security, said Thursday that the fresh proposal built on previous compromises that would allow the Russian military greater access to elements of the missile shield to be located in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Under the US proposals, Russian officials would be allowed to go to the missile defense sites and "see for themselves that the sites are going to serve the purpose that we envision in the United States," Rood said.
He added the United States has put forth plans to replace a key Cold War-era Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) when it expires in December 2009.
Rood is set to meet his Russian counterpart Ryabkov in Moscow later this month to discuss the proposals.
"We are looking forward to a robust dialogue with the Russians," Rood told Reuters news agency.
Too late?
But at least one US arms control expert has said the Bush administration, which leaves office on Jan. 20, has run out of the time and influence it needs to successfully negotiate with the Russians.
The Russians "will wait and see what the next administration (of President-elect Barack Obama) has to offer," Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told Reuters.
The Bush administration has so far failed to convince Moscow that its missile shield poses no threat to its security. Washington says the defense system is needed to provide protection against "rogue" states, such as Iran.
Obama has said he supports work on a system that protects the US and its allies from missile attacks, but has added that any such system must be "pragmatic and cost-effective." The president-elect has said he will see verifiable reductions in all US and Russian nuclear systems during his administration.
zondag 2 november 2008
Russians deploying in Libya
Libya has offered Russia a naval base in the Mediterranean as the two countries moved to rebuild defence and economic ties.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi reportedly made the offer to Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev during their talks in the Kremlin on Saturday.
Mr. Qadhafi is paying his first visit to Russia since 1985.
Mr. Medvedev described relations with Libya as “comradely” and voiced confidence Mr. Qadhafi’s visit would “give a new impetus” to bilateral ties.
“Russia is returning to strategically important regions of the world,” said First Deputy-Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defence, Yuri Savenko, while commenting on the Russian-Libyan parleys.
Libya sees a Russian naval base in the port of Benghazi as a guarantee of non-aggression from the U.S, said Russian business daily Kommersant.
Russian warships docked in Libya this month before heading for Venezuela to take part in joint naval exercises.
“Russia is interested in getting access to naval bases in the Mediterranean as this would expand the operational reach of our Navy,” said Admiral Ivan Kapitanets, former deputy Navy commander of the former Soviet Union and Russia.
Russia also plans to build a naval base at the Syrian port Tartus in the eastern Mediterranean.
Reports said Libya plans to buy $2-billion worth of Russian air defence systems, fighter jets, tanks and combat helicopters, as well as to upgrade its Soviet-built weapons, which account for 90 per cent of its arsenals.
Russia is doing business with Libya and Syria. One would argue that these countries are not that friendly to the West.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi reportedly made the offer to Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev during their talks in the Kremlin on Saturday.
Mr. Qadhafi is paying his first visit to Russia since 1985.
Mr. Medvedev described relations with Libya as “comradely” and voiced confidence Mr. Qadhafi’s visit would “give a new impetus” to bilateral ties.
“Russia is returning to strategically important regions of the world,” said First Deputy-Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defence, Yuri Savenko, while commenting on the Russian-Libyan parleys.
Libya sees a Russian naval base in the port of Benghazi as a guarantee of non-aggression from the U.S, said Russian business daily Kommersant.
Russian warships docked in Libya this month before heading for Venezuela to take part in joint naval exercises.
“Russia is interested in getting access to naval bases in the Mediterranean as this would expand the operational reach of our Navy,” said Admiral Ivan Kapitanets, former deputy Navy commander of the former Soviet Union and Russia.
Russia also plans to build a naval base at the Syrian port Tartus in the eastern Mediterranean.
Reports said Libya plans to buy $2-billion worth of Russian air defence systems, fighter jets, tanks and combat helicopters, as well as to upgrade its Soviet-built weapons, which account for 90 per cent of its arsenals.
Russia is doing business with Libya and Syria. One would argue that these countries are not that friendly to the West.
zaterdag 1 november 2008
Obama and McCain on Russia
Neither of the two major American presidential candidates has seriously addressed, or even seems fully aware of, what should be our greatest foreign policy concern--Russia's singular capacity to endanger or enhance our national security. Overshadowed by the US disaster in Iraq, Moscow's importance will continue long after that war ends.
Despite its diminished status following the Soviet breakup in 1991, Russia alone possesses weapons that can destroy the United States, a military-industrial complex nearly America's equal in exporting arms, vast quantities of questionably secured nuclear materials sought by terrorists and the planet's largest oil and natural gas reserves. It also remains the world's largest territorial country, pivotally situated in the West and the East, at the crossroads of colliding civilizations, with strategic capabilities from Europe, Iran and other Middle East nations to North Korea, China, India, Afghanistan and even Latin America. All things considered, our national security may depend more on Russia than Russia's does on us.
And yet US-Russian relations are worse today than they have been in twenty years. The relationship includes almost as many serious conflicts as it did during the cold war--among them, Kosovo, Iran, the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, Venezuela, NATO expansion, missile defense, access to oil and the Kremlin's internal politics--and less actual cooperation, particularly in essential matters involving nuclear weapons. Indeed, a growing number of observers on both sides think the relationship is verging on a new cold war, including another arms race.
Even the current cold peace could be more dangerous than its predecessor, for three reasons: First, its front line is not in Berlin or the Third World but on Russia's own borders, where US and NATO military power is increasingly ensconced. Second, lethal dangers inherent in Moscow's impaired controls over its vast stockpiles of materials of mass destruction and thousands of missiles on hair-trigger alert, a legacy of the state's disintegration in the 1990s, exceed any such threats in the past. And third, also unlike before, there is no effective domestic opposition to hawkish policies in Washington or Moscow, only influential proponents and cheerleaders.
How did it come to this?
Less than twenty years ago, in 1989-90, the Soviet Russian and American leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush, completing a process begun by Gorbachev and President Reagan, agreed to end the cold war, with "no winners and no losers," as even Condoleezza Rice once wrote, and begin a new era of "genuine cooperation." In the US policy elite and media, the nearly unanimous answer is that Russian President Vladimir Putin's antidemocratic domestic policies and "neo-imperialism" destroyed that historic opportunity.
You don't have to be a Putin apologist to understand that this is not an adequate explanation. During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised US view of how the cold war ended [see Cohen, "The New American Cold War," July 10, 2006]. In that new triumphalist narrative, America "won" the forty-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan--a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad.
The policy implication of that bipartisan triumphalism, which persists today, has been clear, certainly to Moscow. It meant that the United States had the right to oversee Russia's post-Communist political and economic development, as it tried to do directly in the 1990s, while demanding that Moscow yield to US international interests. It meant Washington could break strategic promises to Moscow, as when the Clinton Administration began NATO's eastward expansion, and disregard extraordinary Kremlin overtures, as when the Bush Administration unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty and granted NATO membership to countries even closer to Russia--despite Putin's crucial assistance to the US war effort in Afghanistan after September 11. It even meant America was entitled to Russia's traditional sphere of security and energy supplies, from the Baltics, Ukraine and Georgia to Central Asia and the Caspian.
Such US behavior was bound to produce a Russian backlash. It came under Putin, but it would have been the reaction of any strong Kremlin leader, regardless of soaring world oil prices. And it can no longer be otherwise. Those US policies--widely viewed in Moscow as an "encirclement" designed to keep Russia weak and to control its resources--have helped revive an assertive Russian nationalism, destroy the once strong pro-American lobby and inspire widespread charges that concessions to Washington are "appeasement," even "capitulationism."
The Kremlin may have overreacted, but the cause and effect threatening a new cold war are clear.
Because the first steps in this direction were taken in Washington, so must be initiatives to reverse it. Three are essential and urgent: a US diplomacy that treats Russia as a sovereign great power with commensurate national interests; an end to NATO expansion before it reaches Ukraine, which would risk something worse than cold war; and a full resumption of negotiations to sharply reduce and fully secure all nuclear stockpiles and to prevent the impending arms race, which requires ending or agreeing on US plans for a missile defense system in Europe. My recent discussions with members of Moscow's policy elite suggest, whether Russia's real leader is its new President Dmitri Medvedev or Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, that there may still be time for such initiatives to elicit Kremlin responses that would enhance rather than further endanger our national security.
American presidential campaigns are supposed to discuss such vital issues, but neither Senator McCain nor Senator Obama has done so. Instead, in varying degrees, both have promised to be "tougher" on the Kremlin than George W. Bush has allegedly been and to continue the encirclement of Russia and the hectoring "democracy promotion" there, which have only undermined US security and Russian democracy since the 1990s.
To be fair, no influential actors in American politics, including the media, have asked the candidates about any of these crucial issues. They should do so now before another chance is lost, in Washington and in Moscow.
Despite its diminished status following the Soviet breakup in 1991, Russia alone possesses weapons that can destroy the United States, a military-industrial complex nearly America's equal in exporting arms, vast quantities of questionably secured nuclear materials sought by terrorists and the planet's largest oil and natural gas reserves. It also remains the world's largest territorial country, pivotally situated in the West and the East, at the crossroads of colliding civilizations, with strategic capabilities from Europe, Iran and other Middle East nations to North Korea, China, India, Afghanistan and even Latin America. All things considered, our national security may depend more on Russia than Russia's does on us.
And yet US-Russian relations are worse today than they have been in twenty years. The relationship includes almost as many serious conflicts as it did during the cold war--among them, Kosovo, Iran, the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, Venezuela, NATO expansion, missile defense, access to oil and the Kremlin's internal politics--and less actual cooperation, particularly in essential matters involving nuclear weapons. Indeed, a growing number of observers on both sides think the relationship is verging on a new cold war, including another arms race.
Even the current cold peace could be more dangerous than its predecessor, for three reasons: First, its front line is not in Berlin or the Third World but on Russia's own borders, where US and NATO military power is increasingly ensconced. Second, lethal dangers inherent in Moscow's impaired controls over its vast stockpiles of materials of mass destruction and thousands of missiles on hair-trigger alert, a legacy of the state's disintegration in the 1990s, exceed any such threats in the past. And third, also unlike before, there is no effective domestic opposition to hawkish policies in Washington or Moscow, only influential proponents and cheerleaders.
How did it come to this?
Less than twenty years ago, in 1989-90, the Soviet Russian and American leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush, completing a process begun by Gorbachev and President Reagan, agreed to end the cold war, with "no winners and no losers," as even Condoleezza Rice once wrote, and begin a new era of "genuine cooperation." In the US policy elite and media, the nearly unanimous answer is that Russian President Vladimir Putin's antidemocratic domestic policies and "neo-imperialism" destroyed that historic opportunity.
You don't have to be a Putin apologist to understand that this is not an adequate explanation. During the last eight years, Putin's foreign policies have been largely a reaction to Washington's winner-take-all approach to Moscow since the early 1990s, which resulted from a revised US view of how the cold war ended [see Cohen, "The New American Cold War," July 10, 2006]. In that new triumphalist narrative, America "won" the forty-year conflict and post-Soviet Russia was a defeated nation analogous to post-World War II Germany and Japan--a nation without full sovereignty at home or autonomous national interests abroad.
The policy implication of that bipartisan triumphalism, which persists today, has been clear, certainly to Moscow. It meant that the United States had the right to oversee Russia's post-Communist political and economic development, as it tried to do directly in the 1990s, while demanding that Moscow yield to US international interests. It meant Washington could break strategic promises to Moscow, as when the Clinton Administration began NATO's eastward expansion, and disregard extraordinary Kremlin overtures, as when the Bush Administration unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty and granted NATO membership to countries even closer to Russia--despite Putin's crucial assistance to the US war effort in Afghanistan after September 11. It even meant America was entitled to Russia's traditional sphere of security and energy supplies, from the Baltics, Ukraine and Georgia to Central Asia and the Caspian.
Such US behavior was bound to produce a Russian backlash. It came under Putin, but it would have been the reaction of any strong Kremlin leader, regardless of soaring world oil prices. And it can no longer be otherwise. Those US policies--widely viewed in Moscow as an "encirclement" designed to keep Russia weak and to control its resources--have helped revive an assertive Russian nationalism, destroy the once strong pro-American lobby and inspire widespread charges that concessions to Washington are "appeasement," even "capitulationism."
The Kremlin may have overreacted, but the cause and effect threatening a new cold war are clear.
Because the first steps in this direction were taken in Washington, so must be initiatives to reverse it. Three are essential and urgent: a US diplomacy that treats Russia as a sovereign great power with commensurate national interests; an end to NATO expansion before it reaches Ukraine, which would risk something worse than cold war; and a full resumption of negotiations to sharply reduce and fully secure all nuclear stockpiles and to prevent the impending arms race, which requires ending or agreeing on US plans for a missile defense system in Europe. My recent discussions with members of Moscow's policy elite suggest, whether Russia's real leader is its new President Dmitri Medvedev or Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, that there may still be time for such initiatives to elicit Kremlin responses that would enhance rather than further endanger our national security.
American presidential campaigns are supposed to discuss such vital issues, but neither Senator McCain nor Senator Obama has done so. Instead, in varying degrees, both have promised to be "tougher" on the Kremlin than George W. Bush has allegedly been and to continue the encirclement of Russia and the hectoring "democracy promotion" there, which have only undermined US security and Russian democracy since the 1990s.
To be fair, no influential actors in American politics, including the media, have asked the candidates about any of these crucial issues. They should do so now before another chance is lost, in Washington and in Moscow.
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