Here on Russia's eastern edge, seven time zones from Moscow, a huge project is beginning to take shape.
Two miles worth of steel and cable will connect the mainland to a small island where there is not much besides a few thousand residents, some age-old ice fishing grounds and patches of locally prized curative herbs.
The comparison, of course, is hard to shake: the Kremlin is building its very own Bridge to Nowhere. And not even the financial crisis is putting a stop to it.
The government plans to spend well over $1 billion on the span, which is to be one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, and at least $6 billion on related projects in this thinly populated region, near China and North Korea.
The projects are supposed to spruce up Vladivostok to serve as the host for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in 2012, and come on top of another $6 billion that the government is allocating for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the southern resort city of Sochi.
The costs for both ventures are likely to soar because of inadequate planning and widespread corruption in Russia, officials acknowledged.
The government is pouring money into the Vladivostok and Sochi events despite acute pressure on the federal budget from the financial crisis and rising concerns about the overall neglect of infrastructure in Russia. Poor quality roads, ports, power plants and other facilities have long been a drag on the Russian economy, as any multinational company that tries to do business in the country can attest. The spending looms large because the government has sharply cut the rest of the infrastructure budget in response to the financial crisis. As a result, the work in Vladivostok and Sochi is drawing criticism that the Kremlin is focusing on trophy projects that might burnish national pride, but will not yield long-term economic benefits.
"Obviously, this spending on Vladivostok and Sochi doesn't make any sense," said Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist for Russia at Nomura International, a securities firm.
"If Russia wants to diversify from the oil and gas sector, the only way to create sustainable growth is to create real infrastructure - such as, for example, doing badly needed repairs to Russia's transport systems, including the dilapidated railway network, and spending on ports and the electricity grid." Before the financial crisis, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin proposed a $1 trillion program to modernize infrastructure, but those plans have been largely shelved, officials said, in favor of spending on social and employment programs, which are aimed at helping to soothe tensions in distressed parts of the country.
Financial analysts estimated that Russia spent roughly $42 billion for infrastructure in 2008, about 13 percent of government spending. This year and next, however, that figure is expected to drop to 5 to 7 percent, they said, and that includes the outlays for Vladivostok and Sochi. The Kremlin is eager to use the Vladivostok meeting in 2012 to demonstrate that Russia is as much an Asian power as a European one.
Yet it seems highly unlikely that the region could turn into an economic engine in the near future. It is thousands of miles from Russia's political and business core, and has less than 5 percent of the country's population. The region's manufacturing and maritime industries have been in steep decline since the Soviet Union's fall, while the area's population has plunged by 25 percent, to six million people from eight million. Still, the government hopes to impress participants at the 2012 summit meeting by holding meetings on Russki Island off the coast of Vladivostok. It is currently reachable only by ferry.
In Soviet times, Vladivostok was closed to foreigners because it was deemed a strategic port, and the island was a secret military facility. Officials intend to build a conference center, hotels and a university campus there.
Already worried about costs, they recently canceled plans for a medical center and a theater for opera and ballet in the city. The government is also renovating Vladivostok's airport, and erecting a smaller bridge between two sections of the city to ease bottlenecks. Improvements will be made to water treatment and other facilities. Yevgeny V. Khokholkov, a vice governor of the region, said federal investment was desperately needed to stem the flow of people abandoning the Far East for the European part of Russia.
Mr. Khokholkov said the bridge to Russki Island and related projects would symbolize the country's commitment to Asia. "The center of development in the world economy is shifting here," he said. "So it is important for Russia to develop this territory as much as we can." Residents of Vladivostok have long complained about neglect from Moscow, but even some supporters of an increased federal role here question the wisdom of the summit meeting master plan. "Without a doubt, it will do some good things for our city," said Alan V. Gutnov, an analyst at the Far Eastern Marine Research, Design and Technology Institute. "But personally, I believe that all that money could be spent more effectively if invested in the economy of the Far East. These projects won't create many jobs in the future." On a visit to Russki Island in February, residents expressed ambivalence about the 2012 meeting, saying that they realized that the region was suffering economically, but that they worried that the projects would destroy the environment. Standing on the deck of a ferry as it chugged through a channel in the ice, Natalya A. Andreyeva, 51, an emergency room doctor, said the island should be turned into a national park. "Visitors seriously pollute the island," Dr. Andreyeva said. "Boatfuls arrive, and after that I personally myself will go and clean the beaches. It's terrible what happens. Why is it worth spending those billions? Good ferries and boats would be enough." As the ferry approached Russki, the landscape changed.
All over the ice, heavily bundled people sat on chairs, holding small fishing rods above small holes in the surface. Some had been there many hours, as if there were no better pastime than staring into the horizon, bracing against the wind and hoping that a fish takes a bite. Among them was Yuri T. Minayenko, 78, a retired driver who moved to Russki Island from Ukraine after the fall of Communism, looking to spend his final years here. "I love the quiet," he said. "If they construct that, there will be more people, more problems, more cars, more commotion and everything else. I don't want that. As an old man, I want silence. That's all."
zondag 26 april 2009
Russki Island bridge
On the western edge of Russia, not far from the city of Vladivostok, the government is building a huge new bridge to a small island. The bridge to Russki Island is intended to be ready for the 2012 Asian-Pacific Economic Summit and will be one of the world’s longest suspension bridges. The only way to get to the island now is by ferry boat.
The new bridge will cost over US$1 billion, according to sources. Additionally, the government plans to spend an additional $6 billion on projects meant to make the area more attractive for the summit meeting. This is on top of the plans to spend at least $6 billion for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, on the Black Sea coast.
The island was formerly home to a military facility and now has a few thousand residents. Officials intend to construct several new facilities on the island and the Vladivostok area, including a conference center, hotels and a new university campus. Also in the works are renovations to the airport, an additional bridge between two sections of the city and improvements to the water treatment facilities. Currently, there are some 6 million residents of the city and surrounding area.
The new bridge will cost over US$1 billion, according to sources. Additionally, the government plans to spend an additional $6 billion on projects meant to make the area more attractive for the summit meeting. This is on top of the plans to spend at least $6 billion for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, on the Black Sea coast.
The island was formerly home to a military facility and now has a few thousand residents. Officials intend to construct several new facilities on the island and the Vladivostok area, including a conference center, hotels and a new university campus. Also in the works are renovations to the airport, an additional bridge between two sections of the city and improvements to the water treatment facilities. Currently, there are some 6 million residents of the city and surrounding area.
Lavrov to appeal to North Korea
Russia's foreign minister has arrived in North Korea, where he is expected to urge the leadership to return to talks on its nuclear disarmament.
The two-day trip by Sergei Lavrov is the first high-level visit since North Korea expelled international monitors from its nuclear facilities.
Pyongyang also vowed to restart its nuclear programme after UN criticism of its recent long-range missile launch.
It is not clear if Mr Lavrov will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Mr Lavrov is expected to focus on trying to persuade Pyongyang to return to six-nation negotiations - which include North and South Korea, China, Russia, the US and Japan.
The Russian foreign minister may deliver a letter from President Dmitri Medvedev to the North Korean leader, according to media reports from Seoul and Moscow.
Monitors expelled
The visit comes at a time of heightened regional tensions due to the North's controversial rocket launch on 5 April, which was widely seen by its neighbours as a disguised missile test.
North Korea says the rocket was carrying a communications satellite.
Following criticism by the UN Security Council, Pyongyang announced it was quitting international disarmament talks and restarting its nuclear programme.
It has expelled US and UN nuclear monitors.
Russia and China have both already urged North Korea to reconsider its decision.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul says that based on its Soviet past, Moscow still has some influence in Pyongyang, but there are limits.
Even North Korea's closest ally, China, was unable to prevent North Korea's 2006 atomic test, or this month's rocket launch.
The six-party talks have stalled in recent months since a landmark deal under which the North agreed to end its nuclear ambitions in return for aid and political incentives.
Last year North Korea partially disabled its Yongbyon reactor and handed over what it said was a complete declaration of its nuclear activities.
In return, the US removed North Korea from the list of countries it says sponsors terrorism.
But talks have broken down, with Washington and Pyongyang accusing each other of failing to meet obligations.
The two-day trip by Sergei Lavrov is the first high-level visit since North Korea expelled international monitors from its nuclear facilities.
Pyongyang also vowed to restart its nuclear programme after UN criticism of its recent long-range missile launch.
It is not clear if Mr Lavrov will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Mr Lavrov is expected to focus on trying to persuade Pyongyang to return to six-nation negotiations - which include North and South Korea, China, Russia, the US and Japan.
The Russian foreign minister may deliver a letter from President Dmitri Medvedev to the North Korean leader, according to media reports from Seoul and Moscow.
Monitors expelled
The visit comes at a time of heightened regional tensions due to the North's controversial rocket launch on 5 April, which was widely seen by its neighbours as a disguised missile test.
North Korea says the rocket was carrying a communications satellite.
Following criticism by the UN Security Council, Pyongyang announced it was quitting international disarmament talks and restarting its nuclear programme.
It has expelled US and UN nuclear monitors.
Russia and China have both already urged North Korea to reconsider its decision.
The BBC's John Sudworth in Seoul says that based on its Soviet past, Moscow still has some influence in Pyongyang, but there are limits.
Even North Korea's closest ally, China, was unable to prevent North Korea's 2006 atomic test, or this month's rocket launch.
The six-party talks have stalled in recent months since a landmark deal under which the North agreed to end its nuclear ambitions in return for aid and political incentives.
Last year North Korea partially disabled its Yongbyon reactor and handed over what it said was a complete declaration of its nuclear activities.
In return, the US removed North Korea from the list of countries it says sponsors terrorism.
But talks have broken down, with Washington and Pyongyang accusing each other of failing to meet obligations.
donderdag 16 april 2009
Russia needs more political competition
Russia needs stronger political competition and a greater freedom to protest, President Dmitry Medvedev said in remarks released Thursday, sending the strongest signal yet that he may rethink the legacy of predecessor Vladimir Putin.
Medvedev, who has positioned himself as a cautious liberal during his first year in power, has until now followed the path blazed by Putin, who methodically rolled back Russia's post-Soviet freedoms during his presidency.
Medvedev's statements at a meeting Wednesday with civil society activists contained some of his most explicit criticism of Putin's policies to date. The remarks were released on the Kremlin's Web site Thursday.
Medvedev specifically criticized the 2006 law that toughened registration and accounting rules for human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations, hampering their operations.
"A significant number of officials, which I think is quite dangerous, have got a sense that non-governmental organizations are enemies of the state which must be confronted to prevent some disease from seeping through and undermining the foundations of our order," Medvedev said.
Medvedev added that the purpose of the law was not to interfere with the operations of the groups. But his remarks contrasted sharply with statements from Putin who said tightened regulation was necessary to make sure that NGOs weren't controlled by what he called puppeteers from abroad.
The 2006 law requires organizations to file highly detailed reports about activities for the previous year, such as a precise accounting of all meetings held by NGO officials, and detailed information on how they are financed.
Passage of the law reflected the Kremlin's fears of what it saw as Western encouragement of anti-government protests in other ex-Soviet nations, including Georgia and Ukraine.
Medvedev said that NGOs face undue restrictions and added that changes in the law are "possible, and even essential."
He added that the country needs more freedom.
"There must a political competition, it's irreplaceable," he said.
Responding to rights activists' complaints about official refusals to sanction opposition protests, Medvedev agreed that authorities' actions defied the law.
"Authorities obviously don't want to sanction such actions, it's understandable," he said. "But in any case such decisions aren't based on law."
He agreed with one person at the conference, who suggested that Moscow needed its own Speaker's Corner, like the one in London's Hyde Park, and added that it should not be put in a distant location.
"It mustn't be an empty spot near garages or near some industrial zone," he said.
Moscow authorities have continuously rejected appeals from opposition groups to hold their rallies in central areas and offered alternative spots away from downtown.
Medvedev, who has positioned himself as a cautious liberal during his first year in power, has until now followed the path blazed by Putin, who methodically rolled back Russia's post-Soviet freedoms during his presidency.
Medvedev's statements at a meeting Wednesday with civil society activists contained some of his most explicit criticism of Putin's policies to date. The remarks were released on the Kremlin's Web site Thursday.
Medvedev specifically criticized the 2006 law that toughened registration and accounting rules for human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations, hampering their operations.
"A significant number of officials, which I think is quite dangerous, have got a sense that non-governmental organizations are enemies of the state which must be confronted to prevent some disease from seeping through and undermining the foundations of our order," Medvedev said.
Medvedev added that the purpose of the law was not to interfere with the operations of the groups. But his remarks contrasted sharply with statements from Putin who said tightened regulation was necessary to make sure that NGOs weren't controlled by what he called puppeteers from abroad.
The 2006 law requires organizations to file highly detailed reports about activities for the previous year, such as a precise accounting of all meetings held by NGO officials, and detailed information on how they are financed.
Passage of the law reflected the Kremlin's fears of what it saw as Western encouragement of anti-government protests in other ex-Soviet nations, including Georgia and Ukraine.
Medvedev said that NGOs face undue restrictions and added that changes in the law are "possible, and even essential."
He added that the country needs more freedom.
"There must a political competition, it's irreplaceable," he said.
Responding to rights activists' complaints about official refusals to sanction opposition protests, Medvedev agreed that authorities' actions defied the law.
"Authorities obviously don't want to sanction such actions, it's understandable," he said. "But in any case such decisions aren't based on law."
He agreed with one person at the conference, who suggested that Moscow needed its own Speaker's Corner, like the one in London's Hyde Park, and added that it should not be put in a distant location.
"It mustn't be an empty spot near garages or near some industrial zone," he said.
Moscow authorities have continuously rejected appeals from opposition groups to hold their rallies in central areas and offered alternative spots away from downtown.
vrijdag 10 april 2009
Yet a new gas conflict
Russia-Turkmen gas conflict looms: report
MOSCOW (AFP) — A blast on the main gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Russia reflects rising tensions between the two countries and could signal a Ukraine-style "gas war," a Russian newspaper said.
The Kommersant broadsheet pointed to growing problems between Russia and its ex-Soviet gas partner ahead of Thursday's explosion on the main gas export pipeline from the Caspian Sea state to Russia.
Russia generally sources Turkmen gas in order to boost its own reserves and help meet European demand.
"Russia could start a new gas war, but this time on the southeastern front," Kommersant said. "Russia has decided to use the same weapon as in the gas war with Ukraine," the paper added, referring to a dispute with Kiev in January.
The blast was the result of a decision by Russian gas giant Gazprom to sharply cut gas purchases from Turkmenistan -- leading to strain on the Turkmen section of the pipeline.
Kommersant said the cut amounted to 90 percent. The controversy came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in the Turkmen capital for a regional foreign ministers' meeting.
Whereas Russia in the New Year cut off supplies to Ukraine, a gas war with Turkmenistan would follow the reverse pattern with Moscow drastically scaling down its imports of Turkmen gas.
There is commercial logic to reducing the purchases as demand drops in Europe, particularly from crisis-hit Ukraine, and Kommersant said that Gazprom stood to profit from selling its own reserves.
The Vedomosti newspaper, in an article headlined "The Welcome Accident", said that Gazprom would be easily able to compensate customers with its own supplies.
"Russia is not receiving Turkmen gas because of the pipeline explosion. But that could even be advantageous for Gazprom whose production has fallen in line with demand," it said
Gas demand in Europe has fallen sharply due to the economic slowdown and as a consequence gas reservoirs are full.
Gazprom's deputy chief executive, Valery Golubev, said on Thursday that the crisis will force Gazprom to maintain a 10 percent cut in output over the next 4-5 years from its peak last year.
He said that output would reach only 492 billion cubic metres this year compared with 549.7 billion cubic metres in 2008.
But Turkmenistan had angered Russia since a notably unproductive visit by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to Moscow last month that the Kremlin hoped would strengthen its grip on Turkmen energy, the paper said.
MOSCOW (AFP) — A blast on the main gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Russia reflects rising tensions between the two countries and could signal a Ukraine-style "gas war," a Russian newspaper said.
The Kommersant broadsheet pointed to growing problems between Russia and its ex-Soviet gas partner ahead of Thursday's explosion on the main gas export pipeline from the Caspian Sea state to Russia.
Russia generally sources Turkmen gas in order to boost its own reserves and help meet European demand.
"Russia could start a new gas war, but this time on the southeastern front," Kommersant said. "Russia has decided to use the same weapon as in the gas war with Ukraine," the paper added, referring to a dispute with Kiev in January.
The blast was the result of a decision by Russian gas giant Gazprom to sharply cut gas purchases from Turkmenistan -- leading to strain on the Turkmen section of the pipeline.
Kommersant said the cut amounted to 90 percent. The controversy came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in the Turkmen capital for a regional foreign ministers' meeting.
Whereas Russia in the New Year cut off supplies to Ukraine, a gas war with Turkmenistan would follow the reverse pattern with Moscow drastically scaling down its imports of Turkmen gas.
There is commercial logic to reducing the purchases as demand drops in Europe, particularly from crisis-hit Ukraine, and Kommersant said that Gazprom stood to profit from selling its own reserves.
The Vedomosti newspaper, in an article headlined "The Welcome Accident", said that Gazprom would be easily able to compensate customers with its own supplies.
"Russia is not receiving Turkmen gas because of the pipeline explosion. But that could even be advantageous for Gazprom whose production has fallen in line with demand," it said
Gas demand in Europe has fallen sharply due to the economic slowdown and as a consequence gas reservoirs are full.
Gazprom's deputy chief executive, Valery Golubev, said on Thursday that the crisis will force Gazprom to maintain a 10 percent cut in output over the next 4-5 years from its peak last year.
He said that output would reach only 492 billion cubic metres this year compared with 549.7 billion cubic metres in 2008.
But Turkmenistan had angered Russia since a notably unproductive visit by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to Moscow last month that the Kremlin hoped would strengthen its grip on Turkmen energy, the paper said.
dinsdag 7 april 2009
Dubai vs Russia
Authorities in Dubai said Sunday that they believed the murder of Sulim B. Yamadayev, a former Chechen general, had been planned by a member of Russia’s lower house of Parliament who is a well-known ally of the Chechen president.
Adam S. Delimkhanov
At a news conference, Dubai’s chief of police, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, said that he would ask Interpol to arrest the member of Parliament, Adam S. Delimkhanov, and that it was “Russia’s responsibility in front of the world to control these killers from Chechnya.”
General Tamim’s allegation was striking because Mr. Delimkhanov is so close to Ramzan A. Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed president. Mr. Yamadayev, who was shot in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, on March 31, was the latest in a series of Chechen figures to be killed after challenging Mr. Kadyrov.
Though the recent murders of Chechen dissidents have attracted wide attention, investigators had identified only low-level suspects — until Sunday, said Grigory Shvedov, the editor of the Web-based news service Caucasian Knot.
“Those were people no one knew,” Mr. Shvedov said of the suspects. “Today, we are talking about a person who is very well known, with a key position in the regional government and a very high position on the federal level.”
A person in the Russian prosecutor general’s office told the Interfax news agency that Mr. Delimkhanov could not be extradited under Russian law, but that prosecutors would consider pressing charges if they saw convincing evidence.
Mr. Delimkhanov vigorously denied the accusation, saying it was “a provocation and an attempt to destabilize conditions in the Chechen Republic.”
“I am a politician who has dedicated most of my life to the war against terrorism, and even in this case I am ready to help any justice system, among them Dubai’s,” Mr. Delimkhanov said in a statement released by his spokesman.
He also criticized the United Arab Emirates for giving an entry visa to Mr. Yamadayev, “a criminal who ran from the judicial system in his own country.”
“As regards the dead man, he had enemies all around the world,” the statement said.
Authorities in Dubai released new details about the murder.
General Tamim said the killer had surprised Mr. Yamadayev outside the Jumeirah Beach apartment complex and shot him in the head, then threw away the weapon not far from the crime scene. He said the weapon resembled guns carried by Mr. Delimkhanov’s bodyguards, and that a witness in police custody had said the weapon was given to assassins hired to kill Mr. Yamadayev.
The general was scathing about the spillover of violence outside Russia’s borders.
“Russia must take a strong and powerful step to stop this, to make sure that Chechen dirty payback doesn’t spread outside,” General Tamim said. “We will give Russian authorities the case file. It is up to Russia whether or not to hand” Mr. Delimkhanov to authorities in Dubai, he said.
The police arrested two suspects, an Iranian and a Tajik, shortly after the murder, and four other suspects were in Russia, General Tamim said.
Mr. Delimkhanov, 39, rose under Mr. Kadyrov to become a top Chechen official. After heading the police division that protected Chechen oil facilities, he was appointed deputy prime minister overseeing security forces in 2006. The next year he was appointed to the Russian Parliament as a representative of United Russia, the party headed by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. A spokesman for Mr. Delimkhanov described him as “a friend” of the Chechen president.
His name arose in written legal complaints by a Chechen exile, Umar S. Israilov, who was shot to death in Vienna in January. Mr. Israilov described a scene in which Mr. Delimkhanov beat him with a shovel handle in Mr. Kadyrov’s presence. Mr. Delimkhanov declined requests for comment on the allegation.
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow, and an employee of The New York Times from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Adam S. Delimkhanov
At a news conference, Dubai’s chief of police, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, said that he would ask Interpol to arrest the member of Parliament, Adam S. Delimkhanov, and that it was “Russia’s responsibility in front of the world to control these killers from Chechnya.”
General Tamim’s allegation was striking because Mr. Delimkhanov is so close to Ramzan A. Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed president. Mr. Yamadayev, who was shot in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, on March 31, was the latest in a series of Chechen figures to be killed after challenging Mr. Kadyrov.
Though the recent murders of Chechen dissidents have attracted wide attention, investigators had identified only low-level suspects — until Sunday, said Grigory Shvedov, the editor of the Web-based news service Caucasian Knot.
“Those were people no one knew,” Mr. Shvedov said of the suspects. “Today, we are talking about a person who is very well known, with a key position in the regional government and a very high position on the federal level.”
A person in the Russian prosecutor general’s office told the Interfax news agency that Mr. Delimkhanov could not be extradited under Russian law, but that prosecutors would consider pressing charges if they saw convincing evidence.
Mr. Delimkhanov vigorously denied the accusation, saying it was “a provocation and an attempt to destabilize conditions in the Chechen Republic.”
“I am a politician who has dedicated most of my life to the war against terrorism, and even in this case I am ready to help any justice system, among them Dubai’s,” Mr. Delimkhanov said in a statement released by his spokesman.
He also criticized the United Arab Emirates for giving an entry visa to Mr. Yamadayev, “a criminal who ran from the judicial system in his own country.”
“As regards the dead man, he had enemies all around the world,” the statement said.
Authorities in Dubai released new details about the murder.
General Tamim said the killer had surprised Mr. Yamadayev outside the Jumeirah Beach apartment complex and shot him in the head, then threw away the weapon not far from the crime scene. He said the weapon resembled guns carried by Mr. Delimkhanov’s bodyguards, and that a witness in police custody had said the weapon was given to assassins hired to kill Mr. Yamadayev.
The general was scathing about the spillover of violence outside Russia’s borders.
“Russia must take a strong and powerful step to stop this, to make sure that Chechen dirty payback doesn’t spread outside,” General Tamim said. “We will give Russian authorities the case file. It is up to Russia whether or not to hand” Mr. Delimkhanov to authorities in Dubai, he said.
The police arrested two suspects, an Iranian and a Tajik, shortly after the murder, and four other suspects were in Russia, General Tamim said.
Mr. Delimkhanov, 39, rose under Mr. Kadyrov to become a top Chechen official. After heading the police division that protected Chechen oil facilities, he was appointed deputy prime minister overseeing security forces in 2006. The next year he was appointed to the Russian Parliament as a representative of United Russia, the party headed by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin. A spokesman for Mr. Delimkhanov described him as “a friend” of the Chechen president.
His name arose in written legal complaints by a Chechen exile, Umar S. Israilov, who was shot to death in Vienna in January. Mr. Israilov described a scene in which Mr. Delimkhanov beat him with a shovel handle in Mr. Kadyrov’s presence. Mr. Delimkhanov declined requests for comment on the allegation.
Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from Moscow, and an employee of The New York Times from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The enemies of Kadyrov are not safe
The enemies of the Chechen president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, keep turning up dead.
In September, it was Ruslan B. Yamadayev, shot while his car was stuck in Moscow traffic. In January, a former Kadyrov bodyguard named Umar S. Israilov was shot in Vienna when he stepped out to buy yogurt. Then, last week, Sulim B. Yamadayev — a brother of Ruslan’s — was shot in the parking garage of his apartment complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
This time, though, something unusual happened: Dubai’s police chief called a news conference and publicly excoriated Russian authorities for allowing the violence to continue.
The chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, said investigators had traced the killing to one of Mr. Kadyrov’s closest associates, Adam S. Delimkhanov. Mr. Delimkhanov denied any involvement.
The allegations pose a problem for leaders in the Kremlin, who installed Mr. Kadyrov as president of Chechnya and have relied on him to stamp out an insurgency that threatened to wrest the republic from Moscow’s control.
While prime minister and now president, Mr. Kadyrov has virtually eliminated the insurgency; human rights organizations and journalists have documented his regime’s use of brutal tactics, among them abduction and torture.
Authorities in Moscow apparently put few restraints on Mr. Kadyrov. And on Monday, as the accusations against Mr. Delimkhanov made headlines, observers wondered whether Russian leaders were willing, or able, to do so.
“They need him,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian crime at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. “They’ve actually created a kind of Frankenstein’s monster. In the name of fighting Chechen nationalism, they’ve basically created an autonomous Chechen state.”
Sulim Yamadayev, the man killed in Dubai, was once a powerful Chechen military commander and had posed an increasing threat to Mr. Kadyrov.
After a clash between his troops and Mr. Kadyrov’s guards last year, federal authorities stripped him of his command and he left Russia for Dubai in December. Mr. Kadyrov’s government has denied responsibility for that clash.
Russian federal authorities have made no comment on the Dubai case. Because Mr. Delimkhanov was elected last year to Parliament, he has immunity from prosecution, and Russian law does not allow its citizens to be extradited.
An official in the general prosecutor’s office said Sunday that Russia would prosecute him if Dubai police provided convincing evidence.
On Monday, Mr. Kadyrov issued an angry defense of Mr. Delimkhanov.
“I must say that Adam Delimkhanov is my close associate, a friend, a brother or even my right hand,” Mr. Kadyrov said in a statement. “I take any statements concerning him personally. We will take all measures provided by Russian and international laws to hold responsible those who make slandering insinuations.”
In comments to reporters in Grozny on Monday, Mr. Kadyrov said that Sulim Yamadayev had repeatedly tried to assassinate him, at one point by poisoning a lake.
He also said there was “objective evidence” that implicated Mr. Yamadayev in a 2004 bombing that killed his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was then the president of Chechnya.
“We did all that we could to bring Sulim Yamadayev, who was involved in a series of killings, kidnappings and other severe crimes, to trial in Russia,” Mr. Kadyrov said, according to the news agency Interfax.
The scandal comes at a difficult moment for Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, who has vowed to make rule of law the foundation of his presidency. It also coincides with a much-discussed “reset” of relations between Russia and the United States, as Western leaders set aside, at least for the moment, criticism of human rights abuses in Russia.
Sergei Markedonov, head of the interethnic relations department at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow, said that he was not convinced that Mr. Kadyrov had ordered the murder, but that the case had already raised “a lot of unpleasant questions for Russia as a whole and for Medvedev.”
“Why was Ruslan Yamadayev killed, and then Sulim Yamadayev?” Mr. Markedonov asked. “Why is there no opposition to Kadyrov? What is this regime that Moscow supports? And to what extent is Moscow able to influence it?”
Hints of a shift in the relationship came after Sulim Yamadayev died on March 31. That day, the Kremlin had seemed prepared to grant Mr. Kadyrov’s longstanding request to withdraw thousands of federal troops from Chechnya. The act would remove shipping and transportation restrictions imposed as part of a counterterrorist operation when the second Chechen war began nearly a decade ago.
Less than a week later, however, as news of Mr. Yamadayev’s death began to circulate, Russia’s National Antiterrorist Committee announced that the restrictions and troops would remain in place, citing a continuing danger of violence in the region. Officials said the murder had nothing to do with the committee’s decision.
“It does appear that at this point in time the Kremlin does want to keep some control over Kadyrov and his team,” said Tatyana Lokshina, a Chechnya expert with Human Rights Watch in Moscow. “Ending the counterterrorist operation, getting multitudes of troops out and removing all the restrictions would give Kadyrov even more freedom — and he certainly does have enough.”
But in recent years, she added, Moscow has made little attempt to interfere with Mr. Kadyrov’s tactics, “as long as he kept the insurgency suppressed.”
With Kremlin backing, Mr. Kadyrov has accomplished in just a few years what few independent experts thought would be possible in decades. He has winnowed the insurgency by killing off most of the rebel leaders and granting amnesty to militants in exchange for loyalty. Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, has been largely rebuilt. Cafes and restaurants are bustling, electricity is more or less regular and people stroll along newly built avenues.
“They built up Kadyrov, and from their point of view, he’s doing what he is supposed to be doing,” Mr. Galeotti, of N.Y.U., said. “Considering the rise of chaos in the rest of the North Caucasus, the irony is that Chechnya is a haven of peace.”
International attention has drifted away from Chechnya since then. Mr. Markedonov, a specialist in the north Caucasus, said he had not heard the republic discussed so avidly in the international news media for years.
He compared the Yamadayev case to the furor that resulted in 2007 when British authorities pressed Russia to extradite Andrei K. Lugovoi, a former K.G.B. agent, in the killing of a former spy, Alexander V. Litvinenko, who died in London after ingesting polonium 210, a rare and toxic radioactive isotope.
“Already, in our media,” Mr. Markedonov said, “they have started to call it ‘Litvinenko 2’ or ‘Lugovoi 2.’ ”
In September, it was Ruslan B. Yamadayev, shot while his car was stuck in Moscow traffic. In January, a former Kadyrov bodyguard named Umar S. Israilov was shot in Vienna when he stepped out to buy yogurt. Then, last week, Sulim B. Yamadayev — a brother of Ruslan’s — was shot in the parking garage of his apartment complex in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
This time, though, something unusual happened: Dubai’s police chief called a news conference and publicly excoriated Russian authorities for allowing the violence to continue.
The chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, said investigators had traced the killing to one of Mr. Kadyrov’s closest associates, Adam S. Delimkhanov. Mr. Delimkhanov denied any involvement.
The allegations pose a problem for leaders in the Kremlin, who installed Mr. Kadyrov as president of Chechnya and have relied on him to stamp out an insurgency that threatened to wrest the republic from Moscow’s control.
While prime minister and now president, Mr. Kadyrov has virtually eliminated the insurgency; human rights organizations and journalists have documented his regime’s use of brutal tactics, among them abduction and torture.
Authorities in Moscow apparently put few restraints on Mr. Kadyrov. And on Monday, as the accusations against Mr. Delimkhanov made headlines, observers wondered whether Russian leaders were willing, or able, to do so.
“They need him,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian crime at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs. “They’ve actually created a kind of Frankenstein’s monster. In the name of fighting Chechen nationalism, they’ve basically created an autonomous Chechen state.”
Sulim Yamadayev, the man killed in Dubai, was once a powerful Chechen military commander and had posed an increasing threat to Mr. Kadyrov.
After a clash between his troops and Mr. Kadyrov’s guards last year, federal authorities stripped him of his command and he left Russia for Dubai in December. Mr. Kadyrov’s government has denied responsibility for that clash.
Russian federal authorities have made no comment on the Dubai case. Because Mr. Delimkhanov was elected last year to Parliament, he has immunity from prosecution, and Russian law does not allow its citizens to be extradited.
An official in the general prosecutor’s office said Sunday that Russia would prosecute him if Dubai police provided convincing evidence.
On Monday, Mr. Kadyrov issued an angry defense of Mr. Delimkhanov.
“I must say that Adam Delimkhanov is my close associate, a friend, a brother or even my right hand,” Mr. Kadyrov said in a statement. “I take any statements concerning him personally. We will take all measures provided by Russian and international laws to hold responsible those who make slandering insinuations.”
In comments to reporters in Grozny on Monday, Mr. Kadyrov said that Sulim Yamadayev had repeatedly tried to assassinate him, at one point by poisoning a lake.
He also said there was “objective evidence” that implicated Mr. Yamadayev in a 2004 bombing that killed his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was then the president of Chechnya.
“We did all that we could to bring Sulim Yamadayev, who was involved in a series of killings, kidnappings and other severe crimes, to trial in Russia,” Mr. Kadyrov said, according to the news agency Interfax.
The scandal comes at a difficult moment for Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, who has vowed to make rule of law the foundation of his presidency. It also coincides with a much-discussed “reset” of relations between Russia and the United States, as Western leaders set aside, at least for the moment, criticism of human rights abuses in Russia.
Sergei Markedonov, head of the interethnic relations department at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow, said that he was not convinced that Mr. Kadyrov had ordered the murder, but that the case had already raised “a lot of unpleasant questions for Russia as a whole and for Medvedev.”
“Why was Ruslan Yamadayev killed, and then Sulim Yamadayev?” Mr. Markedonov asked. “Why is there no opposition to Kadyrov? What is this regime that Moscow supports? And to what extent is Moscow able to influence it?”
Hints of a shift in the relationship came after Sulim Yamadayev died on March 31. That day, the Kremlin had seemed prepared to grant Mr. Kadyrov’s longstanding request to withdraw thousands of federal troops from Chechnya. The act would remove shipping and transportation restrictions imposed as part of a counterterrorist operation when the second Chechen war began nearly a decade ago.
Less than a week later, however, as news of Mr. Yamadayev’s death began to circulate, Russia’s National Antiterrorist Committee announced that the restrictions and troops would remain in place, citing a continuing danger of violence in the region. Officials said the murder had nothing to do with the committee’s decision.
“It does appear that at this point in time the Kremlin does want to keep some control over Kadyrov and his team,” said Tatyana Lokshina, a Chechnya expert with Human Rights Watch in Moscow. “Ending the counterterrorist operation, getting multitudes of troops out and removing all the restrictions would give Kadyrov even more freedom — and he certainly does have enough.”
But in recent years, she added, Moscow has made little attempt to interfere with Mr. Kadyrov’s tactics, “as long as he kept the insurgency suppressed.”
With Kremlin backing, Mr. Kadyrov has accomplished in just a few years what few independent experts thought would be possible in decades. He has winnowed the insurgency by killing off most of the rebel leaders and granting amnesty to militants in exchange for loyalty. Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, has been largely rebuilt. Cafes and restaurants are bustling, electricity is more or less regular and people stroll along newly built avenues.
“They built up Kadyrov, and from their point of view, he’s doing what he is supposed to be doing,” Mr. Galeotti, of N.Y.U., said. “Considering the rise of chaos in the rest of the North Caucasus, the irony is that Chechnya is a haven of peace.”
International attention has drifted away from Chechnya since then. Mr. Markedonov, a specialist in the north Caucasus, said he had not heard the republic discussed so avidly in the international news media for years.
He compared the Yamadayev case to the furor that resulted in 2007 when British authorities pressed Russia to extradite Andrei K. Lugovoi, a former K.G.B. agent, in the killing of a former spy, Alexander V. Litvinenko, who died in London after ingesting polonium 210, a rare and toxic radioactive isotope.
“Already, in our media,” Mr. Markedonov said, “they have started to call it ‘Litvinenko 2’ or ‘Lugovoi 2.’ ”
zondag 5 april 2009
NATO urges Russia to pull out of breakaway regions
Strasbourg (AP): NATO reached out to Russia at its summit today, saying it wanted to work together against threats such as piracy and terrorism. But the alliance's insistence that Russia pull its troops from the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia risks meeting Kremlin resistance.
NATO leaders meeting on the French-German border sent the two-pronged message to Moscow, which sees the alliance as a throwback to a Cold War that ended nearly two decades ago.
Their choice of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's new chief threw another potential wrench into the complicated relationship, as he is little loved in Russia.
"There is a shared view in NATO that we must cooperate with Russia," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the close of the summit. "We think this relationship can deliver more than it has up to now."
NATO leaders said they were ready to resume ministerial level meetings with Russia in the coming months, and hoped to work with Russia on fighting new threats including piracy and terrorism.
"Despite the disagreements we have now with it, Russia has a particular importance for us as a partner and neighbor," the NATO leaders said in a statement.
NATO leaders meeting on the French-German border sent the two-pronged message to Moscow, which sees the alliance as a throwback to a Cold War that ended nearly two decades ago.
Their choice of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO's new chief threw another potential wrench into the complicated relationship, as he is little loved in Russia.
"There is a shared view in NATO that we must cooperate with Russia," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at the close of the summit. "We think this relationship can deliver more than it has up to now."
NATO leaders said they were ready to resume ministerial level meetings with Russia in the coming months, and hoped to work with Russia on fighting new threats including piracy and terrorism.
"Despite the disagreements we have now with it, Russia has a particular importance for us as a partner and neighbor," the NATO leaders said in a statement.
Vendemaire in Vladivostok
VLADIVOSTOK. April 6. VOSTOK-MEDIA – The French frigate ‘Vendemaire’ arrived at the main base of the RF Navy Pacific Fleet. The main aim of the visit is further strengthening of friendship and naval cooperation between the fleets and carrying out of joint Russian-French excercise on communications and joint manoeuvring.
The big submarine chaser ‘Marshal Shaposhnikov’ is the leading vessel of the training exercises.
The chaser is under command of Andrey Kuznetsov, the post captain.
‘It was very pleasant for us to see French sailors at the Russian territory. In August last year our ship ‘Marshal Shaposhnikov’ was also the leading ship and we hosted the same French frigate, participated in exercises’ – said the captain. ‘The French party has positive attitudes towards conducting of the loint Russian-French exercises, because Russian and French vessels will pursue defencive strategies at the Arabia Gulf. They will fight agains piracy.’
The French frigate usually stands guard at New Caledonia. There are 92 crew members on board, including 12 catering officers. And every year this frigate cruises around the Pacific Ocean for three months. Three days ago the French navy was in Japan and after Vladivostok the ship will set sail for South Korea. This is a ship that travells much.
‘Vandemaire’ will stay in Vladivostok for three days. During this period the guests will meet the command of the RF Navy Pacific Fleet, make an official visit to the major of the city and lay wreath to the memorial ‘Military fame of the Pacific Fleet’. They will also participate in sports meetings.
The big submarine chaser ‘Marshal Shaposhnikov’ is the leading vessel of the training exercises.
The chaser is under command of Andrey Kuznetsov, the post captain.
‘It was very pleasant for us to see French sailors at the Russian territory. In August last year our ship ‘Marshal Shaposhnikov’ was also the leading ship and we hosted the same French frigate, participated in exercises’ – said the captain. ‘The French party has positive attitudes towards conducting of the loint Russian-French exercises, because Russian and French vessels will pursue defencive strategies at the Arabia Gulf. They will fight agains piracy.’
The French frigate usually stands guard at New Caledonia. There are 92 crew members on board, including 12 catering officers. And every year this frigate cruises around the Pacific Ocean for three months. Three days ago the French navy was in Japan and after Vladivostok the ship will set sail for South Korea. This is a ship that travells much.
‘Vandemaire’ will stay in Vladivostok for three days. During this period the guests will meet the command of the RF Navy Pacific Fleet, make an official visit to the major of the city and lay wreath to the memorial ‘Military fame of the Pacific Fleet’. They will also participate in sports meetings.
Silly Russian game
Russian Danger Game With Fast Train - Click here for the most popular videos
This man almost gets killed. Life is so boring in Russia that they do silly things.
Jackson-Vanik amendment - safeguard it!
The Jackson-Vanik amendment must be upheld!
"From the business community perspective, everybody wants this over and done with," said Michael Considine, director for Eurasian issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
But Moscow must first fulfill anti-piracy and other commitments it made to the United States in 2006, as well as finish talks with all WTO members, Considine said.
Obama and Medvedev, meeting in London on the eve of a Group of 20 developed and developing countries summit, said in a joint statement they would instruct their "governments to make efforts to finalize as soon as possible Russia's accession into the World Trade Organization."
The administration of former President George W. Bush hoped in early 2008 to finally usher Russia into the WTO after years of negotiations. But the political fallout from Russia's short war with Georgia in August set those talks back for months.
Now, as Obama and Medvedev are trying to rebuild relations, congressional Democrats are complaining that Russia still has not fulfilled all of the commitments it has made to the United States to crack down on copyright piracy.
CURRENT BENEFITS AT RISK
They urged Obama in a March 26 letter to insist Moscow honor all of those commitments before he signs off on a final WTO accession package. They also recommended Obama suspend U.S. trade benefits for Russia until it significantly improves its enforcement of intellectual property rights.
The U.S. Trade Representative's office did not respond to a request for more information on Obama and Medvedev's pledge.
But in an annual report on Tuesday on foreign trade barriers, the trade office said "Russia has much work to do" to bring its laws into compliance with WTO rules and to honor bilateral deals it has made to join the world trade body.
Russia also must resolve multilateral concerns over its intellectual property rights regime, support for agriculture, import licensing of products with encryption technology, operation of state-owned enterprises and barriers to agricultural imports, the trade office said.
Many U.S. lawmakers still oppose lifting a Cold War-era restriction on trade with Russia known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, despite the recent recommendation of a bipartisan experts group that Congress do that to help repair relations between the two countries.
The measure tied normal trade relations with the Soviet Union and other centrally planned economies to the rights of Jews and other religious minorities to emigrate freely.
Russia has been in compliance since 1994, but most U.S. lawmakers have insisted Moscow finish negotiations to join the WTO before they vote to lift the measure and establish permanent normal trade relations, referred to as PNTR.
So far, there has been no detectable change in that sentiment, a Senate aide who works on trade said.
Once Russia reaches a final deal to join the WTO, the United States will be obligated to grant PNTR in order to share in the market-opening concessions that Moscow has made, said Doug Goudie, director for international trade policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
That could be a tough political fight, but hopefully not as difficult as it was to persuade Congress to approve PNTR for China in 2000, Goudie said.
A WTO deal that opens the Russian market to more U.S. exports would be a boon to U.S. manufacturers at a time when they desperately are looking for new sales, Goudie said.
Russians do not like Polish meat - 2
Poland could block Russia's entry to the global trade organization if Moscow fails to lift the 2005 embargo on imports of agricultural products, a deputy agriculture minister said on Monday.
"Poland would like Russia to be a WTO member. But if Russia fails to change its approach to Poland [in terms of veterinary control], then we will have to speak out against Russia's membership in the organization," Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski told a news conference in Moscow adding that Poland was reluctant to block Russia's membership.
Ardanowski said Russia said its refusal to lift the Polish meat embargo was down to the failure by Poland to meet Russia's sanitary standards.
"The world is trying to introduce uniform standards. And Polish products conform to these demands, which have nothing to do with the norms the Russian side is citing," he said.
The deputy minister said Warsaw believes there are no grounds for the Russian embargo to be continued. He said Russian and EU experts had made inspections at Polish meat plants.
"European experts said there were small breaches, while the Russian side said the violations were very serious, which meant Russian representatives doubted [the effectiveness of] all European Union food control systems," he said.
Russia imposed a temporary ban on meat products and fruit and vegetable deliveries from Poland in November 2005 saying Polish companies re-exported the products from third countries representing a threat to sanitary standards.
Demanding that Russia lift the embargo, Poland blocked talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Russia and the EU. The current agreement expires in December.
Ardanowski said Poland believed there was a link between the Russian embargo and the veto by Poland over the partnership agreement talks, as most EU members, he said, back Warsaw in the meat dispute.
Russia's veterinary watchdog said Monday Russia is ready to discuss lifting its two-year ban on Polish meat imports if meat producers undergo new checks.
"The problem is quite simple. We proposed holding inspections and resolving all issues long ago. We are ready to conduct inspections together with European Union representatives, but we have yet to be admitted," Alexei Alexeyenko, the Russian regulator's press secretary, told RIA Novosti.
"We can't open our borders to unchecked enterprises," he said.
According to Polish data, before the embargo, the country's annual earnings from meat exports to Russia were about $560 million, or 5% of total exports.
"Poland would like Russia to be a WTO member. But if Russia fails to change its approach to Poland [in terms of veterinary control], then we will have to speak out against Russia's membership in the organization," Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski told a news conference in Moscow adding that Poland was reluctant to block Russia's membership.
Ardanowski said Russia said its refusal to lift the Polish meat embargo was down to the failure by Poland to meet Russia's sanitary standards.
"The world is trying to introduce uniform standards. And Polish products conform to these demands, which have nothing to do with the norms the Russian side is citing," he said.
The deputy minister said Warsaw believes there are no grounds for the Russian embargo to be continued. He said Russian and EU experts had made inspections at Polish meat plants.
"European experts said there were small breaches, while the Russian side said the violations were very serious, which meant Russian representatives doubted [the effectiveness of] all European Union food control systems," he said.
Russia imposed a temporary ban on meat products and fruit and vegetable deliveries from Poland in November 2005 saying Polish companies re-exported the products from third countries representing a threat to sanitary standards.
Demanding that Russia lift the embargo, Poland blocked talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Russia and the EU. The current agreement expires in December.
Ardanowski said Poland believed there was a link between the Russian embargo and the veto by Poland over the partnership agreement talks, as most EU members, he said, back Warsaw in the meat dispute.
Russia's veterinary watchdog said Monday Russia is ready to discuss lifting its two-year ban on Polish meat imports if meat producers undergo new checks.
"The problem is quite simple. We proposed holding inspections and resolving all issues long ago. We are ready to conduct inspections together with European Union representatives, but we have yet to be admitted," Alexei Alexeyenko, the Russian regulator's press secretary, told RIA Novosti.
"We can't open our borders to unchecked enterprises," he said.
According to Polish data, before the embargo, the country's annual earnings from meat exports to Russia were about $560 million, or 5% of total exports.
Russians do not like Polish meat
Poland is to block Russia’s WTO accession until Russia takes off embargo on Polish meat and vegetables, introduced in November 2005.
Still Poland doesn’t mind Russia’s joining the organization; the Polish side has claimed that such a powerful country like Russia should be the WTO member.
But Poland first of all tries to solve its meat market problems. It has already blocked a new cooperation agreement between Russia and EU, now it can block Russia’s WTO accession.
Russia used to buy 5% of Poland meat export. In 2005 Russia has banned Polish meat and vegetables as Poland re-exported these products from the third countries, mostly from African countries. Russia claimed such products didn’t match Russian veterinary requirements.
Will Russia ever join the WTO?
President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that delays in Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation "irritate" Moscow but added that his country was still ready to join the global trade body.
"Russia is ready for accession on normal, non-discriminatory terms. We will do everything that is necessary. This process has dragged out and this irritates us," Medvedev said in televised remarks.
"We are not making a tragedy out of the fact that the process has been drawn out. The main thing is that it does not become a never-ending story," Medvedev said at a joint press conference with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
Russia's WTO hopes suffered a setback last year after its war with Georgia badly strained relations with the West, and the United States cast doubt on Russia's bid to join the international body.
Moscow responded that its WTO bid was an economic matter that should not be politicised, but trade negotiations made little progress.
Russia is the largest world economy still outside the WTO. Initial membership negotiations started in 1993 but were delayed by disputes over a variety of issues, including enforcement of copyright laws and meat exports.
"Russia is ready for accession on normal, non-discriminatory terms. We will do everything that is necessary. This process has dragged out and this irritates us," Medvedev said in televised remarks.
"We are not making a tragedy out of the fact that the process has been drawn out. The main thing is that it does not become a never-ending story," Medvedev said at a joint press conference with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.
Russia's WTO hopes suffered a setback last year after its war with Georgia badly strained relations with the West, and the United States cast doubt on Russia's bid to join the international body.
Moscow responded that its WTO bid was an economic matter that should not be politicised, but trade negotiations made little progress.
Russia is the largest world economy still outside the WTO. Initial membership negotiations started in 1993 but were delayed by disputes over a variety of issues, including enforcement of copyright laws and meat exports.
vrijdag 3 april 2009
Can Obama Take on Russia?
Reports coming from the meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev sound reassuring, but behind the apparent love feast is a stark, cold, and threatening reality far different from the optimism surrounding the encounter. The truth is that the diplomatic smiles of the Russian elite mask a world strategy meant to bring America to its knees. The strategy continues and will not abate, despite the Obama-Medvedev press releases.
In a statement to the press, President Barack Obama characterized his meeting with Russian Federation president Dmitry Medvedev, which occurred during the G20 summit in London, as the beginning of a "very constructive dialogue," and Medvedev declared that "there are many more positions that bring us together than those that pull us apart." A joint statement pledged a united effort in Afghanistan and against "Al-Qaeda and other terrorist and insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan," and seemed to promise progress on an agreement reducing nuclear weapons.
Moscow appears to be a reasonable international partner, but the internal and external realities of the Russian Federation recall the old Soviet Union far more than the Russia which was promised by Boris Yeltsin and other Moscow politicians following the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Medvedev's Russia, like Vladimir Putin's Russia, is the home of suspicion, murder and state terror. Opposition journalists are often killed, and even lawyers seeking to defend journalists against state harassment are in danger, as the recent slaying of one well-known lawyer proved. Schools and news outlets preach distrust of the West, especially of the United States. Pro-Kremlin youth groups, usually dressed in Bolshevik revolutionary red, teach their young members hostility to the United States and attack those opposing official Russian policy.
The activist organization Memorial is often the target of official Russian displeasure. Memorial seeks to protect human rights in Russia and to uncover and preserve the memory of those who suffered and died during the oppression of the Soviet era. Memorial's offices have been raided, its files confiscated never to be returned.
The most recent work of one of the leading writers on the Soviet era, Orlando Figes, cannot find a publisher in Russia - evidence of a de facto ban. Figes had based much his book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, on material from Memorial.
Around the world, Moscow is pursuing a course hostile to the United States.
Only a few weeks ago, a group of Russian "Swallow" bombers flew into Venezuela. Speculation soon followed, inspired by statements of a Russian general, that Moscow would establish bomber bases in Venezuela and Cuba, both of which are within striking distance of the United States. Moscow is selling sophisticated weapons to Venezuela's neo-Marxist tyrant, Hugo Chavez, and has granted a license to the Chavez regime for the manufacture of the AK103, one of the world's most advanced automatic assault rifles. There is strong indication that an unknown number of the 100,000 AK103s already sold directly to Chavez by Moscow may have been passed on to drug cartel militias now engaged in a savage civil war against the Mexican government.
The island gulag state of Cuba remains one of Moscow's "key allies" in the Latin American region. Moscow has recently assured Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother and successor, of its continued and enthusiastic support. As with almost all of the Russian press, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass is under the control of the Kremlin. The deputy director-general of Itar-Tass, Michael Guzman, interviewed Raul before his late January-early February 2009 trip to Moscow. During the fawning interview, Guzman continually and respectfully referred to the new Cuban leader as "Comrade President."
The visit of the Russian bombers indicates that Chavez has very powerful friends willing to extend themselves into what had been regarded as "America's Backyard." Moscow's support of Cuba's fifty-year communist dictatorship confirms an alliance which extends, without interruption, back to the Soviet era.
In the Middle East, Moscow is the only reason that Iran has a nuclear capability and is able to threaten its neighbors from Israel to Europe. It is Moscow that has sold sophisticated anti-aircraft missile batteries to Iran for the defense of those nuclear facilities.
At this writing, North Korea is preparing a missile for launch which may be able to reach the United States with a nuclear weapon. The Stalinist dictatorship also has hundreds of thousands of troops ready at the whim of the "Beloved Leader" to attack American soldiers and their South Korean allies. Neither Stalinist North Korea, nor the "Beloved Leader," could not exist without the support of Moscow.
Russian aid has also made possible the Chinese military buildup which now threatens the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. For well over a decade Russia has supplied China with weapons technologies and training for the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) . U.S. aircraft carrier groups are vulnerable to a Chinese ballistic strike, and almost every nation on earth is vulnerable to a Chinese cyber attack. Russian forces have staged extensive military exercises with the increasingly sophisticated PLA.
Russia's attack on the small Caucasus nation of Georgia shocked the world, and now Moscow recognizes as independent the rebel regions it helped sever from Georgia. This past winter Russia cutoff natural gas supplies to Ukraine during a dispute over pricing. In terminating Ukraine's access, Russia also endangered gas delivery to much of Western Europe, which soon learned that dependence on Moscow comes at a high price.
As Arctic ice melts and reveals extraordinary deposits of natural resources, the nations bordering on the Arctic Ocean are pressing their claims to the newly available wealth. To assert its interests, Russia is preparing for possible military operations in the region. As Russian bombers prowl off the southern coast of Alaska, specially trained Russian troops are engaging in military exercises in preparation for action in the Arctic, a conflict which could easily involve the northern coast of Alaska.
The last Democratic president to engage Russia was Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Russia at that time was weak and in the early stages of recovering from the shock of the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, America was strong in every way, the only remaining superpower. Now, the situation is dramatically different. Russia is strong thanks to its tremendous natural resources, and America is weakened from its excessive spending policies, especially those enacted in the last few weeks by the new administration.
The Russian bear is again walking upright - and thanks to Moscow's political elite, the bear is hungry. Obama, America's policy makers, and the American public must beware of the embrace, no matter how warm, of the stalking bear.
In a statement to the press, President Barack Obama characterized his meeting with Russian Federation president Dmitry Medvedev, which occurred during the G20 summit in London, as the beginning of a "very constructive dialogue," and Medvedev declared that "there are many more positions that bring us together than those that pull us apart." A joint statement pledged a united effort in Afghanistan and against "Al-Qaeda and other terrorist and insurgent groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan," and seemed to promise progress on an agreement reducing nuclear weapons.
Moscow appears to be a reasonable international partner, but the internal and external realities of the Russian Federation recall the old Soviet Union far more than the Russia which was promised by Boris Yeltsin and other Moscow politicians following the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Medvedev's Russia, like Vladimir Putin's Russia, is the home of suspicion, murder and state terror. Opposition journalists are often killed, and even lawyers seeking to defend journalists against state harassment are in danger, as the recent slaying of one well-known lawyer proved. Schools and news outlets preach distrust of the West, especially of the United States. Pro-Kremlin youth groups, usually dressed in Bolshevik revolutionary red, teach their young members hostility to the United States and attack those opposing official Russian policy.
The activist organization Memorial is often the target of official Russian displeasure. Memorial seeks to protect human rights in Russia and to uncover and preserve the memory of those who suffered and died during the oppression of the Soviet era. Memorial's offices have been raided, its files confiscated never to be returned.
The most recent work of one of the leading writers on the Soviet era, Orlando Figes, cannot find a publisher in Russia - evidence of a de facto ban. Figes had based much his book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, on material from Memorial.
Around the world, Moscow is pursuing a course hostile to the United States.
Only a few weeks ago, a group of Russian "Swallow" bombers flew into Venezuela. Speculation soon followed, inspired by statements of a Russian general, that Moscow would establish bomber bases in Venezuela and Cuba, both of which are within striking distance of the United States. Moscow is selling sophisticated weapons to Venezuela's neo-Marxist tyrant, Hugo Chavez, and has granted a license to the Chavez regime for the manufacture of the AK103, one of the world's most advanced automatic assault rifles. There is strong indication that an unknown number of the 100,000 AK103s already sold directly to Chavez by Moscow may have been passed on to drug cartel militias now engaged in a savage civil war against the Mexican government.
The island gulag state of Cuba remains one of Moscow's "key allies" in the Latin American region. Moscow has recently assured Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother and successor, of its continued and enthusiastic support. As with almost all of the Russian press, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass is under the control of the Kremlin. The deputy director-general of Itar-Tass, Michael Guzman, interviewed Raul before his late January-early February 2009 trip to Moscow. During the fawning interview, Guzman continually and respectfully referred to the new Cuban leader as "Comrade President."
The visit of the Russian bombers indicates that Chavez has very powerful friends willing to extend themselves into what had been regarded as "America's Backyard." Moscow's support of Cuba's fifty-year communist dictatorship confirms an alliance which extends, without interruption, back to the Soviet era.
In the Middle East, Moscow is the only reason that Iran has a nuclear capability and is able to threaten its neighbors from Israel to Europe. It is Moscow that has sold sophisticated anti-aircraft missile batteries to Iran for the defense of those nuclear facilities.
At this writing, North Korea is preparing a missile for launch which may be able to reach the United States with a nuclear weapon. The Stalinist dictatorship also has hundreds of thousands of troops ready at the whim of the "Beloved Leader" to attack American soldiers and their South Korean allies. Neither Stalinist North Korea, nor the "Beloved Leader," could not exist without the support of Moscow.
Russian aid has also made possible the Chinese military buildup which now threatens the United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region. For well over a decade Russia has supplied China with weapons technologies and training for the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) . U.S. aircraft carrier groups are vulnerable to a Chinese ballistic strike, and almost every nation on earth is vulnerable to a Chinese cyber attack. Russian forces have staged extensive military exercises with the increasingly sophisticated PLA.
Russia's attack on the small Caucasus nation of Georgia shocked the world, and now Moscow recognizes as independent the rebel regions it helped sever from Georgia. This past winter Russia cutoff natural gas supplies to Ukraine during a dispute over pricing. In terminating Ukraine's access, Russia also endangered gas delivery to much of Western Europe, which soon learned that dependence on Moscow comes at a high price.
As Arctic ice melts and reveals extraordinary deposits of natural resources, the nations bordering on the Arctic Ocean are pressing their claims to the newly available wealth. To assert its interests, Russia is preparing for possible military operations in the region. As Russian bombers prowl off the southern coast of Alaska, specially trained Russian troops are engaging in military exercises in preparation for action in the Arctic, a conflict which could easily involve the northern coast of Alaska.
The last Democratic president to engage Russia was Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Russia at that time was weak and in the early stages of recovering from the shock of the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, America was strong in every way, the only remaining superpower. Now, the situation is dramatically different. Russia is strong thanks to its tremendous natural resources, and America is weakened from its excessive spending policies, especially those enacted in the last few weeks by the new administration.
The Russian bear is again walking upright - and thanks to Moscow's political elite, the bear is hungry. Obama, America's policy makers, and the American public must beware of the embrace, no matter how warm, of the stalking bear.
Humor in Vladivostok
A juicy scandal broke in Vladivostok because of All-Fools’ Day joke.
On April the first a popular local news agency had published the comic article that led to losses of one of the key companies of the city – ‘Vodokanal’.
It was stated in the article that there would be mass cold water outages because of severe economical situation. The point was that cold water would be cut during the hours of darkness because of bad economic situation. And the agency advised people to lay in a supply of water.
Moreover, the news was not at first marked by smile or anything that would indicate it as a joke.
And only when scandal started to gain pace, the authors of the article added a note about All-Fools’ Day joke.
Meanwhile, other news agencies picked up the news and started spread it around the city. It caused the panic.
So, people started to lay in a supply of water, and the water consumption increased dramatically. The company managed to avoid major losses of water thanks to timely taken measures.
Excess consumption accounted for 3 thousand cubic meters.
The aftermath could have been much worse. According to the chief operating officer, at the present time the legal department of the company is considering the issue as to prosecution the media agency.
On April the first a popular local news agency had published the comic article that led to losses of one of the key companies of the city – ‘Vodokanal’.
It was stated in the article that there would be mass cold water outages because of severe economical situation. The point was that cold water would be cut during the hours of darkness because of bad economic situation. And the agency advised people to lay in a supply of water.
Moreover, the news was not at first marked by smile or anything that would indicate it as a joke.
And only when scandal started to gain pace, the authors of the article added a note about All-Fools’ Day joke.
Meanwhile, other news agencies picked up the news and started spread it around the city. It caused the panic.
So, people started to lay in a supply of water, and the water consumption increased dramatically. The company managed to avoid major losses of water thanks to timely taken measures.
Excess consumption accounted for 3 thousand cubic meters.
The aftermath could have been much worse. According to the chief operating officer, at the present time the legal department of the company is considering the issue as to prosecution the media agency.
woensdag 1 april 2009
Ramzan Kadyrov - a brutal biography
The young president has silenced dissent, pacified the Russian republic and embarked on a massive reconstruction campaign. His critics are hard to find, because they have a habit of disappearing.
GUDERMES, RUSSIA -- 'I'm going to make them scream."The president of Chechnya looks out at the menagerie of birds, floating on the murky man-made lake in his backyard: black swans, pelicans and ducks. Ostriches roam the opposite bank. Deep grunts of laughter shake his thick chest, jolting his barrel arms. Then Ramzan Kadyrov stops laughing. "Bring me the tiger!" he barks to his camouflage-clad servants. "Bring me bread!"
Two former guerrilla fighters wrestle a chained tiger down the muddy slope. The tiger rears up on its hind legs, fangs bared, and swats at the guards with splayed paws. They yell and beat the tiger about the head until the animal is low to the ground. Meanwhile, Kadyrov is tossing chunks of bread into the water for his fancy birds, imported here from all corners of the Earth. He hopes to draw them close enough to shore to get scared by the tiger. He still wants to hear them scream.Kadyrov has been the president of Chechnya for a year; he was appointed by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin shortly after his 30th birthday made him old enough to hold the job legally. He inherited his power from his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, a Muslim cleric and separatist leader who cut a deal with Moscow after a blood-drenched war and emerged as Chechnya's president, only to be assassinated.Ramzan Kadyrov is finishing the job his father started when he shifted allegiances and steered Chechnya back under the sway of Moscow. The younger Kadyrov has managed to silence dissent, pacify the breakaway republic and embark on a massive reconstruction campaign.
Kadyrov's biography is brutal and Byzantine. His story is the story of Chechnya, and also a glimpse into the violent underbelly of modern Russia.Today the streets of Grozny, famously flattened in a ruthless rain of Russian bombs, ring with construction and adulation of the young president. "God brought us Kadyrov!" exclaims a taxi driver as he steers through the capital.
Kadyrov's critics say that he lords over Chechnya using terror and violence, that he has created a neo-Soviet dictatorship. But his critics are hard to find, because they have a habit of disappearing."When Ramzan Kadyrov came to power, the fear began. This fear creeps into people's hearts gradually," says Tatiana Kasatkina, the Moscow-based executive director of Memorial, a Russian human rights group that has been active in Chechnya for years. "These are people who fought in the mountains, they are rebels and their arms are soaked in blood up to their elbows. Their code is, if you go against us or you go against Kadyrov, you'll be exterminated."
When Kadyrov hears the term "human rights group," he smiles, puts a knife in his mouth and bites down on it. Then he says all the stories are lies. There are a few things Kadyrov won't talk about. The first is the war. When Chechnya fought the first of its two wars for independence from Moscow, Kadyrov and his father fought against the Russians. He shrugs that he was "15, maybe 16" when he led his first militia. He says he didn't have a childhood. He doesn't want to remember those times. The process of switching sides to the Moscow camp -- that, too, is an unwelcome topic. "I was always with the people," he says. "I don't know who changed which side, but I was always with the people." Nor will he talk about his father's death in May 2004. Kadyrov was in charge of his father's security, but he was in Moscow the day he died. Somebody planted an artillery shell smack under his seat in a soccer stadium in Grozny. Kadyrov wears his father's mantle eagerly. The scarcely rebuilt capital is crowded with memorials to Akhmad Kadyrov, many of them adorned with this quote: "I have always been proud of my people." Akhmad Kadyrov was arguably more famous for declaring: "Russians outnumber Chechens many times over, thus every Chechen should kill 150 Russians." But that quote is nowhere to be seen.
Since Ramzan Kadyrov took over, Moscow appears to have granted him a blank check for reconstruction and a free rein to crack down. Analysts say this is the Faustian deal struck by the Kremlin: Let Kadyrov do what he wants as long as Chechnya stays quiet.Kadyrov has nothing but praise for Putin. "He's my idol," he says. "Putin is a beauty."For all his macho swagger, Kadyrov has gotten smoother since he came to power. Earlier in his career, he told a reporter: "I've already killed who I should have killed. . . . I will be killing as long as I live."
Reminded of those words, he smiles in recognition and nods. Is it still true? Certainly, he says. But he avoids repeating the word "kill.""
We used tough methods to show what's wrong and what's right," Kadyrov says. "Against those who didn't understand, we led a tough and even cruel struggle."
It's been years since the second Chechen war diffused into scattered guerrilla attacks, but somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 Chechens are still missing. Nobody knows how many of those people disappeared during the war, and how many went missing on Kadyrov's watch.But human rights activists say that most of the people who have disappeared since the young president came to power were taken by his security forces. The police forces are dominated by Kadyrov's former rebel fighters; so are the members of his personal security detail.
"We are looking for them. We are digging them up," Kadyrov says. "The majority of people who are missing committed crimes in Chechnya and left our state. Some took to the forest. Some of them died."
The rate of disappearances drastically slowed as Kadyrov grew stronger and silenced dissent, according to human rights monitors.
But they warn that the statistics have gotten harder to measure as people have become more fearful.
"There's a very, very big number of people who disappear for several hours or several days and return home beaten up and psychologically broken, and most of them never say what happened to them," says Natalia Estemirova, a monitor in Grozny for Memorial. "This is being seriously hushed up."
Kadyrov is married and the father of five children. His tastes run to dangerous animals, fast cars and boxing.He doesn't bother with a driver, just swings himself behind the wheel of his Mercedes and careens over the roads in snaking convoys of security officers, trailed by an identical Mercedes with an identical license plate and a look-alike driver. When he gets to where he's going, his staff rushes to change the plates, all to thwart any would-be assassin.
On the mountainside overlooking the presidential residence in Gudermes, this city east of Grozny, "There's no god but God" is spelled out in massive Arabic letters.
Out past the hulking stone house and fragrant rose garden, Kadyrov leads visitors from cage to cage in his private zoo, showing off the lions, leopards and pumas. He reaches inside to pet and tousle them, to pull them closer and slam them against the bars. He tugs hard on the lion's mane.
When the beasts growl at him, he growls right back, baring his teeth and mirroring their mugs. "This one is not friendly yet," he says, looking intently at a snarling panther. "But every person has his frequency. We'll find the frequency to deal with him."
He leads his visitors down to the pond; when they pick their way across a bridge rigged from rope and planks, he stands at one end shaking the structure. Watching them waver and lose their balance, he laughs his grunting laugh again. And then, lest anybody be confused, he crows: "I'm doing it on purpose!"Later he hunches over a table spread with fine black caviar, "choco pies" and fresh apricots. He brags about the military academy he's opened to train members of his personal security detail, then brings out a documentary his men made of the teenagers attacking tanks and fighting each other in martial arts."Watch this, watch this, it's the best part," he says. On screen, a cadet connects a hard kick to the head of his opponent. Techno music pulses in the background. "That's a beauty!" Kadyrov says. He admires Mike Tyson and his "fists of iron." After meeting the American boxer in Moscow, Kadyrov persuaded him to pay a visit to Grozny."People say I paid him a lot of money. It's not true," Kadyrov says. "He should have paid money to be allowed here.""Kadyrov, you've only been president for a year and the city has risen from the ashes and the people are exulting," reads a banner on Kadyrov Prospect, just across from Kadyrov Square and the Akhmad Kadyrov mosque.At least part of that statement is true: Grozny is coming back to life with remarkable speed. Two years ago, the city had one stoplight. Today there are supermarkets, a small hotel attached to a working airport, billiard halls, a movie theater and restaurants, two of which are named Hollywood.All of this, courtesy of Moscow -- the price of peace. "As much as we need," Kadyrov says. "They destroyed all of it, so why shouldn't they? Our people are not to blame. They should have carried out pinpoint strikes, not what they did. I always tell them. I demand. They are obligated to rebuild and if it doesn't happen, I'll write my resignation paper."When the evening comes, the streets are quiet and clotted with people, out strolling among the rosebushes, perched on benches, picking their way between construction sites and streets ripped open to lay pipes. But it is a renovation founded on boneyards. Human remains keep coming to light. European human rights groups have set aside money for a laboratory to identify the bodies, but so far there is no laboratory, and no identification.There are surfaces here, and then there are the realities. The surfaces are mostly new, and generally covered with Kadyrov's face. But as soon as a klatch of old women sees visitors pulling up to the yard of a resurfaced apartment house, they begin to yell: "There's no water! There is nothing inside! Not even doors!"The women lead the way up the concrete staircases, the smell of human waste thickening as they climb. They duck into an apartment and gesture around in despair: Bare, cracked floors have been patched up so hastily that concrete smears the walls and the footprints of workmen are permanently sunk into the rooms. There is no running water, sewage or toilet. No doors. Only a naked bulb dangling from the ceiling.But when somebody mentions the thousands of missing people to a woman named Zaira Dovletbayava, her eyes widen and fly to the minder sent by Kadyrov's press office."No," she says, quietly and quickly, eyes fixed on Kadyrov's man. "There are no missing people."It's graduation day at the Kadyrov School, a freshly opened elementary and high school named after Chechnya's most famous clan. All 1,400 students have been invited to the party. Russian rock music booms through the corridors, out to where the senior girls and boys in red sashes pose for photographs. The girls wear patent leather spike heels, generous slabs of makeup and big earrings under their head scarves. Like everything else in Grozny, the school is very clean and very full of Kadyrov. Bright, burst balloons litter a courtyard buckled from bombs. "He alone managed to save us all," read the posters on the wall. "The worthy son of a worthy father."The principal is sitting in her office, overflowing with cakes and candies and fresh fruit. She adores the president. He isn't afraid to do the "dirty work," she says. "We ordinary people are very, very grateful to him," she says, "because he fulfilled our dreams."She recently took a handful of her best graduates to meet the president."On that day I realized he is really the leader of the youth," she says. "I saw the children's eyes, and they were full of admiration. And I thought, 'They'll do whatever he tells them.' "
GUDERMES, RUSSIA -- 'I'm going to make them scream."The president of Chechnya looks out at the menagerie of birds, floating on the murky man-made lake in his backyard: black swans, pelicans and ducks. Ostriches roam the opposite bank. Deep grunts of laughter shake his thick chest, jolting his barrel arms. Then Ramzan Kadyrov stops laughing. "Bring me the tiger!" he barks to his camouflage-clad servants. "Bring me bread!"
Two former guerrilla fighters wrestle a chained tiger down the muddy slope. The tiger rears up on its hind legs, fangs bared, and swats at the guards with splayed paws. They yell and beat the tiger about the head until the animal is low to the ground. Meanwhile, Kadyrov is tossing chunks of bread into the water for his fancy birds, imported here from all corners of the Earth. He hopes to draw them close enough to shore to get scared by the tiger. He still wants to hear them scream.Kadyrov has been the president of Chechnya for a year; he was appointed by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin shortly after his 30th birthday made him old enough to hold the job legally. He inherited his power from his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, a Muslim cleric and separatist leader who cut a deal with Moscow after a blood-drenched war and emerged as Chechnya's president, only to be assassinated.Ramzan Kadyrov is finishing the job his father started when he shifted allegiances and steered Chechnya back under the sway of Moscow. The younger Kadyrov has managed to silence dissent, pacify the breakaway republic and embark on a massive reconstruction campaign.
Kadyrov's biography is brutal and Byzantine. His story is the story of Chechnya, and also a glimpse into the violent underbelly of modern Russia.Today the streets of Grozny, famously flattened in a ruthless rain of Russian bombs, ring with construction and adulation of the young president. "God brought us Kadyrov!" exclaims a taxi driver as he steers through the capital.
Kadyrov's critics say that he lords over Chechnya using terror and violence, that he has created a neo-Soviet dictatorship. But his critics are hard to find, because they have a habit of disappearing."When Ramzan Kadyrov came to power, the fear began. This fear creeps into people's hearts gradually," says Tatiana Kasatkina, the Moscow-based executive director of Memorial, a Russian human rights group that has been active in Chechnya for years. "These are people who fought in the mountains, they are rebels and their arms are soaked in blood up to their elbows. Their code is, if you go against us or you go against Kadyrov, you'll be exterminated."
When Kadyrov hears the term "human rights group," he smiles, puts a knife in his mouth and bites down on it. Then he says all the stories are lies. There are a few things Kadyrov won't talk about. The first is the war. When Chechnya fought the first of its two wars for independence from Moscow, Kadyrov and his father fought against the Russians. He shrugs that he was "15, maybe 16" when he led his first militia. He says he didn't have a childhood. He doesn't want to remember those times. The process of switching sides to the Moscow camp -- that, too, is an unwelcome topic. "I was always with the people," he says. "I don't know who changed which side, but I was always with the people." Nor will he talk about his father's death in May 2004. Kadyrov was in charge of his father's security, but he was in Moscow the day he died. Somebody planted an artillery shell smack under his seat in a soccer stadium in Grozny. Kadyrov wears his father's mantle eagerly. The scarcely rebuilt capital is crowded with memorials to Akhmad Kadyrov, many of them adorned with this quote: "I have always been proud of my people." Akhmad Kadyrov was arguably more famous for declaring: "Russians outnumber Chechens many times over, thus every Chechen should kill 150 Russians." But that quote is nowhere to be seen.
Since Ramzan Kadyrov took over, Moscow appears to have granted him a blank check for reconstruction and a free rein to crack down. Analysts say this is the Faustian deal struck by the Kremlin: Let Kadyrov do what he wants as long as Chechnya stays quiet.Kadyrov has nothing but praise for Putin. "He's my idol," he says. "Putin is a beauty."For all his macho swagger, Kadyrov has gotten smoother since he came to power. Earlier in his career, he told a reporter: "I've already killed who I should have killed. . . . I will be killing as long as I live."
Reminded of those words, he smiles in recognition and nods. Is it still true? Certainly, he says. But he avoids repeating the word "kill.""
We used tough methods to show what's wrong and what's right," Kadyrov says. "Against those who didn't understand, we led a tough and even cruel struggle."
It's been years since the second Chechen war diffused into scattered guerrilla attacks, but somewhere between 3,500 and 5,000 Chechens are still missing. Nobody knows how many of those people disappeared during the war, and how many went missing on Kadyrov's watch.But human rights activists say that most of the people who have disappeared since the young president came to power were taken by his security forces. The police forces are dominated by Kadyrov's former rebel fighters; so are the members of his personal security detail.
"We are looking for them. We are digging them up," Kadyrov says. "The majority of people who are missing committed crimes in Chechnya and left our state. Some took to the forest. Some of them died."
The rate of disappearances drastically slowed as Kadyrov grew stronger and silenced dissent, according to human rights monitors.
But they warn that the statistics have gotten harder to measure as people have become more fearful.
"There's a very, very big number of people who disappear for several hours or several days and return home beaten up and psychologically broken, and most of them never say what happened to them," says Natalia Estemirova, a monitor in Grozny for Memorial. "This is being seriously hushed up."
Kadyrov is married and the father of five children. His tastes run to dangerous animals, fast cars and boxing.He doesn't bother with a driver, just swings himself behind the wheel of his Mercedes and careens over the roads in snaking convoys of security officers, trailed by an identical Mercedes with an identical license plate and a look-alike driver. When he gets to where he's going, his staff rushes to change the plates, all to thwart any would-be assassin.
On the mountainside overlooking the presidential residence in Gudermes, this city east of Grozny, "There's no god but God" is spelled out in massive Arabic letters.
Out past the hulking stone house and fragrant rose garden, Kadyrov leads visitors from cage to cage in his private zoo, showing off the lions, leopards and pumas. He reaches inside to pet and tousle them, to pull them closer and slam them against the bars. He tugs hard on the lion's mane.
When the beasts growl at him, he growls right back, baring his teeth and mirroring their mugs. "This one is not friendly yet," he says, looking intently at a snarling panther. "But every person has his frequency. We'll find the frequency to deal with him."
He leads his visitors down to the pond; when they pick their way across a bridge rigged from rope and planks, he stands at one end shaking the structure. Watching them waver and lose their balance, he laughs his grunting laugh again. And then, lest anybody be confused, he crows: "I'm doing it on purpose!"Later he hunches over a table spread with fine black caviar, "choco pies" and fresh apricots. He brags about the military academy he's opened to train members of his personal security detail, then brings out a documentary his men made of the teenagers attacking tanks and fighting each other in martial arts."Watch this, watch this, it's the best part," he says. On screen, a cadet connects a hard kick to the head of his opponent. Techno music pulses in the background. "That's a beauty!" Kadyrov says. He admires Mike Tyson and his "fists of iron." After meeting the American boxer in Moscow, Kadyrov persuaded him to pay a visit to Grozny."People say I paid him a lot of money. It's not true," Kadyrov says. "He should have paid money to be allowed here.""Kadyrov, you've only been president for a year and the city has risen from the ashes and the people are exulting," reads a banner on Kadyrov Prospect, just across from Kadyrov Square and the Akhmad Kadyrov mosque.At least part of that statement is true: Grozny is coming back to life with remarkable speed. Two years ago, the city had one stoplight. Today there are supermarkets, a small hotel attached to a working airport, billiard halls, a movie theater and restaurants, two of which are named Hollywood.All of this, courtesy of Moscow -- the price of peace. "As much as we need," Kadyrov says. "They destroyed all of it, so why shouldn't they? Our people are not to blame. They should have carried out pinpoint strikes, not what they did. I always tell them. I demand. They are obligated to rebuild and if it doesn't happen, I'll write my resignation paper."When the evening comes, the streets are quiet and clotted with people, out strolling among the rosebushes, perched on benches, picking their way between construction sites and streets ripped open to lay pipes. But it is a renovation founded on boneyards. Human remains keep coming to light. European human rights groups have set aside money for a laboratory to identify the bodies, but so far there is no laboratory, and no identification.There are surfaces here, and then there are the realities. The surfaces are mostly new, and generally covered with Kadyrov's face. But as soon as a klatch of old women sees visitors pulling up to the yard of a resurfaced apartment house, they begin to yell: "There's no water! There is nothing inside! Not even doors!"The women lead the way up the concrete staircases, the smell of human waste thickening as they climb. They duck into an apartment and gesture around in despair: Bare, cracked floors have been patched up so hastily that concrete smears the walls and the footprints of workmen are permanently sunk into the rooms. There is no running water, sewage or toilet. No doors. Only a naked bulb dangling from the ceiling.But when somebody mentions the thousands of missing people to a woman named Zaira Dovletbayava, her eyes widen and fly to the minder sent by Kadyrov's press office."No," she says, quietly and quickly, eyes fixed on Kadyrov's man. "There are no missing people."It's graduation day at the Kadyrov School, a freshly opened elementary and high school named after Chechnya's most famous clan. All 1,400 students have been invited to the party. Russian rock music booms through the corridors, out to where the senior girls and boys in red sashes pose for photographs. The girls wear patent leather spike heels, generous slabs of makeup and big earrings under their head scarves. Like everything else in Grozny, the school is very clean and very full of Kadyrov. Bright, burst balloons litter a courtyard buckled from bombs. "He alone managed to save us all," read the posters on the wall. "The worthy son of a worthy father."The principal is sitting in her office, overflowing with cakes and candies and fresh fruit. She adores the president. He isn't afraid to do the "dirty work," she says. "We ordinary people are very, very grateful to him," she says, "because he fulfilled our dreams."She recently took a handful of her best graduates to meet the president."On that day I realized he is really the leader of the youth," she says. "I saw the children's eyes, and they were full of admiration. And I thought, 'They'll do whatever he tells them.' "
Opponent of Chechen leader slain in Dubai
Opponent of Chechen leader slain in Dubai
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A bitter foe of Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader was shot at close range in a brazen midday attack in Dubai, local and Russian news reports said Monday.
Sulim Yamadayev, a former Chechen rebel who went over to the government side, was shot Saturday outside the busy residential complex where he lived along the city's Gulf shoreline and died Monday in a hospital, Russian media reports said, quoting unnamed relatives.
When Yamadayev switched allegiances in the Chechen conflict, he created a battalion made up of other former militants that has fought rebels in Chechnya alongside federal troops since 2003.
But he is a longtime foe of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president who has steadily tightened his grip on power in the war-ravaged region and imposed Islamic rules. Rights groups have accused Kadyrov's security force of rampant abuses, including torture and killings of suspected militants and their relatives.
The reported attack on Yamadayev followed assassinations of several other Chechen renegades, and Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said Saturday's shooting "looks like an assassination."
The Chechen "was assassinated in the parking lot of the building where he lives," Tamim was quoted as saying Saturday by the United Arab Emirates' official news agency, WAM.
Tamim did not answer calls Monday from The Associated Press seeking comment on the killing.
Several Dubai media reports identified the victim with a slightly different name, Sulaiman Madov. The discrepancy might have been caused in transliterating his name from Russian, or he might have been living under a different name in Dubai.
The Russian news outlets identifying him as former rebel Yamadayev included the country's two main news agencies, ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti. One of those reports, in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, quoted Yamadayev's brother, Isa, as confirming the death.
Yamadayev was one of the few who refused to bow to President Kadyrov's orders. Long-running tensions between the two men exploded into an open conflict last April when Yamadayev's men refused to give way to Kadyrov's convoy.
Kadyrov then accused Yamadayev of involvement in abductions and murders, and an arrest warrant for him was issued.
Despite that, Yamadayev led his battalion to fight alongside the Russian military during Russia's war with Georgia last August, but was discharged from the Russian army shortly after. Yamadayev left Russia after his older brother, Ruslan, was shot and killed in his car in central Moscow last September.
"We hope that law enforcement agencies will find the killer," said Ali Karimov, a spokesman for President Kadyrov in the Chechen capital, Grozny, reached by telephone.
When pressed for more details and about how he knew Yamadayev was dead, Karimov hung up the phone.
Several other Chechens have been slain abroad in recent years.
In 2004, former Chechen separatist President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed in Qatar. Two Russian intelligence agents were convicted of that killing and sent back to Russia to serve their sentences.
In January, a former bodyguard of Kadyrov was shot dead in Vienna. The man, Umar Israilov, had filed a criminal complaint against Kadyrov in Austria in June, accusing him of torture and other abuses in Chechnya.
Russia claims the right to dispatch soldiers or security agents anywhere to fight anyone it considers a terrorist. The parliament in 2006 authorized the president to make such dispatches, following the kidnapping of four Russian Embassy workers in Iraq.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A bitter foe of Chechnya's Moscow-backed leader was shot at close range in a brazen midday attack in Dubai, local and Russian news reports said Monday.
Sulim Yamadayev, a former Chechen rebel who went over to the government side, was shot Saturday outside the busy residential complex where he lived along the city's Gulf shoreline and died Monday in a hospital, Russian media reports said, quoting unnamed relatives.
When Yamadayev switched allegiances in the Chechen conflict, he created a battalion made up of other former militants that has fought rebels in Chechnya alongside federal troops since 2003.
But he is a longtime foe of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president who has steadily tightened his grip on power in the war-ravaged region and imposed Islamic rules. Rights groups have accused Kadyrov's security force of rampant abuses, including torture and killings of suspected militants and their relatives.
The reported attack on Yamadayev followed assassinations of several other Chechen renegades, and Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said Saturday's shooting "looks like an assassination."
The Chechen "was assassinated in the parking lot of the building where he lives," Tamim was quoted as saying Saturday by the United Arab Emirates' official news agency, WAM.
Tamim did not answer calls Monday from The Associated Press seeking comment on the killing.
Several Dubai media reports identified the victim with a slightly different name, Sulaiman Madov. The discrepancy might have been caused in transliterating his name from Russian, or he might have been living under a different name in Dubai.
The Russian news outlets identifying him as former rebel Yamadayev included the country's two main news agencies, ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti. One of those reports, in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, quoted Yamadayev's brother, Isa, as confirming the death.
Yamadayev was one of the few who refused to bow to President Kadyrov's orders. Long-running tensions between the two men exploded into an open conflict last April when Yamadayev's men refused to give way to Kadyrov's convoy.
Kadyrov then accused Yamadayev of involvement in abductions and murders, and an arrest warrant for him was issued.
Despite that, Yamadayev led his battalion to fight alongside the Russian military during Russia's war with Georgia last August, but was discharged from the Russian army shortly after. Yamadayev left Russia after his older brother, Ruslan, was shot and killed in his car in central Moscow last September.
"We hope that law enforcement agencies will find the killer," said Ali Karimov, a spokesman for President Kadyrov in the Chechen capital, Grozny, reached by telephone.
When pressed for more details and about how he knew Yamadayev was dead, Karimov hung up the phone.
Several other Chechens have been slain abroad in recent years.
In 2004, former Chechen separatist President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed in Qatar. Two Russian intelligence agents were convicted of that killing and sent back to Russia to serve their sentences.
In January, a former bodyguard of Kadyrov was shot dead in Vienna. The man, Umar Israilov, had filed a criminal complaint against Kadyrov in Austria in June, accusing him of torture and other abuses in Chechnya.
Russia claims the right to dispatch soldiers or security agents anywhere to fight anyone it considers a terrorist. The parliament in 2006 authorized the president to make such dispatches, following the kidnapping of four Russian Embassy workers in Iraq.
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