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.
vrijdag 3 april 2009
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.
dinsdag 31 maart 2009
Afghanistan is a live threat to Russia
Afghanistan is a live threat to Russia. Victor Ivanov, the head of Russia's anti-narcotics service, recently warned that a massive influx of heroin from Afghanistan is "a key negative factor for demography and a blow to our nation's gene pool." With Russia facing a sharp drop in its population because of alcoholism and an abysmal health-care system, the heroin explosion is only worsening the downward spiral. An estimated 2.5 million Russians are now addicts, according to the Ministry of Health.
Victor Ivanov (wikipedia):
Viktor Petrovich Ivanov (Russian: Виктор Петрович Иванов, born May 12, 1950, Novgorod, Soviet Union) is a Russian politician and businessman, former KGB officer, who served in the KGB Directorate of Leningrad and its successors in 1977–1994.
In 1987–1988 as a KGB officer he took part in the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
In December 1990 together with Boris Gryzlov and Valentin Chuykin he founded the small-scale enterprise Blok engaged in various businesses and became its director.
In October 1994 he resigned from FSK and was appointed Chief of the Administrative Staff of the Saint Petersburg Mayor Office. In 1999 he succeeded Nikolai Patrushev as the Head of the Internal Security Department of Russia's FSB. Since January 5, 2000, he has been a Deputy Head of the Presidential Staff for personnel appointed by Vladimir Putin. Viktor Ivanov is considered one of Putin's closest allies.
In September 2001 Russia's Prime Minister appointed Ivanov representative of the state in the Boards of Directors of the Antei Corporation and Almaz Scientific Industrial Corporation, developing and producing air defence systems, including S-300. On November 22, 2001, he was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of Almaz and initiated the merger of Almaz and Antei. Since June 2002 Ivanov has been the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the result of the merger, OJSC Almaz-Antei Air Defense Concern.
Since November 4, 2004, he has also been the Chairman of the Board of Directors of JSC Aeroflot airline.
Viktor Ivanov has a daughter, who is married to Oleg Safonov.
Russia's economy will shrink by 4,5%
Russia's economy will shrink by 4.5% this year because of the global downturn, the World Bank has predicted.
The Bank said Russia, a major oil producer, would be particularly hard hit by the low price of oil.
It said the Kremlin should shift the focus of its anti-crisis programme to the poor because of "the threat of significant social pressure".
The Bank added that aid to Russia's poor might have the added benefit of stimulating domestic demand.
Unrest feared
The World Bank says that the social situation in Russia has worsened so rapidly and so unexpectedly that it is important to shift the focus of the anti-crisis policy to the population.
It says that the Russian government should increase payments to the unemployed and to pensioners.
Since the global economic downturn began to affect Russia, the authorities here have been worried by the prospect of social unrest - especially in towns where single enterprises are the engine of the entire local economy.
The government insists that it has the funds to meet social spending requirements, but the World Bank's prediction is likely to cause further concern.
While the Bank expects the Russian economy to shrink by 4.5% this year, the Russian government predicts a 2.2% contraction.
The Bank said Russia, a major oil producer, would be particularly hard hit by the low price of oil.
It said the Kremlin should shift the focus of its anti-crisis programme to the poor because of "the threat of significant social pressure".
The Bank added that aid to Russia's poor might have the added benefit of stimulating domestic demand.
Unrest feared
The World Bank says that the social situation in Russia has worsened so rapidly and so unexpectedly that it is important to shift the focus of the anti-crisis policy to the population.
It says that the Russian government should increase payments to the unemployed and to pensioners.
Since the global economic downturn began to affect Russia, the authorities here have been worried by the prospect of social unrest - especially in towns where single enterprises are the engine of the entire local economy.
The government insists that it has the funds to meet social spending requirements, but the World Bank's prediction is likely to cause further concern.
While the Bank expects the Russian economy to shrink by 4.5% this year, the Russian government predicts a 2.2% contraction.
woensdag 25 maart 2009
Russia versus NATO
Days after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced his country's intentions to revamp its armed forces, the top U.S. commander in Europe is warning of a new period of "uncertainty" in U.S.-Russian relations.
In Senate testimony today, Gen. Bantz Craddock, the head of U.S. European Command, was blunt. "The relationship with Russia," he said, "is likely to be more difficult to manage in coming years than any time since the end of the Cold War."
Relations between the Kremlin and Washington hit a rough patch after the August 2008 South Ossetia war, and Craddock's statement comes as European Command reevaluates plans to downsize the U.S. force presence in Europe. Two Army brigades are scheduled to return to the United States from Europe in 2012 and 2013, but Craddock is now recommending they remain stationed in Europe. Without specifically mentioning Russia, the general said in testimony that "these forces contribute directly to our dissuasion and deterrence efforts."
The Obama admistration has tried -- with limited success -- to push the "reset" button with Russia, and it wants the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions and preserving supply routes to Afghanistan. President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet next week with his counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev; Russian experts are already telling us to curb our expectations.
In Senate testimony today, Gen. Bantz Craddock, the head of U.S. European Command, was blunt. "The relationship with Russia," he said, "is likely to be more difficult to manage in coming years than any time since the end of the Cold War."
Relations between the Kremlin and Washington hit a rough patch after the August 2008 South Ossetia war, and Craddock's statement comes as European Command reevaluates plans to downsize the U.S. force presence in Europe. Two Army brigades are scheduled to return to the United States from Europe in 2012 and 2013, but Craddock is now recommending they remain stationed in Europe. Without specifically mentioning Russia, the general said in testimony that "these forces contribute directly to our dissuasion and deterrence efforts."
The Obama admistration has tried -- with limited success -- to push the "reset" button with Russia, and it wants the Kremlin's help in dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions and preserving supply routes to Afghanistan. President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet next week with his counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev; Russian experts are already telling us to curb our expectations.
zaterdag 21 maart 2009
Russia is strengthening its military
MOSCOW – The diplomatic tone between Russia and the US may have sweetened since Barack Obama took office, but Russian leaders are adopting a tougher line than ever when addressing their domestic audience.
Speaking to a room of Russian Army brass on Tuesday, President Dmitry Medvedev pledged massive hikes in military spending and stepped-up procurement of nuclear missiles, tanks, fighter planes, and a new generation of deep-water warships, including aircraft carriers.
Despite a galloping economic crisis, “significant funds have been earmarked for the development and purchase,” of these weapons, Mr. Medvedev said.
He did not specify the amounts to be spent on new arms, but said the increases will not take effect until 2011. The daily newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday that Russia might actually cut its military expenditures for next year amid a hurricane of budgetary woes.
A “qualitative” upsurge in Russian military development is necessary because conflict looks more likely than ever in the present world, Medvedev argued. “Threats remain that can bring about local crises and international terrorism; NATO is not halting its efforts to widen its military infrastructure near the borders of our country,” he added.
In a separate statement, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov called for a robust military response to what he described as Washington’s attempts to drive Russia into a strategic corner. “US aspirations have been aimed at getting access to raw materials, energy, and other resources,” of the former USSR, he said. “Active support was given to attempts to push Russia out of its traditional sphere of interests.”
Russia has been discussing military renewal for several years as Soviet-era hardware deteriorates, the old-fashioned conscript army grows increasingly dysfunctional, and fresh military challenges emerge. Last summer’s flash war against the neighboring ex-Soviet republic of Georgia was won handily by Russia’s Caucasus-based 58th Army, but postwar analyses highlighted disastrous shortcomings that cost the Russian forces dearly.
Russia has also been moving to bolster its regional alliance system and develop military cooperation with neighboring China, which also happens to be one of the biggest clients for Russian arms sales.
Some experts suggest that the sudden burst of strident talk coming out of Moscow, including declarations of rearmament and proposals to base Russian nuclear-capable bombers in Latin America, is mostly political atmospherics aimed at putting Obama on the defensive when he meets with Medvedev on the sidelines of the G-20 conference in London next month to renegotiate the strategic relationship between the two countries.
But others say Russia’s rearmament plans are very real, and may even be long overdue. “We are not happy at all with the Army we have,” says Viktor Baranets, a military expert with the independent Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“It may have won the Caucasus war, but it proved itself to be an outdated Army of the Soviet type. Even though some parts still work well, such as the strategic missile command, our Army is basically good for nothing,” he says.
The message delivered by Medvedev is that Russia will no longer scrimp and save at the expense of its armed forces. “This statement is mainly for domestic consumption, to reassure the Russian public that we are ready to meet all challenges,” Mr. Baranets adds.
Speaking to a room of Russian Army brass on Tuesday, President Dmitry Medvedev pledged massive hikes in military spending and stepped-up procurement of nuclear missiles, tanks, fighter planes, and a new generation of deep-water warships, including aircraft carriers.
Despite a galloping economic crisis, “significant funds have been earmarked for the development and purchase,” of these weapons, Mr. Medvedev said.
He did not specify the amounts to be spent on new arms, but said the increases will not take effect until 2011. The daily newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday that Russia might actually cut its military expenditures for next year amid a hurricane of budgetary woes.
A “qualitative” upsurge in Russian military development is necessary because conflict looks more likely than ever in the present world, Medvedev argued. “Threats remain that can bring about local crises and international terrorism; NATO is not halting its efforts to widen its military infrastructure near the borders of our country,” he added.
In a separate statement, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov called for a robust military response to what he described as Washington’s attempts to drive Russia into a strategic corner. “US aspirations have been aimed at getting access to raw materials, energy, and other resources,” of the former USSR, he said. “Active support was given to attempts to push Russia out of its traditional sphere of interests.”
Russia has been discussing military renewal for several years as Soviet-era hardware deteriorates, the old-fashioned conscript army grows increasingly dysfunctional, and fresh military challenges emerge. Last summer’s flash war against the neighboring ex-Soviet republic of Georgia was won handily by Russia’s Caucasus-based 58th Army, but postwar analyses highlighted disastrous shortcomings that cost the Russian forces dearly.
Russia has also been moving to bolster its regional alliance system and develop military cooperation with neighboring China, which also happens to be one of the biggest clients for Russian arms sales.
Some experts suggest that the sudden burst of strident talk coming out of Moscow, including declarations of rearmament and proposals to base Russian nuclear-capable bombers in Latin America, is mostly political atmospherics aimed at putting Obama on the defensive when he meets with Medvedev on the sidelines of the G-20 conference in London next month to renegotiate the strategic relationship between the two countries.
But others say Russia’s rearmament plans are very real, and may even be long overdue. “We are not happy at all with the Army we have,” says Viktor Baranets, a military expert with the independent Moscow daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“It may have won the Caucasus war, but it proved itself to be an outdated Army of the Soviet type. Even though some parts still work well, such as the strategic missile command, our Army is basically good for nothing,” he says.
The message delivered by Medvedev is that Russia will no longer scrimp and save at the expense of its armed forces. “This statement is mainly for domestic consumption, to reassure the Russian public that we are ready to meet all challenges,” Mr. Baranets adds.
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