Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Corruption. I believe that the single greatest problem in Russia today is corruption. I wouldn’t try to estimate how great a proportion of GDP is “taxed” this way, but it is very large. (Others don’t hesitate: 40% or 50%. Surely too high: if that much went to corruption, the only industries left would be brothels and fast cars!). Reducing corruption is said to be a high priority of the government, but how effectively is it being done? According to the Interior Ministry, 8000 people in the first 6 months of the year were prosecuted: among them 4 deputy governors, 3 regional ministers, 8 parliamentarians, 12 heads of municipalities and deputies and 15 heads of local executive power structures. You can’t say that that is nothing, but you can wonder if it goes high enough: as I’ve said before, the anti-corruption campaign will really bite when someone in an office near Medvedev or Putin is arrested. But bit by bit: recently a senior policeman was arrested and 4 Moscow policemen detained on suspicion of kidnapping. In an interesting approach, Sberbank posted a list of employees fired for breach of duty: “We do not want them to work in the banking system again”.

RUSSIA'S POLICY 'THAW' AND AN OBAMA TRIUMPH

COMMENTARY

By Gordon M. Hahn

Russian officials are making statements to the effect that Moscow considers any sale of its S-300 air defense systems to Iran to be banned by the new UN sanctions against that country for its nuclear weapons program.  An unidentified Kremlin source traveling with Russian president Dmitrii Medvedev told RIA-Novosti on Friday that the sale of the S-300s do fall under the new sanctions.  Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC) also announced: “An analysis of the provisions of the UN Security Council Resolution 1929 adopted on June 9, 2010, conducted by the FSMTC experts, shows that the restrictive measures contained in the document apply to the delivery of S-300 air defense systems to Iran as well.”  State Duma Foerign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev, who is close to the Kremlin and a member of the ruling United Russia party, reiterated this view.  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov simply cautioned that it was up to the president to make the final decision to be reflected in a presidential decree. (“UN sanctions mean Russia cannot sell S-300 missiles to Iran – officials,” RIA Novosti, 11 June 2010).

UNITED RUSSIA?

REPRINTS

by Paul J. Saunders

www.nationalinterest.org 

Obama administration officials have focused intently on working with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, both in the nuclear talks that led to the new START agreement and now in discussions of United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran. And they have dismissed the idea that concentrating on Medvedev—at the expense of working with the more influential Prime Minister Vladimir Putin—could put U.S. goals at risk, claiming that “there was not daylight” between the two in the arms control negotiations and that Medvedev and Putin were “in perfect lockstep every step of the way.” Today’s meetings between Putin and the leaders of Iran and Turkey at a regional security forum in Istanbul should raise questions about basing American policy on this assumption.

Putin met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the margins of the “Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia” conference, an 18-nation gathering originally launched by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Ahmadinejad also used the opportunity to praise Turkish leaders for their strong statements in Turkey’s ongoing confrontation with Israel over nine deaths during Israel’s commando attack on a Turkish-sponsored flotilla seeking to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Rethinking Russia: U.S.-Russian Relations in an Age of American Triumphalism

REPRINTS

Interview with Stephen F. Cohen, Professor of Russian Studies and History at New York University and Professor of Politics Emeritus at Princeton University

Journal of International Affairs

Spring/Summer 2010

Journal: The world recently commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. How has this event been received in Russia?

Cohen: For Russians, the more important date is this March, which marks 25 years since Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and began the reforms he called perestroika. There will be very conflicting opinions in the Russian press about what happened to the nation in the past 25 years. The angriest view will lament the loss of the Soviet Union, which many Russians still do.

RUSSIA AND ITS EARLY "NEW POLITICAL THINKING"

COMMENTARY

By Gordon Hahn

Over two years ago I reported for ROPV on the upcoming domestic thaw in Russian politics and predicted first a gradual liberalization and then perhaps a gradual democratization of Russia’s political system under the duumvirate of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.  The U.S. mainstream media could have seen this coming if not for the intense bias against Russia it harbors as a result of a confluence of liberal political correctness and conservative Russophobia.  It is now clear that a similarly ‘surprising’ thaw has occurred in Russian foreign policy.  Although Russia’s hyper-realism, which promotes its economic interests above all other considerations, may limit rapproachement with the West at some point, this is a good first step that heads Moscow in the right direction. 

WASHINGTON LUCKED OUT

REPRINTS

 The National Interest

March 22, 2010

by Doug Bandow

Ukraine recently elected Viktor Yanukovich president. Reviled as “pro-Russian” by American policy makers, Yanukovich could prove to be the best Ukrainian leader that Washington could hope for. He is looking to the West economically but has credibility in Moscow and, most importantly, does not want to join NATO, which would entangle the U.S. militarily against Russia.

Five years ago the Bush administration and U.S.-funded NGOs promoted the so-called Orange Revolution, through which Viktor Yushchenko bested Yanukovich, who was tainted by charges of electoral fraud. The former presented himself as pro-Western, but spent five years fighting with his allies and driving away voters. In January he received just 5.4 percent of the vote in the original election round and failed to make the run-off, which was won by Yanukovich.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

 by Patrick Armstrong

Over-centralisation. I have long thought that Putin, probably as a result of his fear that Russia would break up, over-centralised control (From his first phone-in in 2000: “The ‘power component’ in this country has become weakened and everything went tumbling down”.). One of Medvedev’s problems, therefore, is to reduce this centralisation: his goal of “modernisation” is impossible if all decisions are made at the centre. Yesterday, the Institute of Contemporary Development, with which Medvedev is associated, issued its report on what should be done. In brief, it calls for a general loosening of the political and command system of the country and a number of changes; many reverse decisions Putin made when he was President and mark somewhat of a return to the Yeltsin period. No doubt the Kommentariat will go into a frenzy of speculation about a struggle between the two Duumvirs, but I believe that this is all part of the next stage of the Team’s Plan. The report is probably to be seen as a contribution to the discussion. We will see what happens.

Russia, China, Iran Redraw Energy Map

REPRINTS

By M K Bhadrakumar

Asia Times, January 8, 2009

The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline on Wednesday connecting Iran's northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan's vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is "apocalypse now" for the Islamic regime in Tehran. 

The event sends strong messages for regional security. Within the space of three weeks, Turkmenistan has committed its entire gas exports to China, Russia and Iran. It has no urgent need of the pipelines that the United States and the European Union have been advancing. Are we hearing the faint notes of a Russia-China-Iran symphony?

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Russia and Europe. Readers will know that since the Ossetia war I have been predicting a change in European attitudes towards Russia. My argument is that many there have realised what a bill of goods they were sold about Saakashvili, Georgia and Russia (to say nothing about the gas supply problem) and will therefore be re-considering their ideas about Russia’s alleged hostility. Some more indications: Medvedev seems to have had a fruitful visit to France and I would expect similar results when he visits Italy today. Furthermore, it appears that his ideas on a new security treaty (Russ, Eng) are at least being listened to rather than dismissed as they first were. And, interestingly enough, Berlusconi just visited Belarus signalling the end of the shunning of “Europe’s last dictator”.

NATO expansion. Russians have been saying NATO promised not to expand. Are they right? Apparently.

Iran. Russia’s representative on the IAEA voted with Western countries to criticise Tehran for its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad was not best pleased. So, Bushehr delayed, no SS-300s and now this.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Medvedev Speech. Last week Medvedev gave the annual Presidential address to Parliament. (Russ) (Eng). The principle theme was “modernisation”: “Today we are talking about modernisation – this is the essential aspect of my Address today – about our desire to be modern.” His definition: “A truly modern society is the one that seeks constant renewal, continuous evolutionary transformation of social practices, democratic institutions, visions of the future, assessments of the present, the one engaged in gradual but irreversible changes in technological, economic and cultural spheres, the steady improvement of the quality of life.” He understands that this involves a major psychic change: “Instead of an archaic society in which the leaders think and decide for everyone we will become a society of clever, free and responsible people” and “we ourselves will change too”. These speeches are made annually (the Constitution requires them, Art 84.f) and I am interested that, for practically the first time, the Kommentariat appears to have actually read the speech rather than skimmed it looking for some phrase it can twist into a threat. But old blinders are still on as many commentators spun it as a criticism of Putin, because they never bothered to read Putin’s speeches. Here from Putin’s speech in 2004 (the first I looked at): “We want high living standards and a safe, free and comfortable life. We want a mature democracy and a developed civil society… We are interested in further integration of the Russian economy into the international economy.” What many people cannot imagine is that this is a long-term project carried out by a team. Putin stabilised things; Medvedev is to modernise things. But it’s the same project. The doing of it, is, of course, the problem. It will be neither easy nor short. Nor entirely successful.