Russia: Other Points of View

Citizen Diplomacy Travel begins again -- June 2015

Email begun on June 3, 2015

Dear Friends,

The relations between the two nuclear superpowers, Russia and the U.S., deteriorated so rapidly during the Ukraine build-up to war in 2014 that it seemed to us critical to try to rebuild citizen diplomacy again –– even though this attempt feels like David and Goliath with the slingshot.

Our 22 Americans from 15 states (and one from South Africa) came together to travel to Russia May 30 through June 15. Our goal?  To learn how Russian citizens perceive the situations in Ukraine, Crimea and the Washington-based economic sanctions they are now under. We wanted to get clarifying information from them, to share our views with them, and to examine how to begin new efforts to break through the existing barriers between our two countries. 

Our non-traditional travel had no tour guides, no tour buses, no palaces, no concerts, no normal rounds of canned meetings.  Fortunately CCI has sufficient connections across Russia to organize meetings with ordinary Russian business people, journalists, professionals, university students and yes, Russia's venerated TV anchor over the past 40 years, Vladimir Pozner with whom we spent an evening in Moscow. 

No other country has been so persistently maligned in US mainstream media (MSM) over the past decade as has Russia; this demonization has been initiated by a thin segment of Washington's current policy makers and America's compliant MSM. It is said to have started in 2000 when Yeltsin turned over the reigns of the "new" Russia to then unknown Vladimir Putin.  I was told by a State Department diplomat that on that very day when it was announced that VV Putin would likely be Russia's next president, "The knives were drawn."  Actually I think it was even earlier in 1990, when Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Brzezinski, et al, came up with "The Wolfowitz Doctrine." 

RUSSIA REPORT

by Sharon Tennison

Friends, despite the fact that Ukraine is burning as I finish this report, I want to complete my thoughts about the Sochi Olympics before giving opinions on the Ukrainian issues.

Dear CCI friends,

The Sochi Olympics have been a high point in this new year for me.  And I hope for you too. The mounds of white snow, colorful Olympic suits and helmets, exciting young faces …. it has all been so "up beat".  I visited Sochi in the past. To realize that the whole region has turned into this amazing winter/summer sports/holiday playground is almost ….  well, Unbelievable!  

Fortunately, once the Opening Night and competitions got underway, perhaps you noted that reporters and newscasting naysayers became somewhat less critical than earlier. Many of us in both countries had become so disheartened in previous months as publications and newscasters were weighing in with articles loaded with misinformation and fragments of stories worded to produce warped impressions. It seemed the attempt was to diminish, in advance, any respect or goodwill that the Sochi events might bring to Russia.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

CHICKENS ROOSTING 1: CHINA. It was fun to rant on about the “energy weapon” and how Russia had to be cut out of pipelines: it was weak, getting weaker and had no other market. But it isn’t, didn’t and hasn’t. Rosneft’s CEO says annual oil sales – 7 million tonnes – to China ought to bring in US$2.4 billion a year in export duties. Russian energy sales to China can only get bigger because it suits each country’s interests. Why sell to a market that accuses you of evil intent when there’s one that doesn’t?

CHICKENS ROOSTING 2: EGYPT. It was fun to expand NATO and push Russia around: it was weak, getting weaker and had no friends. But it isn’t, didn’t and hasn’t. Washington’s stunningly incompetent – but still arrogant – policy is turning Cairo towards Moscow and Moscow is happy to reciprocate. A Russian warship is in Alexandria and Lavrov and Shoygu are about to visit. Much talk of close relations and arms sales. Given the excitement about its trivial presence in Tartus, just think of the ventricular fibrillation when the Russian Navy gets a base in Alex. And, keeping up the impression of revival, Russia’s snazziest-looking warship is now in the Med.

SNIPPETS. Not everyone is shunning Russia. Moscow and Tokyo have agreed to (finally) hold peace treaty talks in 2014. Italy and Russia have held a joint naval exercise in the Aegean. The King and Queen of the Netherlands visited. It’s been slower than I expected, but I do believe that reality is gradually taking hold: Russia is a “normal” country: it has its own interests and peculiarities to be sure, but shunning and excoriating it doesn’t get anyone anywhere. It’s neither going away nor fading away. And it’s not anybody’s enemy either.

RUSSIA MACRO-POLITICS: ONE STEP AT A TIME

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

by Chris Weafer

“Although it is said that faith can move mountains,

experience shows that dynamite works better” 

Anon

Moving up the rankings. The main news last week was the gain in Russia’s ranking in the World Bank’s 2014 Ease of Doing Business survey. Russia is now ranked 92^nd (out of 189 countries) having moved up from 111^th last year (details below). This does not have any immediate impact on the perception of equity risk, on valuations, on earnings growth, nor on the medium-term macroeconomic indicators. It is important because it shows that the government’s commitment to business reforms is starting to yield some results. 

Russia now ranks 10^th best in the world for contract enforcement.  That disposes of a popular mis-conception about the risk of doing business in the country. 

Reform progress since the last elections. Over the past eighteen months we have seen more progress in advancing reforms that ever before. The list includes WTO entry, capital market reforms, anti-corruption legislation and better budget discipline. It can be argued that these changes are still not much more than a drop in the ocean relative to the size of the problem still to be addressed. But at least we now have reform momentum and that’s not something we could have said before the summer of 2012. 

To access the full report, click Download Russia_Briefing_Nov_5_'13 

SHOOTS OF DEMOCRACY SURVIVE IN PUTIN'S RUSSIA

By Gordon M. Hahn

Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s tightening the reins since returning to the Kremlin, Russia’s September 8th elections show that the shoots of democracy remain alive in Russia.

The elections and some of Putin’s recent statements suggest that he seems to be pulling back from the more excessive aspects of the crackdown. He also may even be allowing greater electoral competition in the more cosmopolitan, pro-democracy urban centers in order to: (1) pressure the pro-Kremlin ‘Yedinaya Rossiya’ (YeR or United Russia) party or to improve its electoral performance, (2) reduce reliance on voter falsification, and (3) let off oppositional steam where the middle or ‘creative class’ is on the rise.

The September election results and the conduct of the campaign proceeded better than might have been expected in many places. To be sure, there were some of the usual dirty tricks, use of the notorious ‘administrative resources’, and other minor oversteps on the authorities’ part. In Voronezh, the pro-Kremlin YeR party may have stolen the mayoral election by falsifying the vote count. But elections for mayoralties in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Petrozavodsk, and several other areas were conducted with fewer constraints, though apparently not fully free or fair.

WEST NEED TO CRITICIZE PUTIN BUT NOT SUPPORT HIS RIVALS

REPRINTS

Financial Times

July 29, 2013

By Anatol Lieven

The writer is a professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington DC

It is not our business to pick sides in Russia’s political battles, writes Anatol Lieven 

The judicial process against Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, seems fishy from start to finish. Oddly enough, that applies not just to his conviction for embezzlement, but also to the decision to release him on bail pending appeal. Such a release has no place in Russian law, and that it was called for by the prosecution as well as the defence makes it obvious that this was a political decision by the Kremlin. 

One can only speculate about President Vladimir Putin’s motives, but since Mr Navalny’s release will probably allow him to stand for mayor of Moscow in September, it appears that the Kremlin wants to give the impression of a fair race and a legitimate result. This is especially necessary since Sergei Sobyanin, the existing mayor, undermined the legitimacy of these elections by suddenly bringing them forward by two years in an apparent attempt to give opponents no time to campaign properly.

Western governments, media and non-governmental organisations have quite rightly criticised Mr Navalny’s trial, which is only the latest in a series of abuses of the judicial system to target critics of the Putin administration. Such abuses are not only wrong in themselves, but also help prevent Russia’s development as a state and economy ruled ­ as far as possible ­ by the law. Western governments also have a right to criticise the Russian government because many of those targeted by Russian officialdom have been anti-corruption campaigners ­ and corruption is the biggest obstacle to western investment in Russia, and to Russian development in general. 

TANDEM 2.0: ITS NATURE, ORIGINS, AND CLOUDY FUTURE

by Gordon M. Hahn

Much has been written about the ‘death of the tandem’ of Vladimir Putin and Dmitrii Medvedev since they switched offices in the Kremlin.  Although analyzing the tandem has been akin to reading the tea leaves of Soviet politics in the era of ‘Kremlinology’, it is worthwhile examining whether the tandem still exists and what the nature of the relationship between Russia’s president and its prime minister are under the new configuration of power.

Although the tandem 2.0 is different from the tandem 1.0, it seems there is more than enough evidence suggesting the tandem survives and reason therefore to hypothesize about its political basis.  I have addressed on ROPV and elsewhere the disagreements over specific policies as well as the differences in general political orientation between the tandem’s two halves.  Suffice it to say here that Medvedev is more laissez faire in economics – having even referred to the ‘new’ conservatism of Reagan and Thatcher as models – and more pluralist, decentralized, and society-oriented in politics. Putin is more of a Russian “statist” and traditionalist (rather than socialist bent) preferring a strong state over both the polity and the economy.  Medvedev is more Western and more inclined to support Western positions in foreign policy; Putin decidedly ‘not so much.’

PUTIN 2.0 - YEAR ONE

By Gordon M. Hahn

It has been just about a year since Vladimir Putin 2.0 was inaugurated in the Kremlin as Russian president.  He was succeeding his own interregnum successor Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev and the liberalization policy carried out under the Medvedev-Putin tandem, referred to be the present author first as a ‘thaw’ and then with deepening liberalization, ‘perestroika 2.0. 

Perestroika 2.0 left several tasks unresolved: democratization, market liberalization, and political instability characterized by opposition mobilization, splitting within the Putin elite, and a malaise among Putin’s constituency within the population.  With Putin’s return to the Kremlin, democratization and market liberalization were no longer near the top of the agenda; stabilizing politics moved unequically to the top.  This does not mean that democratization and marketization are off limits for the mid- to long-term, but rather that they will not be pursued as ends in and of themselves and without pressure from below exerted by the opposition or external circumstances.

With political stabilization at the top of the agenda, Putin needed to accomplish three tasks: weaken the street opposition, consolidate the elite, and re-mobilize his popular constituencies.         

BACK ON TRACK TO NORMALCY INSTEAD OF RESET. IN THE WAKE OF MUNICH CONFERENCE

REPRINTS

by Pyotr Iskanderov

http://www.strategic-culture.org/

The 49^th Munich international security conference had some hidden obstacles. First of all, it took place at the time of utter uncertainty concerning the Syria’s situation. A solution requires close cooperation between the USA and Russia just exactly when the bilateral relations go through hard times. 

There were two major issues defining the agenda. First: is it possible to find a solution to the Syrian conflict aggravating the whole situation in the Middle East? Second: is the reset still in force or its initiator Barack Obama decided to alter priorities after being re-elected for the second term? 

The answers are still hanging the air. No reset speeches were heard this time. In February 2009 Vice President Joe Biden used the term, but this time he said something else. According to Biden, the USA want to get the relations with Russia «back to normal». 

The US Vice President didn’t hide the fact that there were many contradictions between the United States and Russia. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Syria’s crisis, the missile defense and further expansion of NATO and, finally, the human rights and democracy, the issues that have come to the fore recently. The Vice-President emphasized, «These differences are real, but we continue to see opportunities for the United States and Russia to partner in ways that advance our mutual security interest and the interest of the international community».. That’s what defined his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. 

PUTIN'S POLITICAL PERESTROIKA: CONSTRUCTING A SYSTEM, OBSTRUCTING THE STREET

COMMENTARY

By Gordon M. Hahn

Amidst his ongoing crackdown on the more irreconcilable (in some cases, radical street opposition leaders, Russian President Vladimir Putin has continued some aspects of Dmitrii Medvedev’s political liberalization or ‘perestroika 2.0’.

         

Medevedev proposed a number of important liberalizing political reforms prior to the December 2011 Duma elections. Riots and subsequent mass demonstrations erupted which were led by a coalition of democratic, nationalist and socialist organizations.  Almost all of the reforms were implemented before Putin’s return to the Kremlin.  Of the two that were not, the most important was Medvedev’s proposal to return to the pre-Putin “Yeltsin era” electoral system for the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.  Under that system Duma deputies were, and now will be elected again (in 2016), in two ways. First, 225 deputies are elected according to the percentage of votes given to political parties; the other 225 elected in single-mandate districts.