Thank you, Valiant Defenders of Our Freedom!

La Russophobe is on hiatus in observance of Memorial Day and the selfless heroism of American’s fighting women (and men). The next post will appear Tuesday May 30th. Happy Memorial Day! Don’t forget to honor our fallen champions!

Don’t worry, though, she’s left you plenty of material to keep your eager eyes busy until she returns, see posts below. (Sorry, no Sunday Funnies this hallowed weekend, the feature will return next week at its regular time.)

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Shadow President Illarionov Dogs Putin’s Every Step

La Russophobe’s dream ticket for the Russian presidential “election” of 2008:

• For President: Andrei Illarionov
• For Prime Minister: Gary Kasparov
• For First Deputy: Vladmir Ryzhkov
  
• For Duma Speaker: Mikhail Kasyanov

The London Telegraph reports:

The former economic adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that the planned flotation of state-owned oil giant Rosneft would see “the London Stock Exchange being used to distribute stolen assets”.

Andrei Illarionov, who quit the Putin government last December in protest at the erosion of Russia’s political and economic freedom, said potential investors should be aware of the risks of the proposed £5.4bn float. “This is a crime which will be investigated by a new government and reversed,” he said in the latest salvo against the controversial initial public offering. His comments follow denunciations of the sale by investors including George Soros and Foreign & Colonial, which recently raised a warning flag over Russia’s corporate governance practices. Rosneft’s assets include Siberian oil explorer Yuganskneftegaz, responsible for 11pc of Russia’s oil output and forcibly “acquired” by the Kremlin in December 2004 after the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch jailed last year for tax evasion. “We are dealing with a company with a very questionable history. We just don’t know what happened,” Mr Illarionov added.Speaking in London, he also questioned why Prime Minister Tony Blair had apparently left the door open to a mooted takeover of British Gas-owner Centrica by Gazprom, the Kremlin-controlled gas producer. “I’m puzzled. Many people have expressed concerns, but this is a very clear statement that it is ok for Centrica to be bought by a state-owned company. I do not hear anything similar from anyone else in Europe. “Are G8 members serious about defending the very cornerstones, defining values and institutions of Western civilisation or will they compromise and bow to the demands and caprices of the new energy tsars?” asked Mr Illarionov.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Iron Curtain, Part II

The Moscow Times reports that Kremlin pressure has forced opera diva Anna Netrebko, a star at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, to halt her application for Austrian citizenship following a wave of criticism in the Russian media questioning the her patriotism and accusing the charming soprano of being a traitor.

La Russophobe dares to wonder who will be the next Russian not allowed to accept dual citizenship, and how long it will be after that that “certain very important Russians” will not be allowed to leave the country at all, or will do so only with “bodyguards” who speak into their lapels to the Kremlin taskmasters who watch their every move. First legislators are not allowed to say dirty words like “dollar” or “euro” and then the cream of Russia’s crop isn’t allowed to have dual citizenship. Neo-Soviet Union? You be the judge.

Think about it, Russians. It’s not to late to stop your downward slide.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Rest In Peace, Sir

R.I.P.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Shocking Inaccuracy from the Carnegie Endowment’s Moscow Center

In a post on the Carnegie Moscow Center’s web site, Andrew Kuchins writes:

The Russian recovery is truly impressive. According to Moscow-based investment bank Troika Dialog, in 1999 Russian GDP in nominal terms was less than $200 billion; in 2006 it’ll be close to $1 trillion — growing at a rate of more than 25% per year, though nominal dollar growth rates will of course taper downward as the ruble appreciates in value.

This statement is so bizarre La Russophobe hardly knows where to begin.

First of all, by what bizarre logic does the Moscow Center choose to rely upon a Russian investment bank, whose raison d’etre is to tout Russia, for statistics about Russia’s GDP? Incredibly, Kuchins does not even make an attempt to document the flimsy source he relies on; no person at Troika Diaglog is named much less is a link to the data provided by Kuchins.

Second, was Mr. Kuchins smoking when he wrote that Russia’s GDP had “grown at a rate of more than 25% per year”? According to Reuters, which relied on World Bank data, Russia’s GDP was $581.4 billion in 2004, up from $431.5 billion in 2003. True, this might appear (to an utter, clueless moron) to be a 34% increase of $149.9 billion, but Reuters indicates that the World Bank reported Russia’s rate of GDP growth as only 7.1%. Moreover, Reuters relied on World Bank data published in 2006 which stated that 2004 was the most recent year for which fully reliable data was available. And all that is to say nothing of the fact that $591.4 billion is barely $4,000 per person in Russia, less than $12 per day.

In other words, not only is Kuchin’s statement about Russia’s 2006 GDP nothing but meaningless speculation, his statements about the growth rate are absurdly misleading, hiding behind the phrase “nominal terms.” What Kuchins doesn’t see fit to mention is that Russia experienced hyperinflation of consumer prices at a startling rate of 18.1% in 2004, which dramatically undercuts the value of its GDP growth, and changes in the price of oil and currency fluctuations account for virtually all the rest.

Why doesn’t Kuchins feel it necessary to mention that, even if Russia’s GDP were $1 trillion, that would still only work out to $6,993 per person, $19 per day, five times less than the average for Western Europe.

Why does Kuchins think he can just ignore the fact that the top 10% of Russia’s population consumes nearly 25% of its wealth, so that 90% of the population continues to live in squalid poverty?

Above all, how can Kuchins possibly talk about an “impressive” recovery by a country which may have lost as many as 7 million people from its population, 4.6%, over the period of time he is discussing. Some people consider it a crisis that America has taken 2 thousand casualties fighting a war in Iraq.

The only thing that has been remotely impressive about Russia’s economic performance over the past seven years is the Kremlin’s ability to ride a wave of luck based on oil prices and worldwide terrorism. This wave has allowed it to retain its power and even begin to construct a neo-Soviet Union. But the condition of Russia as a nation, apart from the Kremlin, has dramatically deteriorated in every way that can be measured.

It’s understandable that the “Center for International Peace” would be concerned about the world relapsing into a Cold War scenario where it will have little role to play. But perverting facts in order to try to convince the world not to confront the rise of the neo-Soviet state does nothing to advance the cause of world peace. If fact, it only makes things that much worse.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin Fails Miserably at Sochi Conference

The Moscow Times reports:

SOCHI, Southern Russia — President Vladimir Putin and European Union leaders failed to secure an agreement on energy policy at a meeting in Sochi on Thursday in the run-up to the G8′s summit in St. Petersburg.

Putin accused European leaders of double standards, maintaining that the EU complained about Gazprom’s gas-export monopoly but blocked Russian efforts to tap European energy markets.

The Sochi meeting came at the same time that Russian-U.S. relations have also been strained, with the White House upset with Russia’s energy policy, position on Iran’s uranium-enrichment program and human-rights record.

“If our European partners expect that we will let them into the holy of holies of our economy — the energy sector — and let them in as they would like to be admitted, then we expect reciprocal steps in the most crucial and important areas for our development,” the president said.

Putin sounded an optimistic note, too. “The most important thing is that we have a desire to agree on this issue, and we will reach an agreement.”

And, for the first time, Putin responded directly to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion that Russia is backtracking on democracy, saying Russia was simply pursuing its national interests.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Praise Allah?? Here Come the Uncle Tomski Muslims

Now, the Kremlin seeks to manipuate Islam.

The New York Times reports:

The mosque pictured at the left, now under construction in Chechnya, will hold 10,000 worshipers, making it the largest in the republic. Its minarets will rise 179 feet in the air. It will speak notjust of faith, but of power.

At the dedication of the foundation, the following transpires:

Three circles of barefoot men, one ring inside another, sway to the cadence of chant.

The men stamp in time as they sway, and grunt from the abdomen and throat, filling the room with a primal sound. One voice rises over the rest, singing variants of the names of God.

The men stop, face right and walk counterclockwise, slowly at first, then fast. As they gain speed they begin to hop on their outside feet and draw closer. The three circles merge into a spinning ball.

The ball stops. It opens back up. The stamping resumes, softly at first, then louder. Many of the men are entranced. The air around them hums. The wooden floor shakes. The men turn left and accelerate the other way.

This is a zikr, the mystical Sufi dance of the Caucasus and a ritual near the center of Chechen Islam.

Here inside Chechnya, where Russia has spent six years trying to contain the second Chechen war since the Soviet Union collapsed, traditional forms of religious expression are returning to public life. It is a revival laden with meaning, and with implications that are unclear.

The Kremlin has worried for generations about Islam’s influence in the Caucasus, long attacking local Sufi traditions and, in the 1990′s, attacking the role of small numbers of foreign Wahhabis, proponents of an austere Arabian interpretation of Islam whom Moscow often accuses of encouraging terrorist attacks.

But Chechnya’s Sufi brotherhoods have never been vanquished — not by repression, bans or exile by the czars or Stalin, and not by the Kremlin of late.

Now they are reclaiming a place in public life. What makes the resurgence so unusual is that Sufi practices have become an element of policy for pro-Russian Chechens. Zikr ceremonies are embraced by the kadyrovsky, the Kremlin-backed Chechen force that is assuming much of the administration of this shattered land

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Welcome to the Neo-Soviet World Where Lies are Policy

A European food industry website reports that Russia is conducting a food regulatory policy based on absurd lies designed to advance a political agenda. Remember, the Russians who are so concerned about the safety of incoming food have the shortest lifespan of anyone in Europe and any food item produced in Russia may be adulterated with many different types of pollution. Welcome to back to the USSR! If Russians didn’t learn that lies won’t work as policy when the first USSR failed, they never will.

Russia faking food safety concerns, warns EU

26/05/2006 – Russia is now playing political games with its import ban on Polish meat and vegetables, says the European Commission, warning other member states to tread carefully.Russia’s ban on meat and plant products from Poland has become a political matter, Markos Kyprianou, European commissioner for health and consumer protection, told agriculture ministers from the 25 EU states this week.

“Poland has met all the technical requirements legitimately raised by the Russian authorities. Further measures required by Russia go beyond Poland’s powers and go against previous agreements with Russia,” Philip Todd, spokesperson for Kyprianou, told Cee-FoodIndustry.com.
The move indicates the Commission is losing patience with Russia, amid concerns the latter has increasingly used food safety to erect trade barriers.

Commissioner Kyprianou warned Europe’s agriculture ministers not to “give any kind of reason to Russia to impose a ban”, adding that export controls may need to be strengthened.
Russia has imposed several import bans over the last year, citing food safety concerns, with the most recent coming against Moldovan and Georgian wine.

Russia banned imports of Polish meat last November, following this up with a complete ban on agricultural products. It banned Polish dairy imports the year before that.
Poland normally exports around eight per cent of its yearly agricultural produce to Russia, for around €347m.

Representatives from Poland’s new government this week launched an angry tirade against the ongoing import ban at a meeting with agriculture ministers from EU member states. They called again for a united EU front against Russia’s political games.

The Commission has already held various discussions with Russia on the issue of food import bans over the last couple of months.

It has so far avoided escalating the dispute, preferring instead to rely on its powers of persuasion. That may change if Russia does not budge, however.

Commission spokesperson Todd said the bloc has insisted that Russia complies with the import regime set down by the World Trade Organisation. “Beyond that, all we can do is raise the issue in a political context,” he said.

Todd confirmed the matter would be pursued further by European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, although the import ban against Poland was not on the official agenda for Thursday’s EU-Russia summit.

The EU now has more than a €50bn trade deficit with Russia, although Russia remains the bloc’s third largest trade partner, according to Commission figures.

Poland has been trying to make up for lost trade with Russia by selling more in other neighbouring countries, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture told Cee-FoodIndustry recently.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !