Another Original LR Translation: Nemtsov on Putin Volume I, by Essel, Part I

Putin: The Bottom Line by Boris Nemtsov (pictured) and Vladimir Milov is an excellent exposition of the whole Russia problem, calmly and clearly laying out everything we already know about Russia’s problems.

What makes it interesting is that it is a clear-eyed look at the country by one of its own nationals. What a contrast this presents to the usual outpourings of rubbish thinking from benighted Russia. It’s a essay every Russian should read and that every Western politician who has to deal with Russia should have in his armoury or be made to read.

I propose to provide readers of LR with a “serialised” translation, i.e. chapter by chapter, and then to produce a unified PDF document whose link will be posted in LR’s sidebar for permanent reference. The contents of the report are as follows, preceded by an introduction:

1. Corruption is Corroding Russia

2. The Forgotten Army

3. Oh, the Roads…

4. Russia Dying out

5. The Pension Crisis

6. Basman Courts

7. Flouting the Constitution

8. The Collapse of the “National Projects”

9. Enemies All Around. Except China

10. Worsening Inequality

11. Economic Bubble

12. Conclusion: The Alternative

So for today’s installment, here is the introduction and Chapter 1. Chapter 2 will appear in Wednesday’s edition.

* * *

Putin: the Bottom Line

by Boris Nemtsov

First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, 1997-1998

and

Vladimir Milov

Deputy Minister of Energy, 2002

Translated from the Russian by Dave Essel

The eight years of Putin’s rule are coming to an end and the time has come to take a look at the bottom line. Many placed great hopes in Putin’s presidency. Some results have been achieved: official propaganda like to make much of the fact that during the years of his rule (2000-2007), the country’s GNP has gone up by 70%, real incomes have, according to the statistics, have more than doubled and poverty has been reduced with the number of people with incomes below the official subsistence level down from 29% in 2000 to 16% in 2007. The budget has a surplus and the state’s financial prospects higher than ever: in January 2008 Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves reached 480 billion dollars, third largest in the world after China (which has over 1.5 trillion) and Japan (980 billion). The Russian Stabilisation Fund has grown to 157 billion dollars.

All this is true. But it’s only the lesser part of the truth. There are other results of Putin’s rule which are not covered by the state media. And these are shockers. During the years of Putin’s rule, export prices of oil amounted to an average of $40 per barrel while recently they have been over $60. For comparison: the average prices of oil during the Yeltsin years stood at $16.70. The colossal opportunities opened up by high oil prices should have been used by Putin to modernise the country, carry out economic reforms, create a modern army, and establish public health and pension systems.

None of this was done. The army, the pension system, public health, secondary education, and the road system have all degraded. The economy is not doing well either: a stroke of luck was the main reason it was possible to bring relative order to the financial sphere but it also created bubbles in the share markets and in real estate while investments in the real parts of the economy have risen very cautiously while production capability has not been modernised during this time. The opportunities offered by the oil windfall have been missed. As under Brezhnev, super-income from the export of oil and gas have to a large extent been frittered away and necessary reforms left undone.

As a result, as we reach the end of Putin’s presidency, we once again find ourselves with the stable empty and the door open – without a social security system that works properly, facing a growing deficit in the pension fund, with an army straight out of the last century, with state companies in immense debt, and with a level of corruption completely unprecedented in all of Russia’s history. Furthermore, despite the fact that some oligarchs have been sent into exile or put into prison, the remainder continue to enrich themselves – Russia is looking to lead the world in number of billionaires. The increase in the wealth of some oligarchs – for example, Putin’s friends and Russia’s richest man Roman Abramovich – has come straight from government funds. But it all could have been otherwise.

It all could have been otherwise – Russia could have taken a different road. In the 1990s, we experience the collapse of the communist system, the results of which were far more serious than had been expected. Despite that, however, the economy began to grow before Putin came to the presidency: in 1999 GNP rose by 6.4% and industrial production by 11%.It proved possible to reduce crime in the second half of the 1990s (crime figures began dropping in 1996-1997), mortality rates and falling birth rates, all of whose roots went back to Soviet times (rising crime rates and falling birth rates were first noted in the second half of the 1980s; mortality began rising in the early 1970s).

In 1997, after overcoming the most serious consequences of the collapse of socialism and the completion of the semi-reforms of the early 1990s, the Russian government for the first time set out to make systemic reforms aimed at transforming the country into a modern democratic state with a competitive market economy. The loans-for-shares privatisations were stopped and the government began to take action against the influence of the oligarchs. Oligarchic pressuring and the collapse of the state share pyramids prevented these reforms from being completed.

However, many of the ideas from those days were included in Putin’s “first plan” – the programme for socio-economic reforms mooted in 2000 at the start of Putin’s first term. The main heading of this plan were: building of a law-abiding state and of civilised markets, the lowering of bureaucratic barriers, allowing private investments to contribute to the economy, the development of small and middle business, and the implementation of important social reforms. A number of important steps were taken back then, at the start of Vladimir Putin’s presidency – tax and land reform among them. The passing of the Law on Land Ownership put that issue into gear: land, one of the country’s main resources, ceased to belong to no-one and acquired a legal status and a value. The production of a whole series of systemic legal codes and laws brought us closer to having a law-governed state.

From the very beginning, however, Putin’s government distinguished itself by its authoritarianism in the political arena. Many were outraged by the return to the Soviet national anthem, the disbandment of the independent TV channels NTV, TV6, and TVS, and the virtual dissolution of the Federation Council as an independent organ of the state. On the other hand there were others believed that authoritarian modernisation was a possible way for the state to go and many were ready to forgive the state its authoritarian ways if only the country was put in order. But as Viktor Chernomyrdin’s famous phrase has it: “one had hoped for the best but the result was as always.” Authoritarianism triumphed under Putin but no modernisation came about from it.

In 2003, when unprecedented pressure was first deployed against business and the decimation of YUKOS was begun, it became clear that we had taken the wrong track. The the further down it we went, the worse things got: falsified Duma and presidential elections carried out with the crudest of uses of administrative resources in 2003-2004; the unsuccessful interference in the Ukrainian elections; the passage of a whole range of laws restricting freedom of speech, assembly, and the activities of political parties and associations; aggressive foreign policies; and a gradual drawing of the country into confrontation with the rest of the world. Russia became ever more a police state. All the reforms of the early 2000s were made to fail and were replaced instead by greedy redistribution. Corruption became rampant. At the same time, state propaganda, as back in Brezhnev’s days, was endless used to brainwash people. “All is fine, life’s better now, life’s happier” says the propaganda from the Kremlin.

This brochure aims to be a sober and realistic analysis of how our live have changed during the years of Putin’s rule. Someone has already coined this phrase: “Life’s better now… but nastier”. We would like to open the eyes of our fellow-citizens to the sort of Russia that Putin and his successors are making for us.

We would like as many Russians as possible to look the truth in the eyes and recognise what is happening to our country. Let people think about these most serious problems lurking behind the icing of official propaganda and shameless dissimulation. Let them understand that these problems will not just go away: the only thing that’s going away is the time of our oil riches

And these issues will have to be resolved. We do have an alternative to propose. But in order to make this happen, we are going to have to take matters into our own hands. Putin’s and his band of men will not lend a hand: their eight years in power has been long enough to make that clear.

1. Corruption is Corroding Russia

One of the worst and blackest results of Vladimir Putin’s presidency has been Russia’s dive into an unprecedented mire of corruption. We are officially one of the world’s top countries when it comes to theft by civil servants. Russia has dropped to 143rd place in the worldwide rating of perceived corruption issued by Transparency International, making our country one of the most corrupt on earth. Our neighbours on the list are Gambia, Indonesia, Togo, Angola, and Guinea-Bissau. We lag far below such countries as Zambia (123rd), Ukraine (118th), Egypt (105th), Georgia (79th), and South Africa (43rd). Back in 2000, we were rather ‘better” placed at 82nd but we have now reached nearly the bottom. According the the INDEM Foundation [TN: "Information Science for Democracy", Russian NGO founded in 1990] the volume of corrupt business conducted in Russia rose from under $40 billion in 2001 to $300 billion today.^[1](!). Bribes and racketeering by civil servants is ubiquitous.

Putin has proved even more cunning that the oligarchs and other disciples of corruption who parasited off the reforms of the 1990s. There was plenty of corruption in the 1990s, too, but it was open to view – the free press could report on incidents of corruption with hindrance. In 1997, some members of the government were fired for receiving an advance of $90K each for a book about privatisation. Today’s practitioners of corruption laugh at this pathetic sum.

Today theft by civil servants is measured in billions and is hidden from the eyes of the people: large share-owners cover for dozens of secret beneficiaries, “friends of president Putin”, hiding behind their backs. Information on who the real owners are is carefully protected by the secret services and the subject of corruption in the higher echelons of power is taboo for the Kremlin-controlled media.

Meanwhile, bribery and the convergence of the civil service with business has become the norm at all levels of the government – federal, regional, and local. Spouting phrases about the “revenge of the oligarchs”, Russia is witnessing the rapid enrichment of a new and more powerful Putin oligarch – at your expense and mine. Assets are being removed from state ownership and handed over to the control of private people, property is being purchased with state money back from the oligarchs at stunning prices, a friends-of-Putin oil export monopoly is being created, and a Kremlin “black safe” is being funded. This is a brief outline of the criminal system of government that has taken shape under Putin.

The Oscar-winner in the transfer of important assets into the hands of secret third parties is Gazprom. In just three years, without any kind of tender and by means of an opaque procedure, three important assets servicing the company’s cash flow have been transferred to third-party ownership. The first of these was the Gazprom insurance subsidiary Sogaz: in 2005 its ownership was transferred to divisions of Rossiya Bank in Petersburg. At the time of the transfer. Rossiya Bank’s assets were valued at approximately the same as Sogaz’ worth – $1 billion. However, Sogaz was not sold at open auction but simply transferred into the Petersburg bank’s ownership.

In 2006, Rossiya Bank was handed the management of the Gazfond pension funds which amounting to over $6 billion. In late 2006/early 2007, these funds were used to buy out 50% of the shares of Gazprombank, which by late 2007 was second in assets to Sberbank.^[2]

According to the media, Rossiya Bank was set up in 1990 by inter alia the General Manager of the Leningrad District Office of the CPSU, now its chairman, Yuri Kovalchuk, an acquaintance of President Putin’s from his time working in Petersburg. The full list of the bank’s owners is unknown.

One of the largest deals done by Putin’s friends in the Rossiya Bank was the seizure of the giant Gazprom-Media holding, which includes the NTV, TNT, television channels and other media interests. Before Gazprombank fell into the hands of Kovalchuk & Co., in July 2005 Gazprom’s media interests (the Gazprom-Media group and shares in the NTV and TNT televisions channels) were transferred to the bank for a payment of just $166 million^[3]. Two years later, in July 2007, vice premier Dmitri Medvedev estimated the value of Gazprom-Media’s assets as $7.5 billion^[4]. It would appear that Gazprom gave its assets to friends of president Putin for a fraction of their real worth! Compared to this deal, the loans for shares auctions look like exemplars of honesty and transparency.

“Russia – Land of Possibilities”, cynically proclaim Rossiya Bank’s billboards in central St. Petersburg on the Nevsky Prospekt and by St. Isaac’s Cathedral. Folded into the hands of Yuri Kovalchik, these media assets are not just business. They are a full-scale political resource to be used for mass influence of public opinion. In effect, Kuvalchuk controls a gigantic non-government media holding which todays own four television channels (NTV, TNT, REN TV, and Channel5 St. Petersburg), one of the country’s widest circulation newspapers (Komsomolskaya Pravda), and dozens of other small television and radio stations and newspapers.

This whole gigantic media empire – Putin-media – presents serious competition to the state television channels and other media. Its might is beyond comparison with that of the previous influence of Gusinsky and Berezovsky. It is difficult to imagine that this resource is not going to be used to further Putin’s political interests.

Yuri Kovalchuk’s brother Mikhail head the Kurchatov [Atomic Energy] Institute and recently became acting vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is he who is to distribute the 130 billion roubles allocated to nanotechnology development. Yuri Kovalchuk’s son Boris, a former adviser to vice-premier Dmitri Medvedev, now head the Russian government’s department of ‘priority national projects”. This department oversees the funds allocated to “national projects”.

Gazprom is not the only structure to have been looted under Putin. In 2004, as a result of a supplementary share issue at SvyazBank, which was set up in the 1990s specially to serve state communications enterprises, over 50% of the shares ended up in the ownership of a company by the name of RTK-Leasing. Following this share issue, companies in the communications business which previously used the services of other banks began to move the accounts to SVyazBank. In early 2005, the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights addressed a request to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Treasury that review be carried out^[5]. However, nothing much was done.

The owner of RTK-Leasing is said to be Geoffrey Galmond^[6]. His name is frequently linked with that of the Russian Minister of Information Technology and Communications, Leonid Reiman. But who are the real beneficiaries?

This is how under Putin massive assets are removed for state control and land up in the hands of private individuals.

Another historic deal was the buy-out in September 2005 of 75% of the shares of Sibneft from Putin’s friend oligarch Roman Abramovich for $13.7 billion^[7].

The state could easily not have bought Sibneft (at the time of the sale it was the smallest of Russia’s vertically integrated oil companies and had falling production). It could have paid considerably less for it – particularly if one bears in mind that Abramovich originally acquired control of the company for $100 million.

Sibneft, however, was bought for the highest possible, artificially exaggerated^[8], price and half of it, furthermore, was financed directly by the state. In June-July 2005 the state, through a company called RosNefteGaz which was specially set up for the purpose, paid Gazprom $7.2 billion and received 10.7% of Gazprom’s shares in exchange^[9]. These were the same shares that 12 years previously by a decree of president Yeltsin in 1993 to Gazprom had been allocated for purchase by vouchers^[10]. The state could have increased its share in Gazprom for absolutely nothing by using these shares.

Why pay Abramovich over $7 billion from state funds (the rest of the money came for Gazprom’s budget) to increase the state’s shareholding in Gazprom when the authorities to all intents and purposes controlled the company? What can this be called other than diversion of assets?

Why pay $13.7 billion for Sibneft when less could have been paid> And did the payment go to Abramovich? He is said to be the owner of Millhouse, which sold Sibneft to Gazprom. But no-one actually knows the names of the true owners of Millhouse. It is said that Abramovich has an influential partner, co-owner of Millhouse. Who is he?

In fact, why did Sibneft need to be nationalised at all? If it had been bought by private owners, its efficiency would almost certainly not have dropped as it did under Gazprom’s management and the state would not have had to pay all that money for it.

Incidentally, according to Gazprom’s accounts, the company’s and its subsidiaries capitalization in mid 2004 included 17.5% of Gazprom shares. By 30 June 2007 – 0.5%^[11]. In 2005 the state bought back 10.7% of the shares. Where did the other 6.3% of Gazprom shares, today worth nearly $20 billion, go? Who owns them?

Why does Gazprom divvy up hundreds of millions of dollars of yearly profit from transit fees and re-export of Central Asian gas with the co-owners of the Swiss trader RosUkrEnergo? Who is behind this middleman?

All the above deals done by Gazprom were concluded during the time presidential successor to Putin Dmitri Medvedev was chairman of its board of directors. What role did he personally play in all these deals and is his selection as successor perhaps a result of them?

Yet another affair during Putin’s time is the rise and rise of the business of hitherto unknown Swiss oil trading house Gunvor through which about a third of Russia’s oil exports are effected (almost all of Surgutneftegaz’s production, a considerable proportion of Gaspromneft’s, Rosneft’s and others). This company controls oil exports to the tune of not less than $40 billion annually.

When Putin had only just come to power, a state monopoly on Russian oil exports was actively being discussed. This monopoly was to all intents and purposes introduced, but not as a state monopoly but rather a private one. Behind Gunvor stands Gennadi Timchenko, an old comrade of Putin’s from his St. Petersburg days^[12].

In a letter to the British paper The Guardian, another co-owner of Gunvor, Swede Thorburn Tornkvist admitted that the mighty oil trading house does have a “third co-owner”. Who that might be remains unknown.

It is also unclear who owns Surgutneftegaz, Gunvor’s main supplier. It is believed that the company is controlled via a chain of intermediary companies by its current CEO Vladimir Bogdanov. Another version, however, has currency: that back in 2002-2003 Bogdanov sold his shares on to persons unknown, representing the highest echelons of Russian power, that these included Timchenko and possibly also Putin. This still remains to be verified. Other private oil companies (Lukoil, Yukos, TNK-BP) disclosed the names of their true owners a few years ago, but the true structure of Surgutneftegaz’s ownership is still opaque^[13].

Catching Putin and his accomplices red-handed is difficult. They cover their tracks of their dirty business too professionally. Evidently they have learnt from dictator Saddam Hussein, documentary proof of whose corrupt activities the Americans were never able to find even though Saddam and his sons bathed in luxury and had to deny themselves nothing.

On the hand, the Russian authorities can sometimes be caught with their hand in the till. In may 2006, the Zurich Arbitration Court rued that the owners of the Bermudan IPOC Fund, which owns a controlling share of cellphone operator Megafon, plundered money in the interests of the fund’s real beneficiary, the unnamed “Witness #7”. The description of witness #7 fully matches that of Leonid Reiman, Minister of Communications, Petersburger, and long-time comrade of president Putin^[14]. The nominal owner of IPOC is Danish lawyer Geoffrey Galmond, who also owns TelekomInvest, Interregion Tranzittelekom, and 50% of cellphone operator Sky Link. In November 2007, the British Virgin Islands authorities asked the US counterparts help investigate Reiman’s involvement in illegal activities^[15].

But Minister Reiman continues in the nest of health and remains at his post.

There remain too many other unpleasant questions to be asked of Putin and his entourage. Who is the real co-owner of Surgutneftegaz, Megafon, Sky Link, Roman Abramovich’s Millhouse, and the powerful oil trader Gunvor? Can it really be that some Danish, Swedish, Finnish, and Chukotsk businessmen have come to own a good half of Russia without sharing with Putin? Where do the colossal sums earned from arms sales by Rosoboronexport’s (headed by Putin’s friend Sergei Chemezov) go? Is it true, as reported in the media, that there is a ‘black safe” in the Kremlin^[16], a system for secretly moving cash from unknown sources which is then used to finance pre-election campaigns or other purposes?

It is hardly surprising that experts and political scientists compete in their attempts to estimate Putin’s personal fortune, putting it at $20, $30 billion. Some say even more.

The authoritarian-criminal régime that has taken shape during the years of Putin’s rule threatens our country’s very future. The authorities have everything to lose. If free media ever arise again in Russia together with competition in politics, the black dealings of today’s rulers in Russia will come to the surface. If that happens, they will at best lose their posts and along with that the way to earn billions on the side. In the worst case, they will lose their freedom. The diversion of state assets, firstly of course those of Gazprom, the use of foreign middlemen to purchase Russian oil at artificially lowered prices (which Mikhail Khodorkovsky is accused of and imprisoned for) has become a widespread and much larger-scale practice amongst the many “friends of Putin”.

We need to put a stop to all this. We need to turn over this shameful page in our history. We need people with clean hands to come to power, people without corruption scandals and unsavoury connections in their pasts. We need to radically reduce the powers of civil servants over the country, to limit their authority, in order to pull the rug out from under the feet of corrupt agents and thieves in positions of power. The state should be shorn of powers that it is unfit to hold over enterprises and and their cash flows. We need to see a rebirth of the practice of open and honest privatisation which began to take place in 1997-2002.

There should be limits on how long senior civil servants can stay in their posts – at all levels: federal, regional, and local. This is needed in oder to prevent people from growing into alliances with entrepreneurs and their successors should have the right to openly investigate their predecessors if needs be. There should be a universal principle: serve 8 years and no ‘extensions’, no sleights of hand to maintain your position (like moving on to become prime minister).

We need laws on lobbying, conflicts of interest, on forbidding civil servants and any connected with them to engage in business. We need to disqualify civil servants found to have engaged in corrupt practices so that they can never again in their lives occupy a civil service post.

We need to reinvigorate our law enforcement system and in particular the part of it investigating corrupt practices. Russia needs an independent Federal Investigation Service in which there is no place for any one affiliated with potential corrupt activities or found to be covering for those accused of serious crimes – for example, during the investigation of the suspects in the smuggling operation run by the Tri Kita furniture company, employees of the Procurator’s office and of the Investigation Committee persecuted the investigators in this case.

We need strict public control of the activities of the authorities, a rebirth of freedom of speech, the abolition of censorship on federal television channels, and the establishment of fair conditions for political opposition. There should be open public discussion of such issues as corruption in the government and corrupt civil servants should be found criminally responsible. Journalists should be able to freely investigate corruption scandals.

Independent courts are a vital precondition for the battle against corruption. While the courts remain to all intents and purposes under the control of the executive, there is no way that corruption cases will be looked into objectively or that the guilty will be punished.

The only things that will stop the total looting of Russia are the democratisation of the country, the entry into power of responsible and honest politicians to replace the kleptocracy, the abandonment by Russia of life by the thieves’ code, and a return to the creation of

---

^[1] INDEM Foundation, The Dynamics of Russian Corruption 2001-2005. [TN: www.indem.ru]

^[2] Sources for this and the previous paragraph; articles in Vedomosti 21 January 2005 – Sogaz sold to Petersburg: Russia’s most profitable insurer won by Rossiya Bank; 23 August 2006 – 3% of Gazprom Placed: Sogaz Purchases Gazfond’s Management Company; 30 October 2006 – Into Reliable Hands: Gazprom Transfers its Bank to Gazfond.

^[3] Source: Annual Accounts for 2005 of Gazprombank. These accounts were drawn up in accordance with international financial reporting standards.

^[4] Source: Vedomosti, 6 July 2007 – Expensive Media: Gazprom-Media Could Be Worth $7.5 Billion

^[5] Source: Vedomosti, 26 May 2005 – Postmen and Bankers to Be Checked

^[6] Source: Vedomosti, 5 July 2006 – Russian Billions: How much is Geoffrey Galmond Worth?

^[7] Source: Annual Accounts for 2005 of Gazprom. These accounts were drawn up in accordance with international financial reporting standards.

^[8] Source: Vedomosti, 28 September 2005 – Sibneft Inflated

^[9] Source: Annual Accounts for 2005 of Gazprom. These accounts were drawn up in accordance with international financial reporting standards.

^[10] Point 4 of Presidential decree #58 of 26 January 1993.

^[11] Source: First Semi Annual Accounts for 2007 of Gazprom by international financial reporting standards.

^[12] Source: Luke Harding, The Guardian, 22 December 2007 – Secretive Oil Firm Denies Putin Has Any Stake In Its Ownership by Luke Harding.

^[13] Source: Vedomosti, 3 August 2007 – Bogdanov Trusts His People: Surgutneftegaz’s Clerks Manage $½ Trillion Worth of Shares

^[14] Source: Vedomosti, 23 May 2006 – Witness Nº 7

^[15] Source: Vedomosti, 15 November 2007 – What Are The Suspicions Against Leonid Reiman? The BVI authorities found “incontrovertible evidence” that the Minister for Information Technologies and Communications had links to the IPOC fund.

^[16] Source: The New Times, Issue 44, 10 December 2007 – The Kremlin’s Black Safe

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

EDITORIAL: Annals of Russian Stupidity

EDITORIAL

Annals of Russian Stupidity

A recent column in the Moscow Times‘ “word’s worth” column began like this:

When I was following life in Russia by surfing RuNet every day, I came across an article about the French trader who lost Societe Generale $7.2 billion. Since I had read about five articles in English without understanding a word of it (especially why the guy hadn’t made a centime off the deals), I hoped that the Russian media would be more illuminating.

Wrong. The article informed me that the wily fellow покупал и продавал контракты на поставку обычной ванили (bought and sold contracts for shipments of ordinary vanilla) and noted that since world vanilla trade is nowhere near $7.2 billion, it was obviously a scam. I read that and moved on to the next story, which just goes to show that in economics, я полный кретин (I’m a total moron.)

The next day the Russian translation and finance blogs went wild. It turns out that the trader had been making “plain vanilla deals” — “plain vanilla” being English-language slang for anything run-of-the-mill. The Russian translator had turned “ordinary” into “shipments of vanilla” and instantly earned a spot in the translation hall of shame.

It’s not clear that the columnist (a classic Westerner eager to accept personal blame so as to improve in the future), gives Russians sufficient credit for being stupid. After all, this mistake couldn’t be caused simply by a translator’s ignorance of English. To occur, the translator would have to be a total blockhead, someone totally unaware of the massive press coverage of this incident and, beyond that, so clueless that it wouldn’t occur to him that his translation sounded idiotic on its face. Can such things really be occurring at high levels of Russian society, so that this kind of gibberish is commonplace? You’d better believe they can. It’s no different in any way from what was happening behind the old Iron Curtain in the USSR, and given that the country is run by a proud KGB spy, nobody should be surprised in the least.

This doesn’t even consider, of course, the actual lies the Kremlin is telling, only the mistakes and blunders.

Robert Amsterdam, for instance, points to an article in the Energy Tribune which exposes the fact that growth in Russia’s energy sector is currently less than one-third what it was five years ago, emphasizing the point with the following devastating graphic:

The reason for this failure is crystal clear: what we are seeing in Russia is the return of communism/dictatorship and its predictable impact on productivity and efficiency. Think the Kremlin is telling the truth about growth data in the oil sector to the people of Russia? Perhaps this explains the reluctance of Vladimir Putin and his cowardly sycophant Dimitry Medvedev to enter into presidential debates, or indeed to admit genuine opposition candidates into the race itself?

The extent of Russia’s barbaric return to dictatorship is quite horrifying. As an op-ed in the Moscow Times states: “Nothing seems to dampen the authorities’ enthusiasm to wipe out any trace of [the Yukos oil major], which at one point was the country’s largest and most transparent oil production company. More than 45 people connected to the company have been the target of legal action and the company’s assets were expropriated. These actions against Yukos reveal a justice system that is infected with corruption and political bias. They have also demonstrated the complete breakdown of rule of law in Russia.”

It’s really breathtaking how we are seeing history repeat itself in Russia. It is as if the population has suddenly suffered a massive stroke of amnesia and no longer can recall what happened to the country over the course of the last three decades. And like the famous Emperor with his “new clothes,” Russia now stands naked before the world, preening as if it were swathed in mink — just as the USSR did not so very long ago.

How can the people of Russia be so stupid? Repeating the mistakes of the past is the single worst mistake a people can make. Russians have the right to experiment with authoritarian rule if they like, though most intelligent people would say it’s like playing with matches at a gas station. But how can they possibly think that such experiments should be carried out by a proud KGB spy, a relic of the Soviet past that resulted in such spectacular failure, destroying the once-proud nation at its very foundations?

There is an analogy that seems compelling, a well-known syndrome that drives women who have been beaten by their husbands to remain with them until they are killed.

In another one of his brilliant bits of reporting, ace Russia scholar Paul Goble explained in scientific detail what should be obvious to any thinking person, that data produced by the Russian government, ruled over by a proud KGB spy, is laughably useless. It seems that most of the world understands this now, but clearly some are still in the neo-Soviet darkness. So for instance recent article in the Economic Times of India unquestioningly reported a statement by Tatyana Golikova, Minister for Health and Social Development, which ran on state-controlled propaganda network Interfax. Golikova said: “In 2007, 1,602,387 children were born, which represents a growth of 122,750 children compared to 2006. We have not seen such a growth in birth rate in 25 years. The number of children that were born in 2007 is the highest since 1991. This shows that the measures taken at the governmental level were well-timed and effective.“

Who do they think they are fooling? A few third-world nations, perhaps, and most certainly themselves.

If you read the article, and you have an IQ above the first grade, you will instantly realize that even if the birth rate statistic is accurate, the article says nothing about the infant mortality rate or the net gain to the population. In other words, even if the Kremlin isn’t lying or mistaken, it could very well be that the infant mortality rate wiped out these gains, or that the overall mortality rate of the population did so. The article states: “ Since 1993, the country has lost some 5.8 million inhabitants and now has a population of 142 million.” So even if the 122,750 figure represented pure net gain in population, it’s meaningless against the existing losses.

But there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the data is accurate. If the birthrate was down, would Putin really be told the truth? Wouldn’t the bureaucrats below him be afraid of doing so, just as they feared reporting bad news to Stalin? At an even more fundamental level, assuming they weren’t afraid, are they really capable of generating accurate data amid one of the most corrupt and incompetent political systems on the planet? And assuming they could, how can anyone think the KGB “president” would accurately report such data to the population and the world if it damaged his credibility? Has Putin ever once publicly admitted failure? We report today that, when the Moscow Times tried to ask him in a press conference about his biggest failure, he simply ignored the question.

And assuming Putin’s “measures” were the cause of a real spike in the birthrate, are those “measures” really likely to make things better in Russia? The “measure” in question is to pay mothers a lump sum of cash for a baby, in effect bribing them to procreate. But the article gives no data showing that the mothers who allegedly gave birth were the ones that received those payments, and it doesn’t pause for even a second to wonder what kind of country will be produced as a result of buying babies.

To be fair to the Russians, there’s no direct evidence that they are stupid enough to believe the garbage they are being fed by the Kremlin, only proof that they adore it. But if they aren’t fooled, then doesn’t that make them even more stupid for willfully returning Putin to power even though they understand he’s lying? Is their self-appraisal really so dim that they don’t think they can do any better than this thug?

Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Top 10 Rules of Neo-Soviet Propaganda

Top Ten Russophile Rules of Neo-Soviet Propaganda

10

Russia doesn’t have those grapes because
it doesn’t want those grapes.

9

Vladimir Putin will resign and Russia will become democratic. Tomorrow.

8

Anyone who criticizes the people of Russia is a racist.

7

When Russia experiences a setback, it’s because of cruel misfortune.
When America does, it’s a sign the end is near.

6

“Russia is a powerful and civilized country the whole world is
jealous of.” Repeat it enough times, and it will become true.

5

When in doubt as to whether you can win an argument,
simply kill your adversary. This proves you were right all along.
It worked for the USSR, didn’t it?

4

Two wrongs make a right. If any other country is guilty of doing
anything wrong, then Russia can’t be criticized for anything and
has no need to reform.

3

It makes no difference how many people disagree with you,
or how powerful and influential they are. If anyone, anywhere,
agrees with you, that is proof you are 100% right
and your critics are 100% wrong.

2

Your own mistakes mean nothing, no matter how numerous or
well-documented they are. You don’t need to acknowledge
them, much less correct the record, because your heart
is in the right place. It doesn’t make any difference how
many times you’ve failed spectacularly in the past. As long as
you’ve been proven right on at least one occasion, you are always right.

1

If your critics are ever wrong, they are always wrong. If you find that
Anders Aslund has misspelled a word or Edward Lucas
is 0.1% off on his prediction, this is conclusive proof that
every word they utter is the opposite of the truth.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Cowardly Putin, Hiding from the Truth

The Moscow Times, by far the most important English-language publication on Russia in the world, reports that it was denied the opportunity to ask President Putin a question at his last press conference. What a pathetic little coward he is.

GPlus Europe, a consulting agency that works for the Kremlin, contacted The Moscow Times last week with a question: Would a reporter like to ask President Vladimir Putin a question at his annual news conference?

A GPlus Europe official explained that he had been asked to put together a list of possible questions and, if The Moscow Times would send one, he would submit it to the Kremlin.

While we frown on the practice of prescreening questions, the opportunity to speak to Putin was too good to pass up. So we put our heads together and came up with this question: “Mr. President, what do you see as the biggest mistake you have made during your eight years in office?”

The GPlus Europe official liked it. “Good question,” he said. We then sat back and wondered how Putin might answer.

Putin was accused of making a big mistake shortly after he assumed office — when the Kursk nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000. Putin never accepted responsibility for the sinking or the botched rescue operation.

The Kursk was followed by a series of terrorist attacks — Dubrovka, airplane bombings, Beslan — and the Kremlin’s heavy-handed response.

The West, however, might say Putin made his biggest mistake in rolling back democracy by canceling gubernatorial elections, making both houses of parliament subservient to the Kremlin and taking over major media outlets.

Political opponents might say Putin was wrong to implement legislation and take other measures that have left the country without an opposition.

Investors might point to the Yukos affair to raise concerns about the rule of law and property rights.

Putin no doubt would retort that these were not mistakes but deliberate, vital steps taken to rebuild the weakened Russia inherited from Boris Yeltsin.

In our opinion, Putin’s biggest mistake was failing to stop the consolidation of power at the right time. While the consolidation did prevent regions from seceding and Russia from ultimately disintegrating, it went too far, making the country overly dependent on the will and abilities of a small group of people. In the absence of checks and balances and a thorough discussion of policy options, Russia’s future now hinges on the president and his small inner circle. If Putin makes a mistake, the whole system could be destabilized.

Putin, who intends to become prime minister after he leaves office, must now resist the temptation to transfer presidential powers to the prime minister’s office. Doing so would aggravate the mistake of overconsolidating power by personifying that power in one man — Putin.

But what does Putin himself see as his biggest mistake? He has never admitted to making a mistake in eight years, and apparently he was not interested in starting Thursday. The Kremlin declined to take our question.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin Will Stay Forever, Dooming Russia Utterly

The Moscow Times reports:

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday laid out a vision of the future in which he would serve as a strong prime minister for as long as necessary during the presidency of his favored successor, Dmitry Medvedev.

Putin also had sharp words for foreign critics at his last annual Kremlin news conference before he leaves office in May. At one point during the marathon 4 1/2-hour session, he said European election observers should quit hassling Russia and go “teach their wives to cook cabbage soup.”

Putin said he would be content with the government’s No. 2 post if Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister and longtime Putin loyalist who is the overwhelming favorite to win the March 2 presidential election, is voted into office and offers him the job. The duo could then achieve the goals that the president outlined last week in a speech dedicated to Russia’s prospects through 2020, Putin said.

“If I see that in this post I can continue realizing these goals, then I will work as long as possible,” he said.

“The president is the guarantor of the Constitution, and he sets the main directions of domestic and foreign policy,” Putin said. “But the highest executive authority in the country is the government, which is led by the prime minister.” Putin portrayed himself as a firm believer in the rule of law who had never been seduced by the trappings of power. “I was never tempted to stay for a third term,” Putin said. “Never. From my first day of work as president of Russia, I decided for myself that I would not violate the existing Constitution.”

The liveliest moments of the news conference came when Putin defended Russia’s political system and foreign policy in response to questions from foreign reporters. At one point, he lashed out at the election watchdog of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which last week refused to send election observers to Russia after Moscow refused to meet its conditions. “They are trying to teach us something,” Putin said. “Let them teach their wives to cook cabbage soup.”

When a German reporter asked why Medvedev was not participating in televised debates with his three opponents, Putin insisted that the election was being held fairly and said its predictability was due to the country’s economic stability. “The election campaign is going normally,” Putin said. “The fact that it is proceeding calmly, without all these debates, without stirring up the country, is not because we lack democratic procedures. It is because the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens support the course we have chosen and carried out in the last few years.” Putin singled out growth as the key factor behind the predictability of the election. “Wages have grown more than 16 percent in the past year,” he said. “That’s the answer to your question.” Medvedev did not need to participate in debates where the country’s problems would “clearly be cast in a populist light,” Putin said.

Putin also went on the offensive when asked about the 7 percent barrier to entering the State Duma, which has been criticized as a Kremlin technique for keeping opposition parties out of power. “Look at our neighbors, like Ukraine,” he said, in an apparent reference to Ukraine’s struggles to form a government and choose a prime minister. “They have a 3 percent barrier for entering the Rada. So what? Do you like what is happening there?”

No New Cold War

On matters of foreign policy, Putin repeatedly stressed that Russia had no aggressive intentions and criticized the “double standards” of the West on issues such as independence for Kosovo, which Moscow opposes. Putin said it was inconsistent for the West to back Kosovo’s efforts to break free from Serbia while simultaneously ignoring independence movements in Northern Ireland and the Basque region of Spain. “Everyone always tells us that Kosovo is a special case,” Putin said. “These are lies.” He indicated, however, that Russia would not “monkey around” if Kosovo declared independence and the West recognized it. “If someone makes a foolish, unlawful decision, that does not mean we have to do the same thing,” Putin said.

Several foreign reporters asked Putin about the prospect of a new Cold War, referring to recent moves, such as Russia’s threat to target Poland and the Czech Republic if the countries agree to host elements of a U.S. missile-defense shield. “We have no intention of targeting anyone unless we absolutely have to,” Putin said, stressing that Russia had no choice but to take retaliatory steps against U.S. plans. He criticized Washington for plowing ahead with its missile-defense plans without consulting NATO or even getting approval from the majority of Poles and Czechs. “Who asked the Poles if they want these systems or not?” he said. “Who asked them? According to the figures I have seen, the overwhelming majority of Czech citizens are not enthusiastic about these plans.” He told a Fox News reporter that the resumption of long-range bomber flights did not signal a return to Cold War aggression but was simply a reciprocal measure. The United States carries out such flights, sometimes coming close to Russia’s borders, even though Moscow stopped its own long-range patrols in the late 1980s, Putin said.

Occasionally, Putin poked fun at the West for what he called an overreaction to some of Moscow’s foreign policy moves, such as last year’s symbolic planting of a Russian flag on the North Pole seabed. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Putin said. “I was even a little surprised at the nervous reaction of our Canadian colleagues. Back in the day, the Americans put a flag on the moon, and what happened? What are you so worried about? The moon did not become U.S. property.” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said his country would bolster its military presence in the Arctic after the Russian flag-planting expedition.

Addressing Russia’s image in the Western media, Putin revealed some of his thinking about how the West tries to control Russia. “We know, without a doubt, that some governments have a monopoly on global media outlets and that, of course, the political centers of these countries use such channels to influence our population, as well as the populations of Europe and North America,” he said. He singled out foreign criticism of Russian elections, which, he said, is used to discredit Moscow’s foreign policy. “Who is going to listen to Russia’s position on Kosovo if Russia itself is supposedly an undemocratic country?” he asked.

Looking Back

Many reporters asked Putin about his legacy and what he considers his biggest achievements. His main accomplishments, Putin said, were rebuilding the economy and centralizing authority in a country that had been fractured and impoverished when he took office in 2000. “Essentially, we did not have a unified country,” he said. “We didn’t even have an anthem. Each region had its own constitution.” When asked where he had failed, Putin’s answer was confident. “I don’t see any serious failures,” he said. “All the goals we have set out for ourselves have been achieved.” He later conceded, though, that the government had failed to tame inflation and that corruption had remained an intractable problem.

Putin insisted repeatedly that he had done everything in his power to improve the lot of the Russian people. “All these eight years, I have worked like a slave in the galleys,” he said. “From day to night, I gave it all my strength.” Many reporters in the audience seemed sympathetic, and one asked what Putin would do the day after his presidency ended. “I’ll get a good night’s sleep,” he said. Putin said he would have “no problem” sharing power with Medvedev and listed the prime minister’s responsibilities as shaping the budget, managing the economy, overseeing social policy and guaranteeing national security.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Kremlin Inc., Killing Khodorkovsky

Moscow Times op-ed columnist Tom Osbororn exposes the neo-Soviet horror of Putin’s barbaric crackdown on Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the manner of the mafia, attacking all associated with him purely for purposes of terror:

Nothing seems to dampen the authorities’ enthusiasm to wipe out any trace of Yukos, which at one point was the country’s largest and most transparent oil production company. More than 45 people connected to the company have been the target of legal action and the company’s assets were expropriated. These actions against Yukos reveal a justice system that is infected with corruption and political bias. They have also demonstrated the complete breakdown of rule of law in Russia.

The authorities’ enthusiasm to utterly destroy everything connected to Yukos has almost led to a de facto death sentence for former Yukos vice president Vasily Aleksanyan, who was refused life-saving medical treatment unless he provided false testimony to incriminate his friends. Thankfully, following international pressure and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s hunger strike, Aleksanyan appears to be finally receiving treatment for his illnesses.

This denial of Aleksanyan’s rights came at the same time as the government’s attack on the British Council. Authorities arbitrarily targeted employees’ tax affairs and threatened their families. Britain’s foreign secretary has said Russia’s actions against the British Council violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention.

Together with the nonobservance of international treaties, the abuse of Aleksanyan’s rights once again demonstrates Russia’s flagrant disregard for truth and the rule of law, which has characterized the Yukos affair from the beginning. This was highlighted in comments by Yukos’ government-appointed receiver, Eduard Rebgun, who told Russia Today television in January that Yukos had made no effort to save itself — something it “could have done if it had wanted to do so.”

I have heard countless fabrications about the company and its owners, witnessed its unnecessary destruction by the Russian government, and seen its employees and shareholders harassed, arrested and imprisoned. But never have I heard anything quite as disingenuous as Rebgun’s remark.

Rebgun would do well to recall a ruling in an Amsterdam court in October, which stated that the legal process by which Yukos was declared bankrupt does not hold up under scrutiny. The court ruled that no appeal by Yukos in the Russian courts could repair the “fundamental legal defect attached to the bankruptcy order” and that “in the bankruptcy proceedings, no substantive, sufficiently safeguarded, judicial review took place or could have taken place of the manner in which the additional tax assessments, as imposed by the Russian tax authorities and determined by the tax court, were determined.”

This ruling nullified any decisions Rebgun had made regarding Yukos’ foreign assets, owned by subsidiaries in the Netherlands. It was yet another indication that no one outside the cabal that orchestrated the dismemberment of Yukos believes the bankruptcy was anything other than a manipulated sham to steal the company’s assets. It is this same cabal that controls the fates of Yukos employees languishing in Russian jails after their flawed trials.

The authorities went to considerable lengths, starting in July 2006, to ensure that a viable rescue plan put forward by Yukos management was dismissed by the company’s creditors. Even though I was Yukos’ nominated representative to the creditors’ meeting that decided the fate of the company, Rebgun denied me free access to the “bankruptcy” report. I was told that I would have to come to Moscow in person to review the documents — an unattractive option considering he had told me a few weeks earlier that he could not guarantee my safety in Russia. Rebgun’s words proved to be frighteningly prescient, considering the recent ill treatment of Aleksanyan.

In their rescue plan presented at that creditors’ meeting, Yukos’ management demonstrated that the company was a viable entity and could pay its legitimate creditors within 18 months.

The meeting, however, was made up almost entirely of government-controlled entities that were intent on destroying Yukos. They brushed aside management’s attempts to save the company, choosing bankruptcy instead.

Despite claims by President Vladimir Putin that the Kremlin had no interest in bankrupting Yukos, the company’s assets were auctioned at below-market value. In addition, new debts suddenly emerged out of nowhere, preventing the company from surviving. The main beneficiary of these tactics was Rosneft.

It is clearer now than ever that the expropriation of Yukos was a ploy to put key elements of the energy sector in the hands of Putin’s retinue. Moreover, the Yukos affair marked a turning point in Russia’s commitment to domestic property rights and the rule of law.

GML, the majority owner of Yukos, is seeking compensation from Russia under the binding terms of the Energy Charter Treaty, which Russia signed in 1994. We expect the damages to be in excess of $50 billion. Pursuant to the New York Convention, the award, if it is not settled voluntarily, will be fully enforceable on any Russian government assets outside the country not covered by sovereign immunity.

This is the largest commercial arbitration claim ever filed. Hearings will begin in November. We will demonstrate that Yukos did everything possible to save itself and that the only thing from which it needed protection was the Russian government.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

All in All, He’s Just another Brick in the Barbaric Wall

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Months of humiliation, beatings, and bullying. Despair and a suicide attempt. A final punch in the stomach that was nearly a deathblow. Contradictory medical records, secrecy, and a suspended sentence for the attacker. The case of St. Petersburg conscript Roman Rudakov seems to incorporate every worst-case scenario that serving in the Russian army can possibly involve. The story has come to a tragic end this week.

Rudakov, 21, died at Moscow’s Burdenko hospital on Wednesday. He had been awaiting a partial intestine transplant since mid-January, 2007. Rudakov was kept in the emergency ward of military hospital No. 442 in St. Petersburg after doctors removed his small intestine on Sept. 30, 2006, following a severe beating to the abdominal area.

The Defense Ministry estimates that between 500 to 1,000 recruits die from non-combat-related causes each year in Russia.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Vladimir Shappo, head of the Chief Military Medical Board of the Defense Ministry of Russia, said 410 recruits and officers died from non-combat causes in 2007. Suicide accounts for more than half of the deaths, he added. Human rights groups contest the official statistics and claim actual numbers are much higher.

“The Rudakov case is a compelling illustration of how corrupt and lacking transparency the Russian army is,” said Ella Polyakova, chairwoman of St. Petersburg-based human rights group Soldiers’ Mothers. “His medical files were censored over the course of his treatment, with the information about a severe beating in the abdominal area — which ultimately led to his death — being at some stage whitewashed from the case.”

On top of that, relatives of the conscript and human rights advocates complained about receiving contradictory or contrived reports from the military authorities about the state of his health, the need for a donor and possibilities of an operation, Polyakova added. A rapid investigation into Rudakov’s case established that fellow recruit Maxim Lomonin was responsible for the beating. He received a three-year suspended sentence in the resulting trial. However, no officer was punished or reprimanded in the case. No investigation was held into the alleged manipulation of Rudakov’s medical records.

Ruslan Linkov, head of the liberal political organization Democratic Russia, accused the military of being scared of publicity. “They typically try to hush things up and therefore avoid, whenever possible, dealing with civil doctors because it would bring to light mishaps in treating and handling patients,” he said. “Germany, France and Israel offered to help with Rudakov’s operation but Russia rejected all the offers.” Linkov also emphasized that no officers were brought to account in the Rudakov case. He said that the military authorities often try to “make a scapegoat of another recruit.” “Look at all recent hazing scandals and you will see that officers routinely escape punishment,” he said. “It has become a trend. Recruits are more vulnerable and deprived than the officers and burdening them with full responsibility kills two birds with one stone: the corrupt system is protected, while the human rights groups and the relatives are presented with a nominal figure to blame.”

A native of the town of Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region, Rudakov was drafted to serve in the Leningrad Oblast in 2004. “In his letters home, Roman even contemplated suicide; he considered slitting his wrists, so bad had the bullying become,” Polyakova said. “Food rations were so meager that in one of the letters Roman recalled finding a biscuit in the garbage and eating it.”

Rudakov’s story is not unique. His case received nationwide publicity, but hundreds of other instances of soldiers being mistreated cruelly and even being driven to suicide remain hidden from the public. Half of the soldiers who contact Soldier’s Mothers say they have tried to commit suicide. Stricken mothers listen to their sons confiding that they once tried to slit their wrists, throw themselves from windows, or hang themselves using their own shirts.

“Three people deserted from our platoon, and one other guy ran away from another platoon,” Roman recounts in a letter dated May 28, 2005. “His father brought him back but the guy deserted again three days later.[...] I am in despair. I haven’t slept for two nights because we are being forced to work on a construction site at night.”

In his annual report on human rights, released Thursday, Russia’s ombudsman Vladimir Lukin accused the state of “being unable to protect recruits from either the arbitrariness and waywardness of their commanders, or hazing and bullying by senior conscripts.” Lukin linked the hazing problem with the general underfunding of the army on all levels from housing for the officers to food rations and equipment.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

All in All, He’s Just another Brick in the Barbaric Wall

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Months of humiliation, beatings, and bullying. Despair and a suicide attempt. A final punch in the stomach that was nearly a deathblow. Contradictory medical records, secrecy, and a suspended sentence for the attacker. The case of St. Petersburg conscript Roman Rudakov seems to incorporate every worst-case scenario that serving in the Russian army can possibly involve. The story has come to a tragic end this week.

Rudakov, 21, died at Moscow’s Burdenko hospital on Wednesday. He had been awaiting a partial intestine transplant since mid-January, 2007. Rudakov was kept in the emergency ward of military hospital No. 442 in St. Petersburg after doctors removed his small intestine on Sept. 30, 2006, following a severe beating to the abdominal area.

The Defense Ministry estimates that between 500 to 1,000 recruits die from non-combat-related causes each year in Russia.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Vladimir Shappo, head of the Chief Military Medical Board of the Defense Ministry of Russia, said 410 recruits and officers died from non-combat causes in 2007. Suicide accounts for more than half of the deaths, he added. Human rights groups contest the official statistics and claim actual numbers are much higher.

“The Rudakov case is a compelling illustration of how corrupt and lacking transparency the Russian army is,” said Ella Polyakova, chairwoman of St. Petersburg-based human rights group Soldiers’ Mothers. “His medical files were censored over the course of his treatment, with the information about a severe beating in the abdominal area — which ultimately led to his death — being at some stage whitewashed from the case.”

On top of that, relatives of the conscript and human rights advocates complained about receiving contradictory or contrived reports from the military authorities about the state of his health, the need for a donor and possibilities of an operation, Polyakova added. A rapid investigation into Rudakov’s case established that fellow recruit Maxim Lomonin was responsible for the beating. He received a three-year suspended sentence in the resulting trial. However, no officer was punished or reprimanded in the case. No investigation was held into the alleged manipulation of Rudakov’s medical records.

Ruslan Linkov, head of the liberal political organization Democratic Russia, accused the military of being scared of publicity. “They typically try to hush things up and therefore avoid, whenever possible, dealing with civil doctors because it would bring to light mishaps in treating and handling patients,” he said. “Germany, France and Israel offered to help with Rudakov’s operation but Russia rejected all the offers.” Linkov also emphasized that no officers were brought to account in the Rudakov case. He said that the military authorities often try to “make a scapegoat of another recruit.” “Look at all recent hazing scandals and you will see that officers routinely escape punishment,” he said. “It has become a trend. Recruits are more vulnerable and deprived than the officers and burdening them with full responsibility kills two birds with one stone: the corrupt system is protected, while the human rights groups and the relatives are presented with a nominal figure to blame.”

A native of the town of Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region, Rudakov was drafted to serve in the Leningrad Oblast in 2004. “In his letters home, Roman even contemplated suicide; he considered slitting his wrists, so bad had the bullying become,” Polyakova said. “Food rations were so meager that in one of the letters Roman recalled finding a biscuit in the garbage and eating it.”

Rudakov’s story is not unique. His case received nationwide publicity, but hundreds of other instances of soldiers being mistreated cruelly and even being driven to suicide remain hidden from the public. Half of the soldiers who contact Soldier’s Mothers say they have tried to commit suicide. Stricken mothers listen to their sons confiding that they once tried to slit their wrists, throw themselves from windows, or hang themselves using their own shirts.

“Three people deserted from our platoon, and one other guy ran away from another platoon,” Roman recounts in a letter dated May 28, 2005. “His father brought him back but the guy deserted again three days later.[...] I am in despair. I haven’t slept for two nights because we are being forced to work on a construction site at night.”

In his annual report on human rights, released Thursday, Russia’s ombudsman Vladimir Lukin accused the state of “being unable to protect recruits from either the arbitrariness and waywardness of their commanders, or hazing and bullying by senior conscripts.” Lukin linked the hazing problem with the general underfunding of the army on all levels from housing for the officers to food rations and equipment.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

All in All, He’s Just another Brick in the Barbaric Wall

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Months of humiliation, beatings, and bullying. Despair and a suicide attempt. A final punch in the stomach that was nearly a deathblow. Contradictory medical records, secrecy, and a suspended sentence for the attacker. The case of St. Petersburg conscript Roman Rudakov seems to incorporate every worst-case scenario that serving in the Russian army can possibly involve. The story has come to a tragic end this week.

Rudakov, 21, died at Moscow’s Burdenko hospital on Wednesday. He had been awaiting a partial intestine transplant since mid-January, 2007. Rudakov was kept in the emergency ward of military hospital No. 442 in St. Petersburg after doctors removed his small intestine on Sept. 30, 2006, following a severe beating to the abdominal area.

The Defense Ministry estimates that between 500 to 1,000 recruits die from non-combat-related causes each year in Russia.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Vladimir Shappo, head of the Chief Military Medical Board of the Defense Ministry of Russia, said 410 recruits and officers died from non-combat causes in 2007. Suicide accounts for more than half of the deaths, he added. Human rights groups contest the official statistics and claim actual numbers are much higher.

“The Rudakov case is a compelling illustration of how corrupt and lacking transparency the Russian army is,” said Ella Polyakova, chairwoman of St. Petersburg-based human rights group Soldiers’ Mothers. “His medical files were censored over the course of his treatment, with the information about a severe beating in the abdominal area — which ultimately led to his death — being at some stage whitewashed from the case.”

On top of that, relatives of the conscript and human rights advocates complained about receiving contradictory or contrived reports from the military authorities about the state of his health, the need for a donor and possibilities of an operation, Polyakova added. A rapid investigation into Rudakov’s case established that fellow recruit Maxim Lomonin was responsible for the beating. He received a three-year suspended sentence in the resulting trial. However, no officer was punished or reprimanded in the case. No investigation was held into the alleged manipulation of Rudakov’s medical records.

Ruslan Linkov, head of the liberal political organization Democratic Russia, accused the military of being scared of publicity. “They typically try to hush things up and therefore avoid, whenever possible, dealing with civil doctors because it would bring to light mishaps in treating and handling patients,” he said. “Germany, France and Israel offered to help with Rudakov’s operation but Russia rejected all the offers.” Linkov also emphasized that no officers were brought to account in the Rudakov case. He said that the military authorities often try to “make a scapegoat of another recruit.” “Look at all recent hazing scandals and you will see that officers routinely escape punishment,” he said. “It has become a trend. Recruits are more vulnerable and deprived than the officers and burdening them with full responsibility kills two birds with one stone: the corrupt system is protected, while the human rights groups and the relatives are presented with a nominal figure to blame.”

A native of the town of Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region, Rudakov was drafted to serve in the Leningrad Oblast in 2004. “In his letters home, Roman even contemplated suicide; he considered slitting his wrists, so bad had the bullying become,” Polyakova said. “Food rations were so meager that in one of the letters Roman recalled finding a biscuit in the garbage and eating it.”

Rudakov’s story is not unique. His case received nationwide publicity, but hundreds of other instances of soldiers being mistreated cruelly and even being driven to suicide remain hidden from the public. Half of the soldiers who contact Soldier’s Mothers say they have tried to commit suicide. Stricken mothers listen to their sons confiding that they once tried to slit their wrists, throw themselves from windows, or hang themselves using their own shirts.

“Three people deserted from our platoon, and one other guy ran away from another platoon,” Roman recounts in a letter dated May 28, 2005. “His father brought him back but the guy deserted again three days later.[...] I am in despair. I haven’t slept for two nights because we are being forced to work on a construction site at night.”

In his annual report on human rights, released Thursday, Russia’s ombudsman Vladimir Lukin accused the state of “being unable to protect recruits from either the arbitrariness and waywardness of their commanders, or hazing and bullying by senior conscripts.” Lukin linked the hazing problem with the general underfunding of the army on all levels from housing for the officers to food rations and equipment.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

All in All, He’s Just another Brick in the Barbaric Wall

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Months of humiliation, beatings, and bullying. Despair and a suicide attempt. A final punch in the stomach that was nearly a deathblow. Contradictory medical records, secrecy, and a suspended sentence for the attacker. The case of St. Petersburg conscript Roman Rudakov seems to incorporate every worst-case scenario that serving in the Russian army can possibly involve. The story has come to a tragic end this week.

Rudakov, 21, died at Moscow’s Burdenko hospital on Wednesday. He had been awaiting a partial intestine transplant since mid-January, 2007. Rudakov was kept in the emergency ward of military hospital No. 442 in St. Petersburg after doctors removed his small intestine on Sept. 30, 2006, following a severe beating to the abdominal area.

The Defense Ministry estimates that between 500 to 1,000 recruits die from non-combat-related causes each year in Russia.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Vladimir Shappo, head of the Chief Military Medical Board of the Defense Ministry of Russia, said 410 recruits and officers died from non-combat causes in 2007. Suicide accounts for more than half of the deaths, he added. Human rights groups contest the official statistics and claim actual numbers are much higher.

“The Rudakov case is a compelling illustration of how corrupt and lacking transparency the Russian army is,” said Ella Polyakova, chairwoman of St. Petersburg-based human rights group Soldiers’ Mothers. “His medical files were censored over the course of his treatment, with the information about a severe beating in the abdominal area — which ultimately led to his death — being at some stage whitewashed from the case.”

On top of that, relatives of the conscript and human rights advocates complained about receiving contradictory or contrived reports from the military authorities about the state of his health, the need for a donor and possibilities of an operation, Polyakova added. A rapid investigation into Rudakov’s case established that fellow recruit Maxim Lomonin was responsible for the beating. He received a three-year suspended sentence in the resulting trial. However, no officer was punished or reprimanded in the case. No investigation was held into the alleged manipulation of Rudakov’s medical records.

Ruslan Linkov, head of the liberal political organization Democratic Russia, accused the military of being scared of publicity. “They typically try to hush things up and therefore avoid, whenever possible, dealing with civil doctors because it would bring to light mishaps in treating and handling patients,” he said. “Germany, France and Israel offered to help with Rudakov’s operation but Russia rejected all the offers.” Linkov also emphasized that no officers were brought to account in the Rudakov case. He said that the military authorities often try to “make a scapegoat of another recruit.” “Look at all recent hazing scandals and you will see that officers routinely escape punishment,” he said. “It has become a trend. Recruits are more vulnerable and deprived than the officers and burdening them with full responsibility kills two birds with one stone: the corrupt system is protected, while the human rights groups and the relatives are presented with a nominal figure to blame.”

A native of the town of Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region, Rudakov was drafted to serve in the Leningrad Oblast in 2004. “In his letters home, Roman even contemplated suicide; he considered slitting his wrists, so bad had the bullying become,” Polyakova said. “Food rations were so meager that in one of the letters Roman recalled finding a biscuit in the garbage and eating it.”

Rudakov’s story is not unique. His case received nationwide publicity, but hundreds of other instances of soldiers being mistreated cruelly and even being driven to suicide remain hidden from the public. Half of the soldiers who contact Soldier’s Mothers say they have tried to commit suicide. Stricken mothers listen to their sons confiding that they once tried to slit their wrists, throw themselves from windows, or hang themselves using their own shirts.

“Three people deserted from our platoon, and one other guy ran away from another platoon,” Roman recounts in a letter dated May 28, 2005. “His father brought him back but the guy deserted again three days later.[...] I am in despair. I haven’t slept for two nights because we are being forced to work on a construction site at night.”

In his annual report on human rights, released Thursday, Russia’s ombudsman Vladimir Lukin accused the state of “being unable to protect recruits from either the arbitrariness and waywardness of their commanders, or hazing and bullying by senior conscripts.” Lukin linked the hazing problem with the general underfunding of the army on all levels from housing for the officers to food rations and equipment.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

All in All, He’s Just another Brick in the Barbaric Wall

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

Months of humiliation, beatings, and bullying. Despair and a suicide attempt. A final punch in the stomach that was nearly a deathblow. Contradictory medical records, secrecy, and a suspended sentence for the attacker. The case of St. Petersburg conscript Roman Rudakov seems to incorporate every worst-case scenario that serving in the Russian army can possibly involve. The story has come to a tragic end this week.

Rudakov, 21, died at Moscow’s Burdenko hospital on Wednesday. He had been awaiting a partial intestine transplant since mid-January, 2007. Rudakov was kept in the emergency ward of military hospital No. 442 in St. Petersburg after doctors removed his small intestine on Sept. 30, 2006, following a severe beating to the abdominal area.

The Defense Ministry estimates that between 500 to 1,000 recruits die from non-combat-related causes each year in Russia.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow on Thursday, Vladimir Shappo, head of the Chief Military Medical Board of the Defense Ministry of Russia, said 410 recruits and officers died from non-combat causes in 2007. Suicide accounts for more than half of the deaths, he added. Human rights groups contest the official statistics and claim actual numbers are much higher.

“The Rudakov case is a compelling illustration of how corrupt and lacking transparency the Russian army is,” said Ella Polyakova, chairwoman of St. Petersburg-based human rights group Soldiers’ Mothers. “His medical files were censored over the course of his treatment, with the information about a severe beating in the abdominal area — which ultimately led to his death — being at some stage whitewashed from the case.”

On top of that, relatives of the conscript and human rights advocates complained about receiving contradictory or contrived reports from the military authorities about the state of his health, the need for a donor and possibilities of an operation, Polyakova added. A rapid investigation into Rudakov’s case established that fellow recruit Maxim Lomonin was responsible for the beating. He received a three-year suspended sentence in the resulting trial. However, no officer was punished or reprimanded in the case. No investigation was held into the alleged manipulation of Rudakov’s medical records.

Ruslan Linkov, head of the liberal political organization Democratic Russia, accused the military of being scared of publicity. “They typically try to hush things up and therefore avoid, whenever possible, dealing with civil doctors because it would bring to light mishaps in treating and handling patients,” he said. “Germany, France and Israel offered to help with Rudakov’s operation but Russia rejected all the offers.” Linkov also emphasized that no officers were brought to account in the Rudakov case. He said that the military authorities often try to “make a scapegoat of another recruit.” “Look at all recent hazing scandals and you will see that officers routinely escape punishment,” he said. “It has become a trend. Recruits are more vulnerable and deprived than the officers and burdening them with full responsibility kills two birds with one stone: the corrupt system is protected, while the human rights groups and the relatives are presented with a nominal figure to blame.”

A native of the town of Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region, Rudakov was drafted to serve in the Leningrad Oblast in 2004. “In his letters home, Roman even contemplated suicide; he considered slitting his wrists, so bad had the bullying become,” Polyakova said. “Food rations were so meager that in one of the letters Roman recalled finding a biscuit in the garbage and eating it.”

Rudakov’s story is not unique. His case received nationwide publicity, but hundreds of other instances of soldiers being mistreated cruelly and even being driven to suicide remain hidden from the public. Half of the soldiers who contact Soldier’s Mothers say they have tried to commit suicide. Stricken mothers listen to their sons confiding that they once tried to slit their wrists, throw themselves from windows, or hang themselves using their own shirts.

“Three people deserted from our platoon, and one other guy ran away from another platoon,” Roman recounts in a letter dated May 28, 2005. “His father brought him back but the guy deserted again three days later.[...] I am in despair. I haven’t slept for two nights because we are being forced to work on a construction site at night.”

In his annual report on human rights, released Thursday, Russia’s ombudsman Vladimir Lukin accused the state of “being unable to protect recruits from either the arbitrariness and waywardness of their commanders, or hazing and bullying by senior conscripts.” Lukin linked the hazing problem with the general underfunding of the army on all levels from housing for the officers to food rations and equipment.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

February 17, 2008 — Contents

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 17 CONTENTS

(1) The Sunday Photos: Nemtsov at Oborona

(2) The Sunday YouTube Part I

(3) The Sunday YouTube Part II

(4) The Sunday Apocalypse

(5) The Sunday Poet

(6) The Sunday Shell Game

(7) The Sunday Sacrilege

(8) The Sunday Funnies/Mystery

NOTE: You can’t necessarily trust a Russian, but you can always trust a Russian to be a Russian. No sooner did we announce that Anna Chakvetadze had the chance this week to move into the top 5 in the world by reaching the finals of the WTA event in Antwerp, Belgium where she was the number 2 seed (booting Maria Shamapova out of the top 5), than Chakvetadze promptly went down in easy straight sets in her very first match to the “lucky loser” Sophia Arvidsson of Sweden, who was only in the tournament because somebody else pulled out, not ranked in the world’s top 60 players. Looks like not even a name like “Chakvetadze” can save you from the Russian curse.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !