February 15, 2009 — Contents

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 15 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:   How Low can you Go, Russia?

(2)  EDITORIAL: Boycott Sochi!

(3)  Now, Putin starts with the Teachers

(4)  The Kremlin just Doesn’t get it

(5)  Latynina on the Russian Swindler

(6)  Top 10 things Americans, but not Russians, have Accomplished

NOTE: On Friday, two months shy of our third birthday, this blog passed another milestone, having by then been visited by three quarters of a million people since its founding in April 2006.  The 5,000+ web pages created by this blog have now been opened well over one million times, and we have published over 15,000 comments, more than any other Russia politics blog in world history.  And you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!  As we have said many times before, these statistics are as much the accomplishment of you the reader as they are of those who produce the content,  so pat yourself on the back but don’t get complacent. Instead, redouble your efforts to publicize our content by using services like Digg and StumbleUpon.  Remember:  The KGB still rules Russia.

EDITORIAL: How low can you go, Russia?

EDITORIAL

How low can you go, Russia?

Russia sank to an unfathomable new low last week.

Reuters reported that the Kremlin was begging fugitive solider Sergeant Alexander Glukhov, who defected across the Ossetian lines to Georgia, to return to Russia.  Reuters quotes  Colonel Igor Konashenkov, aide to the commander of Russia’s Ground Forces, sating:  “Russia’s military command has no disciplinary complaints against sergeant Glukhov, and if he returns to Russia he will continue his service, but in a different unit.”

Now we ask you, dear readers, to tell us which is more pathetic and wretched:  If Konashenkov is telling the truth, or if he’s lying?

EDITORIAL: Say “No” to Sochi because of Russia’s Drunken Skies

EDITORIAL

Say “No” to Sochi because of Russia’s Drunken Skies

Last week, we reported on how the passengers of an Aeroflot airliner had been forced to take matters into their own hands in order to stop a drunken Russian pilot from taking off and killing them all.  In America, the pilot saves the passengers by skillfully and heroically landing a stricken airliner on a river in the middle of one of the world’s greatest cities. In Russia, it’s exactly the reverse.

Now, Putin starts with the Teachers

Reuters reports:

A Russian school teacher described by Amnesty International as a possible prisoner of conscience said on Thursday she had been ordered to resign her job as punishment for opposing the Kremlin.

Yekaterina Bunicheva’s head teacher said he had reprimanded her for failing to show up for work after she was jailed for five days. He denied telling her to resign or that the punishment had been for her political beliefs. Bunicheva and three other opposition activists were arrested in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, east of Moscow, last month as they made their way to a pro-government rally where they were planning to protest. All three were given the same jail term after they were found guilty of swearing at police.

The history teacher said soon after her release she was called in to see her headteacher, Vladimir Ushakov, at the city’s School No. 106.

The Kremlin just doesn’t Get it

Russian economist Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the New Economic School/CEFIR and a columnist for the Vedomosti newspaper, writing in the Moscow Times bravely admits what is obvious to the outside world:  Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin just doesn’t get it.

Last week, the government announced policies aimed at expanding the credit available to businesses. The banks that were the major recipients of government bailout funds were instructed to increase the amount they lend by 2 percent per month. At the same time, the government refused to consider taking toxic assets off banks’ balance sheets, even though all leading countries of the world are moving in that direction. Unfortunately, this shows that the government does not understand how to treat the severe blood clot that is blocking the flow of money into the economy.

There are two reasons banks are not lending more money. First, they need those funds to pay off their own debts. Second and more important, they know that most borrowers won’t be able to pay back the loans during the crisis.

Latynina on the Russian Swindler

Hero journalist Yulia Latynina, writing in the Moscow Times:

The Russia-Ukraine gas war officially ended in Moscow on Jan. 19, when Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a 10-year agreement. But there was a strange epilogue when Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko demanded shortly thereafter that the agreement be annulled.

Tymoshenko pushed very hard to include a clause eliminating the role of the controversial intermediary RosUkrEnergo. If Yushchenko gets his way, RosUkrEnergo will be the big winner.

Top 10 things Americans have done but never Russians

In our editorial we point out one difference between the way Americans and Russians roll it. In America, the pilot of an airplane saves the passangers; in Russia, it’s the reverse. Here’s our list of other examples in top-ten form. We invite readers to educate us if we’re wrong about any item, to add to the list, and to create a pro-Russian list . . . if they can.

Top 10 things Americans have done but never Russians

10

Built restaurants and auto dealerships in Western Europe

9

Built the world’s tallest office building

8

Won seven Nobel Prizes in literature

February 13, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  The Horror of  “Life” in Putin’s Russia

(2)  EDITORIAL: Russia’s Pension Elephant

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Talking Turkey about the Russian Economy

(4)  A Russophile Repents

(5)  Now, Even Russians Trash the Putin Economy

NOTE:  In her latest installment on Pajamas Media, LR founder and publisher Kim Zigfeld says that Barack Obama is “hopelessly adrift” on foreign policy where Russia is concerned. She’s too kind by half.

NOTE:  If we do say so ourselves, we have an extraordinarily rich coverage of the failure of the Putin economy in today’s issue. No thinking person can carefully read these items and still believe that Vladimir Putin has the slightest idea what he’s doing or that the people’s support of him in public opinion polls is even remotely rational.

NOTE:  Many happy (for us, not him) returns of the day to Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin and his goon-in-chief Dima Medvedev!

EDITORIAL: The Horror of “Life” in Putin’s Russia

EDITORIAL

The Horror of “Life” in Putin’s Russia

National Public Radio reporter Anne Garrels has produced a multi-part report on the horror of life in an average Russian city in Vladimir Putin’s neo-Soviet Russia called Chelyabinsk:  Then and Now. It’s full of jaw-dropping little-known facts about a nation that is teetering once again on the brink of collapse.

She reports for instance that a doctor at a state hospital in the city earns $200 per month, $400 with overtime.  For a 50-hour work week, that’s a stunning $2/hour.  For a 40-hour week, it’s $1.25/hour.  For a doctor. Working in a hospital. With people’s lives in his hands.  And the doctor must work what one describes to Garrels as “mess, pressure and horrible conditions.”  What sort of “physician” would agree to work on these terms? What sort of “care” would he provide?

There are more abortions than live births, and this isn’t surprising the way one mother described the conditions surrounding her childbirth:

“Horrible, horrible. A room with 10 women in it. You have to go to a pharmacy and buy everything — stitching, cotton wool. Everything you need during the birth, you buy and pay for. We were told to bring our own sugar. If you are a patient in a hospital, you better have a friend who can bring you food.”

Garrels notes:  “Life expectancy for Russian men — 59 years — remains astonishingly low, and well below current levels in Pakistan and Bangladesh. That has combined with anemic fertility levels to cause a drop in population. According to United Nations predictions, Russia’s population could fall by 30 percent by the middle of the century.”

She also finds other pandemic social ills. Alcoholism is rampant, for example. She quotes one local resident:  “You see 12-, 13-year-olds sitting in the benches, just drinking beer like soda. So young. That’s a problem.”

And that’s only the beginning

EDITORIAL: Russia’s Pension Elephant

EDITORIAL

Russia’s Pension Elephant

Last weekend, Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin stated:  “We understand that in real life inflation this year could be above the level we put in the budget. Then, in order for us to meet the declared goals, it would be necessary to increase the basic pension by more than 26.5%.”

At the end of next year, Russia’s old-age pension is scheduled to be increased by 26.5%, but Putin says that if inflation continues on its current pace that won’t be enough to keep pensioners’ heads above water.  He predicts it may be necessary to raise pensions by a whopping 30% at that point, and they are already scheduled to go up 8.7% in March of this year.

That means that in January 2010 the Kremlin may be paying nearly 40% more for old-age pensions than it is paying now because of Russia’s runaway consumer price inflation, which runs well above 20% on the tiny basket of staple products that ordinary Russians need to survive.

Where will the Kremlin get the money?

EDITORIAL: Talking Russian Turkey

EDITORIAL

Talking Russian Turkey

Our lead editorial today contains a horrifying litany of failure by the Putin regime in Russia and suffering resulting on the part of the people of Russia. Our second editorial adds even more disturbing data. Sometimes such reporting can overwhelm the senses. Let’s counterbalance it with a very simple real-world example.

Suppose that you were a Russian in the summer of 2008 earning the average national wage of 100 rubles per hour.  You’d be paid in rubles, of course, the tidy sum of roughly 4,000 rubles per week for a full-time job.

A Russophile Repents: Annals of Russian Barbarism

Russophile Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, writing on the BBC website, has a rude awakening because of the Markelov assassination.  We would point out that he states errantly: “As Anastasia [Baburova] tried to grab the killer he turned and shot her too.”  In fact, it’s now clear that there is no evidence to support this claim, since there were no witnesses and Baburova did not survive the attack.  The notion that Baburova provoked her own killing could easily be a Kremlin propaganda ploy to undercut outrage over the killing of a young woman (either because, as a Novaya Gazeta reporter, she had been targeted or because she needed to be liquidated as the only witness).  Now that time has passed, it’s shamefully irresponsible to repeat this unsubstantiated canard without questioning its origin.

Here is the text:

There is a tendency for many to resort to stereotypes when describing Russia.  The Fleet Street headline writers rarely resist an opportunity to declare the outbreak of a new Cold War.  This week there was much chortling in British newspapers at the story of a Russian airline pilot who had been forced off a plane because he was too drunk to make the safety announcement.  These Russians, many will have giggled, they will never change.

Russians Condemn the Putin Economy

The Moscow Times offers readers a two-part review of the onset of serious academic criticism of the Putin economy.  How long this will be allowed to continue, and indeed how long these courageous academics have to live, is an open question.

First comes an op-ed from Sergei Guriev, rector of the New Economic School in Moscow, and Aleh Tsyvinski, professor of economics at Yale University:

Russia’s economy is collapsing, but the situation could be even worse. The global economic crisis has finally forced the government to adopt sensible policies, thereby staving off disaster — at least for now. Official forecasts for Russian gross domestic product growth in 2009 remain positive, but most analysts, including government officials, are bracing for a severe recession, which appears to have started in the fourth quarter of 2008. The stock market’s collapse — its 72 percent fall is the worst of all major emerging markets — is only the most visible sign of this.

Even Russia’s oligarchs are pawning their yachts and selling their private jets. Signs of political instability are mounting. The approval ratings for the country’s president and prime minister are heading south. Mass street protests have started, and they are led not by opposition political parties but by workers and middle-class families facing job losses and declining wages. More important, protesters are demanding that the government resign, which was unthinkable just a year ago.

With oil prices plummeting 70 percent from their peak, it is no surprise that the country is facing severe economic challenges. Growth is endangered, the ruble is weak, and the government budget is in deficit. Nevertheless, up to now, the government and private sector have weathered the storm reasonably well.

Critics of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s regime argue that the political system is too centralized and risks collapse in today’s economic storm. The regime’s ideology, after all, places the state and loyalty to the rulers ahead of private property and merit. When the crisis hits with full force, they argue that the government will nationalize major banks and companies, with the resulting inefficiency then burying the economy, just as it doomed the Soviet Union.

The government has, in fact, made serious mistakes in dealing with the crisis. Taxpayers’ money was spent to purchase corporate stocks in a failed attempt to support collapsing stock prices. The government is unlikely to recover its investment anytime soon.

February 11, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 11 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Mr. Putin’s Kitchen

(2)  EDITORIAL:  Russia through the Looking Glass

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Russia and her “Allies”

(4)  Stratfor Blasts Putin’s Russia

(5)  Putin the Panhandler

(6)  MT Blogging Crime

Note:  A member of Oleg Kozlovsky’s Oborona opposition organization in St. Petersburg is now blogging in English as is Oleg himself.  We report on the Kremlin’s attempt to infiltrate Oborona with spies in our lead editorial.  You might consider dropping by one of these blogs to leave a comment in support of these courageous Russian patriots.

EDITORIAL: Mr. Putin’s Kitchen

EDITORIAL

Mr. Putin’s Kitchen

Russian GDP in freefall right along with the ruble

The chart above shows how Russian GDP has entered a state of freefall as the country’s financial system has collapsed.   The Russia Economy Watch blog states:  “If we look at the monthly contraction rate as a reflection of the current quarter on quarter contraction, we find a rate of minus 1.6%, which means that the present rate is something like a 6.5% annualised shrinkage rate.”

It’s getting rather hot in Vladimir Putin’s crooked kitchen.  There can be only one response:  We must turn up the heat.  At long last, we seem to be starting to understand that.

EDITORIAL: Russia Through the Looking Glass

EDITORIAL

Russia Through the Looking Glass

There are times when things happen in Russia that are so bizarrely inane that they defy the comprehension of normal human beings unschooled in the finer points of Russian “thought.” This is one of those instances.

The Moscow Times reports that a  shadowy organization calling itself “Creative Warriors” has installed an ad campaign in the Moscow Metro which, as shown above, depicts cans of “Amerikanskoye Salo” emblazoned with the American flag.  The MT describes “salo” as a ” traditional Ukrainian dish of salted pork fat” and explains that CW’s purpose is to unseat Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko by convincing the people of Ukraine that Yushchenko is a puppet of the U.S. and that “American salo is just as impossible as an American Ukraine.”  The group stated:  “We have been created for a new humanitarian mission and that we should spread throughout the entire world. If the campaign is allowed to be fully conducted on a national scale, Yushchenko simply has no chance to win.”

This idea is wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin. Only in Russia can a failure be this pathetic, absolute and spectacular.

EDITORIAL: Russia and her “Allies”

EDITORIAL

Russia and her “Allies”

We confess we were caught slightly off guard by a Reuters headline last weekend which read:  “Russia and allies to create joint air defense.”

What have we missed, we wondered? Were we asleep at the switch? Who are these fiersome new allies whose powerful air forces will be contributing to a mighty new security ring over Russian skies?

We weren’t suprised to learn that Russia needed help to protect its skies, of course.   RIA Novosti had just reported that 70% of Russia’s famous MiG-29 fighter gets are unable to get off the ground because of woefully inadequate maintenance, and Reuters had reported that one-third of all Russian attack aircraft are unsafe to fly.

But we had no idea that other nations had stepped forward to bolster Russia’s flagging position. Reuters obligingly gave us the list:

Stratfor Blasts Putin’s Russia

George Friedman, founder of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, blasts the long-term total failure that is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and warns of short-term Russian aggression against Ukraine:

Russian power is in long-term decline. Compared to the Soviet Union in 1989, the Russian Federation has less than half the population, one-third the economic bulk, lower commodity production and vastly decreased industrial output. Demographically, Russia is both shrinking and aging at rates that have not been seen outside of wartime since the time of the Black Death. The educational system has stalled, so Russia is facing an impending slide in labor quantity and quality, which will make it difficult if not outright impossible for Russia to keep up with its advancing neighbors. The long-term prognosis is, at best, very poor.

Putin the Panhandler

Dmitri Sidorov, Washington bureau chief of the Kommersant newspaper, writing in Forbes magazine:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin came to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, it seems, to convince Western creditors to write off a portion of the debts Russian companies owe them. As of October 2008, the cumulative debt totaled $540 billion. The State of Russia owes $42.7 billion, while the private sector carries the rest of the burden. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the State of Russia paid foreign creditors a total of $80 billion, including $61 billion owed by the private sector.

We know that the Kremlin recently drew up a list of strategic enterprises belonging to Russian companies that owe money to Western banks. Stakes in these enterprises either cannot be sold to Western investors or are tightly controlled by Moscow for the lucky few allowed in. The Kremlin based its rescue plan for the Russian economy on this list, which consists primarily of monsters like Gazprom, Rusal, Rosneft and others.

But even if official Russian statistics on the state of the country’s gold and hard currency reserves are accurate–and they came to $386.9 billion as of Feb. 1–if prices for commodities and energy exports remain unchanged and capital flight stays at current levels, by December 2009 this figure could shrink to $150 billion. And don’t forget that over the last six months, Russia’s reserves fell by $210 billion.

What happens next if the crisis goes on a bit longer requires little explanation.

MT Blogging Crime

Moscow Times managing editor Carl Schreck has started a blog on the paper’s website called “Crime Watch.”  It documents the more sensational aspects of Russian criminal life, including such items as:

• Russian rats chewing on Russian babies in a Russian hospital ward
• Russian “black realtors” who murder to acquire apartments
• Russian cannibals
• Various novel Russian forms of suicide, all involving getting somebody to kill you
• Russian boyfriend pouring gasoline on his Russian girlfriend and her daughter, then setting them both on fire

And then there’s this gem:

February 9, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY FEBRUARY 9  CONTENTS

(1)  Putley on Markelov

(2)  One Picture is Worth a Thousand Screams

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Just say Nobama

(4)  EDITORIAL:  What would Stalin do?

(5)  Stalin’s advice to Putin

(6) Anastasia Baburova, R.I.P.

NOTE:  Though it is probably not necessary to point it out, nonetheless we will say that we have moved our editorial into the third position in today’s issue out of respect to the two lead items, a brilliant essay on the Markelov killing by Jeremy Putley and an equally brilliant political cartoon from the pen of Sergei Yelkin,  better known as Ellustrator, which could not compliment the essay better. We are honored to be able to publish these heroically courageous items on our blog, and we feel they serve to underline the point we are making in our editorial better than we could possibly do ourselves.  We also note that today’s issue is entirely orginal to the blogosphere.

Putley on Markelov

Murder in the Time of Putin

by Jeremy Putley

Original to La Russophobe

Eduard and Larisa Baburov pay last respects to their daughter Anastasia Baburova, who was shot dead with human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, in Moscow, Friday, Jan. 23, 2009.

Murder is the most distinguishing aspect of Vladimir Putin’s time in high office. Murders carried out by agents of the government, by government-sponsored members of the siloviki, above all by the Russian military in Chechnya, and by Putin’s protégé Ramzan Kadyrov as Chechnya’s ruler, will surely come to be recognised by historians of the era as the feature which most distinguishes the leadership of Vladimir Putin from his predecessors. Murder has not been so common an occurrence in Russia since the days of Joseph Stalin. Murders certainly became more frequent during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin than they had been, but beginning with the assassination of Galina Starovoitova by agents of the Russian security services in 1998, when Putin was head of the KGB, the frequency of murder has been on the increase, while endemic corruption continues unchecked.

Putin’s rule began in blood. The 1999 apartment building bomb explosions in Moscow and other cities killed more than 300. These murders, carried out to provide a spurious justification for prime minister Putin’s war in Chechnya, are believed with good reason by historians to have been the work of agents of the Russian FSB – particularly because they were never properly investigated.

One Picture is Worth a Thousand Screams

Source: Ellustrator.

The first commenter to the post on Ellustrator’s blog states:  “It’s a very professional drawing, yet the impression it makes is rather ugly.  It turned out to be not a very pleasant portrait at all.  Putin appears rather hideous.”  The second commenter responds:  “Yes, it’s a very lifelike image.”

EDITORIAL: Just say Nobama

EDITORIAL

Just say Nobama

Well, he’s only a month into his presidency but we have had just about all we can take from Barack Obama.  When the United Nations is a more staunch defender of American values in Russia than the President of the United States, something is very, very wrong.

Last week a group of UN delegates excoriated Russia for its barbaric litany of race murders and attacks on journalists.  Think Obama joined in the expression of justifiable outrage? Think again.

EDITORIAL: What would Stalin do?

EDITORIAL

Another Russian Selection

A couple of months ago, we wrote about something we called a “Russian selection.” Similar to a “Hobson’s choice,” a Russian selection is the typical situation in Russia, where no matter what option you pick you end up with disaster — as for example when in 2000 Russian voters were presented with a choice between a proud KGB spy and a proud Communist apparachik  for their next president, or asked to select between a shameless Kremlin sycophant and a lunatic fundamentalist for their next pope.

And now, Russians face yet another “Russian selection.”   It seems that when Vladimir Putin is confronted with a dilemma of this kind, he takes a page from American Christians, who ask “what would Jesus do?” and queries his Russian variant:  “What would Stalin do?”

The chart at left shows the recent progress of the U.S. dollar against the Russian ruble.  Pick your poison, Russians. Do you want your currency stable, as it sometimes is at certain points during this three-week period, or do you want it falling against the dollar, as it is doing at other periods? Either way, you lose.