An obituary in the Economist reports:
Baburova
IT IS still not clear why Anastasia Baburova was shot in the head. Was she a target—along with Stanislav Markelov, a human-rights lawyer who was shot seconds earlier? Was she an accidental victim, in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or did she try to grab and disarm the killer after he shot her companion?
A Step at a Time translates from Gasan Guseinov’s mock letter of advice from Josef Stalin to Vladimir Putin on Grani.ru (via a tip from Jeremy Putley, whose op-ed leads this issue):
One might have thought that a sensational political assassination would free your hands for a mass purge of the bureaucratic organs. But what do we hear from your representatives? That the responsibility for it all is borne by a certain Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, who resides in London. The question arises that if he is such an influential comrade, why is he working not for you but against you? And why are the comrades, who should have complied with your instructions for comrade Berezovsky long ago, not even able to catch his hirelings from your own, Comrade Putin, reserve of cadres?
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 9 CONTENTS
(1) EDITORIAL: Condemning Russian aggression in Georgia
(2) EDITORIAL: Slumdog for Oscar!
Posted in contents
EDITORIAL
Condemning Russian Aggression in Georgia
On January 23rd the Human Rights watch released a 200-page report entitled “Up in Flames: Humanitarian Law Violations in the Conflict Over South Ossetia.” Based “on more than 460 interviews done over several months of field research” the report “details indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks by both Georgian and Russian forces, and the South Ossetian forces’ campaign of deliberate and systematic destruction of certain ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia. It also describes Russia’s failure to ensure public order and safety in areas of Georgia that were under its effective control.”
The New York Times reported:
Russia and Georgia had opposite reactions to [the] report. Moscow said it was “based on a series of shopworn and baseless theses actively discussed in foreign political and media circles.” Tbilisi called it “an objective and thorough picture.” Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Human Rights Watch, based in New York, had said “practically nothing about the colossal damage” to South Ossetia “as the result of Georgian aggression.” Georgia said the report “unambiguously places responsibility on the occupation forces of the Russian Federation and its proxy regime for ethnic cleansing and war crimes.”
In other words, once again Russia has suffered a crushing defeat in the PR campaign over the war in Georgia and been exposed as the wanton aggressor. When a study finds that Russia is in the wrong, that study is “shopworn and baseless.” But if the study had found Russia was 100% in the right, the Kremlin would have praised it to the sky. Welcome to the through-the-looking-glass world of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
EDITORIAL
Slumdog Millionaire for Oscar!
David Denby, the New Yorker‘s movie critic, says that not only should the movie Slumdog Millionaire not win this year’s Academy Award for best film, it did not even deserve to be nominated.
Denby is, of course, one of the world’s great pompous irrelevancies, and apparently moron to boot. After all, not too many people take their movie-going advice from the New Yorker, and for good reason. This dolt hasn’t got the first clue what he’s talking about.
Writing on Seeking Alpha, in a column entitled “From Russia with Bitterness,” international investor Eric Roseman sees the light (the Motley Fool has similar sentiments):
One of my biggest mistakes a few years ago was placing a bet on one of Russia’s largest oil companies. In hindsight, despite the incredible value still offered by this investment, I’ve lost more than 50% of my capital…and not strictly because of plunging oil prices.
Russia is not governed by market capitalism. The market has evolved into a twisted version of despot capitalism whereby Vladimir Putin sets the tone for the market, deciding which companies should be nationalized (a.k.a. victimized), purged, and eventually placed under full or partial state control. The government typically targets natural resource companies for this exercise and doesn’t care if foreign investors get caught in the middle of this confusing web of intervention.
Posted in copyright, foreign investment, neo-soviet failure, russia
Tagged Eric Roseman, russia
Let's be clear: The Russian Orthodox Church put Nevsky on an icon because it declared him a saint
The Ukrainian web publication The Day offers insights on the real “Saint” Alexander Nevsky (FYI, dear reader, Vladimir Putin may also be on the “Saint” track):
On the Sunday evening of December 28, 2008, Russia TV channel announced live the personality chosen as symbol of the nation. In a three-month-long nationwide Internet and SMS vote, the public chose the Ancient Rus Prince Alexander Nevsky. Out of the total 4.5 million Russians who voted, over 520,000 preferred this figure. The second best was Pyotr Stolypin, architect of the farming reform and Russia’s prime minister in the early 20th century. Coming off third was Joseph Stalin, followed by Aleksandr Pushkin, Peter I, Vladimir Lenin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Aleksandr Suvorov, Dmitry Mendeleyev, Ivan IV the Terrible, Catherine II, and Alexander II. The voting could not avoid scandals. For example, it was Stalin who was leading at first, then Alexander Nevsky outran him by a mere 2 percent.
Nevsky and Stalin are equally odious personalities who are still stirring up controversy and disputes about their role in Russian history. But while the life story of Alexander Nevsky is covered with centuries-old dust of history and ordinary Russians get information on him mostly from school manuals, Stalin’s “deeds” still remain in the memory of a considerable part of the Russians. The fact that Stalin, a cruel tyrant who wiped out tens of millions of innocent people, almost became the symbol of Russia arouses great alarm and preoccupation over the Russian nation’s ethnic health, for a great-power psychosis is clearly being instilled again.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, writing in the Moscow Times, brings back memories of the good old days when the mighty MT was not afraid to speak truth to power:
President Dmitry Medvedev attracted a lot of attention when he met on Thursday at the Kremlin with Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper renowned for its brave investigative journalism and harsh criticism of the Kremlin. At the meeting, Medvedev reportedly expressed his “deepest sorrow and compassion” over the death of Anastasia Baburova, a freelance reporter for Novaya Gazeta. Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov were killed in an apparent contract killing on Jan. 19 in the center of Moscow.
Many viewed Medvedev’s gesture as further proof of his “liberalism” — a counterbalance to the autocratic Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was criticized for his cold-hearted reaction to the 2006 killing of Anna Politkovskaya, also a reporter for Novaya Gazeta.
But to get the real picture of who Medvedev is, the believers in his liberalism should look past his superficial photo ops and meaningless statements. Take, for example, a bill Medvedev sent to the State Duma last week. When signed into law, it will allow Kremlin-friendly regional legislatures to remove opposition mayors who were elected by popular vote.
This is an interesting cartoon from the pen of Ellustrator Sergei Yelkin, whose work we have not featured in some time now for lack of space due to all the horror unfolding in Putin’s Russia these days. It points out the interesting fact that Putin’s initials “V.V.P.” for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin are the same as those of the Russian translation of Gross Domestic Product (“Valovoj Vnutrennij Produkt“), as if the president of the United States were Named George David Pensky for instance. The man says to Putin: “So, the growth of VVP has increased 5.6%.”
Posted in sunday funnies
If to judge from this cheesecake photograph, there was a time early in Maria Sharapova’s career when she felt she needed something to fall back on in the event her tennis career didn’t work out, and that thing, she decided, should be streetwalking. Say what you like about her tennis skills, she’s a great little piece of ass, isn’t she?
Sharapova may have shown considerable prescience. Last week she dropped out of the top 10 in the tennis rankings, falling 8 places from #9 to a lowly #17 as 10-time grand slam champion American Serena Williams took over the #1 spot for the third time in her career. Williams now holds more grand slam titles all by herself than all Russian citizens who have ever played the game in its entire history, male and female, combined.
We continue to see Shamapova (as we like to call her) as a perfect microcosm of Russia itself, elevating form over substance and confusing luck with skill to create a ridiculous amount of hype totally inconsistent with reality. Sharapova hasn’t won a tennis tournament since she lucked out to face an unseeded Slovakian player not ranked in the world’s top 30 in the finals of the Tier II event at Amelia Island in April 2008, nearly one year ago. Throughout that tournament, Sharapova never had to face a player ranked in the world’s top 20. In the past year she’s recorded exactly one match victory over a top-ten opponent.
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6 CONTENTS
(1) EDITORIAL: Russia’s Financial Apocalypse
(2) EDITORIAL: The New Chamberlain
Posted in contents
The U.S. dollar, soaring mightily against the Russian ruble
EDITORIAL
Financial Apocalypse for Putin’s Russia
Two weeks ago, Russia’s top central banker, Sergei Ignatiyev, boldly declared that after the dramatic devaluation authorized by the Kremlin the U.S. dollar would not rise above 36 rubles in value for the foreseeable future.
On Monday, the dollar crashed through the 36-ruble barrier to close at 36.41. One Russian ruble is now worth 2.75 American cents. Six months ago, it was worth 4.15 cents. It has lost one-third of its value since Russia invaded Georgia in a naked act of imperial aggression.
Posted in economics, editorial, neo-soviet failure, russia
Tagged russia, russian ruble
EDITORIAL
The New Chamberlain
Lord Truscott
It’s somewhat difficult to imagine what sort of person could be an organizer, MP and energy minister for the British Labor Party for more than a decade and then, when finally rejected at the polls by his own constituents, accept a knighthood from the Queen and enter the House of Lords, thus becoming the very personification of all that he had heretofore been opposing.
But you don’t have to imagine it, you can just look at the photograph of Baron Peter Derek Truscott and see it all in living color.
And you can then open your virtual copy of the Times of London and regale yourself with his exploits having “risen” to the status of Peer of the Realm, and the Daily Mail‘s revolting picture of his secret Soviet past. The Times has discovered that any number of lords have been selling themselves to the highest bidder and that “Lord Truscott, one of those named in the lords for hire scandal, met the energy minister, allegedly without declaring that he was being paid by a lobbying firm that had among its clients Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom.”
And so, of course, it all comes back to Russia.
Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation in Moscow, writing in the Moscow Times:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s speech Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos was noteworthy for two reasons. First, it did not contain the inflammatory anti-Western rhetoric that we have grown accustomed to hearing from Putin in past years. Second, it might have been the first time we heard a clear admission that Russia is no longer capable of being a “island of stability” in a global economic crisis.
Putin’s critics would probably say that his proposals for managing the global crisis are too ambiguous. The more spiteful critics would point out that a country that has been denied membership in the World Trade Organization for the last decade and that is not even a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development could hardly be taken seriously when its prime minister delivers a lecture on how the world’s economy should be structured.
Russian economist Alexei Bayer, writing in the Moscow Times:
With the rest of the world worried about the economic crisis, the news of yet another politically tinged crime in Moscow gets little more than a shrug. It draws the same response in Russia, even though the killing of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova last month provided a glimpse into a murky, Byzantine abyss lying just beyond the country’s facade. It’s a frightening sight in normal times but especially so in a worsening economic climate.
The crimes themselves — and the usual ho-hum reaction to them — testify to the absence of even a rudimentary civil society. Russia is a country of inhabitants, not citizens. Citizens have a stake in their political entity, and murders like these target the very foundations of a nation. This is an occasion on which citizens of all political persuasions would have found a way to make their voices heard. Instead, Russia’s inhabitants go down into the streets to protest higher duties on foreign cars.
Think about this next time you consider getting on a plane piloted by Russians, if you are ever foolish enough to do so. The Moscow Times reports:
When passengers on Aeroflot Flight 315 heard the pilot make his preflight announcement, they knew something was amiss. The pilot’s voice was garbled, barely intelligible — and that was in his native Russian. When he switched to English, it was impossible to understand him at all. “The first thought that occurred to me was, ‘This guy is drunk,’” said Khatuna Kobiashvili, a passenger on the Moscow-New York flight. “His speech was so slurred it was hard to tell what language he was speaking.”
As passengers, including a Moscow Times reporter, related their concerns to the flight crew, they were told to “stop making trouble” or get off the Boeing 767 jet. A passenger who called Aeroflot’s head office received a similar rebuff. “They told me that it was impossible for a pilot to be drunk and hung up the phone,” said the passenger, Tatyana Vorontsova.
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 4 CONTENTS
(1) EDITORIAL: XOXO, Vladimir Putin
(2) EDITORIAL: Kozlovsky’s Army, Under Siege
(3) Lawyers under Siege in Putin’s Russia
Posted in contents
EDITORIAL
XOXO, Vladimir Putin
A new president has been elected in the United States, bringing with him the possibilty for a new relationship with Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has spoken of a “new era of cooperation.” Talk is cheap, however, and Russian talk is found in the K-mart of talk. Recent days have shown just how interested Vladimir Putin’s Russia is in forming such a relationship based on deeds. The response of the Putin regime has been to:
Are these the indications of a nation that wants to turn over a new leaf with the United States? Can anyone make a similar list of provocative American actions taken just after Dmitri Medvedev “succeeded” to the Russian presidency? Has America, for that matter, been sending nuclear bombers to buzz Russian military installations, as Russia is doing to the U.S.?
This man Putin is a crazed lunatic, no different from the most diseased rulers of the USSR, driving his nation to ruin by provoking the world’s most powerful nation for no earthly reason except blind hatred, just as they did.
And that’s all we’ve got to say about that.
EDITORIAL
Kozlovsky’s Army Under Siege
“I was furious when I heard Putin speaking fairy tales in Davos about how our economy is under control. It is my duty to stand up for my rights. I want to live in a good place. I want my children to grow up in a free country, not a gulag.”
– Yevgeny Antipov, a 21-year-old student in Vladivostok last weekend, insisting that he was not afraid to be marching against the government for the first time.
A Putin supporter makes the only argument he can in favor of his Master. The young lady is probably not convinced. Are you?
Does U.S. President Barack Obama ever intend to speak out on the oppression of basic democratic and liberal values in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, values he supposedly holds dear? Or are Obama’s pretty words just that, and nothing more?
Oleg Kozlovsky and his opposition organization Oborona (“Defense”) continue to face outrageous harassment from the barbaric band of thugs who run the Moscow Kremlin. Obama continues his repugnant, cowardly silence. We fear that those who told us to trust that Obama would act once he took power were seriously misled.
Posted in editorial, kozlovsky, opposition groups, protest
Tagged Alexei Kazakov, kozlovsky, oborona, russia
Business Week reports:
Now it is the Russian lawyers’ turn.
Scores of journalists and businessmen have suffered beatings, harassment, and even assassination in Russia’s sometimes anarchic society. With the brazen daytime murder of human rights attorney Stanislav Markelov on Jan. 19, it became clear that members of the Russian bar are also targets in the murky vendettas that taint commerce and politics in Moscow and throughout the country.
It is not just lawyers alleging human rights abuses who are vulnerable. Corporate lawyers, too, face increasing threats. “It is now impossible in Russia to defend a client who is in a politically motivated case or in a [commercial] case where the other side has a lot of money and is willing to play dirty,” says Jamison R. Firestone, managing partner of Firestone Duncan, an American corporate law firm in Moscow. “At worst, you will end up in prison, in exile, or dead,” he adds.
“The technical state of Ukraine’s gas transmission system is now in such a condition that it cannot circulate. In such a case it needs to be frankly told about. One must figure out whether Ukraine’s gas-supply system is capable of circulating gas at all”
–V.Putin, January, 13th
Ukrainian Blogger Dmitri Korneychuk over at the brand new UA-RU News explains how Gazprom is “playing cat-and-mouse games” with the Ukrainian gas transit system. Our commenter “Elmer” states:
If you want to see an absolutely excellent explanation of how the Russians tried to trick Europe into believing that Ukraine was not capable of transiting gas, read Korneychuk. The English is a little rough, but very understandable. This guy knows what he is talking about. Recall that Ukraine’s pipeline had been used for years to transit gas through to Europe. After Russia cut off the gas, the Kremlin/Gazprom decided to send a “test” volume – a very low amount. Why a “test” was necessary is, of course, anyone’s guess – except that in Russia, they knew full well the trick they were about to play. It is a fascinating read.
Here’s the text (with some slight English editing and formatting on our part):
Playing Cat & Mouse with Gazprom
One should pay a tribute to Messrs. Medvedev and Putin – unlike our politicians, they do not begrudge the time for the detailed conversations with the technical specialists of Gazprom, entering into all the details of gas transportation. That’s why they have prepared a trump card in advance – an export gas-feeding procedure into the Ukrainian gas transmission network under which the Ukrainians themselves would refuse to pump this fuel, in such a way once again proving their transit insecurity to Europeans. The “pseudotransit” operation was put across masterfully and with impunity by Kremlin on January 13th . And when some of the Europeans took Ukraine’s side, they had their mouth stuffed with a gas ‘carrot’.
A technical mousetrap
Thus, on January 13th at 1:00 a.m. Gazprom demanded from Neftegaz to deliver 76.6 mln cubic meters of gas to the Balkans and Macedonia as a test pump. The route was from the ‘Sudzha’ gas pumping station to the ‘Orlovka’ gas pumping station, where the European watch committee was waiting, ready to monitor the transit process. Moscow opened its taps at 9:00 a.m.
The fate of the aged in Putin's Russia
The Associated Press reports:
A nursing home fire in northwestern Russia killed at least 23 people Saturday, and officials said local authorities were slow to report the blaze.
The fire in the town of Podyelsk in the Komi region followed similar recent deadly fires at other nursing homes across the country, underscoring the negligence, mismanagement, corruption and decaying infrastructure that has plagued Russia.
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