Dear “President” Vader

The following is an open letter to Vladimir Putin from human rights advocate Sergei Kovalyov, published on the Yezhedevny Zhurnal website and translated by The Power Vertical, which calls Kovalyov “the conscience of Russia.” One must wonder how long this “conscience” will be allowed to go on breathing.

On the night of March 31-April 1, Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomaryov — a former deputy of the Supreme Soviet and then of the Russian State Duma, a noted public activist both at home and abroad, a democrat with an undisputed reputation within the human-right community — was savagely attacked.

No one doubts that this outrage was obviously political in nature. Unfortunately, there is politically motivated violence all around us and even murders have become a fact of daily life for us. I will not bother to recount for you the long and mournful list of political massacres — your assistants can easily present you with all the particulars.

But what is immediately evident in cases where political motivation is obvious is that the victims are always critics and opponents of the authorities. Why is this, Mr. President? What do you think?

April 12, 2009 — Contents

SUNDAY APRIL 12 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Red Moldova, Red-Faced Russia

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The Russian and the Grapes

(3)  Kozlovsky on Moldova

(3)  In Putin’s Russia, a Tsunami of Bank Defaults is Coming

(4)  “Reset” Russia Launches massive Cyber Attack on US

NOTE:  On this date 48 years ago, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to orbit our planet outside its atmosphere, the first spaceman. One could see that moment as the highwater mark of Russian civilization, and easily argue it’s been all downhill from there.   Not only didn’t the USSR make it to the moon, it didn’t even make it to the end of the century.

NOTE:  Our sidebar now contains a section that posts our most recent Twitter messages, giving a look at upcoming items soon to appear on the blog.

EDITORIAL: Red Moldova, Red-faced Russia

Anti-communist protesters light a bonfire on the steps of their parliament in Moldova

EDITORIAL

Red Moldova, Red-faced Russia

Last Sunday, voters in Moldova returned the Communist Party to power in a massive landslide.  Two days later, Moldova’s streets exploded in violence, organized on Twitter.

Russia, it’s policy in shambles, is panicking and screeching hysterically about “foreign interference.”

EDITORIAL: The Russian and the Grapes

EDITORIAL

The Russian and the Grapes

It seems like only yesterday that the Russian government was telling the world that its falling stock market, currency and reserves, its soaring inflation and unemployment, were only minor temporary hiccups on Russia’s great march towards “resurgence.”  Ordinary Russians are not affected by the stock market, we were told, and Grandpa Putin will soon set it all right again.

What a difference a day makes! 

Kozlovsky on Moldova

Oleg Kozlovsky, leader of the Oborona protest movement, writing on the Huffington Post:

Some countries are just more lucky than others. Moldova wasn’t lucky enough to be known in America or Western Europe. Indeed, it’s a small East-European ex-Soviet country, poorest on the continent, and there’s little of interest about it. Except maybe for the fact that Moldova is the only place in the world where Communists keep winning West-approved elections. So they did, or claim to have done, at general elections last Sunday.

In Putin’s Russia, a Tsunami of Defaults is Brewing

In a stunning development, just as the first wave of Russian defaults on foreign bonds was announced, the Moscow Times reports that German Gref, chief of Sberbank, has openly contradicted Russian dictator Vladimir Putin concerning the “silent tsunami” that is about to wash over Russia’s banking system:

Sberbank CEO German Gref warned that a second wave of the crisis was about to sweep over the banking sector on Wednesday, two days after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told State Duma members that banks were out of trouble.

Gref said bad debt is piling up as worsening economic conditions make it more difficult for businesses and individuals to meet loan payments, which in turn leaves banks with insufficient cash to extend new loans.

“Reset” Russia Launches Cyber Attack on USA

So much for Barack Obama’s silly idea of “resetting” relations with Russia. No sooner did he meet with Dima Medvedev than a massive cyber attack on American electrical grids by Russia was unearthed.  The Voice of Amerca reports:

A U.S. newspaper is reporting that spies using the Internet have infiltrated control systems of the U.S. electrical supply network and planted computer programs that could be used to disrupt electricity service.

The report in The Wall Street Journal cites current and former national security officials as saying the spies are from China, Russia and other countries.  It says a senior intelligence official said the Chinese and Russians have attempted to map U.S. infrastructure. The report says a senior intelligence official says the computer software tools left behind could be used to destroy infrastructure components, and officials are concerned the programs would be used in times of war or crisis. The report says officials say water, sewage and other infrastructure systems were also at risk.  But it says officials do not believe there is an immediate danger. The report says Russian and Chinese officials have denied any involvement in cyberspying.

A Pentagon official said Tuesday the Defense Department has spent $100 million in the past six months responding to cyber attacks. In testimony to Congress last month, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair warned of a growing threat to cyberspace as terrorists expand their use of tactics and techniques. He said the U.S. has to keep strengthening its cyber defenses.

April 10, 2009 — Contents

FRIDAY APRIL 10 CONTENTS

(1)  Another Original LR Translation:  Turning over the Russian Rock

(2)  EDITORIAL:  The Medvedev Family Fortune

(3)  EDITORIAL:  Kirill Pankratov, Shameless Neo-Soviet Liar

(4)  The Kremlin’s Shameful Yamadayev Coverup

(5)  Annals of the Holy Russian Empire

Another Original LR Translation: Turning over the Russian Rock

A note from the Translator:  The dirty little rag we all love to hate, which is also the highest circulation newspaper in Russia – Order of Lenin, Order of the October Revolution, Order of the Great Patriotic War, Order of the Red Banner of Labour (and bar) Komsomolskaya Pravda, organ of the Central Committee of the All-Union Lenin Communist Union of Youth, to give it its full and absurd title – has published an amusing piece of rubbish which I think LR readers will enjoy. I fear I have recently been paying too much attention to the lone voices of good sense and intelligence that still survive in Russia, ignoring the great mass of rubbish (not my first choice of word, but we are respectable here) that is shovelled into the brains of the greater Russian public.

EDITORIAL: The Medvedev Family Fortune

EDITORIAL

The Medvedev Family Fortune

If you know, as being a well-informed and faithful LR reader you are likely to do, that Russian “president” Dima Medvdev’s wife was “once photographed wearing a Breguet Reine de Naples watch that sells for more than $20,000″ and if you also know that Medvedev himself was once the boss of Gazprom, one of the world’s largest energy conglomerates, then it will probably surprise you to learn that, according to the Moscow Times, the combined bank accounts Medvedev and his wife are worth . . . wait for it . . . . less than $88,500 (all but $4,000 of it in hubby’s accounts) — and Medvedev’s total income last year was less than $124,000.  The MT observes:  “The presidency does not appear to have been too profitable for Medvedev, who has managed to add just 78,774 rubles ($2,357) to his savings since last year.”

But it will probably not surprise you to learn that Russian “prime minister” Vladimir Putin, when asked how much he had in his savings accounts . . . refused to say, even though it was Medvedev’s own decree that ordered these disclosures.  Putin did admit that he earned $14,000 more as prime minister than Medvedev did as president.

Now, would we be stepping beyond the bounds of reason and fair play, dear reader, if we were to suggest that both Medvedev and Putin are lying through their fangs?

EDITORIAL: Kirill Pankratov, Shameless Neo-Soviet Liar

EDITORIAL

Kirill Pankratov, Shameless Neo-Soviet Liar

 The loathesome Kremlin shill Kirill Pankratov is well known to us here at La Russophobe.  The much-admired David McDuff of A Step at a Time nailed Pankratov’s skeevy hide to the wall some time ago, and one need only glace at Pankratov’s reptilian attack on Anna Politkokvskaya to appreciate what sort of maggot this really is.

So it was rather disappointing to see a column by Pankratov appear on the pages of the Moscow Times earlier this week, claiming that we have nothing to fear where Russia’s Internet is concerned, because it’s free and fair and indestructible — just what Vladimir Putin has been insisting all along.

Needless to say, Pankratov’s column was chock full of the most ridiculous lies that can be imagined.

The Kremlin’s Shameful Yamadayev Coverup

The Moscow Times reports:

When defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former security services officer who heaped invective on the Kremlin from exile in Britain, died of polonium poisoning in London in 2006, Russian prosecutors quickly opened a criminal probe into his death and sent investigators to London.

In the 10 days since the March 28 assassination in Dubai of Chechen strongman Sulim Yamadayev, a decorated Russian war hero who helped Russia crush the Georgian military last year, Russian authorities have barely acknowledged his death.  An Investigative Committee spokesman said Tuesday that a criminal probe had not been opened in connection with Yamadayev’s murder and would not say whether such a case would be opened in the future.

Annals of the Holy Russian Empire

The Chatanooga Times Free Press reports:

The glittering Christ the Savior Cathedral, a pale-white marble structure decorated with bronze statuary and swaths of gold leaf, is more than just Moscow’s grandest and most opulent place of worship. Built in the 1990s as a replica of a church dynamited by Communists in 1931, the cathedral symbolizes the Moscow Patriarchate’s rising political influence — which may be greater today than at any time since the 17th century. It also serves as global headquarters of vast and expanding business operations that experts say are worth several billion dollars.

To tens of millions of Russian believers, the Orthodox Church is first of all a sacred institution, a pillar of the country’s 1,000-year-old identity and culture.

April 8, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY APRIL 8 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  More of Putin’s Russia at its Very Worst

(2)  EDITORIAL:   The Putin Economy in Freefall

(3)  Sweden to Russia:  Up Yours!

(4)  Crushed by Debt in Putin’s Russia

(5)  Igor Sechin, Neo-Soviet Liar

(6)  Does Medvedev have a Roving Eye?

EDITORIAL: More of Putin’s Russia at its Very Worst

EDITORIAL

More of Putin’s Russia at its Very Worst

Sulim Yamadayev

The world is being treated to yet another brutal, vivid illustration of Vladimir Putin’s Russia at its very most horrifying. Perhaps, this time, it will finally open its eyes and see Russia as it really is.

Even as the Russian blogosphere was humiliating itself by refusing to believe that Sulim Yamadayev, a staunch critic of the Kremlin’s puppet regime in Chechnya, had been assassinated in Dubai last week (LJ breathlessly claimed he was still alive), authorities in UAE were preparing an indictment charging that Yamadeyev’s killing had been directly ordered not just by the Chechen rogue regime itself but by its representative in the Russian Duma, one Adam S. Delimkhanov, one of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov’s closest adivsors.  Of course, as was the case with Andrei Lugovoi in the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London, Russia will refuse to do anything to support the investigation in Dubai even as it demands that the West extradite figures of interest to the Kremlin like Boris Berezovsky.

What’s more, Dubai police were reporting that four suspects in the killing, including three Russian nationals, had fled from UAE to Russia in order to escape arrest, while one Russian national had been arrested along with an Iranian and a Tajik.

EDITORIAL: The Putin Economy in Freefall

EDITORIAL

The Putin Economy in Freefall

We report today on anecdotal evidence of Russian workers being crushed by consumer debt and, in one instance at least, being forced into the type of labor they impose on prisoners just to keep their heads above water.  The bad economic news just keeps rolling in like a tsunami in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with no end in sight.  The people of Russia, pathetically, choose to keep their heads thrust deep into the neo-Soviet sand.

Sweden to Russia: Up Yours!

Robert Amsterdam has noticed a Swedish newswire report indicating that the Swedes have coldly rejected a shameless Russian propaganda ploy aimed at undercutting Western resolve as the neo-Soviet weaonization of energy heats up, Russia becoming increasingly desperate to hedge its energy weapons as its economy collapses:

Sweden has decided not to take part in a conference about the proposed Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, much to the surprise of the members of the Russian Parliament, who are organised the meeting in St Petersburg next week. Head of the Russian Duma’s energy committee, Yuri Lipatov, says they are very upset that Sweden has decided not to take part in the meeting. Karin Pilsäter, head of the Swedish parliament’s industry committee says their decision to skip the meeting is based on the fact that the Swedish government’s position on the controversial gas pipeline will be based on environmental factors, not political ones.  But Anders Ygeman, head of the environment committee in the Swedish parliament says he doesn’t think it is in Sweden’s interests to have a Russian gas pipeline in its economic zone. He says he is willing to discuss the issue with his Russian colleagues, but not by going to Russia and flying around in helicopters.

Amsterdam comments: “The Russians have arranged a feel-good junket to the tropical paradise that is St. Petersburg for countries standing in the way of the Nord Stream pipeline, complete with wining and dining and caviaring and helicopter rides along part of the land portion of the pipeline route. At the last minute, the Swedes said “no thånks” and will not be attending this “conference”, which has come as a complete shock to the Russians.”

Crushed by Debt in Putin’s Russia

Reuters reports:

KARABASH, Russia – Each weekend, copper worker Sergei Begutov cuts stones from this toxic, frozen hillside and sells them for five roubles ($0.15) apiece to help fund car loan repayments that now exceed his wages. Like workers across Russia, he has been thrust into poverty by the economic crisis as plunging wages render unaffordable repayments on loans that had offered a taste of a better life.

Igor Sechin, Neo-Soviet Liar

Igor Sechin, Shameless Liar

Streetwise Professor exposes a classic Russian liar:

The WSJ has a long article based on an exclusive interview with your fave and mine, Igor Sechin.  It is full of the usual his-lips-are-moving whoppers, but this one stunned even me, even as predisposed as I am to snort at pretty much anything old Eyegore has to say:

And he was quick to point out that Russia became a major oil exporter in the 1970s in response to demand in the West amid the Arab oil embargo. “Now they tell us, ‘You have Dutch disease, you’re a resource economy.’ But you yourselves asked us to be that way,” he said.

Sorry, but WTF is he talking about?  Yeah, the USSR was just eager to please the US and the West in the early-to-mid 1970s.  We said “jump”, and Brezhnev said “how high, boss?”  

Please.  The Soviets exported oil because (a) there was money in it, (b) they needed a lot of money, given that the rest of the economy was going to hell (especially the agricultural sector, which couldn’t feed the country), and (c) they had absolutely nothing else to sell that anybody wanted.  

What is it about Russians that they are responsible for absolutely nothing?  It’s always “The Devil (i.e., America) made me do it!”  They are wanna be Masters of the Universe, but everything is out of their control.  Sheesh.

Does Medvedev have a Roving Eye?

Law professor and Russia scholar Ethan Burger and his colleague Mary Holland, writing on the Foreign Policy website, wonder whether Dima Medvedev has a roving eye:

When Vladimir Putin stepped down as president of Russia last May, he left little to chance. Just as his predecessor Boris Yeltsin had anointed him, Putin made sure that his loyal protégé of 20 years, Dmitry Medvedev, would take his place. Putin took the helm of the country’s dominant political party, United Russia, and then, as prime minister, expanded that position far beyond what the Constitution envisions. Although Putin rearranged the musical chairs, he continued to call the tune. Until now.

April 6, 2009 — Contents

MONDAY APRIL 6 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Speak up, Mr. McCain!

(2)  Latynina on La Cosa Russia

(3)  Even United Russia is Sickened by Putin’s Fraud

(4)  Kiselyov on Gogol

(5)  Another Russian Bloodbath in America

(6)  Blood Magic

NOTE:  Our last note touted a documentary exposing the barbarity of mass murder in neo-Soviet Russia.  Now, we direct your attention to a website called Gulag Letters where youc an read actual letters from the victims of that barbarism.

EDITORIAL: Speak up, Mr. McCain

EDITORIAL

Speak Up, Mr. McCain

Even as Russian “president” Dima Medvedev was meeting with Barack Obama in London in an effort to “press the reset button” on U.S.-Russian relations, Medvedev’s cruel KGB regime showed by its actions that the effort was nothing more than a sham.  Obama remains silent on the issue of human rights and the new cold war with Russia, giving every indication that he has been suckered by the neo-Soviet regime in Moscow, and it is now time for Republican John McCain to speak up in vehement opposition.

We understand that McCain was honor bound to give Obama the chance to formulate his policy towards the KGB regime of Vladimir Putin without interference, but three months have now passed and Obama has met with his Russian “counterpart,” yet remained totally silent on American values and national security where Russia is concerned. Therefore, McCain must now demand better.  And let’s be clear:  It’s not only the right thing, but in his party’s partisan interests, to do so.  Republicans have lost the intiative on domestic policy but, following the lead of their great leader Ronald Reagan, they can claim the high ground on foreign policy by moving decisively against Putin.

The evidence of Putin’s malignant intentions is damning indeed.

Latynina on La Cosa Russia

Hero journalist Yulia Latynina, writing in the Moscow Times:

Last week, Saak Karapetyan, head of the international cooperation department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, gave an interview to Interfax in which he clarified the most important criminal cases in his agency.

It turns out that the most pressing cases are extraditing former Yevroset chairman Yevgeny Chichvarkin, billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Chechen separatist Akhmed Zakayev, former Russneft owner Mikhail Gutseriyev and former Yukos co-owner Leonid Nevzlin. And then there is the criminal case against State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi, who faces murder charges in Britain in connection with the 2006 poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Even United Russia is Repulsed by Putin’s Fraud

Blogger Robert Coalson of The Power Vertical reports on a valiant young member of the United Russia party of power who ran for a local government post on the party’s ticket, won, and then refused the seat after realizing he only “won” because of shameless fraud by the party in rigging the ballots:

Yesterday, The Power Vertical wrote about the amusing story of 23-year-old Anton Chumachenko, a Unified Russia member in St. Petersburg who announced that he is refusing a seat on a local district council because the results of the election were falsified by local election officials.

The naive young man’s eyes were opened when he saw that the officially published polling station protocols were completely different from the ones he and his staffers had seen in person on election night. Today, RFE/RL’s Russian Service was able to ask Chumachenko a few questions about his surprising decision to go public with information that everyone in Russia knows, but about which few insiders are willing to speak. Here is the interview in full [followed by his open letter exposing the fraud]:

The More things Change in Russia, the more they Don’t

Uber-pundit Yevgeny Kiselyov, writing in the Moscow Times on the frightening consistency of Russian history:

Wednesday was the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol’s birth. One hundred fifty-seven years have passed since his death. Yet at times, it seems that there is no author in Russian who is more modern than Gogol. This is not because Gogol’s works are timeless. It is because Russia has not changed. The same foolish customs Gogol poked fun at then are still with us now. As he wrote in the last lines of the first volume of his book “Dead Souls,” Russia is heading somewhere, but nobody knows where, and is “overtaking the whole world, and shall one day force all nations, all empires to stand aside, to give you way!”