Heartless Tsar Vladimir Leaves Africa to Starve: This Looks Like a Job for Bonoman

Britain’s Daily Mirror reports that Ebineezer Putin has refused to allow the G-8 to discuss aid for starving Africa. Bono is never around when you need him! This reminds us all that Russia is not only not giving away some of its oil largesse to less-fortunate countries, it is not even investing the money in its own disappearing population. Rather it is simply hoarding the money for the Kremlin’s own illicit purposes of power and dictatorship, and the Russian people are blithely allowing this to occur.

Tony Blair dared to dream. Bob Geldof, Bill Gates and even Blair’s some-time enemy Gordon Brown all believed it was possible to turn Africa around.

But unfortunately, it is not a dream shared by Vladimir Putin.

Probably more than any world leader, Blair had committed himself to grappling with the seemingly intractable problems of poverty, famine, warfare and corruption. Instead of the usual hand-wringing over the dire state of the continent, the Prime Minister had turned his mind to working out a concrete plan which truly would Make Poverty History. Spurred on by the Live8 concerts, their consciences sharpened by Blair’s presidency of the G8 group, the world’s most powerful economies – Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, Canada and the USA – vowed that no longer would African children be robbed of a future. Aid was boosted, debt cancelled, generous programmes to tackle disease and improve education were adopted, and pledges made to intervene in civil wars and stamp out state corruption.

Perhaps most crucially, the G8 committed itself to signing up to a new world trade agreement introducing a level playing field to international markets and giving Africa a fighting chance.
But just a year later Africa’s future looks bleaker than ever. And it’s largely down to the Russians.

Vladimir Putin is now in the G8 driving seat and he has problems of his own to resolve before he allows his attentions to be distracted by the miseries of the Third World. And so Tony Blair’s dream of being remembered as the British Prime Minister who saved Africa lies in tatters.

Any suggestion that this year’s meeting of G8 could be used as a progress check on last year’s Gleneagles agreements has run into a massive obstacle. President Putin is chairing this year’s talks, which begin in St Petersburg on Saturday. And he has absolutely no intention of allowing Africa to dominate the agenda. If he allows it on the agenda at all.

From the viewpoint of the cynical Russian bear, the crocodile tears shed over Africa were all very well, but the time has now come for serious work. Membership of such a powerful club, which admitted Russia just three years ago, can bring great rewards. And now the gang are meeting on Russian soil for the first time, President Putin believes it is time to bring home the roubles. The transition from communism to capitalism has been a rocky one for this vast nation of 143 million people. Elections are due and Mr Putin, an autocrat by temperament with a somewhat shaky relationship with democracy and a less than spotless human rights records, needs to convince his people that his way is the right way.

He plans to appeal to them where it matters most – their pockets. And Africa, with her 800 million hungry mouths, is a luxury he can’t afford. As president of the G8 in 2006, it falls to Putin to draw up the agenda for the St Petersburg talks. Africa isn’t on it. Instead, the three principle items are: Energy Security, Education and Infectious Diseases. In a clumsy and patronising move designed to spare Tony Blair’s blushes, the British PM has been invited to give a “special talk” on progress on the Gleneagles agreements. Asked why Africa was not on the main agenda, a senior Russian official close to Mr Putin told the Daily Mirror: “We will have Africa. It was very important to the UK presidency and Tony Blair, so we asked him to give a special report on the progress on what has happened since Gleneagles in St Petersburg.
“We understand there is a lack of money for certain projects and the leaders will be talking about that.” Diplomat speak for: “We have far better things to do with our cash.”

Undaunted, Mr Blair will do his best this weekend to claw back a bit of agenda time for Africa. Asked yesterday at Prime Minister’s Question Time why the issue was not on the main agenda at St Petersburg, he said, bleakly and obliquely: “It is important that we reconnect there on the objectives on helping Africa. “One of the single most important issues which will be running through the summit, if not formally, will be the world trade talks. At the moment they are stalled. This weekend may be one of the last opportunities we have got to re-start those talks productively and get the right agreement.” It is the words “if not formally” that are telling. Because in drawing up the formal agenda, President Putin made it clear he had far more important fish to fry than Africa – most notably, energy.

With the world’s resources becoming increasingly scarce, and the Middle East spiralling out of control, a nervous Europe is wondering how to ensure the lights stay on. As the instability and violence gripping countries from Palestine and Iraq to Lebanon, Iran and Afghanistan are made even more toxic by the terrorist threat from al-Qaeda, no large western economy can rely on such a troubled region for its future fuel supply. And Russia, with its vast oil and gas fields, is promising – some would say threatening – to provide the solution. Top of Putin’s agenda at the G8 is fuel “interdependence” – that is, my gas is your gas, my oil is yours … Except that most of it is Russia’s.

A Senior aide told the Daily Mirror that attempts by nations to go it alone and ome fuel independent were “egotistical”. Exactly what the “egotistical” Blair presumably had in mind with his new generation of nuclear power stations announced earlier this week. For Mr Putin’s “interdependence,” many read “dependence on Russia”. This fear was fuelled earlier this year when tensions rose between the Kremlin and Ukraine after a west-leaning presidential candidate was elected over Moscow’s choice. Furious, the Russians pulled the plug on Ukraine’s gas supply in the middle of one of Europe’s coldest winters when Kiev refused to pay a price hike of 360 per cent.

The Kremlin insisted that far from seeking to bully Ukraine, it was merely ending the practice of subsidising fuel for its former Soviet states. It allowed Mr Putin to put $5billion back into his own economy – money neither he nor the Russian people are prepared to see frittered away on Africa. Whether the rest of the G8 will see matters quite the same way is unclear, but one thing is certain. Amid the high-level power-play, Tony Blair’s dreams of bringing hope to poor, blighted Africa don’t stand a chance.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

No WTO For Russia — Russian Diplomats Exposed Egegious, Boldfaced Liars

RIA Novosti reports that there will be no WTO deal for Russia despite the insane pronouncements to the contrary of arrogant Russian diplomats who thought they could play the U.S. for a fool (let’s call them what they are, boldfaced propagandistic lies; the Moscow Times reported: “The two sides . . . differed in their assessments of the talks, with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin saying Thursday afternoon that all disagreements were settled while U.S. officials insisted that more discussions were required.”). Once, again, Russia has egg on its face and nothing to show for its grandiose schemes. A major PR victory for Georgia and the Kremlin opposition, which had opposed the pact. First a blast of attacks from every side (Canada, Germany, UK, U.S., European Parliament) and then the capper, no pretty wrapped up gift for Little Prince Vladimir. Maybe next time the Kremlin will think twice before it allows itself to believe it can dupe the West just like in the old Soviet days.

ST. PETERSBURG, July 15 (RIA Novosti)-Russia and the United States should complete negotiations on Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization by the end of October, the economic development and trade minister said Saturday.

“We agreed that the protocol on the completion of bilateral negotiations will be signed by the end of October, and multilateral negotiations will be completed by the end of March,” German Gref said, adding Russia’s chances joining WTO remained “high” and what the Russian and U.S. presidents planned to see the WTO protocol signed by the end of October.

President Vladimir Putin said Saturday Russia would continue to work with the United States, including on WTO accession, while upholding Russia’s economic interests.

The president, speaking at a joint news conference with his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush after their meeting in advance of the G8 summit, said: “We will continue working together, maintaining our interests – the interests of our developing our economies.”

President Bush said he wanted the WTO agreement with Russia to be approved by U.S. Congress.

Russia’s chief negotiator at the WTO talks, Maxim Medvedkov, said earlier that Russia and the U.S. would not sign a bilateral protocol on Russia’s WTO bid in the near future.

“The document will not be signed either before, or after the [G8] summit,” Maxim Medvedkov said, adding that Russian and U.S. experts would continue talks.

The U.S. remains the only country out of the 58-member Working Party on Russia’s accession with which Moscow has yet to sign a bilateral protocol. The issue of access to Russia’s financial services market has been the main stumbling block in Russia’s bilateral negotiations with the U.S. Other issues include intellectual property rights, import duties and agricultural subsidies.

“Despite numerous attempts of experts in recent months, and of delegation leaders in the last two days, we have failed to find ways to resolve contentious issues,” he said, adding that certain progress had been reached on certain problems.

“Until we agree on the whole package, it is as if we have not agreed on any issues,” he said.
He said all WTO negotiations, both on the bilateral and multilateral level, would be completed before the start of next year.

“The lack of agreements with the United States will not impede our plans,” he said, adding that the plan’s implementation should proceed on terms suitable for Russia.

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Comment Probation Lifted

For the convenience of any thoughtful person wishing to write on this blog without being a member of blogger, anonymous commenting has now been re-enabled. Hopefully, the scurrying cockroaches have now been weeded out. Anonymous commenters are requested not to use the name “anonymous” but to choose a random name since otherwise confusion results. LR reserves the right to delete any comment labled “anonymous” and to reimpose comment registration if the privilege is abused.

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Unending Catastrophe at the G-8 Fiasco

With the world’s attention focused on Russia at its own request:

Angela Merkel of Germany condemns Russia, German journalists jailed in Piter.

Tony Blair of Great Britain condemns Russia.

Stephen Harper of Canada pokes Putin right in the eye, telling him Canada has just as much energy and is far more reliable

George Bush meets with Russian opposition, pledges to press Putin on crackdown.

100 members of EU Parliament condemn Russia over Khodorkhovsky.

Georgia recalls approval of Russia’s WTO bid right after Russia publicly says the deal is done only to be contradicted by the U.S.

Putin nearly killed by crash of Russian helicopter as world gapes.

Russian search and rescue ship, in need of rescue rather than providing it, sinks.

The best-laid plans of mice and Kremlin vermin often go astray.

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It’s Official: Scientific Study Shows Russian Media Now Slaves of the Kremlin

Memo98 has issued a report surveying the Russian media landscape and finding overwhelming evidence of the Neo-Soviet crackdown. The full report can be read here.

MEMO 98, in cooperation with the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations (CJES), the informational and analytical center of the Russian Union of Journalists, has been systematically monitoring the coverage of the Russian political scene in the selected media.

MEMO 98 and CJES seek to evaluate the mass media’s performance in providing an objective portrayal of public affairs and in disseminating balanced information about the most important political developments in the society. The project’s findings are determined through a well-defined and rigorous methodology and are not intended to support any one political party, but the integrity of the political and media environment as a whole.

On March 1, Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations commenced the monitoring of five TV channels (State-funded First Channel, Russia TV and TV Center; two nationwide channels NTV and Ren TV) and four newspapers (two State newspapers Rossijskaja Gazeta and Parlamentskaja Gazeta and two private newspapers Kommersant and Komsomolskaia Pravda) using qualitative and quantitative analysis. Quantitative analysis measures the total amount of time and space devoted to relevant political subjects in the monitored media outlets. The qualitative analysis evaluates whether the information about political subjects, the president and the government is positive, negative, or neutral in its content.

To date, monitoring has taken place over two periods, 1-31 March (the first monitoring period) and 1 April – 31 May (the second monitoring period). As for the print media, the monitoring covered three months – March, April and May. In the first monitoring period, CJES unveiled several disturbing trends in the way the Russian mainstream media covered political parties, the incumbent President and the government. In particular, the data showed that the monitored media neglected to offer opposition any significant airtime and opportunities to challenge the political opinions of the current establishment. In particular, the State-funded media fails comprehensively to grant opposition significant airtime to express its political views. Based on the data from the second monitoring period, it is apparent that these data are not the result of short-term anomalies, but appear to reflect genuine trends in Russian media. Following is the second of the reports that CJES will issue through the project.

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Guardian Slams the ROSNEFT Sham

The Guardian’s financial columnist Julia Finch lays bare the outrageous sham that is the Rosneft IPO, a perfect bookend to the Steven Pearlstein piece which appeared on La Russophobe several days ago. Anyone who buys into this garbage gets what they deserve. One regularly sees reports on America TV about hucksters who bilk old ladies out of their life savings by singing them sweet songs, but that doesn’t mean the hucksters have viable, valuable income that can stand the test of time.

A Russian monster called Rosneft arrives in London tomorrow – and its arrival is not to be applauded. Conditional dealings in the oil giant will get under way on the London Stock Exchange – despite the fact that Rosneft’s main assets were seized from a rival by Vladimir Putin’s government and it may not therefore legally own its assets, that it faces years of litigation in many countries and that the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance rules in the US mean it would not have been allowed anywhere near Wall Street.

But, it is now clear, the City of London and the FSA, through its listing authority, has lower standards. The FTSE 100 may once have been reserved for blue-chip companies worthy of inclusion in our pension funds, but with Rosneft among the biggest UK-listed companies, that is obviously no longer the case.

It is a vast business: it is raising some £6bn and will have a market capitalisation of more than £40bn – making it substantially bigger than Tesco, Sainsbury and Wm Morrison added together.

The corporate governance teams working for UK fund managers have made their distaste clear. They like to engage with the companies they invest in – and the big tracker funds will have no option but to buy in – but there is little chance of that here. Will they follow the combined code? About as likely as Russia banning vodka.

Instead Rosneft’s biggest customers have been coerced into buying shares, and investment banks won over by wads of cash shared out for advisory work.

Obviously, no Russian mega corp could possibly come to London without a high-profile Western face on the board to lend an air of respectability. In the case of Rosneft this is provided by German-born Hans-Jorg Rudloff, a former chairman of Credit Suisse whose other boardroom credentials include drugs giant Novartis and Barclays Capital.

In an interview yesterday Mr Rudloff admitted that when he was approached he had to “inhale deeply”, but he accepted the job – naturally – for the greater good of building business bridges with Putin’s Russia.

As for allegations about the provenance of Rosneft’s assets? Mr Rudloff is concerned with the future, not the past. And lawsuits challenging Rosneft’s ownership of assets? No different, he reckons, from German companies that have to deal with litigation dating back to the misdeeds of the Third Reich.

Had Mr Rudloff turned it down, however, Rosneft would have had no problem finding an alternative. According to one leading UK headhunter who places businessmen in non-executive roles, there is a long queue of executives willing to take jobs with Russian companies, even though, as the headhunter, said: “It is the wild west out there”.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

St. Petersburg Exposed

La Russophobe dares to wonder whether Mad Vlad saw this coming when he asked for the G-8 summit — Potemkin Piter blown to bits by the Guardian:

Russia’s second city is the home of president Vladimir Putin and this weekend hosts the eight most powerful leaders on the planet. But away from the boulevards and gilded state palaces lies another face of present-day Russia: poverty, crime and endemic racism. Nick Paton Walsh reports.

The streets have been swept, the double-headed eagles on each state building have been polished, the gangs of riot police are milling around nervously. On Friday the leaders of the G8, the world’s most prosperous industrialised democracies, will gather in St Petersburg for a summit that will be the pinnacle of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. The city where he was born, grew up and was educated is now the jewel in the crown of a resurgent Russia.

Yet as “Piotr” bristles with confidence, accusations that it is the ultimate Potemkin village fly. Its brief role as the home of the G8 seems artificially imposed on to a city where the sickness and cruelty of Russian society are writ large. Dostoevsky once called this the “most artificial city in the world”, and this week the description seems more apt than ever.

To see how thinly the riches of Russia’s oil and gas boom are spread, and the abscesses left by the Russian elite’s focus on itself, you need only look at the places where Putin, 56, himself grew up. While Russia’s newest tsar prefers to focus on the economic prosperity that his six-year administration has ushered in, the places that he calls home speak of a very different Russia: wretched, callous, authoritarian.

Anatoli Rakhlin bounds up the stairwell of number 12 Baskov Pereulok with a vigour that seems little diminished since he taught Putin judo 40 years ago. The closest thing the Kremlin head had to a mentor, the 68-year-old knocks on the door of a flat on the fourth floor. “I’m sure this is it,” he says, noting that no one has put up a memorial plaque to say, “Vladimir Vladimirovich grew up here.” Rakhlin used to live across the street and minutes earlier had been pointing out where a bomb struck during the second world war, and where a young Putin used to share his sweets with local kids.

The flat’s current occupant, a reluctant Nina Matvieva, opens the door to the flat, and Rakhlin points out the room at the end of the corridor where Putin lived with his father and mother – one room in the standard Soviet “kommumalka”, a flat shared by a number of families. His father was a war veteran who then worked in a factory, and his mother did a series of odd jobs, working in a bakery and as a janitor. His elder brother had died from diphtheria in the wartime siege of the city.

Today’s residents don’t face the food shortages and grime of Putin’s youth, but know their own poverties. Matvieva’s husband is a police captain, but earns no more than £200 a month. Of this, £40 goes on utility bills for the flat, which have risen exponentially because of Putin’s drive to introduce market-related pricing to all sectors. Caught up in the comedy of errors that is Russian bureaucracy, the Matvievs are also embroiled in a court case as they don’t legally own one of the rooms in the flat, despite living there.

Their only daughter, Zhenia, 12, is learning English, but Nina doubts she will make it to university. “It costs about a thousand dollars [£550] a year,” she says, hugging her huge cat. I ask if she has thought about taking up Putin’s offer of a £5,000 grant for every second child born – a recent initiative designed to stem a demographic crisis that may see the population fall by 30% by 2050.

“In our country, such ideas are a fiction,” she replies, although she herself voted for Putin twice. “Just because the president said it, doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

“Nothing good’s going to happen in this country,” she adds, shaking her head when I ask her if Russia is a democracy.

When we emerge from the flat, Rakhlin says: “Today people don’t think about freedom of speech, but about how to provide for their family. Freedom of movement around the world is as important,” he adds, expressing a common view that Russians feel free as they can now holiday across the globe.

I ask him what he thinks of the governor of St Petersburg, Putin appointee Valentina Matvienko, who has been accused of creating a local fiefdom. He shies away from the question, saying that if you vote for Putin, you have to live with his decisions. “Today, all the serious conversations [still] happen in the kitchen,” he says. In the Soviet era, that was the room they didn’t bug.

Putin became a judo fanatic under Rakhlin, training in a gym that now lies derelict, yards away from one of the city’s most expensive restaurants, Noble’s Nest. He also studied hard at School 281, clearing his path to the cream of the Soviet elite, the KGB. Igor Gorokh, 17, is at the same school today and hopes to avoid the brutality of conscription into the army in a year’s time through the deferments given to university students. “I hear they make you clean the floor with your toothbrush,” he jokes of the institution where bullying often drives young cadets to suicide.

While Putin roamed the streets with his gang, occasionally scrapping with other kids, Igor’s comfortable middle-class bubble is punctured today by drugs and alcohol. People he knows take pills, he says, through a floppy blond fringe. “Alcoholism is also a serious problem and doesn’t lead to anything good.”

But while Putin regularly preaches the virtues of abstaining from drink and drugs, women like Sveta, 30, are cast aside by his government. An HIV-positive mother of two, she tells me in a park on the city’s outskirts how she became addicted to heroin 10 years ago and four years later became a prostitute to fund the habit.

“An hour costs £20,” she says, “but a quickie in a car about £6.” She says she needs between two and six grams of heroin a day, at about £20 a gram. Her husband needs less, but she provides for him too. The only help the state has given her, she says, is sleeping pills for the twins she gave birth to six months ago. They were born addicted but “got over their addiction within a month”, she says. It’s a long way from her dream of being clean and a hairdresser.

Drunken clients are just one of the threats she and her friends face. One local police major sometimes rounds them up and drives them to the suburbs. “He makes us lick his car clean, or do star-jumps until we faint,” she says. “He hates prostitutes and tells us that he will bury us in a hole.”

The sorry state of Russia’s police epitomises how the Kremlin pursues its own interests, not that of the electorate. Poorly paid and often lazy, they serve and protect the elite alone. Many subsidise their income through corruption, taking bribes from errant motorists or immigrants whose papers “are not in order”. It’s a way to survive.

Sitting in the shade of a tree are Arkadi and Pavel, two police officers helping to guard a brand new monument around the clock. The authorities “are afraid someone might vandalise it or throw paint at it”, says Arkadi, who earns £200 a month. He used to get free rides on public transport and a rent subsidy, but Putin’s reforms took that away last year, giving him £30 a month in compensation. Pavel is acutely aware that he has only weeks to go until he has served 20 years and can retire. “I can get a pension and work as a private security guard then,” he grins.

The statue they are guarding is precious to Putin, who unveiled it only weeks before. It commemorates the first elected mayor of St Petersburg, Anatoli Sobchak, a man who was Putin’s first boss, employing him when Sobchak was rector of the university’s law faculty. The only time Putin has been seen crying in public was at Sobchak’s funeral six years ago.

Yet for many students, life at the university now does little to honour the memory of Putin’s old friend. While Putin studied law in what was then Leningrad State University, Oscar Irambona, 25, studies electrical engineering there today. Oscar is from Burundi and on January 15, his dark skin almost got him killed.

“It used to just be insults,” he says, “but this time the skinheads ran after me.” Pinned between two white men holding his jacket and shouting, “What are you doing here, nigger?”, he managed to escape by wriggling out of his coat. Five of the 2,000 African students studying in St Petersburg have been murdered – shot or stabbed to death – since September last year in a wave of racist violence. Oscar and his friends hurry home at night, stay away from the metro, and run rather than fight when they are attacked.

The police have been accused of indifference towards race crime, though they recently arrested a small group of young men, claiming that they alone were responsible for all the recent attacks in the city. Oscar can only hope this is true. In the meantime, his message to Putin is simple: “Help us. We want to study. That’s all.”

One thing Putin could do is have a quiet word with Yuri Belayev, 50, the stout head of the ultra-nationalist Freedom party. He describes the falling Russian birth rate and rise in immigration as “genocide against the Russian people”, which empowers ethnic Russians “to do what we like under the constitution to protect ourselves”.

Sitting calmly on a cafe terrace, he adds that 63% of his countrymen support the slogan “Russia for the Russians”. He describes the young men who killed the five Africans and a nine-year-old Tajik girl in 2004 as “youth heroes”. African students may only be temporary residents in Russia, he explains, but their murder has a greater “social resonance” than the murder of ethnic-minority immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

“This has long been a war,” he says. “The prosecutors told me they would shoot me, but they only control the city during the day. We control the night.” A former police officer, he insists that his group does not orchestrate the violence, but only instructs young men “how to behave in different situations”. But then he adds: “We started this wave.”

Belayev uses two truths to justify this violence. The first is that immigration is rising as the birth rate among ethnic Russians falls. The second is that his party has been denied official registration and is excluded from the political scene. For him, Putin’s managed democracy, where even the opposition parties respectfully back the president, means that killing Africans is the only way to have your point of view heard. “What are we left with? Nothing but the Russian people,” he says. “And they are left with chains, knives, guns and clubs.”

On the other side of town, the tight political and media controls of Putin’s Russia have forced Olga Kursonova, 45, into the ranks of the persecuted. Briefly an MP in the 1990s, now a liberal activist planning a series of protests during the G8 summit, she says she has been arrested four times this year.

As the summit nears, she says, she gets anonymous phone calls making ever blunter demands: “Stop planning the meetings, or you will be hit on the head with a bar.” She hopes all the same to bring 3,000 people to the streets to protest at the rolling-back of democracy in Russia, a country where the pro-Putin party controls two-thirds of parliament and the Kremlin owns nearly all the news media.

We meet in a park near her house and she becomes edgy when a couple sit down on the bench near us in silence. “Today is in part worse than it was in the 80s,” she says. “At least then some independent journalists were printed. But now the authorities have money [and keep them out of print].”

She adds: “Now we are reaching a dead end in this country. There are no opportunities for bright people. Only the grey rise up.” That is how she remembers Putin when he began working for mayor Sobchak.

For her, repression fuels rather than stifles dissent. “I did not expect that being arrested would have an effect on me. But I noticed a change in myself: I became radicalised.” She says she wants “evolution not revolution” for Russia, but fears the final outcome of the tightening of the noose around dissidents. “At first in the 80s, people were afraid to come on to the streets, but then hundreds of thousands came out. Anyone who thinks they can control a revolution is mistaken”.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Neo-Soviet Attack on Peaceful Meeting of Opposition

The New York Times reports that Vladmir Putin’s crude thugs descended on a peaceful gathering of opposition leaders in classic Neo-Soviet style. One would not think it possible that images like this could emerge from Russia less than two decades after the collapse of the system that practiced the same tactics and destroyed the country, but Russia is always capable of new lows. If you can look at this photograph and fail to vomit, you are probably a lost cause where democracy or simple human decency are concerened.

MOSCOW, July 11 — The Russian security officers, in plain clothes, arrived in the late afternoon at a hotel where a pro-democracy conference was being held, witnesses said.

They swiftly seized four members of a political movement opposed to President Vladimir V. Putin, handcuffed them and rushed them away. Then they turned on a German magazine correspondent who tried to photograph the arrests. One of the officers snatched his camera and left with it, too.

Hundreds of advocates of civil society and opposition figures opened a two-day conference here on Tuesday, protesting the authoritarian streak that they say defines Mr. Putin’s Kremlin and its hold on the Russian state. The Russian state — predictably, the participants said — demonstrated precisely some of the behavior that the opposition had assembled to protest.

Those attending the conference, held in advance of a meeting of the leaders of theGroup of 8 industrial nations scheduled to begin in St. Petersburg this weekend, called themselves “The Other Russia.”

They said their ideals — including free elections, respect for opposing views and human rights and fair distribution of public wealth — were a counterpoint to Russia’s recent political course. And they said they hoped to urge the leaders of the seven other nations in the group to adjust their foreign policies and put pressure on Mr. Putin to loosen his hold.

The conference mixed prominent figures from Soviet times, including two veteran human rights campaigners, Lyudmila M. Alekseyeva and Sergei A. Kovalyov, with a younger generation of advocates, including a former prime minister, Mikhail M. Kasyanov, and Garry Kasparov, the chess master and opposition political figure. All of them have become harsh critics of Mr. Putin and his rule.

Their list of grievances was a familiar but timely reflection of the broader debate about how to influence the Kremlin, and about whether, issue by issue, Mr. Putin and his circle are best confronted or engaged.

They spoke of Russia’s police abuses, manifest corruption, arbitrariness of law, restrictions on the news media, crackdown on private organizations and centralization of wealth and power around the Kremlin and its loyal elite. They decried the chilling brutality that has accompanied the wars in Chechnya.

“We are gathering together to fight for the triumph of rule of law in our country,” their public statement read. But even as they released it and speakers were taking turns on the stage, the tensions between Russia’s beleaguered public opposition and the government were evident on the margins.

Participants said more than 40 of their members had been arrested throughout Russia while traveling to the conference here or to St. Petersburg for the Group of 8 meeting. Security officers snatched the four opposition members from the entrance of the Renaissance Moscow Hotel. Mr. Kasparov said the four — three men and a woman who are members of the National Bolshevik Party — had been kidnapped.

The protests and the police actions were ignored by Russian news programs, which are securely under the Kremlin’s sway.

Other subplots played out as well. Senior Russian officials, irritated that Western diplomats had been invited, had obliquely warned the embassies here not to take part.

Igor I. Shuvalov, the Kremlin’s senior liaison to the Group of 8, said last month that if foreign governments were represented by senior officials, it would be seen as “an unfriendly gesture.” A Kremlin spokesman made a similar remark.

But when the conference began, senior officials from Western governments were present. One, the British ambassador, Anthony Brenton, even took the stage. He said that “criticism is as important as a competitive economy” to a functioning society, and noted that Britain remained involved in the development of Russian civil society and private nongovernmental organizations, or N.G.O.’s

The United States was represented by two senior diplomats: Daniel Fried, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and Barry Lowenkron, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

Neither addressed the conference. They said they had come to Russia with a larger portfolio of issues and had meetings on other subjects planned with the Russian government.

Their remarks, in an interview with five Western journalists, mixed concerns about elements of the Kremlin’s rule with reminders that the United States and Russia had a range of shared interests and areas of productive cooperation.

“This isn’t a totalitarian country,” Mr. Fried said, adding that 20 years ago, during Soviet times, an opposition event like The Other Russia would have been held in secret. “Or in Helsinki,” Mr. Lowenkron added.

But their presence carried an implicit message of support for a wider civil dialogue and a freer society than the Kremlin accepts, and they dismissed Russian warnings about Western attendance.

Mr. Fried noted, for instance, that if Russian diplomats in the United States wanted to attend a conference organized by the Democratic Party, “we wouldn’t regard it as anything other than just doing their job.”

The Kremlin was publicly silent on the matter. But Mikhail V. Margelov, head of the international affairs committee of the upper house of Parliament, lashed out and suggested that the diplomats had made the opposition look like foreign stooges.

“What made them addicted to the mirage of The Other Russia on the eve of the Group of 8 summit?” the Interfax news service quoted him as saying. “Do experienced diplomats lack understanding that their mere presence at the meeting is the demolition of a structure created by Kasparov and Kasyanov in the eyes of Russians who are tired of following and listening to ideas from abroad?”

High jinks and stunts were evident as well. As if no Russian opposition meeting of any size could occur without a hidden provocateur, while Mr. Brenton gave his public address a man leaped up in the audience, threw leaflets and shouted, “All hail the empire!”

He was promptly dragged from the hall, shouting mostly incoherently about Russia’s glories, by a group of men, who gave him a liberal beating much of the way.

He was released at the curb.

By nightfall, the spokeswoman for The Other Russia said the four arrested participants had been located at a police station, where they were being interrogated.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The EgG-8 on Prince Vladimir’s Face Won’t Wash Off

Instead of serving as an opportunity to bolster Russia’s reputation and influence in the world, in the classic pattern of the USSR the coming G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg will serve to show how Russia under Putin has alienated the entire world, galvanizing opposition against Putin both domestically and abroad and allowing the world to focus its attention on the Neo-Soviet Union. The hubris it took for Putin to think it could be anything other than a disaster is quite breathtaking to contemplate. Just as the delagates convene, it will become even more clear that Russia lied brazenly about killing Shamil Basayev, and in fact took credit for nothing more than an accident. The world will be reminded about the shocking number of race crimes in St. Petersburg, supposedly Russia’s most liberal and Western-looking city. It will be reminded of how Putin systematicaly destroyed local government authority and the independent media. In short, as the Los Angeles Times reports, it will be a typical Neo-Soviet fiasco, with Russians deluding themselves into thinking it was a brilliant success.

Russia’s Moment in the G-8 Sun Dimmed by Divisions

At the weekend summit, Moscow will be isolated in its views on energy and other key issues.

By David Holley, Times Staff Writer
July 12, 2006

MOSCOW — For President Vladimir V. Putin, being host of the Group of 8 industrialized nations this weekend should have been a dream come true.

But Western concerns about limits on democracy here, along with differences over how to rein in the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea and ensure the world’s “energy security,” mean this gathering will not be quite the coming-out party for a confident new Russia that it might have been.

“This summit on Russia’s territory … could have become a sort of triumph for our country, a sort of confirmation of the fact that Russia has achieved very important results in its economic, political and democratic development and in its natural integration into the civilized world,” Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin economic advisor who is now one of the president’s most prominent critics, said at a recent news conference.

“It could have become a sign of recognition by the world that Russia has become a natural, normal and healthy member of the world community,” he added. “Alas, unfortunately, this has not come to pass.”

Illarionov and other critics say Russia lags further behind its G-8 partners in strength of democratic institutions than it did in 2002, when it formally joined the group. Russia’s gas pricing dispute with Ukraine last winter, which led to a shortfall in supplies to Western Europe just as Russia assumed the G-8 presidency, has raised concerns in European countries about the potential risks of relying too heavily on Moscow for fuel.

The three-day summit in St. Petersburg, which will begin Saturday, will be preceded by meetings between President Bush and Putin beginning Friday. Bush is to fly today to Germany, where he will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel before traveling on to Russia.

Both Washington and Moscow have expressed hope that a bilateral agreement on the terms for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization will be reached by the time Bush and Putin meet. The two presidents also are expected to agree to begin negotiations on a deal to cooperate in nuclear energy, something Russia has been interested in for many years.

But on many of the key issues, including energy and how tough to be on Iran and North Korea, the summit conferees are likely to break in a 7-1 split — even if the final communique tries to smooth over the differences.

For Russia, the top official item on the summit agenda is energy security. It seeks greater interdependence between oil and gas suppliers on one hand and consumers on the other. In particular, Moscow wants firmer guarantees of steady demand for Russian gas in Western Europe so it can make investments based on decades-long plans. Europe and the U.S. see opening up Russia’s oil and gas industry to market forces and foreign investment as the key to long-term stability.

The Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs are likely to dominate summit discussions, and Washington favors a far tougher stance than does Moscow, including possible economic sanctions. The issue further raises the potential for friction at the gathering.

Russian officials have expressed confidence that the summit will not mark a new slide toward confrontation between their nation and Western allies.

Fears of such a development arose in May, when Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a speech blasting Russia as backsliding on democracy and using gas and oil as geopolitical weapons. Putin responded six days later by describing the United States as a wolf that eats whatever it desires without listening to anyone.

Igor Shuvalov, the Kremlin’s representative for G-8 planning, said at a recent news conference that Moscow’s relations with Washington began to deteriorate because of the gas crisis with Ukraine and Russia’s adoption of a law on nongovernmental organizations, which critics saw as tightening controls on activists.

This “unsatisfactory situation,” Shuvalov said, “was developing and developing, constantly worsening, and this speech of Mr. Cheney in Vilnius became the peak of the development of this situation.”

Shuvalov predicted that the Bush-Putin meetings Friday would reverse the trend.

Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Sergei Prikhodko, said at a news conference last week that there was no chill at all in American-Russian relations.

“There’s an extremely intensive and deep dialogue going on constantly between President Putin and President Bush,” he said.

Prikhodko acknowledged that “there could be differences because we look at issues differently.” But he said that on the key international issue facing the conferees — in particular how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program — Moscow and Washington were basically united.

Prikhodko added, however: “The partnership is not a monolith, a concrete cube. It’s a building we are building together. Sometimes it rains and the house sags down, but when we look at the long-term perspective … such problems only strengthen the desire to be frank and honest with each other.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a taste of such frankness at a news conference after a meeting of G-8 foreign ministers last month in Moscow.

“We believe we can raise anything among our G-8 colleagues,” she said. “We won’t hesitate to talk about our concerns about nongovernmental organizations or the freedom of the press, and we do so in a spirit of candor and cooperation.”

Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation, a Moscow think tank, predicted that summit criticism of Russia would be muted.

“I don’t think that anybody among the G-8 partners wants to start a fight over the state of democracy in Russia and thus turn the summit into an interrogation of Russia on the issues of democracy and other related problems,” he said.

“But it is quite obvious that these problems are of great concern for our partners, and they don’t like everything that is being done in Russia. I suspect that some mild criticism may be voiced at the summit — but in a very friendly manner.”

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Two Former U.S. Presidential Candidates Excoriate Russia

In a syndicated column which appeared among other places in the International Herald Tribune, former presidential candidates John Edwards and Jack Kemp, a formidable bipartisan duo by any standard, rip the Neo-Soviet Union from stem to stern, even going so far as to question Putin’s legitimacy:

Fifteen years ago, when the leaders of the world’s seven leading industrialized democracies first invited Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to attend their meeting in London, they extended a hand to their faltering adversary in the hopes of bringing it into the West. It signaled the Cold War’s end; by the end of that year, the Soviet Union itself no longer existed.

In this context, this week’s meeting in St. Petersburg marks a turning point: For the first time, Russia will play host as a full-fledged member of what is now the Group of 8, and not as a supplicant. It is a measure of how far Russia has come – but regrettably, also a stark reminder of how far it has to go.

For the United States and Europe, a strong relationship with Russia is essential to handling the most difficult global challenges we face. Terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, tight energy markets, climate change, the drug trade, infectious diseases, human trafficking – all these problems are more manageable when we have Russia on our side rather than aligned against it.

Yet during the past few years, cooperation has become the exception, not the norm. On a range of issues, Russian-American relations are now marked by a growing number of disagreements, and this presents challenges far beyond whether or not the St. Petersburg summit meeting will be seen as a success.

At a time when the president of the United States has made democracy a central goal of American foreign policy, Russia’s political system is becoming steadily more authoritarian. When we visited Moscow last year as chairs of a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force, no one we talked to argued that Russia was a democracy. Many feared that the roll-back of pluralism and centralization of power may not have run its course.

Despite remarkable economic growth and dramatic social transformation, Russian political institutions are not becoming either more modern or more effective, but dysfunctional and brittle. By many measures Russia seems stable, but its stability has a weak institutional base.

The future of its political system is less predictable, and the country’s problems less manageable, than they should be. There is no question that a more democratic, open, transparent Russia would be behaving differently on many issues. A more democratic Russia would be forcefully engaged in efforts to end Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions – and it would be talking openly about the consequences of Iran’s defiance. It would not be cracking down on dissent and a free press. It would not play host to Hamas. It would not work to kick the United States out of vital bases in Central Asia. It would not be using energy as political leverage. It would not be supporting autocrats in Belarus or undermining democrats in Georgia and Ukraine.

Given all of this, there has been a lot of controversy over whether Russia should be the chair of the G-8 – which, after all, is supposed to be the world’s leading democracies – and whether there should even be a meeting at all.

We believe that it is in the U.S. national interest for Russia to be a part of the G-8 and eventually other key institutions such as the World Trade Organization. But this cannot be inclusiveness for its own sake. Inclusiveness has to be justified by results.

The summit meeting’s success cannot be measured by pomp and warm words; it must be judged by concrete results. Has Russia joined with the United States and other democratic states in warning Iran about the negative consequences of going forward with its nuclear program? Has Russia agreed to ratify the European Energy Charter (which it signed 12 years ago), so that its energy companies begin to act like commercial entities rather than instruments of state power? Has Russia dropped its effort to keep foreign governments from meeting with nongovernmental groups and opposition parties on the eve of the summit?

Then there is the 2008 question. Russia is entering a critical political phase, with parliamentary elections next year and presidential elections in 2008. America and the European Union should begin working now to make clear the criteria by which we will judge this process to be legitimate, and we should communicate this publicly and privately.

If today’s reality of Russian politics continues – with opposition candidates kept off the ballot arbitrarily, unable to access the media or raise funds; with opposition parties unable to form because of “technicalities,” or with independent domestic monitoring organizations kept out – then there is the real risk that Russia’s leadership will be seen, externally and internally, as illegitimate.

Only Russia can decide on a change of course, but other countries can help frame its choice, making clear how much is to be gained and how much has to be done. Doing so will be a long-term effort, but it should begin now, and the place to start is by talking about it. Russia’s leaders and its people deserve to know what the world’s real democracies think.

(John Edwards, former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, and Jack Kemp, former Republican vice-presidential candidate, are co-chairs of the Council on Foreign Relations independent task force on U.S. policy toward Russia.)

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Understanding the Evil Dr. Putin

The Evil Dr. Vladimir Putin, of course, doesn’t want his countrymen to be many, or healthy.

Isn’t is obvious why?

Which is easier to control for a dicator, a small number of sick people or a large number of healthy people?

The small, sick group, of course.

Now, to be sure, this presents an annoying frustration. Because, after all, if you are a crazed nationalist dictator then surely you want your country to be as large and significant as possible, the better to bolster your own prestige and power (to say nothing of your bank account).

But if you have to choose between your country and your power, and you’re a crazed dictator, that isn’t really any choice at all. It’s what the silly Americans call a “no-brainer.”

What’s more, many dictators in history have had a marked penchant for the idea of “purification.” In other words, if the Evil Dr. Putin simply lets the sick and infirm in his country die off, he may think he’s purifying the nation in some grandiose Darwinian way, leaving on the strong and clever (and the sycophants). In that case, he’d just as well ignore (and even tacitly encourage) attacks on all persons (say, dark-skinned foriegn students, for example) who don’t fit his notion of purity, thus they would either be killed or driven out of the country.

So letting his countrymen get sick and perish really, so to say, kills two birds with one stone. First it weeds out the “inferior” element of society, and second it weakens and terrorizes the remainder, making them so conveniently much more pliable and fodder for taking instruction. One needn’t worry about a declining tax base, since it’s pretty clear already that the only thing that can produce reliable income in Russia is the sale of natural resources, something that doesn’t require a huge population to accomplish successfully, as we see in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, the dearth of population would give rise to certain problems beyond mere “significance” and “prestige.” The country would be less able to defend itself from a conventional invasion in the East at the hands of overflowing China, for instance, meaning that the country would have to rely on its nuclear strike force. A nuclear strike on China to repel its invasion of Siberia would lack credibility, so the logical option would be appeasement of China similar to what Stalin tried with Germany. Dr. Putin no doubt considers himself smarter than Stalin and to have benefited by learing from Stalin’s mistakes. He no doubt sees the Chinese as racially and intellectually inferior, and believes he can play off their antipathy towards the United States to strike a proper bargain, ceding a certain amount of Russian territory in return for hegemony in his own realm. And, after all, Dr. Putin himself will likely be long gone before the Chinese ever get close the Urals much less Moscow. Apres moi le deluge!

One might even suppose that Dr. Putin sees a bit of justice in letting his population get sick. After all, Russian leaders have viewed their countrymen with pure contempt since the dawn of time, always as an obstacle to progress rather than a means of achieving it. It can hardly be gainsaid that there was some of that mentality in Stalin’s erection of the gulag archipelago, certainly in Peter’s use of slave labor to build St. Petersburg. After a while, watching your countrymen just sit idly by while all manner of atrocities happen around them is bound to get under your skin.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

NYT Utterly Flubs Russian Blogosphere

If you want to have a laugh at something truly pathetic, have a gander at the New York Times’ “Russia Navigator” page.

The so-called “navigator” only makes reference to one blog about Russia, and the link to that blog, Laughter in the Darkness, which is provided by the times indicates that it has not had a new post since the middle of May, more than two months ago. Actually, as Sean Guillory has pointed out in a comment, the Times hasn’t even got the link to the one blog it does mention correct, since the blog does contain more recent information which can be viewed if the correct link is used.

Its list of source material about Russia is pathetic to say the least, and contains a prominent link to the JRL Website which its own creator dismisses as an afterthought.

One could easily get the impression that the Times is ignorant, or worse afraid of competition and simply afraid to provide readers with any real look at the world outside its window. This blog provides a far more comprehensive review of material on the web about Russia than does the vaunted New York Times.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The First Shot in Cold War II is Fired

Showing his barbaric, Neo-Soviet true nature, the serpant known as Vladimir Putin has spit out the first blast of icy cold-war rhetoric, as the Associated Press reports:

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin lashed out at Vice President Dick Cheney ahead of this weekend’s G8 summit, calling his recent criticisms of Russia “an unsuccessful hunting shot,” according to a television interview being broadcast Wednesday. The remark, from an interview with NBC, referred to shotgun blast by Cheney on a hunting trip that accidently wounded a companion. Cheney, in a May speeh in the ex-Soviet republic of Lithuania, accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights and of using its energy reserves as “tools of intimidation or blackmail.” Asked about Cheney’s remarks, Putin said, “I think the statements of your vice president of this sort are the same as an unsuccessful hunting shot. It’s pretty much the same.”

Putin’s only real friend in America is George Bush, and just on the eve of hosting America for an international conference Putin launches a vicous personal attack on his beloved partner! This is the classically self-destructive behavior of the crazed Neo-Soviet Russian nationalist, unable to follow his own best interests, driven forward by crude ignorance and barbaric hatred to destroy himself. Perhaps Russians will view these remarks as “funny” just as they did Zhirinovksy’s desire to take back Alaska from America. Perhaps they can’t see the hypocrisy that is clear when they refuse to allow Americans to joke about topics Russians don’t find funny. Perhaps they don’t see that by failing to confront Putin about anything, they have created a Frankenstein who knows no limits, just like the old Polituburo.

But this will be viewed in history as the first shot that was fired in Cold War II, the one that erased Russia from the face of the earth. America is the most powerful nation on earth and has a host of allies. Russia is a third-world state teetering on the brink of extinction even without a Cold War to worry about. Putin’s remarks are insane, just like pulling up a little boy’s shirt on a public street.

Can you imagine how Russians would react if Cheney chose to attack Putin’s policies by making veiled references to Putin being a pedophile or having stolen his PhD? Perhaps you soon won’t have to imagine.

And can you imagine what life in Russia will be like when America lauches a program to fully utilize the Canadian oil shales which can make the U.S. energy sufficient, and then cuts off purchases from Russia, solely because of this insane provocation from Putin? How about when Russia’s oil simply runs out or, much sooner, the Chinese come to simply take it?

How about when America drives forward the assimilation of Ukraine and Georgia into Ukraine?

How about when it recognizes the rebel government of Chechnya just the way Russia did Hamas?

Truly, those who can’t remember history are doomed to repeat it. And remember, the guy who said that wasn’t Russian.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Russian Economy Being Eaten Away at its Foundations

First Kasparov fires his salvo at the Kremlin, taking advantage of the G-8 spotlight that Vladimir Putin has generously provided, and now it is Illarionov’s turn. Just as a house may look good from the outside while being destroyed internally by rot and termites, the Russian economy may avoid the appearance of total disaster due to oil revenues but, as the Associated Press explains, the inner workings are on the verge of total collapse:

Russia has come a long way since its 1998 default on $40 billion of sovereign debt, burying its image of a handout-hungry giant and positioning itself as one of the world’s leading energy powers.

But with oil revenue gushing in and its state-controlled oil and gas companies ascendant, the Kremlin’s frequently stated goal of diversifying the economy into sectors like high technology looks like a remote one.

That is hardly surprising, given the oil sector’s spectacular performance. With prices riding high, Russia rakes in more than $550 million a day in oil and gas revenue. The state gets 65 percent of that. Oil and gas exports account for about 60 percent of federal budget revenue as well as 60 percent of all exports.

Since the August 1998 collapse, Russia’s hard currency reserves have soared from a feeble $12.5 billion to $247.1 billion. Meanwhile, the government is busy funneling oil companies’ profits above $27 a barrel into an inflation-fighting stabilization fund, which stood at $76 billion at the end of June.

This year it will use $22 billion of that to pay all its remaining debt to the Paris Club of creditor nations. That is a far cry from the years when it could scarcely make the interest payments on its foreign borrowings.

But analysts worry that the state’s oil revenue is not strengthening the broader economy at a time incentives and tax breaks are needed to help revive old Russian industries and small and medium-size enterprises. For Russia’s long- term health, the economy must be freed from the vagaries of commodity markets, economists say.

“It’s almost the worst of both possible worlds – the profits have been taken out of the oil and gas industry, so the companies are low on cash to grow their businesses, but at the same time no diversification structure has been put in place – they are not providing the planned growth incentives for industry,” said Chris Weafer, chief strategist for Alfa Bank in Moscow.

Efforts to simplify Russia’s bloated bureaucracy have stalled, allowing red tape and endemic corruption to throttle small and medium-size enterprises. According to Peter Westin, chief economist with the investment bank MDM in Moscow, such enterprises account for just 13 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product, compared with 30 percent to 50 percent in more developed countries.

Meanwhile, corruption and opaque regulations hold back foreign investment – as well as what Westin calls the crucial “spillover” of technologies and know-how that comes with it. Net foreign direct investment in Russia at the end of 2004 came to $89 per capita, compared with $5,000 in the Czech Republic and $4,000 in Hungary, Westin said.

“That’s the primary inhibitor for even more investment and the growth of small and medium-size business – the administrative burden and the corruption that goes with it,” said Andrew Somers, president of the U.S.-Russia Chamber of Commerce.

Nowhere are the technological gains that foreign investment can bring needed more urgently than in the oil and gas sector. With global energy consumption set to soar, all eyes are on Russia to develop new and promising fields in its more inaccessible territories. Changes to the tax laws that would make such investments viable are still in the works, as are long-awaited regulations that would clarify limits on investment in certain sites in the energy sector.

Andrei Illarionov, who resigned as President Vladimir Putin’s economic adviser last year to protest what he called the government’s backtracking on freedoms, describes government talk of modernizing Russia’s economy as only public relations.

“There are no serious steps in this regard: no privatizations, no liberalization, impediments to business are not being removed – none of this is being done,” he said.

Instead, Illarionov argues, the Kremlin’s efforts are going into tightening its hold on strategic industries, starting with oil and gas. Ultimately, he says, the state wants to forge “champion companies” – like the gas giant Gazprom or the oil producer Rosneft – that will serve as powerful geopolitical levers.

These days the calls to overhaul the economy are fading, said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog, a Russian investment company.

“Five, six, eight years ago there was talk of diversification,” he said. “In recent years I hear them talk about this less and less, but more about an energy superpower.”

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Cowardly Neo-Soviet Union Jails Kasparov Opposition

The Moscow Times reports that the malignant Neo-Soviet Union is up to its old evil tricks, arresting opposition politicians as its only means of carrying on political discussion:

A Different Russia, an opposition movement led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, said that about 20 of its members have been detained, beaten, or mysteriously fallen ill on their way to a conference in Moscow.

“The number is growing by the hour,” Kasparov told a news conference in the Russian capital today. He said some had been taken off planes and trains while trying to get to Moscow where the two-day conference starts tomorrow, while others were detained by security forces, and in some cases beaten up.

The packed news conference was held in a sweltering, airless room with no sound system. “We knew the hall wouldn’t be big enough, but unfortunately we’ve come up against the realities of Russian life,” Kasparov said. He said the organizers had failed to find a hotel or other public space willing to accommodate the group in a bigger space.

President Vladimir Putin’s administration has been accused by top U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, of “backsliding” on democracy. Kasparov said the detention of A Different Russia’s members was “the best demonstration” of human rights violations in Putin’s Russia. “It’s already, in principle, extremism,” he said.

A Different Russia is holding its conference shortly before a summit of the Group of Eight, hosted for the first time by Russia starting Saturday.

A Different Russia has invited politicians from all G8 members, and said in a statement that assistant U.S. secretary of state for European affairs Daniel Fried will attend, among other foreign visitors. Kasparov told journalists that Putin’s Deputy Chief of Staff Igor Shuvalov has said the Kremlin would regard foreign attendance of the conference as “an unfriendly act” — Kasparov also thanked Shuvalov for the publicity he generated for his group.

Writing in The New York Times today, Kasparov called on the other G8 leaders to take a tougher stand on Russia. “Opposition activists and journalists are routinely arrested and interrogated. The Kremlin, in complete control of the judiciary, loots private businesses and then uses state-controlled companies to launder the money abroad,” he wrote. “It’s high time to stop pretending the Kremlin shares the free world’s interests.”

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Bayer Exposes Russia’s Looming Inflation Disaster

Where would we be without the wonderful, courageous columnists in the stable of the Moscow Times? Lourie, Bovt, Bayer, Albats (and poor Felgenhaur, soon may he return!) are the only salient voices of reason coming from inside Russia today. Three cheers for the MT!

Not only is Russia’s reported consumer price inflation perfectly ghastly and rising (10%! can you imagine what people would be saying about America if prices were rising like that?), but Russia doesn’t even accurately report inflation data, which of course isn’t at all surprising when you remember that Russia is the Neo-Soviet Union. Just like the USSR, Russia is using wallpaper to cover cracks in its foundation, cracks that will inevitably bring the whole edifice crumbling down, as the Moscow Times’ Alexei Bayer makes clear:

It is a well-known tendency that, if in the rest of the world something occurs one way, in Russia it takes place completely differently, if not the other way around. There is even a proverb about it: “What’s good for a Russian is deadly for a German.”

And so it has been with inflation. In the 1970s and the early 1980s, when the world economy was grappling with an unprecedented rise in consumer prices, Russia was living under a planned economy, which by definition had no inflation. And so there was none — at least officially. Elderly communists still recall fondly how they could buy a bottle of vodka for the same three rubles year in, year out.

Now, global inflationary pressures have been remarkably mild, despite record-breaking commodity prices. Inflation has picked up to over 4 percent in the United States, but remains around 2 1/2 percent across Western Europe and even lower in Asia. If it weren’t for rising raw materials prices, countries such as Sweden, Holland, Japan and China would have been suffering from deflation.

In Russia, meanwhile, inflation remains stubbornly high. Although it was down to 9.1 percent in June, the Economist Intelligence Unit expects it to average 10 percent this year and 9 1/2 percent in 2007.

With all due respect to government statistics, every Muscovite knows that in many instances prices have been rising a lot faster than the 10-15 percent annual rate reported by the government in recent years. But even at its official rate, inflation represents a nasty tax on people’s incomes, doubling the nominal income tax rate of 13 percent. Added to this the fact that many salaries are set in dollars and then paid out in rubles at the official rate of exchange. The ruble has gone from nearly 32 per dollar at the end of 2002 to about 27 per dollar currently, which explains why Russians are complaining about the situation.

For all its self-styled singularity, Russia is as subject to the laws of economics as any other country. In the 1970s, inflation did not disappear; it was merely kept under wraps by rigid price controls. The moment prices were freed, the worthlessness of the Soviet ruble came to the fore and a bout of hyperinflation ensued.

Similarly, there is nothing special about Russia’s high inflation today. Inflation is a common problem among oil exporters. Double-digit inflation now plagues Venezuela, Indonesia and Argentina as well.

The roots of high inflation are also similar: high oil prices and an influx of petrodollars. Russia’s trade surplus measured $132 billion in the 12 months up to April. To buy up such vast quantities of dollars, the Central Bank has to print more rubles. Extra money could be mopped up by the issuance of government securities, but the domestic bond market in Russia remains underdeveloped. Besides, bonds pay interest, which puts a portion of the money right back into circulation while adding to government spending.

A classic definition of inflation is too much money chasing a limited supply of goods — which is exactly what has been happening in Russia.

Since liquidity is generated by the inflow of dollars from abroad, raising domestic interest rates is unlikely to dampen inflationary pressures. The only way the Central Bank can realistically reduce inflation is by letting the ruble appreciate. A more expensive ruble will have a triple effect. First, it will reduce domestic money supply, because fewer rubles will be needed to buy the same quantity of dollars. Second, cheaper imports will put downward pressure on consumer prices. And, finally, overall imports will rise, reducing the trade surplus.

That’s on the positive side. On the negative side, a cheaper dollar will further reduce dollar-indexed wages. More important, if imports become even cheaper, even the feeble attempts to revive Russian industry that are currently underway will go out the window. I know of a number of high-tech companies that will go bankrupt if the decline of the dollar against the ruble continues.

The Central Bank has had the unenviable task of navigating between the Scylla of inflation and the Charybdis of an overvalued ruble.

The question is whether there is a solution to Russia’s inflation problem. The answer is yes, but it does not depend on the Central bank or monetary policymakers.

Inflation is a problem in itself. It destroys savings, depresses investment and wreaks havoc with the price mechanism — the main communication system of the market economy.

However, inflation is also a symptom of other problems. Global inflation got out of control in the 1970s not because OPEC jacked up oil prices, but because the world’s industrial economies were not flexible enough to absorb those price increases. Unions were unwilling to cut wages, while hidebound corporations found it more convenient to raise prices than to cut their own costs.
In this decade, on the other hand, while oil prices have increased more than sevenfold since 2000, a highly competitive global environment has kept consumer price increases to a minimum.

There are only two ways Russia will overcome inflation. The simple way is a severe economic crisis that could hit the country if oil prices decline toward $35 to $40 per barrel. This would trigger a real estate crisis and a drop in consumption — which in turn will reduce consumer prices.

The complex way entails a fundamental restructuring of the Russian economy. Today, Russia has a great opportunity to use its huge oil windfall to invest into its infrastructure, both economic and social. It needs also to create favorable conditions for industrialists — both domestic and foreign — to invest and to be sure that their investment will be protected.

There have been recent examples of commodity-dependent, politically and economically backward nations transforming themselves into industrial ones. Since 1994, Mexico has become an industrial powerhouse and is now enjoying greater democracy and considerable economic and financial stability. Over the same time period, former communist nations in Central Europe have dismantled their inefficient, corrupt and opaque economic systems and have become integrated into Western Europe. Note that inflation in Poland, after staying very stubbornly high for 15 years after the collapse of communism, is now among the lowest in the European Union.

A major source of inflation in Russia is corruption. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, every item sold anywhere, be it a street kiosk or a fancy Italian boutique in GUM, has had a substantial mark-up that included payments to criminal protection rackets, bribes to city bureaucrats and kickbacks to politicians, customs officials, fire safety inspectors, tax collectors, and so on.

In President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which has become a government worker’s paradise, the state has effectively been privatized and every new law or regulation is designed to provide a source of illicit income to an army of corrupt bureaucrats. This corruption mark-up can only be expected to grow. By how much do you think the price of wine will increase once the embattled distributors pay off various agencies providing them with new excise labels?

But there is the rub. You can’t seriously expect the thoroughly corrupted Russian bureaucrats and politicians to initiate reforms that will put them out of business and — horrors — force them to live on their salary.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

More Dirt on Shamapova

With the first half of the tennis season and three grand slams complete, Maria Sharapova, supposedly the fourth-best female tennis player in the world, has played in eight tournaments this year and lost seven of them.

Only once this year has she been eliminated from a tournament by a higher-ranked player.

Four of her seven tournament ejections have come at the hands of players not ranked in the top ten, and two at the hands of players not ranked in the top fifty. She has been elimiated from tournaments this year by players ranked #117, #81, #17, #14, #8, #5 and #1.

Maria has beaten players ranked in the top ten only four times this whole year. She has beaten a higher-ranked player only once.

She has not won a tournament since March, and she has not won a tournament by beating a non-Russian since June 2005, more than one year ago. She has not won a tournament by beating a higher-ranked player since February 2005.

She has reached only one grand-slam final in her entire career.

Yet, she feels qualified to demand the same pay men get even though she doens’t volunteer to play five-set matches the way the men do, and she has plenty of time to spend doffing her clothes for Sports Illustrated and appearing in TV commercials rather than true champions like Henin-Hardenne or Mauresmo, the grand-slam winners this year.

Shamopova revealed.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Cost of the War in Chechnya

Sean Guillory has a counter on his blog which tracks how much the U.S. government is spending on the war in Iraq. Bravo to Sean, since it’s important for all Americans to clearly understand they choices they are making in a democratic society.

But it begs a question: Sean’s blog is about Russia, not America. So, shouldn’t he (at least) also have a counter to track the second-by-second expenditures of the Kremlin on Chechnya, especially given the fact that Russia is an impoverished country by the standards of the U.S., with an average wage roughly 10 times smaller than that in America, making each dollar spent on Chechnya much harder for Rusisans to bear?

And that in turn begs another question: Can a blogger track down a handy-dandy counter for Chechnya, like the one Sean has for America? Or is it Americaphobia that makes such counters available only for the war in Iraq and not for Chechnya? Or is it simply that America is interested in reform and improvement, while everyone knows Russia isn’t, and that Russian people couldn’t care less what the Russian government does or how it spends their money. How is it possible that in a country with an average monthly income of $300 nobody cares how much the government is spending in Chechnya (to say nothing of the loss of life). Will Russians ever learn that their own passivity and cowardice is far more dangerous to their nation than any foreign enemy ever dreamed of being?

According to the Carnegie Center, in 2000 the war in Chechnya was costing Russia at least 100 million rubles per day, or roughly $5 million per day or $83,000 per minute or $1,400 per second. One widely published summary appears below. The conclusions? First, that Russia lies brazenly about the Chechnya expenses, while America documents them down to the penny in full public view. So we can only guess about the cost of the war in Chechnya, a fact which is about as horrifying as the killings, especially as Russians stand passively by and allow this duplicity to persist so soon after the same type of conduct destroyed the USSR. Second,Carnegie is right, the cost is at least around $150 million per month or $5 million per day.

America’s per capita GDP is ten times that of Russia, but America has twice as many people as Russia does, so pound-for-pound America is “only” five times wealthier than Russia. This means that every dollar spent by Russia hits the Russian people at least five times harder than it would hit an American, so Russia spending $1,400 per second in Chechnya is like America spending $7,000 per second in Iraq. If you judge by average wages ($30,000 for an American, $3,600 for a Russian) instead of per capita GDP then the disparity is a factor of ten and a Russian spending $1,400 per second is like an American spending $14,000 per second.

In fact, however, Sean’s Iraq counter only increases by $3,000 per second, so it appears that in terms of financial burden Chechnya is at least twice as costly for Russians than Iraq is for America, up to five times more costly. This is to say nothing about the human cost, of course. As the article below indicates, something like ten times as many Russians have been killed fighting in Chechnya as Americans in Iraq.

According to the article below, as of the beginning of 2002 Russia had spent at least $8 billion on the war to date. If it went on spending $5 million per day, that’s $1.8 billion per year in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005, for a total of $7.2 billion or about $15 billion as of the beginning of this year. If it spent $150 million per month in the first six months of this year, by July 1 the total was roughly $16 billion. And at $5 million per day since then, that makes total spending on Chechnya as of today $16.085 billion, and rising at $1,400 per second or $35 million per week.

So where are the counters? To work, geek minions of the Internet, to work! La Russophobe is looking to be among the first to post such a counter on her blog. Meanwhile, not being a programming geek herself, La Russophobe pledges to post every Monday from now on a running total of the current cost of the war in Chechnya until such time as a proper counter becomes available.

Chechnya War: Economic Cost to Russia
By Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

One hundred and eighteen hostages and 50 of their captors died in the heavy handed storming of the theatre occupied by Chechen terrorists three years ago. Then, two years later, hundreds of children and teachers were massacred together with their captors in a school in Beslan. This has been only the latest in a series of escalating costs in a war officially terminated in 1997. On August 22, 2002 alone a helicopter carrying 115 Russian servicemen and unauthorized civilians went down in flames.The Russian military is stretched to its limits. Munitions and spare parts are in short supply. The defense industry shrunk violently following the implosion of the USSR. Restarting production of small-ticket items is prohibitively expensive. Even bigger weapon systems are antiquated. A committee appointed by the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, found that the average age of the army’s helicopters is 20. Russia lost dozens of them hitherto and does not have the wherewithal to replace them.The Russian command acknowledges 3000 fatalities and 8000 wounded but the numbers are probably way higher.

The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers pegs the number of casualties at 12-13,000. Unpaid, disgruntled, and under-supplied troops exert pressure on their headquarters to air-strafe Chechnya, to withdraw, or to multiply the money budgeted to support the ill-fated operation.Russia maintains c. 100,000 troops in Chechnya, including 40,000 active soldiers and 60,000 support and logistics personnel. The price tag is sizable though not unsustainable. As early as October 1999, the IMF told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: “Yes, we’re concerned that it could undermine the progress in improving (Russia’s) public finances.”As they did in the first Chechen conflict in 1994-6, both the IMF and the World Bank reluctantly kept lending billions to Russia throughout the current round of devastation. A $4.5 billion arrangement was signed with Russia in July 1999. Though earmarked, funds are fungible.

The IMF has been accused by senior economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs and Marshall Goldman, of financing the Russian war effort against the tiny republic and its 1.5 million destitute or internally displaced citizens. Even the staid Jane’s World Armies concurred.No one knows how much the war has cost Russia hitherto. It is mostly financed from off-budget clandestine bank accounts owned and managed by the Kremlin, the military, and the security services. Miriam Lanskoy, Program Manager at the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy at Boston University, estimated for “NIS Observed” and “The Analyst” that Russia has spent, by November 2001, c. $8 billion on the war, money sorely needed to modernize its army and maintain its presence overseas.Russia was forced to close, post haste, bases in Vietnam and Cuba, two erstwhile pillars of its geopolitical and geostrategic presence. It was too feeble to capitalize on its massive, multi-annual assistance to the Afghan Northern Alliance in both arms and manpower.

The USA effortlessly reaped the fruits of this continuous Russian support and established a presence in central Asia which Russia will find impossible to dislodge.The Christian Science Monitor has pegged the cost of each month in the first three months of offensive against the separatists at $500 million. This guesstimate is supported by the Russians but not by Digby Waller, an economist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based military think tank. He put the real, out-of-pocket expense at $110 million a month. Other experts offer comparable figures – $100-150 million a month.Similarly, Jane’s Defense Weekly put the outlay at $40-50 million a day – but most of it in cost-free munitions produced during Soviet times.

A leading Soviet military analyst, Pavel Felgengauer, itemized the expenditures. The largest articles are transport, fuel, reconstruction of areas shattered by warfare, and active duty bonuses to soldiers.The expense of this brawl exceed the previous scuffle’s. The first Chechen war is estimated to have cost at most $5.5 billion and probably between $1.3 and $2.6 billion. Russia allocated c. $1 billion to the war in its 2000 budget. Another $263 million were funded partly by Russia’s behemoth electricity utility, UES. Still, these figures are misleading underestimates.

According too the Rosbalt News Agency, last year, for instance, Russia was slated to spend c. $516 million on rebuilding Chechnya – but only $158 million of these resources made it to the budget.Russia has been lucky to enjoy a serendipitous confluence of an export-enhancing and import-depressing depreciated currency, tax-augmenting inflation, soaring oil prices, and Western largesse. It is also a major producer and exporter of weapons. Chechnya serves as testing grounds where proud designers and trigger-craving generals can demonstrate the advantages and capabilities of their latest materiel.

Some – like the Institute of Global Issues – say that the war in Chechnya has fully self-financed by reviving the military-industrial complex and adding billions to Russia’s exports of armaments. This surely is a wild hyperbole. Chechnya – a potentially oil-rich territory – is razed to dust.Russia is ensnared in an ever-escalating cycle of violence and futile retaliation. Its society is gradually militarized and desensitized to human rights abuses. Corruption is rampant. Russia’s Accounting Board disclosed that a whopping 12 percent of the money earmarked to fight the war five years ago has vanished without a trace.About $45 million dollars in salaries never reached their intended recipients – the soldiers in the field. Top brass set up oil drilling operations in the ravaged territory. They are said by Rosbalt and “The Economist” to be extracting up to 2000 tons daily – double the amount the state hauls.Another 7000 tons go up in smoke due to incompetence and faulty equipment. There are 60 oil wells in Grozny alone. Hence the predilection to pursue the war as leisurely – and profitably – as possible.

Often in cahoots with their ostensible oppressors, dispossessed and dislocated Chechens export crime and mayhem to Russia’s main cities.The war is a colossal misallocation of scarce economic resources and an opportunity squandered. Russia should have used the windfall to reinvent itself – revamp its dilapidated infrastructure and modernize its institutions. Oil prices are bound to come down one day and when they do Russia will discover the true and most malign cost of war – the opportunity cost.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Chechens Say Kremlin Didn’t Really Kill Basayev

Did the Kremlin lie about killing terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev, and get caught in the lie in the middle of the G-8 proceedings? KavKaz Center says so:

The representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar has reported to Kavkaz Center news agency that the vice-president of CRI, the Military Amir of Mujahideen of Caucasus, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris became a Shaheed (insha Allah).The Chechen commander died as a result of an accidental spontaneous explosion of a truck, loaded with explosives on July 10 2006 in the region of the village Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Three other Mujahideen became Shaheeds (insha Allah) together with him.The representative of Military Council has not reported any other details.

At the same time he denied all claims of Russian side about a “special operation” against Shamil Basayev as a result of which ostensibly, the Chechen commander die.”There was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds (insha Allah) according to Allah’s (swt) will. The Supreme one has his own plan and decision. And about the special operation, Mujahideen will show how it should be carried out … “, – the representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI stated.Let’s remind that earlier occupation command has reported about an explosion in Ekazhevo and death of 4 Mujahideen. Only after 9 hours after the first news, kafirs have claimed of death of vice-president of CRI, the military Amir Shamil Abu-Idris.The representative of Ingush puppet militia has claimed that three of four Mujahideen have been unidentified and one of them is probably Shamil Basayev. The reason of explosion was a careless use of an explosive.Later on Russian side began to report all over again about 5 then 8, and then 12 ostensibly killed Mujahideen. Thus invaders have explained that as a result of huge explosion all other bodies “have been reduced to fragments and have literally disappeared”.

Representatives of puppet Ministry of Internal Affairs specified that at night from July 9 to 10, in 2 kilometers from village Ekazhevo of Nazran district of Ingushetia, a powerful explosion was occurred. The militiamen, who had arrived at a place, found out a burned down lorry and four bodies

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Chechens Say Kremlin Didn’t Really Kill Basayev

Did the Kremlin lie about killing terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev, and get caught in the lie in the middle of the G-8 proceedings? KavKaz Center says so:

The representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar has reported to Kavkaz Center news agency that the vice-president of CRI, the Military Amir of Mujahideen of Caucasus, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris became a Shaheed (insha Allah).The Chechen commander died as a result of an accidental spontaneous explosion of a truck, loaded with explosives on July 10 2006 in the region of the village Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Three other Mujahideen became Shaheeds (insha Allah) together with him.The representative of Military Council has not reported any other details.

At the same time he denied all claims of Russian side about a “special operation” against Shamil Basayev as a result of which ostensibly, the Chechen commander die.”There was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds (insha Allah) according to Allah’s (swt) will. The Supreme one has his own plan and decision. And about the special operation, Mujahideen will show how it should be carried out … “, – the representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI stated.Let’s remind that earlier occupation command has reported about an explosion in Ekazhevo and death of 4 Mujahideen. Only after 9 hours after the first news, kafirs have claimed of death of vice-president of CRI, the military Amir Shamil Abu-Idris.The representative of Ingush puppet militia has claimed that three of four Mujahideen have been unidentified and one of them is probably Shamil Basayev. The reason of explosion was a careless use of an explosive.Later on Russian side began to report all over again about 5 then 8, and then 12 ostensibly killed Mujahideen. Thus invaders have explained that as a result of huge explosion all other bodies “have been reduced to fragments and have literally disappeared”.

Representatives of puppet Ministry of Internal Affairs specified that at night from July 9 to 10, in 2 kilometers from village Ekazhevo of Nazran district of Ingushetia, a powerful explosion was occurred. The militiamen, who had arrived at a place, found out a burned down lorry and four bodies

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Chechens Say Kremlin Didn’t Really Kill Basayev

Did the Kremlin lie about killing terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev, and get caught in the lie in the middle of the G-8 proceedings? KavKaz Center says so:

The representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar has reported to Kavkaz Center news agency that the vice-president of CRI, the Military Amir of Mujahideen of Caucasus, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris became a Shaheed (insha Allah).The Chechen commander died as a result of an accidental spontaneous explosion of a truck, loaded with explosives on July 10 2006 in the region of the village Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Three other Mujahideen became Shaheeds (insha Allah) together with him.The representative of Military Council has not reported any other details.

At the same time he denied all claims of Russian side about a “special operation” against Shamil Basayev as a result of which ostensibly, the Chechen commander die.”There was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds (insha Allah) according to Allah’s (swt) will. The Supreme one has his own plan and decision. And about the special operation, Mujahideen will show how it should be carried out … “, – the representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI stated.Let’s remind that earlier occupation command has reported about an explosion in Ekazhevo and death of 4 Mujahideen. Only after 9 hours after the first news, kafirs have claimed of death of vice-president of CRI, the military Amir Shamil Abu-Idris.The representative of Ingush puppet militia has claimed that three of four Mujahideen have been unidentified and one of them is probably Shamil Basayev. The reason of explosion was a careless use of an explosive.Later on Russian side began to report all over again about 5 then 8, and then 12 ostensibly killed Mujahideen. Thus invaders have explained that as a result of huge explosion all other bodies “have been reduced to fragments and have literally disappeared”.

Representatives of puppet Ministry of Internal Affairs specified that at night from July 9 to 10, in 2 kilometers from village Ekazhevo of Nazran district of Ingushetia, a powerful explosion was occurred. The militiamen, who had arrived at a place, found out a burned down lorry and four bodies

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Chechens Say Kremlin Didn’t Really Kill Basayev

Did the Kremlin lie about killing terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev, and get caught in the lie in the middle of the G-8 proceedings? KavKaz Center says so:

The representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar has reported to Kavkaz Center news agency that the vice-president of CRI, the Military Amir of Mujahideen of Caucasus, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris became a Shaheed (insha Allah).The Chechen commander died as a result of an accidental spontaneous explosion of a truck, loaded with explosives on July 10 2006 in the region of the village Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Three other Mujahideen became Shaheeds (insha Allah) together with him.The representative of Military Council has not reported any other details.

At the same time he denied all claims of Russian side about a “special operation” against Shamil Basayev as a result of which ostensibly, the Chechen commander die.”There was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds (insha Allah) according to Allah’s (swt) will. The Supreme one has his own plan and decision. And about the special operation, Mujahideen will show how it should be carried out … “, – the representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI stated.Let’s remind that earlier occupation command has reported about an explosion in Ekazhevo and death of 4 Mujahideen. Only after 9 hours after the first news, kafirs have claimed of death of vice-president of CRI, the military Amir Shamil Abu-Idris.The representative of Ingush puppet militia has claimed that three of four Mujahideen have been unidentified and one of them is probably Shamil Basayev. The reason of explosion was a careless use of an explosive.Later on Russian side began to report all over again about 5 then 8, and then 12 ostensibly killed Mujahideen. Thus invaders have explained that as a result of huge explosion all other bodies “have been reduced to fragments and have literally disappeared”.

Representatives of puppet Ministry of Internal Affairs specified that at night from July 9 to 10, in 2 kilometers from village Ekazhevo of Nazran district of Ingushetia, a powerful explosion was occurred. The militiamen, who had arrived at a place, found out a burned down lorry and four bodies

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Chechens Say Kremlin Didn’t Really Kill Basayev

Did the Kremlin lie about killing terrorist warlord Shamil Basayev, and get caught in the lie in the middle of the G-8 proceedings? KavKaz Center says so:

The representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI Abu Umar has reported to Kavkaz Center news agency that the vice-president of CRI, the Military Amir of Mujahideen of Caucasus, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris became a Shaheed (insha Allah).The Chechen commander died as a result of an accidental spontaneous explosion of a truck, loaded with explosives on July 10 2006 in the region of the village Ekazhevo in Ingushetia. Three other Mujahideen became Shaheeds (insha Allah) together with him.The representative of Military Council has not reported any other details.

At the same time he denied all claims of Russian side about a “special operation” against Shamil Basayev as a result of which ostensibly, the Chechen commander die.”There was no special operation whatsoever. Shamil and the other brothers of ours became Shaheeds (insha Allah) according to Allah’s (swt) will. The Supreme one has his own plan and decision. And about the special operation, Mujahideen will show how it should be carried out … “, – the representative of Military Council of State Defense Council Majlisul Shura of CRI stated.Let’s remind that earlier occupation command has reported about an explosion in Ekazhevo and death of 4 Mujahideen. Only after 9 hours after the first news, kafirs have claimed of death of vice-president of CRI, the military Amir Shamil Abu-Idris.The representative of Ingush puppet militia has claimed that three of four Mujahideen have been unidentified and one of them is probably Shamil Basayev. The reason of explosion was a careless use of an explosive.Later on Russian side began to report all over again about 5 then 8, and then 12 ostensibly killed Mujahideen. Thus invaders have explained that as a result of huge explosion all other bodies “have been reduced to fragments and have literally disappeared”.

Representatives of puppet Ministry of Internal Affairs specified that at night from July 9 to 10, in 2 kilometers from village Ekazhevo of Nazran district of Ingushetia, a powerful explosion was occurred. The militiamen, who had arrived at a place, found out a burned down lorry and four bodies

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Hosting G-8 Backfires in Russia’s Face

The best-laid plans of mice and other Kremlin vermin often go astray!

Despite its PR hopes, Russia’s hosting of the G-8 conference in St. Petersburg has only resulted in an avalanche of negative publicity and analysis the like of which La Russophobe hardly dared dream about and with which she can barely keep up:

Solzhenitsyn in the New Yorker.

Gary Kasparov in the New York Times.

Richard Lourie in the Moscow Times.

Major exposé pieces by key Russia journalists from the Times of London the the Telegraph.

The story breaks that Russia has been giving nuclear weapons technology to North Korea, and Chechen rebel leader vows attacks on Russia proper. Planes start crashing, followed by general airport debacles. And to top it all off, it turns out Putin is a pedophile.

All documented below in the virtual pages of La Russophobe. This couldn’t have turned out better if she’d planned it herself.

It just goes to show that the Neo-Soviet Union is every bit is ignorant, arrogant and ham-handed as the original, and it is wildly diminished in terms of population, allies and military potency. Yet, as all the commentators agree, is it baiting the United States in to a second cold war, one it cannot possibly surivive.

Putin is actually so isolated and arrogant that he thinks he can invite the whole world to St. Petersburg and dupe them with some perverse Potemkin into thinking that Russia is powerful and friendly. He actually think’s he’s a Neo-Soviet man who can avoid the mistakes of his forefathers. In other words, he’s a classic deluded Russian.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Kasparov Blasts Russia (Kasparov in 2008!)

Writing in the New York Times, Kremlin opposition candidate Gary Kasparov heroically blasts the Neo-Soviet Union:

WHAT’S BAD FOR PUTIN IS GOOD FOR RUSSIA

WHEN observing the West’s conciliatory dealings with Russia, I’m reminded of a quotation often attributed to Winston Churchill: “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

For five years, President Bush has been talking about maintaining an open dialogue with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and about how hard he has worked to convince the Russian leader that “it’s in his interest to adopt Western-style values and universal values.” This sounds reasonable, but we don’t have to go on theory. There’s a track record — one that clearly shows that persuasion and appeasement toward Russia have failed.

It is long past time for Western leaders to take a tougher stand if they want their rhetoric about democracy to be credible. A perfect opportunity awaits at this week’s meeting of the Group of 7 leaders in St. Petersburg. I say “Group of 7” rather than “Group of 8” because I continue to hope that the West will find its collective backbone and make Russia’s participation contingent on its actually being a democracy.

The St. Petersburg meeting offers the visiting heads of state a chance to see for themselves how bad things here have become. The right of Russians to elect their governors and parliamentary representatives is steadily eroding, with more and more influence accruing to the executive. Even Aleksandr Veshnyakov, the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission who has rubber-stamped the results of every election under President Putin, recently said that if all the new legislation proposed by Mr. Putin’s United Russia Party were passed, elections here “would be a farce.” Opposition activists and journalists are routinely arrested and interrogated. The Kremlin, in complete control of the judiciary, loots private businesses and then uses state-controlled companies to launder the money abroad.

Mr. Bush and Europe’s leaders apparently believe it is best to disregard such unpleasantness for the sake of receiving Russia’s cooperation on security and energy. This cynical and morally repugnant stance has also proven ineffective. Just as in the old days, Moscow has become an ally for troublemakers and anti-democratic rulers around the world. Nuclear aid to Iran, missile technology to North Korea, military aircraft to Sudan, Myanmar and Venezuela, and a budding friendship with Hamas: these are the West’s rewards for keeping its mouth shut about human rights in Russia.

It’s time to stop pretending that the Kremlin shares the free world’s interests. The high energy prices the Putin administration requires to keep its hold on power are driven by the tensions that come with every North Korean missile launching and Iranian nuclear threat. It’s no surprise that Russia continues to block United Nations sanctions against these rogue states. The mystery is why the West continues to treat Russia like an ally.

Tomorrow and Wednesday, State Department representatives are scheduled to attend the Other Russia conference in Moscow. Organized by the opposition umbrella group of which I am a founder, the conference will bring together politicians and nongovernmental organizations from all over Russia and from every part of its political spectrum.

The primary aim of the conference is to document our national crisis for the Russian government, the Russian people and the widest possible international audience. It is equally important to discuss what is to be done and to make it clear that it is not too late. Our citizens must refuse to be bought off with a fleeting oil windfall and the false impression of a return to superpower status. Western leaders must live up to their rhetoric about human rights by stating in no uncertain terms that Russia’s status as a trading partner, security ally and G-8 member are all at risk if the country continues its slide into dictatorship.

Just days ago, dozens of activists en route to Moscow to attend the conference were arrested, some beaten. Possession of opposition literature is being defined as an attempt to “overthrow constitutional order.” Will the Western delegations sit silently? Will the American president say nothing?

Perhaps silence is the best option if the most Mr. Bush has to offer are weak expressions of concern and remarks about his personal relationship with Mr. Putin. President Ronald Reagan’s hard public line on the Soviet Union let us know that someone out there was aware of our predicament and was fighting for us. Now this American president seems to be saying that Iraqis and Afghans are deserving of democracy, but Russians are not.

The darkest days of Communist rule are now a generation behind us. Between the end of the Communist dictatorship and the crackdown under President Putin, there was a period of freedom. It was brief and it was flawed, but it could have served as a foundation for a democratic Russia. Since 2000, however, Mr. Putin has done everything possible to dismantle that fragile edifice. In dealing with Russia, please don’t confuse what’s good for the Putin regime with what’s best for the Russian people.

Garry Kasparov is the co-chairman of the All-Russia Civil Congress and the chairman of the United Civil Front of Russia.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !