One Picture is Worth a Thousand Buckets of Vomit

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, visits Alexander Solzhenitsyn, center, in his house in Troitse-Lykovo in the outskirts of Moscow, Tuesday, June 12, 2007. Shown from left in the background are, Solzhenitsyn’s sons, Stepan and Yermolai. While celebrating the holiday of Russia’s emergence from the crumbling Soviet Union Putin honored the Nobel laureate and longtime exile who documented the murderous Soviet prison camp system, with an award for humanitarian achievement and visited the ailing 88-year-old author, who has not appeared in public in recent years.

Oh Mr. Solzhenitsyn! How you will rue this lost opportunity. A whole lifetime’s work undone in a few minutes. First a TV talk show, and now this! Shame on you! History will judge you without mercy.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Russia: Slave of Oil & the KGB

Writing in the Daily Mail, Lord William Rees-Mogg, a former editor of the Khaleej Times, declares that “Russia is still the slave of oil and the KGB.”

Oil is the core of the world economy; it is certainly the core of Russia’s economy. Last Friday, Egor Gaidar, the economist who was acting prime minister of Russia in 1992, was arguing in an interview on the Russia Today channel that the unexpected collapse of the oil price in 1985 was the mechanism that led to the break-up of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Oil dictates Russian politics.

The last Russian leader who was prepared to take big risks to try to save the Soviet Union was Yuri Andropov, the cultured and utterly horrible man who was head of the KGB for 16 years and became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and leader of the USSR for a brief period after the death of Leonid Brezhnev.

Andropov was totally ruthless. In 1956, he played his part in repressing the Hungarian revolt. He was probably responsible for authorising the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. His purpose was to remove the pope’s support for Polish independence.

Andropov had blood on his hands in the service of Soviet communism. Mr Gaidar told his interviewer that he had seen a letter from Andropov to Brezhnev, in which Andropov wrote that it was necessary ‘to co-ordinate efforts with world terrorists to keep oil prices high’. He seemed to think Andropov’s analysis had been correct, in that the Soviet Union of the late Seventies would not have been able to survive a big fall in the oil price.

Indeed, Mr Gaidar thinks such a fall would be difficult for Russia today. He ranks the instability of the oil market as the biggest threat to the Russian economy, and the medium-term instability of the Russian pension system as the second most important threat.

Historically, the world oil price has always been volatile, though there have been some periods of relative stability. The demographics of Russia suggest the current rates of pensions might, on present policies, have to be cut by as much as a half over ten to 15 years. A combination of the two factors would threaten social order. The oil price and, therefore, the Russian economy are doing well: Europe is heavily dependent on Russian supplies of gas; the world depends on Russian oil.

Yet even if oil prices remain high, the demographic problem will remain. There is a contradiction between the apparent strength of Russia’s economy and these underlying weaknesses. Russia has only recently emerged from the immediate trauma of the break-up of the Russian empire 15 years ago. If one looks at the state of Britain 15 years after Indian independence, one can see a profound collapse in national confidence. That was the period of the Profumo scandal, when it seemed that no public figure could keep his trousers buttoned.

It was also the time when Britain first applied to join the European Union (then the European Economic Community), on the principle that we could not manage our own business and should let Europe do it for us. In the British case, our post-imperial morale recovered only in the Eighties, nearly 40 years after the original shock. Like Britain, Russia must be expected to have a long period of recovery. It is normal that the Russians should now be reasserting their status. The position is an unusual one. Russia is probably the second most important defence power on Earth, though China has greater conventional resources, with some seven times the Russian population.

Yet Russian and China combined could not match the technological lead of American defence. Russia is important in geography, and in resources of raw materials and oil.

Russia is in the first rank as a producer of industrial commodities and energy, with vast resources still to exploit. Yet at the same time Russia, though with some first-class scientists, is inadequate in terms of industrial productivity. As well as the West, Russia is threatened by terrorism.

The politicians of any nation can only play the role that their national economy allows. Russia’s economy is unbalanced, and Russia’s leaders tend to alternate between overbidding and under-bidding their hands. President Vladimir Putin is concerned to regain international respect; he prepared for the G-8 conference in Germany in an aggressive way, but his demand for status is a sign of national insecurity. We need not fear that.

Last February President Putin made a speech in Munich in which he said America was ‘overstepping its boundaries in every way’. Last week, he told journalists Russia ‘wanted to be heard’. The Russians do fear the American proposals to site missile defences in Poland and Romania, just as the Americans would be anxious if Russia mounted similar defences in Mexico or Cuba. Missiles and counter-missile defences are sensitive subjects.

There are also domestic political considerations in Russia and America. It was an oddity of this G-8 conference that there was one new boy among the heads of government, Nicolas Sarkozy, but three lame ducks.

Under the American constitution, George W Bush has to retire in January 2009; under the Russian constitution Vladimir Putin has to retire next year, with an election in March. Tony Blair will be gone by the end of this month.

It takes a party machine to win a modern General Election. In Britain, the machines belong to the parties. In America, they seem increasingly to belong to the dynasties; it is entirely possible that there will be another Clinton, Hillary, to follow the last five terms when the presidency has run Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush. One cannot even exclude two terms for Hillary, or, more remotely, Jeb Bush running when Hillary retires. After Jeb, it would presumably be time for Chelsea.

In Russia, the Putin machine is likely to win the 2008 presidential election. That will be based on oil revenues, Russian nationalism and the network of the KGB, to which Vladimir Putin belonged. The most likely candidate of that machine is said to be Sergei Ivanov, a retired KGB general and the current First deputy prime minister. Obviously, the British regard the KGB with suspicion, and the Putin presidency as authoritarian.

The tradition of the KGB, however sinister, has also been one of the realistic pursuit of Russian national interest. Even Andropov, who was a wicked man, was far from stupid. The former KGB men know the Soviet Union cannot be brought back to life; they may, however, do fatal damage to the development of Russian democracy. They are not the friends of freedom.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Labyrinth

A reader points La Russophobe to the following column in the Chicago Tribune by Luke Allnutt, an editor at the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Note how easily the analogy to Josef Goebbels. Once again, the people of Russia are descending into darkness and ignorance — but let’s not forget that this time they are doing it willingly, with their eyes wide open.

Putin’s Labyrinth

The behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin has left politicians and diplomats scratching their heads. Last week, Putin threatened to point his missiles at Europe; now, at the Group of Eight summit in Germany, he says he wouldn’t mind a joint U.S.-Russia anti-missile radar base, as long as it was sited in Azerbaijan rather than the Czech Republic.

The spat over the missile shield is the latest in a long line of dramas that are best understood not as part of a coherent Russian foreign policy, but rather as choreographed scenes intended for domestic consumption.

It was Josef Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, who once remarked “we must create the image of the enemy.” In a year that will see parliamentary elections in Russia and the likely anointing of Putin’s successor, that is exactly what the Kremlin is doing.

First, it was the Georgians, when, last fall, a routine spying row, which usually would have been handled quietly by diplomats, turned into a war with expulsions and bans on Georgian wine. Then, in April, after the removal of a Soviet World War II monument, a Russian delegation made a very public dash to Estonia. Russian television denounced Estonians as unreconstructed fascists. The Putin-loyal Nashi movement attacked diplomats and then hacked Web sites. Such events are only really significant when taken together as the building blocks in Russia’s great new narrative.

The narrative goes something like this: In the 1990s, the West took advantage of an emasculated Russia, using oligarchs to strip the country of its wealth. Russia is encircled, with NATO perched on its borders. The colored revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia were funded and engineered by the West. Pro-Western neighbors are traitors, ungrateful for Soviet liberation from the Nazis. But now, Russia, emboldened by oil and gas wealth, is back on the world stage. Russia was humiliated, but will never be humiliated again. As the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on May 31, “it’s a rare day that the average Russian citizen doesn’t hear warnings about another Cold War or World War III. Citizens are informed of how the United States and NATO are establishing military bases all along Russia’s perimeter.”

This narrative of avenged humiliation is simplistic and undemanding, a comfort zone where outsiders are to blame for Russia’s ills, where there is no scrupulous moral examination of the communist past or the increasingly authoritarian present. And it is understandable why so many Russians, who lived for so long with perhaps the greatest tale of all, Marxism, are receptive to this new narrative. Humiliation hurts. In the 1990s, Russians couldn’t afford to join the country club. They kept the greens and took out the trash. But with more than 6 percent economic growth, a burgeoning middle class and a leader respected, if not feared internationally, they’re back. Now they’re paid-up members, on the golf course, crowding the bar area, and ordering tray after tray of gin slings. Russians credit Putin with this. And it is this, and the economic growth, that explains his continually high approval ratings of more than 70 percent.

But like every good narrative, there is an element of the fantastical. In Guillermo del Toro’s recent film, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Ofelia constructs her magical kingdom to shield her from the horrors of fascist Spain. In Putin’s Russia, the delusions of grandeur, or of national rebirth, serve the same purpose: They comfort but, in the long-term, they will not sustain. Oil prices won’t stay high forever and the Russian economy has not diversified enough. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor and a looming population crisis. Freedoms are rapidly being eroded, with essentially a one-party system; supporters of the political opposition are beaten on the streets.

Political systems often collapse when the narrative diverges so widely from the reality. And that is Russia’s worry; that is what has commentators gingerly making parallels between Putin’s Russia and Weimar Germany. But for now, it appears to be working, and we can expect more of the same in 2007. To avoid a chaotic and damaging transfer of power next year, the Kremlin will continue to shore up its support at home with posturing abroad. No doubt, the narrative will be further fleshed out and refined, with new players, new villains, and if Putin chooses a successor, even a new hero.

Andrew Wilson, an academic at University College London, predicts the “animating” narratives in Russia’s election year are likely to be the “threat of extreme nationalism or the threat of Islamic terrorism.” It is also possible that more of Russia’s neighbors could have their gas cut off, their Web sites hacked, or their products boycotted. Or perhaps the Kremlin will spin a yarn about the threat of another colored revolution, this time in Russia. The Rose and Orange revolutions were just dry runs, spin doctors will say. Now the United States, armed with its missile-defense shield, is ready for the big one.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Labyrinth

A reader points La Russophobe to the following column in the Chicago Tribune by Luke Allnutt, an editor at the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Note how easily the analogy to Josef Goebbels. Once again, the people of Russia are descending into darkness and ignorance — but let’s not forget that this time they are doing it willingly, with their eyes wide open.

Putin’s Labyrinth

The behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin has left politicians and diplomats scratching their heads. Last week, Putin threatened to point his missiles at Europe; now, at the Group of Eight summit in Germany, he says he wouldn’t mind a joint U.S.-Russia anti-missile radar base, as long as it was sited in Azerbaijan rather than the Czech Republic.

The spat over the missile shield is the latest in a long line of dramas that are best understood not as part of a coherent Russian foreign policy, but rather as choreographed scenes intended for domestic consumption.

It was Josef Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, who once remarked “we must create the image of the enemy.” In a year that will see parliamentary elections in Russia and the likely anointing of Putin’s successor, that is exactly what the Kremlin is doing.

First, it was the Georgians, when, last fall, a routine spying row, which usually would have been handled quietly by diplomats, turned into a war with expulsions and bans on Georgian wine. Then, in April, after the removal of a Soviet World War II monument, a Russian delegation made a very public dash to Estonia. Russian television denounced Estonians as unreconstructed fascists. The Putin-loyal Nashi movement attacked diplomats and then hacked Web sites. Such events are only really significant when taken together as the building blocks in Russia’s great new narrative.

The narrative goes something like this: In the 1990s, the West took advantage of an emasculated Russia, using oligarchs to strip the country of its wealth. Russia is encircled, with NATO perched on its borders. The colored revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia were funded and engineered by the West. Pro-Western neighbors are traitors, ungrateful for Soviet liberation from the Nazis. But now, Russia, emboldened by oil and gas wealth, is back on the world stage. Russia was humiliated, but will never be humiliated again. As the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on May 31, “it’s a rare day that the average Russian citizen doesn’t hear warnings about another Cold War or World War III. Citizens are informed of how the United States and NATO are establishing military bases all along Russia’s perimeter.”

This narrative of avenged humiliation is simplistic and undemanding, a comfort zone where outsiders are to blame for Russia’s ills, where there is no scrupulous moral examination of the communist past or the increasingly authoritarian present. And it is understandable why so many Russians, who lived for so long with perhaps the greatest tale of all, Marxism, are receptive to this new narrative. Humiliation hurts. In the 1990s, Russians couldn’t afford to join the country club. They kept the greens and took out the trash. But with more than 6 percent economic growth, a burgeoning middle class and a leader respected, if not feared internationally, they’re back. Now they’re paid-up members, on the golf course, crowding the bar area, and ordering tray after tray of gin slings. Russians credit Putin with this. And it is this, and the economic growth, that explains his continually high approval ratings of more than 70 percent.

But like every good narrative, there is an element of the fantastical. In Guillermo del Toro’s recent film, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Ofelia constructs her magical kingdom to shield her from the horrors of fascist Spain. In Putin’s Russia, the delusions of grandeur, or of national rebirth, serve the same purpose: They comfort but, in the long-term, they will not sustain. Oil prices won’t stay high forever and the Russian economy has not diversified enough. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor and a looming population crisis. Freedoms are rapidly being eroded, with essentially a one-party system; supporters of the political opposition are beaten on the streets.

Political systems often collapse when the narrative diverges so widely from the reality. And that is Russia’s worry; that is what has commentators gingerly making parallels between Putin’s Russia and Weimar Germany. But for now, it appears to be working, and we can expect more of the same in 2007. To avoid a chaotic and damaging transfer of power next year, the Kremlin will continue to shore up its support at home with posturing abroad. No doubt, the narrative will be further fleshed out and refined, with new players, new villains, and if Putin chooses a successor, even a new hero.

Andrew Wilson, an academic at University College London, predicts the “animating” narratives in Russia’s election year are likely to be the “threat of extreme nationalism or the threat of Islamic terrorism.” It is also possible that more of Russia’s neighbors could have their gas cut off, their Web sites hacked, or their products boycotted. Or perhaps the Kremlin will spin a yarn about the threat of another colored revolution, this time in Russia. The Rose and Orange revolutions were just dry runs, spin doctors will say. Now the United States, armed with its missile-defense shield, is ready for the big one.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Labyrinth

A reader points La Russophobe to the following column in the Chicago Tribune by Luke Allnutt, an editor at the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Note how easily the analogy to Josef Goebbels. Once again, the people of Russia are descending into darkness and ignorance — but let’s not forget that this time they are doing it willingly, with their eyes wide open.

Putin’s Labyrinth

The behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin has left politicians and diplomats scratching their heads. Last week, Putin threatened to point his missiles at Europe; now, at the Group of Eight summit in Germany, he says he wouldn’t mind a joint U.S.-Russia anti-missile radar base, as long as it was sited in Azerbaijan rather than the Czech Republic.

The spat over the missile shield is the latest in a long line of dramas that are best understood not as part of a coherent Russian foreign policy, but rather as choreographed scenes intended for domestic consumption.

It was Josef Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, who once remarked “we must create the image of the enemy.” In a year that will see parliamentary elections in Russia and the likely anointing of Putin’s successor, that is exactly what the Kremlin is doing.

First, it was the Georgians, when, last fall, a routine spying row, which usually would have been handled quietly by diplomats, turned into a war with expulsions and bans on Georgian wine. Then, in April, after the removal of a Soviet World War II monument, a Russian delegation made a very public dash to Estonia. Russian television denounced Estonians as unreconstructed fascists. The Putin-loyal Nashi movement attacked diplomats and then hacked Web sites. Such events are only really significant when taken together as the building blocks in Russia’s great new narrative.

The narrative goes something like this: In the 1990s, the West took advantage of an emasculated Russia, using oligarchs to strip the country of its wealth. Russia is encircled, with NATO perched on its borders. The colored revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia were funded and engineered by the West. Pro-Western neighbors are traitors, ungrateful for Soviet liberation from the Nazis. But now, Russia, emboldened by oil and gas wealth, is back on the world stage. Russia was humiliated, but will never be humiliated again. As the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on May 31, “it’s a rare day that the average Russian citizen doesn’t hear warnings about another Cold War or World War III. Citizens are informed of how the United States and NATO are establishing military bases all along Russia’s perimeter.”

This narrative of avenged humiliation is simplistic and undemanding, a comfort zone where outsiders are to blame for Russia’s ills, where there is no scrupulous moral examination of the communist past or the increasingly authoritarian present. And it is understandable why so many Russians, who lived for so long with perhaps the greatest tale of all, Marxism, are receptive to this new narrative. Humiliation hurts. In the 1990s, Russians couldn’t afford to join the country club. They kept the greens and took out the trash. But with more than 6 percent economic growth, a burgeoning middle class and a leader respected, if not feared internationally, they’re back. Now they’re paid-up members, on the golf course, crowding the bar area, and ordering tray after tray of gin slings. Russians credit Putin with this. And it is this, and the economic growth, that explains his continually high approval ratings of more than 70 percent.

But like every good narrative, there is an element of the fantastical. In Guillermo del Toro’s recent film, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Ofelia constructs her magical kingdom to shield her from the horrors of fascist Spain. In Putin’s Russia, the delusions of grandeur, or of national rebirth, serve the same purpose: They comfort but, in the long-term, they will not sustain. Oil prices won’t stay high forever and the Russian economy has not diversified enough. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor and a looming population crisis. Freedoms are rapidly being eroded, with essentially a one-party system; supporters of the political opposition are beaten on the streets.

Political systems often collapse when the narrative diverges so widely from the reality. And that is Russia’s worry; that is what has commentators gingerly making parallels between Putin’s Russia and Weimar Germany. But for now, it appears to be working, and we can expect more of the same in 2007. To avoid a chaotic and damaging transfer of power next year, the Kremlin will continue to shore up its support at home with posturing abroad. No doubt, the narrative will be further fleshed out and refined, with new players, new villains, and if Putin chooses a successor, even a new hero.

Andrew Wilson, an academic at University College London, predicts the “animating” narratives in Russia’s election year are likely to be the “threat of extreme nationalism or the threat of Islamic terrorism.” It is also possible that more of Russia’s neighbors could have their gas cut off, their Web sites hacked, or their products boycotted. Or perhaps the Kremlin will spin a yarn about the threat of another colored revolution, this time in Russia. The Rose and Orange revolutions were just dry runs, spin doctors will say. Now the United States, armed with its missile-defense shield, is ready for the big one.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Labyrinth

A reader points La Russophobe to the following column in the Chicago Tribune by Luke Allnutt, an editor at the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Note how easily the analogy to Josef Goebbels. Once again, the people of Russia are descending into darkness and ignorance — but let’s not forget that this time they are doing it willingly, with their eyes wide open.

Putin’s Labyrinth

The behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin has left politicians and diplomats scratching their heads. Last week, Putin threatened to point his missiles at Europe; now, at the Group of Eight summit in Germany, he says he wouldn’t mind a joint U.S.-Russia anti-missile radar base, as long as it was sited in Azerbaijan rather than the Czech Republic.

The spat over the missile shield is the latest in a long line of dramas that are best understood not as part of a coherent Russian foreign policy, but rather as choreographed scenes intended for domestic consumption.

It was Josef Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, who once remarked “we must create the image of the enemy.” In a year that will see parliamentary elections in Russia and the likely anointing of Putin’s successor, that is exactly what the Kremlin is doing.

First, it was the Georgians, when, last fall, a routine spying row, which usually would have been handled quietly by diplomats, turned into a war with expulsions and bans on Georgian wine. Then, in April, after the removal of a Soviet World War II monument, a Russian delegation made a very public dash to Estonia. Russian television denounced Estonians as unreconstructed fascists. The Putin-loyal Nashi movement attacked diplomats and then hacked Web sites. Such events are only really significant when taken together as the building blocks in Russia’s great new narrative.

The narrative goes something like this: In the 1990s, the West took advantage of an emasculated Russia, using oligarchs to strip the country of its wealth. Russia is encircled, with NATO perched on its borders. The colored revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia were funded and engineered by the West. Pro-Western neighbors are traitors, ungrateful for Soviet liberation from the Nazis. But now, Russia, emboldened by oil and gas wealth, is back on the world stage. Russia was humiliated, but will never be humiliated again. As the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on May 31, “it’s a rare day that the average Russian citizen doesn’t hear warnings about another Cold War or World War III. Citizens are informed of how the United States and NATO are establishing military bases all along Russia’s perimeter.”

This narrative of avenged humiliation is simplistic and undemanding, a comfort zone where outsiders are to blame for Russia’s ills, where there is no scrupulous moral examination of the communist past or the increasingly authoritarian present. And it is understandable why so many Russians, who lived for so long with perhaps the greatest tale of all, Marxism, are receptive to this new narrative. Humiliation hurts. In the 1990s, Russians couldn’t afford to join the country club. They kept the greens and took out the trash. But with more than 6 percent economic growth, a burgeoning middle class and a leader respected, if not feared internationally, they’re back. Now they’re paid-up members, on the golf course, crowding the bar area, and ordering tray after tray of gin slings. Russians credit Putin with this. And it is this, and the economic growth, that explains his continually high approval ratings of more than 70 percent.

But like every good narrative, there is an element of the fantastical. In Guillermo del Toro’s recent film, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Ofelia constructs her magical kingdom to shield her from the horrors of fascist Spain. In Putin’s Russia, the delusions of grandeur, or of national rebirth, serve the same purpose: They comfort but, in the long-term, they will not sustain. Oil prices won’t stay high forever and the Russian economy has not diversified enough. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor and a looming population crisis. Freedoms are rapidly being eroded, with essentially a one-party system; supporters of the political opposition are beaten on the streets.

Political systems often collapse when the narrative diverges so widely from the reality. And that is Russia’s worry; that is what has commentators gingerly making parallels between Putin’s Russia and Weimar Germany. But for now, it appears to be working, and we can expect more of the same in 2007. To avoid a chaotic and damaging transfer of power next year, the Kremlin will continue to shore up its support at home with posturing abroad. No doubt, the narrative will be further fleshed out and refined, with new players, new villains, and if Putin chooses a successor, even a new hero.

Andrew Wilson, an academic at University College London, predicts the “animating” narratives in Russia’s election year are likely to be the “threat of extreme nationalism or the threat of Islamic terrorism.” It is also possible that more of Russia’s neighbors could have their gas cut off, their Web sites hacked, or their products boycotted. Or perhaps the Kremlin will spin a yarn about the threat of another colored revolution, this time in Russia. The Rose and Orange revolutions were just dry runs, spin doctors will say. Now the United States, armed with its missile-defense shield, is ready for the big one.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Labyrinth

A reader points La Russophobe to the following column in the Chicago Tribune by Luke Allnutt, an editor at the Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Note how easily the analogy to Josef Goebbels. Once again, the people of Russia are descending into darkness and ignorance — but let’s not forget that this time they are doing it willingly, with their eyes wide open.

Putin’s Labyrinth

The behavior of Russian President Vladimir Putin has left politicians and diplomats scratching their heads. Last week, Putin threatened to point his missiles at Europe; now, at the Group of Eight summit in Germany, he says he wouldn’t mind a joint U.S.-Russia anti-missile radar base, as long as it was sited in Azerbaijan rather than the Czech Republic.

The spat over the missile shield is the latest in a long line of dramas that are best understood not as part of a coherent Russian foreign policy, but rather as choreographed scenes intended for domestic consumption.

It was Josef Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister, who once remarked “we must create the image of the enemy.” In a year that will see parliamentary elections in Russia and the likely anointing of Putin’s successor, that is exactly what the Kremlin is doing.

First, it was the Georgians, when, last fall, a routine spying row, which usually would have been handled quietly by diplomats, turned into a war with expulsions and bans on Georgian wine. Then, in April, after the removal of a Soviet World War II monument, a Russian delegation made a very public dash to Estonia. Russian television denounced Estonians as unreconstructed fascists. The Putin-loyal Nashi movement attacked diplomats and then hacked Web sites. Such events are only really significant when taken together as the building blocks in Russia’s great new narrative.

The narrative goes something like this: In the 1990s, the West took advantage of an emasculated Russia, using oligarchs to strip the country of its wealth. Russia is encircled, with NATO perched on its borders. The colored revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia were funded and engineered by the West. Pro-Western neighbors are traitors, ungrateful for Soviet liberation from the Nazis. But now, Russia, emboldened by oil and gas wealth, is back on the world stage. Russia was humiliated, but will never be humiliated again. As the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote on May 31, “it’s a rare day that the average Russian citizen doesn’t hear warnings about another Cold War or World War III. Citizens are informed of how the United States and NATO are establishing military bases all along Russia’s perimeter.”

This narrative of avenged humiliation is simplistic and undemanding, a comfort zone where outsiders are to blame for Russia’s ills, where there is no scrupulous moral examination of the communist past or the increasingly authoritarian present. And it is understandable why so many Russians, who lived for so long with perhaps the greatest tale of all, Marxism, are receptive to this new narrative. Humiliation hurts. In the 1990s, Russians couldn’t afford to join the country club. They kept the greens and took out the trash. But with more than 6 percent economic growth, a burgeoning middle class and a leader respected, if not feared internationally, they’re back. Now they’re paid-up members, on the golf course, crowding the bar area, and ordering tray after tray of gin slings. Russians credit Putin with this. And it is this, and the economic growth, that explains his continually high approval ratings of more than 70 percent.

But like every good narrative, there is an element of the fantastical. In Guillermo del Toro’s recent film, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Ofelia constructs her magical kingdom to shield her from the horrors of fascist Spain. In Putin’s Russia, the delusions of grandeur, or of national rebirth, serve the same purpose: They comfort but, in the long-term, they will not sustain. Oil prices won’t stay high forever and the Russian economy has not diversified enough. There is an increasing gap between rich and poor and a looming population crisis. Freedoms are rapidly being eroded, with essentially a one-party system; supporters of the political opposition are beaten on the streets.

Political systems often collapse when the narrative diverges so widely from the reality. And that is Russia’s worry; that is what has commentators gingerly making parallels between Putin’s Russia and Weimar Germany. But for now, it appears to be working, and we can expect more of the same in 2007. To avoid a chaotic and damaging transfer of power next year, the Kremlin will continue to shore up its support at home with posturing abroad. No doubt, the narrative will be further fleshed out and refined, with new players, new villains, and if Putin chooses a successor, even a new hero.

Andrew Wilson, an academic at University College London, predicts the “animating” narratives in Russia’s election year are likely to be the “threat of extreme nationalism or the threat of Islamic terrorism.” It is also possible that more of Russia’s neighbors could have their gas cut off, their Web sites hacked, or their products boycotted. Or perhaps the Kremlin will spin a yarn about the threat of another colored revolution, this time in Russia. The Rose and Orange revolutions were just dry runs, spin doctors will say. Now the United States, armed with its missile-defense shield, is ready for the big one.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Annals of the Russophile Sociopath: Vladimir Frolov

Writing for that beacon of Russophile propaganda Russia Profile, Russophile slug Vladimir Frolov, director of the “National Laboratory for Foreign Policy”, a Moscow-based think tank, and a former diplomatic employee of the Kremlin, dredges up all the ridiculous Russophilic lies about Alexander Litvinenko. Let’s make him look like the nasty little clown he is, shall we? We’d publish a picture of ridiculous face but it turns out he’s such a bigshot that we can’t find a single image of him on Google images.

Acquitting Russia

LR: Note well, dear reader, that Judge Frolov has already found Russia innocent before the trial has begun, even as he harshly attacks others for finding Russia guilty before the trial has begun. Neo-soviet hypocrisy knows no bounds.

British prosecutors announced in May that they had sufficient evidence to charge Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security agent who died Nov. 23 after being poisoned by the radioactive substance polonium-210. The British government called for Lugovoi’s extradition to the UK to face charges and a likely trial. Lugovoi called the decision to charge him politically motivated, and Russian prosecutors said they would not extradite him to Britain on the legal grounds that the Russian Constitution does not allow for extraditing Russian nationals to foreign countries, and requires them instead to be tried in Russia.

LR: He ignores the fact that the Russian Constitution contains no such restriction. Note, however, how he carefully avoids stating that the Kremlin is right.

On the eve of the G8 summit in Germany, President Vladimir Putin called the British charges against Lugovoi unsubstantiated and the whole affair ridiculous. Lugovoi himself convened a press conference in which he accused the British intelligence service of setting him up in the poisoning of Litvinenko’s poisoning because, according to Lugovoi, British agents tried to recruit him to gather compromising material on the Russian leadership, including President Putin himself.

LR: Putin says the charges against Berezovsky are serious but the charges against Lugovoi are ridiculous. Isn’t that interesting?

Russia would be wrong to dismiss the British charges against Lugovoi out of hand. The matter is extremely serious and the potential long term implications for Russia and its international reputation are grave. The Lugovoi case should be thoroughly investigated on its own merits, and Russia has a direct interest in establishing the truth about Litvinenko’s murder. There is one serious reason why Russian prosecutors need to move as fast and as vigorously as possible in investigating the British charges against Lugovoi: The need to clear the Russian secret services, and by implication the Russian government, and even President Putin himself, of any involvement in Litvinenko’s murder. As long as the Russian prosecutors avoid assessing seriously the charges against Lugovoi and he continues to play the part of a national hero, wrongfully accused by an unfriendly foreign power, the implicit impression in the world would be that the Russian government is protecting Lugovoi because he acted on its orders.

LR: Note well that he does not say “investigate the secret services” he says “clear them.” He suggests that we allow the Russian government to decide whether its own secret services are guilty of political murder and then accept the results on faith. In other words, he’s stark raving neo-Soviet mad.

Treating Lugovoi now as a kind of hero is against Russia’s national interests. It creates a serious presumption of the Russian government’s involvement in Litvinenko’s murder and makes credible the outlandish charges in the Western media that Putin might have either directly ordered or implicitly encouraged Litvinenko’s killing. These charges, of course, are patently absurd. A targeted assassination is a high-risk intelligence operation that puts valuable intelligence sources at risk and jeopardizes the country’s foreign policy interests. This practice exists even in “mature democracies” like the United States where it is established by law and secret presidential directives.

LR: Hmm . . . we thought it was Putin who said the charges were silly. Now suddenly Frolov says so too, before the trial. Is Frolov speaking for Putin? Is this a propaganda tract? Vladimir Putin has a secret resume that Frolov knows nothing about, and spent his whole life in the KGB. What’s so strange about the possibility that he could order the killing of an enemy of the state? Many Russians would condemn him if he failed to do so.

The value of the assassination target should be extremely high to justify such a risky action – Osama Bin Laden, Shamil Basayev or former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was blown up in his car by Russian agents in Qatar, clearly qualify. Litvinenko did not. He was essentially – nothing; he was a failure masquerading as a freedom fighter who had not come across anybody or anything he was not willing to betray for a price.

LR: Do you believe this? Is this man really saying that if something doesn’t make sense, RUSSIA wouldn’t do it? Did it make “sense” for Nikita Krushchev to take off his shoe at the UN? Did it make “sense” for Stalin to make a deal with Hitler and murder 20 million of his own citizens? Is it “sensible” to elect a proud KGB spy after the KGB destroyed the USSR? Is it “sensible” to give 70% approval to a president who is presiding over the loss of 1 million people from the population each year? Exactly this kind of “sense” explains the destruction of the USSR at the hands of people just like Mr. Frolov.

The Russian intelligence has demonstrated its ability to find more effective ways to bring traitors to justice – in 2001, Alexander Zaporozhsky who betrayed FBI agent Robert Hansen, was lured back to Russia, arrested and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The Russian intelligence service would never use polonium-210 as its weapon of choice in a targeted assassination. The stuff, although lethal, works slowly and is highly traceable. A bullet from an unknown gun would be much more effective and much more circumspect. Litvinenko’s death was slow and theatrical and, once the source of poisoning was established, it took some straightforward forensic work to zero in on a suspect.

LR: Who says that Russian intelligence wanted their acts to be secret? Who says they didn’t want to send a clear message to all those who might “betray” Russia as to the horrible consequences of doing so? Is this maniac really suggesting, on the other hand, that Russians can’t make stupid mistakes? Is he that drunk on oil fumes? If the Russian government has so many “other means” why doesn’t it use them to get Berezovksy? Why does it need to beg the British government for help? It’s clear that Mr. Frolov’s “brain” is the product of a warped neo-Soviet education.

What makes the charges against Lugovoi so serious is that he left so many traces of polonium-210 everywhere he went. He claims to be a victim of polonium poisoning himself. Perhaps, but the evidence indicates it is also likely that he himself was in possession of a certain amount of polonium-210.

LR: Do you note how he makes absolutely no reference to any such specific “evidence” or its source? Pure propaganda. Those who have dared to associate themselves with Russia Profile should be called to answer for this outrage.

If so, the crucial questions that need to be answered by the Russian prosecutors are: What did he intend to do with it? Where did he get it? And did he know he was dealing with polonium? There are basically two plausible answers to the first question: Lugovoi either planned to sell polonium to Litvinenko or wanted to kill him with it. Litvinenko was known to be desperately in need of money, sometimes working as a driver for former Chechen minister Akhmed Zakayev, whom Russia wants extradited from the UK. Venturing into an illegal trade in nuclear materials could have appealed to him as a relatively quick way to make serious money. Polonium makes an ideal dirty bomb – it is not traceable by gamma-ray detectors installed in airports and government facilities, it causes internal alpha-particle contamination and is highly lethal if inhaled or ingested.

LR: What he’s doing is telling the Kremlin how they can frame Litvinenko for his own murder. In other words, he’s a great neo-Soviet patriot (read: traitor to Russia’s future, more dangerous than any foreign foe).

Litvinenko was known to have ties with Chechen separatists. Perhaps he was trying to make a buck by providing terrorists with a murder weapon. That would have made Lugovoi at least an accomplice in terrorist activity – a gruesome crime – but it does not make him the murderer of Litvinenko. In this scenario, the whole affair becomes an accident, Litvinenko and Lugovoi simply did not know how to handle the toxic stuff safely (or Lugovoi might not have been aware of the nature of his cargo at all and handled it recklessly, which perhaps explains the contamination in the hotel room where he stayed with his family).

LR: Chechnya. Of course! What a surprise. Why, the next thing you know, he’ll blame the United States for Litvinenko’s killing . . .

Polonium is a commercial commodity used in film production. It is available online in the United States. It is true that Russia is the world’s principal manufacturer of commercial polonium. It also sells 99 percent of its production to the United States. But that alone does not make Russia the source of polonium that killed Litvinenko, as it is not that hard to get elsewhere.

LR: See?

It is the fact that the polonium trail left by Lugovoi in Britain originated at a flight from Moscow makes at least half the case for the material being of Russian origin. In Russia, polonium is produced at high-security government facilities and any loss of the toxic substance would be a very serious breach of the security system. An intense investigation at the government facilities producing polonium to check the possibility of a diversion is the minimum of what is required and is highly important for Russia’s credibility as a responsible nuclear supplier. A diversion would have been a violation of Russian international obligations. But again, the polonium (even if it were of Russian origin) might have been purchased in other countries and simply shipped to Russia. The question is: Who planned such a sophisticated operation?

LR: It’s a double smokescreen, you have to give this maniac credit. Who says it’s hard to get Russian polonium? Maybe it’s quite easy, after all Russia is a corrupt mess of chickens with their heads cut off. It’s quite convenient, of course, to kill two birds with one stone, and imply that Russia has such strong control that only a “sophisticated operation” could breach them. But what’s the factual basis for such a claim? He offers not one shred of it. Frankly, it might well be that the greatest horror to come out of the British trial of Lugovoi would be Russia’s total lack of control over its nukes, relegating it to third-world status and ejection from the G-8. That would be far worse than the Kremlin’s willingness to commit acts of political murder. No wonder he’s so worked up!

If the intention was to kill who would have ordered the killing? The choice of the target and the choice of the weapon clearly indicate that it was someone who wanted desperately to embarrass and even compromise Russia as a state and Putin as Russia’s leader, someone who had an agenda to poison the relationship between Russia and the West. Boris Berezovsky and Leonid Nevzlin clearly qualify on this count. The British prosecutors never seriously looked into this lead, figuring it would be suicidal for Berezovsky to stage such a publicized murder in the country that granted him asylum. Perhaps, but Lugovoi’s long service as chief personal security to Berezovsky and their long-term relationship (Lugovoi was even jailed briefly in Russia in late 1990s for his work for Berezovsky) make the Berezovsky connection a relevant target for investigation for Russian prosecutors.

LR: So it’s impossible that a proud KGB spy would order Litvinenko, a KGB critic and defector, killed. But it’s quite possible an exiled oligarch who hated the KGB and befriended Litvinenko would do so, even though it would provide a basis for the oligarch to be extradited and executed (note above how Frolov has claimed it’s easy to catch the Polonium killer). Again, it’s exactly this kind of “thinking” that destroyed the USSR, telling its leaders they could compete with the USA and win. Did Berezovsky also kill Politkovskaya, and Yushenkov and Shchekochikhin and Girenko? If so, shouldn’t the Kremlin be condemned for utter incompetence for failing to apprehend him sooner?

Are there people in Russia willing to go to such extremes to embarrass President Putin and make him an international pariah? Some analysts suggested it might be in the interest of the “party of the third term” – a group of security officials who want to drag Putin into violating the Constitution and agreeing to stay on as president for a third term, or maybe even for life. Poisoning Putin’s relationship with the West would seem to them a cost-effective means for making Putin change his mind. It is difficult to imagine that such an operation could have been conducted in complete secrecy by the rogue elements in Russia’s security agencies. This would be Russia’s version of Iran-Contra, only worse – it would be an operation against the country’s interests and the country’s elected leader. It would have been a coup. The intelligence bureaucracy is the most risk-averse bureaucracy in the world, and it would have found the idea of going after Litvinenko a ridiculous folly. It would have leaked the info and Putin loyalists would have heard of it. Could a group of vigilante former intelligence officers, be behind this? Perhaps, but the motive is not clear and the choice of weapon looks exotic.

LR: He doesn’t have the courage to name one single person who might be part of such a conspiracy, and he himself says it is not credible, yet he spends a huge amount of words discussing it and spends no time at all looking the possibility that the KGB was ordered to kill its own defector.

Lugovoi’s public explanation of the affair does not look plausible either. The idea of recruiting Lugovoi as an intelligence asset is laughable. Why recruit a man who has already been in the crosshairs of the FSB for his ties to Boris Berezovsky? He is a walking target for a Russian counterintelligence operation and could be under constant surveillance, to say nothing of the fact that he has no access to government secrets. He would be a useless clandestine asset and a highly risky one at that. The MI6 are not a bunch of amateurs. The suggestion by Lugovoi that British intelligence was involved in poisoning Litvinenko with polonium is absurd. Even on a theoretical level, killing a British citizen on British soil would have required a direct authorization from the prime minister and a public scandal that would have brought down the entire British government. Lugovoi has not strengthened his case with this story.

LR: This is where the propagandist tries to make himself look credible by attacking the pro-Russia side for a bit. At the end, of course, for a second or two. Then back to the point.

A lot hangs on the Russian prosecutors’ ability and willingness to dig their teeth in the British charges against Andrei Lugovoi and their readiness to make a thorough investigation of all leads in this highly politicized case. It is extremely important to put to rest any speculation that Russia as a state had anything to do with Litvinenko’s murder. Their job is not to acquit Lugovoi, it is to clear Russia.

LR: Again, only to clear Russia, not to investigate the facts and indict Russia if necessary. That’s “digging in your teeth”? Hmmmm . . . No mention of the long string of murders starting with Galina Starovoitova that has shadowed Putin from his first steps into the Kremlin. No mention of his crackdown on the press, no mention of his abolition of local elections, not a single word about his background as a spy. This is what passes for truth and justice in the neo-Soviet Union, as Russia sinks slowly into an abyss from which there is no return.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !