September 28, 2007 — Contents

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 28 CONTENTS

(1) The Neo-Soviet Kremlin Liquidates its Rivals

(2) Gorby Blasts Putin

(3) On Putin’s Sham Economy

(4) Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

(5) Georgia Blasts Russia at the UN

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

The Neo-Soviet Kremlin Liquidates its Rivals

The Washington Post reports that, just as this blog (and others) predicted it would do when the law was enacted, the Kremlin has turned its so-called “Law Against Extremism” not against terrorists but against its own political rivals, acting just as it did in Soviet times by seeking to arrest and jail them. It began with Mikhail Khodorkovsky and will continue until either the Kremlin is stopped by force or it has liquidated every single person who dares question its policies. Isn’t it ironic that “President” Putin pretends to be so brave, such a he-man, and yet he fears verbal combat with his rivals and needs to liquidate them with crude, brute physical force? Seems to LR more like the action of a coward. Similarly, Brezhnev was terrified of Solzhentisyn and Sakharov.

Andrei Piontkovsky, one of Russia’s most pungent political commentators and a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute in Washington, was accused in court Tuesday of inciting violence against Russians, Jews and Americans as well as insulting and stirring feelings of inferiority in all three groups.

A Moscow district court opened hearings Tuesday on a charge by prosecutors that two of Piontkovsky’s books — “Unloved Country” and “For the Motherland! For Abramovich! Fire!” — can be labeled “extremist” under a law ostensibly designed to stamp out racism and xenophobia. The title of his second book refers in part to Roman Abramovich, Russia’s richest tycoon.

Piontkovsky, 67, a mathematician and arms control expert, turned to political writing in the 1990s. A leading figure in the opposition party Yabloko, he is a scathing critic of the rule of President Vladimir Putin, which he has described as a malevolent blend of authoritarianism and “bandit capitalism.”

“This whole case is absurd,” Piontkovsky said outside the courtroom. “It’s very primitive. Stalin’s prosecutors were sophisticated intellectuals compared to these people. . . . And isn’t it also wonderful that the Russian government has begun to protect the feelings of Americans? That’s a first.”

In July, Putin signed amendments to the country’s five-year-old law against extremism that expanded the definition of criminal activity to include such activities as the “public slander of public officials” and “humiliating national pride.” Human rights activists and opposition politicians have said the expanded law, pushed through parliament by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, is designed to crush legitimate criticism of the Kremlin and its allies. The legislation was passed after officials dropped an effort to charge chess grandmaster and Putin critic Garry Kasparov with “extremism” following protest rallies that were violently broken up by police in April. The law at that time was not broad enough for the charges to stick. Critics of the revised law charge that its provisions are so vague that authorities can now easily use it to stifle dissent and control independent journalism, rather than to fight racism. They fear that officials will use the law as a political tool in the run-up to parliamentary elections in December and the presidential election in March. “What we are witnessing here today is a consequence and demonstration of the atmosphere that the authorities have built in society, an atmosphere of persecution of political opponents and critics and those who think differently,” said Yuri Schmidt, Piontkovsky’s attorney, who has also represented imprisoned tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. “Most probably the prosecutors act without a direct order from the Kremlin, but that is an example of how they understand their function in society,” he added. “They believe that they should guard the power totally, and if there is even the slightest manifestation of disagreement with the regime they should be on alert.”

In recent months, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov, a consistent critic of the authorities, and political analyst Vladimir Pribylovsky, who was writing a book on Putin, have also been investigated for alleged extremist activity. A newspaper in Saratov, southeast of Moscow, is being investigated for extremism and is facing closure after it ran a satirical photo of Putin in August. The image depicted Putin as a character from a popular Soviet TV series in which a Russian, working under the pseudonym Otto von Stirlitz, infiltrates the SS in Nazi Germany. The photo ran with a caption that coyly referred to the possibility that Putin might serve a third consecutive term. The Russian constitution requires that he step down in March. Prosecutors apparently objected to the fact that Putin is seen in Stirlitz’s SS uniform, although most Russians view the character as a dramatic hero. “It’s not black PR or anything, we simply wanted to entertain our readers,” Sergei Mikhailov, chief editor of the Saratov Reporter, said in a telephone interview. “Everybody understands the joke.”

Prosecutors in the southern city of Krasnodar, acting on the instructions of the FSB, a successor agency to the KGB, first brought charges against Piontkovsky. But the charges were thrown out when a judge ruled that there was no evidence of extremist incitement in the books. Piontkovsky’s Yabloko party had distributed the books in the region, and the FSB threatened to shut down the party’s local office unless it stopped handing them out. Piontkovsky’s books are almost impossible to find in bookstores here. Prosecutors in Moscow subsequently applied to have the books deemed extremist, which would open Piontkovsky to criminal prosecution and could lead to the banning of the Yabloko party for extremist activity, Schmidt said.

On Tuesday, the prosecutor, who declined to otherwise discuss the case or give her name, cited two expert reports, one “linguistic” and one “social-psychological,” as proof that Piontkovsky’s prose was extremist. “The social-psychological report says that the book contains statements inciting inferiority among people of Jewish, American, Russian and other nationalities,” she said, referring to “Unloved Country.” “Based on the evaluation reports, the book is recognized as containing features of extremism.” Schmidt asked the prosecutor to “please quote those statements, please give us concrete examples of the statements that you’ve just mentioned. Could you please give us references and page numbers of the book where those statements are.”

“I am not an expert and I do not have a personal opinion,” said the prosecutor, a response that drew open scorn from the defense attorney.

The reports cite two small sections of the book as evidence of extremism. In one report, Piontkovsky is accused of extremism because he creates a fictional conversation in which Putin calls some apparent critics “shameful goats.” That report also alleges that Piontkovsky’s use of the words “incite hatred” was itself an incitement to hatred. What the report failed to mention, according to Alexander Kobrinsky, a professor of philology at St. Petersburg State University and an expert witness for the defense, is that Piontkovsky was actually quoting Putin when he used the words “incite hatred.”

“Any features of extremism should be demonstrated by concrete sentences or statements,” Kobrinsky said. “There is nothing like that. . . . Unlike the experts, I read Piontkovsky’s books.”
Neither the prosecutor nor the reports she cited explained why Piontkovsky’s work incites hatred against Americans and Jews. Piontkovsky said he believes it relates to a section in one book where he criticized a Russian politician who said the radical Palestinian group Hamas is not recognized as a terrorist organization by Russia because it doesn’t commit terrorist acts in Russia. “Of course, they’re not terrorists because they only kill Jews and Americans,” Piontkovsky wrote sarcastically.

Judge Svetlana Klimova ruled that she needed another expert opinion on the books before deciding if they are extremist. She ordered the Russian Federal Center of Legal Expertise to carry it out. The center is part of the Justice Ministry.

Blogger/author Mark MacKinnon condemns Putin as follows:

Forget about the 10,000 skinheads, Rodina and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. It turns out that the real extremists in Russia are people like the nice man in the photograph, Andrei Piontkovsky.

Piontkovsky has been charged with extremism in connection with two of his books, “Unloved Country” and “For the Motherland! For Abramovich! Fire!” (He also has another book, translated into English called “Another Look Into Putin’s Soul” that you can buy here. Some might take the fact that the Kremlin doesn’t want you to read it as recommendation enough…)

The idea that Piontkovsky, a member of the liberal Yabloko party, is an extremist is absurd. He is a right-winger, yes, deeply opposed to the Putin regime, for sure, and someone with thick ties to the American establishment (I met him last year at the Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank here in Washington D.C.). But none of those things should be illegal in a country like Russia that still pretends at being a democracy.

The fact that he’s been charged with inciting hatred against Russians, Americans and Jews deepens the farce. Piontkovsky, it should be noted, is a Russian Jew who spends a good chunk of his time in America. There are few people in the world less likely to hate Russians, Americans and Jews. At his trial in Moscow, the prosecutor couldn’t even cite which passages of Piontkovsky’s writing were doing the inciting.

Simply put, Andrei Piontkovsky is in trouble because he’s one of the Kremlin’s most vocal and effective critics. He also speaks and writes in English, which made him a favourite of the Western media.

Russia’s recently amended extremism laws (which were broadened this year after charges against opposition leader Garry Kasparov failed to stick) are nothing but tool for suppressing political opponents. According to a story in today’s Washington Post, other people being investigated for “promoting extremism” right now are Vladimir Pribylovsky, another liberal (and quotable) favourite of the Western press, and human-rights advocate Lev Ponomarev, who notably was among those who led the demonstrations that stopped the hard-line coup and brought about the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Like Piontkovsky, Pribylovsky had written extensively on the corruption of Russian democracy. Ponomarev’s most recent “crime” was to organize a day of mourning on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square (right in front of the KGB/FSB headquarters) for the victims of 2004 Beslan school massacre.

These are not extremists. These are people who dream of a different Russia than the one they currently live in.

In Putin’s Russia, that makes you an “extremist” just as it did in Stalin’s time. Meanwhile, the cowardly, craven, barbaric people of Russia stand idly by watching all this happen, not lifting a finger to stop it, just as was the case with Solzhenitisyn and Sakharov. How long before they start informing on their neighbors, just as in Soviet times? How can it be that they’ve learned so little from the collapse of the USSR?

Robert Amsterdam also rallies to support Piontovsky, a genuine Russian patriot who Russia treats the way it treats all true patriots: it tries to destroy them, and elevate treacherous goons like Vladmir Putin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky to positions of power.

And so it goes in Russia.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

September 28, 2007 — Contents

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 28 CONTENTS

(1) The Neo-Soviet Kremlin Liquidates its Rivals

(2) Gorby Blasts Putin

(3) On Putin’s Sham Economy

(4) Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

(5) Georgia Blasts Russia at the UN

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Gorby Blasts Putin

The Associated Press reports that even Gorby realizes how dangerous that malignant little troll in the Kremlin really is:

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned Wednesday against whitewashing the crimes of dictator Josef Stalin, stressing that Russia cannot move forward without facing the truth about its bloody past. In words that appeared aimed at President Vladimir Putin, Gorbachev also emphasized the need to pursue democracy. His remarks, less guarded than usual, came amid growing concern among Russia’s marginalized liberals that Putin’s government is recasting Stalin’s legacy to justify its own increasingly tight control.

The Stalin era is being portrayed as a “golden age,” said Gorbachev, whose 1980s “glasnost” campaign as the last Soviet president prompted stunning revelations about Stalin’s murderous policies.

“We must remember those who suffered, because it is a lesson for all of us — a lesson that many have not learned,” Gorbachev said at a discussion marking the 70th anniversary of the bloodiest year of Stalin’s Great Terror. “It is impossible to live in the present or build long-term plans for the future if the disease of forgetfulness afflicts the country and society, or at least certain sections of it,” he said. Rather than reckoning with one of the most traumatic episodes in Russian history, scholars and activists said during the discussion at Gorbachev’s charitable foundation and think tank, Putin’s government is reshaping that legacy for its own purposes. “It’s not just forgetfulness, not just a lack of cultural memory — what’s happening is a massive attack aimed at revising our memory,” said Irina Shcherbakova of Memorial, a prominent non-governmental group dedicated to investigating Stalin’s repression.

As one of the signs that Stalin’s crimes are being swept under the rug, she said a teacher’s manual that suggests his actions were justified by the need to modernize the economy is being pushed on high schools nationwide. “Textbooks today are aimed not to ensure the memory (of Stalin’s abuses), but to push this memory to the distant periphery of the consciousness,” said Arseny Roginsky, also an official at Memorial.

Roginsky said that despite repeated requests, the state has done little or nothing to help establish the names of the millions killed under Stalin or the locations of their remains — only a fraction of which are known decades later, he said. More than 1.7 million people were arrested in 1937-38 by the Soviet security services alone [LR: Putin’s employer!], and at least 818,000 of them were shot, Roginsky said. But there is “decidedly no political will” on the government’s part to preserve a “national memory” of those abuses, he said, and he contrasted the atmosphere in Russia with the way Germany has acknowledged the Holocaust.

In central Berlin, he said, there are signposts pointing to Nazi concentration camp sites: “A child passes by and asks his mother, ‘What’s Dachau, what’s Buchenwald?’ That’s how national memory is preserved and passed down.”

In Moscow, he said, “There is not a single memorial plaque that says, ‘This person was a victim of the Terror.'”

Public interest in Soviet era crimes began to fade following the 1991 Soviet collapse, which plunged Russia into uncertainty and focused the attention of citizens on the country’s economic chaos. Since Putin came to power nearly eight years ago, however, Russia’s oil-fueled economy has grown steadily, giving its leaders more confidence. Putin has stressed the need for patriotism and pride, restored Soviet-era symbols such as the music for the national anthem, and has said repeatedly that Western portrayals of Russia and its history are too negative. In June, he told social studies teachers that no one should try to make Russia feel guilty about the Great Terror and that worse things happened in other countries, pointing to the U.S. atomic bombs dropped in Japan and its bombing of Vietnam.

Putin and his allies “have sympathies to that time and to that way of ruling the country,” liberal politician Grigory Yavlinsky said, referring to the Stalin era. But he warned that Russia would not thrive under an authoritarian system — “and in Russia, we now have an authoritarian system.”

Gorbachev, who rarely criticizes Putin, was more diplomatic. But he had harsh words for the secretive way Putin reshuffled the Cabinet earlier this month, echoing critics who said his maneuvering underscores the lack of popular input in running the country. “I was not satisfied with this,” Gorbachev said, suggesting it smacked of a return to the Soviet era. He warned against “freeing oneself from being under the control of the people,” and said government most be transparent. “We must do everything we can to ensure we take the path of democracy,” he said. “We must all keep in mind that it’s necessary to suffer for democracy, to support it and to take the democratic road.”

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Sham Economy

Writing in the Moscow Times Marshall I. Goldman, professor of economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College and senior scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center, and author of the forthcoming book The Rise of the Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia, exposes the fundamental fraud of the Russian pseudo-economy and the essential criminality of the Putin pseudo-government:

While most Russians have nothing but praise for what President Vladimir Putin has accomplished, the way he has handled the recent Cabinet shuffle raises the question as to who benefits more from this exercise, Putin or Russia?

Whether correct or not, it is easy to conclude that Putin is reluctant to yield power to a successor until the very last minute. Granted, he could easily have arranged to stay on for a full third term, so at least we should give him credit for insisting that it is best for Russia that he leave office after two terms as specified by the Constitution. Yet, the way he is handling the transition process and the personnel changes he has executed suggest a reluctance to become a lame duck any earlier than necessary. He seems more interested in keeping the public and his potential successors off balance than in doing what is best for the country.

As others have noted, it took Putin 10 days to make up his mind on the composition of this Cabinet, whereas with his earlier reorganizations he needed only three days to pick Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s Cabinet and then four days to pick the Cabinet of the rather colorless Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

The irony, of course, is that one of Putin’s stated reasons for making the shake-up now is that Fradkov’s Cabinet has become less efficient, evidently distracted by the forthcoming State Duma and presidential elections. The extra time Putin needed to make the most recent changes suggests that Putin himself has also become distracted and less efficient — thus, the need for more time.

There is no doubt that Putin has been good for Russia, at least for its economy. That is why his removal of German Gref as economic development and trade minister does seem to indicate a lack of gratitude. After all, Gref not only helped shepherd the economy to the solid 6 percent annual growth of Russia’s gross domestic product since 1999, he also helped to lead the transition team for Putin when he took over as president in 2000. True, Fradkov recently criticized Gref for some shortcomings, including his failure to win admission into the World Trade Organization.

Even more, Putin may have concluded that the country’s economic success is not so much due to Gref’s or anyone else’s efforts, but is almost entirely a result of the increase in oil and other commodity prices after 1999. If Boris Yeltsin had not left office on Dec. 31, 1999, when oil prices were $10 per barrel, and if he had the luxury of today’s $80 per barrel oil prices, even he would have looked like an economic genius. So it appears that Gref — like Putin — looks like a good economic manager thanks to fortuitous timing, not because of economic insight.

This is largely true, but it is not entirely fair — at least to Gref. While the spike in oil prices account for most of Russia’s recent economic success, it also must be said that Gref, along with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and the all-but-forgotten Andrei Illarionov, former adviser to Putin, do deserve credit, not so much for stimulating the economy, but for restraining it. All three, by insisting that most of the onrush of oil and gas export earnings be set aside for a rainy day in a stabilization fund, prevented an inflationary spiral that would have crippled the country’s monetary and fiscal system and would have led to an unrestrained money fight for pork and power.

This insistence on restraint required determination and self-confidence against a horde of politicians who were eager to win friends and votes and build public works monuments in their honor. On occasion, the three fiscal conservatives may have been too unyielding, but it is easy to see that if they had not taken a consistent stand against raiding the state treasury, a trickle of spending would have turned into a torrent. In other words, Russia’s economic recovery depended on fiscal restraint almost as much as it depended on the high price of oil and gas.

The question is what comes next, not just in the months between now and the election but afterward as well. There is no doubt that the new president will make further personnel changes. Even if Kudrin remains the sole survivor from the team of economic liberals in the new government, he will have a hard time maintaining fiscal restraint. It is one thing to hold back fiscal raiders when you have backup from supporters like Gref and Illarionov, but now they both are gone.

Even if Kudrin remains a deputy prime minister, it will be harder to continue this policy of restraint without that chorus — even a small one — echoing his words. Elvira Nabiullina’s promotion to Gref’s position as economic development and trade minister may help, but previous women ministers in Russia (with the exception of Catherine the Great) have not had much impact on government decision-making.

So by removing Gref — the most visible of those removed from the Cabinet — Putin may have put the country’s economic stability at risk. Orderly growth in the future may well depend on whether Kudrin can singlehandedly prevent his fellow ministers from raiding the treasury. If not, Russians will come to understand that Gref played a more important role in the country’s recovery than it may have seemed at the time.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Sham Economy

Writing in the Moscow Times Marshall I. Goldman, professor of economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College and senior scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center, and author of the forthcoming book The Rise of the Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia, exposes the fundamental fraud of the Russian pseudo-economy and the essential criminality of the Putin pseudo-government:

While most Russians have nothing but praise for what President Vladimir Putin has accomplished, the way he has handled the recent Cabinet shuffle raises the question as to who benefits more from this exercise, Putin or Russia?

Whether correct or not, it is easy to conclude that Putin is reluctant to yield power to a successor until the very last minute. Granted, he could easily have arranged to stay on for a full third term, so at least we should give him credit for insisting that it is best for Russia that he leave office after two terms as specified by the Constitution. Yet, the way he is handling the transition process and the personnel changes he has executed suggest a reluctance to become a lame duck any earlier than necessary. He seems more interested in keeping the public and his potential successors off balance than in doing what is best for the country.

As others have noted, it took Putin 10 days to make up his mind on the composition of this Cabinet, whereas with his earlier reorganizations he needed only three days to pick Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s Cabinet and then four days to pick the Cabinet of the rather colorless Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

The irony, of course, is that one of Putin’s stated reasons for making the shake-up now is that Fradkov’s Cabinet has become less efficient, evidently distracted by the forthcoming State Duma and presidential elections. The extra time Putin needed to make the most recent changes suggests that Putin himself has also become distracted and less efficient — thus, the need for more time.

There is no doubt that Putin has been good for Russia, at least for its economy. That is why his removal of German Gref as economic development and trade minister does seem to indicate a lack of gratitude. After all, Gref not only helped shepherd the economy to the solid 6 percent annual growth of Russia’s gross domestic product since 1999, he also helped to lead the transition team for Putin when he took over as president in 2000. True, Fradkov recently criticized Gref for some shortcomings, including his failure to win admission into the World Trade Organization.

Even more, Putin may have concluded that the country’s economic success is not so much due to Gref’s or anyone else’s efforts, but is almost entirely a result of the increase in oil and other commodity prices after 1999. If Boris Yeltsin had not left office on Dec. 31, 1999, when oil prices were $10 per barrel, and if he had the luxury of today’s $80 per barrel oil prices, even he would have looked like an economic genius. So it appears that Gref — like Putin — looks like a good economic manager thanks to fortuitous timing, not because of economic insight.

This is largely true, but it is not entirely fair — at least to Gref. While the spike in oil prices account for most of Russia’s recent economic success, it also must be said that Gref, along with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and the all-but-forgotten Andrei Illarionov, former adviser to Putin, do deserve credit, not so much for stimulating the economy, but for restraining it. All three, by insisting that most of the onrush of oil and gas export earnings be set aside for a rainy day in a stabilization fund, prevented an inflationary spiral that would have crippled the country’s monetary and fiscal system and would have led to an unrestrained money fight for pork and power.

This insistence on restraint required determination and self-confidence against a horde of politicians who were eager to win friends and votes and build public works monuments in their honor. On occasion, the three fiscal conservatives may have been too unyielding, but it is easy to see that if they had not taken a consistent stand against raiding the state treasury, a trickle of spending would have turned into a torrent. In other words, Russia’s economic recovery depended on fiscal restraint almost as much as it depended on the high price of oil and gas.

The question is what comes next, not just in the months between now and the election but afterward as well. There is no doubt that the new president will make further personnel changes. Even if Kudrin remains the sole survivor from the team of economic liberals in the new government, he will have a hard time maintaining fiscal restraint. It is one thing to hold back fiscal raiders when you have backup from supporters like Gref and Illarionov, but now they both are gone.

Even if Kudrin remains a deputy prime minister, it will be harder to continue this policy of restraint without that chorus — even a small one — echoing his words. Elvira Nabiullina’s promotion to Gref’s position as economic development and trade minister may help, but previous women ministers in Russia (with the exception of Catherine the Great) have not had much impact on government decision-making.

So by removing Gref — the most visible of those removed from the Cabinet — Putin may have put the country’s economic stability at risk. Orderly growth in the future may well depend on whether Kudrin can singlehandedly prevent his fellow ministers from raiding the treasury. If not, Russians will come to understand that Gref played a more important role in the country’s recovery than it may have seemed at the time.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Sham Economy

Writing in the Moscow Times Marshall I. Goldman, professor of economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College and senior scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center, and author of the forthcoming book The Rise of the Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia, exposes the fundamental fraud of the Russian pseudo-economy and the essential criminality of the Putin pseudo-government:

While most Russians have nothing but praise for what President Vladimir Putin has accomplished, the way he has handled the recent Cabinet shuffle raises the question as to who benefits more from this exercise, Putin or Russia?

Whether correct or not, it is easy to conclude that Putin is reluctant to yield power to a successor until the very last minute. Granted, he could easily have arranged to stay on for a full third term, so at least we should give him credit for insisting that it is best for Russia that he leave office after two terms as specified by the Constitution. Yet, the way he is handling the transition process and the personnel changes he has executed suggest a reluctance to become a lame duck any earlier than necessary. He seems more interested in keeping the public and his potential successors off balance than in doing what is best for the country.

As others have noted, it took Putin 10 days to make up his mind on the composition of this Cabinet, whereas with his earlier reorganizations he needed only three days to pick Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s Cabinet and then four days to pick the Cabinet of the rather colorless Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

The irony, of course, is that one of Putin’s stated reasons for making the shake-up now is that Fradkov’s Cabinet has become less efficient, evidently distracted by the forthcoming State Duma and presidential elections. The extra time Putin needed to make the most recent changes suggests that Putin himself has also become distracted and less efficient — thus, the need for more time.

There is no doubt that Putin has been good for Russia, at least for its economy. That is why his removal of German Gref as economic development and trade minister does seem to indicate a lack of gratitude. After all, Gref not only helped shepherd the economy to the solid 6 percent annual growth of Russia’s gross domestic product since 1999, he also helped to lead the transition team for Putin when he took over as president in 2000. True, Fradkov recently criticized Gref for some shortcomings, including his failure to win admission into the World Trade Organization.

Even more, Putin may have concluded that the country’s economic success is not so much due to Gref’s or anyone else’s efforts, but is almost entirely a result of the increase in oil and other commodity prices after 1999. If Boris Yeltsin had not left office on Dec. 31, 1999, when oil prices were $10 per barrel, and if he had the luxury of today’s $80 per barrel oil prices, even he would have looked like an economic genius. So it appears that Gref — like Putin — looks like a good economic manager thanks to fortuitous timing, not because of economic insight.

This is largely true, but it is not entirely fair — at least to Gref. While the spike in oil prices account for most of Russia’s recent economic success, it also must be said that Gref, along with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and the all-but-forgotten Andrei Illarionov, former adviser to Putin, do deserve credit, not so much for stimulating the economy, but for restraining it. All three, by insisting that most of the onrush of oil and gas export earnings be set aside for a rainy day in a stabilization fund, prevented an inflationary spiral that would have crippled the country’s monetary and fiscal system and would have led to an unrestrained money fight for pork and power.

This insistence on restraint required determination and self-confidence against a horde of politicians who were eager to win friends and votes and build public works monuments in their honor. On occasion, the three fiscal conservatives may have been too unyielding, but it is easy to see that if they had not taken a consistent stand against raiding the state treasury, a trickle of spending would have turned into a torrent. In other words, Russia’s economic recovery depended on fiscal restraint almost as much as it depended on the high price of oil and gas.

The question is what comes next, not just in the months between now and the election but afterward as well. There is no doubt that the new president will make further personnel changes. Even if Kudrin remains the sole survivor from the team of economic liberals in the new government, he will have a hard time maintaining fiscal restraint. It is one thing to hold back fiscal raiders when you have backup from supporters like Gref and Illarionov, but now they both are gone.

Even if Kudrin remains a deputy prime minister, it will be harder to continue this policy of restraint without that chorus — even a small one — echoing his words. Elvira Nabiullina’s promotion to Gref’s position as economic development and trade minister may help, but previous women ministers in Russia (with the exception of Catherine the Great) have not had much impact on government decision-making.

So by removing Gref — the most visible of those removed from the Cabinet — Putin may have put the country’s economic stability at risk. Orderly growth in the future may well depend on whether Kudrin can singlehandedly prevent his fellow ministers from raiding the treasury. If not, Russians will come to understand that Gref played a more important role in the country’s recovery than it may have seemed at the time.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Sham Economy

Writing in the Moscow Times Marshall I. Goldman, professor of economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College and senior scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center, and author of the forthcoming book The Rise of the Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia, exposes the fundamental fraud of the Russian pseudo-economy and the essential criminality of the Putin pseudo-government:

While most Russians have nothing but praise for what President Vladimir Putin has accomplished, the way he has handled the recent Cabinet shuffle raises the question as to who benefits more from this exercise, Putin or Russia?

Whether correct or not, it is easy to conclude that Putin is reluctant to yield power to a successor until the very last minute. Granted, he could easily have arranged to stay on for a full third term, so at least we should give him credit for insisting that it is best for Russia that he leave office after two terms as specified by the Constitution. Yet, the way he is handling the transition process and the personnel changes he has executed suggest a reluctance to become a lame duck any earlier than necessary. He seems more interested in keeping the public and his potential successors off balance than in doing what is best for the country.

As others have noted, it took Putin 10 days to make up his mind on the composition of this Cabinet, whereas with his earlier reorganizations he needed only three days to pick Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s Cabinet and then four days to pick the Cabinet of the rather colorless Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

The irony, of course, is that one of Putin’s stated reasons for making the shake-up now is that Fradkov’s Cabinet has become less efficient, evidently distracted by the forthcoming State Duma and presidential elections. The extra time Putin needed to make the most recent changes suggests that Putin himself has also become distracted and less efficient — thus, the need for more time.

There is no doubt that Putin has been good for Russia, at least for its economy. That is why his removal of German Gref as economic development and trade minister does seem to indicate a lack of gratitude. After all, Gref not only helped shepherd the economy to the solid 6 percent annual growth of Russia’s gross domestic product since 1999, he also helped to lead the transition team for Putin when he took over as president in 2000. True, Fradkov recently criticized Gref for some shortcomings, including his failure to win admission into the World Trade Organization.

Even more, Putin may have concluded that the country’s economic success is not so much due to Gref’s or anyone else’s efforts, but is almost entirely a result of the increase in oil and other commodity prices after 1999. If Boris Yeltsin had not left office on Dec. 31, 1999, when oil prices were $10 per barrel, and if he had the luxury of today’s $80 per barrel oil prices, even he would have looked like an economic genius. So it appears that Gref — like Putin — looks like a good economic manager thanks to fortuitous timing, not because of economic insight.

This is largely true, but it is not entirely fair — at least to Gref. While the spike in oil prices account for most of Russia’s recent economic success, it also must be said that Gref, along with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and the all-but-forgotten Andrei Illarionov, former adviser to Putin, do deserve credit, not so much for stimulating the economy, but for restraining it. All three, by insisting that most of the onrush of oil and gas export earnings be set aside for a rainy day in a stabilization fund, prevented an inflationary spiral that would have crippled the country’s monetary and fiscal system and would have led to an unrestrained money fight for pork and power.

This insistence on restraint required determination and self-confidence against a horde of politicians who were eager to win friends and votes and build public works monuments in their honor. On occasion, the three fiscal conservatives may have been too unyielding, but it is easy to see that if they had not taken a consistent stand against raiding the state treasury, a trickle of spending would have turned into a torrent. In other words, Russia’s economic recovery depended on fiscal restraint almost as much as it depended on the high price of oil and gas.

The question is what comes next, not just in the months between now and the election but afterward as well. There is no doubt that the new president will make further personnel changes. Even if Kudrin remains the sole survivor from the team of economic liberals in the new government, he will have a hard time maintaining fiscal restraint. It is one thing to hold back fiscal raiders when you have backup from supporters like Gref and Illarionov, but now they both are gone.

Even if Kudrin remains a deputy prime minister, it will be harder to continue this policy of restraint without that chorus — even a small one — echoing his words. Elvira Nabiullina’s promotion to Gref’s position as economic development and trade minister may help, but previous women ministers in Russia (with the exception of Catherine the Great) have not had much impact on government decision-making.

So by removing Gref — the most visible of those removed from the Cabinet — Putin may have put the country’s economic stability at risk. Orderly growth in the future may well depend on whether Kudrin can singlehandedly prevent his fellow ministers from raiding the treasury. If not, Russians will come to understand that Gref played a more important role in the country’s recovery than it may have seemed at the time.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Putin’s Sham Economy

Writing in the Moscow Times Marshall I. Goldman, professor of economics, Emeritus at Wellesley College and senior scholar at Harvard’s Davis Center, and author of the forthcoming book The Rise of the Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia, exposes the fundamental fraud of the Russian pseudo-economy and the essential criminality of the Putin pseudo-government:

While most Russians have nothing but praise for what President Vladimir Putin has accomplished, the way he has handled the recent Cabinet shuffle raises the question as to who benefits more from this exercise, Putin or Russia?

Whether correct or not, it is easy to conclude that Putin is reluctant to yield power to a successor until the very last minute. Granted, he could easily have arranged to stay on for a full third term, so at least we should give him credit for insisting that it is best for Russia that he leave office after two terms as specified by the Constitution. Yet, the way he is handling the transition process and the personnel changes he has executed suggest a reluctance to become a lame duck any earlier than necessary. He seems more interested in keeping the public and his potential successors off balance than in doing what is best for the country.

As others have noted, it took Putin 10 days to make up his mind on the composition of this Cabinet, whereas with his earlier reorganizations he needed only three days to pick Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s Cabinet and then four days to pick the Cabinet of the rather colorless Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

The irony, of course, is that one of Putin’s stated reasons for making the shake-up now is that Fradkov’s Cabinet has become less efficient, evidently distracted by the forthcoming State Duma and presidential elections. The extra time Putin needed to make the most recent changes suggests that Putin himself has also become distracted and less efficient — thus, the need for more time.

There is no doubt that Putin has been good for Russia, at least for its economy. That is why his removal of German Gref as economic development and trade minister does seem to indicate a lack of gratitude. After all, Gref not only helped shepherd the economy to the solid 6 percent annual growth of Russia’s gross domestic product since 1999, he also helped to lead the transition team for Putin when he took over as president in 2000. True, Fradkov recently criticized Gref for some shortcomings, including his failure to win admission into the World Trade Organization.

Even more, Putin may have concluded that the country’s economic success is not so much due to Gref’s or anyone else’s efforts, but is almost entirely a result of the increase in oil and other commodity prices after 1999. If Boris Yeltsin had not left office on Dec. 31, 1999, when oil prices were $10 per barrel, and if he had the luxury of today’s $80 per barrel oil prices, even he would have looked like an economic genius. So it appears that Gref — like Putin — looks like a good economic manager thanks to fortuitous timing, not because of economic insight.

This is largely true, but it is not entirely fair — at least to Gref. While the spike in oil prices account for most of Russia’s recent economic success, it also must be said that Gref, along with Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and the all-but-forgotten Andrei Illarionov, former adviser to Putin, do deserve credit, not so much for stimulating the economy, but for restraining it. All three, by insisting that most of the onrush of oil and gas export earnings be set aside for a rainy day in a stabilization fund, prevented an inflationary spiral that would have crippled the country’s monetary and fiscal system and would have led to an unrestrained money fight for pork and power.

This insistence on restraint required determination and self-confidence against a horde of politicians who were eager to win friends and votes and build public works monuments in their honor. On occasion, the three fiscal conservatives may have been too unyielding, but it is easy to see that if they had not taken a consistent stand against raiding the state treasury, a trickle of spending would have turned into a torrent. In other words, Russia’s economic recovery depended on fiscal restraint almost as much as it depended on the high price of oil and gas.

The question is what comes next, not just in the months between now and the election but afterward as well. There is no doubt that the new president will make further personnel changes. Even if Kudrin remains the sole survivor from the team of economic liberals in the new government, he will have a hard time maintaining fiscal restraint. It is one thing to hold back fiscal raiders when you have backup from supporters like Gref and Illarionov, but now they both are gone.

Even if Kudrin remains a deputy prime minister, it will be harder to continue this policy of restraint without that chorus — even a small one — echoing his words. Elvira Nabiullina’s promotion to Gref’s position as economic development and trade minister may help, but previous women ministers in Russia (with the exception of Catherine the Great) have not had much impact on government decision-making.

So by removing Gref — the most visible of those removed from the Cabinet — Putin may have put the country’s economic stability at risk. Orderly growth in the future may well depend on whether Kudrin can singlehandedly prevent his fellow ministers from raiding the treasury. If not, Russians will come to understand that Gref played a more important role in the country’s recovery than it may have seemed at the time.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

The Moscow Times reports on nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin (Radio Free Europe has a similar story, which begins “The prime minister is the defense minister’s father-in-law. The energy minister is the health minister’s husband. The justice minister’s son is married to the deputy Kremlin chief of staff’s daughter.”) — truly, echoes of La Cosa Nostra:

Boris Yeltsin had his Family, the tightly knit group of insiders who ran the country from behind the scenes in the 1990s. With the formation of the new Cabinet this week, Vladimir Putin now has a family of his own — and it is on full display.

Although he is the leader of the largest country in the world, Putin did not look far to fill the Cabinet seats. He appointed Tatyana Golikova, the wife of Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, as the new health and social development minister. He also refused to accept the well-grounded resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who had asked to step down because new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is his father-in-law.

Now there is nothing wrong with a president turning to old friends to get a job done. Leaders of Western democracies do it all the time, and some have even sought assistance from their immediate families. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sons served in his government, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as the U.S. attorney general, although this ultimately provided the impetus for an American law that now forbids such conflicts of interest on the presidential level.

In this context, Putin’s family might not look so bad. But Putin does deserve a slap on the wrist at the very least for keeping Serdyukov after allowing both Zubkov and the Kremlin to make a fuss about his relationship.

Zubkov announced last week that Serdyukov was resigning because he was a close relative, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained at the time, “Serdyukov, as everyone knows, is the son-in-law of the prime minister, and according to the law, he had to resign for ethical reasons.”

But it turned out that the law does not apply to Serdyukov because he reports directly to the president, not the prime minister. So Zubkov got to play the role of an honest man and score some easy points with the public.

Putin, in turn, not only kept Serdyukov but went a step further by adding Khristenko’s wife to the Cabinet — again abiding by the law because the husband and wife report to Zubkov, not each other.

Putin’s family, however, is not only related by bloodlines. The president has filled the top Cabinet posts with his old buddies from the St. Petersburg city administration, including Zubkov and four of the five deputy prime ministers, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and Sergei Naryshkin. If fact, a big slice of the 21-member Cabinet comes from St. Petersburg, including Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak, Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko and IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman.

Putin clearly wants to have a family of loyalists that he can trust in the run-up to the presidential election. But as the father figure, he needs to take the high road by making every effort to avoid nepotism and conflicts of interest. Otherwise, he is in danger of looking like an authoritarian father — and everyone knows what happens to a family once the authoritarian father loses power.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

The Moscow Times reports on nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin (Radio Free Europe has a similar story, which begins “The prime minister is the defense minister’s father-in-law. The energy minister is the health minister’s husband. The justice minister’s son is married to the deputy Kremlin chief of staff’s daughter.”) — truly, echoes of La Cosa Nostra:

Boris Yeltsin had his Family, the tightly knit group of insiders who ran the country from behind the scenes in the 1990s. With the formation of the new Cabinet this week, Vladimir Putin now has a family of his own — and it is on full display.

Although he is the leader of the largest country in the world, Putin did not look far to fill the Cabinet seats. He appointed Tatyana Golikova, the wife of Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, as the new health and social development minister. He also refused to accept the well-grounded resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who had asked to step down because new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is his father-in-law.

Now there is nothing wrong with a president turning to old friends to get a job done. Leaders of Western democracies do it all the time, and some have even sought assistance from their immediate families. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sons served in his government, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as the U.S. attorney general, although this ultimately provided the impetus for an American law that now forbids such conflicts of interest on the presidential level.

In this context, Putin’s family might not look so bad. But Putin does deserve a slap on the wrist at the very least for keeping Serdyukov after allowing both Zubkov and the Kremlin to make a fuss about his relationship.

Zubkov announced last week that Serdyukov was resigning because he was a close relative, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained at the time, “Serdyukov, as everyone knows, is the son-in-law of the prime minister, and according to the law, he had to resign for ethical reasons.”

But it turned out that the law does not apply to Serdyukov because he reports directly to the president, not the prime minister. So Zubkov got to play the role of an honest man and score some easy points with the public.

Putin, in turn, not only kept Serdyukov but went a step further by adding Khristenko’s wife to the Cabinet — again abiding by the law because the husband and wife report to Zubkov, not each other.

Putin’s family, however, is not only related by bloodlines. The president has filled the top Cabinet posts with his old buddies from the St. Petersburg city administration, including Zubkov and four of the five deputy prime ministers, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and Sergei Naryshkin. If fact, a big slice of the 21-member Cabinet comes from St. Petersburg, including Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak, Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko and IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman.

Putin clearly wants to have a family of loyalists that he can trust in the run-up to the presidential election. But as the father figure, he needs to take the high road by making every effort to avoid nepotism and conflicts of interest. Otherwise, he is in danger of looking like an authoritarian father — and everyone knows what happens to a family once the authoritarian father loses power.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

The Moscow Times reports on nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin (Radio Free Europe has a similar story, which begins “The prime minister is the defense minister’s father-in-law. The energy minister is the health minister’s husband. The justice minister’s son is married to the deputy Kremlin chief of staff’s daughter.”) — truly, echoes of La Cosa Nostra:

Boris Yeltsin had his Family, the tightly knit group of insiders who ran the country from behind the scenes in the 1990s. With the formation of the new Cabinet this week, Vladimir Putin now has a family of his own — and it is on full display.

Although he is the leader of the largest country in the world, Putin did not look far to fill the Cabinet seats. He appointed Tatyana Golikova, the wife of Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, as the new health and social development minister. He also refused to accept the well-grounded resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who had asked to step down because new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is his father-in-law.

Now there is nothing wrong with a president turning to old friends to get a job done. Leaders of Western democracies do it all the time, and some have even sought assistance from their immediate families. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sons served in his government, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as the U.S. attorney general, although this ultimately provided the impetus for an American law that now forbids such conflicts of interest on the presidential level.

In this context, Putin’s family might not look so bad. But Putin does deserve a slap on the wrist at the very least for keeping Serdyukov after allowing both Zubkov and the Kremlin to make a fuss about his relationship.

Zubkov announced last week that Serdyukov was resigning because he was a close relative, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained at the time, “Serdyukov, as everyone knows, is the son-in-law of the prime minister, and according to the law, he had to resign for ethical reasons.”

But it turned out that the law does not apply to Serdyukov because he reports directly to the president, not the prime minister. So Zubkov got to play the role of an honest man and score some easy points with the public.

Putin, in turn, not only kept Serdyukov but went a step further by adding Khristenko’s wife to the Cabinet — again abiding by the law because the husband and wife report to Zubkov, not each other.

Putin’s family, however, is not only related by bloodlines. The president has filled the top Cabinet posts with his old buddies from the St. Petersburg city administration, including Zubkov and four of the five deputy prime ministers, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and Sergei Naryshkin. If fact, a big slice of the 21-member Cabinet comes from St. Petersburg, including Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak, Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko and IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman.

Putin clearly wants to have a family of loyalists that he can trust in the run-up to the presidential election. But as the father figure, he needs to take the high road by making every effort to avoid nepotism and conflicts of interest. Otherwise, he is in danger of looking like an authoritarian father — and everyone knows what happens to a family once the authoritarian father loses power.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

The Moscow Times reports on nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin (Radio Free Europe has a similar story, which begins “The prime minister is the defense minister’s father-in-law. The energy minister is the health minister’s husband. The justice minister’s son is married to the deputy Kremlin chief of staff’s daughter.”) — truly, echoes of La Cosa Nostra:

Boris Yeltsin had his Family, the tightly knit group of insiders who ran the country from behind the scenes in the 1990s. With the formation of the new Cabinet this week, Vladimir Putin now has a family of his own — and it is on full display.

Although he is the leader of the largest country in the world, Putin did not look far to fill the Cabinet seats. He appointed Tatyana Golikova, the wife of Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, as the new health and social development minister. He also refused to accept the well-grounded resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who had asked to step down because new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is his father-in-law.

Now there is nothing wrong with a president turning to old friends to get a job done. Leaders of Western democracies do it all the time, and some have even sought assistance from their immediate families. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sons served in his government, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as the U.S. attorney general, although this ultimately provided the impetus for an American law that now forbids such conflicts of interest on the presidential level.

In this context, Putin’s family might not look so bad. But Putin does deserve a slap on the wrist at the very least for keeping Serdyukov after allowing both Zubkov and the Kremlin to make a fuss about his relationship.

Zubkov announced last week that Serdyukov was resigning because he was a close relative, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained at the time, “Serdyukov, as everyone knows, is the son-in-law of the prime minister, and according to the law, he had to resign for ethical reasons.”

But it turned out that the law does not apply to Serdyukov because he reports directly to the president, not the prime minister. So Zubkov got to play the role of an honest man and score some easy points with the public.

Putin, in turn, not only kept Serdyukov but went a step further by adding Khristenko’s wife to the Cabinet — again abiding by the law because the husband and wife report to Zubkov, not each other.

Putin’s family, however, is not only related by bloodlines. The president has filled the top Cabinet posts with his old buddies from the St. Petersburg city administration, including Zubkov and four of the five deputy prime ministers, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and Sergei Naryshkin. If fact, a big slice of the 21-member Cabinet comes from St. Petersburg, including Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak, Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko and IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman.

Putin clearly wants to have a family of loyalists that he can trust in the run-up to the presidential election. But as the father figure, he needs to take the high road by making every effort to avoid nepotism and conflicts of interest. Otherwise, he is in danger of looking like an authoritarian father — and everyone knows what happens to a family once the authoritarian father loses power.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin

The Moscow Times reports on nepotism in Putin’s Kremlin (Radio Free Europe has a similar story, which begins “The prime minister is the defense minister’s father-in-law. The energy minister is the health minister’s husband. The justice minister’s son is married to the deputy Kremlin chief of staff’s daughter.”) — truly, echoes of La Cosa Nostra:

Boris Yeltsin had his Family, the tightly knit group of insiders who ran the country from behind the scenes in the 1990s. With the formation of the new Cabinet this week, Vladimir Putin now has a family of his own — and it is on full display.

Although he is the leader of the largest country in the world, Putin did not look far to fill the Cabinet seats. He appointed Tatyana Golikova, the wife of Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, as the new health and social development minister. He also refused to accept the well-grounded resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who had asked to step down because new Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov is his father-in-law.

Now there is nothing wrong with a president turning to old friends to get a job done. Leaders of Western democracies do it all the time, and some have even sought assistance from their immediate families. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s sons served in his government, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy appointed his brother as the U.S. attorney general, although this ultimately provided the impetus for an American law that now forbids such conflicts of interest on the presidential level.

In this context, Putin’s family might not look so bad. But Putin does deserve a slap on the wrist at the very least for keeping Serdyukov after allowing both Zubkov and the Kremlin to make a fuss about his relationship.

Zubkov announced last week that Serdyukov was resigning because he was a close relative, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained at the time, “Serdyukov, as everyone knows, is the son-in-law of the prime minister, and according to the law, he had to resign for ethical reasons.”

But it turned out that the law does not apply to Serdyukov because he reports directly to the president, not the prime minister. So Zubkov got to play the role of an honest man and score some easy points with the public.

Putin, in turn, not only kept Serdyukov but went a step further by adding Khristenko’s wife to the Cabinet — again abiding by the law because the husband and wife report to Zubkov, not each other.

Putin’s family, however, is not only related by bloodlines. The president has filled the top Cabinet posts with his old buddies from the St. Petersburg city administration, including Zubkov and four of the five deputy prime ministers, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Medvedev, Alexei Kudrin and Sergei Naryshkin. If fact, a big slice of the 21-member Cabinet comes from St. Petersburg, including Regional Development Minister Dmitry Kozak, Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko and IT and Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman.

Putin clearly wants to have a family of loyalists that he can trust in the run-up to the presidential election. But as the father figure, he needs to take the high road by making every effort to avoid nepotism and conflicts of interest. Otherwise, he is in danger of looking like an authoritarian father — and everyone knows what happens to a family once the authoritarian father loses power.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !

Saakashvili Blasts Russia at the UN

The Guardian reports:

Georgia’s president told world leaders Wednesday that Russia continues to interfere in its domestic politics and engage in “reckless and dangerous” behavior, the latest in a series of conflicts between the two countries. In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Mikhail Saakashvili accused Russia of trying to skew reports of an incident last week in the breakaway region of Abkhazia in which Georgian forces killed two Russian military officials.

Saakashvili, who has vowed to bring the region back under Georgian control and accuses Russians of backing the separatists, said claims by a senior Russian official that the men killed were innocent were “unconstructive, unsubstantiated and wholly untrue.”

“One has to wonder – what was a vice colonel of the Russian military doing in the Georgian forests, organizing and leading a group of armed insurgents on a mission of terror?” the Georgian leader said. Immediately following Saakashvili’s speech, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N., Vitaly Churkin, told reporters that the men were instructors at an “anti-terrorist training center” and were killed Sept. 20 by knife wounds and gunshots to the head. Churkin said he had raised the matter in Security Council consultations earlier Wednesday. “This to us is another manifestation of the course of action which regrettably the Georgian authorities have taken lately … They have been doing everything to aggravate tensions,” Churkin said.

Relations between the countries have been strained since Saakashvili came to power following the 2003 Rose Revolution, vowing to take Georgia out of Russia’s orbit. Russia opposes Saakashvili’s repeatedly stated determination to bring the former Soviet republic into NATO and the European Union, while Georgia accuses Russia of trying to interfere in its internal affairs. In August, Georgia said two Russian planes entered its airspace, one of which dropped a missile that did not explode. Russia denied both claims, although two groups of independent experts that investigated the incident agreed that Georgian airspace was violated three times that day by aircraft flying from Russian airspace. Russia has rejected the reports.

In Saakashvili’s speech Wednesday, he said his country would not “lash out angrily” at Russia. “My government is committed to addressing this subject through diplomatic means, in partnership with the international community. … Look at how Georgia has responded to the many provocations we have faced in the past year,” he said.

Thanks for reading La Russophobe !