January 28, 2009 — Contents

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 29 CONTENTS

(1)  EDITORIAL:  Putin’s Raving Russophile Minions

(2)  On the Trail of the Israilov Assassin

(3)  Why Americans Whip Russians:  One Russian gets It

(4)  Three Pictures are Worth a Billion Screams

(5)  An Epitaph for Markelov

EDITORIAL: Putins’ Raving Russophile Minions

EDITORIAL

Putin’s Raving Russophile Minions

Things did not start off on the right foot for new U.S. President Barack Obama.  First his attempt to take the oath of office went haywire and had to be done all over again the next day. Then it was revealed that the famous musicians he hired to play at the inauguration were string-synching. And then no sooner had he announced the closure of the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, than it was revealed that a prisoner previously released from the facility because of human rights concerns like those Obama is purporting to defend has become a major leadership figure in the Al Quaeda terrorist network.

Given Obama’s continuing and very disturbing silence concerning such Russia issues as race murder, energy warfare against Ukraine and the Markelov assassination (he’s been president for a week now, or maybe we should say weak, and not a peep out of him — though he’s found time to fire a shot across China’s bow), all these distractions might have made us worry about the prospects for the Obama presidency, particularly where Russia is concerned, were it not for the lunatic ravings of Boris Kagarlitsky in his most recent Moscow Times column.

On the Trail of the Israilov Assassin

Stratfor reports:

As Umar Israilov, a 27-year-old Chechen political refugee living in Vienna, Austria, returned home on foot after grocery shopping Jan. 13, he spotted two men standing outside his apartment building — one of whom had a gun. Upon spotting the men, Israilov dropped his groceries and fled down Leopoldauer Street in the Floridsdorf neighborhood of Vienna, dodging cars and pedestrians. But the gunman managed to wound Israilov, halting his flight. The two men then approached him in a side alley, where the armed man shot Israilov twice in the head, killing him.

One man has been detained in connection with the killing, which a Stratfor source alleges was carried out by organized criminal assets in Vienna at the behest of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and with Kremlin approval. Israilov was an outspoken critic of Kadyrov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Because of this, Israilov had frequently expressed concerns for his safety and that of his family.

Why Americans whip Russians: One Russian gets It

Paul Goble reports:

The inauguration of Barak Obama as the first African-American president of the United States calls attention to one of the most important if not often commented upon differences between the American and the Russian peoples, according to a leading Moscow analyst.

The Americans, Maksim Strelok argues, welcome change and thus regularly transform themselves so that their country “is not what it was yesterday and that tomorrow it will be better than today,” while Russians find it more difficult to escape from the past and thus face a future that may prove even worse than the present. Most Russian commentators predicted that Obama would be defeated either in the primaries or in the general election, and they have tended to view his coming to power either as the result of some kind of backroom conspiracy or as the accidental coming together of a set of circumstances that will never be repeated, Strelok says.

What they have not been prepared to acknowledge, largely because to admit it would be to be forced to recognize Russia’s own predicament, is that America has changed dramatically over the past decades and that its ability and willingness to change is one of the most important sources of its strength.

Three Pictures are Worth a Billion Screams

An Epitaph for Markelov

There are Few Like him Left

Olga Malysh

Kasparov.ru

Translated from the Russian by The Other Russia

“Take care of yourself, ok?” Masha, a young nazbol hugged me, looking in my eyes.  That day some of the people who gathered at Prechistenka, the place where Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova died, said similar words to each other.  This pointless phrase had a new meaning in the context of the three deaths that happened on “black” Monday, the previous day.  It finally became clear that anyone with any visibility in the civil society [community] could be killed: an attorney, a journalist, an activist.  And one can only guess at who will be next.

It becomes especially frightening if one looks at the ranks of that same “civil society” – a few thousand people in all, who often know each other.