EDITORIAL: We Told you So

EDITORIAL

We Told you So

On September 28, 2011, a perfect metaphor for the horror that is Vladimir Putin’s Russia appeared in The Independent, which has over the years been responsible for some of the toughest and most insightful reporting on Russia (hat tip: Streetwise Professor).

The paper wrote about how thousands upon thousands of stray dogs roam the streets of Moscow, how they have killed Muscovites in packs and how they pose all manner of serious health concerns, to say nothing of betraying Russia’s eternal poverty regardless of the propaganda the state may churn out.  Yet Russians, idiots that they are, are fighting to keep these dogs on the streets, and do what they can to care for them.

Similarly Josef Stalin is beloved by Russians, even though he murdered more of them than any other person who ever lived.

And similarly, the proud KGB spy and murderer of Starovoitova, of Litvinenko, of Politikovskaya, of Yushenkov, of Shchekochikhin, of Girenko, of Klebnikov, of Kozlov, of Estemirova, of Markelov and of so very many others, known as Vladimir Putin, is being embraced as he declares himself president for life. Lenin, Stalin, Putin.

On April 2, 2006, we warned the world that it would be so.

EDITORIAL: Estonia Whips Russian Butt

EDITORIAL

Estonia Whips Russian Butt

Reader “Robert” directs us to a BBC web page which compares the performance of the nations in post-Soviet space on economics, health and democracy. It provides three charts which reveal shocking facts about the failure of Putin’s resource-rich Russia when compared with tiny Estonia, the leader of the group.

First comes economics, which reveals not one but three stunning insights about Russia:

EDITORIAL: The Russian Economy is Collapsing

EDITORIAL

The Russian Economy is Collapsing

In 2008, nearly $130 billion flew out of Russia, erasing the modicum of inflows registered in 2006 and 2007. For its size, Russia as an investment destination pales in comparison to South Korea. Total equity portfolio inflow into Russia in 2009 was just $3.4 billion, according to World Bank data, making it the lowest of the big emerging markets by far. India, China and Brazil all registered inflows over $20 billion. A recent opinion poll by the Levada Centre shows that 22% of Russia’s adult population would like to leave the country for good, up from 7% in 2007. It is the highest figure since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when only 18% said they wanted to get out. Over 50% of Russian entrepreneurs said that they wanted leave the country. “From a macro perspective, I don’t want to be in Russia,” says Justin Leverenz, emerging markets portfolio manager at Oppenheimer Funds in New York. “From an investor’s point of view, Russian politics are far beyond what I’m able to analyze.”

Believe it or not, those words appear in a recent article in which the author is trying to put a positive spin on Russia.  Can you imagine what Russia’s economic critics are saying these days?

Viking Russia, Land of Barbarians

Alexei Bayer, writing in the Moscow Times:

The origins of the Russian state and its early history help explain the country’s modern political makeup.

According to the Kievan Primary Chronicle, compiled around 1110, Slavic tribes invited Scandinavian prince Rurik to rule over them in the 9th century. But the history of the Viking expansion in Western Europe suggests that an “invitation” was hardly necessary. In the West, the Vikings began by raiding settlements, pillaging them and dragging their inhabitants off to slavery. They set up outposts to collect tributes, gradually becoming feudal lords. They adopted the local language and customs and eventually melded with the local population.

The Norsemen followed the same pattern in Britain, France and Sicily. The Varangians, as they were known in Russia, became feudal lords and the name of their tribe, the Rus, gave Russia its name just as Normandy was named after the Normans.

Kara-Murza on Putin’s Return

Spotlight on Russia reports:

One of the surest signs of repression in Russia is a flourishing culture of political jokes. The 1930s and the 1970s, in particular, bear testimony to this. In 2008, when Vladimir Putin tricked term limits by becoming prime minister under hand-picked President Dmitri Medvedev, a new joke was born in the Moscow intelligentsia’s kitchens. The year is 2020. Putin and Medvedev are in a bar, drinking beer. Putin looks up and asks: “Dima, do you remember which one of us is president, and which one is prime minister?” Medvedev thinks for a short while, then replies: “I think you are president, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and I am prime minister.” “Then it’s your turn to pay for the beer,” responds Putin.

SPECIAL EXTRA EDITORIAL: Putin, President for Life

SPECIAL EXTRA EDITORIAL

Putin, President for Life

We told you so.

Vladimir Putin has announced he will take back the reins of power in 2012, and this means he will undoubtedly rule Russia for the rest of his life, just like Stalin and Brezhnev before him.

EDITORIAL: Prokhorov in the Woodshed

EDITORIAL

Prokhorov in the Woodshed

Last week saw the Right Cause party of oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov go down in flames.  It used to be the case that the Kremlin liquidated politicians (like former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and former first deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov) because they were too anti-Kremlin. But those days are over. Now, it’s going after all political figures who are not pro-Kremlin enough!  It is the natural progression as Russia returns to a neo-Soviet state.

EDITORIAL: Does Britain still Remember Chamberlain?

EDITORIAL

Does Britain still Remember Chamberlain?

Simon Tisdall, a columnist for The Guardian in Britain, says Russians think of British Prime Minister David Cameron a “useful idiot” who offers the KGB regime of Vladimir Putin “de facto, unthinking legitimization.”

Tony Brenton, Britain’s ambassador to Russia from 2004 through 2008, says that “Russia’s ruling elite has become immovable and predatory, elections are fixed, corruption is on a par with Nigeria, the legal system is pliable, and the police and security agencies untouchable.” He says its government is a sham:  “While Dmitri Medvedev enjoys the title of president, Vladimir Putin continues to call the real shots.”

But despite that, the British idiot-in-chief recently traveled to Moscow and inked hundreds of millions in trade deals in exchange for ignoring Russian human rights atrocities and the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Spider Putin spins a Web for Cameron the Fly

Pavel Stroilov, writing on the Spectator blog:

“Russian democracy has been buried under the ruins of New York’s twin towers”, famous KGB rebel Alexander Litvinenko wrote in 2002. The West, he warned, was making a grave mistake of going along with Putin’s dictatorship in exchange for his cooperation in the global war on terror. He would never be an honest partner, and would try to make the Western leaders complicit in his own crimes – from political assassinations to the genocide of Chechens. As a KGB officer, Putin would see every friendly summit-meeting as a potential opportunity to recruit another agent of influence.

David Cameron, whose summit-meeting with Putin coincided with the sombre jubilee of 9/11, would be well-advised to remember these warnings. The previous generation of Western leaders – from Bush to Blair to Schroeder to Berlusconi – has discredited itself by their ‘friendship’ with Putin, and got nothing in return. As The Spectator revealed this summer, there are serious questions to be asked about Russian secret service’s alleged links to Al-Qa’eda. Hopefully, the Prime Minister may have even asked those questions in Moscow.

EDITORIAL: Vladimir Putin, on the Take

EDITORIAL

Vladimir Putin, on the Take

We recently published a Special Extra post which contained a translation of an item from the Russian web.  In it, a Russian website interviewed a high-ranking Russian corruption investigator who revealed shocking details about his investigation of Vladimir Putin for personal corruption while Putin was serving in the government of St. Petersburg.

In an almost casual fashion, as if it were obvious to everyone, the investigator reveals that Putin had both hands in the cookie jar of budget revenues in Piter.  And, of course, to any human with a brain it is obvious. How else would Putin be able to afford to sport expensive watches and live in a network of palaces that span the globe?  And if Putin were not personally corrupt, how could corruption flourish so openly in Russia, so that Transparency International routinely finds Russia to be the single most corrupt major civilization on this planet?

The fact that Putin’s personal corruption is so well documented, even in Russia itself, just goes to prove that Russians approve of it, just as they approve of Putin’s brutal crackdown on democratic values, including his brazen murder of political opponents like Starovoitova, Politkovskaya, Estemirova and Markelov. Indeed, we recently reported on the fact that a new arrest in the Politkovskaya case clearly shows the involvement of high-level Russian law enforcement in her killing.

EDITORIAL: Why now, Mr. Medvedev, why now?

EDITORIAL:  

Why now, Mr. Medvedev, why now?

Last week any intelligent Russian citizen had just one question in response to a pair of orders emanating from their so-called “president”:  Why now, Mr. Medvedev, why now?

First, in response to the crash of an airliner that killed an entire Russian professional ice hockey team, Medvedev ordered the airline shut down.  But intelligent Russians were asking:  Why didn’t you shut them down before the crash, Mr. Medvedev? Why did you wait so long?

Then, in response to growing civil unrest, Medvedev authorized the Russian Gestapo to utilize water cannons, tasers and tear gas on peaceful opposition protesters who fail to disperse upon the illegal order of the authorities.  Intelligent Russian citizens were asking:  Why now, Mr. Medvedev?

EDITORIAL: The Evil Empire shows its Russian Face in Syria

EDITORIAL

The Evil Empire shows its Russian Face in Syria

We’ve previously reported on the appalling lack of openness to charity displayed by Russian citizens, especially in comparison with the much more generous Americans. The data clearly shows that Russians simply don’t care what happens to their fellow man. Two other items in today’s issue, an essay by Russian film director Andrei Konchalovsky and an editorial about personal corruption by Vladimir Putin, confirm emphatically that Russians simply don’t give a damn at best, at worst they wish their fellow citizens harm.

And that’s just other Russian citizens. When it comes to people from other countries, you may as well consider Russians to be sadists.  Take Syria, for example.

The Kremlin’s Eye turns to Piter

The Other Russia reports:

In Russia, taking part in a demonstration that hasn’t been sanctioned by the government can cost citizens their right to work in federal agencies. Officially dubbed “unreliable” citizens, opposition activists and other political protesters are entered into special blacklists drawn up by law enforcement agencies for purposes that are not entirely understood. It was on such a blacklist that Vera Sizova, a retired resident of St. Petersburg, unexpectedly found herself – upon being told that she was banned from working for the 2010 Russian Census because of her son’s opposition activities.

SPECIAL EXTRA: Personal Corruption of Vladimir Putin Revealed

“Where the President is concerned, criminal cases do not proceed.”

«В отношении президента уголовное дело не ведется.»

ZAKS.ru

September 6, 2011

Translated from the Russian by La Russophobe

This is a rough translation of a shocking interview recently posted by the ZAKS.ru website which details personal corruption by Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.  Some paragraphs have been digested.  We welcome any linguistic commentary or corrections from readers, either in the comments section or by e-mail.

Eleven years ago, Russian prosecutors closed Criminal Case No. 144,128.

Later, it became known as “the Putin Affair.”

Investigators do not doubt that the then-president was implicated in a number of crimes related to embezzlement of budget funds while was serving in the government of the City of St. Petersburg. Lt. Col. Andrei Zykov, a senior investigator for special matters at the Investigation Department of the Interior Ministry, was in charge of the case.

He sat down with ZAKS.ru’s Oleg Mukhin to discuss his experiences.

MUKHIN:  What is “the Putin affair”?

ZYKOV:  From 1993 to 1995, the Russian government was providing substantial financial support to many businesses.  They were losing money, on the verge of collapse, desperately trying to stay afloat to preserve jobs.  They needed infusions of cash to pay salaries.  State funds were distributed from the coffers of state-owned enterprises.

There was a construction company in St. Petersburg called Twentieth Trust which had been privatized in 1991.   In 1993 alone, roughly $4.5 million disappeared from the company’s books, and it was getting 80% of its revenues from the City.  It appeared that it had laundered tens of millions of dollars, and in 1999 a criminal case was opened to investigate.  This became known as the “Putin affair” because, while Anatoly Sobchak was mayor of the City Putin was at that time his second in command.  Every signature in regard to budget transfers would have a passed across Putin’s desk.

EDITORIAL: Politkovskaya’s Killers

EDITORIAL

Politkovskaya’s Killers

Anna Politkovskaya

Last week Lt. Col. Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov was arrested in Moscow and charged with masterminding the murder of hero journalist Anna Politkovskaya.  At the time he did so, Pavlyuchenkov was head of surveillance at Moscow’s Main Internal Affairs Directorate, the city’s main police force.  At long last, in other words, the world has learned that it was not some rogue elements from Chechnya, acting on the orders of Ramzan Kadyrov, who liquidated Politkovskaya.

It was the Moscow Kremlin.

EDITORIAL: Non-Competitive Russia

EDITORIAL

Non-Competitive Russia

It’s that time of year again, and the World Economic Forum has once again released its Global Competitivness Index.

Russia dropped three places to #66 on the list, significantly worse than its position on the list of nations ranked by nominal GDP per capita (#56).  Countries like Vietnam, Uruguay and Panama are all more economically competitive than Russia. The USA is #5 on the list.

Of course, you really don’t need the WEF to tell you Russia is not competitive. Just walk into the nearest store and see if you find any Russian products there. Should you find them, see if it’s something you’d consider buying. You’ll quickly see that in terms of consumer products the nation of Russia does not even really exist at all.

EDITORIAL: Piter Drives the Final Nail into its Own Coffin

EDITORIAL

Piter Drives the Final Nail into its Own Coffin

Before Vladimir Putin came along, the city of St. Petersburg, Russia enjoyed a national and even an international reputation for enlightenment. It was called Russia’s “window on the West” and it was famous for citizens who had a broader world view, a more democratic inclination, who were more civilized and intelligent than ordinary Russians.

But Putin, a native of Piter, changed all that.  From the moment the world learned how he shamelessly plagiarized his dissertation at an elite Piter university, it became clear that Piter was just like every other rotten place in Russia under the skin.  When it remained just as silent as the rest of the country (or cheered even louder) as its native son seized power in Moscow, filled the Kremlin halls with proud KGB spies and began a relentless neo-Soviet crackdown, the world saw the true St. Petersburg.

And nothing could have better confirmed Piter’s wretched barbarism than the recent election campaign of former governor and Putin lackey Valentina Matvienko for a local legislative post in the city, one she needed so Putin could appoint her to the Federation Council and name her speaker.

Medvedev the Liar

Ariel Cohen, writing on the National Interest website:

In late August, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev appointed Georgy Poltavchenko governor of St. Petersburg. Poltavchenko has served as presidential envoy to Russia’s central-administrative district since 2000. More importantly, he is a loyalist to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a KGB veteran. He replaces Valentina Matviyenko, another Putin confidante, who has moved on to chair the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament. Sergey Mironov, the former speaker of the Federation Council, is out. All this game of musical chairs has little to do with either President Medvedev or significant democratic developments. Rather, it demonstrates how Putin is rearranging his insiders.

EDITORIAL: The Catastrophic Failure of Russian Aerospace

EDITORIAL

The Catastrophic Failure of Russian Aerospace

Russia’s aerospace program appears to be collapsing.

The latest series of horrifying incidents began in June with the crash of a TU-134 airliner while attempting to land near Petrozavodsk, killing all of its nearly four dozen passengers.  The government was forced to order the entire model out of service.

Days later, a MiG-29 fighter jet crashed inexplicably, and the government was left with no choice but to order that model out of service too, even though Russia had just inked a larger sale of the model to India.

Then, in an epic humiliation, when Russia rolled out its version of the F-22 Stealth Raptor during its annual international air show an engine collapsed during takeoff and the plane could not get airborn.

Next, a swarm of bees attacked a Moscow-bound Boeing 757, from the inside.

And most recently, an entire Russian ice hockey team was wiped out in a horrific crash  near the city of Yaroslavl on the Volga.

Meanwhile, objects even higher up began dropping out of the sky.

EDITORIAL: The Brutality of “Normal Life” in Vladimir Putin’s Russia

EDITORIAL

The Brutality of “Normal Life” in Vladimir Putin’s Russia

In our issue today we republish two stories about ordinary life in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. One story involves an adventure with an elevator, the other with childbirth.  They are absolutely required reading for anyone who is interested in understanding what is going on in Russia today.

Anyone who has spent any time living a real life in Putin’s Russia will instantly recognize the truth and the horror reflected in these stories. And nobody who has not lived in Russia can truly appreciate how awful it is to experience so-called “life” of this kind up close and personal.  This is what it means to live in a neo-Soviet state ruled by a proud KGB spy.  It sucks.

But let’s be perfectly clear:  The people of Russia are not the innocent victims of this type of horror.  To the contrary, their reckless and irresponsible behavior is the root cause of it.

Russians Spit on their Own Fellow Citizens, History

Simon Shuster, writing for Time magazine’s website:

Alexander Smirnov has never gotten over the euphoria of August 1991. He was a college student in Leningrad at the time, lanky and pale with Coke-bottle glasses, and on the morning of Aug. 20, 1991, he walked out onto the central square of the city to find a sea of people taking part in one of the largest demonstrations Russia had ever seen. The day before, a military coup had begun.

The heads of the KGB, the army and police, along with a few other obdurate communists, had seized control of the Soviet Union from President Mikhail Gorbachev, and ordered tanks into Moscow to impose a state of emergency. In response, hundreds of thousands of people went onto the streets across the empire to stop the return of the bad old days of the Communist state. “We were prepared to lay down in front of the tanks,” Smirnov says. And in Moscow a few of them did. Only three days after the military junta began, the civil resistance defeated it. On Aug. 22, the coup leaders were arrested, and the Soviet Union never recovered. Four months later, on Christmas Day, it was dissolved.

Putin is the Disease

Putin is the disease, democracy is the cure.

The Moscow Times reports:

Siberian investigators are seeking jail terms over a prank in which a billboard (shown above) for a clinic treating sexually transmitted diseases was doctored to include less-than-flattering portraits of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.

EDITORIAL: Russia, Nation of Sociopaths

EDITORIAL

Russia, Nation of Sociopaths

The news out of Russia on August 20, 2011, was truly nauseating.

Russia stood alone to support mass-murdering Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad while the rest of the world condemned his latest blood orgy.  Russia even went so far as to seek to fan the flames of Arab nationalism across the region.

It invited mass-murdering North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Il for a friendly visit.

It loaned billions to mass-murdering Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez so he could buy even more weapons.

And it ratcheted up its foreign policy initiatives to assist the mass-murdering dictator of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And remember: That’s just one day in the life of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, an nation of sociopaths that takes pride and pleasure in joining forces with the world’s worst maniacs and which has chosen to be ruled by a proud KGB spy, a representative of the worst mass-murdering group of psychopaths ever to tread the earth.

EDITORIAL: Here Come the Russian Rapists

EDITORIAL

Here Come the Russian Rapists

Russia and its Real Men

Russians are fond of working themselves up in to a state of high outrage whenever they hear stories about Russians being abused in foreign lands (like the recent incident in which a Russian adoptee was made to drink hot sauce by his new mother, or the incident where a mother returned her adopted child to Russia).

But good luck getting Russians to manage as much as a yawn when they learn about shocking acts of abuse by Russians against foreigners — that is, if state-sponsored Russian media even report such incidents at all, which they usually do not.

Take for instance the brutal gang-rape of a young Malaysian student at Bellerbys College in London, where tuition is £30,000 ($50,000) a year.   The wolf pack of four Russian students who drugged and then attacked her over the course of more than two hours, filming the savage assault with a cell phone and “celebrating like footballers” as they mauled the helpless fellow student, showed “callous disregard for (the victim) as a human being and a callous disregard for her as anything other than an object” according to the judge who sentenced them to prison in Woolwich Crown Court.

EDITORIAL: Mickey Mouse, Banned in Russia

EDITORIAL

Mickey Mouse, Banned in Russia

In 1995 the Russian artist Alexander Savko painted a series of images interposing the face of Mickey Mouse onto famous historical scenes, like the one above.

Last week, a Russian court determined that Savko’s image of the Sermon on the Mount with Mickey Mouse (shown after the jump) was “extremist” and illegal and banned it from public display.