Russia Archives
Russia, Through the Looking Glass
Filed under: Russia
Vladimir Putin's Russia has smashed through the looking glass and is now hurtling into the void of utter neo-Soviet insanity.
The Moscow Times reports that Putin has announced, while paying a state visit to France during which he's been treated as if he were still the nation's prime authority, that "through raising wages, pensions, social benefits and subsidies, we will try to minimize negative consequences of our anti-inflation policy for the people."
So, not only is Russia's "prime minister" able to simply wave his hand and raise the nation's wages (so much for the idea of capitalism in Russia! -- and so much for the idea that Putin no longer rules it!) but he thinks the way to combat devastating double-digit consumer price inflation is to . . . wait for it . . . give people more money. Economist Putin doesn't seem to quite get it that the problem is that they have too much money already, and are using it to bid up the price of goods they can't produce enough of to satisfy demand. What Russia needs to do is the opposite of what it is doing, namely produce more products. Putin is, in effect, throwing gasoline on a fire.
Then again, maybe he does. He stated: "We understand that [rising wages] means an inflow of money into the economy, but we are simply obliged to do it and we will do it." If that means he understands he's doing the opposite of what the country needs regardless of reality, he's a fully realized neo-Soviet man.
The MT notes: "Food makes up more than 40 percent of the basket of goods and services used to calculate Russia's consumer price index, a typical feature for poorer nations, where the population spends a large proportion of income on food." Poorer nation? Gosh, that's odd. I thought Russia had a "booming" economy and was a member of the G-8? Apparently not, since the MT states: "Wages grew by 28 percent year on year in April, and some officials have warned that the country risks falling into an inflationary spiral as Latin American countries did in the 1990s and have said wage controls could be necessary." No Latin American countries in the G-8 last time I checked. Wages grew by 28% and Russia is still a "poorer nation" with people spending most of their ready cash on food? Gosh, that's amazing. Guess before the hike wages must have been practically nothing, huh? Which would pretty much mean they still are.
This kind of just-plain-crazy economics is exactly the thing that brought down the USSR. Like the Emperor with his New Clothes, there is nobody around Putin to tell him can can't simply "do it" and so he does.
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redditThe Wages of Slaves
Filed under: Russia
At the current dollar-ruble exchange rate of 23.5:1, the sum of 7,000 Russian rubles amounts to $297.87.
That's the average monthly wage of a petrochemical worker in Russia's Sverdlovsk region, just west of the Urals on the border of Siberia. The major metropolis of Yekaterinburg is located there.
For four 40-hour work weeks, that translates into a shocking average hourly wage of only $1.86. So much for the notion of economic recovery in Vladimir Putin's Russia. These are the real wages earned by the vast majority of real Russians across the country, offset by a tiny clan of super rich who exploit the unwashed masses as has always been the case in Russia.
But little enough, you might think, so that managers at such a plant would consider their workforce cheap at twice the price, and be rolling in profits. Yet if that were so, why would workers at the Lobinsky plant have declared a hunger strike in protest of wages that are four months overdue?
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditStatesman McCain
Filed under: Russia
Recently, Republican presidential nominee John McCain declared that he wouldn't provoke a new nuclear arms race with Russia if he becomes president. Instead, McCain stated, he'd actively pursue a strategic arms limitation treaty with Russia.
In response, an idiot named Ilan Goldenberg, writing for Democracy Arsenal, stated: "McCain's basic plan is to slap the Russians smack across the face and then ask them for a favor. Somehow I don't think that will work."
A favor? Apparently, Mr. Goldenberg thinks that it isn't in Russia's interest to agree to nuclear arms limitation, but only (or at least much more) in America's interest. That's the exact opposite of the truth. America, with the far bigger economy, can far better afford a nuclear arms race than Russia can. In fact, many believe that the strategic arms race initiated by Ronald Reagan with his "Star Wars" proposal is what drove the USSR into bankruptcy and collapse. The idea that the U.S. must convince Russia to do it a favor by agreeing to nuclear arms limits is ridiculously ignorant, and indicative of the utterly failed foreign policy of the left that we have seen so many times before, from JFK at the Bay of Pigs to Jimmy Carter in Iran.
By "smack across the face," Mr. Goldenberg is apparently referring to McCain's policy of seeking to exclude Russia from the G-8 as it has been excluded from other international organizations for lack of democratic credentials. The lunatic left can't decide whether this idea is silly, because the other members would never go along, or dangerous and offensive to Russia. It can't be both, of course, but that doesn't stop the morons of the left from still trying to have it both ways.
Goldenberg at least has that part of it correct. If America tells the G-8 it has to choose between the U.S. and Russia, that America will pull out if Russia isn't booted out, then Russia will go. It's just that simple. And if Russia didn't go, then America could pull out and thereby simply liquidate the G-8 as a significant international presence.
To suggest that it's somehow inconsistent for Senator McCain to favor both nuclear arms negotiation and direct confrontation on other fronts is quite simply stupid. It's not inconsistent, it's statesmanship -- a concept so foreign to these freakish left-wing oddballs that they obviously have trouble recognizing it. The battle America must fight with Russia isn't a nuclear one. Russia lost its superpower status long ago, and McCain understands that. If there will be a military confrontation, it will be a conventional one, on the ground in places like Georgia, Ukraine and Estonia when Russian troops invade. McCain obviously understands the need to beef up American and NATO military capacity in regard to such confrontation, and the risk of getting blinded by the illusion of nuclear deterrence.
But much more important, the real battles will be economic and moral ones, where nuclear arms will be completely useless. McCain knows that we must fight Russian influence in places like the UN and G-8. He knows we must face down the new harshly anti-democratic ideology of the Kremlin, and we must confront the creeping weaponization of Russian energy resources, which it seeks to use as a lever of imperialism. We need to realize that nuclear weapons won't help us win those battles, and McCain needs to make clear to American voters that he won't allow confrontation with Russia to result in a dangerous instability of nuclear armaments.
If those on the left really believed the things they say about nuclear arms, they'd be holding parades of praise for McCain on every American street. But instead, all they want to do is desperately search for ways to attack him. Perhaps that's why Democrats haven't re-elected a president with a majority of the popular vote since the time of FDR.
John McCain is saying we can confront and defeat neo-Soviet Russia, stand up for American values around the world, and do it all without inflicting another nuclear panic on the world's children. He's right on the money, reconfirming that he's by far the best choice to become the next president of the United States.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditPut a Tyrant in your Tank
Filed under: Russia
"Anyone inclined to celebrate Big Oil's recent misfortunes had better hold off on the champagne. For however badly the Western firms may have behaved, the new global oil barons could one day leave environmental and social activists nostalgic for the bad old days of ExxonMobil."
Read all about it.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditDemocrat Doings in Denver
Filed under: Russia
If Democrats are doing so well, why can't they raise the money they need for their convention? Republicans are having no problems.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditWatching Edward Lozansky
Filed under: Russia
The latest addition to our "articles" section in the sidebar is about the efforts of Kremlin henchman Edward Lozansky and his ragtag group of Russophile collaborators to undermine U.S. security and help Vladimir Putin rule Russia for life.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditKozlovsky is Free
Filed under: Russia
Oleg Kozlovsky (shown above) emerged from a Russian prison Monday evening emaciated from a ten-day hunger strike to protest the blatant illegality of his arrest. He was whisked away to a restaurant by his compatriots at Oborona to toast his freedom (and fatten him up).
In what must have been a satisfyingly sweet moment of retribution, his dessert was served by the Washington Post, which published Kozlovsky's op-ed delivering a blistering critique of the Kremlin's gulag-like stability and calling for grass-roots opposition.
Take that, Mr. Putin! No wonder you need to jail this young man. Just imagine how many op-eds he would have published today if he hadn't been in prison!
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditNemtsov Battles for the Soul of Russia
Filed under: Russia
My latest installment is running now on the Pajamas Media mother blog, a review of Boris Nemtsov's heroic treatise laying bare the fundamental failure of the first eight years of Vladimir Putin's dictatorial rule over Russia. Comments over at PM offering support for Nemtsov's effort and courage would be appreciated.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditPutin Takes a Seat, and a Pen
Filed under: Russia
It's necessary now to put both the word "former" and the word "president" in quotation marks when referring to Vladimir Putin. He stands accused of rigging his elections (both by purging the ballot form and stuffing the ballot box) and therefore can't be considered a properly chosen "president," and rather than leaving government after his term as "president" ended he chose to assume the position of prime minister, vastly expanding the powers of that office. Thus, he's still ruling Russia, and by no means as a freely chosen president but rather as a conspiratorial dictator.
The New York Times reports that in announcing the appointment of the members of his new government, Putin "sat at the same place at a table that he used as president for these performances. Dmitri Medvedev, officially the president, sat in a chair that viewers have come to regard as for subordinates." The ministers were all Putin's former flunkies; Medvedev will not be allowed to bring in any new faces. As the Times states: "The announcements reinforced the image that Mr. Putin will retain a grip on power and the direction of policy in Russia."
The Associated Press reports: "When Boris Yeltsin left the Kremlin eight years ago, he gave Vladimir Putin the pen he had used to sign important documents and decrees, a gesture symbolizing the transfer of power to Russia's new president. When Putin left the Kremlin, he took the pen with him."
The Wall Street Journal reports: "If, as is widely expected here, article 32 of the law on government is amended to transfer authority over the military and security services and the foreign ministry to the prime minister, Mr. Putin will have the authority to continue to rule Russia regardless of the president. Postcommunist Russia can thus be ruled in reality (as opposed to appearance) by someone not elected as president, even in flawed elections."
Since being sworn in a week ago, Medvedev has spoken in public for a total of less than 20 minutes. Putin surrounded himself with cabinet ministers who are hard-line former KGB spies, taking them away from the presidential administration and leaving Medvedev "adrift" and powerless. The Telegraph reports that Dmitry Oreshkin, a Russian political analyst said: "The centre of power has been unquestionably transferred to the White House."
Blogger Robert Amsterdam reports that even funnyman David Letterman understands the apocalyptic outrage taking place in Russia:
On the May 12th Late Show with David Letterman, they did a short funny bit replaying clips of all these different news anchors (and of course Hillary Clinton) caught mispronouncing Medvedev's name. Then, right when the bit ended, Letterman looked into the camera and ad-libbed -- "You know it doesn't even matter because he's just one of Putin's cronies . . .," while shaking his head in cynical disapproval. The surprising comment was greeted with silence from the crowd, while his hype man in the band Paul Shaffer quipped, "Is that you speaking here? Because you usually don't go political . . . " And from there the show continued on without further comment.
Ouch. Way to go, Dave, that's telling it like it is! We are getting more leadership on Russia from a stand-up comic than we are from our president, it seems.
Anyone who uses the term "former" or "president" in regard to Putin is betraying not only democracy but the meaning and purpose of human language itself.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditStunning Defeat for Russia in Serbia
Filed under: Russia
The pro-West party of Boris Tadic (shown above) has delivered a stunning, brutal defeat to the reactionary, pro-Russia forces of the radical Serbian nationalist Tomislav Nikolic, outpolling them by a 25% margin in the weekend's parliamentary elections. Spurning Russia despite the recent tumult and polarizing, paranoid rhetoric from Russia over Kosovo, Tadic boldly declared: "The citizens of Serbia have confirmed Serbia's European path. Serbia will be in the European Union. We have promised that, and we will fulfill that."
It's one breathtaking defeat after another for the failed KGB regime of Vladimir Putin. First NATO moves decisively towards missile defense and admission of Ukraine and Georgia (both countries have recently repudiated ties with Russia in national elections), and now Russia can't even hold on to its "little brother" Serbia. At home and abroad, Putin's policies bring only misery and humiliation to the people of Russia, the same neo-Soviet bitterness with which they are already well acquainted. They should have expected nothing else from the "election" of a proud KGB spy. They reap what they have sown.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditAt Last! NATO Pushes Back against Russian Aggression
Filed under: Russia
For many months now, Russia dictator Vladimir Putin has been aggressively menacing Western targets with Soviet nuclear bombers. Time after time (February, August, October), the U.S. and U.K. have scrambled fighter jets to ward off Russian strategic weapons flying perilously close to Western air space. Now, at last, NATO is giving Russia a taste of its own medicine.
NATO isn't uncivilized enough to actually buzz Russian targets with nuclear bombers. Russia has initiated that process unilaterally, and NATO is wise to retain the moral high ground, making Russia look like the barbarian it is.
But, as the International Herald Tribune reports, NATO is making clear and strong efforts to demonstrate its military potency, pushing back hard against the neo-Soviet onslaught. The paper states:Russia's air force chief on Saturday accused NATO fighters escorting Russian bombers on patrol flights over neutral waters of violating safety rules. Air Force chief Col.-Gen. Alexander Zelin said NATO aircraft were approaching Russian bombers too closely and too often, creating risky situations. "They approach our strategic bombers at unacceptable distances and at unacceptable intervals, conduct various maneuvers around them and violate flight safety rules in every way. It is not a misuse of the word 'attack' because our partners are training for combat actions, reaching the point of an attack. I must confess that this is quite unpleasant and even dangerous. Naturally, we rehearse our counteractions." Zelin was quoted by the Interfax news agency as telling reporters Saturday.
What an amazing crybaby! Russia has relentlessly and unilaterally provoked and probed the West with dangerous nuclear weapons, and now when the West defends itself aggressively Russia is "shocked, shocked" by our actions. This is neo-Soviet hypocrisy laid bare, exactly the kind of have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too craziness that brought down the USSR.
Go NATO! Give 'em hell!
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditRussia's Putin in Full Neo-Soviet Frenzy Mode
Filed under: Russia
In the lead-up to Russia's comical-yet-obscene parade of obsolete, creaking Soviet-made military hardware through Red Square last week, the dictator Vladimir Putin declared that his nation would soon surpass the United Kingdom in terms of GDP. Putin stated: "Russia is currently standing in seventh place in the world. According to international experts, it can climb another step as early as this year and overtake Britain."
It's possible this is the most repugnant and ridiculous falsehood Putin has ever told, and that's really saying something. A statement so misleading, on so many levels, could only come from a proudly ignorant and fundamentally dishonest KGB spy like Mr. Putin.
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditOleg Kozlovsky, Arrested Again!
Filed under: Russia
On May 18th, Russia's opposition forces are planning to gather and establish a "National Assembly," which will become a shadow parliament following the true practice of democracy. The Assembly is the brainchild of dissident leader Oleg Kozlovsky, among others, and he was scheduled to play a leading role in the proceedings.
So it hardly comes as a surprise that on May 6th he was arrested by plainclothes police, processed by a kangaroo court and sentenced to 13 day in jail -- meaning he'll be released the day after the Assembly proceedings conclude.
Read all about it on Oleg's new English language blog.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditMyanmar's Russia Connection
Filed under: Russia
The New York Times reports that casualties in the Myanmar typhoon, originally reported as being in the hundreds by the psychopathic military junta that rules the country, will likely top a ghastly 100,000. The horrifying scene on the ground is shown in the photograph above.
And that's not the worst of it. The junta, unwilling to allow large numbers of foreigners into the country as a key vote on an important referendum on a proposed constitution backed by the military is days away, is obstructing relief efforts. It has dispatched an outrageously small number of helicopters to deliver food supplies and prevented shipments of emergency supplies from entering the country. This means that tens of thousands more may perish from disease and starvation while the regime fiddles away. Thousands of bodies have been observed floating in the flooded delta of the Irrawaddy River.
The Times reports that "the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that the United Nations should invoke its 'responsibility to protect' civilians as the basis for a resolution to force delivery of aid to Myanmar, even if over the objections of the military government there." But the regime continues to thumb its nose at the West, laughing at such threats, just as it did when the West protested its barbaric crackdown on protesting monks several months ago (their Facebook page has more than 300,000 members).
Where does the government of a tiny, relatively powerless country get the bravado necessary to flout the authority of the Western world? Well, from the same place that other such entities, from the terrorist rogue regime in Palestine led by Hamas to the lunatic Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to the bloodthirsty fanatics who govern Iran.
They all get it from Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Did you know that in May of last year Putin's Russia agreed to build a nuclear reactor for Myanmar's junta? A reactor just like the one they also agreed to build for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran (a man who says his country has no gays)? Just as was the case in Iran, Russia ignored the pleas of the outside world to refrain from subsidizing the malignant junta in Myanmar and giving it reason to flout international authority.
And did you know that in return Myanmar favored Russia with rights to exploit its mineral resources? Given these ties, it's hardly surprising at all to see Russia turn a blind eye to the atrocities unfolding in Myanmar every day in terms of human rights.
All around the world, Russia is forming relationship with rogue states that abuse their citizens and abrogate the basic values of democracy. It's behaving, in other words, exactly as if it were a reincarnation of the USSR -- and that's not surprising, given that Russia is ruled by a proud KGB spy.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditPutin Invades Georgia
Filed under: Russia
Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation reports that "from April 29 through May 3, Russia sent additional troops to Georgia's Abkhazia region on the pretense of 'peacekeeping' and ostensibly on behalf of the Commonwealth of Independent States." In fact, however, the claim of international action is a sham. Socor reports:
This operation has been a purely Russian one from 1994 to the present. Since 2002 CIS meetings have abandoned even the pretense of discussing this operation, let alone prolonging its "mandate." Nor did Moscow seek CIS member countries' approval of the CIS-labeled Russian troop deployment since April 29. Similarly, Moscow had not bothered to consult with CIS member countries last month when it officially removed the 1996 CIS economic restrictions on Abkhazia. Russia had hardly ever observed those CIS restrictions in practice. The CIS in any case is not authorized to mandate peacekeeping operations. Moscow has not consulted with any CIS country before its latest deployment of Russian troops under the CIS label. No CIS country would willingly approve Russia's move.
So it's a unilateral Russian action, and it's massive and shockingly offensive to international norms. Socor writes: "Georgian and international media showed footage of tanks and other armored vehicles, artillery and troop columns crossing--and, thus, violating--the internationally recognized Russia-Georgia border, staging a show of force in downtown Sukhumi and stationing themselves apparently near the Abkhaz-Georgian demarcation line."
It's not "peacekeeping" in any way, shape or form. Socor points out that "peacekeeping" operations "require consent by the sovereign state on the territory of which they are deployed" and Georgia hasn't consented. Moreover, Russia has refused to provide for the safe return of refugees after ethnic Georgians were cleansed from the region with Russian support in 1994, another basic violation of the peacekeeping mandate. And Russia has "mass-distributed Russian passports to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia" and then claimed a right of intrusive protection of its own citizens, thus becoming an active party to the conflict rather than a neutral peacekeeper.
Socor concludes:
Georgia has considered several times in recent years the possibility of exercising its sovereign right to declare this "peacekeeping" operation illegal and demand its termination. Anxious Western governments advised Tbilisi each time to refrain from doing so. But they have failed to offer any alternative options. Georgia followed the advice of its Western partners each time, though never ceasing to call for the transformation of Russian "peacekeeping" into genuine international peacekeeping. It seems that Georgia has been very poorly rewarded for its forbearance.
Do you dare to imagine Russia's reaction if NATO tanks and troops crossed the Russian border and took up a similar "peacekeeping" role in Chechnya? It's simply inexplicable how Russians can demand that the world stay out of Chechnya and yet feel itself free to inject Russian forces into Georgia whenever it sees fit. A powder keg is brewing in Georgia and the Western governments are about to light the fuse. If they don't immediately send a message loud and clear to Russia that it must respect Georgian borders, there will be an explosion.
Putin has two goals in Georgia: First, to destabilize it internally so that it does not qualify for NATO membership. Second, to nibble away at Georgia's frontiers until Georgia is forced to respond militarily, then to invade and re-annex Georgia as a part of Russia, just as it was in Soviet times. After that, Ukraine will be the next target as Putin, a proud KGB spy, systematically seeks to recreate the USSR.
The world has seen all this before. As the saying goes: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!"
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditA Call for Olympic Divestment from Russia
Filed under: Russia
My latest installment on Pajamas Media is a review of the recent litany of failure by Russia in attempting to prepare for the Sochi Olympiad in 2014, games which should never have been awarded to Russia in the first place, as I've previously argued on this blog. Isn't it about time the world wised up and divested these games from Russia before it's too late? Russia is no more qualified or fit to host the Olympics than it is to sit on the G-7, and if we allow it to do so then we must be prepared to suffer the consequences.
I, for one, am not.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditThe Land of the Slaves and the Home of the Craven
Filed under: Russia
Freedom House has released its 2008 report on worldwide press freedom. The United States ranks #21 on the list (classified as "free") , while Russia ranks an appalling #170, tied with Kazakhstan, Sudan and Yemen and more repressive than Venezuela and Afghanistan. Russia is classified as "not free." Only 22 nations on the entire planet, out of 195 under review, have less press freedom than Vladimir Putin's Russia. Only 33% of the reviewed nations are classified as "not free," and Russia is among them. Only three nations out of 33 in Eastern Europe have lower scores for press freedom than Russia (Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan). Ukraine and Georgia are both much higher-rated, and Russia's arch nemesis Estonia is #1 at the top of the group. Russia is in the bottom 10% of its own region, not even a leader there much less in the world.
Russia can be credited with one truly amazing achievement in press freedom in 2007. It got even worse than in the prior year, when it was already one of the worst in the world. With so little room for decline, truly Herculean effort was undoubtedly required by Mr. Putin to find those last remaining vestigial remnants of freedom and exterminate them. In 2007, Russia ranked #164, so it's position has fallen precipitously in just one year, down 6 places when there was virtually no room left to drop. In 2006, Russia's ranking was #158 and in 2005 it was #145, virtually unchanged from 2004, when it was #147. So, in just the period covering Putin's second term in office, Russia has lost 25 positions on the world press freedom index, dropping a whopping 17% during that time. And Russia was already classified as "not free" when it started out that period.
There are no words which can express the ghastly spectacle of Russia's dictator claiming to be outraged that the Western World views his nation as "a little bit savage" and expecting to be seated at such tribunals as the G-7 while maintaining a barbaric record on repression of journalism such as Freedom House has documented. One expects to hear such lunatic ravings from the "mind" of someone like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, but one doesn't. Only from Russia does this kind of jaw-dropping hypocrisy emanate -- and as a result we have seen Russia's system of government totally collapse not once but twice in the past century (three times if you count the transfer of power by Boris Yeltsin to the KGB in 1999).
The Russia report (see page 175 of the PDF document explaining the findings) states: "Media freedom continued to decline in Russia as the Kremlin further restricted independent news reporting and public dissent while preparing for a stage-managed parliamentary election. Vladimir Putin's authoritarian, corrupt and lawless style of rule appeared set to continue at the end of his second term. Although the constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, Kremlin has used the country's corrupt and politicized criminal justice system to harass and prosecute independent journalists. Throughout 2007, journalists faced dozens of criminal cases" for publishing stories the Kremlin did not care for."
"Authoritarian, corrupt and lawless." Ouch.
Even though Russians purport to crave international recognition and respect, their every action betrays exactly the opposite desire -- to become an object of scorn and ridicule in the civilized world. The report refers to Russia as "one of the most dangerous countries in the world for media" and neither Russia's government nor its people did or demanded anything to make it safer next year.
Russians expect to be treated with due respect as equals by the United States, despite America's vastly greater economic and military attainment, yet Russians refuse to treat such nations as Georgia and Ukraine as anything other than servile colonies expected to do Russia's bidding. Russia expresses outrage at the "Russophobic bias" shown by independent organizations like Freedom House when they routinely condemn Russian barbarity, yet Russia's response is never to make clear efforts to improve the rating. Instead, Russia chooses to adopt the Soviet-era practice of trying to point out weaknesses in other countries, as if that might excuse Russia's self-destruction. That practice led the unreformed USSR to implode less than 100 years after it was created; if Russia follows the same practice, it should expect the same fate.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditPutin the Girly Man, Afraid of his Own Shadow
Filed under: Russia
Meet Boris Nemtsov.
From March 1997 to August 1998, he was former Russian President Boris Yeltsin's deputy prime minister for energy. Nemtsov made a name for himself when he led a protest action in Soviet Russia in 1986, at the age of 27, to block the construction of a nuclear reactor in his home town of Sochi. He then tried to run for parliament, but was blocked by the Communist Party.
A few years later, as the Soviet regime began to collapse and Mikhail Gorbachev's liberalization policies took hold, Nemtsov tried again to enter parliament, and this time succeeded. When the USSR collapsed, he was appointed the first non-Communist governor of the Nizhny Novogorod region, and subsequently won the first-ever election to that post. This position also meant he entered the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia's parliament. He quickly won international praise for his effective policymaking in Nizhny Novgorod, and was soon brought in to the presidential administration.
Scapegoated by Yeltsin for Russia's economic collapse of the late 1990s, Nemtsov then formed his own political party, the "Union of Right Forces," and they won nearly six million votes in the December 1999 parliamentary elections. Soon, however, proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin was in power and Nemtsov, along with all the other liberal parties, were squeezed out of the parliament.
Nemtsov joined the "Other Russia" opposition protest movement, and on November 25, 2007 he was arrested for taking part in an unauthorized street protest. He declared himself a candidate for president in 2008, withdraw his candidacy in support of liberal former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who was then forced off the ballot by the filing of criminal charges.
A few months ago, Nemtsov also withdrew from the Other Russia group. He did so because he was about to publish a white paper reviewing the accomplishments of the Putin administration during its two terms in office, a document that would include strong criticism of Putin's record, and did not wish to bring the Kremlin's ire down upon the organization.
My blog La Russophobe has translated Nemtsov's paper from the original Russian and made it available in PDF and HTML format. Now, writing in the Moscow Times, author Richard Lourie (A Hatred For Tulips and Sakharov: A Biography) states that "all Russian bookstores have reportedly refused to carry [Nemtsov's work], whose title has been variously translated as 'Putin: The Results' and 'Putin: The Bottom Line.'"
In other words, it's classic Soviet-era censorship. Despite his pretensions of courage and power, Putin is afraid of Nemtsov just the way the Tsar feared Pushkin and the Politburo feared Solzhenitsyn. They're afraid mere words will bring them down. And the only response they can make is crude repression.
The parallels between Soviet Russia and Putin's Russia are indeed frightening. The Moscow Times also reports that a whole new class of dissidents is being created in Russia, and they are fleeing the country to find safe havens in places like Ukraine in order to avoid being jailed or murdered. One example is "Olga Kudrina, 24, [who] was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for a May 2005 stunt in which she and another National Bolshevik [Party] member hung a banner from the now-demolished Rossiya Hotel reading 'Putin, Quit Your Job' and for participating in a 2004 break-in at the Health and Social Development Ministry. She failed to show up for her sentencing in May 2006, instead fleeing to Ukraine."
If you can get three and a half years in a barbaric Russian prison cell for telling Putin to quit, imagine what the sentence would be if you suggested he do something even more unpleasant.
How are these circumstances any different from what we saw occurring in the USSR? How is it possible that Russians can plunge headlong into exactly the same nightmare that has already destroyed them?
What we are seeing is a level of foolishness and outrage that is unprecedented in human history.
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del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditBig Brotherski is Watching in Putin's Russia
Filed under: Russia
Two months ago, Human Rights Watch published a 75-page white paper reviewing the effect of a 2006 Russian enactment known as the "Law on Extremism." Just as civil rights activists warned at that time, the law has been used, as HRW documents chapter and verse, to support a wave of attacks by the government aimed not at terrorists but at politically oriented non-governmental organizations which dare to challenge the Kremlin on issues pertaining to civil society and democracy.
As HRW reports, the Kremlin has been systematically attacking all independent political action for some time now:
In 2007 Russian authorities cracked down on opposition political movements and on public protests expressing dissent. Police systematically harassed and detained activists planning and participating in a series of peaceful political protests called "Dissenters' Marches." The protests were organized by an opposition coalition called Other Russia and several other opposition groups seeking to protest setbacks in democracy in Russia.10Protest marches took place in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and half a dozen provincial capitals. Authorities refused to allow or severely restricted the demonstrations. On April 14 riot police and special forces used excessive force to break up the Dissenters' March in Moscow, beating numerous demonstrators and detaining hundreds. Authorities prevented observers and activists -- including Other Russia's leader, Garry Kasparov -- from traveling to Samara to participate in a Dissenters' March on May 18.11
In a case reminiscent of the Soviet era, Other Russia activist Artyom Baysarov was forcibly confined to a psychiatric hospital in Ioshkar-Ola on November 23, 2007, one day before the protest he had been planning in that city.12 He was released one month later.
Within the past few days there have been two more vivid examples of this neo-Sovietization of Russian society. On April 22nd, Other Russia reports, the "appeal of a Russian non-profit organization, shut down after failing to comply with strict new registration rules, was been thrown out by the country's highest court. The Judicial Division for Civil Cases of Russia's Supreme Court, led by Viktor Knyshev, upheld an earlier court order that the refugee assistance group be dissolved for failing to file the correct documents in time. A year and a half after the Law Against Extremism went into effect, there are some 227,000 registered NGOs. According to the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta, only a quarter of those groups had filed correctly by this year's April 15th deadline."
On the same day, ironically, Other Russia reports that "the website of a popular newspaper in Kirov, Russia suddenly stopped working. As it turned out, the Vyatsky Nablyudatel had been targeted by local law enforcement office for alleged extremism. The site's internet host, the 'Hosting Company,' decided to pull the plug after a formal request from the Kirov Oblast militsiya."
Some of the Kremlin's more base apologists claim that actions of this kind do not have the imprimator of the national government, much less the Kremlin, but rather are only the rogue antics of local czars. As if to specifically humiliate these cretins and remove any doubt as to whether these actions are approved by the Kremlin, three days later Russia's lower house of parliament voted to allow the government vast new powers to restrict and silence the mass media.
Some in today's younger generation may look back with contempt on the actions of their forefathers during World War II when faced with the rise of Adolph Hitler. They may ask how the world could have turned its back for so long on the threat it faced, how things could have been allowed to get so far out of hand. They may think that those times are passed, that a similar thing couldn't happen today, not with NATO and the United Nations in place. But reflecting on the impunity with which Russia's dictator, a proud KGB spy, is rapidly recreating the Soviet system in today's Russia, it's not hard to see how wrong such a conclusion would be.
Even now, just as Neville Chamberlain sought to blind the West in the 1930s to the threat posed by Hitler, the appeasers are desperately seeking to cast Vladimir Putin's successor as a closet liberal. Yet, Dimitri Medvedev has remained silent in the face of the new legislative initiative against the press, silent as a new wave of attacks on independent voices in Russia is launched, silent as Putin reaches out to grab more power in his new position as prime minister.
What we need now is a new Winston Churchill. Perhaps American presidential candidate John McCain, who has called for Russia's ouster from the G-8, will prove to be that leader.
NOTE: To comment on this post for publication, write to: kimzigfeld@gmail.com
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditTales of Neo-Soviet Russia: The Khodorkovsky File
Filed under: Russia
NOTE: To comment on this post for publication, write to: kimzigfeld@gmail.com
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditThe Holy Russian Empire
Filed under: Russia
Russia is not required to give freedoms to other religions because Russia is not the United States. People here differ from Americans. I'm not talking about right of a person to have freedom of belief. I mean, instead, the right of an organization to advertise its ideology. Not every country can have the same level of religious freedom as the United States.Most people around me are atheists. Atheism in this country is the most important religion, despite the fact that many atheists call themselves Orthodox. The majority of people, I am sure, are not interested in the struggles among churches for congregations and for what's in the pockets of believers. Never ask me about what the issue is, the issue is money.
If one talks about freedom of conscience in Russia, then: All faiths are equal. But some faiths are more equal than others.
What can I say? In principle, everything in the article is correct. Of course, it's different in different regions, but the general direction of movement is like this. In everything, including the issues dealing with faith, the Soviet dictatorship that is being resurrected wants to point the citizens in the direction it considers the right one. Descending, along with this, to brainwashing or more crude power pressure. All this is obvious and pointless to deny.
The New York Times has offered another installment in its series of long articles about Russia which are translated onto a Russian-language blog and commented upon by Russian readers. Above are four such comments on the new article, which exposes the horrific level of persecution by state-sponsored orthodox Christianity of all protestant religions in the nation. Reporting from the city of Stary Oskyol, the reporter begins:
It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began. First came visits from agents of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a "sect." Finally, last month, they shut it down.
The result is that, as shown below, Russian protestants are forced underground into virtual bunkers, hiding from the authorities just as in Soviet times.
Welcome back to the USSR! Russians want to sit on the G-8 panel, but they don't want to extend any of the same democratic values that are the bedrock of that organization's value system in their country. This is fully-fledged neo-Soviet hypocrisy, childish in its ignorance, and it will surely bring Russia once again to catastrophe.
Watch a video report on the crackdown here.
To read more about how the Russian government is using its visa regime to exclude the "wrong" religions from reaching Russia, click here.
NOTE: To comment on this post for publication, write to: kimzigfeld@gmail.com
del.icio.us | digg | technorati | stumble upon | furl | redditRussian Oil is Drying Up Fast, No Hope Offshore
Filed under: Russia
We've previously reported on how Russian oil production is falling off fast. Those who hope that Russia can replenish its production by developing offshore fields may be barking up the wrong oil derrick. The energy industry trade publication Upstream Online reported on April 18th:
Russia needs 61 trillion rubles ($2.6 trillion) of investment to develop offshore oil and gas deposits, Rosneft boss Sergei Bogdanchikov has claimed. Exploration alone of offshore regions until 2050 will cost 16 trillion rubles and production 45 trillion rubles more, Bogdanchikov told reporters and government officials in Moscow today.UpstreamOnline also reports:
Russian gas giant Gazprom has booked a a worse than predicted 20% fall in second-quarter net profit, blaming lower sales in Europe and higher operating costs. Net profit fell to 113 billion roubles ($4.62 billion), to International Financial Reporting Standards, from 141 billion roubles in the same period last year and below the average of 129 billion roubles in a Reuters poll of 11 analysts. Revenue rose 5% to 532 billion roubles, in line with forecasts, but the bottom line was hurt by high operating expenses, which jumped 18% year-on-year to 390 billion roubles. Gazprom's total long-term borrowings, including affiliates, rose to 1.105 trillion roubles from 806 billion roubles at the end of 2006.
So Russian gas and oil fields are running dry, trillions are needed to refurbish them, and Gazprom is deep in debt, unable to provide such funds. Blogger Tim Newman, who works in the Russian energy sector, adds:
The $2.6 trillion required by Gazprom and Rosneft is only that amount needed to develop Russia's offshore fields. The onshore developments will need separate funding, as in Upstream Online tells us: "Gazprom Neft, which expects Gazprom to hand over the right to develop all of Gazprom's 11 oilfields within the next two to three years, has said it plans to invest up to $4 billion per year to 2020, or around $50 billion, to boost output." $4bn per year is one hell of a lot of money for a single company to invest in oil and gas projects, if not much beside the $62bn per year that they say they are going to have to come up with to develop the offshore fields. Bear this in mind next time you hear about Gazprom investing in trans-saharan pipelines, Libya, and Nigeria. Despite the political rhetoric and talks of the massive potential and influence of Gazprom, it is Russia's most indebted company. In other words, Gazprom is unlikely to be in much of a position to be financing mega-projects any time soon, and if it is going to sink billions into places like Africa, having never run a major project on home soil let alone in a political minefield like Nigeria, Russians might be waiting a while for their offshore gas receipts.
Russia could, of course, solicit foreign investment to provide the needed sums, but then it would have to share the profits and the control, and it's currently i