by Patrick Armstrong
Corruption. I believe that the single greatest problem in Russia
today is corruption. I wouldn’t try to estimate how great a proportion of GDP
is “taxed” this way, but it is very large. (Others don’t hesitate: 40% or 50%. Surely too high: if that much
went to corruption, the only industries left would be brothels and fast cars!).
Reducing corruption is said to be a high priority of the government, but how
effectively is it being done? According to the Interior
Ministry, 8000 people in the first 6 months of the year were prosecuted: among
them 4 deputy governors, 3 regional ministers, 8 parliamentarians, 12 heads of
municipalities and deputies and 15 heads of local executive power structures.
You can’t say that that is nothing, but you can wonder if it goes high enough: as I’ve
said before, the anti-corruption campaign will really bite when someone in an
office near Medvedev or Putin is arrested. But bit by bit: recently a senior policeman
was arrested and
4 Moscow policemen detained
on suspicion of kidnapping. In an interesting approach, Sberbank posted a list of employees fired for
breach of duty: “We do not want them
to work in the banking system again”.
Putinology. Putin has been in Russia’s Far East for some weeks visiting this and that and personally
driving a car some distance along the new Chita-Khabarovsk highway. He gave
some interviews in his car as he drove. In one (JRL/2010/165#34) he defined The
Team’s target: “a mechanism of stable Russian statehood” (“механизм
устойчивой российской государственности”), a process that will take
decades. (Is mechanism really the best word?
Something a little more organic, and less top-down, might be better.) Everything
fell apart in the USSR because it was “organised on closed production”. Protesters
say they want a law-governed society but refuse to get a protest permit and
obey it. The West “deceived us in the most
primitive way” about NATO expansion. In another interview
he acknowledged the difference between hearing about something and actually
seeing it: roads in this case. And confirming something I’ve suspected for a while:
“I am fed up with foreign policy”; in any case, as he
said, stronger domestic policy leads to stronger foreign policy.
Something you won’t hear about. Putin laid
flowers at the NorilLag
Golgotha memorial.
People power. Medvedev suspended construction on the Moscow-St
Petersburg highway through the Khimki forest “given the concern experienced today by a significant
number of Muscovites”. And the new media has its effect: a St Petersburg policeman was charged
with excessive force breaking up an opposition rally 31 July thanks to a
YouTube video
and a cell phone video led to two traffic police in Magadan being sentenced. Maybe the
police will try to ban cameras altogether (as some other
jurisdictions have tried).
The farce. As usual the marchers went anyway to Triumfalnaya Square, having
refused other venues;
the police broke it up; Washington huffed. Berezovskiy,
that great champion of law and order, organised a demo
in London; it passed peacefully (but he obeyed the rules: suppose he’d gone to
Marble Arch instead?). Given that one of the principals today said that she will
no longer participate in these stunts – she’s 83 – perhaps they will now
stop.
Alcohol. Another campaign
is under way: here’s
some data. But on the
other hand….
Chechnya. The Kadyrovs and Yamadayevs have, as they
say, “made
the peace”. Kadyrov formalised it at a
wake for Sulim. Both
families fought against the Russians in the first war but turned against the
jihadists in the second and fought for Moscow (as it were). They had a falling
out and two Yamadayevs and Kadyrov
senior were killed. A term of the peace, it appears, is that neither side
will blame the other for the deaths.
Jihadism. Some good news for the authorities in the last two
weeks. The man suspected of having organised the Moscow Metro bombings in March
was killed as
was the “Emir of
Groznyy”. And as further evidence of informers or penetration, jihadists
were killed in Ingushetia
and Dagestan. It’s up and down.
How fleeting is forever. The gold-plated statue of Saparmurat Niyazov has
been dismantled.
Georgia. Saakashvili has promised that Tbilisi
will soon formalise a non-use of force commitment over South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. Well, I’ll believe it when I see it (and no weasel-wording). Wouldn’t
it have been good if Tbilisi had made this commitment three
years ago?
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