RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Pressure. A prominent Russian businessman says he will sell all his assets in Russia and retire so as to end what he calls “relentless pressure from the authorities”, specifically from “Directorate K of the [FSB]”. He believes this began when the newspaper he part owns began an investigation of corruption in the FSB. He says he does not think the Kremlin is behind “my business… being purposefully and deliberately destroyed” but would like it to clarify its position. One of the Duumvirate ought to say something and soon.

Direction. A recent poll finds an increasing pessimism about the way Russia is developing: 35% think in the wrong direction (up from 26% in Feb 2009) and 31% in the right direction (down from 52%). However, before this is shoved into the latest idiotic editorial about the imminent collapse of “the Putin system”, we need a little context. 61% of Americans think their country is on the wrong track; 73% of British and 56% of EU inhabitants do too. So, as the real world runs, Russians are pretty upbeat.

Russia Inc. The EBRD has cut its growth forecast for Russia from 4.2% to 3.1% in 2012 and from 4.3% to 3.3% for 2013. It foresees lower demand for commodities in the Eurozone. Still, by present standards, not bad.

Ossetia war. In a film just out, several former senior generals say Medvedev should have given the order to move into South Ossetia a day earlier and many died because he didn’t . Medvedev defended his decision. (I thought that Putin &Co didn’t allow any public disagreements). I will be amused to see how Saakashvili’s flacks try to spin this, given that Saakashvili’s final version of the story was that they did move a day early.

Pussy Riot. The trial began on the 30^th and ended yesterday. The judge promises to hand down her verdict on the 17^th. Many absurdities about this event: Anatoly Karlin takes the time to dissect a Guardian editorial on the subject – much more time than the writers took to string together memes of the moment, half truths and untruths. I recommend reading it to illustrate just how biased, slipshod and dishonest so much commentary on Russia is. Alexander Mercouris has written a long legal analysis of the case. By the way, unlike the MSM, which is happy to throw around generalisations without sources, both Karlin and Mercouris provide many hyperlinks: they don’t make stuff up. A question to ponder: given that Putin also has the support of Russia’s Chief Mufti, when will we see Pussy Riot call him Putin’s “bitch” too?

Slow and steady. Not for the first time, Putin laid out his ruling strategy: “Move gradually, calmly, with the necessary rotation, but move forward”.Understandable, but the time can come when caution slips into stagnation. I still think it would have been better had he not run again. I don’t think he’s run out of creativity yet, but it comes to all of us eventually.

Corruption. The first corruption case over the Sochi Olympics is ready to go to court, others are being prepared. Given all the circumstances – lots of money thrown at it, pressure from the top – I’m sure that a lot of money has disappeared.

Parties. A potentially significant opposition party, RPR-PARNAS, was registered.

The Law is slow. The Russian legal process is not very high-speed. The investigators have finally sent the Kushchevskaya case to court (gang war is their theory) 21 months after the crime. Four skinheads were sentenced for murder during the Manege Square riot (20 months).  And two more were sentenced today for involvement in the murder of a governor in October 2002; four others having been convicted last year. I have no theories but observe that many commentators seem to expect it should go faster.

Putin in UK. Putin met with the British PM and things seem to go pretty calmly. It seems that Litvinenko was not a major part of the agenda. Apparently £4 million has already been spent on the investigation and the coroner hasn’t even made a verdict of how he died yet. Not much return for the money (speaking of slow legal processes).

Interesting laws. We hear much about laws in Russia; here’s one I just heard about. It’s illegal in Lithuania to deny Soviet aggression and someone was just sentenced for doing so. Don’t hear much about that law which would seem to have the effect of turning historical arguments into criminal cases.

Comments

[Alexander Mercouris]

Dear Patrick,

Thank you for your very kind words about the Pussy Riot post.

Could I take up a point you mentioned in response to my previous comment on your previous round up? I missed it then because I was busy with Pussy Riot and other things. I touched on the point in response to your comment on Anatoly Karlin's blog.

Basically, I think some of the coverage we see about Russia is written by some unpleasant people with unpleasant agendas who understand exactly what they are doing. However I think in the overwhelming majority of cases the problem is that the negative image of Russia is so strong and so well established that people who write about Russia simply assume that bad things they read and hear about Russia are true and they simply repeat those things without bothering to check them. People in my experience are always very willing to believe that which they think they already know.

More interesting are certain people who sincerely believe passionately that Putin is evil and that the Russian government is evil, which makes them reckless about what they write because they feel that untruths are somehow excusable in the cause of exposing the greater truth, which is the evil of Putin and of the Russian government. The Guardian writer whose editorial Anatoly Karlin so comprehensively eviscerated falls into that category. Of course it never occurs to such people that a truth based on lies is not and cannot be true.

Can anything be done about it? The answer is yes it can but not just by people like us. One of the best and wisest points you ever made was about the abject failure of Russia to put its own case. I don't know whether you read the exchange of correspondence I had with the Guardian about the numbered of murdered journalists that Anatoly Karlin posted on his blog? That was a case of an editorial that accused Putin and the Russian government of complicity in the murder of 200 journalists. When I pointed out that the number was certainly wrong (as it turned oout by a factor of five) the readers' editor admitted this was so but told me that no one not even the Russian authorities had previously pointed this out. In other words the Guardian published an editorial which wrongly accused the Russian Prime Minister and once and future President of complicity in the murder of 200 journalists and the Russian authorities did nothing about it.

This is a minor example of a huge problem. If you do not make your own case why should anyone make it for you? What is so difficult in the Pussy Riot case for example for the Russian authorities to say that this is a simple public order case?

You said that the Russians feel that this sort of thing is beneath them. I think you are completely right. Look at the way they conduct their foreign policy. At one level there is no question about the competence of people like Lavrov and Churkin. In questions of grand policy they are more than able to hold their own. However a country today cannot run its policy as if the world was still as it was in the time of Metternich and Talleyrand. Russian spokesman have to learn to take the trouble to write letters, appear on television, hold news conferences, consult lawyers and public relations consultants, conduct commercial and political lobbying and do all all the other things that in other countries are taken for granted.

Sorry about the length of this comment. One thought: I seem to remember that some sort of a meeting or conference was going to happen a few months ago at which you and Gordon and others like Anatoly Karlin and Eugene Ivanov were going to meet to discuss ways of improving Russia's image. Did that meeting ever happen?

PS: I most definitely am not your only reader. I happen to know several people who read you including a lecturer in English at Oxford University who was the person who first alerted me to this webpage. To my knowledge she still follows you carefully.

[Patrick Armstrong]

My goodness – TWO readers. That’s twice as many as I thought I had. Growing by the moment!
But seriously. As always much to respond to.
1. I honestly don’t know whether it’s malice or stupidity. Being a big believer in Hanlon’s Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor), (To say nothing of Gibbon’s great apothegm: “history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.” Obviously there are people out there who are actively engaged in Hate Russia stuff (in your own dear country BAB is very active). In the USA Romney buys it all and Saakashvili is active. In my Own Dear Country there are those too. (BTW I recommend Martin Malia’s book in this respect http://www.amazon.ca/Russia-under-Western-Eyes-Mausoleum/dp/0674002105/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1344813829&sr=8-4. In essence he shows how Russia has been a palimpsest for Western notions for 200 years)
2. The MSM gets everything wrong. It’s not just Russia.
3. Yes we did all meet and the fruit may be plucked here http://us-russia.org/
4. Good for you talking back to the Grauniad (not just typos they get wrong http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grauniad)
5. I do think the Russians (who have, after all been major players for 250 years more or less – for example see this (http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=524968&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21) are just too damned proud to respond to this stuff. Maybe Putin just doesn’t care any more, but IMO, they are wrong not to. (PS I don’t think RT is the way to do it.)
6. I also suspect that after all this stuff after all these years that the Russians just don’t care. Whatever they do, they will be condemned and the lousy reporting will continue. Check out, for example, this: “Instead of closer ties, Russia under President Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB intelligence officer who has said he wants to restore elements of Russia’s Soviet communist past, has adopted growing hardline policies against the United States.” (http://freebeacon.com/silent-running/) Nothing Moscow does or says will ever be believed by those who think that that is a correct and adequate statement.