Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

 by Patrick Armstrong

Russia and France. I have been saying for some time that Paris has a better take on the reality of Georgian-Russian relations than other capitals and that this knowledge is gradually working its leaven. The first reason is Salome Zurabishvili who, as a former French Foreign Service employee, has a certain inside track in France. The second is that Foreign Minister Kouchner made the effort to visit the Ossetian refugees in Vladikavkaz and learned more about the actual situation than other capitals and the Western MSM who did little more than parrot Tbilisi’s press releases. Thus, Paris freed itself from much of the nonsense about the 2008 South Ossetia war and has come to realise how much Saakashvili  was manipulating coverage and to better understand the real nature of his rule. Medvedev just visited Paris and meetings seem to have gone very well with Sarkozy’s address at the state dinner a concise statement of past relations and present common interests. Medvedev responded in kind. (Press conference.) The talks seem to have covered a lot: visa-free regime, Georgia, Mistral sales, Middle East, new European security architecture. Both said much about trusting each other). Indeed, it seems to have been quite an important visit and should serve to further move the reflex reaction away from the binary position that whatever “we” do is good and whatever Moscow does is bad.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

 by Patrick Armstrong

Medvedev program. Medvedev’s (ie The Team’s) program for the first year was derailed by two unexpected events: the international financial crisis and Saakashvili’s invasion of South Ossetia. Nonetheless, we do have an idea of what he (ie The Team) has in mind. While not very much has happened, there is talk of selling off a number of state-owned companies and many speeches about the problem of corruption. Overtures to, if not the opposition, at least non-Kremlinocentric opinion and, many many references to modernisation: “perhaps the most important topic on our agenda, namely the modernisation of our economy. The modernisation of Russia's economy must be based on new technologies, innovation and the radical restructuring of the country's internal economic structure.” Medvedev spends a lot of his time exhorting people and talking about the big strategic picture (for example, to energy sector executives on Friday). Thus far, not that much legislation has hit the street, but it is coming (education, police, quality control, banking).

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

 by Patrick Armstrong

Military Doctrine. On Friday Medvedev signed off on the latest military doctrine (officially the third after 1993 and 2000). I don’t see anything very different from its predecessors: NATO expansion, terrorism, nuclear weapons will be used if we think we have to. (The last seems to be hailed as a new development whenever it appears: in 2010 or 1999; but it’s every nuclear power’s actual policy). Perhaps there’s a bit more emphasis on modernisation of the Armed Forces and their equipment as a consequence of deficiencies discovered in the Ossetia war. I must confess, I never understand what these documents are supposed to do: large sections are simply a list of the obvious. For example:  “36. The main tasks of military planning are” a, b, c, d, e, f; all of which could be summarised as “to plan for eventualities”. But they must serve some planning or authorisation purpose in the Russian bureaucratic structure. A calm and thoughtful assessment here.

THE WILTING PETALS OF GEORGIA'S ROSE REVOLUTION

REPRINTS

www.opendemocracy.net, 29 January 2010

By Salome Zourabishvili

There were such hopes for the future in Georgia after the Rose Revolution in 2004, but history is running backwards, says former foreign minister Salome Zourabishvili, and President Saakashvili must be told that enough is enough.

Six years ago, on 25 January 2004, Mikheil Saakashvili took the oath of office as president of Georgia for the first time.

Then it was a day of hope and high expectations. At last our country would have a president truly committed to democracy, an end to corruption and peaceful reunification.

And for some time those hopes looked justified. One breakaway province, Adjara, returned to the fold and the other two in Abkhazia and South Ossetia looked as though they might follow suit. I joined the president's government as Foreign Minister and secured the removal of Russian military bases. Corruption was tackled and as a result tax revenues grew and tax rates fell.

ELECTIONS IN UKRAINE

COMMENTARY

Flying So High You Can’t See the Ground

By Patrick Armstrong

Ukrainians will be electing a new President on Sunday and, while we do not yet know who will win, we know that neither Yanukovych nor Tymoshenko is running on an overtly anti-Russia platform. Therefore, whoever wins, relations between Kiev and Moscow will likely be calmer than they have been since the “Orange Revolution” of 2004. Stratfor sees this in apocalyptic terms: “The next few months will therefore see the de facto folding of Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence” and “a new era of Russian aggressiveness” now begins The author goes on to talk about the Carpathians as a defence shield for Russia, Ukraine as Russia’s “breadbasket” and so on.

But who decided that this was the question that Ukrainian voters were answering? It was the “Orange Revolution” and its outside backers that injected into Ukrainian politics the binary choice of either joining the West or becoming Russia’s appendage: at no point was there support among the majority of Ukrainians for such a choice. And there is absolutely no reason to treat the recent election as having made such a choice. While Yushchenko was indeed the binary candidate: “either this pro-Kremlin couple and pro-Kremlin policy wins, or the pro-European policy does”, he and his view have been brutally rejected by the voters. No surprise, of course, to those who have been watching opinion polls in Ukraine.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Putin’s view. Occasionally we get a succinct indication of Putin’s thinking. Here’s one from a meeting with the State Council on Friday: “We must not allow our political culture to follow a Ukrainian scenario, and we must also prevent it from sliding into totalitarianism and despotism. Unfortunately, we know examples of this within the post-Soviet space”. A not unreasonable via media.

NATO. Relations proceed as NATO continues its self-educational process of realising Russia is more important than it used to think it was.

Prediction. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that, by 2050, Russia’s economy will be the sixth-largest in the world and larger than any in Europe. There are too many future unknowns to put much stock in these kinds of predictions but it is interesting (amusing?) to juxtapose this with the commonplace predictions that Russia will collapse, sink into permanent poverty or that Russians will disappear from the earth.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Election fraud. Two opinion polls, both by Levada, give us data on how people say they voted in the elections last month. A poll of Muscovites (JRL/201/4) gives 46.1% for United Russia (official numbers 66.25%), 27.1% for the communists (13.3%), 11.8% for LDPR (6.13%), 7.9% for Just Russia (5.33%) and 3.7% for Yabloko (4.71%). A nation-wide poll asking the same question gives United Russia 47%, communists 13%, Just Russia 8%, LDPR 7% and Yabloko 2%. When the Yabloko leader said his vote hadn’t been counted at all, a recount was ordered and, lo! it was found that some Yabloko votes had “accidently” been miscounted. But these numbers do not give us a clear picture. Levada tells us that Muscovites voted communist at twice the rate of the nation; this seems improbable. Levada also tells us that fewer people voted for Yabloko than the official numbers give; this too seems improbable if the scenario were to inflate United Russia’s numbers and deflate the others. So, as always, an examination of the data we have deepens the mystery. The Yabloko leader has described what his people told him and it appears that fake voters was the preferred method. Medvedev met with the head of the CEC and said “All types of claims must be investigated thoroughly”. Well, we’ll see. These numbers make a prima facie cause for fraud favouring the pedestal party but leave us in the dark as to what degree of fraud there was.

WORKING WITH RUSSIA TO PREVENT EURASIAN COLLAPSE

REPRINTS

by Andrey Tsygankov

RFERL, Oct 29, 2009 

The Eurasian region continues to disintegrate, and neither Russia nor the West has been able to arrest the destabilizing dynamics.

Evidence of rising instability throughout the region include the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war, renewed terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus, the persistent failure of Western forces to stabilize Afghanistan, the inability of Central Asian rulers to reign in local clans and drug lords, and the paralysis of legitimately elected bodies of power in Ukraine and Moldova.

Violence is gradually spreading, waiting for an opportunity to erupt into a large-scale conflict. Transregional transportation routes may soon be choked due to Russia's conflicts with Ukraine, Georgia, and Turkmenistan.

The West's attempts to secure and stabilize Eurasia after the end of the Cold War must be recognized as a failure. In the mid-1990s, U.S. geostrategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski recommended that the United States pursue a policy of replacing Russia as the referee and protector of the newly established non-Russian states in the region. After initial hesitation, the United States and other Western states followed this advice.

Yet Eurasia has not become stable or peaceful and continues to disintegrate. The bureaucrats in Washington and Brussels have failed to understand that they lack the resources, the will, and the experience to stabilize the complex region. Today -- after the Iraq war and the global financial crisis -- the United States is beginning to recognize its overextension, but it is not at all clear if Washington and Brussels are prepared to act differently in Eurasia.

Continue reading this article 

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Election fraud. There are objective and perfectly understandable reasons for United Russia to win most elections in Russia. The population supports its leaders and, consequently, extends that support to their pedestal. In fact, Levada’s most recent numbers show United Russia with more than one and a half times as much support as all the others combined. The losers always charge vote fraud but usually it ends there. This time, the three losers, LDPR, KPRF and Just Russia actually walked out of the Duma in protest (all have now returned); there have been some small protests, the Communists are demanding the resignation of the Head of the CEC and says it will be holding rallies today. So this one has better legs (and supporting detail) than the pro-forma protests of earlier times. We will see what happens. Again, however, I stress that a consideration of polling numbers over time shows that United Russia is bound to win; cheating only determines the scale of that win (so, indeed, why do it at all?) Medvedev once murmured something about reducing the 7% threshold. I believe 7% is too high for Russia’s conditions (unless, of course, its purpose is to produce enormous United Russia majorities across the country) and it would be better to go back to the old 5% threshold. But there is no “correct” number and there is great variation across the world.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Regional elections. Elections were held across Russia on Sunday and, as usual, United Russia dominated the results. The losing parties have charged fraud and walked out of the Duma on Wednesday in protest. What are we to make of this? It is very likely there was a degree of fraud, both from the top of the power pyramid and from the bottom. But there are objective reasons for the domination of United Russia. It is the party in power and the population has showed, in innumerable opinion polls, that it approves of the people in power; approval of Medvedev and Putin is easily transferred to their pedestal party. Some opposition parties have been led by the same people for 15 years: why should anyone decide that Zhirinovskiy and Zyuganov, who have been rejected time and time again, suddenly have the answers? As to the others, Yabloko, while it has a new leader, marginalised itself by its repeated refusal to collaborate with like-minded people, Just Russia has never really got off the ground and Other Russia is a stunt for Western naïfs. Therefore, in my opinion, fraud, pressure and the like can account for the margin of victory but not for the victory itself. The Russian “opposition” has found a comfortable niche which is personally profitable to its leaders while United Russia gets things done. Not an ideal situation to be sure, but one which many hands have made.