Russia: Other Points of View

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Book plug. Please take a look at this: Putin’s New Russia. A number of us have contributed in an effort to counter the continuous outpouring of slipshod and biased reporting on Russia.

Local elections. United Russia dominated; the opposition cried foul. Turnout rather low but better in the five regions electing governors (all five drearily United Russia). But what is the “opposition” anyway? opposed to Putin yes, but agreed on what? See next.

Demos. Another large opposition demo passed off peacefully last month. The opposition is becoming more fragmented by the day; an eyewitness tells me about supernationalists yelling at PARNAS: “Russia without Jews!” and insulting gay rights campaigners; anarchists telling the white ribbon people to take up the black flag of anarchy; Udaltsov’s Red Front calling for Lukashenka to head a Russia-Belarus union; Monarchists calling Nemtsov a Russophobe. As if Nazis, Communists, and Occupy people all shared a stage shouting at each other with the occasional ???? appearing.

Udaltsov. An NTV program ran a film supposedly showing him plotting civic disorder with a Georgian politician: he insists the film is a fake. The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a case. I have nothing intelligent to say: it could be true or it could be a fabrication designed to knock him out.

RESPONSE TO ESTONIAN DEFENSE MINISTER'S ERRONEOUS ARTICLE

Problems of Expansionism: Russia, NATO, and Georgia

by Gordon M. Hahn

A September 10^th Wall Street Journal article by Estonia’s Defense Minister Urmas Reinsalu (printed below) demonstrates why NATO expansion has been the biggest among the US’s post-Cold War foreign policy mistakes––especially when it comes to Russia.  NATO expansion by the U.S. and other western countries, has made it impossible to fashion a balanced policy that takes into account the security interests of both Russia and its neighbors.  Moreover, it has brought more radically Russophobic countries in the former Soviet Union into NATO, prompting more expansion and thus Moscow’s continuing angst about the military bloc.  Minister Reinsalu presents a deliberately distorted view of the August 2008 Georgian-Ossetian-Russian war and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements regarding that war.

Minster Reinsalu claims that Putin “told reporters that he had approved Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia two years before it took place.”  But Putin said nothing of the sort.  Putin was responding to a journalist’s question at a press conference as to whether “Russia did not really have plan of action in the event of military aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia?” Putin responded: “There was a plan, and, in my opinion, this is no secret, specifically within the framework of this plan the Russian side also acted.  I already have spoken about this publicly earlier as well.  It (the plan) was approved and agreed upon by me.” 

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.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Putin speech. At the St Petersburg Forum. On a recurrent theme, he said that the economy must reduce its dependence on hydrocarbons and that foreign investment was necessary: “This is why we feel that creating an investment climate that is not just favourable, but truly better and more competitive, is a key issue in state policy.” A commissioner for entrepreneurs’ rights, Boris Titov, has been named (he immediately said he would press for pardons for the many in jail for economic crimes – including Khodorkovskiy. I wonder how that will play out). The government will reduce its holdings in state-owned companies. Medvedev received much attention at the start of his presidency for talking about Russia’s “legal nihilism”; well, here’s Putin: “Unfortunately corruption is without exaggeration the biggest threat to our development”. Same team, same program. In fact there are those who think Putin came back as President because only he has the muscle to take on corruption. There is a hint in the speech that he takes the G20 more seriously than the G8. An important speech to read and not read about: making Russia a more attractive place for foreign investment will be a high priority. He’s not naïve: “a fairly difficult and ambitious goal, given our position today”.

Today’s Video. Putin is a believing Christian. I heard that a long time ago and here’s a video collection.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

The cards are re-dealt. After the usual considerations, negotiations and calculations, the re-shuffle is probably complete. There is a new government with many new faces. A new Security Council – most positions ex-officio. Defence is unchanged (many thought Serdyukov was going to go) but there is a new Interior Minister (police reform has proved to be somewhat unfinished). Sergey Lavrov continues as Foreign Minister. True to his habit, Putin has sent no one into the darkness; many of the old faces being “kicked upstairs”. Neo-Kremlinologists are scrying the auguries but as far as I can see, we have the same Team, with new people moved up from the “farm teams”. What ought to be apparent, after more than a decade’s observation, is that Putin has created a remarkably collegial, discreet and effective team. He’s had a few former insiders join the opposition but (I can’t resist) nothing like Saakashvili who has seen almost every former minister, associate and ambassador go into the opposition. Further thoughts coming Friday here.

Demographics. More good numbers: births up and deaths down and a fertility rate that is rising into the middle of developed countries. Anatoly Karlin has a discussion and summary of the first quarter’s numbers. The improvement is clearly not a “blip” but it’s not yet clear whether it is long-term. I have a question. We know that fertility rates can change suddenly (vide the “baby boom” in Canada and the USA after the war and the dramatic drop in Quebec in a few generations). All kind of personal factors come into play: national pride, hope (or not) for the future, affluence, education, religious beliefs and many more – millions of individual decisions that are mysteriously in step. My speculative question is this: might it be possible that positive factors are coming together in Russia and that its fertility rate might continue to grow? A few generations of Europe with negative fertility and Russia with positive would make a different world Something to watch.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Duma Election. There have been innumerable reports that Russians are sick and tired of political realities; we hear this every time an election comes up (after all, a prevailing meme is that Putin & Co only hold onto power by cheating and manipulation) and it’s forgotten until the next time. However, there does seem to be some genuine evidence that people are getting tired of United Russia. This is The Team’s dilemma: while it has successfully constructed a “pedestal party”, something that eluded Yeltsin, United Russia is still little more than a grouping of those in power and those who want to be. Many of its apparatchiks are not very popular in local areas. Nonetheless, one could hardly expect the perennial, and unchanged, opposition of the Communists and LDPR to offer much more hope. I expect that United Russia will remain the largest party but would not be surprised to see its percentage cut – no bad thing (Putin would agree: less of a rubber stamp and more of a Duma that thinks. Not, of course, that he wants any discontinuity). What I’m less confident about is what the disgruntled will do. Many I suspect will stay home but it will be interesting to see whether Just Russia, Right Cause or Yabloko profit from the mould that has grown on United Russia. For years now the Communists and LDPR have shared a (declining) sector of the vote and I don’t think that their total share will much change. We’ll find out on Sunday. As for those who are convinced Russian elections are rigged, I recommend Anatoly Karlin’s piece which shows that results accord with earlier opinion polls. (And for those who think they’re rigged, all I can say is that that would be an improbable amount of rigging.)

NATO EXPANSION, AND U.S.-RUSSIA RELATIONS IN THE 'NEAR ABROAD'

COMMENTARY

by Gordon Hahn

Several events this week prompt a reconsideration of a potential deal breaker in the U.S.-Russian ‘reset’ or thaw, and the failed policy of NATO expansion without Russia which was adopted by the Clinton Administration in the mid-1990s. 

First, the anniversary of the Five-Day August 2008 Georgian-Russian War passed with Georgia still deprived of 30 percent of its perceived territory––and Abkhazia and South Ossetiya set on a long road to real independence.  This was the price Georgia paid for its own hubris and the West’s clumsy interference in a region it poorly understands.  That interference was driven by the policy of NATO expansion, which militarized American and Western democracy-promotion efforts and piqued Russian resistance to them.

In addition, American policy was driven in large part by the anti-Russian biases of many U.S. post-sovietologists, analysts, and journalists when it comes to assessing Russia’s relations with its own minorities and former Soviet nationalities.  Often, these relations are caricatured on the model of the white hats and the black hats.  The Russians are cast as the nasty black-hated nationalistic imperialists, while the peoples like Georgians and their nationalist leaders are cast as the good guys, ‘beacons of democracy.’ 

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Ossetia war anniversary. My take, three years later is here: in brief, Russia is better off and Georgia is worse off. As I argued elsewhere I believe that the war – and especially Saakashvili’s erratic and untruthful behaviour, “unravelled the sweater” of Western memes about Russia’s intentions. In short, the Russia that the anti-Russia lobby believes exists, and Saakashvili talked about, would have moved to Tbilisi, seized Saakashvili and still be there. Once you doubt Saakashvili’s word on this, you have to doubt everything else he said about Russia and that leads one to questioning more and more. I still believe that the most important fact was that the French Foreign Minister actually went to talk to the refugees from Ossetia. Generally Western observers – and Saakashvili’s claque especially – stubbornly refuse to contemplate the Ossetian and Abkhazian point of view. (Witness this from an American businessman who spends a lot of time there on the US Senate’s idea that Russia “occupies” Abkhazia.)  

THE PUTIN-MEDVEDEV TANDEM and FOREIGN POLICY DISFUNCTION

REPRINTS

by Vlad Sobell

Independent analyst, London

Contribution to the Frolov Panel, Russia Profile

I have always believed that the “tandem” is not an optimal arrangement – for reasons that seem obvious to me. To be credible, a leader of a country must possess – and be seen to possess – the ultimate and unambiguous responsibility for key state functions. Even where competences are not always precisely defined (as is the case in Russia, where the constitution does provide for a powerful prime minister), there must be only one supreme leader, otherwise there will be no clarity over who is really in charge.

In Russia, this supreme official is the President, who, according to the constitution, determines the “basic objectives of the internal and foreign policy of the state”. The President also appoints the Prime Minister. While obviously there will always be turf ambiguities and some overlap, the supreme responsibility clearly lies with the President. This was certainly the case under Putin’s presidency.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Military. There may be more to last week’s retirements of three generals. One reporter suggests that their retirement has a connection with what he says are several cases of convicted officers being promoted. He has learned that the Presidential Administration has “frozen” their resignations and will be interviewing them to ascertain why “young, promising leaders are retiring from the army”. Report in English here. On the procurement problem – and the growing conviction that a lot of Russian-made weaponry is more expensive than it should be – a Deputy Defence Minister reports that overpricing is caused by an excessive number of subcontractors which, he said, can lead to sudden and unexplained price drops when the initial bid is challenged. It rather sounds as if this is a polite way of saying that many people are “wetting their beaks”.

“Against all”. Russian ballots used to have an entry “Against All” and “Against All” could win and occasionally did. In that case, new election with new candidates. The provision was abolished in 2006 but Sergey Mironov, the leader of Just Russia, has introduced a bill to the Duma to bring it back. An interesting provision that very few countries dare to have because it might lead to unflattering discoveries. I suspect that the real reason Mironov made the proposal was to distinguish his party from United Russia. Whether it passes or is voted down, he will achieve that aim.