by Patrick Armstrong
Local elections. In Sunday’s local elections United Russia didn’t do as
well as usual. No doubt, this will be analysed to death according to the
writer’s preconceptions. I say there are three possibilities 1) a fluke; 2)
United Russia, for some reason, didn’t amplify its results; 3) a level of
dissatisfaction with local bosses. It is too soon to say which is which and whether
this is a trend or not.
Pushing on a rope. In a meeting
Medvedev emphasised that his instructions must be carried out. His complaint
was indicative: “I regularly receive reports from the Cabinet, the regions, and
other organisations, these reports are often not particularly meaningful.” A
common problem in Russia and contrary to the assumption so many have that
everything is Russia goes as planned by the cabal at the top. Shades of “We hear that Putin has
promised it to you, so go and ask Putin”.
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by Patrick Armstrong
People power. For years Russian big wheels have been whizzing down roads
ignoring the rules confident that, should there be an accident, their
connections will help the police to come to the correct conclusion. As it were.
In Irkutsk in December, the daughter of the regional election committee
chairwoman ploughed
into two pedestrians. No
charges were laid. A couple of weeks ago, the car of a LUKoil executive
killed two people in a head-on collision; the victims were blamed. This was the
last straw and a strong public
opinion movement sprang up. Two observations (in addition to the obvious one)
here. First, these protests are made possible by “new media” – YouTube, social
networking, cellphone cameras. Second, an organisation of car owners called
Freedom of Choice has mobilised in other cases and stands ready to go into
action quickly. This is what is called civil society. For those who are
immediately going to interpret this as signs of disquiet with Medvedev, the
protesters are entirely in step with his pronouncements. But it is also a
challenge for him to put his efforts where his mouth is; as a public appeal to
him said: “If you take the case under your personal
control and punish the person responsible for the crash, you will prove your
commitment to the fight against corruption.” Yesterday Medvedev ordered an
investigation. The Irkutsk campaign did force the police to re-consider.
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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.
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by Patrick Armstrong
The Sobchak influence. Medvedev and Putin are disciples and admirers of
Anatoliy
Sobchak and both commemorated the tenth anniversary of his death on
Saturday. Medvedev, who knew him
as one of his students and later worked with him in St Petersburg, gave praise to “the man who first brought
legitimacy to Soviet politics”. In an interview
for a program on his life and work, Putin paid very high tribute to him. He
described how he began working for him when he was Mayor of St Petersburg, how
he quit the KGB in the August 1991 coup attempt (“I wrote a letter of
resignation in the first hours after the coup began… The point is that I had
made my choice and I could not change it. It was my duty to be there, defending
our shared ideals and the concept of national development which Mr Sobchak and
I had put into words and implemented together.”) and how much he learned from him
in work habits and morality: “The time when I worked with Mr Sobchak was the
most valuable part of my education. It was in that period that my basic
principles of work and communication took shape. The fundamentals of my
personal principles and behaviour probably began to develop much earlier, at
home and later at the university, where I studied and he taught. However, my
work with him had tremendous practical significance for me”. So we have both
the present and previous Presidents telling us that they regard Sobchak as
their mentor and example and regard their times working under him as formative.
Perhaps, the Kommentariat should pay more attention to this relationship and
less to the lazy assumption that all we need to know is that Putin was a KGB
officer and Medvedev is his sock puppet.
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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).
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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.
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by Patrick Armstrong
Over-centralisation. I have long
thought that Putin, probably as a result of his fear that Russia would break
up, over-centralised control (From his first phone-in in 2000: “The ‘power
component’ in this country has become weakened and everything went tumbling
down”.). One of Medvedev’s problems, therefore, is to reduce this
centralisation: his goal of “modernisation” is impossible if all decisions are
made at the centre. Yesterday, the Institute
of Contemporary Development, with which Medvedev is associated, issued its report
on what should be done. In brief, it calls for a general loosening of the
political and command system of the country and a number of changes; many
reverse decisions Putin made when he was President and mark somewhat of a
return to the Yeltsin period. No doubt the Kommentariat will go into a frenzy
of speculation about a struggle between the two Duumvirs, but I believe that
this is all part of the next stage of the Team’s Plan. The report is probably
to be seen as a contribution to the discussion. We will see what happens.
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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.
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by Patrick Armstrong
Ukraine-Russia relations. Will obviously be “better” as neither winner
is running on an overtly anti-Russia platform. That having been said, a better
word would be “rational relations”. The NATO obsession was a disaster for
relations (and extremely divisive inside Ukraine, where an overwhelming
majority want good relations with Russia) and that is now over. There will,
however, still be disagreements but, with luck, they can be settled outside of
an apocalyptic
framework.
Internet. The latest numbers suggest
about a fifth of Russian adults (24 million) use the Internet daily. This
figure is said to be up about 20% since last year. (JRL/2010/11/5).
As I have said
many times before, the standard scare pieces about government control of Russian
media omit to mention Internet access (probably because they are mostly written
by Old Media types). The New Media is replacing the Old all over the world.
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By Patrick Armstrong
Reality
bites. NATO, having enjoyed a decade of expanding
and ignoring Russia’s concerns, now finds itself, in the person of its
Secretary-General, asking Moscow for help. Rasmussen was in Moscow looking for weapons and
training to support NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan. Too bad the people in NATO
didn’t listen harder in 2000 and early 2001, when Putin and Ivanov
were warning about the common enemy. While Moscow certainly has no desire to
see a jihadist-controlled Afghanistan, it has no reason to trust NATO which has
failed to keep any of its promises to it. What can NATO offer Moscow in return?
Will it make a binding declaration that there will be no more expansion? Can it,
filled as it now is with new members who regard it as nothing but an
anti-Russia organisation? It’s not surprising that Rasmussen left without any
commitments. Just asking is
not going to do the trick: NATO must acknowledge the mistrust it has built up.
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