MEDVEDEV PRESS CONFERENCE. Medvedev gave a large press conference yesterday. He said he would announce “soon” whether he will run again. The inquiry into Sergey Magnitskiy will be concluded “soon”. He several times stressed that no one should stay in power forever (in the context of saying he had replaced half the regional leaders) and that people who do so come to “a rather bad end”. Russia’s political system is still being adjusted (“a forming democracy “) and that it was possible that Federation Council members (and governors) might be directly elected (not, apparently, “soon”). He understood that “local authorities try to varnish everything” when he comes to visit, but said that he also got information from blogs etc which “cut right to the truth”. Relations with NATO were “not that bad” but he reemphasised that Moscow had to be sure that “these strike potentials will not be directed at us”. (Many of course see this and similar statements as threats; they aren’t, they’re conditional warnings: if Russia feels it is threatened – which it doesn’t today – it will take counter steps. A perfectly understandable position and one that any country would take). But, once again, sometimes the level of detail was preposterous. I have noticed this many times in his and Putin’s Q&A sessions: a version of “my roof is leaking Mr President, will you repair it?”. The third question was about parking in Moscow. Medvedev answered the question in some detail but I believe he would have been wiser to say: ask the Mayor, that’s not my job. The Boss – even if there are two of them – cannot do everything.

KHODORKOVSKIY. The relevant court has postponed the hearing of the appeal of Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev against their second sentencing until next week: the reason given that more time was needed to study “the large volume of complaints about the sentencing”. Meanwhile the defendants have asked the Russian Investigative Committee to open a criminal case against the judge who sentenced them in December. At his press conference Medvedev said that the release of the two posed no threat to society. The Khodorkovskiy case did a great deal of damage to Russia’s reputation in the outside world and I and others wondered what Medvedev would do about it. Perhaps the second verdict will be overturned and the two will be released when they finish their first terms.

NAVALNIY. More pressure on this anti-corruption campaigner – the logo on his website (showing a double-headed eagle with a saw in each claw) mocks the state symbol. This, combined with the other story, begins to look like an organised campaign to shut him down. He will have offended many powerful people.

MIRONOV. The St Petersburg Legislative Assembly recalled Sergey Mironov from the Federation Council. He is pretty calm about it and says he will continue to be active in Just Russia and he may re-appear as a Duma Deputy: several Deputies are said to be prepared to give up their seats for him. (The logic of proportional representation is that no one votes for an actual individual). This may be a manoeuvre to show that Just Russia is not just an appendage of the Kremlin. I believe it to be a possibility that one member of The Team could run on the Just Russia ticket and another on the United Russia ticket and this may be part of such a plan.

BLUE LIGHTS. Another egregious case of their misuse: the driver for Sergey Shoygu was filmed (camera phones are ubiquitous) abusing (threatened to shoot him if he didn’t get out of his way) another driver, He was alone in the car at the time. He has been fired. I’m sure this will ignite the protesters again.

MILITARY. As a further indication that Russia’s ambitious military re-building program is not going well, several military and defence industry officials were dismissed Tuesday for poor performance in implementing the arms procurement program.

FLASH MOBS. A flash mob in Moscow in honour of this. And another one on a more serious subject. A species of civil society.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

POPULAR FRONT. The fundamental problem with United Russia is that, being a pedestal party, its members aren’t especially interested in new ideas: they only want to stay in with the statue standing on it. Putin has complained about this before and in his latest idea to bring some life to Russia’s stodgy political system, announced on Friday at a United Russia conference the creation of a “popular front”, Set up the next day, it is supposed to harness the creativity of the population and bring forward good ideas. Blunt as ever, he gave two reasons: the Duma elections are coming (presumably this ties into his notion of something like primaries before candidates are chosen) and “Frankly speaking, United Russia, our leading political force, needs an influx of new ideas, proposals and people in these circumstances”. I’m sceptical: first, this is too top-down and second, all the kratotropes in United Russia will comb the Bosses’ speeches so that they can enthusiastically agree with whatever they propose.

HERMITAGE CAPITAL. Two stories: the official Moscow story and Browder’s. Moscow said Hermitage Capital participated in a tax fiddle, Browder was a “threat to national security” and expelled him in 2005. Some officials were dismissed, some arrests were made and the case lumbers on. Browder’s story is that Russian tax officials robbed him and set him up. Browder’s story is looking better these days: Swiss authorities have just frozen the bank accounts of the tax officials that he accused. This all ties in with the death of Sergey Magnitskiy, a lawyer for Hermitage, who was arrested when he made these accusations and died in pre-trial detention in November 2009. An investigation into his death was ordered by Medvedev and is due to report soon. But that only covers Magnitskiy’s death; a part of what appears to have been a very elaborate operation. This case will be a test of how serious the anti-corruption campaign is, especially now that the Swiss authorities have brought new evidence to light. The complicated story, from Browder’s perspective, is here and this website covers events.

NAVALNIY. In something that may be related to the Hermitage Capital case, the anti-corruption campaigner Aleksey Navalniy, who runs a Wikileaks-style website (rospil), has been himself charged with fraud. He insists it is a false charge to shut him down.

POLICE REFORM. Four more senior officers apparently did not pass through the sieve.

MARKELOV AND BABUROVA MURDER. Sentencing finally: life for Tikhonov and 18 years for Khasis. Their suicide attempts are understandable.

FOREST FIRES. Now that it is the forest and peat bog fire season again (34 in Siberia so far), Shoygu, whose Ministry is responsible for fighting them, has proposed that networks of “public patrols”, with direct links to his Ministry, be created to keep watch. In the Soviet days there was an extensive network of federal forest rangers but this service was disbanded in 2007 and the responsibility downloaded to regional governments. In hindsight, obviously a mistake and it’s evident that Shoygu is trying to bring something like that back.

KHIMKI FOREST. Even though the decision has been made to route the highway through it (with vague assurances of some sort of offset) the issue is not going away. An unauthorised protest was put down with heavy-handed police tactics on Sunday.

BORDERS. One of the more naïve charges against Russia in the 90s was that it had not settled its borders with the former SSRs – the implication being that this was an indication of its desire to “restore the empire”. Naïve because it actually takes a very long time to delineate an international border in a context in which the former inter-USSR borders didn’t matter very much and many tiny details (routes of power lines or navigable channels in rivers for example) have to be laboriously negotiated. To say nothing of the expense of constructing signage, crossing points, patrols and all the rest of the infrastructure of a meaningful border. Medvedev just submitted to the Duma the treaty on the border with Azerbaijan. And it’s clear that it is still not completely delineated: the precise starting point (where Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia meet) and the Caspian appear still unsettled).

MISTRAL. Confirming some speculation, a Russian defence industry spokesman says that the negotiations are stuck on the issue of technology transfer.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

ALARUMS PAST. In November, accepting an award, the well-known Russian media personality Leonid Parfyonov gave a speech excoriating the state of the news media in Russia: a culture in which reporters were a species of “state official” ever attentive to their “boss’s bosses”; one in which everyone understood there were stories that “that can be broadcast on television and those that cannot”. This attracted some attention together with mentions of reporters killed or harmed in Putin’s time. While there is no doubt a good deal of truth in what he said, charges of control or bias in what is and is not broadcast are not unknown elsewhere. He also intimated that Russian TV was being dumbed down. Well that’s hardly unique to Russia either. In my opinion, anybody who depends on the MSM in any country for his news is missing a lot and the New Media is winning everywhere. And in Russia, you can read criticisms similar to Parfyonov’s translated from foreign media on the Net if you want to. But the point is that, whatever mixture of truth and exaggeration there may have been in his observations, it seems that nothing has happened to him. He lives and thrives.

CORRUPTION. Two Moscow Oblast prosecutors suspected of protecting underground casinos have been put on the federal wanted list. This follows dismissals of several other senior officials on charges of having protected the illegal casinos. Three police officers were sentenced to prison terms for stealing substantial amounts of money from travellers at one of Moscow’s airports. Investigators have requested a warrant for the arrest of the former Bank of Moscow President. Medvedev has signed a law which greatly increases penalties in corruption cases. I haven’t the statistics, but it seems to me there are more and more cases involving higher-ups. Although, as I’ve said before, I don’t think the campaign will really bite until someone in an office near Medvedev’s or Putin’s is arrested.

THE HOLIDAY FORMERLY KNOWN AS MAY DAY. Since 1992 re-named Spring and Labour Day, saw lots of parades in Moscow that passed off quietly. The numbers were indicative, if not of actual support, then of organisational ability. United Russia got out 25K, KPRF 4.5K; Just Russia 3K; LDPR 0.7K and the liberal opposition 0.25K.

MISTRAL. Something has gone wrong with the negotiations. The former Russian negotiating team was dismissed – one man for “internal reasons” the other for re-appointment – and a new team is to be appointed. But the deal may fall through: Ruslan Puhkov thoroughly discusses the issue and possible obstacles to agreement here.

OPEN SKIES. A Canadian team is beginning flights over Russia. To tell the truth, I’d forgotten all about this. But, I suppose, since the demise of the CFE Treaty, it has it uses in strengthening transparency.

MARKELOV MURDER. A jury found the two defendants guilty “and not deserving leniency”. They were members of a super-nationalist group, Russkiy Obraz and Markelov seems to have been their target and Baburova just an unfortunate witness. Sentencing is expected shortly.

EMERGENCIES MINISTRY. Long-time readers will know that I admire this organisation and its leader Sergey Shoygu. It seems to be one of the most effective state structures in the country. It recently showed off some of its new kit for fighting fires. More evidence that Russia Inc’s energy money is not being wasted.

MANOEUVRINGS. Sergey Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, may be recalled by the St Petersburg legislature. He was head of Just Russia until recently. He has been critical of St Petersburg and its Governor and there are likely enough votes there to unseat him. More grist for the speculation mill. Is this a move to make him and Just Russia more plausible as an opposition? As part of a move to run two Team candidates for president? Or St Petersburg wants its representative to say nice things and not that it’s very corrupt?

MISSILE DEFENCE. The commander of the Space Forces has outlined Moscow’s proposals for a future European missile defence network. They are the familiar ideas of sectors (with Russia’s “shield” covering Eastern Europe and the Black, Barents and Baltic Seas) and a joint data processing and command centre.

INTERNET. Medvedev met with “internet community representatives” last week to open a discussion about regulation. As a lawyer, he was most concerned about copyright. There was no hint of government control.

JIHADISM. It is reported that the leader of foreign jihadists in the North Caucasus was killed in Chechnya yesterday.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

COURT ACTIVITY. Lots of activity in the legal system. In old cases, the Moscow City Court announced that it would hear an appeal against the new jail term for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev on 17 May. This follows last week’s Supreme Court ruling that their pre-trial detention was not legal. Perhaps we will see a reduction in sentence or maybe even an acquittal. Valeriy Borshchev, of the presidential council on human rights, said that that body’s investigation showed that charges against Sergey Magnitskiy (who died in pre-trail detention 18 months ago) were fabricated. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, a money-laundering probe against a former Russian tax official has been opened at the request of the company with which he was associated. In on-going cases, two defendants accused of the murders of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova in January 2009 have attempted suicide; the verdict was supposed to come out today. And in coming cases, the Russian Audit Chamber says it will sue the former Bank of Moscow president, Andrey Borodin, for US$1 billion (the sum he is supposed to have extracted from Moscow City). Medvedev’s campaign against “legal nihilism” presumably excludes pre-determined verdicts, fabricated evidence and requires punishment. We will see how these work out. Meanwhile Medvedev signed into law an extension of defence lawyers’ rights.

PAVLOVSKIY. Gleb Pavlovskiy, long time political fixer and advisor to the Kremlin, has severed (or been severed from) his connection with the Presidential Administration. He gave his reasons in an interview yesterday. He is disturbed by the fact that neither of the Duumvirate has announced his candidacy; this he says, is creating competition between their two “fan clubs”. Pavlovskiy makes no secret that he thinks Medvedev should be the “consolidated team” candidate and implies that his credibility was impaired by the opposition from Putin’s “fan club”. He, however, utterly denies a split between the two leaders: “There is no split and rumours about it are unfounded (неправомерны)”. The potential difficulty with the Duumvirate idea was never competition between the two principals but struggles between their apparats. When one of the two is up, so is his tail and vice versa. Putin, ever cautious, thinks it’s too early to announce – he wants to get the Duma elections over first – but Medvedev seems to be willing to announce earlier. Myself, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be announced earlier – it’s not as if Zhirinovskiy (running yet again – that’s every presidential election since the first twenty years ago) is likely to win otherwise. Or Zyuganov.

UNITED RUSSIA. There is a good deal of discussion going around that the pedestal party is slipping in the polls and may even lose its predominance. I’m less convinced: too much analysis seems to assume that the choice is between United Russia and the Archangel Michael’s party. Michael won’t be running but the Communists and Zhirinovskiy will and Russian electors will have the same old tired choice: more of the same or the obsolete past. Nonetheless, there is a good deal of struggling under the blanket and it is time for the Duumvirate to decide on its candidate and end the struggles between the “fan clubs”.

STATE AND ECONOMY. On Monday, addressing the boards of the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance, Putin said “We need to reduce the government’s unjustified presence in the economy and excessive amounts of government property creating more room for private initiative.” Is the Kommentariat going to start writing headscratchers on how Putin has now become the anti-Putin? His speech could have been given by Medvedev: reducing reliance on commodities, more innovation and modernisation. Same team, same plan, different phase.

POLICE. More senior police officers fired. No reason announced but, given their positions, peculation looks likely. And more appointments as seniors pass their tests.

LIBYA. As NATO’s operations in Libya inexorably expand, my suggestion that Russia may become the necessary intermediary comes a little closer: it is reported that Foreign Minister Lavrov was in discussion with the Libyan PM on a ceasefire. Lavrov also made it clear that Moscow will not support any new UN resolution that “stipulates further aggravation of the civil war and violence”. Putin remains scornful. Shades of NATO’s Kosovo adventure in which a limited and quick – or so it was expected – air operation went on for a couple of months with talk of introducing ground troops until Chernomyrdin and Ahtisaari brought it to an end.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

PUTIN SPEECH. Today Putin gave his annual speech to the Duma reporting on the government’s activities and plans. He was generally upbeat about Russia’s recovery from the financial crisis. He returned to one of his key themes: “This country requires decades of steady, uninterrupted development. Without sudden radical changes in course or ill thought through experiments based so often in either unjustified economic liberalism, or, on the other hand, social demagogy. We need neither. Both will distract us from the general path of developing the country. And, of course, we should maintain civic and inter-ethnic peace, and put a stop to any attempt to cause our society to split and quarrel among itself”. To my mind stability is still the dominating theme for him (probably less so for Medvedev, given the difference in age and experience – Putin was 39 when the USSR fell apart, Medvedev 26. A significant difference I believe). He enumerated a number of targets for the future having to do with the economy. His observation (supporting his contention that Russia had done better than some others) that Portugal had asked for emergency financial assistance put me in mind of his remark a decade ago: rather than Russia struggling to catch up to Portugal, it may happen that it passes Russia, going in the other direction.

PEDESTAL PARTY. On Friday he gave another important speech to the leaders of United Russia. To my mind the most important point was his call for competition inside the monolith. What he appears to be suggesting is that UR candidates in the Duma elections (in December), rather than nominated from above, should be chosen through some sort of electoral process presumably resembling a US primary. The party leadership enthusiastically agreed with the proposal. An interesting idea: we will see how authentic it is in practice (as little as local bosses can get away with no doubt).

PARTY OF POPULAR FREEDOM. And yet another liberal party. Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Vladimir Milov created the Party of Popular Freedom in December and it is beginning to stir. We’ve seen a lot of these come and go: usually they founder on the egos of the leader; each Russian liberal appears to believe that only he is fit to be leader of a “united” movement. Probably this attempt will fade away as so many others have but I was struck by an interview with Ryzhkov in which he sounded quite realistic (JRL/2011/65). He sees potential support in the range of 10% rather than some notion that a majority will support them. I’m also impressed that the website is in Russian – I always wondered what the target for sites like this really was. And it’s not the Kremlin that crushes these things. Ryzhkov named three problems of liberals in Russia: 1) “All previous parties were clubs comprising intellectuals, mostly from Moscow, who established these parties in accordance with their own ideas concerning what the people needed”; 2) “[The 1990s] compromised the democratic idea thoroughly… A good deal of Russians regard the words ‘democrat’ and ‘rascal’ as synonyms” and 3) “the eternal discord among democrats. Hence the lack of success.” So some difference. But the odds are poor. But one of these days Russian liberals will get together.

KHODORKOVSKIY. The Supreme Court has ruled that the detention of Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev before their second trial was not legal. There is, after all, a new law that says people charged with economic crimes should not be parked in the (often lethal) pre-trial detention prisons. We shall see what difference this will make to their situation but it is another sign that Russia is not entirely run out of one office.

JACKSON-VANIK. A lawsuit has been filed in the USA to require Obama to remove Russia from the restriction. They believe he has the necessary legal authority. US Presidents routinely promise to end it, but it never happens. Its retention is another of those things that makes suspicious Russians believe that it’s all a swindle.

CORRUPTION. There was a large anti-corruption demonstration in Moscow – several tens of thousands they say – on Sunday. It attracted Nashi and the Party of Popular Freedom as well as the newly-appeared “white aprons”. It looked rather un-spontaneous to me but may develop into something more popularly rooted.

PEOPLE POWER. An Arbitration Appeals Tribunal ruled that Rosneft must provide information on its 2009 board meetings to minority shareholder and blogger Aleksey Navalniy, who has consistently called for greater transparency in Russian business practices. Another small victory for the ordinary citizen.

 © Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

ANOTHER MISQUOTATION IN THE ONLY STORY IN RUSSIA. RIA Novosti reports that Medvedev said that he and Putin would decide which runs for president soon. This assertion will, no doubt be endlessly repeated. But it’s not what he said. What he actually said was that he would decide fairly soon whether he would run for a second term: “I do not rule out the possibility of my running for a second term at the presidential elections. The decision will be taken very shortly”. (Eng Rus) A much better mindset than this sterile obsession with one or the other is the German concept of a Vorstand; a corporate governance team which is “expected to act collectively and collegiately”. Medvedev himself said about the two of them “We have friendly and very warm relations that have been shaping over the last two decades. It is a long time, in my life, too   you said I am not that old yet. I have known Mr Putin for almost half of my life, it is quite a lot, and we first met back in St Petersburg many-many years ago.” They’re a team. And they are in turn part of a team that has worked together quite effectively and harmoniously for some years. (I am obliged to Timothy Post for introducing me to the concept of a Vorstand.)

DEMOGRAPHICS. The situation continues to slowly improve. January’s births were down a bit from last year but deaths were down further and the net population loss was reduced from about 44,000 to about 39,000. Anatoly Karlin keeps an eye on the data and his conclusion is that, when you add in immigration, Russia’s population has stopped falling. Whether Karlin’s prediction (“I can confidently predict that the 2020 Census will show a population bigger than this year’s”) comes true or not, it’s high time to stop talking about Russia’s “demographic collapse.” The program started some years ago is clearly working. According to data from a 1987 statistics book I possess, the USSR gross death rate began to increase in the Khrushchev period and rose from 7.4 to 10.2 per thousand at the beginning of the Gorbachev period. The effects can be found throughout the post-communist world. Russia was not the worst affected and is making progress.

FSB NOT TOO HAPPY. First the Communications Minister said there were no plans to ban Skype, gmail, hotmail or the like after an FSB official had said he thought they should be. Then an “art collective” got an award for a rude graffito near the FSB headquarters in St Petersburg. Haven’t we been told endlessly that such things are not possible in Putin’s neo-KGB state?

CORRUPTION. Last week police raided the office of the Moscow Administration of the Federal Tax Service and home of its deputy head as part of investigation into the attempted theft of US$70 million by a St. Petersburg firm. A Moscow court has suspended the President of the Bank of Moscow and one of his deputies from the bank’s management for duration of a criminal probe into a large loan. The story is that money from the City’s budget made it into Baturina’s hands. It sounds more and more as if a web is being woven around Luzhkov and his wife.

FRIVOLITY. A flash mob blowing soap bubbles appeared in the Arbat on Sunday.

INCOMES. Putin and Medvedev have declared their incomes. Appropriately modest. Of course neither has had to spend much of his own money for years.

CARS. Russia’s economy is recovering – fairly successfully – after the global financial crisis with increases across the board. But, for some reason sales of cars and light commercial vehicles have really taken off: they are reported to be up 77% year-on-year in the first quarter.

GEORGIA. An Israeli armaments company is suing Tbilisi claiming non-payment for weapons sales made before Israel cut Georgia off after the Ossetia war. The company had sold UAVs and, in all likelihood, many or most have been destroyed already.

MINSK BOMB. A bomb in a Metro station in Minsk on Monday killed and wounded many. Yesterday Lukashenka claimed the crime solved and the perpetrators caught: three are said to have confessed and another two were arrested today. He intimates there is a connection with another explosion in July 2008. Seems a rather suspiciously quick solution.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

TWO HATS OR ONE? In 2001 Putin appointed Aleksey Miller CEO of Gazprom. Always a state controlled company, the previous CEO had run Gazprom as if he personally owned it. Putin explained Miller’s appointment: “The first task is to safeguard the state’s interests in this company, to collect everything which by rights belongs to the state, and to make the company’s activity and primarily its financial activity absolutely transparent to all shareholders, including minority shareholders”. As a further measure of control, one Dmitriy Medvedev, then Chief of the Presidential Administration, was made board chairman. This pattern was followed in many other state companies. Putin’s actions made sense to me at the time: it was important for the state to get control of what it owned; many feared Russia was collapsing and a notable characteristic of the Yeltsin period had been how poorly state interests had been “safeguarded”. But this had disadvantages: was Ivan Ivanovich a Minister or one of the chief officers of a wealthy company? He was supposed to regulate the company of which he was an officer; how did that work? Was the company a company, or a branch of the ministry? But the time for this is over: Medvedev has published a list of government officials who are to be removed from the boards of state companies: this is to be done by 1 July. More are expected. Note that transparency was the reason given for each plan: for Putin the transparency was for the government so it wouldn’t be looted; for Medvedev it is for investors. Not a dispute with Putin but the fact that different times require different ideas.

BUSINESS CLIMATE. Medvedev gave an important speech on modernisation and the business climate (“very bad, very bad”) in Magnitogorsk. As usual, corruption and bureaucracy were the chief obstacles. He laid out his demands. Work has started: Putin gave orders to cut the payroll tax from 1 Jan 2012 and to prepare a bill to require all officials and parliamentary members to declare expenses. The airport and airline sectors may be opened up. There has been some progress in one important area: see below.

SHADOW ECONOMY. The head of RosStat estimates Russia’s grey economy to amount to about 16% of GDP. This is way down from some previous estimates (45% in 1999). To put this figure into context (something almost never done in reporting about Russia) it is estimated that the grey economy in Europe ranges from 10% in the UK, 12% in Germany(!) and France, 20% in Spain and up to 40% in the eastern countries. Russia, now roughly at the European median (page 4), is hardly an outlier.

OPPOSITION. As I never tired of pointing out, the “liberal opposition”, when it paired with Limonov’s NatBols, accepted a contradiction into its core: whatever the former may have been, the latter had nothing to do with democracy or liberty. Now that Moscow City permits protests (but not Limonov’s), the contradiction has matured. All this played out on 31 March. Lyudmilla Alekseyeva’s group (she refuses to partner with Limonov now) was given a permit, three or four hundred appeared and it was all peaceful. Limonov, refused permission, held a rally anyway, a hundred or so showed up and there were arrests. Added to which, there is no point in holding protests against not being allowed to protest when you are allowed to protest. And so, the leaders announced that that would be the last “31” protest. But they say they will continue their demos. We’ll see: the protests, aided by the Western media’s resolute incuriosity about the NatBols, always seemed to be aimed at a Western audience. So who won? The protesters for carrying their point? Or the authorities for neutering them?

KHODORKOVSKIY. The judge’s aide who said in February that the verdict was fixed “from above” has resigned; her own decision she says.

LUZHKOVSHCHINA. Apparently in advance of his arrest, the President of the Bank of Moscow got out to London. The police are ready to charge him with illegally granting a US$444 million loan to Luzhkov’s wife.

ISS. With the US shuttle program ending, resupply is now up to Russia.

ELECTORAL CHANGES. Medvedev signed a law mandating greater use of party list voting in regions. He is trying, he says, to strengthen political parties. For a discussion of the party system see here (probably up tomorrow).

POLICE REFORM. As the results of the tests come in, Medvedev is making many appointments in the senior ranks of the police. Someone who follows this more closely than I should analyse them to see what changes are happening. We would want to see quite a few positional changes (>33%?) to believe that the effort is real.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

LIBYA. After Russia abstained on the UNSC resolution, allowing it to pass, the Foreign Ministry spokesman piously objected when the “no fly zone” enforcement began exactly as the US Defense Secretary had said it would two weeks before. Much as it may please some Russians to throw that fatuous word “disproportionate” back at the West, this is pretty hypocritical. Russia could have stopped it by veto. Meanwhile Medvedev has declared that Moscow is ready to mediate. That may happen yet: for all I know, NATO would still be fighting in Kosovo if Chernomyrdin and Ahtisaari hadn’t stepped in.

SPLIT IN THE DUUMVIRATE? Is there a difference between Putin and Medvedev on Libya? Putin said that the resolution reminded him of “a medieval call to crusade”; shortly afterwards, Medvedev said that to talk of crusades was “unacceptable”. Certainly Medvedev seems more comfortable (or less uncomfortable) with the operation than Putin does (not surprisingly given the number of times Putin was burned by the West.). Although, when meeting with the US Defense Secretary, Medvedev used the words “indiscriminate use of air power”. Which it is not (but then, the Russians don’t have JDAMs. See below). When Medvedev (in Moscow) made his formal statement, was he aware that Putin (in the Udmurt Republic) had given his “personal opinion” about four hours earlier? On the other hand the word “Crusaders” is commonly used by jihadists to describe the West and Gaddafi is using it too. So, coincidence or direct rebuke? Putin (in Slovenia) has denied any split: “We have a president in Russia who directs foreign policy and there can not be a split”. Yesterday he (in Serbia) eased off a bit more. What this incident does show is that the assumption that Putin is the puppet master and Medvedev the puppet is naïve.

DEFENCE INDUSTRY. The battle continues. As Russia tries to catch up after a twenty-year pause in weapons design and production, the question arises as to whether what’s left of the old Soviet weapons industry is competitive. In a number of categories – UAVs, assault ships, light AFVs – the decision seems to be that it is not. But there are many more categories over which to argue. In a direct riposte to the Ground Forces Commander’s assertion that the T-90 MBT was inferior to, and more expensive than, the German Leopard, we have the counter: mathematical models that purport to show the reverse. (A personal aside: years ago I was in the combat simulation business and inputs and assumptions are pretty important in the models: one of the ones in this study apparently was to start the fight at 1500 metres. Which is a rather short range these days). Deputy PM Ivanov, however, has announced that Moscow will invest US$100 billion in the development of the defence industry in next decade. A lot of money and pride is at stake and the battle will intensify.

POLICE. Medvedev just dismissed another batch of high-ranking police officers; no reason was given. (Perhaps they failed their examination). As I suspected, the current situation is that all high officers have been formally suspended and are acting in their former ranks pending the performance review to be conducted by the Head of the Presidential Administration and approved by Medvedev.

CORRUPTION. Dmitriy Gayev, the former Moscow subway chief, has been charged with taking US$4 million of public funds: the story is that he illegally patented the electronic tickets that replaced the old tokens and peacefully trousered the patent payments.

ROADS. Last year a couple of guys drove from Moscow to Vladivostok recording all the way. Their films are worth a look: Russian roads are in much better shape than is commonly assumed: Russia has not been wasting its energy profits.

ARMENIA. On Thursday there was a substantial (10,000 people seems to be the consensus) anti-government protest in Yerevan. The former president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, was one of the leaders. He has been protesting the results of the last election, claiming fraud, and claims that the present ruling group is corrupt and oppressive. Independent Armenia has not had a happy 20 years. Wars over Karabakh, the resulting blockade of the eastern rail route from the north (the western one is blocked by the Georgia-Abkhazia dispute); a small land link with Iran and a longer border with Turkey (and difficult relations there); the fear that Baku will use its oil revenues to attack. All these have made for a stagnant economy and rather hopeless forecasts. And high levels of emigration.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)