SPIES OR SOMETHING. We’ve all heard that on Monday the FBI said it had broken up a Russian sleeper ring in the USA. I don’t doubt that it could be true as reported – of course Russia “spies” on the USA and vice versa. But questions remain: the spy craft described – brush off passes, dead letter drops, invisible ink – is ludicrously fustian: is this the SVR’s idea of how to pass information these days? And sleepers who knew each other? And, as so far reported, none of the information they were after seems to have required such clandestine efforts. No doubt we will learn more but I remain sceptical that this was a serious effort by Moscow. There are many plausible (or implausible) theories about the matter and here’s my offering: Gordievskiy tells us that it was not unknown in the old days for KGB officers to invent whole agent networks in order to supplement their incomes; perhaps some enterprising officer strung together a bogus network, this time with actual people in it. Therefore, it is quite possibly true as reported but some questions need answers. Thus far the two capitals are keeping calm.

MEETINGS. Several meetings last week: G8 and G20 plus Medvedev’s visit to the US. They seem to have gone well from Russia’s perspective but the “spy circle arrests” can complicate matters if either side wants them to.

RUSSOPHOBIC RUBBISH. This essay by Anatoly Karlin is the best takedown of the commonplace twaddle of the Kommentariat that I have seen for years. Unlike theirs, his essay is based on facts; facts in the whole, not carefully selected factoids. But of course it’s much easier to string together a few current factoids to bolster the everlasting brief for the prosecution than to do the work Karlin has.

CHICKEN WARS. Medvedev and Obama have agreed to resume US poultry exports to Russia – something not insignificant in the US economy. Given that US standards permit carcasses to be washed in a chlorine solution, while EU regulations – which Russia has adopted – do not, the details of the agreement will be interesting.

PRIVATISATION. Medvedev has called for more privatisation of state property (and, as an interesting example, half of the military airfield at Kubinka is for sale). Putin nationalised a number of things but that was not necessarily such a bad idea at the time when there were so many people busy trying to steal them: it is now time to loosen the regulations. Medvedev has already greatly reduced the number of “strategically important companies”. Same team, same plan, different phase.

OTHER RUSSIA. For some time now, Other Russia, which has been posing as a united – and democratic – opposition, has been staging rallies to provoke the police and get headlines. The Western media has generally fallen for it, despite better informed people saying that the bulk of the participants come from the unsavoury, and not especially “democratic”, National Bolsheviks. Well, the NatBol leader, Eduard Limonov, has made it plain: “In practice, the coalition has fallen apart, and for the past two years has existed on paper or through the work of my followers.” He says he will form a party of that name. And Russia will get another opposition party.

GAS. One of the problems with Russian gas supply to Europe is that many storage facilities are in countries, formally part of the USSR or bound to it, which are no longer under Gazprom’s control. Gazprom has been building facilities in Serbia, the Netherlands, Hungary and the UK; CEO Miller said the plan is to create 6.5 billion cubic metres’ worth of storage by 2016.

CUSTOMS CODE. Today Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan start a regime of free trade among them and a common customs tariff outside them. It’s been a long dreary haul to recreate some of the trade links of Soviet times and this may as far as the effort gets.

BELARUS. Lukashenka announced that Azerbaijan had lent Belarus the money to pay its latest bill for Russian gas. I guess the Belarus experiment – a sort of extended USSR – is coming to an end. Taking loans to cover gas consumption – and in the summer too – does not suggest much of a future.

GORI’S FAVOURITE SON DEPARTS. The statue of Ioseb Besarionis-dze Jughashvili, aka Iosef Stalin, was surreptitiously removed from the main square in Gori Georgia Friday night. It will, they say, be replaced by a monument for the victims of the 2008 war. Georgian victims, I dare say, not Ossetians.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. On Friday the nephew of Bakiyev was arrested and confessed (under interrogation) to a role in organising the rioting in southern Kyrgyzstan. The referendum on a new Constitution which will create a parliamentary republic was held on Sunday and the changes passed comfortably. OSCE observers have expressed themselves as satisfied. It is reported that nearly all refugees have returned from Uzbekistan.

© Patrick Armstrong, Ottawa, Canada

THE “THIRD TURN”. If we look back over the last couple of decades, we see that the Western image of post communist Russia has gone through two major turns. In the 90s Russia was a sort of younger brother whom we would mould and usher into the light of democracy. That didn’t work out very well: that’s when Russians began to associate the word “democracy” with theft and poverty. Then Russia became “resurgent” and “assertive”, or, in other words, it stopped declining away. The obsession with containing and thwarting Russia made Russians come to associate “democracy” with geopolitics. I think that a third turn is underway and, for that, I would thank Saakashvili in part. NATO expansion is now somewhat of an embarrassment (as is “democratic” Georgia); the “coloured revolutions” are being revealed as grounded in fantasy; Russia has not collapsed (and how many predictions were there of the inevitable coming failure of the “Putin system”?). Added to which, when, year after year, you’ve cried wolf that Russia is about to take over a neighbour and it doesn’t happen, your credibility turns to credulity. We are beginning a third (and I think much more realistic) phase of seeing Russia as an ordinary power with which one does ordinary business – sometimes rancorous, but business based on facts. The anti-Russia diehards have not gone away, but they are losing their audience. I give a lot of the credit for this change to Paris (and I do think that a key event was Kouchner’s visit to the Ossetian refugees; that experience inoculated Paris against swallowing Tbilisi’s story whole). Berlin has also played an important realistic role as, of course, has Obama’s “reset”. More recently, the Russian reaction to Kaczynski’s death seems to be ending the instinctive Polish opposition to all things Russian. Thus we see the gradual draining away of the core axiom that “Putin wants a new Russian Empire” and the corollary ideological perspective that everything Moscow does is really about that: Russian gas pipelines are really threats; Medvedev’s proposals on security and financial systems are really designed to “split the Western alliance” and the other manifestations of seeing what you believe rather than believing what you see. Here are a few straws in the wind from the past week. (For former examples of Westerners seeing only what they wanted to see in Russia, I recommend Malia’s Russia Under Western Eyes which starts with Voltaire’s imaginary ideally-governed Russia or Foglesong’s The American Mission and the ‘Evil Empire’ which details a century of American obsessions about a Russia seen as a disappointingly stubborn and backwards twin brother.)

SPEAKING OF REALISM. The US State Department has finally designated Doku Umarov, the leader of the Caucasus Emirate, as a terrorist.

ST PETERSBURG SPEECH. Medvedev’s speech is another must-read for those who want to understand what he thinks he’s been hired to do: “a policy that can be summed up by one short word – modernisation”. Putin was the man to stop the rot and Medvedev the man to take it to the next stage: same plan, same team, different phases. I believe the program was derailed a bit by two external events that seized the attention of the government: the South Ossetia war and the global financial crisis. But Russia has reasonably well recovered – the IMF, for example, in its April 2010 estimates (and they put Russia’s number up in June) predicted a higher growth rate over 5 years for Russia than for  anyone else in the G8. So it is time to work on qualitative growth.

GAS WARS. I am not going to attempt to summarise the drearily familiar ritual. Money disputes, Gazprom cuts supplies to Belarus, Lukashenka stops transit to the West. It seems that it is over. As another indication of the “third turn”, Western coverage of the issue has been relaxed and Kiev offered to take up the transit slack.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. It continues to calm down and refugees are returning. For what it’s worth, Uzbekistan’s President Karimov says that the violence was organised by “a third party” in an attempt to involve Uzbekistan. Former President Bakiyev’s son Maksim, whom Bishkek wants to put on trial, is in the UK and has been granted “temporary political asylum”. His father is in Belarus and yesterday the Belarusan Prosecutor General’s Office said it found no grounds for extraditing him to Kyrgyzstan. I don’t know whether the overthrow of Askar Akayev five years ago (a former favourite of the West, by the way) really was a “colour revolution” (the progression from assertions of faked elections, through organised demonstrations with lots of outside involvement and lock step Western reporting, to NATO suddenly becoming the chief concern of the new government) or not; if so, it hasn’t had a very happy ending. Either.

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

RUSSIA INC. The Finance Ministry announced that the budget deficit in 2009 was 2.3 trillion Rubles (US$78 billion – about 25% less than anticipated); GDP declined nearly 8%; the Reserve Fund holds about US$60 billion and the National Welfare Fund about US$95 billion. The IMF has raised its estimate for Russia’s GDP growth in 2010 to 4.25% from 4% and estimates that inflation will be 6%. Rumours of Russia’s economic death have been exaggerated: indeed these numbers look rather better than the IMF’s estimates for either the Euro Area or the USA. Medvedev’s calls for Russia to be treated as a major player in the world financial system don’t look so implausible today.

FOREIGN WEAPONS. It would appear that Moscow has seriously broken with the Soviet (but not Imperial) tradition that almost all weapons should be made domestically. RosOboronEksport has begun negotiations with France over buying a Mistral-class ship and possibly making more under licence. Moscow may go to foreign sources to obtain light armour or infantry equipment and it will be manufacturing French thermal sights under licence. The decision has already been made that it must import UAVs. A Russian newspaper reports that up to €10 billion may be spent in Europe and Israel by 2016. There is nothing especially unusual – very few countries make all their own weapons – but it is interesting as another indication that Russia (unlike the USSR) does not foresee having to go it alone in a serious war. But there must have been some nasty scenes in the background with Soviet-era industries insisting that they could make everything. The fact is that in many areas Russian Armed Forces equipment is far behind current standards. As a reminder of past certainties about the excellence of domestic production (and doctrine), I remember that at least one Soviet general was so dumbfounded by the US performance in the 1991 Gulf War that he claimed the whole thing had been a fake.

ARCTIC SEA. At his trial, one of the hijackers made a plea bargain accusing an Estonian businessman of being behind it: according to him, it was a simple ransom operation to raise money for a failing business. A much more mundane explanation than the many conspiracy theories and rushes to judgement about Russia’s malign intentions current at the time.

TRIFONOVA. It has been announced that Vera Trifonova actually died as the result of surgical error. This does not change the fact that, under the new rules, she should have been out on bail and not in the prison hospital.

SMALL BUSINESS. The Head of Russia’s Labour Service says that 36,000 jobless Russians established their own small businesses in the first quarter of 2010. There is a scheme in Russia to advance small loans for such purposes.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. A week ago rioting broke out in Osh in the Ferghana Valley with most reports agreeing that it was between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. The government in Bishkek claims that the situation is calming down which may or may not prove to be true (it certainly didn’t see it coming two weeks ago). Current reports (estimates) are that nearly 200 have been killed and one to two thousand injured. Tens of thousands of Uzbeks have fled to Uzbekistan which has closed its border claiming it can’t handle any more. Twenty years ago there were very similar riots in Osh. The Valley, one of the very few “green” areas of Central Asia, was extensively gerrymandered by Stalin so that it is today a patchwork of borders and jurisdictions. But the historical reality, as elsewhere in Central Asia, is that the cities are very multi-ethnic; there are even those who argue that Central Asian city-dwellers should be considered a separate ethnos; but Soviet ethnographers, who defined or even created “nationalities” to suit Stalin’s purposes, would have none of that. Access for traders throughout the Valley was comparatively easy and so it remained through the Imperial and Soviet periods. It was the creation of separate countries after the collapse of the USSR, with their borders and customs guards blocking this formerly easy and natural movement, which laid the grounds for a semi-permanent resentment in the Valley. Added to which people suddenly found themselves the wrong nationality in their ancestral homes. Thus there is a good deal of underlying tension and resentment which is kept bubbling. Just what sparked off this latest trouble is unclear: certainly the new regime in Bishkek blames Bakiyev (more precisely his son) for inciting the riots. There are many theories (see JRL/2010/116 & 117) and perhaps we will know some day.

GAS WARS. Medvedev has warned Minsk to pay off its debt for gas or face supply cuts. No doubt there will be those who think that Moscow should continue to subsidise Belarus’ energy usage.

© Patrick Armstrong, Ottawa, Canada

PEOPLE POWER. While the Russian government enjoys a high and constant level of support, that support is, to a degree, rather passive: the population knows that the ruling party will stay in power but appears to be content that it do so. However, things are stirring: I do not refer to the “opposition” so beloved of the Kommentariat but to blue buckets. It is a grass-roots movement, sustained by the new media, and mobilised against the flouting of the law by big wheels. There will, no doubt, be attempts to paint this as an anti-government phenomenon but there is no reason why it need be: Medvedev has often railed against “legal nihilism” and the “bucketeers” are aiming at the same target. It is, I believe, the first example of a spontaneous, nation-wide, bottom-up expression of the popular will in post-Communist Russia: neither something the government started nor an artificial stunt like Other Russia. It could become a challenge to the government should the government ignore or attempt to suppress it. Medvedev would be advised to show the movement some support: the wise leader knows when to follow.

OKHTA CENTRE. A “monstrous carbuncle” indeed, the proposed Okhta Centre in St Petersburg has attracted much opposition; even Medvedev has weighed in against it. Nonetheless a local court dismissed a suit opposing it. Another issue around which grass-roots opinion could coalesce.

ATTITUDES. A commonplace of Russophobic opinion is that Russia is disliked and feared by most of its neighbours. The reality is rather more complicated as this analysis makes clear. The author concludes: “the much ballyhooed ‘Russian resurgence’ across the former USSR rests on firmer foundations than just political pressure or economic takeovers – of at least equal importance is that many of the peoples in its path back to regional hegemony aren’t actually that averse to it.”

BIG GOVERNMENT. Medvedev has told the government to draw up proposals to cut officials by 20%. If he should pull that off, it would be a world first.

KACZYNSKI CRASH. Russian sympathy and openness (and the Russian story of warning the plane off has been confirmed) have been marred by the discovery that some of the Russian first responders looted the bodies; four have been charged. Coverage was interesting: BBC rushing to imply the Russians were lying; Poles apologising for an erroneous accusation (bet the BBC doesn’t). Not OMON or police, but conscript soldiers.

DEMONSTRATIONS. The pattern is familiar: Other Russia requests a venue that it knows it will not get for a demonstration; the City offers another location; the marchers go to the first anyway; the police break up the demonstration and Other Russia has its desired incident. On the 31st the pattern was repeated. Human Rights Commissioner Lukin described the police action as “savage and inappropriate” and his office has suggested that Bolotnaya Square be turned into a “speakers’ corner” like the one in London. The square is a good choice: reasonably central and a decent size, demonstrations will not tie up traffic. And Repin is not a bad presiding genius for such a place. This seems to be a good way to break the ridiculous cycle of provocation and police over-reaction; given that the police and majority party support the idea, it will likely happen.

HISTORY WARS. Medvedev has ordered all WWII archives be published on the Net by 2013; some already are.

JIHADISM. Activity continues with successes and failures for the security forces. But yesterday security forces captured the leader of the jihad in Ingushetia. He was taken alive and is now in Moscow. It is rare to capture the leaders – they are usually killed – and he will be a source of intelligence. We can expect more successes to come.

WEAPONS. Kiev, under former management, supplied a lot of weapons to Georgia under murky circumstances. I expected the new government to take a look and so it has; irregularities have been found.

GEORGIA ELECTIONS. The ruling party dominated in Georgian local elections last month and the result has been breathlessly hailed as showing “broad public support” for Saakashvili. But, turnout was rather low and OSCE observers were not very impressed: one in five vote counts were assessed as “bad or very bad”.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. Seems to be settling down: the authorities lifted the state of emergency in Jalalabad last week.

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

TOTALITARIANISM. Some excitement has been occasioned by Medvedev describing the USSR as “totalitarian” as if this were some sort of never-before breakthrough. “His comments on the USSR, the most outspoken by a recent Russian leader, will be seen as an attempt to distance himself from…Putin”. Seen by those who don’t pay attention to what Putin says, that is. Putin in 2000: “We have already lived under a totalitarian regime”. In 2005, describing things that did not exist “in the Soviet Union within the context of a totalitarian system”. (This was said during an interview with French TV which is interesting, given that the standard report everyone is recycling comes from AFP). And, in 2007, how the “pride of the nation” was killed in the Stalin years. But, of course, for years Putin has been mis- or selectively quoted by people who can’t be bothered to read what he says or who only want to find something they can twist to fit a preconception (“attempt to distance himself from Putin”). I stress again: always read the original at the official website; never trust a reporter’s agenda-driven (and ill-informed) partial quotation.

PRE-TRIAL DETENTION. The Moscow Regional Court appeals board has ruled that a lower court’s decision to extend the detention of Vera Trifonova was unlawful; she died in custody last month.

CORRUPTION. A criminal case against a Vice Mayor of Moscow for taking bribes has been opened.

FORCE AND OBJECT. The Immovable Object resisted the Irresistible Force and there were indeed a few portraits of Stalin among other Soviet war leaders in Moscow on Victory Day.

BLACK SEA FLEET BASE. Putin said that Moscow would complete the construction of a naval base in Novorossiysk by 2020 at a cost of about US$3 billion. The Black Sea Fleet is costing Moscow a lot of money.

JIHADISM. The battle continues with actions by both sides; the authorities doing better in the last two weeks. The FSB reported that those responsible for the bomb in Derbent on the 7th had been killed a few days later; there was an “own goal” on the 12th; and the FSB reported that 3 of the team responsible for the Metro bombings had been killed.

PIRATES. The captured pirates were set adrift and “most likely perished”. Medvedev has complained that there is nothing useful on the treatment of piracy in international law and Moscow’s Ambassador to NATO is calling for action.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. Disturbances broke out in the south of the country last week with Bakiyev supporters seizing administrative buildings in three cities. Violence continues with some deaths. The new government has formally asked Minsk to extradite Bakiyev to Minsk. Otunbayeva has been invested with the powers of President pending a new Constitution and elections.

GEORGIA-NATO. An opinion poll just published in Georgia shows that support for NATO membership is actually declining: 26% fully support and 36% generally support it. In October 2009 54% were fully supportive and in September 2008 69% were. Which is a remarkable result considering the fact that joining NATO is Saakashvili’s number one priority and that he is continually pumping out the propaganda. The only explanation I can think of, given the near-complete control of the news media by Saakashvili, is that ordinary Georgians realise that, when the army broke and ran in August 2008, there was nothing to stop Moscow; but it stopped anyway. They presumably understand that the threat is overblown.

GEORGIAN OPPOSITION. Opposition members/former government members – the two categories are almost identical – continue their efforts to shape a post-Saakashvili Georgia with Burjanadze meeting Putin again in Moscow. Zurab Nogaideli called for direct talks between Tbilisi and Sukhumi and Tskhinvali. Shevardnadze weighed in by saying that confrontation with Russia was a “destructive path for Georgia”.

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

LONG-TERM PLANNING. Charles Heberle has been conducting a training program in a region of Russia for a decade. Based on his successful school program in the USA, the essence is to train subjects to become citizens. As time went on it became clear to him that not only did Putin fully support his efforts, but that the whole thing had actually been Putin’s idea in the first place. Ten years ago a Russian NGO approached Heberle; convinced that the activities of Western NGOs would only create a new elite that used democratic slogans to disguise their rapacity, they had been searching the world for a better approach and had discovered his program. He accepted their invitation, arrived in Russia and instituted his training program in schools in their city and, eventually, their region. And there has been absolutely no publicity about it; I first heard about it from Heberle a year ago and was flabbergasted: I had no idea that Putin and his team were planning so far ahead. Putin has talked much about the need for a civil society but I did not realise that he a) understood that such things cannot come by government decree and b) was actually sponsoring an attempt to change the mindset of a new generation, individual by individual. I urge everyone to read Heberle’s account and his description of how he came to realise that Putin was behind the whole idea – it’s a vital insight into what Putin and his team are trying to do.

RUSSIA INC. Russia has weathered the international financial crisis reasonably well but its Reserve Fund has come down from about US$100 billion a year ago to about US$40 billion today. The money has gone to cover the budget deficit; but that was the reason for the fund: so that the fat years would cover the lean years.

PRE-TRIAL DETENTION. A woman, in one of Russia’s awful prisons on pre-trial detention since December, died last week. On Tuesday a deputy head of the Moscow Oblast investigation department was fired and his boss disciplined. As is so often the case in Russia, although the law now allows bail, the reality is slow to change.

PARADES. May Day saw parades, protests and demonstrations all over the country by every group imaginable. For the most part, they are reported to have passed off without incident. Another illustration of the reality that if demonstrators follow the rules (leaving aside the rules themselves and their application: but who allows anyone to march anywhere at any time?), nothing happens. Other Russia tries to make a big deal out of it. (By the way, what sense does the slogan “Putin is Brezhnev, Putin is Stalin” make? One is the senescence, the other the youth, of totalitarianism; how can Putin be both?)

PEOPLE POWER. Members of the ever-inventive Federation of Russian Car Owners are wandering around Moscow with blue buckets on their heads. The ever wooden-headed police, deciding that the inscriptions on the buckets made them posters, which made it an unsanctioned demonstration, arrested a few of them. This is something the police cannot win.

PIRACY. Today Russian commandos freed a tanker taken yesterday by Somali-based pirates. One was killed and 10 captured. Now Moscow has to figure out what to do with its prisoners.

THINGS YOU WON’T HEAR. Lyudmila Alexeyeva’s attacker was given a year’s suspended sentence at her request and with her approval. The attack was the occasions for some harrumphing about the condition of Russia.

NORTH CAUCASUS JIHAD. Several attacks in the last week: a car bomb in Dagestan; a bomb in Nalchik; and an attack on police in Ingushetia. With their usual indifference to civilian casualties. We go to Paradise, you go to Hell. Today the authorities killed another leader. It is quite absurd that the US State Department still refuses to recognise the “Caucasus Emirate” for what it really is: a node in the International Jihad.

BLACK SEA FLEET AGREEMENT. Last Thursday both Presidents signed off on the agreement. Putin grumbled about its cost while Medvedev spoke of its long-term benefits. Which, come to think of it, is an illustration of their roles: the President does the big strategic stuff, the PM has to figure out how to do it and how to pay for it. The agreement is opening the way for others: Moscow and Kiev have signed an agreement on the duty-free import of Ukrainian steel pipes into Russia.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. The interim government seems determined to have a trial: there have been some arrests; rewards are offered for capture of officials and it wants Bakiyev extradited. The country seems to be calming down but no one can say whether that will last.

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

UKRAINE-RUSSIA. The big news is, of course, the cheap gas for base agreement announced last week. Russia/Gazprom (is there a difference?) will knock 30% off the going rate and the Sevastopol lease will be extended to 2042. I don’t think that this is a very good deal for either side: Moscow will pay more than it would cost to build a new base in Russia and Ukraine will have another period of cheap gas that it will probably use no more wisely than it has for the last 20 years. Plus all the complications of a foreign (and sovereign) military base on its territory. (Although apparently forbidden by Art 17 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court approved it). And, ten years down the road, a differently flavoured government in Kiev may seek to reverse the base agreement. On the other hand, as I suspected, Ukraine has been paying its gas bill with IMF loans and, by all accounts, is pretty close to bankruptcy (this seems to be Yanukovych’s justification). Another benefit is that the price of gas for Ukraine is known for a long time in the future, so downstream customers of Russian gas should be spared the tense negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. The old base agreement had Moscow give credits; this time it will pay cash (and more). So everything is more transparent. The agreement appears to have opened up other possibilities of mutual trade and cooperation so there may be good effects over time. The Ukrainian opposition is furious, of course, but a poll suggests that the agreement has good support in the country.

POLAND-RUSSIA. Russia’s sympathetic and transparent response to the tragedy has opened the possibility of better relations. As the Archbishop of Krakow said at the funeral: “The sympathy and help we have received from Russian brothers has breathed new life into a hope for closer relations and reconciliation between our two Slavic nations.” Today Polish PM Tusk said there will be no “sensational revelations” from the black boxes.

YOUR WEEKLY SMILE. The NATO Secretary General criticised Russia’s new military doctrine for “old-fashioned Cold War rhetoric” because “it states that NATO constitutes a major danger, at least, which is not the reality. NATO is fast becoming purely a “rhetorical” organisation in which the only reality is its statements. Oops! new reality: now Russia’s military doctrine is “balanced”. As Humpty-Dumpty said: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”.

SOUTH STREAM. This project appears to be ready to go: Austria has signed on and contracts are being issued. The line will carry gas from Russia under the Black Sea to Bulgaria and westwards.

CORRUPTION. An aide to the Ground Forces Commander has been sentenced to 9 years for fraud.

Weaponry. Foreign purchases develop: there is a plan to establish a joint venture with Israel for production of UAVs and it looks as if Russia will buy one or more Mistrals.

HISTORY WARS. Yanukovych made a historically correct statement on the Holodomor: “The Holodomor was in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It was the result of Stalin’s totalitarian regime. But it would be wrong and unfair to recognise the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation”. PACE agrees. Not a Russian attempt to exterminate Ukrainians, it was a Communist attempt to exterminate independent farmers.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. Bakiyev is now in Belarus and surrounded by confusion: on the one hand he says he’s still President, on the other that he won’t be back. Lukashenka seems to support him but as far as Moscow is concerned Bakiyev resigned). The interim government seems to be determined to put people on trial (the former Interior Minister was picked up in Moscow, flown to the Kyrgyz Republic – to Manas: can we assume Washington’s cooperation? – and promptly arrested), they also want to put Bakiyev on trial. A draft constitution has been produced for a referendum on 27 June. It is designed to reduce the chances of one-man domination and cooked elections. There were some violent protests over the last couple of weeks but they seem to be unconnected with each other. For the last couple of days no disturbances have been reported although today there are reports of a separatism movement in the south. As usual, theories abound: the coup was orchestrated in Moscow, orchestrated in Washington or done by drug barons (roundup); the customary construction of bricks without straw. Certainly the interim government has been very fast off the mark which argues considerable pre-planning by somebody. There is some evidence that Washington was too close to the Bakiyev family’s stranglehold on money; if true, the US star will be setting in Kyrgyz Republic.

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

KACZYNSKI DEATH. Medvedev’s address to the Polish people; Putin and Tusk (and Sergey Shoygu) at the crash site; RIAN’s roundup of coverage; mourning in Russia. There was a very similar crash in Poland in 2008 in which a lot of the Air Force’s leadership was killed. There are assertions that Kaczynski had failed (or succeeded) in overruling his pilot once before. The joint Polish-Russian investigative team promises a conclusion soon.

CONSPIRACIES. Some in the Rightosphere were quick to look for a conspiracy. Some reacted almost hysterically foretelling: “new, perhaps irresistible, pressure on Poland to toe the Kremlin line” (piece savaged here). Others were more subtle about looking in Moscow’s direction. Some flatout accused Moscow of engineering the crash. In these cases the beginning and the end of their accusation was cui bono? Moscow benefits (but they never quite spell out how it benefits, other than their assumption of an omni-directional malevolence); therefore Putindunnit. Connect the dots, there are no accidents. Ridiculous and revealing.

THE TEAM. In the US Medvedev said “I therefore believe very strongly that Russia now requires several decades of calm and stable effort to build an effective political and economic system”. This appears to be in accordance with the wishes of the population. A poll shows 72% of respondents prefer order to democracy (although a closer look at the results shows rather more nuance: “order” includes rule of law and individual rights. “Democracy” has acquired a rather bad odour in Russia what with the corruption and chaos of the 1990s and the attribution of the adjective to people like Saakashvili and Bakiyev). At any rate the population and its rulers set a very high value on stability. Not surprisingly, given the course of Russian history since 1905. Of course the trick is to prevent the stability from becoming stagnation.

JUDGE MURDERED. Federal judge Eduard Chuvashov was murdered in Moscow on Monday. The opinion is that the murderers were from Russia’s racist gangs against which he had been active.

PLUTONIUM. Medvedev ordered the last Russian reactor producing plutonium to be shut down today.

PEOPLE POWER. The well-organised and effective Federation of Russian Car Owners has launched a nation-wide campaign against “blue lights”. In theory, only certain official vehicles are allowed the flashing blue lights that order all opposing traffic to part allowing them to drive as fast as they care to. In practice – and this has been going on for years, despite half-hearted attempts to cut them back – plutocrats and hoods can easily acquire the lights. It is important to remember – before these activities are fitted into Procrustean tropes about a Medvedev-Putin rivalry or the inner bankruptcy of “Putin’s Russia” – that the Federation’s aims are fully in step with Medvedev’s: everything it does is directed against “legal nihilism”. Luzkov, Mayor of Moscow where the “blue light” abuse is worst, in fact believes that only the President, Prime Minister and Patriarch should have one. The combined pressure from both top and bottom is more likely to produce results than pressure from one direction only. Just for fun, for those who think Medvedev and Putin have opposing aims, here’s Putin in 1999 enumerating the characteristics of “strong state power in Russia”: “creating conditions beneficial for the rise in the country of a full-blooded civil society to balance out and monitor the authorities”.

STALINSHCHINA. A road-building crew in Vladivostok has uncovered a mass grave,

SUICIDE BOMB. A suicide bomber failed to kill the Nazran police chief and blew herself up (or was blown up – it is not clear whether these women actually possess the trigger).

KYRGYZSTAN. The former government has folded. After trying unsuccessfully to hold his rallying speech in Osh, Bakiyev went to Kazakhstan and latest reports say he has resigned. His Defence Minister has been arrested. Moscow and Washington have promised financial aid. The latter after Otunbayeva promised to honour agreements on the Manas base. Ten days – remarkably quick: obviously lots more to learn about it.

GEORGIA. Again the Europe-US divide. The UK Foreign Secretary criticised Saakashvili for harassing the opposition and controlling the news media; meanwhile a US warship arrived in Georgia for joint exercises. Of course, Tbilisi is making a “significant contribution to the international effort in Afghanistan”; Obama also “appreciated President Saakashvili’s continuing commitment to democratic and economic reforms in order to fulfil the promise of the Rose Revolution.”

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

NUKES. Medvedev and Obama signed the strategic arms treaty in Prague today. The text of the treaty is here. Such agreements are, no doubt, important but have little to do with the threats the two actually face.

MISSILE DEFENCE. On Tuesday Foreign Minister Lavrov said “The initial focus [of Washington’s current missile defence plans] is on regional systems, systems that do not prejudice strategic stability, and do not create risks for the Russian strategic nuclear forces.” Everything else is “when and if” Moscow thinks something else is happening (Moscow has appended to the Treaty a statement stressing that it only holds if Washington “refrains from developing its missile defence capabilities quantitatively or qualitatively”). Serving the ball to Washington, Medvedev said: “We offered to the United States that we help them establish a global anti-missile defence system, and we should think about this, given the vulnerability of our world, the terrorist challenges and the possibility of using nuclear arms by terrorists existing in this world”.

PRISONS. A measurement of the dreadful Russian prison system was offered by a Deputy Prosecutor General who said that 4150 people had died in correctional facilities and 521 in pre-trial detention centres in 2009. The last figure is especially appalling given that most of those should be out on bail. There are currently 861,867 people imprisoned across Russia. See below.

ECONOMIC CRIMES LAW. Yesterday Medvedev signed an amendment to the law on economic crimes. It does two things: it raises the level of economic value of the crime six-fold and sets bail levels. The object is to stop petty harassment of businesses and to encourage bail to replace pre-trial detention. As Medvedev said, when he promised to do something: “Corrupt officials get the word from an entrepreneur’s competitor, put the entrepreneur behind bars, and then let him out after he coughs up a certain sum.”

JIHADIST ATTACKS. No one was hurt by a bomb on a Dagestan railway line Sunday. But the next day a suicide bomber and a follow-up car bomb in Ingushetia killed and injured several people. Medvedev has ordered the creation of a “separate permanently active counterterrorism operations group” in the North Caucasus.

ECONOMY. Optimistic predictions from an American analyst on the “‘biggest bounce’ in the world” for Russia’s economy: 7% growth this year.

VISITS. A reason for the duumvirate, as we saw this week, is that the workload can be shared: Putin was in Venezuela 2-4 April and is now in Novosibirsk and on 6-7 Medvedev visited Slovakia and is now in Prague.

STALIN. Despite much disapproval (and from the Kremlin too) Mayor Luzhkov insists that Stalin’s visage will appear among posters of war leaders in Moscow’s Victory Day decorations. I wonder how this will turn out: an immoveable object meets an irresistible force.

INTERNET. A VTsIOM poll finds 38% of respondents use the Internet “several times a month” and 23% daily.

KATYN. Yesterday Putin and Polish PM Tusk took part in a ceremony commemorating the massacre of Polish prisoners at Katyn. Putin pointed out that the Russian people could not be held responsible. This is true: and neither should the Georgian people be held responsible; even though the idea was a Mingrelian’s, approved by a Georgian and carried out by the Georgian-dominated NKVD. The truth is that the Bolsheviks did it.

SOUTH OSSETIA. Moscow and Tskhinvali have signed an agreement on Russian basing in South Ossetia. The base will be in Tskhinvali and hold up to a large battle group. A similar agreement was concluded with Sukhumi in February. There will be no more Georgian military adventures into these areas.

KYRGYZ REPUBLIC. The opposition says it has taken control, claiming control of the security forces, and formed a provisional government headed by Roza Otunbayeva. President Bakiyev has fled to the south. Protests began in Talas on Tuesday and spread to Bishkek with some violence. Several discussions argue that the overthrow is rooted in big increases in utility costs with the profits going to Bakiyev’s favourites. Some reports speculate on the possibility of civil war (north vs south) but former President Akayev thinks Bakiyev does not have the necessary support. Moscow has reinforced its base at Kant and, it appears, is close to recognising the new government. Washington has a major stake in Manas. Nonetheless, it appears to me that the overthrow is sui generis and has nothing to do with either Moscow or Washington.

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

BOMBINGS. As the world knows, there were two bombs on the Moscow Metro on Monday and another two in Dagestan two days later. The use of suicide bombers in both cases makes it clear to the meanest intelligence who is responsible. Even so, despite the other suicide bombings in the last week (two in Afghanistan, one in Pakistan), there remain those who cannot make the connection and insist that jihadist attacks in Russia are sui generis and unrelated to anything else. Nonetheless, the Western MSM coverage was generally more understanding of reality than it has been. Thus it may be that a result of these events will be an increased understanding that jihadism is a worldwide phenomenon and that practically everyone on earth – Shiites or Sufis in Iraq, Sunnis in Pakistan, Buddhists in Thailand, Hindus in India, Christians in Nigeria – is a target. Note that security in the New York and Washington subways systems was stepped up suggesting some sort of apprehension of an attack on the USA.
JIHADISTS. The bombings were no doubt attempts to gain revenge for the successes of the security forces in the last couple of weeks. One of the original Arab jihadists who helped Khattab ignite the second war in Chechnya was killed 2 weeks ago; on the 22nd the “Emir of Grozny” was killed in Makhachkala; another leader was killed in Kabardin-Balkaria on the 25th; on the 30th a raid in Ufa captured the local leader. Together with the killing of Buryatskiy earlier in the month, the jihadist leadership in Russia has been hard hit in March.
PROTESTS. The “opposition” held its much-advertised “Day of Anger” protests across Russia two weeks ago. The largest turnouts were in Kaliningrad and Vladivostok where the organisers were greatly helped by the well-organised Russian car-owners federation. Western MSM reaction was mixed: some, following their predilection for decision-based evidence making, made them out to be much more significant than they were; others were more balanced. These protests remind me of the Yeltsin era where one could see supporters of Nikolay II side-by-side with supporters of his murderers. It makes little rational sense to call them “the opposition” as if to imply there is something that really unites them. Most of the time, the majority, when not communists, are rent-a-thugs from the National Bolsheviks; not, generally speaking, a group anyone would want to associate with and hardly “democratic” or “liberal” by anyone’s definition.
PEOPLE POWER. The above having been said, Russia does have genuine protests. The car-owners federation has the potential to grow into something real – although its objects are in line with the stated aims of the government. The other protests that are real – and have effects – are those against rising utility prices. There was one in Saratov and another in Arkhangelsk and Medvedev has reacted. He ordered a freeze in utility price increases and also ordered an inquiry into unjustified hikes. This is a difficulty for the government: the utility prices have to rise to reflect economic reality, but the process is painful and unpopular.
“COMPATRIOTS”. The government has prepared a law that will reduce the number of “compatriots abroad” (соотечественники за рубежом). When the USSR broke up, Moscow agreed to give citizenship to any former USSR citizen who could not or would not have citizenship otherwise. The rest of us, it should be understood, were profoundly grateful: Moscow’s offer ensured that the disappearance of the USSR would not create any stateless persons (as had happened, for example, after the breakup of empires in 1919). This provision was necessary in the cases where local citizenship was not automatically granted to residents (Estonia and Latvia) and where the locals did not agree with Stalin’s mapmaking (Abkhazia, Transdnestr et al). This particular provision ended some time ago. Then there were the “compatriots” who were ethnic Russians in the new countries who might not want to remain there. The new law will greatly reduce this vague category and restrict it to self-identifiers. The connection will be now largely cultural.
JACKSON-VANIK. On her visit to Moscow, Clinton said Washington wanted to lift the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. Well, what’s stopping it? It is an unnecessary slight and promising to lift it and not doing so will irritate Russians and make the suspicious believe that Washington is ultimately hostile. Enough already do.
NEWS YOU WON’T HEAR. Zaporozhie, Ukraine is erecting a Stalin statue. His images will not appear in Moscow.
TROUBLES IN PARADISE. Lukashenka has just complained that Belarus cannot get “transparent and fair terms of mutual trade” with Russia. Probably not unconnected with the relative vectors of the two economies but another illustration that the “Belarus-Russia Union” is mostly for show.

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