JRL/2012/196/33

An important part of the Obama Administration’s new approach was the improvement of US-Russia relations and accordingly Obama, soon after taking office, began to speak of a “reset” in relations. Secretary of State Clinton formally launched the “reset” in Geneva with Lavrov on 6 March 2009. She presented him with a “reset button”. Nothing wrong with that as a symbol and something to put on his desk except for the fact that the wrong word was used and that wrong word was written in the Latin alphabet. Are we to assume – Clinton said “we worked hard to get the right Russian word” – that the US State Department has no Russian translators or no people who know that the Russians have their own alphabet? Of course not, but she evidently couldn’t be bothered to consult them. Microsoft and Apple, by the way, know the right word and what alphabet to use. An amateurish beginning to something that was presented as a serious policy change.

But, in my opinion, revealing: if she got something so simple so wrong, was the “reset” ever a thought-out policy? Or was it just a transitory rhetorical flourish?

Yes missile defence installations in Poland and the Czech Republic were cancelled. But missile defence is very far from off the table and Russia’s concerns are still brushed off as not being worthy of a serious response.

Yes, after years and years, Russia is a member of the World Trade Organisation but the absurdly obsolete Jackson-Vanik Amendment endures. Possibly to be replaced by the “Magnitskiy List”.

Yes, Saakashvili is no longer loudly praised but Russia still “occupies” Georgian territory. There is no indication of any reconsideration of that bumper-sticker, and formally incorrect, view.

NATO expansion, arguably the most neuralgic issue for Moscow, has stopped, but it’s still Washington’s official policy.

And the nuclear weapons agreement – not trivial, to be sure, but something that would likely have happened anyway. And, even though it’s not fashionable to say so: perhaps these agreements are not as important as they once were.

There is still no understanding that Moscow has few reasons to, and several good reasons not to, trust mere assertions. We, Washington and the rest of us dragged in its wake, may indeed be the “good guys” but we need to do some work on keeping our promises.

So some progress here and there but nothing to suggest any real effort to “reset” the assumption that Russia’s point of view is not to be taken seriously. Missile defence? We’ve told you it’s about “rogue states” with nuclear weapons and delivery systems and not Russia; you’re being obnoxious when you doubt our word. Ossetians and Abkhazians? They’ve been annexed by Russia and their opinion is worthless. Trade with Russia? Not without conditions. NATO expansion? Still a good idea, if not quite now.

But this small progress stopped with Russia’s elections. I have written elsewhere about BelayaLenta.com, “independent vote monitors”, the strange events in the US branch of Amnesty International. And then we come to the charge that Moscow prevents “progress” (what progress?) on Syria. For the Obama Administration, Russia remains deeply “undemocratic” and an obstacle. It’s as if there had been no “reset” at all.

So the “reset” seems to have been a stunt with nothing much behind it. And, at the end of 2012, relations between the US and Russia aren’t much better than they were four years ago. For official Washington, Russia is still an object of visceral suspicion, rooted mistrust and wilful incomprehension.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 1 November 2012

On November 1, 2012January 25, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

OPPOSITION VOTE. The opposition ran an electronic vote to choose their… what? – leaders? most popular figures? coordinators? The results are here (Russian). The top 5 are Navalniy, Bykov, Kasparov, Sobchak and Yashin. What I find striking is, in a supposedly computer-savvy broadly-based movement, that only about 80,000 actually voted out of the 170,000 who registered. One cannot say that the phenomenon is insignificant, but it does not seem to be so very large after all.

UDALTSOV. The Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Sergey Udaltsov (20th on the opposition vote) as a result of a TV program which showed a film allegedly of him conspiring to start disturbances. The Committee then claimed that one of his associates had confessed to organising disturbances bankrolled by Givi Targamadze. Said associate promptly declared that the “confession” had been forced out of him by threats. On Friday Udaltsov was formally charged with plotting mass disorder and released on his promise not to leave Moscow. As I said, I could believe he did it or that it’s a government setup.

BUSINESS CLIMATE. Improving. But, read the list and ask yourself whether you agree. (All FUSSR states better except Ukraine, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan?)

PUTIN. He will not give his call-in program but will likely hold a big press conference. Rumours aside.

MUSLIM CLERGY MURDERS. Most Russian Muslims are Sunnis with a strong Sufi influence. Wahhabis despise Sufis, regarding them as contaminated by innovation and idolatry. Influential imams and muftis are therefore obstacles to their aims. A Dagestani imam was murdered on Tuesday. This is the third murder this year of an imam in the North Caucasus that I have noticed (I’m sure there were more) and there was an attempt on the Mufti of Tatarstan in July. Another part of the complete story not often covered by the Western MSM.

CORRUPTION. Managers of the Defence Ministry property management company are being investigated for embezzlement and their offices were raided last week. Moscow police suspect the head of the Duma’s Office of “selling” positions. Two administrators at Moscow State University were arrested for soliciting a bribe from a student.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP. A law banning sites, principally those involved in child pornography, has come into effect. As usual, what is common elsewhere (France, UK, Finland, Germany, Australia for example) is spun as uniquely sinister when Russia follows the fashion.

STALIN. On the Day Commemorating the Victims of Political Repression, Medvedev condemned Stalin’s “war against the nation”. Lest anyone take this as a sign of struggles under the rug, Putin on the same day five years ago, at Butovo where about 20,000 were murdered, described the victims as “the pride of the nation”. Same program, same team.

GEORGIA. Back in the “Rose Revolution” Saakashvili had two allies: Zurab Zhvania, who later died in what was said to be an accident, and Nino Burjanadze who has been in the opposition for some years. The new chief prosecutor says the investigation into Zhvania’s death should be continued. This could open a can of worms: first because the FBI blessed the official story and second because some (Shevardnadze and former Defence Minister Okruashvili for two) suspect he was murdered.

TBILISI-MOSCOW. A delicate balance. The new Foreign Minister has declared that there will be no diplomatic relations so long as Moscow has embassies in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The new parliament speaker has said that Tbilisi “should abandon the role of crusader with regard to ‘undemocratic Russia.’” and “shouldn’t be making pinpricks that gratify us for two days but create two-year problems”. There will likely be steady improvement on bread-and-butter issues but South Ossetia and Abkhazia will remain obstacles: it will be many years before they will trust Tbilisi.

UKRAINE ELECTION. Parliamentary elections were held on Sunday and President Yanukovych’s party did best winning about 40% of the seats. Western observers condemned the vote as did Washington. Would a cynic be right to argue that because Yanukovych doesn’t support NATO entry for Ukraine, he is not a “democrat” and therefore elections that favour him are fakes? Or would that be too cynical? At any event, that is the reaction – and outcome – that I expected. “Step backwards” is the phrase of the day.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 18 October 2012

On October 18, 2012January 25, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

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

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

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

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

CORRUPTION. It is reported that corruption investigations totalled 15,800 in the first half of 2012: last year at the same time there were 10,400. The claim is that the increase is due to better investigation.

RUSSIA INC. There is a general agreement that GDP growth is slowing: an official gives 2.8%; the World Bank 3.5% and the IMF 3.7%. Even so, better than either the EU or the USA.

BEREZOVSKIY. Berezovskiy has lost his case against Abramovich: the judge finding him to be an “unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes” and must pay the latter’s court costs of £35 million. Hmm, moulding truth to suit his current purposes… maybe the Western media may become less willing to re-type his press releases on deaths and music groups.

RUSSIAN SPIES. The USA claims to have broken up a spy ring that was moving microelectronics to Russia; the Canadian naval officer has admitted he was passing information to Russia and Germany claims to have broken up another ring. Now why on earth would Moscow feel that it had to know what NATO was up to?

USAID. Has left Russia. Given that its main business these days seems to be “democracy promotion”, given that that seems to be little more than the attempt to discredit Putin, I can sympathise with the decision to get it out. More thoughts, and my reasons for saying this, here. Foreign Minister Lavrov said Moscow would not treat European foundations the same way, they, he says, “act on the basis of intergovernmental agreements, well-considered and mutually acceptable ones, which are based on the principles of reciprocity and equality”.

SYRIA. A couple of days after calling Moscow’s position “morally bankrupt”, Washington called on it to help it get rid of Assad. Apart from this being a rather ineffectual way to solicit cooperation, Washington still doesn’t understand Moscow’s position. Which is to keep out of it. Washington is having trouble handling the fact that Assad is thus far not losing. And Washington might wonder where the weapons it’s sending are winding up: even the complaisant NYT suspects they’re not going to future friends. The simple fact is that Moscow’s stance is much more prudent. It’s not as if Washington these days has any reason to be pleased with the overthrow of Khadafy in Libya. Meanwhile another charge of Russia supplying weapons collapses.

UKRAINE. Yulia Tymoshenko may now have murder added to all the other charges.

GEORGIA. Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream comfortably won the election. Georgia is now in a dual power situation and that has seldom had a happy ending. I am very sceptical that Saakashvili will go quietly when his term ends. More thoughts here.

How Will History Judge Putin?

On October 14, 2012February 16, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn CONTRIBUTIONS TO GROUP DISCUSSIONS, POLITICS AND POWER

http://us-russia.org/392-how-will-history-judge-putin.html

I believe that “history” will judge Putin as one of the best leaders Russia has had in its thousand year history.

Or would have so judged him had he retired.

When he came to power, according to his “Russia in the New Millennium”, he set himself four tasks: to reverse the economic collapse, to reverse the decay of central power, to improve Russia’s status in the world and to institute a rule of law, or at least a rule of rules. On his watch these goals were achieved to a considerable extent (the last, less, to be sure). Most leaders are lucky if they can attain even a few of their goals, partially. Putin did much better.

But he missed one thing: to set an example to his successors that two terms are enough for any mortal.

If he built a system that can’t work without him, then it doesn’t work.

He runs the risk of “history” judging him the Turkmenbashi of Russia.

Election in Georgia

On October 6, 2012February 16, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn CONTRIBUTIONS TO GROUP DISCUSSIONS, SOUTH CAUCASUS

http://us-russia.org/355-does-the-georgian-election-signal-a-new-paradigm.html

The possibility of the end of Georgia’s post-Soviet nightmare of wars, coups and poverty may be distantly glimpsed with Georgian Dream’s victory. But many questions remain to be resolved before Georgia can get out of the hole. The last of the three famous post-USSR “Coloured Revolutions” has come to its end: like the others, it has ended in disappointment.

The big question is the interaction between the new Parliament and Saakashvili during the remainder of his term. Saakashvili is prone to accuse any opponent of being a stooge of Moscow and has done so with Ivanishvili. Ivanishvili, while he has repeatedly said that he wants a Western orientation, including NATO membership, for Georgia has also repeatedly said that better relations with Moscow are essential. How will Saakashvili behave when the first steps are made?

The constitutional situation is another point of concern. Saakashvili is still President, the President is still more powerful than the Prime Minister: indeed the former appoints the latter. (And whom will Saakashvili appoint?) But, when Saakashvili leaves office in a year, the power relationship will reverse. These year-old constitutional changes, which some saw as an effort by Saakashvili to remain in power will, instead, send Ivanishvili or his nominee into power and Saakashvili into retirement. But, at the moment, it’s dual power and history shows few happy endings to that situation. Saakashvili is unlikely to be a good loser and there are already fears of what he could do to make things hard for Ivanishvili.

Will the new Parliament ask the big unasked question? And that is the disparity between the claimed high economic growth rate and the staggeringly high unemployment rate: 69% in a recent US/Swedish survey consider themselves unemployed. (See page 13). How can both of these be true? I can think of only two ways high growth can be consistent with spectacular unemployment rates: either that the growth is a façade of luxury hotels and other fripperies for visitors or that corruption and cronyism have kept the money locked in a tiny group of connected people. A potentially explosive question.

Another potentially explosive question relates to allegations that Saakashvili has extended support to jihadists fighting in the North Caucasus. Will we hear anything of this?

Is Ivanishvili’s coalition anything more than an ephemeral anti-Saakashvili grouping? Can the coalition hold against likely attempts by Saakashvili to detach members?

The Abkhazia and South Ossetia problems will continue. Ivanishvili’s spokesman reiterates that Tbilisi expects them back and, more convincingly than Saakashvili ever could, insists it will be done through negotiations. That is not going to happen in any future that he or Ivanishvili will see. Conceivably, after years of effort, reconstruction, prosperity, peaceful relations and a serious investigation into Tbilisi’s crimes against these areas (starting in the 1990s, if not in the 1920s) something might be possible. But Abkhazians and Ossetians will take a very long time and a high degree of proof before they will trust Tbilisi. They are not serfs to be passively transferred from one owner to another.

In short, this is a good start, but there is a long way to go before Georgia becomes a peaceful and prosperous land.

Pussy Riot conducts a typing school

On August 28, 2012January 25, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

http://us-russia.org/80-pussy-riot-conducts-a-typing-school.html

JRL/2011/ 151/18

PUSSY RIOT CONDUCTS A TYPING SCHOOL

As we all know, a group calling itself Pussy Riot staged a stunt in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. Three members were arrested and have been sentenced to two years in jail. Which, less time served in “preventative detention” which counts twice, amounts to 14 months in prison. With the possibility of parole.

I’m not here going to talk about what they said and did in the church or any of the stunts that they pulled before or during the trial that probably extended the process. I’m not even sure of my own opinion about what should have happened to them. My concern here is the suspicious unanimity of coverage in the Western media.

We hear much about how they are mothers, as if there were some hitherto unknown legal principle that mothers get a free pass. [Note Eugene Ivanov has corrected me: there is a provision on Russian law for clemency towards pregnant women and mothers of small children which was not applied in this case. But, even so, I do not recall and Western outlet pointing this fact out.] We are told their ages and they are described as a “punk band” or sometimes as a “feminist punk band”. They are protesters against Putin. And, of course, it is taken for granted that Putin is really the law and judge in the case. Der Spiegel has all the memes. Masha Lipman misses out telling us that some are mothers. A particularly vapid piece in the New York Times about their style misses the mother part too. But a piece in Huffington Post gets them all in. An especially absurd piece in the Globe and Mail hits all the notes – and more: “Like the Pussy Riot heroines, whose names should be written with markers across all of our bodies, if only to remember an era in which we, too, were not afraid.” The Guardian gets them all in. As does the Bellona NGO. Something not mentioned in all the stuff about Putin and the Russian Church being in cahoots is that both the Chief Mufti and the Chief Rabbi also supported Putin).

There is a great deal of information about Pussy Riot to be found on the vibrant Russian blogosphere but, it seems, few Western media outlets bothered to look. Here for example (Warning VERY NSFW) are photos of another of their performances, albeit under another name, (sex in a museum in 2008). Further information here. No music then. And no charges or arrests either. Or another performance involving chickens and a grocery store in 2010 (again under a previous name – go to 2:29). Again neither music nor arrests. So “punk band” is hardly a complete description. The reader is also invited to compare the actual film of the cathedral event with the edited version. Quite a difference; that alone ought to set reporters to wondering if they were being manipulated. In short, there was some background that could have been examined but wasn’t: all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. And this was all spun into a story that Putin was cracking down on political dissent. But they, and their source group, Voyna, had been political before and the authorities ignored them. Perhaps they wanted more attention. But, in the Cathedral church of Moscow – with all its history – their latest stunt did result in an arrest.

Russia, like other countries, has laws about public order even if the Russians (and, as we will see, the Ukrainians) quaintly call it “hooliganism”. Here is New York City’s and the UK’s for example. Poland has a law against blasphemy and an individual has been fined for something she said in an interview (but not in a church). But the standard story did not mention this and often barely hinted that the charges were not that the young mothers were protesting Putin (something rather common and even placid these days) but committing a public order disturbance and insulting religion. Furthermore, numerous Western countries have “hate crime” legislation and people are punished – even jailed – for that. But all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. The most hyperbolic (and idiotic) headline was surely “Pussy Riot trial ‘worse than Soviet era’”. No, actually, it wasn’t: lack of vegan food is not quite the same as the “conveyer” or “beat, beat and beat again”. The Guardian headline creators might want to read their Solzhenitsyn again – a required text in Russian schools, by the way.

In short, Western consumers of its media outlets were treated to a very partial story indeed and to one version. Little effort was made to research any background. It was typing not reporting.

So who wrote the script that so many media outlets faithfully re-typed? Alexander Goldfarb perhaps: we are told that he “set up Pussy Riot’s legal fund in the United States”. He turns out to be the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties which was set up by Boris Berezovskiy. Given that Berezovskiy has more than once said that his aim in life is to bring Putin down by whatever methods, why would any supposedly impartial reporter re-type his press releases? Goldfarb was also a key player in that other media re-typing exercise, the death of Litvinenko, and was the source of much of that story. Some say there are other manipulators: the US State Department or its innumerable funded groups. (NOTE: The reader is reminded that, when all the normal sources of “news” are re-typing the same press release, reality must be sought elsewhere at the margins. Click through the references in these last two and decide for yourself how plausible their arguments are.)

Last Friday a crucifix erected near the former headquarters of the Soviet political police in Kiev in commemoration of Ukrainians who died in the communist years was cut down by one of the members of FEMEN (also Dear Reader, thanks to laws in many Western countries, the URL is also NSFW). She was young, possibly a mother, not apparently a punk band member (but a self-confessed feminist) and there was a political motive. The Ukrainian authorities are preparing a charge of hooliganism against her too. Will this also become a huge story? Perhaps it will, given that Berezovskiy doesn’t like President Yanukovych. And, dare I suggest it, now that Ukraine does not have a government that wants to get in to NATO. Stay tuned.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 23 August 2012

On August 23, 2012January 25, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

RUSSIA INC. Some reported numbers for the first half of the year. The Finance Ministry reports that the federal budget is running a surplus of about US$8 billion. GDP is up 4.4% and industrial production by 3.2%. By today’s standards, these aren’t bad numbers. Population is reported to have grown by about 85,000 since the beginning of the year although it was immigration that made it into growth: despite improvements, natural increase is still negative. However births are growing faster than deaths. A VTsIOM poll finds that Russians say they are paying more attention to their health.

POPULARITY. I’m a little mystified by this report that a Levada poll finds a significant drop in Putin’s rating since the election. The Levada site (Google translation) doesn’t show any such thing: if anything his rating has squeaked up a bit. (Mind you the first is referring to an August poll while the site is still in July: but that quick a drop seems improbable). The opinion of whether Russia is going forwards or into a dead end is not much changed either. So as far as I can see Levada data doesn’t show any particular trend this year. However, taking it from August 1999, we do see a downward trend for both Putin and Medvedev but an upward trend in how the country is doing. Putin’s slippage from the heights began gently around the autumn of 2008 but the “index” (approve minus disapprove) only went below 50 at the end of 2010 and he’s still 67:32. (other politicians can, of course, only dream of such numbers). Does this mean anything? Perhaps Russians are getting tired of him (slowly); perhaps they are becoming more healthily sceptical about their leaders; perhaps Russia’s economic performance, which while good by today’s standards is less than it used to be, is affecting them. I still think that Putin’s decision to return was a mistake. We will see.

SPACE LAUNCHES. We hear about the failures but less about the successes. Nonetheless the routine reliability of Russian space launch technology (an important money earner and a big percentage of all world launches) has faltered of late. Medvedev made the usual dire threats and ordered immediate roposals and the Director of the Khrunichev Plant, where most of them are made, resigned. One of the more tiresome Russian government traditions is the Boss threatening-demanding a plan tomorrow-firing someone cycle. Seldom has much effect.

LEBEDEV. Still no reaction from the powers. He has asked the government to buy his Aeroflot shares.

WTO. Russia is now formally a member after 18 years of negotiation (is that the world record?). Jackson-Vanik is still in effect in the USA which apparently makes sense to somebody.

UNITED RUSSIA. Medvedev, who leads it, has promised to purge the party. Heard that one before: not an easy job given that United Russia is the party of kratotropes.

POLICE REFORM. Medvedev’s reform has to be judged… incomplete. Four police were found guilty of abusing detainees. Charges were laid in the police torture case in Tatarstan. A Moscow police officer was detained with almost 1 kg of cocaine. The idea was that senior policemen would be, as it were, interviewed for their jobs. And juniors would be interviewed by seniors. A good idea, one would think, but the sequencing seems to have been wrong. The first stage should have been done first (a third of the seniors were let got) and then the survivors of that step should have completed the second. Anyway, 90% of juniors were retained. Too many.

PUSSY RIOT. The Pussy riot defendants were sentenced to 2 years less time served (which counts double) so another 14 months in jail. They will appeal. Thereupon the Church asked the authorities to show mercy. There have been some small protests. And, in this connection, here is a case to watch and see how the authorities in Kiev handle it. My thoughts on the strange unanimity of Western coverage on the case here. Speaking of which, I am interested to see some second thoughts appearing in Western media outlets: here and here. That having been said, I suspect that both PR and the authorities now wish they had taken a different approach: PR pleads guilty, apologises and is fined a couple of thousand rubles. But, maybe they’ll make some money.

North Caucasus. Quite a lot of jihadist attacks reported. I recommend the regular reports by my colleague Gordon Hahn who follows these things much more closely than I do.

UKRAINE. Yanukovych signed the law ratifying a free trade zone agreement with the CIS. Kiev is still working on a free trade agreement with the EU.

Pussy Riot Conducts a Typing School

On August 23, 2012February 16, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, WAR ON RUSSIA

http://us-russia.org/80-pussy-riot-conducts-a-typing-school.html

JRL/2011/ 151/18

We hear much about how they are mothers, as if there were some hitherto unknown legal principle that mothers get a free pass. [Note Eugene Ivanov has corrected me: there is a provision on Russian law for clemency towards pregnant women and mothers of small children which was not applied in this case. But, even so, I do not recall and Western outlet pointing this fact out.] We are told their ages and they are described as a “punk band” or sometimes as a “feminist punk band”. They are protesters against Putin. And, of course, it is taken for granted that Putin is really the law and judge in the case. Der Spiegel has all the memes. Masha Lipman misses out telling us that some are mothers. A particularly vapid piece in the New York Times about their style misses the mother part too. But a piece in Huffington Post gets them all in. An especially absurd piece in the Globe and Mail hits all the notes – and more: “Like the Pussy Riot heroines, whose names should be written with markers across all of our bodies, if only to remember an era in which we, too, were not afraid.” The Guardian gets them all in. As does the Bellona NGO. Something not mentioned in all the stuff about Putin and the Russian Church being in cahoots is that both the Chief Mufti and the Chief Rabbi also supported Putin).

Russia, like other countries, has laws about public order even if the Russians (and, as we will see, the Ukrainians) quaintly call it “hooliganism”. Here is New York City’s and the UK’s for example. Poland has a law against blasphemy and an individual has been fined for something she said in an interview (but not in a church). But the standard story did not mention this and often barely hinted that the charges were not that the young mothers were protesting Putin (something rather common and even placid these days) but committing a public order disturbance and insulting religion. Furthermore, numerous Western countries have “hate crime” legislation and people are punished – even jailed – for that. But all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. The most hyperbolic (and idiotic) headline was surely “Pussy Riot trial ‘worse than Soviet era’”. No, actually, it wasn’t: lack of vegan food is not quite the same as the “conveyer” or “beat, beat and beat again”. The Guardian headline creators might want to read their Solzhenitsyn again – a required text in Russian schools, by the way.

In short, Western consumers of its media outlets were treated to a very partial story indeed and to one version. Little effort was made to research any background. It was typing not reporting.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 9 August 2012

On August 9, 2012January 25, 2016 By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

PRESSURE. A prominent Russian businessman says he will sell all his assets in Russia and retire so as to end what he calls “relentless pressure from the authorities”, specifically from “Directorate K of the [FSB]”. He believes this began when the newspaper he part owns began an investigation of corruption in the FSB. He says he does not think the Kremlin is behind “my business… being purposefully and deliberately destroyed” but would like it to clarify its position. One of the Duumvirate ought to say something and soon.

DIRECTION. A recent poll finds an increasing pessimism about the way Russia is developing: 35% think in the wrong direction (up from 26% in Feb 2009) and 31% in the right direction (down from 52%). However, before this is shoved into the latest idiotic editorial about the imminent collapse of “the Putin system”, we need a little context. 61% of Americans think their country is on the wrong track; 73% of British and 56% of EU inhabitants do too. So, as the real world runs, Russians are pretty upbeat.

RUSSIA INC. The EBRD has cut its growth forecast for Russia from 4.2% to 3.1% in 2012 and from 4.3% to 3.3% for 2013. It foresees lower demand for commodities in the Eurozone. Still, by present standards, not bad.

OSSETIA WAR. In a film just out, several former senior generals say Medvedev should have given the order to move into South Ossetia a day earlier and many died because he didn’t . Medvedev defended his decision. (I thought that Putin &Co didn’t allow any public disagreements). I will be amused to see how Saakashvili’s flacks try to spin this, given that Saakashvili’s final version of the story was that they did move a day early.

PUSSY RIOT. The trial began on the 30th and ended yesterday. The judge promises to hand down her verdict on the 17th. Many absurdities about this event: Anatoly Karlin takes the time to dissect a Guardian editorial on the subject – much more time than the writers took to string together memes of the moment, half truths and untruths. I recommend reading it to illustrate just how biased, slipshod and dishonest so much commentary on Russia is. Alexander Mercouris has written a long legal analysis of the case. By the way, unlike the MSM, which is happy to throw around generalisations without sources, both Karlin and Mercouris provide many hyperlinks: they don’t make stuff up. A question to ponder: given that Putin also has the support of Russia’s Chief Mufti, when will we see Pussy Riot call him Putin’s “bitch” too?

SLOW AND STEADY. Not for the first time, Putin laid out his ruling strategy: “Move gradually, calmly, with the necessary rotation, but move forward”.Understandable, but the time can come when caution slips into stagnation. I still think it would have been better had he not run again. I don’t think he’s run out of creativity yet, but it comes to all of us eventually.

CORRUPTION. The first corruption case over the Sochi Olympics is ready to go to court, others are being prepared. Given all the circumstances – lots of money thrown at it, pressure from the top – I’m sure that a lot of money has disappeared.

PARTIES. A potentially significant opposition party, RPR-PARNAS, was registered.

THE LAW IS SLOW. The Russian legal process is not very high-speed. The investigators have finally sent the Kushchevskaya case to court (gang war is their theory) 21 months after the crime. Four skinheads were sentenced for murder during the Manege Square riot (20 months). And two more were sentenced today for involvement in the murder of a governor in October 2002; four others having been convicted last year. I have no theories but observe that many commentators seem to expect it should go faster.

PUTIN IN UK. Putin met with the British PM and things seem to go pretty calmly. It seems that Litvinenko was not a major part of the agenda. Apparently £4 million has already been spent on the investigation and the coroner hasn’t even made a verdict of how he died yet. Not much return for the money (speaking of slow legal processes).

INTERESTING LAWS. We hear much about laws in Russia; here’s one I just heard about. It’s illegal in Lithuania to deny Soviet aggression and someone was just sentenced for doing so. Don’t hear much about that law which would seem to have the effect of turning historical arguments into criminal cases.

Memes Shape the Story

On July 31, 2012 By Patrick ArmstrongIn PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

Memes function as an epistemological filter determining what the facts and motives are and where to look to find them. The memes told their believers what Moscow’s motives were in the case of Georgia – Moscow’s motive and principle of its actions was an attempt to reverse the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The 2008 war was commonly fitted into the pre-existing story that Moscow was seizing its chance to defeat and humiliate Georgia and regain control over its behavior. But the adherence to the memes, together with the general ignorance of the context and Tbilisi’s ambitions, blinded their adherents to Moscow’s real concern. And that was that Moscow feared that a fire set in Georgia would spread across the mountains into the Russian Caucasus. Moscow feared this in 2008 because it had seen it happen in the 1990s. Moscow feared a repeat of what had already happened once before.

Russia Observer

Reset? What Reset?