Putin and Trump discussed G7 summit, oil markets in call: Kremlin

Source: Reuters

June 1 2020

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told President Vladimir Putin in a phone call about his idea of holding an expanded Group of Seven summit later this year with a possible invitation for Russia, the Kremlin said on Monday.

Trump said on Saturday he would postpone a G7 summit he had hoped to hold next month until September or later and expand the list of invitees to include Australia, Russia, South Korea and India.

Britain and Canada have since spoken out against the idea of readmitting Russia to a forum it was expelled from in 2014 after Moscow annexed the Crimea region from Ukraine.

Moscow had said earlier on Monday that it was looking for more details before responding.

The two leaders also discussed the OPEC+ deal on oil output cuts, and measures to fight the coronavirus. Putin thanked Trump for a delivery of U.S. ventilators, the Kremlin said, and congratulated Trump on the first spaceflight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil in nine years.

Rohani, Putin, Erdogan to meet In Turkey on Apr. 4

https://en.mehrnews.com/news/133080/Rohani-Putin-Erdogan-to-meet-In-Turkey-on-Apr-4

Obama’s Ukraine policy in shambles

U.S. President Barack Obama during a summit at the White House | Drew Angerer/Getty

Πηγή: Politico
By MICHAEL CROWLEY
29 Feb 2016

Distracted by ISIL, frustrated by infighting in Kyiv, the administration makes little progress against Putin in Europe.
President Barack Obama’s effort to rescue Ukraine from Russia’s military grip has stalled, and turmoil inside Ukraine’s government may hand Russian President Vladimir Putin a victory in a conflict that Obama has said involves “the most basic principles of our international system.”

Two years after the pro-western protests that toppled Kyiv’s government, enraged Putin, and caused an international crisis, Obama’s Ukraine policy is foundering — the victim of Putin’s steely determination, the distractions of Syria and ISIL, and wavering support from European allies eager to move past the conflict.

Despite personal pleas from Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. officials fear that Kyiv’s leaders are near a political implosion that would derail efforts to stabilize the country and eject Russia from its eastern territories.

“Syria has really taken the focus off of Ukraine. It feels to me like its going to be difficult for Europe to stay together and continue to pressure Russia with sanctions,” the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, told POLITICO. “At some point you’re going to have a frozen conflict that’s very much to Putin’s advantage.”

Critics like Corker say that Obama’s actions have failed to live up to his rhetoric, which casts Russia’s presence in Ukraine as a grave threat to European security. Obama has rejected calls from several top advisers to provide Ukraine with weapons to fight off Moscow-backed separatists.

“Putin has paid no price,” Corker said, adding that European leaders have told him Putin says “there is just no push back” from the U.S.

Nonetheless, the U.S. and Europe have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Moscow, and in recent months Obama has beefed up America’s military presence on NATO’s eastern flank.

But even as he warily partners with Putin on a cease-fire for Syria, Obama has not shaken the Russian leader’s support for the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed nearly 10,000 people and stunted the country’s political and economic progress. After a lull in violence, combat has spiked in recent weeks to the highest levels since last summer.

“Nothing has happened to suggest that the Russians are any more willing to give us control of Ukraine than they were before,” said Ivo Daalder, Obama’s first ambassador to NATO and now President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “In some ways, Syria became a distraction for us because it led us to work with Russia to try to address the Syrian crisis and to ignore what’s happening in Ukraine.”

Obama officials insist that the core of their strategy — implementing a February 2015 peace accord signed in Minsk that calls for Russia to withdraw forces from the country’s east — is still on track.

“We are pressing hard to see Minsk fully implemented by the time the president leaves office,” said a senior administration official, referring to the pact brokered by France and Germany and signed by Ukraine and Russia. “We’re aiming for implementation during the second half of 2016.”

Protesters clash behind burning barricades during the face off against heavily-armed police on February 20, 2014 in Kiev | Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty

Under the Minsk deal, Moscow must withdraw forces from eastern Ukraine and end its support for separatists; Kyiv must allow elections and greater autonomy for the country’s relatively pro-Russian east; and the U.S. and Europe will lift sanctions on Moscow.

Privately, U.S. officials concede that a government collapse could make implementing the Minsk accord — something that was supposed to happen by the end of 2015 — all but impossible, at least before Obama departs the White House.

“The worst thing that could happen right now is for the government to collapse and to have new elections,” said a second senior administration official, “because everything will spin into chaos, and the whole system will get locked up.”

That was Biden’s concern when he flew to Kyiv in early December. In an address to parliament, Biden urged Ukraine’s government to remain focused on political unity and reform in the face of Putin’s intimidation.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the hopes of freedom-loving people the world over are with you because so much rides on your fragile experiment with democracy succeeding,” Biden said. “It may be your last moment.”

Biden had barely departed when, two days later, the country’s beleaguered prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenuk addressed the same parliament. As he spoke at the podium, a rival member threw his arms around him and carried him off like a mannequin, touching off a wild brawl.

The government nearly fell earlier this month when Yatsenuk, who enjoys a single-digits approval rating, narrowly survived a no confidence vote in parliament. Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko, has called for Yatsenuk’s resignation, but Poroshenko is barely more popular, and faces charges he has done too little to combat rampant corruption.

Biden has been conducting damage control from Washington. The vice president, who has visited Ukraine four times since 2014 and says he’s logged “close to a thousand hours on the telephone” with its leaders, has placed several more calls to Yatsenuk and Poroshenko this month.

Russia has gleefully exploited the political disarray, casting Ukraine’s leadership as unable or unwilling to take the political steps required by the Minsk deal.

“Our Ukrainian friends aren’t doing their share,” Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, said in a recent interview. Russia wants the Ukrainians to move first on steps like amending the country’s constitution to grant more autonomy to the east.

U.S. officials are adamant that Moscow is mainly to blame for the stalemate, saying that Kyiv can’t be expected to move first when a portion of their country is a combat zone stoked by Russia.

But even some Western officials concede that the Russians have a partial point.

“The implementation of Minsk now is more or less frozen,” said a European diplomat. “Unfortunately, the Ukrainians are now actually carrying a big part of the responsibility of the blockage, because of the crisis in Kyiv.”

Such talk from Europe is ominous given the pressure European leaders are facing to end sanctions on Moscow, which have slowed their economies and cost their businesses profits.

Despite the occasional fistfight, U.S. officials insist things in the capital are not quite as bad as they appear. Ukraine’s parliament has passed some significant reform measures in recent months. Poroshenko recently fired the country’s prosecutor general, whom the U.S. saw as a major obstacle to battling Kyiv’s endemic corruption.

“It’s not necessarily pretty to watch,” said one Western diplomat, arguing that “rooting out the vestiges of the old Soviet state” was never going to be easy — particularly amid “a concerted effort from their big neighbor to see that the reform project fails,” he added.

That “big neighbor” is Russia, where Putin has worked to thwart Ukraine’s political progress — including through the use of organized crime, according to Western officials.

And although Putin dialed down the violence in Ukraine’s east last fall, Obama officials have been alarmed by a recent spike in fighting there. It remains unclear whether Putin is escalating the conflict, officials say, or if the separatists might be acting on their own.

U.S. officials say that until Putin stands down in the east, Kyiv will be hard-pressed to pass the political reforms required by Minsk. The problem was illustrated when the parliament considered a measure granting limited autonomy for separatist-controlled areas last summer; violent protests broke out in Kyiv, leaving several people dead.

“Minsk is now in tatters. Western attention at the highest level is gone due to the migration crisis and the Obama administration’s priorities lying elsewhere,” said Andrew Weiss, a former Clinton White House national security aide now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The whole thing just looks really messy.”

“The Russian bet here is that we have ADD, won’t be able to keep the sanctions regime together, and will find other stuff to worry about,” Weiss added.

The second administration official said the U.S. would remain focused on Ukraine, but that resolving the crisis could be impossible so long as its parliament looks like a fight club.

“Our message is, you have to have a government that functions. You can’t have disarray” the official said. “Otherwise, support from the international community is going to evaporate. So that’s the main point: ‘You guys have got to figure this out.'”

Putin interferes with Gazprom investigation

Vladimir Putin (L) speaks with CEO of Russian gas giant Gazprom Alexey Miller during their meeting in Putin's Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, on Dec. 30, 2011.

Πηγή: Global Post
Sept 12 2012

After the European Commission (EC) announced its formal inquiry into the Russian fuel corporation Gazprom, alleging the company violated antitrust laws, President Putin forbid the state-controlled company from assisting officials in the investigation.

The order prohibits "important companies that do business overseas" from cooperating with investigators searching for evidence, according to The New York Times.

“The government wants to protect Gazprom from the attacks,” Sergey Vakhrameev, an IFC Metropol analyst, told Bloomberg News. “This is a way of showing the EU that they should be talking to the government directly, resolving the issue at a higher level.”

The Commission suspects Gazprom hindered competition by fixing unfair prices, obstructing the flow of gas into European countries and "preventing the diversification of supply of gas."

The Commission said, “Such behavior, if established, may constitute a restriction of competition and lead to higher prices and deterioration of security of supply…. Ultimately, such behavior would harm EU consumers.”

Gazprom denied the allegations in a statement on Sept. 5:

“Gazprom pays great attention to observing international law, and legislation in the countries where Gazprom operates. Gazprom’s activities in the EU market, including the formulation of the gas price is in line with standards used by other producers and exporters of gas…. Gazprom is incorporated beyond EU jurisdiction, and is a company which under Russian law exercises functions of public importance and has the status of a strategic organization controlled by the state.”

The Wall Street Journal stresses this is no "small bureaucratic inquiry." When the Directorate General for Competition begins an investigation, they tend to see it through, and they almost never lose.

Putin’s Geopolitical Chess Game with Washington in Syria and Eurasia

Πηγή: Global Research
By F. William Engdahl
July 23 2012

Since reassuming his post as Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin has lost no minute in addressing the most urgent geopolitical threats to Russia internationally. Not surprisingly, at the center of his agenda is the explosive situation in the Middle East, above all Syria. Here Putin is engaging every imaginable means of preventing a further deterioration of the situation into what easily could become another “world war by miscalculation.” His activities in recent weeks involve active personal diplomacy with Syria’s government as well as the so-called opposition “Syrian National Council.” It involves intense diplomacy with Erdogan’s Turkey regime. It involves closed door diplomacy with Obama. It involves direct diplomacy with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

Syria itself, contrary to what most western media portray, is a long-standing multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant secular state with an Alawite Muslim President Bashar Al-Assad, married to a Sunni wife. The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam which doesn’t force their women to wear head scarves and are liberal by Sunni standards, especially in the fundamentalist places like Saudi Arabia where women are forbidden to even hold a driver’s license. The overall Syrian population is a diverse mix of Alawites, Druze and Kurds, Sunnis, and Armenian Orthodox Christians. Were the minority regime of Al-Assad to fall, experts estimate that, like in Egypt, the murky Sunni (as in Saudi Arabia) Muslim Brotherhood organization would emerge as the dominant organized political force, something certainly not welcome in Tel Aviv and certainly not in either Russia or China.1

According to an informed assessment by Gajendra Singh, retired Indian diplomat with decades of service in the Middle East and a deep familiarity with the ethnic mix inside Syria, were the minority Alawite regime of Al-Assad to fall, the country would rapidly descend into a bloodbath that would make estimates of 17,000 killed to date a mere prelude. Singh estimates, “A defeat of Assad led regime will lead to slaughter of Alawites, Shias, Christians, even Kurds and Druzes. In all, 20 % of a population of 20 Million.”2

That would be some 4 million Syrians. That ought to be food for thought for those in the West cheering on a murky dubious opposition “Syrian National Council” that is dominated by the ominous Muslim Brotherhood, and an armed opposition “Free Syrian Army” that has been reported even by the New York Times as rife with factional armed splits. Moreover the conflict were it to descend into a Libya-like internal bloodbath, would spill over across the Syrian border into Turkey. Syrian coastal area has a significant Alawite population and a large number of Alawites live in the adjoining Turkish provinces of Hatay and Antakya.

To sort out fact from fiction inside Syria is daunting as media are limited and opposition spokesmen have been repeatedly caught lying about events. In one recent instance, a UK journalist claimed he was deliberately led into a potential death trap by rebel opposition forces to score propaganda against the Damascus regime. The UK Channel 4 News's chief correspondent, Alex Thomson, told AP that Syrian rebels set him up to die in no man's land near the Lebanese border, saying they wanted to use his death at the hands of government forces to score propaganda points.3 And in one brazen example of political manipulation, BBC was recently caught publishing a photograph it claimed was of a massacre at Al-Houla on 25 May 2012, in which 108 persons are known to have died including 49 children. It turned out the picture had been taken by Italian photo journalist, Marco Di Lauro in Iraq in 2003.4

The stakes in this geopolitical chess game are nothing less than survival first of Syria as a sovereign nation, whatever its flaws and defects. More, it ultimately involves the survival of Iran,

Russia and China as sovereign nations together with the other BRIC states Brazil, India and South Africa. Longer term, it involves the matter of survival of civilization as we know it and avoidance of a world war that would decimate the world population not by tens of millions as seventy years ago but likely this time by billions.

The Syria stakes for Moscow

Russia’s Putin has drawn a deep hard line in the sand around the survival of Al-Assad and Syria as a stable state. Few ask why Russia is warning of possible world war if Washington persists to demand immediate regime change in Syria as Hillary Clinton is doing. It is not because Russia is intent on advancing its own imperialist agenda in the Middle East. It’s in little shape militarily and economically to do so even if it had wanted. Rather, it is about preserving port rights to Russia’s only Mediterranean naval port at Tartus, the only remaining Russian military base outside the former Soviet Union, and its only Mediterranean fueling spot. In event of a showdown with NATO the base becomes strategic to Russia.

Yet there is more at stake for Russia. Putin and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, have made clear were NATO and the USA to launch military action against Assad’s Syria, the consequences would be staggering. Reliable sources in Damascus have reported the presence of at least 100,000 Russian “technical advisers” in the country. That’s a lot, and a Russian freighter carrying rebuilt Russian Mi-25 attack helicopters is reportedly bound for Syria, while several days earlier a Russian naval flotilla sailed for Tartus led by the Russian destroyer, Admiral Chabanenko.

An earlier attempt to send the rebuilt helicopters back to Syria which had earlier purchased them, was blocked in June off Scotland’s coast when it sailed under a non-Russian freighter flag. Now Moscow has made clear it will tolerate no interference in its traffic with Damascus. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, announced that “The fleet will be sent on task to guarantee the safety of our ships, to prevent anyone interfering with them in the event of a blockade. I remind you there are no limits,” he soberly added.5 In so many words, what Moscow is announcing is that it is willing to face a 21st Century version of the 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis if NATO foolishly persists in pressing regime change in Damascus.

As it has openly emerged that the so-called democratic opposition in Syria is being dominated by the shadowy Muslim Brotherhood, hardly an organization renowned for multi-ethnic democratic tendencies, a victory for a US-backed Muslim Brotherhood regime in Syria, Moscow also believes, would unleash a wave of Muslim-led destabilizations across Central Asia into republics of the former Soviet Union. China is also extremely sensitive about such a danger, only recently confronted with bloody riots of Muslim organization in its oil-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Province, quietly sponsored by the US Government.6

Russia has joined firmly with China since both nations fell into a catastrophic trap over abstaining in the UN Security Council from vetoing the US Resolution. That US resolution opened the door to NATO destruction of not only Mohammar Ghaddafi, but of Libya itself as a functioning country. This author has spoken personally in Moscow and in Beijing since the Libya debacle asking well-informed persons in both places how in effect they could have been so short-sighted on Libya. They both clearly have since concluded that further advance of Washington’s agenda for what George W. Bush called the Greater Middle East Project is diametrically opposed to the national interest of both China and Russia, hence the iron opposition to the NATO agenda in Syria for regime change. To date Russia and China, Permanent veto members of the UN Security Council, have three times exercised their veto over new US-sponsored sanctions against Syria, the latest on July 19.

Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insist on a strict adherence to the proposed peace plan of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Unlike what Washington prefers to generously read into it, the Six Point Annan Plan calls for no regime change, rather for a negotiated settlement and end to the fighting on both sides, a ceasefire.

Iran and Syria Discussed in Putin’s Visit to Israel

Πηγή: New York Times
By ISABEL KERSHNER
June 25 2012

JERUSALEM – President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia conferred with Israeli leaders on Monday during a 24-hour visit that juxtaposed the much improved ties between the two countries with their sharp differences, chief among them the Iranian nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other senior Israeli officials held talks with Mr. Putin that focused on Iran as well as other regional issues, according to the prime minister’s office.

But there was little hope here that the visit would change Russian policy in the region.

Russia hosted the latest round of talks between the group of six world powers and Iran earlier this month that ended without the sides even committing to another high-level meeting Israeli leaders have argued that the talks merely give Iran more time to develop what they suspect is a military nuclear program. Iran insists its program is peaceful. Russia has been reluctant to support tougher sanctions against Iran.

Israeli leaders have also called for more international resolve to end the bloodshed in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad's military is attempting to crush an armed uprising. Russia is viewed as Mr. Assad's principal foreign defender.

At a joint news conference after their meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said that he and Mr. Putin agreed that the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran “presents a grave danger first of all to Israel, and to the region and the world as a whole.”

Israel, Mr. Netanyahu said, wants to see the sanctions against Tehran expanded as well as a halt to all uranium enrichment by Iran, the removal of all enriched uranium from Iran, and the dismantling of an underground facility near the city of Qum.

Speaking in Russian, Mr. Putin said that he and Mr. Netanyahu had discussed Syria and the Iranian nuclear program and that the talks were detailed and very useful.

President Shimon Peres then hosted Mr. Putin for a state dinner.

Privately, officials expressed skepticism about being able to influence Russia.

“Let’s not exaggerate. It is a very brief visit,” said a senior Israeli official who also spoke on condition of anonymity for reasons of diplomacy. He added, “Do not expect any major breakthrough.”

The main reason for the visit by the Russian president, officials here noted, was the inauguration in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya of a national monument honoring those who fell in the ranks of the Red Army during the Second World War and their role in the victory over Nazi Germany. The visit had been scheduled around the completion of construction of the monument.

Mr. Peres used the highly symbolic occasion to address the contentious diplomatic issues.

“I am confident that Russia, which defeated fascism, will not allow today’s threats to continue. Not the Iranian threat. Not the bloodshed in Syria,” he said in a speech at the ceremony.

Israel also has reservations about Russia’s role in the long-stagnant Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Russia, a member of the so-called quartet of Middle East peace makers along with the United States, the United Nations and the European Union, has consistently sided with the Palestinians during disputes, one of the officials here said. Mr. Netanyahu called on Mr. Putin to urge the Palestinians to return to negotiations.

The leftist Meretz Party protested Mr. Putin’s visit, saying that it was “morally wrong and diplomatically unwise” for Mr. Netanyahu to meet with Mr. Putin while civilians were being killed in Syria.

Diplomatic disagreements aside, though, Israel was eager to cultivate its relations with such a major world and regional player.

Relations have grown since the fall of the Soviet Union, which was hostile to Israel, and has been cemented by the arrival of more than a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel, among them 10,000 Red Army veterans.

Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet includes several Russian speakers, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Trade between Israel and Russia has been increasing and the number of Russian tourists here is second to that from the United States, though many Russian tourists only come on a one-day Holy Land excursion as part of a cruise or a longer stay in nearby Turkey.

Mr. Netanyahu said he was sure that Mr. Putin’s visit would further upgrade ties in the fields of agriculture, science, technology and space, among others.

Mr. Putin arrived with an entourage of about 400 Russians including several ministers and deputy ministers, businesspeople and journalists.

On Tuesday Mr. Putin was scheduled to travel to Bethlehem in the West Bank, to inaugurate a Russian cultural center and meet with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, before leaving for Jordan.

What Putin Means for Washington

Image: osipovva

Πηγή: National Interest
By Jeffrey Mankoff
March 14 2012

Washington had four years with the young, agreeable Dmitri Medvedev as its principal Russian interlocutor. But last week’s election confirmed that soon U.S. diplomats will once again be dealing directly with Vladimir Putin. What does Putin’s return mean for Russian foreign policy, and how should Washington adjust its own approach now that Putin, rather than Medvedev, will be sitting across the table?

Despite some nasty rhetoric directed at the United States during the campaign and the tensions that overtook U.S.-Russian relations at the end of Putin’s first stint in the Kremlin, Washington has an opportunity to maintain good, mutually beneficial relations with Moscow during Putin’s second act. The key will be developing an agenda that focuses on shared interests and seeks to move beyond the current deadlock over issues such as missile defense and Russia’s domestic politics. With the United States accelerating the drawdown of its forces from Afghanistan ahead of 2014, focusing on regional security in Afghanistan and central Asia would be a good place to start.

In Putin’s Shoes

Despite some fairly ferocious anti-American rhetoric during the preelection campaign, Putin remains someone with whom Washington can do business. Though Putin avoided day-to-day involvement in foreign policy over the past four years, his role as the stronger partner in Russia’s tandem government meant that Medvedev could rarely make decisions at odds with Putin’s preferences. For instance, the U.S.-Russia “reset,” proclaimed by presidents Medvedev and Obama in early 2009, could not have come about without Putin’s assent. Other key decisions also required the prime minister’s approval, including the tightening of sanctions on Iran at the UN in June 2010 and Russia’s decision to permit the transit of cargo across its territory via the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a web of supply routes to Afghanistan that allows the United States to avoid Pakistan.

The harshness of Putin’s preelection rhetoric should not obscure his longstanding recognition that good relations with the United States are in Russia’s national interest, as long as Washington is prepared to treat Moscow as an equal partner—something Washington, in Putin’s view, has often failed to do. In a long article published in Moskovskie Novosti on February 27, Putin reiterated that “we are prepared to make great strides in our relations with the U.S. to achieve a qualitative breakthrough, but on the condition that the Americans are guided by the principles of equal and mutually respectful partnership.”

Western analysis of Putin’s Moskovskie Novosti piece has focused on its criticism of the United States, which Putin accused of “undermining our security and upsetting global stability”—for instance by intervening militarily in Libya and threatening to do the same in Syria and Iran. Putin has long chafed at what he views as the West’s lack of respect for Russia’s interests and standing as a major power. In this telling, Moscow has made significant concessions over the past twelve years: accepting U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and the Baltic states’ inclusion in NATO, tolerating U.S. military deployments in central Asia, and sacrificing Russian financial and strategic interests in Iran in pursuit of a united front against Tehran’s nuclear program. Yet Washington continues to demand more while brushing aside Moscow’s own interests, which require respect for the supremacy of the UN Security Council on issues of war and peace, the preservation of strategic stability in the nuclear field and, above all, respect for Russia’s leading role inside the former Soviet Union.

Putin’s article and his preelection statements offer the United States a choice: cooperation based on mutual respect or zero-sum competition. Faced with an increasingly volatile Middle East, a weakened European Union and the challenges of executing a strategic pivot to Asia, the United States needs generally productive relations with Russia—which in turn means pursuing precisely the kind of cooperation Putin suggests.

A New Agenda

One of the biggest problems is the lack of a positive agenda for cooperation. The big agenda items of the past few years have largely been achieved: the New START agreement, tightened UN sanctions on Iran, Russia’s WTO admission, reduced competition in the post-Soviet region. Greater economic cooperation is in both countries’ interests. But apart from convincing Congress to grant Russia permanent normal-trade relations status, new economic arrangements are long-term process. Greater transparency leading to direct cooperation on missile defense, which has been the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s efforts to build a more collaborative security relationship, appears stuck.

Where Washington and Moscow have a real need to collaborate in the shorter term is Afghanistan and its central-Asian neighborhood. While Moscow was long wary of Washington’s courtship of the central-Asian governments in connection with the U.S. deployment to Afghanistan, Putin and other Russian leaders have realized that the fight against the Taliban—of which the U.S. role in central Asia is a piece—helps shield Russia from the spread of radicalism and criminality. Along with several of its neighbors, Russia is a critical partner in the NDN. After long opposing the U.S. presence in the region, Russia is now calling on the United States to reconsider its 2014 deadline for withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The Obama administration is unlikely to extend the deadline, but it should begin an intensive dialogue with the Russians about regional security during and after the withdrawal. Moscow has already agreed to establish a transit hub inside Russia (in Ulyanovsk) for use during the withdrawal. Going forward, Russia’s biggest concerns will center on stemming the flow of Afghan narcotics into Russia and ensuring the security of the secular regimes in central Asia. The United States also has an interest in preventing central Asia from becoming a source of radicalism and instability, but with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, will be less able to shape events. Precisely for that reason, Washington ought to work with Moscow to develop a framework for regional security after 2014. Areas to emphasize include border security, training and supplying of security forces, counternarcotics and regional economic development, where Russia should have a strong role. Given the absence of a real, positive agenda for U.S.-Russian cooperation, focusing on central-Asian security offers an opportunity to move beyond counterproductive standoffs over missile defense and the Middle East that have dominated bilateral relations for too long.

U.S. policy makers should be clear-eyed about cooperation with Putin’s Russia. Cooperation will not be based on shared values, but on the pursuit of common interests where they exist, coupled with frank disagreement elsewhere—including on Russia’s internal development. Putin’s reelection was clearly flawed, but he can nevertheless plausibly claim to have the support of a majority of Russians, even if his supporters number somewhat less than the 63.6 percent of votes he officially received. The relatively small size of the post-election protests only serves to emphasize that, contrary to many predictions in the West, Putin’s hold on power remains secure, at least for now. That could change, of course, and in unpredictable ways. For that reason, Washington should focus specifically on areas like central-Asian security, where cooperation will be in Moscow’s interest regardless of domestic developments in Russia.

U.S. officials should maintain contacts with the opposition and openly acknowledge the flaws in Russia’s electoral process. But the United States needs to work with the Russian government it has, not the one it would like to have. That’s why U.S.-Russian relations require a shared agenda for cooperation, regardless of who is sitting across the table.

Jeffrey Mankoff is an adjunct fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program and a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City. He was a 2010–2011 Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow based in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Russia Is Sending A Man To The Moon

Πηγή: WebProNews
By Richard Stalker
March 14 2012

Russia is sending a man to the moon after it has been fairly non-existent in the space program. They have taken a back seat ever since the United States sent a man to the moon in July of 1969. When Neil Armstrong touched down, it effectively ended the US-Soviet space race.

But now we have news coming out that A spacecraft will “conduct a demonstrative manned circumlunar test flight with the subsequent landing of cosmonauts on [the Moon’s] surface and their return to Earth” by 2030, according to a leaked strategy document from Russia’s space agency, Roskosmos.

The push from world leaders has increased in the past few years. National pride is a growing problem and the space race seems to be a way to have their citizens believe in their country again. George W Bush wanted to have astronauts back on the moon by 2020, Barack Obama wants astronauts on Mars by 2030, Both India and China have planned manned moon missions by 2020 and 2025 respectively.

“Russia should not limit itself to the role of an international space ferryman.” Mr Putin said, piloted space missions should be revived by 2018, when the first flights are expected from Vostochny, a $13.5 billion (£8.6 billion) spaceport being built in Russia’s far east.

Maybe they won’t even have to use rocket fuel, Putin can just take off his shirt and hurl the rockets into space.

Putin wins election

An election commission official walks falling in deep snow as he carries a mobile voting box to voter's home in the village of Lomakino, Smolensk region, western Russia. 

Πηγή: Times of Malta
Marc 4 2012

Vladimir Putin has won Russia's presidential election, according to exit polls.

Putin tallied 59% of today's vote, according to a nationwide exit poll conducted by the VTsIOM polling agency for Channel one television.

Another exit poll done by the FOM polling agency for Rossiya TV showed Putin received 58% of the ballot.

Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov polled 18% of the vote, according to the survey, and the others - nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, socialist Sergei Mironov and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov - were in single digits.

The opposition and independent observers claim voting has been marred by widespread violations.

If confirmed, claims of violations could undermine the legitimacy of Putin's victory and help fuel opposition protests.

Russians stage rival protests over Putin

Tens of thousands of Russians defied bitter cold to demand fair elections in a march against Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, while supporters of the prime minister staged a rival rally drawing comparable numbers.

Πηγή: The Times of India
By Reuters
Feb 5 2012

MOSCOW: Tens of thousands of Russians defied bitter cold in Moscow on Saturday to demand fair elections in a march against Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, while supporters of the prime minister staged a rival rally drawing comparable numbers.

Smaller protests were held in other cities across the vast country maintaining pressure on Putin one month before a March 4 presidential election he is expected to win. Putin's public image was shaken in December by allegations of fraud in parliamentary elections and protests unthinkable a year ago.

Their breath turning to white vapor clouds in the frigid Moscow air, tens of thousands of protesters marched within sight of the red-brick Kremlin walls and towers, chanting "Russia without Putin!" and "Give us back the elections!"

Putin was president from 2000 until 2008, when he ushered Dmitry Medevedev into the Kremlin because of a constitutional bar on three successive terms as head of state. Putin became prime minister but remained the dominant leader.

Putin presents himself as a man of action working for the good of the people and dismisses rivals as divided and lacking in any realistic policies to overcome the country's problems of industrial decay and poor transport and communications.

On Saturday, he was 1,500 km (900 miles) from Moscow, promising angry residents of the Ural Mountains town of Roza the state would move 3,800 people from homes threatened by shifting ground on the edge of the biggest open-pit coal mine in Eurasia.

"You see what we are doing, we are dealing with concrete problems of the people who live here," Putin said when asked about the demonstrations.

Saturday's temperatures, far below freezing, tested the power and perseverance of a street protest movement fuelled by suspicions of fraud in a December parliamentary election and dismay among some Russians over Putin's plan to rule at least six more years.

In the capital, demonstrators bundled up against the cold marched down a broad central street, many wearing white ribbons symbols of protests whose main motto is "For Honest Elections." A digital clock flashed the temperature: minus 17 C (1 F).

"Not one vote for Putin!" Vladimir Ryzhkov, a liberal opposition leader, said to a roar of approval from the crowd at the rally that followed the march. Protesters packed a square across the river from the Kremlin, stamping and clapping to keep warm.

A patchwork alliance of disparate opposition leaders is trying to maintain momentum after tens of thousands turned out on December 10 and December 24 for the biggest opposition protests since Putin was first elected president in 2000.

Polls indicate Putin is all but certain to win the presidency despite a decline from previous popularity levels.
Opponents hope he will at least be forced into a runoff by falling short of a majority on March 4 and that persistent protests will undermine his authority, loosening his grip on power in a new six-year term and pushing him into concessions.

"We have already reached a point of no return. People have stopped being afraid and see how strong they are together," said Ivan Kositsky, 49. He said Putin "wants stability, but you can only find stability in the graveyard."

Kositsky wore an orange ribbon in a reference to the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, where peaceful protests following allegations of widespread election fraud helped usher an opposition candidate to the presidency.

Opposition leaders said up to 120,000 people joined their protest in Moscow, which appeared smaller than that but as large as the December rallies that drew tens of thousands - suggesting their fears a cold snap might keep people away were unfounded.

Many protesters had banners making light of the bone-chilling weather and calling for Putin to go. "Down with the cold, down with Putin," one banner said. Others declared: "They froze our democracy" and "We are frozen in solidarity."

FOR PUTIN
Police said 138,000 people attended the pro-Putin rally a few km (miles) away in Moscow, but reporters estimated the crowd was smaller than that by tens of thousands, and attendance at demonstrations in support of the former KGB spy has previously been swelled by the authorities ferrying in sympathizers by bus.

Teachers have said they came under pressure from trade unions to attend the pro-Putin rally.

"Trade union representatives called us together and said at least five to 10 people from each school had to go (to the Putin rally)," said Sergei Bebchuk, a 54-year-old headteacher who ignored the request and attended the
opposition protest.

"I have something I believe in. We could not go there," he said, his daughter at his side with white ribbons in her hair.

Putin said Moscow's mayor had told him 190,000 attended the rally in his support there, and that while he did not rule out pressure had been applied, "to bring 134,000 or 190,000 people by applying pressure alone is impossible."
"It is totally obvious that people came to express their position. Their position is to support what we are doing. For me it is very important," Putin said. "I have said that I cannot work without it. I am really grateful."

At that pro-Putin rally, demonstrators carried posters saying "For Putin" with a check mark in a box next to his face. Another read "Putin led Russia out of civil war" and one said, "My children will live in Russia - I need Putin."

In keeping with Putin's warnings against revolutionary change and the anti-Western rhetoric he has employed in his campaign, the rally was billed as "anti-orange" - another reference to Ukraine, where Moscow has said Western-funded activists helped bring a pro-Western leader to power.

"My aim is to support the movement against the 'orange ones' - those America sends us to topple those in power and rock society," Kirill Domchenko, 25, a Moscow university student.

Putin in December accused the United States of encouraging opposition protests and said Western states were spending billions to influence Russian elections. He praised the 'anti-orange' demonstrators late on Friday and said "I share their views," Interfax reported.

MAINTAINING MOMENTUM
The main opposition protests were suspended over the long New Year holiday, when Russia comes to a halt. Opposition activists had been concerned that the protests might lose momentum after Putin, 59, ignored all their main demands.

The protesters want a rerun of the parliamentary election, the release of prisoners jailed for political reasons, dismissal of the central election commission chief, the registration of more political parties and other political reforms.

The Kremlin has promised to let more parties contest elections but has rejected its main demands. Ryzhkov told the crowd protests must continue until Putin gives in, and another protest is planned for one week before the election.

Crowds of a few hundred turned out to protest against Putin in other cities across Russia, although the number
protesting is still only a small part of the more than 140 million population.

In the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, demonstrators carried banners reading "Putin - out!" and "The crook is making for the throne again ... send him to a prison bunk."

The protesters are angered by allegations of fraud in a December 4 parliamentary election that was won by Putin's ruling United Russia party, albeit with a reduced majority in the lower house.

The plan by Putin and Medvedev to swap jobs after the presidential election is viewed by opposition supporters as openly flouting democracy.

"We are not sheep or cattle. We deserve respect," said Marat Yafyasov, 54, a lawyer who travelled from Yaroslavl, 250 km (155 miles) northeast of Moscow, to join the protest.

"We are out in the cold because we can't let this moment go, we have to keep the protest going."

Focus of Russia's resource diplomacy may shift to Far East

Πηγή: Asia News Network
By The Yomiuri Shimbun

Jan 28 2012

The Republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, in eastern Siberia is the coldest inhabited area on Earth, with the mercury sometimes dropping to minus 50 deg C.

It also is home to the gigantic Chayanda gas field, located within the taiga biome of coniferous forests. The field has an estimated 1.24 trillion cubic metres of recoverable gas reserves, equal to 13 years of Japan's imports of natural gas.

A project will get under way this year to lay a 3,000-kilometer pipeline from the Chayanda field to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East.

"When the pipeline is completed, we'll be able to meet any supply requirements for gas from Japan, China and South Korea," Vladimir Vasilyev, deputy executive director of a subsidiary of state-run gas corporation Gazprom, said proudly.

In preparation for the full-scale start of gas exports from Siberia to Asian countries, a Japan-Russia joint project is under way to construct a liquefied natural gas plant in Vladivostok.

Following feasibility studies scheduled to be completed this month, work will begin on basic design of the plant, with an eye to beginning operations around 2020.

A senior Gazprom official said the plant will "serve as an LNG supply center for not only Japan but all of Asia".

Construction of the huge pipeline extending to Vladivostok from the gas field is a national project promoted by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as an embodiment of his Asian strategy. Putin is considered certain to win Russia's upcoming presidential election in March, returning him to his former post.

Putin will try to maintain economic growth, an indispensable element in achieving a stable administration. So there is a strong possibility he will shift the focus of his diplomacy to Asia, a growth center of the world. The best weapon in this regard is natural resources.

"It sounds like an interesting idea," Putin reportedly said last August when he was briefed by an executive of the country's oil and gas industry about a plan to build a pipeline linking Sakhalin in the Russian Far East with Japan, where there were concerns about energy shortages in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The president of a Japanese development company involved in the pipeline plan said, "We think Russia will surely go ahead with the project if arrangements are made by the Japanese side."

Putin is calling for Japan to also participate in the Chayanda development project.

Russia has been edging into the Japanese energy market in recent years. Russia accounted for 4.3 per cent of Japan's gas imports in 2009, but this percentage doubled to 8.6 per cent in 2010. Russia also provided 7 per cent of Japan's crude oil imports in 2010.

Putin will pursue natural resource diplomacy toward Tokyo. Joining Russian projects would provide a good chance for Japan to acquire resources and development rights, but there is also the danger that its energy security will be influenced by Russia.

Many in Japan have a strong aversion to relying too much on Russia, as the two countries have long been at odds over four Russian-held islands off Hokkaido.

According to diplomatic sources, opinions are divided on the matter within the Japanese government, with some favouring more cooperation with Russia to break away from its heavy reliance on the Middle East. Others feel Japan should not rely on Russia for more than 15 percent of its energy imports. Hence Japan's stance on the matter has not been decided.

Gazprom's head office in Moscow has a control centre to supervise all its pipelines. On a map of the Eurasian continent displayed on a huge screen, the European portion glitters with brilliant fluorescent colours indicating its extensive network of pipelines. The Far East and Siberian side remains dark.

Putin's ambition is to brighten the entire map.

World ‘Valdai group’ experts gather to assess Russia 's future

7th meeting of Valdai Discussion Club. Archive.

Πηγή: RiaNovosti
Nov 6 2011

Top Russia experts from around the world gather this week near Moscow to debate the country’s future 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, amid fast-shifting global relations and in light of Vladimir Putin’s expected return to the Kremlin.

The annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, an informal group comprising leading economists, historians and other thinkers on Russia from the United States, Europe and Asia, starts Monday in the town of Kaluga 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Moscow.

The agenda includes discussion on how turmoil in the global economy and international relations will affect Russia and on how domestic developments will influence Moscow’s foreign policy. But it was clear that Putin himself would also be central to the debate.

“I think we should now talk about the Putin generation,” said Thomas Gomart, director of the Russia Center at the French Institute of International Relations and a member of the Valdai group.

“He is the leader who received power in 2000 and may keep it in theory until 2024,” Gomart said.

The Valdai group offers influential academics and researchers from both outside and inside Russia to discuss topics directly with a range of Russian decision-makers and members were expected to meet with Putin at the end of the week.

The unique gathering also gives Russian policymakers a chance to meet and discuss concepts for the country’s future political and economic development directly with the authors, both foreign and Russian, of those ideas.

The Valdai club was launched in 2004 by the RIA Novosti news agency, the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy think tank, the Russia Profile and Russia in Global Politics magazines and The Moscow News newspaper.

The group today comprises more than 400 participants from 36 countries, including former government officials, professors, business people and fellows with widely-respected policy research institutes.

Despite being replaced in the Kremlin in 2008 by his chosen successor, President Dmitry Medvedev, Putin has consistently remained a focus of attention for Valdai participants and will be again this year after announcing plans to run again for president.

Gomart said Putin’s anticipated return to the Kremlin was unlikely to produce any dramatic changes in Russia’s foreign policy course. He cautioned however that despite this predictability, Russian leaders should refrain from “feverish conduct” in domestic policy.

“As a foreign onlooker, I can see the increasingly obvious signs from the Putin system,” he said, referring to lack of upward social mobility for the younger Russians and heavy state control of an economy that “remains profoundly oligarchic” in the distribution of wealth.

Andrew Kuchins, Director of Russia and Eurasia at the Washington, DC-based think tank Center for Strategic International Studies, said that he does not foresee drastic changes in the US-Russia relations after the 2012 presidential election.

“The relationship has been reset. We have now more normal and constructive relationship with Russia, as we should have,” Kuchins said, noting that the US-Russia “reset” announced in 2009 had been agreed between Putin and Medvedev.

See also: Valdai International Discussion Club

Dmitry Medvedev asks Vladi­mir Putin to run for president of Russia

Πηγή: Washington Post
By Will Englund and Kathy Lally

Sep. 24 2011

MOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry A. Medvedev said Saturday he will step aside after one term as president, and called on the ruling United Russia party to endorse Vladimir V. Putin for the post.

That makes it almost certain that Putin will return to the presidency, because United Russia, which he built, has a stranglehold on the country’s politics. Medvedev said he intends to continue to work in the government, with a focus on modernization and anti-corruption efforts.

Medvedev, who became president in 2008 when Putin had to leave the office because of term limits, always has been seen as Putin’s protégé. Putin became prime minister, and has continued to hold the reins of power here.

At Saturday’s United Russia congress, Putin called on Medvedev to lead the list of party candidates in December’s parliamentary elections. Medvedev accepted, then said he couldn’t do that and remain as president as well. His term expires in March.

Then Medvedev called on the party to back Putin for the presidency. His suggestion was met with a prolonged standing ovation.

“This applause spares me the need to explain what experience and authority Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin possesses,” Medvedev said. He walked off the podium to join Putin in the audience; they stood together, beaming, while the audience at the indoor Luzhniki Stadium cheered and applauded.

Medvedev, 46, has been the liberal, progressive face of the Russian government since he took office, with Putin, 58, taking a tougher, more nationalistic, often coarser line. But the two never found themselves in disagreement, at least publicly. Putin said Saturday that they had agreed long ago on what course to pursue at the end of Medvedev’s term.

Putin was former president Boris N. Yeltsin’s choice to succeed him when Yeltsin resigned the presidency in 2000, which began what may turn out to be an unbroken string of presidential successions here without public input. Putin engineered Medvedev’s election in 2008, and there would now seem to be very little chance that anything can stand between him and his return to the president’s office in the Kremlin next year.

United Russia took advantage of it huge majority in parliament to change the constitution, lengthening the presidential term to six years — giving Russia the possibility of a second Putin presidency through 2024, when he’ll turn 72.

Russian elections have not been deemed fair; United Russia has kept tight control over television here, and the vote counting has been murky. United Russia nonetheless has been generally popular, though its support has started to fade recently, according to Russian polls.

Medvedev came to government after serving as chief of Gazprom, the big natural gas giant. He has often spoken out in favor of the rule of law and against corruption in the government, but accomplished very little on either front. His signature project has been a new high technology center called Skolkovo, which is intended to be Russia’s Silicon Valley.

Putin comes from a background in the KGB. His popularity soared a decade ago when he prosecuted the second war in Chechnya with a studied ruthlessness. He portrays himself as an active outdoorsman— fishing, hunting, diving and riding a motorcycle.

Both men are from St. Petersburg. Since 2008 they have been styled the “tandem;” on Saturday Putin said he expects Medvedev to succeed him as the next prime minister. In his earlier stint as president, Putin’s prime ministers tended to be functionaries with little clout or discretion.

The shuffle does not come as a complete surprise. The term limit provision in the constitution doesn’t apply to non-consecutive terms, so it was clear that this decision was Putin’s to make. The thinking in favor of Medvedev’s running for a second term was that he presents a more appealing and liberal face, especially to the rest of the world. Putin’s return to the presidency suggests that there will be little in the way of change or reform in Russian government or politics.

One former prime minister who has turned against Putin, Mikhail Kasyanov, predicted Saturday that the government would collapse if Putin returns to the presidency. “This government’s collapse is predictable and inevitable. This won’t take six or five years or the period of time until the next parliamentary elections,” Kasyanov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

How the War on Terrorism Did Russia a Favor

Russian troops patrol in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, in April 2002

Πηγή: Time
By SIMON SHUSTER

Sep. 19 2011

Ten years ago, on Sept. 20, 2001, President George W. Bush announced for the first time that in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the U.S. was starting a "war on terror," and he asked every nation to help. Four days later, against the advice of many of his generals, Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed, creating a bond unlike any the U.S. and Russia had built since World War II. But as with many of the unlikely relationships the U.S. formed after 9/11, the reasoning behind this one was not just solidarity or common cause. Countries around the world realized the practical appeal of a war on terrorism. Over the past ten years, it has become a seemingly permanent call to arms, a kind of incantation used to dodge questions, build alliances and justify the use of force. No one, not even Bush, grasped this as quickly as Putin.

Even before Putin became Russia's President in early 2000, and long before the Twin Towers fell, he had invoked the idea of a war against global terrorism to justify Russia's war in Chechnya. The terrorism aspect, at least, was true. Chechen separatists, who renewed their centuries-old struggle for independence soon after the Soviet Union fell, had resorted to terrorism as early as 1995, when they seized a hospital in the Russian town of Budyonnovsk and held more than 1,500 people hostage. Then in 1999, a series of apartment bombings, also blamed on the Chechens, killed hundreds of people in Moscow and other Russian cities. Putin responded by launching Russia's second full-scale invasion of Chechnya in less than a decade. "He received carte blanche from the citizens of Russia," says Mikhail Kasyanov, who was Russia's Finance Minister at the time. "They simply closed their eyes and let him do whatever he wanted as long as he saved them from this threat."

There was scant evidence, however, that the Chechen rebels were part of some global Islamist terrorist network, as Putin and his government repeatedly claimed. The leader of the separatists at the time was Aslan Maskhadov, a former Red Army colonel who was closer to communism than Islamism, and there was no proof that he received much help from abroad. "Still, all official statements said that we are fighting a war against international terror," says Andrei Illarionov, who served as Putin's senior economic adviser between 2000 and '05. "Of course, nobody outside Russia bought it." In the West, Putin's war in Chechnya thus enjoyed little sympathy. The Chechen conflict was seen as part of a rebellion that Moscow was trying to crush, and the atrocities allegedly committed by both sides earned widespread condemnation.

In late 1999, when Bush was campaigning for the presidency, he vowed to start urging an end to the war. "Even as we support Russian reforms, we cannot support Russian brutality," he said during a speech at the Reagan Library in California. "When the Russian government attacks civilians, leaving orphans and refugees, it can no longer expect aid from international lending institutions." Some days later, Condoleezza Rice, who later became Bush's National Security Adviser after his election, reiterated the need for financial pressure against "what is really a quite brutal campaign against innocent women and children in Chechnya." And in the fall of 2000, then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the U.N. that the Chechen war "has greatly damaged Russia's international standing and is isolating Russia from the international community."

But when Bush announced his own war on terrorism, all this rhetoric quickly evaporated. Putin, who had been the first to call Bush with his sympathy after learning of the 9/11 attacks, graciously offered to help with the invasion of Afghanistan. He let the U.S. ship supplies through Russian territory and did not object to the U.S. setting up bases in Central Asia, where the local despots quickly caught on to the opportunity. Uzbek President Islam Karimov, for instance, allowed the U.S. to build a permanent base, perhaps hoping that his new alliance with the war on terrorism would help reduce U.S. scrutiny of alleged human-rights abuses in Uzbekistan. "It all flowed naturally into the picture of a global war on terror," says Kasyanov, who by that time had been promoted to serve as Putin's Prime Minister. "There was no more criticism ... It just ceased to be a thorny issue."

By the summer of 2000, Russia had defeated the Chechen separatists and installed a puppet government led by the Kadyrov family, a Chechen clan loyal to the Kremlin. But claims of wholesale violations of human rights, including torture and extrajudicial killings, continued to surface as the Kadyrovs consolidated power in Chechnya. The need to remind the world that Russia was still fighting the war on terrorism remained, and Putin began to claim ever stronger links between Chechen rebels and the global jihad.

"Exaggeration of these links was one of the goals," Kasyanov recalls. During and after the 2004 terrorists siege of a school in the town of Beslan, where hundreds of hostages died, the Russian government claimed firm links between the Chechen terrorists and Islamist networks such as al-Qaeda. Soon after the siege, Putin said that nine of the hostage-takers were from the "Arab world," a claim that was never substantiated. Asked why he had decided to storm the building instead of trying to resolve the crisis through negotiations, Putin fumed: "I don't tell you to meet Osama bin Laden and invite him to Brussels or the White House for talks."

But the very idea of a war on terrorism had unnerved some officials inside Putin's own government. "Terrorism is a method of waging conflict," says Illarionov, Putin's former adviser. "How can you fight a war against a method? The very idea is nonsense. It's like announcing a war against tanks." In early 2005, Illarionov resigned from his post in the Kremlin, citing the rollback in democracy that followed the Beslan siege. Kasyanov had resigned in early 2004 for similar reasons, going on to join the opposition.

Yet the idea of a global war on terrorism remains one of Putin's key political narratives. It is trotted out to this day after every terrorist attack in the Russian heartland and during most discussions with Western leaders, who see it as a firm bond in their alliances with Moscow. Since Bush left office, President Barack Obama has let the term fade from White House rhetoric, usually preferring to name a specific enemy of the U.S. But the use of the phrase has spread far and wide. During this year's Arab Spring revolts, besieged dictators from Egypt to Libya and Syria have claimed that the revolutionaries trying to overthrow them are in fact foreign terrorists with links to the global jihad. Few Western governments have taken these claims seriously. But 10 years on, Bush's idea of a global war on terrorism is still more often used for propaganda than to prevent more attacks like 9/11. Changing that could take many more years.

In Russia visit, Britain’s Cameron may hold first UK talks with Vladimir Putin since 2007

Πηγή: Washington Post
By Associated Press
Sep. 9 2011


The officials, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss Cameron’s plans in advance, said Thursday he will travel to Moscow to help improve fragile ties between the two nations.

Russia President Dmitry Medvedev’s office has confirmed he will meet with Cameron next Monday.

Cameron is also expected to meet with Prime Minster Putin — the first talks between the ex-president and a British official since he met with Tony Blair in June 2007.

Ties soured over Russia’s refusal to hand over a suspect in the 2006 poisoning death in London of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

The Dark Side of Murdoch's Russian Billboard Business

News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch, left, meets Russia's then President Vladimir Putin during a visit to St. Petersburg in 2005

Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP

Πηγή: Time
By Simon Shuster / Moscow
Monday, Aug. 01, 2011

Pieces of Rupert Murdoch's empire continue to fall away. Last month, as British police continued to investigate phone-hacking claims against the News of the World, the media magnate sold off his Russian billboard company, News Outdoor, for around $270 million, less than a fifth of the value it had three years ago. The sale marked a quiet end to one of Russia's oddest corporate sagas, and looking back, the troubles of the British tabloids seem almost tame compared with the murder and corruption scandals in the Russian billboard market, which Murdoch's company dominated for nearly a decade.

By all accounts, the unexpected break for Murdoch in the Russian ad market came in 2002 after the assassination of Vladimir Kanevsky, then the billboard king of Moscow. In February of that year, at an intersection near the Kremlin, a man in a black ski cap walked up to Kanevsky's car and pumped five rounds into his head and chest. Because of a weapons check at the security firm that protected him, Kanevsky's bodyguards happened to be unarmed that day, and the killer managed to escape. But aside from this peculiar detail, the fact of the murder was not extraordinary. Kanevsky had a lot of enemies, and hired hits were still a fairly common way of resolving disputes in Russia, which had not yet tamed the capitalist free-for-all that followed the Soviet collapse. Between 1996 and 2004, at least 11 Russian advertising executives were killed or wounded in contract hits, with car bombs and knifings among the methods used. Only two of those crimes have been solved.

For Murdoch, the killing of Kanevsky presented a surprise opportunity. The media mogul had acquired News Outdoor less than two years earlier, in November 2000, from a group of Russian businessmen, and had given the reins to Maxim Tkachev, a seasoned operator in Moscow's business circles. Tkachev had started out producing and selling bootleg CDs of bands like Deep Purple and Pink Floyd in the late 1980s, and went on with a group of college friends to create the billboard firms that Murdoch would later acquire. Less than two years after the deal, Tkachev had made News Outdoor the leading player in practically every major Russian city except for Moscow, where Kanevsky's company stood in the way.

The two men had known each other since 1995, when both were starting out in the billboard business. "[Kanevsky] was what I would call a hooligan, but a smart one," Tkachev says. "He was always willing to negotiate, and his business earned my respect." But one thing Kanevsky had never talked about was a desire to sell his assets, which included the most lucrative outdoor ad space along Moscow's central drags. His murder meant it would soon go on the market. "I had a revelation that it was time to get out," recalls Kanevsky's partner, Mikhail Lerner, who spoke to TIME by phone from his vacation home in Sicily. "I decided to go into a cleaner business — digital technologies."

But Tkachev was not so easily spooked by the violence in his industry, even after a hit man came for him in June 2002. At the time, News Outdoor's offices were housed in an old Stalinist building on Moscow's Leningradsky highway, a hulking mass of yellow stone adorned with crests of the hammer and sickle. As Tkachev hurried into the entryway one morning, he was met by a man dressed like a newspaper vendor. As Tkachev recalls, the man raised his arm as if to offer a free newspaper, and then fired one round into Tkachev's chest from a gun concealed beneath it. When he tried to fire again, the pistol jammed and Tkachev survived.

Murdoch was furious over the incident. He sent a letter to Vladimir Putin, then Russia's President, demanding a thorough investigation. But it did little good. No one was ever charged with ordering the murder. A few months later, after having surgery to remove part of his lung, Tkachev dove back into the billboard business, and by the beginning of 2003, talks were well under way to acquire two-thirds of Kanevsky's company under terms that were highly unusual for Murdoch's News Corp. There was no time to do due diligence or have a retention period, as would normally take place before a major acquisition in the West. "They wanted the money now, and this was nonnegotiable," Tkachev says.

Germany revokes political award to Vladimir Putin

The decision to award the Quadriga prize to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin provoked outrage Photo: EPA

A controversial decision to award a prestigious political prize to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been overturned after an outcry in central Europe.


Πηγή: The Telegraph


By Allan Hall, Berlin

8:26PM BST 16 Jul 2011


Former Czech dissident, playwright and president Vaclav Havel – a past recipient of the Quadriga prize awarded to "role models for enlightenment, dedication and the public good" – threatened to fly into Berlin and return his own 2009 award in person if Mr Putin received it.

Mr Putin was to receive the honour in part because of progress he'd made in improving relations between Russia and Germany, with the awarding committee explaining that this "is one of the great achievements of Vladimir Putin."

But six days after announcing that he was to receive the award on German Reunification Day in October, the Werkstatt Deutschland foundation cited "massive criticism in the media and the political world" as the reason for rescinding it.

The group said it "profoundly regretted the news that Mr Havel wanted to return his prize received in 2009" in protest at Mr Putin's nomination.

Cem Özdemir, the head of Germany's Green party, announced he was stepping down from the board of the non-profit Quadriga in protest at the decision.

He abstained from voting in favour of him.

"In my view, the Quadriga prize should go to people who have done a particular service to democracy and its promotion," he said in a statement.

"I do not see Vladimir Putin among those ranks."

"During his tenure as head of state and prime minister, Putin has dismantled democracy, restricted freedom, undermined the rule of law and given Russia corruption," Human Rights Commissioner Markus Löning told Der Spiegel magazine.

"I don't think this is a good idea (to give Mr Putin the award)," said Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Bundestag and a member of the ruling CDU party. "Putin may have developed Russia economically but not the implementation of human rights."

Given that Mr Putin is regarded by many in Germany as the enforcer for a state with scant regard for human rights and the law, while promoting the interests of a very few super-rich, the decision to bestow it upon him provoked a response which forced the hand of the foundation – formed from businessmen, politicians and journalists – to withdraw it.

Stephan Clausen, a spokesman for the Wersktatt Deutschland association that was established in 1993 and began the award programme back in 2002, confirmed that the board which decided upon the choice in the first place was divided. "It was a matter of heated debate," he said.

The left-leaning Tagesspiegel newspaper wrote in a comment on Sunday that the ex-KGB agent had never broken with his past in the secret services and had established a new authoritarian system.

Mr Putin entered the Kremlin as president in 2000 and remained until 2008.

In that time, the state wrested back control of major media outlets, subjected rights groups to a wave of new restrictions and dealt harshly with perceived opponents. Investigations into murdered journalists and human rights activists in Russia have mostly ended in legal dead-ends.