Reprinted from Facebook (2018/02/15):
Russian liberals (Vladimir Milov this time) continue claiming the China gas deal is disastrous for Russia.
His argument this time? That Japan pays $200/mcm more for gas than what China gave Russia.
http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/milov/1330024-echo/
He is either ignorant of or ignoring the fact that Japan imports gas as LNG, because it’s an island LOL. And the costs of liquefaction are not insubstantial, in fact they are around… well, $200/mcm LOL.
Opposotionist Boris Nemtsov arrested in Moscow for showing his support for Kiev mob actions, as reported by Moskovsky Komsomolets’ Natalia Rozhkova, December 2, 2013.
Activists from the Republican Party of Russia “Parnas” taken to local police station for showing their support for European integration
On Monday evening co-chairmain of the RPR “Parnas”, Boris Nemtsov, was arrested close to the Ukrainian Embassy in central Moscow during an unsanctioned rally in support of the European integration of our East European neighbour. MK was told this by Nemtsov himself, who telephoned the newspaper from the “Presnensky” precinct police station, where he had been taken after his arrest. Nemtsov hopes that after the charges have been made he will have time to get the evening train to Yaroslavl, in order to attend the regional parliament, where, as a deputy there, he is going to be to discussing budgetary matters …
“There were 11 people there. We went peacefully, without weapons; quietly and in full compliance with Article 31 of the Constitution”, the politician said. “Holding a banner reading: ‘Ukraine- we are with you!’, we stood for 10 minutes, after which all of us were apprehended”.
Apparently he fled to France after senior “systemic liberal” sources in the government told him he was not safe staying in Russia. So he played it safe.
Interpretations about. The return of Stalinism; a new critical phase in the siloviki vs. civiliki clan war; Putin’s vindictiveness against a supporter of Khodorkovsky.
The only problem, at least with the latter explanation? Sergey Guriev himself denies it is so, according to Ben Aris at the FT:
The whole episode is embarrassing for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been calling for improvements to Russia’s investment climate. According to Guriev, Putin has reassured him that he will come to no harm, but clearly Guriev was not confident that even Putin could protect him. …
While Guriev has been outspoken on economic issues and warned that the current policies will lead to economic stagnation, he is usually a lot more circumspect when it comes to politics. He was again on Friday when asked who was to blame for the attack.
“I have no complaints about either Vladimir Putin or Dmitry Medvedev. I heard them say that nothing is threatening me and that they will not interfere in the work of the investigative committee. I respect such an approach and believe that it is wrong to ask the president of the country to interfere on each occasion,” Guriyev told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.
So unless you believe Ben Aris to be making this up, or consider that Guriev is trying to inveigle himself back into favor (“No hard feelings! It was all just a misunderstanding”), his words have to be taken at face value.
That leaves us with over-enthusiastic investigators who went way beyond the remit of legal acceptability – at least if Guriev’s version of his interactions with them (e.g. the demand to hand over the last 5 years of his emails, etc.) are likewise correct. Investigators whom Bastrykin or Putin are, for whatever reason, either won’t, can’t, or just haven’t yet reined back in.
PS. The Presidential Committee on Human Rights under Medvedev became something more accurately described as the Presidential Committee on Khodorkovsky’s Rights. Why and how an official tax-payer funded grouping devolved to lobbying the interests of a single private individual is, in my view, an entirely valid matter for investigation. AFAIK, however, Guriev himself was only tangentially related to it however, doing little more than giving his “expert opinion” on the issue for their consideration.
Were the events at Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, on May 6, 2012, the results of a police provocation, or were “opposition” provocateurs, either willingly or unwittingly acting in the interests of foreign powers, responsible? Kommersant’s Grigory Tumanov and Vyacheslav Kozlov try to find out.
Could it have been calculated beforehand what would happen at Bolotnaya?
On Wednesday the case of 12 persons accused of rioting on May 6 at Bolotnaya Square during the “March of millions” was presented in court. It is expected that the proceedings will begin to be take place in June. As evidential material, which is also at the disposal of “Ъ” [Translator: Russian alphabet hard sign indicating the newspaper “Kommersant” that has its name spelt archaically in Russian using such a sign thus: Коммерсантъ], concerning the “big Bolotnaya case”, indicating that something rather more than a peaceful rally had been planned to take place on the square, and that not only factions of oppositionists knew about this, but also the authorities, defense lawyers are saying that the authorities have decided to take advantage of this matter in order to launch a major political counterattack.
By May 6, 2012 the euphoria that had gripped the protest movement since its emergence in the winter had markedly diminished. The rallies on Bolotnaya Square that had raised tens of thousands who were unhappy at the outcome of the State Duma elections had come and gone and the authorities had even expressed their willingness to liberalize the political system. But for the protesters their chief disappointment was still to come. In March, Vladimir Putin won the presidential election, and the only thing that the opposition leaders were ready and willing to do as regards this matter was to come out onto the streets on May 6, the eve of the inauguration, and to assemble on Bolotnaya Square under the slogan “Don’t Let A Thief Into The Kremlin!” The peaceful rally ended with criminal proceedings as a result of the riot. The defendants in this case number almost 30 people. Many members of the protest movement, Ilya Yashin for example, still say that the battle on the square was started by unidentified masked provocateurs who were members of movements close to the Kremlin. But, as shown by the presented case evidence, which “Kommersant” has managed to see, the fight at Bolotnaya was the result of a delicate game played by the authorities against the opposition leaders, who now appear discredited, and their supporters in the protest movement, who will now think twice about going to rallies – if indeed they ever attend another one at all..
Writing in Novaya Gazeta, Andrei Vladimirovich Kolesnikov argues that the branding of the opinion pollster Levada Center as a “foreign agent” marks Russia’s return to the bad old days of Lysenkoism.
Levada Center is being destroyed with Stalinist methods.
Sociological data is dope for the present-day vlast. She looks at sociological reports just like a certain famous fairytale character, and with much the same question: “Who’s the fairest of them all?” But smoothing the wrinkles spreading all over the carcass of the political system requires ever more applications of the tonal cream of court sociology. Meanwhile, real sociology – incorrect, inconvenient – is being exiled. The method for this has been found: Amendments to the law on NGOs, so that they could be exiled as “foreign agents,” involved in “political activities.”
The Levada Center is being destroyed for the second time in its history. Founded at the end of the 1980s under the name of the exceptional sociologist Yuri Levada, this professional sociological organization has already once been demolished once – few now remember that VCIOM is, in fact, the old name of the Levada Center. In 2003, when Yuri Levada was still alive, the hostile takeover was successful, but not fully so – the re-branded sociological service remained the source of the country’s most reliable sociological data. I remember well that press-conference at Izvestia’s media center – Izvestia as it was then {Translator: It was more oppositional then} – I remember Yuri Alexandrovich’s bewilderment, and the sense of surrealism about the whole thing… And now we have the second attempt to destroy it, this time by tagging scientific work with the mark of politics. The Savelovskaya prosecutor’s office took upon itself this difficult mission.
This is unadulterated Stalinism. As far as today’s vlast is concerned, sociology is no different from what state statistics were to the Stalinist vlast. No coincidence that the spirit of the era became encapsulated in the following brilliant aphorism from the economist Stanislav Strumilin: “Better to stand for high growth rates, than sit for low ones” {Translator: To “sit” in Russian can simply mean to go to prison}. The Levada people aren’t sitting yet, but the continued exist of the Levada Center has come under threat; and not only of the Levada Center, but of independent, scientific sociology such as it is…
In which Russian writer Dmitry Bykov compares the Russian opposition to Pugacheva, and God – for that is what most concerns Russians, and not the trivialities they typically discuss.
Just about the same thing has happened to the Russian opposition as has happened to the Russian intelligentsia: it has been accused of every mortal sin; but without it, one cannot live.
The opposition has become just a little bit more like Alla Pugacheva, who is hated so much – yet without her it is inconceivable that one can live one’s life: without her there would be no New Year.
Let’s agree that there is no opposition in Russia and that there has never been one. It has lost everything that it could lose; it has degenerated into buffoonery; it has compromised itself (in the eyes of the Patriots) by socializing with the liberals and (in the eyes of liberals) with the left; it did not offer a coherent programme and a specific plan of action; it did not find a common language with the people, with the authorities, with the West and with patriots. It has no goals, objectives and principles. We are agreed: it has been forgotten and buried and its inscription written. An opposition that blows neither hot nor cold insofar as it now has completely different problems.
Perhaps it would be easier to accept that it does not exist and never has, and then the provocations such as “Anatomy of Protest”, the harassment, the defamation and the professional restrictions would at last cease: there can be no reactions to nothing. But of Russia’s columnists, ranging from the completely incorruptible to those who are mostly concerned about seeking sponsors, such as Leonid Radzikhovsky, who touchingly combines wise scepticism with teenage angst and lots of BLOCK CAPITALS, – what are they all going to do?
Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the liberal Yabloko party and political old-timer, argues in a Vedomosti editorial that the Kremlin’s crackdown on NGOs is not only ethically wrong but ultimately self-crippling.
Unfortunately, the Russian nomenklatura has an exceedingly poor understanding of why we need independent public organizations, and the meaning of citizen control and social feedbacks. Hence the rhetoric of “a billion dollars in four months,” the war against those who help children, and the branding of crane sanctuaries as foreign agents. {Translator: Refers to alleged scale of foreign NGO financing, and the woes of the Crane Homeland).
But this isn’t the full extent of the problem. The state’s deliberate defamation of NGOs that fulfill vital functions of citizen supervision in various spheres of life is but a continuation of the same pattern that includes systemic electoral falsifications, the creation of a compliant parliament, and the open and insolent rejection of the separation of powers written into the Constitution. This amounts to nothing less than an exile of citizens from politics and social life, and the transformation of the socio-political sphere into the exclusive prerogative of the state.
The issue of foreign involvement in NGO financing is of secondary importance. The government simple took advantage of a situation inherited from the 1990s – when not only NGOs, but many vitally-important national institutions in science and culture – were forced to apply for foreign grants just to survive and continue operating. To this day there are no transparent, nonpartisan, and autonomous state or private financial groups in Russia that could act as interested and impartial sponsors 0f educational programs and citizen control. So it turns out that the only way out is to get financing from abroad. This is not to say this makes anyone particularly happy – from our conversations with NGO representatives, we are well aware that that foreign bureaucratized structures neither have a good understanding of what is really happening in Russia, nor are they all that interested in it for that matter. But expecting anything from within Russia is even more pointless: Our oligarchs think even less about the development of their own country than do foreigners.
These indiscriminate charges of foreign financing are nothing more a stigma, intended to make people buy into the government’s siege mentality. In this case, stupid references to American norms and traditions – as in many other cases – are totally inapplicable to our situation, and only underscore the brazen impudence of the entire exercise.
In one of the most scandalous op-eds of the year, KP’s Ulyana Skoybeda takes the liberal Leonid Gozman to task for equating SMERSH with the SS. The original byline was later toned down, and the author offered a partial – and some insist, halfhearted – apology.
At times, one regrets that the Nazis didn’t make lampshades out of the ancestors of today’s liberals – there’d be fewer problems. Liberals are revising history so as to knock the rug out from under our country’s feet.
“The federal channels are releasing a new serial about the war. On the roles of the SS. Our heroes aren’t the butchers of Auschwitz; they are not sadists or rapists… In the terrible meat-grinder of war, they honestly fight the enemy, performing deeds of great bravery, and self-sacrifice on behalf of their comrades. Many of them die, but they die with honor…
I made all this up, of course. Sorry. A film like that will never be shown on our screens. Likewise in Germany – even those Germans born many years after that nightmare are still ashamed of the SS uniform.
But in the past few days of Victory celebration, our screens have played host to a serial about SMERSH. They did not have handsome uniforms, but that is their only significant distinction from the SS.”
This post was published yesterday by the prominent liberal Leonid Gozman at his blog on the radio station Echo of Moscow’s website. He surely chose the appropriate time to compare a combat unit of Soviet military counterintelligence with the armed guardians of fascist concentration camps. Not just to compare them, in fact, but to equate them.
He must have waited for the moment, in all likelihood. So as to make it sting all the more.
You can just about imagine what started going down in the Internet.
Heated arguments and fights at Echo of Moscow and dozens of other sites. Blood, dirt, the gnashing of teeth.
I will advance one of the most representative discussions.
“SMERSH’s task was to catch saboteurs,” say a few outraged commentators. “The SS, on the other hand, was the chief organizer of terror and the destruction of peoples on racial criteria. How could you possible compare them?”
Olesya Gerasimenko interviews Konstantin Lebedev, recently convicted of planning riots at the Bolotnaya rally of 6 May, 2012 and given a 2.5 year prison sentence. After his plea bargain and shocking confessions, his former comrades now call him a traitor.
Were you pleased with the sentence?
I was facing 2-3 years anyhow, so I don’t see any point in appealing. My lawyer says I should wait a year and then request parole.
What exactly did you admit to in the deal with the prosecution?
I admitted to the organization of mass disorders on 6 May, along with Sergei Udaltsov, Leonid Razvozzhayev, and Givi Targamadze. I also admitted to planning similar disorders for some unspecified time in the future, along with the same participants.
Did they torture you?
No, I wasn’t tortured.
In that case, why did you agree to the deal?
I became convinced that the prosecution possessed overwhelming evidence of our guilt. I saw that the investigation had the testimony of Leonid Razvozzhayev. This (testimony) determined the further course of the investigation, and since Lenya [Razvozzhayev] was fully invested in everything, his testimony did not leave open any questions (in the minds of the investigators).
His statement was written before your deal (with the prosecution)?
Yes, of course. I learnt about it sometime around October 20, and my agreement with the investigators is dated 7 November. It was obvious to me that this whole story with the court, the prosecution, and the Investigative Committee – was just a big fiction. I had to assume that the video and tapped phone and Skype conversations were obtained by legal/operative means, and I understood perfectly that the decision (about our guilt) had already been made at the highest level. And that no matter how we might try to wiggle out of it, the only thing that awaits us is a guilty verdict. Hence, I had the following choice: either to fight back against overwhelming odds, to resist stubbornly, but nothing good would have come out of that, only a 10-year maximum sentence; the alternative: to admit the obvious, the OBVIOUS. In my confessions I did not utter one word that is not true, and I did not falsely accuse anyone. I am not an idiot, I KNOW that they wanted Udaltsov. I confessed to everything, and they were, like, “Run along, little boy, we’ll just give you the minimum (sentence), we’re not interested in you.” To fight back, dig in stubbornly, receive a 10-year sentence, and STILL not save anybody – well, that was the choice I had. A choice worthy of a fanatic, but not of a rational person.
Because of (the choice you made), many people have called you a traitor. Do you feel yourself to be a traitor?
No, in this circumstance, I don’t feel myself to be a traitor. The people who participated in this thing [Bolotnaya] knew what they were doing, and that such an outcome was a possibility. As far as all the participants of these mass disorders are concerned, I didn’t give any evidence that would make any one person’s situation worse than it already was. As for Lenya [Leonid Razvozzhayev] and Seryozha [Sergei Udaltsov], well, that’s our business. We knew what we were doing, and that the scale of our plan could well lead to serious consequences.
Is discussed at the other blog.
To add a couple of things that are Russia specific:
(1) We now learn that the FBI had interviewed the older brother at the bequest of an unspecific foreign government – almost certainly Russia. Tamerlan had visited it for 6 months in 2011. I wonder if he established links with some of the Caucasus Emirate Wahhabi types while there – and if so, whether US suspicions about Russia’s “assaults” on human rights in Chechnya made them drop their guard on a man who, it is now clear, was by then fast becoming an Islamist radical. The one silver lining to this horrible event is that it will become even more obvious that the Chechen rebellion has now been completely subsumed into the global Islamist struggle – and by extension, it will encourage the West to take a closer look at its “friends” in Syria.
(2) The reactions of Russian liberals has as always been as hilarious as it is nauseating. They seriously believe that the FSB is behind this.
Vasily Gatov, state news agency RIA employee: “I am watching three TV channels and listening to the radio, and reading the Boston Globe, and I gather that the main task of the FBI is to take the suspect alive. There is a drama brewing between Watertown, Washington, Moscow, and Grozny… And who knows which other cities. But I’m sure that the greatest fear is felt in Grozny. Which is why he will be taken alive.”
Self-hating random Echo of Moscow commentator: “I will not be surprised if it turns out that the Tsarnaev brothers where recruited by Russian special forces for the execution of this terrorist act, because Russia will benefit from it. Why? Because this terrorist act will change American and Western public opinion – and hence, that of their politicians – towards Chechnya. If before the Western public supported the Chechens’ independence struggle, it is now more likely that they will support the Russian government’s policy on the Caucasus. And this means that the Kremlin KGBists will be able to use still crueler and more barbaric methods to fight separatism on the part of the Caucasus peoples. In other words, this terrorist act will untie the hands of the Kremlin in its war against the peoples of the Caucasus.“
