The Agonist - Russian Federation

Medvedev Admits Government Posts for Sale

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 03:08:02 -0700

Nikolaus von Twickel | July 24

Moscow Times - President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday publicly acknowledged that government posts are sometimes up for sale and vowed to tackle the problem by handpicking bureaucrats and senior officials in the regions.

"Sometimes decisions about filling positions are made on the basis of acquaintance, personal allegiance or, even worse, for money — that is, offices can be bought," Medvedev said in televised comments.

Medvedev, who has said confronting rampant corruption will be a priority of his presidency, told Kremlin officials at his residence outside Moscow that the practice did not jibe with his vision of modern Russia. "Russia is a democracy, not a medieval tyranny," he said.

He added that recruiting capable leaders is a particularly difficult task in the regions, which he described as suffering a "famine of personnel."

Bears eat two workers in remote Russian region

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:06:31 -0700

Luke Harding | July 24

The Guardian - Up to 30 hungry and desperate bears have attacked and eaten two men in Russia's wild far eastern region of Kamchatka, and have trapped a group of geologists at their remote site.

The bears - apparently starving - killed the men last Thursday, Russian agencies reported. The bears had surrounded a local platinum mining company. Both victims worked at the mine as security guards.

About 400 geologists and miners are now refusing to return to work, afraid of further attacks. Attempts by local officials to fly to the scene by helicopter and shoot the bears have so far failed, because of bad weather, agencies reported.

Deal Hands Islands Back to China

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 06:41:38 -0700

Nabi Abdullaev | July 22

Moscow Times - Russia and China on Monday signed a pact demarcating their 4,300-kilometer border, an issue that has been a bone of contention for more than three centuries and that led to armed clashes as recently as the late 1960s.

And although Russia is returning one island and part of another -- 174 square kilometers of territory -- in the Amur River, near the regional capital of Khabarovsk, political analysts said the move was positive for a Russia looking to secure its eastern borders in the face of its increasingly powerful Communist neighbor.

The protocol was signed Monday in Beijing by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jeichi, bringing an end to more than 40 years of negotiations.

Russian military "considering stationing bombers on Cuba"

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:41:04 -0700

Moscow | July 22

dpa - The Russian military is considering deploying long- range bombers to Cuba to counter the perceived threat of the US missile defence shield planned to be based in the Czech Republic and Poland, according to Russian media reports Monday.

'At the moment, there are just thoughts - but that doesn't mean there isn't something concrete behind it,' an unidentified officer was quoted Monday as telling Izvestiya newspaper.

He said the aircraft under consideration were Tu-160 and Tu-95 MC bombers. Russia gave up in 2001 a base in Lourdes, Cuba, which had been set up during the Soviet era.

The former commander of this base, Lieutenant-General Mikhail Oparin, was quoted as welcoming the idea. 'Russia's air fleet must work towards a presence in every corner of the world,' he told Interfax news agency. The US, after all, had bases worldwide.

Bush pokes the bear

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:29:37 -0700

US troops to hold exercises in Georgia, Ukraine

(AFP) — US troops on Monday began military exercises near the Russian border in ex-Soviet Ukraine and were poised to launch them in Georgia, amid tense relations between Moscow and Washington, officials said.

A ceremony inaugurating the Sea Breeze-2008 NATO exercise was held off Ukraine's Black Sea coast, a Ukrainian defence ministry spokeswoman said, against anti-NATO protests and a hostile reaction from officials in Russia.

The NATO exercises "will increase political and military tensions in Europe as a whole," Sergei Mironov, speaker of the upper house of the Russian parliament, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency in Moscow.

** Georgia to Expand Military to Counter Russian Threat in Regions
** Picketers block road to US military to wargames in Odessa

Russian ice camp in rapid shrink

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:36:50 -0700

David Shukman | July 12

BBC - Twenty Russian scientists are to be evacuated from their camp on a drifting ice-floe in the Arctic after it started disintegrating sooner than expected.

The Russians had set up research station "North Pole 35" on the floe last September when it measured a safe five kilometres long and three kilometres wide, and their original plan was to stay on it until this September.

But after enduring the permanent night of the Arctic winter and surviving the threat of polar bears, the scientists now find that their temporary home has shrunk to just 600m by 300m and faces complete break-up as it drifts towards a current known to contain relatively warm waters.

Also see: Antarctic ice shelf breaking up in dead of winter

Russia accuses a British diplomat of espionage

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:41:05 -0700

AP | Moscow | July 11

IHT - Russia has accused the British Embassy's top trade official in Moscow of espionage, the British Foreign Office confirmed Friday.

The accusation appears likely to worsen Russian-British relations, already strained in part by the continuing fight for control at the TNK-BP oil producer, which is jointly owned by the British company and a group of Russian billionaires.

The British Foreign Office said the accused diplomat was acting head of U.K. Trade and Investment at the embassy and confirmed his name was Chris Bowers.

The espionage accusation was first made Thursday in a report carried by the Interfax news agency, which cited a source in Russia's secret services as saying Bowers was believed to be a senior British intelligence officer.

Russia 'backed Litvinenko murder'

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:57:24 -0700

July 8

BBC - The murder of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was carried out with the backing of the Russian state, Whitehall sources have told the BBC.

A senior security official has told Newsnight there are "very strong indications it was a state action".

Mr Litvinenko, who was a fierce critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, was poisoned in London in 2006.

Russian Shift: a European Charm Campaign

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:52:20 -0700

Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia | June 28

NYT - The food was nouvelle cuisine, the wine was French and the coffee was served on a terrace with a spectacular view of the Siberian countryside. At his first summit meeting with the European Union, the new Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, dispensed with the aggressive rhetoric of his predecessor, Vladimir V. Putin, and tried a new tactic on the Europeans: being nice to them.

Russian hits at EU fear of Gazprom

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:16:49 -0700

Neil Buckley | Moscow | June 25

FT - One of Russia’s leading liberal reformers has accused the European Union of trying to limit access to its natural gas market for Gazprom for political reasons, motivated by misguided fears about the Russian gas giant.

Anatoly Chubais, architect of Russia’s 1990s privatisation programme, told the Financial Times the EU often used discussions about the need to “unbundle” or separate ownership of production and distribution assets as “cover for its concerns about Gazprom”.

After months of wrangling, EU countries recently agreed a compromise on energy market reform that would not compel companies to be unbundled. However, a suggested curb on ownership of networks by non-EU groups such as Gazprom remains, an EU official said.

He warned Europe’s actions were part of a broader international tendency in oil and gas towards increasing state intervention and closing domestic markets – which he warned were a “dead end” and posed big risks “for the world and for Russia”. A return to protectionism was “madness”.

“When the EU tries to limit access for Gazprom … it is squeezing supply. What’s the result? Growth in prices … It means you’re forcing your population and your economy to pay for your political fears.”

Eastern Europe sees bluff in reports the US is eyeing Lithuania for missile defense base

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:20:17 -0700

Warsaw | June 21

IHT -
As talks on building an American missile defense site in Poland have bogged down over Polish demands for massive military aid, word emerged this week that Washington is eyeing Lithuania as an alternative site.

"I think it's just a political game," said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the magazine Russia in Global Affairs. "I think it's an attempt to show Poland that if they continue to resist, then the contract could go other places."

Russian opposition to Washington's plans also makes Lithuania an unrealistic choice, analysts say. Not only is Lithuania geographically closer to Moscow, but unlike Poland and the Czech Republic, it was once part of the Soviet Union.

To Russians, it "will be perceived as even more provocative than Poland or the Czech Republic," Lukyanov said
** US taps Lithuania as alternative to Poland for missile shield plan(click pic to enlarge)

The brutal biography of Chechnya's Ramzan Kadyrov

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 03:43:27 -0700

Megan K. Stack | Gudermes, Russia | June 17

LA Times - The young president has silenced dissent, pacified the Russian republic and embarked on a massive reconstruction campaign. His critics are hard to find, because they have a habit of disappearing.

'I'm going to make them scream."

The president of Chechnya looks out at the menagerie of birds, floating on the murky man-made lake in his backyard: black swans, pelicans and ducks. Ostriches roam the opposite bank. Deep grunts of laughter shake his thick chest, jolting his barrel arms. Then Ramzan Kadyrov stops laughing. "Bring me the tiger!" he barks to his camouflage-clad servants. "Bring me bread!"

Two former guerrilla fighters wrestle a chained tiger down the muddy slope. The tiger rears up on its hind legs, fangs bared, and swats at the guards with splayed paws. They yell and beat the tiger about the head until the animal is low to the ground. Meanwhile, Kadyrov is tossing chunks of bread into the water for his fancy birds, imported here from all corners of the Earth. He hopes to draw them close enough to shore to get scared by the tiger. He still wants to hear them scream.

NATO Missile Defense

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:20:23 -0700

In the annals of stupid policy ideas this one (NATO missile defense) is right up there with the whole "let's bring in Georgia and the Ukraine into NATO" idea. I mean, really, why not just slap the Russian's in the face and call them "miserable snow-bound dogs with fat ugly mothers and cowardly grandfathers." It practically serves the same purpose.

Does anyone buy the whole idea that the missile shield is directed against Iran? I mean, this is a country that doesn't even have the capacity to build new refineries to supply domestic gasoline demand? Does Gates really believe people buy this excuse?

Medvedev warns Ukraine over Nato

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:15:48 -0700

June 6

BBC - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned his Ukrainian counterpart that relations between the countries will suffer if the latter joins Nato.

Mr Medvedev told Viktor Yushchenko at talks in St Petersburg that joining Nato would breach a friendship treaty, Russia's foreign minister said.

He also announced Russia would almost double the price of gas exports to Ukraine, blaming Central Asian costs.

Last Week's Best Top Press Commentary

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:56:17 -0700

The Atlantic Community think tank recommends a daily selection of five commentaries from leading international newspapers, which are written by decision-makers, academic experts, and journalists.

Here are the best articles from last week:

Shashi Tharoor, former UN
under-secretary general, is concerned about the growing popularity of
John McCain's League of Democracies among US voters of both parties.
Such a league would suffer from the same inaction problems as the UN.
Besides, Chinese and Russian cooperation is needed in our "post-American world"

Joschka Fischer, Germany's former foreign minister, believes that a
military confrontation with Iran looms in the Middle East: "We must
assume he [President Bush] and Israel plan to solve one problem before
the end of his term in a completely different manner: Iran's nuclear
program will be handled militarily, not diplomatically."