Moscow | November 19

BBC - Russia's ban on the death penalty will remain when a current legal suspension expires on 1 January, the country's Constitutional Court has ruled.

It said the use of the death penalty was now impossible because Russia had signed international deals banning it.

Moscow | Nov 12

AFP - Talks between Moscow and Washington to replace a key nuclear disarmament treaty that expires next month have hit a snag over proposed restrictions on Russian missiles, a newspaper said Thursday.

The dispute threatens to derail high-stakes talks on a successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which US President Barack Obama's administration hopes to replace before it expires on December 5.

The Kommersant daily, citing an expert familiar with the START talks, said Washington was seeking to keep a provision from the original treaty for monitoring Russia's arsenal of mobile ground-based missiles.

"They are offering to keep and even strengthen control over our mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) such as the Topol," the expert was quoted as saying by Kommersant.

Russia is against the proposal since the United States currently does not have its own mobile ground-based ICBMs and it is therefore of "unilateral character," he said.

The maximum number of "carriers" capable of delivering nuclear warheads remains another sticking point, the newspaper reported.

Clifford J. Levy | Mytishchi, Russia | November 11

NYT - It was late on a Monday afternoon at the drunk tank in this Moscow suburb, but it could have been any day, at any hour, at any similar facility across this land. People would come. They always do. Such is Russia’s ruinous penchant for the bottle — and the challenge facing a new government policy to curb it.

First to be escorted in by police officers was a construction worker named Damir M. Askerkhanov, who said he had been bingeing on vodka and beer — “This is my very own holiday!” — before he was found stumbling about in the cold. At 23, he admitted that he had already been picked up intoxicated twice recently. “Only even drunker,” he said.

With the possible exception of Georgia-US-Russia, no US relationship in the former Soviet region is more fraught today than the US-Russia-Ukraine triangle. At a time when Washington and Moscow have variously committed to a relationship reset, a new operating system, and a rerun of the Clinton-Yeltsin strategic partnership, it is disappointing how little substance has followed rhetoric. Meanwhile, Central and Eastern Europe are still reeling from the US Administration’s abrupt and ill-timed reversal on missile defense deployment, and Team Obama is eager for opportunities to demonstrate its commitment to the new Europe, which received no shortage of love from the Bush Administration.

Oct 15

Asia Times -

ADRIFT ON A RUSSIAN ISLAND, Part 1
Koreans left high and dry

When Sakhalin Island, off Russia's east coast, became a Japanese colony in 1905, thousands of Koreans were brought in to work in the fishery and timber industries. When the Soviet Union regained the island 45 years later, the Koreans became virtual prisoners, and a stormy coexistence began that lasts to this day.

This is the first article in a two-part report.

Quite the history lesson~ tina

Kaveh L Afrasiabi | Oct 14

Asia Times - United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's high-profile trip to Moscow this week to shore up Russian support for tougher sanctions on Iran if talks on its nuclear program fail has been openly rebuffed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

He labeled as "counter-productive" even the mere threat of sanctions at this delicate moment in the Iran nuclear standoff. "At the current stage, all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process. Threats, sanctions and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counter-productive," Lavrov said.

Luke Harding | Yalta | Oct 11

The Observer - As Ukraine prepares for its first presidential election since the Orange Revolution, there are signs that its giant neighbour to the east will not tolerate a pro-western outcome.

From the terrace there are views of the Crimean peninsula, with fir trees, dark green cypresses and a shimmering bay. Inside – through a pleasant Italian courtyard – is the room where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt sat together around a wooden table and divided up postwar Europe.

But almost 65 years after the "big three" met in the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta – now in Ukraine – the question of zones of influence has come back to haunt Europe. Russia has made it clear that it sees Ukraine as crucial to its bold claim that it is entitled to a zone of influence in its post-Soviet backyard.

Last month, a group of east European leaders and intellectuals gathered in the Livadia Palace, where Britain, the US and the Soviet Union held the Yalta conference in February 1945. The idea was to discuss Ukraine's strategic future. But the discussion was overshadowed by one question: will there be a war between Russia and Ukraine?

The scenario is not as daft as it seems. In August, Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, gave his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yushchenko, an unprecedented diplomatic mugging. In a seething letter, and subsequent video message, Medvedev reprimanded Yushchenko for his "anti-Russian" stance. He told him that, as far as Russia was concerned, the pro-western Yushchenko was now a non-person.

I've been on a bit of a Russian kick lately. I've never read much Russian history (China always seemed so much more interesting) so I've been nibbling around the edges with some random tomes on minor topics so I can start getting a feel for the geography and culture before really jumping into a comprehensive historical survey.

There are many fascinating things about Russia, but right now to me it all boils down to "what the hell happened to a once great nation?" The country that produced Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Nabokov, etc etc. The country that beat back the Nazis and dominated all of Eastern Europe. The country at the center of the Soviet empire that contended with the U.S. and NATO for world domination for nearly fifty years.

Now it's a wreck. From the Financial Times:

Everyone interested in modern Russia should read a report out this week on the nation's deepening demographic crisis. It's published by the United Nations Development Programme, but is written by a team of Russian academic experts, so no one can say it is tainted with bias.

The report describes the stark reality of a country whose population is falling fast, to a considerable extent because of rampant alcohol abuse among men, who on average are dying before they are 60. "Short life expectancy is the main feature of this crisis, though by no means its only feature. The birth rate is too low, the population is shrinking and ageing, and Russia is on the threshold of rapid loss of able-bodied population, which will be accompanied by a growing demographic burden per able-bodied individual. The number of potential mothers is starting to decline and the country needs to host large flows of immigrants," the report says.

Since 1992, the natural decrease of Russia's population has amounted to a staggering 12.3m people. This has been compensated to some degree by the arrival of 5.7m immigrants. But many are ethnic Russians from former Soviet republics, and the source is drying up. Overall, Russia had 142m people at the start of 2008, compared with 148.6m in 1993. By 2025, the figure will almost certainly fall below 140m and could be as low as 128m. The implications for Russia's economy are enormous. The authors cite forecasts from Rosstat, the national statistics agency, that Russia's working age population will decline by 14m between now and 2025. As Vladimir Putin said three years ago when he was president, the demographic emergency is "the most acute problem facing Russia today".

My reading on Russia so far has largely focused on Siberia for whatever reason. I just completed Jeffrey Taylor's Siberian Dawn, detailing his early 1990's trek across the breadth of Siberia from Magadan to Warsaw. It's a bracing read as Taylor chronicles his impressions of the unbelievable climate and the people struggling and stumbling to adapt to the fall of the USSR. The shadow of Stalin looms over the book, even forty years after the tyrant's death.

I also read The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz, the story of a Polish calvary officer who escaped from a Siberian prison camp in WWII by heading south -- thru the Gobi Desert and over the Himalayas into India. The account of his trial by the Stalinist authorities (and the months of torture that preceded it) outdoes anything by Kafka. Its hard enough to process the facts of tale, much less fathom the deprivation, suffering, fortitude and will to be free that powered these people through their ordeal. A short and understated book of remarkable power. Could potentially make an incredible movie.

Wrapping up the trilogy, I read Brian Moynahan's Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned. Two things jumped out at me about that one: 1) the period from 1904 to 1914 was a true interregnum; 2) monarchy is an inherently criminal form of government. The Czar nearly lost power after getting utterly whipped in a war with Japan and only brutal repression and some superficial reforms managed to cement his hold on power. But it was clear that the old Russian empire of God and the Czar was intellectually and morally spent. I found the descriptions of the anomie of that period hit very close to home and our current predicament. Into this vacuum came the shyster Grigory Rasputin.

For all his machinations and self-indulgence, Rasputin offended me far less than the Czar Nicholas II and his awful wife, the power behind the throne. They systematically eliminated (sometimes with murder) every competent administrator and general in their service until they could no longer insulate themselves from the consequences of the disasters they caused Russia. By the end of the book I was looking forward to the Bolsheviks' arrival.

I'm bracing myself for studying the following periods of revolution, terror and tyranny as well as the preceding eras. Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. Catherine the Great. Lenin. Trotsky. Stalin. Pretty scary stuff. Any recommendations for what to read next?

Philip P. Pan | Oct 6

WaPo -

On maps, Crimea is Ukrainian territory, and this naval citadel on its southern coast is a Ukrainian city. But when court bailiffs tried to serve papers at a lighthouse here in August, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by armed troops from Russia's Black Sea Fleet who delivered them to police as if they were trespassing teenagers.

The humiliating episode underscored Russia's continuing influence in the storied peninsula on the Black Sea nearly two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union -- and the potential for trouble here ahead of Ukraine's first presidential vote since the 2005 Orange Revolution.

Huge crowds of protesters defied Moscow in that peaceful uprising and swept a pro-Western government into power. Now, the Kremlin is working to undo that defeat, ratcheting up pressure on this former Soviet republic to elect a leader more amenable to Russia's interests in January.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a letter in August demanding policy reversals from a new Ukrainian government, including an end to its bid to join NATO. He also introduced a bill authorizing the use of troops to protect Russian citizens and Russian speakers abroad, a measure that some interpreted as targeting Crimea.

A group of prominent Ukrainians, including the country's first president, responded with a letter urging President Obama to prevent a "possible military intervention" by Russia that would "bring back the division of Europe." Ukraine gave up the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and other world powers, they noted.

If a crisis is ahead, it is likely to involve Crimea, a peninsula of rolling steppe and sandy beaches about the size of Maryland. The region was once part of Russia, and it is the only place in Ukraine where ethnic Russians are the majority. In the mid-1990s, it elected a secessionist leader who nearly sparked a civil war.

Crimea is also home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Sevastopol under a deal with Ukraine that expires in 2017. Russia wants to extend the lease, but Ukraine's current government insists it must go.

"It would be easy for Russia to inspire a crisis or conflict in Crimea if it continues to lose influence in Ukraine," said Grigory Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Institute in the Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy. "That's the message they're sending to any future president."

Dom Rotheroe | Oct 3

BBC - Political violence and killings seem to be daily occurrences in the tiny mainly Muslim republic of Ingushetia in the Russian North Caucasus, which shares a border with Chechnya. Dom Rotheroe explains why.

"Don't mention to our mother that he was tortured before he died," one of the sisters of the late Batyr Albakov whispers to us before we interview his family.

"She doesn't know about that and she has a weak heart."

They came in the early hours of 10 July to take Mamma Albakov's son away. Two carloads of security forces had barged their way into the family flat in Russia's Caucasian republic of Ingushetia.

Eleven days later, Batyr's family learned of his death through a report on the internet.

In that time, the 26-year-old aeroplane engineer had supposedly become an Islamic militant, acquired a gun and camouflage gear and been killed in a shoot-out with security forces.

Ian Traynor | Oct 1

The Guardian - An investigation into last year's Russia-Georgia war delivered a damning indictment of President Mikheil Saakashvili today, accusing Tbilisi of launching an indiscriminate artillery barrage on the city of Tskhinvali that started the war.

In more than 1,000 pages of analysis, documentation and witness statements, the most exhaustive inquiry into the five-day conflict dismissed Georgian claims that the artillery attack was in response to a Russian invasion, accused both sides of violations of the laws of war, indicated that war crimes had been perpetrated against Georgian civilians and rejected Russian claims of "genocide" in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia.

The EU-commissioned report, by a fact-finding mission of more than 20 political, military, human rights and international law experts led by the Swiss diplomat, Heidi Tagliavini, was unveiled in Brussels today after nine months of work.

"There is no way to assign overall responsibility for the conflict to one side alone," the report found.

But the conclusions will discomfit the western-backed Georgian leader, Saakashvili, who was found to have started the war with the attack on Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, on the night of 7 August last year, through a "penchant for acting in the heat of the moment".

The war started "with a massive Georgian artillery attack", the report said, citing an order from Saakashvili that the offensive was aimed at halting Russian military units moving into South Ossetia.

Flatly dismissing Saakashvili's version, the report said: "There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation ... Georgian claims of a large-scale presence of Russian armed forces in South Ossetia prior to the Georgian offensive could not be substantiated ... It could also not be verified that Russia was on the verge of such a major attack."

Rafal Kiepuszewski | Sept 25

Deutsche Welle - A resolution unanimously approved by the Polish parliament this week condemns the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in 1939. The resolution referred to a series of massacres of Poles in Russia, as well as mass deportations of over one million Poles to Siberia. Poland also called on Russia to condemn the crimes.

Sixteen days after Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on Sept. 1, 1939, troops under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin were sent into eastern Poland. A year later, a Soviet-led massacre in the Katyn forest left over 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals dead.

The response from Russia warned that the Polish resolution, which said the Stalin-era crimes amount to genocide, was a set-back to improving ties between Russia and Poland.

"The resolution adopted by the parliament deals a serious blow to efforts to develop normal neighborly relations between our countries," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the resolution was "tendentious and politicized."

Polish parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski said Russia's reaction indicates the country is still coming to grips with its past.

Megan K. Stack | Podolsk, Russia | September 24

LAT - The young man named Anton is a member of Russia's "lost generation."

He's the son of middle-class, college-educated engineers; he studied at a good university and became a truck sales manager in Moscow. He's also a 28-year-old heroin addict.

In the years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan triggered a sharp increase in poppy cultivation, Russia has been flooded with heroin. The dope has crept along a drug trail stretching from Afghanistan through Tajikistan and other Central Asian nations and over the Russian border, turning this country into the world's top consumer of heroin, the government says.

Richard Galpin | Moscow | Sept 24

BBC - Eight alleged hijackers of the Russian ship the Arctic Sea were in fact welcomed on board after being rescued in the Baltic Sea, a lawyer claims.

Konstantin Baranovsky, who represents one of the eight men, said the alleged pirates were testing a navigation system on a small boat.

They were then rescued after getting into difficulties, Mr Baranovsky said.

The eight were arrested in mid-August by the Russian navy and taken to Moscow to face kidnapping and piracy charges.

According to Mr Baranovsky, the eight men were welcomed on board the Arctic Sea, as they were Russians, like the ship's crew.

They were offered vodka, and allowed to use the ship's gym.

There were many more parties after that first night as the boat continued its voyage from the Baltic Sea through the English Channel and out into the Atlantic Ocean, Mr Baranovsky said.

That is where the alleged pirates were eventually arrested.

Clancy Chassay | Sept 20

The Observer - Policemen and soldiers work at the site of an explosion in a police station, Nazran, in Russia's Ingushetia region, Aug 17, 2009. Photograph: Stringer/Russia/Reuters

Like many in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, Petimat Albakavar lives in terror. "Nobody sleeps properly. We can't because we are listening to every sound, waiting for the police to knock at the door," she says.

On 10 July, Petimat's 26-year-old son, Batyr, was taken away at dawn by armed men claiming to be Ingush police. They appeared at the door and demanded to see the family's passports but refused to show any identification themselves. "As soon as they left I went to all the police stations, but I couldn't find my son. I filed complaints with the police and government officials, but nobody knew anything," says Petimat, her eyes weary with grief and fear.

"Ten days later we found a report on the internet that someone with my son's name, whom they described as a rebel leader, had been killed in the forest. It was Batyr. His passport was with him."

According to human rights investigators, hundreds of civilians such as Batyr have been "disappeared", tortured and murdered by Russian security services as they struggle to quell a rebellion that spans across Ingushetia and the neighbouring republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. In June the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was critically injured by a car bomb in an apparent assassination attempt. As suicide bombers strike with alarming frequency, the security forces are unleashing a wave of terror which critics say is only serving to fuel the rebellion.

Moscow | Sept 16

AFP - Russia tightened its ties with Georgia's rebel regions on Tuesday by signing agreements allowing it to maintain military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia for nearly half a century.

Georgia's pro-Western government immediately condemned the move, with a top official saying the agreements would deepen a "barbaric" occupation.

Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov signed the long-awaited pacts with his Abkhazian and South Ossetian counterparts Merab Kishmaria and Yury Tanayev, the Interfax and ITAR-TASS news agencies reported.

"The agreements that have been signed are aimed at protecting the republics and people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," Serdyukov was quoted as saying by the news agencies.

Serdyukov said he expected other agreements with Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be signed soon, including one on "military-technical cooperation," a term that Russian officials use to describe arms sales.

London | Sept 16

AFP - NATO's chief called Wednesday for an "open minded and unprecedented dialogue" with Russia to reduce security tensions in Europe and confront common threats.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who took over the top job last month, said he wanted to begin an "open and frank conversation (with Moscow) that creates a new atmosphere."

"Russia should realise that NATO is here and that NATO is a framework for our transatlantic relationship," he told the Financial Times in an interview published Wednesday.

"But we should also take into account that Russia has legitimate security concerns," he said.

Although differences remained between the two sides, he said he had a "vision" of a "true strategic partnership" in which both sides collaborated on Afghanistan, terrorism and piracy.

He said he was prepared to discuss a proposal from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for a new security architecture in Europe.

Sept 11

Asia Times/IWPR -

A summit of Caspian states this weekend could foreshadow the emergence of a new regional economic grouping, according to Central Asia commentators.

On September 11-13, the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan will meet in the Kazakh city of Aktau, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The fifth country with a Caspian coastline, Iran, will not be represented.

Kazakhstan's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Serik Primbetov, told a press conference in Baku that the four presidents will discuss border issues and regional cooperation, the Caspian Energy website reported.

Analysts say that one of the main topics for discussion is likely to be Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's proposal to set up the Caspian Economic Cooperation Organization.

He first floated the idea last October, but after some initial interest, no further progress was made. Medvedev revived the plan at a meeting on Caspian issues in early August.

Experts say one of the Kremlin's motives for creating a regional bloc is to forestall plans by Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to export oil and gas to the West without it going through Russia.

Luke Harding & David Hearst/ Moscow | Sept 11

The Guardian -

Russia PM says he and Dmitry Medvedev would take joint decision over roles, raising prospect of Putin era continuing

Vladimir Putin today gave his strongest indication so far that he is planning to get his old job back as president, hinting that he is considering a return in 2012.

Speaking to a group of scholars and international journalists, Putin said that he and his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, would take a joint decision over which one of them would hold the post next. Putin stepped down as president in 2008, becoming Russia's prime minister, installing Medvedev in his place.

"Was there any competition in 2007? No. Then we won't have this in 2012," Putin said. Smiling broadly, he added: "We will agree because we are people of one stamp. We will take all these things into account and then decide."

His comments raise the prospect that the Putin era – which began in 2000 – could extend for at least another decade. Under Russia's new constitution the next president is entitled to stay in power for two more six-year terms, raising the prospect that Putin could still be in the Kremlin in 2024 – aged 72.

Dmitry Shlapentokh | Sept 8

Asia Times -

A film on the fall of the Byzantine Empire made by a close confidant of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offers a rare insight into the thinking of the country's elite. Like the masks actors wear in Venetian plays, the film is a disguise, in this case, for what Russia needs to do to deal with the dangers to its east and to its west.

Luke Harding | Moscow | September 3

The Guardian - Russia's supreme court this morning ordered a new investigation into the murder of the campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya, in a move her lawyer said gave Russia's heavily criticised authorities a fresh opportunity to catch her killer.

The court sent the case back to Russia's prosecutor general for further investigation, upholding a complaint from Politkovskaya's family. The move follows a bungled trial earlier this year, which saw four people accused of involvement in her death acquitted by a jury.

Roman Kupchinsky | Sept 1

Asia Times - Pipelines running along the bed of the Black Sea are the frontline for Russia in its attempt to impose its energy policies on the European Union. Now nationalism and alleged corruption over hydrocarbon resources beneath the seabed highlight energy anarchy on the EU's frontier.

Clifford J. Levy | Sevastopol, Ukraine | August 27

NYT - A year after its war with Georgia, Russia is engaging in an increasingly hostile standoff with another pro-Western neighbor, Ukraine.

Relations between the two countries are more troubled than at any time since the Soviet collapse, as both sides resort to provocations and recriminations. And it is here on the Crimean Peninsula, home to a Russian naval base, where the tensions are perhaps most in danger of bursting into open conflict.

Andrew Rettman | Aug 27

EU Observer - The United States has all-but abandoned plans to house anti-missile bases in Poland and the Czech republic, according to a senior White House lobbyist.

Riki Ellison, the chairman of the 10,000 member-strong Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, said in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza on Thursday (26 August) that the US has changed its mind to avoid a rift with Russia and is now looking at Israel, Turkey, the Balkans or ship-borne facilities instead.

"The signals given by generals from the Pentagon are clear: the current US government is looking for different solutions on the question of missile defence than Poland and the Czech republic," he said.

"The new [US] team is paying more attention to Russian arguments," he added.

"Obama's people believe that many problems in the world can be more easily solved together with Moscow ...It's a question of priorities. For many Democrats, the priority is disarmament and they are capable of sacrificing a lot in order to achieve a new agreement with Russia on the reduction of strategic [nuclear] weapons."