Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Thursday. (Photo by Sergei Chirikov/European Pressphoto Agency).
This is the question that every American critical of Russia’s Iranian policies should ask before stating an opinion related to the issue. Today’s article in the not-so-friendly-to-Russia New York Times marks an encouraging change of tone. Whether it is Obama’s promised change, or Hillary’s meetings in Moscow, or the beginning of spring on the East Coast, but the facts known to experts only, are finally made public on the main page of the NYT.
In the article’s third paragraph, NYT quotes Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov saying that “[Russia’s] Bushehr cooperation played “a special role” in keeping international inspectors inside Iran, and “ensuring that Iran is complying with its nonproliferation obligations. “Citing another sign of better ties between the countries,” says NYT quoting another official, “30 percent of supplies for American troops in Afghanistan are now being shipped through Russian territory, either by airplane or train.”
Maybe, after all, Russia and American can be, should be, and are strategic partners. And maybe the U.S. should trust Russia on its Iranian policies, taking into consideration such facts as that Russia has a five-century-long (!!!) intelligence presence in Iran, that Iran’s every nuclear-related facility is flooded with Russian experts and spies, and that an Islamic nuclear-armed nation on Russia’s border is the last thing Russian leadership and people would ever want.
If I correctly recall, when the Russian delegation marched into the opening ceremony of the recently completed Olympiad, Bob Costas said that some Russians predicted a Russian medal tally of anywhere between thirty and forty. Sports Illustratedprojected Russia finishing ninth among nations, with twenty two medals medals. Russia ended up sixth, with fifteen medals.
Today, National Public Radio has a piece on President Medvedev’s plans to curb Russian consumption of vodka. If NPR’s source is to be believed, czar Peter the Great fostered a culture where people were actually encouraged to drink more to raise their alcohol tolerance. Accurate or not, the World Health Organization reports that the average Russian consumes eighteen liters of pure alcohol annually—twice the volume they consider dangerous. The story was covered in a January post by Bruce Chapman.
Back in 1974 Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik introduced an amendment to a trade law with the purpose of punishing the Soviet Union and other communist countries for the denial of emigration rights to their citizens. At the time it was a justified decision, but in case someone forgot the evil empire has been gone since 1991. Unfortunately, for one of its former parts which never had any emigration restrictions, the Russian Federation, the Jackson-Vanik amendment remains in force. Strictly speaking, the amendment has been a dead letter since 1994 due to a ritual of annual Presidential waivers based on humiliating compliance reviews. Yet it continues to be a constant irritant in U.S.-Russia relations, and therefore should be repealed for good without further delay. It is easier said than done as both the Clinton and Bush administrations tried to get rid of this amendment but failed miserably since the U.S. Congress has the authority to act and refuses to go along.
It is pretty ironic, if not pathetic, that one of the most important stumbling blocks on the way to the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment are innocent American chickens or “Bush legs,” as they call them in Russia. I am not talking, of course, about these pretty little birds but about one of the most powerful U.S. lobbies called the “Chicken Lobby” or “Big Chicken.” This lobby helps producers sell as much poultry as possible, but as in any trade there are some periodical disputes between the exporters and importers. In normal circumstances, such disputes should be handled through standard commercial negotiation processes. However, “Big Chicken” uses its enormous influence and puts pressure on Congress and the administration to highly politicize this trade and block Russia’s graduation from Jackson-Vanik unless it buys huge poultry volumes.
Stakes are High for the Russian Men's Olympic Ice Hockey Team
Michael Averko
Russian ice hockey player Alexei Morozov was flag bearer for his country at the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics
As the home team, Canada's Olympians have an extra perk to do well in Vancouver. Canada is particularly interested in its highly regarded men's and women's ice hockey teams. In overall terms of viewing as a fan and active participation, ice hockey is considered the most popular sport in that country.
When compared to their Canadian rival, the talented Russian men's ice hockey team is arguably more under the gun to win the Olympic ice hockey tournament. Canada is projected to win more medals than Russia. With this in mind, Canada will likely have a greater number of other Olympic achievements to cherish than Russia.
There has been much strident rhetoric in recent years regarding a Bering Strait Crossing and Intercontinental Railway System. I first proposed such a system in 1995 for several reasons. At the time, I was unaware that this idea had first been explored over a century before. Since 1995, I have refined my proposal into a project that is more realistic and within the realm of possibility.
Crossing the Bering Strait and building an Intercontinental Railway System is by no means a simple or easy task. Nothing good in life is! The pros and cons of any large project are usually “six of one and a half a dozen of the other”, as the saying goes. There is the indisputable fact that climate in the Arctic and Bering Strait area is inhospitable most of the time and construction of a project of this magnitude would be difficult. Furthermore, the fact that Russia and Alaska are moving toward each other at about 16.5 mm per year, and that we are dealing with a seismically active region, presents a unique set of problems. In addition there are the complicated geopolitical problems and the very serious environmental concerns. And then the final question we must address: What useful purpose does such a project serve?
Improving Russia's Image and Russo-Ukrainian Relations
Michael Averko
Russia's dynamic duo performing this past January 1, on Russian TV station Channel One
Options and Opposing Views
Russia's expatriate population is the subject of Alexei Bayer's recent article in The Moscow Times. He ends the article with a general note on how Russia can gain with a return of some of its expatriates. To an extent, this has happened. Some Russians have decided to return to Russia, without the Russian government actively egging them on. In addition, the Russian government has undergone a program to encourage people of Russian origin to live in Russia.
It is also advantageous for Russia to have an expatriate community. Abroad, these Russians are in a position to provide a better understanding of their native land to others at a grass roots level. In addition, the utilization of Western savvy, patriotically inclined Russians within the more high profile of Western based media and public relations organizations benefits Russia. The ideal individuals for this undertaking are those offering constructive criticisms of Russia, while being aware of the biases against that country and the valid/underrepresented counterpoints to them. Not to be overlooked are people of a more distant Russian origin and non-Russians, exhibiting the same understanding. How to successfully level the playing field is something that continues to be problematical.
The 2004 poster reads "Yushchenko - the People's President." In Jan 18, 2010 Ukrainian presidential elections Mr. Yushchenko received only 6 percent of the vote.
On the one hand the stunning defeat of Viktor Yushchenko, and by extension of the whole Orange carnival, is a welcome event for Russia and for Ukraine as well. However, one shouldn’t get too ecstatic because there is also a substantial potential danger ahead. The outgoing president leaves to his successor an economy in shambles, a devalued currency, a huge budget deficit and a national debt of over $33 billion. In addition, Yushchenko did all he could to divide the country’s population along ethnic lines by suppressing the Russian language, building memorials and presenting national awards to Nazi collaborators and mass executioners.
In any event, whoever wins the elections on February 7 will deliver to Moscow both good and some bad news. The good news is that the new president will be more Russia-friendly, will stop talking about NATO membership, will consider extension of the lease of the Russian Black Sea Naval base at Sevastopol and will probably make a few other friendly gestures. The bad news is that none of the above is born out of deep and unselfish love for mother Russia; on the contrary, they come with an impressive price tag.
How Many Polish “Patriots” Does It Take to Screw Up US – Russia Relations?
Edward Lozansky
Patriot missiles
Americans are great fans of Polish jokes; there is a whole website boasting hundreds of them: www.polishjoke.com. Arguably the best known is the one about changing a bulb procedure (it takes at least four Poles to do that). This and other jokes on this site are pretty harmless and can be said to apply to almost any ethnic group. However, the much hyped deployment of US Patriot missiles on Polish territory next to the city of Kaliningrad to repulse potential Russian aggression could well make a worthy addition to this particular site, except that this is no laughing matter at all. Obviously, Washington needed a symbolic gesture of sorts to gild the pill of scrapping its missile-defense-shield-in-Poland plan. However, if this gesture is strictly symbolic, a more unsuitable place and time for it would be hard to find. Because whereas previously Russia was told that it had nothing to worry about BMD-wise, as the sole purpose of the system was destruction of Iranian or North Korean missiles, the Patriots are certainly intended to repulse a potential missile attack by Russia.
Wouldn’t be wiser for Washington to resort to some other, more appropriate symbolism to reassure Poland, or rather its “Patriotic” leaders, and allay their fears of Russian invasion. The easiest and most obvious gesture to make would be faxing or e-mailing to all and sundry the text of Article 5 from the NATO Charter, which organization Poland has been a member of since 1999. Under this Article the entire military might of almost 30 member states, including the US and most EU countries shall be employed to come to Poland’s rescue and rebuff such an aggression if it would ever take place. Isn’t this enough, and why bother with Patriots then?
This publication tries to debunk some popular, but misguided, views on demographic trends in today's Russia. These consist of the perception that Russia is in a demographic "death spiral" that dooms it to national decline (Biden, Eberstadt, NIC, CIA, Stratfor, etc). Some extreme pessimists even predict that ethnic Russians - ravaged by AIDS, infertility and alcoholism - will die out as an ethnicity, displaced by Islamist hordes and Chinese settlers (Steyn, Collard).
The Myth of Russia's Demographic Apocalypse
Think again. While it is true that Russia's current demographic situation is nothing to write home about, most of the demographic trends that matter are highly positive - and there is compelling evidence that Russia can still return to a healthy, longterm pattern of sustainable population replacement.
1. MYTH: Russia is losing 750,000 of its population per year and will become depopulated within decades.
REALITY: In 1992, for the first time since the Great Patriotic War, deaths exceeded births in Russia, forming the so-called “Russian Cross”. Since then the population fell from 149mn to 142mn souls. However, the rate of depopulation has slowed massively in recent years.
US-Russia Bilateral Governmental Commissions: Where Are You?
Edward Lozansky
Those who feel like gloating over the difficulties America is experiencing fail to understand that many of U.S. problems are shared by the rest of the world. Therefore, it is in Russia’s interests to take a dignified high road policy and to seek and find ways of helping America in solving them. The present moment is singularly auspicious for implementing real projects in the course of much hyped resetting, which, alas, cannot yet boast any tangible results.
It is well known that in the wake of the Obama-Medvedev meeting, an impressive number of 18 (!) bilateral governmental commissions have been set up to coordinate the resetting process. So far we did not hear too much about their activities or, most importantly, results, except perhaps just one, on cultural cooperation, headed by Mikhail Shvydkoi and US Undersecretary of State Judith McHale. Apparently, the other seventeen are still trying to decide what they are going to do. Don’t you think it’s about time you set to, gentlemen?
From left to right: Yushchenko, Timoshenko, and Yanukovych
Five years have gone by as one day. Only yesterday, it seems, we saw jubilant crowds in Kiev celebrating the victory of democracy in Ukraine. Small wonder, too – the pro-Western Victor Yushchenko had contrived to wrest victory from his hateful namesake, pro-Russia Yanukovich. The former, cruelly poisoned (allegedly by none other than Putin), had miraculously risen from the dead, won the election and was about to guide Ukraine to a life of plenty in the European Union and NATO. The unimpeachable teaching of George Bush about the inevitable spread of democracy across the world had yet again been proved right. Besides, no less importantly, the Orange Revolution turned out to be relatively inexpensive to fund. Especially compared to the business of promoting democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, where thousands of young Americans and Europeans from NATO countries continue to die and hundreds of billions of dollars continue to be spent.
According to Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, in Ukraine the price barely came to several dozen million dollars. However, as he lacked precise statistics, the actual sum could have been considerably larger. The congressman called on the White House Administration and the US General Accounting Office to look into the Ukrainian election’s cost to the American taxpayer, and what exactly that money had paid for, yet his appeals fell on deaf ears. That so greatly incensed Ron Paul that he accused the US Government of hypocrisy. On the one hand, said the congressman, we are against external interference in another state’s election, but on the other we send money to Ukraine to sway the vote there.
In Russia, presidential New Year’s address to the nation is traditionally aired each December 31, five minutes before midnight. Watch Dmitry Medvedev's address from December 31, 2009.
For Russia, 2009 was a pretty difficult year on the domestic front. It was saturated with severe economic and financial crises as well as horrible terrorist attacks and several man-made catastrophes. Nevertheless, the Russians not only proved once again that they can withstand disaster with dignity, but even in these most difficult times they achieved some impressive results in economic and social areas. The economy started to grow and the performance of the stock market was one of the world’s best. The shops are full of goods and customers, travel abroad is on the rise, and cultural life is bustling at least in the large cities.
However, three huge and potentially devastating problems remain unresolved and actually are getting worse: poor demography, monstrous corruption, and severe alcoholism. If one compares the number of people per square kilometer in of Russia (8), the United States (50) and China (220), the picture is gloomy. Moreover, this ratio keeps changing, and unfortunately not in Russia’s favor. Will the country in the years ahead have enough manpower to implement Medvedev’s dreams of innovations and modernization, to serve in its army, or at least to hold on to its huge landmass?
Russia Blog’s editors wish you the belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We hope the year 2010 will bring you success and significant personal and professional accomplishments. We’re back to work, and, as usual, look forward to bringing you up-to-date, exciting, and unique information and commentary about Russia.
Barack Obama is not the only leader trusting in government "stimulus" to revive an economy. Prime Minister Putin has outlined his program, including a "Cash for Clunkers" program to boost sales of Russian automobiles. Apparently, no one in the Kremlin bothered to check out how well that worked in the U.S. Once the "cash" is gone, the sales drop again.
There is no theme in the Putin Plan, no sense that it's the supply side of the economy that needs to be stimulated, not the demand side. Maybe foreign investors will be impressed, but I doubt it.
The alcoholism problem is Russia is really the vodka problem--it's too inexpensive. Accordingly, President Medvedev intends to raise the price up to a minimum of three dollars a bottle, still a very low price by American standards.
Moscow Outsourcing Gays to Berlin Kyiv Might Be Better Option
Nick Slepko
In a strange twist of history, Moscow has asked Berlin to host Moscow Pride in order to avoid Neo-Nazis (and grandmas) that might want to harm defenseless Satanists. The Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow, Alexander Muzykantsk, outlined his proposal:
"In recent years, Berlin became de facto the world capital of sexual minorities. Because there are friendly relations between the mayors of Moscow and Berlin, why not an agreement in which the representatives of sexual minorities in Moscow will hold their parade in Berlin with the support of the city?"
The Captive Nations Resolution and Other US Relics of the Cold War
W George Krasnow
Remarks by Dr. W. George Krasnow at a panel discussion of the 92nd anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. [1]
President Reagan holds up a proclamation designating Captive Nations Week after signing it in a Rose Garden ceremony.
First, I salute the sponsor of our panel, the Conflict Solutions International. It is a team of independent pro bono lawyers whose mission is to prevent new threats to peace and security in the world. Strategically located in Washington DC, the CSI relies on volunteers throughout the world. Striving to ameliorate current conflicts, they serve as fact-finders, monitors and mediators.
As president of the Russia & America Goodwill Associates (RAGA), an informal organization of Americans favoring better relations with Russia, I cannot think of a better forum. The goals of RAGA are the same as those of the CSI. Luckily, since the Fall of the Wall, Russia and the United States do not have unsolvable conflicts. Whatever conflicts they now have are not of the kind that existed during the Cold War, when the world’s very survival was at stake.
Who Should Apologize for the Wrongs of the Soviet Union?
Edward Lozansky
A column of refugees in the Soviet Union, following the German invasion of Soviet territory on June 22, 1941.
In his recent article in the Daily Telegraph (December 3, 2009) George Feifer suggests that “instead of trying to justify Soviet wrongs all these years later, why doesn't it [Russia] apologize, as Germany has for its 20th-century atrocities?” According to this author, apologies are due above all to the Baltic and East European countries.
As someone who for decades participated in many activities to resist the Soviet regime, standing shoulder to shoulder with people from the “Captive Nations” during their fight for freedom and independence, I believe that Feifer’s demands are misdirected, ill-timed and generally worthless, if not harmful.
The Copenhagen climate summit has certain elements of conspiracy theory to it, including an attempt by IPCC Vice Chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele to blame the Russians for release of the ClimateGate emails. Here is a report by the London Telegraph writer James Delingpole on the pathetic attempt to turn the whole U.K./U.S. fiasco into an international spy story. (It was Delingpole who coined the "ClimateGate" name, by the way.)
The motive that the ClimateGate defenders attribute to the Russians is a desire to distract the Copenhagen negotiators from their work. However, surely they can do better than that. For example, they could speculate that the Kremlin probably wants to keep oil usage respectable, since Russia is the world's number one producer. Natural gas, too. Or, just as likely, the Russians really would like the world to get a little warmer. A longer growing season, as V. Putin has joked. And the prospect of January picnics in the gardens outside the Kremlin.
Jeff Megall (Hollywood super agent): Mr. Naylor is here to see if [in the movies] we can’t get cigarettes into the hands of somebody other than the usual RAVs.
Nick Naylor (tobacco lobbyist): RAVs?
Jeff Megall: Russians, Arabs, and villains.
-- Thank You For Smoking (2006)
In the recent blockbuster 2012, all the Russians are depicted heroically -- and there is not a Borat or ex-KGB agent in sight (though not a single Arab is portrayed as a sympathetic character, but compromises were made). Of course, the most noble Russians end up dying the quickest, but ask any Slav and most would shrug and agree that such a tragedy is in line with historic reality.
Chechens Produce Hollywood-Style Terrorism; Old Babushka Emerges as Russia’s Super Hero
Yuri Mamchur
Chechen terrorists claimed responsibility for the November 30 explosions and derailment of the luxury high-speed train “Nevsky Express” which travels 120 miles an hour and connects the two capitals--Moscow and St. Petersburg--in just 4 hours. The tragedy took away 27 lives and left nearly 100 people injured. The entire accident makes for a Hollywood-style suspense action movie. One of the severely injured passengers already survived the previous attack on the same train on the same route just two years ago. She recently recovered from shock and went back to work, to only take the same train again…
Two high-profile government officials and multiple lawyers and businessmen (including an attorney for Russia Today TV channel) died in the attack. Most shockingly, when the investigators were at the scene on Saturday (a day following the attack), the second, remote-controlled blast injured Chief of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, and other investigators and emergency workers. A similar sequence of explosions was staged by make-belief Chechen’s “brothers in Jihad” in the Hollywood action movie The Kingdom. Want more Hollywood? Read on.
Nightclub Fire Brings Attention to Russia’s Weakness
Yuri Mamchur
This weekend’s fire at a night club in Perm, 700 miles east of Moscow pointed out the main weakness of Russian government: its inability to enforce the basic rule of law. A night club “The Lame Horse” in the past had received multiple warnings from the local fire department officials. Every club in Russia must receive a permit before hosting an indoor firework show. The fireworks used in such shows are supposed to be “cold” and not dangerous. The permits were never issued, and the fireworks were hot enough to take away 112 lives and leave 120 injured.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev voiced the growing infuriation of media and common people. Russians, weathered by endless wars and recent terrorist attacks, have patience and understanding when it comes to investigating a train explosion. But the nation has no patience whatsoever for the deaths caused by “sheer stupidity and carelessness” (in words of Dmitry Medvedev). Four owners and managers of the Lame Horse have been arrested. During the holiday season, every single public venue across Russia will be checked by local fire departments and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The fire at the Lame Horse painfully reminds the 2003 fire at a night club in Rhode Island. Kremlin and local governments have a lot to learn about going beyond bureaucratic warnings and actually enforcing the laws.
I am not even Russian, but I cannot help being overcome by a sense of melancholy, nostalgia and loss when I see these glorious century-old color photographs of Imperial Russia and her people. These were taken in the decade before the First World War ruined so much that is here presented.
The pictures by the intrepid chemist and photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, who departed Russia in 1918, were purchased by the Library of Congress in 1944 and appeared recently on the Denver Post blog site ( brought to our attention by Mike Averko).
The sheer geographic sweep of these photos is part of their grandeur, reminding us of the unmatched reach of eternal Russia. But the deepest poignancy resides in the dignified faces and bearing of varied Russian people in the days before seven decades of calamity beset their country. Notice the photographer's pride that displays Russia's new factories and bridges, as well as old people in their regional costumes. The 84 year old river ferryman is surely a classic; the photo, in its tonal sentiment, evokes a painting one might find in the Hermitage. This collection is like a pictoral tour of the landscape of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's soul.
This Russia was betrayed and sold out by the Communists. Now we have new post-Communist generations frantic to catch up with modernity and "normality", but pausing sometimes, perhaps, strangely aware that there is something they are missing from the past.
Anti-Iran Resolution on Nukes Marks New Russian Stance
Bruce Chapman
Iran is now more isolated than at any time in over three years as the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, meeting in Vienna, rebuked the theocratic Muslim regime for its disregard of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and efforts of the international community to find a peaceful resolution. Russia and China voted with the West, as did India. Only Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia voted with Iran, while a number of Iran's neighbors bravely abstained--Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan among them.
Russia's growing impatience with Tehran is the big development here, especially if it leads to a Russian vote at the Security Council that backs the IAEA position with real sanctions. Give some quiet applause to the Obama Administration (quiet, because matters are still delicate) and also credit Russia's increasing realism about economics and terrorism.
On the other hand, Iran's contemptuous reaction to the IAEA resolution and its announcement that it will build even more centrifuges is hardly a laudable achievement for Obama Administration diplomacy, is it?
A spoof on the 19th century Anglo-Russo "Great Game" rivalry in Central Asia
An October 13 RT (no longer officially known as Russia Today) segment discussed some international issues regarding Afghanistan and Russia. The following viewpoint is expressed in that segment: "When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan they were viewed as being hostile by everyone, while the US is really not viewed as an occupier. The Soviets were always viewed as an occupier."
Afghans at large deserved better than the Soviet supported regimes in their country. There were Afghans who collaborated with these regimes. The last Afghan Communist regime lasted three years after the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. (This length of time is not so different from how long the South Vietnamese government lasted after American forces left Vietnam.) Besides the foreign meddling, Afghanistan has had other problems, which were to become more evident after the Soviet forces withdrew from there in 1989. At the height of the Soviet military intervention in that nation, I recall a buried in the back of The New York Times piece on how a good number of the armed anti-Soviet Afghans opposed Western values, Israel and women's rights.
22-Year-Old Russian Wrecks Lamborghini in Switzerland Causing $1.6 Million Damages to his Car, Severe Injuries to a Swiss
Yuri Mamchur
Economic crisis might have affected those who are old, wise, and worked hard for their money. However, it hasn’t done much damage to young, reckless Russians who simply don’t know what money is or where it comes from.
Lake Geneva, Switzerland, November 21, 11:30 PM: Four Russians in their mid-twenties decided to find out through trial whose car was the fastest by racing their Lamborghini, Bugatti, Mercedes, and Porsche at up to 150 miles an hour. The 22-year-old Russian driver of a Lamborghini was the fastest. In his victorious pull forward he hit the Volkswagen Golf of a poor 70-year-old Swiss citizen, who just happened to obstruct the road with his slow 60-miles-an-hour driving. Young drivers of Bugatti, Mercedes, and Porsche drove up to check on their buddy, and fled the scene. The elderly victim was delivered to a local hospital with head injuries and brain trauma; no information was disclosed about the Russian driver. Furthermore, all the information about the night incident was pulled from the news websites, with only short news lines remaining on Russia’s RIA Novosti and Gazeta.ru.
The car of the 22-year-old suffered $1.6 million in damages. One must ask: where do the power and stupidity of Russian corruption and conspicuous consumption end? Clearly, not in Switzerland.
Ukraine's Historic Famine Shown In Intimate Insight
Bruce Chapman
The failure of civilized culture to come to terms with communism's horrendous history is nowhere shown more clearly than in history's indifference to the planned starvation of farmers in the Ukraine in the in the 1920s. Now, an exhibit in England unveils the diaries of an unsung Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones, whose heroic reporting told the world about the starvation of some four to five million people under the dictates of Joseph Stalin.
Jones's accounts should have formed the scripts of half a dozen films by now; there have been less than a handful. Instead, the New York Times of his day disputed his stories that ran in the New York Post. A very few books and movies have covered the truth. The Left seems not to want to hear it.
But, history that is denied or downplayed has a way of emerging at the most inopportune moments. The world should pay close attention to the Jones diaries.
President Medvedev's Follow-up On Disassembling State Companies
Bruce Chapman
The Kremlin may well want to encourage speculation as to whether President Medvedev was truly instructing Prime Minister Putin on making state enterprises "comptetitve", but it is wholly unlikely that the two would do anything that wasn't pre-arranged between them. If it were otherwise, a political rupture would be underway, with wide repercussions, and nothing indicates such a thing now. (Of course, human nature being what it is, no one likes to take direction too long from even the most illustrious former boss.)
The follow-up to the President's speech Friday does make it seem, in any case, that Mr. Medvedev is serious and wants to proceed with economic change. (See also here.)
Government-run enterprises are famously less efficient than private ones. Corruption is more likely, too. So, having taken possession of the "commanding heights" of the economy away from Yeltsin era oligarchs, the Putin/Medvedev team (or the Medvedev/Putin team, as you will) may now be ready to privatize again on a broader basis--and with fresh capital from abroad.
"The problem," he says, "is that most of the people listening to the speech in the Kremlin’s St. George Hall on Thursday--especially those who sat in the first row--are the very ones who have gained the most from the raw materials-based economy and imperfect democracy that Medvedev criticized so harshly. How will Medvedev possibly be able to overcome the powerful clan in the government and Kremlin that is most interested in continuing the anti-modernization status quo?"
Two trends of Russian government policy seem to be shifting, as witnessed by President Medvedev's major address today in Moscow. The first is the tendency in recent years for government to punish those individuals and companies deemed guilty of economic misbehavior. Now, it seems, the Kremlin is taking a more free market approach.
In foreign policy--connected to business, as well--the Kremlin seems eager once again to bring foreign capital back into the country, and to protect it. Russian leadership also seems to be warming a bit to the U.S., and cooling to Iran.
At least that is the interpretation many are putting on the fairly general statements in the Medvedev speech. See the following report from Stratfor:
Thursday, November 12, 2009
A Speech, the Russian Economy and U.S. Relations
"AS RUSSIAN PRESIDENT DMITRI MEDVEDEV was preparing to make his second State of the State address on Thursday, some major shifts in Russian domestic and foreign policy appeared to be taking place. Those shifts seemed destined to affect not only the speech, but Russia as a whole."
Russia Blog presents up-to-date news, facts and commentary on the state of events in Russia and the former Soviet Union. The blog is managed by Yuri Mamchur, Director of Discovery Institute's Real Russia Project, a member of MBA class 2011 at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, and a composer in his spare time.
Back in 1974 Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik introduced an amendment to a trade law with the purpose of punishing the Soviet Union and other communist countries for the denial of emigration rights to their citizens. At the time it was a justified decision, but in case someone forgot the evil empire has been gone since 1991. Unfortunately, for one of its former parts which never had any emigration restrictions, the Russian Federation, the Jackson-Vanik amendment remains in force. Strictly speaking, the amendment has been a dead letter since 1994 due to a ritual of annual Presidential waivers based on humiliating compliance reviews. Yet it continues to be a constant irritant in U.S.-Russia relations, and therefore should be repealed for good without further delay. It is easier said than done as both the Clinton and Bush administrations tried to get rid of this amendment but failed miserably since the U.S. Congress has the authority to act and refuses to go along.
This publication tries to debunk some popular, but misguided, views on demographic trends in today's Russia. These consist of the perception that Russia is in a demographic "death spiral" that dooms it to national decline (
Barack Obama is not the only leader trusting in government "stimulus" to revive an economy. Prime Minister 
In a strange twist of history, 
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev voiced the growing infuriation of media and common people. Russians, weathered by endless wars and recent terrorist attacks, have patience and understanding when it comes to investigating a train explosion. But the nation has no patience whatsoever for the deaths caused by “sheer stupidity and carelessness” (in words of Dmitry Medvedev). Four owners and managers of the Lame Horse have been arrested. During the holiday season, every single public venue across Russia will be checked by local fire departments and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The fire at the Lame Horse painfully reminds the 2003 
