Arizona Senator John McCain is the Republican candidate for President
Note to Russia Blog readers: This article was originally published earlier today in the Moscow Times. Dr. Edward Lozansky is the organizer of the World Russian Forum, which is now underway May 19-20, 2008 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. -The Editors
The three presumed U.S. presidential candidates rarely mention Russia. When they do, their remarks are critical -- possibly because they are hoping to attract a few more votes from the numerous and well-organized ethnic communities from Ukraine, the Baltics and East Europe.
Still, Senator John McCain stands alone. McCain, the Republican hopeful with a good shot of winning the election, has practically included Russia in a new axis of evil, along with North Korea, China and Iran. McCain's advisers are openly lambasting President George W. Bush for being too chummy with President Vladimir Putin and promise that Moscow will be treated a lot more harshly in a McCain presidency.
Don't miss the annual World Russian Forum. The 2008 Forum will be held at the US Capitol in Washington D.C. on May 19-20. Please, visit the Russia House website to find out more about the forum and register for the event. Also see the extended post for the event agenda. Yours truly, Yuri Mamchur, will be a speaker on the panel "Russian Diaspora in the U.S and Its Role in Bolstering U.S. - Russian Relations."
"WORLD RUSSIAN FORUM 2008"
RUSSIA - USA
Towards Economic, Political and Military Alliance
May 19-20, 2008 Washington, DC
United States Capitol
The title of the film (Cargo 200) is a reference to the zinc-lined coffins that brought the bodies of dead Soviet soldiers back from Afghanistan during the 1980s
One year ago, Alexei Balabanov's Gruz 200 was released in Russia to packed theaters and mixed reviews. While it did not prove to be a box office smash, considering its gruesome content, it enjoyed modest commercial success. The film's director, Alexei Balabanov, was previously known in Russia for Guy Ritchie-inspired shoot em' up crime flicks, such as Zhmurki whose ironic taglines, ("for those who survived the Nineties") reminded Russians of the chaos and humiliation their nation in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But suddenly, with the release of Gruz 200, even The Wall Street Journal, which has tended to be overwhelmingly negative in its reporting about Russia, stood up and took notice of Balabanov's scathing depiction of life under Soviet Communism.
AND THE WINNER IS...ZENIT ST. PETERSBURG Russian Club Beats Rangers, Takes UEFA Cup
Mike Wussow
Warming up for the final. Zenit puts one of four past Bayern Munich keeper and heralded German national team veteran, Oliver Kahn. The semi-final win gave Zenit a ticket to face Rangers.
For only the second time in history, football's UEFA Cup belongs to a Russian club.
Despite facing a sometimes stout Rangers' defense, Zenit St. Petersburg controlled all but spurts of a game that saw Zenit win 2-0 against Glasgow's (Scotland) Rangers. The game was played in Manchester, England, at the City of Manchester Stadium.
Rangers fans, who reports say filled two-thirds of the stadium, watched in agony as
Igor Denisov and Konstantin Zyryanov, with goals in the 72nd minute and injury-time, respectively, sealed the victory for Zenit. Rangers, despite their many successes, including winning this year's Scottish League Cup, haven't won the European prize in more than three decades. Zenit St. Petersburg won the Russian league title last year.
This article appeared in the May 19, 2008 edition of The Nation, and is republished with The Nation's kind permission.
None of the remaining presidential candidates have seriously addressed, or even seem fully aware of, what should be our greatest foreign policy concern--Russia's singular capacity to endanger or enhance our national security. Overshadowed by the US disaster in Iraq, Moscow's importance will continue long after that war ends.
Despite its diminished status following the Soviet breakup in 1991, Russia alone possesses weapons that can destroy the United States, a military-industrial complex nearly America's equal in exporting arms, vast quantities of questionably secured nuclear materials sought by terrorists and the planet's largest oil and natural gas reserves. It also remains the world's largest territorial country, pivotally situated in the West and the East, at the crossroads of colliding civilizations, with strategic capabilities from Europe, Iran and other Middle East nations to North Korea, China, India, Afghanistan and even Latin America. All things considered, our national security may depend more on Russia than Russia's does on us.
Armored personnel carriers and trucks rehearse for Victory Day on Tverskaya near the Kremlin, April 29, 2008
For most international observers, the big story of Victory Day 2008 in Moscow is the revival of the Soviet tradition of parading heavy military equipment through Red Square. For most Russians, however, today is a well deserved day off, and it will be the most beloved holiday on the national calendar before Christmas and New Years.
Today, hundreds of thousands in Russia will be participating in public events across the country to thank surviving World War II veterans for their service, and to remember the millions who died to rid the world of Nazism.
Click on the extended post to read more thoughts and watch more YouTube videos about Victory Day.
Dmitry Medvedev during the inauguration ceremony in Kremlin
President Medvedev. Yesterday Dmitriy Medvedev was sworn in as President (watch the video and the photos). His speech, almost all domestically focused, hit the themes of economic modernization, social security and “legal nihilism”. The tacit message was, as it has been, that continuity was assured. He did use the phrase “our great Russia” – it will be amusing to see how many news outlets focus their attention on that.
Prime Minister Putin. Putin was confirmed today by the Duma (the Communists voted against him) and his speech too focussed on domestic matters: increasing the capital – in all senses of the word – of Russia. It is clear that Medvedev’s and Putin’s program is to concentrate on what might be termed qualitative improvements in Russia’s domestic situation. Of course, in this sinful world, external events can arise ex nihilo and dominate the conversation.
Putin's Last Day As President... And First Day as Prime Minister
Charles Ganske
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's farewell ceremony coincided with the Victory Day holiday Russia
Click on the extended post to watch another Russia Today TV video about the end of Mr. Putin's pivotal...and controversial...eight year term in the Russian presidency.
Interview with Henry Kissinger on the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations
Charles Ganske
As U.S. Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, Henry Kissinger negotiated arms control agreements between the USA and USSR and the establishment of diplomatic relations between America and mainland Communist China. In this video the elderly diplomat sits down for a twenty minute interview with Russia Today TV and describes his vision of U.S.-Russia relations in the 21st century.
This week Newsweek world affairs columnist Fareed Zakaria has provided the cover story for that magazine's issue: "The Post American World", with excerpts from his new book of the same title. Here are a few quotes from Zakaria's article "The Rise of the Rest" pertinent to U.S.-Russia relations in an era of unprecedented globalization and prosperity.
On the Need to Give the BRIC Countries a Stake in Solving Global Problems
"American parochialism is particularly evident in foreign policy. Economically, as other countries grow, for the most part the pie expands and everyone wins. But geopolitics is a struggle for influence: as other nations become more active internationally, they will seek greater freedom of action. This necessarily means that America's unimpeded influence will decline. But if the world that's being created has more power centers, nearly all are invested in order, stability and progress. Rather than narrowly obsessing about our own short-term interests and interest groups, our chief priority should be to bring these rising forces into the global system, to integrate them so that they in turn broaden and deepen global economic, political, and cultural ties.
"If China, India, Russia, Brazil all feel that they have a stake in the existing global order, there will be less danger of war, depression, panics, and breakdowns. There will be lots of problems, crisis, and tensions, but they will occur against a backdrop of systemic stability. This benefits them but also us. It's the ultimate win-win..."
Russian Federation Weekly Situation Report May 2, 2008
Patrick Armstrong
The transition. What seems to be happening is that governing powers – formerly almost all of which were concentrated in the Presidential Administration these past several years – are being reassigned. A draft law has appeared that will delegate some of the central government’s responsibilities to lower levels of government and some powers are apparently being shifted from the Presidential Administration to the government.
Meanwhile there are personnel changes that look like some of Putin’s people moving over the government side to be ready for his arrival. I reiterate that it is still too early to know what The Plan is, but all this seems to support the hypothesis that Putin (and company) are setting up a certain division of powers between the Presidential Administration and the government. If (and this is a big if) this works in practice, it would be a good step: separation of powers is one of the secrets of successful governments.
Peak Oil? Or High Taxes?. Two weeks ago I quoted a Russian oil executive saying that Russian production had peaked; this week the CEO of Gazprom Neft says that he expects Russian production to continue to increase until the middle of the century (assuming that the industry gets the tax structure he thinks it ought to have).
"Moscow Never Sleeps (Moscow I Love You)" by DJ Smash and Fast Food Москва никогда не спит (Я люблю тебя Москва) Moskva Ni Kagda Speet (Ya Lyublu Tibiya Moskva)
Now instead of having to wave Communist flags every year on May 1, young Russians can take advantage of their day off for other pursuits...like getting stuck in Moscow traffic at 3 a.m. with all the other club-goers looking for something to eat...
Russian Federation Weekly Situation Report April 24 2008
Patrick Armstrong
DEMOGRAPHICS. The demographic picture in Russia continues to improve: RosStat claims 273,700 births in January and February (up 12.8% over the previous year) and 368,200 deaths (up 4.1%). A bill to restrict abortion advertising has been proposed and a Duma deputy gave some numbers here: in 2006 there were one and a half million abortions (40.3 per 1000 women) in Russia, down from the two million in 2002 (54.2 per 1000 women). So, this statistical evidence suggests that the various pro-natalist programs are having an effect. We don’t know yet, of course, whether the programs actually are leading to more children, or just encouraging Russian women to have their babies sooner. New data coming in over the next few years will tell us.
INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE. More trouble. The head of the main investigative unit was fired; corruption being given as the reason. The usual rumors abound.
Video clip from a Russian Orthodox Church Easter service
Today is the day that Orthodox Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. From Russia Blog to all of our readers around the world, Happy Easter and best wishes for the spring and summer of 2008!
Click here to read the post "Easter in a Russian Town". For a recipe to make kuhlich, a traditional Russian Easter cake, click here (just don't scrimp on the powdered cane sugar, even if you've been told that it does not exist in Russia!).
Currently I am in Almaty, Kazakhstan at the Eurasian Media Forum 2008. Today, I participated in the panel addressing the perceptions of the the Western media in its coverage of Russia, and the possibility of the return of the Cold War. The Eurasian Media Forum has gathered 600 distinguished participants, such as, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, his daughter Dr. Dariga Nazarbaeva, Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Dr. Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation, Mikhail Leontiev from "Odnako", Margarita Simonyan and Kevin Owen from Russia Today TV, multiple ambassadors, ministers, journalists, reporters and policy makers.
Please, view the extended post for the full agenda of the conference, and come back soon to view the photos of the conference and to read the new RRP report on the Stereotypes that Western media practices in its coverage of Russia. The report was prepared for the Forum and is available in print to those at the venue.
Interview with Edward Lozansky, President of the World Russian Forum
(and Senior Fellow of the Real Russia Project).
Originally published in Washington Profile on April 18, 2008
Q.: The month of May is not far off, and in that month Washington will host the next World Russian Forum, a traditional event on Capitol Hill. Incidentally, what number will it be?
Lozansky: The twenty-seventh. The first one took place in May 1981, and ever since U.S. Congress generously provides one of its best auditoriums for this event. This is despite the fact that Russia is portrayed by the media as a very bad boy these days. Needless to say that we are extremely grateful to Congress for doing this.
Click on the extended post to read the rest of the interview.
A Russia Today TV segment featuring interviews with the New York Sun and Slate magazine writer Edward Jay Epstein and Russian parliamentarian Andrei Lugovoi
On the absurdity of suggesting that his KGB past necessarily damns Putin, while taking on trust anything said by other ex-Chekists like Alexander Litvinenko, Oleg Gordievsky, Vasili Mitrokhin or Oleg Kalugin, Patrick Armstrong is, as so often, an immensely refreshing voice of sanity.
Uncritical acceptance of claims by Gordievsky about how Litvinenko died is particular bizarre -- given that he has made different and incompatible claims at different times, so as a simple point of logic some of what he has claimed has to be false. A further curious feature of Gordievsky's accounts, however, is that much of what he has claimed directly contradicts central elements of what has become the official British version of Litvinenko's death. And in fact, while one would be ill-advised to take anything Gordievsky says at face value, some of what he has claimed fits in distinctly better with the publicly available evidence than the official version does.
Indeed, some of Gordievsky's claims turn out to fit surprisingly well with Edward Jay Epstein's argument that the British request for Lugovoi's extradition was not a bona-fide move to bring a guilty man to justice, but an attempt to prevent any awkward questions from being raised about Litvinenko's activities in London.
One of the Real Russia Project fellows has discovered the existence of a hidden community in the depths of Siberia. His film was aired by English Al Jazeera. Please, take a look at this extraordinary video. The film is about people who have chosen to live in the kind of place most would be desperate to escape from. The town is called Yeniseysk 15 and used to be a secret Soviet military base, but was closed down by Mikhail Gorbachev when the Soviet Union began to collapse. Now, Yeniseysk 15 is being repopulated...
At the moment this post was published, the oil price, according to Bloomberg, was $114.85 per barrel. Russia has profited handsomely from higher world energy prices, but has also experienced inflation as a result of the flood of petrodollars
Putinology Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin is now Chairman of United Russia, the political structure (I’m not sure I would call it a real “party”) that dominates Russia. But, oddly enough, he hasn’t formally become a member. While we still can’t be sure what Putin's Plan is, this would seem to point in the direction of my fifth hypothesis. He also apparently said he would become the Prime Minister of Russia if (!) asked. The next five or eight months will tell us more about what he has in mind.
Peak Oil?. The Financial Times quotes a vice president of LUKoil as saying that Russian oil production has peaked this year. Maybe so, but the End of Oil has been predicted many times and historically, this has been a bad bet. I believe that the first prediction that the world would run out is over a century old and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency famously predicted in the 1980s that Soviet production had peaked. Post Soviet Russia, separated from oil rich republics like Kazahkstan and Azerbaijan, briefly surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer in 2006.
A popular design for a souvenir t-shirt in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Certain think tanks inside the Washington D.C. Beltway might want to consider stocking up on these for their future Russia-related events…
There is a popular saying: “A fool can ask more questions than ten wise men can answer”. What the expression means is that it is much easier to assert something than it is to refute it. A great deal of the commentary on Russia these days is little more than a brief for the prosecution: a list of easily made assertions that can only be refuted with difficulty. A recent piece provides a good example. I will not identify the author of this jeremiad except to say that he is an academic (X, we’ll call him or her) and the piece was published by a respected institution and an earlier version was published in a major newspaper. In any case, anyone who knows his way around Google can find the original quite easily. The piece is a cascade of easily-made accusations, many of which do not stand up to scrutiny. But, refutations of X’s throw-away lines are difficult and time-consuming.
Russia is important. It’s not the most important thing there is, but it’s important enough. It has been a major player in the world for a couple of centuries and there is every indication that it will continue to be. It is therefore of considerable importance to discuss it without clichés and without writing either briefs for the prosecution or briefs for the defence. It would be a grave disservice to ourselves and our descendents to make policy towards Russia based on “bumper sticker” analysis: loaded and imprecise words (all taken from X’s piece) like “belligerence”, “self-righteousness”, “authoritarian”, “cunning”, “menace”, “brutally” are poor preparations for actually dealing with the real Russia.
Grigory Yavlinsky, the most prominent liberal in Russian politics (photo by AP)
Bush-Putin Meeting. Contrary to expectations, there appears to have been no breakthrough on the contentious issues of NATO expansion or missile defense at the Russian President's retreat in Sochi.
Hubris and the Limits of Russia's Revival. There is no doubt that Putin’s two terms have been remarkably successful: eight years ago, many observers were ready to write Russia off completely (examples here, here, and here) and Putin (with some help from higher world commodity prices) has managed to improve Russia's leading economic and social indicators. But nevertheless Russia is not really very strong: its GDP is still somewhere around the same as Canada’s (even with four or five times the population); poverty is widespread; Russian infrastructure is inadequate; corruption is omnipresent; its economic importance is principally as an energy supplier; its armed forces, though large, are not very competitive; it has no real allies; and most of its neighbours would prefer it to be located somewhere else.
NATO Expansion. Ukraine and Georgia were not offered a path to NATO membership - yet. People like to say that “Moscow has no veto on NATO membership”. This has always struck me as fatuous: who says that it has one? It also implies that NATO’s purpose is to do the opposite of what Moscow wants. Which is a rather foolish modus operandi. If NATO has any purpose, it is surely to ensure the security of its members. That security will not be increased by treating Russia as an enemy.
US-Russia Relations. The atmospherics continue to sound good; Putin’s press secretary is hinting that some sort of document will be signed when Bush and Putin (and the next Russian President, Dimitry Medvedev, apparently) meet in Sochi on Sunday, other sources say that some over-arching deal is in the works. We’ll see: the principals have said nice things before but their bureaucracies don’t seem to make things happen.
Arizona Senator John McCain has wrapped up the Republican nomination for President
Last week was a typically schizophrenic one for U.S.-Russia relations. On one hand, we saw outgoing Presidents Bush and Putin agree to meet in the Russian resort city of Sochi in order to address their differences over a proposed American missile defense system in Europe. On the other hand, we saw Arizona Senator John McCain, the Republican candidate to succeed President Bush, argue that Russia should be kicked out of the G-8 club of industrialized nations.
In a speech delivered to the World Affairs Council of Los Angeles on March 26, McCain acknowledged both Russia and China as nations “that wield great influence in the international system”. But while McCain made a point to emphasize that the U.S. and the China were “not destined to be adversaries”, the Senator’s stance versus Russia was decidedly more confrontational.
Presidents Bush and Putin at the White House in 2005
Presidents Bush and Putin became good friends at the beginning of their terms and it looks like both of them are trying to save this friendship despite many negative trends in U.S. – Russian relations. The recent Moscow trip of the two key figures in the Bush cabinet, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and State Secretary Condoleezza Rice did little to soften Russia’s tough stance on further NATO expansion and elements of the NMD systems in Eastern Europe. Therefore, Bush decided unexpectedly as the last resort to make another try by going to meet his pal Vlad in Sochi. The meeting between the two leaders will take place April 6 as Bush is wrapping up a trip to Ukraine, Croatia and the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania.
This looks like a desperate attempt by Bush to do something about his legacy. Given his remarkably low popularity ratings hovering around 30 percent, the appalling situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the financial crisis, and pretty dubious image of the United States in the world, a radiant picture of Bush’s legacy is hardly plausible. So it is extremely important for him to show a thing or two to climb at least a few points higher, to move away from the rock-bottom rating among all U.S. presidents where he is solidly stuck at present.
U.S.-RUSSIA RELATIONS The atmosphere seems to have improved in recent weeks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Washington offered “confidence-building measures” which will apparently allow the Russians to inspect, in some manner not specified, American missile defense installations in Europe to assure Moscow that the system will not be directed against Russia. Bush and Putin are to meet next week in the Russian resort of Sochi after the NATO meeting and we will no doubt learn more then.
Kids walking home from school in Gudermes, Chechnya (Photo by the New York Times)
Many positive political and economic developments are taking place in Moscow. Russia Blog has noticed that many of these events have been ignored since the election of the new Russian President, Dimitry Medvedev. The doom-and-gloom scenario predicted by many Washington think-tanks did not take place, and many scholars and journalists hostile to Russia ran out of negative steam relatively fast.
Serious news reporting about the war-torn Caucasus region of Chechnya has disappeared from the Western media coverage as well. Chechnya and its capital city of Grozny are in far better shape today than they were just three years ago. Nearly half a million Chechen refugees have returned to their homes and nearly 100,000 private businesses have been started in the recovering region. However, terrorism remains a problem, and minor attacks on Chechen and Russian security forces still take place on a weekly basis.
For more detailed reporting and analysis of the terrorist attacks happening in the region, please visit the website of the Russia-Eurasia Daily Watch.
