May 22, 2008
The Editors apologize for delaying this publication (originally submitted on May 22, 2008).
Igor Shuvalov, Russia's new Deputy Prime Minister
Government. Putin has his new government. There are two 1st deputies: Viktor Zubkov and Igor Shuvalov (the latter will act for Putin in his absence); 5 Deputies: Sergey Sobyanin, Aleksandr Zhukov (a 1991 graduate of Harvard Business School who is fluent in English), Sergey Ivanov, Igor Sechin and Aleksey Kudrin. A “presidium” has been created of these plus the foreign, interior, defence, health and social development, agriculture and regional development ministers. In short: deputies, power ministers and national project ministers. Sergey Shoygu remains Emergency Situations Minister: he has held this position since 1991(!), through everything, and is consistently one of the most popular leaders in the country.
Speculation. The new government has sparked off effusions of neo-Kremlinology in which, as usual, commentators find evidence to support their pre-existing theories. I regard neo-Kremlinology as a waste of time for the following reasons. We do not yet know how the diumvirate will operate but their speeches all stress one thing: when Putin came to power I believe he saw his work in four main headings: tighten central control, improve the economy, improve Russia’s standing in the world and introduce “rule of law” (more a “rule of rules” I think). He was reasonably successful in the first three but there has been little progress in the fourth. It appears to be the chief emphasis of Medvedev and Putin today, at least in their speeches.
President Dimitri Medvedev: "legal nihilism" is one of Russia's biggest problems
Corruption. In keeping with his oft-repeated theme of combating Russia’s “legal nihilism”, Medvedev has called for the development of a national anti-corruption plan. One assumes he will make this the keystone of his term.
Support for the “Putin plan”. Poverty reduction is another theme of the duumvirate (and not unconnected with the corruption problem either) and RosStat produced some numbers on the progress made. In 2007 13.4% of the population (18.9 million) were reported under the poverty line; this down from 15.2% (21.5 million) in 2006 and 17.7% (25.2 million) in 2005. Still a very high levels of poverty, but real improvement. Reflecting these improvements, VTsIOM finds that the number of Russians who consider themselves to be happy has grown to 77% from 60% in the past decade while the unhappy group has declined from 25% to 15%.
A quick look at this site suggests that these results are comparable with those of other countries, even a bit higher. What many, many commentators cannot (or will not) understand is that the real reason for the general acceptance in Russia of the “Putin Plan” is not that the Kremlin controls people’s thoughts or “crushes dissent” but because most Russians can see, every day, that it has brought them personal benefits. Most other post-Soviet states do not have this generally high level of support and agreement with the course of the authorities. It’s not actually all that complicated.
Politkovskaya murder. There have been some developments in the last week. Two of the nine suspects have been released from custody and Rustam Makhmudov, whom the authorities suspect actually murdered her, has been put on an international wanted list. The Editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, the paper for which she worked, has expressed confidence in the progress of the investigation: it is on “the right track”. It should be remembered that mob hits are very hard to bring to trial: cut-outs protect the one who gave the orders, the hitters are expendable and witnesses are threatened or killed.
Ukraine-Russia. The results of a poll in March taken in Ukraine and Russia has some interesting results. Ukrainians liked Russians more than the reverse: 88% to 55%. 20% of Ukrainians wanted a single state while 19% of Russians did (so much for that endlessly-repeated klyukva that “Russians yearn for the return of their empire”). On the other hand, 67% of Ukrainians and 57% of Russians want two independent and friendly countries. And finally, 60% of Ukrainians said Ukraine’s accession to NATO would be a threat to Russia's security, but only 44% of Russians agreed. (Johnson's Russia List/2008/94/33).
Georgian spy. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) claims it has arrested a Georgian agent. He is Ramzan Turkoshvili , a Kist, who, he said on TV on Saturday, was recruited to establish contacts with Wahhabi jihadists in Ingushetia. Maybe true and maybe not (although Tbilisi has yet to explain the invasion of Abkhazia in 2001 by Ruslan Gelayev’s forces). But the rhetorical level is again very high between Moscow and Tbilisi with accusations back and forth every day.
Kazakhstan-Russia border. A Russian official has stated that the 7000 kilometer-long border will be fully marked starting next year. The border was formally agreed to in January 2005 and now it must be moved “from the map onto the ground”. One of the more fatuous charges against Moscow in the 1990s was that it hadn’t agreed to borders with its neighbours. Establishing borders take a lot of time, detailed and finicky negotiations and a lot of money; it cannot be done by waving a wand.
Patrick Armstrong received a PhD from Kings College, University of London, England in 1976 and began working for the Canadian government as a defence scientist in 1977. He was Political Counsellor for the Canadian Embassy in Moscow from 1993 to 1996. He has been a frequent speaker at the Wilton Park conferences in the UK.
