Don't miss the annual World Russian Forum. The 2008 Forum will be held at the US Congress 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. Please, see the extended post for the event agenda. Truly yours, Yuri Mamchur, will be a speaker in the panel "Russian Diaspora in 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 Congress

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.

Here's some more thorough coverage.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..."

Click on the extended post to read more excerpts.

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).

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...

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.

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.

This article was submitted by our reader David Habakkuk as an extended comment on Patrick Armstrong's Russia Blog article More Questions Than Can Be Answered.

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.

Click on the extended post to read more.