Russia, politics and power: internal & external(new title)
Moderator's Note
This is a merged thread after a review; a Russian military thread remains intcat and a few historical threads.
http://www.citypaper.ee/paper/articles/1841/
Quote:
Pundits are offering theories that Putin’s Munich speech reflects Russia’s desire to re-establish the lost grandeur of the Soviet times and bring Estonia and other prodigal sons back under the Russian sphere of influence. That’s what the local pundits say. But if you ask us, there’s little more annoying than having everything interpreted for us simply because we’re too lazy to read. Why not read Mr. Putin’s entire speech and make up your own mind? Visit
http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2...9_118135.shtml
RU - Ultranationalists Shift to Terror Tactics
ISN Security Watch, 12 Apr 07: Ultranationalists Shift to Terror Tactics
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...There have been documented cases of employees of Russian nuclear facilities stealing enriched uranium and plutonium. There was also one case in which a Russian nuclear physicist stowed away his own stash of plutonium before retiring "just in case" he might need it. In comparison, Vlasov's case represents a dangerous phenomenon: Here, a veteran of the Russian nuclear industry has committed a grave crime based on his racist beliefs, rather than greed...
....Vlasov's act also raises grave concerns given the emerging trend of increasingly violent ultranationalism - a trend that once only included an arsenal with metal bars, knives and other individual weapons, but has lately grown to include more lethal weapons, such as explosives as well as mercury....
...agencies must diversify their counterterrorism efforts to focus not only on jihadist groups based in the North Caucasus, as is now the case, but also on the increasing propensity for terrorism among ultranationalist groups with special attention paid to the prevention of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks by xenophobic and other ideologically motivated insiders.
In particular, increasing use of terrorist methods by individual ultranationalists and groups requires urgent joint action and coordination between counterterrorism, anti-extremism units of national law-enforcement agencies and security services and those units which monitor personnel and general security at nuclear facilities....
The SOVA Center is a Russian NGO with a particular focus on this topic.
Russia to Increase Military Might and Spy Efforts
26 July AP via NY Times - Russia to Increase Military Might and Spy Efforts.
Quote:
President Vladimir V. Putin said Wednesday that he intended to strengthen Russia’s military capacity and to step up spying abroad in response to plans by the United States to build missile defense sites and deploy troops in Central Europe.
“The situation in the world and internal political interests require the Foreign Intelligence Service to permanently increase its capabilities, primarily in the field of information and analytical support for the country’s leadership,” Mr. Putin said at a meeting with senior military and security officers in remarks that were posted on the Kremlin’s Web site...
Il a besoin des cornes...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dominique R. Poirier
Where are his horns, Dominique?
Mama Bouchet (mother of my role model native Cajun, Bobby Bochet) would say, "Putin is de debble!"
Tom :D
Police officers in Russia’s diplomatic missions abroad
Spies in the Russian Embassy you say ?
Russia's Daily On-Line Kommersant reports "Putin Sets Up Police Attaché Positions in Russian Embassies".
Quote:
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decree establishes positions for police officers in Russia’s diplomatic missions abroad, said RIA Novosti news agency with reference to the president’s press service.
The total number of Interior Ministry officials and their deputies is restricted to 41 people. The decree states the police officers in the embassies abroad will cooperate with their foreign colleagues in the struggle against transnational crimes.
EC May Ban Gazprom Investments
Maybe there's still hope that the EU will actually 'bite' this time around with all the howling they continue to do. Russia's recent threats "No more cheap gas for Russia's neighbors" to increase gas prices to the Baltic States by 40% didn't come as much of a surprise here.
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In a few days Russia is to commence talks over gas prices with Latvia and Estonia, and in October with Belarus and Ukraine. Lithuanian distributors have already received offers to buy Gazprom gas at $280 per 1,000 cubic meters (the current price is $190). The same price is going to apply to the other Baltic countries. Belarus is most likely to pay $125-150 for Russian gas in 2008 (it is paying $100 now). The price for Ukraine is expected to be raised to $180 from the present $130.
Currently, Russia's closest neighbors, former Soviet republics, are paying about 40-70% of the average European price. And these prices are set by the market, not by the gas monopoly.
But the EC's latest decisions were indeed a welcomed surprise.
Quote:
The ban will last as long as Russia keeps closed its crude oil/gas production for the EU companies. The current laws of EU prohibit any discrimination of investors for reasons of nationality. What's more, EU cannot pursue the special economic policy in respect of Russia without jeopardizing its own principals of free economy. The draft of new energy laws of the EU will be promulgated September 19.
Russian elite power struggle?
RAD, 2 Oct 07: Political Opposition in Russia
The Russian Analytical Digest is a bi-weekly internet publication jointly produced by the Research Centre for East European Studies [Forschungsstelle Osteuropa] at the University of Bremen and the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). It is supported
by the Otto Wolff Foundation and the German Association for East European Studies (DGO). The Digest draws on contributions to the German-language Russlandanalysen, the CSS analytical network on Russia and Eurasia, and the Russian Regional Report . The Russian Analytical Digest covers political, economic, and social developments in Russia and its regions, and looks at Russia’s role in international relations.
Russian elite power struggle?
Russian ex-KGB chief warns secret elite over feud - Reuters.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - The former head of the Soviet KGB warned on Wednesday that a conflict between rival Russian security services could lead to "big trouble" and urged feuding clans to unite around President Vladimir Putin.
Details have emerged of a feud between rival groups of secret service officers who form the bedrock of Putin's team. Observers warn it could split the ruling elite at a critical time when Putin is preparing to leave office.
The battle came to light this month after agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB), controlled by Nikolai Patrushev, arrested senior officers from the anti-drugs service, controlled by Viktor Cherkesov, for corruption and abuse of office ...
Mark Ames at the Exile has a longer, more detailed take with extensive background. He sees the feud as perhaps leading to a collapse of the current dominance of the siloviki over the Russian system, just as the Yeltsin-era oligarchal system gave way to the rule of Putin and his security-service brethren.
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Something big is happening in the world of Russian power. And it ain't pretty.
Two weeks ago, Viktor Cherkesov, the don of one of the main siloviki clans, published an open letter in Kommersant. Reports in the English-language press focused on how unusual it was for a silovik to take his problems public in the Putin Era--particularly a silovik of Cherkesov's stature. As head of the Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency, Cherkesov essentially runs a kind of FSB-2. And given the recent slew of high-profile arrests, along with Cherkesov's open letter, it looks as though FSB-2 is at war with FSB-1.
It's fitting that this war comes exactly 10 years after the outbreak of the Banker's War under Yeltsin, when the oligarchs divided into two mortal enemy camps in the fight over the last of Russia's unprivatized spoils. On one side of the Banker's War were Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky; and on the other side, the "baby billionaire" (to use the Washington Post's Fred Hiatt's own words) Vladimir Potanin and his men-in-power, the so-called "young reformers" headed by Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, and Alexander Kokh. When the Berezovsky-Gusinsky clan felt cheated out of the privatization of Russia's telecommunications giant Svyazinvest, they took their war to the media, which they largely controlled through television stations ORT and NTV, as well as to the Russian security services, which they used to drudge up damaging kompromat. The end result of the Banker's War was the end of the oligarchy itself. Within a year of their feud, they and the system that made them collapsed.
Cherkesov warned in his letter that this very same suicidal scenario is playing out all over again today: as we near the end of the halcyon Putin Era, the once seemingly monolithic siloviki have divided into two warring camps struggling over power and assets. In one camp is the Cherkesov Clan, FSB-2; in the other, the clan headed by the FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev and his Kremlin allies led by the Presidential Administration deputy and Rosneft chief Igor Sechin. "We must not allow scandals and infighting," Cherkesov wrote in Kommersant. "There can be no winners in this war... There is too much at stake." He argued that not only would both clans lose, but the system built up in Putin's reign, the "corporatism" which Cherkesov argued has saved Russia from chaos, would go down with it.
If the "corporatist" system collapses, then it's back to chaos, just as the Banker's War ended in 1998 with the financial collapse and end of "liberal reforms ..."
These werewolves in epaulettes
The Moscow Times reports "Putin scolded Cherkesov in Kommersant for publicly airing dirty laundry but on Oct. 20 created a new state committee to fight illegal drugs and named Cherkesov as its chief."
KGB Vets Call for End to Turf War
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A group of retired senior KGB officials have called on the country's security services to end a turf war between competing agencies that has turned into a bitter public conflict.
In an open letter published Wednesday in the ultranationalist newspaper Zavtra, the retired officials -- including General Vladimir Kryuchkov, the last KGB chief -- warned security services of the consequences of infighting.
Security services should be a source of stability in the country, not one of discord that can be exploited by "foreign and domestic destructive forces," they wrote.