tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69998112024-03-13T04:27:24.632+00:00A Step At A TimeDavid McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.comBlogger4214125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-14706308428205595422022-02-08T14:32:00.004+00:002022-03-29T13:13:56.603+01:00Finlandization <p><span style="font-size: large;">The Silent Estate? [Vaikeneva valtiomahti?]<br />by Esko Salminen.<br /></span></p><p>Kleio ja nykypäivä. Edita. Helsinki, 1996. 323 pp.<br /></p><p>In this newly-published study, Esko Salminen gives a detailed analysis of the process of 'Finlandization' as it affected the Finnish press and other public media during the period 1968-1991. The book is remarkable in being the first full-length Finnish-language work to deal with the entire history of this delicate subject in all its ramifications, and the author is not afraid to name names and give chapter and verse where necessary. There is a fascinating photographic section, with reproductions of Finnish press reports and photo-reportage.</p><p>The term 'Finlandization' is of German origin (<i>Finnlandisierung</i>), and was first used in 1966 by Richard Löwenthal, Professor of Political Science at the Free University of Berlin, to describe a certain type of domination of a small state by a larger one. The process by which the Soviet Union pressured Finland into accepting a far-reaching control of its public and educational media monitored not directly from Moscow, but via the Soviet Embassy in Helsinki, came to stand throughout the 1970s and 80s as a warning to other Western states as to what might await them as the Soviet Union increased its power and influence over the whole of Europe in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the six parts of his volume, Esko Salminen shows how the development of Finlandization proceeded from events in Finland's immediate postwar history, such as the so-called 'Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance' (<i>YYA-sopimus</i>) that Finland was made to sign with the Soviet Union in 1948. He also demonstrates how the process was inextricably linked with the political careers of three Finnish presidents: Juho Paasikivi, Urho Kekkonen, and Mauno Koivisto. In addition, he gives a full and circumstantial account of the methods by which the Soviet domination of Finland's press and media was implemented, with particular emphasis on the phenomenon of 'self-censorship' (<i>itsesensuuri</i>), whereby strict limitations on freedom of speech and expression were imposed not from outside, but by the Finnish media themselves.</p><p>'Self-censorship', in the way that it was practised in Finland during the 1970s and 80s, has always been difficult for non-Finns to understand. Salminen demonstrates that it was essentially a two-edged weapon, which ultimately rebounded on the Soviets themselves. In the early part of his volume Salminen describes the elaborate arrangements that were made at the Soviet Embassy's press department in Tehtaankatu in order to monitor the columns and editorials of the Finnish newspapers. These arrangements were felt by the Soviet authorities to be necessary, since while it was a relatively simple matter to control and influence the news and information output of Finnish state radio and television, the heterogeneous and traditionally independent nature of the Finnish press made it much more difficult to exert pressure on it. What emerges from Salminen's long and well-documented study of Finlandization as it affected two major news topics - the exiling of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - and from his analysis of Finnish news coverage (or non-coverage) of events in the Baltic States (especially Estonia), is that for many Finnish newspaper editors and journalists, self-censorship was a strategic instrument that was used to preserve press freedom, rather than destroy it. A revealing interview with William Rees-Mogg, former editor of the London<i> Times</i>, one of the Western newspapers that did much to publicize to the rest of the world Finland's problems in the area of information control, shows how this was possible - and also links the specifically Finnish context to a general European one.</p><p>In the post-Cold War era it might be thought that 'Finlandization' and 'self-censorship' would become obsolete concepts. However, Salminen convincingly demonstrates that, having been aggressively active in Finnish political life as recently as 1986, they are still part of the fabric of the Finnish political system - he refers, in particular, to the question of Finland's future membership of NATO, to the silence of the Finnish press on this subject, and to Max Jakobson's lonely foray into the details of this vexed issue in 1996. Above all, Salminen stresses that now that Finland, as a member of the European Union, has provided Europe's first border with Russia, it is incumbent on both Finland and the other European member states to make sure that the 'larger entity' of the Union remains a force for democracy, human rights and freedom of expression. Where the Soviet Union failed, Europe must succeed - for the possibility of a resuscitation of the old order, and of the old rule of fear, cannot be wholly excluded.</p><p><br /></p><p>David McDuff</p><p><br /></p><p>(this article was first published in 1997)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p>David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-1947122786947116172021-11-14T10:47:00.002+00:002021-11-14T12:47:29.182+00:00Welcome to the refugees<p><span face="Spectral, serif, -apple-system, system-ui, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px;">Nicolas Tenzer, on the Poland-Belarus standoff:</span></span></p><p><i style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif, -apple-system, "system-ui", "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 19px;">The use by the criminal regime of Belarus of migrants, who were purposely brought to this country, is one of the worst abominations of recent months. Most of them are people who are persecuted by murderous regimes and are looking for the slightest opportunity to flee and should be considered as refugees. This tactic, which is an exploitation of the misery of human beings, should not make us forget—because it is also one of Lukashenka’s aims—the brutal repression of this illegitimate president against his opponents.</i></p><p><span face="Spectral, serif, -apple-system, system-ui, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol" style="color: #1a1a1a;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 19px;">Read the whole article <a href="https://tenzerstrategics.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-refugees" target="_blank">here</a></span></span></p>David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-32126569774381451282021-10-23T09:48:00.006+01:002021-10-23T14:53:23.387+01:00Russia 'at war' with UK, says former British spy<a href="https://news.sky.com/story/christopher-steele-russia-at-war-with-uk-says-former-british-spy-who-was-left-wedding-rings-threat-12441022">
Russia 'at war' with UK, says former British spy</a> <div><br /></div><div> YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4V0u0EU9ro">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4V0u0EU9ro</a></div>David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-82625103193522290972017-08-30T10:03:00.000+01:002017-08-30T10:25:52.049+01:00Finland and Sweden face Zapad 2017As Russia's Zapad 2017 military exercise across the Baltic Sea approaches, Finland and Sweden feel vulnerable in a new way. Former U.S. ambassador to Sweden Azita Raji comments in the Wall Street Journal:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The current relationship between the U.S. and Russia is eerily evocative of the Cold War, complete with aggressive aircraft interceptions, harassment at sea, and diplomatic expulsions. But there are significant, consequential differences between America’s relationship with the Soviet Union and with the Russian Federation.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Today’s situation is more perilous, made so by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sense of grievance and revenge. Alliances have shifted too. The nations of the Warsaw Pact dissolved that treaty and most then joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. What remains of the nonaligned bloc is more nostalgic whimsy than an influential group of nations.</blockquote>
More <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-cold-war-with-scandinavia-1503961052" target="_blank">here</a>.David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-59269935989893161472017-08-26T12:06:00.001+01:002017-08-26T12:06:33.420+01:00Russia and its Conflict with IslamAt Hoover Institution, an <a href="http://www.hoover.org/research/russia-wrestles-islam" target="_blank">excerpt </a>from Robert Service''s upcoming Hoover Press book <i>Russia and its Islamic World</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is widely assumed that Russian foreign and domestic policies operate quite independently of each other. This is not the way to make sense of Russia and its Islamic world. Not the least of the reasons is that the manner in which the Kremlin treats its Muslim citizens is inextricably linked to the manner in which it deals with the neighboring Muslim states of the former Soviet Union. Thus, when Putin is affirming his benign intentions toward Muslims in those states, the question arises about how he is dealing with discontent in the Muslim-inhabited territories of the Russian Federation itself. Nothing gives greater cause for concern than the scorched-earth offensive in Chechnya that he ordered in 1999 when still only Yeltsin’s prime minister.</blockquote>
Read the rest <a href="http://www.hoover.org/research/russia-wrestles-islam" target="_blank">here</a>.David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-21549920606768346822017-07-26T07:23:00.005+01:002017-07-26T07:23:43.621+01:00Multipolarity and Ukraine <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/000_Q06MR-768x520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="768" height="216" src="https://www.kyivpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/000_Q06MR-768x520.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Stephen Blank, in <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/stephen-blank-russias-newest-aggression-ukraine.html" target="_blank">Kyiv Post</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The only sovereignty Moscow recognizes or respects is its own. It certainly does not believe itself to be bound by law, domestic or international. Neither does it consider itself obliged to follow UN resolutions that are against its interests. Instead, as Condoleezza Rice wrote a decade ago, the doctrine of multipolarity leads to a world based on force where the strong do what they can and the smaller states suffer what they must accept. i.e. a world ruled by unbounded force.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Indeed, Russia’s continuing resort to force in its peripheries expresses many important truths about the nature of Putin’s regime. First, it shows that the resort to war to resolve political rivalries continues to be the regime’s logical conclusion to the denial of post-Soviet states’ sovereignty and the aspiration for territorial and imperial aggrandizement. Indeed, empire or what one might call imperial circuses has become the raison d’etre of the Putin regime since it cannot and will not give its people bread.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Imperial aggrandizement and adventures reinforce the narrative of Russia’s greatness and condition of being surrounded by enemies while also fortifying the notion of Putin as a powerful statesman whom the West fears and Russia as a similarly great and feared power. But this not merely a cynical propaganda ploy. The regime actually believes it is in a state of long-term multi-dimensional war with the West even though no shots are being fired by the two sides. Thus Russia acts as if it is and considers itself to be at war with NATO not just the United States.</blockquote>
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David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-91656658828707924232017-07-12T17:30:00.000+01:002017-07-12T17:30:07.393+01:00Irina RatushinskayaI was very sad to hear the news of the passing of the Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaya, some of whose work I translated in the 1980s and 1990s.<br />
<br />
Obituaries have been published in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/09/irina-ratushinskaya-obituary?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">Guardian </a>and the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/irina-ratushinskaya-obituary-hft9z5mvf" target="_blank">Times</a>.<br />
<br />David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-9843491725201241182017-07-10T17:36:00.001+01:002017-07-10T17:36:52.860+01:00Panic and sabotage<div class="tr_bq">
The Russian Reader has published an<a href="https://therussianreader.com/2017/07/10/elena-milashina-in-chechnya-only-the-dead-have-nothing-to-fear/" target="_blank"> English translation</a> of the <a href="https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/05/22/72521-panika-i-sabotazh" target="_blank">Novaya Gazeta article </a>by Elena Milashina, in which she describes the background to the journalistic investigation of evidence of extrajudicial killings in Chechnya:</div>
<blockquote>
On April 20, we handed over to police investigators information about two men who, we had concluded, had been killed during the anti-gay campaign in Chechnya. Our journalistic investigation, in fact, began with attempting to clarify what had happened to these two men</blockquote>
<blockquote>
We sent all information about the murdered men to investigators for their review as soon as we received it. We also gave the Russian Investigative Committee the anonymous testimony of the surviving victims, who had been kept in secret prisons and gone through terrible torture. This testimony aided investigators in independently and successfully establishing the identities of the victims, according to our information.</blockquote>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-83617685043068623242017-06-30T14:30:00.000+01:002017-06-30T14:30:32.078+01:00The Last of the Colonialists<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrrBbtzCdtE6l5Cl0y4LQtlWKowqgzX3CrUSd3wVj6AUY7Q2idcNqpdy4UybxUt4IgEaWUSyp4UToMpukX5qcfsT1YD1lRmqNfERB9q9xUl5EY9-NtFYKvMi70pOvh06zltHo5-A/s1600/siberian+oil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrrBbtzCdtE6l5Cl0y4LQtlWKowqgzX3CrUSd3wVj6AUY7Q2idcNqpdy4UybxUt4IgEaWUSyp4UToMpukX5qcfsT1YD1lRmqNfERB9q9xUl5EY9-NtFYKvMi70pOvh06zltHo5-A/s1600/siberian+oil.jpg" /></a></div>
A remarkable <a href="https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/06/29/russia-last-colonial-empire/" target="_blank">essay</a> in <i>The American Interest </i>by analyst Vladislav Inozemtsev on the last of the great European empires:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To pump more money into the central budget, the Russian leadership continues the economic exploitation of Siberia. The overall share of regional tax revenue accruing to the Siberian government dropped from 51 percent in 1997 to less than 34 percent in 2014—the central government not only introduced new taxes and duties, but created state corporations that operate in Siberia but have their headquarters in Moscow or St. Petersburg, where they pay regional taxes. Therefore, the regional gross product generated in the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg exceeds the regional gross product of the whole area from the Urals to Sakhalin and Kamchatka. Formally, Russian statistics counted only 9.2 percent of the nation’s exports as originating in the Siberian Federal District in 2016, since the official “exporters” are Moscow-based companies. Russian natural gas thus appears to be pumped exclusively inside the Moscow ring road. All this exploitation causes massive underinvestment and the persistence of low living standards in Siberia. With this obsession with “national unity” and “territorial integrity,” which prompts it to hang onto its remaining dependencies at any cost, Russia risks losing, or perhaps ruining, its colony.</blockquote>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-69559010919625079172017-06-23T11:51:00.000+01:002017-06-23T12:57:49.314+01:00Dugin and Klokotov shaped Russia's current anti-Western strategy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcRBpSC19UJk6m5rs1ftgXkKThsDfNGNGjPw7slx3h0QF5XmAd8yMbQC4RTqP0fGQy0BMKQAa0xH2IrzGjK9wTqi9xOjsXJHB-9H40Fbi4qxKu9KjUF1rdSw7idD6sEOFPmIMc4A/s1600/fashist4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcRBpSC19UJk6m5rs1ftgXkKThsDfNGNGjPw7slx3h0QF5XmAd8yMbQC4RTqP0fGQy0BMKQAa0xH2IrzGjK9wTqi9xOjsXJHB-9H40Fbi4qxKu9KjUF1rdSw7idD6sEOFPmIMc4A/s1600/fashist4.jpg" /></a></div>
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An <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/1990s-manifesto-outlining-russias-plans-is-starting-to-come-true/news-story/343a27c71077b87668f1aa783d03032c" target="_blank">article</a> by Charles Firth, published last March on the news.com.au website, makes it clear that the Ukraine war, Brexit and the Trump presidency were in essence planned 20 years ago by Russian strategists Alexander Dugin and Gen. Nikolai Klokotov in the book <i>Foundations of Geopolitics</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let’s start close to Russia. The book argues that Ukraine should - surprise, surprise - be annexed by Russia. “Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.” It goes on to argue that the only use for an independent Ukraine would be to provide a barrier to Europe, but that it’s not necessary.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Next, it turns to Britain. The book’s authors say Russia should encourage Britain to leave the European Union, and thus weaken it. That’s right. Russian strategists were openly arguing in favour of Brexit in 1997, when it was still just a glimmer in Nigel Farage’s eyes.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But perhaps most amazing part of the book is when it calls for Russia to “introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilising internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics.” If that reads like an accurate description of Trump’s inner-circle, again remember that this text was written twenty years ago.</blockquote>
<br />David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-24587682045336436812017-06-20T08:10:00.000+01:002017-06-20T08:11:30.645+01:00Protest Activity Growing in Russia Despite Putin’s Apparent Lack of Attention, Experts SayPaul Goble<br />
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Staunton, June 18 – Protest actions have been increasing in number, size, intensity and subject matter and are likely to continue to do so in the coming months, four Moscow experts assembled by the Finam.ru agency says, despite or perhaps better even because Vladimir Putin seems unaware of or at least unwilling to comment on this trend.<br />
<br />
Taking part in an online conference call entitled “Putin and Russia -- The Recession is Past, the Elections are Ahead,” the four were unanimous in declaring that protest activity was on the rise across the Russian Federation and would continue to increase in the months ahead (finam.ru/analysis/newsitem/eksperty-protestnoe-dvizhenie-budet-narastat-20170616-154024/).<br />
<br />
Olga Pavlenko a specialist on religion and foreign policy at the Russian State Humanities University, says that the protests have arisen and will grow as a result of systematic mistakes by the authorities such as their continued reliance on propaganda that puts young people off, bankruptcies of smaller companies, and the imitation struggle against corruption.<br />
<br />
Pavel Salin, head of the Center for Political Research at the government’s Finance University, agrees but says that it isn’t so much objective conditions that are driving the rise of protests as of the subjective sense among ever more Russians that there are few good prospects for them in the future. Unless the powers address that, there will be massive demonstrations.<br />
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Galina Mikhaleva, another professor at the Humanities University and a Yabloko Party activist, suggests that “the protest movement will gain strength both in response to specific situations such as the long-haul truckers, the victims of renovation, deceived borrowers and depositors, and youth protests.”<br />
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The effects of all these things will feed on one another and be cumulative, and the point has been reached, she argues, that any use of force to try to stop the protests will be counter-productive and radicalize people further.<br />
<br />
And Oleg Reut, who teaches at the North-West Institute of Administration of the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service, says that the failure of the Kremlin to pay much attention to this trend will only give it more time to crystallize and grow – and not lead it to dry up for lack of public attention.<br />
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Posted by paul goble at 1:30 PM<br />
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http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/protest-activity-growing-in-russia.htmlDavid McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-3661663801973502932017-06-20T07:57:00.000+01:002017-06-20T07:57:10.700+01:00Putin May Be Crying ‘Wolf’ Once Too Often, Gudkov SaysPaul Goble<br />
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Staunton, June 12 – After a brief break from its “besieged fortress” rhetoric, the Kremlin has returned to the idea that Russia is surrounded by hostile forces which are seeking to destabilize it in advance of the presidential election in the hopes that it will help Vladimir Putin put down his opponents, mobilize voters and achieve a breakthrough with the West.<br />
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On the Profile portal, Denis Yermakov traces the return of this older line; but at least one Moscow analyst, Lev Gudkov of the independent Levada Center polling group, argues that Putin may have cried “wolf” once too often. At the very least, he says, each new wave of such rhetoric has less impact than its predecessor (profile.ru/politika/item/117809-oboronnoe-bessoznatelnoe).<br />
<br />
“A new foreign policy sharpening like that after the Turkish or Syrian events already will not be viewed by the electorate as was the case earlier,” a reflection of the fact that “every new such factor of the sharp growth in tensions workers ever less and less powerfully,” the Levada Center sociologist continues.<br />
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“One shouldn’t cry ‘wolf’ or ‘fire’ all the time! Citizens are ceasing to react to this. Of course, initially there will be a certain forced consolidation but it will all the same not be as strong as with regard to Crimea or Novorossiya. Then a sharp growth in dissatisfaction and opposite reaction will follow.”<br />
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According to Gudkov’s findings, “the readiness of people to sacrifice something and respond to foreign policy events even with regard to the Ukrainian situation has fallen sharply. If in the spring of 2014, in response to sanctions, 74-75 percent were ready to sacrifice something, then in January 2017, the situation had turned around: more than half (approximately 55 percent) tell us that they aren’t ready” to sacrifice anything.<br />
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Indeed, he says, further demands from the powers that be to make sacrifices for foreign policy goals, even if they are as general as pursuing “the status of a great power … already have the opposite effect,” making Russians less willing to do so. Consequently, Putin’s return to the besieged fortress rhetoric may end by working against him and his interests.<br />
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This pattern will be more true in major cities and less true in rural areas where people rely almost exclusively on television. But given the size of the urban population, its shift against the regime would be profound. Recently, there has been a growth in tensions and a willingness to take part in protests.<br />
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Posted by paul goble at 3:02 PM<br />
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http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/putin-may-be-crying-wolf-once-too-often.htmlDavid McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-8487557771506292102017-06-11T13:35:00.003+01:002017-06-11T13:35:57.733+01:00Moscow Worried Russian ‘Too Obviously Ceasing to Be Language of Majority’ in Ukraine, Shchetkina Says<div class="post hentry uncustomized-post-template" itemprop="blogPost" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting" style="background-color: white; margin: 0px 0px 25px; min-height: 0px; position: relative;">
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by <a href="http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/moscow-worried-russian-too-obviously.html" target="_blank">Paul Goble</a><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Staunton, June 11 – The Kremlin isn’t pleased that the number of Ukrainians who use Russian is declining, but it is far more concerned with something else: the possibility even likelihood that “Russian too obviously is ceasing to be the language of the majority,” according to Kyiv commentator Yekaterina Shchetkina.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> That reflects its understanding of the way it can use the language issue against Ukraine not only now when Moscow’s actions have alienated many Ukrainians from all things Russian but in the future after the war is over and Moscow will again be better positioned to use its “soft power” (</span><a href="http://www.dsnews.ua/society/lishniy-alfavit-kak-nizvesti-russkoyazychnyh-do-diaspory-09062017220000" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;">dsnews.ua/society/lishniy-alfavit-kak-nizvesti-russkoyazychnyh-do-diaspory-09062017220000</a>).</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Moscow’s position on language and Russians in Ukraine is something many Ukrainians do not fully understand, but to the extent they do, Shchetkina says, Ukrainians will see why changing their alphabet from the Cyrillic to the Latin script could ensure Ukraine will pass “the Lagrange limit” between Russia and Europe and become fully part of the latter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Speaking at a recent Livadia conference, Russia’s education minister “expressed concern not so much about ‘the threat to the Russian language’ [in Ukraine] as to the sad fate of the Cyrillic alphabet from which one after another the former republics of the USSR have departed,” the Kyiv commentator says.or them</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The minister’s words reflect a longer view than many are accustomed to adopting, she continues. “The problem of the reduction in the popularity of Russia is of course for them unpleasant, but in principle, it can be reversed. To love or not to love Russian culture, to read or not read Tolstoy is a political question.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> At present, Russia in Ukraine is “’unpopular,’” Shchetkina points out. “But tomorrow, possibly, the situation will change.” And then Moscow will be able to recover its influence in Ukraine through the use of its numerous cultural channels. “Sometime the war will end,” and the larger country will seek to restore its dominance via other means.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Indeed, she says, “the return of Russian to the broad cultural spaces of the post-Soveit countries is completely possible: it is a question of time and a change of the political conjuncture.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> But until that happens, she says, “what is really important now in the language policy of Russia is not to permit ‘the Russian language population’ to be transformed into ‘a Russian diaspora.’ For Russia, at least with regards to Ukraine, a diaspora is a not terribly reliable level of pressure.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Moscow fully understands this and that is why it spend so much time talking about “’the Russian language population’” of Ukraine. It “has never considered this population as a minority, let alone a diaspora.” Instead, the Russian regime does everything it can to blur the limits between Russian speakers and ethnicity.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “By defending ‘the Russian language population,’” she says, Moscow pursues a variety of “hybrid goals,” not least of which is to suggest that Russia is intervening in Ukraine in support of what it views as “’an oppressed majority,’” a conception that lends a certain patina of legitimacy to what Moscow is doing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Consequently, Shchetkina says, “the problem of the Russian language in Ukraine from the point of view of Russia’s ruling clique is not the reduction in its use but that things be arranged so that Russian does not too obviously cease to be the language of the majority.” Thus, Moscow’s concern is about image rather than reality.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> That is why Russian officials today are more concerned about maintaining or restoring the Cyrillic alphabet in the post-Soviet states than they are about the number of Russian speakers. The latter may go up or down, but the shift to Latin script marks a final break with a Moscow-centric world.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “From a political point of view, a shift from Cyrillic to the Latin script is an excellent move,” Shchetkina says. “It guarantees a rapid and radical break with Russia’s information space and its culture as a whole.” That is because “’the linguistic commonality’” of Ukrainian with Polish and Czech “is no less than with Russian.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “But [Ukrainians today] read primarily Russian resources and not Polish ones. A transition to the Latin script would mean that already the next generation, raised on the Latin script would find it easier to read books, news, and social networks easier in Polish or even in English than in Russian.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> According to Shchetkina, “from the point of view of ‘a civilizational project,’ this shift would mark Ukraine’s escape from the orbit of the Russian empire and its move into the embrace of the Pax roman, the civilization formed by Latin.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Obviously, there are and will be many arguments against such a move – including historical ones. But there is an overwhelming political one in favor: “we either will take radical measure [like this] or we will remain forever in ‘a united cultural space’ secured by ‘linguistic commonality.’”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Indeed, the Kyiv commentator says, “the alphabet can play here a key role, significantly more than the presence and number of ‘the Russian-language population.’” Ukrainian and Russian are too similar if they use the same alphabet to ensure that Ukrainian and thus Ukraine will have an independent future.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> But if Ukraine shifts to Latin, that future will be ensured, not only because Ukraine will look westward rather than eastward but also because the Russians who remain in Ukraine will become a real diaspora rather than “’the oppressed majority’” Moscow imagines them to be – and that will make better relations between Ukrainians and Russians there possible as well.</span></div>
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David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-89866208124471103742017-06-10T11:14:00.000+01:002017-06-10T11:16:46.091+01:00Jihad Freelancers <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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http://www.4freerussia.org/jihad-freelancers/<br />
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JIHAD FREELANCERS<br />
jun 08 2017<br />
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by Denis Sokolov<br />
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The demonization of the Russian president as a defender of tyrants and a threat to democracy prevents us from seeing that behind Vladimir Putin’s back, another Leviathan has risen.<br />
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Its backbone is made up of officers of Russia’s intelligence services who retreated after the fall of the USSR into business and politics and emerged into service again with new backgrounds at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s. They merged with the same community as the criminal underworld and field commanders; this community is de facto the collective decision-maker in big business and politics in Russia. It is important that this community is not the state, not a political corporation and not even a conspiracy – it is just a network managed by the invisible hand of the market.<br />
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This is a market of violence where financial flows and political statuses – goods, terrorist acts and local wars with accompanying media – are the business processes; warlords and military professionals are the market participants, and jihadists and other ideological volunteers and mercenaries are the proletariat for whom no other industry has been found. On this market, for the sake of his own interests, a freelancer can organize a terrorist act or provoke a war. The market of violence links two external threats mentioned by President Barack Obama in his farewell speech: terrorists, speaking on behalf of Islam, and autocrats fearing to lose their power. This is how the stock exchange links buyers and sellers.<br />
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“Project Management”<br />
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How did this happen? The early 1990s may be considered a conditional point of reference when unemployed intelligence officers of the collapsed USSR went into criminal business. Already by the mid-1990s, powerful mixed structures had been formed. One of them emerged in St. Petersburg on the basis of the so-called “Tambov” criminal association and groups of former and current Federal Security Service (FSB) officers, some of whom joined the famous Ozero [Lake] Dacha Cooperative. Now it is common to link nearly the entire upper echelon of Russia’s political elite, headed by the president himself with Ozero. The Tambov organized crime group spread its influence throughout a large part of the post-Soviet space. Now the activity of this gang and the people connected to it are actively being investigated in Spain. But a description of the market of violence in criminology terms clearly does not capture the entire scale of the phenomenon.<br />
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The association that by the mid-2000s, after the seizure of YUKOS’ assets, became dominant in Russia and its oil extraction sector is not a classic corporation nor a political party but a complex intertwining of criminal, administrative, professional, kin and friendship ties through which the raw materials rent of Russia is pumped and re-distributed as if through capillaries, extracting for oil alone more than half a billion dollars a day.<br />
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No bureaucracy can control such a network. Therefore, Russian global “initiatives” – from the Olympics in Sochi to the advancement of the Russian World in Europe to the war in the Donbass – are above all, instruments for managing the market – their own kind of interventions. Oligarchs or warlords, depending on the specific nature of the task to resolve, recruit military professionals, bankers, political consultants and even musicians for the accumulation of cash. Some finance the military operation in the Donbass, the building of the Roza-Khutor resort at the Sochi Olympics or a bridge over the Kerch Strait in the Crimea; thanks to this bridge, the construction market in Russia has maintained its size. Others create the Novorossiya Museum in St. Petersburg or provide media support for the war in the Donbass. Still, others give concerts in Palmyra after ISIS leaves.<br />
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In doing so, Moscow has become more and more frequently a hostage to these initiatives and their bold executors, who dictate to the center the political agenda, proceeding from their own economic interests. This relates to the war on terrorism, which has turned into the main political resource of the intelligence services, and to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who tried to become an Islamic leader on a world scale, and to Igor Strelkov (Girkin), who turned the “Russian World” from a cultural into a military project.<br />
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Al-Baghdadi, Kadyrov and Strelkov<br />
<br />
Starting in the late 1990s, the battle against terrorism became the chief policy in the North Caucasus and the centerpiece of the political agenda in Russia, displacing the Chechen war for independence from both the field of battle and the news headlines. Regional politicians with private armies, Russian military, intelligence services, criminal and field commanders of jihadist groups created a new reality. This was their common business, the economics of which was built on the plundered state budget, kidnapping, the arms trade and racketeering. In Dagestan alone, the Russian region neighboring Chechnya in the North Caucasus, during the years of the war about 900 people were abducted for the sake of ransoms, and on the informal arms market near Nazran (in Ingushetia, Russia) weapons were for sale which had come through a few intermediaries directly from the warehouses of the Russian Ministry of Defense. For a decade, the Caucasus Emirate, which was represented by Doku Umarov in 2007 as a sub-division of the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda justified all this activity.<br />
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The conflict in Syria and ISIS altered the scale of the entire project from the regional to the global.<br />
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Already by mid-2014, no fewer than 2,000 people from Russia were fighting against Bashar al-Assad. When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, declared the caliphate and unleashed a global propaganda campaign, Russian-language Muslims poured into Syria from all over the world. About 2,000 Chechens set off for the war from Europe and Turkey. International brigades of a post-Soviet provenance consisting of al-Baghdadi’s troops and allies from Abu Mohammad al-Julani’s Jabkhat-al-Nursa helped to blend the Syrian opposition with terrorists and substantially reduce and even block international support to opponents of Assad, whose regime Putin, Iranian and pro-Iranian militarized formations have successfully rescued in recent years.<br />
<br />
Today, there are at least 5,000 jihadists with Russian citizenship who have joined ISIS. And there are now already hundreds of thousands of Muslims pushed beyond the red line, forced to emigrate from Russia, Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia. With the existing anti-Islam discourse and “glass ceiling” for the second generation of Muslim migrants in developed countries, a certain success among post-Soviet Muslim prophets of radical Islam is guaranteed.<br />
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The second project – “Ramzan Kadyrov” – also began in Chechnya in the early 2000s and in a decade and a half, the existence of “Kadyrov’s Chechnya” turned into a personal network for the head of the republic, having as assets a territory with a population of nearly a million people under his control, a consolidated budget of several billion dollars and a criminal agents’ network based on the transnational network of Chechen diasporas throughout the whole world. Businesses, media projects and non-commercial organizations are built into this network, for example, the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, named for Ramzan’s father, which performs the role of an informal treasury.<br />
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It is impossible to clearly distinguish among the jihad, criminal and Kadyrov networks, which are almost equally penetrated with intelligence agent networks.<br />
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Finally, there is the Ukrainian project, one of the initiators of which is Igor Strelkov (Girkin), who provoked the war in the Donbass in 2014. In late April and early March of 2014, there was the annexation of the Crimea, and in April, war began in southeast Ukraine.<br />
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An FSB colonel in reserve, Strelkov, acting as a freelancer and using investments which financial analysts regard as venture capital, was able to provoke war in southeast Ukraine, which now has already cost thousands of human victims and brought tens of billions of dollars in income for opportunists from the criminal underworld and intelligence community, who have created a network of many thousands of people to support the Novorossiya project in the Russian regions and mobilized tens of thousands of new combatants. In 2014, with the ID of an officer of the GRU and personal weapons, it was possible to cross the border of Russia’s Rostov Region into Ukraine’s Donetsk Region to a territory controlled by pro-Russian armed formations, and a year and a half later, it was possible to have “your own business” in Donetsk: several thousand fighters, armor, your own prison for hostages and a hotel to use as a military base. The subsequent liquidation of the “media stars” among the field commanders such as Aleksei Mozgovoy or Motorola (Arsen Pavlov) was a kind of gentrification of the balance that developed between the commercial interests of warlords inside Donetsk, their backers in Russia, and business partners in Ukraine.<br />
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An unplanned result of the realization of these and similar projects is a formed, dynamic network of military professionals answering only to the market and acting independently in various regions and countries – in the post-Soviet territory, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Central and Western Europe and North America. Bureaucratic counter-measures like sanctions, building walls, visa restrictions and the war on international terrorism lead to the growth of a social base for the market of violence and stimulate investment in it by those for whom the path to the open economy is closed. Autocrats and warlords disrupt attempts at reforms and finance conflicts, defending and expanding their political territory. They are decisive, free from checks and balance and easily find allies among respectable bankers and populist politicians, and they have a lot of money. And the main question, possibly, is not so much the war on terrorists who are only a symptom, but how to force their rich clients to invest in order and not chaos.<br />
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Translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick<br />
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Denis is an expert at Free Russia Foundation, a visiting fellow at CSIS. He focuses on North Caucasus informal economy, land disputes, and institutional foundations of military conflictDavid McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-70330424352486650182017-06-01T06:45:00.000+01:002017-06-01T07:02:07.505+01:00The Russian Government and the 1999 Apartment Bombings - 2 Catherine Fitzpatrick took a different view of this issue. Her extensive and detailed reply was published on her <a href="http://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2012/11/why-is-the-family-of-yeltsin-being-blamed-for-the-apartment-bombings.html#" target="_blank">Minding Russia blog </a>in 2012:<br />
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Why is "The Family" of Yeltsin Being Blamed for the Apartment Bombings?</h3>
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<a class="asset-img-link" href="http://3dblogger.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54fce13cf8834017c33b6ab6e970b-pi" style="color: #778146; display: inline;"><img alt="Dolls" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fce13cf8834017c33b6ab6e970b image-full" height="388" src="https://3dblogger.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54fce13cf8834017c33b6ab6e970b-800wi" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; width: 520px;" title="Dolls" width="520" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>Russian Matryoshka dolls: Putin, Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Stalin, Lenin. (C) Catherine A. Fitzpatrick.</em></span></div>
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With Russia, you always have to ask the three age-old "K" questions: <em>kto vinovat</em>, <em>komu vygodno</em> and <em>komu interesno</em> -- "who is to blame, who profits, and who cares".</div>
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So when the word is out <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3838203887?ie=UTF8&tag=thneyoreofbo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=3838203887" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">with John Dunlop's new book on the September 1999 apartment buildings</a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3838203887?ie=UTF8&tag=thneyoreofbo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=3838203887" style="color: #778146;" target="_self"> </a>that we "now know" who did the apartment buildings bombing, I'm still not sure, because not all the "K" questions are answered satsifactorily. Amy Knight, the premier expert on the KGB, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/nov/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/?pagination=false" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">reviews Dunlop's book for the New York Review of Books </a>(that's a prelude and you'll have to pay $4.99 to read it there or, this being the Internet, <a href="http://www.chechencenter.info/n/breaking-news/34-breaking-news/1898-1.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">read it at the Chechens' site</a> -- but I'd recommend the payment, as the Chechen site tried to load a malicious URL on me that Kaspersky batted off). I'll need to read Dunlop's book all the way through, of course, but so far, I'm not buying the thesis I see explicated in Knight's review -- that "the Family" did it. That's because I think Putin and his pals did it all on their own, and have always and every where tried to displace the blame for this appalling act on others as part of a campaign to eradicate dissent thoroughly. Every person who has come near the investigation has ended up distracted, coopted, forced into emigration, arrested, murdered, killed.</div>
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First, let me say that regarding the apartment bombings, I've never pursued them as fanatically as some critics of the KGB and its successor the FSB under Putin (see above for what happens if you do). I'd like to think that as evil as they were and are, and as many millions of people they massacred under Lenin and Stalin and sometimes assassinate today, that the "organs" (as they are known) were not capable of killing so many of their own people. I felt that obsessing about the apartments was a little like becoming a "truther" about 9/11 -- thinking our own people, not terrorists did this atrocity.</div>
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In Putin's book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/First-Person-Astonishingly-Self-Portrait-President/dp/1586480189" style="color: #778146;" target="_self"><em>First Person</em></a>, which I translated, Putin is asked by journalists about the bombing. He replies:</div>
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<em>What?! Blowing up our own apartment buildings? You know, that is really…utter nonsense! It’s totally insane. No one in the Russian special services would be capable of such a crime against his own people.”</em></div>
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"Special" is what the Russians call their intelligence agencies.<em><br /></em></div>
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And I tend to believe that statement, up to a point, or at least to say this: we don't have facts beyond a reasonable doubt to the contrary. If the fumbled Ryazan escapade is given as evidence -- partial license plates leading to the FSB; actual hexogen in the sacks, not sugar -- then as a long-time Russia watcher, I have to say: really, guys? The FSB is so clumsy that they can blow up two buildings in Moscow without leaving full finger-prints, but they mess up so hilariously in Ryazan? <em>Was there someone else who needed to set *them* up</em>?</div>
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And if other stories brought forward to point to the authorities themselves include a military intelligence (GRU) official calling up the liberal Duma deputy Konstantin Borovoy and warning him of a coming explosion, then did the GRU do it or did they distract from those who might be responsible? Borovoy wasn't able to get anyone to pay attention in Yeltsin's Security Council.</div>
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So let me take you through my reasoning to explain that I don't think it's the Family (Yeltsin's daughter, then-boyfriend and later husband, and others close to them) that ordered this atrocity; I don't think it's Berezovsky; although I think it might be Putin himself and those close to him, but we don't know.Inter-agency rivalry itself can be to blame for things like this; rogue agents who exploit lax oversight can be to blame. Some agents like to do things to please their bosses that they think their bosses might like (that's why many say Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated on Putin's birthday).</div>
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Look, we don't know who killed JFK, really, although I continue to wonder about the Oswald/Belarus/KGB connection, and we may never know. And we don't know who ordered hundreds of Muscovites to be massacred, either, and may never know.</div>
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Meanwhile, what we do know is that Putin is always and everywhere to distract from himself any accountability for anything bad; he even <a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/putin-suggests-pussy-riot-member-anti-semite/471618.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">tries to make the Pussy Riot gals out to be antisemites </a>and claims he wouldn't have jailed them for so long if it were up to him -- pretending that the Ministry of Justice and the courts are independent, which is of course absurd when you look at this top-down vertically-managed society.</div>
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<strong>KA CLEARS OUT THE NESTS</strong></div>
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For a long time, it's been clear to me that Putin has been clearing up the last remaining nests of the Yeltsin-era liberals. They never posed any real threat to him -- but KGB agents like to be thorough in removing the last bit of resistance -- very thorough.</div>
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The mass marches in Moscow in the last year since the elections were in part led by Yeltsin-era liberals like Boris Nemtsov, who has been so villified in the official and the opposition press that he has almost no following left (and his leaked cell phone chats don't help improve his image), but really more by newer public figures like Navalny, a nationalist, and Udaltsov, a communist. Remember, at some of the marches, the Russians literally divided up into separate columns of liberals, communists/socialists, nationalists, etc.</div>
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The old Soviet-era dissidents were not leaders of these marches, even behind the scenes -- they might have reported about police brutality but they mainly worried about the nature of these new self-styled democrats. To be sure, they are now senior citizens, but actually are so dedicated that they are not too old to go to marches, like Ludmila Alexeyeva, leader of the Moscow Helsinki Group, or Sergei Kovalev, Sakharov's friend and the leader of Memorial Society to address the Soviet crimes against humanity and their legacy today -- and they sometimes do. Some other Soviet-era dissidents like Valeriya Novodovskaya and Konstantin Borovoy, again, expressed repeated qualms about the kind of people that protesters were allowing to lead them -- Navalny was chumming around with fascists in youth groups and people who demanded that Moscow "stop feeding" the Caucasus. Udaltsov would have been happy to keep Putin as an interrim leader until he could nationalize all industry and put in hard-line communists.</div>
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Putin is now dealing handily with any of these newer dissenters -- frame-ups, jail, beatings, intimidation of relatives to place pressure on activists, informal forced exile abroad through threats -- the usual KGB menu. It's working pretty well.</div>
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<strong>IN SOVIET RUSSIA, FACEBOOK POST LIKES *YOU*</strong></div>
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LiveJournal and Facebook and Twitter will be left on so that the organs can scrape data to use to manipulate people, <a href="http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2012/11/harper-reed-and-the-soulessness-of-the-new-machine.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">just as was done by the incumbent's campaign team and his rival in our own elections</a>. When I asked Vadim Lavrusik, the community manager at Facebook, who happens to be a Russian, on his wall whether we could be certain that the Russian investors who have a rather large chunk of Facebook stock whether they could get on their hands on user data given how much protest leaders were using Facebook to run the marches when their LiveJournal pages wouldn't load anymore, he blocked me from that thread.</div>
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LiveJournal is an American-founded company sold to Russian entrepreneurs after it grew outdated and other platforms overtook it in popularity. Russian oligarchs related to Facebook aren't exactly anti-Putin. I have no evidence that Mark Zuckerberg, who has travelled to Russia to meet with his investors, would turn over user data to them but I worry about where the leaks might be. It's hard to even talk about this openly. When Lavrusik bragged that Facebook knew there were 71 million posts about the US elections on their platform -- a fact they knew because they search, scrape and store them -- I asked whether that information was used to manipulate elections, and whether Obama critics would find themselves blocked. I was then totally blocked from his feed -- he removed himself from my view as if he didn't exist. I hope others will keep asking this question.</div>
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But while the newer dissidents were fairly easy to disperse with strategic 15-day sentences that chilled the passion, beatings or longer sentences for leaders, the Yeltsin-era liberals were harder to get. These are more established people. They have better jobs, more income, more connections at home or abroad. They still write and publish and comment; they still go on talk shows on TV.</div>
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I've suggested that readers take a lighted candle and hold it under <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110241/his-lawyer-dead-former-american-seeks-legislative-revenge-russia" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Julia Ioffe's piece on the Magnitsky Act</a> and wait to see the purple pro-Kremlin prose shine through what appears to be an article in opposition to Putin. Ioffe was the first to tell us Putin was inevitable and the US should adjust to this in the highly-visible pages of Foreign Policy and other widely-read liberal publications and the air of inevitability almost seemed like it was going to stick until all those LiveJournalists and Twitterers began to turn out huge demonstrations against the election fraud. I never feld they would succeed and was really worried what would happen to them.</div>
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Ioffe succeeds in this piece, if you read between the lines, in making the following statements as if they were fact and not opinion about the case of Magnitsky, the representative of Browder's law firm who blew the whistle on Russian government corruption and wound up dead in pre-trial detention.</div>
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o William Browder, leader of the crusade for justice for Magnitsky, is a shady, wealthy guy whose grandfather was the head of the American Communist Party who got rich under Yeltsin under murky circumstances</div>
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o Browder hired people from the creepy <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashcroft" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">John Ashcroft</a> consulting firm -- boo, hiss! He was Bush's attorney general and to some, the bag man -- he crafted the hated Patriot Act.</div>
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o Browder gave up his American citizenship to move to the UK and take up British citizenship, so how can he call for US legislation?</div>
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o Browder praised Putin in his day, and cheered the arrest of Khodorkovsky, who is a crook who repented of his evil corruption while deservedly put in prison by Putin</div>
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And so on -- go read it with that candle and you'll see what I mean. The purpose of the article isn't to tell you about the Magnitsky Act, which passed in the House and now faces the Senate, where it might not pass or to tell the admittedly complicated story of Browder, who is doing the right thing by his dead colleague -- the purpose is to discredit the Russian opposition and their supporters abroad and Putin critics. Putin critics are rich guys who used to support him but became turncoats -- how can liberals trust them and how can anybody at all trust them!</div>
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<strong>WHO'S <span style="text-decoration-line: line-through;">LEFT</span> NEXT?</strong></div>
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So who's left to resist Putin -- Ioffe herself, who is believed by many (but not me) to be a Putin critic, actually left Russia, her homeland, and now works at <em>New Republic</em>, bought out by a Silicon Valley tycoon. Well, there's Leonid Parfyonov, a thoughtful television producer who was removed from TV for his critical discussion and interviews on Chechnya. I thought he was among the best platform speakers during the marches. He's not on the talk shows so much anymore. Parfyonov has now been co-opted into the Presidential Council on Human Rights, a body that in fact has behaved sometimes independently (for show?) by doing things like criticizing the secondKhodorkovsky sentence or expressing concern about the new draconian bill on "treason against the motherland".</div>
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Just last week, this body was diluted by adding several dozen more members to bring it to 62; some of the most outspoken critics are now removed from it -- Ludmila Alexeyeva resigned; others removed include Svetlana Gannushkina, one of the great champions of the rights of refugees and non-Russian migrant labour in Russia and others who either left or weren't renewed. Mikhail Fedotov, who helped draft the Yeltsin-era press law that is now rather in tatters, remains trying to keep this boat afloat and optically independent, but there's always this question to ask: if you criticize a government's policy, say, on the cases of Magnitsky and Khodorkovsky, and they don't follow your advice, should you stay in their propaganda outlet that makes them appear liberal and keep meeting with them? Putin also made another reform to this group -- only an "executive body" within the larger group now will actually get to meet with him -- the rest won't. When Medvedev was president, they all met with him.</div>
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<strong>KORN CLEANS OUT THE NEST</strong></div>
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Another group of both perestroika-era and Yeltsin-era liberals were kept alive around the Radio Liberty office in Moscow. Actually, Putin didn't have to hardly lift a finger there -- American bureaucrats urged to take cost-cutting measures in the era of the fiscal cliff ordered the summary dismissal of 40 people even before the Russian government attempted to close it down under new rules for foreign media and foreign organizations. These faithful employees who ran various broadcasts followed by the liberal intelligentsia came to work in the morning and were told they lost their jobs; just like in Silicon Valley's big IT firms, security guards appeared at their elbows with cardboard boxes and told them to immediately clean out their desks and come this way. Actually, I don't think they even got the cardboard boxes.<a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/press-release-radio-svoboda-russia/24718083.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Steve Korn justifies the dismissals</a> and takes an upbeat tone; others, <a href="http://www.usgbroadcasts.com/bbgwatch/2012/11/03/a-new-plan-for-new-radio-liberty/" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">including Lev Roitman, one of those dismissed, take a far dimmer view.</a></div>
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This story is more complicated than it seems -- but part of that complication is that the "down-sizing" was recommended by a transition team, and on that team was journalist Masha Gessen. Gessen is a long-tim critical journalist -- critical of Chechnya under Yeltsin and critical of everything under Putin -- she is the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Man-Without-Face-Unlikely-Vladimir/dp/1594488428" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Man Without a Face </a>a recent book devastatingly critical of the autocrat. One of her key sources, Marina Salye, who had gone into seclusion after making allegations against Putin's corruption some years ago and kept mum, <a href="http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/marina-salye-vladimir-putins-oldest-enemy-dies/" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">died of a heart attack</a> right after the book came out.</div>
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Gessen was working for the nature magazine <em>Vokrug Sveta</em> (Around the World) when she wrote something a bit snide about Putin's much-ballyhooed flight with the cranes. <a href="http://www.theworld.org/2012/09/kremlin-blacklisted-recently-fired-prominent-russian-journalist-masha-gessen-meets-vladimir-putin/" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Her editor fired her</a>. Then Putin summoned both her and the editor (!) to his office, to her shock, and told the editor that he should put her back on the staff. Gessen described how she countered that she did not want to be hired on instruction from the president, as that would not appear independent. If she faced down Putin in person there, it's hard to believe that she has been coopted by Putin.</div>
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Yet by being appointed by RFE/RL to head a much smaller mainly digital team now, after dozens of liberals have been fired so outrageously and summarily, the gossipers' knives are out. To be sure, <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/press-release-radio-svoboda-russia/24718083.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">this has been explained </a>by the need to cease medium-wave broadcasting in compliance with a new Russian law. Again, Putin doesn't have to lift a finger to accomplish what American bureaucrats and Russian gossips can accomplish on their own -- but there it is, mission accomplished.</div>
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<strong>HATCHET-JOB ON KGB CRITIC</strong></div>
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Then there's Yevgeniya Albats -- a respected journalist and very knowledgeable critic of the KGB -- I also translated her book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-State-Within-Yevgenia-Albats/dp/0374527385" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">A State Within a State.</a> She is also the editor of <em>Novoye Vremya</em> (New Times), and they are in financial trouble now like just about any other hard-copy newspaper in the world, even in Russia where people still avidly read books and papers on the metro.</div>
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So to do the hatchet job on Albats, enter Kevin Rothrock, the once-anonymous blogger at A Good Treaty who later confessed to being a former American Enterprise Institute (!) researcher, who <a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/11/14/new-hard-times-for-russian-journalism/" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">skewers her utterly from his new perch to poison the well, Global Voices</a> -- a perch <a href="http://3dblogger.typepad.com/wired_state/2012/07/global-voices-nuanced-coverage-of-the-troubling-new-russian-internet-law-1.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">I've discussed in the past</a> as perfect for poisoning. <a href="http://storify.com/KevinRothrock/conversation-with-albats-oleg-kozyrev-and-ivan-lap" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Of course, he was busy getting this down on Twitter even before -- again, by letting his followers do the talking.</a></div>
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<a href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/11/14/new-hard-times-for-russian-journalism/" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">In this piece</a>, while purporting merely to "provide the news" of what's happening in the Russian blogosphere, he makes sure we are left with this impression: Albats is a censor; Albats is a wealthy and outdated <em>intelligent</em>; Albats is charging for subscriptions in an era when people can blog for free; Albats is out of touch -- etc.</div>
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No matter that if you want critical journalism by full-time professional journalists and editors, you have to pay for it and that means sustaining a publication like <em>Novoye Vremya</em> which has every right to charge for content. You know, like Soros and the other backers of Global Voices pay for Rothrock's own job? Novoye Vremya can't exactly ask for a foreign grant these days, can they? If the Russian government wouldn't call them foreign spies and arrest them, Rothrock might sneer at them as rootless sell-outs even if the same foundations that pay for his salary foot the bill. It's hard to be a perfectly rooted and viable and appreciated opposition member in Rothrock's book -- there aren't any!</div>
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No matter that if an editor wants to leave out of their publication a notorious antisemite or Russian nationalist, that's called "editorial judgement", not censorship. You know, like Rothrock leaves all kinds of things out of his blog, as did his predecessors, about developments in Russia (I was astounded that during the height of all the marches with a zillion blogs flowing, a college student who occasionally wrote up some summaries was all they had at GV; then they brought in Rothrock after the movement was crushed).</div>
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No matter that the welter of blogs that don't load with a zillion pictures and comments can't make the point as well as a professional journal. Rothrock, a long-time pro-Putin propagandist, will pretend that they are the voice of experience and authenticity and any liberals, past or present, are out of touch. Under colour of writing "factually" about the opposition in Russia, he never misses an opportunity to caricature the critics of Putin in the absolute worst way, so that they look bad, and not Putin, the monster who puts punk rockers in prison for three years or lets businessmen and their lawyers languish in prison or even die.</div>
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<strong>THE FAMILY DID IT?</strong></div>
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Dunlop is certainly credible as a long-time critic of Soviet and Russian leaders. Unlike Rothrock, he has no public record of stumping obviously for Putin. But the conclusion he comes to -- that The Family ordered the hit on the buildings and got Putin and his men to do the dirty deed -- in the end distracts from Putin himself. I think that somewhere in the food chain of information and analysis, something has gone wrong here.</div>
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As it happened, I had an opportunity through confluence of circumstances to talk to Valentin Yumashev and Tatyana Dyachenko, Yeltsin's daughter, directly back in 2000. I translated Yeltsin's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Diaries-Boris-Nikolayevich-Yeltsin/dp/1586480111" style="color: #778146;" target="_self"><em>Midnight Diaries</em></a>, published in 2000, and his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Struggle-Russia-Boris-Yeltsin/dp/0812924606/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353288205&sr=1-2&keywords=struggle+for+russia" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Struggle for Russia</a> (1994). I looked them in the eyes and asked if they believed that the FSB had committed this atrocity of blowing up the buildings. Was it really possible for some Russian security agent to kill his own people? Perhaps it was some kind of rogue agents?</div>
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Neither Yumashev nor Tanya, who later married Yumashev, looked nervous, or guilty, or tried to change the subject or do anything that they might be expected to do if they had in fact ordered this horrible deed themselves. To be sure, at that time I didn't know that research might lead to suspect <em>them</em> of this, but I can only report what I saw -- they looked concerned and thoughtful, not guilty, and they didn't try to distract or move on from the topic. Yumashev, remember, was a journalist at the perestroika-era flagship liberal journal <em>Ogonyok</em> who had never been in government. Yeltsin's daughter was a privileged family member of an <em>obkomovets</em>, a regional Party secretary, but not near entrenched KGB levers of power in Moscow for most of her life. Say what you will about their Soviet-style venality, but they don't have the typical profiles for people who think up mass murder as a way to keep themselves in shopping money and get the country united.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
So when I asked them if they thought their own FSB could have done this, neither of them flinched. Tanya didn't say much. Yumashev then added something important. "If it had happened even a few weeks later, I might have wondered if that were possible," he said. "But it happened during the time of the Stepashin <em>bardak</em>".</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
As we know from Wikipedia, in 1998 Yeltsin appointed Putin as director of the FSB, and he conducted a thorough reorganisation, which included the dismissal of most of the FSB's top personnel; he appointed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Patrushev" style="color: #778146;" title="Nikolai Patrushev">Nikolai Patrushev</a> as the head of FSB in 1999, and he was at the helm when the explosion occurred, and remained there until 2008 when he was transferred to the Security Council.<sup> </sup></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
"Bardak" is a Russian word that means literally "whorehouse," but is used to mean "a mess". <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Stepashin" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Sergei Stepashin</a>, who had the military rank of Colonel General, was in charge of the Ministry of Interior, or police, a militarized institution in Russia; the MVD takes part in supppression of riots and they also had troops in Chechnya.Then he was made Prime Minister.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
As Wikipedia tells us:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
<em>He held that office [MVD] from March 1998 to May 1999, when he was appointed and confirmed by parliament as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Russia" style="color: #778146;" title="Prime Minister of Russia">prime minister</a>. Yeltsin made it fairly clear when he appointed him Prime Minister that Stepashin would only hold the position temporarily, and he was replaced in August 1999 by future president <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin" style="color: #778146;" title="Vladimir Putin">Vladimir Putin</a>.</em></div>
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<strong>BARDAK</strong><em> </em></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
Yeltsin, as you can see from the books, changed prime ministers like gloves, and of course shifting people around from job to job like that kept them off balance but kept staff demoralized as well.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
In order to plan to blow up a building, you would need time, so you can't necessarily implicate someone physically in any position in September 1999, you have to look at the lead up time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
So there were two "bardak" problems in the Russian siloviki (strongmen) at the time in the "power ministries". First, Putin had left the FSB to become prime minister and turned over the helm to someone new, Patrushev. Then at the MVD, there was Stepashin, whom Yeltsin had considered as his successor as president, but ditched because he was said not be sufficiently enthusiastic about the Chechen war (Wikipedia says "citation needed" for that claim, and I can only agree -- I translated many texts from this era and studied it thoroughly and I don't recall that theory -- perhaps someone can comment).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
Stepashin didn't rule over the MVD or the government as prime minister very long; when leaders change frequently agencies are not run in a disciplined manner and lots of stuff happens. Stepashin had previously served as director of what was then called the FSK, the counter-intelligence agency, from 1994-1995, so he had intelligence ties. What I drew from Yumashev's comment would then tend to indicate not that Stepashin ordered anything, but that because his oversight was lax, at a time when Patrushev was new in the other agency, the FSB, rogue agents could have gotten away with this explosion. Attention always goes to the FSB as the cloak-and-dagger sorts, but it was the MVD that controlled the roads through the <em>gaishniki</em> (traffic police)-- they could have let through vehicles with hexogen sacks in them; for that matter they could let vehicles out of plants with hexogen in them; they would let those vehicles come near apartment buildings.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
One of the things I always marvelled at in Russia when I worked on the film <em>Crime and Punishment</em> produced by CBC is that the police had their little booths right inside the apartment complexes -- they were the security guards that an American housing complex would hire from the private sector. What does the MVD know about the explosions, is anyone asking? Inter-agency rivalry is notorious in Russia.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
Then, there's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Barsukov" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Mikhail Barsukov</a>, a regular military office turned KGB officer who came in after Stepashin, said by some to be a liberal put in charge of the FSB to reform it. That's what they always say. Maybe he was just making it to become more lean and mean. He was very good friends with Yeltsin's bodyguard, Korzhakov and did for Yeltsin during the White House rebellion in 1993 which was where Yeltsin's reputation as a liberal reformer began to get seriously tarnished. But Barsukov was removed from the position of the FSB after a year, and then given other positions by Yeltsin. He messed up one Chechen hostage crisis, then got caught with the cash for the Yeltsin campaign in the famous "Xerox box" caper and Yeltsin fired him. Then he in December 1998, Barsukov was appointed Chief Director for Military Inspection subordinate to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Council_of_Russia" style="color: #778146;" title="Security Council of Russia">Security Council of Russia.</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
Trepashkin, the former FSB officer who was investigating the explosions says that<a href="http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=454217095&targetid=profile" style="color: #778146;" target="_self"> at one point Barsukov told him to let a Chechen suspect go who was allegedly mixed up in a corrupt Moscow hotel that was said to be funding Chechen rebels. </a>So is Barsukov the one to look at? He was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/g/gall-chechnya.html" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">at Grachev's birthday when the storm of Grozny was said to be planned.</a> Oh, I have no idea. Let people paid to be investigative journalists or Russianologists do this job<strong>.</strong></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>MY AUTHORS: NINE-FINGERED BORYA AND VOLODYA THE BANTAM-WEIGHT THUG</strong></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
People are not going to like what I've written here. It looks like I might be saying that respected journalists or Sovietologists or others could be wrong and have been manipulated by Putin. And I'm saying this on the strength of The Family's two major operatives, and I translated Yeltsin's books.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
But I get the same (low) rate per word to translate Yeltsin as I did his opponent Ligachev, to translate the works of Stalin or Lenin or Albats or to translate people's divorce papers or localization of online game dialogue. Translation is what I do; I'm only an amateur Kremlinologist and it's not even my main interest these days.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
I spent two years of my life at the Committee to Protect Journalist, criticizing Yeltsin's handling of the Chechen war, which took a terrible toll on journalists who were murdered or kidnapped. I spent the next five years of my life after that criticizing Yeltsin and Putin for the Chechen wars and every other kind of human rights abuse. So I have no felt need to get The Family off the hook.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
Meanwhile, when I translated Putin's book, my hair stood on end. There were the cultural things I didn't like -- the casual slur of a religious Jewish neighbour, and the change in the story even in the process of editing from saving a Barbie doll in the fire at the dacha, to saving a piece of jewelry which was a cross (East, not West, you see). But the incidents that really chilled me were Putin's casual flipping of a guy in the metro and breaking his arm, because he looked at him the wrong way, and his casual flipping of a guy at a bus stop just because he asked for a light. He is a bantam-weight thug. Then there was Putin's absolute resolute determination never, ever to allow international monitors of any kind into Chechnya or the same thing that happened to Kosovo would happen to Chechnya -- it would gain its independence. I was so concerned about the nature of this Mr. Putin -- who we didn't know much about -- that I sent the book Federal Express to then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright via an aide, urging her to read it on the plane as she flew to Moscow to meet him for the first time -- and I got back a note from the aide that she did. I think as a person with Czechoslovakia in her background, she already understand what she was dealing with.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
In any event, I have to urge people to look harder. Yeltsin was a gruff Communist Party apparatchik who worked his way up to Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) Party leaderk, and presided over the bulldozing of the Ipatiev House where the Tsar's family were massacred. He certainly had the common touch; he was missing one finger on his hand from a machine-lathe accident when he worked in a factory in his youth. But he was also somebody, like the more sophisticated Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, who felt that he couldn't take it any more under the stagnation of Brezhnev's communism. Whatever his corruption, Yeltsin did free the press and free entrepreneurial business on his watch, and did defeat the reactionary coup plotters' attempt. Putin hasn't freed anything.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
To be sure, as a man of power, I didn't expect Yeltsin to be a full-fledged hero in Russia, even after he stood on the tank. Before that time, when he was speaker of the house (chairman of the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR), I happened to meet him as part of a delegation from the International Helsinki Federation. While Yuri Orlov, the former prisoner of conscience and physicist (whose visa was delayed but whom we finally managed to get in the delegation), was reading a list of remaining political prisoners and other problems even in late Gorbachev-era perestroika, Yeltsin looked around the room. He had what you would call charisma or animal magnetism, that's how people like him succeed. He stared down every one on the room -- when they got the Yeltsin stare, they averted their eyes. I didn't. I kept my gaze. I wanted to win that little game. I did. He looked away first.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
Later, when Yeltsin's book came out in Russian -- with revisions after the version I translated -- he changed some words. And although he had called Ion Andronov, a notorious pro-regime apologist in the Soviet era, by a word that meant "fascist" or "fascistic," he removed that and softened it to "militant". Unexpectedly, I found myself as a target of a libel lawsuit over this book because in Russia, translators are not exempt from responsibility for a text. So my good name was about to be ruined, because I was accused of mistranslating a word from Russian that said "militant" and not "fascist". "Prove that you are not a camel," is how I explained it in a comment to <em>Moscow News</em>. What could I do but fax a copy of the page of the original manuscript to the court? People still didn't believe me, but I made a deposition to Andronov's lawyer. Then he got in touch with the half dozen or more other translators around the world, from French to Japanese. They all had the same Russian manuscript that I had, with the same word that wasn't "militant" but "fascistic". Case closed. But after that, I had trouble getting a visa to Russia.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
I don't believe that either Yumashev or his later wife, Tanya, Yeltsin's daughter, gave this order to bomb innocent people in apartment buildings. Nor did <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Voloshin" style="color: #778146;" target="_self">Voloshin</a>, the balding apparatchik who "devoured work" who remained only an apparatchik, really, although with a lot of power; ultimately he left government to go into business. I don't think any of these three even created a theory that concoction of terror would help consolidate the country. You didn't need to consolidate the country that way; it was already consolidated against Chechnya. That's what I wish people would think about more -- the overall setting of Russia at the time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>GASOLINE AND GENERALS</strong></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
In the weeks before the August 1999 Dagestan invasion of the Chechen rebels that proved later as the excuse for Putin to launch the second war in Chechnya early in his term, Sergei Kovalev sent out an urgent appeal -- there was a huge build-up of Russian soldiers in the area, even generals. They were able to get gasoline in a market with shortages -- how? Kovalev was very worried about what might happen in the coming weeks. I went and spoke to the US ambassador to the OSCE talks at the time and other US officials gave them all of Kovalev's concerns. While understanding, they didn't take it that seriously. That the Chechen incursion into Dagestan seems to have had some help from the organs or maybe have been concocted seems evident to me from that detail about the gasoline and the generals in the area. But I don't know. I wasn't there. I trust those who were and who have raised questions.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
The finger is also pointed at Berezovsky for the apartment explosions. George Soros wrote in one of his books that once when he was left alone in a fancy bar in Berezovsky's lavish home, he was actually frightened that he might be murdered. I met Berezovsky only very briefly when he was at a reception in New York but I know what he means. Even so, I don't think because people look scary that they may be capable of ordering massacres. To be sure, he paid large ransoms to get out some journalists and tried to finance a factory to provide jobs to try to buy out the Chechens from violence and seemed to have Chechens on his payroll where the fix didn't stay in. They kidnappers were never arrested and floated around with their loot threatening and killing other people.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>WHERE TO LOOK</strong></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
In any event, I think the place to look further isn't Yeltsin's family members, associates, or Berezovsky, who fell out with Putin. While "the Family" version of this story still ends up implicating Putin down the line, the Dunlop book and more importantly -- all the commentary about it -- including Ken Roth, who tweeted about the book review -- ends up shifting the stare back to Yeltin's people.You know, those lousy liberals who sold off the country to evil Western imperialists and impoverished the people?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px;">
I think the place to look is Putin himself. He's in charge there. Don't let him distract you.</div>
</div>
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David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-79383695461954091102017-05-29T12:17:00.000+01:002017-05-29T12:19:00.075+01:00The Russian Government and the 1999 Apartment Bombings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wurf7Gy2jt4runpBoM5xOLjYxBgz_x3Hs02jjD_odlJDL-jb4sugHBsmwvxoCNX1CgZppJ2tZSMebBaNMRo_O60D8Q7P8hGyYsJ_XuWYZ3upnLHcW3b4i0qkWNudxe6PF2qnXQ/s1600/apartment+bombing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="564" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5wurf7Gy2jt4runpBoM5xOLjYxBgz_x3Hs02jjD_odlJDL-jb4sugHBsmwvxoCNX1CgZppJ2tZSMebBaNMRo_O60D8Q7P8hGyYsJ_XuWYZ3upnLHcW3b4i0qkWNudxe6PF2qnXQ/s320/apartment+bombing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I have noticed on Twitter that <a href="https://twitter.com/shaymultimedia/status/868046045833568256" target="_blank">some observers</a> have been recalling <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/11/22/finally-we-know-about-moscow-bombings/" target="_blank">Amy Knight's review </a>of John B. Dunlop's book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Moscow-Bombings-September-1999-Examinations/dp/3838203887/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1496055380&sr=8-7&keywords=John+B.+Dunlop" target="_blank">The Moscow Bombings of September 1999</a>. </i>It's quite a remarkable read. In addition to summing up the conclusions of Dunlop's investigation it brings into sharp relief aspects of the bombings that have not to the best of my knowledge been widely discussed:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Dunlop explains why the political situation in which the terrorist attacks took place is crucial for understanding them. Yeltsin and his “Family” (an entourage that included his daughter Tatyana Dyachenko, Yeltsin adviser Valentin Yumashev, who later married Tatyana, the oligarch Boris Berezovsky, and Aleksandr Voloshin, head of the presidential administration) were facing a huge crisis by the spring of 1999. Yeltsin was in ailing health and suffering from alcoholism. His popularity had fallen steeply and there was a strong possibility that his political base—a loose movement called “Unity”—would lose the parliamentary and presidential elections (respectively scheduled for December 1999 and March 2000). Yeltsin and his two daughters were facing reports charging that they had large amounts of money in secret bank accounts abroad through illegal transactions with a Swiss construction firm called Mabetex. And Berezovsky was under investigation for embezzlement when he had been running Aeroflot. </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The Family’s solution to its dilemma, according to Dunlop, was a plan to destabilize Russia and possibly cancel or postpone the elections after declaring a state of emergency. In June 1999, two Western journalists, Jan Blomgren of the Swedish newspaper </i>Svenska Dagbladet<i> and Giulietto Chiesa, the respected, longtime Moscow correspondent for the Italian newspaper </i>La Stampa<i>, reported that there was going to be an act of “state terrorism” in Russia. The goal would be to instill fear and panic in the population. Chiesa wrote:</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>With a high degree of certitude, one can say that the explosions of bombs killing innocent people are always planned by people with political minds who are interested in destabilizing the situation in a country…. It could be foreigners… but it could also be “our own people” trying to frighten the country.</i></blockquote>
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David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-45813808427753097482017-05-27T14:14:00.001+01:002017-05-27T14:58:14.435+01:00The Russia Mystery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5BryxUpo7WfNMIoNBFGAgdhwTvRp0wZPoIR-_t5SCCoX9TrBzx_fPBkrYikAknkwAWZodMwq1Ab4JVBshz7iK5XF17VgW6zIHu0iCdJzMbJ6xgQfNQN-jvKuqFt_5MbRHdGdTQ/s1600/Russian+connection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="620" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5BryxUpo7WfNMIoNBFGAgdhwTvRp0wZPoIR-_t5SCCoX9TrBzx_fPBkrYikAknkwAWZodMwq1Ab4JVBshz7iK5XF17VgW6zIHu0iCdJzMbJ6xgQfNQN-jvKuqFt_5MbRHdGdTQ/s320/Russian+connection.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
What is one to make of the "Russia connection" - the narrative that says U.S. and Russian officials and government members have been "colluding" in some ill-defined conspiracy to subvert the rule of law in America?<br />
<br />
It appears that the connection is being taken seriously by many U.S. public figures. Congressmen, statesmen and journalists are busily exploring the backgrounds and recent activities of officials close to President Trump - Carter Page, Manafort, Bannon, Kushner, Flynn and others - to find out if they have formed secret links to Russian intelligence or have become compromised via business deals, thus also compromising the country's security.<br />
<br />
In the Soviet era, the consequences of all this would have been earth-shattering: it would have meant that a carefully prepared Soviet espionage network had succeeded in bringing down the United States, the world's most powerful entity. Yet now, in the era of Putin and the insipid "power vertical", it somehow seems less significant - as if a minor undemocratic and unstable country had developed pretensions to grandeur based on a harebrained scheme to infiltrate the intelligence, information and economic structures of America and to cause as much damage as possible within a short space of time. This is not to say that damage has not been inflicted - it may well emerge from the countless investigations now underway that leaks, cyber attacks and the actions of certain U.S. officials and diplomats have had a disastrous effect on sections of America's infrastructure and public life.<br />
<br />
But the question that arises is: why would Russia go to such lengths to disrupt America's security and economy? Russia is dependent on the U.S. for trade, and in general sees itself as a 'partner' of the U.S. in exerting pressure on ISIS in the war on terror. And also - why would U.S. officials suddenly want to collude with Russia in causing damage to the United States? Is there some secret cabal of Trumpist functionaries intent upon seizing power in the name of the Russian Federation? It hardly seems likely, yet this possibility is what lies behind the headlines: "Kushner's 'secret channel' with Russia", "Alleged Russian Hacker Shared DCCC Docs with Fla Operative", and so on.<br />
<br />
The entire affair is still a mystery - a mystery as enigmatic as the presence and personality of Donald Trump himself, who combines all these serpentine threads into a single worrisome focus. America and the world face uncertain times.David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-67654756498403164982017-05-26T10:44:00.000+01:002017-05-26T10:45:57.012+01:00British forces in Estonia's Spring Storm exercise <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhB_YrAOVINeF2Rq2LHWEJFUI1pPX0FW1Yq4fNq6QOfLWMgthbSKUXldrulYUOP6iV2JS6g23u8el5XvSeDQjHD9K1wc5NiyyeocgEBqa8agZHPcrLX6XiTBMnc9pZ9I3bfBi5cg/s1600/britestarmy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="1008" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhB_YrAOVINeF2Rq2LHWEJFUI1pPX0FW1Yq4fNq6QOfLWMgthbSKUXldrulYUOP6iV2JS6g23u8el5XvSeDQjHD9K1wc5NiyyeocgEBqa8agZHPcrLX6XiTBMnc9pZ9I3bfBi5cg/s320/britestarmy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/pictures-exercise-spring-storm-british-troops-estonia/?utm_source=TW&utm_medium=Twitter&utm_campaign=social" target="_blank">UK Defence Journal</a> notes:</div>
<blockquote>
Kevadtorm (Spring Storm) is the annual Estonian Defence Forces’ exercise with the purpose to train and test the readiness of Defence Forces and contingents of Allied troops to deter various threa<br />
<br />
It is held at the Estonian Defence Forces central training ground.<br />
British Armed Forces are taking a leading role in NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence, with the British Army leading a multinational Battlegroup in Estonia from early 2017.</blockquote>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-15652057786164336902017-05-25T11:13:00.001+01:002017-05-27T15:19:10.143+01:00Zakayev: a Third Chechen War can be avoided<br />
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In his latest interview for Sotnik TV, given in the context of the recent Conference in Brussels, held on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the peace agreement between Russia and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, exiled Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev ponders the increasing hostility towards Chechnya and Chechens that can be observed in Russian propaganda. Chechens are being accused of all bad things - the latest being the fomenting of homophobia, an ironic touch, clearly. At the same time the rise of ISIS continues, and a new generation of young Chechens are espousing jihad and developing a sense that their fathers were "too nice". The level of mutual hostility is now at such a pitch that Zakayev sees the approach of a third Chechen war, and he is anxious to avert it, both for Russia's sake and for Chechnya's. A repeat of incidents like Beslan and Nord-Ost would be in no one's interests, yet that is precisely what waits on the horizon. Zakayev says that a third war can and must be avoided.David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-15372155875861324672017-05-24T07:41:00.000+01:002017-05-24T07:41:21.631+01:00All Chechen Facebook Groups Closed<ol class="stream-items js-navigable-stream" id="stream-items-id" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;">
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Akhmed Zakayev, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Report on Conference, Brussels, 15.05.2017 (Rus)</div>
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Michael MacKay Retweeted Chechen Center</div>
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Mark Zuckerberg's data mining racket censors Chechens just as it did Ukrainians when <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RussiaInvadedUkraine?src=hash" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;">#RussiaInvadedUkraine</a> in 2014.</div>
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Michael MacKay added,</div>
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<b class="QuoteTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target" style="display: inline-block;">Chechen Center</b><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="color: #657786; direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></div>
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Independence for Chechnya! facebook page was closed today. Russia has captured power in FB, please help to recover it.</div>
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<li class="js-stream-item stream-item stream-item
" data-item-id="867165075798405120" data-item-type="tweet" data-suggestion-json="{"suggestion_details":{},"tweet_ids":"867165075798405120","scribe_component":"tweet"}" id="stream-item-tweet-867165075798405120" style="background: padding-box padding-box rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); border-right: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); position: relative;"><div class="tweet js-stream-tweet js-actionable-tweet js-profile-popup-actionable dismissible-content
original-tweet js-original-tweet
" data-conversation-id="867165075798405120" data-disclosure-type="" data-follows-you="false" data-item-id="867165075798405120" data-mentions="fbnewsroom facebook" data-name="Dan" data-permalink-path="/SirDanielJ/status/867165075798405120" data-reply-to-users-json="[{"id_str":"106261605","screen_name":"SirDanielJ","name":"Dan","emojified_name":{"text":"Dan","emojified_text_as_html":"Dan"}},{"id_str":"247495419","screen_name":"ChechenCenter","name":"Chechen Center","emojified_name":{"text":"Chechen Center","emojified_text_as_html":"Chechen Center"}},{"id_str":"163723677","screen_name":"fbnewsroom","name":"Facebook Newsroom","emojified_name":{"text":"Facebook Newsroom","emojified_text_as_html":"Facebook Newsroom"}},{"id_str":"2425151","screen_name":"facebook","name":"Facebook","emojified_name":{"text":"Facebook","emojified_text_as_html":"Facebook"}}]" data-retweet-id="867177044995715077" data-retweeter="ChechenCenter" data-screen-name="SirDanielJ" data-tweet-id="867165075798405120" data-tweet-nonce="867165075798405120-0826870a-1720-4b68-b647-df122808ea0a" data-tweet-stat-initialized="true" data-user-id="106261605" data-you-block="false" data-you-follow="false" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); cursor: pointer; min-height: 51px; padding: 9px 12px; position: relative;">
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" style="color: #657786; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: -24px; margin-top: -3px;">
<span class="Icon Icon--small Icon--retweeted" style="background: transparent; color: #17bf63; display: inline-block; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px 6px 0px 0px; position: relative; top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> <span class="js-retweet-text"><a class="pretty-link js-user-profile-link" data-user-id="247495419" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;">Chechen Center</a> Retweeted</span></div>
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="106261605" href="https://twitter.com/SirDanielJ" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/821362771765895169/ZuMRcidy_bigger.jpg" style="border-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><span class="FullNameGroup"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " style="color: #14171a;">Dan</strong><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span></span><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@SirDanielJ</span></a> <small class="time" style="color: #657786; font-size: 14px;"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-conversation-id="867165075798405120" href="https://twitter.com/SirDanielJ/status/867165075798405120" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:47 AM - 24 May 2017"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp js-relative-timestamp" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1495583239000" data-time="1495583239">7h</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" data-aria-label-part="last" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;">7 hours ago</span></a></small><div class="ProfileTweet-action ProfileTweet-action--more js-more-ProfileTweet-actions" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin: -2px -9px 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;">
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Dan Retweeted Chechen Center</div>
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WTF <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link js-nav" data-mentioned-user-id="163723677" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/fbnewsroom" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;">@fbnewsroom</a> <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link js-nav" data-mentioned-user-id="2425151" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/facebook" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;">@facebook</a>. Is this true? What has Zuck allowed FB to become?</div>
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Dan added,</div>
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<a aria-hidden="true" class="QuoteTweet-link js-nav" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter/status/867156486555938817" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; height: 82px; left: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration-line: none; top: 0px; width: 503.984px;"></a><div class="QuoteTweet-innerContainer u-cf js-permalink js-media-container" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" data-item-id="867156486555938817" data-item-type="tweet" data-screen-name="ChechenCenter" data-user-id="247495419" href="/ChechenCenter/status/867156486555938817" style="padding: 12px;" tabindex="0">
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<div class="QuoteTweet-originalAuthor u-cf u-textTruncate stream-item-header account-group js-user-profile-link" style="max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden !important; position: relative; text-overflow: ellipsis !important; white-space: nowrap !important; word-wrap: normal !important; z-index: 1;">
<b class="QuoteTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target" style="display: inline-block;">Chechen Center</b><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="color: #657786; direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></div>
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Independence for Chechnya! facebook page was closed today. Russia has captured power in FB, please help to recover it.</div>
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<span class="ProfileTweet-action--reply u-hiddenVisually" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;"><span aria-hidden="true" class="ProfileTweet-actionCount" data-tweet-stat-count="0" style="color: #aab8c2; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 6px; position: relative; top: -2px;"><span class="ProfileTweet-actionCountForAria">0 replies</span></span></span><span class="ProfileTweet-action--retweet u-hiddenVisually" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;"><span class="ProfileTweet-actionCount" data-tweet-stat-count="2" style="color: #aab8c2; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 6px; position: relative; top: -2px;"><span class="ProfileTweet-actionCountForAria" data-aria-label-part="">2 retweets</span></span></span><span class="ProfileTweet-action--favorite u-hiddenVisually" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;"><span class="ProfileTweet-actionCount" data-tweet-stat-count="2" style="color: #aab8c2; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 6px; position: relative; top: -2px;"><span class="ProfileTweet-actionCountForAria" data-aria-label-part="">2 likes</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="ProfileTweet-actionCount" style="display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 6px; position: relative; top: -2px;"><span aria-hidden="true" class="ProfileTweet-actionCountForPresentation">2</span></span></div>
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" data-conversation-id="867160417285570560" data-disclosure-type="" data-follows-you="false" data-item-id="867160417285570560" data-mentions="facebook" data-name="Mousechick" data-permalink-path="/mousechick01/status/867160417285570560" data-reply-to-users-json="[{"id_str":"760107173582036992","screen_name":"mousechick01","name":"Mousechick","emojified_name":{"text":"Mousechick","emojified_text_as_html":"Mousechick"}},{"id_str":"247495419","screen_name":"ChechenCenter","name":"Chechen Center","emojified_name":{"text":"Chechen Center","emojified_text_as_html":"Chechen Center"}},{"id_str":"2425151","screen_name":"facebook","name":"Facebook","emojified_name":{"text":"Facebook","emojified_text_as_html":"Facebook"}}]" data-retweet-id="867161484866056194" data-retweeter="ChechenCenter" data-screen-name="mousechick01" data-tweet-id="867160417285570560" data-tweet-nonce="867160417285570560-a9162803-1a32-425d-bf3c-201e41a9c93b" data-tweet-stat-initialized="true" data-user-id="760107173582036992" data-you-block="false" data-you-follow="false" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); cursor: pointer; min-height: 51px; padding: 9px 12px; position: relative;">
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="760107173582036992" href="https://twitter.com/mousechick01" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/865172263758315521/5_qqOLmq_bigger.jpg" style="border-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><span class="FullNameGroup"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " style="color: #14171a;">Mousechick</strong><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span></span><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@mousechick01</span></a> <small class="time" style="color: #657786; font-size: 14px;"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-conversation-id="867160417285570560" href="https://twitter.com/mousechick01/status/867160417285570560" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:28 AM - 24 May 2017"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp js-relative-timestamp" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1495582129000" data-time="1495582129">7h</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" data-aria-label-part="last" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;">7 hours ago</span></a></small><div class="ProfileTweet-action ProfileTweet-action--more js-more-ProfileTweet-actions" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin: -2px -9px 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;">
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Mousechick Retweeted Chechen Center</div>
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<a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link js-nav" data-mentioned-user-id="2425151" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/facebook" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;">@facebook</a> Why would you close down the Independence for Chechnya page? Please reconsider!</div>
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Mousechick added,</div>
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<a aria-hidden="true" class="QuoteTweet-link js-nav" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter/status/867156486555938817" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; height: 82px; left: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration-line: none; top: 0px; width: 503.984px;"></a><div class="QuoteTweet-innerContainer u-cf js-permalink js-media-container" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" data-item-id="867156486555938817" data-item-type="tweet" data-screen-name="ChechenCenter" data-user-id="247495419" href="/ChechenCenter/status/867156486555938817" style="padding: 12px;" tabindex="0">
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<b class="QuoteTweet-fullname u-linkComplex-target" style="display: inline-block;">Chechen Center</b><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="color: #657786; direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></div>
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Independence for Chechnya! facebook page was closed today. Russia has captured power in FB, please help to recover it.</div>
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<li class="js-stream-item stream-item stream-item
" data-item-id="867158718265389061" data-item-type="tweet" data-suggestion-json="{"suggestion_details":{},"tweet_ids":"867158718265389061","scribe_component":"tweet"}" id="stream-item-tweet-867158718265389061" style="background: padding-box padding-box rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); border-right: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); position: relative;"><div class="tweet js-stream-tweet js-actionable-tweet js-profile-popup-actionable dismissible-content
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" data-conversation-id="867158718265389061" data-disclosure-type="" data-follows-you="false" data-item-id="867158718265389061" data-mentions="facebook" data-name="Lady Harley" data-permalink-path="/galynar/status/867158718265389061" data-reply-to-users-json="[{"id_str":"108077798","screen_name":"galynar","name":"Lady Harley","emojified_name":{"text":"Lady Harley","emojified_text_as_html":"Lady Harley"}},{"id_str":"247495419","screen_name":"ChechenCenter","name":"Chechen Center","emojified_name":{"text":"Chechen Center","emojified_text_as_html":"Chechen Center"}},{"id_str":"2425151","screen_name":"facebook","name":"Facebook","emojified_name":{"text":"Facebook","emojified_text_as_html":"Facebook"}}]" data-retweet-id="867158845885382656" data-retweeter="ChechenCenter" data-screen-name="galynar" data-tweet-id="867158718265389061" data-tweet-nonce="867158718265389061-421b06ff-e2a3-4d50-91e4-2a76309bad07" data-tweet-stat-initialized="true" data-user-id="108077798" data-you-block="false" data-you-follow="false" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); cursor: pointer; min-height: 51px; padding: 9px 12px; position: relative;">
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<span class="Icon Icon--small Icon--retweeted" style="background: transparent; color: #17bf63; display: inline-block; font-size: 14px; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px 6px 0px 0px; position: relative; top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span> <span class="js-retweet-text"><a class="pretty-link js-user-profile-link" data-user-id="247495419" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;">Chechen Center</a> Retweeted</span></div>
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="108077798" href="https://twitter.com/galynar" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/860962937703460865/cwzbdgjr_bigger.jpg" style="border-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><span class="FullNameGroup"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " style="color: #14171a;">Lady Harley</strong><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span></span><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@galynar</span></a> <small class="time" style="color: #657786; font-size: 14px;"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-conversation-id="867158718265389061" href="https://twitter.com/galynar/status/867158718265389061" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:22 AM - 24 May 2017"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp js-relative-timestamp" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1495581724000" data-time="1495581724">7h</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" data-aria-label-part="last" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;">7 hours ago</span></a></small><div class="ProfileTweet-action ProfileTweet-action--more js-more-ProfileTweet-actions" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin: -2px -9px 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;">
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Lady Harley Retweeted Chechen Center</div>
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A victim of the <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link js-nav" data-mentioned-user-id="2425151" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/facebook" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;">@facebook</a> /Russia collusion</div>
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Lady Harley added,</div>
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Independence for Chechnya! facebook page was closed today. Russia has captured power in FB, please help to recover it.</div>
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" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" data-disclosure-type="" data-follows-you="true" data-has-parent-tweet="true" data-is-reply-to="true" data-item-id="867158394490245120" data-mentions="JSaryuszWolski Atamansikka SenJohnMcCain MollyMcKew g900ap edwardlucas 20committee andersostlund parfitt_tom DarthPutinKGB" data-name="Chechen Center" data-permalink-path="/ChechenCenter/status/867158394490245120" data-reply-to-users-json="[{"id_str":"247495419","screen_name":"ChechenCenter","name":"Chechen Center","emojified_name":{"text":"Chechen Center","emojified_text_as_html":"Chechen Center"}},{"id_str":"1485429175","screen_name":"JSaryuszWolski","name":"Jacek Saryusz-Wolski","emojified_name":{"text":"Jacek Saryusz-Wolski","emojified_text_as_html":"Jacek Saryusz-Wolski"}},{"id_str":"3357496760","screen_name":"Atamansikka","name":"JJ","emojified_name":{"text":"JJ","emojified_text_as_html":"JJ"}},{"id_str":"19394188","screen_name":"SenJohnMcCain","name":"John McCain","emojified_name":{"text":"John McCain","emojified_text_as_html":"John McCain"}},{"id_str":"2382106993","screen_name":"MollyMcKew","name":"Molly McKew","emojified_name":{"text":"Molly McKew","emojified_text_as_html":"Molly McKew"}},{"id_str":"3387646324","screen_name":"g900ap","name":"R. van der Noordaa","emojified_name":{"text":"R. van der Noordaa","emojified_text_as_html":"R. van der Noordaa"}},{"id_str":"22369602","screen_name":"edwardlucas","name":"Edward Lucas","emojified_name":{"text":"Edward Lucas","emojified_text_as_html":"Edward Lucas"}},{"id_str":"635608354","screen_name":"20committee","name":"John Schindler","emojified_name":{"text":"John Schindler","emojified_text_as_html":"John Schindler"}},{"id_str":"21575717","screen_name":"andersostlund","name":"Anders \u00d6stlund","emojified_name":{"text":"Anders \u00d6stlund","emojified_text_as_html":"Anders \u00d6stlund"}},{"id_str":"356795707","screen_name":"parfitt_tom","name":"Tom Parfitt","emojified_name":{"text":"Tom Parfitt","emojified_text_as_html":"Tom Parfitt"}},{"id_str":"957306920","screen_name":"DarthPutinKGB","name":"Darth Putin","emojified_name":{"text":"Darth Putin","emojified_text_as_html":"Darth Putin"}}]" data-screen-name="ChechenCenter" data-tweet-id="867158394490245120" data-tweet-nonce="867158394490245120-5a9bdd3e-f9d1-4fcb-aa27-42d5a6c9a3d8" data-tweet-stat-initialized="true" data-user-id="247495419" data-you-block="false" data-you-follow="true" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); cursor: pointer; min-height: 51px; padding: 9px 12px; position: relative;">
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Replying to <a class="pretty-link js-user-profile-link" data-user-id="247495419" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></a> <a class="pretty-link js-user-profile-link" data-user-id="1485429175" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JSaryuszWolski" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@JSaryuszWolski</span></a> and <button class="js-other-reply-users btn-link" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-color: initial; border-radius: 0px; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-shadow: none; color: #657786; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out;" type="button">9 others</button></div>
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1 admin of the "Independence for Chechnya!" facebook group wrote to kadyrovist Artur Tokaev it's not good to torture people, unfriended.....</div>
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" data-item-id="867157860232331265" data-item-type="tweet" data-suggestion-json="{"suggestion_details":{},"tweet_ids":"867157860232331265","scribe_component":"tweet"}" id="stream-item-tweet-867157860232331265" style="background: padding-box padding-box rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); border-right: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); position: relative;"><div class="tweet js-stream-tweet js-actionable-tweet js-profile-popup-actionable dismissible-content
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" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" data-disclosure-type="" data-follows-you="true" data-has-parent-tweet="true" data-is-reply-to="true" data-item-id="867157860232331265" data-mentions="JSaryuszWolski Atamansikka SenJohnMcCain MollyMcKew g900ap edwardlucas 20committee andersostlund parfitt_tom DarthPutinKGB" data-name="Chechen Center" data-permalink-path="/ChechenCenter/status/867157860232331265" data-reply-to-users-json="[{"id_str":"247495419","screen_name":"ChechenCenter","name":"Chechen Center","emojified_name":{"text":"Chechen Center","emojified_text_as_html":"Chechen Center"}},{"id_str":"1485429175","screen_name":"JSaryuszWolski","name":"Jacek Saryusz-Wolski","emojified_name":{"text":"Jacek Saryusz-Wolski","emojified_text_as_html":"Jacek Saryusz-Wolski"}},{"id_str":"3357496760","screen_name":"Atamansikka","name":"JJ","emojified_name":{"text":"JJ","emojified_text_as_html":"JJ"}},{"id_str":"19394188","screen_name":"SenJohnMcCain","name":"John McCain","emojified_name":{"text":"John McCain","emojified_text_as_html":"John McCain"}},{"id_str":"2382106993","screen_name":"MollyMcKew","name":"Molly McKew","emojified_name":{"text":"Molly McKew","emojified_text_as_html":"Molly McKew"}},{"id_str":"3387646324","screen_name":"g900ap","name":"R. van der Noordaa","emojified_name":{"text":"R. van der Noordaa","emojified_text_as_html":"R. van der Noordaa"}},{"id_str":"22369602","screen_name":"edwardlucas","name":"Edward Lucas","emojified_name":{"text":"Edward Lucas","emojified_text_as_html":"Edward Lucas"}},{"id_str":"635608354","screen_name":"20committee","name":"John Schindler","emojified_name":{"text":"John Schindler","emojified_text_as_html":"John Schindler"}},{"id_str":"21575717","screen_name":"andersostlund","name":"Anders \u00d6stlund","emojified_name":{"text":"Anders \u00d6stlund","emojified_text_as_html":"Anders \u00d6stlund"}},{"id_str":"356795707","screen_name":"parfitt_tom","name":"Tom Parfitt","emojified_name":{"text":"Tom Parfitt","emojified_text_as_html":"Tom Parfitt"}},{"id_str":"957306920","screen_name":"DarthPutinKGB","name":"Darth Putin","emojified_name":{"text":"Darth Putin","emojified_text_as_html":"Darth Putin"}}]" data-screen-name="ChechenCenter" data-tweet-id="867157860232331265" data-tweet-nonce="867157860232331265-1e38ad60-e1cb-4814-9274-d1c7e05f1a61" data-tweet-stat-initialized="true" data-user-id="247495419" data-you-block="false" data-you-follow="true" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); cursor: pointer; min-height: 51px; padding: 9px 12px; position: relative;">
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="247495419" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/606604957790269441/_LNsY6Bh_bigger.jpg" style="border-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><span class="FullNameGroup"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " data-aria-label-part="" style="color: #14171a;">Chechen Center</strong><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span></span><span class="username u-dir" data-aria-label-part="" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></a> <small class="time" style="color: #657786; font-size: 14px;"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter/status/867157860232331265" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:18 AM - 24 May 2017"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp js-relative-timestamp" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1495581519000" data-time="1495581519">7h</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" data-aria-label-part="last" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;">7 hours ago</span></a></small><div class="ProfileTweet-action ProfileTweet-action--more js-more-ProfileTweet-actions" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin: -2px -9px 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;">
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="247495419" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; outline: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/606604957790269441/_LNsY6Bh_bigger.jpg" style="border-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><span class="FullNameGroup"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " data-aria-label-part="" style="color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: underline;">Chechen Center</strong><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span></span><span class="username u-dir" data-aria-label-part="" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></a> <small class="time" style="color: #657786; font-size: 14px;"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter/status/867156978774282240" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:15 AM - 24 May 2017"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp js-relative-timestamp" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1495581309000" data-time="1495581309">7h</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" data-aria-label-part="last" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;">7 hours ago</span></a></small><div class="ProfileTweet-action ProfileTweet-action--more js-more-ProfileTweet-actions" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin: -2px -9px 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;">
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Replying to <a class="pretty-link js-user-profile-link" data-user-id="247495419" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" rel="noopener" style="background: transparent; color: #0084b4; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="username u-dir" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></a></div>
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They have closed ALL Chechen facebook groups.</div>
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<li class="js-stream-item stream-item stream-item
" data-item-id="867156486555938817" data-item-type="tweet" data-suggestion-json="{"suggestion_details":{},"tweet_ids":"867156486555938817","scribe_component":"tweet"}" id="stream-item-tweet-867156486555938817" style="background: padding-box padding-box rgb(255, 255, 255); border-left: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); border-right: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); position: relative;"><div class="tweet js-stream-tweet js-actionable-tweet js-profile-popup-actionable dismissible-content
original-tweet js-original-tweet
retweeted
" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" data-disclosure-type="" data-follows-you="true" data-item-id="867156486555938817" data-my-retweet-id="867260416086487040" data-name="Chechen Center" data-permalink-path="/ChechenCenter/status/867156486555938817" data-reply-to-users-json="[{"id_str":"247495419","screen_name":"ChechenCenter","name":"Chechen Center","emojified_name":{"text":"Chechen Center","emojified_text_as_html":"Chechen Center"}}]" data-screen-name="ChechenCenter" data-tweet-id="867156486555938817" data-tweet-nonce="867156486555938817-f6cace6a-c9b7-490d-85e3-963857a89ad4" data-tweet-stat-initialized="true" data-user-id="247495419" data-you-block="false" data-you-follow="true" style="border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(230, 236, 240); cursor: pointer; min-height: 51px; padding: 9px 12px; position: relative;">
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<a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="247495419" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="" class="avatar js-action-profile-avatar" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/606604957790269441/_LNsY6Bh_bigger.jpg" style="border-radius: 5px; border: 0px; float: left; height: 48px; margin-left: -58px; margin-top: 3px; width: 48px;" /><span class="FullNameGroup"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " data-aria-label-part="" style="color: #14171a;">Chechen Center</strong><span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em; position: relative; top: 1px;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak"> </span></span><span class="username u-dir" data-aria-label-part="" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr !important; unicode-bidi: embed;">@ChechenCenter</span></a> <small class="time" style="color: #657786; font-size: 14px; margin-right: 5px;"> <a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-conversation-id="867156486555938817" href="https://twitter.com/ChechenCenter/status/867156486555938817" style="background: transparent; color: #657786; text-decoration-line: none;" title="12:13 AM - 24 May 2017"><span aria-hidden="true" class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp js-relative-timestamp" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1495581192000" data-time="1495581192">7h</span><span class="u-hiddenVisually" data-aria-label-part="last" style="border: 0px !important; clip: rect(1px 1px 1px 1px) !important; font-size: 1px !important; height: 1px !important; overflow: hidden !important; padding: 0px !important; position: absolute !important; width: 1px !important;">7 hours ago</span></a></small><div class="ProfileTweet-action ProfileTweet-action--more js-more-ProfileTweet-actions" style="display: inline-block; float: right; margin: -2px -9px 0px 0px; min-width: 0px;">
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Independence for Chechnya! facebook page was closed today. Russia has captured power in FB, please help to recover it.</div>
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<span class="ProfileTweet-actionCount" style="color: inherit; display: inline-block; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 6px; position: relative; top: -2px;"><span aria-hidden="true" class="ProfileTweet-actionCountForPresentation">58</span></span></div>
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David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-15740022956741727042017-05-15T09:20:00.002+01:002017-05-15T09:46:19.205+01:00And Who's the 'Wahhabi' Now?<div class="msg-content undoreset" id="yui_3_15_0_2_1494836070839_964" style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, san-serif, Roboto; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; overflow-x: auto; padding: 10px; position: relative; word-wrap: break-word;">
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[my tr.]</div>
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Secretary General of the World Islamic League allows the thing that made Kadyrov terribly unhappy</div>
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Remove the hijab or leave the country. That was the difficult choice faced by observant Muslims outside their native regions, Secretary General of the World Islamic League <span style="word-spacing: normal;">Sheikh Muhammad Al-Issa said in his speech in Brussels.</span></div>
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It's interesting that a sheikh from a Wahhabi state, Saudi Arabia, allows <span id="yui_3_15_0_2_1494836070839_976" style="word-spacing: normal;">both options. And this at a time when some Russian officials fighting Islamic extremism do not </span><span style="word-spacing: normal;">accept rejection of the hijab under the pressure of secular law.</span></div>
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“A Muslim must respect the constitutions and laws and culture of the countries in which they live,” the Sheikh said in his address, and also in a <a href="https://twitter.com/MWLOrg?lang=en" target="_blank">series of tweets </a>on Twitter.</div>
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“Should the laws not allow head-covering, a request to wear the hijab must only be made through the proper and legal channels and if such a request is rejected, Muslim residents have the option either to abide by the state’s regulations or leave the country.”</div>
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Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has not yet commented on the appeal of his good friend, who presented him with a gift during his December visit to Grozny.</div>
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David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-54162349011871108652017-05-15T07:20:00.000+01:002017-05-15T07:32:57.067+01:00A Baker’s Double Dozen of Neglected Russian Stories – No. 81<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
From <a href="http://www.interpretermag.com/may-5-2017/#16515" target="_blank">The Interpreter</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-bakers-double-dozen-of-neglected.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Staunton, VA, May 5, 2017 -</a> The flood of news stories from a country as large, diverse and strange as the Russian Federation often appears to be is far too large for anyone to keep up with. But there needs to be a way to mark those which can’t be discussed in detail but which are too indicative of broader developments to ignore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Consequently, Windows on Eurasia each week presents a selection of 13 of these other and typically neglected stories at the end of each week. This is the 81st such compilation, and it is again a double issue. Even then, it is only suggestive and far from complete, but perhaps one or more of these stories will prove of broader interest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Putin, Russia’s ‘Teflon President,’ Losing Trust and Support of Many Russians</em>. Even though Vladimir Putin is like Teflon in that everything<a href="http://www.profile.ru/politika/item/117023-raskachali-fotiniyu" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> he could be criticized for seems to slide off of him</a>, <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/7285/content/putin-priznal-chto-bolshaia-chast-maiskikh-ukazov-ostalas-nereshennoi/5814575" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">fails to have his orders fulfilled</a>, and his control of the media ensures that he will be viewed as he wants to be most of the time<a href="http://www.znak.com/2017-05-04/putinu_doveryaet_v_2_raza_menshe_rossiyan_chem_odobryaet_rabotu_prezidenta" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">, new polls show that the share of Russians saying they trust him has declined </a>even among those who say they will vote for him and <a href="http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-levada-poll-putin-48-percent/28467840.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the share who say they will do so is now under 50 percent.</a> Opposition commentators are increasingly critical of Putin personally: One said that<a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590B94A6C8F5F" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Putin doesn’t have an ideology but does have a religion (war)</a>, and another said that <a href="http://www.belaruspartisan.org/politic/378221/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">he may choose to appoint his bodyguard as his successor.</a> The Kremlin has decided, however, that the next vote on the presidency will be conducted as a referendum in which it needs an overwhelming majority rather than an election<a href="http://www.politsovet.ru/55222-kreml-opredelilsya-vybory-prezidenta-proydut-po-referendumnomu-scenariyu.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> in which 50 percent plus one is enough. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Trump Rates as a Russophobe by Upper House of Russian Parliament.</em> Less than three months since its members were among those in Moscow drinking champagne over the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections, members of the Federation Council held a session at which they reflected the swing in Moscow and <a href="http://www.mk.ru/politics/2017/04/28/v-sovfede-ocenili-uroven-rusofobii-donalda-trampa.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">considered how much of a Russophobe Trump really is. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Russian Economy, Already Bad, Is Only Going to Get Worse</em>. Russian economists have concluded that the Russian economy, <a href="http://www.polit.ru/article/2017/04/28/stagnation/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">already in a bad way,</a> can’t grow without radical structural reforms and that <a href="http://www.profile.ru/economics/item/117090-neuteshitelnye-perspektivy-rynka-truda" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">in their absence it will get even worse</a>. As a result, <a href="http://www.ura.news/news/1052287803" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the growth in the number of poor people in that country will continue to accelerate</a> and the pension system will collapse unless some way is found to reduce the number of those receiving pensions, <a href="http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/2271924.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">something that will require more than just raising the pension age. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">4. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Russia has Highest Death Rates Among Working Age Males in World, Experts Say</em>. Not only are fewer young people entering the workforce because of declines in the number of children reaching 18 because<a href="http://www.svpressa.ru/society/article/171667/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Putin’s maternal capital program isn’t working</a> and because <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/129/content/bystree-vsego-bedneiut-rossiiskie-semi-s-detmi/5815072" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ever more women are concluding that having children will drive them into poverty,</a> but<a href="http://www.fedpress.ru/news/77/society/1781498" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> more Russian males of working age are dying than in any other country</a>. Russia is also suffering from a <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590AF616967F4" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">severe shortage of critical medications</a> and <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590B0AC09DDDF" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">of specialist doctors like oncologists</a>. Meanwhile, Moscow’s <a href="http://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2017/05/03/72358-pochemu-my-ne-dogonim-portugaliyu" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">failure to focus on education </a>and its plans to eliminate dissertation requirements mean, experts say, <a href="http://www.politsovet.ru/55202-uchenye-zvaniya-budut-prisvaivat-bez-dissertaciy.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">that Russia will never catch up even with Portugal as Putin promised earlier. </a>The Russian government seems set on taking more counterproductive actions: it is <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/4765/content/v-sovfede-predlozhili-zapretit-vyezd-dvum-desiatkam-millionov-chelovek/5811791" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">considering a measure to prevent anyone who is unemployed or self-employed from travelling abroad</a>, and it has<a href="http://www.philologist.livejournal.com/9269071.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> issued an order that bans librarians from talking about religion or politics online</a>. And yet another scandal has broken in Russia’s penal system as <a href="http://www.politsovet.ru/55236-v-sverdlovskoy-oblasti-startuet-sud-o-seks-pytkah-v-kolonii.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">officials investigate Sverdlovsk jailors for sexually torturing inmates there. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">5. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Petersburgers Ready to Be Friends with Chinese but Prefer to Marry Americans</em>. A new survey in the northern capital shows that Petersburgers are <a href="http://www.nazaccent.ru/content/23948-pochti-45-peterburzhcev-gotovy-druzhit-s.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">quite willing to make friends with Chinese people</a> but <a href="http://www.izvestia.ru/news/693875" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">don’t want to marry them, preferring marriage with Americans instead. </a>Other news from the nationality front this week includes complaints that Putin <a href="http://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/302128/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has done nothing to protect Chechens against Ramzan Kadyrov</a>, a<a href="http://www.kyk-byre.ru/2054-neofashisty-iz-chelyabinskoy-oblasti-unizili-zabili-dosmerti-bashkirku-i-ostalis-na-svobode.htm" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> group of Russian extremists beat up a Bashkir just because of ethnicity</a>, Kalmyks step up demands that Moscow <a href="http://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/302047" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">live up to its law on the restoration of the rights of repressed peoples,</a> Buryats say that <a href="http://www.respnews.ru/news/gorod-zhivet-emociyami/seksualnaya-revolyuciya-po-buryatski?_utl_t=fb" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the sexual revolution has now arrived in their republic</a>, Moscow <a href="http://www.freeingria.org/2017/04/majskoe-drevo-srubili-znakovyj-dlya-ingrii-folk-festival-v-vyborge-staraniyami-okkupatsionnoj-byurokratii-bolshe-ne-provoditsya/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">cancels a Finno-Ugric festival in Vyborg</a>, movement of people from villages to cities <a href="http://www.regnum.ru/news/society/2270173.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has stopped in Sakha</a>, and <a href="http://www.irekle.org/news/i2033.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chuvash flashmob calls for protecting national language. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">6. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Monument Wars Continue Unabated</em>. As Moscow makes plans <a href="http://www.znak.com/2017-05-04/rbk_na_prazdnovanie_dnya_pobedy_v_moskve_potratyat_polmilliarda_rubley" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to celebrate Victory Day in the most modest way in recent years,</a> the monument wars continued across Russia last week. Among the most interesting: opponents of a new Russian cathedral in Yekaterinburg <a href="http://www.politsovet.ru/55227-v-ekaterinburge-vladimir-lenin-vystupil-protiv-hrama-na-vode.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">put up signs that have Lenin declaring he’s against it too</a>, <a href="http://www.nazaccent.ru/content/23973-v-habarovske-hotyat-ustanovit-pamyatnik-nanajskomu.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the Nanai nationality pushes for a monument to one of its own, a prominent sniper in Soviet forces in World War II</a>, the <a href="http://www.nazaccent.ru/content/23936-saamy-murmanskoj-oblasti-poprosili-u-vlastej.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Saami nationality want a monument to their reindeer battalion, </a>the struggle between supporters and opponents of the <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/5392/content/eltsin-tsentr-v-kontekste-tekhnologii-tsvetnykh-revoliutsii/5804437" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yeltsin Center</a>, <a href="http://www.echo.msk.ru/news/1973118-echo.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">St. Isaacs</a> and the <a href="http://www.vestnikcivitas.ru/pbls/4063" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Roerich Museum</a> intensified; activists want to <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/5652/content/v-omske-ustanoviat--voinam-chekhoslovatskogo-korpusa/5811985" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">erect a statue honoring the Czechoslovak legion in Siberia during the Russian Civil War</a>, Russian nationalists want to <a href="http://www.ruskline.ru/news_rl/2017/05/03/vosstanovim_arku_cesarevicha_v_habarovske/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">restore an arch honoring the visit of then tsarevich Nicholas to Khabarovsk</a>, Jewish and Muslim leaders <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/6399/content/musulmane-i-iudei-rossii-podderzhivaiut-ideiu-zakhoroneniia-lenina/5806104" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">call for burying Lenin</a>, the Old Believers<a href="http://www.nazaccent.ru/content/23984-v-moskve-ustanovili-obelisk-v-pamyat.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> erect a monument to their church in Moscow</a>, and the restoration of a memorial in the Kremlin to a murdered grand duke <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/7451/content/vosstanovlennyi-v-kremle-krest-sshivaet-razorvannuiu-istoriiu-rossii/5814871%20and%20centrasia.ru/news.php?st=1493921040" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has sparked serious controversy. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">7. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Protests Increase in Number, Targets and Locations</em>. Over the last week, Russians protested more often, on more issues, and in more locations than at any point in the last five years. A major reason for this is that while the authorities typically responded with repressive measures, in some cases as in that of the possible demolition of five-storey apartment blocks in Moscow, <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590985F697EBD" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">they responded by making concessions, thus demonstrating that collective action can work.</a> Among the protests<a href="http://www.nazaccent.ru/content/23975-v-internete-proshel-fleshmob-v-zashitu.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> were those by peoples of the North against oil companies</a>, support <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community//content/na-miting-oppozitsii-v-tomske-vyshlo-okolo-200-chelovek/5806160" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">for Navalny and the Russian opposition in Tomsk</a>, <a href="http://www.asiarussia.ru/news/16080/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1000 Buryats demanded the ouster of a local district head. </a>Nonetheless, the powers that be continued to think about taking steps that <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590ADE05C6754" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">almost certainly will guarantee more protests</a> and use <a href="http://www.ekhokavkaza.com/a/28465384.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">various repressive actions</a> and <a href="http://www.yuga.ru/news/414811/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">threats against protesters. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">8. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Russians Now Prouder of Their Military than Their Culture.</em> A new Levada Center poll finds that Russians are increasingly proud of their armed forces and<a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/for-third-year-in-a-row-military-replaces-culture-in-the-short-list-of-what-russians-are-proud-of-57902" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> today are more proud of it than they are of their national culture</a>. But their military faces increasing problems: it has had again to <a href="http://www.republic.ru/posts/82457" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">delay tests of the Proton rocket because of problems,</a> its bold plans for modernization are not being met on schedule <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/politic/content/ne-imeiushchie-analogov-kanuli-v-letu-deneg-net/5814167" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">because of the diversion of funds to corruption and other uses, </a>and reports now say that some 1,500 Russian army soldiers have <a href="http://www.uaposition.com/latest-news/about-1500-russian-soldiers-killed-in-donbas-since-spring-2014-russian-ngo/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">died in the Donbass since 2014</a>. At the end of the week, Russian officials at all levels expressed outrage at a US Congressional measure calling on the US administration to monitor Russian ports near North Korea. <a href="http://www.rbc.ru/politics/05/05/2017/590c3e229a794750d1f2c29e?from=main" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Some compared this action to “a declaration of war”</a>, and commentators in the Russian Far East reminded everyone that Vladivostok is <a href="http://www.beregrus.ru/?p=9144" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">only 100 kilometers from the North Korean border. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">9. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Illegal Guns Continue to Flow into Russia</em>. Russian investigators have uncovered another channel by which <a href="http://www.qha.com.ua/ru/proisshestviya/fsb-zayavila-o-zaderjanii-torgovtsa-orujiem-iz-ukraini/173685/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">illegal guns are flowing into the Russian Federation from Ukraine.</a> Meanwhile, police <a href="http://www.meduza.io/news/2017/05/05/v-kvartire-v-sankt-peterburge-obnaruzhili-sto-kilogrammov-trotilovyh-shashek" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reported discovering 100 kilograms of high explosive in a St. Petersburg apartment. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">10. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">More European Challenges to Russian Hosting of 2018 World Cup</em>. German deputies have called for Russia to be excluded from the Olympics in 2018, <a href="http://www.rusmonitor.com/v-bundestage-prizyvayut-otstranit-rossiyu-ot-zimnejj-olimpiady-2018.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">an appeal that may put more pressure on FIFA to strip Moscow of the right to host the World Cup</a>. And French magistrates <a href="http://www.svpressa.ru/sport/article/171542/%20and%20forum-msk.org/material/news/13152697.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">have expanded their investigation into what many suspect are the corrupt means that the Kremlin employed to secure the World Cup.</a> Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.rosbalt.ru/russia/2017/05/03/1612555.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">more Russian athletes were found guilty of using illegal drugs,</a> and there was <a href="http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/day_video/1974024-echo/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">another outbreak of Russian fan violence at a football match</a>, something Moscow<a href="http://www.rosbalt.ru/russia/2017/05/03/1612548.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> sought unsuccessfully to play down. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">11. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What’s a Russian Quartet? The Bolshoi Orchestra After a Foreign Tour.</em> Life increasingly imitates art, and Russian life former Soviet jokes. As a result of Vladimir Putin’s increasingly repressive regime, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/russian/features-39734027" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">eight former Duma deputies now live in exile abroad. </a>Not yet a quorum but a remarkable figure nonetheless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">12. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Navalny has a Passport But in Russia Today, That Isn’t Enough to Leave.</em> The Kremlin’s decision to give Aleksey Navalny a passport supposedly so he could go abroad to have his eye treated after persons unknown threw paint and other chemicals in it won Moscow 24 hours of positive stories, but then it turned out that the regime<a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/actually-russia-wont-let-navalny-leave-the-country-to-save-his-eyesight-57905" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> said he couldn’t leave despite having a passport. </a>The Putin regime clearly doesn’t know exactly what to do with Navalny who is attracting ever more attention: Between December and April,<a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590985F697EBD" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> the number of references to him in the Russian media rose 500 percent.</a> [Navalny <a href="https://zona.media/news/2017/09/05/glazn" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">was ultimately allowed to travel to Barcelona for an eye operation</a>.]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">13. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Russia’s Northern Peoples Have Been Reduced to the Status of Serfs, Sulyandziga Says</em>. The Northern people’s activist<a href="http://www.nazaccent.ru/content/23996-poprosivshij-ubezhisha-v-ssha-pavel-sulyandziga.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> now seeking political asylum in the United States</a> says that he plans to set up a center in the United States<a href="http://www.openrussia.org/mobile/notes/709081/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> to encourage attention to their plight and thus promote their interests. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">14. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Russian Justice Ministry Officially Registers Church of Flying Macaroni Monster.</em> Even as they repress genuine religions, Russian officials have offered legal registration to a group of people who <a href="http://www.koza.press/news/2982" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">say they have formed the Church of the Flying Macaroni Monster. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">15. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Dress Your Child in the NKVD Officer Uniform He May Eventually Wear to Work</em>. Children’s stores in Moscow are <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/129/content/v-moskovskom-internet-magazine-ko-dniu-pobedy-v-prodazhe-poiavilas-detskaia-forma-nkvd/5810860" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">offering child-sized NKVD officer uniforms for children</a>, something that might be amusing were it not for the fact that Russia is drifting in the direction where such uniforms will be appropriate for all. Worse, the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church is now setting up special camps to train young people how <a href="http://www.nedelya40.ru/yunarmejtsy-iz-pravoslavnoj-gimnazii-pokazali-svoe-masterstvo_40952" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to shoot and engage in the martial arts to defeat Russia’s enemies just like Putin does. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">16. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kremlin Ready to Attack Any Anti-Imperial Sentiments Among Russian Opposition</em>. Several opposition activists <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59071F8FAABF9" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">say Russia needs an anti-imperialist political party</a>, but the Kremlin stands ready to attack any such effort or even opposition to the most extreme imperialist<a href="http://www.sovsekretno.ru/articles/id/5683/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> by suggesting that all anti-imperialists are ultimately Nazis. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">17. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Forest Fires in Siberia and the Far East Burning Out of Control</em>. The<a href="http://www.rufabula.com/news/2017/05/03/fire%20" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> area of fires in Siberia </a>increased <a href="http://www.siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/its-like-war-as-wildfires-rage-across-siberia-and-the-russian-far-east/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by 600 percent in a single day </a>and forced the authorities to declare a draconian state of emergency across the region <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59035D21AA62D" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">in the hope of avoiding a further spread. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">18. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Soviets Repressed More than a Million People on Ethnic Grounds in 1930s</em>Alone. Defenders of the Soviet system and Stalin always insist that it punished people for their specific crimes or their class origins, but in fact, <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=59082165C2328" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the USSR repressed more than a million people on ethnic grounds alone in the late 1930s and shot more than a quarter of them.</a> Many more died in the GULAG. This figure is for the period before the notorious deportations Stalin carried out during and after World War II. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">19. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Moscow’s Divide and Rule Policies Applied by Its Minions in the Regions and Republics</em>. Leonid Markelov, the now imprisoned former leader of Mari El, promoted divisions among the population of that republic in order to ensure his own power, just as Moscow has done for the country as a whole. Unfortunately, while Markelov is gone,<a href="http://www.mariuver.com/2017/05/03/mari-raskolt/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> the team that has replaced him consists of people he selected and who are likely to follow the same approach.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">20. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fortunately the Russians Don’t Have Votes in France</em>. A new poll shows that 61 percent of Russians in the Russian Federation would vote for Marine Le Pen, and only eight percent for her more moderate opponent, <a href="http://www.ruskline.ru/news_rl/2017/05/03/valerij_fedorov_vybory_prezidenta_francii_privlekli_znachitelnoe_vnimanie_rossiyan/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">a reflection of the Kremlin’s tilt to the nationalist leader who is committed to dismantling the EU and pursuing pro-Moscow policies. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">21. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">One-Third of Russians Say Kremlin Protects Human Rights</em>. Despite evidence to the contrary, a poll shows that one Russian in three says that the Kremlin is protecting their human rights. Perhaps more important two out of three don’t agree. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">22. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Patriarch Kirill Cracks the Whip Over His Subordinates</em>. Patriarch Kirill has <a href="http://www.politsovet.ru/55235-rpc-otpravila-v-otstavku-episkopa-sravnivshego-zaschitnikov-isaakiya-s-gruppami-smerti.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">retired a bishop who compared the defenders of St. Isaac’s with a “death group,</a>” presumably to make the head of the church look less out of step with reality, and<a href="http://www.politsovet.ru/55216-patriarh-kirill-otpravil-v-monastyr-protodiakona-kuraeva.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> sent Archdeacon Kurayev to a monastery for a time as punishment for criticizing the Patriarchate’s policies </a>on a variety of grounds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">23.<em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Petition Calling for Expulsion of ‘Russophobic Foreigners’ from Russia Circulating</em>. A new petition calling on the Russian government<a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/5652/content/petitsiia-rusofobstvuiushchie-inostrantsy-dolzhny-%20vydvoriatsia-iz-rossii/5809490" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> to identify and expel from the country all foreigners who express in any way whatsoever Russophobic attitudes</a> is gathering support</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">24. ‘USSR Never Disintegrated,’ USSR Citizens Movement Says. </em>A group of Russians says that <a href="http://www.svpressa.ru/society/article/171583/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">they have evidence that the USSR never fell apart</a> and that they, the USSR Citizens Movement, are living proof of that and the basis for the rebirth of the Soviet Union. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">25. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Russia Following Post-Colonial Africa in Turning Away from Modernity</em>. Russia today, in its turn away from reform and modernity back toward archaic forms and authoritarianism, <a href="http://www.ttolk.ru/2017/05/03/%25u0430%25u0440%25u0445%25u0430%25u0438%25u043A%25u0430-%25u0438%25u043B%25u0438-%25u043E%25u0442%25u043A%25u0440%25u044B%25u0442%25u043E%25u0435-%25u043E%25u0431%25u0449%25u0435%25u0441%25u0442%25u0432%25u043E-%25u043F%25u043E%25u0447%25u0435%25u043C/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is recapitulating a process that has occurred in much of sub-Saharan Africa since the end of colonialism. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">26. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When Russian Federation Does Come Apart, It will Do So Quickly. </em> History teaches that<a href="http://www.freeingria.org/2017/05/po-sledam-pervomaya-14-ingermanlandskih-tezisov/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> when the Russian state begins to fall apart, it does so very quickly. </a>That was true in 1917 and 1991, and it will be true, an Ingrian activist says, when the Russian Federation at some point follows in their path. </span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And 12 more from countries in Russia’s neighborhood: </span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Second Chinese University Offers Belarusian Language Major</em>. The University of Tsientsin has become the second Chinese higher educational institution <a href="http://www.belta.by/society/view/tjantszinskij-universitet-nachnet-nabor-na-spetsialnost-belorusskij-jazyk-245040-2017/)" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">to offer a major in the Belarusian language</a>, yet another indication of the extent to which Beijing is outpacing the West in focusing on Belarus.</span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Moscow’s Plan to Make Crimea an Offshore Intended to Weaken Western Opposition to Occupation</em>. The Russian government<a href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/articles/russia-unveils-new-bill-to-transform-crimea-into-tax-haven-57855%20" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> has announced plans to transform occupied Crimea into a tax haven</a>, something it hopes will attract more investment there and make it likely that <a href="http://www.svpressa.ru/economy/article/171445/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">at least some in the West will want to take advantage of that and press their governments to end opposition to Putin’s Anschluss. </a></span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ever Fewer Belarusians Visit Occupied Crimea</em>. The number of Belarusians who have visited Russian-occupied Crimea <a href="http://www.qha.com.ua/ru/turizm/belorusi-perestali-poseschat-okkupirovannii-krim/173514/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">has plummeted over the last four years.</a> But the peninsula continues to attract some pro-Moscow politicians from Western countries as well as some Muslim leaders,<a href="http://www.qha.com.ua/ru/politika/gpsu-muftii-belarusi-i-estonii-okazalis-v-krimu-nezakonno/173683/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> including the muftis of Belarus and Estonia. </a></span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">4. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">China May Be Big Winner When Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railway Opens This Summer</em>. The railroad linking Azerbaijan and Turkey via Georgia (the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars route) i<a href="http://www.turantoday.com/2017/04/baku-tbilisi-kars.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">s likely to be exploited by Beijing</a> as<a href="http://www.regnum.ru/news/polit/2271677.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> a way of shipping goods to Europe bypassing Russia. </a></span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">5. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Poroshenko Lifts Ukrainian Citizenship from Almost 19,000 People</em>. The Ukrainian president so far in his term has<a href="http://www.dsnews.ua/politics/poroshenko-lishil-ukrainskogo-grazhdanstva-pochti-19-tys-chelovek-30042017163800" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> taken action to end the citizenship of more than 18,000 people</a>, the overwhelming majority of whom have chosen to take citizenship in other countries. </span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">6. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Children of Central Asian Presidents Doing Very Well</em>. The princes and princesses of Central Asia <a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/5652/content/uspeshnye-deti-prezidentov-tsentralnoi-azii/5800914" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">as the children of the authoritarian presidents of the five countries in that region are known</a> are doing very well<a href="http://www.theopenasia.net/articles/detail/17-tsentralnoaziatskikh-printsess-kak-prezidenty-lyubyat-svoikh-docherey/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> thanks to their involvement in state-assisted corporations. </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">7. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Russian Occupied Crimea At Bottom of International Press Freedom Rankings.</em> Since Putin’s Anschluss, Crimea has been transformed from a relatively open media environment<a href="http://www.ru.krymr.com/a/28465422.html" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> to one of the least free in the world, according to new international rankings. </a></span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">8. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Azerbaijan’s Ethnic Russians Tell Aleksandr Dugin Not to Come Back</em>. After some of his typically outrageous remarks, the leaders of Baku’s ethnic Russian community<a href="http://www.newsland.com/community/politic/content/russkoe-naselenie-poprosili-dugina-bolshe-ne-priezzhat/5812905" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> asked that the outspoken Eurasianist not ever come back to their country again</a>. </span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">9. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Opposition Activists in Belarus Organizing a Women’s Party</em>. Belarus<a href="http://www.belaruspartisan.org/politic/378677/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> may soon have its own women’s party if opposition activists succeed in organizing one.</a> Many of the participants in the anti-government protests there earlier this year were women, and the only two opposition deputies in the parliament are also women. </span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">10. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Estonia’s Narva Puts Russia’s Ivangorod to Shame</em>. Especially since 1991, Narva has become an ever more modern city while Ivangorod, the city on the Russian side of the border there, has fallen into ruins, something <a href="http://www.freeingria.org/2017/05/ruiny-na-granitse-ingrii-ivangorod-prosit-spasti-parusinku/" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">that has so shamed residents that they are calling for government assistance to improve at least the looks of their native city. </a></span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">11. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">OSCE Worried by Yerevan’s Decision to Close Organization’s Armenian Office</em>. The OSCE plays a key role in monitoring developments in many countries. Consequently, <a href="http://www.commonspace.eu/index.php?m=23&news_id=4219" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yerevan’s decision to shutter the OSCE office there is worrisome because it will limit the ability of the outside world to track what is happening in Armenia. </a></span></div>
<div style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px none; color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0.16px; margin-bottom: 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">12. <em style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Armenian Workers at Russian Base Strike Because They Haven’t Been Paid.</em> Russia’s failure to pay in a timely manner workers within its borders is notorious, but this bad practice has now spread to Russia’s military bases abroad. Now, Armenian <a href="http://www.kasparov.ru/material.php?id=590A178468575" style="background: none 0px 0px repeat scroll transparent; border: 0px none; color: #aaaaaa; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">employees at the Russian base there have gone on strike for back wages,</a> yet another reflection of and cause for tensions between Armenia and Russia.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">See also in this blog <a href="https://halldor2.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/a-bakers-dozen-of-neglected-russian.html" target="_blank">A Baker's Dozen of Neglected Russian Stories - No. 78</a></span></div>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-8623586156885142352017-05-12T17:07:00.002+01:002017-05-12T17:16:45.518+01:00Onward, Christian Soldiers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE7viM4eXyL9oqYJK-yKRChTsufH2e-gOEJYPMFNOnGEUOxVz6AvfhYEoBK48gk-x78aFWeQvrjFO9Jd8zGpdSiVyK6Z8E5D4zh4443XtgO_sHNWawpH_zJI9KAs_592Gt71l0hQ/s1600/01a-orthodox-at-prayer-putin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE7viM4eXyL9oqYJK-yKRChTsufH2e-gOEJYPMFNOnGEUOxVz6AvfhYEoBK48gk-x78aFWeQvrjFO9Jd8zGpdSiVyK6Z8E5D4zh4443XtgO_sHNWawpH_zJI9KAs_592Gt71l0hQ/s320/01a-orthodox-at-prayer-putin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i>Time</i> <a href="http://time.com/4776717/mike-pence-russian-cleric-hilarion-alfeyev/" target="_blank">reports</a> that Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev of Moscow, the Orthodox Church's representative abroad, held a private meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at a 'summit' organised by evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Billy. The theme of the meeting was cooperation with Russia - and Assad - to combat terrorism in the Middle East.<br />
<br />
The four-day get-together assembled a notable collection of far-right political and religious figures - but on the Russia issue there were dissenting voices:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not all evangelical leaders welcome the idea of a partnership with the Russian Orthodox Church—and, by extension, the Russian government. Last summer Russia passed a law that restricted foreign missionary work. In April, the Russian Supreme Court banned Jehovah’s Witnesses. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom then recommended for the first time that Russia be named in the top tier of the worst international religious-freedom offenders. Even on Thursday , during the Washington summit, a Russian blogger was convicted of religious hatred for playing “Pokemon Go” in a Yekaterinburg church.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“To say these are the defenders of Christianity belies credulity,” says former Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann. “It’s bizarre.” Putin’s is a “gospel-fighting regime,” says Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-67994893435790236832017-05-11T12:42:00.000+01:002017-05-11T14:05:44.313+01:00The Weaponization of Information<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq4tR4bsAqlU1JJE7aHlNJ4jPaMUwjyW7wYUS5-hlAbbu-jleLXkv-pVy-KZpELKoAJNed_dUbZBQmi1fDFYKl3k39EbmgcEZN0YgirGylnA4e8cWnNIVbZisXbvgL3esOOpuiZQ/s1600/Putin-journos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq4tR4bsAqlU1JJE7aHlNJ4jPaMUwjyW7wYUS5-hlAbbu-jleLXkv-pVy-KZpELKoAJNed_dUbZBQmi1fDFYKl3k39EbmgcEZN0YgirGylnA4e8cWnNIVbZisXbvgL3esOOpuiZQ/s320/Putin-journos.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This <a href="http://www.stopfake.org/en/kremlin-propaganda-soviet-active-measures-by-other-means/" target="_blank">article </a>by Yevhen Fedchenko is a pretty good summary of the techniques employed in the propaganda favoured by Russian sources and media. In particular, the author traces and exposes the connection of what has happened in Ukraine, in Crimea and Donbas, to the realities, practices and ideology of Soviet times, and its underpinning with the themes of the fakes and forgeries that were part of the informational armoury of the Soviet secret services back in the 1950s.</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #3f3f3f;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Excerpt:</span></span><br />
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
When Putin speaks of media warfare, he means the war which is conducted against Russia by unnamed countries. Although Russian President does not mention here who conducts this war, he means the West in general, and the United States and NATO in particular. This is also overtly mentioned in Military Doctrine. That puts Moscow reactively in defensive position and necessitates the retaliation:</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">In</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </em><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.ru/analyses/rossiyskaya-gibridnaya-voyna-nichego-novogo/" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff9900; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">a speech to Russia’s Academy of Military Sciences in January 2013</em></a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">, Chief-of-Staff Valery Gerasimov complained that Russian knowledge of asymmetric warfare was “s</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">u</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">perficial.” The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the United States in particular, had demonstrated their mastery of non-military campaigns in the Arab Spring and Ukraine’s pro-Western Orange Revolution in 2004, Gerasimov said. Such modesty is di</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">s</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">ingenuous. Disinformation and subversion as weapons of war are as old as catapults and cavalry. The Kremlin’s advantage in the information age is that all of Russia’s major m</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">e</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">dia outlets are under its control, allowing it to hammer its audience with one, unified message. The Kremlin claim that it’s in an “information war” with the West implies that there is vast conspiracy among myriad media in the United States and Europe, public and private, to produce the same lies about Russia</em><a href="http://www.stopfake.org/en/kremlin-propaganda-soviet-active-measures-by-other-means/#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff9900; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">[6]</strong></em></a><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">.</em></blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Russia perfectly understands the importance of propaganda and heavily invests with money and human talent into organizations that work for international audience like RT (formerly known as Russia Today), Sputnik International (formerly known as the Voice of Russia), Ruptly, RIA (that still operate as a brand in Russian), TASS, Russia Insider, Russia Beyond the Headlines(RBTH) and myriad of other sources for propaganda, fakes and falsifications. As we see some of these “media” organizations are well-known propaganda brands from the Cold War times, others are quite new.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
RT was created in 2005, immediately after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and was fully operational during Russian war in Georgia in 2008. Sputnik International was launched during Euromaidan uprising in Kyiv.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Both RT and Sputnik International dropped the word “Russian” from their brand names which is quite interesting but explainable. They do not work for Russian market, do not cover primarily Russia and they do not do Russia’s nation branding as many argues. For example, Shawn Powers calls RT a part of “global engagement strategy that combines Russian and international media platforms to communicate and articulate Russian foreign policy. The most developed of these is Russia Today (RT), which is a Russian satellite television broadcasting system similar to Qatar’s Al Jazeera or France 24<a href="http://www.stopfake.org/en/kremlin-propaganda-soviet-active-measures-by-other-means/#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff9900; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;">[7]</a>.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Margarita Simonyan, RT head, explains that it’s not about national branding at all: “To some extent, if you do not have broadcasting for abroad – it’s like you do not have the army. When there is no war you do not need it. But when the war already started you cannot create it in a week”<a href="http://www.stopfake.org/en/kremlin-propaganda-soviet-active-measures-by-other-means/#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff9900; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;">[8]</a>.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
Sputnik International website says that their mission is “to points the way to a multipolar world that respects every country’s national interests, culture, history and traditions”. In reality it’s just the opposite as Kremlin “has systematically learnt to use the principles of liberal democracies against them in what we call here “the weaponization of information”<a href="http://www.stopfake.org/en/kremlin-propaganda-soviet-active-measures-by-other-means/#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="background: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff9900; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out;">[9]</a>.</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px;">
In other words, Kremlin is using these so called ‘media’ organizations to deny others to have the right for their own culture, history and traditions through twisting facts and faking stories to undermine the policy making process or compromise their core values and institutions:</blockquote>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6999811.post-67217146247742361732017-05-10T10:26:00.000+01:002017-05-10T10:26:22.614+01:00The Red and the Green<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHs8T8CCgl1AwdH67m_0nf0SrZBp1gGez3ADEh01Vu1OhdhprjCgXxMSOi39VuL9c1T7FZFfA4fgwlNcitsDm4n_a-kwVk0dDOXh0_Awlw5Ay2MkXN-qXmpVxMS4iARNc6wlEDUA/s1600/1000x-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHs8T8CCgl1AwdH67m_0nf0SrZBp1gGez3ADEh01Vu1OhdhprjCgXxMSOi39VuL9c1T7FZFfA4fgwlNcitsDm4n_a-kwVk0dDOXh0_Awlw5Ay2MkXN-qXmpVxMS4iARNc6wlEDUA/s320/1000x-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
In the context of the recent chemical attack on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, I came across the following paragraph in Emma Gilligan's <i>Terror in Chechnya </i>(2010):<br />
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"Two witnesses spoke of being physically branded at Chernokozovo. The threat of marking foreheads with green iodine (<i>zelenka</i>) was first heard of in Novye Aldy. Victims detained during the sweep in the village of Shami-Iurt in February 2000 were taken to Tolstoi-Iurt. During transportation, a Russian soldier warned Dashaev and another man named Viskhan that i<span id="yui_3_15_0_2_1494405222113_3234" style="word-spacing: normal;">f their noses were marked in red, they were being branded for summary execution. He cautioned that it would be better if they were covered in green iodine. Whether this warning was used as a psychological weapon or had legitimate strategic value is unclear. But both Dashaev and Viskhan were later covered in green iodine and released. The full extent of this </span><span style="word-spacing: normal;">practice is unclear." (</span>p.61)</div>
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While it seems likely that in the case of the attack on Navalny the iodine was mixed with some other more harmful substance (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/02/alexei-navalny-accuses-kremlin-involvement-green-dye-attack/" target="_blank">some reports</a> mention a "green dye attack"), it is interesting to note the apparent origin of this practice. </div>
David McDuffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01515361544462041148noreply@blogger.com0