The Producers

From the Edinburgh Festival, a production of Jihad, The Musical. The Mail writes:

The controversial satire about Islamic terrorism includes such classic tunes as "Building a bomb today, what does the manual say" and "I wanna be like Osama".

Perhaps its creators were inspired by the success of The Producers - a runaway broadway hit which attracted criticism for its camp rendition of Nazi Germany.

Bending to the wind

In EDM, Vladimir Socor writes about how PACE chairman Rene van der Linden is bending to the Kremlin wind against Estonia. He also voices concern about PACE's future:

Van der Linden’s statements have demonstrated strong bias, ahead of his visit next month to Estonia on Russian minority-related issues. Van der Linden completes his chairmanship at PACE next January. A Russian politician with close Kremlin ties, Mikhail Margelov, seems strongly positioned to take over PACE’s chairmanship through a backroom deal. A vote by PACE for Margelov would be a vote against PACE’s own credibility.

Chechen dictionaries

A list of Chechen-Russian dictionaries (via this resource [pdf]):

Starchevsky, A.V. Kavkazskii perevodchik, zaklyuchasyushchii v sebe 30 yazykov. St Petersburg, 1893.
Slovar' arabsko-kumyksko-avarsko-russko-chechenskii. Petrovsk, 1914 (Arabic script).
Matsiyev, A.G., Chechensko-russkii slovar'. Grozny, 1927.
Sheripov, Z.D. Kratkii russko-chechenskii slovar'. Grozny, 1928.
Matsiyev, A.G., Islamov, M.D. Terminologicheskii slovar' chechenskogo yazyka. Grozny, 1930.
Orfograficheskii slovar' chechenskogo yazyka. Dlya nachal'nykh i starshikh klassov 8-letnei shkoly. Grozny, 1960.
Matsiyev, A.G. Chechensko-ruskii slovar', Moscow, 1961.
Matsiyev, A.G., Dzhamalkhanov, Z.D. Orfograficheskii slovar'. Grozny, 1961
Chokayev, K. Kratkii russko-chechensko-ingushskii slovar'-spravochnik obshchestvenno-politicheskikh terminov. Grozny, 1961.
Ozdoyev, I.A., Matsiyev, A.G., Dzhamalkhanov, Z.D. Chechensko-ingushsko-russkii slovar. Grozny, 1962.
Karasayev, A.T., Matsiyev, A.G. Russko-chechenskii slovar'. Moscow, 1978.
Aliroyev, I.Yu., Chechensko-russkii slovar'. Moscow, 2005.
Aliroyev, I. Yu. Russko-chechenskii slovar'. Moscow, 2005.

Fake Times

Via Russia Info-Centre: the curious episode of the fake Times.

Today, in the real Times, Giles Whittell "thunders" on the subject.

Classic Putinism

Andrei Piontkovsky, writing in Insight about why Litvinenko's suspected killer is a classic Putinist:

In Russia you get asked for your autograph if you have made it, if you are a proper hero: an ice-hockey player, a cosmonaut, a high-society prostitute, or an executioner.

The list of unspeakable crimes allegedly committed in the course of his brief life by the late Alexander Litvinenko grows longer with every day that passes, and is such that any right-minded Russian patriot could only thirst to see the traitor subjected to the supreme measure of national retribution. Only one such patriot, however, was granted the great honor of being allowed to perform this act, and that is why Lugovoy is being asked for his autograph.

This should not, of course, be taken to mean that the patriots so enthused by Lugovoy’s stupendous achievement concede the justice of the allegations of the British investigation. The social awareness of homo putinicus, meticulously burnished by the television propagandists, is such that pride in the achievement of this spook and indignation at the infamous campaign unleashed against him by the calumniators of Russia can jangle in harmony within his breast without the slightest suggestion of self-contradiction, and indeed bring out vivid new hues in each other.

We are evidently facing the mystery of that holistic quality of Russians’ synthetic thinking which has proved so unfathomable to those of other nations, so unyielding to every analytical scalpel, and about which our Slavophiles and Eurasians wrote at such length.

Q & A

So when you had your spat with Russia ...

... We said the same thing in public and in private. What we said was we want good relations with Russia, we want to work with Russia bilaterally and multilaterally. We want Russia to be a serious and respected member of the international community but the right to be a member of the international community comes with responsibilities, co-operation on processes, especially in a very serious case. We remain committed to justice for Mr. Litvinenko. We've got a judicial system that we want to defend, whose integrity we have to defend. There's a discussion to be had with Russia about what role it's going to play in the international community. There are a range of issues — the [Conventional Forces in Europe treaty] for ballistic missiles, Kosovo, Litvinenko — where it's important that we understand Russia and Russia understands us.

(David Milliband, Britain's new foreign secretary, this week in Time)

Beslan video disproves official version

Via Reuters:

Previously unseen film proves that the bloody end to the 2004 Beslan siege was caused by security forces firing on a school crammed with hostages, not by blasts from within, a victim support group says.

The Beslan Mothers' Committee says the footage disproves the official version that the detonation of a boobytrap device planted by Chechen separatists inside the building caused the carnage at School No.1, in the southern Russian town of Beslan.

Russia against Taiwanese independence

Russia has come out openly against independence for Taiwan. From RIA Novosti:

A Russian foreign ministry official said Monday, during a meeting with the Chinese ambassador, that Russia recognized only one China and stood against Taiwanese independence.

Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yakovenko and Liu Guchang discussed important issues concerning bilateral strategic relations, including cooperation in the United Nations. Considering Taiwan's drive for international recognition of its independence and its right to join the UN, the Russian diplomat reiterated Moscow's position in principle fixed in the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation between the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation.

"It was confirmed during the meeting that Russia is against any possible form of Taiwan's independence, recognizing only one China, and the government of the Chinese People's Republic as the only legitimate government representing China," the Foreign Ministry commented on the meeting.

Via CeceniaSOS

Caucasian muftis in the U.S.

On Wednesday there were federal Russian news reports that President Bush had "invited a group of Caucasian muftis to his rancho", and that the meeting had the (somewhat surprised) endorsement of top Russian political figures, including foreign minister Lavrov, but as is frequently the case with Caucasus reporting in the Russian Federation, this story turned out to be false.

What really happened was that a delegation of Caucasian muftis - from, it seems, North Ossetia, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria - arrived in the United States as part of a routine U.S. State Department international exchange and information program called Muslim Life in America. They will stay until August 13. This was confirmed by Magomed Albogachiyev, deputy director of the Co-ordinating Centre of North Caucasus Muslims (KTsMSK), speaking to RIA Novosti from Washington, D.C.

Russia found guilty in war crimes trial

Russia has been found guilty in the 6th Chechnya war crimes trial at the European Court of Human Rights this year. There remain thousands of similar cases still to be processed.

Caucasus Cuisine

Darra Goldstein's excellent treatise on Georgian cookery has been widely praised. Now the hunt is on for a similar work on Chechen cuisine. So far, the only widely available information has been the section on "Food and Drink" in the Hippocrene Chechen Dictionary and Phrasebook by Nicholas Awde and Muhammad Gelaev, which includes information of a kind that really makes one wish for more:

Starters include Yu'ah', home-made sausage, and B'ar (literally 'walnut'), which is a kind of boiled haggis served with rice and garlic sauce...

For main courses, try Zhizhig Galnash - stewed beef served up with garlic sauce and pasta...

Ch'ee Palgash are pastry pizzas filled with cottage cheese, egg and onion, baked and then served up covered with melted butter.

Putin's Nazi Inheritance

As the Putin regime currently in power in Moscow increasingly takes on the aspect of a totalitarian government, the country's leader is also losing any last inhibitions he may have had about appearing as an heir to the fascist leaders of the 1930s. Putin's recent appearance at a Hitler-Jugend-like Nashi "youth camp", where he attacked as "colonialist" Britain's response to the refusal of extradition for the KGB operative who is the primary suspect in the Litvinenko poisoning affair, made him look disturbingly akin to such figures of the past.

At chechnya-sl, Norbert Strade has commented on Putin's "high-pitched whining", the shrillness of which is reminiscent of a familiar voice from Europe's tormented past, reflecting, just as Germany did in the 1930s, "the stupid arrogance of a regime that is itself colonialist to the core and believes that this is totally normal for a Russian Empire but a crime for others. Once again, a Russian tragedy is moving into the realm of farces and burlesques. Btw., Britain would probably have extradited Zakayev, if it wasn't for two things: a) that the Russian "evidence" against him was a clown act and an insult to a hard-working British court, b) that Zakayev had no chance for a fair trial and correct treatment in Russia - which means that Britain *couldn't* extradite him because international human rights conventions overrule bilateral extradition treaties.

"Nothing of this applies to Lugovoi. The evidence against him is massive, he would get a fair trial in London, and nobody would torture him or help him fall from a window. What the KGB mob really is afraid of is the risk that their hitman might squeal while in British custody. They'd rather finish him off with a SIM-card than letting him go. Lugovoi wasn't meant to be identified in the first place, but the brilliant plan wasn't so brilliant after all, and now the little man in the big Kremlin office is very, very angry."

A Rough Patch in Relations

El Païs has a new free-of-charge online edition.

Today's lead story is about a double agent who was arrested on Monday in Tenerife, Canary Islands, suspected of having sold to Russia the identities of Spanish spies and other state secrets belonging to Spain's National Intelligence Agency (CNI).
(hat tip: Leopoldo)

More from Reuters here.

A Warm Anomaly

Floods in England and China, heat and drought elsewhere -- a lot of people are talking about climate change and global warming. But over at the Weather Outlook Forum, posters have been wondering about the possible causes of an intense warm anomaly (top left of centre) in the ocean between Alaska and Russia...

Reconstruction?

Recent satellite photos of Grozny show that large areas of the Chechen capital's infrastructure are still badly damaged and in need of repair. This tends to contradict the Kadyrov government's claims that the capital is now subject to widespread "reconstruction".

Posters to the Chechnya Short List (chechnya-sl) have been pointing out that the current Google Earth image of Grozny shows the capital partially obscured by a large white cloud. However, as one poster makes clear,

you can still zoom in on e.g. Minutka "Square" and see the total destruction, as well as the Potemkin activity. They have apparently erected some kind of nice white structure in the middle of Minutka, and there's some car and truck traffic, but the image shows that the directly adjacent buildings have been destroyed down to their still visible foundations, and all the apartment buildings in the area are damaged.

You can also look at other areas and see exactly where the famous "reconstruction" has taken place - a few buildings along a road here, a single building there, in the middle of still almost total (I'd guess 90%) destruction in the urban areas. Those must be the places where friendly journalists and the CoE improvement crowd are taken on the KGB sightseeing tours.

An interesting detail is the fact that the the black smoke trails from the burning oil wells have disappeared. They used to look like the ones seen in Kuwait after the first Gulf War, and continued for years and years. Apparently the Russians or the Kadyrov gang have now managed to take full control of the oil theft, so the tit-for-tat burning of other gangs' resources stopped.

Litvinenko murder was Kremlin-sponsored terrorism

The British government puts the blame for Alexander Litvinenko's murder on the Russian government. From the Sunday Times:

The senior British official was unequivocal. The murder of the former KGB man Alexander Litvinenko was “undeniably state-sponsored terrorism on Moscow’s part. That is the view at the highest levels of the British government”.

This official had access to the latest police and intelligence findings, and he was reflecting the views of senior Home Office counter-terrorism officials, Scotland Yard detectives and others with close knowledge of the murder investigation. All confirmed last week that they believe the plot to poison Litvinenko in London last year was ordered by the Russian secret service, the FSB.

When strength is weakness

At Transitions Online, St Petersburg Times staff writer Galina Stolyarova wonders why, when other countries can confront the legacies of their homicidal dictators, Russia apparently finds it almost impossible:

Most probably, the problem comes down to a wrong perception of the nature of national pride. One of Putin's favorite phrases is that Russia must become a strong state. Another is that "the weak are always beaten."

In his view, apology is a sign of weakness. The Soviet Union was a strong state, and it never apologized for what it did. And for that reason, like his predecessors, Putin has offered no apologies to the foreign victims of Stalin's crimes.

The president sees his political mission as restoring Russia's status as a superpower. And the model of greatness he is using seems to be the Soviet Union, whose collapse he has famously described as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.

If the country continues in that mindset, the new Russia could suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union It will induce not respect but merely fear. And eventually will suffer inevitable collapse.

First Impressions

In the Times, Simon de Bruxelles on the man who decided to be Jane Austen.

An "adequate" response

Via the BBC:

Foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said co-operation in counter terrorism would no longer be possible.

For at least the past five years Russia has been doing all that it can to increase the threat of terrorism to Britain's shores, one of the most recent instances being the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. An "adequate" response indeed.

"We wanted to build a democratic state"

"We wanted to build a democratic, secular, pro-Western Muslim state, something along the lines of Turkey, and eventually join NATO," Zakayev explained, "but then all of a sudden, all these Wahhabi appeared, with stacks of money, and started preaching a totally foreign brand of Islam. How do you think they got there? Through Moscow - they all had Russian visas!"

From Death of a Dissident, The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, by Alex Goldfarb with Marina Litvinenko,Simon and Schuster UK, 2007.

Berezovsky assassination attempt

The Times's Richard Beeston, on the plot to kill Boris Berezovsky.

Finnish-Russian Civic Forum

From Helsinki, Finland, news of a recent Finnish-Russian Civic Forum that was held on Suomenlinna - also known as Sveaborg, or Viapori, the inhabited sea fortress built on six islands within the city limits - on July 3-4. Participants included the following:

Lyudmila Alexeyeva- veteran human rights activist, founder and Chairperson of the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the foremost human rights organisations in Russia. Ms Alekseyeva is Cochairperson of the All-Russian Civic Congress and a Member of the Organising Committee of The Other Russia coalition.

Ivar Amundsen - Director of the Chechnya Peace Forum, based in London. He was friend to both slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Amundsen is a long-time campaigner for human rights.

Oksana Chelysheva - Deputy Executive Director of the Nizhny Novgorod-based Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, which was refused registration in Russia. The society was then registered in Finland. The organisation is active in protecting the rights of Russia's Chechen minority and promoting interethnic dialogue.

Andrey Dmitriev - Co-coordinator of the anti-Putin opposition's The Other Russia coalition in St Petersburg. He is the former leader of the now banned National Bolshevik Party in St Petersburg. Mr Dmitriev has been active in organising the recent Dissenters' Marches in St Petersburg.

Olga Galkina - Member of the Regional Party Bureau of the liberal opposition party Yabloko's branch in St Petersburg. She is also one of the leaders of Yabloko's youth wing.

Heidi Hautala - Chairperson of the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum. She is a Member of the Finnish Parliament, representing the Greens, and a former Member of the European Parliament. Ms Hautala was the Greens' candidate in the Finnish presidential elections in 2000 and 2006.

Neil Hicks - director of the Human Rights Defenders programme at New York-based Human Rights First. The programme assists human rights advocates under attack for their work. Mr Hicks is involved in campaigns including overseas missions, diplomatic advocacy, public education, and grassroots lobbying.

Mariana Katzarova - Founder and Director of the London-based peace group, RAW in WAR -"Reach All Women in War". RAW supports women human rights defenders in conflict areas. The organisation has recently launched a special Chechnya Project. Ms Katzarova is a former researcher on Russia for Amnesty International.

Andrei Kolomoysky - journalist at the Vyborg-based daily, Vyborgskie Vedomosti, specialising in political and cultural affairs, civic rights, and freedom of speech. In 2005, Mr Kolomoysky received the Danish Cultural Institute's prize, "Free Press in Russia". In Soviet times, he took an active part in St Petersburg's underground press ("samizdat").

Oleg Kozlovsky - Coordinator of the opposition youth movement, Oborona (Defence), in Moscow. Oborona is an active participant in the Dissenters' Marches. Mr Kozlovsky recently resigned from the Union of Rightist Forces (SPS) in protest at the policies of the party leadership.

Olga Kurnosova - Chairperson of the St Petersburg branch of the United Civic Front, led by Mr Garry Kasparov. Ms Kurnosova is also a Cocoordinator of The Other Russia coalition and an active organiser of the Dissenters' Marches in St Petersburg.

Ruslan Kutaev - Coordinator of the All-Russian Civic Congress, an umbrella organisation of Russian opposition movements, in North Caucasus. He is a Member of the Organising Committee of The Other Russia coalition. Mr Kutaev is a former advisor to late Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

Dmitry Lanko - Assistant Professor at the Department of European Studies of the School of International Relations at the St Petersburg State University. His expertise in Political Science spans throughout the Baltic region.

Laura Lodenius - Executive Director of the Finnish Peace Association. The organisation is Finland's oldest peace advocacy group in operation. The association unites a dozen peace groups in Finland.

Vladimir Lysenko - Co-chairperson of the liberal Republican Party of Russia (RPR), which was closed down by the authorities. RPR is co-chaired by Mr Vladimir Ryzhkov. Mr Lysenko is a former long-time Deputy in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. He is President of the Institute of Modern Politics.

Jukka Mallinen - poet and translator of Russian literature. His most recent translation is Russian journalist Valery Panyushkin's book, "Khodorkovsky: The Prisoner of Silence". Mr Mallinen is Chairperson of the Finnish PEN society and Deputy Chairman of the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum.

Yulia Malysheva - Chairperson of the Popular-Democratic Youth League, affiliated to Mr Mikhail Kasyanov's Popular-Democratic Union of Russia. Ms Malysheva is one of the organisers of the Dissenters' Marches in Moscow.

Alexander Mnatsakanyan - journalist who has worked as a war correspondent for various newspapers in Transdnestria, Abkhazia, and Chechnya. He has covered the conflict in Chechnya since the early 1990s. Mr Mnatsakanyan is responsible for the project on murdered journalists at the Moscow-based Glasnost Defence Fund.

Andrey Nekrasov - Russian documentarist and playwright from St Petersburg, most famous for his two films, "Disbelief" and "Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case". The latter, on the fate of the former KGB officer, Alexander Litvinenko, was screened at the 60th Film Festival in Cannes in May 2007.

Alexander Nikitin - Director of the St Petersburg branch of the Norwegian environmentalist organisation, Bellona. Mr Nikitin is a former submarine officer, who was charged with treason for contributing to Bellona's report on nuclear safety within Russia's Northern Fleet. He is Deputy Chairperson of the Green Russia fraction of Yabloko.

Grigory Pasko - free-lance journalist, specialising in environmentalist issues. As Editor of the newspaper of the Russian Pacific Fleet, "Boyevaya Vakhta", Mr Pasko disclosed the dumping of nuclear waste into the sea, for which he was convicted to three years in prison.

Yevgeny (Zakhar) Prilepin - Editor-in-Chief of the Nizhny Novgorod edition of "Novaya Gazeta". He is the author of several works of literature, including the novel "Sankya", which was shortlisted for Russia's Booker Prize in 2006. Mr Prilepin is a member of the banned National Bolshevik Party.

Aaron Rhodes - Executive Director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), based in Vienna. The IHF monitors compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 and its follow-up documents.

Bart Staes - Belgian Member of the European Parliament, representing The Greens - European Free Alliance fraction. Besides environmental issues, Mr Staes has been active in promoting peace. His interests include Chechnya, Turkey, and the Balkans. He is former Chairman of the European Delegation to the EU-Russian Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.

Mikael Storsjö - Secretary of the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum. He is a vocal advocate of the right of the Chechen people to decide their own fate and an ardent critic of the ruling regime in Russia.

Nils Torvalds - long-time broadcast journalist. He works with the Finnish Broadcasting Company's(YLE) Swedish-language service. He served as YLE's correspondent in Moscow in 1995-1999. Mr Torvalds was recently elected Deputy hairperson of the Swedish People's Party.

Anu Tuukkanen - Country Expert at Amnesty International's Finnish section. She coordinates Amnesty Finland's campaigning on different countries. Russia is one of Amnesty Finland's ten priority regions.

Anastasia Udaltsova - spokesperson for the left-wing youth movement, Vanguard of Red Youth (AKM). The AKM is vocal in its opposition to the
policies of Russia's present government and has been an active participant in the Dissenters' Marches.

Furugzod Usmonov - contributor to the St Petersburg-based opposition newspaper, Delo. He has focused on the problems faced by Russia's ethnic minorities, especially those from Central Asia. Mr Usmonov has extensive knowledge about politics in both Russia and Central Asia.

Ksenia Vakhrusheva - member of the Coordinating Committee of the opposition youth movement, Oborona, in St Petersburg. Oborona is a movement of people who reject the injustices,corruption, and lies of officials.

Alexey Volynets - Editor-in-Chief of "Limonka", the newspaper of the banned National Bolshevik Party. The newspaper continues to be published despite an official ban. The name of the newspaper is a play on words on NBP's leader, Eduard Limonov, and is idiomatic Russian for a grenade.

The program of events (pdf) included a discussion of freedom of expression and "dissidentism" in Russia today, an inquiry into why the work of international human rights bodies is seen by the Russian government as interference in Russia's internal affairs, a screening of Andrei Nekrasov's film about the murder of Alexander Litrvinenko. My Friend Sasha, a discussion of whether a government based on the principles of law is really possible in Russia, and an examination of the present crisis in the North Caucasus, led by the Chechnya Peace Forum's Ivar Amundsen.

Britain to expel 4 Russian diplomats

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6901346.stm

RCFS

Novaya Gazeta - Nizhny Novgorod, 12 July 2007
http://novayagazeta-nn.ru/2007/15/es-vs-rf.html
Oksana Chelysheva
Translation from http://www.finrosforum.fi/



The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) has received from Strasbourg a Memorandum of the Russian Federation on the complaint to the European Court which deals with the sentencing of the Nizhny Novogorod-based human rights defender Stanislav Dmitrievsky. The document turned out to be quite illustrative — in all aspects.

For those who are unaware, let us recall briefly the crux of the matter.

In 2004, as editor of a small newspaper called Pravo-Zashchita ("Rights Defence"), Dmitrievsky published two statements by leaders of the Chechen separatists, Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmed Zakaev.

One was addressed to the European Parliament, the other to the Russian people. The authors called for a peaceful solution to the armed conflict in Chechnya. Of course, both expressed a very negative opionion about Putin's regime in general and its creator in particular.

In January 2006, Dmitrievsky was convicted by a District Court in Nizhny Novgorod for "inciting racial, ethnic, and social hatred" to two years under probation.

They did not, however, manage to impose real jail time, as there was too much attention from friends of Russia, including such "elite clubs" as the G8, the Council of Europe, and OSCE, to this "local" case.

Similarly, the European Court of Human Rights, which was already overwhelmed by complaints from Russia, agreed to consider the case Dmitrievsky vs. Russia as a matter of priority.

This caused a slight panic among the "satraps" of the prosecutor's office.

By 4 May 2007, Russia had to answer a series of simple questions:

1. Was the condemnation of Dmitrievsky legitimate in terms of domestic legislation and was it in line with the European Convention?

2. Did the condemnation of Dmitrievsky pursue a legitimate goal?

3. Was it necessary in a democratic society?

4. Does the trial against Dmitrievsky meet the criteria for a fair trial, as established in the Convention?

The Russian Federation, through its new representative in the European Court, Ms Milinchuk, did not fumble in the pocket for an answer. The Memorandum begins as follows:

"The authorities of the Russian Federation categorically oppose the present practice of the Secretariat of the European Court of Human Rights to present as facts various campaign materials, which have been written by a person whom the Russian Federation accusea of committing serious crimes.

The authorities of the Russian Federation do no accept the use of the Court for incitement to hatred or hostility, as well as humiliation of human dignity or group of persons on grounds of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, religion, as well as membership in a social group."

This is how the Russian authorities regard the printing by the Secretariat of the European Court of the statements by Akhmed Zakaev and Aslan Maskhadov, which were published in the newspaper, Pravo-Zaschita, edited by Dmitrievsky.

The Russian Federation insists on the deletion of the above "statements", presented by the Secretariat in paragraphs 1-2 of section A ("Facts"), from materials to be considered by the European Court of Human Rights in response to the complaint by Dmitrievsky.

It turns out that the Russian authorities have directly accused the Court of inciting "hatred", echoing verbatim section 282 of the Russian Penal Code.

Perhaps it is now Europe's turn to get its portion of the charges for the same criminal offence, which the Nizhny Novgorod court previously found Dmitrievsky guilty of.

The claims are quite extravagant for a state which stands accused in a court case. Ms Milinchuk absolutely flatly violates all principles of legal and business ethics, by showing open contempt of the Court.

The claim by the Russian authorities that the Secretariat of the European Court of Human Rights has presented "various campaign materials under the guise of facts" is untrue.

The European Court did not even consider the question of whether the facts contained in published statements were genuine or not. The Court only noted their publication. This is not disputed by either the Russian Federation or Dmitrievsky.

Moreover, it was the Russian court [in Nizhny Novgorod] that placed the statements as the basis of its sentence against Dmitrievsky.

Even assuming that the statements published by Dmitrievsky really show signs of hatred as seen in Article 282 of the Russian Penal Code, including them in the "Fact Sheet" is not the same thing as publishing them.

Documents drafted by the Secretariat of the Court are of a procedural nature. They are meant for the Court and the litigants, i.e., for a limited number of interested persons.

If one continues to follow the logic of Ms Milinchuk, the Russian Federation could have just as well been accused of publishing the said statements, given that Russian prosecutors included the statements by Maskhadov and Zakaev in the case against Dmitrievsky.

At the request of the Public Prosecutor, the statements were read out during the court hearings in the District Court of Nizhny Novgorod, in the presence of a large audience and the press.

Moreover, the public prosecutor, Ms Maslova, read the statements with such inspiration and expression that even drowned out the applause of the public.

Not less strange is the request by the authorities of the Russian Federation to exclude the statements from the "materials to be considered by the European Court of Human Rights". This can be compared to a demand to exclude the body from the evidence in a murder case.

If you remove the primary evidence in a criminal case against Dmitrievsky from the materials of the Court, considering his case in Strasbourg will become impossible.

Yet another complaint is about to be considered by the Court: the case regards the elimination of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) as an organisation registered in Russia under the pretext of "combating extremism"…

The law requires that an organisation, a member of which a court has recognised as an extremist, is obliged to declare publicly his opposition to the person's activities within five days of the court decision. Otherwise, the organisation will itself be declared as extremist and closed down.

The Nizhny Novgorod Prosecutor's Office has filed a claim for closing down the RCFS. The founders of the RCFS did not abandon their friend. As a result, they now face another court case, which threatens to declare the whole organisation as extremist.

The Nizhny Novgorod regional court did not have any doubts: RCFS was declared "extremist".

When the Supreme Court was considering a complaint against the regional court's decision to close down the organisation, there were about a dozen Western diplomats and representatives of international human rights organizations present in the court room. There was a small group of Russian journalists, as well as those who had experienced the charm of the 58th article of the Soviet Penal Code.

The public attention that the case received did not have any effect, however, on its finale. The RCFS in Russia was disbanded.

Despite all these hardships, work continued after the RCFS "immigrated" to neighbouring Finland. But this is not a final solution.

The openly hysterical character of Russia's Memorandum is evidence of the fact that the authorities are prepared to accuse of RCFS of all deadly sins without any legal basis. Of course, in terms of their tactics at exhausting the strength of the RCFS and those who supported us, the choice is not random. The arbitration process has now been going on for nearly two years.

Even though the tax authorities had to abandon some of their claims against the RCFS, the remaining amount of 500,000 rubles still falls under the jurisdiction of Article 251 of the Penal Code - "large scale evasion of tax and other special charges".

Overall, the authorities have not abandoned their attempts to initiate another criminal case against Dmitrievsky and send him to prsison, based on the "totality" of cases against him.

On 4 July 2007, prosecutors in Nizhny Novogorod began another process to "protect unspecified persons" from the influence of the newspaper, Pravo-Zashchita.

This time they are demanding that the newspaper, which printed Maskhadov's and Zakaev's statements, be closed down, despite the fact that the newspaper has not been published since the closing down of the RCFS.

The reason for the hysterical attitude of the authorities of the Russian Federation is understandable. Once the European Court recognises that the sentence imposed on Dmitrievsky was a violation of the European Convention, the Russian Federation will be forced to cancel the sentence in accordance with its Criminal Procedural Code.

After that, all other cases based on the unjust sentence against Dmitrievsky will fall like dominoes.

Oksana Chelysheva

Single Entity

J.R. Nyquist, on the workings of what Anna Politkovskaya called the "single entity" that is composed of the Russian presidential secretariat and the FSB:

An important book has been published on all these machinations. It is titled Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, by Alex Goldfarb with Marina Litvinenko. One of the most important passages in the book, for Americans, is the passage where Akhmed Zakayev explains the origins of the Second Chechen War: “We wanted to build a secular, democratic, pro-Western Muslim state, something along the lines of Turkey,” Zakayev is quoted as saying. But Russian-speaking Arabs flooded into Chechnya with Russian visas. “They were all experienced fighters,” he said, “but they had nothing to do with … the American-trained jihadists that fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. They were all Arabs who spoke Russian, the old KGB cadre from the Middle East. And we knew that their money came not from Saudi Arabia, but from Moscow.”

That is important information coming from an exiled Chechen leader. The civil war in Chechnya was a staged provocation, organized by the FSB and the presidential administration in Moscow. Vladimir Putin, in fact, was a leading organizer who profited from this operation. The Arab terrorists in Dagestan and Chechnya caused his appointment as prime minister, triggering a war to facilitate his subsequent elevation to the Russian presidency. The political maneuvers and conspiracies involved in the elevation of Putin, as detailed by Goldfarb, are must reading. For the first time, testimony from several sources is put together to form a larger, coherent picture of FSB (KGB) strategy involving the use of controlled Islamic terrorism.

(via Mark Pettifor.
NB - J.R. Nyquist has a newly redesigned website at this link)

Russia pulls out of CFE Treaty

Via the BBC:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended involvement in one of the key post-Cold War arms control treaties.

Room at the top

Edward Lucas finds it

worrying that Gordon Brown's close advisers include no one with real knowledge of Russia, now the world's largest rogue state.

Britain at risk of cyber-attack

In the aftermath of Russia's cyber-attack on its neighbour, Estonia, the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner looks at the likelihood of a similar attack on the United Kingdom's wired infrastructure:

The BBC has learned that Britain, along with other western countries, has been under daily "cyber attack" from foreign intelligence agencies trying to steal secrets through the internet.

Read it all.

Litvinenko: Moscow admits its guilt

In the ongoing crisis over Moscow's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi to the UK to be tried for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, Moscow appears to be freely admitting that it arranged the murder:

Yesterday a spokesman for Russia's foreign ministry, Mikhail Kamynin, warned that London was in danger of jeopardising its relationship with Moscow. "I don't understand the position of the British government. It is prepared to sacrifice our relations in trade and education for the sake of one man," he said, adding: "Our position is clearly in line with Russia's constitution and legislation."

Russian literature with a Baltic accent

The website of Tartu-based poet and librarian Igor Kotjuh is currently presenting items from a work-in-progress anthology of Russian-language writing (mostly poetry and short fiction) from the Baltic region. While there is an emphasis on Russian-language Estonian poetry, there is also work from other areas, including Kaliningrad and St Petersburg.

(via Eric Dickens)

Putin's Generation

From Steve Lee Myers's run-down on Nashi, in the IHT:

"Putin's Generation" is growing up with a diet of anti-European and anti-American sentiment that could deepen the social and political divides between Russia and the West for decades.

"Today the United States on one hand and international terrorism on the other strive to control Eurasia and the whole world," Nashi's manifesto says. "Their gaze is directed at Russia. The task of our generation is to defend the sovereignty of our country as our grandfathers did 60 years ago."

Beslan: new evidence

Novaya Gazeta has published live photographs of 21 people who according to the official inquiry took part in the seizure of School No. 1 in Beslan. The paper wonders why the official inquiry made no use of these photos, basing its evidence instead on pictures of the badly mutilated corpses of the individuals it claims were responsible for the atrocity.

Via Prague Watchdog

Russia's plans for the UK

The Sunday Times's Dominic O'Connell takes a look at the recent doings of Alexander Medvedev, deputy chief executive of Gazprom, and notes that

...his plans for Britain go beyond gas. He wants to become a one-stop energy shop for commercial users, selling electricity, heating and even carbon credits.

Supplying electricity also means generating it. “We are looking at acquiring generation assets [power stations]. It will allow us to mitigate different kinds of risk, and to deliver this complete service to our clients. We are in discussion with different potential partners,” he said.

Gazprom’s immense size has provoked nervousness, not only among City watchdogs, but also among politicians, who are uneasy at the close relationship between the company and the Russian government. Gazprom’s chairman, Dmitri Medvedev – no relation to Alexander – is Russia’s first deputy prime minister, and other government representatives sit on its board. The state holds a stake of just over 50%.

European politicians’ worries were exacerbated last year when the company cut off gas supplies to Ukraine after a row over prices. The move was seen as a warning shot by the Kremlin to the country not to stray too far from its connections with Moscow. Supplies to western Europe were disrupted, provoking unrest in Germany which relies on Russia for 40% of its gas.

In March the foreign affairs parliamentary select committee began an inquiry into Britain’s relationship with Russia, with energy security at the top of its agenda. Tony Blair warned that Russian government intervention in western oil and gas projects threatened international investment in the country.

Escaping from Moscow

Estonian statesman and historian Mart Laar has an interesting blog post about the lessons that Georgia and Moldova - two nations recently freed from misrule by Russia - can learn from Estonia. Laar, who is also an economic adviser to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, has his own personal - and civic - experience of the freeing process:

Communism’s fall gave the nations of the former Soviet bloc a chance to turn towards democracy, a market economy, and the rule of law. Some countries cut ties decisively with the communist past; others were less successful; a few failed catastrophically.

Moldova and Georgia were in the last category until recently. Their economic and political failures were in large part due to secessionist movements — actively supported by Russia — that aimed at keeping both countries in the Kremlin’s “sphere of influence.” When bloody conflicts erupted in Transdnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, Russia turned its military presence into “peacekeeping” forces as a means of maintaining control.

It has long been feared that these so-called “frozen conflicts” could suddenly turn hot. Not only has this not happened, but we can now talk of solutions, as both Georgia and Moldova have begun to achieve breakthroughs to a market economy and democracy. The European Union’s “neighborhood policy” has also helped.

The starting point for these developments was Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” three years ago. From coming perilously close to being a failed state, Georgia has turned towards the West. The success of the various “color revolutions” in former Soviet-bloc countries also ignited change in Moldova, where President Vladimir Voronin launched reforms aimed at moving closer to the EU. These changes sparked new initiatives in Georgia and in Moldova to restore, peacefully, their territorial integrity.

Estonia’s experience suggests how Georgia and Moldova should shape their policies vis-a-vis Russia.

Read the whole thing.

(via Leopoldo)

Murdering the moderates

Via Andrew Blomfield in the Telegraph:

Allegations that the Kremlin deliberately killed moderate rebels in order to prolong the war in Chechnya gained fresh impetus yesterday after the European Court of Human Rights blamed Russia for the disappearance of the republic's former parliamentary speaker.

Ruslan Alikhadzhyev was seized from his home in the Chechen town of Shali in May 2000. He was never seen again.

A critic of the extreme Islamists within the Chechen rebel movement, Mr Alikhadzhyev was widely seen as a moderate and had called for a negotiated settlement to end the brutal war in the separatist republic.

Critics of the Kremlin have long argued that Russia's armed forces deliberately targeted moderate rebels who wanted to sue for peace, while allowing extremists to escape.

They claim that President Vladimir Putin benefited politically from a popular war, while many Russian commanders profited from it - in part by selling weapons to the rebels.

"We think that one of the motives [for Alikhadzhyev's disappearance] was the elimination of a political leader who could have achieved a breakthrough in peace talks," said Oleg Orlov of the Human Rights Group Memorial which investigates abuses in Chechnya.

Read it all. (via chechnya-sl)

Rewriting history

In one of her latest newsletters, Estonian politician Mari-Ann Kelam comments on the West's failure to understand the processes that are currently taking place in Russia, and observes:

By coincidence, I have been reading another book about how Reagan brought down the Soviet Union. The way the West is going now, we seem to be helping Putin to rebuild it! Actually Putin is building something worse -this time, thanks to the clever use of modern media technology playing on nationalism and xenophobia combined with strong central control, the subjugated are supporting what he is doing. The West has been and continues to do almost all the wrong things.

One of the texts referred to by MAK in her letter is a new manual for Russia's history teachers, discussed by Andrew Osborn in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Among other things, Osborn writes:

Backed by support from the president himself, the book, which rails against U.S. hegemony, is raising fears among some historians that the Kremlin is -- quite literally -- trying to rewrite history in a way that risks breeding ultranationalism and whitewashing the darkest chapters of Russia's past.

Mr. Putin gave the manual a presidential boost last month, inviting its author along with a number of historians and teachers to his residence totalk history. Though he said students should be allowed to draw their ownconclusions, he made clear that events should be portrayed in a way that fuels national pride.

The manual's publication comes as the Kremlin is trying to restore Russians' sense of pride after the anarchic 1990s. In recent years, celebrations marking the Red Army's victory over Nazi Germany have been cranked up, the authority of the Czarist-era Orthodox Church has been boosted and patriotic youth groups have become increasingly vocal about Russia's resurgence.

The moves have complemented an increasingly assertive Kremlin foreign policyand a flat rejection of Western criticism that Moscow is moving to undermine democratic institutions. The new teachers' manual is the clearest sign yet that the drive to inculcate the Kremlin's view of the world is reaching Russia's millions of schoolchildren. "We are forming...the worldview of a nation, of how Russians see themselves and the outside world," Leonid Polyakov, editor of the new manual, told Mr.Putin at last month's meeting, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin.

Professionals

In the wake of the failed London bomb attacks, the BBC describes how al-Qaeda has been trying for more than a decade to “shame” Muslim professionals (lawyers, scientists, doctors) into becoming more involved in violent jihad.

BBC home affairs editor Mark Easton says one al-Qaeda video features doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri - number two to Osama Bin Laden - who left Cairo medical school with a master's degree in surgery.

And a suicide bomber who killed 22 US soldiers and civilians in Iraq in December 2005 was named as a student from a Saudi medical school.

(via Jihad Watch)

Veiled threat

MOSCOW, July 4, 2007 (AFP) - Russia on Wednesday issued a veiled threat to deploy rocket units in the Kaliningrad exclave near Poland if Washington does not draw back from its missile defence plans in central Europe.
"If our offers are accepted, Russia will not believe it necessary to deploy new rocket units in the European part of the country, including in Kaliningrad," Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

(Via Mari-Ann Kelam)

The banality of evil

Two new articles by Jeremy Putley:

Learning from Mr Wopsle

It can be a dangerous thing to say that a man is guilty of a murder before he has been tried and found guilty of that crime by a jury in a court of law – as Mr Wopsle found to his cost, in Dickens's Great Expectations. If you have read that novel you will remember that Mr Wopsle was holding forth in the Three Jolly Bargemen about the guilt of the accused in a recent murder case. Listening to Mr Wopsle's words was the great London lawyer, Mr Jaggers. In an overwhelming demolition of the unfortunate Wopsle, Jaggers pronounces one of the supreme principles of English jurisprudence. "The law of England supposes every man to be innocent until he is proved – proved – to be guilty."

That is probably why no British newspapers have pointed out that the first, obvious conclusion to be drawn from President Putin's refusal to extradite former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi to the United Kingdom to face trial on a charge of murder is that it amounts to a tacit admission of guilt. Newspapers do not publish what they deem to be defamatory statements even if they are true.

But if the accused will never face a court of law to answer to the charges, what then? Must there be perpetual silence on the question of guilt? That would be to compound the wrong that has been done. It would not be right to the victims. It would not be right to Russia, nor to the people in London poisoned by polonium-210.

Andrei Lugovoi was employed (with others) to assassinate a Russian dissident, naturalized as a British citizen and living peaceably in London. President Putin is well aware of that. He also knows that a finding of guilty against the accused in a British court of law will involve a simultaneous finding in the court of world opinion that the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was ordered by the Russian leadership. This much is only too clear.

Possibly, during court proceedings in the UK , if Lugovoi could ever be brought to trial, his testimony would provide confirmation of one theory of why the murder was committed and at whose instigation, in relation to which a number of facts are already in the public domain. It is now known, from BBC TV, that an 8-page "due diligence" dossier prepared by Alexander Litvinenko was about Victor Ivanov, currently chairman of Aeroflot. It follows, from the hypothesis advanced in a BBC Radio Four programme by Yuri Shvets, that Victor Ivanov is the Mr X described as the "powerful, dangerous and vindictive" individual, "closely associated with President Putin", who may have ordered the murder of Litvinenko. According to the BBC radio programme, when Litvinenko gave the dossier to Lugovoi, in early October 2006, and Lugovoi delivered it (or reported its contents) soon afterwards to Mr X (Ivanov), the decision to assassinate its author was made, in revenge for the termination of a contract worth "dozens of millions of dollars". Perhaps Mr Lugovoi's evidence would shed light on the truth of this collection of allegations.

It would also be interesting if Titon International, the firm which allegedly employed Litvinenko to carry out the due diligence on Victor Ivanov, would publicly disclose the identity of the British company which commissioned the due diligence report, and subsequently pulled out of the deal.

But this is only one view of why Litvinenko was murdered. There were previous murder victims connected with the 1999 apartment building explosions, about which Litvinenko wrote in his (recently re-issued) 2002 book co-authored with Yuri Felshtinsky, "Blowing Up Russia: Terror From Within". These include two State Duma deputies: the prominent liberal politician, Sergei Yushenkov, murdered by shooting in April 2003, and Yuri Shchekochikhin, a veteran investigative journalist, poisoned in July 2003, possibly with thallium. The assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, who was hated by the Russian hierarchy as a "traitor" to the organisation formerly known as the KGB, now the FSB, confirms the truth of what he wrote. The testimony of Andrei Lugovoi, supposing he could be persuaded to give it truthfully, would disclose that the FSB under its present head, General Nikolai Patrushev, is a corrupt, totally compromised, criminal organisation, so far beyond a possibility of being cleansed and reformed that it must be considered fit only to be disbanded.

There are only two commonly-held views of the 1999 apartment building explosions which killed more than 300 sleeping Russian citizens, and served as Putin's pretext for starting the second war in Chechnya: that they were carried out by the Rusian FSB at the behest of the Russian power structures; and that of the Russian authorities, that they were the work of unidentified others for no known motive. The refusal of President Putin to allow Lugovoi to come to the UK to be tried for murder stands as implicit confirmation of the FSB's guilt, in that it shows the government of the Russian Federation believes that his testimony would incriminate the guilty. And they are nervous.

When Tony Blair had a "frank discussion" with Vladimir Putin about the British government's demand for Lugovoi's extradition, earlier this month, Blair may, at last, have begun to understand the truth of the unsavoury character of his enigmatic interlocutor. (To Putin, by contrast, Blair's lack of understanding of the truth seemed merely obtuse – hence, perhaps, Putin's comment that British insistence on extradition is "stupid".) A lawyer himself, Blair may now, as he leaves office, finally and too late have learned, from the refusal to surrender a criminal to justice, one reality of today's Russia: that it is run by people who are not averse to the commission of crimes when they seem expedient, or convenient, or financially rewarding to members of the siloviki.


Putin the Banal


Evil comes in many forms. Only rarely is it in the persona of an insanely criminal monster such as those who disfigured the twentieth century. More often the perpetrators of great wrongs are comparatively insignificant men. One such is the incumbent President of Russia.

When President George W Bush greets the Russian President on Sunday, at his family home at Kennebunkport, Maine, on Sunday, they will shake hands, and perhaps embrace. The Russian President, aptly named Akaky Akakievich Putin by the late Anna Politkovskaya , is a man of insignificant personality. In consequence, it seems, it is difficult for the US leadership to understand or recognize the extent of the crimes for which he is personally responsible.

The criminal character of the Russian hierarchy, by the way, has been in evidence for many years, going back to the brutal conduct of the second Chechnya war at its commencement, and the multiple war crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the Russian armed forces against a civilian population. Russia is now again a country with political prisoners, a country where those who have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights have been murdered by the armed forces or by the FSB, and in which the rule of law is effectively in abeyance. Torture of prisoners in the custody of the authorities is endemic in the Russian Federation under President Putin – a fact of which he must be well aware. "Disappearances" in Chechnya have been condemned by Human Rights Watch as a crime against humanity. Journalists are murdered and there is suspicion that agents of the government are involved. Dissidents living abroad are murdered. Russia is a misruled country.

Putin's upbringing and experience in the KGB, an institution which often operated supra-legally in accordance with orders from the political leadership, instilled in a notoriously vindictive man an amoral belief system: operational necessity justifies all methods – the end justifies any means. That is the present misfortune of Russia under Vladimir Putin, as his second term draws to an end and he prepares to nominate his successor.

When the history of Vladimir Putin's presidency comes to be written the final judgements on him as a man and as a national leader will require a proper assessment of his character. The question which is sometimes asked is whether the evil things that Putin has done are the result of impotence, weakness or incompetence – an inability to act properly due to incomprehension, or structural weakness in the way Russian government functions – or criminality. Joseph Stalin, it is accepted by historians, was criminal by nature. There is evidence that Putin as President has displayed, from time to time, both incompetence and criminality. It is really a question of which is the preponderant feature of his makeup. To the victims, of course, it makes no difference – the consequences, just as under Stalin, have been the same.

When President Bush looked at President Putin and saw what he wanted to see, that was a worthless assessment, based as it was on nothing more than first impressions, or maybe just wishful thinking. More revealing was what happened at Beslan . That was a true test of character, and it revealed much about the character of the Russian President. In September 2004 at Beslan, in southern Russia, 330 people were killed including 317 hostages, of whom 186 were children. When the storming of the school buildings began, in an effort to bring the hostage-taking to an end, the use of flamethrowers and tanks in the assault, carried out while the hostages were still present in the gymnasium, resulted in the collapse of the roof onto the hostages below, killing 160 of them.

The most important question about this disastrous assault on the school is, who ordered it? There is no information on this. Putin himself kept a very low profile during the three days of the siege, but there can be no serious doubt that he was in close touch with the situation, and would have been consulted on the decision to carry out the storming of the building. Without his authority the decision could not have been made. But if it was his decision, or with his authority, the blame for the disastrous outcome of the storming of the school while it was still full of hostages falls squarely on Vladimir Putin.

It is useless to point out that the honourable thing to have done, in the face of such a catastrophic failure, was for Putin to resign. This is a western concept, and Russian leaders have not, historically, taken such ideas into account – it is apparently not a practical or sensible attitude to take. Similarly a western national leader would have gone to Beslan immediately the school siege began, and would have done all things possible to save the hostages. There would have been negotiations. But Putin's way is never to negotiate.

Why did the Russian President allow the assault on the school to begin? There must have been a calculation, and a conclusion that hostage deaths were acceptable. The storm was necessary because the alternatives involved a loss of face – from entering into negotiations with the hostage-takers, or acceding to their demands, or showing weakness in some other way. The decision resulted in death and disaster. Was the decision criminal, or was this incompetence? As evidence it must be recalled that after the siege Putin declared on television, "We exhibited weakness, and the weak are beaten." The hostages who died were sacrificed because the President feared to appear weak. Negotiations were possible, but were never tried. Whether the President was demonstrating a dreadful incompetence by refusing to negotiate for the hostages' lives, or ordered the assault on the school knowing that hostage deaths would be certain to result, either way this was criminally culpable.

But in the end, the question of whether President Putin is knowingly responsible for his crimes, or thinks he is doing a good job but – in Rumsfeldian language – "stuff happens", is not really important. To his victims it does not make any difference. World opinion, and the US President, remain largely indifferent to the question. There will be no real accounting any time soon, because when all is said and done the Putin presidency has been an interlude of considerable banality.

The Spoiler

Some comments by Anne Applebaum, interviewed by RFE/RL:

"Russia is clearly interested in dividing up the Western alliance -- in separating and creating a bad atmosphere, for example, between Germany and Eastern Europe, as they did over the proposal to build a pipeline directly to Germany across the Baltic. Russia is interested in undermining Western policy in Iran. Russia is interested in possibly undermining Western policy in other places.

"I hope that it's not going to get any worse than that. At the moment Russia isn't militarily or even economically powerful enough to do more than that. It could be in a few years; things could get worse. Much depends on what happens in Russia in the next 18 months. Yes, of course Russia could cause a great deal of trouble for the United States. I don't see right now why it's in Russia's interest to do that. I don't see why lining up nuclear missiles again, pointing at Western Europe, benefits Russia. However, insane politics do happen and people do make decisions that don't make sense.

-----

"Most of what Putin has done have been gestures that don't have any real significance. If Putin were actually invading Estonia, we would feel differently than about Putin teasing Estonia, or whatever it is that he does. The policy toward Estonia is shameful and terrible, but it's not an invasion. He hasn't even done anything yet that would inspire an actual Western military or even a serious economic response. And I assume that's deliberate, that what he's interested in is spoiling the mood, rather than actually causing trouble."

Strange meeting

Via Forbes:

The meeting is the only one Bush has held with a foreign leader in Kennebunkport. Zbigniew Brzezinski... criticized it as a "ridiculous" reward for Putin's harsh stance and an inappropriate setting for serious talks.

Remembering Litvinenko

From the BBC (24th November 2006):

Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of Mr Putin, Mr Litvinenko continued to make allegations about his former bosses.

Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before the 9/11 attacks.

He also denounced the war in Chechnya as a crime, called for Russian troops to be withdrawn, and said compensation should be paid to Chechens.

Chechen singer shot in Grozny

Via Prague Watchdog [my tr.]:

GROZNY, Chechnya, June 29 (Ruslan Isayev) – In a shooting incident in the Chechen capital the well-known Chechen singer Milana Balayeva has been seriously wounded, and her mother has been killed. The tragedy took place late at night at an apartment block on the recently rebuilt Mozdokskaya Street, 100 metres from Grozny’s government buildings .

Several men broke into the apartment in which the singer Milana Balaeva lived with her 41-year-old mother. Both women were shot at point-blank range with Makarov pistols. 10 cartridge cases were found at the site.

The mother died on the spot, and her daughter Milana was taken to City Hospital No. 9 with serious wounds to the face and abdomen. The doctors there assess her condition as critical. Later on Russian soldiers came to the hospital and probably took her to a military hospital.

The reasons for the shooting of the two women are not known, but law enforcement agencies say that preliminary reports suggest there may have been a dispute about the apartment in which the two women lived.

Sublimating the past

At Prague Watchdog, Dr Dmitry Shlapentokh takes a look at the recent ethnic violence in Stavropol, where ethnic Russians and Chechen migrants fought one another in a mass brawl reminiscent of the scenes at Kondopoga in September 2006. He reveals that to many Russians, the present government of Mr. Putin is seen as actually supporting ethnic minorities at the expense of the native Russian population. And he notes the following:

The presence of tension is also indirectly indicated by Putin’s extreme reluctance to discuss revolutions, even those in the past, such as the February and October (Bolshevik) Revolutions of 1917, which took place exactly 90 years ago. While there are some structural similarities between the revolutions of the past and the present tension, they are separated by one clear difference. Today, much more so than in the past, the social conflicts are sublimated in ethnic conflicts.

It is this fear and dislike of people from the Caucasus, especially Chechens, that has contributed enormously to the general xenophobic thrust of Russian society. One of my old friends from Moscow stated that hatred of people of Caucasian nationality and of Jews has spread. And, indeed, this ethnic animosity has replaced the sense of social hatred that was so strong at the time of the Russian revolutions of 1905-1921; to be precise, the social animosity has been sublimated in ethnic animosity.

My conversation with a young Russian woman on one of my recent trips to Russia could illustrate this point. While travelling, we observed through the train window the nearby villages; and she commented on the houses we passed, saying that some are good and some are bad. In order to check her sense of social animosity, I replied, “Capitalist landlord and poor peasants.” She snapped angrily, “I don't like to divide people along social lines.”

The statement of my casual interlocutor should, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt. It simply means that social divisions have been transformed in the minds of many Russians into ethnic divisions while minorities - including Chechens but not only Chechens - are affiliated with the elite, whereas Russians are implicitly seen as the representatives of the lower class.

The involvement in crime of Chechens and other people from the Caucasus is seen in a sort of twisted way as an additional manifestation of oppression/harassment of ethnic Russians by those minorities and the government/elite on their side. It is not surprising that this feeling of animosity is spreading not just against the “people of Caucasian nationality” but also against the government.

Read it all.

Daimohk

From late July to late August this year, Daimohk, a children’s dance group based in Grozny and trained by the former first dancer of the Chechen national theatre, will be visiting the US for their first ever tour there. The tour will take them to Boston, New York, New Jersey, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, OR. As a non-profit undertaking, all proceeds will be used to cover expenses incurred or to rebuild Daimohk’s Grozny theatre, which was bombed and looted during the second war. The organizers are looking for partners and sponsors at the locations above (advertising opportunities are available), as well as volunteers to welcome the children, help out at performances and promote the tour. For more details see the CAN website.

See also in this blog: Chechen children in Devon

Bush and Ilves on cybercrime

Estonia’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, in the United States for an official visit and discussions with President Bush at the weekend, found common ground with the U.S. leader on what proved to be a key issue — the recent hacker attacks on Estonia’s government computer systems. Mostmost of the attacks are thought to have originated in the Russian Federation, and to have been launched with at least tacit Russian government support. From the USINFO report:

“Cyber attack makes us all vulnerable,” Bush said in joint remarks at the White House following their meeting June 25. “I really want to thank you for your leadership, and thank you for your clear understanding of the dangers that that imposes not only on your country, but mine and others as well.”

Ilves thanked the United States for standing by his country‘s quest for independence “even in the darkest of times.”

In the 15 years since regaining its freedom from Soviet occupation, Estonia has built a robust economy with a renowned information technology industry. A majority of its citizens have access to the Internet, where banking, voting and many government services are readily available, leading to a new nickname for the country — “e-Stonia.”

“Estonia is a thriving example of how freedom has transformed the nations of Central and Eastern Europe,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters June 25.

In April, government and commercial servers were hit with a series of attacks by hackers, which Estonian authorities linked to a dispute with neighboring Russia over the recent relocation of a Soviet war memorial from the World War II era in the capital, Tallinn. Moscow firmly has denied any involvement in the incident.

“It is a serious issue if your most important computer systems go down in a country like mine, where 97 percent of bank transactions are done on the Internet,” Ilves said. “When you are a highly Interneted country like we are, then these kinds of attacks can do very serious damage.”

A NATO member since 2004, Estonia received support from computer security experts from the 26-nation alliance who, along with experts from Estonia’s Scandinavian neighbors, helped to contain the hackers.

Ilves proposed establishing a NATO cybersecurity research center in Estonia to build on his country’s experience and help member states safeguard their own computers from future attacks.

Fox and Hedgehog

Edward Lucas, commenting on the dullness and near-anonymity of many of Eastern Europe’s political leaders, notes that

Post-communist leaders were once big, internationally known figures. Lech Walesa of Poland and the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel remain world famous. Poland’s Aleksander Kwasniewski was widely admired abroad for his diplomatic skills. Reformist politicians such as Estonia’s Mart Laar, Russia’s Yegor Gaidar and Slovakia’s Mikulas Dzurinda wowed the policy wonks with their zealous embrace of flat taxes and free-marketry.

Now things are different. Only two leaders really stand out: the presidents of Russia and Estonia. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has many critics, but when he speaks, people listen. Estonia’s president, the Swedish-born and American-educated Toomas Hendrik Ilves, now speaks up for all the Kremlin’s former European satellites. The brainy Mr Ilves is the only senior politician in the region with real experience of Brussels (he was once a member of the European Parliament) and Washington, DC. He has the ear of George Bush: both are keen farmers (although on rather different scales), and both like the same make of Stihl brush-cutter.

Hat tip: Leopoldo

Prior knowledge

On June 19, the pravdabeslana.ru (Truth about Beslan) website published copies of faxes written in August 2004 by officials of the North Ossetian interior ministry. These show that the local authorities were aware of preparations for a major terrorist attack involving the movement of convoys of vehicles, and targeting a public building, most probably a school, on "Knowledge Day" (September 1, the day when the new school year begins in Russia). The documents even made reference to the specific demands that the hostage-takers would advance.

One example [my tr.]:

Information has been received concerning the movement of members of illegal armed formations from the plains of the Chechen Republic into an area of mountain and forest on the border between the Republic of Ingushetia and the Republic of North Ossetia.

The gathering of fighters is projected for mid-August this year, after which there are plans to carry out a terrorist action on the "Budyonnovsk scenario" on the territory of the Republic of North Ossetia. According to the information received, the fighters are planning to seize a public building with hostages, and then advance demands to the country's leadership concerning the withdrawal of units of the federal forces from the Chechen Republic. A large sum of money in Western currency is said to have come from Turkey to finance the action.

Restarting

My move to Kent is now more or less complete, and as I recover from the effects of dust, prolonged series of car journeys, and the lifting of heavy objects, I’m slowly getting back to normal. This blog will soon return to regular posting.

Chechen Society Today

From Prague Watchdog, my summary of the contents of the latest issue of the Russian-language monthly magazine Chechenskoye obshchestvo segodnya (Chechen Society Today):

Continuing a varied analysis of life in Chechnya today, the fourth issue of the magazine this year considers recent events and developments which have affected ordinary Chechens both inside the republic and abroad. In particular, there’s a focus on recent disturbing events in Moscow which involved the targeting by police and special services of young civilian Chechen males. This apparent campaign of persecution by the Russian authorities sits uneasily with federal claims that the war is “over”, with Grozny’s intensive programme of reconstruction and prestigious large-scale building projects, and with President Kadyrov’s assertion that “by 2008 there will be no traces of the war left in Grozny”.

An important feature in this new issue is Tatyana Gantimurova’s interview with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. From it, Kadyrov emerges as something of a split personality. On the one hand, he expresses apparently sincere concern and regret about humanitarian issues like the poisoning of Chechen children by the ecological disasters that the wars have caused. But on the other, he shows an almost total support for and identification with the policies of President Putin, whom he credits for having “stopped the war” – to the point where he can say: “If Putin says the word, I will carry out any of his commands. If you like, I am Russia’s most committed patriot.”

Three linked reports explore the workings of the disinformation and rumour mills that seek to blame Chechens abroad for many of Russia’s problems. Khamzat Saidov discusses an organization that is designed to counter such propaganda. Calling itself the Association of Chechen Public and Cultural Organizations, the body tries to function as a safety-valve in situations of provocation and conflict, giving Chechens a lifeline to which they can turn when threatened. With the recent arrest of two Chechen students in Moscow in mind, Said-Khamzat Gerikhanov interviews the Association’s chairman, Musa Dzhabrailov, who gives a panoramic view of the lies, myths and prejudices that sit at the root of the characterization, deeply embedded in the Russian psyche, of Chechens as “terrorists”, and the associated idea of a “Chechen underground”. He also shows how these psychological factors influence the unfolding of events – in the clashes with skinheads, in the student fights in Moscow and elsewhere, and in the distortions of these incidents that were published by Russian media. Finally, a Caucasian Knot report focuses on the mass fighting that broke out on May 24 between Chechen migrants and local skinheads, and links it with the events at Kondopoga. The report’s author believes that someone is provoking such conflicts in order to sustain a negative image of Chechens, even though the war is over, and that Russian security services may be involved in this.

The remainder of the issue contains articles on Chechen culture, history, politics and society. An interview with a Chechen veteran of World War 2 whose son was recently abducted by Russian-backed security forces is juxtaposed with a conversation with folk singer and musician Ramzan Paskayev. A section on contemporary Chechen writers features German Sadulayev, who was recently selected as one of 15 authors invited to meet President Putin, discusses his life and career; Zareta Osmayeva examines a new collection of poems by Roza Takhigova, with background supplied by the poet herself; and there’s an excerpt from the historical novel by Kanta Ibragimov, which was highlighted, along with its author, in the magazine’s previous issue. Archaeologist Rezeda Dautova reviews a new book on Chechen history, and there’s a feature on a group of Chechen children who are going to spend the summer in the United States as guests of the World Life Institute. There are continuations of Edilbek Matsiyev’s historical study of the Sharo-Argun area, and of Indar Byzov’s exploration of the history of the Vainakh migration. At the back, in the sports pages, Khamzat Saidov takes a look at the Daymohk football team and its participation in the fourth international football championships in Moscow.

Visit this page to see and download the issue.

The Message

Perhaps at long last the message is starting to get through. From today's Sunday Times:

...as he left his last G8 summit in Germany Mr Blair predicted a lengthy period of deep freeze in relations between Russia and the West.

Note

As some will have noticed, posting to this blog has come to a temporary halt. I’m moving house. Normal service will resume as soon as I get a new dsl connection, which hopefully should be fairly soon.

Update: though I don't yet have a dsl connection (or even a landline phone) at my new address, I do have a Nokia, so am going to use that as a modem for the time being.

Taking a careful look

While Western journalists, columnists and politicians increasingly express surprise and disappointment at Russia's apparently new turn to authoritarianism and repression of political dissent at home and political revanchism abroad, it's hard not to reflect that the signals of the "new" policy have been in place for quite some time - certainly for the past two years, and probably much longer. As a correspondent to this blog points out, "Almost certainly there would have been earlier alarm bells than the following from the Washington Post’s David Ignatius about Putin’s Russia but the aspect that seems most relevant to me is in these words: 'the world should take a careful look at what the Russians did here -- and demand that such activities stop.' If that had been done perhaps Marina Litvinenko would not be a widow now and the cyber-attack and other intimidation against Estonia etc, etc, would not have happened."

The March 16 2004 Washington Post article referred to:

DOHA, Qatar -- The tough-guy tactics of Russian President Vladimir Putin's rgime became clear here just over a month ago, when a team of Russian agents allegedly assassinated a former Chechen leader with a car bomb as he was returning home from Friday prayers at a mosque.

The Russians haven't engaged in this sort of "wet work" outside their borders since the bad old days of the KGB. Indeed, in the midst of denying that the new Russian intelligence service was responsible, a spokesman said they "had not taken part in such actions" since 1959.
But the Qatari government caught the Russians red-handed, so to speak. And what's more, rather than cave to intense pressure from Moscow, little Qatar decided to stand firm and insist on the rule of law. A Qatari prosecutor filed criminal charges against two Russians, and a trial is scheduled here this week. U.S. sources say that quiet negotiations have been going on to arrange a compromise. And it's possible that once the trial is over, some face-saving deal will be reached.

The Qatar case, disclosed here in detail for the first time by U.S. and Arab sources, illustrates just how far Putin has gone in unleashing his beloved siloviki -- the security services at the centre of his regime. With Putin's overwhelming election victory last weekend, the world should take a careful look at what the Russians did here -- and demand that such activities stop.

The assassination victim was a Chechen guerrilla leader named Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. He was acting president of the separatist regime in Chechnya in 1996 and '97, and the Russians allege that after he fled to Qatar about three years ago, he continued to help fund Chechen terrorists. The United Nations included him last year on a list of people with links to al Qaeda.

The Russians had been asking Qatar to extradite Yandarbiyev. The Qataris responded by asking the Russians for evidence of his terrorist activities -- saying that they would then try Yandarbiyev in their own courts. Just a week before the assassination, the Russians are said to have agreed that he be tried in Qatar. But by then the car bomb that killed him had already been delivered.

On Friday, Feb. 13, Yandarbiyev went to a mosque with his 13-year-old son. While they were inside, a two-kilogram bomb was attached to the underside of his Toyota Land Cruiser. When the Chechen had driven several hundred yards toward home, the bomb exploded. Yandarbiyev died on the way to a hospital; his son survived with severe burns.

The Qataris cracked the case thanks to good luck and sloppy Russian work. People had seen a van near the mosque, and police were able to trace it to a car-rental agency at the Doha airport, where video cameras had recorded the renters. The Qataris soon closed in on a villa that had been rented recently by a Russian diplomat but that didn't have diplomatic status. The Qataris were also monitoring the Russians' calls, from cell phones that had been falsely acquired in the names of two Europeans.

The Russians, both military officers in their mid-thirties, were captured at the villa several days after the bombing. They had been sent to Qatar as temporary embassy staffers about a month before the attack, and they lacked diplomatic immunity. A third alleged Russian conspirator was saved by his official status at their embassy on Sudan Street here.

The two Russian officers are said to have confessed, and to have named several senior officers who sent them. The confessions apparently were obtained through clever interrogation, not strong-arm tactics. The explosives, it turned out, had been carried in a Russian diplomatic vehicle across the Saudi border about a month before the attack.

After the Russians were caught, top officials in Moscow waged a public and private campaign to intimidate Qatar into releasing the agents. Two senior Russian officials even suggested that military force might be used to free the men. Seeking bargaining chips, the Russians also grabbed two unlucky Qatari wrestlers who happened to be passing through Moscow on their way to a competition in Serbia.

Qatar didn't budge. Perhaps the Qataris shouldn't have granted exile to an al Qaeda sympathiser such as Yandarbiyev in the first place, but that doesn't excuse Russia's outrageous actions.

The war on terrorism is escalating, and authorities from Madrid to Moscow will be tempted to cut legal corners in pursuing a ruthless enemy. At such a moment, it's good to see a small desert sheikhdom insisting on the rule of law.

Appeal to G7 Leaders

Distinguished heads of states and governments ofthe Italian Republic, Canada, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Republic,the United States of America, and Japan!

On 6-8 June, within the framework of the annual Summit of the 8 largest industrially developed democracies of the world, you will be meeting with Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, and – in accordance with the current Constitution of our country – the guarantor of human and civil rights and liberties. We call upon you to explicitly and unambiguously bring to the attention of Mr Putin – your partner in diplomatic negotiations – your concern about the gross, mass, and defiant violations of the most fundamental human rights and democratic freedoms by the authorities of the country they govern. We call upon you to renounce the practice of “Realpolitik”, turning a blind eye to an anti-democratic course in exchange for shifts of position with respect to political and economic issues. The experience of the Second World War and the confrontation with totalitarianism has shown the vital importance of observing fundamental human rights in order to ensure international security. It is for this reason that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in December of 1948. The Helsinki Act, signed in August of 1976, enshrined a most important principle – that governments do not have the right to violate rights and liberties by pleading state sovereignty.It is precisely for this reason that we insist that the leaders of the world’s largest democracies stress that the suppressions of democracy and the repressions taking place in the Russian Federation today are unacceptable to them. The general directionality of the political evolution of the system of power in Russia is ever more irreversibly approaching a point beyond which is found an already openly authoritarian regime, run by persons who have come from the special services and security structures. We regard as critically dangerous for democracy in the whole world the de facto liquidation of democracy in Russia, and specifically:

- the creation of a managed court and law-enforcement system, which creates unlimited opportunities for persecuting political and civic activists, human rights advocates and their relatives (who in such a manner are transformed into true hostages), for broad-scale persecutions on political, ideological and ethnic grounds. There already exist dozens of persons in Russia who have been recognized as victims of political repressions by human rights advocates;

- the suppression of freedom of the press, and of the freedom of self-expression more generally, the transformation of the principal mass information media – first and foremost the nationwide television channels – into an instrument of state propaganda, based on a cult of the head of state and of military power; - torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment, are widely practiced within the Russian penitentiary agency, and there exist special places of confinement for torture – a “new GULAG Archipelago”. We bring attention to the scandalous situation in connection with the violation of the right of citizens of Russia to the freedom to conduct rallies and meetings and to form associations.This is: - the unlawful prohibitions and barbarous dispersals of peaceful demonstrations in Moscow (16 December 2006, 31 March, 14 April, 5 and 27 May 2007), in St. Petersburg (3 March and 15 April 2007) and in Nizhny Novgorod (24 March and 27 April 2007), the persecutions of participants in a rally in Samara on 18 May – that had been permitted by the authorities – and the demonstratively mocking detainings of those who were preparing to fly out to Samara; - the mass persecution of hundreds of civic and political activists, who were suspected of a desire to participate in “Marches of the Discontented” and Social Forums. We call upon you to:- seek the release of Russian prisoners persecuted on political grounds – those convicted in the YUKOS case, the Chechen woman Zara Murtazaliyeva, the political essayist Boris Stomakhin and – as indicated in a PACE resolution of 19 April – the scientists Igor Sutyagin and Valentin Danilov and the lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin. - pay the most diligent attention to the use of charges of extremism for the persecution of human rights advocates and opponents of the regime; - call upon the President of Russia not to violate the rights – guaranteed by Russian legislation – of the participants in the peaceful Marches of the Discontented planned for 9 (St. Petersburg) and 11 June (Moscow), and to prevent new beatings and cruel detainings of the demonstrators.

Lyudmila Alekseyeva,

Chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group,

Foundation In Defence of Rights of Inmates

Elena Bonner, human rights advocate Sergei Kovalev, President, Human Rights Institute Lev Ponomarev, All-Russia Public Movement “For Human Rights”

Yuli Rybakov,

human rights advocate,

member of the Bureau of Yabloko party
Yuri Samodurov, Director of the Andrey Sakharov Museum and Public Centre Clergyman Gleb Yakunin,Public Committee In Defence of Freedom of Conscience Alla Gerber,Holocaust Foundation Alexey Simonov,Glasnost Defense Foundation Malva Landa,human rights advocate Pavel Litvinov human rights advocate Ernst Cherny, Coalition “Environmental Biology and Human Rights” Yelena Grishina, Director of Public Information Centre

Boris Vishnevsky,

Novaya Gazeta columnist, member of the Bureau of Yabloko party Mikhail Gorny, The St. Petersburg Strategy Centre Mikhail Kriger, human rights advocate Elena Sannikova,human rights advocate Andrei Buzin, Chair of Inter-Regional Association of Voters Vladimir Oyvin, “Glasnost” Foundation

Antuan Arakelyan,

Chair of the Saint-Petersburg Intersectoral Coalition “Dialogue and Cause”

Alexander Vinnikov,

Movement “For Russia without Racism”

Sergey Sorokin,

Movement against Violence

Eduard Murzin,

member of the State Assembly of Bashkiria Vadim Belotserkovsky, author, human rights advocate Gregoriy Amnuel, author Stas Dmitiresvkiy, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (Finland) Oksana Chelysheva, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (Finland)