Khodorkovsky on Western sanctions, Putin's prospects

I'm pretty sympathetic to most of erstwhile oligarch Khodorkovsky's arguments about Western-Russian relations. Even regarding the harm of economic sanctions. Yet the sad truth is that, barring sanctions, the West has no real way to influence the Kremlin besides military force. 

Sanctions that hurt the Russian people, who could be looked upon as captives of an authoritarian Putin regime, are a kind of evil, let's not deny that. But they are a lesser evil than: 1) doing nothing, i.e. appeasing the use of military conquest in Europe, and the scary consequences that unopposed aggression could bring, or 2) open military conflict, up to and including World War III.

The most hopeful statement in Khodorkhovsky's piece is his prediction that Putin's regime won't last more than 10 more years. But what kind of regime will follow it?  Unfortunately, the czarist-Stalinist-Putinist template has worked in Russian history, and no other template has. A peaceful, Western-integrated Russia would have to establish a new paradigm, and that would be very difficult without some kind of political or societal revolution in Russia. And revolutions are scary, unpredictable things, especially in a psychologically scarred, brain-drained, isolated and economically depressed country like Russia.

In Response to Putin's New Cold War, the West Must Be Warm to the Russian People

By Mikhail Khodorkovsky

December 11, 2014 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/1zUy6WC

DW: Russia's financing of EU far-right parties revealed

If you watched any of the Timothy Snyder videos on YouTube then you know that Russia's project to dismantle the EU is now out in the open. This project involves not just moral and diplomatic support, it involves Russian financing for *far-right political parties in the EU.

Putin's goal is to revert Europe to what he sees as its "natural" state, circa the 1930s: a group of mutually suspicious, squabbling nation-states that are largely ill-equipped to deal with Russia on a bilateral basis. The EU, by contrast, as the world's largest common market, is much better equipped to deal with relatively weak Russia, economically and diplomatically. 

* My American friends who don't follow European politics should understand that "far-right" and "conservative" parties in Europe are probably not kin with the Republican Party. Most are still to the left of the Democrats on most social and economic issues; their defining issues are anti-immigration, (France for French, Hungary for Hungarians, and so on...), "traditional" values (meaning anti-LGBT), and withdrawal from the EU.

Is the Kremlin financing Europe's right-wing populists?

November 29, 2014 |  Deutsche Welle

Many right-wing European political parties are anything but shy when it comes to showing their pro-Russian sentiments. Millions of euros have also been deposited by Russian banks in the pocket of France's Front National.

France's right-wing populist party, the Front National (FN), has denied claims in a media report which stated that they wanted to borrow 40 million euros ($50 million) from a Russian bank.

"This is fictitious, it's crazy," said party leader Marine Le Pen. "We have applied for nine million euros, and we got nine million euros."

Amongst other things, the Front National needs this financial top-up to organize its Saturday (29.11.2014) party congress in Lyon.

For a long time now, the Front National has been accused of receiving Russian financial support. The head of the bank is also close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Marine Le Pen flirts with Putin

With regards to political party funding in France, the National Front is in trouble, as they have allegedly received no loans from French banks. So the support from Russia has come in handy.

According to the Front National's European Member of Parliament (MEP), Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, the nine-million-euro loan was granted only because party leader Le Pen has a good relationship with Putin.

Marine Le Pen is a great critic of European sanctions against Russia. In interviews she has repeatedly stressed that she "admires Putin" and has accused the EU of pushing for a new Cold War. Le Pen is also critical of the French government for not delivering a warship to Russia because of the Ukraine crisis.

But Le Pen herself has also been subject to criticism.

"It's remarkable that a political party from the motherland of freedom can be funded by Putin's sphere - the largest European enemy of freedom," said Reinhard Bütikofer, an EU parliamentarian for the German Greens, in a DW interview. Putin, he says, is antagonizing European values by any possible means.

"But the fact that enemies of European freedom in Moscow are now doing business with Europe's radical right - that's a whole new can of worms," he warned.

In EU parliament, it's not only Le Pen and members of the National Front who have advocated Putin. Leader of the British right-wing UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, and MPs of the "Alternative for Germany" party have also made Russia-friendly comments.

Pro-Russian sentiment in the EU parliament

Although pro-Russian voices were previously heard more often amongst the EU parliament's left-wing parties, a study by Hungarian policy research institute Political Capital showed that 15 of the parliament's 24 right-wing populist parties were "open" to Russia.

That means Putin's nationalist and authoritarian leadership style is admired not only by the National Front but also Hungary's Jobbik party - an avowed admirer of Putin's power games - is suspected of being supported by the Kremlin. According to the party's members, the offensive in Crimea is "exemplary" - something they believe Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania could use to alter the Hungarian border.

Legal aftermath

Europe's radical right are by no means hiding that they want to weaken the European Union. It was this attitude that helped them to win votes at the last European election.

The scandal regarding the millions of funding, however, comes at a particularly inopportune time for the Front National.

Over the weekend, Le Pen is set to be re-elected as party leader - but the loan from the Russian bank could have legal consequences. French investigative judges have, in the meantime, been examining potentially illegal party funding in the party.

Gessen: NATO and the West are in denial about Putin

Yes, Gessen's key point is correct: The West's staggering of diplomatic and economic sanctions against Russia was a strategic error; their blow should have been hard and sudden. Indeed, the West needed to punch Putin in the nose, if not militarily then by other means, to compel the bully to stop fighting. Instead the Western strategy has been "death by 1,000 cuts," with only a few cuts on Russia so far.

Notwithstanding today's ceasefire agreement in Minsk, I am skeptical of any peace efforts in which Putin is involved. Why? Because Russia is the aggressor, and it doesn't seem to me that Russia's aims in Ukraine have yet been achieved.  

So let's hope that the EU and US both continue to impose further sanctions against Russia, despite this apparent olive branch. After all, Putin has continued to lie about his actions and intent in Ukraine; there is no reason to start believing him now.

P.S. -- It's not accidental that I say Putin instead of, or in lieu of, Russia, since there does not seem to be any counterweight to Putin or any advisers who have strong influence on him. Nor can any so-called "insiders" predict his actions. Russia is currently a cult of personality. That's dangerous!

Plans to stop Russia show NATO and the West are in denial

By Masha Gessen

September 4, 2014 | Reuters

For more than six months now, since Russia annexed Crimea, Western politicians and analysts have been asking what can make Vladimir Putin stop or retreat. It’s the wrong question, and the policies that have flowed from the resulting debate have been misguided, because they are based on the fallacy that the West can do something to influence Putin’s actions.

Putin has always been a master of the public lie, both of the bold-faced variety and the mixed-message variety, and for the last six months he has used this skill to keep the West playing catch-up in Ukraine. It’s a game the West is losing.

Western politicians, for their part, have heeded only those of Putin’s statements that they want to hear — or at least ones that make sense in their picture of the world. Leaders have chosen to believe that Russia invaded Ukraine to protect vital strategic interests: the need for a “buffer state” between itself and NATO. They have validated Putin’s avowed concern about the fate of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. And right now, they are going along with a charade Putin is playing out regarding cease-fire negotiations with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko – negotiations that Putin’s press secretary managed to disavow minutes after the fateful telephone conversation concluded on Wednesday.

And then there are the statements and actions that Western politicians have chosen to ignore: the threat to use nuclear arms, which Putin has taken to repeating casually; the military exercises intended to menace the Baltic states and, most recently, Kazakhstan; the testing of a nuclear-tipped missile for the first time since such testing was banned by a bilateral U.S.-Russian treaty in 1987.

Putin, his television channels, and his ideological emissaries have explained this saber-rattling in no uncertain terms. It is a clash of civilizations, nothing less than a confrontation with the West over the very values at the core of “the Russian world.” The current view is that international law and all Western alliances are parts of a conspiracy to limit Russia’s ability to protect and spread traditional values. So-called strategic interests and the fate of ethnic Russians are merely pretexts for battles in the new worldwide conflict.

Is there anything that can be done to stop a man driven by the idea of fighting such a conflict? Can we really expect Putin to change his mind about his historic mission because of banking or visa restrictions? No.

There are certain things that simply cannot be changed; the mind of a despot is one such thing.

All human beings at times encounter insurmountable difficulties. We generally deal with them in one of two ways: either we pretend they’re not happening, or we find ways to minimize the damage and remain whole in the face of adversity. The former never works, yet somehow the entire Western political establishment refuses to acknowledge the difficulty with Russia’s leader is insurmountable.

The West hopes its actions can change Putin’s. Negotiating with Putin, trying to second-guess him, validating his bad-faith negotiations, searching for a solution that can mollify him – all of these approaches are willfully based on a false assumption. The very premise of realpolitik in this situation is a lie.

So what would be the right thing to do in the face of this hostile, aggressive, and reckless reality?

First of all, face the facts.

Then, use the entire arsenal of financial and political sanctions at once – the idea behind staggering them is based on the faulty premise that they can influence Putin’s behavior. Staggering the application of sanctions gives him, and the Russian economy, time to adjust. Instead, sanctions should be imposed for the simple reason that it is wrong to enable Putin’s Russia by doing business with it; the right thing to do is to stop.

After that, do what can be done to physically protect those who are being attacked and those who are at risk: Ukraine, the Baltics, and – the most important criterion of all – anyone who asks for protection from this scourge. That probably means arming Ukraine and taking up positions in the Baltics. Yes, this puts the West on the verge of actual military engagement, but it is not only strategically dangerous but also morally corrupting to stand by and watch while Putin pounds unprotected neighbors.

It is likely that none of this stop him. But at least it may keep us from falling into an abyss of lies and helplessness.

Germans have united against their old partner Russia (NYT)

Good for the Germans!:

Seventy percent of 1,003 [German] adults polled last week by Infratest dimap for the public broadcaster ARD approved of stricter sanctions; just 15 percent viewed Russia as a reliable partner in a poll with a three-percentage-point margin of sampling error.

Germans are certainly feeling the pain of economic sanctions on Russia, much, much more so than the U.S., but without their leadership in the EU, there cannot be a united European response to Russian aggression against Ukraine. The UK, Netherlands and Eastern European states are not enough; the core of "Old Europe" must be on board.

Clearly, the downing of MH flight 17 was the straw that broke the camel's back vis-a-vis EU and Western public opinion; the attack by Russian-backed fighters in Ukraine showed Russia to be an unpredictable, reckless and dishonest "partner."  

Indeed, said German Social Democrat Gernot Erler, former deputy foreign minister and now commissioner for Russia and former Soviet states:

"The policy of Vladimir Putin is destroying reserves of trust with breathtaking speed. Russia is not naming its goals and has suddenly become unpredictable. And being unpredictable is the greatest enemy of partnership."

That phrase jumped out at me: "Russia is not naming its goals."  That's precisely it.  Putin seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach, with some weapons and fighters here, some diplomatic and economic pressure there, but not really saying what he thinks would be a realistic and desirable outcome for Russia. I suspect that Putin's cagey silence is as much about avoiding uncomfortable questions at home (where feverish nationalism could turn on its master) as it is about keeping the West guessing.

Yes, Putin has urged the establishment in Ukraine of a unique version of "federalism" for "Novorossiya" (Luhansk and Donetsk), where each federal state has its own domestic and foreign policy; but such a confederate (not federal) model would be completely unacceptable for Ukraine and the West, and certainly not practicable: it would make Ukraine a hobbled, disunited state always prone to political infighting. If this is Putin's ultimate goal then it's understandable why he cannot openly say so.

Ukraine Crisis Hardens Germany Against Russia, an Old Partner

By Alison Smale

August 13, 2014 | New York Times

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-hardens-germany-against-russia-an-old-partner.html

The West should tell Russia: 'We don't need you'

There's a chilling, little-known factoid about Putin at the end.  This one's worth reading in full! 

Fortunately, the White House has said publicly that any Russian incursion into Ukraine, even for "humanitarian" or "peacekeeping" purposes, without the formal, express consent and authorization of the Ukraine government would be "unacceptable and a violation of international law."

Why Vladimir Putin isn't going to make peace

By Yuri Yarim-Agaev

August 7, 2014 | CNN

The killing of 298 innocent people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was a crime, a consequence of the war against Ukraine that Vladimir Putin started, and which he supplies, directs and controls. The Russian President bears full responsibility for this war, including the downing of the Malaysian airliner.

The main problem with our reaction to Russian aggression is not even the mildness of our sanctions, but the lack of clarity of their purpose. Our message to Putin is very confused. Do we want him completely out of Ukraine, or do we want his help in dealing with that country? They are two very different requests.

Despite Putin's offenses, Western leaders apparently still want him to play an active role in securing peace and stability. According to the White House, on July 17, "President Obama called on President Putin to take concrete steps to de-escalate the situation, including pressing separatists to agree to a cease-fire."

After the Malaysian airliner was shot down, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Putin to use his influence with the rebels to ensure a cease-fire. In recent appearances on several TV shows, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked Putin to take "immediate and clear action to reduce tensions in Ukraine," "to step up and make a difference," and "to use all his influence."

Despite their harsh words for Putin, leaders of the West still want his help. British Prime Minister David Cameron summed it up best when he said: "We sometimes behave as if we need Russia more than Russia needs us."

Putin is only too glad to put on sheep's clothing and assume the role of peacemaker that he has pretended to be throughout the war that he himself started. According to him, annexing Crimea, shooting down airplanes and supporting separatists has only one purpose: to protect the Ukrainian people from alleged right-wing extremists.

If you want Putin's help, beware of what you are asking. He would be glad to broker a "diplomatic solution" with the separatists, thus legitimizing his terrorists and entrenching them on Ukrainian territory.  If that option doesn't work, we can imagine the following completely different scenario: Russian tanks roll over Donetsk. Instead of supporting the separatists, Putin arrests leaders of the Donetsk republic and persecutes them for terrorizing the local population. Blaming the Ukrainian government for its inability to protect people from the terrorists, he establishes full control over the territory, and leaves Russian troops there to secure law, order and tranquility.

[Putin is just devilish enough to try this! - J]

How would the world react to such a "peacekeeping mission"? Would the Ukrainian army fight Russian troops? Would Western political leaders accept this as a plausible option? I do not know. But what is more important, Putin doesn't know either. We should make very clear that we would not accept Putin as a peacekeeper and we want him out of Ukraine.

Western governments should not implicitly accept the aggressive doctrine called the "Russian World," which was endorsed by Putin, and which gives him the right to intervene into the affairs of virtually any sovereign nation, as he did in Ukraine, using the pretext of protecting Russian-speaking citizens.

The major concern of Western leaders is that by taking a strong stand against Putin, we may lose him as a useful partner in the world arena. We shouldn't worry about that. History clearly demonstrates that in all major international trouble spots in which we accepted Putin as our partner, Russia has always taken the side of the West's enemy. Such has been the case with Iraq, North Korea, Syria and Iran.

It was only natural for Putin to use any invitation on our part as an opportunity to damage us. One should not expect anything different from a person with the background of a KGB officer, for whom America always has been enemy No. 1, and for whom anti-Americanism is a pillar of his power.

If America is Russia's enemy, Putin's Russia cannot be our ally. Whether we like it or not, such relations are reciprocal. And from an enemy we do not need help. We need only check its aggression. For that purpose we should take the following steps:

1. Publicly recognize that Putin is not our ally or partner, but rather our foe, and make this position clear to him and to the rest of the world.

2. Ensure that our demands to Russia be absolutely clear. Stop supporting separatists in Ukraine. We do not need Putin as a broker or peacemaker. Putin must completely get out of Ukrainian territory and Ukrainian politics.

3. Make clear that Putin's help is not needed in any other part of the world. Exclude Russia as our partner or as a mediator from any international arrangements and negotiations.

4. Reiterate our position of not accepting the annexation of Crimea. Demand that it be returned to Ukraine.

5. Stop propagating Putin's propaganda. Instead, counter it with all the power of America's media. Expand broadcasts by Radio Liberty and other radio stations.

6. Make it clear that we consider the "Russian World" policy a threat to world peace and stability. Insist that Russia officially renounce that doctrine and repeal supporting legislation as necessary conditions for Russia's readmission to the community of civilized nations.

7. To stop aggression against Ukraine and to prevent aggressions against other countries, make Russia pay a high price by introducing sector and other serious economic sanctions. Be ready to accept the cost of those sanctions.

8. Take immediate steps to reduce that cost and any dependence on Russia. Develop new energy sources and transportation systems in America and Europe.

9. Provide help, including military assistance, to those who are under immediate attack or potential aggression by Russia.

10. Revisit communism, an ideology that remains important in Russia as well as other countries. Educate new generations about its atrocities and bankrupt ideology.

Opponents of strong action against an aggressor wrongly equate political confrontation with war. They believe that admitting that the second largest nuclear power is our enemy would usher in another Cold War and make the situation much more dangerous.

History teaches us, however, that to ignore reality and appease our enemy is a more dangerous approach than to clearly articulate our principles and disagreements.

When in 1983 the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Ronald Reagan denounced them as enemies of the United States and the entire world. Reagan's strong stand against the Soviet communism that threatened us for decades with nuclear war helped stop its expansion and eventually led to its complete capitulation. If we could stand against the mighty Soviet Union, we can manage Putin's much weaker Russia.

In February 2000, only two months into his presidency, Vladimir Putin presented one of his first state awards to Air Force Gen. Anatoly Kornukov. In 1983, Kornukov was commander of Sokol Airbase in Sakhalin. His order to the fighter pilot was: "Destroy the target!"

The target was Korean Air Lines Flight 007.

Russia preparing pretexts for invasion of Ukraine (Foreign Policy)

Very good summary of recent events in Ukraine and Russia, with strategic analysis by the editor of the Interpreter, an online journal about Russian media. 

We Come in 'Peace'

By Michael Weiss

August 7, 2014 | Foreign Policy

URL: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/06/we_come_in_peace_mh17_ukraine_russia_prepares_for_war

Skibinskiy: Russia - a 'failed, mafia state' - sees Ukraine's break as 'existential threat'

(HT: NK). Here are links to two blog posts (Part 1 and Part 2) by a Russian emigre Max Skibinskiy who works in Silicon Valley.  They're long so I'm going to highlight the best parts. Here's from Part 1, about Russia today [emphasis mine]:

Russia was and is a failed state. What is seen from the outside is just a facade imitating a functional country and government. High oil prices, residual infrastructure of USSR and internal mass propaganda machine maintained the illusion for more than a decade.

[...]   In simple terms, Russia is a mafia state. All the way from Moscow to regions and to small towns, everything is controlled by various mafia gangs. Police and judiciary are parts of most powerful gangs. They usually assist in extortion or theft of property earned by local small and medium size businessmen. Big business is subject to federal mafia clan wars.

The mafia-state formation is logical consequence of Russian economy: it is totally dominated by oil and gas revenues. Oil, gas and derivatives provide meaningful employment to about 1M people. Russian population is about 150M. How do they survive? The majority depends on various forms of government handouts.

With Russian-style oil production you don’t have to think, innovate or even hire smart people. All you have to do is to cash the check. Gazprom is ranked as one of the most grossly inefficient enterprises in the world. So what happens when a small, totally incompetent minority controls country-wide oil rent while the rest of 149 million people are a burden? The answer is obvious: that 1M would create a mafia state to keep the rest of 149M in check by means of police and judiciary abuse and mass propaganda.

Russian propaganda machine is vast, it now exceeds the one of Soviet Union. 

About the degradation of the Russian population:

The population at large is, statistically speaking, not very bright. Many are deranged from overuse of alcohol or drugs.  A big number are simply aging elderly rooted in USSR-centric mindset who never adjusted to the modern world.  Most of them do not “work” in the sense we understand full-time employment here: they occupy placeholder positions sponsored by the government. Being dependent their whole life on government help, they are psychologically unable even to think government can do something wrong.

About the Russian "brand":

I think we came to the end of the line with regards to Russia as a name, culture, a global brand. For the time being the country future is destroyed, police state is well-entrenched and the narrative for the brainwashed locals would be xenophobic tale of struggle with the “West”.

And here he finally gets to Ukraine:

The differences between “Ukrainian” and “Russian” people are cosmetic. [I certainly disagree, as did many of Max's readers, and he corrected himself in Part 2, basically saying Russians come from Kievan Rus', which is historically accurate and another reason Putin doesn't want to "lose" Ukraine. - J]  The distance between Kiev and Moscow is about same as Sacramento to San Diego. Even today, after all that happened, the most likely language you will hear on the streets of Kiev is Russian. So why Kremlin was so enraged about recent Ukrainian revolution? After all Ukraine has no natural gas or oil, there were no riches to divide, what was the fuss all about?

What happened is that first time in history, large group of ethnic “Russians” had overthrown a mafia clan in a popular uprising.  Until then, Ukraine was a satellite state, and exactly because it had no natural oil and gas, much larger portion of the population had to develop “creative class” skills rather than going to work for oil company or police enforcement. Then suddenly this social group had enough heft and popular power to overthrow local mafia don.

You can imagine the amount of terror it produced in the gang occupying Kremlin right now.  If was and still is an extensional threat to them, hence they pulled out all the stops to overthrow or destabilize a new government in Kiev, and at the same time whip out xenophobic mass-hysteria in a local population.

At this moment, Kremlin can not really stop. If Kiev government survives, it will fairly quickly unlock economic benefits of non-mafia, free economy. The large parasitic class living by bribes and extortion will be displaced: it will have the same effect as if base tax rate would suddenly drop by a double digit percentage. Next door, progressive Russians would quickly notice and spread information about growing prosperity and opportunity in a city next door. What was half million Euro-leaning progressives, would become a million, then few million: before long you can picture a Gaddafi-style demise for the Kremlin gang.

Kremlin is fighting for its own survival: supplying weapon system and military crew to a roaming criminal gangs [in Ukraine] is nothing for them in big scheme of things.

And here's what Silicon Valley can do to help Ukraine:

• Help Ukraine. They have terrific outsourcing shops and consulting firms. Send them business if you can. Recent revolution would unlock even more creative force in this economically modest, yet energetic country. They are the first large group of ethnic “Russians” who become free on their own power and valor. To understand the scale of that achievement, here is the last group of Russians who were not ruled by khans, czars, communist chairmans or KGB generals: Free Novgorod Republic. That was over 1000 years go. Ukraine was a cradle of Russian civilization – they might become a source of its rebirth yet again.

• Boycott anything and everything related to Russian government and associated banks and corporations. Any business you send to them only strengthen the regime. Your contract dollars will pay for next Buk missile.

Then in Part 2, here is what Max says about Ukrainians's and Russians' common heritage:

Ukrainian side, deservedly, had a lot of critique for calling Ukrainians “ethnic Russians”. It was interpreted as usual Russian chauvinism rejecting Ukrainian identity, language and rights as a sovereign nation. Ouch.

My apologies to Ukrainians. From a historical perspective I was referring to, the article would be unchanged if I were to say “Russia is populated by ethnic Ukrainians from Kievan-Rus“. inosmi.ru did astute and very subtle translation as “Russich”, which precisely the meaning I was trying to convey. Keep in mind, there is no English word I know for “Russich”, and if one exists, I’m sure last person around here who knew it left after he locked gates at Fort Ross after himself.

In Part 2, here's his take on economic sanctions against Russia:

At the same time, make no mistake: current Russian’s regime is ruthless, efficient and fully in control. It not going to change soon, especially with 81% popularity rating. It has no obvious weaknesses besides potential economic collapse from sanctions (and still would take 10 to 20 months  and resulting political change that might not be for the better at all). The ruling elite is not considering Russia their homeland: it is occupied territory with captive native population to be exploited for monetary gain which is to be squirreled away overseas. If country and it’s people would be irrevocably ruined by the process so be it: the elite and their children will just permanently move their European residences.

That is the key problem that makes sanctions such a blunt and imprecise weapon: until they include all extended families of the corrupt Russian government-industrial complex officials they are toothless.  If they do include them (and assets registered in the name of *all* their relatives) it will have big negative impact on EU/UK economy, and it becomes equivalent of nuclear weapon against Russian ruling class: they will have absolutely nothing to loose [sic], the whole purpose of their life (Western wealth) would be wiped out in an instant. In general, it is not a smart move to put a nuclear-armed power in that position.

And on how Kiev's techies are smarter than Moscow's:

Kiev is a cosmopolitan European capital with good climate and great people. Unlike Moscow, it much less infected with toxic poison of oil and gas revenues – here you got to work to make your fortune. I observed many times that when it comes to cutting edge technologies Ukranian and Kiev teams are far ahead of Russia as whole – and Russia is a pretty big place! The reason is simple: Kiev teams already compete, learn and grown on the world level – they wouldn’t get any contracts otherwise. Russian teams always have a fallback to easy low-competency contracts driven by oil and gas: they have much less pressure to become exceptionally good. That how global technology competition works.

No Russian (Part 1)

Posted by Max

July 20, 2014 | The Vault of the Future

URL: http://skibinsky.com/no-russian/

No Russian (Part 2)

July 25, 2014

URL: http://skibinsky.com/no-russian-2/

U.S. State Dept.: Russia firing artillery over border at Ukraine's military

Anybody who thought that "worldwide condemnation" for shooting down flight MH-17 was going to alter Putin's plans should think again.

Russia's President Putin respects only one thing: force.  Or the economic equivalent of getting punched in the nose. That's why US-EU sectoral sanctions against Russia must be put in place now. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. should start sending fuel, supplies, and defensive ammunition and weapons to Ukraine's military.  A good sign: ateam of U.S. military advisers is being sent to Ukraine to assess what kind of U.S. assistance they need. But Obama must accelerate the pace.

U.S. says Russia firing artillery across border at Ukrainian military

By David Storey

July 24, 2014 | Reuters

URL: http://www.trust.org/item/20140724180345-xplag/

NYT: Russia sent tanks and missiles to separatists in Ukraine

This is the best (and worst) bit from this New York Times story:

A rebel leader, Denis Pushilin, told Russian state television on Friday that the separatists had tanks but that it was “improper to ask” where they had gotten them.

Nope, you never narc on your supplier, that's the first rule of separatist warfare.

To add absurdity to farce, earlier on June 6, the Kremlin propaganda machine "Voice of Russia" said that the Ukrainian army's use of tanks on its own territory against armed and murderous separatists violated the Geneva Conventions.  So... what does Russia call a foreign power sending tanks and artillery into another country, unannounced, to be used by unlawful combatants, and hitting civilian targets?  

The U.S. State Department said, "We are confident that these tanks came from Russia." But that's not all:  "We also have information that Russia has accumulated multiple rocket launchers at this same deployment site in southwest Russia, and these rocket launchers also recently departed."  

Seriously though, what's the U.S., NATO and Europe going to do about this?  The West has Russia dead to rights.  So now what??

"A failure by Russia to de-escalate this situation will lead to additional costs," said a State Department spokeswoman. 

Additional costs?  Oh no, anything but that!  I'm sure Russian President Vladimir Putin is checking his mega-sized wallet right now to see if he can cover the bill.... 

The NYT says "the convoy was too small to serve a military purpose." I think this was a trial balloon. Putin is waiting to see how the West reacts. If they wimp out, Putin will send more tanks and heavy weapons, it's that simple.

(Putin is also doing it, coincidentally or not, just when Iraq's army is imploding; so maybe he figures the U.S. will be too distracted by events there -- and the stupid conservative blamesmanship going on -- to react adequately to events in Ukraine.)

Time to sack up!  Freedom isn't free.  This tinpot dictator must be put in his place, for the sake of liberty and security in Europe and international law.

Russia Sent Tanks to Ukrainian Separatists, U.S. Says

By Andrew E. Kramer and Michael R. Gordon

June 13, 2014 | New York Times

The State Department said Friday that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists in Ukraine, supporting accusations Thursday by the Ukrainian government.

A convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 multiple rocket launchers and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said. The Ukrainian Army reported Friday that it had destroyed two of the three tanks and several other vehicles in the convoy.

“This is unacceptable,” said Marie Harf, the deputy State Department spokeswoman. “A failure by Russia to de-escalate this situation will lead to additional costs.”

A Western official said that intelligence about the movement of the tanks and other weapons into Ukraine was shared on Friday with NATO allies. Secretary of State John Kerry complained this week about the flow of Russian arms to separatists in Ukraine in a phone call to Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister.

The spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Dmitry S. Peskov, said Friday that a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier had crossed into Russia for unclear reasons and was abandoned there. The Russian state news agency reported that the Russian border service said the occupants had then fled back to Ukraine

At the meeting of the Group of 7 industrial powers last week, President Obama warned Mr. Putin that the West would impose “additional costs” on Russia if its provocations were to continue.

The T-64 is an obsolescent tank no longer in active use by Russian forces, but still stored in southwest Russia.

“Russia will claim these tanks were taken from Ukrainian forces, but no Ukrainian tank units have been operating in that area,” the State Department said Friday afternoon. “We are confident that these tanks came from Russia.”

“We also have information that Russia has accumulated multiple rocket launchers at this same deployment site in southwest Russia, and these rocket launchers also recently departed,” the State Department added. “Internet video has shown what we believe to be these same rocket launchers traveling through Luhansk.”

Even before the State Department’s statement, Ukraine was having one of its better days Friday in eastern Ukraine, with government forces winning control of the port of Mariupol, the second-largest city in the separatist region of Donetsk.

The Ukrainian assault in Mariupol left five pro-Russian militants dead and four Ukrainian soldiers wounded, and ended with the hoisting of a Ukrainian flag at City Hall as the military routed the last separatists from the city’s administration buildings.

In Friday’s confrontation, videos posted online showed Ukrainian soldiers standing over captives who were lying face down with hands clenched behind their heads. The videos also showed soldiers displaying trophies of the battle — captured orange-and-black ribbons and shoulder patches of a pro-Russian group, the Russian Orthodox Army — and speaking with prisoners freed from the occupied buildings.

In that pro-Ukrainian forces — volunteer patrols of factory workers, a Ukrainian nationalist battalion called Azov and the Ukrainian military — had controlled most of Mariupol for weeks, the action was as much a propaganda victory as a military one.

In fighting near the besieged town of Slovyansk, a Grad ground-to-ground rocket of the sort said to be in the weapons convoy from Russia killed one person and wounded several others. Residents said the rocket went off course and hit a vegetable market in the village of Dobroyepole.

Over the long term, Ukraine, with its far larger though badly equipped and poorly trained army, has more forces, and it is unclear how long the separatists can hold out without more support from Russia. That is something Moscow cannot offer openly without risking more severe Western sanctions.

The result is misdirection and sleight of hand, and a conflict of endless puzzles and mind games.

The daytime journey of the three tanks through eastern Ukraine, which was filmed in multiple videos and witnessed by Western reporters, could not have been more obvious, and yet the convoy was too small to serve a military purpose. Was it a warning?

A rebel leader, Denis Pushilin, told Russian state television on Friday that the separatists had tanks but that it was “improper to ask” where they had gotten them.

Russia ratcheted up the economic pressure on Ukraine on Friday in their dispute over natural gas supplies and prices. Gazprom’s chief executive, Aleksei B. Miller, said that the company, a state-controlled energy giant, would not negotiate further with Ukraine over gas prices until Kiev paid its debts for past deliveries, and would adhere to a Monday deadline demanding prepayment for future supplies.

Obama's strategy against Putin worked as planned?

(HT: NK). Below is an interesting take on Russia's conflict in Ukraine; it's not one you see often.

My biggest criticism of Fisher's analysis is that he may be counting his chickens about avoiding war in Ukraine.  Let's see how the May 25 presidential elections go -- and if they go at all in eastern Ukraine. Then comes Russia's reaction.  If Russia calls those elections illegitimate, and eastern separatists follow Putin's lead, then next could come civil war and/or partition of Ukraine.

My secondary criticism is that Putin continues to arm, fund and coordinate the separatists, mixing in with them Russian mercenaries and army and SBU officers. So to say that Putin is "losing control" of the separatists is a stretch; in fact, this seems to be yet another Kremlin lie that Putin would like us to believe. 

Let Putin cut off all aid to the separatists and then see how far they get without him!

Obama's strategy of letting Putin hang himself is working

By Max Fisher

May 16, 2014 | Vox

Let me be the first to admit it: President Obama's strategy for handling Russia and its incursions into Ukraine had seemed to me, as it did to many others, pretty unlikely to succeed.

Obama dismissed Russia as a "regional power" acting "out of weakness," but it was the US that looked weak: it could only cobble together some targeted sanctions that, while tough, appeared to do nothing to stop Russia's meddling in eastern Ukraine. He needed Europe's support for broader economic sanctions that would actually hurt the Russian economy and he didn't get it. Obama implicitly abandoned Crimea, giving no sign that he thought that, weeks after Russia invaded and annexed the territory, it might ever be returned to Ukraine. The official US position has been to threaten broader sanctions that seem unlikely to get the European support necessary to make them hurt, while arguing that Russia's actions will be so self-defeating that the problem would just sort itself out.

It sounded silly, a shrug of a policy. And maybe it even was. But it also turns out to be working surprisingly well. Russian President Vladimir Putin has over-reached in Ukraine, creating problems for himself so bad that they may force him down as or more effectively than plausible American actions alone might have (although they helped). Putin is hanging himself by his own rope.

This has been so effective, and has apparently taken Putin by such surprise, that after weeks of looking like he could roll into eastern Ukraine unchallenged, he's backing down all on his own. Official Russian rhetoric, after weeks of not-so-subtle threats of invading eastern Ukraine, is backing down. Putin suddenly looks like he will support Ukraine's upcoming presidential election, rather than oppose it, although it will likely install a pro-European president. European and American negotiators say the tone in meetings has eased from slinging accusations to working toward a peaceful resolution.

Most of this is economic. Russia's self-imposed economic problems started pretty quickly after its annexation of Crimea in March and have kept up. Whether or not American or European governments sanction Russia's broader economy, the global investment community has a mind of its own, and they seem to have decided that Russia's behavior has made it a risky place to put money. So risky that they're pulling more money out.

A lot of that may have come from the targeted sanctions that Obama pushed for against individual Russian leaders and oligarchs. Those targeted sanctions did not themselves do much damage to the Russian economy. But, along with Russia's erratic behavior in Ukraine and the lack of clarity as to whether Europe and the US could impose broader sanctions, it appears to have been enough to scare off global investors — the big, faceless, placeless mass of people and banks who have done tremendous damage to Putin's Russia, nudged along by the US and by Putin himself.

Here are three charts, from Forbes' Mark Adomanis, a specialist on Russia's economic issues, showing how Russia's aggression in Ukraine has already started to hurt its economy.

Russia's stock exchange, the Moscow Exchange or MICEX, has shown a severe overall decline:

Moscow Exchange performance

Here's the stock of Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, the performance of which Adomanis says "been popularly used as rough barometer for the overall health of the Russian equity market":

Sberbank stock price

And here's the Russian ruble against the US dollar; the higher the line, the cheaper Russia's currency, and the more expensive it becomes for Russia to import stuff from abroad:

Exchange rate between the ruble and the dollar

From Obama's perspective, the beautiful thing about this is that the US doesn't have to take any big risks to punish Russia for its aggression, because Russia is being punished by the impersonal forces of the global economy (this has the added benefit of not giving Putin a propaganda tool, which US sanctions would do). Maybe even better is the fact that Putin can't cleverly negotiate his way out of these effects or try to game the system, and he now knows this will happen if he tries something like the Crimea annexation again.

It's like someone built one of those electric shock fences around Russia's borders; Putin can cross them again, but he knows he'll get a shock, and he knows it's painful enough to not be worth it.

The lesson that Putin is learning is that Russia depends on the global economy, whether it likes it or not, and the global economy doesn't like it when you go invading other countries and tempting the richest nations in the world to maybe consider sanctioning you. This is actually a significant change for Russia, which at the height of its Soviet power was not integrated into the global economy and so didn't have to worry about things like investor sentiment. But now it is and it does.

What's cool about this is that it theoretically could apply to lots of other possible acts of international aggression around the world.This is something that economists and political scientists have been predicting since World War One: that integrating all the national economies into the global economy wouldn't just make all of us richer; it would make war more economically painful for the people starting it and thus less likely to happen.

It's not just the economy, though. As part of its strategy for fomenting chaos in eastern Ukraine and maybe possibly invading, Russia appears to have sponsored the pro-Russian separatist militias that seized government centers and engaged in firefights with Ukrainian troops. The separatists were good for Putin precisely because they're young, heavily armed zealots.

But they're maybe a bit too zealous, as Putin appears to be losing control of them. When they announced they would hold a highly dubious referendum on splitting from Ukraine to join Russia, Putin publicly urged them not to, and said nothing when they proceeded anyway. If Putin tries to deescalate the crisis, it's not clear that the separatists will listen to him, and he may end up on the hook for his previously useful wackos.

There is a big caveat here: Crimea. Russia controls Crimea and there just does not appear to be much the world can do about that. Obama, in comments in March, more or less admitted as much: "The facts on the ground are that the Russian military controls Crimea. There are a number of individuals inside of Crimea that are supportive of that process. There's no expectation that they will be dislodged by force," he said. "It would be dishonest to suggest that there's a simple solution to resolving what has already taken place in Crimea."

Still, in eastern Ukraine, there is pretty strong evidence that the system worked. Russia pushed too far, the US and Europe pushed back with sanctions not tough enough to hurt Russia on their own but tough enough to freak out global investors, and Putin was chastened by the economic damage that he mostly did to himself. The global economic integration that was supposed to prevent war actually did.

Putin wants a new world order

(HT: TK). It wouldn't be the first time the West gave into a little bully. Sometimes, however, acquiescence don't satisfy bullies, it emboldens them.

Vladi­mir Putin’s new world order with the West

By Lilia Shevtsova

May 8, 2014 | Washington Post

Lilia Shevtsova is a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center and author of “Putin’s Russia.”

The post-Cold War order that emerged from the breakup of the Soviet Union was doomed to fail because it rested on a belief that post-Soviet Russia was no longer a problem. Even when Western leaders realized that Russia under Vladimir Putin was becoming a problem, they exchanged political acquiescence with the Kremlin for economic benefits. Liberal democracies agreed to play a game of “let’s pretend,” in which they viewed Russia as a “normal country” while the Russian elite became integrated into the West — and corrupted the Western system from within.

That trade-off, many Western observers hoped, would keep Moscow from stirring up trouble beyond Russia’s borders. How could people whose ill-gotten gains are kept in Western banks and whose children attend Western schools be ill-disposed toward the West?

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine made it clear that he has stopped pretending. The Kremlin will not limit itself to cracking down on opposition within Russia’s borders.

The survival of Putin’s system is based on a permanent search for internal and external enemies. Ukraine has become the testing ground for a Kremlin that seeks to eliminate the very idea of revolution — not only in Russia but also in the former Soviet bloc — and to force the West to accept its right to do so.

The dismemberment of Ukraine also exposes the mechanism of the Russian matrix, in which foreign policy is the main instrument of domestic agenda. Those worrying only about Russian imperialism are wrong: Land-grabbing and “defending” the Russian-speaking population in other countries are the means to turn Russia into a state at war, making Putin a wartime president and strengthening his position at home.

Putin not only seeks to revisit the results of the end of the Cold War; he also wants a final say in establishing the new world order.Briefly, the Kremlin offers a new trade-off: In return for continued economic benefits for the West, Russia wants Western consent to its interpretation of the rules of the game.

This does not only undermine the Western vision of Kantian perpetual peace. It also creates new traps — for both sides.

On Russia’s side, the Kremlin has appropriated liberal rhetoric to legitimize its intervention in Ukraine. It demands that Kiev reform the Ukrainian constitution and allow for regional referendums on the right to secession and federalization.  Meanwhile, however, Russian citizens do not have such rights; advocating for them, in fact, can land one in jail.

So the Kremlin’s external rhetoric is undermining the legitimacy of the Russian regime. There will come a time when Russia’s Tatarswill say, “Why can’t we have a right to self-determination?” There will come a time when Russians will ask, “Why can’t we have a right to a referendum and a right to oppose the authorities?” In other words, we are witnessing a situation in which the Kremlin’s bid for survival is turning into a suicidal marathon.

The liberal democracies are not doing much better. Caught off-guard by Putin’s maneuvering, liberal democracies tell the Kremlin that if it stops further aggression, the West just might accept the new status quo. In fact, the April 17 Geneva agreement among the United States, European Union and Russia revealed the West’s inability to stop Russia’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine. Western demands for “de-escalation,” demarcated with fuzzy “red lines,” only provoked Moscow into moving further. By refusing to offer Ukraine real prospects for joining the Euro-Atlantic community through either European Union and/or NATO membership, the West is leaving Ukraine in a gray zone of uncertainty, vulnerable to falling into the Russian orbit.

While the Western sanctions that have been imposed so far have started to bite, they paradoxically strengthen Putin’s “besieged fortress” logic of survival. The Russian leader’s call this week for pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk to put their independence referendum on hold was not a surrender; it is an invitation to Kiev to accommodate the Kremlin’s interests, this time through “dialogue.”

[Meanwhile, Russia's state television Channel 24 in Donbas was telling people in each town where and when to find polling stations to vote on the referendums, so Putin's statements cannot be taken seriously. - J]

This call for dialogue by a leader who has limited political life in Russia to his own monologue sounds like cognitive dissonance. However, the Kremlin’s goal is more likely pragmatic: to switch to the role of peacemaker and strike a new Faustian bargain with the West, persuading it to agree to Ukrainian limited sovereignty and the right of external forces to teach Ukrainians what is right and what is wrong.

I’ll bet that Western leaders, tired of their Ukrainian headache, might agree with the bargain. And the Kremlin will join the Ukrainian “round table” moderators. Instead of an invader, Putin will be seen as the architect of the new postmodern reality.

Isn’t it hilarious?