A Moral Blindness over the Syrian veto

Russia and China's veto on the UN resolution over Syria at the weekend has been roundly criticized in the West and there are some powerful reactions in the British Press this morning.

Writing in the Guardian,David Hearst says that for Russia and Putin,he says that:

The veto sets Russia on the opposite side of the table from the Arab League; it lifts the international responsibility for failing to staunch the blood flowing in cities like Homs off Barack Obama's shoulders, and assumes that burden itself. And if defecting Syrian soldiers are to be called "armed extremist groups", who exactly are the militias currently running Libya, whom Russia belatedly recognised as a legitimate authority? If Islamists are by their nature extremist, and in Putin's eyes they are, what does that make the elected transitional authority in Tunisia?

Meanwhile the Times' leader this morning calls the decision Moral Blindness

is a monstrous piece of hypocrisy. Both countries acted out of reflexive anti-Western motives. Both were concerned more to protect their interests and their clients than to exercise their global responsibilities for halting violence and maintaining peace. Both spouted inanities about non-interference in domestic affairs while knowingly giving carte blanche to the thugs in Damascus to continue the indiscriminate shelling of cities, the random shooting of civilians and the brutal torture of political opponents

Whilst in the FT,former cabinet minister Malcolm Rifkind and Shashank Joshi write that it is time to support the opposition in Syria

 The diplomatic route is now all but exhausted. Having staked so much on a lost cause, Russia will strive to avoid humiliation. On the other side, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are likely to deepen their co-operation with Turkey to bolster the Free Syrian Army and its notional political leadership. Those who oppose this, invoking the troubling experience of international assistance to the anti-Soviet mujahedeen, must ask themselves whether the status quo is any less likely to result in Syria’s dangerous disintegration.

Manchester MP Lloyd-Serious and persistent fraud reported in Russian elections

Manchester Central MP Tony Lloyd who is currently in Russia as an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitoring the current Parliamentary Assembly elections has described the election results as a serious blow to Vladimir Putin and those who operate with him.

Writing on his blog,Lloyd says that he saw a ballot box which had been left unsealed allowing votes to be added and removed without altering the total.

"Local observers had tried to get this fixed without success until International Observers – my Danish colleague and I insisted. The local official was very anxious we saw this as “just an oversight”.

Putin's party United Russia won the election with just under 50% of the vote, a sharp drop in its support.

Correspondents say the result reflects Mr Putin's declining popularity ahead of his bid for the Russian presidency in March.

Lloyd also adds that:

Elsewhere a police officer tried to stop us entering a polling station and asked us to go to the police station to confirm our status. I refused and in this case the local polling official was helpful and we were able to observe. Another colleague was physically prevented from entering the place where local results were totalled to give the regional totals and where fraud is very possible. In the end by complaining loudly and to the higher authorities, he was allowed in.

Dr Fox's Russian spy warning

He's back.

Liam Fox has returned with dire warnings of Russian spies infiltrating London during the Olympics next year.

The Mail on Sunday reports that the former defence secretary sparked a row with Russia after his remarks which warned that Britain was powerless to prevent some ‘very unsavoury individuals’ entering the country under the guise of protecting Russia’s athletics team.

Speaking to an audience of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservatives,Dr Fox said that London’s going to be an interesting place next summer

My turn now yours

No surprises then as Vladimir Putin accepts Dmitry Medvedev's proposal to run for the presidency of Russia in 2012.

The announcement will not have provided any shocks in Russia's murky political world.The consensus was always that Medvedev was simply keeping the seat warm for his boss whilst forced to stand aside in 2008 after standing for the maximum of eight years.

The two have a stranglehold on the country’s politics and it is highly unlikely that next year's election will throw up a credible alternative to the regime.

Whilst Medvedev has been the liberal, progressive face of the Russian government over the past four years,the return of Putin to the top job may well see the country taking a more nationalistic line.

The change in constitution in the country which extends the presidential term to six years could see Putin remain in power until 2024.

Beware the August holidays

Are we going to get another summer crisis?

As the Economist points out

WHEN the people who run the Western world go on holiday, bad things happen in eastern Europe. Last August Russia invaded Georgia. Over Christmas its gas spat with Ukraine left millions of European consumers shivering (from nerves, if not real cold). Easter (on the western Christian calendar) brought violent protests against ballot-rigging in Moldova.

So what is on the agenda for August 2009?

A new war in Georgia is always possible. Crimea remains a combustible mixture of incompatible military and ethnic interests. The Kremlin’s relations with the once-docile regime in Belarus are uncommonly icy.

Why Russia may be drinking itself to oblivion

Nicholas Eberstadt considers whether Russia is literally drinking itself to death.

In the spring issue of the World affairs journal he notes that

Between 1976 and 1991, the last sixteen years of Soviet power, the country recorded 36 million births. In the sixteen post-Communist years of 1992–2007, there were just 22.3 million, a drop in childbearing of nearly 40 percent from one era to the next. On the other side of the life cycle, a total of 24.6 million deaths were recorded between 1976 and 1991, while in the first sixteen years of the post-Communist period the Russian Federation tallied 34.7 million deaths, a rise of just over 40 percent. The symmetry is striking: in the last sixteen years of the Communist era, births exceeded deaths in Russia by 11.4 million; in the first sixteen years of the post-Soviet era, deaths exceeded births by 12.4 million.

The correlation is life expectancy which

in the Russian Federation is actually lower today than it was a half century ago in the late 1950s. In fact, the country has pioneered a unique new profile of mass debilitation and foreshortened life previously unknown in all of human history.

And one factor is the amount of deaths from what are termed “external causes”—non-communicable deaths from injuries of various origins.This is one of the worst in the world and comparable to Angola, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

The main driver is alcohol which the author says is a

mind-numbing, stupefying binge drinking of hard spirits is an accepted norm in Russia and greatly increases the danger of fatal injury through falls, traffic accidents, violent confrontations, homicide, suicide, and so on. Further, extreme binge drinking (especially of hard spirits) is associated with stress on the cardiovascular system and heightened risk of CVD mortality.

Figures released back in 2007 suggested that the average Russian consumed three times as much alcohol as 16 years ago and noted that more children were becoming dependent on alcohol.

It is estimated that alcohol deaths account for 1 in 8 total deaths in the country

Ht-Andrew Sullivan

More reasons why the West needs to decrease its dependence on Gazprom

Another set back in the dispute of Russian gas as Ukraine is accused once again of blocking gas supplies to the rest of Eastern Europe.

This article from the international version of Der Spiegel looks at the consequences of Europe not weaning itself off Russian gas pointing out that

It was been three years since Russia and Ukraine had it out on the backs of European consumers when, at the very start of 2006, Western Europe's gas supply was interrupted for three full days.

adding that

Specifically, politicians called for the construction of terminals in Germany to process shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Middle East and Africa, expansion of existing storage capacities and building new pipelines.
That was less than three years ago, but virtually nothing has changed since then.

The article though paints a worrying picture of the Russian gas giant Gazprom which

although reported a record profit of €25 billion ($34 billion) in 2008, now owes twice that amount.

Furthermore

Although it sits on 17 percent of the world's known natural gas reserves, the energy giant has hardly managed to increase production volume within the last decade, even though domestic demand grew by 25 percent and Gazprom now sells its natural gas in 32 countries. Old fields are becoming depleted, but a lack of funding for investment means that new fields are not being developed quickly enough. Experts estimate that the Siberian Yamal peninsula, which has one of the world's largest gas reserves, alone requires €145 billion ($198 billion).

If you were wondering ................

So just how do you turn off the gas supply to a country.

Well take a look at Slate magazine's explanation

Switch off valves in the pipeline or shut down the compressor stations. Gas pipelines typically have valves spaced out every several miles, enabling gas to be shut off if necessary. In addition to regulating how much gas is being delivered downstream, the valves are there for safety purposes, enabling pipeline operators to stop the flow of gas immediately if there is a leak, for example. The valves also allow operators to shut down a section of the pipeline when it needs maintenance. Depending on the pipeline, a valve might be closed manually, or operators may be able to push a button that mechanically shuts the valve

Gas wars erupt again

2009 starts with a sense of deja vu as Russia and Ukraine once again battle over gas supplies.

Russia's gas giant Gazprom has this morning turned off the gas taps to the country over unpaid bills as it did back in 2006.

It is difficult to pin the blame on the Russians this time as Gazprom has gone out of its way to resolve the issue and has been open about it.

It appears that the Ukrainians simply don't accept the new price that they have to pay for gas.

Western Europe will be watching with baited breath whilst this latest dispute runs its course with the threat of supplies being disrupted.

So now doubt we will be hit by more price increases in the coming months.

Why Russia has intervened in Iceland

One thing that hasn't been really examined during the financial meltdown is the question Why should Russia want to bail out Iceland?

Interesting question and over at Time magazine,Yuri Zarakhovich thinks that he has the answer.
Basically Russia has given a lifeline of $5.4b to the Icelandic economy but Yuri thinks there are more sinister motives afoot

this act of benevolence is being viewed as a way of helping Russia secure a bridgehead for an advance into the Arctic regions to claim the vast hydrocarbon and other mineral deposits there. Iceland happens to possess a once vital NATO base, which has been in mothballs since 2006, and the Russians may be eyeing that as well

Air turns blue on the Moscow hotline

Over at Three Line Whip,Andrew Porter claims that David Miliband had to undergo a torrent of abuse when speaking to the Russian foreign minister Sergi Lavrov.

According to Andrew's sources

Such was the repeated use of the "F word" according to one insider who has seen the transcript, it was difficult to draft a readable note of the conversation.
One unconfirmed report suggested that Mr Lavrov said: "Who are you to f------ lecture me?"
He also asked Mr Miliband in equally blunt terms whether he knew anything of Russia's history?

Ukraine may upset Cheney's plans

With Dick Cheney on his tour of the Asian Republics in an effort to assure the former Soviet States of American support,Ukraine's turbulent democracy is once again stumbling as President Viktor Yushchenko has threatened to dissolve parliament as the coalition in the country's parliament once again collapses.

The collapse of the coalition is another sign of the split in the country between Pro Moscow and Pro Western factions.

Mr Yushchenko's supporters walked out in protest following new laws trimming the president's powers.
The laws were introduced by the pro-Russian opposition and backed by Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's party.

The splits have dogged the fledgling democracy since the Orange revolution with Yushchenko supporter of Georgia during the conflict but the prime minister's party blocked a parliamentary resolution condemning Moscow.

Currently in Azerbaijan the Vice President is due to meet with President Ilham Aliev before going onto Georgia and Ukraine.

Azerbaijan is important for the United States trying to ensure its oil wealth is exported to the West, and thus bypassing Russia.

What are Russia's concerns

Watching President Medvedev's interview with Bridget Kendall on the BBC last night and seeing his comment piece in this morning's Ft,it is pretty clear that whatever the motivations behind the conflict,Russia will not be stepping back.The incense of justice that the Russian's have over the treatment of people that they feel an affinity to through race is overwhelming.

Last night Medvedev spoke of 17 years of injustice and the genocide being threatened by the Georgians that led to the intervention

Can you imagine what it was like for the Abkhaz people to have their university in Sukhumi closed down by the Tbilisi government on the grounds that they allegedly had no proper language or history or culture and so did not need a university? The newly independent Georgia inflicted a vicious war on its minority nations, displacing thousands of people and sowing seeds of discontent that could only grow. These were tinderboxes, right on Russia’s doorstep, which Russian peacekeepers strove to keep from igniting.

he says in the FT.

Of course what we are not clear about is whether this policy extends to other displaced Russian people.If it does then the countries of Ukraine,Belarus and Estonia need to be on their guard.

A new cold war? I don't think we are at that point but the West must work with Russia to solve its problems and concerns.Sending Dick Cheney to the Black Sea is not the solution.It threatens a military intervention that can never happen.Similarly David Miliband's trip to Kiev is simply going to provide greater provocation to the Russian federation.

Step back and look at the Georgia issue

It is worth reading Paul Berman's take on the fighing in the Caucasus (Hat Tip Harrys Place) especially his final point

A simple, adequate, tit-for-tat response to Russia's invasion does not exist. An adequate response can only be complex, long-term, and global. We will have to recognize that, for the moment, questions of democratic principle, national security, and the energy crisis have decisively merged. We will need a newly combined policy, then--a reaffirmation of the principles of democratic solidarity, together with an urgent, national-priority effort to develop alternative-energy industries in order to weaken the Putin dictatorship and a series of other petro-enemies of democracy. Now, yes, after the invasion of Georgia, we will end up confirming one aspect of the Russian paranoia. Our goal should be to undo, on environmentalist grounds, the central element of Russia's rather primitive prosperity. An alternative energy program will require a turning away from free-market dogma--one more way in which a new policy cannot be traditionally conservative. The lurch will have to be leftward.

Mere chocolate soldiers pandering to the bear

Now here is one viewpoint on the Georgia Russian conflict.

Moscow’s blitzkrieg in Georgia is more than a military campaign. It is designed to empower Russia’s diplomatic strategy, which seeks to make the European Union (EU) the West’s chief representative in future negotiations with Russia. Quite naturally the Kremlin wants to escape the logic of U.S. and NATO policy, which is to contain Russia within her national borders. Meanwhile, the European Union is an entirely different animal: toothless, utopian and ready to please.

According to the piece written by J. R. Nyquist,President Medvedev summoned his ambassadors to a meeting on the 15th July when he told them

“Russia is indeed stronger and able to assume greater responsibility for solving problems on a regional and global scale.” You see, the Cold War was not an American victory. Medvedev reminded his colleagues that they had “survived the Cold War.” And now Russia is prepared to establish “a new equilibrium.”

But it's the EC which comes in for the most criticism

Today the European Union confronts Russia in the same way Neville Chamberlain confronted Hitler in 1938; being outwitted and tricked in the ceasefire negotiations, there is no possible outcome other than appeasement. The Russians insist that their troops be accepted as peacekeepers in Georgia. The French mediators allow this. And so, the stipulated withdrawal of combatants therefore does not apply to the Russian troops. Under this ceasefire agreement Moscow can claim – in a strictly legal sense – that Russian troops can stay in Georgia indefinitely. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are laughing at the French while observing international law. Meanwhile, occupied Georgia is looted and burned; Georgian ships are sunk and the Georgian capital is strangled.

Only time will tell

The first shots

There is a lot in the papers today analysing the events of the past week in the Caucasus.

It is worth reading the Sunday Times though in particular.

Mark Franchetti's report looks at how the conflict started and the events of 1st August.On that date he reveals there was an explosion

believed to have been planted by South Ossetian separatists sympathetic to Russia, Five Georgian policemen were injured, one severely. That night Georgian forces struck back. There was a furious firefight that left six South Ossetian rebels dead

It now appears that the events could well have been pre planned by the Russians

It now appears that August 1 was a well-prepared “provocation” – one of the Kremlin’s favourite tactics. Pavel Felgengauer, a Moscow authority on military affairs, claimed in Novaya Gazeta that the plan was for the “Ossetians to intentionally provoke the Georgians” so that “any response, harsh or soft, would be used as an occasion for the attack”. At last Russia was going to teach the Georgians a lesson. Moscow’s relations with the tiny nation of 5m had begun to deteriorate when Mikhail Saakashvili swept to power nearly five years ago.

Saakashvili had been swept to power ona tide of Georgian nationalism and had promised the electorate that he would

bring South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another pro-Russian separatist region flanking the Black Sea, back under Tbilisi’s control.

Whether this was a Russian provoked beginning that now seems to be on the point of re igniting the Cold War,only time will tell

Decisons to be made in foreign policy by Medvedev and Putin

Open Democracy has an interesting feature on Russia's foreign policy.

It describes Putin and Medvedev's policy as a vision

Russia will not only protect and promote its national interests effectively. It will compete as an equal player with America, Europe and China. It will be the cornerstone of regional integration in Eurasia, a global ‘mediator' between East and West, North and South, and the Christian and Muslim worlds. It will be the intellectual leader of the twenty-first century, generating advanced scientific and technical ideas and an ‘integrated', ‘universal' world view that will trump the insularity and unilateralism of Western value systems and modernise non-Western ones.

Whereas in reality

Moscow's policies on the international front are as reactive as ever, despite the vastly greater opportunities, despite the fact that it is openly critical of the West, particularly the United States.

and

Russia is concerned with Russia itself, not with some arcane empire or abstract universal concerns. Russia is concerned with business: what's good for Gazprom is good for the country. Russia will not let anyone interfere in its internal affairs - sovereign democracy.

And in summary

Russia's third president will need to decide for himself what to do with the country's foreign policy. Will it remain a tool of Russian self-affirmation? Or will it become a resource for modernisation?

Medvedev is sexed up

As Dmitry Medvedev assumes the Russian presidency and Vladimir Putin continues to exert his influence on the direction of Russian politics

The Moscow Times carries a rather humerous report that

someone seems to be trying to turn Dmitry Medvedev into a sex symbol.
In a clip that has been drawing attention on the Internet, a curvy young brunette declares her love and passion for the recently inaugurated president, in a dubbed and altered version of a prank video originally focusing on U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The video opens with

a then-candidate Medvedev promising a United Russia party congress that he would cooperate with former-President Vladimir Putin and, if elected, be true to Putin's policies.
But the busty young woman in the video — clad in a tight T-shirt with a Medvedev portrait that does a fair bit of moving around, is devoted only to the new president.
"You came into politics together with Putin," she sings breathlessly (and obviously dubbed) in Russian, while staring longingly at the new leader. "I didn't want anyone else as much as I want you. … I need to be sexy and cool with you. I've got a crush on a bear."