GallerySaturday, 3 June 2000
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Putin a month since being sworn in*
Special Edition
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Whither, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin?
Picture by Mikhail Metzel, AP
Subj: Latvian mailer - Special
Edition
Date: 6/3/00 4:12:33 PM Eastern
Daylight Time
Sveiki, all!
As we saw in last week's news and continuing this week, the Russian press and
politicians have been taking Latvian president Vaire Vike-Freiberga to task
over her statements in Der Spiegel that Russia makes her "nervous." If
actions are symbolic of intent, then we share that nervousness — from
Putin's continuing consolidation of power to his rehabilitation of Stalin.
Our subsequent hunt turned up disturbing patterns, not only on the part of
Putin's behavior, but in the larger sphere of Latvian-Russian
relationships.
This special edition of the mailer is a compendium of
some of this week's news stories as well as commentary, analysis, and news
items of the recent past. We've summarized the salient points of the
commentaries and news stories below.
-
"Clinton's exit, Putin's entrance" — includes an FSB plan to preemptively discredit politicians suspected of planning to say something damaging about the Kremlin — extending to politicians in Georgia and the Baltics
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"Back to the USSR" — one of Putin's first decrees as president was the reintroduction of compulsory military training—topics including: Russian army history, loading a Kalishnikov, and synchronized marching (tellingly, Yeltsin outlawed this as one of his first acts of his presidency); last year, he restored a plaque to former president and KGB leader Yury Andropov on the walls of the Lubyanka; he recently unveiled another plaque honouring Russia's war heroes with Stalin's name listed first; also, a commemorative coin decorated with Stalin's face has been issued and there are plans to install a new bust of the Soviet tyrant at Russia's main war memorial.
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"Disquiet over Putin's appointments grows" — the aggregation of Russia into 7 super-regions; power granted to Putin to sack elected regional governors, dissolve regional assemblies and deprive governors of their seats in the Federation Council (the upper house of the national parliament); finally, "The most bizarre media casualty, however, has been the lifesize doll made in Mr Putin's likeness and used in Kukly, the Russian version of Spitting Image. The NTV channel, which runs the country's most popular show, said the Putin puppet had been 'temporarily withdrawn'."
The puppet story piqued our curiosity...
- "But is it curtains for the Putin puppet?" — "NTV anchorman Yevgenii Kiselev announced on 29 May that NTV has reached an agreement with the Kremlin to withdraw the puppet caricature of President Vladimir Putin from the cast of the popular satirical show, 'Kukly.' An NTV spokeswoman told dpa that the Kremlin had asked the producers of "Kukly" to no longer feature the Putin puppet, which has an extremely large nose and wears the neck-kerchief characteristic of the Soviet-ear Pioneers."
However, earlier, in February...
- "Puppets safe for now" — "Presidential spokesman Aleksei Gromov told reporters on 10 February that acting President Putin does not intend to file any complaints against the popular weekly puppet show 'Kukly'."
So, "for now" means "3-4 months
at most"
Even more disturbing is the degree to which the anti-Latvian spewing by the Duma and Kremlin have apparently poisoned the Russian populace:
- "Russians cite Japan as 4th biggest source of threat" — as reported by one of the Japanese news agencies; in order of rank, #1 threat is U.S., #2 threat is China, and coming in as the number three threat to Russia is Latvia
And what is the Russian media saying that might engender this reaction? The site for the "Agency of Political News" (a weekly summary) on it's English site lists articles such as:
-
"The West will not allow us to bring Latvia to reason" — an article on Kononov
(at APN | APN saved at archive.org) -
"Latvian neo-fascism celebrates victory" — an article singling out Latvia, apart from Lithuania and Estonia, in its embracing of neo-fascism
(at APN | APN saved at archive.org)
So, what's the latest? We wrap up our account with two more articles, from this week's news:
- "Putin's reorganization of Russia into seven super-regions" — "The new representatives, chosen mainly from the military, police and ex-KGB security services, have been given seats on the influential advisory Security Council and their territories roughly coincide with Russia's eight military districts."
And, direct from the Soviet era:
- "Russia Seizes Human Rights Report" — Amnesty International's reports on Chechnya confiscated because the reports appeared to be "anti-Russian government propaganda"
We hope to have the regular mailer out some time later this weekend. As always, we're interested in your comments and observations.
Ar visu labu,
IN ACCORDANCE WITH AOL'S MAIL POLICY and good manners, please let us know if you wish to be deleted from our mailing list. Past mailers are archived at latvians.com. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.
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Christian Science
Monitor
12 May 2000
Clinton's exit, Putin's entrance - an odd summit
balance
By Daniel Schorr
Vladimir Putin has started his elected term as president. Bill Clinton is near the end of his. And once again, the lame duck problem threatens to bedevil the conduct of American foreign policy.
In May 1960, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev closed down relations with President Eisenhower after the shooting down of an American spy plane and the subsequent Khrushchev walkout from the four-power Paris summit. Later, Khrushchev told President Kennedy he would have campaigned for him or against him, whichever would have helped Kennedy more.
But the seven months of deep freeze were a perilous time when the Soviets threatened a Berlin crisis and shipped nuclear missiles to Cuba.
In 1968, President Johnson counted himself out for reelection and the Nixon campaign committee took full advantage of that. Fearing that Johnson might hand them an "October Surprise" in the form of a cease-fire in Vietnam, Nixon had word sent to Saigon that South Vietnam would get a better deal if it waited for Nixon to be elected. That effectively made Johnson a lame duck, and peace in Vietnam was delayed.
In 1980, the Reagan campaign feared that President Carter might pull off an "October Surprise" by getting Iran to release the American Embassy hostages.
There were reports, never confirmed and indeed hotly denied, that the Republicans asked the Iranians to hold up release of the hostages. It is a fact, however, that the Iranians did delay the release until the exact moment of Reagan's inauguration.
Now, again, there are signs of lame duckery in the air. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, on a trip to Washington, makes sure to meet with Gov. George W. Bush. A delegation of Russian legislators meets with Republican members of Congress, and they agree that no new arms- control deals should be struck with the Clinton administration. Sen. Jesse Helms reinforces that by saying that any new Clinton treaty will be "dead on arrival" in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
On June 4, President Clinton arrives in Moscow for a summit meeting with President Putin. Clinton would like to overcome Russian resistance to amending the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so that the US can deploy a limited antimissile system. But both of them know that the Republicans have cut the ground from under Clinton's feet.
At home in Russia, the Putin era opens on a note of ambiguity, underlined by his inaugural address. From the bridge, Capt. Putin charted a course for a Russia "free and flourishing," with respect for human and civil rights.
Below decks, in the boiler room, the boys of Putin's old KGB, now the FSB, were charting something else - how to maintain control and stymie opposition.
It's laid out in a long document called "Structure of the Administration of the President." The book-length transition paper was undoubtedly leaked by someone who did not like it. It has been summarized in the newspaper Kommersant, owned by media tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
For starters, under this plan, the president would not rely on the support of any party, but would establish the "President's Political Council," which would gradually push the Duma off the political stage and ensure the president's monopoly on power.
Intelligence agencies would be part of the presidential directorate, as its "sword and shield." Their functions would include, not only counterespionage and counter-terrorism, but also collecting "special information" about potential candidates.
If, for example, the FSB learned of an opposition candidate planning to reveal damaging facts about a Kremlin leader, the directorate would preempt him with a press conference revealing damaging financial information about him. The idea, says the planning paper, is to gain "real control over political processes in Russia." And not only Russia, but also the "near abroad countries;" that is, the former Soviet republics, like Georgia and the Baltic States.
The document, not disowned by the Kremlin, is undoubtedly authentic. It is not clear that Putin has endorsed it, but he has given other indications of his attachment to the secret police.
In a series of interviews recently published as a book titled "First Person," Putin recalled: "My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories. I was a pure and utterly successful product of a Soviet patriotic education." He said that today Russia needs political police as much as it needs an army, adding, "You can't get anywhere without secret agents."
In his inaugural speech, Putin said, "We must ... maintain and develop democracy."
We will have to wait and see how he defines "democracy."
The Guardian (UK)
29 May
2000
Back to the
USSR
Vladimir Putin was officially inaugurated only three
weeks ago. But already he seems to be leading Russia down the familiar road to
totalitarianism.
By Amelia Gentleman in Moscow
In the final hours of the last millennium not long after news of Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation had been broadcast to the world Vladimir Putin found time to sit down at his Kremlin desk to start work on his vision of a new Russia.
One of the first decrees to be signed that night by the novice acting president ordered the resurrection of compulsory military training for all Russian pupils forcing every Russian schoolboy to supplement his studies of Dostoevsky and algebra with a detailed understanding of how to load and fire a Kalashnikov. Under this edict, from September, teachers will be obliged to hold classes explaining the historical significance and current strength of the Russian army.
At the end of the summer term, every boy aged between 15 and 16 will be subjected to 40 hours intensive military instruction. Here he will learn army tactics, basic weapon handling and how to stride in synchronised unison across the training field.
With these parades, Russia is marching back into the past. Under Josef Stalin, similar classes were used to remind every school child that the Soviet Union was surrounded by an imperialist enemy, poised to attack. But military training for schoolchildren was outlawed nine years ago, in one of Yeltsin's first reforming measures as he stripped away the symbolic baggage of Soviet society.
'This represents a step backwards to a militarised Soviet state. These training classes will have almost no practical use but they are hugely significant from a psychological point of view,' human rights activist Sergei Kovalyov said. 'It is a clear attempt to manipulate the mood of society and just one of many instances of the increasing militarisation of society under Putin.'
The announcement of these training classes unleashed a subtle taste of neo-authoritarianism in Putin's new-look Russia. This is a flavour that began to emerge with the appointment of the former KGB colonel as prime minister last August, which is becoming more powerful with every week that he presides over the Kremlin.
Again and again as he takes his first steps in political life, Putin has made a show of drawing on nostalgic themes from Russia's totalitarian past. He has made no secret of his fondness for the KGB, where he spent 16 years, and has paid tribute to those who presided over the security force's harshest clampdowns on Russia's dissident society.
Last year, he restored a plaque to former president and KGB leader Yury Andropov on the walls of the Lubyanka (ripped down with the reforms of the 90s). Recently, he unveiled another plaque honouring Russia's war heroes with Stalin's name listed first. A commemorative coin decorated with Stalin's face has been issued and there are plans to install a new bust of the Soviet tyrant at Russia's main war memorial.
Putin is a modern politician acutely sensitive to image and presentation and these symbolic tributes to authoritarianism are made for calculated effect. The chaos and humiliations of Russia's decade of reforms left the population with a thirst for a strong leader capable of imposing order. Putin shrewdly built his appeal around a promise to restore stability, promising to crack down on corruption, crime and economic disarray.
But Russia's liberals horrified by the country's new iconography are wondering what else he plans to subject to a crackdown, anxious to establish whether this authoritarian streak runs deeper than mere symbolism.
When a band of former Soviet dissidents declared in February that Putinism was nothing short of modernised Stalinism, they were widely dismissed as hysterical prophets of doom. 'Authoritarianism is growing harsher, society is being militarised, the military budget is increasing,' they warned, before calling on the West to 're-examine its attitude towards the Kremlin leadership, to cease indulging it in its barbaric actions, its dismantlement of democracy and suppression of human rights.'
In the light of Putin's actions during his first days in power, their warnings have gained an uneasy new resonance.
Putin's first steps his structural political reforms, his government's handling of the press, his attitude towards democratic freedoms all seem to indicate a step away from Russia's nascent democracy in a more repressive direction.
It is now three weeks since he was officially inaugurated and already his much-scrutinised enigma appears to be fading. While he has yet to announce any coherent plans to reinvigorate Russia's economy, or to improve life for its impoverished population a third of whom live beneath the official poverty line the new president has already set an apparently authoritarian seal on the future style of government.
It looks probable that his liberal inclinations, which he made much of to selected audiences before his election, will be restricted to economic reforms rather than to guiding his broader political aspirations.
Determined to grab power back from the country's rebellious regions, last week Putin carved up Russia into seven slices and appointed seven new presidential representatives.
These appointments are a stark portent of the future. Responsibility for Russia's north-western districts was entrusted to the sinister figure of Victor Cherkesov deputy director of the FSB, the reorganised KGB a man feared and hated by Russia's liberal population. In the 1970s and 1980s, Cherkesov was responsible for surveillance of the media and trade unions and enthusiastically pursued intellectual opponents of the Soviet regime.
The country's central region was given to another former KGB apparatchik, General Georgy Poltavchenko, while the Urals region was handed to a senior figure in the police force, General Pyotr Latyshev. The Caucasus region where Russia's brutal war against Chechen rebels drags on was allocated to one of the toughest generals behind the campaign, General Viktor Kazantsev, the man jointly responsible for the thousands of civilian deaths in the region. Only two of the seven districts are to be headed by civilian figures.
This elevation of former KGB men to important government positions continues a trend started last autumn. And a further hint of the role old KGB tactics could play in Putin's new Russia emerged this month with the publication of a leaked Kremlin strategy document, advising Putin to establish a new FSB-run 'presidential political directorate' to strengthen the president's power.
The body would gather dirt on opposition figures, and would whip the press into submission. 'Opposition media should be driven to financial crisis, their licences and certificates withdrawn and conditions created where the work of every single opposition medium is either controllable or impossible,' the document stated.
A media crackdown is already well under way. Ten days ago, more than 2,000 people including the leading lights of Russia's media elite gathered in central Moscow to protest against severe press restrictions exerted under Putin.
'It has become hard for journalists to breathe,' the editor of the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets declared.
The mysterious, spurious tax raid on MediaMost, Russia's largest independent media empire which has been consistently critical of Putin's new regime precipitated the final surge of alarm.
In the clear daylight of a cold May afternoon just four days after Putin's inauguration some 40 machine gun-wielding government security agents in black balaclavas and camouflage gear stormed their way into MediaMost's Moscow offices. The paramilitaries left several hours later, confiscating tapes and transcripts. Journalists working for MediaMost's leading daily newspaper, Sevodnya, and its popular television station, NTV, saw the attack as an attempt to intimidate their dissenting voices into conformity.
Sevodnya's editor, Mikhail Berger, said that Putin's approach towards the press was strongly reminiscent of the Soviet era. 'Putin has divided the media into two categories those organisations that give him total, utter, unquestioning support and those that don't. He views the latter not simply as papers or television companies, but as enemy units which he has to fight,' he said.
'Under the Soviet Union, everything was categorised either as Soviet or anti-Soviet. Now under Putin, everything is either state or anti-state. MediaMost has been repeatedly accused by the Kremlin of having an 'anti-state' position. In terms of press freedoms, I think we could see a swift return to the Soviet Union, not just to the 70s, but the 40s under Stalin.'
Protesters returned to the streets last Friday to campaign against the forced sale of the broadcast licence of another television company, TV Centre, which has been consistently critical of the Kremlin.
This drive to stifle Russia's newly independent media began last autumn.Putin was determined to crack down on press coverage of his battle in Chechnya to avoid the critical reports (and resulting public disillusionment) which plagued the government during the last war.
More troubling still is the role Russia's state-controlled media played in helping Putin ascend to power. Brazen manipulation of Russia's two nationwide television stations (with the collusion of their part-owner, Russia's oligarch supremo Boris Berezovsky) led to the political destruction of Putin's two serious presidential rivals Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov and former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov. In a vicious smear campaign, prime-time broadcasts portrayed Luzhkov as a corrupt murderer, and Primakov as a frail has-been. Putin's own ratings soared from 2% to 53%.
Meanwhile, the same television stations, ORT and RTR, helped promote a new pro-Putin political grouping Unity, also known as Medved, the Bear. Like Putin, the faction rose to victory from nowhere, without ever pausing to detail its political intentions. Gradually, in the months since the election, Russia has seen its once-strong political opposition melt away, with even the once- intractable communists ready to compromise with the new order.
A deeper unease lurks in the minds of those dismayed by the neo-Soviet tendencies in Putin's new Russia overshadowing everything else by its potential monstrosity. The memory of the unresolved September spate of apartment block bombings continues to unnerve those who question the official line that the attacks were orchestrated by Chechen terrorists.
The theory that the horrific attacks in which almost 200 civilians were crushed to death could have been an FSB ploy designed to drum up support for the Chechen war and thus aid the elevation of Putin to power, continues to be debated, although there is no more evidence for this version of events than for the terrorist scenario.
'Even thinking about the bombings chills my heart,' Ludmila Alexeeva, president of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, said. 'I only know one thing it was extremely unlikely to have been done by the Chechens; it just wasn't in their interests.'
Despite this oppressive multitude of foreboding signals, a sense of perspective has to be maintained. Although harassed, Russia's press remains at liberty to continue criticising the government; while Stalinist symbols have been resurrected, there is no evidence of any return to the horrors of Stalinist oppression.
And even the extent of Putin's own power to indulge his authoritarian inclinations is still unknown. Eased into the Kremlin with the assistance of powerful behind-the-scenes tycoons from Yeltsin's camp, Putin remains at their mercy.
Since his debut on the political arena, Putin has struggled to play to conflicting audiences presenting himself as liberal reformer to the West, as the firm hand of law and order to his own people and as the preserver of continuity to the forces who helped him into power. It is conceivable that his recent actions were designed primarily for domestic consumption and could later be supplemented by a more liberal programme, when his administration finally resolves which direction Russia should take. Alongside the KGB heavies and the powerful businessmen who surround Putin, a small group of liberals remain who have yet to prove how much influence they can wield.
'I still have no idea whether Putin wants to reintroduce Stalinism or go in the direction of democracy because if you listen to him, he says first one thing and then the other,' Alexeeva said. 'I don't think it's simply that we don't know what he stands for, I think he doesn't know either.'
The Irish Times
June 1,
2000
Disquiet over
Putin's appointments grows
The Russian leader is regarded
as a centralist intent on concentrating power, writes Seamus Martin
When President Clinton meets President Putin in Moscow at the weekend the main issue, ostensibly, will be Russia's fierce opposition to NMD, the US's proposed defence shield against nuclear attacks from "rogue nations" such as Libya, Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
But following allegations by the French newspaper Le Monde that Mr Putin had links with a German company whose co-founder has been charged with money-laundering and organised crime, a great deal of attention will focus on the Russian President's personality.
On the nuclear front Russia does not believe for a moment that the NMD shield is being designed to protect the United States from countries whose missiles are incapable in any event of reaching the American continent. It regards the moves as a blatant breach of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty (ABM) and has declared its stance on that treaty "immutable".
Mr Clinton has failed in his eight years in office to sign a major arms reduction agreement with Russia. He will arrive in Moscow as a lame-duck President and is increasingly likely to leave a decision on NMD to his successor.
The Moscow summit is unlikely, therefore, to bring about any concrete results in the main area on which the talks will centre. Whether it will help give the Americans a clearer picture of Mr Putin's character is another matter.
In recent days, three main indications as to Mr Putin's intentions have emerged. First, he has come to be regarded as an undoubted centralist attempting to concentrate power in the hands of a presidency already far more powerful than in any Western democracy.
There are indications, too, that media criticism will not be tolerated, while his selection of personnel for cabinet and other posts indicates that links with the shady Kremlin group known as "The Family" will be maintained.
Mr Putin's main move in concentrating power has been to divide Russia into seven territories to replace the often chaotic system which evolved under Mr Yeltsin.
Under legislation which gained overwhelming initial backing in the lower house of parliament yesterday, Mr Putin will be able to sack elected regional governors, dissolve regional assemblies and deprive governors of their seats in the Federation Council, the upper house of the national parliament.
These proposals are linked to a decree appointing seven presidential envoys to ensure that Mr Putin's rule is unchallenged in the new super-regions. Most Russians agree that something needs to be done about the vast country's unwieldy system of government
and the plan has strong support.
There are concerns, however, about the calibre of those chosen by Mr Putin as his envoys to the new regions. Two of them are former KGB officers, two are army generals, one is a former Interior Ministry official, one is a former diplomat and only one, former prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko, is a politician.
In his own home region Mr Putin has appointed Gen Viktor Cherkesov, one-time head of the investigative department of the Leningrad KGB. In that position Gen Cherkesov prepared cases against people who distributed books by Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak and Nabokov and was responsible for the imprisonment of a number of the city's intellectuals for "antisoviet activities". President Gorbachev later pardoned most of these.
Appointments to central political office are equally worrying. Mr Putin's new Prime Minister, Mr Mikhail Kasyanov, is known to have links to the sinister oligarch and media mogul, Mr Boris Berezovsky, and "The Family". A majority of the new cabinet is believed to have "Family" links and the quiet reappointment of Mr Alexander Voloshin as Mr Putin's chief of staff indicates that "The Family" has retained its power in the Kremlin.
Mr Voloshin's hold on Mr Putin is such that, according to the Russian media, he recently persuaded the president to scrap the appointment of Mr Dmitri Kozak from St Petersburg as prosecutor general, and appoint Mr Vladimir Ustinov in his place. Mr Ustinov
had not been noted for his enthusiasm in pursuing Kremlin insiders.
In Switzerland at least one prosecutor has taken a different stance. It emerged yesterday that a Geneva investigating magistrate, Mr Daniel Devaud, planned to charge Kosovo-Albanian businessman Beghjet Pacolli with money-laundering and membership of a criminal organisation. The charges are connected with the renovation of the Grand Kremlin Palace in which Mr Putin was inaugurated.
Mr Devaud also has issued an international arrest warrant against former Kremlin property manager Mr Pavel Borodin, and claimed this week that he had assembled enough evidence to secure a conviction. It was at Mr Borodin's invitation that Mr Putin left the relative obscurity of St Petersburg politics and took his first job in the Kremlin. Mr Putin proposed Mr Borodin as secretary of the commission for the reunification of Russia and Belarus, a position he still holds.
While Mr Putin's tolerance of those accused of irregularities does not mean that he himself is involved in shady activities, Le Monde has for the first time made serious personal allegations against the Russian President. It has alleged that Mr Putin and Mr Gherman Gref, the Minister for Economic Strategy, were involved with a German real-estate company whose co-founder was arrested earlier this month on charges of money-laundering and links to organised crime. The presidential administration has denied the allegations.
In the area of freedom of expression the armed raid on the Media-Most group, which did not support Mr Putin's presidential campaign, has been the main cause of concern so far. A statement by the Information Minister, Mr Mikhail Lesin, that he was preparing legislation to suspend the activities of "hostile Western media" raised eyebrows further.
The most bizarre media casualty, however, has been the lifesize doll made in Mr Putin's likeness and used in Kukly, the Russian version of Spitting Image. The NTV channel, which runs the country's most popular show, said the Putin puppet had been "temporarily withdrawn".
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
30 May
2000
But is it
Curtains for the Putin Puppet?
NTV anchorman Yevgenii Kiselev announced on 29 May that NTV has reached an agreement with the Kremlin to withdraw the puppet caricature of President Vladimir Putin from the cast of the popular satirical show, "Kukly." An NTV spokeswoman told dpa that the Kremlin had asked the producers of "Kukly" to no longer feature the Putin puppet, which has an extremely large nose and wears the neckkerchief characteristic of the Soviet-ear Pioneers. According to Kiselev, the "authorities will now leave [NTV and Media-Most] in peace," referring to the recent police raid on Media-Most headquarters. In February, professors at Putin's alma mater, the St. Petersburg University, wrote a letter condemning the program for its indecent parodies of the then acting president (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 11 February 2000) [following]
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
11
February 2000
Puppets Safe for
Now
Presidential spokesman Aleksei Gromov told reporters on 10 February that acting President Putin does not intend to file any complaints against the popular weekly puppet show "Kukly." Earlier, some professors at Putin's alma mater, St. Petersburg University had issued a statement expressing their "regret about the two most recent episodes," which presented "not only grotesque but completely indecent parodies of major national political leaders, including Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin," "Kommersant-Daily" reported. NTV spokeswoman Tatyana Blinova told "The Moscow Times" that the letter recalled the Soviet era. "It seems like people will be writing this type of letter now," she added. "Kukly" producer Viktor Shenderovich told Ekho Moskvy that "Vladimir Putin has not become president yet, but toadies are bending over backward to please him. I think their main aim is not to imprison us but to show the acting president" that he has supporters willing to defend his honor. JAC
| In the Putin Administration, "safe for now" would appear to translate as "3 to 4 months at most before you're in deep trouble." We would also remind our readers that MediaMost, whose offices were raided by the military, are the parent company of NTV. Counting that, the timeframe is more like 2 to 3 months. We've also read the Duma is considering legislation to officially make insulting the president a crime against the state (not that such accusations have not already been made against certain parties!). |
Kyodo News Service While only 1% of Russians believe Japan is a source of threat to Russia, in terms of ranking, Japan comes out in a national survey as the fourth most feared country in Russia, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday. Interfax, quoting results of a survey conducted by the Regional Policy Research pollster, said Russians rank the United States as the country posing the biggest threat to Russia, cited by 27% of the 1,600 respondents. China ranked second, cited by 3% of the respondents, followed by Latvia, a former Soviet republic where there is constant friction with its sizable Russian population, with 2% of the respondents citing the country as a source of threat. Japan and Russia have been at loggerheads over a territorial dispute, but Interfax gave no reasons why Russians regard Japan as a source of threat. The Agency of Political News
(Russia) Possible sanctions by Russia in respect of Latvia become increasingly actual from political viewpoint. Recently acting President of Russia Vladimir Putin sent an appeal to Latvian President in which he declared a protest against a sentence passed by the Riga's Court to World War II veteran Vasily Konovalov because he punished German policemen during the wartime. Lately we published an interview with deputy chairman of Russian People`s Union Viktor Alksnis who called upon to turn export oil flows from Ventspils to Lithuanian city Klaypeda. Andrei FYODOROV, director of Political Research Foundation, demonstrates more prudence in this issue in his interview to APN reporter Anna OSTAPCHUK. The full article can be accessed at: The Agency of Political News
(Russia) As is well known, Latvian officials continue re-evaluation of World War II: glorifying of former SS officers, persecution of veterans anti-fascists. It is not so long ago that a Riga court sentenced 77-year old veteran Vasily Kononov who was awarded Decoration of Lenin to 6 years of imprisonment for killing a group of local traitors who served as policemen. What can Russia really do today to teach Latvian neo-Nazis? APN?s reporter Anna OSTAPCHUK discusses this topic with Victor ALKSNIS, former people's Deputy of the USSR and Deputy of the Supreme Council of Latvian SSR, current Moscow suburbs resident, deputy head of the Russian National Union. The full article can be accessed at: Reuters News Service As part of his drive to tighten control over Russia's 89 provinces and semi-autonomous ethnic republics, President Vladimir Putin has divided them into seven districts and named a representative to each with broad powers. The new representatives, chosen mainly from the military, police and ex-KGB security services, have been given seats on the influential advisory Security Council and their territories roughly coincide with Russia's eight military districts. Following is a list of the new super-regions and the presidential representatives appointed to head them.
Associated Press News Service Russian customs officials have seized an Amnesty International report detailing allegations of human rights abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya, the rights group said Wednesday. The confiscation of the report at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport Sunday ``sets a dangerous precedent which brings to mind old Soviet practices,'' Amnesty International said in a statement. Officials at Sheremetyevo could not immediately be reached. Amnesty said researcher Marina Katzarova had arrived in Russia and was on her way to a human rights conference in Vladikavkaz at the invitation of the Russian government. The conference is being cosponsored by the Council of Europe. Two cardboard boxes containing copies of the report, which were to have been distributed at the conference, were halted by customs officers. They said the reports appeared to be ``anti-Russian government propaganda'' and that the rights group might use the report for commercial purposes, Amnesty International said. Human rights groups have accused Russian forces fighting separatist rebels in Chechnya of widespread human rights violations against the civilian population, including looting and summary execution. The Kremlin denies allegations of systematic human rights abuses and insists that the heavy bombing and shelling of Chechnya, in which many civilians have died, was needed to wipe out secessionist rebels. |
