coatofarms1.gifThe UK press have a reputation for baiting Russia somewhat - perhaps a reflection of less-than-healthy diplomatic relations in recent years.  Today, the Telegraph has published a bizarre article by one James Corum, a specialist in military history, who apparently sees Russia as a threat to the West and warns that it could turn to 'open confrontation' in the near future.  The suggestion seems pretty farfetched, especially given the recent news that the Bush administration had considered launching a strike on Russia to halt the Georgian war in 2008.  All the same, Corum's Tsarist metaphor for the mindset of the current Russian government and commentary on use of the phrase 'sphere of influence' is interesting...

Russian foreign policy is based on a truly weird combination of nostalgia for the old Soviet Union and the imperialism of the Tsarist Empire. Russian politicians and academics use the term "sphere of influence" in the late 19th-century sense of the ruler's right to control the external and domestic policies of neighbouring states. One of the strangest aspects of the new Russian ideology is the revival of the old Tsarist symbols to include the double-headed Romanov Eagle - complete with crown-- displayed on official buildings and in the Russian parliament.

Read the piece here.
streetwise020810.jpgHere Streetwise Professor recounts his fortunate opportunity to meet up with the Russian youth activist Oleg Kozlovsky during his speaking tour of the United States (Kozlovsky had been stranded in St. Louis by the snowstorms on the East Coast).  Turns out the professor named his blog after a song by this fellow on the right.

We had a wide-ranging conversation about all sorts of matters, from Putin, to the controversy over his passport, to energy, to Europe and energy, to Kaliningrad, to the effects of the economic crisis, to the militia and OMON, to the military and the effects of the reforms, to Khodorkovsky.  After a while, he smiled and said that he didn't want to sound so negative, so I suggested that we talk about politics and economics in the US instead-which ended with me apologizing for negativity.

I then took Oleg on a brief tour of some of the sites in St. Louis, notably Forest Park.  Hopefully he's now boarding his flight back home.

All in all, an enjoyable morning.  One amusing moment came when he asked me about how my blog came to be named "Streetwise Professor."  I told him that it derived from a combination of (a) the fact that "the Street" refers to the financial markets that I had originally intended to blog about exclusively, (b) the fact that I'm a professor, and (c) my punk rock inclinations.  He smiled and said that he liked the title because it makes him think of street protests.

Gazprom has confirmed that it will delay the Shtokman gas field by three years to 2016 due to a slump in demand.  Rosneft is boasting a 2.5% year increase in proven reserves. Britain points out that Iran's plans to make higher-grade nuclear reactor fuel would break five United Nations Security Council Resolutions; Russia is calling for care in the imposition of any sanctions on Iran so that they are 'limited to non-proliferation only', and is urging Iran to address international concerns about its nuclear program.  TNK-BP should become more streamlined and efficient, and focus more on growth inside Russia, using the former structure of BP as a model, according to its next head, Maxim Barsky.  Shell says it underestimated how quickly the mood on banking salaries was affecting opinion on executive salaries last year.  
Russia plans to put a 3 million-ton dent in its grain stockpile.  Is Gazprombank planning to float on the London Stock Exchange?  A senior Sberbank manager has been arrested on suspicion of laundering over $100 million from the company from forged contracts.  A tycoon's lawsuit against Moscow Mayor Yury Lukhov and his deputies over a broken agreement on the Hotel Rossiya has been dismissed.  The head of the Federal Health and Social Development Inspection Service has apparently been dismissed by Vladimir Putin for publicly disagreeing with the government ('siding with the experts' instead) over legislation to regulate prices in the pharmaceutical market.  Boris Berezovsky's libel case against the man who accused him of murder begins in London this week.  Russia will lend Sri Lanka $300 million to buy military equipment from it.  A Russian company has bought the entire Latvian town of Skrunda-1 for less than $4 million.  

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TODAY: Putin scolds United Russia deputies over false promises; Lavrov fails to mount anti-NATO bid, Rasmussen suggests that Russia could help NATO in Afghanistan; Moscow to start up center to protect property rights; writers say they were hired by United Russia for smear campaign; toxic waste dumping 'common practice' in the 1990s; Yanukovich looks set to win Ukraine elections.

Vladimir Putin has given United Russia leaders a talking-to about making false promises. 'You mustn't become 'promise makers,' who just make promises to throw dust in peoples' eyes so that you can get into power and start settling your own personal problems,' he said.  The scolding is thought to be a response to mass-scale anti-government protests in Kaliningrad, but reports suggest that the demonstration was not mentioned at the meeting.  Sergei Lavrov lambasted NATO and the OSCE but failed to win support for a new European security treaty, during his speech at a Munich security conference.  Russia's NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, says the idea is supported by the new German foreign minister, but most leaders have responded with only 'general remarks'.  NATO's chief, Anders Rasmussen, responding on the sidelines of the conference, said that Russia's military doctrine, identifying the security bloc's expansion as a threat, did 'not reflect the real world [...] NATO is not an enemy of Russia'; and suggested that Russia and China could help the alliance in Afghanistan.  In response to the demolitions in Rechnik, a Public Judicial Center is to be established in Moscow to help citizens protect their property rights.

At the end of January, my editor James met up with Dr. Nina Khrushcheva at the New School in New York to shoot an exclusive interview on variety of topics in modern Russian politics.  The quote which I have put in the title of this post is just one example from the stories that Khrushcheva shared with us about the nature of the Russian state in the daily lives of citizens, and the cultural status of individuality and identity.  The interview with Khrushcheva was fascinating, wide-ranging, and broad in scope, so we will be publishing several separate videos over the coming week.

mironov020510.jpegA fiction author of the most vivid imagination would have a tough time coming up with a story as satirical as the recent 10,000-strong protests in Kaliningrad followed by political theatrics of the state-approved opposition, as Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov (of the state-sanitized opposition party, A Just Russia) made a big show out of publicly and sharply criticizing the ruling party over the budget and shortcomings of the anti-crisis measures - and then, for good measure, he took a little shot at Vladimir Putin himself.  Just to make sure we believed that the outburst was genuine, Mironov himself was then attacked and called "a rat" by United Russia deputies and then threatened with dismissal.

For a while, the gambit was working its magic - especially fueled on by the additionally well-timed publishing of Igor Yurgens report calling for urgent and immediate political reforms or else Russia would face atrophy.  Olga Kryshtanovskaya of the Russian Academy of Sciences appeared to be buying into it, as she told the Financial Times that the Kaliningrad-Mironov-Yurgens events showed that "Cracks are starting to appear in the hierarchy of the state."

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What's the deal with Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov's sudden thirst for demolition, eviction, and intimidation?  The neighbourhood of Rechnik, on the outskirts of Moscow, home to a number of houses varying in size and value, was subjected to a midnight demolition raid last month on Luzhkov's orders, supposedly issued on grounds that the buildings had been constructed illegally.  And Dmitry Medvedev has now been brought in to oversee the question of whether or not residents' rights were violated in the process.  Critics have accused Luzhkov of wanting to free up space for new buildings projects, and the artist colony of Sokol is now also said to be under threat.  You'd think that such a bizarre and arbitrary plot could only have been orchestrated by the Kremlin.

Apparently not.  The Economist reports that Luzhkov and the Kremlin hold long-standing issues of contention, and that the Rechnik debacle just gives the ruling powers even more ammunition against the Moscow mayor.  

Last year the Kremlin dented Mr Luzhkov's political machine by firing his police chief. The Rechnik row gives the Kremlin extra ammunition. "This may not be the last straw against Luzhkov, but it is certainly another one," says an insider. State television has fiercely attacked Mr Luzhkov. A civic council set up by the Kremlin has now forced the demolition of houses in Rechnik to be suspended.

Aha!  So there is method in yesterday's Mironov madness.  It appears the fantastic war of words between rival Kremlin supporters was designed explicitly to produce the headlines that it did - to draw attention away from the political problems that have arisen in Kaliningrad following last weekend's massive march, 'one of the largest in Russia for a decade' (click for a factbox on the region).  From the Moscow Times

National newspapers including Nezavisimaya Gazeta suggested Thursday that the quarrel was senseless because Mironov poses no threat to Putin or United Russia, suggesting that the sudden scandal was in fact an attempt to move the media spotlight away from Kaliningrad.

A senior member of the Communist Party, Duma Deputy Sergei Obukhov, told Echo Moskvy radio that "two boys are imitating a fight to get public attention away from the problems that led to the mass protest erupting in the Kaliningrad region."

Meanwhile, the Kremlin seems to have taken the situation there rather seriously, firing Oleg Matveichev, the Kremlin official responsible for domestic politics in northwestern Russia, where the Kaliningrad exclave is located. 
Almost $50 billion will be poured into 'hydrographic and geophysical research' in the Arctic in an attempt to prove Russia's right to claim more of the Arctic floor and what are thought to be its vast oil and gas reserves.  Gazprom has confirmed that Ukraine has indeed paid its gas bill for January (around $780 million).  The Gazprom-led consortium working on a liquefied natural gas project in the Shtokman may hold off until gas demand revives - a surge in domestic production is currently matching US needs.  Garry Kasparov is dismissive of Russia's focus on relations with the East, but Asia is a key client for Russia's energy services, whose demand could reach the same level as that of Europe, according to Gazprom's chief executive.  Canada's Center for International Governance Innovation thinks that a nuclear energy renaissance is unlikely.  Italy's ENI is attempting to appease antitrust regulators by offering to sell $2 billion worth of its pipeline assets, although the buyer would be the Italian state, and such a sale, says ENI's chief executive, would therefore only help to tighten its grip.  

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This blog was created to express views which may stimulate debate and discussion on topics of international interest. I believe that we live in a world of unchallenged impunity, and this blog is ...

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