Russia

A few years after leaving his post, a once faithful minion publishes a sensational tell-all story that sends shock waves all through the nation’s capital. Its revelations not only stab his ex-boss in the back, but cast doubt on the integrity of the entire administration, the robstness of the media, and the state of the political process itself.

If you’ve just screamed “SCOTT MCCLELLAN!”, you’re reading the wrong blog, mate!

No, this is the story of Vladimir Milov, a former deputy oil minister during Putin’s first term, whose latest work, Putin -The Results: An Independent Expert Report (2008), co-authored with Boris Nemtsov, has got even the most seasoned Russia watchers’ knickers in a twist.

Sean Guillory, of the excellent Sean’s Russia Blog, has written a typically illuminating account. So, unplug the CSPAN and go read all about this “devastating” tour de force!

Being accused of excessive seriousness is not something Russians expect or covet. We pride ourselves on a sense of irreverent humour, irony and ability to exist in often self-destructive fantasy worlds. In fact, part of what saved the country’s ’soul’ during Communism was the widespread popular subversion of that ideology’s central tenants of seriousness and hard work into a drink fuelled daily theatre of the absurd. From Oblomov to the surrealist poetry of Daniil Kharms to the magical-realist vignettes of everyday Soviet life in the 1970s and 80s by Tokareva, to the current writings of Nina Khrushcheva or editions of the Exile, learning about Russian culture is a lesson in playful, often exasperating, dissent.

So what is noted social theorist and activist Boris Kagalitsky talking about in today’s Op-Ed in the Moscow Times when he cries that “Russians Take Themselves Too Seriously”?

Kagarlitsky is worried that Russians are losing their sense of anti-establishment sarcasm amidst a new wave of nationalism directed at the neighbouring states. He notes that Ukrainians, who have better retained the pinch of salt cynicism regarding their leaders, are less susceptible to anti-Russian propaganda than Russians are to Kremlin-fomented anti-Ukrainianism, and urges us to get back to our anarchical ways.

A welcome reality check!

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has called McCain’s proposals to resume nuclear weapons reductions talks with Russia “fully realistic”. Kosachev was quoted in the May 29th issue of the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestiya employing a sports metaphor: “Mr McCain can completely count on the fact that Russia will be ready to engage him in this match, if he assumes the US presidency”. He then mentions that it was during Republican administrations that some of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs between Russia and America occured. Kosachev said that McCain’s statement “has a realistic chance to be more than campaign rhetoric” and added that “the latest statement is in evident contrast” to McCain’s “previous escapades” regarding throwing Russia out of the G8.

There has never been any love lost between John McCain and the Evil Empire.

As far back as 2006, he had promised to be “very harsh” on Russia. By May 2008, he was still vowing to push through an even earlier 2005 determination (in a bill co-sponsored with Joe Lieberman) to kick Russia out of the G8, declaring that the club “should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia” and that “rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, Western nations should make clear that the solidarity of NATO, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organization’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom”. The statement was universally criticised, and even a senior US official called the proposal “just a dumb thing”.

Indeed, McCain, alone among the presidential candidates and isolated even in neoconservative circles (Cf Fareed Zakaria’s criticisms above), had practically included the country in a new axis of evil, his bellicosity eliciting much nervousness on both sides of the Atlantic, and even among conservatives.

Yet could talk of a new cold war should McCain be elected president still be premature?

Today, the New York Times reported that John McCain had

“distanced himself from the Bush administration on Tuesday by vowing to work more closely with Russia on nuclear disarmament and to move toward the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe….

…Mr. McCain told a small crowd at the University of Denver that he would pursue a new arms control agreement with the Russians and that he supported a legally binding accord between the two nations to replace verification requirements in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, which expires in 2009.

The Bush administration has refused to accept such binding limits on nuclear weapons, which its critics say has created paranoia in Moscow. Mr. McCain’s proposal to eliminate tactical nuclear weapons in Europe sets him apart from President Bush as well.

‘Russia and the United States are no longer mortal enemies,’ Mr. McCain said.”

Diffusing nuclear tensions with Russia, ratcheted up in recent years by the Bush administration’s unilateral disengagement from previous arms control treaties as well as by Putin’s revival of Russia’s strategic forces, is clearly a step in the right direction for McCain.

However, such a small concession is unlikely to quell fears of an ideologically driven approach to Russia from a potential McCain presidency.

Certainly, he is consistently viewed with fear and suspicion even among the most liberal Russian opinion-makers. The Russian wikipedia entry for McCain has an entire section devoted to the mean things he has said about Russia; pundits on the liberal radio station Ekho Mosvky have also said that McCain’s eleciton to the presidency would not bode well for Russia. In media outlets closer to the government, such sentiments are even more widespread. For example, in March, Izvestia (a national broadsheet owned since 2005 by state oil company Gazprom) reported that McCain considers Russia to be an enemy, quoting him as saying that when he looked into Putin’s eyes, he saw the letters K, G and B.
Moreover, McCain’s desire to distance himself from Bush on Russia would be a mixed blessing: although he opposed tying America’s hands in terms of nuclear weapons, Bush was generally cooperative and open to dealing with Russia, having famously peered into Vladimir “Putti-put” Putin’s soul. A reversal of that part of Bush’s Russia policy would hardly constitute a thaw.

WHAT THE RUSSIAN PRESS IS SAYING ABOUT MCCAIN’S OVERTURE: 2 VIEWS

Kommersant Daily (Liberal, independent):

“Hillary Clinton and John McCain Argue Over Russia” (May 29, 2008).

The article notes McCain’s “radical” steps towards nuclear negotiations with Russia, and then mentions Hillary Clinton’s responce. Clinton poured scepticism on McCain’s proposals, saying that any overtures to Russia would be undermined by his recent and continued attempts to throw the country out of the G8. No editorial comment.

Izvestia (Centrist, Gazprom controlled):

“McCain is Ready to Negotiate With Russia”.

Izvestia writes that McCain’s recent overture was a great surprise, noting dryly that “up to now, he had given people little cause to suspect him of Russophilia”. It goes on to list a history of McCain’s criticisms of Russia, and delivers this stinging reminder: Mr McCain should remember that it was a Soviet rocket that downed his plane over Vietnam. Ouch!!

The article then states that like all candidates, even the “Hawk” McCain becomes more pragmatic as elections near, and delivers a note of rebuke to Obama for saying that his grandfather liberated Auschwitz, when it was the Red Army that did it. (Obama has since clarified that his grandad was in fact in Buchenwald).

Having become increasingly politically sidelined under Putin, the KPRF, the Russian Communist Party, is trying its hand at film criticism.

The BBC quotes St. Petersburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich telling Reuters that the new Indiana Jones movie was “rubbish”.

Certainly, he is in good company. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw was not impressed either. Nor was The Times’s Kevin Maher, who calls it “the worst in the series”.

But it was not the paper thin character development or pervasive CGI gimmickry that got Malinkovich hot under the collar.

“Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?” he asked.

“They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war.

“It’s rubbish… In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the US.”

Watch out, Ebert!

So he’s finally done it. Just when you though there could not be anything more frightening than last year’s winners, the monster costumed hard/glam Finnish rockers Lordi… behold Dima Bilan’s mullet.

Last nights win was Russia’s first in Eurovision. Moreover, the fact that Britain came in last could also not have escaped unnoticed by the Kremlin.

Watch the history in the making here:

Today, minister-cum-democracy activist Mikhail Kasyanov met in Chelyabinsk with supporters of his People’s Democratic Union party, part of the Other Russia umbrella movement. They hosted a round table discussion on “The Effects of Political Monopolisation”, it was reported on the Radio Liberty website.

But who is Kasyanov and what does he want? Ill be posting regular thoughts on the man and the wider Russian democracy movement over these days.

Yet another brilliant piece of insight from the Exile. They’re particularly adept at sniffing out power struggles, whether it be between the Siloviki and Liberals or Gopniki vs Hipsters. In this article, they talk about the recent demise of Liveblogging, hunted to extinction by the ironiste brigade and of its improbable rebirth. Russian online culture is some of the most vibrant and developed in the world, and provides an invaluable glimpse of civil society not reflected in NGO/democracy promotion activity.

In yesterday’s Guardian, their Moscow correspondent Luke Harding posted an interview with Litvinenko poisoning prime suspect Lugovoi.

Unfortunately, far from providing any new revelations or even insights, the piece read like a tired, thrice-removed smorgasbord of conspiracy theories, hyperbole, tired stereotypes and faintly disguised jingoism at Russia’s ostensible failure to cooperate with the British authorities.

Harding was a bit lazy. Before writing the article, he should have at least consulted this much more deeply researched and considered constribution from Mary Dejevsky that came out barely three weeks ago in the Independent. Maybe then he would have either realised the redundancy of his own ‘effort’ (don’t be deceived: a Lugovoi interview is hardly a scoop, as he gives them regularly), tried to contribute something original, or simply copied it.

It would certainly have also helped to investigate and scrutinise a little more the English authorities’ and Berezovsky’s sides of the story.

Harding’s piece reminded me of a story that used to run every year, without fail, in the otherwise excellent Moscow Times, about Russia’s ‘quaint’ annual water mains repairs that turn off hot water supplies for weeks on end in the autumn in preparation for winter. The annual article, unphased by any new developments, insights or changes that may have actually occured in real life since 1991, was more an opportunity to rehash old ‘funny’ prejudices about what a weird and byzantine country Russia is than to inform and stimulate thought.

This afternoon, Pavel Gusev, the editor of the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets, gave a revealing interview with Masha Myers and Matvei Ganapolsky on the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy headlined “Empty Front Pages: What is the Russian Press Protesting Against?”. (Listen to the archived program here )

The policy in question was a recent, subtle and little noticed reform of the postal system. The state post office, which holds a monopoly on the subscription of periodicals and newspapers, had raised the price of such subscriptions by 150% for some rural residents.

Animated and alarmed, Gusev did not mince words. “People will just not read anymore. There will be no opportunity to have access to the press…It is a violation of freedom of speech”, he said during the Razvorot (Turn-Around) program broadcast on May 20.

So what made the veteran editor, along with the leadership of just about every major Russian daily, practically equate such apparently banal postal machinations to Politkovskaya’s murder?

Because the fare hike would have put newspapers and magazines out of the financial reach of large numbers of Russians, especially those living in the heartlands who rely on subscriptions for most of their news, Gusev claimed it amounted to state censorship of the press.

Gusev rejected any economic motive behind the price rises, saying that as a monopoly provider of subscriptions, the government and its postal system must guarantee access to information. He then called for an increase in the postal subsidy.

So should Russia’s remaining subscribers brace themselves for a spate of blank front pages tomorrow morning?

Not quite yet. It seems that on the eleventh hour, the protest was called off after the “most senior authorities” signalled a possible change of heart, or at least a willingness to negotiate. Talks between the press and the new Press and Media minister are to be held on Thursday, and Gusev is confident of a productive outcome.

For Russia watchers keen to decipher the direction and inclinations of the new president, the incident provides some tantalising, if contradictory, glimpses. Did this subscription hike mark the beginning of a new phase in the ongoing onslaught on the press, with smoother, more stealth tactics replacing Putin’s heavy handed bullying? Or did the authorities’ back-down and willingness to seriously negotiate with the intelligentsia give us the first taste of potentially radical political changes to come?

We’ll keep you posted…