The State of Affairs in Russia

[KRonn]

BuzzFeed revealed that state-sponsored Russian trolls maintain a Stakhanovite regime of tweeting and commenting on hostile news pieces as they spread the Kremlin's message across the web.

It does sound like a PR person's creative writing dream job, though.     It's like writing The Onion for a government.

(Hello down there in the comments, by the way. Hope the sanctions aren't hurting the pay cheques.)

Just lookink for Moose and Sqvirrel, nothink to see here.

Lol, as the Russians try to relive their past Soviet glory days, it all must feel very comfortable and familiar.

[The Minsky Moment]

We've been reduced to squeezing the oil out of sand.  It's not a sustainable solution. 

There is a LOT of unconventional oil and gas.  It is quite sustainable as long as we are prepared to pay over 80/barrel for it.

[CountDeMoney]

We've been reduced to squeezing the oil out of sand.  It's not a sustainable solution. 

There is a LOT of unconventional oil and gas.  It is quite sustainable as long as we are prepared to pay over 80/barrel for it.

And destroy our own immediate environment in the process.  Winner winner, chicken dinner.

[The Minsky Moment]

We've been reduced to squeezing the oil out of sand.  It's not a sustainable solution. 

There is a LOT of unconventional oil and gas.  It is quite sustainable as long as we are prepared to pay over 80/barrel for it.

And destroy our own immediate environment in the process.  Winner winner, chicken dinner.

True but that will happen regardless of whether one uses conventional or unconventional fossil fuels.

[CountDeMoney]

True but that will happen regardless of whether one uses conventional or unconventional fossil fuels.

Depends.

But hey, let's burn up our finite supply of natural resources in North America, while extending the lifespan of the Middle East's resources.  What can happen?

[Eddie Teach]

And destroy our own immediate environment in the process.  Winner winner, chicken dinner.

North Dakota's not really that close.

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30322198

Russia's Putin calls for Russians to be self-reliant

President Vladimir Putin has warned Russians of hard times and urged self-reliance, in his annual state of the nation address to parliament.

Speaking to both chambers in the Kremlin, Mr Putin condemned Western governments for seeking to raise a new iron curtain around Russia.

Western sanctions, in response to Russia's role in eastern Ukraine, and falling oil prices have hit hard.

The government has warned that Russia will fall into recession next year.

In an attempt to kick-start the economy he proposed a "full amnesty" for capital to return to Russia. Capital flight is estimated at more than $100bn (£64bn; €81bn) this year.

Repatriating capital to Russia legally would mean "there will be no questions from the tax and law enforcement bodies", Mr Putin promised.

He also proposed a four-year freeze on tax rates.

Rouble's woes

On Monday, the rouble suffered its biggest one-day fall since 1998.

The currency slid almost 9% against the dollar before rallying after suspected central bank intervention.

Mr Putin called for "tough co-ordinated actions" by the Russian Central Bank and government "to quell the desire of so-called speculators to profit from changes in the Russian currency's rate".

In order to release funding for important projects, Mr Putin said, the state's National Welfare Fund would lend money on favourable terms to Russia's major banks. It is one of two big sovereign wealth funds created mainly out of revenue from energy sales.

From the outset of his speech, in front of an audience of 1,100 people, Mr Putin defended Russia's annexation of Crimea in March, saying that the Ukrainian peninsula's residents were "our people".

He insisted that the "tragedy" in Ukraine's south-east had proved that Russian policy had been right, but said Russia would respect its neighbour as a brotherly country.
Western 'cynicism'

Condemning the "pure cynicism" of the West, he complained that even if Crimea had not been annexed, the West would have come up with a different pretext to impose sanctions to contain Russia's resurgence.

Then he began to accuse Western governments of trying to raise a new iron curtain around Russia.

While he asserted that Russia would not enter an "expensive arms race", it would provide its own security, including with "unconventional means", so that nobody would gain military domination. Russia had enough "power, will and courage" to protect itself, he added.

Moving on to the economy, Mr Putin pledged that Russia would be open to the world - to foreign investment and joint projects. But he warned that it faced a "hard time ahead: much depends on each of us at our workplace". Western sanctions should be seen as a stimulus, he argued.

"We have a huge internal market and resources... capable, intelligent people," he said. The key was to give people the chance to flourish.

Underlining the message of self-reliance, Mr Putin said "our people have demonstrated national strength, patriotism - and the difficulties we are facing create new opportunities". "We are prepared to take any challenge of the time and win," he said.

Falling oil prices have affected Russia because of the country's reliance on energy exports, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow.

And Western sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea and its role in destabilising eastern Ukraine are contributing to the country's economic problems.

The estimated cost of sanctions and falling oil prices to Russia is $140bn a year, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

Over the last year the rouble has lost around 40% of its value against the dollar and inflation is expected to reach 10% early next year.

However, President Putin remains popular, our correspondent adds. According to one opinion poll this week, 72% of Russians approve of the way he is running the country.

[Martinus]

Condemning the "pure cynicism" of the West, he complained that even if Crimea had not been annexed, the West would have come up with a different pretext to impose sanctions to contain Russia's resurgence.

I am not so sure about that. So, thank all the Gods that he annexed Crimea.

However, President Putin remains popular, our correspondent adds. According to one opinion poll this week, 72% of Russians approve of the way he is running the country.

By Putin's standards that must be extremely low. At least 50-60 percentage points below the benchmark.

[Syt]

And here's the Russian state media summary:

http://itar-tass.com/en/russia/765032

Key points of Vladimir Putin's annual state of the nation address

Vladimir Putin has given his view of Russia's future development in an annual address to both the chambers of the country's parliament

On December 4 Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his annual state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly, the both chambers of Russia's parliament. The state of the nation address is a basic document, which outlines the president's positions on major directions of the Russian policies not only for the coming year, but also for future.
Position on the Ukrainian crisis and Crimea's unification with Russia

Russia has the right to pursue its sole line of development, the president said. "This applies to Ukraine as well," Putin said. He called hypocritical the use of human's rights issue to cover for the state coup in Ukraine.

The president recalled the Crimean referendum and the reunification of the republic with Russia. The reunification, he said, is a major historic event. Crimea has significance for Russia, he said, and Russians will handle it that way forever.

On US influence

The United States always influences Russia's relations with neighbouring states directly or behind-the-scenes, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

Getting back to the way Russia's dialogue with Europe and the US on Ukraine was developing, the president said "It is not by chance that I have mentioned our American friends, as they have always been influencing our relations with neighbours directly or behind-the-scenes".

"If some European countries have forgotten about their national pride long ago and are considering sovereignty to be a great luxury, real state sovereignty is an absolutely essential condition for Russia's existence," Putin said.

On sanctions

"Of course, sanctions are harmful, but they are harmful for everyone, including for those who initiate them," Putin stressed. The Russian president however said sanctions and restrictions motivate to reach the set aims. Putin said he's sure that the sanctions are not just a "nervous reaction of the United States and its allies" to Russia's behavior in connection with events in Ukraine and not due to "the Crimean spring."

"The policy of containment was not invented yesterday. It has been carried out against this country for many and many years — always, if one can say. For decades if not centuries," Putin said.

"Each time when someone believes that Russia has become too strong, independent, these tools are used immediately," the Russian leader said.

Russia isn't going to stop relations with Europe or America. Besides, Putin said, Russia has many strategic friends and partners in the world. The country will be open for the world and for attracting investments from abroad for joint projects, the president said. He sets a task of increasing the investment in the Russian economy to 25% of the GDP by 2018.
On import substitution

Reasonable import substitution is Russia's strategic goal in the near future, Vladimir Putin said in his address. Russia should get rid of dependency on foreign equipment, including for oil drilling in the Arctic, the president said. According to him, when foreign companies buy equipment abroad, it doesn't do any good for Russia. They should use local products, Putin said. If Rusia buys anything abroad, the products have to be unique. Putin set the task to create conditions fot the SME to take part in the government procurement programs.

On support of terrorism in Russia from abroad and disbalance in the world

Since 2002, when the US abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, there's been a threat of strategic disbalance in the world, and it's bad even for the US itself, Vladimir Putin said. "I think this is harmful for the United States as well, because it creates the dangerous illusion of invincibility," Putin said.

He noted Russia isn't going to get involved in the arms race though it will do its best to provide its security. The president added that Russia has nonstandard solutions.

It's useless to try talking to Russia from position of strength. "We remember the countries that supported the terrorists in Russia ...and those people make trouble today in Chechnya," Putin said. The terrorists, according to the president, still receive support from abroad. "Those countries want the Yugoslavian scenario to happen in Russia, he said. Putin noted they will fail just as Hitler failed with his misanthropic idea.

On government spending

According to the president, Defense Ministry should create a new system for control of budget spending. Improper spending in the sphere of defense can be considered as a threat to national security, he says.

Vladimir Putin says all budget corporations should have a common treasury, and all companies with large state share should reduce their costs several per cent each year.

On industry modernization

Putin says Russia is capable of modernizing its economy and being leader in the world in certain industries. To achieve that, Russia has to use internal resources, like the Academy of Sciences, and attract Russian nationals from abroad. By 2020 half of Russian colleges should have training cources for 50 most popular professions, says the president.
On demography and care for the disabled

Russian demography programs have proven efficient and the programs will be extended for Crimea, says the president.

"The country's population is almost 144 million people, it's 8 million over the UN outlook," says Putin. Russia has life a expectancy of over 71 years and has all chances to increase it to 74, he says.

Putin thanks the Russian athletes for their participation in the Sochi Paralympic Games. He says Russia should increase support for the disabled. This, according to the president, includes professional training, production of specific goods, among other things.

[Valmy]

Russia is resurgent?

It looks like they are committing political and economic suicide to me.

I would like to think Tamas for explaining to me how Putinism works.  Otherwise Putin claiming the West was engaging in 'pure cynicism' would be hilariously insane, but instead I understand the strategy involved.

[KRonn]

"We have a huge internal market and resources... capable, intelligent people," he said. The key was to give people the chance to flourish. 

Seems more like they've become mainly an energy supplier with nothing coming close to matching that industry or the revenue from it. With oil prices falling their economy is supposedly being hit hard because of the huge reliance on energy.

[Syt]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/04/police-killed-as-gun-battle-erupts-in-chechnyas-capital

Gun battles erupt in Chechnya's capital after militants launch attack

At least six gunmen and 10 security officers killed in Grozny attack that started in early hours of morning

Militants attacked buildings in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, in the early hours of yesterday morning, prompting gun battles that left at least 10 security officers and six insurgents dead.

According to Russia's anti-terrorist committee, three cars carrying militants drove into the city overnight, killing three traffic police officers who tried to stop them.

The committee said militants then occupied Grozny's Press House, which was later destroyed, killing six of the gunmen. Video footage showed the upper floors of the Press House engulfed in flames.

The gunmen later holed themselves up in a school, though no students or teachers were present at the time, RIA Novosti quoted its vice-principal as saying. Russian state television showed video footage of security officers firing automatic weapons and grenade launchers at the three-storey building.

The fighting left 10 security officers dead and 28 injured, Russian authorities said.

Russian forces fought two wars in Chechnya in the 1990s, and Putin cites the pacification of Chechnya as one of the main achievements of his early years in power.

Under the Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov terror attacks have indeed become rare. Stability under Kadyrov has come at a price, with violent and controversial methods often employed to tame critics, and punitive tactics such as house-burning used against the families of men believed to have joined the insurgency.

But Grozny is unrecognisable from the charred ruins it was reduced to by Russian forces in 2000. New buildings have sprung up, a five-star hotel has opened, and the main street has been renamed Putin Avenue. The region remains volatile, and attacks in the neighbouring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia are more frequent.

All schools in Grozny were closed yesterday and a "counter-terrorist operation" status was introduced by Russian authorities to allow for enhanced security measures and the use of force.

Kadyrov, who travelled to Moscow for Putin's address, told journalists the security operation was over and that nine militants had been killed, though this was not verified. "We have found the bodies of nine [militants], but they [the security officers] are continuing to search," the Interfax news agency quoted Kadyrov as saying.

Earlier he had uploaded a photograph to Instagram of what appeared to be the lower-half of a dead body on the street. "Dogs will die like dogs," he wrote.

A video posted to the Kavkaz Centre website, which North Caucasus Islamic insurgents often use for communication, featured a man speaking Chechen who said the gunmen were acting on the orders of the rebel leader, Emir Khamzat.

"There are already results; Allah has destroyed them using our hand," said the man in the clip.

Kadyrov has introduced a number of Islamic regulations to the region, including a ban on alcohol sales and strong advice that women should cover their heads at all times. However, the Caucasus Emirate, an Islamic terrorist group which wants to set up an Islamic state across the north Caucasus, has declared war on Kadyrov and his forces. Many of their members operate from abroad, and it is not known how many insurgents remain hiding in the forests and mountains of Chechnya.

[The Brain]

I don't think tautologies are Russia's biggest problem.

[Tonitrus]

The bolded comment at the end is a great example of the Russian people's great penchant for internal defeatism.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russian-youths-find-politics-as-their-pop-icons-face-pressure/2014/12/01/1b1898c0-4f26-44e1-a6c6-dd076a315983_story.html

Russian youths find politics as their pop icons face pressure



MOSCOW — Courting and cultivating loyalty among the Russian youth has long been a part of the Kremlin's governing strategy. But the latest apparent move to command allegiance from younger Russians may be backfiring.

When young people in former Soviet republics organized "color revolutions" to push out undemocratic leaders a decade ago, the Kremlin lent support to Nashi, a nationalist, pro-state youth organization whose ideals thrive in spinoff groups to this day. When the West began protesting Russia's annexation of Crimea earlier this year, the Russian government introduced a new patriotism curriculum to emphasize the territories' historic bond.

But when Russian authorities started going after outspoken pop icons this fall, they struck a nerve with many young people who claim to be largely apolitical but suddenly became wary of officials muzzling stars of their generation.



"I'm not that involved in politics. I'm more interested in what's happening to my idols, and politics only as a consequence of that," said Alexei Kornev, 19, a student from Tomsk who studies in Moscow. "But nobody and nothing should be in the way of music."

For Kornev and many others, the performer whose experience inspired such concerns is Russia's biggest homegrown hip-hop star, Ivan Alekseev — better known by his rap alias, Noize MC.

Noize MC has been a feature on the Russian music scene for the past seven or eight years, building a following as a skilled lyricist with a knack for peddling catchy riffs and social commentary through storytelling. His audience is young — predominantly teens and 20-somethings. And though he often displays a healthy disregard for authority, he had never really went head-on with the government until the past few months, when he began to get heat for accepting a Ukrainian flag from a female fan during a music festival in Lviv, Ukraine.


It happened in August as Ukrainian officials were openly accusing Russia of sending troops and tanks to aid separatists fighting a war in the east of the country. Other Russian headliners had already pulled out of the Lviv concert lineup. But Noize MC performed and accepted the flag as he sang "Tanzy," a remix of a Ukrainian song that he has been rapping in Russian since 2012.

"I didn't think of it as something specific or important," Alekseev said during an interview in Moscow. "I was just in Ukraine and sang in Ukrainian, and someone gave me a Ukrainian flag. And in Ukraine, everything was okay — it was totally fine."

But when the pictures from the show emerged, Russia was not fine with the display of solidarity with its Slavic neighbor.

Within weeks, most of the star's live shows were canceled under pressure from authorities, he said, or raided by federal drug officials and bomb squads reporting tips of criminal activity. Alekseev said more than 60 percent of his shows were canceled, including almost every stop on a tour of Siberia and Russia's Far East — where authorities even met him and his band at their hotels and train stations, he said, to keep them from playing alternative venues.

"It was [like] if you were doing a three-day tour of gigs in Ohio and you have guys from the CIA, FBI and local police coming and telling you to go," Alekseev said.



Each time, the reaction on Noize MC's social-media pages — he claims he has more than 75 times the number of VKontakte fans as Network, the pro-Putin youth organization of the moment — was a mixture of confusion, shock and anger, especially from fans in far-flung regions, where a Noize MC show is a rare and precious event.


Even at a recent show in Moscow, frustration was still resonating among many Noize MC fans.

"It's stupid. It happened because Noize appeared onstage in Ukraine, and they called him a traitor," said Egor Kaluga, 21, who likened the cancellations to something out of Soviet times. "Then, there were persecutions of non-conformist artists, but with Noize MC, there is no politics. He only speaks his opinion — he doesn't organize demonstrations or call on anyone to do anything."

Others said Noize MC was being unfairly targeted because of his popularity — much like Andrei Makarevich, often called Russia's Paul McCartney. Makarevich had concerts canned after performing this summer for children in eastern Ukraine.

"In Russia, we always have to have a guilty party," said Pyotr Semekevich, 19, explaining that just as Makarevich had been singled out as "a symbol" for his parents' generation, "for us, it's Noize MC."

As concerts are called off, Russian sociologists are wondering what effect marginalizing artists such as Noize MC will have on young fans, a generation brought up in an environment of what one called "exaggerated patriotism," in which Putin has held almost unrivaled power.

"You cannot ban people from listening to the music that they want to — this is not efficient, and it is dangerous," said Elena Omelchenko, director of the Center for Youth Studies at Russia's Higher School of Economics. She said she receives letters from all over Russia asking about banned shows.

If things continue, it could give rise to new youth subcultures, Omelchenko said, much like those that developed during the Soviet Union, when direct bans drove many rock artists and their fans underground.


There is a chance that performers such as Noize MC could lose their audience to other artists. While there are other exceptions, the vast majority of Russian pop stars, as Alekseev put it, "don't protest against anything. They just play music about love."

But the more noise Noize MC makes about the apparent political target on his back, the more his fans are waking to political realities in Russia.

"I don't care about politics, but I care that this is happening and it's having an influence on my life, my favorite musicians," Elena Talalina, 21, said of the canceled Noize MC concerts. "It's disturbing. But I guess it's normal in this country."

Karoun Demirjian is a reporting fellow in The Post's Moscow bureau. She previously served as the Washington Correspondent for the Las Vegas Sun, and reported for the Associated Press in Jerusalem and the Chicago Tribune in Chicago.

[Tonitrus]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/opinion/bad-mannered-russians-in-the-west.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar

Bad-Mannered Russians in the West
By KAREN DAWISHADEC. 3, 2014

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, an entirely new architecture was envisaged to incorporate Russia into Western institutions, from the Council of Europe to the World Trade Organization, from the High Courts of London to the New York Stock Exchange. Now, under Vladimir Putin, these institutions themselves risk being undermined by unethical Russian practices that provide at best a fig leaf of respectability for Russian behavior that no longer meets the minimal standards for classification as a "European" state. Kremlin-coordinated actions in Ukraine and elsewhere threaten to overwhelm European institutions meant to deepen Russian economic and political freedoms.

Welcoming Russian companies to Wall Street and the City should have improved the quality of Russian corporate governance and transparency. But it has not. Shady Russian oligarchs connected to the Kremlin have become fabulously wealthy from dozens of I.P.O.s in London and New York.

Until recently, the higher burden of compliance at the New York Stock Exchange had kept Russian companies away. But instead of protecting American investors, a large percentage of which are public pension funds, Congress included a provision in the 2012 Jobs Act that opened up the N.Y.S.E. to more Russian businesses by allowing emerging growth companies with revenues of less than $1 billion a five-year exemption from independent audits. The number of Russian companies traded on the N.Y.S.E. grew from two to over three dozen by 2014.

The market increasingly recognizes the risk of dealing with Russian companies, the largest of which is Gazprom. Despite having the world's largest net profits, Gazprom was trading at one-third the stock market valuation of Exxon Mobil, due to what is widely regarded as rampant and Kremlin-directed corruption. Russian courts continued the house arrest of Vladimir Yevtushenko even after he had forfeited to the state his shares in Bashneft, a subsidiary of Sistema, the first Russian company listed on the London Stock Exchange. This suggests that even those companies of long standing are going to be subject to Kremlin pressure. Fearing that Sistema itself would collapse, its one-year return has plummeted by over 75 percent, losing investors, including Western investors, over $13 billion in the last year.

No one objects to Russian companies taking their rightful place in global markets, but not when it comes at the expense of investors who assume that Russian corporate governance will improve when actually the opposite is occurring.

Russian capitalism depends on the Kremlin's closest circle marauding freely inside the country while safeguarding gains abroad. Russian oligarchs consume the public goods produced in the West — including the rule of law and a reliable investment climate — while maintaining vast networks of shell companies. Their presence strengthens the worst aspects of our system, and weakens the best.

Mr. Putin has said he wants an end to corruption and bureaucratic bullying. If he is serious, this would be good news for Russia, as it might show that he is actually willing to lay down laws that everyone will have to abide by. But thus far he has only increased the power of the state at home, while treating the West like an à la carte menu — with public goods of his own choosing to be freely consumed. What he doesn't understand, however, is that "the West" is a prix fixe menu: Its values and obligations must be consumed along with its pleasures.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
Members of Mr. Putin's inner elite routinely sue for damages in European courts even as the rule of law is flagrantly undermined in Russia. The largest cases in the U.K. Commercial Court involve Russians. The Kremlin is opening a case in London against the banker Sergey Pugachev, whose assets he alleges were raided by the Russian state, leading him to flee to Britain and claim that in Russia there is no private property — "only serfs who belong to Putin."

In addition, soon to appear on the legal horizon in Europe will be the Russian challenge to European Union sanctions. In the United States, sanctions are imposed, and removed, by administrative fiat; but in Europe, they can, and they will, be challenged in court. In the European Court of Justice, Mr. Putin's longtime friend and crony Arkady Rotenberg, along with the oil giant Rosneft, Russia's largest commercial bank Sberbank and Gazprom Neft, the oil branch of Gazprom, are suing the European Union, claiming they had nothing to do with the annexation of Crimea.

The European Union is fighting what looks like a losing battle to stanch the tide of corrupt, predatory and anti-democratic behavior by Russia. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption have repeatedly investigated Russia's refusal to sign more than a handful of the conventions it is legally bound to uphold, including provisions for election monitoring and the criminalization of corruption. Russia's membership in PACE bought the regime time to parade as a country upholding European values, until its voting rights were suspended after the annexation of Crimea. The council will consider extending the suspension, but the chances of Russia being readmitted to full voting membership are slim.

Appearing to live up to its obligations to the Council of Europe — which Russia joined in 1996, committing it to a democratic path — gave Russia the status of a legitimate state with European values long after the regime had taken the country in the opposite direction. It is of course the case that as long as European institutions were able to make headway in gaining Russian compliance with European norms, it was beneficial for Europe to maintain Russian membership. But one must now wonder whether that benefit hasn't faded.

Many Russians dream of Europe and embrace its values, but sadly they cannot enjoy these values any longer in Russia. As many Russians left the country in the first eight months of 2014 as left it annually in the hard-pressed 1990s.

No one wants to build new barriers between Russia and Europe. But membership in European institutions was intended to shape Russian institutions in European directions. If these institutions instead risk being undermined by Russian actions that threaten to overwhelm them, then Russia should be excluded. By the standards of political freedoms, Russia is now barely above Belarus. Why should the one be in Europe when the other, closer to Europe, is denied?

Karen Dawisha is the author of "Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?" and the director of Miami University's Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.