The State of Affairs in Russia

[Barrister]

Interesting read Zanza.  Particularly cool to see Belarus parting ways to some extent from the boss.

Belarus has always been hot and cold with Russia.  Pan-Russian solidarity plays well in Minsk, but Lukashenko won't do anything that decreases his own power at home.

[Admiral Yi]

Belarus has always been hot and cold with Russia.  Pan-Russian solidarity plays well in Minsk, but Lukashenko won't do anything that decreases his own power at home.

First I've heard of a chink in the armor, but then again you're probably more dialed into Slavic events than I am.

[The Brain]

 

[Solmyr]

Lukashenko has very much been playing between Russia and the West for the past year, hoping to pick up the best bits thrown to him. He clearly came out in favour of Ukrainian territorial integrity (including Crimea), for instance.

[Martinus]

This is true but I wonder how much of his attempt to reconcile with the West is genuine. I am not saying he has suddenly became a supporter of Western values but that Russia has become more and more dangerous to its client states - but he can't rebel openly or will be destroyed politically and economically.

[Sheilbh]

Belarus has always been hot and cold with Russia.  Pan-Russian solidarity plays well in Minsk, but Lukashenko won't do anything that decreases his own power at home.

First I've heard of a chink in the armor, but then again you're probably more dialed into Slavic events than I am.

From what I've read it's closeness to a point. Russia's talked about a union a fair few times, but Lukashenko's only interested if he's in charge

[Syt]

On the topic of weird law initiatives in the duma:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/why-do-they-do-it-a-glimpse-into-the-russian-lawmaker-psyche/513345.html

Why Do They Do It? A Glimpse Into the Russian Lawmaker Psyche

If the State Duma's legislative initiatives may occasionally cause bewilderment or even outright laughter, lawmakers insist that they are in on the joke — with some adding that Russia's parliament is not a place to make laws anyway, according to recent interviews.

There has been no shortage of colorful legal initiatives in recent months, from proposed bans on high heels and ballet flats to a ban on the use of foreign words in public speech.

State Duma deputy Yaroslav Nilov from the Liberal Democratic Party — whose fellow party member took issue with the "pornographic" Apollo on the 100-ruble note — said that lawmakers have little real legislative work to do, and have to resort to outlandish bills to remind the nation of their high parliamentary ranks, Lenta.ru reported earlier this month.

"Unfortunately, a system has been created today in the State Duma that means that without the support of the ruling party, no bill can pass. Regardless of whether it's good or bad," Nilov was quoted as saying. "So to ensure their presence ... deputies have nothing else to do but to introduce these peculiar bills and initiatives that generate an interest in media and society."

Compared with the peculiar bills, Nilov saw a bigger problem in deputies' "idleness, participation in various scandals and near-criminal schemes," which he said damaged their "image," Lenta.ru reported.

Ruling United Russia party's lawmaker Yevgeny Fyodorov — who has recently accused Google of possibly spying for Ukraine in another unorthodox legislative revelation — said that even his ruling party served a mostly rubber-stamping function.

"Serious bills, even if they are signed by lawmakers, are not prepared inside the State Duma's walls," Fyodorov was quoted as saying by Lenta.ru. "The State Duma only passes the bills that arrive there from other places."

"Lawmaker's own initiatives are something else. It's a show," he was quoted as saying. "I wouldn't say that those initiatives discredit our Duma. A theater isn't discredited, if instead of tsars, its stage features jesters. It's that kind of theater, that kind of Duma."

A deputy from the A Just Russia faction, Oleg Nilov, said that some of the State Duma's initiatives fell "beyond the limits of normal lawmaking," but were sometimes necessary to get the government's attention, Lenta.ru reported.

"Stupid legislative initiatives are not an exclusively Russian problem," he added, Lenta.ru reported.

In St. Petersburg, a local lawmaker from the municipal legislature, Vitaly Milonov — a staunch advocate of restoring Russia's "traditional values"  — told Lenta.ru that attention-grabbing initiatives were just the tip of the moral iceberg.

"I think the bright but useless initiatives appear as a result of a crisis in the value system," he was quoted as saying.

State Duma's Communist lawmaker Vadim Solovyov — whose faction has recently proposed a bill to ban cigarette sales to women under 40 — said that "original" initiatives serve a great purpose: They get their authors votes.

"A person reads about a ban on heels or about repainting the Kremlin, laughs, gets some positive [emotions]," Solovyov was quoted as saying. "And then at a polling station, that person sees the name of that lawmaker, and there's already an associative connection with something pleasant."

"Once lawmakers were really drafting bills, carrying out parliamentary investigations, made a no-confidence vote for the president, influenced the appointments of the prime minister, and so on," Solovyov added, according to Lenta.ru

He was apparently referring to a time during former President Boris Yeltsin's rule when the State Duma's Communist faction had proposed no-confidence votes in the president, had attempted — unsuccessfully, though it was a close call — to impeach Yeltsin in 1999, and when the legislature had bickered with the former president over his nominations for prime minister.

"Now the activities of the Duma look like a clown show and the fifth wheel of the executive power," Solovyov was quoted as saying.

[The Brain]

"Stupid legislative initiatives are not an exclusively Russian problem,"

Amen.

[CountDeMoney]

Poland girds her loins.

Poland's would-be guerrillas
The Home Army is back
In the unlikely event of a Russian attack, Polish partisans may be waiting
Dec 29th 2014
Economist

MARCIN WASZCZUK (pictured) is ready for action. Dressed in camouflage fatigues with a Polish flag on the shoulder, the heavyset 41-year-old is the head of Strzelec, one of Poland's largest paramilitary organisations, and he wants to be prepared in case of a Russian attack. His office sits in a notable location: the PAST office block, one of Warsaw's few pre-war skyscrapers. During the 1944 Warsaw uprising, fighters from Poland's Home Army, the largest partisan force in Europe, battled for 18 bloody days to seize the building from German troops, and held on until the two-month-long uprising was finally crushed.

Now Mr Waszczuk wants to draw on Poland's history of guerrilla warfare to cope with the challenges of an increasingly unpredictable Russia. "We are the continuation of the Home Army," he says. The goal is to form light infantry units scattered around the country able to continue the fight "if there is an invasion and the Polish military is destroyed".

These ideas are not entirely far-fetched. In early December, Poland's defence ministry approved an upgraded national defence plan that includes an effort to co-ordinate better between the regular military and informal paramilitary outfits. Strzelec counts about 5,000 members; several hundred thousand other Polish civilians, including military re-enactment enthusiasts, are thought to be keen on the programme. The military already aids paramilitary groups with surplus uniforms and training sessions.

The strategy also shifts more of Poland's military assets to its eastern border, in keeping with the so-called Komorowski Doctrine. Bronislaw Komorowski, the president, has pressed the country to focus more on territorial defence and less on far-flung excursions to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And while reviving the Home Army may seem quixotic, security experts worry that Poland's army, which still relies heavily on outdated Soviet-era weaponry, would be unable to withstand a full-on Russian attack.

"Is the Polish army prepared? No it is not," says Zbigniew Pisarski, president of the Casimir Pulaski Foundation, a defence and security think-tank which recently completed an assessment of Poland's military. Mr Pisarski admits that a Russian attack is an "extreme scenario", but Russia's actions over the last year in Ukraine have made it seem less improbable. Even before the latest tensions arose, Russia and Belarus had practised a simulated tactical nuclear strike on Warsaw during the 2009 Zapad war games. 

Spooked by the revival of its age-old enemy, Warsaw has embarked on a $30 billion decade-long rearmament programme, one of the most ambitious in NATO. By 2022 the country should have modern missile defences as well as helicopters, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, communications and a larger fleet. Poland spends 1.95% of GDP on defence, one of the higher levels in the Atlantic alliance, and has committed to raise that to 2%.

But until the rearmament programme is completed, Poland is vulnerable. Current plans call for Poland to hold off an attack until Poland's NATO allies can swing into action and come in to help. "One-on-one we have no chance," says Mr Pisarski. Worryingly, that is largely the same doctrine employed by the Polish military in 1939, when the doctrine was to hold off the Germans long enough for France and Britain to attack. That help never came, forcing Poles to go underground with the Home Army to continue the fight."We supposedly had a strong alliance in 1939, and no one came to help us," says Mr Waszczuk. "Now we're hearing that Germany is in no shape to help us and that NATO is unclear about sending troops here. In the end, the best defence is to rely on yourself."

[Ed Anger]

Mart prepares to collaborate.

[CountDeMoney]

Mart prepares to collaborate.

LODZ, poor bastard gets hauled into the town square and gets his head shaved for sleeping with all those Russian soldiers.  BUT I'M IN M&A

[Ed Anger]

Wiktor sold him out

[derspiess]

LODZ,

[Jacob]

Gotta say that Polish militias make a lot more sense than American ones.

[derspiess]

Gotta say that Polish militias make a lot more sense than American ones.

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