The State of Affairs in Russia

[Syt]

German media have said that the list looks amateurish and not to have been talked about with Russian embassies, as there's people on it who no longer are in relevant positions.

[Liep]

German media have said that the list looks amateurish and not to have been talked about with Russian embassies, as there's people on it who no longer are in relevant positions.

The Danes on the list includes two former foreign ministers and an irrelevant neo-nazi.

[celedhring]

For Spain they have picked one of the VPs of the EP, and a guy that sits in the Foreign Relations Committee of the EP - except that he's specialized in relations with Latin America and hasn't had anything to do with Eastern Europe, ever.

[Martinus]

The list includes 18 Poles. 

Among them is the Speaker of the European Parliament (not sure if he is one still or did his term end last year) (from PO), a former foreign affairs minister in the PiS government, the Speaker of the Polish Senate (from PO), and a MEP and former security advisor to a social-democrat President (from SLD). It seems to have been thrown together quite haphazardly.

[The Larch]

For Spain they have picked one of the VPs of the EP, and a guy that sits in the Foreign Relations Committee of the EP - except that he's specialized in relations with Latin America and hasn't had anything to do with Eastern Europe, ever.

Who are they?

[Duque de Bragança]

For Spain they have picked one of the VPs of the EP, and a guy that sits in the Foreign Relations Committee of the EP - except that he's specialized in relations with Latin America and hasn't had anything to do with Eastern Europe, ever.

Who are they?

Ramon Luis
VALCARCEL SISO
Stv. Vorsitzender des EP, ehem. Präsident der
Regierung der autonomen Region Murcia,
SPANIEN

José Ignacio
SALAFRANCA
SANCHEZ-NEYRA
Ehem. Mitglied AFET-Fraktion, SPANIEN

[The Larch]

Ramón Valcárcel? I knew that PP had parked him in Brussels to get rid of him but I was not aware of him getting any relevant position there. He's a doofus.

Never heard of the other one.

[Syt]

http://rt.com/politics/263833-russia-blacklists-foreign-ministry/

'Below the belt': Foreign ministry slams Western diplomats for disclosing Russian blacklists

The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed disappointment at their Western colleagues for publicizing lists of people subject to personal sanctions in Russia. They called such measures a threat to mutual trust.

"When European partners surpass all boundaries, it can't cause anything but disappointment. How can we trust such partners?" Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Meshkov told Interfax.

The comment came soon after Finnish mass media published a list of people included in Russia's blacklist, introduced as a reply to the Western policy of personal sanctions that started in 2014.

Meshkov elaborated that the Russian blacklist was formed over 12 months ago, after a similar action against Russian officials was undertaken by the European Union. He emphasized that every inclusion in the list was backed up by a number of reasons. The diplomat also told reporters the list was transferred to European diplomats after repeated requests and on condition of non-disclosure.

"We do not consider this as a political demarche. We simply wanted to ease the lives of those who are on this list. All that happened afterwards lies completely on our European partners' conscience," Meshkov noted.

The official explained the initial request from the EU was apparently prompted by the need to save time and effort of people, who suspected they were banned from entering Russia, and didn't want to apply for visas if they were to be refused anyway.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov commented on the situation with blacklists on Monday: "We didn't want to make this public. When the European Union introduced restrictions on 150 Russian citizens we did the same, but targeted a smaller number of EU citizens. We didn't want to follow the EU's bad example and turn the disclosure of these names into a loud campaign," Lavrov said.

Deputy director of the Foreign Ministry's Information Directorate, Mariya Zakharova, described Russia's stance on the problem in an extensive Facebook post published on Sunday. She said the blacklist was sent to EU officials confidentially and after repeated requests, only to be immediately disclosed to the press.

"Gentlemen, this was below the belt," Zakharova wrote. She also claimed Russian diplomats had long ago stopped being surprised at the dishonesty of their Western partners, but this time it was on a shocking scale.

"Sanctions policies not approved by the UN Security Council are an aimless action that has never yielded any positive result," she wrote.

In mid-March this year, popular Russian daily Izvestia said Moscow had slapped sanctions on over 200 foreign officials known for their anti-Russian positions and actions. The newspaper concentrated on the US section of the list that included Deputy National Security Advisor Caroline Atkinson, and firebrand Arizona Senator John McCain. Izvestia also quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry source as saying that further expansion of the Russian sanctions lists was possible if Western nations choose to continue the standoff.

It appears that Russia shared the list after a German politician who went to Moscow to talk to a Russian politician who was on the sanction list, something Moscow normally enjoys, because it shows that those "banned" politicians aren't isolated and are still available as partners. The German was not permitted entry of Russia and had to spend the night in the transit area of the Moscow airport, causing much consternation.

[celedhring]

Ramón Valcárcel? I knew that PP had parked him in Brussels to get rid of him but I was not aware of him getting any relevant position there. He's a doofus.

Never heard of the other one.

Valcárcel has had lots of cushy European posts. Lead the Regions Committee, now is one of the Vice Presidents of the EP.

The whole thing just smacks of "we need some Spaniards in that list", and they coming up with a couple of Spaniards with posts in the EP, even though our parties routinely use the EP to park their dinosaurs and nobody there will have any relevance.

[Valmy]

We simply wanted to ease the lives of those who are on this list. All that happened afterwards lies completely on our European partners' conscience

What happened exactly? Russia got embarrassed?

How will they sleep at night? Russia should just blacklist everybody not Russian in the entire world and get it over with.

[Solmyr]

an irrelevant neo-nazi.

Usually those are welcome in Russia.

[Syt]

We simply wanted to ease the lives of those who are on this list. All that happened afterwards lies completely on our European partners' conscience

What happened exactly? Russia got embarrassed?

How will they sleep at night? Russia should just blacklist everybody not Russian in the entire world and get it over with.

Russia made Western diplomats pinkie swear that they would keep the lists under wraps. That they got released just shows how untrustworthy the West is. Also, Russia is nicer than the West, because they put fewer people on the list.

[Syt]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/putin-s-secret-budget-hides-shift-toward-war-economy

The Secret Money Behind Vladimir Putin's War Machine

If Vladimir Putin's ends remain mysterious, so do the means.

Putin is allocating unprecedented amounts of secret funds to accelerate Russia's largest military buildup since the Cold War, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The part of the federal budget that is so-called black -- authorized but not itemized -- has doubled since 2010 to 21 percent and now totals 3.2 trillion rubles ($60 billion), the Gaidar Institute, an independent think tank in Moscow, estimates.

Stung by sanctions over Ukraine and oil's plunge, Putin is turning to defense spending to revive a shrinking economy. The outlays on new tanks, missiles and uniforms highlight the growing militarization that is swelling the deficit and crowding out services such as health care. Thousands of army conscripts will be moved into commercial enterprises for the first time to aid in the rearmament effort.

"The government has two urgent tasks: strengthening security at all levels of society and promoting innovation to end the macroeconomic stagnation," said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies and an adviser to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. "The solution to both problems is to intensify the development of the military-industrial complex."

Since bringing the country back from the brink of bankruptcy a decade and a half ago, Putin has increased defense spending more than 20-fold in ruble terms. In dollars, it exceeded $84 billion last year, more than any other nation except the U.S. and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

'Permanent War'

Defense and the related category of national security and law enforcement now eat up 34 percent of the budget, more than double the ratio in 2010. The U.S., by comparison, spent 18 percent, or $615 billion, of its budget last year on defense and international security, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Putin's Secret Spending

After studying Putin's actions in Ukraine, including his seizure of Crimea, the National Defense Academy of Latvia, a former Soviet satellite that is now part of NATO and the European Union, concluded that Russia's ultimate aim is to introduce "a state of permanent war as the natural condition in national life."

"We can and must do for the defense industry what we did for Sochi," Putin told generals and executives near the Black Sea resort on May 12, referring to the $50 billion Russia spent to host the 2014 Winter Olympics there. "All questions relating to adequate resource allocation have been resolved."

'Industrial Battalions'

That same day, Putin signed documents creating what he called the "industrial battalions" program, which will give thousands of draftees the option of working in defense enterprises instead of joining the regular military.

After years of chronic funding problems for weapons makers, Russia has started to prepay for the goods and services it buys from the more than 1,300 organizations and 2.5 million people that make up the defense industry. About half of this year's defense budget was dispensed in just the first quarter, though most of what was paid for is classified.

The secret share of Russia's budget may rise to 25 percent in 2016 as the military buildup continues and "more agencies and activities (such as border protection) are classified as national security," the International Monetary Fund said in a report last year. Many of Russia's fellow Group of 20 members cloak less than 1 percent of their spending, the IMF said.

'Military Transformation'

One thing that isn't being hidden from the public is the number of people in uniform, which is "perhaps the most palpable sign of Russia's military transformation," according to Igor Sutyagin, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

"While uniformed manpower has declined in every Western nation since 2011, the number of Russian personnel increased by 25 percent to 850,000 between 2011 and mid-2014 -- although this was still short of the 1-million manpower target set in 2010," Sutyagin said in a research note.

Russia also has about 2.5 million active reservists out of a total population of 143 million, according to Global Firepower, which studies the conventional warmaking capabilities of 129 countries. It ranks Russia No. 2, after the U.S. and ahead of China, India and the U.K.

Confusing NATO

Russia is already the main challenger to the U.S. when it comes to selling arms. It delivered some $16 billion of fighter jets, missiles and other weapons around the world last year, accounting for about 3.2 percent of the country's exports, according to Pukhov of the Center for Analysis.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, created in 1949 to contain the Soviet Union, said it's not sure what Putin is trying to achieve with either his actions in Ukraine or his weapons program.

"We cannot fully grasp Putin's intent," the alliance's top military commander, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, told Congress in April, according to the Defense Department's website. "What we can do is learn from his actions, and what we see suggests growing Russian capabilities, significant military modernization and an ambitious strategic intent."

[Admiral Yi]

Gaidar Institute

he he.  he he.  he he.

[Eddie Teach]

Putin is starting to go off on the Gaidar? Guess it has to do with going shirtless all the time.