The State of Affairs in Russia

[Admiral Yi]

That chick with the perfect nose could troll me all she wants to.

[Malthus]

That chick with the perfect nose could troll me all she wants to.

Except it would just turn out to be a 300 pound Russian trucker pretending to be that chick with the perfect nose.   

[MadImmortalMan]

The NYT article includes a pic, so I think it's really her. Also Der Spiegel.

[Valmy]

That chick with the perfect nose could troll me all she wants to.

Except it would just turn out to be a 300 pound Russian trucker pretending to be that chick with the perfect nose.   

In fact Malthus' Aunt is just a 300 pound trucker pretending to be an author. Truth.

[Syt]

http://tass.ru/en/russia/799098

Lawmaker: Moscow can answer possible deployment of US nuclear missiles in Europe

Colonel General Viktor Zavarzin said "the US administration needs to weigh everything carefully before making such ill-considered steps"

MOSCOW, June 5. /TASS/. Member of the State Duma Defense committee Colonel General Viktor Zavarzin has said that Russia has counter-arguments to the possible deployment of US nuclear missiles in Europe.

"If the Americans indeed deploy their ground-based nuclear missiles in Europe, in this case we will face the necessity of retaliating. And we have such an opportunity," Zavarzin told TASS on Friday.
He confirmed that the current state and technical equipment of the Russian Armed Forces made it possible to respond immediately to all challenges and threats emanating from outside the country's borders. "In this case, the US administration needs to weigh everything carefully before making such ill-considered steps," he said.

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that the Obama administration was considering the deployment of land-based missiles in Europe "that could pre-emptively destroy the Russian weapons". The AP cites an unclassified portion of a report written by the office of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey "that examines weapons the US could develop and deploy if freed from INF treaty constraints."

[Syt]

Someone, think of the children!

http://rt.com/politics/265702-russia-selfie-lessons-safe/

Safety first – activist suggests teaching children to make risk-free selfies

A public movement suggests extracurricular lessons of "safe selfies" in Russian schools to bring down the growing number of accidents caused by the new fad.

The organizer of the "For Security" group, Dmitry Kurdesov, told popular daily Izvestia that he and his colleagues had prepared an appeal to the Education Ministry with the request to aid them in introducing the "safe selfie lessons." He claimed that the course program had been prepared together with police and professional photographers.

"The recent accidents in which people suffer from 'unsafe selfies' have become frequent. We must teach people from childhood that easy ways to success are dangerous," Kurdesov told reporters.

The activist said that the safe selfie lessons would be organized in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg already this year from September 1, and expressed hope that the initiative would soon spread nationwide. He also suggested that the authorities impose fines on those who pursue dangerous hobbies like roof climbing.

The Education Ministry has been skeptical about the suggestion. Its press service told Izvestia that Russian schools already head a separate course on "safe living" that included tips on handling various objects, including modern electronic devices.

A professional psychiatrist said in comments to Izvestia that making selfies was a symptom of a mental illness caused by severe lack of attention from parents. By making pictures of themselves children compensate for lack of parental attention, at least for a short time, the specialist said, adding that kids from happy families are not usually fond of selfies. The psychiatrist concluded that saving children from dangerous safety was the work for doctors and not for police or photographers.

A Moscow school director suggested that the movement exercised their teaching not in classes but in city parks so that children could learn the safe selfie making in their free time.

This spring several children and teenagers all over Russia sustained injuries when attempting to shoot a selfie. The ways of self-harm included electrocution and falls from high places. One girl accidentally shot herself in the head with a rubber bullet when posing for a selfie with a pistol.

The "For Security" movement gained notoriety in April when its leader asked the Interior Ministry to institute special "anti-troll" police that would prosecute internet users for threats, insults or creating fake accounts.

[celedhring]

At some point it will be revealed that RT is actually the Russian version of The Onion and we will look like a bunch of mugs.

It's the only possible explanation.

[jimmy olsen]

Not even technically illegal and ignored, wow, that's some 19th century stuff right there. I'm surprised there isn't a Soviet law on the books on this that was simply never enforced.

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jun/10/moscow-domestic-violence-problem-russia

Anna Zhavnerovich went to the police a week after she says her boyfriend beat her unconscious, determined to make sure he was arrested and brought to justice. She was surprised by some of the questions the Moscow police officers asked her when she recounted what had happened, her face still painfully swollen and discoloured.


"They asked me why I didn't have any children," she remembers. "They asked me if I was married." Beneath their line of questioning was the suggestion that somehow the attack was her fault.

They told her that they would investigate, but a few weeks later she received a letter informing her that the case had been dropped. Her ex-boyfriend had not been questioned and no further action was proposed. When she tried to hire a lawyer to start a private suit, she was told that the police had lost her files.

Zhavnerovich, 28, a journalist at a fashionable Moscow-based online lifestyle website W-O-S, chose instead to write an article about what had happened to her. Its publication last month attracted huge attention, highlighting an issue that for decades has been an almost unmentionable taboo. Zhavnerovich was bombarded with hundreds of emails and Facebook posts from women who wanted to tell her that they, too, had been beaten up by partners and struggled to get the authorities to register a complaint.

"I think people were surprised to read that this was happening in young, fashionable Moscow circles – not something to do with alcoholics in some remote, backward village somewhere. That's why it triggered such a huge reaction from the public," Zhavnerovich said. "Judging by the responses I have had, the scale of the problem is enormous."

The interest her account provoked chimed with a political shift in attitudes to this issue, which is finally edging towards the political mainstream. After decades of failed attempts to draft legislation that identifies domestic violence as a crime, politicians at the Moscow Duma hope this session of parliament to debate a new law, which will make it easier for victims to prosecute their attackers, and introduce a series of preventative measures, such as restraining orders and behavioural therapy for offenders.

Politicians have already considered (and abandoned) more than 50 draft versions of a law on domestic violence since the early 1990s, but this time there is muted optimism from campaigners, who say a series of high-profile cases are finally bringing this hidden issue into the open, strengthening demand for improvements in the way complaints from women are handled.

The current debates over how Russia deals with domestic violence reflect changing attitudes to women, in a country where family values remain conservative. It touches on a perplexing Russian paradox – that while the Russian government has long promoted equality in the work place, attitudes towards women remain patriarchal. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, which was considering the issue of domestic violence, expressed concern in 2010 at the "state party's repeated emphasis on the role of women as mothers and caregivers".

"If he beats you, he loves you," goes a well-known Russian proverb, a wry articulation of an acceptance that being hit by your husband is simply an everyday part of human relationships. Marina Pisklakova, head of ANNA, a Moscow-based charity which has been fighting for improved support for victims of domestic violence since the 1990s, points out that the violence itself is a global problem, but that Russia is unusual in having such inadequate legislation.

"We desperately need the legislation because when there is no legislation, it makes it look like this is something that is tolerated by society, so the legislation in itself will be a powerful statement that this is not something that is acceptable – and I think that will have an impact on behaviour," she said.

Because there is no separate classification for domestic violence, there are no reliable statistics on prevalence, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated in 2008 that it occurs in 25% of all families, and that 14,000 women die every year "at the hands of husbands or other relatives", with nearly 65% of all homicides related to domestic violence.

"The reporting is very low. It is a very concealed issue," Pisklakova said. "But things are changing; there is not as much denial as there was."

14,000 Russian women die every year at the hands of husbands and relatives

President Vladimir Putin had indicated that he would support the bill, but elsewhere there has been hostility to the proposed legislation. A Russian orthodox archbishop, and Russia's official children's rights ombudsman, criticised groups campaigning on this issue in March, accusing them of disseminating "anti-family propaganda". Pavel Astakhov wrote on his Instagram account: "The family is the safest place! Far more crimes happen in public places, on transport and in stores ... Constant and excessive use of the term 'domestic violence' serves to intimidate families and parents." He advised the government against Russia signing a Council of Europe convention on preventing domestic abuse, arguing that it would be against Russia's "national interests".

Currently, the only cases that get serious consideration from the police and the courts are those where the woman has suffered serious physical injuries or been killed. The onus is on women to file a case, but most lack the necessary legal expertise, let alone money for a lawyer. The system is so complicated that 90% of filed cases are dismissed for technical reasons, and only around 3% result in criminal convictions of any kind. Because a fine of 50,000 roubles (about £630) is the most likely outcome, police are reluctant to accept the bureaucratic work involved in processing a case, said Nikolai Levshits, who works with the charity Russia Behind Bars.

The UN's special rapporteur on violence against women concluded in a recent report: "The lack of a specific law on domestic violence in Russia is a major obstacle to combating this violence."

The emerging campaigns for improvement reveal the strength of the internet in empowering previously voiceless groups of people. Alyona Popova, an activist on this issue, whose change.org petition calling for legislation gathered 120,000 signatures within days of being launched, explains that she became involved after a friend's boyfriend beat her violently. "After 24 hours, he visited her in hospital carrying a huge bunch of flowers and she responded by telling me: 'He is perfect; he is my future. Perhaps this was all my fault.' This is a powerful women, an entrepreneur who runs her own business, and her response was not unusual," she said. "Most women don't go to court. They feel shame; they blame themselves."

She is concerned about the number of women in prison for murder, committed in self-defence. "They get no protection from the police, so in the end they take a vase and hit him on the head," she said. This is an area little-studied in Russia. "No one has any interest in collecting these figures."

Campaigning is beginning to break a taboo. When allegations emerged that the popular actor Marat Basharov had beaten his actress wife Katya Arkharova so violently last October that she was in a coma, the subject was widely debated on television. "When famous women start talking about it then things begin to change," Popova said, but she is not certain that new legislation will pass. "Most of the deputies are men, and there's a perception that these are family matters that should be dealt with in the family. I'm not that optimistic."

Activist Alyona Popova is concerned about the number of women in prison for murder, committed in self-defence

In 2013, there were 43 shelters across Russia with beds for around 400 women – which represents just 3% of the total number of shelter spaces for women victims of violence recommended by the Council of Europe. But the Moscow government last year built a 35-bedroom, well-equipped complex for battered women, with facilities for therapy and psychological support for children – another clear sign that attitudes are changing.

Natalia Zavialova, head of the state-run centre, said of the 200 women who had stayed in the shelter over the year since it opened, only one had taken her case to court; the rest were unwilling to confront their former partners, or were simply overwhelmed by the difficulties of the legal process. But she senses the start of a shift in the seriousness with which the subject is treated. "People are beginning to talk about the subject more openly and have begun to understand that places like this are essential."

Zhavnerovich said she wrote the article to help other women understand what they need to do if they are beaten by boyfriends or husbands. Written in the form of short diary extracts, the piece is her cool account of what happened to her, beginning with the night before New Year, when she and her boyfriend decided to split up after three years together. They agreed, calmly, that this was for the best, and went to sleep. At around 4am she awoke to find him screaming at her, and hitting her head with his fists. She regained consciousness, aware that blood was streaming from her face. It took her a while to decide what to do; when her boyfriend left the flat to go to the local pharmacy to buy antiseptic cream, she called a friend to come and rescue her.

Initially she didn't want to approach the police, convinced it would be a useless exercise. Her friends offered, quite seriously, to go and take revenge with a baseball bat, also certain that there was little likelihood of a constructive response from an appeal to the police. After a week, still reluctant to leave her friend's flat because her injuries were so horrific, she decided to at least try to register a formal complaint. She shows pictures on her iPhone of her face then, unrecognisable because of the injuries.

After her article was published, several lawyers offered their help, but even with discounts (offered in the hope that she would be writing about their services), she estimated that the bills would run up to about $10,000, equivalent to more than six months' salary. "I'm in a well-paid job, but there's no way I could afford that," she said. "Besides that the whole process is so incredibly complicated, you would have spend all your time on preparing the case, collecting the documents, proving you were a victim, acting as a private detective and a lawyer ... most women just don't have the time or the skills."

She was lucky in that eventually a lawyer agreed to take on her case pro-bono, and she thinks there will be a hearing within the next two months. She hopes that her ex-partner will get some kind of community-service sentence. "I'm not bloodthirsty, hoping for revenge, but I do want the case to go to court. At the moment, I am the one made to feel guilty."

She has received such toxic abuse from online commentators that she no longer reads them, but there has also been support; and within days of publication the article became the most read article in the website's history. "Women have been emancipated since the Soviet Union, but they have never been feminists; that movement is beginning now," she said. Zhavernovich is happy to have helped drag the subject out of the shadows. "This was such an unmentionable subject. It was always there but no one ever talked about it. I felt I had a responsibility to tell people about what happened to me."

[Solmyr]

Poles had a unique chance to shoot down Putin's plane when it was on the way to/from Rome.

[Syt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-33151125

Putin: Russia to boost nuclear arsenal with 40 missiles

President Vladimir Putin says Russia will add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal in 2015.

Speaking at an arms fair, Mr Putin said the weapons would be able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defence systems.

It comes after the US proposed increasing its military presence in Nato states in Eastern Europe.

Tensions are high over Russia's role in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Nato and Western leaders accuse Russia of sending soldiers and heavy weapons including tanks and missiles to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly denied this, insisting that any Russians fighting there are "volunteers".

'Arms race'

Russian officials have warned that Moscow will respond if the US carries out its plan to store heavy military equipment in Eastern Europe, including in the Baltic states that were once part of the Soviet Union.

"The feeling is that our colleagues from Nato countries are pushing us into an arms race," RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov as saying on the sidelines of the arms fair outside Moscow.




Analysis - Jonathan Marcus, BBC News defence and diplomatic correspondent

Amidst the rising tensions with the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed a renewed emphasis upon his country's nuclear arsenal.

This is in part a reflection of Russia's continuing conventional military weakness. Moscow is in the midst of a significant modernisation of its strategic nuclear weapons with new ballistic missiles being deployed, more modern bombers, and new submarines being launched.

Over recent years older, obsolete weapons have been withdrawn from service, so the size of Russia's overall arsenal has been shrinking.

However this decline could soon come to an end, raising all sorts of questions for other nuclear powers.

What most alarms the West is the renewed emphasis in Russian rhetoric on nuclear rather than conventional forces.

Threats to deploy short-range nuclear weapons in the Crimea have been accompanied by veiled warnings of nuclear targeting against Nato members who might host ballistic missile defences.

[Syt]

You know who killed Nemtsov? The Wicked West, of course.

http://rt.com/politics/268000-kadyrov-blames-osmayev-nemtsov/

Chechen leader blames western special services for killing opposition figure Nemtsov

Ramzan Kadyrov has told reporters that the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov could have been masterminded by US and Ukrainian special services, with the help of Chechen terrorists.

"I hold that the traces of this crime should be looked for not in Chechnya but in Ukraine's State Security Service and further in the United States," Interfax news agency quoted Kadyrov as saying Thursday.

The Chechen leader also said that there were many preconditions, hinting at the possibility that Nemtsov's murder could have been organized by Adam Osmayev, an ethnic Chechen who was heading one of the volunteer units fighting on the side of pro-Kiev forces in the military conflict in southeast Ukraine. Kadyrov added: "Osmayev has been working for Western special services and he knows very well how to get rid of a person who causes problems."

"The organizers of the murder used Nemtsov for their own purposes and then killed him, and now they are seeking to shift the blame on somebody," Kadyrov explained.

The Chechen leader also told reporters that his own murder was ordered by Adam Osmayev's father Aslambek Osmayev back in 2004.

Kadyrov categorically ruled out that he himself or any of his subordinates had been involved in Boris Nemtsov's assassination. "There are claims that I have once said that Nemtsov must be killed. But this is not true! Why would we kill him? What had he done to us? Was he causing us any obstructions? He even did not visit us for a long period of time – I last saw him in Gudermes [the Chechen town] 14 years ago."

Kadyrov also said that he knew nothing about the investigation of Nemtsov's murder except for the information provided by relatives of the suspects and their lawyers.

Adam Osmayev was detained in Ukraine in February 2012 on charges of organizing a deadly bombing in Odessa and preparing an attempt on the life of Vladimir Putin, ordered by Chechen terrorist Doku Umarov. Russia demanded extradition of Osmayev but Ukrainian law enforcement turned it down. After the start of conflict in the Donbass, media reports said that Osmayev replaced the killed commander of the "Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion" – a mercenary unit manned largely by ethnic Chechens fighting on the side of the Ukrainian military.

Earlier this year, Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted an unnamed source in the Federal Security Service as saying that investigators consideredOsmayev to be the main suspect in organizing the killing of Boris Nemtsov. The source added that one of the people detained on suspicion of carrying out the hit had been "closely connected" with Osmayev, and that the two men met many times and talked a lot by phone.

Boris Nemtsov was one of the leaders of the Russian opposition party RPR PARNAS who was shot dead in central Moscow in February in an apparent contract hit. About a week after the killing, Moscow police detained five people and charged them with both organizing and carrying out the attack. The investigation into the case continues.

[Martinus]

I love how Kadyrov is a "Chechen leader". It's like calling Hans Frank a "Polish leader". 

[Valmy]

Osmayev has been working for Western special services and he knows very well how to get rid of a person who causes problems.”

By looking at how the Western Special Services do it and doing the opposite I presume.

[Syt]

Russia steps up the War on Colors:

http://rt.com/politics/268378-russian-military-color-revolutions/

Russian military to order major research to counter 'color revolutions'

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has told reporters that the military will sponsor a major research of coups conducted through mass protest – so called 'color revolutions' – to prevent the situations that Russia faced in 1991 and 1993.

"Some people say that the military should not be involved in political processes, some say the direct opposite. We will order a study on the phenomenon of color revolutions and the military's role in their prevention," Shoigu told the participants of the Army-2015 political forum Friday.

"We have no right to allow the repetitions of the collapses of 1991 and 1993," he said. "How to do it is another story, but it is clear that we must deal with the situation. We must understand how to prevent this and how to teach the younger generation so that it supported the calm and gradual development of our country."

The minister added that the consequences of color revolutions can be now observed in many Arab nations and also in Serbia. He also said that the Ukrainian crisis that started in 2014 also was "a major tragedy in the row of color revolutions."

In March this year the head of Russia's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev promised that this body would develop a detailed plan of action aimed at preventing color revolutions or any other attempts of forceful change of lawfully elected authorities through mass street protest. He also said that the Security Council had prepared a list of proposed measures that could negate the possible threat, including some steps against "network protest activities" and propaganda work against "romantic revolutionary stereotype."

Also in March, President Vladimir Putin addressed the dangers of color revolutions in his speech to the Interior Ministry. "The extremists' actions become more complicated," he said. "We are facing attempts to use the so called 'color technologies' in organizing illegal street protests to open propaganda of hatred and strife on social networks."

In the same month, the Interior Ministry drafted a bill containing amendments to the law on rallies that covered car protests and sit-ins. The ministry experts said that the move would circumvent legal ambiguity in the interest of society as a whole.

In November, Putin blasted color revolutions as a main tool used by destructive forces in the geopolitical struggle. "In the modern world, extremism is used as a geopolitical tool for redistribution of spheres of interest. We can see the tragic consequences of the wave of the so-called color revolutions, the shock experienced by people in the countries that went through the irresponsible experiments of hidden, or sometimes brute and direct interference with their lives," the Russian leader said.

In January, a group of Russian conservative activists, uniting war veterans, nationalist bikers and pro-Christian politicians launched an "anti-Maidan" political movement in Moscow to oppose any attempts to thwart the stable development of the country. Its first rallies were held on the same days as some anti-government protests and according to law enforcers the conservatives outnumbered the pro-revolution activists by almost 10-fold.

[Martinus]

Time to deploy the Benetton Brigade.