The State of Affairs in Russia

[DGuller]

The "sanctions" bullshit is a pretext.  We're doing what we were planning to do anyway once we realized that Russia was getting off its knees.

Ok, FSB.

You know, not every Russian secret agent works for FSB.

[Duque de Bragança]

The "sanctions" bullshit is a pretext.  We're doing what we were planning to do anyway once we realized that Russia was getting off its knees.

Ok, FSB.

You know, not every Russian secret agent works for FSB.

All right, GRU.

[jimmy olsen]

https://www.rt.com/politics/318638-negative-attitude-of-russians-to/


In addition, 75 percent of pollsters said that all major industrialized nations were hostile to Russia and wanted to solve their domestic problems at Moscow's expense.

I wonder why? 

[Eddie Teach]

All right, GRU.

GRU has more important things to do than subtle messageboard propaganda.

[Syt]

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russias-war-mentality-boosts-treason-case-count/539131.html

Russia's 'War' Mentality Boosts Treason Case Count

The number of convictions for treason in Russia tripled in 2014 and experts say the figure looks set to rise again this year as relations with the West deteriorate, tensions over Ukraine persist and Russia's intelligence services focus their attention on uncovering yet more spies, turncoats and traitors.

The maximum sentence for treason is 20 years and the secrecy associated with the charge usually means court sessions take place behind closed doors.

Many cases gain little or no public attention, and sometimes the defendant and their lawyers do not have access to all the information about the crimes they are supposed to have committed.

"Everything is linked to Ukraine," said Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer specializing in treason cases who saw charges against two of his clients dropped this year. "When there is a war they look for enemies."

Amid Russia's deepening international isolation over Ukraine and now Syria, officials routinely characterize association with foreign organizations as a possible threat to national security.

There were 15 treason convictions last year, all resulting in lengthy prison terms, according to Supreme Court data. In 2013 there were a mere four convictions.

There are no official statistics for 2015, but Russian media have reported on four treason convictions so far this year and at least one treason trial is currently ongoing. A spokesperson for a Moscow court told state news agency RIA Novosti in March that seven people accused of treason had been placed under arrest in the capital's high-security Lefortovo prison since January.

"There are new cases every month," said Zoya Svetova, a journalist and human rights activist who has met many of those accused of treason in Lefortovo, and tracks their cases.

Many treason trials never get reported because the Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor agency of the KGB, frightens relatives and defendants into silence, according to Pavlov, with a favorite tactic being to promise shorter sentences in exchange for cooperation with investigators.

Many treason defendants are given state-appointed lawyers who oversee a confession of guilt from their clients, said Pavlov. One such lawyer, Andrei Stebenev — who was appointed to represent treason defendants Yevgeny Petrin, Gennady Kravtsov, Svetlana Davydova and Valery Selyanin — was disbarred earlier this year for failing to provide proper legal support to Davydova.

Russia's treason laws were controversially broadened in 2012 so that there are now three main definitions of the crime: spying, accidentally or deliberately divulging state secrets, and passing information to a foreign organization that harms Russian security.

A lesser charge, that of revealing state secrets, carries a much lighter sentence than treason. Foreign nationals accused of spying cannot be accused of treason, and are charged instead with espionage. Both of these charges also appear to be being used more and more frequently in Russia.

The Moscow Times has compiled a list of 13 treason cases that have emerged this year using open source data and interviews with lawyers and human rights activists. 

Yevgeny Chistov
Arrested: 2014
Status: Unknown
Almost nothing is known about Yevgeny Chistov. The treason charges against him were made public in July when a spokesperson for Lefortovo court in Moscow said that his detention had been extended until September. According to Russian news agency Interfax, he was arrested last year. Human rights activist Svetova said Chistov is a former FSB officer who refuses to talk about his case.

Svetlana Davydova
Arrested: January 2015
Status: Freed in February 2015
Of all the treason cases in recent months, the accusations against Svetlana Davydova, 37, created the biggest public outcry. The mother of seven children, including a two-month-old girl, Davydova was arrested because of a phone call she made to the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow in April 2014 to inform them that Russian troops stationed near her home in the town of Vyazma in the western Smolensk region had left their barracks and could be on their way to fight in Ukraine. Davydova, a staunch opponent of Russian interference in Ukraine, was released from Lefortovo prison on Feb. 3 after more than 40,000 people petitioned the Kremlin on her behalf. The charges — a rare case of security officials using new treason clauses added in 2012 — were dropped in March.

Kasyan (first name unknown)
Arrested: February 2014
Status: Unknown
The only public mention of Kasyan (whose first name has not been disclosed) was in a June report from the Interfax news agency, citing unidentified security sources, that said he had been arrested for treason in the southern city of Sochi one day after the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics held there. "Since then more than a year has passed, but neither the local FSB press service nor regional media has mentioned him," Interfax noted.

Gennady Kravtsov
Arrested: May 2014
Status: Sentenced to 14 years in September 2015
Reading the verdict for Gennady Kravtsov in a Moscow court earlier this year, the judge said that he had taken into account Kravtsov's two young children — aged 4 and 8 — when deciding the sentence. He proceeded to give Kravtsov 14 years behind bars — one year less than that requested by prosecutors. Kravtsov, who worked as an engineer specializing in satellites for Russia's GRU military intelligence agency between 1990 and 2005, was convicted of treason on the basis of a job application letter he sent to a Swedish defense firm five years ago. Kravtsov, who denies his guilt, described his sentence in court as "madness."

Germanov (first name unknown)
Arrested: Unknown
Status: Unknown
No information about Germanov (whose first name has not been disclosed) is available apart from the June Interfax report that also mentioned Kasyan. Interfax, citing unidentified security sources, said Germanov was a soldier accused of treason who has been under arrest for more than a year. "Germanov's case has already been transferred [up] to the regional level and his term of arrest was extended at the start of the year by the North Caucasus district military court," the Interfax report read.

Vladimir Lapygin
Arrested: Unknown
Status: Pretrial detention
The arrest of Vladimir Lapygin only became public knowledge in late July when Interfax cited an unidentified security service source as saying that the 75-year-old scientist was facing treason accusations. Lapygin's house arrest was extended by a Moscow court to Nov. 13 earlier this month. According to Interfax, Lapygin worked at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIImash), an offshoot of Roscosmos, Russia's national space agency, and was also a professor at the prestigious Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

Maxim Lyudomirsky
Arrested: 2014
Status: Pretrial detention
The first public mention of Maxim Lyudomirsky by Russian officials was in July, when Russian news agencies quoted a court spokesperson as saying that Lyudomirsky's detention was being extended. Russian tabloid LifeNews, which has close ties to the security services, reported at the time that Lyudomirsky, 58, was head engineer at the Moscow-based laser technology company Electrooptika and is suspected of passing secrets about weapons development to a foreign state. Lyudomirsky previously owned 23 percent of Electrooptika and was arrested in 2014, according to Interfax. Lyudomirsky's detention was reportedly extended last month until Nov. 25.

Sergei Minakov
Arrested: January 2015
Status: Freed in March 2015
Unexpectedly released from Lefortovo just two months after he was detained on treason charges, little is known about Sergei Minakov. According to a March blog entry by human rights activist Svetova, Minakov grew up in an orphanage and was a soldier in the Soviet army in Afghanistan before serving on the Black Sea Fleet as an electrician. When he was arrested, he was working on civilian trawlers in the Black Sea, according to Svetova. Other media reports suggest he was serving on the Black Sea Fleet's Koida tanker when he was detained. Days after a relative of Minakov's hired Pavlov as a lawyer, investigators dropped the case. Minakov has made no public statement since he was set free.

Pyotr Parpulov
Arrested: March 2014
Status: On trial
Currently standing trial in Krasnodar, the accusations against Pyotr Parpulov reportedly arose from a trip he took to neighboring Georgia in 2010. Parpulov denies the treason charges. According to his relatives, Parpulov was employed by Sochi Airport for more than 30 years, and was working in a senior position there at the time of his arrest. Parpulov's 25-year-old daughter Yulia Parpulova told the Kavkazsky Uzel (Caucasian Knot) news website in February that her father was arrested in a dawn raid on the family's apartment and that she had not been allowed a meeting with him for almost a year. "I have seen more unfairness and more legal violations in Parpulov's case than I have seen in my whole career as a lawyer," Parpulov's lawyer Oleg Yeliseyev told Kavkazsky Uzel on Oct. 8.

Yevgeny Petrin
Arrested: June 2014
Status: Pretrial detention
A major in the FSB until 2013, Petrin was accused of working in the interests of the U.S. and arrested in June 2014 while employed in the internal communications department of the Russian Orthodox Church's Moscow patriarchate. Petrin, who denies his guilt, maintains that he uncovered a group of spies in the Russian Orthodox Church trying to worsen relations with the Orthodox Church in Ukraine — and was meeting with foreigners, with the knowledge of colleagues, in an effort to find out more. In an interview in February with the Yod news website, Petrin's brother Andrei said that investigators threatened to poison Petrin and kill his cat, which had been left alone in his apartment after his arrest, and bring it to him in pieces. According to his brother, Petrin is an accomplished linguist, thought seriously about becoming a monk and decided to join the FSB at the urging of nationalist firebrand politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Petrin's lawyer Ivan Pavlov said on Oct. 9 that the investigation into Petrin was complete and the defense team had received the case materials ahead of the upcoming trial.

Valery Selyanin
Arrested: 2013
Status: Sentenced to 15 years in June 2015
Little is known about Valery Selyanin, whom human rights activist Svetova described as a 59-year-old physicist who got involved in business in the 1990s. He is reportedly accused of treason because of equipment he handed to two Iranian men. In a handwritten letter from Selyanin that Svetova posted on her blog earlier this year, he wrote: "Today even the most incorrigible idealist does not believe that there can be fair sentences in criminal proceedings in Moscow courts based on evidence from the FSB." Selyanin denies his guilt, according to Svetova.

Viktor Shur
Arrested: December 2014
Status: Sentenced to 12 years in October 2015
An amateur coin collector and former oil worker, Viktor Shur was arrested on a trip to the western Russian city of Bryansk from his adopted home of Ukraine where he held a residency permit. A spokesperson for a court in Bryansk — where Shur was convicted earlier this month — said that Shur admitted he was guilty of collecting secret information for Ukrainian intelligence services about Russian military installations. Shur's son Valery told Ukrainian media earlier this year that his father was not a spy and was cooperating with investigators to avoid a long sentence.

Roman Ushakov
Arrested: August 2013
Status: Sentenced to 15 years in March 2015
Roman Ushakov was reportedly arrested after collecting money and orders from the CIA that were left under a specially modified rock in the Moscow suburb of Biryulyovo. The 33-year-old from Siberia was working as a police major in 2009 when investigators allege he contacted the CIA via their website and began a four-year collaboration with agents from the U.S. intelligence agency. Ushakov reportedly admitted all the charges and asked for forgiveness. The judge in Moscow's district court gave him three years more than the 12 years requested by prosecutors. Russian counterespionage officers became suspicious of Ushakov in 2013 when, after leaving the police force, he took trips abroad to Finland, the United Kingdom, Spain and Turkey, the Kommersant newspaper reported in March.

Zakhar Agapishvili, Sergei Danilchenko, Levan Charkviani and Konstantin Yashin
Arrested: Unknown
Status: Serving prison sentences
Zakhar Agapishvili, Sergei Danilchenko, Levan Charkviani and Konstantin Yashin were sailors in Russia's Black Sea Fleet who were sentenced on treason charges, according to a February report by the Interfax news agency, citing an unidentified source. The Interfax report is the only public mention of the four men, other than information on Russia's Supreme Court website stating that their appeal was denied and that the sentence against the four men on treason charges came into force in November 2014. Agapishvili and Danilchenko were officers in the Black Sea Fleet, while Charkviani and Yashin were rank-and-file sailors, according to Interfax.

[Liep]

Are there show trials yet?

[The Brain]

There will be fewer, but better, Russians.

[Liep]

Russian history as told by cat gifs. (Explanations in Russian)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/victorstepanov/cat-gifstory#.li5kEVwzd

[Solmyr]

Russian history as told by cat gifs. (Explanations in Russian)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/victorstepanov/cat-gifstory#.li5kEVwzd

For the Russian-challenged, the gif titles and captions are:

Baptism of Rus, 988
It is said in the chronicles: He who does not appear at the river in the set time, becomes an enemy of our lord Jesus Christ.

Internecine wars of the sons of Vladimir I, 1015-1019
Brother marched against brother, and those wars lasted four years.

Mongol invasion, 1237-1242
Huge Mongol hordes marched on Slav lands.

The Mongol yoke, 1243-1480
At that time the Russian princes paid tribute to the khans. And the khans gave them yarliks to rule lands and properties.

Reign of Ivan the Terrible, 1547-1584
Executions, killing of enemies, oprichnina.

Yermak's Siberian expedition, 1582-1583
Yermak and his Cossacks ventured up the rivers, crossed swamps and forests.

Time of Troubles, 1598-1613
Prolonged wars, mass executions, conflict among boyars.

Beginning of the Russian navy under Peter I, 1696
The Tsar ordered to build ships and to lower them on the water.

Mikhail Lomonosov walks to Moscow, 1731
He sought knowledge himself and instructed us to do the same.

Suvorov crossing the Alps, 1799
Soldiers under command of the great military leader crossed the high snowy cliffs.

War with Napoleon, 1812
After a lengthy retreat, Russian forces drove Napoleon from Moscow to Paris.

The Decembrist Uprising, 1825
The uprising is crushed, the dreams are shattered.

Opening of the railroad connection between St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1851
Infernal monstrosity made from iron and breathing fire like the Devil.

Sale of Alaska to the USA, 1867
For 7.2 million dollars!

October Revolution, 1917
The hurricane of revolution swept across the whole country.

Creation of first kolkhozes, 1918
Work, work, and again work.

Signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 1939
Somebody, stop the presses!

Occupation of Berlin and Germany's capitulation, 1945
Victory!

Stalin's cult of personality, 1930-1956
Oh, great Soviet leader comrade Stalin!

Gagarin's space flight, 1961
Space was conquered by Soviet cat man.

Khruschev's corn campaign, 1963
Om nom nom corn, said Khruschev.

Brezhnev's rule and the period of stagnation, 1964-1985
Two words: developed socialism.

Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, 1985
Cats for sobriety.

Disintegration of USSR, 1991
"Such a country we lost."

Boris Yeltsin's second term, 1996-1999
Voted with our hearts and took off.

And about the rest we'll talk some other time.

[Syt]

https://www.rt.com/politics/319287-nyc-far--expensive-russian/

'NYC far & expensive': Russian MP says UN headquarters must be moved from America

A lawmaker from ruling party United Russia says the United Nations Organization should move its headquarters from the United States to a place equidistant from all capitals of UN member-countries.

"The reforms are necessary and they should reflect the growing importance of the new centers of power – our partners from the BRICS bloc. This especially applies to India which is now world's third-largest economy and which will become the country with the world's largest population in the next seven or eight years," MP Vyacheslav Nikonov said at the State Duma session on Wednesday.

The lawmaker added that other centers of power were Brazil and South African Republic – the largest economies in South America and Africa.

Nikonov also insisted that the headquarters of the United Nations should not remain in the United States as "over the past 20 years this country has applied illegal sanctions to more than half of all humanity." Another example of the US behavior that required urgent action was the recent decision to restrict the rights of Russian parliamentary speakers who needed to visit the New York City to take part in the inter-parliamentary events at the UN, he noted.

READ MORE: Move UN HQ to neutral country, says Russian MP

"Why should it be in New York City? It's far away and it's expensive. Why don't we choose the following criteria instead – determine a point on Planet Earth that would be equidistant from the capitals of all 183 member-countries of the UN," RIA Novosti quoted the lawmaker as saying.

This is not the first time that a Russian politician proposes to move the United Nations offices from NYC. In August, State Duma MP Igor Zotov (Fair Russia) addressed the UN Secretary-General with a letter in which he stated that the UN headquarters must be located in a neutral country and accused the USA of using its position to apply leverage against its political opponents.

Zotov noted that the current placement of the UN offices allows the United States to manipulate the work of the General Assembly through "selective" access of other nations' politicians to the working meetings of the body. He also suggested that the decision to move the UN headquarters is made through a broad consensus of representatives of all UN member-countries, various activists and politicians, and legal and political experts.

READ MORE: Top senator urges UN to punish nations that impose unilateral sanctions

This initiative appeared soon after the scandal in which US authorities issued a delayed and restricted visa to the chair of the Russian upper house, Valentina Matviyenko, who planned to attend an inter-parliamentary conference at UN headquarters and meet UN Secretary-General in New York City. As a result, the entire Russian delegation had to cancel its participation in the event and the meeting between Matviyenko and Ban had to be postponed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the only place on Earth that's roughly equidistant from all capitals be at the center of the Earth? I'm not sure if rock monsters and mole men would approve. 

[garbon]

I just tried for a few minutes about Valentina Matviyenko in relation to the US and to UN and I could only find articles that were from RT or outlets unknown to me that look to have just cribbed the RT article.

[Eddie Teach]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the only place on Earth that's roughly equidistant from all capitals be at the center of the Earth? I'm not sure if rock monsters and mole men would approve. 

Perhaps the Moon might be more practical. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the only place on Earth that's roughly equidistant from all capitals be at the center of the Earth? I'm not sure if rock monsters and mole men would approve. 

Perhaps the Moon might be more practical. 

not equidistant :p

[Eddie Teach]

Not at a given time, but it meets the spirit of the demand.

[Monoriu]

The equidistant part is obviously unrealistic, but I do agree that it seems odd for the UN to be headquartered in the US.  Would be better if it is based in, say Switzerland, or some island in the middle of nowhere.