August 2008 Archives

Peter Kiernan has a pretty good piece in World Politics Review which argues that Washington the West throughout most of the 1990s were accomplishing a lot with very little resources in the Caucasus, but now with Moscow's assertion by invasion, the "free ride" is over. I am not sure that I agree with him that the war did not represent a move on the energy route, but it is still too early to speak with any authority about that.

The construction of the BTC pipeline was a strategic victory for the Clinton administration, which was able to overcome initial oil company skepticism and Russian opposition. By actively helping to secure the supply of energy from the Caspian region via its preferred routes, the U.S. became a player in this previously forgotten part of the world.

"All strategic contracts in Georgia, especially the contract for the Caspian pipeline, are a matter of survival for the Georgian state," Mikheil Saakashvili, who soon became Georgia's president, said in 2003, at the height of that country's Rose Revolution. But the American courtship of Georgia -- and its earlier courtship of Azerbaijan -- was a development that did not go unnoticed in Russia.

Andrew Meier and Michael C. Moynihan are debating the whole Soviet thing over at the LA Times...

First, Russia remains a land of doublespeak.

Listen to what Putin's puppet president, 42-year-old former corporate lawyer Dimitri Medvedev, told the BBC this week: Russia's invasion of Georgia was spurred by the "genocide" in South Ossetia. Even the most rabidly anti-Georgian reports by Russian state news outlets do not justify the claim. Then there was Medvedev's paranoid aside that seemed lifted out of an old Soviet script: his claim that the U.S. is bootlegging caches of arms into Georgia: "What the Americans call humanitarian cargoes -- of course, they are bringing in weapons," he told the BBC. He added graciously, "We're not trying to prevent it." And then Putin continued the paranoid thread on CNN, claiming that "someone in the United States created this conflict to stir up the situation and to create an advantage for one of the candidates" running for president. Lord knows what Putin and Medvedev think Cindy McCain, who also dropped by Tbilisi this week, had hidden in her clutch purse.

Second, Russia remains a land where the state is willing to enhance its power through the extrajudicial punishment -- to the point of murder -- of its own citizens.

The Russians are working hard on pushing the whole "Washington started the war to get McCain elected" angle. Anybody buying yet?

Western leftism and contemporary Russia are like a box of chocolates - you just never know what you're going to get. This one is worth reading however:

Putin’s KGB origins should not be misconstrued. There was a power vacuum when the Soviet state disintegrated and the Communist Party was dismantled. The KGB was the only Soviet-era institution that survived. There was an internal logic in Putin’s use of former KGB people to staff key positions. In the Soviet era, the state bureaucracy was weak compared to the party bureaucracy. Now, only the KGB remained (more or less) intact together with the symbolic memory of Peter the Great. The recent quasi-constitutional farce in which Putin outwardly respects the two-term ban on presidential power, yet virtually appoints his successor and then continues as prime minister—and all this without effective internal dissent or opposition—suggests how deeply ingrained historical traditions of autocratic rule continue to exist, sometimes accompanied by a sham formalism reminiscent of socialist legality.

Here's a bit from an interesting profile of a guy we think is very bad for Russia and Europe.

Germany's foreign minister strolls through an organic farm, buys an apple from smiling children -- and then turns from the idyllic scene to call his counterpart in Norway to discuss the Georgia crisis.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a virtual unknown on the German political scene when he became its top diplomat in 2005, has emerged as the leading candidate to take on conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel in next year's general election.

But if he and his struggling Social Democrats (SPD) are to have a chance against the popular "Angie," Steinmeier knows he will need to shed his image as a serious technocrat and show he can connect with common people.

We've had a number of blog posts featuring commentary from Zenyo Baran, and I think this contribution to the WSJ highlights an important area of concern for NATO, Turkey, Georgia, and stability in the Caucasus.

Nonetheless, Ankara sided with fellow NATO members in telling Georgia and Ukraine that they would be invited to join the alliance -- albeit without any time frame. But now that Russia has waged war in part over this decision, the Turks will have to pick sides. Deputy chief of the Russian general staff Anatoly Nogoivtsyn already warned Turkey that Russia will hold Turkey responsible if the U.S. ships do not leave the Black Sea. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will travel to Ankara on Monday to make clear that Russia means it.

Russia is Turkey's largest trading partner, mostly because of Turkey's dependence on Russian gas. More important, the two countries share what some call the post-imperial stress syndrome: that is, an inability to see former provinces as fellow independent states, and ultimately a wish to recreate old agreements on spheres of influence. When Mr. Putin gave a speech in Munich last year challenging the U.S.-led world order, Turks cheered. The Turkish military even posted it on its Web site. President Abdullah Gül recently suggested that "a new world order should emerge."

In a recent commentary penned by Financial Times columnist Philip Stevens, the argument is made that Russia's ultimate goal is to turn back the clock: to extend his (Putin) country’s borders to create the greater Russia sought by the leaders of the abortive coup against Boris Yeltsin in 1991. The actions documented today further that argument, and may serve as catalysts to the ultimate conglomeration.

Annexation coming? Znaur Gassiyev, the Speaker of South Ossetia’s parliament, said the enclave would formally join Russia "in several years" or possibly earlier. This had been "firmly stated by both leaders” during their meeting in Moscow.

Tarzan Kokoiti, the deputy Speaker, later predicted: “We will live in one united Russian state.”

Somewhere deep down in the labyrinthine hallways of the Kremlin, I like to imagine the silovik team currently handling the country's foreign policy (this week) vigorously debating which foreign leader can most quickly be flown into Tskhinvali for a photo shoot, press conference, and official recognition ceremony (Kokoity might even share a three-liter bowl of wine with the visiting dignitary). Should we bring in Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus? Naw, we're getting close to the annexation date, so that won't look so good! How about our main man in Tehran? No can do, apparently he's been on the phone with Washington all day discussing a deluge of new energy deals. Hugo Chavez of course wants to come over immediately, but Putin just won't put up with another six-hour episode of Aló Presidente.

OK, perhaps they haven't run out of ideas yet, but following Dmitry Medvedev's disappointing trip to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tajikstan, the first round of diplomacy to attract additional nations to sign on for the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia appears to have been in vain. Putin's reaction: blame the whole war on the United States. My reaction: what person in the Kremlin would have ever thought for a second that China would sign up for this one?

Perhaps the catch-all slogan for this year's U.S. presidential election could be "it's not the economy, but the energy, stupid." Surely it takes no genius to see the immense challenge of Moscow's foreign policy as influenced by its control over energy exports, a level of market dominance that has filled them with sufficient confidence to seriously damage relations with the West simply out of the certainty that Europe will continue to buy more and more gas. What else are they going to do, build uranium nuclear power plants?

Um, maybe? There is a possibility, outlined in a very knowledgeable article by Joseph Somsel in the American Thinker, which discusses that the new icy relations between Washington and Moscow could lead many policy makers to accelerate nuclear power development plans to ween Europe off Russian natural gas. The most controversial bit is right here:

I caught this letter to the editor of the IHT from a Rutgers political science professor. I expect we're going to start to hear this perspective quite a lot in the United States soon.

The war against Georgia is not the first instance of Russia's aggressiveness vis-à-vis its former colonies. Estonia was the target of a cyberwar; Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and the Czech Republic have been subjected to energy cut-offs; Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine have been punished by trade sanctions.

These states, like all of Russia's non-Russian neighbors, know that the war in Georgia is really about them.

Roger Boyes has a well intentioned but amusingly flawed column in the New Statesman on the war and what it means for Vladimir Putin's future. The problem with comparing this to the 1968 invasion signifying the "death knell of communism" - is precisely that it took another 23 years to actually happen. I highly doubt that even Mr. Putin himself would still want to be in power in the year 2031, but alas, we are in the days of war, and we should really try to build up a tolerance for flippant and ill-considered historical allegory.

But Russia's invasion of Georgia was a sign of weakness rather than strength. My guess is it will mark the beginning of the end for Putinism, just as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 sounded the death knell of communism. Something is going seriously wrong in Putinland. The Russian economy chips in barely 2.5 per cent to the total global gross domestic product. Oil revenues are being earmarked for modernisation, but the investment is likely to be mismanaged and trickle away. Last week I was in Sebastopol to witness the pride of the Russian Black Sea fleet, which has just seen action in Georgia. Expecting a superpower force, I saw nothing but rust-bucket vessels. Oil cash may be going to the armed forces of the "resurgent" Russia, but most of it is spent on pensions. China's investment in R&D now accounts for 1.42 per cent of its GDP. Russia, well ahead of China a decade ago, barely invests 1 per cent. It is a country in decline.

Master of the iron arteries

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.

Probably the only kind of roads in Russia about which you could say that they exist are railroads. Of course, there aren’t enough of them. Of course, the locomotive pool all needs to be replaced. Of course, the conditions of transportation in the railcars aren’t the most comfortable. Of course, the tickets are expensive. But the reliability and the popularity of this form of transport are long known in Russia. In much this popularity, it is true, reminds one of the Soviet phrase: “Fly the airplanes of Aeroflot!” How else could you fly during the times of the USSR, if you consider that there was nothing else besides Aeroflot. It’s the same with the railroads: everything else is either expensive (airplanes), or worse (buses on the non-roads).

In recent times OAO «RZhD» [Russian Railroads], which is headed by Vladimir Yakunin (photographed), is loudly declaring of itself with non-core undertakings. Recently in Moscow there took place football matches for the RZhD cup, in which took place not only RZhD’s favorite child – the team «Lokomotiv», but also such football clubs as «Chelsea», «Milan», «Sevilla»… Day in and day out, in the mass information media and on TV flashes an advertisement for RZhD in the capacity of sponsor of this or that festival or exhibition.

Sometimes it can be tough to read the signs coming out of Moscow which indicate that they are really, really angry with you. Some might argue that you know there's no love lost when they cut off your gas, stop oil shipments, steal your companies, or even raid your innocent cultural center or eject you from the country. But I disagree. I think that for the most despised opponents, they reserve the artful diplomacy of refusing to import your mineral water, wine, or meat based on "sanitary reasons" - which is to say, we won't consume anything you've put your filthy hands on...

Case in point, a headline from the Wall Street Journal: "Russia Plans To Cut Imports Of U.S. Meat"

Yes, that move should really help Russian citizens in the midst of a food prices crisis....

I'll admit that both the Georgians and the Russians are being a little clumsy with their information spin in this conflict, which at its worst leads skeptical journalists to declare moral equivalence. This bit from the spin wars comes from the New Republic.

"Everybody out. You have 20 minutes to inspect this damage," barks Alexander Machevsky, shock-trooper of the Kremlin's propaganda war in Georgia, as he tries to shepherd 25 Western journalists out the open back of a military truck. Machevsky is not having a good day. As one of Vladimir Putin's senior advisers and an official presidential spokesman, he's had to come back early from his summer vacation to lead this slow-moving group of foreign correspondents around a half-ruined Georgian village just north of Gori--the eastern city Russia occupied during the war this month. And his guests are not exactly the most cooperative. At one point, Machevsky gestures towards a row of bombed-out buildings and explains, "The Georgians have been claiming that this [wreckage] was caused by Russian forces. However, that's not the case. There were gas-leaks, lights were left on, there was criminal activity and of course cases of arson--this was specifically done by Georgian special commandos."

A British journalist butts in: "You're not suggesting, Sasha, that the Georgians burn their own houses--are you?"

Contorting his face in disbelief, Machevsky turns and hisses in Russian to the smiling, implacable Russian colonel accompanying the tour: Wish we could kick him off the truck and leave him here. But the Brit isn't cowed: "Sasha, I speak Russian."

Illustration by KAL, Economist (source)

Dan Fried is right to poke some holes in this dominant Russian narrative, which of course feeds into the portrayal of the country as a "victim" which Bob so often talks about, but this seems like a hard sale. Perhaps the more proper narrative should come from Washington: "once we were strong, but now we are weaker, and can't do much to change the concrete reality on the ground in the Caucasus." Then again, Fried is one of those U.S. officials that likes to feign confusion over Russia's opposition to the missile shield. From the Washington Post:

"There is a Russia narrative that 'we were weak in the '90s, but now we are back and we are not going to take it anymore.' But being angry and seeking revanchist victory is not the sign of a strong nation. It is the sign of a weak one," said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

"Russia is going to have to come to terms with the reality it can either integrate with the world or it can be a self-isolated bully. But it can't be both. And that's a choice Russia has to have," Fried said.

Barack Obama's candidate for Vice President Sen. Joe Biden made the Russian invasion of Georgia a heavy focus of the foreign policy piece of his speech to the Democratic National Convention last night. It would have been hard to imagine just a few months ago that the word "Russia" would barely even make it into anyone's speech at the DNC.

This is pulled from the full text:

As we gather here tonight, our country is less secure and more isolated than at any time in recent history. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has dug us into a very deep hole with very few friends to help us climb out. For the last seven years, this administration has failed to face the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons; the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water; the challenge of climate change; and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front against terrorism.

In recent days, we’ve once again seen the consequences of this neglect with Russia’s challenge to the free and democratic country of Georgia. Barack Obama and I will end this neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its actions, and we’ll help the people of Georgia rebuild.

I’ve been on the ground in Georgia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms: this Administration’s policy has been an abject failure. America cannot afford four more years of this.

I find that lots of politicians are talking about holding Russia accountable, but very few are able to articulate what that would mean.

The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service is investigating LUKoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil producer, on suspicion that it barred a smaller rival from using its pipeline in the Komi republic. LUKoil is set to ask Russian anti-trust authorities to oblige aluminum firm United Company RusAl to pay more for the oil coke it purchases. BP is conducting secret, high-level talks with its Russian billionaire partners in TNK-BP, sparking hopes that a deal to settle their dispute may come within weeks. More details on Rosatom’s planned Kaliningrad nuclear power plant, due to be completed next year. Norway's StatoilHydro says it has made a new gas discovery in Algeria.

The Russian government is to spend an extra $4.1 billion supporting agriculture through 2012 and is considering slashing meat imports. “Russia's agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.” Despite its markets paying a heavy financial penalty for its actions in Georgia, Russia's international reserves rose to $581.5 billion last week after a $400 million boost. Following China’s lead, Russian steel prices are set to drop from the end of this year. German industry groups have expressed concern that Russia’s rift with the west could damage business relations. The BBC has compiled a summary of trade interests between Russia and Britain. Russia says it will not be ready to lower tariffs and liberalize trade until it has joined the World Trade Organization.

TODAY: Medvedev seeks eastern support over Georgia; seven of G8 members issue strong condemnation of Russia’s actions in Georgia; extraordinary EU summit to be held next week. Russia warns Turkey over US ships, hints at “direct confrontation”. Russia fears being surrounded by Nato, says Rogozin. Interview with former KGB agent.

Amid reports that Russia is looking to the east for support on its actions in Georgia, President Dmitry Medvedev will this week take part in a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and will hold bilateral talks with the president of Tajikistan.

It is thought that the European Union will issue a condemnation of Russia's recognition of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia at an extraordinary summit to be held in Brussels next week, after seven of the world's leading G8 industrialized nations condemned Russia's decision, saying they “deplored” the “excessive use of military force”. Russia’s opposition party, the United Civil Front, has joined the critical voices.

The former wrestler and South Ossetian separatist Eduard Kokoity is quite a character. I'm not sure what his first act of state was as president of the newly "independent" South Ossetia - drinking three liters of wine, organizing mass photo shoots for the media of "celebrating" citizens, or declaring that Russia shall have a new military base there. Not many would call this a particularly auspicious or promising birth of a new nation.

Apparently Russia's Ambassador to NATO Dmitri Rogozin seems to believe that terrorist murder of thousands on U.S. soil is comparable to Georgia's attempt to reign in its own separatists. I believe this is offensive and incredulous, and yet another signal that Russia has no interest backing down from their actions.

"There are two dates that have changed the world in recent years: Sept. 11, 2001, and Aug. 8, 2008," Rogozin said in an interview, explaining the ramifications of the conflict that erupted in Georgia nearly three weeks ago. "They are basically identical in terms of significance."

"Sept. 11 motivated the United States to behave really differently in the world," he said. "That is to say, Americans realized that even in their homes, they could not feel safe. They had to protect their interests, outside the boundaries of the U.S. For Russia, it is the same thing. We were sitting in our homes, the national discussion was internal. Now this Georgian attack is perceived as aggression, and made us realize that we cannot stay home. We have to go outside our homes to protect ourselves on new frontiers."

I believe that anyone who tries to argue that they aren't surprised, concerned, and upset about the recent blustery behavior of Russia in the execution and aftermath of the war in Georgia is probably not being honest. Not many people thought it would go this far. The disproportionately undiplomatic handling of the situation by Moscow reached a fever pitch when President Dmitry Medvedev announced that "We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War," surprising even those of us who believed that Russia would seek to protect its war gains and advance its national interests by slowing opening up diplomacy.

Instead, Russia has declared war on its most important customer, seeming to have temporarily forgotten that the entire nation depends on selling resources to the West, while simultaneously infuriating China with the recognition of breakaway states. The result has been catastrophic in terms of Russia's national interests, and finally we are beginning to see a very important gap appear between the personalistic power and wealth of the siloviki (as represented by Putinist capitalist authoritarianism) and what's good for the Russian public. For so many years, similar to the effect achieved in Castro's Cuban Revolution, these two interests were practically conceptually indivisible, thanks to tight media control and very effective simulations of normal civic activities (controlled elections, fake grassroots movements like the Nashi). Now the public and the wider world is getting its first glimpse of the fractures between the government's actions and actual interests which Russia should be pursuing - finally we are seeing that this group of former KGB officers is actually doing a very poor job guiding the country's foreign policy, seemingly more interested in their Cypriot bank accounts and oil trading shares.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has also caught on to this appearance of the gap, commenting to the FT that "They are opening up a Pandora’s box of questions that will be extremely difficult to answer. If you are interested in the stability of the Caucasus – and Russia is more interested in that than anyone else – you should be very careful with borders. . . They have fought two wars in Chechnya. (...) The Russians are effectively opting out of the WTO process. They are imposing sanctions on themselves."

Barack Obama's statement can be read here: "The United States should call for a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to condemn Russia's decision in coordination with our European allies. The U.S. should lead within the UN and other international forums to cast a clear and unrelenting light on the decision, and to further isolate Russia internationally because of its actions."

John McCain's statement can be read here: "Today's decision, the culmination of a long effort aimed at splitting these two regions away from Georgia, represents a major step forward in that process. Moscow's action deserves condemnation from the entire international community, and Russia must understand that its violations of international law carry consequences."

McCain's wife Cindy is also visiting refugees and survivors from the war in Georgia, right on the heels of Obama's VP Sen. Joe Biden.

It seems abundantly clear that no one in Moscow is particularly concerned by these kind of pronouncements or feeble diplomacy, but here goes what French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner is saying:

"We cannot accept these violations of international law, of accords for security and cooperation in Europe, of United Nations resolutions, and the taking ... of a territory by the army of a neighboring country," Kouchner said.

Asked about his own earlier comments warning of a risk of ethnic cleansing by Russian forces in the territories, Kouchner responded: "I hope that didn't happen overnight. But there has already been evidence that the armies are pushing away the Ossetians who favored Georgia, and in a certain way, yes, an ethnic cleansing is taking place."

"This is going to get worse, and it's an extremely dangerous situation," he said.

French political philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has a very passionate article of conclusions about the war in today's Wall Street Journal:

- Western public opinion fell with disconcerting facility for the thesis advanced -- from the very first day -- by the Kremlin's propaganda machine. We know now that the Russian army had been hard at work on its war preparations since before Aug. 8. We know that it massed at the "border" between Georgia and Ossetia a considerable military and paramilitary logistical presence. We know the Russians had methodically repaired the railroad tracks that the troop-transport trains were to take, and we know that at least 150 tanks went through the Roky tunnel separating the two Ossetias the morning of Aug. 8. In other words, no one can ignore the fact that President Saakhashvili only decided to act when he no longer had a choice, and war had already come. In spite of this accumulation of facts that should have been blindingly obvious to all scrupulous, good-faith observers, many in the media rushed as one man toward the thesis of the Georgians as instigators, as irresponsible provocateurs of the war.

We must re-examine all of this. We must analyze in greater depth the mechanisms of a blindness that may, if we are not careful, perpetuate the Western "decline in courage" denounced in his time by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, but which we thought belonged to the past. Reason, if not honor, demands that we go to the rescue of Europe in Tbilisi.

Events in the month of August have certainly placed our modern notions of nationalism, identity, sovereignty, and the Westphalian concept of the nation state under close scrutiny.

This bit from Alvaro Vargas Llosa on individual sovereignty and the Olympics is quite cool:

Hammon was vilified by many people in the sports world, including Anne Donovan, the U.S. women's basketball coach, who said that she was "not a patriotic person."

Hammon's decision to play with the Russians contains a moral message. Individual sovereignty, it tells us, is a space that no collective force should violate. Invoking nationalist notions to condemn a woman's pursuit of a dream that does no harm to anyone is to put national sovereignty above individual sovereignty -- the seed of totalitarian ideology. Hammon does not love her ancestors, her family, her Silver Stars teammates or her friends on the U.S. national team any less because she took a cherished opportunity to play in Beijing. "This is a game of basketball," she said in defending her decision, "this is not life or death." A traitor? No, an heir to America's grandest tradition: the right to the pursuit of happiness. (...)

Despite the best intentions of the Baron de Coubertin, the French aristocrat credited with reviving the Olympic Games in the 19th century, the international competition has as much to do with collectivist nationalism as it does with universal fraternity. Any individual act, however small, that tears down a nationalist barrier during the Olympics should be applauded as restoring the games' true meaning.

Law professor Ethan Burger has an interesting article on political interference in Russia's judicial processes in Legal Times. In light of the ongoing pillaging of more and more companies and seizures of private property all while the state goes to war, the earlier reactions by Western governments to Russia's legal free fall seem tepid, naive, and ill-advised. Excerpt below.

Western political leaders have been reluctant to take decisive steps, preferring to pursue "quiet diplomacy." They have tended to treat the tax evasion and fraud charges brought against Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004 as the exception -- the rare case driven by politics and personality -- and not the rule. Khodorkovsky was the head of the privately-owned Yukos Oil Co. At the time of its de facto seizure by the state, the company was producing about 20 percent of Russia's oil.

I am only being somewhat facetious in the title of this post, but I just wanted to underscore the logic expressed in Medvedev's Financial Times editorial yesterday, "Why I had to recognise Georgia’s breakaway regions," which presents both the invasion and the recognition of the territories as obligatory outcomes of Russia's duty to protect its citizens abroad. Whichever major PR company drafted the text for Medvedev, they unwillingly exposed a crisis of confidence and legitimacy among Kremlin leadership over these events.

But perhaps there is also a pre-emptive warning in the note. French President Nicholas Sarkozy, for example, may want to keep an eye out for any Russian officials distributing passports in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, the French Riviera enclave where 60% of the +100 million euro mansions are now owned by Russians. According to the argument expressed in the FT, the army may as well annex this area as well.

India's state-run Oil & Natural Gas Corp. has agreed to a takeover of Russia-focused oil explorer Imperial Energy for $1.4 billion, beating Sinopec’s bid. The imminent takeover is a positive story for Western oil companies in Russia, says the FT. Gazprom has moved to reassure its foreign partners in the giant Shtokman project that their business interests will be protected. Integrated Energy System will invest $1 billion modernizing its Volga division stations over the next four years. State nuclear company Rosatom, together with foreign firms, has commissioned the construction of a two-reactor power plant in Kaliningrad. According to the US, North Korea has decided to stop disabling its nuclear facilities.

Russian stocks have taken yet another hit following President Dmitry Medvedev’s recognition of the independence of Georgia’s breakaway states, with investors pessimistic about future prospects. Nissan Motor sees strong growth continuing in Russia over the next five years but is wary of an inevitable decline. Japan’s Hamada port “is rapidly becoming a hub for trade with the Russian Far East”. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to provide jet fuel for AiRUnion, “the beleaguered alliance of five airlines”, from its contingency reserves. Yury Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow, has approved a $12 billion road building investment program for 2009-2011.

TODAY: Medvedev recognizes independence of Georgian breakaway states, says Russia does not fear a new Cold War - full text of statement. Western world responds with outrage; Russia thought to be seeking Asian support; EU urges Russia to join WTO; tensions over Russia’s Nato agreements for Afghanistan.

In a widely condemned move, President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a decree recognizing the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia’s two breakaway republics. “Now Russia appears to be willing to trash its strategic relationships.” Medvedev also said that Russia is “not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War.” Russia’s western relations have now reached “their most critical point in a generation”. Read a translation of Medvedev’s statement on the breakaway regions. The BBC has a video of Medvedev defending his decision on the grounds that South Ossetians need “protection”.

I would count myself as one of those surprised by President Dmitry Medvedev's fast-track decision to endorse the Duma's non-binding resolution to officially recognize the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "Recognition" of independence is a rather inflexible political good, one that is difficult to retract or cancel as an incentive for leverage in negotiations with Washington and Europe, and one that gains Russia very little in terms of any geopolitical advantage.

So why would Medvedev recognize these territories now, at the cost of such enormous damage to the country's reputation and crashing the stock market yet again, when such a move gets him nothing? In the interests and defense of those Georgians who were given Russian passports? That argument seems highly unlikely, as does the farcical argument Moscow is trying to position the invasion, ex post facto, in nearly the exact language of the Balkan situation, citing warp-speed humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing (the Serbs, by the way, are going to be pretty upset that they've been abandoned).

What is clear is that the Russians are not playing any kind of international diplomatic game here, but rather making decisions in a concerted effort to change the facts on the ground. The fact that Medvedev's tone has changed so dramatically in recent weeks (the formerly eloquent anti-corruption law professor now calling the Georgian president a "moron" and taunting in the language of a silovik, not a modern politician) would lead one to believe that he is under tremendous pressure from the internal clan struggles to seize as much power and initiative as possible, and spearheading the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia buys him some time and some wiggle room to fend off the hawks.

For some weeks now, Medvedev will be flying high on the winds of Russian nationalism, as the majority of the country (even those who get their news outside of state-controlled TV) believe in the righteousness of the invasion. Liberal columnist Alexei Pankin was even taunted into acquiescence by a friend for his initial even-handed treatment of the cause of war, who wrote to him: "In 1945, those Russian barbarians used unjustified force to savagely violate Germany's territorial integrity, and they pushed its duly elected chancellor to suicide." Yes, many Russian liberals are willing to believe that Saakashvili, of the minuscule Georgia with its extremely small army, actually had the ambitions of Hitler to take over Russia. If you're not buying that one, there are plenty willing to paint the man as WMD-less version of Saddam Hussein. Let's just say that there are so many assumptions on all sides of this conflict that are quite beyond belief.

In my opinion, we are once again seeing Russia's internal politics guide the decision making in its foreign policy, and the results for the country's reputation and future relationships are disastrous. This is not to mention how little thought Moscow has seemed to put into how it will handle this extremely difficult precedent with its own separatist territories. Much much more on this to come later.

Medvedev probably couldn't have picked a better day to bury the news of Russia's recognition of Georgia's breakaway territories, as the American media begins its long and often disappointingly selfish journey into solipsism with the elections season as the Democratic National Convention kicked off in Denver this week.

However, like every other issue imaginable, the war lobbyists are busy on the sidelines attempting to convince the party to shape its line on the Russia-Georgia issue. An interesting bit on the "shadow struggle" from veteran correspondent Peter Baker in the New York Times:

The shadow struggle in Denver got under way with envoys from both Georgia and Russia seeking out influential players.

“It is important for us to meet the key politicians in this country to make sure they have the right sense of what’s happening in our country and the right sense of what happened,” David Bakradze, the chairman of the Georgian Parliament and a former foreign minister, said by telephone from Denver.

Among those Mr. Bakradze and his compatriots met with on Monday were Madeleine K. Albright, former secretary of state; Richard C. Holbrooke, former ambassador to the United Nations; and Susan E. Rice, senior foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama. (A session with Howard Dean, the party chairman, was postponed.)

In all their discussions, the Georgians argued for bipartisan firmness against Moscow.

“It’s not about Georgia,” Mr. Bakradze said. “It’s a much higher risk at stake. It’s about Russia forcefully changing the borders of the post-Soviet space.”

Photo: a Convention attendee enjoys a hot dog, and is likely not concentrating on war in the Caucasus (Photo credit: Rick Wilking/Reuters, source).

We occasionally receive contributions from Andrei Novikov, an opposition journalist and government critic who was once committed to involuntary psychiatric confinement by the authorities in response to some of his publications. Below Novikov shares his thoughts (and quite passionate opinons) on the war, and, as always, his article does not represent those of Robert Amsterdam, this blog, or its editors. His article was written before President Dmitry Medvedev extended official recognition to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

RUSSIAN AGGRESSION IN THE TRANS-CAUCASUS
Andrey Novikov, independent journalist

The Russian armed forces (bolstered by reinforcements: with the participation of the 58th army and strategic aviation), not having any mandate of the UNO or other international European organizations, have entered INTO THE TERRITORY of Georgia and are implementing aggression against the country's sovereignty.

International organizations of the European Union, NATO and the UNO must immediately send into the zone of conflict their international peacekeepers with the aim of preventing the further escalation thereof. Relations between Georgia and South Ossetia can be resolved only in a European international format, as the problem of Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia was resolved. As of today one ought to proceed from the following scheme: "South Ossetia – is the TERRITORY of Georgia, but an ETHNIC AUTONOMY within the framework of Georgia."

Linking the ethnic and territorial question is not exactly correct.

(IMAGE: The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse: Russia, Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. Source.)

Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman just got back from a trip to Georgia, and didn't hesitate more than a few moments to drop the K-bomb in describing the crisis there:

Russia's invasion of Georgia represents the most serious challenge to this political order since Slobodan Milosevic unleashed the demons of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans. What is happening in Georgia today, therefore, is not simply a territorial dispute. It is a struggle about whether a new dividing line is drawn across Europe: between nations that are free to determine their own destinies, and nations that are consigned to the Kremlin's autocratic orbit.

We happen to think that things are infinitely more complex than Putin = Milosevic, and that all separatism issues can only be considered in their respective independent political contexts. Furthermore, one would be hard pressed to find a country more critical of the international recognition of Kosovo's independence that the Georgian government itself, so I'm not quite sure what Graham and Lieberman are getting at. I think that this other article by J. Victor Marshall is much more convincing with regard to Moscow's instrumentalization of the Kosovo precedent, as well as an illustration of Washington losing its moral high ground by "selectively turning principles into propagandist slogans for scoring points."

As Richard Weitz at the Hudson Institute noted at the time, Russia could seize upon Kosovo as a precedent for fomenting separatist movements in the former Soviet republics, including South Ossetia’s drive for independence from Georgia in the Caucasus.

The clock

I offer for your attention the text written in prison. Having read it, you will understand why I recalled the story with the train conductress.

From time to time, we receive occasional contributions from the highly respected Russian human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who heads up Russia's Rule of Law Institute. Below is his take on the invasion of Georgia. Markelov's article does not necessarily represent the opinion of Robert Amsterdam, this blog, or its editors.

The immediate battle area

By Stanislav Markelov

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We can rejoice, we have carried out the desire of our powers in full and are getting used to the dispatches from the front like to competitions going on the news before the Olympic games. For now they still tug at the heartstrings, but a few years will go by and just like with the war in Chechnya, we will look with irritation at the latest propagandistic brew from the information chest with one thought: “When will this all finally end! Just leave us alone and let us watch as one bunch of athletes pumped up with doping raise the prestige of their state, outplaying the same kind of steers pumped up with pharmacology from other countries”.

The war in the Caucasus has begun to resemble a political Olympiad. Everybody wants it to go on and on, and only the exhaustiveness of the resources of war does not allow it to be conducted forever. The rulers leave only glowing coals from the peaceful life, forcing the people to dance on them, and to count the mountains of victims of the latest peacekeeping companies.

Today Diane Francis of Canada's National Post has a front page profile feature of Robert Amsterdam, as well as a related blog post. If this is your first time visiting this blog as a result, welcome, and please check out the links along the left-hand side and come back frequently throughout the day for new material. Shameless self-promotion is now finished for the day.

From The National Post:

"My advice to businesses is that if you are there or want to be, you have to plan on expropriation, so you must structure a deal so that you have very little to lose. And if expropriation doesn't happen, you're happy. You cannot gamble because it's clear they [the Kremlin and their business friends] will change the deal on you the minute it interests them," he said.

"The problem is that Canadians in energy, mining or automotive sectors, which are considered strategic by the Kremlin, must be aware of the fact Igor Sechin, one of the top three or four people in Russia, has ordered that multinationals be subject to very strict tax enforcement," Amsterdam said.

This threat hangs over the heads of all businesses, including non-strategic sectors, he added.

Instead of avoiding Russia, many corporations are still enmeshed and are naively doing so thinking that moral suasion by their home governments can protect them.

"BP invests in Russia. Then step two, because BP knows there's no rule of law in Russia, lobbies the British government to go easy on Russia which is how BP thinks it can increase its political leverage in the Kremlin. Then BP invests more in Russia and instead of lobbying Russia to improve governance it lobbies its own government at home to be soft on Russia," he said.

"BP is the pillar of complicity, investing US$1-billion in the stolen assets of [Russia's] Rosneft and now look at what it has gotten then in Russia," he said.

Another TNK-BP executive has quit. Anthony Considine, the head of refining, trading and marketing operations, has resigned after five years with the venture due to “present volatile circumstances”. BP says operations at the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline will resume this week. Responding to the recent fall in global oil prices, Russia is likely to cut oil export duty for October and November. Prana has sued Rosneft for $30 million in a case thought to be related to debts stemming from Rosneft’s acquisition of Yukos’ former headquarters in 2007. Korea’s state-run oil company has denied that it ever expressed interest in buying Imperial Energy, “leaving it more likely that either China’s Sinopec or India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. will succeed in taking control of the firm”. ONGC has just finalized the terms of its $2.8 billion bid. Canada is weighing in on the battle for Arctic energy. Kuwait expects to raise production by about half a million barrels a day in early 2009 - a production rise of about 20%.

Russian stocks have fallen to their lowest level since 2006. “Politics is weighing on the market.” Air carrier S7 is considering taking part in the contest for a stake in Austrian Airlines. Russian investment and finance group Kapital has sold its affiliate, Kapital Insurance, to Cyprus-based Syneron Holdings for $500 million.

TODAY: Medvedev to decide on Georgia’s breakaway republics today amid US criticism; Russia says that breaking ties with Nato would be “no great loss”, and may block a supply route through Afganistan; Putin sees WTO commitments as a “burden”. Powerful Russia would balance China?

A plea from Russia’s parliament for the country to back independence for Georgia's two breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was voted for unanimously, and the plea will be considered at a meeting this morning, with President Dmitry Medvedev having the final say. The US has urged Russia not to recognize the rebel areas. “More important than the parliamentary vote is Mr Medvedev's statement yesterday that breaking off all relations with Nato would be no great loss for Russia.” Russia may also suspend an agreement allowing Nato to take supplies and equipment to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested that Russia abandon some of the commitments - particularly relating to agriculture - made during World Trade Organization accession talks. “We don't see or feel advantages from membership, if they exist at all. But we are carrying the burden,” he said. Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said that Russia does not see any prospects for join the World Trade Organization this year.

The tricky thing about trying to sue the state in Russia or otherwise defend against their prosecutors is that they tend to immediately raid your legal offices to steal important briefs and other materials - and one should consider themselves lucky when they aren't thrown in jail, exiled, or worse. What an outrageous mockery of a normal business environment the Hermitage/HSBC case is exposing, where the unchecked impunity and greed of Moscow's state officials is going far beyond the easy "rational" targets of energy, mining, media, and civil society supporters.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Browder, in a telephone interview from London, said he viewed the search as a response to complaints filed by Hermitage over alleged tax fraud. Three investment vehicles that had formerly been under his control were used to defraud the state of $230 million in taxes, he said. Mr. Browder said he had nothing to do with the fraud.

Mr. Browder and his lawyer, Eduard Khairetdinov, have said that the three investment vehicles' founding documents and seals had previously been taken from another Moscow law office by investigators, and that those documents and seals were used to take control of the three companies.

"We uncovered a $230 million tax fraud and reported it to the Russian general prosecutor at the end of July. Instead of pursuing the obvious suspects, the first thing the Russian police did is start attacking and blaming the lawyers who uncovered the fraud and filed the complaints," Mr. Browder said.

These images of a U.S. warship arriving to Georgia, though bearing only humanitarian aid, feel nearly surreal and of some other time. But no, this is indeed the reality we are dealing with.

I saw this recent bit from Diane Francis:

Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council is investigating claims that Moscow is illegally distributing Russian passports to Russian speaking sympathizers in the port city of Sevastopil. Ukraine leases much of this port to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

What's notable about this is that issuing bogus Russian passports to trouble-makers was exactly the same tactic, then excuse, the Russians used to move into South Ossetia and another province in Georgia. Once the separatist movement gained steam, aided by Moscow, Russian "peacekeepers" were sent in to restore the "peace" and have been taunting the government of Georgia ever since. The final result came days ago when Georgia foolishly took the bait, invaded South Ossetia, thus giving Vladimir Putin's government the reason it needed to invade Georgia. It took over the country militarily, ignored ceasefires and has thoroughly frightened all its neighbors in the region.

For Ukraine, this is very scary. It looks like the Russian military dictatorship is using the same tactic in Crimea and, worse yet, could more easily make trouble for Ukraine because its navy is already well-ensconced in Sevastopil.

Perhaps what Kiev should be keeping an eye out for is the sudden, unexplained arrival of the Russian press corps to cover a war about to start.

Everyone is equal before the law.
But some are more equal?

Grigory Pasko, journalist

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Article 14 of the Constitution of the RF says: «The Russian Federation – is a secular state. No religion can be established in the capacity of a state or mandatory one. Religious associations shall be separate from the state and equal before the law».

Recently, my eye happened to fall on a thick magazine under the name «Moscovskiye eparkhial’nye vedomosti» [Moscow diocesan gazette] (№3-4, the year 2008). 156 pages of heavy, glossy paper. Hundreds of good quality color photographs. A mass of interesting information. For example, such a note on page 49 in the section «Chronicle of ecclesiastical events».: «In the residence of the Administrator of the Moscow diocese in the Novodevichi monastery, metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomenskoye Yuvenaly received chief of the UGIBDD GUVD for Moscow Oblast S. Sergeyev, who had come in accordance with tradition to introduce himself in connection with the awarding of the rank of major-general. In a friendly conversation, metropolitan Yuvenaly expressed acknowledgement to the major-general for many years of fruitful cooperation… within the framework of a joint agreement, signed by the parties on 25 September of the year 2007». Further on it is reported that the general expressed an intention to actively cooperate going forward as well «in the matter of the organization of ecclesiastico-societal undertakings».

The glossy full-color cover of the magazine in question (photo by Grigory Pasko)

The following exclusive translation comes from the Russian newspaper Vedomosti - it appears that his release would represent a boon to the stock market.

Person of the week: Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Kirill Kharatyan
25.08.2008, №158 (2180)

The words of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, that he would bring society and family much more benefit at liberty, than in confinement, in practice turned out to be susprisingly true. It so happened that at 11:23 MOW «Interfax» erroneously broadcast that the court had supposedly satisfied his petition on conditional early release. Shares of Russian companies instantly shot up: literally in a couple of minutes the MICEX index, depressed by the forcing of peace on Georgia, jumped up by more than a percent. At 11:28 the agency corrected the error, and the index rolled back to starting positions just as suddenly.

I think that in exactly the same way as in the economic realm, the conditional early release of Khodorkovsky would help Russia and Dmitry Medvedev personally in the political plane - moreover not only in the international one, where they would take this for an asymmetric apolgy for the South Ossetian campaign, but in the domestic one as well: citizens, despite the negative attitude towards the Chitan prisoner recorded by sociologists, would find, for example, in the supreme mercy yet another sign of the strength of the power. All the more so since the mercy would not change the situation in the least: Khodorkovsky would remain in the sizo, he is under investigation in another case.

French academic Francois Heisbourg sees the latest hostile confrontation between Russia and the various governments of North America and the European Union over the invasion of Georgia as a cohesive force which will do much to help mend frayed ties among the West.

"There's a strong element of paradox," he said. "The one thing that could re-create the West is Russia acting in opposition to the West. . . . NATO had lost its way. The Russians have created a situation which gives NATO a raison d'etre again: to contain Russia."

Few observers characterize the Western reaction to the Georgia crisis, which caught Europe in its August vacation slumber, as united or vigorous. The disarray in European capitals and Washington no doubt reaffirmed Russia's "dim view of our ability to act coherently," Heisbourg said.

"The immediate response was pathetic," he said. "There was no NATO meeting, no EU meeting. . . . The Russians assume there are divisions, and they are right." (...)

And the West has shown signs of closing ranks after its initial stumbles, Heisbourg said. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, which is the biggest European economy and a major recipient of Russian fuels, sounded hawkish recently when she said she favored Georgia's eventual admission into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"That's not what the Russians were bargaining for," Heisbourg said. "The way it unfolds in Germany will be tremendously important because Germany is an in-between country."

Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's eager PR activities for the Kremlin (for which he receives $390,000 annually) seem to be backfiring and causing much more damage than benefit.

From the Telegraph:

"His comments are a blatant slap in the face for foreign minister Steinmeir," said Karl-Theodore Guttenberg, a conservative foreign affairs spokesman.

Other German politicians have openly attacked Mr Schroeder for his remarks. "Anyone who works for Gazprom should keep their mouths shut when it comes to subjects which involve Russia," said Erwin Huber, a senior conservative.

"The former chancellor seems to have completely lost his foreign policy perspective," said Dirk Niebel, the general secretary of the country's liberal Free Democrat party.

A government foreign policy spokesman accused Mr Schroeder of becoming "Moscow's most prominent voice in Germany."

Ulf Porschardt, a commentator for Germany's Die Welt newspaper even suggested that Gazprom should reward Mr Schroeder for his vociferous support for the Kremlin with a "juicy one-off bonus payment."

TNK-BP chief Robert Dudley has sent a letter to five federal agencies, lodging official complaints over what he is calling “an abuse of power by the State Labor Inspectorate.” In a retaliatory measure following the war with Georgia, the US is set to put a civil nuclear deal with Russia on hold. On Nabucco and Azerbaijani gas. Severstal will pay $1.3 billion to acquire North American coal miner PBS Coals. Iran has started designing a new 360-megawatt nuclear power plant. Tropical Storm Fay is approaching the Gulf of Mexico, with analysts fearing she may disrupt oil and natural gas production this week. Chevron is set to hand over its role as operator of the planned Hebron oil project off the coast of Canada to ExxonMobil. Iranian Oil Terminals Co. has received the first cargo of crude from Azerbaijan for transit. Norwegian oil and gas group StatoilHydro says the political environment in Russia has become more demanding.

An initial report from Interfax, erroneously saying that Mikhail Khodorkovsky's parole request had been granted, fueled a 1.6% jump in the Russia market within 10 minutes - a rise of $12 billion in real terms. When Interfax posted a correction, the index surrendered two-thirds of the gain. Other than this brief gain, the markets continue to fall, apparently for some reasons separate to the Georgia conflict. Russia is quickly overtaking European countries to become the biggest car market. A lawyer representing Hermitage Capital Management and Bill Browder says his office was raided in an attempt to link him to tax fraud. "They are trying to tie me, as Browder's lawyer, to the extortion of $232 million from the state budget," he said. Rostekhnologia is blaming the recent crisis at AiRUnion on the management of Russia’s aviation alliance, saying that the airlines are unable to manage their debts.

TODAY: Russian lawmakers recognize independence of Georgian rebel regions; Ukraine wants to join Nato for protection against Russia; troops still not fully withdrawn despite calls from the West. Medvedev to foster relationship with Jordan, Israeli prime minister to visit Russia over Syrian arms; Human Rights Watch on South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says he will continue to try and unite the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, despite reports that Russian lawmakers made a “historic decision” to approve a resolution recognizing the independence of the two regions.

Russia is reportedly stirring pro-Kremlin feeling in the Ukrainian port town of Sevastopol. President Dmitry Medvedev says that Kiev and Moscow should work to resolve the issue of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, currently stationed in Sevastopol. President Viktor Yuskchenko is using fear regarding Russia’s intentions to push for Nato membership.

This one comes from Peter Gumbel in TIME Magazine:

But heightened political tensions between Russia and the West are sure to prompt potential investors to take an even longer, closer look before plunging into the Russian market. There has been talk in Washington and elsewhere of kicking Russia out of the G-8 group of nations, and some analysts believe the Kremlin's actions will ultimately prove counterproductive for the economy. In a note to clients, Commerzbank analyst Michael Ganske wrote: "The strong macroeconomic story of the country is increasingly obscured by homemade negative headlines and developments that clearly worsen the economic outlook for Russia." Ganske went so far as to call the Georgia war "a bloody next act in a screenplay that could be named 'how to destroy the investment story of one of the strongest credits in the emerging-markets universe.' "

The conflict with Georgia is undeniably "having an impact," agrees Robert Amsterdam, a lawyer who represents Russia's most famous economic victim: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who once headed the Yukos oil company. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was hounded out of business and he now languishes in a Siberian jail. "People who were among the most bullish on Russia are now ready to be the most aggressive in demonizing it," says Amsterdam.

The following is an exclusive translation of an interview with Mikhail Khodorkovsky that appeared in the Russian Vedomosti newspaper on Thursday, in the middle of Khodorkovsky's two-day parole hearing, before the request for parole was denied.

"For me the oil theme is already in the past" — Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former owner of NK YUKOS

Five years ago people considered Khodorkovsky the richest person in the country. Now he regrets that he had remained in Russian then, in spite of the risk of arrest, but says that he could not have acted otherwise

Irina Reznik, Vedomosti, 22.08.2008, №157 (2179)

Yesterday the Ingodinsky court in Chita could not issue a decision with respect to a petition of the lawyers of Mikhail Khodorkovsky about conditional early release (parole). The judge promised to adopt a decision today. The convoyers did not allow journalists to come up to Khodorkovsky, but he answered in writing to questions of «Vedomosti».

— If you knew for sure that the question about a pardon will be decided positively, would you submit a plea or not? After all, many former employees of YUKOS, having become unwilling participants in the YUKOS affair, believe that if they pardon you, then the cases in relation to many of them will be terminated, while someone will be released from punishment. Do they not delude themselves?

Marina khodorkovsky, right, the mother of former Russian oil gaint Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who stands behind bars, attends hearings at a courtroom in the Siberian city of Chita, some 3,750 miles (6,035 kilometers) east of Moscow on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. A court in the Siberian city of Chita denied Khodorkovsky's appeal for early release from a sentence for tax evasion and fraud on Friday, Aug. 22, 2008. Others are unidentified. (AP Photos, Denis Gukov)

The following is an exclusive translation of an interview of Mikhail Khodorkovsky by the Frankfurter Rundschau, conducted before the parole hearing and published on August 20.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Prisoner Number One
BY FLORIAN HASSEL

It’s not as though Mikhail Khodorkovsky hadn’t won some rounds behind bars. The reprimand that sent Russia’s once richest man to a Siberian prison camp for the supposedly forbidden possession of two lemons was rescinded in court. Since the Supreme Court upheld Khodorkovsky’s complaint his lawyers are now able to visit him during the day, not only in the evening.

The lawyers and their client have much to discuss. As of Thursday, tomorrow, the courts will decide on a request from Khodorkovsky to be released on parole.

It has been almost five years since the then head of the Yukos oil company was jailed and sentenced to eight years in a penal camp. Prisoners that have completed more than half of their sentence on good behavior are usually set free in Russia. At least if they have not questioned the legitimacy of the Kremlin monopoly on power. “If we lived in a normal country with a normal justice system, I would not be in jail and would not have to justify myself in court now,” Khodorkovsky recently said to the judge in a preliminary hearing. It is a hot summer day. Sparrows dart through the cloudless sky in front of the open windows of the courtroom.

Writing at the New Republic, Paul Berman has seven thoughts about the war in Georgia.

2) The vast and irreversible effects of the invasion of Georgia will be felt everywhere in the ex-Soviet bloc, and not just there. Each of the ex-bloc countries has what could be called its own pro-Russia party, which is hostile to the democratic revolutions. The pro-Russia parties stand on several solid and distinct foundations: ethnic Russian minorities in the countries bordering on Russia; a variety of business interests linked to Russia, based either on Russian gas and raw materials, or on networks descended from the Soviet-era military and police agencies; nationalist groupings in the old Slavophilic style; and some (not all) of the heirs to the old Communist political tradition.

From EurasiaNet:

RFE/RL correspondent Heather Maher put this question to Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, the former president of the American Society of International Law, and a member of the National War Powers Commission.

RFE/RL: You’ve read the reports of what’s happening in Georgia at the hands of the Russian military. Is this a violation of international law?

Anne-Marie Slaughter: It depends on how you see what [the Russian military] is doing. To the extent that it has moved beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia into Georgia proper, and that it is staying there -- if the reports of its attacks on parts of Georgia that have nothing to do with those enclaves are true -- then at some point this crosses into simple aggression against another country, which is a violation of the UN Charter. It is using force against the political independence and territorial integrity of another state.

So there’s going to be a huge debate about at what point does it cross that line, because to the extent it was responding to a first use of force in an area where it had peacekeepers, then that looks more like self-defense or protection of nationals, or even defense of an internationally agreed force. And that certainly, is arguably legal -- the initial response is arguably legal.

But the further we move from the Georgian use of force and the Russian response to Russia "teaching Georgia a lesson" -- which is what this certainly looks like -- that is aggression. That is the illegal use of force against the territorial sovereignty and political independence of another state, and that’s a violation of Article 24 of the UN Charter.

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

Judge Igor Falileyev, holding court in the Siberian city of Chita, rejected Khodorkovsky’s request for an early release from an eight-year sentence for tax evasion and fraud, according to an AP report. The judge said he was ineligible for parole because he had refused to undertake professional training at his prison, which specializes in sewing, and because of an incident in which he flouted prison rules.

Khodorkovsky’s lawyer, Vadim Klyuvgant, said the decision was handed down “by a court that is not free and is heavily influenced by those who are simply scared of freeing Mikhail Khodorkovsky.” He called the decision politically motivated and said he would appeal. Khodorkovsky (pictured) is eligible to file another parole request in six months.

“The judicial system won’t be reformed any time soon,” said Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest person, as he was hustled out of the court by guards.

Today a Russian judge announced that Mikhail Khodorkovsky's request for parole has been denied. You can read coverage here and here.

My brief statement: The Russian court has demonstrated a continued willingness to engage in Kafka-esque theatrics in order to make a mockery of justice and the rule of law. Legal nihilism exists and thrives in Siberia today – it is no surprise that this politically influenced hearing found further trumped up reasons to deny Mr. Khodorkovsky parole. The weakening of legal institutions and the Russian constitution continues.

After the cut is the official defense statement.

Gazprom's plan to boost investment spending by 25% this year “shocked'' analysts due to its indication that the company has “unacceptable” free cash flow. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin says that long-term falling oil export prices might mean that Russia will begin to spend the Reserve Fund, its "financial cushion", in 2015. The UK’s Energy Minister is attempting to help Nigeria overcome problems in its energy sector. “Russia has demonstrated its willingness to use oil and gas for political purposes on several occasions.” Oil is seeing its biggest weekly gain in two months.

Could business - “the most progressive force with any remaining power in Russia today” - save the country’s reputation? Analysts weigh the pros and cons of Russian investment - some say Russian stocks remain good targets for high-risk investment. Nonetheless, the Central Bank of Russia’s figures show investors pulling out of Russian funds at the fastest rate since the country's 1998 debt crisis. EuroChem, the Russian mineral fertilizer producer, is seeking to organize a $1.5 billion loan to refinance existing debt. Apple has agreed to let Mobile TeleSystems, VimpelCom and MegaFon sell its iPhone in Russia. Russia’s unemployment rate fell to 5.3% last month.

TODAY: Khodorkovsky parole appeal rejected. Russia submits draft resolution to UN over Georgia; Russia likely will sell weapons to Syria. Saakashvili interview. Healthcare crisis.

Former Yukos executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky has has his parole appeal rejected by a Siberian court, on grounds that he had not taken part in a prison education program specializing in sewing. The decision can be appealed within ten days. Khodorkovsky had told the court that, if freed, he would quit the oil business, and devote himself to humanitarian work and family life.

With the messy, unfortunate, and tragic war between Russia and Georgia now wrapping up under the hazy fog of ceasefire agreements (minus of course the ongoing pillaging and humiliation of the defeated and the exceptionally slow removal of Russian tanks), the U.S. and European media and catching their breath to engage in a second round vigorous war hysteria, overt Russia hating, and yellow journalism.

My view is that this distorted coverage of the war, at both extremes, represents a dangerous distraction.

We're seeing frequent comparisons between this war and Hitler's annexation of Sudetenland - an event so charged with history and unforeseen repercussions that its comparison is inaccurate if not crass. We're seeing widespread calls from politicians and newspaper editorials to "stand up" to the newly "resurgent" enemy. We're making a wide variety of assumptions about what this means in terms of Russia's foreign policy ambitions with little more than suspicion as fear as evidence. The West appears to be trying its hardest to demonize Russia and reinvent the Cold War.

What no one seems to realize is that this is exactly the hysterical reaction that the siloviki were hoping that the conflict would produce, and by engaging in these disproportionate histrionics, many of us are voluntarily playing an active role in deepening their influence over society and cementing authoritarianism in Russia. In other words, we are playing right into their hands.

Interesting observation from the FT:

None of this will give president Dmitry Medvedev sleepless nights. With record foreign reserves, oil and gas prices high and economic growth strong, Russia is well placed to weather much greater storms than this. The authorities can finance public spending, war costs included, for years to come. Also, the financial market sell-off follows a long asset-price boom, which was, in any case, running out of steam.

But life could be somewhat harder for Russian policymakers as they struggle to contain rampant inflation, the top economic challenge. Also, with foreign credit costs rising, big infrastructure schemes could become more costly.

With the west powerless to stop Russia’s Georgian campaign militarily or politically, there is an obvious attraction in considering economic levers instead. But the US and the European Union should resist the temptation. Even when the political interests of the west and Russia clash, as they have done in the Caucasus, their economic interests remain closely aligned. This is particularly true in the European energy market, where the EU is Russia’s biggest customer and Russia is the EU’s largest supplier. This mutual dependence is – and must remain – a powerful basis for mutual economic co-operation. Any moves to limit Russian access to international organisations should focus on political clubs such as the Council of Europe, not the WTO, where countries with very dubious political records, such as Zimbabwe and Burma, are already members.

Especially next to these two points from Slate.com:

So, two ironies: 1) Financially speaking, the United States needs Russia a lot more than Russia needs the United States, and 2) it's likely the subprime mess will inflict greater economic damage on Russia than any coordinated Western sanctions could.

If you are at all interested in the Georgia issue, many of these photos are unforgettable.

TBILISI, Georgia—After several weeks of protest, opposition demonstrators overrun police barricades, storm the parliament’s first session and force President Shevardnadze to abandon the parliament and his chancellery. Pro-Shevardnadze demonstrators are chased away. The police force changed sides, and opposition demonstrations and vigils took place in front of the Georgian Parliament, Nov. 22, 2003. © Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

It's tough to identify a European politician more intelligent, fair, and sensible about working with Moscow than Angela Merkel, and let's hope she can keep the SPD at bay...

From the Wall Street Journal:

Merkel Taking Lead Role In Shaping Europe's Line

By MARCUS WALKER

BERLIN -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel is emerging as a pivotal player in reshaping the West's relations with Moscow.

In the wake of Russia's military intervention in Georgia, Ms. Merkel's skeptical view of Russian foreign policy is gaining ascendancy over other German policy makers' longstanding hopes for a special relationship with Moscow. That is creating in European capitals a new critical mass that views Russia as a problem rather than a partner.

For years, the EU has been split among founding members such as Germany, France and Italy, which were reluctant to offend Russia, and new entrants from Central and Eastern Europe, which saw Russia as a threat.

The following is the full text of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's public statement before his parole hearing today, which has since been delayed.

“HONOURABLE COURT, YOUR HONOUR,"

I am submitting this parole application to you because I believe that the positive decision on this issue will be just and lawful in all respects: for the society, for which I can do much more good if I am free than if I am in jail, for my family, and for myself.

THE FORMAL REQUIREMENT allowing [the court] to make a decision to release me on parole has been met since I have served more than a half of the sentence given to me.

The main and substantive requirement the existence of which the court should establish lies in the absence of the need to continue serving the sentence any further. And this requirement has been met in full conformance with the spirit and letter of Law.

Analysts believe that the third day of price rises for crude oil are due to Russia’s displeasure over the US missile defense agreement with Poland. A leak from a North Sea gas pipeline may force the UK to negotiate with Russia for supplies. An Iraqi Cabinet minister invited Russia's LUKoil to renew its bid on the West Qurna-2 oil field, and urged Russian companies to seek roles rebuilding dilapidated power plants. Iraq’s oil industry is struggling to overcome political gridlock.

“What we need in dealing with Russia and the former Soviet Republics is to play softball on the politics and hardball on the commerce.” Russia risks running out of storage capacity for corn, wheat and barley, threatening a government plan to expand agricultural output and exports. Stora Enso, preparing for a planned rise in Russian wood export duties, has cut Russian imports by 40%. Vladimir Potanin said that President Dmitry Medvedev’s September meeting with Russia's top business lobby will be held to discuss potential changes to the country's tax system. Russian companies are continuing this week to lose money. State-run Rosnanotekh has been given an image makeover.

TODAY: Russian troop withdrawal status in chaos; conflicting reports on Nato ties. Khodorkovsky’s parole hearing postponed until tomorrow. What will China’s response to Georgian conflict be? Polish support for missile defense shield increases; Syrian president in Sochi.

Supporters of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos executive and “the country’s most prominent prisoner”, have been gathering signatures for a petition to free him. Khodorkovsky has had his early release appeal adjourned until tomorrow. His lawyers are calling the hearing a test case for President Dmitry Medvedev.

Russia is sending mixed signals on its promised pull-out from Georgia. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said he did not believe Russia would keep its promise to withdraw from most of the country in the coming days, and according to this source, Russia plans to build a long-term military presence in Georgia by adding 18 checkpoints manned with troops. Russia has apparently begun withdrawing some of its hardware from Georgia, but other reports say Russian forces have blocked the only land entrance to Georgia's main Black Sea port city of Poti, and that troops still remain in Gori. Red Cross says its relief workers have been allowed to enter South Ossetia for the first time since the outbreak of conflict.

The news of this court ruling allowing Rosneft and Gunvor to remain opaque about their commercial relations is a prime example of Russia's state capture. It's no wonder that so many speculate that Gunvor is the biggest siloviki piggy bank.

A Russian court left a veil of secrecy over oil trader Gunvor on Wednesday, rejecting a private shareholder's lawsuit demanding state oil company Rosneft disclose dealings with the firm. Moscow Arbitration Court Judge Alexei Manenkov ruled disclosure of the information to shareholders was not required under Russian corporate law. Rosneft had said its dealings with Gunvor were a commercial secret.

Gunvor handles a third of Russian oil exports and has repeatedly won rights to export a large share of Rosneft's Urals blend crude in regular tenders by the state owned company, Russia's largest producer of crude.

The company's co-owner, Gennady Timchenko, has rejected speculations he enjoyed special ties with former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was honourary president of a St Petersburg judo club sponsored by Timchenko.

Rosneft's minority shareholder Alexei Navalny, who brought the suit against Rosneft, also sued to obtain information about Russian state oil pipeline monopoly Transneft's charity work. The suit was also rejected by the court on Wednesday.

Navalny had claimed that shareholders' rights were violated in both cases.

"We want to know where the money is going," Navalny told Reuters on Wednesday, adding that he would appeal the ruling.

Navalny has been involved in opposition politics, running the Moscow division of the liberal Yabloko party until recently. He has been active in other opposition parties and appeared in public political debates.

He said the lawsuits against the state companies were not political and he was defending his economic interests.

This new comment piece in the FT, which argues that the West has got the wrong strategy on the Georgia issue, misses the point about the loss of Russia's soft power. It will be difficult for Moscow to explain away the fact that their invasion of Georgia defies the non-intervention and sovereignty narrative that they have used so effectively in dealing with other emerging countries (such as Zimbabwe UN vote). What is different about the United States from Russia, and, for that matter, Singapore, is that its policies can change and even potentially improve. Autocracies on the other hand are far less capable of regeneration ... just go ask Lukashenko.

From Kishore Mahbubani in the Financial Times:

The biggest paradox facing the west is that it is at last possible to create a safer world order. The number of countries wanting to become “responsible stakeholders” has never been higher. Most, including China and India, want to work with the US and the west. But the absence of a long-term coherent western strategy towards the world and the inability to make geopolitical compromises are the biggest obstacles to a stable world order. Western leaders say the world is becoming a more dangerous place, yet few admit that their flawed thinking is bringing this about. Georgia illustrates the results of a lack of strategic thinking.

The forgotten «mutiny»

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.

In August in Russia they traditionally remember about the failed putsch of the year 1991 – the Kremlin overthrow by the GKChP, the attempt by a bunch of half-drunk persons to seize power in the country. However, few remember about the events that took place in those days on the periphery of Russia. For example, in Vladivostok. The essence of the event is such. On the night of 20-21 August of the year 1991, the submarine TOF B-855 of project 641 left its home port without authorization and went out to sea.

Admirals Khvatov and Oleynik (photo from the author’s archive)

Mikhail Gorbachev has quite a testy op/ed in the New York Times this week, which although is elusive on many points, makes the compelling argument that Russia's perspectives and interests have long been ignored in international institutions. It's not the first time that Russia has complained that they don't receive the respect they believe they deserve.

In recent days, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush have been promising to isolate Russia. Some American politicians have threatened to expel it from the Group of 8 industrialized nations, to abolish the NATO-Russia Council and to keep Russia out of the World Trade Organization.

These are empty threats. For some time now, Russians have been wondering: If our opinion counts for nothing in those institutions, do we really need them? Just to sit at the nicely set dinner table and listen to lectures?

Indeed, Russia has long been told to simply accept the facts. Here’s the independence of Kosovo for you. Here’s the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and the American decision to place missile defenses in neighboring countries. Here’s the unending expansion of NATO. All of these moves have been set against the backdrop of sweet talk about partnership. Why would anyone put up with such a charade?

There is much talk now in the United States about rethinking relations with Russia. One thing that should definitely be rethought: the habit of talking to Russia in a condescending way, without regard for its positions and interests.

Our two countries could develop a serious agenda for genuine, rather than token, cooperation. Many Americans, as well as Russians, understand the need for this. But is the same true of the political leaders?

Veronica Khokhlova at Global Voices Online, who's always been very kind to link over to us, has a great post up linking to a LiveJournal user blogging about a satirical protest staged in Tbilisi in front of the Russian Embassy to bring attention to the widespread looting and robberies being carried out under the Russian occupation.

[…] To the Russian embassy in Tbilisi they brought old refrigerators, toilets, rolls of toilet paper, irons, bottles of vodka, forks and spoons, clothes and other objects that [looters from the Russian army] took interest in during their visits to private houses of Georgians, state institutions, military bases and army barracks.

People are coming up to have a closer look, shake their heads, laugh. Cars that are passing by are honking…

The photos are worth a look.

This is getting close to a week old, but is still quite hilarious, even more so with Stallone's signature bad timing of taking a huge ad contract in wartime.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone, mighty destroyer of Soviet opponents in the "Rambo" and "Rocky" movies, now plans to advertise Russian vodka.

Russian vodka producer Synergy said on Friday it had signed a one-year contract with Stallone, who will appear in television and newspaper advertisements for the vodka brand Russian Ice, starting September 1.

Sources valued the deal at $1 million.

Stallone -- whose film character John Rambo killed Soviet troops by the dozen in Afghanistan and whose Rocky Balboa humiliated Soviet boxer Ivan Drago -- will advertise the product under the slogan: "There is a bit of Russian in all of us."

"The advertising campaign concept was based on the fact that the actor has Russian roots," Synergy said in a statement, referring to Stallone's great-grandmother, Rosa Rabinovich, from the Ukrainian town of Odessa.

The Rambo and Rocky movies were banned in the Soviet Union, but were hot property in the country's underground VHS market.

This column by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post is rather interesting:

The nation of Georgia is a place of inspiration and danger. I saw both in a single hour.

I was in Tbilisi's Freedom Square during President Bush's visit in May 2005, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried. During the Georgian national anthem, the speaker system broke down and tens of thousands of Georgians movingly sang that song without music -- a song that had been illegal to sing under Soviet occupation.

It is shocking to imagine those joyful people now bombed, fearful and occupied.

At the same event, an assassination attempt was made against President Bush. A man threw a grenade wrapped in a handkerchief. Bush was behind a bulletproof shield but within the blast radius of the weapon. The grenade was live but did not explode -- or maybe the explosion in Georgia was just delayed.

Joshua Foust at Registan.net is one of my favorite bloggers, even when I disagree with him. Two things he has written recently are worth a look: a critique of the rather poor blog coverage, in his opinion, of the Russian invasion of Georgia in the Columbia Journalism Review, and a new post which vents some of his fury over the misplaced hysteria as expressed in a recent Wall Street Journal op/ed by Matthew Kaminski. Foust believes that in "the last few months the WSJ has been particularly disconnected from reality."

Ignorant American opinion makers shaking in their boots at the strong and unstoppable Russian advance? Check. The entrenchment in conventional wisdom of Russia as strong and worthy of respect and fear? Check. The willful ignorance of Russia’s many structural political and economic problems because it overran a military 25 times smaller in a battle anyone could have predicted? Check. Deliberately misrepresenting the conflict in Kosovo as a brave, peaceful, small country being destroyed by its brutish powerful neighbor, and so therefore Georgia is the new Kosovo? Check.

Seriously, he gets paid to write this. I don’t think it’s possible to write something more strongly pro-Russia, yet Kaminski is trying to say he opposes Russian expansionism. The blind are leading the blind in American punditry these days.

Iraq's oil minister has repudiated a Saddam Hussein-era contract with LUKOIL on grounds that it was "totally unfair.” Conversely, Iraq is reportedly on the verge of reviving an 11-year-old contract with China worth $1.2 billion, which would be its largest oil deal since the invasion in 2003. The Canadian prime minister says that gas dealings with Russia are being reconsidered in light of Georgian conflict. “From the beginning, oil and gas transmission has been at the centre of conflict [between Russia and Georgia].” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reportedly supports the idea of granting equal access to Gazprom’s pipelines for independent gas producers. Mechel will be forced to reduce coal prices for the steel sector by 15% - less than previously feared.

The Bank of Moscow has raised $333.7 million through an issue of additional shares. Russia's richest woman, Yelena Baturina, among other shareholders, is selling her shares in Sberbank, Russia’s largest state-owned bank, after they lost almost half their value. Finance minister Alexei Kudrin says Russia is still buying debt issued by US housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, although on a smaller scale than previously. Worries about the two companies have contributed to the poor performance of Russian stocks this week. Read about the effects of Russia’s wood export duties on Finnish and Swedish trade. Norway's Telenor said it may sell its stake in VimpelCom to resolve a long-running conflict with estranged Russian partner Alfa Group.

TODAY: US and Poland sign missile agreement; Abkhazia to request recognition of independence; Russian troops to be out of Georgia by Friday; Georgia to reinstate monarchy?; all eyes on Ukraine; Nato freezes Russian relations; Russian Democrats comment on war; Belarus coerced into support?

Poland and the US will sign an agreement on an anti-missile base today. Polish President Lech Kaczynski maintains that "no one who has good intentions toward us and toward the western world should be afraid of (the shield)." The White House is demanding that Moscow return any US equipment its forces seized in Georgia.

Georgia’s separatist region of Abkhazia plans to formally request today that Russia recognize its independence. Russia and Georgia have struck a tentative agreement to accept unarmed military observers from the OSCE. Russia says that a draft UN Security Council resolution on Georgia contradicts the terms of last week's ceasefire deal, which stipulated that its troops could remain near the South Ossetian border. Nicolas Sarkozy now wants Russia to completely withdraw from all Georgian territory, and the Kremlin says it will pull all troops out by Friday. Might Georgia reinstate its monarchy?

Here are some collected opinions on the war, which hopefully exhibit clear connections.

Anne Applebaum: But if this becomes a long-term conflict, if the Russian military remains in Georgia proper, if this turns out to be only the first of several incursions into other neighboring states, there are relationships we have and meaningful levers we can use, whether over Russian membership in international institutions or Russian leaders' luxury apartments in Paris -- if, of course, we are willing to use them. The critical question now is whether the West is prepared to behave like the West, to speak with one voice and create a common transatlantic policy. In recent years, Russia has preferred to deal with Western countries and their leaders one by one. Just last week, an affiliate of Gazprom, the Russian state-dominated gas company, added a former Finnish prime minister to its payroll -- which already includes former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. If we hang together instead of allowing Gazprom to pick us all off separately, there is at least a chance that this mini-chill won't last another 40 years, too.

David Lee Smith at Motley Fool wonders when Western investment in Russia will grind to halt. Given my experience, I have yet to see the limit to investor's risk threshold ... the institutions seem bent on reaching a total collapse before learning any lessons.

Is Russia Becoming an Investment Gulag? By David Lee Smith

With all that's occurring in Russia these days, I'm wondering how long it'll be before Western investment in that nation grinds to a halt.

The Russian military's incursion of the past week into Georgia is part of the picture, but there are a couple of similar -- albeit somewhat less widely reported -- bits of industrial skullduggery that bode almost as ill for Russia's ability to continue to function as a member of the modern world community.

One, the TNK-BP affair that I've told you about in the past, has Russian authorities, along with a trio of the country's billionaires, playing more than hardball in a partnership with oil giant BP (NYSE: BP). Just last week a Russian court banned the partnership's CEO -- who already had been forced from Russia following a government refusal to grant him a new work visa -- from holding executive office there for two years. The executive, Robert Dudley, has been trying since last month to run the partnership's business from an unknown European location. It'll be a neat trick if he can continue to pull it off.

Continue reading here.

This past weekend, we reported on the spate of robberies and looting by Russian troops and groups of South Ossetian bandits following a phone call with a Georgian official. Today the New York Times corroborates these reports with some of the first contacts with citizens that haven't been staged managed by either government (which of course has left a heavy presence on much of the coverage). Leaving aside for the moment the bitter political disagreements over the cause of the war, these sad, sad stories highlight how many of these military actions have been executed with extreme prejudice, if not hate. My impression is that even if the Russian troops fully withdraw, the conflict will remain frozen for years to come.

On Monday, three journalists from The New York Times gained unaccompanied access to four of these villages — Akhaldaba, Variani, Shindisi and Karaleti — providing an unfiltered, though limited, view of the ill fortune and punishments endured by the civilian Georgian population caught in the war.

This one comes from The Moscow Times. Sarah E. Mendelson suggests that the United States only has two options when it comes to dealing with Russia these days - Cold War containment, or post-Soviet integration. But, she says, Russia’s current home policies of what she calls “benevolent authoritarianism” and the signals that the post-Soviet era is now over, mean that neither policy will work.

The dream that many inside and outside Russia had since the Soviet collapse -- to see Russia integrated with the West -- was crushed long before Russian tanks rolled into Georgia. The Kremlin's assault on democratic institutions such as the press, political parties and the parliament began years ago. The controlled process by which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin moved from president to prime minister was the defining moment. It marked the end of the post-Soviet era.

Read the full article here.

Venezuela has been strongly supportive of Russia for some time now, with the two sharing an arms trade worth $4 billion and a mutual dislike of the US.

President Hugo Chávez has been using the Georgian war as a good excuse to weigh in on Russia’s side of the conflict, calling President Mikheil Saakashvili a “puppet” of Washington and defending Russian military action in the country. This week, their strategic partnership took a new turn, with Chávez revealing that Russia had expressed interest in sending a naval fleet to the Caribbean, and, moreover, that Venezuela would welcome such a visit.

Well, Chávez has received a scathing response from The White House, which called his keenness to host a fleet “curious”, and accusing him of rejecting more urgent problems in his own country. AFP has the story:

"The Russians and the Venezuelans can engage in whatever cooperation that they would like. But it's curious, I'm not sure what Venezuela needs or gains by a visit by the Russian fleet," said [White House] spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "You would think that President Chavez would concentrate more on the problems that the people of Venezuela are having rather than inviting the fleet in for a port call," he said, adding that he could not confirm the invitation.

I wonder though, does this tit-for-tat exchange suggest real alliances and grievances, or is it merely a war of words?

Is oil production falling at all of the major Western oil companies because of a loss of influence? Oil prices have fallen as Tropical Storm Fay avoided oil-producing infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. The Czech Republic and Poland have signed a deal enabling companies from both countries to explore cross-border coal deposits in the region. Russia's MRSK Holding, a new blue-chip stock in the electricity sector, has begun trading with an implied market capitalisation of around $6.5 billion.

Following RusAl’s criticism of Norilsk Nickel’s environmental record, an official who granted Norilsk a permit to emit polluting gases is being investigated over possible abuse of office. Russian nickel producer Industrial Metallurgical Holding is considering reducing output due to a drop in nickel prices. Alexey Mordashov has raised his share in Power Machines to 63% and split his holdings between three offshore companies. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has denied French media reports he had bought the world's most expensive home. Tensions with Russia could put debt refinancing at Ukraine’s highly leveraged banks at risk. Russian industrial output was weaker than expected in July: “The July figures are unpleasant. They suggest that June wasn't the only bad month.” Russian exchange group Micex has reported a 58% rise in volume in the first six months of the year. Basic Element's small aluminum maker Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica, an investment in Montenegro, is reportedly losing money.

TODAY: Medvedev is hawkish on further conflict; Russia has not withdrawn troops, closes Georgian border, begins exchanging prisoners; Red Cross barred from entering South Ossetia; youth movement coordinator charged for blog entries; PR war continues; US freezes Nato-Russia Council; concern over racial violence; Prokofiev.

In a move that “appeared to be aimed at projecting an image of him as the politician calling the shots in Moscow,” President Dmitry Medvedev has announced that any power moving against Russian citizens would suffer “a shattering blow”. Despite a Russian announcement that a gradual withdrawal from Georgia was underway, Russian troops and tanks did not move out through the main military crossing point last night. Borders between the two have been partially closed by Russia, ostensibly to prevent it from being entered by “foreign terrorists”. It is thought that the exchange of Russian and Georgian prisoners, which began today, may reduce tensions and hasten a troop withdrawal.

Although Moscow may have won the military war against Georgia, analysts suggest that it lost the PR war. “I can't recall another conflict, or any government at another time of crisis, using CNN the way the Georgian government is,” said one. Georgia has barred broadcasts by the Russian-language RTVi television channel after it screened an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during which he criticized Georgian leadership. Russia has been spinning President Mikheil Saakashvili’s tie-munching, and Fox News is accused of cutting short a pro-Russia war report, says the Moscow Times. Novaya Gazeta's St. Petersburg edition has been accused by the federal media watchdog of inciting hatred toward Georgians and faces possible closure.

Christopher Hitchens can think of at least six reasons why South Ossetia is not comparable to Kosovo.

In this speech, Sen. John McCain makes some very aggressive statements about Russia and the war in Georgia, with no shortage of references to Cold War history. It appears that unwavering support for the former Soviet states is quickly becoming a central pillar of the candidate's foreign policy platform - but whether or not that is the outcome that the Moscow hardliners were looking for is an entire other question.

Pavel Felgenhauer is a respected Russian military reporter and generally well known man-about-town among the opposition, and his latest piece in Novaya Gazeta about Russia's early war planning for the invasion of Georgia is making quite a stir, and has gotten picked up by numerous other sources. Below is an exclusive English translation of the original NG piece.

"This was not a spontaneous war, but a planned one"

By Pavel Felgenhauer, columnist for Novaya Gazeta

Today it is perfectly obvious to me that the Russian incursion into Georgia was planned in advance, moreover the final political decision to complete preparation and begin the war in August was, it would seem, taken already in April.

And the Ossetians intentionally provoked the Georgians, and any response, tough or mild, would have been used in the capacity of an excuse to attack. And if the Georgians had endured without complaining, then the Abkhazians would have begun, like now, a long prepared operation for the «mopping up» of the upper part of the Kodori Gorge. If a war has been planned, an excuse will always be found.

Towards August, a significant part of the ships of the Black Sea Fleet was ready for a lengthy battle outing, units of constant readiness of the Land forces, the airborne-landing forces and the marine infantry were ready to move out, while during the course of the «Caucasus-2008» training, which ended on 2 August, a week before the war, the forces of the military-air forces, the military-sea fleet and the army completed on a locale at the Georgian border the last readiness inspection. Concurrently towards the beginning of August the Railroad troops in Abkhazia completed repair of RR routes, along which this week were flipped over to Inguri tanks, heavy equipment and items of supply for an approximately 10-thousand-strong grouping, intruded without any excuse or formal reason into Western Georgia. Naturally, not for any «national-economy aims», as officially declared Moscow, the rapidly repaired railroad was used.

A modest haul

Grigory Pasko, journalist

The Russian Olympic team, poor in gold medals, evokes a feeling of pity in me. The athletes are forced to be distracted by events that have nothing to do with the Olympics. For example, by the war of Russia with Georgia. For four days they were forced, as someone joked, to fight on two fronts. And then to participate three days in hypocritical mourning for those killed during the time of the Russo-Georgian conflict. Who can think about medals…?

But there are yet other certain circumstances to which I would like to bring the attention of readers.

A silver prizewinner of the Beijing Olympiad, Nastya Pozdnyakova, lives and trains in Houston. She goes to school there too – at the University of Houston, in the department of the theory of the arts AND her boyfriend – is a Canadian. Before moving to Houston, the young woman lived in Elektrostal. It so happened that I have been there. A small town on the outskirts of Moscow. Houston, of course, would be more interesting. And Nastya herself on one of the interviews said that living in Houston is better.

(Photo: Silver prizewinner of the Olympiad Nastya Pozdnyakova (front), with teammate Julia Pakhalina (rear) - source)

In a sea of opinion and chatter on the war in the Caucasus, this think piece from Walter Laqueur focusing on the geopolitical consequences on the Middle East on Harvard's MESH Blog is very, very interesting, and should be read in its entirety:

But Russia is under time pressure for at least three reasons. First, there is the emotional factor. The temptation to show that Russia has returned to a position of strength is very great. Which Russian leader does not want to enter history as another Peter the Great—not to mention some more recent leaders? Second, Russia’s strength rests almost entirely on its position as the world’s leading oil and gas supplier. But this will not last forever. Nor will it be possible to prevent technological progress forever—alternative sources of energy will be found.

Above all, there is Russia’s demographic weakness. Its population is constantly shrinking (and becoming de-Russified). The duration of military service had to be halved because there are not enough recruits. Every fourth recruit is at present of Muslim background; in a few years it will be every third. The density of population in Asian Russia is 2.5 per square kilometer—and declining. There is no possible way to stop or reverse this process, and depopulation means inevitably the loss of wide territories—not to the Americans.

In these circumstances there is a strong urge not to wait but to act now.

What will be the impact of these trends on the Middle East?

Today Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post hits on the classic maxim of modern geopolitics - when in doubt, blame the Americans. Rosa Brooks provides a prime example to prove Hiatt's point, but then again, maxims wouldn't exist if they weren't right at least once in a while.

This narrative of American provocation cites a long list of grievances, but the principal and original sin is NATO expansion. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States encouraged the newly free nations of Central and Eastern Europe to join a military alliance whose founding purpose had been containment of the U.S.S.R. Russia hated the idea from the start, and the United States should have known that Moscow, once it recovered its strength, would exact retribution.

Former Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen is now an official employee of the Russian government.

In my previous post on Gerhard Schroeder and the war, I briefly mentioned Gazprom's hiring of Finland’s former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen as a "consultant" to Nord Stream (see previous blog post here).

Today Kommersant has an interesting article elaborating exactly what Mr. Lipponen will be working on: the underwater environmental permits for the Nord Stream pipeline to pass through Finnish waters. As Grigory Pasko has reported, this is quite a dicey project, and a response from the Nord Stream PR department to this blog can be read here.

Given how much we've blogged about Russia's most highly paid lobbyist, the rent-a-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, it should come as no surprise that he has been one of the most vocal defenders of the Russian invasion of Georgia (though I do wonder if Gazprom's brand new hire of the former prime minister of Finland will be put to work soon).

What is frustrating about this is that the Russians have an important position that needs to be expressed, one that I am not without sympathy for, given the disproportionately aggressive demonizing of the country in the American press. Although carelessly executed with zero subtlety or diplomacy and unfortunate violence (and perhaps with the aim of creating a useful enmity for greater domestic powers), what Russia is pursuing in the Caucasus is squarely within their national interests - and that's what countries do when they have power, pursue interests. But the Kremlin has failed to argue this position with any conviction, and in fact appears to doubt its own legitimacy.

And that's where Schroeder steps into the mix, ruining whatever chance Moscow had to win over the swing opinion. Like one of those radically annoying liberal grassroots groups, Schroeder excels in the unique of art of repelling even those who agree with him. His stumping of the war is clearly exacerbating the deep, deep rift in the German government (which of course paralyzes the united international response to Russia's action) and puts the credibility of the SPD and Frank-Walter Steinmeier into troubled waters.

So far, the reactions to Schroeder's intervention on the invasion issue have been quite sharp:

RusAl is urging City institutions to back it in its attempts to replace and increase Norilsk Nickel’s board. Russian shareholder group AAR is expected to press for a secondary listing of shares in TNK-BP, allowing TNK-BP to raise fresh capital and diluting the current shareholders’ control of the business. Three miners have died in an accident at a Siberian coal mine owned by Evraz Group. Egypt has agreed to supply Lebanon with electricity and natural gas. Gazprom has launched syndication of a $500 million, five-year loan.

The Kremlin will reportedly consider plans to privatize 239 state-owned companies. Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev says he wants to buy a small German bank to help support German exports into Russia. Lebedev said Russia’s conflict with Georgia is scaring investors and has caused him to lose money. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin says that the conflict has wiped $7 billion off the Russian stock market. The Finance Ministry is proposing increasing employers' payroll tax and raising levies on individuals in order to fund higher pensions. Italian insurance giant Generali and Czech billionaire Petr Kellner have made an informal approach for Oleg Deripaska’s stake in insurer Ingosstrakh. Norwegian telecoms group Telenor will appeal a court decision ordering it to pay $2.8 billion in damages for delaying an acquisition by VimpelCom.

TODAY: Kremlin slow to withdraw troops, increasing numbers in South Ossetia; Nato ministers torn over Russia; minister threatens Poland with nuclear strike over US missile defense; Germany presses for artwork to be returned.

Nato ministers are having trouble agreeing on Russia, with a tough approach from the US and Britain on one side, and Germany and France, which are urging a more cautious stance on the other. “I don’t know how they are going to isolate us,” commented Sergei Lavrov last week. “My understanding is that each country is supporting Georgia for its own ends and really doesn't care about Georgia's population.” “Everyone is to blame.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy writes in the Washington Post today, underlining the importance of a Russian troop withdrawal and promising “grave consequences” if Russia ignored the terms of the ceasefire, which will give the Russian Army the right to patrol in South Ossetia. The Kremlin has announced that Russia will start pulling back today, but has not given a specific time, and many reports indicate that Russia has moved short-range ballistic missiles into South Ossetia and increased military presence in Gori. The BBC has compiled a day-by-day register of the conflict. Georgia's interior ministry has accused Russia of deliberately starting a fire that threatens to destroy a forest regarded as a national treasure. Georgia says its main east-west train link has been severed. Some human rights activists on the ground said that they were struggling to find even 100 slain Ossetians, according to the Moscow Times.

And he wants you to know about it. From his op/ed in the Sunday Times:

First, speaking up clearly and bluntly about what has happened. This is not a time for diplomatic opaqueness. It is a time to distinguish unambiguously between right and wrong. It is a time for democracies to stand together. It is a time for members of our parliament – the seat of one of the world’s oldest democracies – to speak up for one of the world’s newest. Today, in Georgia’s hour of need, this instinct unites government and opposition.

Second, we need urgent diplomatic efforts, in which Britain must play a leading role. Russian forces must leave Georgia right away as they are required to do under the ceasefire agreement both sides have signed.

Third, Russia must pay a price.

From the International Herald Tribune:

So along with the old-school onslaught of infantry, armor and artillery, Russia mounted joint air and naval operations, appeared to launch simultaneous cyberattacks on Georgian government Web sites and had its best English speakers at the ready to make Moscow's case in television appearances.

If the rapidly unfolding events caught much of the world off guard, that kind of coordination of the old and the new did not look accidental to military professionals.

"They seem to have harnessed all their instruments of national power — military, diplomatic, information — in a very disciplined way," said one Pentagon official, who like others interviewed for this article disclosed details of the operation under ground rules that called for anonymity. "It appears this was well thought out and planned in advance, and suggests a level of coordination in the Russian government between the military and the other civilian agencies and departments that we are striving for today."

Everyone is aware that Washington is not about to send the Marines into Georgia to assert its regional interests, but what are the realistic diplomatic and economic penalties that could be leveraged against Russia? The Bush Administration will be looking to save face, but as we have speculated, its range of options is rather limited.

The Wall Street Journal elaborates a couple of ways that Russia may find itself punished for the war in Georgia:

Western authorities should also explore the vulnerability of Russian assets abroad. At the least, they can make life difficult for the holders of those assets. Post-Soviet Russia allowed the emergence of businessmen and entrepreneurs who indeed wish to function as normal participants in world commerce. Their number, however, assuredly includes the lucky billionaires under Mr. Putin's protection. All of them want to benefit from the West's rules. That privilege should be restricted so long as Mr. Putin breaks the rules.

In the world of global commerce, reputation matters. China has calculated that its own ambivalent reputation can only gain from staging the Olympic extravaganza. The glow of the Games is money in the bank. By contrast, the Putin government has embarked on a strategy that seems to believe its power grows in sync with its reputation as an international pariah, an outsider state.

Mr. Bush said Friday that "Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world." True, and if the West remains firm, it can make clear to Mr. Putin that the political price of behavior beyond the pale of normal relations is high. Overrunning Georgia was easy. Life after that should not be.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is getting a lot of interesting press coverage this week - and like his public persona, there are those who hold him in awe, and those who blame him entirely for what's happened (if you haven't yet read what the Russians say about him, hold onto to your keyboards...). Here are some more interesting snippets of how his personality is being portrayed.

"Why Americans swoon for the former Soviet Republic of Georgia," by Ilan Greenberg, Slate.com

I got to know Georgia—and Saakashvili—when I profiled him for the New York Times Magazine. For almost two months I shadowed Misha. In Slovakia for a regional summit, walking next to Saakashvili along Bratislava's cordoned streets, the Georgian head of state hooked his arm on my elbow and offered to trade gossip about his senior staff. In Tbilisi, Saakashvili gave me carte blanche access, not once ordering me out of his office. In a region where governments routinely conflate tribe with nation, Saakashvili pointedly switched languages to inclusively address ethnic minorities. One evening I answered my cell phone to hear the cackling voice of the then 37-year-old president, who called to tease that his evening was more interesting than mine. I had been crank-called by the president. Stockholm Syndrome was inevitable.

Thanks to a lawyer colleague of mine, I have been put into contact via telephone with a high-ranking official from the Georgian government, who has shared some firsthand reports from the ground.

The official reports that a contingent of the Russian armored division stationed in Gori has moved on to occupy the nearby town of Kaspi, leaving in its wake hundreds of robberies and looting of stores. This report is consistent with other news reports of the expanded occupation of new Georgian towns, accompanied by theft and looting - and in some cases forced labor, which is the first apparent evidence of humiliation or abuse.

According to my source, the details of many of these robberies would lead one to believe there is a psychological motivation. After raiding a warehouse near Gori, he says, dozens of Russian soldiers put on Georgian Army uniforms to gain access to homes, where robberies included everything from high-value domestic goods such as dishwashers, microwaves, and televisions, down to more confusing thefts - everything from toothbrushes to clothing to soap. Many of the Georgian casualties were also found to have been stripped of their boots, he says.

It was a very sad conversation, but I was not inclined to doubt any of his claims.

Although the dust is far from settled in Georgia, and indeed I am getting firsthand reports of ongoing Russian troop movements, we will soon have to begin taking a serious look at the international law implications of this military action, and ask some tough questions about 1) the status of Russia's "peacekeeping" mission and their range of duty, 2) the legal status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia pre- and post-conflict, and 3) the legal basis for the deployment of Russian troops into Georgian sovereign territory.

Eventually I'd like to address all these questions, but tonight, let's just start with the status of the Russian peacekeepers.

President Bush seems quite confused as to how he can wield any influence whatsoever over Russian conduct in Georgia. His latest statements find him actually having to repeat his requests for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia, and even whining about Russian "bullying." (hint: only the bullied talk about bullying.) Unlike the West, the Russian response with regard to Georgia ever regaining their U.N.-recognized sovereignty over the breakaway provinces has been swift and unequivocal: fuhgettaboutit.

Now the latest news is that the maverick foreign policy minds of the Bush Administration are working on a clever new strategy to "isolate" Russia as punishment for invading Georgia. Who does he think he's kidding?

If you believe that John Bolton has never said or written something you didn't vigorously disagree with, then you probably haven't done enough research. However the razor-tongued former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations is now safely packed away in the private sector (working alongside Ken Starr at Kirkland & Ellis), where he can speak with a great amount of autonomy to air his indiscriminate grievances ... which always makes for good reading. This guy does not speak the language of nuance, but when he says that this is indicative of how Russia intends to conduct foreign policy for the coming decade, we should listen up.

Here's his bit on the Russian objective with the invasion of Georgia:

Reports of the parallel cyberwar being conducted against Georgia alongside the military onslaught is not news. We saw indications that organized groups of hackers using DOS (denial of service) attacks - which have previously been linked to the Russian government in the Estonia case - weeks before the invasion began, blocking the ability of the Georgian government to publish to their own websites.

But what strikes me as interesting about the cyberwar is how self-defeating and damaging it is to the Russian position. If Moscow feels confident and legitimate in its military actions in Georgia, then why would it be necessary to engage in criminal activities to attack their counterpart? It in fact makes it more difficult for one to sympathize with the invasion and the greivances when it is cloaked in such unsavory sideshows.

But perhaps I am too quick to jump to the conclusion that the Kremlin can actually control how and when the hackers leap into attack mode - even if the nationalism that motivates them is stirred up by the state's (un)civil society mechanisms. Apparently just about anybody can do this without even being an expert.

Former Kremlin economist Andrei Illarionov writes about the war in this translation from Yezhednevny Zhurnal, courtesy of the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum.

The Second Georgian War

By Andrei Illarionov

1. The war against Georgia was a brilliant provocation carefully planned and successfully carried out by the Russian leadership. The campaign was practically identical to the plan carried out in another theatre at another time — [Chechen warlord Shamil] Basaev’s attack into Dagestan and the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999.

2. In the new situation that has taken shape following the war, Georgians may find a legitimate reason to recognise Georgia’s de facto loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

3. The military losses of Georgia are greater than those of Russia. At the same time, however, the financial, foreign policy, and moral losses of Russia are much more significant than those of Georgia.

This cartoon requires no further comment.

A Moscow court has banned Robert Dudley, the TNK-BP joint venture’s chief executive, from working in Russia for two years. Dudley plans to continue managing the company from abroad. Some analysts maintain that the war is not about oil. New evidence reportedly “strongly suggests that Russia dropped bombs near oil and gas pipelines bringing fuel to the West.” BP has resumed exports of Azerbaijani natural gas through its South Caucasus pipeline across Georgia. Georgia’s pipelines remain vulnerable.

A number of big Wall Street banks are reportedly becoming “increasingly nervous that Russia’s high-risk, high-reward environment is becoming too much about the risk.” US electronics chain Best Buy Co will begin expanding into Russia. Russian aircraft company MiG held its first meeting to discuss its massive liabilities.

TODAY: War uproots 100,000; irregular add-ons to Russian army are “terrorizing”; aid workers having trouble accessing areas; Vitaly Churkin says Russia’s role in Gori was humanitarian; Rice to visit Tbilisi; US and Poland agree on missile shield; “the Obama angle”.

The war between Georgia and Russia has reportedly uprooted more than 100,000 people. Georgia said Russian troops still control one-third of the country, and that the Russian army has brought in “thousands and thousands of irregulars” who are terrorizing the country. Humanitarian aid groups and UN monitors are reportedly unable to reach large parts of Georgia due to insecure conditions, and Human Rights Watch says it has evidence that Russia used cluster bombs in civilian areas of Georgia. Russia’s claims of “genocide” in South Ossetia are coming under question.

In the eyes of Russian citizens, their country is “the peacemaker”. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s UN Ambassador, says that Georgia’s strategic city of Gori should not be classified as being “in ruins” because it still has running water and electricity, and classifies Russian troop action there as “humanitarian”. Russian troops are again stationed in the city, having previously retreated, and journalists are reportedly coming under fire there.

[One of the best things about running a blog is that friends and colleagues will often contact me to ask if I will publish an occasional guest contribution. The following comes from the respected veteran journalist, author, and academic Jonathan Sanders, Ph.D., whose expertise on Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union ranks among the best. I'm grateful for this interesting contribution. - Bob Amsterdam]

The Olympic Warlet

By Jonathan Sanders

Little wars – “warlets” – in obscure far-off places teach sharp, if unromantic lessons.

The Olympic warlet – the firefight-turned-invasions of the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia that began on 6 August (another intelligence failure by the US military, with satellites looking down and some hundred agents on the ground looking up; either the agents were blind or failed to take the Putin-revived military seriously – this is the biggest blunder of this type since the Americans were asleep at the switch in December 1979 when Brezhnev and Company exercised their wet dreams of warm weather beaches and pretty Afghan maidens) – demonstrates even to the most election-campaign-fueled American patriots the folly of including a place like Georgia in NATO.

Ronald Regan would ask a simple question: would you risk NATO-backed thermonuclear war to defend South Ossetia?

For some – war, for some – mother is dear
(Russian saying)

Grigory Pasko, journalist

This sure was a strange war. It was clear right from the start that nobody – besides several politicians – needed it. Several politicians – that would be Saakashvili, Putin, and Medvedev. By the way, the last of these no doubt also did not take part in all the decisions: senior comrade Putin simply ordered him to say this, to behave himself like that and no other way.

Saakashvili was pursuing a goal: to attract the attention of the world public to a region of republics not recognized by anyone – South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Formally, they are counted in the composition of Georgia, in practice – they are protectorates of Russia. In South Ossetia even the leadership of the republic – is all Russian.

The war ended quickly, like it had begun. A mass of political scientists is already extracting political lessons from it. But I want to bring attention to certain aspects, which, as a rule, remain in the shadows.

(Photo: Warriors of the Russian Army - source)

From the columnist Andrew Borene:

Americans should be appalled at the lack of attention paid to the major international security crisis in Georgia by the media, by our government and by the world community.

We should have expected that the broadcast media would interrupt Olympic coverage and that cable news would begin a series of stories on the background and analysis of the Georgian war, not place Olympic biographies and stories about the John Edwards affair as lead news items.

We should have expected that any major political party's presidential candidate would return from vacation to Washington in order to jointly denounce the Russians' actions in Georgia, not issue spineless statements on the moral equivalency of the Russian and Georgian positions from a Hawaiian golf course.

We should have expected that through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, we would begin a major initiative to deter any further Russian military aggression by working publicly and jointly to add what remains of Georgia and Ukraine fully into the treaty, not continue a now-moot academic debate on whether publicly backing Ukraine and Georgia might "provoke" Russian bullying.

This quote I dare say is the understatement of the week (hat tip to our editor):

"Now Russia's defeat of Georgian forces who tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia, and its backing of rebels who pushed Georgian troops out of Abkhazia, will make it even less likely Georgia will lift its opposition to Russian membership in the world trading body."

The New Republic has a rather acerbic but interesting interview with Charles Fairbanks, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of State. We completely agree with him that the Bush administration's Iran obsession is really allowing the Russians to completely distort the balance of power in the relationship.

How would you characterize the U.S. response to the crisis? Could the administration be doing more?

This is a huge event. It really alters the international landscape, and the backgrounders that came out of the State Department talk as though it's just another little outbreak of instability in the third world. There's no realization that this is an event like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The real test of the Bush administration's policy will come in the next months--whether there is any fundamental adjustment to totally new realities in our relationship with Russia and in our awareness of the problems with the Georgian government.

How will the U.S. and the world engage with Russia, after its willingness to assert itself geopolitically has reared its head so violently?

The Bush administration is mesmerized by the goal of getting Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that's indeed a tremendously important thing to do. But there is a very real question of whether it can be done at all, and one has the impression from backgrounders and conversations that the dominant consideration in the handling of this [Georgia] crisis was to not offend Russia too much, to get cooperation above all on the Iranian nuclear issue. That seems to me very short-sighted because Russia is victorious, and they think, even if we don't, that we lost a war. The result is that Russian cooperation will come at a higher price on every issue.

Carlos Alberto Montaner has a new piece on PostGlobal:

Among the reformists close to Kozyrev there was a certainty that the conquest of the world had been too costly and counterproductive an enterprise. And another key idea had blossomed: the West should not be fought but embraced, imitated and invited to invest. Russia should compete within the rules of the game of market capitalism. Those diplomats understood that Russia did not have to become anybody else's counterweight, or play into a bipolarity that could only bring the nation conflict and poverty. After all, Russia was the largest nation in the West, the third Rome (the second had been Constantinople) and it made no sense to adopt an attitude of hostility toward a world that was as much theirs as it was France's or England's.

All this is apropos Russia's attitude in the conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. It is very probable that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili acted rashly when he attacked South Ossetia in an effort to reconquer that territory, but it seems evident that Moscow had been waiting for an opportunity to strike. The attack on Georgia began on Aug. 8. On July 20, 19 days earlier, the Russians already knew Saakashvili's plans and had unleashed a cyberwar intended to dismantle the communications of their ill-tempered neighbor via the Internet. It was a magnificent moment to teach a lesson to the Georgians and the rest of the world, most especially the United States, who were sponsoring Georgia's admission to NATO.

In a letter to the Times, an academic notes that the invasion of Georgia may have been a short-term victory and long-term loss for Russia's regional interests:

Re “Russia’s War of Ambition” (editorial, Aug. 12):

While militarily a success, Russia’s incursion into Georgia to reassert its sphere of influence in the “near abroad” is political folly.

The Russian-Georgian conflict has likely pushed Georgia out of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, whose leaders have traveled to Georgia to express solidarity with President Mikheil Saakashvili, will distance themselves further from a domineering, oil-resurgent Russia.

Russian military might has won the day in Georgia, but as a means of extending its influence in the region, political pressure and persuasion would have been far more effective.

Lawrence P. Markowitz
Oberlin, Ohio, Aug. 12, 2008

Russia’s antitrust watchdog has found Mechel guilty of breaking competition law, and could fine it up to $130 million. The company may also have to cut prices by 30%. Petroneft has agreed a deal with Arawak Energy to jointly pursue new opportunities in the West Siberian region of Russia. The Moscow Times says that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline closed two days before the outbreak of conflict in Georgia. Power utility RusHydro reported a 40% year-on-year rise in net profit for the first half of 2008. If the anti-monopoly agency gets its way, Gazprom may be forced to share export pipelines with independent producers.

Despite contradictory reports, Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska's car unit, Russian Machines, denied it was seeking to buy the Hummer brand from General Motors Corp. President Dmitry Medvedev has chaired a meeting organized to decide on a draft budget for 2009-2011.

TODAY: Russian troops move into Gori; UN may approve peace proposal by end of week; Russia will not recognize Georgia’s territorial integrity; war of words rages on; HRW questions Russia’s death toll; White House struggling to find means of retaliation; Yushchenko moves to restrict Russian warships.

Despite all news suggesting the contrary, including President Dmitry Medvedev's announcing of the end of military operations in Georgia on Tuesday, Russia's troop withdrawal from the strategic city of Gori has appeared to collapse, with explosions being heard there today. The French-drafted Security Council proposal to end hostilities between Georgia and Russia may be approved by the UN Security Council before the end of the week. A text of the agreement has been published by the New York Times. Russia has declined to acknowledge Georgian sovereignty over all of its recognised territory and refused to have any reference to it in the peace proposal.

The war of words between Russia and Georgia continues. Deputy Russian Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has compared Georgia’s initial move for South Ossetia with 9/11, implicitly comparing its response with the US invasion of Afghanistan. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili writes in today’s Washington Post. “Georgia's only fault in this crisis is its wish to be an independent, free and democratic country.” Elsewhere Saakashvili has resorted to “increasingly fiery language”. Human Rights Watch has called Russia’s use of the word genocide in reference to the conflict “irresponsible”, and questioned the accuracy of its South Ossetian death toll.

War is a funny thing - it has the ability to attract such a wide variety of commentators with no connection whatsoever to the region, suddenly presenting themselves as knowledgeable authorities on the subject. That is certainly the case in the United States right now, as everyone from the blowhard armchair strategists to the intolerably bombastic talk show radio hosts, offer up anything and everything they think might stick about the Russian-Georgian war.

I am not in the United States at the moment, but this is certainly the sensation I am getting as I review the press online, and speak with friends and colleagues, and hear some shocking questions and reactions - leading me to believe that there is a significant distortion effect going on and no shortage of emotional hysteria caused by the images of Russian tanks in a foreign land. I think we can blame a lot of this on electoral partisanship.

UPDATE: This article contains even more recent tit-for-tat candidate exchanges on the issue.

Ah, journalists! I love you guys, but you just can't resist a good Olympic competition story between two nations at war. Certainly the cameras loved the symbolic hug between Russia's Natalia Paderina and Georgia's Nino Salukvadze during the medals ceremony as the mortars pounded the Georgian military into dust (the irony of the event, 10-meter air pistol!), or even the more fiercely competitive beach volleyball match as Georgia's Andrezza Chagas and Cristine Santanna (who may have grown up in Brazil, but so what!) defeated the Russians Alexandra Shiryaeva and Natalya Uryadova.

But there can be no temptation greater than to shine the politics on the Gold medal victory of Georgia's mighty judo champion, Irakli Tsirekidze, who trounced the Russian competitor Ivan Pershin early on in the semifinals.

This of course brings to mind the question of how Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a seasoned judoka himself (sixth degree black belt), would have strategically approached the match - or perhaps the battlefield - to gain the upper hand. Luckily we have some insight on Putin's judo thinking from the preface of the book Judo: History, Theory, Practice, by Vladimir Putin and others, published in 2004 by North Atlantic Books.

I think that this column by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal, if not well intentioned, does a lot of projecting and stretching, including a number of favorite ideological issues attached to unrelated events. His central argument, however, is very interesting: "Western powers may not do much immediately about his squeeze on Georgia, but over time he will find he has created conditions for the emergence of a coalition to contain Russian energy power."

But Mr. Jenkins is assuming that Washington and the EU are capable of acting strategically in their own interests in relations with Russia - something that I have not seen evidence of in quite a long time. Furthermore, the "containment" of Russian energy imperialism is in essence the promotion of market competition - which is actually very good for Russia's future. Let's not be tricked into thinking that Russia can't be powerful and successful while at the same time there is stability in the Caucasus and near abroad. There's no reason to assume that Putin's grandiose and confrontational foreign policy ambitions represent the interests of the Russian people.

First Yukos, Then Georgia August 13, 2008; Page A15

Now the world is getting an idea of what a "war for oil" really looks like. Few in the West appreciate the degree to which Vladimir Putin and the Soviet, er, Russian, elite subscribe to a prewar view of power relations and national greatness. Their view is not based on self-reproducing institutions and innovation and the power of trade, but on territory and resources -- lebensraum, as one of their intellectual progenitors called it.

Steven Pearlstein has a good column in the Washington Post today explaining what is becoming well known as Russia's energy play with this war in the Caucasus. I'd agree with some of the other analysts who argue this isn't the only thing Russia is going for here, but it is of course important nonetheless. Pearlstein does of course neglect to mention that Gazprom is pulling the same moves in North Africa with joint ventures with the Algerian exporter and an offer to buy all of Libya's gas. I wonder how long we'll stay blind to the pattern?

Suddenly the Russians were offering to pay Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan multiples of what they had previously offered to secure long-term supply deals. They penned an agreement with Italy and its oil company, Eni, to build a pipeline that would run under the Black Sea from Russia to Europe and end up at the same Austrian terminal as Nabucco. And Russian officials offered highly favorable transit agreements, ownership shares and guaranteed gas supplies to secure transit agreements from Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.

To industry observers like Ed Chow, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Nabucco has always looked more like a diplomats' pipe dream than a viable economic project. Its promoters had not only failed to secure supply and transit agreements but also had yet to identify an oil company eager to champion the project and finance the pipeline. Now, with its successful military incursion, Russia has raised serious doubts in the minds of Western lenders and investors that a new pipeline through Georgia would be safe from attack or beyond control of the Kremlin.

What we've been reminded once again is that Vladimir Putin is perfectly willing to sacrifice the rule of law and the good opinion of others to protect the Russian empire and the energy monopoly that sustains it. The techniques he used to bring Georgia to heel, while more lethal and destructive, have the same thuggish quality as the techniques Putin uses to silence domestic opposition and to expropriate the energy assets of Yukos, Shell and BP.

We've blogged quite a bit about the various Kremlin owned and operated politicians in Europe, and often speculated whether or not there is quantitative coefficient of how much natural gas a given country consumes related to their level of acquiescence to Russian authoritarianism. This rather off-the-cuff editorial from the Arizona Republic lays it down in stark, inelegant terms how the successful energy disaggregation of Europe shattered any possible unity to protect Georgia and prevent war.

Take the positions of Germany and Italy, both headed by pro-American conservative leaders.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has led the opposition to Georgian membership in NATO. Italy's foreign minister, in the context of the current conflict, said: "It doesn't behoove us to pit ourselves against Russia. Russia is a strategic partner."

Germany gets 39 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Italy gets 31 percent.

Vladimir Putin has succeeded with his plan to turn Russian oil and natural gas into an instrument of state power, as chronicled by Marshall Goldman in his new book Petrostate.

Bush, McCain and Obama all said that Russia had damaged its international standing and relations with the rest of the world.

But that's just not true. Regardless of the outcome in Georgia, the rest of the world will continue doing business with Russia much as it has in the past. The same is probably true of the United States, as well.

Despite Medvedev's orders for a ceasefire, reports this afternoon from journalists in Gori indicate that about 50 Russian tanks and armored vehicles have re-entered the Georgian city with South Ossetian militias looting stores and homes, while others report that forces are headed toward Tbilisi. There are also reports of forces pushing out beyond Abkhazia.

Russia's violation of the truce won't help their arguments to the international community that can be trusted with what they say.

This bit of analysis comes from Ariel Cohen in the Washington Times, who wonders when Europe and the United States will get around to questioning Russia's claim to be an upholder of international law. Unfortunately, Iraq and Kosovo are going to be inconvenient precedents and a likely source of much finger pointing.

Aggression against Georgia also sends a strong signal to Ukraine and to Europe. Russia is playing a chess game of offense and intimidation. Former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke last spring about Russia "dismembering" Ukraine, another NATO candidate, and detaching the Crimea, a peninsula transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, when both were integral parts of the Soviet Union.

Russia is engaged in what the Chinese call "kill the chicken to scare the monkey." Ukraine is the monkey: its pro-Western leaders, such as President Victor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, have expressed a desire to join NATO, while the pro-Moscow Ukrainian Party of Regions effectively opposes membership. NATO opponents in Ukraine are greatly encouraged by Russia's action against Georgia.

BP says its 90,000-barrels-per-day pipeline, which runs to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast from Baku in Azerbaijan, has been closed indefinitely as a precautionary measure. The Washington Post says that, precisely, “was one of the aims of the cross-border incursion.” Read a special report on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. The US tomorrow will send a ship on a three-week journey to map the Arctic Ocean floor.

Russia’s stock market is “the world’s worst performer this quarter” and Georgia is to suffer “lasting economic damage”. Private equity firm Carlyle Group has sold US steelmaker John Maneely Co. to Russia's Novolipetsk Steel for $3.5 billion. French bank BNP Paribas says it is about to acquire a Russian brokerage company.

TODAY: Six-step peace process agreed on; Medvedev calls day of mourning; Russian tanks fill Gori; the PR war continues; Moscow’s Zimbabwe stance “hypocrisy”; British Foreign Secretary weighs in; Russia claims South Ossetia war crimes, Georgia files lawsuit for ethnic cleansing; Georgia beats Russia in Olympic volleyball.

President Dmitry Medvedev and President Mikheil Saakashvili have agreed on a framework to end the war of the last five days. The peace plan, brokered by French President Nicholas Sarkozy in his role as current EU President, “may make it easier for the EU to set aside deep differences over who to blame for the war in the breakaway Georgian region.”

Medvedev, who apparently ordered troops to stop military operations in Georgia before meeting with Sarkozy for peace talks, has declared today a national day of mourning. Referring to Saakashvili as a “lunatic”, he also demanded that the breakaway regions be allowed to vote on whether or not they want to join Russia. At a reading of the peace plan yesterday, Medvedev said that troops from both sides “would be withdrawn to their positions prior to the start of hostilities”. Reports suggest that, despite an agreed ceasefire, Russian tanks have entered the already devastated town of Gori.

From the Financial Times:

Russia must stand down

By Joseph Biden

Despite Russia’s overwhelming advantage in size and firepower in its conflict with Georgia, the Kremlin may have the most to lose if the fighting there continues. It is too soon to know with certainty who was responsible for the initial outbreak of violence in South Ossetia, but the war that began there is no longer about Georgia’s breakaway regions or Russian peacekeepers.

By acting disproportionately with a full scale attack on Georgia, Moscow is jeopardising it standing in Europe and the broader international community – and risking very real practical and political consequences.

Our favorite pro-government news outlet RBK Daily strikes again. Well known for their enthusiastic, yet often clumsy, support of the government propaganda line, this latest piece of jingoistic saber-rattling is reminiscent of the sort of stuff that paragon of high-standards journalism, Joseph Pulitzer, published back in the day to justify the Spanish-American War (it worked, didn't it...?). Makes your hair stand on end. See some previous translations from RBK here and here.

War of destruction

In the conflict with Georgia Russia is going to have to go all the way

Yesterday reports from South Ossetia brought some clarity into the contradictory picture of the war. It became clear that Tskhinval [sic], about the taking of which the Russian mass information media had been reporting two days in a row, was completely occupied only on Sunday. However, there is a danger that at this the Russian troops will stop, allowing the Georgian army to once again carry out a regrouping on the commanding heights and descend on the Tskhinvalian «cauldron». As of Sunday night, there had been no order to throw back the adversary in the direction of Tbilisi, the sole imperative in this situation. Reports about Russian aviation strikes on military bases, runways and ports in Georgia are coming in the main from Georgian sources and, unfortunately, could turn out to be a great exaggeration. Unfortunately — because if the infrastructure of Georgia is not demolished, Russia risks losing the war. If this happens, the powers of the country can forget about a worthy place on the international arena and the support of their own population.

Is it about separatism? Protecting Russian passport holders? A brute expression of power? No, Russia's invasion of Georgia is mostly about seizing control of the only energy conduit threatening their monopoly of supply from Central Asia to Europe - according to this piece from the Globe and Mail, which concludes that "rewarding its transgression by acceding to the Kremlin's plans for an energy monopoly in Europe would encourage even worse behaviour in the future."

To what extent is this terrible war one of private economic gain for the gazoviki?

Georgia is a crucial transit point for oil and gas. Three major pipelines connecting energy sources in the Caucasus and Central Asia to European markets pass through its territory. One of these, the South Caucasus pipeline, is an important part of the plan for the Nabucco pipeline to Austria, which would deliver natural gas directly to the European Union, bypassing Russia entirely, if built.

The Russian government, which controls Gazprom, the world's largest gas company, has tried frantically to cajole its European customers into ignoring Nabucco and investing instead in its own new pipelines.

Oil prices have continued to fall as investor fears about economic damage resulting from the conflict in Georgia subside. Georgia's attack on South Ossetia has given Russia “a perfect excuse to roll back US control of Azerbaijan's oil supply”. Russia's military denies Georgian claims that it bombed Georgian oil pipelines. Troubled Russian oil firm TNK-BP has bought a 25% stake in a Siberian power plant from OGK-1 for $345.6 million. Read an article on US attempts to reduce Russia’s Eurasian energy monopoly. The US is sending a scientific expedition to explore the Arctic seabed. Energy-to-auto conglomerate UMW Holdings has won a $170 million contract to build a drilling rig for a group of oil companies led by Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas. Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation has signed a cooperation agreement with a subsidiary of Integra Group.

Russian markets supposedly saw a small boost after President Dmitry Medvedev said that most of the fighting was over in South Ossetia. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin insists that events in South Ossetia will not influence Russia's fiscal position and will not require additional military funding this year. “The war isn’t why you should be hesitant to put money to work in Russia. There are better reasons to keep your rubles at home.” On the rocketing premium of Russian risk and the continuing slump of the Russian market. Chemical company Acron has floated a small stake on the London Stock Exchange. It is being forecast that output at Norilsk Nickel will drop this year. Michaniki, a Greek property builder, has received Russian approval to build a $283 million skyscraper in Moscow. The sharp drop in cement prices shows that, “on some fronts, the state's battle against rampant inflation is working.”

The State Department must be feeling the onerous indecision of a diner at a vastly complicated sushi restaurant in considering its response to the war in Georgia - some options good, others terrible, and that one special item that could poison the whole engagement.

The "what-to-do" discussion seems to be the most popular focus of the plethora of op/eds in the American and British papers today. This one from the New York Times by Svante E. Cornell (John's Hopkins academic) considers McCain's call to eject Russia from the G8 as a stock whose value is quickly rising.

Should we allow Russia to occupy Georgia or even just depose the Saakashvili government, the implications for America’s standing in Eurasia would be dire. We would risk losing the support of the post-Soviet states of Central Asia that are cooperating with the American mission in Afghanistan, along with hopes of westward exports of more Central Asian energy.

Many who might agree with this analysis nonetheless shrug their shoulders over solutions. Indeed, we have no real military options against Russia. But we can put together a meaningful comprehensive reaction, attaching real costs to Russia for its policies.

America must hit where it hurts: Russia’s international prestige, an obsession of Mr. Putin’s. To begin with, we must do everything possible to see Russia’s membership in the Group of 8 industrialized nations be suspended (something the Republican presidential hopeful John McCain called for even before this crisis).

This dates back to Sunday, but Zbigniew Brzezinski comments on the war here:

Fundamentally at stake is what kind of role Russia will play in the new international system. Unfortunately, Putin is putting Russia on a course that is ominously similar to Stalin's and Hitler's in the late 1930s. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has correctly drawn an analogy between Putin's "justification" for dismembering Georgia -- because of the Russians in South Ossetia -- to Hitler's tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to "free" the Sudeten Deutsch.

Even more ominous is the analogy of what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day

The question the international community now confronts is how to respond to a Russia that engages in the blatant use of force with larger imperial designs in mind: to reintegrate the former Soviet space under the Kremlin's control and to cut Western access to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia by gaining control over the Baku/ Ceyhan pipeline that runs through Georgia.

TODAY: Georgian troops leave Gori; Russian troops move deeper into Georgia; Saakashvili caught in air raid; both sides accuse each other of cyberwarfare. Bush says Moscow wants to overthrow Georgian government; Putin criticizes US interference; Europe, NATO, UN push to end conflict.

Russian troops have gone deeper into Georgia, seizing a military base in Senaki, and the Georgian army has fled Gori in “disarray”, with President Mikheil Saakashvili caught in an air raid on the town yesterday. “There is undoubtedly a strong punitive streak to Russian bombing and shelling 24 hours after Georgian forces tried to disengage, particularly in Gori.” Georgia has accused the Russian military of blocking a central highway linking east and west Georgia. Russia has sent a convoy of humanitarian aid into South Ossetia, where “something approaching anti-Western hysteria” is spreading. Dmitry Medvedev suggested that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - which Russia has supposedly been trying discredit - send a mission into South Ossetia. Both Georgia and Russia have accused the other of disabling Internet sites in a bid to disrupt electronic communications.

The weak American response to Russia's invasion of Georgia has not been lost on anyone, and one article even quoted a refugee fleeing the conflict zone toward safety as commenting "If Bush had said something stronger, the Russians wouldn't have pushed on toward Gori." The Georgian Olympic war is quickly becoming a measuring stick of Washington's squandered international power after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and severely strained relations with allies. Bay Fang of the Chicago Tribune has a good news analysis worth reading taking a look at the lost leverage.

On the first day that Russia struck Georgian troops in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, the Bush administration said it was working actively with its European partners to seek an end to hostilities.

Four days later, as Russian forces swarmed virtually unopposed into Georgian territory on Monday, the U.S. response was the same: "We are working very hard with the Europeans to try to resolve the conflict," said Robert Wood, the deputy State Department spokesman.

Even as President George W. Bush vigorously condemned Russia's actions, calling its military expansion into Georgian territory a "dramatic and brutal escalation" that is "unacceptable in the 21st Century," there is not much the U.S. can do to protect its closest ally in the Caucasus.

Instead of spending the weekend watching the Olympics and enjoying some summer downtime with my family (like I assume many of this blog's readers were planning on doing), I found myself up to my neck in newspapers, on the phone, and glued to the web and TV as I watched with horror Russia's first invasion of a foreign sovereign state since the 1979 Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan. Anyone familiar with the lethal efficiency of the Russian military's recent domestic campaigns in Chechnya and elsewhere knew that things were going to get uglier and uglier, and that the disproportionate bombing campaigns would seek to achieve a "shock and awe" type effect, taking out many casualties.

There's been a deluge of analysis out there, which hopefully we have robustly represented in earlier posts, and I only wish to add a few thoughts to these senseless and unnecessary events. Nearing the end of the day here in Europe, and having consumed about enough media on the subject to feel spin-dizzy, I am struck by several observations, mistaken assumptions in the media, and larger ideas about potential scenarios.

A group of law students in Georgia have prepared a brief examining the international law ramifications of the Russian invasion. This was forwarded to me from a lawyer colleague with contacts in Tbilisi. A few days have passed since this was written, but there are some informative arguments about the Jus ad Bellum of the initiation of hostilities. Naturally this just represents the Georgian view of the war, but if someone can track down a Russian legal argument, just let me know and I'll post.

Download the paper here.

From Dan Froomkin in the Washington Post:

Back in 2005, speaking before a crowd of more than 150,000 exuberant Georgians cheering "Bushi! Bushi!", President Bush made a promise to the people of that former Soviet republic: "The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone. Americans respect your courageous choice for liberty. And as you build a free and democratic Georgia, the American people will stand with you."

So where was Bush as Russia launched a major military attack against Georgia? Monkeying around with the U.S. women's volleyball players -- and otherwise amusing himself at the Beijing Olympics.

This is not to suggest that Bush should have sent in the Marines. But his impotence in the face of such a gravely destabilizing move highlights not only his personal loss of stature, but how deeply he has diminished American authority on the world stage generally and, particularly, in the eyes of Russia.

Photo: U.S. President George W. Bush prepares to speak to supporters in Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia in a Tuesday, May 10, 2005

It is difficult to find much material out there today that isn't about the war in Georgia, but for those who are feeling a little overwhelmed by this material, check out the interesting New York Times piece by Anne Barnard about the intellectual vacuum left in Russia following the death of Solzhenitsyn, and how contemporary Russia really has no public figure to counterbalance the towering presence of Vladimir Putin in the national psyche.

From Tolstoy to the poet Anna Akhmatova and the dissident physicist Andrei Sakharov, the most respected Russian intellectuals have traditionally functioned not just as cultural figures but as national symbols, moral beacons and speakers of truth. Mr. Solzhenitsyn was one of several titanic figures who staked their lives on that mission — to “defeat the lie,” as he put it — undeterred by exile and imprisonment.

But today, in an atmosphere of far greater freedom in private life than existed in the Soviet period, there are no towering cultural figures who command the respect that Mr. Solzhenitsyn did in his prime. Instead of moral clarion calls, literary novelists write profanity-laced satires of consumerism. Most opposition politicians have faded from the scene rather than push to the limits against growing authoritarianism. There is no cultural counterweight to the larger-than-life figure who dominates political life, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

That is partly because a new generation of Russians is now awash in the global tide of infinite consumer choice. It is also because Mr. Solzhenitsyn himself helped discredit the image of the public intellectual by hectoring the nation after his return from exile in 1994.

But it is above all because the political landscape is more complex: today’s authoritarianism is less monumental than Soviet repression, and so are its opponents.

Sen. John McCain is running circles around Barack Obama in terms of speaking out strongly against the war in Georgia ... and like nearly anything one says about Russia these days, will likely earn him both applause and criticism. After the cut is the full text of the statement.

"In recent days Moscow has sent its tanks and troops across the internationally recognized border into the Georgian region of South Ossetia. Statements by Moscow that it was merely aiding the Ossetians are belied by reports of Russian troops in the region of Abkhazia, repeated Russian bombing raids across Georgia, and reports of a de facto Russian naval blockade of the Georgian coast. Whatever tensions and hostilities might have existed between Georgians and Ossetians, they in no way justify Moscow's path of violent aggression. Russian actions, in clear violation of international law, have no place in 21st century Europe."

A selection of videos on the war - many more after the jump.

This one shows the fiery exchanges at the UNSC.

Truth – the first victim of war

Grigory Pasko, journalist

Who is right in the war that has begun, and who is at fault – God willing, the tribunal in The Hague will figure this out. I hope that it will be able to assess the contribution to this crime both of current president of Georgia Saakashvili and of former president of Russia comrade Putin.

And western politicians, I hope, will reach conclusions. For example, about why they did not stop the provocative acts of Russia, when she was giving out her passports to Ossetians and Abkhazians, making people, in essence, its hostages? Why did they allow the presence on an explosive territory of only Russian troops, calling themselves peacekeepers?

Saakashvili is no angel – this is understood. But when people tell me about this, citing as evidence only lies, well, like it or not I start to wonder.

Lies began to pour in a torrent from the screens of Russian TV already on 8 August. At first they said that the peacekeepers had lost ten people dead. About the dead among the civilian population for half a day nothing was reported, besides the phrase: there are victims of Georgian bombardments.

Towards evening they said that there were – several hundred civilians killed. In another couple of hours – that there were already 2000 of them. (It is this roundedness of the number in the quantity of those killed that to me, a military person, eloquently says: this – is a lie!). About those killed by Russian troops on the territory of Georgia was said nothing at all. Although it is known that Russian planes had bombed Gori and Poti, as well as objectives near Tbilisi.

To understand from Russian TV where the Georgian troops are located and where the hurriedly deployed 58th army of Russia was absolutely impossible. Some kind of informational chaos. I understand that such chaos is inherent to the Russian army in general, and all the more so when it starts to wage war. But still, there is the Informburo, paramilitary in structure, specially created back in the time of the Chechen wars, which, even though it lied through its teeth, at least did not allow major goof-ups: the lies were all filtered and sorted.

If investors were somehow not scared off by TNK-BP, Mechel, and the William Browder/HSBC corporate identity fraud lawsuit, then Russia's full scale invasion of a neighboring sovereign nation should be sufficient proof of a devastatingly high new risk premium. The FT's Lex column takes a look at the cost of war on Russia's markets. What is interesting about this is that many very powerful people in Russia are going to begin losing significant sums because of the Kremlin's military misadventures, which could lead to a variety of new, unpredictable pressures on the leadership.

After corporate warfare, real war. For investors, the Georgian conflict comes at an awful time, following appalling newsflow around Russia in recent months. Confidence has been buffeted by the shareholder fight at TNK-BP, which remains unresolved and even more by prime minister Vladimir Putin’s verbal assault on steelmaker Mechel – which hit the market harder than the conflict has done.

The oil and commodity prices that have underpinned the Russian investment story are declining too. All that has sent the market down by about a third from its previous high. The consolation is that the Russian market has bounced back from plunges of similar magnitude four times in four years. At these levels – the Russian market is pricing in a risk premium of 7.7 per cent, according to Credit Suisse. On a p/e of 8.6 times it is at discount of about 20 per cent to the global emerging markets average of 10.7 – it starts to look oversold.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Not least among the geopolitical realities coming to the surface at the moment is that of just who's top dog in the Kremlin. While it's widely thought Mr. Putin's power trumps that of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an interesting wrinkle has emerged elsewhere in the new Russia that has modern-day Kremlinologists wondering whether the president might yet become more his own man. (...)

The surprise in all this is that President Medvedev has decided to protest. "We need to create a normal investment climate in our country," the President said, without mentioning Mr. Putin. "Our law-enforcement agencies and government authorities should stop causing nightmares for business." A Medvedev adviser added that "it is not correct to destroy your own stock market . . . and wipe off $60 billion." The Russian stock market is trading at a 22-month low.

The question for Kremlinologists is whether Mr. Medvedev's comments are evidence of some independence on his part and perhaps a looming power struggle, or merely amount to a good cop, bad cop routine. It would be heartening to think it's the former, and that Russia's leaders are beginning to realize there are costs to their habits of confiscation. But with foreign investors still looking to make a fast killing in Russian markets (foreign direct investment jumped by some 60% between 2006 and 2007), those costs apparently won't be paid for some time. Meanwhile, for anyone thinking of putting money into Russia, the message should be caveat investor.

Paul Goble of Window on Eurasia writes about the gap between rhetoric and reality in terms of Washington's support for the territorial integrity of former Soviet states:

Then, that disillusionment is already spreading to other countries in the region who can see that the gap between the West’s rhetoric and the reality means they have to back down even further in the face of Russian pressure than would otherwise be the case, thus further limiting the opportunities of these nations for a better future.

And finally – and this is a danger that cannot be ruled out – such a disorderly recession of Western and especially American power and influence in the region means that the Russians, never all that sophisticated in gauging just where the lines are, may finally cross a red line and provoke an explosion in East-West relations that could rapidly get out of hand.

The Georgian conflict has raised the oil price by sparking fears of disrupted supply. BP is “on alert” after Russian forces targeted the BP-operated Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline in Tbilisi, but left “no visible damage”. BP’s production is said to have suffered from the conflict. “The flare-up of major hostilities between Russia and Georgia has been dubbed by some ‘the pipeline war’.” Honghua Group, the world's second-largest maker of onshore oil rigs, has won a $200 million contract to sell drilling rigs in Russia. TNK-BP’s Robert Dudley has been fined $21 for labor violations. Gazprom Neft wants to swap a stake in one of its own projects for a 49% stake in Kazakh oil firm MangistauMunaiGas.

The Russian stock market has hit a two-year low on the back of conflict in Georgia. “Some saw the slide toward war as a good excuse to dump Russian risk altogether.” Georgia has been praised by foreign investors, “who contrasted its efforts to reassure them over the crisis with those of Russia.” The fighting will stall Israeli-Georgian investments, and Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, 51% owned by the United Arab Emirates-based Ras Al-Khaimah Investment Authority, has been damaged by Russian bombing. A Russian billionaire has broken a world record by splashing out €500 million on a villa on the French Riviera, “fueling local worries that the invasion of Russian money on the Côte d'Azur is getting out of hand.” Deutsche Bank has earned more from investment banking fees in Russia in the last 10 years than any other bank.

TODAY: Russia attacks central Georgia after calls for a ceasefire; US condemns situation; Cuba backs Russia; Georgia being punished for Western aspirations?; media reports show discrepancies; ballerinas and Lake Baikal.

The embracing of two female athletes from Russia and Georgia on an Olympic podium is “a sign of national unity as their countries wage war.”

Following continued attacks on central Georgia late into Sunday, despite Georgia’s calling for a ceasefire for 5am Sunday morning, Russia - and Vladimir Putin - have received widespread condemnation. US President George W Bush has criticized Russia’s actions against Georgia, calling them “disproportionate”, Barack Obama and John McCain both called for Russian forces to be withdrawn, and at a UN Security Council meeting, the US’s Ambassador said that the situation would complicate relations between Washington and Moscow. One report says that many Georgians blame the US for not intervening. Cuba says it backs Russia’s actions.

Quentin Peel's new column in the Financial Times highlights a very important point made by Carl Bilt, the foreign minister of Sweden:

But what can Georgia’s friends and allies do about it? Mr Putin is calling their bluff. George W. Bush, the US president, poured in military trainers and equipment, backed Nato membership, and now seems powerless to do more than wring his hands.

Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, sees it as a critical challenge. “We – and Russia – will have to live with the consequences of Russia’s use of force for a long time to come,” he said at the weekend. “No state has a right to intervene militarily in the territory of another state simply because there are individuals there with a passport issued by that state. The obligation to protect people lies with the state in which those individuals are located.

“Attempts to apply such a doctrine have plunged Europe into war in the past – and that is why it is so important that this doctrine is emphatically dismissed.”

For Mr Putin, however, such a doctrine plays extremely well at home. He does not really care how it plays abroad. It gets him respect, of a sort, from the barrel of a gun.

Here are just a few things that are worth reading about the Russian-Georgian war on this Sunday. Some of the arguments are compelling, and others are just simply preposterous. Hopefully you can be the judge of that. Surely I have missed some good links, so just let me know.

"Declaration of Universal Mobilization by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili" (Georgia government site)

"Beginning of Working Meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin" (Kremlin.ru)

"International Reaction to South Ossetia Conflict" (Reuters)

"Nato should press on and give Georgia membership" (Times of London)

"Russia must prove its diplomatic maturity" (Guardian)

"Georgia calls cease fire" (Financial Times)

"U.S. Welcomes Georgia Pullback, Waits for Response From Russia" (Wall Street Journal)

"McCain Calls on Russia to Cease Military Action in Georgia" (WashWire)

"Is this the First War between Russia and a Former Soviet State?" (Der Spiegel)

"The Georgian-Russian Conflict" (New York Times video)

"In Georgia Clash, a Lesson on U.S. Need for Russia" (New York Times)

"Challenging Situation for Moscow" (BBC)

"Concerns for vital Caspian oil pipeline" (The Australian)

"A Threat Explodes in Georgia" (Anne Applebaum, Washington Post)

"Georgia's Miscalculation" (Anatol Lieven on PostGlobal)

"Huffing and Puffing in Georgia" (Steve LeVine on Oil and Glory)

Soon I am going to post a list of links to various commentary on the Russian invasion of Georgia, but given that so much of the coverage is vastly inaccurate, perhaps these photos do the best job of communicating the terrible developments happening there. The situation, in my opinion, should no longer be tolerated by Europe and the United States, and intervention must happen immediately. Foot dragging is just not acceptable in this case, and let's hope that everyone remembers that stability in the Caucasus is a mutual interest for all parties involved.

Russian soldiers atop their armoured personnel carrier roll through the South Ossetian settlement of Dzhava August 10, 2008. (Reuters)

Russian heavy armoured vehicles in the Ardon Valley, Russia, prepare to invade Georgian territory on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2008. (Associated Press)

I basically agree with the FT's editorial on the unfurling Russian-Georgian war.

Russia has long ceased to pretend to be a neutral referee. It openly espouses the cause of the secessionists there and in Abkhazia, another breakaway enclave. Its actions seem aimed at deliberately destabilising its neighbour. In recent months – especially since Georgia was promised eventual membership of Nato at the alliance’s Bucharest summit in April – Moscow has stepped up its encouragement, reinforcing its troops and trade, as if deliberately taunting Tbilisi and daring its hot-headed president to respond. Now the inevitable has happened.

Mr Saakashvili does not want to take on Moscow. But Mr Putin (and Dmitry Medvedev, his anointed successor) seem to want to prove two things: that Georgia is far too unstable to join Nato, and that they alone can determine the future of the former Soviet space. They are right that neither the US alone, nor the Nato allies, would dream of intervening in a military confrontation. But Georgia is only unstable because of Russian policies. Encouraging secessionists sends a terrible signal to others inside Russia, especially in the rebellious north Caucasus. Moscow’s policy may be macho, but in the long run it will be utterly self-defeating.

Some of these images speak for themselves.

This exclusive translation comes from Nezavisimaya Gazeta:

There will be no standoff

In Russia most likely the state structure will change

2008-08-07 / Olga Viktorovna Kryshtanovskaya – doctor of sociological sciences, head of the Center for the study of elites at the Institute of sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Today it is considered good form to assert that we do not have an elite. I will stipulate right from the start: using this term, I am referring to the ruling group in society. It may be good or it may be bad, but it does exist. We – a subdivision of the Institute of sociology of the RAS – have been researching this group since the year 1989 in monitoring mode.

The latest changes, associated with the election of a new president of the country, have practically not impacted on either the Federation Council or the State Duma, therefore our latest research was focused on the bureaucracy of the federal level. That is, what was being spoken of was the government and the administration of the president.

Prelude to Chernobyl

On 10 August of this year, 23 years will have passed from the day of a tragedy that took place at the shipyards of the Pacific Fleet in the south of Primorsky Kray.

By Grigory Pasko, journalist

On 10 August of the year 1985, the shipyard workers and the crew of submarine K-431 were conducting the work of offloading the active zone of the reactor. On the eve it had been discovered that the reactor’s containment had been breached. Later it became clear that between the cover of the reactor and the base someone of the workers had forgotten an electrode rod. In prospect was a removal of the upper cover of the reactor and simultaneously the compensating grating. When the floating workshop crane started to pull on the cover with a cable, the floating workshop swayed – a torpedo recovery cutter unexpectedly passed through the cove. As a result of this the cover, and with it also the compensating grating of the reactor, was jerked “to a height above that calculated by the technology”. A spontaneous chain reaction started, resulting in an explosion. Ten people – submariners and shipyard workers – died instantly.

Bloomberg columnist Michael R. Sesit has written a piece today strongly criticizing Russia for “acting more and more like a renegade economic power and bully”, saying that its questionable commitment to free markets puts the rightfulness of its G8 membership into doubt.

Sesit attacks a number of the Russian government's recent moves, in particular Vladimir Putin’s criticism and effective crashing of Mechel. He also mentions the TNK-BP affair and explains that the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky demonstrates how the government was centralized under Putin’s rule.

Ultimately, he says that Dmitry Medvedev’s recent moves towards stamping out corruption give cause for hope, but says that, without serious domestic and intelligence reform, the country can't be taken seriously as a democracy:

"Domestically, Russia needs an independent legal and law-enforcement system free of political interference and one that won't be used to assist private parties in civil disputes. It needs the consistent application of the rule of law. And it must recognize that an all-powerful, fear-inducing intelligence organization isn't the appropriate training ground for leaders of a liberal democracy."

Read the full article after the jump.

TNK-BP plans to relocate its head office in downtown Moscow to a business park on the outskirts of the city. Mechel, struggling to recover from criticism by Vladimir Putin, has announced that it will postpone its share offering indefinitely. Has the oil bubble finally burst? Analysts are forecasting that oil will see a weekly decline in the coming months, amid decreasing demand and the rising dollar. Radio Free Europe on the “post-Soviet petrostates”. Chinese firm Sinopec “may need the backing of a state-run Russian heavyweight such as Rosneft or Gazprom” if it wants its bid for Imperial Energy to succeed.

Russia’s international reserves have reached $600 billion. RusAl is opposing the appointment of Federal Tourism Agency chief Vladimir Strzhalkovsky to the board of Norilsk Nickel. The company said that Strzhalkovsky, a longtime ally of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, “has nothing to do with the metals and mining sector or any experience of managing a large industrial company.” The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development bought 3.8% of Russian transport and shipping firm Fesco for $120 million. Nickel producer Industrial Metallurgical Holding may cut output on the back of this year's price slump.

TODAY: Crumbling infrastructure stalling development; US and Russia are stuck in the Cold War past; renegade Russia does not deserve G8 membership; South Ossetia “on the brink of war”; authorities raid National Bolshevik activist’s house; bomb at Sochi.

A new poll of Russian government experts by the State Analytical Center cites crumbling infrastructure and inadequate state funding as the main drawbacks to “innovative economic development”. The growing chasm between the rich and the poor is one of Russia’s “most striking paradoxes”, says the Moscow Times.

Contrary to expectation US President George Bush will not hold talks in Beijing with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin today. Putin may have intended by appearing before the cameras with Bush to “show the world that he's still in charge, including in foreign policy,” says one analyst. The former Estonian president says that Bush was right to compare Hitler's Germany with Stalin's Soviet Union. Russia and the US are stuck in the past, according to a former UN Ambassador. “The United States still looks at Russia too much in Cold War terms -- as if nothing had really changed”, and for its part, Russia sees any enlargement of NATO as “a continuation of the Cold War on new grounds”. Read The Economist on Russia’s desire to replace NATO with a new security organization. Russia is a “renegade” power which doesn’t deserve its place in the G8, says Bloomberg, pinning hopes on Dmitry Medvedev for reform of the increasingly “centralized” government.

Ever wondered where the more conservative factions of the Kremlin get their ideas from?

The Eurasianists, a Russian political movement developed in the 1920s, considered Russia to be closer to the Asian than to the European category, and opposed the westernization of Russian society. This article from Radio Free Liberty argues that the movement is still alive and well amongst the siloviki in today’s Kremlin, and that its popularity helps to explain the conservative mentality at work behind state intervention in affairs like TNK-BP, Yukos and Mechel, which reject the sanctity of private property:

Eurasianism posits a unique civilizing role for Russia on the world stage and holds as its ideal the creation of a paternalistic, corporatist state, similar to the one Franco built in Spain. But it was the economic program of Eurasianism that attracted the most attention, as it acknowledged the market and "economic pragmatism" but clearly subordinated these concepts to political ends.

The Eurasianists do not adhere to the idea of the sanctity of private property, arguing that property cannot be "absolute or abstract, but only relative and concrete." In addition, Eurasianists hold that property owners do not enjoy absolute freedom to dispose of their property as they see fit, but are instead responsible before society. And the more "socially significant" their property is, the greater the owner's responsibility and, consequently, the less his or her freedom. In the final analysis, the owner of capital is under the control of society and the state in terms of its ultimate disposition.

Looking back at Russia's development over the last decade, including the redistribution of property and the establishment of numerous state corporations, it is amazing to see how well actual practice in the country corresponds with Eurasianist theory. One only has to recall the strange pronouncements by several oligarchs during the period of the national elections at the end of last year and the beginning of this to the effect that they are ready at any moment to surrender their fortunes if the state demands it.

Oil is currently hovering at around $119 a barrel amid concerns over low US demand. “The fall in oil prices, combined with lower production, could soften the aggressive stance of Russia towards the West.” ExxonMobil's Sakhalin-1 project is about to be inspected for adherence to operational and environmental regulations by a Russian watchdog. Russia's decision to allow Transneft to raise an oil shipping fee component “will increase costs of oil deliveries by pipelines by 10 to 12%.”

There are doubts that a project organized by Vladimir Putin during his presidency will be completed in time. Failure to complete the plan for a conference center to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit would “jeopardize the government's goal of developing the Far East Federal District as a gateway to some of the world's fastest-growing economies.” The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service’s clampdown on price fixing “is putting investors on the edge”. China is “a much bigger player than Russia in the world economy.” Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin is optimistic about capital inflows despite the falling market. Mikhail Prokhorov's plan to sell a stake in Norilsk Nickel has caused the companies stocks to fall. Shares in Pharmstandard fell after Russian competition authorities started an investigation of pharmaceutical companies’ pricing policies.

TODAY: New Arctic map to aid territorial disputes; torture accuser disappears in Chechnya; Dagestan newspaper shut down; Russia accuses Georgia of preparing for war; Solzhenitsyn’s funeral; Russia may move bombers to Belarus, pledges to give Iran more time.

A new map has been designed to illustrate historical, ongoing and potential arguments about ownership in the Arctic, which Russia claims is largely part of its own territory. On the “Eurasianist” approach of the siloviki. More on the claim by the family of Nikita Khrushchev that his reputation is under attack. The Kremlin is developing "a sophisticated selection system" to help it find new bureaucrats. Russia’s foreign ministry says that Georgia’s actions in South Ossetia “can be regarded as war preparations,” and has accused Georgia of sending warplanes into the region overnight. A Georgian minister says he believes that Russia “really wants to deescalate the situation”.

Russia has asked that Iran be given more time to consider a package of incentives offered by the US in exchange for Tehran halting its nuclear program, after Iran rejected the first round. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador, denied that the country would push for a new round of economic sanctions. Russia is threatening to move its bombers to the EU border in Belarus if Poland and the US agree on the former hosting a missile shield.

When I read articles or books by Minxin Pei, I begin to wonder whether the color revolutions were to Vladimir Putin what 9/11 was to George Bush - an existential challenge that would forever define the presidencies and skew their decisions toward sometimes damaging policies. In the United States, there were a host of constitutional problems and the nearly inconceivable debate on torture, and in Russia, we saw the most peculiar development: a "doppelgänger effect" of the state creating and funding imitation NGOs to fill the vacuum left empty by their crackdown. The process illustrates Russia's technique of so-called co-optation, by which former opponents of the state are pushed into cooperative roles by use of incentives or threats, a method that dates back to the early struggles of the Bolsheviks. In Minxin Pei's latest article in the Financial Times, we are seeing it happen all over again - this time in China - with the Gongo phenomenon. One hopes that soon more people will begin to see that these instruments of control presently being deployed by corrupt autocratic states need to be identified more often as a threat, not a boon, to the future economic and political growth of Russia and China.

Consequently, the growth of Chinese civil society, as measured by the number or quality of its NGOs, has woefully lagged behind China’s economic growth. China has more than 350,000 legally registered NGOs, but perhaps only about 10 per cent of them can be considered genuine NGOs in the western sense. Most of the rest are so-called “government-organised non-governmental organisations”, or Gongos, an appellation that would make George Orwell proud. As a rule, Gongos are affiliated with a government bureaucracy, headed by retired officials and funded by the state. They have no genuine autonomy.

Even among genuine NGOs, one cannot find civic groups, such as independent labour unions, student unions and religious groups, which are capable of large-scale collective action. Most Chinese NGOs are small groups engaged in leisure activities, environmental protection and local charity work like health and education. A promising development may be the formation of local chambers of commerce in Zhejiang province, where the private sector accounts for more than 90 per cent of the economic output. But this is the exception that proves the rule.

Some of you may have noticed a diminished presence from me on these pages over the past week, as I am taking some summer holiday time with my family.

However there was one item, neither flattering nor overtly hostile (just snarky as one would expect), in the Wall Street Journal Law Blog this week which I think deserves a short defense and clarification.

Upon considering how I have been portrayed in recent articles, I wanted to take the opportunity to reiterate the purpose of this blog, qualify the opinions of its authors, and correct some mistaken assumptions (this will be added as an addendum to the main info page).

Firstly, the idea to launch this blog arose in part as a result of my expulsion from Russia, and my continuing interest in remaining a dedicated observer of the country's public affairs. My ongoing efforts in publishing here were not just dedicated to assisting an individual who I am proud to represent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but also to the exposition of my personal beliefs, perspectives, arguments, thoughts, and interests in not just in Russia but far beyond. I've been an eager student of Russian history, society, and political science since the 1970s, and first traveled to Moscow during the Leonid Brezhnev years to satisfy my deep curiosities with this immensely interesting place. I confess that since that time I have never let go of these curiosities, and they continue drive my enthusiasm for discussion on these topics.

However, any attempt to portray this blog as representing the voice of my past, current, or prospective clients, especially Mr. Khodorkovsky, is not only inaccurate but also misleading. I should also add that I represent many other parties, inside and outside of Russia, whose views I sometimes share and sometimes do not. I have said it before, and will say it again: I alone am responsible for the opinions I express in this space. The same goes individually for other contributers such as Grigory Pasko, Derek Brower, my editors, and the many others we have featured here.

In fact, if you are a frequent reader, you will already know that only a modest percentage of our coverage is specifically dedicated to individual cases - instead we blog about a very wide range of topics ranging from culture to business to energy politics, often straying quite far from Russia.

Secondly, it needs to be underscored that I am only one member of a highly respected legal team of prestigious reputation, including Yuri Schmidt (one of the great heroes of human rights in Russia), Karinna Moskalenko, Anton Drel, Vadim Kluvgant, and, in North America, John Pappalardo and Sanford Saunders. It is a great honor to be associated with such an impressive group of lawyers, whose dedication to this case is nothing short of inspirational.

Lastly, I suppose that I would object to this below-the-belt shot of being titled a "propagandist" for the advocating that I do, but in truth, I am OK with it. I don't believe that Russian political prisoners have propagandists in abundance compared with the state's excellence in this area, so if this is a title earned for passionately believing in the freedom of an innocent man, so be it.

There's been a lot of talk about the practice of "corporate raiding" in Russia lately, from TNK-BP to the president to William Browder (though the concept dates back to the 1990s). But this video, courtesy of the recent shuttered tabloid/satire outfit The eXile, shows that corporate raiding goes to a whole other level as two bus loads of armed men lay siege to a cable television station in Tula. Interesting that this news doesn't make it out of the country....

The young pregnant military serviceman
Response apropos

By Grigory Pasko, journalist

The information agency RIA Novosti has reported that president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev left from 4 August on a week-long working vacation. It is expected that until the end of the week Medvedev will visit cities situated on the Volga. On the journey, son and wife will be accompanying the president.

The words «working vacation» were highlighted by me, not by RIA Novosti. The fact is that in the Code of Laws on Labor of the Russian Federation there is no such concept - «working vacation». I suspect that this is an example of the know-how of the Kremlin political technologists and bureaucrats in the administration of the president.

But then the Code of Laws on Labor does have an Article 71 - «Order of granting vacations». In it is said that that vacation for the first year of work shall be granted to workers upon the expiration of eleven months of uninterrupted work at… an enterprise, in an institution, an organization. Prior to the expiration of eleven months of uninterrupted work, vacation shall be granted to: women – before leave for pregnancy and birth or immediately after it; workers less than eighteen years old; military service personnel discharged into the reserve and directed to work in the order of organized enlistment…

The second installment of our translations from the German press on the rise of corruption in Russia. When you see it done at the top with regularity, can anyone really blame the lower level bureaucrats for assuming their impunity? This one comes from Handelsblatt.

Handelsblatt: Russia’s small entrepreneurs groan under corruption

President Medvedev takes on corrupt bureaucrats – yet his predecessor Putin could neither dry the swamp

By Florian Willershausen, August 6, 2008

The Moscow fire brigade commander drives a Porsche Cayenne. Almost daily, the district head in the quarter Sokol drives the red-lacquered 400-HP luxury SUV through his patch. The expensive car is a gift of the ministry for civil defence, an institution which does not lack budgetary funds. Also privately, many a firefighter can afford this sports car. Moscow corruption researchers estimate that leading staff of this institution pocket 6 figure dollar sums in bribe money each month. The firefighters keep their hands open during fire security controls.

Today we're featuring two translations from the German media about the rising corruption problem in Russia - a trend that we have often argued is present in resource nationalist states where rule of law has eroded. This first one comes from Die Welt:

Who swigs the blood of the entrepreneurs?

Medvedev takes fight against corruption seriously

By Manfred Quiring, August 6, 2008, page 5

Moscow - Russian President Dimitri Medvedev gave a clear signal to public authorities and legal protection agencies to leave Russian entrepreneurs alone when he visited the provincial town of Gagarin. To this end, Medvedev and his attendants flew in two helicopters to the small town 170 kilometres west of Moscow, where he presided over a consultation on the situation of small and middle-sized entrepreneurs in Russia. While, during the 1990s, these were the target of raffish bandits, nowadays, public administration has taken over their role as "Kryscha", as "canopy". "No", said Andrej Gaiduk, the owner of the restaurant "Traktir 88", just before he met the President. "I don't have problems with criminals. I have a private security firm and the militia." That he pays both of them he did not say – it goes without saying.

Media magnate and head of News Corp, Rupert Murdoch, has offered his two cents on Russian investment, as quoted in today’s Financial Times:

Speaking from Beijing, Mr Murdoch signaled News Corp’s growing enthusiasm for Asian markets – particularly India and China – while apparently cooling on Russia and Eastern Europe. “The more I read about investments in Russia, the less I like the feel of it,” Mr Murdoch said. “The more successful we’d have been, the more vulnerable we’d be to having it stolen from us. Better we sell now.”

Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Agency is threatening legal measures against executives who fail to co-operate after several Russian oil companies refused to provide data on fuel prices. State-owned Transneft has improved its share price by raising fees for oil deliveries, saying it needs to pay interest on a loan to fund a link with Asia. Atomenergoprom, the nuclear energy company, will acquire a 51% controlling interest in Hungary's Ganz Energeti