Russian Public Chamber Officials Condemn Russia For Human Rights Violations

Public Chamber Members Aleksandr Brod and Vladislav Grib conducted a human rights monitoring effort in Russia from April to July, and their reports exposed human rights abuses in major cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg. Abuses range from economic, judicial, ethnic, and political.

Read more from Interfax.

Putin Drafts Budget Cut Plan

The Russian Cabinet approved a new draft 2010 budget created by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that would cut spending on government offices and would offer retiree payouts as part of a greater plan for economic reform.

Read more from the St. Petersburg Times.

Moscow Mayor Sues Opponent For Libel

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is suing Leonid Gozman, the co-leader of the Right Cause party, for libel after Gozman condemned Luzhkov as responsible for rampant corruption in Moscow. Luzhkov is currently considering another lawsuit on charges of falsifying votes.

Read more from The Moscow Times.

Medvedev Speaks Out On Iran

On Friday Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said that if Iran does not agree to discuss its nuclear agenda at an October 1st meeting with other world powers, alternative means need to be taken to dissuade it from pursuing a nuclear program.

Read more from Reuters.

GAZ and Aeroflot To Conduct Mass Layoffs

Russian Airline Aeroflot and auto manufacturer GAZ have plans to lay off thousands of workers by the end of the year.

Read more from The Moscow Times.

Anti-Terrorist Officers Killed In Ingushetia

Two anti-terrorist officers were reported killed by local authorities in Ingushetia, along with an anti-Wahabbism Muslim spiritual figure, Islam Bostanov.

Read more from The Moscow Times and the AFP.

Central Bank Claims Russian Economy Recovering

The Russian Central Bank has stated that the country was recovering from its economic crisis, and First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said the Russian economy could return to its pre-crisis position by 2012.

Read more from the St. Petersburg Times.

Medvedev Says Arms Reduction Treaty With US Possible By Yearend

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said that by the end of the year, the chances of an established arms reduction program between Russia and the US were “high enough.”

Read more from the RIA Novosti News Agency.

After a series of economic protests in the small industrial town of Pikalevo, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rushed in to try to resolve the situation on June 4th.  Residents had taken to the streets after the town’s major employers closed their doors, failing to pay some $1.5 million in back wages and even shutting off communal services.

The St. Petersburg branch of the Solidarity democratic opposition movement earlier contended that the Russian government had not taken enough steps to combat the economic crisis, and was complicit in the situation in Pikalevo.

“The events in Pikalevo once again show that the so-called anti-crisis measures of the Russian authorities don’t intend to provide actual support for those who have suffered as result of the crisis,” a statement by the group said.  “The problems of Pikalevo’s residents, just like millions of other Russian citizens, cannot be solved without a fundamental change to the political regime which has formed in today’s Russia.”

—

Journalist Mikhail Rostovsky comments on the importance of the visit in the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.  Since Putin’s visit and Rostovsky’s article, workers have received their back pay and the town’s employers have pledged to re-open their factories.

Read more about Pikalevo from the New York Times.

How Many Putins Does It Take To Save Russia?
Stability throughout Russia depends on the premier’s performance in Pikalevo.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
Mikhail Rostovsky
June 5, 2009

Yesterday, Vladimir Putin made the most important trip of the year, perhaps, of his whole premiership. The premier visited Pikalevo near St.Petersburg, symbol of riots in Russia these last several days. It will be no exaggeration to say that stability throughout the whole country depends on Putin’s decisions yesterday. There is a hundred Pikalevos in Russia, may be more. Should the signal Putin sent yesterday prove incorrect, protests may cover all of Russia before long.

Given certain conditions, a nationwide revolt might be provoked by protests in a single township. Pikalevo, whose existence had been absolutely unknown to 99% Russians, found itself balancing on the verge of transformation into such a political fuse.

The story of Pikalevo, a sleepy hick town, is simple to the point of being banal. The few enterprises in it, ones employing practically all locals, came to a screeching halt. The population found itself left with nothing to live on. Pikalevo drew the attention of the whole society for a single reason. Its residents were the first to put into motion the apocalyptical scenario Yevgeny Gontmakher (an authority on social problems) had come up with last year: revolt in a township with stalled industry, attack on the municipal administration building, pickets on a federal highway fomenting a colossal jam (colossal indeed – 400 kilometers long).

At first sight, the task Putin found himself facing in Pikalevo yesterday was fairly simple. The federal center has sufficient money to buy a golden toilet bowl for every resident of Pikalevo. Ensuring decent living conditions in the township will be even easier. Particularly as the servile Duma has already suggested nationalization as a means that will restore order again and cool down tempers. Lawmakers’ reasoning was as follows: if Barack Obama in America all but made General Motors an asset of the US Administration, then it will certainly be all right for us to follow suit in Russia.

As a matter of fact, Putin’s visit to Pikalevo was like a stroll down a political minefield. What the Duma suggested in the meantime amounted to the offer to deliver a kick at the largest mine.

Procurement of factories in Pikalevo with budget funds in order to revive them again is going to solve no problems, nationwide. This nationalization will rather be a message to the rest of the crisis territories in Russia: you fed up with being semi-starved? Mutiny is the ticket. Overrun the local administration, throw officials out the nearest window, and cut off the railroad or whatever you have close by. It will certainly bring Putin himself rushing to you with a huge federal wallet… Hard to imagine a worst scenario for Russia. Bare weeks later, not even a hundred Putins will be able to cope with the swelling wave of riots.

And if nationalization is out, then what? Prosecute “inefficient owners” who brought this all to pass in townships centered around a single enterprise (or two or even three enterprises)? Prosecution will make unemployed residents of these towns happy but it is not being happy that they are really after.

Wrong moment to be saying that starving townships with idle enterprises in them are what Russia is paying for the arrogance with which its authorities neglected structural problems of economy. There is no more work somewhere? In America, people get into their car, put their belongings into the trailer, and move to wherever jobs are still available. In Russia, however, the so called territorial mobility of the population is thoroughly under developed. Telling the population of Pikalevo to move on is like advising the starved lacking bread to try living on cookies.

There is no saying at this point exactly what Putin is going to tell residents of Pikalevo. Telling them the truth would have been probably the best. And what is it? That the situation is extremely tricky. That the government does not have a single solution for all Pikalevos in the country (cannot have one, actually) so that every analogous case ought to be handled individually. This is a task of staggering proportions, of course, but there are no alternatives to it.

As it turns out, the Russian police are creating databases used to the track the movements of law-abiding citizens.  The project is overseen by a new department for countering extremism within the Russian police, but often targeted at individuals for no reason other than their political views or activism.

Journalist Irina Borogan documents these “black lists” in the third in a series of articles documenting the government campaign to battle extremism and strengthen control over the public.  The series is a joint project between the Yezhednevny Zhurnal online newspaper and the Agentura.ru web portal, which specializes in investigating Russia’s intelligence agencies.

Previous articles have focused on the nature of the new anti-extremism department of the Russian police and have questioned why emphasis has shifted from battling organized crime to extremism.  The next article will examine electronic surveillance systems and their use to control the behavior of groups of people.

—

The Kremlin’s Anti-Crisis Package:  How and Why “Black Lists” Are Made
Irina Borogan
June 2, 2009
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

Since the spring of this year, thousands of policemen throughout the entire country have been forced to engage in the search for extremists.  It is already plain to see that there aren’t enough extremists to go around:  according to the Ministry of Internal Affair’s [MVD] Central Informational-Analytical Center (GIATs), in 2008, there were 379 people in Russia identified for committing “extremist” crimes.  For a whole Department of the MVD, which has units (the E centers) in nearly every region, this is clearly insufficient.  Which means that the number of extremists must be supplemented.  But doing this legally, through the courts, will be difficult: in the last year, the courts refused to recognize extremist motives in nearly half of all cases, and the cases fell apart.

In such a situation, the policemen will need to work on “preventing” crimes, as Minister [Rashid] Nurgaliev is constantly calling on them to do.  And this calls for different methods for the tacit surveillance of suspects: tapping telephones, opening and inspecting mail, monitoring travel within the country and outside its borders, and so forth.  But first, the circle of people suspected of extremism must be determined, designating the people whose potential crime consists of spreading radical views or simply points of view that don’t coincide with the views of authorities.

The fact that these “black” lists of citizens exist has not only been expressed by human rights activists, but by policemen themselves as they report on the work they have done.  But now one can confidently assert that there is secret surveillance and data gathering being conducted on the citizen who ended up on such a list.  And this has recently been deemed lawful.

Details that emerged in court

In April 2009, when [authorities] announced that the creation of anti-extremist units in the country was completed, a court ruled lawful the MVD’s tracking of the movements of Sergey Shimovolos, which was done on order from the local UBOP (now – the Center for Countering Extremism).  During the trial, it came to light that 3,865 Russians were under this type of surveillance in 2007.

All of these people, including Sergey Shimovolos, the chair of the Nizhny-Novgorod Human Rights Society, were put on a police list, and a so-called “watchdog surveillance” (storozhevoy kontrol).  Now, their names come up in the very same electronic card files that have data on criminals on the wanted list.

The assumption that the militsiya and FSB were creating “black lists” of political and social activists emerged several years ago.  People began to notice that not a single trip to a public function, whether a “March of Dissent” or a human rights conference, happened without problems from the police.  Moreover, people in uniform sometimes sprang up at nearly every stop along the social activist’s whole itinerary.

In May 2007, for instance, when Sergey Shimovolos was making his way from Nizhny Novgorod to Samara in order to conduct an independent investigation of restrictions put on protests during the G-8 summit, he was checked three times: in the Nizhny Novgorod and Samara Oblasts, as well as mid-trip – in the Republic of Mordovia.  Each time, an officer of the transit police asked him to explain where he was headed and what he planned to do there.  Clearly, the checks were planned and initiated, and notably in three regions at once.  But how?

“In Samara I was lucky: the policemen honestly wrote in the report, that they detained me on the grounds a telegram (teletypogram) they received, and had to question me in line with crime prevention measures for conducting protest actions,” Sergey Shimovolos told the Yezhednevny Zhurnal.  Afterward, through court, I received materials that bore witness to the fact that I was put under “watchdog surveillance” by a decision of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast UBOP [Organized Crime Unit], which allowed them to strategically monitor my movements through the ticket sales database.”

Shimovolos decided to protest his surveillance in court.  He asked the court to recognize that these measures violate a person’s rights, and to compel the MVD to destroy all records of him and all citizens who had not been deemed to be extremists by a court, but had still been entered into this database.  On April 22, 2009, the Nizhny Novgorod District Court refused the human rights activist on all counts.

What is “watchdog surveillance”

Shimovolos lost, but thanks to his lawsuit, we learned how the system of surveillance over law-abiding citizens is carried out.

Information about Shimovolos made its way into the “Rozysk-magistral” (“Wanted Line”) electronic database of the Russian Federation MVD on March 19, 2007.  The decision to include his information into the database was made by officers in the UBOP GUVD for the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, based upon strategic reasons that comprise a state secret, in the opinion of the police.  Shimovolos himself assumes this happened because he was among the organizers of a “March of Dissent” in Nizhny Novgorod.

Having put Shimovolos’s details into the “Wanted Line” database, the policemen put him on “watchdog surveillance:” one type of record that exists to track someone’s movements.

At first, the MVD’s “Wanted Line” hardware and software suite (PTK) was created to automatically assist in the search for criminals on the federal and local wanted lists.  The PTK is “linked” to the “Express” and “Magistral” databases, which constantly receive information about train and airline tickets purchased by Russians.  When a criminal buys a ticket, the information makes its way into the PTK server.  Next, this information is communicated to the local transport police (OVD), located along the itinerary of the passenger train and in airports.  The objective is clear – the arrest of the criminal.

At the same time, data about law-abiding citizens, like Shimovolos, were introduced into the PTK.  They were then put on “watchdog surveillance.”  The whole procedure is the same, except that instead of an arrest, policemen receive instructions of what kind of work they must conduct with the citizens who are not suspected of a criminal offense.*

The Yezhednevny Zhurnal received further proof of how this system works from Roman Dobrokhotov, a participant in the “For Human Rights” movement.  On May 6, 2009, Dobrokhotov came by train from Volgograd to the capital’s Paveletsky Rail Terminal, where he was detained by a policeman waiting for him by the rail car’s exit.  The UVD officer was ordered to have a preventative talk with him.  As it turned out, Dobrokhotov was arrested on the basis of an [official] message, which spelled out in black and white how the Center for Investigative Information of the Moscow UVD for Transport reported that Dobrokhotov was put on “watchdog surveillance” by the Department for Countering Extremism of the RF MVD.

As result, the efforts of at least three police units were expended to track Dobrokhotov’s route.  The activist has never been indicted on criminal charges, but has taken part in different non-systemic political movements.

New technologies

As far as one can judge from the circumstances of Dobrokhotov’s arrest, it was conducted in the old way, without the use of ultra-modern technologies that the MVD already has at its disposal.  Such as, for instance, the portable terminal of the very same “Wanted Line” PTK: externally, it resembles a smartphone, weighing less than 200 grams, but in addition to text information, it can transmit photo and video-images.  This pocket device is designed to give militsiya officers real-time access to federal and regional databases like “Wanted persons,” “Passports,” “Weapons,” “Theft,” “Automotive Transport Wanted by Interpol,” and others.

As the manufacturers report in the technical manual, this pocket terminal has access to the nearest database server in real-time over existing communication channels, which allows for the broadcast of digital information, including the use of WEB-technology.

Aside from that, practically every large rail terminal and airport in Russia, as well as a part of trains and commuter trains, are equipped with “Videolock” face recognition systems – with cameras in rail cars, waiting rooms, cash registers and on platforms.  In principle, Dobrokhotov could well have been detained with the help of such a system.  A policeman could have received his image, marked with a special symbol, on the hand-held console.

***

In such a way, the MVD Department for Countering Extremism is at present forming “black lists.”  Data is added to them on the basis of “strategic reasons,” that are not even revealed in court.  Having gotten on these lists, citizens end up under the microscope of electronic surveillance systems of travel which were created to capture actual criminals.  Furthermore, a court has found this type of actions to be absolutely legal.

* – “watchdog surveillance” is also used by the Court Bailiffs Service to search for debtors, and the FSKN [Federal Drug Control Service] to track the movements of suspected drug couriers.

translation by theotherrussia.org

The explosion took place outside Limonov’s residence, as a driver turned the key in the ignition.  Limonov, who was inside his apartment at the time, said his driver managed to escape with only slight burns on his face.

Limonov told the Kasparov.ru online newspaper that he received a threatening phone call ten minutes after the explosion.

“When I picked up the phone,” Limonov said, “an unknown person asked me: ‘Well how are you, Eddie?  Still aren’t afraid of engaging in opposition activities?’”

Police are investigating the crime, but have downplayed a connection to Limonov.  A spokesman said the car was registered to a different owner, adding “It does not even smell of Limonov here.”

The opposition leader, who agreed that the car was registered to another name, said he had been using the car for over two years, and was outraged at the police.

“How could there be any doubts,” Limonov asked?  “The car that I ride in burned up right under my window!  The driver nearly died.”

Limonov’s supporters believe the explosion was a personal warning to Limonov before an anti-government protest scheduled for the next day.  City officials had refused the grant the demonstration a permit, although organizers decided to hold the protest anyway.   During the Sunday event, titled “Russia without Putin,” Limonov was arrested along with dozens of activists.

“Around 20 people have broken into the office,” said Stalina Gurevich, the organization’s attorney.  “The officers have said that they’re from the Main Investigation’s Directorate.”

“6 people are now being illegally held in the office,” she continued.  “They are not releasing them from the building.”

Gurevich said the officers did not show any documents or a search warrant, describing the raid as unlawful.  “They say they came to search a different organization, which rents the building along with us.  At the same time, they assert that they came to the address of Baumanskaya street, house 6, while the address of our office is Baumanskaya street, house 6, building 2.”

“We have been leading a firm battle with Moscow region Transport Minister Pyotr Katsyv.  What happened at Justice today is connected with this,” Gurevich said.

The Justice group has accused Katsyv, along with his deputy, Alexander Mitusov, of illegally seizing several businesses in the Moscow oblast, as well as land in the Krasnogorsk district.  The organization estimates the damages resulting from this at 8 billion rubles ($256mln or €185mln).

Stalina Gurevich has worked extensively as a human rights attorney.  She currently represents the interests of newspaper editor and eco-activist Mikhail Beketov, who was brutally attacked in November 2008.

Who is Mister Medvedev?
May 27, 2009
Irina Pavlova
Grani.ru

Plenty has been said and written about the recent anniversary of Dmitri Medvedev’s presidency.  The apologists sing their praises for the appearance of a tandem, seeing in it the signs of a new style of Russian politics and the seed of a future separation of powers.  The critics, both in Russia and the West, conversely lend the heaviest meaning to any hints of division in the tandem, still hoping that Medvedev will become a monocratic leader and start to modernize the country (although truth be told, the patriot-defenders see modernization in one way, and the liberals in another).  “The process of political modernization of the Russian government”, writes one author of the Yezhednevny Zhurnal [online newspaper], “needs a leader.  Will President Medvedev have enough courage, political will and public liability to have a clear break from the corrupt bureaucracy?  In many ways, Russia’s future depends on it.”

And so, hope still nurtures those who are ready to speak out with calls of “Premier Putin must resign!,” “All authority to President Medvedev!”  In reasoning this way, however, it is a good idea to keep in mind what is really happening in the country, so as not to be too surprised later.  I’ve had the occasion to write more than once that the current system of power works by the rules of a conspiracy.  Major decisions are made by a secret Politburo, and most of these decisions, which lead to some movement in the “gears” of the vertical of power, are secret.  We only learn of them when they start to materialize.  Aside from that, I have conjectured that the most unpopular decisions of this regime would be connected with Medvedev, and furthermore that he himself would have to cover them.

In such a system of rule, the right words about freedom and lack of freedom, about justice in a law-based state, about the necessary battle with corruption, as well as actions like meeting with human rights activists, an interview with Novaya Gazeta, and so forth, turn out to be nothing more than disinformation.  This is a strategy particular to a covert regime, taken both to disorient public opinion and cover up for its own actions.

In order to get an insight into the core of Medvedev’s presidency over the past year, I propose to recap not his words, but those acts which have come to the surface during this time.  One must admit that the Russian president has been very active.  Kommersant counted the number of staff appointments during the last year.  It turns out that from May 7, 2008, Medvedev signed off on 373 appointments, while Putin only signed off on 241 in the first year of his presidency.

Thus, without claiming that it’s complete, I’d like to bring attention to the following actions, which have already affected the country’s fate or will affect it in the future:

– clandestine preparations for the armed conflict with Georgia in August 2008.  The formation of the “independent” entities of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  Occupation of part of Georgia’s territory.  An informational war.  All these actions have already been written into history on account of President Medvedev.

– the creation of a department for countering extremism in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in September 2008.  Centers for  countering extremism (the “E” Centers) have been created across the whole country under the jurisdiction of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate (GUVD) and the Department of Internal Affairs (UVD) as part of former branches of the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (UBOP).

– reinforcing the system of politically motivated investigations in the country.  Under the cover of the work and resources of the criminal investigation department of the Russian Federation MVD, a “Watchdog Surveillance” (storozhevoy kontrol) database has been created, which is used for political purposes.  This has been confirmed, notably, in a court session in Nizhny Novgorod, as well as in an [official] message that [youth activist] Roman Dobrokhotov managed to photograph.

– stepping up the technical resources of the intelligence agencies.  In the words of Vice-Premier Sergei Ivanov, “regarding the intelligence agencies – FSO, FSB, SVR – they are equipped fully, 100 percent.”

– under the president’s initiative, implementing changes to the Constitution that increase the term limits for the president from the current four to six years, and the State Duma – from four to five years.

– waiving elections of the chair of the Constitutional court (KS).  Now, the KS chair and his deputy will be approved by the Federation Council at the president’s proposal.  In other words, they will be dependent on [the president].

– introducing a draft bill “On countering the rehabilitation of nazism, nazi criminals and their supporters on the territory of independent states– the former Republics of the USSR” into the State Duma, as well as the creation of a Presidential Commission for countering attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russian interests.  Both the future law and the new commission are clearly intended at blocking the way for “incorrect” (in the eyes of our current authorities) interpretations of Soviet and Post-Soviet history.  These initiatives have already been backed both by official historians and the majority of the public, who the authorities have essentially managed to disorient in the last decade.

– taking the course of militarizing the country.  The amount of the state defense order in Russia amounts to 1.3 trillion rubles ($50 bln or €36 bln) in 2009, of which more than 300 billion will go towards purchasing military technology.

– covert preparations for new conflicts with Russia’s neighbors, who do not wish to comply with Moscow’s policy.  Launching a new round in the information war against Georgia.

In my mind, there is enough information to think about.  But let each person make their own conclusions on where the country is headed and what role President Medvedev will play in this process.

translation by theotherrussia.org

The protestors, who were anxiously awaiting the result of the meeting, eventually rushed the building, pushing past militsiya officers and barging through the session’s closed doors.  After speaking out concerns about unemployment and withheld wages, the group peacefully left the building and continued to wait outside.

Pikalevo has seen sweeping unemployment as result of Russia’s economic crisis.  Three mainstay employers in town – Basel Cement, Pikalevsky Glinozem and Metakhim – have shut down, and smaller companies have also reduced their workforces.  The local heat and power station cut hot water and heat to the town a week ago, citing unpaid debts accrued by Basel Cement.

Officially, 1500 people have been laid off, although another 2500 people are either on unpaid leave, or have had their work-week shortened.  In a town of 22,000, around 50 percent of the working-age population is now without work.

Svetlana Antropova, a trade union leader from the Basel Cement-Pikalevo factory, earlier described how locals had started foraging for food – cooking soup from green nettles, making salads from dandelions and chickweed, and even eating stray dogs.

Locals also described a skyrocketing crime rate that made is dangerous to be outside at night.

Valery Serdyukov, the governor of the Leningrad Oblast, has meanwhile downplayed the situation in Pikalevo as hysteria created by trade unions and the media.  Serdyukov is expected to meet with city officials in the near future.

“There is no hot water there in Pikalevo,” Serdyukov said.  “Well, it happens.  And not just there.  It happens even in Moscow and St. Petersburg, that the water is turned of for a couple months.  There is no tragedy here.  As for heat, well, I don’t think it’s needed so much during the summer.”

As Kurnosova told the Kasparov.ru online newspaper, the charges stem from an incident on October 5, 2008, when the opposition activist was returning by train from Astrakhan to St. Petersburg.  Kurnosova, who was on her way home from a regional conference for the political opposition, was apprehended and searched on the train.  Police found a can of black caviar in her bags, and decided on the spot that the caviar had been poached illegally, and was therefore contraband.  Kurnosova had received the can as a gift from members of the United Civil Front in Astrakhan.  The activist was then held in a temporary detention facility for nearly two days, before being released on a promise not to leave town.

Since that time, Kurnosova has been called back to Astrakhan several times for questioning.  The activist, who is also a member of the political advisory council of the Solidarity opposition movement, was first charged with smuggling in April, although prosecutors did not launch a case at that time.  On May 16, an investigator from Astrakhan came to St. Petersburg to officially accuse Kurnosova a second time and move forward with taking the case to court.

Kurnosova believes the charges are a politically motivated scare tactic, and should not hold up in court.  The opposition leader believes prosecutors may try to give her a suspended sentence, which could be converted into a real one at some point in the future.

If convicted, Kurnosova would face up to two years in prison.

Rosstat bases its manufacturing output index on data from the resource extraction (mining) and manufacturing sectors, and includes the production and distribution of electricity, gas and water.  The metric showed that the first quarter of 2009 stood at 85.1 percent over the previous year.  Output in April 2009 was 83.1 percent from April 2008, and was down from March 2009 by 8.1 percent.

The data seems to indicate that the economy was not yet on a rebound, as some optimistic analysts had earlier predicted.  In fact, the April fall in output was the largest drop since the economic downturn began in mid-2008.  After an apparent stabilization in output during February-March, the rate of decline had once again accelerated.

A Strategy With No Dangers
Vitaly Portnikov
May 15, 2009
Grani.ru

Having signed the National security strategy for Russia until 2020, President Dmitri Medvedev gave the chance for Western – you almost want to say “Sovietologists” – to talk once more about Russian foreign policy.  Perhaps this is a signal for Barack Obama, the new American president?  Perhaps the new Russian president in such a way demonstrates confidence in his own strengths and a continuity of policy?  Since it is absolutely indispensable for the American President, who plans to come to Moscow, to understand that the Russian leadership will continue to regard siting elements of US missile defense in Europe as all but the most important problem of their country’s security.

Any sensible Russian could tell her president about the major threats to the country’s national security.  In the natural resource dependence of the economy, which would turn Russia into a third-world country the next day after a fall in oil prices.  In the corruption suffocating the country.  In the catastrophic population loss, which calls into question the physical capability, not even of the development, but simply of populating Russia’s expanses.  But who among the Russian political elite cares about these trifles?

In the minds of the people who have by some accident ended up in Moscow’s corridors of power at the start of the new millennium, present-day Russia is a sort-of clone of the Soviet Union, rising from some imagined knees.  Naturally, the threats to this clone, which lives its life in a virtual Kremlin-televised space, are completely different.  Its major opponent is those same United States, who dream of beating Russia down and hindering its renewal.  Its major betrayer is the former Soviet satellite states, who dared to regard the happy years of sitting in the shade of their “big brother” as not quite the best times in their history, and are now entering into cooperation with the overseas adversary.  Its major ally is China, whose leadership hardly dreams about joint battle with the adversary, as it economically – and the crisis has clearly proven – depends on its well-being.

Remarkably, all the threats thought to be serious at the start of the century have practically disappeared from the new strategy.  The current authorities aren’t worried about the growing divisions in society, terrorism and separatism, despite the anything-but-simple situation in the Caucasus, the crisis of social welfare and public health, and the criminalization of social relations.  Is there actually none of this left?  One would really like for it not to be there – and so issues actually critical to Russia’s future are simply culled from the strategy.  Even allowing that this is an ordinary, bureaucratic document, at least it used to give evidence that the authorities understood what country they lived in.

But now, the strategy approved by its president has no relation to the problems of actual Russia.  From the document, we can learn everything we need about the fanciful day-dreams* of Russian officialdom.   About how every clerk, landing a job at the Security Council or in the head of state’s administration, thinks of themselves as a Napoleon, and what image of Russia takes shape in his mind on the road to Rublyevka**.  But we won’t learn anything about Russia itself, just as we won’t understand at all, what kind of country it will be in 2020.  One thing is evident – if the documents passed by the highest leadership of the country continue to be so far removed from the actual situation in Russia and the world, ten years down the line, Dmitri Medvedev’s successor won’t be concerned with disseminating strategy any longer.

*trans. note.  Portnikov references Manilov, a character from Gogol’s “Dead Souls” who has a lofty imagination.

**an unofficial name of a prestigious residential area West of Moscow, Russia.

translation by theotherrussia.org