“Of course, this will be interesting,” Kasparov said on the Ekho Moskvy radio station.  “The previous American administration didn’t dare to do this.”

A number of other prominent figures have also been invited, including Pravoe Delo (Right Cause) co-chair Leonid Gozman, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, attorney Yelena Lukyanova, and Federation Council chairman Sergey Mironov.

Obama will travel to Moscow on July 6th for meetings with the Kremlin as well as business and civil society leaders.  A meeting with Russia’s leading human rights advocates has been scheduled at the Metropol hotel, the location of a consultation between representatives from NGOs in the US and Russia.

Earlier, Boris Nemtsov argued that it was essential for Obama to meet with opposition forces in Russia.  “If the White House agrees to Putin’s suggestion to speak only with pro-Putin organizations… this will mean that Putin has won, but not only that: Putin will become be assured that Obama is weak,” he said.

Nemtsov, who spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said the American administration should lay their stakes on President Dmitri Medvedev, and not Prime Minister Putin.

“I believe that if Medvedev finally takes power into his own hands, we will have a chance to return to a political thaw, to democratization,” he went on.  “We are being given the chance to return to rule of law and the Russian Constitution.  Clearly, much depends on the opposition, on its energy… Which is why we alone are responsible for our future, and not Obama.”

United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

June 29, 2009

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing in regard to your upcoming visit to the Russian Federation and your meeting with President Medvedev.

As you attempt to set a new tone with the Russians, we believe there are issues of common interest, but we also believe it is crucial that you vigorously defend the values that have been the cornerstone of free markets and free societies. At a minimum, below are three key issues we believe you must raise.

First, with the coming expiration of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, there is little time to complete negotiations.  However, the United States must not concede the key issues in exchange for expediency.  One specific point is the linkage Russian leaders have made between the United States abandoning missile defense and reducing nuclear weapons.

There should be no quid pro quo between deploying defensive capabilities like missile defense and the reduction of offensive nuclear weapons either in a treaty or through separate agreements.  This is essential to our close Czech and Polish allies and a key factor in placement of the “third site.”

Second, during her confirmation process before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary Clinton said the United States “cannot accept the notion that Russia has a special say over the future of its independent neighbors.”  Whether it is Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, or other neighbors, Russia aggressively exerts a “special say” over its neighbors.  However, undermining UN peacekeeping operations or the European Union’s Monitoring Mission in Georgia, waging economic warfare with energy during the winter, and conducting cyberattacks are not the actions of a proud and constructive nation.

It is important President Medvedev understands that the United States strongly supports the independence and self determination of all the former Soviet Republics.  As a Senator, you cosponsored a number of resolutions on the ascension of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, and we hope you will specifically reaffirm this support with President Medvedev.

Finally, as you know, the interests of the Russian people and the Russian elites are not always the same.  It is important that you seriously address issues like corruption and rule of law, and also take time to visit with members of the opposition and civil society, especially those leaders who are not closely associated with the Kremlin.

There are many tough, but important issues in the relationship between the United States and Russia.  It is imperative that the words you deliver in Moscow are well received in the capitals of our close friends and allies in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

We wish you the best of luck on your upcoming trip, and look forward to working together to ensure success in U.S.-Russia relations upon your return.

Sincerely,
Jim DeMint
Jon Kyl
Roger Wicker

CC: The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton
Secretary of State
The Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary of Defense

Shaigalimov, 52, was on the seventh month of a five-year sentence for hitting a police officer with a flagpole during a demonstration, a charge he repeatedly denied.

The Russian Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an inquiry, which has already described Shaigalimov as a problem prisoner prone to suicide.

According to the inquiry, Shaigalimov died on the way to the hospital after he jumped from the fourth story window of a high-security building.  Prison officials said that the suicide was caught on a surveillance system camera.

The activist’s wife, Lyudmila Shaigalimova, told the Kasparov.ru online newspaper that her husband never had suicidal tendencies, and that he had feared for his life in prison.  She believes he may have been killed, and is pressing for an independent investigation.  She also asserted that Shaigalimov’s body showed signs of injury not related to his fall.

“It was absolutely clear that the death was caused by suffocation,” she told Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty.

Shaigalimov, a former opera singer and photographer, had taken part in more than 100 opposition demonstrations, some of them solitary pickets.  He was a member of the Other Russia coalition, and a one-time deputy to the organization’s alternative parliament, the National Assembly.

According to Radio Svoboda, Yaroshenko was admitted with serious head trauma on April 29th, and went through two operations before coming out of a coma.  He was released in June, but after a brief time at home, his condition dramatically worsened, and he returned to the hospital, where doctors were not able to save his life.

Yaroshenko was attacked outside of his home as he returned from work.  An unknown assailant approached the editor, hitting him in the temple before fleeing the scene.

Sergey Sleptsov, on of Yaroshenko’s colleagues, earlier said that he had no doubts that the attack was connected with the journalist’s work.  “I have a suspicion regarding those who organized the attack, but I won’t make it public yet,” he said.  “We worked on the Corruption newspaper together, and I was attacked in a similar manner at one point.”

Local police have refused to file a report on the attack or launch a criminal investigation.  According to Sleptsov, officers insist that Yaroshenko’s localized injuries resulted from a fall from a ladder.

The Russian Union of Journalists has pledged to launch an independent investigation.

By GARRY KASPAROV
June 26, 2009
Wall Street Journal

Regardless of its short-term outcome, the Green Revolution in Iran is already a tremendously important event. Iranian citizens are risking their lives to defend their votes and giving the lie to the idea that democracy cannot sprout in hostile soil without external influence. This is of great relevance to people living in autocracies, especially in Russia, my home country.

The Iranian dictatorship is harvesting the bitter fruit of its own policies of radicalization. For decades it exploited fanatical religious beliefs and hosted mass demonstrations. Now these forces are turning against the regime. Citizens who once chanted “Death to America” now call for the blood of Ayatollah Khamenei.

This is encouraging news, but autocrats learn from each other and from history how to hold onto power. Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sees not a great reformer in Mikhail Gorbachev but a leader who was too weak to hold the Soviet Union together. Others have learned from China’s Tiananmen crackdown the value of brutal force. So it is interesting that in the midst of the upheaval in Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a trip to the Kremlin.

Mr. Putin has a great deal riding on the outcome in Iran. With the Russian economy teetering, he needs a steep increase in oil prices to stave off the collapse of his government. So he has been working to increase tension in the Middle East and now sees the Iranian crisis as potentially helpful — if Ahmadinejad comes out on top.

According to industry analysts, Iran could produce up to four million more barrels of oil per day if foreign companies were allowed to modernize the country’s oil infrastructure. Rapidly increasing Iran’s oil output would likely force oil prices to fall. However, if Ahmadinejad retains power, foreign companies aren’t likely to be invited in and Israel may well feel compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, which will likely drive up energy prices.

After watching the Iranian regime murder its own people in cold blood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be able to tell his people that they won’t face an existential threat if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. The Ahmadinejad government has also lost its moral legitimacy and is therefore more likely to support a proxy war against Israel through Hamas and Hezbollah in hopes of uniting its people against a foreign enemy.

For Mr. Putin, the unknown factor in all of this is how the West will respond to what’s happening in Iran. It could give him pause if Iran faces penalties of real significance for using lethal force against nonviolent protestors. Surprisingly, European leaders are showing unusual assertiveness in condemning the Iranian regime.

But what has been flagging so far has been leadership from the United States. Only in his second statement, a week into the crisis, did President Barack Obama underscore the importance of nonviolence, though he still declined to support the Iranian protestors. I understand the reluctance to provide Iranian leaders with the opportunity to smear the protestors as American stooges. But can the leader of the Free World find nothing more intimidating than bearing witness when it is clear that the regime doesn’t care who is watching?

Sen. Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and Fareed Zakaria on CNN, among others, have defended Mr. Obama’s extreme caution. Mr. Zakaria even compared the president’s actions to how George H.W. Bush responded timidly to the impending collapse of the Soviet Union and its hold on Eastern Europe in 1989. Mr. Zakaria explained, “Those regimes could easily crack down on the protestors and the Soviet Union could send in tanks.” True. But the Soviet Union used tanks to quash dissent when it could. Dictatorships use force when they can get away with it, not when a U.S. president makes a strong statement.

President Dwight Eisenhower might have learned that lesson in 1956 when he said nothing and the Soviets sent tanks into Budapest anyway. Likewise, in 1968 the Soviets cracked down in Czechoslovakia even though the West said little. Regardless of what Mr. Obama says, the Iranian leaders will use all the force at their disposal to stay in power.

There is no reason to withhold external pressure that can tip the balance inside Tehran. Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is not an ideal democrat. But should he and his supporters win power they will owe their authority to an abruptly empowered Iranian electorate. It is reasonable to expect that the people will hold a Mousavi government accountable for delivering the freedoms that they are now risking their lives to attain.

Millions of Iranians are fighting to join the Free World. The least we can do is let the valiant people of Iran know loud and clear that they will be welcomed with open arms.

Mr. Kasparov, leader of The Other Russia coalition, is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

As the Kasparov.ru online newspaper reports, internet providers in the region were ordered to limit user access to the IP address used by the “Revinform” online news agency.  When two providers complied, some 63% of the republic’s residents lost access to all blogging content on LiveJournal.  Authorities were apparently unaware that the shut-down, which affected thousands of bloggers, would be so wide-reaching.

The order to close the news blog came after a court in the capital of Ufa deemed the site to be extremist.  The case was launched against the blog after it reprinted articles from the Maydan newspaper documenting corruption among regional officials.

The online newspaper’s editorial office said it considers the court decision unlawful and politically motivated, and has since released a mirror website for its content.

Revinform publishes both original news content and reprinted material dedicated to local news in Bashkortostan.  The site is run by the “Revinform” News Agency, which describes itself as “news from Bashkiria without censorship.”  According to an unnamed source, the news agency is controlled by two of Bashkortostan’s opposition leaders, Ramil Bignov and Robert Zagreyev.

Bashkortostan has a history of blocking internet access to opposition websites, and a similar court order was used against the Ufa Gubernskaya (Ufa Gub) opposition portal in March of this year.  At the request of prosecutors, all 11 of the region’s internet providers cut access to both Ufa Gubernskaya and a number of other independent news sites identified by officials as “extremist.”

Journalist Yulia Latynina comments on the assassination attempt against Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of the Republic of Ingushetia.  Yevkurov, 45, is in serious condition, with a concussion and broken ribs, after a suicide bomber attacked his motorcade.  Two bodyguards were killed in the explosion.

The attack is a bloody reminder that violence continues unabated in Russia’s North Caucasus region.  Yevkurov, a former military intelligence officer, has served as president since October 2008, when the former President, Murat Zyazikov, was dismissed by the Kremlin.  Ingushetia had seen a gradual escalation of armed insurgency under Zyazikov’s six years in office, and Yevkurov was seen as a reformer intent on reining in heavy-handed police units and stabilizing the republic.

Latynina’s comments first appeared on the Grani.ru online newspaper (Rus).

Yulia Latynina:

What happened can be considered the start of the militants’ summer campaign.  This is a sign that [Yunus-Bek] Yevkurov represents a serious threat to the militants.  That he is actually fighting them.  And he is simultaneously fighting them on three fronts: first – he is actually rooting out corruption, which is also a resource base for the militants, because all of [Murat] Zyazikov’s officials paid the militants.  This isn’t a rumor, this isn’t libel, this is what the officials themselves admitted in the mosques when Zyazikov was dismissed.  They spread their arms and said: yes, we paid, or we would have been killed.

It is worth understanding that to be a militant in Ingushetia is a fairly lucrative business;  not so lucrative, of course, as robbing the budget, but lucrative enough.  So that besides Allah’s work, there are completely concrete material concerns and completely concrete problems that arise for the militants when their resource base dries up because of President Yevkurov.

Second: Yevkurov is actually hitting the militants with precision strikes.  Unlike the previous situation, when the siloviki said they hit a militant whenever they shot at anyone.  Now, one can only say that when Yevkurov travels out of Ingushetia, the siloviki just might shoot the wrong person: when the cat is away, the mice will play.  But Yevkurov strictly controls all operations, and I have a hard time remembering an incident where a person not connected with the militants was killed in the past two months.

Third: negotiations were held with the militants, explaining that those with the desire to could either return to a peaceful life or leave.  Clearly, neither the militant leadership nor the siloviki are happy with this.  It is hard to say who is less happy as result.  I’d like to mention an episode, from when the assassination attempts on Yevkurov began – in December 2008, when Yevkurov was supposed to meet with a person names Magomed Aushev – the right-hand man of the Ingush militants from [the city of] Magas.  This was preceded by other meetings between Yevkurov and militants or their representatives.  He went to these meetings either alone or with his brother – such is the man’s withdrawn courage, because it’s clear that the militants could simply shoot him.  He was supposed to meet, as far as I know, with Magomed Aushev.  Intensive radio traffic started in connection with this, because Aushev was believed dead, but in actual fact was hiding in Barsuki.  And during the meeting with the president, the siloviki took him out.  And literally a month and a half afterwards, three militants entered Ingushetia with a ton of explosives, to arrange for a major terrorist attack.  By all appearances, they planned to blow up the president along with everyone else.  They were discovered by accident.

Yevkurov is actually fighting the militants extremely actively, which is much more complicated for him that for [Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov].  Because Kadyrov is a person who knows all the militants, and can say: “Guys, that’s it.  Why don’t you work for me once again.”  Yevkurov can’t say this.  Furthermore, Kadyrov was up against militants who fought for Chechnya’s freedom, while Yevkurov is up against Wahhabis, who are fighting in exultation of Allah.  It really is much harder for him.  Aside from militants, Yevkurov must somehow restrain the appetites of the Russian siloviki, who are completely discontent when they are forced to work on dangerous tactical goals instead of receiving stars for mass murder.

Under these conditions, Yevkurov, in my opinion, did much more for Ingushetia that could have been expected.  Much less than is needed, because there is an extremely neglected situation there, but more than could be expected.

translation by theotherrussia.org

Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, on behalf of opposition presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, accused Ahmadinejad of selling out Iran’s interests to Russia over the past four years.  In part, Makhmalbaf charged that Ahmadinejad gave up Iran’s Caspian Sea rights, and gave concessions in other areas in exchange for support from Moscow.

Makhmalbaf also claimed to have information that Russia had provided high-ranking consultants to teach Iranian authorities effective ways to repress the opposition.

Russia was one of the first countries to congratulate Ahmadinejad of victory in Iran’s highly contested presidential elections.  Observers noted irregularities during the vote, and Mousavi has called the June 12th election a “charade.”

As result of Russia’s quick support for Ahmadinejad, as well as Makhmalbaf’s accusations, supporters of the Iranian opposition staged a protest outside the Russian embassy in Toronto.

The activists were fueled by the fact that Ahmadinejad travelled to Yekaterinburg, Russia shortly after the election on June 16th, even as the country was facing its most severe political crisis since the 1979 revolution.  Ahmadinejad, who had planned the trip before the election, attended a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security organization whose members include Russia, China and four Central Asian republics.  Iran serves as an observer in the SCO.

Ahmadinejad was named the winner of the election on June 13th, with officials announcing he had taken 62.6% of the vote.  In response, supporters of Mousavi took to the streets, alleging that the result had been falsified and that Mousavi had likely won more than 33.75% of the vote as officials claimed.  As many at 100 thousand Mousavi supporters took part in the street demonstrations, which are scheduled to continue.  Some reports indicated that police had opened fire on the crowds.

–

Read more about Iran and the disputed election from the New York Times newspaper
Read an analysis of why Makhmalbaf may be implicating Russia

Gaidar, the director of the Institute for the Economy in Transition, describes two options authorities may take to curb protest: wide-scale repression, or democratization.  The former could lead to unrest and even revolution.  Yet whether Russian authorities are willing or capable of doing the latter remains open to heated debate.

Gaidar’s piece first appeared in the the Vedomosti newspaper on June 16th.  Juncture: Russia Has Had Enough Revolutions (Rus).

“What is happening in our economy is having political consequences. Governing Russia when the population’s real income is rising 10% a year is a pleasant occupation. Under those conditions political repressions and voting manipulations are not needed to maintain power and popularity. Leading a country when the population’s real income is declining and the number of unemployed is increasing rapidly is a difficult occupation.

“In this situation, the Russian authorities have two options. First, they can harshen political repressions. As historical experience shows, this is the road to revolution and catastrophe. Sooner or later, the state will not have a single reliable regiment. The second option is to democratize the regime, separate the branches of power, and restore the independence of the press, real elections, federalism, and the independence of the judiciary system — everything that allows a society to adapt to the realities of a changing world.

“This road is hard, and you won’t travel its full length in a few months, but many countries have succeeded on this road. Spain after Franco is the most vivid but far from the sole example of this. I hope that our authorities will choose the strategy of adapting to the changed conditions of world development. The two revolutions our country suffered through in the twentieth century are enough for us.”

A milk war is brewing.  After Russia banned the import of milk products from Belarus on June 6th, relations between the two countries have become increasingly strained.  The situation escalated when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko withdrew from attending a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization on Sunday, a group idealized by Russia as a counterweight to NATO.

Defense expert Aleksandr Golts examines the conflict, delving into its roots and questioning Russia’s intentions and need for a regional alliance like the CSTO.  The article first ran in the Yezhednevny Zhurnal online newspaper.

A Meat and Milk Defense
Aleksandr Golts
June 15, 2009
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

Do you remember the old joke, how in the Red Square, after the intercontinental rockets, a column of people with deer-skin hats and briefcases in their hands march out, walking in step.  “And here are the Gosplan workers,” the announcer triumphantly declares, “our most destructive weapon.”  As recent events show, now, after the rockets, people in white lab coats with technical regulations tucked into their arms –our health inspectors—should be sent in the parade.  Even before now, I knew that [Chief Sanitary Inspectors] Gennady Onishchenko was an incredibly influential, and most importantly, independent civil servant.  Fighting for the health of people under his jurisdiction, he prohibited the import of Moldovan wine and Georgian Borzhomi [mineral water] without compromise.  And to the fact that these bouts of fighting for the nation’s health only made an appearance when Vladimir Putin was taking offense at the Moldovan and Georgian president– well, this was certainly just a random coincidence.

And now Gennady Grigoryevich’s commitment to health threatens to do more than just complicate Russia’s relations with its neighbors.  With one stroke of his pen, Onishchenko put the existence of the Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO] at risk –one of the Kremlin’s most important diplomatic projects.  Not long ago, everything was just marvelous: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were improving their collective security day and night.  Establishing a Collective Rapid Reaction Force (CRRF) was on the agenda.  “Just as good as NATO,” as [Russian President] Dmitri Medvedev announced at the last summit.  And the fact that Belarus was supposed to chair the CSTO merely raised hopes of an improvement of military integration of the seven states.  Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko directly promised this a month ago: “In the period of the Belarus presidency, the work of the CSTO has always been stepped up.  We would wish for this revitalization to continue the next time Belarus chairs the organization.”

And all this would be wonderful, if not for the overly-principled Gennady Onishchenko.  After Lukashenko called for his ministers to stop sucking up to Russia and promised to reorient [the country] towards markets in other countries, the head of Rospotrebnadzor [Federal Service for Supervision in Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare] (by a random coincidence) banned the importation of all milk products from Belarus.  And this accounts for more than 90 percent of Belarusian milk exports.  What started then in Minsk was what Dmitri Medvedev later called “milk and meat hysterics.”

Lukashenko refused to come to Moscow and “step up” the work of the CSTO.  The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID) announced: “The reason for our non-participation in the current session of the CSTO is Belarus’ categorial disagreement over adopting CSTO decisions aimed at reinforcing military and political security, under conditions and while the economic security of one of the Organization’s members is openly undermined.  In this case – the Republic of Belarus.”

And when, despite the absence of a Belarusian delegation and an objection from Uzbekistan, five governments signed documents defining the system of how the CRRF would function, be formed and implemented, Minsk clearly and explicitly declared, that the adopted resolutions were illegitimate, since they were adopted without consensus, contrary to the [CSTO] charter.

In reality, this is a condemnation of the CSTO.  Minsk, in a state of extreme aggravation, somehow managed to say the bare truth: the ability to receive money from Russia is much more important to Belarus then any collective work to repel some mythical military threat.

Two types of security organizations exist.  On the one hand, there is a military alliance.  The necessary condition is a common military threat to all participants, whose presence smoothes out internal conflicts.  NATO was created on these principles, and as soon as the USSR fell apart, the North-Atlantic alliance faced an identity crisis.  Members of the CSTO have different threats. Armenia has Azerbaijan.  The Central Asian governments have the expansion of radical islam from Afghanistan.  As well as the internal instability of weak authoritarian regimes.  And whatever resolutions about rapid response forces may be adopted, it is still impossible to imagine Kazakh commandos fighting on Armenia’s side against Azerbaijan, or Belarusian paratroopers deploying into Uzbekistan.

The second option is an agreement between countries that are suspicious of each other’s intentions.  The OSCE can serve as an example of such an alliance.  In this case, the participants should agree on common rules of conduct, measures of mutual trust.  It must be said, that the mutual relations of the CSTO member-states are far from perfect.  Literally a week before the summit, Uzbekistan began to raise seven-meter-tall [23 foot] walls and digging a trench on its border with Kyrgyzstan.  And in earlier times, Uzbekistan mined all of its borders with Tajikistan.  Nevertheless, the question of measures of mutual trust has never been put before the CSTO -it isn’t customary for allies to openly speak about their mistrust for each other.  As result, the CSTO is not too useful for repelling an external threat and pointless for supporting domestic security.

In actual fact, the CSTO is a reflection of the hang-ups that Russian leaders have.  Those cursed “Yankees” have scores of allies—anyone wants to form an alliance with Washington.  But Moscow has no one, and consequently needs to force the former Republics of the USSR to enter into an allied relationship with Russia.  The presence of actual threats is not important, and neither is geographic location.  As result, states that are thousands of kilometers apart have ended up in the CSTO.  Setting up military interaction with them is physically impossible.  The CSTO in essence represents a set of two-sided agreements between individual countries and Moscow.  Fundamentally, these agreements are not at all about security threats.  They simply show the readiness of these states to play out a ritual gesture of homage to the Kremlin leadership in exchange for Russian money.

Alexander Lukashenko worked out what was in his mind the ideal system of relations with Russia.  He regularly declared a readiness to reinforce joint defense against NATO, receiving billions from Russia in return.  Concurrently, the money went to subsidize Belarusian industry, which then sold to the same Russia at artificially lowered prices.

The crisis, however, somewhat changed the situation.  Russia had less, much less money.  And Moscow tried to at least somewhat control the billions of dollars being sent to Minsk.  As result it received milk and meat hysterics.  In truth, Lukashenko was honestly keeping his end of the bargain, reciting his intention to resist the non-existent NATO threat.  And the Kremlin didn’t wish to pay for it.  And “batka” [a slang word for Lukashenko, lit. father] immediately showed that milk and meat relations were far more important for him than all of this rubbish about joint defense.  Read once more into the Belarusian statement: It is pointless to adopt resolutions about reinforcing military and political security, while Belarusian economic interests are suffering.  I haven’t read such an honest political statement in a long time.

Equally egoistic is the approach of Uzbekistan, which refused to sign the CRRF agreement.  Tashkent is very concerned that these agreements will open the doors for interference in Uzbekistan’s internal affairs, where as is plainly evident, a social implosion is imminent.  And the possibility of such interference, frankly speaking, is Russia’s only rational interest in the realm of security.  Internal conflicts in Central Asia can result in an enormous amount of refugees, and at the same time a sharp growth in the illegal trade of narcotics and arms, as well as armed gangs entering onto Russian territory.  To answer these real threats, Russia would do well to negotiate articulate, mutually binding two-sided agreements with the problem states.

And as for the CSTO, then as an extremely artificial construction, it will live only as long as Russia can pay its partners without demanding money in return.  I suspect that in the near future, Onishchenko will have plenty of occasions to demonstrate his world-famous commitment to principles.

translation by theotherrussia.org