SPY VS. SPY
AND FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF CYNICISM
Overheard at Valdai:
Vladimir Putin: Totalitarianism is a dead end road to development
AND THIS JUST IN FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF SEXISM
Overheard at Valdai:
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF SYCOPHANTS
Overheard at the Valdai discussion group:
NEW PODCAST COMING SOON!
Just finished recording the new Power Vertical Podcast with Mark Galeotti, Sean Guillory, and Ben Judah. This week's topic: The New Putinism.
Fears of sackings, arrests, and purges abound. Talk of fifth columns is pervasive on state media. Rumors swirl that the Soviet-era institution of exit visas may make a comeback. And wary of surveillance, officials are ditching their smartphones for older, less fashionable -- and less traceable -- models.
Meet the new Putinism. It's different from the old Putinism.
We don't really know if Vladimir Putin's imperial adventure in Ukraine was driven by domestic politics, by geopolitical concerns, by fears about what example a democratic revolution in Ukraine might set in Russia -- or by a perfect storm encompassing all of the above.
We don't know if the Ukraine campaign was planned long ago or was launched ad hoc when the opportunity presented itself. And we don't know what Putin's true intentions are in Ukraine -- or beyond.
But what we do know is that the Ukraine crisis has fundamentally -- and probably decisively -- changed the way Russia is ruled. And in the brave new world Russia is entering, the soft authoritarianism of the old Putinism looks positively quaint -- and almost benignly liberal -- by comparison.
We're in post production now and it should be online soon -- so stay tuned!
THE MOST IMPORTANT RUSSIAN BANKER YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF
"Business Week" has an interesting profile of Andrey Akimov, the reclusive head of Gazprombank and a key power broker in Putin's inner circle.
When he’s not cruising the streets of Austria in his gray Tesla Model S, Andrey Akimov can often be found behind a desk on the seventh floor of a nondescript office building just across the Moskva River from the Kremlin.
Two bullet-proof doors and one small sign are the only clues that this is the control center of a financier who’s helped turn some of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies into multibillionaires. For a man who honed his trade in the hushed back rooms of Vienna and Zurich during the Cold War and who is now, as friends say, the most secretive banker in a country run by a former spy, this is how it should be.
Read the whole piece here.
MORNING NEWS ROUNDUP
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
UKRAINIAN PM WARNS OF RUSSIAN DESTABILIZATION OF ELECTIONS
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is warning that Russia could attempt to disrupt Ukraine's parliamentary elections scheduled for October 26.
Yatsenyuk told a meeting of top security officials and election monitors on October 23 that "It is absolutely clear that attempts to destabilize the situation will continue and will be provoked by Russia."
Yatsenyuk said "we are in a state of Russian aggression and we have before us one more challenge -- to hold parliamentary elections."
The prime minister said Ukraine needs the "full mobilization of the entire law-enforcement system to prevent violations of the election process and attempts at terrorist acts during the elections."
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said authorities have ordered some 82,000 policemen on duty for election day.
He said 4,000 members of a special reaction force would be among those maintaining order during polling hours and would be concentrated in "those precincts where there is a risk of some terrorist acts or aggressive actions by some...candidates."
The warning by Yatsenyuk comes on the heels of three violent attacks on parliamentary candidates in the past week.
The latest, against Volodymyr Borysenko, a member of Yatsenyuk's People's Front Party, occurred on October 20 when Borysenko was shot at and had an explosive thrown at him.
He allegedly survived the attack only because he was wearing body armor due to numerous death threats he had recently received.
Elections to the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament, will be held despite continued fighting in the eastern part of the country between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists.
Voting will not take place in 14 districts of eastern Ukraine currently under the control of the separatists.
Those separatist-held areas -- in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions -- are planning on holding their own elections in November.
Additionally, Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in March means the loss of 12 seats from the 450-seat parliament.
Polls show President Petro Poroshenko's party leading with some 30 percent of respondents saying they would cast their vote for the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
It that percentage holds on election day it would mean Poroshenko's bloc would have to form a coalition government, likely with nationalist groups who oppose conducting peace talks over fighting in the east.
(Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax)
RUSSIA DENIES ESTONIAN AIRSPACE VIOLATIONS
By RFE/RL
Moscow has denied claims of an incursion by a Russian military plane into Estonia's airspace.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told Interfax news agency on October 23 that the Ilyushin-20 took off from Khrabrovo airfield in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on October 21.
The spokesman said the reconnaissance plane flew "over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea" while on a training flight.
On October 22, Estonia’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Tallinn, Yury Merzlakov, after the Estonian military said the Russian plane had entered its air space.
In a statement, NATO said the Ilyushin-20 was first intercepted by Danish jets when it approached Denmark, before flying toward non-NATO member Sweden.
Intercepted by Swedish planes, the alliance said the Ilyushin entered Estonian airspace for “less than one minute” and was escorted out by Portuguese jets.
NATO has stepped up its Baltic air patrols and Moscow has been accused of several recent border violations in the region amid heightened tensions between Russia and the West over the Ukraine conflict.
Last month, Estonia accused Russia of abducting one of its police officers on the border.
Russia claims Eston Kohver was seized inside Russia on September 5, while Estonian officials say he was captured at gunpoint in Estonia near the border and taken to Russia.
The European Union and United States have called for the immediate release of the Estonian security official, who is facing espionage charges in Russia.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Navy has been searching for a suspected submarine sighted six days ago some 50 kilometers from the capital, Stockholm, although it said on October 22 it was pulling back some of its ships.
Swedish officials have not linked any particular country to the suspected intrusion and Moscow has denied involvement.
(With reporting by Interfax, TASS, and the BBC)
RUSSIAN COURT POSTPONES RULING ON OIL FIRM BASHNEFT
A Moscow court postponed to next week a ruling on a move to take control of Bashneft, an oil company from tycoon Vladimir Yevtushenkov.
The judge said on October 23 that the next hearing will take place on October 30 after the prosecution requested more time to prepare its case.
Prosecutors filed the suit in September to regain state ownership of Bashneft, citing alleged violations in the privatization and subsequent sale of the company to AFK Sistema investment group.
Yevtushenkov, the main shareholder of the conglomerate, is under house arrest on suspicion of money laundering during the firm's acquisition in 2009.
Yevtushenkov, 66, was arrested on September 16.
He is ranked Russia's 15th richest man by U.S. magazine Forbes, with an estimated fortune of $9 billion.
(Based on reporting by Reuters and TASS)
THERE IS NO RUSSIA WITHOUT PUTIN?
According to a report in the pro-Kremlin daily "Izvestia," deputy Kremlin chief of staff Vyacheslav Volodin told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi that Western politicians "do not understand the essence of Russia."
"Volodin stated the key thesis about the current state of our country: As long as there is Putin there is Russia. If there is no Putin, there is no Russia," Konstantin Kostin, head of the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society, told "Izvestia."
MORNING NEWS ROUNDUP
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
MOSCOW AIRPORT MANAGERS RESIGNED, MORE SUSPECTS DETAINED OVER CRASH
Top managers at a Moscow airport have resigned and four more airport workers have been detained over a plane crash that killed the chief executive of French oil giant Total.
Christophe de Margerie and three French crew members died when a corporate jet collided with a snow-removal machine at Vnukovo Airport late on October 20.
The Investigative Committee said on October 23 that prosecutors had detained an air-traffic controller intern, her supervisor, the head of air-traffic controllers, and the chief of runway cleaning.
Meanwhile, the airport announced the resigntion of its director-general, Andrei Dyakov, and his deputy, Sergei Solntsev.
And a Moscow court ordered that the snowplough driver remain in custody until December 21.
The driver says that he has lost his bearings before the collision.
(Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, Interfax, and TASS)
And these items from Reuters:
COURT POSTPONES RULING ON BASHNEFT SHARES
By Denis Pinchuk
MOSCOW, Oct 23 (Reuters) - A Russian court decided on Thursday to postpone to next week a hearing on a move to wrest control of an oil company from oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov, a case that has deepened investors' fears the Kremlin wants to reclaim prized assets.
Russian prosecutors filed the suit last month to regain state ownership of Bashneft, saying there had been alleged violations in the privatisation and subsequent sale of the oil producer to Russian oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Sistema in 2009.
On Thursday, the judge at the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in favour of the prosecutors who had requested more time to prepare their case and said the next hearing would take place on Oct. 30.
Sistema's shares, which lost 70 percent after it reached a peak this year in July, traded down nearly 5 percent in early trading in Moscow. Bashneft's shares were down 1.3 percent on the day.
In September, a Moscow court ordered the seizure of Sistema's majority stake in Bashneft a day after a judge refused to release Yevtushenkov, who is under house arrest on suspicion of money laundering during the firm's acquisition.
The case centres on the privatisation of oil production and refining assets in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan in the Ural mountains in the early 2000s and Bashneft's subsequent sale to Sistema.
The Russian investigators say the privatisation and the sale was illegal.
Sistema, which directly owns almost 72 percent of Bashneft's voting rights and has a stake of 86.7 percent, including 12.6 percent which it owns through its subsidiary Sistema-Invest, has denied the allegations.
Yevtushenkov is ranked Russia's 15th richest man by U.S. magazine Forbes, with an estimated fortune of $9 billion.
Some analysts have said that state-controlled Rosneft , Russia's biggest oil producer run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin, was interested in buying Bashneft.
The company, Russia's sixth largest crude oil producer, extracted more than 16 million tonnes (320,000 barrels per day) of crude oil last year, increasing output by more than 4 percent - the best results among domestic majors after launching production at new deposits in the Arctic.
Its oil refining capacity stands at 24.1 million tonnes a year. (Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; writing by Katya Golubkova and Vladimir Soldatkin, editing by Elizabeth Piper and William Hardy)
NATO, SWEDISH FIGHTERS SCRAMBLE TO INTERCEPT RUSSIAN PLANE
BRUSSELS, Oct 22 (Reuters) - NATO and Swedish fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a Russian intelligence-gathering plane that briefly entered Estonian airspace on Tuesday, the alliance said on Wednesday.
The Estonian Foreign Ministry called the Russian ambassador to the ministry and gave him a protest note over the incursion, the Estonian defence forces said.
Fighters from Denmark as well as Portuguese F-16s from NATO's air policing mission in the Baltics took off after radar detected an unidentified aircraft flying close to NATO airspace in the Baltic Sea, NATO said.
The plane was identified as a Russian IL-20 intelligence-gathering aircraft that had taken off from Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, heading towards Denmark.
The Russian aircraft was first intercepted by Danish F-16s and later, as it headed further north, by fighters from Sweden, which is not a NATO member.
The Russian aircraft turned south again, entering Estonian airspace for less than one minute, a NATO statement said.
Portuguese F-16s, which had been scrambled from their base in Lithuania, escorted the Russian plane away from NATO airspace.
Interceptions of Russian military aircraft by NATO planes over the Baltic region have increased since Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in March, but usually Russian planes only approach NATO airspace and do not enter it, a NATO source said.
At a time when tension between Russia and the West is running high over Ukraine, Swedish forces have been scouring the sea off Stockholm following reports of activity by foreign submarines or divers using an underwater vehicle. (Reporting by Adrian Croft in Brussels and David Mardiste in Tallinn; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
INVASION OF THE ZOMBIE FASCISTS
The anti-racism group Civic Assistance (Гражданское содействие) has a powerful new video out warning -- not very subtly -- about the consequences of casual xenophobia. In addition to making a powerful statement against racism, the video also cleverly turns the Kremlin's fascist meme on its head.