Russia 111207

Basic Political Developments Medvedev to raise missile defense and Temelín during state visit - “I don’t want

to go deeper into these questions now, but time will be given for the discussion of this issue during talks,” Russia’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sergei Kiselyov, told ČTK, referring to NATO’s plans to build an anti-missile defense system (AMD) in Europe. Kiselyov added that Moscow’s position on AMD in Europe is “well known” in Prague.

o Russia, Czech Republic to set up joint nuclear energy venture - One of the main topics at the talks in Prague will be the bid by the Rosatom-led Russian-Czech consortium to build two new reactor blocks at Temelín NPP. The draft proposal by the consortium meets the highest safety requirements and includes solutions based on lessons of the Fukushima tragedy.

o Medvedev To Talk Trade In Prague Russia starts implementing new missile defense policy - The Russian armed

forces have begun implementing military-technical measures outlined voiced by President Dmitry Medvedev in response to the deployment of the US missile defense system in Europe, General Staff Chief Gen. Nikolay Makarov has said.

o General Staff: Russia does not want an arms race, but its push for thisNATO distance itself from cooperation on Russia-sponsored initiatives – Rogozin

Russia seeks balance of interests in cooperation with NATO o NRC will not discuss plans for Russia-NATO summit in Chicago –

Rogozino NATO assists assertion of radical political Islam – Rogozino 'NATO behind spread of radical Islam' - “NATO’s political and military

interference in the Arab spring may bring about a ‘hot Arab summer’, with a whole range of consequences for neighboring regions,” Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax ahead of Thursday’s Russia-NATO Council ministerial meeting.

o Pragmatism should dominate Russia-NATO relations – Rogozino NATO will not be able to be silent on Medvedev's missile defense

statement – Rogozino Dmitry Rogozin expects new aggravation in Africa and Middle East

NATO allies meet amid tensions with Russia - They will then meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to tell him the missile shield will go ahead but that NATO still wants to negotiate a cooperation deal with Moscow, alliance diplomats said.

Venezuela’s relations with Russia strategically important – Chavez: At a news conference on Tuesday he said Executive Vice President, Elias Jaua Milano, will lead the Venezuelan delegation to the eighth meeting of the high-level intergovernmental commission that opens in Moscow on Wednesday.

Russia, Denmark to boost bilateral relations - The elections to the lower house of Russian parliament, problems in the Arctic, Denmark’s upcoming EU presidency and the situation in Syria were high on the agenda of the talks between Russian and Danish foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov and Villy Sovndal.

Russia has no plans to join oil embargo on Iran – Shmatkoo Russia rejects Iran oil ban - "It is quite obvious that this decision is based

on some political motivation ... In these situations we try to be as neutral as possible," Sergei Shmatko told reporters on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress.

RF African envoy hopes new Libyan govt will be able to impose order Moscow ready to send observers to Syria – FM Bogdanov: Russia Rejects Foreign Military Intervention in Syria, Supports

Comprehensive Dialogue EU concerned about Russian election - The European Union's foreign policy chief

said she was seriously concerned about media bias and the harassment of independent monitors during Sunday's parliamentary election in Russia, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party suffered a sharp decline in support but won a slim majority in the lower house.

Lavrov rebukes Clinton’s use of OSCE to criticize Russia o ‘US pins labels:’ Russia slams Clinton over election criticism

PM Manmohan eyes N-deal in Russia trip despite TN stir - The first two reactors of the Kudankulam nuclear power project may not be commissioned, as scheduled, before the PM's three-day visit to Russia beginning December 15 in the face of public protests, but the two countries are holding intense negotiations to sign contracts for the third and fourth reactors at the site during Manmohan Singh's trip.

Moldova looking to extend gas supply contract with Gazprom - Moldova will request Russia's gas giant Gazprom to extend the term of the current natural gas supply contract for three or even six months, so that it does not expire on December 31, 2011, the country's Economy Minister Valery Lazar told reporters.

Amid Court Claims, Russia Offers 'Unique Bargain' for Bulgarian Belene NPP - "Taking into account the raging economic crisis in Europe, we have made a very attractive proposal for Belene. It is hard to believe that we will ever make such a unique proposal to another country," said Komarov as reported by the Bulgarian National Radio Tuesday.

Russian task force goes on mission in Atlantic, Mediterranean - Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said in November that the mission had been scheduled long time ago and is not connected to the current political crisis in Syria.

Russian arms trader to raise exports by 11% in 2011 - “The figures will rise by about $1 billion compared to 2010,” said Viktor Komardin, who is also heading a Russian delegation to the LIMA-2011 arms show in Malaysia.

o Russia to sell six Su-30 fighter jets to Indonesia – papero Russia to sell two more Gepard ships to Vietnam

o Russia opens service centers in Sri Lanka - Russia plans to open maintenance centers in Sri Lanka to service Soviet or Russian-made military equipment, a Rosoboronexport high-ranking official said.

Why Are Burmese Scientists Studying Missile Technology in Moscow? Russia sends humanitarian aid to Kosovo Serbs - A 40-truck convoy will deliver

blankets, power generators, furniture and food supplies, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

o Russia's EMERCOM to send humanitarian aid convoy to Kosovo Wed The largest Russian military base is located in Otobaya village of Gali district -

As news agency Pirveli was informed from the village of Otobaya of the Gali district, the base has been operating for 2-3 months and Russian militaries settled there a long time ago.

Irkut aircraft builder to sell 55 Yak-130 fighter trainer aircraft to Russian defence ministry

Russian ambassador hands medals to Kazakhstan’s Afghan War participants Medvedev to accept credentials of 15 new Ambassadors to the RF Wed - The

following Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary will be Wednesday's guests in the Grand Kremlin Palace: Riyad Haddad of Syria, Ali Gutali of Tunisia, Timothy Earle Barrow of the United Kingdom, Andrei Kobyakov of Belarus, Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena of Spain, Pierre Alois Joseph Ferring of Luxembourg, Albert Jonsson of Iceland, Joaquim Augusto de Lemos of Angola, Hashim Hassan Al Bash of Bahrain, Rafael Francisco Amador Campos of Colombia, Mohamed Keita of Guinea, Mario Fernandez Silva of Costa Rica, Seko Intchasso of Guinea-Bissau, Thieng Boupha of Laos, and Abdi Ibrahim Absieh of Djibouti.

About 600 people detained for unauthorized action in Moscow - “The police detained 569 people for the attempt at an unauthorized rally on the Triumfalnaya Square. No serious violations were reported,” the source said.

o Russian human rights adviser criticizes police crackdown on protesterso Court to consider legality of Navalny and Yashin’s arrestso Russian opposition promises new rallies over election - A group "for

honest elections" said on its Facebook page that a new demonstration would take place in central Moscow on Saturday afternoon. More than 5,000 members of the Facebook group have already promised to attend. Another social networking group, calling itself "Against the party of swindlers and thieves" – the opposition's slogan for United Russia – said protests would now take place every day at 7:00pm local time.

o Kremlin Backers Challenge Protesters - Putin Plays Down Election Setback as Pro-Government Rally Attempts to Overwhelm Opposition

o Election Observer In Tatarstan Reports Vote Rigging o Moscow militia releases arrested Rustavi2 cameraman

Boeing overruns runway at Nizhny Novgorod airporto No one hurt in plane incident in Nizhny Novgorod

Russia May Allow Cabotage by Foreign Airlines, Vedomosti Reports - Russia may allow foreign airlines to fly domestic routes, so-called “cabotage,” in

response to a request from Kontinental Hockey League clubs, Vedomosti reported today, citing government documents.

Russian skinheads beat Armenian to death Caucasus resorts free from taxes Moscow customs official suspected of taking large bribe Ex mayor assures his wife will report for questioning Russian Press at a Glance, Wednesday, December 7, 2011 Update requested - Experts summarize election results Andrey Semenov Surkov and Prokhorov Spin Election - Kremlin spinmaster Vladislav Surkov has

weighed in on the Duma elections in a rare interview, denying reports of widespread fraud but also proposing a new party for "angry urban communities."

Putin May Co-opt Growing Duma Opposition to Smooth Kremlin Bid Can Russia's Communist Party Make A Comeback? Viewpoint: Are post-poll protests a Russian Spring? - By Konstantin von Eggert

Kommersant FM From Putin’s Project to a Sovereign Russia: Maxim Trudolubov This Could Be Putin's Last Election - By Yulia Latynina Russia Faces New Air-Safety Crisis - Russia, once a global aviation power, has

become the most dangerous country in which to board an airliner. Russian Aviation Agency Official, Interview Excerpts Afghanistan will benefit from saffron, not opium poppy – but that won’t happen

tomorrow - talks about Russian-Afghan business cooperation and new ways of combating drug-rafficking Konstantin Volkov

Missile Defense Spat - A New Arms Race Looms between Russia and US. By Matthias Schepp

U.S.-Russia pact on warheads halts misuse of nuclear materials - By Lynn Edward Weaver

Guest post: Russia needs the Brics - By Sergei Karaganov Russian maps suggest Soviet subs cruised Canadian Arctic

National Economic Trends Political risks drive ruble down, Russian stocks mixed Economy leans left - Opposition’s gains in Duma to translate into higher social

spending One ruble each: Russia sells off state-owned companies - Called “Strategy 2020”,

the program primarily aims to reduce the government's involvement in the business and economic infrastructure.

Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions Russia Stocks Drop Most in 2 Weeks on Moscow Troop Patrols, S&P 06.12.2011   /   FOCUS: Russia puts measures to prevent grid executives from

owning power sales Sberbank may offload state stake in 2012 FTSE MAKES ROOM FOR MORE RUSSIAN MINERS Russia's Dixy Q3 net profit at 293 mln rbls, below fcast KamAZ forecasts main operations to expand 30% in 2011

Rusnano and Nippon Sheet Glass form $397 mln JV Norilsk Nickel buys back $4.5bn worth of shares Mechel Falls in Moscow After Suspending Two Mines on Safety Dependence day for Russian mobile retailer Russians See U.S. As Land Of Start-Up Funding, Investment Opportunity If State Builds It, Foreign Investors Will Come - As if tax relief isn't alluring

enough, the government's Special Economic Zones now offers new services to net international firms.

Forum to explore Russian agribusiness - government and business leaders from the U.S. and Russia gather at the Hilton in downtown Omaha for a one-day Russia Agribusiness Forum.

Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory) Nord Stream restores gas supplies to Europe LUKOIL qualifies to bid for Norway oil licenses Watchdog Checks Rosneft PetroNeft completes Lineynoye fracking Russia embraces Asian energy demand - Russia’s authorities hope that these new

provinces will allow production to plateau at today’s levels for the next ten years.

Gazprom Checks of Gazprom subsidiaries were objective - Mr Gunther Wintershall Sees North Sea Asset Swap With Gazprom Next Year Gazprom Neft may enter Elephant after force majeure lifted Shale gas makes Statoil uncertain about Shtokman

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Full Text Articles

Basic Political Developments

Medvedev to raise missile defense and Temelín during state visithttp://www.ceskapozice.cz/en/news/foreign-affairs/medvedev-raise-missile-defense-and-temelin-during-state-visit

Missile defense will be discussed during Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Prague, but trade – mainly the Temelín tender – tops the agenda

Tom Jones | 06.12.2011 - 18:26

US-led NATO plans to build an anti-missile defense system in Europe, the European financial crisis, EU-Russia relations, and the Arab uprisings are among the issues that

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wants to discuss while in Prague, the ČTK news agency reported Tuesday, citing the Russian ambassador to the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, trade relations are expected to dominate talks.

“I don’t want to go deeper into these questions now, but time will be given for the discussion of this issue during talks,” Russia’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, Sergei Kiselyov, told ČTK, referring to NATO’s plans to build an anti-missile defense system (AMD) in Europe. Kiselyov added that Moscow’s position on AMD in Europe is “well known” in Prague.

Under the presidency of George W. Bush, the US drew up plans to establish an AMD system in Europe, ostensibly to counter potential threats from “rogue states” including Iran and North Korea, with anti-missile rockets to be based in Poland and an early warning radar system in the Czech Republic. The plans were fiercely opposed by the Russian leadership which claimed the system was also intended to neutralize Russia’s missile arsenal.

The US plans led to deterioration not only of US-Russia relations, but also of Moscow’s relations with Prague and Warsaw. Soon after taking office, US President Barack Obama announced that Washington was scrapping the AMD plan, which led to a certain détente in bilateral relations and paved the way for the New START treaty, signed in Prague by Obama and Medvedev in April 2010.

AMD cooperation in impasse

At the NATO summit in Lisbon in November 2010, NATO provisionally approved plans to build a revised AMD with a degree of cooperation with Russia. Moscow has proposed building a joint NATO–Russia AMD system, but the US and NATO rejected the idea.    

The US and NATO partners have, without Russian involvement, forged ahead with plans for a revised AMD system in Europe which NATO claims will be should be able to respond to potential threats from the Middle East. The US has reached provisional agreements with Turkey, Spain, Poland and more recently Romania on hosting parts of the planned system which will include mobile seaborne elements.

After failing to reach an agreement with the US or NATO on participating in the system, Moscow has demanded legally-binding guarantees from the alliance that the system will in no way be used to undermine or counter Russia’s defenses. NATO has so far argued that such a guarantee is both unnecessary and technically impossible due to lack of a legal framework.  

“The demand for a legal guarantee is not necessary. As stated clearly in the new NATO Strategic Concept, ‘NATO poses no threat to Russia’ and there is a desire to create ‘a true strategic partnership between NATO and Russia.’… NATO is not in a position to sign a legal document of this nature,” Deputy Minister of Defense, Jiří Šedivý, told Czech Position in June this year, explaining NATO’s stance.

Two days after Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, said that talks on potential AMD collaboration had reached an impasse because the US had rejected all Russian proposals, on Nov. 23 Medvedev threatened that Russia is ready to withdraw from the New START treaty if NATO went ahead with the AMD project unilaterally without providing Moscow guarantees. Medvedev also said Russia is prepared to deploy Iskander ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad, the country’s westernmost region, and on its southern borders.

Temelín and trade agreements

The thorny issue of missile defense aside, Russian ambassador Kiselyov says the main focus of talks in Prague will be cooperation on bilateral trade. Representatives from the Russian and Czech defense ministries are due to sign an agreement whereby the LOM aircraft repairs company in Prague will be allowed to carry out modernization, repairs and maintenance on Russian-built Mi helicopters belonging to foreign militaries and companies. Hitherto, LOM has been licensed to work only on Mi helicopters owned by the Czech military.

The Russian nuclear fuel producer and provider TVEL, which supplies the Temelín nuclear plant in South Bohemia, and the Czech firm ALTA Invest are to sign an agreement on the establishment of the Technical Services Center, which according to ambassador Kiselyov should enable the exchange of technologies for civil nuclear applications, including power generation.

On Tuesday, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the official daily of the Russian government, reported that the bid by the Rosatom-led Russian-Czech consortium to build two new reactor blocks at Temelín will be one of the main themes at the talks in Prague. “Temelín is one of the largest nuclear power plants in Eastern Europe and the winner of the tender can count on successful participation in similar projects in other Eastern European countries,” the daily said.

The two sides are also due to sign an agreement on the modernization of industries in Russia and the Czech Republic provisionally endorsed in Prague on Nov. 11 by Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Zhukov and Martin Kocourek (Civic Democrats, ODS), who resigned as   Industry and Trade Minister  last month.

The Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade told Czech Position that it could not reveal details about its involvement in the Russian president’s visit because it is being organized by President Václav Klaus and not the government.  

Who will negotiate?

Medvedev is visiting Prague upon the invitation of Klaus. Following his arrival in Prague on Wednesday evening, Medvedev and his wife, Svetlana, are to dine with the Klaus and his wife, Livia, at the Strahov Monastery nearby the Prague Castle.

The Czech and Russian presidents will reconvene, together with their national delegations, at Prague Castle — the seat of the Czech presidency — at 11:00 am on Thursday, which will be followed by the signing of treaties and a ceremonial banquet. The Czech presidential administration declined to issue a list of names of the Czech delegates expected at the talks, but told this publication that around 150 people have been invited to attend the lunch banquet on Thursday. Those due to attend include the Czech ministers and their deputies, Klaus’ spokesman said.

At 16:10 on Thursday, Czech Prime Minister, Petr Nečas (ODS) is to meet with Medvedev at Prague Castle, after which the Russian head of state and his wife will leave for the airport.

Russia, Czech Republic to set up joint nuclear energy venturehttp://en.rian.ru/world/20111207/169431521.html

01:02 07/12/2011

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)

Russia and the Czech Republic will sign an agreement on setting up a joint venture to exchange advanced technologies in civilian nuclear power sector during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Prague on December 7-8.

During his official visit Medvedev will meet with Czech President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Petr Necas to discuss bilateral trade and cooperation in energy, transportation and technology sectors, the Kremlin press service said on Tuesday.

As part of the agenda, Russia's nuclear fuel producer TVEL, which supplies the Temelín nuclear plant in South Bohemia, and the Czech firm ALTA Invest will sign an agreement on the establishment of the Technical Services Center “to enable the exchange of technologies for civil nuclear applications, including power generation.”

One of the main topics at the talks in Prague will be the bid by the Rosatom-led Russian-Czech consortium to build two new reactor blocks at Temelín NPP. The draft proposal by the consortium meets the highest safety requirements and includes solutions based on lessons of the Fukushima tragedy.

Russian-Czech trade totaled $6.6 billion in January-September 2011, marking an 11.4 percent growth year-on-year. Russia remains key energy supplier to the Czech Republic, meeting 80 percent of the country’s demand in natural gas and 70 percent – in oil.

December 07, 2011

Medvedev To Talk Trade In Prague Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is due to arrive in Prague later today for a two-day visit to the Czech Republic.

Economic cooperation, including abid by the Rosatom-led Russian-Czech consortium to build two new reactors at the Temelin nuclear power plant, are expected to be high on the agenda.

It will be Medvedev's second official visit to the Czech Republic.

At a summit in Prague last year, Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama signed a new START nuclear-arms reduction treaty.

More recently, in November, Medvedev suggested Russia would deploy countermeasures that included targeting countries that hosted a possible U.S. antimissile defense system if Moscow's concerns regarding such a system were not heeded. The Czech government expressed a willingness during the George W. Bush presidency to host part of such a missile-defense system.

compiled from local agency reports

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2011 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.rferl.org/content/medvedev_visit_czech_republic_trade_antimissile_defense/24414142.html

RT News line, December 7

Russia starts implementing new missile defense policyhttp://rt.com/news/line/2011-12-07/#id23157

The Russian armed forces have begun implementing military-technical measures outlined voiced by President Dmitry Medvedev in response to the deployment of the US missile defense system in Europe, General Staff Chief Gen. Nikolay Makarov has said. “We are ready to react appropriately to further developments of the situation with missile defense in Europe,” he said at a meeting with military attaches in Moscow on Wednesday. The missile defense program of the US and NATO is leading to a new split in Europe, Makarov said, as cited by Interfax.

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=653714&cid=9

GOOGLE TRANSLATION

General Staff: Russia does not want an arms race, but its push for thisRussia does not want an arms race, but its push for this, said today the Chief of Staff of Russian Armed Forces, Army General Nikolai Makarov, the annual traditional meeting with military attaches of foreign countries accredited in Moscow, ITAR-TASS reported.Makarov said that in Lisbon at the NATO summit, Russian President said Russia's willingness to participate in the creation of a missile defense system in Europe. "He then suggested that the so-called sectoral approach, which was rejected," - reminded Makarov."We offered another option - if the NATO countries want to defend themselves, then this second option was to strike missile defense deployment so that their range did not affect the territory of Russia", - said Makarov. - Accordingly, the range of the Russian attack missile defenses under this option would not come out for the territory of Russia. ""But this option does not come," - stated the Makarov. "We are ready for other options, but we do not offer - he said. - We do not hear nothing but empty statements that the missile shield in Europe will not be dangerous for the Russian strategic nuclear forces."

December 07, 2011 09:11

NATO distance itself from cooperation on Russia-sponsored initiatives – Rogozinhttp://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=293121

BRUSSELS. Dec 7 (Interfax) - NATO is not ready to act in the spirit of cooperation with Moscow on Russia-sponsored initiatives, Russia's envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax.

Asked about whether Russia is going to present a draft statement on the legal framework of decision to use force at the NATO-Russia Council meeting at the level of foreign ministers on December 8, Rogozin said: "The future of the draft statement is almost the same as of drafts of other documents in that Russia is interested and that get to NATO's table. Fantastic pettifoggery starts then. The result is all the same: NATO is not ready to act in the spirit of cooperation with Russia on Russia-sponsored initiatives."

The NRC ministerial meeting will also discuss a draft working program for 2012 and overview what has been done after the Lisbon summit, he said.

ar

(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)

Russia seeks balance of interests in cooperation with NATO http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/12/07/61720846.html

Dec 7, 2011 10:19 Moscow Time

NATO should come to realize that Russia is prepared to cooperate with the alliance proceeding from the principle of pragmatism that’s based on the balance of interests, the Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with the Interfax news agency. Moscow hopes that NATO will take into account the recent statement by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Russia’s response to the planned deployment of the US ABM system elements in Europe, the diplomat said. Rogozin further said that the issue will be taken up by the Russian and NATO Foreign Ministers during the Russia-NATO Council meeting that’s due on Thursday, December 8th . Earlier, President Medvedev warned that Moscow would make a number of tough moves, including the building-up of its strategic potential and a likely deployment of up-to-date strike systems, if the US does go ahead with its plan to set up its ABM system for Europe.

(TASS)     

09:10NRC will not discuss plans for Russia-NATO summit in Chicago – Rogozinhttp://www.interfax.com/news.asp

 07 December 2011, 11:40

NATO assists assertion of radical political Islam – Rogozinhttp://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=8922

Brussels, December 7, Interfax - Arbitrary changes of politicians in the 'third world' who NATO dislikes means assisting the spread of Sharia and radical Islamist groups, Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said.

"The Russian side would like to understand to what extent NATO is aware of the fact that the assertion of radical political Islam in every region where NATO 'projected its force', as they say, is the result of its actions," Rogozin said Interfax.

The main issue that the Russian side is going to raise at a NATO-Russian Council meeting at the level of foreign ministers on December 8 is the analysis of consequences that the West made in the military and political sphere in 2011, he said.

  'NATO behind spread of radical Islam' http://rt.com/politics/nato-spread-radical-islam-221/

Published: 7 December, 2011, 12:11Edited: 7 December, 2011, 12:11

The Arab spring could turn into a fiery Arab summer as a result of NATO actions, the Russian envoy to the alliance says.

“NATO’s political and military interference in the Arab spring may bring about a ‘hot Arab summer’, with a whole range of consequences for neighboring regions,” Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax ahead of Thursday’s Russia-NATO Council ministerial meeting.

He added that as a result of NATO’s interference, “Sharia law is coming to previously relatively secular states”.

At the December 8 meeting in Brussels, Russia wants to find out “to what extent NATO is aware of the fact that the coming of radical Islam to all the regions where it ‘projected its force’ is a result of its actions”, the envoy insisted.

The diplomat went on to say that during the military operation in Libya, the NATO-led international coalition “revamped” the relevant UN Security Council resolution.

"It said: no bombing – and they were bombing. It said: no arms deliveries to any party – and they were delivering arms. It said: no land operation – and they conducted special forces operations. It said: do not intervene in the domestic political situation – and they changed it,” Rogozin stressed. 

The Russian envoy to NATO also pointed out that Moscow “insists on confirming the basic principles of international law” and wants NATO to “return to the legal field and recognize its subordinate role to the United Nations”.

09:05Pragmatism should dominate Russia-NATO relations – Rogozinhttp://www.interfax.com/news.asp

 09:02NATO will not be able to be silent on Medvedev's missile defense statement – Rogozinhttp://www.interfax.com/news.asp

 

Dmitry Rogozin expects new aggravation in Africa and Middle Easthttp://vestnikkavkaza.net/news/politics/20694.html

Russian representative to NATO Dmitry Rogozin condemned the Alliance for supporting Islamists in states of Africa and the Middle East. He believes that aggravations should be expected in the summer, RBC reports.

Rogozin believes that worsening of the situation may cause political and military intervention of NATO. The NATO interpreted the resolution of the UN Security Council on Libya the way it wanted.

The representative expressed hope that NATO member-states would hear the declaration of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on US missile shield in Europe. Foreign ministers of Russia and NATO will discuss the issue on December 8.

Medvedev said on November 23 that Russia would abandon the START deal and disarmament unless the US stop formation of the missile shield in Europe. The Russian president also ordered a radar station to be moved. The new Voronezh-DM radar was launched in Kaliningrad on November 29.

Experts say that Medvedev’s initiative killed the reboot of Russian-US relations. Rogozin promised that counter-measures against the European missile shield would not become a new armaments drive.

NATO allies meet amid tensions with Russia http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2011/December/international_December206.xml&section=international

(AFP)

7 December 2011, 8:45 AMBRUSSELS — NATO allies meet Wednesday hoping to calm Russian fears over their missile shield project but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton angered Moscow by criticising its parliamentary elections.

Clinton is joining her 27 alliance counterparts in Brussels for two days of talks that will also touch on the Afghan war amid tensions with Pakistan after a NATO air strike on the Afghan border last month killed 24 Pakistani troops.

They will then meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday to tell him the missile shield will go ahead but that NATO still wants to negotiate a cooperation deal with Moscow, alliance diplomats said.

A diplomat said NATO wants to ‘calm things down’ after Russia activated a radar warning system in its exclave of Kaliningrad on the EU’s borders last week, days after President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to deploy missiles there.

‘Some of President Medvedev’s recent comments about NATO’s missile defence system reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the system,’ NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen wrote in Russia’s Kommersant newspaper Tuesday.

The Russian threats ‘reflect the rhetoric of the past,’ Rasmussen said.

While he was pleased that Medvedev did not shut the door on dialogue, Rasmussen indicated that NATO will continue to refuse to provide legal guarantees that the system does not threaten Russia.

Western officials insist that the missile shield is aimed at countering Iran.

NATO and the United States have sought to improve ties with Russia since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.

But Clinton irked Russia by voicing ‘serious concerns’ about the parliamentary elections and calling for allegations of fraud and vote-rigging to be investigated.

‘As we have seen in many places, and most recently in the Duma elections in Russia, elections that are neither free nor fair have the same effect,’ Clinton said in Lithuania on Tuesday.

The Russian foreign ministry described Clinton’s comments as ‘unacceptable’ while Medvedev said it was ‘none of their business’ what Russia’s political system looked like.

Russian riot police arrested hundreds of activists in central Moscow on Tuesday to stop a new protest alleging that elections were rigged in favour of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s ruling party.

Despite lingering suspicions between the former Cold War foes, Russia has allowed the alliance to use its territory to send vital supplies to troops in Afghanistan.

The transit route through Russia has become all the more important since Pakistan shut down supply lines in anger at last month’s deadly air strike on the Afghan border. NATO has launched an investigation into the raid.

‘We have every interest to make sure that we get back to a better relationship again and that is what we are trying to achieve in the near future,’ said a senior NATO official.

The ministers will review the transfer of security reins to Afghan forces after Monday’s major Afghanistan conference in Bonn, where participants vowed sustained support for another decade after combat troops leave in 2014.

Another mission, Kosovo, will also be discussed in the wake of violence at the border with Serbia that injured 50 NATO troops.

11:06 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Venezuela’s relations with Russia strategically important - Chavez

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291343.html

CARACAS, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has described relations with Russia as “strategically important.”

At a news conference on Tuesday he said Executive Vice President, Elias Jaua Milano, will lead the Venezuelan delegation to the eighth meeting of the high-level intergovernmental commission that opens in Moscow on Wednesday.

The meeting will focus on the implementation of bilateral cooperation projects within the framework of the program for joint actions for 2014.

“The meeting will also discuss import issues in the defence sector,” Chavez said. “Everything we have already achieved within the framework of cooperation with Russia and China is only the beginning, great business is ahead.”

   08:47 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Russia, Denmark to boost bilateral relations

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291250.html

COPENHAGEN, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — The elections to the lower house of Russian parliament, problems in the Arctic, Denmark’s upcoming EU presidency and the situation in Syria were high on the agenda of the talks between Russian and Danish foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov and Villy Sovndal.

The talks took place on the sidelines of the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Tuesday, the press service of the Danish Foreign Ministry said underlining that this was Sovndal’s first meeting with his Russian counterpart.

The Danish diplomat expressed satisfaction with the meeting that once again confirmed that the two countries have good relations and plan to further develop them.

Sovndal underlined the intention of Denmark and the European Union to cooperate with Russia in the implementation of its plans for economic and political modernization.

Denmark and Russia are interested in expanding economic exchanges and mutual investments, he said.

The meeting also confirmed the two countries’ involvement in the Arctic through the Arctic Council and the Arctic Five.

The foreign ministers agreed to maintain close political contacts in this and other issues.

11:24 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Russia has no plans to join oil embargo on Iran - Shmatko

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291368.html

DOHA, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Russia does not consider it necessary to join an oil embargo on Iran, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in Doha on Wednesday.

“Russia is a large oil and gas exporter that consumes no tonne of Iran’s energy carriers, therefore we have no need to join the embargo,” he said. “And we have no plans at all to allow the import of Iran’s oil.”

He underlined that it is necessary to avoid politicization of the issues concerning energy.

However, “now it became evident that the decision taken in relation to Iran is of political nature,” Shmatko said. “In these issues we stick to an absolutely neutral position.”

Russia rejects Iran oil banhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/07/us-russia-iran-oil-idUSTRE7B60E920111207

2:51am EST

By Daniel Fineren

DOHA (Reuters) - Banning Iranian oil sales would be a political move and Russia does not believe energy supplies should be used to exert pressure, Russia's energy minister said on Wednesday.

European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Tuesday there was consensus among some EU countries to ban imports of Iranian oil and that Europe hoped to bring Russia on board in a global ban.

But the world's biggest crude oil producer, which does not import any Iranian crude, is unlikely to back the plan aimed at piling pressure on Iran to drop its disputed nuclear program.

"It is quite obvious that this decision is based on some political motivation ... In these situations we try to be as neutral as possible," Sergei Shmatko told reporters on the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress.

"Do you realize the impact of this decision once it is made?" he said, without elaborating.

Some EU countries are worried that a ban on imports of Iranian oil could damage their own fragile economies more than it would Iran's.

Shmatko said that rather than banning oil sales, countries concerned about Tehran's nuclear plans, which many governments suspect includes a weapons program, should seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

"As far as the nuclear program of Iran is concerned, we try to discuss these issues in other forums, for example the UN security council," he said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Bergin; editing by Amran Abocar and Jason Neely)

11:25 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

RF African envoy hopes new Libyan govt will be able to impose order

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291380.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s presidential African envoy Mikhail Margelov hopes a new transitional government in Libya will be able to impose order in the country.

“The chief task of the new government and new Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib is to impose order and normalize life in the country, and to prepare parliamentary and general elections,” Margelov said on Wednesday. “We hope that the new government will be able to cushion the two widely-discussed scenarios – a protracted civil war or religious extremists taking over the helm of power.”

The inauguration of the new cabinet, according to Margelov, testifies to the fact that the Libyan situation is “developing in line with the roadmap adopted by the National Transitional Council.”

Speaking about the composition of the new government, he noted that it was formed “with due account of the need to smooth contradictions between various groups.”

“So far the country is in the grip of chaos and settling of old scores between the leaders may trigger conflicts, including armed conflicts,” he said. This was the reason, he noted, to include into the new transitional cabinet two field rebel commanders, Osama al-Juwali (the head of Zintan’s military council), who was appointed minister of defence, and Fawzi Abd al All (commander of Musurata anti-Gaddafi opposition), who was appointed interior minister.

RT News line, December 7

Moscow ready to send observers to Syria – FMhttp://rt.com/news/line/2011-12-07/#id23157

Russia might delegate its observers to Syria if the authorities of that country are interested. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced the initiative at a news conference in Vilnius on Wednesday. He also stressed that the plan of the Arab League to send its own observers to Syria should not be turned into an ultimatum to Damascus.

07 Dec 2011

Bogdanov: Russia Rejects Foreign Military Intervention in Syria, Supports Comprehensive Dialogue http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20111207054735

By R. al-Jazaeri /  MOSCOW - Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Michael Bogdanov on Tuesday stressed that his country is regretful towards the double standards policy adopted in estimating the developments of the events in different countries away from the principles of the UN Charter and the resolutions of the Security Council.

In an statement to SANA Correspondent in Moscow, Bogdanov said that Russia rejects the foreign military interference in Syria as it knows from the experience in Libya what the military intervention yielded of destruction and war scenario under the umbrella of protecting the civilians.

He stressed the importance that all the parties concerned in Syria and outside it and the international community and the Security Council should work for preventing the war and the deterioration of the situation in Syria which would lead to a civil war.

He added " Russia is not of course a member of the Arab League, but it knows from the international experiences in different parts of the world that the sanctions don't lead to achieving the hoped-for results, but to the contrary they would further complicate the situation and would affect the life of the nations, therefore, Russia believes that the parties concerned should be involved in a constructive dialogue based on the reason and the true interests of the homeland and the people...This is what gives all of us the opportunity to find suitable solutions."

He indicated to his county's support to the plan of the joint Arab action which rejects any foreign meddling in Syria's internal affairs, and to starting a comprehensive dialogue between all the Syrians.

He added that Russia is in contact with the Syrian leadership, the opposition and the all sides of the Syrian society, indicating that the political will constitutes the basis for the dialogue between all the sides in Syria, and that the Syrian leadership recognizes this and expresses readiness to make tangible and effective steps in this regard.

He expressed regret towards the rejection of dialogue with the Syrian leadership by the Syrian opposition which is supplied with money, weapons and media coverage from abroad, calling upon all the Syrian bodies to hold a dialogue on the reforms required for all the Syrian society and to crystallize a new constitution and to develop the social life in the society.

© SANA (Syria Arab News Agency) 2011

EU concerned about Russian electionhttp://www.euractiv.com/global-europe/eu-concerned-russian-election-news-509490

Published 07 December 2011

The European Union's foreign policy chief said she was seriously concerned about media bias and the harassment of independent monitors during Sunday's parliamentary election in Russia, in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party suffered a sharp decline in support but won a slim majority in the lower house.

"Reports of procedural violations, such as lack of media impartiality, lack of separation between party and state, and the harassment of independent monitoring attempts are however of serious concern," she said yesterday (6 December), adding she took note of the fact that the Duma election was well-prepared and administered.

Ashton also expressed the hope that the issues raised in preliminary findings would be addressed when Russia holds a presidential election in March.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Moscow for a second successive day yesterday to demand an end to Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule, defying a crackdown by tens of thousands of police reinforced by crack Interior Ministry troops.

Police said they had detained about 250 people in central Moscow when they tried to stage an unapproved rally and held about 200 more in St. Petersburg, where opposition forces have also been emboldened by Putin's worst election setback since he took power in 1999.

Echoing the EU foreign policy chief, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said he regretted that the election campaign for Sunday's vote was marked by limited political competition and a lack of fairness, as underlined by the observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly.

“Russian people deserve full-fledged democracy. The high turnout shows that Russian people care about their civic duties and rights. They deserve a free, transparent and fair election process,” Buzek said, adding he was concerned about the detention of dozens of opposition activists, intimidation against the independent election watchdog Golos and the cyber attacks on leading independent news websites.

The European Parliament has said it was alarmed by the lack of independence and partiality of the news media that have increasingly fallen under the influence of the ruling

party, as well as the frequent procedural violations and instances of apparent manipulation during the vote count.

“We need to move up one gear in developing our EU-Russia bilateral relations," Buzek said. "We want our long-term cooperation to be based on democracy, the rule of law and freedom of expression.”

Washington also ups pressure

Washington also has voiced "serious concerns" over the conduct of Sunday's vote.  The United States continued to pressure Russia to investigate claims of fraud and intimidation in the Duma elections despite Russia's rejection to the allegations.

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday dismissed US criticism of its parliamentary election as "unacceptable".

In a statement released yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry blasted the US for sticking to "the long-gone stereotypes and labels without trying to find out what is really going on in our electoral field."

US Senator John McCain said Russia could now face a revolt. In a message to Putin on Twitter, the Republican wrote: "Dear Vlad, The Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you."

Many Russian political experts have dismissed suggestions that Putin could face an uprising in a country which has little tradition of major street protests, despite the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and where dissent has often been crushed.

Putin, meeting United Russia representatives, said he would reshuffle the government after the presidential election he is contesting next March, but promised no immediate action.

It was not enough to appease opposition leaders angered by the widespread reports that the ruling party's vote count was inflated by ballot stuffing, even though it barely held on to a majority of seats in the lower house.

Putin - who served two terms as president - has high popularity ratings but has upset many people by saying he wants to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev, opening the way for him to rule until 2024.

EurActiv.com with Reuters

RT News line, December 7

Lavrov rebukes Clinton’s use of OSCE to criticize Russia http://rt.com/news/line/2011-12-07/#id23157

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed regret over US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of the rostrum of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to criticize the Russian elections. Clinton said on Tuesday that Sunday’s Duma elections were unfair. Some countries use the OSCE as a platform to make claims that have nothing to do with the organization’s activities, he said in Vilnius on Wednesday. Lavrov also said the West profits from the OSCE’s uncoordinated activities in order to “manipulate” the organization. Russia wants the OSCE to be reformed.

‘US pins labels:’ Russia slams Clinton over election criticismhttp://rt.com/news/us-russia-clinton-election-199/

Published: 7 December, 2011, 01:53Edited: 7 December, 2011, 06:31

The Russian Foreign Ministry shot back at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her criticism that Russia’s elections were neither free nor fair. But as the US attempts to take the moral high ground, their political games seem as dirty as ever.

In a strongly-worded statement, Moscow expressed its regret that “Washington is sticking to long-outdated stereotypes and continuing to pin labels, without even trying to look into what is actually happening on our electoral field," Interfax reports.

Pointing out that the US electoral system is “far from perfect,” the foreign ministry continued that only the Russian people “can determine the future of our country – regardless of anyone’s partial judgments and politicized recipes."

Clinton, who had previously chastised Russia’s State Duma elections, stepped up the rhetoric while speaking at an Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) ministerial meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania Tuesday.

“When authorities fail to prosecute those who attack people for exercising their rights or exposing abuses, they subvert justice and undermine the people’s confidence in their governments,” she noted.

“As we have seen in many places, and most recently in the Duma elections in Russia, elections that are neither free nor fair have the same effect,” Reuters quoted her as saying.

However, Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar told RT Clinton’s remarks shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

“This is standard procedure for the State Department, interfering in other people’s elections, sometimes directly, like in the Arab Spring; sometimes Indirectly, as is the case of Russia.”

Escobar also believes the US is in no position to criticize Russia’s elections based on its own election irregularities and double standards.

“We had a stolen election in 2000, we had a semi-stolen election in 2004, in Ohio, not in Florida, this is documented, everybody knows this, even in the US, we had Hillary Clinton going recently to Uzbekistan and praising the progress in Uzbekistan, probably she means progress that (Uzbek President Islam) Karimov is not boiling opponents anymore, so it’s an enormous hypocrisy.”

‘US criticize outcome, not process, if they don’t like it’

New York-based author and political analyst Eva Golinger believes Clinton’s comments are absolutely politicized. In her view, this is another example of “US intervention in electoral processes around the world, it’s not just Russia.”

“We saw another case about a month ago in Nicaragua, where the reigning government of Daniel Ortega won the election with over 60% of the votes, which were certified by the electoral board, and there were also observers there as well – and the US has not only called into question the electoral process.”

The analyst points out that the US now is not even recognizing the results, but says this is mainly because “they just don’t like Daniel Ortega.”

“So this is evidence of arrogant attitude from the US, where whether or not the process is legitimate – that’s not what they are criticizing: they are criticizing the outcome, because frankly they just don’t like it.”

‘US attempts to weaken Russia’

Brian Becker, a Washington DC political analyst from the ANSWER Coalition, believes that the real intentions of Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration have to be analyzed from the angle of their real ability parse election results: whether they “really want to make a sound judgment, or was it a rush to judgment,” whether it was in fact “the script that choreographed a planned response to whatever happened in Russia – not because of the concern about whether the elections were fair, not because there may have been improprieties, but because the US is involved in an effort to weaken Russia and to delegitimize the Russian government and all things the Russian government supervises, including the electoral process.”

Becker added that Clinton’s reaction is “a flagrant violation of the internal affairs of Russia, and is politically motivated.”

Meanwhile, the EU has also expressed concern over violations noted by OSCE observers at Russia’s parliamentary elections, said Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

She pointed out that she had taken note of the OSCE's report, saying that while the vote was well organized, the reports of not-quite-impartial media; lack of clear division between the ruling party and the state; and obstacles to independent monitoring groups arouse concerns. Ashton went on to say that she hopes Russian authorities will solve the problems pointed out by international and domestic observers in order to make the upcoming presidential elections in spring fair and correctly carried out.

Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury  New Delhi, December 7, 2011 | UPDATED 08:18 IST

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pm-manmohan-eyes-n-deal-in-russia-tn-stir/1/163086.html

PM Manmohan eyes N-deal in Russia trip despite TN stir

The first two reactors of the Kudankulam nuclear power project may not be commissioned, as scheduled, before the PM's three-day visit to Russia beginning December 15 in the face of public protests, but the two countries are holding intense negotiations to sign contracts for the third and fourth reactors at the site during Manmohan Singh's trip.

India and Russia may also ink a pact on military aviation during Singh's trip. It is understood this involves supply of attack helicopters to New Delhi.

Besides, pacts in the fields of banking, science and technology, and a joint venture ( JV) for steel production in India would be concluded following the Indo- Russian annual summit between Singh and President Dmitry Medvedev.

The visit comes as Russia's politics undergoes changes with the ruling United Russia Party incurring major losses in elections to Parliament.

The PM's trip will offer an opportunity for New Delhi to take stock of the situation ahead of Vladimir Putin's fresh bid at Presidency next year.

Moscow has been helping New Delhi in the field of peaceful nuclear energy even before the Nuclear Suppliers Group granted clean waiver to India in September 2008.

The Kudankulam project was conceived, and its construction started, before the waiver.

Therefore, sudden protests against the project this year rattled both the countries with Moscow seeking assurance from the Manmohan Singh government on the project. The agitation has delayed the pace of the key nuclear power plant, a cause of worry for India.

Sources said it was unlikely that the first two reactors would be commissioned before Singh's trip. However, officials of the two sides are engaged in tough negotiations to sign contracts for the third and fourth reactors.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd and Russia's Atomstroyexport have developed two reactors - one gigawatt ( GW) each - at the site.

Russia has been keen to expand the capacity at Kudankulam and set up six reactors at the site and will supply enriched uranium for them. For the first two reactors, Atomstroyexport has an advantage as it will not be governed by India's civil nuclear liability law.

The agreement with Russia was signed in 1988 when there was no civil nuclear liability law in the country. However, it is not yet known whether the third and fourth reactors, contracts for which are yet to be signed, will come under the ambit of the liability law.

Sources said considerable part of the discussions at the summit would be devoted to nuclear cooperation, where Singh would assure Medvedev on continuance of nuclear cooperation and the future of the Kudankulam project.

Defence supplies have been a cornerstone of Indo- Russian ties for decades. The two sides would take forward the discussions from where defence minister A. K. Antony left when he visited Moscow in October for the 11th meeting of the intergovernmental commission on military technical cooperation.

Antony and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov had focused on ongoing defence projects.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pm-manmohan-eyes-n-deal-in-russia-tn-stir/1/163086.html

Moldova looking to extend gas supply contract with Gazprom

http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20111207105817.shtml

      RBC, 07.12.2011, Chisinau 10:58:17.Moldova will request Russia's gas giant Gazprom to extend the term of the current natural gas supply contract for three or even six months, so that it does not expire on December 31, 2011, the country's Economy Minister Valery Lazar told reporters.

      Given that negotiations on a new long-term gas contract are still gridlocked, Moldova is attempting to win some time and is hopeful to clinch an agreement with Gazprom in 2012, the minister explained, adding that the gas talks were excessively politicized and even had to be suspended after Gazprom required Moldova to relinquish its obligations toward the European Union to comply with the second and third energy packages in exchange for lower gas prices.

      Moldova has been sandwiched by disagreements between Russia and the EU, Lazar went on to say, emphasizing that it was unclear how or when the issue could be resolved.

Amid Court Claims, Russia Offers 'Unique Bargain' for Bulgarian Belene NPPhttp://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=134601

Energy | December 6, 2011, Tuesday

Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom's price offer for Bulgarian Belene NPP is spectacularly low and Bulgaria should hasten to accept it, said Rosatom's vice-director Kirill Komarov.

"Taking into account the raging economic crisis in Europe, we have made a very attractive proposal for Belene. It is hard to believe that we will ever make such a unique proposal to another country," said Komarov as reported by the Bulgarian National Radio Tuesday.

The Bulgarian and Russian parties have been long disputing the final price for the Belene NPP, with Bulgaria arguing that Russia's proposal of EUR 6.3 B is way to high, and setting a ceiling of EUR 5 B.

"Given our proposal, Bulgaria will have to invest not a penny more than it already has, getting in return 51% ownership over a brand new NPP," commented Rosatom's vice director.

In the past months, Rosatom and Bulgaria's National Electric Company NEK filed two independent claims against each other at European arbitration courts over the much-delayed Belene NPP project.

Rosatom 's EUR 58 M claim filed July at a court in Paris demands damages over delayed payments for equipment by the Bulgarian party.

In October, NEK filed a EUR 61 M claim at a court in Geneva against alleged delayed buying back of old equipment for Belene by the Russian party.

End of September, Rosatom and NEK had agreed on a 14th annex to their contract for Belene NPP , allowing them to extend the deadline for final agreement on the project unitl March 2012.

Tuesday Rosatom's Komarov stated, as reported by the Bulgarian National Radio, that the Russian company is "ready to wait as long as necessary" until an agreement for the financing of the project is reached.

He also reiterated the willingness of Russia's Rosatom to single-handedly finance the finishing of Belene NPP.

Russian task force goes on mission in Atlantic, Mediterraneanhttp://en.rian.ru/world/20111207/169436072.html

02:54 07/12/2011

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)

A Russian naval task force from the Northern Fleet has left its base in Severomorsk on a training mission in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, a fleet’s spokesman Capt. 1st Rank Vadim Serga said.

The task force, led by Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, also includes Udaloy II class destroyer Admiral Chabanenko, rescue tugboat Nikolai Chiker, and three tankers.

“The goal of the mission is to maintain the Russian naval presence in vital maritime zones around the world,” Serga told reporters on Tuesday.

The mission is part of the Russian Navy’s annual training plan and will most likely involve a comprehensive program of naval pilot training to further develop the skills acquired by pilots at the Nitka Naval Pilot Training Center in Ukraine.

The task force will be joined in the Atlantic by the Baltic Fleet’s Neustrashimy class frigate Yaroslav Mudry and a tanker for the rest of the mission.

Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, said in November that the mission had been scheduled long time ago and is not connected to the current political crisis in Syria.

Russian arms trader to raise exports by 11% in 2011http://en.ria.ru/world/20111207/169446387.html

11:01 07/12/2011

LANGKAWI (MALAYSIA), December 7 (RIA Novosti)

Russian state arms trader Rosoboronexport will increase arms exports by 11% year-on-year to $9.7 billion in 2011, a deputy head of the company said on Wednesday.

“The figures will rise by about $1 billion compared to 2010,” said Viktor Komardin, who is also heading a Russian delegation to the LIMA-2011 arms show in Malaysia.

He also said that the company had struck $9.5-billion worth of contracts last year. “This year we have signed more,” Komardin said.

Rosoboronexport’s contract portfolio totals $36 billion at the moment, with about 1,500 deals signed every year, he said.

Russia to sell six Su-30 fighter jets to Indonesia – paperhttp://en.rian.ru/world/20111207/169441067.html

06:44 07/12/2011

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)

Russia started the first day at an arms show in Malaysia with a preliminary agreement on the delivery of six Su-30MK2 fighters to Indonesia, the Kommersant business daily said on Wednesday.

Kommersant cited a Russian source at the talks with Indonesia during the LIMA-2011 arms show on the main island of Langkawi as saying that a contract on the Su-30MK2 delivery could be signed as early as by the end of 2011.

The source did not specify the price of the contract as it would depend on the array of weaponry to be installed on the aircraft according to Indonesian specifications.

However, an anonymous source in the Indonesian delegation said the contract could be worth at least $500 million.

Russia’s state-arms exporter Rosoboronexport refused to comment on the negotiations.

Russia recently completed a $300-million contract signed in 2007 on the delivery of three Su-30MK2 and three Su-27SKM fighters to Jakarta in addition to two Su-27SK and two Su-30MK fighters purchased in 2003.

Indonesian Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro said in October 2010 that his country needed a full-size squadron of 16 Su-family fighters. The Su-30MK2s are optimized as naval strike fighters.

Jakarta became one of Russia's main arms buyers in 1999 when the United States tightened an embargo on arms sales to the country over alleged human rights violations.

December 07, 2011 12:02

Russia to sell two more Gepard ships to Vietnamhttp://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=293166

LANGKAWI, Malaysia. Dec 7 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian arms export monopoly Rosoboronexport and the Zelenodolsk Gorky Plant have successfully finished a contract on shipping two Gepard vessels to Vietnam and signed another contact for two such ships.

"The contract has been fulfilled within the agreed-upon timeframe. Vietnam has no objections. The first Gepard was shipped last year and the second this year. Another contract for the second pair of such ships has been signed now," Sergei Rudenko, a deputy director of the Zelenodolsk Gorky Plant for state defense order and foreign trade, told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday.

The first two ships were armed with attack missiles, while the other two will bear anti-submarine equipment and weapons, he said.

Other South Asian nations have also displayed interest in these ships, Rudenko said.

"We had a meeting with the Cambodian defense minister at this exhibition yesterday. They were interested in the same pair of ships," Rudenko said.

va

(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)

Russia opens service centers in Sri Lankahttp://english.ruvr.ru/2011/12/07/61721938.html

Dec 7, 2011 10:39 Moscow Time

Russia plans to open maintenance centers in Sri Lanka to service Soviet or Russian-made military equipment, a Rosoboronexport high-ranking official said.

  Viktor Komardin, Rosoboronexport’s deputy general director, made a statement to this effect at an international arms exhibition in Malaysia.

   Russia has supplied Sri Lanka with four Mil Mi-17 helicopters, two infantry vehicles and 19 armored personnel carriers.

   Last year, Sri Lanka received $300mln to purchase 14 helicopters.

    TASS

Why Are Burmese Scientists Studying Missile Technology in Moscow?http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2101404,00.html

By Simon Shuster / Moscow Wednesday, Dec. 07, 2011

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2101404,00.html#ixzz1fpTc7nvJ

A few years ago, during a summer recess at Moscow's Bauman University, two foreign students from Burma were abruptly expelled for drinking vodka in their dormitory. It was a minor infraction, one that would earn their Russian peers a reprimand at most. But these two students, like hundreds of others, were studying in Russia as part of their service in the Burmese military. They were part of a program to teach the Burmese government how to operate a nuclear reactor, how to find and process uranium, and how build missiles big enough to carry a nuclear bomb. Although they were thousands of miles from home, living in a run-down Moscow dormitory, they were subject to Burmese military discipline. That meant, they were headed back to Burma.

The chore of taking them to the airport then fell to one of their professors, Valery Gostev, a lecturer in missile design, who recalls how their faces turned white as they sat in the departure lounge. "They were terrified of going home," he says. An aging engineer of the old Soviet school, who favors tweed blazers and orthopedic shoes, Gostev had never thought very hard until that day about the distant Asian government he had been assigned to train. He started asking the students about their leaders, and they told him, warily, that Burma is run by a military junta. "I asked them, why do you need these rockets," he says. "And they told me, The same reason you keep dogs in your yard — to scare people off." (Read about Hillary Clinton's landmark visit to Burma.)

For decades, that has been the main prerogative of Burma's government, which has been run by a clique of paranoid generals since 1992 until late 2010, when the country began a transition to civilian rule. The generals, however, still retain enormous influence. Their rule, which often mimics the regime in North Korea, has used their country's natural resource wealth to build up a powerful army — purchasing weapons stockpiles and building a network of underground bunkers — while the population sank into abject poverty.

According to rights watchdog Freedom House, Burma ranks among the "worst of the worst" regimes in the world. Its relations with the U.S. saw a breakthrough this month when Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Burma in more than 50 years. But Burma remains under international sanctions for its human rights abuses and is considered a pariah state. One of Burma's more prominent partners during its decades of isolation, aside from China and North Korea, has been Russia, which began accepting large numbers of Burmese military officers into its schools since 2001, the same year Russia agreed to build a small nuclear reactor for Burma. (In parallel, Russia reached a deal to sell Burma fighter jets and heavy artillery.) (See if Burma's ethnic minorities will be forgotten.)

The reactor sale was formalized in 2007 and, according to the contract, included training for "300-350 nuclear energy specialists." It also stipulated that the reactor would be used not for military purposes but for scientific and medical research. But that explanation did not sit will with the world's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. As a portion of its economy, Burma spends more on its military and less on health care than almost any other country in the world, and the idea that it would splurge on a reactor worth $150 million just to make medical isotopes seemed ridiculous. A reactor that small "would represent no threat to world peace," Robert Kelley, a former director at the IAEA wrote in an op-ed last month. "But without inspections there would be constant concerns that even a small facility could be used for nefarious purposes." So far, however, Burma has refused to sign the nuclear agreements that would allow for IAEA inspections, even after evidence surfaced last year of a secret weapons program.

The source of that evidence was Sai Thein Win, a former major in the Burmese military. In 2010, he defected to the West with a cache of secret documents and photographs, which were published by the Democratic Voice of Burma, an opposition news agency based in Oslo. One of the documents appeared to be a military order for a "bomb

reactor," while many of the photos showed Sai posing with missile parts or with equipment that could be used to enrich uranium. He spoke to TIME by phone in October, but asked not to reveal his location. "If they know where I am, it would not be hard for them to have me taken out."

By his estimate, around 10,000 Burmese students, mostly military officers, have studied at Russia's technical universities, and many of them were sent specifically as part of a nuclear program. He was among the first. In 2001, he says he became one of only three Ph.D. students accepted into Bauman's secretive rocket engines department, where Gostev is a lecturer. "There was one guy from North Korea, one guy from Iran, and me," Sai says. "The only guy who completed the degree in the end was the North Korean, so his rockets would be the ones flying tests over Japanese islands by now." Sai's career was less prodigious.

After completing his studies at Bauman in 2005, he became the deputy head of a military workshop in Burma whose mission, he says, was to produce parts for Burma's secret nuclear weapons program. Sai said the bulk of the machine-building equipment at his workshop was purchased from German companies, who were told it was for civilian research. The more sensitive components of the weapons program were acquired from North Korea, while the training in nuclear science and missile design, Sai says, came from Russia.

In the West, his revelations caused an uproar. Senator Jim Webb (D-Va), the chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, canceled his mission to Burma until it clarified the allegations. The U.S. raised alarms of illegal weapons shipments from North Korea to Burma, and in June of this year, a U.S. Navy destroyer confronted a North Korean ship on its way to Burma, forcing it to turn back. After studying Sai's documents, Robert Kelley, a U.S. nuclear scientist and former weapons inspector for the IAEA, concluded they were proof of Burma's covert nuclear weapons program. "Like their model, North Korea, the [Burmese] junta hopes to remain safe from foreign interference by being too dangerous to invade," Kelley wrote at the time. "Nuclear weapons contribute to that immunity." (See "Burma's New Hope: A Repressive Regime Loosens Its Grip (for Now).")

The wave of scrutiny did not focus on Russia's role, but amid the international pressure, Moscow still backed away from the reactor sale that it had finalized in 2007. Burma also started waving the white flag, telling the IAEA that it could not afford a nuclear program and was not pursuing one. The agency took the junta on its word, and the matter was thought to be closed.

But this fall, TIME learned that Burmese officers had continued their studies at Bauman. Gostev, the professor of rocket science, says he is still teaching a dozen Burmese students in his missile design class, as he does every semester, while other departments are instructing them in nuclear science. The question is, what for?

If the curriculum is focused on helping the Burmese build missiles, then Russia would not be in violation of any international agreements. "The Russians would just be showing pretty bad taste in what they are teaching people," says Kelley, the former IAEA weapons inspector, pointing out that such missiles could be used to carry chemical or biological agents, which would qualify as weapons of mass destruction. (See "Russia's New Guard.")

The motivation for Russia, he says, would most likely be financial. Tuition for a foreign student, particularly one learning sensitive technologies, would be as much as $60,000 per year, a great help to Russia's chronically underfunded universities. Russian corporations have also been eyeing Burma's natural resources. Early this summer, the Russian geophysical company DMNG opened an office in Rangoon to help look for oil and minerals, and officials from Gazprom, Russia's gas monopoly, visited Burma in August. Although it may seem odious to swap weapons and sensitive know-how for access to resources, the United States engages in such deals all the time, and they do not violate international laws.

The more worrying questions would arise if, as Sai claims, Burma is still pursuing a nuclear program. Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which Moscow signed in 1968, Russia is obliged "not in any way to assist, encourage or induce" any other state to manufacture nuclear weapons. "So we do think Russia should be careful about providing a lot of this training to Burma," says Andrea Stricker, an expert at the Institute for Science and International Security, who has studied Burma's military. "There are still a lot of suspicions about a possible [nuclear] weapons program."

The exact nature of the Burmese curriculum, however, remains unclear, and both Kelley and Stricker were inclined to give Russia the benefit of the doubt. "I'm pretty sure that if [the Burmese] said they want to learn [nuclear] bomb design, the answer would be no." But when TIME tried to clarify what the students were studying, Bauman University declined to help, citing its confidentiality agreement with the Burmese embassy in Moscow. "There is a clause in our contract that keeps us from disclosing what the [Burmese] students study or for how long," explained Anna Lustina, a university spokeswoman. "With any other foreign students it would be fine, but we have a special agreement with the Burmese."

The students are just as reticent. Most Sundays, when the weather in Moscow permits, they can still be found playing soccer at Bauman's sports center. But when a reporter approaches with questions about their school work, their faces go pale. "We can't talk to you," one of them said in stilted Russian, holding the ball to his chest. "Please go away." Then they cautiously returned to their game.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2101404,00.html#ixzz1fpTtJQ8r

Russia sends humanitarian aid to Kosovo Serbshttp://en.rian.ru/russia/20111207/169439478.html

05:17 07/12/2011

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)

Russia is sending on Wednesday a second shipment of humanitarian aid to Kosovo Serbs, totaling 284 tons, the emergencies ministry said.

A 40-truck convoy will deliver blankets, power generators, furniture and food supplies, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

The convoy left the city of Noginsk near Moscow at 5.45 a.m. Moscow time (01:45 GMT) and is expected to arrive in the city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo in two days.

In November, an emergencies ministry’s Il-76 cargo plane delivered the first shipment of humanitarian aid, weighing 36 tons, to the city of Nis in southern Serbia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said on December 1 that Moscow would not be able to approve thousands of Kosovo Serbs’ applications for Russian citizenship, but will continue to provide the Serb minority in Kosovo with humanitarian aid.

A Russian-Serbian center for emergency situations in the Balkans opened in Nis in October.

Kosovo, a landlocked region with a population of mainly ethnic Albanians, declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008. Ethnic Serbs account for up to 10 percent of Kosovo’s two-million population.

Both Serbia and Russia have refused to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

03:44 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Russia's EMERCOM to send humanitarian aid convoy to Kosovo Wed

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291187.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Emergencies Control Ministry (EMERCOM) is to send out a special motor convoy with humantarian supplies for the Kosovo Serbs.

An official at the EMERCOM information department has told Itar-Tass, "At 05:45, Moscow time, on Wednesday, a motor convoy consisting of 25 special-purpose vehicles will set out from the EMERCOM's Rescue Center 179 in the city of Noginsk, Moscow Region, for Serbia to deliver power plants, blankets, foodstuffs, crockery, and field furniture intended for Serbian citizens." The overall weight of the humanitarian supplies is 284 tonnes.

The motor convoy will run across the territories of Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia via Noginsk, Kaluga, Bryansk, Kiev, Chernovtsy, Bistrica, Alba-Julia, Nis, and Kosovo's Mitrovica.

In November this year, a Russian IL-76 plane brought a batch of humanitarian aid to the Serbian city of Nis for Kosovo Serbs -- food, stoves, and sets of crockery. The aggregate weight of supplies was 36 tonnes. With the assistance of the national branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the supplies were delivered to Kosovo and distributed among those in need of them.

This year Russia also assisted Serbia in putting out wildfires by sending a Be-200 amphibian plane and a Mi-26 helicopter there to help in the effort. A Russian-Serbian center for control of emergencies in the Balkans opened in Nis in October.

The largest Russian military base is located in Otobaya village of Gali district http://eng.expertclub.ge/portal/cnid__10481/alias__Expertclub/lang__en/tabid__2546/default.aspx

06/12/2011 11:13

The largest Russian military base is located in the village of Otobaya of the Gali district.

As news agency Pirveli was informed from the village of Otobaya of the Gali district, the base has been operating for 2-3 months and Russian militaries settled there a long time ago.

"Unlike other bases, there are four large blocks, where the military live with their families," - said the source.

According to him, Russian border guards actively monitor all passes and detain local residents for illegally crossing of the border on a daily basis.

"Everyone knows that border guards may appear near the passes at any time, but they still take risks. And very often they are detained, and freed after paying a fine. It has even become a common phenomenon "- the source added.

11:58 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Irkut aircraft builder to sell 55 Yak-130 fighter trainer aircraft to Russian defence ministry

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291417.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s ministry of defence and aircraft-building corporation Irkut have signed a contract on the supply of 55 Yak-130 lead-in fighter trainer aircraft to the Russian air force.

“Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and President of the Irkut Corporation Alexei Fyodorov have signed a contract for Yak-150 aircraft,” a spokesman for the Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday. “Under the contract, the Irkut Corporation shall supply 55 Yak-130 places to the Russian air force by 2015.”

“As part of efforts to form a new image of the Russian armed forces, the defence ministry pays primary attention to equipping the army with state-of-the-art hardware and to enhancing its combat capability,” the Russian defence minister said. “The new Yak-130 aircrafts will help improve pilots’ skills and to train them to be ready to fly new-generation combat aircraft to be mass purchased by the defence ministry.”

Under the state arms program up to 2020, it is planned to purchase 65 Yak-130 fighter trainer aircraft.

The Yakovlev Yak-130 (NATO reporting name: Mitten) is a subsonic two-seat advanced jet trainer /light attack aircraft or lead-in fighter trainer (LIFT) developed by the Yakovlev Design Bureau. Development of the plane began in 1991, and the maiden flight was conducted on April 26, 1996. In 2005, it won a Russian government tender for training aircraft, and in 2009 the first planes were put into service in the Russian Air Force. As an advanced training aircraft, the Yak-130 is able to replicate the characteristics of several 4+ generation fighters as well as the fifth-generation Sukhoi T-50. It can also perform light-attack and reconnaissance duties, carrying a combat load of 3,000 kilograms.

Russian ambassador hands medals to Kazakhstan’s Afghan War participantshttp://caspionet.kz/eng/general/Russian_ambassador_hands_medals_to_Kazakhstans_Afghan_War_participants_1323232391.html

On Tuesday, Kazakhstan’s Afghan War veterans were awarded medals for their courage and bravery shown during the fulfillment of an international duty in Afghanistan, as well as for the heroic labor in the rear. Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan Mikhail Bocharnikov, in Astana noted that the veteran organizations of the two countries maintain close cooperation and are now continuing the search for soldiers, who for various reasons, have not yet received their deserved awards. More than 22,500 Kazakhstan’s soldiers served in Afghanistan with more than 1,600 who were either killed or missing in action.

Mikhail Bocharnikov, Russian Ambassador to Kazakhstan:- We pay tribute to the brotherhood of combat troops of the former Soviet Union, which are now independent states. This brotherhood is continuing, it is stored and is an essential element of patriotic upbringing of younger generations, internationalist upbringing of our society, both in Russia and Kazakhstan.

02:49 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Medvedev to accept credentials of 15 new Ambassadors to the RF Wed

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291178.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — President Dmitry Medvedev is to receive 15 newly-appointed Ambassadors to Russia at a traditional credentials presentation ceremony at the main residence of the Russian Head of State in the Kremlin here on Wednesday.

The following Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary will be Wednesday's guests in the Grand Kremlin Palace: Riyad Haddad of Syria, Ali Gutali of Tunisia, Timothy Earle Barrow of the United Kingdom, Andrei Kobyakov of Belarus, Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena of Spain, Pierre Alois Joseph Ferring of Luxembourg, Albert Jonsson of Iceland, Joaquim Augusto de Lemos of Angola, Hashim Hassan Al Bash of Bahrain, Rafael Francisco Amador Campos of Colombia, Mohamed Keita of Guinea, Mario Fernandez Silva of Costa Rica, Seko Intchasso of Guinea-Bissau, Thieng Boupha of Laos, and Abdi Ibrahim Absieh of Djibouti.

The presentation of credentials marks an official commencement of ambassadoral duties in Russia. As a rule, such meetings between the President of the RF and foreign Ambassadors are held approximately once in three to four months, with ten to fifteen newly arrived diplomats participating. The present ceremony will be a third one this year.

Traditionally, the presentation of credentials is to commence at 13:00, Moscow time, in the Alexander Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace. According to the Protocol, the President of the Russian Federation is accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and a presidential aide who is in charge of foreign policy matters.

At the close of the presentation ceremony, the Russian leader addresses the diplomats in a brief speech of greetings, in which, as a rule, he touches upon matters concerning cooperation between Russia and the countries whose representatives have been invited to the Kremlin and most important matters of international politics.

09:42 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

About 600 people detained for unauthorized action in Moscow

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291289.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) —— The Moscow police detained about 600 people for the attempt at an unauthorized rally on the Triumfalnaya Square, a source in the Moscow law enforcement agencies told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

“The police detained 569 people for the attempt at an unauthorized rally on the Triumfalnaya Square. No serious violations were reported,” the source said.

He noted that about 2,000 people participated in an authorized rally on the Triumfalnaya Square on Tuesday. Meanwhile, several groups of oppositionists were seeking to hold their unauthorized rallies and some of them were detained.

Reinforced patrols of police and servicemen of the Interior Ministry Troops ensured security and order on the Triumfalnaya Square.

About 300 people were detained for the attempt at an unauthorized march at the Chistye Prudy metro station on Monday evening.

Russian human rights adviser criticizes police crackdown on protestershttp://en.rian.ru/russia/20111207/169448645.html

12:37 07/12/2011

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)

An adviser to President Dmitry Medvedev on human rights issues has criticized Moscow police and the courts for their handling of opposition demonstrations in downtown Moscow earlier this week.

“They just can’t handle this kind of situation,” Mikhail Fedotov, chairman of the presidential council for human rights and civil society, told reporters on Wednesday.

Police have detained more than 600 people over two nights of protests against alleged fraud in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party won a much reduced majority.

President Dmitry Medvedev said the vote was free and democratic.

“If a person commits an administrative offence, namely, takes part in an unauthorized rally, the maximum penalty they may get is a fine. They do not face administrative arrest,” Fedorov said.

On Tuesday night, up to 1,000 protesters faced off with Putin supporters in downtown Triumfalnya Square, following a rally on Monday that drew about 8,000 people.

Police said they were acting according to the law.

Fedotov said he was also concerned over reports that detainees were denied food or water for many hours.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced popular opposition blogger Alexei Navalny to 15 days in jail for disobeying police orders during Monday’s protest. Ilya Yashin, leader of the opposition Solidarity movement, was also jailed for 15 days.

The human rights council will hold a meeting to discuss the protests soon.

08:13 07/12/2011Top News

Court to consider legality of Navalny and Yashin’s arrests

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/291234.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow’s Tverskoy district court will consider appeals against administrative arrests of anticorruption blogger Alexei Navalny and opposition activist Ilya Yashin, who were detained during the opposition rally in the centre of the Russian capital on December 5.

“The complaints will be considered at 10:30 and 14:30 Moscow time on December 7,” detainees’ lawyers told Itar-Tass.

Navalny and Yashin were sentenced to a 15 day administrative arrest for showing defiance of police orders.

The judge of the Tverskoy district court, Olga Borovkova, found the guilt of Navalny and Yashin proved, and announced the verdict against them under the article on defiance of police orders.

The detainees did not admit their guilt.

During the unsanctioned opposition rally on Chistoprudbny Boulevard in Moscow’s centre over 300 protesters, including Navalny and Yashin, were arrested.

Russian opposition promises new rallies over electionhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8939772/Russian-opposition-promises-new-rallies-over-election.html

Russia's opposition has promised new rallies today contesting the results of elections won by Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, despite the arrests of hundreds in Moscow.

8:17AM GMT 07 Dec 2011

More than 550 protesters were detained by riot police on Tuesday evening in the Russian capital, the second protest in as many days in protest at Sunday's parliamentary polls.

Mr Putin's party won the polls with a sharply reduced majority, amid signs his popularity might be on the wane. The opposition insists that the results would have been even worse for the ruling party if the polls had been run fairly.

International organisations have also criticised the conduct of the polls. OSCE-led observers said they were slanted in favour of United Russia and marred by procedural violations.

Internet-based protesters vowed further demonstrations despite a warning by police that participants in unsanctioned protests would be arrested.

A group "for honest elections" said on its Facebook page that a new demonstration would take place in central Moscow on Saturday afternoon. More than 5,000 members of the Facebook group have already promised to attend.

Another social networking group, calling itself "Against the party of swindlers and thieves" – the opposition's slogan for United Russia – said protests would now take place every day at 7:00pm local time.

"When the authorities have stolen honest elections from the people, we can only defend our rights on the street," it said.

City courts were due to sentence on Wednesday those arrested at the protest the previous day, Moscow Echo radio station reported. A police spokesman said that around 300 were still being held.

The authorities sent in hundreds of pro-Kremlin youth activists to fill the Triumfalnaya Ploshad square ahead of the protest. They banged drums and waved flags protected by a police line holding back opposition supporters to the edges of the square.

Kommersant business daily wrote that police detained its reporter at the rally, despite him saying he was a journalist, and kicked and stamped on him before releasing him.

Police in Mr Putin's native city of Saint Petersburg reported making around 200 arrests at protests there.

The authorities were caught by surprise when the first opposition rally on Monday evening attracted thousands to march through central Moscow, with police detaining more than 300.

Influential opposition blogger Alexei Navalny, who coined the slogan "swindlers and thieves" to describe United Russia, was among those arrested and sentenced Tuesday to 15 days in a police cell for disobeying police orders.

Russian media commented on a news blackout on the protests on state television. Kommersant FM radio station played the headlines from news shows on Channel One and Rossiya 24 channels, making no mention of the rallies.

Commentators said the situation was of the authorities' own making and now their only option to prevent further unrest was to enter into a real dialogue with the protesters.

"We prevented the real political process and built cardboard scenery instead. But it's dangerous to hold back a natural process: now it's payback time," wrote liberal daily Vedomosti in an editorial.

City police said that more than 51,000 police were guarding the city streets, among them 2,000 army conscripts, in a heightened security regime launched ahead of the elections.

The ruling party polled just under 50 per cent of the vote after winning more than 64 per cent in 2007 but still held on to an absolute majority of seats in parliament.

DECEMBER 7, 2011

Kremlin Backers Challenge Protesters http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204083204577082322916808232.html

Putin Plays Down Election Setback as Pro-Government Rally Attempts to Overwhelm OppositionBy GREGORY L. WHITE And ALAN CULLISON

MOSCOW—Thousands of pro-Kremlin demonstrators and phalanxes of riot police took to the streets of downtown Moscow on Tuesday to squelch opposition protests, as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin played down the setback his United Russia party suffered in Sunday's parliamentary vote.

Antigovernment demonstrations were scattered and small, a day after nearly 10,000 people gathered in central Moscow—in one of the largest opposition protests in recent years—to denounce alleged rigging of the elections. Police detained hundreds of demonstrators. On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced two prominent opposition leaders, including blogger Alexei Navalnyi, to 15 days in jail for their roles at that demonstration.

"These are all attempts at intimidation," said Lev Ponomaryov, a veteran human-rights campaigner and Kremlin critic. Even relatively loyal commentators said the unusually harsh sentences would strengthen support for the opposition.

Russian news agencies reported that opposition demonstraters also were detained in St. Petersburg and at least two other major cities for trying to stage unsanctioned protests.

Mr. Putin, meanwhile, made his most detailed public comments yet on the vote results, telling a group of regional party officials that some loss in support was "inevitable" for the ruling party. "The result was good," he said.

But the breadth of popular resentment at the apparently rigged elections and Mr. Putin's plan to return to the presidency does seem to have surprised officials, analysts said. Speaking to party loyalists, Mr. Putin seemed to offer a rare acknowledgment of the effectiveness of a campaign by the beleaguered opposition—including Mr. Navalnyi, the arrested blogger—which has sought to brand United Russia as the "party of crooks and thieves."

Official results showed United Russia got just under 50% of the vote, still enough to give it an outright majority of seats in Parliament but a sharp drop from the 64% it took four years ago. Western observers, along with thousands of Russians who volunteered as poll monitors and published their findings online, reported widespread abuses such as ballot-box stuffing, suggesting the actual result could have been substantially lower for the ruling party.

Economists said capital flight from Russia, already at $64 billion this year, is likely to intensify in coming months amid the political uncertainty.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday stepped up her criticism of the vote, calling it "neither free nor fair." European officials also said the poll fell short of international standards.

The Russian Foreign Ministry angrily brushed off the comments as "unacceptable." Kremlin officials said any violations were limited and had no impact on the overall outcome.

"They say it's a party linked with theft and corruption," Mr. Putin said. "That's a cliché not about a specific political force but about the authorities."

He vowed to crack down on corruption and called on party functionaries to be more responsive to voters' concerns. He also pledged a shake-up of the cabinet after he returns to the presidency, as well as more-active steps to modernize the economy.

Polls show Mr. Putin's personal popularity is substantially higher than that of the ruling party, which even top officials have criticized for its Soviet-style monopoly on power.

Even after Sunday's electoral setback, United Russia will have enough votes to pass legislation. The three other parties that won seats in Parliament also rarely directly challenge the Kremlin. Known as "systemic opposition," they rely on the Kremlin's blessing to field candidates and ensure coverage in the state-controlled national media.

But even some officials of those parties have become increasingly strident in their attacks on the Kremlin in recent days.

"These were illegitimate elections," Gennady Gudkov, of the Just Russia social-democratic party, said in a telephone interview. "In Moscow, the protest movement is growing. Major demonstrations are just around the corner."

On Tuesday, pro-Kremlin demonstrators outnumbered critics. Some participants in rallies in support of Mr. Putin were bused into the city, while there were reports on Internet news outlets that students were sent from state universities.

Organizers said the demonstrations were genuine.

About a thousand pro-Kremlin demonstrators chanting "Putin, Medvedev, Russia!" vied for control of Triumphalnaya Square Tuesday evening, protected by riot police who detained hundreds of opposition protesters at the site.

A police spokeswoman said several thousand extra officers and Interior Ministry troops were brought into Moscow from surrounding regions to ensure security over the

weekend. She said they had expected to be withdrawn Monday, but their duty has been extended for an unspecified period.

Local blogs and news sites were abuzz with reports of the heavy security presence on Tuesday. Live reports from the trials of the detained activists and the demonstrations were carried on Twitter, while rally organizers contacted supporters through Facebook. Several Russian-based social-media sites were hampered by huge hacker attacks that began over the weekend.

—Ira Iosebashvili contributed to this article.

Write to Gregory L. White at greg.white@wsj.com and Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Election Observer In Tatarstan Reports Vote Rigging http://www.rferl.org/content/tatarstan_vote_rigging_russia_election/24413908.html

December 06, 2011

KAZAN, Russia -- An election observer in the Russian republic of Tatarstan says she witnessed several cases of vote rigging at a local polling station in the State Duma elections on December 4, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports.

Golnaz Badretdin, who represents the opposition Other Russia party, monitored elections in polling station No. 341 in the village of Salmachy, near the capital of Kazan, along with her colleague.

Badretdin told RFE/RL on December 5 that despite their complaints and protests regarding "numerous violations of the election regulations," local election commission officials refused their requests and warned them they would be forced out of the voting station if they didn't behave.

"There was a lady at the polling station with the registry of all local voters' names. She was registering all those who came to vote and was filling out the ballots of those who did not come. When we challenged the situation, it became noisy, but she [finally] stopped filling in the [blank] ballots," Badretdin said.

Badretdin added that "when they started counting the ballots, the number of those who voted for the ruling United Russia and opposition Communist Party was equal, but then all of a sudden it was announced the votes given to United Russia exceeded 600 and less than 100 votes were given to the Communist Party.

"Then I started looking through all the counted ballots and found that there were votes given to the Communist Party and the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) among those announced as given to United Russia," she said. "After I found that out I demanded access to all the ballots counted for United Russia, but my request was rejected. I consider it the biggest violation we have found at our polling station."

Badretdin added that she was personally counting the number of voters who came to the polling station and, according to her count, some 45 percent of the registered voters came to that polling station to vote.

But she said the local election commission "announced later that there was 60 percent" voter turnout at the polling station.

Russia's opposition activists and their supporters have been protesting the results of the elections since December 4 in Moscow and many other Russian cities. They say the elections have been rigged.

Meanwhile, Russian Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov officially announced on December 5 that the country's ruling United Russia secured 238 seats, the Communist Party will have 92 seats, A Just Russia got 64 seats, and the LDPR will hold 56 seats in the Russian parliament's lower chamber, the State Duma, when it convenes next year.

Read more in Tatar here

Moscow militia releases arrested Rustavi2 cameramanhttp://www.news.az/articles/georgia/50344

Wed 07 December 2011 07:04 GMT | 11:04 Local Time

Over 500 protestors were arrested both in Moscow and Petersburg late last night.

Moscow militia has released the cameraman hired by Rustavi2, who was detained while covering opposition protests on Tuesday night. The cameraman was released after paying 500 ruble fine.

Over 500 protestors were arrested both in Moscow and Petersburg late last night - the demonstrations began after the Sunday`s parliamentary elections in which the ruling party gained victory. The protestors were condemning the results of the elections and Putin`s regime. All prominent activists of the opposition were arrested, Boris Nemtsov was among them, however, he was released after a few hours of detention.

Human rights defender Lev Ponomariov, leader of the party Yabloko Sergei Mitrokhin, other opposition figures Anatoli Baranov, Mikhail Shneider, Eduard Limonov and Elena Kostiuchenko will face 15-day sentence and 1,000 ruble fines.

Several thousand special task officers were controlling the situation on the central square in Moscow yesterday.

Moscow court has already sent famous blogger Aleksei Navalni to custody for 15 days.

Rustavi2

December 07, 2011 10:26

Boeing overruns runway at Nizhny Novgorod airporthttp://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=293146

NIZHNY NOVGOROD. Dec 7 (Interfax) - A Boeing coming from the Egyptian resort of Hurghada has overrun the runway at the Nizhny Novgorod airport, the airport press service told Interfax.

va

(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)

12/07 10:48   No one hurt in plane incident in Nizhny Novgorod

http://www.interfax.com/news.asp

Russia May Allow Cabotage by Foreign Airlines, Vedomosti Reportshttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-07/russia-may-allow-cabotage-by-foreign-airlines-vedomosti-reports.html

QBy Yuliya Fedorinova - Dec 7, 2011 9:10 AM GMT+0400

Russia may allow foreign airlines to fly domestic routes, so-called “cabotage,” in response to a request from Kontinental Hockey League clubs, Vedomosti reported today, citing government documents.

Permission to fly hockey teams during the championship may be granted to Holidays Czech Airlines and Air Baltic, the newspaper said.

A Yakovlev-42 airliner crashed near Yaroslavl in September, killing 44 people, including the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Viljoen at jviljoen@bloomberg.net

Russian skinheads beat Armenian to death

http://news.am/eng/news/84755.html

December 06, 2011 | 22:49

ROSTOV-ON-DON. - In Russian Rostov-on-Don unknown people attacked 20-year-old Armenian Aram Haykyan on December 3.

As the Yerkramas paper informs, the group consisted of 5 was armed with knives and bats. There were nationalistic outcries during the attack.

Haykyan was walking with his Russian friend, whom the attackers at once separated from the Armenian. Currently the young man is in hospital with knife injuries and traumatic brain injury. He already underwent sergury twice.

Law enforcement forces have started investigations.

Caucasus resorts free from taxeshttp://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/tourism/20687.html

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree uniting special economic zones of one or several types into clusters and allowing managing companies to administer them, the Kremlin’s press service said on Saturday. Residents of special economic zones will be free from taxes for income, property and part of insurance payments. Moscow hopes that this will stimulate tourism in Russia. This concerns

the tourism cluster in the North Caucasian Federal District and the Southern Federal District where world-class resorts will be built.

At the same time, Russian resorts cannot offer the same prices and quality as foreign ones. Deputy Director General of Solvex Travel, Lyudmila Sysoykina, said that a season of using a hotel on the Black Sea coast (with full occupation) is a lot shorter than that in Turkey or other traditional tourism states. Turkish hotels have no heating, the Russian hotels need diesels with special fuel in case a power cut should occur and reserve down holes.

Our health centers face a hard tax and red tape burden. Owners of Russian health centers must give social guarantees to their staff. Mentality and professional skills of staff on the Black Sea coast is still a problem. Although the local people are not operating they still get paid. This is a very costly aspect.

The prime cost is tricky. The marginal different of our health centers hardly lets them make both ends meet and survive through the year.

It would be right to view development of Russia’s inner tourism with account of tourism in CIS states. Figures change – people who would not, for instance, travel through Russia off-road and would visit Belarus instead.

The All-Russian Center for Studies of Public Opinion says that there are about 31-32 million citizens travelling through Russia. I have said on many occasions that thus is not stability, it is more of stagnation. When a workmate of mine says we have an increase of visitors in Anapa, Sochi, Gelendzhik, this does not show tendencies on the market. This demonstrates successful campaigns, efforts put in and achieved results.

Maybe we are not satisfied with a growth rate of 15-20%, compared with 30-40% in the previous years. Our corporate statistics does not in any way reflect tendencies on the market in general. This may concern neighbor states the same way. I believe our statistics reflect the situation relatively impartially.

Let us look at the tendencies peculiar for the Russian market and markets of CIS states. One of the most significant tendencies is that our citizens have realized that health improvement is a lot more pleasant and cheaper than treatment. This is why we see have a much greater demand for curative tourism in the last years and months. Interest in sanatoriums of Russia has doubled, compared with the previous year. This includes the Black Sea coast which has finally become a beach destination.

“A substantial part of people preferring vacation in Russia uses sanatoriums and travels through Russia with interest in historic sites, enjoys the beauty of nature and landscape. The number of Russians interested in different types of tourism does not grow but there is still certain dislocation. As mentioned, sanatorium recreation is having a spree and which doubled, compared with the previous year. Inter-season has increased demand. This does not only concern the Kavkazskiye Mineralniye Vody, where the most intense season is in October-November. We are talking about Anapa, Sochi in November and December where people undergo treatment. But most people still prefer Belarus. They built a great number of new advanced health centers. The prices are a lot more attractive, compared with Russian Black Sea resorts. This explains the outflow of a certain number of tourists preferring the Black Sea coast, but this time not only from Russia, but from Abkhazia. We have recently returned from an international business forum, the prospects for development of Abkhazia and Abkhaz-Russian cooperation, in terms of development of Abkhaz resorts, are superb”, Lyudmila Sysoykina says.

11:31 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Moscow customs official suspected of taking large bribe

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291389.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Deputy Head of a Federal Customs Service department Yevgeny Malyarov has been detained on suspicion of taking a large bribe, an official at the Investigation Committee (SK) said on Wednesday.

"The main department of the Investigation Committee opened a criminal case against first deputy head of the product range department under the Federal Customs Service [FTS] Yevgeny Malyarov by the hallmarks of crimes envisioned by Article 290, Part 4 [taking a large bribe], and against Igor Filippovsky under Article 291, Part 4 [giving a bribe], the SK said on its website.

According to the investigator, "Filippovsky, a broker agency employee, asked Malyarov in the first half of September 2011, to influence a decision on a range of imported goods for remuneration." The FTS Colonel agreed to help, and signed several documents in late November 2011. On December 5, 2011, Filippovsky passed to Malyarov 8,000 U.S. dollars at around 09:00, whereupon detectives detained him," the SK reported.

The investigator drew a petition demanding custody as the measure of restraint for Malyarov and recognizance for Filippovsky. Police retrieved documents at the suspect's offices and apartments which have significance for the case. The investigation into the criminal case continues.

10:39 07/12/2011ALL NEWS

Ex mayor assures his wife will report for questioning

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/291378.html

MOSCOW, December 7 (Itar-Tass) — Former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov said his wife Yelena Baturina would return to Moscow to report for questioning at the investigator's office.

"Yelena /Baturina/ has never refused to come over for questioning; the most important thing for her, and even more to me is that she is able to travel back to the country where she is staying and be together with the children there," Luzhkov said in an in interview to the Dozhd /Rain/ channel on Tuesday evening.

When asked if he had passed to Baturina the summon from the Interior Ministry's investigation department, he said "no." "An investigator handed over the summon to me for passing it to Yelena /Baturina/, I went to London and said there was a summon, but I will not pass /the summon/ because an invitation to testify at the Investigative Committee should be properly drawn," the former mayor said.

This procedure gives immunity to a person who comes here from abroad for testimony, to enable them to return to the country of stay. That summon did not stipulate such immunity. If Baturina is given a proper summon, she gets immunity for return journey, according to Luzhkov.

Luzhkov, who was questioned at the investigation department within the case over Bank of Moscow funds theft, earlier promised to pass the summon for questioning to his wife Yelena Baturina.

The investigation department has repeatedly summoned Luzhkov's wife Yelena Baturina as a witness. It summoned her to testify in the case on February 25, March 4 and April 8, but she never turned up as she was abroad.

"In case of Baturina's further non-appearance for questioning, preliminary investigation bodies will take complete measures including Interpol opportunities," an official at the investigation department underlined, adding that the department might send inquiries to the British and Austrian authorities.

In 2009, more than 12 billion roubles were transferred to the accounts of the INTEKO company. The money came as a loan to the Premier Estate company. The investigator believes "the loan was taken on the basis of unauthentic information about the subject and cost of the collateral - a 58-hectare land plot "Ramenskoye Territorial Directorate," belonging to three INTEKO employees, including Baturina, who had a 90-percent stake.

INTEKO has changed hands by now. Baturina has been staying abroad.

In late 2010, a criminal case was opened against former Bank of Moscow president Andrei Borodin and his former first deputy Dmitry Akulinin. They were accused of fraud and Interpol issued notices for their arrest.

Luzhkov said he saw "politics" behind the case. But chief of the Kremlin staff Sergei Naryshkin said there were two reasons behind the president's decision to dismiss Luzhkov: "firstly, it's extremely ineffective city management, and, secondly, runaway corruption under Luzhkov and his associates."

Luzhkov was Moscow mayor for 18 years. On September 28, 2010, President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on early termination of his powers. The document said the mayor had been dismissed because of "the loss of trust."

Russian Press at a Glance, Wednesday, December 7, 2011http://en.ria.ru/papers/20111207/169443114.html

08:37 07/12/2011

POLITICS

Some 300 people were detained in Moscow late on Tuesday during a second evening of protests over alleged mass electoral fraud in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party at this weekend's parliamentary polls. (Kommersant, Vedomosti)

The leader of the ruling United Russia party, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is expected to visit the Central Election Commission on Wednesday to personally submit documents for registration as a presidential candidate. Experst believe that his campaign will focus on All-Russia People’s Front rather than on United Russia, as the results of recent general elections showed fading popularity of the party. (Moscow News, Vedomosti, Izvestia)

United Russia plans to carry out a serious reshuffle of its cadre in the regional branches where the ruling party showed poor results during parliamentary elections on Sunday.(Kommersant)

The ruling party needs re-branding and Russia needs a “new Putin,” political experts concluded on Tuesday during a round table on the results of Sunday parliamentary elections in Russia. (Rossiiskaya Gazeta)

ECONOMY&BUSINESS

Russia’s stock indexes dropped by more than 4 percent on Tuesday and the U.S. dollar exchange rate jumped above 31 rubles reflecting growing political instability in the country after the recent general elections. (Kommersant, Vedomosti)

TNK-BP and LUKoil have announced a reduction in gasoline prices citing favorable demand-offer conditions on the Russian market. Experts believe, though, the companies have been ordered to lower the prices as the announcement came shortly after executives from the oil firms had been summoned by the government to discuss the situation on the domestic gasoline retail market. (Moscow News)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will lobby the interests of the Russian nuclear industry during his visit to the Czech Republic on December 7-8. A Rosatom-led Russian-Czech consortium taking part in a tender on the construction of two new reactor blocks at the Temelín NPP faces strong competition from the U.S. Westinghouse Electric Company. (Kommersant)

Russia may allow some foreign air carriers to enter the country’s domestic passenger air transport market. At present, Holidays Czech Airlines and Latvian Air Baltic are on the list of potential candidates requested by Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League. (Vedomosti)

Russian computer games developer Destiny Development will challenge the popularity of the world’s most-frequently downloaded Angry Birds game with the release of its clone - Angry Pets. (Izvestia)

The current Eurozone crisis has forced many economists to reconsider their oil price predictions for next year. Some of them believe prices could drop as low as $30-35 per barrel. (Rossiiskaya Gazeta)

DEFENSE

Russia started the first day at an arms show in Malaysia with a preliminary agreement on the delivery of six Su-30MK2 fighters to Indonesia. (Kommersant)

WORLD

The border between South Ossetia and Russia was closed Tuesday following a grenade attack on the home of the breakaway region's prosecutor and a decision to throw out a court appeal by presidential hopeful Alla Dzhioyeva (The Moscow Times, Kommersant, Izvestia)

The recent amendments to the law On the Armed Forces of Ukraine allow President Viktor Yanukovych to order the deployment of the military in times of peace without asking the approval of the parliament. Political experts fear the new legislation could be used against protesters. (Moscow News)

SPORTS

Religion is gradually penetrating the world of Russian sports. In addition to a recent move to bless Russian athletes before their participation in the Olympic Games, the Russian Bandy Super League may soon include a team sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church. (Moscow News)

The Washington Capitals extended their losing streak on Monday despite the recent arrival of new head coach Dale Hunter. Russian hockey star Alexander Ovechkin, who has put in a sub-par performance since the start of the current season, is getting part of the blame for the team’s woes. (Kommersant)

SOCIETY

Russia’s Federal Service on Financial Markets may be allowed unrestricted access to information on banking activities of any Russian citizen even if they are performed abroad. The relevant legislation could be passed as early as next year. (Izvestia)

A 17th-century monastery in the Tver Region (central Russia) has been put up for sale to private buyers for a price that is less than an average price of a studio apartment in the Moscow suburbs - 1.7 million rubles ($54,000). (Izvestia)

For more details on all today's news in Russia, visit our website at www.en.rian.ru

Update requestedhttp://rt.com/politics/press/rossijskaya-gazeta/political-russia-new-putin/en/

Published: 7 December, 2011, 03:46Edited: 7 December, 2011, 04:09

Experts summarize election results Andrey Semenov

“Clearly, these elections, both in Russia and in Moscow, reinforce the legitimacy of the political system,” argues Dmitry Orlov, general director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications. “United Russia received an absolute majority in the State Duma, and I would not overestimate the strategy or the system of the coalitions, which are currently being actively discussed. In the event of adoption of federal constitutional

laws, United Russia’s partner will surely be the LDPR. It’s noteworthy that the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the LDPR have already announced their readiness to unite in a coalition, so the choice rests on United Russia. The SR (A Just Russia Party) is playing an interesting role – during the campaign, the party took a critical stance against the leadership, consolidated the opposition electorate, and is now ready to present itself to United Russia on a silver platter. Nikolay Levichev’s statement has made the party lose face.”   

The president of the St. Petersburg Politics Fund, Mikhail Vinogradov, generally agreed with his colleague, noting that the results leave the country’s political system facing some tough choices: “In terms of future forecasts, there are three major crossroads. The first is political – what conclusions will be drawn from these developments? In his blog, Minayev quotes Vladislav Surkov as saying that the results are predictable. But it is very tempting to say: you took it easy, and you got the results you did. The second crossroads is economic. Which path will now be chosen – the one to the left or to the right? Of course, in the conditions when United Russia has a sufficient degree of legitimacy, there is an opportunity for liberal reforms. The leftist course, taken in the last four years, has failed to raise the leadership’s ratings. The third crossroads is social – the downward trend in ratings has not been broken. Vladimir Putin has lost nearly 30% of his supporters – could this trend be reversed in time for the election? If he has competitors, and not just sparring partners like Malyshkin, there is a chance for a second round of the elections”.

Senior researcher at the Institute of International Economic and Political Studies (IIEPS RAS), Aleksandr Tsipko, assessed the political outlook from another position: in his opinion, the State Duma has very little power for the results to play a truly pivotal role. “The State Duma does not elect the prime minister or the government,” said the political scientist. “This scheme was designed to eliminate the possibility of a sudden change of power – at that time, this was consistent with the country’s objectives. This election proved the possibility of relatively fair and free elections. The administrative resource was used less than four years ago; but some unique opportunities for it continue to exist within this system.” Tsipko is confident that the only presidential candidate, nominated by the parties, should be “a new Putin:” “There needs to be a program for modernization of the political system, to prevent him from expanding his majority, because if people go to the polls in five years under the same political system, it will be a very bad thing.” 

Political scientist Sergey Makarov told his colleagues that he is the creator of the term “new Putin:” “I am happy that my colleagues have supported my idea about the need for a new Putin. These elections have, in my opinion, shown that the public is calling for Putin twice. The first demand is for Putin’s return as president. And the second request is for Putin-Kutuzov’s withdrawal and the return of Putin – vigorously shifting the reality toward the political style of the first, and partially the second term. The demand for Putin’s return to play two roles is the main result of the elections.”

Surkov and Prokhorov Spin Election 07 December 2011By Jonathan Earle

Kremlin spinmaster Vladislav Surkov has weighed in on the Duma elections in a rare interview, denying reports of widespread fraud but also proposing a new party for "angry urban communities."

Meanwhile, his on-again, off-again nemesis, tycoon and political-dabbler Mikhail Prokhorov — who was on track to create such a party until stopped by the Kremlin — predicted the collapse of the regime within five years.

The country needs a "mass liberal party" to give urban dwellers parliamentary representation, Surkov said in an interview with entertainer Sergei Minayev, which appeared on Minayev's LiveJournal blog late Monday.

Surkov also lamented the general lack of political choice, saying the "power vertical" needs to be opened up to new players in order to maintain stability in the country.

But he still praised the results of Sunday's State Duma elections and congratulated United Russia on its victory.

United Russia has dominated the country's political scene for a decade, a feat largely credited to Surkov's spin doctoring — including longstanding charges of abusing administrative resources — enabled by the same power vertical he criticized in the interview.

The party won 49.3 percent of the vote on Sunday — enough for a simple majority, but a far cry from its 64.1 percent electoral walk away in 2007. Still, the elections were plagued by widespread allegations of fraud.

But Surkov said the violations were "not industrial-sized" and wildly exaggerated by people who were either "legal nihilists" or "illiterate."

Prokhorov cautiously welcomed the results in a post late Monday on his own LiveJournal, saying the results will force United Russia to negotiate with other parties and manage the political system better.

But he said "simple math" showed that about 60 percent of voters would not be represented in the new Duma.

"About 8 percent of protest votes went to the Communists, 7 percent to A Just Russia, and 5 percent to the three nonparliamentary parties. About 40 percent of voters simply didn't vote because they had nobody to vote for," he said.

Prokhorov also reiterated that Right Cause could have finished second if he had remained its leader. The tycoon topped the party last summer with the Kremlin's alleged blessing, but was removed in a party coup in September. At the time, the businessman blamed Surkov for orchestrating his ouster, saying the Kremlin's political mastermind was unhappy with his independent stance.

Right Cause finished in last place in Sunday's elections, pulling a dismal 0.6 percent of the vote. It said Monday that it would not nominate a candidate to run in the presidential election in March.

Prokhorov noted that there is still no pro-business liberal party in the parliament, and predicted an urgent move for change.

"If nothing is changed, the system will collapse," Prokhorov wrote. "It won't last five more years."

His view was not shared by Surkov, who was cited as saying the country's political system is healthy and that "everything's under control."

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/surkov-and-prokhorov-spin-election/449395.html#ixzz1fpRR54Hp The Moscow Times

Putin May Co-opt Growing Duma Opposition to Smooth Kremlin Bidhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/putin-may-co-opt-growing-duma-opposition-to-smooth-kremlin-bid.html

By Lyubov Pronina and Scott Rose - Dec 7, 2011 1:00 AM GMT+0400

Russian Premier Vladimir Putin may co-opt his strengthened parliamentary opposition on issues from foreign policy to taxes, smoothing his return to the presidency next year, policy makers and political scientists said.

The Communists, the nationalist Liberal Democrats and the Just Russia party won a combined 212 seats in the 450-member State Duma, the lower house of parliament, as discontent with stalling wage growth and the government’s shortcomings in tackling corruption eroded the support of Putin’s United Russia.

Putin, 59, who wants to return to the Kremlin in March, may seek to broaden his support in the legislature as he works to shore up his backing after United Russia’s biggest election setback since it was created a decade ago. The Duma opposition’s ties with the

government may guarantee their cooperation, said Kirill Rogov, an economist who works for the premier.

“They aren’t opposition parties as such and are well enough integrated in the current political system, so they pose no threat to the political regime,” Rogov, who is a member on one of the panels reviewing the government’s Strategy 2020 for Putin, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Russian stocks fell the most in two weeks yesterday after Standard & Poor’s said it may cut the credit ratings of 15 euro countries and as police detained protesters in Moscow during a second night of rallies over the election result.

‘Investors Are Concerned’

The Micex Index (INDEXCF) tumbled 4 percent to 1,457.90 by the close of trading in Moscow. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas-export monopoly slid 4.7 percent and VTB Group, the nation’s second-biggest lender, dropped 5.7 percent. The dollar-denominated RTS Index retreated 4.7 percent to 1,485.67.

“Investors are concerned that this will snowball into a concerted display of mass popular dissent,” Julian Rimmer, a trader of Russian shares at CF Global Trading in London, said in an e-mail. “In a country with a history like Russia’s it’s only sensible to pay attention to developments like this, but perspective needs to be maintained.”

The parliamentary opposition supported the Kremlin, even with its two-thirds majority in the past four years, on “politically important” occasions such as extending the terms of the president and the State Duma and the recognition of two regions that broke away from Georgia, Stanislav Belkovsky, an analyst at the Institute for National Strategy in Moscow, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

‘Kremlin Got It’

“Whenever the parliamentary opposition’s support was needed by the Kremlin, the Kremlin got it,” he said. “Always and without exception. United Russia could have passed the laws unilaterally, since it had more than 300 seats, but politically it was important that the opposition parties also supported the amendments.”

In August 2008, 447 of the Duma’s 450 deputies voted to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, with no votes against or abstentions. Three months later, 392 lawmakers were in favor of extending the terms of the parliament and the president, with 57 Communists voting against it.

United Russia will have to enter into “coalition bloc agreements” to execute its policy agenda in the new parliament and avoid being “bogged down” by disputes, President Dmitry Medvedev, head of United Russia’s party list, told supporters in Moscow on Dec. 4 after balloting ended.

‘Adopt All Laws’

The ruling party may opt to ignore the opposition agenda and continue to use its parliamentary majority to adopt its initiatives, Sergei Markov, a pro-government lawmaker who advises the Kremlin, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

“United Russia will have an absolute majority in the Duma and can adopt all laws including the budget, unless it’s a constitutional change, singlehandedly without any need entering any coalitions,” Markov said.

The election lacked fairness as United Russia benefited from uneven access to state resources and media coverage, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a Dec. 5 report on the vote. The rules were also stacked against the parties that were the most critical of the Kremlin, it said.

“These elections were like a game in which only some players are allowed on the pitch, and then the field is tilted in favor of one of the players,” Heidi Tagliavini, head of the watchdog’s observation mission, said in a statement. “Although the choice was limited and the competition lacked fairness, voters were able to come out and have their voices heard.”

‘Lobbying Capability’

As the Communists, who got 19.2 percent of the vote and Just Russia, which won 13.2 percent, campaign for increased social spending, the Kremlin may have to compromise on some budget measures to win their support, said Yevgeny Volk, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation research group in Moscow.

The opposition’s “lobbying capability increases when it comes to concrete economic policy.” Rogov said. “They will compete in populism on the economic field.”

After balancing this year’s budget, Russia will probably run a 2012 deficit of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product, Putin said Nov. 16. The country, which posted budget surpluses between 2000 and 2008, faces deficits of as much as 3 percent through 2014 as oil prices fall, presidential aide Arkady Dvorkovich said in June.

The Communists are proposing nationalizing natural resources and oppose state asset sales. Just Russia, which was set up with Kremlin support before feuding with the government, campaigned for increased social spending. The Liberal Democrats have also criticized state asset sales as “the complete theft of state property.”

‘Leftist, Populist’

“The Duma has become more leftist, more populist,” said Volk at Heritage. “It is a signal that people want more social benefits. The degree of opposition is insignificant but no one wants to compromise themselves in front of the electorate.”

Policy areas where United Russia is able to co-operate with the opposition may include taxes on the rich, he said.

Just Russia is ready to join coalitions with other factions that support its initiatives, leader Sergei Mironov, who wants to run for president next year, said on Dec. 5, RIA Novosti reported.

The three parties will “dance to the tune of United Russia,” said Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister under the ex-President Boris Yeltsin, whose opposition Parnas group was banned from the elections.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net; Scott Rose in Moscow at rrose10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net

12/06/2011 @ 8:41PM

Can Russia's Communist Party Make A Comeback?http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/12/06/can-russias-communist-party-make-a-comeback/

The bloom has fallen off Vladimir Putin‘s rose.

This Sunday’s routing of his ruling United Russia party came as a surprise not only to people who watch Russia politics, but to Russian politicians as well. Does it mean the opposition parties, led by the communists, stand a fighting chance to beat Putin to the presidency in March 2012?

United Russia went from 315 seats in the national parliament to 238, meaning it no longer has a lock on making amendments to the constitution without asking the old Communist Party and the anti-immigrant Liberal Democrats for support. The biggest winner of the night was the Communist Party, going from 57 seats to 92. The ousting of United Russia legislators is a essentially in spite of Putin, the country’s Prime Minister and United Russia’s chosen one to lead the country, again, in 2012.

The trouncing looked a lot like the 2006 U.S. mid-term election campaign, when President George W. Bush received a no confidence vote  that sent every Republican incumbent packing.

To make matters worse, some Russians allegedly documented election fraud. Opposition politicians and election monitors said United Russia would have lost even more seats if not for ballot-box stuffing in some cities. That prompted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to promptly criticize Sunday’s election, saying they were neither “free, nor fair” with no tangible evidence that they were not. “Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation,” Clinton said in the Lithuanian capital on Monday. The State Department said that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s International Election Observer Mission claimed there were attempts to stuff ballot boxes, manipulate voter lists and other practices during the campaign period.

Complaints of irregularities in Russia’s recent legislative elections need to be investigated but videos purporting to show fraud are not incontestable proof of cheating, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

Just days before, Putin had warned the West not to “tamper” in Sunday’s elections as if he saw this coming.

“This has been a recurring theme of Putin,” said Jonathan Harris, a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. Putin has been critical of Western NGOs and other election monitoring groups, like the website Golos, a Wikileaks for voter fraud. When Putin discussed Western interference, he likely had Golos on his mind. The site is partially funded by U.S. and European grants and allows people to comment and post videos of voter tampering. Putin sees groups like this as Westerners asking for trouble.

If there was not fraud at the ballot, there was most likely pressure on some to vote for United Russia at the ballot.

“The presidential administration, which is essentially the West Wing of the Kremlin, told governors of the states to get out the vote for United Russia. The governors and mayors are all United Russia because it makes no sense to be in any other party at that level. The program of United Russia is simple: support Putin,” said Harris.  “In this case, the Kremlin doesn’t actually threaten their jobs if they don’t vote along party lines, but they can be pretty stern. It’s unofficial pressure. Actual voter fraud accusations are harder to prove,” Harris said.

The Communist Party complained and documented voter fraud by United Russia in 2007. In Chechnya for example, United Russia managed 99% of the vote, unheard of in a country where there are four large political parties to choose from. That year, the OSCE did not send election monitors to the country due to persistent delays in passport visas.

And now this year the same allegations have popped up.

7 December 2011 Last updated at 00:56 GMT

Viewpoint: Are post-poll protests a Russian Spring?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16060870

Are we witnessing a Russian Spring this winter? This is the question my US and European colleagues have been asking me over and over again in recent days.

I am not certain that developments in Russia will mirror those in the Arab world but one thing is certain - what we witnessed on 4 December was a return of live politics to Russia, a politics that everyone thought was comatose.

For a second day running, in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, we have witnessed the kind of pro-democracy rallies that the cities had not seen since the rough and tumble of the early 1990s. And, although the outcome is far from clear, a few things are already coming into focus.

This election turned out to be a de-facto referendum on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party and on his decade in power.

Even if we believe the official results to be without doubt - which they are definitely not - a very serious signal has been sent to the country's ruling class.

December's vote can be seen as a kind of "round zero" for Russia's presidential elections, scheduled for March 2012.

Mr Putin is widely expected to be elected to his third term in power, but the Duma election has a cast a shadow.

If, in spring, Mr Putin goes into a kind of mock battle similar to those of most of the previous elections, he will lose even more credibility.

He could have gambled - opening the field to genuine competition and following a kind of Putin 2.0 strategy, a move his aides predict will happen eventually. However, if he does, he will have to opt for general liberalisation as opposed to cosmetic liberalisation, and be prepared to face a barrage of criticism.

Knowing the Russian leader, this is a very unlikely scenario. Mr Putin, it seems, will either have to crack down hard on dissent or face growing dissatisfaction among the masses and an increasing disappointment with his ability to control the situation from within the ruling class.

Nascent middle class

There are a few other new developments too. This was the final election in which state-controlled still TV has still played a decisive role. Internet penetration in Russia has

already grown massively but, by 2016, when the next voting cycle starts, as much as 75% or 80% of voters will have online access.

And, although 80% or 90% of users surf the web in search of celebrity gossip, dating or bargains, politically-minded citizens now have a free platform to engage in debates and organise themselves.

Unmasking the vote-rigging would have been been impossible without smartphones, Facebook and Twitter.

Online activism made offline self-organisation not only possible, but effective.

This is why it is possible that the government will attempt to introduce restrictive legislation around the internet - a development to watch in 2012.

This was also the first Russian election in which the country's nascent middle class - the self-sufficient, English-speaking, iPad-juggling 30-somethings - really went out to vote.

This is the generation which benefited from the oil boom of Mr Putin's presidency between 2000 and 2008.

But economic crisis, political stagnation and corruption has turned them against the regime.

These people are a minority, but an increasingly influential one in the big cities, which is where real politics happens in Russia.

These people are the future of Russia and the Kremlin has lost them, irrevocably.

While this may not be a Russian Spring quite yet, Russia's ruling class has been engulfed by a crisis of legitimacy and I cannot see it ending any time soon.

Konstantin von Eggert is a commentator and radio host for Moscow's Kommersant FM commercial station.

By Konstantin von Eggert Kommersant FM

From Putin’s Project to a Sovereign Russia: Maxim Trudolubovhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-07/from-putin-s-project-to-a-sovereign-russia-commentary-by-maxim-trudolubov.html

By Maxim Trudolubov Dec 7, 2011 4:00 AM GMT+0400

Throngs of voters and protesters are sending Russia’s leadership an unmistakable message: The country needs to stop being Vladimir Putin’s business project and become a nation.

The reaction to last weekend’s fraud-tainted parliamentary elections has been like nothing I have seen since the early 1990s. A sanctioned rally in central Moscow attracted as many as 10,000 people to protest what they see as a stolen vote. The Russian blogosphere and social networks are overflowing with eyewitness accounts of fraud at polling stations, including cases of hundreds of forged ballots stuffed into boxes. The work of independent monitors, many of them young Russians who were not interested in politics four years ago, suggests United Russia’s dismal 49 percent share of the vote should have been a still more dismal 33 percent. That compares with an official 64 percent in the 2007 elections.

Opposition parties have promised to take legal action, but that is not expected to bring any tangible results. The Kremlin’s control over the political system, which includes the court system and the electoral commission, will probably remain unchallenged for the foreseeable future. What happened is a symbolic victory for all those who for the first time identified themselves with their country and tried to influence national affairs. For the first time in 20 years, voting was cool.

Painful Transition

Where have the Russians been for so long? Well, they have been busy. Few societies have ever endured such a painful transition from a patronizing totalitarian regime to unregulated, cut-throat competition. Like a tsunami, the economic liberalization begun 20 years ago wiped out personal savings and destroyed jobs, careers and entire professions.

The economic revolution completely eclipsed the emergence of the new political entity, the Russian Federation. All political and historical soul-searching stopped. Res privata supplanted res publica. People’s values changed. Sociological studies show that levels of interpersonal trust collapsed as everyone became engrossed in personal survival. By the mid- 2000s, Russians felt less connected to their country than citizens of any other nation in the world: Researchers led by Vladimir Magun of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Sociology found that Russians’ alienation from their polity was on a level with that of the Arab population of Israel.

Individually, Russians have a lot to be proud of. The country’s athletes, artists and scientists have gained global renown. But the heroic collective spirit of Soviet times is long gone. Team victories at international competitions are increasingly rare, and Russia’s overall share of the world’s scientific citations has been dwindling. The change is not just about brain drain. It reflects a major shift from national causes to individual success as a dominating value.

The Putin regime has consistently encouraged people to give up their role in public affairs. Independent political parties have been marginalized, party-building made

prohibitively costly and complicated, regional elections canceled, elected governors and most mayors replaced with appointed officials. Putin’s elite, bearing a strong resemblance to a monarch’s court, has learned to use the political system to extract personal wealth, which it deploys to consolidate power.

Outsiders, who include almost all Russians, have been kept in check by a combination of luck and policy. Rapid economic growth, fueled by high oil prices, has allowed the government to mollify the public with regular increases of pensions and wages in the large state sector. Some have characterized that live- and-let-live truce between an omnipotent elite and the majority of the population as a sort of social contract, loyalty in exchange for stability.

Incomplete Institutions

Whatever you call it, the deal has bought Putin a lot of time at the top of Russian politics, which he has used to stave off a transition from the state as master to the state as servant. Twenty years after its emergence as an independent state, Russia’s institutions remain incomplete. It has markets, prices and working fiscal policies, but it lacks law enforcement, division of power and independent courts.

Although that may look like an unfinished project, it can also be understood as an accomplished ideal. Call it Putin’s project. He has adapted old Soviet structures to control and redistribute assets. What outsiders call corruption, Putin sees as a system of incentives. The ruling elite does not want a rule of law, because life is good without it. You can grab property and buy a needed court decision anytime you like. You don’t need to worry about parliamentary scrutiny or pesky journalists.

The project works so well because the global financial system allows its beneficiaries -- operators of state-owned businesses, oligarchs and government officials -- to keep the spoils in other countries that have the courts and property rights Russia lacks. That is why most medium and large Russian businesses are incorporated abroad. That is why a court battle starring two of the country’s best-known businessmen, Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, has been unfolding in London, not in Moscow.

The project has even done some good for Russia as a whole. It has boosted economic growth and kept the basic administrative functions working, and some of the goodies have trickled down. But it is not sustainable, and of course it is deeply unjust.

How, then, can Russia discard Putin’s project and become a nation? That is the question at stake as Russians prepare to choose their president in March. Putin wants to keep his grip on power, but many in Russia seem to have other ideas. For the first time in years, national matters have attracted people’s attention. Some members of the population have remembered that they are also citizens.

Russia’s national awakening is at a very early stage. For now, it’s only a feeling of resentment that loosely unites different groups of protesters. It will take a long time and a

lot of wisdom to get the unfinished project of a lawful and prosperous Russia back on track.

(Maxim Trudolubov is editorial page editor of the newspaper Vedomosti, based in Moscow. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the author of this article: trud@vedomosti.ru.

To contact the editor responsible for this article: Mark Whitehouse at mwhitehouse1@bloomberg.net.

This Could Be Putin's Last Election 07 December 2011By Yulia Latynina

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/this-could-be-putins-last-election/449385.html#ixzz1fpRpdZhY The Moscow Times

They were scared, really scared.

The authorities did not allow a single real opposition party to participate in the State Duma elections. There was no option for “none of the above.” They stripped the very idea of elections of any meaning.

And yet United Russia failed to receive even 50 percent of the vote despite the ubiquitous government-sponsored campaigning for the “party of crooks and thieves,” despite the authorities’ brazen misuse of administrative resources and their “carousels” of paid voters stuffing ballot boxes in multiple polling places, and despite the directors of state enterprises demanding that every employee vote for United Russia or face salary decreases or even dismissal.  

From now on, the authorities can no longer fall back on the excuse that “most people support the ‘party of crooks and thieves’ anyway.” No, they don’t.

It was clear that the Kremlin and United Russia were fearing a major electoral disappointment when the authorities began to panic, cracking down on the Golos election-monitoring group in the days leading up to the vote. This was followed by the hacker attack on Ekho Moskvy’s web site on Sunday.

But the Kremlin received its first signals several weeks ago when fans at a mixed martial arts fight at Olimpiisky stadium jeered Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Those were not

bloggers hiding behind anonymous nicknames cursing the authorities from the safety of their homes or intellectuals hurling accusations from their ivory towers. They were not disappointed supporters of Parnas or The Other Russia. These were ordinary working Joes fed up with the status quo and with Putin as its figurehead.

Yes, the use of administrative resources was excessive, but how did it work in practice? Alexei Pluzhnikov, a priest from a small town, described a textbook case on his LiveJournal blog. He wrote:

“I got a call at 9 a.m. ‘The head of the municipal district  invites you to a meeting at noon,’ I was told. When I asked why, the secretary answered, ‘He didn’t say.’ That got me worried. What if there was a problem? I finished the prayer service and raced to meet the district head. … We were received not by the district chief but by the deputy head for social programs. Her main mission was clear: ‘You are all so good, such psychologists, so influential. It would be good if you could suggest to your parishioners that they vote for United Russia.’”

True, it was reprehensible that the head of a local government body tried to lobby a priest and his parishioners, but no rewards were offered for fulfilling the request and no punishment was threatened for ignoring it.

The same thing happened in Russia that happened in South Ossetia two weeks earlier. There are some things you can drive into people’s heads and some things you cannot.

For example, you can convince people that the West is out to destroy Russia and that the dollar will soon collapse. But you cannot convince people that Russia is building new roads, hospitals or schools, that the authorities are reducing corruption or that people’s democratic rights are being protected.

It is easy for the Kremlin to dupe the general population concerning abstract things. But when it comes to concrete matters, it is useless trying to convince people that their lives have improved.

I am certain that 99 percent of those who voted against United Russia have never heard of anti-

corruption blogger Alexei Navalny. They were also unaware of the suspicious incident last year involving a top executive at LUKoil. His Mercedes, which was fit with a blue flashing light, crashed into an oncoming car on Leninsky Prospekt, resulting in the death of two passengers in the other car, while he walked away with only minor injuries. Nor were they aware that Putin reportedly had a $1 billion palace built for himself in Gelendzhik. But nearly everyone has had their own experience where a friend or relative was hit by a government official in a speeding car and the guilty party was never brought to justice, or when some corrupt businessman or government official stole the rights to their plot of land and the courts turned a blind eye to the problem. 

Theoretically, the regime stands to gain if it punishes an official who runs over a pedestrian, but in practice, the police have a greater motivation to hush up the whole affair, particularly if they can extract a bribe to do it. Theoretically, the regime stands to gain if it is composed of respected individuals, but in practice, top government posts are practically bought and sold like lots at an auction. Once in office, they have a virtual carte blanche to steal.

Putin’s system is disintegrating with frightening speed. My guess is that it won’t survive until the next elections.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/this-could-be-putins-last-election/449385.html#ixzz1fpS0cqEB The Moscow Times

DECEMBER 7, 2011

Russia Faces New Air-Safety Crisis http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204449804577068483346152726.html

By GREGORY L. WHITE And DANIEL MICHAELS

MOSCOW—Russia, once a global aviation power, has become the most dangerous country in which to board an airliner.

Investigations of nine commercial plane crashes this year, including one that killed an entire professional hockey team, found a raft of gross violations and errors, such as drunk or sedated flight crews, forged safety documents and panicked pilots. In one crash, the navigator used the wrong guidance equipment and aimed his jetliner at a tree, far from the runway.

"I don't know what else has to happen for the recognition of this systemic crisis to reach the entire aviation community," said Deputy Transport Minister Valery Okulov, a former chief executive of national airline Aeroflot, at an emergency industry meeting in October, according to a report in a state-run newspaper. A ministry spokeswoman declined to confirm that account and said Mr. Okulov wasn't available for comment.

Russian fatalities and crashes, adjusted for air-traffic volumes, this year exceed those in less developed countries with longstanding safety problems, including Congo and Indonesia, according to aviation consultants Ascend in London.

Eight of the nine crashes involved Soviet-era planes. But many safety experts say the real problem isn't aging equipment but ineffective regulation, inefficiently small airlines and poorly trained pilots not following modern safety procedures.

Just two years ago, Russia appeared to be an air-safety success story. Following a string of crashes early last decade, the government in 2006 accepted international help to boost safety at its biggest global carriers like Aeroflot and Transaero. By 2009, Russia had no fatal crashes. Since then, accidents have surged amid rising traffic at small, domestic airlines that were largely overlooked by the safety campaign.

The Russian air crashes highlight a nagging problem for the global aviation industry and show the limits of generally successful efforts to cut the danger of air travel. A major reason for the world-wide drop in accidents over recent years is that most big countries cut their tolerance for safety lapses—at their own carriers and on foreign airlines. A critical weakness in this system of nations watching each others' backs, experts concede, is domestic aviation in countries where people tend to overlook risks.

In heartland Russia, for example, many pilots and airplane mechanics show little concern for basic safety rules that have become second nature elsewhere. Domestic carriers operate under national regulations that are much weaker than global rules that Russia's international carriers face. Falsification is common, down to widespread use of counterfeit spare parts, Russian officials say.

"It's the same sort of societal issue you see in parts of Africa and Southeast Asia," says Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a global nonprofit organization that helped implement Russia's safety reforms five years ago.

Russian officials reject comparisons to less-developed countries. They say tighter regulations and stricter inspections, mandated since the wave of crashes, will soon resolve the problem. The Kremlin has ordered small airlines to close and plans to ban most Soviet-built planes that remain prevalent nationwide.

Sergei Masterov, head of safety in the Russian Aviation Agency, said in an interview that the moves will "radically change the situation" and prevent a repeat of this year's surge in crashes. "We're taking an absolutely principled approach to ensuring safety now. We're not allowing anything by."

Russia has the know-how to fly safely because the Soviet Union had a proud history as a leading aerospace power. Yet that experience regularly goes unheeded in Russia's smaller carriers and isolated regions, where Moscow's control and foreign influences remain muted.

"It's not just resistance, it's a kind of sloppiness, carelessness," says Valery Shelkovnikov, a former top aviation regulator who now runs a safety-consulting firm.

In Europe, the market with most links to Russia, European Union air-safety watchdogs see Russia's situation as "a mirror of the society" in which laws and rules are routinely ignored, senior European officials say. The EU is offering Russia assistance, but specialists acknowledge that they lack influence over airlines that don't leave Russia.

Many foreign companies that must transport staff to remote Russian oil fields or mines have forbidden employees from using most Russian airlines or boarding any Russian-built airplane, say corporate air-safety specialists. Some require staff to fly between nearby Russian cities using foreign carriers, on detours through foreign hubs such as Vienna or Helsinki.

Experience from other countries indicates steps Russia must take. Nigeria, one of the deadliest places to fly six years ago, has become much safer thanks to concerted government and international efforts.

China transformed its industry nine years ago after a slew of deadly crashes. To control the country's breakneck aviation growth, Beijing ratcheted up enforcement of existing regulations, adopted stricter international standards and slammed the brakes on industry expansion, even threatening to block jetliner imports. The government invited armies of foreign experts to train Chinese pilots, controllers and inspectors. Within two years, Chinese aviation ranked among the world's safest.

China's nascent aviation industry, though, was simpler to control than the sector in Russia, where hundreds of tiny airlines sprouted from the splintering of Aeroflot at the Soviet Union's breakup in 1991. Scores still survive, but many lack funds to buy new planes or modernize old ones. Moscow now reasons that by closing such carriers and grounding their planes, it can reduce crashes nationwide.

But even some government officials question those moves, noting that nearly all the recent accidents have been blamed on crew error or inadequate supervision, not equipment problems.

After the latest crashes, Moscow ordered inspections of most Soviet-era planes. Inspectors found hundreds of violations that had been previously overlooked and grounded a quarter of the planes, aviation officials say.

Safety officials blame the laxness partly on earlier Kremlin efforts to promote business by reducing inspections.

Crash investigators at the Interstate Aviation Committee, which probes accidents in the former Soviet Union, took the unusual step in November of calling on Moscow to accelerate adoption of international safety rules domestically.

"There should be no double standards for Russian companies operating abroad and inside the country," said committee chief Tatyana Anodina.

Since the mid-2000s, Russia's biggest carriers have voluntarily adopted international standards, often a requirement for flights abroad. But even top players have struggled to impose discipline throughout their operations, industry officials say.

After a Boeing 737 operated by an affiliate of Aeroflot crashed in September 2008 on landing at Perm, in the Ural Mountains, investigators found the pilots had been trained hastily. As a result, they misread vital gauges, which presented information differently from those on Soviet-built planes that they had long flown. Investigators said the captain, who had alcohol in his system, nearly flipped the plane before flying it into the ground on an approach that should have been routine. Aeroflot, which later sold its stake in the affiliate, didn't respond to a request for comment.

Few crashes highlight the breadth of problems plaguing Russian aviation more than one from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport to Petrozavodsk late on June 20.

RusLine, a small Russian carrier, normally flew modern Canadian-built Bombardier jets for its daily hop from Moscow to the regional capital near Finland. But those planes were busy and RusLine lacked the backup fleet that regulations require.

Bending Russian rules to run the flight, investigators said, RusLine chartered a Soviet-era Tupolev-134 and its crew from another small carrier, RusAir. RusLine said it fully complies with regulations. It hasn't been the subject of any special investigations or disciplinary actions by regulators since the crash, which involved a plane from a different carrier. RusAir was shut down by regulators after the crash and no one could be reached for comment.

Alexander Fyodorov, the 44-year-old captain, was new to RusAir. He had quit a larger, more prestigious airline, rather than accept demotion for a hard landing in January, investigators said. RusAir wasn't aware of the violation, which had been improperly omitted from his official record, investigators say. Such falsification of vital records is common, officials concede.

Investigators say preflight medical checks, a world-wide requirement, were perfunctory and possibly falsified. All seven crew members, including flight attendants, recorded identical pulses. The airport says all checks were conducted properly. Still, an autopsy of the navigator found his blood-alcohol level, at 0.081%, was above the legal limit for driving in Russia or the U.S.

A storm over Finland had brought clouds and rain to the Petrozavodsk area, but when Capt. Fyodorov picked up the official forecast on his way to the plane, it indicated weather would be acceptable for landing.

Departure was delayed 20 minutes, but the pilot didn't follow procedure and ask for a weather update. The forecast would have shown deteriorating conditions that would prevent landing, investigators said.

"It's most likely that if the captain had requested the data on the weather at the Petrozavodsk airport…he would have decided not to take off," investigators said.

The 70-minute flight proceeded smoothly, but weather in Petrozavodsk was deteriorating. The airport, known as Besovets for the small village nearby, couldn't warn the crew because it lacked modern equipment to measure visibility. The rudimentary gear it did have barely functioned, since most of its lights were burned out.

Besovets, a primarily military airstrip with few commercial flights each day, had a history of problems. Regulators in 2006 shut civilian operations there for several weeks due to safety violations. The local government took the airport over in 2009 after it nearly went bankrupt, according to reports in the official news agency. Upgrades to outdated equipment got delayed. Airport officials declined to comment on investigators' conclusions, saying only that Besovets is now undergoing renovation.

Mr. Masterov, the safety regulator, said low traffic at the airport probably didn't justify the cost of modern equipment such as an instrument-landing system that could guide flights in low visibility. For Flight 9605, that proved a fatal economy.

The Tu-134 is such an old design that its nose, which in modern jetliners houses radar equipment, is made largely of glass. A navigator squeezes into the bubble for the view.

RusAir navigator Aman Attayev relied on an onboard GPS-based system. "I'll get you in for sure," he assured the captain as they approached. Neither had landed at Besovets before.

Mr. Attayev's confidence was misguided. Russian navigational charts still haven't been fully updated with exact locations and many smaller airports still rely on data from 1942. The old information can differ from modern GPS maps by more than the length of a football field.

Russian regulations forbid using GPS for landing, but Mr. Attayev ignored that, investigators say. As a result, the Tupolev was about 130 meters off course as it descended through clouds.

It was also descending too quickly, but without modern equipment on board or at the airfield, the pilots were unaware. Procedures required the captain to announce at 110 meters altitude whether he would continue the landing or make another pass. But Capt. Fyodorov couldn't see the ground and said nothing as the plane crossed that level. His co-pilot should have aborted the landing at that stage, but sat silent.

Seconds later, a ground-proximity alarm sounded. Capt. Fyodorov searched for the runway. "I don't see it yet," he said. "I'm looking."

"Everything seemed calm," a flight attendant later told a local news website from her hospital bed. "And then I see the wing hit one evergreen, then another."

The captain pulled back hard on the control stick, but too late. The last word on the cockpit recording is the co-pilot cursing.

The plane flipped over, smashing into a ditch along the airport road. It hit the power line to the airport, which immediately went dark. The controller, still unaware of the fiery impact, radioed to the crew to make another pass.

Drivers on the road and local villagers reached the burning wreckage before fire crews. Of 52 people on board, 47 died, including the pilot, co-pilot and navigator.

Three days later, before any investigation results had been released, President Dmitry Medvedev said that although the cause was likely "crew error," he had ordered the accelerated grounding of all remaining Tu-134s. "It's not just because of this crash, it's just time."

DECEMBER 6, 2011, 10:33 P.M. ET

Russian Aviation Agency Official, Interview Excerpts http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204903804577080273815535582.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

'We're Not Allowing Anything By'By GREG WHITE

Sergei Masterov, head of safety in the Russian Aviation Agency, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that tighter regulations and stricter inspections will prevent a repeat of this year's surge in crashes. Read excerpts of the interview.

The Wall Street Journal: If we look at the crash statistics of the last year or eighteen months, we will see that it shows that things are getting worse. How do you see the situation? Is it just a bad luck or is it a manifestation of some inner problems?

Sergei Masterov: I would not dramatize the situation. Aviation accidents happen each year. They happen not only in Russian civil aviation, they also take place in other countries, in other great aviation powers .

The statistics here fluctuate. One year has more events, the other has less. What is the reason for that? First of all, I want to say that in aviation accidents, the human factor is the dominant one in all countries of the world. From 80 to 85% of all aviation events happen due to human factor aspect.

Here we are not different from leading aviation states. We have human factor aspect in about 80 to 82% of all aviation events. If we analyze the situation starting from 1990s, we will see that the number of events, for example in 2010, is one tenth the level in relative and absolute terms. (...)

In some years, we reached the average statistical level of ICAO and the U.S., we were even better in some periods.

Here in Russia, unlike other leading states, flight safety is estimated not only by commercial air transportations. We estimate our safety also by helicopters which provide air service, by small aircraft. Helicopter transportations for payment are recorded as commercial aircraft. Other countries do not take them into account. We register absolutely everything. Therefore the number of events is, naturally, bigger in comparison with other countries.

But, alongside with that, if we consider separately the state of flight safety in regularly scheduled commercial air transport, I wouldn't say that our aviation events statistics differs very much from the one in other countries.

True, this year there was a surge. But, at the same time, there have also been periods when there were no aviation accidents at all. For instance, from 2002 to 2005 there were no aviation incidents. Also in 2009 we did not have any aviation accidents.

WSJ: Large companies appear to have performed better in recent years, while the recent crashes have involved smaller ones. What accounts for the difference?

Mr. Masterov: If we take big companies, which have been on the aviation market for a long time, companies that have a large number of aircraft and a large number of staff, we can say that such companies bring us the minimal percentage of trouble.

As far as small companies are concerned, companies that have 3 or 5 aircraft, they, naturally, have a somewhat different approach to ensuring safety. Often, matters of economy come to take precedence over safety.

When we start to observe this picture [the growing number of accidents], especially the latest catastrophes in Petrozavodsk and Yaroslavl, they really filled up the cup, then the president and the government interfered, and they demanded to take cardinal measures for safety promotion.

Now, total inspections of absolutely all airlines exploiting Russian aircraft are practically finished. Other airlines, which were not well from the point of view of safety promotion, have also been checked: they did not have aviation events in the form of catastrophes or crashes, but they have incidents, which made us suspicious.

A number of airlines have had licenses annulled. I may be mistaken, but 17 companies have stopped their existence. Today if I am not mistaken, we have 127 companies. The

decisions on some of them have not been made yet, the questions have been worked through. It is possible that by the end of the year several unscrupulous companies will leave the aviation market.

Such aspects as staff training, financing of flights safety measures, technical maintenance of aircrafts, i.e. aspects that one way or another influence the safety of flights, have been inspected.

The same sort of things is happening now on cooperation with the EU: we are cooperating with them very closely on the ramp of inspection of foreign aircraft. We have made a number of decisions recently about a number of airlines which proved themselves badly, i.e. have a high rating of safety problems by European standards.

I would like to focus at the following: now special close attention is paid to the safety problems both by the authorities of the country and by the Ministry of transport.

We're taking an absolutely principled approach to ensuring safety now. We're not letting anything by. In our relations with airlines we act according to the principle: whether an air company is able to meet standards or not. No half-tones exist in communication with airlines.

WSJ: In Yaroslavl case, it's striking that these airlines passed inspections. Why did these problems become apparent only now?

Mr. Masterov: Again, it's a human factor aspect, but on some different level. During the inspection of these airlines made by certification centers which acted by order of our agency, standards were lowered.

This was ultimately exposed during more detailing inspections conducted not by these centers by but the Russian Aviation Agency and the national regulator. As a result the decision was made that no certification centers would be involved into the work on certification and on the checking of airlines' capability documentation in the future.

WSJ: Was there corruption involved?

Mr. Masterov: Corruption or no corruption - that's hard to say, but the human factor, however, is present here.

The ministry administration made this decision, the Rosaviatsia administration made this decision, that now all the certification actions relating to airlines will be fulfilled by the central office of Rosaviatsia and by territorial bodies with the involvement of specialists of subordinate organizations.

Everything is directed only to the ability of an airline to provide the promotion of safety. I think that with such measures we will radically turn the tide. And we will not allow the surge (in crashes) that we saw this year to be repeated.

WSJ: Some critics say that the measures that have been publicly announced - the ban on Soviet-era aircraft and steps for consolidation of smaller airlines - say it is not quite an answer to the problem.

Mr. Masterov: Let me not to agree to that on a number of positions:

A big operator always has more capability to finance safety. The bigger it is, the more opportunities it has to support airworthiness, personnel training, financing. Because the promotion of safety is an economic characteristics, as it demands substantial financial investments to make it work in a regime that is needed. Therefore the small companies very often have only one problem: to survive by whatever means and hold onto their place on the market.

It is natural that in such a light the promotion of safety suffers.

To stop this, the decision is made about the consolidation of airlines. We're talking first of all about companies that serve national and regional routes

I want to say that the control will be much tougher than it was not long ago.

Now about staff training. We now have six flight schools. We preserved them since Soviet times. Now, the number of applicants has increased greatly.

In the past, the prestige of the flight profession came down rather substantially. Thank God now it starts recovering. I visited my flight school September 1 and saw with great satisfaction, that the boys which come there, are dreaming of the sky. That is, such people are devoted to the sky, and it's becoming more of them. And moreover, airlines are waiting for them already.

In the foreign centers a man often pays himself training. Here the state pays for it. Therefore, the cost can vary greatly.

Also, our requirements of purely theoretical training, I can tell you, are much tougher, than the ones in the foreign centers.

After communicating with the foreign colleagues, particularly in America, I realized that we provide more serious theoretical training. In terms of design of engine, aircraft and its systems. Often only general information about design is given in the foreign centers.

This is my personal opinion: any qualified pilot must understand, figuratively speaking, how different gears are turning and so on. And what would happen if one of them breaks down, what it will lead to. I think, that is right.

And to teach, that if anything happens, one must press a button and it should be shut down – one needn't to be very smart for that. You must understand the mechanism: you

clicked and what happened there. It did not work – was it just the button or anything else that didn't work?

In general, it's more comprehensive knowledge in terms of а purely technology. Well, and it depends on what to compare with. There are training centers abroad, which do not differ from ours by cost. There are centers which show price, that is much lower, but, as the events proved, they not always give good results of training.

WSJ: And the proposed ban on Soviet-era aircraft?

Mr. Masterov: Yes, indeed, the old Soviet-made equipment is becoming obsolete morally and physically. However, I would not make division by the categories of "new" and "old." There are requirements for the airworthiness of an aircraft - it is either fit or unfit for flight.

So those old Soviet-made aircraft that are still in operation are airworthy. They do have outdated equipment and navigation systems. Yes, they are acceptable for navigation, but it's natural that the new generation of aircraft, has the newest equipment.

As for the TU-134, the plane itself is very reliable. During all the period of its operation, and it is quite popular aircraft, there were only six incidents. Only one of them, if memory serves correctly, was due to equipment failure. The rest were the result of the human factor. Including the aircraft operated abroad.

As for the AN-24, this is really old machine. It's very good. I flew in my time AN-24 and AN-26. These are very good aircraft, but - again the same reasons. Equipment goes out of date both morally and physically. There are certain problems with their airworthiness. In other words, with repair. Because the manufacturer of the aircraft became a foreign country after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And often the question of the airworthiness maintenance becomes essential from an economic point of view – it is very expensive.

WSJ: At the same time, there are some questions about the foreign alternatives.

Mr. Masterov: Yes, there is such a problem. AN-24 can land on ground, and on the gravel runway, to say nothing about frost.

It was operated at the frost of minus sixty in Yakutsk, which is probably saying something. As for the Yak-42 plane . Up for today, there are not enough of them left. In itself, the plane is good enough. Technology has nothing to do with what happened in Yaroslavl.

WSJ: Again, it is not clear: Why ban Soviet-era planes if some of them are still airworthy and the problems lie elsewhere?

Mr. Masterov: I will not comment the decision of the country's leadership. As an official I have no right to do that. I may have personal opinion, but I will leave it to myself.

WSJ: The Petrozavodsk airport seems to have had typical problems. What is your agency's position on what should be done with such airports?

Mr. Masterov: The number of airports has fallen sharply since Soviet times. As for this particular airdrome, this is a joint civil and military aerodrome.

Yes, there is no instrument-landing system there, no precision approach. But, taking into account its intensity of flights, maybe it does not need such an expensive and modern system of landing.

However, decision was made to install modern systems of landing on 18 aerodromes.

There is a federal target program, it provides the equipping of aerodromes with modern systems of landing. It is being fulfilled.

The fact that the crew, flying on foreign aircraft, could not land using this system should be explained by the drawbacks of the crew's training. This is the airline's internal affair. This is the human factor.

There was a catastrophe in Igarka a year ago that was identical to the one in Petrozavodsk, except that the crew survived. I talked to the captain, I asked him: "Did you see the strip?" "No I didn't". "Why did you keep descending?" "I thought the strip would appear." So you at the 100 meters height and you didn't abort and make a second run, hoping that the strip will appear, right?

He'd gotten a reasonably accurate weather report. It often happens that at 100 meters you can't see, but then in 5-10 meters it suddenly appears. That can happen.

At 100 meters, OK, but at 60 meters, your alarm is going off, Why didn't you abort? "I thought the strip will appear." That's the human factor for you.

Translation: Olga Padorina and Nonna Fomenko

Afghanistan will benefit from saffron, not opium poppy – but that won’t happen tomorrowhttp://rt.com/politics/press/izvestiya/opium-afghan-country-businessmen/en/

Published: 6 December, 2011, 07:15Edited: 6 December, 2011, 07:33

talks about Russian-Afghan business cooperation and new ways of combating drug-rafficking Konstantin Volkov

Izvestia: Are there any specific projects, in which Russian businessmen can invest?

Ishaq Gailani:Today, Afghanistan is bankrupt. And we are in need of everything – projects in all sectors. The Soviet Union built many production and energy enterprises in our country, as well as many cultural facilities.

During the war, they were all destroyed, but I hope that Russia returns in order to build them again. To this day, the Afghan people harbor fond memories of Russian engineers. Our country is rich in natural resources, the production of which has not yet begun. We have copper, iron ore, manganese, and much more. I hope that companies will make profits from the extraction of natural resources, and help us as well. I think that now is a good time for Russian companies to enter the market.  

I: A major obstacle is problems with security. Do you think they can be resolved in the near future? 

IG:The international community is trying to resolve these problems. Afghan law enforcement structures are currently being created. Their establishment should be completed by 2014, when a significant part of the international contingent is expected to withdraw from the country. I’m assuming that our law enforcers will be able to protect not only the population, but foreign businessmen as well.

I: What makes you believe that in two years Afghan law enforcement structures will be able to protect the population and companies, after not having done so in the last decade?

IG:Throughout all these years we have been in the state of war. Bombardment, “sweep operations”, and searches conducted by foreign troops have not been conducive to peace. The country is only now starting to rise back to its feet. And I think that this is a good time to enter the country with some projects, to “stake out” the territory. The Afghan law enforcement structures which are currently being formed will naturally ensure the protection of foreign businessmen as well. Moreover, US military bases will remain in the country, which is an additional guarantee of security.  

I: Afghan General Khodaidad recently stated that with the withdrawal of the US forces, the country will begin to produce more drugs. Could there be security in such conditions?  

IG: That is the General’s point of view. There are ways to avoid this, but we need the help of the international community. Don’t forget that our drugs are being purchased in other countries, and a lion’s share of the profits from drug-trafficking is held by the

middle-men. Farmers will receive very small amounts for the opium poppy. European and US governments must make efforts to reduce the number of drug consumers at home – for example, by controlling the borders. In this case, the price of opium poppy will be reduced. And it will become more profitable for our formers to grow, say, saffron, which is costly on the global markets. But that will of course not happen tomorrow.

12/06/2011 02:06 PM

Missile Defense Spathttp://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,801961,00.html

A New Arms Race Looms between Russia and US

By Matthias Schepp

The US and Russia intended to "reset" their relations under US President Barack Obama. Instead, however, the two countries continue to squabble over the planned missile shield, which Washington insists is to protect against attack from Iran. The debate shows signs of turning into a new arms race.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's ambassador to NATO, wanted to push his American negotiating partner into a corner. "If space aliens were to completely disarm Iran," he asked, "would Washington continue with its plans to build a missile defense system in Poland?"

The defense shield is designed to intercept missiles from rogue states like Iran, the United States has repeatedly insisted. The conversation between the Russian ambassador and his US counterpart, which Rogozin told SPIEGEL about last week, took place in Washington behind closed doors on July 22. And the answer, given by President Barack Obama's undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen Tauscher, was reportedly unambiguous: Yes, she said. The plan has been decided upon and will be carried out.

Rogozin sees the response as conclusive evidence that the defense shield is effectively bulwark against Russia. "America is shifting the strategic balance to its advantage in that it wants to neutralize Russia's nuclear deterrence potential," the top-level diplomat said. "The Kremlin is fed up with being taken for fools by the Americans."

The battle over missile shields is an old one. But it has now rendered the planned "reset" of US-Russian relations, pursued by the young and weak leaders Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a failure. Instead, a new arms race is looming.

Increasing Firepower

Evidence of that new arms race came last Tuesday, with Medvedev's appearance in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which borders the NATO and EU members Poland and Lithuania. The president pointedly activated a radar station. Medvedev had already announced that Russia would install modern Iskander short-range missiles near the NATO border if the US didn't back down. The missiles can be fitted with nuclear warheads and would be directed at the planned US defense positions in Europe, which are scheduled to be ready by 2020. "If NATO improves its defense shield we must unfortunately sharpen our swords," said Rogozin.

Meanwhile, Medvedev has threatened to pull out of an April 2010 disarmament agreement pertaining to strategic launcher systems. Under that deal, both nuclear powers have committed to further reduce their number of intercontinental nuclear missiles.

For a while Medvedev and Obama had taken a completely different approach. The US president supported Russia's entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO); he avoided any open criticism of human rights abuse in Russia; and the US rolled back its support for Kremlin adversaries such as the government in Georgia. In return, Moscow halted delivery of air defense systems to America's archenemy Iran. The Kremlin allowed Washington to repeatedly transport provisions to US troops in Afghanistan via Russian territory.

Staking out Positions

But on the issue of missile defense systems, there was no breakthrough, even though a missile shield operated jointly by the Americans and the Russians could turn the former rivals into permanent partners. But Washington -- and here Obama resembles his predecessor George W. Bush -- categorically refuses to let agreements with Moscow hamper its influence. The Kremlin, meanwhile, insisted on a written guarantee that the West's firepower would not increase to the point that Russia wouldn't have a chance against it, even with nuclear weapons. The Russians also wanted to limit the number of American defense systems and to prevent US missiles from reaching Russian territory.

In this dispute, Europe is little more than a political football between the two powers, but could also become the victim. As in the Cold War era, the Russian missiles would be directed at European targets.

"For America, it is all about making itself impregnable," Rogozin complained. But fears over Iran would be more successfully quashed by cooperating with Russia, he said. "We are prepared to make our radar stations in Azerbaijan and southern Russia available, if we had a partnership on equal terms," Rogozin said.

Such a plan makes more sense, because the defense system in Poland is too far away from Iran, according to Rogozin. "With missiles it is like with ducks," he said. "You are best off shooting them at the start, when they are flying lower and more slowly."

Translated from the German by SPIEGEL Staff

U.S.-Russia pact on warheads halts misuse of nuclear materialshttp://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-nuclear-power--120711-20111206,0,1047228.story

By Lynn Edward Weaver | Guest columnist

December 7, 2011

Driven by a desire to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, some environmental groups oppose construction of new nuclear-power plants. What they overlook is the role commercial reactors in the United States play in destroying nuclear-weapons materials.

Since 1994, 425 metric tons of Russian weapons-grade uranium — equivalent to 17,000 nuclear warheads — have been converted into reactor fuel for use in U.S. nuclear-power plants under a bilateral agreement known as "megatons to megawatts."

Highly-enriched uranium from dismantled Russian warheads is downblended into low-enriched uranium and sold to U.S. utilities for electricity production. This nuclear-weapons material is destroyed; it can never be used again to make bombs. Russia has received about $8 billion in return, according to USEC, a company designated by the U.S. government to buy the downblended uranium from Russia and sell it to U.S. utilities.

During the height of the Cold War, before the Berlin Wall was torn down and before the Soviet Union collapsed, few people, if any, thought such an accord would be possible. Converting nuclear swords into nuclear plowshares seemed a pipe dream.

But Russia, with its economy in ruins in the early 1990s, desperately needed U.S. dollars. It didn't have enough money even to pay soldiers guarding nuclear-weapons stockpiles, and there was concern that highly enriched uranium or plutonium could be stolen and resold on the black market to rogue governments or terrorists.

Only a few pounds of plutonium are enough to make a crude nuclear weapon, and there had been about 100 reported cases of such theft, though the International Atomic Energy Agency says the nuclear materials were recovered.

The agreement reached by President George H.W. Bush faced formidable obstacles, to be sure. Some of those hurdles included getting the Russians to downblend their surplus weapons uranium and persuading U.S. utilities to buy the reactor fuel. Yet the promise of nuclear-weapons safeguards turned into reality.

Today about half the nuclear-generated electricity in the United States is produced with low-enriched uranium derived from Russian warheads.

By the time it ends in late 2013, the megatons-to-megawatts program will have led to the elimination of 500 metric tons of Russian highly enriched uranium — equivalent to 20,000 warheads.

Meanwhile, surplus U.S. highly enriched uranium is also being downblended into low-enriched uranium under a timetable that began in the 1990s and will extend over the next four decades. Currently, 12.1 metric tons of the surplus weapons-grade uranium is being downblended into 220 metric tons of low-enriched uranium at a nuclear-fuel facility in Erwin, Tenn. The low-enriched uranium — which is being sold for use as reactor fuel — has a market value of more than $400 million.

In addition, the United States and Russia have agreed to eliminate 38 tons of weapons plutonium each by chemically reprocessing the plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel, thereby making it unusable in bombs. Mixed oxide fuel — which is made by mixing plutonium with low-enriched uranium — can be used in nuclear plants to produce electricity..

Megatons to megawatts has proved to be realistic, and it has been vital for preventing the misuse of nuclear-weapons materials.

So it has been possible for nuclear-power plants to produce clean energy and help stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. More than possible, it is essential. If we hope to meet rising demand for electricity and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to a safe and acceptable level, nuclear power will need to play a significant role.

And if we don't agree to place tighter limits on nuclear arsenals, they will only grow. How better to promote peaceful use of the atom than to burn fuel from excess weapons materials in commercial power reactors? Anyone who questions whether it can be done should consider the success of the megatons to megawatts program.

Lynn Edward Weaver is president emeritus of the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne.

Copyright © 2011, Orlando Sentinel

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/12/06/guest-post-russia-needs-the-brics/#ixzz1fpp4TylB

Guest post: Russia needs the Bricshttp://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/12/06/guest-post-russia-needs-the-brics/#axzz1fpp3b9m5

By Sergei Karaganov

Many traits in Russian contemporary development cause me grave concern. Systemic corruption, for example; weak institutions; the manipulation of politics by an authoritarian leadership; and the economy’s excessive dependence on energy exports.

But as a seasoned observer, who witnessed Russia surviving several crises, I am tired of panicking. I believe that Russia has a future as long as there is at least some political and economic modernization. And this future depends on international cooperation, not least with the other Brics.

I am amazed that the country is still alive and functioning after ten years of revolutionary chaos and turmoil in the 1990s. That came after 70 years of communist dictatorship that cost the country tens of millions of lives in the civil war, Gulag camps, artificial famines, forced collectivisation and so on. On top of this, almost thirty million Soviet citizens died during the second world war.

It seems that Russians are still resting after 80 years of unbelievable hardships. They enjoy the newly-acquired modest level of consumerism and a degree of private freedom unprecedented in Russian history. So they have so far accepted authoritarian rule, social inequality and political stagnation. So far.

Challenges could come in future from the growing middle class – from the “freedom generation”, these who were born and grew up after the fall of communism. It is widely believed to be unlikely that the current regime has the ability to resort to rough authoritarian rule of the kind seen in Chile under president Pinochet. So in few years the country will most probably be pushed to a combination of authoritarian modernisation and some democratisation.

In the meantime, Russia continues to see steady technological modernisation, mostly achieved through the import of modern goods and services. The long-standing demographic decline has slowed due to increase in the median life expectancy of males and growth of birthrates.

Short of collapse of the world economy, Russia will be able to rely for many years on its staple exports – energy, raw materials, metals and – increasingly – agricultural products. Even with further economic growth, the country will only be able to keep afloat not more than three or four high-tech industries.

In a world which is increasingly insecure and chaotic the country is rapidly restoring its military might. Russia has relatively little “soft power”. So it tries to compete where it has a comparative advantage – in “hard power”.

But to develop even slowly in economic and political terms, Russia will have to continue to rely on importing capital and technologies from west and east. It cannot develop alone.

With Europe in crisis, the Middle East in turmoil and conflict in Afghanistan (casting a shadow over central Asia), Russia is inevitably drifting east. I hope it can start to develop Siberia and the east of the country with the help of foreign capital from all over the world, not only from China.

Of course, Russian general orientation towards Europe will stay, with attempts to build a common economic, energy and human space with the European Union. But, unfortunately, Europe’s attractiveness is deteriorating visibly.

So, co-operation with the other Brics is very important. Russia will continue to work closely with its Bric partners, most of which it will continue to exceed in wealth and international clout in the coming years.

This co-operation will not be build on the basis of economic ties, which are loose except in the case of China. It will be built on common political interests. After all the Brics are not an economic bloc, even though the term was coined by economists on economic grounds. The Brics are a group of rising powers eager to join hands in helping to assure that the global the shift of power in their favour continues – does so in a peaceful way.

By simply meeting, member countries are increasing their individual clout. But there are also the first signs of co-ordination of policies. During the last G20 summit, it was agreed that financial assistance to EU would be channelled only through IMF.

In the 1990s the west chose not to integrate Russia into its structures, despite the efforts of myself and like-minded colleagues in Russia and the west. But predictions of Russia’s imminent collapse did not materialise. The country has re-emerged from crisis. And now, sometimes arrogantly and heavy-handedly, it is developing political ties with other countries. Countries outside the old west. Chief among them are the Brics. These developments are not necessarily against the west.

Sergei Karaganov is Dean at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics. This article is based on the report of the Valdai Club “Russia Should Not Miss its Chance. Development Scenarios”.

Cold War

Russian maps suggest Soviet subs cruised Canadian Arctic http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/russian-maps-suggest-soviet-subs-cruised-canadian-arctic/article2261379/

BOB WEBER

The Canadian Press

Published Tuesday, Dec. 06, 2011 5:19AM EST

Last updated Tuesday, Dec. 06, 2011 8:47PM EST

The old Soviet Union may have been just as familiar with Canada’s Arctic waters as Canadians.

Sections of Cold-War-era nautical charts obtained by The Canadian Press suggest that Russian mariners have for decades possessed detailed and accurate knowledge of crucial internal waterways such as the Northwest Passage.

Those charts, which may offer the first documentary proof of the widely held belief that Soviet nuclear submarines routinely patrolled the Canadian Arctic during the Cold War, are still in use by Russian vessels. In some places, they are preferred to current Canadian charts.

“In some cases the Russian charts are more detailed than the Canadian ones and the navigators have them out on the chart table beside the Canadian ones in order to cross-reference any questionable soundings,” said Aaron Lawton of One Ocean Expeditions, an adventure tourism company that charters the Russian-owned ship Academik Ioffe for Arctic cruises.

“I have travelled on the Ioffe in the Canadian Arctic for (many) seasons and have generally found that the vessel has always cross-referenced the Russian charts,” Mr. Lawton said in an e-mail from on board the Ioffe off the Antarctic coast.

The Ioffe is owned by the Moscow-based P.P. Shirsov Institute of Oceanography. Vladimir Tereschenkov, head of marine operations, said the Russian charts were published by the Russian Hydrographic Service.

The sections seen by The Canadian Press are photographs of charts in current use on the Ioffe. Compiled from information gleaned over the years up to 1970, they are clearly marked with Soviet insignia, including the red star and the hammer and sickle.

Both sections are of highly strategic Arctic waterways.

One map is of a section of the Northwest Passage in Barrow Strait, southwest of Resolute. All deepwater vessels navigating the passage, including submarines, must pass through there.

The other section details a choke point on Nares Strait off Cape Isabella between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Not only does Nares Strait pass the U.S. air base at Thule in Greenland, it links the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and avoids waters east of Greenland that were heavily NATO-patrolled during the Cold War.

Both sections of the charts contain many more depth soundings than corresponding modern Canadian charts.

“That was surprising, especially up in that area,” said Alex MacIntyre, a highly experienced Canadian ice pilot who was advising the captain last summer on board the Ioffe. “The thought immediately came to mind, how did they get all those soundings?”

Mr. MacIntyre saw the charts one evening last summer on the Ioffe’s bridge, where he was joined by passenger Michael Byers, a Canadian academic and Arctic expert who was a guest lecturer on the ship as it cruised the Northwest Passage. Mr. Byers was also struck by the detail of the Soviet charts.

“The difference was immediately apparent,” he said. “The density of soundings on the Soviet chart was much greater than on the Canadian one.”

Mr. Byers points out that Nares Strait is still choked with thick, hard, multi-year ice and would have been even more so 50 years ago. Both he and Mr. MacIntyre believe the only way the Soviet government could have acquired data for the charts is from nuclear submarines secretly patrolling the Arctic.

“It confirms what many of us assumed,” said Mr. Byers. “The Soviet navy was extremely capable and also was willing to take considerable risk. Sending submarines into the Canadian archipelago, which was heavily monitored by NATO, thousands of miles away from Soviet assistance, was a perilous thing to do. It was a phenomenal accomplishment.”

Mr. Byers said the charts are the first public proof he’s seen of that theory. They suggest that the capabilities of the Soviet navy portrayed in movies may not be entirely fiction.

“I can’t help but think back to The Hunt for Red October, where Sean Connery plays the captain of a Soviet nuclear missile submarine and relies on the accuracy of Soviet charts to avoid a torpedo that’s been shot at his ship,” Mr. Byers said. “These charts indicate that the Soviets were in fact that competent.”

Canadian government sources acknowledge that the Soviet charts seem to incorporate Canadian data, but they have no explanation for the additional information they contain.

“We are not sure yet what to make of the difference in sounding-density,” said one.

So-called “field sheets” – records of raw data from Canadian hydrographers – are more detailed than the published Canadian charts. Field sheets are available, but only through application.

Nares Strait has been surveyed three times between 1962 and 2003; the Barrow Strait six times between 1960 and 1989.

Mr. Byers said the existence of the Soviet charts doesn’t pose a threat to Canadian sovereignty over those waters.

“This Soviet activity was covert,” he said. “At no point did the Soviet Union challenge Canada’s sovereignty claims.”

The charts do, however, present a buying opportunity, he suggested.

“It would seem prudent, for both shipping safety and economic efficiency reasons, for the Canadian government to obtain a complete set of the Soviet charts so as to determine their potential utility. It might also be possible to obtain the Soviet equivalent of field sheets and an effort to do so should certainly be made.”

Although Canada is improving its knowledge of the northern oceans, most of that mapping involves High Arctic waters in preparation for an extended continental shelf claim under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. Sea lanes within the Arctic islands are getting less attention.

“At the current rate of charting, it will take 300 years for the Canadian Hydrographic Service to bring all our charts for the Canadian archipelago to world standards,” Mr. Byers said.

He points out three ships ran aground in the Arctic last summer.

“Those three groundings focused attention on the inadequacy of our charts. That’s where the Soviet charts are most interesting.

“This is first and foremost an opportunity for Canada to acquire some very valuable new data.”

National Economic Trends

Political risks drive ruble down, Russian stocks mixedhttp://en.rian.ru/business/20111207/169448942.html

12:45 07/12/2011

MOSCOW, December 7 (RIA Novosti)

The ruble continued its slide on Wednesday against the world's major currencies amid foreign investors' increased fears of political instability in the country after Sunday's parliamentary election while Russian stocks showed mixed dynamics following Tuesday's slump.

Russian stock indexes plummeted by more than 4 percent on Tuesday, sinking deeper into the red than any other world stock indices while the ruble plunged by over 30 kopecks against the U.S. dollar past the psychologically important level of 31 rubles to the dollar as investors, unnerved by S&P's decision to put six leading eurozone economies on the list for possible downgrade, found a new reason to dump their Russian assets.

The investors' aversion to ruble-denominated assets appeared to be the result of increased political instability in the country after Sunday's parliamentary elections, in which the pro-Kremlin United Russia party suffered its worst ever nationwide result and the country was hit by street protests over alleged mass electoral fraud in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling party.

The Russian stock market witnessed a massive selloff of equities during the late afternoon on Tuesday, plunging to a five-week low as the RTS index fell 4.7 percent to 1,485.67 points and the MICEX declined 3.95 percent to 1,457.9 points.

Analysts said, however, that the effect of street protests in Russia against the alleged electoral fraud was short-lived while S&P's decision to put six leading eurozone economies with the highest AAA rating, including Germany and France, on the list for possible downgrade could be overweighed by a positive outcome of the EU summit.

"Now, a lot of things are dependant on the market situation. The various rallies and protests of those who are dissatisfied with the organization and results of the elections caused a serious plunge in stock prices. In these conditions, a quite reasonable decision is to wait turbulence is over and the situation on the financial markets stabilizes," Investcafe analyst Nikita Ignatenko said.

As of 11:51 a.m. Moscow time (08:51 GMT) on Wednesday, the ruble fell by just one kopeck against the U.S. dollar to 31.1390 and by 23 kopecks against the single European

currency to 41.8790. The value of the bi-currency basket comprising $0.55 and 0.45 euros increased by 1 kopeck to 35.9478.

The ruble-denominated MICEX index fell 0.40 percent to 1,452.06 while the dollar-denominated RTS was up 0.20 percent to 1,488.68.

Russian business daily Kommersant on Wednesday quoted Alfa-Bank analyst Angelika Genkel as saying that massive selloffs on the Russian markets would stop as soon as investors' fears were allayed.

"And if the EU summit and the European Central Bank influence the world stock markets positively, Russia will again become the same recipient of liquidity received by financial markets from the global central banks like other countries," she said.

Economy leans left http://www.rbcnews.com/komment/komment.shtml

Opposition’s gains in Duma to translate into higher social spending

The ruling party United Russia will have fewer seats in the new State Duma than it had in the previous legislature. The party will still have no difficulties in passing bills, but it will have to agree with the opposition parties, which may result in higher social spending and stronger pressure on business.

According to the latest data from the Central Election Commission (CEC), United Russia will be entitled to 238 seats of the total 450. This count means that the party of power has lost its constitutional majority, which it enjoyed after the 2007 election whereby it gained 315 seats.

The new State Duma will have to pass resolutions on several key economic issues. The main goal of the future parliament is to achieve a balanced budget. Former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin repeatedly said that the government would have to hike taxes after elections in order to bridge gaps in the budget. The option of raising taxes is included in the experts’ report called Strategy 2020, prepared for the government. Experts believe that it is possible to raise value-added tax (VAT) and income tax. On the other hand, members of parliament (MPs) will have to decide on the future of the social insurance tax, which was reduced to 30% from 34% for two years. Other issues on the MP’s agenda include overhauling state procurements and amending the Labor Code.

By the same token, stronger representation of opposition parties in parliament could make the economic policy more social-oriented, experts note. Decision-making will become more difficult, but the parties will pay more attention to the interests of citizens, New Economic School Professor Konstantin Sonin said. “The budget will be more irresponsible than before because the presidential administration will have to solicit the

votes of Just Russia and the Communist Party,” he said. On the other hand, financing of the Olympics construction project and various development corporations should be more manageable. “Parliament will be passing less progressive bills, but they will be better enforced,” Sonin added.

“The Duma is swerving to the left,” Boris Titov, chairman of the business union Delovaya Rossiya, said. The dominance of left-wing parties in parliament will complicate the transition from the model based on natural resources to modernization and private competition, and make it more difficult to improve investment climate. The government may encounter problems in winning parliament’s approval of a bill aimed at liberalizing criminal penalties for economic crimes, Titov suggested. “We are working to cancel the prison term for fraud, which is necessary in our view, because tens of thousands businessmen are currently behind bars for this crime. From the point of view of the left parties this notion is misguided, since they regard all businessmen as crooks.” Also, it will be difficult to push bills through parliament which aim to cut corporate taxes. “This move is necessary, because business is overwhelmed by taxes. But left-wing parties take a primitive approach, as they think that the business should pay for everything,” Titov pointed out.

Since United Russia has retained a majority, wrangling in parliament will mainly be within committees, Vladislav Kurochkin, vice president of SME organization Opora Rossii, said. The next year has in store for the country a budget crisis and the inexorable imperative to save budget funds, which will spark social discontent, he opined. “Given that parliament will have to pass unpopular resolutions next year, United Russia’s majority is a positive factor, while discussions within committees will be more productive.”

The new Duma will resemble the 2000-2003 Duma in which two ruling parties, Otechestvo and Edinstvo, failed to gain a simple majority and had to solicit votes from other party groups to pass bills, Sergey Zhavoronkov, an expert of Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, said. Other parties will gain more influence and independence. “They will have to reach agreements on more occasions especially in some regional legislatures where United Russia does have a simple majority,” Zhavoronkov explained.

Sergey Aleksashenko, director of macroeconomic studies at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, subscribes to a different opinion. The ruling party has not forfeited its majority in the State Duma and the election results will have no bearing on the passage of bills through parliament, he said.

Center for Political Technologies President Igor Bunin argued that the simple majority is not enough to pass economic resolutions and the ruling party will have to take into account the opinion of the opposition parties. “Other parties will have to be factored in, because they have public support,” he said.

Research department of RIA RosBusinessConsulting

One ruble each: Russia sells off state-owned companieshttp://rt.com/news/prime-time/strategy-2020-russia-corporations-191/

Published: 6 December, 2011, 22:35Edited: 6 December, 2011, 22:35

Radical economic re-structuring awaits Russia in the coming decade, as the country’s brightest economic minds have come up with a new development program.

Called “Strategy 2020”, the program primarily aims to reduce the government's involvement in the business and economic infrastructure.

Its authors say Russia needs to lessen government influence in what are currently the country’s major state-owned corporations. As a result, some of them will end up in private hands – for the symbolic price of one ruble.

Among the companies are major players on Russia’s economic market – VTB bank, the Russian agricultural bank, and the Russian Railroads. Even Aeroflot is reported to be on the list.

“The law restricts the privatization of corporations dealing with oil exploration, natural resources, precious metals, and aerospace,” Aleksandr Verenkov, a senior partner from the BDO Group, told RT.

The program also suggests preventing state-owned companies from branching out into fields in which they may not have expertise. Thus, the heavy machinery industry should not be dealing with agriculture, and vice versa.

“There are not too many state corporations in Russia, but they all are too big and too special,” Verenkov told RT. “On the one hand, they are directing cash flow in the right direction. On the other hand, they spoil fair competition in the market. And they are very effectively using their state power to beat the competitors – not with efficient production, but with state resources.”

The program’s authors also want a moratorium implemented on the creation of new state-owned corporations, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has already signed such a document. As for the strategy, it will be implemented in early 2012.

This is the second version of “Strategy 2020.” Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the program to be drawn up in January 2011, and shortly after, 21 working groups were created – each focusing on a specific field such as macroeconomics, healthcare, investment, and others.

That first version of the strategy, drafted in August 2011, was sharply criticized by the country’s the Audit Chamber. The auditors claimed that the strategy failed to take into account the lessons of the 2008-2010 financial crisis, lacked a systematic approach and was “too optimistic.”

Now that Putin is to run for the presidency, Strategy 2020 is being regarded as his election program, with the responsibility for its implementation on his shoulders should he become president.

Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions

Russia Stocks Drop Most in 2 Weeks on Moscow Troop Patrols, S&Phttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/russian-stocks-head-for-first-drop-in-five-days-as-oil-declines.html

QBy Denis Maternovsky - Dec 6, 2011 8:06 PM GMT+0400

Russian stocks sank the most in two weeks after Standard & Poor’s said it may cut the credit ratings of 15 euro countries and as Interior Ministry troops patrolled Moscow after election protests.

The Micex Index tumbled 4 percent to 1,457.90 by the close of trading in Moscow. OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas-export monopoly slid 4.7 percent and VTB Group, the nation’s second-biggest lender, dropped 5.7 percent. The dollar-denominated RTS Index retreated 4.7 percent to 1,485.67.

Emerging-market equities retreated today after S&P put 15 countries, including Germany and France, on watch for potential rating downgrades, curbing appetite for riskier assets in developing nations. Troops today moved across Russia’s capital in “a planned rotation,” according to a ministry press officer, after thousands of people protested election results last night in one of the largest anti-government rallies in recent years.

“Investors are concerned that this will snowball into a concerted display of mass popular dissent,” Julian Rimmer, a trader of Russian shares at CF Global Trading in London, said in an e-mail. “In a country with a history like Russia’s it’s only sensible to pay attention to developments like this, but perspective needs to be maintained.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party suffered its first election setback in a Dec. 4 parliamentary vote, winning 49.3 percent compared with 64.3 percent four years ago. The ruble sank 1.2 percent to 31.24 against the dollar, heading for its

sharpest retreat in almost a month. OAO Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, fell 4 percent, its steepest drop since Nov. 21.

Police Patrols

Police detained around 300 people after yesterday’s rally and some 2,000 servicemen and 2,000 police officers have been on duty every day as part of reinforced security measures since the election, the duty officer at the Moscow police press service said by phone.

Putin, who is seeking to switch jobs next year with President Dmitry Medvedev by running for president, may have to contend with a more fractured legislature than when he was president between 2000 and 2008.

The Micex has lost 14 percent in 2011 and trades at 5.1 times estimated earnings. That compares with a 15 percent slide for Brazil’s Bovespa (IBOV) index, which trades at 10.5 times estimated earnings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) trades at 11.1 times estimated earnings, and the BSE India Sensitive Index (SENSEX) has a ratio of 14.4.

‘Buy Into Weakness’

The Micex’s decline today is an opportunity to “buy into the weakness,” CF Global’s Rimmer said.

Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Luxembourg, the euro area’s six AAA rated countries, are among the nations being placed on “CreditWatch negative,” pending the result of a summit of European Union leaders on Dec. 9, S&P said yesterday.

“Investors collectively remain skeptical about how fixable the problems are in Europe,” said Lewis Kaufman, a Santa Fe, New Mexico-based money manager at Thornburg Investment Management, who oversees the Thornburg Developing World Fund. “There is relatively good value in a lot of blue-chip Russian stocks, but it’s very hard to quantify adverse developments in Europe and what they could mean if things go awry.”

Crude Oil

Crude for January delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange declined 32 cents to $100.67 a barrel as of 6:15 p.m. Moscow time, erasing an earlier increase of as much as 0.3 percent. Prices are up 10 percent this year.

Brent oil for January settlement rose 8 cents to $109.89 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange while Urals crude, Russia’s chief export blend, retreated 0.5 percent to $109.59. Oil and natural gas contribute about 17 percent of Russia’s gross domestic product.

OAO Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil company, declined 4.1 percent to 215.55 rubles, the biggest drop since Nov. 21. OAO Lukoil, the largest private oil producer, fell 3.3 percent to 1,671 rubles.

The ruble depreciated for a fourth day, weakening 1.1 percent to 31.2050 against the dollar. OAO Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, retreated 4.3 percent, to 86.16 rubles. VTB dropped 5.7 percent to 6.74 kopeks, the biggest decline in the Micex Index (INDEXCF) today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Denis Maternovsky in Moscow at dmaternovsky@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net

06.12.2011 / FOCUS: Russia puts measures to prevent grid executives from owning power saleshttp://www.prime-tass.com/news/our_features/

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (PRIME) -- As the Russian government uncovered an affiliation between a grid company’s top executive with power sales assets in the North Caucasus, it is seeking to spread the ban on distribution grid companies owning sales companies to their top executives as well, by obliging them to declare their assets. Analysts say they’ve never heard about such an affiliation before, noting that the revelation of such affiliations is the result of the government’s increased attention to the power sector in the pre-election period, but admit such violations could be in any Russian regions. While government officials state such affiliation leads to an increase in power prices for end consumers, analysts say the lack of competition is a more important obstacle in the power sales complex.

Sberbank may offload state stake in 2012

http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20111207105157.shtml

      RBC, 07.12.2011, Moscow 10:51:57.The state's stake in Russia's largest bank Sberbank could be divested no earlier than at the beginning of 2012, the bank's President German Gref told reporters.

      "We have no deadline, if the markets stabilize and the price of Sberbank stock goes north, we will be prepared to go ahead with the offering," he said, adding that privatization is unlikely before the end of this year.

      Earlier, Gref claimed that Sberbank would be ready to sell part of the state's stake if the stock price reaches RUB 100 (approx. USD 3.2) per share. The current price on MICEX is RUB 87.22 (approx. USD 2.8). In May, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin authorized Sberbank to sell a 7.58% minus one share stake.

The Guardian

FTSE MAKES ROOM FOR MORE RUSSIAN MINERS

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/12/07/press-digest-british-business-dec-idINL5E7N651420111207

Polymetal and Evraz, two Russian companies dominated by multibillionaire eastern European businessman, are expected to be promoted to FTSE 100 this month.

Russia's Dixy Q3 net profit at 293 mln rbls, below fcasthttp://in.reuters.com/article/2011/12/07/dixy-results-idINR4E7MG00520111207

10:56am IST

MOSCOW, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Russian food retailer Dixy posted on Wednesday a 293 million roubles ($9.36 million) net profit for the third quarter, missing market expectations.

Analysts had forecast 301 million roubles net profit against a 163 million roubles loss a year-ago.

Dixy also said earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose to 1.74 billion roubles from 531 million roubles in the third quarter of 2010, boosted by acquisition of rival Victoria. ($1 = 31.3028 Russian roubles) (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova, Editing by Lidia Kelly)

December 07, 2011 12:28

KamAZ forecasts main operations to expand 30% in 2011http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=293181

MOSCOW. Dec 7 (Interfax) - KamAZ Group (RTS: KMAZ) forecasts its main operations to increase this year by 30% in comparison with 2010, the company said in a statement.

"The production, commercial, and financial results achieved by OJSC KamAZ Group in the first 11 months have shown that the company will top 2010's results in 2011 by 30% or more for its main operations. Business development will also reach the precrisis level," the statement said.

In addition, the company said that the group sold 10.3 billion rubles worth in commercial products and services in November. KamAZ brought this figure to 87 billion rubles since the start of the year. This, recalculated for 2010 prices and conditions, was 32% over the figure for the same period of last year, the statement said.

KamAZ's total sales of trucks since the start of the year came to 39,800 units, which is almost 40% year-on-year increase. A total of 34,200 trucks were sold on the Russian market, which is a year-on-year boost of 37%.

Finished KamAZ production since the start of the year reached around 42,800 vehicle sets. In addition, a total of 46,700 engines were produced, up 30% year-on-year in January-November 2011.

Ih

(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)

Rusnano and Nippon Sheet Glass form $397 mln JVhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/russia-window-idUSL5E7N62GS20111206

Tue, Dec 6 2011

By Anastasia Teterevleva

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (Reuters) - State-owned Russian technology company Rusnano is investing in a 295 million euro ($397 million) joint venture with Japan's Nippon Sheet Glass and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to produce energy-saving glass.

The EBRD said on Tuesday that local glass maker STiS will also join the project. Energy-saving glass insulates buildings during cold weather and also protects against overheating from sunlight.

The investors said in separate press releases that they plan to construct a new plant in suburbs of Moscow close to already operating Pilkington factory, a local brand of Nippon Sheet Glass.

The EBRD said it will contribute the equivalent of 35 million euros in the joint venture capital, which, according to state-owned Rusnano, will be around 11.8 billion roubles ($382.13 million). ($1 = 30.8794 Russian roubles) ($1 = 0.7425 euros) (Writing by Andrey Ostroukh, editing by Alfred Kueppers)

Norilsk Nickel buys back $4.5bn worth of shares

http://www.rbcnews.com/free/20111207103304.shtml

      RBC, 07.12.2011, Moscow 10:33:04.Norilsk Nickel Investments has repurchased 7.71% of shares worth $4.5bn in its parent company Norilsk Nickel, the mining and metals major said in a statement.

      The buyback price was struck at $306 per ordinary share and $30.60 per ADR.

Mechel Falls in Moscow After Suspending Two Mines on Safetyhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/mechel-falls-in-moscow-after-suspending-two-mines-on-safety-1-.html

By Ilya Khrennikov and Yuliya Fedorinova - Dec 6, 2011 9:18 PM GMT+0400

OAO Mechel (MTLR), Russia’s largest producer of steel-making coal, fell the most in two weeks after it suspended work at two mines following complaints by the industrial safety watchdog.

Mechel fell 4.6 percent in Moscow today to 340 rubles a share. The company said it halted several facilities at the Lenin and New-Olzherassk mines, part of its Southern Kuzbass Coal Co. (UKUZ) unit, on orders from the Siberian branch of the safety watchdog.

Mechel resumed output at the New Olzherassk mine last month after halting it in August 2010 because coal was spontaneously getting hotter and risking catching fire, according to a Nov. 16 statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ilya Khrennikov in Moscow at ikhrennikov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net

Dependence day for Russian mobile retailerhttp://rt.com/business/news/mobile-retailer-buy-deal-119/

Published: 6 December, 2011, 14:39Edited: 6 December, 2011, 14:39

Leading Russian mobile retailer Euroset signed a deal to buy its local rival Alt Telecom, one of two remaining independent mobile retailers, for $70 million.

Euroset controls 30% of the Russian mobile market, Alt Telecom had 3% share, according to Telecom Daily data.

“Alt Telecom has no options to develop, its retail stores exist only in Moscow and in few regions of Russia”, said Viktor Loginov, analyst from Telecom Daily. “The deal allows Alt Telecom to go out of business gracefully”.

Euroset has paid a fair price for Alt Telecom as the market value of the company would be less than $100 million, he added.

Euroset has acquired 520 shops, capital assets and the trademark of Alt Telecom. The deal provides Euroset with an opportunity to increase its retail presence in the country, reports the Kommersant Daily. Euroset agreed with telecom operator VimpelCom to open 1000 branded stores in 2012. The Vimpelcom company has a 49,9 % stake of Euroset.

“The Mobile operator is boosting its role in the retail market”, said Ilya Rachenkov, analyst from the Investcafe company. “It allows mobile retailers to gain customers by providing new services”, he explained.

Experts say, consolidation in the Russian mobile market wouldn’t affect price policy as the variation of prices across stores and chains is narrow.

December 6, 2011, 5:06 PM ET

Russians See U.S. As Land Of Start-Up Funding, Investment Opportunityhttp://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2011/12/06/russians-see-u-s-as-land-of-start-up-funding-investment-opportunity/?mod=google_news_blog

By Lizette Chapman

From Mail.Ru Group’s $1 billion IPO to Yandex’s $1.3 billion public debut, Russian tech companies have had a rocking 2011. 

Government plans to create a 600 hectare-business park dubbed Skolkovo Innovation Center are taking shape just outside Moscow, with 300 start-ups already signed up and the effort attracting strategic support and $1 billion from the likes of Google, Intel, Microsoft and Cisco.

The activity is sparking interest among U.S. VCs, too—with a dozen or so venture firms, including Accel Partners, Charles River Ventures and Khosla Ventures, all visiting with the first batch of 13 Skolkovo start-ups during their October visit to Silicon Valley. Six or seven of those start-ups are now in active discussions with Silicon Valley VCs, according to Alexander Turkot, executive director of the IT Cluster, and he expects several to close funding rounds in early 2012.

Venture firms such as Accel have been investing in Russia for the past two years with deals like elite shopping club KuviVIP and online travel site Ostrovok, and say the region is packed with talent.

“We are seeing an increasing number of high-quality entrepreneurs and deal flow from the country versus 18 months ago,”  said Accel’s Sonali De Rycker. The Skolkovo companies had both deep engineering talent and a focus on disruptive innovation, she said. 

Along with DST Global, an investor in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, Russian firms like Leonid Boguslavsky’s Ru-Net Holdings are emerging as tech investors with a global appetite.

The Russian-born software engineer made an early bet on Russian versions of top American Web properties including Yandex (Google), Ozon (Amazon) and BigLine (Groupon) and put the proceeds into Ru.Net.

The fund–which includes $700 million of Boguslavsky’s own cash–is still backing Russian start-ups, but Boguslavsky is now looking to seed investments outside his terra firma. Ru-Net Holdings has set up subfunds in South East Asia, Europe and the U.S. over the past year and has invested in 10 companies outside of Russia to date. Four of those have occurred in the past three months in the U.S. through the U.S. subfund RTP Ventures.

Here is an edited version of a  conversation with him during his recent stay in San Francisco:

How did Yandex and Mail.Ru change the tech landscape in Russia?

Many people, people with investments in industrial properties and oil, see Yandex and Mail.Ru and they get excited. They see opportunity. In Russia there is a lot of talent on the technical side and the entrepreneur side.

Can you weigh in on the evolution of Skolkovo?

In general it’s good because it’s creating attention and focus for technology companies in Russia. The challenge is how to work it out in the later stages and how regular funds and VCs will see it.

From DST and Runa Capital to your own fund, it seems the Russian VC scene is starting to take shape. How do you see it?

In Russia there are much less angels and VCs than in the U.S. There is no professional angel community there. The angels do not have the same professional network they have here. There are just a few guys like us.

How involved do you like to be?

Money is not everything for me. It’s fun to work with entrepreneurs. Like with BigLine. For nine months I was deeply involved with building the company.  I was personally spending two hours a day advising them.

 What are your terms like?

I don’t like to take a controlling stake. I don’t want to be in control. I like the 20% to 40% range. Very often my term sheets are two pages.

How does your U.S. investing model differ from others you’ve established?

The model is to set up subfunds in emerging markets. In the U.S. it’s different, because it’s not emerging. It’s a technology kitchen. There’s a lot of good cooking is going on here that we want to be close to.  The goal for establishing RTP Ventures is to build an image as a co-investor and get other VCs to get to know us. We are looking to for $1 million to $10 million investments, but we’re flexible; we can also write a $50 million check.

If State Builds It, Foreign Investors Will Come 07 December 2011By Anatoly Medetsky

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/if-state-builds-it-foreign-investors-will-come/449400.html#ixzz1fpR0tMqU The Moscow Times

As if tax relief isn't alluring enough, the government's Special Economic Zones now offers new services to net international firms.

Investors no longer have to build their own facilities, but can ask Special Economic Zones to do it for them, said chief executive Oleg Kostin in an interview. The investor then rents the space.

Special Economic Zones, which is the state company managing 24 dedicated locations around the country, offers the opportunity to remove the risk for investors of wasting construction costs if the business doesn't take off — and spare them the hassle of operating the building, he said.

"Sometimes, they say it is a standard practice for them in any country around the world," Kostin said about the renting option. "For us, it's a chance to attract a large company."

Nokia Siemens Networks said the rental proposal was essential for its Russian joint venture in selecting the Tomsk zone to set up a plant. Nokia Siemens Networks has a policy to avoid ownership of real estate, chief executive for Russia, Kristina Tikhonova, said through an aide.

The joint venture, where the foreign company is majority owner, will produce telecoms equipment at the plant that opened last week, just months after the partners signed a tentative agreement in March to work together.

The rental revenues could pay for construction within eight years, Kostin said. Built to standard design, the facilities could still be good for other potential companies if the original producer pulls out of the zone.

Special Economic Zones offers the ready-made rental option in four zones where investors expressed interest: Tomsk, St. Petersburg, Alabuga in Tatarstan and Zelenograd, a town outside Moscow that's formally a district of the city.

A Russian or foreign company, if it qualifies as a "resident" of a special economic zone, can save up to 30 percent of the cost of setting up a production unit through tax relief, customs benefits and immediate access to utilities.

A council run by the Economic Development Ministry, made up of its officials and top executives from state-controlled banks and state corporations like Russian Technologies, holds the ultimate power to admit companies as residents of Russia's 24 zones if they meet conditions that include the application of advanced technology and potential to make products that replace imports or are suitable for export.

Since the inception of special economic zones in 2006, the effort has drawn 272 businesses whose declared total investment stands at 308 billion rubles, or $9.9 billion.

They are mostly Russian companies, but include such multinational corporations as Japanese tire maker Yokohama Rubber, French industrial gases producer Air Liquide, Danish construction materials manufacturer Rockwool, Swiss drugs company Novartis and the U.S. flexible display developer Plastic Logic.

Foreigners did inspire the new rent-a-plant proposal, but they generally don't get special treatment at Special Economic Zones, said Kostin, a 36-year-old former investment official at the Economic Development Ministry who assumed his new position in March.

"We have a set of requirements that is quite standard," he said. "If a Russian and a foreign company meet these conditions … they are equal in getting the entry ticket."

Russian residents prevail at the moment because they are better aware of the opportunity, Kostin said. In order to reach out to overseas companies, Special Economic Zones is promoting itself through large international consulting firms and subscribed to a Financial Times service that alerts users to corporate announcements about Russia.

"We hope that we will have many foreign companies, too," he said.

Investors won't find greater benefits anywhere else in Russia, Kostin said. Governors may offer some similar tax incentives, but unlike Special Economic Zones, they have no power to cancel customs duties and lack the federal financial prowess to build electricity and heating lines and create other services on sites, he said. The government has spent more than 45 billion rubles to develop the zones so far.

For the four zones that specialize in research and development, the government offers discounted payroll taxes. Every up-and-running special economic zone also houses offices of various government agencies, should investors need to contact them quickly.

"We believe the package of services that we can offer is unique," Kostin said.

In fact, the tax breaks, which last for at least five years, all come at the expense of regional and local budgets that normally collect the taxes on land, vehicles and corporate property.

The profit tax, which is normally 20 percent, is reduced to 15.5 percent for zone residents — but the cut comes at the expense of the regional budget. The federal government will still get its full 2 percent portion.

Governors can also slash the regional slice of the profit tax by 4 percent and reduce the corporate property tax, said Pavel Vasin, a Moscow-based associate at German law firm CMS. But they provide such incentives only if they view the investment as significant — a notion that varies from region to region, he said.

In the Moscow region, home to two research and development special economic zones, the authorities grant profit tax relief if an investor invests upward of 500 million rubles. A lower property tax comes into play if property value rises above 300 million rubles.

Industrial zones require investors to cough up at least 3 million euros ($125 million), while port zones look for 10 million euros or more.

But potential investors may opt to set up business elsewhere in Russia anyway if the consideration of being closer to their customers or suppliers outweighs the benefits of the zones, Vasin said.

"There are geographical preferences," he said. "An investor … may base his decision on logistical rather than fiscal advantages."

Air Liquide had nothing but accolades for the Alabuga industrial zone where the company launched the first phase of its 35 million euro plant last year.

"We are very happy," said Dmitry Kuznetsov, director for strategic projects at the company's Russian office. "Everything they have on paper materializes in life.

"It's not one of those initiatives that occasionally declare one thing and result in something else."

Air Liquide — !! which sells its gaseous oxygen a German-Russian fiberglass producer that is a neighbor in the Alabuga zone !! — especially valued the opportunity to connect to the electricity supply free of charge, Kuznetsov said.

Outside the zones, the price tag for this hook-up could be hundreds of millions of rubles ($3 million to $16 million) in industrial regions, where Air Liquide typically seeks to locate its energy-intensive plants to be close to customers, he said.

Exemptions from the customs duties and the value-added tax on imports reduced the costs of components imported to build the plant, he said.

Next year may see a boost in the development of special economic zones in ports and airports because of pending legislative changes, Kostin said. Among other things, the changes, in effect from Jan. 1, will allow setting up production in these zones, whereas now businesses registered there can only provide services.

Special Economic Zones Cater to Tourists, Too

Thirteen of the country's 24 special economic zones are vehicles to develop tourism. They are mostly in southern and eastern Russia.

One of their most expensive projects is a brainchild of Pyotr Shura, whose company Rusresorts wants to build a $1 billion resort near Lake Baikal, as part of the far eastern cluster of tourism zones.

Upmarket resorts in clean and picturesque areas in the east could draw tourists from China and invite stopovers by Russians traveling from the west to warm-weather destinations like Vietnam and Thailand, said Oleg Kostin, chief of Special Economic Zones.

The other cluster of tourist special economic zones seeks to turn the restive Russian Caucasus into a magnet for vacationers. Special Economic Zones partnered two other state-controlled institutions, lenders Sberbank and VEB, to create a company, called North Caucasus Resorts, that aims to develop and operate six areas in the Caucasus.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/if-state-builds-it-foreign-investors-will-come/449400.html#ixzz1fpR6tAMy The Moscow Times

Published Wednesday December 7, 2011

Forum to explore Russian agribusinesshttp://www.omaha.com/article/20111207/MONEY/712079925

By Erin GoldenWORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

How will agribusiness help Russia build a more modern, diverse economy? What unique challenges might hold back the country's agricultural producers? How can U.S. businesses get involved in Russian agriculture?

Those questions will be among the topics of discussion next week, as government and business leaders from the U.S. and Russia gather at the Hilton in downtown Omaha for a one-day Russia Agribusiness Forum. The Monday event is being hosted by the U.S.-Russia Business Council, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that provides guidance and business services to firms from both countries.

Featured speakers include U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., the chairman of the Senate delegation to the U.S.-Russia Interparliamentary Group, and Senator Vladimir Plotnikov, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federal Council Committee on Agriculture, Food Policy and Fisheries and chairman of the Association of Russian Farms and Agricultural Cooperatives. Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle will deliver closing remarks.

Executives from a handful of major U.S. agribusiness firms — among them, CLAAS North America, John Deere and Pioneer Hi-Bred — will introduce speakers or participate in panel discussions. A morning session will focus on current developments in the Russian agribusiness sector, while the afternoon's panels will consider the transformation of the industry in Russia and explore financing options for agricultural production and trade.

For more information or to register, visit the council's website. The cost is $100 for members of the U.S.-Russia Business Council and $200 for nonmembers.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1543, erin.golden@owh.com

Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)

Nord Stream restores gas supplies to Europehttp://english.ruvr.ru/2011/12/06/61686921.html

Dec 6, 2011 20:04 Moscow Time

Gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline have been restored following a short suspension earlier on Tuesday which was due to a technical failure, a source at Gazprom told the PRIME news agency.

The first section of the pipeline was launched on November 8, with an annual capacity estimated at 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas.

Its second branch is scheduled to start operating in October 2012 and is expected to double the pipeline`s annual capacity.

Apart from Russia`s Gazprom, Nord Stream is operated by Germany, France and the Netherlands.

(RIAN)

LUKOIL qualifies to bid for Norway oil licenseshttp://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL5E7N63JX20111206

Tue Dec 6, 2011 2:49pm GMT

MOSCOW Dec 6 (Reuters) - Russian oil company LUKOIL has prequalified as an operator in Norway's offshore oil zones, opening the door to licensing rounds which could add to the Russian oil company's growing international portfolio.

"LUKOIL has been prequalified as an operator," Mette Agerup, assistant director of the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, told a seminar on regulation in Moscow.

"Today there are no Russian (licenseholders) but maybe we will see LUKOIL among the licensees in the upcoming round next year," she added.

Norway hands out a round of licenses in its mature producing areas each year, she said.

Russian oil companies, especially those without state participation and therefore barred from holding major licences to drill in Russia's own Arctic waters, are expanding in foreign countries to help compensate for declining output in eastern Siberia.

TNK-BP, half owned by British major BP, has new operations in Vietnam, Venezuela and Brazil.

LUKOIL has been gradually building an upstream portfolio in Iraq and Africa, while also acquiring downstream stakes in Europe.

LUKOIL has said it is interested in a Norwegian venture, although it is not clear whether it intends to bid for licences on its own behalf. It has mentioned possible ventures with Norwegian oil company Statoil.

"We met with the president of Statoil and are in constant contact," LUKOIL President Vagit Alekperov said last week. "We will look at what the government of Norway is offering. We are interested in projects in partnership with Statoil." (Reporting by Melissa Akin)

Watchdog Checks Rosneft 07 December 2011Bloomberg

The financial markets watchdog is opening an insider-trading investigation into Rosneft's share-price increase before the oil producer formed a strategic alliance with ExxonMobil in August.

The probe will take at least six months, Interfax said Tuesday, citing an unidentified Federal Financial Markets Service official. The regulator's press service confirmed the report.

Rosneft, Russia's largest oil producer, jumped 9 percent on the MICEX exchange in Moscow in the two days leading up to the deal. The state-run company and ExxonMobil signed the agreement about an hour before the close of trading on Aug. 30. The benchmark MICEX Index gained 3.8 percent on Aug. 29 and 30.

Rosneft selected Exxon as a partner to tap the Kara Sea, a little-explored area in the Arctic that may be an extension of Russia's western Siberian oil province, after an agreement with BP collapsed. The two will also explore deep-water Black Sea deposits. In return, Exxon will offer Rosneft participation in projects in Canada, Texas, the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

Rosneft's press service didn't immediately comment. Olga Shishkina, a spokeswoman for ExxonMobil in Moscow, declined by e-mail to comment.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/watchdog-checks-rosneft/449365.html#ixzz1fpRhVhaZ The Moscow Times

PetroNeft completes Lineynoye frackinghttp://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article292748.ece

London-listed PetroNeft Resources has wrapped up a 10 well hydraulic fracturing programme at the Lineynoye oilfield on licence 61 in Russia’s Tomsk Oblast region.

Josh Lewis  06 December 2011 09:26 GMT

The programme was successfully carried out using a heli-frac crew on 10 production wells, on Pad 2, which are gradually all being brought into production.

PetroNeft said that while initial indications were encouraging, it would take several weeks to bring all of the wells online and allow them to clean up and achieve a sustainable rate.

The company plans to frack five additional wells, with two on Pad 2 and three on Pad 1, during January and February next year.

PetroNeft said output at the field was currently averaging about 2500 barrels of oil per day and expected that figure to reach its guided target of 4000 to 5000 bpd by the end of March next year, assuming the wells already brought back online maintained the expected rate of post-frack clean up achieved and the remaining wells came online at anticipated rates.

The company also revealed the Russian State Central Development Committee approved the pilot production design for the Arbuzovskoye oilfield last month.

It added procurement of long lead items to drill up to 14 new production wells and build a 10 kilometre pipeline from the Lineynoye facilities to Arbuzovskoye was already underway.

The Arbuzovskoye field has been estimated to hold proven plus probable reserves of 13.2 million barrels of oil and pipeline production is expected to start during the second half of 2012.

PetroNeft also announced it had spudded the Ledovaya-2a well, on licence 67, which is targeting oil in both the Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic intervals. The well is expected to take four to six weeks to reach total depth.

Published: 06 December 2011 09:26 GMT  | Last updated: 06 December 2011 09:26 GMT

Russia embraces Asian energy demandhttp://www.indiainfoline.com/Markets/News/Russia-embraces-Asian-energy-demand/5305477177

India Infoline News Service / 14:04 , Dec 07, 2011

Russia’s authorities hope that these new provinces will allow production to plateau at today’s levels for the next ten years.Russia’s crude production is forecast to grow nearly 1% year-on-year to 10.18 million barrels/day in 2011, strengthening further the country’s position as the world biggest producer of crude oil. However, maintaining this output, or indeed expanding it, remains problematic as the country’s traditional producing regions decline. To compensate, Moscow is focusing on the development of new areas, such as East Siberia, the country’s Far East and offshore reserves in the Arctic. Russia’s authorities hope that these new provinces will allow production to plateau at today’s levels for the next ten years. Russia is also the world’s second-biggest gas producer. Gas output is expected to reach a record 671 Bcm in 2011, up 3.1% year-on-year, breaking the previous record high of 665 Bcm achieved in 2008. According to Russia’s economy ministry, internal and international demand for gas recovered at a robust rate in the first half of the year. As a major hydrocarbons producer, Russia is also one of the world’s biggest exporters of both oil and gas, sending nearly half of its entire output to international markets, mainly Europe. But it is Asia that is the epicenter of future demand growth. Moscow is seeking to exploit the geographical proximity of its new production basins to Asia’s rapidly earlier than initially planned.

This will support Russia’s bid for ESPO blend to become a regional Asian benchmark. The grade is proving popular with refiners throughout Asia, but has also been sold into Hawaii and the US West Coast. ESPO now trades at a higher price than Urals, Russia’s main export blend, making access to the pipeline attractive to producers. Having initially traded at a discount, ESPO traded at a record high premium of $6.30/barrel to Platts front-month Dubai crude in September. ESPO crude benefits from a so-called through tariff, which is significantly lower in comparison with standard tariffs on other Russian pipelines, for example those to Europe. In the gas sector, the state-run gas monopoly Gazprom is also shifting its focus to Asia-Pacific and hopes to see the region account for 13% of its total pipeline exports by 2030. Currently all Russian pipeline gas goes to Europe. The EU will remain Russia’s main market for pipeline gas, taking more than 30% of total Russian gas exports by 2030, but “the scale of our business and projects developing markets. Eastern PipelinesIn late 2009, Russia commissioned the first 2,757-kilometer section of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline, through which it currently sends 600,000 b/d of crude oil to Asian markets: 300,000 b/d via ship from the Pacific coast and 300,000 b/d to China through a spur pipeline. ESPO supplies are to grow to 1 million b/d once the second 2,045-kilometer leg of the route is completed by end-2012, two years in the Far East is such that South Stream [a proposed gas pipeline across the Black Sea to Europe estimated to cost around $20 billion] is a mediumsized project in terms of investments,” Gazprom deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said in September. But it is LNG that will really help Russia diversify its gas export markets. Gazprom hopes to capture about 14% of the world LNG market by 2030. The company is considering the construction of new LNG capacity at the existing Sakhalin 2 project, boosting output by 5 million mt/year from 9.6 million/ mt currently. In addition, the list of new LNG facilities at various stages of planning and development includes a 7.5 million mt/year LNG plant within the giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, the 15 million mt/year Yamal LNG project in the north and a 10 million mt/year plant near Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. Gazprom sees the eastbound projects as all the more attractive because China’s demand for gas is forecast to exceed that in Europe by 2030. The com pany has intensifi ed talks on future gas supplies with China, South Korea, and Japan, among other Asian countries.  Gazprom has inked an agreement to supply 30 Bcm/year of Russian gas to China’s CNPC and hopes to agree a price formula for the gas by year’s end. However, the talks are proving difficult and the partners have already missed a July deadline for signing the final contract. Under an initial memorandum of understanding signed in 2006, the two companies agreed to build two gas pipelines, dubbed the Altai system, for shipments of 30 Bcm/year of gas from western Siberia and 38 Bcm/year from eastern Siberia. 

Another eastbound project under discussion is the supply of up to 12 Bcm/year of gas to South Korea. The talks with Seoul, which fi rst started in 2004, gained momentum this year, after Pyongyang agreed to consider the construction of a gas pipeline across North Korea to South Korea. However, the project remains fraught with political risk, owing to the diffi cult relationship between South and North Korea, as well as UN sanctions on Pyongyang as a result of its controversial nuclear program. The Fukushima nuclear disaster is also expected to increase gas demand in Japan over the long term and has already done so this year. Japan is the world’s biggest purchaser of LNG and the largest customer of Russia’s only LNG plant on Sakhalin Island. Given potential demand in Asia for both LNG and pipeline gas, Gazprom is spending billions of dollars exploring the hard to access reserves in Russia’s eastern regions and offshore Sakhalin Island in an effort to secure a resource base to supply the region. The Northern Sea RoutePossibly the most challenging new area for development is the Arctic, which Russia sees as a key area of oil and gas production growth. Moscow estimates initial recoverable resources in the region at 100 billion mt of oil equivalent, of which about 80% is gas. The Arctic, with its harsh and challenging climate, ice-covered waters and constantly changing weather, could also become a key transport route, re ducing signifi cantly voyage distances between Europe and the Pacific basin.“We intend to turn it into one of the key trade routes of international significance and scale, which will be able to compete with traditional international corridors,” Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at a forum on the Arctic in late September. This is “the shortest route between the major markets of Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions, practically one-third shorter than the traditional southern route [via the Suez canal]” and it “should compete with others in transportation costs, safety and quality,” he said. But it is easier to say than do. Establishing the Northern Sea Route as a safe, commercial maritime route requires large-scale investment in a range of challenging technologies. Safe passage requires the agreement of internationally- accepted rules and regulations concerning shipping standards and navigation; a reliable satellite-based system for monitoring ice flows and ships, and the development of ports, airports and oil spill response and rescue services all along the route. It remains unclear at the moment where the money to achieve this will come from. As a first step, Russia’s budget allows for Rb38 billion ($1.21 billion) until 2014 for the construction of three nuclear and six diesel ice-breakers for the route till 2020. The Northern Sea Route is becoming more navigable as the Arctic ice cover recedes and thins. Independent Russian gas producer Novatek last year sent the first Aframax tanker across the Arctic in what was the first ever voyage by a large vessel along the Northern Sea Route to prove that commercial navigation in the region is possible. Novatek expects to take the final investment decision for the $15-20 billion LNG project on the northern Yamal Peninsula by end-2012 and build the fi rst LNG train, with capacity of 5 million mt/year, in 2016. 

This year, a 162,000 dwt Suezmax tanker made the transit, registering two new records. “We sent the biggest tanker that has ever sailed through this route, and it passed the route faster than any other tanker previously,” Evgeny Ambrosov, an executive vice president of Russia’s biggest shipper Sovcomfl ot said in late September. The tanker made the transit through an icebound section of the route from the Novaya Zemlya island in the Arctic Ocean to Cape Dezhnev, the northeastern-most point of Eurasia on the Chukchi Peninsula, in a record seven days. The entire route from Murmansk on the Barents Sea to Thailand—the destination for the cargo of gas condensate took 26 days, at least ten days less than the time it would have taken via the traditional Suez Canal route. Novatek estimates that the use of the Northern Sea Route will save the company 10- 15% on transport costs. However, this excludes expenditure on the ice-breakers that are to take tankers through the ice-bound section of the route. Russia’s authorities appear ready to subsidize its ice-breaking services to make the route economic. The state-run Rosatom agency, the nuclear ice-breakers’ owner, has implemented more flexible service fees, making transport costs “comparable” with the costs for taking the traditional route via the Suez Canal, according to Ambrosov. Even so, passage is only likely to be possible for between four and six months of the year.  Internal ChallengesHowever, in addition to the push into more remote areas, Russia’s oil and gas industry faces another challenge closer to home. According to analysts at UBS, “Whatever the global economic situation is, there are some critical points in Russia’s internal policy, and first of all lack of confidence that the authorities are able to maintain stable rules of the game for any reasonable period of time.” The stability of the business environment is crucial for new projects that unlike the declining old fields are mainly located in remote, undeveloped regions, requiring massive investments in infrastructure and cutting-edge technology. “The high tax burden is not as crucial as stability; give us at least five years of stability,” a top-ranked official within a western oil major told government representatives recently at a roundtable. Based on past practice, even if an agreement on a project’s fiscal terms is reached, it cannot be relied upon to persist as the government has shown a willingness to change the terms if it needs to raise more money. Government expenditure remains heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues. The business climate is also suffering from noticeably increasing corruption, bureaucracy, selective justice and high and often ineffective state involvement in the economy, as well as constantly changing regulations. But the potential still outweighs the risk. There is also clear evidence of improved investor sentiment toward the Russian oil and gas sector as increasing number of foreign majors are willing to invest. Russia still offers lower risks and “a safer environment than

a number of other oil and gas producing countries,” France’s Total CEO Christophe de Margerie said in April, referring to the recent upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa. Total bought a 12.09% stake in Novatek in April and is currently finalizing the purchase of a 20.5% stake in Novatek’s Yamal LNG project. Novatek is likely to invite at least two more foreign partners to Yamal LNG, with the likes of Shell, ConocoPhillips, Exxon- Mobil and investors from Asia and the Middle East, including Qatar, said to have expressed interest. Moreover, in August, ExxonMobil teamed up with Russia’s biggest oil producer Rosneft to develop offshore reserves in Russia’s Arctic and southern Black Sea. The partnership should also see Rosneft take part in some of ExxonMobil projects in the US and other countries. Rosneft sealed the deal, after a similar deal with BP, which included a $16 billion share swap, failed, owing to a confl ict between BP and its Russian shareholders in the TNK-BP joint venture. In addition, Russia’s Bashneft is considering extending an invitation to India’s ONGC to participate in the development of its giant Trebs and Titov oil project in northwestern Timan-Pechora region. ONGC is also discussing the possible purchase of a 25% stake in Bashneft. Greater cooperation with international majors means that Russian companies can share the exploration risk and gain precious experience in developing hard-to-access reserves. It will also help Russia’s oil companies expand internationally as the agreements with foreign companies often envisage joint projects in third countries. But the presence of a foreign partner is not always a guarantee of success, according to analysts with Renaissance Capital bank, who note lengthy delays to the Shtokman gas project in the Barents Sea being undertaken by Gazprom, Total and Statoil and the failed strategic partnership between Lukoil and ConocoPhillips. In February, ConocoPhillips completed the sale of its entire 20% stake in privately-owned Lukoil, which it had owned since 2004, because the US major decided the “better opportunities” in Russia were reserved for staterun companies Gazprom and Rosneft. Capital-intensive projects, for which Russian and foreign companies combine their efforts, need to win government support and secure special tax incentives.  Under the current tax regime virtually all offshore projects are unattractive for development. Although the government has signaled that it is ready to provide the necessary support, it remains to be seen if these intentions will be realized, and whether they will be sustained. Even with Russia’s vast energy resources and geographical proximity to the world’s fastest growing energy markets, many questions remain over the speed and scale of development of the country’s more remote hydrocarbon resources.  Source: Platts Insight. 

Gazprom

Checks of Gazprom subsidiaries were objective - Mr Guntherhttp://www.steelguru.com/russian_news/Checks_of_Gazprom_subsidiaries_were_objective_Mr_Gunther/239617.html

Wednesday, 07 Dec 2011Interfax cited Mr Gunther Oettinger European Commissioner for Energy as saying that Audits and checks of Russian gas giant Gazprom subsidiaries by the Eurocommission were implemented in an objective fashion.He said that "The experts in antimonopoly rules carried them the audits out with a high level of objectivity."

It was earlier reported that representatives of the Eurocommission carried out inspections at the offices of Gazprom's buyers and its associated companies in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of September.

The raids were carried at Gazprom Germania GmbH, E.ON Ruhrgas and RWE (Germany), PGNiG, EuRoPol Gas SA (Poland), Vemex LLC (Czech Republic), OMV, GWH Gashandel GmbH (Austria), Overgas Inc. AD (Bulgaria), Panrusgas Co. (Hungary), Latvijas Gaze JSC (Latvia), Eesti Gaas AS (Estonia), Lietuvos dujos AB (Lithuania).

Wintershall Sees North Sea Asset Swap With Gazprom Next Yearhttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/wintershall-sees-north-sea-asset-swap-with-gazprom-next-year.html

By Anna Shiryaevskaya - Dec 6, 2011 12:38 PM GMT+0400

BASF SE (BAS)’s Wintershall AG unit will complete talks on swapping some of its assets in the North Sea for two Siberian deposits belonging to OAO Gazprom next year.

“The assets to be swapped with Gazprom will basically have the same value,” Anna Bungarten, a spokeswoman at the Kassel, Germany-based company, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The negotiations for a legally binding agreement are still going on and will be finalized next year.”

Gazprom, Russia’s gas-export monopoly, expects to get 50 percent of oil and gas fields in the southern part of the North Sea as part of the swap. Wintershall will get 25 percent plus one share in blocks 4 and 5 of the Achimov formation in the Urengoy field, with an option to raise its stake to 50 percent.

Wintershall has 25 platforms for natural gas in the southern North Sea belonging to the Netherlands, and one each in the U.K. and Germany. The company is expanding its presence in the U.K., where it owns 20 licenses, and in Denmark, Germany, and Norway. Details on which projects Gazprom will join haven’t been disclosed.

Wintershall may double gas production at the Achimov formation after the asset swap with Gazprom, company spokesman Nicholas Neu said in August.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Shiryaevskaya in Moscow at ashiryaevska@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

Gazprom Neft may enter Elephant after force majeure liftedhttp://www.prime-tass.com/news/0/%7B51BE4672-56F7-4BD3-AD3B-1328D5272786%7D.uif

MOSCOW, Dec 6 (PRIME) – Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Russia’s gas giant Gazprom, may carry out its option to enter Elephant oil project in Libya within a year after force majeure is lifted in the African country, Gazprom Neft’s Project Manager Dmitry Borisov was quoted Tuesday by Gazprom magazine as saying.

“After our partners inform us that the current force-majeure regime is over, we have a year to carry out our option to buy from Eni 33% stake in the consortium, which controls 50% in Elephant project, for U.S. $163 million,” Borisov said.

On September 16, Gazprom signed the option with Italy’s Eni to buy a 33% stake in the Elephant project, replacing a previous U.S. $170 million deal signed in February but suspended in April after a civil war in the African oil-rich state broke out.

End

06.12.2011 20:52

Shale gas makes Statoil uncertain about Shtokmanhttp://www.barentsobserver.com/shale-gas-makes-statoil-uncertain-about-shtokman.4995495-16178.html

2011-12-06 Norwegian shareholder in the giant Shtokman gas project Statoil still sees challenges before making a final investment decision.

- Development of shale gas in the US gives a further development of the Shotkman project new challenges, said Head of Statoil in Russia Jan Helge Skogen to Dow Jones Newswires, according to e24.

According to Skogen the Shtokman project is an extremely large investment and a decision is becoming more difficult to make as shale gas production puts on speed:

- The gas market in Europe is challenging, and the main reason for this is the shale gas revolution in the US. It has had an enormous impact on the global gas and LNG industry, Skogen said.

This statement comes as the project owners are waiting for the necessary tax relieves from the Russian Government. Statoil has several times expressed impatience with the Russian Government’s lack of decision when it comes to fiscal relief for the Shotkman project in the form of discounted rates of mineral extraction tax and gas export duty.

The board of Gazprom-led Shtokman Development, in which Norway's Statoil and France's Total are junior partners, must meet before the end of the year to take the final decision on investments in the multibillion-dollar project, which would launch full-scale development of the 3.9 trillion cubic meter Barents Sea field.

Last week a Finance Ministry official said the tax regime for the Shtokman gas field is unlikely to be spelled out in time for a final investment decision. The State Duma adjourned for the Dec. 4 elections, meaning that no consideration of possible changes to the tax regime applying to the multibillion-dollar project is possible this year.

Text: Trude Pettersen