From [TBC] To The Polar Lands - Rolling Russia / "Near Abroad" News Thread

the bag helps add to the effect

The TurkStream gas pipeline has been suspended, for obvious reasons:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34995472

Suspect it's too big not to go forward after an appropriate delay though. Turkey needs gas and Russia probably needs to sell it to someone.

Ukraine is having great fun trying to stop Dmytro Firtash coming back. He's an oligarch who was arrested in Austria on a U.S. warrant that was dismissed by the Austrian courts as politically motivated. It was thought he'd fly back on a charter plane so Ukraine banned all charter planes from entering the country. He's not charged with anything domestically so the Interior Minister was reduced to stationing the neo-Nazi Azov militia on the tarmac at Borispol to dissuade him from taking a regular plane.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/02/ukrainian-billionaire-cancels-trip-home-after-threat-of-arrest

I'll be there tomorrow so I hope they have cleared off.

Biden's over here at the moment trying to gee up the Rada in the fight against corruption:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/biden-warns-ukraine-backsliding-corruption-35640048

The message boils down to 'the international community has bent over backwards to help Ukraine so don't fuck it up again'.

Slightly awkward that Hunter Biden is on the board of a company run by a guy who stole $23m from the state and whose prosecution the current authorities have been aggressively stalling.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainians-see-conflict-in-bidens-anticorruption-message-1449523458

It's the crucial message to send, though whether it'll have any impact remains to be seen.

Khodorkovsky officially charged with two murders from 1998.

One side says it is because he has refused to stay out of politics following his release, another that he killed loads of people and deserves to pay for it. Both are probably correct.

The Ukrainian Parliament's war on its own dignity continues with gusto.

http://i.imgur.com/HO4eqg8.jpg?1

^^ highlight from this round of "mass brawl in the Rada". That's the PM getting manhandled.

Full fight on Youtube, of course:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/sCsnSuf5vaQ

These guys are all in the same coalition.

http://i.imgur.com/gUODdyP.jpg?1

Beautiful shot.

The guy trying to grapple Yatseniuk is Oleh Barna - a member of the President's party.

Interior Minister Avakov throws water in Saakashvili's face, apparently on the basis that he was 'hysterical' in accusing Yatseniuk + co of corruption and the only other option would have been to punch him.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/15/ukrainian-minister-throws-water-in-odessa-governors-face

MP Mustafa Nayyem wrote on his Facebook page: “This hell will keep going until Poroshenko states his position. A governor can’t accuse the prime minister of corruption and keep his post! Or if he does, it means either he is telling the truth, or people are scared of him, or they are using him.”

He added that in the case of Saakashvili, it appeared the president was using him, and the prime minister was scared of him.

Meanwhile if you want to sum up everything that is wrong with Russia in two news stories:

Alex Navalny reveals allegations that the country's top prosecutor is involved in a criminal conspiracy extending from high financial fraud to the massacre of a family in the sticks:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35044224

Alex Navalny reveals that his opposition bloc will be led at the next election by Mikhail Kasyanov:

http://www.rferl.mobi/a/russia-kasyanov-leading-opposition-elections/27422618.html

Kasyanov is universally known as "Misha 2%" thanks to his policy of taking a personal commission on every corrupt deal passing through government when he was Prime Minister. Idk why anyone would bother voting for any party.

sounds like they're in a strong position to resist russian challenges to ukrainian sovereignty.

Pretty much the only thing that they can do in a divided nation is try to convince people who didn't buy in to the overthrow of the previous government that they are competent technocrats who will improve quality of life and, as you can see, they're absolutely nailing that right now. Perversely, Saakashvili, who is a corrupt, stupid megalomaniac, in addition to not being Ukrainian, appears to be the most respected politician in a lot of national polls. He at least gives the impression that he wants reform and isn't beholden to the same oligarchs who have been running the country behind the scenes since independence.

Do you have any opinions on Anna Bikont, SV? Only asking because I just bought her well received book about the Jedwabne pogrom and thought you might have some take on it.

Haven't read any of her stuff yet but I've heard a lot of good things from people I trust. There's no doubt in my mind that the central idea of her book is correct.

Thanks. I'm glad I spent the money then.

https://www.rt.com/news/327907-poroshenko-economist-putin-photoshop/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35581708

"The bill would make it illegal to say that Poland "took part, organised or was co-responsible for the crimes of the Third Reich"

Fair enough as long as long as that doesn't also apply to the numerous Polish led massacres that occurred without any Nazi presence or coercion.

The omens don't look good:

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.703568

They are looking at stripping Jan Gross of his Order of Merit for his Jedwabne book to send a message that he is "an enemy of Poland".

Poroshenko has finally lost patience with PM Yatseniuk and the Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and told both to resign, threatening to dissolve the Rada if they don't.

They've both been almost universally loathed for a long time but the trigger is the resignation of Aivaras Abromavicius, who had been brought in from Lithuania as a clean pair of hands to be Minister of Economy and Trade, and the Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko this week. Both had said there is no point trying to work for reform as corruption is too entrenched and senior figures within the government were blocking any attempts at normalising the economy.

In the grand scheme of things Poroshenko is probably also one of those senior figures blocking meaningful reform but depending on who he replaces them with, getting rid of them could be a very positive step.

Yatseniuk has survived a vote of no confidence so remains as PM. 2 members voted in favour of him, 194 voted against, but they didn't get the 226 they required to boot him out. This is partly because the Opposition Bloc (broadly pro-Russian) all abstained. Yatseniuk is wildly anti-Russian but he's so widely disliked that having him there makes everyone else in government look bad by association.

On the subject of Poland's growing right wing

https://twitter.com/gullivercragg/status/700017077323767808

and a useful long read from The Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/16/conspiracy-theorists-who-have-taken-over-poland

Many find the Law and Justice phenomenon utterly bemusing. Although still a relatively poor nation by western European standards, by any objective measure Poland’s recent history is one of triumph. It has the most successful and dynamic economy of any former communist country. After centuries of occupation and partition, Poland is now an independent state anchored in western political, economic and security institutions such as the EU and Nato. Poles have never been as prosperous and secure in more than 1,000 years of existence, and they now enjoy individual and collective rights their ancestors could only dream of.

And yet a significant minority of Poles believe that Poland and Polishness remain subject to foreign control and malign internal forces.

This is true to some extent but ignores the huge rise in the cost of living that is driving a lot of the disaffection with mainstream parties.

The madness continues. This is why PiS have been keen to stuff the institute of national remembrance with their own ppl.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-19/rewriting-history-in-warsaw-turns-walesa-legend-into-a-spy-story

Ramzan is stepping down!

http://uatoday.tv/politics/leader-of-chechnya-kadyrov-unexpectedly-says-time-has-come-to-step-down-600103.html

Nobody really knows what is going on with him so it could be anything from Putin pushing him out as a liability (timed with the anniversary of the Nemtsov assassination) or bringing him in closer to take a major role in Moscow. Alternatively, he might just want more time to play in the autumn leaves, cradle ducklings or dress up as a medieval knight.

Yatsenyuk is still clinging on to his role as PM but it's being strongly rumoured he will be gone this week and replaced by either Natalie Jaresko, the Finance Minister (who is American but has been resident in Ukraine for 10+ years) or, amazingly, Leszek Balcerowicz, the former deputy PM of Poland who has no obvious link to Ukraine at all. Balcerowicz was responsible for Poland's 'shock therapy' reforms in the 90s.

U.S. authorities are saying Mikhail Lesin, a very close ally of Putin who died last year, was killed by blunt force injuries.

http://sputniknews.com/world/20160311/1036099700/lesin-died-blunt-force-head-injuries.html

Background: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/the-mysterious-death-of-the-man-behind-putins-media-machine/548764.html

The Lesin business is a good, old-fashioned mystery.

What we know for sure is that he was Putin's closest media advisor and played a key role in bringing his influence to bear on the Russian press. In 2013 he was appointed as head of the media arm of Gazprom but quit a year later following an argument with the head of one of Russia's main liberal news outlets about an editor he wanted fired. He had spent most of the time since at his home in California but was in DC in early November attending an event held by another oligarch, Pyotr Aven. At some point, he was reported to have been found dead in his hotel room. RT, the station he helped found, and the Russian Embassy announced he had died of heart failure after a long illness. Last week the autopsy results appeared to show that he had sustained blunt force trauma, though the cause of death is still open.

There are dozens of conspiracy theories circulating, the main ones being:

Lesin did actually die of a heart attack and the U.S. is just trying to stir things up, or the medical examiners are mistaken
Lesin was murdered by Putin
Lesin was murdered by Kadyrov
Lesin was murdered by the CIA
Lesin was murdered by another oligarch he owed money to
Lesin faked his own death to escape a potential criminal charge in the U.S.
Lesin is in witness protection and will give evidence for the FBI against parties unknown

Adding weight to the idea that he might not be dead, his email account appears to have been accessed weeks after he died and there is a border control record of him 'leaving the U.S.' in mid-December. Apparently, this isn't uncommon, though, and people who bought return tickets are quite regularly listed as having exited the country even if they haven't due to admin errors.

There was a short program about Kharms on R4 the other day. They were reading some ordinary tales of everyday violence and murder from some contemporary Russian tabloid and showing how if you append "And that's just about it" on, they actually would pass as Kharms' own work.

all of putin's enemies to be pushed into a pit

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/19/passenger-jet-crashes-on-landing-in-russian-city-of-rostov-on-don

Gah! I use FlyDubai quite regularly and they are a pretty good airline. Looks like it was a problem with landing rather than anything more sinister.

http://www.factmag.com/2016/03/19/i-ran-the-official-record-store-soviet-azerbaijan

That's great!

Nadiya Savchenko, the most high-profile Ukrainian POW held by Russia, has been found guilty of involvement in the deaths of two journalists.

Background: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35860038

She has taken on the aura of Joan of Arc for Ukrainian nationalists despite some very dodgy connections and plausible involvement in war crimes. The Russian trial (which almost certainly only came about because she was illegally taken over the border) has been a farce, though, and in violation of all sorts of international norms. This could potentially lead to a new round of sanctions.

Karadžić has been found guilty of numerous war crimes. Was found not guilty of genocide in regions but guilty of genocide in Srebrenica specifically.

Kadyrov has decided he rather likes running his own fiefdom and will stay on after all.

https://www.rt.com/politics/337202-putin-backs-kadyrovs-candidacy-in/

It looks like he was just mooting the idea of leaving to get Putin to come out and back him in public.

There has been understandable outrage from pro-reform outlets like Hromadske and the Kyiv Post about Poroshenko not just entrenching corruption but actively fucking with the people dedicated to fighting it. Two former members of his party who were scrutinising the actions of oligarchs he is allied with are being kicked out of the Rada and the office of the Prosecutor General launched a raid on the offices of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau on Friday:

http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/critical-lawmakers-to-be-expelled-from-parliament-after-exposing-corruption-410735.html

Kyiv Post has traditionally been sympathetic to Poroshenko so when they start floating the "worse than Yanukovich" line, it's not glib propaganda. It's hard to see how the U.S. and EU can fight this without turning off the money tap, which would carry negative repercussions elsewhere - not least the prospect of default.

A large majority of voters in the Dutch referendum on ratifying the EU trade deal with Ukraine have rejected the idea:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35976086

Many commentators in Ukraine are now wondering whether Kiev has done enough to counter the No campaign, whose efforts included the distribution of free waffles in wrappers with slogans urging the Dutch to vote against the agreement.

Obvs can't compete with free waffles. The referendum didn't really have much to do with Ukraine in the grand scheme of things. It was the first opportunity anti-EU voters had to test out a new law requiring a vote to be called on anything that garnered 300k petition signatures. The negative stories coming out of Kyiv about corruption, homophobia, etc probably didn't help but there's a fairly solid chance they would have lost anyway just on the strength of the EU protest vote.

This story about the murder of Yuriy Grabovskiy, a lawyer who defended everyone from neo-Nazis to Russian separatists - essentially unpopular causes who struggled to get anyone to touch their cases with a bargepole - was horrific.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/06/the-mystery-of-the-gay-jewish-defense-lawyer-murdered-in-ukraine.html

The degree of organisation - including taking his mobile phone to Sharm-el-Sheikh after his kidnapping and posting photos from the beach to his Facebook timeline - points a lot of people towards some kind of state actor being involved.

yatsenyuk resigning??

https://twitter.com/thomaswatkins/status/720325821358084096/

Yatsenyuk going is ostensibly a good thing but the critical issue is who comes after him. It looks like Groysman has just about managed to get the support he needs to form a new government but he is the most establishment pick imaginable and it is almost certain that most of the people seen as reformers in the west will either refuse to work with him or be pushed out. Natalie Jaresko is already out.

The Russian airforce buzzes US warships pretty frequently in the Baltic and Black Sea. Russia obviously argues that putting ballistic missile defense enabled warships in the Baltic and Black Seas is a provocation in itself but it is very easy to imagine a fighter crashing in to one while showing off and all hell breaking loose.

Groysman’s Jewishness is not very unusual, even for a mayor and senior politician in Ukraine, where 360,000 Jews live. But his openness about it was not customary in a country where anti-Semitism and decades of Communist repression once made it undesirable for politicians to be seen as too Jewish, said the local rabbi, Shaul Horowitz.

Last year, his reputation as an honest and effective administrator earned Groysman the title of speaker of the Ukrainian parliament before Thursday's vote that made him the first openly Jewish person to hold the country’s second highest post and, at 38, the youngest person to have the job.

Josef Zissels, a leader of the Vaad organization of Ukrainian Jews, pointed to Groysman’s ascent in politics as proof of the absence of serious anti-Semitism in Ukraine. Russia regularly points to the country’s alleged anti-Semitism to justify its conflict with Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea.

“Clearly, Groysman’s nomination shows the opposite,” Zissels said of the claims.

http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/1.714378

Endeavoring to jump-start his city’s economy, Groysman has made use of his ties in Israel. He has family in the city of Ashdod, which his 69-year-old father, Boris, visits regularly. In 2012, Groysman welcomed Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman to Vinnytsia for the opening of a state-of-the-art medical diagnostic center that Israel built there.

That project demonstrated Groysman’s knack for using his broad network to meet the needs of his constituents and partners, according to one Ukrainian official who spoke to JTA under condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to speak to the media.

kinda amazing to me that the ukraine now has an openly [proud] jewish PM.

Yes, it is a negative appointment overall but that is definitely a positive. Fradkov, who has already been PM of Russia, is sometimes talked up as a successor to Putin but I think he is less openly religious.

The Czech Republic is rebranding as Chechnya Czechia and has put up a website to explain in great detail why this is not stupid:

http://www.go-czechia.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36090882

The Hague award of $50bn in compensation to three Yukos shareholders has been overturned. Russia signed but never implemented the charter they were claiming under and argued, correctly imo, that the business was never acquired in a legal manner to begin with.

The US-based Turkish Institute for Progress is putting the efforts of all other genocide deniers to shame atm. There was a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal earlier in the week, followed by skywriting over the Statue of Liberty plugging their website and now they're flying Turkish flags over the Armenian memorial services in LA.

https://mobile.twitter.com/natashavc/status/724335286965014528

I'm sure Obama - as the highest profile genocide denier - won't be losing any sleep over such foul offence against genocide victims on his own patch.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/upload/photos/large/2007_05/2007_05_24/front_2.jpg

This is kind of nuts:

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/78496

A bus was bombed in Yerevan last night, killing two people. This is in the week of the genocide remembrance, with various international figures in town, and obviously shortly after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflagration, so the assumption a lot of people made was that it was Armenia's first terrorist attack in recent memory, with Turkish or Azeri nationalists to blame. It looks like it was just a guy who wanted to blow up his parents and accidentally killed himself on the way there.

The Turkish / Russian divorce seems to be getting even more bitter:

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/78741

Erdogan has called the Black Sea 'almost a Russian lake' and has urged NATO to create a rival 'Black Sea Fleet'.

The big news in Ukraine at the moment is that Poroshenko cancelled his trip to the anti-corruption conference in London at 24 hours notice so he could stay behind and push the Rada into appointing his friend Yury Lutsenko (who has a conviction for embezzlement and no law degree) as Prosecutor General. This hasn't worked yet as they rejected an amendment to the law requiring the Prosecutor General to have the appropriate qualifications but efforts are ongoing.

long interview with pevear/volokhonsky on translating, russian:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6385/the-art-of-translation-no-4-richard-pevear-and-larissa-volokhonsky

https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/status/730701444823826432

Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian pilot elevated to Joan of Arc status when she was arrested (or kidnapped) for alleged participation in the murder of Russian journalists and given a transparently unfair trial over the border, has been released today.

She's being swapped with two Russians arrested for alleged participation in separatist activities in Ukraine. This was always more or less inevitable but will be a huge deal in Kyiv - expect processions, etc.

Ukraine claims to have foiled an anti-Muslim / antisemitic terrorist plot targeting Euro 2016 in France.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/06/ukraine-detained-french-citizen-plotting-euro-2016-attacks

A man was caught trying to cross from Ukraine into Poland with 125kg of TNT, 100 detonators, RPGs and various other hardware he'd picked up in Eastern Ukraine. Although his identity hasn't been formally announced, he's apparently a former livestock inseminator / farmhand who went to fight for an extreme-right, pro-Ukrainian militia. If true, and the French seem to be taking a while to confirm the story, it would be the first example of a foreign fighter in a Ukrainian militia planning attacks abroad.

It goes both ways, though, as the recent profile of the pro-Russian militia leader, Igor Strelkov, in the Guardian shows:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/05/russias-valiant-hero-in-ukraine-turns-his-fire-on-vladimir-putin

The big unknown is how influential Russia's own militaristic irregulars will be on domestic politics and how they'll seek to make that influence felt. It has often been said that the biggest threat to the current government is more likely to come from the extreme right or the extreme left than centrist 'liberals' and Ukraine has been a fairly effective way for them to network and gain a profile.

he's apparently a former livestock inseminator / farmhand not to read too much into this but there is a weird kind of synchronicity that someone so intimately involved in the insemination / reproduction of animals should have such intense opinions about human populations, presumably miscegenation, etc.

http://i.imgur.com/WVJGKG0.png

Certainly looks like a deep thinker.