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

Radek Sikorski apparently told Politico that Putin had offered to partition Ukraine with Poland in a meeting with Donald Tusk in Moscow in 2008.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/20/us-ukraine-crisis-poland-sikorski-idUSKCN0I92A720141020

He's currently backtracking and getting rinsed by his own Prime Minister:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/polands-sikorski-under-fire-over-russia-interview/2014/10/21/d2d4ef24-5932-11e4-9d6c-756a229d8b18_story.html

Looks like the Russia / Ukraine gas deal has stalled. The price has been agreed but Ukraine simply doesn't have any money to pay either outstanding debts or for winter deliveries.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/22/uk-ukraine-crisis-gas-idUKKCN0IA16V20141022

Russia has said the EU should cover immediate costs, the EU isn't particularly keen. I was discussing this with a Ukrainian colleague the other day, someone fully behind the move towards closer ties with Western Europe, and we both came to the conclusion that the EU had vastly understimated how much money it would cost to bring Ukraine out of Russia's orbit. If the intention was to rebuild the country's economic and financial structure to ensure it wasn't predominantly reliant on Russia in the future and could, one day, be a candidate country for membership, there needs to be an international commitment to supporting that with hundreds of billions of Euro. Weaselling out of offering €2bn to keep the lights on this winter isn't a good sign any real effort will be made to follow through on the hints and half promises made earlier in the year. Ultimately, the EU probably can't afford to back Ukraine properly and is justifiably concerned about where a lot of the money would go if it did.

"from the southern seas to the Polish lands" amirite guys

sv what do you think of kaspaov

*kasparov*

Not a fan. I think he's broadly sincere but extremely naive. On paper a lot of his proposals have sounded reasonable in the past but his alignment with US neocons and various dubious oligarchs have always given the impression that he's being used as a palatable front for much more sinister interests. He has become increasingly hysterical in his rhetoric in recent years too. The Other Russia concept of a broad anti-Putin alliance spanning the whole political spectrum was interesting for a while but at this stage he's just an irrelevance playing to a Western gallery. He doesn't even have any real support from Russian liberals. Navalny is a more significant figure these days.

If the exit polls are to be believed, Poroshenko has done much worse than expected and Yatseniuk much better.

БПП (23%), "НАРОДНЫЙ ФРОНТ"(21,3%), "САМОПОМИЧ"(13,2%), ОБ (7,6%), РАДИКАЛЬНАЯ ПАРТИЯ(6,4%), "СВОБОДА"(6,3%), "БАТЬКИВЩИНА"(5,6%) НАЦ ЭП

Real success for the Samopomich party too. Lyashko's Radical Party was polling at around 12% previously, so to see them take only half of that is a relief. Timoshenko polling behind Svoboda looks like total humiliation.

Hopefully this will mean a fairly stable Poroshenko / Yatseniuk coalition that doesn't need to draw support from the further-right.

Should probably post that in English, really:

БПП (23%) - Blok Petro Poroshenko (centre-right, pro-European, nationalist) - party of the current President.

"НАРОДНЫЙ ФРОНТ"(21,3%)- People's Front (hard-right, pro-European, nationalist) - party of former PM Arseniy Yatseniuk. Previously closer to Poroshenko but turned increasingly to the right as the relationship faltered.

"САМОПОМИЧ"(13,2%) - Samopomich (Christian Conservative, pro-European, nationalist) - effectively a regional party with a lot of supporters in the West of the country. Hanna Hopko, who headed their party list, is one to watch out for in the future, she was very active in the protests and has picked up a lot of attention internationally. Second on the list was Semen Semenchenko who was the head of the anti-separatist Donbass Battalion militia.

ОБ (7,6%) - Opposition Block (conservative, pro-Russian) - disorganised remnant of the Party Of The Regions, previously the largest party in Ukraine.

РАДИКАЛЬНАЯ ПАРТИЯ(6,4%) - Radical Party (far-right, pro-European, nationalist) - wildcard party led by Oleh Lyashko, an antisemitic vigilante nutcase.

"СВОБОДА"(6,3%) - Svoboda (neo-Nazi, nationalist)

"БАТЬКИВЩИНА"(5,6%) - Bat'kivshina (conservative, pro-European, nationalist) - Yulia Timoshenko's party. Seems to have completely collapsed.

Turnout was around 40% nationally, though as low as 16% in Odessa.

http://i.imgur.com/IfZYfc2.png

Anyone interested can keep track of the results as they come in here:

http://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vnd2014/wp300pt001f01=910.html

With a third of the vote counted, Yatseniuk's party is actually fractionally in front of Poroshenko's, though to all intents and purposes, it's a dead heat.

good luck ukraine

Still only 72% of ballots counted but it looks like the proportion of the Fascist vote going to Lyashko was underestimated and Svoboda might just miss the 5% threshold for PR representation as a result. They are at 4.7% at the moment.

Positives, if things stay as they, are would be that between them, the three main parties should be able to form a stable government in the short term. The worst case scenario of Lyashko getting 15% and getting to act as kingmaker has been avoided. Svoboda will probably miss out on PR seats. Timoshenko faces at least a couple of years in the wilderness. There are a few interesting new faces (Mustafa Nayem, Hanna Hopko, etc). Yatseniuk's rep as a safe pair of hands might mean the EU is more likely to open the purse strings if he is PM.

Negatives are zero representation from parties that can credibly be called liberal, progressive or leftist. No parties that can credibly claim to bridge ethnic gap. Only voices for Russian Ukrainians are the dregs of the party run out of town (meaning most had nobody worth voting for, and didn't bother). Nobody to act as a break on the rush to IMF austerity. Approx 14% of the vote for Fascist parties. Two of the six parties explicitly controlled by oligarchs, at least three of the remaining four covertly controlled by them (not sure about Samopomich but wouldn't be surprised). No sign of grass roots politics taking hold.

Despite his recently discovered appreciation of WW2 war criminals, Poroshenko is probably the closest thing to a European moderate and losing so much ground to Yatseniuk isn't good news either.

kinda lol but mostly sad

RT is going to launch a dedicated UK channel this week:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/28/kremlin-rt-uk-news-channel-russia-today?CMP=twt_gu

Not a huge amount of bespoke programming but they've apparently been spending a lot on recruitment so it's likely to grow. No doubt my dad, who watches it religiously for some reason, will be thrilled. If the price of oil keeps dropping the spending on propaganda might scale back, though.

Balkanist has been running some great cultural content recently, particularly about turbofolk in Serbia. They're going to do a horror film supplement for Halloween in the next day or two as well.

http://balkanist.net/

RT is kinda fascinating as a repository of stuff which would otherwise never make it onto television in any semi serious form but is instead lent the authoritative news-channel-sheen. max keiser flatly explaining to russell brand how a newly independent scotland should adopt bitcoin as its currency and there's not even really a hint that there might be another credible view

RT guy on R4 just now not really doing a good job of selling it

rt >>>>> r4

no, come on, you can't seriously be comparing the craven and mendacious propaganda arm of an authoritarian government with Russia Today ho ho ho

That's what the RT guy said

Kyiv's oldest and best cinema, Zhovten, burned down last night in what's thought to have been an arson attack.

http://www.kyivpost.com/content/kyiv/kyivs-oldest-cinema-burns-370001.html

It had been the subject of an ongoing land dispute but the suspicion is that it's linked to the fact it was showing Mario Fanfani's Les Nuits d'Ete as part of an LGBT-friendly film festival.

cool that ukraine has detached itself from the corrupt, bigoted, authoritarian Russian sphere of influence tho

Russia / Ukraine deal on gas has been finalised with the EU acting as guarantor. Someone has come up with $3bn from somewhere to cover old debts and down payment. Means the heating will stay on through the winter, which is great news.

Quid/Ag Moscow style

http://russia-insider.com/en/business_society/2014/10/31/10-25-10am/oligarchs_daughter_shares_priceless_tips_how_manage_armies?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The number of people who say they'd vote for Putin again if there was an election tomorrow has dipped below 50% for the first time since the Ukraine crisis started - possibly a hint that there are concerns about sanctions hitting the economy.

http://rt.com/politics/200159-putin-rating-september-peskov/

It's still substantially higher than the 26% he was polling earlier in the year and with Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party in second place (with 7%) it's not exactly a sign of greater plurality.

This guy has just been made Chief Of Police in Kyiv

http://i.imgur.com/qtKJFsR.jpg

Note the insignia on his shirt.

http://i.imgur.com/YFYCBLx.jpg

He's Deputy Commander of the neo-Nazi Azov militia.

Neither of the two main parties are Fascist in any meaningful sense but clearly there's a perceived need to pander to the extreme right.

Reports are coming through suggesting that the suspected Moscow "Grand Theft Auto" killers have been caught.

They were apparently putting spikes on roads late at night and shooting anyone whose cars got stopped by them, for no apparent reason. Nothing was ever stolen. They were thought to have killed at least 14 people in the last few months. It sounds a bit like an urban legend but is supposedly 100% true.

http://i.imgur.com/O5Jw9hE.png

The Rouble has gone crazy. Was about 50 to the GBP this time last year. Was 71 yesterday, 76 today.

Banks are reportedly running out of foreign currency (as they did in Ukraine months ago) because so many people are trying to take their savings out in Dollars and Euro. If it hasn't happened already, i wouldn't be surprised to see them follow Ukraine in limiting the amount of cash people can take out in a day.

yikes

The "ceasefire", which was never really a ceasefire on either side, looks officially over now. Ukraine has claimed separatists in Donetsk have received a resupply of heavy weaponry from Russia and the Ukrainian army has stepped up shelling of the area. ITAR-TASS says that they've hit a kindergarten, killing several children. The Netherlands have donated €500k worth of what are euphemistically in Ukraine called "wearable anti-cold-systems" (which means warm coats and boots without holes in them) but nobody has committed to donating arms yet. There's speculation that the US Republicans might try to force something through, though idk if they would be allowed to even if they wanted to.

Interesting things happening in Georgia. The firing of the Defense Minister has been seen by some, particularly the fired Defense Minister, as a shift away from Europe and towards Russia. The government has restated that EU membership remains a priority though.

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/70781

Azerbaijan has shot down an Armenian helicopter that was apparently flying close to the border of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper.

More on the Armenia / Azeri helicopter thing:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-12/azerbaijan-says-armenian-helicopter-shot-down-in-conflict-zone.html

“This is the worst military incident in more than 20 years since the cease-fire,” Thomas de Waal, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said by e-mail from Washington.

Seen as a continuation of the incidents that killed around 20 people in the summer, that's probably true.

http://i.imgur.com/k2QHZ7m.png

Not really region-specific but the ability of any currency to drop about 15% in an hour and a quarter when the automated trades are triggered is fairly terrifying. Ukraine keeps ploughing money into trying to stabilise the UAH and the effects last about a week before being totally wiped out. I'm not sure what you can do in that situation.

Interesting piece from the excellent Alec Luhn on 'domestic' politics in Novorossiya and the Kremlin's fear that socialist populism could spread across the border into actual Russia.

http://www.thenation.com/article/189137/eastern-ukraine-becoming-peoples-republic-or-puppet-state

Highlights the tension that comes when, what is to some extent at least, a genuine popular revolution is backed / bankrolled by a government like Putin's.

Reports are coming through suggesting that the suspected Moscow "Grand Theft Auto" killers have been caught.

They were apparently putting spikes on roads late at night and shooting anyone whose cars got stopped by them, for no apparent reason. Nothing was ever stolen. They were thought to have killed at least 14 people in the last few months. It sounds a bit like an urban legend but is supposedly 100% true.

This gets stranger. The police appear to have arrested a gang of 'Islamist terrorists' from Central Asia for the crimes, with the leader being killed during an attempt to take him in.

Quite why a terror cell would have done all this and not bothered to tell anyone hasn't been explained.

Needless to say, they've been "linked with ISIS".

A+ response from Mykki Blanco after a Moscow club he was scheduled to play at got raided by the police.

https://www.facebook.com/MykkiBlanco/posts/881332838551591

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/-sp-uzbekistan-political-prisoners-human-rights?CMP=share_btn_tw

A piece on the current human rights situation in Uzbekistan.

The cotton situation there is crazy. Last year the government agreed, under international pressure, to ban child labour in the cotton fields so, to make up the shortfall of workers, 4m people (doctors, teachers, university students, etc) are forced under threat of fines or jail to take their place during the picking season. This is apparently seen as progress by the international community.

http://i.imgur.com/vqFGF0M.jpg

Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, has made a new home for himself in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I
used to look at this place from Manhattan, it was such a pity, it was mafia, a place where hit men dump bodies,” he
said. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Williamsburg hipster went to war with Russia before it was mainstream.

i think you or someone else i read linked to this a couple of months ago but i didnt read it then

the nyt writer does a creditable job of getting him to say hubristic and inane things like “they shut down traffic for us and our 20-car escort” and generally making him seem delusory and unpleasant

his lack of secrecy about his daily life would probably be noted by various former opponents, is he too far gone for putin to even care?

and did nobody in america do due diligence on him before they made him a brief cause celebre

He drew a crowd of about 3000 in Tbilisi this week, via audio link, but that's peanuts. He's still facing charges of abuse of office and there's no immediate prospect of him setting foot in the country again.

On paper, he was ideal for a US-backed leader in the region - American education, neo-liberal economics, fewer overt ties to organised crime than many, pro-NATO, etc. They've overlooked much worse than rampant corruption, delusions of grandeur and a mile-wide authoritarian streak. The objective was to have someone who'd reform the economy and bring Georgia closer to NATO membership, which he accomplished. The mystery is why nobody stopped him from trying to retake South Ossetia. To some extent he was a more obvious choice than Yushchenko, who was both corrupt and tainted by association with Kuchma, or Bakiyev who went round murdering his opponents the first chance he got.

He reminds me a lot of Sikorski - that kind of brash sociopathic arrogance. Like Sikorski, i'm not sure you could ever really rule him out in perpetuity.

They've overlooked much worse than rampant corruption, delusions of grandeur and a mile-wide authoritarian streak.

those are all potentially useful assets but saakashvil is just a fantasist

is there anyone in eastern europe with an anglo education and a subscription to the economist who isn't unremittingly dreadful

There's a fairly fine line between 'fantasist' and 'visionary idealist' and it's not too hard to convince people you fall into the latter camp if you're telling them what they want to hear and getting results. The line becomes less fine when your 'visionary idealism' leads you to invade Russia with the world's 64th most powerful army.

xp

I'm struggling to think of anyone.

visionary idealism is a good warning sign, people with ideas are unreliable
america seems to love these chalabi types when it is full of bright ideas and good intentions

Looks like i was overoptimistic in thinking that it should be easy to form a new Ukrainian governing coalition. Getting on for a month later, there's still no agreement, although there's talk of one being in place within the next week or two. There's suggestion that Timoshenko and Lyashko might be invited to join, even though, numerically, there's no need for them to be involved.

There are still substantial disagreements, though. Poroshenko has been talking a lot about ending the war / averting a worse crisis and is getting called out as a coward from sections of the nationalist right. Euromaidan PR, which internationally is often seen as the voice of the revolution - even if the reality is more complex, published an editorial calling for total war earlier in the week and there's a suspicion that that's what Yatseniuk would prefer. Poroshenko wants to buy coal in Hryvnia from Donbass, Yatseniuk is insisting it's bought at a 50% premium in USD from South Africa. There's still no guarantee Russia will send any gas as nobody has actually fronted up any money for it yet.

Poroshenko did take one radical move this week and that was finalising the proposal to remove state support from Donbass, meaning that state employees and pensioners won't get anything from the Kyiv government until the crisis is over. Russia is refusing to bankroll the region so pensioners who were struggling along on $100 a month from the state will now get nothing. It's one potential way of trying to get the people to turn against the DNR but it's a massive, massive risk. Starving your babushki isn't going to win hearts and minds. To some extent it would be fair enough if companies were paying tax to the tinpot warlords but, by and large, industrial revenue is still going to the central government as far as i can tell.

This is a really sweet personal interest story though: http://balkanist.net/lyonya-loves-vika/

http://boingboing.net/2014/11/20/something-big-exploded-in-russ.html

???

That's amazing. The two competing theories are that it was a meteorite strike or the army detonating a stock of old explosives but they've denied the latter. Seems incredible that it was only 200km away from the huge Chelyabinsk impact earlier in the year. Sadly my grasp of physics is pretty much non-existent but i'd be interested to know whether some parts of the world are more vulnerable than others.

We have modern weaponry and high fighting spirit. We showed who’s who and proved that Armenia’s ”invincible army” was a myth. They have already admitted defeat. This is an acknowledgment of their military defeat and our victory.

— Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz) November 4, 2020

The "this" referred to is a request from Armenia to Russia for military assistance. Realistically, it seems virtually inconceivable that Russia could send troops / commanders to offer the same kind of assistance that Azerbaijan has received from Turkey.

Nikol Pashinyan, PM of Armenia, has said via Facebook that he has signed an ‘unspeakably painful’ peace declaration to end the war tonight - almost inevitably ceding control of Karabakh to Azerbaijan.

1. Armenia implements UN resolutions, different districts hand over to Azerbaijani authorities before 15th November, 20th November, 1 December,
2. Current frontlines halt as of Moscow midnight
3. Russian Federation peacekeepers to protect 5kms Lachin corridor for 5 years pic.twitter.com/2q9Q7Df1Zn

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) November 9, 2020

It turns out the President of Armenia only found out about the ceasefire treaty via Facebook as well and has said the PM can’t sign anything without it being based on a ‘national consensus’.

"If it Hadn't Been for the Prompt Work of the Medics": FSB Officer Inadvertently Confesses Murder Plot to Navalny

this seems significant?

Russia braces for latest Navalny protests

It’s honestly hard to tell at this stage whether it’s going to be any more significant than the 2019 protests but we’ll see. There is a clear individual injustice that a lot of people can agree needs to be remedied - Navalny should be released - but idk where this goes when that does / doesn’t happen.

Anyway just wanted to showcase this happening tomorrow!

Sign up now for the Zoom-Panel with Soviet Rock 'n' Roll Musicians with Joanna Stingray 🎸 March 5 from 12pm - 1pm Pacific Time, hosted by the Wende Museum of the Cold War and moderated by music journalist @NedRaggett https://t.co/6NoNtmwyOh pic.twitter.com/zMtREYEg6V

— DoppelHouse Press (@DoppelHouse) February 25, 2021

Can anyone explain what just happened at the Ukrainian border?

This piece from the Carnegie Moscow Centre has some background on the situation:

https://carnegie.ru/commentary/84250

The announcements yesterday were that the bulk of the Russian divisions taking part in the exercise would withdraw, either to their home bases or to a temporary midpoint until pre-planned drills later in the year. It sounds like a smaller division will probably remain in Crimea and convert to a permanent regiment there.

Michael Kofman is usually worth following for updates on this stuff.

Russian MoD shows signs of beginning a troop withdrawal - looks like they're redeploying. Will continue to watch this space. Questions remain on what units besides elements of the 41st CAA might be left forward deployed in the region.

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) April 23, 2021

Thanks, that Carnegie piece links to this, which I got a lot out of: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/02/biden-putin-killer-kremlin-propaganda-crimea-approval-rating-economy/

For Putin, this fall from grace was totally avoidable. His ratings nosedive can be traced directly back to June 2018, when the Russian government announced a proposal to raise the retirement age from 55 to 63 for women and from 60 to 65 for men. (The unpopular bill, which was enacted that October, ended up raising the retirement age for women to just 60.) It was a violation of the core, unwritten social contract of Putin’s Russia: We vote for you, and you don’t touch our social benefits.

This feels like an escalation: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/24/belarus-seizure-blogger-ryanair-flight-us-outcry

Yes, and difficult to imagine it won’t lead to repercussions for Belarus, though it’s not completely clear what those are going to be, given that the leadership is already under sanction. Could possibly mean ending flights in to / over the country,

The press release from RyanAir was a fucking disgrace.

Belavia has been banned from operating via the U.K.

The Belarusian authorities have, rather optimistically, tried to blame Hamas.

BA flight from London to Islamabad now bypassing Belarus following Raab's announcement
https://www.flightradar24.com/BAW261/27cff638

What the fuck is going on in Belarus right now? Is this accurate?

Bonkers... Belarussian authorities have granted thousands of migrants from the Middle East visas to visit, and then escorted them to the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, under watchful eye of Belarussian authorities, and stranded them in the cold. https://t.co/ySzHmk7n0l

— Vivian Salama (@vmsalama) November 11, 2021

Belarus dictator is the pits, but this is some real passive-aggressive shit-stirring.

This is a good piece on the use of ‘weaponised migration’ as a concept:

https://www.statewatch.org/news/2021/november/eu-the-weaponised-migration-discourse-dehumanises-asylum-seekers/

Both sides are behaving appallingly. Belarus is, at minimum, profiteering from people’s desperation to reach the EU, financially and politically. Poland and Lithuania have blocked routes, had guards violently attack people trying to cross and are preventing NGOs from coming within 2km of the border to offer food and medical aid. This has been going on for months and is only going to get worse as the temperatures drop.

Heavy artillery fire being reported from Azerbaijan towards Armenia. pic.twitter.com/q3uNO4mJHi

— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) September 12, 2022

unsurprising timing

I am not a military or 'border conflict' expert. I am a political analyst with years of fieldwork research in Kyrgyzstan. Since there is a need to explain what's going b/n Kyrgyzstan & Tajikistan, I thought to collect here some analysis by my colleagues & myself.
A long thread🧵

— Asel Doolotkeldieva (@ADoolotkeldieva) September 18, 2022

Any recommendations for reading on the Turkey/Greece situation? Elections next year and inflation in Turkey eye-watering

https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/post-2023-election-scenarios-in-turkey

Starting to look at possible scenarios for 2023 here with election 7 months away

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_Turkish_presidential_election

This has ome around pretty fast, looks like going to a run-off which would presumably then be advantage Kilicdaroglu

Seems a bit like Brazil except the ominous upswing for Erdogan now has me thinking he will squeak it (because people looovveee jailing journalists and hyperinflation?).

Less than a week to go, bit of a kerfuffle with a bus and some stones in Erzurum.

Read a suggestion that because parliament is Erdogan controlled, after the run off Erdoğan’s line will be “vote me to avoid split government with Kılıçdaroğlu”. Be v interesting to see what happens. You certainly wouldn’t want to bet against Erdoğan - experienced and has the media and state control to generate his preferred outcome.

not sure this is exactly the right thread for ongoing turkey conversation but as we’re here, roll out the barrel:

Erdoğan gives public workers 45 percent pay rise in Turkey’s tight election race

Greece 's elections following on from this week after next, but its the upcoming Slovak elections in September that look most concerning, Slovakia been heading in a bad direction for a while now

Not sure whats happening here with delays in certain districts, but looks like it will go to second round as predicted?

Looks like Erdogan has this now in the run off

https://english.nv.ua/nation/lukashenko-pardons-belarusian-journalist-sentenced-to-eight-years-in-prison-50326284.html

That guy on the Ryanair flight Belarus forced to land a couple of years ago unexpectedly released!

damn what's the catch

Not really sure! like a lot of things of late