Moscow has been washed all summer by the northern sun, lingering over the
gilded onion domes of St Basil’s and glowing softly off the cobblestones of
Red Square.
The shoppers are out until late in the elegant galleries and boutiques around
the Kremlin wall. Green parasols shade open-air diners, and laughter drifts
from the beer gardens. Moscow has never had it so good.
It is just little things, seen and heard, that jar. Posters, Soviet-style,
with heroic figures and slogans in retro typefaces, advertise a
Kremlin-backed youth group, Nashi. A sense of control is growing, on
television, in business, even out driving. Traffic police no longer fine
them for their own pocket, motorists say. Shakedowns are now professional,
regulated from on high.
Lenin never vanished from Red Square. His mausoleum remains, his museum is
being redecorated, and a lookalike has long stood at the entrance to the
square, posing for photographs for a few roubles. Stalin was different:
reviled as the killer of millions within three years of his death, his body
plucked from its place of honour next to Lenin and secretly reburied in
1961.
Stalin’s lookalike has now joined Lenin. That is very new, and the instinct on
seeing him with his arm round smiling trippers is to duck, as if he is some
still-lethal ricochet from the past.
When the Beatles sang Back in the USSR nearly 40 years ago, the world was in
thrall to the cold war, and the prospect of global meltdown was
thermonuclear rather than climatic. Those days are here again, or so it
seems.
A sea change is taking place in Russia. An ever-pricklier sense of national
pride is seen across the board. President Putin mocks the notion of a
“unipolar”, American-dominated world. The point was emphasised last month as
he and the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, watched their troops assault
“terrorists” in joint manoeuvres in the Urals, while a mini-submarine
planted a titanium Russian flag on the seabed beneath the North Pole itself.
Relations with the West, particularly Britain, are at their worst in years.
Moscow has suspended its participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe. Under CFE, adopted in 1990, Russia moved most of its tanks
and other hardware east of the Urals. It no longer has to keep them there.
Military spending is running at a post-Soviet record. New nuclear
submarines, missiles and aircraft have been commissioned.
Amid talk of a renewed arms race, a £500m all-weather missile-defence system
was sold to Iran, £1.5 billion of hardware to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and
missiles to Syria. Bear strategic bombers are back over the North Sea for
the first time in 17 years, reviving a traditional photo opportunity for RAF
pilots as they see them off. A restored base in Syria will give the Russian
navy a presence in the Mediterranean.
Pressure is put on neighbours, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, with threats to
natural gas supplies. At home, psychiatric wards are again used to forcibly
detain dissidents. Political opponents have been beaten up, journalists have
been murdered. The British and Estonian ambassadors have been harassed by
Kremlin-approved demonstrators.
It is the government itself that smacks most of Soviet days, however. The KGB,
the old security force that spied and suppressed on behalf of the Communist
party, is back. It has a new name, the Federal Security Service (FSB). It
has emerged as the controlling element in the state. Its basic instincts are
now Russia’s: the pursuit of power, suspicion, fear of encirclement, the
equation of opposition with anarchy, and extreme sensitivity to slights. The
FSB, and the new Russia, do not like to be dissed.
The siloviki, the “men of power” with backgrounds in the FSB and military, sit
ever more comfortably in the saddle. They and their friends account for
two-thirds and more of the upper reaches of the state. Soviet leaders had to
seek consensus within the politburo and the party, and they kept a weather
eye on the KGB, too. The siloviki have no such constraints. They run the
Kremlin and the government. They control the provinces, where governors are
no longer elected by local people, but are appointed by the Kremlin.
They own, run or control the media and large slices of industry. Every
ministry now has its ZAO, a “closed shareholder society”, controlled by
relations and friends of senior officials. These are used to privatise
assets. The railway ministry, for example, controls thousands of advertising
sites on stations, in carriages. Spin them off into a ZAO and the spoils are
immense.
The FSB’s most famous alumnus is Vladimir Putin himself, a former KGB
lieutenant-colonel, and head of the FSB under Boris Yeltsin. He has
surrounded himself with men of the same ilk. Several of them, like Putin,
are security-service veterans from St Petersburg: Viktor Ivanov, who runs
the Kremlin staff, Igor Sechin, the in-house economy expert, Sergei Ivanov,
the former defence minister, now first deputy prime minister, a
modest-sounding role that gives little hint of his real influence. Sechin is
also chairman of Rosneft, the state-run oil major. Viktor Ivanov is head of
the board of Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline. Putin’s press secretary is
on the board of the biggest television channel.
As well as personal wealth, as a group they control the billions of pounds
earned by oil and gas exports. “Russia is well enough off with $40-a-barrel
oil,” says an energy specialist. “At $65 and above, it’s head-turning.”
Russia is the largest natural-gas exporter. In oil, it is second only to
Saudi Arabia. Demand for its gold, platinum, nickel and copper is soaring.
This inflow of money assures Putin’s power base. Parliamentary elections are
due at the end of the year, with the presidential poll to follow in March.
The siloviki will retain unruffled supremacy. The constitution requires
Putin to stand down (though he could return in 2012). Nobody is in any doubt
that the transfer of power to his chosen successor will be seamless – he has
yet to say whom he will support – and the changes in policy negligible.
Putin is hugely and genuinely popular, and so, by and large, is his
muscle-flexing. He has 80% approval ratings, and with reason.
When he succeeded Yeltsin on December 31, 1999, Russia was near-bankrupt. The
collapse of the Soviet bloc 10 years earlier had paid a “peace dividend” to
the West, and opened up a vast new market and a treasure trove of natural
resources for Western companies. But millions of Russians lost their jobs
and savings amid the humiliations of a debt default in 1998. Pensioners,
servicemen, teachers and scientists went unpaid. The bellhops in Moscow’s
new Western-financed hotels were often PhDs.
The country was no longer that of the tsars and the communists. Great lumps
were torn from it: the Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltics, Central Asia… Russians
by the million woke to find they had become ethnic minorities on the wrong
side of new frontiers. Nato and the EU expanded eastwards, as ex-Warsaw Pact
members Poland and Hungary joined the old enemy: as, unthinkably, did the
former Soviet countries Estonia and Lithuania.
Seven years of Putin, though, and self-confidence is rising like sap in
spring. The pauper who went begging to Western investors has an
investment-grade credit rating and the world’s third-largest
foreign-currency reserves, £200 billion. The rouble, once shabbily printed,
unloved and ever heading south, is strong and spruce. The economy is growing
by more than 7% a year: a starry-eyed official report predicts that it will
grow two-and-a-half times by 2020, to become the world’s fifth largest.
Rust-bucket towns still abound. A quarter of Russians were rated as
poverty-stricken in 2002. But that is down to 12%, and falling. A lick of
paint, flowerbeds and functioning fountains lift the ramshackle air of
neglect from the cities.
A robust professional middle class has emerged, strikingly so in Moscow. The
trickle-down effect from the super-rich in their black Hummers and Cayennes
is evident in the colossal and crowded shopping malls.
It is this rare combination of popularity and prosperity that is giving Putin,
and those close to him, the chance to reforge Russia with long-term impact.
He has given three important insights into his mindset. None is reassuring.
“The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of
the century,” he said in his state-of-the-nation address two years ago. He
added recently that it is time to “stop apologising” for Russia’s past.
He has made it clear, too, that he is deeply mistrustful of the West, which he
sees as hellbent on belittling Russia and looting her resources. He gave the
Americans a verbal kicking at the Munich Conference on Security Policy in
February. “The United States has overstepped its borders in all spheres,
economic, political and humanitarian,” he said, “and has imposed itself on
other states.” US foreign policy, Putin believed, was a recipe for disaster.
“The number of people who died did not get less but increased. We see no
kind of restraint.” The Americans had “gone from one conflict to another
without achieving a fully fledged solution to any of them”.
And he is proud of his KGB roots. “There is no such thing as a former
Chekist,” he says. It is a revealing remark. The Cheka was the Bolsheviks’
earliest secret police, and Putin is fast declaring his loyalty to the
founders of the police state.
Britain, more than most, is finding the reshaped Russia uncomfortable to live
with, with eerie echoes from the past.
The BBC World Service disappeared from FM radio last month, after the last
station that was retransmitting it, Bolshoye Radio, was told to drop it in a
matter of hours or lose its licence. British Council offices have endured
repeated tax inspections – the council’s English teaching is said to be a
“commercial activity” – and threats of closure by fire-safety officers.
The traditional tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats have resumed, and so have
mutual accusations of spying. Our man in Moscow, Sir Anthony Brenton,
suffered months of insults last winter from a rent-a-mob of members of the
youth movement Nashi, both in the flesh and on a scurrilous website.
The ambassador incurred their wrath last year by attending a “fascist meeting”
organised by the liberal opposition – but including an extreme-left group –
to protest at the undermining of civil society in Russia. They got hold of a
copy of his diary – a feat that suggests involvement by the FSB – and
hounded him mercilessly.
“When I go out to buy cat food, they follow me and start waving banners,”
Brenton complained. “Nashi’s links with the Kremlin are well known. Their
leader has met with President Putin many times.” The Kremlin, he suggested,
could have called them off if it wanted to.
The ill feeling with Britain goes beyond the support for Russia’s dwindling
liberals. It was given a specific edge by the poisoning in London last
November, with polonium-210, of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer
who had recently been granted a British passport. Britain claims that he was
murdered by Andrei Lugovoi, another ex-KGB man. The use of hugely toxic
radioactive material to kill a British citizen in London was seen as a
shocking return to Soviet-era habits. The Russians have refused Britain’s
demand for Lugovoi’s extradition on the grounds that their constitution
forbids it. For good measure, they have repeated their own demand for the
extradition of Boris Berezovsky. The billionaire ex-oligarch fled to Britain
circa 2000, and was granted asylum, after a spectacular falling-out with
President Putin, for whose overthrow he now calls. Berezovsky was close to
Litvinenko and claims that Russian agents are trying to kill him, too. He is
being tried in absentia in Moscow on fraud charges.
Putin displayed real anger when he discussed the Lugovoi case on television.
He said that there were 30 people wanted by the Russians who were “guilty of
enormous offences”, including terrorism, but who “are hiding there in
London”. The presence in London of Chechens like Akhmed Zakayev, wanted in
Russia for armed rebellion, murder and kidnapping, has long been a running
sore.
“They give us insulting advice,” Putin said of the British. “They forget that
Britain is no longer a colonial power and that Russia was never their
colony.”
British companies are feeling the displeasure. “It’s no longer racketeers who
are shaking down businesses,” says a veteran of the “gangster capitalism”
that flourished a decade ago. “Now it’s men from the ministries and agencies
and audit chamber, claiming back-taxes or fines for infringing regulations.”
Oil and gas are most vulnerable, as the Kremlin claws back control of the
vital energy sector, the source of Russia’s new wealth and clout. The
oligarchs who amassed their billions in the Yeltsin years, before the turn
of the century brought Vladimir Putin to power, have been dealt with. They
are safely at heel, have fled, or are in prison, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
his Yukos oil empire dismembered in favour of the state-controlled giants
Gazprom and Rosneft.
Foreign companies, the British to the fore, are charged with violating the
terms of their licences. Oleg Mitvol, the enforcer at the Rosprirodnadzor
natural-resources and environmental agency, is expert in the use of green
issues as a weapon. So much so that he has been dubbed “the Kremlin’s attack
dog”. (“I have been described as many things,” he replied, “but my
resemblance to a rottweiler is minimal.”)
He has Shell’s scalp to his credit. He flew reporters to Sakhalin II, Shell’s
£10 billion oil-and-gas project off Russia’s far-eastern coast. He accused
the company of a string of violations: deforestation, toxic-waste dumping,
soil erosion. His objections melted away once Shell ceded a controlling
stake to Gazprom. Gazprom also took control of Siberia’s huge Kovykta gas field
from BP in June. Mitvol is now expressing tender concern for foreign oil
companies. Unannounced checks are being made on foreign concerns, whom he
accuses of overstating their reserves. Five are London-listed oil companies.
American encroachment on Russia’s traditional spheres of influence is
resented, in the Baltics, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine. Washington’s
hand is seen in the “colour” revolutions that swept away Moscow-friendly
regimes in Georgia and Ukraine after 2003. Poland and the Czech Republic
have been warned that it would be “against their best interests” to allow
parts of a new American missile shield to be sited on their soil.
The Kremlin insists that the myth of the pax Americana “fell apart once and
for all in Iraq”, and the world must get used to a “strong, self-confident
Russia”. It resists tough sanctions on Iran, and bristles at the UN plan to
give Kosovo autonomy, Nato’s eastward expansion and the American missile
shield.
The new line is backed by a defence budget that has jumped by a quarter to
£16.2 billion this year. Sergei Ivanov has announced a £94.5 billion
rearmament programme. It is aimed at replacing half of current military
equipment by 2015. It includes new early-warning radar, new intercontinental
missiles and a fleet of supersonic bombers. The navy is to get over 30 new
warships, including new aircraft carriers. Three new submarines are being
built. The first, the Yuri Dolgoruky, will be commissioned late next year or
in early 2009. It will carry 12 missiles – its sister boats, the
Alexander Nevsky and Vladimir Monomach, will carry 16 apiece – each with 10
warheads.
There are plans for a “fifth generation” fighter with a low radar profile and
claims that one could be in the air by 2009. Putin claims that the new
Russian intercontinental ballistic missile has stealth technology that will
allow it to penetrate the American anti-missile shield.
At home, Stalinism, if not being rehabilitated, is certainly less demonised.
The Russian Academy of Education has begun a substantial review of history
textbooks. A book for teachers on postwar history praises Stalin as “the
most successful leader of the USSR”. More than half of Russians aged between
16 and 19 believe Stalin was “a wise leader”.
Ten thousand youngsters went to Nashi’s summer camp at Lake Seliger, about
three hours from Moscow. Most of its pleasures – kayaking, swimming,
rafting, athletics, blaring techno music – were non-political. Others were
not. The camp had its own “red-light district”, ablaze with billboards where
the faces of opposition leaders, the former prime minister Kasyanov and the
chess champion Garry Kasparov were superimposed onto the scantily clad
bodies of glamour models and labelled “political prostitutes”. Lecturers
warned campers to be on the lookout for “fascists”. The homegrown ones, they
were told, cunningly disguise themselves as “liberals”.
Girl meets boy is part of the agenda, too. Putin has called on Russians to
have more children. Nashi does its bit by encouraging members to get married
in front of the assembled campers. After they have exchanged vows, the happy
couples go to a “love oasis”, whose red tents are decorated with
heart-shaped balloons, there, hopefully, to conceive the next generation.
This is not some Nazi-style campaign to breed supermen, though, but the
result of demographic crisis. The population is falling by 800,000 a year,
with abortions thought to outnumber live births, in a country with living
space and natural resources to burn. It could drop from 140m now to little
over 100m by mid-century.
Opposition parties have lost ground. Only communists retain mass appeal. The
others pose little threat to the establishment. Nonetheless, their members
are sometimes pursued: the Kremlin, not as self-assured as it seems, takes
them more seriously than the electorate.
State influence in the media is all-pervasive.
Ren TV, the last channel to have retained independence in its news coverage,
was taken over by a bank friendly to the Kremlin in April. The month before,
Ivan Safronov, an independent-minded defence correspondent, was found dead
on the pavement below his flat. He had embarrassed the military with exposés
of the cover-up of failings during the testing of the new Bulava missile.
Last October, the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the lift of
her Moscow apartment block. She had flayed the regime in her book Putin’s
Russia, and was a fierce critic of the war in Chechnya.
Is the cold war on the way back? Have we real reason to fear the Bear?
The nuclear deterrent remains wholly credible. But many old Soviet arms
factories are now in foreign countries, production has stopped for years;
equipment has been looted. Plans for six new aircraft carriers, for example,
look a pipe dream. Even converting an old Soviet-era carrier for the Indian
navy is proving a nightmare for the yard that has the contract. No more
Ukrainian NCOs or Kazakh infantrymen can be drafted to make up numbers.
“Russia isn’t the Soviet Union,” a senior intelligence analyst says flatly.
“It’s much smaller. It is no longer the leader of a bloc. The rot has
stopped, but its military has suffered 20 years of neglect. Its capability
has massively eroded.”
Why, then, the build-up? Partly, at least, it is a response to Western
pressure. “The Americans are circling Russia with radars and installing
antiballistic missiles close to our borders,” says the defence commentator
Colonel Viktor Litovkin. “It’s a matter of serious concern. We are being
provoked into a new arms race. That’s not in Russia’s interests. The
Americans don’t want another competitor, and their moves to achieve global
strike capability are quite provocative.
“Nato has assumed responsibility on a global scale for everything that
happens. The West looks as if it’s imposing its ideology on others, just as
the Soviet Union did. Fortunately, we’ve recovered from this disease, but
the Bush administration has now caught it.”
Constant harping Western criticism – even the revival of the Orthodox church,
BBC World said in a lead item last month, was “a matter of deep concern” to
some Russians – is another factor. We gave away half of Europe, people say,
and much of our own country, without a shot being fired. We answered every
question asked of us, and our critics did not say as much as spasiba (thank
you). And, if we sell weapons to win friends and influence people abroad,
isn’t that exactly what the West does, too?
There is a renewed geopolitical drive, but it is pragmatic and less far-flung.
“We can’t be the dead man at every funeral and the bride at every wedding,”
says Asian-affairs specialist Dmitri Kosyrev. What concerns Russia most are
the countries immediately to its south. The Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) brings together China, Russia and four Central Asian
states. SCO troops held last month’s manoeuvres in the Urals.
“It’s been a huge success,” says Kosyrev. “That’s because the Kazakhs and
Uzbeks and others want aid and technical help and as many uncles as they can
get. They don’t want lectures. The EU are doing badly in the region because
they’re behaving just like mini-Americans, telling people how to live.”
Russia has real energy and financial clout, and is prepared to use them
politically. It cut coal exports, timber supplies and freight traffic, for
example, to show its displeasure with Estonia. The West does so with its
boycotts, Russians say. Why shouldn’t they?
Europe is becoming increasingly dependent on gas from western Siberia. What
the Kremlin will make of that remains to be seen. Technical expertise in
deep drilling and big projects for liquid natural gas give the West
bargaining chips. The Russians point out, too, that energy has always been
synonymous with power – “look at the Gulf” – and that the West can hardly
complain if market forces are coming into play.
“It was a different Russia, a different world when contracts were signed in
the 1990s,” says Tatiana Mitrova, who heads world-market studies at the
Russian Academy of Sciences’ Energy Research Institute. “They were very
favourable to foreign investors, and BP and Shell did not fulfil all their
obligations. Gas prices to Ukraine and Belarus, for example, were heavily
subsidised. That couldn’t go on for ever. Our own gas price will be linked
to the European price by 2011.”
Global energy is in a transitional stage, and transitions can be awkward.
“Opec once supplied and the West consumed,” she says. “Now Russia and
Central Asia have become suppliers, and India and China have joined the
consumers’ club.” Gas consumers are as dependent on transit routes and
transit states as on the original producer.
Those who are most vulnerable to the Kremlin, of course, remain the Russians
themselves. Post Iraq, it must be said, the West has lost much of its moral
gloss. Its sermons are deeply resented by many. “Guided democracy”, with
state control of media, and harassment of opposition and NGOs, is all but
installed.
It is a far cry from the browbeaten past. People use the internet, they travel
in huge numbers – Tuscany is the new discovery – and they connect with the
West in all manner of wacky ways. Moscow has a chapter of Hell’s Angels, an
Aerograf festival of stunningly painted cars, an annual stiletto race for
girls in 9-centimetre heels.
If they also tolerate siloviki, and applaud strength, it is because the past
is in the blood. The West often ignores this.
Senior Western army officers with direct experience of the Russian military
emphasise the need to respect them. Patronise them at your peril. “The
approach has often been unintelligent,” says one. “There’s been a tendency
to belittle them. And to go on seeing them as the enemy. We’re proud of the
history and traditions of our services. Well, so are they, and they have
every right to be.”
That history is a thing apart, and explains much. A hill above the Siberian
city of Krasnoyarsk seems almost to groan under the weight of Russia’s past,
and its sadness and grandeur. A polished granite stone records the names of
Siberians killed in the foreign wars – in Africa, Indochina, even 1930s
Spain – to which the Soviet empire despatched them. Another distils the
horrors of Stalinism in six words with a date: “The Stalin Repression. The
Kalmyk people 1943-57.” The Kalmyks were deported to Siberia. Half were dead
by the time they were allowed back.
Couples add a splash of colour as they arrive to get married at the Troitsk
church on the hill. Stretch Lincolns were once de rigueur, but the massive
Zil, the old politburo limo, has made a comeback. The service, candles
glinting in a darkness warm with deep chants of Orthodoxy, links the
congregation to the old tsarist Russia that the Bolsheviks tried to kill
off. The new leaders have reconnected with the Orthodox church: led by
Putin, they attend the Easter liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
in Moscow, destroyed under Stalin and rebuilt.
Afterwards, the newlyweds go to leave flowers nearby at the eternal flame for
the fallen of the great patriotic war. A 1940s tank, “To Berlin!” painted on
its hull, stands guard. Inside, a long marble room with surnames and
initials on the walls – 1,590 under “K” in this single memorial – reflects
the scale of the sacrifice.
It is poignant that so many should, at the moment of marriage, remember those
who fought so long before they were born. Revealing, too. In an unforced and
intimate way, above all politics and posing, this is a sentiment and pride
that all manner of Russians share.
More than any missile, or barrel of oil, that is where their strength lies.
In March, Putin steps down. He may bow out, though still young; he may become
a puppet-master from behind the scenes. In any event, viewed from Washington
or London, his successor is unlikely to be any less irascible. The Russians
don’t see it like that, of course. They see it as defending their best
interests.
Dear Brian,
this is the most accurate, objective and touching article about Russia in the foreign press I have read in the last two years. I am astonished, how deep you understand 'Russia today'. Moreover, this material is precious to me, because it is written by a British journalist and shows a huge contrast to tons of other politically determined scetches coming from GB now.
Thank you for the absence of superstitions and lies in your article as well as for your professionalism. I wish you all the best in your life and your career.
Yours sincerely,
Andrei Maiboroda
Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Andrei Maiboroda, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Dear sir!
You wrote that: "Lenin never vanished from Red Square. His mausoleum remains, his museum is being redecorated."
This is mistake and unfortunately egregious error. Lenin museum does not exist in Moscow now. This museum liquidated at the august of 1991. The redecorated building belong for Historical Museum which located against of it building. For this reason I don't read the whole article because you might check up this very important fact of Russian and Moscow history.
Sincerely yours, L.Alissina
Alissina Lubov, Moscow, Russia
I must say, a very well written article in my opinion. However, as some Russian readers commented above, it may not necessarilly be the entire story.
Some of the comments from Putin in recent times do slightly bother me, as the one major negative with a cold war is the diversion of resources to defense rather than other causes. However, I agree with the 'alternative ideology' view as offered above as a good thing - competition in the markeplace spurns innovation and change, so why not in political circles?
I'd personally love to check out Russia, however if any of the events above were even factually accurate (and i'm not saying they aren't), then it'd give reason for concern. I'd love to see a strong, proud independant Russia with strong commercial ties to the west, but not one with militaristic overtones. The new Russia has an opportunity to use it's influence in a good way, both in/externally.
The long and short of it is, well, can't we all just .. get along?
:)
Stewart, Melbourne, Australia
Svetlana, to pay or not to pay bribes is only yours decision, also this problem differs from university to university and from faculty to faculty.
Still and all, yes, there is such problem. And problem with medicine has strong connections with this one. (I hope in the new government Zurabov and Fusenko will be changed to somebody who better knows there spheres. This can change a lot).
Where did your take these terrible figures (3000 dead per year)?
From "committee of mothers of soldiers"?
I prefer to look official statistics, and not all those 'committees'.
in 2006:
6 700 injured and 33 dead because of not authorized mutual relations.
I don't see 3000 dead hear.
And life is really becoming better. Not everywhere, but for example in here, in Altai it is so.
Artem, Barnaul, Russian Federation
Sir,
Putin’s plutocratic Russian Federation may be infinitely preferable to the version espoused by Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR).
President Putin has little choice but to march to the drumbeat. As Vice-Chairman of the Duma, Zhirinovsky and his LDPR garnered 12 % of the vote in 2003. The elections of December 2, 2007 will no doubt determine the ease at which the new PM Viktor Zubkov is able to promote his programme of “stability of economic and social development." So far, support has been overwhelming (this includes the LDPR).
Zhirinovsky’s political contacts extend beyond the border. His party has allied itself with Vojislav Seselj’s Serbian Radicals whose main aim is to ensure Kosovo remains part of Serbia. Some there are prepared to give the idea in return for an easier ride into the EU.
It is here that President Putin has offered his services as an interlocutor. I do wonder if we understand the east as much as he understands the west.
Griffin, Middlewood,
As the Cold War ended, the West truly reaped huge peace dividends. Russia, however, ran into PEACE DEBTS, a term easily recognized by any Russian, much more so if spoken in English, as an obscene reference to a profound state of crisis.
Those times are over now. The lynching club describing itself as the "free world" might just get used to it.
Anatoly, Moscow,
It is very difficult in today's world to reconcile points of view, 'spin', unipolar media coverage with the truth. There are many accusations of the Kremlin in the article and at the same time the West is responsible for more than half a million Iraqi deaths in Iraq. Is it so bad to have a balance of power? For sure threat of nuclear armageddon can be imagined in a world with two strong poles as in the cold war. However look what the west did when given the alternative chance of a unipolar world - they've responded with unmatched use of force, plundering of resources across the world under the guise of globalization and when their own interests are remotely threatened protectionism and threats come out. Perhaps a strong Russia & China is what the world needs for a healthy check to the hubris of the US.
Robert Quilty, Omaha, Nebraska
Russia, as described by Churchill, is a puzzle, wrapped in mystery, inside an enigma. The West should beware the Russian psyche, based as it is on an endemic feeling of insecurity derived from an inferiority complex and making international relations with the Russian state complex and volatile.
There is no doubt that the sudden liberalisation, when the Soviet Union started to disintigrate after so many years of ruthless central state control, commenced a headlong descent into chaos, corruption and criminality. We are now witnessing the inevitable backlash to that period and a return to authoritarian state control including suppression of dissidents and a command economy.
We can expect the Russians to continue to ruthlessly use their growing control of World energy resources to achieve political and economic dominance particularly in Europe and the former Soviet territories. Worryingly, this is accompanied by a significant increase in arms expenditure.
Tony, Thorpe Bay, Essex
To Alex, Birmingham, UK
Could you or UK Goverment please be so kind and provide hard evidence that Russia was by any way envolved with Polonium affair in London? One day UK press should be and will be held responcible for all the lies and baseless accusations over Litvinenko's affair. The whole thing looks like a deliberate operation to smear Russia. So far no evidence was ever produced, just the same way no hard evidence was ever produced for Iraq's WMD. However that time, UK public was duped into the war with Iraq. In the same way the public is duped to think that Russia has anything to do with Polonium in London. Please start learning some lessons from the recent past, or you will be doomed repeating the same mistakes again and again, as you do now.
Oleg, Toronto, Canada
Astonishing. The ex-Soviet apparatchiks are going back to their old nasty ways and there are people in the world who actually WELCOME this?
If you'll recall, almost all terrorism in the world emanates from Islamic states, and there aren't too many countries that are interested in combating it. The US may have overreached by trying to make Iraq into a democracy, but at least it's trying something. The rest of the world seems content to live with the occasional suicide bombing or mass murder.
I wonder how the former Communist satellites of Russia feel about Putin's aspirations to Stalinhood. I wonder if the Czechs think an aggressive Russia is a good thing. Or the Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Georgians, Estonians or the Ukrainians.
That insipid leftists in the West welcome it is unsurprising. They've always had a soft spot for totalitarians. Too bad it's located on top of their heads.
Jeff, San Jose, US
A visit with Putin
By Serge Schmemann: "...There are distinct echoes of the Soviet Union in this blend of bluster, insecurity, hypocrisy and pride. But Putin's Russia is definitely a new hybrid. There's no threat of a new Cold War, no ideology of world domination in the new Russia. The president enjoys a level of popularity and legitimacy Soviet leaders never had. However authoritarian Putin's rule might be, argues Grigory Yavlinsky, an opposition politician highly critical of the president, his rise is a logical consequence of the brutal disappointment of the Russians with the course of events since the collapse of Communism - the hyperinflation, political wars, crony privatization and the financial crisis of the 1990s, along with the humiliations - perceived and real - inflicted by the West, from NATO expansion to endless preaching....
So look for more Putin. In what guise, we will soon learn. But with what goal and style, there is no doubt."
kat, Chicago,
Russia is stil a million miles away from democracy. It is much closer to George Orwells 1984.
m wilson, bidache, france
I'm really for protecting Russia's interests, but I'm totally against new Cold war or something like that. Russia and Russian people had too much hard times, wars, tyrans & everythin of that kind, that i think all normal Russian wants now is peaceful existence in modern world under normal human laws. I dont know why Russia always gets into worst trouble and does its best to get into it. Just like now. For me now isnt very suitable time to show immence strengh of Russia. Especially cause thereisnt much left there. Mostly gas&oil.
Korr, Vladivostok, Russia
Ah come on Vladimir, George & Gordon are your friends, really.
Des, Dublin,
Putin may be putting off the West, but as far as I'm concerned, Bush needs to be put off. Bush has been raping and pillaging not just Iraq and Afghanistan but the American economy. Putin meanwhile, has turned around his country, speaks wisely and the truth, and is investing in the future of his nation. Why can't we have leaders like that???
jAMES, Los ANgeles, California
To Paul - the wrong thing is that the Russian State appears to "protect its interests" by using Polonium-210 to kill its opponents in other countries - exactly what USSR did many times in the past. Do you really thing that it is a good thing to have something like USSR vs USA of the past? I don't think so.
Alex, Birmingham, UK
Mr Moynahan must have done a good research which shows in his adequate understanding of things outlined in this article. I hope the process of social interaction between the West and Russia will further narrow the gaps in the knowledge that the West has about Russia. From browsing through the major western publications daily I conclude that there are many misconceptions still finding their way in the western press.
Yulia, Surgut, Russia
There was a time when we had a change for peace in the world, when the Western World could have welcomed all other nations into a real United Nations in which all Nations would be equal and treated fairly. It seemed to be the natural result.
But then the capitalists and their followers saw opportunity and profit and so present power was used to overpower and undermine and talk of the American Empire grew.
Threats against nations and people grew irregardless of circumstances so that even democratic action in other Countries became targeted. Invulnerability became established in Community thought replacing reason and reality.
Most of all we ignored History and lost ourselves in the rapid acquisition of material goods. We turned our back on others that needed our help the most and those that wished to join and participate.
Threats and lies are the standard currency of the day and one day conflicts with another. Take care of everyone for one day you may need their help
Thomas Clark, Portland, Oregon, US
It's difficult for me to see how one can benefit by demonizing Mr. Putin and Russia in general, but unfortunately there is certainly such a tendency.
About the article - it will be good to be more objective and to say some facts, rather than to manipulate the people- let's quote some numbers about Russian and US military budgets for 2007 for instance, just to compare (62b / 421b). Russia sells weapons - true, but less than US does. Yes, Russia probably is gonna have a navy base in Syria, but US bases are everywhere around. Let's also remind that after 11/9 Mr. Putin was the first who called Mr. Bush to condemn the terorists and to express support for the Americans. Putin is a right-wing politician, he seems to believe in the market economy and most of the opposition are communists. About the gas prices- Ukraine and Belarus used to bye gas for about 50$ while the market price is more than 230$ and so on and so on.. Yes, Russia is not perfect, but let's try to be a bit more objective!
Peter, Moscow,
Finally a balanced article about Russia! Is this a new trend? I hope so.
To Svetlana Litvinenko, Rostov-on-Don, Russia. The problems you were writing about have been caused by the Yeltsin's reforms, when everyithing, people included, was put on sale. Only Russians can fix the problems in Russia. West did not help Russia in the past, West doesn't help Russia now, and it will not help Russia in the future. Besides, Russia has everything to take care of itself: people and resources. So instead of complaining about corruption in the schools please to do sometning about it. Go and report this corruption to the police, to local newspapers, talk to other parents, get together and fight it. Writing to "The Times" and complaining about it will achive nothing. Fighting against corruption every day will bring the results you want.
With respect,
Oleg, Toronto, Canada
well finally some things are starting to emerge about the real Russia.I am here again for the fifth time in two years.Russia is not rebuilding from the rubble of Soviet times,but re distributing power to each of their friends and of course wealth with it.The roads pavements and in fact all infrastructure is a terrible mess.I noticed the lack of wheelchairs and people with other mobility problems.They all stay at home as they dont have wheelchairs or access by ramps to buildings.Few high rise buildings have lifts and those that do are often broken.There are still many people who dont have running water or proper sanitation.The list goes on and on.I hope to be able to write more in a few days
dan hughes, wonthaggi, victoria Australia
I'm really for protecting Russia's interests, but I'm totally against new Cold war or something like that. Russia and Russian people had too much hard times, wars, tyrans & everythin of that kind, that i think all normal Russian wants now is peaceful existence in modern world under normal human laws. I dont know why Russia always gets into worst trouble and does its best to get into it. Just like now. For me now isnt very suitable time to show immence strengh of Russia. Especially cause thereisnt much left there. Mostly gas&oil.
Korr, Vladivostok, Russia
A good attempt to understand... a rare commodity these days. My commendations, Mr. Moynahan.
Oleg, Ontario, Canada
America's present friends are not very warlike and are constantly apologizing and groveling for once having been great nations. She needs an proud and brave ally like Russia., for such are the times we live in. May it come to pass.
charles, detroit,
It's a very interesting article and was read with pleasur. But I have to say a lot of people never consider UK and Europe as enemy and love Beatles as much as British do.
Mikhail, Moscow, Russia
This is brilliant, I enjoyed every point in the essay and will continue to read from you. Am starting university this september (BA Hons) Politics and International Relations, and I have always read Times on Line and other foreign news paper but it is well said about the Russians.
Akeem Adebiyi, Sittingbourne, UK
Mr.Brian Moynahan should understand that Russia and Moscow are two different countries. It is a big mistake to think that all russians feel that life is becaming better.
For me there are three great problems which are ignored of Putin and his government. These problems are much more important that any successes in a space or foreign affairs.
1) Crisis of education. Factually just now students pay money (bribes) to receive opportunity not to learn some subjects. They pay to be non-educated persons!!!!
2) Crisis of medicine. Have you heard about 2-months girl who lost her hand because of medicine mistake????
3) Crisis of army. 3000 young guy are killed in army every year because of "dedovshina".
So what do you say about strong and well-being Russia? Please go to depths of Russia and look how people live there! And also ask for them what they think about Putin and government.
Svetlana Litvinenko, Rostov-on-Don, Russia
The real threat to Russia is not NATO, Europe or America. The real threat to Europe or America is not Russia. The real threat to Russia, Europe and America is immigrants from places like Africa. The real battle field is in the bedroom. The white populations must start increasing again. The other real battle field is at the airports, ports and borders. Here immigrants from places like Africa must be stopped. The politicians from Russia, Europe and America must realize this and start putting substantial incentives in place for whites to have more babies. The politicians must also make immigration laws much more strict.
C Dreyer, PTA, SA
As the article points out, the west ignores Russia at its peril. This was the case in the past, it is even more so the case now, with a strong vision and a mix of national pride, the removal of the dour vestments of failed communism and a whole-hearted and open embrace of unvarnished political pragmatism. The west, and most particularly the USA, insists on maintaining a veneer of "democracy", when in reality it is more an oligarchy, where only the rich, famous and powerful can ever aspire to the heights of power. Russia is making no secret of the realities of their government, and is the stronger for it. The foreign military/economic policies of the USA and their closest allies, such as Britain and Australia, have raised the ire of many around the world, and are rightly widely mistrusted and criticized by the new Russia. The Russian bear has broken free off the communist chains, continue to think it a comical circus performer at your peril!
Steve Carr, Swannanoa, New Zealand
It's a very interesting article and was written with pleasur.
But I have to say a lot of people never consider UK and Europe as enemy and love Beatles as much as British do.
Mikhail, Moscow, Russia
It's a very interesting article and was written with pleasur.
But I have to say a lot of people never consider UK and Europe as enemy and love Beatles as much as British do.
Mikhail, Moscow, Russia
Thanks Times for appropriate describing reality. Actually, I've read many articles about Russia from foreign journals (USA, Australia, UK, China and from Arabic world) which describes Russia differently. But this one is one of the best articles which shows reality of relationships between Russia and the West.
Now, I just want to underline that anyway Russians want to collaborate with the West but based on equal rights.
With Best Regards,
Pavel S.Tsarevskiy, Samara, Russia
I am becoming increasingly tired of reading articles like this which lean towards the official Western view of Russia. The Russian Federation has rebuilt itself from the rubble of the Soviet Union and is strong. Rather than complaining about abuses and trends we need to be dealing with modern Moscow which is, after all, only looking after itself after centuries of suspicion from western nations.
Who are we, a nation that has meddled in matters not of our business for four centuries and who continue to do so, to lecture anyone on the state of democracy a thousand miles away? Our own democracy is a disgrace, we continue to indulge in wars of hegemony which cannot be won and our own servics are collapsing.
Putin has an 80% approval rating partly because of his policies, the new wealth and regeneration of his country and partly because by demonising him we unite the Russian people behind him, stifle his opposition ourselves and panic in the face of a would be ally.
Mike Rogerson, Plymouth, England,
The U.S. and U.K. might need to study the lesson that Russia has had to learn the hard way. there good in everything.
R.T., Eastern KY,
Finally, a relatively normal article about Russia. At least the author tries to show both sides. Way to go, Times!
Poc, Moscow,
What's wrong with the Russians protecting their interests for years now the USA and the UK have gone around throwing their weight around (war's that didn't need to get involved in). Maybe it's a good thing that Russia becomes a super power again and keep all the other bullies in check....
Paul Dare , London, UK
Another packfull of lies and stinking propaganda.
As to Stalin's atrocities, your should better reflect on how many zillions you Brits killed -- slavery for two hundred years, entire indigenous populations wiped out, their land taken away from them (as in America and Australia and even on the British Isles).
And as to 'guided democracy' and 'controlled media" -- open you eyes, dummy, you are living in one and work for one such outlet !!! I don't know about others but I have had enough of your English lip.
Not that anything you say matters.
norman conquest, moscow, russia
This article is completely unfair to a country which has made such great strides in the last seven years, after the chaos of the Yelsin years. We should thank Putin for saving democracy, after Yeltsin gave it such a bad name.
How would the Americans feel if Russia wanted to put an anti missile system in Cuba (hey, didn't they try this once) ?American policy, once again, is completely wrong and Britain, France and Germany need to distance themselves from it.
Didn't the Americans sell arms to the Taliban, Saddam Hussein? Who are we to criticise the Russians for building up their arms industry? And after years of neglect, their armed forces desprately need new investment and isn't this the first priority of a Government to ensure the defence of the country.
To speak of a new cold war is ridiculous. The Russian economic system is plugged into the West. It needs customers and it's quite entitled to charge market prices for its products.
Give the Russians a break, please.
Gary Hyams, London, UK
Do the math:
Russian defence spending $30 billion, according to this article
US defence spending $450 billion.
This gap is what wiped out the Soviet Union, and it will, if we're patient, do the same for Russia.
William McIlhagga, Ilkley,
The West celebrated the demise of the USSR, however one cannot help but reflect on the enormous power vacuum created by the "official" failure of an alternative ideology.
For all it's failings, socialism and communism, if nothing else, offered an alternative future for millions of disenfranchised people around the world, albeit with support from the USSR when it suited their needs.
In the absence of a valid alternative ideology we have witnessed the rise of organised militancy along religious and ethnic lines in response to the hegemony that the USA has sought to impose on the world.
Russia's increasing assertiveness is as much a response to the present US administration's behaviour as it is to the Russian people's deep sense of identity and understanding of their long history.
I for one would be happier living through a new Cold War in which the power of the US was counterbalanced by another State. Terrorism makes me feel less secure than the Cold War ever did.
Bill in Sydney, Sydney, Australia
World, prepare!
jolo10, North Miami beach, USA - florida