Russia 110308
Basic Political Developments
 Russia still wary of US defense plans for Poland - American Vice President Joe
Biden makes his way to Russia on Wednesday. It is expected that a fair amount of
attention will be focused on US plans for Polish air defense and for an anti-missile
shield, Gazeta Wyborcza reports.
 Business welcomes Biden visit - American businessmen welcome the visit of U.S.
Vice President Joseph Biden to Russia and the U.S. administration's intention to
deepen economic cooperation between the two countries.
 U.S. Vice President Begins Trip To Finland, Russia, And 'Model' Moldova Biden's Moscow itinerary begins with lunch on March 9 at the U.S. Embassy with
American business leaders. The group then travels to Skolkovo, Russia's version
of America's Silicon Valley, for a roundtable discussion with Russian business
leaders. A dinner with President Dmitry Medvedev is also planned.
 Georgia Poses Hurdle for U.S.-Russia Ties - American policy makers will keep
their distance from the process, despite a pressing interest in seeing Russia join
the trade group. Michael McFaul, a senior adviser to President Obama, called the
talks “a bilateral issue, not a trilateral issue.”
 Russian Missiles Only "Temporarily" in South Ossetia - Karasin, however, did
not specify when the rockets would be withdrawn.
 What Happened to the Reset? - The "Reset" Rings Hollow Two Years On. By
Russia Profile
 Seperate missile defense unaccepatable – Rogozin: Mr. Rogozin underlined the
fact that the alliance proposes the creation of two independent systems of missile
defense, one European the other Russian. This option does not suit Moscow,
Rogozin stressed.
 Bushehr plant marks the start of nuclear energy use: Russian ambassador
 Failure at Iran Nuclear Power Plant Raises Concerns About Safety - The pump
failure raises questions about the decisions the Russians made to move forward
with emergency coolant system that’s 30 years old
 COMMENT: Rosatom plans dangerous thermal capacity increases at Russia’s
RBMK reactors of Chernobyl infamy
 Russian firms 'interested in Jordan mega-projects' - The 10th Annual Russian
Industrial Exhibition started on Monday with the participation of nearly 37
companies.
 Russia delivers humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees in Tunisia - A Russian
emergency situations ministry's aircraft with humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees
landed in Tunisia on early Tuesday, a spokesman for the ministry said.
 Russia sends more humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia
 2nd RME plane brings supplies for Libyan refugees
 Sevastopol: Russian fleet stirs passions in Ukraine - By Daniel Sandford Moscow
correspondent, BBC News
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Victor Kaganov pleads guilty - A former Russian officer, now living in the United
States, has pleaded guilty to illegal financial transactions totaling more than $ 170
million.
Tajik, Kyrgyz, Uzbek need visa changes, Russian says
Kim Jong Il thanks Russian musicians - DPRK leader Kim Jong Il visited a joint
concert by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra of the XXI century dedicated to
International Women's Day.
Serbia's export to the Russian market hit a 15-year high
Russia defends MTS investor warning on Turkmenistan - Russian diplomacy
breaks silence, backs MTS in Turkmen row
Machines with fragments of AN-148 cannot leave the crash site due to risk of fuel
spill
Hollywood star agent says 'unaware' if Putin's fundraiser pays off for hospitals
Medvedev wishes women spring warmth and excellent sentiments
It depends on men whether women beautify men’s life-PM
Speakers of both parliament chambers congratulate women on March 8
Interview: Politics, another way for women's self-fulfillment: Russian
parliamentarian
Checkpoint between Russia and Transcaucasia closed - the request came from the
Georgian side to limit traffic due to heavy snowfalls in the area.
Chechnya's strongman denies forcing women to wear headscarves, defends
multiple wives
Brazilian stars to play in Grozny 'out of respect' - Chechen leader
Chechen terrorists, the rebels of the lost cause
Moscow Under Pressure to Make Decisive Moves in the Northwest Caucasus By: Valery Dzutsev
A Fear of Three Letters - Traveling through Ingushetia, a republic where people
are more frightened of Russia's shadowy security forces than the Islamist
militants. BY TOM PARFITT
Church of Scientology Opens New Church in the Heart of Moscow - The building
stands in the city’s central Garden Ring, just a mile from Red Square.
Russia Faces 3-Year Race to Secure Site of Olympics - By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
One Russian national killed, another wounded near France's Nice
WikiLeaks publishes new 'gas war' cables - The WikiLeaks whistleblower site on
March 6 released six new classified U.S. State Department cables authored during
the January 2009 gas crisis, when Russia then shut off gas supplies to Ukraine and
Europe. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her counterpart Vladimir
Putin on Jan. 19, 2009 reached a deal in Moscow to end the crisis.
Cablegate: France bullied Poland over Georgia war - France threatened to harm a
flagship EU policy for post-Soviet countries shortly after the Russia-Georgia war
unless the Union forgave Russia for its invasion, a freshly leaked US cable says.
National Economic Trends
 Senior Bankers in U.S. to Advise Russia
 Oil instability a windfall for Russia
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East Europe Today: Russian Credit Risk at Lowest Since 2008
Wheat Planting Falls to Four Year Low in Russia as Export Ban Hits Farmers
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
 Bombardier Transportation Acquires Stake in Russian Railways Subsidiary
 Kernel Eyes Purchase of Russian Oil Producer, Port, Rp.pl Says
 Russian in and now rushing out - The gold rush into Russia's retail banking
market has come to an end after Barclays Bank announced it plans to sell its high
street bank, while reports say that HSBC is also looking to exit the country.
 Fiat seeks partner to expand in Russia - Fiat SpA is in talks with several Russian
automakers to expand in the fast-growing market and hopes to have a plan in
place next month, chief executive Sergio Marchionne told Reuters Monday.
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
 Stockholm court begins hearings on the BP deal with Rosneft
 TNK-BP moves closer to Russian arctic - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin
said TNK-BP might be able to persuade its oil and natural gas colleagues to tap
into more domestic natural resources if the terms are favorable to all parties
involved.
Gazprom
 Lukoil and Gazprom sign gas supply agreement in Moscow - OAO Lukoil and
OAO Gazprom have signed a gas supply agreement in Moscow, under which gas
will be supplied from Lukoil's fields in the Bolshekhetskaya Depression, the
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and from the north of the Caspian Sea.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Full Text Articles
Basic Political Developments
Russia still wary of US defense plans for Poland
http://www.wbj.pl/article-53591-russia-still-wary-of-us-defense-plans-forpoland.html?typ=wbj
8th March 2011
US Vice President Joe Biden will no doubt discuss the issue when he visits Russia on
Wednesday
American Vice President Joe Biden makes his way to Russia on Wednesday. It is
expected that a fair amount of attention will be focused on US plans for Polish air defense
and for an anti-missile shield, Gazeta Wyborcza reports.
The plan would see F-16 fighter jets and SM-3 missiles based in Poland as part of the US
missile shield system. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement of the plan was
met with disappointment in Moscow, which warned that such moves would only make
cooperation on a joint missile defense system more difficult.
The Polish-American plans are nothing new to the Russians, who vehemently objected
President Bush’s plans to establish a shield against long-range ballistic missiles in Poland
and the Czech Republic.
Moscow says that it is hopeful some compromise can be reached regarding this new
defense plan in Poland.
Poland AM
Business welcomes Biden visit
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/08/47080952.html
Mar 8, 2011 05:16 Moscow Time
American businessmen welcome the visit of U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden to Russia
and the U.S. administration's intention to deepen economic cooperation between the two
countries.
It is expected that during his visit to Russia, which is to take place from the 9th to the
11th of March, Vice President Joseph Biden will reiterate Washington’s support for
Russia's accession to the WTO.
The Chairman of the US-Russia Business Council, Karl Kleinfeld noted that the "restart"
between the two countries has greatly improved the business atmosphere and has allowed
some American companies to conclude major transactions with Russian partners.
U.S. Vice President Begins Trip To Finland, Russia, And 'Model' Moldova
http://www.rferl.org/content/biden_finland_russia_moldova_/2331134.html
March 08, 2011
By Heather Maher
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in Finland for the start of a weeklong, three-nation trip
focused primarily on expanding U.S.-Russian ties but bookended by visits to NATO
member Helsinki and European Union hopeful Moldova.
Biden arrived in Helsinki on March 7 and today will hold meetings with Finnish
President Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi. Finland has some 200
soldiers serving in Afghanistan, and the White House said the bilateral discussions will
cover "a broad range of issues," including the war, the EU, and green technology, in
which Finland is a pioneer.
Biden's Moscow itinerary begins with lunch on March 9 at the U.S. Embassy with
American business leaders. The group then travels to Skolkovo, Russia's version of
America's Silicon Valley, for a roundtable discussion with Russian business leaders. A
dinner with President Dmitry Medvedev is also planned.
On March 10, Biden starts his day by meeting with Prime Minister Vladmir Putin and
then holds separate meetings with opposition leaders and civil society leaders. Biden's
last official stop in the Russian capital will be a speech on U.S.-Russian relations at
Moscow State University.
On March 11, the U.S. vice president heads to Moldova for meetings with Prime Minister
Vlad Filat and acting President Marian Lupu. He'll also deliver a speech that the White
House said will signal U.S. support for "ongoing democratic and economic changes" in
Moldova, which is one of Europe's poorest countries and wants closer ties with the EU.
But the focus of Biden's trip is Russia, where he'll spend the most time -- three nights and
two full days. According to Biden's national security adviser, Tony Blinken, the goal of
the vice president's trip to Moscow is to take stock of the reset in U.S.-Russian relations
that President Barack Obama embarked on when he took office in 2009, which the White
House and most policy analysts have judged a success.
"Today, two years later, we can see the practical and important results of the reset,
including the New START treaty, the Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, much
deeper collaboration on Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea -- what the president calls winwins," Blinken said. "This trip for the vice president is an opportunity to take stock of the
reset, what we've achieved, and where we hope to go next."
Helping With WTO
Topping the agenda of discussions with Russian leaders will be the status of Russia's bid
to join the World Trade Organization, which Washington supports and has helped
facilitate.
The White House's senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs, Michael McFaul,
said the focus is now on helping Moscow through the multilateral stage of the accession
process, so it can meet its goal of joining the trade body later this year.
A sticking point in Russia's accession to the WTO is Georgia, which, as a member, has
veto power. With Russian troops still stationed in the Georgian breakaway territories of
South Ossetia and Abkhazia, relations between Tbilisi and Moscow are icy.
McFaul acknowledged that "there are definitely issues remaining" in terms of Russian
and Georgian trade relations but signaled that the United States will not play the role of
mediator.
"At the end of the day," McFaul said, Russia and Georgia's negotiations are "a bilateral
issue."
Related to Moscow's WTO ambitions is the expansion of U.S.-Russian business ties,
which Blinken said "are growing but [are] still far short of where they could be."
That's why Biden will sit down with American and Russian business leaders, as well as
pay a visit to Russia's version of Silicon Valley -- the nascent high-tech hub of Skolkovo,
just outside Moscow. Medvedev visited California's Silicon Valley in 2010 to try and
woo U.S. companies to do business in Russia.
'Dual-Track' Philosophy
The reset in U.S.-Russian relations -- which were at a low point when Obama took office,
just 18 months after the Russian-Georgian war of 2008 -- is underpinned by a philosophy
the White House calls "dual track." That means forging agreements where interests
converge and agreeing to disagree in areas where they don't.
Human rights activists have criticized the policy as overlooking serious abuses by the
Russian government in exchange for cooperation on strategic issues like Iranian sanctions
and arms control treaties.
McFaul defends the U.S. foreign policy approach as necessary, and not just with Russia.
He points out that in Moscow, Biden will end his meeting with Putin and go straight into
meetings with opposition leaders and civil society groups. The White House says it uses
that engagement model with many countries.
"We see the vice president's trip," McFaul said, "as trying to expand into new dimensions
of reset, with a particular focus on these nongovernmental pieces -- the business piece in
particular, but also the time that he'll be spending with civil society -- to practice what we
call, and the president calls, a dual track engagement.
"This is a strategy we have with a lot of countries around the world. We believe in it
firmly. And I think the structure of the vice president's schedule demonstrates that we're
committed to that."
Biden will also raise the issue of missile defense with Putin and Medvedev. It's an area of
potential cooperation Washington would like to see move forward, but Moscow's refusal
to accept plans for a U.S. missile-defense system in Europe is standing in the way.
Still, McFaul said discussions during last fall's meeting between Obama and Medvedev in
Yokohama, Japan, and the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Lisbon created what he
called "a bit of a pivot" on missile-defense cooperation.
"We are, I think, on the verge of trying to take an issue that used to be extremely
contentious between the United States and Russia and to try to see if we can make this an
area of cooperation," McFaul said. "And the vice president's trip will be an important
marker to see where we're at. And we hope that at some time this year we have agreement
on that."
Moldova An 'Inspiration'
Biden's visit to Moldova on March 11 will be the first visit to that country by a U.S.
president or vice president and is an attempt by the White House to show its support for
Moldova's democratic progress in the last two years. Biden was invited by Filat in
January 2010, after Filat held talks with Biden in Washington.
Blinken said the small country's progress serves as a model for other Eastern European
countries who want to enact democratic reforms and move closer to the West.
"The visit occurs in the context of Moldova celebrating 20 years of independence this
year," Blinken said, "and especially a lot of hard work to build democracy and free
markets, which has made it something of an inspiration in the region."
Blinken praised Moldova's decision to embark on what he called "difficult reforms" laid
out by the Alliance for European Integration and said the United States "stands and
supports the government [in Chisinau] as it sees those reforms through to completion. "
Blinken also said Biden will convey U.S. support for a resolution to the frozen conflict
over Transdniester that "respects Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
Georgia Poses Hurdle for U.S.-Russia Ties
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/europe/08russia.html
By ELLEN BARRY
Published: March 7, 2011
MOSCOW — When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. sits down with Russia’s leaders
later this week, a central topic will be the payoffs of the “reset” between Russia and the
United States, among them Russia’s long-awaited accession to the World Trade
Organization, which American officials have vigorously supported.
But it is far too early to declare that project a success. Among the remaining sticking
points is the fact that Georgia, which joined the trade group in 2000, has the power to
block the admission of any new member.
For a decade, while grievances mounted between Russia and Georgia, the Georgian
government has sought policy changes from Russia in exchange for its approval.
Negotiations foundered in 2008, and a few months later, when war broke out over the
separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, further talks began to look like a lost
cause.
On Monday, with the 17-year process of Russia’s entry nearing its endgame, Georgian
officials confirmed that they would sit down with their Russian counterparts in
Switzerland, which “has been mandated to act as a mediator between both countries,”
said a spokeswoman for the Swiss Foreign Ministry.
The issue is a difficult and occasionally painful one for all the parties involved: for
Russia, which must reach out to a government it has demonized; for the United States,
which has made Russia’s membership in the trade group into a central goal; and for
Georgia, which has a limited window in which to negotiate before its allies become
impatient.
For Georgia, “the W.T.O. issue is a double-edged sword,” said Svante E. Cornell,
research director for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
“On the one hand, it gives them leverage,” Mr. Cornell said. “On the other hand, it risks
making them look like they’re the problem. It risks isolating them.”
First Deputy Foreign Minister Nikoloz Vashakidze of Georgia told reporters on Monday
that the talks were a Russian initiative, and that they would start on Wednesday or
Thursday. He did not say what Georgia’s conditions were. But in the past, Georgia’s
negotiators have asked for a role in customs administration on borders between the
separatist territories and Russia.
Giorgi Kandelaki, deputy chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Georgian
Parliament, said he would like to see international observers on the Russian side of the
border, along the lines of a European Union monitoring mission that is based outside
Transnistria, a separatist region in Moldova. The observers would pick up the smuggling
of goods or drugs, as well as movements of Russian military hardware, Mr. Kandelaki
said.
“If they don’t agree, there will be no W.T.O. accession for Russia,” he said. “Georgia
does not want to be a hurdle. But Georgia is not the reason for this hurdle.”
He said the negotiations offered Georgia “a good opportunity to remind the international
community” of the breakaway territories, which only Russia and three other countries
have formally recognized as sovereign nations. Two and a half years after Russian forces
routed the Georgian army in South Ossetia, tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians remain
displaced from their homes in the enclave, and Russia has moved in heavy weaponry,
including tactical ballistic missiles and rocket launchers.
“It is an ongoing, dynamic issue, and it has direct consequences for Euro-Atlantic
security,” Mr. Kandelaki said. “The problem hasn’t gone away.”
Maksim Y. Medvedkov, Russia’s chief negotiator on accession to the World Trade
Organization, did not respond to a request for comment.
American policy makers will keep their distance from the process, despite a pressing
interest in seeing Russia join the trade group. Michael McFaul, a senior adviser to
President Obama, called the talks “a bilateral issue, not a trilateral issue.”
Negotiators in Moscow “understand that they have to deal with this issue seriously, and
that this is not just something they can wait for us to make the Georgians go along,
because we’re not going to do that,” Mr. McFaul said in a conference call on Friday.
Georgian leaders, he said, are prepared to “deal specifically with the economic and trade
issues that are involved here, and not make it a bigger debate.”
Anders Aslund, a Russia specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics
in Washington, said Georgia’s government should press Moscow to lift all the trade
sanctions imposed in 2006, when Russia’s sanitary inspector banned the import of
Georgian wines and mineral water, a major blow to the smaller country’s economy.
Negotiating on customs and border issues would prove thornier, since it would touch on
“the formal recognition of which border is valid,” Mr. Aslund said.
He said Georgia’s veto power was one of only two or three issues — like intellectual
property rights and agricultural subsidies — that were keeping Russia from membership
in the trade organization. Members acknowledge Georgia’s right to strike a bargain with
Russia for its consent, Mr. Aslund said, “but the W.T.O. accession for Russia is really
moving on.”
“Right now Georgia has great leverage, but it will soon disappear,” he said. “They should
use this in an effective fashion.”
Russian Missiles Only "Temporarily" in South Ossetia
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/63025
March 7, 2011 - 4:58pm, by Joshua Kucera
A few weeks ago Russia announced that it was deploying new missiles to South Ossetia,
eliciting an angry response from Georgia. And at the time, the unnamed Russian official
who was leaking the news didn't try to avoid making it sound like a provocation; he said
the missiles were "capable to effectively repel any aggression from Tbilisi."
But now, Russia seems to be walking that announcement back, saying the deployment
would just be temporary. Via Civil.ge, quoting RIA Novosti:
"Tochka-U installations were deployed on the territory of South Ossetia for participation
in the military exercises of our military base; they were deployed there temporarily," he
said.
Karasin, however, did not specify when the rockets would be withdrawn.
That's a positive move. The recent Center for American Progress report called the missile
deployment (along with another rocket deployment) the "most obvious contributing
factor to Georgian insecurity." U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is on his way to Moscow,
and that's the sort of thing that a diplomatic partner does as a friendly gesture. So can we
thank the reset for this?
What Happened to the Reset?
http://russiaprofile.org/international/33217.html
The "Reset" Rings Hollow Two Years On
By Tom Balmforth Russia Profile 03/06/2011
Two years on, the “reset” in U.S.-Russian ties has changed the tone of relations, but the
“hollow” veneer of its overall success does not mask enduring mistrust between the
countries and their different national interests, say analysts. U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden is due in Russia on March 10 to “energize” the reset, but analysts question how
warmer ties can develop further, while noting that the Barack Obama administration –
keen to flaunt a foreign policy triumph domestically – has shouldered the weight of the
reconciliation.
“The determination of the United States not to rock the boat on a number of issues where
it could have done has effectively led to the appearance of the reset working, whereas in
fact there is very little of a substantive nature,” said James Nixey, head of the Russia and
Eurasia Program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
Advocates of the reset point to the signing and ratification of the strategic arms reduction
treaty – voted through the U.S. Senate by a close margin – as a milestone in closer ties,
but analysts say it could well have been signed without the reset. “I’m not convinced you
can point to START as a direct result of the reset,” said Nixey. “The treaty was always in
the interests of both sides.”
Alexander Konovalov, the president of the Moscow-based Institute of Strategic Analysis,
said that the reset has struggled to overcome the legacy of Cold War enmity. “There
could definitely be more going on overall,” said Konovalov. “Relations are still built on
the ruins of the system of confrontation. In the nuclear field we still rely on nuclear
containment, although it’s pretty clear that there is no need to contain each other.”
Since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her counterpart Sergei Lavrov “hit the reset
button” in Moscow on March 6, 2009, the Kremlin has tentatively inched closer to the
U.S. position on Iran by backing moderate UN sanctions to curb Iran’s perceived nuclear
ambitions. But Moscow questions the efficacy of sanctions, and is also reluctant to anger
Tehran as it risks losing its traditional economic interests in the oil rich pariah state.
Moscow gave the green light to the “Northern supply route,” a key transit corridor for
non-lethal U.S. cargo needed to service the faltering military campaign in Afghanistan.
But far from a Russian concession related to the reset, the move was entirely “in line with
Russia’s national interest.” Russia does not to want to see instability in Afghanistan
worsen, potentially resonating throughout post-Soviet Central Asia, along Russia’s
underbelly, Nixey said.
For its part Washington has appeased Moscow by taking Georgia and Ukraine off the
entry roadmap to NATO, by shelving missile defense plans in Europe and by reneging on
the Goerge Bush administration’s democracy promotion in the post-Soviet space,
Russia’s so-called “backyard.”
American rhetoric aimed at Russia has also softened. Nixey said he was “extremely
doubtful” that there would be anything more than “token” criticism of Russia’s upcoming
parliamentary and presidential elections in December and early next year – unthinkable
during the lows of relations under Bush and Putin. “The desperation to make the reset
work has almost made it work,” said Nixey. “But it doesn’t quite cover up for the
hollowness of it all and the fact that there are still vast differences on various things.”
The relatively calm way that Washington dealt with uncovering the largest post-Cold
War spy ring exemplified the U.S. political will to make the reset work. But it will still
have raised eyebrows behind the White House’s closed doors. “There’s a public face and
a private face to these things. Privately, this was unsurprising and merely confirmed in
the minds of American policymakers that Russia is awkward and not really to be trusted,”
said Nixey.
The next step
Nixey said “it is conceivable” that Russia will soon accede to the World Trade
Organization, and that there will be increased cooperation between Russia and NATO.
“But in fact I think it’s more conceivable that the values gap between Russia and the
West will expose the reset for the hollow thing that it is,” said Nixey.
Konovalov agreed, despite suggesting that areas of joint cooperation could be waiting
around the corner. “It’s difficult to imagine what more can be done in the reset. The lack
of trust on both sides remains strong. But life keeps on throwing new topics at us, like the
situation in North Africa. We have to find ways to act together on these matters,” he said.
Seperate missile defense unaccepatable – Rogozin
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/08/47081083.html
Mar 8, 2011 05:36 Moscow Time
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is optimistic regarding cooperation
with Russia on missile defense but according to Russia's permanent representative to the
alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, negotiations will be complex as the parties will only be able to
agree if NATO's missile defense will not affect the strategic nuclear potential of Russia,
the diplomat said.
Mr. Rogozin underlined the fact that the alliance proposes the creation of two
independent systems of missile defense, one European the other Russian. This option
does not suit Moscow, Rogozin stressed.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 | Volume: 11106
Bushehr plant marks the start of nuclear energy use: Russian ambassador
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=237028
Tehran Times Political Desk
TEHRAN – The Bushehr nuclear power plant is not just a symbol for Iran, rather it
marks the start of a move to use nuclear energy on a legal basis, Russian Ambassador to
Tehran Alexander Sadovnikov has said.
Speaking to the Mehr News Agency, Alexander Sadovnikov commented on problems in
making the plant fully operational, saying this important project sometimes encounter
some technical hurdles, which need thorough examination.
And it is wiser to fix these problems now instead of having to incur losses in the future,
he added.
There is no doubt that Russia will finish the project and this is like an objective for
Moscow as it is for Tehran, he added.
Iran had started loading the fuel into the reactor in October 2010 after the inauguration of
the plant on August 21, 2010.
The Bushehr nuclear power plant has a pressurized water reactor with a capacity to
produce 1,000 megawatts of power
Failure at Iran Nuclear Power Plant Raises Concerns About Safety
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/failure-at-iran-s-bushehr-nuclear-powerplant-raises-concerns-about-safety.html
By Peter S. Green - Mar 8, 2011 2:16 AM GMT+0100
A shattered cooling pump at Iran’s only civilian nuclear-power reactor, forcing a
shutdown during its initial start-up phase, has renewed safety concerns about the hybrid
Russian-German power plant on the Persian Gulf coast.
The 1000-megawatt power plant at Bushehr combines a German- designed plant begun
under the rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1970’s and Russian technology
installed over the last decade. Safety questions have raised concern among some nuclearpower experts and in neighboring countries such as Kuwait, which is vulnerable in the
event of a radiation leak since it is downwind about 170 miles (275 kilometers).
“The rest of the world is depending on the Russian Federation for policing the nuclear
safety of this reactor,” said Mark Hibbs, an expert on Iranian nuclear issues at the
Carnegie Endowment for World Peace. The pump failure “raises questions about the
decisions the Russians made to move forward with emergency coolant system that’s 30
years old,” he said.
Russian officials said in a statement Feb. 28 they were removing the nuclear fuel to
thoroughly clean the reactor core and the primary cooling system to remove metal shards
left by the pump’s failure. Shards as small as 3 millimeters can damage instrumentation
and the zirconium cladding that protects the core and prevents radiation leaks.
Russia’s Ambassador to Iran, Alexander Sadovnikov, was quoted yesterday by Iran’s
state-run Mehr news agency as saying that the delay was necessary since it’s better “to
prevent unwanted consequences rather than to regret it later and spend more time trying
to make up for it.”
Safety Issues
Nuclear experts cite potential safety issues due to the hybrid design, Iranian nuclear
inexperience, the Islamic state’s reluctance to join international safety monitoring
programs, and the unknown reliability of some of the original components.
Iran’s decision to withdraw the fuel from the reactor was in “no way” linked to the
malicious software known as Stuxnet, Iran’s ambassador to Russia, Mahmoud-Reza
Sajjadi, said in a report published by the state-run Fars news agency on Feb 27. Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged Nov. 29 that high-speed centrifuges
used in Iran’s uranium-enrichment program were damaged by the malicious computer
software.
Under United Nations sanctions for trying to amass enriched uranium that could be used
in a nuclear bomb, Iran has requested only one safety consultation on Bushehr from the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
No Monitoring
After that visit last year, the IAEA warned Iran’s nuclear regulatory agency had “a
shortage of staff” and the existing workers who were under-trained and under-funded.
The UN group’s mission was “neither an inspection, nor an audit,” the agency said in a
March 2 statement. The IAEA does monitor installation and removal of the reactor’s
nuclear fuel.
UN sanctions allow Iran to buy equipment for Bushehr, a light-water reactor that does not
produce weapons-grade nuclear material. Russian engineers will remain at the plant as
Iranians learn the ropes, said Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Russia’s state-owned
nuclear builder, Rosatom Corp., the plant’s constructor.
“This is a program largely developed in secret and their first ever of this size and you
don’t develop a safety culture overnight,” said Jim Walsh, a research associate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
Cost Cutting
The cooling-system pumps were “supplied to Bushehr in the 1970’s and, under the
current contract, Russia was obliged to integrate them into the project,” Rosatom said in
the Feb. 28 statement.
“To cut costs the Russians had to agree to use certain parts supplied by the Germans,”
said Bill Horak, chairman of the nuclear science and technology department at
Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, who studies Soviet and Russian- built
reactors.
Bushehr also sits at the junction of three tectonic plates, raising concerns that an
earthquake could damage the plant and crack its containment dome, or disrupt the
electrical supply needed to keep it safe, said Dr. Jassem al-Awadi, a geologist at the
University of Kuwait. Bushehr was hit with a 4.6 magnitude temblor in 2002.
Kuwait Downwind
Winds in the Persian Gulf blow from East to West and coastal currents circle counterclockwise, meaning Kuwait and the Saudi Arabia would feel the effects of a radiation
leak at Bushehr within hours, notes Sami Alfaraj, director of the Kuwait Center for
Strategic Studies. And with the Gulf Arab states reliant for their freshwater on
desalination plants that line the coast, long-term contamination of the Gulf could prove
fatal.
“What are our concerns -- water and air, and these are the essence of life for everybody,”
Alfaraj said in an interview. “The Iranians have said so far ‘trust us,’ and it’s quite
difficult to trust them and the next thing is to trust Russian certification and it’s very
difficult to trust that.”
Iran “has always given priority to the plant being in line with highest international
standards,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, told the state-run Iranian
Students News Agency Feb. 26.
Risks Low
Technology has improved since the accidents at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile
Island in Pennsylvania making the risk from a modern reactor “extremely low,” said
James Acton, a physicist who works with the Carnegie Endowment in Washington.
Horak also rates the chances of a catastrophic accident as low, noting the German-built
containment dome was built to resist a direct hit by a jet fighter.
Russia, which built the reactor, has perhaps the greatest incentive to ensure it operates
safely, which is commercial self-interest, said Hibbs.
Atomstroyexport JSC, the export arm of Rosatom, has nuclear power plants planned or
under construction in 14 countries, from Armenia to Jordan. Plants are under construction
in India and Bulgaria, according to its website. A serious accident at Bushehr would bring
a swift end to the entire industry, noted Hibbs.
To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in New York at
[email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at [email protected]
COMMENT: Rosatom plans dangerous thermal capacity increases at Russia’s
RBMK reactors of Chernobyl infamy
http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/RBMK_increases
MOSCOW – A new experiment to be conducted at Russian nuclear power plants
employing RBMK-type reactors of Chernobyl notoriety is aimed at increasing the
thermal power capacity of these reactors – and presumably, beefing up the operator
company’s profit – but is likely to contribute to growing radionuclide discharges and a
heavier burden on the aged equipment, at the risk of setting it up for malfunctioning and
failure Andrei Ozharovsky, 08/03-2011 - Translated by Maria Kaminskaya
The advent of capitalism in the Russian nuclear industry has not just shown itself in the
many transformations the former Ministry of Atomic Energy, later the Federal Agency of
Atomic Energy, and finally the State Nuclear Corporation Rosatom has undergone, reincorporating its many structural entities as joint stock companies in place of former state
enterprises. Capitalism’s first law is that of making profit. This may be what gave rise to
a seemingly insane idea that is now gaining force within the Russian nuclear domain:
Operating commercial reactors at capacities exceeding design-basis levels.
The frightening insanity is that this dangerous experiment is expected to have a broad
enough reach to encompass not just the VVER-type reactors – of which none, thankfully,
has blown up to date – but also the RBMK-1000s, the series infamous for the 1986
catastrophe at the nuclear power plant (NPP) in Ukraine’s Chernobyl.
Eleven RBMK-1000s are currently in operation at Russia’s Leningrad, Kursk, and
Smolensk Nuclear Power Plants. These reactors were not shut down after 1986. First, as
per the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) recommendations, their output
capacity was decreased. But following a series of upgrades, the reactors were brought
back to design-basis capacity – and furthermore, permissions were then applied for and
granted to extend their operational life spans beyond the 30 years specified in the original
design.
And now Reactor Unit 1 of Kursk NPP, located in the town of Kurchatov in Kursk
Region in West European Russia, has been designated as a pilot site to experiment on
increasing these reactors’ thermal output capacity.
Rosenergoatom, Rosatom’s structure in charge of operating Russia’s nuclear power
plants, is soon expected to apply for a license to operate Kursk’s Reactor 1 at an
increased thermal capacity. The application will be filed with Russia’s industrial
oversight authority, the Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Atomic
Supervision (or Rostekhnadzor, in its Russian abbreviation). Bellona has at its disposal
documents that were used as the basis for the application. An analysis of these documents
shows that a large-scale dangerous experiment has been devised that threatens to create
risks of the kind that precipitated the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
Runaway greed as a precursor to runaway reactors
It would seem logical that as the main objective for Rosenergoatom is producing power at
nuclear power plants, maximising output would be one of desired goals. Achieving that
goal was what prompted the development of the “Programme for increasing electric
power output at generating units of nuclear power plants in operation by Concern
Rosenergoatom for 2007 to 2015.”
Increasing output can be done without risks incurred to a nuclear power plant’s safety –
for instance, by enhancing a plant’s installed capacity utilisation factor via improving the
performance of its non-nuclear components – such as power generators and turbine
plants. But the nuclear capitalists are opting for a simpler, if more dangerous, solution:
Raising profit by boosting the reactors’ thermal output – in other words, making them
operate under loads increased beyond design limits.
It is more or less clear why the eleven RBMK-1000s were not excluded from the outputenhancement programme – all reactors are supposed to participate in this race for profit,
including reactors that have proved, in practical experience, just how capricious and
dangerous they can be.
In 2007, Rosenergoatom adopted a “Sub-programme for implementing five-percent
increases in thermal output at generating units of RBMK-running nuclear power plants in
operation by Concern Rosenergoatom for 2007 to 2015.” There are also plans to further
boost the RBMK reactors’ capacity by 10 percent. Kursk NPP has been selected to
pioneer these efforts.
Public discussion
In late January, a public hearing was held in Kursk NPP’s satellite city, Kurchatov, to
discuss the plan to operate the station’s Reactor Unit 1 at above-nominal capacity. The
plant’s management chose not to post the documents they had presented at the hearing for
open access on the Internet.
“The materials are stored in a library here, in the town of Kurchatov – you’re welcome to
come and read,” Kursk NPP’s public information service told the author of this comment.
I came, I read, I found a lot of interesting and curious information: The plant’s reactors
are already operating at increased capacity; the engineering proposals on which this
capacity boost is based are dubious; the NPP’s radioactive discharges are bound for a
significant increase, while safety levels will likely go down – but, as per usual, those
behind this experiment are confident the Chernobyl tragedy will not repeat itself.
Reactors boosted already
At the hearing, Kursk NPP’s chief engineer Alexander Uvakin said the thermal capacity
increase programme was already in full swing at the plant. Back in March and April in
2009, Reactor Unit 1 at Kursk NPP already underwent a “Comprehensive programme for
gradual (phase-by-phase) elevation of thermal output of Reactor Unit 1 of Kursk NPP by
5 percent above nominal.”
Documents presented at the public hearing show that compared to the nominal capacity
of 4,000 megawatts, the actual combined operating load at the station was usually in
excess of 4,150 megawatts; a maximum of 4,204 megawatts was reached on February 4,
2010. Power output levels of individual generating units frequently went above 1,060
megawatts – or 106 percent of nominal values. Maximum electric power output was
reached on Reactor Unit 2 twice, on January 20 and February 1, 2010, when output
amounted to 1,070 megawatts (7 percent above nominal load).
The danger of this experiment is both in increased radionuclide discharges through the
ventilation system and in an increased burden on the reactor components, as well as in the
changing operating modes – all of which could lead to an increased risk of accidents.
Increasing radiation doses
The documents that Kursk NPP presented at the hearing demonstrate that with Reactor
Unit 1 operating at 110 percent capacity, the combined radionuclide discharges from the
station grow – in the worse-case scenario – by 1.2 times in inert radioactive gasses and by
1.5 times in iodine-131.
Yearly acceptable discharges, as per the existing Sanitary Rules for Designing and
Operating Nuclear Power Plants, will not be exceeded, but the danger of significant
increases of radioactivity discharges is evident. And if the experiment is deemed
successful and all four of the station’s power units begin to operate at above-nominal
capacity, then discharges of inert radioactive gasses should rise by 80 percent, while
discharges of radioactive iodine, which causes thyroid cancer, will be three times as
current levels!
It is not too difficult to understand why it is the discharges of radioactive iodine
specifically that will grow as output capacity increases by what seems like a fairly
insignificant percentage.
With a reactor of the RBMK type – a channel-type reactor – total thermal capacity only
increases if thermal capacity is increased in each of the fuel channels. Radioactive iodine
is generated in fuel rods as a product of nuclear fission. As long as fuel rods remain
sealed, radioactive iodine presents no threat. However, with load increases, the likelihood
of loss of seal increases accordingly, and so does the thermal load on those fuel rods
where loss of seal has already occurred. Fission products, such as radioactive iodine, end
up in the coolant flow much faster; part of them is held back by filters, but that part that
has passed through is released via ventilation pipes into the surrounding environment,
leading to increased radioactive discharges.
Expert estimates say a ten-percent increase in the average output of a non-hermetic fuel
rod doubles iodine-131’s radioactivity levels in the water passing through the coolant
circuit and augments its concentration in a nuclear power plant’s discharges by 1.5 times.
Kursk NPP, however, believes the experiment to be safe: “Discharges of [inert
radioactive gasses], iodine, and radioactive aerosols into the surrounding environment are
possible as a result of increasing capacity of Reactor 1 of Kursk NPP, however this will
not lead to statistically discernible changes in environmental contamination levels or
radiation exposure experienced by the population residing in the vicinity of [Kursk]
NPP.”
The documents used to substantiate Kursk’s application for Rostekhnadzor’s license to
run Reactor 1 at an increased thermal capacity also say: “With three reactors of Kursk
NPP operating at nominal capacity and Reactor Unit 1 operating at an increased capacity,
an increase in the radiation exposure burden on the population at the perimeter of the
[sanitary protective zone] (1.7 kilometres) and in the town of Kurchatov will be observed,
in the amount of 0.03 [microsieverts], or 18 percent, above current levels.”
One can expect, therefore, that if the remaining three reactors are also brought to output
levels beyond nominal, the combined radiation exposure burden on the population living
in the vicinity of the plant will increase by 72 percent – or by 0.12 microsieverts per year.
That would already constitute a serious problem, since what is at issue here is not
external exposure, but radiation doses received internally, exposing the thyroid to the
harmful impact of radioactive iodine.
The threat of abnormal iodine discharges is, unfortunately, quite real. It was precisely that
sort of radioactive iodine release – during a November 1975 accident on an RBMK-1000
reactor at Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant – that accounted for a spike in newborns
diagnosed with chromosomal abnormalities (Down Syndrome) in Leningrad NPP's
hometown of Sosnovy Bor, near St. Petersburg, the following year. The little nuclear
town had zero Down Syndrome statistics prior to the accident.
Radioactive discharges reach as far as Kursk
It has long been no secret that the tall ventilation stacks are needed at nuclear power
plants to ensure emissions of dangerous artificial radionuclides into the surrounding
atmosphere – to release radioactive products such as resulting from both accidental leaks
and as part of so-called “sanctioned discharges,” or discharges implemented under
normal operating conditions.
It was not for nothing that Kurchatov, the satellite town of Kursk NPP, made it into a
report entitled “On the condition of the environment and on environmental protection in
the Russian Federation in 2009” and prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Ecology. This is what the report had to say about Kursk NPP:
“Increased, as compared to background [radiation] levels, radioactivity concentrations of
[caesium-137], as averaged per month, were registered in 2009 in Kurchatov […] in
April, at 42* 10–7 [becquerels per cubic metre]. Increased, as compared to background
levels, by 6.5 times, radioactivity concentrations of [caesium-137], as averaged per year,
were registered […] in Kurchatov, at 15* 10–7 [becquerels per cubic metre] […].
Furthermore, in 2009, as in previous years, several instances were registered of detection
in the atmosphere in the cities of Kursk and Kurchatov […] of certain products of nuclear
fission and neutron activation.”
The ministry continues in its report: “The appearance of traces of these radionuclides in
the atmosphere of these cities is directly linked with the operation of the nearby Kursk
NPP.”
That the radiation from Kursk NPP, located some forty kilometres west of the regional
centre of Kursk, was established to reach that far – albeit in small quantities – speaks
plenty about the seriousness of the problem.
And according to Rostekhnadzor, in 2009, Kursk NPP discharged into the surrounding
environment 297.3 terabecquerels’ worth of inert radioactive gasses, 1.32 terabecquerels
of iodine-131, 0.333 terabecquerels of cobalt-60, and 50.7 megabecquerels of caesium137. And this is not the complete list of artificial radionuclides released by nuclear power
plants through their ventilation stacks into the surrounding atmosphere. For instance,
discharges of tritium – radioactive hydrogen – are not even monitored at all…
By trial and error
Curiously, the proponents of the risky experiment with boosting the RBMKs’ thermal
output are themselves no strangers to understanding that the equipment is not ready to
withstand such increases and that the associated additional burden may turn out to be just
the straw that broke the camel’s back.
This, for instance, is how experts with the federal Scientific and Technological Centre for
Nuclear and Radiation Safety, an entity of Rostekhnadzor’s, expect the separator drum –
a device that separates steam needed to turn the turbine from water – to behave in
reaction to such an experiment: “As the power unit’s capacity is increased to 110 percent
of nominal levels, the steam humidity burden is increased on the evaporation surface in
the [separator drum] […] Moreover, there is, in the existing design of the steam drum
internals, the threat of steam getting caught in the downcomer, which can lead to a cutout of the [main circulation pump] as the emergency protection system is activated at
nominal capacity. Steam drum internals of existing designs, furthermore, do not provide
for even distribution of steam across the width of the submerged perforated plate or
reliable operation of hydroseals at water outlet from the plate.”
But the experimentators will not be stopped. They have taken it upon themselves to
modernise the steam drum design, substituting a non-standard variation for the machinery
previously in use: “The steam drum internals of the existing project design have been
replaced at Reactor 1 of [Kursk NPP] with a system of collector distribution of the watersteam mixture inside the steam drum.”
There is no certainty that the innovation will work, so tests are needed: “The Applicant
plans, while increasing capacity to 110 percent, to conduct steam separation tests at each
incremental capacity increase of 2÷3 percent owing to the separation drum’s limited
capability to provide for regulated steam humidity and the existing [inflexible] separating
characteristic. In the Applicant’s opinion, the results of the tests on the reactor unit will
help find the limit to which increasing the reactor installation’s capacity is possible, as
well as identify the exact emergency protection setpoints with regard to changing water
levels in the separators.”
So basically, Kursk personnel will have to go through nearly every NPP component,
working by trial and error, adjustments and improvements, just to get it right and force
the reactors to work at increased capacity.
The deaerators, too, seem to need retrofitting, inserting an additional valve that was not
provided for in the original design: “Because, during the unit’s operation at increased
capacity, the flow of “hot” feedwater into the deaerator will increase as well, an
adjustment is needed in the deaerator’s excess pressure protection system, i.e. inserting
into the scheme a backup safety valve.”
Just how substantiated and thought through these innovations, improvements,
adjustments, etc are, introduced as they are on the go, only practice will show –
experimental, in this case. But it wouldn’t hurt sparing a thought as to what kind of
accidents might occur on a Chernobyl-type reactor once it is “boosted” beyond the tried
and tested limits.
Rusty old wrecks…
Two facts can serve as confirmation that Rosenergoatom’s plan to boost RBMKs’
capacity is a dangerous venture.
One is the accident at Lithuania’s Ignalina NPP, where the cooling circuit of the shutdown Reactor Unit 1 – Lithuania had to close down the aged Soviet-built station,
complying with a European Union condition as it was ascending the union – failed to
withstand the impact of a decontaminating solution, as it was being flushed through the
systems, and leaked some 300 cubic metres of radioactive sludge onto the floor of the
main operations hall. Even though Ignalina’s Reactor 1 – of the upgraded RBMK-1500
series – was in operation less than the 30 years of its design-basis lifetime, the equipment
was evidently in a deplorable enough condition – even though the plant’s owner had no
inkling of how worn-out the systems were until the leak occurred.
The second is the information from a yearly report by Rostekhnadzor, publicised in 2010,
which says that Rosenergoatom simply does not have reliable data on the state of many
reactor components that are critical to the safety of the NPPs in its purview: “As regards
the weld seams in the […] austenitic pipelines of RMBK-1000 reactors, the issue of
reliability of maintenance control must be differentiated depending on the method of
maintenance control and location of the weld seams (some of them are not subject to
control). On the whole, the reliability of defect monitoring, as dependent on the method
of maintenance control, can be assessed to range between 64% and 90%, which also
attests to the urgency of the problem of substantiating assessments of integrity and
strength of […] welded austenitic pipelines.”
In plainer language, the danger is there that the pipelines in use at Russian RBMKrunning NPPs may burst at any given moment. Whether this is as big a threat as another
Chernobyl depends on many factors, but certainly, these are not risks to be dismissed
offhand.
So let’s just not pretend that our RBMKs are in a good enough condition and that we
know all there is to know about them and their safety. If we just stop pretending, then
maybe it will become clearer that experimenting on the aged and unreliable equipment is
a stunt of the kind that borders on criminal negligence.
Inadequate analysis of accident scenarios
The issue of whether accidents of Chernobyl magnitude are possible with RBMK reactors
as their innards go through retrofitting and adjustments to squeeze more power out of
them is being dodged by Rosenergoatom in the simplest way possible – by keeping total
silence on the subject. As in, it’s just impossible, and that’s that.
There is, to be sure, some progress, compared to the 1980s: Back then, what was at the
time the atomic energy ministry claimed RBMKs were so safe one might as well build
one in Red Square. At least now, there is an admission, to a certain point, that there might
be certain consequences if an accident occurs – though, Rosenergoatom says, they will
not reach farther than 2.6 kilometres in the worst case.
This is not a joke: The documents presented at the hearing in Kurchatov say no measures
beyond evacuating and sheltering the population and iodine-based prevention will be
required at distances greater than 1.7 kilometres from the plant, while sheltering measures
will not be required at any distance greater than 2.6 kilometres. The only other limitation
that the documents provide for in case of a beyond-design-basis accident is “necessary
measures to limit consumption of contaminated food at distances less than 25 kilometres”
from the plant.
What is meant here is precisely beyond-design-basis accidents – that is to say, accidents
developing according to the worst scenario possible, one that cannot be entirely
prognosticated, thought through, or taken all necessary precautions against in advance…
Does one really need to point out, for the umpteenth time, that one beyond-design-basis
accident has already happened once on an RBMK reactor – on April 26, 1986, at Reactor
Unit 4 of Chernobyl NPP – and that its impact went far beyond a mere couple of
kilometres, poisoning lands as far away as in Western Europe? Limitations on food
consumption were introduced then in Germany’s Bavaria, for instance – thousands of
kilometres away from ground zero…
Contamination misinformation
In critical remarks written with regard to the documentation presented at the hearing in
Kursk, Bellona’s St. Petersburg-based branch, Environmental Rights Centre (ERC)
Bellona, said the impact of potentially serious beyond-design-basis accidents was
unjustifiably excluded from consideration:
“Only those scenarios for beyond-design-basis accidents are examined [in the documents]
that can potentially develop as a result of ‘loss of [cooling] water’ and ‘simultaneous
rupture of nine fuel channels.’ Excluded from analysis, absent of any foundation, are
other possible scenarios for beyond-design-basis accidents, such as, for instance,
destruction of the reactor resulting from external impact – a plane crash involving a
passenger plane with a mass of around 100 tonnes and proceeding at a speed of around
800 [kilometres per hour] – or […] internal causes or actions of the personnel (the
Chernobyl scenario, or the ‘human factor’).”
“Only the ‘benchmark’ Level 5 beyond-design-basis accident scenario is considered, as
described by the INES scale, while more serious accident scenarios, of Levels 6 and 7,
are unjustifiably excluded from consideration,” ERC Bellona’s document said, referring
to the International Nuclear and Radiological Events Scale, an IAEA tool developed to
classify nuclear and radiation incidents and accidents by their degree of severity in order
to provide for a uniform public information code. The “benchmark” in this case is the
estimated concentration of iodine-131 released as a result of a given accident and serving
to classify the accident according to one level or another.
Level 5 on the INES scale describes “Accidents with Wider Consequences” involving
“limited release of radioactive
material likely to require implementation of some
planned countermeasures; several deaths from radiation,” and, where radiological barriers
and control are concerned, “severe damage to reactor core; release of large quantities of
radioactive material within an installation with a high probability of significant public
exposure,” possibly resulting from “a major criticality accident or fire.” The infamous
1975 accident at Three Mile Island in the US was a Level 5 event.
Accidents of Levels 6 and 7 are classified as “Serious Accidents” and “Major Accidents,”
respectively, and involve “significant release of radioactive material likely to require
implementation of planned countermeasures,” for Level 6 events, and “major release of
radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring
implementation of planned and extended countermeasures,” for Level 7 events. In terms
of examples in the history of operation of nuclear facilities worldwide, both levels are
represented by accidents that have taken place in the former Soviet Union, with
Chernobyl being the world’s severest nuclear accident to date.
In reference to one of the documents, entitled “Environmental protection while increasing
capacity of, and operating at above-nominal capacity, Reactor Unit 1 of Kursk NPP,”
ERC Bellona continues to say in its critical remarks that as a result of failure to pay due
attention to the possibility of more serious accidents than Level 5 events, “the impact of a
serious beyond-design-basis accident on the environment and population health was
significantly underrated. Erroneous conclusions were made based on underrated data with
regard to the significance of population exposure levels following a beyond-design-basis
accident and the necessity of evacuation and iodine-based prevention measures for the
population at any distance greater than 1.7 kilometres, or protection (sheltering) of the
population at any distance greater than 2.6 kilometres, from the reactor.”
ERC Bellona concludes: “This approach may cause both the public and persons
responsible for relevant decision-making to be misinformed about the real consequences
of a serious beyond-design-basis accident.”
Hostage to the “peaceful atom”
The town of Kurchatov and its 48,000 inhabitants are just 3.5 kilometres away from
Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, towering on the banks of an artificial pond where the plant
takes water for its cooling circuits. The ventilation stacks on top of the station’s roof are
well visible from the top floors of Kurchatov’s buildings and from many other vantage
points in the town.
Living in such a close proximity to a nuclear power plant has been proved to be
dangerous, especially for children. Studies conducted in Germany in 2007 showed
leukaemia incidence in children under five living at distances of less than 5 kilometres
from nuclear power plants was double the rate among their peers from regions with no
nuclear power plants. Nothing says the same risks cannot be anticipated for populations
residing near nuclear power plants in Russia.
Yet Russia, unlike Germany, maintains no federal registry to keep track of cancer cases;
the single maternity hospital in the region where Kursk NPP operates is located in
Kurchatov, right inside the five-kilometre radius of the plant.
Furthermore, even though the operating license for Kursk’s Reactor Unit 1 expires in
December 2016, there are no plans in motion to prepare the reactor for decommissioning.
No social support programmes are being developed for the locals, specifically, nuclear
specialists, to provide assistance in relocation or re-training or create new production
enterprises and new jobs. Rosatom’s idea of social programmes probably amounts to
spending the funds the corporation wheedles out of the federal budget for nuclear satellite
cities on building new reactors to replace outgoing ones.
Is a nuclear-free future possible for Russia?
On March 1, a visiting session of the Committee for Energy of the Russian parliament,
the State Duma, was to take place at Kursk NPP. The parliamentaries were likely in for a
long sales pitch on how there was no future without nuclear energy and that all these
initiatives at Kursk NPP needed to be approved – from increasing the existing reactors’
capacity to building a second line of construction at the plant.
If the parliamentaries are so naïve and ill-informed that they will believe the usual
incantations about the RBMKs' safety, there might be a tangible risk they will make a
new tragedy that much more possible in the future.
08 Mar 2011
Russian firms 'interested in Jordan mega-projects'
http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110308045743
By Omar Obeidat
AMMAN -- The 10th Annual Russian Industrial Exhibition started on Monday with
the participation of nearly 37 companies.
According to Nael Kabariti, president of the Jordan Chamber of Commerce (JCC), a
delegation of 150 businesspeople are participating in the three-day event representing
major industrial companies in Russia working in the fields of energy, construction, water
and railway as well as other heavy machinery manufacturers.
"This year we brought firms that can take part in the mega-projects Jordan plans to
implement in the fields of energy, railway and water," Kabariti told The Jordan Times
yesterday, adding these companies have also the capability to finance such projects.
Svetlana Zabelina, director of the exhibition, remarked that 20 other companies were
supposed to take part in the expo but they cancelled their participation due to the political
unrest in the region.
"We were shocked by these last minute cancellation because Jordan is stable and the
Russian foreign ministry encouraged them to participate in the event," she added.
Kabariti indicated that many Jordanian firms benefited from previous exhibitions by
being able to enter the Russian market, particularly Dead Sea products, in addition to
other firms, which signed contracts with their Russian peers to represent them in Jordan
and the region.
He noted that the exhibitions also contributed to raising trade exchange between the two
countries, indicating that trade volumes reached $600 million last year, in favour of
Russia, mainly wheat from the former Soviet Union Republic.
Among participating companies is the Russian Railways company (Zarubezhstroy
Technology), which is implementing the railway network linking the Libyan cities of Sirt
and Benghazi with a cost of 2.2 billion euros and a length of 1,219 kilometres.
Officials at the company stressed their keenness to take part in the National Railway
Network the Kingdom plans to carry out next year to connect Jordan with its
neighbouring countries.
On the sidelines of the expo, members of the Jordanian-Russian Business Council called
for establishing a trade centre for the Kingdom in Moscow to promote Jordanian made
products.
The annual exhibition is organised by JCC, Zarubezh Expo and the International
Association of Peace Foundations.
© Jordan Times 2011
Russia delivers humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees in Tunisia
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110308/162905198.html
02:27 08/03/2011
A Russian emergency situations ministry's aircraft with humanitarian aid for Libyan
refugees landed in Tunisia on early Tuesday, a spokesman for the ministry said.
"The Russian emergencies ministry's plane landed at the Djerba airport at 0:25 Moscow
time [21:25 GMT Monday]. The Il-76 aircraft has delivered another batch of
humanitarian cargo," the spokesman said.
This is the second plane from the Russian emergencies ministry with humanitarian cargo
for Libyan refugees in Tunisia. The first plane delivered on Sunday food, nourishment for
children and tents.
The unrest in Libya began on February 15, following the ouster of authoritarian regimes
in Tunisia and Egypt. Libyans are demanding an end to its leader Muammar Gaddafi's
42-year rule. Up to 6,000 people had been killed in the anti-government clashes,
according to the international human rights organizations.
MOSCOW, March 8 (RIA Novosti)
March 08, 2011 10:59
Russia sends more humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia
http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=227116
MOSCOW. March 8 (Interfax) - Russia has delivered another shipment of humanitarian
aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia.
"An Il-76 plane belonging to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry landed at the
airport of Djerba (Tunisia) at 0:25 a.m. Moscow time," the ministry told Interfax on
Tuesday.
The plane delivered 30 tonnes of humanitarian aid, including sugar, baby food, and other
food products, and also tents, it said.
Russia had earlier delivered 34 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Libyan refugees to Tunisia.
2nd RME plane brings supplies for Libyan refugees
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16019959&PageNum=0
08.03.2011, 02.12
TUNIS, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - A plane of the Russian Ministry for Emergencies (RME)
with humanitarian aid supplies for refugees from Libya has arrived at the Tunisian island
of Djerba. The IL-76, which landed at the Zarzis international airport, delivered 34 tonnes
of necessary supplies, including tents, medicines, and food.
This is a second plane with humanitarian supplies from Russia. The supplies will be
brought to an area which borders on Jamahiriyah for numerous refugees who in plight
there.
The first RME plane arrived at Djerba on March 6. Since the flare up of unrest and
combat actions in Libya, more than 100,000 people of various nationalities have crossed
into Tunisia. A continuous evacuation of refugees, mainly Egyptians, as well as nationals
of other countries, is being carried out through the efforts of European Union countries,
as well as the United States.
The Tunisian army ensures order at the border which is located at a distance of 175 km
from Tripoli, and coordinates the accommodation and provision of refugees with
necessities. There are about 15,000 people at the Shusha refugee tent camp, 7 km from
the Ras el-Jedir main border crossing point. The delivered supplies are intended mainly
for those people.
8 March 2011 Last updated at 01:22 GMT
Sevastopol: Russian fleet stirs passions in Ukraine
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12665037
By Daniel Sandford Moscow correspondent, BBC News
Last April the Ukrainian government signed an agreement allowing Russia's Black Sea
Fleet to continue using Sevastopol as a base.
Amid angry scenes in the parliament in Kiev, it extended Russia's lease until 2042, in
exchange for cheaper gas.
Colourful competition
Walking around Sevastopol almost one year on, the Russian tricolour flies proudly from
Navy buildings and private apartments, while the yellow and blue of Ukraine flutters over
the city hall.
The dockyard cranes, also painted yellow and blue, tower over Moskva, the flagship of
the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Even at the World War II memorial, the Ukrainian wreaths seem to be competing to
outdo the Russian ones.
It's all evidence that, despite the uneasy peace that reigns in Sevastopol, strong passions
linger just beneath the surface.
A strategic military port
From the many viewpoints in the city you can look down on the inlets of the famous
natural harbour.
Nestling in the shelter of the hills you can see the dark grey Russian ships, often moored
alongside ships of the small Ukrainian navy.
Sevastopol was founded by Russia in 1783 and has remained an important strategic
military port ever since.
In nearby Balaklava an extraordinary James Bond-style submarine cave was carved into
the seacliffs.
But in 1954, when the Soviet Union seemed inviolable, the Crimean peninsula was
transferred for administrative purposes from the Russian Soviet Republic to the
Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
When Ukraine broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 it took Crimea, and
Sevastopol, with it.
The Soviet Navy split up. Officers had to decide whether to serve in the Russian Navy or
the Ukrainian Navy.
One of those who chose to serve his native Ukraine was former Captain Vadim Makhno.
On a bluff overlooking the harbour he told me that he understood that Sevastopol was not
very Ukrainian, but he explained that it was not in his countrymen's nature to give things
up.
"I can't imagine a mechanism which will let Sevastopol become a part of Russia without
blood being spilt," Captain Makhno said.
"Nobody here thinks seriously about attacking Russia, but to just give something away is
impossible. The Russians need to think about whether they really need the fleet here."
Russian symbol
But Sevastopol is a potent symbol for the Russian navy, and for politicians in Moscow.
They have bought themselves time by the agreement that allows them to use facilities in
the city until 2042, but they have not bought a solution.
Vladimir Solovyov was a Rear Admiral in the Russian navy. He is retired now but still
works in Sevastopol.
However he is not a Ukrainian citizen so he needs to leave the country and re-enter on a
new migration card every three months.
Like many Russians he believes that one day Sevastopol will return to Russia.
"They understand in Ukraine that for Russia Sevastopol is not just another port, it is a
symbol of Russia," he told me.
"Sevastopol can be a city of two countries but it is unthinkable without Russia."
There is no sign that Sevastopol is about to become a source of violent conflict like the
one seen in Georgia in 2008.
But the issue is like a bomb on a slow fuse and at some point it will need to be resolved.
Victor Kaganov pleads guilty
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/08/47081169.html
Mar 8, 2011 05:48 Moscow Time
A former Russian officer, now living in the United States, has pleaded guilty to illegal
financial transactions totaling more than $ 170 million.
According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Victor Kaganov created five
fictitious companies and transferred through them for overseas business partners.
Much of the money came from Russia and the transfers were made to countries in Asia
and Europe.
Victor Kaganov emigrated to the U.S. in 1998.
From 2002 to 2009 he conducted more than 4 thousand electronic financial transactions.
Tajik, Kyrgyz, Uzbek need visa changes, Russian says
http://centralasiaonline.com/cocoon/caii/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/caii/newsbriefs/2011/0
3/07/newsbrief-10
Staff Report
2011-03-07
DUSHANBE – A Russian lawmaker said on Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei Radio (RSNR)
his colleagues are preparing to institute visa requirements for Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajik
visitors, pressa.tj reported March 7.
The lack of drug enforcement on the Afghan-Tajik border will force Russia either to take
charge there itself or to cancel Tajiks' visa-free privileges, Semion Bagdasarov said,
according to AsiaPlus.tj. He also warned of the danger of allowing visa-free travel from
countries where Islamic militant groups are based, pressa.tj reported.
Bagdasarov sits on the Russian Duma's committee for international affairs.
Kim Jong Il thanks Russian musicians
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/03/08/47082613.html
Mar 8, 2011 08:46 Moscow Time
DPRK leader Kim Jong Il visited a joint concert by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra of
the XXI century dedicated to International Women's Day.
In the evening's program were works by Korean and Russian composers, including songs
from Soviet years.
At the conclusion of the concert, Kim Jong Il personally thanked the Russian musicians
for the "excellent presentation, and all the joy they had brought to Korean women
celebrating their holiday.
Serbia's export to the Russian market hit a 15-year high
http://www.balkans.com/open-news.php?uniquenumber=96451
Balkan Business News Correspondent - 08.03.2011
Serbia's export to the Russian market hit a 15-year high last year, head of the Serbian
Chamber of Commerce (PKS) office in the Russian Federation Janko Djuric told Tanjug.
The export/import ratio, which ranged between 12% and 14% in the last decade, reached
"a fantastic 25%". In 2010, the total trade between Serbia and the Russian Federation
reached $2,701.6 million, some 16% above the 2009 balance. Serbia's export rose by a
staggering 55% from the year before and totaled $541.1 million. Import grew about 9%,
to $2,160.5 million. The negative score of $1,619.4 million is caused by the import of oil
and gas from Russia, where oil accounts for 43.3% and gas for 30.7% of the total
imports. Serbia exports fruit, medicine, car batteries, floor covering, copper pipes and car
tires to Russia, while importing oil and oil derivatives, gas, aluminum, mineral fuels, etc.
Apple exports have almost been quadrupled and Serbian fruits can now be found at large
market chains due to the SCC's activities. Source: SIEPA
Russia defends MTS investor warning on Turkmenistan
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/03/07/mts-turkmenistan-idINLDE7260QV20110307
Mon, Mar 7 2011
* MTS licence suspended in December
* Turkmenistan complained it had no fare share of MTS profit
* MTS warned energy firms business in Turkmenistan is risky
* Russian diplomacy breaks silence, backs MTS in Turkmen row
By Vladimir Soldatkin
MOSCOW, March 7 (Reuters) - Russia's Foreign Ministry on Monday threw its weight
behind the country's top mobile telecoms firm, MTS (MBT.N: Quote, Profile, Research),
pledging to defend its interests in a row with gas-rich Turkmenistan which suspended its
licence.
The dispute is aggravated by Moscow's hunt for Ashgabat's huge gas reserves -- also an
attraction for the European Union trying to secure access to Turkmen gas for its Nabucco
pipeline project, a rival to the Russia-sponsored South Stream link.
Apart from exports to Russia, Turkmenistan, with the world's fourth-largest reserves of
the fuel, also supplies its gas to China and Iran and eyes a route to India and Pakistan via
Afghanistan to cut dependence on former imperial master Moscow.
MTS, part of oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Sistema (SSAq.L: Quote, Profile, Research),
had an 85 percent share of Turkmenistan's mobile market until its licence was suddenly
suspended last year for reasons that the company said "were never fully justified".
[ID:nLDE6BL1FK]
"We believe it is a matter of principle that the conscientious Russian investor's interests
are upheld. We will provide necessary help to MTS in the future," the Russian Foreign
Ministry said in a statement.
The rebuke was issued as a response to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry's riposte to MTS
last week, when Ashgabat said it had not received its fair share of the "enormous profits"
generated by the operator in the country. Last week MTS sent a letter to participants of
Turkmenistan's oil and gas roadshow in Singapore, warning energy majors of the "perils"
of investing in the Central Asian nation.
It said its sad experience in the country should serve as a "cautionary tale" for all those
doing business in Turkmenistan.
MTS said it had invested over $188 million in Turkmenistan since 2005 and serviced
more than 2.4 million customers. It had previously said that it could incur total losses of
about $600 million following the licence suspension. [ID:nLDE72208F]
Relations between Moscow and Ashgabat soured after a dispute over a pipeline rupture in
2009, which ultimately led to a sharp reduction in Turkmen gas exports to Russia on the
back of declining demand for energy as the economic downturn bit. (Reporting by
Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
Machines with fragments of AN-148 cannot leave the crash site
story: Investigation into the crash of AN-148 in the Belgorod region
http://www.rian.ru/incidents/20110308/343687038.html
VORONEZH, March 8th - RIA Novosti. Machine, which on Monday plunged tail and
wing crashed in Belgorod, Voronezh aircraft An-148, could not leave the crash site
because of the risk of fuel spills on the road, told RIA Novosti source, who works at the
scene.
AN-148 crashed on Saturday near the village of Garbuzova Alekseevskii region of
Belgorod region. Killing all six crew members - four Russians and two pilots of the
Republic of Myanmar. At the crash site by representatives of the Moscow and Kursk
investigation department of transport, as well as flight engineering, computational,
analytical, administrative committees have studied and the list of wreckage of the aircraft.
Sending fragments to the examination was difficult due to the fact that the tail of the
plane was in a swamp. To extract even wanted to bring the plane, but in the end cost the
rescue crane. In the evening, loading the machine on the tail section and one wing of the
aircraft is over Machinery planned to send in Voronezh on Monday night, but they still
remain in the village Garbuzova. Because of the oversized cargo, both the truck could not
go yesterday. There is a danger of spillage of kerosene on the road. Need support - the
source said.
According to him, the column will need two cars and two traffic police MOE, including a
fire. Board production Voronezh Aircraft Joint Stock Company (JSC VASO) performed a
test flight. In addition to the four Russians among the crew were two pilots of the
Republic of Myanmar which took place at the An-148 training in accordance with the
program of training flight crews. On Sunday, the bodies of all the victims were taken to
Voronezh, was the procedure for their identification. Requiem for the pilots will take
place on Wednesday at 11.00 in the Palace of Culture. Lenin.
Hollywood star agent says 'unaware' if Putin's fundraiser pays off for hospitals
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110308/162908207.html
11:17 08/03/2011
The agent of actor Mickey Rourke, who took part in a Russian cancer charity event last
year that famously featured Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has said he is
unaware whether any donations have been made to the fundraiser.
The event, held in St. Petersburg's Ice Palace in aid of children diagnosed with cancer,
saw Putin swap - albeit briefly - his strongman image for the unlikely Vlad the Singer
doppelganger.
However, doubts have been raised about the donations after a woman whose daughter is
being treated for cancer in a St. Petersburg hospital complained last week that "there had
been no money and no help" from the fundraiser.
She said the charity foundation "The Federation" which organized the December event
"is not registered and has no website; no one knows anything about it."
"I cannot tell you if any funds were raised [by the event]," Rourke's agent at the
International Creative Management told RIA Novosti.
Putin's spokesman moved to deflect the skepticism on Monday, saying that sponsors had
been found to provide three hospitals with the needed equipment, but added that
deliveries would take a few more months.
"It's important to understand how charity funds work," he said.
In a staggering makeover, Putin played a sentimental song from a Soviet-era spy series
on the piano and sang his version of Blueberry Hill to a standing ovation from the likes of
Mickey Rourke, Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner and Monica Belucci.
MOSCOW, March 8 (RIA Novosti)
Medvedev wishes women spring warmth and excellent sentiments
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16020407
08.03.2011, 11.19
MOSCOW, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - President Dmitry Medvedev congratulated women on
the holiday. “Dear women, congratulations on the holiday! I wish you spring warmth and
excellent sentiments! We love you!” the head of state wrote in his microblog in Twitter.
It depends on men whether women beautify men’s life-PM
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16020255
08.03.2011, 09.23
MOSCOW, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - It depends, above all, on men whether women beautify
men’s life, claimed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He congratulated women reporters of
the government pool and all Russian women on the holiday on the eve of March 8.
“Sure, we men want very much that women should be beautification of our life,” he
acknowledged. “But it depends, above all, on us whether women become beautification
of our life,” the premier noted, addressing more likely representatives of the male sex.
According to the prime minister, women “always accompany us along the entire life”.
“Women give life to all of us. And that’s it. But this is not all. We look at first at our
mummy, granny and then are growing up. Later, we have girl-friends, wives and then
daughters. Those who have no daughters, have daughters-in-law,” Putin added.
“Of course, women are very different. But they are always beautiful,” he concluded in a
philosophical mood.
Speakers of both parliament chambers congratulate women on March 8
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=16020482&PageNum=0
08.03.2011, 11.46
MOSCOW, March 8 (Itar-Tass) - Russian women possess unique qualities and should be
represented better in politics. An appropriate confidence was expressed on Tuesday by
speaker of the Russian Federation Council upper chamber Sergei Mironov in his
congratulatory message to Russian women on March 8.
“The Russian woman is a unique human being,” the speaker claimed. “It is surprising
how our women, taking into account their tense work and difficult every-day life, manage
to remain beautiful and charming!”
“Your energy, cordiality, optimism, readiness to get down to resolving the most difficult
problems, ability to create a cosy life and comfort under the most difficult conditions, to
combine in yourselves qualities of excellent worker and loving as well as careful wife
and mother, last but not least, your ability to forgive – are unchallenged,” he emphasised,
addressing Russian women.
“Possessing such qualities, Russian women should be represented in all arms of
government in greater numbers, should participate more actively in political processes
and in hammering out a strategy on settling pressing social problems,” Mironov said with
confidence.
He regretted in this context that Russia “has only a few women legislators, although 6070 percent of voters are women”. Therefore, the Federation Council head sees one of the
chamber’s tasks in “creating necessary conditions in the country for manifestation of
professional qualities and merits by women”.
Mironov wished Russian women on this holiday that all congratulations addressed to
them “were sincere indeed, permeated with love, care and understanding”. “Let the
spring reign in nature too as well as in the heart of each of you!” he added.
In the meantime, the speaker addressed also representatives of the male sex, reminding an
old joke that “real men take care of women 365 days a year, while others – on March 8”.
In this context, he advised them in his Internet-diary not to limit themselves to beautiful
words, addressed to women, but “to make such things for them so that their life should
turn into a holiday rather than a date in the calendar”.
For his part, speaker of the lower chamber of the Russian parliament Boris Gryzlov also
wished in his congratulations on International Women’s Day that “attention and love
should not be only words, but should be buttressed by specific deeds and actions”. “I’m
always fascinated with your outside weakness and inside stamina, as well as ability to
love and preserve family,” acknowledged the State Duma speaker. “You make the world
brighter, sunny and more humane. Wish you happiness, love and well-being!”
Interview: Politics, another way for women's self-fulfillment: Russian
parliamentarian
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/08/c_13765815.htm
2011-03-08 00:22:27
MOSCOW, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Politics is another way for women to achieve selffulfillment, a woman deputy in Russia's parliament told Xinhua Monday.
In an interview ahead of the International Women's Day, which falls on Tuesday, Tatiana
Voronova, a 36-year-old member of the ruling United Russia party serving in the State
Duma, or lower house, first recalled her political career.
The tall and nimble woman entered public life in her 20s, and became known nationally
after she became a deputy in the State Duma at the age of 32.
"My career brings me a sense of tremendous accomplishment," said Voronova, in a gray
business suit and always with a smile.
She said that her wish is to make the envisioned future come true. "If a politician is not
able to create an image of future and make the image possible, then he or she is not a
politician," she stressed.
Voronova's political ability emerged when she was still a student in the well-known
Irkutsk State Economics Academy, where she managed to organize many activities of
youth groups.
"I have always been dreaming to make the world better. Gradually I began to know that
we need a more influential platform than one university to realize our claims and change
the social situation," Voronova said.
In 2000, Voronova became a youth leader in the Irkutsk region. Four years later, she
became the youngest member of the Irkutsk House of Assembly at the age of 29.
"They looked at me as if I were a miracle, both because I was female and very young,"
she said.
Yet Voronova stressed that in Russia, there is neither prejudice nor tendentious policies
against female politicians. "The most important thing for this career is personal
professionalism," she said.
"Gentle, patient and tolerant are the nature of a woman, but in politics we often need to
show a strong and tough character. Generally speaking, female politicians are mainly
focusing on the social and cultural fields, where they could more than anywhere else
present their essence of a mother and a woman," Voronova said.
As a mother, how to balance the career and the life has been a challenge for Voronova.
After becoming a deputy in the State Duma, Voronova moved with her family from
Siberia's Irkutsk to Moscow. "My daughter has faced a hard time of adaptation in the new
place," Voronova said.
For years, her family have been supporting her choice. Now, Voronova said she is ready
to back the choice of her child.
"My achievements in career relied on my family's support. I do hope to find the balance
between the two and make all my family members happy, which I know is not easy for
anyone. But I think the efforts itself, concerted to this kind of perfect life, is also a
happiness for me," Voronova said.
She added that she has tried her best to spend more time with her family and often go for
outings with her family.
Although the career consumed much of her energy, it brought more positive changes than
negative ones into her life, said the woman parliamentarian.
"First of all, I worked for the International Affairs Committee of the State Duma, so I got
colossal experience from my job at an international level," Voronova stressed.
"Despite all the hardships, happiness for a female politician is absolutely attainable and
possible," she added.
Checkpoint between Russia and Transcaucasia closed
http://rt.com/news/line/2011-03-08/#id4889
RT News line, March 8
03:37
A checkpoint between the Russian republic of North Ossetia and Georgia was closed to
motor vehicles on March 7. According to Russia’s Emergencies Ministry, the request
came from the Georgian side to limit traffic due to heavy snowfalls in the area. The local
department of the ministry also issued a warning about the possibility of avalanches.
Chechnya's strongman denies forcing women to wear headscarves, defends multiple
wives
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gczisSvlm_dRmIr0fA
vth6lzqaAQ?docId=6176020
By Vladimir Isachenkov (CP) – 17 minutes ago
GROZNY, Russia — Chechnya's strongman Ramzan Kadyrov on Tuesday shrugged off
rights groups' accusations that he is imposing strict Islamic rules on women in the
Russian republic.
Kadyrov said Tuesday that Chechen women wear headscarves because they are Muslim
and also as part of local traditions.
During a news conference with foreign reporters that stretched past midnight, he added
that he personally admires women in headscarves, saying "no hair style, no colour could
make such beauty."
Rights activists have said that Kadyrov's government has created an atmosphere of fear
and intimidation that forces most women to wear headscarves. There have been paintball
attacks on women who failed to cover their heads.
Kadyrov denied exerting any pressure on those reluctant to adhere to Islamic dress.
"You have seen women in short skirts without headscarves in Grozny," he said with a
grin. "If I try to force them (to dress differently) I will be removed tomorrow."
Kadyrov has also defied Russian law by encouraging Chechen men to have more than
one wife. He said he has just one wife and loves her, but could take another one some
day.
"If I see another woman prettier than her, why would I go somewhere and sin if Islam
allows me to marry her?" he said.
Kadyrov has ruled Chechnya with an iron hand since succeeding his father, who was
killed in a rebel bombing in May 2004. He has been strongly backed by Vladimir Putin,
now Russia's prime minister after serving as president in 2000-2008.
Kadyrov's feared security forces have been accused by rights groups of arbitrary arrests,
torture and killings of people with suspected rebel links.
But his brutal rule has allowed him to boast of success in suppressing Islamic militants in
Chechnya, which has seen two separatist wars in the past 16 years. Kadyrov claimed
Tuesday that only several dozen rebels are still hiding in Chechnya's forested mountains
and pledged that his forces would soon flush them out.
"We have destroyed many odious gang leaders, and we will also get Umarov soon," he
said referring to Chechen warlord Doku Umarov, who has claimed responsibility for the
suicide bombing of Moscow's largest airport in January.
Kadyrov repeated his diatribes against the West, accusing it of fomenting unrest in the
Caucasus and sheltering former rebel leaders such as Akhmed Zakayev. Britain and, most
recently, Poland have rejected Russia's requests to extradite Zakayev.
Kadyrov also lashed out at the United States, blasting it as the "tyrant of the world
community."
Copyright © 2011 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Brazilian stars to play in Grozny 'out of respect' - Chechen leader
http://en.rian.ru/sports/20110308/162905886.html
04:14 08/03/2011
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Tuesday that members of Brazil's 2002 World
Cup winning side would play in an exhibition match in the republic's capital of Grozny
"for free."
Speaking at a news conference that stretched into the early hours of March 8, former
militant Kadyrov, 34, said that he knew nothing about any payments to the Brazilian
team, which may include recently retired football legend Ronaldo.
"I didn't know we had to pay them," Kadyrov, clad in black, said. "If they ask, we'll
refuse."
"They are coming out of respect for the Chechen people," he went on.
Although the line-ups for Tuesday's match have not yet been announced, Kadyrov
confirmed that he would captain "Team Grozny" against the Brazilians at the Sultan
Bilimkhanov stadium, where his father, Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed
by a bomb attack on May 9, 2004.
Ruud Gullit, the one-time Dutch international and former world player of the year, who
recently took over as manager of Terek Grozny, is also expected to line-up alongside the
leader of the Chechen republic.
The game is due to begin with a concert that Chechen officials say will feature pop music
star Enrique Iglesias.
Unsurprisingly, the match has garnered international media attention, and there were
some 50 foreign reporters in attendance at the news conference in Grozny, rebuilt from
scratch in recent years after two brutal separatist wars.
But Kadyrov denied the game was being staged as a massive public relations stunt for the
republic, which suffers from massive unemployment.
"The whole world loves football," he said. "We love it too."
GROZNY, March 8 (RIA Novosti)
Chechen terrorists, the rebels of the lost cause
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-02-09-chechen-terrorists-the-rebels-ofthe-lost-cause
Wednesday 9 February, 2011
On Tuesday, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for January’s
Moscow airport attack. He has also promised to accelerate the bombing campaign against
Russia. Strapped for cash and abandoned by local allies, the few remaining Chechen
rebels are resorting to their last weapon: Terror. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.
On 24 January, a man in a black baseball cap entered Domodedovo Airport and stood in
the international arrivals terminal. After waiting 15 minutes, he detonated the bombs he’d
strapped to his body, killing himself and 35 other people in the building and injuring a
further 180. Among the dead were Britons, Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Tajikistanis,
Kyrgyzstanis and Uzbekistanis.
This isn’t the first time Russia has been attacked by rebels from the Caucasus region. Not
even the airport in Moscow is new to attacks. But this attack was different. Not only was
it the biggest airport strike in terms of victims, but its alleged mastermind is an ethnic
Slav, a Russian and not of any one of the Caucasian ethnicities. Almost a week after the
bomb attack in Moscow, the authorities arrested Vitaly Razdobudko, a 32-year-old
disenchanted Russian who had embraced radical Islam and planned the airport attack.
Attacks of this nature in Russia have historically been perpetrated by non-Slavs, to the
extent that antiterrorist squads quite readily used race profiling in an attempt to identify
and apprehend possible suspects. The Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov took
responsibility for the attacks in a taped video released on 7 February saying, “This
operation was carried out on my order”. Umarov is fighting for an independent Islamic
state in the Caucasus.
In the immediate aftermath of the blast, even as Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev
sacked several airport security staff, suspicion fell on Chechen rebels. As the
investigation lengthened, the suicide bomber’s possible place of origin was expanded
from Chechnya to encompass the clutch of troubled Russian provinces known
collectively as north Caucasus. Smothered between Russia in the north and Turkey and
Iran to the south, it is one of the most fought-over places on earth. It is in these termagant
mountains that the clash between the East and West, Muslim and Christian, has been the
most bitter and painfully protracted.
The Caucasus states have almost never been able to rule themselves. Khazars, Alans,
Persians, Mongols, Byzantines, Turks and Russians have all taken turns at ravaging the
mountains and imposing themselves on the more than 100 ethnicities scattered across the
Caucasus Mountains. The Chechens, perhaps more than others, have felt the boots of
various oppressors throughout their history.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechnya declared independence in 1991, with the
former Russian General Dzhokhar Dudayev taking power in his homeland. However,
despite Boris Yeltsin’s proclamation that the satellite Soviet states should take as much
power as they could stomach, Moscow never intended for countries like Chechnya to be
truly free.
In 1994, the Russians decided to correct Yeltsin’s mistake and began a two-year assault
(known as the first Chechen War) on Chechnya to dislodge Dudayev . They eventually
succeeded in murdering Dudayev in 1996 when a Russian fighter plan got a lock on his
position after intercepting a satellite phone call the Chechen commander was making, and
blasted the location with an air-to-surface missile.
In January 1996, Chechen rebels seized a hospital hostage in the town of Kizlyar in
neighbouring Dagestan. The rebels then attempted to take the hostages across the border
into Chechnya, but were stopped by Russian commandos who killed many hostages in
the rescue attempt.
In August 1999, Chechen militants headed by Shamil Basayev (at this stage, Umarov was
a close ally of Basayev) crossed into Dagestan. They were beaten back into Chechnya a
week later. Using this incident and the bombing of apartment complexes in Moscow
which killed hundreds of people in September of the same year, Russian President
Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Chechnya. Far more prepared than before, the
Russian forces quickly surrounded and subdued the country.
Realising he could hold Chechnya far easier using the old divide-and-conquer tactic,
Putin installed one of the Chechen warlords, Akhmad Kadyrov, as Russia’s puppet
president of Chechnya. Those who refused to bow to Moscow’s authority now found
themselves without a country and were now fighting against their own countrymen.
Three years later, Chechen rebels took control of a theatre in Moscow, and after a threeday siege, Russian commandos entered the theatre and killed 41 Chechen guerrillas in the
attack, as well as 129 hostages. The incompetence of the Russian commandos shocked
the world, but the incident failed to illicit sympathy for Chechnya’s cause.
After 9/11 the Chechens faced increasing isolation as Russia succeeded in branding their
rebellion as Islamic extremism. In September 2004 Chechen militants seized a school in
Beslan and demanded autonomy for their country. Like the theatre attack, the Russian
commandos who stormed the school after a three-day siege botched the operation
horribly, killing more than 131 hostages (half of them children) in the rescue operation.
After this incident, rebel attacks quietened down. In the same year, Akhmad Kadyrov was
assassinated in Chechnya’s capital Grozny. Russia replaced him with the current
incumbent, his son Ramzan Kadyrov.
In the past two years, rebel attacks from the north Caucasus have picked up again,
including two female suicide bombers who targeted Moscow’s subways in March 2010.
The Chechens are Sunni Muslims, thanks to a protection deal struck in the 16th century
for incorporation into the Ottoman Empire. The religious element would poison RussoChechen relations for centuries to come. The fight between Russia and Chechnya began
in earnest after 1783 when the Caucasus became a buffer zone between the Turks to the
south and the Russian Empire to the north. The Czar’s Cossacks became a permanent
fixture in the region. The first war between Russia and the Caucasian states began in
1830, a war Leo Tolstoy famously took part in for czarist Russia. The hatred between
Russians and Chechens was mutual, with the mountain rebels developing a reputation for
sneaky underhandedness and favouring sniping and guerrilla attacks as opposed to
Russia’s formulaic grand battles. The first Chechen war ended in 1859 when the
Caucasian leader Imam Shamil was captured by the Russians.
Because of their religion, the Chechens and other Caucasian groups suffered brutally
under Stalin’s regime by being subjected to mass deportations to Siberia, collectivisation
and other horrors. It was not difficult for wahhabism, the radical strain of Islam that had
swept the Saud family to power in Saudi Arabia and was later adopted by Osama bin
Laden, to find a foothold among Chechens. This didn’t immediately translate into acts of
desperate violence against Russia, because the Chechens still felt they had a chance at
autonomy.
The centuries-old resentment between Russia and its north Caucasian satellites is unlikely
to end soon. Not only is the region cripplingly poor, but no countries in the West
recognise the independence of states like Chechnya, Ingushetia or Dagestan. Since
Putin’s rule, the attacks have taken an increasingly extremist stance as the few remaining
Caucasians who still resist Russia’s rule grow increasingly desperate.
Umarov is fighting to establish an Islamic Caucasus emirate, but he and other Chechen
rebels face a hopeless task. Putin has succeeded in turning the Chechen clans against each
other, by installing the most powerful among them to power. Establishing an independent
Chechnya (or emirate) would entail not only throwing off Russia’s yoke, but dislodging a
Chechen clan from power as well. Should that happen, the capital Grozny would
resemble Mogadishu: a battleground between different clans for power. But Chechnya is
not there just yet. Umarov and the other rebels are fighting for the lost cause of a united
Chechnya. Putin has rendered that outcome impossible. Umarov’s adoption of complete
terrorism (as opposed to the sovereign wars of his predecessors) indicates that he realises
how hopeless his position is and has nothing to left to lose. All he can do now is terrorise
Russia by attacking civilians. DM
Moscow Under Pressure to Make Decisive Moves in the
Northwest Caucasus
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=37608&tx_ttnews[
backPid]=27&cHash=e9c96e3c59366e75bd54b6c6b8621f8c
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 45
March 7, 2011 05:39 PM Age: 32 min
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, North Caucasus Analysis,
Military/Security, Terrorism, Domestic/Social, The Caucasus, North Caucasus , Russia
By: Valery Dzutsev
On March 1, a blast destroyed the home of a suspect militant, Eduard Ulbashev, in
Kabardino-Balkaria’s Chegem district. One day earlier, on February 28, Ulbashev
himself was killed in a shootout with the police. Government forces reported that two
explosive devices equal to 25 kilograms of TNT as well as other pieces of ammunition
were found at the suspect militant’s house and the bombs went off as the police tried to
defuse them. No one was hurt in the explosion (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, March 1).
As the security situation in once quiet Kabardino-Balkaria has dramatically deteriorated
in recent months, the government response has offered few solutions. Following the
killings of tourists from Moscow in Kabardino-Balkaria and other attacks in February, a
counterterrorist operation regime was introduced in parts of Kabardino-Balkaria on
February 22. Later, it was expanded to the capital Nalchik and other areas. Republican
and federal officials have repeatedly stated and then retracted the claim that their tactics
include punishing the relatives of suspected rebels. The latest destruction of a suspect
rebel’s house may be a sign of the government’s new tactics to pressure insurgents and
their relatives.
At the beginning of February, the head of Kabardino-Balkaria, Arsen Kanokov, stated in
an interview that the republican authorities would learn from their Ingush, Chechen and
Dagestan colleagues how to cope with an insurgency. “There are cases when [the
militant] wanders in the forests, while his relative has a shop and trades in it. We will not,
of course, burn their houses, as in Chechnya, but we will force them to answer for their
relatives and children,” Kanokov said (www.kp.ru, February 2).
A previously unknown terrorist organization the Anti-Wahhabis-Black Hawks has
threatened to take revenge on the insurgents and their families. On February 11, a twopart video statement was posted on YouTube in which a man in a mask, speaking in
Russian with no easily detectable Kabardin or Balkar accent, promised to kill insurgents
and advised their families to leave Kabardino-Balkaria. Trying to play the nationalist
card, the masked man derided Kabardino-Balkaria’s militants, saying “there have been no
Balkars or Circassians in history who subordinated themselves to Chechens”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9m3iegEs9Y). The rebels in Kabardino-Balkaria say
they are part of the Caucasus Emirate led by Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov.
Later, on March 1, a representative of the Black Hawks’ gave an interview to the Russian
TV channel REN-TV. The masked representative threatened that his group would not
spare even the children of militants (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN1QQpY0Y0). Aleksandr Torshin, the first vice-speaker of Russia’s Federation Council and a
member the Russian National Anti-terrorist Committee, revealed surprisingly deep
knowledge and support for the Black Hawks. Torshin said that the group was “a real
force” made up of mostly young people who “want to live according to civilized laws,
not according to radical religious Islamic rites.” Torshin said he did not believe the Black
Hawks would kill children and said that the law enforcement authorities should not fight
these “decent people,” but rather use them as informants against the insurgency
(www.kbr-inform.ru, March 4).
The rebel website Kavkaz Center compared the masked image of the Black Hawks on
REN-TV to a previous interview with a masked Russian security services officer and
claimed they were identical
(http://kavkazcenter.com/russ/content/2011/03/05/79759.shtml). In addition, many local
experts expressed skepticism that the Black Hawks is a spontaneously organized civil
organization (www.regnum.ru, March 3). “The Black Hawks came about almost
immediately after President Arsen Kanokov proposed creating self-defense groups to
fight the extremists,” said Timur Tenov, a political scientist in Nalchik, in an interview.
“So many people in Kabardino-Balkaria view them as sort of a special project” (Interfax,
March 3).
Meanwhile, the rebels treated the threats against their families quite seriously and
assumed the local government was behind these threats. In a special statement, they
promised not to take revenge against the families of the ordinary policemen, but said that
if the Black Hawks started to spill their relatives’ blood, they would go after the families
of Arsen Kanokov and his administration in response (www.islamdin.com, February 27).
At a Russian National Antiterrorist Committee meeting in Vladikavkaz on February 22,
Kanokov asked Moscow to create a special police unit to defend the republican
government along with a separate military detachment to fight the rebels, which would be
comprised of 500 local men (Interfax, February 22).
Conditions seem to be ripe for the start of a civil war in Kabardino-Balkaria, as Moscow
appears to be running out of other options to retain control over this territory. The rebels
apparently enjoy considerable support on the ground, which allows them to launch
attacks and lose no fighters. At the same time, it is hard to see how the insurgency can
translate its strength into political capital. There is no question that the Russian military
could quell an open uprising in this small republic, with a population of 900,000. So the
situation has reached the point of unstable parity between the government and the
insurgency forces.
Given the current political climate in Moscow, which is manifestly opposed to making
deep and thoughtful political reforms, and the rapidly expanding influence of the rebels in
Kabardino-Balkaria, Russia is likely to face the dire choice between withdrawing from
the republic altogether or opting for a low-intensity civil war. Since Moscow has
somehow managed similar conflicts in several other North Caucasian republics, it must
be tempted to head down the path of an escalated war in Kabardino-Balkaria as well. Yet,
there are also serious reasons why Moscow will try to avoid this. One of them is the
viability of the Olympic Games in the nearby Sochi in 2014, which could be severely
affected by serious skirmishes in Kabardino-Balkaria. Another, more strategic factor is
the question of how many unstable regions Russia can sustain simultaneously, which
could militate against Moscow making further moves in the increasingly stable
Northwest Caucasus.
A Fear of Three Letters
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/07/fear_of_three_letters
Traveling through Ingushetia, a republic where people are more
frightened of Russia's shadowy security forces than the Islamist
militants.
BY TOM PARFITT | MARCH 7, 2011
NAZRAN, Russia — In Ingushetia, a rugged outpost on Europe's southern perimeter,
people lower their voices when they talk about the Russian Federal Security Service, the
FSB. Sometimes they just call it "the organization with three letters."
For at least eight years, this tiny republic has lived in fear as one of the most unstable
spots in the troubled North Caucasus -- even worse, in recent times, than neighboring
Chechnya. But the violence is not just the fault of Islamist militants, acting with financial
support from jihadists overseas. In truth, it is overwhelmingly homegrown, the result, in
large part, of an ongoing campaign of repression by Russia's security services, dominated
by the all-powerful FSB.
During the Soviet period, the Ingush and Chechens (brother nations known collectively
as the Vainakh) shared a republic here at the edge of the Eurasian steppe, where hamlets
are scattered through the forest-cloaked foothills of the Greater Caucasus Mountains.
After the Soviet Union collapsed, the two nations went their separate ways, and
Ingushetia stayed mostly out of the two wars in the 1990s fought between separatists in
Chechnya and the Russian army.
Around 2002, however, the continuing guerrilla war in Chechnya began to spill into
Ingushetia. In 2004, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev led an attack on police stations
and other buildings in Nazran that left 98 people dead, including many civilians.
In response, Russian security forces began extending their ruthless zachistki ("cleansing"
sweeps) onto Ingush soil. The sweeps gave way to targeted assassinations and
kidnappings of suspected guerrillas by squads of mask-wearing commandos. Russian law
demands that prosecutors are informed of any detention within 12 hours and that a
suspect is allowed to meet a lawyer before questioning -- but the siloviki, or security
chiefs, were breaking these laws on a regular basis.
In 2004, security forces whisked away at least 24 men who were never heard from again.
Such flagrant abuses quickly swelled the ranks of the insurgency in this tight-knit,
patriarchal society where poor treatment of a relative is not easily forgiven. By 2007, the
militants were launching almost daily attacks in Ingushetia, strafing police cars and firing
on security posts in Nazran and other settlements.
In a republic with the highest unemployment rate in Russia (now 53 percent) -- its capital,
Nazran, little more than a sprawling village -- this constant, open warfare became a selffeeding inferno. Bespredel, most Ingush called it the last time I was here, in the summer
of 2008: a Russian word that translates roughly as "beyond all limits" or "extreme
violence."
After a policeman shot a prominent opposition leader in the head at point-blank range in
Ingushetia's airport later that year, the Kremlin finally realized it had to act to stop the rot.
It appointed a new president to the region, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, a decorated and
decisive former army general who looked liked he had the nerve to straighten things out.
There was a major setback in his first year -- a suicide bomber ramming a Toyota Camry
packed with explosives into his car on his way to work -- but Yevkurov recovered and in
November 2009 made a crucial decision. At a meeting with the republic's siloviki in his
fortified compound, he warned them to rein in their excesses, which, he said, were only
spurring the militants.
"To be fair to the president, there was a lull in fatal abductions and extrajudicial killings
for about a year from that moment," Timur Akiyev, director of the Nazran office of
Russia's human rights group Memorial, told me last week. "Then the siloviki couldn't
hold on any longer and they went back to their old methods."
Yevkurov's peace ended abruptly. Until the autumn of 2010, things had looked
promising. Out of 14 cases of abductions reported to Memorial in the first 10 months of
the year, all the victims were eventually released or charged with crimes. (By contrast, in
2009, four people were later found dead or reported killed and five disappeared out of 13
abductions.)
Then on Nov. 22 of last year, Dibikhan Pugoyeva, from Pliyevo village in central
Ingushetia, tried calling her 17-year-old son Magomed Gorchkhanov, who was visiting
friends in Nazran. Unable to reach his cell phone, she called the wife of an acquaintance
who was meant to be driving her son and one of his friends home -- and heard that the car
had been shot at and set on fire by FSB agents. The acquaintance was dead, and the two
passengers were missing.
In a panic, Pugoyeva and her relatives began making calls to the prosecutor's office and
the police. No one had any information. At the morgue in Nazran, a friendly policeman
on guard told her that only the driver's body was inside. Two boys had leapt out of the car
and been taken into FSB custody, he said. The FSB denied this.
"I didn't know what to do," Pugoyeva, 39, told me recently. "Nobody would give us an
answer about what exactly happened." Then one day in December, she found an envelope
in her front yard that someone had slipped under the gate. Inside the envelope was the
memory card from a cell phone. On the card was a shaky video recording. It showed a
burning car by a roadside and several figures in plainclothes leading two young men with
their hands tied behind their backs to another car, where at least one is pushed into the
trunk. The recording is fuzzy, but Pugoyeva says she recognizes both her son and his
friend, the other passenger, named Aslan-Giri Korigov. "It's them," she said. "I'm sure."
Seeing her son and his friend alive was reassuring, but her ordeal was not over yet. When
Magomed had been missing for a month, police summoned Pugoyeva and told her he had
been killed in a shootout with FSB officers near Pliyevo. A relative went to the morgue
and was able to identify Magomed's clothes, but he couldn't identify the remains. "All
that was left were lumps of flesh," said Pugoyeva. "He had been blown up." Another
broken body was discovered nearby, possibly Aslan-Giri, but his family has refused to
accept it's him.
Prosecutors say they cannot open an investigation into Magomed's alleged kidnapping
and murder until his remains are formally identified. Pugoyeva gave blood for a DNA
test in December and was told it would take two weeks. She is still waiting.
Magomed and Aslan-Giri weren't the only ones to go missing this winter. Four days
before they disappeared, a group of commandos in a fleet of vehicles without registration
plates came to the house of Israil Torshkhoyev, 36, an out-of-work taxi driver, in
Altiyevo, near Nazran. After searching his house, they loaded Torshkhoyev into an
armor-plated minibus and drove him away. Torshkhoyev's brother, Mussa, has spent the
last three and a half months looking for him without being told a thing.
Then on Dec. 22, in perhaps the most scandalous case of recent months, a 30-year-old
Ingush woman, Zalina Elkhoroeva, was traveling across the border from North Ossetia in
a taxi when masked men with automatic weapons detained her. She hasn't been heard
from since. Elkhoroeva had been visiting her brother, Timur, who was then in a pretrial
detention center in North Ossetia and has since been sentenced to four years in prison for
leading a militant group. "Maybe they took Zalina in order to put pressure on Timur,"
said her aunt, Taykhant, when I visited her in the Ingush town of Karabulak. "I don't even
want to think what might have happened to her."
Nazran, it must be said, is calmer than it was when I was last here three years ago. Then,
I would hear firing or explosions at night. Last week, an alleged boyevik (rebel fighter)
was killed in a shootout in the center of the city and a makeshift bomb was defused in the
town of Karabulak, but otherwise it was quiet. Some statistics are improving. An
estimated 136 people died in Ingushetia in insurgency-related violence last year,
compared with 273 in 2009 (the republic's population is 530,000). But though the FSB
and other outfits can claim partial responsibility for the drop in deaths -- they "liquidated"
or captured several senior militants like Said Buryatsky and the one code-named Magas,
thus reducing the number of armed clashes -- they appear unable, or unwilling, to curb
their own excesses.
One state official in Nazran put it bluntly in a private conversation. "The FSB just does
whatever it likes to achieve its goals," he told me. "No one can argue."
It is a growing complaint across the North Caucasus. In September, Arsen Kanokov, the
president of Kabardino-Balkaria, called on Moscow to give him direct powers over
federal security services on his territory, saying their unwarranted arrests of innocent
people were "filling the ranks of the boyeviki."
According to Batir Akhilgov, a lawyer who works with the families of abductees in
Ingushetia, security officers torture their captives for information about the location of
rebel camps and safe houses, or, if they turn out to be innocent, force them to admit to
unsolved crimes. No one knows who the perpetrators are because they are masked,
without ID or insignia. Most analysts believe they are FSB operatives, but they could also
be police special forces or officers from ORB, the local Operational Investigative Bureau
of Russia's Interior Ministry.
Akhilgov is representing a young man who was detained illegally for six days, during
which he was punched and submitted to electric shocks through his fingers. "This is how
it is done," he said. "The suspect is held for just as long as it takes to beat him into a
confession and then he is charged." He added: "It is practically pointless for me to make a
complaint in such cases because they are always ignored or rejected. Our courts are an
integral part of the system."
The impact is clear. One theory about the motive of the Ingush suicide bomber,
Magomed Yevloyev, who killed 36 people at Moscow's Domodedovo airport in January,
is that he was provoked by police officers killing his brother-in-law, a suspected
insurgent. "Eighty percent of the young men who join the boyeviki do it to fulfill one
desire," said Magomed Mutsolgov, a rights activist based in Karabulak. "Revenge."
President Yevkurov is not giving up. In January, according to his press service, he once
again tried to restrain the siloviki, meeting with them to warn that persecuting detainees
would "only create new terrorists." Yet he seemed to admit his powerlessness in a Feb.
14 newspaper interview: "No one is guaranteed against a violation of the law during the
active phase of a special operation."
For now, the Kremlin appears unfazed by the ongoing brutality. On Feb. 22, President
Dmitry Medvedev led a meeting of Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee in North
Ossetia, the Christian republic bordering Ingushetia to the west.
He spoke passionately about the need to attack the militant "degenerates," "in their dens,
in their hiding places, wherever they are." Those insurgents "who want blood will choke
on their own blood," local news agencies reported him as saying. Of abuses by the
security services, he said nothing.
Mutsolgov, whose own brother, Bashir, a schoolteacher, was kidnapped and vanished
without a trace eight years ago, is impatient for change. "If we want to save Ingushetia,
what we need is new schools and hospitals and factories. We need equal rights before the
law. We need a sense of hope," he said. "What we don't need is terror and injustice."
Tom Parfitt is a fellow of the London-based Royal Geographical Society and a former
public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. His trip is supported
by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Church of Scientology Opens New Church in the Heart of Moscow
http://www.cisionwire.com/church-of-scientology-international/church-of-scientologyopens-new-church-in-the-heart-of-moscow93647
8 Mar, 2011 06:34 CET
The Scientology religion has opened its first major Church in the Russian
Federation—the new Church of Scientology of Moscow. The building stands in the
city’s central Garden Ring, just a mile from Red Square.
Commemorating this new Scientology Church, Mr. David Miscavige, Chairman of the
Board Religious Technology Center and ecclesiastical leader of the religion, declared: “It
has been said that Russia cannot be understood with the intellect, that it cannot be
measured by any common standard and that it can only be believed in. Well, let Russia
now believe this: The Church that now stands in Moscow possesses a technology that is
all but synonymous with the human spirit. It is a technology to bring forth the goodness
in people and the greatness they are destined to achieve. It is a technology that is both
kind and strong. It is a technology for freedom and wisdom.”
Scientology established its first Church in the Russian Federation in 1993 after the fall of
communism and has seen phenomenal growth in the years since. It has been recognized
as a leading voice in the fight for universal human rights.
The new Moscow Church not only meets the needs of its growing congregation of
Scientologists, but also serves as the center for all faiths to unite for community
betterment and social improvement in the name of religious freedom.
The Church of Scientology of Moscow further coordinates the Church’s many
humanitarian initiatives. The 65,000-square-foot building houses a Public Information
Display presenting an introduction to all Church-sponsored programs, including those
dedicated to drug education, literacy and human rights. The new Church also provides
public conference rooms and an auditorium for religious community functions.
The Moscow Church already stands at the forefront of Russia’s greater human rights
movement. It works in coordination with the internationally renowned Moscow Helsinki
Group, founded by Ms. Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Ms. Alexeyeva is one of the original Soviet
era dissidents to decry communist oppression. She is also the recipient of the European
Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. On the occasion of the
Moscow Church opening, Ms. Alexeyeva stated: “For me, as a human rights advocate, all
religions are equal in their rights. Your Church is particularly devoted to defending the
freedom of belief not only for its own parishioners but for all religious people of any
denomination.”
The Church’s religious freedom victories are now legend. Scientology’s landmark
decisions before the European Court of Human Rights set the standard for religious rights
in all 47 member states. In recognition of what this new Church of Scientology represents
to religious freedom, Mr. Boris Nikolayevich Panteleyev from the Russian Federation’s
Public Chamber stated: “The precedents you have set in the European Court of Human
Rights regarding your Church are very important for all those who stand for religious
freedom. Today all lawyers, religious scholars, human rights advocates and
representatives of other faiths carefully study these texts, seeing in them hope for justice
and protection from discrimination in our own land.”
Mr. Panteleyev, who presented the Church with a recognition commemorating its grand
opening, continued, saying: “Scientologists work to see that all have the right to thought,
to practice religion and to rejoice. You work to see that all people have the right to
assemble, the right to establish and support their own churches and organizations; that
they have the freedom to think for themselves and to the expression of their thoughts and
ideas. These freedoms are the very manifestation of the individual spirit. So it is
important that we rejoice today, for this is a glorious day in the name of freedom for all
of Russia.”
Scientology’s Drug Free World initiative is but one of the Church programs now adopted
by citizens of the Russian Federation. Among its foremost advocates is Dr. Victor
Ivanovich Cherepkov, two-term State Duma Deputy, who said: “The drug industry has
taken its toll on Russians for years. Until recently we had no solution that could prevent
the problem. Your drug education is well recognized in Russia. We are already using
your literature and your methods in the fight against drugs. In fact, these are widely
disseminated throughout Russia. And it’s spreading for one reason only: it simply is
working everywhere and anywhere.”
Dr. Cherepkov went on to say, “In the effectiveness of your anti-drug campaign, I see the
wisdom of L. Ron Hubbard—the great teacher and philosopher. For he unlocked the
human mind and human problems with knowledge, to free us from the wickedness of
existence in the name of creation, perfection and kindness.”
With the new Church of Scientology of Moscow, so begins the next historic chapter for
Scientology. It is a chapter that not only signifies a renaissance for the religion itself, but
a new era for religious and human rights in Russia.
Russia Faces 3-Year Race to Secure Site of Olympics
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/europe/08sochi.html?_r=1
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Published: March 7, 2011
SOCHI, Russia — Less than 250 miles separate the skating arenas being built here for the
2014 Winter Olympics and the home of a suicide bomber who killed 37 people at a
Moscow airport in January. A little farther on is Chechnya, site of two civil wars and a
still seething Muslim insurgency. In a neighboring region, three tourists on a ski trip were
shot to death recently, and local resorts were closed as soldiers searched in vain for the
assailants.
The host nations for the Olympic Games inevitably worry about terrorism. But a glimpse
at a map shows why the 2014 Winter Olympics, to be held in this Russian resort on the
Black Sea, seem to be facing security concerns unlike any Games in recent memory.
Sochi lies at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains, the same region that since the Soviet
collapse two decades ago has yielded so much turmoil in Russia. In fact, skiing events
will be held on those mountains, albeit to the west of the majority-Muslim provinces that
have spawned extremist groups.
It is not only internal strife. The city of Sochi directly abuts Abkhazia, one of two
breakaway regions of Georgia that set off a brief war between Russia and Georgia in
2008. (The Olympic Park itself is only about five miles from the border.)
Abkhazia has declared its independence, with staunch support from Russia and its
military, and senior Georgian officials have responded by calling for a boycott of the
Olympics.
International Olympic Committee officials have expressed confidence in Russia’s ability
to ensure that the Games are safe, even as fears have risen sharply in recent weeks with a
spate of attacks.
The Russian government has repeatedly stressed that it is devoting enormous amounts of
money and resources to Olympic security. Senior Russian officials say they have many
years of experience in killing, detaining, or, at a minimum, bottling up Muslim militants
in the Caucasus.
In an interview, a deputy prime minister, Dmitri N. Kozak, acknowledged that such
groups would be likely to try to step up their activities as the Olympics drew closer. But
he played down the significance of Sochi’s location, saying that the terrain was so
difficult to traverse that it was easier to travel by plane from Moscow — about 850 miles
— than over land from Chechnya.
“Concerning geography, I would say that it is an illusion that there is more access to
Sochi for terrorists,” Mr. Kozak said. “Sochi is isolated from the rest of the Caucasus —
Chechnya and other such regions — by mountains that are not easily passable.”
He said the Sochi Olympics would be a target for extremist groups around the world, not
just those from the Caucasus. “Today, distance for terrorist organizations does not have
much meaning,” he said.
Yet, the Jan. 24 suicide bomb attack at the international arrivals terminal in Moscow’s
showcase Domodedovo Airport seems to be weighing heavily on Olympic preparations,
having raised fears that Muslim extremists from the Caucasus are turning their attention
to foreigners in order to damage Russia’s image around the world.
Soon after, the governor of the region around Sochi, Aleksandr N. Tkachev, called a
public meeting to upbraid local officials for not doing enough to safeguard Olympic sites
during construction, especially in light of the airport attack. He said reports from
intelligence officials and investigators painted “an extremely disturbing picture.”
“If we do not build a solid wall of security, not only for the athletes and guests at the
Olympics, but also for Sochi residents, then we risk losing everything,” Mr. Tkachev
said. “But for now, unfortunately, there is an enormous distance between what must be
and the current reality.”
The mood darkened even more on Feb. 18, when three tourists from Moscow who were
on a ski trip to Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, were gunned down by people
suspected of being Muslim extremists who pulled over their vehicle.
“A serious danger now exists for Sochi,” said Vadim M. Mukhanov, an analyst at the
Center for Caucasus Studies in Moscow. “If before, the goal of the radical Islamic
underground was to attack the police and security services, recently their slant has
changed, and they have started going after tourists. And that is a very disturbing trend.”
The rising tensions in the Caucasus are also threatening to spill into the international
arena. A senior Russian lawmaker, Aleksandr P. Torshin, last week accused Georgia of
organizing the Domodedovo bombing, though he did not provide any proof. The actual
bomber was a 20-year-old from a village in Ingushetia, a region next to Chechnya.
Mr. Torshin maintained that Georgia, under President Mikheil Saakashvili, wanted to
foment instability in Russia. Other officials have gone further and insisted that Mr.
Saakashvili hopes to turn the Olympics into a public relations disaster for Russia.
Georgian officials have called such charges ludicrous.
In Sochi late last month, the Russian government sought to demonstrate that it was
heeding warnings about possible increased terrorist activity. At the Olympic Park,
security officials used metal detectors to screen all workers and visitors. Trucks and other
heavy equipment were searched and tagged with global positioning devices when they
entered the site so they could be monitored.
At the skiing areas in nearby Krasnaya Polyana, the FIS European Cup was conducting
test skiing events. Police officers were stationed throughout the slopes, with some even
guarding pylons that held aloft the cables for ski lifts. Competitors and spectators were
required to wear badges and had to go through checkpoints. The races occurred without
incident.
Throughout Sochi, the municipal government has installed thousands of video cameras so
that it can respond more quickly to security problems. One of the city officials who
oversee the system, Iles P. Dzaurov, just returned from London, host of the 2012 Summer
Olympics, where he observed the security precautions there.
Standing before a bank of giant video screens with feeds from across the city, Mr.
Dzaurov said he understood why people were nervous. But he contended that the city
would be ready.
“There are no grounds for concern,” he said. “We are on guard for anything that occurs,
and we have a lot of experience doing this.”
One Russian national killed, another wounded near France's Nice
http://en.rian.ru/crime/20110308/162905788.html
One Russian national was shot dead and another wounded near the southern French resort
city of Nice, a Russian diplomat said on Tuesday.
Russia's Consul General in Marseilles Yury Gribkov said citing information from French
police that the murdered Russian was identified as Mikhail Lanin, a businessman from
Russia's Samara, a city on the Volga River.
His female companion was identified as Yelena Pravoslavnaya, who was hospitalized
with multiple gun wounds.
Police found airplane tickets on Pravoslavnaya, which indicated they were both on the
way to the airport in Nice for the flight to Samara via Moscow.
"Police got in touch with Lanin's son via Interpol and he has identified his father,"
Gribkov said.
He added that the Russian Consulate General has no information as of yet on the purpose
of Lanin's visit to France.
PARIS, March 8 (RIA Novosti)
WikiLeaks publishes new 'gas war' cables
Today at 07:47 | Peter Byrne
The WikiLeaks whistleblower site on March 6 released six new classified U.S. State
Department cables authored during the January 2009 gas crisis, when Russia then shut off
gas supplies to Ukraine and Europe. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her
counterpart Vladimir Putin on Jan. 19, 2009 reached a deal in Moscow to end the crisis.
U.S. State Department cables released earlier provide insight insight into U.S. interest in
Russia’s rocky relationship with Ukraine, top-level government corruption in the transit
of Russian natural gas via Ukraine to Europe, Ukraine’s plans to join the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, and consequences of Russia's full-scale military invasion of Georgia
in August 2008.
Future releases, to take place "over the months ahead," are expected to include more than
1,000 diplomatic cables originating from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv from December 2005
through February 2010.
Presidential Administration deputy head Anna Herman in December said Ukraine "has
nothing to fear" from the leaked diplomatic correspondence.
"What the current authorities say in tete-a-tete conversations is no different from the
official position of our state and those who have power," Herman said. "We do not have
double standards."
Full text of the latest six U.S. State Department leaked by WikiLeaks are here.
Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/99188/#ixzz1FzSV9yuI
Cablegate: France bullied Poland over Georgia war
http://euobserver.com/9/31941
ANDREW RETTMAN
Today @ 09:26 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - France threatened to harm a flagship EU policy for postSoviet countries shortly after the Russia-Georgia war unless the Union forgave Russia for
its invasion, a freshly leaked US cable says.
The November 2008 dispatch from the US embassy in Stockholm reports that Johan
Frisell, a senior Swedish diplomat, told US charge d'affairs Robert Silverman that France
pressured Poland and Sweden into lifting the Union's only post-war sanction on Russia.
"France threatened to stall the Eastern Partnership initiative if the Swedes and others
opposed to 'business as usual' with Moscow refused to resume EU-Russia talks,
according to Frisell," Mr Silverman wrote. "Once the decision on talks on the Partnership
and Co-operation Agreement [with Russia] was made, Sweden and Poland, co-drafters of
the [Eastern Partnership] initiative, were given a green light to 'move ahead'."
The French support for Russia came at a time when Russian troops were still parked in
Georgia proper in violation of a French-brokered peace agreement.
Previously leaked cables on the 2008 war show that France, Germany and Italy tried to
soften the EU's reaction at every step of the conflict.
France later cemented relations with Russia by buying a stake in its Nord Stream gas
pipeline and selling it two state-of-the-art warships.
The US memo also indicates that Poland and Sweden see the Eastern Partnership as a
path to EU enlargement and security co-operation.
"Frisell said that the Eastern Partnership was essentially an 'invitation' to the six states to
join the EU internal market," Mr Silverman noted. "'Profound EU integration is every bit
as important as Article 5 [Nato's mutual defence pact],' he added. Moscow is 'agnostic' on
European Neighborhood Policy, in part because it has seriously underestimated the
impact of soft power. To the extent that the Eastern Partnership's related security cooperation remains 'under the Russian radar,' it will be successful."
Another cable out on on Monday (7 March) shows the influence on German politics of
Matthias Warnig, a former officer in the east German secret police, the Stasi, who runs
day-to-day affairs in the Nord Stream consortium.
"The [US] ambassador asked whether the project [Nord Stream] has the full support of
the German government. Warnig said yes, noting that he has regular, direct access to
Chancellor Merkel's office and that Nord Stream chairman Gerhard Schroeder also meets
frequently with Merkel," the November 2009 dispatch from the US embassy in Moscow
says.
Mr Warnig added that Russia's South Stream project, a plan to increase EU dependency
on Russian gas, is a no-go, however: "He said that although he is a 'de facto employee of
Gazprom,' he personally believes South Stream is unlikely to be built anytime soon."
A third fresh cable gives a peek into what Ukraine's new foreign minister, Konstantin
Gryshenko, really thinks of Russia.
"Gryshenko said that the Kremlin wants a 'regency' - someone in power in Kyev who is
totally subservient. He noted that Putin ... has a low personal regard for Yanukovych," Mr
Yanukovych's minister told the US embassy in Kiev in January 2009.
"He observed that everyone in [the Russian government] government seemed to be part
of the 'security brotherhood.' People are afraid to tell jokes; it is 'back to the USSR'," he
added on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his allies in Russia's FSB security
service.
National Economic Trends
MARCH 8, 2011
Senior Bankers in U.S. to Advise Russia
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703883504576186861858913244.html
By LIZ RAPPAPORT And DAN FITZPATRICK
The Russian government has been reaching out to the top Wall Street investment banks
and private-equity firms in an effort to bring more high-profile, foreign money to
companies and projects in the country.
The initiative is the brainchild of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and it includes a
steering committee created last year that is chaired by Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir
Putin, said people familiar with the matter.
The steering committee has reached out for advice and guidance on Russia's economic
development from the chief executive officers of major U.S. Wall Street powerhouses
including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Lloyd Blankfein, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s
James Dimon, and Bank of America Corp.'s Brian Moynihan.
The committee is called the International Advisory Council to the Presidential
Commission on Moscow as a Financial Center. While the chief executives of these major
firms agreed to advise Russia on its developing capital systems, they aren't expected to
meet together in a room at any point. They have no official mandates to manage Russia's
money or advise the government, said the people.
One of the ideas discussed by some of the members of the committee was to entice
foreign cash by putting Russia's own money into a fund with non-Russian investors,
particularly private-equity firms. There is no specific fund currently being raised, said
people familiar with the matter.
"The idea of creating [such a fund] is being discussed at various meetings," a spokesman
for First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said. But he declined to discuss details of
the steering committee and other details, saying the idea is still being discussed.
Russian officials have reached out to test private equity firms' interest in Russia with
executives at Blackstone Group LP, among others. Blackstone expressed interest in the
idea, said people familiar with the matter. Other private-equity executives said they
considered working with Russia on a prospective plan but decided against it.
The Carlyle Group, which has invested in Russia in the past, several months ago decided
against participating in the effort, according to someone close to the matter.
The Financial Times reported Sunday that Russia is setting up a $10 billion fund to coinvest with international private-equity firms.
—Gregory Zuckerman contributed to this article.
Write to Liz Rappaport at [email protected] and Dan Fitzpatrick at
[email protected]
Oil instability a windfall for Russia
http://www.startribune.com/business/117559113.html
"Budget revenues have become considerable," Putin all but gloated on national TV amid
unrest in the Persian Gulf.
By ANDREW E. KRAMER, New York Times
Last update: March 7, 2011 - 8:43 PM
MOSCOW - Whatever the eventual outcome of the Arab world's social upheaval, there is
a clear economic winner so far: Vladimir Putin.
Russia, which pumps more oil than Saudi Arabia, is reaping a windfall from the steep rise
in global energy prices resulting from instability in oil regions of the Middle East and
North Africa. Riding the high oil prices, the Russian ruble has risen faster against the
dollar this year than any other currency, which is helpful because it will curb consumer
inflation during an election year.
Russian stocks are buoyant, too: The Micex index closed last week at 1,781, up nearly 6
percent since the beginning of the year. (Monday was a holiday in Russia.)
But the Russians could not step in to offset any potential big drop in global production,
because Russia does not have any oil wells standing idle that would allow it to increase
production. Right now Russia is pumping oil at its top capacity.
But at last week's closing of $114, the price of each of those barrels of Ural crude, the
country's main export blend, has risen 24 percent since the beginning of the year.
Last week, Prime Minister Putin sat down for a televised meeting with Finance Minister
Aleksei Kudrin, which was nationally televised on state news channels for the public's
enlightenment as the two discussed, just short of gloating, the benefits to Russia of a
global oil panic.
"Mr. Kudrin, budget revenues have become considerable," Putin said matter-of-factly.
Kudrin agreed, noting that if prices hold, Russia will be able to resume contributions to
its sovereign wealth funds for the first time since the summer of 2008, when the global
recession began.
Russia is building a pipeline under the Baltic Sea directly to Germany, called Nord
Stream, and has proposed another similar pipeline under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. It
says these pipes will reduce the risk of traveling overland through central European
countries that are unfriendly to Russia, but some European governments have balked at
the high cost and political subtexts of these projects.
When Putin visited Brussels last month, he had a new argument for these pipes, which he
has championed for years. "I am confident that the real long-term interests of the
European economy lie with our resources," Putin said at a news conference. "Nothing
matters more than stability."
East Europe Today: Russian Credit Risk at Lowest Since 2008
By Douglas Lytle - Mar 8, 2011 7:33 AM GMT+0100
Russia Credit Risk Declines to Lowest Since August 2008 (2)
The cost of insuring Russian government debt against default fell to the lowest level since
August 2008, according to CMA prices for credit-default swaps.
Wheat Planting Falls to Four Year Low in Russia as Export Ban Hits Farmers
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/wheat-planting-falls-to-four-year-low-inrussia-as-export-ban-hits-farmers.html
By Maria Kolesnikova and Marina Sysoyeva - Mar 7, 2011 5:43 PM GMT+0100
Russia’s ban on grain exports means the country’s farmers will plant the fewest wheat
fields in four years, another sign that global prices will keep rising.
Wheat plantings in the country, once the second-biggest exporter, will drop 2.3 percent to
64.2 million acres for this year’s crop, according to the median in a Bloomberg survey of
as many as 19 producers, traders and analysts. Farmers can’t plant more because the ban
imposed after last summer’s drought is limiting farm income. Diesel was 30 percent
higher than a year earlier in January and OAO Acron, Russia’s third-biggest nitrogen
fertilizer producer, raised some prices by more than 12 percent for the first half.
The 84 million-metric-ton grain harvest anticipated in the survey is 1 million tons below
what the government says it needs to consider lifting the seven-month-old export ban.
The absence of Russian supplies comes as the U.S. says global grain inventories will drop
13 percent, riots topple leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and governments hoard food.
“The situation in Russia is absolutely crucial,” said Sudakshina Unnikrishnan, a Londonbased commodities analyst at Barclays Capital, the most accurate wheat-price forecaster
in the first two quarters of 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. With global
stockpiles reduced, “we’d be starting a year off on a much weaker footing,” she said.
Wheat Prices
While Russian wheat prices are 20 percent cheaper than futures on the Chicago Board of
Trade, the global benchmark, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov said March 2
the export ban could be extended from July through the end of 2011.
Russian policies may mean no reversal in the 89 percent rally that began in June after
drought and flooding from Canada to Russia ruined crops. The surge contributed to what
the United Nations says were record-high global food prices last month. The S&P GSCI
Index of 24 commodities rose 47 percent since June, the MSCI World Index of equities
climbed 28 percent and Treasuries returned 0.8 percent, a Bank of America Merrill
Lynch index shows.
Wheat will average $8.98 a bushel in the next quarter, 11 percent more than the $8.09
traded by 4:35 p.m. in London, Barclays estimates. Societe Generale SA, the second
most- accurate forecaster tracked by Bloomberg in 2010, is predicting $9.10, the highest
quarterly average in more than three years.
Ukrainian Curbs
Natural disasters are cutting harvests around the world and forcing governments to forego
revenue from international sales to ensure food security for their own people.
Ukraine imposed grain export quotas last year and India banned shipments of lentils,
onions and edible oils. China and Japan are selling from state food stockpiles. Egypt,
Iraq, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia tendered for grains.
Cyclones and flooding damaged crops in Australia this year and drought is threatening
wheat in northern China. Costs may keep rising in coming months, with only rice keeping
the world from a repeat of the previous crisis, the UN said March 3. More than 60 food
riots occurred worldwide from 2007 to 2009, the U.S. State Department estimates.
Russian farmers are already behind after planting 12 percent less winter wheat, a crop
that normally accounts for 66 percent of the annual total, according to estimates of the
International Grains Council, whose membership exceeds 50 countries. The country’s
grain stockpiles will probably drop to 5.4 million tons by June 30, 75 percent less than a
year earlier, the IGC estimates. Global inventory of wheat will decline 10 percent to
177.8 million tons, according to the USDA.
Spring plantings could be bigger if the government provides loans to farmers, according
to Pavel Skurikhin, president of the Moscow-based Grain Producers’ Union, which
represents about 3,000 companies. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said March 2 the
government gave farmers another 1 billion rubles ($35.5 million) to buy seeds and the
same amount for fertilizers. Spring grain plantings in Russia usually start by April and
the harvests are usually completed in October.
Growing Conditions
Harvests may also exceed expectations should growing conditions improve.
“The early indications are that the crop is going to be more or less normal,” said
Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization
in Rome. “At this time last year we expected the record for Russia, and look what
happened. So it still has to be seen in the context of assuming normal weather during the
growing season.”
The surge in wheat prices may slow as demand weakens. North African and Middle
Eastern nations accelerated grain purchases to boost stockpiles and curb domestic prices
as unrest spread.
Grain Shipments
Grain shipments from the French port of Rouen, Europe’s biggest cereal hub, to Algeria
were the highest in more than six months in the week to March 2, to fill contracts
concluded in past months, port data show. Egypt, the largest wheat importer, is “running
on fear” and will likely buy less in coming months, said Mehdi Chaouky, a London-based
analyst at Diapason Commodities Management SA, which has about $8.5 billion invested
in commodities.
Relief may also come from outside Russia. Combined global production of wheat,
soybeans and corn will be 1.81 billion tons in 2011-2012, 16 million tons more than
demand, Societe Generale estimates. That compares with a 40 million-ton shortfall in the
current season. The bank is predicting higher prices in every quarter this year.
While Russian wheat plantings are forecast to drop, production will rise 25 percent to 52
million tons, from last year, when about 37 percent of the crop was wiped out by drought,
according to the median in the Bloomberg survey. Excluding 2010, this year’s harvest
would be the smallest since 2007.
Predicted Drop
Production gains also disguise a predicted drop in yields. Russia’s most efficient farms
will probably reap 3 tons a hectare (2.47 acres), 25 percent less than before the drought,
said Mikhail Orlov, the founder of Moscow-based Ambika Group, which advises planters
and agricultural investors. Yields will drop as farmers use less fertilizer, he said.
Government officials will consider “the necessary measures to restrain prices” for
fertilizers, Putin said March 2.
Some farmers already pledged their land and equipment as collateral for loans last year
after production declined in 2009-10, Orlov said. They may leave land fallow if no
government loans are available by the spring plantings, he said.
“We have survived, but we are not ready for the spring planting,” Alexey Sedov, a farmer
from the south-central Saratov region, told Putin at an agricultural meeting in the central
city of Tambov on March 2. “Seeds are a sore spot, especially since we under-planted
winter grains, so there is a big pressure on the spring sowing.”
U.S. farmers, the biggest exporters, will increase combined winter- and spring-wheat
acreage by 6.3 percent to 57 million acres, the USDA said Feb. 14. It is scheduled to
issue wheat harvest estimates March 10.
Export Ban
Some Russian farmers may switch to sunflowers and soybeans, said Alexander Korbut,
vice president of Russia’s Grain Union. The Moscow-based group represents about 1,000
producers and traders.
With parliamentary elections this year and a presidential vote in 2012, the Russian
government may make fighting inflation a higher priority than allowing farmers to obtain
international prices, said Jenia Ustinova, an associate in Washington at Eurasia Group, a
New York-based consulting company.
Russian consumer prices will rise 9 percent this year, compared with almost 6.9 percent
in 2010, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 12 economists.
That’s almost five times the anticipated pace in the U.S. and more than four times the
predicted gain in the euro region.
Grain Markets
Eventually, Russia will seek to revive its ambition to be a dominant supplier in global
grain markets, according to Eurasia Group, which advises companies and government
agencies.
President Dmitry Medvedev created state trader United Grain Co. in 2009 to boost
Russia’s exports to as much as 50 million tons a year by about 2025, from about 20
million tons before the ban. Russia is seeking a 20 percent share of the global grain trade,
Agriculture Minister Elena Skrynnik said in June 2009.
Russia was the world’s second-largest wheat exporter in 2009-10, the IGC estimates,
shipping 18.8 million tons, behind the U.S. which exported 23.9 million tons.
“The end of elections next year will mean a shift in focus for the policy makers,” said
Eurasia Group’s Ustinova. “The pressure to control inflation and food prices will ease
and government will prioritize long-term development. Moscow’s goal of becoming a
grain superpower is intact.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in London at
[email protected]; To contact the reporters on this story: Marina Sysoyeva
in Moscow at [email protected]
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
Bombardier Transportation Acquires Stake in Russian Railways
Subsidiary
http://logisticsweek.com/news/2011/03/bombardier-transportation-acquires-stake-inrussian-railways-subsidiary/
By NewsDesk
Following the signing of a share purchase agreement in Moscow on December 13, 2010,
Bombardier is pleased to confirm today that BT Signaling B.V. purchased a stake in the
signalling equipment manufacturer United Electrical Engineering Plants, known as
Elteza. BT Signaling B.V. purchased a 25 per cent stake in Elteza, a subsidiary of
Russian Railways (RZD). Subject to further approval, BT Signaling B.V. could increase
its stake to up to 50 per cent. RZD will remain the majority shareholder.
Elteza is Russia’s largest signalling equipment producer with more than 3,000 employees
across seven manufacturing sites. The company focuses on the design, development and
production of rail signalling equipment and automatic and remote train control systems
which have been delivered in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
and the Baltic states. The new partnership will be one of the first successful examples of
the privatisation of a Russian Railways’ subsidiary and part of the modernization strategy
of RZD.
Already strong partners in the signalling sector, Bombardier and RZD have a well
established engineering joint venture, Bombardier Transportation (Signal) Ltd., in
operation in Moscow since 1996. This partnership has worked in close cooperation with
Elteza to equip over 100 Russian stations with BOMBARDIER EBI Lock 950 computerbased interlocking (CBI) technology. This new agreement leads to the creation of an
Elteza department dedicated to new technologies and focusing on the manufacture of
products including EBI Lock 950 as well as the latest generation of wayside products.
Bombardier Transportation’s Rail Control Solutions portfolio covers the complete range
of BOMBARDIER CITYFLO mass transit solutions, from manual to fully automatic
systems, as well as communication-based systems. It also provides BOMBARDIER
INTERFLO mainline solutions, from conventional systems to ERTMS level 2 systems.
Bombardier solutions encompass a broad portfolio of wayside and onboard products.
Source: Bombardier
Kernel Eyes Purchase of Russian Oil Producer, Port, Rp.pl Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/kernel-eyes-purchase-of-russian-oilproducer-port-rp-pl-says.html
By David McQuaid - Mar 7, 2011 7:24 AM GMT+0100
Kernel Holding SA (KER), the Ukrainian exporter of sunflower oil, is close to making a
Russian acquisition that should be completed in the first half of this year, Rzeczpospolita
reported on its Rp.pl website, quoting Patrick Conrad, Kernel’s director of investor
relations.
Kernel plans to buy a Russian oilseed processor for less than the 200 million zloty ($70.2
million) it paid for Allseeds Group in 2010, the newspaper reported, without saying
where it got the information.
The company also wants to buy another port in Ukraine within the next several months to
add to its existing terminals in Nikolaev and Ilchevsk, at a cost of about $130 million,
Rp.pl cited Conrad as saying.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David McQuaid at
[email protected]
Russian in and now rushing out
http://www.bne.eu/storyf2554/Russian_in_and_now_rushing_out
Ben Aris in Moscow
March 8, 2011
The gold rush into Russia's retail banking market has come to an end after Barclays Bank
announced it plans to sell its high street bank, while reports say that HSBC is also
looking to exit the country.
HSBC and Barclays Bank would be just two of the most high profile foreign banks that
have given up on Russia. With a population of more than 142m people, but a very low
banking penetration – only one in four Russians have any sort of bank account at all,
according to some surveys – the retail banking business was doubling in size every two
years prior to the global economic crisis, leading to a stampede by international banks
into the market from about 2004, which sent prices for banking acquisitions through the
roof.
Barclays paid top dollar for Expobank, based in Russia's Far East, in March 2008 for
$745m (€531m) at the very top of the banking boom, valuing the bank at a whopping 3x
book value. Over the next few years, Barclays rapidly rolled out a retail offering across
the country. But in the middle of February, the bank announced it was seeking a buyer for
its retail business and would focus solely on investment banking. "The people in London
realize that they paid stupid money for these banks. There was a rush into Eastern
Europe, but now they are willing to write off a big loss. It seems to me to be a very
emotional decision," says Sergei Nazarov, head of Renaissance Asset Managers financial
institutions fund.
A week later, HSBC was also reportedly pulling the plug on its retail operations just two
years after announcing ambitious growth plans, although the bank is insisting it "remains
committed" to its business in Russia. "No decision has been made to exit one of our
businesses in Russia," the bank said in an e-mailed statement on February 21.
HSBC doubled its Russian unit's capitalization in the midst of the crisis and former CEO
Stuart Lawson said the bank was, "targeting high net worth individuals as the cornerstone
of its growth strategy." The bank launched what it called a "world-class retail offering" in
June 2009, opening four branches in Moscow and one in St Petersburg as the starting
point in an ambitious $200m expansion plan. However, a year later, Lawson left the
company in what one banking source at HSBC described as an "acrimonious
disagreement over strategy."
The possible exit of the two British banks comes after a string of smaller banks have
given up on the Russian market. Holland's Rabobank surrendered its Russian retail
license last year. Spain's Santander sold its Russian business to local player Orient
Express in December. And both Belgium's KBC Group and Swedbank, the biggest Baltic
lender, have also cut back their Russian operations in the last year, citing stiff
competition as the cause.
Too big to beat
The reasons for the whittling down of the number of foreign players are multiple. The
crisis has obviously depressed earnings and saw the number of non-performing loans
soar. At the same time, almost all of Russia's banks slashed interest rates as the crisis
receded in an effort to rebuild their deposit bases, reducing the profit margins for
everyone in the sector. Finally, the relentless expansion of the two state-owned giants of
the sector – Sberbank and VTB Bank – means competition has become increasingly
tough.
Founded in the Soviet era, Sberbank is a monster with about 20,000 branches nationwide
and accounts for 27% of Russian banking assets and 26% of banking capital. VTB's retail
business, VTB-24, has more than 530 offices. Most of the bigger private retail banks
have at best a few hundred branches, mostly concentrated in Russia's biggest cities.
"Shrinking margins and growing competition means the days of easy money are over,"
says Roland Nash, chief investment officer of Verno Capital. "Those banks that have not
built up sufficient bulk in the last few years are going to be pushed of the Russian market
or bought up by the stronger players."
However, a few foreign banks have succeed in gaining a toehold in Russia; foreign banks
cumulatively account for just over a quarter of the sector's total assets as of January this
year.
France's Societe Generale has probably been the most successful after it bought a string
of banks as well as launching a greenfield retail operation of its own over the last decade.
The bank has almost 3m clients and its consumer unit posted a €13m profit in the fourth
quarter of 2010, following a loss of €58m a year earlier, according to the bank's website.
The bank predicts Russia will be the biggest contributor to it international retail earnings
by 2015.
Fiat seeks partner to expand in Russia
By Cyntia Barrera Diaz And Luis Rojas Mena, Reuters March 8, 2011 4:12 AM
Fiat SpA is in talks with several Russian automakers to expand in the fast-growing
market and hopes to have a plan in place next month, chief executive Sergio Marchionne
told Reuters Monday.
"We need to find the optimal way to get it done in terms of timing, in terms of cost, and I
think we have until April to finalize our plan," Marchionne said. "We have people on the
ground looking at this."
TaGaz had been recently mentioned by European media as a possible partner for Fiat in
Russia, but Marchionne did not single out the automaker, saying the company is in talks
with "a number of people" about how to expand in Russia.
"I am confident we'll find a solution and if necessary, Fiat will do it alone," Marchionne
said.
Russian carmaker Sollers unexpectedly dropped a joint venture plan with Fiat earlier in
February in favour of Ford Motor Co.
Rivals like Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. and Germany's Volkswagen AG have also rushed
to forge ties with Russian partners.
Marchionne described Europe as a "stagnant market." By contrast, Russia is expected to
be the sixth-largest global auto market by 2020, up from its current position as No. 10,
according to a Boston Consulting Group study last month.
Russia will overtake Germany by 2018 as the largest producer of passenger cars and light
commercial vehicles in Europe, the consultancy said.
In January, Fiat sold 788 vehicles in Russia, up from 640 in January 2010, making Fiat
the 27th best selling brand in the country, according to the Association of European
Businesses.
"(Europe) is an incredibly competitive marketplace so we need to find ways to continue
to leverage the know-how that we have, that we built up inside the group as a result of the
combination with Chrysler," Marchionne told Reuters.
Marchionne is in Mexico to promote the production of the Fiat 500 out of the Chrysler
Toluca plant, just outside Mexico City.
The Fiat 500 is a small car aimed at competing with subcompacts like Honda's Fit or
Ford's Fiesta.
Asked about Fiat's plans for China, Marchionne said that "2011 is a transient year.
"We are actually importing cars out of Toluca into China. We'll bring the Fiat 500; we'll
see how many the market will take." He declined further details.
Marchionne said that one of the problems with Fiat is that the automaker has historically
held a very strong position in Italy but is relatively weak in non-Latino countries.
"I think Chrysler will allow us, because of the architectures it brings out of the U.S.
manufacturing base ... to play a significant role," he added.
Fiat currently manages and has a 25 per cent stake in U.S. automaker Chrysler Group
LLC, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and is planning for an initial public
offering this year.
Before an IPO, Chrysler must refinance some $7 billion in government debt. The
company is in advanced talks on its refinancing, people familiar with the matter said last
week.
Marchionne told reporters in Mexico City that Chrysler is talking to between one and 10
banks on its debt refinancing.
VEHICLE RECALLS
Toyota Motor Corp. will recall about 22,000 vehicles because a tirepressure monitoring
system might fail to notify drivers of a flat or deflated tire. The recall affects Toyota
Sequoia, FJ Cruiser, Land Cruiser, Tacoma and Tundra vehicles from model years 200811.
Toyota has issued recalls of more than 13 million vehicles since September 2009 in the
U.S. alone, including the recall of more than two million vehicles to correct problems
with floor mats and other issues that could cause unintended acceleration.
Meanwhile, Chrysler Group will recall about 20,000 Jeep Wranglers from model years
2010-11 to tighten the fasteners that attach the axles to the chassis. Federal safety
regulators said the loose fasteners could lead to a loss of steering control, increasing the
risk of a crash.
And American Honda Motor Co. will recall about 37,000 Civic hybrids from the 2006-07
model years to replace a voltage converter that can cause the engine to stall and prevent
the car from being restarted.
McClatchy-Tribune News
© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star
Read more:
http://www.windsorstar.com/cars/Fiat+seeks+partner+expand+Russia/4400617/story.htm
l#ixzz1Fzw3VnVp
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
GOOGLE TRANSLATION
Stockholm court begins hearings on the BP deal with Rosneft
http://top.rbc.ru/economics/08/03/2011/555637.shtml
Stockholm Arbitration Court today began hearing the suit of TNK-BP to the British oil
company BP as part of its deal with Rosneft. About this RBC said a source familiar with
the situation. Previously reported that in the Stockholm Arbitration will consider the
claim of the Russian shareholders of TNK-BP - a consortium AAR - to BP for their
involvement in a deal with Rosneft.
Rosneft and BP 15 January 2011. announced a strategic alliance for the development of
offshore fields in the Arctic. To develop three oil fields companies will create joint
venture (JV), where Rosneft will hold 67%, and BP - 33%. Corporation also agreed to
exchange shares. Rosneft will receive a 5% stake in BP, a British company in return
would gain control over a 9.5% stake in Rosneft.
Together with the existing shares in BP, Rosneft, which it acquired in 2006. during the
initial public offering (IPO) "Rosneft's share in the Russian company will increase to
10,8%. The aggregate value of shares of BP, produced for the transfer of Rosneft, is
approximately 7.8 billion dollars
The consortium AAR, which owns a 50 percent stake in joint venture with BP - TNK-BP
- January 27, filed suit in a London court, which asked to suspend work on these
transactions. AAR claims that BP failed to warn and did not provide all the necessary
documents for the upcoming deal with Rosneft, which is a violation of a shareholder
agreement.
In turn, BP says it will not prejudice the shareholders' agreement, and AAR has been
timely notified of any plans for cooperation with Rosneft. As a result, the court froze the
deal before the final review of the effect of claims AAR in the Stockholm arbitration.
It was planned that the Stockholm Arbitration Court should consider the opinion of the
board of directors of TNK-BP, but the meeting of the collegial body was postponed until
March 12, 2011. A source familiar with the situation told RBC that the recommendations
of management of TNK-BP board of directors concluded that TNK-BP buys 5% stake in
BP for 7.6 billion dollars and exchange them for 9.5% stake in Rosneft.
8 March 2011
TNK-BP moves closer to Russian arctic
Published: March. 7, 2011 at 8:26 AM
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2011/03/07/TNK-BPmoves-closer-to-Russian-arctic/UPI-91171299504360/#ixzz1Fzni7GRX
MOSCOW, March 7 (UPI) -- Anglo-Russian energy venture TNK-BP could join Rosneft
and Gazprom in developing the Russian arctic shelf if terms are good, the Russian prime
minister said.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said TNK-BP might be able to persuade its oil
and natural gas colleagues to tap into more domestic natural resources if the terms are
favorable to all parties involved.
"There is a law, under which we have entrusted Rosneft and Gazprom with work on the
shelf," Putin was quoted by Russia's official RIA-Novosti news agency as saying. "If
TNK-BP offers suitable terms of joint work to one of the companies it can (join the
project). Why not?"
TNK-BP, a joint venture between a group of Russian billionaires and BP, is at odds with
the British supermajor and Rosneft over an asset swap that included exploration deals in
the Russian arctic.
BP in January agreed to pay Rosneft more than $8 billion in shares for a 9.5 percent stake
in the Russian energy company in addition to a development agreement for the Kara Sea
on Russian's northern continental shelf.
Putin brushed off the historic rival between TNK-BP and its London counterpart by
noting any rivalry is an internal matter for each company to address.
"These are their problems, they must solve them between themselves," he said.
Gazprom
Lukoil and Gazprom sign gas supply agreement in Moscow
http://www.istockanalyst.com/business/news/4946942/lukoil-and-gazprom-sign-gassupply-agreement-in-moscow
Monday, March 07, 2011 7:54 AM
(Source: Datamonitor)OAO Lukoil and OAO Gazprom have signed a gas supply
agreement in Moscow, under which gas will be supplied from Lukoil's fields in the
Bolshekhetskaya Depression, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District and from the
north of the Caspian Sea.
Under the Agreement, Lukoil will supply natural gas produced from the Bolshekhetskaya
Depression fields to Gazprom in 2012 2016. This gas will enter Gazprom's gas pipeline
near Yamburgskaya compressor station. The supplied gas volume is expected to come to
8.35 billion cubic meters in 2012.
This amount however may fluctuate depending on whether the Bolshekhetskaya
Depression fields are launched into operation and will be affected by Gazprom's gas
pipeline system load.
The document envisages that as soon as Lukoil starts gas production at the northern
Caspian Sea fields, Gazprom will seek to accept all of the Northern Caspian gas in its
pipeline system and will supply the same volume of gas to LUKOIL Group's enterprises
in accordance with the replacement plans.
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