Why the American media are so pathologically anti-Russian

[lord of the mark]

Mosnews


"The patriotic Rodina (Motherland) party leader Dmitri Rogozin has proposed that the city of Volgograd be renamed once again to Stalingrad, RIA Novosti has reported.

The battle of Stalingrad in 1943, in which the invading Germans were defeated, marked a turning point in World War II, and put the central Russian city on the world map. Originally called Tsaritsin, it was renamed Stalingrad by Soviet ruler Josef Stalin in 1925. The city was renamed Volgograd in 1961, eight years after the dictator’s death.

“We are not insisting on anything, we do not want to return to anything, especially ahead of the 60th anniversary of the World War II victory,” Rogozin told journalists, in an apparent attempt to assuage fears the move was an attempt to return to Soviet-style authoritarian rule.

Renaming the city Stalingrad “is a matter of historical memory”, Rogozin said. He added that giving the city back its old, world-famous name would boost the city’s attractiveness for investors.

Rogozin told journalists that he will “approach the issue delicately”. According to him, a referendum will be conducted in Volgograd to determine local opinion."

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Serb

I had no idea, probably because guys in Washington D.C. love Chubais so much and Putin do not want to start another wave of "look this dictator thrown another beautifull mind into prison" anti-Russian campaign.

.

Removing Chubais from his position != putting him in prison

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Serb

So what? His mistake. He thought they will win without Yabloko. This guy have lost any link with reality and really believed that people do love him (after all he've done with Russia during privatization you have to be pretty silly to belive in that). When they've lost it was a real shock for him. One word- looser, his time has gone.

his mistake, putin's benefit, and he becomes head of a powerful state-owned company. Maybe not a mistake after all? Better his current position than a powerless position in the Duma, where hed be subordinate to Yavlinsky anyway?

[lord of the mark]

BTW. from Mosnews:

"United Russia (Yedinaya Rossiya) was formed as a party on December 1, 2001.

The party came into being as a result of the merger of three political organizations: Yedinstvo (Unity), led by crisis situations minister Sergey Shoigu; Otechestvo (Fatherland), led by Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov; and Vsya Rossiya (The Whole Russia), led by the Republic of Tatarstan’s president Mintimer Shaimiev. The party list for the 2003 parliamentary elections was headed by Boris Gryzlov, Minister of Interior and former leader of Unity’s parliamentary group. "

So in fact United Russia IS the political heir of Unity, Yeltsin's party. Yet it has the chutzpah to use the unpopularity of the Yeltsin era privatizations as a weapon against liberals, even ones like Yavlinsky who broke with Yeltsin while Putin supported him.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
from a ukrainian blog


"The Zvarych affair was sparked on 16 February, when Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her government banned the re-export of crude oil from Ukraine. The government argues that Ukraine, a country which imports over 90% of its oil, needs to maintain stable prices for petroleum products. The import of Russian oil for subsequent export at a hefty mark-up distorts and destabilizes oil prices in Ukraine, it contends. The next day, Zvarych said he would not sign off on the government's new decree, even hinting that he might resign.

Then an open letter to Tymoshenko appeared from a company, Oil Transit, whose deputy director happens to be Zvarych's wife, Svitlana. It complained that the government's decision interfered with its plans to re-export 3 million tons of oil from Russia to Slovakia. That would be roughly one-tenth of the 34 million tons of oil that Ukraine has so far imported each year from Russia. (Ukraine itself needs 22 million tons; the rest goes to Ukraine's petroleum refineries.)

For a country such as Ukraine, not used to debate about conflicts of interest, the Zvarych scandal has been a learning experience. (Zvarych himself, a former U.S. passport-holder, should know a little more about conflicts of interest.) Initially, the media were concerned primarily about Zvarych's accusation that the government was "attempting to drag members of [his] family into corrupt schemes," a reference to a complex business deal that he claims was suggested to him. When a connection with Zvarych's wife came to light, however, cries of "scandal" were heard and sentiment turned against the minister.

Yushchenko, however, came down on Zvarych's side and stated publicly that he was against banning the re-export of oil but favored imposing a value-added tax on the import of oil. That would limit the mark-up on re-exports by Oil Transit, while boosting budget revenues.

In the end, Svitlana Zvarych's business interests have been dealt a double blow: the government's ban on re-export has not been lifted, and oil imports are now subject to a 20 percent value-added tax (that is a hefty blow since Oil Transit had not yet imported most of the 3 million tons earmarked for re-export).

The scandal seems far from over, given that Zvarych last week claimed the ban on re-exports violated Ukraine's constitution, while the economics minister, Serhiy Teryokhin, claimed that there would be no re-export of crude oil from Ukraine, at least while he is a minister.

Government seeks metals giant for reprivatization

But a new government policy is attracting even more attention than this one minister's conflict of interests. That issue is the possibility of a large-scale review of previous privatizations.

The focus so far has been on Kryvorizhstal, a privatization singled out by Yushchenko in his election campaign as a particularly questionable deal. When, on 12 May 2004, Ukraine's State Property Fund put 93 percent of the factory's shares up for sale foreign investors such as the LNM Group, U.S. Steel, and TATA Steel showed an immediate interest in the largest steelmaker in what is a major steel-making country. But, then, after the tender had already been announced, the State Property Fund ruled that potential investors must have a history of producing at least one million tons of coke--a coal residue used in smelting iron ore--per year in Ukraine. Perhaps not coincidentally, only Ukrainian companies fulfilled this condition.

But what particularly concerned Yushchenko, and many others, was that the buyer, Investment Metallurgical Union, won with an offer ($800 million) that was only a little higher than the starting price ($715 million). Interested foreign investors had mentioned sums at least twice as large. The privatization had also proceeded at a record pace, with the deal concluded by 14 June 2004. Investment Metallurgical Union is a joint venture between Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma, and Renat Akhmetov, a man who later bankrolled much of the presidential campaign of then-Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

After her appointment as prime minister on 24 January, Yulia Tymoshenko announced that Kryvorizhstal would be returned to the state and, on 8 February, her cabinet instructed the State Property Fund to cancel all its decisions regarding the metal giant's privatization.

The real battle for Kryvorizhstal, however, is taking place in the courts. So far, Tymoshenko also seems to be getting her way there. On 17 February a local Kyiv court annulled its own decision from August 2004 that Kryvorizhstal's privatization was legal, and on 25 February froze the company's shares. On 1 March, Ukraine's Supreme Court annulled a number of lower-court decisions that had ruled the sale legal. It sent the case back to the commercial court to review from scratch.

In the meantime, Oleksandr Turchynov, the newly appointed head of Ukraine's secret service and before that the first deputy chairman of Tymoshenko's party, Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), said on 17 February that his agency would investigate 3,000 cases of alleged corruption in the privatization of state enterprises. In what is probably not a coincidence, Tymoshenko had earlier announced that her government would review 3,000 privatizations.

A bad example?

This policy has been dubbed "reprivatization" and stirred lively debate in the press and among policy-makers. Indeed, even Yushchenko seems to have been taken aback by the ambition of Tymoshenko, his main ally in the Orange Revolution. He responded to Tymoshenko's declarations by saying that at most 30 large enterprises would be reprivatized. But the intense and driven Tymoshenko has in the past proven hard to stop.

The danger is that "reprivatization" might become wild. Already, there is some sign that the Orange Revolution has introduced a new and disturbing element into Ukrainian business life. A case in point is the ownership of the football team Dynamo Kyiv, which was privatized in 1993 by the Surkis brothers, Hryhoriy and Ihor. Since then, it has expanded into a sports empire worth $200 million, according to Kostiantyn Grigorishin, a former business partner of the brothers'.

Grigorishin, a Russian businessman, began cooperating with the Surkises and their partners in 1998, when Ukraine's regional electricity distributors began to be privatized. But this cooperation stalled by 2002, when Grigorishin was briefly arrested at the instigation of another business partner of the Surkis brothers, Viktor Medvedchuk.

Medvedchuk is the former head of President Kuchma's administration. Hryhoriy Surkis is a member of the Social Democratic Party (United), a party led by Medvedchuk.

When the Orange Revolution was in full swing in November and December, Grigorishin declared publicly that he would "take back" Dynamo Kyiv. That threat took a tough form in mid-February when armed guards hired by Grigorishin tried unsuccessfully to seize two energy companies from the Surkis brothers. His attention has now turned to Dynamo Kyiv, although in a less violent fashion. An offshore company belonging to Grigorishin is now taking the football club to court for allegedly diluting the rights of minority shareholders. It has already won a court order prohibiting the sale of Dynamo Kyiv shares, though this might prove problematic in practice since court executors have been unable to locate the shares' registrar. All of this is worrying observers. Grigorishin clearly feels he has a chance to wrest control over companies belonging to the Surkis brothers at a time when their fortunes, long closely tied to the political scene, have taken a sharp downturn. Grigorishin knows that the new government will not interfere to protect the Surkises as it would have under Kuchma and Medvedchuk. Some fear Grigorishin may even have the backing of the current administration. During the Orange Revolution, Grigorishin made several appearances on stage with members of the opposition. He denies he offered any material help to the opposition or to Yushchenko.

How far Grigorishin is willing to go in his pursuit of the Surkis family's assets is unclear, but his strong-arm approach suggests he will not be meek. Tymoshenko, too, can be remorseless in pursuit of her goals. The danger is that a Tymoshenko-backed mass reprivatization might create a business and legal whirlwind in which men like Grigorishin will pursue their own wild reprivatization. A sense of a free-for-fall akin to the privatization of the 1990s is beginning to emerge. No detailed criteria about what companies might or might not be reprivatized have been announced. The possibility now is that some, like Grigorishin, will look at Tymoshenko's initiative and believe anything goes. Those may just be fears at this point, but already the atmosphere is unhealthy. What looks certain is that Ukraine's courts face a very busy period and a test of their malleability. "

Good. I guess everyone who shouted about Yushenko being great Ukrainan liberal leader and about rapid changes in Ukriaine, during all those orange debates we had here, are happy now.

p.s. As for re-export, f*ckers they sell OUR oil we sell them for a low, Russian prices that a several times lower than European prices. We should turn-off the pipe and teach those bastards a lesson.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
UPI


"Sergei Glazyev's neo-communist party Rodina (translated as "Motherland" or "Homeland") and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's misnamed party Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, or LDPR, will control approximately 20 percent of the seats in the new Duma. Both parties ran on platforms calling for a radical redistribution of wealth and an extreme interpretation of "law and order." The acute rhetoric employed by Rodina and the LDRP won them considerable popular support from voters outraged due to a strong sense of social displacement since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It remains very questionable, however, if that same rhetoric will be translated into independent and real political power.

Rodina ran on an anti-oligarch platform wrapped in heavy nationalist overtones, and was able carve off a sizeable portion of the Communist vote, emasculating the inheritor of the Soviet party. Rodina's leader, Sergei Glazyev, is an economist and one-time member of Yegor Gaidar's groundbreaking reformist administration of the early 1990s who later became disillusioned and joined the Communists only to break them in September. Rodina campaigned on the redistribution of profits from big business to the state to be paid to pensioners and state sector workers. He also advocated banning immigration.

Zhirinovsky doubled his party's 1999 vote -- to 11.6 percent -- with an outrageous campaign of antics especially made for prime-time television. The consummate performer ran a campaign demanding the arrest of all of Russia's oligarchs and calling for the return of Russia to its former super-power status in world affairs, with a couple of fistfights during TV debates thrown in for good measure. The result is Zhirinovsky's best since he burst onto the scene in 1993. His incendiary one-liners and down-to-earth cynical humor was the highlight of the campaign.

Both Rodina and the LDPR present themselves as independent and as a political alternative. However, this is seen as far from true. During the campaign, both parties relentlessly attacked Russia's two small liberal conservative parties -- Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces -- claiming their politics had impoverished over 30 percent of the population and charging that they are responsible for the creation of Russia's oligarchs. Interestingly enough, neither Rodina nor the LDPR attacked the pro-Kremlin United Russia that has controlled the Duma since Vladimir Putin was elected president in 2000. Refraining from criticizing the powers-that-be maybe the first indication of how Rodina and the LDPR will work with United Russia and the Kremlin in the next Duma.

It is widely believed that the Kremlin encouraged Glazyev to create a left-wing party bloc that would divide the Communist constituency. Glazyev succeeded in this endeavor; his next mission will most likely be to slowly sway other members of the Communist Party to join Rodina or to "invade" the Communist Party and take it over from within. Either way, Rodina is the Kremlin's appointed vehicle to create a loyal left opposition.

Moving forward, Glazyev may continue to call for a nationalist-populist platform, though he most certainly will do this without an all-out attack on United Russia or Putin. Glazyev certainly supports a leftist and nationalist agenda, but within the framework of support the state first. This is why the Kremlin agreed to quietly support Rodina's parliamentary election bid. "

Zhirinovsky' is a clown and his so-called party is God damn circus of idiots. They have nothing common with Rodina. Glazyev is a thousand times more an economist that Chubais, Nemtsov or Hakkamada.
I vote both for Rodina nad Glazyev during last parliament and president elections, but as you all know I'm just a f*cking Russian nazi.

[Sava]

I Serb

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
BTW. from Mosnews:

"United Russia (Yedinaya Rossiya) was formed as a party on December 1, 2001.

The party came into being as a result of the merger of three political organizations: Yedinstvo (Unity), led by crisis situations minister Sergey Shoigu; Otechestvo (Fatherland), led by Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov; and Vsya Rossiya (The Whole Russia), led by the Republic of Tatarstan’s president Mintimer Shaimiev. The party list for the 2003 parliamentary elections was headed by Boris Gryzlov, Minister of Interior and former leader of Unity’s parliamentary group. "

So in fact United Russia IS the political heir of Unity, Yeltsin's party. Yet it has the chutzpah to use the unpopularity of the Yeltsin era privatizations as a weapon against liberals, even ones like Yavlinsky who broke with Yeltsin while Putin supported him.

No way. Unity was created in 1999 as PUTIN's party, not Yeltsin's party. Nobody needed a party of Yeltsin then. Last Yeltsin's party was a Nash Dom Rossiya ("Our Home is Russia" or Our Home is Saddom as we joked here then).

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


his mistake, putin's benefit, and he becomes head of a powerful state-owned company. Maybe not a mistake after all? Better his current position than a powerless position in the Duma, where hed be subordinate to Yavlinsky anyway?

Actually he became the chief of UES long before the last parliament elections. And he never was in Duma nor had intentions to work there in case of SPS victory. I know it sounds weird, but in Russia its a common practice when "leaders" of the party do not actually become a deputies after their party won the elections. I admit, it's a God damn stupid practice.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Serb

No way. Unity was created in 1999 as PUTIN's party, not Yeltsin's party. Nobody needed a party of Yeltsin then. Last Yeltsin's party was a Nash Dom Rossiya ("Our Home is Russia" or Our Home is Saddom as we joked here then).

Putin was Yeltsins PM at that time, and IIUC Unity was supported by Yeltsin.

A little googling reveals that both Chubais AND Putin were proteges of Sobchak, in Leningrad. In fact Chubais brought Putin into the govt. These guys go back a LONG way.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Removing Chubais from his position != putting him in prison

Sure, this guy clearly deserves a firing squad.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Serb


Good. I guess everyone who shouted about Yushenko being great Ukrainan liberal leader and about rapid changes in Ukriaine, during all those orange debates we had here, are happy now.
.

Yusch is pursuing justice in the case of certain criminal cases. I see attempts, somewhat awkward, to go after oligarchs.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Putin was Yeltsins PM at that time,

True.

and IIUC Unity was supported by Yeltsin.

Supported by Yeltsin? I'm not sure/ I can't recall any supportive statements of Yeltsin. In any case it doesn't mean it was a Yeltsin's party. Believe me, in case if this party supported Yeltsin course or in case if Yeltsin actively supported the Unity, it would never won elections of 1999. Yeltsin was TOOOOOOoooooo unpopular.

A little googling reveals that both Chubais AND Putin were proteges of Sobchak, in Leningrad. In fact Chubais brought Putin into the govt. These guys go back a LONG way.

True.

[Serb]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



Yusch is pursuing justice in the case of certain criminal cases. I see attempts, somewhat awkward, to go after oligarchs.

Yeah, right
Purchase a single company and you are an evil dictator. Take a three thousand for free and you are a great liberal, pro-western and pro-democracy leader.

F*cking hypocricity. I'm getting sick about that.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Serb


Yeah, right
Purchase a single company and you are an evil dictator. Take a three thousand for free and you are a great liberal, pro-western and pro-democracy leader.

F*cking hypocricity. I'm getting sick about that.

Criticisms of Putin are based on a host of factors, not just Yukos. As for the three thousand companies, thats still in the planning phase, it hasnt happened yet, and its too soon to tell how it will be done.