Unlike viewers of Russian state-controlled television, readers of The Power Vertical will know that on September 16 leading opposition politicians created a new movement called For A Russia Without Arbitrariness And Corruption.

You can hardly blame Russian television for ignoring this development, since all the mainstream media in the country seem to have simultaneously discovered the long-standing corruption allegations against former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and are still rushing to catch up on that story (it is a larger and more pathetic version of what happened when Russian state television suddenly discovered the Khimki highway story a couple of years after the fact and had to suddenly start covering it in the middle after President Dmitry Medvedev suddenly mentioned the controversy).

But I would like to return to the anticorruption coalition of former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, former Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov, and former Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov for a moment because the Levada research center this week released the results of an opinion poll on the topic.

I’ve written before about the need to look at opinion polls in Russia very carefully and have been critical of some analysts who take at face value the surveys that consistently show Vladimir Putin as the “most popular” politician in Russia, with Medvedev tagging along closely at his heels. Ignoring Russia’s closed and manipulated information bell jar, these observers cherry pick the results of these polls while ignoring poll after poll that show Russians strongly disapprove of the antidemocratic and kleptocratic policies that Putin has pursued over the last decade.

Levada Center polls have found that 94 percent of Russians feel they have no influence over what happens in the country, one-third are concerned about human rights abuses, 68 percent feel the law does not protect them, and only 4 percent think their property is secure.

The fact that most Russians see no alternative to the tandem is a result of political oppression in Russia, not of Putin’s supposed charisma. When he wins a free election, we’ll take another look at his popularity.

But the Levada poll on For A Russia Without Arbitrariness And Corruption is worth consideration because it gives at least some baseline feeling for how popular the so-called liberals are among the Russian public. And it also conveys pretty strongly that Russians are not fooled by the pseudo-democratic political theater that the Kremlin is trying to pass off as something other than authoritarianism.

First, the poll found that 86 percent of Russians had no idea that any such coalition had been formed. Never heard of it. Maybe Russian state media didn’t think the story was worth mentioning because Medvedev seems to have largely given up on his anticorruption mantra in recent months in favor of the “modernization” mantra.

Second, Levada asked the interestingly worded question “will the creators of the coalition succeed in registering it as a party with the Justice Ministry and in participating in the elections for the State Duma in 2011 and the presidential election.” It would be more honest to ask if the authorities will allow these things to happen, since the matter is much more up to the presidential administration than it is up to the leaders of the new coalition.

But respondents saw through the question anyway, with only 8 percent saying “definitely yes,” with 24 percent saying there is a chance the Kremlin might find a minor role in its political theater for such a movement, and 38 percent saying either that “most likely” or “definitely” the new coalition’s creators would not “succeed” in registering or participating in the elections.

To my mind, the most interesting question was “could you vote for a party based on the coalition.” Here, 3 percent said “definitely” and 15 percent said “maybe.” Fifty-two percent said “most likely” or “definitely” not. And 31 percent couldn’t answer.

Now an 18 percent potential electorate (leaving aside the 31 percent that is up for grabs) is pretty impressive for a week-old movement that has already been aggressively marginalized by the political system. In fact, if the party was registered and if the party was allowed to participate in the election and if that election was reasonably competitive and if something like 18 percent of the people voted for it, it would be the second most popular party in Russia, after United Russia. It would rank higher than any of the other parties currently holding seats in the State Duma, the so-called systemic opposition.

Just to recap, in the 2007 Duma elections, United Russia was awarded 64 percent of the vote and handed 70 percent of the seats in the legislature. The Communists came in a valiant second with 11.6 percent, getting 13 percent of the seats. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia polled 8.1 percent and got 9 percent of the seats. And A Just Russia pulled up the rear with 7.7 percent and 8 percent of the seats.

A party that polled 18 percent could have ended up with more than 80 seats in the Duma.

But projecting such speculation forward to the 2011 elections is an exercise in what might be called “counterfactual futurism.” No such party will be registered, no reasonably competitive election will be held, no party that is not controlled by the Kremlin will get any significant number of seats in the Duma.

And opinion polls will continue to show that Vladimir Putin is the most popular person in Russia.

-- Robert Coalson

On September 16, the leading members of Russia's much-persecuted and defamed liberal political wing agreed to form a coalition for the purpose of contesting the 2011 Duma elections and the 2012 presidential election. It is a quixotic quest, indeed, and the four signatories to the agreement can now expect the full brunt of the Kremlin's anti-democratic machine. They are former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, former liberal Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov, and former Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov.

The Russian text of the agreement and videos of the participants discussing the coalition and the political situation in Russia can be found here.

Here is the coalition agreement in English:
 

Once again in its history Russia is confronted with serious challenges of the times. If our country does not find adequate answer to them soon, then it will become mired in yet another stagnation. The system of bureaucratic autocracy that has developed violates the national interests of the country. Theft, corruption, the defenselessness of people and property, bureaucratic whimsy, the erection of barriers between our country and European civilization do not allow the citizens or the country as a whole to realize their fantastic potential. No modernization can be carried out in a state in which the constitution is trampled, the rights of citizens are violated, the legal system does not work, and all fundamental democratic institutions have been destroyed.

Taking into consideration our responsibility for Russia’s future and understanding that the lack of coordination of the democratic forces only helps maintain the current situation, we have agreed to the following:
 

1) In preparation for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections, we are forming a coalition of democratic forces called For A Russia Without Arbitrariness And Corruption comprising the parties and movements that have signed this agreement.

2) Under the framework of the coalition agreement, and Organizational Committee has been formed to create and register a united democratic party. The Organizational Committee consists of two representatives from each of the organizations that have signed this agreement and one independent politician (public figure) proposed by each party.

3) A congress will be held to make a decision on putting forward a single candidate for president of the Russian Federation in the name of the coalition chosen from among those people who seek to participate in the presidential election and who present to the congress their program, as well as considering other questions of major importance to society.

4) The procedure for electing delegates to the coalition congress and the procedure for nominating those seeking to participate in the 2012 presidential campaign in the name of the coalition (including those who are not members of the organizations or movements), and the democratic procedure for selecting a single candidate from the coalition to participate in the election for president of the Russian Federation will be determined by the Organizational Committee.

5) For the purpose of preparing the documents and decisions of organizational matters a working body is formed, to which each party signing this agreement will delegate one person.

For the Russian Popular Democratic Union – Mikhail Kasyanov
For the united democratic movement Solidarity – Boris Nemtsov
For the Republican Party of Russia – Vladimir Ryzhkov
For the movement Democratic Choice of Russia – Vladimir Milov

-- Robert Coalson

The scandal around Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov promises to be the hit spectacle of the new season of Russian political theater. Of course, the drama (replete with plenty of comic relief and, so far, missing only some tawdry sex) is still playing out. But we’ve already seen enough to make a few observations.

The most obvious, of course, is that the state-controlled media in Russia (like the police and prosecutors) remain – if there was ever any doubt – a purely political tool wielded by the Kremlin to solidify its own hold on power. The Internet has become an increasingly powerful force in Russia in recent months (Yulia Latynina wrote this week that it is becoming so powerful that it seems unlikely the country’s rulers will tolerate it much longer), but it cannot rival the opinion-shaping power of state television. Of course, when we say “opinion shaping” in this context, we mean sending to the broader public the signal of what the rulers think so that it can be mirrored back, rather than actually changing people’s convictions. Everyone now knows that Luzhkov is a pariah, and they’d better back away if they know what is good for them.

(Here are some clips of the NTV attack on Luzhkov that kicked things off with translation in English.)

The political exploitation of the media and the police that lies at the heart of the Putinist system in Russia was made clear by Kirov Oblast Governor Nikita Belykh, a former Union of Rightist Forces leader who participated in Marches of Dissent before deciding he’d have a better chance of sending his sons to an English boarding school if he shut his mouth and became a governor. “Everything that we were arrested for when we were saying the same thing about Luzhkov,” Belykh said today, “that is exactly what is now all over all the television channels. That’s what is galling.”

Miriam Elder has a nice piece as well on how activists who have been spitting hopelessly into the wind for years are suddenly now “sources” of “news” for the Kremlin-controlled media. Many of the accusations that have been leveled against Luzhkov and his wife were spelled out in a booklet by former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov a year ago (and since updated). Nemtsov has written a similar book about Vladimir Putin, in case the ruling elite changes its mind about him as well.

REN-TV even dredged up some year-old footage (see video here, Nemtsov is about 2 1/2 minutes in) of Nemtsov recapping his charges against Luzhkov (who is, by the way, a cochairman of the Upper Council of the ruling United Russia party). A nonperson is reborn. Of course, state TV is unlikely to actually put a microphone in front of a live Nemtsov…. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to appear on Vladimir Solovyov’s “Duel.”)

The next step in the Luzhkov story will be to watch his “popularity rating” fall. A Levada Center poll from November 2009 found that 60 percent of Muscovites rated him favorably, although 56 percent believed the charges of corruption against him are “most likely true.” Of course, Putin and Medvedev have to be careful about shattering the illusion of “popularity” in Russia’s managed political environment (just as they have to be careful not to let the Luzhkov stain taint United Russia).

The Luzkhov affair, so far, raises more questions than answers about the power structure in Russia. But it makes clear the obvious fact that the system does not operate by the formal rules it outwardly professes to be guided by. A spokesperson for the presidential administration told reporters today on condition of anonymity that it is the president’s prerogative to decide who is the mayor of Moscow. We can only speculate why someone would demand anonymity for such a banal pronouncement.

One explanation for the crisis is that Medvedev is tired of corruption in Moscow and wants Luzhkov out as part of his much-ballyhooed, but essentially ineffective anticorruption campaign (Just as this deal was going down, prosecutors were demanding documents from the main anticorruption NGO in Russia, Transparency International, in a move that was widely seen as political preparation for the upcoming election season. The independent and effective election-monitoring NGO Golos was also targeted. The anticorruption campaign is about politics.)

Using such extra-legal and politically motivated means to achieve an anticorruption end seems pretty dubious to me. Certainly it is bound only to increase public cynicism. Particularly if, as seems likely to be the case, the matter ends with Luzhkov’s dismissal from the mayor’s office and appointment to some other cushy sinecure with his purported ill-gotten gains intact. If the corruption allegations against Luzhkov have substance and were pursued properly by the Audit Chamber and prosecutors, there would no doubt be dozens of prosecutions that would run right through the country’s political and economic elites. (But given Russia’s politicized prosecutors and courts, even that kind of real corruption fight would come off looking like a purge rather than a legitimate process of a law-based state.)

A corollary of this anticorruption thesis is that the battle is Medvedev versus Luzhkov, with Putin waiting on the sidelines to cast his deciding vote. Luzhkov has already renounced his opposition to the proposed highway through the Khimki forest (which Putin and his supporters are pushing) and has solicited and received some support from United Russia, which Putin heads. He is hoping with all his might to get a public vote of confidence from the prime minister during a United Russia conference in Nizhny Novgorod tomorrow.

Putin, so far, has been silent.

But I’m not convinced there is any kind of split between Medvedev and Putin or that Medvedev could launch such an all-out attack on his own. Control of state television is crucial to politics in Russia, and I have seen no evidence that Medvedev has some wrested this huge asset away from Putin. (Blogger Denis Bilunov noted that having brought the might of the state media to bear, the Kremlin cannot afford to let Luzhkov off the hook: “Would the conclusion be that the blabbering of the news readers on ‘Vremya’ is no different from the blabbering on Twitter? Then how would they puff up the next Putin Plan?”)

But let’s speculate for a moment (N.B – I said I am speculating here, so don’t bother writing in and pointing out that I have no proof. I know I have no proof. I admit it.). Suppose the assault on Luzhkov is a way of signaling to the elites that the tandem is working just fine.

What if the point is to show them that all the talk Medvedev is some sort of legally minded improvement on Putin’s authoritarianism is window dressing, that when push comes to shove he is willing and able to do whatever it takes to maintain the system?

What if the point is to make Medvedev look as tough (in the Russian political style) as Putin is, so that the ruling elites won’t be scared of some sort of “civiliki” administration if the decision is made to appoint him to a second term? That despite the push for “modernization,” the same old rules apply when it comes to politics? (Speaking of “modernization,” one of the points of the Luzhkovectomy is almost certainly to set up someone else in the inner circle to reap the huge financial rewards that are sure to leak out of the Skolkovo project.)

What if the point is to signal to the ruling elites that Putin will make the 2012 decision on his own and that anyone who tries to influence this process will be slapped down without hesitation?

-- Robert Coalson

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today unveiled his “five standards of democracy,” offering an interesting glimpse into the mind-set of the so-called liberal lawyer who has been hailed as a step away from Putinist authoritarianism.

Without further ado, the official definition of democracy from the liberal wing of the Kremlin is:

(1) The legal realization of humanitarian values and ideals, giving these values the practical force of law.

(2) The ability of the state to ensure and support a high standard of technological development.

(3) The ability of the state to defend its citizens from encroachment on the part of criminal societies.

(4) A high level of culture, education, means of communication and exchange of information in the country.

(5) The conviction of the citizenry that they live in a democratic state.

Speaking at a forum in Yaroslavl today, Medvedev also said: “I know the lapses in our system, but I categorically disagree with those who assert that Russia is not a democracy. Russia is a democracy. We are at the beginning of our path and there is something for us to work on, but we are free.”

The Putin-Medvedev chief ideologue, deputy presidential administration head Vladislav Surkov, offered his own almost Confucian elaboration of this vision: “Russia has a democracy of the quality that it has. One person has a good car and another has one that breaks down – but it is still a car. Under the constitution, we are a sovereign state. And that is sovereign democracy.”

Russia’s leaders have long insisted that the country must follow “its own path” to democracy. But now they seem to be trying to craft a new definition the democracy to which this path leads, one that conspicuously misses out on terms generally associated with democracy, such as fair elections, accountability, freedom of information.

(Some Putin-sympathetic bloggers out there have ventured forth the idea that Russia is a “plebiscitary regime,” and I hope they elaborate on this notion, since I find it unconvincing so far. I imagine they don’t have in mind the shorthand definition as a state in which a president is elected but then can do pretty much whatever he or she wants.)

But let’s look more closely at Medvedev’s standards. The first thing that strikes me is that two of the five standards begin with “the ability of the state.” The penchant of Russia’s ruling elite for state-oriented political thinking seems to be in evidence here.

The inclusion of “a high standard of technological development” here, I would argue, is both a red herring (primitive societies can be democratic and nothing about having an iPhone or a nuclear reactor ensures democratic governance) and a case of putting the cart before the horse. Medvedev himself seems a little confused on this point because elsewhere in his Yaroslavl speech (as of this posting, the transcript of his speech has not appeared on the Kremlin website -- here is a link to the transcripts page itself), he acknowledged that only free people can modernize (saying immediately following that political change in Russia must come slowly).

The point about protection from criminal societies begs the crucial question (especially crucial in the context of Russian/Soviet history) of what prevents the state itself from becoming a “criminal society,” in the total absence of transparency, accountability, oversight, and popular legitimacy.

Interestingly, Medvedev’s points 2, 3, and 4 could be perfectly well used to define the Soviet Union (with the caveat above about the state becoming the criminal society). In fact, a Soviet-sympathetic analyst could easily make the case that the Soviet Union fit all five of Medvedev’s standards and thus qualifies as an ideal “Russian” democracy. It would only take a little fudging on the first point and, concerning the last, a reliance on official opinion polls and attendance at May Day parades to gauge public opinion instead of listening to kitchen conversations or counting Brezhnev jokes.

Medevedev’s first point is highly problematic in Russia, since he himself has decried the country’s systemic legal nihilism, as has Putin. In the Russian context, in the context of the absence of checks and balances and accountability mechanisms (not that they are merely absent, but that they were actively rooted out over the decade of Putin’s rule), it simply does not matter what values are enshrined in the laws. Any values enshrined in laws that are ignored or are selectively applied are overshadowed by the values enshrined in ignoring or selectively applying them.

I wrote recently about Medvedev’s proposed police-law reform, making exactly this point. The problem is not the law, and it is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to pretend that it is. For example, police brutality is rampant in Russia. The new bill has a provision against the unjustified use of force by police. But the current law on the police also has such a point. In fact, the notorious “pearl ensign” who was caught on tape “bashing a protester in the face with his baton” (to paraphrase Prime Minister Putin’s charming phrase) in St. Petersburg has been charged with exactly this crime. The point is that this law, seemingly, wasn’t in force in Petersburg last month. It has never been in force in Moscow, and who knows if it will be in force anywhere next month? (Since there are elections next month, my guess is that it won’t.)

As for Medvedev’s last point, it is also meaningless in the state-controlled information vacuum that hangs over virtually all of Russia. People who live in democracies know that they live in democracies and will say so. People who don’t live in democracies can be made (through state-controlled media, through tireless propaganda, through sophistic redefinitions of what democracy is) to think that they do. Or they can be intimidated or bribed into saying that they think they do, which is close enough. When Medvedev gives up his total control of national television (his NTV, for instance, has scheduled a much-hyped hatchet job on Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, who is drifting out of favor) and allows open, democratic political competition, then we will be able to assess the convictions of the citizenry.

Everyone knows how public opinion is manipulated in Russia. I have no doubt that if the ruling elite suddenly decided to make former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov the next president, he would be the most popular (or second most popular) politician in Russia within a month. We already saw that happen when the unknown Viktor Zubkov was made prime minister in 2007. When he said in September 2007 that he might run for president in 2008, many people took that as a sign that he would be Putin’s successor and he instantly became the most popular politician in the country, after Putin himself. (In the 1996 presidential election, Boris Yeltsin in the space of a few months went from having a popularity rating of about 6 percent to being reelected.)

Russia does not have a democracy. And I think President Medvedev knows this. The fact that he pretends otherwise and contorts his thinking so much in order to resist the reform the country needs and deserves should, to my mind, be enough to convince anyone of the paucity of his so-called liberal credentials.

-- Robert Coalson

In Russia these days things are seldom what they seem to be. Nonetheless, though, there seems to have been an unusual amount of smoke and mirrors being held up to the light of day in recent days.

The most obvious example, of course, was Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s high-profile road trip across the Far East that was intended, in part, to promote the domestic auto industry. Putin has been shilling for AvtoVAZ’s Lada for some time now, and it was something of an embarrassment when it was revealed that he used no less than three of them for his 2,000-kilometer jaunt while his entourage tailed him in a convoy of some 100 foreign-made cars. Internet users have been laughing themselves silly watching the video, and television viewers in Belarus also got the story. Viewers of Russian state-controlled television, however, got the Grigory Potemkin version of the trip.

Another memorable example of Potemkinism came in a “The Moscow Times” op-ed by Michael Bohm about the epidemic of fake diplomas in Russia. NTV recently reported that more than 70 “engineers” at an aviation plant near Khabarovsk had bought fake degrees. But management at the factory didn’t care. Bohm goes on to note that Russian companies rarely check on academic credentials because universities refuse to provide such information. He cites experts who believe that up to 50 percent of postgraduate degrees issued in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union were bought. Bohm asks sensibly whether the Kremlin’s modernization agenda can be pursued with so many fake “engineers,” “business administrators,” and “economists” (people who have learned the advantages of cheating over those of hard work) running the country.

An August 31 opinion piece on gazeta.ru lambasted the government for emphasizing the use of “advertising articles” and “propaganda websites” for the promotion of Russia as an attractive target for foreign investment. The plan proposed by the Economic Development Ministry emphasizes “rebranding” the country – ironically, including by using “Soviet propaganda methods.” The plan doesn’t discuss using “agents of influence,” such as the recently exposed ring of illegal agents in the United States, but it such tactics are definitely in the spirit of the ministry’s proposal. The gazeta.ru authors point out that building such a Potemkin image isn’t going to fool many investors, but it is a lot easier domestically than “adopting correct legislation, reducing corruption, eliminating visas, and making Moscow more comfortable and attractive – including for foreigners.”

Regular Power Vertical readers may remember we wrote recently about a new political talk show called “Duel” that was coming to Rossiya state television. Host Vladimir Solovyov was touting the show as a prime-time live “socio-political” program. That show premiered on September 2 (you can watch it here), but was not broadcast live in Moscow or the European parts of Russia. It was taped in the afternoon (I know because both Solovyov and Zhirinovsky actively tweeted about it) and broadcast at 10:50 p.m. It was only seen live in the Far East. Although viewers in other time zones had no way of knowing it, they were watching and voting on a taped version. Those who thought that live political discussion had returned to Russian state television had better pack their bags and move to Vladivostok.

“Duel” contained many levels of Potemkinism within it as well, such as when host Solovyov tells Mitrokhin that Russians elected the ruling United Russia party and so that must mean that they want authoritarian government. Hard to imagine that Solovyov has such a naive view of the way “elections” are staged in Russia.

“Nezavisimaya gazeta” had a story today about President Dmitry Medvedev’s stepped-up talk about cutting back the bureaucracy. In the middle of the piece, there is this gem: “A source close to the presidential administration said that reductions in the number of state employees is not really a goal in itself. Statements by the leading figures in the government about this are really aimed at producing an electoral effect.”

Another gazeta.ru article on September 1 reported that residents in Khimki had been compelled “under pressure” to sign a petition being organized by Moscow Oblast authorities in support of plans to construct the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway through a protected forest. (Here’s a nice graphic of the proposed route and other possibilities.) Amazing how the authorities can drum up 20,000 valid signatures in a small city in a couple of days to support the felling of a protected forest, while opposition groups – according to the official versions – have to resort to all sorts of illegal trickery in their bids to get candidates on election ballots.

And “Vedomosti” reported this week that research has shown the Russian media are exaggerating the government’s efforts to combat corruption. According to the study, between early 2008 and late 2009, about 100 media stories concerning “exposing corruption” appeared each day. From late 2009 to the present, that figure jumped to 125 stories per day.

However, the actual number of corruption cases filed, according to the Justice Ministry, was basically unchanged (21,842 in 2007 and 23,518 in 2009, a 7.6 percent increase). Of the 2009 cases, 6,691 went to court; 3694 defendants received suspended sentences; 1,926 were fined; and 903 were sentenced to real prison time. That is, one person went to prison for every 25 corruption cases filed. Not a single defendant received the maximum sentence of three to five years in prison for “abuse of office” and only four were given the maximum sentence of five to eight years in prison for “bribe-taking.”

The article quotes Transparency International-Russia Director Yelena Panfilova as saying that the struggle against corruption in a systematically corrupt country is a political matter, not one for law enforcement or the courts.

And here’s one last example and you can decide for yourself whether there is any Potemkinization going on here. Media reported this week that unknown burglars had broken into the Moscow offices of the Investigative Committee’s department of “particularly important cases.” The office is handling, among other things, the case of the brutal beating in 2008 of Mikhail Beketov, the editor of a newspaper in Khimki that was relentless in reporting about the corruption surrounding the proposed highway project.

Officials say the thieves opened 18 filing cabinets and 25 locked safes. But all they took was a television and a video camera.

-- Robert Coalson

Word emerged this week that the Moscow city authorities have OKed a concert on downtown Pushkin Square in support of the activists and citizens who are protesting against the destruction of the Khimki forest. The August 22 concert is expected to include headliners such as DDT (whose front man, Yury Shevchuk, has been much in the news lately with his aggressive pronouncements against the Kremlin; at a concert in March, Shevchuk slammed Russia’s “brutal, cruel, and inhumane” system), Televizor, Barto, and others. It will be hosted by outspoken journalist Artyom Troitsky and could possibly include the red-hot rapper Noize MC.

It was nothing less than jaw-dropping news. Why would the authorities give their blessing to allow thousands -- possibly tens of thousands -- of young people to gather in the center of the city for such a politically charged event? After all, until now they have been almost comically afraid to allow even handfuls of people to demonstrate in Moscow. This video shows scores of police deployed to prevent one elderly man from entering a downtown square and then bodily hauling him off after he does.

It should be noted, of course, that Moscow gives and Moscow takes away. There is a lot of time between now and August 22, so don’t be surprised if the authorities suddenly discover that Nashi has already booked the square for a tag sale to raise money to buy copies of Vladislav Surkov’s latest book for victims of the recent fires.

On top of this came the news today that Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has returned to his vacation, which was rudely interrupted by the fact that no one in the capital could breathe. If the concert gets out of hand while Luzhkov is off having his tennis elbow looked at, it is hard to imagine how he’ll hang on to his job. Of course, being out of town can provide plausible deniability if the plan is for some sort of crackdown or violent provocation.

So, the $64,000 question is: Why?

We have ruled out the possibility that the authorities are counting on the veracity of this report from Emmy-nominated RT television asserting that “Earth’s natural resources will run out in four days.” That is, on August 21, one day before the concert, life on earth will come to a grinding halt and the Kremlin’s problem will be solved. “We wanted to allow the concert,” a concerned spokesman will intone, “but the lack of water and oxygen and energy on the planet simply makes this impossible.”

Or are the authorities counting on the event going off smoothly and therefore being a demonstration that Moscow supports democracy and civil society? Could the authorities be counting on Troitsky, who although a liberal, remains a mainstream cultural figure who has been moderate in his criticisms of the authorities, to keep a lid on things?

Or are the Moscow authorities simply in such disarray over the seemingly inevitable removal of Luzhkov (and are some of them bent on accelerating that process?) that they don’t know what they are doing? That seems unlikely, since as recently as the attempted demonstrations on August 12 and 15, they seemed to know just fine.

Or is it part of the conflict between Luzhkov and Moscow Oblast Governor Boris Gromov? Could the municipal authorities be thinking the event will remain focused on the Khimki confrontation and will make the oblast authorities look bad?

All this seems unlikely. In its August 16 press release announcing the concert, the opposition Solidarity movement seemed pretty open about their intention to expand the political dimension of this event. “The demonstration/concert on August 22 is not just an action of solidarity with the defenders of the Khimki forest, but part of a broad civic campaign against bureaucratic and police arbitrariness.”

“The action of August 22 is intended to demonstrate that civil society in Russia has developed to the point where it can, when necessary, mobilize itself to defend its constitutionally guaranteed rights, including the right to clean air,” the press release concludes.

Televizor leader Mikhail Borzykin similarly told RFE/RL's Russian Service that the Khimki situation "has become a symbol of survival in Russia, of the struggle againnst the cutting down not only of a forest, but oall all that is best in the residents of Russia, of all that is human. It has become a metaphor." He characterized the actions of police as "extremist" and as "terrorism practiced across Russia and directed at its own citizens."

So? What do you think? Have the authorities lost their minds? Are they playing a cynical game? Have they suddenly become defenders of the public’s right to assembly freely?

Your guess is as good as mine – we’d love to hear what you think. See comment box below...

-- Robert Coalson

Earlier this week “The Moscow Times” had an article whose opening sentence really caught my eye: “An ongoing tussle over the Khimki forest is raising fears that media freedoms are in jeopardy, with the police pressuring journalists into collaborating or revealing their sources of information, media freedom activists said Monday.”

With the drought, the fires, the radiation, and the threat to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s bees, I pretty much thought the news couldn’t get any worse for Russia. But it turns out that it can – now Russian “media freedoms are in jeopardy”!

But don’t despair. There seems to be some good news on the Russian media-freedoms front.

First, congratulations are in order to RT (formerly, Russia Today), which has received an Emmy nomination in the international news category for its coverage of U.S. President Barack Obama’s July 2009 trip to Moscow. RT is a state-funded English-language satellite channel.

Second, longtime broadcast journalist Vladimir Solovyov has announced that he is returning to the airwaves with a prime-time live “socio-political” program on the national Rossia channel. Until April 2009, Solovyov was the host of “To The Barrier!” on NTV. On that program, two guests debated one another while viewers voted by SMS to determine who “won” the debate. The program, while rarely controversial, was fairly popular, but it was cancelled, Solovyov says, “for corporate reasons.”

Solovyov, however, has a pretty solid reputation as a Putin loyalist, though he’s an intellectual of the “reform-the-system-from-within” school. Accused on Twitter today of being in the Kremlin’s pocket, he responded: “I support people’s ideas, not their job titles. Remember, I was sued by a member of the presidential administration. The Kremlin has many towers.”

The new program, “Duel,” will basically steal the “To The Barrier!” format. Speaking to “Nezavisimaya gazeta,” Solovyov promised “a collision of emotions, opinions, moods” that will “be very close to politics.” “This will be a pointed socio-political program,” he said. People in the audience will be able to ask questions.

“Duel” is set to go on the air this month, and early topics will be the fires and the draft law on the police. “We will show what people are concerned about today,” he told "Nezavisimaya." “Nothing canned, not an attempt to present evergreen products. For instance, we aren’t going to ask should Vladimir Lenin be removed from the mausoleum. We aren’t going to settle the eternal question of whether Stalin was a bloody murderer. We aren’t going to boldly and ardently argue about collectivization.”

The program could, theoretically, form yet another litmus test of the liberalization of the political climate under President Dmitry Medvedev. It will be worth noting whether “Duel” is able to move beyond the “black list” of subjects and personalities that have been airbrushed from Russian state media.

If Solovyov is looking for programming suggestions, here’s one that came over the wires today. Former Deputy Prime Minister and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov made the daring assertion that if he were allowed to debate Vladimir Putin for one hour on live national television, “it would be the end of Comrade Putin.”

That’s a pretty bold claim. But in any event, it would be a ratings sensation. People still remember how Nemtsov “debated” nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky on live television in 1995 and the orange juice flew (watching that video now, it is strange to realize that the maniacal Zhirinovsky is a longtime deputy speaker of the Duma, while Nemtsov is someone whose views are apparently too dangerous for mass audiences in Russia).

So, keep an eye on “Duel.” Let’s see if it really tests any significant limits.

-- Robert Coalson

There has been a lot of ink spilled in recent weeks evaluating the proposed new law on the police and, before that, the law on expanding the powers of the Federal Security Service (FSB). Good textual analyses of both bits of legislation can be found on the blog A Good Treaty here and here.

However, to a large extent all the talk about various articles and subclauses strikes me as yet another act in the political theater that dominates Russia today. No one in authority seems to be addressing basic issues, not the least of which is that no one believes the abuses Russian law enforcement agencies have committed over the last decade and longer occurred because of bad laws.

Earlier this year, the website of the Russian version of “Esquire” posted this damning calendar of police abuses – a day-by-day litany of rights violations and crimes with the grim title “We Work Without Days Off.” Reading this list, one thing is clear – all of these abuses are violations of current laws.

In a commentary for Russian “Forbes” today, businesswoman Yana Yakovleva hit the nail on the head: “What is the rush with passing the new law on the militisiya, or politsiya? Are police officers tormenting citizens because the law is bad? Are they violating their rights and depriving them of liberties because the law allows them to? No. They are doing this because they are allowed to do it.”

It is a basic fact of life in Russia that law enforcement organs – police, prosecutors, the courts, etc. – earn their license to steal (and worse) by propping up the political regime – by helping them get away with rigged elections, by suppressing legitimate and lawful dissent, by settling “business disputes” in ways that always work out conveniently for the Kremlin, and so on.

After last October’s farcical local “elections,” I wrote about the role of the police in manufacturing victory for United Russia and predicted that they would be expecting payback. Now, as “Time” magazine has noted, another tense political season for the ruling elite is approaching, with another round of regional elections slated for October when the current drought and fires will still be in the back of the public’s mind:

Practically every national vote in Russia is marred by allegations of wholesale fraud, and even during the last nationwide round of balloting in October 2009 [sic: there was a smaller round of local elections in March 2010] — when Russia was on the verge of financial collapse, unemployment was spiking, factories were closing — United Russia still won virtually all of the 7,000 regional elections held that day. "So, of course, this calamity has shaken the people's trust in power at all levels," says Yevgeny Volk, a political analyst in Moscow. "But aside from showing the ruling elites that they should do more to manipulate public opinion, give some more handouts, further marginalize the opposition, I don't think that any real change can come of this.”

It doesn’t take a law professor like Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to know that no one can expect the police to break the law in October and then quietly become a professional politisiya when the new law takes effect (as Medvedev has stated) in January. And even if they did, another round of voting is coming in March and so on and so on.

The problem isn’t the law.

Ilya Yashin and former Deputy Energy Minister Vladimir Milov, activists with the opposition Solidarity movement, have proposed their own police reform. But they preface their effort with some solid reasoning about why the current government cannot and will not enact real reform. Medvedev has not responded to critiques such as this:

The steps taken by D. Medvedev toward reforming the Interior Ministry are fragmentary and unsystematic. It is absolutely clear that the president does not have the will or the desire to go after the root problem – the centralized vertical of the law enforcement organs itself, which is fed by corporativism and collective security, corruption, and a sham struggle against crime.

Is there any chance that the current authorities will bring order to the law enforcement system? No.

The Interior Ministry, to a significant degree, is infected with all the fatal injuries of the political regime that has been created in Russia over the last 10 years.

The political system in Russia is based on opacity, corruption, bureaucratic license, and, most importantly, a lack of public oversight. And it is these development impulses that it passes on to all its structural components.

The vertical structure of the Interior Ministry also transmits development impulses down to its very lowest levels. The essence of these impulses is simple: obey orders, generate “pretty” reports, and otherwise, do what you please.

The president, the prime minister, and the ruling United Russia party have over recent years concentrated unlimited power in their own hands. They bear complete responsibility for the formation of the law enforcement system that we have today. They are its architects and engineers. It would be naïve to suppose that the current authorities can or want to seriously and fundamentally reform the Interior Ministry.

To my mind, the fact that Medvedev is unable to carry out an intellectually honest discussion of police reform is already pretty substantial evidence that Yashin and Milov are right. If the old law on police wasn’t the problem, then why should we think the new law will be the solution?

In an interview with “Newsweek” this week, Ella Pamfilova, who resigned on July 30 as head of the presidential human rights council, made some statements that also cast doubt on the ability of the system to reform itself, even if one accepts (as she does) that Medvedev sincerely wants reform.

Speaking of massive human rights abuses in the North Caucasus, Pamfilova said: “The president looked into the cases of human-rights violations. That was my victory. The problem was that most of the president’s orders stayed ignored—that I consider the president’s failure.”

Speaking about the Khimki forest case, she said: “Aware that the case involved corruption at the highest level, the president ordered the prosecutor general to investigate. But the system does not work—somebody does not want to obey the president’s orders.”

Speaking about the law to expand FSB powers, she said: “Our main frustration was to see the president drown in the total indifference demonstrated by his men in power. So even in the cases where our council found common ground with President Medvedev, his system failed him—we saw no outcome from his measures.”

And asked what advice she has for the president, Pamfilova says: “The problem with human rights and freedoms is very deep in Russia. But that is just a part of a much bigger issue: human rights and freedoms cannot be protected in a country with immature democratic institutions.”

A new law on the police is not going to fix that, not matter how beautifully crafted Article 6, Subsection 4, Paragraph 8 turn out to be.

-- Robert Coalson

Remember the local elections last October which were widely touted as being much “cleaner” than the ones held last March? Well, considering the nadir of post-Soviet election fixing that was reached in March, it wasn’t too hard to achieve some sort of improvement, I suppose.

But it would be ludicrous to say that what happened in October was anything close to a democratic process or that the people who were decreed the winners had secured any reasonable legitimacy. People who keep asserting that Vladimir Putin and Putinism and United Russia are actually supported by the majority of Russians have never quite been able to answer the question of why, then, is political competition systematically rooted out at all levels and across the country? If the liberals are so feckless, as many Russia watchers endlessly repeat, then why was the last mayoral election in Sochi nothing more than a stage-managed farce?

Every once in while, the curtain slips a little bit and we get an impression of how United Russia manufactures its wins (and, in this case, a little glimpse into the morality and intelligence of one of its supporters).

United Russia supporter Vera Nesvyashchenko lives in Suzdal. Although she loves Putin and the party, she’s a little miffed because she hasn’t been paid for the work she did during the October mayoral “campaign.” So she’s written an open letter to the prime minister asking him to look into the matter, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reported. (The story was widely picked up in the Russian media. I like the “tags” associated with this version: Vera Nesvyashchenko, provocateurs from United Russia, Radio Liberty, Suzdal, the cynicism of United Russia, cynics of United Russia, black PR.)

Respected Vladimir Vladimirovich!

I am Vera Nesvyashchenko, a resident of Suzdal. I support you. I support the United Russia party. That is why during our city’s mayoral election in October 2009 I was pleased to accept an offer by the leadership of the local party chapter to become a campaign worker during the election campaign.

The work of the campaign workers was overseen by Tatyana Sribnaya (head of the election campaign of [Suzdal Mayor]Olga Guseva and head of the local branch of United Russia). I – like other young people – was given the assignment of “street cleaning.” That is, we were to tear down the posters of Olga Guseva’s main rival, mayoral candidate Oleg Grigorenko.

In addition to “street cleaning,” we were also told to look into mailboxes to see if there were any campaign materials for Olga Guseva. If we found in the mailboxes campaign materials for Oleg Grigorenko, we were ordered to take them.

On the eve of the election, I met with a friend who told me that we could draw up lists of people who would vote for Olga Guseva. He had been told this by Tatyana Sribnaya, who said the party would pay 200 rubles for every name on the list. After that, I too began making lists of people who would vote for Olga Guseva. I made a list of 36 names and wrote it in a notebook that was provided by the secretary in the party headquarters.

Several days after the election, I phoned Tatyana Sribnaya and asked about my pay, and she told me I would be paid later. All October I waited for the money I’d been promised (for the list and for the “street cleaning”). I called Tatyana Sribnaya several more times and once even met with her in her office as deputy head of the Suzdal Raion. Seven months have passed and I still have not received the money I earned.

Other campaign workers have told me that they were all paid what was promised.

Tatyana Sribnaya, who acted in the interests of Olga Guseva, hired me on a paid basis for services rendered during campaigning for mayoral candidate Olga Guseva. But the remuneration promised has not been received.

I am raising a small child and I am pregnant. Therefore I do not work. The money that I expected to receive for my work was intended to maintain my health during my pregnancy.

Not having received any reply from the prime minister, Nesvyashchenko has filed a lawsuit against the party and the first hearing in the case was held today. The next hearing is scheduled for September 3.

In June, a local court rejected Grigorenko’s appeal to have the results of the October election annulled. He charged a litany of election law violations, all of which were rejected out of hand.

According to official figures, Guseva won the election by 111 votes. Ironically, although she was United Russia’s candidate, she was also supported by the so-called opposition Communist Party. That party, however, also picked up RFE/RL’s story on its website, under the headline: “The Latest Revelations Of Election Hooliganism By United Russia.”

(For other such revelations, see previous Power Vertical posts here, here, and here.)

-- Robert Coalson

Although the details aren’t clear, the bottom line is that longtime Bashkortostan President Murtaza Rakhimov – he has headed the republic since 1993 – will not seek another term.

Some media are reporting that he will step down immediately and that the legislature of the oil-rich republic is being hastily convened tomorrow to hear his resignation speech and/or to pass a package of immunity guarantees and retirement benefits that are reportedly part of the deal to push the dinosaur aside. Other media say Rakhimov will serve out his current term, which ends in October 2011, while still others say his departure will come before then, but in a seemly fashion that could take weeks or months.

But, as I said, the bottom line is that Rakhimov will be gone, like other Yeltsin-era governors before him, including Oryol Oblast's Yegor Stroyev, Murmansk's Yury Yevdokimov, Volgograd Oblast's Nikolai Maksyuta, Sverdlovsk Oblast’s Eduard Rossel, Khanty-Mansiisk’s Aleksandr Filipenko, Tatarstan’s Mintimer Shaimiyev, and Karelia’s Sergei Katanandov. The general take on the replacements has been that the Kremlin is strengthening its control over the regions (via the ruling United Russia party) by eliminating regional leaders with their own local bases of support.

Some analysts also note that Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000 only after some fairly fierce competition from the Fatherland-All Russia bloc that was built around some of the country’s most powerful regional leaders – Shaimiyev, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, and then St. Petersburg Governor Vladimir Yakovlev (haven’t heard that name lately…. He seems to have disappeared). Putin is known to take his politics personally.

Of course, with Rakhimov’s ouster, Moscow’s Luzhkov looks even more lonesome and vulnerable.

Although replacing regional leaders who have their own local bases of support (and we are talking about nepotism, cronyism, and corruption-based relationships within the local elites, not popular support) clearly strengthens the power vertical (and further erodes the federation’s sham federalism), the process shows some of the overall system’s weaknesses.

For instance, although it technically would have been possible to simply remove Rakhimov or Putin might not have reappointed him in 2006, in the real world doing so precipitously would have set off a good old-fashioned redistribution of property in the republic. The rule of law in Russia is so weak that such transitions have to be very carefully managed.

Also, analysts usually note that it is not possible to remove a major governor too soon before a national election cycle begins (Duma elections will be held in December 2011, and the next presidential election will come in March 2012). The Kremlin, after all, relies on regional administrations to manufacture the election results it seeks (and the illusion of consent).

Likewise, it would be unseemly to remove a governor too soon after an election cycle if he did, indeed, cough up the results Moscow ordered.

What does this mean for Luzhkov? His current term expires in July 2011, but that is too close to the elections for the Kremlin to make its move. But, despite the constant rumors that Luzkov is on the cutting board, there don't seem to have been any real moves against him yet. Replacing him while also preventing a clan-scramble meltdown in the capital is a tricky task, maybe one that is too risky to attempt even at this nadir between election cycles. If he can hold on for the next couple of months, he'll almost certainly get reconfirmed next July and will likely serve until after the next presidential inauguration in May 2012.

The story of Rakhimov's removal also reveals another aspect of the Russian diarchic system. Technically speaking, it is the president and the presidential envoys to the regions who should be handling such questions. But Rakhimov cut his deal on Monday in a three-hour meeting with Putin's Medvedev's chief of staff, Sergei Naryshkin. But according to some reports, Rakhimov wanted to talk to Putin directly, but the prime minister refused to see him. We can see where the buck stops.

-- Robert Coalson

NOTE: This post originally stated erroneously that Sergei Naryshkin is Vladimir Putin's chief of staff. It has been corrected to reflect that he is President Dmitry Medvedev's chief of staff.

The scandal of the 11 accused Russian “illegals” who were purportedly unregistered agents of the Russian government in the United States (working for the Foreign Intelligence Service or SVR) has certainly generated a lot of chuckling and more than a few bewildered, if bemused, shrugs of the shoulder. No one can quite seem to figure out why the Russians would put so much effort into something that never got near any significant secrets.

The focus of attention has been on Anna Chapman, the sultry, 28-year-old businesswoman who has literally become the face of this scandal. Many observers have had a lot of fun mocking her activities, but it has now come out that her father was a KGB officer who worked under diplomatic cover in Africa as late as 2002. Chapman’s ex-husband has told journalists that he was surprised she was arrested for spying, that her father “controlled everything in her life,” and that she was “very secretive.”

But maybe they are right to focus on her, not because her pictures sell newspapers but because she is the newest addition to this alleged spy ring, which the FBI has reportedly been following for about a decade. She evidently began her spying career no later than 2002 and didn’t arrive on U.S. shores until the beginning of this year.

Maybe the general bewilderment about the alleged spy ring stems from the fact that many observers are looking at the latest case from the perspective of the Cold War. Certainly, sending people out to set up Facebook pages and network in the exciting world of venchur kapital and startupi doesn’t make a lot of sense if you continue looking at Russia as an ideologically motivated empire.

But if you remember that Russia today is probably a lot more accurately described as a clan-based kleptocracy, then maybe the “illegals” network makes more sense.

In a provocative piece on grani.ru, analyst Dmitry Shusharin starts to flesh out the argument that what Russia’s ruling elite is doing now (and I’m not talking about the 25,000 promising young Russians who pay their taxes and now have Nashi’s stamp of approval) is working to legitimize the assets they have gained through massive corruption. And one way of doing that is to funnel state money into banks run by children of the elite, who can then invest it in projects that will be protected and nurtured by the state like, say, the Skolkovo Silicon Valley project.

Shusharin points to a recent study by the Center for Development of the Higher School of Economics (the study apparently is still in draft form and, considering its findings, might well not get any further than that). The researchers determined that at least one-third of the 1.2 trillion rubles ($38.4 billion) that the government spent on “anticrisis” measures in 2009 was wasted. A small part of that – 92 million rubles – was used to “boost demand” by ordering new automobiles for the state and by providing subsidies to Russian Railways. (Russian Railways, by the way, is headed by leading kleptocrat and Putin comrade Vladimir Yakunin. I have always wondered how much Moscow’s willingness to let NATO supply forces in Afghanistan by overland routes across Russia is lubricated by the possibility that the policy lines the pockets of Yakunin and his patron.)

Most of the seemingly wasted money – 360 billion rubles -- was handed out directly to various state-connected financial institutions, particularly Rosselkhozbank, Vneshekonombank, VTB (formerly, Vneshtorgbank), and Rosagrolizing.

Are these just banks? Well, Vneshekonombank is headed by Vladimir Putin. One of its deputy directors is 32-year-old Pyotr Fradkov, the son of former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Fradkov, an “economist” who worked in the Soviet Embassy in India in the 1970s, is now the head of the SVR, which purportedly ran the U.S. spy ring. Fradkov’s younger son, 28-year-old Pavel, graduated from the FSB’s academy and joined the Foreign Ministry, where he works in the department responsible for ties to the European Union and the G8.

(Vneshekonombank is also the bank that provided the financing for former KGB officer Aleksandr Lebedev to purchase the British daily “The Independent.” It has also been the target of intrepid muckraking minority shareholder Aleksei Navalny: if you speak Russian, watch this video alleging that the bank laundered money through a bogus leasing deal with China.)

Also among the state financial institutions to get “anticrisis” assistance was Rosselkhozbank (the fourth-largest bank in Russia). Rosselkhozbank’s CEO is 32-year-old Dmitry Patrushev, son of kleptocrat and Putin insider Nikolai Patrushev. Patrushev the elder is an “engineer” who joined the KGB in the 1970s and worked his way up to head the FSB from 1999 (preceded by Putin) until 2008. He is now head of the State Security Council.

Kleptocrat and Putin comrade Sergei Ivanov – who joined the KGB in the 1970s and is now first deputy prime minister – has two sons. Until earlier this year, 32-year-old Aleksandr Ivanov worked at Vneshekonombank. Little 29-year-old Sergei Sergeyevich Ivanov is deputy director of Gazprombank.

Sergei Matviyenko, son of St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, is a vice president of a VTB subsidiary. The 27-year-old son of Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko, Vladimir Kiriyenko, is chairman of the board of directors of Sarovbiznesbank (Sarov is closed nuclear-research city in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.)

And so on. For a more complete list of where some of Russia’s key thirtysomethings are today, see this article.

The point is that the nexus between corruption earnings, Russia’s security agencies, and Russian state and “private” business is pretty well-established. And it is moving abroad in a way that may or may not be alarming, depending on your point of view.

In my last Power Vertical post, I highlighted a recent report by the main Czech security organization on the activities of Russian intelligence operatives in business ventures in the Czech Republic. I ended that post with a quotation from the report that seems just as appropriate as an ending for this one:

"Such projects are per se quite legitimate and beneficial. However, given there are Russian intelligence officers under diplomatic cover preparing and coordinating the projects, one can question the Russians’ open and sincere approach to the cooperation.”

-- Robert Coalson

With Russian President Dmitry Medvedev making his triumphant tour of the United States and everything looking rosy for the U.S.-Russia reset, it seems almost curmudgeonly to be skeptical.

Fellow Power Verticalist Brian Whitmore, in a piece about how the reset is being viewed from Georgia, quotes U.S. President Barack Obama’s senior Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, as stating forcefully that “we’re not ending our assistance to Georgia, throwing the Georgians under the bus….”

In a recent piece for “Foreign Policy” that was aptly titled “There’s No One Under The Bus,” analyst Samuel Charap of the Center for American Progress lays out pretty much what McFaul would say himself:

Yet despite the administration's penchant for bungling its messaging, most officials in these countries have become significantly less worried about the reset with Russia in the last six months. They are adapting to the reality that the administration's top priorities require a working relationship with Moscow and that Washington no longer showers them with highly public displays of devotion. They have also grasped something that the reset-bashers haven't: There have been no grand bargains or quid pro quos with Moscow that affect their relations with the United States. In fact, the administration is delivering for them on the ground, including in ways their supposed champions in the Bush administration never did. Put a different way, there is no bus.

For critical views of the reset, you can see this “Washington Post” column by the Carnegie Endowment’s Robert Kagan or Robert Amsterdam's piece here or this “Foreign Policy” piece by David Kramer or this one by Lilia Shevtsova. To take a quote from Shevtsova’s piece, the hard line on the reset looks like this:

The Kremlin is willing to help Obama try to earn his Nobel Peace Prize as long as he's aware that the reset is possible only on Russian terms: Don't meddle in Moscow's affairs; recognize its spheres of interest; and help with its economic modernization. The United States has fulfilled the first two conditions so far, but help on the third is not yet in sight. Moscow therefore must take a firmer line in bargaining with Washington: All concessions must be prepaid.

There are some good minds lining up on both sides of this question, so it will be interesting to see how things play out. For now, I remain skeptical and see no reason to think that Russia’s key foreign-policy priorities (weakening European unity, dividing “old” and “new” Europe, dividing the United States from Europe, undermining NATO, undermining the U.S. position in the global economy, and the like) have changed. Maybe increased U.S. leverage with Moscow will make a difference eventually, but it hasn’t yet.

But returning to the question of whether there is a bus and whether anyone is under it…. Amid the roar of the reset enthusiasts this week and the booming sound of Washington patting itself on the back, I heard something that sounded to me distinctly like the sound of someone crying out from under a bus.

This week the Czech Republic’s Security Information Service (BIS) issued its annual report on security threats to the country for 2009 and it makes for sobering reading. The BIS spent all (yes, all) its counterintelligence effort against Russia. “In terms of coverage, intensity, aggressive nature and quantity of operations, the Russian intelligence services have no rivals in the territory of the Czech Republic.” (The BIS's 2008 report puts this thought even more amusingly: "As to activities of other intelligence services in our territory, the risks they posed for the Czech Republic in 2008 were negligible.")

Here’s more from this NATO member state's main security agency:

“There were continuing efforts of Russian companies to establish themselves in the Czech energy market, both through supplies of relevant products and through firms owned by companies having their seats in European countries. It is highly likely the complex ownership structure is aimed at camouflaging links to the Russian Federation.”

“There has been an increase of intelligence capacities and intensity of intelligence operations in the Czech Republic, particularly in the field of research and development and in [the] economy….”

“Russian intelligence services have in some cases smoothly picked up where their Soviet predecessors left off.”

Russia is “targeting the community of Russian expatriates living in the Czech Republic.”

“Russian intelligence operatives were, as usual, active in establishing contacts with Czech politicians….”

“In 2009, the Security Information Service also registered stepped-up Russian activities in the field of Czech-Russian scientific and research cooperation."

"Such projects are per se quite legitimate and beneficial. However, given there are Russian intelligence officers under diplomatic cover preparing and coordinating the projects, one can question the Russians’ open and sincere approach to the cooperation.”

If the “there’s-no-one-under-the-bus” crowd still feels like reading further, I’d suggest Anita Orban’s “Power, Energy, And The New Russian Imperialism.” This 2008 book argues that Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia might well be under the bus as well.

-- Robert Coalson