AFTERNOON NEWS ROUNDUP
A few items from RFE/RL's News Desk:
RIGHTS ACTIVIST PAVEL SHEKHTMAN DETAINED IN MOSCOW
Police in Moscow have detained Pavel Shekhtman, a Russian civil rights activist and Kremlin critic.
Shekhtman's lawyer told the online news site kasparov.ru that his client was detained on October 8 over recent publications in the Internet, but did not give details.
He said Shekhtman was being held in a Moscow pretrial detention center.
Shekhtman is known for his criticism of the Kremlin over rights abuses in Russia.
In March, Shekhtman was attacked by members of a group led by nationalist opposition politician Eduard Limonov over his criticism of Russia's actions in Ukraine.
Russia annexed the Crimea region form Ukraine in March and Kyiv and the West say Moscow has sent troops and weapons to help pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
(Based on reporting by kasparov.ru and grani.ru)
RUSSIA SPARES EURONEWS OVER PUTIN TARGET COVERAGE
Russia has decided not to ban Euronews over footage showing Ukrainian forces using an image depicting President Vladimir Putin as Adolf Hitler for target practice.
State communications regulator Roskomnadzor voiced the decision in a response to a query from pro-Kremlin lawmaker Mikhail Markelov, Russian media reported.
Markelov had said last month that there was "every reason" to open a criminal investigation and prohibnit Euronews from broadcasting in Russia.
But Roskomnadzor said the target appears in the clip for only about five seconds and "it is not possible for the viewer to visually establish a .... likeness between the image on the target and the President of the Russian Federation," according to media reports.
"We have claims against Euronews," state-run news agency RIA Novosti quoted Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Amelonsky as saying.
(Based on reporting by TASS, RIA Novosti, and RBK)
STUDENTS FROM UKRAINE, GEORGIA, MOLDOVA, ARMENIA TO REPLACE RUSSIANS IN U.S. FLEX PROGRAM
Russia's withdrawal from a 21-year-old U.S. high school exchange program will open more than 100 extra slots for students from Ukraine.
With ties severely strained by the Ukraine crisis, Russia told the United States last month that it would not participate in the 2015-2016 Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX), which provides scholarships to students from 10 former Soviet republics.
The U.S. State Department's top official for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, said she is saddened by Russia's decision "to deny their own citizens the opportunity to study in the United States" and hopes Russia's participation will be restored "in the not-too-distant future."
"In the meantime, we will have more than 100 extra slots for Ukrainians," she said in a speech to students in Kyiv on October 7.
Those slots will bring the number available to Ukrainians to more than 300.
The rest of the nearly 240 slots currently occupied by Russians will go to Georgia, Moldova, and Armenia, according to The New York Times.
(With reporting by The New York Times)
RONALD MCDONALD: A FOREIGN AGENT MONEY LAUNDERER?
Prosecutors in Moscow have opened up a criminal probe into the Russian branch of Ronald McDonald House, a charity that helps children with medical issues. According to a report in the pro-Kremlin daily "Izvestia," prosecutors suspect that McDonalds is using its charity arm to manipulate its accounts or to launder money. The report cites a letter from Moscow's deputy prosecutor Yury Katasonov to the State Duma.
The probe comes in the wake of a series of forced closures of McDonald's restaurants in Russia, ostensibly for health code violations but widely seen as retaliation for Western sanctions.
Read the "Izvestia" report (in Russian) here and The Moscow Times write-up (in English) here.
RUSSIAN AIRLINES TO CONSIDER RESUMING FLIGHTS OVER EASERN UKRAINE
Not sure what to make of this, but its interesting.
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
From the always insightful, and anazingly prolific, Paul Goble at Window on Eurasia:
The Russian Federation is seeking a revision in the international system but lacks the economic strength to be a new pillar, according to Fedor Lyukanov. And as a result, Moscow will seek to make up for that shortcoming by sudden and dramatic foreign policy moves as it has been doing in Ukraine.
At a Moscow seminar entitled “Russia in a World Falling Apart: A Revisionist Inspite of Itself” and hosted by Yevgteny Yasin, the editor of “Russia in World Politics” argues that “an entire era is ending not only in Russian politics but more broadly” in the politics of the world since the end of the Cold War.
Read Paul's write up (in English) here and the transcript from the conference (in Russian) here.
AND FOR TODAY'S DOSE OF COMEDY...
Here's a Ukrainian TV satire sketch, on the program "Mamakhokhotala-sho," parodying Dmitry KIselyev explaining why the iPhone 6 is "fascist."
RUSSIA'S ASYMMETRICAL ADVANTAGE
The always insightful Mark Galeotti in The Moscow Times:
"Forget "polite people" sneaking across Russia's borders. Forget Russian rockets slamming into targets across eastern Ukraine. Forget even the "gas weapon" — the economic weapon that holds Europe hostage. As far as Moscow is concerned, its secret weapon is the division, distraction and short-term thinking of the West: the attention-deficit disorder society.
Isn't that a little harsh? It's not that hard to see how such a view predominates. Crimea is already old news, a fait accompli."
Read it all here.
MORNING NEWS ROUNDUP, OCTOBER 8
Good morning. Here are some items from RFE/RL's News Desk
POLAND: RUSSIA COULD FACE FURTHER SANCTIONS OVER UKRAINE
Poland's foreign minister has warned Russia could face even further sanctions unless Moscow's policy in Ukraine changes.
Grzegorz Schetyna was speaking to Polish broadcast Polsat News on October 7.
Breaches of a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine have renewed Western diplomatic pressure on Moscow.
Western states accuse Russia of giving military support to the rebels, an allegation the Kremlin has denied.
"If Russia does not change its policy, sanctions will be toughened and they will make themselves felt even more in Russia," Schetyna said.
"All the European countries are speaking with one voice, together with Australia, the United States and Canada. The free world says 'no' to this kind of policy," he said. "The Polish viewpoint is shared by other countries."
Schetyna was appointed foreign minister last month. His predecessor, Radoslaw Sikorski, was elected speaker of the Polish parliament.
(Based on reporting by TASS and Reuters)
RUSSIA SAYS THREE SUSPECTED MILITANTS KILLED IN DAGHESTAN
Russian police say they killed three suspected militants who attacked a checkpoint in the violence-plagued North Caucasus province of Daghestan.
News agencies Interfax and TASS cited law enforcement officials as saying the assailants stole a car and opened fire at a police post near the mountain village of Khedba early on October 8.
The reports said police killed all three with return fire and suffered no casualties.
There was no way to independently verify the reports.
Dagestan is beset by violence linked to an Islamist insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya as well as organized crimes, business disputes, and clan rivalry.
Sources told the news agencies the three men were believed to have been members of a "terrorist" cell and that Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, grenades and explosives were found in the car.
(Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax)
GAY RUSSIAN STUDENT 'AFRAID' TO GO HOME
WASHINGTON -- The lawyer for a Russian teenager who remained in the United States after completing a U.S.-Russian exchange program says her client is seeking political asylum due to fears of persecution in Russia because he is gay.
“Our client is afraid of returning to Russia because Russia persecutes gay people. That’s what this is about,” Susan Reed, an attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, told RFE/RL on October 7.
The boy lived with an American family and attended a U.S. high school in 2012-13 as part of the decades-old Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX).
But he did not return to his home country at the conclusion of the exchange as required by the program. His decision to remain in the United States emerged last week when Russia cited the case in its decision to suspend its participation in FLEX.
Moscow’s subsequent explanations of the move, conveyed through state-controlled Russian media and Twitter, were rife with lurid insinuation that the boy had been manipulated by homosexual adults during his time in the United States.
Russia's child-protection ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, told Russia's TASS state news agency that "a U.S. homosexual couple" had illegally established "guardianship" over a boy whose mother remains in Russia.
A TASS report based on sources in the Russian embassy in Washington said that Russian diplomats clarified that in Michigan, where the boy attended high school, “like in many other states, it is not illegal to have sexual relations with a 16-year-old adolescent and is not considered the basis for criminal prosecution against those who seduce minors.”
Reed told RFE/RL that the statements and reports from Russian officials seem to suggest “that there’s some person or some people whose sexual orientation is relevant. And that’s just not the case.”
“There’s no adoption, there’s no untoward behavior,” she said. “He met many caring adults, both gay and straight in the U.S., and he decided to stay here because he was afraid to go home.”
Critics say the Kremlin is fostering a menacing atmosphere for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Russia, where antipathy toward homosexuals continues to run deep, according to public opinion polls in recent years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year enacted a controversial law banning "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships” among minors. Western governments and rights groups decried it as discriminatory toward gays, while Putin and other Russian officials claimed the legislation was aimed at protecting children and encouraging Russia’s birth rate.
Violent antigay militant groups in Russia have in recent years also embarked on a brutal guerilla campaign in which they use the Internet to lure homosexuals into meeting up with the promise of a romantic encounter.
Instead, the victims are assaulted, humiliated and forced to disclose their personal information in videos that the attackers then distribute online.
Citing privacy concerns, Reed had previously refused to confirm publicly that he applied for political asylum based on his sexual orientation.
She said, however, that she decided to discuss the matter publicly after an October 4 “New York Times” report that cited an unidentified U.S. official as confirming that the boy had applied for political asylum based on his sexual orientation.
Reed called it “shocking” that a U.S. official would speak to the media about an asylum-seeker’s case or the basis for the application.
“But I think it does at least allow me now to say that this is about our client, and our client’s identity, and our client’s fear of returning to Russia. It’s not about anybody else,” she told RFE/RL.
She declined to give further details about her client’s asylum application.
FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS RUSSIA CANNOT AFFORD MILITARY BUILDUP
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the country's military spending plans need to be "more realistic" and take into consideration forecasts for economic growth and budget revenue.
Siluanov addressed Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, on October 7 and said his ministry wanted to reconsider the amount to be spent from the state budget on Russia's multibillion dollar program to rearm and modernize the military.
Siluanov said currently Russian simply could not afford such spending and added the Finance and Defense Ministries have already started talks on which programs could be financed from state coffers.
The current plan calls for spending some $576 billion on defense in the next six years.
Western sanctions against Russia over the Kremlin's interference in Ukraine have hit Russian energy companies especially hard and those companies are responsible for bringing in a large amount of revenue to the Russian state.
(Based on reporting by Interfax and Reuters)
AND YET ANOTHER OIL-PRICE GRAPH
RUSSIA AND KAZAKHSTAN HOLD NAVAL EXERCISES IN CASPIAN
Via RFE/RL's News Desk:
Vessels from Russia's Caspian Navy Fleet are conducting joint naval exercises with Kazakhstan.
The press service of Russia's South Military District issued a statement on October 7 saying Russian ships "Daghestan" and "Grad Sviazhsk" and Kazakh warships "Kazakhstan" and "Oral" were holding joint exercises to practice "protecting maritime economic facilities."
The Russian and Kazakh warships conducted separate and joint live fire drills at targets on the sea and in the air, and also at mines.
The exercises also involve search and rescue operations for a disabled allied warship.
At the conclusion of the October 7 exercises with Kazakhstan, the Russian warships will head to Iran's Bender Enzeli and later to Baku in Azerbaijan.
The naval exercises come after the leaders of the five Caspian states met in Russia last month and agreed to prevent foreign militaries from gaining any influence in the Caspian Sea.
(Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax)
JOURNALISTS HONOR POLITKOVSKAYA WITH MAKESHIFT FLOWERS
From RFE/RL's News Desk:
Journalists honored the late Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya by bringing paper flowers to the headquarters of her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on the eighth anniversary of her murder.
The flowers were fashioned from pages of newspapers and other media outlets taking part in the commemoration organized by Amnesty International.
Ceremonies were also held in other cities.
Politkovskaya, a critic of President Vladimir Putin whose dogged reporting exposed high-level corruption in Russia and rights abuses in its Chechnya region, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006.
Last June, two men were sentenced to life and three others to long prison terms for their involvement in Politkovskaya's murder.
Relatives and colleagues say justice will not be done until those who ordered her killing are identified and convicted.
Politkovskaya was killed on Putin's birthday, prompting speculation that her murder was meant as a "gift" to the president.