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Basic Political Developments
• President Dmitry Medvedev to meet OIC Secretary-General March 27
• Pakistani FM leaves for Russia to attend Afghanistan moot
• CIS finance ministers to agree positions for G-20 summit in London - On March 31, CIS finance ministers will meet in Moscow to agree common positions for the summit of G-20 in London.
• Russia to contribute $7.5 bln to Eurasec anti-crisis fund
• Medvedev to Visit Germany
• Timoshenko hopes to continue talks with Russia on 5-bln-dlr loan
• Russia may become Ukraine's creditor – Tymoshenko
• AZERBAIJAN, IRAN AND RUSSIA TO SET UP RAILWAY COMPANY
• Russia hails Russian Language Year in China - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov is to visit China from Wednesday through Friday and will attend the opening ceremony of the Year of Russian Language in China.
• Russian diplomat: Russia rules out its military presence in Afghanistan
• AFGHANISTAN: COULD RUSSIAN TROOPS RETURN TO KABUL? - Russia will assist international military forces operating in Afghanistan, but has no intention of sending its own troops to the war torn state, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin has said.
• Russian Foreign Minister welcomes Obama review - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has welcomed a U.S. review of relations with Moscow, but reiterated hostility on Thursday toward NATO expanding into the former Soviet Union.
• Transcript: FT Interview with Sergei Lavrov
• Another Russian-Ukrainian gas row looming?
• "Combat Aviation" business-division to be formed within UAC in three years
• Russian military industry cutting civilian output
• New ISS crew to lift off from Baikonur Thursday
• American-Russian crew ready to blast off to ISS
• UPDATE 1-U.S. software mogul set to roar into space history
• Ready for lift-off on the Kazakh steppe - Despite the freezing wind of the Central Asian steppe, photographers have been trying to get the best shots of a Soyuz spacecraft being slowly transported by rail to the launch site.
• Putin’s PR Stunt - Vladimir Putin Will Talk and the Parliament Will Listen, but for Real, or for Show?
• The Strange Ties between Semion Mogilevich and Vladimir Putin
• Foreign forces attempt to destabilize situation in Russia – Gryzlov
• Chechnya counter-terrorism operation could be discussed in March
• Budanov may be questioned in connection with killings, abductions in Chechnya - Investigations Committee
• Kremlin denies end-date of Chechnya counter-terrorism operation
• Chechen society consolidated in fighting terrorism, extremism – Kadyrov
• Russia’s GRU special-task troops run into resistance in Kabardino-Balkar republic
• Bashkir Leader Decries Moscow’s ‘Instrumental’ Approach to Federalism
• Murmansk Duma votes for Dmitry Dmitriyenko as new governor
• Bogdanov Joining Sochi Mayor Race - Bogdanov, 39, is the former head of the now-defunct Democratic Party of Russia, which was widely seen as a Kremlin-controlled project to draw votes away from actual opposition candidates and give voters a tame liberal option.
• Fourteen dead as bus, truck collide in central Russia
• 14 die in Russian bus accident: ministry
• Unions Urge Putin to Raise Wages
• Moscow Uncertain How to React to ‘New Russian Separatism’
• Ministry Tries to Make Gentlemen of Cops - The new code, distributed to senior Interior Ministry officials at an assembly last month, spells out ethical norms for police officers -- prohibiting them from, among other things, drinking at work, gambling, making crude jokes, talking on cell phones on public transportation and smoking in public.
National Economic Trends
• State Will Double Its Issue Of Bonds
• Russia's international reserves up $9.2 bln to $385.3 bln over week
• Ivanov Wants Reserves Used Wisely
• Trade Surplus Seen Exceeding $50Bln
• Domestic Deposits Rise 1.5%
• Govt to work bank proposals into crisis program within days – Kudrin
• RBC: Top 100 banks saved from bankruptcy
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
• OGK-5 Sees Net Profits Up 11%
• UPDATE 1-Russia's Mechel to place preferred shares from April
• MMK boosts RAS revenue 19% in 2008
• Norilsk Expects 2009 Net Profit of $1 Billion, Vedomosti Says
• Rusal to Slash Costs, Output - Russian Aluminum Titan Seeks to Quell Fears Over Debt
• Creditor Feeding-Frenzy Around Rusal Wreck — Who Bites First Gets Cash
• Severstal, GAZ intend to agree on suits in amount of 400mln rubles
• UralChem moves payment of $333 mln in loans to 2010-2012
• UAC Will Help Leasing Unit Pay Back Bonds After Default
• Carrefour to open 1st Moscow store in May – sources
• Tata Tea to buy stake in Russian firm - Tata Tea Ltd's overseas unit and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will acquire 51 percent in a Russian firm Grand, the two firms said in separate statements.
• NBC Uni taps head of Russian channels
• Russian Government Agrees to Finance Alrosa Diamond Output
• State to support Russia's diamond monopoly
• Foreign carmakers commission new assembly plants in Russia
• BMW to Start Producing X5, X6 Models in Russia as Demand Rises
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
• Gas Forum Timeline - The Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a loose group of gas suppliers including Russia, Iran and Qatar, wants to re-register as a more formal organization with a new charter by August, a government source said Wednesday.
• Oil Exploration Investment Falls 16%
• Russia’s subsoil regulator may propose new tax breaks for companies producing oil from depleted fields and low-flow wells.
• Russia eyes new Turkmenistan gas pact
• Russian, Turkmen Leaders Postpone Pipeline Accord
• TURKMEN-RUSSIAN GAS TALKS DIFFICULT -- SOURCE
• Shtokman players set for cash hunt
• “No delays at Shtokman”
• Halliburton Awarded $100 Million Multiple Services Contract in Russia
• TNK-BP: In Anticipation of Profit
Gazprom
• Russia threat over pipe plan - Russia's Gazprom warned Ukraine against implementing plans to modernise its pipelines without consulting Moscow, saying any such action would immediately affect gas supplies to Europe.
• Russia's Gazprom warns Ukraine over pipeline plan - Gazprom, Russia's gas export monopoly, said late on Wednesday that any changes to Ukraine's pipelines, built as part of a single Soviet-era system also including Russia, would need the company's approval or risk disrupting gas production and output across Eurasia.
• GAZPROM INCREASES STAKE IN ARMENIAN GAS DISTRIBUTION
• Gazprom, Japan’s energy agency signed an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation
• On working meeting between Alexey Miller and Toru Ishida
• Regular meeting of Gazprom Board of Directors to take place March 31
• Gazprom Space Systems was selected as the Corporate Teleport Operator of the Year
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Full Text Articles
Basic Political Developments
President Dmitry Medvedev to meet OIC Secretary-General March 27
MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) -- President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with Organisation of the Islamic Conference Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu on March 27.
Ihsanoglu will be in Moscow to attend a special ministerial conference on Afghanistan organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the presidential press service said on Wednesday.
Pakistani FM leaves for Russia to attend Afghanistan moot
\03\26\story_26-3-2009_pg7_17
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi left for Russia on Wednesday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for tomorrow (Friday) in Moscow, according to diplomatic sources.
The Moscow meeting would discuss the situation in Afghanistan and its influence on neighbouring states which are increasingly being threatened by the instability in the war-torn country and the Taliban.
SCO members and observer nations are also expected to urge the international community to boost joint efforts to counter terrorism, check illegal drug trade and trans-border crimes. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will also attend the Moscow conference.
Qureshi would hold important bilateral meetings with his counterparts from various countries, including Afghanistan. In accordance with the resolution of the Council of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, heads of member countries dedicated to Afghanistan are to attend the conference.
CIS finance ministers to agree positions for G-20 summit in London
26.03.09 12:47
Azerbaijan, Baku, March 26 /Trend Capital, E.Ostapenko/
On March 31, CIS finance ministers will meet in Moscow to agree common positions for the summit of G-20 in London.
The summit of G-20 will take place in London on April 2, the CIS Executive Committee reported.
Countries will also review issues related to social and economic state of CIS countries and measures to overcome the global financial crisis.
This is not the first meeting of CIS finance ministers. The meeting of CIS finance ministers was founded by the decision of the CIS presidents to study the situation and make anti crisis measures on Oct. 10, 2008. The first meeting was held on Oct. 21.
All CIS countries were instructed to develop proposals to overcome financial crisis. The proposals were reviewed by the Intergovernmental Monitory Committee in December 2008, and later by the CIS Economic Council.
The CIS countries share of views on this issue permanently. Countries support the financial and banking system, guaranteeing preservation of money, placed by citizens in accounts and bank deposits, expansion of the use of national currencies in mutual trade, providing financial assistance to large enterprises, support the real sector of the economy and the important social objectives to prevent mass unemployment.
Russia to contribute $7.5 bln to Eurasec anti-crisis fund
UN, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will contribute $7.5 billion to the anti-crisis fund of the Eurasian Economic Community (Eurasec), a senior diplomat said on Wednesday.
"Despite the ongoing financial and economic crisis, which has also affected Russia, we confirm our commitment to provide assistance to developing nations," First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in early February that Moscow would run the anti-crisis fund that Eurasec member states agreed to set up at a recent summit in Moscow.
The $10 billion fund is being established to counter problems in economies and financial markets of Eurasec member states.
The Eurasian Economic Community, established in 2000, comprises Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Three other former Soviet republics - Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine - have observer status.
Medvedev to Visit Germany
BERLIN -- President Dmitry Medvedev will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin next week, the German government said Wednesday.
Medvedev will visit the German capital next Tuesday, German government spokesman Thomas Steg said.
Steg said the two leaders will use the meeting to help prepare for the April 2 summit of leaders from the Group of 20 in London on the global financial crisis.
Medvedev also will meet with representatives of German business, Steg said. (AP)
Timoshenko hopes to continue talks with Russia on 5-bln-dlr loan
TOKYO, March 26 (Itar-Tass) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko expects that she could continue talks with Russia and other countries on loans to cover the state budget deficit after getting a second credit tranche from the International Monetary Fund.
“After settling the issue of the second IMF tranche, we can begin bilateral negotiations on the financing of our budget, including with Russia,” Timoshenko said at a symposium here in reply to a query about prospects to get a five-billion-dollar loan from Russia. Diplomats, business people, reporters and experts took part in the symposium.
Earlier, the Ukrainian prime minister said she hoped to get a credit tranche of about two billion dollars from the IMF within the next few weeks. However, for that the Ukrainian parliament must first approve a package of measures on fight against the crisis and some amendments to the legislation.
Russia may become Ukraine's creditor – Tymoshenko
TOKYO. March 26 (Interfax) - Russia is a possible creditor for
Ukraine, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Speaking at a forum of the Japanese business and political elite
held in Tokyo, Tymoshenko named Russia as being among the seven
countries which Ukraine has invited to help with it with liquidating the
Ukrainian budget deficit.
This help could be provided by buying out "Ukraine's securities,"
Tymoshenko said.
Tymoshenko also said she is hoping that Ukraine can start
concluding bilateral agreements after it receives the second tranche of
an IMF loan.
AZERBAIJAN, IRAN AND RUSSIA TO SET UP RAILWAY COMPANY
3/25/09
Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia have decided on construction of a 375-kilometer-long railroad connecting the Azerbaijani border city of Astara with the Iranian city of Kazvin, Russian Railway representatives announced March 26.
A joint enterprise uniting the Azerbaijani, Iranian and Russian railway administrations will be set up shortly to build the railway link. All three sides will have an equal stake in the company, Russian Railway executive Sergei Stolyarov stated in comments appearing in the company’s newspaper, Gudok. Stolyarov put the project cost at more than $200 million.
The project ties in with the Azerbaijani government’s ongoing initiative to promote Azerbaijan as a transportation hub. The link will serve as part of the North-South Transport Corridor, a project aimed at creating a railway connection from Europe and Russia to India and Central Asia via Azerbaijan and Iran.
Russia hails Russian Language Year in China
2009-03-26 09:07:42
by Xinhua writers Hai Yang, Gao Fan
MOSCOW, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov is to visit China from Wednesday through Friday and will attend the opening ceremony of the Year of Russian Language in China.
Russia has shown great interest in the upcoming event and is confident that the Year of Russian Language in China will be a success.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Russia highly appreciates the mature and firm bilateral ties, Zhukov told local media before leaving for Beijing.
Russia and China can be regarded as exemplars of friendly neighborhood and mutual respect in the international community, Zhukov said. He said that such friendship are a key factor for the construction of a fair, harmonious international order.
To hold events such as language years in both countries will not only help maintain the high level of mutual cooperation, but also promote it, he said.
Andrei Nesterenko, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, recently described the upcoming event as "very important." Nesterenko said it would not only enhance the bilateral relations, but also further the understanding between the two peoples, especially between their youths.
Within the framework of the Year of Russian Language, the two countries will stage a series of activities in the field of humanities. Those activities will include inviting children traumatized by the devastating earthquake in China's Wenchuan to Russian resorts, conducting knowledge contests on the Russian language for Chinese students, and launching Russian language centers in Chinese universities, Nesterenko said.
The Year of Russian Language has attracted attention from major Russian media such as the Voice of Russia, Itar-Tass, the Moskovski Komsomolez daily and state television.
The media's wide coverage of the language year event will help boost it among top leaders and among the people of both countries, said Aleksey Efimov, chief editor of the Chinese channel of the RIA Novosti website.
He believes that the event will greatly enhance mutual understanding and communications between China and Russia.
Vladimir Kurilov, president of Far Eastern State University, told Xinhua that Russia and China share a long history of friendly exchanges, and the two will grow closer as they get to know each other's languages.
"I believe that the language theme years will not be limited to education and humanities. The events will inject new vigor into the all-round cooperation between the two sides and the two peoples will get closer on the path of friendship," Kurilov said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev announced the start of the Years of the Chinese and Russian Languages on the last day of 2008. China will launch the Year of Russian Language this year, while Russia will stage the Year of Chinese Language in 2010.
Russian diplomat: Russia rules out its military presence in Afghanistan
Russia does not intend to resume its military presence in Afghanistan, but it will assist the international military forces deployed in that country, said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin in an interview with Interfax
"Russian military presence in Afghanistan is impossible. There is a consensus in Russian society on this issue, taking into account the historical record," Borodavkin said.
Talking about the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Borodavkin said that, "in the current conditions, these troops in fact remain a force curbing the terrorist threat."
"Their presence at this moment meets both interests of Afghanistan itself, as well as regional and in a wider context international security. Proceeding from this understanding, Russia intends to continue to provide political support to the international forces stationed in Afghanistan under a UN Security Council resolution," he said.
Peace and stability in Afghanistan meet long-term interests of both Russia and the NATO member-states, which make up a majority at the ISAF, he said.
"And vice versa, a failure of the ISAF's operation in Afghanistan and a buildup of the conflict potential near our southern borders would pose a threat to the interests of Russia's national security. This is exactly why we welcome interaction on Afghan affairs within the Russia-NATO Council format," he said.
Moscow views as unacceptable "indiscriminate actions by foreign military contingents inflicting damage on the civilian population," Borodavkin said also.
"Such excesses should be avoided in the future," he said.
At the same time Borodavkin said that Russia could consider a request to assist in the formation of the Afghanistan Armed Forces.
"As for our possible assistance in the formation of the Afghan Armed Forces, we might consider such requests from the Afghan government," Borodavkin said..
Russia could sell its trucks to Afghanistan, for instance, he said.
As for international cooperation on Afghanistan, there is a need to coordinate efforts in fighting against drug trafficking, he said.
"It would be useful for NATO to coordinate its efforts in Afghanistan with the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] in combating drug trafficking along the perimeter of its northern borders," the Russian diplomat said.
"[Drug trafficking] is one of the major Afghan problems, which spills out far beyond its borders, and ignoring it would be short-sighted, to say the least," he said.
"In our view, international military forces must be more active in fighting against drug criminals," Borodavkin said.
He said also that Russia was not against Kabul's contacts with the moderate wing of the Taliban if Kabul sees fit to seek such contacts.
"If the Afghan leadership sees fit to establish contacts with the moderate wing of the Taliban, Russia will not object to this on condition that they lay down their arms, recognize the Afghan constitution and government, and denounce any ties with Al Qaeda," Borodavkin told Interfax.
At the same time, Moscow believes it is important to stick to a clear and principled position with regard to the leaders of terrorist and extremist organizations acting in Afghanistan, Borodavkin said. "We are categorically against any agreements with them," he said.
Russian diplomat also told Interfax that so far no applications had been received from NATO member states for the transit of military cargo to Afghanistan via Russia.
"We have signed a number of bilateral inter-governmental agreements setting out easier terms for military gear and personnel transit to Afghanistan through Russia. Such agreements were signed with Germany, France and Spain. So far we have not received any application for this type of transportation from these countries," he said.
In April 2008, Russia and NATO also signed an agreement for the transit of non-military cargo to Afghanistan for the alliance forces and its member states, as well as all the countries which sent their troops to the country as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Borodavkin recalled.
"According to the Russian regulations, ISAF's non-military cargo will be transited by Russia as commercial cargo in accordance with international and Russian customs regulations," he said.
Borodavkin said also that the authorities in Moscow hoped that an upcoming international conference on Afghanistan under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will help bring stability to the country.
"The agenda of the conference will focus on searching for more effective ways to jointly counter the terrorist and drug threats. Naturally, its results, which its organizers and participants hope to receive, will objectively contribute to efforts to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan," Borodavkin said.
The conference is expected to take place in Moscow on Friday, March 27.
The fight against terrorism and drug trafficking is among the priorities on the SCO's agenda and the organization's dialogue with Afghanistan, the high-ranking diplomat said.
"Like the whole of the international community, states in Central and South Asia are seriously concerned over the threats posed by terrorism, drug trafficking and cross-border crime," he said.
The event in Moscow will involve SCO member-countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), its observer-nations (India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan), Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and G8 member-states (the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, the U.S., France and Japan), he said.
"Authoritative international organizations and associations have been invited to take part in the conference. They include the UN and its agencies, the CIS, the CSTO, the EU, NATO, the OSCE, and OIC," Borodavkin said, adding that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will come to Moscow as well.
The SCO member-countries and Afghanistan plan to make a statement at the conference addressing the fight against terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime, he said.
"It will also deal with our fundamental approaches to measures being taken by the international community and countries in various regions to neutralize these threats," the deputy foreign minister said.
An action plan outlining a wide variety of specific measures will be announced as well, Borodavkin said. "They include plans to step up the activities of the consultative mechanism of the SCO member-countries' anti-drug agency chiefs and to give it a bigger say, plans to reinforce the legal foundation for cooperation in the combat against the illegal turnover of drugs, and the idea of conducting joint anti-drug operations," the high-ranking diplomat said.
"The results of the conference will be summarized in a declaration, which will reflect the views of all participants in this forum regarding the development and improvement of multilateral cooperation to counter the threats of terrorism, drug trafficking and cross-border crime," he added.
AFGHANISTAN: COULD RUSSIAN TROOPS RETURN TO KABUL?
3/25/09
Russia will assist international military forces operating in Afghanistan, but has no intention of sending its own troops to the war torn state, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin has said.
Borodavkin said the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is playing a vital role in Afghanistan, but said it would be "impossible" for Russia to join the effort despite its vested interest in seeing the mission succeed. However, he left open the possibility that Russia could dispatch military advisers to help train Afghan military units.
"A Russian military presence in Afghanistan is impossible. There is a consensus in Russian society on this issue, taking into account the historical record," Borodavkin said in an interview with Russian news agency Interfax March 25. "As for our possible assistance in the formation of the Afghan Armed Forces, we might consider such requests from the Afghan government."
A Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit on Afghanistan will be held in Moscow on March 27. Both the US and Iran are expected to attend along with representatives from the European Union, NATO and the United Nations.
"The agenda of the conference will focus on searching for more effective ways to jointly counter the terrorist and drug threats," Borodavkin said.
Russian Foreign Minister welcomes Obama review
Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:09pm EDT
LONDON (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has welcomed a U.S. review of relations with Moscow, but reiterated hostility on Thursday toward NATO expanding into the former Soviet Union.
"When we hear signals from Washington that they want to 'reset' our relations ... we welcome this," Lavrov told the Financial Times in an interview.
He was referring to U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's comments that the United States wanted to "hit the reset button" with Moscow.
However, he said Russia remains firmly opposed to NATO expansion into the former Soviet Union.
"Why this drive to mark geopolitical space which some people believed became vacant? ... It's moving the dividing lines which we all agreed should be eliminated," he said.
He also described U.S. President Barack Obama's video message to Iran promoting dialogue as a "very welcome step."
Lavrov said the global financial crisis needs to be dealt with by everyone following the "ground rules," adding that this will help rebuild international trust.
"We expect that collective efforts in the financial and economic sphere would give a more pragmatic, and respectively, more realistic reference frame.
"Let us remember that focusing common efforts on the real tasks of crisis recovery will help rebuild trust in the sphere of military policy, too, relieving the negative impact of unilateral ideology-driven projects and the inertia of 'zero sum games'."
(Reporting by Ben Deighton, editing by Michael Roddy)
Transcript: FT Interview with Sergei Lavrov
Published: March 25 2009 18:13 | Last updated: March 25 2009 18:13
FT I know you’ve addressed in great detail the issue of US/Russian relations, but could you just in a minute tell us, is there a reason for hope now that relations between the United States and Russia will improve, and if so, why?
SL Well, there is always a place for hope, and certainly, when we hear signals from Washington that they want to “reset” our relations, meaning that they want constructive engagement and cooperation and partnership on so many issues which we really can usefully cooperate on, we welcome this. And we sense this not only in statements from Washington, but also in the exchange of messages between President Medvedev and President Obama, and also, during my first encounter with Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton in Geneva, and we are getting ready for the first face to face meeting of our two presidents in London on 1st April.
As with Secretary Clinton, we will try to set the agenda of that meeting in a way which would allow the two presidents to give instructions to their respective teams on how to proceed with priority issues, be it strategic plans, negotiations, be it counter-terrorism, non-proliferation. Of course, speaking of strategic stability, we also took very good note of the decision of the administration to take a look into the missile defence situation. But practically on any problematic issue which we inherited from the past eight years, I understand the Obama administration is undertaking a review which we welcome.
A second opinion never hurts, not only in medicine, but also in politics. And we would like to translate those signals which both Washington and Moscow have been sending into practical work. Hopefully, this will be the outcome of the London meeting.
FT One area of disagreement in the past has been the nature of Russia’s relations with its immediate neighbours. How do you think the tensions in this area can be reduced?
SL Well, we don’t want any disagreements in this or any other area. We naturally have a very long history of relations with these countries and these peoples. We have during centuries enriched each other in so many ways; culturally, economically, demographically I would say. And so many links exist at the moment, including from the once common economic system, infrastructure system, which is very much in place and not to use the advantages of which would be really not very smart. And down to family relations, there are so many mixed marriages and families who are composed of different nationalities who used to live in the Soviet Union and then they found themselves overnight living in a different country.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that their family relations stopped. So all this explains why we certainly believe that our relations with these countries could be described as privileged relations. The word that frightened so many people, but which reflects only that it is a privileged partnership. We have special interests going deep into centuries in these countries, and they have the same deep interests in the Russian Federation, economically from the point of view of humanitarian needs of the population. Then there are links across millions of migrant workers work in Russia from these republics. So there should be no misunderstanding of what is going on in this space.
We certainly understand the legitimate interests of non regional players; Central Asia, in the Caucasus, those are places where hydrocarbons are produced, where hydrocarbons are being transported. Those are areas which are very crucial for effective fight against terrorism, drug trafficking, organised crime. So all these are very legitimate interests, because the consequences are felt well beyond this territory, in Europe and in the United States.
What we want is that these legitimate interests can be promoted openly, with full respect of the interests of all countries in this region, first of all the countries in question, and we believe it’s very dangerous to try to put these countries in front of a dilemma; either with us or you’re against us. And there have been attempts in the past to do exactly that, basically telling them either you want to be a friend of the Russian Federation, or you want to be a friend of us, and there is no middle way. I think it’s an old thinking, as it were, and we should really concentrate on common challenges and common opportunities existing in this area, fully respecting the position of the countries themselves, and not creating any dividing lines there. And I believe if this is the situation, we’re not going to have any friction with the United States or with the European Union, or with anyone else in cooperating together with the countries of the region on so many important things.
FT And for this to happen, NATO must not enlarge into this region?
SL NATO enlargement is certainly something which we try to understand. What is being achieved by this? With the latest expansion of NATO, do people in Europe feel more secure? Why this drive to mark geo-political space which some people believed became vacant? It’s again, it’s moving the dividing lines which we all agreed should be eliminated. It’s keeping those dividing lines and moving them further to the east and any other direction, but to the east it’s certainly what is important for us. And the purpose of this is not clear at all.
If NATO says that NATO wants to become a modern security organisation addressing security challenges globally, then there are plenty of ways to cooperate with anyone in so many existing formats. NATO has a special relationship with countries far away from Europe; Australia, Japan, South Korea. They have joint projects and programmes which are being implemented without these countries becoming members of NATO. By the same token, Russia has partnership framework with NATO, Russia- NATO Council, and we have so many useful things on the agenda.
If you take a look at the annual list of joint projects between Russia and NATO, it contains dozens of items and issues, starting from compatibility of peacekeeping forces and peacekeeping approaches and concepts down to safety of air traffic. Counter-terrorism is a huge problem in itself. So many other things; non-proliferation, of course. Afghanistan. Indeed, it’s a whole lot of very important and very real things. And the same could be done and is being done between NATO and other countries in the post Soviet space who have their own special structures with Nato. But when we are told that Ukraine and Georgia will be members of NATO, as was said at the last April summit in Bucharest, we... and then we also explained that, of course, this was said because this is the will of the peoples, and we know that in the Ukraine, public opinion polls indicate very different opinion of the people. And we also know that this message from Bucharest that Georgia will be a member of NATO was indirect encouragement for Mr. Saakashvili to do what he did. So if NATO wants to expand at any cost in spite of the view of the people, or if NATO is ready to embrace a country whose current regime did not hesitate to use brutal force against civilians killing hundreds of them, then we again have questions about what is the reason for NATO expansion.
So I believe that we first have to understand what NATO is about as far as Russia is concerned. We want to understand what NATO is about, what organisation it is evolving into. We hear about the work on new strategic concept or doctrine, and we hear about some ideas being put into this process. And we certainly notice quite a number of additional scenarios for NATO to use force globally, not necessarily with going to the Security Council for endorsement. Of course, this concerns us, because it’s already not about NATO or NATO expansion, it’s about international law which we want to strengthen, not to dilute. Hopefully, when we resume our dialogue with NATO in the form of Russia- NATO Council, which unfortunately could not meet at our request during the crisis in the Caucasus, one or two delegations blocked the meeting, though the Council was created among other things to consider crisis situations, but hopefully when we resume this work, we will have an occasion not just to exchange political statements, but to sit down together and to try to discuss all these things; military doctrines, what are the strategic thinkings on both sides; whether we still want to fight common threats and challenges together and try to use existing opportunities, or something else is being contemplated.
I hope that the answer is yes to the first option and that we would come back to the basics which were reflected in the Rome declaration when the Russia-NATO Council was created, and which is indivisibility of security that no country should take steps to strengthen its security at the expense of the security of others. And also, hopefully, that Russia- NATO Council, as was stated by the heads of state and governments in Rome, is not a 26 plus one structure, but rather 27 each country participating in its national capacity so that to avoid any block instincts. It’s easier said than done, but that’s what was agreed at the creation of the Russia- NATO Council.
FT Is there going to be any attempt to further define what President Medvedev said at the end of August about region of privileged interest? Either what countries belong in that region, or what rights does that give Russia that other countries don’t have in that region, for instance, security priority and things like that...
SL I’ve already said that it’s mutually privileged relations, and certainly countries who are our neighbours we consider as countries with whom we do have privileged relations, just like they have privileged relations with us, which is reflected in so many ways. For example, during the time of this particular financial crisis, CIS created a new mechanism, regular meetings of ministers of finance to exchange assessments and to try to see how we can cooperate in addition to huge economic relations which we have. The Eurasian Economic Community created an emergency fund of $10 billion specifically designed to help each other at the time of this crisis. And it’s not only our neighbours, it’s also countries in other regions of the world with whom we have had relations for decades and even centuries; with some Latin American countries, Russia established diplomatic relations almost 200 years ago, 150 years ago. We have had a longstanding tradition of cooperation with the Africans since the time of their national liberation, training in the Soviet Union and in Russia dozens of thousands of citizens of Africa, Asia, Latin America. They’re still there. They have their associations and they still have the pillars of their national economy built with the assistance of Moscow, and to ignore this would be really irresponsible.
By the way, firstly, the term itself, privileged relations, was used to describe the relations between Moscow and Paris, still in the Soviet times, and then no one really raised an eyebrow. So no, it’s not countries who have any monopoly on everything. As I said, we fully respect the legitimate interests of any other country. We develop relations with all those who we believe we have privileged relations with, provided we play honestly, provided we... yes, competition is the rule of today in today’s world.
Completion will always be there, competition and economy, competition in various ways of life. That’s what this dialogue of civilisation and the alliance of civilisations is about. But we have to do so with mutual respect, without being thrown into the inertia of zero sum games. It’s not easy. We all come from a certain historical period, but hopefully, this inertia will be overcome and we will realise that it’s much more productive and much more in the interests of everyone to cooperate honestly, without any hidden agendas. The time of this crisis clearly showed that when something wrong happens to everyone, people are much more ready to concentrate on real problems, not invent artificial ones. And if we manage to do something together, then hopefully this trend might continue into national political relations as well.
FT Does your point about competition also extend to pipelines? Is it okay and perfectly acceptable for Europe to build Nabucco, for example?
SL Absolutely. President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin repeatedly stated and reiterated this again that we have nothing against Nabucco. We are not roving various capitals and telling them don’t even think of Nabucco, though some of our competitors do exactly the same vis-a-vis northern stream and southern stream. We know this. Hardly anything could be hidden these days. As far as Nabucco is concerned, it’s exactly about the competition. What do you need for competition? Economic feasibility, financial feasibility on the product itself. If Nabucco gets all this, and this is profitable, acceptable to those who I invite to participate in this project, why should we be against it? Why should we work against it?
FT And what about military bases. There seems to be an impression that Russia wants to be consulted on if any foreign powers want to establish or keep military bases in the region.
SL I just want to have the relationship, with NATO in particular, with conviction that whatever we agree is being implemented. I wouldn’t even go into the history of the last days of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal from Europe, and what promises were given at that time, because those were oral promises and our leaders of that time strongly believe that, like in ancient Russia, a word given is better than any treaty. So I wouldn’t go into this history, but Russia- NATO Council founding documents, they agree with... stipulate several very important things, and heads of state put their signatures under this statement. One of them I mentioned: no country should ensure its security at the expense of the security of others. And they even went further to elaborate a bit on what this principle means, including agreement that there would be no deployment of substantial combat forces on the territory of new NATO members.
So when military bases, or American military bases were put into Bulgaria and Romania, we have been raising, invoking this provision of Russia- NATO Council, trying to understand what’s the need for this bases and how this would fit into this commitment. And we were told that those basis would not represent substantial combat forces. Then you ask the question, what would represent substantial combat forces? What is the size of such a unit which would be really covered by this Russia- NATO Council understanding, but this was several years ago.
We’re still trying to have some kind of agreement on the size of such a unit. So no, we don’t have any veto in countries inviting foreign military to be present on their territory, it’s that we want to establish some rules, because some actions undertaken by NATO members we believe are creating unnecessary risks for overall stability, which we all agreed should not be undermined unilaterally.
FT Georgia is a particular case of a country with tensions. Are you at all worried that there might be another outbreak of violence perhaps this year once the snows go and the summer comes along?
SL Yes, I am worried, because when we managed to stop the attack on Tskhinvali and other settlements, human settlements on the territory of South Ossetia, when the war was stopped, we heard statements from Tbilisi to the effect that the war is not over, that the Georgian army would rebuild itself. Then we had statements from various western capitals saying that they would help restore the Georgian army. And then the comments coming from Tbilisi during the work on what is known as the Medvedev- Sarkozy plan really gave rise to concern.
So what we want now is to ensure full implementation of those arrangements which President Medvedev and President Sarkozy reached and which were lately endorsed by the European Union, namely that the European Union undertook upon itself [unclear] non-use of force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, exactly what we wanted to achieve during last three years, but Georgian president was reluctant to do so. He even said once in an interview that he would never use force because he knows what blood means in the Caucuses. And then he continued to say that blood means not even decades but centuries.
He’s a Caucasian, he’s Georgian. He I hope knows what he is talking about. But the provisions of Medvedev- Sarkozy arrangements cover not only EU acting as a guarantor of non-use of force, it also covers the EU role as monitors in the areas adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We regularly talk to representatives of European Union, both from Brussels and those who work on the ground. And we exchange information with them, providing some facts which become known to us, and which indicate that unlike Georgian commitments to keep their army at the areas of its dominant location, there are some military activities by Georgian special forces, interior troops, very close to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
So hopefully, the mechanism which was created at the Geneva discussions and regular meetings on the border, as agreed in Geneva, to prevent incidents, hopefully, this mechanism will work and will indeed prevent incidents and prevent certainly the occurrence, or prevent the repetition of what we witnessed. But yes, we cannot trust President Saakashvili’s regime. They repeatedly violated their obligations. By the way, he started the first war, his first war, because before him, there were several leaders who started the war against South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but his first war against South Ossetia took place in August 2004, but then he was not armed enough and it was stopped very quickly and with few casualties. But since then, he has been armed beyond any reasonable defence needs and you know how he used these arms.
So because of all this, we decided that the only way to guarantee security and the very survival of South Ossetia and Abkhazians would be to recognise them at their request and to place our own military forces on their territory at their request. So this should be a very serious deterrent for anyone who would like to try to do this again. But we certainly hope that one day there will be a situation when Georgian people would have a government which really thinks about the interests of Georgia and its people, which knows how to live in peace and to have good relations with all the nations in the Caucuses. And hopefully, this day will come.
FT Do you mean with a new president?
SL It’s up to the Georgian people to decide.
FT If we can ask about Iran...
SL The last one.
FT It’s very high on the international agenda. The Americans look like they want to make a new effort to try and reach agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme. What do you think should now be done that might ease the situation, lead to a settlement, and avoid possible violent actions which have been discussed?
SL Well, I certainly believe that there is no violent solution to this problem. I certainly believe that it was a very welcome step by President Obama when he addressed his message to the Iranian leaders and the Iranian people. It was a very respectful message. It was a very forthcoming message. And it said one very important thing among others, namely that the United States was ready to discuss a very broad agenda with Iran.
We have been suggesting to the Bush administration for several years that an approach of full involvement in negotiations with Iran would certainly make a difference, and we were trying to persuade the United States to join fully the negotiations proposed to Iran by three plus three, or five plus one, whatever you call it; UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United States. And if the new administration in Washington can agree to join fully this proposed process, I think it would be a very important quality change. I certainly hope that parallel with this full participation in the process the United States would also promote bilateral dialogue with Iran.
But the main thing is that these proposals which three plus three moved forward some time ago, and also together with the proposed prestigious building conditions for negotiations, when we did this, we were fighting very, very hard to make sure that it’s not just about nuclear programme, but it also contains these positive incentives, including economy, high tech, Iran joining WTO, removing all barriers to Iran’s full integration in economic system. But also, ensuring that Iran would have dignified, equal place at the table when regional issues are discussed.
We managed only to agree in very a generic way to say that Iran would be invited to original dialogue. But I think when we speak about a political solution, when we speak about a comprehensive solution, we should also think of very important role which Iran, together with other countries in the region, can play to help resolve the problems of Afghanistan, the problems of Iraq; basically, almost any aspect of the Middle East agenda. And I think to engage, not to isolate Iran, would be very important.
And on the nuclear programme itself, our overriding concern is to make sure that IAEA can continue to work professionally, can continue to monitor what Iran has produced and has been doing, and IAEA doesn’t have any difficulty with this. And we also believe Iran must fully cooperate with the additional requests of the Agency. We’ll encourage Iran once again to implement the additional protocol. We will encourage Iran to engage in dialogue with the Agency on what is called the Alleged Studies. And when we’ve engaged in negotiations, and when we are satisfied with the Agency assessment that Iranian nuclear programme is entirely peaceful in nature, that’s our overriding goal.
Then as the three plus three agreed, our position would be that Iran should have absolutely the same rights as any other non-nuclear member of NPT. So I believe it’s a fair deal, and with the Americans hopefully fully engaged in the process, we can move the conditions building for negotiations.
FT And this is now achievable?
SL Well, I wouldn’t be overly optimistic, because we inherited quite an agenda with mutual grievances and suspicions, but I believe an honest dialogue, openness to discuss all issues, is a very important quality change.
FT Do you see any changes in Russia’s approach to Iran?
SL Well, we have... all I described to you is exactly the Russian approach; as far as I understand the approach of many hands who participate in these negotiations. And we want a settlement as soon as possible, and we want a settlement to be satisfactory to everyone. Iran is our historic neighbour, historic partner. We have been cooperating bilaterally and on issues which are of crucial importance for stability in Central Asia and the Middle East, one example being very close cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, and certainly the internal conflict in Tajikistan in the middle of the 1990s. So I believe that we all should concentrate on the diplomatic efforts, and all should engage fully. Then we have much better chances than we used to have in the past.
FT Thank you very much.
SL Thank you.
Answers provided in writing to some questions submitted prior to interview
(translated from Russian)
FT What problems and opportunities does the global crisis create in foreign policy?
SL Historical experience shows that a crisis causes either a recovery or catastrophic consequences. Unfortunately, there were cases in the history of international politics of the 20th century when ways out of the crisis were found by way of war. Obviously, nobody wants that experience repeated today. And there are no visible serious reasons for such concerns. This is a considerable advantage of the present stage of the global development.
On the other hand, this unprecedented example of a global financial and economic crisis – the first crisis of the globalization era that has affected all countries without exception – sets new tasks of great scope for the global community. We believe that the key challenge lies in building anti-crisis interaction involving the broadest range of countries based on equality and mutual interests. Moreover, this reinstatement of control over global development must be performed at both global and regional and national levels in parallel. That will be a win-win situation for everyone.
I think it is clear that we must proceed from the reality of growing interdependence and the task of building a new sustainable and efficient international system through the universal application of ‘ground rules’ common for everyone. We must not go back to the 19th century philosophy of a geopolitical ‘concert of states’. In the 21st century, we are facing common trans-boundary threats and challenges that cannot be neutralized by building ‘holy alliances,’ regardless of their name.
The achievement of common goals would be helped greatly by deploying the full potential of the United Nations. This organization was created on the basis of a polycentric view of the world, but it can only start operating at its top capacity and according to its initial purpose now, in order to, among other things, help overcome the crisis on a legal and collective basis.
We expect that collective efforts in the financial and economic sphere would give a more pragmatic, and respectively, more realistic reference frame. Let us remember that focusing common efforts on the real tasks of crisis recovery will help rebuild trust in the sphere of military policy, too, relieving the negative impact of unilateral ideology-driven projects and the inertia of ‘zero sum games.’
Of course, the crisis may unite as well as divide. Some may be tempted to take care of themselves only, expecting to get unilateral benefits at the stage of post-crisis global development. I doubt that would work, and I share position of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who warned about the danger of ‘de-globalization.’
FT What changes do you expect in the Russian-American relations under the new US president? Are any moves expected in strategic arms restrictions, placement of elements of the anti ballistic missile shield and creation of the common European security system?
SL Unfortunately, Russian-American relations have deteriorated considerably over the recent years. This is obvious for everyone. This state of affairs should be changed, and the sooner the better. The arrival of a new US administration opens good opportunities to ‘reset’ our interaction.
We sincerely hope that we will be able to open a new chapter in bilateral cooperation. First contacts with representatives of Barack Obama’s administration, including my meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the 6th of March in Geneva, and the signals that we are receiving from Washington, have been reassuring. We expect that the first meeting of Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in early April in London will provide constructive tone for our dialogue and permit us to start translating those signals into practical actions.
Of course, one cannot say that our views are absolutely identical. However, the main thing is that our American partners have regained the taste for positive cooperation. With the spirit of pragmatism and reliance on mutual interests prevailing over both parties, we could make serious progress in solution of the most important tasks that our countries are facing.
I am convinced that we must not miss this chance. This is the imperative of the present time, required by national interests of both countries and our special responsibility in maintenance of international security and strategic stability.
We are facing serious, painstaking work on drafting new START arrangement to replace the Treaty expiring this year. Just like our American partners, we are ready to make progress in this matter as fast as possible, look for common grounds in the sphere of antiballistic missile defence on the basis of common analysis together with the Europeans, taking into accounts interests of all stakeholders, including Russia. We are waiting for completion of ‘disarmament team’ formation in Washington.
A broad field for common work is opening in the sphere of non-proliferation, were we have had traditionally good cooperation with the US. Priorities in this area include enhancement of NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), strengthening control over prevention of WMD transfer to the hands of private players, fighting against nuclear terrorism, and peaceful atom cooperation.
We also intend to partner with American side in search for solution to international and regional issues, including Afghan reconciliation, MES (Middle East settlement), Iranian nuclear problem, situation on the Korean Peninsula and many others.
One of the promising interaction areas is strengthening of the Euro-Atlantic security. The American side, seemingly, is abandoning the previous administration’s allergy to the very idea of starting a serious discussion on that subject. Multilateral dialogue has been launched already, and we would be interested in active US involvement.
Of course, priorities of our political dialogue must not be limited to security problems, but they should cover a whole range of relations, including trade and economic cooperation. Through the years there has been progress, but the potential still hasn’t been fully realised. The issue of strengthening the structure and mechanisms of our dialogue in this sphere and giving it an extra boost has been set nowadays.
So, we have a very broad agenda. I would like to reiterate that history gives us a chance to change the strategic context of Russian-American relations. We must use it.
FT What is your opinion about Russia-EU relations and relations with individual countries of the European Union? Will the work on new Russia-EU cooperation agreement be sped up?
SL In terms of their political, economic, and socio-cultural potential, Russia and EU are major geopolitical formations on the European continent. This is objective reality that predetermines the development vector of our mutual relations. There is a reason why we call ourselves strategic partners. Our partnership is not only caused by achieved results, but also by the scale of global challenges that we are facing, lack of alternatives to consolidation of efforts for development of adequate solutions to them. We are convinced that we shall still have demand for strategic partnership mechanism, and will constantly develop and improve it further. Life has given proof that Russia and EU are mutually dependent, and partnership may help us solve problems, including those emerging through the fault of the third countries. There are examples of this.
Still, there is one element that we find disturbing. When defining its position on Russia, the European Union proceeds from the smallest common denominator of the positions of all member states. While we understand the complexity of internal EU concords, we cannot but point out that this conservative approach sometimes impedes development of new initiatives and undertakings that could facilitate further deepening of our interaction in the interests of the Big Europe nations and the world as a whole.
Our work on a new basic Russia-EU agreement has progressed to the phase of drafting the contents of the future document’s articles. With a constructive approach on the part of the European Union, we may expect that active negotiations will continue and lead to the signing of a strategic document that would correspond to common goals and take our cooperation to new qualitative level. We expect that the new agreement will become an instrument of real rapprochement between Russia and EU on the principles of equality, respect for interests of the parties and common approaches to key security problems.
I believe that this interview format does not allow me to speak in detail about Russia’s relations with individual EU member states. Understandably, they are multifaceted, diverse and showing dynamic development as a whole. However, of course, every particular case has its own country-specific features. Those ties with some of the countries have the history of many centuries.
FT Can we expect any changes in the energy sphere following the recent confrontation with Ukraine over gas? Will the list of consumers of Russian gas diversify to Asian countries, including China and India?
SL Like before, we intend to develop relations with our key partners in the energy sphere on the basis of the common principle of mutual benefit. Russia supplies energy resources to more than 20 countries of Europe and has proven its status of reliable supplier over decades. There won’t be any changes there.
At the same time, the crisis over gas supplies through Ukraine has clearly demonstrated that current energy security mechanisms, like the Energy Charter Treaty, are not very effective, first of all in the transit of energy resources and suppliers’ rights. That is why we support their reform, and if that turns out to be impossible, we shall promote development of new international legal regimes in this sphere.
January events have shown the magnitude of related transit risks. For a long time we have been urging the European Union to create an early warning mechanism with participation of Moscow and Brussels, as well as transit countries. Unfortunately, no practical steps have been made about those proposals so far. We hope that this mechanism will be created in the end.
We assign great importance to implementation of the North Stream and South Stream gas pipelines that would diversify Russian gas transportation routes and facilitate strengthening of Russia-EU energy cooperation infrastructure as a whole.
As far as supplies of Russian gas to the Asian countries are concerned, they have started already. In mid-February, President Medvedev attended the opening ceremony of gas liquefaction factory launched within the framework of Sakhalin-2 joint venture with participation of Russia, Japan, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The first tankers carrying Russian gas have set off for Japan. Thus, Russia entered this segment of gas exports and intends to expand its presence here. There are good opportunities for building cooperation with China by means of cooperation development in gas sphere.
FT What role does Russia aspire to play in the Middle East?
SL The Middle East is a constant focus of our attention. The progress of the political process there has a serious impact on the situation outside the region, stability and security all over the world.
Russia has been continuously promoting the line of building and broadening of mutually beneficial cooperation with the countries of the Middle East, including both the Arab countries and Israel. We maintain high level of political dialogue, make regular contacts with representatives of entrepreneurial and public circles, expand economic cooperation, as well as military and technical ties.
Unfortunately, the most complex tangle of continuous conflicts in the Middle East remains a complicating factor. We aspire for peace, stability, and sustainable development benefits for all countries and nations of the region without exception.
As a permanent member the UN Security Council and participant of the Middle East Quartet of international mediators, Russia has a special responsibility for keeping peace and stability in the Middle East region. Priority tasks include achieving a comprehensive settlement in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, strengthening security in the Persian Gulf area, continuous attempts to find political and diplomatic ways of easing tension around Iran’s nuclear program, and the regulation of Iraq and Sudan situations. We are also ready for active cooperation on the basis of equal partnership, including within the framework of multilateral diplomacy, in the resolution of global challenges and threats that the region is currently facing, be it terrorism, WMD proliferation, environment or food crisis.
The key to stability in the Middle East is in the resolution of its central problem, the Arab-Israeli conflict. It can only be settled by political means. Moreover, it is clear that a lasting Middle Eastern solution can only be comprehensive, including Syrian and Lebanese tracks as well, and establishment of multilateral regional cooperation.
We are preparing a Moscow Conference on the Middle East to promote progress in the Middle East peace process following the Quartet agreements and the UN Security Council decisions.
Another Russian-Ukrainian gas row looming?
2009-03-26 00:04:13
by Xinhua writer Hai Yang
MOSCOW, March 25 (Xinhua) -- A new round of gas controversy between Russia and Ukraine that erupted early this week has reminded people of the January dustup that left millions of Europeans without heat in the depths of winter.
Some observers believe that the dispute requires a tripartite solution, and the controversy is another strategic game in which Russia, Ukraine and the European Commission all play a part.
NEW ROW, OLD TOPIC
The dispute started with the joint declaration on the modernization of Kiev's gas transit system signed by Ukraine, the European Commission and other parties in Brussels on Monday.
Angered by the self-proclaimed "exclusion" from discussions about the document, Russian leaders took a tough stance on the issue.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday threatened to review relations with the European Union if Russia's interests were ignored. The declaration was "poorly thought out" and "unprofessional," Putin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.
President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia would not resume intergovernmental consultations with Ukraine unless some questions surrounding the declaration were clarified.
"The declaration's contents arouse at least a number of questions," Medvedev told a national Security Council meeting.
"In order to decide what the consequences of the declaration's adoption may be I suggest giving thought to postponing the consultations for a while to look into the decisions that have been made," he said.
The consultations scheduled for next week planned to focus on the extension of a Russian loan of 5 billion U.S. dollars to Ukraine, covering its gas delivery bills, RIA Novosti reported earlier this month.
Responding to the Kremlin's anger, Ukraine said on Tuesday it welcomed Russia to participate in the modernization of its gas transit system.
"Russia, like other countries, can also take part in investment projects, in reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine's gas transit system," Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told a news conference in Kiev.
"Neither Russia nor Europe lost yesterday. Ukraine just wants to safeguard its national interests, its main gas transit pipeline," she said.
EASY SOLUTION?
Russia should let Europe do the overhaul deal and transport fuel across Ukraine, so political tensions between Russia and Ukraine do not lead to regular supply problems, said Walter Boltz, head of Austrian regulator E-Control and vice chairman of the European Regulators' Group for Electricity and Gas.
"It has to be a European solution, because the current model, where Russia is basically responsible commercially for the transit, is overlaid by all this political background ... which makes the relationship between Ukraine and Russia very difficult, very delicate and likely to erupt every other month," Boltz said, according to the Moscow Times.
Russia now supplies a quarter of the EU's gas, 80 percent of which is pumped across Ukraine.
Others believed Russia should be included into the project.
During a meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechinhere on Tuesday, Paolo Scaroni, CEO of the Italian state-owned energy company Eni, said Russia and its largest consumers must be involved in any agreement to modernize Ukraine's gas pipelines.
Any plan without involving the supplier is a waste of time and money, he told the Moscow Times.
Some observers have also warned that a new gas row could be on the horizon as Ukraine, currently struggling with the economic downturn and political impasse, finds it hard to pay the higher gas prices charged by Russia.
STRATEGIC GAS GAME
Beyond the loaves and fishes involved in the spat, some strategies have come up to the stage from behind the curtains.
Some analysts say the reason why Russia is angry over the declaration is that it sees itself shoved off a project that serves its crucial interests.
Russia's reaction has revealed its sensitiveness to the question of who wields leverage over Ukraine's gas pipeline network, the Moscow Times reported.
As some experts put it, a large strategic gas game is going on, and Russia has felt potentially threatened by the EU-Ukraine deal.
Russian political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov pointed out that the European Commission tried to turn Ukraine into an energy testing ground through the gas dispute.
Brussels apparently wants to introduce certain energy market principles to Ukraine that do not work well in the European markets, such as competition-based access to pipelines and storage tanks and transport operators independent of producers, Lukyanov was quoted as saying by the Russian daily Vremya Novostei on Wednesday.
"Combat Aviation" business-division to be formed within UAC in three years
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax-AVN) - A "Combat Aviation" business-
division is expected to be formed in three years on the basis of the
Sukhoi and MIG companies within the United Aircraft Corporation, UAC CEO
Alexei Fyodorov said in an interview with the Vedomosti newspaper,
published on Thursday.
"The formation of a 'Combat Aviation' business-division was on
UAC's strategy from the very beginning. We think this will happen within
the next three years," Fyodorov said, when asked whether the appointment
of the Sukhoi holding company's head Mikhail Pogosian as MIG's general
director signals a Sukhoi-MIG merger.
"The UAC has indeed announced plans to launch inner
reorganization," Fyodorov said.
"By 2012 the UAC is expected to form business divisions of
military, civilian and transport aircraft, and they will become centers
for aircraft development and final assembly. The other functions will be
gradually handed over to third parties," he said.
"Soviet-era aircraft construction plants were self-sufficient and
covered all aspects from the production of screws to testing planes.
This practice is no longer economically viable," Fyodorov said.
"A switch to new production methods is a large-scale endeavor,
which will require serious investment," he said.
"We will not be able to do without outsourcing, although it is
clear that the pioneers will get the bumps. But in the long run, this
could have an enormous economic benefit, so we must take this road,"
Fyodorov said.
Russian military industry cutting civilian output
MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Production at Russian defense
industry companies shrunk 3.7% in January-February 2009, year-on-year,
the Industry and Trade Ministry has reported.
"The volume of civilian output dropped sharply in the sectors of
ammunition and chemical agents, and conventional weapons, and in the
rocket-space and radio-electronic segments," the ministry said in a
statement made available to Interfax on Wednesday.
Volumes of civilian products increased only in the aircraft and
shipbuilding industries in January and February.
In the aircraft construction industry production grew by 2.7%,
year-on-year, and the growth was due to an increase in the production of
civilian items at the Kazan Helicopter Plant (by 27.8%) and at the Ulan-
Ude Aircraft Construction Plant (more than three times.)
In the shipbuilding industry, the production of civilian goods
increased nearly 2.7 times. In all, 110 ships are under construction.
In the sector of conventional weapons, the production of civilian
goods went down by 42.3% largely due to a drop in the manufacturing of
civilian products at the Dzerzhinsky rail car plant, at Kurganmashzavod,
the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, the Nytva company and the Barnaul Machine-
Tools Plant, according to the ministry.
The output of civilian products has been growing at the Izhevsk
Machine-Building Plant, at the Ulyanovsk Cartridge Plant, the
Uraltarnsmash state-owned company, the Novosibirsk Instrument-Building
Plant and the Tula Cartridge Plant.
In the radio-electronic sector the production of civilian items
shrunk by 21.3% and in the ammunition and chemicals segment by 37%.
New ISS crew to lift off from Baikonur Thursday
MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) - The 19th Expedition crew to the International Space Station (ISS) will blast off on board a Soyuz carrier rocket on Thursday from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, a Russian Mission Control spokesman said.
Lift off is scheduled for 2:47 p.m. Moscow time [10:47 GMT]. The Soyuz TMA-14 spacecraft is due to dock with the ISS on Saturday.
The new crew of Commander Gennady Padalka from Russia, NASA astronaut Michael Barratt and space tourist billionaire Charles Simonyi will join Japan's Koichi Wakata, U.S. astronaut Michael Fincke and Russian Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov.
Wakata replaced U.S. astronaut Sandra Magnus, who left the ISS on Wednesday on board the Discovery space shuttle following a four-month tour of duty.
This will be Hungarian-born Simonyi's second trip into space at a cost of around $35 million, up from the $25 million he paid for his 2007 visit.
Padalka and Barratt will remain on the ISS for six months, and Simonyi will be on board for ten days before returning to Earth on April 7 with Fincke and Lonchakov.
By the end of May, the ISS will be constantly manned by six astronauts.
American-Russian crew ready to blast off to ISS
26 March, 2009, 09:50
Final preparations are underway at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan where the Soyuz launch vehicle is just hours away from the blast off to the International Space Station.
Cosmonauts of the new mission are now enjoying their final hours on Earth before going to space.
The crew consists of Russian flight captain Gennady Padalka, American flight engineer Mike Barrat, and space tourist from the US Charles Simonyi.
It is actually the first time in history that a space tourist goes to the orbit twice and this man is U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi.
Overall, two trips to space have cost him some $60 million.
Simonyi could also be the last space tourist at the ISS because starting in 2010, the US space shuttle programme will cease operations, which will make the Russian Soyuz vehicles the only possible transport for the American astronauts to the ISS. This means that there will simply be no space for space adventurers on board.
At the final press conference, Charles Simonyi and Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka spoke about what kind of research work they are about to carry out while in space.
Astronaut Simonyi said that “this flight I am going to do much more ham radio contacts with schools and answer school childrens' questions.”
Captain Padalka says that “the environmental is quite interesting – our problem districts for example. The construction of the Olympic venues in Sochi will be monitored from space. We’ll be taking high resolution photos in order for specialists on Earth to analyse how carefully we treat the protected areas.".
This flight is enjoying a lot of public interest. Many NASA astronauts and also journalists have gathered in town since several days prior to launch.
Relatives of Charles Simonyi and the family of Mike Barrat will also be at the launch site: Simonyi’s young Swedish-born wife and five kids of Mike Barrat will watch the launch.
“I am very proud. I mean it’s not every day you can say “My dad is in space, how cool is that!” It is an honour but no fun. It is different when he is in space instead of sort of being at the dinner table with us,” Barrat’s daughter Meeta said.
The wife of American astronaut Michelle Barrat said that though in space, cosmonauts will be able to stay in touch with their loved ones.
“He will actually be able to call us from the Station on a phone and then once a week we will have a video conference and we will have a chance to hear from him and he can hear from us. The consol is actually at our kitchen so he can actually join the family at the kitchen table which is a fun place for us together as a family,” said Michelle.
Michelle also said that she will pray during the final countdown and so, probably, will most of the relatives and friends of those going into space. Though experts say there is really no need as they guarantee that it will be a 100% safe lift-off as the Russian-made Soyuz space vehicle is the safest in the world and boasts 1700 safe flights into orbit.
UPDATE 1-U.S. software mogul set to roar into space history
Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:09am EDT
* Billionaire Simonyi to blast off for second space trip
* Space officials prepare for launch from Kazakh steppe
* Russia to double number of flights to ISS this year
(Adds colour and quotes)
By Shavkat Rakhmatullayev
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, March 26 (Reuters) - U.S. billionaire Charles Simonyi will roar off into space aboard a Russian rocket on Thursday to make history as the first tourist to make the odyssey twice.
Hungarian-born Simonyi, who made much of his fortune developing software at Microsoft, will blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 1149 GMT to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) two days later.
At Baikonur, hidden in the barren steppes of central Kazakhstan, heavy rain lashed hard against the sleek Soyuz spaceship, its nose pointing high into the heavy skies, as engineers went through final checks ahead of the launch.
Simonyi, 60, will blast off into space in the crammed interior of the rocket alongside Russia's Gennady Padalka and U.S. astronaut Michael Barratt.
"Charles! Good luck!" shouted a crowd of his friends and family, including his 28-year-old Swedish wife Lisa Persdotter, as the trio emerged from their hotel and headed for the launch pad.
Simonyi, who paid a total of $60 million for his two space trips, looked confident as he blew a kiss at his wife, clad in a floor-length fur coat against the chilly weather.
Simonyi has said he would be hanging up his space suit for good after this last trek.
"I cannot fly for the third time because I have just married and I have to spend time with my family," Simonyi told a pre-flight news briefing from behind a hermetic glass partition.
He is set to return to earth on April 7 with Michael Fincke, U.S. commander of outgoing Expedition 18, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov.
"He is in great spirit, he is very excited. He feels very privileged to be able to go to space again," Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures which arranges space trips, told Reuters.
Russia has borne the brunt of sending crews and cargo to the multi-national ISS since the U.S. Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry in 2003, killing its crew of seven.
A source in Russia's space industry told Reuters two space tourists could be launched in 2011. He gave no further details.
Space Adventures admitted its business was affected by the global financial crisis. "The number of billionaires has been cut in half," Anderson said, adding however that demand for space trips appeared to be stable for now.
"It's a very long term thing," he said. "You don't just wake up in the morning one day and decide to go to space." (Additional reporting by Shamil Zhumatov in Baikonur; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov and Maria Golovnina)
Ready for lift-off on the Kazakh steppe
By Rayhan Demytrie
BBC News, Baikonur cosmodrome
Despite the freezing wind of the Central Asian steppe, photographers have been trying to get the best shots of a Soyuz spacecraft being slowly transported by rail to the launch site.
This is the Baikonur Cosmodrome - the world's largest and oldest space launch facility.
Every launch here follows the same ritual. It starts with assembling the rocket at the Installation and Test Building three days before lift-off.
At 0700 sharp, two days prior to launch, the assembled rocket is transported by railway in a horizontal position to the launch site. The train moves at 5 km/h (3 mph) - an average human walking speed.
Originally, the founder of the Soviet space programme Sergei Korolyov used to personally lead the procession to the launch pad by walking ahead of the train.
At the launch pad, engineers slowly raise it to its vertical starting position.
"Most Soyuz spacecraft take off from Site Number 1, also known as the Gagarin start," says Igor Barmin, chief engineer of the launch pad.
"Among the nine launch complexes at Baikonur, the Gagarin Start has been used the most. So far more than 400 rockets have taken off from this position."
Space tourism
The next Soyuz launch is scheduled for 1149 GMT on Thursday 27 March.
Expedition 19 will include Russian commander Gennady Padalka, US flight engineer Michael Barratt and US businessman and space tourist Charles Simonyi. Its destination is the International Space Station (ISS).
This is software billionaire Charles Simonyi's second mission into space. He previously flew to the ISS in 2007, for which he paid $24m. This latest journey is costing him $35m.
But Simonyi could also be the last space tourist travelling to the ISS because there may not be enough room on board for future space adventurers.
In 2010 the US space shuttle programme is expected to retire for at least four years, which means that Nasa astronauts will depend on Russian Soyuz rockets to send their crews to the ISS.
Secret location
Baikonur Cosmodrome covers almost 7,000 sq km of Kazakh steppe, three times the size of Luxembourg. The entire centre includes nine launch complexes and is leased to Russia until 2050.
Established in the 1950s as a top-secret facility, Baikonur was originally built to develop and test the largest range of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
To keep the location as secret as possible, the name Baikonur was deliberately chosen by the Soviets to be misleading. The real Baikonur is a village in northern Kazakhstan, several hundred miles away from the actual cosmodrome.
The official name of the centre was State Test Range No 5 and is located in Tyuratum, southern Kazakhstan.
After the break-up of the Soviet Union the cosmodrome fell under the ownership of Kazakhstan.
But an agreement was reached in the 1990s for Russia to pay an annual fee for renting the complex, currently worth $115m.
The former military facility has been fully transformed into a civilian launch pad, but it is still one of the most difficult places to visit in Kazakhstan, requiring permission from the Russian Federal Space Agency.
March 25, 2009
Putin’s PR Stunt
By Sergei Balashov
Russia Profile
Vladimir Putin Will Talk and the Parliament Will Listen, but for Real, or for Show?
As the prime minister, Vladimir Putin will follow a routine he has grown accustomed to during his tenure as president. He will once again deliver a report to the Parliament. Putin is scheduled to address the State Duma in early April, in order to explain what the government has done and what it will do to combat the crisis. But the Duma deputies are not too hyped about Putin’s upcoming report, in which he will ask for more powers to control the government.
A legislative novelty obliging the government to annually report to the Parliament was part of a package of constitutional amendments proposed by President Dmitry Medvedev back in November, along with extensions of the presidential and the State Duma terms. Putin’s speech, which will be comparable to a State of the Union presidential address, was devised as a tool in the mechanism of parliamentary control over the government. Apart from reporting the results of the government’s work in 2008, Putin will answer three questions posed by each of the Duma’s four factions.
These questions range from state support for high technologies amid the economic crisis and containment of the rising energy tariffs to changing trade regulations and making real estate affordable. The Communists are planning to complain about Russia’s high profile banks’ (VTB, Gazprombank and Sberbank) spending over $40 billion they received in state loans, meant to support the non-financial sector, to buy own shares and foreign currency. They will ask Putin whether he plans to get that money back.
The REGNUM news agency reported that the head of the Liberal Democratic Party faction in State Duma Igor Lebedev has expressed hope that Putin’s address would not be a “formality,” and the ministers would be held responsible for their failures. But the chances of this happening are not exactly high.
The State Duma, dominated by Putin’s United Russia party, has long since turned into a rubber stamp for the government, hardly ever challenging the bills put forth by the Kremlin and being, in Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov’s own words, “no place for discussions.” Deputies from the three minor factions claim that they are barely (if at all) heard, and their counterparts from the ruling party agree. “The Parliament has no control whatsoever over the government; [the United Russia faction] has only a symbolic influence over the government, others have none at all,” said Gennady Gudkov, a State Duma deputy and a member of the Just Russia faction.
Parties with representation in the State Duma have to rely on other, less official mechanisms to exert influence on the government. “If anything can be done at all, it can only be done through personal meetings and agreements with the prime minister, who sometimes meets [State Duma factions]. The head of our party regularly meets with Putin and Medvedev, so we do have a chance to express our concerns. We’re not desperate about the situation because there is an opportunity for dialogue, but if we’re talking about it as a system, there is none,” said Gudkov.
Last week, Gryzlov said that Putin’s speech was scheduled for April 2, forcing the deputies to change their plans. Yet later, the date was unexpectedly moved back four days. After delivering his report, Putin will unveil the government’s anti-crisis measures.
Yet there is another side to this story. If delivered as scheduled, Putin’s speech would run simultaneously with Medvedev’s speech at the G20 summit in London, planned precisely for April 2. Medvedev is also scheduled to meet with United States President Barack Obama the day before. Both events are expected to dominate the news, and thus overshadow Putin’s performance in the State Duma. This would be a missed opportunity for the prime minister. Hence the date change.
Putin’s last two prime ministers, Mikhail Fradkov and Viktor Zubkov, were widely perceived as empty suites, having very little political weight and merely managing the day to day activities of the government. Things changed drastically with Putin’s arrival. Not only his persona, but also the economic downturn that Russia has experienced since last summer brought the government into the spotlight.
Many, including those in the expert circles, have lately begun doubting Putin’s anti-crisis policies. Public support for him and Medvedev is still strong, but both the president and the prime minister have lost a few points in the public approval ratings since the prospect of social unrest, albeit vague, appeared on the horizon. The United Russia party also hasn’t been doing as well in the regional elections as before.
Putin must now seize every opportunity to go public and maintain his image as a national leader, appearing in control of the situation and clarifying the government’s policies. “This is a PR event more than anything else,” said a deputy from the Communist Party Anatoly Lokot. “This is a big step forward in terms of control over the government, but I don’t see how there could be any responsibility until we can assess the results and make decisions on the government’s future work. As of now, we have no such powers,” said Lokot.
“Personally, I think our Parliament is not an independent governing body,” said Gudkov.
The Strange Ties between Semion Mogilevich and Vladimir Putin
[tt_news]=34753&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=8d9de4a894
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 57
March 25, 2009 10:29 AM Age: 16 hrs
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Russia, Domestic/Social, Home Page
By: Roman Kupchinsky
On March 23, 2009 the Moscow City Court ruled that Semion Mogilevich, also known as Sergiy Shneider, will remain in prison until May 23 while investigators continue to examine his case. (Kommersant Daily, March 24). This is the third extension of his detention the court has ordered since Mogilevich was arrested on January 23, 2008 and charged with abetting in a tax evasion scheme. What makes this case highly sensitive is that Mogilevich has been suspected of having close links to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the opaque gas trade between Gazprom and Ukraine and RosUkrEnergo.
Mogilevich is a former Ukrainian citizen, now residing in a prison cell in Moscow. He is wanted by the FBI on major fraud charges for his role in what is known as the "YBM Magnex Scam." Numerous police sources claim that he is one of the leaders of the Russian mafia, a charge he denied in an interview with the BBC in 1999 when he was still at liberty living in an exclusive neighborhood in Moscow (BBC, June 12, 1999).
Mogilevich is alleged to be a secret billionaire linked to Vladimir Putin and is reputed to be a hidden business partner of Dmytro Firtash, the 50 percent owner of RosUkrEnergo, the Swiss-based gas trader, 50 percent owned by Gazprom. Firtash has consistently denied any criminal links to Mogilevich, yet he admits knowing him (Vedomosti, 27 June, 2006). Mogilevich has also been described by Leonid Derkach, the former head of the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, as a close friend of Vladimir Putin's during a conversation with former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma.
The questions surrounding the Putin-Mogilevich relationship - if indeed there is one - are not simply theoretical; the answers touch on the nature of power in the Kremlin; how it functions and which players serve its purposes. Part of the answer can be found in the Kuchma-Derkach dialogue held in Kuchma's office on February 8, 2000. According to a recording of the conversation made by a member of Kuchma's security detail, Mykola Melnychenko:
Kuchma: "Have you found Mogilevich?"
Derkach: "I found him."
Kuchma: "So, are you two working now?"
Derkach: "We're working. We have another meeting tomorrow. He arrives incognito.
Later in the discussion Derkach revealed a few details about Mogilevich.
Derkach: "He's on good terms with Putin. He and Putin have been in contact since Putin was still in Leningrad."
Kuchma: "I hope we won't have any problems because of this."
Derkach: "They have their own affairs" (The transcript appears in the forthcoming book by J.V. Koshiw, The Politics of Kuchma - the Melnychenko Recordings August 1999 to September 2000).
A second key to the puzzle lies in the alleged relationship between Firtash and Mogilevich in the Eural Trans Gas and RosUkrEnergo, companies involved in the strategically important transit of natural gas from Central Asia to Ukraine which worked closely with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned gas company apparently controlled by Putin.
In December 2005, a confidential Austrian police report noted that:
In August 2005 the FBI gave their Austrian counterparts a confidential report on frauds committed by the SMO (Semion Mogilevich Organization) in connection with gas deliveries from Turkmenistan to the Ukraine and the illegal kickback payments to [a] member of the organization... According to the FBI the actual control of ETG and RUE is held by Ivan Fursin and Oleg Palchikov. Hungarian police reported about an April 2005 meeting in Vienna between Ivan Fursin, Oleg Palchikov and Dmitri Firtash The FBI described Ivan Fursin, Oleg Palchikov and Dmitri Firtash as senior members of the SMO (Austrian Federal Criminal Investigation Agency Report on the Semion Mogilevich Criminal Organization, December 1, 2005).
Another document linking Mogilevich to Andras Knopf, the executive director of Eural Trans Gas, the Hungarian gas intermediary company created by Firtash to act as the middleman in the transit of Turkmen gas to Ukraine, is a letter allegedly written by MVD Major-General Alexander Mordovets on November 14, 1998 to the former first Deputy Head of the Department for the Struggle Against Organized Crime of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, in which Mordovets described the close criminal relationship between Knopf and Mogilevich. However, on September 16, 2004, six years after this letter surfaced, Mordovets suddenly recanted. In an affidavit sent to Mark J. MacDougall, a lawyer working for the law firm Akin Gump in Washington, DC., Mordovets claimed that he never wrote this letter implying that it was a forgery.
Mogilevich was arrested in late January 2008 on charges of abetting a tax evasion scheme by Vladimir Nekrasov, the owner of "Arbat Prestige," a chain of Russian cosmetic stores and has remained in jail while the investigation continues to this day. The Russian police insisted that they had been unable to find and arrest Mogilevich in Moscow earlier - yet his photograph, attending services in a Moscow Synagogue appeared on the front page of Izvestia on December 7, 2004.
The official Kremlin version of Mogilevich's role in tax evasion is difficult to believe and it could well turn out to be that Mogilevich was arrested as part of a cover up operation by the Kremlin designed to distance Putin from Firtash and Mogilevich. Putin has remained silent on his links to Firtash and Mogilevich and this might prove to be an opportune moment for western intelligence agencies to shed some light on this murky and far reaching affair.
Foreign forces attempt to destabilize situation in Russia – Gryzlov
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) - Foreign forces are using the economic
crisis to destabilize the political situation in Russia, asserted State
Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov.
"We already see manifestations of political extremism. I am
speaking about attempts to destabilize the country, taken both outside
and inside Russia," Gryzlov said at a meeting of the Supreme and General
Councils of the United Russia party in Moscow on Thursday.
"We are now seeing attempts when people who are unhappy are given
flags, and sometimes these are flags of foreign countries," he said.
"We have seen protest rallies in Primorye, were the protesters were
carrying Japanese flags. It is a fact," Gryzlov said.
Chechnya counter-terrorism operation could be discussed in March
MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's National Antiterrorism Committee could discuss ending the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya on March 31, a source in a Russian security agency said on Thursday.
He confirmed that the committee has already received a proposal to end the operation, which has lasted for more than nine years.
"The question is nothing new, it has been on the agenda for a long time and concerns mainly organizational issues, in particular, the continuous deployment of Interior Ministry units there [Chechnya] and other security structures," the source said.
The National Antiterrorism Committee declined to comment on the information.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov told journalists on Wednesday that the federal counter-terrorism operation in the Russian North Caucasus republic would be officially completed in late March.
He added that Chechnya long ago completed the struggle against terrorism, although an official document on conducting a counterterrorist operation in the republic is still in force.
A Kremlin source dismissed the report, however, saying that the issue of ending the counter-terrorism campaign in the republic is being considered, but it was too early to talk of a deadline.
Chechnya was devastated by two military campaigns, in 1994-1996 and 1999-2001, after which Moscow significantly scaled down its military presence in the republic.
Although the "active phase" of counter-terrorist operations is over in Chechnya, the republic and neighboring regions are still plagued by raids on federal troops and pro-Kremlin police and authorities.
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Budanov may be questioned in connection with killings, abductions in Chechnya - Investigations Committee
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) - The Investigations Committee of the
Russian prosecutor's office plans to question former colonel Yury
Budanov in connection with several criminal cases involving killings and
abductions of people in Chechnya.
"In the near future, we plan to question Budanov in connection with
a preliminary investigation into materials dealing with the abductions
of 18 people and killings of people in Chechnya," Alexander Sorochkin,
head of the Military investigations Department of the Investigations
Committee, told a press conference on Thursday.
Kremlin denies end-date of Chechnya counter-terrorism operation
MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) - A Kremlin source rejected on Wednesday a report from the Chechen leadership that the counter-terrorism campaign in the republic would finish at the end of this month.
"This issue is being considered, but it's too early to talk of a deadline," the source told RIA Novosti.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov told journalists earlier on Wednesday that the federal counter-terrorism operation in the Russian North Caucasus republic, which has lasted for nine years, would be officially completed in late March.
"In essence, we long ago finished the struggle against terrorists, but there is an official document on conducting a counterterrorist operation in the republic. I think by the end of March, on 30 or 31, an official document will be signed to end it," Kadyrov said.
Asked whether troops from the national anti-terrorist group could be involved in fighting terrorism in the Caucasus, Kadyrov said the republic had gained vast experience in fighting terrorists, but that now the priorities are to use the media, TV, radio and spiritual leaders to help those "lost" return home.
Kadyrov also called for those who "committed crimes against civilians during the counter-terrorism operation in the republic" to be brought to justice.
"During the counter-terrorism operation in Chechnya, our people lost everything - family members, homes and property, but stood strong. I am sure that Russia will never let this tragedy happen again," he said.
Chechnya was devastated by two military campaigns, in 1994-1996 and 1999-2001, after which Moscow significantly scaled down its military presence in the republic.
Although the "active phase" of counter-terrorist operations are over in Chechnya, the republic and neighboring regions are still plagued by raids on federal troops and pro-Kremlin police and authorities.
Chechen society consolidated in fighting terrorism, extremism – Kadyrov
GROZNY March 25 (Interfax) - Measures to counter terrorism and
extremism, taken by the Chechen government, and the combined efforts of
the clergy and society are bringing good results, Chechen President
Ramzan Kadyrov said.
"Society has become consolidated in countering terrorism, extremism
and Wahhabism. We have effectively united the people, the clergy, the
government and law enforcement services. And this is bringing
exclusively positive results," Kadyrov told reporters on Wednesday.
"You won't find a person in Chechnya who would approve Wahhabism,
or operations by the surviving criminal armed groups," Kadyrov said.
"Members of criminal armed groups have been isolated from the people,"
he also said.
"Militants have been leaving criminal armed groups regularly of
late. Two turned themselves in yesterday and three even earlier, and
this continues daily. Dozens have returned to their homes over the past
month," Kadyrov said.
"Most of them are people who have left Doku Umarov's entourage.
They have laid down arms, they can see what is really happening in
Chechnya, and they have confessed they were duped by the false idea of
independent Ichkeria. Although, neither Umarov, nor others have ever
thought about independence. They only had banditry in their minds,"
Kadyrov said.
Former militants confess that the current situation in Chechnya
suits them perfectly, said Kadyrov.
Russia’s GRU special-task troops run into resistance in Kabardino-Balkar republic
The North Caucasus Weekly of Jamestown Foundation has published in its latest issue an exclusive interview with Anzor Astemirov, a leading figure among Islamic militants in the Caucasus. Anzor Astemir (ov), aka Saifullah (The Sword of Allah), 32, is the Amir (leader) of Kabarda, Balkaria and Karachai, also appointed as the head of the Court of Caucasian Emirate by Chechen leader Dokku Umarov. He is known as the developer and promoter of the idea of the Caucasian Emirate, which is considered by observers as the main political trend in the Caucasus today. Astemirov is a Circassian prince whose ancestors once ruled Kabarda, according to The North Caucasus Weekly.
The word was spread that the GRU’s hunters managed to entrap Astemirov into the ambush and directly attacked him not long ago. The militant leader told The North Caucasus Weekly that the GRU spetsnaz troops had opened extensive fire from 20 meters distance, however, he managed to escape without any damage.
Astemirov names the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Intelligence Directorate’s (GRU) Special Forces troops the main enemy of local population. He says the GRU spetsnaz are based in sanatoriums of Nalchik, capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, equipped with the best modern military and spy equipment and their agents camouflaged as locals.
“Of course, they have set up a network of local traitors and informers. Nevertheless, we also have our people inside their locations and the names of the traitors do not remain a secret for long,”Astemirov told The North Caucasus Weekly.
According to Astemirov, a major portion of the population of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia republics of Russia has been experiencing continued violation of religious and basic human rights. This is why, Astemirov alleges, majority of local civilians, either latently or openly supports the militants.
Bashkir Leader Decries Moscow’s ‘Instrumental’ Approach to Federalism
March 25, 2009
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 25 – In a speech that either represents his swansong or lays down a new agenda for the leaders of the regions and republics of the Russian Federation, Bashkir President Murtaza Rakhimov has denounced Moscow’s “instrumentalist” approach to federalism, an approach which violates both the Russian Constitution and the center’s promises to the people.
Last weekend, Rakhimov, 75, who is on the short list of many analysts of regional officials likely to be dismissed in the near future, delivered a major speech at an Ufa conference on the 90th anniversary of the formation of his republic attacking Moscow’s approach to federalism (bashkortostan.ru/president/activity/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=19662).
Moscow analysts have been discussing his remarks solely in terms of what his speech portend for Rakhimov’s future and for that of other senior regional leaders like Moscow’s Yury Luzhkov and Tatarstan’s Mintimir Shaimiyev (vremya.ru/2009/48/4/225598.html and iamik.ru/?op=full&what=content&ident=502176).
But regardless of what happens next and whether Rakhimov remains in office, the Bashkortostan leader’s words merit attention for the perspective they provide on the history of federalism in the Russian Empire, the USSR, and the Russian Federation and for their defense of this form of government against those continue to work to subvert it.
As Russian officials are increasingly inclined do, the Bashkortostan leader began with a citation to the words of President Dmitry Medvedev, although they may not be the words that the Kremlin leader would be most pleased to have reference made.
Medvedev, Rakhimov noted, has said that Moscow’s approach to federalism “to a large extent has developed by trial and error.”
Then, Rakhimov provided a definition of federalism with which many in Moscow in the past and now would not agree. “The essence of federalism,” he said, “is above all a culture of compromises between the central powers that be and the regions, between large and less numerous peoples and also between regions and republics.”
It is, he continued, “a horizontal arrangement of the state with a careful accounting of the social-economic and cultural-spiritual interests of the republics, oblasts and peoples.” And “if in this interrelationship, harmony is achieved, then the result is an all-around strengthening of the state, both as a whole and in its component parts.
But if the reverse is true, Rakhimov warned, then either excessive centralization with all power concentrated in Moscow or excessive regionalization “will lead to a weakening of the state and will not benefit the regions themselves,” however much some in the regions may believe otherwise.
Prior to 1917, Rakhimov noted, “almost all all-Russian parties, from the monarchists and Kadets on the one end to the Bolshevik leaders on the other spoke out, as is well known against a federal construction of Russia.” But the Bashkir leader continued, “the strength of national liberation movements forced a revision of their views.”
“If the liberal leaders did not go further than conversations and discussions [on this],” Rakhimov continued, “the Bolsheviks took up the idea of the federal construction of Russia in the final analysis as an instrument of attracting to their side the non-Russian peoples,” especially since the anti-Bolshevik movement remained opposed to concessions to these groups.
“But in this ‘instrumentalist’ approach [of the Bolsheviks] was concealed a major shortcoming which played out in the further fate of the USSR. They, like certain political figures and ideologues in the federal center even now do not want to understand and accept federalism as a value in and of itself and an absolute necessity” for the country.
However, the Bashkir leader said, given their instrumentalism in this area, the Bolsheviks made and then broke many of their “promises and undertakings” and became “supporters of the centralization of power and the transfer of all factories and land into the hands of the state,” thereby deceiving “the hopes of the people.”
Unfortunately, that pattern continues to this day, he said, with Moscow routinely violating the constitution and refusing to recognize the rights of the federal units in various spheres. And in the elaboration of new laws, the Russian Duma does not consider more than one in 14 of the proposals of the regions.
“Unfortunately,” too, Rakhimov pointed out, “on a majority of these questions, including cadres issues, the central ministries and administrations in recent years have devoted little attention to the prerogatives of the subjects of the federation despite the fact that the Constitution” directs them to do precisely that.
Moreover, “the number and staffs of federal structures in the localities are too large,” as a result of which there is “a great deal of unnecessary duplication and distrust. As if the republic is somehow involved in affairs far from Russian interests.” And there is as yet no budgetary federalism of the kind the Constitution mandates.
Nowhere are these problems between the center and the regions and republics greater than in issues involving education, Rakhimov pointed out. Bashkortostan, like many other republics, has increased the number of schools in native languages and the amount of educational programs devoted to local subjects.
That is all permitted, even required by the Constitution, but recently Moscow has cut back the number of hours in the educational program controlled locally, something which strikes at the heart of the non-Russians because “language is the chief means of preserving national traditions, culture and morality.” Indeed, “without a language, there is no people.”
The regional component in education must be restored, Rakhimov said, and this must happen by federal law, or both the country as a whole and its individual republics and regions will suffer, something he concluded everyone interested “in the strengthening of the might of our federal state” would oppose.
Murmansk Duma votes for Dmitry Dmitriyenko as new governor
MURMANSK, March 25 (Itar-Tass) --The Murmansk regional Duma on Wednesday voted for Dmitry Dmitriyenko as the new governor of the region.
Dmitriyenko was voted in by a 27-31 vote, with four votes against.
President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree dismissing Murmansk region Governor Yury Yevdokikov at his request and nominating Dmitry Dmitriyenko for this post last Saturday.
Until confirmation by the regional legislature, Dmitriyenko was acting governor.
Commenting on Yevdokimov's decision to resign, the head of the regional branch of the pro-presidential United Russia party, Yevgeny Nikora, told Itar-Tass earlier that Yevdokimov had run the region for 12 years. "It was a very difficult period, and there is no doubt that the governor's name will go down in history," he said.
"Considering the time when he had to work and his age, I would have become tired much sooner," Nikora said, adding, seriously, "The governor decided to resign. This is his right. The president accepted his resignation and nominated a 45-year-old person. Former military officer, Dmitriyenko knows the submarine fleet, the Northern Fleet, the system of transport and fisheries in the country. These are critical industries in the Murmansk region," Nikora said.
Dmitriyenko was born in 1963. In 1985, he graduated from the higher naval school where he majored in ship weapons.
In 1999, he graduated from the North-Western Academy of Civil Service, specialising in municipalities.
In 1980-2992, Dmitriyenko serviced in the Pacific and Northern Fleets.
In 1999-2002, he was an adviser to Krasnoyarsk Territory governor, responsible for energy and transport.
In 2002-2004, Dmitriyenko worked as an adviser to the first deputy transport minister - head of the state marine fleet service.
In 2004-2006, he was an aide to the head of the Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport.
In 2006-2008, he worked as deputy head of the Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport, responsible for economic and financial issues.
In 2008, Dmitriyenko was appointed deputy head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, responsible for the development of infrastructure and fleet.
Married, with a son.
Bogdanov Joining Sochi Mayor Race
26 March 2009
By Nikolaus von Twickel / The Moscow Times
Former presidential candidate Andrei Bogdanov on Wednesday became the latest entry into the crowded Sochi mayoral election, saying the Black Sea resort could become "the Nice of Russia."
Bogdanov, 39, is the former head of the now-defunct Democratic Party of Russia, which was widely seen as a Kremlin-controlled project to draw votes away from actual opposition candidates and give voters a tame liberal option.
"Sochi should become the Nice of Russia, where the majority can earn a living through small businesses," Bogdanov told The Moscow Times on Wednesday after submitting his registration papers to the Sochi elections commission.
The mayoral election in Sochi, which is slated to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, has become one of the year's most intriguing political events.
Several high-profile candidates, including opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and businessman Alexander Lebedev, have already announced that they would run for the post.
Bogdanov's bid brings to the election one of the country's most curious political actors.
Though virtually unknown nationally, Bogdanov was the only independent candidate who managed to get on the ballot of the 2008 presidential election by collecting 2 million signatures to support his campaign.
Critics call Bogdanov a Kremlin stooge and say his inclusion on the presidential ballot was merely a Kremlin move to have a token liberal in the election, which Dmitry Medvedev won by a landslide.
Promising to make Russia an EU member, Bogdanov captured a measly 1.3 percent of the vote.
Bogdanov, who also who heads up the country's largest Masonic lodge, told The Moscow Times by telephone Wednesday that he would again run as an independent in the Sochi election.
Twenty-two candidates had applied to get on the ballot as of Wednesday, Interfax reported. The deadline to register for the April 26 election is Thursday.
State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi, who faces murder charges in Britain in connection with the 2006 poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko in London, had expressed interest in running but announced this week that he would not enter the race.
The United Russia candidate, acting Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, is seen as a favorite in the election.
Fourteen dead as bus,truck collide in central Russia
MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) - Fourteen people were killed and four injured in a head-on collision between a bus and a truck in central Russia's Vladimir Region early on Thursday, a spokesman for the regional emergencies center said.
It was earlier reported that 11 people had been killed and four injured in the crash.
The accident occurred when a Kamaz truck drove into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with a Neoplan bus near the town of Petushki at approximately 1.20 a.m. Moscow time [22:20 GMT Wednesday]. The bus subsequently burst into flames.
"Investigators believe that the Kamaz driver fell asleep at the wheel," a traffic police source said. "The section of road where the accident occurred is straight and properly illuminated and the surface of the road was dry at the moment of the tragedy."
The bus, travelling from the Volga city of Ulyanovsk to Moscow, is thought to have had 13 passengers and two drivers onboard.
"All the dead in the accident are residents of Ulyanovsk. According to preliminary information, one of them is a woman. We have no information that there were children among the dead," the source said. He added however that he did not have a complete list of the dead.
He also said that the four injured people had been rushed to hospital in a serious condition. Investigators are working at the scene.
14 die in Russian bus accident: ministry
Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:56pm EDT
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Fourteen people were killed and four injured early Thursday when a bus burst into flames after colliding with a lorry east of Moscow, Russia's Emergency Ministry said.
"According to our latest information, 14 people died -- the driver of the truck and 13 people on the bus," Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Lyudmila Martynova said.
The accident took place in the Petushinsky district of Vladimir region, she said, an area located about 100 km (60 miles) east of Moscow.
Casualty numbers could change due to the difficulty of identifying remains from the burned-out bus, she said. Local news reports earlier said 25 people had died in the accident.
Russia's overloaded roads are treacherous with many drivers giving scant attention to even basic traffic safety rules. About 30,000 people died in Russian road accidents last year.
(Reporting by Conor Humphries, editing by Michael Roddy)
Unions Urge Putin to Raise Wages
26 March 2009
By Anatoly Medetsky / The Moscow Times
A top union official used a meeting Wednesday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to urge the government to encourage pay raises across the economy as part of its anti-crisis package.
Putin met Mikhail Shmakov, chairman of the Independent Unions Federation, and the group's local leaders to tell them that organized labor should do more to improve the job market. They also discussed the anti-crisis measures that the Cabinet approved last week. The government has said it will encourage a period of debate on the measures before sending them to lawmakers.
Shmakov's comments appear to reflect disgruntlement with prices that keep growing despite people's thinner wallets. "We believe a section on raising salaries has been overlooked," he said of the anti-crisis measures, RIA-Novosti reported.
Higher salaries could stimulate demand, he said, adding that the minimum monthly pay must rise by one-quarter, or about 1,000 rubles ($30), Interfax reported. A spokeswoman for the federation declined immediate comment.
The minimum monthly salary was doubled in January from last year's level to 4,330 rubles, a level that serves as a basis for calculating payments to unskilled workers and some workers who are paid from government budgets.
Opponents of pay raises, however, said that reversing the slide in salaries would complicate job creation.
"Any attempts to increase salaries through state regulation would only aggravate the situation on the labor market," said Sergei Roshchin, chief of the labor economics department at the Higher School of Economics.
Unions have already been in action over falling wages. A union at a Coca-Cola plant in the Sverdlovsk region has complained to the authorities about a reduction of bonuses for night shifts, the unions federation said in a statement dated March 13. Workers set up the union after the cut, the statement said.
Coca-Cola's Russia web site offered only an e-mail form for contacts, and a request for comment went unanswered Wednesday afternoon.
Putin called on the unions to inform people about state-funded employment programs, saying public awareness of them is low.
"I don't think it's superfluous to tell you again that the plans we are developing don't always reach the regional leaders, much less the lower ranking people," he said.
The government is planning to create 1 million temporary jobs and retrain 220,000 people or assist them in setting up a business, Putin said. The federal budget will spend 43.7 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) on the efforts this year, he said.
Unemployment as of mid-March was 2.6 percent, or 2 million people, Putin said. Another 560,000 were in line to be laid off, he said.
Putin also urged unions to do their job better by reacting to any violation of labor laws.
Unions must alert prosecutors and state labor agencies when they spot salary delays or the resurgence of "salaries in envelopes," a practice ubiquitous a few years ago that lets companies avoid paying some social taxes and allows individuals to dodge the income tax.
Unions should work with management to increase efficiency, even if it takes job cuts, Putin said. But they also should think about helping people who get the pink slip, he said, without suggesting any ways beyond informing fired workers of the state's relief programs.
"It's not that difficult and most often not that expensive," Putin said. "But such careful treatment of people will pay back a hundredfold."
Moscow Uncertain How to React to ‘New Russian Separatism’
March 25, 2009
Paul Goble
Vienna, March 25 – Separatist ideas are increasingly appearing in predominantly ethnic Russian regions, fueled by growing anger at the Russian government’s failure to cope with the current economic crisis and the anti-Moscow feelings that have long been a feature of many of these far-flung areas.
Unlike “the parade of sovereignties” in which the non-Russian republics participated at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Andrey Serenko writes in today’s “Nezacisimaya gazeta,” this new trend is affecting many of the far larger number of ethnically Russian dominated areas.
And both that trend in predominantly Russian areas and the specific forms it has taken are presenting the leadership in Moscow with a challenge that no one at the top of the Russian political system seems to fully understand or to have figured out a way to respond, according to the journalist.
The centers of these protests so far have been in port cities, Serenko points out, but the forms they have taken and the demands they have advanced have varied widely. There have been meetings and disorders, on the one hand, and the voting down of “Kremlin candidates” in local and regional elections, on the other.
The protests in Vladivostok “began with economic demands” like rolling back new tariffs on imported cars, but they have soon added political ones to their agenda, first demanding the firing of Vladimir Putin and the Russian government and then, in a few cases, calling for the formation of a Far Eastern Republic and even its independence.
Then in Murmansk, voters supported a local candidate against a Kremlin-approved figure because the former used as his slogan “Moscow, Don’t Try to Teach Us How to Live – We Aren’t Serfs.” It turned out Serenko said that this “anti-Moscow” appeal generated more support than government-supported calls “to vote for Putin’s party.
Had there been only the demonstrations in Vladivostok and other Far Eastern cities or had there been only this single case of electoral repudiation, Moscow might have dismissed the whole thing, but the two cases together, the “Nezavisimaya gazeta” journalist writes, constitute “a tendency” that Moscow cannot ignore.
Moreover, “it is evident that latent Russian separatism has gone far beyond the borders of Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Murmansk,” and that ‘the revolts’ in port cities are only a reflection of attitudes which are percolating” in other out of the way sections of the enormous Russian Federation.
But if the central government cannot ignore it, Serenko continues, Moscow clearly has not yet figured how to react effectively to it since many of the tools and ideological themes it employed against the non-Russians in the past are not available in the case of ethnic Russian regions with this kind of agendas.
The central authorities, he suggests, are especially concerned by these outbursts because they are obviously powered by the economic crisis and may be being used by ethnic Russian regional elites, a far more dangerous situation than the earlier parade of sovereignties where non-Russian groups were involved.
Moscow’s first target, not surprisingly, are the elites in the regions where these protests have broken out because the central government blames them in the first instance from allowing “the separatist attitudes of ‘extreme Russians’ which had existed underground to break out into the information and political space.”
Thus the center’s response: the use of outside force to crush the demonstrators in the Far East and the dismissal of Murmansk governor Yury Yevdokimov, for failing to get Moscow’s man into the mayor’s slot. Earlier when governors failed to do this, Moscow was displeased, but in this case, it was angry, an indication of its new nervousness.
Indeed, Serenko says, the events in these two port cities “show that the powers that be in the center see a threat from ‘the new Russian separatism’” that they had earlier sought to counter with structures like the Rodina Party, something that does not now exist or by anti-corruption campaigns which now do not appear likely to work.
But there are at least two deeper reasons that Moscow is now especially frightened by this phenomenon. On the one hand, such protests and the support they appear to enjoy from regional elites show that Moscow’s efforts to build its “power vertical” have not created regional elites that are “absolutely loyal to the Kremlin.”
And on the other, Russian politicians, who frequently look at the present through a lens from the past, have not forgotten the Polish Solidarity movement, which began in a few port cities and then “became a center for the political modernization of that country and even a forge a new elite.”
Whether the Russian variant of this movement will take off, of course, is far from certain. But if the economic crisis deepens, it will certainly be able to draw energy from anti-Moscow sentiments among Russians, for as one resident of St. Petersburg wrote this week, the best thing about the Northern Capital is that it isn’t Moscow.
Ministry Tries to Make Gentlemen of Cops
26 March 2009
By Natalya Krainova / The Moscow Times
Widely seen by the public as corrupt, crude and often violent, the country's police force has perhaps the most odious reputation of any public servants.
But in a drive to turn policemen into gentlemen, the Interior Ministry has implemented a behavior code forbidding its officers from engaging in a range of unseemly deeds, from cursing to smoking to adultery.
The new code, distributed to senior Interior Ministry officials at an assembly last month, spells out ethical norms for police officers -- prohibiting them from, among other things, drinking at work, gambling, making crude jokes, talking on cell phones on public transportation and smoking in public.
Taking a severely moralistic tone, the code states that policemen must not be "committed to the cult" of money and power, and it even bans one of the seven deadly sins: envy. It also calls on police to be polite, use correct Russian grammar and be courteous to women.
"It is impossible to create an ideal police officer, but we must strive for it," Interior Ministry's spokesman Oleg Yelnikov told The Moscow Times in a telephone interview Wednesday.
Current and former police officers were skeptical about the possible effectiveness of the code, however, saying it is next to impossible to abide by and reveals the authors' ignorance of actual police work.
The document, which was drafted by the ministry's personnel department, is "total rubbish," a city police officer told The Moscow Times on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk with the media. The authors have "lost touch with reality," he added.
The code, which came into effect in late December, replaced a 1993 police ethics code that was "morally bankrupt," Yelnikov said.
Opinion polls consistently show police as one of the country's least trusted institutions, and police officers nationwide are routinely indicted for corruption and violent crimes.
The Interior Ministry has not been oblivious to public antipathy toward police: The behavior code is the latest in several ministry initiatives in recent years aimed at cleaning up the police force's image.
The city police officer interviewed for this report, however, said several aspects of the code, including the ban on adultery, were absurd.
"If I walk out on my wife, that doesn't mean I am a bad policeman," he said.
Maxim Agarkov, a former analyst with the Interior Ministry's anti-terrorism department, called the code "useless."
"I have an impression that the personnel department staff that drafted it has never been to a police station," said Agarkov, now an analyst with the SK-Strategia think tank.
Agarkov said the adultery ban violated officers' constitutional right to privacy and that police had the right to smoke in public because there is no law forbidding it.
Yelnikov, the Interior Ministry spokesman, dismissed criticism of the code by current police officers, saying it was an "excuse" for their reluctance to do their work properly.
Both Agarkov and the city police officer said drinking on the job and hanging out with criminals -- both banned in the behavior code -- were necessary aspects of police work, particularly on undercover assignments.
"As I drink [with criminals], I extract valuable information from them," the officer said.
Drinking on the job, however, has spawned many incidents with police.
In one bizarre altercation earlier this month, the captain of the Lomonosovsky police precinct, near Moscow State University in western Moscow, hacked off the hand of one of his subordinates with an ax in a drunken argument during March 8 International Women's Day celebrations, the sensationalist web site Life.ru reported.
"Indeed, ahead of March 8 celebrations, a conflict broke out in the precinct, the circumstances and causes of which are now being established," RIA-Novosti cited a city police spokesman as saying on March 10.
Though the junior officer's hand was hanging from his arm by a "thin strip of skin," doctors managed to reattach it, Life.ru reported, adding in a subsequent report that the police captain had been fired.
The police spokesman told RIA-Novosti that an internal assessment of the incident was being conducted but gave no further details.
National Economic Trends
State Will Double Its Issue Of Bonds
26 March 2009
By Courtney Weaver / The Moscow Times
The Finance Ministry will sell 529 billion rubles ($15.7 billion) of treasury bonds this year and issue 50 percent to 100 percent more bonds in 2011 and 2012, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Wednesday, as the government looks for ways to finance a growing budget deficit and increase liquidity in its ailing financial system.
The government may also change some of its capital rules in efforts to recapitalize the banking sector, while shying away from the U.S. model of a "toxic assets" fund.
The bond issue amounts to nearly twice the amount of paper that the Finance Ministry sold last year, and the amount will increase each year to ease pressure on the Reserve Fund, which will cover this year's forecasted 8 percent budget deficit.
"This will happen every year -- it is a necessity due to the depletion of the Reserve Fund," Kudrin said in comments posted on the ministry's web site.
Russia does not need to create a toxic assets fund similar to that in the United States since the banking sector here is much less exposed to the web of problem assets, he said at a banking conference with Central Bank Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev.
"We don't think it's necessary to create a 'toxic assets' fund. We'll work with each bank individually, with the help of the Central Bank and the Deposit Insurance Agency," he said, adding that the primary risk of the U.S. model is that no one actually knows how much the assets are worth.
The Central Bank might allow banks to use subordinated loans for 50 percent of their tier one capital, Ulyukayev said.
Banks may be able to use 30-year subordinated loans for up to 15 percent of their tier-one capital, in addition to newly issued treasury bonds, a policy analysts said may amount to quantitative easing.
Because of the bad shape of the financial markets, the government will likely put the bonds directly into the banks' capital and skip the monetization process, said Mikhail Galkin, an analyst at MDM Bank.
"Banks will subsequently repo the bonds at the Central Bank," he said. "De facto is similar to quantitative easing, i.e. funding the deficit with the help of the Central Bank."
Allowing banks to use subordinated loans in this manner will give banks more time before they need to raise capital through share issues, said Mark Rubinstein, an analyst at Metropol.
Increased bond issues will also allow the Central Bank to expand its monetary policy tools beyond exchange rate targeting, he said.
"Now, monetary policy involves targeting the dollar-ruble exchange rate. Normally, it should revolve around the interest rates and around the government securities market," he said.
Kudrin acknowledged at the meeting that the percentage of nonperforming loans may rise as high as 10 percent in 2009, but he said the country has already managed to escape a "collapse of the banking sector."
Skeptics like Mayor Yury Luzhkov, however, were less sure. Speaking at an international business gathering on Wednesday, Luzhkov blamed the Finance Ministry for contributing to the country's economic woes.
"The government's measures suggested by our Western authority, Finance Minister Kudrin, will lead to the complete bankruptcy of the economic structure," he said.
Russia's international reserves up $9.2 bln to $385.3 bln over week
MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's international reserves that include gold and foreign exchange grew by $9.2 billion to $385.3 billion in the week of March 13-20, Russia's Central Bank said on Thursday.
Ivanov Wants Reserves Used Wisely
26 March 2009 Bloomberg
Russia, holder of the world's third-largest foreign reserves, must safeguard about one-fifth of the stockpile because of uncertainty about when the global crisis will end, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.
"We have to be cautious and, in my personal view, try to keep some part of the reserves for the dark days," Ivanov said. "We shouldn't throw all the reserves" at this crisis.
Russia's reserves have slumped 37 percent since reaching a record in July as the Central Bank sold dollars and euros to mitigate a 30 percent depreciation of the ruble against the dollar.
The stockpile fell $4.4 billion last week to $376.1 billion, according to Central Bank data. That amount should be enough to sustain Russia until 2010, Ivanov said.
Trade Surplus Seen Exceeding $50Bln
26 March 2009 Bloomberg
The Central Bank forecasts that the country's trade surplus will probably exceed $50 billion this year, Alexei Ulyukayev, the bank's first deputy chairman, said Wednesday, RIA-Novosti reported.
The country's trade surplus probably narrowed to $5.8 billion in February from $9.4 billion the previous month, the Economic Development Ministry said in a report published on its web site late Tuesday. Exports probably fell to $19.3 billion, from $19.7 billion in January, while imports increased to $13.5 billion from $10.3 billion a month earlier, the report said.
Russia's overall trade began to contract late in 2008 for the first time in five years as prices slumped for the country's oil and gas, the ministry said. Exports probably declined 45 percent during the first two months of 2009 compared with the same period last year, while imports dropped 34 percent, the report said.
Domestic Deposits Rise 1.5%
26 March 2009
Combined Reports
Russians increased deposits with domestic banks last month after the national currency stabilized and lenders increased interest rates on ruble accounts, Renaissance Capital said in a note Wednesday.
Individual deposits climbed to 6.23 trillion ($184.8 billion) in February, an increase of 1.5 percent compared with the previous month, while corporate deposits dropped by 2.2 percent in the month, analyst Andrei Markov wrote in the report.
Renaissance based its estimate on figures reported through March 1 by 365 banks, or more than 90 percent of Russia's banking system.
The figures were in line with comments Wednesday by Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Gennady Melikyan, who said households had increased their savings in ruble and foreign-currency denominated accounts, RIA-Novosti reported. He put the fall in corporate deposits at 1 percent, without giving a figure for households.
The decline on companies' accounts was worrying, but "there were drops throughout 2008, so it's too soon to draw any conclusions," Melikyan said.
The total loan portfolio shrank by 1 percent in the month, with every major nonstate bank recording a decline of between 1 percent and 8 percent, Renaissance said. The share of overdue loans grew to 3.7 percent of the total in February.
(Bloomberg, MT)
Govt to work bank proposals into crisis program within days – Kudrin
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) - The Russian government will finalize
its anti-crisis program with proposals from bankers taken into
consideration within days, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister
Alexei Kudrin told reporters.
"We'll finalize some of the proposals and work them into our anti-
crisis program within days," Kudrin said following a meeting with
representatives of the Association of Russian Banks and Association of
Regional Banks.
Top 100 banks saved from bankruptcy
Since October 1, 2008, Russian banks have repaid $50 billion worth of loan payments, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said at a banking conference in Moscow today.
“Russia’s top 100 banks have been saved from bankruptcy,” he stated. Describing the overall situation in the country’s banking sector, Kudrin said it had stabilized thanks to the Central Bank’s efforts. To illustrate his statement, he cited Russia’s international assets and liabilities of approx. $147 billion and $150 billion, respectively. The fact that the figures have come so close to each other is a sign of stabilization, according to the minister.
Vnesheconombank chairman Vladimir Dmitriyev informed the conference members that his bank was prepared to provide an additional RUB 50 billion to RUB 60 billion (approx. $1.5bn to $1.8bn) in subordinated loans to Russian banks. Vnesheconombank has issued RUB 257 billion (approx. $7.6bn) in subordinated loans, which are provided on terms of co-financing by shareholders and on the condition that the funds will be lent to real sector companies.
The Finance Ministry and the Central Bank do not see any point in creating a fund of bad assets, Kudrin said. “We have taken a cautious stand, watching developments on international markets,” he explained.
Europe and the United States adopted two different approaches: the U.S. has to set up a fund for problem assets, but in Europe an individual approach is applied to each bank, according to Kudrin.
“The problem of buying bad assets is the problem of the price for bad assets,” he said. At this point, the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry see no need for such a fund, preferring instead an individual approach to each bank.
Business, Energy or Environmental regulations or discussions
OGK-5 Sees Net Profits Up 11%
26 March 2009 Reuters
Power producer OGK-5, controlled by Italy's Enel, reported an 11 percent rise in 2008 net profits on Wednesday and warned that electricity prices must rise if it is to maintain investment.
The results under International Financial Reporting Standards showed that net profits rose to 1.63 billion rubles ($48.34 million) in 2008 from 1.47 billion rubles in the previous year. Revenues grew 28 percent to 42.8 billion rubles from 33.5 billion rubles in 2007.
The company said the growing demand for power in 2008 and progress in the liberalization of state-set power prices was behind the high revenue growth.
It added, however, that regulated electricity tariffs must be allowed to rise further to let OGK-5 renew ageing technology.
"Tariffs may not consistently allow for an adequate return on investment and currently do not provide sufficient funds for the full replacement of property, plant and equipment," it said.
Russia plans to gradually allow the price of power to reach market levels by 2011 under a sweeping reform of the sector. But some government officials have signaled that the plan may need to be revised as Russia seeks to control costs for companies and families hit by the financial crisis.
OGK-5 also said it secured a one-year loan facility for 2.5 billion rubles ($74.14 million) from Sberbank.
UPDATE 1-Russia's Mechel to place preferred shares from April
Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:37am EDT
*Coke producer to begin placing 138.8 mln shares April 1
*Company gives no further details on placement
(adds company comment, background)
MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Mechel (MTL.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Russia's largest coking coal producer, said in a statement on Thursday it will launch a placement of 138.8 million preferred shares on April 1.
A source familiar with the matter said last month the company would issue preferred shares totalling 15 percent of its charter capital as part of an agreement to acquire U.S. rival Bluestone Coal Corp from the James Justice family. [ID:nLQ435071]
A Mechel spokesman declined to provide further details when contacted by Reuters on Thursday.
The New York-listed company, controlled by billionaire Igor Zyuzin, indefinitely postponed a preferred share offering in August as its stock was hit by the market downturn and government criticism over its coal pricing.
At that time it hoped to raise more than $2.5 billion.
(Reporting by Alfred Kueppers; editing by John Stonestreet)
MMK boosts RAS revenue 19% in 2008
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) - Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK)
(RTS: MAGN) boosted sales revenue to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS)
19% in 2008 to 226 billion rubles, the company said.
MMK has said it cut net profit last year more than 80% to 10
billion rubles and had net loss of 23.4 billion rubles in the fourth
quarter.
It said on March 26 that the "net income change at the end of 2008
was driven by non-cash revaluation of investments in securities of
Russian and foreign entities, caused by negative trends of the global
financial markets; and prices markdown for the raw material stock
generated in 2008, which will allow to objectively reflect operations of
the company starting from the beginning of 2009."
"MMK continues to enjoy high levels of financial stability and
liquidity," the company said.
Today, Norilsk Nickelаs Board will consider a new 2009 budget and decide the fate of energy assets. The planned USD 2bn EBITDA for 2009 is reasonable, in our view. We argue that Norilsk shareholders would be better off without the energy assets on its balance sheet.
Norilsk Expects 2009 Net Profit of $1 Billion, Vedomosti Says
By Maria Kolesnikova
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel expects net profit of about $1 billion in 2009, Vedomosti reported.
Sales at Norilsk’s Russian operations will probably fall to $5.3 billion this year, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization will drop to $2 billion, it reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the company’s 2009 budget to be reviewed by the board of directors today.
Norilsk’s Russian operations may post 2008 revenue of about $11 billion and Ebitda of $6.5 billion, Vedomosti said.
Norilsk spokeswoman Erzhena Mintasova confirmed the board will discuss the 2008 financial results and the company’s 2009 budget today, declining to elaborate.
To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Kolesnikova in Moscow at mkolesnikova@.
Last Updated: March 26, 2009 03:07 EDT
MARCH 26, 2009
Rusal to Slash Costs, Output
Russian Aluminum Titan Seeks to Quell Fears Over Debt
By ALEXANDER KOLYANDR and GREGORY L. WHITE
Embattled Russian aluminum giant UC Rusal said Wednesday it is slashing costs and production to offset plunging prices for the metal. Executives also said they are optimistic they will reach a deal with creditors to restructure Rusal's $16.8 billion debt.
Amid growing fears the privately owned company could face bankruptcy or nationalization, top Rusal executives held their first-ever meeting with analysts in Moscow to make the case that the company will survive. Oleg Deripaska, Rusal's main shareholder and chief executive, didn't attend the meeting Wednesday.
Mr. Deripaska, once one of Russia's richest men, is scrambling to save his heavily indebted business empire, of which Rusal is the centerpiece. He won a $4.5 billion bailout loan from a Russian state bank late last year, but officials have since said they will no longer offer financial lifelines to struggling tycoons.
Wednesday, Rusal executives said the company is seeking new shareholders to help pay off its debts, but provided no details. Over the weekend, the company confirmed that Mikhail Prokhorov, a billionaire shareholder, had agreed to increase his stake in Rusal by 4.5% in exchange for writing off $2 billion the company owes him. Rusal's remaining $800 million debt to him will be restructured.
Rusal officials said they are negotiating to restructure the $4.5 billion government-bailout loan, which is due in November and accounts for most of the $8 billion in debt due this year. The executives said they might exchange the debt for bonds convertible into shares at a future public offering. Russian officials say the government doesn't want to nationalize Rusal.
The executives also said they hope to reach a restructuring pact with foreign creditors by the end of May on $7.4 billion in debt. That deal is expected to stretch out the maturities of the loans and link repayments to world aluminum prices, but also would see interest rates -- which average about 2.5% on the existing loans -- rise. Rusal also said it owes $2.1 billion to Russian banks apart from the bailout.
Company executives said they would consider production cuts of as much as 20% from last year's peak -- deeper than the 11% already announced -- if demand remains weak. Aluminum prices are down 39% from highs last summer and are now around $1,400 a metric ton.
Rusal plans to reduce the cash cost of production to $1,040 a ton by the third quarter, down from $1,385 last month and $1,890 in October, executives said. Much of the reduction will come from the sharp drop in the ruble's value against the dollar and Rusal's moves to close higher-cost smelters.
Write to Alexander Kolyandr at Alexander.Kolyandr@ and Gregory L. White at greg.white@
Creditor Feeding-Frenzy Around Rusal Wreck — Who Bites First Gets Cash
By John Helmer in Moscow
Denmark-based fleet operator Norden has hit United Company Rusal, the Russian aluminium monopoly controlled by Oleg Deripaska, with claims for shipping contract violations since last September. The liabilities total $98.3 million. Court documents break publicly for the first time the code of silence which usually covers Russian commodity trades, the cargo owners and the shippers.
Norden chief executive Carsten Mortensen refuses to say if London arbitration to enforce Norden’s contracts has already commenced.
US court records from the southern federal district of New York show, however, that Norden is charging a Jersey-registered Rusal trading company with breaking contracts for the shipment of 2.6 million tonnes of Queensland bauxite from the port of Weipa to Porto Vesme, the alumina refinery port in Sardinia. The tariff agreed was $64.64 per tonne, making a gross charge of $167 million. For this year, the contracts specify 15 shipments of 300,000 tonnes.
Rusal, one of the leading primary aluminium, alumina and bauxite producers in the world, has said in the past that all shipping data are company secrets; the company itself is privately owned and publishes no financial reports. Trade data are kept secret, because of the complex tolling and tax schemes which Rusal uses in Russia, and in its international operations. The Australian government keeps bauxite export data confidential.
According to the US court documents, Norden went into the New York federal district court in February to attach Rusal bank funds to secure payment, in the event the London arbitration awards Norden its claim. On February 10, US judge Richard Berman ordered 15 US and international banks, including Nordea of Finland, to freeze Rusal accounts up to $93.8 million in cash value.
Severstal, GAZ intend to agree on suits in amount of 400mln rubles
26.03.09 10:45
Severstal has submitted a petition to postpone the hearing of the claim for 288 million rubles to JSC GAZ, the RBC reported with reference to the Arbitration Court of Volograd region. The sitting was postponed for March 30, 2009.
The second petition in the amount of 110 million rubles will be considered on April 14.
Severstal and Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ) will review their own actions to resolve the dispute and agree on suits worth about 400 million rubles.
Severstal did not comment on this information.
Previously, it was reported that the group of GAZ has a debt to Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine and Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in the amount of 1 billion rubles respectively.
GAZ is Russia's largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles and road construction equipment. The group of GAZ comprises GAZ, 18 automotive companies in Russia, the British LDV auto company.
Severstal is a vertically integrated producer of steel. Production facilities are located in Russia, Europe and the U.S. In 2008, company produced 19.2 million tons of steel.
UralChem moves payment of $333 mln in loans to 2010-2012
MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) - OJSC UralChem has reached an
agreement with its banking creditors for refinancing $333 million in
debt, which was set for payment in 2009.
The company said in a statement that, according to terms set out in
agreements with CJSC UniCredit Bank, CJSC Raiffeisenbank and Sberbank
(RTS: SBER), the payment period for these loans have been moved to 2010-
2012.
"After prolonging the payment period of these loans, total debt for
redemption in 2009 comes to around $130 million, which is comfortable
for UralChem," the statement said, quote the company's CFO, Anton
Vischanenko.
The company also said that this measure, along with UralChem's
program to raise production efficiency and reduce costs, would allow the
company to overcome the consequences of the world financial crisis.
UAC Will Help Leasing Unit Pay Back Bonds After Default
26 March 2009 Bloomberg
The United Aircraft Corporation will help its unit, the Finance Leasing Company, repay $250 million to bondholders after it became the first state-run Russian company in more than a decade to default on a foreign-currency coupon payment, Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said.
"The management of United Aircraft is very active in trying to settle the issue," Ivanov said in an interview in his Moscow office. UAC must "act somehow to help" because the state corporation faces a cross default on its debt, he said.
Bond holders are seeking "accelerated" repayment on the securities after FLC missed coupon payments on its $150 million of 10 percent bonds due in 2013 and $100 million of 9.25 percent four-year notes in December. The plane-leasing company is 28.7 percent owned by the Russian government and 51.8 percent by UAC, the state aerospace holding.
No other government-backed company has failed to service its foreign-currency debt since Russia defaulted on sovereign ruble bonds in 1998, said Mikhail Galkin, an analyst at MDM-Bank.
Russian companies have about $100 billion of foreign-currency debt to repay this year and are struggling to refinance loans and bonds as the financial crisis cuts access to funding.
Ivanov, a board member at UAC and a former defense minister, said FLC's previous management was responsible for the default and that an investigation was now being held to discover "whether that was mismanagement or something worse."
"It's a specific case, it has nothing to do with all Russian government-owned businesses and I don't think it will affect Russian bonds," Ivanov said.
Kirill Baranov, FLC's deputy chief executive officer, could not be reached for comment.
Carrefour to open 1st Moscow store in May – sources
Wed Mar 25, 2009 12:25pm EDT
MOSCOW, March 25 (Reuters) - French hypermarket chain Carrefour (CARR.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is on track to open its first store in Moscow in May, the long-awaited move by the world's No.2 food retailer into Russia, real estate sources told Reuters.
"Carrefour will open up in the Filion trade centre as expected in May, the likely period is May 10 to 30," a source at the trade centre's developer said. Carrefour spokesman Alexei Shavenzov said Carrefour "intends to serve the customers of the first hypermarket in Moscow in summer this year" but declined to specify the opening date.
According to Jones Lang LaSalle, the leasing agent for the trade center, Carrefour will occupy 14,300 square metres of space on two floors of the mall, which will open in May.
It will neighbour franchised stores of Britain's Marks & Spencer (MKS.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Spain's Zara (ITX.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and C&A, already present in Russia, as well as Russian sports goods chain Sportmaster and children's store Detsky Mir, part of the Sistema (SSAq.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) holding.
"Everything is signed, all (tenants) should open up," said Yulia Turukhina, head of marketing and public relations at Jones Lang LaSalle in Moscow. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; editing by Melissa Akin)
Tata Tea to buy stake in Russian firm
Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:33pm IST
MUMBAI (Reuters) - Tata Tea Ltd's overseas unit and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will acquire 51 percent in a Russian firm Grand, the two firms said in separate statements.
Grand is a Russian branding, packaging and distribution company and a well known player in coffee and tea sector of that country, EBRD said in a release on its website.
The acquisition will help Tata Tea strengthen its presence in Russian beverages market, the India tea company said on Thursday, adding that Tata Tea will hold 33.2 percent, while EBRD will hold 17.8 percent after the acquisition.
The founders of the Russian firm will hold the balance 49 percent, Tata Tea added. The acquisition would be completed during the first half of 2009, it said.
No further financial details were available.
At 12:00 p.m., shares in Tata Tea were up 1.84 percent at 554 rupees in a firm Mumbai market.
NBC Uni taps head of Russian channels
Merab Gabuniya in newly created managing director post
By Mimi Turner
March 25, 2009, 06:30 PM ET
| |
LONDON -- NBC Universal Global Networks on Wednesday named Merab Gabuniya managing director of its Russian channels, underlining its aggressive expansion plans in the region.
Reporting to Central and Eastern head Colin McLeod, Moscow-based Gabuniya's mandate is to expand NBC's entertainment channel portfolio across Russia and build relationships with affiliate platforms and advertising sales clients in the region.
The newly created post highlights NBC Universal's aim to be a player in the region, where it now has four pay TV channels including Hallmark Channel, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in Russia last year; Sci Fi; Universal Channel, which launched last May; and KidsCo (a joint venture channel with Corus and Cookie Jar Entertainment.)
Prior to taking the NBC Uni post, Gabuniya was deputy director of the AFK Systema group where he established Russia's first IPTV platform, Stream TV, and led Systema's VOD project. He also was head of production and distribution of their first thematic channels in Russia.
Russian Government Agrees to Finance Alrosa Diamond Output
[pic]26.03.09, 10:58 / World [pic]Russian government ministers have agreed to make a substantial increase in state funding for the stockpile agency, Gokhran, to buy Alrosa's diamond mine production this year.
It is far from clear, however, what proportion of the diamond production will not be bought by Gokhran; and what cuts to the mine output plan Alrosa management may now be obliged to make, if any.
Alrosa sources confirm that at a cabinet session last week, the Finance Ministry proposal was approved to spend Rb45.4 billion ($1.3 billion) for Gokhran diamond purchases. This compares with Rb11.45 billion allocated last year when the Gokhran budget for 2009 was first formulated and voted.
The only other disclosure for the new Gokhran budget is that the stockpile will sell gold, platinum and palladium to realize a target revenue of Rb47.4 billion ($1.4 billion).
It appears that the new budget for purchasing will be spent predominantly, if not entirely, on rough diamonds, while sales from the stockpile will be restricted to the precious metals. Depending on the movement in gold and platinum group metal prices, some income from sales may be reserved to purchase domestically produced precious metals.
Alrosa sources say that Gokhran transactions are covered by state secrecy, and they cannot disclose what carat volume of diamonds the new budget is intended to acquire. Nor can they say what the per-carat pricing formula that will be applied. In its annual reports, Alrosa does not issue diamond carat production figures in aggregate, or for individual mines, although these data are not subject to the current state secrecy regulations.
Last September, the Alrosa board, which is chaired by the Minister of Finance, Alexei Kudrin, approved a production target for this year of rough diamonds valued at $2.36 billion. A company statement claimed at the time that "the approved tentative targets for 2009 provide for maintaining production at the 2008 level."
On December 30, following another board meeting, Alrosa reported that it was cutting its rough diamond sales target for this year to $2.44 billion, a cut of 12% on the reported sales level of 2008. Sales in 2008 were reported to have been $2.76 billion, a decline of 1.1% on the 2007 level. Since December, Alrosa has announced that it has halted all rough diamond sales to the international markets.
Since the new Gokhran purchasing target is 45% of the September 2008 diamond production target for 2009, it is possible that Alrosa and Gokhran have agreed to a cost pricing formula that will keep the mines working to their pre-crisis plan, without production cuts or worker layoffs, and deliver the same volume of rough at a heavy discount to last year's average market price. It is also possible that Alrosa may have to implement diamond production cuts at the mines.
A third option, which Alrosa is also considering, is to fill the gap between diamond mine production and Gokhran deliveries by sales to the domestic Russian diamond manufacturers, and to strategic partners.
This is a highly sensitive political issue at the moment, as the economy of the Sakha republic, where Alrosa's diamond mines operate, is dependent on the jobs and revenues generated by Alrosa. In addition, the President of the republic, Vyacheslav Shtirov, is seeking to oust the Alrosa chief executive, Sergei Vybornov, from his post, and take it for himself. Vybornov has been confident that he could fight off Shtirov's challenge. Sources close to him have been saying that if the Gokhran formula sustained full production at the mines, the outcome would demonstrate federal government backing for Vybornov to remain in place.
Shtirov met Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on February 25 to lobby for the job change, and also for federal budget support for Sakha's economy. He reportedly told Putin the Sakha budget needs a $3 billion injection in additional federal funds this year.
Putin did not disclose his decision on the Alrosa job issue. A source close to Vybornov said he cannot go into the meaning of the federal budget numbers. “The only thing I can tell you is that [Alrosa mine production and rough diamond sales] plans for 2009 have not yet been reviewed, but they may be reviewed in April,” the source told . This appears to be a hint that the government must now decide on the headship question before the company board can modify either production or sales targets for the year.
Vladimir Rybkin, the long-serving chief of Gokhran, which operates under the Finance Ministry, is quoted in a Moscow newspaper as saying that, now the budget revisions for his agency have been authorized, he will present a scheme of purchasing to the Finance Ministry within a week of State Duma action on the revised budget.
Kommersant
State to support Russia's diamond monopoly
This year the government plans to increase by several times spending on replenishing the State Fund of Precious Metals and Precious Stones. Most of the money will be used to purchase diamonds from the Alrosa company. The adjusted 2009 budget has set aside about 45 billion rubles for these purposes. At the same time, the government is planning to boost sales of precious metals on external markets.
A government source says that most of the state-allocated sums will be used to buy diamonds from Alrosa. "This is a political decision. In fact, we have here anti-crisis measures for Yakutia whose revenues depend directly on the financial situation of Alrosa," the source said. According to the source, money to buy diamonds for the State Fund will come from the sale of some of the state reserves of gold and other precious metals whose liquidity is currently much higher than that of precious stones.
According to a Yakutia government spokesman, "amid the financial crisis the republic looks to the center for serious aid." The republic's requirements are estimated at $3 billion.
Last fall, Alrosa and its biggest customer De Beers announced a sizeable cut in rough stone deliveries to keep prices from falling. But since the beginning of the year demand for diamonds on world markets has dropped practically to zero: Alrosa has not held a single tender to sell unpolished stones since the start of the year. In this situation, the State Precious Metals and Gemstones Repository (Gokhran, a state institution under the Finance Ministry that forms the State Fund) has remained practically the only guarantor of the company's liquidity.
"The purchase by Gokhran of uncut diamonds from Alrosa is the only way out, because the company bears a huge social burden," says Sergei Goryainov, an expert from Rough&Polished agency.
In addition, according to him, the costs of mothballing Alrosa's only one underground mine are comparable with costs of completing its construction.
"Now any support for the company is welcome, especially if the state gets some kind of material asset in return, be it gold or diamonds," said Alexei Moiseyev, a Renaissance Capital analyst. He noted that diamonds are much less liquid than gold.
Gazeta.ru
Foreign carmakers commission new assembly plants in Russia
Russian automakers are reducing production, whereas foreign corporations are increasing their output in the country. Analysts say full-scale production will become the trump card of foreign carmakers during the crisis.
Germany's Volkswagen, which owns the Skoda trademark, has launched full-scale production of Skoda Octavia at its plant in Kaluga, some 100 km (62 miles) southwest of Moscow. It includes welding and painting. VW also plans to roll off Skoda Superb, the most expensive and prestigious Skoda car, in the near future.
The assembly of several other foreign cars will soon start in Russia.
Nissan Teana, a business class model, is to be assembled at a plant near St. Petersburg, and GM will start producing Chevrolet Cruze in the city this summer. Korea's Hyundai is also to begin production in St. Petersburg, and a consortium of the French Peugeot Citroen and Japanese Mitsubishi carmakers will commission a plant in Kaluga next year.
Analysts say that Russia's decision to increase import duties on foreign cars is forcing automakers to invest in their Russian projects.
Ivan Bonchev, senior manager and CIS Automotive Leader with Ernst & Young, said: "Producers can keep their prices low during the crisis by operating Russian plants. It is especially important now that many people cannot take out auto loans."
In his words, major producers of auto components may come to Russia exactly because there are foreign car assemblies here. However, the market of auto components will not boom soon because foreign companies are making a limited number of automobiles, and the low demand on the market prevents them from increasing production to the planned level.
The approved privileges are not enough to encourage the development of the auto market, Bonchev said, adding that the Russian government could approve more radical measures, such as stricter conditions for localizing auto plants.
BMW to Start Producing X5, X6 Models in Russia as Demand Rises
By Anastasia Ustinova
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s biggest maker of luxury cars, will start producing its X5 and X6 models in Russia this year to meet rising demand.
“We’ll start receiving orders in April and production will start in July,” Christian Kremer, head of BMW Group Russia, told reporters in Moscow today. BMW’s Russian sales rose 13 percent in the first two months of the year, versus the same period last year, Kremer said.
BMW sold a record 19,236 cars and SUVs in the country last year, a gain of 31 percent. The 1,000 X5 and 1,000 X6 models that BMW plans to produce in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad this year will 6 percent to 10 percent cheaper than current prices, Kremer said today.
The Association of European Businesses, which includes the Munich-based company as a member, estimates that the new car sales in Russia will probably fall at least 19 percent this year as the economy stumbles, undermining incomes, and ruble depreciation increases the price of imports.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anastasia Ustinova in Moscow austinova@
Last Updated: March 26, 2009 04:48 EDT
Activity in the Oil and Gas sector (including regulatory)
Gas Forum Timeline
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a loose group of gas suppliers including Russia, Iran and Qatar, wants to re-register as a more formal organization with a new charter by August, a government source said Wednesday.
Its 11 members' candidates for secretary general must be named by the end of May, the source said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak officially on the group's plans. Energy ministers from the countries will vote on the candidates at the next meeting, this fall or December, he said.
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum convened in Moscow in December to adopt a charter that seeks to give it more influence and agreed to work more closely to control supply levels. (MT)
Oil Exploration Investment Falls 16%
26 March 2009
Combined Reports
Investment into exploration for Russian oil fell 16 percent last year as the costs of running producing fields increased and oil output declined, a Natural Resources and Environment Ministry official said Wednesday.
Investment into exploration fell to 138.7 billion rubles ($4.2 billion), said Grigory Vygon, director of finance and economics at the ministry.
Oil fields required a 30 percent increase in investment to 723 billion rubles last year compared with 2007 and produced slightly less, the statement said.
The country produced 488.49 million tons of crude oil in 2008, 0.6 percent less than the previous year, according to Energy Ministry statistics.
Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Tuesday that the country could maintain or slightly raise output this year if oil prices stay above $50 per barrel.
Russia’s subsoil regulator may propose new tax breaks for companies producing oil from depleted fields and low-flow wells. We see no immediate impact on Rosneft, LUKOIL or Gazprom Neft.
Russia eyes new Turkmenistan gas pact
Wire reports
Russia and Turkmenistan will soon sign new agreements on natural gas production and transportation, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said today.
"We studied in detail cooperation in the fuel and energy sector, including progress in the implementation of very important accords, such as the intergovernmental agreement on the Caspian pipeline, and other projects," Medvedev said after talks in Moscow with his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.
Medvedev said in a RIA Novosti report that the countries were already working on the new agreements.
"These documents will be finalised, and I expect we'll sign them in the near future," he said.
The presidents gave their backing today to the idea of holding an international energy conference in the Turkmen capital in April.
"The heads of state ... spoke in favor of holding an international conference in Ashgabat in April to discuss ways of ensuring the uninterrupted transportation of hydrocarbons to global markets," they said in a joint statement.
Berdymukhammedov also invited the Russian leader to visit Turkmenistan.
Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko told journalists today that Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko would soon head for Ashgabat to finalise an agreement on the East-West gas pipeline, to link northeastern Turkmen deposits with the Caspian gas pipeline.
He said the Russian and Turkmen leaders would soon meet again to sign the deal.
The construction of the Caspian gas pipeline is due to start this year, and will also involve Kazakhstan.
Wednesday, 25 March, 2009, 18:10 GMT | last updated: Wednesday, 25 March, 2009, 18:10 GMT
Russian, Turkmen Leaders Postpone Pipeline Accord
26 March 2009
The Moscow Times
President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov pledged friendship and cooperation in a meeting Wednesday in Moscow, but there was little in the way of concrete agreements between Russia and gas-rich Turkmenistan.
The two leaders discussed cooperation on telecommunications and agriculture and extended invitations to one another to attend agricultural forums to be held this year in St. Petersburg and the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat.
They also signed an agreement to build direct railway and ferry links throughout towns in the Astrakhan region, which borders the Caspian Sea.
While the two leaders discussed the importance of reliable gas deliveries, the signing of an accord on the East-West gas pipeline was postponed until their next meeting, said Sergei Prikhodko, an aide to Medvedev.
The link, which Prikhodko said could cost $1 billion to build, is widely seen as a potential challenge to the Western-backed Nabucco pipeline, which seeks to bring natural gas from Central Asia to Europe, bypassing Russia.
The date of the next meeting was not announced.
The topic of natural gas deliveries has been a sensitive one for Russia in recent months. The country broke off talks with Ukraine on Tuesday after Kiev angered the Kremlin by asking the European Union to modernize its pipeline network, which carries 80 percent of Russian gas supplies to Europe.
The spat revived fears of a repeat of January's gas dispute between the two countries, when major European customers were left without Russian gas for two weeks in the dead of winter.
Russia and Turkmenistan had a trade volume of $6.9 billion dollars last year, $6 billion of which came from natural gas exports.
TURKMEN-RUSSIAN GAS TALKS DIFFICULT -- SOURCE
3/25/09
The Kremlin is growing nervous about Turkmenistan’s coy approach to energy exports. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was hoping to secure a firm commitment to a Russian pipeline plan for the Caspian Basin from Turkmen leader Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. But talks in Moscow on March 25 merely yielded agreement that more discussions were necessary.
A source described the meeting as "difficult," adding that the two presidents focused on the issue of Turkmenistan’s participation in the Prikaspiiski pipeline project. Medvedev reportedly implored Berdymukhamedov to accelerate the pace of work on the 500-kilometer Turkmen segment of the project.
A Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source involved in preparation for Berdymukhamedov’s visit told newspaper Kommersant on March 25 that Moscow is increasingly wary of Turkmenistan’s "multi-vector" energy policy. The Prikaspiiski project was announced in 2007, but little substantive work has been done to turn the plan into reality.
Shtokman players set for cash hunt
News wires
The partners in Russia's Shtokman gas project will begin talks this year with banks over financing, the head of its operating company said today after a Norwegian diplomat eased fears over possible problems.
The first stage of the ambitious project, which is controlled by Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom , will cost $15 billion though partners will be able to initially finance part of it, Yuri Komarov told Reuters.
"We will begin intense talks with banks this year ... The founders understand that initially funding will come from our own capital," Komarov said.
Exact investment figures for the project, in which France's Total has a 25% stake and Norway's StatoilHydro 24%, will be available in the first quarter of next year, he added.
Norway's Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store told Reuters in an interview today that Shtokman investment will not be linked to a dispute between Norway's Telenor and Russia's Alfa Group for control of Russian telecom operator Vimpelcom .
Shtokman, in the barents Sea, has recoverable reserves of 3.8 trillion cubic metres, making it one of the world's biggest gas fields.
Gas production is expected to begin in 2013, while liquefied natural gas will start a year later.
Wednesday, 25 March, 2009, 15:02 GMT | last updated: Wednesday, 25 March, 2009, 15:02 GMT
“No delays at Shtokman”
2009-03-25
Head of the Shtokman Development AG today repeated that there will be no delays in the Shtokman project in the Barents Sea.
Mr. Yury Komarov today told journalists that LNG production in the project will start in 2014, RIA Novosti reports.
He maintained that production start-up will not be delayed, although the project final investment decision has been postponed from fall 2009 to spring 2010.
The postponement of the investment decision is linked with the major volumes of preparatory work, but this will not affect the other project deadlines, he stressed. –[….] There are many complicated questions, the region is specific, he said.
Halliburton Awarded $100 Million Multiple Services Contract in Russia
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Halliburton has been awarded a major contract extension by Salym Petroleum Development N.V. (SPD) for exploration and production services in Western Siberia, Russia. Valued at approximately (USD) $100 million, the four-year contract calls for the provision of directional-drilling, measurement-while-drilling and logging-while-drilling, along with drilling fluids and cementing services and continues Halliburton’s proven record of service delivery in the SPD fields for the last three years. The new wells to be drilled, with an average true vertical depth of 2,600 meters, include 400 S-shaped wells, plus directional and extended-reach wells.
The SPD oilfields - located in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, 120 kilometers southwest of Surgut - include West Salym, Upper Salym and the Vadelyp fields.
"SPD’s 'drilling-the-limit' approach challenges us to continuously improve our performance,” said Iain Dowell, Halliburton’s country vice president for Russia. “We have established a high benchmark in terms of well quality and deliverability for its Russian drilling operations.”
Halliburton’s proven capabilities delivered under the initial contract include:
- Establishing a record drilling time of 5.6 days, when the average drilling time for S-shaped wells in Western Siberia ranges between 23 and 28 days for wells up to 2,800 meters deep;
- Customizing Halliburton's BOREMAX® II high-performance, water-based drilling fluid system to reduce treatment cost per foot drilled and minimize the environmental impact; and
- Delivering zonal isolations for the life of the well through deployment of dedicated crews and harsh-environment cementing units.
TNK-BP: In Anticipation of Profit
March 25, 2009, Wednesday
TNK-BP is to increase its exploration funding. Despite substantial cuts in its business plan, Russo-British TNK-BP has no intention of saving on exploration investment. Tim Summers, the Chairman of its Management Board, announced yesterday that the company will additionally invest around 1 billion roubles into the company’s exploration activities. No information is available on TNK-BP’s total exploration spend. In addition, Mr. Summers believes that TNK-BP will be back in profit as early as the first quarter of 2009.
TNK-BP’s press office yesterday quoted the Chairman of the company’s Management Board, Tim Summers, as saying that the Management Board had last week endorsed additional exploration funding for 2009 of 1 billion roubles ($29 million). He said TNK-BP is maintaining its spending on safety, environment and new projects such as the Uvat and Kamennoye fields. But the crisis has forced the company to revise its investment in refining and a number of marketing projects and to “cut its long-term exploration investment”. Summers explained that TNK-BP attaches such great importance to exploration with a view to holding production levels steady in the future, adding that “production growth so far is even greater than planned”.
The company’s current business plan envisages investment of around $3 billion, which is 32% down on 2008. How much of this is earmarked for exploration is not yet known, however, and TNK-BP’s press office had no comment on the subject.
Mr. Summers yesterday also said he was confident that the company would make a profit in the first quarter of the year, repeating something stated earlier by the head of BP, Tony Hayward. At that time the British company had estimated the 4th-quarter losses on its share of the JV (50%) at $700 million. Somewhat later, one of TNK-BP’s co-owners, German Khan, spoke about losses of $1.2 billion. TNK-BP plans to publish its full-year US GAAP results in the first half of April.
“Thanks to the improved situation in the industry, Russian oil companies can expect to make a profit on their operations in the first quarter”, thinks IFD Kapital analyst Vitaliy Kryukov. “In the fourth quarter, export tax, MET and transportation costs amounted to around 99% of the Urals price (even without taking into account lifting costs, commercial, administrative and overhead expenses, interest payments and other costs), but in the current quarter this has dropped to 59% of the Urals price”, he explained. “In addition, the companies have earned a lot on the weakening of the rouble.” According to Natalya Milchakova, an analyst at FK Otkrytiye, TNK-BP and other oil exporters have every chance of making a net profit in the first quarter. This is because export duties have fallen in this period by 3.4% for crude, 3% for light products, and 2% for fuel oil, while the price of Urals is up more than 34%. In addition, Milchakova believes TNK-BP could allocate around 1% of its investment plan to exploration work. According to the company’s latest reporting, this amounted to $37 million in the first half of last year.
Source: RBK daily
Gazprom
Russia threat over pipe plan
News wires
Russia's Gazprom warned Ukraine against implementing plans to modernise its pipelines without consulting Moscow, saying any such action would immediately affect gas supplies to Europe.
Ukraine has called on the EU, which gets most of its imported Russian gas via Ukraine, to help fund modernisation of its pipeline system.
The proposal has angered the Kremlin and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Moscow could review its ties with the EU if its interests are ignored.
Gazprom, Russia's gas export monopoly headed by Alexei Miller, said late yesterday that any changes to Ukraine's pipelines, built as part of a single Soviet-era system also including Russia, would need the company's approval or risk disrupting gas production and output across Eurasia.
"Unapproved change in the Ukraine gas pipeline system's operations will immediately affect not only export supplies but also the production process of Russian and Central Asian gas and may entail unpredictable consequences for the whole Eurasian territory," Oleg Aksyutin, head of Gazprom's transportation department, said in a statement.
Neither Putin nor other Russian officials, have said what exactly they dislike about Ukraine's plan but analysts say it could diminish Russia's importance as a global energy supplier and potentially damage Gazprom's profits.
Relations between Moscow and Kiev over gas have long been strained due to disagreements over prices and payments.
This latest dispute has revived fears of a repeat of January's three-week stand-off that left millions in Europe without gas in the dead of winter.
Gazprom, the world's largest gas producer, supplies Europe with a quarter of its gas. Around 80% of this comes through Ukraine's pipelines.
Thursday, 26 March, 2009, 09:34 GMT | last updated: Thursday, 26 March, 2009, 09:48 GMT
Russia's Gazprom warns Ukraine over pipeline plan
Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:22am EDT
MOSCOW, March 26 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) warned Ukraine against implementing plans to modernise its pipelines without consulting Moscow, saying any such action would immediately affect gas supplies to Europe.
Ukraine has called on the European Union, which gets most of its imported Russian gas via Ukraine, to help fund modernisation of its pipeline system. The proposal has angered the Kremlin and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said Moscow could review its ties with the EU if its interests are ignored.
Gazprom, Russia's gas export monopoly, said late on Wednesday that any changes to Ukraine's pipelines, built as part of a single Soviet-era system also including Russia, would need the company's approval or risk disrupting gas production and output across Eurasia.
"Unapproved change in the Ukraine gas pipeline system's operations will immediately affect not only export supplies but also the production process of Russian and Central Asian gas and may entail unpredictable consequences for the whole Eurasian territory," Oleg Aksyutin, head of Gazprom's transportation department, said in a statement.
Neither Putin nor other Russian officials, have said what exactly they dislike about Ukraine's plan but analysts say it could diminish Russia's importance as a global energy supplier and potentially damage Gazprom's profits. [ID:nLP440592]
Relations between Moscow and Kiev over gas have long been strained due to disagreements over prices and payments. This latest dispute has revived fears of a repeat of January's three-week stand-off that left millions in Europe without gas in the dead of winter.
Gazprom, the world's largest gas producer, supplies Europe with a quarter of its gas. Around 80 percent of this comes through Ukraine's pipelines. (Reporting by Tanya Mosolova, editing by Anthony Barker)
GAZPROM INCREASES STAKE IN ARMENIAN GAS DISTRIBUTION
3/25/09
Russian natural gas giant Gazprom has taken over Itera International Energy’s shares in ArmRosGazprom, Armenia’s exclusive gas supplier, Russian and Armenian news agencies reported March 26.
The Russian-owned Itera International Energy Group, which is involved in energy-related business throughout the former Soviet Union, sold its 4.5 percent equity share in the company to Gazprom on March 12, the A1plus news site reported.
Through the deal, Gazprom increased its share in ArmRosGazprom to 80 percent. The Armenian government holds the remaining 20-percent stake.
Russia is the sole supplier of gas to Armenia. Construction was recently completed on a new pipeline that will carry gas from Iran to Armenia, but the Armenian Ministry of Energy has stated that Iranian gas will in no way take the place of Russian gas, the Panorama.am news site reported.
Gazprom, Japan’s energy agency signed an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation
MOSCOW, March 25 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s Gazprom and Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy have signed an agreement on scientific and technical cooperation, the gas major’s press service said after the talks between Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and the Japanese agency’s chief, Toru Ishida.
The partners discussed the work of the joint coordinating committee, in particular the feasibility study of the project to create a gas processing plant on the basis of the Sobinsky oil and gas condensate field in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Gazprom and Japan’s agency signed the framework agreement on cooperation in 2005, PRIME-TASS reports. To implement the agreement they set up a coordinating committee, which gathered for its first meeting in Japan in December 2008.Then the parties signed an agreement on the Sobinsky oil and gas condensate field.
March 25 2009 11:10
Moscow
On working meeting between Alexey Miller and Toru Ishida
The Gazprom Headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Toru Ishida, Director General of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The meeting discussed the activities of the Joint Coordinating Committee, placing a focus on the progress in implementing the Agreement to jointly develop the investment rationale for the Project aimed at creating gas processing and chemical facilities to be fed with feedstock resources from the Sobinskoye oil and gas condensate field (Krasnoyarsk Krai).
At the meeting the parties signed a Sci-Tech Cooperation Agreement.
The parties also confirmed their interest in further promoting the dialogue on a broad spectrum of issues.
Background:
Gazprom and the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan signed the Framework Agreement of Cooperation in 2005.
The Joint Coordinating Committee, which held its 4th meeting in Japan (December, 2008) was set up with the aim of implementing the Agreement.
The Committee includes the Joint Working Group for various activities.
In December 2008 Gazprom and the Agency signed the Agreement to jointly develop the investment rationale for the Project aimed at creating gas processing and chemical facilities to be fed with feedstock resources from the Sobinskoye oil and gas condensate field.
March 25 2009 17:00
Moscow
Regular meeting of Gazprom Board of Directors to take place March 31
A regular meeting of the Gazprom Board of Directors will take place on March 31, at 3:00pm Moscow time. The meeting agenda will be as follows:
• On Gazprom’s sci-tech complex development;
• On the development and introduction prospects for gas and energy saving technologies and their impact on Russia’s fuel and energy balance optimization;
• On the development status and outlook for the system of exchange trading in natural gas.
Gazprom Space Systems was selected as the Corporate Teleport Operator of the Year
Corporate Teleport Operator of the Year — Gazprom Space Systems (Russia) — Gazprom Space Systems was selected as the Corporate Teleport Operator of the Year based on a 48% revenue growth rate in 2008. Mixing support for Gazprom corporate operations with service to outside customers, Gazprom currently operates three mid-size Yamal satellites covering Russia/CIS and most of the Eastern hemisphere, four teleports in Moscow and the Moscow regions connected by a fiber network, as well as a wide network of earth stations across Russia. As an operator, service provider and system integrator, Gazprom serves over 200 customers with a satellite fill rate of over 90%. In 2008, the Gazprom Board of Directors approved a prospective plan for growing the space business through 2015 including the addition of eight satellites and building a new teleport in the Moscow region. Gazprom was listed to WTA’s Global Top Twenty in 2008 and to The Fast Twenty in 2008 and 2007.
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