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Opinion

Yevgeny Kiselyov

THE MOSCOW TIMES

assions are raging in Kiev over the agreement President Dmitry Med- vedev signed with

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanu- kovych on April 21 in Kharkiv that provides a significant dis- count on the price of Russian gas in exchange for extending the lease for the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol until 2042. The opposition has already labeled the agreement the “Medvedev-Yanukovych Pact” in an obvious attempt to cre- ate a negative association in people’s minds with the infa- mous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Critics of the new Ukrainian president, who assumed office in February, have increased their vitriol against Yanukovych, resorting to a host of ideological cliches and un- convincing arguments. For their part, foreign jour-

nalists have also been guilty of using cliches in reporting the story. For example, they often refer to Yanukovych as a pro- Russian politician. They never tire of reminding readers that Moscow had supported Yanu- kovych in his failed run in the last presidential election of 2004, and that the Kremlin’s support played a key role in his defeat. They speak as if Kiev has definitively returned to Mos- cow’s orbit. I have written more than once

that it is highly doubtful that Yanukovych has a pro-Russia bias — if for no other reason than the political party he heads, the Party of the Regions, is run by the owners of major Ukrai- nian coal, metallurgical, mining and chemical companies that have more ties with Europe and Asia than they do with Russia. At the same time, however,

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A NEW LEASE ON UKRAINE

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these enterprises cannot exist without Russian gas. The origi- nal price for that gas, which Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Yulia Tymoshenko agreed to in January 2009, was exor- bitantly high for them. Tymosh- enko was never able to explain clearly why Russian gas para- doxically cost Ukraine about $50 more per 1,000 cubic meters than, for example, Germany, which is located much farther from Russia’s borders. Now that Tymoshenko is part

of the opposition, she accuses Yanukovych of putting the busi- ness interests of Ukraine’s oli- garchs above the country’s na- tional interests. But there is another side to the story, about which the opposition is silent. The enterprises owned by those notorious oligarchs employ mil- lions of people who will be de- prived of a means of survival should those firms halt produc- tion or go bankrupt. What’s more, some of those plants are the sole source of income for entire towns. If they fail, those company towns will die with them. The Ukrainian economy is on the verge of collapse. The coun-

try is suffering from a decline in production and a sharp drop in tax revenues. It has a huge budget deficit, enormous debt, an empty treasury and a high poverty rate. The gas-for-fleet agreement that enables the Ukrainian government to save up to $4 billion per year is like a new lease on life for Ukraine’s dying economy. Without that cut in gas prices, Ukraine could not have shown an acceptable national budget to the Inter- national Monetary Fund and resume cooperation with that organization. Now it is eligible to receive another $6 billion or $7 billion this year and up to $20 billion over the long term. It is clear that Yanukovych had

few other options available to him than to sign the deal. But the question most peo-

ple are asking is: Why did the Russian side suddenly agree to concessions that will cost it $40 billion over the next 10 years in gas discounts in return for extending the lease of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, partic- ularly when the fleet has lost almost all of its military and stra- tegic importance anyway? With that money, Russia could build a new base for the fleet on the Russian Black Sea coast, mod- ernize the ships and make all of the officers rich to boot. There are several reasons for

Russia’s generous terms. The Kremlin probably realized that the previous prices for Russian gas were exorbitant. This would inevitably lead to a payment de-

DRAWING BY DMITRY DIVIN

fault and a new “gas war” be- tween Russia and Ukraine that would cause billions of dollars of lost revenue for Russia and lead to angry accusations from European gas customers of “Russian energy blackmail.” There were political factors

as well: Russia’s presidential elec- tion is only two years away, and regardless of whether the rul- ing party chooses to run Med- vedev or Putin for president, ei- ther one could bolster his

campaign by boasting that Rus- sia’s flag as well as the Navy’s St. Andrew’s flag will flutter over Sevastopol’s bay for at least an- other quarter of a century. What’s more, judging from statements Putin made at a news conference on Monday, he is playing a complicated and tricky political game. In one sense, he is presenting himself as the guardian of the Europe- an Union’s energy interests by suggesting that, thanks to him,

an agreement has been reached ensuring the stable transit of Russian gas over Ukrainian ter- ritory for the next decade. At the same time, however,

he uses scare tactics against the Europeans by suggesting that with the Ukrainian oppo- sition ready for a no-holds- barred political fight and threatening to annul the gas agreement if they come to power, now is the time to build the South Stream pipeline by-

passing Ukrainian territory and declare a fait accompli. According to polls, Ukrainian

society is divided over the gas- for-fleet deal between Moscow and Kiev. According to a survey conducted by Research & Branding Group, 53 percent of respondents hold a generally positive view of the agreement, while 32 percent hold a nega- tive view. But there is an enormous dis-

tance between simply being op- posed to the deal and actually taking part in massive protests, as the opposition has urged. When Tymoshenko and other opposition leaders were in power, their reputation wors- ened to such an extent that it would seem highly unlikely that they can inspire the people to stage another Orange Revolu- tion. It would be especially dif- ficult now, when most people are willing to give Yanukovych a fair chance—maybe he can end the crisis and set the coun- try on the right path toward economic growth and political reform. But if nothing has changed

six to 12 months from now and if people don’t see an improve- ment in their standards of liv- ing, Yanukovych can expect se- rious problems.

Yevgeny Kiselyov is a politi- cal analyst and hosts a politi- cal talk show on Inter televi- sion in Ukraine.

First published in

The Moscow Times

GEORGIA: AN INSECURE FOOTHOLD FOR THE U.S.

Martin Seiff

SPECIAL TO RUSSIA NOW

unstable and potentially dan- gerously irresponsible client state. That is a mistake that U.S. President Barack Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush, is still making toward the republic of Georgia in the Cau- casus.

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Georgia, while chaotic, is certainly a strategic prize be- cause of its location. It offers U.S policymakers at least the illusion of a secure foothold in the heart of the Caucasus on the eastern side of the Black Sea, and it offers the territory for oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Basin and from neighboring Azerbaijan that do not have to pass through Rus- sian territory. Now that the new government of Ukraine under President Viktor Yanuk- ovych is energetically repair-

t is always bad news for a major continental nation or global superpower to tie its fate too closely to a small,

ing its traditionally close ties to Moscow, and to oil- and gas- rich Kazakhstan, Georgia has become more attractive to U.S. policymakers. For it offers the prospect of keeping the south- ern route to the Caspian Basin open even when the northern route is coming back into the Russian sphere of influence. However, these geopolitical considerations, and rhetoric about supporting Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili as a democratically elected and pro-American leader, come up against two harsh realities. The first is that Georgia has been not just within the Russian sphere of influence but was an integral part of the Russian state for nearly 190 years. U.S. support for Georgia is there- fore guaranteed to enrage or- dinary Russians as well as pol- icymakers as much as Russian support for a nation tradition- ally in the American sphere of influence, like Venezuela, can enrage Americans. If President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was to try to bring his nation into

the Russian-led Collective Se- curity Treaty Organization or the Russian and Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Orga- nization, any president in Washington, whether Demo- crat or Republican, would be outraged. But the risks of su- perpower conflict—and in stra- tegic nuclear and military terms, Russia is certainly still a superpower comparable only to the United States—over Georgia are much graver. For President Saakashvili has re- peatedly shown during his years in power that he is a loose cannon. And U.S. policymak- ers cannot be confident that they can keep him on a suffi- ciently tight leash. History repeatedly shows us

that major wars and the con- sequent destruction all too often start because confident global superpowers rush to the defense of tiny client states that they did not have to defend. Great Britain did not have to go to war with Imperial Ger- many in 1914. It did so be- cause the German Army’s plan

Martin Seiff asks, Should the United States rethink the direction of its Georgia policy?

U.S. support for Georgia can be compared to Russian support for President Hugo Chavez.

of attack against France com- mitted it to sweep through Bel- gium. Even then, the British Liberal government of the time could have sat back and left Belgium to German occupa- tion. The Germans of 1914- 18, however formidable they were militarily, were certainly no Nazis. But traditional Brit- ish concepts of geopolitics and outmoded rhetoric about “honor” and “glory” led the half dozen or so top decision-

makers, including Winston Churchill, to commit them- selves to war. It was among the worst policy decisions in Brit- ish history. It led directly to the death of more than one mil- lion British and British Empire young men in World War I. One in three of all British males between the ages of 18 and 45 died in that war or suffered premature deaths decade be- fore their time because of the injuries they received in it. And the British Empire rapidly dis- solved over the next genera- tion precisely because the will to keep it had been drowned in the bloodbath. Tsarist Rus- sia made the same catastroph- ic mistake as the British did. Russia did not have to commit itself to defend Serbia in 1914, just as Imperial Germany did not have to give its far weaker ally, Austria-Hungary, the infa- mous “blank check” to destroy the Serbian state. If President Obama and Sec-

retary of State Hillary Clinton want to avoid an equally dan- gerous confrontation with Rus- sia in the future, in order to defend a small, marginal ally over whose government they have little, if any influence, they should study the terrible les- sons of 1914 and learn from them.

Martin Sieff is chief global analyst at The Globalist Re- search Center.

A PREDATOR OF THE PRESS

Alexei Pankin

THE MOSCOW TIMES

of Press Freedom” that includes Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. It sounds as if Putin was nominat- ed for an honorable award. “Strong leadership from the

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top has been his guiding prin- ciple in the reconstruction of a strong state after the years of confusion under [former Presi- dent] Boris Yeltsin,” the report said. “The press has not been spared. The national television stations now speak with a single voice.” I am certain that the people

who wrote those lines read the recently released book by Yevg- eny Adamov, former head of the Nuclear Power Ministry (now

n honor of World Press Free- dom Day on May 3, Report- ers Without Borders released a list of the top 40 “Predators

called Rosatom). Adamov is fa- mous for having been jailed in Switzerland on charges filed by the United States, then extradit- ed to Russia where he was con- victed but given a suspended sentence. In his book, Adamov relates

an incident that occurred after the August 1998 default in which he refused to use the resources of the country’s nuclear indus- try to help banker and NTV founder Vladimir Gusinsky re- solve debt problems he was hav- ing with Most-Bank, which Gusinsky headed. Gusinsky told Adamov, “You

think you’ll be here long? The FSB will take you away by eve- ning. I’ll teach you a lesson on what the media is capable of doing!” Adamov claims the sum involved $100 million. “The experience gave me a first-hand understanding of how the so-called oligarchs viewed

their own influence and impor- tance at that time,” Adamov wrote. This episode describes a busi-

ness model of information black- mail and extortion that was typ- ical of the country’s mass media — particularly television — dur- ing the Yeltsin presidency that is so disparagingly described by Reporters Without Borders. But I think Putin’s harsh mea-

sures against NTV and Channel One were not so much aimed against freedom of the press or journalists, per se, as they were against station owners Gusinsky and Boris Berezovsky, respective- ly. The measures were an at- tempt to make the state at least a little more manageable after the chaotic Yeltsin years. In this respect, I agree fully

with the authors of the media predators list. I also agree that the period during which all na- tional television stations have

been “speaking with a single voice” has dragged on a bit too long now. Having broken the control that oligarchs exercised over television, Putin either failed or, more likely, was afraid to re- place it with a genuinely inde- pendent media. Adamov writes that although

the media is subordinated more to the Kremlin than to private business interests, the situation now is essentially no better than it was in the mid-1990s. But ap- parently, every leader has his own mission and his own resources. If President Dmitry Medvedev

wants to create the conditions for an independent media to emerge, he might get a boost from one external source: the sharp rise in Russian Internet users. Maintaining tight control over the traditional television media is less important than it was before. Next May, we will be able to

judge Medvedev’s progress by looking at Russia’s ranking in the yearly press freedom index. It would be nice if they treat Med- vedev with the same respect and understanding that they have shown toward Putin.

First published in

The Moscow Times

THE POLLS

Russians in Favor of Foreign Adoptions

WOULD IT BE WRONG TO STOP FOREIGNERS FROM ADOPTING RUSSIAN CHILDREN?

Controlling Afghan Drug Traffic

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dear editor of Russia Now, I am fully enjoying the Russia

Now insert to the Washington Post. I deeply regret that aver- age Americans did not have the possibility to exchange informa- tion with Russians in previous decades. I fully agree with the perspec-

tive of Russian foreign policy in regards to controlling the drug traffic in Afghanistan. And I will write to my congressman with this opinion: a U.S. foreign pol- icy that permits illegal heroin pro- duction in Afghanistan can pro- duce no positive result and is counter both to U.S. Policy in Latin America and to every eth- ical standard. If the United States is concerned about losing the support of farmers when poppy fields are destroyed, it must ex- plore counter measures. For example, this country has historically paid farmers not to produce certain crops in order to keep prices of those crops at a certain level. The United States, Russia and the United Nations or NATO countries should con- sider a similar plan in regards to

"

limiting heroin production. Some Afghan farmers could be given the job to oversee that their fields were free of poppy plants. And in other cases controlled poppy production could be used for the production of legitimate con- trolled medications. Also, I be- lieve that a close look at the cost effectiveness of this idea would show it to be a good one. The key is that the drug prob-

lem is not going to be solved by one country working alone. And it is not ethical to suggest that because Afghan poppy fields are supplying little heroin to the United States that it is better not to disturb Afghan poppy farm- ers who may support the Tali- ban. To grow world cooperation, intelligent foreign policy involves considering negative effects on any nation equal to those that occur in one’s own country, par- ticularly when one is consider- ing a major health issue revolv- ing around illicit drug production.

Thomas Yerg

Alexandria, Virginia

As it turns out, for Medvedev as presi- dent, there is no place in modern Russia for Stalin as a builder…or as a hero. Until

2012, I will live in a country, which… rejects Sta- lin and does not support moves that glorify him

at the official level. This is what the state should be doing. I under- stand now that, in a sense, I am in accord with the state regarding Stalin."

MATVEI GANAPOLSKY IN AN INTERVIEW WITH EKHO MOSKVY

*Matvei Ganapolsky is a leading journalist, formerly of Ekho Mosvky radio station, which takes a strongly critical line of the government.

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Most Russians are opposed to banning foreign adoptions, according to an Interfax-commis- sioned opinion poll. Sixty-eight percent of those questioned in the poll, carried out before the Duma decided against the ban, argued that it would be wrong to stop foreigners from adopting Russian children, as this would de- prive many of a chance for a nor- mal family life. Seventeen percent were in favor of the ban while 15 percent were undecided.

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