RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 6, No. 14, 7 August 2006
A Weekly Review of News and Analysis of Russian Domestic Politics
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HEADLINES
* IDEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE PAVES KREMLIN’S COURSE
* KHODORKOVSKY’S WIFE: ‘THEY ARE TRYING TO BREAK HIM’
* RUSSIAN SUPREME COURT APPROVES LIST OF 17 ‘TERRORIST’ GROUPS
* A NEW RUSSIAN GAS STRATEGY EMERGES
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POLITICS
IDEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE PAVES KREMLIN’S COURSE. Two developments have
become obvious in the wake of the recent G8 Summit in St. Petersburg:
Russia’s rising political and economic clout, and growing concern
in the West that the Kremlin might abuse it. But talk of a reversal
in Russia’s intention of following its own democratic path may be
misguided.
PRAGUE, August 4, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Moscow’s new
diplomatic assertiveness was on display for the world to see during
last month’s G8 summit in St. Petersburg.
And one controversial topic that dominated the run-up to the
summit has remained in the spotlight — Russia’s repeatedly
stated intention of following its own democratic path, dubbed
"sovereign democracy."
The concept was formulated by Vyacheslav Surkov, the deputy
chief and prime ideologue of President Vladimir Putin’s
administration. Surkov began floating the new ideology during
speeches to activists of the pro-presidential Unified Russia party in
February and May.
As outlined by Surkov on the website edinros.ru, sovereign
democracy centers on Moscow’s right to restrict the impact of
international law, global economic bodies, and world public opinion
on Russia’s domestic policies.
Surkov has said he borrowed the name for the concept from Che
Guevara, who in 1960 wrote that some states have all formal
attributes of democracy, but remain dependent on transnational
corporations and foreign political forces.
Surkov suggests that that Russia can materialize its
sovereign democracy in the economic sphere by putting under the
state’s control or dominance "such vital sectors of the national
economy as strategic communications, pipelines, the national
electricity grid, railroads and federal highways, the financial
system, and broadcast television."
As for foreign policy, Surkov believes Russia must restore
its global influence, for geopolitical reasons and because of its
imperial tradition. In this context, Surkov notes that for 500 years
Russians have been a "state-forming nation" and that "Russians always
have matters beyond of their borders."
Surkov has also suggested that sovereign democracy could form
the base of Unified Russia’s political platform. The role of the
president was not mentioned in Surkov’s outline of his ideology,
but, in fact, President Putin has already begun to implement it in
Russia’s assertive foreign-policy course.
Russia’s stated intention of following a course centered
on sovereign democracy was the source of harsh criticism in the
run-up to the July 15-17 G8 summit.
During a visit to Vilnius in May, U.S. Vice President Dick
Cheney accused Russia of backtracking from democracy. And as the
summit neared, criticism from the West increased as defensive
responses from Russia became sharper.
Just days before the event, Putin personally articulated the
basic provisions of the new doctrine. In an interview with major U.S.
and European television networks on 12 July, Putin countered that in
1990s, when Russia was economically and politically weak, the West
had many levers of influence on Russia’s domestic and foreign
policies.
Today, he argued, the situation has changed. The levers of
influence have disappeared, "but the [West’s] desire for
influence remains. We are categorically against using political tools
for intervention into our internal affairs," Putin concluded.
Many Russian politicians also publicly touted the policy,
including Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, a
close confidant of Putin and a potential candidate to succeed him as
president.
Writing in "Izvestia" on 13 July, Ivanov said that
Russia’s current policies are based on three concepts:
Russia’s efforts to become an energy superpower, to develop a
strong army, and to follow sovereign democracy, a concept it would
defend by any means, including by force.
Such statements were not taken lightly by Russia’s fellow
G8 members assembling in St. Petersburg.
On the sidelines of the summit, U.S. President Bush expressed
disagreement with Russia’s claim to a special type of democracy.
According to Irina Yasina, a former leader of the
organization Open Russia who took part in a meeting between Bush and
several Russian human right activists 16 July, Bush told participants
that "there is no sovereign or a special [kind] of democracy,"
"Novoye Ruskoye slovo" reported on July 16. "There are fundamental
democratic values based on which democracy either does exist or not,"
she quoted the president as saying.
Unexpectedly, another hopeful to succeed Putin as president,
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in an interview with
"Ekspert," No. 28, expressed his distaste for the term "sovereign
democracy," describing it as "unsuccessful."
Medvedev explained that "sovereignty" and "democracy" belong
to different philosophical categories and that they should not be
combined.
Some observers took Medvedev’s comments as an indication
of a split between Surkov and the Kremlin. But in his interview with
"Ekspert," Medvedev said any difference with Surkov’s ideology
was more in style than in substance. This led others to suggest that
Medvedev was merely positioning himself as a "liberal" in Putin’s
camp to appease Western politicians and to counter domestic opponents
who had earlier rejected the concept of sovereign democracy.
Despite Medvedev’s comments, the evidence accumulated
both before and after the G8 summit indicates that sovereign
democracy is here to stay.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, one of the co-chairmen of Unified
Russia, lent his support to the doctrine when he suggested on July 13
that the West should look anew at Russia and change its attitude
toward its rising power.
Luzhkov’s comments were significant, considering that the
political heavyweight has already announced his intention to leave
his mayoral post in 2007. Some observers thus consider him to be
another prime candidate to succeed Putin, for the simple reason that
he does not have to prove to anyone abroad or at home that he is
capable of running the country.
Unified Russia General Council Secretary Vyacheslav Volodin
stated on July 25 that sovereign democracy is key aspect of his
party’s ideology, and that it would be a "basic element" of the
party’s program.
Medvedev’s and Unified Russia’s "strategic vision for
the country’s future coincides," he added. The incorporation of
sovereign democracy into the party’s program is of key importance
because Surkov has suggested that after leaving office in 2008, Putin
might became the leader of Unified Russia, and thus remain in
politics as the head of the "ruling party."
Oleg Morozov, the head of Unified Russia’s Ideological
Commission, on July 27 added a new twist to the party’s adoption
of sovereign democracy. He described the party as a "party of
historical revanche," noting that "revanchism is a very good starting
point, a very powerful driving force."
The concept of sovereign democracy has received considerable
support from another rising ideological force within Putin’s camp
— Archbishop Kirill. Speaking at the 10th World Congress of Russian
People in April, Kirill universality rejected Western democratic
values and defended Russia’s "specific" vision of democracy and
human rights.
Furthermore, in an article titled "It Is Time For The End Of
Dithering Diplomacy" published in July by kreml.org, the archbishop
bluntly criticized the democratic political system. "I place in
question that the division of power and a multiparty system relates
to common human values," he said. "We should end dithering diplomacy,
which requires that we always have to justify ourselves. Our official
and public diplomacy always considers it a victory when we manage to
prove to the West that we are like them — but this is simply
disinformation and the wrong [thing to do]."
It is also noteworthy that the Kremlin and its political
allies adopted the doctrine of sovereign democracy at a time when a
new generation of Russians is emerging — one that is not familiar
with communism or a totalitarian regime influencing their social and
political lives.
The future of democracy in Russia may depend on whether the
Kremlin will truncate this new generation by succeeding in imposing
sovereign democracy upon it, or whether this new generation will
succeed in rejecting it. (Victor Yasmann)
KHODORKOVSKY’S WIFE: ‘THEY ARE TRYING TO BREAK HIM.’ Inna
Khodorkovskaya tells RFE/RL about the impact of prison on her
husband, the former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the pressures
she faces from the authorities.
PRAGUE, July 31, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Since Mikhail Khodorkovsky
was imprisoned three years ago, his wife and their three children
have lived in a house in the leafy Moscow suburb of Zhukovka.
The building and the land around it is — or rather was —
owned by an affiliate of Yukos, the oil company that once made
Khodorkovsky one of the richest and most influential men in Russia,
Khodorkovskaya explained in a July 25 interview with RFE/RL’s
Russian Service.
But on May 2 this year, Khodorkovskaya says, a Moscow court
impounded the family home, saying it was part of the ongoing
investigation into tax evasion at Yukos.
Khodorkovskaya suspects it will not be long before she and
the wives of other Yukos executives living in Zhukovka are forced
out.
It is part, she says, of the relentless pressure that the
authorities are piling on her husband and other Yukos officials.
Khodorkovsky is now incarcerated in a prison camp deep in
Siberia. Inna is permitted to visit once every three months. But
getting there is a major effort in itself: a nine-hour flight,
followed by a 15-hour train journey, followed by a 40-minute car
ride.
She is allowed to stay with her husband for three days in a
prison hostel that some Russian papers suggest borders on the
luxurious. In fact, she insists, they share a simple room furnished
with a bed, a chair and a cupboard.
Khodorkovskaya finds her husband much changed — a
consequence, she says, of the psychological, and sometimes physical
pressure he is subjected to.
"They’re trying to break him, nothing more, nothing
less," she says of the prison authorities. "These are methods that
have probably long been worked on and refined. I would say that it
works on the principle of amplitude. They raise the pressure, then
they reduce it and then they raise it again. So there’s no
straight upward line, they’re just trying to drain him."
His biggest difficulty, she says, is the isolation and the
mental vacuum caused by his inactivity. But he is finding other ways
to fill the gap.
"He reads a lot of religious literature. He’s not a
religious fanatic, he’s not completely mad about religion," she
says. "His interest is analytical. He doesn’t push faith away,
but he has begun to experience it in a new way. If before he
approached the subject from a sort of historical point of view, now
he feels closer to it."
Khodorkovskaya says she has no doubt that her husband is a
political prisoner, sentenced to satisfy the ambitions of the men who
now rule the Kremlin.
Khodorkovsky himself — and many independent critics —
describe his trial as a staged farce and a warning to Russia’s
immensely wealthy oligarchs to stay out of politics.
The Kremlin disagrees. Khodorkovsky, it says, is a criminal
who defrauded the state of a massive sum in taxes.
Inna Khodorkovskaya says she and her husband had feared the
state would come after him. Nonetheless, the couple had chosen to
stay in Russia.
"It was our joint decision. We talked about whether to stay
or go, but the decision was simple. What is there, out there? Of
course, no one suggested that things would get quite so bad, but
right to the end he intended to stay here. And I did too."
In that respect, she says, nothing has changed. If the
authorities force her out of her home, she will stay in Russia. The
critical issue now is how to bring up her family in the absence of a
father.
But Khodorkovskaya betrays little bitterness.
Both she and her husband have been changed by the experience
of the last few years, she says. But they will emerge stronger, she
believes.
"There are moments when something serious happens in your
life and your values change. And, naturally, recent events… my
values have grown stronger, I would say. That’s to say, my values
have really crystallized," she says. "I can’t say that they have
changed fundamentally. But his probably have because he used to be in
politics. Now he sees what’s happening there from a slightly
different perspective. Naturally, he has changed greatly."
RUSSIAN SUPREME COURT APPROVES LIST OF 17 ‘TERRORIST’ GROUPS.
PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) — Russia today published a list of 17
organizations that it said had been identified as "terrorist" by the
national Supreme Court.
Yury Sapunov, the head of antiterrorism at the Federal
Security Service (FSB), said all 17 groups were seen as a threat to
the Russian state.
The publication today in the governmental "Rossiiskaya
gazeta" of what Sapunov calls the only official Russian list of
terrorist organizations contains few surprises.
But it will raise a few eyebrows — at least in the West —
for some names that are missing.
No mention here, for instance, of either Hamas or Hizballah,
both of which are at the center of world attention at the moment and
both of which rank high on most Western lists of terrorist
organizations.
Sapunov said Russia took into account the views of the
international community but said the 17 were primarily a national
list of organizations that the Supreme Court considered the greatest
threat to the security of the state.
Russia risked the ire of Washington by inviting Hamas leaders
to Moscow for talks after they won the Palestinian parliamentary
elections in January this year.
Sapunov said that neither Hamas nor Hizballah were
universally regarded as terrorist.
But the main reason they do not figure on the list, he said,
was because they were not trying to change Russia’s
constitutional order through violence and were not linked to illegal
armed groups and other extremist organizations operating in the North
Caucasus.
These, he said, were the main criteria used in deciding which
organizations to include.
Almost all the groups listed, he said, were linked in one way
or another to the Muslim Brotherhood, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, which
seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate stretching from Central Asia
to the Caucasus.
Rights campaigner Lev Ponomaryov says the inclusion of Hizb
ut-Tahrir is just an extension of the deep suspicion its members
arouse, despite the group’s official rejection of the use of
violence to achieve its ends.
Ponomaryov says he knows dozens of Hizb ut-Tahrir members who
have been jailed on what he says are trumped-up criminal charges.
"As a rule, drugs and gun cartridges and the like are planted
on them," Ponomaryov said. "And now, in addition to all that,
they’re being accused of being members of a terrorist group. I
can assure you that there has not been a not a single accusation
directed at Islamic Liberation (Hizb ut-Tahrir) that they’ve
committed a terrorist act in Russia, or have even attempted to
organize one."
Other organizations on the Russian list include the Congress
of Peoples of Ichkheria and Daghestan, the Supreme Military Majlis
Shura of the United Forces of the Mujahedin of the Caucasus, Jamiya
al-Islamiya, the Islamic Party of Turkestan, and the Pakistan-based
Lashkar-e-Toiba.
Sapunov said part of the problem with any list was that the
groups keep changing their names.
Not, he added, that that was fooling the security services.
Increased international cooperation, the support of President
Vladimir Putin and the government, and the creation of the National
Antiterrorist Center had made it possible at last to establish an
overall strategy for combating terrorism. (Robert Parsons)
(RFE/RL’s Tajik Service contributed to this report.)
A NEW RUSSIAN GAS STRATEGY EMERGES. PRAGUE, July 28, 2006 (RFE/RL) —
A Gazprom subsidiary recently issued a report recommending a dramatic
change of strategy for the Russian gas industry. It determined that
Russia should decrease exports of natural gas to European markets and
concentrate instead on developing new gas fields to keep up with
domestic demand.
The Research Institute for the Economics of the Gas Industry,
NIIGazekonomika, determined in its late 2005 report that domestic
consumption of natural gas is increasing at a faster pace than
projected in Russia’s two-year-old Energy Strategy.
The company, a fully owned subsidiary of Gazprom responsible
for researching economic and management issues, stated that Russia
should focus on developing new gas fields in the Yamal Peninsula and
other locations in order to meet future domestic demand.
Failure to do so could have a seriously detrimental impact on
Russia’s future economic growth, the report warns.
But ensuring domestic supplies would also require that Russia
decrease exports of natural gas to European markets, according to the
report, which notes the potential consequences for the CIS,
Asian-Pacific, and European gas markets.
It appears that Gazprom commissioned NIIGazekonomika to
conduct its study as part of the ongoing debate in the West and in
Russia about the real state of the Russian natural-gas industry.
Gazprom’s reported lack of investment into new gas fields
and pipeline construction have been widely seen as a potential danger
to European energy security. Such concerns have prompted Western
European governments to demand that Gazprom’s export pipelines be
opened to independent gas producers to prevent future shortfalls.
Russia, however, has rejected European pressure and the State
Duma recently passed legislation that further strengthens Gazprom’s
monopoly on gas exports.
Gazekonomika concluded that:
— Russian domestic gas consumption is rising faster than
projected in Russia’s Energy Strategy, which was announced in May
2003 and is the foundation of the country’s energy designs
through 2020. The new Gazekonomika study estimates that by 2030
domestic demand will be approximately 654 billion cubic meters (bcm)
per year, compared to the Energy Strategy’s estimate of 436 bcm.
— Gas-conservation technologies are not being implemented
and the Russian economy remains highly energy intensive
— A dangerously narrow gap exists between the cost of
production of gas and its domestic price.
The new study also states that the projections of the Energy
Strategy are based on data from the 1980s that, the study’s
authors claim, are not reliable.
Other projections of the Russian gas industry, such as one
conducted by Gazprom in 2004, also do not reach the consumption
levels estimated by NIIGazekonomika.
The 2004 Gazprom study projected that domestic consumption of
gas in Russia in 2020 will reach 525 bcm, while the new study places
this figure at 560 bcm.
Russia has already shown marked increases in domestic gas
consumption — rising by 17 bcm from January 2004 to the end of 2005.
"Taking into account the objective results, in the future one
cannot discount the growing internal demand for gas," the
NIIGazekonomika study states. "The fulfillment of any of the
scenarios presented can potentially lead to an inability by Russian
Federation producers to meet demand for gas in both domestic and
foreign markets. This situation in turn can prevent double-digit
Russian GDP growth and can disrupt gas export obligations."
Furthermore, the new study projects that by 2013 Russian gas
exports will begin to be pushed out of the European market by Central
Asian producers. The study projects that by 2013 the amount of
Russian gas replaced by Central Asian gas could total 10 bcm; in
2014, 24 bcm; in 2015, 30 bcm; and by 2030, 56 bcm.
If this were to take place, domestic demand would be met, but
the Russian budget could stand to lose tax revenues and hard-currency
reserves. The study forecasts cumulative losses of up to $110
billion.
This, however, is not seen as a tragedy. In fact, the
Gazekonomika report recommends that the Russia government intensify
development of its own gas resources by lowering exports to European
markets and "allowing" Central Asian gas producers to fill the gap.
The long-term benefits of developing new gas fields in the
Yamal Peninsula and the fields in Obskoy and Tazov are thus deemed by
the report to be Russia’s highest priority in the energy sector.
Such development would significantly decrease the need for huge
investments into the gas industry while allowing domestic production
to continue without major disruptions. Plans of how to proceed with
this strategy are presently being developed by Gazekonomika. (Roman
Kupchinsky)
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The "RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly" is prepared
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