Russia's energy drive leaves US reeling By M K Bhadrakumar
Last week, the gloves finally came off the Dmitry Medvedev presidency in Russia. It had to happen sooner or later, but few would have expected this soon. It was crystal clear US President George W Bush administered a diplomatic snub to Medvedev on the sidelines of the Group of Eight (G-8) summit meeting at Hokkaido, Japan.
Bush characterized him patronizingly as a "sharp guy" soon after they met in Hokkaido on July 9, but that was after making sure Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proceeded to Prague and signed a deal just the previous day to install a US radar system as part of its missile defense system in Central Europe.
If Medvedev's core mission in Hokkaido was to underscore Russia's growing role in the world arena as a power with which the West has to contend, Bush acted as if he couldn't care. The US was also plainly dismissive of Medvedev's proposal at the G-8 for a pan-European security system that would include Russia. Medvedev expressed his "dismay" on hearing about the Prague deal. As if to rub in the snub, Rice proceeded from Prague to Bulgaria, where the US has for the first time established a military base, and then on to Georgia to discuss its plans of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
While in Tbilisi, she called for international mediation to stop violence spilling over in Georgia's beakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abhkazia, which have been sources of rising tensions, with Georgia accusing Russia of trying to annex the regions. To carry matters further, the US began a joint military exercise with Georgia codenamed Immediate Response 2008, near Tbilisi, which will continue through the month of July.
The exercise, financed by the Pentagon and planned by the US Armed Forces Eastern Command, is intended as a warning to Russia that Georgia is America's project and Washington wouldn't hesitate to do some heavy lifting to safeguard the "Rose Revolution".
On the face of it, such hubris is illogical and unnecessary since the West should have every reason not to embarrass Medvedev. The West has been propagating in recent months that the youthful Russian president is a potential independent decision-maker in the Kremlin with whom it could do business - unlike his predecessor, Vladimir Putin.
Reflecting US thinking, Carnegie Moscow Center scholar Dmitri Trenin wrote recently that the West noted "Medvedev's quick-wittedness, his calm style of conducting talks, and his clear desire to show that he is the one who is the real master of Russian diplomacy ... There are much greater grounds for expecting that Dmitry Medvedev ... will slowly but steadily concentrate powers in his own hands."
Clearly, what has been going on for the past few months on the East-West stage is one of those pantomimes that the West and Russia are equally adept at playing. But the US seems to have concluded that all the Western flattery about him hasn't really gone to Medvedev's head and he has merely been demonstrating his own skill in dramatics. Actually, nothing much has changed in Russia. The polls show Putin, now premier, is still seen by Russians as their "supreme leader", with a popularity rating coasting above 70% - with Medvedev stuck at 47% - and the truth might be somewhere near what a Moscow commentator recently sized up, namely, that Medvedev is a co-pilot in the cockpit in which Putin remains the captain.
Besides, Medvedev would know that even if he wished to be the European modernizer and G-8 club member that the West wanted him to be, he would find himself hopelessly at odds with his country. According to a poll last week by a Russian television network, the symbol of renewal of present-day Russia turns out to be none other than Josef Stalin. By a substantial margin, Stalin left behind two colorful Vladimirs - the singer Vladimir Vysotsky and the revolutionary Vladimir Lenin - and a host of other perennial Russian heroes like Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Pushkin.
Indeed, when Medvedev signed last Saturday a new foreign policy strategy for Russia, it came to light that for the first time the prime minister has been put in the driving seat to implement foreign policy measures - hitherto a presidential prerogative - which also shows that the Kremlin will pursue the line set by Putin in his eight-year presidency. The vague and somewhat incomprehensible expectations that there might be of some kind of "liberalization" in Medvedev's foreign policy have proved to be unfounded.
But Moscow hasn't taken lightly the US snub. In an address to Russian envoys in Moscow on Tuesday, Medvedev unambiguously stated his intention to continue Putin's foreign policy course, criticizing the US moves on missile defense deployment, the West's failure to ratify the revised Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, Kosovo's independence, etc. He said, "We strongly affirm that the deployment of elements of the global missile defense in Eastern Europe only exacerbates the situation ... we will be forced to respond to it in kind ...
"This is linked to Russian-American agreements on strategic stability. Obviously, this common heritage will not be able to survive if one party is permitted to selectively destroy individual elements of this strategic regime. We cannot agree to that."
According to the noted German expert on Russia, Alexander Rahr, last week's Russian veto on the United Nations Security Council draft resolution on Zimbabwe was also a response to the US move on missile defense. "China's opposition is easy to understand as it has many economic interests in Zimbabwe. Russia has none. Russia's veto is a response to the missile shield, to Abkhazia and to many other things ... Russia is trying to show that America cannot decide everything," Rahr said.
The Russian veto generated a new American theme song that Medvedev isn't calling the shots in the Kremlin and might have got slapped down on Zimbabwe. But Moscow brushed aside the suggestion. The Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling the draft resolution on Zimbabwe "a dangerous precedent ... illegitimate and dangerous, leading towards unbalancing the whole UN system". The statement rebuked Washington and London, saying, "Russia took into account the fact that the situation in Zimbabwe does not pose a threat to regional, let alone international peace and security and does not warrant adoption of sanctions against that country."
Again, on Monday, Moscow announced that for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian warships were resuming patrol of the Arctic waters. In effect, Medvedev signaled he was maintaining the course of expanded military patrols begun by Putin. Why such a sudden quickening of the tempo in US-Russian relations? The answer might be found on an entirely different plane - energy security.
What emerges is that if anything, Medvedev is pursuing Russia's energy diplomacy more robustly than Putin. Soon after taking over in the Kremlin in May, Medvedev ordered the expeditious completion of the first stage of the Eastern Siberia Pacific Oil Pipeline (ESPO) by end-2009. The ESPO has a vital role in Moscow's efforts to balance its oil export strategy between Europe and Asia-Pacific. Moscow hopes to target Asia-Pacific as the export destination for one-third of its oil exports by 2020, as compared to 3% currently.
In early July, Medvedev undertook a diplomatic tour of the Caspian region, covering Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. In Azerbaijan's capital Baku, he made a stunning offer that Russia was prepared to buy Azerbaijan's entire gas output at market prices. In Ashgabat, he shored up Turkmenistan's commitment to the modernization of the Central Asia-Center Pipeline and the construction of a new littoral Caspian pipeline.
Medvedev succeeded in prevailing over competing European and US rivals in the struggle for Turkmen gas. He further ensured that oil and gas from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan will not bypass Russia. But what has truly incensed the Bush administration are Gazprom's dramatic inroads into Africa.
Russian giant Gazprom, the largest extractor of natural gas in the world, has announced plans to build a pipeline across the Mediterranean to pump Libyan gas to Europe. This is the final lap of a Kremlin strategy that involves Gazprom handling the entire output of Libya's gas, oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) designated for export to Europe and the US Look at Gazprom's terse announcement in Moscow on July 9, "The Libyan side positively evaluated Gazprom's proposal to buy all future volumes of gas, oil and liquefied natural gas assigned for export at competitive prices." Now, Washington gingerly allowed the re-entry into the "international community" by Muammar Gaddafi, Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution in Libya, on the basis of clear understanding. Western statesmen from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to French President Nikolas Sarkozy and former Italian premier Romano Prodi queued up to climb the window of business opportunity opened by the Bush administration. And then Putin visits Tripoli in April, less than a month before he left office, and the two erstwhile colonels decided to jointly handle all of Libya's energy resources.
And Gazprom seeks to buy exploration licenses in Nigeria and proposes to build a pipeline from there to Algeria, and with Algeria, Gazprom is developing a proposal on "joint" marketing of gas in Europe. US officials have gone ballistic. "The monopolistic Gazprom is behaving like a monopolist does. It tries to gain control of the market as much as possible and to stifle competition. And that's clearly what is going on," thundered Matthew Bryza, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Eurasian affairs. "The Kremlin wants Gazprom to be a dominant force in global energy, and the dominant force in global gas. Tying up gas resources in Central Asia and Africa is part of that," he added. The plan is for Gazprom to dominate "in every corner of the planet", he alleged.
Bryza's outburst is understandable. The good work he did lies now in ruins. Washington was relieved to see the back of Putin's presidency, but it now transpires that Gazprom may have only stepped up the pace of overtures under Medvedev's astute guidance. Besides, with its new assets in Africa, Gazprom will soon be knocking for access to the US market through supplies of LNG. The European and international companies which have been traditionally present in the African market will be compelled to play a role alongside Gazprom.
Washington hit back by ensuring that Russian companies are left out in the cold from the 30 contracts for lucrative oil deals that Baghdad is awarding. It is a big blow for Russia. In February, Moscow had written off US$12 billion or 93% of Iraq's debt to Russia in a move that was widely seen as aimed to help Russian oil company LUKoil regain the Saddam Hussein-era rights to develop Iraq's giant West Qurna-2 oil field. But under US pressure, the Iraqi government is now awarding West Qurna-2 to the US's Chevron.
The Kremlin didn't show any anger, but coincidence or not, Gazprom chief executive Alexei Miller suddenly arrived in Tehran on Monday and discussed with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad the setting up of an organization of gas-producing countries. No doubt, with the Russian foothold in Libya (which has estimated natural gas reserves of 1.47 trillion cubic meters), in coordination with Algeria (which currently supplies over 10% of Europe's gas supplies), Qatar (with proven natural gas reserves of 25.8 trillion cubic meters) and Iran (which has the world's second-largest reserves after Russia), the time for a "Gas OPEC" is approaching.
The Iranian leader also suggested to Miller a market-sharing arrangement so that Russia and Iran could "collectively meet the demands of Europe, India and China in the gas sector". During the visit, an agreement was signed on the development of Iran's oil and gas fields by Russian companies; on Russian participation in the transfer of Iran's Caspian Sea crude oil to the Oman Sea; cooperation in the development of Iran's fabulous North Azadegan oil field; and, possible participation of Gazprom in the planned Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project. Evidently, Moscow took a deliberate decision to press ahead with Iran in energy cooperation in the full glare of world publicity in complete disregard of US displeasure. Tehran loved it.
To quote a US expert, "Russia's strategic interest in Iran implicitly underscores the futility of hopes that Moscow would cooperate with Washington in imposing meaningful sanctions on Iran. While Western European companies are moving out of Iran or suspending agreements for fear of US sanctions (which penalize investments of more than $20 million a year in Iran's oil and gas sector), Gazprom is enlarging the already existing foothold."
Conceivably, the danger of losing out on the last energy frontier to Russia (and China) could be a factor in Washington's policy shift on Iran talks. Washington calls the u-turn "a strong signal to the Iranian government that the United States is committed to diplomacy". But according to The New York Times, Rice has decided to "test Iran's willingness to consider an international package of incentives meant to coax Iran into making concessions on its nuclear program". What we do not know is how close the Bush administration may be for involvement in Iran's energy sector, which is an element in the so-called "international package of incentives". (Halliburton, which Vice President Dick Cheney headed, was a very active player in Iran.)
By now it must be obvious to the Bush administration that the youthful-looking, post-communist lawyer-president who took over from Putin has lost no time drilling a hole through the entire US strategy to weaken Gazprom's grip over the supply of gas to Europe. The sense of fury is imaginable. But then Washington has only itself to blame. Medvedev's career as an energy czar is an open book like Cheney's - or Rice's. From 2000, he headed Gazprom. Now he controls Gazprom from the Kremlin.
Few took note that when he formally bid farewell to the Gazprom board of directors at a ceremony in Moscow on May 27, Medvedev took immense personal pride in pointing out that during his eight-year stewardship, Gazprom's capitalization skyrocketed by a factor of 46, and one fifth of Russia's budget is today derived from Gazprom's activities. He concluded, "I want to say in my turn that we will have the chance to see each other and discuss things in working meetings. So, nothing is coming to an end. It's only the beginning."
In sum, the past week's flow of events in places as far apart as Prague, Hokkaido, Tbilisi, Harare, Tehran and the Arctic underscored that after a brief respite, the rivalries over energy security have revived with a ferocity that can rock the equilibrium of overall US-Russia relations. The situation will likely be exacerbated in the coming period. The geopolitics of energy security are a highly sensitive subject for the Bush administration, whose profound links with Big Oil are legion. It is a tremendous loss of face for the Bush-Cheney-Rice combine that Moscow is outwitting the US on the energy front.
The strong possibility is that the Bush administration will press the pedal on multiple fronts on the Eurasian geopolitical landscape and create a fait accompli of US-Russian mutual antagonism for Senator Barack Obama, should he become president. The haste behind the Prague deal on missile defense smacks of such thinking. Almost certainly, Rice will press for a decision on the plan of action in respect of Georgia's and Ukraine's membership of NATO at the meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers in December. The question, "Who is the boss in Russia?" doesn't really seem to matter anymore.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
Chorny, one thought comes to my mind after reading the article you posted: So many things to do, and so few people with which to implement them.
In fact, I'm thinking maybe Russia will not only loose influence, but may not be a viable country in the not-so-distant future, say 20 years. We (the US) could get with China and other SCO members and secretly propose some sort of partitioning of Russia. Each participant would get a certain share of the petroleum resources that formerly belonged to Russia after the division takes place.
Boosting Population a Vague Science
11 July 2008By Nabi Abdullaev / Staff WriterThe fact that Russia's population is shrinking should come as a surprise to no one. According to the State Statistics Service, 12 million more Russians died than were born from 1992 to 2007, with the arrival of 5.5 million immigrants only partially compensating for the loss.
It is clear from statements by political leaders that the government is aware of the problem and the serious threat that it poses to future economic growth and security as the country's work force shrinks.
What is also clear, according to demographers and public health experts, is that the government hasn't made enough effort to get to the root of the problem or to measure whether the policies it has put in place to deal with the demographic crisis are really helping. Although some financial incentives have been created to help couples have more children, experts say a much more comprehensive approach is necessary.
Given existing trends, demographers say the population will shrink from the current level of 142 million to something between 125 million and 135 million by 2025, and could fall to as low as 100 million by 2050.
This demographic decline has serious economic consequences -- there will be as many as 8 million fewer people in the work force by 2015 and possibly 19 million less by 2025, according to study by a group of Russian demographers sponsored by the United Nations and released in late April.
Population change is dependent on three main factors: the birthrate, the death rate and immigration rates. Last October, then-President Vladimir Putin approved a government demographic strategy through 2025 that sets targets in each of these three categories. But while this strategy shows that the government is concerned about the current situation, the program's goals suggest that it has little interest in understanding the roots of the problem, preferring to throw money at it instead.
Demographers have calculated that, in Russia, the replacement fertility rate -- the number of births per woman necessary to maintain the current population -- is 2.15. In 2006, the fertility rate was 1.3 children for every woman.
The number of babies born last year jumped to about 2 million -- up 8.3 percent from the year before and a post-Soviet record. Still, the fertility rate rose only to 1.4 children per woman.
State officials wasted no time in claiming that government policy was to thank for a new baby boom, with Health and Social Development Minister Tatyana Golikova only the most recent example.
"It is a true demographic explosion that no other developed country has generated," Golikova said in a speech on April 26. "We are proud that ... Russians have had the right reaction to the measures to encourage births."
The measures introduced by the government included an increase in monthly social payments to mothers, making it easier for young families to get mortgages, and "mother's capital" -- a one-time payment of around $10,000 for those women giving birth to a second child. Access to the money comes only three years after the child is born, and it must be used for the child's benefit, such as improving the family's living conditions or paying for education.
Demographers doubt, however, that government perks were the sole or even the main cause of the rise in births.
Vladimir Arkhangelsky, of the Research Center for Population Problems at Moscow State University, said the latest spike in births is the result of an increase in the number of women reaching their peak childbearing years. These women were themselves products of an early 1980s baby boom, which followed increases in Soviet-era social payments and an anti-alcohol campaign.
Arkhangelsky and other demographers say the number of children being born will likely fall off again in about five years as the women of the 1980s baby boom move out of their most fertile years and are replaced by the much smaller generation born in the 1990s.
According to the State Statistics Service, in 2007 there were 24.1 percent fewer females from the age of 10 to 19 than in the 20 to 29 age group. There were 44.1 percent fewer females under the age of nine than in the 20 to 29 group.
An added concern is that, even if the new benefits are partially responsible for the increase in births, they may still have a negative effect on the country's wealth disparity in the future. Women living below the poverty rate experienced a more significant rise in birthrate than any other segment of the female population, said Valery Yelizarov, head of the Research Center for Population Problems.
According to the Social Insurance Fund, the government body that issues birth certificates, about half of the women who gave birth last year reported a monthly income below the poverty line for Russia -- 3,500 rubles ($150). About 70 percent of the mothers reported a monthly income of less than 7,000 rubles ($300).
"The government needs to think of how to stimulate [births among] those who are more successful in life," Yelizarov said.
According to the government demographic strategy, incentives designed to get families to have more than one child should boost the birthrate by 50 percent by 2025. But the global trend, and particularly in developed countries, has been away from larger families, leading some experts to express doubts that the target can be met.
Karl Kulessa, the UN's population agency chief in Russia, said there were many social and economic factors that work against bigger families.
Benefits for larger families introduced by the French government have played at least some part in a jump in the birthrate from 1.7 babies per woman in 1994 to almost 2.0 in 2006. But to achieve similar results in Russia, the government needs not only to provide families with the financial resources to provide for more children but also to influence attitudes in a country where one-child families are the norm, Arkhangelsky said.
"This means increasing in the prestige of having bigger families," he said. "The state needs to change perceptions about mothers who take care of their children. There should be the understanding that these mothers work at home, not just stay at home."
Medvedev himself has only one child, a son, while Putin has two daughters.
Other demographers agree that the government has done little, if anything, to influence public opinion about larger families.
Another issue is whether the facilities exist for a baby boom of the magnitude the government would like to see.
The infant mortality rate in the country jumped from .88 percent for children born in January 2007 to almost 1 percent for those born in January of this year, a fact Yelizarov suggested may be a sign that maternity hospitals and their staff were unable to deal with the increased workload.
To meet the challenge of the growing number of births, the government plans to spend 20 billion rubles ($850 million) from 2008 to 2010 to build 23 new perinatal centers in Russia, said Olga Sharapova, head of the Health and Social Development Ministry's department for medical and social problems related to pregnant women and children.
"This will help save the lives of hundreds of mothers and children every year," she said.
Prevention Is Key
"The birthrate is a very difficult thing to increase quickly, so the state and the people can achieve much more by addressing deaths," said Natalya Rimashevskaya, a demographer with the Russian Academy of Sciences.
One out of three Russians dies before reaching retirement age -- 55 for women and 60 for men -- and 80 percent of those dying early are men, according to data from the Health and Social Development Ministry.
Russia is one of the few countries in the world where life expectancy has declined since the 1960s. In 2006, the life expectancy for Russian men was 60.6 years, about 15 years less than that in most developed countries.
The number for women is higher, at 73.1, but still almost 10 years below that in most developed countries.
Experts agree that a large share of early deaths in Russia, particularly among men, are preventable. Cardiovascular diseases account for 55 percent of all deaths, four times the rate in Western Europe.
The government has made cutting the death rate among the working-age population by 38 percent by 2025 one of its targets, with the ultimate goal of raising average life expectancy to 75 years -- the current figure for Mexico.
"The biggest reason the mortality rate is so high rate is the very low value placed on life by the state and people themselves," said Alla Ivanova, chief statistician at the Health and Social Development Ministry's Central Scientific Research Institute for Health Care Information.
Over the past two decades, state spending on health care has remained meager and people have failed to develop healthier lifestyles, she said.
When asked what the state's focus should be under Medvedev to raise life expectancy, most experts named poverty and heavy drinking.
Most demographers agree that the government needs to find ways to lower alcohol consumption and especially the abuse of cheap, low-quality alcohol that kills thousands every year.
Battling low-quality alcohol will be a challenge, however, as the state surrendered its monopoly on alcohol production in 1992 and corrupt law enforcement bodies have failed to crack down on illegal producers of alcohol in the years since. Additionally, ubiquitous and aggressive television advertising has made beer an integral part of Russian teen culture.
Alexander Nemtsov, a senior researcher at the Scientific Research Institute of Psychiatry, has calculated that annual alcohol-related deaths averaged about 426,000 over the past 20 years, or almost 30 percent of deaths among men and 17 percent for women.
Studies show that mortality rates have risen or fallen in tandem with alcohol consumption rates in the country, and both rose in the 1990s.
Some experts say this was the result of despair generated by economic problems. Long-term poverty often produces a vicious cycle, in which a lack of economic prospects leads to alcoholism and drug abuse, which in turn keep people impoverished, Ivanova said.
Fortunately, income levels among Russians have risen in recent years, and this may have been the main factor behind a 1.3-year jump in male life expectancy and 0.8-year rise for women from 2006 to 2008. Interestingly, the death rate among people under 40 remained basically unchanged from that in the turbulent 1990s.
The Best Medicine
In addition to fighting alcohol abuse and providing better opportunities for those marginalized in the course of the drastic economic reforms of the 1990s, Ivanova said the government needed to improve medical care and make it more accessible.
"This can prevent another 200,000 deaths every year that occur because of the poor organization of preventative medicine services and because, for various reasons, people just don't turn to doctors in time," she said.
Meanwhile, Health and Social Development Minister Golikova has named heart disease and traffic accidents as the two major preventable causes of death in Russia.
Senior ministry official Sharapova said the government was set to spend an additional 10 billion rubles ($420 million) from 2008 to 2010 to improve care at regional health facilities for people being treated for heart disease and injuries sustained in car accidents.
She said the ministry was also working to develop a program to decrease alcohol-related deaths.
Immigration Problems
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, immigration became the only immediate solution to Russia's demographic catastrophe. From 1992 to 2007, 5.5 million people immigrated to the country, with 4.5 million of those gaining Russian citizenship.
It is impossible to say how many people move to Russia annually because of the difficulties of tracking illegal migrants and the complex registration system for those entering the country legally.
In 2007, the Federal Migration Service issued more than 2.1 million work permits for foreigners but only 194,000 temporary residence permits. These numbers indicate that only a fraction of those who come to work are able to gain, or are even interested in, citizenship.
The service plans to issue 350,000 residency permits in 2008.
There is only one state program aimed at attracting Russian-speaking people from former Soviet republics into the country, but in order to be eligible for Russian citizenship and financial benefits, potential immigrants have to settle in remote and sparsely populated areas, like the Far East.
This program focusing on these "fellow countrymen" was established by then-President Vladimir Putin in June 2006 and was to kick into action in 2007. Viktor Ivanov, the Putin aide appointed to oversee the program, said in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt in 2006 that the country was ready to welcome the 25 million ethnic Russians living in other former Soviet republics.
So far, however, the results have been very modest. In 2007, only 2,100 immigrants were resettled in Russia as part of this program, said a source in the Federal Migration Service who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The service is currently reviewing 8,500 applications, covering 23,000 potential immigrants.
The challenges are even more severe for potential immigrants who are not ethnic Russians. Isolation, the lack of social infrastructure, xenophobia and salary discrimination all make life for immigrants difficult.
Olga Chudinovskaya, an immigration expert at Moscow State University, said migrant workers are paid on average half of what Russian citizens receive for the same job.
She added that the public perception of immigrants as criminals is an extreme exaggeration. In 2007, migrants accounted for only 1.5 percent of the crimes registered by the Interior Ministry.
Chudinovskaya said the program of resettling "fellow countrymen" in Russia is based on "false priorities," since the government would face a struggle keeping immigrants in far-flung and economically depressed regions.
It will be far more logical for the government to grant citizenship to immigrants who already have jobs in Russia, have come with a strong motivation to stay and who would not ask the government for help, she said.
Policy Blunders
One of the biggest problems in the policy area is that no one has any real idea of how programs will work, as demographers have not been given much of a consultative role in their formation.
"When officials speak of billions of rubles spent on demographic projects, I only shrug, because there was no serious scientific examination of them," said Anatoly Vishnevsky, a leading expert in the field and head of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
For example, it is impossible to determine whether the recent spike in births is because Russians are developing a preference for bigger families, as the government says, or because the baby boomers of the 1980s have reached childbearing age. There are no statistics being collected on whether new babies are second -- or even third -- children; they are just being counted, Yelizarov said.
The government is not only failing to collect the necessary information on the problem, but it has also not invested in any real analysis of the results.
"We need to understand what factors influence birthrates and death rates and how, as well as what money needs to be spent to achieve the desired results," Yelizarov said.
In another telling example of how government priorities are mismatched, the Health and Social Development Ministry's own figures show that there were far fewer deaths from traffic accidents last year than from poisoning, even though Golikova called traffic accidents one of Russia's two leading causes of preventable deaths.
Increased social payments notwithstanding, very little is being done to alleviate the most pressing problems facing young families. Svetlana Misikhina, a demography researcher at the Institute of Urban Economy, pointed to the government's mortgage policy as an example.
Citing a lack of adequate housing as a major obstacle for younger families wanting to have more children, the government created a program to provide greater access to mortgages. The problem is that few effective measures have been put in place to increase the rate of new home construction. The result has been a further increase in real estate prices, putting new or bigger apartments out of reach for the majority of young families.
The government has also done nothing to develop programs that would allow nursing mothers to work from home or work part time.
"The biggest problem of all is that our presidents -- Putin and Medvedev -- are misinformed about the demographic situation, and this is the first thing that needs to be dealt with," Vishnevsky said.
Editor's Note: This is the sixth in a series of reports about the key challenges facing Russia today. Previous reports can be found at www.moscowtimes.com.
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A partition of the US would be more likely--how about this one:
Russia gets the East Coast and parts of the Mid-West and Alaska.
China gets the West Coast and Rocky Mountain States
Mexico gets the Southern states including Texas
Castro's Cuba gets Florida
Anyways, partitioning the US or Russia is impossible by any means short of another World War. So the very idea of a peaceful partition of Russia is completely impossible. You have to be crazy to even suggest this Slavophobe.
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"So the very idea of a peaceful partition of Russia is completely impossible."
We sank the Kursk, and you Russians yelled at us, but that's all. If that isn't a provocation for war, I don't know what is.
So Misha, how many children do you have? I'm guessing none, or at the most one (Do any Russians on this board have children?). Your population is both shrinking and aging in a way that's dangerous to your national security.
Who's going to push your little red button to send a nuclear missile our way? And if some little old babuska does push the button, will it even work? Maybe not. Complex weapon systems need lots of highly skilled workers to maintain them, and soon you will be running out of such people.
The Chinese will gladly encourage illegal immigration into Russia's Far East, and their "moles" will work their way into influential positions in Russian society. I don't know how you will remove them; nuking your own territory doesn't seem realistic, and sending in an army of dedushkas to physically remove a Chinese problem probably won't work.
Russia can be partitioned over the course of a few decades without a major conflict. All that will be required is a mass of immigration by people loyal to other countries, and I believe SCO countries may be willing to try such a plan.
We Americans can add desirable expertise, such that others (China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc) will welcome our help. I wouldn't be surprised if even the Ukrainians join in. We can organize Russian Reservations, similar to what we did for our native American Indians. You will have a place to freely practice your culture, and we'll supply vodka and other necessities so that you don't have to worry about providing for your own welfare. You can even keep your little red passports, which will be a real source of pride.
You people have already neglected your long-term survival as a nation, so I'm not too worried about what you will do when the times comes to hand over the keys to the new owners. 30 years from now, I think a shrinking, elderly Russian population will be sensible about the whole process.
-S
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When you sank the Kursk and you did do it ,Russia was not strong .But in a few years with some of the new weapons Russia has you will be vunerable to vapourization. Don't believe the bullshit that no one can touch the US.
The last guy that said what you did was one week before 9/11 and I told him the US would get it long before Russia and we all saw the result of that didn't we?
"Surrender life to motherland, soul to God, and honor to nobody!"
Actually Russia's birthrate has increased dramatically over the past 5 years, and has almost reached the death rate. Meaning that the demographich situation is quickly reversing itself.
That was a very frank admission about the Kursk sinking. However, if there will be war, it will be fought on our terms, not yours. Don't worry once the US gets partitioned we won't put your people in reservations--only you Americans are capable of such evil. But we will "de-democratize" your people (akin to denazification) to make sure that every last member of the US elite is brought to justice and is no longer allowed to occupy a serious government/business position, while your phony "democratic" ideology will be made equivalent to nazism. Regular Americans, especially the middle and working class people, will face no retribution after America is partitioned, at least not in the Russian sector.
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I was especially amused by your "plan" to infiltrate Russia with Ukrainians! This has gotta be the funniest thing I ever heard. There is no people on earth closer to Russians genetically and linguistically than the Ukrainians. Those Ukrainians that do come to Russia instantly become assimilated into Russians, and are not any different from ethnic Russians in any way. However Ukrainian culture is much weaker than Russian, so it is only a matter of time before Ukraine itself becomes an ally of Russia and the American puppet Yuschenko who runs Ukraine and is detested by the vast majority of Ukrainians is kicked out. Especially since through the Russian Orthodox Church, Russia maintains a very strong influence over the Ukrainian people in Ukraine.
Russia can also assimilate those people from Central Asia and the Caucuses so we are not afraid of them infiltrating Russia. Stalin and Beria were both Georgians, and yet were assimilated to such a degree that were trusted to occupy the highest possible positions in the Russian government. Russia's secret is its ability to assimilate other ethnic groups, those whose cultures are weaker than ours.
The only neighbor whose migrants we might not be able to assimilate is China. Because China is very strong both culturally, spiritually and economically. But we will work with China, not against it. So far the Chinese migrants have not been able to infiltrate any branch of the Russian government, and the Russian security forces, which are the best in the world, will keep a very close eye on these people. The Russian-China strategic alliance is a very important aspect of Russia's policy, but this is an alliance of equals, and doesn't mean that Russia will not keep tabs on the Chinese migrants.
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Chyorny,
So that explains why the Kursk incident was so closely tied to a media propaganda campaign by the "Liberal" American-controlled press (including their propaganda machine inside Russia) against Putin. I was wondering why there was so much "free" press attention to this accident, and why Putin was so "universally" blamed for it. But it makes perfect sense if the incident was organized by the Evil Empire itself--it was just another example of a terrorist act carried out by the Empire, only this time they must have been directly involved. This explains the high degree of coordination between the incident and the propaganda campaign. As a result of this, Russia was able to eliminate the American propaganda off the Russian television airwaves, which was no small task at the time. I also think the terrorist attacks by Basayev and other Chechen terrorist had a CIA signature to them. Note the "free" press reaction to the Beslan hostage stand-off, or the terrorist attack at the theatre in Moscow.
LD,
They can say what they want. And it is clear that they want to spread distrust between Russia and China and destroy our alliance. But you see, they don't control China--China is free and independent from the Empire, so they can't possibly speak for it. But from what statements we can see how dangerous for Russia it would be if China were controlled by the Empire or allied to it--so we must prevent that from happening at all costs! The best way to do this is to make the Russian-Chinese alliance even stronger! The Russian-Chinese alliance is deeper than simply an alliance of leaders--it is an alliance of nations, of people. I have spoken to many Chinese and was always surprised by their very warm and friendly views of Russia and Russians. Any Imperial attack on China should be seen as an attack on Russia, and any Imperial pressure against China should be seen as pressure against Russia.
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"Actually Russia's birthrate has increased dramatically over the past 5 years, and has almost reached the death rate. Meaning that the demographich situation is quickly reversing itself."
Misha, are you personally doing anthing to change Russia's demographic crisis? How many children do you have? Probably the answer is none, am I correct?
I know you're really excited about those 6 proposed aircraft carriers Putin wants to build, but I wonder if they will ever be built. So many big plans, and yet the work force continues shrinking. But you go ahead and keep telling yourself that all is well.
"I was especially amused by your "plan" to infiltrate Russia with Ukrainians! This has gotta be the funniest thing I ever heard."
I was especially amused that you think Ukrainians can't wait for their "much weaker" culture to be assimilated into Russia.
"Stalin and Beria were both Georgians, and yet were assimilated to such a degree that were trusted to occupy the highest possible positions in the Russian government. Russia's secret is its ability to assimilate other ethnic groups, those whose cultures are weaker than ours."
But toyman and Russ taught us all that Russia was a victim of other ethnicities such as the Jews, Georgians, Latvians, and Poles. I'm sure they would be very disappointed to hear you say such a thing.
-S
P.S. So, chornydork, you erased my earlier response. You're a real mental midget.
01 August 2008By Max Delany / Staff WriterYUZHNO-SAKHALINSK -- Railway boss Vyacheslav Steklyevich had just seen the first train roll over a new bridge he oversaw being built, a 10-meter stretch of iron and concrete that was only the beginning of the hundreds of kilometers of train track still needed around the island.
It was, Steklyevich conceded, just a drop in the ocean compared to the huge building works happening across the country -- and it was obvious what the main difficulties ahead would be.
"So far we are OK for labor, but when we start on the bigger infrastructure projects then it's possible that it will be much more difficult to get enough workers," said Steklyevich, the deputy head of innovation for Sakhalin Railways.
In the island's capital of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Governor Alexander Khoroshavin had an easy answer for the problem: Throw money at it.
Pointing to the massive oil and gas projects on the island, Khoroshavin said that 16,000 laborers and specialists from around the world had already flooded onto Sakhalin.
"At IBM, they have a saying: Whatever people tell you, it's all about money in the end. And with money, we can solve even this," he said.
But Khoroshavin's is only the simplest solution to a complex question and one of the most fundamental threats to Russia's continuing economic growth.
From Sakhalin to Sochi and from top executives to manual laborers, Russia is facing a severe labor shortage that could put the brakes on the current economic boom.
Across the globe, countless countries, from the developed economies of Western Europe to rising behemoths, such as India, are feeling the pinch of the worker drought. But for Russia -- with its combination of rapid economic expansion, $570 billion infrastructure plans and shrinking population -- the problem is particularly severe.
Forecasts estimate that the country's work force will fall by 8 million over the next seven years and by up to 19 million by 2025, Russian demographers said in a recent UN-sponsored report. Between 2010 and 2014, the work force will decrease by 1.3 million per year, the report said.
In the first four months of this year, the work force was down 300,000 on the same period last year, the State Statistics Service said.
"This problem is greater than any other facing us over the next 10 years," said Yevgeny Yasin, an academic adviser at Moscow's prestigious Higher School of Economics and a former economy minister under President Boris Yeltsin.
"Starting from this year, we are seeing the number of people of working age start to go down," Yasin said. "This is a colossal task because Russia has never had to deal with it before."
As the country has enjoyed years of sustained economic growth on the back of soaring global oil prices, critics argue that little has been done to address the causes or come up with solutions for the looming labor shortage.
"In reality, the Putin-era policies were for the most part a step backward, so that hasn't given much cause for hope," Yasin said.
Now, with President Dmitry Medvedev at the helm and Vladimir Putin as prime minister, the government has been making increasingly positive noises and has made solving the issue a central plank of its vision, Yasin said.
"But it's still too early to draw any conclusions. So far it's only been words, and they still have to really do something," Yasin said. "If you'd asked me 10 years ago, I would have said we could solve this by now. But now, I am not so sure."
Since his inauguration in May, Medvedev has not shied away from confronting the country's labor shortage.
"It is already being felt fully and in a lot of sectors," Medvedev told a meeting of leading business figures in June.
One solution, Medvedev and Putin argue, lies in the buzzword of the moment -- innovation. In a bid to counter the labor deficit, they contend that the country needs to boost both the efficiency and productivity of its existing work force.
Previously, comparatively low energy and raw material costs have meant that the labor issue was swept under the carpet. But now with prices and wages rising, Russia needs to address the fact that its labor productivity is far lower than the productivity of most of its competitors.
As part of this, Medvedev argued, the country needs to overhaul the current malfunctioning system for training personnel and specialists from scratch.
"The problem of the labor famine can only solved by the government and business working together," Medvedev told the country's most influential business leaders.
Managerial Talent
But the new president's words were nothing new for businesses operating in Russia. Already struggling to find talented candidates and manpower, companies have been forced to come up with their own solutions.
"There are issues at every level of the labor market, but in Russia the biggest problem is with managerial talent at the top," said Wilfried Vanhonacker, the Belgian-born dean of Moscow's Skolkovo Business School.
Billed as the Russian version of Harvard Business School, Skolkovo has financial backing from some of Russia's biggest business names, including Roman Abramovich and Troika Dialog boss Ruben Vardanyan. Construction was ceremonially started in 2006 by then-President Putin, and President Medvedev chairs its international advisory board.
But progress is slow, and even when the school is in full swing in five years' time, it will produce just 250 graduates per year, a figure that Vanhonacker conceded is just "a drop in the ocean" for Russia.
"If you look at China, then Russia's management training is 10 to 15 years behind them," said Vanhonacker, who has spent 20 years setting up business schools in China.
Skolkovo only offers one piece of the jigsaw to a pressing problem -- one that companies' human resources departments across the country are struggling to come to terms with.
"This is certainly peak season for hiring and retaining people," said Olga Molina, HR manager at Ernst & Young.
Increasing competition for talent has seen salaries in the country skyrocket, further turning up the heat on the economy.
Executive pay at large Russian companies can be up to 15 percent higher than at the big multinationals, a recent report by employment agency Antal International said. Average basic salaries for general directors in the retail sector are $25,000 per month, the study said.
"It is not uncommon for top managers to be poached with significant salary increases. This compounds the problem of rising salary costs in an inflationary market," said Neil Cooper, director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce.
"Employers continue to face significantly rising cost pressure on wages," he said.
While projects such as Skolkovo might be the most striking examples, across the country, foreign companies from carmakers to oil firms are frantically setting up training programs for local workers to plug the skills gap they face.
In a bid to get access to potential employees at an early stage, Ernst & Young has teamed up with the Higher School of Economics. If the experiment proves a success, then a lot of other leading firms will look to try to copy it, said Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the country's main big business lobby.
Amid the mud and construction work at General Motors' future factory at Shushary, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, bosses from the U.S. car giant last month opened a $1 million training center. With sales slumping in the United States and Europe, GM is increasingly turning to Russia's booming consumer market to pick up the slack.
With the factory set to start work in November, the company is looking to boost its work force from 700 to 2,000 by next year. That will require some 20,000 hours of training and GM has already teamed up with local universities to find future employees.
But it's not just leading private-sector firms that are fishing for future employees. Last month also saw the first batch of graduates finish a course set up by state-run behemoth Russian Technologies and the Moscow State Institute for International Relations.
"We need a new generation of specialists if we are going to develop the competitiveness of domestic industry and create promising military and civilian production models," Russian Technologies chief Sergei Chemezov said at the event.
Future Generations
But even delving into the country's universities might not help stave off the shortage.
"I read recently that the number of candidates for universities is only just equal to the number of places on offer now," said Molina, of Ernst & Young. "So imagine what the situation for business will be a few years' time" when the economy is growing and the population is shrinking, Molina said.
A snapshot of the next generation of Russian workers suggests that it is steady earning rather than invention or innovation that is most important.
A recent study of 5,000 Russians aged 16 to 25 showed that the Putin-era "generation of stability" lacks much of the ambition and drive that characterized those who grew up in the fluid, poverty-stricken 1990s.
One-fifth of future workers see themselves being what the survey called "office plankton" -- low-level clerks with little responsibility -- while 17 percent want to work as manual laborers, the study from the Fund for Social and Marketing Research.
That means that many look set to add to the already-bloated ranks of low-qualified office workers. Less than one-fifth of those questioned said they wanted to go into business for themselves, almost the same number as those eyeing up government service.
Although labor resources are tight, employment actually rose in the first few months of 2008, partly fueled by a glut of poorly qualified middle-ranking office workers and the seasonal wintertime dip. And despite the rising wages, the country's embryonic middle class views the newfound stability with skepticism and yearns for the quality of life in the West, said a study by the Levada Center, an independent polling agency.
A total of 75 percent of the survey's respondents under 35 said they were ready to emigrate, while one-third of all respondents said they were thinking about sending their children abroad permanently. Over 60 percent said they wanted to send their children abroad to study. Despite banner headlines about increasing numbers of highly skilled Russian professionals returning to the motherland, the reality is a continuing brain drain that has seen officials face demands for tough action.
As the country's education system and business training inches toward European levels, the country faces a tricky Catch-22 situation: The better-trained Russian managers are, the more attractive they become to foreign employers.
"You may think that handing out European-standard diplomas is a stimulus for our citizens finding jobs abroad," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov at a July 16 meeting.
"But rather than introduce limits, we need to create the best conditions for keeping our youth working in Russia -- that's raising wages and living conditions," Putin said, in response to ideas mooted by Mironov to limit the rights of university graduates to leave the country.
As the population shrinks and the average age of the working population rises -- currently 39.5 years, according to the latest statistics -- experts say that the country's low retirement age (55 for women, and 60 for men) will inevitably be pushed higher.
A combination of traditional and contemporary social ills -- alcoholism, smoking, cardiovascular disease, AIDS and drug addiction -- are gnawing away at the country's work force.
While alcohol costs untold man-hours each year and has annually caused over 400,000 deaths for the past 20 years, inadequate or outmoded treatment for the country's up to 6 million drug users means that few ever receive treatment, let alone recover and go back to full-time work.
Although the Russian AIDS epidemic is nowhere near the scale of sub-Saharan Africa, worst-case predictions say HIV prevalence rates here could reach 10 percent by 2020. But the major issue for Russia is that, unlike in other countries, the AIDS epidemic is young.
Most of those infected are aged between 18 and 35, said Dominique Moran, a lecturer at the University of Birmingham, England.
"This suggests that the long-term impact on the current and, critically, future work force could be very significant," Moran said.
Now one in five Russians is over working age, a report from market research firm Comcon said.
Since 2001, the proportion of people over 55 in work has risen from 22 percent to 36 percent, according to Comcon. Average life expectancy for men in Russia hovers around 59.
At the other end of the scale, the percentage of people between 16 and 24 has risen to over half, the study said.
From Abroad
If Russians don't want to stay in the country, then specialists and managers from abroad don't really want to come here, either.
Despite stability and higher wages, attracting foreign specialists from developed economies is becoming harder, due in part to Russia's negative image in the West and the prohibitive cost of living in some cities.
"Over the past 10 years, the tendency has been for foreign companies to phase out expatriates, since their main purpose is to transfer professional skills to local employees over a limited period of, say, a three- to five-year assignment," said Cooper, of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce.
But more than anything else, the biggest stumbling block preventing the country from attracting the workers it needs is its often contradictory, Byzantine and outmoded migration policies.
Just this May, businesses in Moscow were hit hard after the Federal Migration Service stopped issuing work permits, and officials were left scrambling to justify the chaos. The reason, a spokesman for the service said, was that the quota of about 300,000 for 2008 had been used up.
The Health and Social Development Ministry hastily drew up additional quotas, admitting that businesses had been damaged across many regions but downplaying the severity of the situation and shifting responsibility.
"Talk of a work-force deficit is, at the very least, premature," Deputy Health and Social Development Minister Alexander Safonov said as he announced the additional quotas in late June. The average take-up for regional quotas was only 47 percent and as low as 17 percent in some regions, Safonov said.
The problem is, in part, due to the disjointed web of ministries, regional administrations and migration authorities that are responsible for setting the conditions and numbers for work permits and visas. Employees hand in requests for quotas to regional authorities, who in turn pass them to the Health and Social Development Ministry, who then hand them on to the Federal Migration Service.
This means that inflexibility and confusion are often hallmarks of the system. CEOs at major companies are required to get leprosy tests for work permits and businesses can't bring workers in on short notice.
"Small business is in shock," said Gavkhar Dzhurayeva, head of the Migration and Law project. "On the one hand, the government is pushing to develop small business, but on the other bureaucrats' demands seriously limit the mobility of small businesses."
Unlike many developed countries, Russia does not yet have a special program for attracting skilled professionals from abroad and no mechanism for selecting migrants based on the skills needed in the economy, the UN-sponsored report said.
As an example of the possibilities, earlier this month the German government introduced a raft of new measures aimed at liberalizing entrance requirements and attracting about 400,000 skilled workers into the economy.
The move would allow foreigners who earned over 63,000 euros ($98,000) last year into the country to work with no further vetting but still caps the number of low-level workers from new EU members. German business has criticized the government for not going far enough.
The Bottom Rung
But it is at the other end of the spectrum that the damage from Russia's migration policies, in both business and human costs, is most severe.
Currently under construction at the heart of the capital's nascent business zone, Moskva-City, the Eastern Federation Tower will one day be Europe's tallest building and a potent symbol of Russia's economic growth.
It is also a symbol of the country's reliance on cheap, imported labor -- and employs foreign workers from a wide arc of neighboring countries. A full two-fifths of migrant laborers work in construction, mostly from China, the Central Asian and Caucasus republics, Turkey and Ukraine.
In the bare concrete shell of the 25th floor reached by a rattling cage elevator, a small group of Tajik workers stood looking out at the spectacular view of the city. Once the top-end office and apartment complex is finished, space will sell for $35,000 per square meter.
"There is no work back [home] and the pay is very small," said Djomi Davlatov, 38, a craggy-faced Tajik who had worked selling household goods in a bazaar before coming to Moscow 18 months ago.
Davlatov said he earns 17,000 rubles ($730) per month, far more than he could ever make back home. He sends 15,000 rubles of his salary back to his wife and four children in Kulob, a city of 80,000 in southwest Tajikistan. Regular phone calls home dampen the pain of separation, he said.
"Who knows how long we'll be here? Maybe another year on this site, and then we'll move on to another building," said Saidvali Kuvatov, a 19-year-old co-worker.
But these workers were among the lucky ones. While there are around 2 million migrant laborers working legally in the country, the number of illegal workers is estimated at up to 8 million, a spokesman for the Federal Migration Service said.
And if executives from the West have to cope with inconvenience, then Russia's immigration policies mean many ordinary laborers face blatant exploitation.
Russia has visa-free travel with most former Soviet republics, but no coordinated way of bringing in workers to match the country's needs. Forced to rely on often-unscrupulous traffickers, once they reach Russia they are forced to work long hours, for low wages and in inhuman conditions.
Most illegal laborers head for the big cities, meaning that the chronic labor shortages that emerged in the 1990s in certain regions go unplugged. From petty discrimination to violent attacks, this helps fuel the rising tide of xenophobia in the country.
In 2006, average pay for migrant laborers was close to the national average of 11,000 rubles per month, but migrants work far more hours than local workers, the International Organization of Migration said in a report.
"The problem of labor shortage is very acute," said Gulnara Safarova, a specialist at Cushman & Wakefield Stiles & Riabokobylko. "The constant restrictions in legalizing migration labor lead to more illegal workers on sites."
Given the huge potential profits and rampant corruption among officials, fines of 2,000 to 8,000 rubles for each illegal migrant don't do much to deter construction firms hiring illegal workers.
"Even the biggest well-known companies take the risks and use illegal workers on their constriction sites," Safarova said. "This year, Russia has about 1 million illegal workers on its sites," she said. "The construction boom has just started -- in coming years the number will only increase."
In May, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched a countrywide $570 billion spending program on infrastructure. In the Black Sea resort of Sochi, an estimated 186,000 workers will be needed to build venues for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
"Without [illegal migrant] workers, it's impossible now to imagine any building process, because Russian labor resources are so limited," Safarova said.
Editor's note: This is the ninth in a series of reports about the key challenges facing Russia today. Previous reports can be found at www.themoscowtimes.com.
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I know toyman personally, and I know that he doesn't think like that. The Poles are different though. It's not a matter of integrating the Poles (there are hardly any in Russia to begin with), but of the hostile attitude of the Polish nation to Russia. But in my opinion, this problem can easily be solved once we drive the US out of Europe. Because I know most Polish people don't like America and don't agree with the neocon policies, even if they are also not very friendly towards Russia.
There are some narrow-minded Russian nationalists out there. Many of them are not educated. Narrow-minded nationalism is discouraged by the Russian government and with good reason. It was also discouraged during Soviet and tsarist times, because narrow-minded Russian nationalism is NOT compatible with Russia being a great power. But we fully support broad-minded Russian nationalism--of Russia not just as an ethnic group but of a great culture, great people, great language. This is what rallies our people and what makes us a great nation.
Dream on, your idiotic Ukrainian dreams. Have you ever even met a real Ukrainian? Other than the outcasts that reside in the US? I seriously doubt it. I have been in Ukraine many times, and have met many Ukrainians in both Russia and in Ukraine, including those from Western Ukraine--the bastion of Ukrainian nationalism, and although the attitudes of Ukrainians differ depending on region (with the central, eastern and southern Ukraine being completely pro-Russian--there Putin is more popular than Yuschenko, Yanukovich or Timoshenko), even the Western Ukrainians now detest NATO and America, not to mention the rest of Ukrainians. So I see no problem of finding common ground with them. Yeah there is your puppet Yuschenko in charge, aggressively pursuing his anti-Russian and pro-NATO policies. But Yuschenko is despised in Ukraine and totally isolated--his approval rating is around 10%, because his pro-NATO policies are despised (and to make him a real laughing stock in the eyes of the Ukrainians, not only are his policies unpopular but they have also been completely unsuccessful), and its only a matter of time until he gets a well-deserved booting. Just mark my words--within 2 years Ukraine will be our ally, and all American advisors and other CIA infiltrators will be booted from there.
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BTW I don't trust anything the Moscow Times has to say. It is not a reputable newspaper, but a Western propaganda piece. See, we have real freedom of the press in Russia, even the Western propagandists have their little corner from which to shout their lies--Moscow Times newspaper and the Echo of Moscow radio-station. Fortunately most Russians don't read Moscow times, as it is only published English and not in Russian. And most of those who listen to the Echo of Moscow do it out of sheer amusement at its extremely overt hatred for Russia and Russians, its hilarious glorification of everything American, and its blatant lies.
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Misha: "I know toyman personally, and I know that he doesn't think like that."
I read his posts over the course of many years, and that is the type of rhetoric he in particular posted (even if he didn't believe it) - Russia was the victim of minor nationalities during the Soviet period. According to him (and others), the leadership and policymakers of the SU consisted almost entirely of Jews, Georgians, Ukrainians, Poles and others oppressing the poor and helpless Russian people.
"Have you ever even met a real Ukrainian? Other than the outcasts that reside in the US? I seriously doubt it."
Not only have I met a real Ukrainian (not a Jew from Ukraine living in the US), I also have visited Ukraine.
"BTW I don't trust anything the Moscow Times has to say. It is not a reputable newspaper, but a Western propaganda piece."
Well, I don't believe Pervy Kanal, but I still watch it. There's a news anchor named Valeria who is rather nice looking, so it makes the propaganda more tolerable. But if Katya is on the news desk, I don't watch. A sour Russian face + propoganda=sleep.
"See, we have real freedom of the press in Russia...."
I understand anyone can print anything they want in Russia. Putinist don't censor journalists, they just kill the journalists that they don't like.
But hey, you never answered my question as to whether or not you are personally helping to end Russia's demographic crisis, so I'll ask a third time: Do you have any children?
=====================
Chornydork: "Khodorkhovsky had a stake in Moscow Times"
WTF? You forgot to tell everyone that Khodorovsky is a Jew! Come on Chorny, that was important, relevent information you neglected mention (as you have so many times in the past). You're becomming forgetful in your old age.
-S
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Pervyi Canal is also not a good source of information as its target audience is the common people, who have other things to worry about than politics and international issues, it provides them with a good but very simplified overview. There are other good sources of information intended for the intellectuals such as TVTs (ÒÂÖ) (Channel 4), which is a nice and relatively unbiased (certainly much more unbiased than anything in the West) source of news. Out of the newspapers, the best source of political and international news is Izvestia, while the best source of economic news is Kommersant. But Moscow Times is just a blatant propaganda piece.
The killings of journalists were likely provocations directed against the government by the terrorists and their sponsors. There was absolutely no reason for Khlebnikov, who never openly criticized the Russian government to be killed, so most likely it was a hit by the Chechen terrorists. Politkovkskaya was also likely murdered to discredit the Russian government. Oligarchs in exile like Berezovsky are willing to pay any price to discredit the Russian government, and these scoundrels get support from the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies.
Soviet Union had many problems. Its ethnic policies were screwed up--it had this sort of affirmative action, like you also have in the US, when certain minority groups got special priveleged treatment (especially Georgians) and others did not. And Russians especially in ethnic autonomous republics were officially discriminated against. And it is true that at certain periods of Soviet history ethnic Russians were a minority in the Soviet government and in the Politburo. This is completely wrong. Now there is no official discrimination in Russia.
In any case I'd choose Russia over the West anyday. No comparison. We are on the rise, and you are GOING DOWN! I've lived in the US, and I am very happy to be back in Russia. I am making as much money now as I did when I worked in the US, only my job is more exciting, and don't have to deal with all the bullshit, code words, "leadership crap", propaganda, and lies, that is in place in most American organizations. In America you try to control what everyone thinks, what everyone does, people's behaviors, their personal lives. I felt like a slave when I lived in your "democratic" country. You really are an "evil" empire. Wake up to this fact. Even in the Soviet Union, the government could not control people to the degree that your government controls your people.
I know there are many other young people who returned and who would never go back to America or Europe. Latest polls show that the overwhelming majority of Russians do not want to emigrate.
And as for my personal life, I know you Americans love to stick your noses in other people's business, but I am no longer in your damn country, so go to hell!
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It is imperialism at its worst, Chyorny. These f*ckers who rule America think they own the world. They are a murderous bunch of thugs who don't believe in anything, but "postmodernistic" crap. They believe that any idea can be deconstructed, and anything can be bent to their will (except for some reason their own crazy ideas). The reason why they hate Islam and Orthodox Christianity is because they fear anything that is absolute, and believe only in relativism and deconstructionism. They do not believe in God, but are heidoneistic devil-worshippers.
I have met some of these scum of the earth, myself. They are an inhuman bunch, and deserve nothing but slow, tortuous death! I don't mean the American people themselves, but the bunch of devil-worshipping thugs that rule them. To call them an elite would be to denigrate the true meaning of that word--the elite should be the best, the smartest, the brightest people of a country, but in America the exact opposite is the case. You can take a brief glimpse at what they are like if you watch the movie "Eyes wide shut" (w. Nicole Kiddman and Tom Cruise).
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Don't worry Misha, I'm not at all interested in your so-called personal life. I was only making the point that your nation has a problem: It's filled with people such as you who allow the nation to slowly dwindle. You deny that there is a demographic problem, and yet you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. If you don't see the problem, it really doesn't bother me. I'm absolutely fine with Russia falling apart some more.
But I see a pattern here, and in other posts which is very interesting. So you lived in America, which means that most likely your mother was a mail-order bride or your parents are Jews. You spoke of broad-minded Russian nationalism, and condemned narrow-minded nationalists. Completely contrary to the written record of this forum, you told me toyman is not a narrow-minded Russian nationalist, but rather the broad nationalist you like. Chorny had a perfect opportunity to engage in Jew-bashing when he mentioned Khodorkovskii, but didn't. So, the evidence all points to this: You're Jewish, aren't you? I can't think of anything else to explain the lack of overt Jew bashing by them in your presence.
-S
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Russia's demographic problem was caused by Yeltsin who was an American puppet and who did his best to destroy Russia economically, politically, culturally and demographically. But now this problem is over. People refused to have children because of the economic situation. Now everything has changed. My nationality is Russian, and I intend on having children, so fuck off you sick yankee scum! It is your Evil Empire that's on the verge of collapse right now, not our nation, and your hero Dick Cheney won't save you!
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"Russia's demographic problem was caused by Yeltsin who was an American puppet and who did his best to destroy Russia economically, politically, culturally and demographically."
Nah, Yeltsin was just a typical Russian (that is to say, a drunken incompetent).
But now this problem is over. People refused to have children because of the economic situation. Now everything has changed.
The problem started well before Yeltsin, and has now passed from being simply a short term response to economic depression to being a part of Russian culture.
"My nationality is Russian..."
Well, I guessed wrong. Then the next most likely explanation is that your mother was a mail-order bride. If that's what happened, it's a real tragedy. No wonder you're so sour on life.
"...and I intend on having children..."
That may be, but clearly you have no near term prospects to carry out this plan (you spend way too much time spamming this forum).
"so f*ck off you sick yankee scum! It is your Evil Empire that's on the verge of collapse right now, not our nation, and your hero Dick Cheney won't save you!"
Maybe I should call you Mysha, you remind me of "The Mouse that Roared".
-S
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