The Trolls Who Came In From The Cold: The operation, Internet Research, is financed through a holding company headed by President Vladimir Putin's "personal chef," Evgeny Prigozhin. "So you write, write, write, from the point of view of anyone," Tatiana, 22, says. "You could be [posing as] a housewife who bakes dumplings and suddenly decides: 'I have an opinion about what Putin said! And this action by Vladimir Vladimirovich saves Russia." The roughly 400 employees work 12-hour shifts and are split into various departments. Some focus on writing up themes and assignments, others concentrate on commenting, and others work on graphics for social media.
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The operation, Internet Research, is financed through a holding company headed by President Vladimir Putin's "personal chef," Evgeny Prigozhin.
"So you write, write, write, from the point of view of anyone," Tatiana, 22, says.
"You could be [posing as] a housewife who bakes dumplings and suddenly decides: 'I have an opinion about what Putin said! And this action by Vladimir Vladimirovich saves Russia."
The roughly 400 employees work 12-hour shifts and are split into various departments. Some focus on writing up themes and assignments, others concentrate on commenting, and others work on graphics for social media.
The Trolls Who Came In From The Coldby noreply@rferl.org (Viktor Rezunkov)
Former employees of Russia's best-known "troll farm" reveal what the operation looks like from the inside.
 Wall Street Journal |
Germany's Angela Merkel Calls on EU to Maintain Sanctions Pressure on Russia
Wall Street Journal German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday called on Europe to maintain sanctions pressure onRussia despite a decline in violence in eastern Ukraine, urging Western unity amid Russianefforts to reinvigorate ties with sanctions skeptics such as Italy and ... Tusk presses EU leaders to pledge to keep sanctions on RussiaReuters Ukraine president calls on allies to boycott 2018 World Cup in RussiaThe Guardian Germany's Goal: Restoring Russia-Annexed Crimea to UkraineNew York Times Yahoo News -Bloomberg -Financial Times all 427 news articles » |
Putin's Rattling of the Nuclear Saber Makes it Clear: Ukraine is Non-Negotiableby By Ivan Nechepurenko <moscowtimes@themoscowtimes.com>
The revelation Sunday that Putin had been prepared to bring nuclear weapons into a state of alert makes one thing clear: Russia won't give up on Ukraine, even if faced with the threat of nuclear war.
Staunton, March 16 – Many who look at Moscow’s propaganda efforts consider only their current state and fail to see the ways in which the Kremlin has cultivated certain ideas over a very long period, laying the groundwork for what it may only expect to be able to achieve in the long term.
Such people thus miss opportunities to identify Moscow’s plans and to counter such propaganda before it can inflict the most harm, according to Vyacheslav Gusarov, a specialist on Russian disinformation at the Kyiv Center for Military-Political Research .
The notion that Ukraine might dissolve into several states has been around for a long time, but Russian information operations intended to lay the ground work for that are of more recent origin. The “first serious” example of promoting discussion of this issue came in 2004 during the Ukrainian presidential vote.
That campaign continued through 2006, he says, in order to undermine the new government of Viktor Yushchenko by suggesting that he would eventually have to accept the division of his country if he hoped to stay in power. It featured numerous Russian officials as well as some ethnic Russians from eastern Ukraine.
Even after Viktor Yanukovich came to office and promoted an expansion of the influence of Ukraine’s eastern sections on the rest of the country, Moscow continued to promote the notion that Ukraine was so diverse that it had little chance of holding together unless of course it accepted Russian dominance of its entire space.
And for the same ends but playing an entirely different note, Moscow also played up complaints by people in Western Ukraine about Yanukovich’s deference to Russian interests, including on Sevastopol, and suggested that their attitudes made the division of Ukraine inevitable.
In the first half of last year, Gusarov continues, Russian media both domestic and international dramatically increased the number of reports and discussions about what they suggested was the inevitability of the division of Ukraine into one or more states given its political and cultural diversity.
While that theme faded somewhat in the second half of 2014, it resumed with a vengeance at the end of February 2015. Among those pushing the line that Ukraine must be divided the hardest was Modest Kolerov, a former Putin advisor who now heads the Regnum news agency, discussed here.
Moscow simultaneously promoted the appearance of articles and programs in foreign news outlets about the possibility of Ukraine’s dismemberment and then recycled them in its own outlets in order to suggest that the Russian position was shared by others, thus further pushing the notion that Ukrainians are isolated on this issue and have no other choice.
The list of articles and programs promoting Moscow’s line on this subject, the Kyiv expert continues, could be extended at will. But even this brief survey points to three important conclusions about the motives of those behind it. First, Moscow wants Ukrainians to get accustomed to the idea that their country will be divided at some point. Second, the Russian center wants to spark discussions about it in Ukraine itself. And third – and this is especially important – it wants to promote the notion among Ukrainians that the Russian side must be “included in this process” as “a political arbiter,” something that would allow Moscow to draw the lines rather than anyone else.
To counter this, Gusarov says, Kyiv must carefully monitor what Russian media are saying, it must track how Moscow’s messages are being received in various parts of the country and by various groups, and it must develop an information strategy to respond and undercut the Kremlin’s message whether it is delivered directly or indirectly.
None of these steps will be easy, he suggests, but taking them is critically important to the survival of Ukraine.
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Many determined to battle authoritarianism despite Kremlin’s iron blanket, writes John Lloyd
Russia and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have criticized a Ukrainian draft law granting the rebel-held areas special status.
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Americans Wonder: Is Islamic State Truly Islamic?by webdesk@voanews.com (Jerome Socolovsky)
With militants in the Middle East attacking members of other faiths and destroying museum pieces deemed ‘un-Islamic,’ a heated debate is underway in America over the religious roots of their actions. VOA religion correspondent Jerome Socolovsky reports.
Путин и Украина by Голос Америки
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Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/2681975.html.
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Poland's border guards detained the man but there was no need for his antics because his wife would have had no trouble entering the passport-free Schengen travel zone
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The proposal to grant separatist areas in the east special status falls in line with the Minsk ceasefire deal from February
Read the whole story
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Germany Warily Assumes Greater Global Roleby webdesk@voanews.com (Jela de Franceschi)
Germany has taken the lead in trying to solve the European financial crisis and to stop the war in Ukraine. But is Berlin ready to play a larger international role? VOA’s Jela de Franceschi examines the extent and limits of German power.
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A Chechen mother has taken her two young children to Syria to join Isis, Dutch prosecutors have said.
IN SEPTEMBER OF 2014, I found myself standing on a narrow, potholed street in Kiev, east of the Dnieper River, in an area known as the Left Bank. I didn’t even know, at that point, whom I was meeting. I knew only that Khalid, my contact in Turkey with the Islamic State, had told me his “brothers” were in Ukraine, and I could trust them.
When one of them called me, I was given the address of a small street in the Ukrainian capital where I should go, and no other information. When I arrived, I found myself in a maze of Soviet apartment blocks. I immediately noticed two well-built men walking by; they were bearded, with black sunglasses and black leather jackets. When I looked closely, I could see sticking out of their jackets the barrels of small machine guns.
“Kandahar, Kandahar,” one of them said into his radio, after approaching me.
Could we go in? “No,” was the answer. The “commander” was still busy.
The armed men guided me past rows of Soviet-era apartment buildings, and then we waited in a wide, open square among the tall, concrete buildings. After half an hour of waiting, we wove through the housing complex until we approached a 10-story building, then took the elevator up to a mid-level floor and entered a small apartment. The single room was furnished with a bed, a kitchen table and two chairs.
Sitting inside the small apartment was Isa Munayev. I recognized him immediately, because he was one of the few Chechens serving in Ukraine who was photographed frequently without a mask. He was upset, and shouting into the phone: “We came to die for you, and you don’t even want to do what you promised.”
Even before he arrived in Ukraine, Munayev was well-known. He fought against Russian forces in both Chechen wars; in the second, he was the commander of the war in Grozny. After the Chechen capital was captured by Russian forces between 1999 and 2000, Munayev and his men took refuge in the mountains. He fought from there until 2005, when he was seriously injured and went to Europe for treatment. Munayev lived in Denmark until 2014. Then war broke out in Ukraine, and he decided it was time to fight the Russians again.
As Russian-backed separatist forces began battling Ukrainian forces, Munayev came to Ukraine and established one of what would become several dozen private battalions that sprang up to fight on the side of the Ukrainian government, operating separately from the military. Munayev’s group was called the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion, named after the first president of independent Chechnya, who was killed by Russian forces in 1996. Munayev was the head of the battalion.
He was not at the front in the fall of 2014, because he was busy training forces and organizing money and weapons, from Kiev. An older man in a leather jacket introduced me to Munayev. “Our good brother Khalid recommended this man,” the man said. (Khalid is today one of the most important leaders of the Islamic State. Khalid and Munayev knew each other from years spent fighting together in Chechnya.)
Munayev had reason for all the security precautions. Vladimir Putin regarded him as a personal enemy, and so did Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-friendly leader of Chechnya. Yet once I was inside the apartment, Munayev greeted me like an old friend, and we chatted casually about friends and colleagues we both knew from Chechnya; some were dead, a few still alive.
For those looking for an easy narrative in today’s wars, whether in the Middle East or in eastern Ukraine, the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion is not the place to find it. The battalion is not strictly Muslim, though it includes a number of Muslims from former Soviet republics, including Chechens who have fought on the side of the Islamic State in Syria. It also includes many Ukrainians. But all are fighting against what they perceive to be a common enemy: Russian aggression.
Munayev was full of nervous energy, gesturing and talking loudly. He rarely stood still; even in the small apartment, he got up frequently, walked around and sat down again. When I asked whether I could visit him once he moved to the front lines, he told me to call him next time I was in Kiev.
A few months later when I returned to Ukraine, in early 2015, Munayev was no longer in Kiev. He was fighting in the east, in the so-called Debaltseve “cauldron,” which had become the center of an intense battle between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists. But Munayev gave permission for Ruslan, a member of his battalion, to take me to his secret base.
I was the first journalist allowed to visit the base, and I would end up being the last journalist to see Munayev before his death.
THE TRIP FROM Kiev to the base of the Dzhokhar Dudayev battalion in the east winds along 500 miles of poorly maintained roads pocked with holes, and in the winter, often covered in snow. When we passed the city of Dnipropetrovsk, in southeastern Ukraine, we were told to turn off our phones and remove the batteries.
We approached Munayev’s base late at night after many hours inside a cramped, overheated car. On the last bit of road, Ruslan got lost in the fog. He wasn’t the only one. We stopped at one point to talk with the driver of a Ukrainian army truck; the soldier was completely confused. He didn’t know where to go, and we couldn’t help him. On the horizon, we saw the flash of rockets as troops fired at positions near Donetsk. Dull explosions punctuated the silence of the night.
We rendezvoused with Munayev’s men at the crossroads of a small village, near a Soviet-era monument to “working women” painted bright white. An armored van, similar to one designed to carry cash to the bank, pulled up next to us. Ihor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch from Dnipropetrovsk, had given the car to Munayev’s fighters. From there we drove together to the base.
The Dudayev battalion base was situated in an old, dilapidated complex of buildings, a former psychiatric hospital that once treated drug addicts, among others. The conditions were tough, but at least the main building was warm, heated by a wood-burning oven. Fighters cut down the trees from around the hospital to feed the oven.
“There is no one in Chechnya who hasn’t suffered at the hands of the Russian army.”
- Isa Munayev
About 50 to 60 fighters were in the building, at least half of them Ukrainians, many from the city of Cherkasy. Others came from Chechnya, and the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus. There were also Crimean Tatars, Azeris and one Georgian from Batumi. All were there to defend Ukraine against Russia. “I know how much this great nation needs help, and we really want to help them,” Munayev said.
Munayev also admitted, however, that he hoped the weapons he got in Ukraine would end up in the hands of militants in the Caucasus. He had a clear goal. “I defend Ukraine and Chechnya,” he told me. “If we succeed in Ukraine, then we can succeed in Chechnya.”
In Ukraine, Munayev was seeking revenge for the wrongs that he and his people had suffered. Russians had killed his father, his wife and his children. “These are the enemies who murdered my people, who took my country from me,” he said. “They killed all those who were dear to us. There is no one in Chechnya who hasn’t suffered at the hands of the Russian army.”
Adam Osmayev, the deputy commander of the battalion, is famous in his own right. Two years before the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine, the British-educated Chechen was arrested in Odessa, a port city in the south of Ukraine, on suspicion of conspiring to assassinate Vladimir Putin. Osmayev initially pleaded guilty, but then withdrew the plea, writing in a statement he submitted before the court that the admission was “obtained through physical and psychological coercion.” Osmayev claimed that after his arrest in 2012, representatives of Ukraine’s security service beat him on the head with fists, gun handles and rifle butts. He said they kicked him, partially suffocated him with a plastic bag over his head, and injected him with drugs.
Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky helped create the first battalions — the Dnipro and Dnipro-1 — each with about 500 people.
In the spring of 2014, after a new Ukrainian government came to power, Isa Munayev and three of his men broke Osmayev out of prison,
according to Ruslan
, who was one of the fighters involved. On the way back to Kiev, special forces surrounded them at one of the militia checkpoints, Ruslan said, and after a dramatic standoff, the Ukrainians allowed the Chechens to go free. (There is no way to confirm Ruslan’s account, but in the fall of 2014, the Odessa court suddenly declared that Osmayev had fulfilled enough of his sentence and had been set free). Osmayev and Munayev came back to Kiev, and the Dudayev battalion was created.
At the time I visited, most of the fighters were at the front in the vicinity of Luhansk. But the exact number serving in the battalion is a mystery. According to one source, there are 500 volunteers. Assuming that number is correct, it’s a significant force, which is why it’s increasingly feared in Kiev. The battalion is not subject to any political leader in Kiev, or subordinate to any political structure there.
The Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky helped create the first volunteer battalions — the Dnipro and Dnipro-1 — each with about 500 people. For several months, he also financially supported several other battalions, including Azov, Aidar, Donbass, and Right Sector battalion. In the end, Kolomoisky also invited the Chechens, hoping they would protect his businesses and factories, if needed.
Since the 1990s, Kolomoisky has been one of the most powerful men in Ukraine. His influence extends across almost the entire Ukrainian economy. Among other companies, he controls PrivatBank, the country’s largest bank, and exercises significant authority over Ukrnafta, its largest oil and gas producer. His influence extends over the media through several television stations, including the popular channel 1+1. The oligarch also owns the football club Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.
Most of Kolomoisky’s assets, however, focus on Privat Group, which The Wall Street Journaldescribed as “an informal nebula of companies controlled by Mr. Kolomoisky and his partners.” In 2008, Forbes estimated that Kolomoisky’s fortune was $4.2 billion.
When Kolomoisky saw that the Russians might capture Dnipropetrovsk — where his business was centered — he decided to cooperate with the new president of Ukraine, who, like him, was a businessman. Kolomoisky also wanted to help bail out the government’s army, which had been hobbled by years of corruption. After Russia annexed Crimea and separatists began fighting in eastern Ukraine, Kolomoisky announced his candidacy for the post of governor of Dnipropetrovsk. He was immediately appointed to the position.
“If we die, at least we die as soldiers, and not as slaves.”
- Isa Munayev
When the Russians stopped approximately 120 miles short of Dnipropetrovsk, Kolomoisky suddenly lost interest and stopped paying the volunteer battalions. The Right Sector battalion responded by seizing his property, but Munayev couldn’t do that. He was a foreigner, and feared the Ukrainian authorities would regard his battalion as an illegal armed group, then disband it. Munayev was bitter, but would not openly speak ill of the authorities in Kiev. The Ukrainian people were still helping his fighters.
There are three volunteer battalions with a significant number of Muslim fighters operating in Ukraine today (it would be wrong to describe any of the battalions as “Muslim,” since they also include Ukrainians and other nationalities). The Dudayev battalion operates between Donetsk and Luhansk, the Sheikh Mansour battalion, which broke off from the Dudayev battalion, is based close to Mariupol, in the southeast of Ukraine, and in the northeast is the Crimea battalion, based in Krematorsk, which consists mostly of Crimean Tatars. (There is also a separate company of Crimean Tatar fighters that operate as part of a sotnya, a Slavic term for “hundred.”)
From time to time, Munayev met with representatives of the Ukrainian Security Service, known as the SBU. The Ukrainian government and President Petro Poroshenko fear that Chechens — along with other branches of voluntary battalions dissatisfied with the developments in Ukraine — could one day threaten the government in Kiev.
That concern isn’t totally without merit. “It doesn’t matter whether the Ukrainian authorities help us or not,” a commander from the Tatar battalion told me. “Now we have weapons and we will never given them up.”
That commander recently arrived in Ukraine from Syria. He wants to fight to free Crimea, which he does not believe Ukraine will ever recover through negotiations. “It can be done only by force, with weapons in hand,” he said.
IN THE END, I spent three days at the base with Munayev. As a volunteer battalion, the relationship between commander and fighters relies on mutual trust, rather than traditional military structures. The volunteers weren’t there because they were paid soldiers or conscripts; they were there because they believed in Munayev’s instincts and abilities as a commander. And Munayev believed in them. “These are my fighters,” he said at one point. “These wonderful, beautiful young men.”
Over the past month, Munayev had been organizing raids behind enemy lines, attacking the command posts, artillery, rocket launchers and entrenched tanks. He would personally go to the front lines for a week or two, then return to the base just to pick up a new group of fighters, allowing the others to rest.
Munayev went to battle for the last time on Jan. 26. He went to Debaltseve, which the separatists took in February following an intense battle that left much of the city in ruins. Before getting into the white armored van that last day, he told me the same thing he told his fighters — that he didn’t know when he would return. “We are going deep behind enemy lines,” he said. “I hope everything will be fine. If we die, at least we die as soldiers, and not as slaves.”
Munayev didn’t return. What happened next depends on whom you believe. There are suspicions that his location was betrayed to the Russians. But one of the fighters I spoke with, a Chechen who came to Ukraine with a Turkish passport, does not believe that. According to his account, on Feb. 1 Munayev’s group went to help the volunteer Donbass battalion fighting near Debaltseve. Most of the fighters stayed at the Ukrainian positions, but Munayev took four fighters and went on a scouting mission. He wanted to get to the rear of the enemy. They walked a little over 2 miles into “no man’s land,” between the two sides.
They came to a small village called Chernukhino, where they stumbled upon Russian soldiers. There was shooting, and the Chechens killed a few Russians — the rest of the Russians withdrew. The Russians, however, managed to give the village’s coordinates to their artillery, and soon all hell broke loose. At the same time, the assault began on Debaltseve, which was defended by the Ukrainian army, as well as volunteer battalions including Donbass and Dudayev.
Munayev’s body was left on the battlefield, something strictly prohibited by the Chechen honor code.
The five lightly armed Dudayev fighters were attacked by infantry and tanks, and so they fled. They came upon a courtyard, where they saw a building with a shop. Munayev emptied some rounds into the front door and ordered his men to take refuge inside. When the last one entered, there was an explosion. The room filled with clouds of black smoke. When the dust settled, the commander of the militants was lying at the entrance to the building. Munayev had been hit by shrapnel from a tank shell, and had a large gaping wound. Munayev, who had survived two brutal wars in Chechnya, died instantly. He was 49 years old.
What happened next is even more controversial. The commander’s body was left on the battlefield, something strictly prohibited by the Chechen honor code. I spoke with a fighter from the Chechen battalion of Sheikh Mansour, which broke away from Munayev’s branch a few months ago. Relations between the two battalions are not good.
He didn’t want to talk about the death of Munayev, or why the commander was left on the battlefield. Ask the people “who were with Isa in his last moments,” the fighter said when I asked him about it. “Of course we know what happened, but it is not our business.”
Munayev’s fighters said they didn’t take him from the battlefield because they were too far from the Ukrainian positions, and wouldn’t have been able to carry the body. They were convinced that no one would escape alive. Fleeing, they had to jump over fences, walls and sometimes on top of the roofs of houses. In the evening, they came to the trenches of the Donbass Battalion.
Before Munayev left the base for the last time, I had asked him what he thought of the Chechens fighting in Syria alongside ISIS and other Islamic organizations. What were they fighting for there?
“I don’t know what they’re fighting for, but I know what I’m fighting for,” he answered. “I fight for freedom.”
Adam Osmayev, Munayev’s deputy, was a few miles away fighting alongside the Ukrainian troops when Munayev was killed. When Munayev’s death was reported in the Russian media, one of the claims was that Osmayev had murdered him. Osmayev wouldn’t even comment on that allegation. He said that type of information must have come from Russian security services trying to discredit him.
Osmayev said that a few days after Munayev’s death, when the fighting “subsided a little,” he went to retrieve his commander’s body. Osmayev carried the body from the battlefield, and he and his comrades buried him in the wild fields of Ukraine. Osmayev’s debt to Munayev was repaid.
Osmayev, who has now taken over leadership of the Dudayev battalion, said he didn’t know for sure what happened, but he was sure Munayev died like a soldier.
“He was looking for his end,” Osmayev said. “It found him.”
Photos: Tomasz Glowacki
* At the request of the writer, “Ruslan” is identified by a pseudonym.
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But Reuters reported: "There was nothing in his appearance that indicated any obvious health problems."
Mr Putin arrived two hours late for the meeting, which is taking place in the tsarist-era Konstantinovsky Palace just outside Russia’s second city.
Mr Atambayev said his Russian host had driven him around the palace before the meeting, in an apparent bid to dispel all speculation about Mr Putin's ill-health.
"In their dreams," Mr Atambayev said with a smile.
He added that "the president of Russia not only walks, but speeds around."
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov greeted reporters Monday with sarcastic remarks: "So, have you seen the president paralysed and seized by the generals? He has just come back from Switzerland where he attended the delivery."
Asked if Putin's condition required treatment by an osteopath, the spokesman retorted: "Yes, the osteopath was with the generals."
In a sign that the Russian leader might be trying to inject some drama into his return to public life, the Kremlin ordered early on Monday morning the latest in a series of large military exercises that have caused alarm in neighbouring former Soviet countries.
The drills for the country’s Northern Fleet, based near the Arctic city of Murmansk, will include almost 40,000 soldiers, 41 ships, 15 submarines and over 100 planes and helicopters, Russia’s Defence Minister was cited as saying by state news agency RIA Novosti.
The Kremlin also appeared to be filling up Mr Putin’s schedule, issuing a statement on Monday that he would meet his Belorussian and Kazakh counterparts in the Kazakh capital on March 20.
Where has he been?
Mr Putin’s disappearance came amid rumours of political infighting in Moscow which led to intense speculation last week about where he might be, and why he has been absent.
The focus in the last few days has been on Mr Putin’s health, with opposition television channel Dozhd reporting he was suffering from flu.
Austria’s the Kurier newspaper claimed on Sunday that Mr Putin had been treated in Moscow for back problems by a Viennese doctor.
The original speculation over Mr Putin’s whereabouts was sparked when unnamed Kazakh officials were quoted as saying that the Russian leader had cancelled a trip to Kazakhstan because he was unwell.
The Kremlin has repeated said that Putin is in good health, maintaining that he has simply been conducting meetings behind closed doors.
That did not stop social media users from speculating that Mr Putin has had a stroke, or is even dead.
But health concerns have been, perhaps, the most predictable of the theories proposed for his long absence.
THE THEORIES
Other explanations included:
• A power struggle inside the Kremlin: The assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in central Moscow last month, which the Kremlin said was a "provocation" designed to undermine political stability, has fuelled a climate of fear in Moscow where rumours have flourished.
Reports of the fall from grace of a long-standing Putin ally, Igor Sechin, head of oil giant Rosneft, have increased the conviction of many that there is a bitter power struggle going on for control of the country.
Others have pointed to remarks by the strongman leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, praising the alleged killers of Nemtsov who were publicly paraded by the country's security services.
Geydar Dzhemal, the chairman of the pro-Kremlin national Islamic Committee, even claimed on Georgian TV that Mr Putin had been "neutralised" – though still alive – by the FSB, Russia's security service.
• Botched cosmetic treatment: a recent German documentary claimed that in 2010 Mr Putin secretly had a facelift operation.
According to files of an unidentified Western intelligence agency seen by the filmmakers, the agency believed blue stains seen under the Russian leader’s eyes during a state visit to Ukraine that year were caused by the operation.
At the time, Mr Putin’s spokesman blamed the stains on poor television lighting. Could he have gone back for more surgery?
• The secret birth of Putin’s child: Swiss media reported Mr Putin was attending the birth at the private Clinic Sant'Anna near Lugano last week by his rumoured girlfriend, gymnast-turned-politician Alina Kabayeva.
These reports - and the relationship with Ms Kabayeva - have been denied.
Gymnast turned politician Alina Kabaeva is reputedly in a relationship with Mr. Putin
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Флажки вокруг Кадырова
Эхо Москвы в Санкт-Петербурге-Mar 13, 2015
На фоне паники Кадырова и его окружения, спокоен только один «Лорд». Он затаился и молчит. По слухам «Лорд» (Магомед Даудов, глава ...
Глава Чеченской Республики Рамзан Кадыров награжден орденом «За верность долгу», сообщил в ходе торжественного собрания в честь Дня воссоединения глава Крыма Сергей Аксенов.
«Рамзан Кадыров удостоен государственной награды Крыма за "мужество, патриотизм, активную политическую позицию, личный вклад в укрепление единства, развития и процветания Республики Крым". Среди награжденных также вице-премьер правительства России Дмитрий Козак, депутаты Госдумы России Виктор Водолацкий, Алексей Журавлев и Глеб Хор, президент Республики Татарстан Рустам Минниханов», — сообщает пресс-служба Чеченской республики.
9 марта президент России Владимир Путин подписал указ о награждении Рамзана Кадырова Орденом Почета «за трудовые успехи, активную общественную деятельность и многолетнюю добросовестную работу». Комментируя награждение главы Чечни, пресс-секретарь президента Дмитрий Песков назвал случайным совпадение по времени награждения Рамзана Кадырова орденом Почета с арестом подозреваемых в убийстве Бориса Немцова, один из которых — Заур Дадаев — служил во внутренних войсках МВД Чечни.
Также Рамзан Кадыров является обладателем звания Героя Российской Федерации (за мужество и героизм, проявленные при исполнении служебного долга в 2004 году), ордена «За заслуги перед Отечеством» IV степени, ордена Мужества, а также — дважды — медали «За отличие в охране общественного порядка».
Подробнее о других наградах главы Чечни читайте в материале «Ъ» «Владимир Путин наградил Рамзана Кадырова орденом Почета "за трудовые успехи"».
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Псаки обвинила Россию в репрессиях в Крыму
РИА Новости По утверждению официального представителя госдепартамента Джен Псаки, за прошедший год ситуация с соблюдением прав человека в Крыму ухудшилась. Она призвала Россию "прекратить дальнейшие нарушения". Официальный представитель Государственного департамента ... Госдеп США заявил о признании Россией военного вмешательства в КрымуРБК Джен Псаки: американские санкции к России могут стать вечнымиВести.Ru Псаки: антироссийские санкции останутся в силе, пока Крым не станет УкраинойНТВ.ru УНИАН -Коммерсантъ -Mail.Ru Все похожие статьи: 76 » |
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A Chechen refugee has abducted two of her children, both Dutch citizens from Maastricht, and taken them to Syria to join the Islamic State (IS) group, the Dutch newspaper Brabants Dagblad reported on March 16.
The 33-year-old woman, who has not been named, is reported to have taken her two children, 7-year-old Aysha Opdam and 8-year-old Luca Opdam, from Maastricht to Raqqa in Syria on October 29. The Dutch Public Prosecutor is treating the case as an abduction because both Aysha and Luca were in the custody of their Dutch father and removed without permission.
The mother and the two children "almost certainly traveled with stolen travel documents," according to the NLTimes website.
Reuters reports that the head of the children's Islamic school notified their father that the mother had printed plane tickets for herself and the two children for flights to Greece.
The Dutch authorities are reportedly investigating whether there is a network in Maastricht that recruits individuals to join IS in Syria.
Chechen Diaspora (And Children) In Syria And Iraq
While the Dutch case is the first reported incident of a Chechen refugee or member of the Chechen diaspora abducting children to take them to Syria, it is certainly not the first case of Chechens from Chechnya and from diaspora communities in Europe taking their children to the armed conflict in Syria.
Evidence from postings made by Chechen militants in Syria and Iraq show that a number of them have brought their families, including children of various ages, with them to Syria.
Recent postings by a Chechen militant who now calls himself Abu Hamza but who previously went by the name Ilyas Deniyev, and who is prominent in the Islamic State's Chechen faction Katibat al-Aqsa, show the Chechen with a young child named as Khadija.
In one video posed on Abu Hamza's social networks, Khadija is filmed speaking Arabic and talking about "jihad."
A series of photographs likely taken in 2013 show the young son of a now-deceased Chechen militant, Seyfullakh Shishani (Ruslan Machalikashvili), in Syria with his father. In some of the photos, the boy -- who appears to be about 13 -- is shown wielding a large firearm. Machalikashvili and his children had lived for some time in Istanbul in Turkey before going to Syria, where Machaliashvili ended up leading his own faction within Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Photographs taken after Machalikashvili's death in February 2014 suggest that his son has now returned to Istanbul.
There is also evidence that North Caucasian IS militants in Raqqa, where the Chechen refugee is thought to have taken her two Dutch children, have established a Russian-language school for the children of Chechen and Daghestani militants. The establishment of a school suggests that a significant number of North Caucasian militants in Raqqa came to Syria with their children in tow.
-- Joanna Paraszczuk
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has appeared in public for the first time since March 5.
Putin met with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev on March 16 at the Constantine Palace outside St. Petersburg.
Referring to rampant speculation about his health and whereabouts during his unusually long absence from the public eye, Putin said: "It would be boring without gossip."
Atambaev said that Putin is "in excellent form" and had driven him around the palace grounds, adding: "He sat at the wheel himself."
In addition to speculation about the health of Putin, 62, his absence fueled rumors of deepening rifts in Russia's secretive political and security circles following the killing of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin on February 27.
In addition to speculation about the health of Putin, 62, his absence fueled rumors of deepening rifts in Russia's secretive political and security circles following the killing of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin on February 27.
Amid Kremlin denials of health problems but no official explanation for his absence, an array of theories put forth about the reason ranged from the birth of a love child to a girlfriend of the divorced Russian leader and his ouster at the hands of Kremlin hawks in a palace coup to disease or even death.
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Putin on March 16: "It would be boring without gossip."
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, commented sarcastically on the rumors after saying that Putin had driven Atambaev around for 15 minutes.
"So everyone has now seen the paralyzed president captured by a general who has just returned from Switzerland where he was delivering a baby?" Peskov asked.
Atambaev had a message for any ill-wishers of Putin: "They will wait in vain."
Putin, in a dark suit and necktie, looked relaxed if somewhat pale as he and Atambaev sat down to start their discussion.
In front of the cameras, he and Atambaev discussed the prospects for Kyrgyzstan's bid to join the Eurasian Economic Union, a four-nation grouping that is part of Putin's effort to strengthen ties and increase Russian influence in the former Soviet Union.
Putin said "the ultimate goal has to do with adapting Kyrgyzstan's economy to the economies of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia. All of these tasks are, obviously, attainable and the sooner we do it, the better."
Putin had last been seen at a news conference with visiting Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on March 5.
The Kremlin had published photos and video of Putin at several meetings since then, but some Russian media say those were prerecorded.
Speculation mounted after Putin postponed a visit to Kazakhstan that had been scheduled for March 12-13, and a Kazakh official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that it seemed Putin was ill.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's office said on March 16 that the meeting between Putin, Nazarbaev, and Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will be held on March 20 in the Kazakh capital, Astana.
Putin's return coincided with the start of a week of Russian celebrations of the anniversary of Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 -- a move condemned as illegal by Kyiv, the European Union, the United States, and many other countries.
Russia's seizure of Crimea and support for separatists whose conflict with government forces in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 6,000 people since April has badly damaged Putin's already clouded reputation in the West and ratcheded up tensions betwen the former Cold War foes.
Peskov said Putin does not currently plan to visit Crimea and that the Kremlin wlil announce such a trip if it is to take place.
With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, TASS, and Interfax
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· · ·
Глава Чечни рассказал о своем отношении к слухам о президенте России
Сегодня в 19:58, просмотров: 10778
Глава Чечни Рамзан Кадыров снова выступил в своем Instagram. На этот раз его сообщение было посвящено не убийству политика Бориса Немцова, а слухам, которые ходили всю прошлую неделю о Владимире Путине, который несколько дней не показывался на публике. Кадыров считает, что эти слухи распускали враги России с подачи западных спонсоров. По его мнению, команда Путина правильно делала, что не реагировала на "тявканье дворняжек".
фото: Михаил Ковалев
Напомним, что слухи о нездоровье Путина появились в середине прошлой недели, когда казахи объявили об отмене встречи лидеров России, Казахстана и Белоруссии, которая должна была состояться 12-13 марта в Астане. Пресс-секретарь Путина Дмитрий Песков ответил, что вопросы со здоровьем Путина связаны с "весенним обострением". Также он заявил, что своим рукопожатием президент может запросто руку сломать.
Пришлось Пескову комментировать и другой слух - о якобы родившемся у Путина ребенке. Пресс-секретарь президента России заявил на прошлой неделе: «Информация о рождении ребенка у Владимира Путина не соответствует действительности».
Сегодня в Санкт-Петербурге Владимир Путин встретился главой Киргизии Алмазбеком Атамбаевым. Подробности этой встречи можно прочитать тут. Атамбаев также подчеркнул, что Путин находится в отличной форме и что он катал его по территории, самостоятельно управляя автомобилем.
Ближе к вечеру высказал свое отношение к слухам о президенте и глава Чечни Рамзан Кадыров. Как обычно он написал об этом в своем Instagram.
Несколько дней, когда слухи о Владимире Путине активно обсуждались, Кадыров назвал "неделей широкомасштабной лжи".
За такой короткий период времени "никогда и нигде не было вылито на уши граждан столько сплетен, фальши и наглой дезинформации", пишет Кадыров. Он считает, что слухи распускали так называемые "политологи, аналитики, специалисты" с подачи западных спонсоров. Этих людей Кадыров называл "откровенными врагами России".
Кадыров также пишет, что Владимир Путин и его команда "исключительно правильно делали, вообще не реагируя на тявканье дворняжек".
По мнению Кадырова у тех, кто распускал слухи про Путина "языки отвалились", когда они увидели его сегодня в Петербурге "бодрого, здорового и уверенного в себе".
"Россия великая держава, у которой есть сильный, волевой, решительный Президент Владимир Путин, который никогда не позволит США и их подручным западным странам превратить наше Отечество в управляемую из Лондона и Вашингтона территорию!", - пишет Кадыров, заканчивая свое сообщения словами" не дождетесь".
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· · ·
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made his first official visit to Berlin today. Poroshenko urged his German allies to take a more resolute position in relations with Russia. The Ukrainian leader dedicated a lot of time to discussions on shipments of lethal weapons to his country at the Munich Security Conference. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not given approval to Ukraine’s request yet.
In February, Merkel persuaded U.S. President Barack Obama to at least postpone the talks on weapon shipments. If the same topic was discussed by Poroshenko and Merkel, it has not become a highlight in the press. She asked Ukraine to be more moderate and assured that sanctions against Russia would only be imposed in dire need. Merkel reiterated that Germany did not recognize the annexation of Crimea.
Gerrman Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the Ukrainian problem would not be the priority topic at the upcoming talks of EU chief diplomats in Brussels at the end of the week. Obviously, Germany takes the loss of Crimea by Ukraine as a given, which does not, however, stop Germany from verbally supporting Kiev. Berlin has no new sanctions or demands for Russia.
In a recent interview with Bild, Poroshenko expressed the opinion that Russia should be deprived of the right to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Merkel did not show any support for Poroshenko, even when he reminded about the involvement of Russian soldiers in the east of Ukraine.
Germany is in an ambivalent state, where conservative Merkel shows a more harsh attitude and socialist Steinmeier shows more moderation. The German socialists want to maintain constructive ties with Russia within the framework of the Ostpolitik policy (eastern policy) of ex-Chancellor Willy Brandt and ex-President Walter Scheel. The policy was aimed at maintaining dialogue with the east during the Cold War and searches for compromises.
Merkel and Steinmeier might also have been playing the good cop/bad cop trick. Merkel criticized the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, because the ceasefire was not in full force. She said that the pro-Russian rebels were not properly controlling and documenting the withdrawal of forces. Merkel added that the ICRC didn't have full access to the Donetsk and Luhansk territories.
Steinmeier urged Poroshenko to comply with the Minsk Agreements due to their fruitfulness. He noted positive developments. In his words, the ceasefire was mostly in force, military vehicles were withdrawn, OSCE observers had access to most disputed territories in the east of Ukraine.
Poroshenko stated that the war was not an excuse for slow internal reforms. Merkel expressed respect towards the work done by the Ukrainian government. She said that Germany will grant Ukraine aid worth 500 million euros, compared with the surplus of 18 billion euros in the German budget in 2014.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has made his first official visit to Berlin today. Poroshenko urged German allies to take a more resolute position in relations with Russia. The Ukrainian leader dedicated a lot of time to discussions on shipments of lethal weapons to his country at the Munich Security Conference. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not given approval to Ukraine’s request yet.
In February, Merkel persuaded U.S. President Barack Obama to at least postpone the talks on weapon shipments. If the same topic was discussed by Poroshenko and Merkel, it has not become a highlight in press. She asked Ukraine to be more moderate and assured that sanctions against Russia would only be imposed in dire need. Merkel reiterated that Germany did not recognize annexation of Crimea.
Gerrman Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the Ukrainian problem would not be the priority topic at the upcoming talks of EU chief diplomats in Brussels at the end of the week. Obviously, Germany takes the loss of Crimea by Ukraine as givenness, it does not, however, stop Germany from verbally supporting Kiev. Berlin has no new sanctions or demands for Russia.
In a recent interview with Bild, Poroshenko expressed an opinion that Russia should be deprived of the right to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Merkel did not show any support to Poroshenko even when he reminded about involvement of Russian soldiers in the east of Ukraine.
Germany is in an ambivalent state, where conservative Merkel shows a more harsh attitude and socialist Steinmeier shows more moderation. German socialists want to keep constructive ties with Russia within the framework of the Ostpolitik policy (eastern policy) of ex-Chancellor Willy Brandt and ex-President Walter Scheel. The policy was aimed at maintaining dialogue with the east during the Cold War and searches for compromises.
Merkel and Steinmeier could have also been playing the good cop/bad cop trick. Merkel criticized the realization of the Minsk Agreements because the ceasefire was not in full force. She said that the pro-Russian rebels were not properly controlling and documenting withdrawal of forces. Merkel added that the ICRC had no full access to Donetsk and Luhansk territories.
Steinmeier urged Poroshenko to comply with the Minsk Agreements due to their fruitfulness. He noted positive developments. In his words, the ceasefire was mostly in force, military vehicles were withdrawn, OSCE observers had access to most disputed territories in the east of Ukraine.
Poroshenko stated that the war was not an excuse for slow inner reforms. Merkel expressed respect towards the work done by the Ukrainian government. She said that Germany will grant Ukraine aid worth 500 million euros, compared with the surplus of 18 billion euros in the German budget in 2
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· · · ·
Chechen leader comments on rumours about Putin’s health
Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov has commented on rumours about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health on Instagram today. Kadyrov supposed that there had never been more lies and misinformation in history throughout the week.
The Chechen leader noted that “all psychics had their tongues fall off” after Putin’s meeting with Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev in Saint-Petersburg today.
Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov has commented on rumours about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health on Instagram today. Kadyrov supposed that there had never been more lies and misinformation in history throughout the week.
The Chechen leader noted that “all psychics had their tongues fall off” after Putin’s meeting with Kyrgyz counterpart Almazbek Atambayev in Saint-Petersburg today.
For over 10 days the Russian President Vladimir Putin was out of the public eye, fuelling speculation about his health and a coup d'etat.
Many thought Putin had ruffled too many ushankas in the Russian political, military and security network over his handling of the Ukraine crisis, the beleaguered economy and assassinations of some of his most high-profile critics.
Some said he was holed up in bed with the flu. Other suggested something far more serious, such as a stroke. One rumour was that he was at the birth of a secret lovechild in Switzerland. Then he turned up in public at a meeting with Almazbek Atambayev, president of Kyrgyzstan, apparently in good health, though he said little and looked to be sweating a lot.
But one rumour sparking much of the discussion since the weekend was that of the Patrushev Putsch, a coup purportedly led by a member of the Siloviki group of high-profile Kremlinites who used to work for the Russian security services and have been fingered before as the potential source of any Putin demise.
Nikolai Patrushev is the former head of the FSB, the fearsome Russian intelligence service which Putin himself once directed, and a member of the Siloviki. And he became frontrunner in the coup rumours after outlandish claims made on Georgian television by a Putin critic.
"I think that Putin is neutralised at the moment, but of course, he is alive," said Geydar Dzhemal, chairman of the National Islamic Committee in Russia, a group he founded, on Georgian TV channel Rustavi-2.
"He is under the control of the power-wielding agencies, who have, in my opinion, organised a coup d'etat [...] My information is that Patrushev met Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in Pyatigorsk on 11 March and tempted him over to his side."
Patrushev was born into the end of Stalinist Russia in 1951 in Leningrad, which is now St Petersburg and the city in which Putin was a major administrative player during his political rise in the early 1990s.
Soon after graduating from the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute, where he also worked for a brief while, Patrushev entered the KGB in 1974. And it was in the intelligence service that he stayed, working up through its different branches and incarnations, including the FSK and the FSB, taking ever more senior roles, employed under Putin in the 1990s.
Once Putin had moved on, the then president Boris Yeltsin promoted Patrushev to the role of director of the FSB until 2008.
"A month after [Patrushev's] appointment to the post of FSB director, a series of large-scale terrorist attacks occurred across Russia (explosions in apartment blocks in Buynaksk, Dagestan, in Moscow and in Volgodonsk, Rostov Region)," according to Russia Profile.
"Those declared responsible for the attacks were Chechen separatists. Such attacks were the basis for the initiation of the Second Chechen War."
The FSB had been accused in the media of having a hand in some of the terror attacks and the assassinated former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was murdered by polonium poisoning in London in 2006, claimed Patrushev had personal involvement in the plots. The Russian security services and Patrushev deny all the allegations.
Not long after taking over the FSB, Patrushev descibed security officials as the "new nobility" in Russia.
"Our best colleagues, the honour and pride of the FSB, don't do their work for the money," he said. "They all look different, but there is one very special characteristic that unites all these people, and it is a very important quality: It is their sense of service. They are, if you like, our new 'nobility'."
Since leaving the FSB directorship in 2008, Patrushev has been chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, a top-level body that advises the president. Patrushev also holds a law PhD and a number of military honours, including the title Hero of the Russian Federation for his part in the Second Chechen War.
In February 2015, Patrushev accused the US of trying to drag Russia into a war over the Ukraine crisis and bring about regime change in Moscow.
"For the US, Ukraine in and of itself is not a matter of interest. Their aim is to weaken our positions. The Americans are trying to drag the Russian Federation into an international military conflict, and with the help of events in Ukraine, bring about regime change [in Moscow] and ultimately dismember our country," he reportedly said.
"American experts [...] believe that Moscow has too many vast territories under its control. They see such a distribution of natural resources as unfair and believe that steps should be taken which would provide other states with free access to them."
Patrushev has two sons, Dimitry and Andrei. Dimitry is a top banker in Russia, while Andrei followed in his father's footsteps and works at the FSB.
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Moscow — The Kremlin's case against five Chechens accused of murdering liberal activist Boris Nemtsov for his "anti-Muslim" statements appears to be unraveling at lightning speed.
The alleged shooter, Zaur Dadayev, was likely tortured in custody and denied that he had confessed to the crime, a Russian human rights official said Tuesday after a prison visit.
Winston Churchill once said that following a Russian power struggle is like "watching two dogs fighting under a carpet," and Russians are now filling in the gaps in the official narrative of Mr. Nemtsov's death with a wave of speculation.
Most here believe that Mr. Nemtsov's assassination, a professional hit carried out under the Kremlin walls, is part of a deeper internecine battle. But there's little agreement or clarity on who is fighting who, and why.
Some experts see signs of blowback from Russia's covert war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an unsigned analysis arguing that an extremist challenge to President Vladimir Putin's ruling circle could be underway. The paper suggests that ultra-nationalists, frustrated with Mr. Putin's failure to go all-out in support of eastern Ukrainian rebels and to silence fully his pro-Western domestic opponents, staged the killing of Nemtsov – in order to force the president to take responsibility for an act that to most Russians appeared to have official complicity.
"It's an unmistakable signal to the Kremlin that 'Russian patriots' are tired of waiting," the paper wrote. "[The message is that] If you don't do it somebody surely will. . . We are the force that protects your weakness and our task is to protect the Motherland from its enemies. . . Our work must be rewarded."
Free speech backlash
Last Sunday Russian investigators brought the five Chechen suspects to court, and charged two of them with carrying out the killing. The judge claimed that Mr. Dadayev had confessed to shooting Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister.
Then the pro-Putin leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, took to his Instagram account to claim that Dadayev, who had served as an officer in Chechnya's security forces, was a devout Muslim who'd been shocked by the Charlie Hebdo cartoons and may have killed Nemtsov over his outspoken defense of free speech.
"All who know [Dadayev] confirm that he is a deep believer and also that he, like all Muslims, was shocked by the activities of Charlie and comments in support of printing the cartoons," Mr. Kadyrov wrote. "If the court confirms Dadayev’s guilt, then he’s committed a serious crime... But I want to point out that Dadayev was incapable of lifting so much as a finger against Russia, a country for which he spent many years risking his life."
That framed Nemtsov's killing in a way that let both the Kremlin and Kadyrov off the hook. The very next day Putin awarded Kadyrov with the Order of Honor, which recognizes exemplary public service.
Some speculate that Kadyrov, who has sent large numbers of Chechen fighters to aid east Ukrainian rebels, was behind Nemtsov's murder. Others suggest that Chechens opposed to Kadyrov, or even Russian security officials, may have done it to drive a wedge between the Chechen strongman and the Kremlin.
Kremlin loyalist
Kadyrov was left in near total charge of Chechnya after Russian forces pulled out in 2009 after pacifying the rebellious republic. He professes total loyalty to the Kremlin, yet has infuriated many by running Chechnya as his fiefdom, largely outside of Russian law.
"Chechnya is an enclave where power has been monopolized [by Kadyrov] to such an extent that the place can be described only with great reserve as part of Russia," says Gennady Gudkov, a former KGB officer and parliamentarian turned anti-Kremlin activist.
The theory advanced by Kadyrov is falling apart. Dadayev insisted Tuesday that he had not made a confession during a visit by Andrei Babushkin, a member of the Kremlin's human rights commission. Mr. Babushkin later told journalists that there were signs Dadayev had been tortured.
Meanwhile, Nemtsov's friends excavated his Facebook postings at the time of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and found that, aside from some generic affirmations of free speech, the liberal activist hadn't said anything that would likely rile Muslims.
Chechens have often been blamed for political killings in Russia, without the actual organizers ever being named or brought to justice. Notably, five Chechens were convicted in the 2006 slaying of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya; the crime's "mastermind" and his motives remain unknown.
"Chechens are used as killers, but also as smokescreens," says Andrei Soldatov, editor of the online security journal Agentura.ru. "Kadyrov protects his people, and that's why investigations of these murders stop at the immediate perpetrators and never go up the chain.
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· · ·
Vladimir Putin may well be seriously ill, or worse.
He hasn't appeared in public in a week, he just canceled a trip to Kazakhstan and a series of meetings in Moscow, and the hashtag (Putin Died) is trending like mad on Twitter. There have been reports that he's had a stroke.
Whether Putin is sick, or "is feeling fine," as his spokesman Dmitry Peskov insists, the system he presides over is far from healthy. Even if Putin the man is in top form, the "collective Putin," Russia's informal ruling circle, is showing signs of deep distress.
In fact, over the past two weeks, since the February 27 assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, it has appeared to be in the throes of a crisis. Informal rules have been violated, rivalries among figures near the top of the power pyramid have escalated into open conflict, and Putin has been conspicuous by his absence.
And while it is impossible for outsiders to truly know what is going on in the opaque world of the Kremlin's inner sanctum, there seem to be two possible explanations for Putin's disappearance from public view.
Either he is fine and furiously working behind the scenes to calm the clan warfare that has emerged in the wake of the Nemtsov assassination.
Or Putin is truly sick and incapacitated and the recent turbulence we have witnessed -- from the assassination to the muddled narratives in the investigation to the open conflict between the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov -- are symptoms of a highly personalized system that has lost its head.
In a political system like Russia's, where formal institutions are weak, court politics are paramount, and personal ties mean everything, obscure signals and gestures matter a lot. So do informal rules. They have to, because the law doesn't apply to those on the top.
This was one of the reasons why the Nemtsov assassination was so shocking. Killing somebody this prominent -- and certainly doing the deed blocks from Red Square -- was against the rules.
As Ivan Yakovina, a former political correspondent for Lenta.ru, in the Ukrainian newspaper Novoye Vremya, "Moscow's unspoken rules" forbid killing those other top politicians. Even those such as Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, who had gone into opposition.
The killing, therefore, was "a signal to all representatives of this class," Yakovina added.
And if the Nemtsov assassination has violated one of the cardinal edicts of Putinism, the aftermath violated another: Clan warfare among top members of the elite must not be played out in public.
When the FSB named Zaur Dadayev -- a man with close ties to Kadyrov - as the mastermind of the Nemtsov assassination, it was interpreted in the elite as a direct assault on the Chechen strongman.
Kadyrov is powerful. Perhaps one of the most powerful men in Russia. He has thousands of loyal armed men at his disposal; he has a strong lobby in the Interior Ministry; he counts key Kremlin power brokers like Vladislav Surkov as his allies; and he has long enjoyed Putin's support.
But he has also acquired powerful enemies, including Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, Kremlin political overlord Vyacheslav Volodin, and FSB chief Aleksandr Bortnikov.
And Kadyrov's enemies now appear to be using the Nemtsov assassination to take him down.
In a , the prominent journalist and Kremlin-watcher Oleg Kashin noted that it was significant that Dadayev and the other suspects in the Nemtsov case were arrested by the FSB and made public by Bortnikov himself.
"Up until now, Bortnikov was not a public person who announces somebody's arrest," Kashin said. "This is usually done by Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin."
This, Kashin added, also reeked of a "siloviki war" -- a showdown among the security services -- since Dadayev served as deputy commander of Battalion Sever, an Interior Ministry paramilitary unit formed by the Chechen leader.
"Bortnikov struck a blow against Kadyrov," journalist and political commentator Orkhan Dzhemal.
"There's a battle going on. The Spasskaya is fighting the Borovitskaya," he said, metaphorically referring to the two famous Kremlin towers.
The battle played out in media reports about the Nemtsov investigation, too. A report in the pro-Kremlin tabloid claimed that Dadayev had retracted his confession and claimed he was tortured
There was also in the opposition Novaya Gazeta that quoted unidentified law-enforcement officials who claimed the authorities know who really organized the Nemtsov hit -- a mysterious Chechen security officer, also with close ties to Kadyrov, identified only as "Major Ruslan."
In fact, the FSB assault on Kadyrov appeared to commence in earnest before the Nemtsov assassination.
In February, a Daghestani court sentenced two Chechens to nine and 12 years in prison on for plotting the assassination of Saigidpasha Umakhanov, a rival of Kadyrov's and the mayor of the region's third-largest city.
The FSB also took the lead role in that case. And in a report this week -- note the timing -- FSB officials as saying the assassination was ordered by Adam Delimkhanov, Kadyrov's cousin and close associate.
If a battle between Kadyrov and the FSB is about to go full-throttle, it would be a war of the titans that could shake the Putin system to its core.
And Kadyrov's behavior -- from his much-publicized this week to the where he wrote that he would lay down his life for Putin -- suggest that he senses the danger.
But for the time being, at least, Putin is nowhere in sight.
-- Brian Whitmore
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· · · · ·
Yevgeny Razumny / VedomostiNemtsov was gunned down on the night of Feb. 27 on Moscow's Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, steps from the Kremlin.
Three more suspects in last month's assassination of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov have been officially charged with his murder, the Interfax news agency reported Monday, as the main suspect's lawyer said his client had an alibi.
Zaur Dadayev's lawyer, Ivan Gerasimov, told the RBC newspaper Monday that his client had an alibi on the night Nemtsov was killed. Gerasimov told the newspaper that Dadayev was in Moscow, but nowhere near where the murder took place, without elaborating.
Earlier Monday, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, Shagid Gubashev and Khamzat Bakhayev, three of the five Chechen men arrested earlier this month in connection with Nemtsov's murder, joined Dadayev — a senior police officer — and Anzor Gubashev in being charged with the killing.
An unnamed source close to the investigation told Interfax that law enforcement had changed the charges against the suspects, replacing the charge of murder motivated by greed or mercenary purposes with that of murder based on "political, ideological, racial, ethnic or religious hatred or enmity."
Nemtsov was gunned down on the night of Feb. 27 on Moscow's Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, steps from the Kremlin. He had been set to lead an anti-government protest on March 1.
Each of the suspects had a planned role in the assassination, according to an unnamed source familiar with the investigation quoted by Interfax.
According to Interfax's source, Dadayev, a former deputy commander of Chechnya's Sever police battalion, likely followed Nemtsov onto the bridge from the restaurant in the GUM shopping mall on Red Square where the politician was dining with his girlfriend, who was unharmed in the attack.
Brothers Shagid and Anzor Gubashev allegedly drove onto the bridge to pick up Dadayev in a getaway car after the latter fatally shot Nemtsov several times from behind.
The alleged roles of Bakhayev and Eskerkhanov in the murder were not detailed in the source's account.
Interfax's source also claimed that investigators had found a private property in the Moscow region where the suspects allegedly gathered to plot the murder.
Independent media reports have speculated about indirect links between the murder suspects and high-ranking Chechen officials. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — who suggested earlier this month that Nemtsov's stance on religious-themed caricatures in French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo could have been the motive behind the murder — said in an Instagram post he knew Dadayev to be a "true Russian patriot."
According to independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dadayev traveled to and from Moscow with the commander of the Sever battalion, Alibek Delimkhanov, who is the brother of State Duma Deputy Adam Delimkhanov.
RBC news agency reported Monday that Dadayev had been living in Moscow for the past six months, despite numerous previous media reports stating he was on vacation from Chechnya in the Moscow at the time of the murder. RBC cited a source as saying Dadayev likely cohabited with Ruslan Geremeyev, another member of the Sever battalion. Geremeyev, according to Novaya Gazeta, is the nephew of Adam Delimkhanov and Russian senator Suleiman Geremeyev. Ruslan Geremeyev is currently in the Chechen capital Grozny where he is under the close protection of Chechen security forces, Novaya Gazeta reported Monday.
Eskerkhanov, one of the men charged Monday, is a former local police officer in a unit headed by Vakha Geremeyev, another uncle of Ruslan Geremeyev, according to Novaya Gazeta.
Contact the author at g.tetraultfarber@imedia.ru
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The Chechen connection to the assassination of Russia's opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is pushing Russia's spooks into political battles they would rather avoid.
The FSB appears to have uncovered signs of a conspiracy that implicates Chechen leaders very close to Ramzan Kadyrov. According to Novaya Gazeta, investigators have found a sustained effort by elements in the Chechen security forces to track and target not only Nemtsov, but several prominent opposition figures and public personalities critical of President Vladimir Putin.
This raises the prospect of Kadyrov's direct involvement as part of his strategy to keep himself indispensable to the Kremlin as a force of violence against the regime's opponents.
If Kadyrov were indeed freelancing into political assassinations in Moscow and were allowed to walk away unpunished, he would be taking Putin and the entire Russian leadership hostage, which might be precisely his plan. This would be a threat to the Russian state that the FSB would be legally obligated to fight.
Kadyrov has been raising his political profile and sought to position himself as Putin's most trusted lieutenant and even a peer ruler, aiming at a higher federal role. His brazen forays into Russia's foreign and security policy, and his attempts to speak on behalf of all Russia's Muslims, unnerved many in Moscow.
His political alliance with Putin's aide Vladislav Surkov, who owes his return to the Kremlin to Kadyrov's intervention, has created a lock over Putin's succession plans, where any future Russian president should be acceptable to Kadyrov. His willingness to play a central role in physically suppressing anti-Putin opposition opened a horrifying prospect of a sectarian war in Russia.
The stakes are huge. Full investigation and arrests of co-conspirators risk destabilization in Chechnya escalating into war. A decision to freeze the investigation in its tracks and cover up would be extremely demoralizing for Russia's security services and essentially signal the disintegration of Putin's power vertical. It would expose Putin's humiliating dependency on Kadyrov, raising the risks of his seizure of power in Moscow.
For the spooks this creates a loyalty test between the Russian state and its leader who may have been taken hostage by Russia's enemies. There must be rich irony in the fact that the FSB, Russia's ruthless security service, is now acting as the last best hope for Russia's democracy.
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government relations and PR company.
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По неподтвержденным данным, окружение российского президента Владимира Путина покинуло страну. Помощник президента российской федерации Владислав Сурков находится в Гонконге вместе со своими близкими. Об этом сообщил украинский волонтер Alex Noit
“Говорят что советник Путина Владислав Сурков срочно свалил в Гонконг вместе с семьей. Поездка оказалась настолько срочной, что о ней, на момент отъезда, не знало даже ближайшее окружение, а также администрация президента”, - опубликовано в сообщении.
Другой приближенный к Путину чиновник, его пресс-секретарь Дмитрий Песков экстренно вылетел во Францию.
“Руководитель пресс-службы президента России Дмитрий Песков якобы внезапно уехал из России во Францию “на несколько дней на отдых”. Последнее сообщение Песков якобы сделал уже, покинув страну. Он сообщил, что президент Путин “жив и здоров и вечером в воскресенье собирается посмотреть телевизор” - опубликовано в сообщении.
По сведениям инфсайдеров, свой последний пресс-релиз спикер Кремля опубликовал, будучи за пределами Родины. В нем говориться о сожалениях президента в связи со смертью писателя Валентина Распутина.
“Президент был хорошо знаком с писателем, является поклонником его творческого таланта и будет всегда помнить глубокие продолжительные беседы с Валентином Распутиным”, - опубликовано на сайте Кремля.
Кроме того, сайт президента сообщает о том, что Путин поздравил вице-президента Российской академии наук, академика РАН Жореса Алфёрова с 85-летним юбилеем.
Другой приближенный к Путину чиновник, его пресс-секретарь Дмитрий Песков экстренно вылетел во Францию.
“Руководитель пресс-службы президента России Дмитрий Песков якобы внезапно уехал из России во Францию “на несколько дней на отдых”. Последнее сообщение Песков якобы сделал уже, покинув страну. Он сообщил, что президент Путин “жив и здоров и вечером в воскресенье собирается посмотреть телевизор” - опубликовано в сообщении.
По сведениям инфсайдеров, свой последний пресс-релиз спикер Кремля опубликовал, будучи за пределами Родины. В нем говориться о сожалениях президента в связи со смертью писателя Валентина Распутина.
“Президент был хорошо знаком с писателем, является поклонником его творческого таланта и будет всегда помнить глубокие продолжительные беседы с Валентином Распутиным”, - опубликовано на сайте Кремля.
Кроме того, сайт президента сообщает о том, что Путин поздравил вице-президента Российской академии наук, академика РАН Жореса Алфёрова с 85-летним юбилеем.
Президентского оболезнования семьям 17-ти погибших при пожаре в казанском торговом центре "Адмирал" - нет. Фотографий, а также видеозаписей с участием президента в минувшие дни опубликовано не было. Последний раз Путин предстал перед телекамерами 5 марта.
Источник: amurburg.ru
Метки: СМИ; путин; сурков; песков
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Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t been seen in public since March 5, and depending on whom you ask, he’s either dead, has had a stroke, has cancer, is being overthrown in a palace coup, or, contrary to his spokesperson’s denials Friday, has been out of the public eye because he has fathered a lovechild.
“Information that a child has been born to Vladimir Putin is not true,” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskovtold Forbes Russia. “I am planning to appeal to people who have money to organize a competition for the best journalistic hoax,” he added.
Speculation on Putin’s whereabouts began when he canceled a high-level trip to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, and then several other meetings this week, including the signing of a treaty with South Ossetia and an appearance at a meeting of top brass at the FSB, Russia’s domestic intelligence service. Putin’s absence has sent the Russian Twitterverse and media into overdrive, sparking the trending hashtag #ПутинУмер (Putin Died), as well as a cottage industry of theories — some absurd and others more believable — to explain what is keeping the usually omnipresent Russian president from the public eye.
Peskov, meanwhile, has been on the offensive, steadfastly denying the Russian rumor mill — often with colorful details. After shooting down rumors about Putin’s ill health earlier this week on the radio station Ekho Moskvy, Peskov added that “his handshake is so strong he breaks hands with it.”
Yet despite Peskov’s best efforts, the theories about what could be behind Putin’s mysterious absence have continued to swirl. The Kremlin’s website has been posting photos of the Russian president attending meetings during his physical absence, but the Russian news outlet RBC investigated Putin’s schedule and found discrepancies. According to RBC, the meeting with the governor of the northwestern region of Karelia, reported on the official site as having taken place on March 11, had actually occurred a week earlier, and a Karelian website had actually already writtenabout it on March 4. On Thursday, the Kremlin claimed that Putin spoke on the phone with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. Sargsyan’s website issued the call with an identical transcript.
On Friday, the Kremlin issued three images showing Putin in a meeting with the head of the Supreme Court in Moscow. The state television channel, Rossiya 24, also aired video footage of the meeting. However, the dates of those photos have not been confirmed, and the footage has not been authenticated.
In all likelihood, Putin is alive, relatively healthy, and in Moscow. But the global hysteria points to how little is currently known about how the Kremlin actually functions. It’s also representative of the political fallout from the Feb. 27 assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov.
In the weeks since Nemtsov’s death, cracks have begun to appear in the Kremlin’s typically ironclad foundations, exposing rivalries among Russia’s elite. The battle played out in media reports about theNemtsov investigation and the supposed killers, Zaur Dadayev and Anzor Gubashev. After his arrest, Dadayev retracted his confession and claimed it was issued under torture. In an interview with the Russian news site Gordon on Tuesday, prominent Russian journalist and Kremlin-watcher Oleg Kashin said it was noteworthy that Dadayev and the other suspects in the Nemtsov case were arrested by the FSB and made public by Aleksandr Bortnikov himself, the chief of the Russian intelligence service. Kashin said that pointed to a possible showdown between Kremlin elites, specifically Bortnikov and Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, under whom Dadayev served as deputy commander of a paramilitary battalion.
Putin is set to meet with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev on March 16 in St. Petersburg to discuss further details on the Moscow-led Eurasian Union. But until then, the palace intrigue will continue to boil as the world wonders just what is going on with Russia’s president.
ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images
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Prescient or preposterous? Vladimir Putin’s absence from public life sparked a frenzy last week. Nobody agreed what was going on, but almost all commentators agreed that it was significant. As Leonid Bershidsky noted,
No other kind of state would be so opaque, nor its citizens so preoccupied with their ruler.
Andrei Illarionov, a former advisor to Putin and now a fierce critic of his regime, said he had beentoppled in a backstage coup. A well-connected Washington-based economist, Anders Aslund,suggested that a full-scale Kremlin power struggle was under way. On one side are Putin, his close ally Igor Sechin (head of the Rosneft energy company), the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and the interior ministry; on the other, the security and criminal-justice agencies.
Others agree with at least the outlines of that: Stanislav Belkovsky, who has long played a role as a conduit for rumours and black PR from various Kremlin factions, said that Putin is stuck between a rock and a hard place. His reputation for stability rests on having “won” in Chechnya, so he cannot afford to cross Kadyrov. But he cannot side against the Siloviki because they would overthrow him. Those tensions are not new: the real question is whether they have increased to the point that Putin’s own position is threatened.
Some foresee bloodshed; critics of the regime have hurried abroad amid talk of a hardliners’ “hit list.” But not only opposition figures may be in danger. One rumour said that Putin’s long-time bodyguard, General Viktor Zolotov, was dead. Aslund tweeted (without a source) that Vladislav Surkov, once the “gray cardinal” of the Kremlin, had fled to Hong Kong with his family.
But Vladimir Milov, a close friend and ally of the murdered Boris Nemtsov, urged people to calm down. It was not the first time, he noted, that Putin had been in a funk after an upsetting event. Mark Galeotti, a British academic specialising in Russian security and intelligence, said the rhetoric (of “traitors” etc) and troop movements that would accompany a forced leadership change, or the quelling of a rebellion, were notably absent. Nina Ivanovna, a blogger, said that the whole episode might be designed to distract attention from the murder of Nemtsov and the war in Ukraine.
A happier explanation was that the Russian leader was in Switzerland celebrating the birth of a childby his secret lover, the gymnast Alina Kabaeva. Bershidsky said wryly that if this version were true it might make the Russian president more human.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, has snarlingly dismissed speculation and scaremongering with a dogged insistence that nothing is amiss: the president was simply working “exhaustively” with documents. The only real clue of a change in political direction came from a bland but sinister announcement on Tass that Putin wanted a new federal agency to deal with nationalities: perhaps to bring the Chechens to heel, or to stir up more trouble with “compatriots” abroad.
Who is right? As so often in Russia you can stitch the few available facts (and what seems to be misinformation) into a sinister pattern. Or discount them as random noise. Only afterwards, if ever, do you find out what really happened.
My hunch is that the shots that killed Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader, last month were indeed the first salvo in an internal power struggle that will bring radical change in Russia’s leadership. But Kremlinology is barely more reliable than astrology. Maybe in a week’s time Putin will again be dominating the television news as usual, with politics continuing on the lines the world counts as “normal”.
For certain, though, Russia’s political life under Putin has been anything but “normal”. It has been secretive, paranoid and deceitful. The hybrid rule of political, bureaucratic, criminal and intelligence-service interests has destroyed the country’s political institutions, undermined the constitution, savaged the economy and enabled the greatest looting spree in history. The regime cowed critics with fear and masked the looting with lies: venomous propaganda against a mythical external enemy (the West) and against a demonised “fifth column” at home.
This system is inherently unstable and brittle. Feuds bubble, requiring constant personal intervention from the man in the centre. If he is distracted, either by mental or physical illness, or by something in his private life, factions polarise and the struggle for power intensifies. That leads to justified worries among outsiders about the security of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, and the prospect of the country’s disintegration.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff, said last year: “there is no Russia today if there is no Putin.” That was meant to highlight public support for the Russian leader. But it could also be read another way: that without Putin at the helm, the Russian ship sinks. The Soviet Union had political institutions of a kind. True, they handled political transitions badly, but there were rules and clues which Putin’s Russia dangerously lacks.
As the former US government official Paul Goble notes, whoever comes after Putin is likely to be worse: more aggression abroad, and more repression at home, will be the easiest way to consolidate power:
many of the “siloviki” believe that Putin has failed to act in ways that would have brought Moscow a victory in Ukraine, and they will push for more aggressive moves in order to prove their point as well as to justify an increased role for themselves in the constellation of a post-Putin regime. And whether they are in the cautious or the aggressive camp, they are not liberals and they are not democrats. They are part and parcel of the authoritarian regime which was never completely dismantled in 1991 and which has been restored with extreme vigor by Putin over the last 15 years.
Whatever lies behind the Russian leader’s disappearance, the danger is that the West will respond in the wrong way: by easing sanctions. If Putin has been extinguishing rebellion or settling feuds, Western policymakers will want to cut him some slack. Stability is better than upheaval. If a new face appears at the top—whether a new president or a new prime minister—the West will hope that he will be a more predictable partner than the elusive and erratic Putin—and offer him an olive branch.
In truth the West has as little idea of Kremlin politics as we have chance of influencing it. Our real priority should be remedying our weaknesses (especially the ones that Russia exploits) and helping our allies and friends by raising the cost to the Kremlin (whoever is in charge there) of aggression abroad.
But we haven’t, and I fear we won’t. Ukrainians are paying the price for our illusions now; but the bill is growing, and it will come to us later.
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Kashin⚓Kashin⚓Kashin @KSHN 51 minutes ago
Как стало известно, на днях советник Путина Владислав Сурков срочно выехал в Гонконг вместе с семьей.
Kashin⚓Kashin⚓Kashin @KSHN 53 minutes ago
По словам источника в Кремле поездка оказалась настолько срочной, что о ней не знало ближайшее окружение, а также администрация президента.
Как стало известно, на днях советник Путина Владислав Сурков срочно выехал в Гонконг вместе с семьей.
Kashin⚓Kashin⚓Kashin @KSHN 53 minutes ago
По словам источника в Кремле поездка оказалась настолько срочной, что о ней не знало ближайшее окружение, а также администрация президента.
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