Russia's use of force in Europe is a major threat - General Breedlove
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GWEN IFILL: General Breedlove, thank you so much for joining us.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, NATO Supreme Allied Commander: Oh, thanks for having me.
GWEN IFILL: I want to start by talking about Turkey. How significant is it that Turkey has allowed us to start using Incirlik for a basing to attack ISIS?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Those things that we are working at now to use bases like Incirlik and Diyarbakir, those will be very important to our ability to prosecute a joint campaign with Turkey as a part of our coalition.
GWEN IFILL: How far does that buffer zone go and how far do we go into it?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: We’re not creating any specific zone.
What we’re talking about is bringing Turkey into an arrangement where, as a part of the coalition, they cooperate in our counter-ISIL campaign in the north. And that’s the real key to this.
GWEN IFILL: So, it’s not a no-fly zone, per se, is what you are saying?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: That’s correct.
GWEN IFILL: I want to take you to Ukraine, especially Russia’s role. The new incoming nominee to be — for Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joe Dunford, said at a congressional hearing last week that he saw Russia as our chief global threat. Is that something you agree with?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: I have testified to the same thing in the past.
GWEN IFILL: Why?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, clearly, there are lots of threats out there, for instance, ISIL.
But I think what you hear from numerous leaders is that Russia is a different case. This is a nation that for 20 years we have tried to make a partner. And in the last few years, we have seen that they’re on a different path. So now we have a nation that has used force to change internationally recognized boundaries. Russia continues to occupy Crimea.
Russian forces now are in the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine. So this nation has used force to change international boundaries. And this is a nation that possesses a pretty vast nuclear inventory, and talks about the use of that inventory very openly in the past. And so what I think you see being reflected is that we see a revanchist Russia that has taken a new path towards what the security arrangements in Europe are like and how they are employed.
And they talk about using, as a matter of course, nuclear weapons. For that reason, these senior leaders, I believe, see that as a major threat.
GWEN IFILL: Secretary Kerry has not said that. And I wonder if the distinction there is between the diplomatic approach to dealing with Russia on things like Iran and the military concerns.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: So, Russia can and we hope in the future will be a great partner. There are many places where our needs and requirements match.
But, again, in Europe, they have established a pattern now, Georgia, Transnistria, Crimea, Donbass, where force is a matter of course. And that’s not what we look for in partners in Europe.
GWEN IFILL: So NATO has talked about providing training and artillery and some sort of support against this force you describe, this Russian bear on the border. Is that enough?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, NATO nations are offering some assistance to Ukraine, as is the United States. Many nations now are coming along to be a part of helping Ukraine to defend themselves. They have the right to defend themselves.
GWEN IFILL: But is it enough?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, NATO nations are offering some assistance to Ukraine, as is the United States. Many nations now are coming along to be a part of helping Ukraine to defend themselves. They have the right to defend themselves.
GWEN IFILL: But is it enough?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: I think that question is yet to be determined.
We believe that there is a diplomatic and a political solution. So when you ask, is it enough, the question is, is it enough to set the conditions so that we can get to a political and a diplomatic solution?
GWEN IFILL: What about the Baltics? There is a lot of nervousness that Russia is going to expand its view of aggression in that direction as well, and they will be entirely unable to defend themselves.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Both NATO, as an alliance, and the United States have come to great measures of assurance for our Baltic nations.
GWEN IFILL: What about the Baltics? There is a lot of nervousness that Russia is going to expand its view of aggression in that direction as well, and they will be entirely unable to defend themselves.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Both NATO, as an alliance, and the United States have come to great measures of assurance for our Baltic nations.
We have U.S. soldiers alongside British and other soldiers inside of these countries now, exercising, doing training, to assure those allies that NATO is there and will be there. I was privileged to sit in the room at Wales when the leaders of 28 nations, including our president, were rock-solid on Article V, collective defense. And that includes the Baltics.
And I think that Mr. Putin understands that NATO is different.
GWEN IFILL: There is a lot of nervousness, however, that this option, if this doesn’t take hold, is war.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Well, the best way not to have a war is to be prepared for war. So, we’re in there now, training their soldiers.
As you know, we are looking at and have decided to preposition stops forward. We have heavy equipment that we train with in these nations now. And so we need to be prepared, so that we can avoid.
GWEN IFILL: Is there a line between preparation and provocation?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Absolutely. I believe there is.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Absolutely. I believe there is.
We do defensive measures, and in, I think, very easily defined defensive stances in our forward bases. We’re not putting big forces into the Baltics. Right now, there is a company of U.S. soldiers in each of the three Baltic states. That is well below a proportional issue.
GWEN IFILL: If it is possible for there to be a diplomatic or a political solution to head off any future conflict, what would that look like?
GWEN IFILL: If it is possible for there to be a diplomatic or a political solution to head off any future conflict, what would that look like?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: We always talk about a European land mass whole, free, and at peace.
To get to that, we need to have a partner in Russia, not someone that we are competing with. The Russian energy…
GWEN IFILL: Do you see a partnership that I don’t see?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: No, no, I’m saying we have to have one in the future.
GWEN IFILL: Right.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: If we really believe we’re going to get to whole, free, and at peace and prosperous, then we need a partner in Russia.
GWEN IFILL: Well, give me an example of one way to get there, especially if the person who has to be your partner is Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t show any indication, other than being helpful at the Iran nuclear talks, of being the partner you envision.
GWEN IFILL: Well, give me an example of one way to get there, especially if the person who has to be your partner is Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t show any indication, other than being helpful at the Iran nuclear talks, of being the partner you envision.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: So first, it’s communication. We need to reestablish those lines of communication.
You have seen our secretary of state, undersecretary of state reaching out in several forums. Mil-to-mil communications need to become routine again. They are not routine now, where they were once before, communication first.
GWEN IFILL: I guess I hear what you are saying, but I don’t see how you get there.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: Its’ not going to be an easy road. And it’s not going to happen quickly. This business with Russia is a long-term thing.
I have said in testimony in other places that this is global, not regional. And it is long-term, not short-term. But we have to start down the path.
GWEN IFILL: Assuming for a moment there is a diplomatic-to-diplomatic impasse or president-to-president impasse, is there a military-to-military way of forging that kind of agreement?
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: There is.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: There is.
It is important also that, even if our countries are not getting along, when you are flying airplanes in close vicinity, when you are sailing ships in close vicinity, when you have soldiers on the ground exercising sometimes just on the other side of borders, military men and women have to be able to communicate in a very matter-of-fact way to preclude anything ugly from happening.
GWEN IFILL: Well, and we hope nothing further ugly happens.
NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove, thank you very much.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: No, thank you very much.
GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE: No, thank you very much.
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People walk past an exchange office sign showing the currency exchange rate in Moscow, Russia, Monday, July 27, 2015. The Russian ruble dropped by 2 percent on Monday, to nearly 60 rubles against the dollar, battered by low oil prices.(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
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MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian ruble is falling under the pressure of cheaper oil, reviving concerns over the country's economic outlook, particularly the perniciously high inflation rate.
The ruble was down 0.9 percent in Moscow trading on Thursday, at 59.2 rubles against the dollar.
The decline comes a day after the Russian central bank halted daily purchases of foreign currency in an attempt to stop a week-long slide in the national currency. The ruble on Tuesday hit 60 rubles to the dollar, its lowest point in more than four months.
The currency took a battering in 2014 because of a slump in global prices for oil — the country's biggest source of revenue — and recovered somewhat early this year before falling again. A weaker ruble threatens the government's plans to curb inflation, which was 15 percent in June.
The central bank was buying foreign currency on the market to build up its international reserves it needs for bond repayments. But those purchases also help weaken the ruble, so the recent days' drop has forced the central bank to halt them.
An "excessive" drop in the ruble would not be politically palatable, analysts from the Moscow-based investment bank Sberbank CIB said in a morning note to investors. They added that the goal of rebuilding foreign currency reserves is "not compatible" with the aim of a stronger and more stable ruble.
The investment bank UralSib said Thursday that since the central bank started buying foreign currency worth $200 million a day in mid-May the ruble has lost more than 15 percent against the dollar.
The fates of the Russian economy and currency are closely linked to the price of oil, but have also been affected by Western economic sanctions on Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Story highlights
- Russia is trying to reassert its presence on the international stage, an analyst says
- U.S. intercepts Russian bombers off Alaska, California on July Fourth
- Congressman: Russian action should be seen as "an act of aggression"
(CNN)Two Russian bombers intercepted by U.S. fighter jets off the California coast on July Fourth could be seen as having raised a metaphorical middle finger to the United States.
"Good morning, American pilots. We are here to greet you on your Fourth of July Independence Day," they said, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
U.S. fighters also intercepted two other Russian Tu-95 bombers the same day off the southern coast of Alaska. In both instances, American fighter jets flew up to intercept the Russian bombers, and the aircraft turned away.
CNN looks at the significance of the Russians' actions.
So why is Russia doing this?
According to Nick de Larrinaga, Europe editor for IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, it's all part of Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to reassert his country's presence on the international stage.
"His view is that Russia's political standing and the respect accorded to it have fallen away very much since the end of the Cold War," he said.
The current muscle flexing is all part of Putin's push to make sure Russia gets the respect it deserves, de Larrinaga said, and demonstrate that it's "still a global military power and a force to be reckoned with."
For U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran, the Tu-95 bombers' visit should be seen as "an act of aggression" intended to convey the idea of Russian might.
"If you ever have any doubt whether the Cold War is back on, I mean these are the kind of maneuvers that show that it is," Kinzinger told CNN.
"I think there has been a re-establishment, probably not to the intensity it was in the '80s, but a re-establishment of, in essence, kind of Cold War principles, where, you know, at that time, it was all a show of force from both sides."
Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican who previously sat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, compared Putin to a school bully, saying, "Sometimes a small kid in class is the biggest bully. And that's who he is."
What does Russia stand to gain?
Not a great deal -- except perhaps a boost to its ego and the opportunity to keep other nations' armed forces on their toes.
The combat air patrols are more about the international sphere than Putin's audience at home, where they are unlikely to get much media coverage, de Larrinaga said.
However, the impudence of the July Fourth greeting might have sparked some interest in Russia, where Putin has fostered the growth of nationalistic pride. The intercept came on the same day that Putin sent best wishes to President Barack Obama for the July Fourth holiday.
Since it's unusual for Russian crews to communicate with either any intercepting aircraft, or air traffic controllers, de Larrinaga said, the pilots' rather less official greeting -- sent via an emergency aircraft communication channel -- does seem to send a particular message. "Normally they maintain radio silence," he said.
Kinzinger said he believes Putin is seeking to test the West's will with such sorties, as he figures out how far he can push before provoking a response.
"That's why it's important for us to stand up now and make it very clear that we're not going to be bullied," he said.
What are the risks?
The Russian aircraft are in international airspace, where they are perfectly entitled to be flying, de Larrinaga said. But there are certain risks involved.
For one, there have been complaints that the Russian aircraft don't turn on their transponders -- a bone of contention particularly over Europe, where airspace is more congested, since it raises the risk of a potential collision with civilian air traffic.
There's also a danger of collision with the military aircraft sent to intercept the Russians.
"Any time you have military aircraft of two different nations coming into close proximity to each other when they are not communicating, it does raise the prospects of accidents happening," de Larrinaga said.
Both the Russians and other nations sending intercepting aircraft have previously complained of the other side coming dangerously close, he said.
And while the pilots are highly skilled, making a collision unlikely, it can happen.
In 2001, a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter collided during just such an interception over Hainan Island in the South China Sea. While the damaged U.S. plane managed to make an emergency landing, the Chinese aircraft crashed and its pilot was killed. The Chinese blamed the United States, and the stranded U.S. crew wasn't allowed to leave for more than a week.
Also, although vast sums of money are being spent on the Russian military, it still lags behind Western powers in terms of capability and equipment, de Larrinaga said. The Russian air force is currently pushing its aircraft -- many of them aging -- very hard, with the result that it has lost quite a few lately, he said, including a Tu-95 that crashed recently in Russia.
Kinzinger warns of the broader risk that an unpredictable Russia "could take one wrong move" -- perhaps by calculating it can move into Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania without provoking a NATO response -- "and that can lead to, you know, at best, a regional war, but potentially a world war scenario, as NATO is forced to defend its own territory."
Are the Russian sorties a threat to the United States?
A NORAD spokesman declined to describe the July Fourth incident as a threat but said it was "potentially destabilizing," because it was unannounced and the bombers in question are nuclear-capable.
In neither case did the Russian planes enter U.S. airspace, which extends 12 nautical miles from American coastlines, officials said. The U.S. fighters tracked them until they turned around.
The encounter roughly 40 miles off California's central coast was more unusual as Russian planes don't often venture that far south, a U.S. military official told CNN a few days afterward.
While the intercepts were routine from a military point of view, the U.S. official said, the Pentagon sees them as Putin "sending a message" to the United States on Independence Day.
The Russian aircraft would have been detected and tracked probably even while still over Russian airspace, de Larrinaga said, so the U.S. military would have been well on top of their arrival -- and interception -- near U.S. airspace.
"There shouldn't have been a military risk from that point of view," he said, "although there is also a certain element of military discomfort that you might have a nuclear-armed bomber flying off your airspace."
Is this a new phenomenon?
During the Cold War, both Russia and the United States used to conduct long-range air patrols close to each other's airspace, but these dropped off as tensions eased.
In 2007, however, Putin reinstated Russia's long-range air patrols, said de Larrinaga, sending Russian bomber flights close to U.S., Japanese and European airspace.
"Over the last few years and particularly this year and last year, with the start of the Ukraine crisis, Russia has picked up the number of sorties," he said.
Japan reported 324 such aircraft in the first six months of last year, he said, which was a significant increase over the previous year. NATO also has seen an increase in Russian aerial activity in Europe -- around the Baltics in particular -- and is intercepting Russian aircraft "almost on a daily basis," de Larrinaga said. Britain has also scrambled jets this year to intercept Russian bombers flying near UK airspace.
Russian military planes have been encountered near U.S. airspace a number of times before this month's incident.
On June 4, 2014, U.S. fighter jets intercepted Russian bombers off Alaska and California following a string of aerial encounters over the Pacific.
American jets also intercepted Russian military aircraft off California in 2012, again on July Fourth.
How are the United States and Russia getting along right now?
There's no question that tensions are as high as at any time since the end of Cold War.
"Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security," Gen. Joseph Dunford told the Senate Armed Services committee this month during his confirmation hearing to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia," Dunford said. "And if you look at their behavior, it's nothing short of alarming."
In general, Russian military activity has increased since March 2014, when Western countries objected to its annexation of the Ukraine's Crimea region as well as to Russia's alleged support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
In May, for example, Russia annoyed Western officials by deploying 12,000 troops and numerous aircraft and weapons in a surprise military exercise in the country's northwest, a show of strength that appeared to be a response to a long-planned -- and long-announced -- European military exercise led by Norway.
And in June, Putin announced the addition of 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles to Russia's nuclear arsenal.
CNN's Brian Todd, Jethro Mullen and Don Melvin contributed to this report.
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GWEN IFILL: The role of the U.S. military in Europe has shifted since the start of the Ukraine conflict. Along with other NATO countries, American forces now have a sizable presence in the region.
Today, the dispute was once again on view, at its center, Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Just over a year ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH-17 crashed in a field in Eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board, most of them Dutch, were killed. The government in Kiev and in many other Western countries said Russian-backed separatists shot down the plane with a surface-to-air missile. It’s a claim Moscow still denies.
Now Malaysia, along with the Netherlands, Ukraine and others, wants to set up an international criminal tribunal to prosecute those responsible.
LIOW TONG LAI, Malaysian Transport Minister: An international tribunal will be best place to deliver justice to the families of all victims.
GWEN IFILL: The U.N. Security Council took up the proposal this afternoon, but Russia vetoed it.
VITALY CHURKIN, Russian Ambassador to United Nations (through interpreter): What are the grounds to be assured of the impartiality of such an investigation? Can it resist the aggressive propaganda backdrop in the media?
GWEN IFILL: There have been 15 months of heavy fighting in Eastern Ukraine, known as the Donbass, between separatists backed by Russia and the kin military. More than 6,500 people have been killed.
The fighting there followed Russia’s March 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. But even beyond that conflict, there’s been a spike this year in Russian air incursions near NATO countries, including the United States. Last month, American fighter jets intercepted Russian TU-95 bombers off the coasts of Alaska and California.
In response to Russia’s actions, NATO countries have stepped up military exercises in Ukraine and across the Baltic states. In a visit to Estonia last fall, President Obama made the U.S. commitment clear.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: An attack on one is an attack on all. So, if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who will come to help, you will know the answer, the NATO Alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now.
GWEN IFILL: The U.S. has been training Ukrainian forces. So far, it’s limited to instructing national guard units, but the State Department said last week that the mission will be expanded to include regular military forces later this year.
GWEN IFILL: The U.S. has been training Ukrainian forces. So far, it’s limited to instructing national guard units, but the State Department said last week that the mission will be expanded to include regular military forces later this year.
The man overseeing U.S. operations in Europe and serving as NATO supreme allied commander is General Philip Breedlove. He visited Ukraine last week. And I spoke with him today at the Pentagon.
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Russian prosecutors declared Tuesday that the US National Endowment for Democracy will be the first "undesirable" foreign group banned under a controversial new law designed to limit the influence of overseas organizations perceived as a threat.
"Taking into account the overall aim of the Endowment's work, prosecutors came to the conclusion that it presents a threat to the constitutional order of Russia, its defense capabilities and state security," the prosecutors said in a statement.
The Endowment, the statement continued, "participated in work to declare the results of election campaigns illegitimate, to organize political demonstrations aimed at influencing decisions taken by state institutions and to discredit service in the Russian armed forces."
Critics view the ban as an attempt by Moscow to limit civil society amid growing anti-Western rhetoric over the Ukraine conflict. Endowment officials immediately blasted the ban.
"This law, as well as its predecessors, contravenes Russia's own constitution as well as numerous international laws and treaties," the endowment said in a statement. "The true intent of these laws is to intimidate and isolate Russian citizens."
The Endowment added that it "remains committed to supporting human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the world."
Graffiti reading "foreign agent" marks the offices of the rights group, Memorial, in Moscow
The Russian justice ministry is expected to approve the measure, which will see the Endowment barred from opening offices in Russia or providing funding to any individuals or groups within the country. In 2013 and 2014, the Endowment provided about $5.2 million (4.7 million euros) in funding to local organizations, according to Russian prosecutors.
The ban comes amid heightened tensions over the Ukraine crisis, which has seen relations between Russia and the West plummet to their worst level since the end of the Cold War.
Earlier this month, Russian senators drew up an official proposal to blacklist 12 foreign non-governmental organizations, including the Endowment. Dozens of organizations, including leading human rights groups have been impacted by the restriction.
Under the new law, activists could face a prison term of up to six years for "participating in the activities" of any banned entity.
bw/lw (AFP, AP, dpa)
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MOSCOW Alexei Venediktov, one of Russia's most prominent journalists, does not go out without a bodyguard and does not answer mobile phone calls for fear of being tracked.
He has worried about security since someone left a chopping block with an axe in it outside his apartment in 2009 and he fled Russia for a week this year, fearing he was on a hit list.
Such precautions do not seem out of place in a country where at least 17 journalists have been killed this decade, or for an editor whose radio station has been accused by President Vladimir Putin of "pouring diarrhea over me day and night".
With state media waging a full-scale information war over the crisis in Ukraine, independent media such as Ekho Moskvy, where Venediktov is the veteran editor-in-chief, are battling to survive - and fear the noose around them is tightening.
In a series of interviews, editors of such outlets said they rarely feel direct pressure to toe the line but the Kremlin has financial, legislative and judicial levers at its disposal, and speak of intimidation and bullying of advertisers.
"You have to work as though each day at work could be your last ... That's what my journalists think and that's how they work," Venediktov said in an interview at the station's busy headquarters in a high-rise Moscow office bloc.
Suggesting Ekho Moskvy could survive only as long as Putin allowed it, he said: "We know that the future of Ekho Moskvy depends on one person, one person in one office."
Kremlin critics accuse Putin of intensifying a campaign to stifle dissent, clamping down on civil society and using the media as a political weapon to maintain his grip on power and influence public opinion - charges the Kremlin denies.
The existence of a few media organizations which criticize the authorities helps Putin deflect criticism at home and abroad that Russia does not allow media freedoms, and gives the opposition a way to let off steam.
Coverage even by independent media is restrained by Western standards, with direct criticism of Putin rare though Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's government is considered fair game.
Taking on Putin directly over his wealth or personal life is widely seen as out of bounds. One newspaper, Moskovsky Korrespondent, made a splash by publishing allegations about his love life in 2008. It closed mysteriously soon afterwards.
INDIRECT PRESSURE
One of Putin's initial acts after rising to power in 2000 was to restore Kremlin control over the media, which was much more outspoken under President Boris Yeltsin in the free-wheeling decade after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.
Most Russian media are now owned by the state or by private individuals or companies loyal to Putin.
Such media have been on little less than a war footing since Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovich, was ousted in February 2014 and Russia responded by annexing the Crimea peninsula and giving political support - and Kiev and the West say military backing - to a separatist uprising in east Ukraine.
Despite such tight control, Venediktov, his unruly hair and beard now grey at 59, says he only occasionally has criticism of his coverage conveyed to him by the authorities, "sometimes over tea, sometimes over vodka, sometimes over cognac".
Indirect pressure is much more common.
Ekho Moskvy has felt the heat from Russia's media regulator, which warned it last year over a program about Ukraine which the body said contained information "justifying practices of war and other crimes". A second warning would mean closure.
Venediktov says the company that controls the station and is loyal to Putin - Gazprom-Media Holding - has been unable to oust him as editor because this would require the support of his journalists. But he feels economic pressure from a drop in advertising and a downsizing of his advertising department.
The fact that Venediktov is able to cling to his job and continues to criticize the authorities is held up by Gazprom-Media Holding as evidence that it respects media freedoms.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov underlines this by saying that the station's editorial line has "never been an obstacle for normal business-like communication" between Putin and Ekho Moskvy, including with Venediktov.
Yevgenia Albats, editor in chief of the New Times magazine, says she is surprised when asked why she thinks Putin allows some independent media to exist.
"Russia is not a totalitarian state", she says, even though the Kremlin has many ways to squeeze outlets that criticize it.
"If you are loyal (to the Kremlin) you get ads. If you are not loyal, you don't get ads," Albats said.
She said New Times was raided by police three years ago, she once found a listening device in her home and added in an interview in her office that she had no doubt "we have a couple of other people in on this conversation".
The magazine's recent stories include an investigation into how Russia reached the decision to annex Crimea from Ukraine last year and concluded the plan was drawn up by four people. It also wrote about problems suffered by gays at a time when this was widely seen as taboo for Russian media.
The New Times gets by - just - on sponsorship, sales and subscriptions.
"It (the situation for independent media) is getting worse, much worse, I guess since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict," she said.
"It's harder to get information, it's harder to get to decision makers, it's harder because people are afraid to give you interviews, afraid to be mentioned in the magazine."
BROADCASTING FROM AN APARTMENT
Dozhd, which made its name as an independent cable and Internet outlet during opposition protests in the winter of 2011-12, suffered a big financial blow when cable operators in one fell swoop canceled their contracts last year.
Dozhd also found it was no longer a desirable tenant for landlords and was forced to move office several times. For a while it resorted to broadcasting from an employee's flat but has now found a studio in a trendy business and shopping center.
After a year of almost constant worry, the channel's general director, Natalya Sindeeva, embodies its slogan as the "optimistic channel".
"For me it's alright now because we are operating," she said. "If you speak about the wider context, it's difficult, not only politically but economically."
Dozhd hit problems after running a poll last year asking whether Leningrad, now St Petersburg, should have given up to Nazi German forces during World War Two rather than refuse to surrender. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the siege and Putin's spokesman said the poll had "crossed a line".
Set up in 2010, the network had been vulnerable after giving a voice to Kremlin critics.
Sindeeva said the channel has managed to survive by going behind a pay wall and switching to a subscription basis.
Dozhd has about 70,000 subscribers, editor Mikhail Zygar said, paying around 4,800 rubles ($80) a year. It can reach about 12 million people a month on television and the Internet.
Other leading independent media are threatened by a law that will limit foreign ownership of Russian media to 20 percent, introduced to "defend national sovereignty".
Among newspapers under threat is Vedomosti, a business daily with a print run of 75,000 that often criticizes the government.
Finnish company Sanoma sold its one-third stake in Vedomosti in May to a Russian businessman, Damian Kudryavtsev. The Financial Times Group and Wall Street Journal owner News Corp own similar stakes and say they are reviewing the implications of the legislation on foreign ownership.
PATRIOT GAMES
Announcing the seizure of Crimea on March 18 last year, Putin warned against "action by a fifth column, this disparate bunch of 'national traitors'" - a phrase that has widely been seen as including any media speaking out against the annexation.
Putin has little less than a media army at his disposal. As in Soviet days, some news outlets have a direct phone line to the Kremlin, media sources say, and top editors take part in regular meetings with Kremlin officials to discuss content.
Dmitry Muratov, editor of the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said most Russian media have simply become "instruments of mass propaganda and manipulation".
His newspaper, part-owned by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, said in March it may have to stop its print edition because of a lack of funds. For now, though, it is still going.
Across the hall from Muratov's office hang the portraits of six Novaya Gazeta journalists killed since 2001 including Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead on Putin's birthday in 2006.
Another, Yelena Milashina, left the southern, mainly Muslim region of Chechnya in May this year after a border guard warned her that her life was in danger. A local newspaper later published an article widely seen as a death threat.
The New York-based Committee to Protect journalists says 17 journalists have been killed in Russia because of the work they were doing since 2001. Other groups say the toll may be higher. The International Federation of Journalists said in a 2009 report that 313 Russian journalists had been killed since 1993.
Despite such a hostile environment, Novaya Gazeta's Muratov prefers to look on the bright side, underlining that there is still some room for independent media in Russia.
"If there's a future for this country, there's a future for independent media," Muratov said.
(editing by Elizabeth Piper and Janet McBride)
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Russia has said it will not tolerate "interference" by foreign organisations after it put a US pro-democracy foundation on a blacklist.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded by the US Congress, is the first organisation to be labelled "undesirable" under a new Russian law.
Russia's Foreign Ministry warned that "we will never tolerate mentoring and open interference in our affairs by foreign structures".
US officials condemned Russia's move.
The US Department of State called the blacklisting "a further example of the Russian government's growing crackdown on independent voices and another intentional step to isolate the Russian people from the world".
Russia's Foreign Ministry hit back by saying the NED's name was "deceptive" because "it is only non-governmental on paper, while in reality it has, from the moment it was set up, received funding from the US budget, including funding via the channels of intelligence bodies".
The ministry said that analysis of NED projects "shows that they are aimed at destabilising the internal situation in countries which pursue independent policies in line with their own national interests, rather than following instructions from Washington".
According to Russian official data, the NED gave financial assistance worth about $5.2m (£3.3m) to various Russian organisations in 2013-2014.
Russians can now face fines or up to six years in prison if they work for a non-governmental organisation (NGO) branded "undesirable".
Critics say it is a Kremlin move aimed at stifling dissent.
NGOs linked to politics in Russia already face restrictions under a 2012 law requiring them to register as "foreign agents".
President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party accuses some foreign governments of using NGOs in Russia as cover to engineer political change.
CHICAGO — Dr. Nneka Jones Tapia, who runs the sprawling Cook County Jail here, has an indelible childhood memory of police officers pounding on the aluminum walls of the family’s double-wide trailer home in North Carolina, rifling through cupboards and drawers, and arresting her father on charges of selling marijuana.
Dr. Jones Tapia, then 8, had to call her mother home from work.
Over the next several years, other relatives, including two brothers, and a number of friends also spent time in jail. She says she might have ended up there, too.
Instead, she became captivated by psychology and earned a doctorate. She began working at Cook County Jail in 2006, and this spring became its unlikely warden when she was promoted to executive director — one of the first clinical psychologists to run a jail, underscoring how much the country’s prisons have become holding centers for the mentally ill.
“It’s a national disgrace how we deal with this,” said Sheriff Thomas Dart, who appointed Dr. Jones Tapia to the post and who refers to the jail, a place notorious for its history of violence and overcrowding, as the largest mental institution in the country. He said that as many as one-third of the jail’s 8,600 inmates were mentally ill.
CreditJoshua Lott for The New York Times
As she sat in a cellblock one day recently, Dr. Jones Tapia, 37, reflected: “I know all too well what it’s like to hope that your loved ones make better decisions. And I think about my own life and how I was probably one bad decision away from being in a correctional institution myself.”
As Congress embarks on a rethinking of the criminal justice system — including giving judges greater discretion in sentencing — jails and prisons are also confronting myriad problems in dealing with the mentally ill. There are now 10 times as many mentally ill people in the nation’s 5,000 jails and prisons as there are in state mental institutions, according to a study last year by the National Sheriffs’ Association and the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit group that supports expanded access to treatment. Such inmates are far more likely to be kept in solitary confinement and to be beaten by guards and other inmates, corrections officials say.
Some wardens complain that their jails have become little more than makeshift mental asylums, and that they lack the money and expertise needed to deal with the problem.
Three of the nation’s largest jails — Rikers Island in New York, the county jail in Los Angeles andCook County Jail here in Chicago — are operating under federal oversight, in part because of the mistreatment of the mentally ill. But Cook County has become a model of sorts for other troubled institutions in how to deal with the mentally ill, and it recently hosted delegations from Rikers Island and Los Angeles County.
Before becoming warden, Dr. Jones Tapia oversaw health care at the jail, and under her guidance, Cook County began offering services that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. All inmates upon arrival now see a clinician who collects a mental health history to ensure that anyone who is mentally ill is properly diagnosed and receives medication. The jail then forwards that information to judges in time for arraignments in the hope of convincing them that in certain cases, mental health care may be more appropriate than jail.
The jail also enrolls arriving inmates in health insurance plans, then helps arrange basic case management upon their release.
“We’ve started to focus on the entirety of the system, from the point of arrest through discharge, and really forcing the whole system to take a look at the people that we’re incarcerating,” Dr. Jones Tapia said.
Officials have also discussed using a Sheriff’s Department van staffed with a therapist to perform house checks on former inmates, and if necessary, drive them to medical appointments to ensure that prescriptions are refilled on time, in an attempt to prevent them from turning to illegal drug use or other crimes that would send them back to jail.
Sheriff Dart, who has led the push for change here, says the jail has become a dumping ground for people who should not be locked up.
“The person isn’t choosing to be schizophrenic,” he said. “The vast majority of mentally ill people are here for nonviolent crimes, like stealing food to survive or breaking into places, usually looking for somewhere to sleep, or getting caught with drugs because they are self-medicating. How is it different than us locking up diabetics? Jails were never meant to be mental health hospitals.”
To press ahead with the jail’s overhaul, Sheriff Dart promoted Dr. Jones Tapia in May.
“We were looking for someone who could do the baseline things,” he said, “but who also had this other vision.”
Still, she is an unusual choice. Sheriff Jim McDonnell of Los Angeles County said a warden’s job was typically focused on security, although he acknowledged that having psychological expertise might prove useful.
“I certainly think the more tools you bring to the table, the better,” Sheriff McDonnell said. “But you are running a giant operation, and you need to keep things moving, to focus on security, to keep the staff motivated.”
Dr. Jones Tapia said that the whole time she worked at the jail as a psychologist, she had made a point of hanging out with corrections officers, and that had eased the transition to her new post.
“I think they welcomed the opportunity to share their world, and many of them, when they see me today, say, ‘I know you’re going to be all right because we taught you well,’” she said.
She also ended up marrying a corrections officer, Angel Tapia, a 12-year veteran of the jail.
Cook County Jail, though determined to improve conditions, remains a difficult place for inmates. Like nearly every large jail or prison in the country, it is riven by the same gang rivalries that plague the streets. The most violent and dangerous inmates are separated from others as they await trials or transfers to prison.
While the jail is far less crowded today than a few years ago, inmates — both those who are mentally ill and others who are not — complain that they have too little personal space and too little time to exercise, and that courts take too long to resolve their cases, many of which are for minor drug, traffic or theft charges. The vast majority of inmates are African-American or Latino.
Some portions of the jail date to the 1920s, and are falling apart in places. Leaking ceilings are dealt with by placing clumps of rags on the floor to absorb water. Walls and floors are cracking, and paint is peeling. In bathrooms, long rows of toilets a few feet apart lack partitions for privacy. Inmates have little to do all day, so they stand in front of television sets watching game shows and the news, or lie in their bunks and sleep.
For Dr. Jones Tapia, the path to becoming warden was not direct. After earning an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina, she said, she had no clear idea what to do next. She worked as a receptionist and in community mental health care before beginning to take more specialized psychology courses and going on to earn a doctorate from the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology.
The program she is most proud of — and the centerpiece of efforts to overhaul the jail — is the mental health transition center, which started last August and was run by Dr. Jones Tapia before she became warden.
Five days a week, a group of about 15 inmates with mental illnesses, from depression and bipolar disorder to schizophrenia, receive cognitive behavioral therapy, job readiness skills and extra recreation.
The warden said such inmates who were released without such services were often back within weeks as they amassed dozens, even hundreds, of arrests for petty crimes like shoplifting and drug possession because they were unable to obtain the prescription drugs needed to treat their condition. Many are rearrested just to receive treatment, so upon their release inmates are now given a two weeks’ supply of medication.
“If somebody doesn’t have access to the basic tools to survive, they’re more likely to recommit a crime and come back,” Dr. Jones Tapia said. “So we know it’s not just a mental health problem. It’s more of a well-being problem.”
None of the 43 former inmates who attended the program before being released have been rearrested, said Ben Breit, a jail spokesman.
One of those former inmates, Demetrius Members, 23, who has been arrested 18 times, mostly for selling drugs, said he had recently been told that he had a severe case of depression in which he had nearly constant thoughts of suicide.
Mr. Members said that he had frequently used PCP and alcohol, which helped chase away negative thoughts, but that now, with the help of medication and counseling, he had enough confidence to envision a day when he would be able to open his own business, get married and become a homeowner.
“I hate I had to come to jail to learn this,” he said, “but who would have thought a program like this would be in a jail?”
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