Russia - General discussion
 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe....ap/index.html

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/06...ja5-94_438.jpg - Taken away by the ambulance

This is the saddest news in a long time. She was my favorite journalist out there, and now she's dead. I had a feeling it was going to happen sooner or later... but so soon?

It took me quite a while to let it sink in and today I've been near tears everytime I think about it. :(

She's a true hero. She lived and died for the freedom of speech. Hopefully this will affect Russia in a positive way, and let journalists get the freedom they're supposed to have. There are so many of them who are stalked and threatened and they should not end up the same way as Anna did for wanting to spread the word of truth.

Sad indeed. :(

But let me get this straight... people are actually acussing the goverent of sponsoring, maybe even organizing the hit, right? I hardly see that as an option, imo. The goverment knew damn well all fingers will be pointed at them if something happens to her (since she was so anti-establishment). That was probably her greatest safety measure. If anything I think the opposition forces might be responsible for this horrid crime.

Since when has that stopped a government?

They want to be on good terms with the world now that economic gain (especially from the oil industry) is starting to kick in. They know they can achieve a great deal by trading with the rest of the world. To do that at least from the outside things must appear as if Russia is not an iron-fisted dictatorship. This incident works directly against their efforts to perpetuate that image. The whole world's pointing fingers at the Russian establishment. Exactly what the opposition wants.

It's definetly a political murder though. I don't think Putin or the government made this happen though. If that would be the case, it would have been done with much more carefulness.

Besides, the russian nationalists and racists are getting more and more. It's something president Putin really needs to stop. It's getting way out of hand.
Anna could sometimes seem to defend terrorists and so on so forth, and I believe this has ticked of many nationalists in Russia.

Anna was supposed to publish some very "sensitive" materials to the newspaper today... So this could have been a reason for maybe the "security police" or the "national special forces", I don't know the english names. And President Putins birthday was yesterday, many think that this could've been a "gift" to him, which I kind of think is ridiculous.

The Suspect

http://img.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0610/08/murd.jpg
http://img.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/0610/08/mord.jpg

Governments don't give a shit what another government does as long as they get their oil for a good price. Especially America.

Well... State Department strongly condemned the murder. :p

One that might lessen his political popularity. Fabulous gift.

Oh come on!! You really think they are gonna sat "yes, we approve of this murder." Riiiiiiight. They make it obvious without actually say the words.

But they actually DON'T approve it. :p This writer was a serious pain in the ass for Putin's administration, hence she was also a lovely little agent provocateur for the US goverment, since the US doesn't trust Russia as far as tehy can throw them.

In any case, it's an extremely sad event. Just shows you how ruthless people can be when it comes to ambitions of power and dominance. Even if she wasn't killed by the goverment it was stilll no doubt a political assassination.

Freddie, sorry I read your post wrong, I thought you were referring to Russian government *blind*

Anyway, as I wanted to say even if there was proof Russian government were behind this it would make no difference America would carry on getting their oil regardless as with most governments. Most governments wouldn't give a shit what was happening as long as it didn't effect their country in any way (and yes I have to say it again, especially America.) American goverment are just saying what they know they have to say.

What surprises me the most is the reaction of the Russian press. She's called "enemy of the nation", "a person who professionally betrayed her motherland", etc. I got this freaky feeling of déjà vu when a row of repressions took place during the time of Soviet. Is Russia getting back to the Soviet lies and denial era? I can't believe it.

Really? Then it is really presumable that Putin's administration (ex-KGBists) is behind the murder. I had never thought that he will make such an obvious move. Perhaps he is not afraid at all... and thinks that the opinion of West will not affect anything any more. When it is so, then it really a very dangerous signal. Also for us, in my country.

Estonia is now an EU Member State and part of Nato, Russia won't risk any conflict with the EU or Nato. However, we can expect CIS countries to be more and more controlled by Russia again.

The EU commission was right in thinking that after the collapse of the USSR, the window of opportunity to expand to the East would be very narrow before Russia would grow stronger again.
Fortunately with Romania and Bulgaria joining in 3 months, the process will be complete and the EU will be in full contact with the CIS border from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, a border which could very well become a new iron curtain in the coming years.
The fast EU enlargement will probably be seen as a smart political move when people will look back at that period in the future.

More signs of Russia slipping deeper into totalitarianism and wanting to regain control over the former USSR countries, this interview with Russia's EU ambassador Vladimir Chizhov is quite telling.

And another political assassination in Russia, in the far east this time.

I especially like this:Talk about looking the other way while the dirty work is being done. Kinda shows the state of Russia these days.

The man was a member of Putin's party though, so there seem to be an opposition as radical as the party in power.

I have widened the topic to Russian politics in general.

Here's a disturbing article on Russian juries acquitting people who have committed hate crimes. Racist attacks have greatly increased in recent years and now juries are simply acquitting the attackers as if killing foreigners is not even a crime anymore.


*****
Vladimir Putin has pulled a Dubbya, he was having a press conference with Israeli President Moshe Katsav (who is currently accused of multiple rapes) and at the end as he was about to leave, he said:
"What a mighty man he turns out to be! He raped 10 women - I would never have expected this from him. He surprised us all - we all envy him!"
The comment was only meant for the presidential entourage but journalists overheard it.
The Kremlin admits the Russian President said that, but says that you have to understand Russian to get the finesse of the comment.
BBC

It's not a problem of law but of selecting the lay judges. They represent the society and it's not easy to sort out racists. What can a presiding judge do, when he sees that he is surrounded by people who will certainly bend the law to their private (or public) opinions?

Quite obviously pure sarcasm and a sign of deep contempt, but anyway, such words should never be said by the leader of any nation.

Oh i totally agree, popular juries are completely unreliable, i've never been in favor of popular juries, they introduce too much prejudice in the trial process.

*****
Vladimir Putin was at an EU-Russia meeting yesterday evening and he openly hinted at a Russian military intervention in Georgia. He accuses Georgia of wanting to "take back" the secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russian army could therefore intervene to "defend" those regions.
The Russian parliament has been looking for legal ways to annex Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the Russian Federation for quite some time now.

Vladimir Putin is warning the Russian people of Geogia's war plans. That kind of public speech is generally to prepare the public opinion to an imminent military intervention.

Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko who was investigating the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been assassinated by radioactive poisoning, polonium-210 to be precise, which is something extremely difficult to obtain unless you work for the secret services of a country with nuclear capabilities of course.
And a BBC article.

That's just awful :(
I have read yesterday and today on MSN news about Litvinenko but wasn't sure how exactly they managed to poison him with polonium...salt during the meal , ex? though ..who take salt when eating sushi ??

------
what do you make of it ? Putin?

I'm willing to bet Putin nor any part of the Russian Goverment is involved. It'd be kid of silly of them to do so, since of course they'd be the first one people would point fingers at. Basically what's happening now is they (the Russian Goverment) have been caught with a smoking gun, eventhough they more than likely didn't fire it.

If anything I think it's more than plausable that someone else set Putin up. It certainly doesn't do their international reputation any favours. First Anna Politkovskaya murder, now this. Both incidents widely believed by the general public to be the doing of Russian Goverment (or even by direct orders of Putin).

I remember reading that Anna Politkovskaya wasn't the first journalist to be murdered from that newspaper. At least one other person has been killed while investigating organised crime.

I don't think Putin was involved with this. It all seems too convenient and he has more to lose than gain. I can't help thinking he's been set up. I believe there's quite a long list of people who would wish to do that. The question is who has the means to kill Litvinenko with something like polonium-210 ?

More things I can't help thinking - why didn't the Italian bloke eat anything in the sushi place ? Why have traces of radiation been found in other places ? Had Litvinenko gradually been poisoned ?

Offtop:
I was a bit alarmed to see that polonium-210 is found in cigarettes, I'm so glad I stopped smoking !

Well, i don't know who's done it but…

First, i don't think Putin would have any problem ordering an assassination, he wouldn't even blink.
Second, i don't think Putin cares at all what foreigners think, he's holding everybody by the balls with an efficient energy blackmail, he can do whatever he wants with no repercussion.
Third, the FSB (ex-KGB) is a state within the state, it conducts operations on its own. Several ex-KGB defectors have been assassinated in the past years around the world, and it's no secret that the FSB is behind them, it's a general clean-up after the loose years of the Yeltsin era.
Fourth, everything goes back to a series of dodgy terrorist attacks that happened in Russia and were officially blamed on Tchetchens with no proof and even contradictory elements, everybody who has come too close to that affair has been eliminated one way or another, Politkovskaya and Litvinenko are just the last names of a long list.
Finally, polonium 210 is not something you can buy at your local pharmacy, it has to be produced in a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator (and i've read that only 100g of polonium are produced globally every year), only state organizations can obtain that kind of products.

I was watching a thing yesterday on BBC News 24 about this. There was this guy was an expert on this. According to this guy no one other than government sources would be able to get hold of this kind of thing. There is record of every mg of this produced. Either it was Putin and he's trying to get the guy to shup up about Politkovskaya (which is most probably the case) or he's being set up by another countries government. Either way, it will do no halm to Putin. People have to keep him happy as he can use oil as a weapon. He is pretty untouchable.

It makes no sense to use Po210, which is extremely expensive and even extremely dangerous to handle for the assassinator and would immediately point with the finger at Putin himself. If he wanted to kill Litvinenko, he could have done it much smarter. As far as I could follow, Po210 is only supposed to be the poison, because of it's almost non-detectibility, but not proved. Anyway Russian dissidents die like flies nowadays, creepy times!

Yeah it's all extremely fishy. If Putin doesn't care what people think of him or his regime, then why would he bother assassinating an ex-spy who was investigating a murder of a journalist (of which Putin couldn't give a damn just as well). If Putin was so careless and uninterested about what the world thinks of him he'd just leave the ex-spy be - no one would take him seriously anyway and everything would be shruged of as another one of those crazy consipracy theories (like it always has been).

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying some people who're associated with Russian politics aren't involved. But if anything I'd point my finger at the opposition. My suspect? Vladimir Zhirinovski. He publically stated a spy who goes abroad, decides to trade goverment secrets and thus turns it's back on the motherland deserves to be shot.

If Putin had ordered the murder, he would have a strange sense of humour. First he let kill Politkovskaya on his birthday, shaking hands with numerous foreign politicians and diplomats, then he let kill Litvinenko just before the EU - Russia summit, strange behaviour in foreign policy.

The last people Litvinenko met, was a CIA-man and two Beresovski-footmen, so there could be some quite different speculations.

if the speculations, that the murders of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya are directly connected, which is supported by 'Novaya Gazeta', the employer of her and one of the very few really independent newspapers, then there is evidence that the de facto 'president' of Chechnya, Ramsan Kadyrov is involved ("Those, who I had to kill, I have already killed, and those behind them I will kill - to the last man, as long as I am not killed myself or arrested. I will kill as long as I live!"). He is now old enough to be president and can't be interested in revelations of Politkovskaya or her murder.

Another possibility is the power struggle of the wannabie future presidents. Putin will not prolong his presidency and in 2008 there will be a new one. A dissident ex-FSB man could be quite dangerous for a not so 'clean' candidate.

thrilling whodunnit-quiz!

I've read the Po210 was in his tea, and according to the newspaper the British police was investigating the hotel, I think it was Millennium. Besides, an Italian man who had met Litvinenko the day he was poisoned was contaminated as well, so the article explained that rests of Po210 were likely to find in everything the man touched. About the "wannabe future presidents" as Argos well said, what do you think of Kasparov? I don't know much of him, only he's a great chess-player :D (Maybe his strategies help him, hehe)

Gagged babies in Yekaterinburg hospital. You'd think that with the collapsing birth rate, the rare babies would be treated better.

haku, oh my god, that is horrible... makes me sick :none:

Russian opposition demo quashed

Russia slowly sinking back into authoritarianism.

woah, poor babies..
A russian kid is on my mind to adopt
later in the future. As well as an African kid.

How do you figure that? You cannot organize an Anti-Government rally anywhere in the world. It's entirely subversive to the country you're living in! Protesting is one thing - but rallying for an overthrow of the Government is another.

It was a simple protest against the government, which is perfectly legal in any democracy.
Those people weren't out there to "overthrow the government", give me a break. :rolleyes:

A similar protest met the same response in Belarus actually.

What are the requirements to adopt a Russian kid?

Months of paperwork and checking and cross referencing to make sure you can provide a nice atmosphere and that you are financially able and all that happy stuff. it's extremely complicated - i dont think anyone here has specific detail. try googling it or finding a russian adoption agency site.

Police beat protestors in Belarus and Russia

Riot police used fists and batons against peaceful demonstrators in Minsk on Sunday making 30 to 60 arrests. The events come one day after similar scenes in Russia, with Russian president Vladimir Putin sending the EU a barbed birthday message.

The Belarus violence broke out in mid-afternoon when a column of some 3,000 to 5,000 protestors tried to break through a police cordon to get to October Square. No serious injuries were reported but a Polish MP, Malgorzata Gosiewska and a PAP reporter, Bozena Kuzawinska, were each punched several times.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people came out in total, making the rally the biggest since last year's protests against the fake elections that kept Europe's "last dictator" president Aleksander Lukashenko in power. Polish MEP Janusz Onyszkiewicz and the German ambassador to Belarus were also in the crowd.

Many of the protestors carried blue EU banners and flags, a revolutionary symbol in Belarus, and chanted "Belarus to Europe!" as well as German chancellor Angela Merkel's words - "Europe is with you" - which had been relayed by media from the EU 50th birthday party in Berlin.

The two people in charge of the riot squads, Dzmitry Paulichenka and Yury Padabed are already on the EU's 35-strong visa ban list, which was unanimously extended for one more year just a few days before the weekend's events.

"Today despite all the obstacles we have proved that we are one people that want to live in Europe in a free and independent state," one of the opposition youth leaders, Mikita Sasim, told crowds gathered outside Minsk's library, NGO Charter97 reports.

"Despite a campaign of fear, people came out on the streets to protest. It's disturbed the authorities, which answered the only way they know how, with violence," one of the opposition leaders, Aleksander Milinkevich told Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

Mr Milinkevich and his wife were also punched and kicked to the ground on Sunday. The night before, his car was doused with acid by unknown vandals. His ally, Aleskander Kozulin, is in jail. Other opposition leaders, such as Kristina Shatsikava, have been put into mental asylums.

Belarus authorities said the number of protestors was just 4,000 people, Russian media report. "The suppression of any political action associated with violating public order, posing a threat to people's security and resisting the authorities is a quite appropriate policy in any democratic state. I am certain that the fuss over such actions will weaken," Lukashenko spokesman Alexander Konovalov said.

Russian violence day earlier
The events in Minsk mirrored Saturday's violence in the Russian town of Nizhny Novgorod, where riot police beat crowds protesting against president Vladimir Putin's roll back of democratic reforms in the run-up to next year's presidential elections. About 30 arrests were made.

Similar protests were also handled roughly by police in St Petersburg in recent weeks, with some western powers - but not the EU - recently voicing concern about the internal drift back to pre-perestrojka days in Europe's largest country.

"The trends, unfortunately, are not going in the right direction," senior US diplomat David Kramer told EUobserver in Brussels last week, citing pressure on free media and independent NGOs as key problems.

The EU is less keen to publicly criticise Moscow, with the German EU presidency recently burying a UK proposal to try and send OSCE election monitors to the parliamentary elections this December.

Brussels and Moscow's relationship is not an easy one since 2004 enlargement, with trade commissioner Peter Mandelson this weekend saying the EU may block Russia's WTO entry bid if it does not lift an embargo on Polish meat exports.

The meat issue and wider energy gripes have seen Poland veto talks on a new EU-Russia treaty since late last year. Lithuania is threatening to do the same.

Happy birthday Russian style
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Sunday sent a birthday message to Berlin on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty. His words spoke of the European Union as a "growing authority" in global security problems.

But the increasingly autocratic leader also called for "mutual respect" and warned the EU27 leaders that "every interruption to dialogue is counter-productive" in an apparent reference to the stalled EU-Russia treaty negotiations.

"We cannot allow new dividing lines to appear in Europe, allowing unilateral projects to be realised that endanger the interests and security of neighbours," he added, on Poland and the Czech Republic's plans to host a US missile defence system in the future.

EU Observer

Someone enlighten me about Beslan, that attack that happend back
in Sept 1st of 2004. To my knowledge, i really dont remember hearing anything
about this on the news. So i really dont know what went on.

Wikipedia has a page about it, it's rather detailed.