1. law, govt and politics
2. legal issues
3. human rights

NCSEJ WEEKLY NEWS BRIEF
Washington, D.C. December 19, 2014
1. Statement by the President on the Ukraine Freedom Support Act; EU Adopts New Crimea Sanctions As
Summit Weighs Crisis; European Parliament Endorses Georgia's Association Agreement; Belarusian
Opposition Activist Released After Four Years In Prison; Belarus Law Makes It Easier To Close Online
Media; Research team using imaging to study Holocaust killing sites in Ukraine; Russia Urged To Stop
'Persecution' Of Activists Over Chechnya
Briefs, December 15- December 19, 2014
2. Hardships Grow in Ukraine, U.N. Says
By Nick Cumming-Bruce
New York Times, December 15, 2014
3. Ukraine ceasefire leaves frontline counting cost of war in uneasy calm
By Luke Harding
Guardian, December 17, 2014
4. Petro Poroshenko Asks Parliament to Drop Ukraine's Neutral Status
AFP, December 19, 2014
5. ‘Civic obligation’ to defend Ukraine, says hassid
By Sam Sokol
Jerusalem Post, December 18, 2014
6. Huddling by fire, Jews in rebel-held Ukraine keep synagogue alive
By Cnaan Liphshiz
JTA, December 15, 2014 2:04pm
7. Blame Game Begins As Ruble Plummets
RFE/RL, December 17, 2014
8. Russia's Neighbors Scramble To Cope With Ruble's Tribulations
RFE/RL, December 18, 2014
9. 80 Percent of Russians Back Putin Even as Ruble Falls
AFP, December 18, 2014
10. Highlights of Putin's Big Annual Press Conference 2014
Sputnik, December 18, 2014
11. Putin Blames Outside Forces for Economic Woes
By Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew Roth
New York Times, December 18, 2014
12. Putin’s Year of Defiance and Miscalculation
Gregory L. White in Moscow and Anton Troianovski in Berlin
Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2014
13. Russia's Brain Drain Is Astounding
By Elena Holodny
Business Insider, December 17, 2014
#1a
Statement by the President on the Ukraine Freedom Support Act
The White House, Office of Press Secretary, December 18, 2014
Today, I have signed H.R. 5859, the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, into law. Signing this legislation does
not signal a change in the Administration’s sanctions policy, which we have carefully calibrated in accordance with
developments on the ground and coordinated with our allies and partners. At this time, the Administration does not
intend to impose sanctions under this law, but the Act gives the Administration additional authorities that could be
utilized, if circumstances warranted.
My Administration will continue to work closely with allies and partners in Europe and internationally to respond to
developments in Ukraine and will continue to review and calibrate our sanctions to respond to Russia's actions. We
again call on Russia to end its occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea, cease support to separatists in
eastern Ukraine, and implement the obligations it signed up to under the Minsk agreements.
As I have said many times, our goal is to promote a diplomatic solution that provides a lasting resolution to the
conflict and helps to promote growth and stability in Ukraine and regionally, including in Russia. In this context, we
continue to call on Russia's leadership to implement the Minsk agreements and to reach a lasting and
comprehensive resolution to the conflict which respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We remain
prepared to roll back sanctions should Russia take the necessary steps.
#1b
EU Adopts New Crimea Sanctions As Summit Weighs Crisis
RFE/RL, December 18, 2014
The European Union on December 18 agreed new sanctions against Moscow-annexed Crimea as EU leaders
prepared to discuss a "tough and responsible" strategy toward Russia following its involvement in Ukraine.
The new measures ban all investment in Crimea and cruise ships from its ports as further punishment for
Russia's annexation of the region from Ukraine in March.
European Council President Donald Tusk said ahead of a summit in Brussels December 18, "We should send
a strong signal on our readiness to further support Ukraine, also financially, as we have done politically today
by making the existing sanctions on Crimea and Sevastopol more effective."
Tusk -- the former Polish prime minister -- is chairing his first meeting of EU leaders since taking over from
Herman van Rompuy as European Council chief on December 1.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said new EU sanctions imposed on Crimea on December 18 are
"absolutely unacceptable."
The summit in Brussels will also back a huge 315 billion euro ($380 billion) investment plan aimed at
kickstarting Europe's stalling economy.
#1c
European Parliament Endorses Georgia's Association Agreement
RFE/RL, December 18, 2014
The European Parliament on December 18 endorsed a political and trade agreement with Georgia.
The ratification of Georgia’s EU association agreement is the third such deal endorsed with an eastern
neighbor of the European Union within three months.
The deals have frustrated the Kremlin, which has said they could hurt Russia’s economy and are incompatible
with a separate free trade zone Moscow has established.
Speaking in Strasbourg ahead of the vote, Georgian President Giorgi Margvelshvili called the event “an
exceptional and very important day” for his country.
To enter into force, the deals still need to be ratified by the national parliaments of each individual EU member
country.
Margvelashvili says lawmakers in 10 countries already have done so.
#1d
Belarusian Opposition Activist Released After Four Years In Prison
RFE/RL, December 18, 2014
An activist of the unregistered opposition Young Front organization in Belarus, Eduard Lobau, was released
on December 18 after four years in prison.
Lobau and fellow Youth Front activist Zmitser Dashkevich were sentenced to four and two years in jail,
respectively, after being found guilty in March 2011 of assaulting two people in Minsk in December 2010, a day
before a disputed presidential election that was followed by mass arrests of activists.
Lobau's mother, friends, colleagues, and journalists met Lobau at the prison gates near the western town of
Ivantsevichy on December 18.
Lobau reiterated to RFE/RL that the case against him and Dashkevich was "a provocation" to isolate them
from the public during the 2010 election, in which authoritarian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka extended his
rule.
Amnesty International recognized Lobau and Dashkevich as a "prisoners of conscience."
Dashkevich was released from jail last year.
Both men have maintained their innocence and rejected offers of presidential pardons conditioned on
admissions of guilt.
#1e
Belarus Law Makes It Easier To Close Online Media
RFE/RL, December 17, 2014
Lawmakers in Belarus have passed legislation allowing the state to close any Internet news site that receives
two warnings about content in a single year.
Information Minister Liliya Ananich, who presented the bill to the loyal parliament on December 17, said it will
come into force on January 1.
The law does not require the official registration of online media outlets, but says the Information Ministry will
monitor them "to ensure that materials used by the websites correspond to Belarusian legislation."
Website owners will be held responsible for their content.
The law also limits the foreign share of ownership of any news site to 20 percent, down from 30 percent under
current law.
Western governments and opponents of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka accuse him of violating the
freedom of the media during 20 years in power.
Authorities in several ex-Soviet republics have increased their control over broadcast and print media but have
had a harder time suppressing dissent on the Internet.
#1f
Research team using imaging to study Holocaust killing sites in Ukraine
JTA, December 18, 2014
An international team of researchers launched a study of Holocaust-era killing sites in the Kremenets region in
western Ukraine.
The project was initiated this year by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, whose April
report on killing sites ruled out conducting archaeological digs in such locales, as it violates Jewish religious
laws.
The study team, led by Meylakh Sheykhet, Ukraine director for the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former
Soviet Union, earlier this month used geophysical imaging to delineate an area where in 1942 Nazi soldiers
buried thousands of Jews they had shot. Ukraine has thousands of killing sites of various sizes.
“The actual place where they are buried is hard to locate because the designated place where we are
searching was demarcated based on testimonies,” said Ksenya Bondar, a geologist from the Taras
Shevchenko National University of Kiev, who participated in the survey. “We need to scan the area strip by
strip.”
The survey in Kremenets is part of a larger project launched earlier this year by Sheykhet with funding from the
German federal government, which he secured from Germany’s embassy in Ukraine. Ukrainian and British
members of this team performed several scans earlier this year, he said.
“The scanning is necessary now because these are the last few years when we still have testimonies of people
who can tell us where to look,” Sheykhet said in explaining why he pushed for the project.
He also cited construction across Eastern Europe, which sometimes is performed in mass graves with or
without contractors’ knowledge.
“Technology now allows us to set the historical record without disturbing the victims’ rights not to be disturbed
in their final resting place,” Sheykhet said. “This is a combination of circumstances which must be acted upon.”
#1g
Russia Urged To Stop 'Persecution' Of Activists Over Chechnya
RFE/RL, December 15, 2014
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called on Russian authorities to take measures to end a
campaign of "persecution" against human rights defenders in Chechnya and to offer them protection.
The rights groups' December 15 joint statement comes two days after the office of the Grozny branch of the
Committee to Prevent Torture (KPP) was set on fire.
Two KPP employees in Chechnya's capital have been followed by armed men, detained for hours by police,
and had personal computers and phones confiscated.
Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has implied KPP head Igor Kalyapin helped finance an
armed attack in Grozny on December 4 that left 14 police dead.
Kalyapin had criticized Kadyrov for saying that relatives of militants involved in deadly attacks would be
expelled from Chechnya and their homes razed.
Eight homes were subsequently destroyed by fire.
Anna Neistat, Amnesty International's senior director of research, said Kadyrov "appears to be waging a
personal campaign against" the KPP and Kalyapin.
#2
Hardships Grow in Ukraine, U.N. Says
By Nick Cumming-Bruce
New York Times, December 15, 2014
Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian armed groups is claiming an average of 13
lives a day, and after nine months of conflict, the approach of winter has created life-threatening conditions for
many civilians in eastern Ukraine, the United Nations reported on Monday.
The fighting has killed 1,357 people since a Sept. 5 peace accord was reached by all parties to the conflict, the
United Nations’ human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine reported, bringing the total number of fatalities to
at least 4,707 and the number of wounded to 10,322.
More than 100 episodes of indiscriminate shelling of built-up areas were reported in November alone,
according to the United Nations. It cited as examples the shelling of a soccer field in the rebel stronghold of
Donetsk, which killed two people, including a child, and the shelling of the nearby city of Horlivka, which killed
five civilians, including two children.
As tensions mount, Western nations are contemplating tougher economic sanctions against Moscow. The
United Nations human rights office here in Geneva spoke of the “very close link” between the inflow of fighters
and sophisticated weaponry, “including from the Russian Federation,” and a total breakdown of law and order
in eastern Ukraine.
The situation around the self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, under the control of proRussian armed groups, has been characterized by “killings, abductions, torture, ill treatment, sexual violence,
rape, forced labor, ransom, extortion,” said Gianni Magazzeni, head of the division of the United Nations
human rights office that deals with Europe and Central Asia.
The groups controlling these areas have taken some steps to create parallel structures of government, but they
offer no protection to local residents, Mr. Magazzeni said. “Some of these people are kept almost as hostages,”
he said. “They cannot leave. They are forced into doing things they may not want to do.”
Government forces, particularly “voluntary battalions” and intelligence agencies, have mistreated detainees
and carried out arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances, the United Nations said. But despite past
reports of the existence of mass graves, the United Nations said it had found no clear evidence of mass
summary executions by either side in the conflict.
More than a million people have fled the areas of conflict in eastern Ukraine, and more than half a million have
been displaced internally. Many others have taken refuge in Russia and in other European countries.
Living conditions for about five million civilians in rebel-controlled areas are expected to deteriorate further with
the government’s decision to suspend services like education and basic health care, as well as social
payments, to prevent those payments from falling into the hands of armed groups.
The government has maintained gas and electricity supplies to areas under the control of armed groups for
humanitarian reasons, the United Nations said, but some areas affected by fighting have reportedly had no
electricity for six months, and as a result, water supply, sewage and communications systems have ceased to
function. The United Nations, expressing concern for the hardship that the decision to suspend services was
likely to cause civilians, urged the government to “look seriously at the human rights implications.”
#3
Ukraine ceasefire leaves frontline counting cost of war in uneasy calm
By Luke Harding
Guardian, December 17, 2014
It was mid-morning when the bombs began to fall on Artyomove, a crumbling mining town on the frontline in
eastern Ukraine. One mortar landed in Nina Dmitrievna’s garden. It flattened her fence. Another hit next door,
gouging a large raw hole in a black plot of vegetables and rose bushes. “I saw it fly through the air,” she said,
showing off the remains - a silvery tail-fin.
The mortar was fired from the nearby city of Gorlovka. In the spring, pro-Russia separatists seized a series of
administrative buildings across Ukraine’s Donbass region, including in Dzerzhinsk, next door to Artyomove. In
July, the separatists retreated, but they still occupy the two major cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and a chunk
of territory next to the Russian border.
Dmitrievena’s micro-district – an ensemble of dachas, plus a school - is now in the buffer zone between the
Ukrainian army and the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR). Many expected a fresh rebel
advance, but for now Dzerzhinsk is under Kiev’s control. Earlier this month both sides agreed a ceasefire. So
far it is holding.
This lull after seven months of fighting appears to mark a retooling of the Kremlin’s strategy. In March, the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, annexed Crimea, and he gave political and military support to the east’s
anti-Kiev rebellion. His goal was to create Novorossiya, a historically fictitious pseudo-state encompassing
Ukraine’s eight Russian-speaking southern and eastern oblasts, or regions, all the way up to Moldova.
Despite Kremlin encouragement, however, the cities of Kharkiv in the east and Odessa in the south failed to
rise up. In late August Putin sent in the regular Russian army to choke off a Ukrainian offensive, though
Moscow denies its forces entered Ukraine.
The war has wrecked Donbass’s economy and infrastructure. More than 500,000 people have fled. In
November, Kiev stopped paying pensions and salaries in rebel-controlled areas.
With the rouble in freefall, western sanctions hurting and winter near, Moscow has concluded that the bill for its
Novorossiya project is too big. Citing Kremlin sources, the opposition paper Novaya Gazeta reported that the
Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics would not become independent after all. Nor would they join Russia.
Novorossiya has been mothballed.
Instead, Moscow wants the eastern regions to return to Ukraine under a new federal structure that would allow
Moscow to call the shots. The Kremlin has recently shuffled out Novorossiya’s three most prominent leaders:
Major General Igor Bezler, “the Demon”, whose fighters control Gorlovka; Igor Strelkov, the DNR’s Russian
military supremo; and Nikolai Kozitsyn, an oddball Cossack commander.
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“Putin doesn’t need Donbass. Everything round here has fallen down,” Dmitrievna said. “If he wanted us he
would have arrived by now. He has his own problems. The rouble is sinking.” She said she had not voted in
May when the separatists held a breakaway “referendum”, but that she didn’t think much of Petro
Poroshenko’s new government in Kiev either.
“Poroshenko never went to Donetsk. If he’s the president he should listen,” she said.
Her neighbour Pyotr Sergeyevich complained that pensioners did not have the option of fleeing. He stared
glumly at a hole left by a mortar. “I’m 67 years old. I spent 37 years down the mines. Where am I supposed to
go? Nobody wants us. Europe doesn’t want us. Russia doesn’t. New York doesn’t.”
Artyomove’s Gagarin mine, named after the famous cosmonaut, shut down in the 1990s. Three mines in
Dzerzhinsk are still operational, at least for now.
Like much of Donbass, Dzerzhinsk feels like a sprawling and abandoned Soviet theme park. The town, which
has a population of 35,000, is named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, Lenin’s secret police boss. Gloomy 1970s
apartment blocks line potholed boulevards. Bombing has gone on for three months. A notice advises residents
where to find the nearest shelter. It urges them to tape up windows, stock up on food and medicines and warn
those living next door.
Six victims of the latest shelling were in hospital. One of them, Vera Ivanovna, said she had been fetching
water from the well in her village of Mayorske on 8 December, a day before the ceasefire, when she heard a
sudden whistling.
“I threw myself under a fence. There were five or six explosions, the last one three metres away. There was a
huge wave. It threw me up in the air and flipped me over.” She suffered shrapnel wounds to her legs, stomach,
and hand, and is unable to hear with her right ear. The rebels were aiming for a nearby Ukrainian army post,
but they missed.
Ivanovna’s neighbours included an 84-year-old woman, Lena Stepanova, whose home was flattened three
months ago. With the war being fought in civilian areas such casualties were inevitable, said Yevgeny Zhuk,
the hospital’s trauma surgeon. “We get wounded civilians, soldiers and children. This brings nobody joy.” Five
people from Dzerzhinsk had been killed so far, one a soldier, he said.
Another doctor, Tatiana Plisenko, said the war had also taken a devastating psychological toll, with patients
complaining of depression and anxiety. The hospital’s windows shook during shelling. Who was to blame for
this mess? “Stupid people,” Zhuk answered. “Moscow, Kiev, Brussels, London. We had peace for 23 years
[since Ukraine’s independence]. And now we have war.”
If life in Dzerzhinsk is grim, nine miles away in DNR-controlled Gorlovka it is dramatically worse. On a
checkpoint sign into town someone has written: “Welcome to hell”. According to one local, Maxim, who
declined to give his surname, there are no jobs and no proper banks. He said the separatists had forced
teachers and doctors to carry on working to give the impression that life was OK, but that they were acting out
a role for Russian TV. No one actually got paid anything, he said.
The rebels have proved incapable of providing basic services. In smaller towns, especially among pensioners,
there were signs of famine, Maxim said. “Opinion is divided, but the number who enthusiastically support the
DNR has dwindled.”
Maxim, who works in Donetsk, said the situation there was brighter. Inhabitants fled the fighting in August, but
most have since come back. They had survived better because they have greater financial resources.
Maxim said the rebels were currently regrouping, and predicted they would launch a major offensive in the
spring. Last week he spotted two self-propelled guns trundling down Donetsk’s university street, he said.
There were now four rebel TV channels, including Novorossiya and Oplot TV, broadcasting round-the-clock
propaganda. Ukrainian TV had been switched off, he said. “The DNR wants to take the whole of Donetsk
territory. It will carry on [fighting] until someone in the Kremlin says stop,” he said. “The DNR and LNR can’t
exist as independent entities.”
Eastern Ukraine has two rival capitals – a rebel one in Donetsk, and a provisional one in Kramatorsk, a Sovietera town known for its three machine-building factories. Ukrainian forces recaptured Kramatorsk in July, when
the rebels withdrew from their previous stronghold in nearby Slavyansk. Karmatorsk is the nerve centre of what
Kiev calls its anti-terrorist operation.
Drive past any Ukrainian checkpoint and you come across the slogan “Putin is a shit”. The troops have
customised their uniforms with insignia showing the herb dill, a nod to Russians’ nicknaming Ukrainians dillheads. Ukrop in Russian is similar to Ukraine. The Ukrainians call the rebels vatniki, or quilted jackets.
Since the war began at least 1,250 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed, 192 of them since the ceasefire deal
was agreed, but not implemented, in September.
Some observers believe Putin has already achieved his strategic aims. He has Crimea and a new frozen
conflict in the east. Moscow can use Donbas to sabotage the pro-western government in Kiev, bogging it down
in a disastrous on-off war. Few think Ukraine will join the EU or Nato anytime soon. The economy is perilously
close to default, and Ukraine is still dependent on Russian gas.
Others, however, believe the Russian president may have over-reached himself. Olexiy Haran, a politics
professor at Kyiv-Mohyla academy, said the Kremlin’s original objective was to control the whole of Ukraine.
Instead, it ended up with a small eastern chunk, just 2% of the country overall. Haran said Kiev now had to
decide whether to cut these occupied territories free, or to try win them back. For the moment it is doing both,
supplying electricity and water to rebel towns, but not social benefits.
Back at Artymove a group of children at school number 13 play a game of after-hours ping pong. When the
bombardment started earlier this month they spent half the day sitting in the basement. “The windows started
shaking. The teachers told us to get our coats and to go into the shelter,” 12-year-old Nikita said. How did he
pass the time? “I played on my phone.”
“It’s terrible,” his friend Dmitry, 19, said. “But we’ve got used to it.”
#4
Petro Poroshenko Asks Parliament to Drop Ukraine's Neutral Status
AFP, December 19, 2014
Ukraine's president submitted to parliament Thursday legislation enabling the ex-Soviet republic to one day
join NATO and make sure the Western military alliance protects it from future Russian threats.
Petro Poroshenko's measure would revoke Ukraine non-aligned status -- a classification given to neutral states
such as Switzerland that refuse to join any military alliance and play no active part in wars.
Ukraine became such a country in 2010 under strong pressure from Russia. It had sought a closer alliance
with the West for parts of the early post-Soviet era but was never viewed as a serious short-term contender to
join.
Poroshenko made NATO membership one of his top foreign policy priorities after coming to power in the wake
of the February ouster of a Moscow-backed president.
He and the military bloc both accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin of not only funding and arming but also
backing up with elite forces the militias fighting Kiev's forces in the industrial east since April.
Moscow denies the charge and claims satellite imagery evidence purporting to show the movement of tanks
and heavy weapons across its border into the war zone is a fabrication.
Poroshenko said Russia's "aggression" forced him to submit the bill.
"Ukraine's non-aligned status... proved to be an ineffective means of ensuring the country's security from
foreign aggression and pressure," an explanatory note to the bill quoted on the president's website said.
"Ukraine's long-term occupancy of a 'grey' buffer zone between powerful systems of collective security is an
additional threat."
NATO discussed offering Ukraine membership in the wake of Russia's 2008 war with its southern neighbour
Georgia.
But the Alliance never outlined a firm timeline for the membership of either Ukraine or Georgia out of fears that
this might provoke Russia into even more hostile behaviour.
Former president Viktor Yanukovych picked the new non-alignment policy after striking a lucrative lease
agreement with Russia for its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea -- a peninsula seized by Moscow in March.
Putin had sought to pull Ukraine into a new military and political bloc that he is slowly forging with other small
former Soviet republics and that he hopes may one day be joined by Iran.
Russia views NATO as a direct military threat that seeks to station forces along its border and contain its
foreign policy interests.
Putin has also made Ukraine's neutrality one of the main conditions of any peace deal that Kiev may strike with
the eastern insurgents.
#5
‘Civic obligation’ to defend Ukraine, says hassid
By Sam Sokol
Jerusalem Post, December 18, 2014
Aside from his long gray beard, the soldier pictured in front of a tank, holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle and
wearing heavy camouflage body armor appears indistinguishable from any of his compatriots.
This soldier, however, is unlike any other currently serving in the Ukrainian military.
Many such photos of Asher Joseph Cherkassky are circulating among Ukrainians on social media, who are
surprised to see a hassidic Jew taking part in combat operations in their country’s rebel-held industrial east.
Cherkassky has made a series of appearances with Boris Filitov, the deputy regional governor of
Dnepropetrovsk – a key region in the fight against Moscow-backed rebels in the nearby Donetsk and Luhansk
oblasts. Photographed repeatedly with the politician, the infantryman has become something of a minor
celebrity; he has been nicknamed a “Ukrainian Fidel Castro” due to his looks.
In a post on Facebook last month, Filitov called the Dnepropetrovsk native a “hero and a symbol of the
resistance.”
A member of the Dnirpro battalion – which is funded by Dnepropetrovsk’s Jewish regional governor, billionaire
oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky – Cherkassky isn’t the only Jew to serve in his country’s armed forces. However, to
the best of his knowledge, he is the only Orthodox one.
Another Jewish soldier from the battalion was killed earlier this year, Kolomoisky told The Wall Street Journal
in June.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post by phone from Ukraine on Wednesday, Cherkassky said he had served in the
Soviet army during the late 1990s and that when war had broken out, he had volunteered to serve out of a
feeling that it was his “civic obligation.”
“I felt obligated to serve in the army to defend the country and the citizens of Ukraine,” he explained. “If you live
in this country, you must serve this country.”
“Everybody has a lot of respect for him,” said Cherkassky’s friend Itzik, who translated for him. “The non-Jews
also respect him. They admire the fact that a Jew [contributes] like the rest of the people.”
The Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk, in which Kolomoisky is a central figure, has been vocal in its
support of the war effort, collecting donations for wounded soldiers in its schools and taking a nationalist public
line.
The image of an Orthodox Jewish volunteer is striking given that many Jews still recall the massive efforts the
community made to avoid military service during the Czarist period, when small children were impressed into
service and shorn of their religious identities.
Cherkassky said he did not feel any anti-Semitism in the army, stating that the Russians were more antiSemitic than Ukrainians.
While Ukrainian Jews have generally played down anti-Semitism in their country, there have been reports that
members of the Ukrainian Azov volunteer battalion and several rebel militias have deep ties to neo-Nazi
groups.
Ukrainian Jews such as Luhansk Rabbi Shalom Gopin, however, believe that anti-Semitism has declined as
people on both sides struggle to survive.
Since the Jewish community constitutes only a small fraction of Ukraine’s population and skews toward the
elderly, not many Jews have served in the war, according to Cyril Danilchenko of the Vaad of Ukraine, who
himself served in the army’s draft office during the war.
Cherkassky was wounded in the fierce fighting around the Donetsk airport, the only part of the city still in
government hands, when a shell exploded above him and damaged his hearing. He subsequently took part in
the retreat from Ilovaisk.
He observes Judaism as best he can at the front, he said, but ended up fighting on Rosh Hashana and on
many Shabbats.
“It’s impossible to explain to the enemy that I cannot fight on Shabbat,” he said.
#6
Huddling by fire, Jews in rebel-held Ukraine keep synagogue alive
By Cnaan Liphshiz
JTA, December 15, 2014 2:04pm
In an unheated synagogue with no running water, a dozen Jews are trying to keep warm as temperatures here
veer toward the single digits.
Not moving too much helps keep the warmth under their thick coats, they say, a technique developed as the
group gathered at least once a week to maintain a sense of community in a city torn by ongoing conflict
between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian army.
“We usually stay for about two hours,” says Igor Leonidovich, the synagogue’s gabbai, or caretaker. “We pray
for peace. In this cold, two hours is enough.”
Half of Lugansk’s population of 425,000 has fled since July, when the fighting that claimed some 4,500 lives
erupted in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
Among those who fled were two-thirds of the city’s nurses and doctors, according to the World Health
Organization, rendering medical services almost nonexistent.
Earlier this month, a psychiatric institution in the Lugansk suburb of Slavyanoserbsk reported that 50 of its
patients died from cold and exhaustion. Like many parts of Lugansk and the surrounding area, the hospital had
no electricity, heat or water.
About 2,000 Jews remain — a fifth of the Lugansk prewar community — but even that determined group is
struggling now that the winter cold has arrived.
“We stay because it’s our birthplace, our land,” says Leonidovich, who draws encouragement from the fact that
fighting in Lugansk proper has largely died down in recent weeks after a truce went into effect in September.
“We don’t want to leave, but it’s getting harder to stay because of winter.”
Near the synagogue, a few elderly people rummage for blankets in heaps of uncollected garbage on a street
scarred by mortar craters and littered with the carcasses of abandoned pets. In the distance, explosions can be
heard echoing from the suburbs.
As they face these hardships, Lugansk Jews have received assistance from international Jewish groups,
including food from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, and the International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews, or IFCJ. The distribution of the packages has been coordinated in part by the Lugansk
Chabad emissary in exile, Rabbi Shalom Gopin, who is in Israel.
Earlier this month, some 300 people gathered at the synagogue to receive food packages from the IFCJ, the
second such distribution in recent weeks. The donation of a generator last month provided the synagogue with
lights for the first time since the power went out in August.
On Hanukkah, which begins Tuesday evening, the community plans to light candles in the synagogue during
the day because of a rebel-imposed curfew that restricts movement after dark. Traveling at night also
increases the chance of falling prey to the robbers and looters who have emptied the city’s supermarkets and
car rental agencies.
Being openly Jewish in Lugansk is not particularly dangerous because the rebels who control the city generally
do not display anti-Semitic attitudes, Leonidovich says.
Asked whether Lugansk was in any way extra dangerous for Jews, a rebel officer who identified himself only
as Vladimir tells JTA, “There is no racism here. If a person, Jewish or Christian, is law abiding, they will not be
harmed.”
Even without being specifically targeted, the dangers in Lugansk are evident. In July, the Jewish community
lost two of its members, Svetlana and Anna Sitnikov, in the fighting. The mother and daughter died instantly
when a mortar round exploded outside a grocery where they had gone to fetch food for Anna’s 5-year-old son.
Like many septuagenarians here, Ernst Kuperman, one of the synagogue regulars, has not been able to collect
his pension for months. He gets by thanks to JDC’s Hesed program, which provides the needy with food and
medical services.
Others, like Anna Sosnova, who was wounded over the summer by an explosion near her home, would have
left but stayed because of family obligations. Sosnova’s house has electricity, but she still had to get a
generator to administer drugs to her mother, a bedridden diabetic with only one leg.
“There is no way currently to safely get her out,” Sosnova says.
During the fighting, a mortar round exploded near the small house that the Sosnovas share with three cats and
a puppy left behind by neighbors. The explosion weakened an external wall and the house has been slowly
collapsing, developing cracks and shifting. Some doors can’t be closed.
“I hope it won’t collapse on us,” Sosnova says.
Across the city, many buildings carry similar scars from the shelling that brought life here to a halt this summer.
The situation is even worse in the outskirts, where vast sunflower fields that should have been harvested in the
fall are withering in the snow along roads dotted with burned-out tanks that lead to shelled ghost towns.
Before the fighting, the Beit Menachem Jewish school here had more than 150 students. But they never
returned to school after the summer vacation and now are scattered across Russia, Israel and Ukraine,
according to Sergei Kreidun, the principal.
Although the school is empty, Kreidun still arrives daily to deter looters. He shows off the spacious campus,
which has a small Holocaust museum and kosher kitchen, with a mix of pride and melancholy. Pride for what
he has helped build over the past 15 years with funding from the Ohr Avner Foundation, melancholy over what
became of the school.
“As you can see, we’re ready for the kids here,” he says, gesturing toward a locker containing a former
student’s books and hairbrush. “Now all we need is the peace that will bring them back.”
#7
Blame Game Begins As Ruble Plummets
RFE/RL, December 17, 2014
There's an old Russian saying, "Ne valite s bolnoi golovy na zdorovuyu." Literally meaning, don't shift your
problems from a sick head to a healthy one -- or don't blame others for your troubles.
It's good advice that may go largely ignored as Russia, grappling with a plummeting ruble, looks for someone
to blame for the worst economic calamity to befall the country in 16 years.
Dry-eyed economists have suggested that it's a combination of Western sanctions and sinking world oil prices
that have contributed to the ruble's precipitous drop. But some Russian officials and citizens are pointing their
fingers at more convenient scapegoats:
1) Elvira Nabiullina
Heading the central bank of Russia may currently seem like the world's worst job, especially when the best you
have to offer is bitter pills. Nabiullina -- who has run the Bank of Russia since 2013 and approved the
December 16 decision to hike its key interest rate from 10.5 to 17 percent -- has suggested the ruble plunge is
a sign that Russia "must learn to live in a new reality."
But some State Duma deputies have called on Nabiullina to appear before parliament and explain what
Communist Party lawmaker Nikolai Arefyev called the "state crime" of the rate hike. In a particularly ugly
stroke, Russian trolls have also taken advantage of the opportunity to remind the Twittersphere that Nabiullina
is not Russian, but an ethnic Tatar.
2) The West
Always a safe fallback, and in this case at least partially true, given the effect of the sanctions the West has
imposed on Moscow over its interference in Ukraine. One Muscovite told Reuters news agency the ruble crisis
"shows the Americans want to topple our president." Others told RFE/RL that the European Union, Ukraine,
and "stupid Americans" alike were to blame.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin likewise blamed the West, but refused to acknowledge that it was the
sanctions to blame. "It's not the sanctions but rather our harmful financial, technological dependence on the
West that has become the cause of our vulnerability," he wrote on Twitter. He added, "Our policy to create our
own national financial system, import substitution, and development of national industry is absolutely right."
3) Currency Speculators
Vladimir Putin, in his state-of-the-union address on December 4, blamed "so-called speculators" for the ruble's
decline (on December 4, the ruble was at a now relatively healthy sounding 54.4 to the dollar) and called on
the central bank and government to take "tough, coordinated action" against them.
Nabiullina has since said, however, that current Russian legislation is sufficient to prevent market manipulation.
She also said the central bank is currently investigating only one such case. Meanwhile, many ordinary
Russians are panic-buying dollars, euros, and even Ukrainian hryvnyas, prompting one Putin adviser to blame
the currency turbulence on "emotions and a speculative mood."
4) Rosneft
It's only a matter of time before members of Putin's inner circle begin squabbling. The first blow, in fact, has
already come, with former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin writing on Twitter that the currency collapse had
been exacerbated by a mysterious, multibillion-ruble deal involving the central bank and state-run oil firm
Rosneft last week.
Kudrin called the deal -- which some critics have likened to a central-bank bailout of Rosneft -- "extremely bad
timing." Rosneft head and Putin ally Igor Sechin rejected any tie between the bond issue and the ruble
collapse, accusing critics of "provocation."
5) Dmitry Medvedev
Prime ministers, especially hapless ones, are convenient scapegoats in times of crisis. Rumors are already
circulating that Medvedev is due to be replaced by none other than Kudrin himself.
#8
Russia's Neighbors Scramble To Cope With Ruble's Tribulations
RFE/RL, December 18, 2014
When the ruble sneezes -- and it has been sneezing plenty this week -- the former Soviet Union catches a
cold.
Despite more than two decades of separation, the economies of the region remain deeply interconnected.
Currencies throughout the region -- from the Moldovan leu to the Kazakh tenge have seen drops in value of
between 10 and 20 percent this year. Governments are watching with concern as their exports become
increasingly expensive for customers in their giant neighbor.
Here's how some of Russia's neighbors are reacting to the ruble's turbulence.
BELARUS
Belarus's economy is very closely intertwined with Russia's. Together with Kazakhstan, the three countries
form a customs union free-trade area. About 45 percent of Belarus's exports go to Russia and much of the rest
goes to other countries that are deeply linked to the Russian economy.
"For exporters in Belarus, this is a catastrophe," says Belarusian economist Andrey Suzdaltsau. "It is now
practically impossible to sell their goods on the Russian market because of the new exchange rate for the
ruble, this means the prices have risen such that no one is buying."
Suzdaltsau adds the Minsk could soon be forced to take measures to devalue its own currency. The
Belarusian ruble has already lost some 13 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar this year.
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on December 18 tried to head off a devaluation by ordering the
government to denominate trade with Russia in U.S. dollars or euros. "We should have long ago demanded
Russia pay us also in hard currency," Lukashenka said.
Meanwhile, residents of regions along the border with Russia were enjoying at least a short-term boon.
Exchange offices in Homel reported shortages of Russian rubles as locals prepared for shopping trips and
bargain prices across the border in Russia.
"The crowds are amazing," a local driver named Uladzimer told RFE/RL. "People are buying everything,
literally everything, from groceries to cars. Refrigerators, televisions, irons, coffee machines -- everything there
is. Both Russian and Chinese. The prices are much lower than what we have in Belarus."
Ironically, even some Belarusian-made products can now be purchased more cheaply in Russia than they can
at home.
KAZAKHSTAN
A similar situation can be found in the third customs-union member, Kazakhstan.
Long lines of cars were seen crossing the border at various points on December 17 as Kazakhs rushed to take
advantage of the crashing ruble before retailers could raise their prices.
"My son-in-law and I went specially to Omsk to buy cars," Kazakh citizen Nadezhda Vorobyova was quoted as
telling Interfax. "We both bought 2008 Fords for $6,000 each."
Because of the declining ruble, she says the cars cost between 30 and 50 percent less than just a few weeks
ago.
Over the longer term, however, Kazakhstan faces the same problem as Belarus -- its goods are becoming
more expensive to customers in Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. At
the same time, more affordable Russian goods will make it hard for domestic producers -- industrial and
agricultural -- to compete at home, particularly since the customs-union borders are completely open.
Kazakhstan, which like Russia is also an oil exporter and has been hit by low global energy prices, already
devalued its currency by 19 percent compared to the dollar in February. But a further devaluation in 2015 is not
out of the question.
Such issues, and the fact that neither Belarus nor Kazakhstan have joined with Russia in implementing
sanctions against European Union food products, mean that the coming year will be a serious test for the
Eurasian Economic Union, which will replace the customs union as of January 1 and will include Armenia and
Kyrgyzstan as well.
GEORGIA
Since the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, the economies of the two countries have been increasingly
uncoupled. However, Russia did recently end its embargo of Georgian wines and mineral waters, meaning that
those sectors will be affected by the ruble decline. But they diversified significantly during the years of
Moscow's boycott and are much less dependent on Russia than they were before.
Georgia, however, is one of several former Soviet countries that counts on remittances sent back by citizens
working in Russia.
"The biggest problem for Russia's neighbors is remittances," says economist Roman Gotsiridze, chairman of
the Center for Economic Development and a former president of the National Bank of Georgia. "Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan are affected by this because they have many citizens working in Russia. In November,
remittances [to Georgia] decreased by $20 million, after a $16 million decrease in October."
Overall, Gotsiridze expects that increased remittances from Georgians in Italy and Greece will balance the
decreases from Russia. But that is small consolation for those with relatives earning rubles.
"Those who are dependent on people working in Russia and sending money back to Georgia are suffering a
lot," he concludes.
MOLDOVA
Moldova is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and it relies heavily on remittances from the several
hundred thousand Moldovan citizens working in Russia.
Most Moldovans convert the rubles they earn into dollars or euros before sending them back to their families,
meaning that the declining exchange rate is hitting them immediately.
"I have lost half [my savings] already," Zinaida Tiganescu, a resident of Balti who works in the construction
sector in Moscow, tells RFE/RL. "My salary is not going up and everything here [in Russia] is more expensive.
But we stay because we do not have any other choice. Here at least we can find work. In Moldova, if I went
back at my age, I will not find anything."
Tiganescu says she is refraining from changing her rubles, hoping the rate will get better after the New Year's
holidays.
Economists at the Expert-Grup think tank in Chisinau said on December 17 that remittances from Russia will
fall by at least 20 percent this year. The knock-on effects of that -- reduced consumption, reduced tax
revenues, etc. -- could mean a contraction of GDP by 3 or 4 percent.
Andrei Sochirca is a Moldovan who works in Novosibirsk. He says many of the people for whom he does
reconstruction work have dollar-denominated mortgages and are already struggling to make payments. He
describes the situation as "a catastrophe."
"It is likely that all Moldovans will have to pack their bags and go home," he says.
#9
80 Percent of Russians Back Putin Even as Ruble Falls
AFP, December 18, 2014
From a Western perspective, Vladimir Putin's days as president of Russia should be numbered: The ruble has
lost more than half its value, the economy is in crisis, and his aggression in Ukraine has turned the country into
an international pariah.
And yet most Russians see Putin not as the cause, but as the solution.
The situation as seen from a Russian point of view is starkly different from that painted in the West, and it is
driven largely by state television's carefully constructed version of reality and the Kremlin's methodical
dismantling of every credible political alternative.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Thursday found that about 80
percent of Russians still support him.
But it also showed that confidence in the economy is slipping. This is particularly true in Moscow, where people
have become accustomed to imported goods and foreign travel, now once again off-limits for many because of
the fall of the ruble and Western sanctions over Ukraine.
The poll was conducted between Nov. 22 and Dec. 7, when the ruble was steadily declining. But this week's
catastrophic collapse is likely to have a much greater effect on consumer prices and the standard of living.
For Putin, the question is whether he will be able to convince Russians to tighten their belts, and not just for a
few months but possibly for years to come.
"The Russian people have a sense that they are under sanctions, they are a fortress under siege," said Maria
Lipman, an independent analyst. "This kind of mentality is disseminated consistently and steadily by Russian
television: Who else is there to rely on except Putin? Putin is seen as the savior of the nation, and I think he
sees himself in this fashion."
Putin addressed his countrymen's concerns over the course of three or four hours at Thursday's news
conference. An advertisement for the news conference running on state television showed Putin surrounded by
Sochi Olympic athletes, petting a baby tiger and greeting cosmonauts. "We are absolutely capable of doing
everything ourselves," he promised the audience.
How Russians view Putin is associated with how they get their news, the poll showed. Those who identified
state television as their main source of news are more likely to approve of Putin (84 percent) than those who
have other sources (73 percent), while those who tune into the news often also have a more favorable opinion
of him.
After becoming president in 2000, Putin benefited from high prices for oil, the mainstay of Russia's economy.
In the past decade, Russians saw their living standards rise faster than at any other point in modern history,
transforming many average citizens into car owners and globe trotters for the first time ever.
The suppression of opposition politicians and independent media, widely criticized by outside observers, was
tacitly accepted by many as a compromise worth making for economic stability after the roller coaster years of
the 1990s.
"I very much support Putin - who else is there to support?" said Valentina Roshupkina, a 79-year-old resident
of Gryaz, a town several hours' drive south of Moscow. "The country is moving in the right direction, I believe,
because he lifted up the army, he made the government stronger. People started to be a little bit afraid of us."
Poll respondents were asked whether they would be willing to speak with an AP reporter, and Roshupkina was
among the many who agreed.
With the Russian economy buffeted by Western sanctions and the fall in oil prices, Putin has relied even more
on his image as a tough leader capable of standing up to the West. He appears to be betting that this will help
him weather the economic storm.
So far he's been right: The presidency and the military are the country's most trusted institutions, according to
the poll, with three out of four Russians saying they trust the presidency and two out of three expressing faith in
the military.
"We've revived the army and that's very important," said Ivan Savenko, a 50-year-old driver in the southern city
of Stavropol who also took part in the poll. "For us, the most important thing is the army and then everything
else. It's important for us that our country is a power. If we are not a power, we do not exist."
Of those surveyed, 81 percent said they strongly or somewhat approve of the way Putin is handling his job, a
dramatic increase of more than 20 percentage points from an AP-GfK poll conducted in 2012.
While Russia has become more authoritarian under Putin, the support for him appears genuine. The significant
fluctuation in Putin's ratings in recent years also indicates that Russians feel able to respond freely in
anonymous surveys about their views on the president. The 81 percent approval rating is only slightly higher
statistically than the 74 percent measured during the same time period by the Levada Center, Russia's most
respected independent pollster.
Many analysts question, however, whether the high ratings have any significance, given the Kremlin's control
over information.
"There is a total, effective, monopolistic propaganda campaign, and if there is an information monopoly, how
can you talk about ratings?" said Georgy Satarov, a former Kremlin adviser who heads a research institute that
studies corruption.
"The thing you have to pay attention to is not the fact that 80 percent support him, but that despite that
information monopoly 15 percent don't support him," he said.
Support for Putin soared after he moved to seize the Russian-speaking Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in
March.
"A source of pride for the overwhelming majority of Russians is the victory of World War II, but that was already
70 years ago," Lipman said. "[In Crimea] Putin gave the sense that we are victorious and triumphant and
resurgent today."
The Russia-backed separatists who took up arms against government troops in eastern Ukraine also have
been portrayed as heroes on state television. Of the Russians polled, 69 percent said that many or some parts
of Ukraine rightfully belong to Russia.
But some, like 37-year-old librarian Yelena Shevilyova, said that although she approves of Putin, she believes
Russia's involvement in Ukraine may have come at too high a cost.
"I think we lost a lot in our lives because of this," said Shevilyova, another poll participant, referring to Crimea.
"I think that it is right to bring all of these [Russian-speaking regions] back, but we need everything to be good
here too. ... You can't have everything at once," she said, speaking from the Ural Mountain region of Perm.
Growing worries about a worsening economy and the impact of sanctions are more keenly felt in major cities.
In Moscow, more than six in 10 said they had been negatively affected by the sanctions and most said their
family's finances were worse than three years ago. Less than half felt that way elsewhere.
"I am afraid that Russia isn't going anywhere," said Dmitry Uryupin, 48, a sound director in a small production
firm in Moscow who was among those surveyed. "It's unlikely that wages will be raised. In fact, it's quite likely
the opposite will happen, unemployment will rise and it will all affect the most economically insecure people as
well as us, the creative class."
After Putin was inaugurated for a third term in 2012 after a wave of protests in Moscow driven by the creative
class, he clamped down even harder on the opposition and focused on his core electorate: people in the
provinces and those more dependent on the state for their income.
The disgruntled in Moscow have proved easy to discredit in the eyes of what is known as the Putin majority:
"Look at these poor Muscovites. ... Oh my God, they complain because they cannot go to Italy on vacation and
they can no longer afford to buy Parmesan cheese!" Lipman said.
Whether discontent not just with the economy but with Putin's leadership will grow, Lipman said, depends on
"how badly this will hurt, and for how long."
The AP-NORC Center poll of Russia was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago with fieldwork for
the in-person survey by GfK Russia from Nov. 22 to Dec. 7. It was based on 2,008 in-person interviews with a
nationally representative random sample of Russians age 18 and older.
Funding for the survey came from NORC at the University of Chicago.
Results for all adults have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
#10
Highlights of Putin's Big Annual Press Conference 2014
Sputnik, December 18, 2014
Russian President Vladimir Putin held the tenth annual press conference earlier today. During the session,
Putin discussed important issues that Russia is currently facing: the situation in Ukraine, the fall of the ruble
and economic problems, as well as intensifying relations with the West.
On Ukraine:
The residents of the self-proclaimed eastern Ukrainian republics have the right to decide their future under the
internationally accepted right of people to self-determination. "We must follow the general principles of the
international law, and the people of Novorossiya have the right to decide their own fate," Putin said.
The economic blockade of Ukraine's eastern regions is an absolutely futile and counterproductive path for the
country's statehood.
Putin believes Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is willing to restore peace in his country, but a numer of
other senior officials oppose the idea. "Naturally, the president of Ukraine wants to settle [the crisis], I have no
doubts of his determination to do that. But he is not the only one [political force] there," Putin told reporters.
The planned "all-for-all" prisoner swap between the Ukrainian government in Kiev and eastern Ukraine was
broken by Kiev. "Yesterday there was an agreement on swapping 30 individuals. Representatives from the
militia went to the swapping area and an official representative from Kiev showed up and said: "No, we're not
going to swap until the next meeting in Minsk," Putin said.
Putin said the appropriate path to settling the Ukrainian crisis was to stop building walls and start building a
common humanitarian space.
Putin said Russia's position regarding the Ukrainian crisis was right, while the Western position was wrong.
The West has accused Moscow of meddling in Ukraine's internal affairs after the government coup in Kiev. A
number of countries have imposed several rounds of economic sanctions on Russia. Moscow has repeatedly
denied any involvement in Ukraine's internal affairs and underlined the importance of allowing Donbas
residents to be heard, calling on Kiev to establish political dialogue with the breakaway regions.
On Economy:
The current downturn in the Russian economy is provoked by external factors, mainly the slump in global oil
prices. Russia's budget, which is largely dependent on energy exports, is currently suffering from the sharp
decline in oil prices. The Russian economy is now facing a backlash from Western sanctions that were
imposed on Moscow due to its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, although Moscow has repeatedly
denied such claims.
The Economic situation in Russia may start improving already in the first quarter of 2015. "I said that even
given the most unfavorable internal market condition this situation may last for about two years ... But the
situation may start improving even earlier ... in the first, second quarter, in mid-2015 or at the end of the next
year. No one can say for sure," Putin said during a press conference.
The Russian economic recovery will take two years at worst. "If the situation takes a negative turn, then we will
have to introduce some amendments to our plans. Naturally, something will have to be trimmed. However, I
would like to stress that a "positive rebound," as experts call it, and subsequent growth are inevitable under
present circumstances," the Russian leader told reporters.
On the Ruble and Central Bank:
Putin expressed hope that the ruble would continue to strengthen again foreign currencies. The Russian
authorities are planning a series of measures that proved successful back in 2008.
Putin also urged the Central Bank to act faster in order to overcome the current economic slowdown. "Their
actions need to be coordinated, collective and prudent, but without interference into the Central Bank or the
government's sphere of competence. Nevertheless, there must be coordination and it must be timely," Putin
said.
Russia's Central Bank needs to hike key rates in order to stabilize the country's macroeconomy. In an effort to
halt the devaluation of the national currency the Russian Central Bank on Monday raised its key interest rate
from 10.5 percent to 17 percent.
Relations With the West:
Putin thinks the West considers itself an empire and sees other regions as its vassals, who must be
oppressed. "They [the West] will always try to chain the bear", said Putin.
Putin said Russia was not attacking the West politically, but only protecting its own national interests. "The
problem of modern international relations," he believes, "is that our [Russia's] partners refuse to stop; they
think they have won."
Russia is willing to develop cooperation with the West, but on an equal basis and only if its national interests
are respected. "Do we want relations on an equal basis? Yes, we do, but on the condition that our national
interests are respected, in the sphere of security and in the sphere of economy," the Russian leader said.
On Issues of Gas:
The contract for the delivery of Russian gas to China is not detrimental for any side, even despite mutual
discounts, Putin said. The president did not specify the details of the discounts, but stressed that the project
turned out to be "undoubtedly profitable" for both Beijing and Moscow.
Putin said there was a possibility of creating a European gas hub on the Turkey-Greece border and it would
depend on the European Union's will. Russia is ready to work in this direction.
President Putin stressed that Russia is the only reliable gas supplier to Europe.
On Extrajudicial Executions:
Although relatives of terrorists could be aware of their plans, this does not give anyone, including the Chechen
leader Ramzan Kadyrov, the right for extrajudicial executions. Everyone living in Russia must comply with the
existing laws and nobody should be considered guilty, unless the court rules so, Putin said.
On Opposition:
Putin said there was a fine line between the political opposition and the so-called fifth column, a group that
operates in the interests of foreign governments. "An opposition figure, even if he's very harsh, in the end he
fights for the interests of his motherland, but the 'fifth column' represents people who fulfill what is dictated to
them in the interests of another government and they are used as an instrument to reach political goals that
are foreign to us," Putin said.
According to Putin, the Russian government does not repress people who are against its policies. "I would like
to assure you that there is no organization or any sort of repression against people who don't agree with our
actions, for example in Ukraine, Crimea, or any other external issues, no one from official government organs
do this," Putin said.
On Military Budget and External Threats:
The Russian Defense Ministry's budget will increase to $50 billion in 2015. "The Defense Ministry's budget has
grown for next year to about $50 billion, but the Pentagon's budget is almost 10 times higher, about $575
billion," Putin said.
Russia has only two military bases abroad, in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Washington's planned deployment of US missile defense elements in Europe threatens Russia. "They have
been deploying strategic missile defense elements not only on Alaska, but also in Europe, in Poland and
Romania, right at our borders," Putin said.
Russia is worried about Washington's plans to install an Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense complex in
Romania by 2015, and a similar system in Poland by 2018. Putin urged the international community to address
this issue.
On His Private Life:
Putin assured that his private life was fine. "Everything is fine, don't worry," Putin said. In 2013, Putin and his
wife Lyudmila announced a decision to terminate their marriage, attributing the outcome to the pressure
created by constant public attention.
On Khodorkovsky:
Putin said former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky was pardoned in December 2013 for "humanitairan
reasons," and that he now has the right to engage in politics, including running for senior positions. Just like
any other Russian citizen, Khodorkovsky has the right to engage in politics if he is willing to do so, Putin said.
Khodorkovsky, who was arrested on October 25, 2003, spent ten years in prison for fraud and tax evasion until
he was pardoned this year. The former energy magnate has since relaunched his "Open Russia" foundation to
push for political reforms in Russia.
On Georgia:
Russia is ready to further liberalize its market for Georgian goods, Putin said.
Putin said he would be glad to meet with senior Georgian officials in Moscow. "If the Georgian leadership
believes it is possible, we will be ready to meet any representative of the Georgian leadership, including the
president and the prime minister, here in Moscow," Putin said.
On Iran:
Putin said he might visit the Iranian capital Tehran. The issue is currently being discussed through diplomatic
channels.
According to Putin, Iranian leaders are demonstrating considerable flexibility and the issue with the country's
nuclear development will soon be settled.
On Possibility of Next Presidential Term:
Putin said it was too early for him to decide whether to run for another term in office. Putin also mentioned he
took full responsibility for everything that was happening in the country.
#11
Putin Blames Outside Forces for Economic Woes
By Neil MacFarquhar and Andrew Roth
New York Times, December 18, 2014
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday delivered an acidic message of defiance and anger at the
West at an annual news conference in Moscow, showing no sign of softening his position on Ukraine despite
the financial turmoil that has gripped the country.
Mr. Putin blamed “external factors,” including Western sanctions and falling oil prices, for the collapse of the
Russian currency, the ruble. But he played down the severity of the economic crisis, saying that it would last a
maximum of two years before a return of growth.
“I believe that we are right,” Mr. Putin said of the conflict in Ukraine, likening the West’s expansion of NATO
toward Russia to a new Berlin Wall. “And I believe that our Western partners are not right.”
At the conference, which was attended by about 1,200 journalists, Mr. Putin said that initial moves to stabilize
the ruble might have been too slow, but he promised quick action to avoid further economic damage. He also
promised to maintain social welfare programs at their current level.
“I believe that the central bank and the government are taking adequate measures,” Mr. Putin said.
Mr. Putin recognized the efforts of President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine in ending the conflict in the
southeast of that country, but he suggested that others in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, may be trying to prolong
the conflict.
“Undoubtedly, the president of Ukraine certainly wants a settlement, and I have no doubt that he is striving for
this,” Mr. Putin said.
“But he’s not alone there,” he added, referring to more hawkish officials.
“We hear a lot of militant statements; I believe President Poroshenko is seeking a settlement, but there is a
need for practical action,” Mr. Putin added. “There is a need to observe the Minsk agreements” calling for a
cease-fire and a withdrawal of forces.
Russia has toned down its talk on the Ukraine crisis in the past month, and some of its most incendiary
language, like “junta” and “Novorossiya,” a blanket term used for the separatist territories, is no longer used on
state-run television news. Mr. Putin also notably omitted those terms, which he had used in other public
appearances, on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov said in an interview on the news channel France 24 on Tuesday that Russia
was not suggesting federalization “for the separatist territories” and “not suggesting autonomy.”
Mr. Putin has managed to maintain high popularity ratings in his 15 years leading Russia, in large part by
assuring security and prosperity, but the recent nose dive of the national currency is threatening that
achievement. The ruble, which has lost more than 46 percent of its value against the dollar this year, was
broadly stable on Thursday, trading at 61.14 to the dollar in the afternoon.
The currency’s plunge came in large part as a result of a precipitous drop in oil prices. Energy resources
constitute 60 percent of the country’s exports. Russia’s budget is built around an oil price of roughly $100 a
barrel, whereas oil is now selling at about $61 a barrel. But Western sanctions imposed after Russia annexed
Crimea and destabilized Ukraine have compounded the problem.
Russian companies owe about $650 billion to Western banks, while the country’s foreign exchange reserves
are pegged at about $400 billion. The government tried to calm the exchange markets by announcing that it
had sufficient money to cover the debts, but with all new financing from the West cut off by sanctions, the
source of that money remained unclear.
Russia’s state-controlled television has been promoting the news conference all week with a fast-paced
advertisement that shows clips of some of the year’s major events, including the Olympic Games in Sochi, the
annexation of Crimea, charts of financial performance, the situation in the Middle East and floods in Russia’s
far east. It ends with a screen of print giving the name and date of the news conference.
#12
Putin’s Year of Defiance and Miscalculation
Gregory L. White in Moscow and Anton Troianovski in Berlin
Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2014
As Western governments seethed last spring over Russia’s takeover of the Crimea region in Ukraine, Vladimir
Putin told advisers that the world eventually would accept the audacious move. The Kremlin was confident the
economic costs of Western sanctions, though substantial, would be tolerable for the world’s ninth-largest
economy.
For much of the year, the Russian president’s gamble seemed to pay off. “His forecasts have come true,”
Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister and longtime Putin adviser, said in May. “A lot of people have come to
terms with Crimea now, at least informally.”
Mr. Putin also seemed confident, according to people who spoke to him at the time, that the deep ties he had
nurtured for years with major trade partners like Germany would limit the fallout.
Those calculations turned out to be dead wrong. Broader sanctions choked off Russia’s access to Western
capital and technology, tipping the economy toward recession. Then came a second blow that neither Western
governments nor Russia could have anticipated: The price of oil—the lifeblood of Russia’s economy—plunged
40% since midsummer, magnifying the effect of sanctions and sending the ruble into a tailspin. The slide
turned into a full-on currency crisis on Tuesday as the ruble dropped as much as 20% against the dollar.
As the problems intensify, Mr. Putin’s miscalculations have restricted his options. After largely ignoring the
economic costs of the conflict for most of the year, freezing out liberal aides who tried to warn of the impact, he
has begun trying recently to win back the confidence of business and revive the economy, people close to the
process say.
The Ukraine conflict has produced the deepest breach between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. A
notable casualty has been Mr. Putin’s relationship with Angela Merkel, who emerged as Europe’s most
powerful leader in large part because of Germany’s relative economic strength.
As recently as a year ago, the German chancellor was one of Mr. Putin’s most reliable Western partners,
offsetting more anti-Moscow voices such as the U.S. and Poland. Now, she is keeping the rest of Europe in
line behind sanctions and warning of the danger she says Mr. Putin poses to security across the continent.
“We are suddenly confronted with a conflict that goes, so to speak, to the core of our values,” Ms. Merkel said
in Sydney, Australia, in November. “Old thinking in terms of spheres of influence, in which international law is
trampled upon, cannot be allowed to assert itself.”
Mr. Putin’s rhetoric on Ukraine seems to have softened in recent weeks as state-run pollsters in Russia report
growing alarm over the falling ruble and rising prices. “Whenever they start to feel danger in their bones—we
saw it in [the financial crisis of] 2008—they start looking for the liberals to help,” a senior Russian legislator said
of the hard-liners in Mr. Putin’s inner circle.
The Kremlin declined to comment for this article.
With Mr. Putin’s government warning that significant relief from sanctions could be more than a year away,
there is little chance of avoiding surging inflation and further declines in the ruble. This week’s currency crisis
has increased the urgency, making a steep recession next year all but inevitable.
The Kremlin appears to have written off hope of rapprochement with the Obama administration, which has
pressed the European Union to back strong sanctions. And patching things up with Ms. Merkel doesn’t look
any easier.
“Russia has become unpredictable, which is the biggest threat to partnership,” said Gernot Erler, the German
government’s coordinator for Eastern European affairs. “We don’t know at all what Russia’s goals are.”
A year ago, it looked as though German relations with Moscow were warming. The revelations of National
Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden helped turn public opinion against Washington in privacy-sensitive
Germany. Last December, Ms. Merkel formed a new government with the Social Democrats, historically a
party friendly to Russia. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the EU may have underestimated
Ukraine’s economic and “historic emotional” ties to Russia.
Russia annexed the Crimea Peninsula in March. In the early weeks of the crisis, Ms. Merkel remained cautious
about tough sanctions, fearing they might prevent a way out for Moscow.
The first round of sanctions mainly affected officials and businessmen with ties to Mr. Putin. Opening a meeting
with aides after they were announced, Mr. Putin didn’t even mention the possible economic impact, calling
instead for faster growth. But after state-television cameras were ushered out, officials expressed concern.
Mr. Kudrin, the former finance minister and longtime Putin ally who attended, said that even if the sanctions
were limited just to individuals, they still would hit growth hard. Wider sanctions on state banks—they would
come in the summer—would be much more painful, he warned, fueling capital flight, sapping investment and
bruising the ruble.
At the time, the government was expecting the economy to grow and inflation to remain under control. Mr.
Kudrin estimated at the time that the Ukraine crisis cut about one percentage point off GDP growth—about
what the government spent on the Sochi Olympics. Over two to three years, the bill might rise to $200 billion—
“not catastrophic,” as he put it later.
His warning didn’t dissuade Mr. Putin and the rest of the leadership from confronting the West. “They all
understood everything,” Mr. Kudrin recalled later. “They’re ready to pay that price.”
When additional sanctions came during the spring, some government officials began to recognize that the
informal effect—chilling business activity—was more painful than expected. But their appeals to Mr. Putin were
largely ignored, according to people close to the discussions.
“There was a sense that foreign policy was the priority and that it could be conducted without doing much harm
to the economy,” said one Kremlin adviser.
As the ground fighting in Ukraine worsened over the summer, Germany’s resolve to take on the Kremlin
stiffened. The U.S. had been pressing the Europeans to do so for months. Some German officials were
concerned that earlier sanctions hadn’t been tough enough.
Ms. Merkel and Mr. Putin held lengthy, often combative phone calls, according to German officials familiar with
the conversations.
Western intelligence suggested Russia was supplying the separatists with weapons and appeared to be
coordinating their operations. Mr. Putin said he had nothing to do with it, and told Ms. Merkel that Ukraine was
the kind of place where abandoned tanks could be found on farms, according to one official familiar with the
discussions.
Ms. Merkel’s office had the German spy agency, the BND, draw up biographies of rebel leaders, most of whom
hailed from Russia. Over the phone, Ms. Merkel repeatedly confronted Mr. Putin with evidence that the rebel
leaders had ties to Russian intelligence, according to German officials. Mr. Putin, who rarely raised his voice
during the discussions, denied he had any influence over the rebels. At important points, he would shift from
Russian—which Ms. Merkel learned growing up in Communist East Germany—to German, which Mr. Putin
speaks well.
German diplomats thought the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on July 17, killing all 298 people aboard,
might open a path to calming the conflict. But Mr. Putin publicly denied the rebels had shot down the plane,
repeating theories broadcast by Russian television that the Ukrainians were responsible.
He told Ms. Merkel over the phone that his own plane was in the air over Europe at the time and that the
shootdown may have been an assassination attempt. “I could have been a victim, too,” he said, according to
one person knowledgeable about the call.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with President Vladimir Putin at a World War II commemoration ceremony
in June, was once one of the Russian leader's most reliable Western partners. ENLARGE
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with President Vladimir Putin at a World War II commemoration ceremony
in June, was once one of the Russian leader's most reliable Western partners. Getty Images
German officials analyzed Mr. Putin’s flight path and didn’t buy the contention, according to one person familiar
with the effort.
Convinced that Mr. Putin wasn’t pushing the rebels to stop fighting, Ms. Merkel corralled the other 27 European
Union member states to follow the U.S. and back the first sanctions against sectors of the Russian economy.
They amounted to a body blow to Russia, whose largest banks and companies depended on Western
financing and technology.
The Kremlin responded with sanctions of its own against food imports from the West, hitting some European
farmers hard.
Inside Russia, pro-market advisers who had warned about too much confrontation with the West, including Mr.
Kudrin, found themselves largely frozen out, according to people close to them. Mr. Kudrin lamented publicly
that he rarely was consulted by the Kremlin anymore and that business was alarmed by Moscow’s antiWestern turn.
A tight circle of mostly hard-line advisers, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Federal Security
Service head Alexander Bortnikov, had become Mr. Putin’s closest confidantes, according to Kremlin insiders
and diplomats.
In early September, even though pro-Russian rebels had just signed a cease-fire agreement with Ukraine, Ms.
Merkel pushed for a second round of economic sanctions. Ms. Merkel and other Western leaders said Russia
was doing little to carry out the terms of the cease-fire agreement, including preventing weapons and fighters
from crossing the Russian border into eastern Ukraine.
In early October, German Gref, chief executive of Russia’s state-run Sberbank and the pro-market author of
Mr. Putin’s economic programs, lashed out in public at an October conference where the president was to
speak.
Warning that defying “the laws of economic development” would bring Russia to collapse as it did the Soviet
Union, Mr. Gref ridiculed government policies for replacing sanctioned products with domestic ones. “You
cannot motivate people through the Gulag, like in the Soviet Union,” he said to nervous applause.
Mr. Putin shrugged off the comments when asked about them later. The government still was expecting
Europe to lift sanctions by the middle of 2015 and for oil prices to recover to $100 a barrel, Russian officials
said at the time.
Within weeks, an additional plunge in oil prices forced the Kremlin to reassess its plans.
Falling oil prices and geopolitical instability have resulted in steep falls for the ruble. Charles Forelle explains
how we got here and what Russia might do next.
After spending $30 billion in October in an unsuccessful effort to slow the ruble’s slide, the central bank
announced in early November it would let the Russian currency float freely to save its reserves. Hard-line
advisers in the Kremlin, including economic aide Sergei Glaziev, had called for fixing the rate and restricting
access to foreign currency. But Mr. Putin rejected that advice as risking even more economic disruption. The
central bank’s move triggered a slide in the currency.
“In late November and early December, the authorities realized there would be a crisis,” said one Kremlin
adviser. Just before Mr. Putin’s state-of-the-nation address on Dec. 4, the Economy Ministry revised its
forecast. Russia would get no relief from low oil prices or sanctions in 2015, the new forecast said, which would
drive the country into recession.
After other officials criticized the outlook as too gloomy, it quickly disappeared from the ministry’s website.
In his speech, Mr. Putin announced steps to improve the business climate. But he also warned that the Kremlin
knew who the “speculators” were who were selling the ruble, which did little to reassure investors or offset
market fears.
Tensions exploded this week. The currency plunge left Russians racing to convert their savings out of rubles.
An emergency rate hike by the central bank did little to stop the selling.
Frictions surfaced between liberals and hard-liners. Mr. Kudrin took to Twitter to say the market plunge was the
result not just of sanctions and low oil prices but “also a lack of confidence in the government’s economic
measures.” He criticized a bailout deal for the state oil company, prompting the company’s CEO to denounce
him as a “provocateur.”
Amid the deepening crisis, Western diplomats have reported hints of softening in the Kremlin’s position on
Ukraine, though they say it is too early to declare a shift. Late Tuesday, Mr. Putin joined a conference call with
Ms. Merkel, French President François Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to discuss new
talks to stabilize the cease-fire in eastern Ukraine.
But after a year of diplomatic wrangling, German officials say they have little reason to believe the Kremlin’s
policies will change quickly.
The Germans say that continuing to talk to the Kremlin is important for affording Mr. Putin a way out of the
crisis. Some German diplomats worry that with the Russian economy deteriorating, Mr. Putin may be tempted
to escalate the conflict in Ukraine to distract his countrymen from problems at home.
In November, Ms. Merkel met with Mr. Putin at the Hilton hotel in Brisbane, Australia, talking and sipping wine
for more than three hours as their aides waited outside the room. Ms. Merkel hoped that confronting him in a
more relaxed format could lead to progress. It didn’t.
Just over a day later, Ms. Merkel delivered some of her angriest remarks of the crisis.
“We can no longer simply hold speeches at memorial events,” Ms. Merkel said, referring to the many
commemorations of World War I, World War II and the Cold War held in Europe this year. “Now we have to
somehow show what we have learned from all this.”
#13
Russia's Brain Drain Is Astounding
By Elena Holodny
Business Insider, December 17, 2014
Russia is experiencing another major brain drain.
Although emigration trended downward from 1997 to 2011, there was a sudden spike in people leaving the
country around the third term of President Vladimir Putin, according to Rosstat, Russia's federal state statistics
service.
In 2012, almost 123,000 people left, and in 2013, more than 186,000 got out.
Additionally, a UN report showed that 40,000 Russians applied for asylum in 2013 — 76% more than in 2012.
The biggest bombshell of all is that since April 2014 — a month after Russia annexed Crimea — 203,659
Russians have left the country.
By comparison, approximately 37,000 people left the country in 2011, and less than 34,000 people left in 2010.
Furthermore, the emigration numbers may be even higher. "The official statistics are very low," Mikhail
Gorshkov, the director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology told Reuters .
"While the total number of Russians who leave for good remains relatively small, the profile of the typical
emigrant has changed. When the Soviet Union dissolved, the most common emigrant was a poor, unskilled
young man. Today, it is a well-off professional," according to World Policy.
"People who have it good are starting to leave," Anton Nosski, a tech entrepreneur, told World Policy.
Notable individuals who have left include chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, economist Sergei Guriyev,
journalist Leonid Bershidsky, and the founder of VKontakte (Russia's version of Facebook) Pavel Durov.
For the most part, these people are leaving either for their children or for their professional futures. "Corruption,
red tape, and allegedly crooked courts are [also] driving the exodus among entrepreneurs," according to
Reuters.
"I want my children to grow up in a fairer country, one where the rule of law is more or less observed. I used
think it was possible to build a better society in Russia, but I've basically lost all hope now. It's time to leave,"
one Russian businessman told Vocativ.
"Russian venture capital funds want to invest their money only in Russia," start-up founder Artem Kulizhnikov
told Bloomberg news, "but we want to build an international business and they won't support us."
Additionally, Russia's "creative class" is starting to feel isolated, although some politicians seem unfazed.
"Russia won't lose anything if the entire so-called creative class leaves. What's the creative class anyway? For
me, a woman who gets up at 5 a.m. to milk a cow is creative because she produces something. Not some guy
with a stupid haircut who sits in a cafe all day long writing in his blog," said Vitaly Milonov, a Member of the
Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg.
But the brain drain isn't the whole story. A huge influx of immigrants are entering Russia as well.
This makes sense: If many high-level individuals and intellectuals are leaving Russia, more high-end jobs and
opportunities will become available in Russia.
According to the UN , Russia saw the second-largest number of international migrants in 2013. The number of
people moving into Russia actually tops the number of people moving out (which you can see above.)
Many of the immigrants come from countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, according to data from
Rosstat.
Additionally, millennials who are culturally Russian but were born in the US or Europe are considering
opportunities in Russia.
"There are opportunities for my children in Moscow that aren't found anywhere else," one parent told BI.
"I believe that Russia is at a point where they realize they cannot rely on just oil and gas to keep up with the
other BRIC countries and Western economies. Russia is looking to diversify its economy," one 20-something
told BI. "The opportunities in Russia seem to be more promising than here in the States currently. Before the
current sanctions and drastic low oil prices, Russia was a top seven economic power. As a young RussianAmerican, I've thought about pursuing opportunities abroad that do not exist in the US."
The bottom line: Russia is seeing some dramatic demographic changes that could greatly influence its
economic and political future.