What friend’s trial is revealing about Boston Marathon bombing suspect

The trial of Azamat Tazhayakov, charged with obstruction of justice in the Boston Marathon bombing case, is shedding new light on the mind-set of Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the surviving alleged bomber.
By Noelle Swan, Staff writer
The Christian Science Monitor | July 10, 2014

A portrait of alleged bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a pot-smoking student who idealized the idea of martyrdom came into sharper focus this week during the federal trial of Azamat Tazhayakov, who is accused of helping to dispose of evidence that authorities say links Mr. Tsarnaev to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Mr. Tazhayakov stands accused of disposing of a laptop computer and a backpack filled with emptied fireworks casings from Tsarnaev’s University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth dorm room several days after two bombs exploded at the marathon finish line on April 15, 2013, killing three people and injuring 264 others. Tsarnaev faces 30 federal charges related to the attacks, including using a weapon of mass destruction.

While Tsarnaev’s trial is not set to begin until November, this week’s trial of his friend has included testimony about the chief suspect’s personality, habits, and religious beliefs.

Just weeks before the explosions erupted on Boston’s Boylston Street, Tsarnaev told friends over dinner that it is good to be a martyr because you “die with a smile on your face and go straight to heaven,” a federal prosecutor told jurors during opening statements.

That sentiment matches those found scrawled inside the boat where Tsarnaev lay wounded and hiding for most of April 19, 2013, while SWAT teams scoured an area of Watertown, Mass., in search of him. In that note, Tsarnaev wrote that he was jealous of his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police the night before, and he implored Allah to make him a “shaheed,” the Arabic word for martyr. Authorities believe Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also involved in the marathon bombings.

Tsarnaev indicated in that note that he did not like killing innocent people, a statement that federal prosecutors have cited as admission of guilt in affidavits released last month. If he felt any remorse for the lives lost in the bombings, they were not apparently immediately after the attacks, according to testimony by his former roommate, Andrew Dwinells. Tsarnaev spent those days much as he always had: smoking pot, sleeping, texting, and using his computer, Mr. Dwinells testified.

“He slept a bit more, but that was it,” said Dwinells, according to Bloomberg. “He didn’t seem agitated, he didn’t seem nervous.”

Those who knew the Tsarnaevs during their teen years have said Tamerlan was the more religious of the two brothers. Many of Dhokhar’s high school friends told Rolling Stone that they were aware he was Muslim but that he didn’t talk much about his faith. However, he became increasingly isolated after moving to Dartmouth to attend UMass, and his religious beliefs became more prominent in his social media.

“My religion is the truth,” read one tweet highlighted in the Rolling Stone profile. “I don’t argue with fools who say Islam is terrorism it’s not worth a thing, let an idiot remain and idiot,” read another.

Despite his newfound focus on religion, it appears that Tsarnaev in many ways remained the same lackadaisical pothead that his high school friends remembered. Much of his relationship with Tazhayakov and two others accused of helping to protect him during the investigation of the bombings centered on getting stoned together.

The girlfriend of Tazhayakov’s roommate and alleged accomplice in the disposal of the backpack testified that Tsarnaev and her boyfriend spent most of their time together simply hanging out and smoking pot.

Much of the testimony during the first few days of the Tazhayakov trial centered on the extent of marijuana use in the lives of Tsarnaev and his college friends, as the prosecution and defense attorneys tried to explain the meaning of several text messages exchanged between the accused bomber and the current defendant.

This report includes material from The Associated Press and Reuters.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0710/What-friend-s-trial-is-revealing-about-Boston-Marathon-bombing-suspect

‘A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,’ by Anthony Marra

Prisoners of the Caucasus
‘A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,’ by Anthony Marra
MADISON SMARTT BELL
NYT | June 7, 2013

Anthony Marra’s extraordinary first novel, “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” opens with a disappearance typical of postmodern warfare, cobbled to an image completely alien to it: “On the morning after the Feds burned down her house and took her father, Havaa woke from dreams of sea anemones.” This fusion of the desperate with the whimsical sets the tone.

A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA
By Anthony Marra
384 pp. Hogarth. $26.

In the background are the Chechen wars, a staggeringly destructive pair of conflicts pitting the army of post-Soviet Russia against Chechen guerrillas who were sometimes supported by visiting Arab jihadis. Marra’s timeline runs from 1994 to 2004, but the larger story is much, much deeper. This novel is, among other things, a meditation on the use and abuse of history, and an inquiry into the extent to which acts of memory may also constitute acts of survival.

For Marra’s characters, the odds against survival are high. The disappearance of Havaa’s father comes near the end of a 10-year sequence of similar events that have devastated the tiny village of Eldar. But for the time being, 8-year-old Havaa is saved by a neighbor, Akhmed, who walks her to the reluctant care of the last doctor in the bomb-shattered hospital of the nearby city of Volchansk.

Sonja, the doctor, is an ethnic Russian whose grandparents moved to Volchansk as part of the Stalinist colonization of the region. She is so skilled and resourceful she can successfully stitch a gaping chest wound with dental floss. Akhmed, an ethnic Chechen, is a drastically underqualified doctor with a talent for drawing, who has spent his life in such extreme isolation that he has Ronald McDonald mixed up with Ronald Reagan. Yet the lives of both are tormented by loss.

Akhmed’s wife has been in a vegetative state since the Russian military first ravaged Eldar. Havaa’s father was his closest friend. Fundamentally incompetent to stem the flow of medical trauma that war brings to his village, Akhmed has taken to painting portraits of the dead and the vanished and hanging them around the neighborhood — one of a number of semi-surreal acts of remembrance the novel has to offer. Sonja, meanwhile, is desperate to find her sister, who has disappeared from Volchansk (for a second time) about a year before. The delicate web of connection among these characters takes the novel’s whole length to reveal itself.

During their childhood, Sonja is the smart sister, Natasha the pretty one. With Sonja in a London medical school and both their parents dead, Natasha finds herself alone as Volchansk begins to collapse in the escalation of the first Chechen war. Aware that despite her Russian ethnicity she’ll fare ill in the oncoming Russian invasion, she becomes the agent of her own first disappearance, turning herself over to a broker of “au pairs.” Though she knows she’ll really become a prostitute, Natasha still hopes this maneuver may help her rejoin Sonja in London. “Make me an au pair,” she tells her sex trafficker. “Make me reappear.”

But chances of reappearance in wartime are thin. Bargaining with Sonja for Havaa’s shelter, Akhmed volunteers his services to the shattered hospital — staffed only by Sonja and a single nurse, with whom Akhmed sorts the clothing of the dead. They discover a note with instructions for burial sewn into a pair of trousers, but the nurse tells Akhmed the owner is “already in the clouds” of the city crematorium. When Akhmed (who has a similar note in one of his own seams) wants to pursue the matter, she shows him a box of identity documents “layered eight deep. . . . ‘He’s one of these,’ she said.” This peripheral victim has disappeared before the reader ever met him, to be remembered only by the novelist, who spins out a thin strand of his story: “That man had a sister in Shali who would have given her travel agency, . . . her parents-in-law and nine-tenths of her immortal soul to hold that note now lying at the bottom of the trash can, if only to hold the final wish of the brother she regretted giving so little for in life.”

The novel is peppered with these short detours into the pasts or futures of characters who momentarily cross paths with the principals. It’s one of Marra’s ways of holding the value of human wishes against their vanity. There’s a constant impulse to retrieve and affirm what was, though acts of remembrance are themselves evanescent. Akhmed contemplates his demented wife: “As a web is no more than holes woven together, they were bonded by what was no longer there.” His portraits of the lost dissolve quickly to “no more than two eyes, a nose and a mouth fading between the trees.” Natasha, briefly reunited with her sister in Volchansk between the two wars, painstakingly draws, where a window once was, the view that existed before the landscape was reduced to rubble. The suitcase Havaa saves from her burning house is full of relics of the refugees her father used to shelter. These become meaningless for want of a provenance, except for a Buckingham Palace guard nutcracker, once given to Natasha by Sonja, then to Havaa by Natasha during her second flight from Volchansk (hoping this time to outdistance heroin addiction).

Another of Akhmed’s neighbors decides finally to burn his “six-­volume, 3,300-page historical survey of the Chechen lands,” telling Akhmed: “History writes itself. It doesn’t need my assistance.” His personal history includes his having brought home the bones of his parents in a suitcase during the 1956 repatriation of exiled Chechens from Kazakhstan, and the fact that his son is the informer who brought about the disappearance of Havaa’s father, among many others, and will eventually inform on Akhmed as well.

This son (for whom Marra creates a surprising amount of sympathy) tells Akhmed close to the end: “They won’t ask you where the girl is. They will make you bring her to them, and you will watch yourself do it. . . . Once I was like you, and soon you will be like me.” Here is the most dreadful disappearance of all: destruction of the self under torture. This novel plentifully displays the very worst of human capability. In the interrogation pits somewhere between Volchansk and Eldar, fingers and testicles chopped off with bolt cutters are only the beginning.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Under the rain of atrocity it portrays, this novel’s generally optimistic tone can sometimes seem downright bizarre. Some other recent works have adopted this attitude of infinite resignation (“The Known World,” by Edward P. Jones, and “Half of a Yellow Sun,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to name two), but Marra seems to derive his astral calm in the face of catastrophe directly from Tolstoy, whose Chechnya-set novel, “Hadji Murad,” is mentioned several times in this one. “Constellation” might be a 21st-­century “War and Peace,” except, as the informer warns, there’s no real peace available: “They will kill Havaa and call it peace.”

While reminding us of the worst of the war-torn world we live in, Marra finds sustainable hope in the survival of a very few, and in the regenerative possibility of life in its essential form, defined by a medical textbook passage that Sonja and Natasha read at different times. In her darkest moments, Sonja sees her life as “an uneven orbit around a dark star, a moth circling a dead bulb,” but against that image is the textbook definition: “a constellation of vital phenomena — organization, irritability, movement, growth, reproduction, adaptation.”

Madison Smartt Bell is the author of more than a dozen novels, most recently “The Color of Night.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/books/review/a-constellation-of-vital-phenomena-by-anthony-marra.html?pagewanted=all

 

 

Tolstoy Influence Felt In U.S. Chechen Book
By Carolina Starin
The Moscow Times | Jul. 09 2014

Anthony Marra’s novel “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” which made The New York Times’ bestseller list, is based in Chechnya and follows a series of characters in an often bloody and brutal book.

Q: The New York Times’ review calls your book a “21st-century ‘War and Peace.’” Was Tolstoy an influence?

A: Tolstoy was certainly an influence. He can write about Napoleon or he can write about a peasant in the provinces and he treats both subjects with the same seriousness and the same emotional and intellectual rigor. When I went to Chechnya, I would ask people who their favorite author was, and Tolstoy was the answer nine times out of 10. It struck me as peculiar that among these people whose one defining national characteristic historically has been defiance of Russia that the quintessential Russian novelist would so often pop up among their favorite writers.

A response that I heard repeatedly was that Tolstoy treated everyone like people. In “Hadji Murad,” he wrote about Chechens and he treated them like human beings. I think that being able to treat a character like a human being is something I really admire in Tolstoy’s work and tried to embody in my own.

Q: There are points in the book where I had to kind of read with one eye, like closing your eyes during a violent movie. What was it like to write about such difficult subjects?

A: I was sitting at my desk in a comfortable middle-class life in America, whereas real people did suffer these indignities. I feel like as a writer you can never ever correlate the experience of writing about something with the experience of enduring it, especially when it comes to atrocity. Maybe this is on my mind a little bit more because on Saturday night I spent the night talking with a Chechen. His brother worked for Reuters and he was involved with helping his brother smuggle footage out. He was eventually captured and was put in a pit for six weeks. He was brutally tortured and was later shot alongside his brother. His brother died and he survived and now he lives in America, but the idea that the experience of writing anything, or reading anything, will ever match the experience of actually enduring it just isn’t the case.

Q: Would you say your book is political?

A: As soon as you start writing fiction with the idea that you are trying to convince a reader of a particular political viewpoint, in most cases, the fiction begins to fail. As readers we are all highly attuned and sensitive to any sort of propaganda. As soon as literature gears in that direction, it stops being about the people on the page and starts being about political ideas in a way that may be unconstructive in creating a work of art. I think it is probably pretty clear where my sympathies lie when reading the novel, but I thought it was really important to write the book without laying any sort of judgment. I think if you simply tell the story of what life was like there, it is pretty hard not to jump to the conclusion that life for a civilian in Chechnya was terrible because of these wars. These wars were acts of genocide and the level of depravity and horror that everyday people were subjected to on a daily basis was reprehensible. I feel like that as a citizen or as a person. But as a writer of fiction I felt like it was my job to simply stick to these characters’ stories and let readers make up their own mind.

Q: You credit Anna Politkovskaya’s “A Small Corner of Hell” as a source for your book. In what way?

A: She was an incredibly courageous journalist and writer and she would repeatedly put herself in grave risk to report. While she went after big fish, again and again you would see in her work that she was telling the stories of lives that were too small, the dramas that are too intimate to ever make the front-page headlines. Often in these sorts of wars we see it as a bunch of rebels and a bunch of soldiers shooting at one another when, in fact, there is this broad mid-section of the population that is struggling to survive between these equally brutal factions. She was a remarkable person and someone whose work will long outlive her.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/tolstoy-influence-felt-in-us-chechen-book/503217.html

 

Excerpt from A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
Stegner Fellow and Whiting Award winner Anthony Marra transports us to a snow-covered village in Chechnya.

A resilient doctor risks everything to save the life of a hunted child, in this majestic debut about love, loss, and the unexpected ties that bind us together.

In Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as Russian soldiers abduct her father in the middle of the night, accusing him of aiding Chechen rebels. Across the road their lifelong neighbor and family friend Akhmed has also been watching, fearing the worst when the soldiers set fire to Havaa’s house. But when he finds her hiding in the forest with a strange blue suitcase, he makes a decision that will forever change their lives. He will seek refuge at the abandoned hospital where the sole remaining doctor, Sonja Rabina, treats the wounded.

For the talented, tough-minded Sonja, the arrival of Akhmed and Havaa is an unwelcome surprise. Weary and overburdened, she has no desire to take on additional risk and responsibility. And she has a deeply personal reason for caution: harboring these refugees could easily jeopardize the return of her missing sister. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja’s world will shift on its axis and reveal the intricate pattern of connections that weave together the pasts of these three unlikely companions and unexpectedly decides their fate. A story of the transcendent power of love in wartime, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a work of sweeping breadth, profound compassion, and lasting significance.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena Book Excerpt
http://crownpublishing.com/feature/excerpt-a-constellation-of-vital-phenomena/#.U78bodhOXDc

Will France’s Mistral Assault Warships Make Russia a Naval Threat?

Matthew Bodner
The Moscow Times | Jul. 09 2014

With the first of two French-built Mistral class amphibious assault carriers set to be delivered to the Russian Navy in October, France is handing Russia the keys to one of the world’s most advanced warships at a time when many in the West are questioning Moscow’s expansionist ambitions.

In the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, the U.S. and several of its NATO allies have lobbied to convince the French government to withhold the ships, but Paris has held firm in its commitment to the deal.

The problem, in NATO’s eyes, is not that France is selling Russia capable warships, but more that it is selling know-how: The ships have been assembled with the help of Russian engineers, who are learning the ins-and-outs of modern shipbuilding.

"The biggest concern for NATO is the foreign technology aspect, that is really the key," Dmitry Gorenburg, a senior researcher at Harvard and expert on Russian military modernization at CNA, a U.S.-based naval think tank, told The Moscow Times. "I would not dismiss the possibility that one of the ships would be put in the Black Sea and potentially used against a NATO member at some point down the road. It is a secondary concern, but it is there," he added.

Though it is unclear whether Russia will deploy one of the Mistral carriers to the Black Sea, the country’s strategic interests in the region make it a distinct possibility. The naval base at the Crimean port city of Sevastopol is Russia’s only warm-water port, and is key to Moscow’s aim of reestablishing a presence in the Mediterranean Sea, which fizzled out after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Regardless of where the vessels go, the Mistral carriers give the Russian Navy versatility that it does not have and cannot domestically produce. With two Mistral carriers in its arsenal, the Navy would be able to drop a battalion of marines and armor on any coastline within 10,000 kilometers of its home port without refueling, provide helicopter support for those forces, and orchestrate an entire operation from the ship’s advanced control center.

Were such an operation to fail spectacularly, Mistral can also serve as a hospital ship.

"Not even the Soviet Navy had such capabilities," said Mikhail Barabanov, a naval analyst at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a private Moscow-based defense think tank.

The Mistral Deal

The building of four Mistral class ships for the Russian Navy was commissioned in 2011 as part of a $1.7 billion technology-transfer agreement between Moscow and Paris. Under this agreement, the first two ships — the Sevastopol and the Vladivostok — were to be built by the French shipbuilding firm STX at Saint-Nazaire with Russian engineers on site to learn the techniques of modern shipbuilding.

The Sevastopol has been completed, and is due to be commissioned by the Russian Navy on Nov. 1. The Vladivostok will not be completed until later this year, and is expected to join the fleet in 2015.

Russia then has the option of producing the second two Mistral carriers at home, but no decision has been made Gorenburg said — the Defense Ministry and the Navy have different positions, and pressure from the Russian defense industry to focus on domestic designs might sink the idea.

Barabanov said Russia is unlikely to build the third and fourth carriers for both military and political reasons. The Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg has the best facilities in Russia for building large vessels like Mistral carriers, but its hands are currently full, having been tasked with the construction of large civilian icebreakers.

Rearmament

In the past several years, Russia has been rearming and modernizing its Navy as part of a $700 billion revamp of its armed forces through 2020, phasing out older submarine designs and replenishing the Navy’s smaller corvette and frigate class vessels in an effort to bolster its coastal defense capabilities in the short term.

In the long term, the Russian Navy has its eye on regaining its permanent footing in the Mediterranean Sea, Barabanov said. "The ambitions of Russian naval modernization are to expand to a ‘blue water navy’ by actively building nuclear powered submarines and frigates, ordering the Mistral class expeditionary ships, and [potentially building] an aircraft carrier and a large destroyer."

Gorenburg said that while the construction of a new destroyer class was being discussed, any plans are far from being finalized. It is unlikely that Russia will construct anything bigger than a frigate before 2020, he said.

To that end, it will need larger, more advanced ships like cruisers and carriers, but this endeavor lives and dies by the defense budget and the Russian defense industry’s ability to build such ships — a skill that it could pick up from Mistral.

Mistral’s Military Value

Mistral is much more advanced than anything the Russian shipbuilding industry can currently produce. The ship not only doubles as an amphibious assault vessel and helicopter carrier — allowing Mistral to conduct land invasions and anti-submarine actions — but also boasts considerable capability as a command and control vessel and floating hospital.

The French Mistral design’s sheer versatility makes it difficult to anticipate exactly what Russia will do with it, but analysts agree that it will most likely be used as a command ship. And if Russia is able to transfer some of its new technical expertise to the other boats of the fleet, the Mistrals will be heading more potent battle groups than the Soviets ever fielded.

One sticking point remains, however. To fully utilize Mistral’s command and control capabilities, the Navy it requires modern communications technologies that Russia does not have, and it is not clear whether their transfer was part of the Mistral deal.

"The more modern stuff they get, the better for them. But, its still a little bit unclear what they are getting and what they are not getting," Gorenburg said.

The Black Sea Fleet

Aside from Russia’s new access to technology, the future of the Black Sea Fleet also weighs heavy on Western minds, with the annexation of Crimea sparking fears that Moscow has designs on retaking its lost empire.

The perception that Moscow’s Crimean maneuver was at least partly motivated by security concerns about the Black Sea Fleet has led some western analysts to conclude that the Russian Navy will station at least one of the vessels in Sevastopol.

Before the overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Moscow regime in February, Russia felt that its naval influence has been significantly hindered by Kiev.

The 1997 agreement that allowed the Russia Navy to operate from Sevastopol, also limited the Black Sea Fleet to 30 vessels, and Kiev’s consent was required before new ships could be transferred to the base. Many of the fleet’s ships were considered modern nearly three decades ago, and are now well past their prime. Kiev’s restrictions made it all the more difficult to modernize the fleet.

Now, with Crimea under Russian control, the threat to Russia’s strategic presence in the Black Sea has subsided.

Barabanov said the Black Sea is crucial for Moscow because of "major areas of conflict" that exist for Russia in Crimea, Ukraine and Georgia. "Moreover, the Black Sea may be a convenient springboard for Western intervention in these areas, which must be prevented by the Black Sea Fleet," he said.

Sevastopol is also the best location to expand its naval presence into the Mediterranean Sea via the Bosphorus, the narrow waterway between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, which has been controlled by Turkey since 1936.

"The U.S.S.R. had a constant presence of ships in the Mediterranean, especially in the eastern Mediterranean. Sevastopol is the closest major port to that area. Now, it appears that there is some emphasis on rebuilding that presence," Gorenburg said.

Although the Soviet Union’s leadership understood that Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, would close the Bosporus in the event that war with NATO member states broke out, ships are free to come and go as they please during peacetime. As such, the primary goal of the Black Sea Fleet was to secure access to shipping lanes, the Suez Canal, as well as North African and Middle Eastern locations.

Comments from the head of the Black Sea Fleet seemed to add credibility to assertions that one of the ships will eventually end up in the Black Sea, but may also be bluster aimed at provoking the West.

"A major development program for the Black Sea Fleet is being planned. … Evidently, a Mistral-class assault ship will be among them," Admiral Alexander Vitko was quoted as saying by Interfax in mid-May.

Vitko’s statement was later denied by a Navy spokesman, who said that both Mistral carriers would go to the Pacific. Sevastopol does not have the infrastructure to support the ships, but Vladivostok does, the spokesman said.

Considering the current political tensions between Russia and the West, there is a possibility that Moscow is simply biding its time before announcing that one of the carriers will go to the Black Sea to avoid giving NATO a reason to try to block the deal.

But Barabanov said it makes little sense to deploy a Mistral carrier to the Black Sea.

"The Mistral class ships are just not really needed for the Black Sea Fleet. The ship is designed for long-range expeditionary operations. In the Black Sea, all of Russia’s objectives can be achieved [by the forces stationed] in Abkhazia and Crimea. The only purpose for deploying a Mistral class ship to the Black Sea would be as a command ship for Mediterranean operations," Barabanov said by e-mail.

Even if Ukraine and Europe do not wake up with a Mistral assault ship stationed by a resurgent Russia their backyard, the Russian Navy will soon be a more modern, more formidable force on the high seas.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/will-frances-mistral-assault-warships-make-russia-a-naval-threat/503223.html

Intrigue over ‘dismissal’ of Putin’s ideologue, Alexander Dugin

Halya Coynash
KhPG | 01.07.14

What had seemed like the good news that Russian ultranationalist Eurasian ideologue Alexander Dugin had been removed from his post as a faculty head within Moscow State University’s Sociology Department has now turned into intrigue.  On June 28 he was still giving an interview to LifeNews about his dismissal, while some media were reporting MGU as denying that he had been removed.

The news came from Dugin writing on his facebook page about a meeting with the rector, V. Sadovnichy which he could hardly have misunderstood.  If he didn’t make it up for sensation purposes, then it is not clear who was behind the dismissal which was allegedly because “in certain circles” there was dissatisfaction over his stand on Ukraine and support for the Kremlin-backed militants of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. It is no clearer why the decision was revoked.  Only the malignant influence of Dugin’s so-called ‘Eurasian ideology’ on Russia’s invasion of the Crimea and on events in eastern Ukraine is beyond any doubt

Dugin’s Eurasian vision is imperialist, anti-Western and firmly against democracy.  Russia, so the line goes, should fulfil its historical role as a great empire by joining with former Soviet neighbours in a Eurasian Union. If Dugin’s increasing influence among those close to the reins of power in Russia remained largely a subject of academic discussion up till February this year, that changed dramatically with Russia’s invasion and annexation of the Crimea. 

On Feb 27, the very day that armed soldiers without insignia seized government buildings in the Crimea, Anton Shekhovtsov, specialist on far-right movements,  wrote the following:

“The newly acquired independence of the democratic Ukrainian state is now under attack from the most imperialistic and war-mongering circles in Russia who are backing pro-Russian ultranationalists in the Crimea and are forming Russian terrorist troops for subversive operations in Ukraine”.

In June as huge numbers of Russian nationals are fighting in Donbas, using military technology and arms coming from across that same border, the words are bitterly poignant.  They were not necessarily prophetic since Shekhovtsov,  Andreas Umland  and others monitoring such movements in Russia and Ukraine had long  warned of the danger Dugin’s fascist ideology and its growing influence in high places was presenting.  

Although Shekhovtsov points out that Dugin considers Russian President Vladimir Putin too ‘liberal’, the latter’s arguments for the ‘return’ of the Crimea to the Russian have a Eurasian ideological tinge to them. 

The link between Dugin’s ideology and those calling the shots in Moscow is seen particularly in the pivotal importance Ukraine holds.  A Eurasian empire is meaningless without Ukraine for historical, religious and geographical reasons.  Certain comical ‘readjustments’ have been attempted, such as Russian Wikipedia’s abandonment of the internationally accepted term Kyivan Rus, and talk instead of ‘Old-Russian state’.  In parallel, however, Moscow is doing everything to hold on to influence in Ukraine. 

Dugin’s influence and active help provided to leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic has received attention beyond Ukraine.  He himself has forged links with far-right parties in Europe.  Whether this was on the Kremlin’s instructions, is not clear, but the aim of such rapprochement seems remarkably similar.  In a recent interview, Dugin mentions French National Front leader Marine le Pen’s words about the EuroMaidan “scum” being dangerous to let into Europe, then expresses confidence that the new European Parliament with its substantially increased number of far-right MEPs will “once and for all block Ukraine’s entry to Europe”.   He calls Ukraine a “freak state”, saying that it has collapsed and no longer exists.  

There is, however, a future for ‘Novorossiya’, the term used by the militants in Donbas and other prominent pro-Russian figures like MP Oleg Tsaryov. 

“Novorossiya is the salvation from the horror of Ukrainian collapse, it is the new future of great Russia. The entire Russian people are looking with hope to Novorossya. As they looked to the Crimea …”

During the interview, he presents himself and his followers in Ukraine as being somewhat in opposition to the Kremlin which, for example, advised the militants to not hold the May 11 pseudo-referendum.  On the other hand, “Russia will be obliged to help.  Putin, according to his rendition, did not originally plan to annex the Crimea but was forced to do so by “those who carried out a coup in Kyiv and the Crimeans who said that they wanted to be in Russia.  The same will happen with Novorossiya”.

‘Philosopher’ Dugin may well have got that wrong.  There have already been signs that the motley bunch of pro-Russian activists like Pavel Gubarev and sundry other marginalized figures who’ve used the stockpiles of arms provided to engage in racketeering and pillaging could be discarded as redundant.  This was seen when the Russian Vostok battalion ‘cleaned out’ the Donetsk administrative buildings on May 29.

Putin has seemingly convinced the OSCE mission and German Chancellor Angela Merkel of the need for his friend, Viktor Medvedchuk to  take part in peace ‘negotiations’, supposedly with the support of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.   The suspicion seems not unfounded that Medvedchuk’s appearance indicates rather that the ‘ideological’ militants have served their purpose and can be largely bypassed.

Dugin’s announcement that he had been sacked came after a petition calling on the MGU management to take precisely that step received more than 10 thousand signatures.   The arguments in favour were compelling, these including Dugin’s call, following the Odessa confrontation and fire of May 2, “to kill and kill and kill those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine”.   On the other hand, examples in Russia of people power are thin on the ground making it seem likely that other factors were at play. 

This still seems the case, especially since MGU is reported to have denied termination of Dugin’s contract, not necessarily that the new appointment from May had been revoked.  It was Dugin who suggested that one meant the other. It seems equally unlikely that the ‘certain circles’ Dugin claims he was told were unhappy with his stand on Ukraine have rejected the fundamental view of Ukraine’s role in a Euroasian Union.  The Kremlin however now seems to have opted for efforts, with Medvedchuk’s help, to foist its version of ‘federalization’ on Ukraine, while apparently respecting its borders.  The interview on LifeNews is interesting not only because if came on the same day as the MGU denial.  Dugin is given the chance  to make outrageously dishonest claims about Ukraine and his explanation for the call to kill in this context would probably be supported by many viewers.  All patriots, he asserts, agree with him, and the petition was the dirty work of the Ukrainian Right Sector. On the other hand, a ‘sixth column’ may be ready to punish him for his just wrath in their wish to appease the west. 

Any reports suggesting Dugin’s political demise are thus exaggerated – tragically for Ukraine, as well as for Russia itself.  

http://www.khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1404029911

 

 

Russian nationalist thinker Dugin sees war with Ukraine
Dina Newman
BBC News | 9 July 2014

A prominent Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher has told BBC News that war between Russia and Ukraine "is inevitable" and has called on President Vladimir Putin to intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine "to save Russia’s moral authority".

Alexander Dugin believes the separatist struggle has re-awakened the "Russian spirit"

Alexander Dugin is the founder of Russia’s Eurasian movement. His views are believed to be popular among the hawkish Russian elite. Until recently, he was also a professor at Moscow State University, but he says his current status with the university is unclear.

His views have not changed, he says, but attitudes towards his views among those in power may be shifting.

The centrepiece of his geopolitical theory is that Russia’s mission is to challenge US domination of the world, with the help of Iran, as well as Eurosceptic parties, which are currently on the rise in Europe.

He has been labelled the brains behind President Putin’s wildly popular annexation of Crimea.

The next step, he proclaims, is military intervention in eastern Ukraine, which he regularly calls Novorossiya (New Russia). It is a name that has also been used by President Putin.

Dugin believes the "Russian spirit" has been re-awakened by the separatist struggle there, which he calls the "Russian Spring".

The symbol of that spirit is rebel commander Igor Strelkov, backed by Dugin who keeps in regular touch with the fighters in Donetsk.

Speaking on the phone from Moscow, in clear English and with a sense of urgency in his voice, Dugin fears that the "Russian Spring" is about to lose its momentum: "It is a real mess.

"The liberals are against Putin, and the patriots support him, but only if he continues with his patriotic policies. While he is hesitating, he is losing the support of both sides. It is a dangerous game. But maybe he has a solution?"

Alexander Dugin called for the annexation of Crimea as far back as 2008, during Russia’s war with Georgia.

He travelled to the disputed region of South Ossetia, where he was photographed with a rocket launcher.

Back then, he thinks Russia should have taken its troops all the way to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. They should have then overthrown President Mikheil Saakashvili and moved to take over Crimea, "which is part of Russia anyway".

Such views will offend most in Ukraine and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. At the time, many Russians would have found them extreme. But not any more.

Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, President Putin’s approval rating has soared as high as 86%. According to the independent Levada Centre in Moscow, two-thirds of Russians approve of the separatists in eastern Ukraine and most believe that Moscow should offer support.

‘Liberal shadow’

Now, with Ukrainian forces on the offensive against rebels in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Dugin blames "the liberals" for President Putin’s reluctance to send troops.

The "liberals", in his view, are mainly businessmen who made their fortunes in the 1990s. If further economic sanctions are applied to Russia, they are the ones who stand to lose most because they are "integrated into the world economy".

President Putin’s apparent hesitation, in Dugin’s view, is due to an internal struggle in the Russian government – and in President Putin’s own mind.

"This is the struggle between the patriotic, Orthodox, conservative forces – and the liberal forces, which are also very strong," he says.

In effect, he thinks, there are two conflicting sides of Vladimir Putin.

"Putin’s patriotic side is supported by most Russians, and his liberal shadow is represented by most of the political elite, the oligarchs and his Prime Minister, Mr [Dmitry] Medvedev."

This anti-establishment note is popular with most Russians, who do not trust the "liberal elite", blaming them for the chaos of the 1990s.

Not only do many Russians sympathise with Alexander Dugin’s new brand of militaristic patriotism, some go as far as buying their own kit and travelling to eastern Ukraine to join the rebel groups.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28229785

Interview: Historian Says Mitrokhin Archive Shows Value Of Human Intelligence

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty | July 09, 2014

As a senior KGB archivist, Vasily Mitrokhin meticulously collected thousands of documents for more than a decade and organized them for another eight years before defecting to the United Kingdom in 1992. The Cambridge-based Churchill Archives Center is now releasing large portions of his trove to the public for the first time.

Svetlana Lokhova, a specialist in the history of the Soviet intelligence services, says the release provides historians a groundbreaking opportunity to detail the work of the famed intelligence agency. She spoke with RFE/RL’s Glenn Kates.

RFE/RL: You have worked with Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew, who for two decades was the only historian allowed to access the documents. Professor Andrew has already published two books on the archive. Should we expect to find anything new in this first public release?

Svetlana Lokhova: He of course had to condense into books from boxes and boxes of material, and of course it’s impossible to cover everything. So therefore even on the subjects that he’s already written about there will be a lot more content there.

One of the more amusing revelations we found when we were looking through the archives with him is that it’s confirmed by the KGB that [two of the British "Cambridge 5" double agents, Guy] Burgess and [Donald] Maclean were lovers, which is something that both of them always denied.

RFE/RL: How did this come up?

Lokhova: The way that the Mitrokhin archives work is it’s a combination of the material that he directly took notes on, plus his own opinions. But also his opinions would be reflected in the opinion of the KGB officers at the time. So what would that mean is he would either take direct notes from the files or he would just tell you something that sort of everyone [in Soviet intelligence circles] knew.

And so, it’s not in a particular chronological order. The way it works is he would — for example starting with the biography of Maclean — go through what I would call "karakteristika" [eds: evaluation], which is a sort of like a job description of an individual. He will [also] talk about [where and when he was] born, recruited and [who his ] father [was] etc., etc. And then he would start giving professional and personal characteristics and it would come up then.

RFE/RL: One fascinating element that comes out of this is the difficulty KGB handlers had in managing their high-level spies and dealing with their own very human characteristics. Can you talk a bit about this?

Lokhova: They had to obviously take the intelligence from where it came. So therefore people who had access, such as the Cambridge 5 — especially three of them — to such a high level of intelligence because of their upbringing and their position in society, of course the KGB officers would have to take it.

Donald Maclean "would blurt out that he was a Soviet spy to his lovers and to his relatives."

xHowever, for example, if you contrast it with Melita Norwood [eds: British civil servant who was a KGB intelligence asset from 1937-72], who was actually considered by the KGB as more important than [Kim] Philby. This is the famous grandma who came in from the cold. She was an extremely quiet secretary and for a number of years she would very quietly provide very important material on the industrial side of things, including atomic energy.

With the Cambridge Five, one of the problems was, you know, Maclean for example, would blurt out that he was a Soviet spy to his lovers and to his relatives, etc. The issue there is that, of course, it’s much better to have a quiet agent who just did their job. But on the other hand you have to take the intelligence from where it comes from and that included trying to manage people who were very often unmanageable.

RFE/RL: What do these archives tell us about how we should expect Russian intelligence services to operate today?

Lokhova: Well I think the most important aspect of both what the archives show [about Russian] intelligence today is [the importance of] human intelligence. So, in a world where an amazing amount of data is being collected — if we take the morality issue aside and the citizens-rights issues [and] if you just talk about how useful it necessarily is — where you collect a lot of data, but for example you couldn’t have predicted the Boston Marathon bombings. That was one of the examples where the Americans actually realized the shortcomings of their system.

x

Vasily Mitrokhin

And up to the crisis recently there was cooperation between the Russians and the Americans on Chechnya, because they realized that Russian knowledge of the situation in the region and their connections and their human agents within Chechnya will mean that if there was another such attack being planned anywhere in the world, they would get their intelligence faster.

RFE/RL Do you think with all the focus on data collection, that intelligence agencies still place enough value on the importance of human intelligence?

Lokhova: I think [the United States] got rather carried away with the data. I think the U.S. at some point just said, "data mining is enough," whereas for Russians the priority was always on human intelligence. It was always to have their agents on the ground in various places. It’s their knowledge of human psychology and their ability to recruit and run humans is something I think that was immensely important for Soviet and Russian successes.

RFE/RL: Mitrokhin himself had always said he wanted these documents to one day be made public. What do you think will be the larger benefits of this release?

Lokhova: The only place in the world now that you can get access to KGB archives is actually the University of Cambridge Churchill College, not Moscow. And so, of course, you know, for myself and for many other historians this is the only way we can really get to the KGB archives. But I also think that what’s very important is it will allow us a deeper study of something that is a missing dimension, which is intelligence studies. Because without understanding intelligence it would be very difficult to understand Soviet policy and Soviet thinking both in the Cold War period but way before that as well.

http://www.rferl.org/content/interview-kgb-archives-mitrokhin/25451217.html

Meeting with heads of security and intelligence services of CIS states

President of Russia | July 10, 2014

Vladimir Putin held a meeting with the heads of delegations to the 13^th meeting of the Conference of Heads of CIS Security and Intelligence Services dedicated to intelligence matters.

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Friends, colleagues,

The meeting you are attending has become a traditional, regular event. There is clearly a need for such contacts because we live in troubled times. Though, when were they not troubled? I believe there were always difficulties. However, in my opinion, we are definitely living in times of change, and these are always marked by special tension.

You are facing huge, very complex tasks dealing with maintaining stability within your countries, combatting drugs and their illegal turnover, combatting trans boundary crime, illegal migration and terrorism, of course. You have to provide timely, full and reliable support for the foreign policy activities of your states and the heads of your states.

It is important for you in your work to proceed from the understanding that you can only be efficient if you combine your efforts. We are facing the same challenges and threats, some of which I have already mentioned. However, there are also specific ones, typical of certain parts of the world. I am referring, for instance, to Afghanistan and the upcoming withdrawal of the international contingent from that country. We all know and keep saying that this will not make the situation in Afghanistan any better or calmer, and we should be prepared for any turn of events, although we will, of course, proceed from the best. We will proceed from the idea that the situation will be controlled by the official authorities and we will do everything to assist in this.

As you may know, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are actively moving in the direction of deeper economic integration on the post-Soviet territory. The Eurasian Economic Union will become operable as of January 1, 2015, which will create additional favourable preconditions for joint work in a number of areas, including security in the economy. We expect you to contribute to this joint work of ours.

There are also purely professional matters. We continue helping our friends from the Commonwealth to train employees for the special services and security forces. I would like to assure you that we will continue this work in the future, in line with your needs and requests.

I would like to wish you all success in our joint work both in the course of these meetings and in your main activities to maintain the security of your states.

<…>

Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Region

http://eng.news.kremlin.ru/news/22641

Ukraine army still far from victory over rebels in east

BBC News | 8 July 2014

Ukrainian government troops have made significant gains in recent days, pushing pro-Russian rebels out of a string of towns in the east. The rebels have retreated to Donetsk from Sloviansk, for weeks a powerful symbol of their resistance to Kiev.

So are Kiev’s forces winning the conflict? Alexander Golts, a military expert and deputy editor of the Russian online newspaper Yezhednevny Zhurnal, examines the new stand-off.

Sloviansk: Ukraine has reasserted control in what was a rebel stronghold

Ukrainian politicians say a fundamental turning point has been reached in the conflict. But the experience of similar conflicts elsewhere – with a regular army confronting paramilitary units – provides no basis for such claims.

Nobody has succeeded in defeating paramilitaries who are embedded in a city, virtually turning its residents into a human shield – the Americans did not win such a conflict in Mogadishu, Somalia, nor did the Russians win in the Chechen capital Grozny.

In such a situation a regular army cannot use its superiority in heavy weapons over rebels – weapons such as armoured vehicles, aircraft and artillery.

The army may manage – after huge efforts – to capture one town, destroying it with heavy artillery, only to find that the rebels have simply moved to another town. That town in turn has to be taken by storm, and then the same thing happens in a third town.

It appears that the same thing has happened now in the Ukraine conflict.

The rebels have set up defensive positions around Donetsk

Better commanders

It took the Ukrainian regular army several weeks to surround Sloviansk. The Ukrainian forces lost several planes and helicopters in that operation.

The rebels led by Igor Strelkov – a military adventurer from Russia whose real name is Igor Girkin – moved to Donetsk and Luhansk to escape the siege.

Now the Ukrainian army is doomed to suffer losses in a siege of regional centres, where each district can be turned into a centre of armed resistance.

It would be wrong to state that the Ukrainian army has become more efficient than when the conflict started.

It is simply that, as always in such wars, more decisive commanders have taken charge, men who do not hesitate to use heavy armour, artillery and aircraft.

In fact Ukrainian National Guard volunteer units are playing a significant role. They are ideologically motivated, better paid than the army, and evidently making the armed forces more effective.

Porous border

The pro-Russian separatists cannot continue the fight without support from outside.

Their ammunition is running out, they constantly need new weapons. And they need an inflow of so-called "volunteers" – and we know where they come from.

The fighters also need training – and somewhere to train.

So in theory sealing the border with Russia could end the conflict – but in reality Ukraine does not have sufficient forces to do that.

Whether or not Donetsk can be taken without large-scale damage depends directly on the strength of the defending rebels.

We do not know exactly what numbers and equipment the rebels have managed to concentrate in Donetsk. But fighting in a modern city is always an army’s nightmare.

In 2003 the Americans were so daunted by the task of assaulting Baghdad that they studied how the Russians stormed Grozny – and that attack on the Chechen rebels was certainly no great success.

A bridge destroyed in the village of Novobakhmutivka

The Ukrainian army will probably try to use its numerical superiority – experts reckon that 30,000 regular troops are facing a maximum of 10,000 separatists.

The logical tactic in conducting such a siege of Donetsk and Luhansk would be to put the rebels under pressure simultaneously in several places, forcing them to dissipate their energies.

Igor Strelkov’s response might well be to create mobile groups of 200 to 300 fighters, equipped with mobile rocket launchers and anti-tank weapons.

The rebels will try to cut communications links to Donetsk, to block the deployment of some 6,000 Ukrainian troops freed up by the seizure of Sloviansk.

Three bridges have been blown up on roads leading to Donetsk, and Ukrainian troops will doubtless run the risk of rebel ambushes on major roads.

So far there is no clear answer to the question: which side will be first to incur the local residents’ hostility? The rebels, whose appearance will be a signal of impending clashes? Or the regular troops, whose use of heavy weapons will cause civilian casualties and destroy homes? Either way, there is no early end in sight.

Controllable chaos

The Kremlin’s position is of course crucial in this situation.

Under the threat of more serious Western sanctions it appears that President Vladimir Putin has rejected the idea of direct military intervention disguised as a peacekeeping operation.

Most likely the secret support for the rebels, through supplies of volunteers and arms, will continue.

That support does not go far enough for those fighters who want to attach south-eastern Ukraine to Russia – a part of Ukraine already described by Kremlin propagandists as "Novorossiya" (New Russia).

The Kremlin will try to keep Mr Strelkov in Ukraine with his followers, armed with Kalashnikovs. Otherwise they would stir up trouble for Russia, armed and angry.

So for now Moscow’s goal will be to maintain controllable chaos in Ukraine. That policy will also serve to show the Russian people that any attempt at a Ukraine-style "colour revolution", any attempt to get rid of the authoritarian state, will result in chaos and civil war.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28209170

Kremlin ‘Grey Cardinal’ Surkov’s Deal for a ‘Donetsk Transdniestria’?

Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
The Interpreter | July 9, 2014

Boris Rozhin, editor of Golos Sevastopolya and a popular blogger under the name “Colonel Cassad,” published a LiveJournal entry 7 July speculating on the origins of the campaign that has begun to discredit Col. Igor Strelkov, self-declared commander in chief of the “Donetsk People’s Republic.” He traces it to an attempt to orchestrate a scenario arranged by Kremlin “grey cardinal” Vyacheslav Surkov for an end to the armed conflict in southeastern Ukraine by producing something like a “Donetsk Transdniestria” — a region that will remain disputed and a thorn in the side of the new Kiev government.

Yesterday at a press conference in Donetsk, ultranationalist leftist leader Sergei Kurginyan clashed with leaders of the pro-Russian separatist movement Pavel Gubarev and Igor Bezler, after he denounced Strelkov for fleeing Slavyansk. During the course of the shouting match, which ended with the separatists walking out, Kurginyan stlil managed to outline just how much aid the separatists have received from “civil society” in Russia, even if the weapons were sometimes poor quality — and indicated “more modern” vehicles and artillery were being sent in since 3 July. This was a fact not lost on Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) Andriy Lysenko (translation here and below by The Interpreter):

“In particular, yesterday during a press conference in Donetsk, the leaders of the militants confirmed that they receive armored vehicles, artillery systems, antitank, anti-aircraft and small arms from Russia. We have reported this many times. Now the militants themselves have openly admitted it,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

As we reported on our Ukrainian Liveblog today, Andriy Parubiy, Chairman of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, also commented on in-fighting among the separatists:

“Mr. Paribuy stated that the source of the tension was that Strelkov had received large amounts of money from the Kremlin and was not appropriately sharing it with the various other leaders. This tension has become highlighted as it seems that Russia may be quietly ignoring please for more help from separatists holed up in Donetsk.”

Paribuy’s sources may ultimately link back to a purported Kremlin-inspired campaign to discredit Strelkov, but it’s also likely that Moscow keeps the insurgency off balance by channeling aid through multiple leaders.

Rozhin does not explain his sources but a number of Moscow opposition figures have found his blog persuasive. His thesis is that Surkov, together with various Moscow-leaning or at least self-interested oligarchs in the industrial southeast of Ukraine, are in the process of making a deal with Kiev in which Strelkov is in the way.

By moving to Donetsk and assuming leadership of the main separatist warfare there, Strelkov has supposedly become a “wild card” and messed up Surkov’s script. Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, is really a key figure in this story.

It was clear in April that Akhmetov may be “double dealing” by using the threat of separatism as a bargaining chip with Kiev, even though by May he was calling on pro-Kiev forces to “fight, fight, fight”, as we reported on our Ukrainian Liveblog.

On May 16, Akhmetov organized patrols to keep order from the mayhem instigated by the separatists, but in the end, signed an agreement with the DPR to keep the peace in the steel factories in Mariupol. Now something like that was put into play for Slavyansk.

Says Rozhin:

“In fact, the hidden political agenda for the retreat from Slavyansk was no less significant than the military. If the point about the military necessity was already earlier explained in detail, it is time to explain the political agenda behind Strelkov’s maneuver.

After the turn in Russia’s foreign policy toward Ukraine in April 2014, practically all the threads for decisions regarding the Donbass began to lead to Surkov, and [Vyacheslav] Volodin [first deputy chief of staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia] was de facto removed from managing the issue. After it became obvious that the sending in of troops was either delayed, or removed completely from the agenda, the question arose what to do with what was happening in Donbass. Since for internal political considerations, merging the DPR and LPR was fraught with internal upheavals (the risk of which was much greater than some realized), they chose an interim option, whereby against the backdrop of retreat by official diplomacy, Moscow continued its silent support for the insurgents from the republics (which then propagandists took for whole cloth).

Meanwhile, the course was set to form Novorossiya, which was supposed to be headed up by [Oleg] Tsarev, who while in Moscow began to receive financing (along with a number of other people who were to replace him in the event of failure) and on whom various so-called people’s governors of Russia began to close in, numbering 7-9 people, most of whom are virtual figures.

The first attempt to seat Tsarev in Donbass ended in failure – Tsarev proclaimed Novorossiya, and a number of figures like Bolotov and [Aleksandr] Boroday stated that Tsarev could declare what he liked on his own, but decisions were being made by other people, after which began a singling out of suspects with charges against local authorities of self-interest. With the second attempt, Tsarev was nevertheless installed in Donbass, since Moscow ran some of the channels for financing and humanitarian aid through him, and local leaders were forced to swallow their pride.

The problem of the DPR is essentially that Akhmetov still has a major influence on the leadership of the DPR and the Donetsk elites. Moscow is taking this point into account and trying to come to an agreement with him (through Surkov and a number of other officials). But the junta and the US are of course mindful of these movements and Akhmetov, whose financial assets are in the West, is being held firmly by the short hairs. Therefore this bargaining does not bring closer, but puts farther off the liberation by the DPR and LPR, although the managers of the Ukrainian issue seriously believe that their plan with Akhmetov will come off.”

Rozhin concludes that Akhmetov is motivated to make a deal with both the separatists and Kiev, with whom he has close contacts through his people, to protect his properties and investments in Ukraine, so that they are not attacked by artillery fire.

Meanwhile, looting, murder, mafia business, the assassination of Pushilin’s aide, and an attempt to kill Gubarev have all occurred in Donetsk, while “no serious efforts were made to seize the tank warehouse in Artyomovsk although nothing prevented them from advancing the tanks and BMP they had from Donetsk to Artyomovsk by adding 2-3 regiments of militia and taking it over,” fumes Rozhin.

By the time of the “ceasefire,” a “party of defeatists” who had kept up negotiating with the Kremlin were ready to surrender Donetsk. The “junta” had cut off Strelkov’s supply line to Slavyansk and he relied on Nikolayevka alone. No Russian troops came to the rescue – it was for their sake the separatists were holding Slavyansk as an important communications hub. Seeing that he was going to be made the scape-goat, Strelkov decide to flee Slavyansk and make the move to Donetsk, which was about to be betrayed – and, so the story goes, ready to be handed over to Kiev:

“Strelkov’s arrival with fighters upset the hidden plan and Akhmetov’s hope to keep the war out of Donetsk and obtain a promise from Kiev not to bomb it. Strelkov gathered together the garrisons from the remaining cities and came to Donetsk in order to turn it into a reinforced district and to conduct an active defense with reliance on Donetsk and Gorlovka. That is, he ruined all the plans for a peaceful turn-over of Donetsk to the junta. Hence all the yelps from Akhmetov, ‘don’t bomb Donetsk’ and the junta’s promise that ‘we will not bomb Donetsk.’ Of course Strelkov is bringing war to Donetsk, because of a firm desire to surrender Donetsk to the junta without a fight and bury the DPR. With this fact, Strelkov threw all the defeatists’ cards into confusion and ruined Surkov’s maneuvers with negotiations with Akhmetov, in which Strelkov simply had no place.”

Strelkov then is in the way of Akhmetov’s deal-making, but he with “his right-wing monarchist views,” says Rozhin, he has had the support of nationalists and semi-fascist types in Moscow like Yegor Prosvirin, “accepting aid from anyone who will give it, without particular discretion on principle.”

“Surkov and Co. do not need a right-wing Novorossiya, with a nationalist taint, which some figures are trying to lend to the image of Strelkov, who openly supports Putin and has not advanced any projects of a state name for himself, although this intention of seizing Rostov and marching on Moscow has been ascribed to him – total and obvious nonsense.

People like Surkov find people like Akhmetov, Medvedchuk, Tsarev much more kindred, which in the event of the creation of a ‘Donetsk Transdnestria’ will be delegated local authority. Leaders from the people, like Mozgovoy or Gubarev will hardly be allowed to make key decisions – such people frighten those who have grown accustomed to ‘resolving’ everything in a close circle of ‘their own people.’”

Surkov has a delicate task here – he has to prevent a “patriotic Maidan” from challenging Putin, but come out of the conflict with Ukraine with a manageable “Donetsk Transdniestria” intact to continue to keep Kiev off balance. Surkov has failed at such delicate tasks before, when his maneuvers led to mass unrest after Putin’s re-election in December 2011, leading ultimately to the loss of his own position in charge of domestic policy, in favor of Volodin and his All-Russian Popular Front, who was able to bring Putin’s ratings up from 36% in January 2012 to 86% in April 2014. Strelkov has complicated his life considerably:

“Strelkov, coming out of the encirclement near Slavyansk, already led to some of the potential figures of a merger of the DPR and the talks with Akhmetov to flee; Khodakovsky, who was on the payroll of Akhmetov (but who nevertheless hung around Moscow), has fled Donetsk for unknown parts (to Mariupol, according to some rumors). That is, Strelkov (with likely the help of certain circles in Moscow) is simply destroying the base for the deal with the junta and Akhmetov, since giving up the city with a bunch of militia still fighting the junta would not be realistic, and Strelkov has one of the largest formations of armed people and significant authority among the residents of the DPR and the militia. That authority was necessary to destroy immediately, since it was beginning to pose a threat for the proposed policy.”

Rozhin believes Kurginyan is the instigator but not the originator of the plan to discredit Strelkov, and that the level of hysteria around it shows how hastily it was concocted. He believes Strelkov will be targeted for assassination, just as Bolotov and Mozgovoy have been as well as Gubarev because they represent the “real” DPR where oligarchs like Akhmetov and Medvedchuk do not have a role.

Today, Rozhin pointed to a tweet from ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin explaining where separatist military leader Khodakovsky has turned up:

Alexandr Dugin @A_G_Dugin

Как и предполагалось Ходаковский занял оборону на Макугле. Бойцы, преданные Новороссии, покидают батальон "Вос.. http://vk.cc/2LWDmQ

4:58 AM – 9 Jul 2014

Alexander Dugin

Как и предполагалось Ходаковский занял оборону на Макугле. Бойцы, преданные Новороссии, покидают батальон "Восток". За Ходаковского только близкие ему люди из СБУ. Это восстание против ДНР. Кургинян…

ВКонтакте @vkontakte

Translation: As had been supposed, Khodakovsky has taken up the defense at Makugla. Fighters loyal to Novorossiya are quitting the Vostok Battalion.

Rozhin said he was checking this information, but noted that in his TV interview yesterday, Strelkov had spoken about the Vostok Battalion fighting well outside Snezhnoye under “a smart leader,” but had not given the name. That means it might not be Khodakovsky if he is in Makugla.

Rozhin notes that now Dugin, whom he sees as part of the “party of war” is directly blaming Surkov and the “party of defeat” for his dismissal from Moscow State University.

Dugin is convinced Surkov — who is actually on the US and EU sanctions lists over the Ukraine conflict — is plotting with the US and the oligarchs to take control of the Ukrainian conflict and should be removed to save Russia:

“Now he is preparing the last blow: his intrigues are blocking decisive support of Novorossiya, setting patriots against each other, engendering false expectations, setting up clever schemes which he himself is leaking and so on. All of this is to complete the Bolotnaya Affair: to unite the fifth column of liberals with Russian patriots who with every hour are growing more and more disenchanted with Putin due to the fact that the impression is created that Putin is dumping the Russian Spring.”

Technically, Surkov is now supposed to be in charge of relations with Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia, not Ukraine, and several weeks ago there was a coup in Abkhazia for which Surkov is now being blamed — although as the outcome has been peaceful, he is taking credit for solving it.

It remains to be seen how much he and his allies can pull the strings as events may get ahead of them in southeastern Ukraine.

http://www.interpretermag.com/kremlin-grey-cardinal-surkovs-deal-for-a-donetsk-transdniestria/

Kebekov trying to improve image of "Imarat Kavkaz" among public, experts say

Caucasian Knot | 02 July 2014

The Kebekov’s statement about the unacceptability of terror acts against the civilian population may indicate his desire to improve the image of the "Imarat Kavkaz" in the eyes of the general population. However, it is too early to speak about any change of militants’ tactics, the experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

The statement of the militants’ leader may cause serious changes in the ongoing processes in Northern Caucasus, said Enver Kisriev, the head of the Sector of the Caucasus Centre for Civilization and Regional Studies of the Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). In general, he said, it is "good news."

"On the one hand, it can be viewed as a split within the ‘Imarat Kavkaz’; on the other – as an attempt of the relatively moderate (although it is difficult to talk about moderation here) to somehow strengthen their positions," said Alexei Malashenko, an Islamic scholar and a Senior Researcher for the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, in his comment on Kebekov’a statement.

He believes that the reaction of Russian authorities to this appeal will also be indicative.

The call for moderation may respond to some situational goals of the underground movement; but militants’ attacks on civilians will not stop regardless of the appeals of their leadership, said Dmitry Oreshkin, a political analyst and a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights.

Author: Magomed Tuaev; Source: CK correspondent

http://eng.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/28591/

Week in the Caucasus: review of main events of June 29-July 6

Caucasian Knot | 07 July 2014

Call of the leader of "Imarat Kavkaz" to militants to refuse from terror acts against civilians; suspension because of shelling of operation of checkpoint in Russian-Ukrainian border in the Rostov Region; CTO and detentions of parishioners in Dagestan mosques, – see the review of these and other events in the Caucasus during the week of June 29-July 6, 2014, prepared by the "Caucasian Knot".

Leader of "Imarat Kavkaz" urged militants to abandon suicide bombings and terror acts against civilians

On June 28, a video clip appeared on the YouTube, in which Ali Abu Mukhammad Kebekov, the leader of the "Imarat Kavkaz" – the organization recognized as terrorist in the Russian Federation, said that causing harm and damage to life and property of the civil population is unacceptable. He also forbade women to blow themselves up. Kebekov’s statement may indicate his desire to improve the image of Imarat Kavkaz" in the eyes of the population; however, it is too early talking about any tactical changes in militants’ actions, the experts, questioned by the "Caucasian Knot", believe.

Russian-Ukrainian border checkpoints in the Rostov Region suspend operation because of shelling

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that three checkpoints on the Russian-Ukrainian border are in the warfare zone in Eastern Ukraine. During the week they were periodically closed due to shelling. Thus, on June 28, a number of shells got into the Rostov Region from Ukraine; one of them damaged the building of the automobile checkpoint "Gukovo". After the shelling, the checkpoints "Donetsk", "Gukovo" and "Novoshakhtinsk" were temporarily closed and re-opened on July 5. On the same day, border guards reported shelling of the checkpoint "Donetsk" from the side of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, refugees from Ukraine continue arriving to the territory of the Southern Federal District (SFD). On July 1, the Volgograd Region was put under the state of emergency due to the inflow of Ukrainian citizens from the warfare zone.

Nikolai Parshin, State Duma MP from Volgograd Region, deprived of immunity

Nikolai Parshin was nominated by the Stalingrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) as a candidate for the governor of the Volgograd Region. However, against the background of the procedure initiated by the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) for obtaining the State Duma’s consent to open a criminal case against Parshin suspected of committing a fraud, the MP said on July 3 that he refused to run for the governor. On July 4, the State Duma deprived Parshin of his parliamentarian immunity. Volgograd Communists declared that they would not nominate another candidate for the governor instead of Parshin, as they lack time to submit the required documents.

In Georgia, court arrests ex-Mayor of Tbilisi Gigi Ugulava for the period of inquiry

Gigi (Georgy) Ugulava, the former Mayor of the capital of Georgia, accused of embezzlement of budget funds, fictitious hiring to work for the Mayoralty of activists of the "United National Movement" (UNM), money laundering at one of offshore companies and organizations of a group pressure on the chairman of the Marneuli district election commission during the election campaign in 2014, was detained on July 3 in Tbilisi airport. Ugulava, who is now the head of the electoral office of the oppositional UNM, on July 4, was placed into custody as a preventive freedom restriction measure. According to the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), eight persons were detained at the building of the Tbilisi City Court, where they organized a scuffle with policemen after the court issued an arrest warrant for Ugulava. The ex-Mayor asserts that the cases initiated against him are politically motivated.

Suspected attacker on policeman in Grozny shot dead at detention in Chechnya

On July 3, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reported the murder during detention of a suspect of attacking and killing on June 22 a patrol policeman Akhmed Dopaev. The policeman was shot dead when trying to check a bag of a suspicious male. The republic’s authorities regarded the crime as a political murder. On the same day the alleged killer was identified as Khusein Dakhtaev, 27, a native of the Urus-Martan District of the republic, who had been wanted for involvement in illegal armed formations (IAFs).

Start of Ramadan fasting for Muslims of Southern Russia, CTO and detentions of Dagestani mosque-goers

The Muslim fast of Ramadan, which will last for 30 days, began on June 29 in most of the Russia’s southern regions, including Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya.

On July 4, in Dagestan, at several mosques law enforcers conducted mass detentions of believers. The detainees reported that they were fingerprinted.

Mass checks and detentions were also reported by villagers of Maidanskoe and Balakhani in the Untsukul District of Dagestan. The territory of the district was put under the counterterrorist operation (CTO) regime. According to law enforcement sources, on July 6, one person was killed and at least two others were wounded in a shootout.

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