NCSEJ WEEKLY NEWS BRIEF

Washington, D.C. March 11, 2016

Latvian lawmakers to participate in annual SS march through capital

By Sam Sokol,

Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2016

http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Latvian-lawmakers-to-participate-in-annual-SS-march-through-capital-

447524

Latvian SS veterans and their supporters, including several members of parliament, are set to march in the capital

Riga next Wednesday in an event that has become an annual tradition.

At least several members of the All for Latvia party will march in the event, which marks the unofficial holiday of

Latvian Legion Day, which honors those who fought in the German-organized, anti-Soviet Latvian SS Legion -a

component of the Waffen SS- according to reports by the Baltic Course and TASS news agency. A countermarch is

also expected to be held.

“Wednesday’s march of SS veterans is another example of the systematic efforts of post-Communist eastern

European countries to rewrite the narrative of the World War Two and the Holocaust,” argued Dr. Efraim Zuroff, a

Nazi hunter and the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office.

“It is incomprehensible how people who fought for the victory of Nazi Germany, the most genocidal regime in

human history, can be honored in a country which is a member in good standing of both the European Union and

Nato,” he continued, asserting that reports of parliamentarians participating only added to the “outrage.”

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center has monitored and protested against these marches for several years and will

continue to do so as long as [people] attempt to portray those who fought alongside the forces of Nazi Germany as

freedom fighters who supposedly paved the way for Latvian independence.”

He explained that while the unit in question did not participate in Holocaust crimes, many of its members played an

“active role” in the liquidation of their country’s Jewish population -as well of Jews from other countries deported to

Latvia- prior to enlisting.

Around sixty seven out of seventy thousand Latvian Jews died in the holocaust, he said.

According to the Baltic Course news website, many Latvians were forced into service in the Legion and “saw the

German army as a lesser of two evils.”

“For many of these soldiers, the choice to join the Latvian SS Legion was a result of the brutal Soviet occupation

between 1940 and 1941, during which tens of thousands of Latvians were executed or deported to Siberia. Many

soldiers naively believed that, if they helped Germany win the war, Latvia might be rewarded with independence or

autonomy,” the site asserted.

Meanwhile, on Friday, Lithuanian ultra-nationalists are slated to march in Vilnius less than a month after a similar

parade in the city of Kaunas in which participants screamed slogans in honor of Holocaust collaborators.

“There were the usual nationalistic slogans and they announced that they are honoring the heroes of Lithuania who

are being discredited by the enemies” of their country, Zuroff, who attended that event, said in a phone call from

Kaunas at the time. “All of those are people who murdered Jews during the Holocaust.”

The Lithuanian Jewish community recently demanded that their government release a list of Nazi collaborators

whose contents it has thus far declined to disclose.

Many former Soviet countries, especially in the Baltics, subscribe to what is known as the double genocide theory,

in which Nazi and communist crimes are equated and said to be of a similar nature.

Ukraine, which last year passed a law honoring members of a militant nationalist organization which participated in

the Holocaust, came under fire in early 2016 after announcing a contest to revamp the Babi Yar massacre site in

Kiev in a way that would turn it into a generic symbol of human suffering rather than a quintessential emblem of the

Holocaust. The Ukrainians subsequently backtracked.

Neo-Nazi party wins seats in Slovakia parliament for first time

JTA, March 6, 2016

http://www.jta.org/2016/03/06/news-opinion/world/neo-nazi-party-wins-seats-in-slovakia-parliament-for-

first-time

A neo-Nazi party in Slovakia won seats in the nation’s parliament for the first time.

In the results of Saturday’s national elections announced Sunday, the People’s Party-Our Slovakia garnered 8

percent of the vote, three times more than expected, which is equal to 14 seats. The country’s parliament, the

National Council, has 150 members.

Party chairman Marian Kotleba had led the neo-Nazi Slovak Togetherness-National Party, a banned party that

organized anti-Roma rallies and was sympathetic to the Slovak Nazi puppet state during World War II, The

Associated Press reported.

“We have elected a fascist to parliament,” Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said of Kotleba, who has referred to

NATO as a “criminal organization” and spoken out against the United States, the European Union and immigrants.

The Smer-Social Democracy Party of Prime Minister Robert Fico, which ran on an anti-migrant platform, took 28.3

percent of the vote, or 49 seats, which will require the party to form a coalition. In the previous election, in 2012,

Smer took 44.4 percent of the vote, or 83 seats, and was not required to form a coalition.

In July, Slovakia assumes the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Thousands Attend Anti-Russian Rally In Georgian Capital

RFE/RL, March 6, 2016

http://www.rferl.org/content/anti-russia-rally-georgia-gazprom/27592474.html

Thousands of people gathered in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on March 6 to protest negotiations between their

government and Russia's state-owned energy giant Gazprom.

The demonstrators formed a nearly 7-kilometer human chain stretching from the Russian Embassy to the

government headquarters.

The protesters say they fear that buying gas from Gazprom would make Georgia dependent on Russia.

The rally was organized by former President Mikheil Saakashvili's pro-Western United National Movement

party (UNM) that accuses Moscow of using Gazprom in a bid to prevent Georgia from forging closer ties with

the West.

On March 5, the government announced that it had abandoned its initial plan to buy natural gas from Russia

after it had signed a deal with Azerbaijan to increase gas supplies enough to fully cover Georgian demand.

David Bakradze, a UNM lawmaker, claimed that the decision was the result of opposition pressure on the

authorities.

Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August 2008 over the two Moscow-backed breakaway regions of

Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Juncker Says Ukraine Not Likely To Join EU, NATO For 20-25 Years

RFE/RL, March 4, 2016

http://www.rferl.org/content/juncker-says-ukraine-not-likely-join-eu-nato-for-20-25-years/27588682.html

It will take Ukraine at least 20 to 25 years to join the European Union and NATO, European Commission

President Jean-Claude Juncker said March 3.

"Ukraine will definitely not be able to become a member of the EU in the next 20 to 25 years, and not of NATO

either," he said in a speech at The Hague.

While Juncker did not explain why Ukraine would have to wait so long, his speech was aimed at reassuring

Dutch voters that this year's free-trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU was not a first step toward

quickly joining the European Union.

Despite his prediction, the EU has been paving the way for visa-free travel to the bloc for Ukrainian citizens

while providing Kyiv with a generous $40 billion bailout along with the United States and the International

Monetary Fund to help it maintain economic stability amid a war with Russia-backed separatists.

NATO also sent a reassuring message to Ukraine last year by holding military exercises there in a show of

force against Russia, which has repeatedly denounced the alliance's eastern expansion as a threat to its

national security.

But Juncker's comments suggest that Ukraine's ambition to join Europe, frequently expressed by leaders in

Kyiv, will not be fulfilled anytime soon.

Kremlin Thanks U.S. For Returning Stolen Historical Documents

RFE/RL, March 4, 2016

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-thanks-us-stolen-documents-returned/27589145.html

Russia's Foreign Minister has expressed gratitude to the United States for finding and repatriating 28 historical

Russian documents that were illegally taken to the United States during the 1990s.

The 18th and 19th century documents were handed over to Russian authorities on March 3 during a ceremony

at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Moscow.

They included imperial decrees, military records, and architectural drawings that were stolen from Russia's

state archives and later listed for sale by auction houses, art galleries, and individuals.

The Kremlin said the return was the result of "pragmatic, nonpolitical" cooperation between U.S. and Russian

police.

The United States has repatriated hundreds of documents and historical artifacts in the past as part of ongoing

cooperation with Russian law-enforcement authorities.

Ukraine PM challenges president to ‘back me or sack me’

Neil Buckley and Roman Olearchyk

Financial Times, March 10, 2016

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/88670cae-e691-11e5-a09b-1f8b0d268c39.html#axzz42VyTBf1g

Ukraine’s prime minister Arseny Yatseniuk has challenged president Petro Poroshenko to “back me or sack

me”, saying decisive action is the only way out of the country’s month-long political crisis that risks triggering

early elections and derailing pro-western reforms.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Yatseniuk complained bitterly of constant attacks from a governing

coalition that includes 136 MPs from the president’s party, saying it was “uncomfortable [to be] stabbed in the

back”.

Parliament, he noted, had failed to pass 60 per cent of government bills. But Mr Yatseniuk defended his

record, insisting Ukraine was an “entirely different country” from 2014, when a revolution ousted pro-Russian

president Viktor Yanukovich.

His comments came amid intense backroom political manoeuvring, with the US-born finance minister Natalie

Jaresko and the parliament speaker Volodymyr Groysman said by political insiders to have been sounded out

over the premier’s job.

“If the president doesn’t want to work with me, and if his faction strongly oppose this government and this

prime minister . . . I kindly request with all due respect to take the responsibility to form the government, to

present the programme of the new government to the Ukrainian people, and to form a new coalition,” Mr

Yatseniuk said.

“Take it or leave it, back me or sack me.”

Ukraine’s deepest political crisis since the 2014 revolution was triggered by last month’s resignation of the

economy minister Aivaras Abromavicius, who said it had become impossible to implement reforms.

Mr Yatseniuk’s government survived a no-confidence motion in parliament. But he admitted his government

had been weakened after some coalition MPs supported the vote and two of its five constituent parties

withdrew.

Political uncertainty risks derailing international financial support for Ukraine amid continued attempts by

Russia to destabilise it and pull it back into Moscow’s sphere of influence.

The IMF has delayed disbursement of the next tranche of a $17.5bn aid package until it is clear the

government can continue pushing through structural reforms. One senior official warned Ukraine’s financial

reserves would last only six to eight months without IMF support.

Some political commentators draw parallels with the rift between president Viktor Yushchenko and premier

Yulia Tymoshenko that ultimately undermined Ukraine’s 2004 pro-democracy “Orange” revolution.

Mr Yatseniuk said he had “always tried to avoid the notorious 2005 scenario”. “I will never complain about my

president . . . I will bite my lip to the end. But the end is too far,” he quipped.

Former fund manager works on programme for technocratic, reformist government

The prime minister did not dispute reports that Ms Jaresko and others had been in talks over the top job, but

declined to comment further.

“My government survived a confidence vote,” he said. “I am absolutely open for any type of discussion.

But . . . any government needs to get the support of the house,” he said.

People familiar with the situation told the FT this week that representatives of Mr Poroshenko and Mr

Yatseniuk’s parliamentary factions had offered to back Ms Jaresko in the premier’s job, but talks stalled.

One political insider suggested the premier might initially have supported such a scenario as a way out of the

crisis, but later concluded the finance minister lacked parliamentary backing to be an effective long-term

premier.

Mr Yatseniuk said the country faced three scenarios — a reshuffled government headed by him, a new

government or snap elections. He was “ready with all honour to hand over the office of the prime minister to

the strongest government, the strongest coalition, and the best programme”.

Some of his former political allies appeared to favour early polls, he added, but this was misguided.

“After any snap parliamentary elections, trust me, they will never be able to form any pro-reformist and pro-

western government,” he added, saying any new coalition would comprise “10 different parties with entirely

different ideologies”.

The premier insisted that corruption allegations levelled against him and associates by opponents were

“groundless”. “This is slander and defamation,” he said.

Mr Yatseniuk said he had “to beg, to plead, to attack the house” to get parliament to back legislation. He had

presented one privatisation bill 15 times.

But he added, “this country is entirely different than it was two years ago . . . new police, new army, new fiscal

policy, new energy policy, new social policy, new folks sitting in the government . . . very strong society”.

“I have done everything I can, in these current circumstances. I can do more, but we need to press down on

the accelerator.”

Fierce fight under way to replace Yatsenyuk

Alyona Zhuk

Kyiv Post, March 10, 2016

http://www.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/fierce-fight-under-way-to-replace-yatsenyuk-

409740.html

Agreement on the need to remove Arseniy Yatsenyuk is a lot easier to come by than consensus on who should

replace the unpopular prime minister.

But two names keep coming to the forefront of discussions for the post: Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko and

Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Groysman.

Both dodge the question of whether they’ll take the job, however, and Yatsenyuk shows no signs of wanting to

leave after surviving a no-confidence vote in parliament on Feb. 16. “Back me or sack me,” Yatsenyuk said in

an interview with the Financial Times published on March 10.

Ukraine’s spiraling political crisis gained steam on Feb. 3, after Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius

resigned, alleging corrupt officials close to President Petro Poroshenko were interfering in his work. Deputy

Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko deepened the crisis by quitting on Feb. 15, alleging systemic corruption and

obstruction of justice that he said Poroshenko is doing nothing to eliminate.

The departures of Abromavicius and Kasko came amid growing public anger over the lack of progress in

achieving the goals of the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled President Viktor Yanukovych – a genuine fight

against corruption, establishment of the rule of law and the adoption of Western democratic principles.

Money is also at stake, with the International Monetary Fund and other Western donors putting a multibillion-

dollar loan package on hold.

Public opinion polls blame Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk and parliament for failure to act or, as critics allege, even

blocking the necessary changes. For instance, Poroshenko still hasn’t named a successor to Viktor Shokin, the

prosecutor general who filed his resignation under pressure on Feb. 16 after failing to bring any major

corruption cases to court after a year in his job.

The Verkhovna Rada can’t vote to sack Yatsenyuk until July, but pressure on him to quit is rising.

Jaresko and Groysman, who both attended the 12th Annual Investor Conference on March 10, avoided the

question of whether either of them was ready to become prime minister.

Jaresko said she was focused on her current job as the nation’s finance minister and expressed irritation at talk

of the government being in crisis.

“The government is not in crisis and is working every day,” Jaresko said. “I don’t like speculation. The

speculation is what is causing the crisis to some extent.”

Groysman, however, blamed the government for the political crisis, saying the Yatsenyuk-led government has

lost touch with the nation and parliament because of its unprofessionalism.

He also said cryptically that Yatsenyuk “has to decide,” but avoided saying whether that meant he thinks the

prime minister should resign.

The attempts by Jaresko and Groysman to downplay the issue left many at the conference unconvinced.

Sergey Fursa, an analyst of Kyiv-based investment firm Dragon Capital, posted pictures on his Facebook page

of panels at the conference attended by Jaresko and Groysman, adding jokingly: “We called it the primaries.”

Political analysts and lawmakers contacted by the Kyiv Post said both Jaresko and Groysman are indeed

being considered as candidates for premier.

Meanwhile, parliament, which returns to work on March 15, won’t have time for more squabbling. The

European Union and Ukraine’s Western creditors expect lawmakers to start working right away, passing

improved anti-corruption, court and election legislation, as demanded by the West.

Natalie Jaresko

Jaresko has proven to be one of the most effective members of Yatsenyuk’s government, keeping afloat the

cash-strapped country’s finances over the last two critical years.

Born in Chicago in a family of Ukrainian immigrants, Jaresko, 50, has a bachelor’s degree in accounting at

DePaul University in Chicago and a master’s in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government

at Harvard University.

Pros

Western-born and Western-educated, Jaresko is trusted by Western donors, including the International

Monetary Fund. After five months of hard negotiations, in August 2015 she reached a deal with private

bondholders to secure a 20 percent cut of the country’s debts. Jaresko’s team launched tax changes last year

that won positive reviews for lowering rates and beginning to simplify payments. Jaresko is also seen as

equally distant from Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk. She has never been a member of any Ukrainian political

party.

Jaresko declared an income of more than $2 million in 2014, mostly in the form of dividends received from

abroad. She has never been suspected of any corrupt schemes or any links to Ukrainian oligarchs.

Cons

Although Poroshenko granted Jaresko Ukrainian citizenship in December 2014, she has two years to decide

whether to accept it permanently. Jaresko used to work at the U.S. Department of State in Washington D.C.,

and in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in 1992-1995. If she becomes prime minister, criticism that Ukraine is under

external government is bound to rise. She is a close friend of Kateryna Yushchenko, the wife of ex-President

Viktor Yushchenko, and was also an advisory member of Yushchenko’s Foreign Investors Advisory Council in

2005-2010. Yushchenko’s term is widely seen as a disaster by most Ukrainians, who gave him only 5 percent

of their votes in 2010. The premiership is also a political post, and the lack of a support base for her among

lawmakers may prove to be an obstacle to any technocratic government she might lead.

Volodymyr Groysman

Groysman is a former mayor of Vinnytsia, a city 370 kilometers southwest of Kyiv. He was elected to head the

city twice. Some 359 lawmakers voted for his appointment as parliament speaker in late November 2014, a

month after the last parliament elections in Ukraine. Groysman is a member of the Bloc of President Petro

Poroshenko. Groysman, 38, has a bachelor’s degree in jurisprudence at the Interregional Academy of

Personnel Management and the master’s degree in regional management at the National Academy of the

State Administration of the President of Ukraine.

Pros

Groysman made significant changes in Vinnytsia: developing the city’s infrastructure, repairing roads and

setting up new public transport routes. He renovated public parks and gardens, and attracted Hr 170 million in

Swiss investment for the city’s heating supply system. Under Groysman, Vinnytsia topped the list of 50 best

Ukrainian cities to live in compiled by Ukrainian Forbes magazine. He left his mayoral seat when Yatsenyuk

invited him to join the Cabinet of Ministers in November 2014 as deputy prime minister for regional

development and building.

Cons

Groysman made an impressive career jump from regional mayor to deputy prime minister thanks to his old

friendship with Poroshenko, who is connected to Vinnytsia politically and with business ties. Poroshenko owns

a confectionary factory in Vinnitsya. The city elected him to parliament in 2012.

As speaker, Groysman has pushed for legislation that plays into the hands of corrupt politicians, including laws

reducing the anti-corruption prosecutor’s independence, exempting corrupt officials from responsibility for

fraudulent property declarations, and allowing party leaders to get rid of disloyal rank-and-file members.

Groysman has also violated parliamentary procedures. When speaking in parliament in November, Groysman

stunned many with openly anti-gay comments. “I hear some fakes that some same-sex marriages may appear

in Ukraine. God forbid this ever happening, and we will never support it,” he said.

Russian-Iranian S-300 Missile-Deal Reportedly Delayed

By Anna Dolgov

Moscow Times, March 9, 2016

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-iranian-s-300-missile-deal-reportedly-

delayed/561959.html

Russian officials conceded some problems with supplying S-300 missiles to Iran but maintained the deal was

still in place, the Kommersant newspaper reported Wednesday, after a Kuwaiti daily cited an unidentified high-

level source as saying Moscow has decided to suspend shipments.

Both Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and a spokesperson for Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport

declined to comment on the Kuwaiti report, Kommersant reported. But several unidentified officials “in the

military-technological cooperation sphere” said the contract remained in effect and Russia had no plans to

cancel it, Kommersant said.

Deliveries of the S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran have, however, hit some snags over payment issues,

unidentified Russian officials conceded, Kommersant reported.

A contract, reached last November, called for Iran to pay about $1 billion in several installments, and

envisaged the first shipments of S-300 missiles as early as February, to be followed by two more later this

year, Kommersant reported.

But recalling that Russia had annulled a previous, 2007 contract for supplies of S-300 missiles, Iran sought a

reduction to its installment payments — to avoid having Iranian money languishing in Russian coffers should

Moscow decide to renege on the latest deal, an official was quoted as saying.

The annulment in 2010 of the 2007 contract came amid global sanctions against Tehran, and was widely seen

as Moscow's friendly gesture toward the West, which was concerned about Tehran's military ambitions and

nuclear weapons program.

Moscow refunded advance payments on the $800 million deal to Iran, but Tehran tried to sue for contract

breach, agreeing to drop the suit only after “long and tough negotiations,” in the words of Russian Deputy

Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, The Times of Israel reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the self-imposed Russian ban in April 2015, against U.S. and Israeli

objections, and his government concluded the new deal in November.

Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida claimed this month that deliveries under the November contract have also been

suspended.

The newspaper cited an unidentified high-level source as saying Putin had agreed to stop the deal after Israeli

officials presented him with proof that on several occasions, Iran had transferred Russian-made SA-22

surface-to-air missiles to Lebanon-based Hezbollah — a group designated as a terrorist organization by a

number of Western countries.

Russian pilots flying missions over Syria have also reported radar readings detecting advanced surface-to-air

systems in Hezbollah-controlled areas along the Lebanese-Syrian border, Al-Jarida reported. Lebanon has

also confirmed the accounts, the report said.

Russia does not view Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said

in November 2015 that the Lebanese group, as well as Hamas, never committed any terror attacks on Russian

soil, and was a “legitimate public and political force,” the state-run Interfax news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Russia designates Syria's Nusra Front and Islamic State as terrorist organizations, and requires

local media reports that mention the latter to add a caveat: “The Islamic State is a terrorist organization banned

in Russia.”

Russian Activists, Western Journalists Attacked Trying To Enter Chechnya

RFE/RL, March 9, 2016

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-chechnya-reporters-activists-attacked-entering-from-

ingushetia/27601148.html

A Russian rights group says two Western journalists and two rights activists were hospitalized after masked

men with knives and clubs attacked them as the group tried to enter Russia's Chechnya region from

neighboring Ingushetia.

The Committee to Prevent Torture said its workers and the journalists were still within Ingushetia on March 9

when they were attacked by about 20 men -- thought to have come from Chechnya -- who burned their

minibus.

Maria Persson Lofgren, a Moscow-based correspondent for Swedish Radio, and Norwegian reporter Oystein

Windstad of the Oslo daily Ny Tid were hospitalized with injuries from the attack.

Another reporter with the group, Aleksandrina Yelagina of the Russian magazine The New Times, said the

attackers called them "terrorists" and said they had "no business on our territory."

Swedish Radio gave a similar account.

"They shouted that we were terrorists, not journalists," Ginna Lindberg, head of the broadcaster's foreign news

division, quoted Persson Lofgren as saying.

The Swedish broadcaster added that the attackers, described as a large group of young men armed with

knives and clubs, had robbed the group before setting their vehicle ablaze.

Ny Tid, the Norwegian daily, said Windstad was also hospitalized along with rights activist Yekaterina Vanslova

and the group's driver.

Pavel Chikov, a prominent Russian lawyer and rights advocate, wrote on Twitter that Windstad had teeth

knocked out and suffered lacerations on his face and legs in the attack.

Dunja Mijatovic, the media-freedoms representative for the Organization for Security and Cooperation In

Europe (OSCE), said on Twitter that reports of the attack were "troubling news."

The Russian news site Mediazona, whose reporter Yegor Skovoroda was with the group, said that prior to the

attack their minibus was being followed by cars with license plates indicating the vehicles were from Chechnya.

Russia's Kommersant newspaper quoted Skovoroda as saying that the group was attacked near the

settlement of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia, just west of the border with Chechnya.

Skovoroda posted a photograph of the group’s burning minibus on his Twitter account.

Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his supporters have publicly vilified the Committee

to Prevent Torture's activists.

The organization was previously known as the Committee Against Torture, which was branded a "foreign

agent" by the Russian government in 2015 because it received foreign funding for activities that authorities

deemed "political" in nature.

It oversees a group of rights activists operating in Chechnya called the Joint Mobile Group.

After the attack, a lawyer for the Committee to Prevent Torture, Dmitry Utukin, posted surveillance video

showing masked men bearing assault weapons that he said were trying to break into the Joint Mobile Group's

headquarters in the town of Karabulak in Ingushetia.

Masked men last year destroyed the Joint Mobile Group's office in Chechnya's capital, Grozny, after it

criticized Kadyrov's policy of burning down houses belonging to relatives of suspected Islamic militants.

Kadyrov has been accused of running Chechnya as if it were his own fiefdom, often disregarding Russian law

in his pursuit to keep order in the restive North Caucasus republic.

The Kremlin has tolerated Kadyrov's alleged excesses because it relies on him to maintain order and suppress

separatism in Chechnya, where Russia has fought two wars against rebels since 1994.

Russia's state-run TASS news agency quoted an unidentified law enforcement source in Ingushetia as saying

that the rights activists and journalists were targeted by "about 20 attackers."

"They took away the mobile phones from [the journalists and human rights activists], set their Ford vehicle on

fire, and drove away," TASS quoted the source as saying.

The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying that a probe had been

launched into the attack and that authorities were attempting to apprehend the assailants.

Why Does Putin Surprise Us Again and Again?

By Stephen Blank

Atlantic Council, March 7, 2016

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/why-does-putin-surprise-us-again-and-again

From Great Britain to the Black Sea, Russia is waging a constant, unceasing information war against virtually

every European government. This war takes many forms, but information war in essence entails what Peter

Pomerantsev called the weaponization of information in the form of lies, misinformation, propaganda,

exploitation of agents of influence, and reflexive actions inducing opponents to behave in ways they think

benefit them but actually work to the enemy’s advantage. Among other things, numerous reports show that an

army of so-called trolls exist in Russia who do nothing but defame honest reporters and reporting on Russia,

and saturate the internet, television, newspapers, and other media with their misinformation.

All of this is well known, but in Europe and the United States, the “counterattack” to this form of warfare is

almost invisible. US officials freely admit that they cannot deal with these attacks, and certainly there is no

observable strategy, or even the beginnings of a program of action to confront this campaign of mendacity.

Yet the means to oppose this challenge are available to those who care to look for them. There is general

agreement that the roots of Russia’s information war date back to the Soviet period. Both a cadre of experts

and a literature exist that explain this form of warfare in both the past and the present, and outline how it can

be successfully fought.

But in fact, today’s intelligence and policy community remains singularly ill-equipped and unready to meet this

challenge. As US media and the House of Lords have already written, the United States and the United

Kingdom lack sufficient experts in Russia and Russian military strategy. Moreover, despite the Obama

administration’s frequent complaints about its lack of expertise, it neither makes adequate use of existing

expertise, nor invests in creating new experts, nor solicits the views of independent experts outside the

bureaucracy. By these policies and omissions, the Obama administration’s policymakers signal that in fact they

do not take this threat seriously, despite its malignant effects.

Beyond those facts, the US intelligence community and policymakers are caught up in an ethnocentric

paradigm of social science and marketing methodology with regard to information warfare that is utterly

irrelevant to the way Moscow thinks and the sources of its behavior. Intelligent and well-educated professionals

are apparently unable to understand that Russia exists in a cognitive universe that is utterly different from, if

not antagonistic to, that of the United States—and that to understand Russian tactics and policies, one needs

to think like a Russian.

This is not a new failure: in far too many wars, the United States has experienced this inability to grasp who the

enemy is and how he thinks. Thus it is validating the observation attributed to Albert Einstein that insanity is

doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Officials who disdain the need for specialists familiar with Russian language, culture, and overall defense

policy, or who believe that Russians generally think and act just as they do, have primed themselves for

disaster. And Moscow is only too happy to play this message back to credulous audiences who cannot or will

not do the necessary homework to see what is really occurring. No less crippling is the US belief that anything

it does is propaganda—as if telling the truth to foreign audiences, including Russian ones, is propaganda. The

failure to devise an adequate strategy for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or the Voice of America, or to fund

one, and the continuing refusal to bring back something like the United States Information Agency, indicates a

failure to understand what contemporary war is all about.

The United States will not acquire this insight by trying to categorize other cultures and civilizations, e.g. ISIL,

in terms of a US social science that pretends to universality but is actually culturally blinkered and unable to

understand that it is dealing with greatly opposed cultures that do not rely on this psychology. Educating

specialists in language, history, philosophy, and literature would pay bigger benefits than continuing to

immerse them in political science theory that assumes history began with Mikhail Gorbachev, or is wedded to

the latest social science fads.

A century and a half ago, Abraham Lincoln admonished Congress that “as our situation is new, we must think

anew.” Yet the United States refuses to take Lincoln’s words to heart. Until we genuinely comprehend these

precepts, we will continue to fail to grasp Russia or our other adversaries, and will continue to be surprised by

them, as has been the case in Crimea, the Donbas, and Syria.

UNESCO asserts, “Wars begin in the minds of men.” But the United States has closed itself off from its

antagonists’ minds, and the resulting disarray is visible for all to see.

Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.

Like, Share, Convict: Russian Authorities Target Social Media Users

By Daria Litvinova

Moscow Times, March 10, 2016

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/like-share-convict-russian-authorities-target-social-

media-users/562015.html

It was a throwaway comment, forgotten almost the minute it was written. Then again, Viktor Krasnov could

hardly have predicted the trouble those three words -"God doesn't exist" - would cause. He couldn't have

imagined that two VKontakte users would file a formal complaint to the authorities, claiming the comment

"insulted" them; that police would show up at his apartment in the southern Russia city of Stavropol a year

later; that they would charge him with insulting religious feeling; that he would be committed to a mental

institution; or that he would lose his business as a result.

"Never in a million years did I think law enforcement would pursue something like that," he told The Moscow

Times.

Far from being an isolated incident, however, Krasnov's case is one of a growing number of prosecutions

based on social media use. Since Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, dozens of websites have been blocked

and branded "extremist," and the number of people prosecuted has ballooned.

But while some argue the war on social media is exclusively a tool against the opposition, a closer inspection

reveals a more indiscriminate picture. All kinds of ordinary people have been targeted - you do not have to be

criticizing Putin to be threatened with a jail term.

Farce Turns to Tragedy

Krasnov's case initially resembled a farce, but it quickly turned into tragedy. According to his lawyer Andrei

Sabinin, counter-extremism officers first tried to charge Krasnov with "inciting hatred toward religion." When

they saw that couldn't stick, they tried the charge of "insulting religious believers' feelings."

Then, the two "victims" - the young men who initiated the case - refused to participate in the trial. Eventually,

they were dragged to court. In the dock, one had a hard time proving he was religious. "The other one looked

more prepped," says Sabinin. The lawyer considers it likely that both men were used by law enforcement to

"complete a plan" and report a certain number of convictions.

Krasnov faces up to one year in prison and a six-figure fine, though Sabinin is optimistic about the trial's

outcome.

Yet his client has little to be happy about.

As the investigation against him picked up speed, Krasnov's life took a decisive turn for the worse. He lost his

business - a forging workshop - after police had seized his business computer and documents. Then, he was

sectioned for 30 days in a mental hospital after a judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation. The judge reasoned

that no man "in sound mind would doubt or criticize the Orthodox church."

"I'm unemployed, I lost my business, and my reputation is ruined, but they won't succeed in scaring me or

changing what I do online," says Krasnov.

Criminal Mice

Krasnov's online profile remains despite the legal threats against him. Others, like Yekaterina Vologzheninova,

have scrubbed their online profiles clean as a result of court action. Vologzheninova was sentenced to 320

hours of community service for "inciting hatred and animosity," and now her VKontakte page only has pictures

of nature and flowers.

Her crime was sharing a cartoon that depicted President Vladimir Putin bending over a map of war-torn

Eastern Ukraine with a knife in his hand.

The 46-year-old single mother from the Urals city of Yekaterinburg had no idea she would be prosecuted for

reposting a picture. "She's an ordinary woman, a cashier in a liquor store, and was completely lost when they

charged her," Vologzheninova's lawyer Yevgeny Kachanov told The Moscow Times. "Like a lot of ordinary

people in Russia, she isn't particularly literate in terms of legal issues."

Vologzheninova's case made national headlines when the judge ordered the destruction of her laptop and

mouse - "criminal weapons." This gave rise to a whole line of jokes about justice in Russia coming down to the

execution of computers. For lawyer Kachanov it felt like a medieval gesture: "They could have given it to

charity or an orphanage - but why destroy it?"

Kachanov says the trial made him feel "like it was 1937 all over again." Prosecutors made Vologzheninova's

co-workers testify about her conversations with them about Ukraine and government policies. The prosecution

presented an expert analysis claiming that the woman had "incited hatred" and "abased the human dignity" of

Russians by sharing such a negative image of Putin. After all, they argued, Putin "personifies Russian

authorities," and such authorities consist mostly of Russian nationals.

Vologzheninova's team plan to appeal the ruling, and to go all the way up to the European Human Rights

Court if necessary. Kachanov, however, hopes to win earlier - at the regional court appeal stage. "There are

millions of pictures on the Internet like the one she reposted," he says. "I've no idea why they decided to target

her."

Breakdown of criminal cases involving social media activity

Darya Polyudova, an activist from Krasnodar, knows exactly why she was targeted.

An organizer of protest rallies, she had been arrested several times already. "I knew they were going to get me

eventually for something, though I'd never expected it to be VKontakte posts," she said.

In December 2015 Polyudova, 27, was convicted to two years in a penal colony for three posts on VKontakte -

all of them in support of Ukraine. "One of them was a picture of me standing at a rally with a sign that says 'No

to a war in Ukraine, yes to a revolution in Russia,'" she said.

That, among other things, was considered "a call to extremist activities." Polyudova and her lawyer have

appealed the ruling; the first hearing is scheduled for March 10.

After being labeled an "extremist," Polyudova, a lawyer by education, has had problems holding down a job.

She sold flowers, gave out flyers, but was pushed out of these jobs eventually. Today, she works for the same

company as her father, but doesn't think that will last long. "I'm sure the court will confirm the conviction and

send me to a penal colony soon," the woman said.

Just like Polyudova, Dmitry Semyonov, leader of the Cheboksary branch of the opposition PARNAS party, was

also convicted for "inciting extremist activities" (he shared a post on VKontakte with a picture that said "Death

to the Russian Bastard"). Semyonov was convicted, with a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,400), only to be

amnestied immediately.

Semyonov, 27, told The Moscow Times the whole situation didn't surprise him. "FSB officers and people from

the counter-extremism center used to warn me that I would "end up having problems," he said. "True to their

word, that's what happened."

Semyonov was added to a database of extremists, his bank accounts were frozen and he was not allowed to

leave town. Adding insult to injury, that he was a defendant in a criminal case launched by the FSB precluded

him from participating in the 2015 regional elections.

The most interesting thing, says Semyonov, is that he didn't, in fact, post the picture himself. It was added to a

post he shared automatically, and his defense presented evidence to that effect. The judge seemed to

understand this too, the activist said. "I think that by implementing amnesty he tried to show that he sides with

us," Semyonov said.

Fulfilling the Plan

When approached for statistics on the number of prosecutions of social media users, Russia's Interior Ministry

declined to offer any guidance. They based such a denial on the fact that the counter-extremism center was a

"secretive entity" and was unable to provide statistics in time.

According to Damir Gainutdinov of the Agora legal rights NGO, there were more than 200 cases taken out

against social media users in 2015. Eighteen of these cases resulted in real prison terms. "Since 2015, the

probability of ending up in jail for posting something on social media has increased dramatically," Gainutdinov

said.

It's a change of tactics, the legal expert said. In 2011-2012 Kremlin counted on blocking online resources it

considered dangerous, but that, in the end, wasn't enough. "Rutracker gained traffic after they blocked it, and

Facebook turned down demands to block a page inviting people to a rally for the Navalny brothers,"

Gainutdinov says. "That's why they turned to pressuring users into not posting information - about Ukraine, or

about the government."

Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the SOVA Center, a Moscow-based think tank specializing in extremism, told

The Moscow Times that 90 percent of all "extremist" convictions in 2015 involved Internet activities. More than

half of those involve VKontakte, the most popular Russian social network, he added.

Political cases naturally attract more attention, but most of those prosecuted for social media activities are

ordinary nationalists. "Typically it's someone with nationalist views, who posts something really inflammatory

and quietly gets convicted," says Verkhovsky.

Nationalists naturally gravitate to VKontakte to meet like-minded users, and law enforcement officers do the

same to catch them. "It's easier to search for inflammatory postings there, and because it is a Russian

network, its management administration is more likely to comply with requests to reveal personal data,"

Verkhovsky says.

Agora's Gainutdinov echoed his statement. "Just imagine how much easier it is than to chase skinheads in the

streets," he said. "Investigators use VKontakte so they don't have to leave their desks."

Both Verkhovsky and Gainutdinov believe that main reason behind the increased number of prosecutions of

social media users is the need to fulfill prosecution quotas.

"The issue of 'fulfilling a plan' is still there," Gainutdinov said.

Russia's Risky Syria Strategy

By Ilan Berman

International Journal on Security Affairs, March 9, 2016

http://www.securityaffairs.org/issues/number-30/russias-risky-syria-strategy

In September 2015, Russia formally waded into the civil war in Syria. Over the course of two weeks, the

Kremlin commenced a major military intervention into the brutal four-and-a-half-year-old conflict, deploying

thousands of troops, breaking ground on a new air base in Latakia, and dispatching an array of heavy war

materiel (including tanks and fighter aircraft) to the Syrian theater. As of this writing, the Russian military

contingent in Syria is estimated to number 4,000 soldiers.(1) But it could grow bigger still, because Russian

president Vladimir Putin has pledged to send as many as 150,000 additional troops to the country.(2) In the

meantime, Russia’s military has already launched hundreds of airstrikes aimed at assorted anti-regime forces.

The message is unmistakable: Russia is in Syria to stay.

On the surface, the rationale behind Russia’s intervention is clear: to strengthen longtime ally Bashar al-

Assad’s hold on power. The months preceding Russia’s entry into the conflict saw the Assad regime

progressively lose ground against its domestic opponents. An August 2015 assessment by IHS Jane’s

Intelligence Review noted that the Syrian regime’s hold on territory has shrunk by 18 percent over the prior

eight months, leaving it in control of just a sixth of its country.(3) Regime setbacks, moreover, had taken place

despite the heavy, sustained presence of both Iranian forces and Hezbollah irregulars fighting in support of the

Syrian government. Against this backdrop, Moscow’s assistance is sorely needed.

The Kremlin’s campaign is also patently opportunistic. As more than a few columnists and commentators

noted, American strategy in Syria to date has been largely nonexistent—leaving a vacuum that the Russian

government is all too eager to fill as a way of expanding its global influence.(4)

But Russian actions have been driven by other calculations as well. Closer to home, Moscow suffered an

unexpected setback in recent months, as resistance from Ukraine’s military succeeded in halting the advance

of Russian-supported separatists in that country. Meanwhile, Western sanctions levied on Russia over Ukraine

have had a sustained, negative impact on the country’s economic fortunes.(5) As a result, many in Moscow

now view the Middle East as a geopolitical arena where their government can regain badly needed strategic

momentum.

The Kremlin likewise sees continued access to Syria, a longtime ally, as intrinsic to its global standing. In

particular, the port city of Tartus, situated on Syria’s western coastline, represents an indispensable strategic

prize for Russia, having served as the home of its Mediterranean Flotilla since the early- to mid-1970s. The

declining political fortunes of the Assad regime have raised the unwelcome prospect that Russia might lose

basing rights there in the not-too-distant future—and, with them, the ability to project power into the

Mediterranean. Such a development is anathema to the Kremlin’s conception of itself as a global power, which

is why reinforcing the security of its naval contingent in Syria has become a top priority.

Far and away the most urgent reason underlying Russia’s intervention, however, has to do with radical Islam.

For weeks prior to the launch of its military operations in Syria, the Russian government agitated for an

international “united front” through which to confront the Islamic State terrorist group, to little avail.(6) As a

result, it has styled its subsequent involvement as a necessary product of Western fecklessness.(7) But

underlying this bravado is a very real fear, because Russia faces its own Islamist threat—one that, despite the

best efforts of the Kremlin over the past decade, is expanding significantly.

A changing threat

In November of 2015, Yevgeny Sysoyev, the deputy director of the FSB, Russia’s powerful internal security

service, gave a speech in the Black Sea city of Sochi to a gathering of international jurists and law enforcement

officials. Sysoyev used the occasion to paint a rosy picture of the country’s counterterrorism record to date.

“[O]ver the past five years,” he noted, “terrorist activity, primarily in the North Caucasus, has fallen by more

than ten times.”(8)

This statistic reflects the official—and triumphalist—narrative of the Russian government. More than two

decades after the start of the first Chechen War (1994-1996), and some six years after then-prime minister

Vladimir Putin officially proclaimed the North Caucasus pacified,(9) Russia is eager to project the image that it

has succeeded in turning a corner in its own “war on terror.”

That characterization is deeply misleading, however, because Islamism and attendant religiously motivated

violence remains widespread in Russia’s restive regions of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia—and,

increasingly, in the Eurasian “heartland” of the Volga region as well. It is also inaccurate, because it obscures

the fact that Islamism in Russia is changing in a number of consequential ways.

The most significant has to do with Russia’s shifting demographics. Since the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union

(and subsequently Russia) suffered from population decline caused by a range of adverse drivers, from low life

expectancy to high mortality rates to widespread alcoholism and disease. Today, the situation is a bit better; in

the past several years live births have outnumbered deaths (albeit only barely), while other key indicators have

improved marginally as well.(10) Yet, as a 2015 study by the prestigious Russian Presidential Academy of

National Economy and Public Administration noted, long-term population trends in the country remain

profoundly negative. In a worst-case scenario, the study outlines, Russia’s population (currently some 142

million) could shrink to as little as 100 million people by the early 2040s.(11)

Russia’s population woes are not uniform, however. In contrast with the rest of the country, Russian Muslims

boast comparatively robust birth rates, putting them on track to make up a fifth of the overall population by the

end of the current decade—and significantly more farther in the future.(12) Moscow, meanwhile, is ill-equipped

to deal with this trend. In recent years, the Kremlin has done precious little of substance to address the needs

of the country’s growing Muslim minority. To the contrary, the ultranationalist identity erected by the

government of Vladimir Putin over the past decade has systematically shut Russia’s Muslims out of

contemporary politics and society, leaving them vulnerable to the lure of alternative ideologies—Islamism chief

among them.(13)

Russian Islamism, meanwhile, is changing. Since late last decade, Russia’s Islamist scene has been

dominated by the Caucasus Emirate (Imirat Kavkaz). Established in 2007 as an outgrowth of the resilient

radicalism that fueled the first and second Chechen Wars, the group quickly distinguished itself as the Russian

Federation’s most formidable jihadi force. It has been responsible for scores of high-profile attacks on Russian

targets in the North Caucasus in recent years, including the March 2010 attack on the Moscow subway, the

December 2013 bombing of the train station in Volgograd, near the site of the 2014 Olympic Games, and—

most recently—a coordinated assault on historic landmarks in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny that left at least 20

dead.(14)

For much of this time, the Emirate has been part of the global jihadist movement, having formally pledged

allegiance to al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, back in April 2009. But this is no longer the case.

Earlier this year, elements of the group broke ranks and formally pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which

thereafter officially established a “governate” in Russia’s restive majority-Muslim regions of Dagestan,

Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia.(15) The months since have seen a

marked uptick in IS activity within the Russian Federation, with the group leveraging local discontent over

privation and corruption to add new members to its ranks.(16)

The confluence of the preceding two factors has led inexorably to a third: mobilization. Over the past two

years, Russia has emerged as a major source of the foreign fighter phenomenon that has fed Syria’s

transformation from local conflict into global jihad. In the Fall of 2014, Russian security officials were estimating

that some 800 militants from the North Caucasus had traveled to Syria to take up arms against the Assad

regime.(17) Today, that figure is much, much bigger; in September 2015, Russian Deputy Director of Federal

Security Sergei Smirnov calculated the number of Russian nationals fighting with the Islamic State in the

Middle East at 2,400, a threefold increase in less than a year.(18)

Significant as it is, that figure represents only part of a larger whole. According to Russian government

estimates, the countries of the former Soviet Union have cumulatively supplied 7,000—or nearly 25 percent—

of the estimated 30,000 jihadists that have joined the ranks of the Islamic State and other assorted groups

fighting in Syria to date.(19) The contingent is now so large, experts say, that Russian is the third most

frequently spoken language among Islamic State fighters, following Arabic and English.(20)

The Kremlin has not had much success in preventing the outflow of these Islamic radicals—nor does it appear

to be trying. To the contrary, compelling evidence suggests that the Russian government and its constituent

organs, eager to see these undesirables depart, have actually helped oversee and direct the flow of Russian

fighters into Syria.(21) By doing so, however, the Kremlin has only gotten a temporary reprieve; the growing

contingent of militants now fighting in the Middle East has set the stage for a new wave of instability for Russia

and its neighbors when those radicals inevitably return home.

Against this backdrop, Russia’s Syria strategy represents nothing so much as a defensive maneuver. Simply

put, the Kremlin prefers to wage war in Syria in order to combat its Islamists there, rather than face them at

home a few years hence.

Grave consequences

In the West, Russia’s incursion into Syria has been greeted with both chagrin and applause. Policymakers in

Washington have fretted about the Kremlin’s scorched-earth strategy on the Syrian battlefield, and remain

leery of long-term Russian objectives. In an October speech to the Association of the United States Army,

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said as much when he argued that Russia’s recent offensive will “inflame

and prolong” the long-running civil war in Syria, and ruled out cooperation with Moscow while it pursues its

“misguided strategy.”(22) By contrast, many of their counterparts in Europe have embraced Russia’s entry into

the conflict—at least in part because it has reduced the need for their own respective governments to act

decisively.(23)

But is the Kremlin’s approach sustainable? There are clear signs that, whatever the political optics surrounding

Russia’s intervention, it carries serious downsides that are likely to come back to haunt Moscow in the not-too-

distant future.

First, Russia’s ability to increase its military investments in the Syrian theater is not unlimited. So far, Russian

military operations have centered on an extensive bombing campaign—with notable tactical effects on the

ground.(24) But a lasting rollback of the Islamic State (and other threats to the Assad regime) requires a far

more extensive military presence, and will likely necessitate Russian “boots on the ground.”

Russia’s military, however, is already heavily committed elsewhere. The Russian armed forces currently

number some 770,000 active duty personnel, with more than double that number available in reserve. But

extensive deployments in the Russian Far East (opposite China) tie up a good number of those troops, while

more than 50,000 soldiers are estimated to currently be massed on Russia’s common border with Ukraine.(25)

As a practical matter, therefore, the Kremlin is limited in the number of troops it can deploy to the Syrian front,

unless it is prepared to give up on serious strategic equities closer to home.

Second, Russia’s Syria strategy could wreak havoc on its energy plans—and its long-term economic fortunes.

The country’s already-rickety economy was dealt a serious blow in the summer of 2014 when, in response to

Russian aggression against Ukraine, European nations opted to suspend the “South Stream” natural gas

pipeline, an important new energy conduit that Moscow had hoped would increase its market share in

Europe.(26) The decision set off a mad scramble by the Russian government to find alternative energy routes,

with the Kremlin finally settling upon an outlet via Turkey, dubbed “Turkish Stream.”

The Syrian war has upended those plans. In September, irate over Russia’s support for the Assad regime, the

Turkish government broke off talks with the Kremlin over the project.(27) And while some had hoped the

divergence would only be temporary, Turkish-Russian ties have deteriorated considerably since. On November

24th, Turkey’s government shot down a Russian jet it claimed had strayed into Turkish airspace during a

bombing run over Syria. While the details of the incident remain hotly debated between Ankara and Moscow,

the fallout is already becoming apparent; in the aftermath of the incident, Russia has moved to cut off

economic ties with Turkey and impose economic sanctions on it.(28) Yet, given Russia’s weakened economic

state after more than a year of Western sanctions over Ukraine, the loss of Turkey as a trading and energy

partner—perhaps for good—is bound to exacerbate the country’s deepening economic woes.

Most significant, however, is the terrorism blowback Russia has begun to suffer as a result of its Syria policy.

Internationally, Russia’s entry into the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime has made it a target of

Sunni anger, with potentially dangerous side effects. In October, dozens of Saudi clerics issued a public letter

urging Sunni militants to travel to Syria to join the fight against the “Crusader/Shi’ite alliance” of Russia and

Iran.(29) The echoes of the Soviet Union’s ruinous campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the USSR’s

incursion sparked a mass mobilization in the Muslim world, are unmistakable, and suggest that Russian forces

deployed to the Syrian front will soon face a growing cadre of extremists on the battlefields of what has

become the new global jihad.

Or, perhaps, even closer to home. The Russian government’s intervention into the Syrian civil war has made

the country itself the target of various extremist groups. Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, has called

for terrorist attacks within Russia as a retaliatory measure.(30) So, too, has the Islamic State; in November, the

group released a video through its various social media feeds that warned “[w]e will take through battle the

lands of yours we wish,” and predicted that “[the] Kremlin will be ours.”(31)

The results have not been long in coming. Islamic radicalism within Russia’s borders is already on the rise. In

late October, at an official press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly announced that the

country’s security forces had succeeded in foiling 20 major terrorist attacks so far in 2015. Hidden among

Putin’s rosy summary, however, was an unsettling detail; two of those attempts had been carried out in just the

weeks preceding—that is, since Russia’s intervention in Syria.(32)

High stakes

All this makes Russia’s Syria strategy an exceedingly risky wager. If successful, the benefits of Moscow’s

approach could be enormous—including, not least, a rehabilitation of the Kremlin in the eyes of the West for its

actions in Ukraine, as well as a freer hand in other parts of the “post-Soviet space” that the Russian

government covets.

Just as easily, however, the intervention could prove ruinous for Moscow. By wading into the Syrian civil war

on the side of the Assad regime, Russia’s government has made itself the focal point of Islamic radicalism

abroad, and exacerbated the mobilization of its own Muslims. The outcome could be precisely what Putin and

his coterie sought to avoid through their entry into Syria: a surge of Islamism within, and against, the Russian

Federation.

Remembering Boris Nemtsov

By Mikaila Altenbern

Atlantic Council, March 3, 2016

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/remembering-boris-nemtsov

Boris Nemtsov’s legacy and his final project—exposing the Kremlin’s role in the war in Ukraine—were

remembered at an event in Washington to mark the first anniversary of his assassination.

“He was a man of great values,” said Paula J. Dobriansky, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University and an

Atlantic Council board director.

Nemtsov was shot dead outside the Kremlin on February 27, 2015. In Moscow, thousands of people

participated in a memorial rally to mark the first anniversary of his assassination.

Dobriansky acknowledged the “profound” role Nemtsov, a Russian opposition politician, had played in

exposing the Kremlin’s lies by documenting the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine. She spoke at an event

hosted by the Atlantic Council and the US Senate Human Rights Caucus in Washington on March 2.

Dobriansky was joined in a panel discussion by Rob Berschinski, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment

for Democracy. John Herbst, Director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, moderated the

discussion. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), a co-chairman of the US Senate Human Rights Committee, delivered

opening remarks.

Panelists expressed their solidarity with opposition activists who have increasingly come under attack in

Russia.

One such activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was poisoned in 2015. He

survived and is undeterred in his quest to fight for Russia’s future.

“We must never abandon activists like Vladimir Kara-Murza,” said Gershman.

The violence against the opposition is linked to a combination of factors, including the war in Ukraine and

Ramzan Kadyrov, the increasingly rogue leader of Chechnya. Gershman described Kadyrov as “an

uncontrollable force of violence.”

Kadyrov has been at the center of recent media coverage likening him to Putin’s own Frankenstein’s monster.

Whether or not Kadyrov is Putin’s creation, he is certainly Putin’s man. He rules Chechnya as a criminal state

within a state. And the violations of Russian and international law that he perpetrates are tolerated, if not

approved, by Putin.

Kadyrov is suspected of having ordered Nemtsov’s assassination and is intimately entwined with the broader

atmosphere of fear, violence, and repression within Russia. He continues to make violent threats against

democracy activists in Russia and has a well-documented history of killing those who oppose or speak against

him.

A report by Ilya Yashin, a leader of the pro-democracy Republican Party of Russia-People’s Freedom Party

(RPR-Parnas), which Nemtsov led until his death, documents Kadyrov’s crimes and the threat he poses not

only to the international order, but also to Russian security. The Atlantic Council will host the US launch of

Yashin’s report, A Threat to National Security, on March 24.

War in Ukraine

Following remarks remembering Nemtsov, his life, and his activist legacy, the conversation turned to the

subject of the project that Nemtsov was working on at the time of his death—exposing the Kremlin’s role in the

war in Ukraine.

The Russian propaganda machine has diligently pumped out the fallacy that the war in Ukraine is a civil

conflict. Nemtsov exposed not just the presence of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, but also the lies surrounding

the Kremlin’s version of the conflict.

The Russian state has acted swiftly against activists who question the legitimacy of the war in Ukraine and the

annexation of Crimea. Kirk noted the sentencing of Darya Poliudova, a political activist and blogger, to serve

time in a prison colony. Poliudova was convicted under one of many anti-terrorism and security laws enacted

by Putin’s government.

Gershman said Putin is terrified of Ukraine’s success as a democracy and the possibility of its integration into

the European Union. The root of this fear, according to Gershman, is the awakening Ukraine’s success would

spark in Russia: A realization that democracy and freedom are possible. It is this perspective, not the assertion

that NATO expansion provoked Russia to attack Ukraine, which the panelists found most compelling.

“If Ukraine can succeed, in my view, Putin is finished,” said Gershman.

Obama: Ukraine 'Vulnerable' To Russian 'Military Domination' No Matter What U.S. Does

RFE/RL, March 10, 2016

http://www.rferl.org/content/obama-ukraine-vulnerable-russian-military-domination/27603145.html

President Barack Obama said in remarks published on March 10 that Ukraine "is going to be vulnerable to

military domination by Russia no matter what" the United States does.

In one of a series of interviews that formed the basis of an article in The Atlantic magazine, Obama said that

Ukraine is clearly a core interest for Russia but suggested that it may not be one for the United States.

Ukraine is "an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are

willing to go to war for," Obama said.

He rejected the notion that "the decision making of Russia or China" could somehow be influenced by "talking

tough or engaging in some military action" in such situations. Such an idea "is contrary to all the evidence we

have seen over the last 50 years," Obama said.

Obama resisted pressure last year to send lethal military aid to help Kyiv fight against Russia-backed

separatists who control part of eastern Ukraine. Their war against government forces has killed more than

9,100 people since it broke out in April 2014 -- shortly after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine.

Obama said that there are "ways to deter, but it requires you to be very clear ahead of time about what is worth

going to war for and what is not."

He said: "If there is somebody in [Washington] that would claim that we would consider going to war with

Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, they should speak up and be very clear about it."

'The Obama Doctrine'

The Atlantic article -- titled The Obama Doctrine -- compiles and analyzes remarks on U.S. foreign policy made

by Obama in a series of exclusive interviews he has given to the magazine's national correspondent, Jeffrey

Goldberg, since 2006.

The image that emerges is of a president who is hesitant to be pulled by his allies in Europe and the Middle

East into conflicts that have little to do with what he considers the country's primary interests.

The article reveals that Obama, from 2009 until well into 2013, thought that direct U.S. military intervention in

the Middle East was only potentially warranted by a handful of threats – Al-Qaeda terrorists, threats to the

existence of Israel, and attempts by Iran to build nuclear weapons.

Obama defended his initial refusal to support moderate opposition fighters in Syria who had been described by

some observers as farmers, doctors, and carpenters.

He told Goldberg it "was never true" that the United States could have "changed the equation on the ground" in

Syria without committing U.S. forces.

He said that was because Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces are "a professional army that is well

armed and sponsored by two large states [Iran and Russia] who have huge stakes in this, and they are fighting

against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in

the midst of a civil conflict."

Obama also defended his refusal to enforce his own "red line" against Assad in August 2013 after United

Nations monitors confirmed Assad's forces had used chemical weapons against civilians and opposition

fighters in Syria.

Instead of launching air strikes against Assad and his chemical weapons stockpiles, Obama said he pulled

Vladimir Putin aside at a summit of the Group of 20 leading industrialized nations (G20) in St. Petersburg a

week later and told the Russian president "that if he forced Assad to get rid of the chemical weapons, that

would eliminate the need for us taking a military strike."

'Credibility At Stake'

Obama said he was "very proud" of the moment several weeks later when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov worked out a plan for the removal of most of Syria's chemical

weapons.

"The overwhelming weight of conventional wisdom and the machinery of our national-security apparatus had

gone fairly far. The perception was that my credibility was at stake, that America's credibility was at stake,"

Obama said."And for me to press the pause button at that moment…to pull back from the immediate pressure

and think through in my own mind what was in America's interest, not only with respect to Syria but also with

respect to our democracy, was as tough a decision as I've made."

"I believe ultimately it was the right decision to make," he said.

Obama also said that Putin is "constantly interested in being seen as our peer and as working with us,

because he's not completely stupid."

Putin "understands that Russia's overall position in the world is significantly diminished," he said. "And the fact

that he invades Crimea or is trying to prop up Assad doesn't suddenly make him a player."

Obama said that in both Ukraine and Syria, Putin acted "in response to a client state that was about to slip out

of his grasp" and "improvised" a way to maintain control -- but that in Syria, this came at enormous cost to the

well-being of his own country."

"And the notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now, in Syria or in Ukraine, than they were

before they invaded Ukraine or before he had to deploy military forces to Syria is to fundamentally

misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally," he said. "Real power means you

can get what you want without having to exert violence.

Regarding Iran and Saudi Arabia, whose rivalry has helped fuel the war in Syria and violence elsewhere in the

Middle East, Obama said that their competition "requires us to say to our friends, as well as to the Iranians,

that they need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood and institute some sort of cold peace."

He said that supporting Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, in all of its disputes with Iran "would

mean that we have to start coming in and using our military power to settle scores."

Obama said that would not be in the interest of the United States or of the Middle East.

On Libya, Obama said that the NATO intervention in 2011 "didn't work," and that he had wrongly concluded

that Britain and France would carry more of the burden of the military operation.

"What has been a habit over the last several decades in these circumstances is people pushing us to act but

then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game," Obama said.

Tajik restrictions on opposition, civil society, media ‘eroding’ rights, says UN expert

UN News Center, March 10, 2016

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53410#.VuHbVebzM6F

An independent United Nations human rights expert today voiced concern over the increasing Government

restrictions on opposition parties, civil society and the media over the past year in Tajikistan.

“The people of Tajikistan enjoy fundamental protections under their Constitution and human rights law, but

those protections are eroding as the Government punishes dissent, limits access to alternative voices in the

media and online, and shrinks the space for civil society,” David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on the right to

freedom of opinion and expression, said at the end of a week-long official visit to the Central Asian country.

The expert voiced particular concern over the recent ban of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT)

and the prosecution of at least 13 of its leaders in secret trials.

“The Government accuses the IRPT and its members of serious crimes, but it has refused to give public

access to the trial and evidence,” Mr. Kaye said, urging the Government to release all persons detained on

political grounds and ensure due process and a fair trial.

He also drew attention to the attacks on members of Group 24 and other independent politicians. Criminal

cases have also been brought against lawyers defending opposition leaders, and other critical voices also

reported harassment.

During his visit, the expert received numerous reports from journalists of pressure to refrain from covering

issues of public interest, especially those related to the political environment. The Government raised its

national security concerns, which are grounds of concern for any government, he said.

“Yet banning peaceful political opposition forces and harassing lawyers, journalists and activists undermine

security and generate tensions and long-term instability,” he pointed out.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also reported a deterioration of the space for their work. “New

amendments to the Law on Public Association pertaining to foreign funds place a burden on many NGOs,” Mr.

Kaye said.

On the blocking of websites and networks, including mobile services, the Special Rapporteur underscored that

these measures are disproportionate and incompatible with international standards, urging Parliament to

consider adopting legislation that would impose restrictions on the Government’s ability to block the Internet

and mobile communications.

“Tajikistan maintains a very good and open dialogue with various human rights mechanisms,” he said,

underlining his intention to work further with the Tajik Government to improve the legal and political

environment for fundamental rights.

Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report

back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are

not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.