The simmering conflict between warring clans in Chechnya has exploded back into live over the past few weeks.

A violent confrontation between the motorcades of President Ramzan Kadyrov, backed by the Kremlin, and Badruddi Yamadayev, brother of a militia leader backed by the Russian Defence Ministry, threatens to be the spark that ignites yet more conflict in Chechnya.

Traffic jam turns to gunfire

The two rival motorcades (totalling close to a hundred cars) had the misfortune to be travelling in opposite directions on the same road, at the same time. And, in a war-torn country where image is everything, neither would back down to let the other pass.

(To get an idea of what a 50 car motorcade in Chechnya looks like these days, take a look at this video of another Ramzan Kadyrov convoy. In particular, look at the high performance cars - apparently, there are “at least nine Porsche Cayenne vehicles, two BMW 5 Series, two Mercedes S-Class, and eight Lexus GX 470 (or Toyota 100 Land Cruiser)” in the convoy. Cars like that don’t come cheap).

Anyway, one thing led to another and, soon, heavily armed bodyguards were exchanging fire. The Chechen authorities deny that anyone was killed in the skirmish, but the Reuters news agency has reported that up to 18 people - both bodyguards and civilians - were killed in the battle.

Anxious to avoid massive bloodshed, Kadyrov himself apparently stepped in to calm the situation. According to the Times, before they left the scene, both Kadyrov and Yamadayev exchanged a bear hug.

Yamadayev under seige

But looks are often deceiving in Chechnya. Kadyrov might have sensed that a battle on the road was in his interests but, once out of range, he ordered 300 Chechen police to surround the base of the Vostok Battalion, headed by Yamadayev’s elder brother, Sulim Yamadayev. A three day seige ensued, during which two members of the Vostok battallion were killed.

At the same time, Kadyrov began a war of words, accusing rival Yamadayev and his brother of abuductions and murders. In a statement he announced that:

“As president I have summoned law enforcement heads and asked them why the Vostok battalion is ‘commanded’ by Badrudi Yamadayev - a man who should be in jail, but instead is walking around armed to the teeth and committing further crimes.”

The Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, a Kadyrov ally, has also called for Yamadayev to step down as commander of the Vostok battallion.

According to media reports, Badruddi Yamadayev escaped the seige and is in hiding.

Is the Kremlin losing control?

Putin’s reputation as a strongman is built in part on his ability to bring stability to the Russian Caucasus, and his ability to bring Chechnya to heel under a puppet regime led by Kadyrov.

But a violent confrontation of this magnitude in Chechnya is a massive embarrassment for the Kremlin and for Putin personally.

At best, this month’s conflict demonstrates that Kremlin no longer has control of the situation in Chechnya.

At worst, though, the conflict could demonstrate that the Kremlin does not have control over even its own Defense Ministry. The Vostok Battallion is backed by the Defence Ministry and, as such, is the only (legal) militia in Chechnya not under the direct control of either Kadyrov or the Kremlin.

As Chechen analyst Ruslan Martagov notes:

“One is under the orders of the presidential administration, the other is under the orders of the Defense Ministry. What prevents them from summoning both these people and telling them, ‘You take your troops here, and you take your troops there’? This would take about 20 minutes,” Martagov says. “Either they don’t want to do that, or they have absolutely no control over the situation there.”

Scary.

Normally, faux cyrillic writing does nothing more than irritate me. But this advert, for Russian Bear vodka, made me smile.

If you look at the advert for the first time, it just looks like a jumble of cyrillic letters. But take a closer look in the mirror…

If you ever travel to Russia on business, and want to use your notebook’s Wi-Fi, or perhaps your brand new iPhone, you might want to think again.

Because Russia has just adopted a new regulation that requires every owner of a wireless device to register with the authorities before using it.

Failure to comply will mean a fine, and probably the confiscation of your beloved equipment.

But don’t worry - registering your wireless device should only take around 10 days… after which, you’ll be able to check your emails without checking over your shoulder at the same time for the FSB snoops…

You’re kidding, right?

Sadly not. The newly formed Russian Mass Media, Communications and Cultural Protection Service (more affectionately known as Rossvyazokhrankultura) has decided that it wants to muscle in on technology regulation, as well as regulation of the wider media.

And, so, a few weeks ago, the regulation you can see here was signed. Here’s a translation of the relevant sections:

On the use of communications electronics in the Russian Federation

(signed) V.P. Krasnov, deputy head of the Directorate for Supervision and Monitoring in the Sphere of Telecommunications

By the way, did I mention that the head of Rossvyazokhrankultura, the man who was hand-picked to regulate Russia’s communications… is a metallurgist.

Sigh.

In an indication of Russia’s growing strength, Forbes has announced that there are now 110 Russian billionaires.

Last year, there were only 60 billionaires in Russia but growing economic strength, combined with a weakening dollar has almost doubled the numbers of Russia’s most exclusive club.

Today, only the United States has more billionaires than Russia.

Whose star is rising, whose star is falling?

Oleg Deripaska, boss of Aluminium producer Rusal remains at the top of the rich list. He’s worth $28.6bn - that’s $7.4bn more than this time last year. Doesn’t he look happy?

If you thought that was a big gain, check out steel tycoon Alexei Mordashov. The second richest man in Russia is today worth $24.5 billion - he’s worth twice as much as he was last year, when he had a mere $12 billion to his name.

In third place, continuing his graceful slide down Russia’s rich list is Roman Abramovich, the most famous of Russia’s oligarchs. Two years ago, the owner of Chelsea football club was Russia’s richest man but, despite another pretty hefty increase in his fortune this year, the oil magnate doesn’t seem able to keep pace with the tigerish metal oligarchs. He’s worth only $24.3 billion.

So, is all this money from oil and gas, or what?

If you listen to the popular press, Russia’s renewed economic might is all down to oil and gas. But if you take a good look at the list of billionaires and you’ll see that most of Russia’s richest men are involved in extracting other mineral resources - nickel, iron, steel, etc.

Perhaps not entirely positive - after all if Russia keeps digging all its wealth out of the ground its going to end up with a country built on very shaky foundations. But still, it’s easy to fall into the widely promoted trap that Russia’s recent wealth has been built on oil and gas, whereas this simply is not the case.

And what about Putin? Is he secretly Russia’s richest man?

Remember the stories from a couple of months ago about Vladimir Putin alleged $40 billion fortune? Well, he’s not made it onto the Russian Rich List, so Forbes clearly don’t think the story is accurate.

Or do they?

They’ve left themselves a sneaky little get out clause. When asked why Putin’s income wasn’t considered, Forbes editor Maxim Kashulinsky was very careful not to say “because he’s not rich”. Instead he told reporters that Forbes didn’t count the fortunes of “bureaucrats” and “government workers.”

(As an aside - does anyone know what incoming President Dmitry Medvedev is worth? Either officially or straight off the rumour mill…).

Georgia today released this amazingly detailed video footage of a Russian MiG fighter shooting down one of its unarmed drones:

Georgian authorities claim that the drone was shot down during an operation over the breakaway region of Abkhazia which is supported, of course, by Russia. Colonel David Nairashvili, commander of Georgia’s air force told reporters:

“On April 20 a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet shot down an unarmed, unmanned air vehicle which was performing basic reconnaissance over Georgian territory.

It’s absolutely illegal for a Russian MiG-29 to be there.”

Naturally, Russia has protested its innocence. A typically robust spokesman for the Russian air force said today:

“Nonsense. What would a Russian jet fighter be doing over Georgian territory?”

Interestingly, no markings are visible on the aircraft - I’m not sure if this is because the MiG was actually unmarked, or if the video’s resolution isn’t good enough to pick out the markings. But Georgian authorities are sure the plane is Russian. The Georgian airforce chief went on to add that:

“The MiG-29 has a distinctive twin-tail marking. It’s a Russian aircraft. Georgia does not possess it, nor do Abkhaz separatists.”

And, moreover, he claims, Georgian radar records show that the plane took off from a base in Abkhazia before shooting down the drone and fleeing across the border into Russia.

Clearly someone shot down the plane. But I wonder - could it have been a training exercise by the Georgian air force - presumably they have a few MiGs still knocking around. Or, does the Abkhazian military have a couple of MiGs under its control, on loan from Russia?

What do you think?

The high point of President Putin’s visit to Libya this week was the announcement that Russia was to write off Libya’s $4.6 billion debt. In exchange, a number of massive bilateral trade deals have been agreed.

A cheerful, but slightly over-heated President Putin told reports

“I am satisfied by the way we have solved the debt problem. The deal will not only employ Russian defence enterprises but will also help strengthen Libya’s defences.”

I must say, I find it fascinating that both Putin and the world’s press have been majoring on the military aspects of this deal.

True, the Russian defence industry will benefit to the tune of a couple of billion dollars worth of new business as Libya modernises its military after decades of sanctions. But in pure money terms, the $3 billion deal to build a new coastal railway line and Gazprom’s proposed gas exploration deal are likely to be far more valuable.

For the press, the attraction of explaining the deal in terms of debt for arms is obvious. But for Putin, it’s yet another opportunity to emphasise Russia’s remerging military muscle. After all, selling arms to an African country is a much better way to promote your military prowess than invading a neighbouring country. And much less risky…

But, I digress. Next stop for Putin is a trip to Sardinia, where he’ll be meeting new Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. No debt to forgive there, and no chance of arms sales. But Italian energy giant Eni has significant business interests in Libya, and would make a useful partner.

Following the March elections, many in the international mass-media have begun to state that Russia is again on its way to authoritarianism, and surrendering its democratic achievements.

But which way is Russia really heading today? Is Russia on the way to leadership by personality cult, or on the hard way to true democracy? And what will be better for this country – further development of rights and liberties according to the Western example or the necessity of a strong hand able to rule such a big state?

Personality cult is an element of state rule, but only during certain stages of society’s evolution. It is necessary to consolidate the separate tribes and territories around one figure. But for a personality cult, there must be a very strong reason. Usually such reason was the divine origin of the leader.

However, even ‘progressive’ states that have rejected religion don’t refuse to canonize the leader.
To rule society successfully, any power (including the dictator’s one) needs to have the confidence of the nation. This confidence is possible if it is based on canonization of the power (as in totalitarian states) or it could be based on a unification of the power and of the nation behind some common ideas and values, as happens in democratic states. We can’t say anything about ideological unity of the power and of the nation in modern Russia, because current ruling party doesn’t have any ideology. It would be more correct to say that Russia instead has personal confidence in Vladimir Putin (because the confidence to Dmitry Medvedev is too early to mention).

In such conditions it is possible for new personality cult to be born. And it will be born if Russians are unable to find another basis for their national unity. Because to believe sincerely in the image of current or elected president it is not enough.

What could be another basis for Russian national unity? Some experts say that democracy is necessary. But I don’t think so. Democracy is not a source of the power. Pure democracy doesn’t decide anything, because the society must have some idea that it can apply democracy to.

The personality cult in Russia: President is the God or the Leader with a strong hand?

The official ideology of Russian Empire and the Soviet Union was based around the divine origin of the leader and the concept that all the people are only servants of the State. Now, in present-day Russia, we have the same situation developing. Personality cult could appear from this point of veiw, and it is not dependent on whether we have democracy or not. In the time of Yeltsin’s rule, Russia had a lot of democracy, but still lacked something.

It was lack of ideas, which could consolidate the society. We are looking for them still.
So, is it possible that a personality cult is developing in Russia right now? We have the absence of criticism, and to criticise the leadership in mass-media is forbidden at all. These are both early signals that Russia is developing on the path to authoritarianism. I don’t doubt that Russia’s future it is authoritarism. But… it’s a progressive authoritarism.

Russia is following the path of Franco and Pinochet, where a strict leader takes control to avoid chaos in the State, helping to build democracy by being strict. Such a leader leaves the post and gives all the power to legal Parliament, government and the court. And all these three power branches are separated and independent.

Unfortunately there is no political regime which could be ideal for all times and all situations. The way to democracy passes through cruel transformation periods. Otherwise it will be cruel period without transformations and without democracy.

Georgia ground out a hard fought (literally, at times) 18-12 victory over Russia in Krasnoyarsk in the Rugby Union European Nations Cup title decider.

Although each team still has one game to play, Georgia have now pulled two points clear of Russia. Georgia’s stronger record in head to head matches between the two teams ensures that they will be crowned European Nations Cup champions for 2008.

A match report and video highlights of the game are below.

Bruising encounter

On a snow covered Krasnoyarsk pitch, the Georgian Lelos roared into an early lead.

Otar Barkalaia was rather fortunate to score under the posts after just 7 minutes but, after converting his own try and following up with a penalty on the 20 minute mark he had almost single-handedly given Georgia a 10-0 lead.

Russia, as seems traditional, ground their way back into the game with four penalties from the boot of Yuri Kushnariov. His fourth kick after 68 minutes brought Russia back to within a point of the Lelos. With the momentum and in front of their passionate home crowd, it would have been hard to bet against the Bears at this point.

But David Katcharava had other ideas. Picking up a quick pass from Lasha Malaghuradze, the winger flew past the Russian defence from 15 yards out to score the winning points.

Russia, roared on by their home crowd, threw everything at Georgia in the last few minutes, but despite battering the Georgian try line, they were unable to quite push their way over.

By all accounts, the match was an ill-tempered one. Two massive brawls scarred the game. A free for all late in the second half led to both number 6s being sin-binned. (Although, according to the Georgian Rugby Union reporter, both players then sat side by side in the sin bin, wrapped in blankets and chatting amiably). And, Georgia’s winning try led to a second brawl and a trip to the sin bin for Georgian prop Goderdzi Shvelidze.

For your voyeuristic entertainment, here’s the first brawl in all its glory:

Looking forward

Regardless of the result, the match has provided a tremendous boost for Russian rugby. The match itself was covered live on NTV-Sports, and will have introduced the game to many new fans.

And, after a strong Nations Cup campaign which has seen the Bears rise to 16th in the world rankings, Russia will be looking forward to a series of further high profile matches over the summer.

IRB Nations Cup, June

Most importantly, Russia will be playing in the IRB Nations Cup tournament in Romania this June. The annual tournament was set up in 2006 to give tier 2 nations the opportunity to test themselves against a higher level of competition than they would normally meet in regional competition.

Russia avoided Georgia in the group draw, and will open the tournaments with matches against Italy A, Romania and Uraguay. Georgia, on the other hand, face the much tougher proposition of matches against Uraguay, the Emerging Springboks (South Africa B) and Italy B.

The top 4 teams from the group stages will progress to the Semi-Finals and, from the fixture list, it looks as though Russia have a pretty good shot.

IRB Sevens tournaments

Russia have also had a fairly good season in Sevens, the lighter form of the game. They won the Bowl tournament in the Hong Kong Sevens a few weeks ago, coming from behind to beat Zimbabwe 19-14.

They’ll be looking to build on this success in the upcoming tournaments in Scotland (where, incidentally, Moldova will be playing for the first time) and England.

The Buran space shuttle, once the pride of the Soviet space fleet, has been sedately floating down the river Rhine, making its way to its new home in a German museum.

The Buran was only ever flown once - an unmanned test flight in November 1988. Future flights were planned, but the collapse of the Soviet Union and economic hardship in Russia meant that the Buran programme was cancelled in 1993.

The last surviving Buran has been exhibited around the world - most notably at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney - and will now be on display at the Technik Museum Speyer, near Mannheim, Germany.

Apparently, the cost of transporting the Buran to Germany, and the construction of a new hall to house the shuttle, was over $15 million.

(Pictures with permission of: Torsten Dillenburg, Marc-Cologne, Walter Kraegeloh, eternaltedium, Joachim S Muller and Netream.

Is there no end to Vladimir Putin’s ambition?

Not content with being Russia’s next Prime Minister, it appears that Putin also has his sights set on being the head of the ruling United Russia party.

Current party leader Boris Gryzlov announced the move (in what would in Western Europe be regarded as an almost total lack of political ambition) saying deferentially:

“If Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin headed United Russia, it would be the very best option. Such a proposal will probably be made at our congress [on April 14].”

This seems like a sensible approach for Putin to take. As Prime Minister, Putin is technically beholden to President Medvedev, who can sack him at will. But the Duma has to give its approval for any such move, and it would be difficult for a political party to approve the firing of its own leader.

It does make you wonder, though, whether he’s been listening to all the analysts who were predicting a power struggle between Putin and Medvedev a few years down the line…

My favourite bit about this story though is the way it will be stage managed. With typical Russian showmanship, Putin will become United Russia’s 2 millionth member.

How have the party managed to arrange this? Simple - after the 1,999,999th member joined a while ago, they stopped accepting new members. Presumably, prospective members will be allowed entry again only after April 14th.

In a meeting devoted to small business problems, elected President Dmitry Medvedev proposed that inspections of companies by state organisations be severely limited.

Currently, such state organisations can visit and inspect a company at any time but, under Medvedev’s plan, they will be able to visit a company to check only of they have judicial act or another legal document from a court.

Under no illusions as to how his plans would be received, Medvedev confirmed that:

“I think this decision will shock a lot all the personnel of Public Health Authority, police and firemen. They will be full of negative emotions towards this law, because they make a lot of money, checking the companies and taking bribes.”

Medvedev added that the outcome of any company’s first inspection must not be a fine, but should be recommendations. According to the President-elect:

“large amounts of bureaucratic obstacles lead to bribes. If a person wants to build their own legal business, it is necessary to be approved by up to 45 different organisations, for example, fire security, Public Health Authority, etc. In the other words now we have a legal form of bribes.”

As a result of this culture of bureaucratic bribery, small business in Russia today is developing very slowly, and its contribution into GDP is not higher than 17%. Currently in Russia there are around 1.1 million of small business companies and 3.4 millions of independent business-person (who don’t employ staff).

But inspections by the state are not the only the only issues that complicate the lives of small businessmen in Russia today. The meeting was also told about the impact of state monopolies, and the high cost small companies must pay to connect public services.

Medvedev also re-iterated his opinion that it is necessary to create techno-parks and special business-zones in Russia. In such zones, he said, it will be much easier for businessmen to open and develop their own business. He is sure that techno-parks must appear not far from universities to make innovation about unity of education, business and science. Also he offered to expand the stimulus system for small business companies to make them invest money in the area of high technologies.

Health service, education and social sphere must be opened for small business too – he believes. Because allowing to the small business to work there will be possible to make make public service more effective.

British RAF planes intercept Russian Tu-95 Bear bombers once a week, reports populist British newspaper The Sun.

The enterprising paper filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the British Ministry of Defence which revealed that, during the seven months to January 2008, RAF interceptors were sent up to meet Russian bombers 28 times. For comparison, during the previous 6 months, RAF interceptors were scrambled just twice.

The Sun is, of course, righteously indignant at the cost to the good old British taxpayer. According to them, it costs approximately £30,000 ($60,000) per hour to keep an RAF fighter in the air. They’ve calculated that, over the past seven months, the RAF has spent more than £3.5 million ($7 million) to meet the Russian threat.

Buried mid-way through the article is the news that none of the Russian bombers have entered British airspace and, in truth, almost all of the contacts have been over the Artic or the North Sea. You would never know this from the article’s title though - “Hey you, get off of our cloud”.

Or from the over-worked ’senior RAF source who reports exactly what Russian command want to hear:

“We have to take these bombers seriously, just in case. It runs us ragged.”

I’m sure the RAF are quite right to intercept Russian bombers flying near British airspace - they are after all, flying very close - but it’s indicative of the poor press Russia is getting at the moment that hysterical over-reaction is now becoming the norm.

If you want to see the impact reporting like this is having on many in the British public, take a look at the comments to The Sun article.

Oh, and two more quick thoughts before I go. I wonder how much it’s costing the Russian air force to send these bombers out? Probably not as much as the British RAF. And, finally… I wonder if the Russian Air Force would tell me how much it costs if I were to ask???

After elections we usually begin to think about future reforms. It’s high time to look back at the past and make some predictions for Russia’s future.

What we had in the past?

For example Kazakhstan (like many other countries of the former USSR) began its improvments of politics and economy in the 90s, just copying Russian reforms. Over time the two countries’ reforms diverged more and more, because of other priorities and local conditions. But it is necessary to recognize that many of Russia’s neighbours, despite having worse conditions than Russia had, managed to achieve progressive modernization. And Russia only talks about it.

During the last 15 years, Kazakstan undertook a lot of painful transformations (for the country and for its population), particularly reform of housing and public utilities. But, in contrast to Russia, these reforms provided (according to the sociological surveys’s data) the most low level of pupulation state anxiety (among all CIS).

In comparison with Kazakhstan what does Russia have to boast about? Unfortunately, not one of Russia’s reforms has been finished during the last 4 years and, moreover some of these reforms failed completely. It is enough to remember monetization of reduced payments. It hadn’t any sense and, as a result, it was a disaster, especially for pensioners, who were hit particularly hard. Or let’s remember reform of housing and public utilities which has been discussed endlessly. And the phrase “fighting with corruption” provokes just an ironic smile, or even cynical laughing – time and again, the Duma (Russia’s Parliament) declines to consider the law about eliminating corruption.

In fact, administration reform has failed too. Even current President and future Prime-minister Vladimir Putin frankly talked about its reconsideration. And the only result of pension reform was further wasting of budget money by the Pension Foundation, as it has been stated by the Department of Economic Security, Ministry of Interior.

The future government change has made discussion of these questions more intensive. Thus, Institute of Economis of Russian Academy of Sciences recently has reported about alternative economic programme for 2008-2016 years, titled “The future President’s tasks”. This report is concerned the current social-economical course of the country.

The report’s authors noted that Russia couldn’t achieve diversification of the economy, nor could it succeed in the development of high-tech resources. On the contrary, we are likely to see continuing social degradation and privitivization of the economy. Property relations are destructive, because they were formed with participation of forceful structures. Also the experts criticise ambitious government projects, such as the cloning of state corporations and nanotechnologies development. All this may lead only to waste of resources.

Ruslan Grinberg, Director of Institute of Economy came to the conclusion that:

“the only reasonable way of changing the economic course of Russia is the presence of an opposition political party. Its absence will lead Russia to another crisis (like default of 1998).”

According to Grinberg, the presence of an effective opposition in othe countries with a communist past “helps to correct many anterior mistakes”.

…and in the future?

Such semi-reforms of the Russian economy, in my point of view, could be easily explained by a few reasons: firstly, that oil money which came to the country, led to increased incomes for part of the population. But this increase in income didnt lead to an increase in production, or to any structure changes. This little money given by government during national projects campaign was nothing for population but this fact was lighted in mass media so much, that in the end allowed to create image of the country which takes care of its people.

Second reason the government’s need for public approval and high poll ratings. The wish for their growth made it impossible to conduct any painful reforms and unpopular measures for the population and the focus on polling figures has replaced the objective estimation of real efficiency of the government’s acts in political and economical spheres.

This fact, I think, is realized by the new President. That is why he has created the special analytic center, which is planned to be the personal fabric of future reforms.

By the way, the same thing was done by Putin in 1999. His Center in short time published the document titled “The strategy of economical development til 2010” and it was some kind of reform plan. But unfortunately this document wasn’t applied in practice.

It is very alike the destiny of russian reforms.

Will we deceive our destiny this time?