If, by “cautiously optimistic” these officials meant that nothing exciting, either positive or negative, would happen - well, they were right. No real agreements were made, and both sides continued to constructively (ahem) disagree on pretty much every issue of dispute.

In lieu of anything interesting to report, quite a few of the Monday papers are majoring on Putin’s decision to compare the US decision to site missile bases and radars in Eastern Europe to the Cuban Missile crisis.

As the Guardian notes, Putin said:

“Analogous actions by the Soviet Union when it deployed rockets on Cuba provoked the Cuban missile crisis.”

But sadly, what they forget to note (but the International Herald Tribune fortunately remembered) is that he then quickly added:

“Thank God, we do not have any Cuban missile crisis now and this is above all because of the fundamental way relations between Russia and the United States and Europe have changed.”

The best bit of the summit by far was Putin’s announcement that Russia is to open a freedom and democracy think-tank in Brussels.

“With the aid of grants, the EU helps develop such institutes in Russia,” he told reporters after the summit in Mafra, Portugal. “I think the time has come for Russia, given the growth in our financial capabilities, to make its contribution in this sphere as well.”

Putin then went on to further rub his hosts noses in the muck by scornfully rejecting an offer from the EU to turn this into a jointly run think tank, and to provide half the funding.

Expect one of the new think tank’s first reports to be on persecution of Russian nationals in the Baltics…

Is it just me, or does Vladimir Putin’s latest public statement make it seem like he’s completely off his rocker?

Am I a ‘pure democrat’? Of course I am, absolutely. But do you know what the problem is? Not even a problem but a real tragedy? The problem is that I’m all alone, the only one of my kind in the whole wide world.  […]There is no one to talk to since Mahatma Gandhi died.  

When I first read the quote on another blog, I thought it was a hoax, or that Putin had somehow been misquoted or taken out of context.  But a transcript of the entire interviewhas been published on his official Presidential website, for all to see.

I’ve heard a lot in the past about how Putin is a man completely in control of his brief, and never says anything in public without a purpose, but come on, this is just plain daft. 

By claiming he is the world’s sole “pure democrat” in the face of all evidence and then going on to compare himself to Gandhi, all Putin does is portray himself as a deluded nutter. 

Surely?

The harrasment of Garry Kasparov continues - this week Kasparov was prevented from flying to Samara, venue for this weekend’s EU-Russia summit:

Yesterday Mr Kasparov apparently outdid himself when he was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetevo airport on suspicion of forging his own airline ticket.

It was an elaborate plot, with suspicion falling on all those travelling with Mr Kasparov, including journalists from The Daily Telegraph, the Wall Street Journal and other organisations.

[…] Unable to resort to their favoured method for dealing with peaceful political demonstrations - violence - the authorities were going to have to come up with some other means to stop it going ahead.

Even so, farcical tactics that the administration did employ to keep Mr Kazparov in Moscow were astonishing in their brazenness.

Things started to go awry from the moment we entered the airport. As I placed my bag in the x-ray machine before check-in, a police officer approached me and asked for my passport and ticket, which had been reserved through Mr Kasparov’s office, although the Telegraph had paid for it.

The officer led me to a counter and told me there was a problem: The Aeroflot computer could not read my ticket. It seemed unlikely - he hadn’t even punched my travel details into the keyboard.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Kasparov and his colleagues arrived and was promptly told he would have to check in upstairs. “Why can’t I check in at the check in counter?” he asked - a reasonable enough question in the circumstances.

Airport officials clearly hadn’t worked out their story very well. Some of us were told the flight was overbooked, others that the tickets were unreadable.

If you thought that was ludicrous, read on:

Events turned even more surreal with the appearance of four medical orderlies in white coats, who handed out leaflets claiming that Mr Kasparov and Eduard Limonov, the leader of the radical National Bolshevik Party, were deranged and needed to be committed.

A stunt, it turned out, pulled by members of the Nashi youth wing, set up by the Kremlin to counter the spread of democracy.

The movement would later claim the orderlies had convinced airport staff to keep Other Russia officials off the flight because their madness posed a danger to other passengers.

All those who wanted to travel that day - including the journalists - were barred from flying and sent home, with a warning that they would probably face further investigation.

I’m particularly fascinated that this whole event took place (and directly affected) the world’s media. I can’t make up my mind whether this was intentional, to send a message, or whether they didn’t realise who his travelling companions were until it was too late, and this is a monstrous PR disaster.

Almost half of Russian voters think that this year’s parliamentary elections will be marred by fraud, and will not reflect the will of the people, is the key finding of a suvey by the Levada Centre.

Some key stats:

• 45% think that the election result will not reflect the will of the people
• 39% think local officials will fix election results
• 25% think opposition candidates may be excluded from the election
• 8% think the election will be fair
• 33% will consider the new parliament illegitimate
• 65% want an “against all candidates” option on ballot papers

Interesting results, although one should be careful not to read too much into them.  I suspect that, if you asked a random sample of British voters whether they thought Parliamentary elections in the UK reflected the will of the people, you’d receive a somewhat similar answer.

And electoral fraud isn’t just a problem confined to Russia - take a look at this roundup of electoral fraud (and other problems) from last week’s local elections in the UK.

Global Voices online has a roundup of blog reactions to Russia’s regional elections.

Update: Sean Guillory also has some thoughts on Russia’s emerging two party system:

Russia is developing its own versions of the Republican/Tory and Democratic/Labor Parties. The Russians are learning liberal democracy very well.

Well, the preliminary results are in from the Regional elections that took place across Russia last weekend.

It probably won’t surprise you to hear that pro-Putin party United Russia came first in 13 of the 14 regions, with around 46% of the vote. Nor will it surprise you to hear that newly formed pro-Putin party A Just Russia won in the 14th region.

RFE/RL reckon that the biggest surprise was the surprisingly strong performance of the Union of Rightist Forces, which won representation in 7 of the 14 regions. The reason?

“Observers tend toward the opinion that access to air time was a kind of payment from the Kremlin for the SPS’s loyalty,” the newspaper added. “We recall that the SPS, unlike Yabloko, did not take part in the ‘March of the Discontented’ that took place at the beginning of March in St. Petersburg, although the rightists condemned the harsh actions of the law-enforcers against the participants in the action.”

Yabloko, of course, were controversially not even registered in some elections, including St Petersburg, as I’ve noted previously

For me, though, I was impressed that the Communist Party managed to hang on to a reasonable share of the vote - finishing second overall, with around 16% of the votes cast.

A few more bits and pieces:

• Dmitri Minaev explains why he voted for the Union of Rightist Forces and notes an election where only two people voted.
• The Communist Party and Union of Rightist Forces are contesting the elections in Dagestan and Moscow respectively.
• The FT say that Russia’s party system isn’t an effective safety valve for social discontent.
• Following the election, Putin dismissed Central Elections Commission chairman Alexander Veshnyakov, who had previously been critical of the growing dominance of United Russia.  He was also one of the few remaining holdouts from the Yeltsin era.

Cheery stuff.

2,000 people took part in an anti-Putin protest in St Petersburg on Saturday. After a confrontation in which protestors broke through lines of riot police, 100 were arrested.

What caught my eye was what seems to be a new feeling of confidence among protestors:

No, really, nothing like this had ever happened before - people marching on the riot police. Even in August 1991, when the police appeared, people at first began to run away, but they were stopped by the announcement that the police were on our side. Here everyone knew for sure that the police were being led against us - but it didn’t scare them.
(Translated by: Global Voices Online).

The balance of power between police and protestors is always a very fine one - I wonder what will happen if it tilts during the run up to the 2008 Presidential election, or its immediate aftermath.

Ruminations on Russia has taken La Russophobe’s recent interview, and run with it, in “an attempt to lift the La Russophobe debate out of the mire.”  And he’s picked a pretty controversial topic - democracy in Russia.

He manages to cover a wide spread of issues in just one post including - most impressively - managing to condense Russia’s post-Soviet history into a mere 20 words.  The section which struck me the most, though, was this:

Democracy is not the answer to Russia’s problems, actually in today’s environment it may add to them.  Would Russia would be better if it were democratic is like asking if you prefer peace to war - the answer is axiomatic.  However, democracy is not about voting and the right to vote.  That is purely the symbol.  Real democracy can only happen when rights and responsibilities are balanced.  Russia is not there yet.

I think he’s right - the question is, of course, how does Russia get from here to there?

Sergei Ivanov, one of the two leading contenders to replace Vladimir Putin as President in 2008, has been promoted to First Deputy Prime Minister.

The move puts Ivanov on a par with Dmitri Medvedev, the other leading candidate who, until this morning, held a nominally higher government office than Ivanov. Promotion also means that Ivanov can leave behind the post of Defence Minister, and the possibility that further military abuse scandals could damage his political future.

It also means that, rather oddly, Russia now has two First Deputy Prime Ministers. Go figure.

Anyway, moving on - The Times reports that Putin has also promoted Sergei Naryshkin, his former Cabinet Chief of Staff, speculating that he may emerge as a dark horse candidate if Putin loses faith in Medvedev and Ivanov.

Personally, I wonder if Putin is actually trying to set up a close run election between two candidates he has faith in. This would allow Russia to claim that its Presidential election was truly competitive and democratic, unlike the rather one-sided elections of recent years.

Update: Arms Control Wonk has a brief bio of Anatoly Serdyukov, the new Defense Minister.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky has released a statement from jail on the new charges of embezzlement that he now faces.  Essentially, Siberia’s most famous jailbird seems to have decided that he has nothing left to play with but his martyr card:

My task in the upcoming process is to demonstrate by my own example that current Russia is a country with custom-designed rule of law, where the law enforcement system, as well as the international cooperation of law enforcement agencies, are being used not only for the fight against criminality, but also in corrupt officials’ political and personal interests. […]
I am not scared by the new verdict. Does the number of years in jail I get under the false accusations make any difference at all? No decent person in the world would believe my pursuers (supporters of “the second term of Khodorkovsky”) anyway. Platon’s and my personal destiny is defined solely by our motherland’s destiny and its face after the power change in 2008.

I do believe that the truth and fairness will prevail.

I wish I could be more optimistic.

Meanwhile, for some reasoned analysis of the latest twist in the Khodorkovsky saga, check out the Streetwise Professor’s ominously titled post - “Mr Khodorkovsky, Meet Mr Kafka”.

This weekend saw three major demonstrations in Moscow.

• An anti-Putin dissenters march, which drew about 2,000 demonstrators, including Garry Kasparov.  The were outnumbered four to one by 8,000 police, who earned their money by arresting around 50 of the protestors.
• A demonstration to remember killed Russian journalists, which drew about 250 demonstrators, and hundreds of police
• A demonstration by 70,000 (!) members of the pro-Putin youth group Nashi, to mark the 60th anniversary of the battle of Moscow.  Guess how many police turned up to supervise this rally. 

Global Voices Online has background informtion on the Dissenters March, and links to video of the demonstration can be found here.  (Which I sadly haven’t been able to view, as video isn’t enabled on the PC I’m working on today).   

It’s been a busy weekend for post-Soviet election watchers with not one, but two elections taking place - a referendum on a new constitution in Nagorno-Karabakh, and a Presidential election in Transdniester.

Nagorno Karabah

In Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave of (mostly) Armenians stuck in the middle of Azerbaijan, they’ve been voting in a referendum on their new constitution.

The constitution, which describes Nagorno-Karabakh as a “sovereign, independent state” is likely to boost hopes of independence from Azerbaijan.

Turnout was apparently above 80%, and the new constitution is expected to be approved by an overwhelming majority.

But, guess who’s unhappy with the election?

[T]he government of Azerbaijan says the referendum is being held under an illegal military occupation of Azeri territory.

This election was observed by monitors from the EU. They thought the election was well organised, free and fair.

Interfax have dug up the following comment though:

Luciano Ardesi, an observer from Italy and head of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, said the referendum observed all voting standards.

“What the people of Nagorno Karabakh did today is quite legitimate. The international community must recognize the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to either establish its own state or join Armenia,” he said.

From the wording of the Interfax article, it’s not clear if Ardesi is an official spokesman for the EU election monitors, or just some random supporter of independence for Nagorno-Karabakh who happened to be in town while they were holding a referendum. If the former, then the EU are going to have some explaining to do, if the latter then Interfax will be the ones who end up with egg on their faces.

Transdniester

Meanwhile, over in the tiny sliver of Moldvoa that doesn’t really like being a part of Moldova they’ve been electing a President this weekend. Igor Smirnov, the incumbent, is likely to romp home in an election that the cynic in me thinks probably won’t be all that free or all that fair.

Smirnov plans to use his ‘victory’ to push for union with Russia:

“We have defined a scheme: at first, this is referendum, then elections and later the achievement of the goal set at the referendum - integration with Russia. This shows once again that we are building our own state. Democracy is not drawn, it can be born,” he said.

Russia likes Transdniester’s pro-Russian government, but enough to contemplate a formal union? Fat chance.

The Moldovan government, as you’d imagine, isn’t all that impressed with the democratic credentials of Transdniester’s election:

Moldova’s Foreign Ministry has called the election in Trans-Dniester “illegal,” and has asked other countries not to send international monitors. The ballot was observed, however, by dozens of Russian and Ukrainian lawmakers.

No idea what the Ukrainians thought of the election. But the Russian observers thought it was magnificent.

The quite excellent Europhobia has also had a re-launch of sorts in the past few weeks. He’s shifted his focus back to broader European issues, resulting in posts like this second-and-a-bit anniversary of the Orange Revolution post. It’s not all doom and gloom, he concludes, but nonetheless:

There are moves afoot in the former Soviet Union. Quite what moves, I have no idea. But keep your eyes open…

I couldn’t agree more. Moves are indeed afoot.

Viktor Yanukovich was installed as Prime Minister quite smoothly, which bodes well for Ukrainian democracy. It demonstrates that Ukraine can handle conflict democratically, without resorting to renewed dictatorship.

But, at the same time, he is far more pro-Russian than Ukraine’s President, Viktor Yuschenko. And, given Russia’s increasingly pro-active approach towards rolling back the development of democratic governance in its near abroad, that scares me.

If present trends continue (and it is by no means certain that they will), it’s difficult to see Ukrainian democracy continuing to flourish.

Oh - before I go - here’s a great roundup of recent developments in Ukrainian politics by Dan McMinn.

Looks like Russian democracy has come on leaps and bounds while I’ve been away:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a measure canceling the 20-percent minimum voter turnout threshold for elections.

A mere 5% turnout is now sufficient to give an election democratic legitimacy in Russia.

The Russian Supreme Court has upheld the ban on Rodina taking part in the Moscow Duma elections. The nationalist party was barred for running a racist campaign ad.

RIA Novosti have produced a factsheet on Rodina. More background, and plenty of debate, is also available from this siberianlight.net post.

The election will be held tomorrow, and I’ll bring you an update of the results as soon after that as possible.