A couple of weeks ago, I conducted an email interview with Nicolai N. Petro, professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, on the state of democracy in today’s Russia, after having read his eye-opening 2018 journal article, “Are We Reading Russia Right?” His full biography is below the interview.

1)  In your 2018 article, “Are We Reading Russia Right?” you attempt to correct some misconceptions many in the west have about the state of democracy in Russia.  You point out, for example, that Russia has a much more diverse media that includes anti-Putin reportage and opinion.  Can you explain for readers a bit more about Russia’s media landscape and what percentage of the media that state TV actually consists of and what the demographics are who consume state TV vs. other types of media?   

Those interested in the current Russian media landscape can turn to the latest Levada Center survey, which compares the situation in 2009 and 2019. A decade ago 94% of Russians got their news from television, today only 72% do. For Russians under 25 that figure is 42%. 

More and more Russians turn to the internet for news. For Russians 35 and older it is their primary source for news. The total audience for independent media (“those that regularly publish points of view distinct from the official”) is estimated to be around 35%, but in major Russian cities it is closer to half the population.    

The Levada Center’s list of independent media sources includes only the major commercial newspapers, Russian online news sites Lenta.ru, Gazeta,ru, Life.ru, RBK, Echo of Moscow, and foreign news sites that broadcast in Russian, like Meduza.io, BBC, Radio Liberty, and Euronews. Given the widespread, cheap access to the internet in Russia, however, this list de facto knows no bounds.  

Young people, both in Russia and abroad, ask about censorship and where to get reliable information. Here is how Vladimir Posner, the patriarch of Russian television journalists, answered this question recently. Posner, who has his own talk show on Russian television, is consistently rated among Russia’s most trusted journalists:

“. . . you say, ‘where should we get information? ” You have a million options, you can read any foreign newspaper, for a few pennies. Subscribe to the New York Times and read what they write, read what they write in Le Monde, read what they write in “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” and compare. Be active.

. . . You say there is censorship on television? How to put this … on Soviet television there was censorship. There was an organization called Glavlit. You came into a room with your text, and some old fogey sat there and you left your text with them. If they put a stamp on, it meant you could broadcast. No stamp, no broadcast. That is censorship. Now we have [editorial] control. That is not censorship. Today they might say “that’s not quite what we had in mind.” What can you do? You can’t always get what you want. I can compare. I know what was then and where we are today. And I’m just happy that today I can work, because then I was forced to resign.”

2)  Another misconception people have about Russia is the state of the justice system.  Your article, along with Professor Katherine Hendley’s book Everyday Law in Russia, gives a more complete – and different – picture of the state of the justice system in Russia than many Americans often hear about from our establishment media and politicians.  Both you and Hendley also go into many of the significant reforms that have been implemented under Putin’s leadership.  Can you give readers a few examples of reforms under Putin and what the effect has been for Russia?   

Putin can rightly be called the father of the modern Russian legal system. The principles of modern criminal justice were introduced under his watch into Russia. These include habeus corpus, a juvenile justice system, trial by jury, bailiffs, and justices of the peace. And that was just during his first term (for details see my article “The Great Transformation.”)      

During Putin’s second term courts struck down compensation limits for government negligence, strengthened the rights of defendants to exculpatory evidence, provided clearer guidelines on secrecy, and ruled that compensation must be paid to persons arrested without merit. Closed judicial proceedings and pretrial detention centers have been all but eliminated, privacy protections for individuals expanded, and 24,000 free legal aid centers created.

It is a clear sign of growing public confidence in the judicial system that the number of persons turning to courts for redress of civil grievances has gone from one million in 1998, to six million in 2004, to ten million in 2012, to more than 17 million in 2016. Conventional wisdom in the West questions the independence of the Russian judiciary, but if one measures independence by the number of times that courts rule against the government and in favor of private plaintiffs in civil cases, then over the past ten years, Russian courts have been independent more than 70% of the time. 

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of these legal reforms is that, in the face of terrorism and secession, not only has Russia created a modern European legal system, it has systematically and deliberately enhanced its more humane components.   Since Putin introduced the new code of criminal procedures, acquittal rates by judges have more than doubled, and are now comparable to those of the United States. Acquittal rates in jury trials are three times higher which, since their expansion nationwide, has resulted in roughly a quarter of those indicted being acquitted.  As a result of the liberalization of the penal code, the number of inmates in penal institutions has fallen to less than half a million. Alas, we see the opposite trend in some other countries. Two decades ago per capita incarceration rates for the United States and Russia were nearly identical; today America’s rate is more than twice that of Russia.

3)  Some critics of Putin state that he was more of a reformer during his first two terms as president and has moved away from that since his return to the presidency in 2012.  Do you agree with that assessment?  If so, what do you think may explain the change?

I think Russian society has changed, and Putin along with it. In his 1999 pre-inaugural manifesto, “Russia at the Turn of the Millenium,” Putin said that Russians are accustomed to paternalism, and presumably needed a firmer hand than Yeltsin could provide. But with many of his reforms having now taken root, much less direct intervention is needed; fine tuning suffices. Over time, therefore, we have seen a dramatic extension of local self-government, with the creation of 27,000 administratively independent municipalities, and the restoration of direct gubernatorial elections. There has also been a notable shift in the response of officials to public protests. While not perfect, the law now affords considerable civil protections to those detained.

In just the past few months the convictions of Ivan Golunov and Yuri Dmitriev have been overturned, Pavel Ustinov’s sentence has been reduced on appeal, and Alexei Menyailo and the other suspects detained in the recent unsanctioned Moscow marches have all been released. The major take-away from all this should be that the system of checks and balances works!

4)  Earlier this year, a few laws were passed that limit media freedom. One involves the distribution of foreign print media.  Two others involve the punishment of the deliberate dissemination of untrue information and the public expression of disrespect of the state or society.  Can you explain how these laws would actually work and the reasoning behind them?  Does this represent a regression by the Putin government?  

Both of these laws, Federal Law № 28-ФЗ and Federal Law № 30-ФЗ, are Russian versions of laws that, in other countries, prohibit, in the first case, disinformation; and, in the second case, lese majeste. 

In the case of fake news (Law No. 28), a site can be blocked if it “threatens to endanger the life and health of citizens, if it disturbs the peace, or creates impediments to the work of strategically important infrastructure.” This determination is made by Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecommunications oversight agency, at the request of the State Procurator. The wording of the law suggests that the intent is to prevent panic and false information being spread in the event of a disaster. Like all laws, it can be abused, but I suspect that Russian courts will uphold its main thrust, on national security grounds.

In the case of lese majeste, a site can be blocked for “obvious” reference to society, the state, state symbols, the constitution, or state authorities “in an indecent manner.” Again, at the request of the State Procurator, Roskomnadzor must preliminarily block the site, pending a review by a court.

There has been considerable public criticism of these laws. The head of the Russian president’s Human Rights Commission has vowed to seek a legal review. Fortunately, the procedure for this has been in place for more than a decade, ever since the controversies that surrounded the potential designation of certain NGOS as foreign agents, and seems to work well. The number of NGOs required to register as foreign agents has fallen each year, and currently constitutes just 0.39% of all registered NGOs. Given that it is going to be well nigh impossible to implement the lese majeste law without also violating a large number of other Russian laws, I expect the matter will be reviewed sooner, rather than later. I do not favor such laws, but I have faith that the Russian legal system will ultimately find the proper balance in this matter, as it has in others.

5)  This past summer there were protests in Moscow resulting from some candidates who weren’t allowed to run for the Moscow City Council.  These protests received a lot of attention in western media.  What were these protests actually about and are they representative of a larger trend of serious dissatisfaction among Russians with the political system?  Why did the Kremlin choose to crack down on these protests?  Wouldn’t it have been wiser to just let these candidates run and then fade into oblivion as many of them often do?  

The protests were about the failure of opposition candidates to be registered. Not having been able to obtain the minimum number of local signatures (3%), some candidates deemed the signature requirement unfair and demanded that they be registered anyway. Election Commission head, Ella Pamfilova, expressed her sympathy for their plight, but pointed out that the law cannot be altered post facto. The proper procedure, she said, is to appeal for changes before the election process begins.

As for the detentions that took place, I am sympathetic to the view that law enforcement agencies should not selectively choose which laws to enforce and which to ignore. The old Roman dictum, “dura lex, sed lex” applies. Temperance and mercy are the appropriate function of the courts which, as I have already suggested, seem to be applying it liberally. One cannot expect government in a democracy not to commit mistakes; merely, that it take steps to correct these mistakes quickly, so that they do not create even more problems. Comparing Russia’s handling of its public protests to France and Hong Kong suggests to me that Russian authorities understand this, and that Russian society can now accommodate such manifestations without any serious threat to the regime.

6)  In the early years of his presidency, Putin had the regional governors removed.  This was heavily criticized in the west.  I’ve been told by some who are very knowledgeable about Russia that this was because those regional governors were extremely corrupt and an obstacle to constructive reform in the country.  What is your opinion of how Putin dealt with that situation?  Has the result been overall positive or negative?  What do you think the prospects are for local or regional self-governance in Russia in the near to medium term?  

The system has evolved. From 2005 to 2011, governors were appointed by local legislative (representative) bodies, subject to the veto of the president’s office. In 2012, the direct election of governors in regions was restored.   

There is no perfect model for local government. In many European countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland) governors are considered extensions of the national government, and simply appointed. There are advantages and disadvantages to both direct election and direct appointment, which is why I feel that the choice should be left to each country.

7)  In his book Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, Professor Stephen F. Cohen provides the following definition of reform:  “change that betters people’s lives, usually by expanding their political freedom, economic freedom, or both.  Nor is it revolution or total transformation of an existing order but normally piecemeal, gradualist improvements within a system’s broad historical, institutional, and cultural dimensions.”  He also specifies that reform does not have to be rapid or complete to qualify as genuine reform.  By this definition, do you think that Putin will likely be seen as a reformer by future historians of Russia?  

Reform can be a good thing or a bad thing. The best reformers, the ones praised by history, seem to know instinctively when to slow down reforms, and when to speed them up.

The reforms that Putin implemented in his first two terms caused enormous upheaval in Russian society, but also resulted in nine straight years of booming economic growth and budget surpluses. Even positive results, however, come with a social cost—intragenerational tensions, inflation, and corruption, to name a few.  It is important to always bear in mind that reforms are for the well-being of people, not people for the well-being of reforms. Every sustainable economic and social transition recognizes this, and therefore pauses periodically to allow people to adapt to and accept social changes. Only many years hence will it be apparent whether a given administration was able to achieve the proper balance between the two, since “by their fruits will they be known.” (Matthew 7:16).

8)  You suggest in your article that we in the west have trouble conceptualizing that democracy could exist in Russia – that we seem to think Russia is uniquely incapable of democracy.  We seem to not know how to talk about the possibility of democracy in Russia, even when it exists to some degree.  Can you expound on that idea?  

What we say about Russia, and other countries, is a reflection of what we already know to be true. Since Western cultural assumptions about Russia cannot envision it as a democracy, evidence of democratic behavior becomes invisible. For Western observers, this has the added benefit of reinforcing the familiar cultural assumptions about Russia that they grew up with.

I have a different perspective because I was raised within the culture of the Russian emigration, and came to this country as an adult. My efforts to expose my professors to a wider variety of interpretations of Russian political culture began in college, and eventually led to my first book The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995).

But passive acceptance of the mainstream narrative is only part of the reason for the West’s persistent hostility toward Russia. Another is the unstated assumption that a truly democratic Russia (if one could imagine such a thing) would have to abandon its distinctive cultural characteristics. To the extent that it retains such distinctions, in religion, social norms, and historical interpretation, it must ipso facto not be a democracy. The problem here, of course, is that “democracy” then becomes merely an aspect of Western culture, rather than an objectively definable phenomenon. De facto this makes “democracy” almost inaccessible to any culture that the West labels as “non-Western,” bringing us back to the argument made earlier about what we already know to be true.  

9)  What do you think needs to happen for U.S.-Russia relations to improve?  

As previously isolated parts of the globe become accessible, our perceptions about them change. At first, this can actually heighten fear and revulsion of the strangeness of other cultures, but over time, as larger and more diverse segments of society are exposed to each other, it tends to erode barriers.

I would therefore amend the popular social science dictum that democracies do not go to war with each other, to—countries that have extensive commercial and social contacts with each other, makes war between them unimaginable. While I am far from believing that such contacts alone will bring about world peace, they certainly seem to have made recourse to all-out war among major powers a rare occurrence. As a result, let me conclude on this optimistic note: if we civilizations can survive long enough, then time does indeed heal all wounds.

Nicolai N. Petro is professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island.  His books include, Crafting Democracy (Cornell, 2004), The Rebirth of Russian Democracy (Harvard, 1995), and Russian Foreign Policy co-authored with Alvin Z. Rubinstein (Longman, 1997).  As a Council on Foreign Relations fellow, he served as special assistant for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. He has received two Fulbright awards (one to Russia and one to Ukraine), as well as fellowships from the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.  His writings about Russia and Ukraine have appeared frequently on the web sites of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, The Nation, and The National Interest.

Apologies for the blog post that went out yesterday with a video that had been taken down. I had scheduled the post several days in advance. I will try embedding the video again – it has been reportedly re-released on YouTube – in a future blog post. In the meantime, I though I’d share a few interesting sources that go into the context of the whole Kurds/Turkey/Syria issue going on right now. I don’t have time at the moment to do a deep dive and write up my own analysis and commentary, but you may find these items useful in trying to understand this situation, which is more complicated than the corporate news and many politicians are portraying.

First we have two in-depth videos by political analyst Kim Iversen. As many regular readers have probably deduced by now, she is one of my favorites as she likes to do in-depth research on timely issues and then reports back and provides analysis on them via YouTube videos. She is, of course, heavy on foreign policy. I find her to be thorough and fair-minded in her analyses. She is pretty consistently non-interventionist as well. She tends to repeat herself a little bit, but I don’t find that too bothersome.

Below is a just published article by retired weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, providing his own experience with and knowledge about the Kurds in the region.

Why the Syrian Kurds Aren’t Necessarily Our Friends

Today, I’m featuring a guest post from James Chen. In this essay he explores how the Truman administration’s decision to use the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945 was not only morally reprehensible, but made no strategic military sense. Please feel free to offer your thoughts on this essay in the comments section. I’ll be back next week. – Natylie

According to the standard history textbooks  in U.S. high schools, Hirohito, the Japanese emperor, announced the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945, after two atomic bombs had been dropped – one at Hiroshima and one at Nagasaki – by the Americans, thus ending the second world war in the Pacific theater.

There have been constant debates regarding the decision made by President Truman to drop the atomic bombs. Most of the discussions on the subject are focused on the necessity of the use of the bombs. On one end of the spectrum, the supporters of the decision emphasize the sparing of American soldiers’ lives and the seemingly apparent effect of the bombs pushing Hirohito to announce the surrender. On the other end, the opponents claim the emperor had already sensed the inevitability of defeat and would have surrendered, given the face-saving term of keeping the emperor, without the horrible effect of the bombs.

By analyzing all the articles on both sides, in general, the supporters are usually arguing based on incorrect or insufficient historical data, and even fallacious logic. However, most of the opponents frequently fall into believing a myth, ignoring the war criminality of Emperor Hirohito, and/or disrespecting the consensus arrived at among the allies at the Potsdam Conference:  seeking unconditional surrender from Japan.

So, some discussion on the fundamentals and the revelation of historical facts should precede meaningful analysis and a final conclusion on the matter.

The first fundamental question to ask is, “How does one make any enemy surrender in a war?”

There are basically two ways to make an enemy surrender:

a. By providing acceptable (face-saving) terms or by credibly threatening to end the leader’s life, which was a common practice throughout human history in wars involving feudal kingdoms and empires, before the birth of modern democratic republics. The empire of Japan was one archetypal example of a feudal monarch.

b. By rendering your enemy unable to conduct the war.  This can be achieved in several possible ways: by eliminating the leader’s command structure; by destroying a significant portion of his fighting forces, weapon manufacturers, infrastructure, transportation and communication, industrial resources, fuel, food and water supplies; or, occupying a critical portion of his territory.

The second fundamental question is whether the Truman administration followed these guidelines to win the war. In the summer of 1945, the top U.S. government officials from the newly sworn-in president on down didn’t seem to follow these essential guidelines to win the war against Imperial Japan, though the end of war was so near.

In my estimation, they made at least five crucial mistakes:

The first mistake was not recognizing the significance of the Japanese effort to relocate their capital. It’s indisputable that from the summer of 1942 through 1945, the American Navy in the Pacific, almost single-handedly, had reduced the powerful Imperial Japanese navy down to a wreckage. All the Japanese cities were within bombing range of the Americans, using either land-based heavy to medium bombers or carrier based light bombers. However, the Japanese Army was still in nearly full strength in Manchukuo and the occupied territories of China.

Although the Japanese government was sensing ultimate defeat in the future, there was no imminent need to comply with the Allies’ unconditional surrender demand. An intense negotiation was in progress with the Soviet Union in the hopes that the Soviets would continue to stay neutral. In the meantime, due to fear of possible destruction or occupation of Tokyo by American forces, the Japanese government had already started the relocation process of moving the central government from Tokyo to Hsinjin (New Capital in Japanese, nowadays Changtsun), Manchuria, to continue their fight with nearly one million untouched Kwantung Army soldiers.

The Japanese imperial military thinking followed the doctrine of the traditional Chinese military:  when an empire still has the strength to fight offensively, it should not remain in defensive mode; when it still has the ability to defend itself, it should not try to retreat; when it still has the option to retreat, it should not consider surrendering.  For the emperor, when surrendering is allowed, there’s no need to fight to the death, nor to commit suicide. It is fair to say that the Japanese government would not have considered surrendering unless Manchuria was invaded. Consequently, dropping an atomic bomb on Nagasaki would just waste a bomb and slaughter a huge number of civilians for no purpose.

The second mistake was continuing to indulge in an unproven myth to the point where no effort was made to destroy the Japanese commanding structure.

For reasons seldom discussed, there was a major myth clung to in the U.S. Department of War during this time – a myth that neither the Chinese nor the Soviets embraced.  That is if the Japanese Emperor were harmed, the Japanese would fight to their last. This represented completely illogical thinking for there’s never been such a phenomenon observed nor recorded in the whole of human history.

History actually shows the opposite to be true. Whenever the head of a feudal monarchy was killed, the monarchy either collapsed or suffered an existential crisis.  By not threatening Hirohito’s life directly then, the American government was violating the essential guidelines of war and choosing to slaughter more Japanese soldiers and civilians unnecessarily, while prolonging the conflict.

The third mistake was not knowing how and where to use the atomic bomb.

The Department of War had no comprehensive planning regarding how to use the atomic bombs to achieve the strategic goals of war – i.e. to shorten the length of war while reducing allied casualties.

Emperor Hirohito had already demonstrated he had no remorse over the high number of Japanese civilian casualties incurred after the incendiary bombing of Tokyo in March of 1945 by American bombers. Furthermore, he again demonstrated his disregard by refusing to surrender after President Truman had threatened a “prompt and utter destruction” to his country.

Bombing militarily irrelevant cities would not reduce allied casualties and killing civilians would not shorten the war since it clearly was not going to make a self-proclaimed divine emperor blink.

The fourth mistake was not sufficiently coordinating with other allied forces, mainly the Soviets.

During the Yalta conference in February of 1945, then-President Roosevelt acquired consent from Stalin to send troops to the Far East to help the Americans defeat the Japanese.  During the Potsdam conference a few months later in July, Stalin affirmed this promise to President Truman to invade Manchuria in early August.

If the American government would have made efforts to support the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, they would have quickly observed the Japanese government changing their stance regarding surrender since, by that time, the Japanese would have realized their retreat was going to be cut off and their Kwantung Army destroyed.

The fifth mistake was trying to start another war.

Instead of solely focusing on finishing the on-going war as quickly and justly as possible, the Truman administration appears to have had another priority – starting what would become the Cold War with the Soviets.  Truman had the Potsdam conference postponed for two weeks in order for the first atomic bomb testing in history to be conducted.  Then, during the conference, Truman was informed of the successful explosion. The meeting subsequently turned more confrontational.  A couple of weeks later, on July 26, the United States, the British Empire and the Republic of China issued the unconditional surrender declaration to the Japanese government. It would have been much more effective had the Soviet Union been included in the declaration.

But Truman seemed to care more about ending the war soon enough that the Soviets would take less territory from Japan, demonstrating the power of the atomic bomb to intimidate the Soviets (who would be emerging from WWII as the world’s other superpower), and keeping the Japanese imperial system intact so it could serve the same purpose as that of the Anti-Comintern Pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire in 1936.  This would finish the current war in such a way as to usher in the cold war – a situation benefiting American capitalists whose profits had skyrocketed from war mobilization.

The third question to be asked is how did history really play out?

After having been informed of the Potsdam Declaration, urging the unconditional surrender of Japan, Emperor Hirohito did not convene any cabinet meeting on the subject of surrender.

Meanwhile, on August 6, without waiting for the incoming invasion of Manchuria by the Soviets, President Truman rushed to drop the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima, killing 100,000 Japanese, of which the absolute majority were civilians. It was hardly a military target. Unsurprisingly, Emperor Hirohito did not even bother to respond.

On August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, with the mighty Red Army crossing the border into Manchuria after midnight.

The Japanese cabinet of six convened at 10:00am, August 9, ten hours after the Soviet invasion, following the traditional doctrines of war i.e. when retreat is not possible, surrender is the next step.

Unfortunately, another unnecessary bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki at around 11:00am, killing another 60,000 hapless civilians. Hence, the two atomic bombs were dropped in the wrong places, at the wrong times, on the wrong groups of people, for the wrong purpose.

On August 15th, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender to the Japanese people and the Allies. Afterwards, General MacArthur exonerated the indisputable culpability of Emperor Hirohito, suggesting the emperor only had the power to end a war, but no power to start a war. And, Japan was quickly rehabilitated into an Anti-Soviet bastion.

Dropping two atomic bombs on noncombatants is horrible.  However, it possibly would have been worse if the Soviets had not invaded Manchuria on August 9, 1945. According to U.S. government documents, the Truman administration had a total of twelve atomic bombs in hand. Had Hirohito not had reason to finally surrender, there could have been a total of 12 cities destroyed and around one million Japanese, mainly civilians, killed.

All of the foregoing facts beg the question:  could Hirohito have interpreted the bombing of irrelevant civilians as a message, “Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you if you don’t surrender?” We’ll probably never know for sure, but upon closer scrutiny, the whole approach to Japan by the Truman administration doesn’t make much logical or strategic sense for the purpose of ending the war as quickly as possible with the fewest allied casualties.

One thing is for sure:  If the Americans cannot learn history in a serious and critical way, our days of being the leader of the world are numbered.

James J. Chen has had a life-long interest in history, politics, and the humanities. He has begun writing on these topics, with a particular emphasis on the the U.S.’s role in the evolution of the modern world.  He lives and practices medicine in the San Francisco Bay Area. His website address is: https://jamesjchen.wixsite.com/save-the-country.

Yesterday, the Trilateral Contact Group, which includes representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, agreed to employ the Steinmeier Formula as a first step toward implementation of the 2015 Minsk Agreement. Russian news outlet TASS reported that each of the members signed off on the plan:

In late 2015, then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier put forward a plan that later became known as the “Steinmeier formula.” The plan stipulates that a special status should be granted to Donbass in accordance with the Minsk Agreements. In particular, the document envisages that Ukraine’s special law on local self-governance will take effect in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on a temporary basis on the day of local elections, becoming permanent after the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) issues a report on the vote’s results. The idea was endorsed at the Normandy Four meeting in Paris on October 2, 2015, and has been known as the Steinmeier formula since.

Bloomberg reported that a Normandy Four format meeting would be arranged for the near future according to Ukrainian President Zelensky who made some additional public comments after announcement of the breakthrough:

But Zelenskiy has said special status for Donbas won’t include changes to Ukraine’s constitution, which lays out goals for membership of the EU and NATO. The Kremlin opposes its neighbor’s plans for Western integration, which sparked tensions between the two former allies back in 2013.

Special-status legislation will be drafted by parliament in “close cooperation and consultation with society,” Zelenskiy said. “No red lines will be crossed in the new law. That’s why there will be no capitulation.”

This is not consistent with the parameters of the agreement that Germany and France hammered out at Minsk as reported on at the time by Der Spiegel, which indicated that the DPR and LPR would have a veto over whether Kiev could join NATO. I’m having trouble imagining that Russia would go along with any agreement that does not include a block on NATO membership for Ukraine.

But, of course, Zelensky has to take this stance for domestic political reasons. Although surveys show that Ukrainians in general want the conflict in the east resolved, the dangerous segment of ultra-nationalists, who gained disproportionate influence by serving as the muscle for the 2014 coup and subsequent civil war, will oppose any concessions to the Donbas rebels. And, given how wet behind the ears Zelensky is, I don’t know what possible leverage he could use to try to temper the ultra-nationalists and the trouble they can potentially cause, especially in light of the fact that the Ukrainian Interior Ministry is still essentially controlled by them.

Although I’m glad that talks are moving forward, I’m skeptical of them ultimately being successful in the near future.

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According to a recent article by the Carnegie Moscow Center, Russia is enjoying a budget surplus and, in turn, its National Wealth Fund is flush with rubles:

The main debate in Russia’s economic bloc right now is how best to spend the super profits from oil exports that are building up in the NWF. In accordance with budget rules, oil revenues in excess of $40 per barrel are channeled into the fund, and the threshold of 7 percent of GDP above which the law allows the treasure chest to be opened up will be passed by the end of this year. That means that in 2020, the treasury will have almost 2 trillion rubles ($31 billion) in its coffers that hasn’t been allocated for anything, and in 2021, if oil prices have not decreased drastically, more than 4 trillion rubles, according to calculations by the Finance Ministry. 

It goes on to say that, since allocations have already been made in the budget for government-sanctioned investments in health, education and infrastructure, this fund is the one remaining source of potential infusions of money to the private sector. According to the authors, this translates into the last possible source for corrupt Russian fat cats. That commentary didn’t interest me, but the discussion of the wealth fund in general and conjecture as to what it might be spent on – if indeed it’s opened up for spending at all – got me to thinking. When I researched the Russian economy for Chapter 10 of my forthcoming book, it was clear that the financial system in Russia is still limited and that this has led to little available credit to small and medium sized businesses, known as SME’s. Why couldn’t some of this money in the national wealth fund be used to create a mechanism for providing loans to SME’s?

Perhaps someone who is more well versed in economics than me could provide an explanation for why this wouldn’t work. Or maybe someone else who understands some vagaries of the Russian political system better could explain why this idea wouldn’t go over. To me, it seems like a resource available that could potentially serve as a solution to a problem.

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As many readers have probably heard, climate youth activist Greta Thunberg traveled to the U.S. and spoke before the UN General Assembly last week. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that the 16-year old ripped the world leaders in the audience a new one regarding their negligence in being responsible stewards of the environment that her generation will be inheriting.

Climate change and extreme weather have been having a major impact on Russia recently. And, although the country has not been a hotbed of activism on the issue, the teenager has been inspiring some Russian youth who recognize the urgency of the problem, including a young member of the Duma. In fact, Vasily Vlasov, a member of the parliament’s Natural Resources Committee, has invited Thunberg to speak before the Duma. According to the Moscow Times:

“I invite you to give a speech to Russian youth in the State Duma on any date convenient for you,” lawmaker Vasily Vlasov wrote to Thunberg, according to excerpts of his letter published by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency Tuesday.

Vlasov, 24, a senior member of the Duma’s Natural Resources Committee, highlighted his youth in the letter sent to the Swedish embassy…

“We as the younger generation must not remain silent when it comes to our future, and we won’t allow ourselves to be condemned to extinction,” Vlasov wrote….

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry this month acknowledged that Russia, the world’s fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is heating faster than the rest of the world. While the country is in the process of ratifying the 2015 Paris climate accord, outside trackers say Russia still lags behind the rest of the world in climate action implementation.

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I’ve had the manuscript of my book reviewed by some beta readers and will be working on some revisions next week. After that, it can go to the copy editor. I’m probably looking at a winter publication date. I will, of course, provide updates as the process moves along. Thank you to everyone for your support.

Additionally, I’m working on an interview with a Russia scholar, which should tentatively be published in the next couple of weeks. So that I can focus on those two projects, I will be having a guest post next week.

Nancy Pelosi recently announced that an impeachment inquiry would be initiated against President Trump over a recent phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he discussed several domestic political issues, including the Crowdstrike report and a brief mention of the Mueller investigation. Trump also brought up the Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired in 2016 at the behest of then-vice president Joe Biden and asked Zelensky to look into what Biden had done with respect to the prosecutor.

In 2014, Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, had been appointed to the Board of Directors of Burisma – a Ukrainian natural gas company that had been under investigation for corruption – and was being compensated at $50,000 a month for his position. No one with two brain cells to rub together believes that Hunter – who had no qualifications or experience for this position – would have gotten it if his father hadn’t been Joe Biden who happened to be serving as the equivalent of a colonial administrator over Ukraine as the west had just supported a coup in that country only months before. This is nepotism and nepotism is a form of political corruption. If this had been Trump and one of his children, the same people who are arguing with me on Twitter that Biden didn’t do anything wrong would be singing a different tune.

Joe Biden has admitted that he threatened the Ukrainian leadership with the withholding of $1 billion in aid if they didn’t fire the prosecutor in power at the time. It’s possible that part of of his motivation in doing so was to torpedo investigation into the company for which his son was currently serving on the Board.

What Trump did in this phone call was inappropriate – requesting help from a foreign power to help him get dirt on a political rival. A censure by Congress would be appropriate. But, for the following reasons, I believe impeachment is not.

First, there is a credibility gap and Trump will easily be able to use it to his advantage. It has been clear from the moment that Trump was elected that most of the political class, including the Democratic Party establishment, the establishment media, and a segment of the educated professional class was repulsed. They have subsequently engaged in a series of actions to try to deny Trump’s legitimacy by accusing him of colluding with a foreign power to win his position and teaming up with the notorious intelligence community to engineer a case for impeachment. For over two years the American public was subjected to a divisive farce in the hopes of impeaching Trump as essentially a traitor. The whole thing backfired as the Mueller report was forced to acknowledge that there was no evidence for collusion and Mueller’s personal testimony before Congress amounted to what journalist Matt Taibbi described as the equivalent of a guy “wandering in traffic.”

Now, less than two months after that debacle ended, we have another dubious attempt to initiate an impeachment process. While Trump did do something inappropriate here, the Democrats do not have clean hands with respect to similar kinds of election shenanigans as Ukrainian government officials have admitted actively helping the Clinton campaign in 2016. Where is the outrage and sanctimonious hand-wringing about this?

All of this makes it appear that the Democratic Party establishment is simply deadset on pursuing impeachment in a vindictive manner against Trump. Trump will, in turn, be able to spin this to his base as the following: “These people couldn’t beat me at the ballot box in 2016 and they are afraid they won’t be able to beat me at the ballot box in 2020, so they have to keep trying to impeach me.”

It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that there will not be sufficient votes in the Republican-controlled Senate to convict Trump and force him from office. So, it’s hard to see what the point of this whole exercise is, especially considering that the inappropriate behavior in question is relatively minor compared to many other transgressions.

This leads me to my second point. Lest impeachment simply be turned into a partisan weapon to go after inappropriate behavior that can be found by politicians in both parties – including presidents – it needs to be reserved for the most egregious crimes. War crimes or assassinating an American without due process of law are two examples that would rise to such a level. But Nancy Pelosi herself is on video in 2006 “pledging” that impeachment was off the table for George W. Bush in the case of the Iraq war.

So, according to Nancy Pelosi, if a president starts an illegal war based on lies which leads to the killing of hundreds of thousands (or even more than a million, depending on which estimates you look at) and the destabilization of an entire region, impeachment will not be considered. Period. But if a president goes after one of her party’s leaders in an inappropriate manner, then the impeachment option will be used.

Let that sink in for a moment.

If impeachment is not reserved for the most egregious crimes then – as analyst Kim Iverson has noted – the American people will simply view it as a message from the political class: “you made the wrong choice and we’re going to step in and fix it for you.”

Don’t be surprised if this whole affair backfires when Trump is not convicted or removed from office, leaving his base fired up and Trump rubbing it in Democrats’ faces that their extra-electoral tricks to effectively overturn the 2016 election results have been a failure. In the meantime, it will have served as another lengthy distraction away from emphasis on real concrete issues that candidates like Sanders, Warren, Gabbard and Yang want to focus on while the media and Democratic establishment use the impeachment circus to suck all the air out of the room during debates and news coverage.

Bottom line: Instead of focusing on partisan Kabuki theater, the Democrats need to be focused on nominating a strong candidate who can defeat Trump in 2020 and come into office with a substantive policy mandate. Unless, of course, they’re not truly interested in beating Trump with such a candidate.

**Below is an in-depth interview with Aaron Mate regarding this latest impeachment imbroglio on the Jimmy Dore show: