A study from Russia’s largest bank, along with government statistics, indicates that, while still slow,  both consumer confidence and year-on-year figures on industrial output, are trending in a positive direction.

As reported by Business New Europe’s Intellinews, Sberbank’s regular survey of consumer attitudes showed an uptick in consumer optimism in all the 6 areas that are surveyed on:

The sixteenth installment of the survey, compiled by Russia’s biggest bank, has for the first time shown an increase in each of its six indices, with confidence in prospects of personal wealth, country wealth, and the ability to make big ticket purchases all improving in the second quarter of 2016 compared with the first quarter.

….Rising wages and lower unemployment were the driving forces behind the mood improvement in Russia, with Sberbank noting that 25% of respondents got a pay rise in 2016, while unemployment fell from 12.1% last quarter to 11.3% in the latest round of polling. Job security has also improved, with the 39% of Ivanovs who are afraid of being fired down from 44% last quarter.

While conditions for the average Russian family have eased in the last three months, the index suggests that few Russians believe that the economy is completely out of the woods, with the “big purchase conditions” index still deep in negative territory, at -26%.

Intellinews also notes that the lowering of inflation played a significant role in fueling consumer optimism.  Another report over at Russia Direct goes into more detail about how the inflation rate soared in 2014-2015, particularly with respect to food prices, and how it has been steadily decreasing since the end of 2015.  Credit is given to the policies of Elvira Nebuillina, head of the Russian Central Bank.  (Note:  This analysis leans toward a neoliberal slant – NB)

The Central Bank pursues a consistent policy of inflation targeting, trying to use monetary methods to control price dynamics – and in particular, adjusting the prime rate, which during the crisis, the Central Bank has changed 10 times, and which now stands at 10.5 percent. To a large extent, it was the policy of the Central Bank that has contributed to the sharp slowdown in the country’s inflation rate.

The Central Bank of Russia considers this slowing down in the growth of prices as a long-term trend. In any case, given the current positive price dynamics, it has lowered its forecast for the inflation rate at the end of 2016 to 5-6 percent.

The Ministry of Finance agrees with this forecast, predicting by the end of 2016, the lowest inflation rate in Russia’s recent history – 6 percent.

….Last year, the main drivers of inflation were growing food prices – something painfully felt by the population. Now the situation has changed. In its reports, the Central Bank has noted that food prices grew moderately in May, on an annual basis, in comparison with the prices being charged for industrial goods and services. This was made possible by the “high level of supply of agricultural products, and the successful active implementation of the import substitution program in the food industry.”

Another Intellinews report discusses the most recent year-on-year industrial output numbers, which showed better than expected growth.

Russia’s industrial output put in  unexpected ahead of consensus growth in June,  increasing by 1.7% y/y and 0.3% m/m in seasonal and calendar adjusted terms, according to a Rosstat report published on July 14.

….The growth beat the Reuters consensus expectation of 0.6% y/y growth in June and the Ministry of Economic Development’s forecast of 0.3% y/y growth.

….Most notably, manufacturing output growth continued to strengthen in June, posting 1.6% y/y growth versus 0.3% y/y seen in May and making the fastest monthly y/y rate in two years.

….Sberbank sees import substitution and a moderate recovery in investment demand as the main growth drivers in the manufacturing sector, with the food industry being the main benefactor from ruble depreciation in terms of output. But textiles, clothing, footwear, and production of pulp and wood also gained.

….”We would also like to point out the growth in the output of tractors (15.6% y-o-y in 1H16) and trucks (4.4%), which may point to an improvement in investment,” Sberbank CIB notes, reiterating its generally positive views that the Russian economy will see a moderate upturn in the second half of the year.

….The usually more conservative Alfa Bank also welcomed the “strong improvement” of the industrial output in June, beating the bank’s 0.5% y/y growth expectations.

The “gray” economy – or the number of people earning a living off the record by being paid under the table –  is a major issue in Russia.   It adversely affects the government’s budget via lower tax revenue.  By some estimates, the gray economy comprises as much as 46% of GDP.  As Bloomberg reports, the Putin government is looking into way to address the issue.

Legalizing the shadow workforce alone would boost GDP by one percentage point, according to Boris Titov, the Kremlin’s business ombudsman. No longer limited to retail trade, Titov says it’s becoming a hive of small-scale manufacturing, developing into an “economy of simple things.” Businesses can be tempted into the open if the government can ensure fewer regulatory checks and a patent system catering to the self-employed, Titov said.

The hurdles are many. While Russia has surged by 61 spots in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index since 2013 to 51st this year, dealing with construction permits still takes almost nine months Its property rights, judicial independence and the burden of government regulation were all rated below the 100th spot among 140 nations in the World Economic Forum’s 2015-2016 Global Competitiveness Report.

The government plans to adopt a law this fall freeing several categories of self-employment from taxes and easing their way to registration, leaving them to pay social levies only, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said in an interview.

“We understand that only the Tax Service will lead them out of the shadows,” he said. “Now everything is being automatized, financial discipline is increasing. I think that in a couple of years, evading taxes will be extremely difficult.”

Among the most far-reaching ideas yet for nudging businesses out of the shadow economy is a proposal by the Finance Ministry to cut the payroll tax that employers pay on salaries, three officials familiar with the discussions said last month. If a lower levy is accompanied by an increase in the value-added tax, the measures could help authorities collect about 30 percent of the amount of salaries companies pay in cash, which the Finance Ministry has estimated is costing the government as much as 2 trillion rubles a year in lost taxes.

The need to shrink the size of the shadow economy was the subject of a meeting held at the Finance Ministry on Tuesday, which discussed fighting under-the-table salaries to increase tax collection.

By creating the conditions that would motivate entrepreneurs to come clean, Russia may pave the way for a revival of small and medium-sized businesses, whom Putin sees as a foundation for the economy. Such companies employ a fifth of the workforce, far short of the government’s goal to raise the level to at least half the total.

 

Forms of government are forged mainly in the fire of practice, not in the vacuum of theory. They respond to national character and to national realities….But when Soviet power has run its course, or when its personalities and spirit begin to change (for the ultimate outcome could be one or the other), let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of “democratic.” Give them time; let them be Russians; let them work out their internal problems in their own manner.  The ways by which peoples advance toward dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life.  There is nothing less understandable to foreigners, nothing in which foreign interference can do less good.

-George F. Kennan, diplomat and author of U.S. containment policy toward the Soviet Union

****************

 

(https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2015-11-18/stephen-f-cohen-ukrainian-crisis-its-not-all-putins-fault)

Stephen Cohen, in his latest weekly interview with John Batchelor, discusses Obama’s speech at NATO’s Warsaw Summit – the hawkish Obama, and his reported plan to propose a nuclear arms treaty with Russia – the dovish Obama.   In an accompanying article by Cohen in The Nation, the Russia scholar wonders what we are to make of the president’s mixed actions on foreign policy:

In last week’s broadcast, Cohen and Batchelor discussed reports that Obama wants to achieve some kind of rapprochement with “Putin’s Russia” as part of his foreign-policy legacy instead of the new Cold War. Last week’s evidence was confirmed by reports that Obama had proposed to Putin real US-Russian military cooperation against the Islamic State in Syria. This week there was an additional report that Obama is preparing to propose to Putin new mutual steps in the area of nuclear-arms control, including taking warheads off “high alert” status and adoption of a “no-first-use” doctrine by Washington and Moscow. Both measures would considerably reduce the growing risk of nuclear war.

 

Unlike Europe’s pro-détente “dove” leaders, Obama has been extremely inconsistent in words and deeds, both on Syria and in regard to the NATO buildup and Ukraine. His speech at the Warsaw Summit, for example, was extremely hawkish, though overshadowed by his need to respond on television to the events in Dallas. (Cohen wonders how many American viewers asked themselves, “What is he doing there, anyway?”) Whether Obama’s irresolute conduct on these vital issues of war or peace is due to his own irresolute nature in foreign policy or to the high-level struggle we know to be under way inside his own administration is not yet clear.

************

 

 

German Newspaper Der Spiegel conducted an interview, published on July 13th, with Sergey Karaganov, who is the “honorary head of the influential Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, which develops geopolitical strategy concepts for Russia. In May, the council issued new foreign policy premises. The council includes politicians, economists and former military and intelligence officers. Karaganov is an advisor to Vladimir Putin’s presidential administration and deacon of the elite Moscow college National Research University Higher School of Economics.”

In the interview, Karaganov reiterates the lack of trust among the Russian political elite toward the west as a result of NATO expansion, provocations, and harsh propaganda:

We currently find ourselves in a situation where we don’t trust you in the least, after all of the disappointments of recent years. And we are reacting accordingly. There is such a thing as tactical surprise. You should know that we are smarter, stronger and more determined.

With respect to the recent mobilization of troops to Poland and the three Baltic states, Karaganov said:

This chatter that we intend to attack the Baltics is idiotic. Why is NATO stationing weapons and equipment there? Imagine what would happen to them in the case of a crisis. The help offered by NATO is not symbolic help for the Baltic states. It is a provocation. If NATO initiates an encroachment — against a nuclear power like ourselves — it will be punished.

On the NATO-Russia Council, Karaganov dismissed it as virtually useless:

It is no longer a legitimate body. Plus, NATO has become a qualitatively different alliance. When we began the dialogue with NATO, it was a defensive alliance of democratic powers. But then, the NATO-Russia Council served as cover for and the legalization of NATO expansion. When we really needed it — in 2008 and 2014 — it wasn’t there.

Read the full interview here.

***********

It appears that Kerry has concluded his 3-hour talks with Putin and 8-hour talks with Lavrov regarding “cooperation” in Syria and, according to Alexander Mercouris, the lack of a public statement or substantive joint press conference, indicates a deadlock:

As we reported before, the US offer to Russia – essentially an offer of a junior place in a US led coalition against Jabhat Al Nusra and Daesh in return for Russia’s agreement to the eventual overthrow of President Assad – was hardly one to appeal to Moscow.  The Russians, in what look like difficult talks, will have pointed this out. 

Though reports of the talks are sketchy, it seems the Russians instead tried to pressure Kerry and the US to return to the course the two sides agreed back in February: a “cessation of hostilities” between the Syrian government and its opponents excluding terrorist groups like Daesh, Jabhat Al Nusra and their affiliates, the separation of US backed rebels from Jabhat Al Nusra, and an exchange of information between the US and the Russians to enable each of them to continue with their respective bombing campaigns against Jabhat Al Nusra and Daesh without either interfering with the other.  

It is now clear that that course is no longer acceptable to the hardliners in the US because it leaves Syrian President Assad in place and hands the initiative to the Russians.  That is why Kerry went to Moscow: to get the Russians to agree to scrap the February agreement by dangling them an offer which would enable the US to achieve its objectives in Syria in return for what were actually no more than symbolic concessions to the Russians. 

It is possible the Russians also sought to build on the February agreeing by suggesting – in a counter to Kerry’s proposal – that the US and the Russians actually exchange targeting information so as to guide each other’s bombers, thereby in effect merging their bombing campaigns whilst however maintaining their separate chains of command.  However that would have made Russia an equal partner of the US in the military campaign in Syria, an idea that is most unlikely to appeal to the US, and which would have meant the US effectively abandoning their effort to overthrow President Assad.  If the Russians did make such a proposal, Kerry would almost certainly have rejected it.

********

In Ukraine,  the Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarch – as compared to the break-away Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarch which started in 1992, planned a procession of peace in the country, with one portion of the procession set to start from the east of the country on July 3rd and another from the west on July 10th, converging in Kiev on July 26th.

Canadian academic Halyna Mokrushyna, who has written several on-the-ground reports from Ukraine provided more details:

An all-Ukrainian cross procession for peace, initiated by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate -MP), is taking place in Ukraine. Many thousands of people have joined the procession in the polarized regions of eastern and western Ukraine in an expression of peace, civil reconciliation and an end to the civil war that has wracked eastern Ukraine. The procession started from two opposite parts of Ukraine. In the East, processioners departed from the Holy Assumption Sviatohirsk Lavra in Donetsk region (approximately 150 km to the north of Donetsk city) on July 3. On July 9, another procession started in Western Ukraine, from the Holy Assumption Pochaiv Lavra in Ternopil region. The two processions will meet in Kyiv on July 26, 2016. They will join on Vladimir Hill and will walk together to Holy Assumption Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra, where solemn masses will be held.

….The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate emerged in 1992 as the result of a schism within Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This was an effort to create an independent, truly ‘Ukrainian’ Orthodox church. Prior to 1992, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church existed within the Moscow Patriarchate as a self-governing church with the rights of wide autonomy, which it preserves today. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate is headed by Patriarch Filaret, a former Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In 1995, he proclaimed himself “Patriarch of Kyiv and of all Rus-Ukraine”. In 1997 he was excommunicated from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate for his schismatic actions.

According to the 2011 data of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) remains the largest in Ukraine. It has 12,340 parishes, 191 monasteries and employs 9,922 clerics. By contrast, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate has 4,482 parishes, 49 monasteries and 3,088 clerics. It is not recognized as a canonic church.

Since the beginning of civil war in eastern Ukraine in April 2014, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate took a neutral position, not taking sides and serving the needs of parishioners on both sides of the conflict. Many experts believe that the church of the Moscow Patriarchate is one of few institutions which could preserve Ukraine as a country. Because of its pacifist position, the church has been harshly criticized by ‘patriotic’ Ukrainian politicians and public figures for being an ‘agent’ of Kremlin, an outpost of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

….The Union of Orthodox Journalists reports that over 10,000 people started the procession on July 9, 2016 from Pochaiv Lavra in Western Ukraine. Video can be seen here. Around 1,000 people started the procession from Sviatohirsk Lavra on July 3. Video can be seen here.

On July 10, the cross procession from the east reached Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Over 10,000 people walked through the streets of the city wearing icons. Old, men, women with little kids and babies walk for peace in Ukraine.

Ultra-nationalists, however, expressed displeasure at the planned procession and possible disruptions were announced, stating that the procession was a provocation of the Kremlin.

Interfax Religion (a private Russian media outlet), reported that Neo-Nazis activists from Right Sector have, in fact, attacked and harassed the procession:

As the website of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate reported, a total of 20 nationalists marched in a parallel to the Christians and interrupted the prayer for peace with shouts and insults. Moreover, the far-right extremists drove in constant close proximity to the sacred procession.

The nationalists marched parallel to the procession holding red and black banners. According to witnesses, the radicals shouted slogans, alternating them with obscenities addressed towards the participants in the procession.

The participants in the procession were filmed and threatened. Some of the nationalists attempted to break through the procession to the sacred relics, but were prevented from doing so.

 

(John Kerry arrives in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin; https://www.rt.com/op-edge/351310-obama-offer-russian-cooperation-syria/)

Veteran international journalist, Finian Cunningham, in a recent oped, wonders if the Obama administrations’s latest offer of cooperation between Washington and Moscow in Syria is too good to be true:

Throughout, despite the Western media disinformation campaign, the Kremlin has remained steadfast in its stated mission: To defend the sovereign state of Syria from an array of terror groups.

And quagmire this ain’t. Russia’s military forces, with relatively few losses, have transformed the five-year war in Syria, helping the Syrian army to put the illegally armed militants decisively on the defensive. Syrian state forces have recaptured huge swathes of territory, and the once seemingly formidable head-chopping jihadists and their so-called Caliphate are staring at defeat.

It may be too early to declare “mission accomplished” for Russia. But the situation on the ground certainly vindicates Putin’s strategy.

US media reports quote US officials as saying that the al-Qaeda-linked jihadists are telling their cadres that the Caliphate is on the brink of collapse. Significantly, too, this is also the context in which Turkey has shifted to a conciliatory position towards Russia and is even proffering a normalization of relations with Syria.

Washington and its regional allies, including Turkey, appear to be tacitly admitting that the covert military operation that they have been fueling for regime change in Syria is all but lost.

This is the context by which to read the latest “offer” from the Obama administration to Russia for military cooperation in Syria. After months of deprecating Russia’s intervention and stubbornly refusing to coordinate “anti-terror” efforts, Washington now appears to be reaching out to assist Russia.

….Leaving aside the question about whether Russia really needs “US assistance” in pursuing its own very effective anti-terror operation, the giveaway condition being demanded by Washington is that it wants the Russian-Syrian offensive to be curtailed. And that is the issue.

Western media claims that terror groups like Nusra and Daesh [ISIS] are “embedded” with “moderate rebels” is a charade. The inference is that the “mingling” is an unfortunate accident, whenever in reality there is negligible distinction between most of the illegally armed groups.

What Washington wants therefore in its “offer for cooperation” is to insert some form of restraint over what is an otherwise successful Russian-Syrian anti-terror campaign – a campaign that has salvaged Syria from a foreign-backed covert war for regime change.

The other giveaway to Washington’s real agenda is the second condition for its “cooperation”. Radio Free Europe reports:“Washington also wants Russia to help start a political transition that would ultimately end the Assad family’s four-decade reign.”

In other words, Obama’s “Syria plan” is less about cooperating with Russia to “defeat terror groups” and all about inveigling Russia to assist unwittingly in its overarching strategic objective of regime change in Syria.

**********

(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-16/erdogans-counter-coup-begins-turkey-purges-2745-judges-prosecutors-arrests-hundreds)

Things looked pretty iffy in Turkey going into the weekend as an attempt was made to oust president Erdogan.   It now appears that the coup attempt failed.  Here are two analyses presenting somewhat different takes on the coup.  The first is from Alexander Mercouris at The Duran.  He believes the U.S. had no involvement and that the entire Turkish military supported the failed coup.  His analysis can be read at:

http://theduran.com/turkey-anatomy-coup/

 

The second is from Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge who argues that it was essentially a false flag operation to provide a smokescreen for Erdogan to crack down on critics in the judiciary and other government institutions amid reports of purges of thousands of judges.  That analysis can be read at:

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-16/erdogans-counter-coup-begins-turkey-purges-2745-judges-prosecutors-arrests-hundreds

The Young Turks had an interesting discussion about the attempted coup as it was unfolding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNO3sc6-RQ

 

 

 

Russia Beyond the Headlines reports that a new poll reveals most Russians view freedom as the ability to pursue the career of one’s choice and freedom of expression.

This as the Russian president signed a new anti-terrorism bill into law, which contains some controversial changes.  RT provided details on some of the main provisions:

The anti-terrorist package of bills was drafted in April 2016 by a group of lower house lawmakers, who described it as a response to the bombing of an A-231 jet liner in Egypt in October 2015 and the terrorist attacks in Paris in November of that year.

 

The document contains a separate criminal article that orders up to 10 years in prison for anyone engaging in international terrorism, and up to 15 years behind bars for anyone found guilty of financing terrorist groups. Attracting new recruits to a terrorist organization was also criminalized, and will be punished with prison terms of between five and 10 years.

 

The new bill also lowers the age threshold for terrorist crimes, such as terrorist attacks and hostage taking, to 14 years from the current 16. Presently the age of minors in Russia is 16, with exceptions made for such crimes as murder, rape, kidnapping and several others. For these, criminals are deemed to be responsible from the age of 14.

 

Another provision stipulates fines of between 300,000 and 1 million rubles ($4,600 – $15,400) or prison terms ranging from five to seven years for public calls to terrorism or justifying terrorist crimes, including via the internet.

 

Among others, the bill drew criticism from Edward Snowden, who has been given refuge in Russia:

#Putin has signed a repressive new law that violates not only human rights, but common sense. Dark day for #Russia…  Signing the #BigBrother law must be condemned. Beyond political and constitution consequences, it is also a $33b+ tax on Russia’s internet.

 

Parliamentary elections are coming up in September in the lower house (Duma) and Russia will reportedly invite U.S. election monitors to participate in oversight of the polls if Washington agrees to reciprocate and allow Russian monitors to help oversee U.S. elections:

State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin has said that monitors from the United States would be welcomed at Russian polls, but added that such steps required mutuality.

 

“We have no secrets from anyone but of course we would like to see decent and honest people observing our elections. It is evident that there are decent and honest people in the United States, including among their parliamentarians, but still this issue needs to be worked on,” RIA Novosti quoted Naryshkin as saying.

 

The Duma chief also told reporters that such steps should be mutual, adding that he personally had doubts about the possibility of such cooperation, given the experience that Russian monitors had with previous US elections.

 

“This is difficult to imagine if we recall some episodes from previous US polls when a state prosecutor threatened to arrest us if we did not keep a distance of at least 20 meters from a polling station,” Naryshkin said.

 

In late May, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it plans to invite representatives of four international political blocs and organizations to this year’s parliamentary elections. The invitations will be extended to representatives of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

Putin had two important phone calls over the past 10 days, the first with President Obama regarding cooperation in Syria as well as addressing the Ukraine conflict, in which there are still sporadic flare-ups which have worsened recently amid reports of an increased build-up by the Kiev government of troops and weapons near the contact line in Donbass.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the conversation focused mainly on Syria:

The two leaders discussed Syria and Ukraine, according to a White House summary of the phone conversation, as well as efforts to settle the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.

Mr. Obama emphasized U.S. concern that the Syrian regime wasn’t complying with a cease-fire agreement and urged Mr. Putin to press Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government to fully do so. The two also “confirmed their commitment to defeating ISIL and the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria,” the White House said.

A Kremlin summary of the call said the two leaders agreed to intensify military coordination in Syria. A senior Obama administration official said Wednesday the U.S. and Russia aren’t currently “conducting or coordinating military operations with Russia, nor is there an agreement to do so.”

Mr. Putin also urged Mr. Obama to help separate moderate opposition forces from Nusra front and other terrorist groups, the Kremlin said.

The U.S. has proposed that Moscow force Mr. Assad to ground Syria’s air force in exchange for the Pentagon’s help with targeting in Syria.

RT, however, reported that, according to the Kremlin’s account of the conversation, the issue of Ukraine was brought up by the Russian president:

Putin also returned to the topic of the Minsk agreements, concerning Ukraine, and called on Kiev to follow the terms of the 18-month-old treaty, which has still not been fully implemented. Specifically, he has called for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to engage in “direct dialog with Donetsk and Lugansk, carry out an amnesty, and award the regions special autonomous status.”

Shortly afterwards, Putin had a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande regarding increased violations of the ceasefire agreed to at Minsk in 2015.

The Moscow Times had the following details:

Putin stressed the “provocative nature” of Ukraine’s military operations in the Donbass region, and called on Merkel and Hollande to pressure Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko into complying with the Minsk agreements.

 

All three agreed on the need to remove heavy weaponry and the equal withdrawal of forces from the front line.

 

[Neo-Nazi] Andrey Parubiy, the speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, warned earlier this week that military activity could soon flare up in the Donbass region, the RBC newspaper reported.

 

“There is a risk that our enemy could strengthen on two fronts. There is an election campaign in the U.S. and Europe is going through a moment of crisis. The Kremlin is also planning to intensify the conflict in this period,” Parubiy said. “On one front we face military attacks and attempts to destabilize the country on the other.”

 

Russia’s Foreign Ministry also warned Wednesday that Kiev could be preparing for a new offensive in the Donbass, expressing its concern over the build up of Ukrainian military forces and volunteer battalions along the front line.

 

NATO, meanwhile, is continuing with yet more exercises.  This time it’s the Sea Breeze 2016 naval drills in the Black Sea, described as follows by RT:

As many as 25 military vessels, two planes, two helicopters and some 1,700 personnel are taking part in the exercise conducted in the international waters, reports Sofia New Agency.

 

All NATO member states of the Black Sea region, namely Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, are taking part in the drills, also attended by warships from Greece and Spain. The exercise also involves NATO associates Ukraine and Georgia.

Veteran investigative journalist Robert Parry, over at Consortium News, provides another blistering analysis of the NATO narrative of reality from February of 2014 to the present:

The leaders – at least the key ones – know that there is no credible intelligence that Russian President Vladimir Putin provoked the Ukraine crisis in 2014 or that he has any plans to invade the Baltic states, despite the fact that nearly every “important person” in Official Washington and other Western capitals declares the opposite of this to be reality.

 

But there have been a few moments when the truth has surfaced. For instance, in the days leading up to the just-completed NATO summit in Warsaw, General Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, divulged that the deployment of NATO military battalions in the Baltic states was a political, rather than military, act.

 

“It is not the aim of NATO to create a military barrier against broad-scale Russian aggression, because such aggression is not on the agenda and no intelligence assessment suggests such a thing,” Pavel told a news conference.

 

What Pavel blurted out was what I have been told by intelligence sources over the past two-plus years – that the endless drumbeat of Western media reports about “Russian aggression” results from a clever demonization campaign against Putin and a classic Washington “group think” rather than from a careful intelligence analysis.

 

Ironically, however, just days after the release of the British Chilcot report documenting how a similar propaganda campaign led the world into the disastrous Iraq War – with its deadly consequences still reverberating through a destabilized Mideast and into an unnerved Europe – NATO reenacts the basic failure of that earlier catastrophe, except now upping the ante into a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.

 

The Warsaw communiqué – signed by leaders including President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron – ignores the reality of what happened in Ukraine in late 2013 and early 2014 and thus generates an inside-out narrative.

Read the complete article at

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/07/11/nato-reaffirms-its-bogus-russia-narrative/

 

 

I’ve recently been informed that I’ve been nominated for the “One Lovely Blog” award.  It is basically a share-the-love type chain letter among bloggers who give a shout-out to their favorite blogs.  My friend, J.T., over at Russia Reviewed has bestowed the honor on me.   Each recipient nominates their 3 favorite blogs.  My 3 faves, in addition to Russia Reviewed are:  Pox Americana by Greg Maybury down in Australia, Russia Observer by Patrick Armstrong in Canada, and kulturcritic, who writes on topics ranging from anthropology, ethics and sustainable communities to politics and foreign policy.

 

 

After nominating other blogs for the award, a nominee is supposed to provide interesting facts about him or herself.  So here are 5 about me:

1.  I also write fiction.  I have completed one novel, which I will be submitting to agents in a few months, and I am about 2/3 of the way through my second novel.  I tend to revisit variations on the theme of humans’ inclination toward self-destructiveness, on both an individual and collective level.
2.  I am an animal lover who has a particular fondness for cats, which I’ve had all of my life.  Right now, I have 2:  a fat orange tabby and a more svelte tortoiseshell calico.  They divide their time by eating, sleeping, strutting around and trying to sit on my keyboard.
3.  I’m an only child.
4.  When I have time, I like to bake gluten-free, vegan goodies.  No, I’m not a vegan – I just have multiple food allergies.
5.  My day job is legal secretary.  I was considering law school after graduating from college, but decided against it after working in the field and seeing what being a lawyer really required.  My vision had been to become a lawyer specializing in international law after seeing the film Judgment at Nuremburg.