Russia and Central Asia News Digest
Putin Addresses Federal Assembly
In his fourth annual State of the Federation message to the Federal Assembly, Russia's Parliament, President Vladimir Putin called for doubling the country's GDP within a decade, as part of a complex of improvements aimed to secure Russia a place among strong, economically developed, and influential countries in the very near future. Full convertibility of the ruble is an accompanying goal. He noted that the recent years' economic growth of Russia had occurred mainly due to rising raw-materials prices for its exports, but that the facts must be faced: Russia had not properly taken advantage of those high prices for its long-term economic growth.
Part of the problem he attributed to the natural resources monopolies' siphoning off profits which should have been invested in other industries; part to the continuing need for consolidation of government, for shrinking of bureaucracy, for legal limits on bureaucratic power, and for delimitation of roles of the different levels of government.
As in his first State of the Federation address, Putin pointed to the continuing (although slower) depopulation of Russia as a catastrophe for the nation, and discussed its various components in detail.
Russia is interested in a stable and predictable world order, said Putin. Its unconditional first priority for foreign policy is relations with the CIS states. The second is integration with greater Europe, towards a common economic space.
The Russian political system must be consolidated with vigorous participation of parliamentary parties, which must put down roots in the citizenry, and move totally away from merely representing individual businessmen, said Putin in diplomatic language.
Russia Stages Strategic Military Exercises
Parallel to meetings of the Russia-NATO Council in Moscow, held May 13, and to the series of meetings of Russian officials with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, a number of military exercises took place the week of May 12. They were reportedly the largest in 12 years.
Combined naval exercises were being held in the Indian Ocean, involving the largest deployment of naval units outside of Russia since 1991, with units from both the Black Sea Fleet and the Pacific Fleet joining in. Today, Russian strategic TU-95MC bombers hit waterborne targets in the Indian Ocean with two winged missiles. This naval exercise was then expanded into a joint one with units of the Indian Navy.
And, as Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Pravda leaked, Russia planned to follow these with the largest exercises in recent years, with strategic bombers and missile-launching submarines. The scheme, as presented by Armed Forces officers to Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, is reportedly based on a conception of the development of a regional conflict into a real war. If that account proved correct, Anglo-Americans forces would carefully watch this May 17-18 exercise, because it involves practice nuclear strikes against targets in the USA and UK, especially the search for and liquidation of the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier shock groups.
"During the exercises, the Russian troops will work on a complex of training missions aimed at disabling of main objects of the U.S. orbital group of space satellites. This is important to break the stable functioning of the NAVSTAR global positioning system, the optoelectronic prospecting satellites Keyhole, and the radar reconnaissance satellites LaCross," the English-language website of Pravda wrote, adding that this implies that "under conditions of war, these actions may blind the Pentagon and interfere with its usage of high-precision weapons against Russia's armed forces."
According to these press and wire reports, four strategic TU-160 bombers, nine TU-95MC bombers, 12 long-range TU-22M3 bombers, and four flying tankers IL-78 will participate in the exercises.
Duma Passes Nuclear Arms Control Treaty
By a vote of 294-134, the Russian lower House of Parliament on May 14 approved a treaty with the United States for both sides to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds, to a level of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads by the year 2012. The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate in March. It does not affect any planned mini-nuclear warheads, which are part of the new utopian military game plan.
The vote came as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Powell also met with President Putin at the Kremlin, in preparation for a planned meeting between the Russian President and President Bush on June 1 in St. Petersburg.
However, differences still remain over a number of major issues, including the lifting of UN sanctions against Iraq. Russia continues to insist on its pre-war policy of UN weapons inspections. So long as Russia does not support the lifting of UN sanctions against Iraq, the legal status of Iraqi oil remains in question, making it impossible for the U.S. occupation government to sell the oil on the international market. Russia holds contracts with Iraq valued at $4 billion. Russian technology sales to Iran are also a matter of contention, as Washington claims the technology helps Iran develop nuclear weapons.
Putin described the meeting with Powell as "a good opportunity to check our watches," before he sees Bush in June. He said the Duma's ratification of the arms accord was an accomplishment for both countries. In the meeting with Bush, Putin is expected to seek a deal for cooperation on missile defense systems, according to Associated Press.
Powell said of the meeting, "We have come a little closer as to how we should deal with our concerns."
Russians Link New Chechnya Bombing with Mideast Terror Attacks
Speaking May 13, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko connected the suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia with the May 12 truck bombing at a government building in the North Chechnya village of Znamenskoye. The two events "are links in the same chain," Yakovenko said, adding that they had "all the earmarks of al-Qaeda." Colonel Ilya Shbalkin, head of the FSB security service's operations in Chechnya, said, "All terrorist acts committed on Chechen territory are financed by international terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda." He added that the rebel leaders were "puppets in the hand of international terrorists and do everything they are told to do."
On May 14, President Vladimir Putin endorsed this analysis, telling a press conference that the bombings in Chechnya and Riyadh were linked. He said the "signature in both places is identical." The Chechnya bombing was said to have been planned by the Saudi-born Abu Walid.
The May 12 Chechnya bombing killed over 50 people, with another 200 people injured, 86 hospitalized, including 57 in critical condition, according to RIA Novosti. Rescue workers were able to pull 23 people out of the rubble.
Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky's office has drawn up a "circle of suspects." The last major attack on Dec. 27 was claimed by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, and involved two car bombs driven into an administration building in Grozny. Fridinsky said May 12 that he does not believe the same people were responsible for yesterday's attack and the December attack, but "there was a link between them."
Russian Web Site Promotes EIR Book
On May 13, the www.iraqwar.ru site promoted the book George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography as the source of the revelation that the Bush family financed Hitler's rise to power. An article on the front page of the popular web site, gave an account of EIR's 1992 book, naming authors Anton Chaitkin and Webster G. Tarpley, but neglecting to mention EIR as the publisher. The report detailed the book's story of the Harriman-Bush operations.
The web site Iraq.ru was set up this spring as a clearinghouse for reports on the invasion of Iraq, from a wide range of sources of varying levels of credibility (press wires, intelligence source evaluations, and rumors), and quickly became one of the most visited Russian sites on the Internet. It is an independent project of Russian intelligence experts, with participation from retired officers as well as others.
The May 13 article was reproduced by the Russians from the web site of Granma, the Cuban government paper. As soon as the article appeared, a swarm of reader comments got posted to the site, most saying this is old news, this story of the Bush family funding Hitler has been all over the Web, and that "Prescott [Bush, the current President's grandfather] is the rallying cry of the opposition." Co-author Chaitkin posted a reply, giving the LaRouche campaign web site and phone number, and saying that Lyndon LaRouche is the number one candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, in terms of various contributor categories as reported by the FEC. This immediately brought responses from readers arguing about LaRouchemost of them favorable to LaRouche.
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