From Volume 6, Issue 52 of EIR Online, Published Dec. 25, 2007
Russia and the CIS News Digest

Time Magazine 'Person of the Year' Discusses FDR

Dec. 19 (EIRNS)—Time magazine chose Russian President Vladimir Putin as "Person of the Year" for 2007. In an interview with Time, Putin was asked whether he had invoked the name of Franklin Roosevelt because FDR served multiple terms. Instead, Putin chose to discuss Roosevelt more substantially: "Now, on the Roosevelt model.... We analyze very attentively everything that goes on in other countries throughout the world, and everything that has happened in the history of Russia and other countries. Roosevelt is a very sympathetic figure, and was not only an outstanding statesman of the United States, but a figure of global stature. He was our ally during the Second World War. Let us remember in what period he was President. Those were the years of the most serious depression, the Great Depression in the United States. He was the one who instilled optimism in the American people and trust in the future of their country. He was the one who won the war against the fascism, as our ally—of course, together with us, together with the Russian people, but he was the head of the United States. At the time, perhaps, such forms of political organization as an unlimited number of presidential terms were called for. Later, the American people decided otherwise, which was America's sovereign right to do. How we arrange our own business is the sovereign right of the Russian people."

Russia View of Britain in 2007 Cites LaRouche

Dec. 20 (EIRNS)—Russian analyst Boris Mezhuyev, editor of the APN agency, published a year-end article in Smysl magazine about how Great Britain was viewed in Russia during 2007, on the backdrop of the Litvinenko affair and London's continued harboring of Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatist Ahmad Zakayev. Titled "The Empire Comes Out of the Shadows," Mezhuyev's article was distributed on Dec. 18 by the Rosbalt information agency. It includes a lengthy discussion of Lyndon LaRouche's writings as a source used by Russians on the role of the British in history and today.

Mezhuyev singled out as especially important a recent series presented by Mikhail Leontyev on his Sunday Channel 1 TV show, titled "The Great Game." Here, "viewers learned many new things about the Anglo-Russian confrontation of the 19th-20th centuries." According to Mezhuyev, this and other anti-British media material were motivated not so much by the Litvinenko affair, as by "the British track in North Caucasus events, discovered by Russian counterintelligence." Evidently, he added without giving details, "The British lion, after the American eagle broke its talons in Iraq, is once again returning to Asia and the Caucasus, step by step trying to push aside not only Russia and China, but also its own NATO allies."

While professing uncertainty about "whether or not a British 'secret empire' exists," Mezhuyev presented "three versions" of this analysis: Dmitri Galkovsky's thesis on the Soviet Union as a "British colony," geopolitician Geidar Jemal's focus on the role of Europe's old royal and aristocratic families, and the "more interesting" historical insights of LaRouche.

"LaRouche rejected Marxism and became a defender of the so-called American System in economics," wrote Mezhuyev, "meaning the dirigist model in the spirit of President Roosevelt's New Deal. This state-oriented model is opposed by a different model—the liberal-oligarchical one, rooted in British economic liberalism and the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, who is held responsible for all the sins of the modern era, colonial slavery above all." Mezhuyev added, however, that he found LaRouche's tracing of Hobbesian economics to the old Venetian system "fantastical."

Mezhuyev further summarized: "The formal collapse of the Empire in the 20th Century simply withdrew British colonial rule into the shadows: Now, they started ruling the world through the financial institutions they control. LaRouche sees his main objective as being to free the American Republic from domination by the British Empire and its henchmen in both American parties, like both Bushes or, for example, Al Gore.

"There is a rational kernel in LaRouche's system. It is not even just that the U.S.A., rather unexpectedly, turned from being the most protectionist state in the West into the main propagandist for the British free-market model. Rather, the point is that the ideology of Rooseveltian state capitalism, which at one time was the central component of the Democratic Party's ideology, has now become a fringe phenomenon. In Republican circles, conservative opponents of government intervention in the economy began to set the tune, while on the left, people have gotten more and more off into post-industrialism and defense of the environment against harm from industry."

In the months before his commentary appeared, LaRouche's interview with Andrei Kobyakov of RPMonitor.ru appeared on scores of Russian websites under the title, "The Threat Comes From London."

Russia Warns of 'Uncontrollable Crisis' Around Kosovo

Dec. 17 (EIRNS)—A Russia expert who just returned to Washington from Moscow reports that there are two "red lines" for Russia. Those are, an attack on Iran and a declaration of independence on the part of Kosovo. Russia, which is fully committed to preventing both of these developments, today called for the creation of a "new road map" to resolve the international crisis brought on by Kosovo's intention to declare its independence from Serbia. On Dec. 7, mediators reported that four months of talks had failed to reach any agreement. Kosovo is expected to declare independence sometime next year.

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that talks should continue. It added that "there are behind the scenes maneuvers ... which are aimed at making [the UN] legitimize the next illegal steps. We are certain that no one will give in to blackmail.... The situation is fraught and risks sliding toward an uncontrollable crisis."

On Dec. 21, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the daily Vremya Novostei that Russia will veto any United Nations Security Council resolution that approves a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo.

South Korean President Offers Engagement in Russia's Far East

Dec. 21 (EIRNS)—South Korea's President-Elect Lee Myung-Bak met with Russian Ambassador Gleb Ivashentsov just days after the former's election victory, offering Korean collaboration, potentially from both the North and the South, in the development of the Russian Far East. "If we, together with Russia, carry out the development project, it will be a turning point in economic cooperation in the Northeast Asian region and boost Russia's development as well," Yonhap news agency quoted him as telling the envoy. "I'd like to get on this project right after I assume office," which will be on Feb. 25. Yonhap reports that Lee envisages combining South Korea's advanced technology with North Korea's labor and Russia's natural resources.

Lee pledged during his campaign to maintain the "Sunshine Policy" of working toward reunification of North and South Korea. Clearly, working together on the development of Russia's Far East would solidify that impulse toward peace and development on the peninsula and in Northeast Asia generally.

Russia Tweaks EU and U.S.A. on Central Asia Pipeline

Dec. 21 (EIRNS)—Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan have signed a landmark deal to build a gas pipeline which will carry Turkmenistan's gas to southern Russia. Russian President Putin and the leaders of Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan had agreed on May 12 to build a pipeline along the Caspian coast to pump 10-20 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe via Russia's pipeline network. "The creation of this new energy artery will allow large-volume gas supplies in the long term to our partners, and will become a new major contribution by our countries to improved energy security in the Eurasian space, and in a larger context, for our consumers in Western Europe," Putin said.

The deal is seen as a blow to U.S. and European Union efforts to build an alternative pipeline under the Caspian Sea, bypassing Russia, to pump Central Asian gas to Europe via Azerbaijan and Turkey, in order to reduce the EU's dependence on Russian-controlled energy. The trilateral deal will see the gas pipeline traveling northward along the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea and, then, veering eastward through Kazakhstan for southern Russia.

Russian Navy Exercises in Mediterranean

Dec. 21 (EIRNS)—After an absence from the Mediterranean Sea of almost 11 years, a Russian Naval Task Force, led by the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar on Dec. 21. The task force, drawn largely from the Northern Fleet, had just completed strategic exercises in the North Atlantic.

Russia's plans to relocate part of its Black Sea Fleet to the Mediterranean took shape 2006. Navy chief Adm. Vladimir Masorin in August 2007 called for an "adjustment of strategies" to restore a permanent Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean.

Belarus Accuses U.S.A. of Treaty Violation

Dec. 17 (EIRNS)—Mikhail Khvostov, Ambassador of Belarus in Washington, today accused the United States of violating the 1994 memorandum signed by Belarus, Russia, the U.S.A., and Great Britain, under which Belarus agreed to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons state, the Soviet-era weapons stationed there having been transferred to Russia. Recent sanctions imposed against the Belarussian Concern for Oil and Chemistry (Belneftekhim), he said, were a violation of this memorandum, which included "a written obligation by the United States to Belarus to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to the United States' own interest the exercise by Belarus of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind." The sanctions furthermore violate the U.S. Constitution, Khvostov said, since it regards treaty obligations as the supreme law of the land.

All rights reserved © 2007 EIRNS