Gazeta
Putin Will Support Lukashenko, Says Expert
Vladimir Putin met with Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko yesterday, Gazeta reminds its readers.
Belarus remains the only state on Russia's western border that is not oriented toward Europe, says Deputy Director General of the Center for Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin. He says Putin has no alternative but to support the Belarussian regime.
The analyst described the Putin-Lukashenko meeting on Monday as a sign of a militarily and strategically motivated thaw in relations. Next door to Russia's northwest, the Baltic states have joined NATO, which is what Ukraine, Russia's southwestern neighbor, also clearly wishes to do. This leaves Belarus as Russia's only remaining neighbor that is still oriented to Russian and not looking toward NATO.
The two leaders successfully agreed upon the transit of natural gas, future WTO accession, and joint air defense policies. Although Moscow-Minsk cooperation does not seem to go beyond these "household" issues, Makarkin argues, Lukashenko in fact came to Russia to seek the Russian president's support in the run-up to the 2006 presidential election.
With every movement in today's Belarussian opposition Western-funded, and with their leaders frantically developing various scenarios for another "velvet" revolution, whoever takes over from the current Belarussian authorities will most likely turn the country westward. Accordingly, whatever many figures in the Russian elite might think about Lukashenko, Russia really has no other option but to support him.
At the same time, the analyst doubts that Moscow will support the Lukashenko regime militarily in a crisis. Financial aid and economic preferences - notably, lower gas prices - are seen as much more viable and acceptable methods.
Vedomosti
Baby Boom In Russian Politics
New youth organizations espousing different political viewsare emerging in Russia today, while associations set up back in the 1990s, but previously unknown to the broader public, are getting a second wind, Vedomosti reports.
There are more left-wing youth organizations than any others. The National Bolshevik Party (NBP), the Communist Youth League (SKM), the Vanguard of Communist Youth (AKM) and the Leftist Youth Front (MLF) are the best known. As a rule, they try to protest through bloodless demonstrations with a tangible element of hooliganism.
Young democrats and liberals try to keep up with the Left. Moscow Youth Yabloko (MMY) is the most hyped-up organization on this flank.
MMY leader Ilya Yashin is also hammering together a coalition of democratic activists known as Oborona (Defense) along the lines of the MLF. The organization aims to protect the Russian Constitution and the democratic values of the 1990s from the authorities.
NBP, SKM and Oborona leaders say they are opposed to the new Nashi (Ours) youth movement. The Nashi program will be based on the ideas of "modernizing the country" and "maintaining its sovereignty." Nashi also intends to combat instances of neo-Nazism.
But political analyst Vladimir Golyshev warns that no more than 2-5% of young people are politically active. So statements on behalf of young people, in his opinion, are usually speculative.
"Children have proved to be worse than the fathers, as they are intellectually impotent, and monstrously conformist," Sergei Kurginyan, president of the Experimental Creative Center fund, remarked ruefully about the youth leaders.
Dmitry Oreshkin, Merkator Group president, believes that the NBP, the Komsomols and Oborona all have potential. "Their leaders are ambitious and promising, and will play a noticeable role in 2007-2008 elections," he says. "But they will not pull off a youth revolution like the one in Paris in 1968." In the expert's view, the leaders will gain access to mainstream politics, while young people, after showing up and shouting a bit, will disperse.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta
Presidential Chief Of Staff Addresses The Elite
On Monday, a magazine, Ekspert, ran a broad interview with Dmitry Medvedev, chief of the presidential staff, in which he spoke about the country's future and problems facing it. Rossiiskaya Gazeta picked up the energetic political discussion that followed the interview.
Igor Bunin, the director of the Center of Political Technologies, said the interview was a clear address to the elite because Ekspert is its magazine. After the president announced the end of the crisis of power provoked by the Yukos saga, the Kremlin is making an attempt to create a new ideological structure that incorporates two crucial elements. The first is the unity and continuity of the authorities as the main conditions of Russia's integrity in the future. And the second is that the authorities are the only enlightened European in the state.
Medvedev put forward the idea of creating a modern state with effective ownership rights, settled judicial problems, and so on. The only condition for implementing this project is an enlightened government.
This is why Medvedev's interview has invited all the concerned elite groups to support the aspirations of the power. He suggested a simple idea: We preserve your property, and you do not attack us.
Besides, the presidential chief of staff showed potential revolutionaries that the authorities would not sit back and watch attempts to provoke society and come to power.
Valery Khomyakov, the general director of the National Strategy Council, believes that we are witnessing the beginning of the 2008 presidential election campaign. "But it is not clear whom Medvedev wants to consolidate because the regional, political and business elite groups have become wary of the center's activities," he said. "It is impossible in principle to come to an agreement with everyone, and the 2008 race can only be won by two methods: public love for a candidate, or intimidation. However, I believe that the threats made by the presidential chief of staff are not realistic."
Finansovye Izvestia
Gazprom Discovers New Minority Shareholders
Companies that have accumulated substantial packages of Gazprom shares are starting to appear on the eve of the gas concern's annual shareholder meeting. The first was Nafta-Moskva, which owns 2.36% of Gazprom shares with a market value of 47 billion rubles ($1=27.89 rubles), Finansovye Izvestia reports.
"Another one or two shareholders will probably surface before the annual meeting," Maxim Shein, chief analyst at BrokerCreditService, predicted. He said Germany's Ruhrgas began with an approximately the same package in Gazprom, claiming to be a strategic partner of the Russian concern. Investors see that Gazprom shares, which have been undervalued, may become the market leader soon, particularly after the shares of electricity giant RAO UES leave the market (the holding will be dissolved in late 2006).
But nobody expects any major surprises from the new minority shareholders of Gazprom. "The emergence of new shareholders is not critical for Gazprom," said Oleg Ordin, a department head at the Institute of Financial Studies. The state controls nearly 39% of the shares and the company management about 15%. There are no issues on the agenda of the annual meeting that call for a two-third majority of the vote, and the only interesting question is who will represent minority shareholders on the board. Ordin says, "Nafta-Moskva is not the only portfolio investor who is betting on Gazprom."
Yesterday Fitch Ratings, whose statements provide guidelines for investors, praised Gazprom's efforts to liberalize the domestic natural gas market. The concern proposed that the liberalization of prices for domestic industrial consumers should begin in 2006. This is an optimistic step that amounts to an attempt to make the domestic gas market profitable, said Jeff Woodruff, the director of Fitch's analytical energy group in Moscow.
Vedomosti
Trutnev: Russia Should Borrow Norwegian Experience
MOSCOW, April 5 (RIA Novosti) - The Ministry of Natural Resources is hurrying to limit the role of commodities multinationals in the development of Russia's strategic deposits to minority stakes. In an interview with Vedomosti, Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said that foreign companies could work on the huge resources on the country's shelves rather than the strategic deposits.
However, the system for attracting foreign investors to major projects, such as the development of shelves, needs serious reform. "The main thing is that conditions in Russia should be competitive as Norway's, for example," Trutnev said. "We must understand Russia's weak points in comparison with Norway and attract investors."
Global practice shows that only a conglomerate of companies can implement such major projects. "We are in favor of seeing foreign corporations developing a shelf with a company representing Russia," the minister said.
When commenting on the ministry's recent initiative to establish a government corporation to develop shelf deposits, he said: "To avoid disputes over any subjective selection of a Russian participant, the Norwegian model can be used, when a country is represented by a government company. This scheme is transparent and the state does not act as a plaintiff in the event of any litigation."
Trutnev also stressed the need for a Natural Resources Ministry mechanism of preferences. Deposits can be generally accessible when the practice contributes to economic development. However, there are specific deposits that can serve as the basis for developing a strategically important sector of industry, for example, the metals industry.
"We only proposed limiting the participation of our foreign colleagues in such projects to minority stakes," the minister said. "The fuss about the proposal only points to one thing: aggressive competition."
Izvestia
Armed Police To Protect Flights
A new federal law under which plain clothes police will fly on domestic and international flights came into force yesterday. Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said these policemen "will be armed," Izvestia reports.
All the changes provided for in the law are designed to transfer part of aviation security functions from airport services and airlines to the Interior Ministry. The law says that the latter's agencies have the right, "given information about a possible breach of aviation security requirements onboard an airliner to accompany it during the flight."
Russian airlines strongly oppose guns on planes because they endanger aviation safety. A shot may lead to a loss of cabin pressure and the plane crashing. In Soviet times, security services used armed agents onboard airliners, but experience forced them to abandon this practice.
Sergei Bykhal, PR director for Transaero, has stated that his company has always opposed the presence of armed guards onboard airliners. As an example, he cited a tragedy in the early 1970s when a policeman accompanying a Tu-154 airliner took out a gun, prompting a terrorist to detonate a bomb. The plane was lost. Apart from that, the use of fire arms at 10,000 meters in a closed space where key control systems pass through the passenger cabin immediately makes all passengers, the crew and the airliner hostages to the situation.
Aeroflot has stated that the staff members of the company's security service already accompany the planes flying, for example, to Havana or Bangkok. However, this measure is aimed against hooligans, not terrorists.
As the law has just come into force, the specific details of its implementation are "in the finalization stage," the press-service of the transport police has stated.
