MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti)
Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye
Russia invites India to participate in military exercises
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has made a proposal to India to hold major Russian-Chinese-Indian military exercises similar to the recent maneuvers it had held with China, the Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye military weekly reports Friday.
Experts said this means that Russia has serious plans for its policy in the east.
Alexei Bogaturov, deputy director of the International Security Institute, said the Russian political elite was tired of Moscow's attempts to win the respect of the West and the United States. Russia's opinion is respected only when it is feared, he said. "On the one hand, Russia does not want to be feared, but on the other hand, you must be strong to be respected," the expert said. This explains recent hints about the creation of powerful military blocs.
According to Bogaturov, there are no reasons to believe that Moscow, Beijing and New Delhi want to join forces against Washington. They simply want to be respected. "These joint exercises are, above all, a kind of political statement," the expert said.
Anatoly Tsyganok, the head of the Military Forecasting Center at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis, said the desire of Moscow and Beijing to establish a military-political alliance pointed to their "growing resistance against the unipolar structure of the world advocated by the Americans." The attempt to involve India in a joint naval group looks logical in this situation, the expert said.
Ivanov was pursuing one more goal when he made the offer, the expert said. About a month ago, the Indian military leadership again protested against Russian arms deliveries to India's adversaries in the Indian Ocean, in particular China. India said it would buy from other major arms exporters unless Russia heeded its appeal.
Therefore, Russia's offer to hold joint military maneuvers and later to create a military group in the Asian-Pacific region is also an attempt to sooth India's concern over Russian arms exports to China, the weekly concludes.
Vremya Novostei
Russia vying with U.S. in third world arms market
Russia is America's main rival on the global arms market, particularly in deliveries to the developing world, a popular Russian daily reports Friday.
Vremya Novostei writes that, according to an annual U.S. Congress study, military sales worldwide jumped in 2004 to their highest level since 2000, driven by arms deals with developing nations.
The report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations", says that arms contracts worth $37 billion were signed throughout the world in 2004, an increase of 23% on the $28.5 billion from 2003. Of last year's total, the United States sold $12.1 billion worth of weaponry, with Russian sales equaling $6.1 billion. The developing world bought $21.8 billion worth of weapons and combat hardware in 2004, an increase of 44% on 2003.
According to the report, this market is dominated by the United States and Russia and the difference between their arms-sale volumes is not that great. In 2004, the United States and developing countries signed arms contracts worth $6.9 billion, whereas similar Russian contracts were valued at $5.9 billion.
India, Saudi Arabia and China bought more weapons than other developing countries in 2004. The report's authors said China and India bought the bulk of their weaponry from Russia.
"Nonetheless, Washington does not have any military concerns in regard to China or India at this time," said Nikolai Zlobin, the director of Russian and Asian Programs at the Center for Defense Information (CDI), a Washington-based independent monitor of the military. The White House understands that both countries lag 50 years behind the United States in terms of weapons production.
"However, the United States fears that India or China can upgrade their current Russian made weapons that were purchased in 1997-1998," Zlobin said. As a result, pressure could be exerted on Moscow, so that it sells only those weapons that cannot be modernized. "Washington believes that Moscow will not sell such weapons to them," the expert added.
According to the paper, Russia controls nearly 82% of the Asian arms market and the United States dominates the Middle East. Both countries have also "divided" Latin America and Africa between themselves. Washington sells more weaponry to Latin America, whereas African countries are mostly supplied by Russia.
Kommersant
Russian government to place domestic helicopter-making under control -- paper
Sistema, a financial corporation, is in talks with the state-run United Industrial Enterprise Oboronprom on selling a 50% stake in the Kamov helicopter maker, a leading business daily reports Friday.
Kommersant writes that experts had no doubt that the state would soon complete the process of consolidating all domestic helicopter-making assets.
According to the paper, Kamov is one of Russia's two leading helicopter developers. It includes a design bureau, an experimental enterprise and a testing center. Its annual production is estimated at $80-$120 million. The MiG aircraft-making corporation manages the state-owned 49% stake in Kamov.
Denis Manturov, Oboronprom general director, said his company could acquire the Kamov helicopter producer by late September or early October. A source in Oboronprom said extra-budgetary resources would be used for the deal. Funds will most likely come from Rosoboronexport, the state arms selling monopoly and a founder of Oboronprom.
Experts said Oboronprom, with 82% of its stock owned by the Russian Property Fund and Rosoboronexport, would buy into Kamov soon. "Even powerful private investors from Sistema will hardly be able to shield Kamov from the almost inevitable process of large-scale restructuring and mergers in the Russian aviation industry and its helicopter sector, said Mikhail Barabanov, the scientific editor of the magazine Export Vooruzheniy (Arms Exports).
The Russian government started to consolidate scattered domestic helicopter assets in late 2004, Kommersant said. Today, Oboronprom is completing the process of uniting all Mil helicopter developers and producers. Once the country's two major helicopter developers are united, the state will concentrate all domestic helicopter design offices and enterprises in its hands. The holding's annual output will reach $800-$950 million.
Vedomosti
Video cameras to help fight corruption
The authors of a new administrative reform to fight corruption have chosen such means as restricting officials' contacts with businessmen outside state institutions and video surveillance. Experts described the initiative as humiliating and hopeless in a respected business daily on Friday.
Vedomosti writes that the Trade and Economic Development Ministry has prepared the concept of the 2006-2008 reform. Its authors said Russia was situated in the last third of the World Bank's rankings of 209 countries in terms of the main indicators of state governance quality. In 2004, Transparency International, a non-government organization seeking to combat corruption, put Russia in 90th place among 146 countries in its corruption perception index.
Surveys conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Foundation reveal that 71% of Russians are negative about the work of state officials, and 76% have encountered corruption. "The system of state governance has become a factor restricting the country's further successful development and full use of its potential," the new concept said.
There will be no total surveillance, says one of the authors, Mikhail Dmitriyev, head of research at the Center of Strategic Studies, a Moscow-based think tank. This measure is needed when risks are high: in tax and customs bodies, as well as in agencies dealing with state purchases and managing state property.
Arkady Volsky, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a business-friendly association, described video surveillance of officials as "absurd" and suggested that now two bribes would be given: one to the official and the other to the observer. A representative of an automobile company said that if officials were unable to visit, for example, plants, they would know little about the industry they regulated.
Alexander Romanov, a representative of the Alcohol Producers Committee, described the initiative as "humiliating for both businessmen and officials," but said he was ready to work in front of cameras if the reform was adopted.
"This is the wrong answer to a real problem," said Miklos Marschall, Transparency International's regional director for Europe and Central Asia. If the measure is adopted, "important decisions will be made outside offices, while performances for the inspectors will be staged in front of cameras," he said.
Novye Izvestia
Growing rich list increases risk of revolution in Russia
Russian people want to become richer but worry that growing wealth will badly affect the country's development as a whole, an opinion poll quoted by a popular daily suggests Friday.
Novye Izvestia cites the results of a survey conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation, which showed that 58% of the 1,500 respondents in Russia's regions and 600 Moscow residents said they did their best to earn as much money as possible. Young people love money the most - 78%. Thirty-six percent of respondents, mostly pensioners, said they did not want to be rich and were quite realistic about their opportunities.
"Interestingly, when asked about Russia as a whole, only 41% of the respondents said the increasing number of the rich would have a positive rather than negative effect on the country," said Yelena Vovk, an analyst with the Public Opinion Foundation.
A total of 31% of respondents said the opposite. They fear that the number of wealthy people will increase at the expense of poor people, which will eventually aggravate social disparity, inflame hatred between classes, breed crime and create a socially explosive situation to the point of revolution. Even 30% of those who do their best to increase their wealth share this view, Novye Izvestia writes.
The reasoning behind it is clear: it is good to be rich if it is my family and me. But an opulent neighbor is likely to be someone of dubious reputation. He "certainly" got his money illegally, said Nikita Pokrovsky, the head of the general sociology department of the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics. "Hence the conclusion: I would rather not be so rich, if my neighbor is as well. It is easier to live this way," the expert said. Pokrovsky added that public opinion would only change when Russia has a middle class.
