MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti) Dick Cheney plays "bad cop" to Kremlin/ Democracy impossible in CIS without Russia/ Belarus ridicules Gazprom/ Russia and WTO membership/ Stalin regains popularity in Russia
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Rossiiskaya Gazeta
U.S. vice president plays "bad cop" to Kremlin
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has lashed out at the Kremlin's domestic policies and accused Moscow of blackmail, intimidation, seeking to disturb its neighbors' territorial integrity and interfering with democratic processes. Russia was offered a choice: either return to democracy or become an enemy.
Experts believe that Cheney's goal was to put pressure on Russia ahead of the Group of Eight summit.
"Cheney is already known as one of the biggest critics of Russia in George Bush's Administration, and in Vilnius he conducted diplomatic preparations for the G8 summit," said Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center.
Boris Shmelyov, direction of the Center of Comparative Political Studies of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said, "Cheney's statements are tougher than those of Secretary of State [Condoleezza] Rice, which is reminiscent of a game of bad cop - good cop."
Nevertheless, U.S.-Russian relations are in decline, which is seen in differences in former Soviet republics and the Middle East, Malashenko said.
Yuly Vorontsov, Russia's ambassador to the United States in 1994-1999, said: "Russia is destined to live its own life. We do not have an American democracy, but we have a Russian one, and America will have to accept it."
Leonid Slutsky, first deputy chairman of the lower chamber of parliament's international affairs committee: "I do not see that our country has committed any sins. There is the impression that the speaker was not the vice president of a respected country, but an anti-Russian representative of a Baltic state."
Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the upper chamber's international affairs committee: "Russia is continuing to modernize despite criticism and suspicion in postindustrial countries. The West remembers this only when it is faced with threats it cannot fight on its own. Yet the global chessboard, when not balanced by Russia, tilts dangerously, while new threats, including terrorism, appear due to the weakening of Russia's sovereign role in the international system."
Moskovskiye Novosti
Spreading democracy in post-Soviet states impossible without Russia - expert
The recent "revolutions" in the former Soviet states have paradoxically helped to support the Belarusian system. Just as Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, Belarus was offered a model of democracy without or directed against Russia, a senior parliamentary official wrote in the popular weekly Moskovskiye Novosti.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the lower chamber's committee on international affairs, said Belarus and Russia saw what the euphoria of post-Soviet democratic neophytes prevented them from seeing.
They see that the political systems of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova have not changed radically, and their people have not become more prosperous or embraced new ideas and elites. What did change is their geopolitical standing, which these countries interpret as severing relations with Russia.
Democratic change is not the main but mostly a secondary goal for these countries, which are suffering major losses in their economies, stability and sovereignty. Many Belarusians - even those who want change - are negative about the experience of "orange" countries. But Europe and the United States do not seem to understand this.
Kosachev said that it would be silly and shortsighted for any country to support post-Soviet neo-democrats who turn their back on it even though this contradicts the interests of their people.
It is logical that Russia does not share the enthusiasm of its European and American partners over the "newly democratic" states, which value their geopolitical interests more than democracy. Russia refuses to understand or support this policy, which complicates the development of democracy in these states with inevitable tensions and the possibility of latent conflicts flaring up.
The spread of democracy to the post-Soviet states without the assistance of Russia can lead, at best, to a replacement of one bad regime with another.
Vedomosti
Energy giant Gazprom ridiculed by Belarus
Gazprom's negotiations with Ukraine dealt a severe blow to the image of both the Russian natural gas monopoly and the Russian authorities. Negotiations on 2007 gas prices for Belarus may finally trip up Gazprom. The monstrous and powerful company has so far looked weak in negotiations with Belarus.
Generally severe and steadfast, the company's top managers are hesitant about a new deal with Belarus. However, they are resolute in private when they say they would make Belarus accept the new prices. There are plans to raise the current gas price of $47 per a thousand cubic meters by about three times for Belarus in 2007. Nobody has yet disclosed the exact conditions of a new contract, because negotiating with Lukashenko is like playing cards with an experienced cardsharp. He would probably use a nice political pretext to review all previous agreements at the last minute. Gazprom has never been more vulnerable and damaged.
Belarus is in no hurry. The republic is confident it will be able to offer its Russian friends some weighty arguments. A deal with Belarus is a serious challenge to the Russian leadership and the Gazprom management, the distinction between which has lately been blurred in the eyes of the global community.
Gazprom has raised gas prices for all of its neighbors, but its price hikes for Ukraine and Belarus have provoked heated political debate. Most Russian politicians speak of the greediness and dishonesty of the "orange" Ukrainian leaders, but in the case of Belarus, they now question Gazprom's position.
The Communist faction in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, is insisting that the government justify why Gazprom should raise the prices for a "brother" country. Members of far-right LDPR and even pro-presidential United Russia echo the Communists. However, not a single defender of Russian interests objected when the gas price for Armenia, Russia's main ally in the Caucasus, was trebled last year.
Izvestia
Russia shouldn't beg for WTO membership - expert
Russia should stop begging for WTO accession, as if it urgently needed it. The world is more interested in Russia as a trade partner than vice versa, Valentin Fyodorov, vice director of the Europe Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and former governor of the Sakhalin Region, told the Russian daily.
Instead of limiting exports of non-renewable resources and while boosting industries that require brains and skills, Russia is becoming a voluntary assistant for other countries' development. If there was to be a cataclysm in international economic relations, Russia's partners would weaken, but as current relations continue, it is Russia that is weakening. Globalization helps countries to make up for their geopolitical shortcomings, while Russia is losing its relative advantages.
Of course, globalization is an external process, and it cannot be stopped. But it favors the strong. A country's power, including military might, is ensured by its own high-tech manufacturing, not by exhausting its natural resources. If we do not have the will and skill to make Russia a high-tech power, we should at least refrain from pushing globalization forward and blocking our own future.
Western countries' extreme dependence on commodities imports from distant sources forces them to conduct an expansionist policy. Uninterrupted supply is the crucial condition for their domestic stability.
Russia's goal in these circumstances is not to make the whole world happy and act as a fireman, but to guide the progress of current contradictions in the world in directions that serve its own interests.
Vremya Novostei
Fewer Russians support WTO accession
A recent survey by prominent pollster VTSIOM has revealed that only 44% of Russians now support the country's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), down from 56% in 2002.
Yevgeny Balatsky, head of VTSIOM's social institutions department, said the share of respondents who were unclear on whether Russia's projected WTO membership was in line with national interests had increased from 28% to 33% over the same period. It appears that protracted discussions of the country's admission into the WTO only mislead the population on specific accession benefits.
Balatsky said regional sentiment was of particular interest, and that outlying territories were more eager to join the WTO than central regions. Over 54% of respondents in the Far Eastern Federal District unequivocally support WTO access, while 8.7% oppose the idea. The figures in the Central Federal District are 38% and 30%, respectively.
Balatsky said Russian officials have for several years resented the plight of domestic producers threatened by WTO membership, while opinion polls show that "pragmatic cosmopolitans," who do not want to support domestic producers and who suggest lifting trade barriers, are outnumbered by "patriots" siding with domestic producers and proposing trade barriers instead.
The proportion of "patriots" against "cosmopolitans" was 83.5% vs. 8.4% in agriculture and food, 75.8% vs. 13.4% in aircraft manufacture, and 65.3% vs. 17.9% in the banking and insurance sector, Balatsky said.
Russian citizens who support the idea of WTO entry want domestic producers to retain competitive advantages, contrary to the key WTO principle of equal competitive opportunities for all.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Stalin regains popularity in Russia
Canvassing for building monuments to Stalin is becoming very popular in Russia. In the past 18 months, the idea has been put forward in at least six regions of Russia, from the westernmost Kaliningrad Region to Sakhalin in the Far East. Apparently, the influence of "the father of nations" on the people has not been exhausted.
No monuments to him have yet been built, but only through lack of funds. Popularization campaigns are carried out almost for free by true followers.
The leadership of the Russian Communist Party explains these canvassing campaigns as being the people's return to Soviet values.
"The people remember with nostalgia how the elderly were cared for - we didn't have such a quantity of abandoned people," said Oleg Kulikov, a secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee.
"The country no longer looks after its citizens. We now have a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, where 5% of the population rule the country."
The numerous attempts to return to the "golden age" of socialism cannot be explained by the failing memory of senior citizens. This is a vigorous process of creating another myth, which not only the Communists need.
Leonid Gozman, an ideologist of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), said "the authorities are flirting with the image of Stalin," sometimes making Freudian slips. In particular, lower house speaker Boris Gryzlov has said that Stalin was guilty of "certain mistakes."
Gozman says this flirting can be dangerous. "Our authorities are facing the past, where they are looking for ideals to emulate. The formulas they offer call for a return to the past," he said. "Since there are very few people left who actually remember the past, when we were forced to act on orders, they can paint any picture in response to public concerns, and both real and imaginary fears."
Stalin is an indisputable authority for a substantial part of the electorate, who will seek similar traits in a modern leader. And those who dislike Stalin will vote for the same man if he proves to be "a lesser evil" than Stalin.
