MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti). Kremlin's amnesty for Chechen militants fails / Morgan Stanley to tap Russian real estate market / Russia losing information war after G8 summit in St. Petersburg
(RIA Novosti does not accept responsibility for the articles in the press)
Kommesant
Kremlin's amnesty for Chechen militants fails
On July 31, Nikolai Patrushev, FSB director and head of the National Counterterrorist Committee, prolonged the deadline for the voluntary disarmament of Chechen militants to September 30. By that time, the lower house of Russia's parliament should adopt a statement on a full-scale amnesty for members of illegal armed groups not involved in grave crimes.
Law enforcement specialists say the amnesty is not succeeding, because only about 70 militants, none of them notable leaders, have so far surrendered.
On the other hand, nobody expected all of the militants to lay down arms overnight. Those who wanted to have done this long ago and are now serving in the Chechen Interior Ministry agencies and the South and North special battalions formed under direct command of Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, the main and most reliable guarantor of the former militants. There are no vacancies in the Chechen security-related structures for the militants who may choose to surrender.
The attempt to lure them from abroad has also failed. Magomed Khanbiyev, former defense minister of the "Chechen Republic of Ichkeria" and now a member of the Chechen parliament, went to Azerbaijan to convince militants to return to Chechnya. He brought back only two of his relatives who had not been involved in fighting. They were allowed to cross the border only after Kadyrov issued an order.
"We are deceiving ourselves," said Alexander Torshin, who heads a commission in the upper house of Russia's parliament. "We should send out of the forests those who were fighting and who killed people, or else we will get bogged down. All other members of illegal armed groups who have not killed will become legalized without amnesties."
"Nobody wants to issue practical guarantees to those who are prepared to surrender," said Arslanali Murtazaliyev, head of the Khasavyurt administration. "People do not believe the promises of some leaders of law-enforcement agencies."
"The militants will surrender not when the authorities forgive them for abstract participation in illegal armed groups, but for their concrete crimes, which will never happen," said a senior official at the Chechen Interior Ministry on condition of anonymity.
"This campaign will be soon forgotten, like many others before it," said Anatoly Tsyganok, the head of the Military Forecasting Center at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis. "We need a long-term program to change the situation in which terrorism has become a small business and Chechen boys get $50 for planting a mine. Allowing Kadyrov to take over Chechnya is not a solution."
Vedomosti
Morgan Stanley to tap Russian real estate market
An investment fund managed by Morgan Stanley Real Estate has bought 10% of RosEvroDevelopment, the first intellectual business center in Siberia's Novosibirsk. Experts think the new co-owner will help the Russian company, specializing in commercial construction, to tap international capital markets. RosEvroDevelopment has already announced its intention of going ahead with an IPO.
Company CEO Ivan Sitnikov said the talks had lasted almost a year. To make a deal with Morgan Stanley, RosEvroDevelopment increased its capital by 10%. The parties declined to disclose the sum involved. A market player familiar with the negotiations estimates the sum at around $30 million, but a source close to one of the sides said the figure is on the high side.
RosEvroDevelopment already has one foreign co-owner. In March of this year, the company sold a 20% stake to an American investment fund run by Moore Capital Management, LLC. Experts estimated the deal at $55-60 million, and the company itself at $280-300 million.
The Russian developer plans to use the new funds for expansion. The company has in its portfolio over 2 million sq m of commercial real estate (90% in the regions), into which RosEvroDevelopment will invest $2 billion, said Sitnikov.
"Western markets are reporting ever lower returns, and for this reason Moore Capital risked buying a stake in a Russian private company which does not even publish its audited reports. Morgan Stanley acted for the same reason," said Azamat Kumykov, deputy director of Colliers International investment department. Average yields on venture capital on the American market are 15-16% (according to Thomson Financial and to Zacks). The RosEvroDevelopment co-owners, Kumykov said, expect not less than 25%.
"Morgan Stanley has long been trying to tap into the Russian real estate market," said a developer familiar with the bank's plans. "The deal shows not only the bank's interest in the market, but its confidence that the market has a future," said Will Andrich, an independent director of the PIK Group of Companies, who earlier held a post at Morgan Stanley.
Now that they have another co-owner, RosEvroDevelopment shareholders plan to hold an IPO within three years. "It will offer a good chance both for Moore [Capital Management] and for Morgan [Stanley]," said Kumykov.
Izvestia
Russia losing information war after G8 summit in St. Petersburg
Those who hired the U.S. PR company Ketchum on the eve of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg have every reason to feel satisfied with its results. However, experts think Russia is on the whole losing the "information war," and that this will continue to be the case until one-off image-making campaigns become a permanent process.
"The decision to hire Ketchum for favorable media coverage of the G8 summit was correct," said Edward Lozansky, the president of Russian House in the United States. "The company has managed to change the almost universally negative attitude to the Kremlin the world's media had before the summit to objective and favorable publications about Russia which started to emerge a month and a half before the summit," he said.
"Most of what is being attributed to Ketchum we did ourselves," the Izvestia daily quoted sources in the Kremlin, involved in the pre-summit arrangements, as saying. "We applaud its consultative and methodological assistance, which, however, cannot replace our own efforts," said Dmitry Peskov, head of the media department of the Russian G8 Presidency 2006 Organizing Committee. He believes "the experience we have acquired will be a good contribution to existing achievements," but said, "we did the bulk work ourselves."
Some experts say the summit received less criticism not as a result of PR efforts. St. Petersburg looked marvelous, and those who wished to criticize the Russian president for "deviating" from democracy and "folding" reforms lacked time to do so because of the Middle East developments, which grasped the attention of participants in the summit and the world media, said Marshall Goldman, deputy director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University.
"The coverage of the summit in St. Petersburg is a one-off project, while it is much more important to win the West's favorable attitude to Russia, not for one special event only," Lozansky said. "Moscow has so far been losing the information war. The situation can be improved as soon as the Kremlin realizes [PR] should be standard practice."
