Moscow, December 13 - RIA Novosti, Andrei Zolotov. - As it carried a scenario of Russian President Vladimir Putin assassinated on Christmas night and "siloviki" taking over power in the country, the Moscow-based newspaper Kommersant misrepresented the very essence of the U.S. expert report Alternative Futures for Russia to 2017, to be officially presented in Washington, D.C., within a few hours, one of its authors told RIA Novosti. Andrew C. Kuchins is director of the Russia and Eurasia Program of CSIS, Center for Strategic & International Studies.
On Thursday Kommersant published excerpts from a pre-publication review of one of the chapters in Russian translation, where the authors warn that Putin's violent death would drastically destabilize the situation in Russia to torpedo the smooth succession of power and strengthen the so-called "siloviki" in the government structures.
Andrew Kuchins said it was a totally irresponsible distortion of a serious effort by leading experts from the United States and other countries, who were actively pondering over Russia's future. As he explained, the newspaper misrepresented a hypothetical scenario he had written as a warning to illustrate the danger of a situation in which too much in Russian political life was resting on one person.
Andrei Vasilyev, Kommersant Editor-in-Chief, ascribed the controversy to "mistranslation" in a commentary on the expert's opinion.
"It's all a matter of translation," he told RIA Novosti.
Three Scenarios
As Kuchins said, the report Alternative Futures for Russia to 2017 was written, for a greater part, in spring and summer 2007. Its basic goal is to describe the motive forces of current Russian politics and stress that the Russian political system might prove more fragile than many expect. To illustrate these motive forces and their tentative impact on the future, the report includes three possible scenarios of political developments in Russia within the next ten years.
The first scenario forecasts sustainable development. Kuchins says he deems it the most probable. The second one, which concerns Putin's assassination and its consequences, aims to demonstrate the danger of excessive reliance on one person.
It is neither a prediction nor a recommendation. More than that, as Kuchins stressed in the report, the situation described would be extremely dangerous for Russia and the whole world, he said in a telephone interview in Washington.
The third scenario forecasts developments in the case of oil prices nosediving, as they are the main vehicle of the rising living standards in Russia under an incompetent government.
Kuchins said that Putin had himself emphasized the danger of the situation in which too much in Russia depended on its President. He said so in September as he was meeting in Sochi with spokesmen of foreign expert circles in the Valdai International Discussion Club, organized by RIA Novosti.
A synopsis of the report was first published on RIA Novosti English-language website http://www.russiaprofile.org/ on December 11. The CSIS site already carries the unabridged text of the report. The authors' team includes top Western experts on Russia Thomas Graham, Anders Aslund, Sarah Mendelson, Cory Welt and Henry Hale.
Kuchins said he was not sure as yet in what form he would advance claims against Kommersant.
