MOSCOW, April 22 (RIA Novosti)
Russia ready for nuclear disarmament - on its own conditions / Liberalized European markets to prevent Gazprom from pressuring consumers / President sending society "liberal" signals - experts / Foreigners will not be able to buy Russian land in border areas
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia ready for nuclear disarmament - on its own conditions
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev used his visit to Finland, which ended yesterday, to tell the European public about Moscow's stance on international security.
He said the terms of nuclear disarmament U.S. President Barack Obama had put forth in Prague were fair, but Russia had its own conditions.
Analysts say Russia's efforts to improve its negotiating stance could seriously damage the talks.
Medvedev said that Russia "must prevent the deployment of weapons in space," and that "it is inadmissible to compensate for nuclear cuts by increasing the number of conventional strategic systems."
He also said there should be guarantees against the creation of the so-called breakout potential, or stockpiles of warheads that can be returned to combat duty.
Yuri Fyodorov, an analyst at the London-based Chatham House, which aims to analyze and promote the understanding of major international issues and current affairs, said: "Russia's proposals are either unacceptable to the Americans, or can seriously complicate the talks."
In his view, the idea of controlling the breakout potential is justified in principle, but its implementation heavily depends on verification. In the current conditions, neither Russia nor the United States is prepared to let foreign experts inspect their key nuclear facilities.
Fyodorov implied that the talks could be undermined if Russia insisted on controlling the breakout potential.
He said the START-1 treaty limited the number of deployed warheads on combat duty, which can be monitored by reconnaissance satellites. However, verification could become the main obstacle to the reduction of the stockpiled warheads.
The same is true about the deployment of weapons in space.
"Inspectors would have to be present at the launch of each spacecraft or satellite, which calls for complex coordination of procedures and could seriously draw out the talks," Fyodorov said.
Kommersant
Liberalized European markets to prevent Gazprom from pressuring consumers
Tensions are growing around European gas pipeline projects as the European Commission intends in early summer to adopt the so-called Third Energy Package. It is a package of legislative proposals for Europe's electricity and gas markets aimed at further liberalization of the markets and prevention of abuse of market power.
These proposals are intended to prevent situations in which one company can produce, ship, distribute and market energy, writes Mikhail Krutikhin, a partner and analyst in Moscow's RusEnergy Consulting.
Gazprom, backed by the Russian government, does not support these initiatives, and neither do some of its European partners. The Russian monopoly's two major pipeline projects, Nord Stream and South Stream, make sense if Gazprom affiliates control upstream and downstream business in the countries to be crossed by the pipes, the analyst writes.
The EU-Ukrainian declaration on the modernization of Ukraine's gas pipeline network was an alarming sign for Gazprom. The document presumes competition-based access to the system. Consequently, to make good on its contracts with European consumers, Gazprom will have to buy transit capacities among other bidders.
New European regulations will jeopardize Gazprom's attempts to reach consumers directly with its two "streams," the analyst adds. European officials could simply ban Gazprom subsidiaries from participating in the distribution and marketing of Russian gas arriving through one of the streams.
That is why Russia is trying to replace the Energy Charter with a Moscow-drafted document, which would guarantee Gazprom a share in European transit and distribution business.
On the other hand, Gazprom would objectively benefit from the changes in Europe. Thrown into a free market environment to sink or swim, it will have to remember what competition is. It will have to improve management and use new technologies.
With improved efficiency, it will stand a good change of winning the respect of the international business community, as reflected in Barron's 100 Most Respected Companies list. This year, Gazprom was ranked 100th.
RBC Daily, Gazeta.ru, Nezavisimaya Gazeta
President sending society "liberal" signals - experts
A court has ruled to release on parole Svetlana Bakhmina, a former Yukos legal expert, sentenced to seven years imprisonment for embezzling Tomskneft property and tax evasion. Some politicians and experts link this decision with a desire by President Dmitry Medvedev to introduce a new "soft style" in relations between the authorities and society.
"President Medvedev was accused of doing nothing real to secure the support of the liberal public," said Alexei Makarkin, vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies. "The release of Bakhmina is a signal that he is ready for practical moves."
It was a political decision, agrees political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin. By taking it, the head of state demonstrated a shift from Vladimir Putin's tough line to "a modern democracy with a human face."
Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin is confident that "this is good news, but only for one person, while a system that allows people to be imprisoned for political reasons remains, and in it practically nothing has changed."
"The authorities are making symbolic steps and are set to democratize society, at least in word," says Vadim Solovyov, head of the KPRF legal service. "These steps are being made for society, and for the business community too, to allay the opposition's fears. With a new wave of crisis coming and likely mass protests, it is necessary to soften the situation somehow."
Political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky sees behind the court's ruling "a signal sent by President Medvedev": no political decision has been taken in the Khodorkovsky-Lebedev case yet, they are not fore-doomed, and it will not necessarily be a guilty verdict.
Lev Ponomaryov, the leader of the Human Rights movement, does not consider Bakhmina's release and the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev a coincidence: the authorities want to play an event with a plus sign off against an event with a minus sign.
Kommersant
Foreigners will not be able to buy Russian land in border areas
Finnish President Tarja Halonen has asked her Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev to allow Finnish citizens to buy Russian land in border areas. Although President Medvedev promised to look for a solution, members of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said there was no need to do this.
The 2000 Land Code stipulated a provision banning land purchases by foreigners in Russian border areas. This was done in order to convince the then influential Russian Communist Party to vote for the document.
"This ban could be lifted on the Russian-European border," Viktor Pleskachevsky, chairman of the State Duma's property committee, told the paper.
He said many land plots, including those in border areas, remained vacant, and that new owners would cultivate land and pay taxes to the benefit of the state.
"We are ready to quickly pass the relevant amendments. At any rate, we must act prudently," Pleskachevsky said.
State Duma deputy Konstantin Zatulin said it was unclear whether the Land Code could be amended in order to stipulate exclusive regional land sales to foreigners.
He said "it would be no better to allow Finnish citizens to buy land in Karelia than to allow Japanese citizens to buy land in the Kuril Islands."
"We could sell the Kuril archipelago to Japan, the Kaliningrad Region to Germany and those on the Russian-Chinese border to China, which is already buying our land through front companies," Zatulin said.
Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the State Duma's foreign affairs committee, said the sale of border territories could result in their loss because "border territories can be annexed by other states in certain conditions."
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