Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia in Talks to Extend Lease of Gabala Radar Station in Azerbaijan
Russia’s lease agreement for the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan will expire in two weeks. The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan announced yesterday that talks on extending the lease are underway. A source on the Azeri delegation told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the parties could reach a compromise on the lease price. Earlier this year, Azerbaijan said it wanted to increase the rent to $300 million a year from $7 million.
Elman Abdullayev, press secretary of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry, said at a briefing on Tuesday that talks on the Gabala radar station, which the media fully expected to fail, are taking place. “Azerbaijan proceeds exclusively based on its national interests regarding this issue, just as all other foreign policy issues,” he said, adding that the talks are so far being held only at the level of experts.
Abdullayev’s statement has cut short any rumor about the two countries’ failure to reach an agreement on the Gabala radar station. Moreover, there has been a glimmer of progress at the talks.
A high-ranking member of the Azeri delegation said on condition of anonymity that a compromise was possible on the issue of price, which Azerbaijan wants to increase to $300 million per year. Russia has also agreed to increase the number of Azeri military personnel at the radar station.
Local media reports that the lease talks might not end until March 2013, which means that the sides will have to extend the current lease contract until that date. “It would be naïve to think that Russia would willingly agree to leave the region,” said Azeri military expert Uzeyir Jafarov. “On the contrary, Moscow will do its best to retain the right to use the radar station for another two or three years at the least. The station is crucial for its ability to monitor the area stretching for 6,000 kilometers to the Indian Ocean. So it would be wrong to assume that Russia will readily leave the Gabala radar station. Anyway, we expect an official announcement on Moscow’s plans in two weeks.”
The Daryal-type radar station in Gabala is the property of Azerbaijan. It became operational in 1985 and can detect missile launches at a range of over 6,000-kilometers, covering an area that includes Iran, Turkey, India, the Middle East and even the Indian Ocean and part of Australia.
Russia lease to the Gabala radar station expires on December 24, 2012. Russia and Azerbaijan began discussing the extension of the lease agreement in 2011. Under the current agreement, the talks should end six months before its expiration, but the two sides still have not reached common ground on this issue.
Komsomolskaya Pravda
Defendants in the Oboronservis Case: ‘It’s Not Our Fault. We Did What We Were Told.’
A war is raging between the defendants and the investigation in the military property fraud case. The investigators are sorting out six criminal cases against former Oboronservis employees and their accomplices on charged with swindling in the sale of land, real estate and military personnel shares.
For example, one of the defendants, Yekaterina Smetanova, who served as CEO of the Expert Legal Support Center, is now said to have made a deal with the investigation and to be laying all the facts on the table. The next minute her lawyers deny everything. The defendants and the prosecution seem to be at war.
Smetanova is in a dilemma. On the one hand, she could benefit from her testimony and receive a shorter term. On the other hand, she is well aware of the fact that by her admission, she will lose the support of her still free accomplices, including her "fellow soldier" Yevgeniya Vasilyeva, head of the Defense Ministry’s property department. But if Smetanova is released on bail soon, her accomplices will suspect her of blowing the whistle. Nothing to envy.
The judges told Komsomolskaya Pravda that Smetanova denies the charges, claiming she was a mere pawn in a big Defense Ministry game (which can be proven by certain documents currently in the possession of the investigators). One of the instructions she received from her bosses was to substantially mark down the price of the property on sale, sometimes by hundreds of millions of rubles. The embezzlement of the military premises has resulted in a loss of nearly 7 billion rubles and counting, as more details are being revealed.
Smetanova’s husband, Maksim Zakutailo, former CEO of the air force depot in Moscow, has chosen the same line of defense.
Russian law provides for up to 10 years in prison for “theft of extremely large amounts of money by a criminal group.”
The Audit Chamber has revealed that the value of state contracts for the purchase and construction of housing for military personnel signed between 2011 and 2014 during Anatoly Serdyukov’s term as a minister is twice as high as the budget funds allocated for these purposes. The planned amount was 80 billion rubles, while the Serdyukov’s administration drove the figure up by 70 billion. Where did the extra money go? An inquiry into housing projects for service personnel in Moscow revealed that expensive apartments had gone to people not actually in military service. Among the happy owners are, for example, Serdyukov’s secretaries Olga Vasilyeva and Anna Gindina and the minister’s adviser Lusine Arutyunova. Yevgeniya Vasilyeva got her 700 million ruble apartment with 13 rooms in Molochny Pereulok for next to nothing. Meanwhile, homeless officers spend years trying to secure housing.
Another defendant in the Oboronservis case, Yulia Rotanova, the Moscow City Court will be kept in custody. Regardless of flattering recommendations, Rotanova, the chief accountant of Security and Communications, will remain in jail until January 14.
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