New Story of Putin's Russia

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like those often slimy often criminal russian oligarchs. They got rich fast. Rather they got very rich, very fast. Of course their wealth causes a lot of envy by the public and by the government and Putin has the power and will to take their weath, throw them in jail or make them flee the country and then try to kill them with Polonium.

I would not mind, if the wealth Putin steals back would really do the normal Russian any good. But I have very strong doubts. What would you expect from a fucking Ex-KGB who might be less Ex than we hope for.

And I disdain Schroeder, the former German Chancellor who called Putin to be a flawless democrat. Probably Schroeder should have stayed away from the Vodka. At least his Putin has repaid his brown-nosed friend with a job in a Russian-German joint venture and an adopted two children from Russia (with love).

But I am drifting from the topic which is Mikhail Gutseriyev, born 1958, founder of one of the first cooperative banks and later started and run Russneft.

In July 2007 Gutseriyev stepped down from his oil company Russneft due to extreme pressure from Putin.

The usual modus operandi of Putin is to take advantage of the ambiguous Russian tax laws and then to claim tax evasion. An other approved method, used mainly for Western companies is to claim that environmental laws have been broken.

I am not saying, that neither tax evasion or environmental issues can happen, but their prosecution is very specific. As long as you are Putins friend, you can evade taxes and spill oil, but just don’t loose his friendship,.

Gutseriyev as many before him have fled Russia and arrived in London. There are claims he somehow transferred most of his 3 billion USD forture to London.

Putin often denouces Britain as a haven for criminals and terrorists later referring to Boris Berezovsky (whose friend Alexander Litvinenko was most probably murdered by the Russian Secret Service with radioactive poison) and to the Chechen rebel leader Akhmed Zakayew.

Numerous other Russian dissidents and opponents of the Putin regime now live in London including the former Kommersant journalist Yelena Tregubova and executives from the bankrupt oil company Yukos. Bankrupt thanks to Putin.

Mr Berezovsky said: "I know him and although I don't have an especially close relationship with him I will help if he gets in touch, although he will not need all that much help because he has big experience abroad and he has money." Mr Berezovsky said he expected more Russians to come to London because the UK's legal system offered protection from what he described as Russia's "gangster" government.

Gutseriyev was last seen at the funeral of his son who died last week following a mysterious car crash. It is very possible, that Putin had to do something with this ‚accident’ too. There are just too many critics of Putin dying premature.

The Guardian writes here.

Mr Gutseriyev's woes appear to have started after he bought up assets from the oil firm Yukos. On July 30 he published a damning letter accusing the Russian authorities of using regulation as a pretext to grab back oil and gas assets from Russian and western companies.

He wrote: "They made me an offer to leave the oil business, to leave on 'good terms'. I refused. Then, to make me more amenable, they tightened the screws on the company with unprecedented persecution." The letter marked the most significant public challenge to Mr Putin from a leading businessman since the imprisonment four years ago of the former chairman of Yukos Oil, Mikhail Khordorkovsky.

Khordorkovsky was jailed for eight years in 2004 for tax evasion and fraud. The case was widely seen as political punishment for his refusal to stop funding anti-Kremlin opposition parties ahead of 2004 elections. The oligarch, once Russia's richest man, is now in jail in Siberia.

Yesterday Russian newspapers dubbed Mr Gutseriyev a "second Mikhail" - a reference to Khordorkovsky. They predicted that, like Yukos, his RussNeft oil empire would be swiftly dismantled, sold off, and most probably absorbed into a new state-run firm. Russian investigators have already seized the firm and accuse Mr Gutseriyev of failing to pay $800m in tax.

Yeah, the virtue of a flawless democrat.

Further state ownership of petrol industry in Russia

A Moscow Court ruled to return to state ownership equity stakes in Bashkir fuel and energy companies, which are presently held by private companies. This is just an other victory of Putin to regain complete control over the Russian petrol industry and resources. I do not trust Putin to let the people profit from their owns country resources, but fear, that it will just help Putin to prolong his undemocratic rule over Russia. Some fear, he might try to run for a third presidency, but I believe, he just wants personal control over the Russian petrol.

Russia restarts Cold War patrols

Russia is a nuclear power. It has land-based, submarine-based and air-based nuclear weapons at its disposal. Some over 7’000 active and about 9’000 reserve. Enough to kill everything on this planet.

On the other hand, there is hardly a real nuclear threat. The US has more than enough trouble handling its conventional wars and it is very difficult to believe, they would attack such a weak state as Russia out of nowhere. The European powers are much to dependent on Russian oil or gas to be of any threat. We like to trade, work and enjoy peace, not to fight wars.

Israel has bigger problems than Russia and neither China nor India or Pakistan has anything near enough weapons to destroy the Russian land-based nuclear weapon systems.

But, Russia seems to be that much threatened, to restart their long-range nuclear bomber patrols. I am not sure, but I don’t think the US have constant nuclear bombers in the air. They rely on their ground and submarine-based weapon systems.

Britain has reduced its amount of active weapons and just keeps one submarine on alert. China has no modern bombers to speak of.

But still, crazy Putin says “the move to resume the flights permanently after a 15-year suspension (because they could not afford the fuel) was in response to security threats posed by other military powers” and that “14 bombers had taken off from Russian airfields early on Friday.” Now with the high on oil prices, Russia has again the money to flex their muscles.

As you might have read, Russian bombers have flew close to the US base Guam, Scotland and Alaska were intercepted by Western forces. We can just hope, that nobody is trigger itchy.

This might just be a sign from Putin, that we should not forget him, but probably, it is also a sign, that his submarine forces are way beyond their best times themselves.

Moldova and Transnistria

We often make jokes about the Americans, who can’t even find their own country on a globe. A lot of people in Europe would not find Moldova or Transnistria. They even might never have heard about Transnistria at all.

So lets look at a very brief history of Moldova. It one was a part of Romania, fell under the power of the Ottomans then the Russians. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Bessarabia (as it was then called) proclaimed independence from Russia in 1918 reunited with Romania the same year. Transnistria did not join Romania and formed the Moldavian ASSR.

According to Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union forced Romania to transfer authority over Bessarabia to Russia and annexed it. Transnistria was then joined with it and formed the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Moldova moved towards independence from 1988 on and in August 1991, Moldova declared its independence as part of the CIS. Transnistria, which is the part east of the Dniester River, having large groups of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, claimed independence from Moldova in 1990. A brief military conflict between Moldova and Transnistria in 1992 ended with Russian forces intervening on the Transnistrian side, which helped to secure Transnistrians independence till today. The Russian troops still remain in Transnistrian.

Moldova did not unite with Romania in 1991 either, which itself joined NATO in 2004 and the EU this year. Therefore the conflict in Moldavia and Transnistria, so small it might be, has a larger effect than one would think.

Transnistria is thought of being a safe haven for smuggling. Especially for arms, human beings and laundering of money. Over 20’000 tons of ammunition as well as a lot of arms are ‘guarded’ by over 2’000 Russian soldiers, who are willing to sell arms to any buyer. In Chechnya, they even sold arms to the guerrilla they were fighting. The West is especially interested in the disappearance of surface-to-air missile launchers, something every decent terrorist wants to get his dirty hands on.

The article in the NZZ was about the border between Romania and Moldova, which is now the outer EU-border. As Romania wants to join Schengen, they guard it very well, which causes family ties between those close countries to suffer.

Also Romania de jure offers any Moldavian the citizenship of Romania, but because it fears an invasion of thousands Moldavians, they have only five judges working part time on these cases. Therefore there are over 800’000 Moldavians (about 20 percent of its population) wanting to become Romanian citizens, but only very few citizenships were granted.

Personally, I think that Russia once again shows its inability as a state to act according to international law and to be, what I call it, a good state. I do not think, that Russia is an evil state per se, but I believe, it tries to compensate its weak position, the lose of its former might with any petty deed.