Russia Losing Out to US in Central Asia, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – “The situation in Central Asia and Kazakhstan where Moscow’s position has always been considered fixed is changing before our eyes,” the editors of Moscow’s Nezavisimaya gazeta say, and “the region is being transformed into a successful American place des armes.” 

            That reflects the success of the Five Plus One geopolitical project launched by the Obama Administration in 2015 and being continued by the Trump Administration, a project based on a program proposed by S. Frederick Starr, head of the Washington Institute for Central Asia and the Caucasus in 2005 (ng.ru/editorial/2018-08-30/2_7300_red.html).

                The goal of this project was to reorient cooperation between Central Asia and the outside world away from Russia and China and toward the United States and Europe, Nezavisimaya gazeta says. And the C5+1 format relies as well on increasing intra-regional cooperation with the US in the areas of economics, regional cooperation, environment and security.

            The successful visits to Washington by the presidents of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan reflect how much progress has been made in this regard, the editors continue.  And they stress that the other countries of the region are now following Tashkent and Astana in refocusing their attention away from Moscow and towards Washington.

            Just how far things have gone has now been confirmed by the decision of the Afghan government not to take part in a planned international conference in Moscow to discuss how to cope with the Taliban but instead to hold the meeting in Tashkent where the Uzbekistan government will play the moderating role.

            According to Bakhiyer Ergashev, head of the Tashkent Ma’no Research Center, Uzbekistan will likely be able to fulfill that role, at least in part because Washington and Kabul have blocked Moscow from doing so. Russia will still play some role but it will no longer be “the first violin” in this orchestra.

            “Russia is losing the region to the US because Moscow has lacked a precise idea about the goals and means for their realization in the countries of Central Asia.  Whether such an understanding of what Moscow wants in this part of the world today is unclear,” the paper continues.

            But one thing is certain, the editors argue. “Without a well-though-out policy and new forms of work, Moscow will not be able to retain its Central Asian partners.” Its economic role especially in terms of gastarbeiters and investments simply isn’t enough by itself to do that. Beyond the region, there are markets that are “no less promising.”

Duma Deputy from Sakha Demands Republic Ecology Minister, ALROSA Officials be Fired

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – Protests in many parts of Russia are changing in an important way: Instead of demanding that Vladimir Putin or some other higher up take action to solve a problem, people and their leaders are demanding that this or that official or businessman be dismissed for malfeasance or failure to do their jobs properly.

            That personalization of protest highlights the growing divide between the people and the powers and gives each side less room for maneuver than has been the case earlier. As a result, officials are likely to dig in and the population to be further radicalized, politicizing a situation that might earlier have been resolved more easily with good will on both sides.

            A case in point of this trend comes from Sakha where Fedot Tumusov, a Just Russia deputy in the Russian Duma, has demanded the removal of Sakhamin Afanasyev, the republic’s ecology minister, and the firing of officers of the ALROSA company for complicity in contaminating the rivers there (taigapost.ru/news/fedot-tumusov-za-otravlenie-vilyuya-dolzhen-otvetit-ministr-ekologii-yakutii).

            Tumusov says that government and business officials bear full responsibility for “the ecological catastrophe” on local rivers, that the republic must declare a state of emergency to address it, and that those officials responsible be removed from their posts on the basis of Stalin’s principle that “’every problem has a first name and a last name.’”

            The deputy’s call follows protests by local people about the contamination of the rivers of the republic by the ALROSA diamond concern and the failure of officials in the government to do anything about them. At best, they have been “ineffective,” Tumusov says; at worst, they have been complicit with the company.

            The situation in the republic’s rivers has become so bad that activists but not yet officials are warning people against drinking water from them.

            Historically, environmental protection and historical preservation movements were the first stage in national movements in the last decade of the Soviet Union. Now, once again, albeit typically below the radar screen of people in Moscow, they are playing a similar but far more radical role beyond that city’s ring road. 

With United Russia Now ‘Toxic,’ Initiative in Russia Moving to the Left, Byzov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 31 – Vladimir Putin’s modifications of the pension reform have lowered the level of dissatisfaction in society, Andrey Polunin says, and they may have even stabilized his own rating. But they have nothing to save the reputation of United Russia: It has become toxic in the eyes of Russians and is now certain to do badly in upcoming elections.

            “It is symptomatic,” the Svobodnaya pressa analyst says, “that President Putin has for a long time not positioned himself in relation to United Russia,” an approach Dmitry Medvedev and Sergey Sobyanin have followed as well. But not everyone can flee from that identification; and they are going to suffer (svpressa.ru/politic/article/209520/).

                If turnout is very low as it may be, the impact of this on the outcome of the elections will be less obvious, Polunin says. “But this will not solve the problems of the party of power.” Analysts divide on its future. Some say that United Russia in the parliamentary elections will receive 30 to 35 percent of the vote because of conformist attitudes among Russians.

                But others argue that as a result of the pension reform, there will be “a renewal of the current political class while Putin’s rating will remain relatively high.  That could have many more far-reaching consequences.

            Leonty Byzov of the Moscow Institute of Sociology says that Putin’s speech on pensions did little to influence the attitudes of Russians about that problem. “but what is much more important,” as a result of the Kremlin leader’s remarks, “the picture of the world that people have began to change.”

            “In the picture of the world which was formed in 2000, Putin stood above the clans and was the last popular defender. In essence, he was the good tsar,” the sociologist says. But now that Putin has come out against the people together with the hated oligarchate and government, this picture has begun to disintegrate.”

            Russians are now beginning to ask themselves: “why must be sacrifice our last money … when the ruling class and the oligarchs aren’t prepared to sacrifice anything?”

            In this situation, the Kremlin is not unhappy with the idea that participation in the September 9 election will be low. If that is the case, it will do better because the increasingly angry population won’t be taking part while its supporters will.  But the communists are going to pick up some support now and more in the future if they seize the moment.

                United Russia, Byzov says, is now “dead. It has already died but exists by inertia,” and the powers that be can’t count on it anymore.  “The picture of the world people has changed. I do not want to assert that the situation is revolutionary. Nevertheless, it is becoming ever more socially dangerous.”

            People feel the elites are getting everything and they are getting nothing, and “this sense is very strongly revolutionizing people who to a great extent are beginning to feel they have nothing to lose,” Byzov continues. As a result, their relationship to the authorities is beginning to change.

            That doesn’t mean they are ready to go into the streets as most understand that this will not change anything. “But protest, I am certain,” he says, “will appear in something else. Simply because the country is entering into a time of complicated tests. And the powers already cannot count on the support of their former electorate.”

            Aleksandr Shatilov of Moscow’s Finance University, however, suggests that this may not be manifested anytime soon. On the one hand, in Moscow, many pensioners are continuing to work and so are less affected by the reforms. And on the other, in the regions, where it is hitting home, people are traditionally more loyal to the powers that be and likely to remain so for now.