Medvedev trying to break free?

[Bono]

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/02/04/goings-on-in-kremlin-and-around-it/

Goings-on in Kremlin and Around It
Posted February 4th, 2009 at 1.41pm in American Leadership.

MOSCOW - The past week’s developments gave lots of food for conjecture and speculations among Kremlinologists both within Russia and beyond. The regime - President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - sent out an array of signals that could be interpreted as both the attempts at somewhat liberalizing Russia’s domestic policy and proof of growing differences between the President and the Prime Minister.

Medvedev has recalled from the State Duma the government-submitted amendments to the Criminal Code designed to dramatically expand the definition of such concepts as state secret, high treason and espionage. They could well be used by secret services to battle with political opposition, NGOs, dissent and just criticisms of government officials. Now, President Medvedev has ordered his Administration to rework the bill.

In addition, the President met with ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Novaya Gazeta daily chief editor Dmitry Muratov, deemed among the most consistent critics of the government’s actions. Medvedev expressed his condolences over the killings of lawyer Stanislav Margelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburina. The expert community took it as recognition of the political nature of the crime possibly committed by extremists.

Furthermore, speaking to Bulgarian media representatives, Medvedev clearly indicated that he had every right to criticize Putin and his government, despite the President-Premier close relationship. This statement was interpreted as Medvedev’s attempt at self-assertion as the nation’s sole leader. Note was also taken of the law enforcers’ gentleness in dealing with the participants of anti-government demonstrations staged in Moscow last weekend under the slogans of criticizing the government’s anti-crisis efforts. The order for the police to show restraint could have come from the Kremlin.

Tellingly, according to an unidentified General Staff official, Moscow has suspended the implementation of plans to deploy Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad exclave because newly elected President Obama was not pushing hard to station missile defenses in Eastern Europe. Although these Iskanders have yet to be manufactured, Kremlin has masterminded the act as a gesture of goodwill to the new Washington Administration.

Prime Minister Putin surprised participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos with his unexpectedly liberal pronouncements. In contrast to his standard behavior, the Russian Prime Minister tempered his criticism of the United States, but warned against excessive state interference in the economy and a blind faith in the government omnipotence. Some experts even joked that Andrei Illarionov, a classic liberal economist, Putin’s former economic adviser and presently a Cato Institute research fellow had had a hand in writing his speech.

However such surprise in conjunction with Putin’s address is hardly justified. Experience shows that listeners usually get from Putin what they want to hear. The topic of a limited government is clearly attractive to many in Davos and the West at large. Given a profound economic downturn in Russia, the Kremlin can no longer afford to keep challenging the West and has to resort to mimicry. Putin’s liberal statements in Davos implicitly indicate that the Russian authorities have recognized that the demand for liberal ideas persists in Russia.

Admittedly, the significance of Putin’s statements in Davos should not be inflated. In fact, speaking on the sidelines of the Davos Forum the Russian Prime Minister virtually disavowed his own words intimating that such economic spheres as aircraft-building, nuclear power industry, as well as oil and gas cannot develop without the government influencing them directly and effectively. According to Putin, the significance of limited government lies in the fact that it cannot be made responsible for business’ errors. The government has a right to chose whom to back up and whom not. These reservations are radically changing the meaning of Putin’s formal address.

As for the Medvedev-Putin relationship, they clearly have differences. Neither one, nor the other is willing to sacrifice their popularity and assume the responsibility for the tough crisis aftereffects. Both have specific business preferences. But one should not exaggerate these disparities. In the final analysis, both belong to the same team and cannot but realize that the deepening meltdown is threatening their power. Both find it important to avert the popular discontent turning into a color revolution in Russia. The island of stability, which the Kremlin leaders used to call Russia only a few months ago, exists no longer. The crisis is deepening. The limits of the euro/dollar basket corridor which the Central Bank established for the ruble two weeks ago in the hope that it would hold for several months were almost reached last week, and the national currency devaluation is proceeding at rapid pace.

The President and the Prime Minister realize that Russia cannot do without Western support. Thus, the objective of improving Russia’s image abroad is once again coming to the fore. This explains the Kremlin’s signals of domestic liberalization and liberal rhetoric abroad. The Obama Administration should critically address these verbal signals and urge the Kremlin to show deeds rather than words.

Yevgeny Volk is the Coordinator of The Heritage Foundation’s Moscow Office

[Meeker]

I've always had a strange hunch that Medvedev isn't nearly as evil as Putin/Putin makes him be.

[M]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304675770&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The beginning of a new Russian 'thaw'?
By ANDREAS UMLAND

When Vladimir Putin nominated Dmitry Medvedev to be his successor as president of the Russian Federation on December 10, 2008, Western observers reacted with relief. Medvedev was the best possible candidate in Putin's entourage, and the West's preferred choice as a future partner in negotiations - at least, given the alternatives.

At the same time, most pundits in both Russia and the West were sceptical not only the about the actual prerogatives which Russia's third president would possess with Putin being prime minister "under" him. Many also had their doubts concerning the depth and sincerity of the strikingly liberal and democratic worldview that Medvedev expressed in numerous interviews and articles before his nomination for president. Some saw and see the relatively young lawyer, who hails from a family of St. Petersburg intellectuals, as Putin's puppet. Others suspected that Medvedev's pro-Western talk was just PR, and his nomination for president little more than a cunning move by the Kremlin's shrewd "political technologists."

While the question of Medvedev's actual power remains open, his almost one-hour-long meeting last Thursday with Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Russia's main independent periodical Novaya Gazeta, gives reason for hope. Medvedev had invited Muratov and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, one of Novaya Gazeta's major curators and stockholders, to the Kremlin in reaction to the recent killings of the human-rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta correspondent Anastasia Baburova, both widely discussed in both Russian and Western media. Although the meeting was a closed one and has, apparently, not been taped, Muratov was given permission by Medvedev to report on their conversation.

IF WE ARE to believe Muratov's detailed description of the discussion, Medvedev expressed considerable agreement with Muratov's critical view of recent developments in Russia. In a best-case scenario, this could have far-reaching consequences for Russia's domestic and foreign policies.

The meeting by itself is remarkable. Among the few Russian independent media outlets left, Novaya Gazeta has been one of the harshest and most respected public critics of the political changes under Putin, often attacking his decisions as scathingly as Western media does. Muratov's and Gorbachev's meeting with the president will strengthen the public standing of the embattled newspaper which several times seemed on the verge of being shut down.

Moreover, Medvedev - according to Muratov's report on the radio station Ekho Moskvy - announced a number of initiatives which, if implemented, would challenge the nationalist camp that has become dominant in Russian politics over the last few years. According to Muratov, Medvedev repeated his previously announced intention to resolutely fight rising Russian neo-fascist tendencies. According to his own report, Muratov replied that democracy is the only alternative to fascism, and that in Russia the remnants of the democratic movement are regularly attacked by the mass media.

"Medvedev laughed and responded that he does not give any instructions in that regard, and that, likely this was a leftover phenomenon concerning those people whom [Muratov] in this conversation called the Kremlin's fulltime propaganda employees." It appears that, oddly, Medvedev was thus distancing himself from his own underlings.

MEDVEDEV ALSO SPOKE OUT, as he had done before, in favor of humanization of the notorious Russian court, detention and prison system. When Muratov complained about the partial rehabilitation of Stalin in current Russian public discourse, Medvedev agreed that "it is necessary that the people understand and research the period [of Stalin's rule]." The president, according to Muratov, fully supported the initiative of a number of Russian nongovernmental organizations and prominent personalities to erect a monument to the victims of Stalinism.

Muratov and Medvedev also agreed on the need to fight corruption. In addition, Muratov suggested that current Kremlin officials engaged in "silly propaganda" should be replaced with liberal intellectuals like Aleksandr Auzan or Igor Yurgens - a proposal with which Medvedev, allegedly, also agreed.

What is, perhaps, most important is that Muratov was obviously left with a positive impression of Medvedev, and pleasantly surprised by the level of his knowledge of Russia's ailments and by the Kremlin's chief ability to listen. It would be going too far to speak now of an alliance of Russia's formally most powerful man with Moscow's most respected liberal newspaper. Nevertheless, this meeting could one day be seen as a symbolic and consequential event in post-Soviet Russia.

When Gorbachev more than 20 years ago started a comparable rapprochement with Moscow's liberal intellectuals, this move ushered in the democratization of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Whether Medvedev's demonstrative support for Novaya Gazeta represents the starting point of a similar transformation remains to be seen.

[big bad fab]

Don't let Soviet Russian propaganda make you believe there is any opportunity of liberalization inside the regime.

Remember December 1999 ? Putin was partly described as an efficient reformist, a sort of sober Eltsin, but not as the brain behind fake terrorist attacks in Moscow, just to put up his popularity...

Remember after the virtual end of any real opposition in Chechnia ? We were said that, "now, Putin can concentrate on reforming and democratizing: sure, repression in Chechnia was awful, but, now, all will be OK"...

Remember Putin's reelection ? We were said that during his first term, he was obliged to be harsher, but, now that he is "cool" with a second mandate, he can open himself and Russia...

Remember Putin's pick of Medvedev ? A lawyer, not a former KGB-man, etc, a fine democrat...

And now, you've got the same as in the last 10 years (Politkovskaïa; liberal and democratic parties virtually forbidden to concur in elections; Ingushetia;...): Georgia, political assassinations, gas war, threatening of missiles in Kaliningrad, nuclear policy towards Iran, etc.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

but not as the brain behind fake terrorist attacks in Moscow, just to put up his popularity...

Euh, maybe I'm a bit naive or I don't understand what you speak about but, the terrorist attack in Moscow I remember is the one in the theater, would you pretend it was a fake??