New Opposition Civic Union Established in Abkhazia

A civic union of Abkhaz “patriotic forces” held its founding congress in Sukhumi on January 19.  The new union, which has named itself Apsadgyyl (Homeland) is not intended as an electoral bloc for the parliamentary ballot scheduled for March 10. Instead, it will seek in the longer term to bridge what lawyer Tamaz Ketsba, a member of the initiative group behind the forum, calls the existing split in Abkhaz society.

The new union brings together an unspecified number of opposition parties and NGOs, including the radical Forum of National Unity of Abkhazia (FNEA) headed by Raul Khadjimba, who ran unsuccessfully in the presidential elections of 2004, 2009 and 2011.

Addressing the founding congress, Khadjimba argued that Abkhazia’s sovereignty is under threat because of the inertia of its leaders, presumably meaning Aleksandr Ankvab, who was elected de facto president in August 2011 following the untimely death in May of Sergei Bagapsh. Only a few countries recognize Abkhazia as an independent entity, including Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and a handful of Pacific island states.

At the same time, Khadjimba called for “constructive dialogue” between the opposition and the authorities.

The Apsadgyyl congress addressed two formal demands to the authorities in the run-up to the March ballot.

The first was for the outgoing parliament to debate proposed amendments to the election law that would minimize the scope for falsifying election results.

One such measure is to revamp the composition of election commissions at all levels. The parliament is reportedly reluctant to debate those amendments.

The second proposal was to guarantee all parties airtime on state TV and radio even before the election campaign gets underway.

Last fall, Khadjimba addressed an open letter to Ankvab complaining that the management of Abkhaz state TV and radio routinely ignores all the opposition’s demands for more extensive and in-depth coverage of pressing political, socio-economic, legal, and demographic matters as well as other issues, such as corruption.

Khadjimba called for the creation of an independent public council that would advise the management of state TV on programming priorities as well as on promoting feedback from viewers and listeners while also acting on such audience input.

Ankvab rejected that demand. But he did agree to set up a “working group,” which is to formulate its reform proposals by March 1, i.e. too late for them to be implemented during the run-up to the March parliamentary election.

Prokhorov Says He’s No ‘Kremlin Stooge,’ Lays Out Campaign Platform

MOSCOW — Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has laid out a detailed electoral manifesto ahead of the presidential polls in March and vowed that if he’s elected, he’ll reverse some of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s key policies.

The tycoon, who submitted 2 million signatures to the Electoral Commission in support of his candidacy this week — one of the final barriers to being registered in the race for the Kremlin — said he would reinstate gubernatorial elections and repeated his intention to pardon jailed tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Russian Service on January 19, Prokhorov also said he would shorten presidential terms from six to four years and appoint former Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin as his prime minister.

In his “The Real Future” election program, Prokhorov pledges to dismantle state control of the media and break up huge energy monopolies. He says if elected he will prohibit all forms of censorship and state control of major television and radio stations, and break up gas giant Gazprom. He also says he favors better relations with the European Union but does not mention the United States.

The billionaire, one of seven potential candidates in the March 4 polls who has long had a close relationship with the Kremlin, also dismissed allegations he was ordered by pro-Putin spin doctors to run in the elections.

“It’s a very good myth, but it is very harmful to my reputation and could take me out of the race,” Prokhorov said. “There never was such a phone call.”

Suspicious Minds

The 46-year-old Prokhorov has been criticized by some in the opposition as a Kremlin stooge whose candidacy in the presidential race is aimed at dividing the opposition’s share of the vote.

Prokhorov said he decided to enter the race on September 24, the day President Dmitry Medvedev announced he would stand aside for his mentor Putin’s planned return to the Kremlin.

Putin Vs. Akunin

Russian Oil Production Hits Post-Soviet High

NATO cares about russian weapons in Kaliningrad

Interview with Konstantin Kosachyov first Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee commenting for us on the issue.

Of course today we have seen the news that Mr. Rasmussen, the NATO Secretary General has reiterated NATO’s concern about Russia potentially deploying additional weapons in Kaliningrad.

I have of course read this statement by Mr. Rasmussen again and again and I’m very much surprised by the position taken by the NATO’s leadership. The major problem is that as soon as we try to reach any agreements with NATO they always would refer to the unilateral program of the United States of America in terms of deploying anti-missile system in Europe while NATO would in that case be just a junior partner, to put it that way.

When we speak on that issue with our American partners, they would always tell us that they are under the process of coordinating of their efforts with NATO and they need to have conference with the NATO and so on and so forth. And all that traits and impression that we are a kind of inside of a certain game being played with us when both the United States unilaterally and NATO multilaterally take certain measures without taking into account Russian concerns. And they just want to put Russia in a position where the situation would continue to develop the way the United States and NATO want this situation to be developed while Russia will have just to accept the ongoing developments without having any opportunity to influence these developments.

This is not acceptable and the measures we are potentially going to take are not aimed against anybody. That word “against” was used frequently by Mr. Rasmussen but the measures which are to be taken potentially by Russia are aimed at securing our defense and guaranteeing our safety, they are not aimed specifically at NATO, at the United States or anybody else. They are just taken or will be taken in order to maintain the strategic balance and of course we will be forced to take these measures in case we are not a part, not of a game, but of a joined project either with NATO or with the United States of America.

The minimum possible solution is that we have a legally binding agreement of not using force against each other in terms of anti-missile defense. The maximum solution is that we cooperate on that anti-missile defense without any restrictions. And nothing else would be acceptable for Russia.

Russia: Internet used to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda

With Russia’s presidential election scheduled for the 4th March, supporters of the heavy favourite, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have taken to the web to take on his political adversaries. One of the main targets of these online attacks is Alexeï Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has become one of the driving forces behind the opposition movement in the country.

This video, which is in very dubious taste, was posted to a pro-Putin blog last week. It’s around a minute long and compares Alexei Navalny’s gestures and intonations to those of Adolf Hitler, basically depicting the blogger as a fascist. The purpose of this smear campaign is to take away any credibility from one of the most well-known critics of the Prime Minister.

The people behind this cartoon which is aired on lifenews.ru, a news site with close ties to the Kremlin, share the same goal. Once again, Navalny is portrayed as a fascist, carrying out the Nazi salute, all day long, in a somewhat compulsive manner.

Navalny denies these allegations, and has always been open about his nationalist activities. This video for example was filmed in 2007 and has recently resurfaced. He says, amongst other things, that, just as fly swatters are used against insects, guns should be made available for use against law breakers like Islamist militants.

And with the presidential elections fast approaching, we are seeing more and more pro-Kremlin propaganda, but it does sometimes backfire. Putin supporters recently circulated this doctored photo online, which shows Alexeï Navalny with Boris Berezovski, a businessman who is wanted by the Russian authorities. Russian web users wasted no time in exposing the photo as a fake, a result of some pretty poor photo editing, and then went on to have a field day parodying the doctored photo, condemning the failed smear campaign.

Russian Envoys Leave Canada After Officer Is Accused of Spying

OTTAWA — Four Russian diplomats have left Canada just days after a naval intelligence officer was charged with passing government secrets to a “foreign entity.”

The four men, who were based at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, disappeared on Thursday from an online database of accredited diplomats compiled by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs. A note from the department indicates that the online registry is updated daily.

But the Russian Foreign Ministry, in a Twitter message, denied numerous reports in the Canadian news media that the men were expelled by Canada for their involvement with Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle, who was charged last weekend with passing government secrets over the last four and a half years.

“The Canadian media reports about the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Canada are surprising, because they left the country in 2011 at the end of their tours,” the Foreign Ministry said in its posting.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined to comment.

The reports in the Canadian media vary, with some suggesting that only three of the diplomats were expelled.

Canada has offered relatively little information about the case of Lieutenant Delisle, who is the first person to be charged under the Security of Information Act. His two charges under that legislation could bring a life sentence if he is convicted. Lieutenant Delisle also faces a charge of breach of trust under Canada’s criminal laws.

The 40-year-old lieutenant has spent much of his military career at Trinity, a communications and intelligence center that is part of a large military base in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also spent time at the main intelligence clearing center for Canada’s military in Ottawa.

The government’s reluctance to detail the case or publicly identify the foreign government has puzzled some experts, if it is indeed Russia.

Since coming to power in 2006, the Conservatives under Mr. Harper have rarely passed on an opportunity to challenge Russia. On several occasions, members of Mr. Harper’s staff or members of his government have been quick to denounce Russia when its military aircraft have neared Canada’s northern border.

“This government tends to be strongly Russophobic,” said Paul Robinson, who teaches Russian history and military studies at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. “I would have thought that their tendency would have been to pounce on this and say, ‘Evil Russians.’ ”

Regardless of the government’s views, Professor Robinson, who was previously an intelligence officer in the British Army, said that the decision not to officially identify the other country would have been made largely for political rather than national security reasons.

Lieutenant Delisle’s lawyer has not said how his client intends to plead. But if he seeks bail at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, several legal and national security experts anticipate that the prosecutors may have to reveal more information about the charges if, as is likely, they oppose his release.

Russian destroyer escorts commercial vessels in Gulf of Aden

Russia probes election fraud: investigators

Kremlin denies diplomats expelled over alleged spy affair

The Kremlin officially denied reports that Russian diplomats were asked to leave Canada over an alleged spy affair although Russia’s embassy in Ottawa has been instructed to make no public comment on the matter for now.

The controversy made ripples far abroad Friday as the Russian government tried to play down recent departures and reject any link to the recent arrest of a Canadian naval officer, Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle, for allegedly passing secrets to a “foreign entity.”

Kremlin spokesman Alexei Pavlov said: “The situation is ultimately clear: The diplomats left Canada last year.”

However, The Globe and Mail has learned that more than one Russian diplomat was asked to leave Canada in connection with the alleged espionage case.

At least four embassy staffers have departed Canada recently although it’s not clear which exits can be tied to the controversy, which only came to light Monday.

Moscow officials, however, are using Russian media to beat back any ties to the spy accusations. The Russian radio station Echo quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry official denouncing what they called “sensational” and “unsubstantiated” reports in Canada “first about the detention of a Canadian navy officer suspected in passing secret information to foreign representatives and now about Russian diplomats expelled from Canada.”

The Russian embassy in Canada stayed mum on the matter Friday. An embassy official said Moscow had instructed its Canadian representatives to make no comment on the controversy until SLt. Delisle’s court matters commence.

The naval intelligence officer was charged under Canada’s Security of Information Act on Monday and is in custody in Halifax awaiting a Jan. 25 bail hearing.

More details continue to emerge about the man alleged to have fed confidential information to a foreign power.

An Ontario resident who said his girlfriend had been married to Jeffrey Delisle answered the phone at her current address. “She was shocked, no idea,” he said of the spying the intelligence officer is alleged to have undertaken.

A few years after declaring bankruptcy in 1998, the accused moved into a co-op in the Halifax suburb of Lower Sackville. At the time, he was living with a spouse and three young children. The co-op is designed for families with modest incomes but even within this group the family’s straitened circumstances were noticed.

“When they were living here his money situation wasn’t too good,” said one man who was unaware of the former resident’s legal problems and shocked when it was pointed out by a reporter.

“Not him, I can’t believe it, he was too … geeky,” the man said. “He was straightforward. He was into his family, into his career. He really seemed to care about his kids and the military.”

Once he realized the local connection to the story he’d been watching on the news, the man declined to offer a name, a reticence matched by others in the area.

Another co-op resident remembered the couple as being “quite religious” and said that the serviceman’s spouse was active in the church, as well as volunteering and keeping house. He would jog for fitness and both doted on the children.

“They’re both very good parents and those kids were their No. 1 concern,” she said, on condition of anonymity. “Very down-to-earth people.”

Residents were unclear exactly when the Delisle family moved into the modest two-story semi. But they remembered that the family was intact when they left the province in 2006, following his career to Ontario. It was only later that the marriage foundered.

When SLt. Delisle returned to Nova Scotia, in 2010, he came without his spouse.

One former Foreign Affairs staffer who now teaches at the University of Ottawa said Canadians shouldn’t be surprised if the Russians are conducting espionage abroad.

“They’re quite open from [Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin on down about the fact that espionage is one tool in their diplomatic arsenal,” said Daniel Livermore, a former director-general with the Bureau of Security and Intelligence at Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs.

Russian media overlooks Kremlin diplomats’ expulsion from Canada

Russian media has had next to no reaction to reports this week by Canadian news outlets that four Russian diplomats, all military attachés, were expelled from Canada as spies.

Two days after Canadian media broke the news about the expelled Russian diplomats, not a single Russian newspaper or news agency mentioned the episode, other than to report the muted official response that the diplomats were, in any case, scheduled to return home.

ub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle, a Canadian naval officer, was arrested last week for allegedly passing secrets to a “foreign entity.” The Kremlin has denied the four diplomats left Canada in connection with the arrest.

On Friday, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the Canadian episode as hardly worth paying attention to, saying the diplomats had left Canada in 2011 “after their trips came to an end” and the news faded.

“We had no noise in Russia around the Canadian diplomatic scandal, as there is more interesting news right now – like elections, opposition protests or even a different espionage story, about the British spy rock,” Igor Bunin, director of the Center for Political Technologies, said in an interview.

Russia’s Alarmed by Online Fraud Suspect’s Extradition to U.S.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it’s “alarmed” that Swiss and American authorities didn’t inform it about the extradition to the U.S. of Vladimir Zdorovenin, who’s accused of online fraud.

“Unfortunately, it’s not the first case when U.S. security forces organize a detention of our nationals in third countries, often on dubious grounds and using a provocation,” Alexander Lukashevich, a ministry spokesman, said today in an e-mailed statement. “This concerns improper exterritorial application of U.S. legislation against Russia’s citizens.”

Zdorovenin was arrested last March in Zurich and arrived in New York on Jan. 16 after extradition by Swiss authorities, according to a statement from the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan. His son Kirill is also wanted and remains at large. U.S. prosecutors charged the two Russian nationals with taking part in a scheme to gain illegal computer access to American bank accounts through bogus e-commerce websites.

At his Jan. 17 arraignment before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein, Vladimir Zdorovenin pleaded not guilty to the charges through his lawyer, Sabrina Shroff. She declined to comment on the case after court.

Russia’s has insisted consular officers are granted access to Zdorovenin in the U.S. to guarantee his rights, according to Lukashevich.