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The New Russian Police State Putin Style

So this is some of what happens to those who speak out in Russia today. From the New York Times:

. . . For six hours the men — a squad from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation — tore apart the apartment, neither removing their masks nor dropping their weapons. “You know what’s going on,” one of them chided her. “If you had married a good K.G.B. man, it would be another story.” They teased her by reading love letters from an ex-beau aloud in front of Yashin. And they humiliated her by sending a man to shadow her to the bathroom. Millions of Russians had seen Sobchak in various stages of undress before, but for the first time this was not a performance of her own making. In Sobchak’s safe, the officers reportedly discovered nearly one million euros and half a million dollars in dozens of envelopes. The state, Sobchak said when she described the episode to me in late June, had found its jackpot — and made, Sobchak believes, its intentions clear. “Whether it’s prison or exile,” she said, “they’re out to silence me.”
On that same June morning, several leaders of the opposition in Russia also had their homes raided by investigators. But Sobchak stands apart: in this new time of troubles, as Putin settles back into the Kremlin for his third term as president, few Russians more closely embody the state of the country today — in both its prospects and its hazards — than Sobchak. She has money and, with more than 470,000 followers on Twitter (making hers one of the most popular private Russian accounts), a following. And she is staking both resources in the fight for, as she puts it, “a better way to live.” . . .

What good are exit polls if voters vote many times?

Exit polls can be used to determining if vote fraud is occurring, but the exit polls fail if voters are being bused from poll to poll to vote many times. From the Canadian Press:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won Russia's presidential election on Sunday, according to exit polls cited by state television, but the vote was tainted by claims of violations, including "carousel voting" in which voters were bused around to cast several ballots.
Putin tallied 58 per cent of the vote, according to a nationwide exit poll conducted by the VTsIOM polling agency. Another exit poll done by the FOM polling agency showed Putin received 59 per cent of the ballot.
Official vote results from the far eastern regions where the count was already completed seemed to confirm the poll data. With just over 14 per cent of all precincts counted, Putin was leading the field with 62 per cent of the vote, the Central Election Commission said.
But if thousands of claims of violations made by independent observers and Putin's foes are confirmed, they could undermine the legitimacy of his victory and fuel protests. The opposition is gearing up for a massive rally in downtown Moscow on Monday.
"These elections are not free ... that's why we'll have protests tomorrow. We will not recognize the president as legitimate," said Mikhail Kasyanov, who was Putin's first prime minister before going into opposition.
Golos, Russia's leading independent elections watchdog, said it received numerous reports of "carousel voting," in which busloads of voters are driven around to cast ballots multiple times. . . .

Why sanctions on Iran are not serious

Iran Russia

Sanctions rarely work. They are even less likely to impose a significant cost on a country when other neighboring countries aren't interested in imposing sanctions. If Russia, China, and other countries are refusing to participate, what chance do these sanctions have? From VOA:

Iran and its powerful ally Russia have denounced new Western sanctions on Tehran's financial, petrochemical and energy sectors, calling them illegal and futile.

The U.S., Canada, and Britain each announced new steps Monday to increase economic pressure against Iran in response to international concerns that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday the unilateral measures by the the three countries amounted merely to "propaganda and psychological warfare." He predicted they would prove ineffective, saying Iran's trade and economic ties with the U.S. and Britain are small anyway.

Separately, Russia's foreign ministry called the sanctions "unacceptable and contradictory to international law." Moscow, together with Beijing, has blocked further punitive measures against Tehran from reaching the United Nations Security Council for approval. Four rounds of U.N. sanctions against Iran have already been passed.

Washington said Monday it is imposing sanctions on goods and services used by Iran's oil and gas industry to discourage foreign companies from investing in the sector. The U.S. also announced a worldwide diplomatic campaign to encourage countries to buy petrochemicals from other suppliers. . .

New Report Places Main Guilt of Russian Invasion of Georgia on Russia

ForeignPolicy Russia

It is too bad that Georgia wasn't made part of NATO in time. Of course, the reason why Russia struck was to control the pipelines into Europe. The Wash Post story is here.

The results, released Wednesday in a lengthy report, won't please the hard-core partisans of either side. But they ought to be particularly disappointing to Mr. Putin and his apologists. Written by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, the report rejects Russia's main claims about the conflict, finds it guilty of sponsoring or tolerating human rights crimes, and asserts that any country that follows Moscow's lead in recognizing two provinces of Georgia as independent nations will itself be violating international law.

The report finds that "open hostilities" began with a Georgian attack on the capital of the rebel province of South Ossetia on the night of Aug. 7, 2008 -- an act that the United States rightly condemned at the time. But the mission also documented a long lead-up of provocative acts by Russia and its local allies in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Moscow's claim that Georgia committed "genocide" and thus justified its invasion, the report says, was false; moreover, "much of the Russian military action went far beyond the reasonable limits of defense." The mission also confirmed that "irregular armed groups on the South Ossetian side that would not or could not be adequately controlled by regular Russian armed forces" committed violations of human rights law and possibly war crimes, including the ethnic cleansing of Georgians.

A year later, Mr. Putin's attempt to subjugate Georgia looks like one of his worse blunders. Only two other countries -- Nicaragua and Venezuela -- have recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Mr. Saakashvili remains in office, and relations between Russia and all of its other neighbors have deteriorated. Now even Mr. Putin's European Union advocates will be hard-pressed to defend his actions. . . .

Russians may have taken down Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal while trying to stop a Georgian Blogger

ForeignPolicy Russia

So what does the US government say to the Russians when they disrupt the operation of a few American businesses. ABC News has this:

Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, Google Blogger and other Web sites were hobbled Thursday -- Twitter was completely down for many users -- and it all appears to have been because of a coordinated online attack on one political blogger in the Republic of Georgia.

The man called himself "Cyxymu." ABC News tracked him down in Tblisi, Georgia, and spoke to him by phone.

He said he is a 34-year-old economics professor named Georgy (he wouldn't give his last name), a married father of two. He said he is a refugee from Abkhazia, a region of Georgia that declared its independence in 1991 after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but is recognized by only a few of the world's governments.

Georgy said he started a blog on the LiveJournal site to unite fellow refugees who would like Abkhazia to recognize Georgia's authority over it. Last summer, Georgia and Russia went to war with each other, and Georgy started criticizing Russia -- which recognized his homeland's independence -- online.

Georgy said he believes he was targeted by a group linked to the Kremlin. "It's hard to say who did it but I looked at how it was done and it definitely cost a lot of money. An operation like this couldn't have been done by a group of enthusiasts."

What they did is known as a Denial of Service attack (DoS). They sent out computer viruses that infected thousands of computers around the world -- and, at a specified time, inundated the sites used by Georgy with e-mails. . . . .

Will Russians be given the right to carry concealed handguns?

ConcealedCarry Russia

I would be very surprised, but it is interesting that the entire topic is even being discussed. Apparently, the gun laws in Russia primarily disarm the law-abiding citizens there also. Irina Aervitz has an interesting article here:

The recent shooting in a Moscow supermarket by police major Denis Yevsyukov, who killed three people and wounded six others, only added to the negative image of those who are supposed to protect the population from armed criminals.

Yevsyukov used a pistol that had been missing for nine years, and it is now suspected that he and his deputy were engaged in illegal gun trade. The incident has spurred debate over further legalisation of gun ownership in Russia, including the right to carry a gun.

One problem facing Russian authorities is the frequent involvement of law enforcement officers in the illegal arms trade.

Unlike in the United States, where citizens have a right to bear arms under the constitution, the Russian federal government has a monopoly on gun legislation. The Soviet Union prohibited civilian gun ownership in 1929. Josef Stalin once reportedly said: "We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, gun laws became less stringent. Current law divides those who are allowed to own firearms into three categories: regular citizens, military personnel and law enforcement officers. Each category can own only particular types of firearms: civilians are permitted to use firearms for self-defence, hunting, sports shooting and signalling.

People looking to buy a gun have to obtain a license from the Interior Ministry, which involves having a medical and a criminal record check, as well as completion of a gun safety course.

There are also restrictions concerning keeping and carrying guns around. To hunt, one has to be a member of a hunting club. Certain rules regulate the safe storage of a firearm in the house, but many argue that storing a gun apart from ammunition defeats the purpose of owning a gun for self-defence.

Advocates of further gun legalisation in Russia argue that any kind of weapon can be purchased on the black market, and thus the government should allow the public to defend itself from criminals. Plus, the legalisation of weapons would provide for a better control mechanism through licensing and taxation. . . . .

Thanks to Michael Rash for this link.

A source of illegal guns in Russia: the Police

GunControl Guns Russia

The Times of India has this:

MOSCOW: Police in Russia say they are searching for more than 215,000 guns that have gone missing from arsenals around the country.

An official police list of “missing firearms” has 215,326 entries, up from less than 1,000 in 1991, interior ministry official Sergei Fedkin told the Interfax news agency on Thursday. Fedkin was quick to stress that his own ministry was not responsible for the losses. “Experts believe the main source of arms in the criminal world is military bases and, above all, the defence ministry,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Nato’s eastward expansion mechanical and said challenges and threats to some point as an excuse do not exist in reality. Lavrov, who was in Armenia to hold talks with the government there, said Russia was not concerned over Armenia’s intention to cooperate with Nato.

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