June 25:
Human Rights Watch has issued a report accusing Russian security forces of widespread human rights abuses in Ingushetia, the republic in the North Caucasus that neighbors Chechnya and has seen a sharp increase in violence and political instability. According to the Associated Press, the New York-based rights watchdog says it has documented dozens of summary and arbitrary detentions, acts of torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions committed by security forces combating insurgents in Ingushetia. The Human Rights Watch report states that “dirty war” tactics against insurgents there will likely further destabilize the situation in the republic and elsewhere in the North Caucasus.
July 26:
Forbes magazine has ranked Russia 86th out of 121 countries on its list of the best countries for business, between Kenya (85th) and Nigeria (87th). Russia placed ahead of Tajikistan (118th) and Uzbekistan (106th), but behind Kyrgyzstan (84th), Azerbaijan (82nd), Ukraine (75th), Kazakhstan (69th), Georgia (68th), Latvia (32nd), Lithuania (30th) and Estonia (10th). Denmark was rated the best country for business while Chad was rated the worst. The United States was ranked fourth.
According to Agence France-Presse, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has said that Russian intervention in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia must be stopped or the sovereignty of other former Soviet states will be at risk. “Georgia is only the start,” he told the German daily Die Welt. “Tomorrow it will be Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland. What is at stake here is the whole post-Cold War security order in Europe. Georgia has become a litmus test. Europe must show that it stands by its values. If it does not do this, we will see the start of an endless new string of conflicts.” Saakashvili accused Russia of playing “a kind of politics of redistribution that comes straight from the 19th century” and failing to respect national borders.
July 27:
As expected, First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has been elected chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom, Strana.ru reports. The former prime minister replaces Dmitry Medvedev as the state-controlled natural gas monopoly’s board chairman. “I will above all uphold the interests of the state, and as a member of the government I see it as my responsibility that a balance is maintained between the interests of the state and the interests of the company’s development,” Zubkov said.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports that polling by the independent Levada Center has found that around half of the “cream” of Russia’s middle class - meaning people aged 24 to 35 who live in the country’s fourteen largest cities and whose families have incomes in the range of 800-1500 euros (roughly $1,260-$2,360) per member – would like to leave the country temporarily or to emigrate. Only 13 percent of the Levada Center’s respondents said they thought Russia has entered a period of stability while 59 percent said they thought the situation could worsen at any moment. More than three-quarters said they felt unprotected from the arbitrary behavior of state officials, particularly the police.
[Editor’s Note: Given the effect of Russia’s increasingly authoritarian political climate on pollsters and respondents alike, the results of public opinion surveys in Russia should be viewed with some caution.]
June 28:
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that if Ukraine joins NATO, Russia will be forced to end cooperation with Ukrainian enterprises involved in the joint production of sensitive technologies, NEWSru.com reports. “As regards sensitive technologies, above all missile technologies, such production will be localized on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Putin told journalists after talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in Moscow.
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