Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1637

May 27:

The situation in the North Caucasus remains volatile, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. Despite the combined counterterrorism efforts of the presidents of Ingushetia and Chechnya, the number of armed fighters and radicals - collectively termed Unlawful Armed Formations (UAF) - in the region has not been diminished. To the contrary, experts now say that the estimate of "50-70 members" recently proffered by Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov is far from accurate, and that the actual number of jihadists in the region is probably in the quadruple digits - at least 1,000.


May 28:

Kommersant reports that "United Russia" is implementing a new Internet strategy. The political party run by Russian premier Vladimir Putin has created a system of "Citizens' Requests," through which any Russian citizen can submit an online request or comment directly to the organization - remarks which ostensibly will be read by Mr. Putin himself. Ironically, so far, only one or two percent of the comments thus submitted have come from "United Russia" supporters. Most have come from other Russian political parties critical of "United Russia," especially the Communist Party.


June 1:

In yet another sign of ongoing economic malaise, the International Monetary Fund has further slashed its forecast for Russian growth. The Moscow Times reports that the IMF now estimates the Russian economy will constrict by 6.5 percent this year, half a percentage point more than previously predicted. According to the IMF, Russia "urgently" needs to formulate a plan for dealing with the toxic assets held by national banks. "The Central Bank does not yet have a full picture of the situation in the banking system," it has warned in a formal statement.


June 2:

Moscow is once again dipping its toe into Palestinian politics. The Maan news agency reports a Russian defense official as saying that the Kremlin plans to provide the Palestinian Authority with some fifty armored personnel carriers over the next several months as part of its efforts to shore up the rickety government of beleaguered Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. The equipment "will be delivered by sea from July to September," a senior Russian military officer has confirmed.


June 4:

Krasnaya Zvezda reports that the Russian leadership has received military delegations from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine in Moscow at a summit aimed at bolstering collective security among the CIS states. Negotiations between the parties, the military paper reports, centered on movement toward a Kremlin-dominated "unified defense space" over the next five years - a plan that entails greater intelligence and technical collaboration between the CIS countries, as well as joint threat assessments and strategic planning.

But such a unified bloc is still more rhetoric than reality. Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes that, although Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev have publicly declared partnership with the CIS states to be a top priority, cooperation is currently limited to the economic and cultural/social spheres, with the CIS Affairs Agency - a regional organization modeled after the Near Abroad Center of Russia's Foreign Ministry - still largely a formal (rather than practical) body. This delay, the paper suggests, is due in large part to the reluctance of the CIS states to once again be under Russia's strategic umbrella.