Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1750

October 1:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev continues to defend the recent announcement of a planned power-swap between himself and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in next year’s elections. The Wall Street Journal reports that in a recent television interview, Medvedev told reporters that although he and Putin share the same goals, the nation clearly likes Vladimir Putin better. “Having such positions, should we compete against one another?” he asked. “Should we quarrel and swear at one another?” The president additionally attempted to justify past statements that he had not ruled out a second presidential term - statements made even though Putin recently announced that their power-swap had been planned all along.

Emigration from Russia continues to soar. According to the New York Times, an average of 50,000 people now leave Russia every year for opportunities abroad, and that number is expected to rise another 10 to 15 thousand annually in the next few years. This marked increase has prompted experts to label this the sixth wave of Russian emigration (the first beginning after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the most recent being the post-Soviet wave of the early 1990s). More disturbing is the fact that those leaving are three times more likely to have higher education than their peers who remain behind, depriving the country of its best and brightest.


October 3:

Russia’s long-standing bid to join the World Trade Organization may finally become a reality by the end of the year. According to Reuters, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has said that he is “confident” that the remaining issues preventing Russia’s accession to the bloc will be resolved in the near future. Those issues include simmering tensions between Russia and Georgia, with the former still deeply involved in the politics and security of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia three years after Moscow and Tbilisi fought a brief war over them. Georgian politicians, however, have a different take; Georgia’s ambassador in Geneva has written to other WTO members to notify them that that there have been no breakthroughs between the two countries. Because the WTO operates by consensus, Georgia remains the major hurdle standing between the Kremlin and WTO membership.


October 5:

While most Russians are not likely to react to the idea of the "Eurasian Union" recently proposed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with much interest, the concept is a shot in the arm for some political factions seeking to revive Russian greatness. In particular, writes Charles Clover in the Financial Times, the "Eurasianist" faction headed by controversial thinker Alexander Dugin is likely to see in Putin's proposal the basis for a sort of retooled version of the Soviet Union. “We have waited for 25 years for these words to be uttered in public by our leadership,” Dugin told reporters following the announcement. Notably, Dugin himself a dissident in the 1980s and a part of the nationalist opposition to Yeltsin in the 1990s, but has since shifted to become a “pro-establishment public pundit.” His movement's Orwellian vision divides the world into three massive countries, Eurasia, East Asia, and Oceania, and posits the strategic imperative of renewed Russian geopolitical greatness.


October 6:

Despite substantial forward movement in Russia's 17-year-old campaign to join the World Trade Organization, Vladimir Putin has suggested that membership may not actually rank very highly on his list of priorities once he reassumes power next year, as is widely expected. Putin’s goals, according to the Washington Post, focus on the modernization of the country’s military, health care, education system, roads, airports, and housing. As for the WTO, Putin has complained that “the rich countries depend on their monopolies... while dictating to the poorer ones.” He additionally has criticized the organization for allowing Georgian objections to delay Russia's acceptance. The frosty turn is echoed by a rise in isolationism, as the Kremlin works to move away from its continuing dependence on oil prices by cutting down on imported goods and improve domestic production capabilities.


October 9:

Expectations are high ahead of Vladimir Putin’s visit to China — his first foreign trip since announcing his plans to return to the Russian presidency. Topics of discussion, according to Reuters, are expected to range from affirmations of friendship to continuing negotiations over a gas pact rumored to be worth up to $1 trillion. Many analysts see the visit as a show of solidarity of which the West should take note, especially since the pair’s recent double veto of a Western-backed UN Security Council resolution which condemned the Syrian government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protestors.