Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1865

December 20:

Fielding a robust presence in the Arctic is a matter of national security for the Russian government, a top Kremlin official has confirmed. The Shanghai Daily reports that, speaking to a meeting of the official Marine College in St. Petersburg, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin emphasized that Russia’s interest in the region is geopolitical as well as economic. “The battle for the Arctic is unfolding today,” Rogozin warned, with Russia striving to best its rival Arctic nations and become the first country to achieve a “physical foothold” there.

December 21:

Migrants entering the Russian Federation now face more stringent guidelines, including a test on the Russian language and national history. Azerbaijan’s APA news agency reports that the State Duma has approved a draft law mandating a compulsory exam on the above subjects for all foreign citizens seeking to gain residence and a work permit in Russia. Additionally, a separate law also approved by the Duma requires potential immigrants to provide paperwork certifying that they are not addicted to drugs or afflicted with diseases “dangerous for the public health.”

December 22:

In its 2013 annual report, Russia’s Public Chamber has painted a grim picture of civic relations within the Russian Federation. “The level of trust between people in Russia remains low at present. More than two-thirds of Russians believe that you should be cautious in relations with others and only every fifth respondent said that we should trust other people,” RIA Novosti reports the Chamber’s study as saying. The report contains other disheartening findings as well, including that between 70-80 percent of Russians polled admitted to harboring xenophobic feelings, and more than three-quarters of respondents believe that Russian society is becoming more aggressive.

December 23:

As part of his year-end granting of amnesties, Russian president Vladimir Putin has pardoned two members of the punk rock band “Pussy Riot,” who were imprisoned two years ago for hooliganism and civic disobedience following a controversial concert. The New York Times reports Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were set free from incarceration in Nizhny Novgorod and Krasnoyarsk, respectively, in a move widely seen as designed to burnish the Kremlin’s public standing ahead of the country’s hosting of the Winter Olympics in two months. “I think this is an attempt to improve the image of the current government, a little, before the Sochi Olympics – particularly for the Western Europeans,” Alyokhina has told reporters. “But I don’t consider this humane or merciful. We didn’t ask for any pardon.”

Meanwhile, former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now in Berlin after being released from prison in Russia, is speaking out. At two separate news conferences conducted at the Berlin Wall Museum, the man who was once Russia’s most famous political prisoner declared that he has no plans to return to Russia, or to resume an active role in national politics there. “I am not in the kind of financial circumstances where I would need to earn money,” Khodorkovsky told reporters in comments carried by the St. Petersburg Times, and “the fight for power is not for me.”

December 25:

Russia’s ongoing support for the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is paying concrete economic dividends. The Agence France-Presse reports that Russian energy firm Soyuzneftegaz has just signed a major oil and gas exploration deal with Damascus. Under the terms of the agreement, signed by Syrian Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas, the Russian state-controlled company gains exploration and extraction rights for an area of some 850 square miles off Syria’s Mediterranean coast. The contract is the “first ever for oil and gas exploration in Syria’s waters,” one Syrian official has told the news agency.