The Real Russia. Today. A Moscow spokesperson endorses a foolish conspiracy theory about the Salisbury suspects, Russia pension politics get real, and Navalny drops another report from jail

Thursday, September 6, 2018

This day in history. On September 6, 1983, the USSR admitted to shooting down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (five days after the plane was brought down). Moscow initially denied knowledge of the incident. When it finally took responsibility, the Communist Party's Politburo accused the U.S. of deliberately sending the aircraft into Soviet airspace as a provocation. All 269 people on board the plane were killed.

• Spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry went on national TV and promoted an easily refuted conspiracy theory, accusing London of ‘God-level trolling’
• United Russia and Putin ramp up efforts to win back voters with pension-reform amendments, ahead of September 9 regional elections
• United Russia's new initiative to allocate seized assets to the Pension Fund would prolong the country's retirement system by a whopping 15 minutes
• Anti-corruption investigators discover that Russia's Pension Fund leases its BMWs very stupidly
• Russian Instagram model is sentenced to 18 months in prison for attacking a traffic cop
• Putin has a special ‘sensory room’ at his presidential residence to relax and stave off depression
• New poll says Russians' social panic hasn't spiked so sharply since eve of 1998 financial collapse
• Federal officials draft a doomsday-scenario report on what global warming could do to Russia
• The Russian Orthodox Church wants to build an ‘Orthodox Vatican’ outside Moscow
• Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's spokesperson is stepping down, after 10 years on the job

Ridiculous 📺

Following the British government’s announcement on Wednesday that it has identified two Russian suspects in the attack on Sergey Skripal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova went on state television and ridiculed the published evidence, calling it “God-level trolling.”

Zakharova even promoted an easily refuted conspiracy theory claiming that security camera footage of the two suspects arriving at Gatwick Airport on March 2, 2018, supposedly shows them in the same place at the same time. “Have a look. The same place, the same corridor, and the same time. So either they just superimposed the same date and exact time on these photos, or Russian Military Intelligence agents have learned to walk in tandem while appearing separately in two different photos,” Zakharova said incredulously, eliciting the audience’s thunderous applause.

A closer inspection of the camera footage, however, reveals that the suspects (identified as Russian citizens Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov) were clearly filmed in different corridors. (In the bottom-right corner of the images, a red sign that appears in each photo isn’t the same.)

According to The Daily Mail, passengers arriving at Gatwick Airport have to walk down one of several nearly identical thin gate corridors after retrieving their luggage and declaring their items.

Pension politics galore! 🧓

In what appears to be timed to win back voters ahead of Sunday’s regional elections, United Russia unveiled two populist initiatives on September 6 that seek to mitigate some of the damage done to the party’s reputation by unpopular draft legislation that will raise the country’s retirement age. Andrey Turchak, the acting secretary of the party’s General Council, proposed allocating money seized in corruption prosecutions to Russia’s Pension Fund, claiming that officials have confiscated more than 1.2 billion rubles ($17.3 million) in such cases over the past six years.

But that’s not all! Turchak also introduced new legislation inviting State Duma and Federation Council members to agree to forego their increased pension payments. “This is a personal decision for every deputy and senator, it’s their personal responsibility, and it concerns their attitudes toward their constituents,” Turchak said.

How much are these folks earning in retirement? In July 2018, the State Duma published information revealing that deputies who serve between five and 10 years are entitled to additional monthly retirement payments worth 46,626 rubles ($670). Those who serve more than 10 years can claim bonuses of 63,581 rubles ($915). In early 2018, the average monthly pension in Russia was just 13,323 rubles ($192).

⌛ You just bought yourself 15 minutes, buckaroo

In a national address on August 29, Vladimir Putin argued that Russia needs to raise its pension age because all alternative measures have been exhausted. According to the president, the daily operating cost for the country’s current retirement system is 20 billion rubles ($288.4 million). Introducing a progressive income tax, Putin said, would raise no more than 120 billion rubles ($1.7 billion), which would fund Russia’s pension payments for a mere six days. Selling federal property (such as some of the Pension Fund’s buildings), meanwhile, would similarly give the current retirement system just six extra days of runway, Putin said.

Based on the president’s calculations, United Russia’s initiative to raise 1.2 billion rubles for the pension system by reallocating corruption-case seizures would buy the country’s retirement system an extra 15 minutes.

☀️ Nobody outshines Dear Leader

Not to be outdone by the former governor of Pskov, Vladimir Putin immediately stole back the spotlight on Thursday, introducing amendments to Russia’s Criminal Code that would impose felony penalties on employers who lay off or refuse to hire staff solely because they are nearing retirement age. The draft legislation proposes fines as high as 200,000 rubles ($2,880) or up to 360 hours of community service.

In a national address on August 29, President Putin finally weighed in on Russia’s debate about pension reform. The president did what many expected and watered down some of the most controversial aspects of the government’s plan, arguing that women’s retirement age should be raised only five years, instead of the proposed eight years. He also stressed the need for several tax breaks, benefits, and legal protections. Read more about the details of Putin's proposals here.

📉 United Russia's struggles

In late August, sources told the magazine RBC that the Kremlin had agreed to let United Russia call itself “the president’s party” in campaign ads ahead of elections on September 9 in certain regions across the country where the party is struggling to maintain voters’ support. According to the state-owned pollster VTSiOM, nationwide support for United Russia dropped 13 percent between early July and late August, falling to 35.3 percent. In Russia’s 2016 parliamentary elections, the party used 12 quotes from Vladimir Putin in billboard advertisements.

The Russian social networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki, however, recently rejected new advertisements from United Russia, where it claims to be “the president’s party.” A source in one of the political party’s regional offices told the website Znak.com that Mail.ru Group, which owns both networks, demanded documentation that President Putin supports United Russia, though there’s no law requiring such evidence. “They insist on their right to reject any promotional materials. For Mail.ru, the silent agreements reached inside the president’s administration aren’t an executive order,” the source said.

You're leasing it wrong 💸

Russia’s Pension Fund spends roughly 100 million rubles a year on car rentals, according to the latest investigative report by Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. In late June, the agency signed an agreement leasing six BMWs, 22 Toyota Camrys, and 14 cheaper vehicles. The Pension Fund also bought leases on another 51 cars for its regional branches.

According to Navalny’s researchers, the Pension Fund is spending 3.4 million rubles ($49,000) on just six months of lease payments for a single BMW — more than it would cost to buy the luxury vehicle outright.

The Anti-Corruption Foundation also discovered evidence of cartel collusion in the Pension Fund’s vehicle procurement contracts. In its seven most recent deals, for example, just three companies with nearly identical names submitted bids that differed by less than one percent.

💰 Not Navalny's only Pension Fund exposé 

In late August, the Anti-Corruption Foundation published a report claiming that Russian Pension Fund director Anton Drozdov’s mother-in-law owns a lavish country home outside Moscow worth an estimated 400 million rubles ($5.9 million). The property was apparently a gift from Drozdov’s wife in late December 2009, handed over just a few months after she acquired it. By having his wife transfer the real estate to her mother, Drozdov managed to keep it off his assets declarations. Navalny’s team says Drozdov’s family owns nearly a billion rubles ($14.6 million) in real estate.

Alexey Navalny is currently serving a 30-day jail sentence for organizing “unpermitted protests” in January. Police apparently timed his arrest in late August to prevent him from attending his coalition’s September 9 demonstrations against the authorities’ plan to raise the country’s retirement age.

🔍 How often does the Anti-Corruption Foundation release these reports?

All the doggone time. Russian officialdom, moreover, appears to be so corrupt that Navalny’s investigative team is able to roll out reports about public figures who have only recently become relevant in the news (like Anton Drozdov in the context of the national debate about pension reform).

In mid-August, the Anti-Corruption Foundation reported that State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin’s 82-year-old mother owns a 230-million-ruble ($3.4-million) apartment in Moscow, as well as nearly a dozen small businesses. Volodin says he and his mother got rich more than a decade ago by selling their shares in a company that makes sunflower oil and mayonnaise, walking away with a combined $200 million. Navalny says media reports from 2014 and 2017 show the value of these shares was roughly 10 times less, however.

From duck face to sad face 🦆

A Moscow court has sentenced the popular Instagram model Kira Mayer to 18 months in prison for attacking a traffic police officer. No evidence was presented at trial, as Mayer fully confessed to the charges. In late May, 24-year-old Mayer was pulled over while driving a Mercedes on a suspended license. When the officer began writing her a ticket, Mayer tried to grab it from his hands and then started hitting him.

On Instagram, Kira Mayer amassed more than 164,200 followers, often posting racy photos, though her account is currently inaccessible.

Putin's safe space 🔕

The magazine Sobesednik has a knack for reporting stories about Vladimir Putin’s private life. It was one of the first outlets to write about his ex-wife’s remarriage, the first to discover a warning from Russia’s Justice Ministry to a nonprofit created by his younger daughter, and it was reporting on both his daughters years before it became common with other publications. On September 4, Sobesednik released its latest insider scoop: Putin’s presidential residence at Valdai has installed a “sensory room” to facilitate the commander in chief’s relaxation and prevent him from slipping into depression.

According to the report, Russia’s Federal Protective Service signed a state contract to build a sensory room at the presidential residence in Valdai, complete with special lighting, “bubble tubes,” and a $3,170 “US MEDICA Quadro” massage chair that features two different “zero gravity” positions.

Sensory rooms are therapeutic spaces often used in mental health therapy for children with limited communication skills.

Sobesednik says a charity foundation operated by Gennady Timchenko (one of Russia’s richest businessmen and reportedly one of Putin’s closest friends) recently started financing the installation of similar sensory rooms at retirement centers in the Novgorod and Arkhangelsk regions.

Blood in my love in the terrible summer 📈

A new national survey by the independent Levada Center indicates that social tensions across the country are rising at levels not seen since the eve of Russia’s 1998 financial collapse. Seventy-two percent of Russians say they worry about rising prices, 52 percent cited growing impoverishment, and 48 percent say one of the nation’s biggest problems is unemployment.

In the past year, Russians have become roughly 33 percent more likely to talk about economic crisis, environmental deterioration, and rising crime, the Levada Center director Lev Gudkov told the newspaper Kommersant.

Sociologists say it’s still hard to know if rising panic will lead to more mass protests, but Gudkov says the current agitation has spread even to “inert layers” of society and “middle cities.” He notes, however, that this phenomenon is based on different concerns than the sentiments fueling opposition movements like Alexey Navalny’s anti-corruption activism.

Russia's climate change doomsday 💀

Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry is making a push to lead the government on climate-change policy with its new doomsday-scenario report on national security threats posed by global warming.

Officials predict that climate change could lower the volume of water in several rivers, reducing populations’ water supplies and cutting access to several ports. The Caspian region, on the other hand, faces flooding. More frequent droughts and insect infestations could decimate agriculture in central and southern Russia, as well.

Russia’s melting permafrost, meanwhile, could damage facilities now storing chemical, biological, and radioactive waste. In western Russia, southern Siberia, and the Primorye territory, more dramatic “thermal-humidity deformations” might accelerate the erosion of many roads, railways, and buildings.

In the central and southern parts of the country, climate change could increase the number of intestinal and parasitic infections, while also subjecting the population to deadly heat waves.

Russia's planned ‘Vatican’ ⛪

The Russian Orthodox Church hopes to erect an “Orthodox Vatican” in Sergiyev Posad, just outside Moscow, that would require the demolition of several downtown buildings, according to the BBC Russian Service. Journalists learned about plans for an “open-air temple” at the walls of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius with a platform stage that would allow the church to hold outdoor mass.

The new church will feature a library, a complex of various church institutions, a youth center, a “congress center,” and a media center. The “Orthodox Vatican” would gobble up real estate currently occupied by the Sergiyev Posad town administrative building, two hotels, a shopping mall, an outdoor market, an amusement park, and several residential buildings. They’re all slated for the wrecking ball.

In August, arch-priest Leonid Kalinin (who heads the church’s art and architecture council) first announced the plans to “cleanse the town of its Soviet legacy” and transform it into “the spiritual capital of Orthodoxy.” At the time, Kalinin said the development project already had the approval of Patriarch Kirill and Vladimir Putin. The president’s administration initially ignored the BBC’s inquiries about the proposed “Orthodox Vatican,” but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later said the matter is a regional issue that doesn’t require consent from the head of state.

Officials decided a year ago to remodel Sergiyev Posad, and the “Strelka” design firm is drawing up blueprints based on a state procurement order. The plan will reportedly go to the authorities in November for approval, followed by public hearings. Town officials and spokespeople for “Strelka” say they only learned about the church’s apparent plans to build an “Orthodox Vatican” from reports in the news media.

The blueprints drawn up by “Strelka” say nothing about a mass demolition of buildings in the area. The town’s plan would remove only a few “awful” abandoned homes, former Mayor Sergey Pakhomev told the BBC. Sergiyev Posad, meanwhile, still hasn’t located funding for its remodeling project.

Medvedev loses his longtime spokeswoman 👋

Natalia Timakova, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s longtime press secretary, confirmed on September 6 that she is stepping down and taking job with Vnesheconombank. Oleg Osipov, the deputy chief editor of the Rossiya Segodnya state news agency, will replace her on Medvedev's team.

Timakova says she decided six months ago to leave the government, thanking the prime minister for the opportunity to serve in his cabinet. She’ll spend the next week showing Osipov the ropes of being Medvedev’s spokesperson — a job she’s held for the past 10 years, including during his 2008-2012 presidency. Before joining the government, Timakova worked as a correspondent for the newspaper Kommersant and as a columnist for the news agency Interfax.

In early July, two sources told the magazine RBC that Timakova was in talks with Vnesheconombank about joining as an executive board member. At VTB, Timakova's duties will reportedly involve the bank's cultural and urban development projects.

According to a study conducted by the independent Levada Center in late August, Dmitry Medvedev’s popularity continues to decline. In August 2018, his approval rating slipped to 28 percent — down 20 points, compared to a year ago. Medvedev’s “anti-rating” is now at an all-time high of 71 percent.