The Real Russia. Today. Punishing Russia's ‘opposition’ parties, hunting down the Salisbury suspects' passport leakers, and profiling Fiona Hill

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

This day in history. On September 25, 1906, Russian composer and pianist Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. Shostakovich died in Moscow in August 1975 at the age of 68.

• The Kremlin is reportedly planning to ‘punish’ two opposition parties for winning a few races. Here's what that really means.
• Russians have elected several new ‘opposition’ governors, here's the likely fate that awaits these politicians, warts and all
• Russian federal agents are reportedly on a man hunt for the officials who leaked the Salisbury suspects' passport docs
• The head of Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service says the national economy remains ‘backward’ and ‘semi-feudal’
• One of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin's supposed ‘henchmen’ was just arrested
• Bloomberg Businessweek reports on Roman Abramovich's efforts to ‘skirt the threat of American sanctions’
• Daria Litvinova reviews a new Russian movie that encourages disabled people to suck it up and power through
• Polina Ivanova goes north of Russia's Arctic Circle and reports on the devastating impact of pension reforms
• Alexander Nazaryan profiles Fiona Hill

Punishment, Kremlin style 🥊

On September 23, candidates from LDPR won gubernatorial races in Russia’s Vladimir and Khabarovsk regions; in Primorye, election officials recently invalidated the incumbent governor’s runoff victory against his Communist rival; and in Khakassia the acting governor has dropped out of the second round of voting, likely meaning that his Communist challenger will win. The Communist Party and LDPR have already announced that they plan to cooperate and form coalition governments in Vladimir, Khabarovsk, and Abakan.

Meanwhile, the newspaper Vedomosti says the Kremlin plans to “punish” the two parties for violating its “agreement” not to challenge United Russia’s near monopoly on political power. Sources in the Putin administration told Vedomosti that the LDPR and Communist candidates in these races were supposed to be merely “technical” opponents who didn’t actually campaign against the incumbents.

To learn more about the feasibility of LDPR and the Communist Party joining forces to mount “real opposition” against United Russia — and to know what it could cost the two parties — Meduza turned to Grigorii Golosov, an associate professor of political science and sociology at European University at St. Petersburg.

• Read the full story at Meduza: “The Kremlin is reportedly planning to ‘punish’ two opposition parties for winning a few races. Here's what that really means.”

Where we go from here 🤞

On September 23, LDPR candidates won runoff gubernatorial elections in the Khabarovsk and Vladimir regions. After a first-round election in Khakassia, where Communist Party candidate Valentin Konovalev won the most votes, incumbent Governor Viktor Zimin withdrew from the race, virtually ensuring that Konovalev will win the second round. LDPR and the Communist Party, meanwhile, have vowed to form coalition governments in “their” regions. But what happens next for Russia’s new “opposition” governors? In the following text, Meduza looks at a few likely scenarios, based on what’s happened to opposition candidates who’ve won past elections. (Some examples concern mayors because direct gubernatorial elections were abolished in Russia between 2005 and 2012. Before the recent upsets, just one opposition candidate won a gubernatorial race in the past six years.)

• Scenario 1: Police will open a criminal case against the new governor
• Scenario 2: The new governor will join United Russia
• Scenario 3: The new governor will be dismissed
• Scenario 4: The new governor will be allowed to serve out his term quietly
• Scenario 5: The Kremlin could change the rules of gubernatorial elections

Read the full story at Meduza: “Russians have elected several new ‘opposition’ governors, here's the likely fate that awaits these politicians, warts and all”

Hunt the bastards down 🔍

Russia’s Federal Security Service is reportedly trying to hunt down the Interior Ministry staff members who “sold off” passport and identification documents belonging to Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov (the two suspected GRU agents accused of trying to assassinate Sergey Skripal and his daughter with a nerve agent in Salisbury, England). A source told the news agency Rosbalt that “serious measures” are planned against whomever was responsible for leaking the two suspects’ personal information.

Earlier this month, the open-source investigative team Bellingcat and the news website The Insider started releasing leaked passport documents issued to Petrov and Boshirov. Both publications, aided by follow-up investigative work by Novaya Gazeta and Fontanka, have demonstrated that the data contained in the paperwork strongly suggest that Petrov and Boshirov are identities assigned to two Russian military intelligence agencies. Russian officials have denied allegations that they had any role in the attempted murder of the Skripals.

It's backward and semi-feudal, but it's home 🏠

In an interview with the newspaper Kommersant, Federal Antimonopoly Service head Igor Artemyev spoke rather unflatteringly about the Russian economy, saying, “In many ways, it remains backward, semi-feudal, and especially in the underdeveloped regions there’s not even a whiff of competition.”

Artemyev said Russia should learn from deregulation experiences in Korea and Japan, warning that the “nationalization” of Russia’s economy is creating “state-monopolistic capitalism” and “binding business and power.” Things have only gotten worse, Artemyev explained, since Russia’s government started expanding its role in the economy in response to Western sanctions. This has been truest in banking and heavy industry, Artemyev said, but telecommunications remains a bright spot.

Sechin's “leaky roof” 🌧️

On September 24, a Moscow court sanctioned the arrest of Vladimir Tumaev, the co-owner of Gazprom Spetsgazavtotrans, on charges of organizing the attempted murder of his wife’s creditor in March 2017. According to political analyst Mark Galeotti, Tumaev is one of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin’s “henchmen.” Galeotti argued on Twitter that it’s premature to say Tumaev’s arrest is an “attack on Sechin,” but he believes it does suggest that Sechin’s ability to protect his allies has weakened.

Read it elsewhere 📰

⚽ The amazing disappearing Roman Abramovich

“Arguably the most secretive Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich hasn’t given an interview in more than a decade.” He has avoided Britain for months and now he’s reportedly preparing his finances to skirt the threat of American sanctions. “People close to Abramovich say he’s begun restructuring his holdings to try to shield his assets in case the U.S. sanctions him. [...] If he were sanctioned, owning less than 50 percent of a company would prevent it from automatically being included, and simplifying the shareholding structure could lessen the risk of repercussions on his partners,” write Scott Soshnick and Yuliya Fedorinova for Bloomberg Businessweek, adding that “people who know Abramovich say that if all these factors cause him to give up Chelsea, he won’t do it happily.”

Read “Has Anyone Seen Roman Abramovich? The Last Days of Londongrad” at Bloomberg.

👨‍👦 Worst dad ever

“A controversial new film about a boy born paralyzed has conjured nostalgia for Soviet times, when the disabled were kept out of sight,” writes Daria Litvinova in her review of the movie “Temporary Difficulties” and its alarming appeal in Russia, where it’s been released nationwide. “Movie critics have condemned the film, which was partly funded by the Russian Culture Ministry, as insensitive, inflammatory and down right harmful. But viewers have been more positive, with some describing it as ‘motivating,’” says Litvinova. Watch a trailer for the film here (in Russian).

Read Litvinova’s review at Coda.

🧓 Cold and dying early

Reporting from Vorkuta, “a place so isolated it cannot be reached by road, temperatures dip below minus 40 degrees in the winter and clouds of coal dust can turn the white snow black,” Polina Ivanova writes about the devastating impact that raising the retirement age could have on locals who face remarkably low life expectancy. “The government’s decision to raise the retirement age is part of efforts to balance Russia’s creaking finances after four years of weak growth made worse by sanctions but it is proving its most unpopular move in more than a decade. Putin’s vice-like grip on power is not directly threatened because he has no real challengers, but his popularity rating has slipped, and once loyal Putin voters are starting to express scorn for their rulers,” Ivanova says.

Read Ivanova’s story at Reuters.

🏄‍♀️ Profiling Trump's Russia hand

Yahoo News reporter Alexander Nazaryan has written a profile of Fiona Hill, Donald Trump’s top Russia adviser on the National Security Council. Calling Hill “a woman who may understand Putin better than anyone in the American foreign policy establishment,” Nazaryan credits her and her peers with crafting “a Russia policy that is, by any measure — sanctions, expulsions, military buildup — tougher than that of the Obama administration.” As a result of Hill’s expertise and council, Nazaryan says, Trump has “in effect, sanctioned a Russia policy that is entirely at odds with his own pronouncements.”

Read how Fiona Hill is “quietly shaping a tougher U.S. Russia policy” at Yahoo News.