La visite de Medvedev dans les îles Kouriles provoque la colère du Japon

Le Monde

La visite du président Dmitri Medvedev aux îles Kouriles, dont le Japon revendique une partie, jette un froid sur les relations diplomatiques entre les deux pays. Le chef de la diplomatie russe, Sergueï Lavrov, a jugé "inacceptable" le mécontentement du Japon après la visite lundi du président russe dans les îles, et annoncé que l'ambassadeur japonais à Moscou allait être convoqué. Le Japon a estimé de son côté que l'initiative de M. Medvedev "heurtait les sentiments de la population japonaise".

Moscou et Tokyo se disputent depuis plusieurs dizaines d'années quatre îles de l'archipel des Kouriles (Habomai, Shikotan, Etorofu et Kunashiri dans leur dénomination japonaise). Ces îles avaient été annexées par les Soviétiques le 18 août 1945, trois jours après l'annonce de la capitulation du Japon. Depuis, aucun président russe ne s'était rendu en visite officielle sur ces îles. En septembre, le président russe Dmitri Medvedev avait annoncé son intention de visiter ce territoire, malgré l'opposition virulente et manifeste de Tokyo.

"UN DIRIGEANT FORT"

"En allant là-bas, Medvedev a montré qu'il était un dirigeant fort et que la Russie n'est pas un pays dont le dirigeant se fait dicter par l'étranger où il peut et où il ne peut pas aller", a déclaré à l'AFP Valéri Kistanov, chef du centre d'études japonaises à l'Académie des sciences de Russie. Selon lui, la virulente réaction de Tokyo est essentiellement liée à la volonté du parti au pouvoir de redorer son image sur la scène politique japonaise. Le Parti démocrate du Japon, récemment arrivé au pouvoir, "est en effet souvent critiqué pour son manque d'expérience en politique étrangère et en diplomatie", indique-t-il.

Ce déplacement controversé intervient alors que le président russe est attendu au Japon pour le sommet de la Coopération économique Asie-Pacifique (APEC) le 12 novembre. Mais selon les analystes, ce refroidissement politique a peu de risque d'influer sur les relations économiques entre les deux pays. En effet, même si le Japon est le deuxième partenaire commercial de la Russie en Asie après la Chine, avec des échanges de 30 milliards de dollars en 2008, contre 4 milliards en 2005, Tokyo est bien plus dépendant de la Russie et de ses ressources naturelles que l'inverse.

LA RUSSIE TOURNÉE VERS LA CHINE

"La Russie est le plus grand fournisseur de ressources naturelles en Asie", indique Roland Nash, analyste de la banque d'investissement Renaissance Capital. "L'importance de la relation est sûrement beaucoup plus grande pour le Japon que pour la Russie", estime l'analyste. Selon lui, si la Russie développe ses échanges avec le Japon, la Chine reste néanmoins son objectif premier sur le marché asiatique, où elle entend globalement renforcer sa présence.

Ce différend empêche depuis 65 ans la signature d'un traité de paix entre les deux pays. Lors de la présidence de Boris Eltsine, Moscou avait songé à restituer ces territoires au Japon, mais l'opposition des nationalistes et des communistes avait anéanti ce projet. L'ex-président russe et actuel premier ministre Vladimir Poutine avait proposé en 2004 de restituer sous condition deux des quatre îles, mais Tokyo a jugé la proposition inacceptable. Après l'arrivée au Kremlin de Dmitri Medvedev, les Japonais ont exprimé leur espoir de voir un compromis émerger, mais aucune avancée n'est intervenue.

Russia most corrupt among global powers, study says; U.S. ranking also worsens

The Washington Post

MOSCOW - Corruption in Russia has grown even more blatant over the past year, according to a report issued Tuesday by Transparency International, and the country has fallen from 146th place to 154th on the organization's Corruption Perceptions Index.

Russia tied with Tajikistan, Papua New Guinea and several African countries, and was ranked most corrupt among the G-20 nations.

For the first time since Transparency International began issuing its annual list 15 years ago, the United States dropped out of the top 20 least-corrupt nations, because of financial scandals it has endured. The United States fell from 19th place to 22nd, behind Chile.

Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore topped the list as least corrupt, and Somalia was at the bottom, just below Afghanistan and Burma.

The rankings come as Moscow is moving closer to joining the World Trade Organization, and as President Dmitry Medvedev hopes to foster a new high-tech industry that would make Russia a digital leader.

"How can a country claiming to be a world leader, claiming to be a major energy power, be in such a position?" asked Yelena Panfilova, director of the Moscow office of Transparency International. "It's a situation of national shame."

There is, she said, a "catastrophic gap" between civil society and "state sabotage." Corruption is everywhere - in hospitals and in schools, in utilities and in the corps of traffic police - but Panfilova said Russia is falling ever more deeply down the international list because of a sense of immunity in the higher levels of the government.

There is no shortage of laws, instructions, orders or publications against corruption, "but they don't work," she said. "Where are the results?"

Last October, Medvedev launched a "Forward Russia" campaign against corruption, but by July he acknowledged that it had achieved no results. He complains that government ministers don't follow through on his orders, and this, said Yuli Nisnevich, chief researcher for Transparency International in Russia, is a consequence of corruption.

The authorities have constructed a closed state in which ordinary Russians have no role to play, Nisnevich said, but as a result they have lost control to corruption, even though they don't realize it yet.

"As long as society does not participate in the fight," he said, "the fight cannot be won."

Russia Wants to Formalize Relation With E.U.

The New York Times

BERLIN — Ahead of a summit meeting Monday in Deauville, France, between the leaders of Germany, Russia and France, Moscow is asking for regular participation in the European Union committee that is responsible for setting the bloc’s foreign policy.

“We would like Russia and the E.U. to be able to take joint decisions,” Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow’s ambassador to the European Union, said in a telephone interview with the International Herald Tribune over the weekend from Brussels. “I don’t expect to be sitting at every session of the political and security committee, but there should be some mechanism that would enable us to take joint steps.”

Such arrangements would mark a major change in E.U.-Russia relations, which have been held back because of divisions inside the 27-member bloc over how to deal with Russia. They might also go some way to meet Russia’s calls for a new security architecture, a move aimed at gaining a greater say in strategic issues in Europe.

“We want our relationship with the E.U. through the political and security committee to be formalized, to be more efficient,” Mr. Chizhov said.

It seems Germany, at least, is prepared to go down that path.

When Chancellor Angela Merkel met President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia in June near Berlin, both leaders proposed the establishment of a new entity called the E.U.-Russia Political and Security Committee. The new committee would consist of the foreign ministers from Russia and the E.U. states, as well as Catherine Ashton of Britain, the E.U. foreign policy chief.

The proposal, which Mr. Chizhov said was initiated by Mrs. Merkel, leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, came as a jolt to other nations in the bloc.

“Until recently, the German government tended to focus on the economic relationship with Russia and pursue a more pragmatic policy, unlike the Social Democrats, who included a more ideological component in their approach to Russia,” said Susan Stewart, a Russian analyst at the Brussels office of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “The focus on security certainly surprised many of Germany’s E.U. partners.”

Analysts say Mrs. Merkel has realized that the European Union needs a security relationship with Russia because strengthening the NATO-Russia Council, which is supposed to discuss such issues, is going nowhere. Also, Mrs. Merkel has established a close relationship with Mr. Medvedev, unlike his predecessor and the current prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, with whom Mrs. Merkel had a difficult relationship, according to German and Russia diplomats.

Russia, however, is expected to give something in return for gaining access to E.U. institutions.

Mrs. Merkel told Mr. Medvedev in June that Germany wanted Russia to help resolve the continuing conflict in Transnistria, a source of instability on Europe’s south-eastern borders, according to Chancellery and Foreign Ministry officials.

Transnistria, which is part of Moldova, a neighbor of the E.U. member Romania, is ruled by a pro-Russian nationalist movement that has been seeking independence from Moldova. More than 1,100 Russian troops are based in the region “for security reasons,” Mr. Chizhov said. He acknowledged that Transnistria was “regarded as a pilot project” for better relations with the European Union.

Analysts say Germany is now pursuing a two-pronged strategy with Russia.

“I think there are two issues at play,” Ms. Stewart said. “One is that Germany is prepared to push for a dialogue on Medvedev’s security proposals on the E.U. level. But the other is that before that happens, Russia should make a gesture regarding Transistria. If there was some progress there, then it would send a signal to the E.U. that Russia could act on this conflict.”

The dynamics of such a relationship between Russia and the European Union will be discussed Monday and Tuesday in Deauville between Mrs. Merkel, Mr. Medvedev and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

“This summit is important because France and Germany are considered the locomotive of European integration,” Mr. Chizhov said. Mr. Sarkozy is also eager to anchor Russia closer to Europe, according to French diplomats.

Security analysts, however, said the key to better relations between the European Union and Russia rested with Germany, Russia’s closest political and economic partner inside the bloc.

The gathering is the first time a trilateral summit meeting has taken place since Mrs. Merkel took office in 2005, after defeating Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat.

“Mrs. Merkel stopped holding those summits because of how they were perceived,” said Alexander Rahr, a Russian expert at the German Council for Foreign Relations think tank in Berlin.

Along with the former President Jacques Chirac of France and Mr. Putin, Mr Schröder had held regular trilateral meetings. Together these three leaders led the opposition — in what was then a bitterly divided Europe — against the U.S-led invasion of Iraq.

The meetings took place without consulting other E.U. member states and were criticized by several East European countries, particularly Poland and the Baltic states. They feared that their security could be undermined if France, Germany and Russia revived a policy of spheres of influence. As a result, relations between Poland and Germany deteriorated.

Since Mrs. Merkel’s election, relations have greatly improved. More significantly, Poland’s own relations with Russia have been restored, which is why the revival of the summit meetings between France, Germany and Russia has not upset Poland.

“Our relationship with Germany is now so much better,” said Janusz Reiter, president of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw and former Polish ambassador to Germany and the United States.

But Mr. Chizhov, Russia’s ambassador to the European Union, said establishing a close link between Brussels and Moscow would not take place overnight.

“Let’s see what happens in Deauville,” he said.

Sarkozy to Propose New Bond With Russia

The New York Times

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy of France plans to propose a new security and economic relationship between Europe and Russia when he meets with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany this month in Deauville, senior French officials said Friday.

The idea is to have a single zone of security and economic cooperation, the officials said, that will pull Russia closer to Europe but apart from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The alliance itself is holding a key meeting in November intended to approve a new strategic doctrine, and American officials are unhappy with the idea of France and Germany talking to Russia — without the United States present — about security in advance of the talks.

“Since when, I wonder, is European security no longer an issue of American concern, but something for Europe and Russia to resolve?” asked a senior American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “After being at the center of European security for 70 years, it’s strange to hear that it is no longer a matter of U.S. concern.”

Still, NATO’s relevance is in question as it struggles to hold together in the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Russia seems to many to be a natural part of Europe and an important, if difficult, ally on issues like Iran and global terrorism.

France is taking over the presidency of the Group of 20 in November, which will also be a topic at the meetings in Deauville Oct. 18-19. Mr. Sarkozy is planning a series of initiatives to turn the group from a body concerned primarily with crisis management to one focused more on long-term coordination among major economic powers.

To that end, he has been consulting with Chinese officials for more than a year about the thorny issue of exchange rates and his ambitious idea for a new global monetary system, including a new institution to better coordinate movements in major currencies.

The idea of a new European “security architecture” has been raised by Mr. Medvedev as something more appropriate for the post-cold-war world than the Atlantic alliance and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

American officials have been skeptical, saying that they will agree to nothing that would dilute the alliance or the organization, but instead seek to pull Russia into closer cooperation with NATO.

But Mr. Sarkozy has argued in the past that Russia is now a partner of the West, not a threat to it, and must be treated as such. For those reasons he has defended the sale to Russia of French Mistral ships, which can carry tanks and helicopters, despite concerns from Georgia and the Baltic nations that Russia could use them to expand its zone of influence.

The Mistral is only one part of a much broader charm offensive with Russia by France, intended to win more business from its oil- and gas-rich neighbor to the east.

The two countries are currently engaged in a “France-Russia year,” a giant mutual marketing exercise comprising 400 cultural events and a flurry of high-level political visits.

Mr. Sarkozy is known for raising large ideas that do not always come to fruition, with a recent example being the Union for the Mediterranean, a project for cooperation among countries rimming the Mediterranean.

He is facing severe political problems at home, with low approval ratings, lingering scandals and a series of protests over his plans to raise the minimum retirement age. He is looking to the presidency of the Group of 20 and that of the smaller Group of 8 beginning in January to raise his international profile and improve his standing at home as a world leader ahead of the 2012 presidential election.

As the head of the Group of 20, Mr. Sarkozy intends to ask individual heads of state to run a series of working seminars on critical issues, leading to a summit meeting at the end of his one-year term. Two of these issues are how to provide more stability both to exchange rates and to commodity prices.

The seminars would be held in different countries. Mr. Sarkozy has often spoken of the need for a new Bretton Woods, the 1944 conference that set up a system of fixed exchange rates.

He speaks now of coordination, not fixed rates, and of bringing China more fully into the international system, with responsibilities to match its new stature.

Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev arrested in Poland

The Guardian

Russia today demanded the extradition of the London-based Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev after Polish police dramatically arrested him at a conference in Warsaw.

Zakayev – who was granted political asylum by Britain in 2003 – was detained early this morning on his way to see the Polish prosecutor. He had flown into the Polish capital from London to attend a Chechen People's Congress.

Zakayev is the most high-profile surviving Chechen separatist leader from the 1990s, when he served as deputy prime minister in the quasi-independent government of Aslan Maskhadov. The British court decision to give him asylum on the basis he might be tortured back in Russia infuriated the Kremlin, and contributed to the slump in UK-Russian relations.

Russia's prosecutor general today confirmed he was urgently sending evidence to his Polish counterpart of Zakayev's alleged involvement in terrorist activities. Russia had issued a warrant via Interpol for his arrest, and has been seeking his return to Russia for nearly a decade.

Last year Chechnya's Kremlin-installed president, Ramzan Kadyrov, encouraged Zakayev to return home, and apparently offered him a job as arts minister.

Zakayev, a former actor and the head of Chechnya's government-in-exile, held a series of meetings in Europe to discuss political reconciliation with Kadyrov's trusted henchman Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov. But the plan fell through when Russia refused to drop outstanding terrorist charges against him. At the same time Chechnya's current Islamist rebel leadership denounced Zakayev as a traitor and announced their intention to kill him.

The Polish prosecutor now has to decide whether there are grounds to send Zakayev back to what would almost certainly be a Russian jail.

The insurgency in Chechnya has evolved from when Zakayev and other now-assassinated leaders sought to create their own largely secular independent and constitutional state. The current generation of Chechen fighters are no longer battling for independence but want to establish a Taliban-style Islamist emirate across Russia's northern Caucasus.

The insurgency has spilled over from Chechnya into the volatile neighbouring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, where bomb attacks and shoot-outs between rebels and government security forces take place on a daily basis. Last week a suicide bomber killed 17 people in a crowded market in Valdikavkaz, the predominantly Christian capital of North Ossetia.

New nuclear arms treaty with Russia passes Senate panel

The Washington Post

One of President Obama's key foreign policy priorities got a boost Thursday as a Senate committee approved a nuclear arms-reduction treaty with Russia, sparking hope among supporters that the pact may win final approval this year.

But a wild card emerged when Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) told the hearing that intelligence agencies had, at the last minute, produced "some very serious information that directly affects what we're doing here."

He did not reveal the information, but later told the blog the Cable that it involved Russian cheating on arms-control agreements.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) warned Risch twice that it was "inappropriate" to discuss secret intelligence in public.

Kerry said he had consulted Vice President Biden and intelligence experts about the new information. "The conclusion of the intelligence community is [that] it in no way alters their judgment already submitted to this committee with respect to the START treaty," he told the hearing.

The senators approved the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) on a vote of 14 to 4. A senior Democratic aide said it is likely to go to the full Senate during a lame-duck session in November.

"The administration is still going to have to work on these votes" to get the two-thirds majority required for passage, the aide said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The treaty won the support of all 11 Democrats on the committee, as well as that of Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), a longtime arms-control proponent, and two other Republicans the administration had wooed - Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Johnny Isakson (Ga.).

Diplomats consider passage of the treaty crucial to Obama's ambitious nuclear-reduction plans and to his credibility internationally.

New START trims the Cold War foes' long-range deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550 and limits their launchers to 700, a modest reduction from current levels.

The treaty would also allow the nuclear giants to resume inspections of one another's stockpiles, which they had done for 15 years under the START treaty that expired last December.

"This treaty is essential for our own security," Lugar told reporters, noting that it puts "American boots on the ground" in Russia to make sure they are keeping their nuclear promises.

The resolution on ratification that was approved Thursday was crafted by Lugar and sought to assuage some senators' doubts on issues such as missile defense and modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Risch, who voted against the treaty, said the intelligence community "thought this serious enough that they knocked on the doors" of key senators "and said, 'Look, folks, you need to know this before you move ahead.' "

A classified State Department report produced this year determined that New START was "effectively verifiable." Another State Department report said that Russia had observed the "central limits" of the first START treaty, although it noted there were disputes over compliance.

The new intelligence "clearly impacts your view of whether Russia would violate the treaty," said a congressional official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. The official declined to describe the intelligence.

Administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, played down the significance of the new information, with some suggesting treaty opponents were using it for their own ends.

In an interview, Kerry said the new intelligence "is not really bearing directly on the treaty." He described it as "a piece of information that's not yet fully ripened," declining to elaborate.

Gates to Meet With Russian Defense Minister

The New York Times

WASHINGTON — It has been almost six years since a Russian defense minister set foot inside the Pentagon, and when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates devotes Wednesday to hosting his Kremlin counterpart, Anatoly E. Serdyukov, they are expected to find common ground on a topic that would have been unimaginable during the cold war.

In parallel, Mr. Gates and Mr. Serdyukov have declared war on their expensive, inefficient bureaucracies, to the frustration of their respective defense industries, civilian employees and some members of their officer corps.

Mr. Gates is trying to cut Defense Department spending on overhead to scrounge up more money for troops in the field and investment in new weapons.

In Russia, after his appointment as defense minister in 2007, Mr. Serdyukov, who had more experience in the furniture industry than with the military, announced the largest overhaul in decades of his massive armed forces.

Mr. Gates has ruffled feathers here with his call to cut the ranks of Pentagon contractors, reduce his civilian management staff and trim the roster of generals and admirals by 50 or more. But that pales in comparison with Mr. Serdyukov’s goals: eliminating nearly 200,000 officers, including 200 generals; reducing the central headquarters staff by 60 percent; and adopting a streamlined command structure that, like the United States Army, focuses on deployable brigades rather than larger division structures. Russian troop levels will drop by 130,000 to about one million by 2016, in an attempt to transform the military from a lumbering cold war relic into a more nimble force.

The difference in scale may come in part because while the Pentagon bureaucracy is ripe for efficiency initiatives, the Russian defense and military establishment ha suffered from years of gross neglect and chronic corruption.

The sweep of Mr. Serdyukov’s plans earned him the enmity of much of his armed forces. One retired general criticized him for having done more harm than a NATO agent, and accusations of treason abound.

“The entire military hates him, and that is not an overstatement,” said Aleksandr Golts, an independent military analyst in Moscow. “That which Serdyukov is doing is a challenge to the Russian military culture as a whole, the culture that is based upon the idea of a mass-mobilization army starting with Peter the Great.”

Although the defense chiefs are united on budget efficiencies, they came to their current posts — and views on defense management reforms — down different avenues.

Mr. Gates is a veteran Kremlin-watcher, a former C.I.A. director who has served eight presidents of both parties in a long career of public service.

In contrast, Mr. Serdyukov is the first Russian defense minister without a security background and has not cut as dramatic a figure across the global policy stage as his predecessor, Sergei B. Ivanov. Mr. Ivanov, a career intelligence officer, is fluent in English and regularly sparred, using humor and drama, with former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

In recent years, much of the dialogue with the Russian military, whether in calm times or in crisis, has been carried out by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has established a solid working relationship with his counterpart, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, chief of the Russian general staff.

“I don’t think that for issues such as Iran or missile defense that Serdyukov plays the role in his government that Gates does in ours,” said Steven Pifer, who has managed Russia policy from top positions at the State Department and National Security Council.

“He was not brought in to be a major international interlocutor,” said Mr. Pifer, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research and policy center here. “He was brought in because of his business instincts to take this massive and outdated military structure, and update it to create a more efficient force.”

For all the antipathy shown Mr. Serdyukov within the military, he appears to have the full support of Russia’s tight-knit ruling clique for his business reforms. First appointed by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin when he was president, Mr. Serdyukov was kept on when Dmitri A. Medvedev took over the presidency in 2008. He is married to the daughter of Viktor Zubkov, a first deputy prime minister and confidant of Mr. Putin.

As a sign of the importance Mr. Gates places on the visit of the Russian minister, the defense secretary has set aside all of Wednesday for three formal working sessions before a final working dinner.

A morning session will be devoted to sharing lessons learned on defense management reforms, followed by a midday meeting on bilateral issues, including such prickly topics as missile defense and a nuclear arms control.

An afternoon dialogue will cover regional and global security challenges. Expected to be on the table are Afghanistan — where the Russians have provided a vital northern supply route for NATO forces — and Iran, where the Russians are a more complicated partner in halting Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

The two are expected to sign a pair of official documents, according to senior officials.

One is an updated memorandum of understanding on a broad range of cooperation between the Pentagon and Russian Ministry of Defense, and a second would establish a specific defense relations working group to foster ties across major policy issues, not just military relations.

Vladimir Putin's Valdai vision

The Economist

Sep 7th 2010, 10:06 by The Economist | SOCHI

THE Valdai club is an annual meeting of academics, historians and commentators who have an interest in Russia. Yesterday we met Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The moods of the participants were very different. Most of the Valdai club members were pessimistic about Russia's future, but a relaxed Mr Putin seemed chipper.

Before meeting Mr Putin, the group had held anguished discussions about where Russia was heading. Even the Russian members were mostly glum, with many saying that the country’s size, climate and history made autocracy and lack of freedom almost inevitable. The economic prognosis was equally downbeat. A survey of opinion among the club’s members, called the Valdai index, came to some harsh conclusions. It suggested that there was a “tendency toward stagnation in Russia.” And it commented that “there is practically no real modernisation, restructuring or diversification, oil and gas remain the main sources of revenue, corruption continues unchecked and there is almost zero innovation.”

Mr Putin largely rejected these views. He said that the government had a clear agenda for modernisation up to 2020. He cited the abolition of import duties on high-technology equipment and spoke of successful diversification into different industries. He talked up the amount of foreign investment into Russia, even though he admitted that most of it was in the energy sector. And he suggested that a revival in the birth rate across Russia was a sign that ordinary Russians did not share the gloomy pessimism of the Valdai club.

The prime minister became most animated, however, when answering questions about the next presidential election, which is due in 2012. He reminded the group that Franklin Roosevelt had been elected American president four times, while so far he had been voted in only twice (in 2000 and 2004). He insisted that he and President Dmitry Medvedev would abide by the constitution, which permits only two consecutive terms at a time. He then added that, as old friends, the two men would decide between them what to do in 2012, promising only that whatever they did “would be effective”.

Mr Putin was dismissive of critics and opponents alike. He said that those who had been taking part in unauthorised street protests across the country deserved to be beaten and claimed that Russian police were no tougher than in other countries. When asked if he would free Mikhail Khodorkovsky—who is serving an eight-year prison sentence for fraud and tax evasion and is currently undergoing a trial in Moscow on separate embezzlement charges—he insisted that the oligarch’s guilt had been proven in court, declared that he was guilty of murder and said that his head of security “had blood on his hands.”

Mr Putin was equally robust on foreign affairs. He spoke warmly of Barack Obama, although he has met him only once. On energy diplomacy he was withering about Nabucco, the Europeans’ planned gas pipeline through Turkey, which is designed to reduce dependence on Russia, saying bluntly that there was no gas to put in it, and suggesting that unlike these pipedreams, Russian promises of pipelines were delivered. Nor, he said, was he worried by the development of shale gas as an alternative source of energy.

The impression created by this year’s interview was of a confident prime minister who does not believe those who argue that Russia needs a lot more reform if it is to succeed. Most of his audience concluded that he is likely to run for president in 2012, and that he may well serve two further terms, which would mean his staying in power until 2024. That conclusion was reinforced by Mr Medvedev's refusal to meet the Valdai club, which he has done in previous years. The club may, however, be seeing Mr Putin for many years to come.

Russia helps Iran load fuel into its first nuclear plant

The Washington Post

TEHRAN -- Iranian and Russian engineers began loading nuclear fuel into Iran's first atomic power plant Saturday amid international concern that the Islamic Republic is seeking a nuclear weapon.

State television showed what appeared to be fuel rods being loaded into the core of the reactor, which is on the shores of the Persian Gulf near Bushehr. The plant is one of the first tangible results of Iran's controversial nuclear program, which has been the target of increasingly tough international sanctions.

Overseen by Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the plant is not widely regarded a dangerous expansion of Iran's nuclear program. Russia is also supplying the uranium fuel for the plant, for 10 years, at an enrichment level well below what is needed for a nuclear weapon.

The plant has taken more than 35 years to build, with construction disrupted by the 1979 revolution, the war with Iraq in the 1980s and a decision by the original German contractor, Siemens, to pull out of the project.

"When a nation decides to live with freedom, it will finally reach its goal," Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told state media.

Rosatom, a Russian state nuclear corporation, helped finish the plant, which has cost Iran nearly $1 billion.

The Iranian government says its nuclear development is for peaceful purposes, such as electricity production and medical research. Although Iran says it has been open, the United States and its allies say the country has concealed parts of its nuclear fuel program, possibly to build a nuclear weapon, which Iran denies.

Iranian officials say they fear that outside pressure could ultimately force Russia to stop supplying nuclear fuel.

"We are looking for assurance of supply of fuel to the reactors," Salehi told reporters. He said Iran has had bad experiences with Germany and France, which had committed to starting up the reactor but later reneged.

"That was instrumental in making our government decide to have its own enrichment facilities in Iran," Salehi said. "We want to have the capacity and capability to assure the continuous supply of the fuel to the reactors."

The U.S. State Department said it did not view the plant as a proliferation risk but stressed its continued concerns about Iran's nuclear program. "Russia's support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement.

Israeli officials also said they were not particularly worried about the fuel being loaded into Bushehr. "Our problem is with the other facilities that they have, where they enrich uranium," Uzi Landau, Israel's minister of national infrastructure, said in an interview Thursday in Tel Aviv.

Unlike other nuclear successes, Iranian officials and state television refrained from huge celebrations Saturday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not at the opening of the plant.

"Faced with international pressure, they are keeping a low profile," said Masallah Shamsolva'ezin, an analyst critical of the government. "Maybe they will need to make some kind of compromise in the future, so now might not be the time for nationalistic celebrations."

Suspected Russian arms dealer Bout to be extradited to U.S., Thai court rules

The Washington Post

The forthcoming extradition of a major reputed arms dealer to the United States could yield the Obama administration a treasure trove of intelligence about the networks that move weapons and drugs around the world and about the governments that secretly facilitate the traffic.

That is, if he cooperates.

An appeals court in Thailand on Friday overturned a lower court's ruling and ordered that Viktor Bout, a 43-year-old former Russian military translator, be sent to the United States, where he faces federal charges of conspiring to sell weapons to a terrorist organization, money laundering and sanctions busting. The Thai court decision, announced after months of diplomatic pressure from the United States, surprised many in the U.S. government who followed the case.

Many officials had predicted privately that the court would rule the other way.

On Friday, the acting deputy attorney general, Gary G. Grindler, said the Justice Department was "extremely pleased" with the ruling. His sentiments were echoed by the State Department.

For decades Bout, who inspired the 2005 political thriller "Lord of War," is believed to have operated as a major arms smuggler, fueling conflicts in Afghanistan, Angola, Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan.

Lee S. Wolosky, a National Security Council official during the Clinton administration, said Bout came to the government's attention because of his close ties to the Taliban in the 1990s. Bout moved weapons and cash to Afghanistan at that time, Wolosky said.

If Bout cooperates with U.S. law enforcement, Wolosky said, "he could be very helpful with respect to ongoing efforts in Afghanistan because he clearly has had a network there for a number of years." Bout's organization knew the country better than anyone, possessed the best maps and had an unrivaled network of sources, U.S. officials said.

So far, at least, Bout has given no indication that he will cooperate. He has denied the allegations against him and, on Friday, told a reporter from Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, "We will go to court in America and we will win."

The Russian government fought against Bout's extradition. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Friday's ruling an "unlawful, political decision" made "under very strong external pressure," the Reuters news agency reported, adding that Moscow would continue to seek Bout's return to Russia.

Douglas Farah, a former Washington Post reporter and the author of a book about Bout, "Merchant of Death," said his reporting indicated that Russia was concerned that Bout might cooperate with U.S. law enforcement and reveal Russian connections to shady regimes. Farah's book reports that, among other ventures, Bout moved Russian-made weapons from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon in 2006.

"There have been a lot of Russians arrested around the world," he said. "But not many of them get a resolution from the Duma and are offered a place in the Russian Embassy while they await trial. The Russians are worried he might talk."

Michael A. Braun ran operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration when his agents and Thai police partnered to arrest Bout in 2008 in a sting operation.

"I think he's sitting on a boatload of valuable information," Braun said.

"There are a lot of nefarious arms traffickers out there, but there are not more than half a dozen who have the ability to acquire massive amount of arms and then deliver them around the world with pinpoint accuracy," he said.

The U.S. government might have its own motive to strike a deal: to avoid a deeper look at Bout's ties to Washington.

For several years, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Bout's logistics companies were used by Pentagon contractors to move material into Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2004, President George W. Bush issued a directive making it illegal to do business with Bout. But apparently the Pentagon continued the contracts into 2006.

"It's always been an open question," Wolosky said, "whether or not the U.S. government actually knew he was the subcontractor."

La Russie lance un appel d'offres international pour deux navires de guerre de type Mistral

Le Monde

La Russie a lancé un appel d'offres international pour deux porte-hélicoptères de la classe du français Mistral sur lesquels Paris et Moscou étaient jusqu'alors en "négociations exclusives", a annoncé vendredi 20 août le ministre russe de la défense cité par les agences russes.

"Nous avons lancé un appel d'offres international pour la construction de porte-hélicoptères", a déclaré le ministre de la défense russe, Anatoli Serdioukov, précisant que la Russie comptait pour l'instant se doter de deux navires de cette classe.

Paris et Moscou avaient annoncé en mars des "négociations exclusives" pour l'achat de ce puissant navire de guerre polyvalent, pouvant transporter des hélicoptères comme des chars d'assaut ou accueillir un état-major embarqué. Et en juillet,Nicolas Sarkozy, avait annoncé que la décision de construire en France deux Mistral pour la Russie était "certaine". Le ministre russe a souligné que le constructeur français du Mistral pourrait participer à cet appel d'offres, dont les résultats seront rendus publics à la fin de l'année.

"LA FRANCE RESTE CONFIANTE"

"La France reste confiante et ne voit aucune raison de s'inquiéter", a indiqué vendredi un conseiller élyséen. Interrogé jeudi sur des informations similaires publiées dans la presse, l'Elysée avait déjà affirmé que "les conversations se poursuivent normalement dans un excellent contexte", avait-on ajouté.

Aux yeux de certains observateurs, la décision de Moscou est surtout un moyen de faire pression sur Paris sur les conditions du contrat. Paris est en négociations depuis 2009 avec Moscou sur ce marché pouvant porter au total sur quatre bâtiments, dont la Russie voudrait construire plusieurs exemplaires dans ses propres chantiers.

Le commandant en chef de la marine russe, l'amiral Vladimir Vissotski, a souligné en juillet que Moscou exigeait un transfert de technologie, faute de quoi le marché n'aboutirait pas.

CONCURRENCE AVEC LA CORÉE DU SUD

L'alternative qui risque d'être opposée au Mistral dans cet appel d'offres est une coopération entre la holding russe des chantiers navals OSK et le sud-coréen Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME).

Il s'agirait de construire dans les chantiers navals russes le porte-hélicoptères sud-coréen de classe Dokdo, d'un coût estimé à 650 millions de dollars (500 millions d'euros), un prix équivalent à celui du Mistral. OSK a cependant aussi proposé à la France de fonder une coentreprise pour produire le Mistral le cas échéant.

L'annonce par la Russie de son intention de commander à la France des bâtiments de type Mistral avait suscité l'inquiétude des pays baltes et de la Géorgie. Cette perspective, qui serait la première transaction de ce type entre un pays de l'OTAN et la Russie, a également suscité des critiques aux Etats-Unis.

Au sommet de Sotchi, Moscou réaffirme son rôle en Asie centrale

Le Monde

REUTERS/POOL
De gauche à droite, les présidents Emomali Rahmon (Tadjikistan), Hamid Karzai (Afghanistan), Dmitri Medvedev (Russie) et Asif Ali Zardari (Pakistan) réunis à Sotchi le 18 août.

Le sommet de Sotchi du 18 août, dans la résidence présidentielle russe sur les rives de la mer Noire, a marqué la volonté de Moscou de regagner de l'influence dans sa politique régionale et de montrer l'engagement russe dans la stabilisation de l'Afghanistan.

"Nous soutenons la lutte du gouvernement afghan contre le terrorisme et nous sommes prêts à aider" l'Afghanistan, s'est engagé Dmitri Medvedev, se référant à la coopération en matière de lutte contre le terrorisme et le trafic de drogue. Les autorités russes s'inquiètent notamment du risque de propagation des violences aux Républiques ex-soviétiques d'Asie centrale et de la croissance du trafic de drogue dans la région.

Concernant les gigantesques inondations qui frappent le Pakistan depuis trois semaines, faisant 20 millions de sinistrés, le président russe a assuré que la Russie "était à la disposition" d'Islamabad pour apporter "toute aide nécessaire".

Le président pakistanais, qui a écourté sa visite en raison de la catastrophe naturelle qui frappe son pays, en a profité pour recoudre les plaies et lui aussi réaffirmer son soutien à Kaboul dans la lutte contre les talibans. En juillet, les deux pays avait eu de vifs échanges diplomatiques, Hamid Karzaï ayant accusé son voisin d'abriter des "sanctuaires terroristes", des propos qu'Islamabad avait jugés "incompréhensibles".

START expiration ends U.S. inspection of Russian nuclear bases

The Washington Post

For the first time in 15 years, U.S. officials have lost their ability to inspect Russian long-range nuclear bases, where they had become accustomed to peering into missile silos, counting warheads and whipping out tape measures to size up rockets.

The inspections had occurred every few weeks under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. But when START expired in December, the checks stopped.

Meanwhile, in an obscure, fluorescent-lighted State Department office staffed round-the-clock, a stream of messages from Russia about routine movements of its nuclear missiles and bombers has slowed to a trickle.

The Obama administration hopes the inspections and messages will soon resume under the New START agreement, which was signed by the two countries in April. But the pact is on hold in the Senate. If it faces long delays, or is voted down, the U.S. government will lose critical insight into Russia's nuclear forces, officials say.

"The problem of the breakdown of our verification, which lapsed December 5, is very serious and impacts our national security," Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), one of the chamber's top nuclear experts, said in a recent hearing.

In months of debate over New START, there has been little focus on the implications of the lapse in nuclear checks. Instead, hearings have centered on such issues as whether the pact would inhibit U.S. missile defense.

"I thought we were just going to continue doing business as usual" as the replacement treaty was debated, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said when a reporter noted the inspection cutoff.

The Obama administration has emphasized that New START will require the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals. But many experts say the verification measures matter even more.

That's not because they think a nuclear attack is imminent. But even two decades after the end of the Cold War, Russia has about 2,500 deployed nukes capable of hitting the United States. U.S. officials like to keep an eye on them.

"Without the [new] treaty and its verification measures, the United States would have much less insight into Russian strategic forces, thereby requiring our military to plan based on worst-case assumptions," Jim Miller, a senior nuclear policy official in the Pentagon, testified last month. "This would be an expensive and potentially destabilizing approach."

Kyl and other Republicans say that before voting on a pact that reduces the nation's stockpiles, they want to ensure there is enough money to modernize the nuclear complex. They say they should not rush the treaty because the monitoring measures have expired.

"It's not an argument for voting before you know all the facts," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

For the Cold Warriors who plodded through arms-control talks back in the 1980s, getting inspectors onto the other guy's bases was a major breakthrough.

"It was the holy grail to get on-site inspections, boots on the ground in the Soviet Union," said Franklin Miller, who worked in arms control for more than two decades, ending up as special assistant to President George W. Bush.

Even without those inspections, the U.S. and Russian governments can still check on each other's forces by using reconnaissance satellites and radar. But those methods are not perfect.

For example, a satellite cannot peer into a Russian underground silo and see whether the missile inside is carrying one nuclear bomb or 10, officials say.

"One of our dirty little secrets is, when the [Berlin] Wall went down, the United States reoriented a lot of intelligence capacity away from the Soviet Union and Russia. To some fair degree . . . the IC [intelligence community] was relying on U.S. inspectors to be on the ground," Miller said.

The "boots on the ground" include people such as Phil Smith, a former Air Force crew chief for nuclear-tipped missiles. He has made about 20 inspection visits to Russian nuclear facilities.

"We have 15 years of experience under START, understanding where everything is. We've been through these sites multiple times," he said in an interview.

The U.S. teams typically arrive at Russian bases with only about a day's notice. Many of the inspectors' methods are surprisingly low-tech: They stretch tape measures along missiles and poke flashlights into trailers. The inspections allow each side to count nuclear weapons on a sampling of missiles, bombers or submarine launch tubes and look around one another's maintenance facilities and test ranges.

"If something is atypical . . . I will not be bashful about saying, 'Okay, we need to take a closer look at this one.' That's the kind of dynamic you have on the ground that you wouldn't have with a satellite," Smith said.

Inspectors check what they see against a database compiled by both sides with the numbers, characteristics and locations of their long-range nuclear weapons.

Until December, both sides updated that database constantly. Russia sent about 1,500 notifications a year to a special computer at the State Department's Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, where a "ding-dong" would signal an incoming message. ("It sounds like Avon calling," explained one technician.)

The messages, which the center distributed to U.S. security agencies, included information on upcoming inspections, the destruction of nuclear launchers and movement of nuclear-capable missiles and bombers.

"Now we don't get any of that information. We have less and less visibility into their status of forces," said Ned Williams, the director of the center. (Notifications of missile test launches have continued, to ensure that neither side mistakenly thinks a nuclear attack is underway.)

Few experts dispute the value of having inspections. But some critics have argued that New START is not as good as its predecessor.

The Obama administration "agreed to gut the monitoring and verification measures and limitations necessary to render it effectively verifiable," said Paula DeSutter, the assistant secretary of state for verification in the George W. Bush administration.

For example, she said, the Obama administration acquiesced to a Russian demand to exchange less telemetry -- the flight data from ballistic missile tests. That information helps U.S. officials understand the number of warheads the Russians will load onto their missiles. Under New START, the Russians are required to provide the data from only five tests, instead of all 10 or 12 they do annually.

U.S. officials say the change is not significant because, under the new treaty, they will be counting the number of warheads on missiles and not using estimates, as was the case before. They contend that the new treaty will help each side get a more accurate count by assigning an ID number to each warhead and launcher.

Although U.S. nuclear inspectors are not traveling to Russia these days, they are busy training, sometimes with mock "Russian" inspectors.

The idea, Smith said, is "to make sure when we're called upon to do this, we're ready to go."

Russia moves rockets as wildfires spread

The Washington Post

MOSCOW -- A Russian military garrison near Moscow moved all its artillery rockets to a safer location as wildfires advanced in the region, the government said Thursday.

Col. Alexei Kuznetsov, a Defense Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press that the garrison near Naro-Fominsk, 70 kilometers (45 miles) southwest of Moscow, was not in immediate danger. But the decision to move the explosive materiel underlined the challenges posed by the hundreds of fires raging in Russia after weeks of intense heat and drought.

A wildfire leapt into a Russian naval air base outside Moscow last week, causing substantial damage; Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed. Kuznetsov did not give details of where the rockets were moved to, or when the operation occurred.

In neighboring Ukraine, also suffering from heat and lack of rain, a wildfire on Thursday was within three kilometers (two miles) of a military base in the Dnirpropetrovsk region, local news reports said. The regional emergencies ministry said only that a 300-hectare (750-acre) fire was close to being extinguished. In all, wildfires in eastern Ukraine have destroyed about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres).

Almost 600 fires were reported burning in Russia on Thursday, mostly in the western stretches of the country. The death toll from the fires stands at 50.

Earlier, a shelter with some 1,800 animals near Moscow reported that it had been threatened by fires and that one had approached within 150 meters (yards) before being extinguished. But shelter director Daria Taraskina said late Thursday that there were no blazes nearby, though concern remained high for the dogs, cats and retired circus animals at the facility in Khoteichi, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Moscow.

Thick smog that had blanketed Moscow partially lifted early Thursday but could return with no end in sight to a record heat wave, officials warned.

Temperatures up to 100 F (38 C) have exacerbated forest and peat bog fires across Russia's central and western regions, destroying close to 2,000 homes. Officials have suggested the 10,000 firefighters battling the blazes aren't enough. The forecast for the week ahead shows little change in the capital and surrounding regions, where the average summer temperature is around 23 (75).

In the blaze-ravaged village of Plotava, 35 miles (60 kilometers) east of Moscow, local official Viktor Sorokin lamented that the number of fire wardens in woodland and peat bog areas had halved to 150 in the last few years under new rules.

"There used to be more of them, now there aren't enough," he said.

Some locals are taking the initiative to make up the shortfall in firefighters.

"We woke up several days ago and we couldn't breathe," said Alexander Babayev, a 27-year-old owner of a drive-in theater, before taking a hose to low rising flames flickering above the smoldering ground.

Babayev assembled a motley team of volunteers using a social networking website and, after a few instructions from professionals, they began tending to fires.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised to build new, better homes before winter, and vowed each victim would receive $6,600 in compensation. The sum is huge in a country whose average monthly wage is around $800, and Russian media say some residents may have deliberately torched their dwellings to qualify.

To the east, firefighters focused on beating flames back from a top-secret nuclear research facility in the city of Sarov. A Sarov news website on Thursday cited local officials as saying a wall of fire had been broken down into several smaller blazes. On Wednesday, officials said the closest blaze was still several miles (kilometers) from the main facilities at the Russian Federal Nuclear Research Center and as a precaution all hazardous materials had been evacuated.

In the capital, President Dmitry Medvedev fired several high-ranking military officials Wednesday over what he called criminal negligence in fires that ravaged a military base.

Russia has been sent helicopters and planes to help douse the flames from Ukraine, Armenia, Italy, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said in televised comments.

Anti-government protestors arrested in Kyrgyzstan

The Guardian

Kyrgyz forces fired live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades into the air to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters today and arrested their leader, Urmat Baryktabasov, raising fears of new instability in the turbulent Central Asian nation.

Government spokesman Farid Niyazov said some of the 27 protesters arrested are being investigated on suspicion of "attempting to seize power." There was no immediate word on casualties.

The confrontation showed that tensions in Kyrgyzstan remain high four months after President Bakiyev was ousted and fled the country after a bloody revolt over alleged corruption.

Breaking up today's protest could bolster the interim government's confidence that it can fend off similar uprisings, despite ethnic rampages in June in which hundreds of minority Uzbeks were killed.

The United States and Russia both have military bases in the strategically located country and are watching developments closely.

Kyrgyzstan security chief Keneshbek Duyshebayev said authorities arrested Urmat Baryktabasov, who leads the obscure Mekin-Tuu political party that is financed by Bakiyev's family.

The unrest began in the capital, Bishkek, when about 1,000 supporters of Baryktabasov gathered outside parliament to denounce the interim leadership and insist the country is not ready for parliamentary elections scheduled for October.

Supporters addressing the crowd also called for Baryktabasov to be appointed prime minister – a demand derided by President Roza Otunbayeva.

"We demonstrated willingness to engage in dialogue with the leaders of this demonstration, although they could not even produce a basic list of demands," Otunbayeva said.

Baryktabasov had tried to run against Bakiyev in the 2005 presidential elections, but was denied registration and fled the country. He returned after Bakiyev's ousting.

While the rally was taking place in Bishkek, hundreds of Baryktabasov supporters travelling to the capital were stopped by police and troops 12 miles away. Many demonstrators then left Bishkek to try to join them, but were also stopped. Baryktabasov's supporters angrily demanded that authorities let them and their leader into the capital.

"He should be president – he is an honest Kyrgyz man," said protester Erlan Churayev.

But the soldiers and police, backed by armored vehicles, fired live rounds into the air and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. Fleeing protesters were chased into nearby fields by riot police with dogs, Otunbayeva said.

Baryktabasov, whom police had barred from entering the capital, was not among the crowd but was arrested later after a high-speed police chase.

The impoverished, mountainous nation hosts the US Manas air base, a key support center for the fight against the Taliban that is used by most troops entering or leaving Afghanistan.

Washington appelle tous les pays à reconnaître le Kosovo

Le Monde

Dans un avis, non contraignant pour les Etats, la Cour internationale de justice (CIJ) a estimé jeudi 22 juillet que la déclaration d'indépendance du Kosovo, le 17 février 2008, n'avait pas violé le droit international. L'avis du principal organe judiciaire des Nations unies, qui pourrait servir à d'autres groupes minoritaires, a aussitôt suscité une pluie de réactions. La CIJ s'est empressée de préciser qu'elle devait uniquement déterminer si la déclaration d'indépendance du Kosovo avait violé le droit international, et qu'elle n'était "pas chargée de dire si le Kosovo a accédé à la qualité d'Etat".

Etats-Unis. Peu après que la Cour a rendu son avis, la secrétaire d'Etat Hillary Clinton a appelé tous les pays, y compris la Serbie, à reconnaître le Kosovo. Washington a également appelé les nations européennes à "s'unir". "L'avis de la CIJ affirme la légalité de la déclaration d'indépendance du Kosovo. Nous soutenons cette décision", a déclaré le porte-parole du département d'Etat. "Le moment est venu pour l'Europe de s'unir pour un avenir commun", a-t-il ajouté.

Kosovo. Les dirigeants kosovars se sont aussitôt félicités de l'avis de la CIJ, qui donne selon eux au Kosovo "le droit d'être un Etat". Le président Fatmir Sejdiu a donc appelé tous les pays qui n'ont pas reconnu le Kosovo en tant qu'"Etat indépendant et souverain" à le faire "dès que possible". Le premier ministre Hashim Thaci a quant à lui estimé que l'avis de la CIJ ouvrait nettement la voie à une intégration à l'OTAN, l'Union européenne et les Nations unies.

Serbie. Le ministre des affaires étrangères serbe, Vuk Jeremic, a réitéré quelques instants après la lecture de l'avis de la CIJ que Belgrade ne reconnaîtrait "jamais" le Kosovo, que la Serbie considère comme sa province méridionale et le berceau de l'histoire serbe. C'est la Serbie qui avait obtenu le 8 octobre 2008 de l'Assemblée générale des Nations unies qu'elle saisisse la CIJ sur la légalité de la proclamation d'indépendance du Kosovo.

ONU. Soucieux d'éviter toute escalade entre les deux parties, le secrétaire général des Nations unies, Ban Ki-moon, a mis en garde contre toute "provocation" après l'avis de la CIJ.

Russie. Moscou, qui redoute de voir certaines de ses provinces réclamer unilatéralement leur indépendance, a déclaré que l'avis de la Cour ne changeait en rien à la position de la Russie, hostile à la reconnaissance de l'indépendance du Kosovo. Le ministère russe des affaires étrangères souligne d'ailleurs que la CIJ ne se prononce pas sur l'indépendance en elle-même : "Il est primordial que la Cour ait donné son avis uniquement sur la déclaration, soulignant justement qu'elle n'examinait pas dans l'ensemble la question du droit du Kosovo à la séparation d'avec la Serbie de manière unilatérale."

Abkhazie. Son de cloche sensiblement différent en Abkhazie, qui a pourtant été reconnue par Moscou. Pour le président abkhaze Sergueï Bagapch, l'avis de la CIJ "confirme le droit à l'autodétermination" de l'Abkhazie et de l'Ossétie du Sud, les régions séparatistes de Géorgie. "Cette décision a également montré que la position de la Russie, qui a reconnu la première l'indépendance de l'Abkhazie et de l'Ossétie du Sud, était parfaitement juste", a ajouté M. Bagapch. Il a estimé que l'avis rendu par la CIJ allait contribuer à la reconnaissance de l'indépendance des deux territoires géorgiens par d'autres pays.

Union européenne. L'Europe est prête à aider la Serbie et le Kosovo à nouer un dialogue afin de renforcer leurs chances d'adhérer un jour à l'UE, a déclaré jeudi Catherine Ashton, haute représentante de l'UE pour les affaires étrangères et la sécurité. Le chef de la diplomatie allemande, Guido Westerwelle, a quant à lui appelé Belgrade et Pristina à s'orienter vers leur "avenir européen". "Maintenant la politique et le dialogue sont exigés", a-t-il ajouté, estimant que "l'avenir de la Serbie et du Kosovo repose au sein de l'UE".

Spycraft: A tide turns

The Economist

Technology used to help spies. Now it hinders them
Jul 15th 2010

DEPENDING on what kind of spy you are, you either love technology or hate it. For intelligence-gatherers whose work is based on bugging and eavesdropping, life has never been better. Finicky miniature cameras and tape recorders have given way to pinhead-sized gadgets, powered remotely (a big problem in the old days used to be changing the batteries on bugs).

Encrypted electronic communications are a splendid target for the huge computers at places such as America’s National Security Agency. Even a message that is impregnably encoded by today’s standards may be cracked in the future. That gives security-conscious officials the shivers.

But the same advances are making life a lot harder for the kind of spy who deals with humans rather than bytes. The basis of spycraft is breaking the rules without being noticed. As with the Russians arrested last month in America and now deported, that involves moving around inconspicuously, usually under false identities, and handing over and receiving money by undetectable means. For those that get caught, the consequences can be catastrophic.

The biggest headache is mobile phones. For spycatchers, these are ideal bugging and tracking devices, which the target kindly keeps powered up. But that makes them a menace for spies (and for terrorists, who often operate under the same constraints). Removing the battery and putting the bits in a fridge or other metal container disables any bug, but instantly arouses suspicion. If two people being followed both take this unusual precaution near the same location at the same time, even the most dull-witted watcher may infer that a clandestine meeting is afoot.

Creating false identities used to be easy: an intelligence officer setting off on a job would take a scuffed passport, a wallet with a couple of credit cards, a driving licence and some family snaps. In a world based on atoms, cracking that was hard.

Thanks to electrons, it is easy to see if a suspicious visitor’s “shadow” checks out. Visa stamps from other countries can be verified against records in their immigration computers. A credit reference instantly reveals when the credit cards were issued and how much they have been used. A claimed employment history can be googled. Mobile-phone billing records reveal past contacts (or lack of them).

Missing links, in fact, are almost as bad as mistakes. A pristine mobile phone number is suspicious (especially when coupled with new credit cards and a new e-mail address, but no Facebook account). An investigation that would have once tied up a team of counter-espionage officers for weeks now takes a few mouse clicks.

With enough effort, a few convincing identities can be kept alive—a minor industry in the spy world involves keeping the credit cards for clandestine work credibly active. But for serious spies these legends wear out faster than they can be created.

Dead on arrival

Biometric passports are making matters worse. If you have once entered the United States as a foreigner, your fingerprints and that name are linked for ever in the government’s computers. The data can be checked by any of several dozen close American allies. Obtaining a passport with a dead child’s birth certificate is increasingly risky as population registers are computerised. Stealing a tourist’s passport and changing the photo (a tactic favoured by Israel’s Mossad) is no longer easy: in future the biometric data on the chip will need to check out too. Only the most determined and resourceful countries can do that—and the cost is spiralling.

Technology creates other problems. Take the dead-letter drop, where an item can be left inconspicuously and securely for someone else to pick up. Intelligence officers are trained to spot these, in places that are easy to visit and hard to observe (cisterns and waste bins in public lavatories, or under a heating grating in a church pew, for example). Time was when monitoring a suspected dead-letter box involved laborious work by humans. Now it can be done invisibly, remotely and automatically. Next time you bury a beer bottle stuffed with money in a park, you should ponder what cameras and sensors may be hidden in the trees nearby.

The days of the “illegal”, living for many years in a foreign country under a near-foolproof false identity, are drawing to a close. Spymasters are increasingly using “real people” instead: globalisation makes it unremarkable for those such as Anna Chapman, one of the ten Russians deported from America (under her own, legally acquired, British name), to study, marry, work and live in a bunch of different countries. Like so many other once-solid professions, spying is becoming less of a career and more a job for freelancers.

U.S. seized opportunity in arrests of Russian spies

The Washington Post

President Obama's national security team spent weeks before the arrest of 10 Russian spies preparing for their takedown and assembling a list of prisoners Moscow might be willing to trade for the agents, senior administration officials said Friday.

U.S. officials began negotiating with their Russian counterparts shortly after the spies were arrested late last month, the officials said. Before long, the sides had reached an agreement that included pledges that neither would engage in any further "retaliatory steps," such as a diplomatic freeze or expulsions, and that neither would harass each other's officials or citizens.

Officials who provided details of how it all unfolded concentrated Friday on what they described as the smooth integration of the administration's law enforcement, intelligence and diplomatic teams in tracking the Russian agents and turning the situation into a national security victory rather than a source of political and public concern and potential criticism. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because, they said, the undertaking had been a group effort, authorized by the president.

Now, with the swap on an airport tarmac in Vienna completed, the administration hopes the episode will remain a nonissue between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, treated as one of the occasional, fleeting bumps in a smooth road ahead for relations between their countries.

With any luck, U.S. officials indicated, it would be as if the biggest spy swap since the end of the Cold War had never happened.

The first time White House officials learned about the spies was in February, when representatives of the FBI, CIA and Justice Department held a briefing, according to one official. The briefers laid out "the broad contours" of what had been a decade-long investigation of a network of Russian "sleeper" agents placed in this country under false identities, and provided specifics about the individual agents.

Over the next several months, as concern grew that some of the agents were preparing to leave the United States, they discussed the timing of the arrests. Obama was first told about the Russian program and the long-running investigation June 11.

"He was also informed about plans for the arrests, and how that would be effected, what they would be charged with . . . [and] follow-on actions that were contemplated at that time," an official said.

Further presidential briefings followed, as did meetings among top national security officials but without Obama. Throughout those sessions, an official said, "there was a full discussion . . . about what was going to happen on the day after" the arrests.

Although there had been no final decision, the CIA and State Department had begun assembling a list of candidates for a swap, focusing on criteria that included humanitarian concerns and the general category of espionage.

They discarded the possibility of asking Moscow for individuals with no intelligence connections, and they found that the universe of imprisoned Russians who had been accused of spying for the West was surprisingly small. The list eventually included three former KGB officers and a researcher for a Moscow think tank who had been convicted of passing sensitive information to what Russia had alleged to be a CIA front company in London.

The idea of a swap "made perfect sense," an official said. There has been mild criticism from unnamed retired intelligence officials and some politicians that the release of the Russian spies gave away intelligence information, but "we didn't really have anything to learn from the agents themselves. We'd basically been looking over their shoulders for years."

The timing of the arrests was left in the hands of Justice and the FBI. When they finally moved on June 27, an official said, it was "entirely coincidental" that Medvedev had just left Washington after his seventh face-to-face visit with Obama.

Several officials said that the FBI's hand was forced by a flight out of the country booked for that night by one of the suspects for that night.

No one in the administration knew how the Russian government would react to the arrests, and the first response from Moscow was an official denial of the spy ring. But White House officials were heartened when the Russians reversed themselves within a day, and Obama quickly approved his national security team's recommendation that the swap be proposed.

CIA Director Leon Panetta was assigned to make the initial approach to his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Fradkov, and called him the day after the arrests. "They were ready to listen," a U.S. official said.

The four names were quickly transmitted and negotiations began. U.S. prosecutors began discussing a plea arrangement with the 10 in this country. In Moscow, the Russians accepted the U.S. list, gathered their own prisoners and arranged for presidential pardons. Panetta and Fradkov eventually spoke three times, the last call on July 3.

As the White House led daily 7:30 a.m. meetings on developments, the legal arrangements dragged into a second week. Members of the group of 10 wanted to know what their situation would be on return to Russia and what would happen to their children. In Moscow, the imprisoned researcher temporarily balked at agreeing to a pardon he said was a false admission of guilt.

Unanswered questions remain, particularly about the timing of the arrests. There were indications on June 26, according to law enforcement sources and the Russian news media, that at least one of the suspects, Anna Chapman, was approached by an FBI informant and suspected she had been unmasked.

That same morning, another of the 10, Mikhail Semenov, was lured by the FBI to a video-recorded "drop" of money supposedly sent by Moscow. Both undercover actions appeared to be inexplicable last-minute risks, if the plan to pick them up June 27 was already in motion.

Administration officials declined to discuss investigators' methods. "Clearly, they were here illegally, for intelligence purposes," one said. "That was their sole function, and that was the basis of the decision" to pick them up.

El canje de espías culmina con éxito

El País

El avión fletado para trasladar a los ciudadanos rusos entregados ayer por Moscú en el intercambio de espías con EE UU aterrizó esta madrugada en el aeropuerto Dulles de Washington, pocas horas después de que el aparato en el que viajaban los 10 agentes deportados desde Nueva York llegaran también a Moscú. Ambas aeronaves se habían cruzado en Viena, la ciudad donde se produjo el canje.

Una caravana de vehículos todoterreno esperaba a pie de pista la llegada del avión en Washinton, que pone fin al mayor canje de espías desde la guerra fría. Aguardaban también agentes de la CIA para conducir a los rusos a un lugar donde, supuestamente, han sido ya interrogados e informados de las condiciones de su nueva vida. Las autoridades estadounidenses no han informado de si en este aparato viajaban los cuatro ciudadanos liberados por Moscú o si, como indican algunos medios americanos y británicos, dos de ellos volaron a Reino Unido desde Viena.

De los diez deportados desde EE UU, la mayoría son rusos con identidad falsa. De los enviados desde Moscú, tres se encontraban cumpliendo condenas de espionaje en su propio país, y el cuarto, Guennadi Vasilenko, de 69 años, estaba ya en libertad tras haber cumplido una condena de tres años en régimen abierto que le fue impuesta en 2006 por tenencia ilícita de armas. Los medios de comunicación rusos, sin embargo, se refieren a cuatro condenados por espionaje y traición al Estado y de ese supuesto parte, aparentemente, el decreto de indulto firmado por el presidente Dmitri Medvédev sobre el que informó el viernes la página oficial del Kremlin.

La operación, realizada por común acuerdo entre los dos países, es, que se sepa, la primera en el género "intercambio de espías" que se efectúa desde los tiempos de la guerra fría, concretamente desde el canje en 1986 del defensor de derechos humanos Yuri Orlov, que cumplía una condena de prisión y destierro, y el funcionario de la ONU, Guennadi Zajárov, acusado de espionaje bajo cobertura diplomática. Aquel intercambio tuvo lugar en vísperas de la cumbre de los presidentes de la URSS y Rusia, Mijaíl Gorbachov y Ronald Reagan, respectivamente en Reikiavik (Islandia).

El viernes de madrugada, el Kremlin informó que Dmitri Medvédev, había firmado un decreto por el que indultaba a cuatro ciudadanos rusos que le habían dirigido tal solicitud tras reconocerse culpables. El Kremlin informó que los indultados -Alexander Zaporozhski, Guennadi Vasilenko, Serguéi Skripal e Igor Sutiaguin- se encontraban "privados de libertad por decisión judicial y habían sufrido ya un severo castigo".

Perfil de los espías

Zaporozhski, un agente del espionaje exterior ruso, fue condenado en 2003 a 18 años de cárcel como culpable de traición a la patria por espiar a favor de EE UU. Serguéi Skripal, ex funcionario del servicio de inteligencia militar (GRU), fue condenado a 13 años de cárcel en 2009 por espiar a favor del Reino Unido, y el experto Igor Sutiaguin, que trabajó como jefe de sección en el Instituto de EE UU y Canadá, recibió una pena de 15 años en 2004 por entregar informaciones secretas a la empresa británica Alternative Futures, considerada como una tapadera de los servicios secretos norteamericanos.

Dato sorprendente es que Gennadi Vasilenko, ex vicejefe del servicio de seguridad de la cadena de televisión NTV Plus y ex veterano de los servicios de seguridad soviéticos arrestado en 2005, había sido condenado en 2006 por cargos que nada tienen que ver con el espionaje. Un tribunal de Moscú le consideró culpable de tenencia ilícita de armas, intento de preparación de explosivos y oponer resistencia a la autoridad "armado con un bolígrafo". La televisión rusa oficial reconoció, sin entrar en detalles, que Vasilenko estaba en libertad, circunstancia que no concuerda con la explicación oficial del decreto del presidente Medvédev. El veterano Vasilenko fue vicejefe de los servicios secretos soviéticos con cobertura diplomática de la URSS en Washington en los años 80 y se le considera el supuesto responsable del reclutamiento del agente norteamericano Robert Hansen por Moscú.

Igor Sutiaguin, que en calidad de funcionario del Instituto de EE UU y Canadá, tenía acceso a información sobre armamento, fue detenido en octubre de 1999 y siempre negó su culpa. Defensores de derechos humanos consideraban su caso como uno de los ejemplo de "espionitis", es decir la supervivencia y reanimación de los hábitos de la Guerra Fría que a fines de los noventa y principios de esta década acompañó al afianzamiento en el poder de Vladímir Putin, un veterano del espionaje exterior de la URSS.

Para defender a los científicos acusados en distintas instituciones de investigación de Rusia se formó el Comité Social de Defensa de los Científicos, entre cuyos miembros se contaba el premio Nobel de física, Yevgueni Ginzburg, ya fallecido.

Según un comunicado del ministerio de Exteriores de Rusia, el Servicio de Espionaje ruso y la CIA realizaron el intercambio, "cumpliendo las órdenes de los dirigentes de ambos países", partiendo de "consideraciones de carácter humanitario" y los principios de "colaboración constructiva", y de acuerdo con la legislación nacional. El canje se enmarca en el contexto de "la mejora de las relaciones ruso-norteamericanas", su nueva dinámica y en el espíritu de los acuerdos entre los dirigentes de ambos países, señalaba. Una alta fuente de la administración presidencial, citada por la agencia Itar-Tass, manifestaba que la operación se había organizado "de forma rápida, técnica y sin dificultades" y lo atribuía al "nuevo espíritu" en las relaciones de ambos países.

Troca de espiões é fruto de novas relações com EUA, diz Rússia

O Estado de S. Paulo

MOSCOU - O Ministério de Assuntos Exteriores da Rússia declarou nesta sexta-feira, 9, que o acordo com os EUA para a troca de espiões foi possível graças à atual melhoria das relações entre o Kremlin e a Casa Branca.

A troca de espiões aconteceu "no contexto geral de melhoria das relações russo-americanas, a fim de dar um novo dinamismo no espírito dos acordos de mais alto nível entre Moscou e Washington sobre o caráter estratégico da cooperação bilateral", assinalou a Chancelaria em comunicado.

A operação aconteceu nesta sexta em Viena, para onde os EUA deportaram os recém detidos dez espiões russos para trocá-los por quatro cidadãos russos condenados por trabalhar para os serviços secretos americanos.

Os dez detidos nos EUA aceitaram um acordo com a justiça pelo qual reconheceram a culpa de atividades ilegais, embora não de espionagem, em troca de sua imediata deportação à Rússia.

A Rússia entregou três oficiais de seus serviços secretos e um cientista, que foram condenados por espionar para Washington. Para tornar a troca possível, eles receberam um indulto do presidente Dmitri Medvedev na véspera.

A Chancelaria russa ressaltou que o acordo para esta troca entre Washington e Moscou foi alcançado pelo Serviço de Espionagem Exterior russo e a CIA (Agência de Inteligência Americana) com o sinal verde do Kremlin e da Casa Branca.

Segundo analistas, tanto Moscou como Washington desejavam encerrar o mais rápido possível esse embaraçoso caso de espionagem, que atrapalhava o novo momento de suas relações bilaterais e poderia impedir a ratificação do novo tratado de desarmamento nuclear.