Natylie Baldwin's Blog, page 170

Asia Times: Kerch Bridge, Nord Stream the handiwork of top-tier saboteurs

By STEPHEN BRYEN AND SHOSHANA BRYEN, Asia Times, 10/15/22

It is increasingly clear that the destruction of part of the Kerch-Crimea bridge and the destruction of three strands of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines required highly sophisticated technology and the skill of secret operators.

According to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) investigation, the truck bomb that destroyed part of the Kerch Strait Crimea bridge “was concealed in 22 pallets of plastic film rolls weighing a total of 22,770 kilos.”

The Russians blame the Secret Service of Ukraine (SSU), but Kiev would have needed considerable professional help to design such a huge weapon. The biggest bunker buster in the US inventory, for example, is the GBU-57 A/B at 14,000 kilograms. Experts would have known that to knock out the bridge they needed something even more powerful.

The investigative journalism site Greyzone said on October 10 that the British Secret Service (MI-6) drew up a plan last April to blow up the Kerch Bridge and shared the plan with Ukraine.

As Greyzone reported, the British plan was to bring in explosives by sea, perhaps using underwater vehicles or divers, and blow away the main bridge supports. An alternative, the British allegedly recommended, was to use cruise missiles – but doing so would remove any possibility of plausible deniability.

The Russians may have known about the plan. Interestingly, they positioned a special force to guard against an underwater attack and moved an S-300 air defense system from Syria to Crimea to deal with a possible cruise missile strike.

Assuming Greyzone is accurate, the Russian countermeasures forced an alternative plan. Perhaps, though with no evidence yet to support the thesis, UK or US experts were commissioned to determine the scale of the explosion needed to blow the bridge from the roadway.

For the record, Ukrainian cruise missiles lack both the accuracy and destructive power needed for such an attack. HIMARS, which has been supplied to Ukraine, might be capable of damaging the bridge (but not destroying it) and is accurate.

But its 90-kilogram warhead is too small to demolish a structure as large as the Kerch Bridge. Any sensible Russian should have spotted the cruise missile part of the British proposal as a possible fake if Moscow managed to get its hands on the report.

Little is known about how the massive amount of explosives was assembled, exactly where, and how it was done in secret – other than the FSB statement that the shipment originated in the nearby Ukrainian city of Odesa.

While the Russians appear to have been reading Ukraine’s mail, they entirely missed the possibility of a truck bomb. Is it possible that the Greyzone-reported British-devised plan was, in its entirety, a ruse intended to mislead the Russians?

A deception operation like this has its roots in the famous World War II British Operation Mincemeat, in which incorrect information was strategically placed on the body of a fake UK officer for the Germans to find. If so, the ruse worked again, and brilliantly.

The organizers of the bridge bombing put together a concealed but highly sophisticated operation.

Working backward, it looks like this: There were two trucks. The first went from Ukraine across Turkey, through Armenia and Georgia, and to the border of Russia. The explosives were inside, wrapped to hide from Russia’s X-ray inspection system on the border.

At the Russian border, trailers must have been attached to different, Russian trucks. If the explosives were in the first truck and the trailer was detached and hitched to the second but not again X-rayed – although Russian sources say it was later searched by security guards when coming onto the bridge – then the Russian inspection at the bridge’s approach appears to have been poorly handled and perfunctory.

There is a general belief that the trucker who picked up the load had no idea he was hauling explosives, meaning that the bomb in the truck was detonated by radio from a remote location. The truck driver was killed in the blast.

The Ukrainians put out a story that the blast came from the sea and not from the bridge span. There is no hard evidence to support the theory.

Nord Stream operation

The attack on the Nord Stream pipelines also suggests a sophisticated operation but one that could have gone partly wrong. The raw facts: The first explosion, near the Danish island of Bornholm, happened at approximately 2:03 am local time on September 26.

Gazprom, the Russian pipeline operator, reported the possibility of a leak when pipeline pressure dropped at 8:30 am. It was not until approximately 1:00 pm that the Danish air force sent F-16s to investigate. Those jets spotted the gas leak on the sea’s surface.

The first explosion was relatively small and picked up seismically, as was the sound of escaping methane gas.

At 7:04 pm a much larger explosion occurred along the pipeline route in the Swedish Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). According to seismic experts, this blast was greater than 100 kilograms and less than 200 kilograms, equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.

There is a possibly related story. In November 2015, Gazprom discovered a device adjacent to Bornholm sitting up against one of the two Nord Stream 1 pipes.

The device, it turned out, was a SeaFox mine-disposal unmanned underwater vehicle manufactured by the German company Atlas Elektronik’s division located in Maine. It was controlled by a fiber optic cable, part of which was discovered connected to it.

The battery-powered SeaFox carries a 1.4-kilogram-shaped charge to blow up mines and has a limited endurance of about 100 minutes. The drone was recovered and disarmed by Danish authorities. The US Navy admitted it had been lost, but never explained why it was found parked next to the pipeline.

Fast forward to the present, SeaFox has a small explosive charge that is more than adequate to punch a hole in a pipeline or blow up a sea mine. Its blast would have been more than adequate to create the first hole in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

But why was the second explosion, hours later, so large when a smaller explosion clearly had already compromised the pipeline?

Possibly, the results of the Bornholm explosion were not enough to satisfy the perpetrators and they tried again, this time in the Swedish ADIZ. The second mission could conceivably have consisted of a larger bomb – or could have created what was, in fact, a third explosion by hitting an old sea mine lingering on the seabed near the pipeline.

The Baltic Sea is a disaster area when it comes to unexploded mines and munitions, including chemical weapons, left there after World War I and II. Approximately 80,000 German and Russian-moored sea mines, most in unknown locations, litter the sea bottom.

This created serious concerns when the first Nord Stream pipeline was under development. While care was taken to try to avoid them, many are buried under sand and still others have broken free from their moorings and moved far from where they were originally sited.

Northern Europeans have spent a great deal of effort trying to remove ordnance from the Baltic Sea, but what they recover is a tiny fraction of what remains. Denmark is now complaining that its effort to investigate the first underwater explosion off Bornholm is being hindered by old unexploded mines and ordnance.

Like the operation carried out against the Kerch Bridge, the sabotage attacks of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were a sophisticated operation that almost certainly involved underwater devices or professional divers.

SeaFox, for example, can be launched from a surface vessel including the rapidly inflated boats (RIB) often used by US Navy SEALS. The British, Germans, Swedes, Danes, Poles and others have similar systems; even the Ukrainians have frogmen.

Since it is unlikely any saboteur stayed around to witness the explosions, the devices used for both attacks had to have been planted earlier, equipped either with timing devices or capable of receiving remote signals. That suggests significant planning and advanced technological capabilities executed by experienced operators.

A US Navy P-8 antisubmarine aircraft flew from Naval Air Station Keflavik over the blast area at 3:00 am local time on the day of the blast. The plane proceeded to Poland where it was air-refueled by a C-130. It returned to Bornholm at 4:44 am.

According to tracking data, it made a number of loops around the area and then headed toward the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. There is no flight data available between 5:39 am and 8:20 am local time, probably because the P-8’s transponder was turned off.

The US Navy acknowledged the first overflight of Bornholm and said it was a normal mission and had nothing to do with the pipelines. But whoever carried out the attacks, which is still unclear, launched their assaults with the utmost secrecy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims it was an operation by the “Anglo-Saxons” (meaning the US and UK). The Russians are complaining that they have been deliberately excluded from the Swedish-run investigation, although the Swedes invited the US to participate. Sweden has also cut off the Germans and Danes from a planned joint investigation, citing “secrecy.”

As the Kerch Bridge and Nord Stream blasts indicate, war by other means involving highly secret operations with significant organizational and technological skill is now underway. And there are few nations that have the experience, resources and capability, including the organizational skills, to manage and successfully launch such attacks.

Ivan Safranchuk: The US is not interested in striking a balance

By Ivan Safranchuk, Russia in Global Affairs, September/October 2022

Safranchuk is a Candidate of Political Sciences, Director and Leading Researcher at the Center for Eurasian Studies of MGIMO University, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

The Cuban Missile Crisis holds a special place in the history of the Cold War. Then the USSR and the USA in practice found the limits of their direct confrontation. Of course, there were practitioners on both sides who were ready for more decisive action, but at the level of political leadership, the understanding prevailed that the superpowers had come to the brink. Then there is a nuclear war with unacceptable consequences for anyone.

This general awareness helped to move towards the conceptualization of mutual nuclear deterrence, on the basis of which the process of nuclear arms control was launched. The task of the latter was to carry out this very deterrence more rationally and safely.

From the point of view of the realistic school of the theory of international relations, the Cuban Missile Crisis can be understood as the establishment of a balance of power. Further, it was strengthened (although attempts were made to win back unilateral advantages), the rivalry proceeded within its framework. The liberal-idealist school interprets the Cuban Missile Crisis as such a convincing demonstration of the danger of confrontation in the nuclear age that opponents had to go beyond actions based on selfish interests and turn to the idea of ​​the common good – the prevention of nuclear catastrophe .

On the one hand, the Cuban Missile Crisis remained in the history of the Cold War as a dangerous culmination of a confrontation that must not be repeated. On the other hand, as great-Power rivalry has grown in the twenty-first century, there has been a sentiment that a new crisis that will have the same functional consequences as the Caribbean is inevitable, if not necessary.

“Red Lines”

In practice, Russia and the United States have already stooped to the lower level of relations. But even the Ukrainian crisis did not become “Caribbean”. One can, of course, expect that the “real Caribbean” is yet to come. On another line of rivalry, the Sino-American one, there is a rapid aggravation, but even there there are no signs of a “Cuban Missile Crisis”. Therefore, it is appropriate to hypothesize that technically the “new Cuban Missile Crisis” happened, but never became the “real Caribbean”, that is, it went according to a different scenario and did not lead to the structural consequences that the original provoked at one time.

In October 1962, the United States essentially marked its “red line”, the crossing of which could lead to a direct military clash – it was implied that escalation to the nuclear level was almost inevitable. The USSR did not cross this “line”, although it put forward symmetrical conditions regarding American nuclear missiles in Europe.

In early 2022, Russia, in turn, also drew a “red line” – the non-admission of Ukraine to NATO. However, the US refused to promise that it would not cross it.

Instead, Washington has begun to challenge the legitimacy of Russia’s red line.

It should be noted that the question of the legality of the designation of the “red line” is irrelevant. In 1962, the United States had no formal right to restrict military-technical cooperation between the USSR and Cuba, and Moscow accused the American leadership of piracy. But these rhetorical exercises and appeals to the legitimacy of actions served only as an external entourage. The United States firmly declared its understanding of national interests and readiness to protect them by any means. The Soviet Union denied the legitimacy of the demands, but recognized the “red line” drawn, understanding the decisiveness of the opponent’s mood. The United States did not recognize the Russian “red line – 2022”.Functionally, this is the main thing, and all the talk about the illegality of the designation of red lines is generally meaningless.

The same practice of denying “red lines” is being adopted by the United States in the Taiwan Strait. For China, the “red line” is the inevitability of reunification (while the PRC showed great flexibility regarding its timing and forms). However, the Americans’ emphasis on the topic of inviolability of the “status quo” with the still remaining formal recognition of the “one-China” principle means that Washington will oppose the PRC in implementing the unification course.

The refusal of the United States to recognize Russian or Chinese “red lines” can easily be explained by the emotional and psychological background that was cultivated after the Cold War. Much has been said in recent decades about American leadership and superiority. Rhetorically placing themselves on the pedestal of the world hierarchy, Americans cannot make concessions to those who challenge them and set conditions for them. There are also arguments about how much the world has changed, about new problems, about the inadmissibility of returning to the past. And within the framework of such a narrative, the “red lines”, again, cannot be perceived as anything other than a historical relic.Therefore, it is natural for the United States to dismiss the restrictive conditions set by someone else.

Balance by someone else’s hands

But that doesn’t seem to be the only point. In practical policy, the United States has moved to actions close to what American professor John Mearsheimer called “offshore balancing.” This refers to indirect (by proxy) regional balancing/containment, that is, the creation of a balance in important parts of the world based on the relations of regional players. Never mind that none of the significant figures in the foreign policy establishment has openly accepted such a concept.

The British approach has long assumed that there should be no dominant force on the continent capable of challenging a global maritime power. For these purposes, London implemented a strategy of direct balancing, which can already be called classical. Not being able to defeat everyone alone, Britain could provide its fleet (the strongest in the world) to one of the coalitions of warring powers, thereby making a decisive contribution to its victory and becoming entitled to a significant part of the dividends. Such a strategy was successful, but did not solve the problem of the costs of participation in a major war. As a result of the two world wars, Britain, although it was on the side of the victors, lost its position in world affairs.The task of the United States is not to repeat this experience. Therefore, instead of the British direct (with their own hands) global balancing, the Americans are engaged in indirect (by proxy hands) regional balancing / deterrence.

During the Ukrainian crisis of 2022, the United States also used a “homemade billet” – it imposed unprecedented economic sanctions on Russia. And despite the fact that they stopped hiding this “blank” since the end of last year, its practical implementation still seemed incredible to many. Now the prevailing opinion in the West is that a geo-economic siege will ensure the achievement of geopolitical goals, that is, deprive Russia of resources for the continuation of the geopolitical conflict. However, we can assume the opposite: in fact, the geopolitical dimension of the Ukrainian crisis was only a pretext to launch a geo-economic blitzkrieg, to justify it. That is, the geo-economic dimension is the main one, and the geopolitical dimension is the official one, not vice versa.

The aggravation of the crisis around Taiwan, despite the different entourage, is following a trajectory similar to the Ukrainian one. The United States does not recognize the Chinese “red lines”, leads the PRC to the need for aggravation, which, on the one hand, justifies the political and military-technical pumping of Chinese opponents, and on the other hand, can legitimize unprecedented measures of pressure – the opening of a geo-economic front.

Theoretically, the scheme for Washington is a win-win. Their regional vassal, who bears the brunt of the burden of deterring the United States’ global rivals, will either prove to be a geopolitical hero and survive, with broad American support, in a battle with a stronger adversary, and then offshore balancing will work . Or he will become a geopolitical suicide bomber, whose suffering can be maximally propagated and justified by measures of geo-economic coercion that are unthinkable in a normal situation.

In any case, the goal of the United States is not to negotiate with rivals on the basis of the balance of power, but to show them their place in the global system and force them to stay in this place.

Therefore, the recognition of the “red lines” of Russia or China, their independently formulated ambitions for the United States is unacceptable.

A Settlement Without America

Russia and China hoped to create conditions for deals with Washington that would correspond to the ideas of Moscow and Beijing about their worthy place in history and modernity. By and large, both countries were sympathetic to the reluctance of the United States to part with its dominant position, but considered it a temporary phenomenon, a coincidence of circumstances after the Cold War and believed that it was simply unreasonable to claim its long-term consolidation. Therefore, the task was to bring the United States to the agreements, if necessary, to force them by creating counter threats and demonstrating its own economic and geopolitical significance.

For a long time, it may seem that a sufficient level of pressure has not yet been created for Washington to agree to equal agreements with Russia or China. And in light of this, a tipping point of escalation that would be the “moment of truth,” the “new Cuban Missile Crisis,” was considered necessary. However, the way the United States behaves in the Ukrainian and Taiwan crises gives reason to believe that they are fighting not for the conditions and parameters of compromises with Russia or China, but for the fact that there were no agreements and could not be.

Russia and, apparently, China also face the question of basic goal-setting. Should attempts to force the United States to accept itself as equal partners and push them towards mutually acceptable settlements of controversial and conflictual issues, or to seek to resolve critical security and economic issues without American participation?

It is clear that in the acute phase of the crisis, the United States imposes its participation. By acting directly, although formally indirectly (“by proxy”), the United States deprives Russia (potentially in the Taiwan crisis – and China) of the opportunity to respond directly and adequately, but at the same time gives grounds to block the participation of the United States outside the acute phase of the crisis.

Taking America out of the game can be a goal for Russia, the main international outcome of the Ukrainian crisis, and in the event of a further aggravation of the Taiwan crisis, for China.

The active involvement of the United States in regional situations does not allow a transition to a non-military settlement, and it would be acceptable to the main regional players, although painful for some of them. So far, the only realistic option is a decisive military victory over the American vassal, which deprives both the defeated and his patron of the right to vote on the subject of the conflict over the exhaustion of the subject as such. This scenario can be considered a minimum program. And the maximum goal for both Russia and China is to acquire the ability to politically resolve complex situations (preferably at the pre-war stage, but at least at the post-war stage) without American participation, and not at the expense of agreements with them.

Taking the United States out of the game may seem unattainable and, therefore, a false basis for practical goal-setting. But what are the alternatives? Either Washington’s no more likely coercion to equal agreements, or implicit agreement to compromise with retreat beyond its own “red lines”, or a fixation on military means.

This paper uses the results of the project “Contemporary Great Power Rivalry: Theoretical and Practical Aspects”, carried out within the framework of the research program of the Faculty of World Economy and International Politics of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2022.

Gilbert Doctorow: Time to start worrying again!

By Gilbert Doctorow, Blog, 10/15/22

Some readers have commented in direct emails to me that they have taken comfort from my writings insofar as I have been a moderate voice, avoiding alarmism over the often troublesome daily news in and around the Russian war with Ukraine, or more properly speaking today, Russia’s proxy war with NATO in and about Ukraine.

For this very reason, I hesitated whether to share with readers the deep pessimism that overcame me a couple of days ago over our chances of avoiding nuclear Armageddon. This followed my watching the latest Solovyov political talk show on Russian state television. I have used this show regularly as a litmus test of the mood of Russian social and political elites: that mood has turned black.

Whereas in the past, going back six months or more, I had reported on the open contempt which leading and highly responsible Russian academics from university circles and think tanks were showing for the American political leadership in their statements on the political talk shows, this contempt has moved into an actionable phase, by which I mean that serious, God-fearing Russians are so furious with the rubbish propaganda coming out of Washington, repeated with bullhorns in Europe that if given the chance they would personally “press the button” and unleash nuclear attacks on the United States and Britain, in that order notwithstanding the possibility, even probability of a return strike, which, however enfeebled, would be devastating to their own country. That is to say, deterrence as a policy is fast losing its psychological impact on the Russian side of the argument.

Whatever the words of the Biden Administration about nuclear war being ‘off the table,’ America’s aggressive and threatening behavior, including the ongoing ‘training in nuclear weapons’ currently going on in Europe under U.S. direction, has made rational and very serious Russians ready to give it a try.

One of the most sober-minded international affairs experts to appear on the Solovyov show, Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Near East think tank, contained his rage with some difficulty, saying only that while he had once held some sympathy for the United States, he would see its utter destruction now with little regret; he left no mention where his feet are pointed when he added that he could say no more on air for fear that he will be censored and his words removed from the video.

For these reasons, I have given to this essay addressed to the Collective West, and in particular to the fomenters of world disorder in Washington and London, a title that fits the current situation.

                                                                     *****

As we have seen from even before the launch of the ‘special military operation,’ Russian talk programs identify by name individuals in the Biden team whose outstanding stupidity, obtuseness and rank ignorance they find unbearable, with the likes of Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin among those coming in for special mention. We are left with the impression that when Biden calls in his advisers to the Oval Office, he, senile dimwit that he is, is the bright light in the room. The Russians conclude from this that they have no one to negotiate with.

Now the naming of idiots in high places carries over to all discussion of European Union and British leaders. The denunciation of incompetence, rank stupidity and, yes, neo-colonialist or fascist mindsets among European leaders was well reflected in the latest Solovyov show. The most discussed whipping boy was the EU’s commissioner on external action, Josep Borrell, who seems to be speaking to the world daily and acknowledges no limits on what he may proclaim, as if it were official EU policy in defense as well as diplomacy.

The Solovyov show put up on screen a brief video recording of Borrell expounding smugly on Europe’s privileged position as ‘a garden of liberal democracy, good economic prospects and social solidarity’ which is surrounded by ‘the jungle.’ That jungle reference fits in well, Solovyov remarked, with the colonialist mindset of Rudyard Kipling and is deeply offensive to the Rest of the World, of which Russia is a part. More to the point, Borrell was also notorious in Russia this past week for his statement that any use by Russia of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be met by a massive non-nuclear attack from Europe which would ‘annihilate’ the Russian army. However, Borrell was not alone in the stocks: other European leaders who were decried for their stupid policies this past week included German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emanuel Macron.

So you have no bomb shelter? Then, as the Russians said decades ago, it is high time to throw a bed sheet over your shoulders and slowly walk to the nearest cemetery.

                                                                                  *****

One of the two latest fake news stories being disseminated simultaneously and ubiquitously in Western major media this past week is that Russia is considering using against Ukraine ‘tactical nuclear weapons,’ meaning warheads with a destructive force equivalent to the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs mounted on cruise or medium range ballistic missiles. Our print and electronic media speculate on the numbers of warheads Russia currently possesses (2,000 or more), as if that would make any difference in an assault on Ukraine.

Rubbish say the Russians on Solovyov’s show: we have no need of nuclear arms to finish off the Ukrainians. The only nuclear forces we would deploy in the current situation are strategic arms, and they are directed against….Washington with the help of the Sarmat and Poseidon delivery systems.

The other major fake news disseminated massively by Western media in recent days was the allegation that the Russians are seeking to freeze the Ukrainians to death by their strikes against power generation infrastructure. Images of Stalingrad were evoked by our broadcasters. A similar freeze is said to be inflicted on Western Europe by the cut-off of Russian energy supplies to the EU.

More rubbish say the panelists on the Solovyov program. The attack on the electricity grid in Ukraine is not directed against civilians per se; it is intended to halt rail deliveries of advanced weapons systems and munitions coming into Ukraine at the Polish border and being moved by train to the fronts in the east and south of the country. Without these inputs, the Ukrainian army will be kaput and the war can come to an early conclusion with the capitulation of Kiev. As regards the EU, whatever chill out may be coming this winter is due solely to the unprofessional and ignorant decisions of the Commission on imports of Russian hydrocarbons that have been blindly followed by the Member States without due consideration of consequences for their own populations.

Continue reading here.

Sina Azodi and Arman Mahmoudian: How is Russia’s parallel currency system going?

Photo by Rūdolfs Klintsons on Pexels.com

By Sina Azodi and Arman Mahmoudian, Responsible Statecraft, 10/12/22

Sina Azodi is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a PhD candidate in International Affairs at University of South Florida. Arman Mahmoudian is a lecturer of Russian and Middle Eastern Studies and a Ph.D. Candidate in Politics and International affairs at the University of South Florida (USF).

The West’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was swift and decisive.

Shortly after the Russian invasion, the United States barred Russia from making debt payments using foreign currency held in U.S. banks, increasing the risk for Russia to default on its debts. In addition, seven Russian banks have been excluded from the SWIFT international messaging system, which facilitates financial transactions and payments.

These sanctions were the “largest sanctions package in [the] Union’s history,” according to Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.

To remedy the impact of sanctions on its economy, Russia has expedited cooperation with its partners, including China, India, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, to create a parallel financial system to the Western-dominated institutions. In doing so, Russia is pursuing two main objectives. In the short term, Moscow’s goal is to replace Western markets by expanding its petroleum exports to India and China, which are seemingly more reliable trade partners. The ultimate objective, however, is to create a system in which Russia and its partners can circumvent Western economic dominance.

The practicality and effectiveness of such a system remains to be seen.

The creation of a new financial system has been on Russia’s agenda for years. In fact, from the early days of the post-Soviet Union, Moscow has been trying to establish a common market with the USSR’s former republics. In this vein, the 1991 “Commonwealth of the Independent States,” an intergovernmental organization between eastern European and Central Asian nations, was created to encourage financial cooperation and mutual trade. This resulted in the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union, or EEU, in 2014, a supranational institution that integrated the market of five countries – Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan – into a single market.

Nevertheless, during this period, Russia remained more interested in creating a “financial hub” of its own rather than creating a “financial zone” parallel to the Western system. However, the U.S.-backed sanctions on Russia that followed the annexation of Crimea in 2014 demonstrated Moscow’s vulnerabilities. It is noteworthy that as a result of sanctions, the Russian currency, the rouble, depreciated by 100 percent.

This helps explain why, shortly after the annexation of Crimea, Russia began adopting its “Fortress Russia” strategy designed to detach its economy from the Western-dominated financial system and diversify its economy. Two important measures bear noting here. The System for Transfer of Financial Messages (Sisteme Peredachi Finansovykh Soobshchenii) was devised in 2014 as a Russian equivalent of the SWIFT system and was designed to reduce the risk of sanctions imposed on Russian businesses and banks.

Despite Russian declarations on the effectiveness of this system, however, SPFS has suffered from a number of shortcomings, including high transaction costs, system availability, and security requirements, which have undermined its reliability and usefulness.

Meanwhile, the MIR payment system initiated by the Russian Central Bank in 2017 is meant to serve as an alternative to the U.S.-based Visa and MasterCard. MIR has already been accepted in 11 other countries. In addition, Russia has accelerated its efforts to de-dollarize bilateral trade with friendly countries such as China, Iran and India, and has been actively redirecting its petrol exports from West to East to turn Asia into the “default market” for Russian oil.

A number of regional powers have also sought to detach their economies from the Western financial system. Since 2014, Russia and China have been strengthening their partnership. To shield their financial cooperation from potential U.S. sanctions, both nations have sought to eliminate the U.S. dollar from their trade with considerable success. It is noteworthy that in 2020, only 41.5 percent of bilateral trade has been settled in Dollars, while in 2015, 91 percent of bilateral exchanges were settled in U.S. currency.

Meanwhile, Sino-Russian cooperation entered a new stage in December 2021 when Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping held a video conference and jointly pledged to escalate bilateral efforts to set up an independent trade network to reduce their reliance on the U.S.-led international financial system. The Putin-Xi commitment was followed by the Bank of China’s decision to join the Russian SPFS in 2022. However, the Bank of China is the only non-Russian member of the SPFS, and China has not encouraged other banks to join it.

India is another potential candidate for the Russian initiative. In fact, since 2019, New Delhi has been expressing its interest in joining the SPFS and replacing the dollar with rupee-rubles transactions. The evidence suggests that both nations have made significant progress in achieving this goal, given that the use of rupee-rubles in bilateral transactions has quintupled.

The other prospective candidate for the Russia-proposed financial system is Iran, whose economy has been subject to suffocating sanctions for a decade. Iranian banks were cut off from the SWIFT system in 2012 as a result of U.S. sanctions. While Iranian banks briefly rejoined the system in the aftermath of the 2015 signing of the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear deal), they were disconnected again as a result of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement two years later.

It is therefore no surprise that Tehran would also be interested in joining the Russian-led initiative. In this context, Mehdi Safari, Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Diplomacy, told Sputnik in July 2022 that the two countries should de-dollarize their trade and build a similar system to SWIFT.

Notwithstanding the efforts to circumvent Western financial institutions, the Russian system has yet to prove effective, due to a number of factors. The number of countries willing to join or cooperate with the Russian led financial system is limited. It is noteworthy that while Turkish banks had previously adopted the MIR, they have since dropped it under pressure from the U.S. and European authorities. The Egyptians, just a few days ago, did too.

Additionally, some of the prospects for increased Russian cooperation on the financial side have more trade with the U.S. than Russia. It bears noting that China is a top trade partner for the U.S. with $521 billion worth of exports headed to the U.S. market in 2021. Meanwhile, the Chinese exports to Russia stood at $59 billion. Similarly, India’s top trade partner is the United States, and about 18.1 percent of India’s exports in 2021, worth $71 billion, were purchased by Americans, while Russia is not even among India’s top 25 trade partners.

Therefore, it would neither be practical nor feasible for India or China to trade with Russia, at the cost of antagonizing the U.S. In the Iranian case, notwithstanding the growing political and military ties between the two countries, Iran and Russia not only don’t have a compatible economy, but they are natural competitors. Both nations are oil exporting countries, seeking to grow their markets. In fact, Russia is already competing with Iran over the Chinese and Indian markets by offering oil at a discounted price. 

Given the challenges discussed, and ongoing uncertainties over the readiness of other major powers to implement the Russian system, the future and effectiveness of the “fortress Russia” strategy remains unclear.

For the moment, the weaponization of sanctions as a tool of punishment has indeed created incentives for some nations to cooperate with the West. But while American dominance over the financial markets have stymied the Kremlin’s efforts to establish a parallel system, evidence suggests that dynamics are shifting as more countries are conscious of their vulnerabilities.

As the world moves toward a multipolar reality, there may be a time when alternatives are much more preferable to the U.S. dominated system. Indeed, the West should be concerned about China’s future actions, as Beijing is expanding its gigantic industrial and commercial capabilities at home and abroad. If it chooses to move closer to Russia in its quest to forge a new path, the U.S. may soon feel its own vulnerabilities in this realm.

Full Transcript of Putin’s Press Conference After Astana Meeting on 10/14/22

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Kremlin transcript, 10/14/22

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good evening,

Let’s take your questions. Please go ahead.

Aysel Gereykhanova: Good evening,

Aysel Gereykhanova, Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Mr President, you took part in the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia yesterday, and the creation of a new international organisation was announced yesterday as well. How do you assess these plans and what purpose do they serve?

Vladimir Putin: We asked ourselves this question back when this organisation was being created 30 years ago, I think, and it appeared back then there was plenty of all sorts of other tools that could be used to compare notes on security issues. However, we realised today that this is not so, and these additional tools are needed and must be improved, especially for the Asian region.

This entity is the brainchild of First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. He is no longer active in this capacity, but the entity is alive, and Kazakhstan has proposed creating an organisation on its basis.

As a reminder, the OSCE was formed along the same lines and started out as a forum for discussing European security issues and then became an organisation.

I think this is the right thing to do, since there are many threats in Europe and Asia alike. I will not go over all of them, I am sure you know all about it.

So, in my opinion, it is an important and timely decision, and all the participants supported it.

Alexei Lazurenko: Good afternoon.

Alexei Lazurenko, Izvestia.

The first Russia–Central Asia Forum has ended just moments ago. Do you think Central Asian countries are still interested in Russia like before?

Vladimir Putin: I think they are even more interested now. Of course, our trade is growing and much faster than in previous years, for understandable reasons. I do not think I need to elaborate.

We are developing new logistics chains, many of which are running across this region. The regional countries are interested in this. And lastly, new opportunities for cooperation and for developing our own competencies are being created.

We are looking for ways to revive some enterprises which were shut down recently; we can do this on a fundamentally new technological basis, including in Central Asia, which would be interesting both for us and for our partners. This is the first point.

The second is that we need to decide how to do this, for example, in the financial sphere and services, transitioning to national currencies, the volumes involved, what exactly should be done, and how to organise the transfer of financial information. There are many specific issues which our Central Asian partners are certainly interested in.

That is quite apart from security issues, the fight against terrorism and, for example, the situation in Afghanistan. Yes, we discuss this at the CSTO and CIS platforms, but these issues concern above all the Central Asian republics. Therefore, we could use a separate format, which we need, in principle.

And lastly, as I said, we are working with our partners and allies at the bilateral level, but when we meet in such formats as today, five [Central Asian] countries plus Russia, we do not look at the issues on the agenda from a bilateral angle but, as I noted today, try to look for projects and spheres of cooperation that will be of interest to the region as a whole. The issue may be the same, but we look at it from a different angle that may be of interest to all of us. This is the next point.

And one more thing. For example, our colleague from Turkmenistan [President Serdar Berdimuhamedov] said that cooperation with Russia in a multilateral, Central Asian format was very important for Central Asian states, which have no access to the world’s oceans, and allows us to look together for such opportunities and channels. We are developing several projects with our other partners, which are interesting for us as well. It is very important, interesting and appropriate now to bring all this together.

Pavel Minakov: Good evening, Interfax Agency.

It is no secret that some countries within the post-Soviet space are apprehensive about the events unfolding in Ukraine. You met with your colleagues during the CIS summit and spoke informally with them. What are your impressions: amid the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine, has unity in the CIS got stronger, remained the same, or are there any negative trends underway?

Vladimir Putin: No. As you can see, all this is going on, all the formats are working, which means they are important, and our allies, our partners want to use these formats in their work. Nothing has changed in this regard.

However, we are paying attention to events related to Azerbaijan-Armenia relations and to what is going on between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. We are well aware of all that. Of course, our partners are interested and concerned about the future of Russia-Ukraine relations. True, this is being discussed, and there is nothing unusual about it. I brief our partners in detail about it and make our point of view clear to them. But this does not in any way affect the nature, the quality, or the depth of Russia’s relations with these countries.

Please go ahead.

Yuliya Bubnova: Good afternoon.

Yuliya Bubnova, TASS agency.

You held a meeting with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan yesterday. How did it go and what are the outcomes? Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: It was a constructive meeting. No doubt, when relations are in a fairly hot phase, finding common ground is not easy, but I think we succeeded in doing so. At least, we have agreed that no effort would be spared to prevent the resumption of hostilities. This is my first point.

Second, importantly, the parties will take every step necessary to have the refugees return home.

Third, and also significant – without claiming to play any mediating role (although, truth be told, we were asked to do so), we agreed that both sides would make the corresponding documents and their vision for resolving this issue available to us, and we will assess their proposals and use the documents at our disposal to find a solution, which could be the basis for reaching potential agreements. What I am saying is that Moscow might have access to more reliable information about the borders between the republics than the republics themselves. We will go over these documents and the maps, and then look for a solution in cooperation with our colleagues.

So, the meeting was useful overall.

Please go ahead.

Pavel Zarubin: Good evening,

Pavel Zarubin, Rossiya TV channel.

I have a question that many people are now pondering in Russia.

I think the role of Germany in the conflict in Ukraine has not been discussed well enough. If Chancellor Merkel took a rather reserved position, Mr Scholtz has gone rogue, so to speak. Suddenly, Germany has forgotten with amazing ease what Russia did for the unification of the German people and did not think twice before turning over some very difficult pages of the reconciliation of the two nations, and now we are seeing what was unthinkable before –Russian people are again being killed by German weapons.

You are an expert on Germany. How can you explain what is happening, and how will this affect Russia-Germany relations in the future?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: This is the choice of the people who legally came to power in a particular country, Germany in this case. They must decide themselves what is more important for them – to fulfil allied commitments, as they understand them, or to ensure the interests of their own people, their national interests.

Judging by what you said, in this case the Federal Republic has prioritised its allied commitments in NATO. Is this right or wrong? I think this is a mistake, and businesses, the economy, and the people of Germany are paying for it because it has adverse economic consequences for the Eurozone in general and the Federal Republic in particular.

However, it looks like hardly anyone takes into account its interests or else the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 would not have been detonated. Although they were not operational, they still provided an element of reliability – they could be switched on in the worst-case scenario. But this is no longer possible. Although there is a line that still seems to be in working condition, as I said in Moscow, but a decision has not been made and is unlikely to be made. But this is no longer up to us. This is up to our partners.

As for the ideas that guide the leaders of different states, this is their own business. I have set forth my version. I think it explains the gist of the problem.

Go ahead.

Maria Finoshina: Maria Finoshina, RT International.

Good evening, Mr President,

Before your trip to Kazakhstan, you met with the President of the United Arab Emirates and then with the President of Turkiye here in Astana. In what way was the situation in Ukraine discussed during these meetings? Perhaps, the leaders of these countries shared with you their insight into Kiev’s exclusive position that they are privy to?

According to the Turkish media, Ankara is trying to set up talks between Moscow and Western countries – the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany – in Istanbul. How realistic is the idea of holding this meeting today? If it takes place, how effective will it be without Kiev at the table? Does the idea to involve China and India in these talks seem plausible to you?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: We are aware that President Erdogan has played a fairly significant role in resolving a number of issues, including exchanges. He was personally involved in this work, and, as we know, got results. We are grateful to him, because we got our servicemen, including officers, back. This is my first point.

Second, he was deeply involved in organising grain exports from Ukraine. Unfortunately, this grain is not being shipped – or small amounts of it are shipped – to the poorest countries under the UN programme, but that is a different matter. I discussed it with him as well. During our talks yesterday he was in favour of structuring the grain flows and shipping grain primarily to the poorest countries. This is up to the UN Secretary-General. I am aware that he is working on it, but not everything is working out for him, either.

The United Arab Emirates are also willing to act as mediators, and the President of the United Arab Emirates is working on it, including humanitarian issues, exchanges, and so on, and not without success, for which we are also grateful to him.

India and China always talk about the importance of dialogue and peaceful resolution. We are aware of their stance. They are our close allies and partners, and we respect their position.

But we are also aware of Kiev’s position – they kept saying they wanted talks, and even sort of asked for them, but have now passed an official decision that bans such talks. Well, what is there to discuss?

As you may be aware, speaking at the Kremlin when announcing the decision on the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, I said we are open. We have always said that we are open. We reached certain agreements in Istanbul, after all. These agreements were almost initialled. But as soon as our troops withdrew from Kiev, the Kiev authorities lost any interest in the talks. That is all there is to it.

If they ever get ready for this, we will welcome it. At that point, the mediation efforts of all the stakeholders may come in handy.

Please go ahead.

Ilya Yezhov: Ilya Yezhov, Vesti FM and Mayak radio stations.

Continuing with international topics: Mr President, is there any certainty about your trip to the G20 summit in Indonesia? And if so, if you were to go there, would you be willing to hold talks with US President Joe Biden?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: You will have to ask him if he is ready for such talks as well. To be honest, I do not see the need for it. By and large, there is no platform for any kind of negotiations at this point.

The question of my going there is not decided yet. But Russia will certainly take part in this work, and we will think over the format of it. At this stage there is no question of direct talks with any of the G20 members, since we are in constant contact with some of them, as you know. We just talked about the position of Turkiye and the Turkish President – Turkiye is also part of the G20, and we are in constant contact with him, as well as with some of our colleagues. We have not discussed such issues with the President of the United States.

Please.

Konstantin Panyushkin: Good afternoon!

Konstantin Panyushkin, Channel One.

The Federal Security Service reported the other day that the explosive device that went off on the Crimean bridge was originally shipped by sea, apparently by cargo ship, from Odessa.

How will this fact affect Russia’s stance on cargo shipping from Ukrainian ports: will we, perhaps, obstruct it now? And most importantly, as for the grain deal, because after all, the agreement was to export grain, not explosive devices. Won’t this terrorist act ruin the grain deal?

Vladimir Putin: The Federal Security Service has stated that this so-called cargo, or more precisely, explosives, was probably sent by sea from Odessa, but it is not clear whether this was done with the help of grain carriers or not. This is a question, the answer to which is not yet available.

But if it turns out that humanitarian corridors for grain shipments to the poorest countries (although it does not go there, but this work was organised under that pretext) were used to commit terrorist acts, then of course this would raise a big question about the continued functioning of that corridor. But so far we have no such information.

Konstantin Panyushkin: Is a possible Russian response being worked out?

Vladimir Putin: You know what, the answer is simple: we can just shut it down and call it a day. But we must first find out for sure. There is no such information.

Please.

Alexander Yunashev: Good afternoon, Mr President.

Alexander Yunashev, Life.

Several days ago, a man was fined in Moscow for listening to Ukrainian music. This seems like a clear case of overkill, because soon the film “Only ”Old Men“ Are Going Into Battle” can be banned, because there are Ukrainian motifs there, and Gogol.

After all, just because Nazis listen to folk songs doesn’t mean the songs themselves become Nazi, what do you think? And what should the attitude to Ukrainian culture be now?

Vladimir Putin: I think we are constantly indignant at attempts to shut down Russian culture, to cancel it, and it is completely absurd. As one of our musicians said: ”Such fools.” But we must not behave in the same way. That’s first.

Second, Ukrainian is one of the official languages in Crimea. In one of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, Crimea, Ukrainian is an official language, along with Crimean Tatar and Russian. So it would be illegitimate in its own right.

Third, I think there are about three million citizens of the Russian Federation permanently residing here who are Ukrainians. How can we ban their language and culture? It is unthinkable for us.

And so I understand what this is connected with: it all has to do with the emotions of the moment. But I think that many of our families know, listen to and love Ukrainian songs and Ukrainian culture. Back in the Soviet Union, hits sung in Ukrainian were very popular. And I think that we should not be like those who, as I said at the beginning, answering your question, cancel any culture. Culture has nothing to do it.

If the current leadership in Kiev considers it possible to support neo-Nazis and support torchlight processions in the centre of their large cities, as well as people who walk around with Nazi symbols, this has nothing to do with Ukrainian culture.

Please.

Lyubov Lezhneva: Good afternoon,

Lyubov Lezhneva, Izvestia.

I have a question about mobilisation. You have already said that there are many associated problems, and now many companies do not understand which employees will be mobilised.

I would like to ask you if there will be another wave of mobilisation. Will there be total mobilisation. Is the figure of 300,000 people mentioned by the Defence Minister still up to date or not?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: To begin with, the Defence Ministry initially planned a smaller figure – not 300,000 people. This is the first point.

Second, nothing is planned additionally. The Defence Ministry has made no proposals about this and I don’t see any need for it in the foreseeable future.

As for the mess I mentioned, it is linked with old forms of accounting, which have not been updated for decades. The quality of these papers became clear only with the start of mobilisation. This database is now being updated and modernised and will be as accurate as possible. So I think the quality of this work will be improved as well.

That said I must note that this work is already ending. Now there are already 222,000 mobilised troops out of 300,000 people. I believe all mobilisation activities will be completed in about two weeks.

Go ahead, please.

Alexei Golovko: Alexei Golovko from the Rossiya. Vesti channel.

To continue the same subject. We are in Kazakhstan now. We know that there are very many people here who left after the announcement of partial mobilisation. There is a certain number of them in neighbouring countries as well.

Different things are said about them in Russia. Some people call them traitors and there were even proposals in the State Duma to impound their cars. What is your personal view of the people who left the country after September 21?

Vladimir Putin: I would prefer to base my assessment on the law, not emotion. It is necessary in each case to consider the legal implications of the actions of a specific citizen. Some left because they are scared of something, others because they want to evade mobilisation and still others for some other considerations. It is necessary to give a legal assessment in each case and take action with regard to each individual on these grounds alone. I believe it is impossible to act in any other way.

Go ahead, please.

Gleb Ivanov: Thank you very much.

Gleb Ivanov, Argumenty i Fakty.

Mr President, a follow-up question about mobilisation. The first deaths of mobilised soldiers have been reported. The Chelyabinsk Region authorities said several mobilised men had died. A Moscow Government employee who was mobilised on September 23 is being buried in Moscow today. He had no military training or military experience.

The question is: how is this possible? When the partial mobilisation was announced, it was said that all those mobilised would undergo mandatory military training. How did people end up on the frontline and die before even three weeks had passed since the mobilisation was announced? What do you think about the mobilisation process?

One more question, if I may, about the Crimean Bridge. After the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, what can you say about the security measures at strategic infrastructure facilities like railway stations, airports, gas pipelines, or power plants? Are we able to protect them?

Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: With regard to mobilisation, I can only reiterate what I said earlier. The line of contact is 1,100 kilometres long, and it is practically impossible to hold it exclusively with the contract soldiers, especially since they are taking part in offensive operations. This is the reason for mobilisation. This is my first point.

Second, all citizens who are called up as part of the mobilisation must undergo training which is provided as follows. I said that 222,000 people are now in the army, more precisely, the formation units, where they receive initial training that lasts from five to 10 days. Then, depending on the military specialty, they go to combat units for training for a period of five to 15 days. The next step is training with troops involved in combat operations, where they undergo joint combat training.

If you look at it from the time the mobilisation started to the present day, in principle, looking at the minimum values, in general, this is possible. And it is not only possible. Like I said, 222,000 are in the formation troops, 33,000 mobilised men are already in the units, and 16,000 men are in the units involved in combat missions.

Since questions like you just asked still arise, I will instruct the Security Council additionally. There are former Defence Ministry employees with extensive experience on the Council. They are good at what they do; they are high-level specialists. I will instruct them to inspect the training process for mobilised citizens.

With regard to security, after the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge, the relevant services were tasked with stepping up monitoring in order to ensure the safety of critical infrastructure, and corresponding measures must be taken at all of them, including energy facilities of different levels and classes and at transport facilities. Our country is vast, so let us hope that the efforts in this area are effective. So far, we have managed successfully.

Please go ahead.

Andrei Kolesnikov: Kommersant daily.

Do you think Ukraine will be able to exist as a state after all this? What about Russia?

And a second question, Mr President. You don’t regret anything do you?

Vladimir Putin: No.

I want everyone to understand. What is happening today is unpleasant, putting it mildly, but we would have got the same thing a bit later but in worse conditions for us, that’s all.

So my actions were the right ones at the right time.

Andrei Kolesnikov: And what about my first question?

Vladimir Putin: Whether Ukraine will exist?

Andrei Kolesnikov: Will Ukraine be able to exist as a state? Will Russia?

Vladimir Putin: But we did not set ourselves the aim of destroying Ukraine. Certainly not.

Meanwhile, at one point they suddenly switched off water in Crimea where 2.5 million people live, 2.4 million to be precise. Troops had to enter and switch on the water for Crimea. This is simply an example of the logic behind our actions. If they had not taken this action there would have been no counteraction.

The bridge was blown up. Now we have to think hard. How important is it for the Russian Federation to ensure that Crimea is connected by land? Do you understand?

Pavel Zarubin: After the act of terror on the Crimean Bridge, massive strikes were launched on Ukrainian territory. Were they effective, and are more likely in the future?

Vladimir Putin: There is no need for massive strikes now. Other tasks are on the agenda because I think out of the 29 targets the Defence Ministry had planned to hit, only seven were not. But now they are dealing with them gradually. There is no need for massive strikes, at least for now. As for the future, we’ll see.

Is that all? Now the final question.

Sergei Dianov: Thank you very much.

Sergei Dianov, RIA Novosti.

NATO officials are saying explicitly that Ukraine’s defeat would mean the alliance’s defeat. Do you think NATO will send troops into Ukraine if the situation on the battlefield becomes disastrous for Kiev?

Vladimir Putin: You know this is a question of concepts, of legal technicalities. What does Ukraine’s defeat mean? It is open to interpretation. The fact that Crimea became a Russian region in 2014, is that defeat or what? It is necessary to understand what it is.

But in any event, sending troops into direct engagement, a direct clash with the Russian Army is a very dangerous step that could lead to a global catastrophe. I hope those who talk about this will be smart enough not to undertake such dangerous steps.

Thank you very much. All the best.

The New Atlas: Ukraine Targets Elon Musk, U.S. Aid Dwindles, Ukraine’s Offensive Increasingly Depleted

Link here.

An Interview with George Beebe: The World Survived the Cold War Because It Feared Nuclear War

Fallout shelter sign.

By Branko Marcetic, Jacobin, 10/2022

The war in Ukraine increasingly poses dangers for the entire world. Vladimir Putin’s threats of nuclear blackmail last week were met by hawkish Western media commentators and NATO leaders who have been insisting that the pursuit of anything less than total victory in Ukraine would mean giving in to nuclear blackmail.

For insight on the logic of past nuclear confrontations and the lessons for Ukraine today, Jacobin’s Branko Marcetic spoke to George Beebe, a longtime US intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor on Russia who today serves as director of grand strategy for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Beebe spoke about the growing danger that mistakes and miscalculations by leaders on either side could unleash an escalatory spiral, and explained how in the Cold War, each side routinely “gave in” to the other side’s “nuclear blackmail,” but in doing so actually helped establish important norms that prevented subsequent crises from going nuclear.

BRANKO MARCETIC
How alarmed should we be at what’s happening? Is there enough concern among the public, among lawmakers and officials, and other relevant stakeholders?

GEORGE BEEBE
I am quite alarmed, and I think that the American people and the world are quite alarmed at the situation as it’s been evolving. To a great degree I think Americans have lost their fear of nuclear war in the post–Cold War period. I think at least subconsciously we’ve come to believe that’s an old problem, that that’s something we overcame with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. People have moved on and we don’t need to worry about that. It seems very much a thing of the past.

But in fact, the dangers of escalation to nuclear levels have gone up, not down, over the past several years. In part, that’s because we’ve become cavalier about these dangers. In part, it’s because a number of the guardrails we established in the Cold War period to manage the dangers of that kind of escalation have gone away. And finally, the most important thing, in times of crisis during that Cold War period there was direct communication between Washington and Moscow to make sure things didn’t get out of hand, to minimize dangers of misperception. We don’t have that dialogue right now. Essentially, the two sides are almost not talking to one another at all. We don’t have the kind of back channel communication that allowed [John F.] Kennedy and [Nikita] Khrushchev to find a way out of the Cuban missile crisis.

The counterpart to Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador during the Cuban missile crisis, is Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to Washington, and he is almost persona non grata in Washington. We have a serious problem right now, the kinds of things that are necessary to prevent escalation are not in place.

BRANKO MARCETIC
Why is this dialogue not happening? Is it political pressures or something else?

GEORGE BEEBE
There have been a lot of reasons that have combined to produce this situation that we’re in. One of them is that the United States fell out of the habit of diplomatic give-and-take during the post–Cold War period. There was no peer power we faced in the world. We were not just a unipolar power, but no one else even approached the degree of military and economic might the United States had in the aftermath of the Soviet demise. We didn’t think we really had to strike bargains, we didn’t think we had to compromise with other countries. What we tended to do was to tell them what they were going to do and when they balked, our response was, “or else.” As a result, we lost the diplomatic skills that would normally be required in a world order where there is more of a balance.

Another factor is that Russia became a domestic political issue, not a foreign policy issue, in the United States. I don’t need to go into all the particulars of why that happened, I’ll just simply state that as a fact. That’s hindered our ability and willingness to engage in dialogue with Russia.

The third factor is a belief that the problem that we’re dealing with is a deterrence problem. It’s like dealing with [Adolf] Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930s and we’ve all become convinced that the best way to deal with Russia is not to appease, but to stand up, to show them we’ll fight, that we’re going to stand tall and tough, and that when Russia understands what it’s up against it will back down.

I don’t think that’s the nature of the problem we’re dealing with, honestly. We’re dealing with much more of an escalatory spiral problem, and when you deal with a spiral in that way, it actually exacerbates the situation. And that’s what I think has been going on for several years now, and it’s now reached the point where it’s acutely dangerous.

BRANKO MARCETIC
What are the dangers currently? Both sides seem like they’re keen to avoid a nuclear war, but does that actually matter?

GEORGE BEEBE
I do think you’re right, both sides do want to avoid nuclear war. Any sane actor would, and I still think both the United States and Russia are rational actors, more or less, in all this.

But the situation has escalated and can continue to escalate even though both sides don’t want to see this reach a crisis. And there are several ways that can happen. One is by accident, and the longer the war goes on, and the more deeply entangled the United States becomes in all of this, and it’s essentially a combatant in every way but having large numbers of troops on the ground in Ukraine right now — when you’re in that situation, the chances of accident are quite high.

The other ways that this could escalate would be through the logic of what’s going on on the battlefield. Putin could come to believe that Western intelligence and military support to Ukraine has become so instrumental in Ukraine’s battlefield successes that he could decide he has no choice but to attack that support. So far he has refrained from doing that. He has attempted on a relatively limited scale to interdict the Western military supplies going to the Ukrainian front lines. He’s not really done so on a large scale. He has certainly not attacked the sources of that support inside NATO states themselves. So that’s a step he could feel compelled to take, not because he wants escalation to some sort of nuclear confrontation, but because he might feel the alternative to that might be defeat, and I don’t think he’s at all willing to contemplate defeat in this situation.

Another possibility is that he also could become convinced that NATO plans to attack Russia, and he could act preemptively. The other possibility is that as things go bad on the battlefield for the Russians, this translates into greater and greater domestic instability inside Russia itself. Putin has long been primed to believe that sort of instability is what the United States wants to see and is in fact stoking, and that could result in a perception on Putin’s part that this instability is inspired by and fueled by the United States, and that could lead him to retaliate in what he sees as self-defense.

BRANKO MARCETIC
Let’s say that the United States and Russia got into a direct conflict — for example, if the United States responded to some Russian escalation by launching a conventional strike inside Russia or by trying to assassinate Putin. How long would a conflict like this stay nonnuclear?

GEORGE BEEBE
I think if that sort of scenario started to unfold in the way you describe, that would quickly escalate into strategic nuclear levels, the reason being, the Russian nuclear deterrent is meant to deter existential threats to the Russian federation, regardless of whether those are nuclear or conventional threats. And unlike the Cold War period, when really the only weapons that could pose some sort of strategic threat to the survival of either the United States or the Soviet Union — in that era it was only nuclear weapons that could do that sort of thing — that’s not true today. Today, conventional weapons can, through their precision targeting and their explosive potential, pose the kinds of threats that only nuclear missiles used to pose.

So if the United States mounts the kind of attack you’re talking about, I think the Russians would have no choice from their perspective to retaliate, and since they don’t have the arsenal of conventional weapons to match ours, I think they’d have to go nuclear to retaliate. What you’re describing is a formula for rapid escalation to a strategic nuclear conflict.

BRANKO MARCETIC
What would that actually mean in practice, a nuclear war between the United States and Russia?

GEORGE BEEBE
It would be very hard to keep it limited. Each side would quickly believe that it was in some sort of use-it-or-lose-it scenario. When you see an attack on the way, strikes are being detected by your strategic warning system, most likely each of the leaders involved, the US and Russian presidents, would not be content to wait to see whether those strikes would take out our retaliatory capability. What each side would very quickly believe, is that the best way to limit the damage to its side is to try to take out as many of the other missiles as possible as quickly as possible, so they can’t be used. So your incentives at that point are to go big, not to sit and wait and hope that the other side is conducting some sort of demonstration strike.

It would be a very difficult thing to handle, and with very little time to make decisions. These weapons can reach the other side in a matter of minutes. You’ve got maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes, maybe less depending on what systems are being used to make fundamental decisions. It’s just an extremely unstable crisis situation. The amount of damage something like that could cause is almost unimaginable for people. It would certainly destroy most of the United States and Russia, and almost certainly all of Europe, and it would cause grave secondary effects on the rest of the world in terms of weather, food supply, and all kinds of things. It would absolutely merit the term catastrophe.

BRANKO MARCETIC
You’ve written about the danger of misreading the motivations and intentions of foreign leadership, and you’ve pointed to how the United States did so regarding Imperial Japan in World War II. Can you elaborate on that and explain how it applies to today?

GEORGE BEEBE
What happened with Imperial Japan in the run-up to World War II is the United States was quite concerned by Japanese expansion in Asia during the 1930s. We became convinced this posed a grave threat to US security, and I think quite rightly, but what we attempted to do was use economic sanctions that were quite draconian, that essentially cut Japan off from its ability to have vital supplies of strategic resources, including oil, in the belief that that sort of coercion could cause the Japanese to reconsider the costs and benefits of their aggression in Asia.

What happened instead was the Japanese came to believe they were in an untenable situation, that this kind of pressure economically coupled with the potential of being encircled by hostile states, including the United States, the Soviet Union, and a revived China, was simply an unacceptable situation. They thought Japan’s survival was at stake. The United States believed in that period that Japan would retaliate in some way, but they expected it to be a somewhat limited retaliation, probably in Southeast Asia. They didn’t expect a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. That was simply too much of a roll of the dice to believe a rational actor would undertake.

One of the lessons we ultimately drew from all this was that we didn’t realize the degree to which the Japanese regarded their situation as a life-and-death matter, that they felt pressed against the wall and had no choice but to retaliate in a way the United States thought was highly risky.

I think the analogy for us today with the Russians is that, like Japan in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Russians think that what they have at stake in Ukraine is existential, that unless they defend what they perceive as a vital redline there, that Russia’s existence is at stake. And when states feel that way, they can do things that appear quite reckless to outsiders. I think that’s what we’re dealing with here with Russia. It’s a state that increasingly feels cornered and desperate, and so is doing things that appear to outsiders as enormously reckless and quite aggressive.

How you deal with that is different to the way you deal with a Nazi Germany. You’re going to have to find some way of compromising. There has to be a diplomatic exit to all this, because the alternative is you’re going to be in a direct war with a nuclear power. Had Japan or Nazi Germany had nuclear weapons in World War II, those conflicts would’ve ended in a much different way than they did.

BRANKO MARCETIC
Are there enough voices, or enough pressure, in the United States and other NATO states calling for diplomacy and making that a viable political option — at least some sort of dialogue with Russia in the direction of de-escalation?

GEORGE BEEBE
I think there is very little political pressure in the West right now on any of the governments involved to find some sort of diplomatic solution to this problem. That does not mean the general publics in Western states don’t favor it. Quincy sponsored a poll that suggests very strongly that American people on balance believe the United States should be supporting Ukraine’s legitimate self-defense, but also, we need diplomatic efforts to find our way out of this war. The two are not incompatible, and in fact, I would argue that both of those elements have to be present and working together in a complementary way to produce a successful resolution to this war.

But I think there is a gap, and has been, between foreign policy elites in the United States and the American people more broadly, and increasingly, the interests of the American people and the desires of the majority of voters have been having very little effect on the foreign policy behavior of the Washington establishment, and I think that’s going to have to change.

BRANKO MARCETIC
The counterargument right now is that Putin won’t negotiate, and that all the sides are now too dug in anyway, so it’s useless to call for negotiations. What would you say to that?

GEORGE BEEBE
I think to some degree that’s true. It wasn’t true at the beginning of this war or the early stages, but increasingly it’s accurate to say Putin is more or less giving up on the possibility of a negotiated settlement, not because he doesn’t want one, but because he believes primarily the United States is opposed to one.

I think we had opportunities before this war to find a compromise, but the United States refused to explore those opportunities. There was I think a serious negotiation effort that took place under Turkish mediation in the early weeks of this war, and it in fact made some substantial progress. The Ukrainians broke off those negotiations. The Russians have accused the United States and Great Britain of having essentially discouraged the Ukrainians from pursuing that peace settlement effort at the time. To a great degree, those opportunities have been lost. It’s going to be very hard right now to negotiate a peace settlement in Ukraine.

That does not mean, however, that crisis management diplomacy between the United States and Russia is impossible. I think the Russians would like that kind of dialogue to go on. That wouldn’t be about finding some sort of permanent peace settlement in Ukraine that would delineate Ukraine’s borders and all of that, but it would and could focus on preventing further escalation and moving ultimately toward some kind of cease-fire. That kind of effort is both possible and quite necessary right now. It doesn’t depend on Russia and Ukraine trying to work out their differences. It depends on the United States and Russia talking about the larger strategic context for this war, and attempting to put in place some guardrails that prevent this situation from spiraling completely out of control.

BRANKO MARCETIC
And what about the issue of giving in to nuclear blackmail? Won’t that, as Timothy Snyder recently argued, create a precedent that makes future war and future nuclear war more likely?

GEORGE BEEBE
In short, I think that’s nonsense. The history of the Cold War puts the lie to that belief. The United States and the Soviet Union recognized they were essentially co-hostages with each other in the nuclear era, that the security of one depended on ensuring a degree of security in the other. That you could not have circumstances in which one side clearly triumphed unconditionally over the other side. “Giving in to nuclear blackmail” did not in fact encourage new crises. It helped establish some norms, some of which were formalized, some of which were tacit about what was permissible and what wasn’t.

I’ll give you an example that’s appropriate today: the Yom Kippur War in 1973. This was a situation in which the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a proxy conflict in the Middle East, one that initially had the Israelis on their back foot — they were taken by surprise by the Egyptian and Arab attacks, and the United States put its nuclear forces on alert, in part as a signal to the Soviet Union that should Soviet proxies go too far, the United States was willing to escalate this into a genuine crisis with the Soviet Union.

Then things changed. The Israelis gained the momentum, and threatened to completely rout the Arab and Egyptian forces, and the Soviet Union signaled that they were willing to use nuclear force if things went too far. What happened was both parties, the United States and Soviet Union, restrained their allies in the region. We insisted that the Israelis not proceed with attacks and forego the opportunity to rout the Egyptian forces altogether.

That wasn’t giving in to nuclear blackmail and it did not encourage the Soviet Union to push the boundaries in future crises. In fact it established norms that ensured stability over time. That’s the kind of thing I think we need right now. This belief that the Ukrainians should press on as far and fast as they can, in the hope of not only defeating Russian forces on the battlefield completely, but also creating some sort of cascade effect that’ll result in regime change in Russia is an extremely dangerous belief. It’s likely to provoke retaliation on the Russian part that could in fact escalate to nuclear levels.

BRANKO MARCETIC
Anatol Lieven has said that just as the United States has drawn red lines for Russia, we need to do so for Ukraine too. What do you think about that?

GEORGE BEEBE
I don’t think the US government should put the security of the American people in the hands of the Ukrainian government. These are decisions about our security that should be made in Washington by Americans. That’s the fundamental point. We shouldn’t surrender agency to the [Volodymyr] Zelensky government on this.

As a matter of simply smart negotiating tactics, we should not threaten preemptively to cut the Ukrainians off, because that would disincentivize the Russians from making the concessions it will be necessary for them to make in any kind of negotiated settlement. Ideally, we should be talking privately to the Ukrainians, saying that we believe we need to find a negotiated settlement. And we should be warning them privately that any attempt to reconquer Crimea — as morally justified as that may be — would very likely spark a nuclear response from Russia and therefore is something the United States government strongly opposes.

Gordon Hahn: Popular and Elite War Tremors in Russia and Putin’s Response

Russian President Vladimir Putin

By Gordon Hahn, Russian & Eurasian Politics, 10/10/22

September opinion polls in Russia continue to show Putin maintaining high popularity and trust ratings, despite slow progress and significant setbacks such as in Kharkiv. Nevertheless, those ratings have taken a hit in response perhaps to that taken by NordStream, and they are only likely to fall further as a result of October 7th attack on the Crimean bridge. Putin’s best opinion survey performance came in the Foundation for Public Opinion (FOM) survey for September, which showed Putin’s approval rating falling from 80 percent before declaration of the partial military mobilization (September 18) to 75 percent in its immediate wake (September 25). The survey registered a fall in trust in Putin from 77 percent to 74 percent. Before the ‘special military operation, Putin’s approval and trust ratings ranged between 58 and 63 percent, according to FOM. Perhaps, most disturbingly, the percentage of Russians who expressed “concern” over developments grew from 35 percent to 69 percent (www.ng.ru/editorial/2022-10-03/2_8555_editorial.html). This latter shift means a fertile field now exists for further downward trending in Putin’s ratings. The Levada Center recorded a decline among survey respondents in Putin’s approval rating from 83 percent in August to 77 percent in September and a decline of respondents who feel Russia is moving in the right direction from 67 to 60 perrcent in the same period (levada.ru). The exception to this new downward trend was in the September 26 – October 2 VTsIOM polling, which found slight boost for Putin’s approval and trust ratings of approximately one percent to around 80 percent (https://wciom.ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/reitingi-doverija-politikam-ocenki-raboty-prezidenta-i-pravitelstva-podderzhka-politicheskikh-partii-20221007). It seems to this observer that the first two surveys are more reliable for this general period. Taking into account that this downward trend was registered before the Kerch bridge attack, we can expect perhaps a further decline to come, with the caveat that the damage to the bridge turned out to be relatively limited and failed to cut off the Crimea supply line.

However, in addition to public angst, the Russian patriotic and official intelligentsia is beyond impatient with Putin’s restrained ‘special military operation’ and slow progress on the front. Russian state television channels’ various political talks shows and the social web are now filled with angst over the troops’ slow advance, the withdrawal from Kharkiv, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines’ destruction, and the terrorist attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Crimea with the Russian mainland. For example, during Sunday’s program ‘Evening with Solovev’, one participant argued that the country was on the verge of a wave of repressive reaction from below, as people were beginning to blame less patriotic citizens for any war failure, demanding to know ‘what have you done to bring victory and if nothing then you are not with us but against us. The participant feared that people may soon act in accordance with these feelings, and reprisals could eat the country up. The popular and elite sense is that it is time to take the gloves off, enter the Russian army’s infantry proper (not rely on Chechens, Wagner, and DPR and LNR forces alone) and mount a major combined arms offensive to destroy Ukraine’s civilian and military infrastructure and the Ukrainian army.

Continue reading here.

Matt Taibbi: Anthony Blinken Raises the Pucker Factor on Dissent

By Matt Taibbi, Substack, 10/10/22

After publishing “On John Lennon’s Birthday, a Few Words About War” last night, old friend and former Moscow Times editor Matt Bivens* and I discovered we’d written on the same topic. You can find Matt’s excellent essay here. He notes a big thing I missed. A series of ominous statements was buried in Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent joint press conference with Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, trumpeting the “tremendous opportunity” the Nord Stream blasts afforded to remove “the dependence on Russian energy.” A few public figures questioned those comments, but Blinken said something else that was worse. The relevant passage:

I also made clear that when Russia made this move, the United States and our allies and partners would impose swift and severe costs on individuals and entities – inside and outside of Russia – that provide political or economic support to illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory…

We will hold to account any individual, entity, or country that provides political or economic support for President Putin’s illegal attempts to change the status of Ukrainian territory.  In support of this commitment, the Departments of the Treasury and Commerce are releasing new guidance on heightened sanctions and export control risks for entities and individuals inside and outside of Russia that support in any way the Kremlin’s sham referenda, purported annexation, and occupation of parts of Ukraine.

There’s no way to know what a State Department official might believe meets the definitions of “political support,” support “in any way,” the “Kremlin’s sham referenda,” or any of a half-dozen phrases in that passage. This is why the negative precedent of government watch lists after the PATRIOT Act was important. By making lists, officials can seriously impact your life without notice or right of appeal. Even if courts later strike down the activity, it may take nearly 20 years to get there, and that’s assuming a) the state discloses enough to make a court challenge possible and b) they abide by any judicial rulings.

From Google and Twitter to the Departments of Justice and State, we’ve become a blacklisting society, and it’s beginning to look like the excesses of the Bush years were just a warmup.

Continue reading here.

Russian Prime Minister’s Meeting on Progress of Repairs of Kerch Bridge, 10/10/22

Billboard in Crimea that reads: “Crimea. Russia. Forever.” Photo by Natylie Baldwin, Oct. 2015

Link here.

Meeting of Russian Prime Ministers with Deputy Prime Ministers. The agenda includes the results of a government commission’s work to determine the cause of the incident and eliminate the consequences of the damage caused to the Crimean bridge, managing traffic across the Kerch Strait, supporting tourists and tourism organisations in Crimea, resettlement from dilapidated housing, and planned priority measures to ensure the operation of the economy during partial mobilisation.

Mikhail Mishustin’s opening remarks

Marat Khusnullin’s remarks

Minister of Transport Vitaly Savelyev’s remarks

Dmitry Chernyshenko’s remarks

Excerpts from the transcript:

Mikhail Mishustin: Colleagues, last Saturday, a terrorist attack occurred in Crimea aimed at destroying the Russia’s critical civilian infrastructure. This resulted in the temporary suspension of transport links between the peninsula and the Krasnodar Territory. At the President’s instruction, a government commission was created, headed by Marat Khusnullin, to organise relief efforts as soon as possible. Within a few hours of the incident, it was possible to completely extinguish the fire thanks to the coordinated efforts of all services and the heads of regions’ prompt action. I would like to specifically thank the governors of the Krasnodar Territory, the Republic of Crimea, and Sevastopol.

Specialists arriving at the site carried out an initial assessment of the technical condition of the railway section of the bridge and the undamaged part of the roadway. Emergency repairs were performed. Already during the first day, train services resumed, as well as vehicle traffic in temporary reverse mode. At the same time, ferry service across the Kerch Strait was also launched. It will take over part of the passenger and freight traffic load.

Mr Khusnullin, you visited the site and know the situation on the ground. Please tell us how the work is being organised, what is being done to restore the bridge, and about any latest updates.

Marat Khusnullin: Mr Mishustin, colleagues, on Sunday, 8 October, as soon as you established a governmental commission for the situation on the Crimean Bridge, under the President’s instructions, I held a field meeting with the commission members at the site of the incident, where we personally inspected the nature of the damage and adopted the necessary decisions.

Let me briefly describe today’s transport situation. Within 24 hours we have repaired the barriers, restored the lighting and painted temporary road markings. This made it possible, as you said, to reopen one-way vehicle traffic on the same day and two-way traffic on one side the next day after the terrorist attack. To cut inspection and waiting times on the approaches to the bridge, the Interior Ministry, FSB, and the Ministry of Transport were instructed to hire additional personnel.

We are inspecting the railway tracks, and preliminarily, we see that we will need to replace two spans, but the Crimean Railway restored both freight and passenger service along one track on the first day. The repair operations are not influencing cargo or passenger service. Lorries and buses are also being transported by ferry. We are stepping up this alternative.

Regarding the damage, we continue to analyse how serious it is. Divers have been checking the bridge supports since yesterday morning. Following diagnostic inspections, it has been found necessary to remove damage from the expansion joint on one of the supports. We estimate that the damage will be removed by the end of this week. But this does not affect the safety of traffic on the side that has been opened. Two full shifts are working around the clock. Twice a day, at 8 am and 8 pm, the supervisors submit progress reports. They have already removed the asphalt from the cantilever sections of the motorway spans. We have employed about 150 people to work on this. A plan and schedule to dismantle the damaged sections is being drafted. We expect it to be operational within three days. By that time, additional construction equipment, such as floating cranes and other equipment, will arrive. We have contacted the building material suppliers. I want to thank everyone for expediting this work. We expect the steel components to begin arriving from Tyumen, Kurgan, and Voronezh by the end of this week. 

The Ministry of Transport and the road police have been instructed to escort the shipment of these large components so they arrive promptly and without delay. The governmental commission has also discussed the necessary organisational measures with the heads of the Republic of Crimea and the Krasnodar Territory. We have made arrangements to inform the local residents about the developments and to organise, jointly with the Interior Ministry and the Emergencies Ministry, temporary parking lots, food points, and intercept parking with the necessary amenities.

The commission has instructed the Ministry of Transport to work out the entire logistics of freight deliveries to the peninsula. We have an alternative route running through the liberated territories. This year, we began repairs and restoration work on about 500 kilometres of roads in the new territories. We are planning to be finished in November or December, including 180 of the 359 kilometres of this alternative route. Work is under way on this road, with individual stretches opening every day. But we can still use these roads safely now. The Ministry of Transport will report on logistics details.

Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Khusnullin, for your promptness and for the overall management of these efforts. Of course, the Crimean Bridge is crucial in connecting the peninsula with other regions of the country. It is necessary to restore its full working capacity in the shortest possible time. Please keep these issues under your personal control.

Mr Savelyev, please report on the work done within your area of responsibility. How is passenger transportation being organised, including alternative routes, and delivery of goods to the peninsula? And in general, what is the situation with logistics?

Vitaly Saveliev: Mr. Mishustin, colleagues,

Together with the Deputy Prime Minister Mr Khusnullin, we are working on repairing the damage to the Crimean bridge in terms of logistics for passengers and freight during the period when the full resumption of traffic is being carried out.

As for road traffic, on 8 October, from 4 pm reversible passenger car traffic was launched with an interval of 40 minutes on and off in a single lane. Fixed lighting was fully restored as of 9 pm. On 9 October, two-way traffic was provided as of 4pm. As of 8 am this morning, 6,851 vehicles have passed through. To increase the capacity of the Crimean Bridge, we expect to receive a mobile inspection unit from the Federal Customs Service on 10 October. No cargo or passenger buses will be allowed on the Crimean bridge for the time being. A decision has been taken to send them to the Kerch ferry crossing, where sea ferries have resumed operation. I would like to point out in particular that cargo vehicles carrying perishable goods will be sent on the ferries as a matter of priority.       

In terms of ferry service. Three passenger vessels with capacity of 100, 200, and 250 passengers started operation on 8 October. By 7 am on 10 October, 2,882 people were transported by passenger ferries and other vessels that that were activated for this. Two car ferries with total capacity of up to 50 cars started operating on 9 October. By the morning of today, 407 trucks and 1,756 passengers were carried in both directions. On 10 and 15 October two more automobile ferries are scheduled to arrive. The arrival of three railway ferries is expected approximately on October 12 and 15. Two ferries arriving on October 15 have limitations: the depths in the port of Kerch are insufficient. A Rosmorport dredging vessel from Gelendzhik has been engaged to carry out dredging works. Estimated time for the works to be completed is October 14.

Railway ferry operation is not critical for the situation today, as one line of the railway covers all transport needs. We will keep them as part of our reserves.

On the evening of 8 October, railway traffic was resumed along one railway line of the Crimean bridge. Today the movement of freight and passenger long-distance trains is carried out according to the standard schedule in both directions. This guarantees that the residents of Crimea will be provided in full with goods transported by rail.

Suburban passenger traffic along the section of the Crimean bridge has also been fully restored. The trains travelling through the damaged section do so at a speed of 40 km per hour. It is expected that the Russian Railways company will conclude their survey and assessment of condition of the faulty track by 13 October. I would like to express my gratitude to the Russian Railways and personally to General Director Oleg Belozyorov, as well as to the staff of the Crimean Railways for the prompt work done.

Now on the various forms of traffic. Passengers who were travelling to Crimea, but who were redirected to Anapa, have been delivered and accommodated in hotels. Eight buses were used and more than 2,000 people were transported to their place of accommodation and back to the trains. In addition, buses have been prepared for ferry transportation to and from the Krasnodar Territory and the Republic of Crimea.

The prompt communication to the public about the situation regarding the liquidation of damage to the Crimean Bridge and the restoration has been organised.

Work is underway to bring regulations in line with the provisions of the Presidential Executive Order dated 8 October 2022.

Alternative routes are being developed, as Mr Khusnullin has just said.

Mr Mishustin, the logistics decisions that we have already made helped us fulfil the priority tasks for the stable supply of goods to the population of Crimea. We are working closely with respective subjects of the Russian Federation. The Unified Transport Directorate of the Ministry of Transport of Russia, in cooperation with the Crimean government, and the administration of the Krasnodar Territory, are engaged in providing temporary parking, meals, and accommodation for passengers, and the delivery of passengers by alternative routes to their destinations. This work will continue.

Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Savelyev.

It is very important to reopen traffic to and from Crimea in full volume and to analyse all the details to the greatest possible extent in order to prevent any further incidents. Please continue to coordinate this effort.

Although traffic has been partially restored on the Kerch Strait Bridge, many Russian citizens visiting Crimea or planning to visit the peninsula have been forced to change their plans.

Mr Dmitry Chernyshenko, please report on efforts to keep the public apprised of the situation and what support measures have been implemented.

Dmitry Chernyshenko: Mr Mishustin, as per your instructions, we got to work quickly, and we issued the relevant instructions to the Federal Agency for Tourism, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, the Ministry of Transport and to the regional authorities on how to support our tourists.

What has been done? First, about 50,000 tourists from various regions were staying in Crimea at the time of the terrorist attack. It was suggested that those guests planning to complete their vacation in Crimea stay at hotels and health centres free of charge. About 1,000 people agreed and extended their stay by 24 hours.

Due to the long delays, passengers from two trains were accommodated at hotels in Feodosia and Simferopol and were provided with hot meals. They have now departed safely on trains to their respective destinations.

As instructed by the Head of the Republic of Crimea, hotels will be reimbursed from the republic’s budget for accommodating tourists.

Second, the Federal Agency for Tourism has been instructed to monitor the situation in the tourism industry and to submit damage assessments to the Government. The Ministry of Finance and we have already decided to allocate 1.6 billion roubles by redistributing funds under the national project on tourism. The money will be used to support the Crimea and Sevastopol tourism industries. The Federal Agency for Tourism will draft and submit the relevant regulatory documents on Wednesday.

I would like to note that, so far, we are not seeing any major decline in the number of tourists planning to visit Crimea. An insignificant number of ticket reservations for later dates have been cancelled so far.

Third, on the morning of 8 October, the Federal Agency for Tourism, with support from the communications ministry, was instructed to open a federal hotline service. Along with the republican call centre, tourists can receive updates. Most calls were received on 8 October. About 1,300 people from various Russian regions called this federal number: 8 (800) 707 9741. 

The situation with transport availability is constantly updated. I would like to note that the hotline will continue to operate.

Mikhail Mishustin: Thank you, Mr Chernyshenko. I would also like to ask you to monitor the operation of Rosturism’s hotline so that it works properly and help the region’s tourism industry to work stably.

Now, colleagues, a few words about important measures aimed at supporting businesses in the context of partial mobilisation announced by the president. They will help ensure the stable operation of the Russian economy. The corresponding priority action plan was approved by the government.

A draft federal law will be prepared, according to which people will be able to remain owners of their businesses and engage in entrepreneurial activities, both personally and through third parties.

When individual entrepreneurs and heads of businesses, the sole founders of their companies, are called up for military service, they will have several days to issue a power of attorney to the new head. And if they have already been called up, the deadlines for paying taxes, insurance premiums, and other obligatory payments, as well as submitting declarations or other reports, will be extended for such organisations.

They will also be able to arrange a repayment holiday, rent deferral, and if it is impossible to further fulfil their obligations due to the mobilisation of the company owner, such businesses will have the right to change the terms of contracts and write off the incurred penalties. This rule will affect government contracts concluded before the end of next year.

Grant support conditions may also be readjusted. It will be possible to extend the implementation of such projects, reduce requirements for them, and eliminate penalties.

Colleagues, all planned decisions and legislative initiatives must be prepared as soon as possible.

One more issue. The government continues to work on resettling people from emergency housing, which was identified as unfit for living before 1 January 2017.

We are building new, comfortable and safe residences to replace these buildings. However, due to the imposed external sanctions, the cost of building materials and equipment has recently increased significantly. In order to compensate the regions for the increase in spending, the government will allocate an additional 24 billion roubles for such purposes on behalf of the head of state. Until the end of the year, 43 Russian constituent entities that need federal funding most urgently will receive funds.

The situation in this area was discussed in detail at the June meeting of the Presidential State Council Presidium. As a result, a number of decisions were made. And in August we launched another programme to reduce the emergency housing, which has been recognised as such over the past five years, or, to be more precise, before 1 January 2022.

In these conditions, it is necessary to monitor the effective use of each rouble. I would like to ask Mr Khusnullin to have a constant personal control of how the work is progressing.