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  • Hospital Scandal Highlights Health Woes In Russia’s Remote Kamchatka Region

    PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia — Back in 2012, Valery Karpenko had good news for the more than 300,000 residents of Kamchatka, one of Russia’s remotest regions, famous for its pristine nature, active volcanoes, and poor government services, including health care.

    With local TV cameras filming, Karpenko, then deputy chairman of the regional government, could hardly contain his enthusiasm as he spoke of the new medical center that would soon rise up in Petropavlovsk, capital of the region in Russia’s Far East. It would replace a crumbling hodgepodge of structures built in the Soviet era: the sole full-service, state-run hospital on the peninsula jutting down between the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Okhotsk.

    “There has been no facility like it in the entire Far East, let alone Kamchatka,” Karpenko boasted, adding the new complex would be equipped with cutting-edge “German technology,” staffed by top-notch talent — doctors, nurses, and other personnel, some trained abroad. Elderly women “walking the corridors with buckets handing out food,” would be replaced by a slick catering unit, Karpenko vowed.

    Nine years and counting, but no new hospital looks to be coming anytime soon.

    Nine years and counting, but no new hospital looks to be coming anytime soon.

    Fast forward nearly nine years to the end of 2020, and the people of Kamchatka are still waiting for the promised medical center. At the site, steel girders welded together to form building frames rise up from cement amid overgrown, brown fields fenced in only on one side. Karpenko is long gone from his post, his unfulfilled promises perhaps the least of his worries: He now faces a possible 12-year prison term on bribery charges linked to the project.

    Allegations that local officials have long stuffed their own pockets with money allocated for the hospital have circulated for years among locals and contractors on the project, many of whom were never paid for their work. Given the scale of the scandal, the Kremlin has from time to time intervened, vowing to jump-start construction. In August, President Vladimir Putin dispatched Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to Kamchatka, more than 6,000 kilometers east of Moscow, on the latest such mission.

    “I’m shocked by the inaction and the negligence over the years regarding construction of the hospital,” Mishustin said during a visit to the dilapidated Kamchatka Regional Hospital as he met doctors to discuss the postponement-plagued project, vowing Kremlin pressure to get things moving.

    ‘Doctors Are Expendable Here’

    Skeptics say even a new hospital will only be a band aid on the deeper problems that ail health care in Kamchatka.

    Andrei Kubanov, a surgeon who worked at the regional hospital, said not only are doctors and nurses less than eager to move to faraway Kamchatka, but fear the climate in the health-care profession, where any criticism can result in termination. Kubanov himself was dismissed earlier this year for allegedly taking too much time to recuperate from an illness. He claims it had all to do with his outspokenness about alleged corruption at the hospital.

    Kamchatka's old hospital is not able to cope with the pandemic, locals and former personnel say.

    Kamchatka’s old hospital is not able to cope with the pandemic, locals and former personnel say.

    Kubanov, who a court found had been dismissed unjustly, said the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed all that’s wrong with health care in the region.

    “In the ambulatory unit alone, 110 [staff members] were officially listed as ill [with coronavirus], but the whole department has only 300 people and that includes the cleaners. Who went out on calls?” Kubanov told the Siberian Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service recently. “Then five doctors in the region died from the coronavirus. That is a huge number for Kamchatka. We had an incident when the urologist was left on duty with COVID patients. He was there one, two days and almost died of dehydration. I myself brought him water and food.”

    “He said: ‘What can I do? They’d fire me if I didn’t.’ They treat doctors like they’re expendable here,” added Kubanov, who now heads a private medical clinic in Kamchatka.

    Where Did The Money Go?

    In April, Putin accepted the resignation of Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Ilyukhin and appointed Vladimir Solodov as acting governor. Solodov, of the ruling United Russia party, then won an election in September to remove the “acting” from his title.

    Ilyukhin was one of three regional leaders to resign at the time amid calls by Putin for the country’s far-flung areas to do more to curb the spread of coronavirus. Some analysts say Putin, who has declined to institute nationwide lockdown measures, exploited the coronavirus crisis to rid himself of leaders he was tired of.

    In early August, Solodov complained to Putin about the shortage of doctors and low hospital-bed capacity in the region. He also said Kamchatka would need 8.4 billion rubles ($115 million) to complete construction of the hospital complex in Petropavlovsk.

    Later that month, Mishustin visited Kamchatka where he had no answer as to how or where past funding for the hospital had vanished. “The government went over in detail, in fact, the history on the allocation of funds, the planning process…after 13 years of promises and money put into the construction of new infrastructure, for some reason it just disappeared,” Mishustin said in Kamchatka on August 14.

    Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin gives a thumbs up during a welcome ceremony at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city airport in August, but had no answers about where the funds for a new hospital had gone.

    Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin gives a thumbs up during a welcome ceremony at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city airport in August, but had no answers about where the funds for a new hospital had gone.

    Aleksandr, who said he worked for a company involved in construction at the site, said the company didn’t get paid for much of the work it did. “We managed the site in 2011 and 2012 — it was preparatory work. We built the entire drainage system under the current structure, prepared building platforms…. Our contract was for 200 million rubles, and we received an advance,” recounted Aleksandr, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

    “After that, however, I had to sue to get the rest for the work. And this was what happened to almost all subcontractors. Two firms even went bankrupt,” he told the Siberian Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service.

    How alleged graft has crippled the project may be best illustrated by the case of Karpenko, who resigned from his post in December 2018 and faced bribery charges two months later.

    He and his accomplices were accused of conniving with a businessman to sell a building to the city for 46 million rubles ($625,000) — double its assessed market value. Money used in the purchase allegedly came from funds allocated for hospital construction. Karpenko, who still awaits trial, faces 12 years in prison if found guilty.

    ‘They Just Changed The Billboard’

    Few debate the need for a new hospital in Kamchatka. The old complex comprises 11 buildings erected between the 1950s and 1970s. In 2003, the complex was deemed an earthquake risk. Plus, the fact buildings are scattered pell-mell makes the logistics of care complicated.

    The Kamchatka Health Ministry now says the new regional hospital will be completed by 2023 and it has established a new directorate to oversee the project. But there is no concrete construction timetable and the ministry did not respond to queries from RFE/RL for details on how the project will proceed.

    Given the past problems, few locals in Petropavlovsk appear hopeful they will see any new facility soon.

    “What hospital? There is no health care on Kamchatka,” Yelena Golovachenko said. “And if there is any, then it’s not much. And a new hospital won’t solve anything. And when will it be completed? That’s the question. The girders have been standing for many years, money for its construction is handed out every year. It’s not hard to guess where all those millions have gone — everyone steals.”

    “People here have two choices: they can go to the mainland for treatment, or travel somewhere else,” she said.

    Others complain about the lack and level of current services.

    “We need specialists, but they don’t come here, and the equipment is outdated. If you go to the employment bureau, most of the vacancies are for doctors. And those specialists that are here end up working at private clinics. Getting an appointment to see an in-demand specialist can take months,” said another local resident, Anna Bryukhanova.

    Meanwhile, at the construction site, nothing seems to have changed except for a new billboard with photos of what should one day stand there.

    “I drove by recently, just out of curiosity after the election of a new governor — nothing has changed,” Kubanov said. “I honestly wasn’t surprised. They changed the billboard about the project as if they only started construction in 2020, although plans were made back in 2011.”

    Written by Tony Wesolowsky based on reporting by Yekaterina Vasyukova of the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Mad Maps: Some Of The World’s Wackiest Borders, Explained

    Ever glanced at a map of the world and stopped to wonder why some countries have seemingly nonsensical shapes? You can find the answers — or some of them, anyway — in our ongoing Mad Maps series.

    Episode 1: The Bizarre ‘Border Salad’ of Central Asia’s Ferghana Valley

    The crazy national boundaries of Tajiksitan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan in the Ferghana Valley have the power to spark violence. Who made them so complicated? Here’s a hint: Stalin had quite a bit to do with it.

    Episode 2: Why Does India Have A ‘Chicken Neck’?

    We look at how India ended up with a strange-looking, inconvenient “chicken neck,” thanks to the British Empire:

    Episode 3: Those Crazy Panhandles And What A Pain They Can Be

    Some of the wackiest-looking borders around the world contain so-called panhandles — for example, Namibia’s huge “landing strip” sticking out of its northeast corner. In this episode, we look at how and why many of the world’s panhandles were created, and what a headache they can be:

    Episode 4: How Kaliningrad Became A Part Of Russia

    Seventy-five years have passed since the German city of Koenigsberg and the surrounding area became Kaliningrad, now an odd piece of Russia disconnected from the rest of the country. So how did a German region become a Russian exclave, and what role does it play for Russia today?

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • COVID-19 Crackdowns, Expanded Authoritarianism, And The Post-Pandemic World

    The approval of COVID-19 vaccines has raised hopes that the “new normal” of a post-pandemic world will start to emerge in 2021.

    But international rights groups say civil society must be able to return to its “normal” pre-pandemic role to prevent a permanent expansion of overreaching government power.

    They argue that civil society must provide checks and balances to ensure the rollback of temporary, emergency public-health measures imposed — and sometimes misused — during 2020.

    Transparency International has long warned about “worrying signs that the pandemic will leave in its wake increased authoritarianism and weakened rule of law.”

    “The COVID-19 crisis has offered corrupt and authoritarian leaders a dangerous combination of public distraction and reduced oversight,” the global anti-corruption group says.

    “Corruption thrives when democratic institutions such as a free press and an independent judiciary are undermined; when citizens’ right to protest, join associations, or engage in initiatives to monitor government spending is limited,” Transparency International says.

    Protesters clash with police in front of Serbia's National Assembly building in Belgrade on July 8 during a demonstration against a weekend curfew announced to combat a resurgence of COVID-19 infections.

    Protesters clash with police in front of Serbia’s National Assembly building in Belgrade on July 8 during a demonstration against a weekend curfew announced to combat a resurgence of COVID-19 infections.

    says authoritarianism in theory, as well as authoritarian regimes in practice, were “already gaining ground” before the pandemic.

    Hamid says some aspects of the post-pandemic era — such as COVID-19 tracing schemes and increased surveillance — can create “authoritarian temptations” for those in charge of governments.

    “During — and after — the pandemic, governments are likely to use long, protracted crises to undermine domestic opposition and curtail civil liberties,” Hamid concludes in a Brookings report called Reopening The World.

    The intent to suppress on the part of the government can provoke an unusually intense desire to expose its mistakes on the part of the press, the legislative branch, and civil society.”

    But despite those dangers, Hamid remains cautiously optimistic about political freedoms recovering in a post-pandemic world.

    In due time, he says, the removal of emergency restrictions will help “political parties, protesters, and grassroots movements to communicate their platforms and grievances to larger audiences.”

    “Democratic governments may try to suppress information and spin or downplay crises as well — as the Trump administration did — but they rarely get away with it,” Hamid concludes.

    “If anything, the intent to suppress on the part of the government can provoke an unusually intense desire to expose its mistakes on the part of the press, the legislative branch, and civil society,” he says.

    In countries from Russia to Turkmenistan, authoritarian tendencies under the guise of pandemic control have included the use of emergency health measures to crack down on political opposition figures and to limit the freedom of the press.

    They also have included attempts by authorities to restrict the ability of civic organizations to scrutinize and constrain the expansion of executive power.

    Crackdown In Baku

    Actions taken by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s government are a case in point.

    In March, Baku imposed tough new punishments for those convicted of “violating anti-epidemic, sanitary-hygienic, or lockdown” rules.

    The new criminal law imposed a fine of about $3,000 and up to three years in prison for violations such as failing to wear a mask in public.

    Those convicted of spreading the virus face up to five years in prison.

    A police officer inspects a woman's documents under the gaze of an Azerbaijani soldier in Baku in July during the coronavirus pandemic. Azerbaijan deployed troops to help police ensure a tight coronavirus lockdown in the capital and several major cities.

    A police officer inspects a woman’s documents under the gaze of an Azerbaijani soldier in Baku in July during the coronavirus pandemic. Azerbaijan deployed troops to help police ensure a tight coronavirus lockdown in the capital and several major cities.

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that Baku’s criminal punishments for spreading COVID are “not a legitimate or proportionate response to the threat posed by the virus.”

    The U.S.-based rights group says it is all too easy for such laws to be misused to “target marginalized populations, minorities, or dissidents.”

    During the summer — amid public dissatisfaction about the lack of a resolution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with neighboring Armenia — Aliyev also faced dissent over rampant corruption, economic mismanagement, and his handling of the pandemic.

    Aliyev’s response was to launch a crackdown in July widely seen as an attempt to eliminate his political rivals and pro-democracy advocates once and for all.

    A Washington Post editorial said Aliyev had “blown a gasket” with a “tantrum” that threatened to “obliterate what remains of independent political forces in Azerbaijan.”

    More than 120 opposition figures and supporters were rounded up in July by Aliyev’s security forces — mostly from the opposition Azerbaijan Popular Front Party (AXFP).

    Two opposition figures among those arrested were charged with violating Azerbaijan’s emergency COVID measures — Mehdi Ibrahimov, the son of AXFP Deputy Chairman Mammad Ibrahim, and AXFP member Mahammad Imanli.

    HRW says its own review of pretrial court documents concluded that Imanli was “falsely accused” of spreading COVID-19 and endangering lives by not wearing a mask in public.

    Ibrahimov’s arrest was based on a claim by police that he took part in an unauthorized street demonstration while infected with the coronavirus.

    But Ibrahimov’s lawyer says COVID tests taken after his arrest in July show he was not infected.

    In fact, he said, the charges of violating public-health rules were only filed against Ibrahimov after he was detained and authorities discovered he was the son of a prominent opposition leader.

    Belarusian Borders

    Critics accuse Belarus’s authoritarian ruler, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, of using COVID-19 restrictions to suppress mass demonstrations against his regime.

    To be sure, the use of politically related COVID-19 measures is seen as just one tool in Minsk’s broader strategy of intensified police crackdowns.

    The rights group Vyasna said in December that more than 900 politically motivated criminal cases were opened in 2020 against Belarusian opposition candidates and their teams, activists, and protesters.

    The ongoing, daily demonstrations pose the biggest threat to Lukashenka’s 26-year grasp on power — fueled by allegations of electoral fraud after he was declared the landslide winner of a sixth term in a highly disputed August 9 presidential election.

    While Minsk downplayed the threat posed by COVID-19 for months, Lukashenka has repeatedly accused the opposition and hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets of being foreign-backed puppets.

    A Belarusian border guard wears a face mask and gloves to protect herself from the coronavirus early in the pandemic. Belarus closed off its borders to foreigners on November 1.

    A Belarusian border guard wears a face mask and gloves to protect herself from the coronavirus early in the pandemic. Belarus closed off its borders to foreigners on November 1.

    On November 1, after months of brutal police crackdowns failed to halt the anti-government demonstrations, Belarus closed off its borders to foreigners.

    The State Border Committee said the restrictions were necessary to “prevent the spread of infection caused by COVID-19.”

    In December, authorities expanded the border ban to prevent Belarusians and permanent residents from leaving the country — ostensibly because of the pandemic.

    Lukashenka’s own behavior on COVID-19 bolstered allegations the border closures are a politically motivated attempt to restrain the domestic opposition.

    In late November, Lukashenka completely disregarded safety protocols during a visit to a COVID-19 hospital ward — wearing neither gloves nor a mask when he shook hands with a medic in full protective gear.

    Opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who left Belarus under pressure after she tried to file a formal complaint about the official election tally, says the border restrictions show Lukashenka is “in a panic.”

    Russia’s Surveillance State

    In Moscow, experts say the pandemic has tested the limitations of Russia’s surveillance state.

    Russia’s State Duma in late March approved legislation allowing Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to declare a state of emergency across the country and establish mandatory public health rules.

    It also approved a penalty of up to five years in prison for those who “knowingly” disseminate false information during “natural and man-made emergencies.”

    The legislation called for those breaking COVID-19 measures to be imprisoned for up to seven years.

    In April, President Vladimir Putin tasked local governments with the responsibility of adopting COVID-19 restrictions.

    Experts say that turned some Russian regions into testing grounds for how much increased surveillance and control Russians will stand for.

    It also protected the Kremlin from political backlash over concerns that expanded government powers to control COVID-19 could become permanent in post-pandemic Russia.

    Meanwhile, Moscow took steps to control the free flow of information about Russia’s response to the pandemic.

    “It is staggering that the Russian authorities appear to fear criticism more than the deadly COVID-19 pandemic,” Amnesty International’s Russia director, Natalia Zviagina, said.

    “They justify the arrest and detention of Anastasia Vasilyeva on the pretext that she and her fellow medics violated travel restrictions,” Zviagina said. “In fact, they were attempting to deliver vital protective equipment to medics at a local hospital.”

    Anastasia Vasilyeva, a Russian doctor who heads a medical workers union, was arrested in April after she exposed shortcomings in the health system’s preparations to fight COVID-19.

    Anastasia Vasilyeva, a Russian doctor who heads a medical workers union, was arrested in April after she exposed shortcomings in the health system’s preparations to fight COVID-19.

    Zviagina concludes that by putting Vasilyeva in jail, Russian authorities exposed “their true motive.”

    “They are willing to punish health professionals who dare contradict the official Russian narrative and expose flaws in the public health system,” she said.

    The State Duma also launched reviews and crackdowns in 2020 on reporting by foreign media organizations — including RFE/RL — about the way Russia has handled COVID.

    Human Rights Watch said police “falsely claimed” protesters violated COVID-19 measures — “yet kept most of the detained protesters in overcrowded, poorly ventilated police vehicles.”

    In July, police in Moscow detained dozens of journalists during a protest against Russia’s growing restrictions on media and freedom of expression.

    In several cases, Human Rights Watch said police “falsely claimed” protesters violated COVID-19 public health measures — “yet kept most of the detained protesters in overcrowded, poorly ventilated police vehicles where they could not practice social distancing.”

    HRW Russia researcher Damelya Aitkozhina says those cases “have taken the repression to a new level.”

    Aitkhozhina says authorities in Moscow “detained peaceful protesters under the abusive and restrictive rules on public assembly and under the guise of protecting public health, while exposing them to risk of infection in custody.”

    Rights activists say local authorities in some Russian regions also used COVID-19 measures as an excuse to crack down on protesters.

    In late April, authorities in North Ossetia detained dozens of demonstrators from a crowd of about 2,000 people who’d gathered in Vladikavkaz to demand the resignation of regional leader Vyacheslav Bitarov.

    Thirteen were charged with defying Russia’s COVID-19 measures and spreading “fake information” about the pandemic.

    In Russia’s Far East city of Khabarovsk, authorities used COVID-19 measures to try to discourage mass protests against the arrest of a popular regional governor on decades-old charges of complicity in murder.

    Demonstrators say the charges were fabricated by the governor’s local political opponents with help from the Kremlin.

    While municipal authorities in Khabarovsk warned about the risks of COVID-19 at the protests, police taped off gathering places for the demonstrations — claiming the move was necessary for COVID-19 disinfection.

    But the crowds gathered anyway — reflecting discontent with Putin’s rule and public anger at what residents say is disrespect from Moscow about their choice for a governor.

    Demo Restrictions In Kazakhstan

    Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev signed legislation in late May that tightened government control over the right of citizens to gather for protests.

    Going into effect during the first wave of the global COVID-19 outbreak, the new law defines how many people can attend a demonstration and where protests can take place.

    Critics say the new restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles include the need for “permission” from authorities before protests can legally take place in Kazakhstan — with officials being given many reasons to refuse permission.

    RFE/RL also has reported on how authorities in Kazakhstan used the coronavirus as an excuse to clamp down on civil rights activists who criticized the new public protest law.

    Kazakh and international human rights activists say the legislation contradicts international standards and contains numerous obstacles to free assembly.

    Information Control In Uzbekistan

    Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has been praised by international rights groups since he came to power in late 2016 for his slight easing of authoritarian restrictions imposed by his predecessor, the late Islam Karimov.

    But the COVID-19 crisis has spawned a battle between emerging independent media outlets and the state body that oversees the press in Uzbekistan — the Agency for Information and Mass Communications (AIMC).

    Officials in Tashkent initially claimed Uzbekistan was doing well in combating COVID-19. But by the summer, some media outlets were questioning that government narrative.

    They began to delve deeply into details about the spread of the pandemic and its human costs within the country.

    AIMC Director Asadjon Khodjaev in late November threatened “serious legal consequences” about such reporting — raising concerns that COVID-19 could be pushing Uzbekistan back toward more authoritarian press controls, much like the conditions that existed under Karimov.

    Kyrgyz Upheaval

    Before the pandemic, Kyrgyzstan was considered by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders as Central Asia’s most open country for the media. But Kyrgyzstan’s relative openness has been eroded by lockdowns and curfews imposed since a state of emergency was declared on March 22.

    Most independent media outlets have had difficulty getting accreditation or permits allowing their journalists to move freely in Bishkek or other areas restricted under the public health emergency.

    Violent political protests erupted after Kyrgyzstan’s controversial parliamentary elections on October 4 — which were carried out despite the complications posed by the COVID-19 control measures.

    The political tensions led to the downfall of President Sooronbai Jeenbekov’s government, plans to hold new elections, and the declaration of a state of emergency in Bishkek that included a ban on public demonstrations.

    Pascaline della Faille, an analyst for the Credendo group of European credit insurance companies, concludes that social tensions contributing to the political upheaval were heightened by the pandemic.

    She says those tensions included complaints about the country’s poor health system, an economy hit hard by COVID-19 containment measures, and a sharp drop in remittances from Kyrgyz citizens who work abroad.

    Turkmenistan Is Ridiculed

    One of the world’s most tightly controlled authoritarian states, Turkmenistan has never had a good record on press freedom or transparency.

    Not surprisingly, then, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s claim that he has prevented a single COVID-19 infection from happening in his country has been the target of global ridicule rather than admiration.

    Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov

    Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov

    Ashgabat’s continued insistence that the coronavirus does not exist in Turkmenistan is seen as a sign of Berdymukhammedov’s authoritarian dominance rather than any credible public health policies.

    In early August, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Berdymukhammedov had agreed to give WHO experts access to try to verify his claim about the absence of COVID-19 in his country.

    Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe and Central Asia, said Berdymukhammedov had “agreed” for a WHO team “to sample independently COVID-19 tests in country” and take them to WHO reference laboratories in other countries.

    But after more than four months, Berdymukhammedov has still not kept his promise.

    Meanwhile, Turkmenistan’s state television broadcasts perpetuate Berdymukhammedov’s cult of personality by showing him opening new “state-of the-art” medical facilities in Ashgabat and other big cities.

    Privately, Turkmen citizens tell RFE/RL that they don’t believe the hype.

    They say they avoid hospitals when they become ill because facilities are too expensive for impoverished ordinary citizens and state facilities often have little to offer them.

    Patients at several regional hospitals in Turkmenistan told RFE/RL they’ve had to provide their own food, medicine, and even firewood to heat their hospital rooms.

    Still, in a former Soviet republic known for brutal crackdowns on critics and dissent, nobody openly criticizes Turkmenistan’s health officials about the dire situation in hospitals out of fear of reprisals.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian New Year: At The Heart Of A Wide Tapestry Of Winter Traditions

    As part of an occasional series on how the end-of-year holidays are celebrated in our broadcast region, we talked to Irina Lagunina from RFE/RL’s Russian Service about seasonal traditions in her country.

    Western visitors to Russia at this time of year may be surprised to discover that the locals usually refer to the seasonally decorated conifers you see everywhere as “New Year firs” or “New Year spruces.”

    So why would they call them this when they’re commonly known as Christmas trees in many other places?

    According to Irina Lagunina from RFE/RL’s Russian Service, it’s largely a quirky legacy of the country’s Soviet past.

    “It was really weird because, after the socialist revolution, the Bolsheviks actually banned not just the festivities of the Christmas season — this wonderful season of the year — but also the Christmas tree, which was considered to be a religious symbol,” she says.

    “They decided that, since the main ideology is atheism, the Christmas tree should be banned. And that remained up until the mid-1930s when the New Year and the Christmas tree were kind of rehabilitated.”

    When the Christmas tree was “rehabilitated” amid much fanfare in 1935, the official atheist ethos of the time ensured that it would primarily be associated with New Year celebrations and its Christian connotations were jettisoned.

    The New Year spruce at the Kremlin in 1978

    The New Year spruce at the Kremlin in 1978

    It’s something that has endured to this day and the unveiling of the “New Year spruce” at the Kremlin every year is still a big event for thousands of children, although it is no longer decorated with a big Soviet star.

    In a way, it’s perhaps fitting that the tree is still firmly associated with New Year’s rather than Christmas, as “Novy God” (New Year) has long been the focal point of the festive season in Russia.

    Moscow municipal workers used cranes to erect the traditional New Year spruce on Red Square in late November.

    Moscow municipal workers used cranes to erect the traditional New Year spruce on Red Square in late November.

    Like many other Orthodox believers, most Russians typically celebrate Christmas Day on January 7. But for many, the day itself is quite low-key compared to other festivities that are observed in the country at this time of year.

    “For those who celebrate it in Russia right now, Christmas is a purely religious event,” says Lagunina. “Believers go to the churches — the churches are actually full these days — but there is still no kind of notion and tradition of family gathering on this day or having something special.”

    People light candles during Christmas midnight Mass at Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior on January 6.

    People light candles during Christmas midnight Mass at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior on January 6.

    According to Lagunina, the main day of celebration “is actually not Christmas, but New Year.”

    “It’s all about New Year,” she says. “This comes first in the Orthodox calendar, so Christmas is basically the next seven days, [but] the main festivity is New Year’s night, and that’s when Russians prepare the dinner of the year, the main celebration for family, unity, and so forth.”

    Although Lagunina says New Year in Russia is “like everywhere else in the world, with a lot of champagne and a lot of fireworks,” it is also the centerpiece of a wider tapestry of formal and informal celebrations that are observed at this time of year.

    Decorated Russia Lights Up As Holidays Approach

    Decorated Russia Lights Up As Holidays Approach Photo Gallery:

    Decorated Russia Lights Up As Holidays Approach

    Russians are preparing for the holidays with ornamented seasonal trees, festive decorations, and light displays.

    “Well, in Russia right now, of course, there is a reason to celebrate everything,” she says. “Russians start to celebrate with the Western Christmas, then New Year, Orthodox Christmas…. Basically, it’s three weeks of festivities. You cannot get sober during this time!”

    One of the most famous traditions observed during this period is not for the fainthearted.

    “Ice swimming is a big deal in Russia,” says Lagunina, referring to the many hardy souls who brave the freezing waters of their local lakes and rivers for a bracing dip on January 19 to celebrate the Epiphany.

    A Russian Orthodox priest takes an Epiphany dip in the icy waters of the Gulf of Finland outside St. Petersburg.

    A Russian Orthodox priest takes an Epiphany dip in the icy waters of the Gulf of Finland outside St. Petersburg.

    Amid all the festivities, however, New Year is always seen as the big event when people get together with close friends and relatives.

    Gifts are exchanged and copious amounts of food and drink are often consumed.

    Many families also take the time to watch The Irony Of Fate, a Trading Places kind of musical comedy that has been broadcast on state TV every New Year’s Day since 1976 and is now a firmly established tradition.

    But it is frequently the food that is at the heart of New Year proceedings.

    Lagunina says her seasonal table usually includes typical Russian fare, such as “pirozhki” pastries with various fillings and “kholodets” — cold stewed meat in aspic. Stuffed duck is also a very common dish on this day and “a regular middle-class family” might even have “a little bit of red caviar, sometimes salted salmon,” the main idea being that the choice of food on offer is “the best of what you can imagine.”

    Irina Lagunina's New Year's table: Top row (left to right): seledka pod shuboi (a salad of pickled herring "in a fur coat"), pirozhki pastries (often stuffed with meat, mushrooms, cabbage, and even jam), and pickled cabbage. Center: vinegret (Russian beetroot salad) and Salad Olivier (Russian salad). Bottom row: kholodets, seledka (pickled herring with marinated onion), and salted mushrooms.

    Irina Lagunina’s New Year’s table: Top row (left to right): seledka pod shuboi (a salad of pickled herring “in a fur coat”), pirozhki pastries (often stuffed with meat, mushrooms, cabbage, and even jam), and pickled cabbage. Center: vinegret (Russian beetroot salad) and Salad Olivier (Russian salad). Bottom row: kholodets, seledka (pickled herring with marinated onion), and salted mushrooms.

    No New Year’s feast is complete, however, without a typical Russian salad or “Salad Olivier,” which according to legend was first invented by a French chef of that name while he was working in tsarist Russia.

    Lagunina says a Salad Olivier is one of the “absolute must-have dishes on the table” at New Year. She puts the dish’s popularity down to its versatility, which allows it to be easily adapted for anyone observing a strict pre-Christmas fast.

    “Olivier is made of peas, potatoes, carrots, pickles, ham, and mayonnaise, but the ham can be replaced,” she says. “Depending on how strong a believer you are, it can be replaced with chicken, crabmeat, fish, practically everything…. So it’s this kind of multicultural, multireligious, suitable-for-everybody dish, and you can even make it for vegetarians without any meat or chicken.”

    How To Make Salad Olivier

    Ingredients

    1 small can of peas (100 grams)

    1 large or two small potatoes, peeled and boiled

    1 large boiled carrot

    4 hard-boiled eggs

    10 salted pickles (Irina makes these herself at home, but they can be shop-bought)

    2 slices of sweet onion, finely chopped

    200 grams (about 1/2 pound) of ham (common alternatives include a Mortadella type of sausage, crabmeat, boiled beef tongue, or fish. Irina has chosen “Doktorskaya kolbasa or “Doctor’s sausage,” a lunch meat that has been popular in Russia since Soviet times.)

    Method

    “Like all Russian salads, all the items should be the size of the smallest ingredient that cannot be divided,” says Lagunina. “The peas are the smallest undividable element, so everything you cut should be the size of a pea [at most]. That’s the basis of all Russian salads.”

    As everything should be cut into pea-sized cubes, Lagunina uses a potato slicer for this purpose.

    “This tool is very popular not only in Russia but also in the Czech Republic, Austria, and all other places where they make potato salad,” she says.

    Lagunina is in favor of breaking with tradition and grating the carrots even smaller, however, as cutting them into cubes gives the salad “an overwhelming taste.”

    Like the carrots, Lagunina also prefers to cut the eggs smaller than the peas, as they help “cement the salad.”

    Once all the ingredients have been tossed in a bowl, mix in some mayonnaise (according to taste) and sprinkle with black pepper as the “final touch.”

    Lagunina stresses that the mayonnaise should be added “only before you serve the salad on the table,” as it will ensure a “fresher” flavor.

    Written by Coilin O’Connor based on an interview with Irina Lagunina from RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Illegal’ Vaccines In Northern Kosovo Provide A Heavy Dose Of Cross-Border Politics

    MITROVICA, Kosovo — Sretko Radenkovic was one of the first of Kosovo’s 1.7 million people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 last weekend.

    From the village of Srbovac, outside the divided northern city of Mitrovica near the border with Serbia, the 77-year-old says he kind of lucked out.

    Radenkovic, an ethnic Serb, said he had heard from a neighbor late on December 25 about a chance to get inoculated against the pathogen that has so far infected 82 million people worldwide, killing nearly 1.8 million of them.

    The next day, after hearing that three people had given up their spots, he was in line alongside dozens of others at the Zvecan Health Center, part of a shadow health system in the area run by Serbia for ethnic Serbs.

    There were said to be 50 or 60 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine earmarked for elderly patients.

    “I got the vaccine without hesitation,” Radenkovic told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service. “It simply happened.”

    Under other circumstances, in a region plagued by anti-vaccination sentiment and disinformation, anyone’s eagerness for a vaccine to protect them from the coronavirus might be welcomed.

    But Radenkovic’s discretion about how exactly he got his shot could be warranted.

    Kosovo is not expected to get its first shipment of vaccines under the COVAX international distribution system for at least two months.

    Even then, it is expected to receive only enough doses for around one-fifth of the country’s residents.

    So Kosovo’s judicial authorities, faced with possibly hundreds of vaccinations in a handful of communities in the northern region bordering Serbia, want to know exactly who is vaccinating whom, with what, and on whose authority.

    Simple Deduction

    Regional prosecutors in Kosovo say they are collecting information for what could become criminal investigations that lead to prosecutions over the vaccine reports.

    “If we have evidence that [vaccines] are indeed smuggled — because use of these vaccines requires authorization — and if they are illegal, criminal proceedings will be instituted against those who did these things,” Shyqri Syla, the prosecutor in Mitrovica, told RFE/RL.

    They might not need to look very far.

    Unofficial reports suggest Zvecan was one of four northern Kosovar municipalities to have received about 50 doses of the Pfizer vaccine despite no authorization so far from Kosovar health and safety regulators.

    The others were North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, and Leposavic.

    Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced on December 25 that the vaccination of elderly residents in Lepasovic had begun and were imminent in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica.

    “Let’s protect them first and then the others,” Vucic said of elderly Serbs at a press conference at a military airport outside the Serbian capital, Belgrade, where he was welcoming a shipment of medical equipment from the United Arab Emirates.

    He has since said Serbia will continue to look after “its people in Kosovo.”

    Serbian authorities have not said whether they are continuing to vaccinate in Kosovo, a former province whose sovereignty Belgrade still rejects despite recognition from more than 115 countries.

    But an official in Gracanica, a Serbian-majority community near the Kosovar capital, Pristina, suggested that the Serbian Health Ministry was preparing to send vaccinations to that area.

    Mirjana Dimitrijevic, the director of a health facility in Gracanica, told RFE/RL that residents over the age of 65 were being surveyed to gauge interest in the Serbian vaccine.

    “We expect that after submitting this data to the competent institutions, we will receive the invitation for supply and will start distributing vaccines,” Dimitrejevic said.

    Pristina Appeals For Consequences

    In a Facebook post under the heading “Sanction Serbia’s Violations,” Kosovar Foreign Minister Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla called it a “clandestine intervention” in her country’s affairs and a “flagrant violation” of a 2015 agreement on rules governing the mutual recognition of pharmaceuticals.

    “Serbia and its top officials, with [its] recent actions as well as with ongoing violations, has endangered Kosovo’s state security and has therefore undermined the entire process and achievements of the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia in Washington, just as in Brussels,” she said in reference to international efforts to mediate a path to normalcy between Pristina and Belgrade.

    Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla (file photo)

    Meliza Haradinaj-Stublla (file photo)

    Kosovar’s caretaker prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, noted on December 26 the reported distribution of vaccines to “citizens in the north of the country” and suggested any such medicines had “entered through illegal channels.” He vowed that “Kosovo institutions will take the necessary legal measures against persons involved in this illegal activity such as drug smuggling.”

    Two days later — just as the European Commission adopted a 70 million-euro ($86 million) package for early Western Balkan access to EU coronavirus vaccines — Hoti suggested that EU Neighborhood and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi shared his “concerns” about the matter.

    World Health Organization (WHO) officials in Pristina have said a vaccine under COVAX, the UN public-health agency’s global distribution mechanism, is unlikely to arrive in Kosovo until the spring — early April at the latest.

    WHO experts say Kosovo currently lacks the technical infrastructure and trained medical staff needed to administer the vaccine.

    Hoti also said Varhelyi had “assured” him that a vaccine “will arrive in Kosovo at the same time as in other Western Balkan countries.”

    When asked by RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, Kosovar Health Minister Armend Zemaj last week declined to say whether Pristina was negotiating for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

    Acting Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on December 29 called vaccines already imported from Serbia a violation of agreements within the international normalization efforts but also suggested they bespoke “a lack of preparation on the part of our institutions.”

    Kosovars, including those in the north, should be “notified [as to] when they should expect vaccines from health institutions of Kosovo.”

    Vjosa Osmani (file photo)

    Vjosa Osmani (file photo)

    “I think we have delays that should not be justified,” Osmani told reporters. “Other countries in the region are ahead of us, so we must and will demand responsibility from the government for why we are not prepared and it is expected that, in all likelihood, vaccines will arrive sometime after April.”

    She also said that in addition to any COVAX vaccines, Kosovo’s government should be trying to obtain vaccines from other EU countries.

    Political Preening?

    Although the numbers are slippery, at least 100,000 or so of Kosovo’s residents are ethnic Serbs, mostly in the north but also in scattered communities in the south.

    Belgrade maintains a shadow health-care system in many of those regions.

    Serbia, a regional economic power, led the area in kicking off its vaccination effort thanks to the arrival of nearly 5,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech serum on December 22.

    Two days later, it became the third country in Europe to start inoculating with the Pfizer vaccine, after the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

    Its use everywhere but Switzerland has so far relied on emergency-use authorizations following extensive testing.

    Serbia is currently testing the Russian-made Sputnik-V vaccine and has reportedly been negotiating for Sinopharm’s Chinese vaccine.

    While it is unclear if or when regulatory approval might come from Serbian laboratories, concerns about a lack of testing and transparency have dogged the Russian vaccine in particular.

    Is Serbia's Vucic playing politics with vaccines?

    Is Serbia’s Vucic playing politics with vaccines?

    Vucic, who burnished his ultranationalist credentials opposing Kosovo’s bid for independence in the 1990s, cultivates strong formal and informal ties between Serbia’s government and ethnic Serbian communities in Kosovo and other neighboring countries.

    Arton Demhasaj, director of the Kosovo-based NGO Cohu!, a think tank that promotes democracy and anti-corruption efforts, said he believed Vucic’s apparent vaccination politics in northern Kosovo were aimed at provoking Pristina.

    “He now expects institutional reactions from Kosovo and then this will be used in the international arena as ‘Lo and behold, even for a humanitarian intervention for Serb citizens in Kosovo, these are the reactions,’” Demhasaj told RFE/RL.

    He suggested that even securing the vaccine so quickly — even ahead of many EU countries — was part of a deliberate political show on Vucic’s part.

    “First bring it to Kosovo and wait for the reaction of our institutions, and then use that politically,” Demhasaj said. “I think this shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.”

    Written by Andy Heil based on reporting by Bekim Bislimi of RFE/RL’s Balkan Service with contributions by Maja Ficovic from North Mitrovica and Sandra Cvetkovic from Gracanica

    IMAGE:
    https://gdb.rferl.org/29e1465a-c5a3-4c05-9813-376db860f2be.jpg

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kosovo Is Losing Its Biggest Supporter In Congress. But It May Be Too Early For Serbia To Celebrate.

    WASHINGTON — Kosovo will lose its biggest supporter in the U.S. Congress when Representative Eliot Engel leaves Capitol Hill in January after more than three decades in office.

    Engel, a Democrat, has represented parts of the Bronx — a New York City borough with a large and politically active ethnic Albanian population — since 1989 and was a leader in Congress gathering support for recognition of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia in 2008.

    His unwavering support for Kosovo through the decades has made him a celebrity in the predominantly ethnic Albanian republic, which has been recognized by some 115 countries.

    Kosovo has named a street and a highway in honor of Engel and even issued a stamp with his image. Conversely, all of this has made him a controversial figure in Serbia, which still refuses to accept the loss of its former province and lobbies against its recognition by the international community.

    But Engel’s departure from the House of Representatives — where he most recently chaired the lower chamber’s Foreign Affairs Committee, using his formidable position to chastise Belgrade and defend Kosovo — might not be an occasion for Serbia to rejoice.

    Kosovo's then-speaker of parliament, Kadri Veseli, meets in Washington with Eliot Engel in 2019.

    Kosovo’s then-speaker of parliament, Kadri Veseli, meets in Washington with Eliot Engel in 2019.

    Engel, 73, has said he has no plans to retire following his surprise defeat to a school principal in the Democratic primaries earlier this year. He said he has been asked if he wants to be an ambassador or undersecretary in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden and is considering his options, raising the question of whether he might continue to influence U.S. Balkan policy.

    “[There are] lots of different things I could do…. I’m not going to make any decisions right now, but, you know, I’m thinking about it,” he told the Washington Examiner in early December. “Maybe do something with the administration…. Some people have suggested perhaps I could be an ambassador.”

    Balkan Passion

    Though Engel is keeping his cards close to his chest regarding his future plans, he recently demonstrated where his policy interests lie during one of his last House Foreign Affairs Committee hearings.

    “Little did I know the passion I would develop for a small corner of Europe called the Balkans,” Engel said on December 8 as he kicked off a hearing he called to give policy recommendations to the incoming Biden administration on the region.

    “I’ve traveled to every country in the Western Balkans several times, met with so many leaders from so many parties, and come to love the rich variety of cultures, ethnicities, and religions,” he said.

    “But no place has touched my heart more than Kosovo,” he said in an introduction that often touched upon his leading role in U.S. Balkan policy over the decades.

    Engel’s decision to hold a hearing in his waning days in Congress on a part of Europe that rarely makes headlines in the United States — amid more immediate national security concerns such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea — was noteworthy, observers said.

    Eliot Engel holds a joint press conference with then-Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj in Pristina in November 2017.

    Eliot Engel holds a joint press conference with then-Kosovar Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj in Pristina in November 2017.

    “The hearing was meant to cement Engel’s legacy in the Balkans, especially with respect to Kosovo,” said Dan Vajdich, who covered Europe and Eurasia for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now advises the Serbian Chamber of Commerce on attracting American investment to Serbia and the Western Balkans.

    Engel entered Congress just as Yugoslavia was breaking up violently along ethnic lines, and he immersed himself in the many regional disputes through his seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, eventually earning a reputation as a Balkan expert.

    He was among the first U.S. lawmakers to call on the administration of President Bill Clinton to intervene in 1998 to stop Yugoslav and Serbian forces in Kosovo and was arguably the most outspoken advocate in Congress for U.S. recognition of the country’s independence a decade later.

    Engel continues to fight for justice for the Bytyqi brothers, three Albanian-Americans who fought on the side of the Kosovar rebels and were summarily executed by Serb police in 1999. Their killers have not been prosecuted.

    “As all of you know, Elliott has been Kosovo’s greatest champion in the United States Congress,” Representative Kevin McCarthy (Republican-California), the ranking minority member on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the December 8 House of Representatives hearing.

    Balkan Ambassadorships?

    With Engel possibly looking at ambassadorships, some have speculated whether a Balkan role could be in the cards for the outgoing lawmaker.

    Balkan postings will likely open up by early 2022 as U.S. ambassadors in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina reach the typical three-year term limit for service in a country.

    The Biden administration may also appoint special envoys to the region, including for Serbia-Kosovo talks.

    Engel would not be good news for negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade. He has become too biased, too one-sided, and he is totally out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Serbia.”

    Washington is still focused on solving the unresolved dispute between Serbia and Kosovo over the latter’s recognition, which would open the door for both countries to move closer to EU membership and potentially even NATO.

    Washington is also pushing for constitutional reform in Bosnia with the aim of maintaining its territorial integrity amid threats by Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s ethnic Serb entity, to secede.

    Tim Mulvey, communications director for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declined to comment on whether Engel is interested in ambassadorial postings or being appointed as a special envoy in the Balkans.

    Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a former U.S. ambassador, told RFE/RL that someone of Engel’s stature would more likely be tapped to head a large embassy in a Western European capital like London or Berlin rather than a small posting in the Balkans.

    Jelena Milic, director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, said Serbia would view it as a setback if Engel became involved in Serbia-Kosovo peace talks, due to his close ties to Pristina. For the same reason, she also doubted he would make a positive impact on regional issues if we were appointed as ambassador to Kosovo or Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    “Engel would not be good news for negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade,” she said. “He has become too biased, too one-sided, and he is totally out of touch with what is happening on the ground in Serbia. He still views Serbia through [the prism of] the 1990s,” she said.

    Milic said the December 8 House hearing was a case in point.

    Engel highlighted some of Serbia’s shortcomings, including its failure to prosecute war criminals, a rollback of democracy under President Aleksandr Vucic, and the country’s close military ties to Russia. The lawmaker also criticized current U.S policy on Kosovo as too beholden to Serbia.

    “Too often we deal with Kosovo as [an offshoot] of the dialogue with Serbia. We subsume our bilateral ties to such an extent that we, the United States, are limiting Kosovo’s choices to avoid offending Belgrade,” Engel said.

    Eliot was a singular champion on Kosovo. He didn’t really have any peers. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t others that will emerge [in Congress].”

    Many Balkan analysts in the United States say Engel was right to highlight those issues.

    But Milic said Engel distorted the perception of Serbia and failed to acknowledge some “positive changes” that have occurred over the years, listing respect for Bosnia’s territorial integrity and what she termed “cooperation” with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), despite Belgrade’s failure to extradite criminal suspects to The Hague. She also said Engel had downplayed the deaths of 2,000 Serbians during the 1999 Kosovo War.

    Vajdich said Engel’s comments make it “politically difficult” for politicians in Belgrade to advocate for stronger ties with the United States and are used by Russia for propaganda purposes to build a divide between Serbia and the West.

    “The Russian messaging is that America will never accept you and all it cares about is Kosovo. And it resonates with the average Serb,” he said.

    Neumann said Serbian opposition to Engel would be “germane” in debating who to tap as an envoy to peace talks.

    “If one of the parties is very negative, that would not help the work of a special envoy,” he said.

    Janusz Bugajski, a Balkan expert at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, said Engel could still do work in the Biden administration on the Balkans that is not tied to Serbia-Kosovo peace talks, such as working with the Europeans on combating Russian and Chinese influence in the region. Engel, he pointed out, has extensive experience with transatlantic relations.

    Engel speaks to the Kosovar parliament in July 2015.

    Engel speaks to the Kosovar parliament in July 2015.

    “There are many possibilities” for Engel in a Biden administration, some of which would be “more sensitive vis-a-vis Belgrade,” he said.

    No Loss For Kosovo?

    Tanya Domi, a Balkan expert at Columbia University who previously worked on Balkan policy for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said she doesn’t expect Engel’s departure to weaken U.S. support for Kosovo.

    Engel, she said, may have become so outspoken on Kosovo and other Balkan issues in part because White House attention to the region had declined over the years.

    That changed at the end of Donald Trump’s administration with the 2019 appointment of Richard Grenell as special envoy for the Serbia and Kosovo talks and the signing of a deal in September to normalize economic relations.

    That trend is likely to continue under Biden, who knows the region firsthand from his days on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    Domi predicted that Biden is likely to take up the cause of the region more aggressively than previous presidents.

    “Eliot was a singular champion on Kosovo. He didn’t really have any peers,” Domi said. “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t others that will emerge [in Congress]. And this loss will be offset by a Biden State Department that is going to be very forward-leaning on the Balkans,” she said.

    Engels will be replaced as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee by Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York), who will take the reins on January 6 when the Congress that was elected on November 3 meets for the first time.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Speed-Picking Bosnian Emigre Named ‘Electric Guitarist Of The Year’

    Thirty-nine-year-old Igor Paspalj didn’t necessarily do it to the same drumbeat as millions of other former Yugoslavs.

    But the tattooed, bare-sleeved music teacher and session guitarist has picked and bent his way to global recognition at the top of his craft.

    An emigre whose love for his music and gigging took him from the Balkans to Dubai six years ago, Paspalj was named Electric Guitarist Of The Year this month by specialist magazines Guitar World and Guitar Player.

    While it’s no Grammy, Paspalj said it’s a “great accolade for me, personally,” because like so many of his counterparts around the world, he was a big fan of those publications, which shaped his musical worldview when he was young.

    “I was surprised they even nominated me among the top five and when they declared me the winner I was really happy for the simple reason that I grew up on those magazines,” Paspalj, who was raised in the Bosnian city of Banja Luka, told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service. “I read them as a boy, like all guitarists who grew up with access to them.”

    The magazines pick their annual winners in several categories based on a poll of readers, staff, and input from three celebrity musicians.

    The judges this year were prog metal icon and Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci; Nita Strauss, who toured pre-pandemic with Alice Cooper; and John 5, formerly of both David Lee Roth’s and Marilyn Manson’s bands.

    Paspalj won with nearly four minutes of a string-bending, alternately soaring and racing rendition of Into The Blue.

    Many of the candidates for the award are longtime performers with hard-core followings on the growing market for online musical instruction but are mostly unknown to general audiences.

    The award was announced by Guitar World — along with other annual winners in categories for young guitarists, bassists, and even guitar teachers — on December 22.

    “With a playing style fueled by a strong cocktail of virtuoso influences – including Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Guthrie Govan — Igor displays exceptional instrumental dominance, as well as an unparalleled compositional ability,” the magazine said.

    Paspalj was born in Zagreb but as a young boy moved in 1991 to Prijedor, in what is now a majority ethnic Serb region in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    That was shortly before the breakup of Yugoslavia that sparked deadly wars and a major exodus from the Balkans.

    He studied at the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka, the capital of the Republika Srpska entity that along with the Bosniak and Croat federation makes up Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    Igor Paspalj

    Igor Paspalj

    Paspalj went on to get his master’s degree in theory and harmonics and teach at the same academy. He also made a collaborative and a solo album and held music classes all over the world.

    Paspalj has been in Dubai since 2014 lecturing on music and working as a session musician, performing at a feverish pace for what he suggested are better-paid gigs than what he can find in many places, including Bosnia.

    Paspalj estimated that he has had about 1,500 paid performances in the last five years — “probably the biggest advantage of Dubai” — and said he hoped his new award as the best in the world will bring more work.

    Speaking to RFE/RL in Banja Luka, Paspalj said the coronavirus pandemic had made traveling for work “three times as difficult.”

    He added that after the award was announced it had “already produced a few offers in the last two days, [and] I hope it brings a lot more engagements in the future.”

    Some of those new offers were from the United Kingdom and Canada, he said, in addition to Dubai.

    One of the admirers of his winning entry, Sasa Sibincic, proclaimed that “with your masterful cover performances you proved that rock ‘n’ roll is not dead, at least not in this part of the world!”

    “I sincerely hope so,” Paspalj said when asked if his success might inspire other Bosnian and Balkan musicians.

    “I’d really like many young musicians, if that’s their inspiration, if they’re lucky, from that area, to be there. Soon.”

    But he’s not especially well-informed on the Balkan music scene, he says, since he’s mostly been collaborating with bands from places such as the Philippines, Britain, and South Africa.

    Now, having spent the past two months back in Banja Luka, he’s reacquainting himself with new bands and old bandmates.

    “It’s hard to define where I get my inspiration from,” Paspalj told RFE/RL. “But guitar and music are everything I do professionally — it’s both a hobby and a calling. And I’m glad I have the opportunity to do what I love.”

    Written in Prague based on an interview by RFE/RL Balkan Service correspondent Milorad Milojevic in Banja Luka

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘War Minus The Shooting’: When Soviet Soccer Took On the Brits After World War II

    Tens of millions of people were dead. Cities and towns lay in rubble months after the bloodiest conflict the world had ever known. With much of Europe still reeling from World War II, it hardly seemed the time for games.

    But in November 1945, clubs from Great Britain, the cradle of the modern game of soccer, would host matches involving an unusual foe: Dynamo Moscow, champions of the Soviet Union.

    Interest would be high as the Soviet Union still basked in the glow of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany and British fans were eager to get a peek of such an exotic opponent.

    However, Cold War tensions were already percolating when Dynamo Moscow arrived, as Josef Stalin’s communist regime was occupying most of Eastern Europe. The tour would come months ahead of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s famous Iron Curtain speech, condemning the Soviet Union’s expansionist policies in Europe. As such, the game would take on political overtones. It was, George Orwell later said, “war minus the shooting.”

    And so, while British fans were eager to watch the Soviet side, British authorities were much less eager to accommodate them.

    The Foreign Office said that “it would take much more than a football match to break down the real barriers which the Soviet government firmly believes in.” Pressed by the British Embassy in Moscow, London ultimately acquiesced, but said Dynamo Moscow was being hosted not by the government but the British Football Association (FA).

    The Soviet delegation had its own list of demands, including that a Soviet referee call one match — a game against Arsenal — and that all team meals take place at the Soviet Embassy, ostensibly because they feared the British might poison them. Moscow also insisted that revenue from the tour be split 50-50, a demand that was met.

    Four games were finally scheduled, against London clubs Arsenal and Chelsea, Welsh side Cardiff City, and the Scottish team Glasgow Rangers.

    Dynamo Moscow players (in dark) attack the Chelsea goal during the match at Stamford Bridge, London, on November 13, 1945.

    Dynamo Moscow players (in dark) attack the Chelsea goal during the match at Stamford Bridge, London, on November 13, 1945.

    The tour started inauspiciously in November, 1945. The FA angered Dynamo Moscow by first accommodating the team in a military barracks in central London without pillows or sheets, before scrambling to book them in a fancy hotel.

    British press reports hinted that the local teams and their fans had little to fear. “Don’t expect much from Dynamo. They are only beginners, blue-collars, amateurs,” the London newspaper Evening Standard wrote.

    That blasé attitude contrasted with Soviet awe.

    “Until those games, we only knew that England was the motherland of football, that English football was the best in the world,” Dynamo Moscow forward Konstantin Beskov said in a 2001 documentary, More Than Just Football.

    Leonid Solovyov, a Dynamo midfielder, remembered, “They told us that Englishmen are awesome, that they can carry the ball across the fields on their heads.”

    At the same time, the Dynamo players were also aware of the pressure to positively represent the Soviet Union, which would use sports over the coming decades to illustrate the ostensible superiority of the communist system.

    “It would have been a disgrace if we had come back to Moscow defeated. We would have been ashamed to show our faces in public,” Beskov recalled. In the end, Dynamo won two matches and drew the other two.

    The visitors’ first match, against Chelsea, took place on November 13. Some 75,000 tickets were sold but at least 100,000 fans turned up, packing Stamford Bridge stadium to the rafters. The sheer weight of the crowd literally led to gates around the grounds crashing to the ground.

    British Labour Party politician Albert Victor Alexander greets members of the Dynamo Moscow team before their game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

    British Labour Party politician Albert Victor Alexander greets members of the Dynamo Moscow team before their game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

    Before kickoff, Dynamo players handed bouquets of flowers to their bemused opponents, who were empty-handed and not used to such gestures.

    Dynamo Moscow players walk out onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge carrying bouquets for their Chelsea opponents.

    Dynamo Moscow players walk out onto the pitch at Stamford Bridge carrying bouquets for their Chelsea opponents.

    On the field, powerhouse Chelsea took a quick 2-0 lead, as Dynamo players appeared awed by the amped-up audience — a change from the sedate and somber supporters they were used to at home. But the Soviet side shook off the early jitters and, supported by strong goalkeeping from Aleksei Khomich, fought back to earn a 3-3 tie.

    After the match, Chelsea players tipped their hats to Dynamo, expressing their own awe. “Dynamo were one of the fastest teams I have ever seen in my life. They flash the ball from man to man in bewildering fashion, often while standing still,” defender Tommy Lawton said.

    Later, Orwell wrote that “Dynamo is one of the fastest teams I’ve ever seen. They passed the ball while we were standing.”

    Up next on November 19 was Cardiff City, then a third-division team, which Dynamo trounced 10-1 in a game broadcast live by Radio Moscow.

    With socialist sympathy relatively high among the coal miners and steelworkers of South Wales, Cardiff warmly welcomed their Soviet visitors, hoisting the hammer-and-sickle flag above city hall and gifting each player a commemorative miner’s lamp.

    Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper Aleksei Khomich kicks the ball up-field at Cardiff City's Ninian Park ground during his team's British tour. Cardiff lost 10-1.

    Dynamo Moscow goalkeeper Aleksei Khomich kicks the ball up-field at Cardiff City’s Ninian Park ground during his team’s British tour. Cardiff lost 10-1.

    On November 21, Dynamo faced Arsenal, which suited up “guest” players to replace regular squad members still serving in the armed forces. Among the additions was future legend Stanley Matthews, who in the 1960s would become the first player to be knighted.

    Suspecting they were facing an English all-star team, the Soviet delegation insisted the match be officiated by their Russian referee, Nikolai Latyshev.

    Arsenal’s home, Highbury, was still being used as an air-raid precaution center, so the match was played at Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium, White Hart Lane.

    Lines of fans formed overnight, and police began letting them in the morning of the match.

    But with fog blanketing most of London that day, few in the stands — or on the field, for that matter — could see much of the action. Latyshev was accused by Arsenal and British soccer heads of several dubious calls, including calling back what appeared to be a legitimate Arsenal goal. The game, dubbed “the farce in the fog” by the British, ended with Dynamo winning 4-3.

    Soviet soccer legends Konstantin Beskov (left) and Vsevolod Bobrov did most of the scoring in Britain for Dynamo.

    Soviet soccer legends Konstantin Beskov (left) and Vsevolod Bobrov did most of the scoring in Britain for Dynamo.

    Scotland was the last stop for the Soviet side, which faced Glasgow Rangers at Ibrox Stadium on November 28. Tickets were sold on the black market for as much as 10 pounds –10 times their face value.

    The game ended 3-3 and witnessed what some later called the goal of the tournament, scored by Vasily Kartsev after a passing sequence between Beskov and Vsevolod Bobrov. It was “as perfect a goal as has ever been scored at Ibrox,” The Daily Telegraph said.

    Dynamo Moscow’s return home “resembled scenes reminiscent of soldiers returning from war — as they had done just months earlier,” Russian sportswriter Vladislav Ryabov wrote.

    Dynamo left its mark on soccer fans in Britain as well — in a way that was summed up by Sir Stanley Matthews, the knighted former player nicknamed the Wizard of Dribble.

    “Many years passed since we first met the Russian football players,” he would later recount. “Since then, in the hearts of everyone who lived in those days, the words Dynamo Moscow are associated with the concept of class football.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Iran’s Zam And Other Sons Of The Islamic Republic Who Rebelled Against The Clerical Regime

    Ruhollah Zam’s father, a cleric who served as the head of Iran’s state propaganda agency in the 1980s, named him after the leader of the 1979 revolution and the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

    But as an adult, Zam turned against the clerical establishment that was created by his infamous namesake.

    Zam’s opposition activities — including his popular Amadnews Telegram channel with its more than 1 million followers — cost him his life as Iranian officials accused the channel of fomenting violence during the December 2017-January 2018 mass protests.

    Zam, who chose for himself the name Nima instead of Ruhollah, was hanged on December 12 after being convicted on the vague charge of “corruption on Earth.” The criminal charge is used against dissidents, spies, and for those who attempt to overthrow the Islamic establishment.

    Zam was 42 years old.

    In 2019, Zam was reportedly lured — under unclear circumstances — to Iraq from Paris, where he was living in exile. He was believed to have been captured by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and taken to Iran where he was put on a trial and sentenced to death.

    Zam is just one of a number of sons and daughters of the Islamic republic who have rebelled against the system that was created by their fathers.

    Zam, who openly said he was working to take down the Islamic establishment that he accused of “robbing the country,” is believed to be the only one of those offspring who has been executed recently.

    His father, Mohammad Ali Zam, was not successful in protecting him from authorities or preventing his execution. The cleric wrote on Instagram that his son was even unaware that his death sentence had been upheld on appeal when the father and son met one day before he was hanged.

    Other prominent “rebels” include Khomeini’s oldest grandson, Hossein Khomeini, who used to be a vocal critic of what he considered the repressive system founded by his grandfather.

    In media interviews, he accused Iranian leaders of oppressing the people and violating human rights.

    Khomeini traveled to the U.S. in 2003 where he announced that Iranians want democracy and freedom while adding they have realized that religion should be kept separate from the state.

    He returned to Iran with his family in 2005 and was put under temporary house arrest in the holy city of Qom, according to some reports, but was not prosecuted.

    Media reports later suggested the restrictions had been lifted after his prominent relatives mediated on his behalf. In 2018, a Tehran University professor posted a photo with Hossein Khomeini writing the Islamic republic founder’s grandson was “busy teaching and discussing” in Qom.

    No Chip Off The Old Block

    The eldest son of former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai was also critical of the Iranian establishment. Ahmad Rezaei moved to the United States in 1988 where he blasted the clerical establishment in media interviews, accusing it of carrying out “terrorist attacks.”

    Ahmad Rezaei (right) with his father, former IRGC cmmander Mohsen Rezaei. (undated file photo)

    Ahmad Rezaei (right) with his father, former IRGC cmmander Mohsen Rezaei. (undated file photo)

    He returned to Iran in 2005 but did not face prosecution. Six years later he was found dead in a Dubai hotel. Some reports suggested that he had died of “an overdose of medicine.”

    Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, the daughter of one of the founders of the Islamic republic, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has also become an outspoken critic of the establishment.

    Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani is the daughter of the late Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (file photo)

    Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani is the daughter of the late Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (file photo)

    She has warned that the system her father helped create has been weakened and could face collapse. She has also said Iranian leaders have been “misusing” Islam to push their agenda forward.

    In a 2018 interview, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani said that “intimidation” and “fear” were the main things propping up the Islamic regime.

    She has been briefly detained a few times. In 2012, she was given a six-month jail term for “spreading propaganda against the system,” a charge often brought against critics and intellectuals.

    In 2016, Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani created controversy when she visited a former cellmate, a leader of the Baha’i community that has faced state persecution since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

    The meeting was described by powerful clerics as “despicable” and against norms amid calls for her prosecution. Her father was also critical of the meeting, describing the Baha’i faith that originated in Iran as a “deviant sect.” She later said in an interview that she didn’t regret the meeting.

    The division within families began in the early years of the revolution when some of the sons and relatives of Islamic republic officials joined groups such as the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO), which carried out a number of deadly attacks in the 1980s and later sided with Iraq during the bloody 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

    Among them is Hossein Jannati, one of the sons of the head of the powerful Guardians Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is also the chairman of the Assembly of Experts. That group is tasked with overseeing the work of the country’s supreme leader and choosing his successor.

    Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of Iran's assembly of experts.(file photo)

    Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the head of Iran’s assembly of experts.(file photo)

    According to some reports, Hossein Jannati was killed in clashes with security forces in 1981. His brother, former Culture Minister Ali Jannati, said in a 2017 interview that Ayatollah Jannati never expressed any grief over the death of his son, but adding: “he must definitely be very upset” over his fate.

    Another prominent case of a son straying from the views of his father is the son of the former Friday Prayers leader of Orumyeh, Gholam Reza Hassani, a member of the leftist Fedayin Khalq organization.

    In his 2005 memoirs, Hassani described how he helped authorities arrest his son, Rashid, in the 1980s. Rashid was executed shortly after his arrest.

    Hassani said he wasn’t saddened when he heard the news of Rashid’s execution because he felt he had carried out his duty.

    “When it comes to the Islamic Revolution, I will never balk at my duties, even if it comes to my son,” he said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Week’s Best: 10 RFE/RL Stories You Need To Read (Or Watch)

    Photo: Aleksei Vasilyev (Courtesy Photo)

    Hey, you’re busy! We know rferl.org isn’t the only website you read. And that it’s just possible you may have missed some of our most compelling journalism this week. To make sure you’re up-to-date, here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL’s team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.

    Aleksei Vasilyev is a Yakut photographer and a rising Instagram star with tens of thousands of followers. His most famous project, titled My Dear Yakutia, evokes what he calls the “magic realism” of this part of Russia’s Far North, where people and spirits seem to cohabitate in frozen spaces. Vasilyev shared his images with RFE/RL, along with stories from behind the scenes. By the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    As the government of Russian President and former Soviet KGB officer Vladimir Putin was marking the Day of State Security Agency Workers earlier this month, St. Petersburg artist Kirill Gorodetsky went public with his yearslong struggle to find out what happened to his great-grandfather, who disappeared without a trace in September 1941. By Tatyana Voltskaya and Robert Coalson

    Under the European Green Deal initiative, the European Union is aiming to reduce its net greenhouse-gas emissions to zero by 2050 and become “climate neutral.” That target poses a big challenge for EU member state Bulgaria, where 60 percent of the country’s power comes from plants that burn mostly coal. The managers of the Bobov Dol thermal plant are working on a survival plan to convert to cleaner energy sources and protect jobs. By RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service and Neil Bowdler

    A new RFE/RL investigation has identified at least $785 million in luxury European and U.S. real estate purchases made by relatives and family members of powerful former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev. By Mike Eckel and Sarah Alikhan

    Siberia’s Evenk region is larger than any European country but it is home to only around 17,000 people. It’s so vast and remote that scientists have spent decades searching and failing to find one of the largest meteorites ever to fall to Earth — the Tunguska meteorite. While this region has a relatively small population, the harmful impact of human activity can still be felt here. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia

    Video games can be found on the Internet that simulate military conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Some of these virtual missions take place in locations where documented atrocities were committed, though war crimes are never mentioned in the games. As extremists increasingly incorporate elements of video games into their propaganda, and even into their attacks, should gaming that attempts to rewrite history be restricted? By RFE/RL’s Balkan Service

    In the attic of an old house, artist Ihor Solodovnikov stumbled on a collection of 5,000 photographs taken by his grandfather, Ivan Lytvyn. The images preserve the faces of Ukrainian villagers in the postwar period and the folk traditions that were rarely, if ever, captured by official Soviet photographers. By RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service

    The authorities in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, have ordered a clampdown on what they say are illegally constructed homes on state-owned land, demolishing over a dozen houses in a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital. Nugzar Aluashvili and his six children live in the settlement and watched as the bulldozers moved in. Their plight caught the attention of their fellow Georgians on social media. By RFE/RL’s Georgian Service and Neil Bowdler

    The Circum-Baikal Railway was a feat of engineering when it was built during the reign of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II. Today, the route beside the world’s deepest lake is used more for tourism than for transport, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia

    As part of an occasional series on how the end-of-year holidays are observed in our broadcast region, we talked to RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service about how Christmas is celebrated in her country. Like many of their Central and Eastern European neighbors, the evening before Christmas is an event that is often just as important to Bulgarians as the day itself. By Coilin O’Connor and Teodora Barzakova

    ​

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Week’s Best: 10 RFE/RL Stories You Need To Read (Or Watch)

    Photo: Aleksei Vasilyev (Courtesy Photo)

    Hey, you’re busy! We know rferl.org isn’t the only website you read. And that it’s just possible you may have missed some of our most compelling journalism this week. To make sure you’re up-to-date, here are some of the highlights produced by RFE/RL’s team of correspondents, multimedia editors, and visual journalists over the past seven days.

    Aleksei Vasilyev is a Yakut photographer and a rising Instagram star with tens of thousands of followers. His most famous project, titled My Dear Yakutia, evokes what he calls the “magic realism” of this part of Russia’s Far North, where people and spirits seem to cohabitate in frozen spaces. Vasilyev shared his images with RFE/RL, along with stories from behind the scenes. By the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    As the government of Russian President and former Soviet KGB officer Vladimir Putin was marking the Day of State Security Agency Workers earlier this month, St. Petersburg artist Kirill Gorodetsky went public with his yearslong struggle to find out what happened to his great-grandfather, who disappeared without a trace in September 1941. By Tatyana Voltskaya and Robert Coalson

    Under the European Green Deal initiative, the European Union is aiming to reduce its net greenhouse-gas emissions to zero by 2050 and become “climate neutral.” That target poses a big challenge for EU member state Bulgaria, where 60 percent of the country’s power comes from plants that burn mostly coal. The managers of the Bobov Dol thermal plant are working on a survival plan to convert to cleaner energy sources and protect jobs. By RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service and Neil Bowdler

    A new RFE/RL investigation has identified at least $785 million in luxury European and U.S. real estate purchases made by relatives and family members of powerful former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev. By Mike Eckel and Sarah Alikhan

    Siberia’s Evenk region is larger than any European country but it is home to only around 17,000 people. It’s so vast and remote that scientists have spent decades searching and failing to find one of the largest meteorites ever to fall to Earth — the Tunguska meteorite. While this region has a relatively small population, the harmful impact of human activity can still be felt here. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia

    Video games can be found on the Internet that simulate military conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Some of these virtual missions take place in locations where documented atrocities were committed, though war crimes are never mentioned in the games. As extremists increasingly incorporate elements of video games into their propaganda, and even into their attacks, should gaming that attempts to rewrite history be restricted? By RFE/RL’s Balkan Service

    In the attic of an old house, artist Ihor Solodovnikov stumbled on a collection of 5,000 photographs taken by his grandfather, Ivan Lytvyn. The images preserve the faces of Ukrainian villagers in the postwar period and the folk traditions that were rarely, if ever, captured by official Soviet photographers. By RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service

    The authorities in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, have ordered a clampdown on what they say are illegally constructed homes on state-owned land, demolishing over a dozen houses in a small settlement on the outskirts of the capital. Nugzar Aluashvili and his six children live in the settlement and watched as the bulldozers moved in. Their plight caught the attention of their fellow Georgians on social media. By RFE/RL’s Georgian Service and Neil Bowdler

    The Circum-Baikal Railway was a feat of engineering when it was built during the reign of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II. Today, the route beside the world’s deepest lake is used more for tourism than for transport, but it still inspires visitors with its stunning views. By Harutyun Mansuryan and Current Time’s Unknown Russia

    As part of an occasional series on how the end-of-year holidays are observed in our broadcast region, we talked to RFE/RL’s Bulgarian Service about how Christmas is celebrated in her country. Like many of their Central and Eastern European neighbors, the evening before Christmas is an event that is often just as important to Bulgarians as the day itself. By Coilin O’Connor and Teodora Barzakova

    ​

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Grim Choice: Turkmen Warned Of Food Cutoffs Over Unpaid Utility Bills

    TURKMENABAT, Turkmenistan — As daily temperatures creep below freezing with the onset of winter, authorities in eastern Turkmenistan have warned families that they risk losing access to subsidized food if they don’t catch up on their utilities payments.

    The verbal warnings were issued to households in Lebap province in early December as the government launched a campaign to help state-run utilities collect unpaid bills, according to dozens of local residents who spoke to RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service.

    “Authorities have given people in our region until the end of December to pay any debts they have in utility bills,” said a resident of Darganata district. “But people can barely afford to buy bread, let alone to pay for gas and electricity.”

    Authorities in the Lebap region of Turkmenistan have given some residents until the end of December to pay any debts they have in utility bills.

    Authorities in the Lebap region of Turkmenistan have given some residents until the end of December to pay any debts they have in utility bills.

    The man and others who spoke to RFE/RL requested anonymity, saying that authorities punish those who speak to independent media.

    The outstanding debts are new to many Turkmen residents, as the former Soviet republic only ended government subsidies for gas, electricity, and drinking water a year ago.

    They also threaten to compound the effects of food shortages and economic malaise amid a coronavirus pandemic that Turkmen officials, almost uniquely in the world, still insist hasn’t caused any local infections.

    Villagers complain that, while they understand the need to pay for the energy they consume, many families spend almost all of their income on food and simply don’t have the resources to settle their debts.

    Income Struggles

    Many rural residents struggle to earn income outside of seasonal farming work, making it harder to catch up with bills in the off-season.

    Some rely on odd jobs they find in nearby cities or the remittances from family members working abroad in places like Turkey.

    But travel to cities, especially the capital, Ashgabat, has been restricted to combat the COVID-19 threat that is officially raging everywhere except Turkmenistan. (World Health Organization and other international officials have unsuccessfully urged Turkmen officials to be more forthcoming with coronavirus statistics.)

    Remittances have dried up, too, as nearby economies are hard-hit and supply chains interrupted by the ongoing pandemic.

    RFE/RL correspondents in Lebap’s Darganata and Farap districts were aware of at least 10 families who said they were unable to raise the money before the end-of-December deadline.

    Turkmen saw electricity and gas meters first installed in their homes in 2018, when the government announced it was going to end decades of major subsidies for electricity, gas, and drinking water as of the following year.

    Under a subsidies system introduced in 1993, every registered household member was entitled to 35 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 50 cubic meters of natural gas each month. The subsidies also included 250 liters of potable water per day per person.

    Turkmenistan’s economic woes caught up with it in 2014, after declining global fuel prices took a toll on the gas-rich Central Asian state’s budget.

    Many of its 6 million people have faced food price hikes and a shortage of foodstuffs for much of the past four years, although the authoritarian government in Ashgabat doesn’t acknowledge the existence of such hardship.

    The situation deteriorated further in 2020 after borders were closed and food imports were disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The retail price of flour has gone up by 50 percent and cooking oil by 130 percent in the past year.

    It is unclear whether authorities plan to act on their verbal warnings to deny access to subsidized food for those who don’t meet the deadline to settle their utility debts.

    Doing so could leave thousands of residents in the rural communities that were targeted facing acute hunger in the middle of winter.

    Loading up on supplies outside a state grocery store in Ashgabat. (file photo)

    Loading up on supplies outside a state grocery store in Ashgabat. (file photo)

    Many Turkmen buy staples including flour, bread, cooking oil, rice, sugar, and potatoes from state grocery shops where prices are sometimes one-sixth of what they are in private stores and bazaars.

    But the choice of goods in state-owned shops has become increasingly sparse, and supplies arrive in limited amounts.

    People often wait hours in long lines outside state stores that operate on a first come, first served basis. Many people go home empty-handed as limited supplies run out before their turn.

    In November, Ashgabat residents told RFE/RL that people in some neighborhoods were standing in line overnight to be at the front of the line when state-run shops opened at 7:00 the following morning.

    Food shortages have even sparked small public protests in Turkmenistan, where the government shows little tolerance for dissent and brutally clamps down on critics and opponents.

    On November 10, dozens of people gathered near the Garagum district government building in Mary Province to complain of a shortage of flour in local state shops.

    However, after a brief meeting with the crowd, district officials ordered the police to disperse the gathering. The authorities made no promise that they would try to resolve the problem.

    It was the second such protest in Mary Province this year. About 30 women briefly blocked a highway on April 3 before gathering in front of the Mary region’s government headquarters to protest food shortages.

    That rally ended when authorities promised the protesters two kilograms of flour each.

    Authorities haven’t publicly announced any plans for tackling the long-running food crisis in Turkmenistan, which has never held an election deemed fair and competitive by Western observers.

    Written by Farangis Najibullah with reporting by RFE/RL Turkmen Service correspondents in Lebap Province, Turkmenistan

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jab Wanted: Iranians’ Fears Skyrocket That They Won’t Get Access To COVID-19 Vaccines

    Amid the launch of mass COVID-19 vaccination drives in the West, there’s growing concern among Iranians that they could be left behind.

    They fear U.S. sanctions and what some regard as the Iranian clerical establishment’s failure to prioritize the well-being of its citizens.

    Iranians, including health workers, have taken to social media to call on their leaders to purchase vaccines against the coronavirus amid allegations by Iranian officials that U.S. sanctions are impeding their ability to procure them through COVAX, a global payment facility aimed at ensuring vaccine distribution around the world.

    The concern over Iranians’ access to vaccines was also highlighted in a December 22 statement by more than two dozen rights groups and humanitarian organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), who called on “all stakeholders to ensure that Iranians have swift, unencumbered, and equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable COVID-19 vaccines.”

    Without inoculations, many more Iranians are likely to die from the Middle East’s worst COVID-19 outbreak, which has already infected more than 1.1 million Iranians and claimed the lives of nearly 54,000, according to officials figures. Health officials have suggested that the country’s real coronavirus death toll could be twice that number.

    Sanctions

    Earlier this month, Iranian Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said in a social-media post that “inhumane sanctions by the U.S. government” were preventing the country from making any payment for vaccine doses via “the official channel of the World Health Organization (WHO).”

    Republican U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed stifling sanctions on Iran in 2018 after withdrawing the United States from a multilateral 2015 nuclear deal that exchanged sanctions relief for curbs on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

    Democratic President-elect Joe Biden has said the United States will rejoin the accord if Tehran returns to strict compliance, although there is at least one effort afoot among Republicans in the U.S. Senate to prevent that.

    A COVAX spokesperson was quoted as saying that Iran has received a license from the U.S. Treasury Department to procure vaccines and that Tehran does not face any “legal barrier.”

    Humanitarian goods, including medicine and food, are supposed to be exempt from U.S. sanctions. But HRW has documented that U.S. sanctions have constrained Iran’s ability to finance vital medicines.

    Esfandiyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of Bourse And Bazaar, an opinion website focused on Iran’s economy that promotes business diplomacy between European countries and Iran, told RFE/RL that he thought Iran was seeking to use foreign-exchange reserves held in South Korea to make payments through the COVAX facility.

    “U.S. sanctions exemptions and licenses technically permit these payments to be made for a humanitarian good such as vaccines. But there are only two banks that have engaged in Iran-related transactions since the tightening of oil-related sanctions in 2010: Woori Bank and Industrial Bank of Korea. And both banks have in the last decade come under significant pressure from U.S. authorities over their Iran business,” Batmanghelidj said.

    A patient being treated for coronavirus at a hospital in Tehran.

    A patient being treated for coronavirus at a hospital in Tehran.

    “It is possible that the Trump administration has explicitly told these banks not to process these payments, but even without such a directive, bank executives will be strongly inclined to wait until the Biden administration is in office before proceeding,” he added.

    HRW Iran researcher Tara Sepehrifar argued that the United States and Iran must work together to provide Iranians access to vaccines quickly, adding that humanitarian exemptions have been insufficient to ensure Iran’s access to medicine in a timely manner.

    “The U.S. Treasury should actively work with banks and financial mechanisms to ensure Iran’s money in the form of foreign currency can be used for purchasing vaccines,” Sepehrifar told RFE/RL.

    “Iranian authorities should prioritize Iranians’ right to health and do everything in their power to ensure Iranians access to safe and effective vaccines as soon as possible,” she added.

    Iranians Blaming Their Leaders

    Speaking on December 22, government spokesman Ali Rabiei suggested that part of Iran’s problem was self-inflicted.

    He pointed to a failure to comply with rules of the global anti-money-laundering- and anti-terrorism-funding task force — known as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) — that are opposed by the country’s hard-liners.

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently ordered a review of legislation that would bring the country into FATF compliance.

    “Based on sanction laws and FATF principles, several possibilities for transferring money encountered problems,” Rabiei said, adding that the FATF blacklisting of Iran is affecting the country’s financial dealings.

    Many Iranians have tweeted about the need to access vaccines quickly using the Farsi hashtag #Buy_vaccines. Some blamed their own leaders for any potential delay and accused them of prioritizing their own ambitions over the health of citizens.

    Among them was prominent former political prisoner Zia Nabavi, who said “[Iranian authorities] consider nuclear energy, but not the right to life, an inalienable right.”

    “When I see my parents who, in their 70s, have become so frustrated at not seeing their children and grandchildren for a long time, I can no longer remain silent and control myself,” economist Siamak Ghassemi wrote on social media.

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei

    “We know you well. Stop this self-sufficiency show and don’t [sacrifice] our lives for your own adventurism,” he added in an apparent reference to announcements by officials about working on Iranian vaccines and Tehrani officials’ long-running efforts to ensure stability despite Western isolation.

    A doctor in Tehran who did not want to be named said clinical trials for the Iranian vaccines have not started and added that the effort, even if successful, could take many more months.

    “For now, we have to rely on foreign vaccines,” he said.

    Speaking on December 23, President Hassan Rohani attempted to ease Iranians’ concerns.

    “We don’t have any worries for the future, even regarding the production of vaccines or the purchase of vaccines,” he said.

    Rohani added that the Central Bank and the Health Ministry were doing all they could to provide Iranians with vaccines.

    Mostafa Ghanei, the head of the scientific committee at Iran’s National Headquarters for Combating the Coronavirus, told the official news agency IRNA earlier this month that Iran was unlikely to purchase the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine due to its price tag and a local lack of infrastructure.

    But, without being specific, he suggested that the country has several other options.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • U.S. Sanctions Put Spotlight On Iran’s International Network Of Religious Seminaries

    Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran’s clerical establishment has used religious organizations to expand its clout abroad.

    Key among them is the Al-Mustafa International University, a network of religious seminaries based in the Shi’ite holy city of Qom that has branches in some 50 countries.

    The university claims to teach Shi’ite Muslim theology, Islamic science, and Iran’s national language, Persian, to tens of thousands of foreign students across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America.

    But Tehran’s adversaries say the university has been involved in espionage and recruited foreign fighters for Iran’s proxy war in Syria.

    For years, experts have documented the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) recruitment, training, and deployment of thousands of Shi’ite fighters to Syria to defend the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Tehran’s key ally in the brutal civil war that erupted in 2011.

    ‘Recruitment Platform’

    The United States imposed sanctions on the massive university network on December 8, alleging that it was involved in the recruitment of Afghan and Pakistani students to fight in the Syrian conflict.

    The U.S. Treasury Department said Iran’s elite Quds Force, the overseas operations arm of the IRGC, used the university’s foreign branches as a “recruitment platform” for “intelligence collection and operations,” including recruitment for pro-Iranian militias.

    The Treasury Department alleged that the Quds Force used the Al-Mustafa International University as a “cover” to recruit Afghans for the blacklisted Fatemiyoun Brigade, a pro-Iranian militia that fought in Syria.

    Moreover, Treasury said the Quds Force also used Al-Mustafa’s campus in Qom “as a recruitment ground” for Pakistani students to join the blacklisted Zeynabiyoun Brigade, a militia that consisted of Pakistani Shi’a.

    Treasury added that “multiple students from the university have been killed fighting in Syria.”

    In a statement on December 9, the university said it promoted “peace, friendship, and brotherhood among nations” and slammed the U.S. decision as “hegemonic.”

    ‘High-Value Individuals’

    Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington who has closely monitored IRGC activity in Syria, said that, according to his database from January 2012 to December 2020, 3,059 Iranian and allied foreign fighters were killed in combat in Syria.

    Alfoneh says of those, only three were students or graduates of the Al-Mustafa International University — known as Jamiat al-Mostafa University in Iran.

    “This indicates that Jamiat al-Mostafa has never served as the primary recruitment ground for the IRGC’s war effort in Syria,” he says.

    The IRGC recruited thousands of Afghan migrants and refugees within its own borders and covertly drafted hundreds of Shi’a inside Afghanistan. The same strategy was used to recruit Pakistanis.

    Alfoneh says the “three individuals identified appear to have been in command, intelligence, or political-ideological indoctrination positions.”

    That means, he said, that the IRGC perceived the graduates or students of the Al-Mustafa International University as “high-value individuals.”

    Regular fighters in the poorly trained forces of the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades were often used as the first line of attack.

    Alfoneh says the IRGC considered the Afghan fighters “cannon fodder,” considering the seemingly minor investment made to train them and the exposure they faced on the battlefield.

    The total number of Fatemiyoun members who fought in Syria is unclear. Experts estimate the number was between 5,000 to 20,000, although Alfoneh says the figure is likely closer to the lower figure cited.

    Iranian authorities said the fighters travelled to Syria voluntarily to defend Shi’ite holy sites. Human rights groups said Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran were offered financial rewards and Iranian residency permits to join the fight in Syria.

    The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates there to be some 3.5 million documented and undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants living in Iran. Tehran has expelled many Afghans and periodically threatens those who remain with mass expulsion.

    Afghan Commander

    Among the three Al-Mustafa students or graduates killed in Syria was Seyyed Hashmat-Ali Shah, a Pakistani national and graduate of Al-Mustafa. He was a member of the Zeynabiyoun Brigade and was killed in combat in Syria in September 2016.

    Another Pakistani national was Mohammad-Hossein Momeni, also known as Mohammad Hosseini, a student at Al-Mustafa who was killed in Syria in April 2017.

    A funeral is held in the Iranian city of Mashhad for four Afghan refugees who were killed in action in Syria. (file photo)

    A funeral is held in the Iranian city of Mashhad for four Afghan refugees who were killed in action in Syria. (file photo)

    The most prominent graduate of the university was Alireza Tivasolii, the Afghan commander of the Fatemiyoun Brigade.

    Also known as Abu Hamed, he was killed in 2015 during clashes with the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front in the southern Syrian province of Daraa.

    Tivasolii moved with his family to Iran during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Soon after, he volunteered for the Abouzar Brigade, an Afghan militia that had fought on Iran’s side in the war against Iraq.

    After the war ended in 1988, Tivasolii enrolled and then graduated from the Al-Mustafa International University in Qom.

    In the 1990s, he returned briefly to his native Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, which had seized large swaths of the country after the Soviet withdrawal and a devastating civil war.

    Tivasolii also fought alongside the Iranian-backed Hizballah movement in Lebanon during the war with Israel in 2006.

    In 2015, a large funeral was held for Tivasolii in his adopted city of Mashhad, in northwestern Iran. Iranian state media reported that Tivasolii was trusted by the former powerful commander of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. air strike in January 2020.

    Former Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani (left) with Afghan Alireza Tivasolii, commander of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, who was killed fighting in Syria: (undated)

    Former Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani (left) with Afghan Alireza Tivasolii, commander of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, who was killed fighting in Syria: (undated)

    The hard-line Rajanews.ir posted a photo of Soleimani and Tivasolii in military uniform.

    With the Syrian war ebbing, most fighters in the Fatemiyoun and Zeynabiyoun brigades have returned to Iran or their homelands.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Afghanistan’s Tolo News in an interview on December 21 that less than 2,000 Fatemiyoun fighters still remain in Syria.

    Afghan Branch

    It is unclear how U.S. sanctions will affect Al-Mustafa’s international activities.

    One of Al-Mustafa’s largest foreign branches is in neighboring Afghanistan, where the majority of Muslims are Sunni, but around 15 percent of its population — mainly Hazaras — are Shi’a with religious links to the Shi’ite-majority in Iran.

    Iran shares deep historical, cultural, and linguistic ties with Afghanistan, and it has expanded its sway in the country through the funding of seminaries, media outlets, cultural centers, and infrastructure projects.

    Members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade attend the funeral in Tehran for Major General Qasem Soleimani, Iran's top military commander. (file photo)

    Members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade attend the funeral in Tehran for Major General Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s top military commander. (file photo)

    Hundreds of students are enrolled at the local branch of the university — locally known as Jamiat ul-Mustafa — in the capital, Kabul.

    Afghanistan’s Higher Education Ministry told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that the Iranian university has “conducted its activities in accordance with the rules and regulations” of the ministry.

    But spokesman Hamid Obaidi said the ministry would soon “make a decision” about the university’s future in Afghanistan considering U.S. sanctions against Al-Mustafa.

    Exporting Shi’ism

    Observers say Al-Mustafa has become Iran’s chief tool for promoting Shi’ism abroad.

    The university received around $80 million in the 2020-2021 Iranian budget, serving to highlight its importance.

    Al-Mustafa is believed to receive additional funding from the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and businesses under his control.

    Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studied Shi’ite theology in Qom, said the Al-Mustafa International University is owned and run by Khamenei.

    Khalaji said Al-Mustafa “specializes in educating non-Iranian clerics.”

    Observers say Al-Mustafa spreads anti-Western and anti-Semitic propaganda, and its activities are seen to be tied to Tehran’s longstanding effort to export the Islamic Revolution.

    The university’s activities in Europe came under scrutiny in 2016 when an Iranian national in Kosovo was charged with financing terrorism.

    Hasan Azari Bejandi was the head of the Qur’an Foundation of Kosova, an umbrella group for five Shi’ite organizations operating in Kosovo. The umbrella group appeared to be affiliated with the Al-Mustafa National University, which claimed that Bejandi was its representative in Kosovo.

    Saeed Ghasseminejad and Alireza Nader at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) wrote that three religious organizations — the Islamic Development Organization, Al-Mustafa International University, and the Islamic Propaganda Office of Qom Seminary — play a “central role in projecting [Iran’s] influence abroad.”

    They said that the three organizations were focused on “training Shi’ite clerics, sending missionaries across the globe, and disseminating Shi’ite propaganda” with the goal of creating a “network of native missionaries in each country who are loyal to Tehran.”

    Iranian journalist and writer Akbar Ganji said that Al-Mustafa “harbors a huge army of potential sympathizers of ayatollahs who could spread their ideology around the globe.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Russian Watergate’: Russian Social Media Reacts After Navalny Dupes FSB Agent On His Poisoning

    Within 24 hours of being posted, Russian opposition figure Aleksei Navalny’s video report of a conversation in which a Federal Security Agency (FSB) chemist confesses to participating in Navalny’s poisoning with a deadly nerve agent in August racked up nearly 12 million views.

    A video report posted one week earlier that identified the FSB agents who tracked Navalny and purportedly attempted to assassinate him at least three times has been viewed nearly 19 million times.

    The shocking report, in which Navalny tricked FSB military chemist Konstantin Kudryavtsev into confessing that FSB agents smeared a toxin from the Novichok group in the oppositionist’s underwear in a hotel in Tomsk in a bid to kill him, lit up the Russian Internet.

    A full day after the video landed, Navalny’s name was still No. 2 on Twitter’s “Russia Trends” list. And St. Petersburg writer and journalist Tatyana Shorokhova wrote: “This was the day the entire Russian Facebook rumbled.”

    History In The Making

    “What Navalny did to the FSB with his investigations, in terms of the extent of the demoralization and humiliation of the employees of this ‘new aristocracy’ is comparable only to the historical moment when the monument to [Soviet secret police founder Feliks] Dzerzhinsky was dragged along the Lubyanka like a market girl by the hair “wrote the humorous Stalingulag account on Twitter, referring to the August 1991 toppling of the colossal Dzerzhinsky statue in front of Moscow’s KGB headquarters at Lubyanka.

    Moscow photographer Yevgeny Feldman also highlighted the potentially historic significance of the episode, writing on Twitter: “Russia’s Watergate: senseless and pitiless.”

    Russian politician Gennady Gudkov (file photo)

    Russian politician Gennady Gudkov (file photo)

    Former State Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov wrote on Facebook that Navalny’s investigations mean Russia “has entered a new phase in the recognition of the criminal character and complete amorality of the Putin regime…. Russia is ruled by a criminal band that has seized power and that in order to continue its usurpation is prepared to undertake openly monstrous crimes.”

    Time To Investigate?

    Other observers noted that the revelations would seem to put significant pressure on the government of President Vladimir Putin to open a criminal investigation into Navalny’s poisoning. Previously, the government had said there was no evidence of a crime and had insinuated that Navalny either poisoned himself or was poisoned after he was medically evacuated to Germany by Western security agents.

    Mikhail Khodorkovsky (file photo)

    Mikhail Khodorkovsky (file photo)

    “This is a serious business, but I was laughing my head off,” wrote former Russian oligarch and Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Twitter, addressing Putin by his first name and patronymic. “It looks like a criminal case will have to be opened after all, eh, Vladimir Vladimirovich?”

    On Facebook, journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, of The Insider, wrote: “Earlier we said: ‘Well, what more proof do you need? Do you insist that they personally confess to everything?’ Now look – they have confessed.”

    Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov (file photo)

    Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov (file photo)

    Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who also is a vocal critic of Putin, compared the Navalny case to the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in a post on Twitter: “Doing business as usual with Putin after this, like ignoring the Saudi murder of Khashoggi, just encourages more murders. It doesn’t matter if they get caught if they get to keep killing critics with impunity.”

    Politics Is All In The Timing

    Still other commentators noted that Navalny’s revelations come just days after Putin’s end-of-the-year marathon press conference. During the December 17 event, Putin denied that Russian agents had poisoned Navalny and dismissed the accusations as disinformation from the CIA.

    The humorous Twitter account Prof. Preobrazhensky noted that many more people have watched Navalny’s video than tuned in for Putin’s much-hyped Q-and-A session.

    Activist Mikhail Svetov praised the political acumen of Navalny’s timing in a post on Twitter: “The way that Navalny knows how to pick his moment deserves particular respect. He could have rushed and published the recording before Putin’s press conference. But he held on until afterward in order to give the Kremlin the chance to dig itself in still deeper. This is real politics.”

    Political commentator and former head of Gazprom-Media Alfred Kokh wrote on Facebook: “Putin was dissected like a complete sucker. A real professional should have assumed that his opponent had a trump card in reserve.”

    In a post on Facebook, Voronezh lawyer Vasily Shlykov was even more direct: “According to the codes of the Russian-speaking world, any officer and soldier who has sworn an oath to the Fatherland must, after such a thing, shoot himself. Putin is an officer! Russia has never seen such a shameful thing!!”

    Journalist Roman Super voiced the general surprise at the low level of professionalism the FSB agents allegedly involved in the case seemed to show: “In just 20 years, [Putin] destroyed all state institutions in general, not even sparing the State Security Committee [KGB] that pushed him to the zenith of this beautiful Russian chaos. But still he understands nothing. That is talent.”

    Meanwhile…

    The day after the Navalny video appeared, Russia’s state news agency TASS cited a survey from the Kremlin-friendly All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) in which a plurality of Russians named Vladimir Putin “2020’s politician of the year.”

    Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Ivan Belyayev.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Big Houses, Deep Pockets: The Nazarbaev Family’s Opulent Offshore Real Estate Empire

    GENEVA – In the gentle dawn of Switzerland’s late summer, Lake Geneva’s ripples lap against the properties on the eastern shore in the suburb of Anières, home to diplomats, bankers, and well-to-do Swiss.

    Some of the buildings are understated in their wealth, with slate shingles or mansard roofs or Corinthian columns. Some have gazebos on manicured lawns looking west to the Jura Mountains, or docks where motorboats and kayaks are parked. Many have gates and surveillance cameras to protect from curious passersby.

    And then there’s the property at No. 399 Route D’Hermance: a 3,200-square-meter three-level villa with a butterfly staircase, a 25-meter indoor-outdoor swimming pool, spa, guest quarters, and terraced landscaping.

    In an area known for having some of the most expensive housing in the region, it’s an exceptional property.

    The owner of the estate, according to Swiss property records, is Dinara Kulibaeva, the daughter of Kazakhstan’s longtime ruler, Nursultan Nazarbaev. She and her husband, Timur Kulibaev, who are among Kazakhstan’s wealthiest people, purchased the villa in 2009 for a reported $75 million.

    And they are among several immediate and extended relatives of Nazarbaev who own lavish real estate in the West.

    Over the past two decades, relatives of Nazarbaev have purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in posh real estate in Europe and the United States, a string of high-end properties on luxurious lakesides, amid Manhattan’s skyscrapers, London’s tony suburbs, and overlooking the azure waters of Spain’s Costa Brava.

    A new RFE/RL investigation provides the most comprehensive overview to date of the properties in this sprawling real estate network linked to Nazarbaev’s relatives, including two of his daughters, his grandsons, and his brother.

    The findings are not an exhaustive record of every foreign property owned by a relative of the former Kazakh president, who was officially granted the title “Leader of the Nation” in 2010 and currently serves as chairman of the country’s powerful Security Council and heads its ruling political party.


    Nursultan Nazarbaev

    But they offer an unprecedented window into the scale of the real estate investments by Nazarbaev’s relatives, and how many in close proximity to Kazakhstan’s ruling family ended up with luxury assets in exclusive locations.

    RFE/RL identified at least $785 million in European and U.S. real estate purchases made by Nazarbaev’s family members and their in-laws in six countries over a 20-year span. This figure includes a handful of properties that have since been sold, including multimillion-dollar apartments in the United States bought by Nazarbaev’s brother, Bolat. It does not include a sprawling Spanish estate owned by Kulibaev, for which a purchase price could not be found.

    These acquisitions have been funded by the vast fortunes Nazarbaev’s relatives have amassed in the oil-rich nation’s energy, banking, and other sectors, while at various times also serving in official government posts.

    Nazarbaev’s patronage is widely seen as crucial to the wealth built by his relatives, who have repeatedly and vehemently insisted they are successful businesspeople independent of their family and political connections.

    Prominent among those is Kulibaev, who has been dogged for years by accusations that his wealth, mainly from his work in the oil-and-gas industry, derives from his familial relations. The Financial Times on December 2 said it had uncovered a secret scheme that allegedly channeled tens of millions of dollars from contracts related to a massive gas pipeline to China to Kulibaev. His lawyers denied specifics of the report to the Financial Times and did not respond to queries from RFE/RL.

    Several of these properties documented by RFE/RL have been the subject of legal challenges, including permitting disputes, an acrimonious divorce, and British freezing orders on three London residences that were later overturned by a court.

    The investments in pricey foreign properties also come against the backdrop of the country’s overall increase in national wealth since the Soviet collapse. This increased prosperity has lifted livelihoods for many average Kazakhs — but it has also helped the politically connected elite transform into jet-setting tycoons and fodder for newspaper gossip pages.

    And with 80-year-old Nazarbaev in his twilight, there’s a growing uncertainty about what, and who, will succeed him when he fully departs from Kazakh politics — and what might happen to the fortunes of those closest to him.

    “The system is so brittle. The political economy that Nazarbaev has built, it’s built on one man,” said Kate Mallinson, a London-based consultant and researcher of Central Asian politics.

    His relatives and closest allies have “hedged the bets on the future, not knowing what will happen — and so they’ve had to put assets outside the country,” Mallinson told RFE/RL.

    Yevgeniy Zhovtis, the head of Kazakhstan’s oldest and largest human-rights organization, said “it is hard to separate the government from the [Nazarbaev] family” and “hard to say how it will be in Kazakhstan” after Nazarbaev dies.

    “You cannot rely on protection from the rule of law when you live in such political systems,” Zhovtis said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Shots Ring Out: On The Front Line In A Divided Karabakh Village

    TAGHAVARD, Nagorno-Karabakh — The war in Nagorno-Karabakh may be over, but the gunfights are not.

    The village of Taghavard lies at the end of a winding road 45 minutes southeast of Stepanakert, the main city in Nagorno-Karabakh and the capital of the ethnic Armenians’ self-declared Republic of Artsakh.

    Taghavard is a sprawling place that had about 1,300 inhabitants before the war started in September. The rickety village’s houses stretch out for 4 kilometers along either side of the main road that defines the hamlet.

    Before one has traveled even half that distance, however, the tranquil rural scenery is interrupted.

    The road is suddenly cut off by a checkpoint manned by soldiers of the “Artsakh Defense Army” (as the self-proclaimed republic’s armed forces are known), and a sign indicating a minefield ahead.

    Just beyond the checkpoint lies the other half of the village — and the Azerbaijani soldiers who control it.

    “On October 27, a huge number of Azerbaijani soldiers entered the village,” says Oleg Harutiunian, 61, the mayor of the village. “We couldn’t hold our positions. We had to pull back.”

    Taghavard and its surroundings witnessed some of the heaviest fighting of the war. The nearby town of Karmir Shuka changed hands multiple times, as Azerbaijani soldiers entered the settlement only to be pushed back by spirited counterattacks by the ethnic Armenians (the town is still in Armenian hands).

    Hills just south of Taghavard that are held by Azerbaijani forces.

    Hills just south of Taghavard that are held by Azerbaijani forces.

    While Taghavard itself is nothing special, its position is: it lies astride the axis where Azerbaijani troops punched northwest towards Susa (Shushi in Armenian), the key central Karabakh city which overlooks Stepanakert. Susa’s capture on November 9 effectively marked the end of the war.

    Harutiunian reckons this singular Azerbaijani focus — to take Susa — is what enabled Armenian forces to retain control of the half of Taghavard they still hold. “[Azerbaijan] didn’t want this village,” he says. “They just needed the road to Shushi.”

    The corridor seized by Azerbaijani forces as part of their drive to Susa is indeed quite narrow. Near the entrance to Taghavard one can see an Azerbaijani camp, its blue-red-and-green flag waving conspicuously less than a kilometer away in the fields to the northwest.

    ‘I Could See My Own House On Fire’

    The November 10 truce deal that officially ended the fighting has had little meaning for the people of Taghavard.

    Harutiunian estimates the homes of some 600 of the village’s roughly 1,300 inhabitants are located in the Azerbaijani-held portion of the settlement. Many of them are likely no longer standing.

    “[The Azerbaijanis] burned the houses after they entered [the village],” Harutiunian says. “From over here, I could see my own house on fire.”

    The village head now lives in Stepanakert, from where he commutes to Taghavard daily to work on what’s left of the village.

    Very few of Taghavard’s residents have been able to return. The only people visible on the road or at the village administration are men, volunteers in the local militia.

    Oleg Harutiunian, the mayor of Taghavard

    Oleg Harutiunian, the mayor of Taghavard

    “Almost none of the women and children have been able to come back,” says Harutiunian. “How can they be safe? The Azerbaijanis are right there,” he says, pointing to a hillside barely 500 meters away. Two Azerbaijani soldiers are visible there, standing in front of a ruined building.

    The danger Harutiunian speaks of is not speculative. Several times while talking during his interview, cracks of gunshot can be heard.

    Ethnic Armenian soldiers in the village are billeted in an abandoned house near the checkpoint on the front line. In a brief conversation before their superiors arrive and forbid them from saying more, they confirm that the cease-fire is not holding here.

    “The Azerbaijanis have been firing at us all day,” says Artur, 20. “We have not returned fire but we have suffered casualties.”

    “It’s a sniper war now,” says another young soldier who does not want to give his name.

    Russia’s peacekeeping contingent, stretched thin along a line of contact that extends for roughly 300 kilometers around the remainder of Armenian-held territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, is not present in Taghavard.

    The Russians’ nearest position — a small checkpoint with a dozen soldiers and two BTR infantry fighting vehicles — is more than 5 kilometers away.

    “The Russians aren’t here,” Harutiunian confirms. “I don’t know why. There is just the flag,” he says, gesturing to a Russian tricolor hanging across the middle of the no-man’s-land minefield that marks where Armenian control ends and the Azerbaijani presence begins.

    Confusion reigns over where the lines of control throughout southern Karabakh are supposed to be.

    The tripartite agreement signed on November 10 stipulates in its first clause that both Armenian and Azerbaijani forces “shall stop in their current positions.” But this has not stopped the more numerous and better equipped Azerbaijan troops from attempting to seize additional land.

    On December 12, Azerbaijani troops attacked the villages of Hin Tagher (Kohne Taglar in Azeri) and Khtsaberd (Caylaqqala), two Armenian-held settlements about 30 kilometers south of Stepanakert that were not captured during the war. An estimated 73 ethnic Armenian servicemen were taken prisoner as a result, and the head of Hin Tagher later confirmed that Azerbaijan had taken control of the village.

    Russian peacekeepers were not in the area before the attack. While a contingent of Russians later arrived and negotiations are ongoing over the final status of the villages, the incident poses a major challenge to the effectiveness of the Russian peacekeeping mission.

    Harutiunian, meanwhile, remains confident that negotiations will resolve the situation in his village in Armenia’s favor.

    “I talked to the head of the Martuni region,” he says, referring to the Artsakh “province” to which Taghavard belongs. “He is in close contact with the Russians and he assures me we will get the rest [of the village] back.”

    If this does not occur and the village remains split, it is difficult to see how ethnic Armenian civilians will be able to return to it.

    “Of course no one will live here with the enemy right there,” scoffs Harutiunian. “No one will return to Karmir Shuka either,” he adds, referring to the nearby town of 2,000 prewar inhabitants that was heavily damaged in the fighting.

    Harutiunian’s remark is punctuated but yet another gunshot ringing out in the distance.

    The village of Taghavard appears to merely be part of the latest front line in this more than 30-year old conflict.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Week In Russia: Something Old, Something New, Something Not So Fluffy

    At his annual press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin rehearsed grievances he has aired about Washington and the West since the early years of this century.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Putin’s Press Conference: What He Said And Didn’t Quite Say

    At his year-end press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated long-standing complaints about the West and avoided direct answers to several questions, steering clear of even uttering the name of poisoned Kremlin foe Aleksei Navalny.

    But he did address that issue and others, including a report that chipped away at the secrecy surrounding his own family, the future of ties with the incoming U.S. administration, and prospects for arms control.

    He also gave a full-throated defense of his man in Chechnya, accused rights abuser Ramzan Kadyrov, and fielded questions ranging from “are we in a new cold war” to “what is the secret of family happiness?”

    Here are some of the most telling — or bewildering — moments in the four and a half hour marathon.

    ‘The Patient In The Berlin Clinic’

    Putin’s appearance before the press corps came three days after a bombshell investigation by the open-source research group Bellingcat about the poisoning in August of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. Among other things, the report — which was done jointly with The Insider, Der Spiegel, and CNN — found that Federal Security Service (FSB) agents with training in chemical weapons and toxins had trailed Navalny to the Siberian city of Tomsk and had tried to poison him at least twice previously.

    After Navalny was medically evacuated from Siberia to Berlin, German authorities identified a substance from the Novichok nerve agent family as being the culprit — a substance similar to one that was created by Soviet scientists and used previously in 2018 in England against former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

    Given how the Kremlin has tried to choreograph these events in the past, it was unclear at the start whether any reporters would be allowed to ask him about it at all. But the opportunity did arise in a question from a reporter with the Kremlin-friendly media outlet Life News.

    WATCH: Putin Responds To Navalny Poisoning Investigation With Baseless Claims Of U.S. Involvement

    As he has in the past, Putin first asserted, without evidence, that Bellingcat was a tool of U.S. intelligence agencies, saying it was “legalizing” information — meaning “laundering” it, airing it out in public through Bellingcat, its partners, and the other media reporting the story.

    “Listen, we know very well what this is…not some investigation, but the legalization of the materials of American special services,” Putin said.

    Putin, as has been his habit for years now, took great pains not to utter Navalny’s name: calling him “the patient in a Berlin clinic” and a “blogger” as he appeared to defend the surveillance of Navalny by Russian authorities in the first place.

    “What, we don’t know that [Western intelligence agencies] are tracking locations? Our intelligence services know this perfectly well: FSB officers and officers of other agencies know it. They use their phones where they deem it unnecessary to conceal their location. And if it’s like that — and it is — it means this patient in a Berlin clinic is enjoying the support of the U.S. intelligence services in this,” Putin said.

    “And if that’s correct, then that’s interesting, then, of course, the [Russian intelligence] services certainly should track him. But that doesn’t mean he needs to be poisoned. Who needs him?”

    Still, he added: “If they wanted to, they would have finished the job.”

    ‘It’s The Entourage That Makes The King’

    In 2016, Putin congratulated Donald Trump on winning the U.S. presidency just hours after polls closed in the United States, and after Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conceded the race.

    This year, Putin waited six weeks to congratulate former Vice President Joe Biden on his victory, waiting instead until the Electoral College had formalized his win.

    The contrast wasn’t missed by anyone. Particularly because during that six-week interval, Putin offered commentary on the U.S. election process, claiming it was flawed.

    Now Putin and the Kremlin are bracing for a Biden administration that is expected to take a far harder approach in its relations with Moscow.

    Asked how he expected Moscow would get along with the Biden administration, Putin offered scant praise for Biden, who traveled to Moscow many times over his career as a senator and then as vice president.

    “This depends to a significant degree on the new administration,” Putin said.

    “I’ll repeat once again, he is a very experienced man; he’s been in politics all his life. But, you know, there’s a well-known saying: it’s the entourage that makes the king,” he said.

    Putin also stated again that Moscow was interested in extending the last arms control treaty currently capping the U.S and Russian nuclear arsenals, New START, which expires in February 2021.

    So far, the United States has given mixed messages on the agreement.

    The Trump administration, which pulled out of two other major arms control and arms transparency treaties, initially wanted to bring China into the treaty. But when that appeared unrealistic, it proposed prolonging New START while also capping nonstrategic nuclear weapons, of which Russia has a larger number.

    That was a nonstarter for Moscow, which made an offer to not deploy a class of missiles to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, a bargaining chip that went nowhere.

    At this point, it appears the talks are on hold, given the results of the U.S. presidential election, though Biden has signaled a willingness to extend the treaty without conditions.

    “We’re not expecting any surprises here, but after all, everyone’s heard the statement from the president-elect that it would be reasonable to extend the New START treaty, but let’s see what this leads to in practice,” Putin said.

    Putin, however, also lashed out at the United States for pulling out of an arms pact nearly two decades ago, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty. That, he said, had forced Moscow to push forward and develop new weapons, including hypersonic glide missiles.

    Outing Putin’s Daughter

    Putin was asked about a recent investigative report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Russian website iStories about Kirill Shamalov, who purportedly married Putin’s youngest daughter, Yekaterina, in 2013 and proceeded to use his connections to amass a fortune worth billions of dollars within a few years.

    His response was particularly interesting because information about Putin’s daughters has been one of the Kremlin’s most closely guarded secrets throughout his decades in power. Putin rarely speaks of them except in the most general terms.

    Putin responded with a rhetorical question that he proceeded to answer: “Do you know what I noticed immediately? It is constantly written [in the report] ‘the president’s son-in-law.’ But at the end they write ‘former son-in-law.’ That is the first thing. During the entire course of the play, though, they constantly screw into the reader’s mind that he was a ‘son-in-law.’”

    What was missing was any hint of denial that Putin had been related to Shamalov or that the woman he was married to, Yekaterina Tikhonova — who goes by Katerina — is indeed his daughter. Putin’s youngest daughter, Yekaterina, was born on August 31, 1986, in Dresden, East Germany.

    In January 2015, Russian blogger Oleg Kashin identified Tikhonova as Putin’s daughter. Asked about the report at the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “I don’t know who she is.” He added that his job was to “deal with the president, not with his children.”

    Tikhonova is an acrobatic dancer and is the director of a $1.7 billion publicly funded innovation center at Moscow State University. She separated from Shamalov, whose father is a friend of Putin’s and a co-owner of Rossiya Bank, in 2018.

    Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria, has been identified as Maria Vorontsova, a medical researcher who has been connected to a $624 million state-funded oncology center that is expected to open near St. Petersburg in 2021.

    Kadyrov’s Got A Friend In Putin

    A journalist from the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya asked Putin about Western allegations of human rights abuses by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, wondering why the West keeps “coming up” with sanctions targeting Kadyrov.

    Putin responded with one of the most full-throated defenses of the Chechen strongman in recent memory. He said that Kadyrov is targeted by the West because he defends “not only the interests of the Chechen people, but of all Russia.” Putin said that Kadyrov accepts the attacks against him “philosophically” and added that many of Putin’s colleagues get offended if they are not targeted by Western sanctions.

    Putin added that he knows Kadyrov “well” and that “his entire life is devoted to Chechnya and the Chechen people.”

    Kadyrov, 44, has been the head of Chechnya since Putin appointed him in 2007. He has been accused by Russian and international rights groups of massive human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, kidnapping, and the persecution of LGBT people.

    He has also been accused of involvement in numerous targeted killings of political and personal opponents both in Russia and abroad.

    None of the allegations has ever been investigated by authorities in Russia.

    Wait, Iceland?!?!?

    One of the odder moments of the spectacle came toward the end of the event when Peskov called on a foreign reporter.

    At that point, a BBC correspondent had been the only other international reporter to get a chance to question Putin. He asked a punchy question of Putin that elicited a punchy Putin response.

    But the second question went to a man who identified himself as Haukur Hauksson from Iceland and proceeded to not ask a question at all.

    “This is a unique event anywhere in the world, when journalists are able to ask leaders questions,” he said. “This is direct democracy.”

    He then wished Putin and his family a happy upcoming New Year, and told Putin that people love him in the West.

    “We sincerely love Russia. It’s only the media of power — BBC, CNN, and others — that blame you for bad things, and also media in Iceland, our channels…. But there is a big war ongoing against you directly. They’re afraid of you. But to say that there is hatred in the West for you, there’s nothing of the sort,” he said.

    It wasn’t immediately clear what media outlet Hauksson represented. Hauksson did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via his Facebook page.

    He has printed columns for a news outlet owned by the St. Petersburg businessman behind the notorious Russian troll factory. In 2018, Hauksson produced a first-person video feature about his long experience living in Russia that was shown on Moscow municipal TV channel Moskva 24.

    Putin responded by saying: “Thank you, I rarely hear such warm words.” He then went on to discuss the United Nations, Russia’s relations with Iceland, and the potential for developing hydroelectric projects.

    Putin then concluded, “The secret of a happy family is love. But it’s no secret. Everyone knows it; this is a universal thing. It must be the basis of all family relations, and, as you’ve mentioned, also international relations, in ties between nations.”

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Dushanbe Reinforces Border After Tajik Militants Appear In Video Fighting In Afghanistan

    Tajikistan has deployed additional troops along its southern border with Afghanistan after Afghan authorities claimed a group of militants from Tajikistan played a major role in the Taliban’s capture of an Afghan district last month.

    Afghan officials said the majority of the militants who overran the Maymay district in the northeastern Badakhshan Province in November were foreign fighters, including militants from Tajikistan.

    They said the fighters belong to Jamaat Ansarullah, a militant group founded in Afghanistan by Tajik national Amriddin Tabarov in 2010.

    In early December, a 10-minute video appeared on social media purportedly showing Tajik insurgents fighting against Afghan government forces in Maymay, which borders Tajikistan.

    While RFE/RL cannot verify the authenticity of the footage, some of the fighters can be heard speaking a distinct Persian dialect spoken in Tajikistan.

    Footage depicts them killing men in Afghan Army uniforms and civilian clothes and setting fire to a building. At the end, the militants show off weapons and vehicles they purportedly seized from the Afghan troops.

    Afghan authorities confirmed the killings and the destruction in Maymay. Media quoted local residents who said militants, “particularly the Tajiks,” killed and beheaded Afghan soldiers.

    List Of Names

    Afghan lawmaker Latif Pedram, a native of the area, published a list of names that he described as militants from Tajikistan who took part in the Maymay attack.

    In Tajikistan, the security service has since identified at least 15 Tajik nationals whose faces or names appeared on videos and statements shared by Afghan officials in connection with the fall of Maymay.

    It has raised alarms in Dushanbe, the sources said, because they are ordinary individuals with no apparent connections to any political, religious, or opposition groups. The sources — familiar with the situation — spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

    The presence of Tajik militants in Afghanistan and the volatile tribal areas of Pakistan has been known for many years. But the difference in previous cases is that the majority of them were taken to Afghanistan as children by their parents during the civil war of the 1990s or in the immediate postwar years. Many were born there to Tajik families.

    In the latest cases, however, the Tajik militants are people who left the country between 2010 and 2017 — men mainly aged between 20 and 40 years, with some having brought their wives and children with them to Afghanistan.

    A ‘Real Threat’

    Tajik authorities haven’t commented publicly about the border reinforcements. They insist that it is business as usual when it comes to any threats posed by Afghan-based militants.

    “It is a real threat. Today they’re fighting for the Taliban, but we can’t predict what they’re going to do in the future,” sources in Dushanbe told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service.

    The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an elite unit had been deployed near the areas where Tajik fighters are thought to be concentrated on the Afghan side of the frontier.

    Badakhshan Deputy Governor Akhtar Muhammad Khairzada told the Pajhwok news agency that the militants are mainly based in the province’s Warduj and Jurm districts. He added that there were also Uzbek, Chechen, and Chinese Uyghur militants based in the area.

    Afghan officials estimate the number of Tajik militants in the country at around 200, but the exact figure is impossible to confirm. In 2019, the number of Jamaat Ansarullah members was estimated at around 30.

    Aziz Barez, a former first secretary with the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, says only the Taliban “who hosts the foreign militants” can provide a more accurate number of how many Tajiks and other foreigners are fighting alongside them.

    Citing intelligence gathered both by Afghan and Tajik officials, the sources in Dushanbe believe Jamaat Ansarullah militants operate separately from Tajik nationals who have joined an affiliate of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group in Afghanistan in recent years.

    Unconfirmed reports suggest that Jamaat Ansarullah — along with the Taliban — had even been engaged in some fighting against IS followers in Afghanistan, the sources said.

    But some think it is possible that the militant groups might join forces in the future.

    Tabarov, the Jamaat Ansarullah founder, was killed by Afghan forces in July 2015 and his two sons were extradited to Tajikistan. In 2019, the sons were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for seeking to overthrow the government, among other charges.

    In 2015-16, Tajikistan arrested dozens of suspected followers of the banned group. The extent of current support for Jamaat Ansarullah in Tajikistan is unknown.

    If the claims by Badakhshan officials are reliable, the number of Tajik militants in the Afghan province has been on the rise recently.

    Barez, the former diplomat who is from Badakhshan, says the potential security threats by the militants shouldn’t be underestimated.

    “The militants have access to financial sources to fund themselves — such as by controlling lucrative drug-trafficking routes,” he told RFE/RL on December 16. “Also, the area is rich in natural resources like rubies, lapis lazuli, and gold.”

    Families Under Fire

    An anti-extremism campaign is in full swing in Tajikistan once again, with parents, siblings, and other close relatives of the militants appearing in video messages released by state-run channels. Parents are shown pleading with their children to come home and turn themselves in.

    “People are telling me your son is shown on a video killing people. I wish I was dead rather than hearing this,” Zumratbi Rajabmatova tells her son, Daler Elmurodov.

    “Please, come back home. Or if you don’t want to return then please live quietly and stop killing!” the tearful mother says in the video released by the government.

    One father begs his son “not to fire a single shot toward Tajikistan.”

    “We’re taking the blame for your crimes. If you attack and kill Tajik border guards, don’t you think that their loved ones would take your revenge on us?” another parent says in the video.

    The mother of a suspected militant pleads with her son in a statement broadcast by Tajik state TV.

    The mother of a suspected militant pleads with her son in a statement broadcast by Tajik state TV.

    The families say their militant sons have left them to pay the price for their actions — they must endure shame and guilt in their communities and face interrogations and pressure from authorities.

    “I’ve faced questioning [about my son] for the past six years. I’m fed up with being the mother of that son and have had enough of these interrogations,” one parent told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service on condition of anonymity.

    The Tajik government has long been criticized for its clampdown on freedom of religion and tight controls on how people practice their faith in the predominantly Muslim country of some 9.5 million.

    Women are banned from wearing the hijab, an Islamic head scarf, in public places. Young men are not allowed to grow long beards or wear certain clothes that are deemed to be in a Salafi style.

    Mosques operate under strict state control, while imams are vetted and appointed by the government. Their sermons are also monitored.

    Independent media has been stifled, and opposition parties face constant government pressure. People have also been deprived of an outlet to express their opinions or discontent.

    Critics say this general lack of freedom in Tajikistan coupled with widespread poverty, skyrocketing unemployment, and corruption have pushed many young people to join Islamic extremist groups.

    Thousands of Tajiks — many with their families — also went to Syria and Iraq to join IS forces.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • At Putin’s Annual Press Conference, What Will — And Won’t — Get Asked Or Answered

    In past years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent the bulk of his multi-hour annual news conference embracing friendly questions, deflecting problematic ones, trying to show empathy for average Russians, extolling new weapons, and lambasting the West, among other things.

    This year’s event will be different in at least one regard: Instead of sitting at a dais in front of hundreds of journalists, Putin will be taking questions via video conference at his residence outside Moscow.

    Nonetheless, it’s reasonable to expect more of the same.

    To be sure, 2020 has been one of the more challenging years in the two decades since he came to power: Like many countries, Russia has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic; its economy continues to sputter. The constitutional gymnastics that have paved the way for Putin to stay in power for many more years have drawn scorn from opponents who say they make a mockery of Russian democracy.

    And what about the fresh evidence that Russian security agents used a sophisticated nerve agent to attack a Russian citizen, anti-corruption crusader Aleksei Navalny?

    Here are some of the tougher questions Putin might not be asked — and the answers he might not give if he is asked — at the December 17 event.

    QUESTION: Why are wages stagnating and pensions being cut for average Russians, even as the national rainy-day fund is among the largest in the world?

    ANSWER: Among the biggest successes Putin can claim since returning to the presidency in 2012: Russia’s fiscal condition is among the strongest in the world. The National Wealth Fund is on track to reach 12.5 trillion rubles ($164 billion) this year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in October.

    That more than meets one of the main goals of the fund when it was set up years ago: to help cushion the economy in the event of a shock, such as an economic downturn or Western sanctions. (Another goal was to help sop up excess cash flowing through the economy during high oil prices, and prevent runaway inflation.)

    The question for a growing number of Russians: What about us?

    Even before the coronavirus pandemic, many Russians were unhappy with dwindling prosperity. Disposable incomes were falling. Public opinion surveys showed that around 65 percent of Russian households had no savings whatsoever. Bankruptcies were on the rise. Overall poverty increased to 14.3 percent — more than 20 million people — and a hike in the value-added tax rankled.

    A woman plays accordion for money just outside Moscow in May.

    A woman plays accordion for money just outside Moscow in May.

    And then the pandemic hit. Like in many other countries, the government imposed lockdowns to try curb the spread. Unlike in other countries, the Kremlin opted for a relatively miserly approach to supporting out-of-work Russians, spending about one-tenth the amount that countries like Germany and the United States did to buoy their economies.

    Overall, the International Money Fund estimates the Russian economy will shrink about 4 percent this year and then begin a slow recovery in 2022.

    Expect Russians to grow impatient if livelihoods continue to stagnate. Don’t expect Putin to be heavily challenged on the question in the news conference.

    QUESTION: Why is the government spending trillions of rubles on major new weapons systems, like the Avangard hypersonic missile or a new intercontinental ballistic missile called the Sarmat? Are you preparing for a war?

    ANSWER: Like with the rainy-day fund, a core policy of the Putin administration has been modernizing and upgrading the country’s military capabilities. The 2008 war in Georgia shone a harsh light on Russian fighting tools and tactics, and since then the government has invested heavily in both new weapons and restructuring the armed forces.

    According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military spending increased by 30 percent in real terms between 2010 and 2019. Since Putin first arrived in the Kremlin in 2000, it’s increased by 175 percent. This year, it’s estimated at around 3.9 percent of GDP. (While sizable, that figure is dwarfed by military spending in the United States, which spend about 10 times that of Russia, and China, which spend about four times as much.)

    Still, the Kremlin has made spending money on and showcasing its newest weapons a priority, and state TV regularly brags about the capabilities and might.

    An ICBM is test-launched by a Russian nuclear submarine from the Sera of Okhotsk on December 12.

    An ICBM is test-launched by a Russian nuclear submarine from the Sera of Okhotsk on December 12.

    Russia, which has played a major role in the Syria war and has continued to stoke the conflict in eastern Ukraine after occupying and seizing Crimea in 2014, may not be preparing for some new military action abroad.

    Still, bragging about military capabilities taps into nostalgia for some Russians who remember the formidable Soviet armed forces. And projecting Russian power, for example in Syria, strikes a patriotic chord with some as well.

    In 2019, the Levada Center polling agency found the armed forces were widely popular among Russians — more popular than Putin.

    QUESTION: Have you authorized the targeted assassinations of Russian dissidents, reporters, opposition activists, and former military agents who you have deemed to be “traitors”?

    ANSWER: In a 2019 interview with the Financial Times, Putin was asked about the case of Sergei Skripal, the former Russian military intelligence officer who nearly died a year earlier after being targeted with a Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent known as Novichok.

    At the time, Skripal was living in England, having been sent there in a spy swap in 2010 after serving years in a Russian prison for treason for passing secrets to Western intelligence.

    “Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors must be punished. I am not saying that [this] is the way to do it. Not at all. But traitors must be punished,” he said.

    Skripal’s case was not an isolated one: a series of Russian dissidents, reporters, and others have fallen mysteriously and suspiciously ill over the years, in and out of Russia. Arguably the best known was Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer who died in 2006 after ingesting a highly radioactive isotope known as polonium-210.

    And this August, Navalny fell violently ill on a plane in Siberia, was hospitalized and then flown to Berlin, where German authorities identified a Novichok-related substance as the cause.

    On December 14 — three days before the news conference — the open-source research group Bellingcat published a major investigation that concluded agents from the Federal Security Service (FSB) had surveilled Navalny for years.

    The report, published in conjunction with The Insider, Der Spiegel, and CNN, also said the agents, some of whom had expertise in toxic substances, were in his vicinity at the time he was allegedly exposed to the toxin. Navalny has accused Putin of trying to kill him.

    In Moscow, the initial response to the report was muted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov canceled his daily phone briefings; Russian reporters suggested Peskov wanted to avoid having to respond to questions about Navalny. In comments to reporters during a trip to Zagreb, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the reports “not serious” and accused the United States and “Western partners” of being behind it.

    Coming on the heels of other reports exploring the possibility of a secret Russian chemical-weapons program, the Bellingcat investigation is likely to increase pressure on Western governments to more forcefully respond to Russian actions.

    Given the unwelcome outside scrutiny on Russia’s security apparatus, and given that the Kremlin tries to keep close control on these sorts of events, it seems unlikely that anyone will be allowed ask Putin about it.

    And if he is asked, Putin — himself a former director of the FSB — may avail himself of the opportunity to praise the security forces. And also send Kremlin opponents and Western countries a sharply worded warning, not unlike he did in the Financial Times interview.

    QUESTION: Earlier this week, the U.S. government announced a major cyber-intrusion into the computer systems of several major departments. Initial reports pointed the finger at Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and said the sophistication and complexity of the hack suggested it was approved at the highest levels of the Kremlin. Did you authorize it? And if so, why? Given how you have indicated a readiness to work with the incoming Biden administration on a basis of “mutual respect,” this cyberattack appears to be not only very damaging, but potentially hostile.

    ANSWER: Russia’s cyber-capabilities are among the most formidable in the world. And that doesn’t even to take into consideration the private world, or the underworld, where Russian hackers are renowned.

    As far back as 2007, if not earlier, it was clear that offensive cyber-activities were being embraced in Moscow. That was the year that Estonia was hit with a wave of crippling attacks that paralyzed government websites, ministries, banks, and newspapers. The sophistication of the attacks, and the events that were believed to have prompted them, led Estonia to blame Russia, something Moscow denied.

    Since then, Russian intelligence agencies are believed to have ramped up cyber-operations. The FSB enlisted former hackers to build up its cyber-operations, something that ultimately caused major embarrassment for the agency.

    In 2016, amid the U.S. presidential election campaign, the servers of the Democratic Party were breached, leading to the theft of thousands of e-mails, which were then leaked and published. Researchers identified two so-called “Advanced Persistent Threat” operations: one run by either the SVR or FSB, the other by Russian military intelligence, known widely as GRU.

    Twelve GRU officers were named publicly in a 2018 indictment issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which provided other precise details including addresses of the offices where they worked and even blockchain transactions for the Bitcoins that the GRU allegedly used to purchase things like server space.

    In October, a U.S. federal grand jury indicted six GRU officers with a wide-ranging cyber-campaign that utilized destructive malware to hack the Ukrainian power grid and the 2018 Winter Olympics.

    While none of the GRU officers seems likely to ever see the inside of a U.S. courtroom, the U.S. criminal filings have served partly to “out” the officers, to put Moscow on notice that U.S. intelligence is watching — possibly as a deterrent effect.

    Putin may not be asked about Russian cyber-operations, never mind about Russia being blamed for one of the biggest cyber-breaches in U.S. history.

    If he does answer, it may be with a smirk.

    QUESTION: Given the coronavirus pandemic, what exactly will be the situation with children’s summer camps next year?

    ANSWER: Putin might in fact address this sort of question, which is a genuine one that was mentioned on air by a presenter at NTV, the Gazprom-controlled TV channel whose Kremlin coverage is unabashedly positive.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Bishop’s Gambit: What’s Behind The FSB’s Case Against A Russian Orthodox Clergyman?

    MOSCOW — In March, a strange story swept through Russian online media: Police and agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB) had raided the St. Petersburg apartment of the bishop of Cherepovets and Belozersk.

    According to the sketchy reports based on anonymous law enforcement sources, the authorities discovered a laboratory for producing illegal drugs there. They claimed that a mysterious 22-year-old identified as “Kain Montanelli” was living in the flat and producing and selling narcotics.

    The bishop, Flavian, was dismissed from his post by the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church “for health reasons” and sent to an obscure monastery in Vologda, a sprawling region north of Moscow and east of St. Petersburg. Flavian’s lawyers denied the accusations against him and said that he’d resigned as bishop of his own accord.

    St. Petersburg police at the time did not issue a statement about the raid and no arrests were reported.

    Flavian, whose birth name is Maksim Mitrofanov, is now living in London. He spoke exclusively by telephone with RFE/RL’s Russian Service to tell his version of the story. He denies allegations of wrongdoing and alleges that the FSB is punishing him for refusing to serve as an informant.

    The case marks the first time in the post-Soviet period that the FSB has gone after such a high-ranking cleric in the Russian Orthodox Church.

    Bishop In Vologda

    Flavian was born in Saratov in 1975. His grandmother took him to church at an early age and by the age of 13 he was serving as an altar boy, he said. He graduated from a seminary in Saratov and became a priest in 1997. For a while he taught in the same seminary, rising to become director of academic programs.

    He served in the cathedral in Samara and, in 2007, was sent to serve at the Russian Orthodox cathedral in London. In 2009 he bought an apartment in London and was granted British citizenship. He says that he was given the 200,000 British pounds to purchase the flat by his father, a research physicist who had emigrated from Russia in the early 1990s.

    In 2014, he was given the opportunity to become a bishop when the bishop of Vologda was promoted to metropolitan. “So I made the stupid move of leaving peaceful London and moving to Vologda,” Flavian said. The Vologda eparchy was split into three parts and Flavian became the bishop of Cherepovets and Belozersk.

    Russian Orthodox priests must be married, and Flavian had earlier taken a wife. He had a son from his marriage. However, to become a bishop, Flavian had to take orders as a celibate monk. Even though Orthodoxy does not recognize divorce, in Flavian’s case, a divorce decree from the secular authorities in Saratov was enough to satisfy the church.

    As a bishop, Flavian increased the number of monasteries in his eparchy from one to three, increasing the number of monks and working priests as well. His official salary was 1.5 million rubles ($20,500) a month.

    Flavian says he was given political assignments by the church.

    Flavian says he was given political assignments by the church.

    Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill began giving Flavian political assignments, he said. He was made co-head of a joint commission on relations with the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church.

    In 2018, he traveled to Syria and Lebanon — officially to bring humanitarian aid to the region, but unofficially to convey an unspecified sum of money to the Orthodox patriarch of Antioch and All the East in exchange for his support in Moscow’s opposition to the granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

    Kain Montanelli

    In 2017, Flavian said, he met a young Russian man going by the name of Kain Montanelli (RFE/RL knows the man’s real name but has agreed to conceal it due to the sensitivity of the situation). Flavian said Montanelli told him he’d been born into the large family of a priest in the Ural Mountains city of Kurgan. He said he was regularly beaten as a child, forced to kneel on dried peas, and to pray for hours at a time. After he finished school, he ran away to Yekaterinburg. For a time he worked as a waiter, and he failed the entrance exams needed to get into an academic institute.

    He then moved to St. Petersburg, where he supposedly applied to enter the FSB academy, but failed the physical examination.

    “I came to love him,” Flavian told RFE/RL. “It was some sort of sublimation for me, I think. I did not have good relations with my father and my relations with my son are essentially material. But now I had a real spiritual connection. I began to show him the world. We traveled around Europe. I took him to London.”

    Flavian rented a St. Petersburg apartment for Montanelli and paid him 40,000 rubles ($550) a month to work as his assistant.

    Asked whether the two men had a physical relationship, as was hinted at in negative terms in many of the news stories that appeared in March, Flavian responded: “Your question is absurd. Monks do not have sexual relations.”

    After a while, Flavian said he noticed that Montanelli began to have some money. The young man claimed he was earning cash by selling knock-off Western-label designer goods.

    However, in December 2019, Montanelli and two of his friends were arrested and charged with manufacturing drugs. Investigators claim that the trio began selling marijuana. Later, on the so-called dark Internet, they became acquainted with someone going by the alias “President.” Flavian believes that President was an FSB agent.

    The young men bought a dacha outside St. Petersburg and President allegedly gave them money to set up a laboratory to produce synthetic drugs. When the dacha was searched, investigators claimed that about a ton of narcotics precursors were seized.

    ‘A Dialogue With The Devil’

    Flavian’s St. Petersburg apartment was also searched at that time, although the story did not leak to the media. He was questioned and tested for narcotics. Agents seized his passport, his credit cards, his mobile phones, and 570,000 rubles ($7,775) in cash, according to the official report, a copy of which RFE/RL has examined. No drugs were found at the apartment.

    But during the search, Flavian said, he was questioned by an FSB lieutenant named Krasavin. The name M.K. Krasavin is listed on the police report of the search. “He said that they know all about me and that they have been tracking me since 2007,” Flavian said. “We need information about your contacts.”

    Flavian said that since his time in London, he was acquainted with numerous people working at the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as with people connected with various Russian oligarchs. He said that the FSB had tried to recruit him several times, sometimes approaching him through friends in St. Petersburg or employees in his office in Cherepovets.

    “I told him that I would not cooperate with an organization that was up to its elbows in the blood of Russian priests and the Russian people,” Flavian recalled. “The holy fathers warn us not to enter into dialogue with the devil because you will lose. That organization is purely diabolical. And that’s what I told him to his face.”

    The matter seemed to have died down until March, when local media were full of reports citing unnamed law enforcement sources that a “drug laboratory” had been found in Flavian’s apartment and hinting at “inappropriate relations” between Flavian and Montanelli. Flavian travelled to Moscow to consult with Metropolitan Dionisii, the patriarch’s chief of staff.

    “Dionisii said to me: ‘Why didn’t you cooperate with them? Why do you need these problems? Everyone cooperates,’” Flavian recalled. Flavian said that he was instructed to sign a letter of resignation on health grounds and sent to the Pavlo-Obnorsky Monastery, some 70 kilometers from Vologda.

    FSB Pressure Mounts

    , returning to St. Petersburg. There he remained undisturbed until 5 a.m. on December 2.

    That’s when an FSB operational group headed by Lieutenant Krasavin appeared to search the apartment, Flavian said. He claimed that he and a guest who was also there were roughly manhandled by the agents, forced to the floor and left bleeding and bruised. The search continued until 1 p.m. According to the police report, which RFE/RL has seen, nothing illegal was found.

    “‘Take your toothbrush and a change of underwear,’” Flavian said he was told. “‘You are going to be arrested.’”

    “I told them that I wouldn’t take anything with me and that if I was arrested, I would immediately begin a hunger strike to the death.”

    Flavian said that conditions at the Pavlo-Obnorsky Monastery in the Vologda region were so appalling that he left after just two days.

    Flavian said that conditions at the Pavlo-Obnorsky Monastery in the Vologda region were so appalling that he left after just two days.

    Flavian was held at the local headquarters of the St. Petersburg branch of the FSB until 9 p.m. He was led into an interrogation room where he was confronted by one of the young defendants in the Montanelli drug case, who mechanically claimed that he knew Flavian and that Flavian had given him 500,000 rubles ($6,800) to start a drug laboratory.

    Flavian denies ever meeting the man before.

    Flavian showed RFE/RL a letter from Montanelli’s lawyer, Nadezhda Zhirinova, to the High Ecclesiastical Court of the Russian Orthodox Church in which she claims that her client had been under pressure from the FSB to provide information “about any foreign property or bank accounts” owned by Flavian and about his contacts abroad with “church employees, UN employees, employees of the Council of Europe, and people in the inner circles of Russian oligarchs.”

    The letter adds that these conversations were “unofficial” and took place without the presence of defense counsel.

    Zhirnova declined to be interviewed for this story.

    At 9 p.m. on December 2, Flavian was released from custody without being charged or ordered to remain in the city. He was immediately summoned to Moscow to see Metropolitan Dionisii again.

    “I explained the situation to him and he told me that I was myself to blame and that I don’t understand what is going on,” Flavian said. He added that Dionisii ordered him to return to the monastery under threat of being disgraced.

    “I understood that he had reached an agreement with the FSB that I would await my summons not in custody but in a monastery,” Flavian said.

    He pretended that he would comply, but two days later, he was on a plane to Britain.

    Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting from Moscow by Sergei Khazov-Cassia of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Russian Officials, State Media Tight-Lipped On Report FSB Agents Poisoned Navalny

    Russian state media has been slow to react to a detailed investigation reportedly showing that Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny was poisoned by members of the Federal Security Service (FSB), raising questions about whether authorities have been caught off guard.

    Bellingcat said in its December 14 report that it had used “voluminous evidence in the form of telecoms and travel data” to conclude that Navalny was poisoned by operatives from the FSB, the successor to the KGB, during his trip to the Siberian city of Tomsk in August.

    The British-based open-source research group, with the help of several media outlets including the Insider, a Russian investigative website, Der Spiegel, and CNN, published the names and photos of the FSB operatives taking part in the poisoning operation as well as a timeline of events.

    The group said that the operatives are part of an FSB-operated boutique poisoning facility, an allegation that, if true, would indicate Russia is in violation of international chemical-weapons agreements.

    Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press spokesman, canceled his daily briefing with media for December 15 and 16, triggering speculation he was seeking to avoid answering questions about the report.

    The Kremlin said he needed to prepare for Putin’s traditional year-end marathon press conference, which will be held on December 17.

    Channel One and NTV, two of the nation’s leading state-owned TV stations, have been silent so far about the report while state-owned online media have also largely skipped the topic.

    RT, a state-funded news agency targeting a foreign audience, raised questions about the credibility of the group’s report, highlighting different versions given by Navalny and his team of how he came into contact with the poison.

    RT also sought to discredit Bellingcat, describing it as “a US government-funded” outfit and saying its reported use of GPS data to identify the location of FSB agents “will do little to dispel suggestions that its team is working closely with intelligence agencies.”

    Others on social media also pushed the notion of the report as a Western intelligence operation, claiming the work required to collect and analyze the data is beyond the capacity of volunteers and investigative journalists.

    Possibly in reference to that notion, Yevgeny Popov, host of the popular 60 Minutes talk show on state TV, said on his Telegram channel on December 15 that it’s “now official” that Navalny works with the CIA and MI6.

    Navalny said the day before that his own team had checked Bellingcat’s investigation and confirmed its findings.

    Maksim Mironov, a finance professor in Spain, dismissed criticism of the report as a foreign intelligence job.

    In a December 15 blog post, he said that it was not hard to analyze personal data dumps, pointing out that he has written detailed reports for scientific journals about corruption based on his analysis of leaked Russian data.

    Perhaps in reaction to the data leaks that Bellingcat reportedly used to identify the FSB agents, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on December 15 reminded Rostelecom, the state-controlled telecom company, to keep people’s personal data safe.

    In what seems to be the only official Russian comment on the investigation so far, Dmitry Polyansky, the nation’s deputy ambassador to the UN, dismissed it as a Western-financed operation.

    In a December 15 tweet, Polyansky said the “biggest shock” from the Bellingcat report is that with a “zero level of expertise, creative imagination and Western money you can ‘discover’ everything.”

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (right) with his boss, Vladimir Putin. (file photo)

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (right) with his boss, Vladimir Putin. (file photo)

    Putin’s spokesman Peskov did comment to the media — shortly before the Bellingcat report was posted — about a December 12 article by British newspaper The Sunday Times, which claimed Russian state actors tried to poison Navalny a second time in Tomsk prior to his evacuation to Germany. Peskov called the British report “bullshit,” TASS reported.

    Bellingcat said the phone metadata of 12 FSB operatives from the clandestine FSB unit specializing in working with poisonous substances showed that they had shadowed Navalny during his trips across Russia over the past three years.

    The operatives flew alongside him to more than 30 overlapping flight destinations, and appear to have made at least two attempts to poison him prior to the Tomsk operation.

    Navalny, who is currently in Germany where he is recovering after being poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent, said his case was now solved despite the absence of an official investigation in Russia.

    Nonetheless, two opposition deputies in the St. Petersburg parliament have prepared a collective appeal addressed to Russia’s Investigative Committee calling on it to investigate the allegations in the report, Kommersant reported.

    The deputies had earlier appealed to the Investigative Committee to look into Navalny’s poisoning but were rebuffed, the newspaper said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • In The Balkans’ Most Divided Country, COVID Vaccine Cuts Both Ways

    The ethnically based entities that make up Bosnia-Herzegovina are choosing separate paths to vaccinate their populations, a large segment of which doesn’t appear to trust the science anyway.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Week In Russia: (Not) Denials And (Not) The Nineties

    To receive Steve Gutterman’s Week In Russia each week via e-mail, subscribe by clicking here.

    The Kremlin issued a strenuous nondenial of a report linking lucrative sweetheart deals to President Vladimir Putin’s purported former son-in-law, drawing comparisons with a decade he disdains. A top-secret “doomsday plane” was stripped of equipment by thieves. And new sanctions underscored the cost, in terms of image at least, of Putin’s reliance on Ramzan Kadyrov.

    Here are some of the key developments in Russia over the past week and some of the takeaways going forward.

    State Of Dismissal

    The Kremlin has become practiced in issuing nondenial denials over the years under President Vladimir Putin — and it got some more practice this past week.

    First, there was the report that Russian businessman Kirill Shamalov received a slew of offers to buy stakes in some of the country’s biggest companies shortly after marrying Putin’s younger daughter in 2013 — and did consummate at least one sweetheart deal, receiving a stake worth an estimated $380 million in a Russian petrochemicals company for $100.

    The December 7 report was the product of an investigation by Russian outlet iStories, and was published in collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). It used leaked e-mails to “shine new light on the closed circle of family and associates who surround the Russian president,” as The Guardian put it.

    The Kremlin has done a fair amount to prevent such light from being shed. For example, Putin has acknowledged that he has two daughters but has never publicly confirmed reports revealing their identity — and by extension, he has not acknowledged that Shamalov is his former son-in-law.

    In any case, and as is often the case, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the iStories/OCCRP report but did not directly deny it.

    In remarks quoted by state news agency TASS, he suggested it was part of a disinformation campaign involving “various rumors, often having nothing to do with reality.”

    Peskov’s remarks seemed intended to discredit any future reports alleging dubious deals or wrongdoing by Putin and those close to him: “We know, more or less, who is the organizer of this activity, and we know that this work will continue.”

    Office Double?

    The following day, Peskov dismissed a more bizarre report, this one saying that that the Kremlin has built an office for Putin in Sochi that is identical to his office outside Moscow, and that Putin has frequently — and secretly — worked in the Black Sea resort city at times in recent months.

    “It turns out that we don’t know where Putin has been located” in recent weeks or months, the December 8 report by the online publication Proyekt Media said, citing unnamed sources it said were familiar with his schedule as well as analysis of flight-tracking records.

    One claim that Peskov did deny was that Putin is having serious health problems. In remarks on December 8, he cast that assertion as part of the same alleged “information exercise” that produced the report about Shamalov but was less equivocal, saying: “As regards [Putin’s] health, that is complete nonsense.”

    In remarks to another online Russian news outlet, Peskov called the report “the latest stupidity” but stopped short of a direct denial. He said Putin had been working in the Moscow area and taking trips for work at times, but did not give dates or mention whether he had been in Sochi recently.

    Putin, 67, secured the right to run for a fifth presidential term in 2024 and a sixth term in 2030 by pushing though constitutional changes earlier this year.

    The late Russian President Boris Yeltsin (left) smiles as he talks to Vladimir Putin, the day he named his prime minister acting president.

    The late Russian President Boris Yeltsin (left) smiles as he talks to Vladimir Putin, the day he named his prime minister acting president.

    He rose to power in 1999, when President Boris Yeltsin named him prime minister in August and then resigned on New Year’s Eve, making him acting president.

    Putin, whose first two terms coincided with an oil-fueled economic boom, has frequently taken aim at the decade before he entered the Kremlin, portraying the 1900s as a modern-day time of troubles in which Russia came close to ceasing to exist in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

    Allies have cast him as a savior who raised the country off its knees, while detractors say problems like corruption have only gotten worse, not to speak of democracy and human rights.

    Doomsday Scenario?

    For those who argue that Russia took a big wrong turn in the 1990s, one event that stands out is “loans-for-shares” — the controversial auctions, launched 25 years ago, in which leading businessmen bought stakes in top state enterprises at low prices. Putin’s supporters praise him for reining in some of the tycoons who increased their wealth and power in such deals.

    But for critics of the Kremlin, Shamalov’s reported windfall – as well as numerous investigations published by other groups, including opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation – bolster suspicions that corruption and connections are a major part of Putin’s ruling apparatus.

    An entirely different occurrence this week evoked memories of the 1990s, when the theft of copper wire, railroad tracks, and other scraps of Soviet-era infrastructure that could be sold for cash was the stuff of frequent news reports — while more alarming reports stemmed from the theft and smuggling of radioactive materials.

    On December 9, the Rostov regional branch of the Interior Ministry said that more than 1 million rubles ($13,600) worth of equipment was stolen from an Ilyushin Il-80 — an aircraft dubbed the “doomsday plane” that was designed to shield top officials from the effects of a nuclear explosion — at a military airfield in the southern city of Taganrog.

    Russian media earlier reported that thieves broke into the aircraft, described as a highly classified military plane, and stole electronic equipment including radio boards. Military experts say the plane is one of four Il-80s designed to be used as airborne command posts for the Russian president and other top officials in the event of a nuclear conflict.

    Peskov described the theft as an “emergency situation” and said that “measures will be taken to prevent this from happening again.”

    ‘Egregious Activities’

    Putin is also credited, including by Putin, for the lower level of violence in the North Caucasus today compared to the 1990s: Two separatist wars wracked Chechnya from 1994 to 2001, killing tens of thousands of people and fueling an Islamist insurgency in that province and other regions nearby.

    Since 2007, when he appointed Ramzan Kadyrov to head Chechnya, Putin has relied on a figure reviled by human rights activists to maintain control over the region.

    The price of that trade-off, at least in terms of Putin’s image in the West, was underscored when the United States imposed additional sanctions on Kadyrov and announced punitive measures targeting five individuals and six Russia-registered legal entities with close ties to him, including a soccer team based in Chechnya, Akhmat Grozny.

    Vladimir Putin with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov (right) in 2011.

    Vladimir Putin with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov (right) in 2011.

    Since sanctions were initially imposed on Kadyrov in 2017, forces under his guidance continued “egregious activities” including “kidnapping, torturing, and killing members of the LGBTI population” in Chechnya, the U.S. Treasury Department said, adding that these forces “are accused of illegal abductions, torture, extrajudicial executions, and other abuses, including the detention of journalists and activists.”

    The new sanctions were imposed under the so-called Global Magnitsky Act, a 2016 law that authorizes the U.S. government to seek to punish suspected human rights offenders around the world by freezing any assets in the United States and banning them from entering the country.

    The law is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a whistle-blower who was jailed in Moscow, exposed the alleged theft of $230 million from Russian state coffers by a group of state officials. Denied adequate medical treatment and subjected to conditions rights groups said amounted to torture, he died in custody in November 2009, almost a decade after the start of the Putin era.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ‘Come Together’: How Moscow Beatles Fans Mourned The 1980 Death Of John Lennon

    MOSCOW — Photographer Boris Antonov doesn’t remember exactly how he found out that former Beatle John Lennon had been shot to death in New York on December 8, 1980.

    It definitely wasn’t from the Soviet media, he recalled. In his personal archive, Antonov still has a tiny clipping from a back page of the Soviet daily Trud that announced the news in three terse sentences on December 10.

    But word of Lennon’s killing “spread rather quickly” among his friends, Antonov told RFE/RL.

    “It was a shock, of course,” Antonov, who at the time was a student at the Moscow Communications Institute, said. “Because the Beatles seemed to be eternal. They had been there our whole lives.”

    The tiny Soviet press clipping that Boris Antonov saw announcing John Lennon's death in December 1980.

    The tiny Soviet press clipping that Boris Antonov saw announcing John Lennon’s death in December 1980.

    Antonov stressed that he was an ordinary Soviet kid from the outlying Moscow neighborhood of Kuntsevo.

    “No one in my circle had dissident views or any doubts about socialism,” he said. “Downtown was where the kids lived whose fathers were in cinema or were diplomats or professors. The so-called Golden Youth who had blue jeans and the latest Deep Purple album.”

    Antonov did, however, play bass in a neighborhood band. He remembers hearing the Beatles’ 1965 song Girl when he was in the seventh grade on a Soviet compilation album called Musical Kaleidoscope No. 8.

    And there were rare glimpses of the English rockers even on Soviet television.

    “There was a television show called America In The Viewfinder that began with a clip from Can’t Buy Me Love,” Antonov remembered. “The show was about how hard life was for American workers. But we didn’t care about that. The main thing for us was those 20 seconds of the Beatles.”

    A young Boris Antonov plays guitar with a bandmate and a poster of Lenin in the background.

    A young Boris Antonov plays guitar with a bandmate and a poster of Lenin in the background.

    One time, he said, he was in a record store when the clerk decided to show off to his friends by playing the 1969 hit Come Together.

    “That was a shock,” he said, recalling how Lennon’s vocals stood out compared to the Soviet pop stars that dominated the airwaves at the time. “We were surrounded by [Iosif] Kobzon, Aida Vedishcheva, Valentina Tolkkunova….”

    In the late 1970s, and especially as the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games approached, the atmosphere became more relaxed. In 1977, the Soviet record label Melodia released Lennon’s 1971 album Imagine.

    On December 20, 1980, Antonov saw a small notice on a bulletin board at the Moscow Communications Institute. It invited “all admirers and fans of the music of the Beatles” to come “tomorrow” to the Lenin Hills overlook near the main building of Moscow State University (MGU) at 11 a.m. for a gathering of “those who want to honor the memory of John Lennon.”

    The small notice that Antonov found on a bulletin board at the Moscow Communications Institute

    The small notice that Antonov found on a bulletin board at the Moscow Communications Institute

    Across the bottom of the announcement, someone had written: “Those who are afraid of repressions please don’t come.”

    “It was evening, and I was putting on my coat to leave,” Antonov told RFE/RL. “That’s when I saw it. I wanted to take it because it was such a nice thing. I argued a little with myself — maybe I should let more people find out about it. But it was already late, and the institute was about to close. I thought I wouldn’t harm freedom or Lennon’s memory, so I carefully took it down and hid it away.”

    Antonov said he worried a bit about the possibility of trouble if he participated in the memorial, but that “just made it more interesting, with a little risk and fear.”

    “Of course, we weren’t worried that they would beat us or arrest us, but we knew that there could be trouble,” he added, including the possibility of being expelled from the institute.

    That evening, a friend was celebrating his birthday with a listening of the Pink Floyd album The Wall. Antonov told them about the Lennon gathering, but none of them wanted to go.

    “They were simply afraid,” he said.

    Already a budding photographer, Antonov loaded a fresh roll of film in his camera the next morning and headed to the Lenin Hills overlook, a prominent platform with a panoramic view over the Soviet capital. As it turned out, Antonov took almost all of the surviving photographs of the event.

    When he arrived at about 11:30, there were “200-300 people gathered near the famous granite barrier.” Two people were holding a banner reading “To The Blessed Memory Of John Lennon.” Another young man, apparently a student, had a sign around his neck with the word “Imagine” and the third verse of Lennon’s iconic song of that title written on it.

    In a memoir written for the website Beatles.ru, Antonov said he saw a young man take off his hat and give a moving, heartfelt tribute to Lennon in a voice breaking with sorrow.

    “He spoke of Lennon as a great musician and as a fighter for social justice,” Antonov wrote. “For the rights of blacks, for peace. He concluded with the words, ‘Together with Lennon forever!’”

    Others stepped up and concluded their speeches with similar slogans that had Soviet echoes: “Lennon hasn’t died!” or “Lennon forever!”

    “One young man shouted, ‘Give peace a chance!’ and threw up a peace sign,” Antonov wrote.

    Antonov said he doesn’t recall any particular anti-Soviet sentiment at the event. He said a single police officer stood nearby and watched. One or two photographers from the international press snapped photos. An article later appeared in London’s The Daily Telegraph.

    A police officer stands by as Beatles fans mourn John Lennon in December 1980.

    A police officer stands by as Beatles fans mourn John Lennon in December 1980.

    Nonetheless, participants began being detained as the demonstration was breaking up and people were heading to the nearest metro station.

    “The police and, according to rumors, government collaborators from MGU, began to push the loudest participants around and shove them toward a bus,” Antonov wrote in his memoir. “People couldn’t believe their eyes. No one had any experience of anything like that. One guy asked a police officer to explain what was happening and began citing various rights and freedoms from the constitution…. The crowd started getting angry. You could hear people shouting some bold things at the police and particularly at the security officers in plain clothes who had until that moment been standing around pretending to be [Lennon] fans and who were now ushering activists into the bus.”

    Antonov said the crowd linked arms and continued walking toward the metro. As they passed the bus with the detainees, Antonov said he shouted, “Guys, we are with you!”

    Altogether, a few hundred Beatles fans gathered in the Soviet capital to mark Lennon's death.

    Altogether, a few hundred Beatles fans gathered in the Soviet capital to mark Lennon’s death.

    For Antonov, the breaking point came when a police officer tried to detain the young man who had earlier been quoting the constitution.

    “‘We won’t give him up!’” Antonov recalled saying. At that point, the police grabbed him too. Antonov said he instinctively resisted, kicking out with his legs after both his arms were restrained.

    “But, of course, it was pointless,” he said. “They kicked me into the bus.”

    “We somehow felt that right was on our side,” Antonov recalled. “We knew that we were innocent and that our cause was just.”

    The crowd was even angrier, he said, because most of those who were detaining them were MGU student collaborators and informers.

    The detainees were taken to various police stations for questioning. Antonov said none of the officers was rude to him. One of them even said that he liked the Beatles himself.

    Antonov said he later heard that some of the detainees had various problems, including being disciplined at their institutes.

    “But none of the people I knew personally had any such problems,” he told RFE/RL.

    A year later, in December 1981, Soviet Lennon fans tried to organize another, similar event on the first anniversary of the tragedy. But this time the Soviet authorities were prepared.

    Antonov and a couple of friends tried to approach the Lenin Hills overlook.

    “We were grabbed when we were still 300 or 400 meters from the viewing point,” he recalled. “The police came up to us and said, ‘Boys, where are you going?’ ‘Just taking a walk,’ we answered. ‘Well, take a walk with us then.’”

    Written by RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting from Moscow by RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Valentin Baryshnkov.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Layoffs, Cryptocurrency, And Uncertainty At A Ukrainian Tycoon’s Kentucky Factory

    When CC Metals & Alloys (CCMA) halted operations in July, some workers at the 70-year-old plant in western Kentucky expected to be back on the job by the New Year.

    After all, the factory — which produces an alloy of iron and silicon for the boom-and-bust steel industry — has cut output and laid off employees during tough times over the decades, only to fire up idled furnaces and call workers back after a few months.

    So for some employees of the plant owned by Ukrainian tycoon Ihor Kolomoyskiy and his business partner Hennadiy Boholyubov, it came as a shock when union leaders at CCMA informed them last month that most of the remaining workers would be laid off in December — even as the ferroalloy market shows signs of rebounding from a sharp COVID-19 slump.

    “Most of the people that have been laid off in July ain’t even been looking for a job” because they assumed they would be back at the plant soon, one worker told RFE/RL by telephone, speaking on condition of anonymity because the new job cuts have not been publicly announced.

    The clouded future of CCMA and its workers is another twist in the more than 10-year-old story of Kolomoyskiy’s business activities in the United States, where he and Boholyubov built a steel business worth hundreds of millions of dollars but lost it by 2017.

    Word of the additional layoffs came months after the U.S. Justice Department accused Kolomoyskiy and Boholyubov of purchasing U.S. real estate and businesses with money embezzled from their Kyiv-based bank in 2008-16.

    Ihor Kolomoyskiy is one of the richest and most influential magnates in Ukraine, where his assets include ferroalloy plants, energy producers, and media companies.

    Ihor Kolomoyskiy is one of the richest and most influential magnates in Ukraine, where his assets include ferroalloy plants, energy producers, and media companies.

    The allegation, which the two tycoons deny, stems from a continuing investigation by the FBI — a division of the Justice Department — into suspicions of money-laundering.

    The current shutdown may be unprecedented, Stan Burkeen, a retired CCMA employee and union president whose father began working at the plant shortly after it opened in 1949 along the Tennessee River in Calvert City, Kentucky, told RFE/RL.

    Boom And Bust

    “It has always operated. Even when the price of metal was low, it would still run. They just might shut off one or two furnaces until the price went back up. But I have never known them to shut every line down,” said Burkeen, who retired in 2018 after a quarter-century on the job.

    It has always operated. Even when the price of metal was low, it would still run. They just might shut off one or two furnaces until the price went back up. But I have never known them to shut every line down.

    Now, the only thing buzzing on CCMA’s sprawling grounds is a Bitcoin-mining operation, employees say — a warehouse full of computers that are churning out cryptocurrency while the factory’s traditional production is idled.

    When that might be restarted is unclear, current and former employees say, in part because the temporary collapse in ferroalloy demand prompted by the pandemic is not the only cloud hanging over CCMA.

    Some workers suspect that the law enforcement pressure faced by Kolomoyskiy and two Miami-based U.S. associates who run CCMA, Mordechai Korf and Uriel Laber, may be the main reason for the apparent lack of plans to restart the plant. Financial problems at Kolomoyskiy’s other U.S. companies could potentially support such speculation.

    “They are going to lay off more people and that is all we know,” the worker who spoke on condition of anonymity told RFE/RL on December 2. “The plant management don’t even know nothing. Miami is just keeping everything hush-hush.”

    On August 4, the FBI raided the associates’ Miami headquarters and their real-estate management office in Cleveland, Ohio, where they own several properties.

    Two days later, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit accusing Kolomoyskiy and Boholyubov of purchasing U.S. assets with money “misappropriated” from Kyiv-based PrivatBank, which was the tycoon’s main investment vehicle until it was nationalized in 2016.

    The Justice Department claims the tycoons were assisted in these alleged actions by Korf and Laber, who oversee all their U.S. assets.

    A spokesman for Korf and Laber declined to comment on any plans for layoffs at CCMA or other aspects of the plant’s future, including its sale.

    Top Tycoon

    Kolomoyskiy He has ties to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and returned from self-imposed exile shortly after Zelenskiy’s election in 2019.

    The U.S. Justice Department claims that Kolomoyskiy and Boholyubov fraudulently loaned themselves money from PrivatBank in 2008-16 and laundered it through shell companies before purchasing U.S. assets with the help of Korf and Laber.

    The tycoons deny the accusations and claim they purchased the U.S. assets with about $2 billion they received from the sale of their Ukrainian steel business in the late 2000s. Korf and Laber also deny any wrongdoing.

    The lawsuit filed by the Justice Department in August is seeking the forfeiture of two commercial buildings – one in Kentucky and one in Texas — that the tycoons purchased during their years-long U.S. buying spree.

    Those proceedings have been delayed a few weeks as Korf, the 48-year-old CEO of CCMA and the real-estate assets, suffered an apparent seizure on November 16, according to court filings and Miami Beach Fire Department records obtained by RFE/RL.

    The FBI is still conducting its investigation into the Ukrainian tycoons and their two U.S. associates, Special Agent Vicki Anderson-Gregg told RFE/RL on December 2. She declined to comment on whether law enforcement was looking into details about the purchase of CCMA.

    Kolomoyskiy and Boholyubov bought CCMA for about $188 million in March 2011, when ferroalloy prices were near record highs.

    Alloys To Crypto

    CCMA is one of only three U.S. plants producing ferrosilicon, an alloy of iron and silicon that is mainly used in the production of steel to enhance its strength. The company’s three furnaces have an installed capacity of 100,000 metric tons.

    The plant last year produced an estimated 70,000 tons, accounting for roughly 40 percent of U.S. ferrosilicon production and 20 percent of U.S. consumption, according to Kevin Fowkes, an industry expert at AlloyConsult.

    CCMA had largely been a profitable business over the past several decades, current and former employees told RFE/RL, though it has faced production slowdowns and layoffs from time to time, most recently in 2015.

    Current and former workers say they believe the Ukrainian tycoons mismanaged the plant by changing its business model and trying to run it from Miami rather than locally, as the previous owners had done.

    Several years ago, the company shut the smallest of the three furnaces, which produced specialty alloys, the workers said. As a result, the plant began almost exclusively making the most standard ferrosilicon product.

    “From my experience, that plant can’t make it on just that one product alone,” said Burkeen, who also alleged that the company “hasn’t run as smoothly” as it did before the tycoons bought it. However, industry analysts say U.S. demand for specialty alloys has been hurt in recent years by steel-plant closures, suggesting a possible practical reason for the decision.

    Meanwhile, the owners turned to a new source of revenue to offset the weak alloy market — cryptocurrency. A few years ago, the warehouse that had stored the specialty alloys was revamped and filled with hundreds if not thousands of computers to mine cryptocurrency, current and former employees say.

    “They were bringing [computers] in by the truckload,” an employee of the plant told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak about plant activities.

    There are about 170 families, give or take, that depend on that place and that is not mentioning the truck-driving families and the warehouse people. It is a very important source of jobs in this area.

    The cryptocurrency operation is run independently of the plant and has not been affected by the shutdown, the workers said.

    A spokesperson for Korf and Laber told RFE/RL in July that CCMA invited a third party to host a data center on its property focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain as a way to diversify profits. The spokesperson did not disclose the third party nor the financial details of the hosting agreement.

    “Both AI and blockchain are energy-intensive industries and are expected to grow exponentially to a $20 billion market in the next decade. Based on the success of the initial pilot program we may increase this business line. Having multiple revenue streams is prudent for CCMA,” the spokesperson said in a reply to RFE/RL.

    Blockchain is a technology used to process cryptocurrency transactions.

    The cryptocurrency data center on the grounds of CCMA is just one of at least five that have popped up in the Tennessee Valley in recent years thanks to the region’s abundant supply of cheap power. Cryptocurrency “mining” is an energy-intensive business and requires low pricing to be profitable.

    170 Families

    This year, as the coronavirus devastated the U.S. economy, CCMA announced in late June that it would shut all production and lay off more than 80 plant workers — about 77 percent of the workforce — on July 1 for an “unforeseeable period of time.”

    The company said that the government shared blame for the shutdown, accusing it of allowing a flood of cheap imports that pushed prices lower.

    Since reaching a low point in July, ferrosilicon prices have slowly risen over the past few months.

    Amy Bennett, principal consultant at Fastmarkets, a metals industry pricing and news service, told the International Ferroalloys Conference on November 9 that she expected ferroalloy prices to pick up in 2021 as steel demand recovers from the pandemic.

    The rosier outlook is leaving some workers questioning why CCMA is laying people off rather than calling them back. The long shutdown has fueled suspicions among workers and others in Calvert City that the tycoons may be seeking, for a second time, to sell the plant.

    In 2017, Kolomoyskiy sought to sell CCMA to a Russian company in order to stave off the loss of his U.S. steel business, which filed for bankruptcy the previous year, an RFE/RL investigation showed.

    But during a required interagency review, the Justice Department raised questions about where the proceeds would end up, people familiar with the issue told RFE/RL. The owners declined to answer those questions, they said, and the deal was never approved.

    If the Ukrainian tycoons are aiming to sell, Burkeen said he hopes that the U.S. government will allow it and that a new owner will restart production.

    “There are about 170 families, give or take, that depend on that place and that is not mentioning the truck-driving families and the warehouse people. It is a very important source of jobs in this area,” he said.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Remote-Control Killing: Iran Says Top Nuclear Scientist Assassinated By Gun Guided Via Satellite

    A machine gun equipped with a “satellite-controlled smart system” was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, a senior official with the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has said.

    Officials have blamed Israel for the brazen, daytime attack on November 27 in Absard, some 60 kilometers from the capital, Tehran, though it didn’t offer any evidence for the claim.

    Israel, which has been blamed for the assassination of at least four other Iranian nuclear scientists, has not commented on the attack.

    The Black List: Assassinated Iranian Scientists

    The Black List: Assassinated Iranian Scientists Photo Gallery:

    The Black List: Assassinated Iranian Scientists

    The November 27 killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is the latest in a string of killings of men allegedly linked to Iran’s nuclear program. Fakhrizadeh is at least the fifth Iranian scientist to have been assassinated or die in mysterious circumstances since 2007.

    Speaking in Tehran on December 6, IRGC Deputy Commander Ali Fadavi said the smart system had “zoomed in” on Fakhrizadeh’s face using “artificial intelligence” while adding that Fakhrizadeh’s wife — who was only “25 centimeters away” — was unharmed.

    Fadavi confirmed earlier reports that there were no assassins on the ground to carry out the killing.

    He said the special weapon fired a total of 13 times, hitting Fakhrizadeh four or five times, including a shot to his spinal cord that caused severe bleeding and led to his death as he was being transported via helicopter to a Tehran hospital.

    IRGC Deputy Commander Ali Fadavi (file photo)

    IRGC Deputy Commander Ali Fadavi (file photo)

    Four bullets also hit the chief of Fakhrizadeh’s security detail, who had attempted to protect him by “throwing himself” on the nuclear scientist, Fadavi said. That confirmed media reports that one of Fakhrizadeh’s bodyguards had been injured in the attack.

    He also said that 11 bodyguards were accompanying Fakhrizadeh and that the explosion of a truck during the attack targeted the security team.

    Fadavi’s account is the latest version of the assassination that has resulted in serious criticism of Iran’s security apparatus.

    Initial reports immediately after the killing suggested that the scientist was targeted in a suicide attack, which included several gunmen. But media later only reported that the assault included gunfire and a truck explosion.

    A filmmaker close to the hard-line faction of Iran’s establishment, which also includes the IRGC and other groups, said hours after the attack that 12 gunmen, including two snipers and a powerful car bomb, were involved in the ambush of Fakhrizadeh’s four-vehicle convoy.

    Later, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency reported that there were no hitmen on the ground and that the attack was carried out by a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a pickup truck that later exploded.

    Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani had also said there were no attackers on the ground while blaming Israel and suggesting the exiled Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organzation had played a role.

    In an interview with state-controlled television, one of Fakhrizadeh’s sons, Hamed Fakhrizadeh, said his father had been warned by his security team on the day he was assassinated not to travel.

    But the top scientist, who kept a low-profile, had said that, due to a class he was teaching as well as an “important meeting,” he needed to return to Tehran.

    ‘Full-Blown War Zone’

    Hamed Fakhrizadeh described the scene of the assassination, which he came to shortly after the attack, as a “full-blown war zone.”

    His brother, Mehdi Fakhirzadeh, said in the same interview that his father was shot at a close range of four or five meters and that their mother, who he said had sat on the ground next to Fakhrizadeh, was unhurt.

    “She said ‘I don’t understand how the bullets didn’t hit me. I went there so that the bullets would not hit [Fakhrizadeh],’” he quoted his mother as having said.

    The comments could either confirm Fadavi’s account regarding a “satellite-controlled” weapon equipped with facial-recognition technology or suggest that snipers shot and killed the nuclear scientist.

    Fakhrizadeh’s assassination and the various accounts of how it was carried out have raised many questions, including the possible presence of “infiltrators” within Iran’s security apparatus who would have precise information about the movement of the country’s leading nuclear scientist, who was mentioned by name in a 2018 presentation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    If the official account regarding the remote-controlled killing is true, it is clear that the attack was well-planned and that someone had installed the alleged “remote-controlled” gun and a bomb on the truck before driving it to the site of the assassination. Some reports said the owner of the Nissan pickup truck had left Iran shortly before the attack.

    One major question is how the special equipment needed for the sophisticated attack was smuggled into Iran.

    Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

    Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

    It is also not clear why Fakhrizadeh — who knew that he was a wanted man due to his role in the country’s nuclear program and who, according to officials, had survived previous failed assassination attempts — had decided to get out of his vehicle during the attack. It’s especially strange because several media accounts say his vehicle was bullet-proof.

    Fakhrizadeh’s sons confirmed earlier reports that their father left his vehicle because he thought it had broken down after hearing the bullets hitting the car.

    But it is unclear why he didn’t ask someone on his security team to find out what was happening instead of putting himself at risk by leaving the vehicle.

    Officials have vowed to avenge Fakhrizadevh’s killing, which came nearly a year after the U.S. assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, who led the IRGC Quds Force in charge of the group’s regional activities. Soleimani was killed in a drone attack near Baghdad in January in an attack that the U.S. claimed responsibility for.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Interview: Thomas De Waal On What’s Next For Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian-Azerbaijani Relations

    Following the latest fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan has retaken control over all seven districts around Karabakh that had been occupied by Armenian forces since the early 1990s.

    Azerbaijani forces also regained territory in parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

    A Russian-brokered cease-fire deal has seen the deployment of nearly 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to ensure security in the enclave and its only overland link with Armenia — the so-called Lachin corridor through southwestern Azerbaijan.

    RFE/RL Armenian Service Director Harry Tamrazian spoke on December 5 to Carnegie Europe’s noted Caucasus expert Thomas de Waal about the region’s prospects for diplomacy and its changing geopolitics.

    RFE/RL: Since the 1990s, the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been the mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan in negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh. Now, with Azerbaijan having retaken the seven districts around Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, is the Minsk Group dead? Now, with Azerbaijan having retaken the seven occupied districts around Nagorno-Karabakh in recent fighting, as well as parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, is the Minsk Group finished? Or is there still a role for its co-chairs — the United States, France, and Russia — in order to have a meaningful impact on the process?

    Thomas de Waal: I think we’re in a completely different phase of this conflict. We have a cease-fire and truce. But we are very far from a political agreement. And the question of the status of Karabakh, I think, is even more difficult now to solve. As [far as] the Azerbaijani side is concerned, this question [of a special status for Nagorno-Karabakh] is now off the table. It is no longer up for discussion.

    But there still need to be negotiations about the future normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And I suppose the Minsk Group is the only format where that is possible at the moment. That’s going to be very difficult.

    Thomas de Waal

    Thomas de Waal

    I think the Minsk Group has suffered a lot of reputational damage in the region — particularly France in Azerbaijan, which I don’t think regards France as an honest mediator anymore.

    Russia is now in control. There are big questions as to whether the United States and France can still play an important mediating role. But something has to be done.

    Personally, I would like to see some improvements. I would like to see another European power which has more influence in Baku. It would be good, in my view, if that European power replaced France. Perhaps Germany. This is not a reflection on the French mediators. It’s just a reflection of the fact that French domestic politics means that France is no longer so respected in Azerbaijan.

    Secondly, I think the United Nations should play a role. It would be helpful if there was a UN Security Council resolution. The UN is sending agencies now to Azerbaijan — to Karabakh. It would be good if the UN was involved. And I would also like to see a role for the European Union, which did not have a political profile 30 years ago, but now, I think, needs to play a role.

    But let’s be honest. It’s difficult now to have negotiations. This war has made relations between the two countries even more difficult. So it’s a very difficult place to start.

    RFE/RL: Armenians hope that the truce deal signed by Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on November 9 is just the first step — that everything should be settled within the Minsk Group framework. For example, the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. There is nothing about it in these documents signed on November 9.

    De Waal: The statement by the [Minsk Group] co-chairs from Tirana mentioned that they want to see substantive negotiations. They also mentioned the basic principles, which means that they are still considering the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    I think that as far as Azerbaijan is concerned, they are no longer looking at Nagorno-Karabakh — [the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region] NKAR — as a territorial unit. Azerbaijani units are in the south of NKAR, or in the Hadrut region, for example. So it will be very difficult, I think, to talk about the territorial autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh. But obviously that, as far as the Armenians are concerned and as far as the Minsk Group is concerned, is the basis for negotiations. Let’s see how things go.

    I think what’s important is if both Baku and Yerevan decided it is important to have a full normalization of relations — diplomatic relations, open borders, and so on. If they both decide that that is a strategic goal that they want, then I think it is possible to start negotiating. But if each side thinks it is better to live with the status quo, with a closed border, and they’re not interested in relations, then I see it as very difficult to negotiate.

    RFE/RL: What is happening on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh? It seems that Armenia has lost its status as a sponsor or guarantor of Nagorno-Karabakh security. Russians are in full control on one hand. But on the other hand, the Russians admit that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan — as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said. We see now that Azerbaijani soldiers are even going shopping in Stepanakert. It’s an unbelievable situation. What is your interpretation of all this?

    De Waal: It’s true Russia now emphasizes that the area of de jure Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. But de facto, it’s now a Russian enclave. There are Russian peacekeepers there. Russia has become the security patron, not Armenia. They’re even talking about making Russian the language of Karabakh. I guess Karabakhis already speak Russian. So yes, Karabakh is now basically under Russian control. And for Russia, it’s a strategic asset in the Caucasus which they don’t want to lose — even though they say that technically, of course, it’s part of Azerbaijan.

    RFE/RL: Do you think that the United States and other states like France can have an influence on the negotiating process — if it starts at all? It seems that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration is willing to actually push through the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status. And two chambers of the French parliament called on the government to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh’s declaration of independence from Azerbaijan. But the French government has said it will not do so.

    De Waal: France and the United States have less influence than they had a few months ago. Russia is very much in the center. And, of course, Russia I think might be interested in an unstable peace which justifies the presence of Russian peacekeepers on the ground. So, no peace/no war, I think, might suit the Russians better than a full peace — which would be an argument for the Russians to leave the region. So I’m sure the new Biden administration wants to do something. But they are starting from a position of weakness.

    RFE/RL: What do you think about this transport corridor through southern Armenia that is mentioned in the November 9 truce — a link between Azerbaijan’s exclave of Naxcivan and the rest of Azerbaijan? Apparently it will be controlled by the Russian military. They will set up checkpoints on that road. Is that an encroachment on Armenian sovereignty?

    De Waal: I think it’s going to be incredibly difficult for the Armenians, who are being asked to facilitate a corridor across their own territory for Turks and Azerbaijanis to use. Presumably there will also be a north-south road connecting Armenia and Iran. But I think it’s going to be incredibly difficult for Armenia to agree to this. Again, this is one more reason I think why it’s important to have negotiations on a full political agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan — to make that corridor functional.

    RFE/RL: What is your advice to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government on what it should do next? Should it resign? And can we blame this colossal failure only on Pashinian? Or are previous Armenian governments also to be blamed for Armenia’s losses?

    De Waal: I think this is a bigger failure for 20 years. The failure is on both sides — [Armenia and Azerbaijan] — to negotiate a peace and negotiate a compromise. But certainly, the Armenian side and Mr. Pashinian have also not been talking compromise.

    I think it was a big mistake [for Pashinian] to continue to talk about these Azerbaijani territories [around Nagorno-Karabakh] as “liberated” territories, not occupied territories. The world regarded them as occupied territories.

    [Former Armenian Prime Minister] Serzh Sarkisian, of course, said once that [the Azerbaijani district of] Agdam “is not our homeland.” So he acknowledged that. But there’s been very little public acknowledgment of that in Armenia. But it’s from both sides, this failure. It’s a strategic failure to talk peace, which is also true from the Azerbaijani side as well. There’s been a very aggressive language all these years from Azerbaijan.

    I think it’s a big tragedy. And of course it’s a bigger tragedy now for Armenia because they have lost so much in this war.
    I don’t have any advice but to be extremely realistic about the future — that if you live with difficult neighbors you’ve got to construct an extremely realistic policy about how to do that. Don’t live with your dreams but live with your realities. I’m afraid that’s the fate of Armenians.

    RFE/RL: Do you think Pashinian should resign from his post as Armenia’s prime minister?

    De Waal: I don’t know. That’s not for me to say. Maybe what Armenia needs is new elections. And maybe Pashinian would win those elections. But it’s not for me to speak on behalf of the Armenian people. I think new elections probably would be helpful in this very difficult context for Armenia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Behind The Numbers: Three Tragic Russian COVID Cases

    KEMEROVO/NOVOSIBIRSK, Russia — “Recline the car’s seat all the way back. She can’t sit up by herself.”

    According to caregiver Kristina Baikalova, that’s what medics told her on November 4 when she went to pick up her relative, 52-year-old Zhanna Lindt, who was being discharged from a hospital in the southern Siberian city of Kemerovo.

    “We began to get upset,” Baikalova told RFE/RL. “Couldn’t they see what condition she was in? She didn’t react to any stimulus and apparently couldn’t feel any pain. I was pinching and shaking her. Why weren’t the doctors concerned that her eyes were closed and she was unresponsive?”

    The next day, Baikalova summoned a doctor, who was shocked at Lindt’s condition. Lindt was returned to the hospital, diagnosed as being in a coma following a massive stroke.

    “Exactly when the stroke happened, we’ll never know,” Baikalova said. “But I believe it was before she was discharged. At that time, she was already in a coma.”

    Zhanna Lindt

    Zhanna Lindt

    Lindt fell ill at the end of September but continued going to work. Eventually, her condition worsened so that she couldn’t eat or drink and Baikalova took her to the Belayev Kuzbass Clinical Hospital.

    After hours of waiting, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was given a prescription for antibiotics and sent home. With difficulty, Baikalova was able to fill the prescription and begin the treatment on October 8. On October 20, Lindt returned to the hospital and had a second X-ray. Again, the diagnosis was pneumonia.

    By this point, Lindt was unable to walk without assistance and slept almost all the time. Baikalova called a regional Health Ministry hotline and begged them to send a doctor.

    “She was simply dying,” Baikalova recalled. On October 22, an ambulance was called and Lindt was hospitalized.

    On October 25, Baikalova lost all contact with Lindt, who stopped answering her phone. Later she learned that Lindt had been transferred to the COVID ward, although her two COVID tests had been negative.

    On November 3, the hospital called and said Lindt would be discharged the next day.

    “We pulled the car up and they started wheeling Zhanna out on a gurney,” Baikalova said. “I asked, ‘Can’t she walk?’ And they answered, ‘Are you kidding? She can’t even open her eyes.’”

    After her return to the hospital on November 6, Lindt was sent to intensive care and put on a ventilator. She died on November 20, never having regained consciousness.

    The regional Health Ministry and the local prosecutor are investigating the case.

    Like much of the rest of the world, Russia is in the grips of an alarming new spike in COVID-19 cases. New infections have passed 25,000 per day and are still climbing, while daily deaths are around 500 per day, according to official figures that have been widely criticized as understating the situation. Moscow has reported more than 42,000 fatalities since the pandemic began.

    The wave of infections and hospitalization comes as Russia’s health-care system is emerging from a years-long government policy of “optimization,” which in practice has meant the consolidation of facilities and the closure of many smaller ones.

    ‘He Was Hungry And Tried To Crawl To The Refrigerator’

    Oleg Gulidov, a 57-year-old resident of Novosibirsk, was hospitalized on October 23, scheduled to have one leg amputated because of complications of diabetes. His operation passed successfully the next day, but on the fourth day of his hospitalization, he tested positive for COVID-19. He was diagnosed with COVID and double pneumonia.

    After two negative COVID tests, Gulidov was released from the hospital on November 20.

    According to a resident of the dormitory where Gulidov lives alone who asked to be identified only as Yulia, his room soon reeked of feces. Gulidov had no crutches or wheelchair. He was unable to make his way to the refrigerator.

    Some friends dropped Gulidov off on November 20, late on a Friday evening.

    “I noticed that no one came to him on Saturday,” Yulia told RFE/RL. “I thought that I should drop by and see if he needed any help. He said that he was hungry and tried to crawl to the refrigerator. He fell and injured his leg.”

    Yulia said she bought Gulidov some groceries and some medicine and called a local clinic, which promised to send a therapist. No one came.

    After a few days, a friend of Yulia’s wrote about Gulidov’s plight on social media and strangers began offering help — a wheelchair, groceries, money.

    Yevgeny Ilchenko, a lawyer who is working with Gulidov, blames the doctors who treated his COVID for his plight.

    “What condition was he in when he was released and where was he living?” Ilchenko said. “If a person doesn’t have proper living conditions, was that indicated in his release? They basically released him in a state that threatened his health and even his life. In the hospital, they definitely could have gathered a commission to give him special-needs status and put him on the rolls of social services. But the doctors did not do that.”

    The regional Social Development Ministry is looking into Gulidov’s case.

    ‘I Was Calling The Ambulance Four Or Five Times A Day’

    Vadim Skripnikov, also of Novosibirsk, fell ill at the very end of October. On October 31, he visited his local clinic with a fever. He was diagnosed with the flu and sent home on sick leave. His condition, however, worsened — a dry cough, loss of the senses of taste and smell. His son, Igor Skripnikov, began calling for an ambulance, but he was told that he’d have to wait his turn and that it would take two or three days.

    After three days, a medic showed up at the apartment.

    “He examined my father and diagnosed him with pneumonia,” Igor Skripnikov recalled. “We asked him how he could be hospitalized and we were told to organize a CT scan of his lungs and then see what the diagnosis was.” The local COVID hotline gave Skripnikov the same advice.

    The elder Skripnikov again visited his local clinic and was again diagnosed with the flu. No CT scan was done.

    Vadim Skripnikov

    Vadim Skripnikov

    He was given a prescription for an antibiotic that turned out to be unavailable across Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city with a population of about 1.6 million.

    Nine days later, Vadim Skripnikov had a fever around 40 degrees Celsius, and his breathing was labored. For two days, his family called for an ambulance without success.

    “I was calling the ambulance four or five times a day,” Igor Skripnikov told RFE/RL. “They just told me they were coming. There was no point in me taking him to the hospital because they wouldn’t admit him without a CT scan, which I hadn’t been able to arrange because even the private clinics were booked until December 11.”

    “One medic I spoke with told me rudely that the situation was very bad and that just in Novosibirsk’s Lenin Region they were getting 300 calls a day.”

    An ambulance finally came when the elder Skripnikov was barely breathing at all. “He was taken to a special COVID hospital and was supposed to be put on a ventilator in intensive care,” Igor Skripnikov said. “But we later learned that he had been put in an ordinary ward for several hours before he was moved to intensive care.”

    Vadim Skripnkikov died two days later. According to his file, he died of pneumonia. There was no mention of COVID-19.

    Four days after he died, an emergency doctor that they had called when Skripnikov first fell ill appeared on their doorstep to examine the patient.

    “We had no chance to buy him medicine or get him hospitalized in time,” Igor Skripnikov said. “We found ourselves in a meat grinder. Our health-care system chopped us up and spat us out. And no one will be held responsible for it.”

    On November 20, the Novosibirsk Oblast Health Ministry issued a statement offering “a sincere apology” for its handling of the Skripnikov case.

    “The regional Health Ministry offers its deepest condolences to the relatives and friends of the deceased,” the statement concluded.

    Written by senior correspondent Robert Coalson based on reporting from Kemerovo and Novosibirsk by correspondents Alla Mozhdzhenskaya and Anton Barsukov of the Siberia Desk of RFE/RL’s Russian Service

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.