What the Russian papers say http://en.rian.ru/papers/20100408/158483693.html© Alex Steffler
16:2208/04/2010
Kommersant, Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Moscow sees new START treaty as big successToday in Prague, Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama will finally sign a 156-page Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Officials in Moscow are satisfied with what has been accomplished, and are proud to be an equal party to a major international nuclear reductions agreement as in times past. This agreement offers hope that Russian-American relations will see a rapid improvement now.
"It was a test of attitudes. Few believed they would be negotiating in earnest, but the talks were not just for show. The Americans discovered that the Russians did have a strategic reductions agenda of their own," Dmitry Trenin from the Moscow Carnegie Center said.
Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of the USA and Canada, added: "The very fact that the United States is signing this agreement with Russia and Russia alone, rather than with China or India or Europe, boosts Russia's international influence and confirms that Russia is one of the important forces on the international stage and that its interests have to be reckoned with."
At a Moscow news conference on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov obviously indulged in repeating that there was "absolute parity" in the new agreement. This subtle psychological factor is important to Moscow, is reminiscent of its former clout, when the Soviet Union was considered an equal match to the United States. Officials at the Kremlin and at the Foreign Ministry emphasize that START-3 creates opportunities to push the bilateral partnership further. This partnership should expand to non-military areas as well.
A source at the Kremlin executive office said: "We hope that our relations have gone from confrontation to cooperation, which is bound to involve hard work. We are satisfied with the agreement, although certain so-called analysts are outraged and argue that Moscow's consent to disarm means a defeat. What are they calling for? What options do we have? To continue an exhaustive arms race? Or to explain flaws in our own mentality by hostile sabotage? This is not the right thing to do."
Analysts believe that the Russian-American nuclear agreement will eventually lead to resolution of other disputed issues. "I expect some positive changes with regard to cancelling the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, and in Russia's WTO accession process," Rogov said.
"Ratification of this treaty would also mean a defeat for the Hawks who support Russian-American confrontation. No one really wants to fight; they just want to take cash from the budget," he added.
Kommersant, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Izvestia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Russia could benefit from unrest in KyrgyzstanFive years after the so-called tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan, the northern and southern clans of that Central Asian republic are again fighting for power, with at least 74 people dead during nationwide protests. Analysts believe that the outcome of the confrontation largely depends on the attitude of the key regional players, Russia, the United States and China.
"By and large, Moscow, Washington and Beijing are not interested in destabilization in Kyrgyzstan," said Alexei Vlasov, director of Moscow State University's Center for the Study of Political Processes in the CIS.
Andrei Grozin, Central Asia sector head at the Institute of the CIS Countries, said: "China traditionally fears that any unrest in the neighboring republic could spread to its western provinces, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The United States, which is mostly concerned with Afghanistan, has no complaints with President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his assistance in ensuring the delivery of military cargo to the U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan. Unrest [in Kyrgyzstan] can only slightly affect that route."
Moscow has dissociated itself from the conflict and called on the involved parties to "refrain from violence." President Bakiyev probably expected Russia, its partner in the regional Collective Security Treaty Organization, to support him more emphatically. But there is nothing surprising in Russia's stand.
"Kyrgyzstan is our ally in the CIS and several other regional organizations, but its behavior has been ambivalent," said Konstantin Zatulin, a member of Russia's parliament and the director of the Institute of the CIS Countries.
Russia has a number of complaints against Kyrgyzstan.
In June last year, Bakiyev approved the preservation of the U.S. military base at Manas airport, contrary to Moscow's wish. He only changed its name to the Transit Center, although he had said in Moscow before doing so that the base would be closed. Believing his assurances, Russia allocated a $150 million gratis loan and a $300 million easy loan to Kyrgyzstan and wrote off its $180 million debt.
It has been reported in 2010 that Kyrgyz authorities plan to set up one more U.S. facility in the republic, a training center in the Batken Region.
However, none of the above points to Russia's desire to support Bakiyev's opponents.
"It does not matter to Moscow who is president of Kyrgyzstan," said Mikhail Rostovsky, a commentator with the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets. "Any person holding the post, provided he is not crazy, will try to maintain good relations with Russia while playing a complicated game with the other global power centers. However, Russia does need to see at least a semblance of stability in Kyrgyzstan. The North Caucasus is aflame, and so Russia would do anything to prevent the appearance of one more battlefront in the war against Islamic fundamentalism, which thrives on chaos."
However, Grozin thinks that "the Kremlin can benefit from these developments, as Kyrgyz authorities will now become more cautious in their relations with the United States. This is enough for Moscow."
RBC Daily
Putin tries to untangle "Katyn knot" in Russian-Polish relationsOn Wednesday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin tried to unravel the "Katyn knot" which has been complicating relations between Moscow and Warsaw for the past 70 years and which serves as a pretext for boisterous accusation.
Putin invited his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk, to Katyn, a village in the Smolensk Region, where he became the first Russian leader to visit a memorial cemetery where an estimated 4,000 Polish officers are buried. Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 Polish prisoners of war were executed in the Soviet Union in 1940.
It was not until April 1990 that the Kremlin, in the person of Mikhail Gorbachev, admitted to perpetrating the Katyn massacre. In 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin visited the Powazki Cemetery monument to Katyn victims in Warsaw and uttered the famous phrase: "Forgive us!"
However, most of the archived documents remain classified, and the official culprit list is limited to Soviet secret service chiefs Lavrenty Beria, Vsevolod Merkulov and his henchmen. The European Court of Human Rights continues to receive lawsuits against Russia from Katyn-victim relatives.
Warsaw believes that, apart from normalizing relations, Moscow wants to attain other political goals. Unlike Prime Minister Tusk, no one invited Polish President Lech Kaczynski to Katyn, although he had publicly stated his desire to go.
Some Polish analysts believe that Moscow is trying to drive a wedge between the Polish president and the prime minister by openly supporting the liberal Tusk, rather than the conservative Kaczynski who has long irritated Moscow, almost to the same extent as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili or former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
Bilateral relations hit an all-time low in 2006-2007 under Kaczynski's identical twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the then prime minister of Poland.
After Tusk became prime minister, he lifted the Polish veto on initial talks to conclude a new Russia-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), while Moscow agreed to resume Polish meat imports.
However, a bilateral thaw did not prevent Lech Kaczynski from visiting Tbilisi in August 2008 and supporting Saakashvili at a meeting during the Russian-Georgian conflict over the break-away province of South Ossetia.
Lech Kaczynski will vie against Bronislaw Komorowski, a Polish politician and member of the Civic Platform party together with Tusk, during the next Polish presidential election, scheduled to be held in the fall of 2010.
Russia avoids any contact with Kaczynski, including those initiated by him. Two months ago, President Dmitry Medvedev turned down an invitation to attend celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of liberating the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland even though a new Russian pavilion had opened there.
At their concluding news conference, Putin and Tusk agreed that the Russian goodwill gesture signified a turning point in bilateral relations. It appears, however, that the issue has not been removed from the political agenda.
Tusk cautioned that it should not be expected that everyone will make a similar assessment of the Katyn meeting. Putin set forth the Russian stance implying that humanitarian issues are the only factor hindering mutual understanding on the Katyn issue.
"We don't want to place the relatives of the deceased in an ambiguous situation," Putin said, hinting that Moscow's stance on the issue remained firm.
Gazeta.ruRussian Railways to push wide gauge into EuropeRussian Railways (RZD) has neared the implementation stage of a project that has been discussed over the past ten years: to extend Russia's wide track gauge into Europe. This would enable Europe to receive goods from Asia faster and at less cost. In addition, the Russian rail monopoly would gain a decisive edge over road and sea transport by linking Central Europe with areas served by the Trans-Siberian Railway.
In Bratislava, a four-authority agreement has been signed on a feasibility study for a rail line from Kosice, Slovakia, to Vienna, Austria.
Russia's rail gauge is 1,520 mm wide, compared with the 1,435 mm standard gauge in Europe. The wide-gauge railroad to Europe would run from the Slovakia-Ukraine border to Bratislava and then to Vienna, creating a logistics hub on the Danube. The German company Roland Berger Strategy Consultants has been chosen as the main contractor for the investment feasibility study.
RZD and Slovakia's Tatravagonka will also sign an agreement for a joint venture to design and manufacture freight cars and TMKh Vagonostroyenie will conclude an agreement for a joint venture with the same company for the production of articulated flatcars.
Investment estimates are in the $2-$3 billion range. Revenue and spending will be shared in proportion to the length of the system passing through each respective country, according to RZD President Vladimir Yakunin.
"The logistics gains from this plan are obvious," says Igor Nikolayev, director of the FBK strategic department. "It is one thing to haul goods from Asia along the Trans-Siberian Railway to St. Petersburg or to Baltic ports, then reload them there and forward them on by sea to Europe, but it is quite another to transport goods directly into the heart of Europe on one gauge without the losses in time and money necessary for transfers."
By extending the wide gauge, RZD will be able to increase freight traffic along the Trans-Siberian route from the Asia-Pacific region to Europe, "and this will involve all kinds of cargo, including equipment," the expert said. The company's transit earnings will also increase.
Austria will stand to gain economically as well. After all, it is there that the main logistics center will be built to transfer containers and commodities from one gauge to the other or to trucks. "One such center will be enough, it makes no sense to extend wide gauge to other countries," Nikolayev says. "Europe has well developed rail and highway networks, and freight will be quickly and efficiently forwarded to other countries."
It is not out of the question, however, to consider some south-bound lines: to the Adriatic Sea, to the former Yugoslavia or to Italy. German railway lines are also interested in the project.
RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources. MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti)
