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Russia-Europe: The dangers of a “reset”

Posted Friday, February 19, 2010 by Anders Hjemdahl

bomb

By Françoise Thom

What strikes a historian when looking at the relationship between Russia and Europe is the unchanging illusions Russia produces in the imagination of Westerners, and Russia’s ability to dictate the conceptual frameworks within which it wants to be interpreted –and misunderstood– abroad.

This explains another mystery in the relationship between Russians and Europeans: the astonishing imperviousness of the Western partners to experience.
The successive setbacks suffered by businessmen in Russia, the snubs regularly inflicted on European statesmen, the murders, the insults to diplomats, the abusive nationalizations, the broken commitments, the violations of international law, all are instantly forgotten.
No sooner had Russia launched a war of conquest allowing it to occupy 20 percent of the territory of a neighboring state, than the United States spoke of a “reset”; that is to say, of wiping off the slate (and thus erasing a valuable experience from which the lessons should have been drawn), while France is eagerly offering Russia the means for its next war of aggression against neighboring states by selling it Mistral helicopter carriers.

Rarely has the actual misunderstanding of Russia been as great as it is now, and as fraught with disastrous consequences for Europe.

Read the whole article in Eesti Elu (in English) here and in French in Géopolitique de L’Europe here.

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Latvia, Lithuania, NATO, Russia, Security, Sweden, United States | 1 Comment »

Nord Stream Project Faces Hard Slog Against the Tide

Posted Friday, February 19, 2010 by Anders Hjemdahl

by Vladimir Socor

Nord Stream, the gas pipeline project on the Baltic seabed from Russia to Germany, has cleared the final legal requirement, obtaining the construction permit from the state administration agency of the Southern Finland region (Financial Times Deutschland, February 15).

The governments of Finland, Denmark, and Sweden had granted the construction permits last October and November for the Gazprom-led project (EDM, November 10, 12, 2009). Their neighbors on the opposite Baltic shore (the EU members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland) had resisted this project. They continue objecting to Nord Stream on the basis of energy security and ecological risk considerations. Once Nord Stream is built, Russia could politically manipulate gas supplies to the Baltic States and Poland by overland pipelines, without affecting Germany, which would be supplied through the seabed pipeline. The EU’s risk-sharing and solidarity might be subjected to strain in such situations, or in the event of supply shortfalls in Russia itself.

The Gazprom-led project is now set for starting construction work this coming spring, despite rapidly changing fundamentals of the gas trade. Development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and unconventional gas raise new doubts about the economic sense of Nord Stream.

Read the whole article by Vladimir Socor at the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor.

Tags: Nord Stream
Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security, Sweden | 3 Comments »

Denmark caves in to Russian pressure over Nordstream

Posted Tuesday, October 20, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

The city of Viborg in a painting by Mikael S. Erassi in 1854. The city, founded by Swedish marshal Torkel Knutsson in 1293 close to the historical eastern border of Sweden, Systerbäck, Viborg was for more than six centuries one of Sweden/Finlands most important cities. Illegaly occupied by the Soviet Union/Russia since 1944 and renamed "Vyborg", the city is according to current official Russian sources "an ancient Russian city". To see the city and its architecture as it was before the destruction and decay of the Russian occupation, please visit the University of Tammerfors virtual Viborg project by cklicking on the picture.

After several months of being subjected to pressure from the Russian regime, the Danish government has finally reached a decision to allow the controversial Russian gas pipeline Nordstream to be constructed in Danish territorial waters.

The largest Danish energy company, Dong, has also reached a new decision to double the volume of gas purchased in a recently passed agreement with Russian state-controlled Gazprom to two billion cubic meters annually.

The Nordstream pipeline, rather than using the much cheaper and easier overland route, is planned to be constructed from Björkö outside Viborg in the Russian-occupied zone of Finland, to Greifswald in Germany along environmentally sensitive Baltic Sea floor, bypassing the pipeline system which is currently used for bringing Russian gas exports to the West.

The current pipeline system reaching Europe from Russia was constructed by the Soviet Union with the objective of making the West dependent on Soviet energy. Today, inconveniently for the current Russian regime, this pipeline system now passes through countries which since have regained their independence, making it hard for the Russian state to indiscriminately use the “energy weapon” by turning off supplies to troublesome neighboring countries without also affecting supplies to Western Europe in the process.

The Nordstream pipeline is designed to allow the Russian regime to bypass these troublesome countries, giving it a free hand in applying political pressure, not only on the states in Russia’s self-declared “zone of interest” covering neighboring states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine, but also on the West, by even further increasing the already significant Western European dependancy on Russian energy.

The pipeline also provides an excuse to project Russian military presence throughout the Baltic Sea.

The Nord Stream project has been explicitly and consistently described by Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, as a military-political project by the Putin, and the project forms a key part of Russian foreign policy and military planning.

In response to the controversial purpose and nature of the Nord Stream pipeline project, the Russian plans has been met by fierce opposition in neighboring countries.

The Russian response has been to stifle criticism and speed up the legislative process in countries along the projected route by buying up political clout, including employment by Nordstream/Gazprom of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (head of the shareholder’s committee) former Prime Minister of Finland Paavo Lipponen (consultant) and many others, as well as the intensive use of PR firms and lobbyists.

The Managing Director of Nord Stream AG, Mathias Warnig, is a former DDR Stasi agent, and the German subsidiary of Gazprom, Gazprom Germania, has also been heavily critized for being dominated by former Stasi agents.

Robert Larsson’s 362-page study “Russia’s Energy Policy: Security Dimensions and Russia’s Reliability as an Energy Supplier” (2006) concluded:

“From Europe’s perspective, Russia is moving in the wrong direction. Russia has largely ignored criticism, and has been unwilling to change its behaviour. Dependence on Russian energy would not be a problem if Russia played by the same rules as other energy players or European states. In conclusion, the core problem is the combination of Russia’s perception, intentions, capabilities and track record along with lack of real stability, a high degree of unpredictability and a development away from democracy, rule of law and market norms.”

Download the full 2007 FOI (Swedish Defense Research agency) report “Nord Stream , Sweden and Baltic Sea Security” by Robert A. Larsson here.

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, NATO, Russia, Security, Sweden | 2 Comments »

Gazprom’s Loyalists in Berlin and Brussels

Posted Friday, June 5, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

(By Roman Kupchinsky, from the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor)

Gazprom’s extensive network of loyalists, often act as “men of sacrifice,” devoted to cleansing the image of the Russian state owned gas monopoly. Working out of a modern office building in Berlin owned by Gazprom Germania, a German registered company fully owned by Gazprom Export which, in turn is run by Gazprom, they have built up a considerable empire for the Kremlin. In turn they are being whitewashed by other loyalists in the offices of Brussels-based PR firm GPlus Europe.

There is no doubt that these highly qualified, well connected and very bright individuals employed by GPlus Europe and Gazprom Germania serve a vital purpose in creating an illusion that Gazprom is honorable and transparent, and that it is indispensible for European energy security. As the point men for Putin and Alexander Medvedev, the head of Gazprom Export, who pays their salaries, they are indeed “men of sacrifice” working for a cause which lead to the energy subjugation of the EU by a shady clan within the Kremlin.

Read the full article here.

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security, Sweden | 4 Comments »

New Russian bill threatens five years in prison for publishing that the Soviet Union occupied Eastern and Central Europe and the Baltic States

Posted Thursday, June 4, 2009 by Camilla Andersson

The German Army and the Soviet Army meet in Brest-Litovsk on September 22, 1939, for a joint victory parade after the joint occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union and its ally, Nazi Germany.

A new Russian bill threatens “punishment” for “falsifers of history”. Among the proposed crimes are alleging that the Baltic States and Eastern and Central Europe were occupied by the Soviet Union. Valery Ryazansky, a senior United Russia official and one of the authors of the bill, said, “If the country (Russia) is suddenly called an occupier – that should be punished”.

The decision also comes on the back of proposed bill that could make “distorting the verdicts of the Nuremburg Trials… to rehabilitate Nazism” or even “calling the actions of Allied countries a crime” a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison – five if the perpetrator used mass media, according to a text of the bill cited by Kommersant.

Amid increasingly vocal calls to criminalise interpretations of World War II history that question the role of the Soviet Union, President Dmitry Medvedev has set up a commission to investigate and analyse attempts to “falsify history against the interests of Russia.”

In a video blog posted on his web site, Medvedev called attempts at falsification “more and more harsh, depraved and aggressive.” The commission has raised eyebrows by appearing to throw support behind statements by Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu that denying Russia’s victory in the war should be illegal.

Read the full article by Anna Arutunyan in The Moscow News here.

Read also “Medvedev Imposes Control Over Russian History” by leading Russian democracy and human rights activist Oleg Kozlovsky in the Huffington Post.

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security | 3 Comments »

Russia threatens to bar Europeans who deny Red Army ‘liberated’ them

Posted Thursday, June 4, 2009 by Camilla Andersson

The Soviet Army marches in Riga, May 1, 1946. Image courtesy of the Museum of Occupation of Latvia 1940-1991.

Eastern Europeans who believe their countries were occupied by the Soviet Union after the Second World War could soon be barred from Russia under new proposals given official weight by the Kremlin.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, created a commission of 28 legislators and senior intelligence officers which will identify foreign “revisionists” who “disparage the international prestige of the Russian Federation”.

The move, condemned as “Orwellian” by its critics, comes shortly before the Russian parliament is expected to pass controversial legislation outlawing the “rehabilitation of Nazism”.

The bill has attracted criticism because of its definition of Nazi rehabilitation, with those who “belittle” the Soviet Union’s role in the war or criticise it in any way being regarded as equally culpable as those who glorify Hitler.

Those found to contravene the new law, which Russia insists is little different from Germany’s Holocaust-denial legislation, face up to five years in prison.

Foreign countries whose officials who the commission rules to be guilty of the new crimes will face sanction as well. The bill gives Russia the authority to expel ambassadors or sever diplomatic relations with offending nations and to impose full transport and communications blockades on them.

The legislation is thought to be primarily aimed at states like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which maintain they were occupied rather than liberated by the Soviet Union. Sergei Shoigu, a senior cabinet minister who initiated the legislation, has already said it could be used to ban senior Estonian officials.

A Russian MP yesterday said that the Baltic states deserved “to suffer punishment” for holding such views.

The new law could also be used to bar Western historians who accuse the Red Army of carrying out atrocities during its advance on Berlin or point out that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were once allies under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Seen as a way of teaching recalcitrant former Soviet states respect, the legislation has won almost universal backing in the Russian parliament.

But opposition politicians, who have no representation in parliament, have attacked the bill, saying it effectively reintroduces state ideology for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“The creation of this commission allows the state to impose its own idea of political will and ideology,” said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former Duma deputy who was forced out of parliament in 2007 by a law banning independent MPs.

“The former KGB will once again decide what is anti-Soviet and what is not.”

Mr Ryzhkov said that the new legislation was also part of a continuing rehabilitation of Stalin as it will effectively outlaw criticism of many of the former Soviet dictator’s policies.

An officially sanctioned history text book, introduced into schools two years ago, presented Stalin as a great leader while glossing over his repression of millions of Soviet citizens.

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow, from The Telegraph. Full article here .

For more information, please visit the website of The Museum Of The Occupation Of Latvia 1940-1991

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Human Rights, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security | No Comments »

Reset button not needed for the Baltics

Posted Sunday, May 17, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

jbanc_2009_congress_main1

By Anders Hjemdahl

WASHINGTON, DC The JBANC (Joint Baltic American National Committe) 2009 congress took place in Washington, DC on May 15-16, gathering representatives from many levels of the goverments of Estonia, Latvia, Lithaunia and the United States, as well as diplomats, members of the diaspora, political commentators, historians, writers, journalists and former congressmen and U.S. government officials. The annual JBANC congress coincides with several related activities around Washington, including embassy events, hearings in the U.S Capitol, seminars, gala dinners, fundraisers, informal meetings and cultural events.

The guest of honor of this year’s highly successful and well attended international congress was the President of Latvia, Mr.Valdis Zatlers, who delivered a highly appreciated speech centered on the importance of Latvia’s membership of NATO and friendship with the United States, transatlantic solidarity, the need for a united and distinct response to Russian belligerence, and of the need to defend the open society, democracy and free markets in the face of economic crisis.

The Friday, May 15 programme started with a briefing on cyber security at the US Capitol, featuring Dr. Stephen Blank of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Deron McElroy, House Committe on Homeland Security, and Paul Joyal of National Strategies, Inc., and was followed by a seminar at the Heritage Foundation themed on Information, New Media and the dissection of the legacy of Communism, presented by Dr. Lee Edwards of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

The Saturday, May 16 congress was an all-day event, with the major themes being

- Regional Geopolitics, Current and Future Security Threats

(Featuring Robert Norrick of the Monterrey Institute, Janusz Bugajski of CSIS, and Harri Tiido of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

- Ensuring Stability: Strategic Solutions and Regional Partnerships

(Featuring Julianne Smith of the U.S. Department of Defence, Andres Teikmanis, State Secretary of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Socor of the Eurasia Daily Monitor, the Jamestown Foundation, and Nicholas Kralev of The Washington Times)

- Policies of the new U.S. Administration and Congress: Baltic – U.S. Relations

(Featuring Alan Melzer, Deputy Director, Office of Nordic and Baltic Affairs, U.S. State Department, Vytautas Naudazas of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry and Ben Smith of Politico

- Diaspora Relations and Citizen Diplomacy – Views Across the Atlantic

(Featuring Aho Rebas, Office of the Minister for Population and Ethnic Affairs, Estonia, Mendy Nitsch, International Affairs, Office of the Secretary of State, Maryland, Andrea Strano, Regional Public Diplomacy Desk Officer EUR, State Department)

The discussions centered on the security situation of the Baltic republics in the wake of the lack of European Union and NATO response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, focusing on energy security, the validity of NATO Article 5 and the military security of the Baltic states, and of cyber security.

The afternoon discussions were dominated by an in-depth discussion on the need for securing the energy markets in the Baltics in relation to Russia’s use of energy for coercion and intimidation purposes, with initatives ranging from the construction of a local nuclear power plant, energy grid connections to Sweden, Finland and Poland, and the urgent need for creation of a common energy market for Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The desirability of Swedish and Finnish NATO memberships were discussed repeatedly, with Julianne Smith of the U.S. Department of Defense stating that “any application of Sweden and Finland to join NATO would be welcomed with open arms”.

Other high-interest issues which were brought up by many speakers and members of the audience were the continued validity of NATO Article 5, the need for extended NATO infrastructure and rapid reaction capability in the Baltic states, and the desirability of the stationing of foreign NATO “tripwire” troops in the Baltics as a stabilizing deterrent to Russian aggression and provocation.

An underlying topic which dominated many aspects of discussion were the importance of the formulation of new, common strategies of the European Union, NATO, and the new U.S. administration in dealing with an increasingly belligerent, aggressive and authoritarian Russia. Notable speakers on this subject were Vladimir Socor of the Eurasian Daily Monitor of the Jamestown Foundation, Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and Intertational Studies (CSIS), and Hari Tiido of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As a closing statement to the security-related discussions, Mr. Vytautas Nauduzas, Ambassador-at-large of Lithuania, invited U.S. President Obama to Lithaunia for the July 6 celebrations on the President’s way to Moscow. ” – A reset button is not needed with the Baltics”, stated the Ambassador.

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Latvia, Lithuania, NATO, Russia, Security, Sweden, United States | No Comments »

Nordic military cooperation outlined in new report

Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 by Mats Johansson

nordic_and_baltic_flags

STOCKHOLM. The Stoltenberg Report, named after its Social Democrat author Thorvald Stoltenberg, a former Minister for Foreign Affairs in Norway, represents another step forward to a closer cooperation concerning common security arrangements in the Nordic area.

When the report was published in February by Mr. Stoltenberg, it received a lot of credit from a broad spectrum of the political scale. On the receiving end, the five Nordic Foreign Ministers said they looked forward to taking all the proposals into serious consideration during their further handling of the report this spring.

There are thirteen areas for increased joint Nordic action suggested in the text:

1. A deployment force for military and civilian international actions

2. Air patrolling over Iceland

3. A sea surveillance system

4. A sea patrol

5. A satellite for sea control

6. Arctic co-operation

7. A network against cyber attacks

8. A co-ordination team for larger rescue operations

9. A war criminals research unit

10. Common embassies where there are no Nordic presence

11. Joint efforts for military education, training, transport and equipment

12. A special amphibian unit for international operations

13. A common declaration of solidarity against external attacks

Given the fact that some of these proposals include activities related to Nato-structures, formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Finland have to handle the issues in another context than member countries. At the same time the report is one of many signs that the gap between Nato and would-be-members is closing step by step, when it comes to practical arrangements and operational standards.

This is a good sign for those forces for freedom around the Baltic Sea, who share the belief that a united view of the region’s security is all the more important at a time when Russia, through political and military aggression, has distanced itself from good relations with its neighbors.

This first phase of this program of Nordic security cooperation should in due time be followed by a second, which also includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Such a step would give some answers to the question heard in these countries about what “solidarity” really means, if things come to the worst in relations to Russia.

And that is of course why some of the Stoltenberg proposals make especially older Finnish socialists nervous. Talk is cheap, but when it comes to reality Moscow still has a saying in Nordic affairs. Just how much, we will be able to infer from the future results of this report.

by Mats Johansson

For the full report:

http://eng.utanrikisraduneyti.is/media/Frettatilkynning/Nordic_report.pdf

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Security, Sweden | No Comments »

Gazprom Turns the Crisis Into an Opportunity -and a New Crisis

Posted Monday, April 20, 2009 by Anders Hjemdahl

(From the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor)

Gazprom tries to maintain the momentum of aggressive expansion in the European market expecting that economic troubles will force each country and company to fight for their own interests frustrating the efforts of the EU Commission to forge a common energy platform. One important breakthrough is in the making for the Nord Stream pipeline project across the Baltic Sea, which is Putin’s personal priority. French “champion” Gaz de France appears ready to join this project and that might finally convince the stubborn Swedes to drop their objections (www.gazeta.ru, April 10).

Another important development is Gazprom’s decision to issue Euro-bonds for as much as $2 billion with the help of Credit Suisse (RBC Daily, April 9). That might help in settling current payments with Italian ENI, but more importantly that will increase the ranks of European stakeholders who are interested in Gazprom’s success.

Read the whole article by Pavel K. Baev at the Eurasia Daily Monitor here.

Posted in Estonia, Finland, Geopolitics, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Security, Sweden | No Comments »

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