What the Russian papers say

MOSCOW, November 27 (RIA Novosti) Russia takes pragmatic approach to European relations / Russia, China trying to compromise on arms trade - analyst / Interior minister says people have right to hit back at rogue cops / Air force reform may replenish Russia's budget /

Gazeta.ru

Russia takes pragmatic approach to European relations

The past few weeks' developments in the European Union have shown that large influential member-states still hold the reins and are not planning to hand over even symbolic powers to the new "central government," a Russian analyst writes.

Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Moscow-based magazine Russia in Global Affairs, suggests Moscow shouldn't bother to adjust its approach to consolidating ties with Paris, Berlin and Rome.

The talk of integration based on European values and regulatory framework has faded. However, officials in Moscow have been increasingly emphasizing cooperation for the sake of modernization. The agenda of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to France is typical of Russia's new approach to relations with Europe - it includes AvtoVAZ, Nord Stream and South Stream, and the helicopter carrier Mistral. Although of varying scale and importance, all of these problems relate to one policy aimed at building up each of the parties' commercial interest in the other, the analyst writes.

In the early 2000s, Putin attempted to build his policies on personal friendships with Gerhardt Schroeder, Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi. However, the periodic change of leaders accepted in democracies seriously undermines that arrangement. Contacts with Angela Merkel, who is not very fond of Russian administrators, turned out of greater practical use than his cordial friendship with Schroeder.

Putin's relations with Nicolas Sarcozy's France are even more businesslike than with Chirac, although the current president has no habit of making long speeches on the multi-polar world.

The short period between Berlusconi's terms in office, while Romano Prodi was prime minister, also showed that interests were much more reliable than personal relationships, Lukyanov asserts.

Russia in fact can shift to a "business-only" model of relations with Europe. However, under a purely pragmatic approach, making good on a politically backed deal becomes a must. A nation's ability to guarantee the rules of the game is what they call investment climate - meaning abidance by laws; but it could also be ensured by authoritarian stability. The outcome will be essentially the same, the analyst concludes.

However, the rapid removal of margins between business, bureaucracy and law enforcement underway in Russia suggests that no one is planning to provide any guarantees to investors, whatever high ideas the nation's leaders might have. Even if we assume that western capital's appetite is unlimited, self-preservation will prevail in the end, Lukyanov says.

RBC Daily

Russia, China trying to compromise on arms trade - analyst

On Thursday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met with General Guo Boxiong, deputy chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China, in Barvikha near Moscow.

Medvedev and Boxiong discussed bilateral military-technical cooperation, which has declined sharply in the past few years.

Moscow refuses to sell its technology and state-of-the-art weapons to Beijing for fear that they will be pirated. Analysts are telling the Kremlin not to yield to Chinese pressure at a time when Russia's defense industry is affected by stagnant arms exports.

Analysts say previous arms trade volumes should be reinstated. The Chinese army needs new military equipment, while Russian defense companies, which have profited in the 12 years of close bilateral cooperation, need money.

Defense cooperation was halted in the past two to three years, with analysts ironically calling this pause "strategic."

"The Chinese side demands the sale of weapons and technology. However, Moscow cannot do this. At least, it cannot comply with Beijing's terms. Both sides are trying hard to find a compromise today," said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

Russian-Chinese defense cooperation is marked by dwindling orders and sensational scandals. A March 2009 media leak revealed that Moscow wanted to refuse to sell a large consignment of Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D fighters to Beijing for fear that China would make pirated copies, just as it had previously pirated the Su-27 Flanker fighter.

Pirated copies and industrial espionage are probably the only way out for China, analysts say. The United States and Europe imposed an arms delivery embargo on China after Beijing brutally suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests in June 1989. Washington is also exerting pressure on Israel to follow suit.

"Instead of inventing something new, the Chinese simply steal. This is the pillar of their defense industry. Their ships, for example, are a curious blend of Russian and Western technology," said Alexander Khramchikhin, an analyst with the Institute for Military and Political Analysis.

This explains some scandals involving Chinese agents in the U.S. defense industry.

"Russia is still prudent enough not to sell fifth-generation fighters and other advanced technology to China. I really hope this policy will continue," Khramchikhin said.

Kommersant, Izvestia

Interior minister says people have right to hit back at rogue cops

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, who had previously effused to discuss the increasingly strained relations between the public and police, on Thursday made a comment on the situation. His advice was this - if a police officer attacks a law-abiding citizen, the person attacked has the right to hit back. The minister did not say, however, that resistance to the police might lead to a life sentence for the said law-abiding citizen.

By doing so, Nurgaliyev set himself against all Russian legislation and law enforcement practice. Resisting a police officer is traditionally categorized as a very grave crime in Russian criminal law: Article 317 of the Criminal Code stipulates punishment for those "hitting back" ranging from 12 years to life, while Article 18 of the Federal Law On the Police specifies that a police officer is on duty at all times and in all places.

"Law enforcement practice suggests that in most cases it is practically impossible to prove that a police officer has provoked a response," said lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, a member of the Public Chamber, commenting on the minister's statement.

"To be on the safe side, police officers often report that the detainee put up a resistance, trying to tear off a shoulder strap, or even just swearing," says Oleg Novikov, an analyst from the human rights organization Public Verdict Foundation. "When the case is heard in court, this fact is considered an aggravating circumstance, and for a court to acknowledge resistance it is enough to have evidence from the police." "Nurgaliyev does not realize what a dangerous thing he has done," Novikov says. "This is beginning to look like panic."

Vedomosti

Air force reform may replenish Russia's budget

Russia is to overhaul its Air Force as radically as it is reforming its Army. Analysts say the scrapped military aircraft may earn the budget hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Air Force will be restructured into operational commands, Air Force bases and aerospace defense (air defense and missile defense) brigades, Alexander Zelin, commander in chief of the Air Force, said on Thursday. The Air Force will have 33 bases and 13 aerospace defense brigades. Restructuring is to be completed by January 1, 2010.

The reform will proceed alongside similar changes in the Army, where nearly 1,900 units and commands are being transformed into 172 permanent readiness units and commands, and more than 20 motorized and tank divisions will give way to 39 combined arms and two tank brigades.

The reform of the Air Force was initiated to consolidate the better-trained units at a smaller number of airfields, which will allow intensifying combat training, increasing the share of combat ready aircraft, and saving considerable funds, an officer at the Russian Defense Ministry said.

When planning the reform, Russia drew on the experience of Belarus, which restructured its air force from regiments to bases many years ago.

Mikhail Barabanov, an editor at the Moscow Defense Brief magazine, said that according to information from non-classified sources Russia had 72 air regiments, 14 bases and 12 separate air squadrons and units (excluding training regiments) at the beginning of 2009.

Their replacement with 33 Air Force bases also entails the release of some 1,000 aircraft and helicopters. The new bases will have only about 2,000 aircraft, the analyst said, adding that all types of aircraft and helicopters, excluding the latest models, will be scrapped.

As many as 100 scrapped aircraft and helicopters could be sold to other countries' air forces and civil air carriers, which may earn the budget several hundred million dollars, said Konstantin Makiyenko, an analyst at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

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