Kommersant

START-2 treaty unlikely to be ready before next spring

Russia and the United States, which more than once said in the past few months that they would soon sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty, have admitted that the deal could take longer to complete than expected.
Sources with inside information about the talks say that Washington's negotiating enthusiasm subsided when it failed to sign the treaty by the time President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in December.
Judging by the latest statements made by Russian and U.S. diplomats, the parties no longer know how soon they may be able to complete the new treaty.
Sources of business daily Kommersant said on condition of anonymity that the United States has lost interest in the treaty.
"The pace of preparations has slowed down considerably compared to how they worked hoping to sign the treaty by December 10, when Barack Obama was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize," a source said. "Their enthusiasm has deflated and nobody can say now when we will complete the work on the treaty."
It is also possible that the situation has been influenced by the position of U.S. senators, who are to ratify the treaty after the two presidents sign it.
In mid-December, 40 Republicans and one independent senator sent a letter to Obama insisting that he take into account their requirements with regard to the United States' national security. They can easily blackball the treaty, which needs at least 67 votes of the 100-member Senate for ratification.
It is therefore not surprising that American negotiators have become more cautious.
One of the analysts involved in the talks told the newspaper that the treaty would not be ready before late April or early May 2010.
"The treaty is unlikely to be ready for signing in the first quarter of 2010," he said. "It is not a fiction novel but a legal document, which implies a huge amount of technical work. Promises of its early completion are unrealistic, also because the negotiators have taken a break until at least mid-January."

Izvestia

Former Soviet republics hindering improved Russia-EU relations

In early December, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said visa-free travel between the European Union and Russia could be launched as early as 2010 after the enactment of the Treaty of Lisbon and the abolition of the free veto principle.
Many analysts called Frattini's statement wishful thinking and predicted that visa regime changes would be slower and less radical.
It is hard to unilaterally renounce the visa issue, which is used as an instrument of pressure and bargaining. It was easy to proclaim free exchanges of people and ideas during the Soviet era, when the Communists tightly controlled the border. This much coveted exchange is meeting with a more restrained response on the part of former freedom-lovers. The United States is still using the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment to allow people to emigrate from the non-existent Soviet Union.
Although Europe cannot boast U.S.-style honesty, it was interesting to learn which EU country would be the first to torpedo the Italian initiative and under what pretext. In their joint statement, Latvian and Estonian foreign ministers, Maris Riekstins and Urmas Paet, said Brussels should link the EU-Russia visa-free travel issue with the broader context of abolishing visas for the citizens of Ukraine, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Belarus covered by the EU's Eastern Partnership program.
The motives of former Soviet republics are quite understandable. On the one hand, they do not want the EU to set them aside.
Although Frattini openly said overdue decisions could be adopted with the abolition of the free veto principle, his Estonian counterpart objected that the EU foreign policy was one of the few spheres where consensus requirements remained in force even after the enactment of the Treaty of Lisbon.
This implies that the EU will not get rid of countries which spitefully prevent others from having something that they have no use for, and that it should abandon all wishful thinking.
Countries on the verge of bankruptcy have to cling to open borders facilitating expanded trade, transport and tourist relations. However, former Soviet republics cannot tolerate the fact that Russia's improved relations with Old Europe relegate them to the background.

Vedomosti

Most Russians accept market reforms - survey

Over the past 10 years, Russians have softened towards reforms and their architect, Yegor Gaidar and his team, the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion reported. Political analysts agree that the word "market" is no longer a swear word.
On December 19-20, the Center polled 1,600 people in 42 Russian regions about the role of former acting prime minister Gaidar, who died suddenly on December 16. Some 16% said there was no alternative at the time (in 1999, only 8% thought so). Another 39% agreed that the reforms were necessary but should have been introduced slowly over a longer period of time (10 years ago this view was held by 44%). Those who renounce the reforms have declined from 35% to 18% in the 10 years.
Russians have mixed views on Gaidar's contribution to economic development: 31% describe him as the brain behind Russian reforms, while 29% as a manager with no sense of responsibility (40% could not give a definite answer). But in the past two years those who believe the team acted correctly has risen from 24% to 34%.
Similar results are reported by the Levada Center, which carried out its survey in November. A relative majority of Russians (48%) would like to see Russia become similar to a Western country with democratic institutions and a market economy. Only 12% see it as a socialist state patterned on the Soviet Union, while 36% suggest it has its own special development path.
Valery Fyodorov, the Center's general director, believes there are several reasons for this change. First, reforms carried out in the 1990s are now perceived as something long gone by, overshadowed by periods of economic growth and decline in 1998 and 2008-2009.
Second, a new generation has grown up in post-Soviet Russia, for which the market environment and Gaidar's reforms no longer hold such a horror as they did for the older generations. Third, as Dmitry Medvedev became president, he made modernization into a catchall slogan, and this is having an indirect effect on the public attitude to the reformers.
Russians find it difficult to imagine a different economic reality, and the word "market" is no longer used as a swear word, agrees political analyst Mikhail Vinogradov. Far more people came to say farewell to the deceased former prime minister than was expected, he added. The funeral had a very good press - this, too, could have had a positive impact on public opinion.

Kommersant

Russia plans to resume mass production of extra-heavy air freighters

President Dmitry Medvedev has instructed the government to include the purchasing of 20 new An-124 Ruslan military transport aircraft in the national armaments program until 2020. Their manufacture at the Ulyanovsk Aviastar-SP plant was halted in the mid-1990s.
The new modification has an increased carrying capacity (150 tons instead of 120 tons) and, according to the business plan, its production begins with an order for 40 units. Civilian carriers are saying they want to purchase 60 more aircraft.
Restoring the production of the An-124 needs $500 million, according to sources in the United Aircraft Corporation. The commercial price of one aircraft may be as high as $200 million, although the price for the Russian Air Force is still negotiable. In any case, Ruslans may prove a money drain for the Defense Ministry, even though they have not been much in demand until now.
According to specialists from the Volga-Dnepr company (which owns the world's largest charter fleet of Ruslans - 10 in all), the charter freight market of ramp aircraft, such as the Ruslan, will be $1.1 billion in 2009, with Russian airlines making up 70%.
Experts claim that the An-124 can make it to the market only if the Defense Ministry provides the financing. Only government money can give a fresh impetus to production and restore industrial cooperative ties.
The Ministry has a definite problem with replacing its fleet of transport aircraft. Konstantin Makiyenko, an analyst with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, says the official inventory of the state's military-transport aviation numbers 25 Ruslans. All of them were made in the Soviet era and, according to various sources, will reach the end of their normal service lives between 2014 and 2024, with no replacements to fall on. "This compares with 126 C-5 transports with similar carrying capacity in the U.S. Air Force," Makiyenko says.
Oleg Panteleyev, head of Aviaport think tank, believes that the project will get off the ground only when the UAC account gets the first tranche. There have been many empty promises to support the An-124 in recent years, the analyst says.

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