The Washington Post's Walter Pincus has an analysis of Robert Gates recent articles and media appearances. He writes:

A longtime Russia analyst during his years with the CIA, Gates today sees Moscow as less of a threat than do many inside and outside the U.S. military establishment.

Pincus is referring to statements like this one, from Gates' piece in the new Foreign Affairs:

Russian tanks and artillery may have crushed Georgia's tiny military. But before the United States begins rearming for another Cold War, it must remember that what is driving Russia is a desire to exorcise past humiliation and dominate its "near abroad" -- not an ideologically driven campaign to dominate the globe. As someone who used to prepare estimates of Soviet military strength for several presidents, I can say that Russia's conventional military, although vastly improved since its nadir in the late 1990s, remains a shadow of its Soviet predecessor. And adverse demographic trends in Russia will likely keep those conventional forces in check.

Good point, but do "many inside and outside the U.S. military establishment" really disagree with it? I find it hard to believe that even those who think the military is neglecting conventional threats by focusing on counterinsurgency would argue that Russia today is a comparable threat to the Soviet Union.

If there actually is a real debate about this, I'm glad Gates is the one in charge. Here's hoping he and his colleagues continue the recent strategy of basically ignoring Russia's pointless military posturing and focusing their attention where real damage can be done.

Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Another cold Russian winter, another dispute about Russian gas prices. Time's Yuri Zarakhavich has a useful summary:

In the buildup to Dec. 31, Russia accused Ukraine of having arrears of more than $2 billion on its expired gas contract. Ukraine said that it had paid all its debt. Moscow said it would start charging a new price, which it presented as both the "market" price and a "preferential" rate—just $250 rather a sharp rise on the 2008 price of $179.5 per 1000 cubic meters of gas. Ukraine said that it could pay $201.

In response, Gazprom, Russia's state-run natural gas monopoly, dropped its "preferential" offer and said it would have to charge the real "market" rate of $418. It also insists that Ukraine still owes Moscow $ 614 million, and, at 10am on Jan. 1, turned off gas taps to Ukraine.

Pretty much the same thing has happened for the last three winters. Worried about its own supply, the EU is anxiously working to broker a compromise between Ukraine and Russia. As a European Commission representative said:

"Since we are the main market for Russian gas ... we have an obvious interest in applying pressure on these parties to reach as soon as possible an agreement which is definitive."

It's easy enough to cast Gazprom -- a state monopoly with a penchant for heavy-handed ultimatums -- as the villain in this recurring drama. But that lets Europe off the hook a bit too easily. As energy investor Jérôme Guillet wrote for FP during the 2007 edition of the dispute, Gazprom doesn't behave all that differently from any other company and it's demonization is a convenient way for European leaders to divert attention from their lack of a coherent energy policy:

[I]t’s a bit rich to see the supposedly pro-market Westerners calling for heavy subsidies. And a country like Ukraine that’s angling to join NATO (an organization that Russia understandably perceives as anti-Russian) can hardly expect a discount on its gas. So why is Russia getting demonized for defending its interests? The answer lies with European leaders, who are trying to distract the public from the mess they’ve made of European energy policy. Europeans themselves are to blame for their dependency on Gazprom, which is doing what any company would do in its place. [...]

As for European leaders, they have no one but themselves to blame for turning worrying domestic gas problems into a major international crisis. Europe, led by the United Kingdom, has made a conscious choice to rely on gas as its main new source of energy at a time when its domestic supplies are declining—and declining a lot faster than everybody expected. And Europe’s economic liberalization encourages market players to build easier-to-finance gas-fired plants, thus feeding demand for more gas. If political leaders were really worried about gas supplies from Russia, they should change that structural feature of the market rather than wailing about Gazprom’s clumsy—but ultimately harmless—fights with its neighbors.

Two years after Guillet wrote that, Europe is still just as dependent on Russia for its energy supply, meaning that this New Year's tradition is likely to continue. If the corner store continually rips you off, yet you continue to patronize it, can you really keep blaming the store?

Photo: SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images

Russian entrepreneur Oleg Teterin is claiming that Russia's federal patent agency has granted him a trademark for ;-) -- the winking-face emoticon:

"I want to highlight that this is only directed at corporations, companies that are trying to make a profit without the permission of the trademark holder," Mr Teterin said in comments on the Russian TV channel, NTV.

"Legal use will be possible after buying an annual licence from us," he was quoted by the newspaper Kommersant as saying.

"It won't cost that much - tens of thousands of dollars," added the businessman, who is president of Superfone, a company that sells advertising on mobile phones.

Thankfully, Teterin's trademark is unlikely to apply internationally, or be enforced in Russia. All I have to say to him is :P

RIA-Novosti reports:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin named on Thursday a mountain peak in the Caucasus in honor of Russian spies.

The former president's office has said that the one-time KGB agent signed a resolution to name the Sugan Ridge mountain peak the Peak of Russian Counterintelligence Agents.

It's not a catchy name, but the mountain is in North Ossetia near the Georgian border, so it may be an appropriate one. 

It would seem an appropriate enough tribute to the late, legendary, anti-communist author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to rename Moscow's Bolshaya Kommunistecheskaya Ulitsa (Big Communist Street) in his honor. But the street's residents aren't happy about the change and keep tearing the new sign down.

When I was there, it was quite a surprise to me how many of Moscow's streets have kept their old Communist names. I used to get a big kick out of going to work on Leninskaya.

My favorite part of this story is that there's a McDonald's on the corner.

A very sad story from the Washington Post's Philip Pan:

[W]hen he heard radio ads two years ago encouraging citizens to invest in the initial public offerings of state-owned companies, Sisoyev lined up to buy shares, first in the oil-and-gas giant Rosneft and a year later in the nation's second-largest bank, VTB.

Sisoyev had suffered in Russia's rocky transition to capitalism, but the "people's IPOs," as they were billed by the Kremlin, seemed different. Then-President Vladimir Putin endorsed the stock offerings, presenting them as a chance for ordinary Russians -- and not just the wealthy -- to own a piece of the booming economy.

Now, as Russia confronts its worst economic crisis in a decade, the value of Sisoyev's shares has plummeted, wiping out most of his life savings. At 65, he is working as a part-time security guard because food prices are climbing faster than his meager pension.[...] "I believed in the state, especially under Putin, so I bought shares," said Sisoyev, a soft-spoken man with white hair and a soldier's posture. "Now I don't believe in anything."

As predicted, Russia's financial crisis is starting to hit main street and it's going to take more than emergency loans to oligarchs to keep the public's trust.

If you were thinking the place Vladimir Putin calls home, you chose wisely, tovarisch. Russia topped the list of countries whose companies are most likely to pay bribes when doing business abroad. China and Mexico took the silver and bronze. India, dropping from first in the 2006 survey, took fourth followed by Brazil and Italy.

Transparency International, a worldwide coalition dedicated to fighting global corruption, based its 2008 Bribe Payers Index (BPI) on interviews with 2,742 senior business executives from companies "selected on the size of their imports and inflows of foreign direct investment."

Among those on the up and up, Belgium ranked the least likely to engage in bribery, followed by Canada, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The United States managed to squeak in with the top ten "good guys," ranking ninth.

Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Vladimir Putin sounded an optimistic note about President-elect Obama during his televised Q&A session today:

Usually... when there is a change of power in any country, and even more so in a superpower such as the United States, some changes occur. We very much hope that these changes will be positive. We are now seeing these positive signals."

Putin said he had no plans to make an early return to the presidency but left open the possibility of returning for the 2012 presidential elections. He also ruled out setting up permanent Russian military installations in Venezuela and Cuba.

It wasn't all love though. The prime minister threatened to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine and blamed the financial crisis solely on the United States.

Check out the full partial English transcript on Putin's Web site.

Update: Missed this exchange:

Putin was asked: "Is this true you promised to hang Saakashvili by one part?"

Smiling thinly at the question, posed over a crackling phone line by a man in the Russian city of Penza, Putin, who has in the past used coarse language to hammer home a point, waited for the laughter of his studio audience to subside before replying:

"But why only by one part?"

If you missed it, this is what that the questioner was talking about.

Tomorrow, Vladimir Putin will appear on television for his yearly question-and-answer session with the public. The questions are carefully screened in advance, so don't expect much drama. (Though some pretty weird tidbits can sometimes surface after the Western media does some digging into the questioners' identities.) If you'd like to submit a question for him, you can use this online form (sorry, it's in Russian).

Here are 10 questions that, in an ideal world, we would love to hear the enigmatic Russian prime minister answer.

1. Are you planning a return to the presidency?

2. The current president, Dmitry Medvedev, has been more vocal on matters of foreign policy lately. How much authority does he have to set policy?

3. It's been reported that the Russian government has instructed state-run media outlets to downplay the severity of the economic crisis. Won't this only make the public more angry when the crisis inevitably hits Main Street?

4.You said this week that it's "unfair" that the prices of Russian securities are affected by global economic conditions. How do you intend to attract foreign investment without exposing Russian markets to risk?

5. Russia is planning major investments in military hardware, including six new aircraft carriers, eight nuclear submarines, new missiles to be based in the Kaliningrad enclave, and a new space base in Cuba. Will you be able to complete all of these projects in light of the economic downturn?

6. What steps are you planning to address the increasing violence in the North Caucasus?

7. After sending Russian troops into Georgia, you allegedly told Nicholas Sarkozy that you planned to hang Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "by the balls." Yet you eventually decided to pull Russian troops back and leave Saakashvili in power. What, or who, changed your mind?

8. If President Obama were to cancel plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, what concessions would you be willing to make in return? Accepting NATO membership for Ukraine? Giving up support for Iran's nuclear enrichment program?

9. Opinion polls show that you are overwhelmingly supported by the Russian public. Why do you still find it necessary jail opposition leaders and restrict the operations of civil society groups? Do you believe that you could be voted out under completely democratic conditions?

10. This past year, you shot a Siberian tiger and released an instructional judo video. What public displays of manliness do you have planned for 2009?

Photo: SERGEI KARPUKHIN/AFP/Getty Images

Vladimir Putin seems to have just discovered how international financial markets work and he doesn't like it:

Decisions concerning which securities to buy or sell on Russian markets are, for the most part, made abroad. Moreover, the criteria by which these decisions are made have very little connection to the actual state of our economy or Russian companies... This is some kind of ugly thing, absolutely unfair."

Putin went on to say that Russia is in no way planning to "limit the activities of foreign capital in the Russian stock market" but was working on a "comprehensive plan" to build a Russian investor class and make the country less vulnerable to economic downturns.

Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich, attracting international investment without any risk from international markets certainly would be nice.

Last time we checked in with the reliably buffoonish Russian ultra-nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, he was engaging in fisticuffs with his political rivals on live TV. But despite his surly temperment, corruption, and overt racism, Zhirinovsky's might still mean well after all. Check out the personal finance advice he gave in an interview with RIA-Novosti (via Johnson's Russia List):

"I have been thrifty. I am not having my hair cut. My hair has already grown longer than ever. I only shave every other day. I eat very little. I never go out. I never invite anyone over to my place. I don't buy presents for anyone and I am asking people not to buy anything for me. I am not travelling anywhere," he said.

Zhirinovskiy recommended "saving reasonably" and said that this would result in reduced spending. He made several suggestions: "There is no need to buy new clothes. They can be swapped with others. I am prepared to give a couple of suits to someone, several pairs of shoes, a wristwatch. Why go shopping? Turn to each other to get what you would otherwise have to get from a shop."

Zhirinovskiy also said there was no need to spend money on personal hygiene products because "all these are chemical and hazardous". Fewer newspapers should be bought because the same newspaper can be shared "by all next-door neighbours" or perhaps "the entire block", he continued.

"As for Christmas celebrations, there is no need to travel abroad or to go to a restaurant. Stay in Moscow, stay at home or invite yourself over to someone else's place."

Something tells me Zhirinovsky's friends might not be so welcoming when he shows up uninvited to their Christmas party without having used personal hygiene products for several weeks.

Photo: Epsilon/Getty Images

Yet another international organization is poking holes in the Georgian government's official narrative of last August's war. A new Amnesty International report finds that all participants in the conflict--the Georgian and Russian militaries as well as South Ossetian seperatists--failed to protect civilians. The New York Times reports:

Researchers in Tskhinvali concluded that Georgian forces had aimed Grad rockets at military targets — a Russian peacekeeper base, fuel depots and munitions stockpiles, among others — but that the targets were adjacent to civilian areas. The impact of the rockets had a radius of as much as 500 feet, and in some cases missiles struck a third of a mile away from what appeared to be their targets, the report said.

The researchers also found that several thousand civilians were in Tskhinvali the night of the attack, Aug. 7, and that 182 structures in the city were damaged, mostly in the first hours of the war.

Unlike the Georgian attack — described as “a fixed, localized incident that took place over eight hours” — the Russian bombardment that followed was sporadic and lasted for days, Mr. Dalhuisen said. The Georgian authorities commented on their military strategy to Amnesty International’s researchers, but Russian leaders did not.

The report found that Georgian towns, villages and civilians were hit during Russian bombing raids, sometimes “in the apparent absence of nearby military targets,” which would violate international law.

Russian infantry treated civilians in a disciplined fashion, but the Russians allowed South Ossetian forces to loot and set fires in the ethnic Georgian villages north of the separatist capital, the report determined. Amnesty International’s researchers “documented unlawful killings, beatings, threats, arson and looting” by armed South Ossetian groups, the report said.

On balance, the Russians probably come out looking worse, but the report's evenhanded tone will probably irritate the Georgian government, which has sought to portray itself as the innocent victim of Russian agression.

It also follows reports from OSCE monitors and the Times accusing Georgia of firing the first shot in the conflict, and one from Human Rights Watch condemning Georgia's use of cluster bombs in civilian areas. Facing increasing internal opposition, the Saakashvili government is disputing the reports and calling for a new international investigation.

Whatever the Georgian government's guilt, the Amnesty report makes clear that its people continue to suffer the consequences.

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

When it comes to whether President-elect Obama should follow through on plans to base a missile defense shield in Europe, everyone's got an opinion. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says dropping the shield program would pave the way toward improving U.S.-Russia ties. French President Nicholas Sarkozy says the shield isn't worth all the trouble and should be scrapped. The LA Times editorial board says Obama should make up his own mind, before basically telling him to ditch the shield.

In favor of the shield are U.S. defense hawks like John Bolton, some top military officers, NATO, and current (and possibly future) Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

What Obama thinks about all of this isn't entirely clear. After a conversation between the president-elect and Polish president Lech Kaczynski last week, Kaczynski seemed to get the impression that Obama and expressed support for the shield, which will be partially based on Poland. Obama's people say he never promised any such thing:

"President Kaczynski raised missile defense, but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it. His position is as it was throughout the campaign: that he supports deploying a missile defense system when the technology is proved to be workable," McDonough said.

Bolton characterizes this statement as "weak and ambiguous." He's right, but it's probably the best the Obama team can do at the moment.

In an ideal world, I suspect Obama would scrap Star Wars. It's an expensive and unnecessary program that stands in the way of Obama's goal of engaging Russia on more pressing matters. But as Time's Mark Thompson points out, extravagantly expensive military programs take on a momentum of their own and are often harder to shut down than they are to start.

Then there's the matter of agreements that the Obama's predecessor signed with Poland and the Czech Republic. Mevedev's recent bluster has also put Obama in a position where he would look awfully weak by acquiescing to Russia's wishes.

The fact that the Obama team hasn't come down strongly on either side of this debate yet seems to be driving partisans crazy, but there's little reason for him to dive in headfirst before there's even national security team in place. This issue is a lot more complex than either side usually admits and Obama is right to take his time.

You gotta love it when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin goes uncensored while on official business, as he did during talks with Nicholas Sarkozy when the French president was at the Kremlin trying to forge a cease-fire after Russia invaded Georgia. In an attempt to illustrate just how hard he planned to lay the smack down on Georgia, Putin told Sarkozy, "I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls," referring to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Wait, it gets better:

Mr Sarkozy responded: "Hang him?"

"Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein," said Mr Putin.

Mr Sarkozy replied, using the familiar "tu": "Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?" Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then replied: "Ah, you have scored a point there."

The inside info on the Godfather-esque sitdown is via Sarkozy's chief foreign policy advisor, Jean-David Levitte, who disclosed the details of the French president's August meeting with Putin to Le Nouvel Observateur today. According to Levitte, Sarkozy was aware of Putin's plan to oust Saakashvili and warned against it.

Sarkozy reassured Saakashvili in Paris today that he'd be looking out for Georgia during tomorrow's meeting with EU leaders and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Nice.

On French radio, also today, the Georgian president reacted to Putin's threat by laughing nervously, responding that he'd heard something of the comments but not in such detail. "It's funny, all the same," he told the interviewer.

Photo: FILE; HRVOJE POLAN/AFP/Getty Images

Western media have picked up a story from the Russian business daily Vedemosti speculating that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may be planning a return to the presidency, perhaps as early as 2009. That the whole story is reported second-hand and based on one anonymous source makes me a bit wary (Matt Drudge is less cautious). That said, the scenario doesn't seem completely outlandish and fits with some of the theories that were floating around back when Putin first announced Dmitry Medvedev as his replacement in December 2007.

Medvedev's proposal to expand the presidential term to six years may have been step one of the plan:

Mr Medvedev announced the reform today [Wednesday] in his first state-of-the-nation address to Russia's legislators. The newspaper quoted an unidentified Kremlin official as saying that the initiative had been drawn up last year, while Mr Putin was still president.

Mr Medvedev, 43, would oversee the constitutional amendment and push through some unpopular social reforms before resigning in 2009 and calling a snap election to make way for his mentor.

Mr Putin, 56, would then govern for two more terms, totaling 12 years. This would take his second presidential era to 2021, the paper noted, one year beyond the completion of the so-called "Putin Plan" for Russia's economic and social development.

<!--#include file="m63-article-related-attachements.html"--> <!-- BEGIN: Module - M63 - Article Related Attachements --><!-- BEGIN: Comment Teaser Module --><!-- END: Module - M63 - Article Related Attachements --><!-- Call Wide Article Attachment Module --><!--TEMPLATE:call file="wideArticleAttachment.jsp" /-->

Putin might also use the financial crisis to his advantage. Medvedev seems to be taking the lead in talking to the Russian public about the economy while Putin sticks to foreign policy, his strong suit. If the economic situation significantly worsens, Medvedev and his fellow "liberals" can take the blame for the fallout. Putin can then make his return to the presidency on a hardline nationalist platform. How much say Medvedev has in all of this is anyone's guess.

I would treat this story more as a calculated leak designed to test public opinion rather than a set plan of action, but it's certainly appearing more likely that the United States will be dealing with Vladimir Putin throughout the Obama administration, and perhaps into the next one as well.

Photo: Artyom Korotayev/Epsilon/Getty Images

It's always important to watch what foreign leaders do, not just what they say. The Associated Press notes that Russia is sending mixed messages to the new president-elect of the United States:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev issued a congratulatory telegram saying there is ''solid positive potential'' for the election to improve strained relations between Washington and Moscow, if Obama engages in constructive dialogue.

Yet he appeared to be deliberately provocative hours after the election with sharp criticism of the U.S. and his announcement that Russia will deploy missiles near NATO member Poland in response to U.S. missile defense plans.

The Financial Times characterizes the move as "throw[ing] down a gauntlet to US president-elect Barack Obama." I guess the race to become the first country to "test" the new guy is now over?

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the world's most powerful vlogger, has a new post up previewing Wednesday's highly-anticipated state-of-the-nation address:

Among other topics, Medvedev intends to address the international financial crisis, which he says began "in the United States of America and which, unfortunately, has spread throughout the world and affected almost all countries."

If his previous comments are any indication, Medvedev can be expected to take a hard anti-American line when discussing the global economic situation. The Russian government's opponents may see the crisis as an opening, but the Kremlin message machine has been working overtime to portray it as a foreign problem and an opportunity for Russia. It should also be interesting to see if Medvedev will mention the newly elected U.S. president in the speech.

Stay tuned.

Libya's Moammar El-Qaddafi has arrived in Moscow, pitching his tent in a garden on the Kremlin grounds:

Located a few meters from the building where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has his office, the military-style tent was decorated with North African fabrics and a metal barbecue grill has been set up in front, a Reuters reporter said.

A large, flat-screen television was switched on inside the tent.

The weekend wasn't all just TV and burgers, though; Qaddafi apparently signed a nuclear cooperation deal with Russia during his visit.

Photo: DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/Getty Images

It makes sense that the British government would want to smooth over relations with Russia by sending a cabinet minister to visit Moscow, the first such visit in over a year. But couldn't the Brits have sent someone -- anyone -- other than Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, who is currently at the center of a scandal over his relationship with a Russian oligarch?

Mandelson's friendly overtures to the Kremlin have been entirely overshadowed by questions from the British press. At issue is whether favors from metals magnate Oleg Deripaska played a role in Mandelson's decision to reduce aluminum tariffs while he was EU trade commissioner, a decision that greatly benefited Russia's richest man. Months after the change, Deripaska entertained Mandelson and other VIPs on his yacht in the Mediterranean.

Mandelson angrily brushed aside a question about the scandal during a press conference Wednesday, telling the reporter, "You have wasted your question." Mandelson has been cleared by the British government of any wrongdoing, but during a BBC interview, also yesterday, he noticeably failed to deny that he and Deripaska had discussed lowering the tariffs prior to the decision being made.

The tabloids have been having a field day with the $9,000-a-night hotel suite where Lord Mandelson is staying during his Moscow visit, a questionable PR move during an economic crisis. The Daily Mail proclaimed the room, "Fit for an Oligarch." It also can't help Mandelson that Deripaska is back in the headlines for the $4.5 billion bailout he received from the Russian government this week.

The Brits might want a do-over on this one.

Photo: Alexey SAZONOV/AFP/Getty Images

"Christ, I miss the cold war," grumbled the exasperated M, played by Judi Dench, in the last James Bond film Casino Royale. She's apparently not the only one. Russian Communists are attacking Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko, co-star of the new film,  Quantum of Solace, for palling around with 007, a known "enemy of the Soviet people":

"In the name of all communists we appeal to you, Olga Kurylenko, wanton daughter of unclean Ukraine and deserter of the Slavic world. The Soviet Union educated you, cared for you, and brought you up for free, but no one suspected that you would commit this act of intellectual and moral betrayal," the St. Petersburg-based KPLO group's statement read, going on to call James Bond "the killer of hundreds of Soviet people and their allies [...] Your peers are engaged in struggles against NATO and you lounge around on the Cote d'Azur. How could you desert your homeland in its moment of need? Do you really want Crimean girls to be raped by cruel and stupid American marines?"

I'm sure proletarians everywhere are glad they took this principled stand against a fictional character.

Photo: VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images