Odessa mob rule: Who gave police order to release detainees, and why?

ODESSA, Ukraine -- Odessa took a dangerous step away from Ukrainian government control on May 4 as local police gave in to a mob and released 67 people they had been holding since the night of May 2, when a Russian-backed crowd sparked clashes that led to the deaths of more than 40 people -- most of them in a horrific fire. The rally to release the detainees started with a small group of Christian Orthodox believers who moved away from a larger crowd that had gathered at the burnt-out Trade Union building, where most of the deadly clashes took place on May 2. Bearing church banners and icons, they called for others to follow them to the city police station to demand the release of more than 100 people taken into detention as part of the investigation into the deadly violence. More people soon followed. “Why are you here looking at horrors?” shouted one man. “Come and do something positive for your city!” About 100 riot police blocked one end of the street outside the police station, but did not hinder anyone from walking along the pavement, or approaching from the other direction. They stood by and watched as the surging crowd of a few hundred people threw stones to break the windows, and eventually stormed the gate into the yard. Soon after, the detainees streamed out, greeted by shouts of “heroes!” “We’re keeping the peace,” said one police officer, a phrase which has been repeated in towns across southeast Ukraine where local police have stood by and let local mobs storm government buildings. A major standing with his men said he had not been given any orders, and without orders he was unable to act. Dmitry Futedzhi, the acting Odessa Oblast police chief, harassed by the crowd and out of uniform, put it passively: He said the decision had been taken to release the detainees in order to keep conflict under control. He also said the people detained in the station had been brought there for their own safety, after they asked for help to escape the clashes in the center of Odessa. While it remains unclear where the order to release the detainees originated, the Ukrainian government reacted furiously to the Odessa police’s actions. The police in Odessa acted in a totally disorderly, possibly criminal way,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov wrote on his Facebook page, adding that all police chiefs would be fired immediately. Earlier, in a speech in Odessa, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk implied that the police were too busy collecting bribes from local gangsters to do their jobs properly. Two of the detainees confirmed that they had asked the police to rescue them. “We were just walking along Derebasovskaya Street and saw the radicals, and took shelter in the nearest place and it was the Athena building,” said 28-year-old Yevgeny Dyatkov. He and another detainee both said the police had promised to bring them to the station to register their details and then let them go, but instead kept them in the temporary detention cell where they had to sleep on the floor, and charged them with mass disorder. Dyatkov said he had nothing to do with the clashes on either side, but had just been walking in the city at the time with nothing more in his pocket but a mobile phone and some money. His anger was directed at "radicals" and the militant nationalist group Pravy Sektor, who he said had come to Odessa to stir up trouble. He accused the police of letting them act with impunity on May 2 while arresting their opponents under false charges. “I can’t say I’m very happy that they arrested people who had sticks and said they had not sticks but guns,” he said. “Lots of our people died.” The jubilant crowd chanted “All for one and one for all!” and “Russia!” But after the more peaceful members left, a smaller group armed with iron bars and sticks remained in a standoff with the riot police who withdrew to the building, barricading the entrance to the courtyard.

Merkel wants more effort from Russia to de-escalate Ukrainian crisis

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 4 phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to urge Moscow to make more efforts to settle the Ukrainian crisis, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said. Every effort should be made to ensure that all Ukrainians, regardless of ethnic origin and cultural background, have the opportunity to decide on the future of their country at the May 25 election, "and not in the street, with guns and Molotov cocktails," he said

Activist investor chased out of Russia explains how to really hurt Putin

Bill Browder used to get treated like a crank when he asked governments to put economic sanctions on Russian officials. Now they ask his advice. The CEO of Hermitage Capital was an activist investor chased out of Russia for disturbing the country’s billionaire oligarchs. He mounted a campaign for sanctions against the officials who persecuted his late lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Now, Mr. Browder is no longer in the wilderness – he’s in the mainstream. And he argues that western sanctions against just a hundred or so oligarchs and advisers would push Russian President Vladimir Putin back from the brink for his incursions in Ukraine. It would work, Mr. Browder argues, because Mr. Putin is a kleptocrat who has grown wealthy with money stashed for him by oligarchs – and because freezing the businesses of oligarchs will shake the pact between them and Mr. Putin. “He cares about his money in the West. So this gives us an opportunity to seize it, or freeze it, or to make it less valuable,” Mr. Browder said in an interview at an Ottawa hotel this week. But European nations are balking at broad sanctions that might disrupt trade, especially supplies of Russian energy. The U.S., EU, and Canada have placed sanctions on a number of Russian officials and some oligarchs. Mr. Browder notes that the head of energy giant Gazprom, Alexey Miller, isn’t on the list. Obvious targets, some prominent global citizens and owners of famous sports franchises, aren’t either. Those drawing up the lists, he said, seem naïve or cynical. There’s a reason governments are asking this investor about who to sanction. He built a business on finding how Russian oligarchs squirreled money away. His grandfather, Earl Browder, was the leading Communist in the U.S., who twice ran for president against Franklin Roosevelt. He rebelled against the family culture, and set out to become the “biggest capitalist in Eastern Europe.” By 1996, he had his own Russian stock fund, Hermitage. It became a $4.5-billion fund, Russia’s biggest. For investors, Russia in the 1990s was the Wild West. He found management was stealing billions from companies in which he owned shares, so his fund researched how oligarchs stole, and exposed it. “We created a whole business model around its Wild Westness,” Mr. Browder said. “If we could expose the bad stuff, it would sometimes stop. And if it stopped, then the value of our investments would go up.” Mr. Putin, who pledged to clean things up, ended up working with the oligarchs. He crushed the richest, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, so the others, Mr. Browder believes, made a deal to share wealth with Mr. Putin. Instead of being a welcome gadfly, Mr. Browder was expelled from Russia in 2005. More than a year later, Russian authorities raided Hermitage’s Moscow office and law firm, seizing corporate documents. Hermitage’s tax lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, investigated and testified that officials used the documents to steal $230-million in taxes. Mr. Magnitsky was arrested, pressured to recant, held in jail for 358 days, and refused treatment for pancreatitis and gall stones. He died in jail in 2009, after a beating, at 37. Mr. Browder led a campaign to have western nations impose sanctions on officials involved – and in 2012, the U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act, prohibiting them from entering the U.S., or using its banks. But most countries, including Canada, didn’t follow suit. They sympathized, Mr. Browder said, but didn’t want to pick a fight with Mr. Putin. If they had, Mr. Browder, believes, Mr. Putin wouldn’t doubt the West’s will to impose sanctions now. He believes Mr. Putin’s real interests are his money. “It’s easily findable. It’s too much money not to find,” he said. His firm located most of the $230-million from the Magnitsky tax case, so U.S. intelligence agencies could easily find Mr. Putin’s money, held by wealthy “oligarch trustees” on his behalf. Mr. Browder said that if he was drawing up sanctions for Ukraine, he’d hit Mr. Putin’s cabinet ministers, and about 80 per cent of the oligarchs. Yes, they could move money to China, but once they are on the U.S. Treasury sanctions list, he said, they can’t do business with any company that had U.S. interests, or open a bank account. And when the oligarchs are angry about losing money, a paranoid Mr. Putin will start worrying about which one “is going to come after him first.”

Western sanctions can bring Russia long-awaited infinite relief

Imports of food for the Russian market have become commonplace. Russia imports more goods than it produces, and this trend lasts for years. The world's largest country with rich agricultural history has become virtually dependent on other states, including even tiny European countries that one can hardly find on the map. What will happen to Russia if trade relations are interrupted due to sanctions? Since the end of the 20th century, especially after joining the WTO, Russia's dependence on foreign food has been growing. Reportedly, Russia's imports account for about 80 percent of all available goods, including those that foreign companies produce in our country and those that use foreign-made ingredients in their production. Russia can not even provide itself with meat and milk. Is it really the case? What would happen if the West used drastic measures against Russia that could result in the deterioration of trade relations with the EU and the U.S.? Assistant Professor for Technology Trade Transactions of the Russian Academy of Foreign Trade at the Ministry for Economic Development, Andrei Golubchik, told Pravda.Ru that Russia will not be able to quickly replace imported products with the ones of its own production. "We have enough grain, but the quality of this grain will not let anyone produce premium pasta from it. Russian sorts of grain are not suitable for that, although we can make very good bread from it. We have been providing ourselves with poultry to the fullest. If we take a look at the near future and assume that the state will slowly but surely turn to beef and dairy cattle, then in a year or two we will be able to provide ourselves with Russian-made beef, pork and dairy products. Today, unfortunately, we can not do without imports, - says Andrei Golubchik. - But, thank God, it is not 1938 or 1951. There is fine beef in Argentina and Australia. If Australia joins the sanctions against Russia, Argentina all not - the Argentinians will be happy to sell. Transportation costs will be higher, and it will affect the price, but there are no options here." Generally, Russia can buy meat from the friendly Brazil, which shares BRICS membership with Russia and remains one of the largest suppliers of meat products to Russia. As for dairy and other animal products, including meat, Russia's closest partner is Belarus, an ally in the Customs Union, which borders on western territories of the Russian Federation and sells products at low prices. "Our companies consume frozen meat in blocks, which they use to make sausage products, - the head of the Moscow Department for Trade and Services, Alexei Nemeryuk said. - They are BRICS countries. They have been our partners for quite some time, and we buy this meat from them. Clearly, we had Polish bacon, which was famous for its quality in the industry, but we found a replacement for the product. Speaking of meat, Russia can use the help of Belarus. As for pork and poultry - Russia does not need to import these." As for fruits and vegetables, then, the official said, it was decided to raise subsidies for greenhouses and accelerate the development of poultry and fish production. If there are not enough products for one particular sector of the food industry, then Russia can focus on the production of CIS countries or far-foreign countries. "The situation with fruit and berries is worse. We receive up to 80 percent of berries and fruits from Europe, but it is possible to replace our partners here too. Serbia is ready to supply Russia with berries. Serbia is a large supplier of raspberry and blueberry," says Alexey Nemeryuk. Meanwhile, Andrei Golubchik said that the Russian market had no segments that would be painfully dependent on foreign supplies. The only unpleasant moment that may occur for the Russian economy because of tougher sanctions is connected with the high-tech industry. Still, Russia may find another way for the procurement of necessary high-tech machinery and equipment, for example, through China, which refused to participate in the ongoing campaign against Russian. "There will be workarounds for it. The Soviet Union continuously lived under the conditions of economic sanctions, however, IBM computers worked in the places, where they had to work at Soviet enterprises. Yes, they were more expensive, they had to be imported via Bulgaria or Romania, but it was possible to import them. I am not at all concerned about the absence of some food products, but I am concerned about high-tech equipment," the expert concludes. To crown it all, it is not profitable for other countries of the world to take the Russian sales market away from their own companies. If it happens, the Europeans will have to find new buyers for their fruits and berries, and Bush's legs will have to find another direction to run to. This is still a big question, who is going to lose more, should trade relations be suspended.

One of Russia's wealthiest men sells Yo-Mobile project for 1 euro

The Yo-Mobile project of Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Prokhorov, which he announced back in 2010, has been actually closed. Company Yo-Engineering handed over all documentation and rights for the development of the body and chassis of the vehicle to FGUP NAMI (federal state unitary enterprise). Prokhorov closed the deal for the symbolic amount of one euro. One is left to wonder what reasons are hidden behind such a deal. The project of Russia's first-ever hybrid vehicle Yo-Mobile equipped with gas and petrol engine and electric transmission laid the foundation for the establishment of joint venture Yo-Auto. In the company, Prokhorov's ONEXIM Group owned 51 percent. It was originally planned to build about 20,000 cars a year. Moreover, the number of preliminary orders for the purchase of the Yo-Mobile was above the plan. Yet, the plan failed to realize. " As I see it, the biggest reason here is an economic one. Starting automobile production from scratch, with no history of production in general is very hard, - chief editor of News of Automobile Business Magazine, Roman Gulyaev said - The second reason as I think is that Prokhorov chose not the right partners for this venture ... Actually, his partner in this business was quite a decent, ambitious, but, in my opinion, not quite experienced company in terms of production. The company has built several trucks before and has done nothing special from the standpoint of production." "I think that the reformatting of the Yo-Mobile project is primarily due to the fact that economy is having hard times now, as I think. And the fate of Yo-Mobile is primarily concerned with this, rather than project-mongering of the initiator of the project, or other factors, journalist, member of the Writers' Union of Russia and the Union of Cinematographers of Russia Yury Geiko told Pravda.Ru. - I think that with a change in not only economic but also political situation, which resulted in changes in economy, people realize what there is ahead of them. First and foremost, it goes about the sanctions in connection with the issue of the Crimea. People understand that there may be hard times for Russia ahead. Everyone understands that - from common people to businessmen and CEOs of automobile companies." It is worth noting that representatives of the company that initiated the Yo-Mobile project, Mikhail Prokhorov's ONEXIM Group, noted that the move was primarily based on economic reasons. The decision to give the project to the state is connected with the fact that against the backdrop of declining demand, the efficiency of the project became not obvious. As a result, Prokhorov, whose managers have already collected more than 200,000 pre-orders, finally decided to hand over the technology of the project that he kicked off with fanfare a few years ago to the State Research Automobile and Engine Institute (NAMI), practically free of charge. One euro is not a fee. In general, all experts, who deal with the Russian car market, believe that implementing the project profitably for the production of the vehicle on the stated conditions had become impossible. According to Kommersant, this is presumably connected with increased costs as a result of the growing euro rate, which led to the increase of the final price of the car. Experts of Yo-Auto explained the move to deliver the project to NAMI. As it turns out, patriotic considerations play a significant role here. The technology delivered to this well-known domestic organization may then be widely used in further developments of both domestic passenger, freight and public transport. Along with the technology, it was decided to sell the production facility for Yo-Mobile, the construction of which had started in St. Petersburg, for serious money, though. This production already has all necessary infrastructure, although it lacks production lines. But still, this is not going to be sold for one euro. The ambitious, yet quite pragmatic businessman Mikhail Prokhorov had been trying to realize his idea in practice for four years. The press would refer to the project as "people's car." The project received media attention back in early 2010. Despite the funny name of the project, it attracted serious business interest. In December 2010, Prokhorov introduced three models of the hybrid car at once: a hatchback, a van and a cross-coupe. A little later, they started to take pre-orders for the vehicle online. The car was going to be sold at quite a reasonable, "people's price" - 350-450 thousand rubles ($10-11,5K, depending on the version). Serial production at the plant in St. Petersburg was supposed to be launched at the end of 2012. However, when the time to produce the car came, it turned out that "something went wrong." The real serial production of the Yo-Mobile was pushed back to late 2014 or early 2015. The delay was explained with alleged problems with a U.S. contractor for the production of the body of the car. In general, there is no policy there really - there is only pure economics. In the current economic situation, amid the sharp weakening of automotive market conditions, implementing the project of the Yo-Mobile on the previously announced terms, to receive profit, became impossible. No one will buy an original car if it costs a million rubles or more. However, one can find connections with political events in the story still. t turns out that the party that Mikhail Prokhorov founded - Civil Platform - does not consider the project of the hybrid car a failure, Prokhorov's party secretary said. The businessman quit business even before the Duma elections in 2011 in accordance with the law, and all ONEXIM's project are not supposed to be related to him directly. Well, it would have been a remarkable PR stunt: Yo-Mobile sounds great, no matter what skeptics may say.

Russian bear and Chinese dragon shake paws

The Russian-Chinese cooperation has been gaining momentum in light of Western sanctions against Russia. China supported Russia, when Western countries launched an anti-Russian campaign. Now, the U.S. may come across a powerful competitor in the face of a union between such large countries as China and Russia. A couple of days ago, citing a source in diplomatic circles, Russian mass media reported that U.S. authorities failed to persuade the Chinese leadership to impose sanctions against Russia, even though US officials did their best to try. The attempts of the Obama administration to convince the Chinese leadership of the need to put pressure on Russia failed to succeed, although the talks reportedly started in the beginning of March. Meanwhile, the talks on gas supplies between Russia and China came to the final stage. The only question that remains unsolved is the basic price for gas. For China, switching to natural gas is a highly serious problem, as the use of coal took the country to an environmental catastrophe. The whole world remembers the photos and footage of Beijing shrouded in suffocating smog. For Russia, searching for new markets is also a very important issue, especially in light of recent events and the strong determination of the EU to minimize energy dependence on Russia. The gas contract is to be signed in May, when Russian President Vladimir Putin comes to visit Beijing. Experts do not rule out a possibility that Gazprom would agree to grant gas production access for Chinese companies, at least symbolically. Actually, the Chinese are much more interested in this aspect than in the price issue. For the time being, though, economists can only speculate on the outcome of the negotiations between Russia and China. "Russia is a major supplier of energy resources and hydrocarbons to China, so for China, cooperation with Russia is essential. On the one hand, China needs to expand oil and gas shipments. On the other hand, China seeks cheaper prices for the Russian products, - Professor and Chairman of the Department for Oriental Studied of the Higher School for Economics, Alexei Maslov said. - in this case, China will now obtain a trump card, given gas problems in the western direction. China's another interest is about developing even closer strategic cooperation with Russia in the defense industry. China needs to significantly enhance its armed forces. It is no coincidence that soon after the West introduced sanctions against Russia, China proposed to buy a large batch of Russian Superjet aircraft, although there was no official confirmation to that. In general, however, China is obviously interested in expanding the technological cooperation with Russia." Russia, however, is interested in attracting investment to the Far East, where it is planned to develop industrial parks. Should Chinese investors pay attention to the Far East region of Russia, it will be possible to solve the employment problem in this remote region. As Alexei Maslov said, industrial parks do not require a large number of people, but they do need well-educated population and good organization of such special economic zones. "We in the Far East need investment, of course, the Chinese could do it, but they spend their money very carefully. They need to know exactly what they will get from this, - Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Ludmila Boni said. - Of course, they would like to use their work force, and we do not have a lot of that workforce there. If we had good laws that would regulate all this normally, it would be very good to use the investment and workforce to develop our economic potential in the Far East. However, it does not work yet on our end." As for the cooperation in the field of defense, it is unlikely that the Russian military-industrial complex needs that. Russia's prime goal here is to show itself as a country capable of acting on both western and eastern directions. "If Russia is completely cut off from all imports, new equipment and so on, we will be able to take something in China, and they will be happy to give it to us. They already have it all. With regard to agriculture, China is interested in that too - the Chinese do not have enough arable land. Therefore, China is interested in expanding its economic potential by leasing and developing the land of adjacent states. I know that in the Far East they rent large plots of arable land. They already rent more than 420 thousand hectares from Russia. This is what they are interested in," Ludmila Boni said. Thus, one can see that the potential for cooperation between the two countries is quite broad. Once the two countries come to an agreement on the gas issue, they will give it all a start.

Russia finds Obama's new move revolting

The U.S. imposed new sanctions against Russian companies and certain individuals. The new list includes, in particular, President of the state-run oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and CEO of the state corporation Russian Technologies, Sergei Chemezov. The list also included deputy head of the Kremlin administration Vyacheslav Volodin, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak and Russian presidential envoy in the Crimea, Oleg Belaventsev. The sanctions will also affect chairman of the Duma Committee for Foreign Affairs, Alexei Pushkov, head of the Federal Security Service, Yevgeny Murov, and 17 Russian companies. All of these companies are either controlled by Gennady Timchenko, Arkady and Boris Rotenbergs, or bank "Russia." The list of sanctioned companies includes several banks, including Ivestkapitalbank, Sobinbank and SMP Bank. Earlier on Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the expansion of the sanctions list, although he did not clarify any details about it. Obama noted that Washington would publish more detailed information later during the day. According to Obama, these measures will not directly affect Russian President Vladimir Putin. The new U.S. sanctions are said to affect Russian-led activity in relation to Ukraine. Obama stated that the United States may expand its sanctions against Russia even further, adding that they can relate to the banking and defense sectors of the Russian economy. According to the American president, his administration has already succeeded in isolating Russia internationally. Furthermore, the US has managed to mobilize the international community to put pressure on Moscow. Obama believes that this method of influence is more effective than, for example, a move to supply weapons to Ukraine. Soon after Obama's announcement, it was said that the European Union was also ready to expand its own black list against 15 Russian citizens. For the time being, it goes about individual visa and financial sanctions, although Brussels may impose economic sanctions against several sectors of the Russian economy in the future. Previously, the U.S. introduced sanctions against 27 Russian officials in March 2014, amid the escalating conflict in Ukraine. Washington officials blamed the Russian Federation for the growing tensions. In particular, the United States considered that Moscow's consent to include the Crimea in the structure of the Russian Federation was a violation of Ukraine's integrity. Noteworthy, the Crimean Peninsula became a part of Russia as a result of the local referendum, in which nearly all residents voted to reunite with Russia (the peninsula was given away to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1954). Simultaneously, the European Union introduced visa and financial sanctions against 33 Russian officials. Moscow found the new move of the United States revolting. "It shows that Washington does not understand anything about what is happening in Ukraine. This is a distorting mirror of foreign policy, rather than a responsible approach to the situation. Every word used in the statement from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney suggests that the U.S. has completely lost the sense of reality and deliberately tries to exacerbate the crisis. In the U.S., they patronage the forces that are not at all ready to take urgent steps in terms of federalization and other measures that should be taken to ensure the recovery of the evolutionary development of this country. The steps that these forces take can only take the country to new clashes. Russia will respond to the US, of course. We are confident that this response will be a painful one for Washington. No one has the right to talk to Russia in the language of sanctions. Attempts to dictate something to us or put ultimatums will come back to those who do it," Sergei Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation said