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Russia Intelligence N°70 of January 30), on the Russian Side, and Dmitry Firtash + PDF + Archives Acess) on the Ukrainian Side N°71 - February 14 2008 Published every two weeks / International Edition CONTENTS KREMLIN P. 1-3 Politics & Government c Medvedev vs Sechin : the Khodorkovsky test KREMLIN c Medvedev vs Sechin : The Khodorkovsky affair, returned again to the forefront of the legal news during the first week of the Khodorkovsky test February, could become a sort of test of the freedom of movement that the future Russian President BEHIND THE SCENE Dmitry Medvedev could benefit from concerning supervision of the «organs of power «. This, in any case, c Kurile islands: progress is what a certain number of sound experts of the Khodorkovsky brief and its most recent developments in sight ? believe. It is known that the former attorney and legal director of Yukos, Vassily Aleksanyan, 36, suf- FOCUS fering fom AIDS, finally obtained the right to be treated and transferred to a private clinic after Mikhail c Medvedev : is another Khodorkovsky undertook a hunger and thirst strike in support of his former collaborator. At the same foreign policy possible? tilme, in Chita, Khodorkovsky has been subjected to new judicial actions seeking to attack him perso- ECONOMY nally on charges of money laundering. He could therefore run the risk of a new prison sentence on top c Russian elites over come with anxiety of the nine year term he was condemned to May 31 2005. ALERTS c Badri Patarkatsishvili Dmitry Medvedev, even if he has hardly expressed himself publicly on this matter, has, however, on several occasions placed emphasis on his desire to combat the «judicial nihilism» that currently reigns P. 4-7 Business & Networks in Russia. A second Khodorkovsky trial, that would open shortly after his election, would hardly be ap- MINES, ENERGY... propriate for the new Russian president who is already subjected to numerous demands on the part of c The Chemezov steamroller the more liberal factions of the Putin clans. The Russian lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky do not lack DEFENSE INDUSTRY connections to Dmitry Medvedev and have appealed that one of the first gestures by the new president c Severnaya verf : Sergey be authorisation to release the former president of Yukos, possibly accompanied by a commitment for Pugachev’s revenge him to relocate outside Russia. In certain chancellries, notably Paris and Berlin, messages to the same PROFILE effect have been addressed to the Kremlin. c Yuri Lastochkin,the man who holds his own against Sergey As of now, nothing has emerged of the real intentions of Medvedev. Barely was it seen that Aleksa- Chemezov nyan obtained access to medical care that the prosecutors refused him, that it had the effect to Khodor- FAR-EAST kovsky’s legal team to mount a new charge at the very time that it most embarrassed Russian authori- c Gazprom is counting on ties. But those who are most interested to see that Khodorkovsky remains in prison as long as possible Dmitry Medvedev have no intent of laying down their arms. It is therefore being said in Moscow that Igor Sechin would ALERT have already negotiated that in the future organisation of power, he would reinforce his position in Ros- c East-Siberia-Pacific ocean oil pipeline neft at the cost of abandoning his functions as deputy head of the presidential administration. If such a plan were confirmed, Sechin would have no interest to see Khodorkovsky free and appealing before ALUMINIUM c The Chinese temptation international jurisdictions for reparations for the seizure of Yukos and its transfer to Rosneft. of Oleg Deripaska OIL More generally and at four weeks of the presidential election, questions abound concerning the po- c Movement around Russneft litical space that Dmitry Medvedev would dispose of/or authorised to conquer. The request of certain P. 8 Regions & CIS members of the government to relax certain aspects of Russia’s foreign policy hardly pleased the Krem- lin and it could be seen in the way that Vladimir Putin replied to these «expectations» in his speech of ARMENIA cMoscow in search of February 8. Nevertheless, on the ground, we can only observe some differences in tone, which are per- continuity haps indications of a change in style to come. As example, the way the the discussion between Russia ALERT and Ukraine gas deliveries was managed. The management of Gazprom did not make the same mistake c Poland/Belarus as in January 2006 : reducing deliveries to Ukraine first and discussing later. This time the process was reversed. And Yulia Timoshenko, the head of the government in Kiev, even, in appearance, obtained a SUBSCRIPTION Print Edition victory she probably did not expect so quickly : the programmed termination of the role of RosUkr- (23 issues, airmailed overseas) Energo as compulsory intermediary between Gazprom and Kiev in gas deliveries to Ukraine. The disap- €770 TTC pearance of this organisation is a political development in itself since it shoved aside these «interme- diaries» that didn’t please Moscow or Kiev, including the notorious Semyon Moguilevich, in prison for The Web Pack (Print Edition the past few weeks (Russia Intelligence n°70 of January 30), on the Russian side, and Dmitry Firtash + PDF + archives acess) on the Ukrainian side. Certainly it is a bit premature to conclude that gas transactions between Mos- € 880 TTC cow and Kiev will from now on be completely transaparent, but the disappearance of RosUkrEnergo is nevertheless a break with the past. At the same time, as a demonstrated willingness by Dmitry Medve- The Premium dev to maintain a hand on the case. The reorganisation of relations betwen Gazprom and Naftogaz Subscription (Print Edition + PDF + access Ukrainy will in fact be conferred, on the Russian side, to a man we have followed with interest, namely to all the website contents) Konstantin Chuychenko, already administrator of RosUkrEnergo, classmate of Dmitry Medvedev at the € 1200 TTC Saint Petersburg law faculty (Russia Intelligence n°68 of December 20 2007). d www.russia-intelligence.fr RUSSIA INTELLIGENCE Politics & Government BEHIND THE SCENE cc FOCUS Kurile islands: progress Medvedev : is another foreign policy possible? in sight Foreign policy and, more generally, security matters are the themes on which Like all previous years at this same time, the future Russian president has carefully avoided expressing himself. Dmitry the question of the Kurile islands surfaces in Medvedev is certainly not a neophyte on the international scene. It is someti- political debates in Japan and in bilateral mes forgotten that he played a discreet but non-negligeable role on the Ukrai- relations between Moscow and Tokyo. nian front during the “orange revolution” (he was at the time in regular contact February 7 is in fact the «day of the northern with the head of Leonid Kuchma’s administration, Viktor Medvedchuk) then territories» in the land of the rising sun. This during the first “gas war” in early 2006 (in his capacity as president of the over- gives rise to various commemorations sight board of Gazprom). More recently, he travelled to Sofia to accompany Vla- uniting former residents of the four islands dimir Putin in order to participate in the signature of the accord on the South- who were expelled in 1945 and their Stream natural gas pipeline (Russia Intelligence n°70 of January 31 2008). But descendents, demonstrations in which up to now, strategic issues were clearly the responsibility of Vladimir Putin, Ser- generally participate the highest authorities gey Ivanov and Sergey Lavrov who set to music the policy lines drawn up in the of the country. From this point of view, 2008 Kremlin. was no exception. The Prime minister Yasuo Fukuda therefore made a presentation on Will Dmitry Medvedev maintain a continuity with the foreign policy of the February 7. This year, however, the message second term of Vladimir Putin ? Should we expect, on the other hand, a change contained a certain number of new of tone, if not a break ? elements. The head of the Japanese government declared his desire for a «new We are witnessing in any case, as the presidential elections draw near, a re- level of relations with Russia», which implies surgence of a debate that was believed closed concerning the direction of Rus- a settling of the territorial dispute over the sian foreign policy. Last January 31, during the business forum organised by the Kurile islands. It concerns apparently not Troika dialog bank (read also article page 3), two front-line officials clearly ex- only a circumstantial diplomatic formula on pressed their disagreement with the Putin doctrine as it was presented in the the part of Yasuo Fukuda. It has been widely-noted speech in Munich in February 2007. “How much does its conflic- learned that he transmitted a message in this tual foreign policy cost Russia ? Are we ready to pay such a high price for direction to Vladimir Putin through the controversies over the British Council at a time when the world economy is intermediary of a predecessor Yoshiro Mori, deteriorating ?” exclaimed Anatoly Chubais, the boss of the national electri- who inaugurated a new Toyota plant in city company RAO EES Rossii. More prudent in expressing himself, the vice Saint Petersburg in late 2007 with the Prime minister in charge of finance, Alexey Kudrin, for his part declared that Russian president. The Russian side is “To insure a stable growth, it is appropriate to specify the orientations of the evidently not insensitive to the Japanese country’s foreign policy as early as this year”. overtures. February 2, the vice minister of foreign affairs in charge of Asia, Alexandre These positions are not strictly speaking surprising coming from liberals, but Losyukov (ex-ambassador of Russia to they cut across the ambiant rhetoric. As a sign of the times, the same day, the Japan), was in Tokyo for a series of general Vladimir Shamanov – who “distinguished” himself during the two cam- preparatory consultations in view of a Putin- paigns in Chechnya before trying out, with mixed results, politics in Ulyanovsk Fukuda summit in early May.
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