RUSSIAN FEDERATION 2012 Short-term prognosis RUSSIAN FEDERATION 2012 Short-term prognosis Editors: Karmo Tüür & Viacheslav Morozov Editors: Karmo Tüür & Viacheslav Morozov Editor of “Politica” series: Rein Toomla Copyright: Individual authors, 2012 ISSN 1736–9312 Tartu University Press www.tyk.ee CONTENT Introduction ..................................................................................... 7 Evaluation of the last prognosis. Erik Terk ...................................... 9 INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS Political system. Viacheslav Morozov .............................................. 21 Legal system. Aleksey Kartsov .......................................................... 26 Economy. Raivo Vare ...................................................................... 30 Energy sector. Andres Mäe .............................................................. 35 The Russian Military. Kaarel Kaas ................................................. 40 The political role of the Russian Orthodox Church. Alar Kilp ...... 45 Mass media development. Olga Chepurnaya ................................. 49 Civil society. Zhanna Chernova ...................................................... 54 Demography of the regions. Aimar Altosaar ................................... 58 Nationalities policy of Russia. Konstantin Zamyatin ...................... 62 Center – Northern Caucasus. Nona Shahnazarian ....................... 67 Foreign relations of Russian regions. Eero Mikenberg .................... 71 EXTERNAL RELATIONS Russia and the WTO. Kristjan Aruoja ............................................ 77 Russia and NATO. Toomas Riim .................................................... 82 Russia and the EU. Ahto Lobjakas .................................................. 87 Russia and the European Parliament. Kristiina Ojuland ............... 90 Russia and Germany. Kalvi Noormägi ............................................ 94 Russia and the United Kingdom. Konstantin Khudoley ................. 98 Russia and Italy. Stanislav Tkachenko ............................................. 103 Russia and Spain. Hendrik Lõbu ..................................................... 107 5 CONTENT Russia and Poland. Piotr Jan Pietrzak ............................................. 111 Russia and the Nordic countries. Veiko Spolitis ............................. 115 Russia and the Baltic Sea Region. Dmitri Lanko ............................ 119 Russia and Estonia. Karmo Tüür ..................................................... 123 Russia and Latvia. Andis Kudors ...................................................... 127 Russia and Lithuania. Dovilė Jakniūnaitė ....................................... 132 Russian policy in the Post-Soviet/Eurasian space. Rein Tammsaar 136 Russia and the CIS. Andrey Makarychev ........................................ 140 Russia and Belarus. Ryhor Nizhnikau ............................................. 144 Russia and Ukraine. Oleksandr Fisun & Aleksei Krysenko .............. 148 Russia and Central Asia. Mart Nutt ................................................ 153 Russia and the Caspian region. Aleksey Vlasov ............................... 157 Russia and Armenia. Sergey Minasyan ........................................... 161 Russia and Georgia. George Khelashvili .......................................... 165 Russia and the United States. Mikhail Troitskiy ............................. 169 Russia and Latin America. Elena Pavlova ....................................... 173 Russia and Japan. Akio Kawato ....................................................... 177 Russia and North Korea and South Korea. Irina Lantsova ............. 181 Russia and China. Yana Leksyutina ................................................ 184 Russia and Afghanistan. Harri Tiido ................................................ 188 Russia and the Middle East. Aleksandr Sotnichenko ....................... 192 Russia and Turkey. Onur Aydın Korkmaz, Raivo Hool ................... 196 Russia and Israel. Yakov Rabkin ...................................................... 200 Russia’s policy toward compatriots. Tatyana Kiilo .......................... 204 From global to regional power. Fyodor Lukyanov .......................... 209 Conclusions. Karmo Tüür & Viacheslav Morozov .......................... 213 6 INTRODUCTION Dear colleagues, Dealing with Russia has never been boring and it appears to be all the more interesting this year. Although the Parliament elections at the end of 2011 and the presidential election in spring 2012 do not promise big surprises, they are certain to offer many exciting nuances. Several new facets have been added to an already multi- faceted Russia during the last year, both domestically (various civil initiatives) and internationally (e.g., reaction to the Arab Spring). First of all, though, I wish to express admiration for my fellow co- authors for the predictive power they demonstrated in the previous symposium. The majority of processes went exactly as described in The Russian Federation 2011. In particular, I have to thank Mr Erik Terk, the Director of the Estonian Institute for Future Studies, for the following generali- sations. He has evaluated the “hit rate” of our prognosis for many years and stated on several occasions that the general precision of the predictions stays within 60–70%. Quite good, is it not? To continue with acknowledgements, I must also express my appreciation to Open Estonia Foundation, our most generous sponsor that has supported several of our projects. The most educational of them have probably been the Tartu Meetings – a series of joint discussions between the analysts, experts and free thinkers from Russia and the neighbouring states and their Estonian colleagues. As before, the publication of this symposium was supported by the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute (in addition to the much appreciated contributions of its employees as co-authors). Additional support was provided by the European Parliament’s Group of the 7 INTRODUCTION Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe whose representative MEP Ms Kristina Ojuland also contributed as a co-author. The Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) was established at the University of Tartu in 2011. The Academic Centre for Baltic and Russian Studies (ABVKeskus) has been active since 1997 and participates in the work of the new centre, contributing to its fore- casts, Tartu Meetings, podcasts and media reviews in addition to the publication of related research on its website www.ut.ee/ABVKeskus, discussions in the mailing list (which currently boasts approximately 70 members) and other activities. Naturally, I should like to express my appreciation to Mr Andrei Krashevsky, who translated parts of this symposium, and to Tartu University Press publishing house – our collaborators in the publi- cation of this series for several years. It goes without saying that my deepest thanks belong to alma mater – the University of Tartu which has been the host to all these wonderful events. Finally turning back from the important but not so interesting issue to reader acknowledgements and to our main object of interest, i.e. Russia, I wish to repeat what I said at the beginning. Russia and its developments are interesting and the researchers of Russia can never be bored. It is true both for purely academic or applied researchers, for generalising experts and narrowly focused specialists – many pro- cesses take place in Russia and these processes are sometimes contra- dictory. It is a mess of persons and ideas, success stories and conflicts. Therefore, my dear colleagues and readers, we all have much to do. I wish you a pleasant and interesting reading! The Russian Fede- ration 2012: A Short-Term Prognosis should supply it in abundance. Karmo Tüür Academic Centre for Baltic and Russian Studies, Director December 2011 8 EVALUATION OF THE LAST PROGNOSIS Erik Terk With the primary geopolitical tension sites and key issues for the world policy makers having shifted to other locations (the rise of China, the potential conflict hotspots in Asia), Russia having clearly passed the nadir of economic crisis and the political opposition being marginalised, most of the authors of the short-term political forecast Russia 2011 did not consider dramatic events in Russia or related to it, either positive or negative, very likely this year. Time showed that they were quite right about it. However, one year later we can view the situation in a slightly different light. While during the building of the forecast several forecasters hoped, more or less cautiously, for a rift in the Russian political elite between the supporters of the more Westernised Medvedyev and the more pro- imperial Putin, but the emergence of the civic society was con- sidered less likely, the hopes seem to have exchanged their places at present, following the “castling” manoeuvre with the premier’s and president’s posts at the top, the parliamentary elections and the spontaneous protests against the election fraud. We shall begin the review of the forecasts and their realisation with the domestic processes in Russia, economic, social and poli- tical developments. R. Vare’s economic forecast outlined the likely and not parti- cularly favourable developments in the Russian economy like 9 ERIK TERK continuing growth model based on the sale of natural resources, probable slowing of high-tech oriented modernisation process, in- creasing imports, problems with controlling inflation, the high cost of credit for firms,