What Is Going On With Russia?

Why now? Think about it.

Hey folks,

Russia has been our enemy, then thanks to Ronald Reagan, our friend. The Bush years have brought more stern talk from Russia against the US, and more and more we see Russia working with enemies of the US, hence, Iran. But now?

Now it seems Russia is getting ready for something. What could that possibly be? First we hear of Russia raiding BP. That little green sun at some of the gas stations you see? That is BP.

Whatever the merits of the arguments, many Moscow observers see a connection between the raging shareholder conflict and the state's mounting pressure on BP. For months, Moscow has been buzzing with rumors that Gazprom, the state-owned energy concern, is preparing to acquire a majority stake in the company. If so, many analysts believe the shareholders may differ over who should sell their shares to Gazprom. Currently, BP and AAR each own 50% of the venture.

It wouldn't be the first time the Russian state has acquired control over energy projects. In 2006, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) ceded control of its Sakhalin II project to Gazprom after pressure from the authorities. Yet it seems likely that BP's current problems stem mostly from the soured relationship with its partners. AAR declined to comment, but a source close to the company denies any collusion with the state. "BP has managed to damage its relationships with the Russian shareholders, with certain sections of the government, and certainly with Russian employees," says the source.

Then you have this from Business Week Online - Russia's Raiders

It seemed like any other workday at Togliatti Azot, a giant chemical factory in Russia's Samara region, on the Volga River 600 miles east of Moscow. Engineers were on their morning rounds, and union representatives had just finished a talk about financial support for newlyweds. Then around 11 a.m., dozens of men dressed in camouflage and toting automatic weapons charged into the administration building. "We thought it was a terrorist attack," Sergei Korushev, the plant's deputy director, says of the September, 2005, raid.

In fact, the uninvited visitors were members of the local OMON, Russia's crack paramilitary police, and detectives from Moscow. They seized thousands of financial documents -- evidence, they said, of crimes by management. The police later brought charges of tax evasion and fraud against General Director Vladimir Makhlai and CEO Alexander Makarov, both of whom have since left the country. (Neither could be reached for comment.) While the company has been hit with $150 million in back tax claims, many at Togliatti Azot have their own explanation for the events. "Someone wanted to eat up a very good and very lucrative morsel for their selfish goals," says Korushev. The plant's current boss, Yuri Budanov, calls the police probes a "shakedown," which a local politician links to a rival company.

Budanov and Korushev, like many Russians, believe the police and courts have become weapons in the capitalist arsenal. Some 8,000 companies a year are targets of lawsuits or investigations at the behest of rivals seeking to put them out of business or take them over, the Russian Chamber of Commerce & Industry says. Russians call this process reiderstvo, or raiding. In some of these cases, companies pay off police and courts with a goal of harassing competitors. Often raiders rely on corrupt courts to rule that they are legal owners of a company. In other cases, raiding companies or their agents use legal pressure as a tool to force controlling shareholders to sell their stakes. While targeted companies sometimes don't know who is behind the legal attacks, the practice is common enough for the Russian press to name the prices corrupt officials allegedly charge for various "services": Getting police to open a criminal investigation costs $20,000 to $50,000, an office raid is as much as $30,000, and a favorable court ruling runs anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000, according to press reports.

Now I know some of you are thinking, SO? Russia is taking over private business. What does that matter to me? Well, think about it. According to Reuters - Russia blames U.S. for global financial crisis

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev blamed "aggressive" United States policies on Saturday for the global financial crisis and said Moscow's growing economic muscle could be part of the solution.

"Failure by the biggest financial firms in the world to adequately take risk into account, coupled with the aggressive financial policies of the biggest economy in the world, have led not only to corporate losses," Medvedev told Russia's main annual event for international investors in St Petersburg.

"Most people on the planet have become poorer."

So they, like many Libs here in the US, are blaming America for all the world troubles. This has lead some to ask, what can we do? The New York Times reported this yesterday.

IN a campaign speech this week, John McCain cited the “special responsibility” of the United States and Russia to cooperate to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons. There is a remarkable consensus among the presidential candidates about this imperative. But we must not wait until a new administration in 2009 to advance this vital work. An agreement the Bush administration signed with Russia earlier this month is an essential step for this cooperation. That agreement is now before Congress.

The overriding priority of our national security policy must be to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This task is impossible without the cooperation of Russia. Whether our goal is to lock down nuclear weapons and highly enriched uranium and plutonium, to apply pressure to difficult regimes or to provide other countries with assurances of nuclear-fuel services (both providing and removing the fuel needed for civilian nuclear energy), Russia plays a central role.

The United States already has agreements like the one pending with Russia with 18 countries, including China, and two international organizations. They set the nonproliferation conditions for the transfer — for peaceful, civilian purposes — of nuclear fuel, nuclear reactors and their major components, and certain nuclear technologies.

Having an agreement with Russia would also permit joint work on projects to inhibit the spread of nuclear weapons technology. Under the agreement, the United States and Russia, working together with other nations, can close the major loophole in the world’s nuclear-nonproliferation regime: the ability of a nation, like Iran, to walk up to the threshold of a nuclear bomb by building an enrichment plant for allegedly peaceful energy needs, and then simply renounce its binding obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to build a bomb.

With this agreement, we can better work with Russia to create an international fuel bank and guarantee the availability of nuclear-fuel services on the international market, undercutting countries that falsely claim they want to enrich and reprocess uranium but only for civilian use. Russia’s role is essential.

Additionally, our two countries could develop new types of nuclear power plants that increase the difficulty of diverting nuclear materials for weapons. We could share technologies to improve detection of illicit nuclear materials. We could enhance the safety of reactors built abroad. But we can do these things only if we have this agreement in place.

Although the agreement creates a framework for cooperation, it doesn’t, by itself, authorize any of these projects. Nuclear material that originates from the United States cannot be enriched or reprocessed without our government’s approval.

Unfortunately, some members of Congress have come out against the agreement on the grounds that it should be blocked until Moscow does more to thwart Iran’s building of a nuclear bomb. Russia can and should do more in this arena, but this agreement is the wrong bargaining chip. Rejecting it would, we believe, have exactly the opposite result.

One goal of this agreement is to prevent more countries from following Iran’s path to becoming a nuclear power. We should not sacrifice our most promising long-term nonproliferation strategy in the pursuit of short-term leverage that is likely to backfire.

The critics say cooperating with Russia benefits Russia — and therefore we shouldn’t act until Russia does more to benefit us. We heard the same argument in 1991 when the Soviet Union was unraveling, and the two of us urged Congress to help Moscow secure and destroy its weapons of mass destruction.

But we weren’t acting to help the former Soviet Union. We were working to protect Americans. After spirited debate, members of Congress from both parties realized that cooperation was the only way to keep ourselves safe.

Since then, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has deactivated thousands of warheads and secured tons of nuclear materials. The world is safer as a result.

We need to summon that same common sense again today. The agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation has been submitted to Congress, where by law it will take effect unless both houses disapprove. Virtually every nuclear danger America faces will be made more difficult and more dangerous if Congress rejects it.

This was written by Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sam Nunn, a former Democratic senator from Georgia, is the co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Then you have the fact that EITHER McCain or Obama will be more than willing to give up more and more of our Sovereignty to the World powers in the name of peace and stability in the world, you can see the things that seem to be completely unrelated, coming together, are just RELLY bad for America.

The world is watching this year's election process. They, unlike many here, are LISTENING to what our candidates are actually saying. They are paying attention. Iran is stalling, Russia is building, and those that hate us, are waiting. Waiting until the Threat of Bush is gone. Waiting until there is someone in the office of the Presidency of the United States that is either ignorant enough, or willing enough, to trust that they will work with us for our best interests. Someone that they KNOW will not attack them as long as they talk nice and do what they do behind the scenes. They know that they will have the advantage.

Make no mistake about it folks. Nothing is random.
Peter

Source:
Business Week Online - BP: Roughed Up in Russia
Business Week Online - Russia's Raiders
AFP - TNK-BP boss moves to quell ownership rumours
Reuters - Russia blames U.S. for global financial crisis
NYT - Help Russia Help Us