Russia

The article shows that, despite the overwhelming dominance of the Russian peo-ple in the ethnic composition of the population, the Russian authorities for over 15 years persistently failing company organized search is «Rossian identity», rather than to rely on the identity of the majority - the Russian people, who has a long history and even for the recognition of Vladimir Putin is the de facto state-forming in Russia. The author proves it is economic reasons for rejection of Russian identity in favor of the «Rоssian». These reasons are associated primarily with the privatization unfair to the 1990s and do not desire to revise the results of privatization.

The article briefly described Russia as a country; describes the methodology of analysis; implemented eco-factorial analysis of the health of the Russian population by two factors - population density and the use of fresh water; analysis was performed on 82 regions of the country according to the 2010; based on analysis of a composite index was calculated impact of eco-factors on the health of the population of Russia and made their ranking.

Narrating Europe - Stella Ghervas, in "H - Europe: A Blog about European Historiography", University of Luxembourg: http://h-europe.uni.lu/?p=2579

L’interview avec Stella Ghervas, Visiting Scholar au Center for European Studies de l’Université de Harvard (Etats-Unis), a été réalisé par Dimitri Dessily et Coline Wascotte, dans le cadre du cours Narrating Europe du Master en Histoire Européenne Contemporaine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian military today be alert in the west and center of the country and to verify their combat readiness, said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

“According to a provision of the president of Russia, today we have been put on alert,” Shoigu told a meeting of the Staff of the Ministry of Defence.

Putin has ordered several of drills by surprise in various parts of Russia since returning to the presidency in 2012, but those drills are more relevant now after the recent events in Ukraine.

The Western Military District has its headquarters in St. Petersburg and Russian regions covering that border with Finland, the Baltics and much of Ukraine.

In addition, the minister added, Putin also put on alert the 2nd Army of the Military District of Commanders and the Air Force, the Airborne Forces and the Strategic Aviation and Transportation.

” The supreme commander (referring to Putin) has posed the task of checking the combat readiness of troops to resolve crisis situations that threaten the country’s security,” said Shoigu.

He explained that the verification of the combat readiness of the troops will be carried out in two stages: the first will include deployment of military forces will go on until Thursday, and the second, which includes military exercises on land and air, will continue until March 3.

The defense minister said that all units participating in the exercise will return to their places of permanent deployment before 7 March.

Previous surprise military exercises in Russia took place in July last year and were the largest ones ever conducted in the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to Russian Defence, these maneuvers involved more than 80,000 troops.

The foreign ministers of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, and Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, met today in Moscow to discuss Tehran ‘s nuclear program as well as the conflict in Syria.

Zarif stated that parties must respect the agreements reached in Geneva and will not try to interpret them in their own way. “We have to move forward in resolving the situation based on these agreements,” said the Iranian minister, who acknowledged that there is “low confidence”.

“There are possibilities for a final agreement, although the level of trust between the parties remains low. Nevertheless, given the exclusively peaceful nature of our nuclear program, we believe the problems are perfectly solvable,” he told a press conference at the end of his meeting with Lavrov. Iran “is prepared to take practical steps in line with the agreement,” said Zarif .

The temporary agreement will take effect next Monday and will last for six months. It will provide the partial freezing of Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for lifting some sanctions against Tehran.

Another important topic of talks between the two ministers was Syria, which Zarif just visited and where he met with President Bashar al-Assad. Iran wishes to participate in the negotiations on the Syrian issue in the Geneva peace conference, which Moscow supports.

Tehran will be part, “no doubt”, of the “joint efforts” to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict, Lavrov said. At the same time, the head of Russian diplomacy said that the fact that he raised this issue with Zarif and the fact he will meet with Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al- Mualem, “does not mean that there is a tripartite project”. We have nothing to hide. There is no hidden agenda,” he said .

In addition to discussing the nuclear and Syrian problems, Zarif, according to experts, will surely seek progress in negotiations for an agreement allowing Iranian oil exchange for Russian goods. During the meeting they had last September in Bishkek, President Vladimir Putin and his colleague Hassan Rouhani agreed to strengthen economic relations and in December Lavrov had the opportunity to discuss some concrete proposals during his visit to Tehran. One of them is precisely the import of Iranian oil (500 barrels per day ) in exchange for Russian goods and machinery.

A government source confirmed to the Russian newspaper Kommersant that the two parts are negotiating on the matter and noted that it is not a simple barter contract – ie exchange of goods – but there will be money to be made. Moscow, said the source, is determined to continue these negotiations despite opposition from Washington, who fears that a possible Russian-Iranian trade agreement adversely influences the talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The plan for a truce in Aleppo

On the Syrian front, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al- Mualem, delivered on Friday to the Russian government a plan to implement a ceasefire in Aleppo that could be extended to other areas of the country, ahead of the Geneva Peace Conference in February to be held starting next Wednesday in the Swiss city of Montreux, southwest of the country. “Today I have given the Minister – Sergey Lavrov – a plan with security measures for the region of Aleppo,” Mualem told a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Moscow.

The foreign minister has also assured that the regime presided by Bashar al Assad is willing to develop a list of prisoners who can be exchanged with the rebels. He stated that his government is “favorable to the exchange of prisoners held in Syrian prisons for prisoners captured by the other party.”The Syrian Minister Lavrov asked to establish” the necessary contacts to ensure compliance with the plan and establish the exact date of cessation of all military action” in the region of Aleppo.

Al Mualem has confirmed that the Syrian authorities will attend the Conference “despite attempts by some States to boycott Geneva 2 and the situation surrounding the participation therein or the National Coalition”, the main Syrian opposition group, which meets this Friday and Saturday in Istanbul to decide whether or not to finally send a delegation to the peace talks next Wednesday .

Russia is one of the main supporters of the Assad regime abroad, especially from the beginning of the conflict between the regime in Damascus in mid- March 2011.

Iran and Russia are negotiating an agreement that provides for the exchange of raw goods worth $1,500 million per month. The agreement would allow Iran to increase its oil exports despite Western sanctions that contributed to the signing of the preliminary agreement to halt its nuclear program.

Sources close to the negotiations confirmed the the final details are under discussion. According to those details, Moscow would buy – despite its own production – about 500,000 barrels per day from Iran in exchange for Russian goods and equipment.

“At the moment things are moving well and towards success,” said a Russian source. “The parts are now discussing the date for the final signature,” he added, while the Kremlin has avoided comment.

Meanwhile, an Iranian official has clarified that the objective is to “sign the agreement as soon as possible,” insisting that “officials are discussing the issue with the Russians and hopefully will be signed soon, whether we reach an agreement in Geneva or not.”

It is unknown whether the agreement would be implemented before the enactment of the nuclear deal outlined in the Swiss city in November between Iran and six world powers.

It is also unclear how Moscow intends to justify to its negotiating partners the latest agreement with Iran, which according to western analysts, could endanger the nuclear negotiations .

U.S. and European sanctions have cut Iran’s oil exports by more than half in the past 18 months. Currently, Iran exports only one million barrels per day. Meanwhile, Russia has not taken action against Tehran even though it is one of the countries involved in nuclear negotiations. This says a lot to the rest of the world; it says that Russia sees its future as an Iranian partner, not as an adversary.

“Iran must find a way to accommodate more exports, this is the reason behind this deal,” said an Iranian official . “Both sides should put effort into this. Russia can guarantee a lot of trade with its neighbor and Iran can overcome its difficulties to export,” he added.

Most Iranian oil is exported to Asia. China, the largest buyer, imported about 420,000 barrels per day in 2013. Unlike other buyers of oil from Iran, Beijing has not cut its purchases, despite U.S. efforts in this regard.

Washington pressures have been more successful with other major buyers of Iranian crude in Asia such as Japan, South Korea and India, which have slashed their imports. Turkey and South Africa have also reduced or even eliminated their imports.

В книге Михаила Габовича, сотрудника Эйнштейновского форума в Потсдаме, рассматривается российское протестное движение, возникшее после выборов в Государственную думу в декабре 2011 года. Автор выстраивает свое повествование на пересечении социологического и исторического знания. С одной стороны, он работает в области качественной социологии, привлекая разнообразные полевые материалы: статьи в российских и зарубежных СМИ, сообщения в социальных сетях, видеоматериалы и фотографии, лозунги, интервью и наблюдения. С другой стороны, он обращается к новейшей истории, возвращаясь к истокам советской диссидентской культуры, а также уделяя внимание особенностям становления современного политического режима и гражданского общества в России.

This  paper  considers  dynamics  of  protest
repertoire in Tyumen from 2008 to 2012. Using the
contentious  politics  approach  the  authors  analyze
the  forms  of  contentious  collective  actions,  its
dynamic  and  factors  influencing  protesters'  choice
of repertoire.
Data  for  this  research  was  collected  from  media
coverage, observation lists and notifications to local
authorities.
Data shows that the most common forms of protests
of  political  organizations  were  meetings  and
picketing while other forms were not so popular. The
protest  repertoire  of  individuals  can  be
supplemented  by  gatherings,  single  pickets,  road
blockings or hunger strike threats.
Public arena for contentious actions is dominated by
communist  organizations;  other  political  parties
rarely  initiate  protests.  Repertoire  of  contention  is
affected  both  by  cultural  and  government  activity,
which  can  raise  or  reduce  costs  of  contentious
actions.

Рассматривается проблема отношений Европейского союза в публичной сфере, различные траектории институцио-нального строительства публичной сферы и их влияние на«режим обсуждения» общих проблем, указывается на специ-фические для каждой из сторон проблемы в развитии публичной сферы. На примере программы«Партнерство для мо-дернизации» и саммитов2010–2011 гг. анализируются особенности обсуждения общих вопросов в России и на уровне Ев-ропейского союза. Делается вывод о том, что полноценный диалог по политическим вопросам взаимодействия России и
ЕС еще только предстоит, но возможности для его реализации сужаются в связи с кризисом еврозоны и неясными пер-спективами российского политического режима.

Over the past twenty years, the biggest challenge to the national security of the independent states from the Baltic to the Black Sea region has been in the energy sector. The problem has mostly been the failure to secure stable energy resource provisions. This is mostly due to systemic and historical as well as internal political factors. This paper examines the problems related to the energy security of the following three ex-Soviet bloc countries: Lithuanian, Belarus and Ukraine. The main energy problem areas discussed here are oil and natural gas resources. Because the three countries have pursued very different internal and foreign security policies, their energy needs are equally divergent. Therefore, the paper presents case study for each state. Each case study, firstly, identifies a number of possible threats to energy security, secondly, examines the influences that these threats may exact on national as well as foreign policies and, thirdly, discusses how different national and foreign policies influence the resolution of energy security problems.

This article examines how, if at all, the mobilisation of the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration has had an impact on changes in Russian policies. Little is known about the outcomes of radical right movements in general or the Russian radical right in particular. The Movement Against Illegal Immigration has arguably played a role in shaping negative public attitudes towards immigration. On the other hand, the Russian government has not adopted any clear nationalistic anti-immigration policy frame. We show that disruptive events of Movement Against Illegal Immigration's mobilisation have caused reactions in terms of the elite discourse on immigration and restrictive immigration legislation.

The present paper is devoted to the assessment of the effectiveness of the Court’s new institute – Pilot Judgment Procedure. The research demonstrated the existence of ‘implementation crises’ within the Member States of the Council of Europe, followed by the ‘plague’ of the twenty first century – systemic human rights violations and structural dysfunctions in the national systems.
PJP is argued to be the most effective formula of ‘penicillin’ to heal systemic violations in Europe, since it bestows the country at issue with requirements to both engage an already existing national predisposition for the resolution of structural problem as well as to develop with the assistance of CoE bodies conditions favorable for the successful PJ’s execution.
The research proves not only the effectiveness of the PJP, but also its great potential for further development in the direction of the “representative application procedure”.