• Belarus have slapped a tax on Russian oil transiting Belarus, and siphoning off Transneft’s oil to pay for it.  In response, Transneft have shut off the oil supply to huge chunks of Central Europe.
• Azerbaijan have stopped exporting oil to Russia, after failing to agree a price
• Georgia have signed a deal to buy gas from Turkey, instead of Russia (actually this was late last year, but its always good to get a headstart on New Year’s resolutions…).

Some of these moves are sensible, others aren’t. Either way, though, these moves don’t do Russia a lot of good – as ye reap, so shall ye sow.

(By the way – I’m posting this by phone while on the move, so no links at the moment. I’ll update with links tomorrow, but you can find details of each of these stories on the BBC News website).

Belarus’ decision to slap an oil tax of $45 per tonne on Russian oil transiting through Belarus (mostly en route to Poland and Germany) strikes me as an ill-considered reaction to the already signed deal to increase the rate Belarus pays for Russian gas to the global market rate. Effectively, it seems as though, Belarus have launched their counteroffensive after the war’s decisive battle has been lost. By taking this approach now, Belarus will bear the brunt of German and Polish irritation. And, what will they actually gain?

Azerbaijan’s decision is an odd one, which broke just as I was writing this article. There are conflicting reports as to what has actually happened, with some news agencies reporting that they have cut of oil supplies to Russia, others reporting that they have cut off supplies to Europe that were transiting through Russia. I wonder, though, if it will achieve all that much, other than to make Azerbaijan seem like yet another unreliable supplier of oil in Western European eyes. Things may become clearer by the morning – if so, I’ll post an update.

Georgia’s decision strikes me as much more sensible. Now that Russia is no longer offering massive subsidies on the price of gas, it isn’t an attractive choice of supplier. These days, countries perceive Russia as an unreliable supplier – one prone to using its gas supplies as a weapon. Given this, if a country can find another country willing to supply gas at the same price as Russia, they’d have to be crazy not to switch suppliers. (and in this case, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that Turkey either undercut Russia’s prices, or offered some kind of sweetener to smooth the deal’ progress).

Russia is the biggest loser in this whole debacle. As I mentioned above, they way they’ve handled these price increases – linking them to political threat, and using them to bully countries into selling energy assets for a song – has created a perception among their customers – current and future – that they are an unreliable, unprincipled and bullying business partner.

Russia may well earn more per cubic meter of gas sold than it did last year, but if it is not careful, it may well find that is has less and less customers for its gas, driving down overall income. At the same time it will have lost friends around the globe, making its geopolitical aims that much harder to achieve.

Update: Tim comments below that “Russia is playing an exceptionally strong hand very very badly”.

This mornings newspapers show just how badly Russia has handled things, and how poor its image is in European capitals.  Splashed all over the front page of the (London) Times in big bold type is the headline “Russia turns off Europe’s oil supply“.

(While technically, the headline is correct – Russian firm Transneft turned off the oil – I’m more inclined to pin the blame on Belarus.  They imposed a ludicrously large tax on Russian oil transported through Belarussian pipelines and, when Transneft didn’t pay, began to siphon off oil in lieu of payment.  True, this was done in response to the way Russia imposed huge gas price increases on Belarus but, as I’ve explained above, I don’t think this was a particularly sensible reaction by Belarus).

Oil wars is a post from: Siberian Light

The news was announced on state television, over the image of a Turkmen flag, surrounded by a black border:

“Turkmenbashi (Head of the Turkmen) the Great has died.”

Official confirmation came shortly afterwards from a senior Presidential official, speaking to Russian news agency RIA Novosti:

“We can confirm only the fact of the president’s death. We are not authorized to give any additional information on the cause of death.”

Niyazov was something of an oddball President, to say the least. This is the man, after all, who reinvented the Turkmen calendar, naming many of the the months and days of the week after himself, his mother, and other close family members. For an insight into the oddities of the Turkmenbashi, father of the Turkmen peoples, see this Sunday Times article.

Others, including myself, would say that Niyazov was a mad evil dictator, and will be celebrating his demise.

Where this will leave Turkmenistan and, indeed, the rest of Centra Asia is very uncertain. Niyazov was, effectively, an absolute dictator. Turkmenistan under his regime was an incredibly secretive state and very few analysts will have a good idea of who will step up to replace him. Beware of articles which identify the future direction of Turkmenistani politics in the next few days.

I think the only certainty is that his death will leave a massive power vacuum. This was completely unexpected, and there are uncertain times ahead for Turkmenistan.

The BBC article on his death gives an indication of the first problem the country will face in trying to find a successor:

According to Turkmen law, the president is succeeded by the head of the legislative body, the People’s Assembly. However, this post was held by Mr Niyazov himself.

All the same, I’d imagine most Turkmen are quite relieved this morning.

News on this story will doubtless continue to break through the day, and I’d imagine Registan will be keeping up to date with the latest developments.

Update: The BBC has Niyazov’s obituary up already.

Turkmenistan President dies is a post from: Siberian Light

Russian-Indian-Chinese military exercises could be held in the future under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Interfax reported Sunday quoting the Defense Minister.

In principle, this is possible. Weve held military exercises and there is nothing unusual in this, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists in Delhi on Sunday.

The SCO [Shanghai Co-operation Organisation] was formed as an organization to deal with security issues and measures to ensure security he said.

[...]While joining the SCO as an observer India was guided by its national interests. If this is so, India is drawn to this organization by the main aspects of its work, security being its central aspect, the Russian defense minister said.

True, relations between the China and India have been gradually improving over the last decade or so, but they’ve been rising from a ridiculously low level, and have certainly not risen so much that they would wish to advertise their growing friendship by holding a joint military exercise – even if Russia is involved to make it look more multinational.

I think this is largely wishful thinking on the Russian part, an attempt to draw India further into the SCO – it currently only has observer status – in an attempt to balance the influence of China. The suggestion really does little more than show the Russia feels it is in a weak position in the SCO and feels that adding in a third large power would dampen somewhat the influence that China has in Central Asia.

[By the way, I've chosen this Mosnews article to highlight the story, as it is one of the laziest pieces of reporting I've seen for quite a while. You'll note that they quote an Interfax article, and I guess that it is ok in a sense to quote quite extensively from them. But, in this piece, Mosnews have lifted the entire text of two Interfax articles (here, and here)and reprinted them almost verbatim. The only extra value they've added is two paragraphs at the end giving a little context (which I'd imagine they've lifted from another earlier article). Based on this evidence, they're even worse than bloggers - at least we usually only excerpt sections of an article, and we tend to give back at least a little added value in terms of anaysis. OK, Sunday morning rant over, and now back to your normal scheduled programming.]

Russia, China AND India to hold joint military exercises? is a post from: Siberian Light

In a rather timely decision, the BBC have just decided to publish a feature article about the Russian cosmodrome at Plesetsk. Now, Plesetsk isn’t a closed city, but Mirny, the town next door is. The BBC reporter managed to get a precious invitation to visit Mirny, and this is what he saw:

Home to about 80,000 military staff and their families, at first glance, it seems like any other town, save the austere apartment blocks and lack of road signs.

We are taken to the space museum in the town square, then the kindergarten, where children dressed in traditional clothes sing Russian songs.

Despite the presence of occasional teams of foreign engineers, most of the town remains off limits to visitors. They can walk around only a small central section and must not stray outside the designated area.

The town was never on the map and its inhabitants can still only be officially reached under a military field post number.

I’ve just been to see if I could find Mirny using both GoogleEarth (the satellite imaging programme) and Expedia maps. I tried every spelling of the name I could think of without any luck (although I did discover there is a village with the same name in Southern Russia). I think I’ll have to investigate further, to see whether any of the closed cities that the Russian government has admitted to (and Mirny isn’t one of them) are on any maps.

So far, the only other account I’ve been able to find about a visit to a closed city, is Tajikblog’s visit to Taboshar, the city where the uranium for the first Soviet nuclear bombs was mined. Taboshar – in Tajikistan, by the way, and not Russia – is no longer a closed city. But it certainly doesn’t seem a very welcoming place…

Either way, we just slowly begin to explore the town. It’s really quite a nice town with birch trees and huge stone houses lining the streets, aside from the fact that most of the buildings are empty and starting to fall apart. Soon enough, though, another set of suspicious men appears (with their wives and children in tow, not exactly an intimidating sight) and the confrontation begins.

The mayor (who prior to this had a good reputation among internationals) was at the center of the posse. I wanted to meet him anyway hoping for a tour, so this was as fine a time as any to say hello. I must have caught him at a bad time, though, as his mood was sour.

After the initial “hi I’m Peter XXX, photographer from New York” schtick, it was time for the inquisition.
Why are you here? Who guided you here? What do you know about this town? Etc. etc.
Nargiza steadfastly translates the questions and my answers, but suddenly his suspicion and temper rise.

One thing that set him off, I think was my knowledge of the town’s having a high-tech science lab. Stephanie told me about it as the mayor’s sad attempt to attract people to his town, to create a center for technology. Maybe something else is going on, because he certainly didn’t want to speak about it.

I’m going to keep searching for stories about Russian closed cities (and others around the Former Soviet Union if I can find them). If you have any links, or stories of your own, please feel free to share them here.

Closed cities from the inside is a post from: Siberian Light

The original article – US Bases Overseas Show New Strategy by Michael Mainville – explains the US base’s impact as follows:

In poverty-stricken Kyrgyzstan, the presence of even a relatively small number of American troops can have an enormous impact. The base employs more than 500 locals, paying them up to 10 times the average monthly wage of about $100. The base is pumping about $156,000 a day into the local economy and last year accounted for 5 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s entire gross domestic product.

"The general attitude among people here is that they’ll take it for what it’s worth" the Western official said. "The advent of the American base has actually helped to create something of a middle class in Bishkek."

Now, of course, if the base really is worth 5% to the Kyrgyz economy – or even a figure even remotely approaching that – you can see why the government and the people living in the region of the base would be extremely keen to ensure that the base remains.  $156,000 multiplied by 365 does indeed come to a figure that roughly matches 5% of the Kyrgyz GDP but, looking at the figures that Mainville has given, I can’t help but wonder how he comes up with the figure of $156,000 per day in the first place.

My first question is how much does the US really pay local contractors – I don’t know anything about how the US military deals with these kinds of issues, but I do find it hard to imagine that they pay 10 times the local wage.

Anyway, assuming that the US pays an average of $1,000 per month to the 500 local contractors Mainville mentions (and, as he notes that would be a ten times the average wage in the region) the US would pump $500,000 a month into the local economy – or $16,438 per day.  That’s less that one tenth of the total figure Mainville gives. 

If – and this is far more likely, I think, but I’m happy to be corrected -  the US pays wages at closer to the local market rate ($100 per month), that figure drops to $1,644 per day.

So, what gives?  Depending on the figures above we can account for either $16,438 per day being pumped into the economy, or $1,644 per day, but certainly not $156,000 per day.  At most, I can account for a little over 10% of the figure Mainville is claiming.   Where does the rest of the money come from?  Anybody have any better ideas than me?

US military bases – the economic impact is a post from: Siberian Light

The Chinese comment follows a statement from Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Kyrgyzstan’s acting President, saying that he would agree to the deployment of troops from both the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (of which Russia and China are members) as well as troops from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (of which Russia is a member, but China is not).

If true, this would mark a major (and I mean seismic) shift in Chinese foreign policy as, other than the odd minor contribution to a UN peacekeeping mission, China hasn’t deployed it’s troops abroad for many a year (since the Korean War, I believe). 

I’m somewhat sceptical that China will actually send troops to Kyrgyzstan, given the lack of precedent and the lack of any immediate security threat for China to face in Kyrgyzstan.  However, it has to be said that Kyrgyzstan would be a relatively benign environment for China to experiment with a policy shift, so I wouldn’t rule it out entirely. 

Update: Interfax has a quote from the Chinese Foreign Ministry – they’ve denied the story:

In response to a question from Interfax, a ministry spokesman said: "As you know, the SCO has never considered the question of setting up military bases."

Nathan at registan.net also notes that although China is unlikely to send troops to Kyrgyzstan, the decision of the Kyrgyz government to cosy up to China is not only unexpected, but unwise:

I had seriously hoped that the new Kyrgyz government would shy away from cooperation with China. If I’m not mistaken, one of the public grievances of Kyrgyz protesters was that the government was giving the country away to China (probably an exaggeration based on ceding disputed territory in demarcation agreements).

Coming Anarchy also takes a look at the issue:

The US already has a base in Kyrgyzstan known as Manas Air Field and the Russians have one around 5 minutes away. Not only that, but they are considering opening a second. Looks like it might get pretty crowded there.

China to send troops to Kyrgyzstan is a post from: Siberian Light

Reports coming out of Andijon itself are very confused at the moment, as the government has virtually sealed off the city, making it difficult for reporters to get in and out.

As a consequence, there is a lot of doubt as to what is behind the protests – whether the driving force is radical Islam, the repressive nature of Islam Karimov’s regime, economic hardship, or a combination of the three.  Certainly, Islamic fundamentalism is the charge coming from the Uzbek government, but this is only to be expected given that every enemy of the Uzbek state is pretty much automatically labelled an Islamic fundamentalist or a terrorist.  It’s confusing governments and analysts around the world, too, who generally seem rather reluctant to characterise these protests as a democratic uprising. 

For more detailed and regularly updated information, check out registan.net where Nathan, as always, is covering the story in depth, and Scraps of Moscow, where Lyndon has been busy translating pretty much every Russian language news report of note. 

Also I’m very pleased to see that Dee Warren, a Peace Corps volunteer based in Andijon, has just been evacuated.  She has more details on her blog, Wanderlustress.

Unrest in Uzbekistan is a post from: Siberian Light

"In the current situation the appeal to return the development of the events into the legal channel is very actual. It is necessary to abide by the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan, to refrain from any actions, which may threat civil peace and public security and to restore the rule of law," Alexander Yakovenko, the official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said.

Russia has been pretty badly burnt by its failures in Ukraine and Georgia, and it won’t want to repeat those here. The Kremlin has, for the last few weeks, been trying to avoid overly favouring President Akayev over the opposition – in public at least. Akayev is thought to have flown to Moscow at the weekend in an attempt to meet with President Putin, but he was rebuffed. The Kremlin has, however, had meetings with several key opposition leaders in recent weeks. I’d say that Russia’s basic policy at the moment is to hunker down and hope that the world will forget about Kyrgyzstan and that the new government in Kyrgyzstan will in time turn out to be as relatively pliable and emi-authoritarian as its predecessor. If Tim Russo, at Democracy Guy, is correct, Russia, for once, may have hit on a reasonably effective policy.

Let’s remember…we are talking about Kyrgystan. Whatever anyone may say about it’s geopolitical strategic importance in the post 9/11 world, this place is so remote, so poor, so forgotten, there is almost no incentive for either the west to really get engaged, or Kyrgyz authorities to care who’s watching when they crack down.

I’d like to be optimistic about the future for Kyrgyzstan, but it the new government really will need outside support if it is to succeed in developing a stable democracy.

Cross-posted at registan.net.

Russia's muted reaction is a post from: Siberian Light

A peacekeeping mission, probably at the invitation of President Akayev, seems to be the only remaining option open to Russia if it wants to find some way of directly intervening in Kyrgyzstan, but that too is an option fraught with problems.  Problems which I believe would prevent any peacekeeping mission from getting off the ground, no matter how dire the situation in Kyrgyzstan might become.

A peacekeeping mission certainly isn’t under serious discussion today – President Akayev probably doesn’t see himself as directly under threat while the opposition is contained in the south of the country. But it could be if tensions escalate further and – crucially – if an ethnic conflict develops.  The protests right now are centered in the south of Kyrgyzstan, which has a predominately Uzbek population.  Although the ethnic dimensions of these protests are pretty largely under-reported at the moment they are there, and they could explode to the forefront if events do begin to spiral out of control.

So, what form would a peacekeeping mission take?  Well, if Akayev were to invite peacekeepers into Kyrgyzstan, he would turn to Russia first.  Russia strongly backs his rule, and he could be fairly confident that Russian peacekeepers would continue to back him over any opposition groups.  Russia wouldn’t be able to just go in by itself, of course.  Although this would be the Kremlin’s preferred solution it would also invite howls of protest from the international community, not to mention inflame the Kyrgyz opposition still further. 

Russia’s President Putin would have to cover any peacekeeping mission in at least a veil of legitimacy, which means going in under the aegis of an international body.  Three candidates spring immediately to mind, each with major drawbacks: the Commonwealth of Independent States, the United Nations, and the little known Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.

The CIS route is the most obvious choice, but it does not assure success for Putin.  Ukraine and Georgia are both members of the CIS, and would have strong concerns about a CIS intervention.  At the very least, they would refuse to join a peacekeeping mission.  Although Russia could technically launch a CIS peacekeeping mission without the participation of many CIS members – indeed, most CIS missions are made up primarily of Russian troops – the mission would again lack legitimacy in the eyes of the world, and the eyes of many in Kyrgyzstan. 

The UN route is obviously a non-stater for Putin.  There is (a) no way he would accept a UN mission without substantial Russian involvement and control, and (b) no way that the US, UK and France would approve a Russian-led UN mission.  China would also probably have concerns about such a mission, as Kyrgyzstan is on China’s Northwestern border.  A UN mission led by the US, or the EU is similarly a non-starter as the Kremlin would have kittens at the thought of such a large ‘enemy’ force actually within the CIS.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) is a Central Asian security body made up of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.  It’s major advantage is that it is the local security body and has a certain legitimacy within the region, although little legitimacy beyond that.  It also brings China into the equation, which would act as a balance to Russian power.  Its disadvantages, however, are numerous.  Firstly, the SCO has never launched a military operation before, and certainly nothing of the level of complexity of a peacekeeping mission.  Secondly, bringing Chinese troops into the region is likely to make the United States more than a little jittery.  Thirdly, China could probably work either well with the current Kyrgyz government or the opposition if it gains power.  Is it really in China’s interests to get directly involved?  Finally, from Russia’s perspective, working within the SCO framework would mean ceding substantial autonomy.  Russia would have great difficulty in keeping a puppet Akayev regime in place if Chinese troops were also on the scene. 

The bottom line for the key protagonists in Kyrgyzstan is that they really had better sort this mess out between themselves.  The politics of launching a peacekeeping mission are such that, if they do manage to drag themselves into a civil war – and thankfully they are a way off from doing that just yet – nobody is going to be able to come in and rescue them from it any time soon.

(This article is also posted at Publius Pundit).

Kyrgyzstan: what chance peacekeepers? is a post from: Siberian Light

Nathan at registan.net is continuing to do a great job of covering the news and rumours as they come flying out:

As noted yesterday, the southern cities of Jalalabad and Osh are beyond the control of Bishkek. Akayev’s whereabouts are unknown.

The protests look to be turning pretty ugly – Nathan’s report includes photographs of what looks like rioting and looting.

A government attempt to regain control of the situation in Osh yesterday – during which a number of protestors and police were killed – seems not to have been particularly succesful.  The police there have today declared their solidarity with the protestors. 

More importantly, perhaps, are rumours – and I really would like to stress that these are rumours at the moment and that I have no independent verification of them – that President Akayev is nowhere to be found, and that Kyrgyz tv has shut down and newspapers have been banned from printing. Update 22/3: Looks like both these rumours were just that, rumours.  No other source has said the tv was off, so I’m pretty prepared to discount that rumour and Akayev seems to still be around issuing statements.  And there is certainly no news that protest has spread to the capital, so there would be little reason for him to make a run for the hills at this stage.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s response, cited by Interfax, is oddly contradictory:

"Actions that overstep the legal framework escalate tensions, have a negative effect on the political situation and deserve condemnation," the statement says. [...]

The ministry sees "nothing extraordinary in the fact that not everyone is satisfied with the election results."

I’m guessing that Russia really doesn’t know quite which way to turn here.  They’ve had their fingers burnt quite badly for meddling in elections over the last few months, and they’re trying to keep good relations with the Kyrgyz government without at the same time burning their bridges to the Kyrgyz opposition. 

Kyrgyzstan protests escalate is a post from: Siberian Light