MOSCOW, March 10 (RIA Novosti)
U.S. likely to resume talks with Russia after losing Kyrgyz base / Half of Russians say country has taken wrong turn / Gazprom to help solve Poland's gas problem / Russia, Libya sign major arms contract /
RBC Daily
U.S. likely to resume talks with Russia after losing Kyrgyz base
The parliament of Kyrgyzstan voted almost unanimously on Friday to annul intergovernmental agreements with 11 members of the U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition that had deployed their troops to the Manas air base. The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry informed Washington that U.S. forces were required to leave the base within 180 days.
Moscow, which has recently provided $2 billion in financial aid to Bishkek, can mark this down as a diplomatic triumph.
"It was a proposal the Kyrgyz government couldn't turn down," a source in the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry told RBC Daily. "All of its components, beginning with the most modest one - $150 million unconditional aid to President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, filled the niche of political needs the United States has failed to meet."
Also, NATO's civilian and military cargoes, including munitions, will now be transported across Russia, which is much better for Moscow, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said: "NATO supplies travelling across Russia are much easier to control, while an air base where Americans felt so much at home, and so close to the Russian border, was threatening our security."
Pentagon officials said they still hoped to use the 180-day period to negotiate an extension of the lease agreement, but analysts do not believe Bakiyev will backtrack.
"Russia understands the needs of Central Asian countries much better than the United States," said Marat Kazakpayev, a Kyrgyz political analyst.
Analysts estimate that the United States is likely to resume dialogue with Russia now that it lost the Manas air base.
"Russia has a great chance of taking over the base once it is free, and becoming one of NATO's key strategic partners in the Afghan operation. This could raise U.S.-Russian relations to a new level," said Alexei Mukhin, head of the Center for Political Information think tank.
Vedomosti
Half of Russians say country has taken wrong turn
Russians are again nostalgic for their Soviet past. According to a recent poll conducted by the Levada Center, the number of Russians opting for the old Soviet system based on "state planning and distribution" is the largest over the past 12 years (58%), whereas only 28% uphold a system "based on private property and market relations."
Alexei Levinson, in charge of socio-cultural studies at the Levada Center, said the growth of "anti-bourgeois" sentiments could be explained by the financial crisis, which has compromised the capitalist system. However, its support was higher in December 1998, at the height of the previous financial crisis, and kept growing for the next two years.
That number started decreasing only when Vladimir Putin came to power. By the end of his second presidential term, only one-third of Russians advocated market capitalism, while the simple majority of supporters of state planning grew into an absolute majority.
The same is true of political choice. By the end of Boris Yeltsin's rule (December 1999), 43% of Russians opted for the "Soviet" political system, 32% for a "Western-type democracy" and 6% for the "current system."
When Putin ceded power to Medvedev, the number of pro-Soviet Russians fell to 24% and supporters of a "Western-type democracy" to 15%, while the majority, 36%, supported the "current" political system.
But now Russians reject the "current" system as an attempt that is neither a Western democracy nor a Soviet-type regime. Only 25% of them opted for it, while 44% said "it would be better if everything remained as it was before perestroika," which began with the advance of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986.
The bulk of Russians, 38%, or nearly as many as in 1996, are now pinning their hopes on the Soviet system, with half that number advocating a Western-type democracy.
Kommersant
Gazprom to help solve Poland's gas problem
Russian gas monopoly Gazprom has agreed to sign a contract with the Polish oil and gas company PGNiG for the delivery of 2.5 billion cubic meters of gas. This will solve a problem that was created for Poland by the removal of the RosUkrEnergo trader from the scheme of gas supplies to Ukraine.
In return, Poland is to withdraw its claims for $60 million and a lower gas transit fee.
The next move is likely to be the removal of RosUkrEnergo from gas supplies to Hungary.
Gas supplies to Poland, which stopped during the gas war between Russia and Ukraine this winter, have not been resumed. The sides accused RosUkrEnergo, 50% owned by Gazprom, of inciting the conflict, as a result of which the trader lost the right to supply gas. The Russian and Ukrainian audit chambers are inspecting its operation.
Sergei Stepashin, head of the Russian Audit Chamber, said on Friday: "We plan to complete the audit in late March."
RosUkrEnergo has been the second largest, after Gazprom, gas supplier to Poland, providing 18% of its consumption, or 2.5 billion cubic meters annually.
Polish Minister of the Economy Waldemar Pawlak said changes would be made to the relevant intergovernmental agreement soon and a new contract would be signed within a few weeks. He added that Gazprom would supply additional amounts of gas to Poland in return for PGNiG's withdrawal of the $60 million claims to RosUkrEnergo over the failure to provide the contracted amount of gas.
Mikhail Korchemkin, director of the East European Gas Analysis consultancy, said: "There are few opportunities to increase gas sales, and Gazprom wisely used one of them. The next step will be the removal of Emfesz," the largest natural gas distributor in Hungary.
Emfesz is owned by Dmitry Firtash, the second co-owner of RosUkrEnergo, from which it buys gas.
Gazprom said the issue of gas supplies to Hungary under RosUkrEnergo contracts had not been settled yet. Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, who is expected today in Moscow on an official visit, may discuss these issues with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
On March 10, Gazprom and the Hungarian Development Bank are to sign a framework agreement on the establishment of a parity venture to build a branch of South Stream in Hungary.
Vedomosti
Russia, Libya sign major arms contract
Russia and Libya have signed a contract for the delivery of three Project 12418 Molniya (Lightning) guided-missile boats worth at least $200 million to Tripoli. This is the two states' biggest arms deal to date.
Vietnam, which paid $45 million for each similar boat (minus weapons), is currently building the vessels under a Russian license. Consequently, the Libyan contract is worth at least $150 million, or as much as $200 million together with weapons and components, Mikhail Barabanov, editor of Arms Export magazine, told the paper.
Russian-Libyan military-technical cooperation was resumed after then-Russian president Vladimir Putin visited Tripoli in April 2008. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi subsequently visited Moscow in October 2008.
Last April, both countries signed a contract on writing off some $4.6 billion of Libya's debts in exchange for new contracts, including an estimated $2 billion in arms deals.
Moscow and Tripoli discussed the sale of 16 Sukhoi Su-30 MKI Flanker-H air superiority fighters, T-90 main battle tanks and Thor-M2E surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, the modernization of T-72 tanks and component supplies for previously delivered equipment.
However, both sides have so far inked cheap contracts for the delivery of Pechora-2M SAMs. Russia also undertakes to repair Soviet-era warships.
The Vympel Shipbuilding Plant in Rybinsk, 320 km (200 miles) north-east of Moscow, has undertaken to fulfill the guided-missile boat contract. Barabanov said this was the first major Russian-Libyan arms deal.
In 2008, the Sredne-Nevsky Shipbuilding Plant near St. Petersburg, signed contracts for building two other Molniya boats for the Turkmen Navy, while the St. Petersburg-based Almaz Shipbuilding Plant was commissioned to build a Svetlyak patrol boat for the Slovenian Navy and two Sobol-class patrol boats for Turkmenistan, Barabanov told the paper.
RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.
