Kommersant
Foreign Ministry Appoints Cybersecurity Coordinator
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has appointed a coordinator for the political use of information and communication technologies, Andrei Krutskikh, thus clearly prioritizing information security.
Krutskikh, a former deputy head of the ministry’s department for new challenges and threats, will have a rank of an ambassador at large.
Although the newly appointed coordinator was unavailable for comment yesterday, information security experts are familiar with his prior activities: he actively promoted Russia’s initiatives at the United Nations to adopt international standards for the Internet.
Krutskikh headed an international expert group from 15 countries which analyzed international information security issues eventually reporting to the UN Secretary General that common approaches to fighting cyberthreats were needed and that those threats could be posed by countries, and not only by individual criminals or terrorists.
The group is to resume its work in a few months. Russia will insist on including its latest initiatives in the next report: the two policy documents published in September 2011, Standards of Conduct for Ensuring International Security and a draft UN convention On Ensuring International Information Security.
Krutskikh, who was directly involved in drafting these documents, will continue promoting them in his new capacity. He said in an interview last month that the international community is clearly concerned with preventing escalation of international conflicts and destabilization via IT.
In fact, Russia is lagging far behind the United States in setting up special agencies to address foreign political problems posed by the Internet. A cybersecurity division has been working at the U.S. Department of State for a year headed by former FBI officer Christopher Painter, who declared cybersecurity a U.S. foreign policy imperative in June 2011.
Although Painter himself has not yet publicly commented on Russia’s initiatives to regulate the Internet, his team members have criticized the Russia-proposed standards of conduct on several occasions, viewing them as an attempt to establish government control over the Internet.
Judging by the new appointment at the Foreign Ministry, the Russian government has recognized not only the importance of addressing cybersecurity issues but also the fact that it would need matching forces to compete with the United States in this area.
Analysts do not rule out a next move to establish a paramilitary division at Russia’s Defense Ministry, similar to the U.S. Cyber Command.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
Next Cabinet to Include More Women
There are plans to bring in more women into the government that will be formed after Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. The post of deputy prime minister in charge of finances, social policy or agriculture is likely to go to a woman. Such an appointment is believed to improve the government’s image.
There was a similar experience in the past, when the current speaker of the Federation Council, Valentina Matviyenko, was appointed a deputy prime minister for social policy, holding the post from September 1998 to March 2003.
At present there are three women ministers in the government: Minister of Economic Development Elvira Nabiullina (appointed in September 2007), Minister of Healthcare and Social Development Tatyana Golikova (May 2008) and Minister of Agriculture Yelena Skrynnik (March 2009). It is their candidacies that are being considered for the post of deputy prime minister.
For Golikova this would mean a step up the career ladder, but the final decision on her appointment as a deputy prime minister for social development in the future Medvedev government has not yet been adopted.
Skrynnik’s promotion would seem logical as well because the agriculture sector has been growing steadily in recent years and she is a widely popular figure. The problem is that her appointment will require the dismissal of First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, 71, who is capable of working productively for the next few years.
Nabiullina is the weakest candidate: according to NG’s sources, she will have to compete with Federation Council Deputy Speaker Svetlana Orlova. Unconfirmed rumors that Orlova may join the cabinet began circulating as far back as last fall. She started her career in the senate in 2001 as a member of the Budget Committee, taking part in the drafting of all successive federal budgets ever since.
Her appointment would seem reasonable for yet another reason. She is personally devoted to Vladimir Putin, for whom it is important to have a trusted person on Medvedev’s team.
Moskovsky Komsomolets
New Law Proposes Imprisoning Drug Addicts
The authors of a new bill on drugs propose treating drug addicts as criminals. Doctors predict a sharp increase in the number of prisoners.
Irina Teplinskaya, a drug addict from Kaliningrad, has been sentenced four times and became infected with tuberculosis while in prison. Her health completely destroyed at 40, she cannot give up her addiction.
However, the Federal Service for Drug Control (FSDC) thinks differently. Although officially only 10% of drug addicts can stay away from drugs for long periods of time, the service’s experts have drafted a law that proposes introducing criminal punishment for them.
“Our idea is not to send drug addicts to prison but to develop a system of medical treatment as an alternative to imprisonment,” said Sergei Yakovlev, a department head at the FSDC and a co-author of the law. “Drug-related crimes such as muggings and thefts are a major problem. Our idea is to de-criminalize this sector.”
The bill describes in detail drug users’ medical and social rehabilitation and healthier lifestyle incentives, but it also proposes sending addicts to prison for up to two years or sentencing them to compulsory labor. This provision is to be applied to those who continue using drugs for a year after being formally cautioned for a similar offence or who refuse to comply with the court’s decision stipulating medical treatment.
Alexei Kurmanovsky from Kazan has been trying to quit for 15 years. He cannot do it no matter how hard he tries, so he can be subjected to an administrative penalty and subsequently imprisoned.
Hundreds of drug users would like to overcome their addiction but there are regions in Russia without any substance abuse treatment centers. Should the addicts wait until they are set up as a follow-up to the new law?
It is impossible to help everyone overcome drug addiction or to send all drug users to prison.
Prominent substance abuse therapist Oleg Zykov said: “I proposed replacing punishment with medical treatment before. The idea has been discussed when Viktor Ivanov was appointed head of the drug control service and we drafted Law No. 420. Formulated as amendments to the Criminal Code, it stipulated the conditions in which forced medical treatment can be imposed on drug users. I presented it on December 7, 2011. Unexpectedly, a different draft was heard by the Drug Control Service’s Public Council on December 19. It also proposes replacing punishment with medical treatment, but it also stipulates imposing criminal punishment on drug users, which is inhumane. They argue that only this can force addicts to undergo medical treatment.”
“This is absurd,” said Yevgeny Bryun, Russia’s chief substance abuse therapist. “It will not be effective because you cannot imprison five million people. The draft law should be scrutinized to weed out such untenable provisions.”
So far, the draft law has only provoked negative comments from substance abuse professionals, who really know if a prison term can cure drug addiction.
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