Russia: Seeing Enemies all Around
Russian daily Izvestia ran an article on what it considered to be an anti-Russian film, "Soviet Story," shown on TV in Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine. According to Alexander Diyukov, president of Russian organization "Historical Memory," the film blames the USSR and Russia for Holodomor and ethnic genocide. "Holodomor" is a Ukrainian term for artificial famine imposed by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on Ukraine and parts of USSR in the early 1930s, leading to as many as 10 million deaths across the country.
According to Diyukov, "demonization of our country (Russia) is the main purpose of the film which had EU Parliament backing, and Latvian authorities are actively pushing this film in their country and around the world." He further states that film creators are using a "large amount of falsified documents, with a mix of outright lies and manipulation in order to draw an analogy between the USSR with Nazi Germany and to show today's Russia as a neo-Nazi state." Diyukov authored a report in response to the film, titled "Soviet Story: Mechanism of Lies," which was sent to the State Duma and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"Latvian authorities are playing a dangerous game by openly falsifying history," said Diyukov. "Latvian school children, after watching this film, will grow up hating our country. But hatred can only beget hatred in return." The article also quoted Vladimir Ivanov, head of Latvia Desk at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who said that "the film is similar to Goebbels' propaganda," alluding to the notorious Joseph Goebbels, head of Nazi Germany's propaganda machine.
This past week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged the creation of an "Anti-Crisis Center," which will have the authority of managing the effects of the global financial crisis in Russia. This special commission will have the responsibility to assist large industries and individual citizens, and will be headed by Igor Shuvalov, First Vice-Premier. The article points out that the first priority of the Russian government was to support its energy industry, heavy industry and banks, while the concerns of regular citizens were not immediately on the radar. The Center is slated to designate 100 billion rubles as credit to "strategically important" industries, and 200 billion rubles for the rest of the country.
Two distinct opinions were voiced about US strategic military plans, an issue that gets increasingly large amount of coverage in Russian media following US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Daily Dni.ru cites recent report by Washington-based Center for American Progress, which called for stopping the development of anti-missile shields in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Russia considers aimed at itself. The article highlights the argument that "strategic logic of said shield is in question because it needlessly provokes Russia." The articles further cites Congressman John Murtha, who said that American defense spending is expected to decrease in the coming years.
However, Russian military officials and experts do not wish to put much faith in such statements. General Leonid Ivashov, president of Russian Academy of Geopolitical Problems, was quoted by Izvestia saying that "the biggest danger for Russia and other countries is the attempt to construct a unipolar world. We are carefully monitoring what our so-called "strategic partners" in America are doing. United States has steadily increased its military budget over the last several decades, so that now it's the largest in the world. Its vast weapons modernization program is aimed at achieving technological superiority over all other world militaries. That is not done just to hunt Osama bin Laden. It looks like America is geared towards unleashing one big war, or many local wars around the world."
In light of such concerns, General Ivashov openly questioned why decisions regarding Russian Armed Forces are done by civilian leaders without any military background (alluding to current Defense Minister Serdyukov, who has business experience but did not serve in the armed forces), and why the Russian government is aiming at decreasing the ranks of officers and active duty soldiers by hundreds of thousands.
