Domodedovo Airport Attack (Updated)

The details are still coming in, but here is the short form:

35 people have been killed in an explosion at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport according to the airport spokesperson. Up to 130 are said to have been injured in what the Investigative Committee believes to be a terror attack.

The attacker hit the crowd at the Arrivals area waiting for passengers to clear the secure zone.

The report (in English) from Russia Today on the attack. Scroll down that page for more details and some analysis.

The BBC has a lengthy coverage as well, and has links to more information.

Preliminary reports have several body parts of the bomber collected as evidence. The ФСБ (FSB) was apparently in pursuit of the attack cell earlier in the day, but did not catch on as to who and where until too late.

The War goes on.

***

Update:

UPI has it as two suicide bombers:

Witnesses told Russian media two people detonated their explosives as passengers walked from the international arrival area of Moscow's busiest airport, RIA Novosti reported.

Note, the two linked reports above have it as a single bomber. Someone at the investigation needs to address this difference.

Long Memories

It is often unwise to engage in triumphalism when one hasn't really won.

It is even less wise when one is celebrating mass murder in the very land where the slaughter was committed and there are still survivors around with long memories.

Case in point.

The same statue had been damaged last week in an explosion claimed by a Ukrainian nationalist group, Tryzub (Trident), which denounced Stalin as "the executioner of the Ukrainian people and an international terrorist."

Stalin is a deeply divisive figure in Ukraine, which is sharply split between its nationalist west and pro-Russian supporters in the east who take a fonder view of the Soviet past.

Yes, blowing up a statue of Stalin is criminal property damage.

That said, the irony of seeing the Communist Party of Ukraine make a claim of private property rights to file charges is just sauce for the goose.

One heck of an election

This has been "fun" week in the election in Ukraine...

We got off to a great start with the definition of a one-sided debate as Y. Tymoshenko got left appearing alone when rival V. Yanukovych refused to attend their scheduled televised debate. Let's just say Ms. Yulia didn't let the opportunity go to waste.

Then, in an unrelated-but-timely event, the Intelligence Service of Ukraine bagged five Russian spies redhanded, expelling four and holding an Russian FSB Colonel on charges of espionage.

And then, with V. Yanukovych's lead, the Parliament of Ukraine passed a new law "...on February 3 eliminates the need for candidates' representatives to supervise vote-counting at individual polling stations", which was promptly answered by the Tymoshenko camp with the threat of mass protests if there is the hint of election fraud.

Election day is February 7th. Hang on to your hats, folks. It's going to be a ride.

Three Elections

One passed, one at the half-way point, and one to come... all important.

(No, Yanks, I'm not including your special election in Massachusetts earlier this week. That one looks to also have been of great importance, but time will tell. Nice win for Green-to-Gold Guardsman Scott Brown, though. My congratulations.)


Here's the one that is done. Chile:

Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei has conceded losing the country's presidential election to conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera.

With 99 percent of the polling places counted, official returns showed Mr. Pinera with 52 percent of the vote and Mr. Frei with 48 percent.

This was huge. A major step forward for Chile; by some measures the most important step it could have taken after the OECD recognized that Chile is in the Developed World now. Welcome to the Club, friends.


Next up, and in progress through February, Ukraine:

Current President Viktor Yushchenko is done; he got 5% of the vote in the General Poll. That leaves two of the "big three" standing... Russian-frontman Viktor Yanukovych with a momentary lead at 35% of the vote (about what his regional-ethnic party has in supporting population share, btw) and incumbent Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who got 25% of the vote, mostly out of a badly split Orange Revolution-based political movement. Those two will stand in the run-off election on February 7th. But the real story there right now is about a candidate that placed... third.

Orange Revolution heroine Yulia Tymoshenko and her rival, pro-Moscow Viktor Yanukovych, may have won the top two spots in Ukraine's presidential election on January 17, but as they face off ahead of the final round next month, someone else is at the center of attention.

Third-place finisher Serhiy Tigipko says he won't endorse either candidate, but there's intense competition to get him to change his mind.

Okay... but...

Tigipko headed Viktor Yanukovych's campaign during the infamous presidential election in 2004, when their victory -- in voting widely believed to have been rigged -- prompted thousands onto the streets.

Yeah. This is not good news. It is somewhat expected that an election in Ukraine will be all about personalities these days, but read the whole story from RFE/RL (linked above) to see a glimpse of how this could go wrong in a lot of ways.

More on this from our friends at Angus Reid Global Monitor, just to expand on the point of how dirty this election has gotten. The worry may well be that whichever of the candidates wins in February, Russia wins... which means the people of Ukraine lose. It really is that zero-sum there right now.


Last up, but likely to be resolved shortly. Sri Lanka:

Oh brother... this could get ugly.

On Nov. 23, 2009, Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa called an early presidential election for 2010, saying he wants to seek a stronger mandate before his first term expires in 2011. This practice is allowed under the Sri Lankan constitution, as long as the president has been in office for at least four years. Rajapaksa was first elected in 2005.

The presidential ballot will take place on Jan. 26, 2010.

Sarath Fonseka, an army general, will also run for president. The opposition United National Party (EJP) and the far-left People’s Liberation Front party have endorsed Fonseka’s bid.

Rajapaksa is running with the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). Another 20 candidates, including a Buddhist monk and five independents, will also join the contest.

The two main contenders—Rajapaksa and Fonseka—are widely considered as the main leaders in the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.

In November, Fonseka left the Sri Lankan army while denying accusations by the Rajapaksa government that he was planning a coup d’ état.

(source: Angus Reid Global Monitor)

Two leaders ...both bathed in the glory of defeating the LTTE and by any reasonable measure saving the nation... couldn't cooperate once the threat was past. In fairness, it appears that the dispute began from only one side... President M. Rajapaksa aparently can't stand to share the political spotlight... but still...

This is not the future your troops were fighting for, gentlemen.

May the electorate (which includes the northern population now!) show you the error of your ways.

Just a minor rule change...

One of those "that is what the law said, but..." moments came last year for Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when he (or someone in his name) ordered Russian troops en-masse into the Republic of Georgia:

Then, he sent troops into the ex-Soviet state in violation of the constitution after Tbilisi launched a military assault on the pro-Moscow rebel enclave of South Ossetia.

Russian law at the time specified that the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, had the exclusive right to send troops overseas. The Federation Council did not meet until after the 5-day war was over.

Apparently, the law promulgated after that which increased the number of allowed uses of troops...

Under existing law, Russia can only send troops abroad to defend its citizens and allies, to fight piracy, and to protect international shipping routes.

...but still required prior approval from the Federation Council just wasn't good enough.

So, if one doesn't like the rules, and one has the power to make the rules, it would be pretty silly not to change the rules.

Yes, it is a formality. No, it didn't stop them before and it wouldn't next time.

It is still a step backward for Russian foreign relations if they adopt this "request". The Europeans (in general) have come to consider specific authorization of military force normal.

Sadly, it isn't surprising.

One year ago...

A very good plan... by the Russians...

Set in motion a less-than-good-but-necessary plan... by the Georgians...

Which resulted in The Russo-Georgian War of 2008.

You know who I think was "right", and you also know how it came out. If you don't, look under the Caucasia label here at CompHyp. I also stand by my quote of *three days before the war*:

“It isn’t aggression if you are fighting on your own damn land.”

Life and Victory to a Re-united Republic of Georgia, one day.

Caucasian Region 'Net War

The internet privateers of the Russian Federation are at it again:

Attacks targeting a specific individual took down Twitter and did some damage to capabilities of Facebook, LiveJournal, Blogger (our host, btw) and YouTube.

The (targeted) blogger, who uses the account name "Cyxymu," (the name of a town in the Republic of Georgia) had accounts on all of the different sites that were attacked at the same time, Max Kelly, chief security officer at Facebook, told CNET News.

"It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard," Kelly said. "We're actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can."

Kelly declined to speculate on whether Russian nationalists were behind the attack, but said: "You have to ask who would benefit the most from doing this and think about what those people are doing and the disregard for the rest of the users and the Internet."

The attack was likely originated in Abkhazia, the Russian-occupied coastal region of the northwest of the Republic of Georgia. But in addition to tracking the perpetrator, the countermeasures available also did do some good:

Facebook and Google were able to minimize any impact to their sites. Facebook even managed to keep the Cyxymu account accessible to Web surfers from that region, Kelly said, although it was inaccessible to people in other geographic areas, including San Francisco.

Yay, team. Now to deliver a little "payback"...

Ready for Round 2?

The open issue at the time of the suspension of open warfare last summer in the Republic of Georgia was, and remains, how long will Russia wait before they engineer a chance to finish what they set out to do?

Well, summer is here again, and with the season comes Russian claims of Georgian "aggressive intent". Their servile frontmen in South Ossetia are accusing Georgia of firing two mortar rounds on a military outpost along the defacto line-of-control, and the Russian Defense Ministry hauled out the usual threats:

"In the event of further acts of provocation threatening the population of the republic and the Russian military contingent based in the territory of South Ossetia, the Russian Defense Ministry reserves the right to use all available force and means to defend the citizens of the republic of South Ossetia and Russian servicemen," the ministry said in a statement, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

To no great surprise, the Georgian Interior Ministry said there was no firing:

The Georgian Interior Ministry said there had been no shooting from either side of the boundary. The Russian statement "clearly shows very aggressive intent," said ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili. He urged the West to pay attention.

I'll echo that last part loudly.

The West should pay attention to what is happening. There are international inspectors and observers to be asked about this, even though they are only able to see things from the Georgian-controlled areas (the Russians got the OSCE observer mission on the Russian side of the line shut down early this year).

The truth can be known.

Let's let it be known far and wide, *before* things reach the point where the Russians feel confident enough to try for another bite of Georgian territory.

Russian military exercises on Georgian soil.

The Russian Army is up to its Summer Exercises in the North Caucasus again, with all the logistical and maneuver activities one would expect of such readiness exercises, but this time things are a bit different.

They are happening on occupied Georgian territory as well. This isn't exactly a way to make friends, given what came after last year's exercises wound down...

This year's round is scheduled to end on July 6th, which coincidentally is the date of a visit by the American President B. Obama to Moscow.

With all the logistics in place, and troop formations at best levels about then, it sure would be too bad if something happened to Georgia around that time, wouldn't it?

Russia Vetos UN Observer Mission in Georgia

Ten United Nations Security Council members voted for the continuation of the UN Observer Mission overseeing the Abkhazia region (since the 1993 Cease Fire between the government and the rebels).

Four members, including permanent member China, abstained.

Russia vetoed it on Monday.

The move brings to an end two weeks of heated negotiations, and means the withdrawal of the last international monitoring mission on Georgia's breakaway territories. Russia's veto, which effectively shuts down the UN mission in Georgia, has drawn a barrage of criticism from officials in Tbilisi.

It is time to count logistical movements and equipment transfers (like the reassignment of the limited number available of Mi-28 Anti-Tank Helicopters this Spring) to the Caucasus region, because moves like this veto are just the sort of preliminary moves Russia would make before renewing an invasion of the Republic of Georgia. Calling them out *before* an offensive may be the only way to prevent renewed fighting.

Georgian Independence Day

That would be today. They count it from the post-Imperial Russia declaration of independence that was shortly thereafter crushed under the campaign to establish the Soviet Union.

Here is hoping that history is not on-course for a repeat performance.

My particular compliments to Ambassador (E & P) Ivane Matchavariani, who represents The Republic of Georgia in Japan, for his very fine Independence Day message as published in The Japan Times today.

(regrettably, The Japan Times does not make such messages available in their on-line edition.)

Plot or Counterplot?

The Republic of Georgia is reporting a situation of mutiny, possibly linked to a coup d'etat plot, at the Mukhrovani military base near Tbilisi.

The mutiny seems contained, and the officers responsible for the base have been relieved of command.

It appears the plot was designed to disrupt the NATO exercises at Vaziani that are due to start on the 6th of this month.

Alternative reporting on this from The Guardian UK and FOXNews / AP.

Oh, guess it is probably worth mentioning that the Government of Georgia is claiming to have arrested a coup plotter and has announced at a news conference that the plotters "were receiving money from Russia". The FOXNews source linked above cites

Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the suspected coup plot was organized by a former special forces commander, Georgy Gvaladze. Gvaladze and an army officer on active duty have been arrested, the spokesman said.

The coup plotters, backed by 5,000 Russian troops, were planning to disrupt NATO military exercises set to begin Wednesday in Georgia, Utiashvili said.

Not unbelievable, but does Russia really want to start a fight (again) at this time? Because being part of an attack on a NATO cooperation exercise would pretty much meet my definition of an act of war.

Sadly, they didn't expel Dmitry

About the same time that the Russian Federation announced that they were taking over border control in Abkhazia and South Ossetia along the de-facto line of control, and drew a rebuke from NATO for doing so...

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the signing of the pacts contravened the peace deals brokered by the EU after Russia's brief war with Georgia last August.

"This is in clear contravention of the 12th August and 8th September agreements negotiated by the European Union and is not in the interests of long-term peace and security in the South Caucasus region," Appathurai told reporters.

...NATO also got around to dealing a little pay-back for the Estonian Spy Scandal back in February...

"Two Russian diplomats have been told they are not welcome here," the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The pair were attached to the mission Russia has at NATO headquarters although it is not a member of the alliance.

The diplomat said they were expelled over the case of Herman Simm, an Estonian jailed for more than 12 years for treason in February for handing more than 2,000 pages of information to handlers in Russia's SVR Foreign Intelligence Service.

Sadly, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's Ambassador to the Atlantic Alliance, was not on the DLTDHYITAOTWO list ("Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out"). Ah well, hope springs eternal.

Something... bad.

The Republic of Georgia and The Russian Federation have been at each other again politically, mostly over the upcoming NATO exercises in Georgia next month, but now...

*This item* from the AP just hit the wires: The Russians have been moving forces up to the line-of-control.

Peter Semneby, the EU special representative for the South Caucasus, said the Russian military presence was clearly "significantly larger" that it had been.

"The timing is peculiar," Semneby said. "It creates an additional source of nervousness and uncertainty."

This could be a very bad thing.

***
Addenda:

Galrahn at Information Dissemination is already all over this story and has been following things since observers noticed a large deployment of the Black Sea Fleet for no apparent reason last week.

NATO Exercises in Georgia, 2009

Civil Georgia news source reports that NATO announced on April 15th that the planned Cooperative Longbow 2009 and Cooperative Lancer 2009 exercises with the Republic of Georgia are to run from May 6th to June 1st, as has been scheduled since last spring. The article makes public several details regarding these interoperability exercises, and lists which NATO member and partner countries will be participating (19 in all).

(Note to NATO: update your website press releases. When they do get caught up to this week, the press release will be at this site. *sheesh*)

Anyway...

Let's just say the Russians are upset... specifically one Russian we know and "love": Dmitry Rogozin.

"This is absurd and a provocation," Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told Reuters by telephone. "I have asked the NATO secretary general ... to postpone these exercises or to cancel them."

You can ask, big guy, but it will likely go over about as well as your conduct during the Russian Invasion of Georgia (2008) did. Remember that? It involved a quick trip home.

A tale of two protests

It is "compare and contrast" time again here at CompHyp.

Two countries attempting to come to terms with their condition on the edge of Russian influence (and intervention) have been faced with popular protests against the elected governments' hold on power.

Moldova has had an ugly round of demonstrations where the intendedly peaceful protest against what was very likely a rigged election turned into riots against the government. Things got so bad that the Parliament and the Presidential Residence were stormed by rioters. The matter has turned into an international incident as well, with allegations of Romanian manipulations of the protests being called an attempted coup d'etat. Diplomatic relations have now ruptured as Moldova has sent the Romanian Ambassador packing.

and then...

The Republic of Georgia has seen a massive, but smaller than expected, Rally by the political opposition against the Saakashvili administration. These protests are passionate, but lack the violence (and government crackdown) of the Moldovan situation, at least for now. The protesters claim they will stay in the streets until President M. Saakashvili resigns. The test will come if the protests grow, or turn violent.

Both situations bear watching, and both could bode ill in a number of ways for future of the nations in question.

...and never forget who stands to benefit most from instability in both regions.

Still no gas

The Russia-Ukraine Natural Gas dance just gets more convoluted every day, and still no gas flows to Europe.

The unhappy customer base in Eastern Europe is holding meetings today in Ukraine, and that group is takings sides with Ukraine.

The talks, which bring together some of Moscow's toughest Eastern European critics, was organized with unusual speed and secrecy and announced just hours before it began.

Participants include Polish President Lech Kaczynski, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic, and Moldovan Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanii, according to a Ukrainian statement.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister V. Putin of Russia is meeting with German Chancellor A. Merkel today.

All this in run-up to the 17.January meeting in Moscow called in answer to an E.U. request for an all-parties round of talks.

Gazprom cuts the flow through Ukraine

This has been a developing story over the last few days, well covered in the mass media. The Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, which is functionally an arm of the Putin-Medvedev regime (or some say, Putin and Medvedev work for Gazprom), has been locked in a dispute with Ukraine over price increases and Ukraine has responded by planning an increase in transhipment fees for gas moving through to Europe.

The fight has gotten ugly enough that Gazprom simply ordered a suspension of deliveries to Ukraine.

But with Gazprom cutting the taps and the pipeline pressure down, Officials in Sofia say that Bulgaria is getting no gas and that Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey are getting no gas from the via-Ukraine pipeline. (Turkey has access to a second line under the Black Sea, however)

A panic has now swept through the EU offices in Brussels, and they are demanding (not asking nicely) for a summit meeting with Russia and Ukraine. Yes, the document even reads like an ultimatum to restore flow.

Good luck on that.

For anyone who didn't see this author's shot at Gazprom and European collaborators back last November, perhaps a more current observation would be of interest. National Public Radio of the U.S.A. is running a three part story plus an overview article on Gazprom and Russia's Foreign Policy that is pretty damning in its message.

American President R. Reagan once warned against European dependence on Russian energy sources.

He was right, then and now.

Updates on Ukraine and Rep. Georgia

Several reports have come in on efforts to help both Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia continue to move forward, but both cases bring additional concerns in the process.

Ukraine has signed a Strategic Partnership with the U.S.A., similar to the agreements reached with the Baltic States to help prepare them for NATO membership a few years back. However, that may all come to naught as the Government of Ukraine can not seem to cease its ongoing fratricidal political problems.

The Rep. of Georgia is coming to terms, finally, with just how many problems it has, militarily, and how best to begin restructuring its defense, but to do so they will need time and guarantees of support. Not intending to allow anything that would give such breathing space, Russia is attempting to get the OSCE observer mission in Georgia curtailed. The plan seems to be to interfere with mission renewal (needed after 31.December), and to continue to obstruct observer activities. The OSCE mission has yet to gain any real access to the rebel territory of South Ossetia, for example.

Heck of a time to be worried about politics and cronyism, folks. Perhaps a large sign is needed in both countries' offices of government: DO NOT FEED THE BEAR.

An Old-fashioned Agent

Seems the South Ossetian rebels against the Republic of Georgia have had the services of a KGB spy an old-fashioned sympathetic agent working on their behalf in the U.S.A.

The Government of Rep. Georgia claims to have provided proof (via signal intercepts of cell phone conversations) of acts as an undeclared foreign agent, which last time this author checked was still a pretty bad thing in the eyes of the US Department of Justice. We'll just have to see if they buy into the Georgian information enough to schedule an investigation.