Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in avrom's LiveJournal:

Thursday, May 30th, 2019
10:44 pm	Lack of Horizontal Ties among Regions Means Weakening of Vertical Ones between Them and Moscow Threa Lack of Horizontal Ties among Regions Means Weakening of Vertical Ones between Them and Moscow Threatens Country, Shmulyevich Says  Paul Goble             Staunton, May 30 – “Russia is very poorly administered,” Avraam Shmulyevich says. “Horizontal ties are practically non-existent, and vertical ones are very poor.”  As a result, such systems can last a long time but then disappear overnight because any weakening of the vertical ties means there is little to hold the country together.                        That is what was the case in 1917 and again in 1991, the Israeli specialist on the North Caucasus says; and as a result, “the Russian Federation could fall apart in three days.”  Because that is so, the regions and republics are increasingly having to think about how they will cope and what they will do in that event (afterempire.info/2019/05/30/hronika-imperii/).             Because of his expertise, Shmulyevich develops this point by discussing the Caucasus. He suggests that “over the post-Soviet years, the Caucasus has been transformed into an ordinary colony,” one that is costly and difficult for the center to administer. Moscow lacks the skills to do so. As a result, it is “the source of turbulence for the entire Russian Federation.”             “Mentally,” the analyst says, the North Caucasus has “already distanced itself from Russia and Russia from it. Therefore, Moscow most likely in the coming years will simply throw off it as ballast” holding Russia back much as the West European colonial powers let their colonies go in the 1950s and 1960s.             The question arises, however, “will this be a good thing for the Caucasus and for the world?” Could it take the form of normal nation states? Of dictatorships like Chechnya already is? Or a region of Islamist terrorism and radicalism?  Or could it consist of all these things competing among themselves and drawing in outside powers?             According to Shmulyevich, “the Circassians are the only people of the caucaus among whom there is an ideological system that can serve as an alternative to Islam … the ideology of Khabze.”  But within the divided Circassian nation, that ideology is now locked in a competition with Islamism.             “Any people which exists under a colonial yoke degrades,” the Israeli analyst says. “The North Caucasus and all its peoples have lived in three empires” and as a result various “unhealthy phenomena” have emerged. But these phenomena have not completely destroyed the underlying cultures of these peoples.             Many of them have healthy elements within them, Shmulyevich says.  One mustn’t feel that everything is bad but rather work to help the health elements defeat the unhealthy ones.  “There are all kinds of possibilities to do this, and that requires in the first instance to remember that the first source of all the problems is that the Caucasus became a Russian colony.”             “Anti-colonial revolutions both in European colonies and in the Russian Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries were headed by members of the intelligentsia and businessmen who went to study and make careers and money in the metropolitan center and abroad and then returned to their Motherlands.”                       For centuries, he continues, “the Caucasus peoples have suffered many catastrophes, attacks and conquests. Russian colonial rule is only one of them.” Russia has been and remains “a disintegrating factor,” and there is no reason to think that the region will recover quickly or easily from its occupation.             One may certainly quibble with Shmulyevich about varius aspects of the situation in the North Caucasus, but his insight on the relationship between vertical and horizontal ties is fundamental and should become the basis of analysis of the Russian situation not only by Western observers but by participants of all kinds within the Russian Federation.             Unless Russia develops more horizontal ties among its regions, any weakening of the vertical ones between the regions and the center will inevitably call the territorial integrity of the country into question. Those who think that vertical ties will be enough have been proved wrong before and are quite likely to be proved wrong again. https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/05/lack-of-horizontal-ties-among-regions.html  Window on Eurasia -- New Series, May 30, 2019 (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 4th, 2018
7:53 pm	Putin Preparing for Third World War to Force Ukraine and West to Make Some Hard Choices, Shmulyevich Перевод и изложение Paul Goble моей статьи Putin Preparing for Third World War to Force Ukraine and West to Make Some Hard Choices, Shmulyevich Says Paul Goble             Staunton, December 1 – Vladimir Putin is actively preparing for a third world war, Avraam Shmulyevich says, one in advance of which Ukraine and the West must decide whether Kyiv is “an ally of the West or part of the Putin system.” Indeed, the Kremlin leader’s actions are designed to show the West just how expensive it will be for it to support Ukraine against him.             The Israeli political analyst makes those comments in the course of an interview with Taavi Minnik, a journalist for Tallinn’s Postimees newspaper, ones in which he makes clear that Putin is not planning for “’the small victorious war’” many talk about but rather about something more (rus.postimees.ee/6466473/avraam-shmulevich-putin-zhazhdet-revansha).             Putin is very much in control however much the situation in Russia has deteriorated, Shmulyevich says. “There is no opposition in Russia; all opposition figures (except perhaps Navalny) are either in the West or more likely under the control of the FSB. The West isn’t supporting any real opposition or spending money to oppose Russian propaganda.”             Moreover, and far from the least important, the Israeli analyst says, “Putin has a very powerful repressive apparatus. In fact, nothing threatens him.”             “The West’s problem is that it doesn’t listen to Putin who with remarkable candor says what he wants,” Shmulyevich says. He said it already in Munich: he is seeking to reestablish the Russian Empire. Putin wants the greatness of Russia as he imagines it at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20 centuries.”             According to the Israeli analyst, “Putin wants to return what was lost with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He has pursued that goal through his entire period in office, building up a repressive apparatus and a military and putting the economy on military rails.” Russia’s strength has grown but the standard of living of the Russian people has not.             “In order to return to the status of empire, Russia must recover Ukraine. Putin has more than once said that Ukraine is a state that should arose as a result of a mistake and which should not exist because Ukrainians are part of the Russian people.”  Putin in Crimea and the Donbass has used a strategy of “creeping annexation.’”             Given this goal, Shmulyevich says, “Putin doesn’t need ‘a small victorious war’ but a big war which will give him control over Europe and the world.” (emphasis supplied)             What has just happened in the Kerch Strait raises the stakes and show how far Putin is now prepared to go, the analyst continues. “Never before has the Russian regular army opened fire on Ukrainian forces. The transfer of Crimea took place without a single shot being fired.  And Russia had denied that its forces are in the Donbass.”             Now, however, “Putin has attempted to annex the Sea of Azov de facto and for the first time has opened fire on Ukrainian ships in international waters.”  Today, “the question, ‘Is NATO prepared to defend the Kerch Straits?’ is equivalent to the question ‘Is NATO prepared to die for Narva?”             To avoid disaster, Shmulyevich says, “there must be a clear reaction and not just words expressing concern.”             Ukrainian elites and Ukrainian society are not ready to fight an all-out war with Russia, he adds. They have used various euphemisms to avoid facing up to the sweeping nature of Moscow’s aggression.  That has had the effect of only leading Putin to conclude that he can go further and further.             Putin’s aggression now echoes Hitler’s in the years before World War II, and the response of many in Europe to it now echoes the reaction of many Europeans in that period as well.  Everyone must understand that “Putin is preparing for a  third world war and for revenge,” Shmulyevich says.             “Ukraine must define itself: either it is an ally of the West or it is part of Putin’s system.  To continue to sit on two stools at the same time is no longer possible.  I very much doubt,” the Israeli analyst concludes, “that European politicians understand this truth” and the stake not only for Ukraine but for themselves as well.             As long as they don’t, he suggests, Putin will continue his advance, pocketing anything he can.  http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/12/putin-preparing-for-third-world-war-to.html (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 29th, 2018
1:09 am	Is Moscow Planning to Try to Cut Georgia in Half? Paul Goble             Staunton, June 28 – Irakly Kobakhidze, the speaker of the Georgian parliament, said in Washington this week that Russia continues to threaten the national independence of his country, maintains its occupation forces on Georgian territory and has refused to respond to Tbilisi’s efforts to find common ground (apsny.ge/2018/pol/1530210649.php).                 Because of this threat, Georgia has been pursuing membership in the Western alliance; but as Vladimir Putin has demonstrated again and again, he will use all means, including invasion and occupation, to prevent that from happening by creating a situation in which some NATO member states will be leery of becoming involved.              In a personal communication to this writer, Israeli analyst Avraham Shmulyevich says that recent statements coming out of South Ossetia and recent Russian actions in support of the Armenians in Georgia’s Javakhetia region suggest that Putin may in fact be ready to threaten or even carry out the dismemberment of Georgia by cutting that country in half.             If one looks at a map of Georgia, one can see that the Russian unrecognized client state of South Ossetia looks like a dagger pointed directly at the Georgian capital, Shmulyevich points out. For confirmation of this, he points to a series of maps of the area available online at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trialet_Ossetia.png.             That makes recent statements by South Ossetian leaders that the Soviets illegally transferred part of Ossetian land to the Georgian SSR and that Ossetians thus have the right to reclaim them especially frightening (ekhokavkaza.com/a/29323404.html,cominf.org/node/1166517221 and cominf.org/node/1166517206).                 Any further expansion of Ossetian control, something that could only be achieved with the strength of Russian arms, would threaten Tbilisi even more directly. But as Shmulyevich notes, there is an even greater danger to Georgia in evidence, one that reflects the recent changes in Armenia.                 That is in the Javakhetia region in southern Georgia, a region populated largely by ethnic Armenians and led by people who were closely associated with the ancient regime in Yerevan.  They are thus more disposed to follow Moscow’s demands than the Pashinyan government and could be set against Tbilisi as well.             Were Moscow and its agents to stir up trouble in Javakhetia, Shmulyevich says, that would create a dagger from the south that would almost meet the Ossetian dagger from the north and cut the Republic of Georgia into two parts.  Even the threat that Moscow could do that must be worrisome to Georgia and its supporters in the West.             Obviously, this is an argument based on capabilities rather than on knowledge of intentions; but it is not so far-fetched that it should be dismissed out of hand, as some may be inclined to do.  Instead, it could become a scenario for yet another Putinist hybrid war and for the same purpose as in Ukraine, to block a country that wants to turn to the West from doing so. https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/06/is-moscow-planning-to-try-to-cut.html (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 17th, 2018
5:29 pm	Israeli Analyst Says Putin Like Hitler of the 1930s But Not Yet Prepared for a General War Israeli Analyst Says Putin Like Hitler of the 1930s But Not Yet Prepared for a General War Paul Goble             Staunton, April 16 – Vladimir Putin’s actions “resemble those of the early Adolf Hitler,” Rabbi Avraam Shmulyevich says. And like the Nazi leader, the Kremlin boss is testing his forces in smaller conflicts and seeking to raise a generation of people who are prepared to die for him and his ideas.                 The president of the Israeli Institute for the Eastern Partnership says world leaders should be worried not only about Putin’s current acts of aggression but also his continuing and intense efforts to transform his population through control of the educational system and the media in Russia (fakty.ictv.ua/ru/svit/20180416-ekspert-porivnyav-putina-z-gitlerom-i-skazav-koly-pochnetsya-tretya-svitova/).             “One can compare [Putin] with the early Hitler of the 1930s,” Shmulyevich says on Espresso television, when the Nazi leader “step by step increased the military capacity of the Wehrmacht, carried out ‘pilot’ steps in Spain, Austria and Czechoslovakia and then began a big war.”             “This in principle is what Putin said openly that he intends to do,” the Israeli expert continues.             At the same time, Shmulyevich says he is “convinced that for the time being Putin ‘will not cross a red line’ in relations with the West.  It is possible there will be some local clashes” in which he will test his army against the American one but that the Kremlin leader will always pull back before things get out of hand.  https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.co.il/2018/04/israeli-analyst-says-putin-like-hitler.html (Comment on this)
Friday, February 9th, 2018
3:56 pm	The Terror in Daghestan has Begun to Spread – And Will Last as Long as Putin Does. The Terror in Daghestan has Begun to Spread – And Will Last as Long as Putin Does.             Israeli analyst Avraam Shmulyevich says that what is happening in Daghestan is part and parcel of what is happening in Russia as a whole rather than something separate and distinct (rusmonitor.com/avraam-shmulevich-ob-arestakh-v-dagestane-repressii-budut-prodolzhatsya-do-tekh-por-poka-sushhestvuet-ehta-sistema.html).             The country has entered a new 1937, the beginning of terror. “Today Russia is ruled by Chekists … They even call themselves that. But Chekists do not know how to do anything but arrest people.” That is what it was established to do and that is what it is doing now.              “In contrast to Perm, Tver or Sakhalin,” Shmulyevich continues, “Daghestan is viewed as a colony of Russia as a certain alien place and therefore everything which is taking place there is examined with particular interest – although in this specific case, there is no difference between Daghestan and Kirov oblast or Magadan.”                 But there is one difference that Moscow appears to have forgotten: unlike in these other places, in Daghestan, there is a tradition of partisan war, of going into the forests and fighting back.  And consequently, if Moscow continues to repress people in Daghestan, it is more than likely that this tradition will return to the fore.             But at the same time Moscow is arresting people in Daghestan, Shmulyevich points out, “arrests and even murders in the ruling stratum are occurring throughout the entire country” – in Tatarstan, in Ingushetia, in Stavropol and in Kaliningrad. And that means something else: it has begun and will continues as long as this [Putin] system exists.”             Many will talk about Daghestan, but so far, what is happening elsewhere hasn’t attracted as much attention. https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.co.il/2018/02/what-moscow-is-doing-in-daghestan-now.html#comment-form (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 10th, 2017
1:31 am	Window on Eurasia -- New Series_ North Caucasus Republics Could Flourish on Their Own, Israeli Polit Moscow Views Return of Circassians from Abroad as 'a Mortal Danger,’ Shmulyevich Says Paul Goble             Staunton, September 8 – Often observers look at the divisions among Circassians and even within the Circassian national movement and conclude that they are no threat to anyone, Avraam Shmulyevich says. But they forget that almost all national movements including the ones which have become successful have begun with such problems.             But those more closely involved, including in the first instance the government and special services of the Russian Federation, the Israeli analyst says, are very much frightened by that prospect and have deployed many forces to disorganize and suppress Circassian activism wherever it manifests itself (afterempire.info/2017/09/07/circassian/).                 “The Circassians,” Shmulyevich continues, “are the only people for whom the Caucasus War has still not ended, the only people who not only seriously suffered in the course of this war but for whom the negative consequences of defeat are still important and more than that catastrophic.”             Their “main problem is that 80 percent of the Circassians to this day are in exile and being subject to active assimilation,” but in addition, those who remain in “their historical motherland, the North Caucasus, “are divided among six administrative units” something that represents a barrier to their coming together.             Moreover, “even in their own ‘national’ formations, the Circassians are deprived of the opportunity to freely develop their culture and define by themselves the path of their national development.” Moscow’s complaint that the Circassians talk “’too much’” about the past is baseless given that Russian forces expelled “more than 95 percent” of them.             That action, along with the murderous campaign and discrimination the Russian state imposed before and after 1864, qualifies as a genocide.  That is how most international legal scholars view it, and it is so much a part of the Circassian national identity that few Circassians feel the need to articulate it on a regular basis, Shmulyevich says.             Moscow is not willing to discuss any of this. Nor is it willing to allow Circassians from the Middle East to return to the North Caucasus. The reason is simple, he says. “The arrival of tens and then hundreds of thousands of citizens with experience in more democratic states and having foreign citizenship and thus immunity … is a mortal threat to the Putin order.”             But Moscow is not content just to keep the Circassians from returning. Because of its fears, the Kremlin has taken steps to completely control Circassian organizations inside the Russian Federation, groups that “imitate activity and try to distract young people from the main Circassian problem.”  They have been largely successful in “’setting the tone’” in these groups.             Today, however, Shmulyevich argues, “the situation is changing; and the meaninglessness of these organization has become evident to many Circassians. Circassian young people are coming to back the idea of the need for the creation of an international organization based on the principles of international law.”             The Israeli scholar says that in his opinion, such an organization “will appear in the coming years.”             In addition, he points out, “the Russian special services are devoting colossal efforts for the neutralization of the Circassian question. But they are not all-powerful. Even the powerful Soviet KGB was not in a position to control a multi-million-strong people; and its successors are weaker by an order of magnitude.”              All these things mean, Shmulyevich concludes, that Circassian problems are only going to intensify.  As one Circassian activist told him, he reports, “God alone knows how all this will end, but there isn’t going to be any peace in the Caucasus.”  And that is something that many in Moscow already have many reasons to fear.  (Comment on this)