Russia - Problems and Solutions

[cerulean]

I'm opening a thread on Russia, because it's a country that is of huge concern to world stability, including the Middle East.

As I posted before, there is every indication Russia is regressing into the police state it most often has been.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...le.asp?ID=6553

Now a critic of Putin has been murdered, likely assassinated in Moscow. Putin, as you know, is a former KGB man.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_771670.html

Putin critic murdered in moscow
Russian MP Sergei Yushenkov, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, has been murdered in Moscow.
His colleagues are calling his death an assassination.
Mr Yushenkov, a leader of the Liberal Russia party, was shot three times in the back near his home. . . .

There have been lots of articles about Russia supplying Iraq with weapons, Iran with nuclear capability, etc.

Any ideas as to how to get Russia out of the bad track it has been on for, oh a thousand years or more?

[takeo]

Russia is actually back on the right track since two years, altough a lot of problems remain. Russia during the Yeltsin years was a time of economic disaster for most Russians, sharp decline and economical and strategical sell-out to the West. Since Putin things have improved, but the situation is still worrysome.
Russia has once again started to conduct an own serious middle Eastern policy, but still not as firm as during the Soviet years. i hope that the us attitude during the latest conflict, witch spread a vague of anti-American feelings trough the country (according to CNN 70% of Russians hoped the US would be defeated) will accelerate this process. the latest war which also contributed to anti-Americanism in Russia, the Kosovo-war, had the same consequence.
Russia should defend its interests in the same way the us is doing as well, especially in the "near abroad" (the former soviet republics), it will earn them the respect of the US, who took advantage of an impoverished and weakened Russia during the 90's.
The chechen conflict is another difficult issue to handle. The current solution is way too brutal and dangerous, altough just handing over chechenia to a bunch of fanatics is no solution either. there should be negociations to find a way for Chechenia to be a part of russia with large autonomy. terrorist-supporting countries such as georgia, who also decided to accomodate us-soldiers on their territory, should be dealed with in an even more firm way (perhaps Putin can be inspired by Bush).

putin has adopted a lot of measures proposed by communist leader Zyouganov, and they prooved to be succesfull in gaining the hearts and the minds of the Russians, unlike yeltsin Putin has a fair chance of winning the upcoming elections of the communists without massive fraud as happened during the yeltsin years. Still most Russians deplore the demise of the Soviet-union, as life isn't yet back to the same standard as during the 80's and continues to be a daily struggle (except for the lucky few), the communists are very popular in Russia (the largest party in parliament) but their supporters are aging. (for the young people the soviet-union is literally history while the communists are not modernising, they continue to be a kind of nostalgic party turned to the past)

I don't care reacting to the article, as it obviously doesn't bare any similarity with reality.
one comment: the soviet-union is blamed for helping Saddam, while at the same time blamed for fighting afghan fundamentalist terrorists!!! the autors also seem to support Chechens separatists kidnapping and torturing people, and wanting to install a criminal fundamentalist haven of terrorism in the Caucasus. Talking bout double standards!