Cicero's Songs

Amid the occasionally rambling and bizarre comments from Vladimir Putin's annual press conference yesterday, a couple of critical points are rather obvious.  Firstly, Putin accepts no responsibility for the crisis that has hit Russia, continuing to believe his own paranoid fantasy of Western economic destabilization .   Secondly, he intends to double down and continue his aggressive and disastrous policies . However, despite the current dead cat bounce in the Rouble, there are two things that could rapidly make the economic situation for Russia irretrievable. The first is in the small print of the Rosneft placement that triggered the deep crash in the currency . Essentially the Bank of Russia underwrote the placement of RUR 625 billion at 150 b.p. below Russian sovereign risk price- and since Rosneft had $7 billion to pay on 21st December, the whole placement went into the forex market. The implication is clear: The Russian central bank, in addition to being the lender o...

I am not sure where I finally lost it with Minsk. It  could have been on the corner of Lenin and Karl Marx streets or maybe walking down Kirov or Sverdlov street or any one of a dozen or so streets named after the brutal thugs who followed the gangster Lenin and his depraved Soviet creed. The Soviet demonology was of course missing its chief demon and near anagram of Satan- Stalin- but still the streets of Minsk proclaimed Soviet power unvarnished with hyphens or humanity. The Soviet era flag, the Militia, and the KGB all survive in "Europe's last dictatorship".  Yet the visit to Belarus had begun with good humour. Black humour admittedly: "Welcome to Belarus where the local time is 1983".  We were here to meet friends and celebrate the wedding of an attractive young couple, and whatever my misgivings about the reputation or the Belarusian state and its eccentric leader, Alexander Lukashenka, they were assuaged by the knowledge that I would be there for only...

It was inevitable that the dictator would overstep the mark. He might- maybe- have even won the election without cheating, but that is not the Lukashenka way. Instead, just to make sure, he stuffed ballot boxes, and faked the election result. Yesterday, in the the frozen December temperature of the longest night, tens of thousands came to the centre of M'iensk to protest. They received the customary response: heavily armed riot police. Probably Lukashenka will get away with it, after all when Korea looks on the brink of real conflict, what is yet another stolen election in "the last dictatorship in Europe"? Yet the regime. with its Soviet flag and its KGB looks increasingly like a relic from another era. One day the white-red-white flag will fly again, but what will Belarus have to suffer until it happens? Only God, or possibly Oleksander Lukashenka himself, can forecast that with any accuracy.

The last six months have seen an extraordinary change in the political direction of Belarus- sometimes known as the "last dictatorship in Europe". Alas, while "Transnistria", Azerbaijan, Armenia and even Russia are considered European, then Belarus' claim to fame is not as unique as all that. Nevertheless the eccentric rule of Oleksander Lukashenka has continued. His fairly brutal security police continues to be called the KGB, and the flag of the country remains essentially that of the Soviet Republic. Yet, despite the extremely close relationship with Russia, including participating in the "Russian-Belarusian State Union", the country has managed to maintain its independence, despite continuing predictions of full union under the Kremlin. Historically the dictator has been extremely loyal, not to say slavish, to the Russian government. It is the relationship between Mi'nsk and Moscow that has changed, rather than any great opening up of democra...

Belarus is usually described as the last bastion of tyranny in Europe. It continues to be a weird post-Soviet throwback, under its dictatorial leader, Aleksander Lukashenka. It officially uses the same flag and symbols as it used under the USSR, with only the hammer and sickle removed. Indeed the security service of this state of 10 million is still known as the KGB and it uses the same brutal methods as its Soviet namesake. Yet the situation in Belarus is not static. Although the dictatorship is certainly extremely repressive, the fact is that it is also somewhat erratic and now the regime has permitted a demonstration to commemorate the 91st anniversary of the proclamation of the Belarusian National Republic which was forcibly dispersed by Lenin's troops a year or so later. The BNR is looked to by the opposition in Miensk as an alternative to the Lukashenka state and the display of the White-Red-White flag of that time is a clear sign of protest. Thus the prominent display of th...