Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, a former foreign minister of Denmark, has a great article on the politics behind Nord Stream in the Moscow Times, suggesting that in any other country, Gerhard Schröder would be prosecuted for corruption for taking a Gazprom job after using political office to help their business.

At first glance, there seems to be no problem. But the real reason that Russia wants to build Nord Stream, which is more expensive than the existing gas pipeline network, is that it will enable Russia to interrupt gas supplies to EU member countries like Poland, the Baltic states and Ukraine, while keeping its German and other West European customers snug and warm.

Countries that have good reason to fear a Russian manufactured chill have loudly proclaimed that Nord Stream is politically rather than economically motivated. After all, it would be

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I was taken aback the other day to open up the Moscow Times website and find an glowing opinion article written by Brian Zimbler, a Moscow based lawyer of the firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.  The article, which heaped praise upon Russia as an improving working environment for the legal profession, argued that the Kremlin is "bucking the trend" and taking "serious steps" toward fighting legal nihilsm.  I do not know Zimbler, and I think that we must keep in mind that it is possible that this article was composed before the murder by medical blackmail of Sergei Magnitsky and therefore held no intention in this regard.  It is possible the article is entirely unrelated to the Hermitage events.  But the timing of its publishing - coming only six days after the death - is in poor taste.  Writing ...

This in from the Wall Street Journal on the somewhat disturbing, political dimensions of Russia's Nord Stream pipeline.  Approved just last week by Finland and Sweden after ecological concerns were overcome, the project is now ready to get off the ground, or rather under the ground.  For the pipeline will traverse the Baltic Sea floor to Germany, rather than crossing overground through former Eastern bloc countries; a divisive move, Alexandro Peterson suggests:[ . . . ] The Nord Stream project is part of an exclusionary agreement between Moscow and Berlin--nicknamed in circumvented Warsaw the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact," after the 1939 Soviet-Nazi deal to carve up Poland. It would have been much cheaper to build an overland pipeline ...

Right up there with swine achieving flight and hell freezing over, the probability that European bureaucrats would succeed in building the Nabucco natural gas pipeline was, at least up until a year ago, firmly placed in the realm of impossibility.How things change.  Though nothing is yet guaranteed, on Monday officials from the five transit countries signed a formal agreement in Ankara, Turkey to proceed with the project, injecting fresh optimism into the initiative which could shatter Gazprom's supply monopoly."It's one of those steps that moves Nabucco out of the possible column and into the probable column," one energy analyst told CNN.  "My own guess is roughly by the end of the year, it will be pretty clear that Nabucco will be built."...

Remember the good 'ole times from back in the summer of 2006?  Russia was about to host the G8 Summit, Anna Politkovskaya and Stanislav Markelov were still alive and working hard, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky had only been in the gulag 2.5 years and undergone only one show trial.  Earlier that spring, the Council on Foreign Relations also published quite a critical paper entitled "Russia's Wrong Direction" which ruffled some feathers, but would later of course turn out to be quite prescient.The report was chaired by former Congressman Jack Kemp, who expressed optimism that the G8 Summit to be held in St. Petersburg that summer could be a useful forum to get things back on track and enlist Russia's help on ...

Things used to be so much more exciting for TNK-BP in Russia before they put former German Chancellor and Kremlin confident Gerhard Schröder on its board of directors.  No more office raids, no more regulatory expropriation attempts, visa denials, office raids, or even arrests of its staff.  Those were the halcyon days back when even the British Council was forced to shutter its offices and suspend its subverionary English language classes.  However, for those taken hostage during the TNK-BP wars, there is less mercy:  a court today has convicted two American advisers to the firm, whom we've dubbed the Brothers Zaslavsky, of corporate espionage against Gazprom.  They were only given a slap on the wrist (suspended sentences), which may be a sign that BP's new approach to dealing inside Russian politics is working, but surely they might have hoped ...

From Edward Lucas in the Financial Times: But supposing Russia’s aim is the re-creation of a “lite” version of the Soviet empire, based not on military might but on economic dominance and pipeline monopolies; and that it wants the “Finlandisation” of western Europe. That involves the use of money, above and below board, to cultivate friendly lobbies. One example is this week’s dramatic €4bn ($5.5bn, £3bn) Kremlin bail-out of Iceland. Another is the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder chairing a Russian-German gas pipeline consortium. The “Schröderisation” of Europe is matched by divide-and-rule tactics. The result: most big countries of “old Europe” care more about ties with Russia than about their supposed allies in eastern Europe.

TODAY: Putin pledges South American support, Russia offers $1 billion loan to Venezuela; former Soviet states urge UN and Nato vigilance, tensions continue on both sides; Ukraine could charge Russia for use of Black Sea port; Communists displeased over Solzhenitsyn tribute. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin demonstrated his willingness to prioritize relations with Latin America as it was revealed that Venezuela would receive a $1 billion Russian loan to fund arms purchases. President Dmitry Medvedev has hinted that the presidential role carries too much power. Putin apparently thinks that the World Trade Organization has lost the desire to accept Russia as a member. In a move likely to further aggravate Nato, Putin is calling for an open border between Russia and South Ossetia. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has warned Nato that ...

To see an expert ply his trade is often a beautiful thing. But to watch Gerhard Schröder do what apparently he does best, which is to push Russian interests in the West in exchange for hundreds of thousands of euros, is an often revolting, stomach-churning disgrace. Shouldn't we expect higher moral conduct from our former heads of state? Somebody should really let the former chancellor of Germany know that he actually is probably doing more damage than good in representing Russia. Moscow deserves a more credible voice in Europe, and it's hard to believe anything this guy says even when he might have a point. Yesterday, for example, he gave a speech before a German-Russian business group in Dresden, extolling the virtues of uncritically aligning Germany's interests with Russia - the subtext of which was of course ...