Russia
So what kind of country am I travelling to on Thursday? This was a question that come to my mind as I was getting ready to fly to Moscow. Lately, Russia has been receiving a lot of bad press of which the brutal murder of Anna Politkovskaya is a good example. She was shot in front of her apartment this weekend. Anna Politkovskaya was one of the most vocal critics of Putin and she frequently published reports of human rights abuses by the Russian troops in Chechnya. Sadly, this is not the first time a journalist has paid the ultimate price. Russia is the third most dangerous country to work as a journalist, after Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another issue is the state of the relations between Russia and Georgia. The arrest of four alleged Russian spies in Georgia has brought matters to a boiling point with Russia deporting Georgians and imposing a full scale embargo on trade with its neighbour. The shift to the West under the Georgian president Saakashvili has gotten some alarm bells ringing in Russia which still considers Georgia to form part of its sphere of influence. Georgia, on the other hand, is less than happy about the role Russia plays in supporting the break-away regions of Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia. President Saakashvili has vowed he will unite Georgia and bring these regions back into line.
Third and finally, recent developments in the Russian oil and gas industry suggest that the Russian government has decided to target foreign oil and gas companies and increase its influence in this sector even further. In the past years, this sector has been a consolidation of local Russian companies of which the tale of Yukos is a perfect example. The threat of withdrawing the environmental licence for the Sakhalin II project, in which Shell holds a large share, indicates that the Russian government is not afraid of using extreme measures to increase its power in the sector despite the negative effects this might have on future investment decisions by foreign companies.
As one can see, there's a lot going on in Russia at the moment and I count myself very lucky that I have been given the opportunity to follow these developments from closer up.
Another issue is the state of the relations between Russia and Georgia. The arrest of four alleged Russian spies in Georgia has brought matters to a boiling point with Russia deporting Georgians and imposing a full scale embargo on trade with its neighbour. The shift to the West under the Georgian president Saakashvili has gotten some alarm bells ringing in Russia which still considers Georgia to form part of its sphere of influence. Georgia, on the other hand, is less than happy about the role Russia plays in supporting the break-away regions of Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia. President Saakashvili has vowed he will unite Georgia and bring these regions back into line.
Third and finally, recent developments in the Russian oil and gas industry suggest that the Russian government has decided to target foreign oil and gas companies and increase its influence in this sector even further. In the past years, this sector has been a consolidation of local Russian companies of which the tale of Yukos is a perfect example. The threat of withdrawing the environmental licence for the Sakhalin II project, in which Shell holds a large share, indicates that the Russian government is not afraid of using extreme measures to increase its power in the sector despite the negative effects this might have on future investment decisions by foreign companies.
As one can see, there's a lot going on in Russia at the moment and I count myself very lucky that I have been given the opportunity to follow these developments from closer up.
posted by Dima at 1:06 pm
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