Mikhail Khazin on what Putin said between the lines

(please make sure to press the 'cc' button at the lower right to see the English subtitles)



Transcription & Translation: "A", Elena & Saker Collective
Editing & Production: Augmented Ether

Top Putin advisors and experts discuss economy, sanctions & central bank

Dear friends,

There is no overstating the importance of the video and transcript I am posting today.  In a crucial moment of the confrontation between the AngloZionist Empire and Russia, two top Putin advisors - Sergei Glaziev and Mikhail Khazin - openly and very candidly discuss the "economic front" of this global war.  Both of these man are top level economists, both of them have a first hand and truly immense knowledge of the real state of affairs of the Russian state and Russian economy, and both have "Putin's ear" (they - not Dugin - are his close advisors).  Last but not least, Khazin and Glaziev are firmly in the "Eurasian Sovereignist" camp and are therefore hated by the "Atlantic Integrationist" 5th column.

One more thing: yesterday I published a manifesto by Strelkov whom I described as an "iconic symbol and spokesman for the "Eurasian Sovereignist" camp".  This is true as far as the Russian people are concerned.  But Strelkov has no access to the high spheres of power and he is not privy to the internal Kremlin politics.  Strelkov has the potential to play an important role because the real power base of Putin and the "Eurasian Sovereignists" is what we could call "the Russian street" - the people of Russia (in contrast to the real power base of the Atlantic Integrationists who are the Russian liberal money elites).  But Strelkov will never be part of any move to re-gain control of the Russian Central Bank or to change the interest rates charged to Russian businesses.  Khazin and, especially, Glaziev will.

My intention with these publications is to give you, my readers, a "behind the scenes" or "not for western audiences" kind of access and insight into the very real war taking place inside Russia.  At a time when so many putatively pro-Russian bloggers present a crude and primitive "shoulda coulda woulda" model with on one side heroic good guys and on the other villains and traitors I want you to be able to see the extreme complexity and intensity of the internal war taking place inside Russia for the future of Russia.  Once you do that, then the apparent zig-zags of Russian policies in Novorussia will begin to make sense to you and you will be able to distinguish real Russian patriots (those who struggle to free Russia from the AngloZionist domination) from the fake ones (those who always find a way to criticize the former ones but never do anything useful themselves).

Sorry for that long introduction, but I am so exited to finally be able to share these important documents with you that I wanted to explain why I consider them so important.

A few technical points now:

1)  There is a nasty little outfit out there trying to have this video removed from YouTube on "copyright grounds".  I urge you to download it as soon as you can.  Firefox users can do that with the "MP4 downloader", "DownloadHelper" and "DownThemAll" extensions.  Please feel free to repost it anywhere you want (RuTube maybe?)
2) By "popular demand" and because this is a most important document, I have made the full transcript available for download here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByibNV3SiUooUGFhejRCM2Q4bm5oWHVXTlpLY2dsazF4a2Vn/view?usp=sharing )

Okay, that's here.  On with the video now.  Enjoy!!

The Saker
(please make sure to press the 'cc' button on the lower right to see the English subs!)

Host:
Vladimir Anatolievich (V.A)

Guests:
Sergey Glazyev (S.G)
Khazin Mikhail Leonidovich (M.L)
Vladimir Yuryevich Levchenko (V.Y)

Credits: (A HUGE THANK YOU GUYS - YOU ALL REALLY ROCK!!)
English Transcription & Translation by:
VineyardSaker Video Team: Marina, GC, Katya, S, Gideon & Yulia
Editing & Production: Marina & Augmented Ether

EXCLUSIVE: Mikhail Khazin Q&A with Saker Blog readers

Dear friends,

Do I have a treat for your today!!

The famous Russian economist Mikhail Khazin has agreed to participate in a Q&A with the readers of this blog. Here how this will work: during all of next week (until Friday the 24th 6PM GMT), you will have the possibility to submit questions to Mr Khazin. Then the Russian Saker Blog Team and myself will select the best ones and submit them to Mr Khazin, who will email us his answers which we will translate and post here. A couple of important points:

1. There are no restrictions on topics - you can ask any question you want on any topic.
2. You can ask questions in English or in Russian
3. You can ask anonymously, but please choose a alias/nickname but
4. Please truthfully indicate the city or, at least, country from which you are writing (for Mr Khazin's own interest)
5. Write concisely and clearly, no more than one paragraph.

Guys, Mikhail Khazin is really one of the best informed people in Russia. Not only does he know Russian economics, he has first hand and deep knowledge of Kremlin politics and the behind the scenes battles between what I call Atlantic Integrationists and Eurasian Sovereignists. Khazin knows Putin personally and well. In other words - this is a golden opportunity, so please use it the best you can!

The Saker

PS: for those who might not be familiar with Mikhail Khazin, here is his biography, translated for you by the Russian Saker Team to whom I express my deepest gratitude.

PPS: please do not email me but post your questions here

Biography of Mikhail Khazin:

Mikhail Khazin was born in 1962 in Moscow. He completed his comprehensive study of mathematics in Moscow. For the next 10 years he ran mathematics workshops in various schools and taught students of math-stream classes. After failing to gain admission to the Mechanics and Mathematics faculty at Moscow State University (due to ethnic profiling existing at the time), he enrolled in the Mathematics faculty at Yaroslavl University. In 1980 he transferred to the Probability Theory Department of the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty at Moscow State University.

After graduating from the university in 1984, M. Khazin worked in the Laboratory of Computational Mathematics at the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physical Chemistry. In 1989 he was employed at the USSR Central Statistical Directorate’s Institute for Statistics and Economic Research. In 1992, together with his friends and former students, M. Khazin worked as a head of Analytics Department in one of the then-biggest banks of Russia, ELBIM-Bank.

In 1993 M. Khazin entered public office. He worked first for the Labour Centre for Economic Reforms, created by Yegor Gaidar with the purpose of theoretically justifying the reforms, then in the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Economy under the ministers A. Shokhin and later E. Yasin. Meanwhile, divisive issues with the so-called Gaidar-team started emerging, in that there was increasing evidence of embezzlement of government funds, sabotage and unabashed corruption on the part of the Gaidar team.

In March of 1997 M. Khazin became a Deputy Chief of the Economic Directorate at the Presidential Administration. In June of 1998 he was discharged from public service for attempting to fight corruption during the privatization (in other words, for standing up against the Summers-Chubais team) and to avert governmental policies that led to the default of 1998. Khazin was unemployed for 2 years and for the next 10 years he was not permitted to leave Russian territory.

Since the summer of 2000 Khazin has been employed as a consultant. On September 10, 2001, when participating in the Expert journal’s forum and analyzing the economic situation in the United States, he foresaw a high likelihood of large-scale terrorist attacks organized by the U.S. authorities to explain the deterioration of the economic situation in the country. M. Khazin and his associates at the time elaborated the theory of modern economic crisis. At the beginning of 2002 Khazin published a paper dedicated to the basics of structural crisis in the USA which outlined the scale of the current crisis. 2004 saw the publication of the book ‘The Decline of the Dollar Empire and the End of Pax Americana’, written in 2003 in collaboration with A. Kobyakov.

Since 2002 M. Khazin has been the President of the consulting company Neokon, which mainly specializes in strategic crisis planning. He actively investigates economic theory within a framework of enhanced understanding of modern economic mechanisms that are figuratively and collectively referred to as neoconomics. At present M. Khazin takes a principal interest in studying the structural proportions of post-crisis economics and prices. A number of his articles and interviews about economic problems have been featured in various media.

Is peace in the Ukraine possible?

by M.Khazin

translation by "G' of М.Хазин, "Может ли быть мир на Украине?"
http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/1646580
The devaluation of the Ruble and the Yevtushenkov affair have so saturated our mass media that it would seem desirable to stand aside and address a more substantial theme. Namely; under what conditions can the Ukraine know peace? Not just any ‘peace’ but a peace without wholesale disintegration of the country into petty fiefdoms, without a bloodstained dictatorship, without ethnic cleansing and without genocide. In order to answer this question, it is necessary, above all, to look at Kiev and Donetsk.

They should be part of one state. However the 10s of thousands killed and the open exhortations to genocide which have been issued by the dominant political forces in Kiev (for example: the phrase ‘Russians, clear off back to Moscovy’, which is directed at people who are not only currently inhabiting Lugansk and Donetsk but who have lived there for centuries, could be considered, formally from the point of view of international legal norms to fit the definition of genocide and, without doubt, that of ethnic cleansing) render such ‘cohabitation’ within the framework of a usual state simply impossible. The people of Donetsk and Lugansk (we include the Odessa massacre, even though it differs, in part from the others ) will never relinquish their right to justice against those who are guilty of the massacre of civilians and, similarly, the Kievan nationalists are unlikely to stop uttering phrases of the sort: ‘ We’ve barbecued that [Colorado Beetle] bitch.’ or other such endearments.

In theory the only way that Kiev can go back to normal would be in the context of sustained economic growth. In that case it might be possible to brush the nationalist slogans back under the carpet and for everyone to benefit from the resultant financial in-flows, but here Kiev has fallen into a trap of its own making. It is a simple fact that economic growth is only possible in collaboration with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. There is simply no other option. There is not even any real perspective for the development of agriculture; one would just need look at the example of Bulgaria, where the climate is noticeably more clement than that in Ukraine. Ukraine finds it impossible to compete with Turkey. Once the European Union association agreement comes into force there will be no means of regulating the influx of Turkish agri-business and the only profitable way to engage in agriculture will be in a vegetable garden. It is sufficient to look at the example set in that neighbouring former Soviet state, Moldova.

Insofar as Kiev has adopted a radically anti-Russian model, the chances of growth in that country are precisely zero. The European Union has no money and judging by the way that the crisis is developing the prognosis is not positive, and even if we were to look, more optimistically, into the medium term at the global economic situation, the European Union is most likely to help out the Eastern European Countries and the Baltic States before it bails out Ukraine. Nothing personal, just business.

And this means that Kievan Nationalism is going nowhere. It has no choice as it will be impossible for it to maintain its grip on power otherwise. Moreover it has achieved some success insofar as the United States has enacted sanctions against Russia and coerced its allies in Europe and the wider world to do likewise. There is only one problem: For how long will they be willing to prosecute these sanctions for the sake of Ukraine? Kiev’s issues will continue to mount, insofar as the only way that it can deal with the growth of democratic sentiment in the South East (it is clear that the struggle is for freedom and democracy, regardless of how discordant that sounds from the point of view of the contemporary Western mass media) is by the use of military force. It is far from certain that this particular problem can be resolved by military force.

In summary we can say that, judging by the development of negative economic trends, the intensity of internal confrontation in Kiev will constantly grow. In turn those wishing to live under their guardianship will become fewer and fewer. The cohesion of the Ukrainian state will melt like snow in the heat of the summer sun. As that happens the state will become more and more aggressive So we expect to see a contradiction in answer to the question that we posed. Is it possible to establish peace in the Ukraine?

I intentionally have not referred in general to Ukrainian nationalists, rather specifically to Kievan Nationalists. The fact is that Galician Nationalists and Kievan Nationalists are not the same. The latter always had significant sources of income (be it the budget of the USSR, Ukraine etc.), however the former have been forced to be much more pragmatic. Furthermore they have been unable to understand that they cannot hold Kiev. This is because any government in Kiev, in correspondence to their stability, will in the first instance, fall not upon the Russians in the Donbass, but rather upon the genuine committed nationalists. Today this is what Poroshenko is doing. This was clear earlier and I wrote about this earlier in the year.

Rather than being an idea (which moreover is distinctly un-appealing to the EU), Nationalism for Kiev is an instrument. There is no requirement for committed nationalists. The requirement is for cynics, who are happy to articulate nationalists’ slogans in order to gain control over the budgetary and gas revenue flows. Thus, regarding the situation in recent months, committed nationalists(which for our purposes we shall name ‘Right Sector’) have come to look more and more seriously at breaking away from Kiev. Moreover, Kiev earlier distributed budgetary money to them (received from Donbass and other regions) and now there is no more budgetary money to distribute.

However Galicia by itself cannot breakaway from Kiev. Kiev, for whom the slogan (‘for the unity of the Ukraine’) has become totemic, will never agree to it. This means that, as well as the rebels in the Donbass, there is also appearing a new force, which is also interested in the collapse of the country. In this way, from the above, we can formulate the picture below of the future Ukraine.

Should the Rebels from the South-East reach an agreement with the Galician nationalists, then they will take power in Kiev. In that case, the insurgents, proponents of the former Soviet Union and the slogan ‘friendship of the Peoples’ will, through the creation of a multi-ethnic ethnic state, put an end to nationalism and re-establish peace in the Ukraine. Galicia, as it were, in gratitude for its assistance, would receive either independence, probably as part of a confederation or quite possibly full independence as a separate state. It is clearly difficult to imagine a state where in some schools they teach that Bandera is a fascist criminal and in others – that he is a hero. But that remaining part of the Ukraine will be a peaceful, unified state, entering, one would imagine the European Economic Area.

Should agreement not be reached and the insurgents not achieve victory (either by circumstance or by result of foreign intervention), then the intensifying confrontation in Kiev will inescapably lead to the break-up of the country into petty fiefdoms with a correspondingly low quality of life and norms of governance. At present we enumerate 5 of these; Novorossiya, Hetmanshina (Cossak, with Kiev as its capital), New Khazaria (under the control of the oligarch Kolomoiski) and Galicia. We also consider one more statelet, Transcarpathia which is likely to be dissected and integrated into neighbouring countries.

But nobody has said that the process of disintegration will stop there. Anyone who doubts it should read Bulgakov. The mentality of the people in the Ukraine has not significantly changed since then. It is difficult to even conceive how a normal man can live in these conditions.

If we believe that the best outcome is a united (that is relatively united, without either the Crimea or Galicia) Ukraine, a Ukraine which is peaceful and prosperous, it is essential that the insurgents take control of Kiev. Until this happens, the war will continue. Unfortunately, there is simply no way of stopping the war and preserving Ukraine until Kiev falls to the insurgents.

Reasonings on simple mistakes

by M. Khazin
original text here: http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/1611264
translated by "A"

About lessons of the last weeks


The correct technique of work for any politician in any situation consists in defining the main task at the moment and to solve it at any cost.  Including, at cost of situation deteriorating on other less important directions.  The USA can be an example here - when they define for themselves the main goal, they don't stop before anything to achieve it.  Another thing is that this task can be chosen incorrectly, but this is another problem.

Russian reality has few more nuances. In particular, it isn't enough to understand, what result is for today the main thing and than it can be sacrificed for its achievement. It is necessary also to force those who controls what needs to be sacrificed, as a personal resource, to sacrifice. Actually, such problem exist around the world, but in many countries decisions are made by consensus and those persons who go against consensus, obviously assume excess risk. And in Russia the decision is made by one person - and level of discontent with it can reach critical level if its environment which, in accordance with the circumstances, has to make concessions, doesn't understand or doesn't accept those circumstances within which this or that decision was made.

Actually, it just an element of notorious "civil society", but this time applied to elite.  If an elite group has no mechanisms to achieve a local consensus, even faultlessly correct policy of the first person can become the reason of serious split.  By the way, Stalin who constantly discussed with the colleagues various political moments (during notorious evening "sit-round gathering" at  his "Nearest" dacha) perfectly understood it.  Thus there is a known history how during conversation with one scientist, on his offer to make something, Stalin answered that he agrees with the interlocutor, but can do nothing about it, as:  "My deputies won't pass such decision".

Today our situation is much worse, than it was in the USSR. I do understand, a little bit, how decisions in the Kremlin are made, and I understand, who those persons who define, in particular, a situation in economy. I don't know what Putin discussing with them, but I perfectly understand that this discussion is senseless - these characters, first of all, doesn't have in their head an integral picture of economic situation, and, secondly, they are strongly engaged long ago with preservation of  Russia in Bretton Woods financial and economic model. In the 90th (years) it was possible to argue with such position, but it was, at least, rather reasonable. Today, when everything is completely different, it is simply impossible to keep this system afloat, but people who have no personal opinion, simply can't  change it.

And Putin, as though, as he can be criticized, most likely, understands the scale of those changes which happens in the world. He can make decisions correct or not correct (for example, I don't know yet, how to estimate his yesterday's peaceful speech in Crimea), but he can't agree about them with his colleagues. Because they with a high probability will divulge his plans to the West and because they are ready to agree on words with any decisions of the leadership, in reality often being strongly dissatisfied (an example - notorious "May decrees"), and therefore its nonsense to discuss something with them senselessly due to the lack of their own position.

I will note here, of course, it is possible to scold Putin for his HR policy ( saying like "he, himself appointed those freaks"), however there are also nuances. First of all, these people, in many respects, appeared in the power long before Putin (Shuvalov, Nabiullina, Voloshin). Secondly, Putin's position coincided until recently with their position. Thirdly, even the most brisk person, in intellectual sense, having got into a rigid administrative  system either has to leave his personal opinion or or to leave the system. That is not a question how to behave correctly within an existing governing system, rather need to change system. This is, of course, a task, but higher up level.

I would like to note one more aspect. Even if the purpose is chosen and victims are defined (in case of our counter-sanctions, everything is visible by the naked eye), it is possible not to make some mistakes. For example, in a case with food purchases in EU and the USA it wasn't necessary to include in number of the sanctioned products what was already paid for and which already carried on to Russia. Because, its already our products (which we can't give back and nobody will return money for), and therefore not necessary to irritate and offend those who isn't going to oppose the Authorities at all.

It would be possible to resolve this issue in three minutes - but for the first person its too small issue ( he shouldn't bring up this question), and his subordinates, someone of stupidity, some for fear of a contradiction, and some of frank harm didn't make it correctly.  This is bad.  Theoretically, this question (as well, as some other), had to be discussed in the course of adoption of the decree about counter-sanctions, but, apparently, it wasn't made.

And just such situation shows that quality of administrative personnel that is rather low. I spoke about it long ago, but, eventually, it is my personal position, a position of an expert.

In our country a situation is much more difficult, than in the USA - we not always can define the main task, and realize it at the expense of all available resources. And it isn't really clear who defines it - our expert institutes, unlike the USA, are arranged on purely administrative level: higher up the position of an "expert",  means he possess "more expertise". It is clear that such approach can't lead to any regular success - and everything starts depending on a position of the highest person in the administrative hierarchy. If he, for some reason, understood a question, the necessary experts found and the solution accepted - than it may lead to a success, perhaps. If not - there are practically no chances for a success .

But here, so to be spoken,is the naked fact. Thus, its possible to tell a full set of such stories. And a consequence from them very simple: in a present situation carrying out the independent political line is dangerous to Russia - as even if it will be chosen absolutely correctly, there is a big danger that mistakes of executors can nullify all success of the political authorities. We categorically need essential change of personnel. This is the main conclusion from events of the last weeks.