AMBASSADOR'S MEETING WITH KREMLIN ADVISOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 004435

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/20/2014
TAGS: PREL PGOV RS
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S MEETING WITH KREMLIN ADVISOR
YASTRZHEMBSKIY


Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns, for reasons 1.4 (B & D)


1. (C) Summary. Ambassador met April 25 with Sergey
Yastrzhembskiy, President Putin's Special Representative for
Issues of Development of Relations with the European Union.
Yastrzhembskiy said preparations for the EU-Russia summit in
Sochi in late May were going well, and identified several
agreements that would be signed. He discussed at some length
his dissatisfaction with Russia's inability to project a
favorable image abroad of its activities, noting its failure
to do so in the "gas war" with Ukraine, with the
controversial NGO law now going into effect, and on the
Northern European gas pipeline project. Asked about how the
U.S. might best be able to provide useful assistance to
people in the North Caucasus, Yastrzhembskiy recommended
continuing to work closely with Presidential Representative
Dmitriy Kozak to identify needs that were not being filled,
and to provide concrete assistance first and only then to
talk publicly about it. End Summary.

The Sochi Summit
--------------


2. (C) Yastrzhembskiy said preparations for the Russia-EU
Summit in Sochi on May 25 were "going well" despite a few
problems and reflected a "very positive trend" in overall
Russia-EU relations. He expected at least two agreements,
one facilitating visa arrangements between Russia and
Schengen Agreement countries and the other concerning
readmission to Russia of people who had transited it en route
to the EU. "Perhaps some of our 'siloviki' may not be happy"
with the readmission agreement, Yastrzhembskiy said, but
President Putin's personal support for the agreement had
overridden their objections The agreement's relatively
short (two-year) phase-in period was a "very good stick" to
force action from "lazy bureaucrats," and better
border-management arrangements with countries like Kazakhstan
and China would be a benefit.


3. (C) While less certain than the first two agreements,
negotiations had also been completed for a new TASIS
agreement, and there were "no political objections" to it.
However, there was "ideologically one point of disagreement"
that Yastrzhembskiy did not identify, but said there was
adequate time left to resolve it. There also would be the
launch of a "Europa college" affiliated with existing Russian
institutions of higher education and co-financed equally by
the EU and Russian sides. It had already sparked huge
interest from many young people working in Russian
governmental institutions.


4. (C) In addition to those concrete results, there would be
discussion at the Sochi summit of a range of political
issues: Iran, the Middle East (Hamas),perhaps
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, probably Belarus and
other issues of the post-Soviet space, Russian-EU
disagreements about trans-Siberian airline flights, and the
EU-Russia energy charter.


5. (C) The Ambassador noted that the Sochi summit would also
play an important role in setting the atmosphere for the St.
Petersburg G-8 summit in July. Yastrzhembskiy agreed.

Polishing Russia's Image
--------------


6. (C) Noting that Yastrzhembskiy had at one time been
Russia's Presidential Spokesman and also dealt for several
years with public information aspects of the Chechnya
conflict for the Presidential Administration, the Ambassador
asked him for his thoughts on recent GOR attempts to improve
Russia's image internationally and to deal with issues such
as the "gas war" with Ukraine and the controversy surrounding
the NGO law. Yastrzhembskiy said Russia's PR efforts had
been a "big headache" because they had not been very
successful. He had closely studied USG experience in, e.g.,
Operation Desert Storm and had concluded that while the U.S.
was much more sophisticated than Russia in this area, even
the U.S. had been able to show very modest results for the
substantial resources it had expended. When he had worked
under President Yeltsin, trying to improve Russia's image
abroad had been almost hopeless. It was like "sitting on top
of a volcano," with a weak state, huge budget problems, and
the various branches of government feuding among themselves.


7. (C) In Soviet times, Yastrzhembskiy continued, there had
been many institutions designed to affect international
public opinion, but they were "just very aggressive and not
very smart." In post-Soviet Russia those institutions had
been largely destroyed, but nothing had been created to
replace them. Some "islands" of the Soviet period (like

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RIA-Novosti, and ITAR-TASS) still existed, but they were not
effective. There was a need for a new system that would not
be focused on one-day or one-month campaigns, but that would
work instead on the basis of a ten-year strategy, with
sufficient funding. Now there was no system and no
coordination.


8. (C) Yastrzhembskiy cited the adoption of the NGO law as
one example of how the Russian system did not work
effectively. There had been no sense in taking the draft NGO
law to the Council of Europe only after it had become an
international public issue; Russia should have gone to the
COE first, which would have put in a better position to
disarm the critics. The "gas war" with Ukraine had also been
mishandled publicly by Gazprom, and the same was true of the
Northern European gas pipeline project. Public support for
that effort should have been launched earlier, and now it had
to be done "after the fact." Part of the problem had been
the need to work with a German government that first was tied
up in an election campaign and then in lengthy cabinet
formation. Schroeder was now talking about the need to worry
about Russia's image abroad in this connection, but he should
have thought of that from the beginning. The problem was not
just with Gazprom, but also with the Russian state.


9. (C) The Ambassador said the GOR could still take helpful
steps on the new NGO law, if the MFA, Ministry of Justice and
other relevant bodies were to pro-actively call NGOs and the
media together to explain in detail how the registration
process would unfold and where people could turn for answers
to their questions. Similarly, President Putin could use his
"Poslaniye" (state of the nation address, now expected to be
delivered at some time in May) to be clearer about his
long-term plans for Russia's political and economic
modernization and to speak out on the issue of xenophobia and
the unacceptability of attacks on ethnic or religious
minorities in Russia. To the degree that Putin could
communicate a vision of a long-term Russian strategy showing
how it planned to realize common G-8 values in the Russian
context, that could help the St. Petersburg summit be a
success, as President Bush had made clear he wanted.


10. (C) Yastrzhembskiy agreed in principle but said many in
Russia had concluded that "criticism of Russia is a permanent
process." The level of skepticism about the good will of the
West was "so high, even on the President's team," that it was
hard to get consideration of proposed steps in a more open
direction. He would consider the possibilities, however, and
see if there were three or four points that he could propose.

North Caucasus
--------------


11. (C) The Ambassador asked whether Yastrzhembskiy could
suggest a strategy by which U.S. efforts to provide concrete
help to people in the North Caucasus could be favorably
considered by the GOR. Yastrzhembskiy laid out several steps
to that end. First, he said, forget about focusing on things
like the provision of food or tents; the time for that kind
of assistance had passed. Second, continue to work with
Presidential Representative for the Southern Region Dmitriy
Kozak and his deputy Pochinok. Kozak was "very sensible"
(even compared with federal officials in Moscow, because he
was "on the ground") and "a good ally." The U.S. should work
with him to identify spheres in which there were unmet public
needs (he cited the example of providing internet facilities
to school and university libraries). What the U.S. should
avoid was the mistake that the EU had made: it had talked
for two years about help it was going to provide, but during
that time implemented nothing. The U.S. should first provide
help and only then start talking about what it had done. The
Ambassador said he would follow up again with Kozak to
further explore how the U.S. might be helpful. After the
meeting concluded, Yastrzhembskiy's assistant Aleksandr
Machevskiy suggested deferring a further conversation with
Kozak until mid-May, to let the negative reaction in Moscow
to the recent Jamestown Foundation seminar on the North
Caucasus blow over.
BURNS