November 1, 2024
By Ben Aris, Moscow Times, 10/11/24
Production at the largest Russian enterprises grew rapidly in 2012-2023 despite the pandemic, sanctions and weak impact of production growth on wages. Productivity at the largest enterprises is up as owners scramble to counter a swathe of new problems and maintain their competitiveness, according to a survey from the Higher School of Business.
The survey comes at a poignant time following the recent release of the report from former Italian Prime Minister and ex-European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi that found Europe has lost its competitive edge and has fallen badly behind both China and the U.S.
Moreover, the war in Ukraine has also shown that the EU is well behind Russia in terms of the military-industrial complex, which is massively outproducing that of Europe after President Vladimir Putin put the economy on a full war footing. Europe faces the prospect of falling behind not only the U.S. but also Russia; as bne IntelliNews reported, China and Russia are the most powerful manufacturing countries in the world and Europe respectively. Despite everything, Russia’s economy is flourishing — for now.
But Russia is still facing multiple challenges. Recruitment for the war in Ukraine has driven unemployment to an all-time low of 2.4% and sent nominal wages soaring, making the issue of productivity more important than ever before. Increased production costs, as well as the inaccessibility of Western technologies and industrial equipment, have only added to the headaches and reduced the number of technological solutions.
The pandemic and sanctions crises have worsened Russia’s pre-existing problems with low productivity dynamics. In 2020, it fell by 0.4%, then in 2021 it grew by 3.7%. In 2022 it decreased by 3.6% compared to 2021, and in 2023 it recovered, but not much — by 1.7%, according to Rosstat. The need to increase productivity is now widely talked about at the highest levels, as Putin made clear in his guns and butter speech in March that maintaining the growth and development of the civilian part of the economy is as important as developing the military-industrial base.
The largest companies are at the forefront of the effort to lift productivity. HSB conducted a study of productivity and remuneration in the largest Russian companies in 2012-2023 — more precisely, the relationship between unit production, capital expenditures (CAPEX), the number of employees and personnel costs, Vedomosti reported. The sample included 71 companies that published financial statements under IFRS for 2012-2023 and disclosed the consolidated number of staff in annual reports or reports on sustainable development.
The classic approach to determining labor productivity involves calculating the added value per employee, but the costs needed to make this calculation are not included in the IFRS declarations. Instead, a company’s annual revenue per employee was chosen to assess labor productivity in the study.
Since 2012, Russian enterprises have experienced three unprecedented foreign economic crises: pandemic 2020 and two sanctions periods — 2014-2015 and 2022-2023. In 2020, due to lockdowns, revenue fell in most industries, and in 2023, enterprises had losses due to the sanctions restrictions. Sanctions were particularly painful as they led to losses even in the most efficiently run companies through no fault of their own.
The revenue performance in the sample was not even, with some companies enjoying leaps in revenues during the sanctions period while others suffered heavy losses. About two-thirds of organizations were affected by the sanctions imposed in 2022.
According to the respondents, for 39% of companies, sanctions restrictions created only problems, for 3% had only positive consequences, and for 25% experienced both.
According to a separate hh.ru survey: 31% of respondents had an increase in production over the past five years, another 22% had a constant increase in production depending on market conditions, and 19% had no change or decreased slightly.
Vedomosti summed up the main effects on the various sectors in the HSB survey:
Oil and gas companies had a decrease in 2020 and 2023. But the decline in 2023 for all companies, except Gazprom, turned out to be small. Russian oil companies have reoriented oil exports to China and India, friendly countries of Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Oil production in Russia in 2023 decreased by only 2.2% to 523mn tonnes.
Sanctions against Russian gas were not imposed, but imports of pipeline gas from Russia to the EU in 2022 were halved. Domestic companies, primarily Novatek, began to very successfully increase LNG exports to the EU, and Russian liquefied gas began to displace LNG from the United States in Europe. The company’s revenue and output rose in 2023.
Iron and steel enterprises’ revenues fell in 2019, then in 2021 there was a noticeable increase, followed by a decline in 2022 due to sanctions. According to Worldsteel, steel production in Russia in 2022 decreased by 7.2% to 71.5mn tonnes. But according to RosStat, already in 2023 the total metallurgical production in Russia climbed by 6%. The domestic market became the main driver of growth.
Among non-ferrous metallurgy enterprises, UC Rusal showed the largest increase in revenue from 2020 to 2023. At first, the rise in aluminum prices helped, but in 2023 dollar revenue fell by 13% due to sanctions, supply chain disruptions and price reductions. However, UC Rusal managed to step up the production of aluminum, bauxite and sales of primary aluminum and alloys, according to the company’s IFRS.
The chemical industry group includes the manufacturer of polymers and rubbers Sibur and manufacturers of mineral fertilizers. In 2023 Sibur increased sales of polymers in the domestic market, replacing foreign supplies of synthetic materials. Thanks to significant investments in R&D, the company replenished the range with new brands of products, continued import substitution of critical special chemicals. For Sibur, 2023 was a year of rapid take-off.
In 2020-2022, the revenue of fertilizer manufacturers grew, and only in 2023 there was a decrease. Most of the products of these companies traditionally go abroad. In 2022, exports decreased by 15%, according to the Russian Association of Fertilizer Producers, and in 2023 they exceeded the level of 2022 by 5% in physical terms. Nevertheless, the companies’ revenue decreased due to a decrease in export prices by 1.5-2 times compared to the first half of 2022.
The sanctions crisis benefited Russian banks, insurance companies and the Moscow Exchange. In 2023, all of them increased revenue (banks had operating income before the formation of reserves) and production. In 2023, banks received a record net profit of 3.3 trillion rubles ($34 billion), according to the Central Bank. The main contribution was made by the growth of interest and commission income.
2020 turned out to be a turning point for transport and infrastructure enterprises. But in 2021-2022, almost all companies with data were able to recover, except for airlines. Revenue and production grew at Rostec, Transmashholding (TMH), Kamaz and Rosatom (Atomenergoprom).
For telecommunications companies, the sanctions meant that it would be impossible to purchase new equipment, which was 90% imported from operators, in the EU and the United States. Companies had to look for new suppliers. They manage to maintain services and infrastructure, but it becomes increasingly difficult to develop. Operators’ revenue is rising and production is also expanding, although not much.
Food retail grew steadily in 2020 and 2022-2023. The two leading supermarket giants X5 Group and Magnit had the best revenue growth rates.
Russia’s biggest companies do best
In general Russia’s largest enterprises fared well during the crisis, buoyed by rising real disposable incomes climbing to a record 9.6% in July or through state investment and spending boosting demand for their products: 67 of the 71 large firms said they saw production rise in the period.
Another factor protecting the big companies is that many of them enjoy a monopolistic power in the market that was dramatically boosted in 2022 by the departure of international firms, many of whom had been competing with these Russian leaders. This handed the Russian companies large slices of market share overnight. The unconditional biggest winners of the sanctions crisis are companies in the financial sector and the IT industry, according to the study.
In terms of revenue per employee the biggest winners were (10 million rubles/employee is circa $100,000/employee): in the oil and gas industry in 2023, Lukoil and Novatek had the highest labor productivity (75.4 million rubles and 69.6 million rubles per person respectively); in metallurgy and mining, NLMK and UC Rusal (21 million rubles and 19.4 million rubles per person); in chemistry and production of mineral fertilizers, Sibur and Fosagro (31.3 million rubles and 20.2 million rubles per person); in the financial sector, Moscow Exchange (40.6 million rubles per person); in the telecommunications and IT industry, Yandex (30.4 million rubles per person); in retail trade, M.video (15.3 million rubles per person); in the transport infrastructure and transport infrastructure industry, Transcontainer (61.9 million rubles per person per year); and in mechanical engineering, Kamaz and TMH (12.8 million rubles and 11.8 million rubles per person per year).
In terms of percentage productivity gains, the leaders in terms of production growth for 2012-2023 were Far Eastern Shipping Company (DVMP) and Transcontainer (25.2% and 20.2% of average annual production growth respectively); insurance companies Sogaz (17.1%) and Alfastrakhovanie (16.3%); banks Alfa-Bank (16.4%) and VTB (15.7%); machine-building enterprises TMH (17.3%) and Kamaz (14.6%), as well as manufacturer of mineral fertilizers Fosagro (15.7%), and oil company Tatneft (14%).
Can Russia compete with the biggest foreign companies?
The American Center for Productivity and Quality (APQC) calculated cross-industry performance indicators of employees according to the sample of the largest American enterprises that are members of APQC.
The median value of production of one employee is $310,000 per year (26.6 million rubles), employees of 25% of the best enterprises generate an average of $564,706 (48.5 million rubles at the average exchange rate of 2023); the worst 25% yield an average of $176,471 (15.1 million rubles).
In a sample of 71 Russian companies, only 10 companies, including Rosneft, Gazprom Neft, Moscow Exchange, Russneft, Sibur, Yandex and Unipro, had better indicators than the American median. And three companies — Lukoil, Novatek and Transcontainer — corresponded to the group of 25% of the best American largest enterprises, reports Vedomosti.
The Russian indicators improve if the average ruble exchange rate is used, as the Russian national currency has weakened recently due to the mounting yuan liquidity crisis that has depressed Russian exports, confusing the picture.
According to APQC calculations, the median output of an employee in the United States is about four times higher than the employer’s costs, and in the most efficient companies this figure is 7.3 times. According to this parameter, Russian enterprises are ahead of American ones: 38 companies out of 71 correspond to the group of 25% of the best enterprises in the United States. And only six sample companies had worse than the median figures in 2020.
The greater gap between the employee’s output and his costs is explained by the fact that interest rates and bonuses for business risks are higher in Russia and in general, lower personnel costs compared to revenue are typical for poor countries.
Capex comparisons
The impact of Capex on labor productivity depends on the technical equipment and quality of the organizational form of the enterprise: the level of Capex, the qualification of the workforce, as well as the quality of management and operational processes, HSB says.
However, the study showed a weak impact of Capex on production in the largest companies in 2012-2023. There was a weak positive correlation (0.24) between the dynamics of production and the growth of Capex. And between the dynamics of production and the average ratio of Capex and revenue, there is a weak negative correlation (-0.29) — the more you spend, the less growth gains you get. The most capitalized enterprises in the sample are Novatek, whose Capex exceeded personnel costs by 4.71 times on average, DVMP (4.1) and Gazprom Neft (3.87).
In Russia, companies that spend a lot on Capex almost never share the benefits of productivity growth with employees. Before the pandemic, organizations with significant investments in fixed assets hired qualified specialists at good salaries, while all others recruited unskilled personnel to train them later and paid them badly. But due to the shortage of qualified personnel today, enterprises with high and low capital costs have ceased to differ from each other in the hiring policy; the growth of personnel costs has accelerated for everyone.
Four growth strategies
The study found that the largest Russian companies can be divided into four main groups, reports Vedomosti:
Group A: optimizers which consistently reduced the number of staff in 2012-2023, their output increased by a greater percentage than the number decreased, and the growth in revenue was ahead of the growth of personnel costs. This group consists of 20 companies, metallurgy is most fully represented (seven companies), there are also Sberbank and VTB, Russian Railways, Transcontainer, FGC UES, Transmashholding and Rostelecom.
Group B: optimizers with a weak dependence of revenue on changes in the number of staff. Their revenue growth depends mainly on the customer base or market prices. The group’s companies systematically reduced their staff, the output of employees grew more than the number decreased. This group includes 12 companies, including MTS, Lukoil, UAC and Alrosa.
Group C: the most numerous; these are companies that expand their business or open new directions and hire employees for this purpose. Their revenue, due to the growth of demand, prices or other external factors, is ahead of the growth in numbers and entails production. The group includes 34 companies, including the entire retail group and a significant part of the oil and gas, Yandex and VK, Sibur, Moscow Exchange, DVMP, etc.
Group D: consists of four companies with declining production (on average by less than 0.5% per year). For one of the companies, this was the result of the division of the business, for the rest it involved a change in the accounting policy.
With growing salaries and rising cost pressures, about half the companies in the sample are focusing on boosting labor productivity and operational efficiency. A third of the companies in the sample have set up special units to hunt for operational gains or cost cuts. Top managers have been trained in lean production, process optimization tools and a culture of continuous improvement has been nurtured over the last five years.
Training staff has become increasingly important with three quarters (76%) of the sample reporting investments into improving the skills of their managers over the last five years and more generally training between 5-20% of their staff. Every fifth respondent said they have retrained at least half their staff.
A separate survey carried out by Vedomosti found the most common reason for improving productivity was improving business processes (55%), followed by staff training (48%) and introduction of new IT or automation (45%). Staff reduction was the least popular in sixth place. As companies are increasingly investing in their staff’s training Russian companies have become increasingly reluctant to sack them to simply save money.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/11/ben ... mpetitive/
Anatol Lieven: An unfortunate rush to judgment in Georgia elections | Andrew Korybko: Duda Claims Georgia’s Pro-Western President Has No Evidence of Russian Meddling
November 1, 2024
By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 10/30/24
One did not have to be an Elijah or an Amos to predict the aftermath of the Georgian elections, but all the same, the Quincy Institute and Responsible Statecraft can claim a modest prize for prophecy. The domestic and international background to the elections and the ensuing crisis are analyzed in a QI policy brief published earlier this month; and as I wrote for RS back in July:
“Parliamentary elections are due in Georgia on October 26, and the universal opinion among Georgians with whom I have spoken is that if the government wins, the opposition, backed by pro-Western NGOs, will allege that the results were falsified, and will launch a mass protest movement in an effort to topple the Georgian Dream government. Judging by recent statements, most Western establishments will automatically take the side of the opposition. This narrative is already well underway, with lines like ‘Government vs. the People in Georgia’ and ‘a crisis that has pitted the government against its people.’ This suggests that Georgia is a dictatorship in which ‘the people’ have no say except through street protests.”
This is exactly what has happened. According to the results issued by the National Election Commission, the governing Georgian Dream Party won 53 percent of the vote to 38 percent for the different opposition parties. The opposition, however, immediately alleged fraud, and declared that its MPs would boycott the new parliament, thereby depriving it of a quorum.
The pro-opposition President, Salome Zourabichvili, stated that Georgians were “victims of what can only be described as a Russian special operation – a new form of hybrid warfare waged against our people and our country.” However, when asked by Western journalists to substantiate this, she could only say that the government had used “Russian methodology.”
She mixed accusations of electoral falsification with an appeal for “the firm support of our European and American partners to the part of Georgia that is European, that is the Georgian population.” This is a quite different argument. It implies that whatever the results of the elections, the only real “Georgian population” is the part that identifies with the West. Only their voice is truly legitimate, and a government that does not unconditionally follow the “European Path” is inherently illegitimate, elections or no elections.
Much of the Western media immediately responded with headlines like “Georgians join mass rally” and “Georgians protest contested election results,” suggesting (without directly asserting) that this is indeed a case of “the people” against a government, as if the government has no real support at all – despite the fact that even if the government’s election victory is contested, there can be no doubt at all that a very large proportion of the Georgian population voted for them.
The Biden administration and other Western governments and institutions have not even waited for detailed reports from their own observers to call the election results into question. Moreover, it must be stated with regret that many of these observers can hardly be called objective.
President Biden, absurdly, “cited international and local observers’ assessments that elections in Georgia were not free, nor fair;” absurdly, because the local observers are overwhelmingly from NGOs closely linked to the Georgian opposition. As to monitors from the West, in many cases their parent institutions have spent months denouncing the Georgian government as undemocratic and under Moscow’s sway.
The most reliable monitoring historically has come from the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Its preliminary comments on the elections:
“Imbalances in financial resources, a divisive campaign atmosphere, and recent legislative amendments were of significant concern throughout this election process… Yet the engagement shown on election day—from the active voter participation, robust presence of citizen and party observers, and rich diversity of voices—gives the sign of a system that is still growing and evolving, with a democratic vitality under construction.”
Though far from a ringing endorsement, this does not allege that the elections were rigged. Moreover, the government’s use of its financial and administrative resources to tilt the result have been true of every Georgian election since independence (as well as some in the West). As to the “divisive campaign atmosphere,” responsibility for this is obviously shared between government and opposition. The Georgian Election Commission has called a recount in a small number of constituencies, which should be closely and independently observed.
All Western institutions and commentators should therefore wait for the final OSCE/ODIHR report before drawing firm conclusions. However, two early assessments seem plausible: First, that there were most probably a good many cases where the government bought votes, intimidated voters, and engaged in other acts of electoral manipulation. Second, however, to legitimately endorse the reversal of a 53% to 38% government victory will require proof of rigging on a very large scale. Maybe that can indeed be provided. Let us wait and see.
Aspects of the Western response have troubling implications that extend far beyond Georgia. Much media “reporting” from Georgia has been closer to opinion articles based on interviews with the Georgian opposition. Interviews with voters who favor the government, with explanations of their reasons for doing so, have been rare indeed. Many Western journalists also seem to feel — if only unconsciously — that the only Georgians (and others in the world) who truly deserve a voice are those who identify with the West and the opinions of the journalists asking the questions.
This is also reflected in an amusing headline from the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — “How the World Sees the Disputed Georgian Elections” (accompanied by a large photograph of Secretary of State Antony Blinken). Who is “the world” as quoted by RFE/RL?
One U.S. official, five EU officials, two Western NGOs, and — no doubt to give an impression of “balance” — one Hungarian and one Russian. The views of people in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America? They belong in RFE/RL’s “world” to the same degree that they take part in the World Series.
I often observed this tendency when I was a foreign correspondent myself, but especially since the Ukraine war and in any question touching on Russia, it has become a dominant and stifling pattern, enforced by editors, and encouraged by Western governments and lobbies. Journalists should ask themselves whether this really corresponds to their self-image as free, independent, and honest reporters from democracies that value honest and open debate.
The Georgian government has undoubtedly greatly exaggerated the degree to which the West and the opposition desire to push Georgia into a new war with Russia — though probably not the degree to which they would break economic relations with Russia, thereby damaging the Georgian economy and impoverishing many Georgians.
There is, however, something deeply unpleasant about well-paid Western commentators sitting safely in Washington, London, or Berlin, and dismissing as innately illegitimate and stupid the concerns of citizens of a small and poor country about relations with a very large and dangerous neighbor.
For if one factor in the Georgian government’s continued support among many Georgians has been fear of confrontation with Russia, another has been resentment at arrogant dictation from the West, and especially the EU, often without any regard to Georgian national interests or national traditions.
This of course is a feeling that is shared by a great many people who are citizens of the EU. It helped to explain Brexit, and the rise of “Euroskeptic” populist movements in many European countries. If you want people to support you, it is probably not a good idea to begin your appeal to them by implying that their views don’t count in any case because they are ignorant, illiterate Russian puppets who do not really deserve a vote anyway.
(The remainder of article previously posted.)
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2024/11/ana ... -meddling/
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Here’s a video discussing arrogant comments made by State Department spokesman Matthew Miller about the recent Georgia election.
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NOVICHOK SHOW TRIAL SUFFERS SUDDEN DEATH SHOCK FROM DOCTOR’S TESTIMONY THAT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS SEDATED THE SKRIPALS TO STOP THEM TALKING
by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with
The British Government was exposed in the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry this week as keeping Sergei and Yulia Skripal (lead image) unconscious to silence them. That was six years ago, when they were in Salisbury District Hospital in March 2018. Now, prevented from testifying in public at the public inquiry under way in London, they are still incommunicado, either in prison or dead.
The evidence revealed in the published witness statements and transcript of testimony in four days of hearings at the Sturgess Inquiry October 28-31 shows that British Government officials have lied in public and lied on oath in the courts to conceal what they have been doing to accuse Russia of Novichok poisonings in the Salisbury area in 2018. The Inquiry records show that the chairman and judge, Anthony Hughes (titled Lord Hughes of Ombersley), and the lawyers working for him are actively working to protect the lies and prevent contradicting evidence from becoming public. .
Surprise testimony by Dr Stephen Cockroft, the doctor who cared for Sergei and Yulia Skripal on their admission to Salisbury District Hospital (SDH) on March 4, 2018, has revealed that the British Government kept them heavily sedated in order to tell the courts and media that they were unconscious and unresponsive when they had revived. Government officials ordered the hospital to punish Cockroft from talking directly to Yulia Skripal when she came out of her coma on March 8, 2018.
Testifying Skripal doctors at Salisbury District Hospital, left to right, Stephen Cockroft (photograph published at https://x.com/); James Haslam; Paul Russell. Cockroft left Salisbury Hospital in 2020 for a new appointment in the same area.
British Government agents controlling disclosure of the medical evidence, left to right, Christine Blanshard of SDH, Mark Urban, BBC reporter and MI6 informant; Lord Anthony Hughes. For Urban’s record of involvement with MI6, Sergei Skripal, and the Bellingcat propaganda unit, read this. Urban has refused to answer press questions.
Cockroft has been recorded as giving the police a 7-page witness statement dated March 19, 2018, of his direct observations as the doctor in charge at the Intensive Care Unit of SDH on March 8, less than four days after the admission of Sergei and Yulia Skripal: “I had not realised that this was a sedation hold [sedation stopped]. I felt shocked and a degree of Euphoria that she has woke [sic] up. Yulia nodded her head on occasions throughout the conversation, I would describe it as slow, not a normal nod in terms of the movement, nonetheless it was a very purposeful nod… I think Anna and Rebecca [ICU nurses on duty at Radnor Ward] were shook up that the patient waked [sic] quite as quickly as she did… I was staggered to see Yulia with her eyes open and apparently responding in a meaningful way. Yulia was looking at Anna in a purposeful way, her eyes were wide open, her gaze was directed towards Anna in a way that suggested to me that she had good vision to perceive that Anna was the person that was talking to her. It wasn’t a response we would see from someone with brain damage There were a couple of occasions when she shook her head from side to side again this was quite slowly, but purposefully. You would need a high degree for neurological function in order to do that. I also asked Yulia if she could squeeze my fingers on her left and the right and she did. She is the one [compared with Sergei Skripal], if I thought there was going to be some real long lasting damage it would be to her and there she was apparently awake”.
Cockroft’s evidence of March 8, 2018, directly contradicts the evidence given on oath in the High Court in London on March 20-22, 2018, by state officials and an SDH “treating consultant” – the name was kept secret in the published court report — that “Mr Skripal is heavily sedated following injury by a nerve agent. Ms Skripal is heavily sedated following injury by a nerve agent. Mr Skripal is unable to communicate in any way. Ms Skripal is unable to communicate in any meaningful way.” The High Court record can be read in full here.
To read the judgement of Justice David Williams, click on link to enlarge: https://www.bailii.org
Read more: https://johnhelmer.net/
Cockroft’s disclosures also contradict the script which Yulia Skripal read out at a MI6-supervised and Reuters-filmed appearance for two minutes at a US bomber base in the UK in May of 2018. Skripal claimed then “after 20 days in a coma I woke to the news that we had both been poisoned.” In fact, Yulia woke from her coma after four (4) days.
On July 18, 2024, Cockroft told the Inquiry which questioned him for a second witness statement: “An untoward event took place on Thursday 8 March 2018. A colleague (Dr James Haslam) had ordered all sedation to be discontinued temporarily to Yulia Skripal. This is quite a common practice on Intensive Care Units (ICU) and we refer to it as a ‘sedation hold’ and would normally be planned and discussed with the team. Unfortunately, having ordered the sedation hold, Dr Haslam left the ICU without advising me. I was present on the ICU treating another patient. As a consequence, Yulia Skripal regained consciousness very quickly and was confused, frightened, trying to get out of bed and was pulling at her various vascular access lines and breathing tube.
Cockroft then revealed that because the sedation had been stopped and Yulia was no longer comatose, Cockroft was punished by Blanshard, the hospital’s chief doctor. “I tried to feedback my concerns to Dr Haslam, but he was of the opinion that nothing untoward had occurred, but when these events were reported back to the Medical Director (Christine Blanshard) she had a very different opinion and I was summoned to a meeting with her on Monday 12 March to discuss my management of the incident. There is no formal record of that meeting [sic], however I was suspended from working on the ICU with immediate effect until Yulia and Sergei had either been discharged or died. Apparently by having had a conversation with Yulia Skripal I had been unprofessional and should have left such a conversation to the security services. I was warned by Dr Blanshard that I should not discuss any aspect of the poisonings with colleagues or other individuals and advised that any such discussion would be treated as serious misconduct. As a result of having communicated with Yulia Skripal I was interviewed by the police and my statement recorded.”
The Salisbury hospital official who collaborated with government officials and police to conceal the condition of the Skripals in hospital; to threaten and sanction the medical staff; and to intervene in the treatment of the Skripals, was the SDH medical director, Dr Christine Blanshard. By enforcing sedation on the two patients for the government’s political purpose, without their consent when they were conscious, out of coma, and capable of communicating, Blanshard violated her Hippocratic Oath.
Blanshard has not been called to testify to the Inquiry.
Blanshard and another of the SDH doctors, Dr Stephen Jukes, misled the BBC documentary broadcast on May 30, 2018. The two doctors acknowledged that the Skripals had recovered “at such a pace” but concealed how fast this had been – four days — and how they had then ordered heavy sedation to simulate coma and cover up. This is repeating a lie by BBC reporter Mark Urban in this, the first documentary of the Novichok narrative by the state propaganda organ. “After a couple of weeks,” Urban said in the film, counting from March 4 and March 18, “there were gradual but distinct signs of progress. The exact timing of that and details of the drugs given remains matters of medical confidentiality.” – minute 8:20. Urban has been revealed – and was recognized earlier by Sergei Skripal – to have been an informant for MI6.
Stephen Haslam was the second doctor with Cockroft in treatment of the Skripals in the ICU unit known at the hospital as the Radnor Ward. Haslam’s witness statement to police on July 9, 2018 – two days after Dawn Sturgess’s officially recorded death — conceals that Yulia Skripal had recovered consciousness as soon as the sedation was removed four days after her admission to SDH. Haslam also conceals what Cockroft’s March 8 record shows – that Yulia Skripal could breathe and speak without the tracheostomic intubation visible later .
Instead, Haslam now claims to the Hughes Inquiry that while under sedation the two Skripals were subject to a tracheostomy on March 21; this, Haslam says, was maintained for a week for Yulia until March 28; for Sergei until April 5. Haslam provides no medical reason for this procedure.
The timing of the tracheostomy was during the High Court hearing on their purported incapacity to speak or express their consent to medical procedures. The timing also was just before technicians from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) arrived from The Netherlands to take blood samples from the Skripals. The state-ordered sedation and tracheostomy prevented the Skripals from talking to the OPCW. For more details of the OPCW fix by the British to report Novichok, read the book .
Haslam also reveals in this statement that the 33-year old, previously healthy Yulia Skripal was suffering medical symptoms on her admission to the hospital which were more life-threatening than the condition recorded for her 66 year-old diabetic father, Sergei. “Overall, the clinical picture was one of profound compromise of the central and peripheral nervous systems,” Haslam testified, comparing daughter with father, “and her condition was worse than that of her father.”
Medical experts who have reviewed the case and patient details and the Inquiry testimony, express surprise that the younger, healthier patient had suffered collapse simultaneously with the much older, health-compromised patient if, as the British Government alleges, they had both been contaminated two and a half hours earlier at the front door-handle of their home.
A leading British specialist on organophosphate poisoning comments: “[It is] somewhat amazing that both Skripals throw up at the same time, then collapse at the same time. Throw up because they were both in contact with a Novichok door handle some 2 1/2 hours earlier. Everything [in the Inquiry hearing] today seemed to be drawn into confirming the official narrative. We get right up to the collapse at the bench, but up to that point there are no symptoms from the older diabetic man. Not much use if the world’s most dangerous chemical cannot prevent an older, diabetic, overweight chap from driving, drinking, eating, walking, then collapsing some 2 1/2 hours later after the door-handle attack.”
“When I discuss the Skripal saga with my forensic colleagues, they all agree on the fantasy and fabrication. However, they have professional image to consider, so their heads are not above the parapet.”
The sources believe the only likely explanation for simultaneous collapse on a bench in Salisbury city centre, and the contrastive condition of Yulia and Sergei, is that they were attacked by a poison spray at the bench itself, and that Yulia was hit by a larger aerosol dose than struck Sergei.
The CCTV recordings, contemporary witnesses, and British police evidence at the Inquiry confirm there were no Russian agents at the scene at the time.
To prevent the Skripals from communicating from the hospital with the Russian Embassy in London and their families in Russia, the Government had arranged for doctors, experts, and lawyers to lie in the High Court at a hearing on their condition on March 20-22, 2018. That their testimony has now been exposed by Cockroft at the Inquiry to have been false was put to Vikram Sachdeva KC, by email yesterday; Sachdeva was the lawyer appointed by the Government to represent the Skripals in the High Court proceeding.
Sachdeva (right) refuses to answer.
The British media and state propaganda organs have failed to recognize that when Cockroft’s witness statements and oral testimony were revealed on Thursday, the official narrative of a Russian Novichok plot collapsed. The BBC report omitted entirely what Cockroft had revealed about Yulia Skripal’s recovery after four days.
The British alternative media have done no better than the mainstream media. George Galloway a well-known alt-media podcaster, has failed to report at all.
https://johnhelmer.net/novichok-show-tr ... more-90514
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(More from the upper middle class pov... Pass the salt...)
St Petersburg Travel Notes: installment two
October 31, 2024
During the period of the Wagner Group insurrection in the spring of 2023, the biography of the mercenary group’s founder and principal owner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was spread far and wide. The fact that he had once served meals to Vladimir Putin prompted sniggering among our mainstream commentators. Just imagine that such a person could rise to the power, influence and wealth of Prigozhin! This was proof positive of the endemic corruption and distorted values of the ‘Putin regime,’ they opined.
However, my point in writing today’s installment is to demonstrate that upward mobility of those with great talent and imagination has long been and remains a competitive advantage of Russia. That was so under Peter the Great in the first quarter of the 18th century, it was certainly true in much of the Soviet period until the 1980s. And it revived very nicely in the ‘Roaring 90s’ when the hero of this piece, Sergei Gutzeit, restaurateur, vineyard owner, restorer of landmark buildings at his own expense, founder and chief benefactor of a lyҫėe for aspiring talents from the lower classes began his steep rise up the success ladder in the circle of another rising star, Vladimir Putin.
All of these issues came to mind this afternoon when my wife and I took lunch in Gutzeit’s first and still best earning restaurant Podvorye located in the Petersburg suburb of Pavlovsk where he has kept his primary residence and focus of his charitable works for decades.
Pavlovsk is named for the Emperor Pavel (Paul I), son of Catherine the Great and father of Emperor Alexander I, best known as the conqueror of Napoleon. Paul’s elegant and modestly sized palace is a ‘must see’ tourist destination for both foreign and domestic visitors to Northwest Russia, alongside the much larger and more demanding Summer Palace of Catherine in the town of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo), 5 km away.
However, the success of Gutzeit’s restaurant opposite the palace park had little to do with location, location, location. Gutzeit opened the Podvorye in 1994 on an unpromising plot of land that the grudging city authorities offered him. It is wedged between the train tracks on one side and a busy local highway on the other. It was his unique architectural solution and his talents in hospitality services that won him a loyal clientele from among the top business and political circles of Petersburg after a very few years.
As for architecture, the Podvorye restaurant and the ensemble of outbuildings adjacent to it are made from immense stripped logs in a style that resembles the stage settings for 17th century or still earlier Russia as shown in Rimsky Korsakov operas in the Mariinsky Theater. The basic menu was built entirely around traditional hearty Russian cuisine that is very well turned out, in copious portions and priced very fairly. And on weekends it was the rule to regale diners with rounds of Russian folk songs by musicians who invited the children especially to join in.
Gutzeit’s fortune was assured in October 2000 when Vladimir Putin decided to celebrate his first birthday as president in…the Podvorye. The specially prepared meal for the presidential party remains on page one of the printed menu and is currently priced at 55 euros in ruble equivalency. In typical Russian fashion, the meal opens with a shock and awe array of eight different meat, fish, salted vegetable, marinated forest mushroom and other appetizers which invite rounds of vodka shot glasses, then moves on to a fish or meat soup followed by the mains of fried fish or meat. Fasting for a day ahead of such a meal is a good idea.
On the other hand, for normal dining, the out of pocket cost is much lower. By way of example, I mention that our favorite dish is half a roast duck served with stewed cabbage and a baked pear with lingonberry filling. One portion is more than sufficient to serve two and today costs the equivalent of 12 euros. Back in the 1990s, when Russian farming was reeling from the shock therapy administered at the advice of Western advisers, Gutzeit had to import his ducks frozen from France to be satisfied with quality and uniform portions. Then when relations with France soured, he shifted to frozen ducks from Hungary. Now chef assures me that they arrive fresh from farms in Rostov (Russia) and I assure you that the quality is superb.
But, to resume my story of Gutzeit’s rise: once word of the President’s visit got around, the Podvorye was filled daily to capacity. Back in the 1990s and early in the new century, the diners were predominantly foreigners whose reservations were made for them by the premiere hotels in St Petersburg where they were lodged. I recall how in about 2004 my wife and I spotted former British prime minister John Major at another table.
Those were the glory days when Gutzeit made a fortune that he immediately invested in other commercial ventures and also in charitable works, the first of which, was a free of charge soup kitchen for the poor run daily from a large, specially built canteen adjacent to the restaurant.
Nowadays the clientele is almost exclusively middle class Russians from near and far. They arrive as couples, as families with kids, and as groups of friends.
Aside from opening other restaurants in the region, Gutzeit created the ‘Russian Village’ in Upper Mandrogi, a Russian equivalent to America’s Williamsburg on a riverbank site jointly agreed with tour operators of cruises in the rivers and canals running north from Lake Ladoga that are very popular in the summer season. This venture provided work opportunities to artisans in traditional decorative handicrafts.
With the proceeds of his businesses, with his own money Gutzeit undertook the restoration of dilapidated buildings from the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries in the Pavlovsk area. In one of these complexes he opened what I would call his most ambitious and far-sighted project which was inspired by the lyҫėe within the Catherine Palace which Alexander I created initially with a view to educate his younger brothers together with a small group of talented students from outside the royal entourage. Today it is best known as the school where the young Pushkin studied. Gutzeit’s vision was to help create a new patriotic but broadly educated and widely traveled elite to help guide the country’s future.
The school was named for Russia’s revered Foreign Minister in the second half of the 19th century, A.M. Gorchakov. Gutzeit directly oversaw the selection of the 18 candidates for the first class and following classes from among children of low income intelligentsia families. He oversaw the program of travel abroad in the West and domestically around Russia that the students were given gratis. The school is still going strong and I expect to hear more about its graduates when I meet with Gutzeit at the start of next week.
In reviving the tradition of what was called in Pushkin’s time the Tsarskoye Selo lyҫėe, Gutzeit was a good 20 years ahead of the Putin government. It is only now that a project to revive that school in the original Catherine Palace complex is being realized.
Meanwhile, Gutzeit never abandoned the love for fresh produce that directed him to cooking and restaurant ownership. Originally born and educated in Odessa (Ukraine), Gutzeit got his start in business in the food markets of the north where he traded in vegetables. The latter partly explains his decision early in the new millennium to buy a farming estate in the Crimea. His main crop there is grapes for wine, and he began well before it became popular for Russian arbiters of taste like Dmitry Kiselyov, director of all Russian state television news, to become a vineyard owner in Crimea. Gutzeit indulges in his gentleman farmer avocation in the south from late spring to autumn.
His most recent acquisition, agricultural land near the regional center Gatchina, brings together various interests. The location has its own logic: Paul 1 had his earliest palace in precisely Gatchina. On this farm, Gutzeit is now growing most of the fresh vegetables, herbs, fowl and dairy products that will be featured in Podvorye. With this latest accent on cooking mainly what you get from your surroundings and can personally control, Gutzeit’s restaurant is sure to vie for a star in the Michelin guide if and when sanctions are lifted.
That, in a nutshell, is my Exhibit Number 1 of a successful and wealthy benefactor of his society with outstanding vision who began, like Prigozhin, as ‘a waiter to Putin.’ When you care to scratch the surface, this country has a great many surprises that help you to better understand why it is now the fourth biggest economy in the world as measured by Purchasing Power Equivalency and likely has the number one army in the world.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/10/31/ ... lment-two/
