ERDOĞAN AND PUTIN: A SECRET ALLIANCE IN THE CAUCASUS

Since 1920, or since the end of the October Revolution, the Soviet Union has succeeded in keeping together the regions it had annexed in Central Asia and the Middle East only through the use of force by the army and secret police. After the end of the USSR, the Sunnis began to revolt. The civil wars in Chechnya and Ingushetia are the best known examples. Only in the last three years, Putin seems to have found a solution that will allow him to find a third way between independence and massacres and give these regions the hope of an economic well-being that they never had: a secret and very solid alliance between the Sunnis of Turkey and the Orthodox in Russia – with a look at China – which has built a system of promoting industrial, commercial and financial activity that allows the people of Grozny and Magas to embrace globalization for the first time ever in the history. It is an evolution that is kept secret precisely because it is so delicate and important. A secret called ICBA.

Historically, Mother Russia and the Ottoman Empire have fought each other for nearly 500 years: initially, because the growing Tsarist regime had succeeded (militarily) in claiming the territories that Turkey had conquered beyond the Dardanelles[1]; second, because Russia dreamed of a role of great power and wanted to extend the regions of Central Asia to India in competition with the British Empire – what Rudyard Kipling called “The Great Game“[2] and which is described in the namesake book by Peter Hopkirk, one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the 19^th century[3]. Finally, after the October Revolution, the Armenian massacre and the explosion of the Tsarist Empire, in 1920 the Soviet troops went to annex the regions that would later become part of the USSR, and Turkey was defeated, humiliated, reduced to economic, political and social collapse[4].

From then on, aversion to the Soviet Union was the main reason why Turkey became one of the first countries in the world in the Western military organization NATO in 1952[5]. An aversion fueled by numerous territorial conflicts (in the whole of the Caucasus, in particular in Nagorno-Karabakh[6]) which ended on May 16, 2009 with the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Tayyip Erdoğan in Sochi[7]. At the meeting, the two presidents welcomed the settlement of old disputes, as well as the fact that Russia had become Ankara’s most important economic partner, in 2008, with an exchange of around 35 billion euros. The two presidents announced new trade agreements, especially in the energy sector, making this alliance the strongest point of reference in the immediate neighborhood in Central Asia and the Middle East[8].

Russian weapons for NATO countries

The Sukhoi Su57, the best Russian fighter-bomber

In the years that followed, the alliance began to make an impact in the military sector, and in 2019 Putin announced that he would support Ankara’s war campaign against the Kurdish people in Syria[9]. An alliance that survived two serious incidents, such as the downing of a Russian plane by a Turkish anti-aircraft plane in Syria (2015)[10] and the still unclear assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov on December 19, 2016[11]. In fact, Turkey, on September 12, 2017, renewed its defense system and purchased four batteries of S400 surface-to-air missiles[12] for a total of 36 aircraft carriers[13] for a total of $ 2.5 billion[14], one of the most famous and dangerous weapons that has been created in the Soviet Union and then developed several times during the time of Putin[15] and produced by Almaz-Antey Moscow, one of the ten largest arms industries in the world[16].

The S400 missiles replaced the US Patriots and that angered the US government (obviously). Washington threatened sanctions against Turkey[17] and understood too well that this treaty was the signal that Ankara had structurally changed its military and political alliances: after the United States decided in May 2019 to stop the delivery of planes F-35 fighter aircraft[18], Erdoğan has decided to purchase Sukhoi Su57s[19] and announced that when his new missiles will be replaced by eight new Almaz-Antey S500 batteries, he will sell the old missiles[20].

In fact, Erdoğan wants to sell the S400s, which were delivered in May 2019, to Qatar and Azerbaijan, which has greatly increased the embarrassment and concern of Donald Trump and the US Department of Defense[21]: for the first time in history a NATO country uses Russian military systems with the help of Red Army instructors. Immediately thereafter, after Erdoğan, Saudi Arabia paid $ 3.5 billion for the same missiles, and France (which has always had a controversial relationship with NATO and only became a full member in 2009[22]) will apparently do the same[23].

The New World Order of Renewable Energy

Tomatoes and fruit in the desert – Qatar’s ultra-modern hydroponic greenhouses

The military question on the Middle East’s chessboard, especially after the 2017 crisis which led to the cold war between friends of Arabia (Emirates, Bahrain, Israel and Egypt) and friends of Qatar (Turkey, Iran, Palestine ), has become more and more similar to a Mexican impasse[24] – and just the prologue to the development of an economic problem linked to certain inevitable factors: the planet’s raw materials are being used in ever greater quantities at a pace ever-increasing, threatening the planet’s ability to renew air and water. Also, photosynthesis and other functions necessary for the survival of life on earth are in danger. Scientists are convinced that we will reach the point of no return in 2036 if we do not fundamentally change our system of production and consumption[25].

But that’s not all. Starting in 1956, scientists like Marion King Hubbert began to calculate[26] when we would be forced to replace derivatives of the ethanol chain (hydrocarbons) with other renewable energy sources[27] after using more oil than (with our current technologies) below the planet’s surface is available – a moment called Hubbert’s Peak, which may already be behind us or about to come, and whose existence is denied only by the most excited American militarists like Edward Luttwak[28].

Countries like Russia, the European Union, Turkey, Iran, Israel and the Persian Gulf states have started to prepare for it[29]: they need to radically overhaul their economic systems – especially countries whose welfare depends on the exploitation of hydrocarbons[30]. It is imperative that all of the alliances that emerged at the end of World War II and the years of the Cold War be drastically challenged. And this must be achieved by creating as little noise and tension as possible.

Vladimir Putin has created an agency called ICBA[31], which at the moment is apparently tiny and has no obvious connection to the Russian state apparatus. It plays an almost invisible role, but it is of fundamental political importance – so much so that on its website, the ICBA comments on all the fundamental movements in geopolitics of the countries bordering the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf, including the internal discussion of the Russian position on the civil war in Libya[32]. The central objective of the ICBA is to support the joint strategic investments of the Russian Federation, Turkey and Qatar, making this axis not only a military but also an economic alliance which has a dominant role on the whole spectrum. from Gibraltar to Tehran, as well as from Murmansk to Dar-es-Salaam[33].

A pro-Russian Chechen on the throne of Ingushetia

December 17, 2019: Some of the most powerful leaders in Turkish and Russian finance sign the trilateral agreement with ICBA in the beautiful surroundings of the Bodrum Peninsula (Aegean Sea)

According to its founding documents, ICBA (International Center of Business Assistance) participates in entrepreneurial initiatives between industrial, commercial and financial institutions from different countries and regions[34]. The organization helps build business-to-business relationships due to its rich political, economic, and legal ties in different countries[35]. The economic councils of different countries (like Turkey and Qatar) are looking for connections (without political reason for these initiatives appearing as obvious) and ICBA was created to play the role of facilitator: “A real accelerator of business relations“[36].

ICBA appoints Authorized Business Partners (ATAs) who are coordinated by the Qatar Business Council and the Turkey Business Council, regardless of the country of origin. When a company knocks on the door in search of confidential and profitable investments, the ICBA issues the status of the participating member, to whom it gives a guarantee for negotiations with other partners of what is called “the ICBA universe” [37]. Some of the ATAs are lawyers who specialize in solving multi-jurisdictional issues[38].

ICBA was founded on January 10, 2015 with a really meager registered capital (12,000 rubles, around 150 euros), which is 100% owned by a Chechen political official[39], Beksultan Akhmetovich Buzurtanov[40], who appears to have the power of a demigod in Magas: accused by the public prosecutor of having granted to a local company, Moloko (slaughterhouse and sale of meat, dairy production), an exemption from the rental of production facilities (of a State property) from the payment of the energy and heating, and the tax payment, without having the right to do so, he was only fined 200,000 rubles – a judgment which was overturned on appeal court, which justified its decision with the importance of his public service and the need to be patient with him[41].

The minister has a famous Chechen surname. A senior Soviet military official served in Grozny in the 1980s, M.O. Buzurtanov[42], descendant of an almost legendary figure of the Chechen dinasty, tribal leader and shaman Baishk Buzurtanov, the subject of impressive historical and philological studies[43]. An Akhmed Buzurtanov is a well-known and extremely controversial politico-military activist[44]. But the most famous of them, also called Akhmed, was first an Olympic athlete, then the trainer of a famous team of boxers and wrestlers (Kaloy Team), a team with a strong nationalist connotation that the Russian police force accused of terrorism and arms trafficking[45]. There was no proof of this, but it didn’t help: in the spring of 2012, Akhmed was kidnapped and never returned home[46] – probably killed by Russian intelligence[47].

Beksultan Buzurtanov, meanwhile, is a staunch official of Putin[48] (who appointed him as the head of the petroleum industry Magas Ingushenergo in 2013[49]). He chose Olga Aleksandrovna Perelygina, a young recruiting expert[50], as general manager[51]. ICBA has its offices in the same building (Bolshaya Nikitskaya 44, Building 2, Moscow[52]) where the Russia-Qatar Economic Council[53] and the Russia-Turkey Economic Council[54] operate – both represented by the ICBA in trade negotiations.

Buzurtanov has been Ingushetia’s Minister of Economic Development since 2015, and his first successes, after being appointed by Putin as head of ICBA, are truly encouraging: he made Lebanese fashion entrepreneurs invest in stores of the capital Magas[55]; he signed contracts with the main fruit and vegetable markets in Moscow for the sale of agricultural products from his region (Ingushetia has the same climate as southern Europe and is very rich in fruit[56]) in the capital of the Federation[57]; He is building a bus factory for the Korean multinational Daewoo[58] – but above all it is, secretly, the emergence of mixed Turkish-Chinese financial companies (or even banks)[59] – as many further facts which show that the social climate of this small republic of the Caucasus has radically changed it since the years of perestroika led to the civil war and the struggle for independence, ignored by the rest of the world[60].

At one of the meetings in Sochi in 2015 and at the subsequent meeting in Istanbul in 2016, during which Putin (accompanied by Buzurtanov) met with the Turkish Economic Council[61], Russian President Erdoğan was convinced to commit to supporting the pacification of Ingushetia, in which this region is placed under a common Russian-Turkish sphere of influence and 27 billion rubles are invested in the well-being of the population[62]. At first, the Turkish president, along with Lebanese fashion designers, promised to sell Turkish ready-to-wear in Russia and Ingushetia in Turkey – an almost miraculous success[63].

Conquering Africa together

Two images of the ICBA construction site in Zambia (Bheira-Kitwe-Lubambashi project), a 1,600-kilometer pipeline that will link Mozambique to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

ICBA observers pay 850 euros per year; those who play the role of participating member pay 2500 euros[64]. This provides access to ATA documents for 19 projects in the Russian Federation[65], 15 projects in Turkey[66] and some in Bulgaria[67] and in Tajikistan[68], as well as 11 transnational projects in Africa[69]. These include: a) a 1,600 km oil pipeline connecting Mozambique, Zambia and the southern states of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for which the ICBA has negotiated contracts worth 2.56 billion dollars[70]; (b) an oil products refinery in Ndola near Kitwe, along the route of the new pipeline, a few kilometers from the border between Zambia and Haut-Katanga, for 250 million dollars[71]; c) a large administrative building in Yekaterinburg (in the Sverdlovsk region) for an undisclosed amount[72]; (d) the construction of a leather and fur processing plant in Tajikistan for 6.5 million euros[73]; (e) the construction of the Techno Park in Tula, in the south of Russia, for 3.5 billion rubles[74]; (f) the construction of the first giant solar power plant in Africa, south of the Sahara, which is being built not far from Johannesburg at a secret price[75]; (g) the purchase of four mining permits for nickel, one for vanadium and cobalt, one for cobalt and palladium, one for uranium and one for gold in Zimbabwe, which also include the purchase of 20% from a Canadian mining company, whose name and price are currently kept under wraps[76]; (h) two LNG gas-fired power plants that will generate electricity for the entire industrial system of the Western Cape (Cape Town) and the Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth) – a project funded by the South African government for 45 billion euros[77]; (i) the construction of a UAZ automobile factory in an unspecified country south of the Sahara[78].

To participate in these operations, investors must have at least the status of Representative Member of ICBA and submit their application to members of ATA[79]. If the request is accepted and negotiations begin, the ICBA will make available to companies (Russian, Turkish and Qatari) the mediation team formed by Beksultan Buzurtanov: a company that deals with finding loans and financing in the banking sector (Persona Capital OOO Moscow[80]); the largest Russian arbitration firm (Yustina AB Moscow[81]); the only Russian logistics company with a solid presence in China (Asia Trans Group[82]); a company within the European Union responsible for customs procedures (Blumbergi MN SIA Riga[83]); a large multi-jurisdictional business consultancy firm (Delotechno OOO Moscow[84]); a large international debt collection company (the EOS group, headquartered in Moscow, but with offices in 26 countries and 7,000 lawyers[85]); a law firm experienced in political negotiations (002 in Moscow[86]).

All of them are managed by a fully Ingushetia management[87] which, in parallel, works for a fund supporting the poor of the Russian Federation, Azan, of which Buzurtanov is president[88], and at the same time works for the company called Friendship Association with the Republic of Sudan, which is based in Moscow[89]. A winning team preparing to change the rules of the Great Game set by Rudyard Kipling after 200 years of tension and war.

[1] Suraiya Faroqhi, Bruce McGowan, Sevket Pamuk, “An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire”, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, Volume 2, pages 413-428

[2] Peter Hopkirk, “The Great Game: On secret service on High-Asia”, John Murray Publishing, London 1990

[3] https://www.creativeassociatesinternational.com/stories/peter-hopkirks-the-great-game-the-struggle-for-empire-in-central-asia-a-book-review-by-amaury-cooper/

[4] David R. Stone, “A military history of Russia: From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya”, Greenwood Publishing, Santa Barbara (California) 2006, pages 176-191

[5] https://www.ibtimes.com/why-turkey-nato-704333

[6] Svante Cornell, “Turkey and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh”, Middle Eastern Studies Journal, Volume 34, pages 51-72 – see https://web.archive.org/web/20070610030840/ ; http://www.pcr.uu.se/publications/cornell_pub/tfopol.pdf

[7] http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/4181/

[8] http://archive.government.ru/eng/docs/4181/

[9] https://www.ilpost.it/2019/10/22/turchia-russia-accordo-curdi-siria/

[10] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34907983

[11] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/19/why-killing-of-russian-diplomat-is-likely-to-bring-turkey-and-russia-closer

[12] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41237812

[13] http://www.diken.com.tr/s-400leri-beklerken-kac-tane-aliyoruz-maliyeti-ne/

[14] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-turkey-missiles/turkey-russia-sign-deal-on-supply-of-s-400-missiles-idUSKBN1EN0T5

[15] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-s-400-game-changer-the-middle-east-america-should-22760

[16] http://www.almaz-antey.ru/

[17] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-usa/turkey-preparing-for-possible-us-sanctions-over-s-400s-minister-idUSKCN1SS0HS ; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/erdogan-step-400-deal-russia-190604063857003.html

[18] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49023115

[19] https://www.news18.com/news/auto/russia-offers-sukhoi-su-35-to-turkey-after-us-removes-from-f-35-programme-2236287.html

[20] https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/russia-ready-to-cooperate-to-sell-turkey-su-57-fighter-jets-143123

[21] https://www.analisidifesa.it/2019/04/opzioni-curiose-per-le-batterie-di-s-400-turche/

[22] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/17/france.military ; https://web.archive.org/web/20171027194935/; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR2009031100547.html ; https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49201.htm

[23] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/us-allies-continue-buying-weapons-from-russia/1653985

[24] http://www.word-detective.com/2011/03/mexican-standoff/

[25] https://www.newsgram.com/climate-change-earth-in-danger/ ; https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-will-cross-the-climate-danger-threshold-by-2036/ ; https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/7427/earth-is-in-danger-but-only-we-can-save-ourselves/ ; https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/earth-tipping-point/

[26] https://web.archive.org/web/20080527233843/http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

[27] https://www.peakoil.net/category/peak-oil

[28] https://www.peakoil.net/Luttwak.html

[29] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1017/S1466046607070524?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=uevp20

[30] https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geoarabia/article/11/2/181/566760/The-debate-over-Hubbert-s-Peak-a-review

[31] https://www.icba.su/en/

[32] https://www.icba.su/en/news/novosti-mira/po-informatsii-iz-kremlya-khaftar-gotovitsya-snova-posetit-moskvu/

[33] https://www.icba.su/en/news/novosti-delovykh-sovetov/podpisanie-memoranduma-o-vzaimodeystvii-mezhdu-rossiysko-turetskim-delovym-sovetom-mezhdunarodnym-ts/ ; https://www.icba.su/en/news/novosti-delovykh-sovetov/podpisanie-tryekhstoronnego-memoranduma-o-vzaimodeystvii-mezhdu-rossiysko-turetskim-delovym-sovetom-/

[34] https://icba.su/en/about/ibs-mission/

[35] https://icba.su/upload/presentations/ICBA_ru.pdf

[36] https://icba.su/upload/presentations/ICBA_ru.pdf

[37] https://icba.su/upload/presentations/ICBA_ru.pdf

[38] https://icba.su/upload/presentations/ICBA_ru.pdf

[39] http://www.vipstav.ru/rating/persons/politics/28417-buzurtanov-beksultan-ahmetovich.html

[40] https://www.list-org.com/company/985983/show/founders_history#founders

[41] https://gazetaingush.ru/news/vs-opravdal-ranee-osuzhdennogo-eks-ministra-ekonomiki-ingushetii-beksultana-buzurtanova

[42] Victor A. Shnirelman, “A revolt of social memory: The Chechens and Ingush against the Soviet historians”, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 2006, pages 12-16 (Shnirelman A Revolt of social memory); M. O. Buzurtanov, “Osnovnye etapy i zakonomernosti vkhozhdeniia Checheno-Ingushetii v sostav Rossii”, Groznenskii Rabochii, 4 October 1979, page 3; M. O. Buzurtanov, “Checheno-Ingushetiya”, Planeta, Moskwa 1982

[43] http://ingnii.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/245_s_Rossiey.pdf

[44] https://takiedela.ru/2019/04/my-za-khoroshuyu-zhizn/

[45] https://www.ekhokavkaza.com/a/25193737.html

[46] https://www.ekhokavkaza.com/a/25193737.html

[47] 2015.10.30 Press Release European Court of Human Rights, pages 8-9

[48] https://rm.coe.int/16805e2d14

[49] http://www.vipstav.ru/rating/persons/politics/28417-buzurtanov-beksultan-ahmetovich.html

[50] https://www.linkedin.com/in/olga-perelygina-4a53263/ ; https://graduates.name/country-ru-865#id9756989

[51] https://www.list-org.com/company/985983

[52] https://icba.su/upload/presentations/ICBA_ru.pdf

[53] https://russiaqatar.ru/#contact

[54] http://www.rtbc.ru/contacts/