An outdated sanction impedes leverage over Russia

European Voice

What measures could be taken to exert pressure on the Kremlin without punishing ordinary Russians?
The US senators Scoop Jackson and Charles Vanik are dead. The country they sought to pressure – the Soviet Union – is gone, and Russia, for all its faults, does not restrict the emigration that they wanted to liberalise.

Yet the ghosts of the Cold War still haunt the US’s relations with the Kremlin. So too do other more recent ghosts, such as the ‘re-set’ – a useful gimmick in its day, perhaps, but now an embarrassment overdue for retirement.

The big argument in Washington, DC now is not about binning the re-set but about the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which restricts ‘most-favoured’ (ie, normal) trade relations with countries with non-market economies that restrict emigration.

In practice, Jackson-Vanik is an irritant, not an obstacle. The administration routinely waives its provisions. But would it send the wrong message to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to lift it unilaterally, as common sense demands now that Russia is joining the World Trade Organization? And if so, would visa restrictions on those involved in the Magnitsky affair be a sufficient counterweight? (It may be worth reminding some readers that Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who uncovered a $230 million – €175m – fraud perpetrated on the Russian taxpayer by corrupt officials, was jailed as a result, kept in horrific conditions when he refused to snitch on his client, and died after a savage beating.)

It would be futile to try to placate Putin. He believes that the West has tried to destabilise Russia and usurp power there. Nothing that the US or the EU can do would win his trust, nor should it. But it is not just the Russian government that wants Jackson-Vanik lifted. Leading members of the Russian opposition want it gone too.

Their cause deserves a respectful hearing. One of the Kremlin’s strongest arguments is that the West is out to get Russia, and that the opposition forces are just the play-things of the US, Europe and other malevolent outsiders.

The Kremlin likes to portray Russia as a besieged fortress. And it likes an economy with a few hugely lucrative industries under its own tight control. Encouraging Russian businesses outside the world of bureaucratic rents and extractive industries undermines the power monopoly of the ruling criminal syndicate.

It would therefore be right to lift Jackson-Vanik permanently. Attention should instead turn to ways of putting pressure on the regime that do not punish the millions of ordinary Russians who (unlike their rulers) see their future in friendly and mutually beneficial integration with the West.

But at the same time, the US, the EU and all other countries that value the rule of law need to take a much tougher stance towards those at the top in Russia. Depriving them and their family members of visas, so that they cannot shop, invest, frolic and educate their children in the West is a start. It would be all the more powerful if it is done publicly, rather than behind closed doors (as many wish). But either way, visa restrictions are only a start.

A much more powerful sanction would be to tighten the rules in the international financial system to stop the flagrant money-laundering perpetrated by top Russians and others through commercial entities (I hesitate to call them companies) in the oil and gas industries, phoney banks and other looting machines.

The problem with that is cost. Western banks need depositors, stock markets need trades and companies need shareholders. Turning them away at times like these seems like lunacy. So much better to sell a bit of respectability and keep the wheels turning. That is the way the Western world ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper. hairy women срочный займ https://zp-pdl.com/emergency-payday-loans.php zp-pdl.com unshaven girl