Death and diplomacy in Russia

Ethical Oil

There’s a little diplomatic row happening between Russia and the United States. Odds are very good you haven’t even heard about it. It hasn’t received much coverage. But as quiet and minor as it may be, with each country putting a handful of citizens from the other country on a visa blacklist, it has to do with a much deeper, more troublesome story: the story of human rights abuses and corruption running as rampant as ever in Russia.

Last month, Washington said it was putting a number of Russian officials on a visa blacklist for their connection to the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Moscow, infuriated, warned that the United States risked a “reset” of diplomatic ties between the two countries and reports today are that the Kremlin’s prepared a visa blacklist of its own, banning U.S. citizens who have allegedly “violated the rights of Russians,” reports AFP. One of the aggrieved Russians whose rights have been violated, supposedly, is Viktor Bout, aka the “Merchant of Death” arms dealer. These are the people the Kremlin goes to bat for.

Sergei Magnitsky is the kind of person the Kremlin takes a bat to. He was a corporate lawyer who had the misfortune of having a client named Hermitage Capital Management, once one of the biggest investors in Russian industry. Hermitage’s boss, William Browder, was an American and for a very long time a big booster of the former-KGB capo turned thuggish president Vladimir Putin. After watching for too long the Putin Regime corrupt every corner of Russia’s economy, Browder began growing concerned about the fraud and embezzlement in some of the companies he was investing in, such as Gazprom, the state oil producer, and Surgutneftegaz, described by the Economist as a “secretive oil producer.” He started asking questions. In Russia, questions aren’t allowed.

Both Hermitage’s offices and Magnitsky’s offices were raided by police, who stole official stamps and seals. Police then used the stamps and seals to create what may be the largest tax fraud in Russia’s history — worth about a quarter billion dollars — in Hermitage’s name. Magnitsky had the chutzpah to complain. In Russia, complaining that you’ve been framed by police for a quarter billion dollar tax fraud isn’t allowed.

The same police colonel who led the raid, and who was the subject of Magnitsky’s complaint, turned up to arrest Magnitsky. The 37-year-old father of two was jailed for nearly a year without charges. He was tortured. He became ill in prison, developing pancreatitis and gall bladder disease. As he grew sicker, he was transferred to a new prison — one without medical facilities. He was repeatedly denied care. A few days short of the constitutional limit of holding someone without charges, Magnitsky died, alone, in his cell, in tremendous agony, for lack of basic medical care. A commissioner for a non-profit watchdog group that investigated the death said she believed it was “a premeditated murder.”

How did Moscow respond? First, the investigators who framed and jailed Magnitsky were promoted. Next, as reported last week, the Kremlin has shrugged off international pressure to investigate the death, and instead restarted the criminal probe against Magnitsky. Having killed him in prison, they will now try to murder the whistle-blower’s reputation posthumously, too.

The United States is taking small measures to register its protest. But this is how business is done these days in Russia, now one of the more corrupt, kleptocratic places on the globe. Far from getting better, things in Russia are only getting dirtier. If Moscow warns of a “reset” of relations, perhaps the United States should oblige. It could start, for instance, by refusing to buy the blood oil produced by the corrupt Gazprom and Surgutneftegaz, and instead aim to replace those 250,000 barrels of Russian oil it buys daily with oil from ethical Canada, where we don’t protect “secretive oil producers” and our state officials don’t frame and then assassinate people who raise concerns about the oil producers we do have. займы на карту займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php срочный займ на карту