Boss of slain Russian whistleblower to Haaretz: Obama administration trying to appease Putin
Ahead of the Russian President’s visit to Israel, the founder of a company that invested in Russia, and was kicked out, says the U.S. is appeasing Putin for the sake of bilateral trade ties.
While President Vladimir Putin will be heading next week to Israel for a short visit that will include unveiling the Second World War Red Army memorial in Netanya, and meeting with Israeli top officials, – in Capitol Hill, businessman Bill Browder will be lobbying hard to convince Congressmen that Russia under Putin’s third presidential term is not a country that deserves “restart” of relations, not to mention what he calls the “appeasement” of Putin’s regime.
Bill Browder, co-founder and CEO of the British Hermitage Capital Management company, invested in Russia only to be pushed out of the country. In 2009, His Moscow lawyer, 37-year-old Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested after he exposed government corruption. While in prison Magnitsky was apparently beaten to death in his cell.
Congress is currently in the process of replacing the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which linked trade relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union with the USSR’s treatment of its Jewish population, with a new law, named after Sergei Magnitsky. The Magnitsky Act is supposed to deny visas to Russian officials accused of human rights violations, and is being harshly criticized by the Kremlin, which warned that its passage would hurt relations between the two countries and could even lead to possible retaliatory steps.
Read More →
Kremlin calm about possible endorsement of Magnitsky Act
The Kremlin is calm about the possible endorsement of the Magnitsky Act, but warns Washington about possible counter measures.
Judging by the June 18 meeting of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama in Mexico, “the act will be passed this way or another,” Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Friday. “It seems the U.S. Administration has put up with that and seeks cosmetic changes.”
“Bearing in mind this reality, our president said calmly that the Russian reaction would be imminent. We are practically forced to react,” the aide said.
“We will react, and our reaction will be calm,” Ushakov said, without going into details. He said everything would depend on the final edition of the bill: there had been three editions so far. “We do not want to react at all, but we will have to,” he said.
In the words of Ushakov, Putin does not take this bill as a key question of Russia-U.S. relations. He thinks though that such problems may be solved in a calmer atmosphere. “It is possible to block travelling of particular persons in a quiet way, not in such a demonstrative form,” Ushakov said, adding that Putin conveyed that opinion to Obama. “That is a demonstrative anti-Russian step of the U.S.,” he said.
He also noted that the Kremlin had no illusions about the Magnitsky Act. “We knew from the start on which bill the Congress was working and which efforts the Administration was taking. We knew what it could do and what it could not, so it did not spring a surprise on us. The situation mirrors the heat of political structure ahead of the U.S. presidential election of November. Alas, it also mirrors the remaining anti-Russian feelings on the Capitol Hill,” he said.
Another confirmation of the use of the anti-Russian card in the election campaign, was the statement of Obama’s election rival, Republican Party candidate Mitt Romney, who said that Russia was a geopolitical rival of the U.S., he said. “We do not react to such statements; we take them absolutely calmly, because we understand that the election campaign is on and passions fly high,” he said. “Let us see whether such statements may help Romney win the election and whether he uses the same words after the election or understands that a balanced and pragmatic attitude to Russia meets U.S. national interests.”
Putin also commented on the possible adoption of the Magnitsky Act. “So be it,” he responded to an Itar-Tass question. “If any restrictions are imposed on U.S. trips of Russian citizens, then there will be appropriate restrictions on Russian trips of a certain number of Americans. I do not know who may need that, but if they do it, let it be. This is not our choice,” he said.
The bill known as the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act provides for visa and economic sanctions against a number of Russian citizens suspected by Washington with implication in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky during his imprisonment.
The vote was due originally in April, but active lobbying of the U.S. President Barack Obama Administration delayed it. Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry explained the delay with the need to overcome disagreements over certain provisions of the bill.
Senator Benjamin Cardin (a Democrat) is the main sponsor of the bill, which will bar the aforesaid Russians and their families from visiting the United States and freeze their accounts in U.S. banks. The Cardin draft compelled the U.S. state secretary and treasury secretary to publish the Magnitsky list within 90 days since the adoption of the bill, together with the list of persons responsible for torture and other serious abuse of human rights.
Many Congress members view the Magnitsky Act as a mandatory condition of the cancellation of the discriminative Jackson-Vanik Amendment and the granting of a normal trade partner status to Russia. The Obama administration had been opposing that link until recently. hairy women unshaven girl https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php займы на карту срочно
Clinton in the WSJ Strays on Russia Relations
In her op-ed in the June 20 Wall Street Journal, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls for the rescinding of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment that excludes Russia from permanent normal trading relations with the U.S., and argues that this will encourage a more open and prosperous Russia. At the same time, she indirectly argues against the proposed Magnitsky law (H.R. 4405) that would bar Russians involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who investigated high level corruption, from entering the U.S.
In fact, rescinding Jackson-Vanik without passing the Magnitsky Law would be tantamount to abandoning any serious attempt to influence the internal situation in Russia and would not lead to a more “open and prosperous Russia.”
In her op-ed, Clinton refers to the “tragic death” of Magnitsky as if he died in a traffic accident. In fact, Magnitsky was deliberately tortured and murdered with the full participation of high-ranking Russian officials. She also states that the State Department has already imposed a visa ban on those implicated in Magnitsky’s death, without mentioning that the supposedly banned officials have never been named and, in the absence of a law, their ability to enter the U.S. could be restored at any time. There are also strong indications in statements from the Russian side that instead of the 60 officials that members of Congress believe are involved in the case, the State Department is prepared to ban only eleven.
Read More →
Russia Will Respond to Magnitsky Bill – Putin
The measures Russia will take in response to the so-called Magnitsky Bill being passed by the U.S. Congress will depend on the final content of the bill, Russian presidential adviser Yury Ushakov said on Friday.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the Magnitsky Bill on the sidelines of the G20 Summit at Los Cabos, Mexico.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) did not perceive that issue as a kind of a stumbling block to our further cooperation, since the impresion is that the law will be passed, in some form or other. The administration seems to have put up with that and is trying to make some cosmetic changes to its content,” Ushakov said.
At the end of his meeting with Obama, Putin “quietly said there would be a reaction from the Russian side.” Asked what form this would take, Ushakov said that would depend on the final form of the bill.
Putin said that steps to bar entry to one or another person would be taken confidentially, “and not at the table in a demonstrative and declared form.”
Read More →
Congressional Hearing Highlights the Need to Pass Magnitsky, PNTR to Russia
Yesterday and today, the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee held hearings on Russia’s abysmal human rights record and its looming accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The Obama Administration wants Congress to provide permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to Russia and scrap the 1974 Cold War–era Jackson–Vanik amendment, which denied Russia most-favored-nation status in trade.
The Administration, represented by Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and International Trade Representative Ronald Kirk, argued that if Congress does not waive Jackson–Vanik for Russia,U.S.firms will be put at a disadvantage vis-à-vis everyone else when Russia enters the WTO this August.
Private-sector witnesses attending the House hearing included Caterpillar’s CEO Doug Oberhelman, Michigan Farm Bureau president Wayne Wood, president of Argus Ltd. Michael Rae, and senior vice president of Medtronics James P. Mackin.
Russia is one of the world’s largest economies. The President’s Export Council estimates that the currently meager U.S.exports to Russia could increase when Russia joins the WTO. As Burns said:
Congress has a choice: it can extend Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to Russia, giving American exporters and workers a level the [sic] playing field in one of the fastest growing markets in the world; or it can keep Jackson-Vanik in place, preventing American companies from reaping the benefits of an unprecedented opportunity to boost trade in a large and growing market.
Read More →
Short Interview with Sergei Magnitsky’s family lawyer
The advocate Nikolay Gorokhov speaks about Sergei Magnitsky’s destiny.
Interview срочный займ на карту онлайн срочный займ female wrestling https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php займ на карту
Abandoning Sergei Magnitsky
As Vladimir Putin settles into his third term as president, government corruption is running rampant. Putin is steadily cutting back on his people’s most basic rights — and Russians are finally saying “enough.” As the opposition movement gets off the ground, international efforts to discourage Putin’s government from squelching political dissent are critical. Unfortunately, however, a recent article by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signals that the United States may be preparing to forsake that role.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Clinton makes the case that Congress should repeal the Jackson-Vanik law, which was passed in the 1970s to hold the Soviet Union accountable for restrictions it placed on its citizens’ right to emigrate. Her argument, however, intentionally misstates the nature of Congress’s position on repealing the law. Jackson-Vanik “long ago achieved this historic purpose,” Clinton writes. “Now it’s time to set it aside.”
Suggesting that Jackson-Vanik’s mission has concluded, or describing its repeal as a simple trade issue, is disingenuous spin. No one is opposed to repealing Jackson-Vanik on economic grounds. Everyone would welcome the increased trade that lifting the law could provide. Jackson-Vanick, however, is a law intended to promote respect for human rights in Russia. Congress is deeply opposed to repealing Jackson-Vanik without replacing it with effective human rights legislation that meets today’s circumstances. Clinton, on the other hand, would apparently prefer that human rights issues not enter the conversation.
But the discussion of Jackson-Vanik cannot be separated from the increasingly authoritarian drift of Russia during Putin’s 13 years in effective control of the country. Putin has methodically removed every force in society that could challenge his hold on power: He has taken control of the national television channels, destroyed all real opposition parties, and dominates the Duma, Russia’s parliament. His party also effectively controls the judiciary and other branches of law enforcement — it can obtain any ruling with only a phone call. It set up youth groups that draw their members from small towns within driving distance of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and indoctrinated its charges at state expense in outrageous nationalism, anti-Americanism, and pro-government dogma. When needed, it buses in crowds of duly indoctrinated youth to intimidate foreign diplomats, human rights defenders, and anti-corruption activists.
Read More →
BRITISH JOURNALIST ISSUES CHILLING WARNING ON RUSSIA
The shapely figure of Anna Chapman isn’t at first glance the likely subject of scrutiny by one of the world’s weightier analysts of international affairs.
But in a new book, Edward Lucas has looked beyond Chapman’s image as a cartoon Bond girl for the reality TV age to identify a yet more grubby and sinister phenomenon.
In “Deception,” Chapman and the nine other Russian spies working undercover in the United States who were sensationally flushed out in June 2010 are shown to be emblematic of nothing less than a deepening existential threat to the West and its entire way of life. At first glance, the claim seems overblown.
But with the explosive thoroughness and persuasiveness he brought to “The New Cold War” (2008), a previous book-length warning about the intents and discontents of Russia’s rulers, Lucas convincingly builds a case.
The one-word, above-the-fold title of the book, and its racy tagline (“Spies, lies and how Russia dupes the West”), together with the film poster look of its cover, is unnecessarily Hitchcockian. The stark polemic within needs no Hollywood touches. While an unrecognizable photo of Chapman lurks in the corner, the larger image is of the unmistakably demonic eye of Vladimir Putin.
This again belies the content within. Far from delivering an easy pop-psychological screed against Russia’s accidental president and his kleptocracy, “Deception” reveals the cogs and wheels of a deeper and more troubling malady: That of how Russia’s ruling class hungers for, needs and maintains the machinery of espionage for its very survival.
To supply context, Lucas turns to the convoluted tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky. The sorry story of the demise in custody in 2009 of a lawyer who had attempted to show how Russian government officials were colluding in corporate wrongdoing, explained here with refreshing clarity, ostensibly has little to do with the picture of post-Cold War spy games that the book purports to deliver. But Lucas chooses the planks of his platform carefully. As his argument develops, it becomes clearer why Magnitsky matters.
Magnitsky matters, Lucas argues, because the normal functions in a nation state vis-a-vis its citizenry of such entities as the government, business and the judiciary have in Russia been perverted into instruments of thievery, chicanery and, in Magnitsky’s case, all that plus death.
In this picture, the organs of the Russian state, including its intelligence apparatus, operate solely as an extra-judicial racket aimed at the enrichment of its members — but not only for the domestic monetary enrichment that those familiar with Russian corruption would expect from rigged auctions, dubious expropriations and everyday bribery. Rather, Lucas argues that Russia’s intelligence services are in the business of enriching themselves by stealing foreign secrets in a deep-rooted and chauvinistic attack. The argument is at times densely articulated, but ultimately plausible.
In later parts of the book, Lucas delineates the history of spying between Russia and the West before, during and after its Soviet-era heyday to show how intractable the grudge match is. In this analysis, the West nearly always comes off worse. Indeed, Lucas aims his sharpest barbs at the West’s inability, through naivety, incompetence and wishful thinking, to effectively counter the threat that the Russian state has posed and poses. Such complacency, he argues, created the possibility of Chapman and her ilk. With well-paced outrage, Lucas never fails to question this complacency.
The frontline of the struggle takes place in the Baltic nations, which Lucas calls the “cockpit of Europe.” After an occasionally confusing summary of the 20th-century history of East-West spying in the Baltics, intrinsically tied to the shifting priorities of that complex era, we arrive at the key story of the Estonian traitor Herman Simm. With it, Lucas is able to demonstrate why the problem of Russia’s ability to deceive the West is an emergency.
Simm was a top-ranking policeman during the Soviet occupation who, not exceptionally, was recruited in 1985 as a low-level spy by the Soviet KGB. After Estonia’s independence, Simm, still being managed by handlers in the KGB’s successor agency in Russia, rose spotlessly through the ranks of Estonia’s defense establishment to land a plum role at NATO headquarters in Brussels after Estonia joined the Western military alliance in 2004.
Lucas shows that inadequate checks and a trusting, starry-eyed “post-collapse” attitude on the part of officials from NATO — as well as nonchalant flat-out lies on the part of the man himself — failed to flag Simm’s KGB link. With Russia’s special antipathy to NATO reaching obsessive, hysterical proportions in the legions of Putin’s siloviki in the 2000s, the placement in its heart of an asset such as Simm, and possibly not only Simm, showed how lax the West had — or has — become. For pay, Simm was passing secrets to Moscow until the CIA sniffed a mole and assisted in his arrest. The Estonian authorities subsequently tried Simm, and, in an exclusive, Lucas was able to interview the now-incarcerated spy for this book.
Deep-cover operatives, Simm, Chapman, other spies, new types hiding in plain sight (obviously so if they are exposed, not at all if they are not), and lots of them, hint at a deep imbalance between the capability of contemporary Russia to at least undermine the West with the deployment of such agents, as opposed to the other way around, Lucas writes.
It is a thought likely to disturb anybody from the West who ever fell in love with a Russian, like the hapless Alex Chapman.
The whirlwind, short-lived marriage of the young Englishman to the daughter of a top KGB general enabled Anna to easily obtain British citizenship in her early 20s (since revoked), and move to the U.S., while working in semi-sensitive roles in banks and hedge funds. At the time she was also involved in shadowy entities in Zimbabwe and Ireland, all along as part of a seeming international criminal scam that not only encompassed the trading of secrets but also the looting of money. These are new strands to the story that Lucas diligently unpicks. Anna, the failed spy, has since become a celebrity in Russia.
Like a legendary litigator in a courtroom drama, the author skillfully sketches context, identifies the accused, mines admissible evidence, brings alive forgotten victims, espouses expert historical critique and eventually delivers a withering verdict that it would be remiss of anybody living through this entangled story to ignore. That means all of us. An important and urgent book.
Q & A
For years the name of British journalist Edward Lucas was unfamiliar to even the most ardent Russia-watchers in the West. That is because the writer, who has made a two-decade career reporting on Central Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, works for The Economist, a conservative U.K. weekly newspaper that makes a point of removing its reporters’ names from its articles to present a seamless, egoless account of world affairs.
But in 2008, Lucas, now international editor of The Economist, published under his own name “The New Cold War,” a book that examined in polemical form Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy. The book — given currency by Russia’s war with Georgia — and its alarmist tone was considered overstated by some, especially in the light of the election that year of the apparent moderate reformer Dmitry Medvedev to the Russian presidency. However, we all know how that turned out and “The New Cold War” has become a classic of cool analysis and, indeed, prescience. In the meantime, Lucas’s stock rose steadily.
The publication in the U.K. earlier this year of “Deception,” Lucas’s second book, was therefore hotly anticipated. A detailed analysis of Russia-West espionage given fresh urgency by the exposure of Anna Chapman and her cohorts in 2010, the book was published in the U.S. this week. Lucas spoke to The St. Petersburg Times about his new book and some of the topics it raises.
Q: “Deception” is broadly a warning to the West not to be complacent about Russia’s will and ability to spy on it. If they read it, how do you think ordinary Russian readers would view the thrust of your argument?
A: Spies traditionally have a good image inside Russia, as I point out — from Stirlitz to Anna Chapman. But I think that this is vulnerable now for several reasons. One is that Russians are increasingly receptive to the idea that the regime is not making the country strong, but is in fact looting it. Another is that the regime’s anti-Westernism is resonating less. The reputation of the “organs” themselves is bad. The FSB [Russia’s domestic intelligence service] in particular plays a despicable role inside Russia and nepotism and corruption are rife inside the SVR [Russia’s foreign intelligence service].
So I think my argument, that the Russian regime is bad for Russia and for the West, and that espionage is an underestimated threat, may gain some agreement — perhaps grudging in some quarters — even inside Russia.
Q: How do you think those in power in Russia, i.e. in the Kremlin and in Russia’s various intelligence outfits, view your book and its central thesis?
A: I don’t know. I praise Soviet intelligence triumphs in the book and highlight Western blunders, so from an academic and historical point of view I think they would find the book fair. They won’t like being called a “pirate state” but that’s their problem. If you steal billions of dollars from your own people and jail or kill those who get in your way, people will notice, even in the West.
Q: In the book you describe in detail the means and motives of the Russian power structure to spy on an unsuspecting, even vulnerable “enemy,” the West, while at the same time noting a certain degradation in the bureaucratic and technical adroitness of its contemporary intelligence services. Which trend, in your view, has the upper hand?
A: For now I think that the vulnerabilities in the West mean that even in their current, degraded state, Russian intelligence services find penetration and other operations quite easy.
Q: You have recently been targeted by “tchaykovsky,” a mystery blogger posting in English and French, as a “pathological Russophobe.” You have made it clear that you are happy to appear alongside figures such as Russian writer Masha Gessen, the Guardian’s Moscow reporter Miriam Elder and the late investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, that this person is tagging as Russophobic. What do you think of the charge?
A: I am not Russophobic in the least. I speak and read Russian with great pleasure. I love Russian literature and have many Russian friends. Like them I detest the way that the regime has behaved both at home and abroad. I am honored to be placed alongside Anna Politkovskaya, even by an Internet troll.
Q: What are your hopes for your new book? What reaction has it elicited so far?
A: I have had excellent reviews in The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and other media, with more coming, I hope — the American edition is launched this week. “The New Cold War” was translated into 20 languages, so I am hoping to match or beat that with this book. займ на карту срочно без отказа займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/emergency-payday-loans.php срочный займ
Senators, Obama administration aim for compromise on Russia trade
Senators and the Obama administration remain at odds over how to proceed on making trade ties permanent with Russia although they are working together on a way forward.
Senate Finance Committee members said Thursday are backing a plan to link legislation repealing Jackson-Vanik, which allow for grant normal permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with Moscow, with a human rights bill that would punish Russian officials involved with the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in police custody.
Obama administration officials, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, told the Finance panel on Thursday that they prefer separate tracks for the two measures but will continue to work with lawmakers toward a compromise to pass a measure before the August recess.
Regardless of current differences, lawmakers and Obama administration officials agree that PNTR needs to be granted before Russia joins the World Trade Organziation (WTO) in August.
Burns acknowledged Thursday that there is a “constructive dialogue” continuing with lawmakers and that the administration’s concerns are being considered. He opted to reserve a final opinion on how the administration will react until a bill emerges from the Senate.
House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who held a Wednesday hearing, is siding with the Obama administration in pressing for a “clean” PNTR bill.
Support is building on both sides of the Capitol to link the two bills as a way to let Congress express its dissatisfaction with Russia’s record on human rights.
Read More →
-
To learn more about what happened to Sergei Magnitsky please read below
- Sergei Magnitsky
- Why was Sergei Magnitsky arrested?
- Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and death in prison
- President’s investigation sabotaged and going nowhere
- The corrupt officers attempt to arrest 8 lawyers
- Past crimes committed by the same corrupt officers
- Petitions requesting a real investigation into Magnitsky's death
- Worldwide reaction, calls to punish those responsible for corruption and murder
- Complaints against Lt.Col. Kuznetsov
- Complaints against Major Karpov
- Cover up
- Press about Magnitsky
- Bloggers about Magnitsky
- Corrupt officers:
- Sign petition
- Citizen investigator
- Join Justice for Magnitsky group on Facebook
- Contact us
- Sergei Magnitsky