West needs to engage with ordinary Russians
Vladimir Putin, after a campaign dripping with anti-western vitriol, has won a presidential election that monitors and Russia’s newly-emboldened opposition say was deeply flawed. How should the west respond?
US and European Union leaders are already being criticised – including by Russian pro-democracy groups – for tepid criticism of the alleged voting fraud. One European parliamentarian has said there should be “no business as usual” with Mr Putin’s regime.
But many in Russian civil society and the intelligentsia say it is crucial for the west not to isolate Russia at the very moment that its middle-class political consciousness is flowering.
Doing so could provide cover for a Kremlin clampdown on the nascent opposition. It would make it harder, too, to counter official propaganda that the financial crisis and eurozone problems prove western-style market democracy is not a shining model for Russia.
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Putin’s election victory is a headache for the west
The Guardian
After Sunday’s Russian election, David Cameron called Vladimir Putin. He didn’t quite congratulate him, but Cameron said that he looked forward to working with Russia’s new president when he moved back into the Kremlin. The PM also said he hoped London and Moscow could “overcome the obstacles in the relationship”, which, as everyone knows, are rather large.
Putin’s election victory on Sunday poses a dilemma for all western nations, not just the UK. Nobody is any doubt that the Putin who returns to the Kremlin in May is the same Putin who has effectively run Russia for the past 12 years – prickly, uncompromising, suspicious and fond of snide remarks about western hypocrisy and double standards.
Inside Russia, the middle-class-led, Moscow-centric uprising against Putin is likely to continue. But the calculation inside EU foreign ministries is that Putin will tough out the protests and complete his new term in office until 2018. For better or for worse, then, it is Putin who will call the shots on Russia’s foreign policy and prove strategically co-operative – or not – on the western Balkans, Syria, Iran and other international problems.
Relations between London and Moscow have been tricky for nearly a decade. They were made worse by the 2006 polonium assassination of Alexander Litvinenko. Cameron has attempted a mini “reset” of ties, including a visit last year to Moscow with William Hague. But while his emphasis is on British business interests, Hague can’t afford to ignore Russia’s abysmal human rights record. Plus, there is the outstanding extradition request – rejected by Putin – for Andrei Lugovoi, Litvinenko’s alleged murderer.
“All foreign policy and diplomatic relations are a mixture of realpolitik and moralpolitik,” said Denis MacShane, Labour’s former Europe minister. He believes the “big foreign ministries of the world” need to get together to work out how to deal with Putin over the next five to 10 years, while also reaching out to Russia’s growing opposition. They need to bear in mind that Putin won’t last for ever, he said: “We should learn from lying back and having our tummy tickled by Gaddafi and Assad.”
Over the past decade, nobody had managed to come up with a successful Putinpolitik, or policy towards Russia, MacShane added. “The Germans refuse to criticise him. Mrs Clinton announced a great reset after the George Bush era. Blair rushed to embrace him. Cameron, to be fair, has been more cautious and distant. But none of this has worked.”
MacShane and other MPs will call for 60 Russian officials involved in the killing of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to be named and shamed – and to be denied entry to the UK. Magnitsky died in prison in 2009. Officials refused him medical treatment. The 37-year-old had accused Russian interior ministry officials of having stolen £150m in taxes paid by Hermitage, a British asset management company.
The backbench debate has attracted heavyweight support from three former foreign secretaries and Tory and Labour MPs. A similar bill in the US is making progress towards Senate approval. Foreign Office officials hint there is some government will for a travel ban for corrupt officials – but it would have to be applied globally. For the moment the emphasis with Russia is on business matters – Russia is Britain’s third biggest trading partner.
According to David Clark, a former adviser to Robin Cook and chair of the Russia Foundation, visa bans and asset freezes are one of the few levers Britain has in its dealings with Moscow. “They make Russian officials extremely angry,” Clark said. “They are scared by the idea because they love to go shopping in London.
‘It isn’t like old Soviet times, with everyone penned into an insular state and not able to travel. Kremlin bureaucrats are global now. And while they proclaim Russian nationalism, they regard themselves as global citizens.” Russian officials enjoyed “hobnobbing” in Britain, Clark said – which was also a place where Russia’s elite offshores its money. He conceded, however, that there were obstacles towards taking a tougher line on Moscow, principally European disunity and dependency on Russian oil and gas. Clark singled out German and Italy, and to a lesser extent France, for their accommodating attitude towards Moscow, which saw “unilateralist commercial interests” placed above human rights. “You have to identify the point of vulnerability in Putin’s system. There is a disconnect between this greater Russia chauvinism and Russian officials jetting around the place.”
For the moment, the best cards remain with Putin. Over the past week, he has hinted that he is willing to let Britain play a role in the Nord Stream project, which will see Siberian gas pumped under the Baltic directly to Germany. He has also struck a slightly more conciliatory tone on Syria. This may be helpful. It may not. Either way, it is now Putin – and not the hapless Dmitry Medvedev – who is again the west’s interlocutor. hairy women срочный займ на карту https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php займ на карту
Visas and dirty money
SERGEI MAGNITSKY was a Russian lawyer who uncovered a $230m fraud perpetrated by officials against taxpayers, and paid with his life. Since his death in prison in 2009 (he was denied medical treatment as part of an attempt to make him switch sides), campaigners, including his client, the American-born British investor Bill Browder, have been trying to get Western governments to withhold visas from the 60-odd officials involved in the fraud and his persecution.
In Britain, the former Europe minister Denis MacShane has pursued this issue hard, most recently in a debate on January 11th in which he named many of the officials concerned (something that libel-shy British media have so far been reluctant to do). Now the ball is getting another hefty kick thanks to Dominic Raab, the MP for Esher & Walton. With the support of his backbench Tory colleagues, he has instigated a “Backbench Business Debate” on the Magnitsky list on March 7. The motion is as follows:
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MPs mount campaign to ban Russian visas over Sergei Magnitsky death
Backbench MPs will on Wednesday pile pressure on the Government to ban a number of senior Russian officials from entering the UK by demanding action against those allegedly linked to the death of an anti-corruption lawyer working for a British hedge fund in Moscow.
Dominic Raab, Conservative MP for Esher & Walton, has tabled a motion for a backbench debate in the Chamber of the House of Commons, after Prime Minister’s Questions, to vote for legislation to bar visas for 60 Russians connected to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, who worked for Hermitage Capital, and to seize their assets.
The motion has the support of five former foreign ministers, including David Miliband, Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Others backing it include former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis and former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell. In total, 26 MPs have signed the motion.
The law would be based on similar arrangements as in the US, which has barred entry to the 60 individuals, including the Russian deputy solicitor general, the deputy interior minister, and the head of the economic espionage unit at the Federal Security Service – the successor to the KGB.
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Russian Elections Did Not Bring a Surprise–but Now What?
A recent Heritage event analyzed Russia’s presidential election and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. The election was held in the aftermath of mass protests against Russian leadership’s corruption and disregard for the rule of law.
According to David Kramer, President of Freedom House, Putin already lost in three ways: 1) by losing his claim to legitimacy, apparent from the mass scale of protests as well as a failure to secure a majority in the recent Duma elections; 2) because the fear that allowed Putin to continue his authoritarian policy is diminishing; and 3) by losing his aura of political invincibility. All these factors make Putin dependent on creating a myth of an outside (U.S.) threat to justify his hardline ways. From the December–February mass demonstrations in Russia, however, it is clear that the Russians are tired of the prevailing corruption that Putin allowed to flourish.
According to Vladimir Kara-Murza, Washington bureau chief for RTVi television network, the current protests are even more significant than those in the early 1990s. This is because while in the 1990s Russian people protested against poor economic conditions in the country, today they demand rule of law.
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Russia: 100-Day Priorities for New President
Vladimir Putin should ensure starting key reforms during his first 100 days in office after he is confirmed as the victor in the March 4 vote, Human Rights Watch said today.
In response to the unprecedented street demonstrations that followed the December 4, 2011 parliamentary election, Putin and other leaders promised political and economic reform.
Some of the reforms that would liberalize the political system passed their first reading in parliament on February 29, 2012.
“The Russian government has done the right thing by not interfering with public protests and proposing some reforms,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Russia’s president can effectively demonstrate continued commitment to the rule of law by taking some straightforward, concrete steps during his first 100 days in office.”
Russia deserves an open, tolerant environment for civil society, Human Rights Watch said. In the months leading up to the vote, Putin implied that Russia’s civil society was sponsored by the West and accused the opposition and his critics of “feeding off” Western grants. Human Rights Watch said the government should hold accountable those responsible for violent attacks on human rights defenders, whistleblowers, and investigative journalists, and foster the independence of Russia’s judiciary.
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U.S. must maintain way to press Putin regime on human rights
HAVING CAMPAIGNED on a platform of anti-Americanism, Vladimir Putin likely will be proclaimed the winner of Sunday’s presidential election in Russia, giving him a new six-year mandate — and likely inaugurating an era of unrest in a nation whose rising middle class rejects him. The United States, which has focused on cutting deals with Mr. Putin while largely ignoring his autocratic domestic policies, now has a clear interest in encouraging the emerging mass movement demanding democratic reform.
It’s therefore unfortunate that the Obama administration’s first initiative after Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency will be to lobby Congress to grant Russia permanent trade privileges. The problem is not the preferences, per se; it is the administration’s resistance to replacing an outdated protocol for pressing Moscow on human rights with one suited to this moment.
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Sunk by a wave: David Miliband writes why Russian election could be end of Putin
DAVID Miliband first met Vladimir Putin in February 2000 in Russia.
“He was the newly anointed successor to Boris Yeltsin — and the British government delegation was among the first to meet him.
I remember three things from that meeting.
That Mr Putin sat very still, his piercing eyes scrutinising his visitors.
That he gave nothing away. And that he thought the best way to mark the visit was to take us to see a blood-and-guts production of the Russian epic War and Peace.
There were dead bodies all over the stage. And Russia wins every time.
Twelve years on, Putin has served the constitutional limit of eight consecutive years as President, and four years as Prime Minister.
But his script for continued power has been torn up by a wave of popular revolt at his casual announcement in September last year that “he had agreed” to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev.
So today, there is something that would have seemed inconceivable six months ago — a Russian election where people feel their votes actually matter.
No one believes Putin will be defeated — not least because serious alternatives have been kept out of the race. But plenty of Russians think it is worth voting against him.
Experts say Putin loves to compare himself to Peter the Great — who ruled for over 40 years. His anti-hero is Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union — what Putin has described as “the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century”.
Yet his rule has ended up being compared to that of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev — a man stuck in the past while the world changes around him.
Russian nationalists, communists and liberals who have taken to the streets in their tens of thousands, in temperatures well below freezing, don’t agree about much.
But they are united against corruption, stagnation and arbitrary rule.
It is wrong to underestimate Putin. He is intelligent, worldly and ruthless.
In the first term of his presidency, in the wake of the embarrassing latter years of Boris Yeltsin, the rhetoric and to some extent reality was about reform as well as order.
Russians got their pride back — floating on a tide of oil and gas revenues. But since then Russian reform has gone into reverse, and vested interests consolidated their positions. So Putin the reactionary has come to the fore.
The economy is too dependent on oil and gas. The rule of law has fallen into disrepute. Foreign investors are afraid of getting their hands caught in the mangle.
And political and economic opponents, real and potential, and the journalists who have tried to cover their cases, have died in mysterious circumstances in Russia and abroad.
This matters to us. Russia is Europe’s neighbour and a major supplier of oil and gas to the Continent.
She sits with the UK on the UN Security Council. And we need Russia’s help on big foreign policy issues — preventing Iran becoming a nuclear weapons state, stopping further slaughter in Syria, stabilising Afghanistan.
Some say we should shut up about Russia’s domestic abuses, and just focus on making alliances on foreign policy. But that isn’t just hypocritical. It won’t work.
Russia hates its own weakness and does not respect weakness from others.
We do not need our Government to be macho. We need clarity, consistency and firmness.
It is not anti-Russian to demand justice for British citizen Alexander Litvinenko, killed on British soil.
Nor is it anti-Russian to say those responsible for the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who exposed tax fraud in Russia, should be held to account.
A Russia that is open and democratic at home won’t just be richer and more stable. It is more likely to be our partner abroad. And we should listen to her — because she has genuine insights.
In some ways I fear a weak and declining Russia more than I fear a strong and confident one. I would like to see Russia diversify its economy.
I want Russia to reverse the disastrous slide in its average life expectancy — now down to near 60 for men.
And I would like to see its remarkable people escape their tragic history at the hands of one dictatorship after another, and to do so peacefully.
Whoever wins the election today, one thing is clear: Russia will not be the same. The people of Russia have spoken up, and a wise leader would listen.
I will wager one prediction. Whether or not Vladimir Putin wins today, he will not be celebrating a fourth term in office six years from now.”
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MILIBAND ATTACKS ‘RUTHLESS’ PUTIN
Press Association
Vladimir Putin is a “ruthless” dictator whose days are numbered, David Miliband said today.
As Russians go to the polls tomorrow, the former foreign secretary warned it would be wrong to underestimate the “intelligent” leader but predicted he will not survive a six-year term at the Kremlin.
Mr Miliband chose to make the robust attack in the second edition of The Sun on Sunday, a move that will be a shot across the bows of Labour figures who are trying to distance themselves from the News International stable.
In an article for the newspaper, he wrote: “Whether or not Vladimir Putin wins today, he will not be celebrating a fourth term in office six years from now.
“Whoever wins the election today, one thing is clear: Russia will not be the same.
“The people of Russia have spoken up, and a wise leader would listen.”
Mr Putin is expected to return to the Kremlin for his third term as president following one term as prime minister but under an atmosphere of strong public unrest.
His United Russia party barely retained its parliamentary majority after elections staged in December despite alleged vote-rigging.
Police are braced for public disorder once the vote closes following unprecedented mass protests over Mr Putin’s system of so-called “managed democracy”.
Mr Miliband wrote: “Russian nationalists, communists and liberals who have taken to the streets in their tens of thousands in temperatures well below freezing don’t agree about much, but they are united against corruption, stagnation and arbitrary rule.
“It is wrong to underestimate Putin. He is intelligent, worldly and ruthless. In the first term of his presidency, in the wake of the embarrassing latter years of Boris Yeltsin, the rhetoric and to some extent reality was about reform as well as order.
“Russians got their pride back – floating on a tide of oil and gas revenues. But since then Russian reform has gone into reverse, and vested interests consolidated their positions.”
Relations between Britain and Russia reached breaking point after the murder in London of dissident critic Alexander Litvinenko. займ онлайн на карту без отказа займ на карту онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com займ на карту онлайн
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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