Posts Tagged ‘brenton’
Russia’s treatment of US ambassador a reflection of shaky relations
In the past eight days, the US ambassador to Russia has been harassed by state media, called arrogant by his host country’s foreign minister and had guests accosted outside his home by the Kremlin youth group Nashi.
American officials had been assured that the anti-US rhetoric streaming out of Moscow since the end of last year was part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to return to the presidency, a populist move to blame Russia’s ills on a tested enemy of yore. But the continued attacks on Michael McFaul, who took up his post as ambassador in January, have raised questions about the fate of US-Russia relations under Putin’s presidency.
The latest incident came on Wednesday, when Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, chided McFaul for reacting “arrogantly” to Russian concerns over US plans to build a missile defence shield in Europe.
“Yesterday our colleague, the US ambassador, arrogantly announced there will be no changes on missile defence, even though it would seem that an ambassador should understand it is necessary to take the interests of the state in question into account,” Lavrov said.
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Oxford Union Debate: “What Happens in Russia Cannot Just Stay in Russia”
Khodorkovsky & Lebedev Communications Center
Oxford Students Agree with Pavel Khodorkovsky that “What Happens in Russia Cannot Just Stay in Russia”
On October 18th, at one of the world’s most famous debating societies, the Oxford Union, a packed chamber debated the motion “This House Believes That What Happens in Russia Stays in Russia”
Speaking on the proposition were: Edward Hicks a student at Oxford’s St Anne’s college, The Independent’s Foreign Correspondent Mary Dejevsky, Chief Executive of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, Stephen Dalziel and a rather reluctant Sir Tony Brenton, former UK Ambassador to Russia.
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Moscow Martyr
When David Cameron arrives in Moscow this month for the first visit by a British prime minister since the Litvinenko murder five years ago, both sides will be keen to downplay the issue of human rights. In his talks with President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, there will doubtless be echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s remark when she first met Mikhail Gorbachev in 1984: “We can do business together.”
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Former ambassador to Russia demands UK act on Magnitsky death
Britain’s former Ambassador to Russia has attacked the Government for failing to crack down on a group of Russian officials allegedly linked to the death of the anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and implicated in a $230m (£140m) alleged fraud.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, Sir Tony Brenton, Ambassador to Russia from 2004 to 2008, urges the UK authorities to make “publicly clear their abhorrence at what has happened” and to ban those concerned from entry into the UK.
His comments follow a unanimous vote in the Dutch Parliament for the 60 Russian officials identified by UK-based hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management and law firm Jamison Firestone, for which Mr Magnitsky worked, to be barred entry into the country.
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Bugs, bribes and burglary: Tony Brenton discovered how far Russia’s rulers would go to keep power…
Should you get home to find the door to your flat unlocked from the inside, that’s just the FSB (the KGB’s successor) letting you know they called. If you pick up the phone to hear your voice played back, as I have, someone is recording your conversations.
Such was my life in Russia during my time as a senior official and then as British Ambassador from 2004 to 2008.
Occasionally the surveillance and harassment were merely funny, such as when a female colleague spotted a handsome man three times in the course of the same day before realising this was the FSB trailing her.
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From top to bottom, how corruption infects Russia
The claims made in the WikiLeaks cables come as no surprise to Shaun Walker.
Everywhere you look in Russia, there are stories of corruption, whether it’s a traffic policeman shaking down a motorist for a few pounds, or a businessman complaining that top-ranking government officials demanded millions of pounds in kickbacks or bribes. So the allegations contained in WikiLeaks’ US diplomatic cables originating in Moscow are not that surprising to anyone who knows the country well.
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Russia and the Rule of Law
EU Russia Centre
by Anthony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia
The inadequacies of Russia’s legal and judicial systems have recently been very much on display. The second trial of fallen oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which looks no less politically motivated than the first, is approaching its close. We have just marked the first anniversary of the death in custody of Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, imprisoned for a year without charge for exposing deep corruption in the Russian Interior Ministry. Yet another respected investigative journalist has been beaten up, and another opposition oligarch found himself subject to the aggressive attention of the Tax Police. Russia has fallen to 154th place (out of 178) in Transparency International’s ranking of countries in terms of the perceived corruption of their public officials (including police and judges), placing Russia well below eg Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Nigeria. Close to 30% of the cases currently awaiting attention by the European court of Human Rights now concern Russia, far more than for any other country.
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