Posts Tagged ‘luke harding’
Bill Browder: the Kremlin threatened to kill me
I’m due to meet Bill Browder at Mari Vanna, a favourite hangout for rich Russians in Knightsbridge. But when we get there the restaurant, with its rustic dacha-style Russian decor, leaves us both feeling slightly spooked. So we wander across the road to an anonymous sushi bar. Browder’s reluctance to avoid bumping into anyone with Kremlin connections is understandable. As he explains, matter-of-factly: “They [the Kremlin] threatened to kill me. It’s pretty straightforward.”
American-born Browder is one of Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critics. For over a decade he lived in Moscow and ran the most successful investment fund in Russia. Initially, he was a fan of Putin’s. But in 2005 he was deported from the country. A corrupt group of officials expropriated his fund, Hermitage Capital, and used it to make a fraudulent tax claim. They stole $230m (£153m).
Stuck in London, Browder hired a team to fight his case. The same Russian officials arrested his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, after Magnitsky uncovered the money trail and made a complaint. They put Magnitsky in jail and refused him medical treatment. (Magnitsky suffered from pancreatitis and gall stones.) After he had spent almost a year behind bars, guards beat him to death. He was 37 and married with two small boys.
The incident had a transforming effect on Browder. “If Magnitsky had not been my lawyer he would still be alive,” he says. He describes Magnitsky’s death as “absolutely heartbreaking”. “If he hadn’t taken on my case he’d still be enjoying his life, being a father, looking after his wife. A young man whom I was responsible for died in the most horrific way because he worked for me.”
Browder’s memoir, published next week, recounts how Magnitsky’s death changed him from entrepreneur to global human rights crusader. Its title is Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s No.1 Enemy; and it reads like a non-fiction version of a Mario Puzo thriller. There’s a ruthless crime syndicate, a mafia boss – for Michael Corleone read Putin – and a growing tally of bodies.
Ever since Magnitsky’s murder in 2009 Browder has waged an extraordinary campaign to bring the officials to justice. Not in a court of law – there’s no prospect of a trial inside Russia – but in the wider court of international public opinion.
After footslogging round Washington, Browder succeeded in persuading US Congress to pass a groundbreaking Sergei Magnitsky law. The 2012 legislation imposed visa bans on the bureaucrats implicated in Magnistky’s murder. It denied them access to US banks. Putin was furious. In 2013 a Russian judge sentenced Browder in absentia to nine years in jail, and, bizarrely, “convicted” the already-dead Magnitsky. The Kremlin sent a Red Notice warrant to Interpol demanding Browder’s extradition. Interpol refused, but Moscow is currently putting together a third extradition bid.
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Tory blushes deepen over activities of Conservative Friends of Russia
It seemed like the perfect fact-finding mission. Ten days in Moscow and St Petersburg, trips to the state ballet (Figaro and Don Quixote), and meetings with top Russian politicians. There was a visit to the world-famous Hermitage Museum. Not to mention gala dinners and an afternoon sightseeing at the Kremlin.
At least four activists from the Conservative Friends of Russia group took part in the trip in September. A photo shows the Tories posing on a red carpet inside the Duma, Russia’s state parliament. The official itinerary describes them, flatteringly, as “young political leaders from Great Britain”. Best of all, a Russian federal cultural agency, Rossotrudnichestvo, picked up the bill for travel, hotel and tickets.
Three months later, the group is in disarray, amid questions about its behind-the-scenes links to the Russian embassy in London and its alleged uncritical cheerleading for Vladimir Putin. Last week, its honorary president, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, resigned. Rifkind said he had been unhappy for some time about the group’s behaviour and “political direction”.
The “final straw” came when Conservative Friends of Russia launched a scurrilous attack on the Labour MP Chris Bryant, and posted a photo of Bryant in his Y-fronts, Rifkind said. More resignations followed. Since the weekend, two more Tory MPs have quit, Robert Buckland and deputy speaker Nigel Evans.
Most humiliating of all, Prince Michael of Kent – a Russian-speaker who looks uncannily like Russia’s last tsar – pulled out of the group’s “old” new year dinner at the SamarQuand restaurant.
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How Kremlin got diplomats to woo Tories
The Kremlin instructed its diplomats in London to deepen their “co-operation” with the Conservative party in an apparent attempt to mute criticism of Russia’s human rights record and to rebuild ties following the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
Emails seen by the Guardian show the Russian embassy has played a key behind-the-scenes role in the gaffe-prone Conservative Friends of Russia. The group, which held its launch party in the garden of the Russian ambassador in August, is on the brink of collapse after the resignation last week of Sir Malcolm Rifkind, its honorary president. Two other Tory MPs, Nigel Evans and Robert Buckland, also quit after the group published a photo of a Labour MP, Chris Bryant, in his underpants. On Thursday, Prince Michael of Kent pulled out of its new year dinner. Hours later its website went offline.
The Guardian has also learned that the group’s diplomatic contact inside the Russian embassy, Sergey Nalobin, has family ties to Russia’s intelligence agencies. His father, Nikolai Nalobin, is a former KGB general. Nalobin Sr worked in a top role with the FSB, the successor to the KGB, which the government believes was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko’s widow Marina said General Nalobin was her husband’s boss in the 1990s when Litvinenko was an FSB agent.
Sergey Nalobin’s brother also worked for the FSB, according to the Russian press. Vladimir Putin, a former KGB spy, was head of the FSB before becoming Russian president in 2000.
Sources suggest it was Sergey Nalobin who invited Richard Royal, the chairman of Conservative Friends of Russia, and other members, to visit Moscow and St Petersburg in September on a 10-day trip paid for by the Russian government. The diplomat also set up meetings there with politicians from Putin’s United Russia and other Kremlin-approved parties. Nalobin also arranged the launch event in the ambassador’s Kensington garden and is pictured under the organisation’s banner.
Russian diplomats were “instructed by Moscow” to explore how the Conservatives and United Russia could co-operate in the Council of Europe. The two parties belong to the same faction in the council’s parliamentary assembly, with Tory members frequently voting with their Russian colleagues against motions condemning Moscow.
Sergei Cristo, a Russian-born Tory activist and fundraiser, said Nalobin approached him in December 2010, seeking introductions to top Conservative party figures. According to Cristo, Nalobin also offered to make donations to Conservative party funds via UK-registered, Russian-owned companies. No companies were named, however, and the offer never materialised.
In an April 2011 email, Nalobin wrote to Cristo: “We’ve received instructions from Moscow – to discuss the perspective of co-operation between British Conservatives and United Russia in the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. With whom would it be best to discuss this question?”
Nalobin also inquired if there were young Tories who might be interested in travelling to Moscow to attend a Kremlin-sponsored youth forum. He was subsequently in contact with Royal, the group’s chairman, and with other activists who went on to form Conservative Friends of Russia. Royal and Nalobin met days before the group’s Moscow trip. Asked if he was aware of Nalobin’s ties to Russian intelligence, Royal declined to comment.
Russia has multiple reasons for seeking to influence the Conservatives. The increasingly Eurosceptic Tory party has shunned its traditional centre-right allies in Europe in favour of a pact with Putin’s party. The two are pillars of the European Democrat Group (EDG), which can only function if they cooperate. Russia has forged ad hoc alliances with the Tories and others to see off motions it regards as hostile – over its 2008 war with Georgia, for example. Moscow’s priority is to prevent the UK and other EU countries from introducing the Magnistky Act, named after the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was beaten to death in prison in Russia in 2009.
The act was approved last week by the US House of Representatives. It envisages banning 60 senior Russian officials implicated in the alleged theft of $230m (£143m) in taxes paid by Hermitage Capital, an investment fund.
The government opposes a similar act in the UK, despite widespread cross-party support. If implented it would prevent Russian officials accused of serious abuses from visiting London, a favourite destination for Kremlin bureaucrats and affluent Russians.
Surrey police are still investigating the mysterious death of Alexander Perepilichnyy, a Russian businessman, who collapsed and died on 10 November outside his mansion in Weybridge, Surrey. He had supplied bank documents to Swiss investigators probing money allegedly stolen in the Magnitsky scam.
The Nalobin email
From: Sergey Nalobin
To: Sergei Cristo
Subject: PR
Date: 25 April 2011
Dear Sergei, Thanks for the link. Will think about this. Two points:
1. We’ve received instructions from Moscow – to discuss the perspective of co-operation between British Conservatives and United Russia in the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. With whom would it be best to discuss this question?
2. http://youthforum.ru/ Have a look, please, perhaps this is of interest to young Tory leaders?
Best wishes,
Sergei Nalobin быстрые займы онлайн займы на карту срочно https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/best-payday-loans.php срочный займ на карту онлайн
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Second postmortem on Russian whistleblower found dead in Surrey
Surrey police are carrying out a second postmortem on a Russian whistleblower found dead outside his Surrey home, three years after he fled to the UK to escape a Russian crime syndicate.
Detectives said they were awaiting the results of toxicology tests on 44-year-old Alexander Perepilichnyy. An earlier postmortem was “inconclusive”, they said. The Russian businessman, who had appeared in good health, was found collapsed earlier this month outside his luxury mansion in Weybridge. He was discovered at 5.15pm and pronounced dead 25 minutes later. Witnesses said he was wearing shorts and running shoes. According to his wife, he had been for a run.
Police are so far describing the death as “unexplained”. But Perepilichnyy was a man with enemies. He had accused Russian government officials of complicity in one of the biggest tax scandals in Russian history. The case involved the interior ministry and the alleged theft of $230m (£144m) in taxes paid by the Hermitage investment fund to the Russian government. A Russian lawyer who uncovered the scam, Sergei Magnitsky, was jailed by the authorities and died in prison three years ago.
According to Hermitage, Perepilichnyy was a key witness against one of Russia’s most notorious criminal gangs, the “Klyuev group”. The group’s members include Russian officials in law enforcement, the FSB spy agency, the tax agency and senior judges. Its members are allegedly responsible for a series of multimillion dollar tax frauds, dating back over a decade and including the Magnitsky case. They are said to have siphoned off $800m. Perepilichnyy is the fourth person linked to the group to have died a sudden death.
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Vladimir Putin to snub London 2012 Olympics
Exclusive: Russian president will send Dmitry Medvedev to Games instead, illustrating Kremlin vitriol towards Britain. Vladimir Putin will not be coming to the London Olympics, diplomatic sources have said, in an apparent signal of the Russian president’s continuing displeasure and irritation with Britain.
Putin won’t attend the London 2012 opening ceremony on 27 July, sources confirmed, despite the fact that Moscow will host the Winter Olympics in 2014 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Instead, the Russian president is likely to dispatch his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, to London.
The snub follows Putin’s controversial decision earlier this month to boycott the G8 summit hosted by the US president, Barack Obama. Putin claimed he was too busy forming his new government to attend, and sent Medvedev instead. He has accused the US of inciting street protests against him and is unhappy with Washington’s missile defence plans in Europe.
Putin has a long list of grievances against Britain. As well as the unresolved Alexander Litvinenko affair – a source of smouldering tension – the Kremlin has been infuriated by calls to ban senior Russians accused of human rights abuses.
In March, a group of backbench MPs voted to refuse visas to officials implicated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in prison, in 2009. The Foreign Office has so far ignored the non-binding vote and ruled out a Magnitsky ban.
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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
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UK ‘should tell Vladimir Putin he is not welcome at Olympics’
MPs call for Russian prime minister to be told he is not wanted at London games unless Russia improves human rights record.
Britain should tell Vladimir Putin that he is not welcome at the London Olympics unless Russia makes meaningful efforts to improve its human rights record, MPs will say.
In a move likely to infuriate the Kremlin, Labour’s former Europe minister Denis MacShane will make a parliamentary call for the government to make it clear that Putin is not wanted at the games.
Dozens of heads of state are expected to attend the opening ceremony on 27 July. The Queen will preside over the ceremony, with each national team – including Russia – taking part in a parade.
Putin, currently the prime minister, is certain to win Russia’s presidential election in March despite public discontent and huge protests against election fraud last month. He will be back in the Kremlin and on the international stage from May.
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Fragments of a Defunct State
How to characterise the Putin regime, a now shaken and besieged ruling group sometimes said to be the richest in the history of the world? ‘Soft authoritarianism’, ‘hybrid regime’, ‘managed democracy’: the labels reveal less about Russia than about the inability of commentators to loosen the Cold War’s lingering hold on their thinking.
Luke Harding was the Guardian correspondent in Russia between 2007 and 2011 who last February was turned back at Domodedovo Airport and told that his presence in the country was no longer welcome. An editorial in the Guardian described it as ‘the first removal of a British staff journalist from the country since the end of the Cold War’. Harding himself sees his account of Putin’s Russia as a kind of codicil to Malcolm Muggeridge’s denunciation of the Soviet Union when he was the Manchester Guardian’s correspondent in 1932-33. ‘Eight decades on,’ Harding writes, ‘not much has changed’: ‘Kremlinology is back’; Russia ‘has become the world’s foremost spy-state’; ‘KGB habits of secrecy’ have returned; ‘Russia’s state media are still stuck in Cold War battle mode.’ And so on. Harding is not alone in this view. But it’s wrong. Putin doesn’t represent a return to Soviet ways; it’s something very different and more anarchic.
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Fragments of a Defunct State
How to characterise the Putin regime, a now shaken and besieged ruling group sometimes said to be the richest in the history of the world? ‘Soft authoritarianism’, ‘hybrid regime’, ‘managed democracy’: the labels reveal less about Russia than about the inability of commentators to loosen the Cold War’s lingering hold on their thinking.
Luke Harding was the Guardian correspondent in Russia between 2007 and 2011 who last February was turned back at Domodedovo Airport and told that his presence in the country was no longer welcome. An editorial in the Guardian described it as ‘the first removal of a British staff journalist from the country since the end of the Cold War’. Harding himself sees his account of Putin’s Russia as a kind of codicil to Malcolm Muggeridge’s denunciation of the Soviet Union when he was the Manchester Guardian’s correspondent in 1932-33. ‘Eight decades on,’ Harding writes, ‘not much has changed’: ‘Kremlinology is back’; Russia ‘has become the world’s foremost spy-state’; ‘KGB habits of secrecy’ have returned; ‘Russia’s state media are still stuck in Cold War battle mode.’ And so on. Harding is not alone in this view. But it’s wrong. Putin doesn’t represent a return to Soviet ways; it’s something very different and more anarchic.
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