Posts Tagged ‘mocow times’
Washington to Release Magnitsky Blacklist Today
The Kremlin was bracing for the release late Friday of a U.S. blacklist of Russians that could include Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
At the same time, the authorities were preparing to release their own blacklist with U.S. citizens.
Washington was expected to release its blacklist at 2 p.m. (10 p.m. Moscow time). The list, required under the Magnitsky Act signed into law in December, aims to punish Russian officials implicated of human rights violations by barring their entry into the U.S. and depriving them of U.S.-based assets.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman acknowledged Friday that the release of the blacklists would further strain relations between the two countries.
“The appearance of any kind of blacklist will, of course, have a negative impact on Russian-U.S. relations,” Peskov said.
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No Financial Center Without Rule of Law
The plans to make the Moscow stock market into a major international exchange and Moscow into a major international financial center are, unfortunately, one big pipe dream as long as the regime of President Vladimir Putin continues to trample over private property rights.
Foreign investors will not bring their money into a financial marketplace in significant amounts until they can be assured that their investments are protected by a strong rule of law and an independent judiciary. As Russian capital continues to flee the country, a natural question arises: If Russians don’t trust their own country’s financial markets, why should foreign investors?
The Russian government and its senior officials continue to delude themselves every day. The growth that has occurred in Russia in the past 10 years is not because of Putin. It is despite him. The absurd criminal trial of a deceased Sergei Magnitsky is a pathetic attempt to deceive Russians and cover up the corrupt activities of Kremlin officials. It is right out of the Soviet playbook, as is the Russian ban on adoptions of Russian orphans by U.S. citizens.
Despite populist statements by the government about efforts to improve the business climate, the Kremlin’s control of the courts continues to be the law of the land. The cases of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his colleagues Platon Lebedev, Vasily Aleksanyan, Svetlana Bakhmina and others awakened the world to Russian justice under Putin. Magnitsky and the corruption exhibited by the Russian administration in everything associated with that case are indicative of complete lack of a rule of law and a continuation of the obfuscation.
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