Posts Tagged ‘putin’
The Empire is Still Evil
Twenty-first century Russia has three famous faces: Anna Chapman, the failed spy, who came in from the cold to become a red hot sex symbol back home; Alexander Litvinenko, the spy-turned-dissident, who was poisoned by a radioactive polonium isotope in London; and Vladimir Putin, the KGB colonel-turned-president, who had himself re-elected for a six-year term last month. It is no accident that all three of these faces belong to former intelligence officers. The point of Deception is to explain how and why Putin’s Russia has succeeded in fooling us all, both about its own sinister nexus of espionage, politics and finance, and about its insidious corruption of the West. This important book is a sequel to the author’s last indictment of the Putin regime, The New Cold War, which came out four years ago. Deception is, if anything, even more devastating.
At this point, I should declare an interest: I have known Edward Lucas for a quarter of a century, ever since he and I covered the revolutions in Eastern Europe that heralded the fall of the Soviet Union — he for the BBC World Service, I for the Daily Telegraph. In those days, Ed was a kind of one-man world service, rushing from press conference to demonstration, from the dungeons of the dissidents to the palaces of the politburos, reporting and commenting, sharing in the euphoria but never letting himself be carried away by it. He has not lost his missionary zeal to this day: as a senior editor at the Economist he is still unmasking the enemies of civilisation.
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Romney is Right on Russia
I would first like to congratulate the left wing media for making me do something I never thought I would, defend Mitt Romney. I am sure by this point we have all seen the video of Barack Obama whispering to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to “give him some space on missile defense, after the election I will have more flexibility.”
Afterward Mitt Romney rightly condemned this statement and labeled Russia a chief geopolitical rival. I could probably right an entire book on why this was correct; however I will just give a few highlights of the lovable teddy bears that are Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev and the regime that they have overseen for more than a decade.
1) Russian oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky is currently serving his second prison sentence in Russian prison on trumped up charges of tax evasion after he had signaled a possible challenge to Putin’s political career
2) Whistle blower Sergei Magnitsky died in prison due to the fact that he was not allowed medical treatment. Magnitsky’s crime was exposing corruption within Putin’s Interior
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Russia Explained, and It’s Not a Pretty Picture
If you have ever had the feeling that we never quite get the whole truth about Russia, Edward Lucas, in his new book, will explain why you have that feeling. Supposedly Russia is a democratic, market-driven capitalistic society, yet the country never makes any news other than when it’s shutting off gas supplies to Western Europe. Brazil makes business news. So do China and India. Those countries are making the world a more productive place. Russia, on the other hand, declares itself to be an economic power, but as you will learn in Lucas’s Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West, Russia verges on being nothing but a huge criminal organization.
While he’s painting a horrific picture of Russia, Lucas also gives a detailed accounting of the espionage business. “Outsiders catch only fleeting glimpses of life in the shadows,” Lucas writes. His book takes readers into the shadows where almost comical ineptitude mixes with harrowing accounts of spies who met their ends at the hands of the Russian intelligence agencies.
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The Man Without a Face: Six Questions for Masha Gessen
Vladimir Putin is emerging as an iconic figure for Russian politics in the period following the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he remains rather mysterious even at home, and widely misunderstood abroad. Now Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen has completed a comprehensive and penetrating look at the experiences that shaped Putin and the character of his stewardship of Russia. I put six questions to Gessen about her new book, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin:
1. Vladimir Putin has been elected once more as president of the Russian Federation, but this time observers say the outcome was marked by extreme fraud. How do you expect Putin to cope with a growing opposition that increasingly includes urban elites once close to him?
The smart thing to do would be to institute some reforms—this would pacify some of the protesters and possibly even effectively divide the movement. Outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev has indicated that he will introduce an electoral-reform package that would reverse some of the damage done in the Putin era, and he has indeed even formed a working group that includes at least one protest leader. So some optimists are hoping for a Gorbachev-style scenario, where the system slowly dismantles itself from the inside. I, however, hold out little hope for that. I think Putin will find it too difficult to resist his natural urge to punish the opposition and tighten the screws in the hopes of preventing further protest. And this, I think, will ultimately speed up his demise by consolidating and radicalizing the opposition.
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Vladimir Putin: Russia’s once and future president
The former KGB agent is elected to his third term as Russia’s president. But do Russians really respect him?
Was Putin fairly elected?
Not remotely, but that’s not to say anyone could have beaten him. Since he first took the helm in Russia, in 1999, Vladimir Putin has ruled with a modified form of Soviet-style authoritarianism that he calls “managed democracy.” The idea is that weakened state institutions, including the electoral system, yield to the designs of a strong leader. That entails some outright fraud; monitors found evidence of “carousel voting,” in which busloads of voters travel around casting ballots under different names, and in Chechnya, more pro-Putin votes were counted than there were registered voters. But managed democracy relies even more on subtler manipulations. Technical reasons are found to prevent opposition parties from registering. Massive state resources, including almost all TV and radio news, are brought to bear in favor of the Kremlin. Phony “opposition candidates” are put forward. Those tactics delivered Putin an official victory of almost 64 percent. That number was surely inflated, but Putin does inspire heartfelt devotion among many Russians.
Why do they admire him?
Putin represents stability, a welcome contrast to the chaos of the first decade after the Soviet Union dissolved, in 1991. Under Boris Yeltsin, a few tycoons, known as oligarchs, were allowed to plunder state resources in a period of wild privatization that plunged millions into poverty. Putin reversed that process, reasserting firm central control over Russian resources. During his reign, the Russian economy has grown by an average of 7 percent a year, poverty has been halved, and the average monthly salary of Russians has more than tripled. High global prices for Russia’s vast oil and natural gas resources played a big role in that success. But many Russians give Putin credit for the fact that they are much better off than ever before.
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Statement to the European parliament about Russian Elections by HR Catherine Ashton
Statement to the European parliament on the outcome of Presidential elections in Russia on behalf of HR CatherineAshton delivered by Danish Foreign Minster Villy Søvndal
Strasbourg 14 March
Mr. President, Honourable Members,
It is my pleasure to be here today to discuss with you the outcome of the Presidential elections in
Russia on behalf of High Representative/Vice-President Ashton.
Let me first of all thank Parliament for the strong voice it has consistently been giving to European
citizens’ concerns about democracy, fair elections and human rights in Russia.
Russia is our largest neighbor, an important business partner and indeed a Strategic Partner for many global and regional issues. So it matters to our citizens what the situation with human rights and the rule of law is in Russia.
Parliament has followed both the Russian State Duma elections of 4 December and the Presidential
elections of 4 March very closely.
It has adopted several resolutions expressing the expectations of European citizens for Russia to live
up to her international commitments to ensure free and fair elections. You have also given High Representative/Vice President Ashton several opportunities to address the Plenary on these crucial issues.
In addition, several hearings have taken place since December on these elections and on human rights more generally, organized by the Foreign Affairs Committee, by the Subcommittee on Human Rights, by the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee with Russia, and by individual political groups.
Catherine Ashton has asked me to thank Parliament for all this important work. She also asked me to in particular convey the message that she shares Parliament’s concerns about the case of the arrest and death in pre-trial detention of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky.
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EU should target Russia’s big spenders
Vladimir Putin has succeeded in returning to the Russian presidency despite several tumultuous months of anti-regime protests, but his rule is likely to be entering its final phase.
Many of those who view Putin’s regime as illegitimate do so because of electoral fraud and rampant corruption, and the protest movement has demanded a more European Russia: clean elections, an end to the Putinist monopoly on power and a halt to rampant graft.
There is, however, next to nothing the West can do to play politics inside Russia. In fact, bombastic comments from American officials have only helped Putin frame the movement as Western-funded to a nation deeply suspicious of foreign meddling.
But with Putin far weaker than in his previous presidential incarnation, the European Union can exercise real influence in Moscow, thanks to its role as Russia’s largest trading partner and hydrocarbon consumer, cultural magnet, and the destination of much of the proceeds of Russian corruption.
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How do we deal with Russia?
1. Russia is a business, not a functioning constitutional, let alone democratic nation-state. There is no distinction between political and business life, between state employees and those who run enterprises of any shape. From the collapse of communism onwards, politics has been paid for by the parastatal and private sector enterprises principally based on energy, raw materials and construction. The deals are written by lawyers, many of them working for big City firms with some experts reckoning that as much as a quarter of the City’s income comes from Russian related dealing.
2. The old communist nomenklatura have converted themselves into Russian Plc, a kind of giant John Lewis where everyone expects a share. Appeals to Russia to conform to European norms or deal with the west as a responsible geopolitical partner are talking to an empty room. If there are material advantages for Russia from Putin down to junior elected officials, then a deal is possible. Asking Russia, for example, to hand over Syria, one of its favoured arms clients, to Saudi-controlled Wahhabi Sunnis spells an instant loss for one of Russian most important export markets.
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Violence Stoked Fear to Fuel Putin’s Rise to Power: Book Review
More than 300 hostages — half of them children — were killed in a Beslan schoolhouse in 2004, following a firefight between their Chechen captors and Russian troops. Ten days later, President Vladimir Putin announced a sweeping overhaul of Russia’s political system.
He declared that regional governors as well as the mayor of Moscow would be appointed by the president rather than elected. Members of the lower house of parliament would also be appointed. Political parties would have to re-register, making it all but impossible to get on a ballot without Kremlin approval.
The upshot of the changes was to undermine — if not obliterate — the quasi-functioning democracy that had taken root in Russia since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, writes Moscow-based journalist Masha Gessen in her engrossing and insightful book, “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.” From then on, the president would be the only directly elected federal-level public official.
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