Posts Tagged ‘putin’
Helping Russia avoid Putin kleptocracy
Revolutions often ignite over pervasive corruption – or rather when enough people demand integrity in government. Arabs had that aha moment this year. In Russia, the moment may be soon with news that Vladimir Putin plans to take back the presidency.
Mr. Putin does not appear the greedy sort, but his harsh consolidation of power has created a political system ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt – worse than Haiti’s or Nigeria’s. Other nations might want to start planning for another Russian revolution in coming years, given what the US Embassy in Moscow has called a “virtual mafia state” centered on the Kremlin.
Polls show a declining popularity among Russians for the once highly admired Putin. And the widespread corruption – estimated at $300 billion a year in kickbacks and bribes – will only hinder necessary reforms to prevent economic troubles as Russia’s oil production declines.
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The genius of Vladimir Putin
There is one incontestably great actor on the world stage today, and he has no interest in following our script. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin — soon to be Russia’s president again — has proven remarkably effective at playing the weak strategic hand he inherited, chalking up triumph after triumph while confirming himself as the strong leader Russians crave. Not one of his international peers evidences so profound an understanding of his or her people, or possesses Putin’s canny ability to size up counterparts.
Putin’s genius — and it is nothing less — begins with an insight into governance that eluded the “great” dictators of the last century: You need control only public life, not personal lives. Putin grasped that human beings need to let off steam about the world’s ills, and that letting them do so around the kitchen table, over a bottle of vodka, does no harm to the state. His tacit compact with the Russian people is that they may do or say what they like behind closed doors, as long as they don’t take it into the streets. He saw that an authoritarian state that stops at the front door is not only tolerable but also more efficient.
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Russia’s corruptionism
WE’D LIKE TO CONGRATULATE Vladimir Putin on his exciting, come-from-behind victory to become Russia’s next president. After barnstorming across steppe and taiga, presenting a detailed program for the next six years, Mr. Putin won the enthusiastic support of —
Oh, no, wait. That’s not how things work in Russia today. Actually, the story is simpler: Vladimir Putin decided that he would like to be president again, and so he will be.
This may be good news for Dmitry Medvedev, the hapless incumbent whom Mr. Putin installed in the Kremlin in 2008, after Mr. Putin already had served eight years as president. Mr. Medvedev, who had to pretend to lead while Mr. Putin ran the show, can subside into a No. 2 post (prime minister) more suited to his character and to reality.
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Caving to the Kremlin
Judging from Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Moscow on September 12, the British government has decided to cave into the Russians in the long-running dispute over the November 2006 murder in London of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. The victim, who was highly critical of Vladimir Putin and had been given asylum in Britain in 2000, died an agonizing death at a North London hospital on November 23, three weeks after being poisoned with polonium 210—a rare and highly lethal radioactive substance. As a result of Russia’s unwillingness to cooperate with its investigation of the crime, Britain ended intelligence sharing with Moscow and introduced new visa restrictions on Russian businessmen trying to go to the UK. But Cameron’s meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev and Putin this week indicates that Britain is reassessing its Moscow strategy—and by extension, its view of the Russian leadership.
At the heart of the Litvinenko dispute has been the British authorities’ attempt to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB bodyguard, as the prime suspect in the murder. Somehow—and this raises serious questions about the possible involvement of members of the Russian government—Lugovoi and his business partner, former military intelligence officer Dmitry Kovtun, obtained polonium 210 and brought it to London on two separate trips in October-November 2006, when they met with Litvinenko. Traces of polonium were later discovered in the hotels and restaurants they visited, as well as on a British Airways plane that Lugovoi traveled on and in the apartment of Kovtun’s ex-wife, whom he stayed with in Hamburg on his way to London.
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State-Run Shakedown
Alex Shifrin thought he found a surefire way to profit from Moscow’s new consumers with an old Russian tradition: soup. Russians can’t get enough of the stuff, slurping down an incredible 32 billion bowls each year. But with the city’s emerging middle class increasingly adopting Westernized, on-the-go lifestyles, soup fans have less time to boil it for themselves. Shifrin, an advertising executive, and three partners smelled an opportunity. Why not cook it for them? They pooled their personal savings and in April 2010 launched Soupchik, a chain of takeaway outlets serving up borscht, chicken noodle and other local favorites to upwardly mobile Muscovites.
The investors, however, learned that nothing in Russia is a sure thing, thanks to the unpredictable and predatory government. A steady stream of corrupt tax officials, police officers and other security agents began harassing them for payoffs. Within weeks of Soupchik’s opening, two tax inspectors claimed the start-up was violating an obscure retailing regulation. Shifrin protested, and amid the negotiations, a tax administrator suggested that some $1,000 in cash would resolve the matter. (Shifrin refused to ante up, and the tax office eventually dropped its case.)
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The Murky World Of Russian Business Deals
No-one knows the challenges of operating a business in Russia better than Bob Dudley – the CEO of BP who is travelling there alongside David Cameron.
Mr Dudley was kicked out of the country in 2008 after claiming he had been harassed by the Russian government. BP say their Moscow offices were raided illegally only last week.
In his speech at Moscow University, David Cameron said British companies “need to have faith that the State, the judiciary and the police will protect their hard work and not put the obstacles of bureaucracy, regulation and corruption in their way”.
Corruption is endemic in Russian business – so says Bill Browder, of London-based Hermitage Capital.
He says his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died an agonising death in a Moscow jail at the hands of the people who arrested him after he uncovered a state-committed fraud worth millions of pounds.
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David Cameron’s trip to the Kremlin must address the Sergei Magnitsky case
The Russian lawyer, employed by a British citizen, died in jail. The prime minister must join Washington in annnouncing a travel ban on those involved.
In diplomacy there is an unofficial statute of limitations on rows that poison state-to-state relations. November will see the fifth anniversary of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by Russian agents in London. David Cameron will certainly raise the case when he goes to Moscow for his first trip to the Kremlin but equally certainly will have to swallow the Russian dismissal of the crime. But he will find it less easy to swerve around the case of Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer employed by a British citizen and his London-based investment company. Magnitsky exposed the biggest tax swindle in Russian history, and was put to death by Russian officials for his pains.
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‘The British government must confront Russia over human rights abuses’
An influential British businessmen has accused David Cameron of going soft on Russia and of naively treating the Kremlin with kid gloves out of a misplaced fear of Moscow.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph on the eve of the Prime Minister’s historic visit to Russia tomorrow, William Browder, the founder of UK-based Hermitage Capital Management, said the British government had shied away from tackling Russia on human rights issues and claimed that the Kremlin was laughing at Mr Cameron behind his back.
“The government needs to be realistic about dealing with Russia. But it doesn’t seem to understand its major strength in dealing with Russian officials,” Mr Browder charged.
“If they think that making nice with the Russians will solve any problems, it won’t. The Russians just laugh at anyone who is approaching them from a position of weakness.”
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Mr Cameron goes to Moscow – finally and forlornly
The UK prime minister’s visit to Moscow also reveals much about the EU’s relationship with Russia.
David Cameron makes his first visit to Russia to meet his opposite number, Vladimir Putin, on 12 September.
While Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy rushed to Moscow when they arrived in power, the British prime minister has waited 16 months, preferring to travel to China, India, Turkey, the US and any number of EU capitals before going to Moscow. In fact, the closest Cameron has got to Russia was in 2008, when, as leader of the opposition, he went to Tbilisi just after the Russian invasion of Georgia to show solidarity with the Georgian people.
He arrives in Moscow with a long list of difficulties in UK-Russia relations. This may seem odd as Russia and the UK have no obvious geopolitical rivalries. London is home to Russian oligarchs who own Chelsea football club as well as two of the UK’s most important newspapers, the Independent and the Evening Standard. British private schools are full of the children of rich Russians who help keep the high-end London housing market flourishing.
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