Posts Tagged ‘putin’
Lilia Shevtsova: A new way to contain Russia
Traditional methods of dealing with Putin’s Kremlin have stopped working, writes Lilia Shevtsova.
For a prime example of a state with a split personality, watch Russia. On one hand, President Vladimir Putin writes to US counterpart Barack Obama, expressing hopes that their “relationship will move ahead in various areas”. On the other, the Kremlin returns to the mantra of “unique Russian civilisation” and does its best to close the country to the west. Western observers may shrug, saying they’ve seen it all before. But actually, things have changed.
First, Mr Putin’s team no longer cares what the west thinks. Second, the Kremlin has switched from imitating democracy to deterring European values. Anyone who thinks this shift will not affect Russian foreign policy is wrong. It is already having an impact. Look at Kremlin defence spending and Moscow’s attempts to create a Eurasian Union from former Soviet states.
But what, asks the optimist, about the partnerships of state-controlled energy group Rosneft with ExxonMobil and BP? Mr Putin needs western business to prolong his petrostate but the fate of Shell and BP in Russia proves they are at the mercy of the Kremlin’s moods.
The Kremlin is offering new rules that sound like an ultimatum. Accept the concept of total state sovereignty, allowing any regime (Syria included) to treat its people as it sees fit. Co-operate on trade, investment and other areas of mutual interest. Do not obstruct our elite’s activities in your countries, which means forgetting about the Magnitsky act barring Russian officials accused of human rights violations from the US. Accept that we have a “sphere of interests”. And no lectures about democracy.
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Medvedev Seen Clinging to Job as Putin Frets About Economy
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is clinging to his job as President Vladimir Putin grows increasingly frustrated with his protege’s inability to boost growth, three current and former Kremlin advisers said.
Putin criticized Medvedev’s government last week for failing to adapt to a “post-crisis” economic model. That followed what Izvestia, a newspaper owned by Putin ally Yury Kovalchuk, said Jan. 15 was a leaked Kremlin scorecard giving most ministers either average or “underperforming” marks. Medvedev said the scores were “plucked out of thin air.”
Medvedev, 47, is in a “very precarious position,” Sergei Markov, a political adviser to Putin’s staff and vice rector of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, said in an interview in Moscow. “He has a promise from Putin about his role as prime minister, but there are some very powerful forces that see him as a threat.”
Putin, 60, was forced by the constitution to cede the presidency after his second-straight term ended in 2008. Medvedev, the prime minister at the time, became president and appointed Putin his premier. The two swapped jobs again last May after elections that sparked the biggest protests of Putin’s political career.
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Putin Aide Says U.S. Holds Key to Improving Ties
Strained U.S.-Russian ties will not improve unless Washington stops openly criticizing Moscow’s human rights record and supporting President Vladimir Putin’s foes, the top foreign policy official in the Russian parliament said.
Relations between the Cold War-era rivals took a dive after Putin’s return to the Kremlin in May, undermining a 2009 initiative by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russia’s then-president, Dmitry Medvedev, a more liberal Putin protege, to “reset” ties.
Alexei Pushkov, head of the international affairs committee in parliament’s lower chamber and a Putin ally, said the ties were “negatively stable” now and the “reset” could be considered over without an initiative on the highest political level to save it.
“The priority is political realism. Ideology matters should be secondary. I tell you, issues over ideology and values can destroy anything,” Pushkov said in an interview.
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Artists’ spat over Putin joins a Russian tradition
When famed viola player Yuri Bashmet declared that he “adored” President Vladimir Putin, he stirred little controversy in a country where classical musicians have often curried favor with the political elite.
But political drama spilled into the orchestra pit last month when Bashmet refused to condemn a new law prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian children, and in response the beloved singer Sergei Nikitin canceled his appearance at a concert celebrating the violist’s 60th birthday.
The spat joins a long Russian tradition of artists who have jumped — or been dragged — into the political fray. From composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who lived in fear of arrest under dictator Josef Stalin, to the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who returned to a liberalizing Soviet Union in 1991 and took up arms to defy Communist hardliners, Russian musicians and other artists have had a habit of becoming politicized figures.
At the core of the argument today is a question about what an artist’s role should be in Putin’s Russia: Attracting generous state funding for bigger and better artistic projects? Or challenging the political system in a way most ordinary citizens cannot afford to do?
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The Still-Clenched Fist in Moscow
This year is shaping up to be a worrying one for Russian President Vladimir Putin. After a long delay, the U.S. Congress finally passed the Magnitsky Act last month, committing to travel and banking sanctions against the Russian government officials who turn the wheels of Mr. Putin’s repressive machine. Taking aim at the apparatchiks this way can shake the entire Kremlin power structure.
It remains to be seen whether the State Department will vigorously enforce the law, having attempted to scuttle it before Congress passed it. But with proper enforcement, the law could undermine the standard mafia-boss promise that governs Mr. Putin’s ruling clique—”Stay loyal to me and I will protect you, no matter your crimes.”
A generation of Western leaders has accepted Mr. Putin and allowed him largely to back up this boast. Russian oligarchs shop for English soccer clubs and Manhattan penthouses while corrupt judges and vicious security officers enjoy their foreign holidays. Alexander Sidyakin, the member of parliament who co-wrote recent laws cracking down on protests and nongovernmental organizations, has vacationed on both coasts of the U.S. while publicly vilifying America.
The Kremlin responded to the Magnitsky Act by banning American adoption of Russian orphans (through a bill co-written by Mr. Sidyakin). This brutal policy can be understood only as a sneer from Mr. Putin to emphasize that he is capable of anything. The message of ruthlessness was meant not only for the West but for the millions of Russians who marched in protest of Mr. Putin’s rule last year.
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Resetting the U.S.-Russian Reset
The following is a transcript of an interview with Dmitry Peskov, deputy chief of staff and press secretary for Russian President Vladimir Putin, conducted by Paul Saunders, associate publisher of The National Interest and executive director of the Center for the National Interest, Washington, D.C. The interview was conducted Wednesday morning, January 23, 2013.
Paul Saunders: Thank you very much for taking time to talk to us. The “reset” in the U.S.-Russia relationship was one of the first foreign policy initiatives during President Obama’s first term. We heard recently that senior State Department officials have said that the word “reset” should be retired because the relationship has moved in a new direction and it’s no longer necessary to have a reset. How do you see the future of the reset after President Obama’s reelection?
Dmitry Peskov: Well, as a matter of fact Russian Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov would say that is a very popular idea here in Moscow [to retire the word “reset”] and that it is a process that cannot be endless. And if the reset lasts for too long, that means to make something different, a different operation to get the process going. So let’s hope together that this is not the case. Well, unfortunately the flow of our bilateral relationship, the flow of some steps from Washington, it shows a kind of an attitude that unfortunately cannot be treated in Moscow as a “reset” mood. So that’s why we are very sorry because we are looking forward to having a working relationship of close partnership with the United States, developing a mutual responsibility for global security, for global strategic security, for regional security and solving all the issues in that connection and originally by diplomatic and peaceful methods, taking into account each other’s relationship, but definitely it takes two to tango. I mean we cannot build a bilateral relationship of friendship and partnership on our own. Unfortunately we witnessed some steps that in no way can be treated as a “reset” attitude.
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Keeping the pressure on Putin – Moscow is turning into a bully again
Alex Goldfarb had an idea.
The veteran Russian dissident and longtime New York resident was standing in Union Square when it came to him.
He was there a week ago for an anti-Kremlin rally to protest Russia’s new law banning American adoptions of Russian orphans. It’s an especially vindictive measure that is solely intended to serve as political revenge for recent U.S. legislation that blacklists human rights-abusing Russian officials. Goldfarb, however, was thinking beyond a day’s worth of street theater.
“We should start a campaign to get Mayor Bloomberg to name a street in New York after Pussy Riot,” he said, referring to the feminist punk band made world famous after three of its members were arrested and subjected to a ridiculous show trial for performing a “punk prayer” denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral.
Two of the members of Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, are serving out their two-year sentences in a labor camp. One of the women, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released in October.
In many ways, that trio has become the face of the protests against Putin’s ineradicable grip on the Kremlin. The three young women turned into an unlikely cause célèbre, with the likes of Madonna and Paul McCartney showing their support.
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Russian orphans pay price for Putin’s new cold war
Many Russians are celebrating New Year’s Eve today. By the Julian calendar — still recognized by the Orthodox Church — it falls on Jan. 13.
Not celebrating are Russian orphans, particularly those with life-threatening illnesses. Many of them will die this year from lack of adequate care after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill that bans U.S. adoptions of Russian children.
There are at least 740,000 orphaned or abandoned children in Russia, by U.N. estimates. Many of them die of illness or commit suicide, news of which sometimes trickles even into the Kremlin-controlled media. About 1 percent of those children get adopted annually. About half of the adopted children used to go to foreign homes, mostly American.
Enter Mr. Putin, who signed the bill Jan. 1 — as a New Year gift to Russia’s corrupt bureaucracy.
Before he did that, he announced at a press conference in Moscow that the parliament had passed the ban in response to recent U.S. legislation — the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 it considers anti-Russian.
Named after a Russian lawyer who exposed a $230 million embezzlement by the Russian establishment and subsequently died in custody, it prohibits corrupt bureaucrats from getting U.S. visas and freezes their U.S. accounts.
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Bill Browder: The Man Behind Russia’s Adoption Ban
Last month, when Vladimir Putin signed a law banning American citizens from adopting Russian children, it was widely seen as the latest indication that U.S.-Russian relations were spiraling downward. So who caused this turn of events? The obvious political figures certainly played their roles. But perhaps no one was more central to the unfolding drama than a businessman turned unlikely human-rights crusader named Bill Browder.
Browder’s grandfather, Earl Browder, had been general secretary of the American Communist Party, but his grandson spent most of his career in a very different pursuit: making money. Bill graduated from Stanford Business School the same year the Berlin Wall fell. “My grandfather was the biggest communist in America,” Browder recalls thinking at the time. “Now that the Berlin Wall has come down, I am going to be the biggest capitalist in Eastern Europe.”
In 1996 Browder moved to Moscow and founded the Hermitage Fund, investing fortunes from America in newly privatized Russian companies like Gazprom. (Two years later he renounced his American citizenship and became a citizen of Britain.) At its peak, Hermitage was worth $4.5 billion. But Browder earned a reputation in this period as a “shareholder activist,” launching his own investigations into the shady dealings of Gazprom and other Russian companies—and angering the Kremlin in the process. He was expelled from Russia in 2005 and declared a threat to national security.
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