Posts Tagged ‘Yulia Latynina’
Why Putin Believes His Critics Are Monkeys
In the six weeks since the protests began at Bolotnaya Ploshchad, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has made one fatal, but inevitable, error. He broke his vow of silence.
Until now, one of the most conspicuous features of Putin’s rule had been his silence on every subject that had been a source of public outrage.
It was always President Dmitry Medvedev who went out of his way by promising to “get to the bottom” of the latest injustice — for example, the possible cover-up of the fatal car accident involving a LUKoil executive on Leninsky Prospekt, the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the brutal beatings of journalist Oleg Kashin and the persecution of Khimki forest highway protesters. But because Medvedev never made good on his promises, he came off looking like a windbag.
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A Quick Way to Become a Superpower
In a meeting with Volga Federal District media professionals on Saturday, President Dmitry Medvedev essentially buried his earlier proposal for government officials to declare their large expenditures.
Russia, along with 139 other countries, is a signatory to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. The only problem is that when the State Duma ratified this convention, it insisted on excluding one of its most important articles: Article 20, which states that illicit enrichment — a significant increase in the assets of public officials that they cannot justify in relation to their declared income — is a criminal offense.
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Bout Illustrates Why Putin Will Fail
When a U.S. jury last week convicted Viktor Bout, the so-called Merchant of Death, of conspiracy to kill Americans and selling weapons to a terrorist organization — a crime that carries a sentence of 25 years to life in prison — Russian authorities reacted with anger.
The Foreign Ministry stated, “The guilty verdict was delivered … under unprecedented political pressure by U.S. authorities.” The ministry has created a “Bout’s list” of U.S. citizens who would be denied entry to Russia for allegedly violating the human rights of Bout and other Russian citizens. It is also seeking Bout’s extradition to Russia.
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Alexei Navalny vs. Vladlen Stepanov
Anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny has lost a defamation lawsuit filed by Vladlen Stepanov, whom Navalny had implicated in the death of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. This is very good news — not that Navalny lost, of course, but that the lawsuit publicized some very important information. But let’s first look at what we knew before the lawsuit.
We knew that there was a greenmailer, Hermitage Capital founder William Browder, who had a falling out with the Russian authorities. We know that in June 2007 Interior Ministry officer Artyom Kuznetsov entered Browder’s offices and seized documents and stamps of three of his “shell” firms — Hermitage Capital subsidiaries Makhaon, Parfenion and Riland.
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Putin’s Shadow and Shoelaces
There was a great joke that was popular after Dmitry Medvedev became president in 2008: Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave Medvedev a car without a steering wheel. “But where is the steering wheel?” asks Medvedev. “Don’t worry,” answers Putin. “I’ll be doing the driving.”
On April Fools’ Day, Putin played this joke out in reality. He drove a Yo-Mobile, the new hybrid automobile, to Medvedev’s residence. Posing for television crews from every national channel, Putin picked up Medvedev and drove for a while with the president in the passenger’s seat.
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