West needs to engage with ordinary Russians

Financial Times

Vladimir Putin, after a campaign dripping with anti-western vitriol, has won a presidential election that monitors and Russia’s newly-emboldened opposition say was deeply flawed. How should the west respond?

US and European Union leaders are already being criticised – including by Russian pro-democracy groups – for tepid criticism of the alleged voting fraud. One European parliamentarian has said there should be “no business as usual” with Mr Putin’s regime.

But many in Russian civil society and the intelligentsia say it is crucial for the west not to isolate Russia at the very moment that its middle-class political consciousness is flowering.

Doing so could provide cover for a Kremlin clampdown on the nascent opposition. It would make it harder, too, to counter official propaganda that the financial crisis and eurozone problems prove western-style market democracy is not a shining model for Russia.
So the west should be robust in criticising skewed elections. But it should, meanwhile, intensify efforts to engage with Russians at all levels – and encourage the shifts going on in society.

One priority is stepping up attempts to draw Russia into international organisations and embed it in the global rules-based system.

Russia is finally set to join the World Trade Organisation, after 18 years of talks, in June. The US Congress should get on with repealing the Soviet-era Jackson-Vanik amendment, finally normalising trade relations with Russia.

Despite its shortcomings, Russia should also be admitted to the so-called “rich countries’ club” of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Mikhail Dmitriev, an economist who forecast the recent Russian protests, says doing so will flatter Russia while encouraging it to embrace international standards.

Yet the west should, meanwhile, target officials involved in human rights and other abuses, by withholding visas and freezing foreign-held assets, something the US has already done via its “Magnitsky List”, aimed at officials linked to the jail-cell killing of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The European Council of Foreign Relations, a London think-tank, last week urged the EU to pass its own list. Doing so would hit Russian officials where it hurts – in their foreign bank accounts, and ability to flit between Moscow and homes in London or Courchevel.

Deepening links is important, too, adds the ECFR, with those elements of the Russian elite who embraced outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev’s calls for economic modernisation. The EU should attempt to breathe new life into its lacklustre “Partnership for Modernisation” with Moscow.

Forging ties with the pro-democracy opposition is also imperative. But here the west must tread a particularly fine line. Crossing too far into interventionist democracy promotion risks inflaming Mr Putin’s rants about alleged foreign plots, and discrediting democracy groups.

The west, too, should avoid blunders such as the bizarre “spy” rock affair. This was the stone stuffed with electronics in a Moscow park that Russian intelligence claimed in 2006 it had found British agents using to communicate with spymasters.

A throwaway admission by Jonathan Powell, ex-chief of staff to UK premier Tony Blair, that the rock was genuine – in a BBC documentary shown this year – was a propaganda coup for the Kremlin. State TV quickly reminded Russians that a UK diplomat filmed hanging around the rock had also been responsible for grants to civil society projects.

The head of one non-governmental organisation with UK links, asking not to be identified, says the group has again come under suspicion from Russian authorities since the screening.

Above all, the west’s priority should be to engage with ordinary Russians. Step up exchanges and opportunities for young Russians to study and to experience first-hand that the western system generally works pretty well.

Though the EU is reluctant to move unless Russia does the same, easing visa restrictions on Russians could be hugely beneficial.

The Russian NGO head says travel is the best way to break+ down the Soviet-era mentality that still lingers in society – and is played upon by Mr Putin and his circle. “After the Soviet Union fell, we expected our country would just become like Europe and everything would be fine,” this person says. “Now we understand that if we want Europe here, we have to build it ourselves.” быстрые займы на карту срочный займ https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-in-america.php https://www.zp-pdl.com buy over the counter medicines