Posts Tagged ‘andrew osborn’
Russia launches attack on Labour MP Denis MacShane
Russia has launched a highly unusual personal attack on Labour MP Denis MacShane, accusing him of deliberately trying to sabotage UK-Russia relations.
The Kremlin lashed out after the former Foreign Office minister organised a debate in the House of Commons on human rights in Russia during which he suggested that Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, should not be made welcome at the London Olympics this summer.
His stance angered the Russian embassy which issued a furious statement.
“The irresponsible attempts of certain parliamentarians to damage our bilateral relationship by taking advantage of real problems cannot but give grounds for serious concern,” the embassy said.
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Unreported World: Vlad’s Army – Putin’s brave new world
Every Wednesday night, in a smoky basement restaurant in Moscow, some 20 well-dressed and, in some cases, extremely beautiful, women, meet for dinner. They have one thing in common. Their husbands are in jail. Many are serving long terms in degrading conditions. The grief on the faces of these wives, as they meet together for mutual support at the Rosso&Bianco wine bar, is distressing to see. All insist that their spouses are innocent. Each of the wives has a painful story to tell, and many have lost everything: their homes, businesses and family life.
Take Tatiana, an elegant blond woman in her mid-thirties, wearing a mauve shawl and a herringbone suit. She is visibly in shock, because it is only 24 hours since a Moscow court sent her husband, Vladimir, to jail for 13 years. He has been found guilty of raping their seven-year-old daughter. Tatiana knows the story cannot be true – medical tests showed the girl was physically unharmed.
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Sergei Magnitsky’s mother demands Russian murder investigation
Russia has come under fresh pressure to investigate the high-profile prison death of Sergei Magnitsky, the lawyer who uncovered the biggest tax fraud in Russian history.
In a complaint lodged with prosecutors, the late man’s mother has alleged he was illegally arrested, tortured and murdered in a Moscow prison in November 2009.
Demanding that a fully fledged murder investigation be opened into a case that continues to damage Russia’s relations with the West, Natalia Magnitskaya said: “During the more than one and a half years that have passed since my son’s death I have learnt and reviewed information proving that a crime was committed against my son, and that his death came about as a result of premeditated violent actions.”
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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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Hermitage attacks leniency of Russia in tax fraud ‘cover-up’
Hermitage Capital has accused the Russian state of pressing ahead with a cover up of the biggest tax fraud in Russian history after one of the men behind the scam was given a suspiciously light sentence.
The UK-based investment fund spoke out after a Moscow court confirmed it had found 43-year-old Vyacheslav Khlebnikov, a former convicted felon, guilty of taking part in the £144m fraud.
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Joe Biden attacks Russia’s political system
Joe Biden, the US vice president, has warned Russia is being held back by corruption and the Kremlin’s reluctance to embrace democracy.
In a speech that is likely to anger Russia’s leaders who hate being criticised by their former Cold War foe, Mr Biden warned that attempts to modernise Russia’s economy without political reform were likely to fail.
“Do not compromise on the basic tenets of democracy,” he told an audience at Moscow State University. “You need not make that Faustian bargain.”
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Here comes the Russian bear
When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev takes to his feet in a swanky new conference centre in the Swiss resort of Davos this Wednesday he will need to make the speech of his life.
For although the Kremlin is still basking in the afterglow of BP’s landmark £10bn share-swap deal with state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, the clouds are gathering. Mr Medvedev’s message to the great and good of the global business elite will be that Russia is “open for business” and committed to making life easier for foreign investors. Show us your money and ideas, send us your experts, and let us buy stakes in your companies in order to make it a two-way process, he will say.
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