Posts Tagged ‘jamestown foundation’
The Disappearing Sense of Talking to Putin
Last Friday night (July 12), United States President Barack Obama took a deep breath and called Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps assuming that talking is better than trading invectives via press secretaries. No solution for Syria was invented (and none had been expected), and Obama’s initiatives on nuclear arms control received the usual lukewarm response. But the message the White House really wanted to convey was Washington’s firm determination to bring before a US court Edward Snowden, who has been camping for three weeks in the Sheremetyevo airport departure zone (Kommersant, July 13). Putin promised nothing but enjoyed the moment—not because he likes talking to Obama (which he does not) but because making a US president call him is no small achievement. And it took only a small gesture of allowing Snowden to meet with representatives of international non-governmental organizations (NGO), which to the Obama administration amounts to granting him a “propaganda platform” (http://ria.ru/analytics/20130713/949464534.html).
Deporting Snowden to the US is certainly out of the question as it would amount to a loss of face for Moscow. Yet, much more infuriating for Putin is the possible expansion of the “Magnitsky list” (Moskovsky Komsomolets, July 12). Last week, a court in Moscow issued a verdict finding former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison due to lack of access to medical attention, guilty of tax evasion. The court also sentenced William Browder (in absentia) to nine years in prison. Putin had probably assumed that this juridical trick would provide a closure for the acutely disturbing international scandal (http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/69141). In fact, the opposite effect has been achieved as the government of the United Kingdom confirmed that 60 Russian officials involved in the Magnitsky case would be treated with particular prejudice if they applied for a visa (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 10). Putin’s subordinates are worried that other European states will follow suit and that a “Navalny list” might be introduced after the court verdict next week expected to convict oppositionist blogger Alexei Navalny on trumped-up charges—or indeed a “Pussy Riot list” (female punk rock group sentenced to several years in prison over an anti-Putin song they performed in the middle of a mass at a Moscow Orthodox Church) and on top of all that a “Khodorkovsky list” (former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, serving several prison sentences).
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Disarray Among Putin’s Elites Deepens as Russia’s Self-Isolation Progresses
The meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk in the early hours of February 15, as damaging as it was, produced even more jokes than material destruction. One of those was about the State Duma urgently approving legislation banning the incursions of celestial bodies because of their pronounced anti-Russian inclinations (Newsru.com, February 15). The joke captures the frantic activity of the Russian parliament, which has lost legitimacy in the crudely falsified elections in December 2011. As a result, the Duma now tries to compensate for this disgrace by producing a deluge of laws aimed at restricting the growth of the country’s fledgling civil society and promoting “patriotism” even in such ugly forms as the prohibition of adoption of orphans by American families. Consequently, this commonly disparaged institution is now seen by a record high 42 percent of Russians as playing a big or very big role in Russia’s political life (Levada.ru, February 14). The unintended consequence of this attention-seeking behavior, however, has been a series of scandals that reveal the scope of corruption among the parliamentarians who are supposed to represent a key part of the political establishment (Moskovsky Komsomolets, February 14).
Vladimir Pehtin, the head of the committee on parliamentary ethics, had to resign from this chair after the publication by activist-blogger Alexei Navalny of documents confirming his ownership of a condo in Miami, which was not mentioned in his tax declaration (RIA Novosti, February 13). This revelation could have gone unnoticed, if it had not coincided with President Vladimir Putin’s introduction of a draft law that would prohibit a wide group of key state officials from holding bank accounts abroad, while all real estate owned overseas would need to be declared (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February 13; see EDM, February 14). The aim of this legislation is to ensure loyalty among the prime beneficiaries of the “power-is-money” regime through the newly-launched campaign of “nationalization of the elites” (Forbes.ru, February 13). The predatory elites, however, remain reluctant to be “nationalized” in terms of repatriating their ill-gained fortunes. Keeping their wealth abroad allows them to enjoy a level of property rights, which are mostly non-existent in Russia.
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Putin Opens a New European Offensive and Plays Hard-Ball with US
The Russia-EU summit that takes places today (June 4) in Strelna outside St. Petersburg was pre-scheduled as a routine event without any significant predicted achievements. But President Vladimir Putin did not want to start his new term at the helm of Russia’s foreign policy in such a boring way (Kommersant, June 2). In order to add more symbolism and intrigue, he paid his first official foreign visit to Belarus last Thursday and then proceeded with two blitz-visits to Germany and France (RIA Novosti, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 1). This activity was supposed to compensate for his decision not to attend the G8 summit at Camp-David two weeks ago and for Russia’s absence from the NATO summit in Chicago. It also marked the tenth anniversary of Putin’s visits to Berlin and Paris that formed the “triangle of old Europe,” which took a firm negative stance against the US intervention in Iraq (Gazeta.ru, May 31). No lasting rapprochement came out of that moment of unity, but for Putin it remains one of his cherished triumphs.
The visit to Minsk served to demonstrate more than just that the Russian-Belarusian integration project remains on track despite protracted quarrels and less than ideal personal chemistry (Kommersant, June 1). Putin brought some fresh aid to the struggling neighbor despite Belarus’s broken promises of letting Russian companies partake in its privatization program. Additionally, the Russian president effortlessly established that Belarus remains a legitimate member of the European family of nations despite the objects being raised in the West against the authoritarian habits of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Moskovskie Novosti, June 1). This cordiality sent a signal to Ukraine that a compromise on gas prices is possible – and that its political price would not be that heavy, particularly since the EU pays no attention whatsoever to Kiev’s desperate pleas to receive assistance (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 1).
Putin’s intentions in France and Germany were far more serious than just getting acquainted with President Francois Hollande and re-introducing himself to the far-from-smitten Chancellor Angela Merkel. His overwhelming concern is about Gazprom’s retreat in the European market, where the volume of its gas deliveries contracted by as much as 20 percent in the first four months of 2012, compared with the same period a year ago (RBC Daily, May 30). Putin cannot grasp the paradox of the arrival of the “golden age of gas” that has turned energy export from a major political asset into a bad headache, thanks first of all to the “shale gas revolution” in the United States (Gazeta.ru, May 25). As the oil price goes south, Russia’s stock market cannot find a bottom. This denies Putin the advantage of a solid economic base in his attempts to exploit opportunities emerging out of the divisive euro-zone crisis (Newsru.com, May 30). Seeking to camouflage this weakness, Putin plays the few cards he presumes are his trumps to maximum effect, including Russia’s special position on the civil war in Syria.
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