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ukrainenews · 2 years

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Daily Wrap Up June 8, 2022

Under the cut: Most of the eastern city of Severodonetsk is now controlled by the Russians; Russian authorities kept up their crackdown against citizens who speak out about the fighting in Ukraine; A Russian-backed official in Ukraine’s partially occupied southeastern region of Zaporizhia said Russia has begun to send grain from occupied areas to Turkey and the Middle East through Crimea; Turkish efforts to ease a global food crisis by negotiating safe passage for grain stuck in Black Sea ports met resistance as Ukraine said Russia was imposing unreasonable conditions and the Kremlin said free shipment depended on an end to sanctions; A 15-year-old boy who flies drones as a hobby helped to prevent Russian soldiers from overrunning Kyiv.

“Most of the eastern city of Severodonetsk is now controlled by the Russians, Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, announced on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian forces reported fierce battles taking place at several locations across the eastern city in Ukraine's Luhansk region.

"The Russians are destroying everything," Hayday said in a televised announcement, "They are firing tanks and artillery at residential buildings." In an interview with news outlet RBC-Ukraine on Wednesday, Hayday said that earlier this week, Ukrainian special forces had managed to take control of almost half of the city.

But he said that when the Russian troops saw the Ukrainian advance, "they simply began to level it to the ground with air strikes and artillery."

Hayday explained that Ukrainian forces had no choice but to make a temporary tactical retreat from the central parts of the city due to the intense Russian bombardment.

The official said that despite the pullback, Ukraine has retained control of Serverodonetsk's industrial zone, a key area on the outskirts of city.”

-via CNN

“Ukrainian forces have been pushed back by a Russian bombardment in the frontline eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and now only control its outskirts, according to the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai.

Speaking to the RBC-Ukraine media outlet, Haidai said it made no sense for Ukrainian special forces to stay inside the city after Russia started levelling the area with shelling and air strikes.

Regional leaders had said Ukrainian forces might have to “pull back” to stronger positions in Sievierodonetsk amid heavy fighting in the city and frontline villages to the south as Russia pursues a breakthrough in Donbas.”

-via The Guardian

Map from Kyiv Independent (there’s an article there too)

“Russian authorities kept up their crackdown against citizens who speak out about the fighting in Ukraine, extending a critic’s detention on Wednesday, confirming charges against two others and prompting Moscow’s chief rabbi to flee the country.

Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading allegedly false information about its military shortly after its troops rolled into Ukraine in late February. The offense is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Human rights advocates have counted dozens of cases. Russians must use the term “military operation” when speaking of the fighting in Ukraine.

In the latest development, a Moscow court on Wednesday extended the detention of Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., a journalist and former associate of assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. The court extended Kara-Murza’s detention from June 12 to Aug. 12 on accusations that he spread “false information” about the country’s armed forces. The activist rejects the charges.

Aside from criminal prosecutions, public figures in Russia have reportedly faced pressure from the authorities to publicly announce their support of the country’s military operations in Ukraine. The latest example is Pinchas Goldschmidt, Moscow’s chief rabbi.

The Times of Israel reports that Goldschmidt refused to make such statements and has now decided to stay in Israel. The newspaper quoted his daughter-in-law Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt.”-via Associated Press (AP)

“A Russian-backed official in Ukraine’s partially occupied southeastern region of Zaporizhia said Russia has begun to send grain from occupied areas to Turkey and the Middle East through Crimea.

Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Moscow-installed military-civilian administration in the occupied areas, told Russia’s Rossiya 24 news channel:

We are sending grain through Russia, and primary contracts are signed with Turkey. The first trains have departed through Crimea for the Middle East.

Balitsky did not specify which Middle Eastern countries were allegedly being supplied with the wheat, only saying:

It was a traditional market for Ukraine.

A Russian official in Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, said the first train carrying grain had arrived from Melitopol, a city in Zaporizhzhia.

It has not been possible to verify these claims.”-via The Guardian

“The European Parliament resolution recommended that the European Union grant Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU membership. MEPs also expressed their position on weapons for Ukraine and the UN special tribunal.

MEPs believe that the European Union should give Ukraine the status of a candidate for membership in the union. This is stated in the European Parliament resolution on EU foreign, security and defense policy after Russia's aggressive war against Ukraine, adopted at the plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday, June 8. 438 MEPs voted for her, 65 - against, 94 - abstained, according to DW.

The European Parliament recommended that the EU Council agree that "the Versailles Declaration recognizes Ukraine's European aspirations and its application for EU membership, and grant it EU candidate status as a clear political signal of solidarity with the people of Ukraine." This is the declaration of the informal EU summit in Versailles, which, however, was very cautious in its wording and recognized only the European aspirations of Ukraine and added that the country belongs to the European family.”-via DW (translated from Ukrainian)

“Turkish efforts to ease a global food crisis by negotiating safe passage for grain stuck in Black Sea ports met resistance as Ukraine said Russia was imposing unreasonable conditions and the Kremlin said free shipment depended on an end to sanctions.

The war between Russia and Ukraine, the world's third and fourth largest grain exporters respectively, has added to food price inflation and put global food supplies at risk.

Russia has seized large parts of Ukraine's coast in nearly 15 weeks of war and its warships control the Black and Azov Seas, blocking Ukraine's farm exports and driving up the cost of grain.

Ukraine and the West accuse Moscow of weaponising food supplies. Russia says Ukrainian mines laid at sea and international sanctions on Moscow are to blame.

Speaking alongside his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Turkey's foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said talks on Wednesday in Ankara were fruitful and restarting Ukrainian grain exports along a sea corridor was reasonable.”-via Reuters

“A 15-year-old boy who flies drones as a hobby helped to prevent Russian soldiers from overrunning Kyiv.

Andrii Pokrasa has revealed his role in the defence of the capital after being hailed ‘a real hero, a hero of Ukraine’ by the military.

Desperate soldiers trying to track the position of a column of troops and tanks heading for the capital did not have access to a drone in the early days of the invasion.

His father got in touch with local defenders to tell them his son was skilled at flying one, had bought his own as a pastime and might be able to help.

Not long after, the schoolboy, more used to skateboarding than military reconnaissance, helped direct strikes against the convoy.

The teenager told Global News: ‘They provided us information where approximately the Russian column could be.

‘Our goal was to find the exact coordinates and provide the coordinates to the soldiers.

‘It was one of the biggest columns that was moving on the Zhytomyr road and we managed to find it because one of the trucks turned on its lights for a long time.’

Ukrainian soldiers targeted the column and were eventually able to stop the march on Kyiv altogether.

Commercially available drones have become a core part of the Ukrainian military’s strategy, as well as more advanced models developed by arms manufacturers.”-via Metro UK

#daily wrap up #Ukraine #Russia #war in ukraine #kyiv #Severodonetsk #sieverodonetsk #(same city different spellings)#Turkey #EU

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panelki · 2 months

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Jailed Kremlin Critic Kara-Murza's Wife Urges Prisoner Swaps The wife of jailed and ailing Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza said on Monday she was in favor of prisoner exchanges to rescue him and other political prisoners in Russia. Following the death of Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny at an Arctic penal colony last month, his team claimed that a deal to free him as part of a prisoner swap had been "at the final stage" before he died. Read more | Subscribe to our channel

https://nn.org.ru

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reddancer1 · 3 months

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Opinion | Commentary

How Russians and the West Failed Navalny

The dissident might still be alive if his countrymen showed the same courage that Ukrainians have.

By Garry Kasparov

Feb. 19, 2024 12:01 pm ET

Munich

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was murdered in a prison north of the Arctic Circle on Friday. There is no need for semantic blame games when a political prisoner dies. There are no natural causes or accidents in the gulag. It’s murder by dictatorship, as damning as if Vladimir Putin pulled the trigger himself.

Mr. Putin tried and failed to kill Navalny quickly and secretly with poison in 2020, and now he has murdered him slowly and publicly in prison. Navalny’s only crime was to expose Mr. Putin and his mafia as the bandits they are, and to do it with charisma and humor.

Navalny and I disagreed on many things about the past and future of Russia, as he did with many in the broad anti-Putin coalition. But we agreed that Mr. Putin had to go, and that none of the disagreements among us would matter until that happened.

Now Alexei is dead, and with him the last gasp of Russian society that failed him, failed Russia and failed the world with its apathy. He was a man of optimism and action in a country of nihilism and inaction, a tragic condition he shared with me and our colleague Boris Nemtsov, who returned to Russia only to be gunned down in the street in front of the Kremlin in 2015.

Mr. Putin killed Navalny, but there is blame enough to go around. First, we Russians who failed to match Alexei’s courage and end Mr. Putin’s dictatorship and war can’t escape responsibility. Some of us tried, and he marched with us in numbers that seem a fantasy now. It wasn’t enough.

Is it wrong to wonder what might have been? If we had been as brave as the Ukrainians were a few years later when they took to the streets and risked their lives to free themselves?...

Also deserving of blame are the Western politicians who treated Navalny’s poisoning in 2020 and jailing the following year as just another negotiating point with Mr. Putin. Lots of talk, no action, more pointless peace talks and corrupt deals, more blood on their hands.

President Biden’s threat in 2021 of “devastating” consequences should anything happen to Navalny in prison will now be put to the excruciating test. After decades of crimes and aggression, Mr. Putin has crossed another bloody red line. He feels confident there will be no repercussions. If he’s proved correct, his murderous confidence will increase.

Ukraine is the weak point in Mr. Putin’s armor. Mr. Biden can’t hide behind Republican obstruction of Ukraine aid, as reprehensible as it is. The White House doesn’t need Congress to send Ukraine long-range artillery like ATACMS and fighter jets essential to protect civilians from Russia’s incessant bombing.

Nor can Mr. Biden blame MAGA obstruction for failing to seize more than $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets and using them to aid Ukraine. Seizing and selling the luxury yachts and real estate in the West belonging to Mr. Putin and his oligarchs would also be a fitting tribute to Navalny, whose anticorruption campaigns exposed their looted riches.

But I’m afraid Western politicians prefer dissidents to be martyrs. They can leave flowers and say nice words while negotiating with the murderer. No one challenges such hypocrisy. Navalny was a fighter first and always, and unless Mr. Biden, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and the rest are going to fight, they should keep his name off their forked tongues…

The West seems intent on duplicating the apathy of Russians in the face of Mr. Putin’s aggression and the results will be the same. He will grow bolder and the price of stopping him will keep going up. The risk to Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Poland will rise along with the threat to other political prisoners like activist Vladimir Kara-Murza and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Mr. Gershkovich was taken into custody in March on an allegation of espionage that he, the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.

Alexei Navalny was a man of courage and action, and only courage and action can honor him now.

>>>>>>>>>>

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mylionheart2 · 1 year

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Free Navalny

Free Evan Gershkovich

Free Vladimir Kara-Murza

#free navalny #free evan gershkovich #freevladimirkaramurza

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garudabluffs · 2 years

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Regina Spektor on Her New Album, “Home, Before and After”

The singer, out with her first album in six years, talks with the music critic Amanda Petrusich.

Regina Spektor’s songs are powered by years of classical training on the piano, a voice that jumps seamlessly from a whisper to a roar, and a sense of play in her lyrics and songwriting. A five-night residency on Broadway in 2019 was her last major engagement before the pandemic. She’ll be touring this summer with a new album, her first in six years, titled “Home, Before and After.” She talked with the New Yorker music critic Amanda Petrusich and performed some of her new songs.

at @20:40 R.S. speaks of her Moscow,Russia heritage & the present war

LISTEN 49:03 https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/regina-spektor-on-her-new-album-home-before-and-after

Opposition politician Valdimir Kara-Murza and other dissidents detained in Russia June 11, 2022

Scott Simon speaks to Evgenia Kara-Murza, wife of jailed Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, about her efforts to free him.

5-Minute Listen READ MORE Transcript https://www.npr.org/2022/06/11/1104368981/opposition-politician-valdimir-kara-murza-and-other-dissidents-detained-in-russi

#Regina Spektor Russian dissidents

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thinkingimages · 2 years

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Moscow police arrest Putin critic who decried Russian ‘regime of murderers,’ politician says

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician and critic of President Vladimir Putin’s government, was arrested by police in Moscow near his home, according to another Russian dissident.

The charges against Kara-Murza are unknown, Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin said on Twitter. Yashin speculated that the arrest was related to “some kind of anti-war statement in the press,” according to a translation of his tweets. Kara-Murza, a survivor of two suspected poisoning attempts, condemned the Kremlin in a CNN video that aired earlier Monday.

“This regime that is in power in our country today, it’s not just corrupt, it’s not just kleptocratic, it’s not just authoritarian. It is a regime of murderers, and it is important to say it out loud,” Kara-Murza said. He called it “tragic” that “it took a large-scale war in the middle of Europe, which Vladimir Putin is now conducting against Ukraine, for most western leaders to finally open their eyes to the true nature of this regime.”

The Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, an advocacy group on which Kara-Murza had served as chairman, said it considered the arrest to be “persecution of the opposition” and demanded his immediate release.

Anti-Putin activist Bill Browder tweeted that he had “begged” Kara-Murza weeks earlier not to go back to Moscow. Kara-Murza replied, “how could he ask Russians to stand up to Putin if he was afraid to return himself,” according to Browder’s tweet.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/11/russia-ukraine-live-updates.html

Related: https://humanrights.ca/story/fighting-for-a-vision-of-a-free-and-democratic-russia

#Regime Of Murderers #Putin's legacy of corruption #Russian Censorship #persecution of the opposition in Russia #Corruption in Russia #Vladimir Kara-Murza #Fighting for a vision of a free and democratic Russia #Russia's Weaponization of Corruption #Russian Terrorism in Ukraine #Putin's Tragic and Bloody Invasion #Russian Terrorism #Corruption

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girlactionfigure · 2 years

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GENEVA, May 23, 2022 — Russia’s counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned, the most senior diplomat to defect since his country's invasion of Ukraine began in February, according to an exclusive report by UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights organization based in Geneva.

“Never have I been so ashamed of my country,” wrote Boris Bondarev, in a statement shared with diplomats in Geneva.

"Boris Bondarev is a hero," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, who is currently participating in the Oslo Freedom Forum, an annual gathering of human rights dissidents.

"We are now calling on all other Russian diplomats at the United Nations—and worldwide—to follow his moral example and resign."

"Bondarev should be invited to speak in Davos this week," said Neuer, "and the U.S., the UK and the EU should lead the free world in creating a program to encourage more Russian diplomats to follow and defect, by providing protection, financial security and resettlement for diplomats and their families."

UN Watch recently spearheaded the campaign to expel Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

The Swiss human rights group also leads a campaign of 30 NGOs at the UN calling for the release of Russian political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, arrested in Moscow in April for opposing the war. UN Watch also invited his wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza to address the UN.

STATEMENT BY BORIS BONDAREV, RUSSIAN COUNSELLOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS IN GENEVA

My name is Boris Bondarev, in the MFA of Russia since 2002, since 2019 until now — Counsellor of the Russian Mission to the UN Office at Geneva.

For twenty years of my diplomatic career I have seen different turns of our foreign policy, but never have I been so ashamed of my country as on February 24 of this year.

The aggressive war unleashed by Putin against Ukraine, and in fact against the entire Western world, is not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z crossing out all hopes and prospects for a prosperous free society in our country.

Those who conceived this war want only one thing — to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity. To achieve that they are willing to sacrifice as many lives as it takes. Thousands of Russians and Ukrainians have already died just for this.

I regret to admit that over all these twenty years the level of lies and unprofessionalism in the work of the Foreign Ministry has been increasing all the time.

However, in most recent years, this has become simply catastrophic. Instead of unbiased information, impartial analysis and sober forecasting, there are propaganda clichés in the spirit of Soviet newspapers of the 1930s. A system has been built that deceives itself.

Minister Lavrov is a good illustration of the degradation of this system. In 18 years, he went from a professional and educated intellectual, whom many of my colleagues held in such high esteem, to a person who constantly broadcasts conflicting statements and threatens the world (that is, Russia too) with nuclear weapons!

Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves interests of few, the very few people thus contributing to further isolation and degradation of my country.

Russia no longer has allies, and there is no one to blame but its reckless and ill-conceived policy.

I studied to be a diplomat and have been a diplomat for twenty years. The Ministry has become my home and family. But I simply cannot any longer share in this bloody, witless and absolutely needless ignominy.

Hillel Neuer

#Russia #Ukraine #Boris Bondarev

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tearsinthemist · 2 years

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. . .

I will lead Russia away from the Darkness into the Light even if I have to pay with my little Earthly existence.

I order the immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, and the return to the Motherland of all of our troops;

the immediate suspension of censorship in our news organisations and restoration of independent media outlets;

the immediate release of all our political prisoners, including Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexei Navalny.

I ask the Duma to begin setting up free local and national elections throughout the country.

If my own military command wishes to imprison or kill me, let them.

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tracygrenier-blog · 2 years

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[The Washington Post] Vladimir Kara-Murza from jail: Russia will be free. I’ve never been so sure.

Vladimir Kara-Murza from jail: Russia will be free. I’ve never been so sure.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/15/vladimir-kara-murza-jail-letter-russia/

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 3 months

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"I’ve been sleeping with my phone since dreading yet another call of that sort. “I believe that my husband’s life is in danger as are lives of many other political prisoners... These people are kept behind bars, very often with serious medical conditions, with no proper medical treatment.”

Yevgeniya Kara-Murza, the wife of imprisoned Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, responding to the murder of Alexei Navalny on February 16. Her own husband's health has suffered since he was imprisoned for exposing Russian war crimes in Ukraine. He is said to suffer from polyneuropathy, which was caused after he was poisoned twice with the banned chamical nerve agent, Novichok.

#vladimir kara-murza #free vladimir kara-murza #justice for alexei navalny #rest in peace alexei #rest in peace #stop russian terrorism #stop russian aggression #free russia #make putin pay #putin to the hague

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mariacallous · 3 months

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Thousands of mourners gathered in Moscow on Friday for the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, despite an ominous warning from the Kremlin that anyone participating in unsanctioned gatherings could face arrest.

Crowds of people, many clutching red carnations, gathered amid a heavy police presence to pay their respects to the Kremlin foe, with some chanting “Putin is a killer” and “you weren’t afraid, we aren’t afraid.”

More than 400 people have been detained in dozens of cities across Russia for participating in memorials in the two weeks since Navalny’s sudden and still unexplained death in a Russian penal colony in the Arctic Circle, according to OVD-Info, which monitors politically motivated arrests in Russia. At least 115 people were detained on Friday, according to the group.

Navalny, who was 47 years old, was buried in Borisovo cemetery in his childhood neighborhood in southeast Moscow. The casket of the Putin critic, who was known for his irreverent sense of humor, was lowered into the ground to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” followed by the theme tune from his favorite film, Terminator 2.

Navalny’s sudden death has fueled concerns about the well-being of hundreds of other prisoners in Russia.

“If they could kill Navalny, they could kill anybody else,” said Grigory Vaypan, a senior lawyer at Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights group.

There are currently 679 people serving sentences on politically motivated charges, according to Memorial, although the actual number is likely much higher, Vaypan said.

“This number is the absolute minimum. It’s the most conservative assessment that we can get,” he said.

Despite the international outcry over Navalny’s death, Moscow’s crackdown on dissent shows little sign of abating.

On Feb. 27, Oleg Orlov, chairman of Memorial, was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Two days later, a court in Sverdlovsk rejected the appeal of a Russian American, Ksenia Karelina, who was detained on treason charges earlier this year for donating just over $50 to a Ukrainian charity.

The Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent has gathered pace throughout Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 24 years in power, escalating dramatically in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The number of people in prison on politically motivated charges has increased 15-fold over the past decade, Vaypan said, with arrests surging further still since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In 2022, more than 21,000 people were penalized for publicly opposing the war and faced detention and heavy fines, according to Amnesty International.

Shortly after the invasion, Putin signed a new law that prohibits the “discreditation” of the Russian Armed Forces and the dissemination of so-called fake news about the country’s military. The law has been used widely to target critics of the war.

Last year, a court in Moscow sentenced 63-year-old railway worker Mikhail Simonov to seven years in prison for making anti-war statements on the Russian social media platform VKontakte. “While killing children and women, we sing songs on Channel One [Russian state TV],” Simonov wrote. “We, Russia, have become godless. Forgive us, Lord,” Simonov wrote in a post.

“The approach is to target one person to create a chilling effect for another 1,000 or 10,000 people,” Vaypan said, of the haphazard way the law has been applied. “No one ever knows who is going to be targeted for what and who is going to be let off the hook,” he said.

The length of sentences has also increased dramatically in recent years. In 2023, dissident and Washington Post columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for condemning the war in Ukraine. Natalia Arno, president of the Free Russia Foundation, described the sentence as reminiscent of those handed down to dissidents in the Stalin era.

With Navalny dead, Kara-Murza, a dual British-Russian citizen, is now the most prominent Kremlin critic imprisoned in Russia. “We understand that Kara-Murza is next, and he is very high on Putin’s target list,” said Arno, a friend of the jailed Putin foe.

Kara-Murza has survived two near-fatal poisoning attempts that have left him with lingering health issues and amplified concerns about his well-being in the Russian prison system, where health care is notoriously poor.

Conditions in Russian prisons are equally grim. A 2021 State Department report described the country’s detention centers and penal colonies as “often harsh and life threatening,” noting that food and sanitation standards were low while overcrowding and abuse were rife.

A striking number of Russia’s political prisoners have been convicted on religious grounds. Their cases receive significantly less attention both within Russia and abroad. Almost two-thirds of the people considered political prisoners by Memorial have been persecuted because of their religious beliefs.

Many are adherents of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamist political organization that Russia deemed a terror group in 2003.

As with other politically motivated cases, Hizb ut-Tahrir followers were previously sentenced to two- to three-year prison terms, said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the Sova Center, a Moscow-based think tank that studies nationalism and racism, but in recent years they have been handed down sentences of up to 24 years.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, which Russia labeled an extremist group in 2017, have also borne the brunt of an inexplicable and punishing crackdown.

Since 2017, there have been over 2,000 raids on Jehovah’s Witnesses, with 794 people facing charges, according to Jarrod Lopes, a spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States. Many of those facing charges are older adults; the trial of the oldest, 85-year-old Yuriy Yuskov, began in January.

On Thursday, a 52-year-old man in the Russian city of Tolyatti, Aleksandr Chagan, was handed an eight-year sentence for his membership in the church.

“We’ve noticed that the Russian authorities haven’t slowed down in religious persecutions. If anything, lately, things have continued to escalate,” Lopes said.

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Russian opposition activists detained at a democratic forum in Moscow. The Kremlin says they were breaking Covid-19 protocol On Saturday, municipal deputies from Russia’s regions gathered in the Russian capital to discuss parliamentary and local elections — which are scheduled for September — at a forum held by United Democrats, a project aimed at supporting competitive election, according to their website. Opposition activist Ilya Yashin said 40 minutes into the event, police broke up the forum and detained around 150 deputies. “A very symbolic end to a short forum: deputies in police vans, and masked police are twisting people’s arms,” Yashin said on Facebook. “But nobody promised us the freedom on a silver platter. Russia will be free anyway,” he added. Yashin also posted images on Twitter of the moment he was taken away from the forum by police and from inside the police van. Anastasia Burakova, a coordinator of United Democrats told Russian state media RIA Novosti that the forum was held at the Izmailovo Delta Hotel, where municipal deputies from all over Russia gathered to discuss the strategy for the next electoral cycle and share their experiences with each other. “Everyone was detained who took part both as a listener and as a speaker. No reason was given,” Burakova told RIA Novosti. In a statement, Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said that around 200 people had been detained, citing a breach of coronavirus restrictions. “In one of the hotel premises in Izmailovsky Highway, a group of residents, representatives of a public organization, made an attempt to hold a public event in violation of the established sanitary and epidemiological requirements — a considerable part of the participants did not have personal protective facilities,” the Interior Ministry statement said. The statement added that “besides, members of an organization whose activities are recognized as undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation were identified among the participants,” and that police stopped the “illegal actions.” Prominent activist and Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara Murza — a longtime colleague and friend of assassinated opposition figure Boris Nemtsov — was listed among those detained. Murza, who says he was poisoned in 2015 and 2017, is the Chairman for the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom, a group committed “to the spread of education, freedom, and progressive development,” according to its website. OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said at least 180 people had been detained. For months, opposition activists have been met with a harsh show of force, demonstrated most clearly on January 31, when over 5,000 people were detained during nationwide protests in 85 cities in support of Navalny. The Ministry of Internal Affairs said that “checks are being conducted” on the activists detained on Saturday, and that “a decision will be undertaken in compliance with the law.” Source link Orbem News #activists #breaking #Covid19 #Democratic #detained #Forum #Kremlin #Moscow #opposition #protocol #Russian

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freenewstoday · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2020/11/28/navalny-uses-meeting-between-eu-officials-pro-west-russian-opposition-figures-to-call-for-sanctions-on-russian-oligarchs/

Navalny uses meeting between EU officials & pro-West Russian opposition figures to call for sanctions on Russian ‘oligarchs’

Alexey Navalny has called on the EU to impose sanctions on Russian “oligarchs,” rich businessmen he says are linked to the Kremlin. The Russian opposition figure wants them to be prevented from keeping assets inside the bloc.

Navalny explicitly named Uzbek-Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov and Israeli-Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. Both men laid the foundations for their immense wealth during the Boris Yeltsin-era, when Western governments were encouraging privatization in Russia, and the country’s integration into the global capitalist system. Finnish-Russian magnate Boris Rotenberg, who came to prominence after President Vladimir Putin replaced Yeltsin, was also mentioned.

The anti-corruption campaigner was speaking to members of the EU’s Committee of Foreign Affairs during an “exchange of views with representatives of the Russian political opposition.” Despite the title, no members of Russia’s largest opposition parties – the nationalist LDPR, communist KPRF or leftist Fair Russia – were present at the virtual discussion. Instead only pro-Western figures, with almost uniformly similar liberal views, were involved in the event.

They included Vladimir Kara Murza, a lobbyist at the US-government funded Free Russia Foundation, set up to “inform” American policy makers on the country; Vladimir Milov, a former deputy minister of energy, now closely allied to Navalny; and Ilya Yashin, a municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow. Yashin is the only one of the four who actually holds an elected position.

Also on rt.com EU sanctions six senior Russian officials over Navalny ‘poisoning,’ claims they knew of alleged Novichok use on opposition figure

Despite Navalny’s claims, the Kremlin has repeatedly asserted that there are no longer “oligarchs” in Russia, with presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling them “representatives of big business.” The president himself has also repeated this line, noting that no “large companies get preferential treatment from being close to the authorities” in modern Russia.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has repeatedly asked for rich Russians to bring home money previously moved abroad, and has set up favorable tax rules to attract such capital.

According to Navalny, the current EU measures are not sufficient, since the people on the present sanctions list do not have property or accounts abroad. In his opinion, Eurocrats should aim to punish those who have moved their cash to foreign countries, such as Chelsea Football Club owner Abramovich.

“The main question we should ask ourselves is why these people are poisoning, killing, and fabricating elections,” the anti-corruption activist said. “And the answer is very very simple: money. So European Union should target the money and Russian oligarchs.”

In Navalny’s opinion, nobody will take sanctions against Russia seriously if “oligarchs” can keep their yachts in European ports, naming Monaco and Barcelona as favored locations.

Also on rt.com Moscow claims Navalny poisoning clearly an ‘amateurishly staged stunt’ after EU governments ignore requests for evidence

“Just tell Mr. Usmanov, Mr. Abramovich, Mr. Rotenberg, etc.: ‘Guys, you are acting against the Russian people, you are acting against Europe, you are all of the time advocating that Europe is something very bad, so please take your yachts and get them somewhere to the nice harbors of the (landlocked) Belarusian Republic,’” Navalny said.

Navalny called on the EU to welcome ordinary Russians with open arms, instructing them to focus on the most wealthy citizens. Earlier this year, the EU imposed sanctions on six senior officials they believe are responsible for August’s alleged “assassination attempt” on the anti-corruption campaigner.

Those targeted were members of the presidential administration and FSB, who rarely go abroad and keep their assets inside the country.

On August 20, Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. After an emergency landing in Omsk, Navalny was taken to a local hospital where he was placed in an induced coma. Two days later, the opposition figure was flown to the Charite clinic in Berlin at the request of his family and associates.

After testing, German toxicologists determined that the activist had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group of nerve agents. This claim has been denied by Russian doctors, who say that they did not find any trace of poison in his body. On September 23, Navalny was discharged from the hospital.

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How Putin Changed Russia Forever

President Vladimir Putin has transformed his country and its relations with the world. We asked 11 leading experts to look back at his 20-year reign and predict what the future may bring.

— BY YEVGENIA ALBATS, CATHERINE BELTON, IRINA BOROGAN, SUSAN GLASSER, VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA, ANDREA KENDALL-TAYLOR, VLADIMIR MILOV, MICHAEL MCFAUL, OLGA OLIKER, ANDREI SOLDATOV, ANGELA STENT

— MAY 7, 2020 | Foreign Policy

On May 7, 2000, Vladimir Putin was sworn in as president of Russia. It was the first of four inaugurations—and counting. Four months earlier, Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly stepped down, elevating the prime minister and former security services head to the position of acting president. When elections were held in late March, Yeltsin’s anointed successor won just over half the votes, a slim majority that prevented a runoff and shifted Russia’s trajectory immeasurably.

In the two decades since rising to the top of the Kremlin, Putin has consolidated power and strengthened Russia’s role on the world stage. Many of these changes, which have come at no small cost, would have been unfathomable at the turn of the century; Putin’s election marked the country’s first democratic change of power. With Moscow now paving the way for Putin to rule until 2036, one of the world’s most powerful leaders may well become one of the world’s longest-serving.

To understand how Putin changed Russia and its place in the world over the past 20 years, and what the future may bring, Foreign Policy reached out to leading scholars, journalists, and experts.

Little to Celebrate in Putin’s Russia

by Susan B. Glasser

Twenty years ago, if you had asked me or basically anyone whether Vladimir Putin would become the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, the response would have likely been either incredulous silence or uproarious laughter.Twenty years ago, if you had asked me or basically anyone whether Vladimir Putin would become the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, the response would have likely been either incredulous silence or uproarious laughter. When he ascended to the Russian presidency while still in his 40s, Putin’s main qualifications for the job, at least based on the many Russians I spoke with during his first years in office when I was the Washington Post’s co-bureau chief in Moscow, were that he was: young, articulate, and, literally, sober. That he was, in other words, not Boris Yeltsin—his sick, aging predecessor, who spent his later years in the Kremlin in vodka-soaked meanderings as gangster capitalism took hold of the realm and his own government. Putin spoke of tax reform, his admiration for Europe, and one day growing Russia’s post-Soviet economy to beat out Portugal. To admirers at home as well as many who misread him in the West, he seemed to represent a different course for Russia—toward becoming a “normal,” more modern, if more modest, country.

Of course, that required overlooking much, even at the time: the brutal war in Chechnya that launched Putin as a political figure, the fact that he had been hand-picked by Yeltsin’s crooked inner circle in exchange for guaranteeing their amnesty, and, especially, Putin’s own background in the Soviet-era KGB and persistent fealty to the idea of a security state.

Two decades on, Russia is once again a struggling petrostate with an aging leader, struggling with an authoritarian tradition that hinders its political development and an unreformed, corruption-ridden economy far too dependent on natural resource extraction. Putin did not restore the Soviet Union or create a new gulag at home. His new normal, however, turned out to be more like the old normal than he would admit. Now, Putin must reckon with cratering oil prices, a poor response to the global coronavirus pandemic, and political overreach that had him schedule, then postpone, a constitutional referendum that could keep him in power for over a decade more to come. May 2020 was meant to be a 20th anniversary party for Putinism, but the party has been canceled.

Russia Has Become Deeply Dependent on Putin

by Olga Oliker

It sometimes seems to me that Russians view Vladimir Putin a bit the way much of the world views the United States. That is to say that they are grateful for what he has done for them in the increasingly distant past; they are ambivalent, and in some cases deeply disturbed, when it comes to more recent actions; and they are trepidatious about the future. On the other hand, they don’t see an alternative.

If the methods and available tools have changed over the decades and centuries, the foreign-policy goals Putin’s Russia has pursued are not different from historical Russian, Soviet, and Imperial Russian foreign-policy goals.Putin has seen Russia through economic rebirth and stagnation. He has presided over a notable return of his country to the global stage. But if the methods and available tools have changed over the decades and centuries, the foreign-policy goals Putin’s Russia has pursued are not different from historical Russian, Soviet, and Imperial Russian foreign-policy goals. Nor were the last two decades unique in economic ups and downs and cycles of liberalization and constraint at home. I would say the real change Putin has wrought is to establish a system that appears extraordinarily dependent on him personally, both for its own sustainment and to make decisions and take action. And that, by definition, lasts only as long as Putin remains in power.

Putin Shows Precisely How Much Leaders Matter

by Michael McFaul

Realists argue that states and the balance of power between them drive international relations; leaders don’t matter. Russia emerged from the rubble of the Soviet collapse as a weak state and therefore was compelled to do what the strongest power in the system—the United States— dictated. Russia today has recovered and reemerged as a great power, clashing as such powers always do with other major powers in the world. These confrontational dynamics would have occurred with or without Vladimir Putin. Had Yeltsin chosen Boris Nemtsov to succeed him, Russian democracy might have survived, and Russia’s cooperation with the West might have continued.

This theory is elegant but wrong. All explanations of state behavior must begin with assessments of power, but never is the balance of power the whole story. Leaders and their ideas can also influence state behavior. Putin and Putinism have impacted Russia and its place in the world.

Selected by Boris Yeltsin, and then ratified by the Russian people, to become president in 2000, Putin was an accidental leader. His views on governance and foreign policy were not well known. Early in his tenure, however, he made clear his disdain for checks on executive power. Today, Putin has replaced Russia’s fragile democracy from the 1990s with a consolidated autocracy. Over time, Putin has explicitly rejected liberalism and multilateralism and instead embraced and promoted conservative, orthodox, nationalist ideas. The clash between Putinism and liberalism takes place not only between states but within them.

Had Yeltsin chosen Boris Nemtsov to succeed him, Russian democracy might have survived, and Russia’s cooperation with the West might have continued

None of this was inevitable. In the last 30 years, after all, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and even Dmitry Medvedev to a lesser degree have embraced more liberal ideas and sought greater cooperation with the West. Had Yeltsin chosen Boris Nemtsov to succeed him, Russian democracy might have survived, and Russia’s cooperation with the West might have continued.

Because leaders matters, Russia and the West are not destined for confrontation forever because of the balance of power in the international system. A new leader in Russia might change Russia’s path. It happened before; it can happen again.

Russia’s Youngest Generation Has Been Deprived

by Irina Borogan

The most significant change Putin has made in Russia is that young Russians who grew up under Putin don’t know what free discussion is or what democracy means.The most significant change Putin has made in Russia is that young Russians who grew up under Putin don’t know what free discussion is or what democracy means. A society where one can make money only by not interfering in politics and not criticizing the authorities forces people to give up all options beyond their personal life and work. There is enormous anxiety in Russian society, which is only growing as the coronavirus and economic crises worsen.

The most significant change Putin has made in Russia is that young Russians who grew up under Putin don’t know what free discussion is or what democracy means.

Operating roughly, but consistently on the world stage, Putin has demonstrated that Russia can violate the human rights of its citizens and others without serious consequences from the European Union or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. In spite of the discontent of the United States and the EU, Russia sent troops to Syria and resurrected its influence in the Middle East, without spending as much money and resources as the Soviet Union did. Russia also won military contracts with Turkey, a NATO member state, bypassing the United States—something that would have been impossible to imagine 20 years ago.

Greed Has Won the Day

by Yevgenia Albats

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia was a country that had hope and the potential to become a part of the civilized world. It has none of that now. Putin promised to “Make Russia Great Again” in exchange for the loyalty of his subjects. He annexed foreign land and injected a hybrid war in the neighboring country. As a result, Russia didn’t become great or even respected as a regional power. Instead, it is feared by its close neighbors and distrusted or disgusted by the larger world for its policies based on lies, assassinations, and unpredictability. Russia is feared by its close neighbors and distrusted by the larger world for its policies based on lies, assassinations, and unpredictability.

Russia is feared by its close neighbors and distrusted by the larger world for its policies based on lies, assassinations, and unpredictability.

If not for Russia’s vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, the world would likely try to forget about its existence for the foreseeable future. Russia would be little more than yet another example of rampant corruption, greedy elites, and their inability to see long-term gains out of the common good. Did Russia have a chance? Yes, it did. So who “lost” Russia, as was commonly asked in the United States? Not the U.S. Democrats, nor U.S. Republicans, nor anyone else. Only we Russians of the educated class are responsible for our inability to see Russia succeed on the road to democracy.

Little to Offer Beyond Deadlock and Stagnation

by Vladimir Milov

Vladimir Putin delayed Russia’s moves toward becoming a developed market economy for decades. When he first came to power, Putin declared aspirations for engagement with the developed Western world and warned against government interference in politics, civil liberties, and the economy. If Russia had followed the footprint of reforms promised in the early Putin era, it could have been a totally different country by now—a responsible, respected player on the global stage. Contrary to Putin’s rhetoric of “restoring Russia’s greatness,” Russia is increasingly isolated and faces unprecedented international sanctions that exclude its future positive economic development.

Contrary to Putin’s rhetoric of “restoring Russia’s greatness,” Russia is increasingly isolated and faces unprecedented international sanctions that exclude its future positive economic development.

Twenty years on, Russia has reached a complete domestic, political, and economic dead end. Since 2008, the GDP has not grown—Putin’s economic model is not working. Even his loyalists admit Russia needs political changes, but Putin is fiercely resistant and seemingly wishes to serve as a lifetime ruler, prolonging the deadlock indefinitely. Contrary to Putin’s rhetoric of “restoring Russia’s greatness,” Russia is increasingly isolated and faces unprecedented international sanctions that exclude its future positive economic development. The only way Russia can make itself visible in international affairs is through disruptive behavior and through siding with China and other dictatorial regimes to counter the international liberal order. We have nothing positive to offer to the world except threats, disinformation, and disruption—sadly, that’s the face of Putinism.

In Putin, Everyone Saw What They Wanted

by Catherine Belton

When Vladimir Putin took on the mantle of Russian president 20 years ago, many in the West had long written off any notion that the Russian security services could be a force to be reckoned with. The West was still high on its apparent Cold War triumph. NATO and the European Union were expanding ever eastward. After nearly a decade of upheaval under Boris Yeltsin, Russia seemed irreversibly weakened. In Putin, everyone saw what they wanted to see.

Putin was a chameleon, and therein lay his power.For the Russian oligarchs and much of the West, Putin was the president who would help secure the fragile gains of Russia’s market transition. For most of the Russian population, he was the leader who would help bring order to a country riven by chaos. Putin appeared to be a Russian Everyman, a seemingly nondescript midlevel former KGB officer who pledged to restore the Russian state. But he was a chameleon, and therein lay his power. Behind him stood a ruthless caste of security men. Instead of strengthening democratic institutions, these men usurped them to shore up their own position. Then, once they’d taken over the country’s economy and legal system, Putin’s men sought to rewrite the rules and undermine the West.

Putin was a chameleon, and therein lay his power.

The tactics are the same as those deployed by the KGB in the 1970s and ’80s—using illicit funds to buy off and corrupt Western politicians and institutions. The only difference now is that they have been funded by a much deeper well of cash, enabling them to penetrate much further into Western markets. Russia has succeeded in exacerbating weaknesses and divisions in Western society. Compared to 20 years ago, Western liberal democracy is under siege. But Putin and his men are no more than warped relics of an earlier era who have yet to learn that without building a strong competitive economy in their own country the outcome of such short-term power games can only be the same collapse.

A Clear Strategy for Global Power May Have Met Its Limit

by Angela Stent

Under Putin, Russia has become a centralized, authoritarian state and has returned as a global player, competing with the United States for influence and aligning itself with China to try to create a post-West global order. In 2000, Russia was a pluralist but economically struggling state that had largely retreated from global ambitions. Putin was determined to restore Russia to its rightful role, as he saw it: as a great power.Putin was determined to restore Russia to its rightful role, as he saw it: as a great power. He was able to accomplish this both because he, unlike the United States, had a strategy and because he has been what I call the “judoist”—adept at seizing opportunities presented by a divided and distracted West.

Putin was determined to restore Russia to its rightful role, as he saw it: as a great power.

While Russia’s relations with the West have sharply deteriorated since the 2014 annexation of Crimea and launch of a war in southeastern Ukraine, much of the rest of the world regards Russia as a large, authoritarian state with which they can do business. Nevertheless, Russia’s ability to continue extending its global reach may be constrained in the coronavirus era. High oil prices from 2000 to 2008, and their rebound after the financial crisis, enabled Putin to consolidate power and expand Russian influence. The collapse of oil prices and the sharp decline in economic growth may well limit Russia’s ability to project power going forward.

A Suspicious, Aggressive Russia

by Andrei Soldatov

Putin made Russia both suspicious and aggressive. In just few years of Putin’s being in power, Russia became adamantly distrustful of outsiders. It developed a deep-rooted distrust of foreigners and foreign countries at large. Inside, the country adopted a similar view toward everybody who happened to be not within the state, including experts, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, and opposition parties.

When the dissatisfied middle class took to the streets in Moscow, Putin’s people said that “protesters who hurt riot police should have their livers smeared on the asphalt.”

The Kremlin also discovered aggression as the way to react to any international or national crisis. When the dissatisfied middle class took to the streets in Moscow, Putin’s people said that “protesters who hurt riot police should have their livers smeared on the asphalt”; when Ukrainians took to the streets in Kyiv, the Kremlin attacked Crimea.

In the larger world, Putin made an even more significant shift. Before Putin, the country was, politically speaking, part of the history of Eastern Europe’s difficult democratization. Mikhail Gorbachev was judged against the context of the fall of the Berlin Wall; Boris Yeltsin’s wars in Chechnya were seen through the prism of the wars in Yugoslavia.

When the dissatisfied middle class took to the streets in Moscow, Putin’s people said that “protesters who hurt riot police should have their livers smeared on the asphalt.”

Putin changed that. He shifted the country further East, to a traditional place occupied by Russia for centuries. It’s not Eastern Europe anymore; it’s only Russia, the powerful, aggressive, totalitarian Russia it has always been. Many Russia hands have expanded their historical references—it became common to invoke the tsars as a way to explain Putin’s foreign policy. Some reviews of our recent book on Russian political emigration criticized us for failing to mention Ivan the Terrible’s policy toward exiles. And this is exactly what makes Putin’s contribution so damaging: It undermines the hope that Russia could ever become a rational, normal country.

A Strongman Brand Others Can Emulate

by Andrea Kendall-Taylor

For the past 20 years, Putin has been driven principally by his desire to maintain power. To this end, he has weakened the state, eliminated competition, and personalized Russia’s political system. While an older generation of Russians credit Putin for helping Russia overcome the turmoil of the 1990s, in reality he has turned the country into a kleptocracy that does not work for ordinary Russians. As he has grown more paranoid about threats to his power—internal and external, real and imagined—Putin has suppressed the freedoms of Russians, increasingly through an arsenal of digital tactics.As he has grown more paranoid about threats to his power—internal and external, real and imagined—Putin has suppressed the freedoms of Russians, increasingly through an arsenal of digital tactics.

As he has grown more paranoid about threats to his power—internal and external, real and imagined—Putin has suppressed the freedoms of Russians, increasingly through an arsenal of digital tactics.

Despite Russia’s internal weaknesses, Putin has boosted the country’s global standing. The lack of constraints on his power, his investment in modernizing his military, and his ability to exploit asymmetries of interest between Russia and the West have allowed Putin to seize opportunities, even those that violate international laws. Today, Russia has a role in most global issues of consequence. But Putin also understands the limits of Russian influence. He has therefore sought to undermine Western democracies to improve Russia’s relative standing. His tactics and strongman brand have created a model that anti-democratic leaders emulate. As Putin has alienated Russia from the West, Russia’s place in the world is increasingly alongside the regimes of Bashar al-Assad, Hassan Rouhani, Nicolás Maduro, and Xi Jinping. Much can be told from the company one keeps.

20 Years Lost, Democratic Trajectory Could Yet Be Regained

by Vladimir Kara-Murza

In 20 years, Vladimir Putin has managed to take Russia from imperfect democracy to perfect authoritarianism at home, and from a respected partner to near-pariah in international affairs. By 2000, Russia had competitive elections, a vibrant free press, a pluralistic parliament, and a growing civil society. On the world stage, it was a member of the G-8, the prestigious club of industrialized democracies, and had recently ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, bringing its citizens under the umbrella of Europe’s strongest oversight mechanism. To be sure, there were many problems—and many mistakes—in both political and economic spheres, but the trajectory was the right one.

It will take time and effort to undo this damage once Russia has a democratic government that respects the rights of its own people and behaves responsibly on the international stage.

After two decades of Putin’s rule, Russia is a country where all major media are controlled by the state; where elections are meaningless rituals with predetermined outcomes; where parliament—in the words of its own speaker—is “not a place for discussion”; where peaceful demonstrators are beaten by police; and where political opponents are imprisoned—or worse. Abroad, it has been kicked out of the G-8, faces crushing economic sanctions, and, for the first time in decades, has unrecognized international borders. It will take time and effort to undo this damage once Russia has a democratic government that respects the rights of its own people and behaves responsibly on the international stage. Sooner or later, that day will come.

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