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mariacallous · 27 days

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British journalist Catherine Belton spent more than 15 years working as a reporter in Russia for the Financial Times, The Moscow Times, and Businessweek, and she now covers Russian politics and the war in Ukraine for The Washington Post. In 2020, Belton published her first book, “Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West,” which immediately became a bestseller. Following the death of Alexey Navalny, she published a Russian-language edition of the book that’s available for free. For Meduza, American journalist Tanya Lukyanova spoke with Belton about how she managed to untangle the logic behind the system that has allowed Putin to rule Russia for more than 20 years.

As Catherine Belton was finishing school, the Berlin Wall was coming down. Entranced by the Soviet empire’s collapse, she went on to study Russian and German at university, “and the fascination just continued to expand from there,” she said in an interview with Meduza.

Belton would go on to work as a journalist based in Russia from 1998 until 2014, covering the country “pretty much nonstop” during Vladimir Putin’s first two presidential terms. From 2007 to 2012, the period when Putin temporarily relinquished the presidency to Dmitry Medvedev and served as prime minister, Belton worked for the Financial Times as a Moscow correspondent covering the world of business.

“It was a different era then,” she explained. “Russian billionaires [and] government officials all wanted to be on the pages of Businessweek and the Financial Times — presenting their country, presenting their companies, and trying to be integrated into the global economy.”

Belton’s wealth of experience reporting on Russia eventually led her to write a book, Putin’s People, which was published to international acclaim in 2020. As she told Meduza, the book began as an investigation into the system Putin had built by taking over the country’s strategic cash flows and placing them in the hands of loyal allies. “We didn’t really understand what made Putin tick and why he ran the economy the way he did,” Belton explained. “But as I was reporting that, it really became very obvious that he was replicating a system that was rooted in the KGB.”

As Belton’s reporting revealed, the wealth Putin and his cronies had amassed was just one small piece of the puzzle:

“A lot of the stealing that was going on wasn’t about Putin lining his own pockets: It was [about] gathering strategic slush funds and replicating a system of KGB frontmen and intermediaries, who would then be able to funnel wealth into the West. And then eventually, as they had in the 1970s and 80s, they’d use that wealth to divide and disrupt and undermine their rivals in the West.”

Belton is still in regular contact with the sources she interviewed for her book. Some of these members of the Russian elite, she said, were “horrified” when Putin launched the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which they perceived as a “catastrophe for the 30 years of empire building and all the ties that they [had] built into the West.” But with the full-scale war now in its third year, she now fears that some Russian elites and billionaires smell blood in the water:

“I’m now afraid [that] they see Western weakness, the paralysis in the U.S., and perhaps think that the war now presents an opportunity to redraw the post-Cold War map and have this new alliance of Russia, India, and China, which they believe is going to replace a weaker West. So unfortunately, most of the Russian billionaires and elites are still sharks.”

Putin, meanwhile, appears increasingly entrenched in his political views. “You can see that Putin has really held on to certain beliefs,” Belton pointed out. “He was part of this progressive faction of the KGB that blamed communism for failing the project of the Russian Empire. He blamed the Bolsheviks for tearing the country up into republics that didn’t exist before (i.e. Ukraine). So even then he was an imperialist.”

The Russian president has also continued to keep his friends close, surrounding himself with sycophants who often share his intelligence officer roots. Though their influence may wax and wane, these officials have traditionally made up a “collective Putin,” Belton explained:

“There are other people in the administration who had security service backgrounds who were either prompting or advising him to act in a certain way — [Security Council Secretary] Nikolai Patrushev, for instance, who had always been more senior than him [...] At various stages of Putin’s career, he seems to have been clearly manipulating Putin and trying to make sure that he stayed in power.”

“I think Patrushev is still very much a leading ideologue,” she added.

According to Belton, Putin’s bitter resentment towards the West is based on a mixture of grievances, some of which she considers valid and others she views as “exaggerated and amplified” by his KGB background and personal paranoia. “It’s certainly true that after Putin came to the presidency, he did make overtures towards partnership with the West,” she pointed out. “And I was told by people close to him then that Putin is a ‘transactional guy.’ He was expecting favors in return — in the typical, mafia-style leadership — but he didn’t get any. He just got, in his view, a kick in the head.”

The West, in turn, was too dismissive of Putin and therefore failed to see Russia — and Russian corruption in particular — as a security threat. “Everyone thought that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all that remained for Russia to do was to integrate into the Western rules-based order,” Belton recalled. “We thought that the more Russian cash came into the West the better, because Russia was going to have to adapt to our governance standards and so on.”

With this assumption in mind, Western countries readily accepted the money Putin’s system siphoned out, believing that corruption made Russia weak, when really it was a means of consolidating power. Once seen as independent, Russian billionaires became “beholden to the Kremlin for maintaining their wealth,” Belton explained. And having failed to grasp that an economy under Putin didn’t function like one of their own, Western countries “just decided to lie back and take the money.”

“Putin realized very early on that this was a big weakness in the way the West works, that we’d just take profits and not think about the consequences,” Belton said.

Russia’s oligarchs did not take kindly to Belton’s book. Just before the one-year statute of limitations under U.K. libel law, billionaire Roman Abramovich sued the journalist and her publisher for defamation. Billionaires Mikhail Fridman, Peter Aven, and Shalva Chigirinsky followed suit, as did Russian state oil giant Rosneft.

“I was very fortunate because my publisher, HarperCollins, stood very strongly behind me, and they covered all the legal costs,” Belton told Meduza. “I think had it just been me, I would have been forced to withdraw the book after seven years of work. I wouldn’t have been able to withstand such a barrage.”

Abramovich settled his claim against Belton in December 2021, after the journalist and her publisher agreed to make revisions to the text. “We changed some small things, which I’m still a bit upset about, but we basically didn't change the sense of the narrative,” she said. The other defendants subsequently settled or dropped their claims.

“In some ways, there’s a silver lining,” Belton added. “Because the pile on was so enormous, it attracted a lot of media attention. And people could really see how Russian billionaires and the Kremlin had been using the legal system and legal threats to silence and intimidate journalists from covering some of their activities.”

Earlier this month, Belton announced that she had made the Russian-language edition of Putin’s People available for free. “Although the general trajectory of Putin’s presidency is well known, I wanted Russians to be able to read the details from Kremlin insiders who have not spoken before,” she explained. “[I] would like it to be more widely known and shared within Russia that we know what Putin presents now is not Russia’s true face, but one that has been distorted and manipulated by his cabal.”

Belton was still hammering out the details of the release when Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny suddenly died in prison. The sea of mourners who turned up for Navalny’s funeral pushed her to publish the free edition of Putin’s People right away. “The fact that tens of thousands were coming out and openly defying the police presence, chanting ‘No to war,’ and, in many ways, showing that Navalny’s legacy was living on no matter what — that this other Russia we all loved still exists despite the heavy Kremlin propaganda and the fear tactics — really inspired me,” she said.

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reddancer1 · 2 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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whattheabcxyz · 2 months

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2024-02-17

Singapore

Tengah residents voice concerns about mosquitoes in estate

Largest & longest-running Ramadan bazaar in Kampong Glam to begin in March

Some homeowners to pay lower property tax with raising of AV bands from next year

Science

This is why scientists today no longer hold much credibility

Harvard professor says "all hell broke loose" when his study found no racial bias in police shootings - upper academia is woke, so this doesn't tally with their beliefs

Environment

^ Reforestation initiatives in Africa may damage grassland & savannah instead - people need to use their brains even if they want to do good

Politics

Biden blames Putin for Alexey Navalny's reported death in Russian prison - who else could be responsible?!

Travel

More terrifying airplane stories: involving maggots, & a man dying onboard a flight after spewing blood from his nose & mouth

AirAsia offering discounted flights to celebrate 20 years of operations in Singapore

Entertainment

Ed Sheeran sings Chinese song with JJ Lin & tries his hand at making teh tarik in Singapore

Cinema opened by Nicole Kidman latest to bite the dust

#singapore #science #environment #politics #travel #entertainment

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panelki · 2 months

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‘Blood on Putin’s Hands’: First Reactions to Alexei Navalny’s Death Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has died in the Arctic prison colony where he was serving his sentence, Russia’s prison service announced Friday. Here is a roundup of how Navalny’s allies, Russian officials, Russian public figures and world leaders have reacted to the announcement of his death. Read more | Subscribe to our channel

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dissertationmeganfox · 1 year

Video

youtube

“There are no sanitary pads left in my country and I have blood on my legs, and I have blood on my hands.” This is the narration to a video, around 20 seconds long, made by a Russian animator who chooses to remain anonymous.

With this work linking menstrual blood to the blood of war victims, the creator hints at the shortage of tampons and other staples in Russian stores in the first weeks of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. By mixing blood with blood, the video expresses the sense of collective guilt tormenting many Russians since February 24.

“It’s a video about the feeling of belonging to what’s happening that I and everybody around me had,” the anonymous creator told Haaretz. “While it’s true that I live in a certain bubble, all these people still felt guilt. They didn’t know what to do with it, but they also didn’t take the route of 'we’re not Putin, Putin isn’t Russia, we have nothing to do with it and can’t change anything.'

Against the backdrop of censorship laws passed in Russia at the start of the war, artists are afraid to express themselves. Early last month Alexei Gorinov, a neighborhood council member in Moscow, was sentenced to seven years in prison for giving a speech against the war at a council meeting. He called the war a war, not a special military operation, and called Russia “a fascist state.” He reminded his listeners that Ukrainian children are being killed.

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2022-08-16/ty-article-magazine/.premium/whaam-russian-animators-get-their-anti-war-paint-on/00000182-a139-dd0a-a39b-a9bd8b3e0000

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 4 years

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Putin's reign of terror will continue until he is stppped. Dictators do not stop on their own. Yet there are always voices in the free world calling for resets and engagement—appeasement by other names—and they have blood on their hands.

Garry Kasparov, responding to the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.

#garry kasparov #alexei navalny #navalny #putin #poisoning #russia

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visionshadows · 6 years

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Mob!Au Part Three

Part One

Part Two

CW: Violence, homophobia

“He’s a ghost,” Hags says when Sid comes into his office. Horny is perched behind him, chewing on a pen. “Mostly a ghost.”

“He was using a different name and it’s not like he was here legally or paying taxes under either name,” Horny says before handing over a few printed out sheets. “He lived in Seattle under the name Alexei Popov. Married, no kids. No idea what the husband thought he did, but he flew to Washington every two weeks to meet with the Russians.”

Sid flips through the few pictures of Evgeni with a shorter man, both of them smiling happily. They’re obviously surveillance photos and he looks at Hags who shrugs a little. Sid knows better than to ask how he gets his material.

“The husband is dead. Popov is listed as missing and is person of interest in the case.”

“Anything else?” Sid asks, looking at a picture of Evgeni in an airport, a briefcase in his hand.

“We can get info on the husband if you want. Malkin did a good job of keeping himself off the web, but he didn’t wipe his husband.”

Sid folds the pictures in half and taps Hags’ shoulder. “Get me everything you can find. I want to know as much as possible when I talk to him this evening.”

“The death was definitely the Russians,” Horny offers. “I don’t know if they made Malkin do it or if they ambushed him, but it was definitely a Russian hit. They won’t figure it out because the Russians don’t operate in the Northwest, but if someone out here took a look at the case, they’d see it immediately.”

“What was his name?” asks Sid after a moment.

“Trevor Daley. They didn’t take each others names. Probably because Malkin wasn’t using his own name.”

“Or they just didn’t want to take each others names,” Horny points out, smacking Hags lightly. “Get with the times. A husband or wife doesn’t have to change their name when they get married.”

“Yes thank you,” Sid interrupts, not interested in listening to Hags and Horny argue about whether or not you should take a spouse’s last name. “I want everything you can get me by 4.”

“On it, boss,” Hags says, slapping Horny on the knee. “We’ll get you everything we can on your wife.”

Sid gives him an unimpressed look before leaving and heading to his own office. He’s going to kill Tanger.

The back of the car is quiet as Sid reads through the material Hags and Horny were able to put together about Trevor and by extension, Evgeni. Social media offered a glimpse into what seemed like a happy relationship. Trevor’s Facebook had anecdotes about what they did as well as events they went to, dinners with friends, movies, their gay hockey league. Very few pictures showed Evgeni’s face. When they were pictured together, Evgeni turned his head or made sure he was slightly behind Trevor so he was partially blocked.

They were very well off financially and most of the money went into a trust for a niece of Daley’s upon his death. There was a dog. Sid doesn’t want to ask about the dog.

There are pictures of the crime scene, Trevor’s hands bound behind him and a hole in forehead. He reads the medical examiner’s report about the injuries that had been inflicted prior to his death. Sid’s stomach twists when he finds out that the Russians cut his balls off.

The details on Alexei Popov are slim. The police are considering him missing but also a person of interest in Daley’s death. They are looking for him, but they are also considering the possibility that Trevor’s death was a hate crime.

Sid shuts the file and looks out the window. He still needs to find out what Evgeni knows and why he isn’t dead as well.

But Sid knows he’s keeping him.

Big Rig is sitting on the couch with Evgeni watching a recorded hockey game when Sid follows Olli into the apartment. He immediately gets up, looking caught out. Sid waves him into the kitchen, leaving Olli with Evgeni. Big Rig is relatively new. He’s still mostly afraid of Sid which is both good and bad.

“How was the day?” asks Sid, getting a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

“Fine. No trouble at all, sir. He mostly slept.”

“I told you not to call me sir,” Sid reminds him. “Did he tell you anything?”

Big Rig flushes, but shakes his head. “No. We talked about food. I helped him cook us some lunch since his arm is injured. Then we talked about hockey mostly.”

“Do you feel comfortable acting as Evgeni’s bodyguard for the time being?” asks Sid. “I would expect you to treat him as you would treat a member of my immediate family.”

Big Rig straightens up and nods. “Of course. No question.”

Sid takes a sip of water and eyes up Big Rig. The kid needs a chance and while Dumo would certainly be a good choice for this assignment, he needs Dumo free for when he needs muscle with him beyond Tanger.

“I expect you back here tomorrow at 8 am. Vero will process your pay increase in your next check,” Sid says to him. “You can go now.”

Big Rig looks like he wants to say something, but instead just nods. “8 am. You got it, boss.”

Sid rolls his eyes. Boss isn’t much better than sir, but it’ll do. Big Rig heads out, leaving Sid alone in the kitchen. He sets out the paperwork he has, spreading it across the table so it’s easy to see.

Olli is sitting on the couch next to Evgeni now, the two of them talking quietly in Finnish. Sid raises an eyebrow at that. He’s going to have to find out how many languages Evgeni speaks as well.

“Evgeni, join me in the kitchen,” Sid interrupts, his tone making it obvious that it was a command.

Evgeni turns his head to look at Sid for a moment before getting to his feet. “Time to talk?”

Sid nods and gestures towards to Olli to follow as well. As Sid’s personal bodyguard, Olli needs to know pretty much everything no matter how private Sid wishes he could be.

Evgeni stops in the doorway, seeing the table covered with papers. Sid pushes gently but inexorably forward and Evgeni goes. He stops again when he sees a picture of Trevor and himself next to the police report.

Evgeni looks over at Sid, his expression blank. “You put pictures of him dead here for me to find?”

Sid shakes his head. He’s cruel, but he’s not looking to break Evgeni. At least not now. “No, but I saw them. Did they make you do it?”

Evgeni picks up the photo. “They make me watch so I remember.”

“Sit,” Sid says as he takes a seat at the table. “You’re a hard man to find information on. My men are very good and they couldn’t find much on you at all under either name.”

“I am also very good at my job,” Evgeni says, tucking away the photo. Sid watches as he visibly steels himself for questioning. “I spend many years not wanting to be found.”

“You have to give me more,” Sid taps the papers. “I don’t who you are.”

Evgeni sighs. “Could I have drink for this? Vodka.”

Sid looks over at Olli, nods slightly. “Tell me why I should be protecting you.”

“My uncle is Vladislav Tretiak and that is why I am alive. My mama would kill him if he let them kill me,” Evgeni says quietly. He accepts the vodka from Olli, taking a long swallow.

Sid sits back in his chair, trying to keep his expression blank. He’s sitting across from the nephew of the man who runs the Bratva, one of Putin’s chosen mobsters, who operates freely in Russia and the United States. Sid’s never met him personally but his Dad has stories about Tretiak that makes Sid’s blood run cold.

“She find out I like boys when I am 16. She tell him to send me to America, train me, and find me safe job. I am to be protected, let me live a life where I am happy. I work for him, work for Bratva, but I am allowed to be me.”

“And he agreed to this?��

“She is his baby sister,” Evgeni says with a watery smile. “I was always his favorite.”

“Does he know you’re here?” asks Sid, accepting a drink from Olli.

Evgeni nods, looking fairly miserable now. “His orders. Ovechkin not lying. Is not joke when he call me wife for you. My uncle, he give me to you as part of the agreement. They all mad. They want me dead, but they not going to say no to him. He already mad they followed me home, killed Trevor, now he have to give me up, give to you. He like Trevor.”

“Why to me though?”

Evgeni drains his glass, setting it down. “My job is to know things, to find out things. I study Crosby family most of all. Everybody know you gay. Know you like pretty boys, spoil them, treat them well for a few months, than let them go. Never let them know much about family. Keep them safe. My uncle, he think you keep me safe now he can’t.”

Sid sips his drink, his gaze locked on Olli’s face. Olli’s expression is as implacable as ever, but Sid knows that he’s going to relay all this information to Duper as soon as possible, get Horny and Hags looking in this direction. Sid’s not even going to have to ask.

“You just lost your husband,” Sid finally says. “You don’t want to be anyone’s wife.”

Evgeni presses his lips together than shakes his head. “No, but I also don’t want to be dead.”

“I am not going to kill you and I am not going to send you back,” Sid says honestly. “If Tretiak wants you here as my wife, I am going to assume he is going to stay away and will keep the rest of the Bratva away. I like that assurance. So I think we can come to an arrangement. I will protect you and keep you safe. You can pretend to be my wife in public. I do not expect you to act like one in private.”

“I would tho -”

Sid waves a hand. “I don’t like fucking people who feel like they have to fuck me. Olli, send Tanger and Flower a message that I need Cath and Vero to take Evgeni out shopping once he’s healed. He needs to look the part.”

Olli nods and leaves the room, Sid knowing he’s going to contact Duper as well. Evgeni’s head is bowed and he’s slipped the picture out again. Sid finishes his drink, watching him.

“Do you want us to make it look like you are dead as well?”

“Please,” Evgeni says, his voice rough. “I do not want people thinking I did that to him.”

“I’ll handle it,” Sid says, getting to his feet. “I’m making chicken stir-fry for dinner. Will you eat that?”

“Yes. Is okay if I go rest for bit first?” Evgeni asks.

“Go on. I’ll get you when dinner is ready,” Sid says easily. “And Evgeni, I am sorry. It looked like a good life.”

Evgeni’s expression is hollow as he looks back at Sid. “It was.”

#mob au #sidgeno fic #cw: violence #cw: homophobia #angst #strangers when we meet

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mariacallous · 2 months

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Alexey Navalny’s death

The fight for answers

More than three days after Alexey Navalny’s death, the Russian authorities have yet to hand his body over to his relatives or disclose an official cause of death. Below is a timeline of the main developments in his family’s fight to recover Navalny’s body and determine the truth about what happened to him.

Friday: Almost immediately after Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service announces Alexey Navalny’s death, Russian propaganda network RT claims that Navalny died of a “detached blood clot.” However, a doctor who advised Navalny’s associates tells Meduza that this is an “unlikely” cause of death and would be impossible to confirm without an independent autopsy.

Saturday: An employee of the prison where Alexey Navalny died says his body has been sent to a morgue in the nearby town of Salekhard. When Navalny’s mother and lawyer travel to the Salekhard morgue, however, they find it is closed. When the lawyer calls the phone number on the door, he’s told that the body isn’t there. Another one of Navalny’s lawyers is told by an official from the local branch of the Russian Investigative Committee that the cause of Navalny’s death has “not been determined” and that his body will not be given to his family until the investigation is complete.

Meanwhile, a source tells Novaya Gazeta Europe that Alexey Navalny’s body has been in the Salekhard morgue since Friday evening but that no autopsy has been performed yet. A city paramedic tells the publication that Navalny’s body has bruises consistent with a seizure or outside restraint during convulsions and with CPR.

In the evening, human rights activists at the OVD-Info project call on Russians to contact the Federal Investigative Committee and demand that the authorities hand over Alexey Navalny’s body to his relatives.

Sunday: Journalists from Mediazona share traffic cam footage from Friday night that shows a convoy of official vehicles traveling towards Salekhard from a town near the prison where Navalny died.

By the early afternoon, more than 12,000 people have sent appeals to Russia’s Investigative Committee demanding that Alexey Navalny’s body be released.

Monday: In the morning, Alexey Navalny’s mother and his lawyers are turned away from the morgue in Salekhard. One of the lawyers is “literally pushed out,” Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh reports.

Later in the day, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells journalist that the issue of returning Navalny’s body is not being handled by the Kremlin because it’s “not a function of the presidential administration.”

In the evening, Kira Yarmysh says that according to the Russian Investigative Committee, Navalny’s body has been sent for a “chemical examination” that will take 14 days.

By Monday night, more than 65,000 people have contacted the Investigative Committee to demand Navalny’s body be given to his family.

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mhsn033 · 4 years

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Alexei Navalny: Russia’s vociferous Putin critic

Image copyright Reuters

Anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has long been basically the most prominent face of Russian opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

He has known as Mr Putin’s occasion a keep of abode of “crooks and thieves”, accused the president’s arrangement of “sucking the blood out of Russia” and vowed to murder the “feudal utter” being built.

He has led nationwide protests against the authorities.

Nonetheless he has no longer been in a draw to fulfil what’s, maybe, his preferrred dream: scenario Mr Putin within the ballotfield.

His candidacy within the 2018 presidential election became banned by authorities over his conviction by a Russian court of embezzlement, which bars him from working for keep of abode of job.

Mr Navalny vehemently denies the accusations, announcing his upright troubles are Kremlin reprisals for his fierce criticism.

Many recount it’s dazzling that he’s mute strolling free.

However, on 20 August 2020 he became admitted to scientific institution with suspected poisoning. It is miles the 2nd suspected poisoning for the opposition chief.

Final year, he became diagnosed with “contact dermatitis” while in prison, with his doctor suggesting he would perchance maybe maybe need been exposed to “some poisonous agent”.

The anti-corruption campaigner fell in depressed health at some level of a flight and the plane made an emergency touchdown in Omsk, fellow campaigner Kira Yarmysh talked about on 20 August, adding that they suspected one thing had been combined into his tea.

Prominent blogger

While he’s a thorn within the Kremlin’s aspect, Mr Navalny additionally has critics amongst opposition groups, no longer least for what some realizing as his Russian nationalism.

In 2014 he became asked about President Putin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio keep of abode. He talked about that no subject Crimea being “seized” in violation of global law, “the true fact is that Crimea is now section of Russia”. “Crimea is ours,” he talked about.

Media playback is unsupported to your arrangement

Media captionThe BBC’s Steve Rosenberg became next to Mr Navalny when he became detained in January 2018

His upward thrust as a force in Russian politics began in 2008 when he started blogging about alleged malpractice and corruption at some of Russia’s astronomical utter-managed companies.

With out a doubt one of his ways became to turn out to be a minority shareholder in major oil companies, banks and ministries, and to ask awkward questions about holes in utter finances.

His expend of social media to remark his message symbolises his political fashion, reaching out to predominantly young followers in challenging, punchy language, mocking the institution proper to President Putin, who refuses to mention his title.

‘Crooks and thieves’

The campaign against corruption took Mr Navalny from criticism of companies at once to opposition to the ruling occasion, United Russia.

Sooner than the 2011 parliamentary election, which he didn’t fight as a candidate, he urged his blog readers to vote for any occasion with the exception of United Russia, which he dubbed the “occasion of crooks and thieves”. The phrase stuck.

United Russia won the election, but with an spectacular-reduced majority, and its victory became tarnished by frequent allegations of vote-rigging that precipitated protests in Moscow and one other major cities.

Alexei Navalny: The basics

Born 4 June 1976 at Butyn, within the Moscow ranking 22 situation

Graduated in law at Moscow’s Friendship of the Peoples College in 1998

Grew to turn out to be a Yale World Fellow in 2010

Lives in Moscow with his wife and two kids

Mr Navalny became arrested and imprisoned for 15 days following the first train on 5 December 2011, but emerged to be in contact at the preferrred of the post-election rallies in Moscow on 24 December, attended by as many as 120,000 people.

Mr Putin later won re-election as president with out problems and Russia’s grand Investigative Committee launched felony investigations into Mr Navalny’s past actions, even questioning his credentials as a attorney.

When he became temporarily jailed in July 2013 for embezzlement within the metropolis of Kirov, the five-year sentence became broadly considered as political.

He became with out be aware allowed out of prison to campaign for the Moscow mayoral elections, all the scheme thru which he became runner-up with 27% of the vote, slack Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin.

That became thought of a dramatic success as he had no acquire admission to to utter TV, relying easiest on the on-line and be aware of mouth.

Image copyright AFP

Image caption Navalny’s first major trial fascinating 12-hour put together rides to and from the court in Kirov

His conviction became at final overturned by the Russian Supreme Court following a judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that he became no longer given an preferrred hearing on the first trial.

Then, in a retrial in 2017, he became convicted for a 2nd time and handed a five year suspended sentenced. He known as the judgment farcical, announcing it became all an are attempting to bar him from the 2018 election.

Combating on, in Russia

Despite the incontrovertible fact that Mr Navalny never had the overall public profile of worn jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, parallels between the two figures were drawn.

Mr Khodorkovsky spent a decade in Russian jails, and when in 2010 a court convicted him for a 2nd time, the prolonged prison sentence became announced on 30 December, when most Russians had been alive to within the Unusual Year holiday.

Unlike Mr Khodorkovsky, now basically basically based in Switzerland, Mr Navalny has vowed to fight on in Russia – he became arrested thrice in 2017 for organising unauthorised anti-Putin protests and temporarily detained in early 2018.

Image copyright AFP

Image caption Mr Navalny has been detained lots of times in most contemporary years at some level of unauthorized protests

Speaking to the BBC, he instructed the correct thing Western states would perchance maybe maybe assemble for justice in Russia became to crack down on “soiled money”.

“I need people alive to in corruption and persecution of activists to be barred from entering these countries, to be denied visas.”

When Mr Navalny became jailed in 2013, he told the personal that he would fight on with his colleagues “to murder the feudal utter that is being in-built Russia, murder the arrangement of govt where 83% of nationwide wealth is owned by a half per cent of the population”.

Going thru critics someplace else

Mr Navalny has spoken at extremely-nationalist occasions, causing mission amongst liberals. Russian nationalists, too, had been wary of his links with the US after he spent a semester at Yale in 2010.

Nonetheless when the opposition elected its personal leaders in October 2012, it became Alexei Navalny who won, sooner than used Putin critic and worn chess champion Garry Kasparov, though it became on a puny turnout of 81,801.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its enhance for skilled-Russian separatists in jap Ukraine has been an effort for the anti-Putin opposition. Thought polls counsel solid enhance for the intervention amongst Russians – the Kremlin denies fomenting the Ukraine battle.

Mr Navalny has been an indicate of sanctions against Putin allies. Nonetheless one predict that has on a frequent basis been posed about Mr Navalny is whether or no longer he instructions any enhance beyond the population centres of Moscow and other cities.

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MOSCOW—As Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, Aleksey Navalny, lay in a coma on Friday after a suspected poisoning, a fierce tug-of-war raged between his family and authorities over whether he could be flown to Germany for additional medical treatment. Finally, on Friday night, Russian doctors relented and allowed Navalny to leave the country “on his wife’s responsibility.” All day, while a German air ambulance waited at the airport in the Siberian city of Omsk, Russian doctors at the hospital where Navalny was being treated and law enforcement agencies had refused to allow him out of Russia. Navalny’s wife appealed to President Vladimir Putin in a letter to allow her husband’s medical evacuation, but still the negotiations dragged on. (The Kremlin did not ban Navalny from traveling abroad after a previous attack. Somebody doused him with brilliant green antiseptic, damaging his eye, outside of his Anti-Corruption Fund, or FBK, in 2017. Shortly after the attack, Navalny underwent an eye surgery in Madrid.)Now, Navalny’s family will get the chance to seek treatment for him in Berlin.Navalny Poison ‘Is Dangerous to Those Treating Him’In the meantime, pro-Kremlin publications, some quoting anonymous sources, downplayed the possibility of poison and unspooled a long list of possible reasons why a healthy 44-year-old could have suddenly collapsed in a coma. Alternative causes and diagnoses for Navalny’s coma proliferated on state media: He “ate or took something the evening before” was one idea, or “he drank moonshine.” Other reports, which suggested the stricken opposition leader is a drug addict, angered even his critics.Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite who ran as a token candidate in the last presidential election from which real opposition figures were excluded, often disagreed with Navalny in political debates. But she defended her rival on Friday: “I have no doubts that this is a political reprisal, and reading about him getting ‘drunk on moonshine in the village’ is simply disgusting,” Sobchak wrote on social media. “Alexey was never seen drunk and there was no question of drugs at all. I am still horrified by the video of his voice on the plane: it's just awful. There are no words to describe the feelings of horror and helplessness in front of such a despicable reprisal.”The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, initially said that Navalny would not leave Russia as the doctors treating him in Siberia thought the flight could be “a threat to life,” so long as there is no clarity about what caused Navalny’s sickness. Navalny’s friends and supporters insisted that what actually threatened his life was poison in the tea he drank at a café in the airport before boarding his flight on Wednesday night. The politician lost consciousness on the plane early in the morning on Thursday. Video shot by another passenger showed him moaning in pain.The director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, Ivan Zhdanov, told journalists that he and his colleagues were in the head doctor’s office when a representative of the local transport police entered the room with a cell phone in her hand and said, “Here is the substance they found in him.” Zhdanov asked the name of the substance. “She told us it was classified information but that the substance was deadly dangerous for life, threatening not just Aleksey’s life but also everybody around him, everybody should be wearing protective costumes.” The intensive care unit treating Navalny has been flooded by police, according to Zhdanov.The head doctor at the hospital, Aleksander Murakhovsky, admitted to reporters that some chemicals had been discovered on the opposition leader’s nails and on his clothes. But he said that the chemicals, which he did not name, had nothing to do with Navalny’s coma. He later said “metabolic disorders” had caused the coma. The chief editor of Russia Today, a pro-Kremlin outlet, Margarita Simonyan, immediately posted: “They should have given him a spoon of sugar on the plane, nothing would have happened.”The Siberian doctors insisted that the conditions and doctors at their hospital were “not any worse,” than at the Charité hospital, where Germany was going to provide medical treatment for Navalny. Charité is a leading university hospital in Berlin, treating 152,693 inpatient cases a year. In contrast, photographs of the Omsk hospital, posted by Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, showed toilets covered in corrosion, holes in the walls, and missing paint and tiles. By evening, after a day of standoffs over the evacuation, the situation sounded completely bizarre: Navalny’s family and supporters said they felt as if they were trying to organize his escape from prison and not transportation from one hospital to another.Navalny’s wife, Yulia, spoke to journalists outside the hospital. She was breathing heavily: “I tried to see doctors in the intensive care but some people wearing overcoats inside forced me out in a brutal way,” she said. Doctors had stopped talking with her four hours before. “They hide the German doctors from us, this is an outrageous situation. It is obvious that something is being kept in secret from us. We demand they give us Aleksey immediately, so we could take him to doctors who we trust.”Navalny’s personal doctor denied he had diabetes. After seeing the video of Navalny screaming in pain on the plane, Russian doctors both in Moscow and St. Petersburg expressed their doubts about low blood sugar being the cause of Navalny’s coma. “As a rule, a fairly healthy person does not have hypoglycemia unless they starve for two days and work out.” Navalny did not starve himself in Siberia. He met with local opposition politicians, and continued his corruption investigation of Tomsk governor Sergey Zhvachkin; he had tea in Tomsk’s airport.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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attredd · 4 years

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#Russia Allows ‘Poisoned’ Putin Critic Alexey Navalny to Fly to Germany For Treatment

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 3 years

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This is utterly shocking. Navalny’s lawyers have raised the alarm over his health after visiting him in prison. (Previous requests to do so were repeatedly blocked).

Navalny’s health complaints include back pain and an inability to move his right leg. Lawyers accuse the prison authorities of denying Navalny proper medication.

Anyone familiar with the tragic case of Sergei Magnitsky will see chilling parallels. Before Magnitsky was beaten to death, he had been in excruciating pain for months. Prison authorities repeatedly denied requests for medical assistance, instead continuing to inflict physical and mental torture on the lawyer.

Given that the FSB tried to murder Navalny in August 2020, the entire free world should be up in arms over this latest news. While Navalny languishes in jail, comfortable politicians in foreign countries have thus far failed to apply crippling sanctions to Putin’s henchmen. Therefore, Putin believes he can act with impunity.

Yulia Navalnaya, who has also been mistreated and stalked by Russian authorities since her return to Germany, said on social media that Navalny wanted to keep his condition quiet. She even said that he would prefer to joke about it than complain.

Another protest is coming up soon, hopefully larger than the previous two. Navalnaya once again calls for the release of her husband from jail, which she says was to prevent him from challenging Putin’s 20 years in power.

Will the international community now stand up and apply sanctions against the criminals named in Alexei Navalny’s list? Or will they once again fail a Russian citizen persecuted for telling the truth? The list of names grows ever longer. Many countries, including my own, will have blood on their hands if they do not act in Alexei Navalny’s defence now.

And Amnesty International might want to reconsider throwing Navalny under the bus based on pro-Kremlin pressure, not moral reasons. The way he has been treated in prison is precisely the reason why their organisation was founded. What are they doing to help?

#alexei navalny #navalny #free navalny #russia #russian news #russia news #russian federation #putin #president putin #yulia navalnaya #pokrov #prison colony #abuse #criminality #novichok #FSB #russian government #writeblr

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OMSK: The wife of stricken Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny appealed to President Vladimir Putin on Friday to allow the opposition politician to be flown to Germany for urgent medical care from a hospital in Siberia.

Navalny, a foe of Putin and his lieutenants and a campainger against corruption, is in serious condition after drinking tea on Thursday morning that his allies believe was laced with poison.

His condition improved a little overnight but his life was still in danger and he was not well enough to be moved from the hospital, doctors treating him in Omsk, Siberia, said.

German doctors flew into the city in an air ambulance sent by the Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation, a non-profit organisation, with the intention of flying him to Germany if possible.

Alexander Murakhovsky, the head doctor at the hospital, said Navalny had been diagnosed with a metabolic disease that may have been caused by low blood sugar.

He said traces of industrial chemical substances had been found on the 44-year-old’s clothes and fingers hours and that doctors did not believe Navalny had been poisoned.

Navalny’s wife Yulia and his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, who want to fly Navalny to Germany for medical treatment, have criticised the hospital after it said that moving him would put his life at risk because he was still in a coma and his condition unstable.

Yulia Navalnaya sent a letter to the Kremlin directly appealing for it to intervene, Navalny’s supporters said.

“I officially appeal to you (Putin) to demand you allow the transportation of… Navalny to .. Germany,” the letter published on social media said.

Yarmysh said doctors had previously consented to his being moved, but had withheld their agreement at the last minute.

“The ban on transporting Navalny is an attempt on his life being carried out right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities that have authorised it,” Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.

“This decision, of course, was not made by them, but by the Kremlin,” she said.

Speaking before the letter was sent, the Kremlin said on Friday it was up to doctors to decide whether Navalny was fit to be moved from the hospital and that it had not received any formal request to help.

Murakhovsky told reporters that many legal questions would need to be resolved before Navalny could be handed over to European doctors.

He said top doctors had been flown in from Moscow to treat Navalny who were no worse than their European counterparts. Test results would be available within two days, he said.

Navalny fell ill while on a flight and he was stretchered off the plane and rushed to hosipital after it made an emergency landing in Omsk.

Navalny has been the biggest thorn in the Kremlin’s side for more than a decade, exposing what he says is high-level graft and mobilising crowds of young protesters.

He has been repeatedly detained for organising public meetings and rallies and sued over his investigations into corruption. He was barred from running in a presidential election in 2018.

TRACES

Navalny’s team cited a police officer as saying a highly dangerous substance had been identified in his body that posed a risk to everyone around him and that they should wear protective suits. Reuters could not independently confirm that information.

Navalny’s team said it believed authorities wanted to stall for time so that any trace of what poisoned him would disappear.

The post Putin critic Navalny’s team says ‘highly dangerous substance’ found in his body appeared first on ARY NEWS.

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