Good morning,
Putin’s Russia
A Russian court heard so called ‘evidence’ behind closed doors and then late Thursday night, issued a ruling effectively banning jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti Corruption Movement, labelling it an “extremist” organization.
President Putin has crushed peaceful and democratic dissent and he did it on the eve of his meeting next week with President Biden, and the timing was likely intentional.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Mike McFaul tweeted last night;
“Putin easily could have chosen to take this action after meeting with Biden in Geneva. He deliberately did it before. Biden wrote said that he wants a stable and predictable relationship with Russia. Putin does not. He is deliberately provoking Biden with this move”.
Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in August. Phone records and even a phone recording, reveal an FSB hit squad carried out the attempted assassination.
Navalny has since been jailed on trumped up fraud charges, and in the last few months, the Kremlin has closed more than 40 of his political movements offices, and arrested dozens of activists.
But it’s a long sad story of ‘stillborn democracy’ in Russia and the West turned a blind eye. When the free world embraced the collapse of the former Soviet Union, did we think democracy had won? As people who grew up in democratic countries, our Governments fought against communist ideals, and when President Ronald Reagan demanded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “tear down this wall” between East and West Germany, we celebrated when the Berlin wall indeed came down.
Gorbachev eventually embraced Glasnost and Perestroika freedoms. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 as 15 nations who had been invaded by the Soviets, broke away and some eventually joined the European Union and NATO for long term freedoms and protections.
Putin was out of a job at the KGB where he worked as a mediocre spy in east Germany. The first Russian President would rename and reorganize the KGB into the FSB. Boris Yeltsin knew the power and dangers of a police state and he quickly tried to disarm it.
But when Putin came to power in 2000, he began to give ground to the old ways of the KGB. First he surrounded himself with former Security Service people, and then the first pillars of freedom - media was to be brought under control as were independent rich Oligarchs.
The Kremlin muzzled free TV channels first, taking them back under Government programming. Then newspapers were reorganized into ‘Putin friendly’ outlets.
But it’s no simple thing to reverse democracy and people’s perceptions of freedom. So slowly Putin began to suppress political opposition making it difficult for independent voices to be heard. Former P.M. Mikhail Kasyanov who tried to run for President was attacked, banned from TV, and eventually squeezed off the voting list. I know because I was a reporter for American TV in Russia, and followed Mikhail as he tried to navigate setting up a grass roots movement to rival Putin.
Oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky who tried to launch a political movement was jailed and eventually exiled.
Next ,was Boris Nemtsov who spoke out often and spoke out loudly, against Kremlin corruption and the dangers of an authoritarian regime. Nemtsov was gunned down in front of the Kremlin when he campaigned against Putin’s annexation of Crimea and Russia’s war in one of those break away Soviet States, Ukraine. I also knew Nemtsov and he told me one day Russia would be free.
But, last summer Putin changed the constitution, effectively allowing him to remain in office until 2036. He has tried to kill another opposition leader Alexei Navalny because he knows people in Russia are tired of his rule and see Navalny as an alternative as parliamentary elections approach in September.
The banning of Navalny’s political movement which embarrassed Putin with a recent investigation into a billion dollar palace being built on the Black Sea, is somewhat anti climatic.
Putin has shown us for 21 years he has no regard for democracy or its values. His regime is becoming more desperate, and more brutal, and more dangerous to the West as it carries out election interference across Europe and in America itself.
The question now is what is the free world willing to do about it?
Former President Trump’s embrace of Putin, and his willingness to allow him to disrupt elections in 2016 unleashed more interference by Russia.
U.S. President Biden has now arrived in Europe to meet with NATO and then Putin himself in Geneva next Wednesday. He knows well what Putin represents. There will be no illusions and no break throughs in their discussions.
Putin needs an enemy and will try to use Biden to distract Russians from their domestic economic problems and growing isolation because of sanctions.
Biden needs to focus on China and Russia is a distraction.
And his "we want a stable, predictable relationship,” wish is a pipe dream. Putin won’t be predictable and the relationship won’t be stable. Because right now it’s in Putins interest to support rogue regimes and compete with America and the cost? So far it’s minimal and thats the problem.
Speaking to US Air Force personnel and their families at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk ahead of his meeting G7 meetings Mr Biden vowed;
"We’re going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and issues that matter the most to our future,” he said. “That we’re committed to leading with strength, defending our values, and delivering for our people.”
Is President Biden about to tell Putin, America will fight back to defend those values and does he really mean what he says?
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/09/russia-blacklists-navalnys-political-and-activist-movements-as-extremist-a74159
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/us/politics/biden-putin-summit.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/09/biden-putin-summit-villa-switzerland-venue