Tomas Hirst
Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin
The Russian Duma’s overwhelming vote to ratify Protocol 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights could force the hand of the government to reform the country’s legal system.
Long promised under Vladimir Putin, the reform of Russia’s opaque justice system has been a topic of open debate for more than a decade. Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s successor to the presidency, even made it a key component to his televised interview at the end of last year.
In it he announced in no uncertain terms that “our system of the execution of punishment has not changed for decades,” and suggested the need to change was immediate. The response, both nationally and internationally, was understandably muted: this is now a well-worn promise in a country where the conviction rate for criminal cases without a jury has hovered at around 99 per cent.
Read more »
Tomas Hirst
Russia's powerful prime minister has more to gain from keeping Medvedev in tow
Following Vladimir Putin’s annual call-in session, a veritable flurry of articles have appeared effectively declaring his candidacy for the 2012 presidential election. Yet I still feel that this is unlikely.
As journalists looking at Russia from our western pedestal, it’s all too easy to see intrigue and infighting without having to try (or think) too hard. “Look!” we say, “Putin won’t deny that he’s going to run.” And in the umbrella-stabbing world of intrigue that is Russian politics this surely means he’s going for President Dmitri Medvedev’s jugular.
Yet here’s a more pertinent question to ask: why would he declare himself out of an election that is still, in terms of recent developments in the Russian political landscape, an age away? He is the most powerful politician in the country, and singlehandedly (sorry Dmitri) drove the party United Russia to victory in the parliamentary elections last year. Without him, or faced with the prospect of being without him come 2012, his party’s position, along with the president’s, would be greatly weakened. And as history has shown, perceived weakness and division is nearly always punished by democratic electorates.
Read more »
Tomas Hirst
Demonstrations for NTV independence in Moscow, March 2001
Independent media organisations in Russia have faced a long and bitter struggle since they were forged in the chaos of the 1990s. Now, however, despite their efforts, they are the closest they have ever been to being silenced.
I am not talking about the operations of western media outlets in Russia over the past two decades, a boom which has seen Dow Jones, Reuters and Bloomberg newswires flourish. Foreign language newspapers such as the Moscow Times and the St Petersburg Times have also been established and largely treated with ambivalence by the Kremlin.
The point, of which the current Russian administration is acutely aware, is that they are not Russian businesses aimed at Russian people. While Hollywood has penetrated the cultural life of the country, the foreign news media is treated with distrust or even hostility. Read more »
Tomas Hirst
Cult leader: the long process of de-Stalinization continues
We need to stop talking about political divisions in the heart of United Russia, and appreciate that Dmitry Medvedev’s speech against Stalin-era crimes is a truly brave step.
A brief visit to Red Square might leave many in the West confused; Stalin’s tomb, separated from Lenin’s only eight years after his death, remains one of the best decorated with tokens from his still enamoured supporters.
Let us not underestimate the scale to which he is still revered in the country. In December last year Josef Stalin was voted the third most popular Russian in a nationwide poll conducted on state television.
Seen by the West as a puppet of the former president and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, Medvedev’s touching on a subject as sensitive as the heritage of such an emotive figure might seem alien to such a definition.
Read more »
Jonathan Power
Obama and Medvedev's summit is an opportunity for bold action
The first summit between President Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev is only days away and so far there has only been perfunctory mention of this in the media. Odd, not to say irresponsible.
If played right this could be the most important summit since presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush, having torn down the Iron Curtain, decided that they had enough confidence in the other side to introduce unilateral nuclear arms cuts, a valuable ancillary to what they formally agreed.
In the opinion of Georgi Arbatov, Gorbachev’s (and before that Brezhnev’s) foreign affairs advisor, the time is overdue for more unilateral cuts. “Being honest”, he told me two summers’ ago, “we in Russia are not right in our approach. We have so many weapons we could decrease the numbers unilaterally and set an example. We could dismantle our rockets, take others off alert, and the Americans would be obliged to follow us.”
Read more »
Jonathan Power
On the same side? Obama and Medvedev will meet in July
On both sides of the former Iron Curtain most people have forgotten—if they ever knew—that despite the rise and fall of British imperialism, the American Declaration of Independence, the expansion of Russia under the Tsars, the wars of the world, the cold war and the terrifying Cuban confrontation, the US and Russia have been at peace for more than 200 years. Not once in anger has a shot been fired at the other.
In Riga, Latvia, I had the opportunity the other day to ask one of the top advisers of President Dmitri Medvedev, Igor Yurgens, why so soon after the end of the cold war and the high hopes that went with it that relations had deteriorated once again. “We lost trust in each other.” “OK,” I said in reply. “There have been problems, but are they enough to go back to the bad old days?”
“From my point of view,” Yurgens replied, “there is not enough evidence to justify hostility. I think that both sides have overreacted and the Russians too on a number of issues. Nevertheless, for all the differences that have come up, we are both on the same side when it comes to Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.” Read more »
Jonathan Power
Igor Yurgens: a man with Medvedev's ear
As Dmitri Medvedev’s economic advisor, Igor Yurgens is probably one of the most influential men in the Kremlin.
A liberal by disposition, he runs his own think tank giving him the intellectual firepower to influence the president. Yurgens was involved with clearing the path for Medvedev to be interviewed by Novaya Gazeta, the remarkably brave newspaper which used to employ Anna Politkovskaya.
In my conversation with Yurgens, we talked about Georgia. Last August, Russia defeated Georgian forces which had precipitated an unnecessary war by invading the pro-Russian mini state of South Ossetia. I’ve long maintained that although Russia was acting within its rights in repulsing the unprovoked Georgian attack, it used a sledge hammer to kill a wasp. The Russian military used tactics that not only overwhelmed the Georgian army, but also created widespread destruction and civilian suffering. They seemed to be unnecessarily brutal. I put this to Yurgens. Read more »
Jonathan Power
The key to US-Russian relations?
Precise quid pro quos are not good in marital or romantic relationships. Neither are they good in big time politics. If made too precisely, they suggest that the other side is not to be trusted unless there is a “deal.” When there is conflict, with friends or indeed with enemies, the great need is to change the atmosphere: to restore a sense of trust so that opinions and arrangements can be freely traded. One good step by one side encourages, but does not demand, a good step by the other side.
At the end of the cold war, we saw such magnanimity. And we, the peoples of American, Russian, Europe and the rest of the world, benefited immensely from it. Two great presidents were responsible for this: George Bush senior in the US and Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. In 1991, Bush decided unilaterally to de-alert all bombers, 450 of the deadly accurate city-destroying Minuteman missiles and the missiles in 10 Poseidon submarines (enough with one launch to destroy Moscow, Leningrad and every city in between). Gorbachev, taking this as his cue, deactivated 500 land-based nuclear-tipped missiles and six submarines (enough in total to reduce the most populated parts of the US to ashes and dust). This wasn’t, moreover, the cosmetic de-alerting talked about today. Silo and submarine crews actually had their launch keys taken away from them.
This is why President Barack Obama (if the New York Times has got the story right) has made a big mistake in his opening move following the pressing of the famous “reset button.” Although apparently warmly received, his letter to President Dimitri Medvedev—suggesting that the US was open to discussion on the dismantling of the anti-missile site now being constructed on Polish soil, if Russia would lean harder on Iran to halt any programs that would lead to nuclear weapons—was misconceived.
What it should have said is simply this: “President George W Bush made a policy that the US no longer stands by. We want to reopen discussions with you that will lead to our abandonment of the project”. Full stop. Period. The rest would then follow.
Read more »
Post a comment »
