Navalny helped the EU compile sanctions on the people who made Crimea’s return to Russia possible in 2014. A year later, he submitted a list of Russian bureaucrats he believed should be sanctioned to the FT, many of whom were indeed later sanctioned by the West. Also in 2015, professional oppositionists Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Kara-Murza traveled to the US to lobby Congress into putting Russian journalists – “propagandists” – on a no entry list for insufficiently fawning coverage of Boris Nemtsov, a famous but politically irrelevant opposition politician who had been recently murdered in Moscow.
Now all these people will face criminal liability for such activities...This pretty much paralyzes the "liberal" opposition that Washington is counting on for regime change.
In addition, Alexei Kudrin is out. He is a pro-Western, neoliberal that favors privatizing Russia state assets, and replacing military spending with domestic spending.
PS. One more confirmation (if any are still needed) that Russia isn’t planning on folding is that the rumors spread by someone that the former liberal Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin was going to be appointed to a senior post in the Russian government have been completely discredited. He has instead been appointed to be head of the National Audit Office, which is perhaps more humiliating than ignoring him entirely.Rumors of Putin (Russia) caving are apparently premature.
See also
China plans to double trade with Russia to $200 bln by 2020
I would also say that Putin's supposed caving to Netanyahu is also misguided and simplistic. Russia has a very nuanced foreign policy, especially with regard to the MENA based on it national interests. If Russia is far from caving to the US, it is not about to cave to Israel. Why they agreed upon is unknown so far, and it will probably only emerge in hindsight.
No comments:
Post a Comment