Russian troops in Washington
The opposition proposes to the White House to increase pressure on the Kremlin.
It’s likely that no one will have any doubts that America’s many opposition shares really stand in its capital meeting with the quite expected agenda: Obama should sharply toughen his attitude to Putin’s regime and use more innovative methods for this, since rebooting failed and need fresh ideas.
Obama, of course, needs such advice right now. While he and his administration are in a desperate search for new ideas to solve numerous internal and external problems, the Russian opposition and its American friends are doing everything possible to expand the list of such problems. The meeting began on February 21 with artillery preparation in the Heritage Foundation, where an opposition activist, journalist, and now also an employee of the Institute of Modern Russia (its president is Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel), Vladimir Kara-Murza made his modest contribution to the discussion of recommendations to the US President. Among them: the early deployment of missile defense systems in Europe, no cuts in the military budget, the achievement of full superiority of all US space, land, air and naval forces in Europe and Eurasia. It is necessary to force Russia to buy American meat and expand military and economic cooperation with key Eurasian countries: Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan (Georgia, it seems, have passed). However, the main thing, of course, is the support of the Russian opposition in the struggle for democracy and human rights.
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Especially Kara-Murza did not like that, “while thousands of Muscovites gathered at Pushkin Square to protest against dishonest presidential elections, the US State Department warmly congratulated Vladimir Putin on the victory.” However, the main event is expected on March 4 in the US Senate, where the main role will be played by Freedom House, so Putin will get there in full. Lyudmila Alekseeva, Mikhail Kasyanov, Dmitry Gudkov and Lilia Shevtsova have been announced from Russia so far, but other oppositionists are also possible. On the eve of the rally, the program articles of Freedom House and Lilia Shevtsova were published, so no particular sensations are expected, although who knows?
Freedom House insists on a significant increase in the financial and moral support of the Russian opposition, as well as the search for more "innovative ways of political liberalization of Russia." Under the innovative approach, the direct text speaks of the need "to throw a tough challenge not only to Russia, but also to the various authoritarian organizations in which it is composed, such as the Eurasian Union, the CSTO, the CIS, the SCO, and others."
Those who follow the news from the USA, they know that the main topic discussed here now is the upcoming sequestration of the budget, including for social needs. However, according to Freedom House, American retirees, healthcare and education are not as important as the help of the Russian opposition, and therefore this budget item should not be reduced, like others, but, on the contrary, should grow. The miserable $ 50 million allocated to promote democracy in Russia is a trifle for such an ambitious program. Particularly pleased with the appeal of Freedom House to challenge the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where one of the main players is China, by the way, is the largest lender to the United States, to which the Americans owe almost a half trillion dollars. America, therefore, is still being offered additional money from China to finance activities against the lenders themselves. I would like to hear the reaction of the Chinese comrades to such an offer!
However, the proposals coming from the very center of Moscow - the office of the Russian branch of the Carnegie Foundation on Pushkin Square - are even more striking. Lilia Shevtsova, a leading researcher at the foundation, offers a much more radical approach — a return to the containment policy of Putin’s Russia. Nobody argues that the Russian democratic institutions are still too weak and suffer from many shortcomings that accompany the early stage of the development of democracy, but Russia is not trying to spread its ideology and threaten someone’s security, like the Soviet Union at one time.
Modern Russia is first of all a regional power without any special global ambitions. Of course, it has its own interests, sometimes not coinciding with the interests of the United States, but on the most important issues, such as, for example, the fight against international terrorism, drug trafficking, the spread of weapons mass destruction, these interests are completely the same. Therefore, calls for a policy of containment of Russia are not only irrelevant, but also dangerous, since they turn Russia from an albeit insufficiently reliable partner into an enemy. I do not think that America needs it, but Shevtsov gets her salary from here.
The position of the Carnegie Foundation’s leadership is not entirely clear. Jim Collins, the former US ambassador to Moscow, and now the director of the Russian programs of the foundation, his deputy Matt Rozhansky, as well as the director of the Moscow branch of this foundation Dmitry Trenin are known for their sober and pragmatic approach to US-Russian relations. Their opinion would be worth listening to both Moscow and Washington. It is also clear that the employees of the foundation have complete freedom of expression, but can they contradict its strategic line? If this is not the case, is it possible to assume that the leaders of the foundation consider the policy of containing Russia to be correct and are ready to offer it to the White House? From my point of view, this “meeting” will not only not help the Russian opposition, but will also greatly harm it, since it will practically confirm the words of the Russian leadership about the “hand of Washington” on its pulse. And they are unlikely to add money, our debt is already approaching 17 trillion. dollars, and we can not constantly borrow from Communist China to promote democracy in Russia. Perhaps the opposition should go directly to Beijing, they have money, and without intermediaries it is always better.
Washington
It’s likely that no one will have any doubts that America’s many opposition shares really stand in its capital meeting with the quite expected agenda: Obama should sharply toughen his attitude to Putin’s regime and use more innovative methods for this, since rebooting failed and need fresh ideas.
Obama, of course, needs such advice right now. While he and his administration are in a desperate search for new ideas to solve numerous internal and external problems, the Russian opposition and its American friends are doing everything possible to expand the list of such problems. The meeting began on February 21 with artillery preparation in the Heritage Foundation, where an opposition activist, journalist, and now also an employee of the Institute of Modern Russia (its president is Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s son Pavel), Vladimir Kara-Murza made his modest contribution to the discussion of recommendations to the US President. Among them: the early deployment of missile defense systems in Europe, no cuts in the military budget, the achievement of full superiority of all US space, land, air and naval forces in Europe and Eurasia. It is necessary to force Russia to buy American meat and expand military and economic cooperation with key Eurasian countries: Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan (Georgia, it seems, have passed). However, the main thing, of course, is the support of the Russian opposition in the struggle for democracy and human rights.
Also in section:
Especially Kara-Murza did not like that, “while thousands of Muscovites gathered at Pushkin Square to protest against dishonest presidential elections, the US State Department warmly congratulated Vladimir Putin on the victory.” However, the main event is expected on March 4 in the US Senate, where the main role will be played by Freedom House, so Putin will get there in full. Lyudmila Alekseeva, Mikhail Kasyanov, Dmitry Gudkov and Lilia Shevtsova have been announced from Russia so far, but other oppositionists are also possible. On the eve of the rally, the program articles of Freedom House and Lilia Shevtsova were published, so no particular sensations are expected, although who knows?
Freedom House insists on a significant increase in the financial and moral support of the Russian opposition, as well as the search for more "innovative ways of political liberalization of Russia." Under the innovative approach, the direct text speaks of the need "to throw a tough challenge not only to Russia, but also to the various authoritarian organizations in which it is composed, such as the Eurasian Union, the CSTO, the CIS, the SCO, and others."
Those who follow the news from the USA, they know that the main topic discussed here now is the upcoming sequestration of the budget, including for social needs. However, according to Freedom House, American retirees, healthcare and education are not as important as the help of the Russian opposition, and therefore this budget item should not be reduced, like others, but, on the contrary, should grow. The miserable $ 50 million allocated to promote democracy in Russia is a trifle for such an ambitious program. Particularly pleased with the appeal of Freedom House to challenge the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), where one of the main players is China, by the way, is the largest lender to the United States, to which the Americans owe almost a half trillion dollars. America, therefore, is still being offered additional money from China to finance activities against the lenders themselves. I would like to hear the reaction of the Chinese comrades to such an offer!
However, the proposals coming from the very center of Moscow - the office of the Russian branch of the Carnegie Foundation on Pushkin Square - are even more striking. Lilia Shevtsova, a leading researcher at the foundation, offers a much more radical approach — a return to the containment policy of Putin’s Russia. Nobody argues that the Russian democratic institutions are still too weak and suffer from many shortcomings that accompany the early stage of the development of democracy, but Russia is not trying to spread its ideology and threaten someone’s security, like the Soviet Union at one time.
Modern Russia is first of all a regional power without any special global ambitions. Of course, it has its own interests, sometimes not coinciding with the interests of the United States, but on the most important issues, such as, for example, the fight against international terrorism, drug trafficking, the spread of weapons mass destruction, these interests are completely the same. Therefore, calls for a policy of containment of Russia are not only irrelevant, but also dangerous, since they turn Russia from an albeit insufficiently reliable partner into an enemy. I do not think that America needs it, but Shevtsov gets her salary from here.
The position of the Carnegie Foundation’s leadership is not entirely clear. Jim Collins, the former US ambassador to Moscow, and now the director of the Russian programs of the foundation, his deputy Matt Rozhansky, as well as the director of the Moscow branch of this foundation Dmitry Trenin are known for their sober and pragmatic approach to US-Russian relations. Their opinion would be worth listening to both Moscow and Washington. It is also clear that the employees of the foundation have complete freedom of expression, but can they contradict its strategic line? If this is not the case, is it possible to assume that the leaders of the foundation consider the policy of containing Russia to be correct and are ready to offer it to the White House? From my point of view, this “meeting” will not only not help the Russian opposition, but will also greatly harm it, since it will practically confirm the words of the Russian leadership about the “hand of Washington” on its pulse. And they are unlikely to add money, our debt is already approaching 17 trillion. dollars, and we can not constantly borrow from Communist China to promote democracy in Russia. Perhaps the opposition should go directly to Beijing, they have money, and without intermediaries it is always better.
Washington
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