Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

The bitterness when Russia pipped England in the race to stage the World Cup was palpable. Very soon, there were incessant implications that the tournament would be a disaster and countless attempts to organise a boycott on flimsy pretexts. Nick Clegg was one of the quickest out of the blocks, demanding British teams refuse to participate in protest at the Kremlin’s insistence on confronting Jihadist maniacs in Syria. Russia’s stubbornly independent foreign policy and resistance to western groupthink has resulted in it being treated as a pariah. Yet it confounded its critics by staging the most entertaining World Cup in living memory and proved itself an exceptional host. From the opening ceremony to the trophy presentation, which took place in a near biblical rainstorm, Russia 2018 was an unqualified triumph. The conspiracy theorists will allege that Vladimir Putin stage-managed the event carefully in order to cultivate a positive image of his country (as if micromanaging t...

When Theresa May’s speechwriters pondered this year’s keynote address to the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, they couldn’t have been short of potential material. Businesses and their representative organisations daily pour over every utterance from the Prime Minister and her colleagues, in an attempt to decode how the Brexit negotiations might progress. The Conservative government appears to be riven with infighting and, if it falls, Labour and Jeremy Corbyn threaten to upend British society and the existing economic order. The chancellor continues to wrestle with the insoluble algebra of keeping unemployment low and cutting the deficit, while boosting productivity and raising wages.   That’s probably why Mrs May’s speech largely avoided each of these big issues and instead reached for a series of well worn accusations, directed against Russia. It was the usual thing; espionage, destabilising eastern European states, weaponising information. “I have a very simple message for Russ...

Russia’s apparent mastery of misinformation has become an obsession of media in the UK and the US. I referred previously to  The Times’  recent front-page lead, which reported a “secret propaganda assault” masterminded by Vladimir Putin, based on a new Sputnik news agency bureau opening in Edinburgh and some Kremlin-sponsored Russian language programmes starting in British universities. The Russian government is supposed to be waging “hybrid war” on the West through an army of pro-Moscow TV commentators, state-backed football hooligans and internet trolls. The word ‘weaponised’ is bandied about with illiberal abandon in countless long-form magazine articles, promoted by brooding, sinister cover images of Putin or Soviet tanks. You don’t have to be a raging Russophile to appreciate the irony. Two of the more recent English language books about Russia have harnessed this mood by looking at the country and its recent history through the lens of its media. Arkady Ostrovs...

The campaign against Brexit was criticised for trying to frighten people into voting ‘remain’, as economic meltdown and the breakup of the United Kingdom were threatened, in order to support the idea that Britain could not leave the European Union without devastating consequences.  These tactics backfired, as the public became weary of the movement’s negative tone and cynical about the motives of an ‘establishment’ it perceived was arguing in its own interests, rather than the interests of wider society.  As referendum day approached, David Cameron tried to put an even older British fear at the heart of debate, when he claimed that the UK would be ill-equipped outside the EU to deal with threats from “a newly belligerent Russia”.  The ‘leave’ campaign’s figurehead, Boris Johnson, was subsequently lambasted as a ‘Putin apologist’, when he suggested that Brussels’ foreign policy helped create conflict in the Ukraine. The ‘remain’ camp’s Russian strategy was nev...

Despite a ceasefire agreement, signed in Minsk last week, the Ukrainian president, Petro Poreshenko, and his supporters apparently have ‘no doubt’ that the United States will provide their armed forces with weapons to fight anti-government insurgents in south-eastern Ukraine.  There appears to be an increased appetite among belligerent advisers in Washington to escalate a crisis which has caused devastation for civilians in the region.  Providing the Kiev regime with weapons, openly, would likely transform a deadly civil war, complicated by the Ukraine’s delicate geo-political situation, into a genuine proxy conflict between the US and Russia.   Recently, I read Richard Sakwa’s masterful book, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands .  It’s a serious, academic analysis, which makes a change from polemical journalism cheering on one side or another in the war.  One of its important contentions is that the conflict, including the economic sanctions ...

‘If you read twenty five books about foreign policy this year, make one of them Ben Judah’s   Fragile Empire ’.  Not exactly the words of Foreign Policy magazin e, and the book, subtitled   How Russia fell in and out of love with Vladimir Putin , has attracted praise from a number of reviewers . The author’s central thesis isn’t quite the re-tread of worn-out clichés about the Russian president as manipulative, all-powerful dictator, that you’ll find in Masha Gessen’s   Man Without a Face   or countless other works.  In fact Judah believes that Putin has failed to build a strong, centralised system and, as a result, both his personal political authority and the integrity of the state he rules are under threat.  I didn’t expect to accept this argument wholesale, and nor did I, but the book was far from irredeemable.  It forms a reasonable account of the protests which developed in Moscow and other large cities last winter, and, although J...

The media’s reaction to the 5 year prison sentence handed to Russian opposition activist, Alexei Navalny, after his trial for embezzling timber, is familiar.  The editorials read very much like any number of columns written after Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s multiple appearances in court, or the outcry after members of ‘Pussy Riot’ were sent to prison.  However this verdict is different and has more regrettable implications.    Firstly, even staunchly pro-Russia commentators acknowledge that the case against Navalny is not strong.  At Da Russophile Anatoly Karlin argues that the trial is ‘further delegitimizing’ the Russian legal system. When the state previously used legal methods or the threat of proceedings to sweep aside political challenges from Gusinsky, Berezovsky and, famously, Khodorkovsky, it was acting against men who were determined to use their wealth and influence to manipulate the democratic process.  The nature of the oligarchs’ asset gr...

Last Saturday a lengthy political saga  finally came to an end at United Russia’s conference in Moscow.  Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin announced that the latter will contest next year’s Russian Presidential election.  This resolves the “will he or won’t he” speculation about President Medvedev seeking a second term in office. There will, of course, be many Russian liberals who see this decision as a fatal blow to Russia’s democracy.  There will also be a chorus of “we told you so”s from commentators hostile to the Kremlin who always maintained that Medvedev’s presidency was a sham.   Their arguments have some force, but they’re very far from the full picture.   The President has defended his decision to step aside and let Putin contest the election, observing that the Prime Minister is Russia’s “most authoritative” leader.   The Russian public has consistently expressed its preference for Putin, ahead of Medvedev, wher...

Will Putin or Medvedev contest next year's presidential election in Russia?  The answer is by no means certain.  Everything either man does at the moment is interpreted as pre-campaign manoeuvring. To that end the New Times has sketched up an intriguing map showing pro Putin and pro Medvedev regions of Russia.  It's all rather conjectural, but the speculation is rather fun. It scores it 28 solid Putin regions to 14 for Medvedev .   The remaining 41 regions are dominated by neither man.    It must be said that the stats aren't based so much on voter intention as the administrative subtleties in each region.

This time last week a full scale row was brewing over the Guardian journalist Luke Harding's apparent 'expulsion' from Russia.  Labour MP Chris Bryant even called for the Kremlin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, to be denied entry to Britain over the episode. This afternoon Lavrov delivered a speech at the London School of Economics after meeting William Hague at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office .  His visit attracted some protests from Russian opposition activists, who attempted to pass on a series of symbolic 'gifts' for President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. So why has everything gone quiet on the Harding affair?  Quite simple really.  The journalist is back in situ in Moscow .  He reentered the country just a week after being refused entry at Domodedovo Airport.  He uses his Twitter account to suggest that colleagues pursue his "case" at Lavrov's press conference.  A week's enforced leave, though, does not make a compelling ...

If Boris Yeltsin were still alive, he would have celebrated his eightieth birthday on Tuesday .  Although his record in the job was chequered, to say the least, the current Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, paid tribute to his predecessor in Yekaterinburg. A monument to Yeltsin was unveiled in the city where he lived and where, as a communist functionary during the 1970s and 1980s, he built up his political power base.  Medvedev chose the occasion to announce an expansion of the human rights council, ordering it to investigate the cases of Yukos bosses Sergei Magitsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It was an interesting piece of symbolism - both historically and in the context of Russia‘s current system of government.  It implied that Yeltsin was the father of democracy and human rights in Russia and it rather suggested that his successors haven’t been as faithful to that legacy as they might have been. Clearly, there are problems with that interpretation.  It can...

The international news media is a curious thing.  It descends, periodically, upon a country or a region, crow-bars a story into one of its easy narratives and before any nuance can be teased from the broader detail the circus moves on elsewhere. It is left to longer form journalism and academia to stick with a story and make some sense of it. With the verdict of the Khodorkovsky trial the world’s news crews descended once again on Moscow.  Their story was already written .  A dissident prosecuted by an oppressive regime for political reasons.  An outright defeat for the rule of law and conformation of Russia‘s legal nihilism. Received wisdom is not entirely inaccurate where the Khodorkovsky case is concerned.  There is doubtless a political element to his prosecution. It is also almost certain that the oligarch is guilty of substantial and serious crimes.  When Prime Minister Putin dismisses the furore surrounding the trial, stating, ‘a thief shoul...

The savage beating of Oleg Kashin hit the headlines in Britain yesterday, as Russian journalists gathered to show solidarity for their colleague in Moscow.  Reporting news can be a dangerous business in Russia and Kashin is just the latest in a succession of cases of intimidation, violence and even murder. The thirty year old was beaten into a coma - he suffered two broken legs, mangled fingers and serious damage to the skull.  Notably, reports of the incident suggest that none of his personal belongings were taken.  The attackers did a methodical, brutish and highly effective job of silencing the journalist. The easy response to such incidents is to allege that the Kremlin organises punitive beatings (and worse) for dissenting investigative journalists.  That’s a gross simplification.  A complex blend of corruption, vested interests, youthful nationalism and ’legal nihilism’, can underlie such attacks. Kashin, it appears, does not fit the stereotypical t...

Further evidence of Dmitry Medvedev’s growing assertiveness in the cause of reform. After a public spat, Yuri Luzhkov, the demotic mayor who ran Moscow like a private fiefdom, has been dismissed by the Russian president. Luzhkov, a Yeltsin functionary and then a fixture of United Russia who had held his position since 1992, clashed with Medvedev when the Kremlin cancelled a road building project, due to objections by environmental campaigners. Against a powerful enemy, often portrayed as untouchable, the President showed steely determination. In recent weeks Russian state TV shone a spotlight on the corrupt kleptocracy which Luzhkov operated in Moscow, in order to enrich his own family. Despite clear signals from the Kremlin that his reign was nearing its end, the mayor clung on to the bitter end and refused to jump. Medvedev held his nerve and applied a much needed shove. The interesting aspect of this dismissal is that Luzhkov had made some very dismissive comments about t...

The New York Times reports disillusionment in Russia with the authorities’ response to wild fires and deaths resulting from this summer’s heat-wave. Even Ria Novosti, a news agency owned by the Kremlin, records ‘waning support’ for the President and Prime Minister. In particular it quotes a source citing ’growing fatigue surrounding Putin’s popularity’. The prime minister, as is his style, has publicly taken charge of efforts to combat the wildfires. According to Ria Novosti, he took to the air in order to personally extinguish two blazes, within 200km of Moscow. The story describes Putin’s antics as a ‘stunt’, which, on reflection, is hardly an inaccurate description. Voices of opposition in the media are even more critical. The horrendous controversialist , Yulia Latynina, writing in the Moscow Times, characteristically claims that “in developed countries, citizens don’t perish in fires” . Her fiercest criticism is reserved for Putin, who signed off a ’Forest Code’ in 20...

Fascist Rolf Harris lookalike sticks his tongue out. When commentators berate Russians for their stubborn support for Putin, Medvedev and United Russia, they rarely touch upon the alternatives.  The truth is that the opposition in Russia comprises a sorry, rag-tag bunch. ‘The Other Russia’ was a coalition of anti-Putinists including, most prominently, the liberal chess player Garry Kasparov and Eduard Limonov, an iconoclast writer, whose ’National Bolshevik’ party is banned. A party has now been formed using the Other Russia name, in order to fight parliamentary elections, led by Limonov. His eccentric ideas are easy to dismiss as a joke and the National Bolsheviks were indeed renowned for their Dadaist exploits.  However their leader was sincere enough in his ’red brown’ Eurasianist beliefs to travel to Bosnia in order to fight alongside the Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic.  And he was arrested for leading an attempted ’invasion’ of Kazakhstan, a te...

If Georgians were under any misapprehension about their President before the weekend's bizarre developments in Tbilisi, surely now they must concede that he's mad, bad and dangerous to know! Saakashvili's government controlled TV station, Imedi, broadcast the news that Russia had invaded, as part of its main 8pm news bulletin. For the eagle eyed, a disclaimer had preceded the story, and a commercial break, describing it as a consequence which could unfold, should the Georgian opposition replace Saakashvili. None of which prevented widespread panic in Georgia and journalists based in the region mobilising to cover a new war which had apparently flared in the Caucasus. The President had been killed, reports claimed, to be replaced by opposition leader, Nino Burdzhanadze. The elaborate hoax was clearly aimed at Burdzhanadze, who has recently visited Moscow, for talks with the Kremlin, in an attempt to normalise relations between the two countries. To put this episode in...

Received wisdom in Britain and America holds that Mikhail Khodorkovksy is a ’political prisoner‘. During one instalment of the television series ’Jonathan Dimbleby’s Russia’ the presenter drove past a gaol in which the oligarch has been imprisoned and spoke in hushed tones about the dissident opinions which apparently resulted in Khodorkovsky’s incarceration. Whereas other Russian businessmen who made their fortunes after the Soviet Union’s collapse were often brash, flashy and obnoxious, Khodorkovsky struck an unostentatious figure. With his modest roll neck sweaters and impeccable manners he is the antithesis of the cliché of the ‘New Russian‘. However the former owner of Yukos built up his wealth by the same methods as Berezovsky, Abramovich and the rest. He participated in the same smash and grab which witnessed state enterprises ending up the hands of a tiny group of opportunists for a fraction of their market value. And he built up a private security service which has bee...