Putin Is Forever' Foreign Policy

Putin Is Forever | Foreign Policy
10/3/15, 21:51
Putin Is Forever
Vladimir Putin is celebrating his diplomatic triumph in New York. But not all Russians are
thrilled.
BY ANNA NEMTSOVA
OCTOBER 3, 2015
Olga Romanova sounded depressed. A harsh critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, shed just been watching
TV news footage from New York City that showed Putin and Barack Obama clinking champagne glasses like a
pair of old friends. Russias state-dominated media trumpeted the meeting between the two leaders, which came
soon after Putins triumphant appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, as evidence that Moscows
recent diplomatic isolation had come to an end. He managed to make a deal with the West and get out of the
dog house, Romanova told me. She wasnt exactly happy about the news. One thing is absolutely clear Putin
is forever. I will be 75 when he goes away, if I even live to see that day.
Putins admirers who are, of course, plentiful in Russia greeted their presidents seeming rehabilitation with
enthusiasm. They share his belief that Moscow deserves the Wests respect for its principled stand in Syria,
where Putin has vowed to do anything he can to prop up the regime of Kremlin ally Bashar al-Assad. But the
happiness of Putins nationalist base was mirrored by the despair of Russias urban intelligentsia, the same
people who participated in huge public demonstrations against Putins government in 2011 and 2013. Theyre
also the people who make up the core audience of radio station Ekho Moskvy. When the station polled its
listeners right after Putins trip to the United States, 62 percent of them concluded that the president, buoyed up
by his latest foreign policy successes, would now be able to stay in oce as long as he liked.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/03/putin-is-forever-obama-russia-syria-un/
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These days Romanova and her colleagues spend much of their time wondering which of the countrys few
remaining liberal politicians will be the next to face an attack from the government. One name currently bruited
about is that of Anatoly Chubais, the head of the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation, a state-owned company.
In the 1990s, Chubais had been President Yeltsins chief of sta and his first deputy prime minister, posts he used
to focus on economic reforms and privatization. After Putins rise to power, Chubais was one of the few Yeltsin
confidantes to retain a high position in the new political establishment. But some Russian liberals fear that even
such a formerly powerful man might now be vulnerable.
Anybody from a rich Moscow businessman to a Syrian refugee without any paperwork can fall victim to
injustice and go to jail today, said human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina. The state institutions dont
function. The court system fails to implement laws. And her worries arent just about human rights. As she sees
it, Russias government is no longer capable of safeguarding the national interest. For her, the news that Russian
warplanes had begun bombing rebel targets in Syria apparently killing civilians along the way presaged
endless disaster, a new, Afghanistan-like Middle Eastern quagmire. Todays leadership is doing everything to
break Russia into pieces, she said.
Between 2002 and 2012, Gannushkina, the leader and co-founder of a civic organization that provides aid to
refugees, was a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights
first under Putin, and then under his (temporary) successor, Dmitry Medvedev. Recently Gannushkinas
organization, which has provided legal support to thousands of refugees from Ukraine and the Middle East, was
declared to be a foreign agent under a harsh new 2012 law aimed at restricting western assistance to Russian
organizations that work in sensitive areas. That classification deprived her group, the Civic Assistance
Committee, of most of its vital grants from foreign organizations. Since then, Gannushkina and her colleagues
have struggled to help their charges, at times even contributing their own money.
The Civic Assistance Committee is just one of 94 organizations that have been declared foreign agents by the
Russian Ministry of Justice over the past three years. On Thursday, the oldest member of Putins human rights
council, 88-year-old activist and historian Lyudmila Alekseyeva, asked the jet-lagged Putin to explain to the
council why businesses are appreciated for bringing investments to Russia, while non-profits who use Western
money to help Russian citizens are deemed worthy of persecution. Putin did not respond.
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The liberals despair is plain. But Putins triumph in New York also left some other Russians confused.
Commenting on the Russian leaders image at the U.N., the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd took a
sarcastic tone, describing Putins charm oensive as a well-rehearsed ballet staged by the Kremlin. In the first
act, Putin opened a newly restored mosque in Moscow the citys biggest together with his allies, Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and Kaszakhstani President Nursultan
Nazarbayev. The second act took place in New York, where Putin is trying to say [that he is] the new, peaceful
leader of a new anti-Hitler coalition I am legitimate and Assad is legitimate, as Rains editor-in-chief Mikhail
Zygar put it sarcastically.
Duma deputy Robert Schlegel, a member of the ruling United Russia party, admitted feeling a bit bewildered
about Putins meeting with Obama and its Syrian aftermath. I cannot describe one feeling; it was a wide range of
mixed emotions. The negotiations gave us a weak hope that the tension in the situation [Russias isolation] would
be released, but right after that we hear the U.S. blaming Russia for shelling peaceful cities on territory where
there are no peaceful cities, he said in an interview on Thursday. Schlegel added that he was deeply disgusted
to see how the countries he blamed for making a mess in the Middle East are treating Russia.
Among those taken aback by the images of a new Russian-American rapprochement were members of the
separatist militias in eastern Ukraine. Until he saw the pictures of Putin and Obama acting friendly, people like
Sergei, a member of a rebel militia in Sloviansk, saw the U.S. as an enemy, along with Ukraine. My worst
expectations became a reality, he told me on the phone. I always thought that theyd flush us down the toilet,
but I couldnt imagine that Putin and Obama would become friends after our war, after all that slaughter, after
weve all lost so many friends.
As for Putins most hardcore Russian supporters? Some preferred to ignore the Putin-Obama courtship, under
the assumption that it wont last very long. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin did not deign to tweet any of
the Kremlins images of the two leaders shaking hands. Yuri Krupnov, an adviser for Putins security hawks,
expressed ambivalence, saying that the astonishing images from New York could mean anything. One thing he
was sure of, though: that the attention to international crises will distract the public from their domestic
concerns: All the domestic issues and contradictions that fuel the protest movement will be pushed down on the
list of priorities, he said. And that, perhaps, was Putins goal all along.
Page 3 of 11
10/3/15, 21:51
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10/3/15, 21:51
HOW TURKEY WENT FROM ZERO PROBLEMS TO ZERO FRIENDS
WELCOME TO STANISTAN
A Showdown in Moscows Power Elite

A political killing in the center of Moscow triggers an open feud between two of Russia's most
powerful clans.
BY ANNA NEMTSOVA
MARCH 16, 2015 - 10:58 AM
The news that Russias most powerful law enforcement agencies have decided to target people linked to one of
Russias most powerful politicians has been dominating the talk in Moscow lately. Last week ocials announced
that they had arrested five suspects in the killing of Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader who was gunned down
right outside the walls of the Kremlin on Feb. 27. Among those detained is Zaur Dadayev, who served in an elite
security force that answers to Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic. The others were friends or
relatives of Dadayev.
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The arrests have prompted a flurry of speculation about a rift within Russias power elite. On one side is Kadyrov,
a brutal autocrat who has kept tight control over his fractious republic with the blessing of President Vladimir
Putin. On the other is a coterie of top-ranking Moscow security ocials who, its said, have long resented
Kadyrovs inroads into areas they consider their own preserve. Still, until recently the police and the FSB (the
Federal Security Service, the successor agency of the Soviet-era KGB) had shown a notable lack of interest in
calling Kadyrovs loyalists to order. Now, at a stroke, all that has changed.
After the news of his mens arrest broke, Kadyrov waited almost a day before issuing a reaction; its likely that he
spent the time working the phones to all of his contacts in the Moscow power elite. He then published a post to
his Instagram account in which he explicitly defended the main suspect, calling Dadayev a patriot of Russia. (It
soon became known that he had recently awarded a medal to Dadayev.) Meanwhile, the radio station Echo of
Moscow ran an online poll in which it asked listeners whom they would pick in a conflict between Kadyrov and
the FSB. The overwhelming majority, 59 percent, said theyd support the FSB. Only 6 percent chose to side with
Kadyrov.
This dramatic revelation of serious conflict at the highest levels of Russian power comes at a delicate moment.
The assassination of Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, was enough of a jolt in its own right; never before
has Putins Russia experienced the murder of such a high-profile politician (and right in the heart of Moscow at
that). The mysterious vanishing act of Putin himself, who has just re-appeared in public after staying out of sight
for nearly 10 days, added to the jitters. What in the world is going on?
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Kadyrovs declaration of support for the lead suspect was a clear signal to his opponents: Putins man in
Chechnya is not happy that his men have been humiliated in Moscow. Images of security forces with Russian
tricolor badges on their uniforms hauling the bearded Chechens into court in handcus, arms twisted behind
their backs, astonished many viewers. (The photo above shows three of the men in custody in Moscows
Basmanny district court.) As political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky noted, For the first time in his 15-year long
rule Putin has run into a really serious problem: a virtually open conflict between the two pillars of his power, the
federal security establishment and Ramzan Kadyrov. As Belkovsky correctly noted, the Russian president now
finds himself confronting a serious dilemma. Putins power depends to a large extent on his good relations with
the security services, since they are responsible for carrying out many of his most important policies as well as
ensuring his personal security. On the other he is also dependent on the support of Kadyrov, who has kept a lid
on the restive North Caucasus. Belkovsky says that Putin has opted, essentially, to sit this one out, choosing to lie
low until the situation resolves itself.
But that hasnt stopped Russians from airing theories about the scandal anyway. The popular opposition leader
and blogger Aleksei Navalny jumped into the fray by claiming that the man who ordered the hit on Nemtsov was
Ruslan Geremeyev, the son of a senior politician. Navalny also referred to a report in the newspaper Novaya
Gazeta (whose own investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered by a group of Chechens in 2006)
that blamed someone it referred to merely as Ruslan. The paper said that it couldnt reveal his full identity, but
noted that the man in question had served in the same Chechen security unit as Dadayev. Navalny declared that
they also had Geremeyev in mind.
Page 7 of 11
10/3/15, 21:51
Chechens have an unnerving tendency to crop up whenever high-profile contract killings occur. In a TV
interview shortly following the arrest of Kadyrovs men, the journalist Gregory Shvedov, who edits a website
specializing in the politics of the Caucasus region, recalled two other killings that involved Chechens named
Dadayev. Russian lawmaker Ruslan Yamadayev was gunned down in the center of Moscow in 2008; that same
year a Chechen oppositionist, Umar Israilov, was assassinated in Vienna. The killings of Nemtsov, Yamadayev,
and Israilov all had the same handwriting, Shvedov said. Nemtsov was an outspoken critic of the Kremlins
policies. Yamadayev had a long history of tense relations with Kadyrov. And shortly before his murder Israilov
filed a complaint in an international court of human rights charging Kadyrov with direct responsibility for acts
of murder and torture. A Moscow court ultimately found Aslanbek Dadayev guilty of Yamadayevs murder,
sentencing him to 15 years in prison. In 2009, a Viennese court sentenced three Chechens to life terms in jail for
the killing of Israilov and one of them was a man named Suleiman Dadayev.
Even the most outspoken Russian public figures have generally been cautious about criticizing Kadyrov. As
Moscow journalist Sergei Darenko observed recently, You dont survive long once Kadyrov names you as his
personal enemy. Oleg Orlov, the director of the human rights organization Memorial, is one of the few who has
dared: Orlov blamed Kadyrov for issuing a death threat to Natalia Estemirov, a prominent human rights defender
who worked for Memorial, in a meeting just months before she was killed. Estemirova was abducted outside of
her house in Grozny and murdered in 2009. I know who is guilty of Natalias murder. His name is Ramzan
Kadyrov, Orlov said in a statement posted on Memorials website. Ramzan already threatened Natalia, insulted
her, considered her a personal enemy. He has made it impossible for rights activists to work in Chechnya. That
Orlov has so far remained alive makes him something of an exception (though Kadyrov did take him to court for
slander).
Page 8 of 11
10/3/15, 21:51
In my three interviews with Ramzan Kadyrov I asked him about the allegations of murder and torture ascribed to
him in a number of human rights reports. Kadyrov dismissed them all. In one of his latest Instagram posts
Kadyrov blames Europe and the United States for aiming to create chaos in Russia and discredit everybody who
was faithful to president Putin. The organizers of that campaign know that the Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov team
will be with President of Russia under any circumstances. They know that our people are united, that we all
support Vladimir Putin as one, and thats why they try to smear us. The problem for Kadyrov, of course, is that
this time its not the outsiders who are, implicitly, accusing him of responsibility for crimes, but ocials at the
very heart of the Russian security establishment.
So who, then, actually ordered the killing of Nemtsov? That, of course, is the big question and on March 14 FSB
investigators came up with an ocial version that could oer Putin a possible path out of his dilemma.
Nemtsovs murder, they declared, was actually ordered by Adam Osmayev, the Chechen leader of a Ukrainian
battalion that has been fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
That theory was immediately rejected by the friends and relatives of Nemtsov. The socialite-turnedoppositionist Ksenia Sobchak, who knew Nemtsov well, declared that the charges against Osmayev had more to
do with anti-Ukrainian propaganda than with a viable scenario. (Among other things, the FSB claim failed to
explain why a pro-Ukrainian Chechen would have targeted Nemtsov, who was a strong critic of Moscows
policies in Ukraine.) Sobchak recently had to hire personal bodyguards after her own name turned up on a
reported hit list.
Despite the governments eorts to address the general confusion, the Russian public is struggling to find
answers to a growing number of questions. The way things have been going lately, though, no one is expecting
plausible answers anytime soon.
DMITRY SEREBRYAKOV/AFP/Getty Images
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Putin Is Forever' Foreign Policy

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