ON PLUGGED IN …
RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER ...
ALEXEY NAVALNY ...
IMPRISONED AND UNSURE …
OF HIS FATE.
[[SOT-CHRISTSO GROSEV: 11:46 We thought the Kremlin is unlikely to go after somebody that they're at the same time badmouthing because it would make it too obvious who went after them. In the Navalny case, they did both.]]
AFTER SURVIVING …
A POISONING ATTEMPT …
THE PUTIN CRITIC …
IS PUSHED FURTHER …
INTO RUSSIA’S PRISON SYSTEM.
[[SOT-ANTONY BLINKEN: (00:26 seconds: “We imposed Russia sanctions on Alexey Navalny’s poisoning and detention."]]
BEYOND NEW SANCTIONS …
HOW MIGHT …
THE NEW AMERICAN PRESIDENT …
CHANGE THE RELATIONSHIP …
WITH MOSCOW?
ON PLUGGED IN …
US-RUSSIA: SANCTIONS AND POLICY
###
[[GRETA OC]]
HELLO AND WELCOME …
TO PLUGGED IN.
I’M GRETA VAN SUSTEREN …
REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON, DC.
ALEXEY NAVALNY …
SAYS HE IS …
NOW BEING HELD ABOUT 100 KILOMETERS FROM MOSCOW …
AT WHAT HE CALLS …
“A REAL CONCENTRATION CAMP” ….
RUSSIA’S OPPOSITION LEADER…
WAS JAILED IN JANUARY …
UPON RETURNING TO RUSSIA …
AFTER AN ATTEMPT …
TO POISON HIM.
NAVALNY WAS SENTENCED …
TO PRISON …
FOR PAROLE VIOLATIONS
DATING BACK A FEW YEARS.
HIS LAWYER CONFIRMS …
NAVALNY WAS RECENTLY TRANSFERRED …
TO PENAL COLONY NUMBER 2 …
IN RUSSIA’S VLADIMIR REGION.
NAVALNY’S JAILING …
SPARKED PROTESTS …
ACROSS RUSSIA ...
AND GENERATED DEMANDS …
AROUND THE WORLD …
FOR HIS RELEASE.
IN RESPONSE TO THE JAILING
THE UNITED STATES …
IMPOSED NEW …
ECONOMIC SANCTIONS:
[[STOP]]
[[SOT – NED PRICE/STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: "It's clear that Russian officials targeted Mr. Navalny for his activism and his efforts to reveal uncomfortable truths about Russian officials corruption and to give voice to Russian citizens' legitimate grievances with their government and its policies. We are exercising our authorities to send a clear signal that Russia's use of chemical weapons and human rights abuses have severe consequences."]]
[[GRETA OC]]
WITH ITS NEW LEADER NOW IN PRISON ...
RUSSIA’S OPPOSITION MOVEMENT...
FACES AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE ...
WITH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS …
SCHEDULED FOR SEPTEMBER.
VOA’S CHARLES MAYNES...
TELLS US MORE...
FROM MOSCOW.
[[ STOP ]]
[[ TAKE MAYNES PKG]]
((NARRATOR))
Vladimir oblast…less than a hundred kilometers (83 km, ed) from Moscow.
The prison Alexey Navalny will call home for at least the next two-and-a-half years…is said to be among Russia’s most oppressive and brutal.
And it’s just one of many ways the government continues to apply pressure on the opposition figure…and those seeking political change.
Opposition candidates and municipal deputies gathered recently in Moscow to discuss strategies for competing in the country’s fall elections…
Asking how to beat the odds and win local races against a Kremlin-backed political machine?' They never got their answer…
Police broke up the proceedings….arguing the event had ties to a foreign NGO the state deemed “undesirable” in 2017.
With the entire conference placed under arrest… those who were there described it as an exercise in the absurd.
((Vladimir Kara-Murza, Opposition Politician)
“The events in our country of late are such that the writer Franz Kafka could only envy. He couldn’t possibly have had enough imagination to make this up.”
((NARRATOR))
Fear has become the Kremlin’s primary tactic, as it tries to keep government opponents off the ballot…
and, clearly, off the streets.
Thousands were detained during protests that followed Navalny’s detention…with many kept in grim conditions…and family members in the dark…
((Anastasia, Wife of Detained Protester)
“I couldn’t get any information at all….you call and they tell you nothing. And now only at midnight did I find out he was at the prison here.”
((NARRATOR))
Others subsequently faced a more Soviet-style response…
((Artem Nazarov, Former Theater Instructor)
“We were waiting for our court (hearing) to take place...so we were waiting inside the van…right beside the court /// and there I read…////( I was fired from the institution where I used to work.”
((NARRATOR))
With the government promising further crackdowns, Navalny’s allies called a moratorium on street protests until the spring.
((Leonid Volkov, Navalny Chief Strategist))
“If we keep coming out every week, thousands more will be arrested, and hundreds beaten.”
((NARRATOR))
They’re pushing instead for more symbolic protests…and rallying international pressure.
The U.S. and European allies have both demanded Navalny’s release.
They’ve also joined in imposing sanctions against high-ranking Russian officials...even if it’s with the knowledge, say observers, that the measures can change the Kremlin’s calculus only so far.
((Konstantin Sonin, Economist, University of Chicago
“They’re not effective and I’m not sure there are any kind of sanctions that could influence what happens inside the country. The only purpose these sanctions serve is as a signal to the Kremlin that what happened is not unnoticed.”
((NARRATOR))
Yet Navalny’s attacks on government corruption... and his growing profile at home and abroad… clearly has the Kremlin’s attention as well.
After years of treating him as politically irrelevant, the Kremlin now prefers the opposition figure out of the picture completely…. whatever the costs.
((Charles Maynes, for VOA News, Moscow))
[[GRETA OC]]
I SPOKE …
TO CHARLES MAYNES …
FOR A SENSE …
OF THE POLITICAL CLIMATE …
IN MOSCOW …
AND WHETHER …
NAVALNY’S JAILING …
IS AFFECTING …
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S …
GRIP ON POWER.
[[STOP]]
[[SOT –CHARLES MAYNES Q&A]]
GVS: Can you tell me the political climate right now in Moscow and in Russia if there's a way to describe it?
CM: Well I think it's clear that you've seen these very significant events over the last half year, starting with the poisoning of Alexey Navalny his evacuation in a coma to Germany, his resurrection. He recovered and then made this kind of amazing return to Russia. I mean these are big big events unfolding. And, you know, on the one hand we saw of course people come out on the streets but it didn't seem to kind of fundamentally change anything I think there was an assumption from Navalny and his allies that this would put pressure and really really transform the political situation.
What we've seen though is of course with these protests and against Mr. Navalny himself, repression, fear seems to be the government's main tactic. We saw it in the way that they've sentenced Alexey Navalny to two and a half over two and a half years in prison for these past alleged parole violations while not investigating his poisoning.
And at the same time we've also seen over ten thousand eleven thousand people arrested over a series of protests in January and February. Just over this past weekend I was at a pro-democracy forum where municipal candidates were gathering just to talk strategies for the fall fall elections here in Russia that was met with police. They stormed the conference and arrested the entire entire conference. So repression seems to be the main factor here.
GVS: Has the jailing of Navalny had any impact on Putin's grip on power?
CM: I think before the sense was that if they they gave him a long term prison sentence that this would invite protests at home and also a lot of condemnation abroad. But now what we see is a moment where Russia is being condemned for other things already. So the idea of more sanctions doesn't have quite as much of a bite, and Navalny himself is also. It's also become very personal between Mr. Putin and Mr. Navalny. He released a video claiming corrupt practices by Mr. Putin allegedly having this sort of incredible palace in the south of Russia along the Black Sea. There seems to be some truth to it. And although Mr. Putin I should say has denied the charges but a good friend of his claimed to now own the property.
But this is suddenly really kind of intruded into Mr. Putin's private circles And I think that seems to have kind of personalized this conflict between these two men to the point where Putin is out to punish him.
GVS: Can you give any sense of what Navalny's followers would like to see the United States do or not do vis a vis Navalny?
CM: They've made it quite clear they disagree with the United States for issuing what they call sectoral sanctions. So targeting the Russian economy, they see that essentially rallying Russians around Putin or the government persay. And so what They're so. Is a list of what they call the financiers of Mr. Putin or some of his closest advisers or his friends and his cronies and they think essentially that's the way to target the Russian government and not target the Russian people.
Certainly what they've seen from the Biden administration at this point, they're hoping it's just the beginning. We've seen essentially sanctions against eight high ranking Russian government officials, some some concerns and some organizations as well that allegedly have ties to chemical weapons development, but not against the financiers which seems to be a key issue for these allies.
GVS: What do you think's going to happen to the elections in September and thought?
CM: if you go back to the poisoning this past August Mr Navalny was actually traveling in Siberia trying to rally people around this smart voting campaign that he and his his team essentially had come up with. And the idea was to target the unpopularity of the ruling United Russia party, and that's by pulling votes towards one candidate in particular. So they didn't care who. They were what their views were but as long as they weren't affiliated with the Kremlin, they would target all the votes this way. And they they ran this campaign in twenty nineteen as kind of a test run. And it did have some effectiveness in some races and some towns not everywhere but certainly in Moscow. It did in some towns and Siberia did. And there was some sense that there is concern there that this could happen again.
So it'll be interesting to see if they can keep that momentum going without sort of Mr. Navalny's charisma, use of social media. People will stay kind of involved in the fight with essentially the leader of it behind bars.
[[GRETA]]
A FEW DAYS …
AFTER NAVALNY’S JANUARY ARREST …
HIS ANTI-CORRUPTION FOUNDATION …
RELEASED A VIDEO …
ON SOCIAL MEDIA …
THAT CLAIMS TO SHOW …
A BILLION-DOLLAR PALACE …
BUILT BY FRIENDS …
OF RUSSIAN PRESIDENT …
VLADIMIR PUTIN..
THE KREMLIN …
HAS DISMISSED THE CLAIMS …
WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN …
INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED.
BUT THE VIDEO …
OF A LAVISH PALACE …
HAS GENERATED …
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS …
OF VIEWS ON YOUTUBE …
RAISING NAVALNY’S PROFILE …
IN RUSSIA..
WE HAVE A REPORT …
FROM OUR SISTER NETWORK …
RADIO FREE EUROPE …
RADIO LIBERTY.
[[STOP]]
[[PKG/PUTIN PALANCE RFERL]]
This is an artist's impression of a strip club in a secret palace for the enjoyment of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a new YouTube video with tens of millions of views.
SOT Navalny commentary
This room is also equipped with a large stage and an extraordinary thing: The stage has an elevator with a pole. We can't imagine what a pole on a stage is for.
The video was made by opposition leader Alexey Navalny and posted by his supporters after he was jailed.
He claims to have received leaked floor plans of the vast palace, which allegedly includes a casino, a theater, extensive vineyards, an ice rink, and luxury bathrooms where even the Italian-made toilet brush costs $800.
The many allegations in the almost two-hour video could not be independently verified, and the Kremlin quickly dismissed them.
But they're Navalny's latest salvo in an ongoing battle with Putin.
Putin's friends, having received from him the right to steal everything they want in Russia, have repaid him in many ways. But they also chipped in, collected $1.35 billion, and built a palace for their boss.
Navalny was detained on arrival at a Moscow airport on January 17, prompting a chorus of international criticism.
He had just returned from Berlin, where he was being treated after being poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent in August last year.
Investigations by Navalny's team, Bellingcat, and other media presented extensive evidence that it was carried out by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB)
The Kremlin denies involvement, and pro-government media have been almost silent about all of this.
But it appears to have raised Navalny's profile in Russia nonetheless.
SOT GRIGORI YUDIN SOCIOLOGIST
The whole story of the poisoning drew the attention of a large number of people, and we have seen that the interest in his return has been pretty high. Of course, we can't say the whole country has been glued to its screens to follow it, but there is pretty high interest, at least among the digital audience.
Navalny video On-screen
This is not the first time that the existence of the palace, on the Black Sea coast, has been reported.
What's new in Navalny's report is the level of detail about the property and how it was allegedly financed with state funds stolen by Putin allies.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the video is just a rehash of old claims, and noted that it includes an appeal for donations to Navalny's anti-corruption fund.
SOT DMITRY PESKOV KREMLIN SPOKESMAN
This is the real scam, and we warn all citizens, especially since [the video] has so many views: Think. Think before transferring money to such crooks.
'MATROSSKAYA TISHINA' detention center
Navalny is being held in custody pending a hearing on whether he broke the terms of a suspended sentence relating to a previous conviction for embezzlement.
Outside Russia, the conviction was widely seen as part of Kremlin efforts to silence Navalny, but he now faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison.
[[GRETA OC]]
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION …
HAS DECLASSIFIED …
AN INTELLIGENCE REPORT …
THAT SHOWS RUSSIA’S …
IN AUGUST 2020
RUSSIA’S F.S.B. INTELLIGENCE AGENCY …
PLOTTED THE POISONING …
OF ALEXEY NAVALNY …
IN AUGUST 2020.
BUT NAVALNY FOUND OUT …
WHO POISONED HIM …
WITH THE HELP OF
CHRISTO GROZEV ...
A TOP RESEARCHER …
WITH BELLINGCAT …
WHICH IS AN INVESTIGATIVE …
JOURNALISM PLATFORM …
SPECIALIZING IN THE USE …
OF OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE.
I SPOKE TO GROZEV ...
ABOUT HOW …
THEY TRACKED DOWN …
THE MEN WHO TRIED KILL NAVALNY…
BY POISONING HIM.
[[STOP]]
[[SOT – GROZEV INTERVIEW]]
CG: We learned a lot of things; the first part of our discovery process led us to a team of poisoners working for the FSB for a unit called the Criminalistics Institute of the FSB that actually tailed that unit, tailed Navalny for almost five years before the poisoning. They were always on at his heels, whenever he went to a campaign trip around Russia or even on a vacation trip with his wife. They picked only times that he traveled with an overnight stay over. So they never followed him on day trips which suggests they might have been interested only in hotel stays as a possible place of poisoning. And we noticed that these were not just regular F.S.B people, and that was the crucial finding. They were not only political police, as one unit of the FSB is called, colloquially, there were some political police people, but on every single trip there was also a team of a chemist and a doctor; a chemist with expertise in chemical weapons and a doctor also with expertise in treatment of chemical weapons or use of chemical weapons.
So this is a picture that got developed in front of our eyes, a team that had traveled with Navalny, alongside Navalny, without him knowing, on more than 35 trips over the last five years. And we place these same people near the location of this hotel in Tomsk, couple of days earlier near the location of this hotel in Novosibirsk where he was initially travelling to and departing or moving away from the hotel about an hour after he went to bed on the night on which we suspect he was poisoned. So everything pointed to a targeted operation by an FSB clandestine unit, but that was only the first part we discovered. The second part was even more shocking. It was the scale of the operation of this particular unit. It was not an ad hoc operation to poison Navalny. It was an operation that apparently had been targeting many many other not only opposition figures in Russia but also human rights activists, journalists, and in one particular case that we are yet to disclose- an author, a writer, a poet. So the scale of this is still to be determined, but we see that we're talking about definitely more than 10 people that were at the crosshairs of this unit.
GVS: How were you able to identify these flights? What what was your technique for for learning this?
CG: We used a combination of open source and partially closed-source data. Over the years, we've accumulated a pretty significant database of a collection of leaked databases, or for example, outdated travel data. For example, one database includes about 50 percent of all air travel in Russia from the period 2014 to 2017.
Another database includes leaked passport data and residence data for a number of cities in Russia. So the combination of these two what we would call open-source sources because they are in the public domain, you can download them on on torrents and a lot of Russian journalists have done that, allows us to look for patterns. So for example, in this particular case, we had identified some people who had traveled with Navalny at every single trip that he took across the country. And that allowed us to do correlation analysis to pinpoint about six people that were suspiciously always traveling with him. Many of them traveled on joint bookings which allowed us to connect them to one another. That gave us the first hypothesis that there's this team of people who always tail Navalny.
Then we have to cross into closed sources data. For that we had to approach whistleblowers, in some cases even people who are just selling data on the open market in Russia. There are a lot of data brokers in Russia that traditionally sell data, not to journalists. and they are quite unhappy when they find out they sold it to journalists, but they sell it to companies who do surveillance on their own employees in Russia or are doing due diligence checks on on applicants for jobs. And we got from some of these whistleblowers and or data sources, data brokers, we got phone records, in Russia they’re called building records which is basically metadata on a particular number --a time of call, place of location of the phone when when the call was made. So we were able to get the phone records for these particular six people that later expanded to eight as a total. And we saw that they, they were communicating with top FSB official officials just before the trips with Navalny. and more importantly they were talking to chemical weapons specialists from exactly the same institute that we had identified in the previous research just before trips with Navalny.
GVS: Was there any way to tie it to Putin directly in your research?
CG: Well I mean what we saw was them communicating with people at the FSB directorate level. So these are people that would be deputy to Bortnikov. Bortnikov is the chief of the FSB. And we saw this team talking to deputies of Bortnikov. Bortnikov is in direct contact, he directly reports to Putin. The concept of Putin not being aware, mmm, or having ordered this operation but let's let's limit limit it to not having been aware is zero. We've talked to a lot of people that were formerly servicing service, serving in Russian security services and now live abroad. They've all told us that there's no way that anybody at the FSB would be authorized to go near a chemical weapon without the approval of the FSO, the president's own personal security service, simply for the fact that this is too dangerous because somebody who gets access to such a high grade poison might just go crazy and start attacking even the president.
So the president needs to be in the know any time somebody at any security service uses chemical weapons.
GVS: Were you able to speak or interview Mr. Navalny? And he he also. himself was part of discovering who it was, it was food poisoning. Is that right?
CG: Well not him himself. We try to firewall him from the discovery process but we invited members of his own investigation team the people that do anticorruption investigations in Russia. And one of one of the key investigators, Maria Petrick, she joined us at the last stage of our investigation.We made sure that Alexei Navalny is only informed at the last moment. So basically a week before we publish we brought him into the picture, just because we didn't want his own perception to bias our investigation. But yes we brought him out at the last moment. We did have to get data from him through his chief investigator about his own travel. So that's what he was sharing with us. But without really knowing until late in the process, who exactly were his would-be poisoners.
GVS: Your investigative journalism is just incredible, but you're dealing with very serious topics. Do you have any fear for your life?
CG: Obviously. And especially after we found out for ourselves that this F.S.B unit had been after Navalny, while Navalny was at the crosshairs of of the propaganda campaign of the Kremlin. We thought the Kremlin is unlikely to go after somebody that they're at the same time badmouthing because it would make it too obvious who went after them. In the Navalny case, they did both. And they've been so, the Russian government has been so vocal about accusing Bellegarde and me and my colleagues of being a mouthpiece of Western intelligence and of being spies and of being traitors and what have you, that we have to start getting concerned.
GVS: Sir thank you very much for joining me. Incredible story.
CG: Thank you very much Greta.
[[GRETA]]
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ...
RECENTLY ANNOUNCED …
ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ...
AGAINST SEVERAL …
TOP RUSSIAN OFFICIALS ...
FOR NAVALNY’S POISONING ...
AND REITERATED DEMANDS …
THAT THE OPPOSITION LEADER. ..
BE RELEASED.
BUT THE SANCTIONS WERE
NOT SPECIFICALLY DIRECTED
AT PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
OR HIS INNER CIRCLE.
VOA WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
PATSY WIDAKUSWARA
TELLS US MORE.
[[STOP]]
[[PKG/PATSY]]
((NARRATOR))
This penal colony about 100 kilometers east of Moscow is where outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has been jailed since last month after surviving a poison attack last year.
The Biden administration declassified intelligence showing that Moscow orchestrated the poisoning, and announced sanctions on 14 Russian entities,
((NARRATOR))
and seven senior members of the Russian government.
((Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary))
"Expansion of sanctions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, new export restrictions on items that could be used for biological agent and chemical production, and visa restrictions.”
((Continue Psaki))
((NARRATOR))
Press secretary Jen Psaki repeated U.S. demands for Navalny’s release.
((NARRATOR))
The opposition leader’s arrest set off nationwide street protests in Russia last month. Navalny contends his jailing is politically motivated.
((NARRATOR))
The U.S. sanctions were coordinated with European partners and Britain, but not specifically directed at President Vladimir Putin or the oligarchs of his inner circle.
((Konstantin Sonin, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy))
“Russia is a huge country. It has a lot of ways to influence events in many parts of the world. So, I understand that the only thing the Biden administration could do is to send signals. These are strong signals, but these are just signals. This is not something that has a material effect.”
((NARRATOR))
The White House denies the sanctions are largely symbolic. Responding to VOA, Psaki acknowledged it is important to maintain relations with Moscow on many issues, including on the Iran nuclear negotiation.
((Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary))
“Russia is a P5+1 partner. They were as we pursued the JCPOA under the Obama-Biden administration, and they certainly would be a key partner if that diplomatic process were to move forward. So, the point is, there are areas where we disagree. There are areas where there's significant challenge. There are also areas where we are going to work with the Russians as we would with most global partners when we need to take steps that are an interest of the United States.”
((NARRATOR))
Last month, President Joe Biden said that unlike his predecessor, he has made clear to Putin that the U.S. will no longer tolerate Russian aggressive actions, including election interference, cyberattacks and the poisoning of its citizens. But analysts say Biden’s policy toward Russia must allow room for engagement in areas of mutual interest.
((Cyrus Newlin, Center for Strategic and International Studies))
“This includes arms control, a positive environmental economic agenda in the Arctic, to some extent climate change, and a couple of regional theaters where we both have troops, including Syria. So, there's a need to work with Russia on a range of issues. I think the Biden administration will pursue both cooperation and trying to reestablish clear lines of what they regard is appropriate norms of international behavior.”
((NARRATOR))
Meanwhile, Moscow has already vowed to retaliate against the sanctions.
((Patsy Widakuswara, VOA News))
[[GRETA]]
FROM ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ...
TO RETALIATION OVER RUSSIA’S ...
RECENT SUSPECTED HACKING OF...
SEVERAL U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ...
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY ...
IS CLOSELY WATCHING ...
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S ...
NEXT STEPS REGARDING ...
US-RUSSIA POLICY.
MATTHEW ROJANSKY ...
IS THE DIRECTOR OF ...
THE KENNAN INSTITUTE ...
AT THE WILSON CENTER IN ...
WASHINGTON DC.
HE IS A LEADING ANALYST ...
ON US-RUSSIA RELATIONS ...
AND I ASKED HIM …
WHERE THAT RELATIONSHIP …
IS HEADED NEXT.
[[STOP]]
[[SOT/ROJANSKY INTERVIEW]]
MR: Well look this is a challenged relationship from the U.S. perspective. You know we've seen a tremendous amount of troubling behavior from the Russian side. I think most salient for most people is interfering in US elections, you know a constant barrage of social media propaganda, other forms of interference attempts to sort of exploit divisions that already exist in our country. Create new ones exacerbate them. A lot of false information being trafficked by both Russian state media and unofficial mouthpieces and then hacking, we've seen a tremendous amount of hacking, as well as the kind of more far-flung foreign policy issues you know Russian support for proxies who are making trouble in various spots around the world be it Syria, Libya or of course Ukraine.
GVS: There's been a lot of response from in Europe and the United States to the poisoning of Navalny. There have been sanctions that the administration has imposed on many high-ranking officials in Russia but not on Putin or his inner circle. Why not?
MR: Well I think there are a number of sanctions that target senior members of the Russian security services. When you mentioned that Putin himself is not under sanctions you know that that may not be the biggest threat, a far bigger threat would obviously be preventing the Russian state from borrowing any money on international markets in the United States together with its allies and partners, would have a significant capability to erode Russia's ability to finance the Russian state.
GVS: We're only we're less than 100 days into a new presidential administration president and we've just completed four years with President Trump. Is there a difference so far? And it may be too early for the Biden administration to have sort of a policy with Russia but is there a difference in how the two administrations are dealing with or did deal with Russia?
MR: Well you know, at the outset there's a significant difference in tone, message and in setting expectations for. Recall that President Trump's message from day one was he wants to fix the relationship, he wants to get along with Russia, he likes and respects Vladimir Putin. He sought these one on one meetings with Putin. And President Biden has said if anything the opposite, right? He said he's clear eyed and realistic. He has talked about the threat from Russia. He's talked about how important business that needs to get done. And in fact he's gotten that done by pursuing a five year extension of the New START Strategic Nuclear Arms Treaty. And within one week of taking office President Biden called President Putin, they both orally agreed to extend the deal and they followed up immediately with the paperwork and the legislative steps required to do it. So, you know on balance, as you say less than one hundred days into the administration the rhetoric seems to be a lot more realistic given Russia's actual behavior in the state of the relationship, none of the kind of high falutin expectations of resets or a good personal rapport between the two leaders. But in terms of deliverables it's impressive that the administration has actually extended the new START treaty,
GVS: So where is the U.S. Russia relationship headed, if you can look into a crystal ball?
MR: Well look, the message from the Russian side is this is a spoiled relationship. You can't spoil an already spoiled relationship. So in that sense, it's almost like a rock bottom kind of message You can only go up from here. Maybe that's cockeyed optimism. The message from Washington though I think kind of reinforces that by saying look, we're not going to set unrealistically high expectations we're not going to become friends we're not going to become partners. If you follow that line forward, you could imagine the relationship on balance being in a better place four years from now than it is.
[[GRETA]]
THAT’S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE.
THANKS TO MY GUESTS …
MATTHEW ROJANSKY...
AND CHRISTO GROZEV ...
STAY UP TO DATE …
WITH THE LATEST NEWS …
AT VOANEWS.COM.
AND FOLLOW ME …
ON TWITTER …
AT GRETA.
THANK YOU FOR BEING ..
PLUGGED IN.
[[STOP]]
RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER ...
ALEXEY NAVALNY ...
IMPRISONED AND UNSURE …
OF HIS FATE.
[[SOT-CHRISTSO GROSEV: 11:46 We thought the Kremlin is unlikely to go after somebody that they're at the same time badmouthing because it would make it too obvious who went after them. In the Navalny case, they did both.]]
AFTER SURVIVING …
A POISONING ATTEMPT …
THE PUTIN CRITIC …
IS PUSHED FURTHER …
INTO RUSSIA’S PRISON SYSTEM.
[[SOT-ANTONY BLINKEN: (00:26 seconds: “We imposed Russia sanctions on Alexey Navalny’s poisoning and detention."]]
BEYOND NEW SANCTIONS …
HOW MIGHT …
THE NEW AMERICAN PRESIDENT …
CHANGE THE RELATIONSHIP …
WITH MOSCOW?
ON PLUGGED IN …
US-RUSSIA: SANCTIONS AND POLICY
###
[[GRETA OC]]
HELLO AND WELCOME …
TO PLUGGED IN.
I’M GRETA VAN SUSTEREN …
REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON, DC.
ALEXEY NAVALNY …
SAYS HE IS …
NOW BEING HELD ABOUT 100 KILOMETERS FROM MOSCOW …
AT WHAT HE CALLS …
“A REAL CONCENTRATION CAMP” ….
RUSSIA’S OPPOSITION LEADER…
WAS JAILED IN JANUARY …
UPON RETURNING TO RUSSIA …
AFTER AN ATTEMPT …
TO POISON HIM.
NAVALNY WAS SENTENCED …
TO PRISON …
FOR PAROLE VIOLATIONS
DATING BACK A FEW YEARS.
HIS LAWYER CONFIRMS …
NAVALNY WAS RECENTLY TRANSFERRED …
TO PENAL COLONY NUMBER 2 …
IN RUSSIA’S VLADIMIR REGION.
NAVALNY’S JAILING …
SPARKED PROTESTS …
ACROSS RUSSIA ...
AND GENERATED DEMANDS …
AROUND THE WORLD …
FOR HIS RELEASE.
IN RESPONSE TO THE JAILING
THE UNITED STATES …
IMPOSED NEW …
ECONOMIC SANCTIONS:
[[STOP]]
[[SOT – NED PRICE/STATE DEPT. SPOKESMAN: "It's clear that Russian officials targeted Mr. Navalny for his activism and his efforts to reveal uncomfortable truths about Russian officials corruption and to give voice to Russian citizens' legitimate grievances with their government and its policies. We are exercising our authorities to send a clear signal that Russia's use of chemical weapons and human rights abuses have severe consequences."]]
[[GRETA OC]]
WITH ITS NEW LEADER NOW IN PRISON ...
RUSSIA’S OPPOSITION MOVEMENT...
FACES AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE ...
WITH PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS …
SCHEDULED FOR SEPTEMBER.
VOA’S CHARLES MAYNES...
TELLS US MORE...
FROM MOSCOW.
[[ STOP ]]
[[ TAKE MAYNES PKG]]
((NARRATOR))
Vladimir oblast…less than a hundred kilometers (83 km, ed) from Moscow.
The prison Alexey Navalny will call home for at least the next two-and-a-half years…is said to be among Russia’s most oppressive and brutal.
And it’s just one of many ways the government continues to apply pressure on the opposition figure…and those seeking political change.
Opposition candidates and municipal deputies gathered recently in Moscow to discuss strategies for competing in the country’s fall elections…
Asking how to beat the odds and win local races against a Kremlin-backed political machine?' They never got their answer…
Police broke up the proceedings….arguing the event had ties to a foreign NGO the state deemed “undesirable” in 2017.
With the entire conference placed under arrest… those who were there described it as an exercise in the absurd.
((Vladimir Kara-Murza, Opposition Politician)
“The events in our country of late are such that the writer Franz Kafka could only envy. He couldn’t possibly have had enough imagination to make this up.”
((NARRATOR))
Fear has become the Kremlin’s primary tactic, as it tries to keep government opponents off the ballot…
and, clearly, off the streets.
Thousands were detained during protests that followed Navalny’s detention…with many kept in grim conditions…and family members in the dark…
((Anastasia, Wife of Detained Protester)
“I couldn’t get any information at all….you call and they tell you nothing. And now only at midnight did I find out he was at the prison here.”
((NARRATOR))
Others subsequently faced a more Soviet-style response…
((Artem Nazarov, Former Theater Instructor)
“We were waiting for our court (hearing) to take place...so we were waiting inside the van…right beside the court /// and there I read…////( I was fired from the institution where I used to work.”
((NARRATOR))
With the government promising further crackdowns, Navalny’s allies called a moratorium on street protests until the spring.
((Leonid Volkov, Navalny Chief Strategist))
“If we keep coming out every week, thousands more will be arrested, and hundreds beaten.”
((NARRATOR))
They’re pushing instead for more symbolic protests…and rallying international pressure.
The U.S. and European allies have both demanded Navalny’s release.
They’ve also joined in imposing sanctions against high-ranking Russian officials...even if it’s with the knowledge, say observers, that the measures can change the Kremlin’s calculus only so far.
((Konstantin Sonin, Economist, University of Chicago
“They’re not effective and I’m not sure there are any kind of sanctions that could influence what happens inside the country. The only purpose these sanctions serve is as a signal to the Kremlin that what happened is not unnoticed.”
((NARRATOR))
Yet Navalny’s attacks on government corruption... and his growing profile at home and abroad… clearly has the Kremlin’s attention as well.
After years of treating him as politically irrelevant, the Kremlin now prefers the opposition figure out of the picture completely…. whatever the costs.
((Charles Maynes, for VOA News, Moscow))
[[GRETA OC]]
I SPOKE …
TO CHARLES MAYNES …
FOR A SENSE …
OF THE POLITICAL CLIMATE …
IN MOSCOW …
AND WHETHER …
NAVALNY’S JAILING …
IS AFFECTING …
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S …
GRIP ON POWER.
[[STOP]]
[[SOT –CHARLES MAYNES Q&A]]
GVS: Can you tell me the political climate right now in Moscow and in Russia if there's a way to describe it?
CM: Well I think it's clear that you've seen these very significant events over the last half year, starting with the poisoning of Alexey Navalny his evacuation in a coma to Germany, his resurrection. He recovered and then made this kind of amazing return to Russia. I mean these are big big events unfolding. And, you know, on the one hand we saw of course people come out on the streets but it didn't seem to kind of fundamentally change anything I think there was an assumption from Navalny and his allies that this would put pressure and really really transform the political situation.
What we've seen though is of course with these protests and against Mr. Navalny himself, repression, fear seems to be the government's main tactic. We saw it in the way that they've sentenced Alexey Navalny to two and a half over two and a half years in prison for these past alleged parole violations while not investigating his poisoning.
And at the same time we've also seen over ten thousand eleven thousand people arrested over a series of protests in January and February. Just over this past weekend I was at a pro-democracy forum where municipal candidates were gathering just to talk strategies for the fall fall elections here in Russia that was met with police. They stormed the conference and arrested the entire entire conference. So repression seems to be the main factor here.
GVS: Has the jailing of Navalny had any impact on Putin's grip on power?
CM: I think before the sense was that if they they gave him a long term prison sentence that this would invite protests at home and also a lot of condemnation abroad. But now what we see is a moment where Russia is being condemned for other things already. So the idea of more sanctions doesn't have quite as much of a bite, and Navalny himself is also. It's also become very personal between Mr. Putin and Mr. Navalny. He released a video claiming corrupt practices by Mr. Putin allegedly having this sort of incredible palace in the south of Russia along the Black Sea. There seems to be some truth to it. And although Mr. Putin I should say has denied the charges but a good friend of his claimed to now own the property.
But this is suddenly really kind of intruded into Mr. Putin's private circles And I think that seems to have kind of personalized this conflict between these two men to the point where Putin is out to punish him.
GVS: Can you give any sense of what Navalny's followers would like to see the United States do or not do vis a vis Navalny?
CM: They've made it quite clear they disagree with the United States for issuing what they call sectoral sanctions. So targeting the Russian economy, they see that essentially rallying Russians around Putin or the government persay. And so what They're so. Is a list of what they call the financiers of Mr. Putin or some of his closest advisers or his friends and his cronies and they think essentially that's the way to target the Russian government and not target the Russian people.
Certainly what they've seen from the Biden administration at this point, they're hoping it's just the beginning. We've seen essentially sanctions against eight high ranking Russian government officials, some some concerns and some organizations as well that allegedly have ties to chemical weapons development, but not against the financiers which seems to be a key issue for these allies.
GVS: What do you think's going to happen to the elections in September and thought?
CM: if you go back to the poisoning this past August Mr Navalny was actually traveling in Siberia trying to rally people around this smart voting campaign that he and his his team essentially had come up with. And the idea was to target the unpopularity of the ruling United Russia party, and that's by pulling votes towards one candidate in particular. So they didn't care who. They were what their views were but as long as they weren't affiliated with the Kremlin, they would target all the votes this way. And they they ran this campaign in twenty nineteen as kind of a test run. And it did have some effectiveness in some races and some towns not everywhere but certainly in Moscow. It did in some towns and Siberia did. And there was some sense that there is concern there that this could happen again.
So it'll be interesting to see if they can keep that momentum going without sort of Mr. Navalny's charisma, use of social media. People will stay kind of involved in the fight with essentially the leader of it behind bars.
[[GRETA]]
A FEW DAYS …
AFTER NAVALNY’S JANUARY ARREST …
HIS ANTI-CORRUPTION FOUNDATION …
RELEASED A VIDEO …
ON SOCIAL MEDIA …
THAT CLAIMS TO SHOW …
A BILLION-DOLLAR PALACE …
BUILT BY FRIENDS …
OF RUSSIAN PRESIDENT …
VLADIMIR PUTIN..
THE KREMLIN …
HAS DISMISSED THE CLAIMS …
WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN …
INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED.
BUT THE VIDEO …
OF A LAVISH PALACE …
HAS GENERATED …
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS …
OF VIEWS ON YOUTUBE …
RAISING NAVALNY’S PROFILE …
IN RUSSIA..
WE HAVE A REPORT …
FROM OUR SISTER NETWORK …
RADIO FREE EUROPE …
RADIO LIBERTY.
[[STOP]]
[[PKG/PUTIN PALANCE RFERL]]
This is an artist's impression of a strip club in a secret palace for the enjoyment of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a new YouTube video with tens of millions of views.
SOT Navalny commentary
This room is also equipped with a large stage and an extraordinary thing: The stage has an elevator with a pole. We can't imagine what a pole on a stage is for.
The video was made by opposition leader Alexey Navalny and posted by his supporters after he was jailed.
He claims to have received leaked floor plans of the vast palace, which allegedly includes a casino, a theater, extensive vineyards, an ice rink, and luxury bathrooms where even the Italian-made toilet brush costs $800.
The many allegations in the almost two-hour video could not be independently verified, and the Kremlin quickly dismissed them.
But they're Navalny's latest salvo in an ongoing battle with Putin.
Putin's friends, having received from him the right to steal everything they want in Russia, have repaid him in many ways. But they also chipped in, collected $1.35 billion, and built a palace for their boss.
Navalny was detained on arrival at a Moscow airport on January 17, prompting a chorus of international criticism.
He had just returned from Berlin, where he was being treated after being poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent in August last year.
Investigations by Navalny's team, Bellingcat, and other media presented extensive evidence that it was carried out by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB)
The Kremlin denies involvement, and pro-government media have been almost silent about all of this.
But it appears to have raised Navalny's profile in Russia nonetheless.
SOT GRIGORI YUDIN SOCIOLOGIST
The whole story of the poisoning drew the attention of a large number of people, and we have seen that the interest in his return has been pretty high. Of course, we can't say the whole country has been glued to its screens to follow it, but there is pretty high interest, at least among the digital audience.
Navalny video On-screen
This is not the first time that the existence of the palace, on the Black Sea coast, has been reported.
What's new in Navalny's report is the level of detail about the property and how it was allegedly financed with state funds stolen by Putin allies.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the video is just a rehash of old claims, and noted that it includes an appeal for donations to Navalny's anti-corruption fund.
SOT DMITRY PESKOV KREMLIN SPOKESMAN
This is the real scam, and we warn all citizens, especially since [the video] has so many views: Think. Think before transferring money to such crooks.
'MATROSSKAYA TISHINA' detention center
Navalny is being held in custody pending a hearing on whether he broke the terms of a suspended sentence relating to a previous conviction for embezzlement.
Outside Russia, the conviction was widely seen as part of Kremlin efforts to silence Navalny, but he now faces up to 3 1/2 years in prison.
[[GRETA OC]]
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION …
HAS DECLASSIFIED …
AN INTELLIGENCE REPORT …
THAT SHOWS RUSSIA’S …
IN AUGUST 2020
RUSSIA’S F.S.B. INTELLIGENCE AGENCY …
PLOTTED THE POISONING …
OF ALEXEY NAVALNY …
IN AUGUST 2020.
BUT NAVALNY FOUND OUT …
WHO POISONED HIM …
WITH THE HELP OF
CHRISTO GROZEV ...
A TOP RESEARCHER …
WITH BELLINGCAT …
WHICH IS AN INVESTIGATIVE …
JOURNALISM PLATFORM …
SPECIALIZING IN THE USE …
OF OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE.
I SPOKE TO GROZEV ...
ABOUT HOW …
THEY TRACKED DOWN …
THE MEN WHO TRIED KILL NAVALNY…
BY POISONING HIM.
[[STOP]]
[[SOT – GROZEV INTERVIEW]]
CG: We learned a lot of things; the first part of our discovery process led us to a team of poisoners working for the FSB for a unit called the Criminalistics Institute of the FSB that actually tailed that unit, tailed Navalny for almost five years before the poisoning. They were always on at his heels, whenever he went to a campaign trip around Russia or even on a vacation trip with his wife. They picked only times that he traveled with an overnight stay over. So they never followed him on day trips which suggests they might have been interested only in hotel stays as a possible place of poisoning. And we noticed that these were not just regular F.S.B people, and that was the crucial finding. They were not only political police, as one unit of the FSB is called, colloquially, there were some political police people, but on every single trip there was also a team of a chemist and a doctor; a chemist with expertise in chemical weapons and a doctor also with expertise in treatment of chemical weapons or use of chemical weapons.
So this is a picture that got developed in front of our eyes, a team that had traveled with Navalny, alongside Navalny, without him knowing, on more than 35 trips over the last five years. And we place these same people near the location of this hotel in Tomsk, couple of days earlier near the location of this hotel in Novosibirsk where he was initially travelling to and departing or moving away from the hotel about an hour after he went to bed on the night on which we suspect he was poisoned. So everything pointed to a targeted operation by an FSB clandestine unit, but that was only the first part we discovered. The second part was even more shocking. It was the scale of the operation of this particular unit. It was not an ad hoc operation to poison Navalny. It was an operation that apparently had been targeting many many other not only opposition figures in Russia but also human rights activists, journalists, and in one particular case that we are yet to disclose- an author, a writer, a poet. So the scale of this is still to be determined, but we see that we're talking about definitely more than 10 people that were at the crosshairs of this unit.
GVS: How were you able to identify these flights? What what was your technique for for learning this?
CG: We used a combination of open source and partially closed-source data. Over the years, we've accumulated a pretty significant database of a collection of leaked databases, or for example, outdated travel data. For example, one database includes about 50 percent of all air travel in Russia from the period 2014 to 2017.
Another database includes leaked passport data and residence data for a number of cities in Russia. So the combination of these two what we would call open-source sources because they are in the public domain, you can download them on on torrents and a lot of Russian journalists have done that, allows us to look for patterns. So for example, in this particular case, we had identified some people who had traveled with Navalny at every single trip that he took across the country. And that allowed us to do correlation analysis to pinpoint about six people that were suspiciously always traveling with him. Many of them traveled on joint bookings which allowed us to connect them to one another. That gave us the first hypothesis that there's this team of people who always tail Navalny.
Then we have to cross into closed sources data. For that we had to approach whistleblowers, in some cases even people who are just selling data on the open market in Russia. There are a lot of data brokers in Russia that traditionally sell data, not to journalists. and they are quite unhappy when they find out they sold it to journalists, but they sell it to companies who do surveillance on their own employees in Russia or are doing due diligence checks on on applicants for jobs. And we got from some of these whistleblowers and or data sources, data brokers, we got phone records, in Russia they’re called building records which is basically metadata on a particular number --a time of call, place of location of the phone when when the call was made. So we were able to get the phone records for these particular six people that later expanded to eight as a total. And we saw that they, they were communicating with top FSB official officials just before the trips with Navalny. and more importantly they were talking to chemical weapons specialists from exactly the same institute that we had identified in the previous research just before trips with Navalny.
GVS: Was there any way to tie it to Putin directly in your research?
CG: Well I mean what we saw was them communicating with people at the FSB directorate level. So these are people that would be deputy to Bortnikov. Bortnikov is the chief of the FSB. And we saw this team talking to deputies of Bortnikov. Bortnikov is in direct contact, he directly reports to Putin. The concept of Putin not being aware, mmm, or having ordered this operation but let's let's limit limit it to not having been aware is zero. We've talked to a lot of people that were formerly servicing service, serving in Russian security services and now live abroad. They've all told us that there's no way that anybody at the FSB would be authorized to go near a chemical weapon without the approval of the FSO, the president's own personal security service, simply for the fact that this is too dangerous because somebody who gets access to such a high grade poison might just go crazy and start attacking even the president.
So the president needs to be in the know any time somebody at any security service uses chemical weapons.
GVS: Were you able to speak or interview Mr. Navalny? And he he also. himself was part of discovering who it was, it was food poisoning. Is that right?
CG: Well not him himself. We try to firewall him from the discovery process but we invited members of his own investigation team the people that do anticorruption investigations in Russia. And one of one of the key investigators, Maria Petrick, she joined us at the last stage of our investigation.We made sure that Alexei Navalny is only informed at the last moment. So basically a week before we publish we brought him into the picture, just because we didn't want his own perception to bias our investigation. But yes we brought him out at the last moment. We did have to get data from him through his chief investigator about his own travel. So that's what he was sharing with us. But without really knowing until late in the process, who exactly were his would-be poisoners.
GVS: Your investigative journalism is just incredible, but you're dealing with very serious topics. Do you have any fear for your life?
CG: Obviously. And especially after we found out for ourselves that this F.S.B unit had been after Navalny, while Navalny was at the crosshairs of of the propaganda campaign of the Kremlin. We thought the Kremlin is unlikely to go after somebody that they're at the same time badmouthing because it would make it too obvious who went after them. In the Navalny case, they did both. And they've been so, the Russian government has been so vocal about accusing Bellegarde and me and my colleagues of being a mouthpiece of Western intelligence and of being spies and of being traitors and what have you, that we have to start getting concerned.
GVS: Sir thank you very much for joining me. Incredible story.
CG: Thank you very much Greta.
[[GRETA]]
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ...
RECENTLY ANNOUNCED …
ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ...
AGAINST SEVERAL …
TOP RUSSIAN OFFICIALS ...
FOR NAVALNY’S POISONING ...
AND REITERATED DEMANDS …
THAT THE OPPOSITION LEADER. ..
BE RELEASED.
BUT THE SANCTIONS WERE
NOT SPECIFICALLY DIRECTED
AT PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
OR HIS INNER CIRCLE.
VOA WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
PATSY WIDAKUSWARA
TELLS US MORE.
[[STOP]]
[[PKG/PATSY]]
((NARRATOR))
This penal colony about 100 kilometers east of Moscow is where outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has been jailed since last month after surviving a poison attack last year.
The Biden administration declassified intelligence showing that Moscow orchestrated the poisoning, and announced sanctions on 14 Russian entities,
((NARRATOR))
and seven senior members of the Russian government.
((Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary))
"Expansion of sanctions under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, new export restrictions on items that could be used for biological agent and chemical production, and visa restrictions.”
((Continue Psaki))
((NARRATOR))
Press secretary Jen Psaki repeated U.S. demands for Navalny’s release.
((NARRATOR))
The opposition leader’s arrest set off nationwide street protests in Russia last month. Navalny contends his jailing is politically motivated.
((NARRATOR))
The U.S. sanctions were coordinated with European partners and Britain, but not specifically directed at President Vladimir Putin or the oligarchs of his inner circle.
((Konstantin Sonin, University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy))
“Russia is a huge country. It has a lot of ways to influence events in many parts of the world. So, I understand that the only thing the Biden administration could do is to send signals. These are strong signals, but these are just signals. This is not something that has a material effect.”
((NARRATOR))
The White House denies the sanctions are largely symbolic. Responding to VOA, Psaki acknowledged it is important to maintain relations with Moscow on many issues, including on the Iran nuclear negotiation.
((Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary))
“Russia is a P5+1 partner. They were as we pursued the JCPOA under the Obama-Biden administration, and they certainly would be a key partner if that diplomatic process were to move forward. So, the point is, there are areas where we disagree. There are areas where there's significant challenge. There are also areas where we are going to work with the Russians as we would with most global partners when we need to take steps that are an interest of the United States.”
((NARRATOR))
Last month, President Joe Biden said that unlike his predecessor, he has made clear to Putin that the U.S. will no longer tolerate Russian aggressive actions, including election interference, cyberattacks and the poisoning of its citizens. But analysts say Biden’s policy toward Russia must allow room for engagement in areas of mutual interest.
((Cyrus Newlin, Center for Strategic and International Studies))
“This includes arms control, a positive environmental economic agenda in the Arctic, to some extent climate change, and a couple of regional theaters where we both have troops, including Syria. So, there's a need to work with Russia on a range of issues. I think the Biden administration will pursue both cooperation and trying to reestablish clear lines of what they regard is appropriate norms of international behavior.”
((NARRATOR))
Meanwhile, Moscow has already vowed to retaliate against the sanctions.
((Patsy Widakuswara, VOA News))
[[GRETA]]
FROM ECONOMIC SANCTIONS ...
TO RETALIATION OVER RUSSIA’S ...
RECENT SUSPECTED HACKING OF...
SEVERAL U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ...
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY ...
IS CLOSELY WATCHING ...
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S ...
NEXT STEPS REGARDING ...
US-RUSSIA POLICY.
MATTHEW ROJANSKY ...
IS THE DIRECTOR OF ...
THE KENNAN INSTITUTE ...
AT THE WILSON CENTER IN ...
WASHINGTON DC.
HE IS A LEADING ANALYST ...
ON US-RUSSIA RELATIONS ...
AND I ASKED HIM …
WHERE THAT RELATIONSHIP …
IS HEADED NEXT.
[[STOP]]
[[SOT/ROJANSKY INTERVIEW]]
MR: Well look this is a challenged relationship from the U.S. perspective. You know we've seen a tremendous amount of troubling behavior from the Russian side. I think most salient for most people is interfering in US elections, you know a constant barrage of social media propaganda, other forms of interference attempts to sort of exploit divisions that already exist in our country. Create new ones exacerbate them. A lot of false information being trafficked by both Russian state media and unofficial mouthpieces and then hacking, we've seen a tremendous amount of hacking, as well as the kind of more far-flung foreign policy issues you know Russian support for proxies who are making trouble in various spots around the world be it Syria, Libya or of course Ukraine.
GVS: There's been a lot of response from in Europe and the United States to the poisoning of Navalny. There have been sanctions that the administration has imposed on many high-ranking officials in Russia but not on Putin or his inner circle. Why not?
MR: Well I think there are a number of sanctions that target senior members of the Russian security services. When you mentioned that Putin himself is not under sanctions you know that that may not be the biggest threat, a far bigger threat would obviously be preventing the Russian state from borrowing any money on international markets in the United States together with its allies and partners, would have a significant capability to erode Russia's ability to finance the Russian state.
GVS: We're only we're less than 100 days into a new presidential administration president and we've just completed four years with President Trump. Is there a difference so far? And it may be too early for the Biden administration to have sort of a policy with Russia but is there a difference in how the two administrations are dealing with or did deal with Russia?
MR: Well you know, at the outset there's a significant difference in tone, message and in setting expectations for. Recall that President Trump's message from day one was he wants to fix the relationship, he wants to get along with Russia, he likes and respects Vladimir Putin. He sought these one on one meetings with Putin. And President Biden has said if anything the opposite, right? He said he's clear eyed and realistic. He has talked about the threat from Russia. He's talked about how important business that needs to get done. And in fact he's gotten that done by pursuing a five year extension of the New START Strategic Nuclear Arms Treaty. And within one week of taking office President Biden called President Putin, they both orally agreed to extend the deal and they followed up immediately with the paperwork and the legislative steps required to do it. So, you know on balance, as you say less than one hundred days into the administration the rhetoric seems to be a lot more realistic given Russia's actual behavior in the state of the relationship, none of the kind of high falutin expectations of resets or a good personal rapport between the two leaders. But in terms of deliverables it's impressive that the administration has actually extended the new START treaty,
GVS: So where is the U.S. Russia relationship headed, if you can look into a crystal ball?
MR: Well look, the message from the Russian side is this is a spoiled relationship. You can't spoil an already spoiled relationship. So in that sense, it's almost like a rock bottom kind of message You can only go up from here. Maybe that's cockeyed optimism. The message from Washington though I think kind of reinforces that by saying look, we're not going to set unrealistically high expectations we're not going to become friends we're not going to become partners. If you follow that line forward, you could imagine the relationship on balance being in a better place four years from now than it is.
[[GRETA]]
THAT’S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE.
THANKS TO MY GUESTS …
MATTHEW ROJANSKY...
AND CHRISTO GROZEV ...
STAY UP TO DATE …
WITH THE LATEST NEWS …
AT VOANEWS.COM.
AND FOLLOW ME …
ON TWITTER …
AT GRETA.
THANK YOU FOR BEING ..
PLUGGED IN.
[[STOP]]
