December 9:
Russian officials are denying that it has changed its policy on Syria, after Russian and American diplomats announced an upcoming “brainstorming” session with UN leaders in Geneva on the future of Syria. “We are not holding talks about (Syrian President) Assad’s fate,” insisted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “And all attempts to present the situation any other way are unscrupulous.” The announcement came days after a Russian state visit to Turkey, reports the Guardian, where Turkish officials claim Russia’s leaders privately acknowledged that Assad’s days in power are numbered.
December 10:
Russia’s lawmakers announced plans to enact retaliatory legislation against the Magnitsky Act before the end of the year. The Washington Post reports that the new law will ban visas for Americans who harm adopted Russian children, or “kidnap Russian citizens from third countries.” The latter is a clear reference to the ongoing dispute over Viktor Bout, who was arrested and extradited to the United States for arms trafficking charges. Analysts believe Russia is attempting to strike back at the U.S. over the Magnitsky Act’s visa bans in other ways as well, including the announcement this week that Russia will ban imports of U.S. pork and beef that contains ractopamine, a common animal feed additive. American officials called the decision a violation of World Trade Organization rules, while experts note that the move is similar to the ban on Georgian wine labeled “unhealthy” just as relations soured between the two countries a few years ago.
December 11:
A Russian-led coalition withdrew a proposal to increase governmental controls over the internet at talks over a new global telecom treaty. The proposed treaty would have allowed countries to block certain Internet locations, Reuters reports, as well as take control of the allocation of Internet addresses currently overseen by a company under contract to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Led by Russia, the coalition included China and several Arab states, and sought to update a treaty which was last revised in 1988, before the advent of the World Wide Web. They argued that the changes would allow states to more effectively fight cybercrime, while the United States, along with Europe, Canada, and others, countered that the proposal would allow governments to suppress free speech and censor online content. The negotiations are a part of a two-week summit of the International Telecommunication Union, which includes representatives from nearly 150 countries.
December 12:
District Court in Moscow ruled to keep Leonid Razvozzhayev in prison until April during the investigation of the charges leveled against him. Razvozzhayev, an opposition activist, mysteriously disappeared while seeking political asylum in Ukraine, only to appear several days later in Moscow, claiming to have been arrested by Moscow police and forced to sign a false confession to the riot charges against him. Officials have since added charges that he traveled to Ukraine illegally, the Voice of America reports, and even implicated him in a 15-year-old investigation over the theft of 500 fur hats. Investigators now seek to send him to a labor camp in Siberia over the theft, while Russia’s opposition leaders decry the case as a part of the recent government crackdown on dissent.
December 13:
Preliminary evidence revealed in a hearing about the 2006 poisoning of security operative Alexander Litvinenko suggests that the Russian government was at fault for his death. Moreover, reports the Wall Street Journal, a lawyer representing Litvinenko’s widow said the former Russian secret agent was working for MI6, the British spy agency, at the time of his death. The hearing was held to determine the scope of an official investigation into the death of Litvinenko, who was killed after consuming tea laced with the radioactive element Polonium-210 at a high-end London hotel. British prosecutors believe Andrei Lugovoi, a Russian security officer who met with Litvinenko at the hotel, was responsible for the poisoning, but the Russian government has so far refused to extradite Lugovoi to Britain. A year after Litvinenko’s death, Lugovoi was elected to the Russian Duma. Evidence of Litvinenko’s employment with MI6 will be revealed if the case goes to trial, along with supposed connections to the Spanish security services.
December 14:
The Russian Foreign Ministry denied having any connection to Litvinenko’s death, reports Reuters. “We hope that as a result of the legal process . . . all the baseless allegations about some kind of a Russian involvement in this affair will be dispelled,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman. The incident was responsible for souring once-promising relations between Russia and Britain, and the relationship has remained tense over the Kremlin’s repeated refusal to extradite the ex-KGB agent believed to be responsible for Litvenenko’s death