December 22:
Amid the tension over the recently-signed Magnitsky Act and the potential retaliatory ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children, Russian and U.S. officials agreed to an “action plan” to combat intellectual property theft. The plan will include online piracy of copyrighted materials, reports C-Net, reflecting concerns that the U.S. voiced last year that Russia “has done too little to protect U.S. intellectual property." A report by the office of the U.S. Trade Representative in 2011 accused several Russia-based websites of profiting from intellectual property theft. The action plan provides for cooperative legislation on issues such as “liability for Internet service providers to combat Internet piracy.”
December 24:
Alexei Navalny, a key leader of Russia’s opposition movement, is once more under investigation by Russian authorities. The New York Times reports that Navalny is accused of using his advertising company to steal over $3 million from the Union of Right Forces political party in 2007. The charges represent the third open investigation involving accusations against Navalny, the others involving charges that Navalny and his brother cheated a mail-transport company out of nearly $2 million, and accusations of theft from a state timber company. Navalny called the charges “absolutely absurd,” and maintained that the investigation is the latest attempt by the Kremlin to halt his efforts for the opposition.
December 25:
Nearly a dozen Russian warships are en route for the Mediterranean as part of large-scale naval exercises. The ships will conduct air-defense, anti-ship, and anti-submarine drills, and may dock at foreign ports, including the Syrian port of Tartus, RIA-Novosti reports. The timing of the exercises in the midst of Syria’s ongoing civil conflict led critics to question whether the ships intended to carry military equipment to Syria. Russian officials dismissed the claims and noted that Russia’s Northern Fleet are also conducting exercises, focusing on anti-piracy near the Horn of Africa.
December 26:
The fate of a bill that would ban adoptions of Russian children by Americans will depend on President Vladimir Putin. The Wall Street Journal reports that Russia’s upper house of parliament unanimously approved the bill, despite objections by American and even several Russian officials. Russian officials insist the bill is intended to protect against abuse of the adopted children, citing the nineteen cases in which Russian children died in the care of their adoptive families in the United States since the 1990s. Critics note that nineteen deaths out of the 70,000 children adopted in that span is a much lower death rate than for children in Russian adoptive families. About 120,000 children are currently listed in a Russian government database as up for adoption.
December 27:
The Associated Press reports President Putin acknowledged the day after the adoption ban bill passed through Russia’s parliament that he “intends” to sign the controversial legislation into law, as soon as this week. “I still don’t see any reasons why I should not sign it,” Putin said at a televised meeting, surprising many who believed the President would require the ban to be softened somewhat before approving. The Kremlin’s children’s rights advocate further recommended that the ban be extended to prevent foreign adoptions entirely. “There is huge money and questionable people involved in the semi-legal schemes of exporting children,” he claimed. If the bill is signed, it will cancel 46 adoptions of Russian children who were about to be adopted by American families.
December 28:
Dmitry Kratov, the only prison official charged in the infamous death of Sergei Magnitsky, was acquitted by a Tverskoy court. The court found that Kratov, the former deputy head of the prison which housed Magnitsky, was not guilty of negligence in causing Magnitsky’s death, reports the Voice of America, creating an uproar among human rights activists. Magnistky died while in prison in 2009 as a result of inadequate medical care for a pancreatic disease. He died only days before the expiration of the one-year term during which he could be held without trial.