Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1816

January 18:

American officials are already feeling the bite of Russia’s retaliatory visa blacklist. Reuters reports that Rear Admiral Jeffrey Harbeson, former commander at the Guantanamo U.S. Naval Base in Cuba, was denied a Russian entry visa as a result of his presence on the list, which also includes “Judges, agents, representatives of security services, prosecutors . . . as well as congressmen who were the authors of the Magnitsky Act .” The list was adopted to strike back at the United States after the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act to punish those responsible for the infamous death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

January 19:

Russian diplomats voiced support for a proposed resolution condemning North Korea’s December 2012 rocket launch. “I expect we will support it,” said the Russian U.N. Ambassador. “I don’t expect that the U.N. Security Council members will have any serious problems with the resolution.” The proposed resolution doesn’t impose new sanctions on North Korea, Reuters reports, but will call for expanding existing U.N. penalties against the rogue country. With China’s additional support, analysts expect the Security Council to adopt the resolution quickly.

January 21:

In a move that many experts believe signals Moscow’s expectations of the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s reign, the Kremlin announced plans to send humanitarian flights to Damascus to evacuate Russian citizens from the war-torn country. Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov acknowledged in December that the Kremlin was working on plans to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary, Reuters reports, adding that “the regime and government in Syria is losing control of more and more territory...unfortunately, a victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out.” Officials estimate the number of Russian citizens in Syria in the tens of thousands, many of them Russian women married to Syrian men.

January 23:

Moscow was quick to downplay the significance of the evacuation efforts. Seventy-seven Russian citizens left Syria in what officials refuse to call an “evacuation,” reports the Washington Post, and the Kremlin maintains that there are no current plans for a mass evacuation. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at his annual news conference, said that when Russian citizens were asked if they wanted to leave, “about 1,000 women said they would be interested in this, in principle.” But when the aircraft arrived in Beirut, fewer than 100 agreed to leave. He added that central staff of the Russian Embassy in Damascus will remain in place, although the employees’ families and other nonessential staff left the country months ago.

January 24:

The Russian State Duma gave preliminary approval to a bill that would impose significant fines for spreading “homosexual propaganda” to minors. Gay parades would be outlawed under the new restrictions, reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and violators would face fines of up to 5,000 rubles ($165). “We live in Russia after all; not Sodom and Gomorrah,” said the head of the United Russia party. “I think Russia is a 1,000-year-old country founded on certain traditional values and defending our own values is even more important than oil or gas.” The U.S. State Department expressed concern over the legislation, arguing that the bill would restrict freedom of speech not only for the LGBT community, but for all Russian citizens. Amnesty International echoed the concern, calling the bill “an attack on the right to freedom of expression” that “further stigmatizes and alienates” the LGBT population. The bill faces two further readings in the lower house, a vote in the Federation Council, and requires the signature of President Putin before it can become law.

January 25:

Amid continuing tension in U.S.-Russian relations, the United States announced the decision to quit a joint panel designed to foster civil society in the two countries, the Washington Post reports. “The U.S. government is open to an honest and open dialogue on civil society and human rights issues with the government of Russia and with civil society,” said Thomas Melia, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, but he made it clear that Washington views the working group as essentially pointless. Established nearly four years ago to foster “peer contacts” as a part of the bilateral reset, the panel has accomplished almost nothing in the past eighteen months, because, as Matthew Rojansky of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argued, “it is clear that Putin’s government has no interest in developing the hallmarks of a civil society.” Russian officials called the announcement “regrettable.”