Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1845

August 11:

U.S. Senator John McCain called on President Barack Obama to pursue a “more hawkish line” on Russia, and suggested that the President’s current take on the Kremlin lacks insight. “He’s (Putin) an old KGB colonel that has no illusions about our relationship, does not care about a relationship with the United States, continues to oppress his people, continues to oppress the media and continues to act in an autocratic and unhelpful fashion,” McCain said in an interview with Fox News. The Guardian reports that the senator went on to call the cancellation of a bilateral meeting between the two countries over the asylum recently granted to Edward Snowden merely “symbolic,” and suggested that Washington should do more, such as expand the 2012 Magnitsky Act. He additionally proposed that the U.S. should encourage Georgia’s NATO aspirations and expand the controversial missile defense system in Europe, despite (and even because of) the Kremlin’s past objections to both. “We also need very badly to understand that Mr. Putin does not have United States-Russia relationships as a priority” McCain added, concluding that the Kremlin must be treated “in a realistic fashion.”

August 12:

Over 1,600 illegal immigrants were detained in Russia after officials conducted sweeps in eight different regions across the country. Nearly 800 of those detained were migrant workers in the Tyumen region of western Siberia, UPI reports, while another 570 illegal Chinese immigrants were arrested in the southern Krasnodar region. Thousands of illegal workers have been arrested and deported this year as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Russian officials insist that concerns over whether gay athletes will face discrimination as a result of Russia’s controversial gay propaganda law are “completely unfounded.” Since the International Olympic Committee’s chief publicly asked Russia for clarification on whether Olympic athletes would be subject to the terms of the new law, the BBC reports that Kremlin officials have been working overtime to reassure the international community ahead of the Sochi Olympic Games. Amid calls for boycotts, or for the games to be moved to another country, Interior Ministry officials maintained that such concerns were “completely unfounded and unsubstantiated,” adding that “We regard it purely as an attempt to undermine trust in the upcoming Sochi Olympics.” The ministry released a statement which said that while officials “would act during the games – as at any other time – to protect children from the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations,” there would be no issue with “people who adhere to non-traditional sexual orientation but do not engage in these activities, nor stage any provocations, and take part peacefully in Olympic events together with everyone else.”

August 14:

In the latest source of tension between Moscow and Washington, Kremlin officials protested Lithuania’s agreement to extradite a Russian national suspected of arms dealing to the United States. “We are outraged by the fact that American special services and law enforcement agencies are still trying to legitimize the practice of arresting and detaining Russian nationals in third countries on frivolous grounds,” said Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s human rights omsbudsman. The suspected arms dealer, Dmitry Ustinov, was arrested on arriving in Lithuania on April 15 after he left the United States, where U.S. officials maintain he’d negotiated a deal to sell night-vision equipment used by the U.S. military. RIA Novosti reports that Ustinov faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of money laundering and muggling export-restricted military equipment.

August 15:

Police raided an apartment rented by a supporter of mayoral candidate and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, after reportedly trying to break the door down with a chainsaw for several hours. The Moscow Times reports that the raid came after another mayoral candidate, Nikolai Levichev, filed a complaint claiming that there were illegal campaign materials in the apartment. The raid attracted unprecedented media attention, especially after officials seemed unable to agree on the reason for the raid. Police officials claimed that the raid was also part of a sweep for illegal immigrants, while the Emergency Situations Ministry officials claimed to have attempted to break the door down because of a fire threat. Only hours later, the ministry retracted the claim, saying that firefighters “saw no sign of a fire and left without opening the door.”

Even Leichev seemed unclear as to the reasons for his complaint, originally suggesting that the illegal campaign materials were in support of Sergei Mitrokhin (the Yabloko party candidate), before changing the focus of his accusations to Navalny. The complaint was reportedly over stickers found in the apartment bearing the name of Alexei Navalny, which Levichev claimed could violate election law for failing to carry an indication that it had been paid for by Navalny’s campaign fund. Critics suggested that the raid was acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s revenge on Navalny for his recent expose about the luxury apartment and business owned by the mayor’s daughter. Four activists were reportedly detained and several claimed to have been beaten by police.

August 16:

The complaints against Russia’s World Trade Organization participation continue to accumulate. Ukrainian officials are considering lodging further complaints with the organization, reports Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, this time over Russia’s intensive customs inspections. For its part, the Kremlin said that its actions were necessary to solve problems with “suspected rigged declarations,” which can misrepresent cargoes, their value, and the country of origin. Officials from both countries are scheduled to meet in Moscow next week to attempt to resolve the problem.