Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1877

February 23:

Russia’s bailout of Ukraine is now officially on hold. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Russian government has suspended its economic aid to Ukraine amid the current revolutionary turmoil there. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has said that economic assistance from Moscow won’t be forthcoming until the Kremlin can determine “with what government we will cooperate” in Kyiv.

February 24:

The International Business Times, citing Russian news sources, reports that Russian ships carrying military personnel have arrived on Ukraine’s Crimean coast. The ship Nikolai Filchenkov, a large landing craft, was among the vessels deployed to buttress Russia’s naval presence in Sevastopol, where Moscow maintains a long-term basing lease.

February 26:

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has announced his government’s plan to expand its overseas military presence. According to RIA Novosti, military bases will be placed in a number of foreign countries, including Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, the Seychelles, and Singapore. Negotiations are also underway to allow visits to ports in each country, and to open refueling sites for Russian strategic bombers.

Amid ongoing turmoil in Ukraine following the departure of pro-Russian strongman Viktor Yanukovych, Russia has announced plans for a military drill involving some 150,000 soldiers, including detachments situated near Ukraine. The surprise exercises, ostensibly designed to test “combat readiness,” will involve forces from Russia’s Northern and Baltic fleets as well as tank, infantry and air defense units in the largest maneuver of their kind to be conducted by the Russian government in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reports.

February 27:

The government of Russian president Vladimir Putin has come under sustained criticism from the State Department in the past for its human rights irregularities, and this year has proved to be no different. The latest report, issued by State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on February 27, includes a 62-page section on Russia that takes aim at the Kremlin’s systematic restriction of civil liberties, its abuse of the justice system, and its constraints on religious and social expression. The study notes that over the past year the Kremlin “continued its crackdown on dissent that began after Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency,” and “selectively employed the law on ‘foreign agents,’ the law against extremism, and other means to harass, pressure, discredit, and/or prosecute individuals and entities that had voiced criticism of the government, including nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), independent media outlets, and the political opposition.”

Russia’s government, the report details, has also “denied due process in politically motivated cases initiated by the Investigative Committee,” and tolerated a host of other legal and procedural irregularities in the administration of justice. These include “allegations of torture and excessive force by law enforcement officials, life-threatening prison conditions, interference in the judiciary and the right to a fair trial, restrictions on freedom of speech and press, restrictions on free assembly and association, restrictions on religious freedom of some religious minorities, electoral irregularities, widespread corruption, societal and official intimidation of civil society and labor activists, violence against women and limits on the rights of women in certain regions, trafficking in persons, and limitations on workers’ rights.”

In a throwback to Cold War military cooperation between Soviet Union and client state Cuba, a Russian warship has docked in Havana. The Agence France Presse reports that neither Moscow or Havana have issued a formal explanation as to why the Viktor Leonov, a Meridian-class intelligence vessel, arrived in the Latin American state, but the visit comes amid growing unrest in Cuban ally Venezuela.