Vladimir Putin seems to want Ukraine for Christmas, and even suggested that Father Frost might help him get it at his annual press conference yesterday, saying, “So far, we have maintained cordial relations and I am grateful to him for the opportunity to meet with you today in my current role… Hopefully, Father Frost will not only give presents to each of us but, most importantly, make sure that the plans of the whole country and every citizen of the Russian Federation are realised.”
Putin sat a long distance away from journalists at his annual press conference yesterday
Father Frost was not available for comment. But Putin’s latest diatribe about Ukraine was very real and disturbing. In recent years the state media rhetoric on Ukraine has been slightly less inflammatory than it was in 2014 and for some time afterwards, as the fervour for the annexation of Crimea subsided and it wasn’t convenient to talk about Russia’s ongoing involvement in the conflict in Donbass. As 2021 ends the world is back on high alert waiting to see if Putin will follow through on his threats.
The Russian president accused Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky of falling under the influence of Nazis, despite the fact that Zelensky is Jewish. He ranted about NATO forces moving closer to Russia, asking: “What would the Americans say if we stationed our missiles on the border between Canada and the United States, or between Mexico and the United States? Haven’t Mexico and the US had territorial disputes in the past? Which country owned California? And Texas? Have you forgotten? All right, nobody is talking about this now the way they are talking about Crimea.”
Thirty years after the Soviet Union was dissolved, Putin still pretends not to understand that Eastern European countries asked to join NATO for protection from Russia after their experiences of being invaded and occupied for decades. Few countries are choosing to come back into Russia’s orbit, except Belarus, which is being dragged there against the will of its population by tyrant Alexander Lukashenko. The opportunity to lose any semblance of democracy or human rights has not proved very tempting.
But according to Putin, Russia has always been a victim of foreigners trying to destroy it “from within”, as he said yesterday, while Ukraine isn’t even a real country. “We are trying to avoid talking about the creation of Ukraine as well,” Putin said. “Who created it? Vladimir Lenin did, when he established the Soviet Union.” The Russian president also falsely claimed that “Russians and the Russian-speaking population are being forced from their historical lands.”
Putin was equally lackadaisical with the truth when asked about Alexei Navalny and political murders. As always without naming the opposition leader Putin told a journalist, “You mentioned the person who was allegedly poisoned. The Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation has sent multiple official inquiries asking to provide at least some materials corroborating that he was in fact poisoned. There are none. How can this be explained? Not a single thing about novichok or whatever you call it.”
Numerous independent media outlets that have been designated as “foreign agents” were prevented from asking questions at the press conference (Dmitri Peskov claimed there was “no time”), while Novaya Gazeta was excluded altogether on the grounds of “Covid safety”. Maxim Kurnikov from Ekho Moskvy radio station asked a question on behalf of Novaya’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning editor Dmitri Muratov: “Mr President, do you personally know the names of those who ordered the murders of Politkovskaya and Nemtsov?” Putin replied, “I made every effort to see these cases solved; all the necessary instructions, directives and orders were given to every law enforcement and special service.”
The fact is that the foreign interference and aggression that Putin craves to validate his policies have not materialised. If they had, we might have seen some successes for the West: for example, Boris Nemtsov could have remained alive and won a democratic election. But Putin has triumphed every step of the way, eliminating all opposition and staying in power for 21 years now. His complaints ring hollow. He has now been reduced to having Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu make claims that US private military contractors are preparing a chemical weapons attack in Donbass.
Western expressions of deep concern and threats of new sanctions are clearly not going to deter Putin if he is hell bent on a new invasion of Ukraine. He has also denied that Gazprom is deliberately withholding natural gas from Europe, despite the fact that Russian gas shipments to Germany have reversed direction and prices have hit record highs this week. Ukraine is genuinely Putin’s buffer zone against domestic unrest, and there is no sign that he is going to back away from it. Merry Christmas.
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Prosecutors call for life sentences in MH17 trial
Dutch prosecutors have called for the four defendants at the MH17 trial to receive life sentences for their alleged role in the shooting down of the passenger plane with 298 people on board, saying that it is irrelevant whether or not they intended to shoot down a civilian aircraft and pointing to their conversations in which they changed their story when it became clear that the Buk missile had not hit a Ukrainian military plane. Igor Girkin, Oleg Pulatov, Sergei Dubinsky and Leonid Kharchenko have not attended the trial and it is unlikely that they will ever be arrested.
Judge and film director die from Covid
Moscow judge Yulia Safina, who presided over numerous high-profile politically-motivated trials, including that of US investor Michael Calvey, has died from Covid at the age of 44. After sentencing businessman Ilya Sherman to seven years in prison Safina lost her status as a judge on the grounds that she had distorted justice, but she regained it on appeal and was let off with a warning. Russian film director Andrei Malyukov has also died from Covid at the age of 73. He directed the 1978 Soviet action movie In The Zone of Special Attention. Russia has been reporting about 1,000 Covid deaths a day in recent weeks.
Father of Navalny aide released from jail
Yuri Zhdanov, the 68-year-old father of top Navalny aide Ivan Zhdanov, who has left Russia, has been given a three-year suspended sentence on a fraud charge for allegedly improperly allocating a woman a flat when he was a regional official and released from jail in Arkhangelsk after nine months in custody. Yuri Zhdanov was held in poor conditions in a detention centre in Naryan-Mar in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug during his trial, which his son described as torturous.
“Everyone understands that this story isn’t about a flat, the problem is the opposition activity of my son Ivan Zhdanov, an active supporter of Alexei Navalny,” Yuri Zhdanov told the court in his “last word” speech. “It’s true that my son Ivan and his associates are continuing the work of Alexei Navalny while the leading Russian politician is in prison. The way what thas happened to me has been ordered with political undertones is obvious even to people who are far from politics. They are judging me not for a crime – which I didn’t commit – but for my son’s beliefs and views. I see, I feel that many people, especially those of my age, are literally numb with fear… Sooner or later each of us will have to overcome that fear… For me the feeling of fear is in the past. Not only due to my age but also because the most valuable thing for me is my loved ones, my son is dear to me. And no threats will force me to betray my son.”
Russian serviceman arrested for treason
The FSB in Voronezh Oblast has arrested a Russian serviceman who is accused of committing treason on behalf of Ukraine, and he has been jailed while awaiting trial. According to the FSB’s version of events, the man was recruited by Ukraine’s military intelligence service and provided them with information about the activities of the Russian armed forces.
Roman Abramovich settles lawsuit against Putin book author
Roman Abramovich – who recently acquired Portuguese citizenship by claiming that he is a descendant of Sephardic Jews – has settled a lawsuit against Catherine Belton, the author of the book Putin’s People. Abramovich had accused Belton of defaming him by asserting that he bought Chelsea Football Club on Putin’s orders. Publisher HarperCollins will amend the book to make clear that this is not a statement of fact. Abramovich will not receive any damages and both sides will pay their own costs. An expensive hearing in the high court in London has been avoided.
Belton said in a statement: “This last year has felt like a war of attrition in which HarperCollins and I have been bombarded from all sides with lawsuits from four Russian billionaires and the Kremlin’s oil champion Rosneft. Though the claimants have denied it was coordinated, it has seemed to me similar to the Kremlin’s multi-pronged campaign against Ukraine in which it has sought to exhaust the West into making security concessions over NATO’s expansion. Thankfully, the fate of my book does not involve the lives of tens of millions of people. So, we have been glad today to reach a settlement on the one remaining lawsuit by making some further amendments to Putin’s People.”