The Disappearing Sense of Talking to Putin

(Eurasia Daily Monitor) Last Friday night (July 12), United States President Barack Obama took a deep breath and called Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps assuming that talking is better than trading invectives via press secretaries. No solution for Syria was invented (and none had been expected), and Obama’s initiatives on nuclear arms control received the usual lukewarm response. But the message the White House really wanted to convey was Washington’s firm determination to bring before a US court Edward Snowden, who has been camping for three weeks in the Sheremetyevo airport departure zone (Kommersant, July 13). Putin promised nothing but enjoyed the moment—not because he likes talking to Obama (which he does not) but because making a US president call him is no small achievement. And it took only a small gesture of allowing Snowden to meet with representatives of international non-governmental organizations (NGO), which to the Obama administration amounts to granting him a “propaganda platform” (http://ria.ru/analytics/20130713/949464534.html).

Deporting Snowden to the US is certainly out of the question as it would amount to a loss of face for Moscow. Yet, much more infuriating for Putin is the possible expansion of the “Magnitsky list” (Moskovsky Komsomolets, July 12). Last week, a court in Moscow issued a verdict finding former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison due to lack of access to medical attention, guilty of tax evasion. The court also sentenced William Browder (in absentia) to nine years in prison. Putin had probably assumed that this juridical trick would provide a closure for the acutely disturbing international scandal (http://newtimes.ru/articles/detail/69141). In fact, the opposite effect has been achieved as the government of the United Kingdom confirmed that 60 Russian officials involved in the Magnitsky case would be treated with particular prejudice if they applied for a visa (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 10). Putin’s subordinates are worried that other European states will follow suit and that a “Navalny list” might be introduced after the court verdict next week expected to convict oppositionist blogger Alexei Navalny on trumped-up charges—or indeed a “Pussy Riot list” (female punk rock group sentenced to several years in prison over an anti-Putin song they performed in the middle of a mass at a Moscow Orthodox Church) and on top of all that a “Khodorkovsky list” (former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, serving several prison sentences). […]