Opinion: Putin’s Russia feels increasingly like a fortress under siege
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week. By Vladimir Kara-Murza DemocracyPost contributor April 8 at 3:38 PM In October 1998, a court in St. Petersburg began hearings in a case against Alexander Nikitin, a retired Russian naval officer who alerted the world to the environmental dangers of a decaying nuclear submarine fleet in Russia’s far north. For partnering with a Norwegian environmental group on a report on nuclear safety, Nikitin was charged with “revealing state secrets.
Perhaps even Cotler himself did not realize how prophetic his words would prove to be. Nikitin’s story, at least, had a happy ending: after an arduous judicial process, he was acquitted of all charges. This was still Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, where parliament was a place for discussion, where the media could criticize the government, and where the courts could rule on the law, not a phone call. The verdict in Nikitin’s case was passed on Dec. 29, 1999.
Last month, the chief of Russia’s armed forces, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, took the accusation a step further, asserting that the U.S. Department of Defense had launched a new strategy code-named “Trojan Horse,” which relies on “using the protest potential of the ‘fifth column’ in order to destabilize” the country from within . Gerasimov went on to say that the United States is using “color revolutions” and “soft power” to topple governments it dislikes.
This work has already begun. Earlier this year, Russia’s rubber-stamp legislature took up a bill that would disconnect the Russian Internet from the Web. The measure, proposed by KGB officer-turned-legislator Andrei Lugovoi — who is wanted by British police over the 2006 fatal radioactive poisoning of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko in London — would make Russia’s online space autonomous from global networks, as has been done in China.
Österreich Neuesten Nachrichten, Österreich Schlagzeilen
Similar News:Sie können auch ähnliche Nachrichten wie diese lesen, die wir aus anderen Nachrichtenquellen gesammelt haben.
Opinion | Mitch McConnell is making the Senate’s minority party increasingly powerlessIn extending the “nuclear option” for presidential nominations, the majority leader continues an assault on key principles of the “world’s greatest deliberative body.”
Weiterlesen »
Putin tells Netanyahu Russia found remains of missing Israeli soldierPresident Vladimir Putin told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thurs...
Weiterlesen »
Russia, Turkey will continue efforts to establish peace in Syria: PutinRussia and Turkey will continue their efforts to establish peace in Syria, Russi...
Weiterlesen »
Russia Is Eyeing Belarus—And It Might Spark a Conflict with the West | OpinionRussia's appetite for Belarus is dictated by foreign policy considerations rather than domestic ones, but either way, Lukashenko might prove a tough nut to crack.
Weiterlesen »
Formal and casual White House photos show distance between Trump and increasingly diverse nationIn picture after picture, emanating from the most exclusive corridors of American political power, Trump is seen with a team of aides and advisers that is almost exclusively white.
Weiterlesen »
Formal and casual White House photos show distance between Trump and increasingly diverse nationIn picture after picture, from the most exclusive corridors of American political power, Trump is seen with a team of aides and advisers that is almost exclusively white. The photos show the distance between Trump and an increasingly diverse nation.
Weiterlesen »
Analysis | The increasingly suspicious pattern behind Trump’s nomineesTrump is not a man in a hurry to fill many government vacancies. So why did he reportedly ask the Senate to fast-track his IRS commissioner pick? There's a very logical and suspicious explanation.
Weiterlesen »
Firefighting aircraft ‘increasingly ineffective’ amid worsening wildfiresThe unprecedented death and destruction that wildfires have brought to California the last two years have demonstrated the sharp limitations aircraft have when battling extreme fire behavior.
Weiterlesen »
Donald Trump says he calls China’s leader ‘king’ and Xi likes it like thatPresident Donald Trump told a crowd in Washington, D.C., that he said to the Chinese leader, 'You are president for life, and therefore you are king.'
Weiterlesen »