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Politics

White Home warns Russia will face penalties if Alexei Navalny dies

White House warns Russia will face consequences if Alexei Navalny dies

WASHINGTON – White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday the Biden government warned the Russian government not to let jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny die in custody.

“We have told the Russian government that what happens to Mr. Navalny in their care is their responsibility and that they will be held accountable by the international community,” Sullivan said on CNN’s State of the Union program.

“We have announced that there will be consequences if Mr Navalny dies,” he added.

Navalny flew to Russia from Berlin earlier this year after recovering for nearly six months from nerve agent poisoning that occurred last August. He was arrested at passport control and later sentenced to more than two years in prison.

Last month, the United States sanctioned seven members of the Russian government for alleged poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of Navalny. The sanctions were the first to be directed against Moscow under Biden’s leadership. The Trump administration has taken no action against Russia because of the situation in Navalny.

State Secretary Antony Blinken wrote in a separate statement that the sanctions would send “a clear signal” to Russia that the use of chemical weapons and human rights violations are having grave consequences.

“Any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable and violates international standards,” wrote Blinken.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied playing a role in Navalny’s poisoning.

A spokesman for Navalny said the Russian opposition leader’s health had deteriorated since his detention. Navalny went on a hunger strike to force his prison guards to access outside medical care to relieve back pain and leg pain. A Navalny lawyer said he had two spinal hernias, AP reported.

Continue reading: The US was concerned about the deteriorating health of incarcerated Kremlin critic Navalny

The Russian authorities have previously stated that they have offered Navalny adequate medical care but continue to refuse it. The prison has refused to allow a doctor, chosen by Navalny, from outside the facility to carry out his treatment.

On Saturday, doctor Yaroslav Aschikhmin said the test results he received from Navalny’s family show that the detained critic has elevated potassium levels that can trigger cardiac arrest. Navalny also has elevated creatinine levels which indicate possible kidney failure.

“Our patient could die at any moment,” said Ashikhmin in a Facebook post.

In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, the Russian Ambassador to Britain accused Navalny of dramatizing his condition to attract attention.

“Of course he can’t die in prison, but I can say that Mr. Navalny is acting absolutely like a hooligan,” said Andrei Kelin. “His goal for all of this is to get him noticed, including by saying that his left hand is sick today and his leg is sick tomorrow and all that stuff, so the journalists pay attention.”

“Navalny was treated in the hospital, which is not far from where he is serving his sentence, and I understand he is no longer complaining,” added Kelin.

Last week, the Biden administration hit Russia with a string of US sanctions for human rights abuses, widespread cyberattacks and attempts to influence the US elections.

In a speech on Thursday, Biden said he was ready to take further action against Moscow.

“If Russia continues to interfere with our democracy, I am ready to take further action to respond. It is my responsibility as President of the United States to do so,” said White House Biden.

“It was clear to President Putin that we could have gone further, but I decided against it, I chose to be proportionate,” Biden said of the measures, adding that he did not “want to initiate an escalation cycle and.” Conflict with Russia. “

Continue reading: The West is waiting for Putin’s next move as tensions between Russia and Ukraine mount

Biden also said that in a phone conversation with Putin, he suggested that the two meet in person in Europe this summer to discuss a number of pressing issues.

Sullivan told CNN that the Biden-Putin summit would be discussed but would not provide additional details.

“There’s no summit on the books right now, it’s something we’re talking about. Obviously, this summit would have to be held under the right circumstances in a way that could actually advance the relationship,” Sullivan said.

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Entertainment

Alexei Ratmansky: From Hibernation to Bubble Bernstein

Alexei Ratmansky: From Hibernation to Bubble Bernstein

By the time Ratmansky arrived, the seven dancers, including three of the ballet theater’s newest directors, Brandt, Cassandra Trenary and Aran Bell, had been in Silver Bay for two weeks, preparing their daily training to prepare for long days of intense rehearsal. (Because Ratmansky arrived later, he had to wear a mask for the first two weeks.) Some of the dancers, like Patrick Frenette, were limited to barring at home for almost a year.

Others, like Brandt, Bell and Catherine Hurlin, an aspiring soloist, had access to ballet studios and live coaching. “Some of them looked like they’d never stopped dancing and their confidence was great,” said Nancy Raffa, one of the company’s rehearsal directors, who came with us to teach and assist. Her main task in those first few days was to bring them all back to the same level. (Three other dancers, Melvin Lawovi, Leah Baylin, and Cameron McCune, were also in Silver Bay creating a new piece for the company’s choreographic workshop, ABT Incubator.)

Silver Bay YMCA is in an idyllic location on a lake, surrounded by forests that are now covered in snow. “The view from the window is like wallpaper,” said Ratmansky. “Nothing ever changes, not even a person who goes outside.”

He didn’t mean that as a criticism. “When I work, the less interaction with the outside world, the better,” he said. “It’s only a few steps from the studio to my room. I don’t have to put on shoes or a coat. It’s like a dream come true. “

The new ballet, about 15 minutes long, is set in an eight-part suite that Bernstein composed in 1980 in honor of the 100th birthday of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is a solemn compilation of amber-ian gestures: roaring brass, large crescendos à la “West Side Story”, syncopation and jazzy intonations.

Ratmansky, who has already made two ballets to Bernstein’s music, was guided by the energetic drive and humor of the suite. “I’m trying to have the same intentions as Bernstein to make a fun piece to showcase the group,” he said. “I didn’t want to express the worries of our time through slow port de bras. I wanted to give them the opportunity to dance properly with joy and playfulness. “

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World News

Russia, Putin and Alexei Navalny: What occurs subsequent?

Russia, Putin and Alexei Navalny: What happens next?

Riot police during an unauthorized rally in support of Alexei Navalny in central Moscow on February 2, 2021.

Mikhail Tereshchenko | TASS | Getty Images

The arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Russia has been widely awaited by Russian observers, but experts say what comes next will likely depend on the dynamics of the protests in support of Navalny, whether the West decides to punish Russia and how the Kremlin does responded to growing unrest in the country.

Navalny, who is widely regarded as one of Putin’s most prominent critics, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Tuesday for breaking parole. The allegations he and his team made were fabricated and politically motivated.

The judge said the year Navalny has already spent under house arrest (around 10 months) will be deducted from his prison sentence. Navalny’s defense team has announced that it will appeal the court ruling.

Protests against Navalny’s first imprisonment in mid-January and immediately after his return from Germany to Russia, where he had been treated for nerve agent poisoning since last summer, were carried out over the last two weekends in Russia and again outside the US on Tuesday in the Moscow Court, where the Judgment was made.

The verdict was widely condemned by Western governments, but the US and Europe did not threaten further sanctions against Russia for the time being, as both demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Navalny.

US Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, indicated in a tweet that further sanctions could be imposed on Russia, which is already operating under Western restrictions due to the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and, among other things, has entered the US Meddles in 2016 elections.

Timothy Ash, a leading emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, believes more sanctions will come.

“We may not see this promotion this week, it may take weeks / months, but I think when it comes we will be surprised by its scope / scope,” Ash said via email.

“This is not a case of a step-by-step approach, but an overall picture, a common approach to countering the Russian threat. And hit Russia hard from the start – to make it clear to Putin, we know what you’re doing, we know when you get your card we know all you understand is power, and here it is. “

Ash said he expected “a rolling approach to roll back Putin’s offensive campaign against western liberal market democracies.”

More protests?

The scale and extent of the West’s reaction against Russia remains to be seen, but this could also affect the dynamism of the pro-navalny protests in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said police had the right to use harsh methods to break off protests by supporters of Navalny who had gathered outside the Moscow court where the hearing took place.

Peskov also said calls from Navalny’s allies for Russians to take to the streets after he was jailed on Tuesday were a provocation, Reuters reported. More than 1,400 supporters of Navalny in 10 cities were arrested on Tuesday, according to the OVD-Info monitoring group.

The US, Germany and France are among the Western nations that have condemned the violence against protesters in Russia and called for Navalny to be released immediately.

Russia has rejected this criticism, defended the police’s response to protests and accused Western countries of double standards.

“With regard to the events in Russia and not only in Navalny, the reporting of the West is selective and one-sided,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference on Wednesday, Tass news agency reported.

“The hysteria we heard about the Navalny trial is far exaggerated,” he added.

Daragh McDowell, Russia’s chief analyst at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, said the conviction and imprisonment of Navalny would “represent a massive blow to the opposition that has lost one of its most effective organizers and communicators.”

The movement continued to suffer as other members of the Navalny National Organization were also arrested and detained. Whether the protests can continue at their current level is unknown.

“The key question is whether the current wave of protests sparked by Navalny’s arrest has reached a point where they will support themselves and continue even if he and his team are removed from the field. The decision to imprison him , will certainly likely be hit. ” at least a short-term spike in street protests, accompanied by a corresponding increase in arrests and aggressive police brutality, “noted McDowell.

Political stalemate

Experts warn Putin of concern that the protests so far also reflect general public dissatisfaction with the Russian ruling class, widespread corruption and kleptocracy, and a decline in living standards.

McDowell said a “major cause for concern for the Kremlin should be that the protests sparked by Navalny’s arrest are more the result of longer-term social and economic stagnation … the protesters are driven less by Navalny’s political program than by them driven are a general feeling of being fed up with the status quo. “

Although there is allegedly a lack of political alternatives to Putin, whom McDowell viewed as not in immediate danger of falling, “his political regime is based less on active support than on tolerance and acceptance, and it appears that the Russian population is rapidly approaching its limits.”

Protesters hold a banner reading “FREE NAVALNY” as around 2,500 supporters of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny protest to demand his release from Moscow prison on January 23, 2021 in Berlin.

Omer Messinger | Getty Images News | Getty Images

This sentiment was confirmed by Christopher Granville, executive director of EMEA and global political research at TS Lombard, but warned of a possible “stalemate” between the Kremlin and the opposition.

“The main cause of the current political ferment in Russia is Vladimir Putin’s long reign, which is entering its final phase. Far from eliminating uncertainties (even at the expense of more acute short-term turbulence), this final is now more likely to drag on.” social tension and polarization, “he said in a note on Tuesday.

Granville said its discouraging outlook for Russia, which also negatively impacted the country’s economic growth prospects and valuations of the country’s assets, “stems from a key feature of Alexey Navalny’s challenge to Putin’s ruling establishment: stalemate.”

“The support base of either side in Russian society is too solid to allow for quick or easy victories. Removing Navalny from the board of directors, be it by murder or, as before, by imprisonment, is not a ‘solution’: far from a cult of personality being the movement he’s galvanized marks a generation change. The Putin base, still a plurality, is now cemented by rational fears of instability, “he said.

Categories
Politics

Blinken requires Russian launch of Alexei Navalny

Blinken calls for Russian release of Alexei Navalny

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny attends a rally marking the 5th anniversary of the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and protests against proposed changes to the country’s constitution on February 29, 2020 in Moscow, Russia.

Shamil Zhumatov | Reuters

WASHINGTON – Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken has condemned the Russian authorities’ “persistent use of tough tactics” against peaceful protesters who took to the streets across Russia on Sunday to demand the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

For the second year in a row, tens of thousands gathered across the country to draw attention to Navalny, a loud critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was arrested by authorities earlier this month.

According to a surveillance group, more than 4,500 people were arrested by the Russian authorities for participating in the protests.

“We again call on Russia to release those detained for the exercise of their human rights, including Aleksey Navalny,” Blinken wrote in a tweet.

Last year, Navalny was medically evacuated to Germany from a Russian hospital after falling ill after reports that something had been added to his tea. Russian doctors treating Navalny denied that the Kremlin critic had been poisoned, blaming his comatose condition for low blood sugar levels.

In September, the German government announced that the 44-year-old Russian dissident had been poisoned by a chemical agent on nerves and described the toxicological report as “clear evidence”. The nerve agent was in the Novichok family, which was developed by the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied having played a role in Navalny’s poisoning.

Earlier this month, Navalny flew from Berlin to Russia, where he had recovered for almost half a year since being poisoned last summer. He was arrested at passport control.

The Russian authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Navalny, alleging that he had violated the three and a half year suspended sentence he received in 2014 for embezzlement.

“Mr. Navalny should be released immediately, and the perpetrators of the outrageous attack on his life must be held accountable,” wrote Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, on Twitter shortly after his arrest.

Last week Blinken expressed “deep concern” about the treatment of Navalny and the general human rights situation in Russia.

“It remains to be seen how concerned and perhaps even frightened the Russian government seems to be of a man, Mr. Navalny,” Blinken told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday.

Newly confirmed Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters during his first press conference at the State Department in Washington on January 27, 2021.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

“As the President said, we are examining all these measures, which are of great concern to us, whether they are the treatment of Mr Navalny and, in particular, the obvious use of a chemical weapon in an attempt to assassinate him. ” “Added the nation’s top diplomat.

Blinken also said Wednesday that the Biden administration is investigating the hack on SolarWinds, reports of Russia’s bounties to American forces in Afghanistan, and possible election disruptions.

Biden previously vowed to “work with our allies and partners to hold the Putin regime accountable for its crimes”. He had previously accused the Trump administration of not representing Moscow strictly enough.