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New York Times
25-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Russia and Ukraine Hold U.S.-Mediated Talks: What to Know
Ukrainian and U.S. officials on Tuesday held a second session of negotiations in Saudi Arabia to discuss a possible limited cease-fire, a day after Russian and American delegations held similar discussions that lasted more than 12 hours. Kyiv and Moscow have been holding separate U.S.-mediated talks in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, to discuss a temporary moratorium on strikes on energy sites, as well as a cease-fire in the Black Sea, a vital route for both nations to export commodities — in what could be a crucial step toward a full cessation of hostilities in Russia's war with Ukraine. Ukraine held its first session of talks on Sunday, followed by Russia on Monday. A Ukrainian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said talks continued on Tuesday morning, and Ukrainian news media said they had ended after about one hour. The discussions have been aimed at finding common ground between Kyiv and Moscow, but both sides have cautioned against expecting an imminent deal. What's on the agenda The meetings in Riyadh were expected to focus on the details of a tentative agreement between Russia and Ukraine to temporarily halt strikes on energy infrastructure. But Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said on Tuesday that the sides mostly discussed the safety of shipping in the Black Sea and the restoration of a grain deal agreed to in 2022 that allowed millions of tons of Ukrainian grain to be exported. Mr. Lavrov said that Russia was in favor of restoring the grain deal, but only if unspecified Russian demands were met. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, said on Tuesday that the Russian government was studying the results of the meeting between Russian and American delegations. He called the talks 'technical' and said that the results would not be made public. President Volodymyr Zelensky had said that Ukraine would prepare a list of infrastructure that could be included in the cease-fire agreement. He added that a third party would have to monitor the cease-fire and suggested that the United States could do so. Steven Witkoff, whom President Trump has tapped to be his personal envoy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, has said that the ultimate goal of the talks is a 30-day full cease-fire that would allow time for negotiations on a permanent truce. But the path toward such a truce has been shaky. Moscow continues to insist on maximalist positions, including about asserting territorial control and ensuring Ukraine never joins NATO. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly said that it will not concede to the Kremlin's demands and has accused Mr. Putin of stalling for time. The Russian delegation The Russian negotiators are led by Grigory B. Karasin, a senior Russian diplomat and lawmaker, and Sergey O. Beseda, an adviser to the head of the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the country's domestic intelligence agency. Mr. Karasin described the talks as 'creative,' the Russian news agency Interfax reported. While Mr. Karasin has been involved in sensitive foreign policy talks before, Mr. Beseda's choice came as a surprise to some. Mr. Beseda was head of the F.S.B. department responsible for international intelligence operations. He has been described by Russian news outlets as one of the main sources of intelligence that convinced Mr. Putin in 2022 that there was pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine and that a brisk invasion could easily dismantle the government in Kyiv. In 2023, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, called Mr. Beseda a 'very problematic person' for Ukraine who 'has done a lot of evil.' The Ukrainian delegation Mr. Umerov is leading the Ukrainian delegation in Riyadh, along with Pavlo Palisa, a top military adviser to Mr. Zelensky. Both Mr. Umerov and Mr. Palisa are members of the Ukrainian delegation for peace talks that Mr. Zelensky appointed this month, a group led by his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Mr. Umerov was a key negotiator for Ukraine in peace talks with Russian diplomats in the early months of the war. Ukrinform, the state news agency, said the Ukrainian team included deputy foreign and energy ministers, along with Mr. Zelensky's top diplomatic adviser. Moscow's position Last week, Mr. Putin told Mr. Trump in a telephone conversation that Russia would agree to a temporary truce only if Ukraine stopped mobilizing soldiers, training troops or importing weapons for the duration of any pause in fighting. Mr. Putin also demanded the complete halt of foreign military aid and intelligence to Kyiv, calling it 'the key condition for preventing an escalation of the conflict and making progress toward its resolution through political and diplomatic means,' according to the Kremlin's readout of the call. The White House said that military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine would continue despite the Kremlin's demands. But the Trump administration has been less clear on Moscow's calls for territorial concessions. Mr. Witkoff echoed a Kremlin talking point on Sunday when he tried to legitimize the staged referendums that the Russian occupation forces held in parts of Ukraine to justify the annexation of those territories taken by military force. 'There is a view within the country of Russia that these are Russian territories,' Mr. Witkoff told Fox News. Fundamentally, Russia's position regarding the conflict has remained the same. The Kremlin says it wants to 'eliminate the root causes of the crisis' — essentially demanding that Ukraine capitulate. Kyiv's position Ukraine had previously agreed to an unconditional 30-day truce to cease all combat operations, at the urging of the Trump administration. But after Moscow said that it would support only a partial cease-fire on energy infrastructure, Mr. Zelensky spoke with Mr. Trump and agreed to the limited truce. In recent days, Ukrainian officials have set out red lines going into negotiations: Kyiv will never accept Russian sovereignty over occupied Ukrainian territory; it will not agree to be blocked from joining NATO or to reduce the size of its army; and it must have security guarantees as part of any peace settlement. Many Ukrainian officials and analysts have expressed doubt that even a limited cease-fire would hold for long, noting that previous truces between Moscow and Kyiv were routinely violated, with each side blaming the other. 'I do not believe in a cease-fire. We've been through this before,' Kostyantyn Yeliseyev, a veteran diplomat and former Ukrainian deputy foreign minister who took part in cease-fire negotiations in 2014 and 2015, said in an interview. What's next? Mr. Witkoff said on Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg News that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin were 'likely' to meet in Saudi Arabia within weeks. American officials will also probably continue talks with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in the Middle East to discuss details of a limited truce. But the foundations of the diplomatic process have been wobbly, analysts said, with Moscow and Kyiv ready to continue fighting. 'Both sides still believe that they can continue the war regardless of the American position,' said Dmitry Kuznets, a military analyst with the Russian news outlet Meduza, which operates from Latvia after being outlawed by the Kremlin. He added, 'Moscow's and Kyiv's visions of what an agreement could look like are still infinitely far from each other.'
New York Times
23-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Russia and Ukraine to Hold U.S.-Mediated Talks: What to Know
The United States will hold separate talks with Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia to iron out details of a possible limited cease-fire in what could be a crucial step toward a full cessation of hostilities in the war. Russia and Ukraine both agreed this past week to temporarily halt strikes on energy infrastructure, but how and when to implement that partial truce are questions that have yet to be decided as attacks persist. The talks — to be held in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, with American representatives mediating — are expected to focus on hammering out those details and on safety for shipping in the Black Sea. Kyiv's delegation will first meet with U.S. mediators on Sunday, a Ukrainian official said, followed by Moscow-Washington talks on Monday. The Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, said Sunday's talks would begin in the evening, Kyiv time. He added that the Ukrainian delegation might hold additional discussions with U.S. officials on Monday, depending on progress. Steve Witkoff, whom President Trump has tapped to be his personal envoy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, has said that the ultimate goal of the talks is a 30-day full cease-fire that would allow time for negotiations on a permanent truce. But the path toward such a truce has been shaky. Moscow continues to insist on maximalist positions, including about asserting territorial control and ensuring Ukraine never joins NATO. The Ukrainian government has repeatedly said that it will not concede to the Kremlin's demands and accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of stalling for time. Unlike previous cease-fire discussions, which involved top government officials from all sides, this new round will focus on technical matters and will mostly involve diplomats and government advisers. Keith Kellogg, the U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, said that the American delegation would include some of his own staff, along with Michael Anton, policy planning director at the State Department; and aides to the national security adviser, Michael Waltz. The Russian delegation Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, said on Friday that Mr. Putin had personally selected negotiators for the talks. The Russian delegation will be led by Grigory B. Karasin, a senior Russian diplomat and lawmaker; and Sergey O. Beseda, an adviser to the head of the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the country's domestic intelligence agency. While Mr. Karasin has been involved in sensitive foreign policy talks before, Mr. Beseda's choice came as a surprise to some. An influential spymaster, Mr. Beseda was head of the F.S.B. department responsible for international intelligence operations. He has been described by Russian news outlets as one of the main sources of intelligence that convinced Mr. Putin in 2022 that there was pro-Russian sentiment in Ukraine and that a brisk invasion could easily dismantle the government in Kyiv. In 2023, Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine's military intelligence, called Mr. Beseda a 'very problematic person' for Ukraine who 'has done a lot of evil.' The Ukrainian delegation President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said his defense minister, Rustem Umerov, would attend the negotiations in Riyadh. Mr. Umerov will be joined by Pavlo Palisa, a top military adviser to Mr. Zelensky, according to the Ukrainian official. Both Mr. Umerov and Mr. Palisa are members of the Ukrainian delegation for peace talks that Mr. Zelensky appointed this month, a group led by his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. Mr. Umerov was a key negotiator for Ukraine in peace talks with Russian diplomats in the early months of the war. Given the technical nature of the talks on energy and shipping, Mr. Zelensky said that Ukraine would also send experts to Saudi Arabia. 'There will be military, energy specialists, as well as people who are well versed in port and other civilian infrastructure,' he said on Wednesday. Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine would prepare a list of infrastructure objects that could be included in the cease-fire agreement. He added that a third party would have to monitor the cease-fire, and suggested that the United States could do so. While Russia and Ukraine may find common ground in talks about energy and shipping, both have laid out conditions for a complete cessation of hostilities that appear irreconcilable — a sign of the steep challenges ahead in any broader peace negotiations. Moscow's position This past week, during a telephone conversation with President Trump, Mr. Putin said that Russia would agree to a temporary truce only if Ukraine stopped mobilizing soldiers, training troops or importing weapons for the duration of any pause in fighting. Mr. Putin also demanded the complete halt of foreign military aid and intelligence to Kyiv, calling it 'the key condition for preventing an escalation of the conflict and making progress toward its resolution through political and diplomatic means,' according to the Kremlin's readout of the call. The White House said that military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine would continue despite the Kremlin's demands. But the Trump administration has been less clear on Moscow's calls for territorial concessions and at times even appeared to align with the Kremlin's stance. Mr. Witkoff echoed a Kremlin talking point on Friday in saying that an 'overwhelming majority' of Ukrainians living in four regions of the country that Russia has annexed had 'indicated that they want to be under Russian rule' during referendums organized by Moscow. Those referendums were widely denounced as fraudulent and illegal by the international community. Fundamentally, Russia's position regarding the conflict has remained the same. The Kremlin says it wants to 'eliminate the root causes of the crisis' — essentially demanding that Ukraine capitulate. That would mean Kyiv's recognizing Russia's territorial gains, declaring neutrality and agreeing to shrink its military, which would most likely leave Ukraine vulnerable to another invasion. Kyiv's position Ukraine had previously agreed to an unconditional 30-day truce to cease all combat operations, at the urging of the Trump administration. But after Moscow said that it would support only a partial cease-fire on energy infrastructure, Mr. Zelensky spoke with Mr. Trump and agreed to the limited truce. In recent days, Ukrainian officials have set out red lines going into negotiations: Kyiv will never accept Russian sovereignty over occupied Ukrainian territory, it will not agree to be blocked from joining NATO or to reduce the size of its army, and it must have security guarantees as part of any peace settlement. Many Ukrainian officials and analysts express doubt that even a limited cease-fire will hold for long, noting that previous truces between Moscow and Kyiv were routinely violated, with each side blaming the other. 'I do not believe in a cease-fire. We've been through this before,' Kostyantyn Yeliseev, a seasoned diplomat and former Ukrainian deputy foreign minister who took part in cease-fire negotiations in 2014 and 2015, said in an interview. What's next? Mr. Witkoff said on Wednesday in an interview with Bloomberg News that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin were 'likely' to meet in Saudi Arabia within weeks. American officials will also probably continue meeting their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in the Middle East to discuss details of a possible limited truce. But the foundations of the diplomatic process have been wobbly, analysts said, with Moscow and Kyiv ready to continue fighting. 'Both sides still believe that they can continue the war regardless of the American position,' said Dmitry Kuznets, a military analyst with the Russian news outlet Meduza, which operates from Latvia after being outlawed by the Kremlin. He added, 'Moscow's and Kyiv's visions of what an agreement could look like are still infinitely far from each other.'
New York Times
23-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
An American Helped Build Russia's Economy. He Was Jailed on Bogus Charges.
A foul cell in a Moscow detention center was about the last place an American businessman named Michael Calvey expected to find himself after spending 25 years building a flourishing venture capital firm in Russia that transformed some tech startups into global brands. First, beefy agents from the F.S.B., the federal security service, ransacked his apartment before dawn. Hours later he was confined to a holding cell with two other inmates and a filthy hole in the floor for a toilet. 'The cell is stuffy and hot, an oppressive stench hanging in the air as if from accumulated decades of human sweat mixed with the indescribable horrors emanating from the toilet hole area,' Mr. Calvey wrote in a new book out this week called 'Odyssey Moscow.' It details his extended ordeal through the Russian court system in a fabricated fraud case initiated in 2019: 'In the course of a few surreal, terrifying hours I have morphed from one of the most successful Western businessmen in Russia into a prisoner of the state.' With President Trump lauding the possibility of 'major economic development transactions' between the United States and Russia as he seeks improved relations with Moscow, Mr. Calvey's fate stands as a cautionary tale about the significant personal and professional risks involved in doing business in Russia, particularly given the arbitrary nature of its courts. Perhaps no Western businessman promoted foreign investment in Russia more than Mr. Calvey, 57, who helped to forge internet titans from tech startups like Yandex — a version of Google, Amazon and Uber rolled into one — or Tinkoff Credit Systems, one of the world's biggest digital banks. The firm he founded, Baring Vostok Capital Partners, earned colossal returns. Then Baring Vostok got mired in a nasty commercial dispute with two dubious Russian partners who were stripping assets out of a bank in a troubled merger. Once, Mr. Calvey's empty Moscow apartment mysteriously caught fire hours before a dinner involving tense negotiations. After his firm filed a case with a London arbitration court, the partners convinced Department K of the F.S.B., responsible for internal financial crimes, that the American and several partners had perpetuated a massive fraud as part of a dastardly foreign plot to undermine Russia's financial sector. The agents pounced in February 2019, and although no evidence of wrongdoing ever emerged in court, Mr. Calvey and several partners spent years in jail or under house arrest. 'Once the F.S.B. gets involved in a case, they're like a car with six gears going forward and none in reverse,' Mr. Calvey said in an interview in Switzerland, his home since finally being allowed to leave Russia in 2022. Lanky and trim, he retains a boyish air despite his gray hair. 'They will never back up or lose face.' His arrest stunned Western investors. 'Everyone I knew was incredulous, angry and shocked,' said Bernie Sucher, an American banker with extended experience in Russia. 'It was viewed as a direct assault on the very idea of long-term investment in the Russian economy.' Unusually, dozens of influential Russians defended Mr. Calvey. They included Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund and now a key negotiator for ending the Ukraine war; German Gref, the chief executive of Russia's largest bank; and Alexei Kudrin, a previous finance minister. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow also objected strenuously to his arrest. Mr. Calvey thought such interventions, combined with the blow to investor confidence, would get the case dropped. But nothing outweighed the F.S.B. President Vladimir V. Putin did summon top Kremlin officials, ordering them to get the American businessman out of prison, but also to find something illegal that Mr. Calvey had done, he said he later learned. At a tense time in U.S.-Russia relations, the Kremlin could not admit to arresting a prominent American businessman on false pretenses, he said. Released from prison after two months, Mr. Calvey was confined to his apartment with an electronic monitoring device strapped around his ankle for two years, and spent a third under court-ordered supervision with an 8 p.m. curfew. When he developed a cancerous tumor in one leg, the court refused to allow him to remove the device, so doctors operated without benefit of an M.R.I. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment about Mr. Calvey's account. At the time of his conviction, Dmitry Peskov, the presidential spokesman, quoted Mr. Putin as saying that the government could not interfere in the courts. When first arrested, Mr. Calvey was jailed in Matrosskaya Tishina prison, near downtown Moscow. It is sometimes called 'Kremlin Central' because so many inmates face charges in high-profile corruption cases pushed by the Kremlin. There were no violent criminals, but nobody is ever acquitted, either, Mr. Calvey wrote His cellmates greeted him with a nonalcoholic toast: 'Novoselye,' or welcome. One was a former deputy minister of culture. Another was an army general. A younger one was a computer hacker, and three were construction moguls. Trust nobody, one of them confided. Their cell, 13 feet by 16 feet, was tidy and somewhat comfortable, with a television and a separate toilet. The men shared everything equally from cleaning chores to food supplies from outside. He dedicated his book to the men of Cell 604, and tears up when he talks about them. The book will be released Thursday in Britain and in early April in the United States. Throughout his detention, Mr. Calvey endeavored to avoid his jailers seeing him disturbed. His reading list included Kafka as an apt reflection of his fate. When one prosecutor summarized the case, for example, she admitted that not a single witness testified to a crime being committed, then added, 'That just proves what a well-organized criminal group we are dealing with.' The entire courtroom laughed aloud, Mr. Calvey said. The trial underscored F.S.B. control over the courts, with the closing statements repeating the opening accusations almost exactly, Mr. Calvey said. All the witness testimony might never have happened. 'Russian people are of course the main victims of its courts,' he wrote. In August 2021, Mr. Calvey was convicted of the misappropriation of funds and given a five-year suspended sentence. The conviction on false charges grated, he said, a stain on all his work for Russia. His Russia saga started in 1991, when just two years out of the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Calvey went to work for his former Wall Street boss at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It was established to help the former Soviet bloc transition to a market economy. He worked on financing energy sector projects. Considered young for the magnitude of the deals, he tried to camouflage his age by adopting a serious demeanor at work, said Charlie Ryan, his first Moscow roommate. 'Life for an expat in 1990s Moscow was equal parts bizarre and marvelous,' Mr. Calvey wrote. Pizza Hut was considered a high-end restaurant to impress a date. Kilos of inexpensive caviar proved a substitute for breakfast cereal. Mr. Calvey established Baring Vostok to build businesses catering to the new middle class. He married a Russian woman named Julia, with whom he had two sons and a daughter, now all young adults. He existed within an elite business bubble, surrounded by people eager to integrate Russia into the global economy. At the time of his trial, Baring Vostok said that overall, it had invested more than $2.8 billion in 80 companies across the region, making it the biggest such Western player. He learned Russian through countless hours he spent with young, ambitious entrepreneurs. 'It was hard to spend time with them and not feel like Russia was a much, much better place than at the time of their grandparent's generation,' he said. When prominent businessmen got arrested, Mr. Calvey attributed it to their meddling in politics. He considered his Russian associates overly gloomy about the direction of their country. He ignored repeated red flags that Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. agent, had handed control over every major institution to the siloviki, a Russian term incorporating all security agencies. Not even the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 deterred Mr. Calvey. 'What I didn't really appreciate, and only realized with my arrest, was the depth of the control and influence of the ruling caste of Russia, which is F.S.B. and the other siloviki,' he said. Mr. Calvey's businesses thrived even while he was imprisoned, and he pulled the plug only after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The hasty disinvestment cost his company billions of dollars, he said. He is done with Russia. Although under Russian law his conviction was nullified after his five-year probation period ended a year ago, last week a Moscow court changed the probationary sentence given to a French defendant in the case to a prison term in absentia. Mr. Calvey expects some American businesses to return, although he considers Russia too risky for long-term investments. A peace deal might prompt him to invest in Ukraine, however. He is fostering internet startups elsewhere, employing young tech talent that fled Russia. The simmering geopolitical differences between Moscow and Washington mean that any businessman can become a chessboard pawn, he said, adding: 'You may hope that you're not going to get stepped on the head, but ultimately it could happen at any time.'
New York Times
05-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
America the Evil Mastermind? Not So Fast, Russians Are Told
Five weeks ago, Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, delivered a routine speech blasting the 'hegemonic, egoistic' United States at the helm of the 'collective West.' The worldview of the 74-year-old veteran diplomat has since undergone some head-spinning changes. In an interview on Russian state television on Sunday, Mr. Lavrov listed the ills that Europe — not America — had brought upon the world. The United States, in his telling, had gone from evil mastermind to innocent bystander. 'Colonization, wars, crusaders, the Crimean War, Napoleon, World War I, Hitler,' Mr. Lavrov said. 'If we look at history in retrospect, the Americans did not play any instigating, let alone incendiary, role.' As President Trump turns decades of U.S. foreign policy upside down, another dizzying swing is taking place in Russia, both in the Kremlin and on state-controlled television: The United States, the new message goes, is not that bad after all. Almost overnight, it's Europe — not the United States — that has become the source of instability in the Russian narrative. On his marquee weekly show on the Rossiya-1 channel Sunday night, the anchor Dmitri Kiselyov described the 'party of war' in Europe as outmatched by the 'great troika' of the United States, Russia and China that will form 'the new structure of the world.' For more than a decade, the United States was the Kremlin propaganda machine's main boogeyman — the 'hegemon,' the 'puppeteer' and the 'master across the ocean.' It was seeking Russia's destruction by pushing Europeans, Ukrainians and terrorists into conflict with Moscow. After Mr. Trump's return to the White House, Russian officials first said not much would change. 'The difference, other than terminology, is small,' Mr. Lavrov said in that Jan. 30 speech, comparing the Trump and Biden administrations. But then came the phone call on Feb. 12 between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the talks between the White House and the Kremlin in Saudi Arabia, the vote at the United Nations in which America sided with Russia, and the berating of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at the Oval Office last week. In a matter of weeks, it became clear that the second Trump presidency had the potential to deliver far more of a pro-Russian foreign policy than the first one did. Mr. Putin has led the shift in tone. The leader who used to castigate the American-led West for seeking to 'dismember and plunder Russia' last week proposed that the United States mine Russian rare earth metals and help develop aluminum production in Siberia. It was part of Mr. Putin's outreach to Mr. Trump as he dangled the potential for vast wealth from Russian resources. On Friday, hours before Mr. Trump harangued Mr. Zelensky at the White House, Mr. Putin sounded his new, pro-American message in the unlikeliest of places: the annual meeting of Russia's domestic intelligence agency, the F.S.B., which has been at the vanguard of Russia's shadow war against the West. Mr. Putin said talks with the Trump administration 'inspire certain hopes,' praised it for its 'pragmatism' and called on the spies in attendance to resist attempts 'to disrupt or compromise the dialogue that has begun.' The whiplash in ties with Washington was so stark that Russian state television on Sunday showed a reporter asking the Kremlin's spokesman how it was possible that 'a couple of months ago we were publicly saying that we were almost enemies.' 'This, indeed, couldn't have been imagined,' the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, replied, marveling at the shift. American foreign policy, he added, now 'coincides with our vision in many ways.' The Kremlin's message makers are struggling to help Russians make sense of it all. Some commentators are dredging up historical precedent, going as far back as Catherine the Great's refusal to help Britain put down the American Revolution. Others say it's the American voter who changed. 'The American people got tired of global empire,' a state TV talk-show stalwart, the filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov, explained last week. In an interview with The New York Times, Yevgeny Popov — whose show, '60 Minutes,' is the most popular daily political program on Russian state TV — insisted that talk of cooperating with the United States was not extraordinary because American companies had done business in the Soviet Union even in the depths of the Cold War. 'These are quite natural processes happening here,' Mr. Popov said. 'We want peaceful, constructive and pragmatic and, most importantly, equal relations with the U.S.' Still, Mr. Popov pointed out that American weapons were killing Russian soldiers on Ukraine's battlefields, and that he did not believe there could soon be a friendly relationship with a country whose 'tanks were firing on our people.' Some guests on his show have gone further. Aleksei Zhuravlyov, a firebrand lawmaker known for threatening the United States with nuclear annihilation, said on '60 Minutes' last week that Russia could 'make friends with America and rule the world.' 'Trump needs us,' Mr. Zhuravlyov said. 'Do we need Trump? We do. Do our interests coincide? They do. Against whom? Against the European Union.' Underlying Russia's interest in rapprochement with the United States are a grudging respect for the country and extensive personal ties, especially among the cultural and commercial elite. Ivan I. Kurilla, a scholar of U.S.-Russia relations at Wellesley College, said Russian and Soviet rulers long saw the United States as a nation worth emulating — whether in its economic prowess or its swagger on the world stage. 'This duality of the view of America — it's been like this for a long time,' said Mr. Kurilla, who was a professor at the European University at St. Petersburg until last year. Mr. Popov, who used to be a Russian state television correspondent in New York, ticked off some of the things he believed Russia and the United States have in common: a strong executive, protectionist policies, large armies, market economies 'plus or minus' and powerful law enforcement agencies. 'We both have a police state in the good sense of the word,' Mr. Popov said in a video call last week as he made his way through Moscow traffic. He concluded, addressing Americans, 'If you want to understand what the Russians think, look in the mirror.' The sudden prospect of improved ties with the United States cheered the Russian public, which pollsters say is increasingly eager for an end to the war in Ukraine and sees negotiations with Washington as a prerequisite. The Levada Center, an independent pollster based in Moscow, found in February that 75 percent of Russians would support an immediate end to the war, the highest reading since 2023, and that 85 percent approved of talks with the United States. Hopes of sanctions relief and the return of American investment helped drive up the Russian stock market by as much as 10 percent after the Trump-Putin call on Feb. 12. To some of the most fervent supporters of Russia's war, the embrace of Washington has smacked of betrayal, given that Mr. Putin has long described the invasion as a proxy war against American aggression. On the Telegram social messaging app, Russia's pro-war bloggers expressed surprise over Mr. Putin's proposal last week for cooperating with American companies to extract the country's natural resources. A nationalist Telegram blog with more than a million followers, Two Majors, wondered how talk of 'the evil desire of the damned Yankees to steal Russia's natural resources' had morphed into discussion of 'mutually beneficial cooperation with American partners.' But for Mr. Putin himself, there may be a wisp of internal consistency in the swing toward Washington. He has generally avoided labeling the United States as a whole as Russia's enemy. Rather, Mr. Putin has said it is the Western 'neoliberal elite' that tries to impose its 'strange' values on the world and seeks Russia's destruction, while depicting American conservatives as Russia's friends. It's a mirror image of the propaganda tropes of the Soviet Union, when American progressives were cast as Moscow's allies. 'In the United States,' Mr. Putin said in 2022, 'there's a very strong part of the public who maintain traditional values, and they're with us. We know about this.'
New York Times
15-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Even in Death, the Kremlin Views Navalny as an Enduring Threat
Six months after the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny died in a Russian prison above the Arctic Circle, Konstantin A. Kotov woke up to find his Moscow apartment under siege. After breaking down the door, Russian officers set about confiscating everything to do with Mr. Navalny, down to a campaign button from the activist's 2018 presidential run and a book written by his brother. Then, they arrested Mr. Kotov and took him away. His alleged crime: donating approximately $30 three years earlier to Mr. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund, which the Kremlin considers an extremist group. The death one year ago of Mr. Navalny, who once led tens of thousands of Russians against the Kremlin on the streets of Moscow, dealt a serious blow to Russia's already beleaguered opposition. Much of that movement has fled abroad amid a crackdown on dissent that began before President Vladimir V. Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but escalated with the war. Even with Mr. Navalny dead and his movement in tatters, the authorities have been going after people with links to him and his organization inside Russia. Some see the continued prosecutions as a repressive Russian machine operating on autopilot. Others see a Moscow that views the opposition figure's legacy as an enduring threat. 'They seem to be doing it more out of habit, rather than as a new campaign,' said Sergei S. Smirnov, the editor in chief of the exiled media outlet Mediazona. But there are also senior officers in the F.S.B., Russia's domestic intelligence service, who see themselves as strangling a political underground that presents the same risk to the Kremlin that the Bolsheviks posed before Russia's monarchy was toppled in 1917, said Andrei Soldatov, a Russian author and expert on the security establishment. 'The comparison to the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution is embedded in those people's heads,' Mr. Soldatov said by phone from London. 'Czarist Russia crumbled because of a big war and a major political party operating underground.' The authorities have focused on a wide range of targets. Last year, they went after journalists who remained in Russia and continued to cover Mr. Navalny's ordeal, accusing them of cooperating with his organization. Antonina Favorskaya, a reporter for the Sota Vision media outlet, was arrested last March on charges of 'participating in an extremist organization.' She was accused of filming footage later used by Mr. Navalny's associates on their media platforms. A rare reporter to attend court hearings for Mr. Navalny shortly before his death, Ms. Favorskaya shot the last known video of him addressing the court via a video link from his Arctic prison colony the day before he died. Russian authorities later arrested three more journalists and put them all on trial together. Artyom Kriger, one of the defendants, said he and others stood accused of filming interviews on the street in Russia for Mr. Navalny's YouTube channel. There has yet to be a verdict. Moscow also pursued charges against Mr. Navalny's lawyers. A court some 80 miles east of Moscow last month sentenced three lawyers for Mr. Navalny to as much as five and a half years in prison for passing correspondence from the incarcerated politician to his allies. The court ruled that it was tantamount to 'participating' in Mr. Navalny's illegal movement. Mr. Navalny's lawyers insisted they were being tried for routine legal work that includes passing on communications on behalf of imprisoned clients. Cases seeking to punish ordinary Russians for making donations to Mr. Navalny's team, some of them as paltry as $3, have also cropped up in courts. Russian authorities have prosecuted at least 15 people on charges of funding an extremist organization for sending donations to Mr. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund. In the past few months, local media reported such charges against a physician from Biysk, an IT engineer from a St. Petersburg suburb and a political activist from Ufa. 'These are simply people who maybe just transferred 500 rubles a long time ago to the Anti-Corruption Fund,' Mr. Kotov, a wiry 39-year-old activist who works for a human rights organization, said, referring to a sum that is a little over $5. By the time a donation case was opened against him, Mr. Kotov had long been on the radar of Russian authorities for rallying against Kremlin abuses. In 2019, he was one of the first people to be arrested under a new Russian law restricting freedom of assembly at 'unsanctioned protests.' (The law laid the groundwork for a near total protest ban that later helped pacify wartime Russia.) He spent 18 months in prison, most of it at a harsh facility in Russia's Vladimir region, about 60 miles east of Moscow. Shortly after Mr. Kotov's release, Mr. Navalny returned to Russia, having recovered abroad in Germany from a near-fatal poisoning. Within weeks, Mr. Navalny would end up in the same prison where Mr. Kotov had been jailed. That year, a Russian court outlawed and liquidated Mr. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund, labeling it extremist. The ruling criminalized fund-raising from ordinary Russians that for years had kept the group afloat. Mr. Navalny's top aides took to YouTube and made an urgent plea for donations to keep the organization alive, saying they had worked out a secure system for supporters to transfer funds to a bank account outside Russia. Mr. Kotov saw how Mr. Navalny had landed in the same prison where he had suffered, and felt a personal connection. He signed up to give a 500 ruble donation per month, believing the new platform was secure. 'It was my gesture to show that I didn't agree with the liquidation of the Anti-Corruption Fund and that I supported Aleksei Navalny, who was in prison,' Mr. Kotov said. 'I wanted his activities to continue.' Half a year later, in January 2022, Mr. Kotov got nervous and stopped the donations. But by then, it was too late. Some of the transactions had revealed the Anti-Corruption Fund's foreign bank information to Russian authorities by including a reference to the group's name in the transfer data. The donations had not been secure. The following month, Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine, prompting Mr. Kotov to go out in the streets of Moscow and protest the war. He was quickly arrested and spent the next month in jail. Two and a half years later, the authorities came to his apartment and arrested him for the six 500 ruble donations he made to the Mr. Navalny's fund. He pleaded guilty. A court released him under house arrest. At first, he thought he would stay in Russia. Other donors charged with the same crime had gotten away with fines. But then, in December, a court in Moscow found Ivan S. Tishchenko, a 46-year-old heart surgeon, guilty for sending 3,500 rubles in donations to Mr. Navalny's foundation. His sentence: four years in prison. Dr. Tishchenko had subscribed to recurring donations to the Anti-Corruption Fund well before Russian authorities outlawed it as extremist in 2021. Dr. Tishchenko's lawyer, Natalya Tikhonova, described the verdict as 'too harsh for a person who saved thousands of lives and definitely never intended to cause any harm to Russia's constitutional order.' Mr. Kotov, wary of a return to Russian prison, fled to Lithuania this year. In an interview from there, Mr. Kotov described how Mr. Navalny had represented hope 'that Putin isn't immortal, that at some point this regime will come to an end.' 'Aleksei Navalny was the symbol of a beautiful Russia of the future, a happy Russia of the future,' he said. 'When that symbol was gone, I started to feel much worse.' 'But we're still living,' he added. 'We can't give up.'
