Commentary on Political Economy

Saturday 19 February 2022

 As he threatens Ukraine, Putin fights a second battle at home





 “I insulted your dark lord, Putin, by not only surviving, but by returning,” Mr. Navalny, who came back to Russia after doctors in Germany helped him recover from the attempted poisoning, told the judge and prosecutors Tuesday. “Now, he will increase my prison terms forever. But I believe that the worst real crime I could commit is if I get afraid of you and who stands behind you.”


Russian dissident Alexei Navalny is seen on a monitor screen during a court hearing on Feb. 15. (Yuri Kochetkov/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
Opinion by the Editorial Board
February 17 at 11:59 pm Taiwan Time
In menacing Ukraine with a massive troop buildup, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ostensible rationale centers on the supposed security threat that Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO would pose to his country. This is patently untrue; moreover, Mr. Putin’s threats violate several points of international law, starting with the territorial integrity of Ukraine, a recognized member of the United Nations. A far more likely reason for Mr. Putin’s belligerence is his worry that a successful pro-Western democracy right next door would set an example that citizens of his authoritarian kleptocracy might find attractive — even inspiring. There is, in short, a link between the Russian government’s aggression abroad and its repression at home.
And so it is not surprising that Mr. Putin has continued to clamp down on domestic political opponents as he generates geopolitical crisis in Europe. Even less surprising is the fact that he has decided to pick on Alexei Navalny, the well-known anti-corruption crusader who is already in prison on trumped-up charges — having barely survived an apparent Kremlin-backed assassination-by-poisoning attempt in 2020. On Tuesday, Mr. Navalny was summoned to a courtroom in the penal colony where he is serving a sentence due to expire next year and informed that he faces additional dubious embezzlement and contempt of court charges. These could extend his time in prison by 15 years.
On Wednesday, a court in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula on the Black Sea that Russia unlawfully annexed in 2014, sentenced a freelance correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Vladyslav Yesypenko, to six years in prison. His purported offense was illegal possession and transport of explosives, which he denies. The verdict came after 11 months of detention, during which, Mr. Yesypenko says, he was subjected to torture. RFE/RL’s president, Jamie Fly, said the case was a “travesty” aimed at a journalist who “should never have been detained in the first place.” For the Crimean court, fully absorbed into Russia’s legal system since 2014, Mr. Yesypenko’s real offense might have been to release an open letter detailing Russian human rights violations in Crimea, which his wife read at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington during a visit last year. The letter called on President Biden to press for the release of some 115 political prisoners Russia is holding on that peninsula.
Another parallel between the situation of Ukraine and that of Mr. Putin’s internal opposition is that, in each case, the Russian president seeks to break their resistance, through constant psychological pressure. Whatever else might happen, the refusal of Mr. Navalny and Mr. Yesypenko to buckle, like Ukraine’s refusal to renounce its political independence, constitutes a real — if intangible — defeat for Mr. Putin. “I insulted your dark lord, Putin, by not only surviving, but by returning,” Mr. Navalny, who came back to Russia after doctors in Germany helped him recover from the attempted poisoning, told the judge and prosecutors Tuesday. “Now, he will increase my prison terms forever. But I believe that the worst real crime I could commit is if I get afraid of you and who stands behind you.”

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