Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 14 – The publication
of the Magnitsky List and the Russian response have prompted widespread
speculation not only about the secret and supposedly much larger and possibly
expandable lists attached to each but about the meaning of this exchange for
the future of Russian-American relations.
In an article entitled “A Little
Cold War” on the “Svobodnaya pressa” portal yesterday, Aleksey Polubota surveys
the opinions of three Moscow commentators about these developments in the light
of Kremlin statements that they will “very negatively” affect bilateral
relations (svpressa.ru/politic/article/66777/).
Fyodor
Lukyanov, editor of “Russia in Global Affairs,” said that the Magnitsky list
appears set to play a role resembling that of the Jackson-Vannik Amendment
during the Cold War. But he said there won’t be “a cold war in the form that it
existed during the 20th century.”
The new one will be “a caricature” of that and a “quite soft one.”
The
Obama administration isn’t interested in racheting this up, Lukyanov continued,
and “Russia in all probability will respond in a similarly modest fashion.” Nonetheless, the existence of these two lists
and the possibility that there are more people on a secret list or who may be
added later creates the potential for problems down the line.
Consequently, in assessing what all
this means, the Moscow commentator said, the Magnitsky list is an American
action which “has symbolic importance” because “it shows that the Russian
bureaucratic apparatus is a target.” Washington
could always focus on one or another official, but now it has a means to talk
about larger categories.
Given the internal political
conflicts in Moscow now, “all this history with the Magnitsky list is more
[Russia’s] internal issue” rather than a foreign policy challenge, although
Lukyanov acknowledged that the US Congress “had its reasons for interfering” in
this particular situation.
Pavel Svyatenkov, another Moscow
commentator, told “Svobodnaya Pressa” that Washington had “two political goals”
in adopting the Magnitsky list in the way that it has. “The first, is not to
get into a serious argument with Russia,” and “the second, to introduce” this
kind of mechanism for influencing the Russian elite now that Jackson-Vannik is
no more.
While the current case recalls
periods of worsening relations between the USSR and the US during the Cold War,
Svyatenkov said, there is a big difference: “Russia now is much more dependent
on the West than was the case in the Soviet period,” and consequently, “we
observe a particular kind of cold mini-war” rather than something more.
And Fedor Krasheninnikov, a Moscow
political analyst, added that Moscow’s response to the Magnitsky list
highlighted “the growing inadequacy of the Russian authorities,” given that American
officials aren’t going to care about being restricted from travelling to Russia
while Russian officials are going to care if they can’t go to the United
States.
The analyst suggested that not only
was this an inadequate and even inappropriate response by Moscow but that it
also points to the possibility that the Russian government will try to limit
travel by ordinary Russians to the US. “Our
government loves to punish its own so that others will fear” it.
In many ways, Krasheninnikov
continued, the whole business resembles a Greek tragedy, one in which an
individual makes a mistake which follows him his whole life and then wreaks
revenge on him. “The Magnitsky case is
an example of the clash of a certain business with the realities of the Russian
state.”
That creates a serious problem. It is “impossible” for Moscow to punish those
who were responsible,” he said, because “then it would have to incarcerate
those guilty of the death [of Magnitsky] and acknowledge” its culpability. “The current Russian authorities will not
take that step, Krasheninnikov says. And
so the story will continue to expand as it plays out.
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