How Russia\u2019s Criminal Code fails when it comes to police and prison tortureOpinions on the Ukraine crisis: Andrey Kolesnikov, Fyodor Lukyanov, Leonid Bershidsky, Tatiana Stanovaya, and Angela StentOpinions on Russia and Kazakhstan: Vladislav Inozemtsev and Temur Umarov<\/p>\n
There is no article on torture in the Russian Criminal Code. However, torture itself, unfortunately, remains a widespread practice: reports of brutal violence in prisons and police stations appear with frightening regularity. We believe that the use of torture is absolutely unacceptable, and we strive to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of this issue. The following text explains why the Russian Criminal Code needs to be changed \u2014 and how introducing a separate article on torture could influence the situation in the country.<\/p>\n
In an essay for the Carnegie Moscow Center, Andrey Kolesnikov<\/strong> argues that Russians learned to live with life under economic sanctions following the annexation of Crimea, accepting the \u201cnew normal,\u201d but the Kremlin can\u2019t expect another broad \u201cconsensus\u201d to inflate its popular support in the event of a major war with Ukraine. Though the Russian government has saved large financial reserves (resisting a large social spending campaign even during the pandemic, as if decision-makers knew they\u2019d need the money later), escalated Western sanctions could still undermine the state\u2019s capacity to meet the public\u2019s paternalistic expectations, leading to protests not from liberal society but from the larger groups that depend on the government. The disruption to everyday life would shatter the Putin model\u2019s image as successful and stable, complicating the state\u2019s mobilization for the 2024 presidential election.<\/p>\n In an op-ed for the state newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov<\/strong> says Russia\u2019s pressure on the West, despite leading to no concessions, has at least revealed that NATO\u2019s post-Cold War enlargement made the alliance weaker rather than stronger, as smaller, more vulnerable states that offer little military power vie for an equal share of NATO\u2019s collective security. With so many members, there\u2019s no longer a single threat that worries each partner equally, while the organization is simultaneously big enough now that the United States can usually find at least some members willing to join its latest military operation. As a result, NATO paradoxically shifted to justifying itself as an instrument of stability and democratic transformation just as it started fighting actual wars.<\/p>\n In an op-ed for Bloomberg, columnist Leonid Bershidsky<\/strong> says the Biden administration has managed to catch Vladimir Putin in a trap like the one the Kremlin used against \u201chotheaded\u201d Mikheil Saakashvili in 2008 (when Russia baited the Georgian leader into a disastrous first move by gradually building up troops near the border). (Bershidsky says the ongoing mobilization near Ukraine\u2019s borders is not \u201cdramatically changed\u201d and potentially constitutes a rational response to Ukrainian military advances.) Exploiting America\u2019s superior media firepower, Washington\u2019s \u201cwolf-crying campaign\u201d has put Putin in the \u201chot seat,\u201d leading the Kremlin to respond with a \u201cburst of angry U.S.-trolling\u201d that included a series of nonstarter demands on revising European security.<\/p>\n The Russian president now appears to be \u201cwaiting out the invasion hysteria,\u201d though Moscow could also recognize or even annex Ukraine\u2019s breakaway regions to escape its current predicament. \u201cIn a practical sense,\u201d says Bershidsky, this would actually \u201cremove a problem for Ukraine rather than create one,\u201d because it would finally bury the Minsk agreements and erase Kyiv\u2019s \u201cbroken promises made under those deals.\u201d Ukraine\u2019s own president apparently hopes that Putin \u201cwon\u2019t be manipulated into an angry, careless move,\u201d which is perhaps why the government in Kyiv has rejected American alarmism about an imminent invasion.<\/p>\n In an essay for Foreign Policy, Russian political expert Tatiana Stanovaya<\/strong> says there are three factors \u201ccurrently missing from Western discourse\u201d when it comes to the ongoing Ukraine crisis: (1) no guarantee, legally binding or otherwise, will stop the Putin regime\u2019s \u201craiding strategy\u201d of offensive foreign policy, (2) a large-scale military operation will not provoke protests against the Kremlin inside Russia, and (3) Putin and his advisers believe that Ukraine \u201cmust be returned to Moscow\u2019s geopolitical supervision at any price.\u201d<\/p>\n Stanovaya says the Kremlin is still drunk on its military success in Syria. A longer-term development in Putin\u2019s foreign policy, meanwhile, is that he\u2019s ceased to see any legitimacy in the global status quo, international institutions, or modern diplomacy itself. Russia now crosses others\u2019 red lines whenever it feels it is in Russian interests. And identifying these interests is increasingly the exclusive work of Russia\u2019s security agencies. The rise of the \u201csiloviki\u201d has empowered a hardline ideology that\u2019s different from what drives professional diplomats, Stanovaya explains.<\/p>\n Domestically, conservatives (including the siloviki) dominate state policymaking as Russia\u2019s technocrats scramble to \u201cadapt the economy and financial system to any geopolitical shocks.\u201d Outside Putin\u2019s inner circle, the country\u2019s business elites\u2019 \u201cbest strategy in the event of escalation is total invisibility and silence.\u201d<\/p>\n Stanovaya says today\u2019s Russia is the \u201cworst-ever Russia,\u201d but she also says the West could \u201ccontinue dialogue\u201d to slow down the Kremlin\u2019s \u201chawkish intentions\u201d in Ukraine, ideally \u201cgiving society more time to wake up.\u201d Europe\u2019s only hope for a less belligerent Russia, she says, is a changed Russia.<\/p>\n In an essay for Foreign Affairs, political expert Angela Stent<\/strong> lays out what she describes as \u201cThe Putin Doctrine.\u201d The Russian president\u2019s \u201coverarching aim,\u201d she explains, involves (1) reversing the consequences of the Soviet collapse, (2) splitting the transatlantic alliance, and (3) renegotiating the geographic settlement that ended the Cold War.<\/p>\n Stent argues that rolling back NATO\u2019s military deployments, halting European expansion, and committing buffer states to permanent neutrality \u201cwould ensure that pro-Russian governments are in power in countries bordering Russia \u2014 including, foremost, Ukraine.\u201d Moscow\u2019s ultimate goal is to \u201creassert its influence\u201d over half of Europe, says Stent.<\/p>\n Though Stent\u2019s Putin Doctrine advocates \u201cspheres of privileged interests\u201d for great powers (ostensibly to support the international status quo and to respect established leaders), Russia also reserves the right to \u201cact as a revisionist power when it considers its interests or when it wants to advance its interests.\u201d In fact (negating the Kremlin\u2019s supposed devotion to sovereignty and even to spheres of interest), \u201cMoscow\u2019s revisionist interference also isn\u2019t limited to what it considers its privileged domain.\u201d Stent describes the multipolar future Russia seeks in the following nightmarish terms: \u201ca disordered Hobbesian world with few rules of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Stent links the security doctrine to the president directly, writing that it will determine Russia\u2019s foreign policy for \u201cas long as the Putin regime is in power.\u201d<\/p>\n In an essay for Republic, political expert Vladislav Inozemtsev<\/strong> says the unrest that recently swept Kazakhstan won\u2019t likely visit Russia because the Putin system offers better social benefits to the masses and enjoys a stronger elite consensus, particularly when it comes to property rights during transitions of power. When Putin first became president, says Inozemtsev, he allowed the Yeltsin-era wealthy to keep their assets, so long as they swore loyalty to him. Now, after more than 20 years, it\u2019s impossible to separate the wealth created because of proximity to Putin and the wealth created thanks to his non-interference. Putin legitimized Russia\u2019s 1990s wealth and opened the door to new beneficiaries, reducing the odds of large redistributions under the next president.<\/p>\n In Kazakhstan, the absence of Western sanctions and legitimate property drives elites to cash out their assets by selling them to foreign investors, which facilitates economic development, says Inozemtsev, arguing that Kazakhstan has a good chance of following the path to liberal democracy traveled by Asian countries like South Korea and Singapore. While socioeconomic indicators reflect the nation\u2019s potential, the concentration of Kazakhstan\u2019s property in a single family mobilizes the majority against a minority, making reform more likely than a \u201creset\u201d of authoritarianism under a new leader, Inozemtsev says.<\/p>\nRussian pressure has exposed NATO\u2019s paradox<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Biden has baited Putin with the same trap Moscow used against Saakashvili in 2008, but let\u2019s hope the Kremlin doesn\u2019t fall for it<\/strong><\/h4>\n
This is the worst-ever Russia, but buying time could be the only way forward<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Putin Doctrine seeks a pro-Russian buffer zone in Europe and a lot more<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Opinions and analysis on Russia and Kazakhstan \u262e\ufe0f<\/h3>\n
Elite consensus and a lack of grassroots activism keeps Russia off Kazakhstan\u2019s path<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Russia\u2019s intervention in Kazakhstan wasn\u2019t the expansionist act some analysts imagined<\/strong><\/h4>\n