Analysts predict grim outlook for the future of the Russian economy

Oct 28 2015

On October 26, 2015, at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, a panel discussion occurred centering around the future of the Russian economy and more specifically the large energy sector.

Featured at the event were Olga Oliker, head of the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS, Vladimir Milov of the Institute for Energy Policy, Ilya Ponomarev, the exiled State Duma MP and the only Duma MP to vote against the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, Ilya Zaslavskiy of Chatham House, and Sergey Aleksashenko of the Brookings Institution. Both Olga Oliker and Jeff Mankoff of CSIS thanked Free Russia Foundation for the idea of the event and invitation of leading Russian experts as panelists.

Vladimir Milov stressed the redundancies of the statements issued by Russian state officials regarding the state of the economy. The Russian economy, already under some strain from low oil prices, mismanagement, and international sanctions, could be headed for even harder times. Milov claimed there was no clear view for improvement of the economy when the sharp decline in domestic demand and consumer purchasing power wasn’t showing signs of improvement. Even in the 1990s, widely regarded both within and beyond the Russian borders as a time of runaway corruption, economic destruction, and weakness, domestic demand and consumer purchasing power was able to rebound.

Real wages and pensions in Russia are sharply declining due to the weak rouble. Low oil prices, by contrast, while certainly part of the equation, may not be as large a part of the economic decline as previously thought. The recession in 2008 also featured a large drop in oil prices, but back then the rouble was stable and there were no international sanctions to speak of.

Russia is also in an international credit rut. Today, in contrast to the economic problems in 2008, banks are much more cautious to lend money to Russia and Russians, even those who are not included on sanctions lists.

“We do not know who Russia will invade tomorrow”. Milov said referring to this reluctant mood.

Are these problems here to stay? It is often argued that a removal or phasing out of sanctions could give the economy a much-needed jump start, but the problems plaguing the Russian economy may be more deeply rooted than previously speculated. Further shocks to the rouble’s stability, already weak, could happen in the future and Russia’s service, industrial, and manufacturing sectors, while still operating very close to their pre-sanctions capability, could be forced to downsize in the future. State authorities, Milov claimed, had implicitly instructed these sectors to stay the course until things calm down.

Whether that stability will come is another question. Domestic car sales, for instance, have plummeted by 40 percent.

In Russia’s large energy sector, things also look grim. Oil fields in Western Siberia are depleted. Growth at the tip of the iceberg, in terms of smaller oil companies, is still present but not very substantial. Large companies with state investment such as Rosneft and Lukoil are starting to shrink.

Milov compared the situation to a matryoshka doll, in that the energy sector’s outlook seems to become progressively worse the further in it is examined.

How does Russia reverse this? The answer is simple-more drilling and investment, but the Kremlin’s look towards heavier taxes and overall under-financing of the industry could hurt that hope substantially. A similar policy, with similarly negative results, was undertaken by the Kremlin in the late 1980s under Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

Budget spending could also be a liability down the road. The Kremlin wants to keep the budget where it is according to Milov, but they’re going to need more money to do that, and they may have to get it from taxes levied on the energy sector. If that happens, there’s a large possibility of the oil industry, still in the black at the moment, to fall into the red.

The federal budgets in 2012 and 2013 were allegedly geared to benefit wealthy Russians rather than teachers and healthcare workers

When asked about his analysis, Mr. Milov stressed the overall atmosphere of uncertainty. In addition to higher taxes becoming a concrete policy enacted by Moscow, the idea of printing more money is also allegedly being mulled by the Kremlin. Over the last ten years, the Kremlin has stressed state investment as the primary way to grow the Russian economy. Unfortunately, since 2008, that growth has been minimal or nonexistent. It’s not corruption to blame, but what Milov claimed was “sunken capital”. Russia’s far eastern regions, for instance in the city of Vladivostok, have seen extensive projects with little use or benefit.

Next to speak was former A Just Russia State Duma MP Ilya Ponomarev. Mr. Ponomarev was exiled and branded as a traitor to his country when he became the lone MP to vote against the March 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Ponomarev, a far-left politician, began his remarks by claiming that the economic crisis in Russia didn’t start with the War in Eastern Ukraine, but the presidential election in 2012. Russia’s social safety net infrastructure, in addition to the public sector’s health, was not very good. The federal budgets in 2012 and 2013 were allegedly geared to benefit wealthy Russians rather than teachers and healthcare workers, Ponomarev explained. As a result, the regions became over-saturated with expenses they couldn’t pay for.

Ponomarev once represented the well-off city of Novosibirsk, Russia’s third largest city and the largest in Russia’s vast Asian region. Novosibirsk was well-off in terms of small business, but in the last few years has suffered from a much-smaller-than-needed budget, “Going from profitable to inept in one year” as he said. Capital expenditures ground to a screeching halt, hurting the regional economies and consumer confidence.

The perception of Siberians and Russians from the eastern areas also changed, he said, from good, loyal producers to “beggars, jumping high to receive subsidies”. To make matters worse, regional debt skyrocketed as well as interest, and state banks were unable to refinance or provide money to remedy the sick economy. Prices also increased.

Rather than blaming the incompetence or mismanagement undertaken by the government, Russia’s extensive media controls drove the blame towards the United States and Ukraine, or as Mr. Ponomarev phrased it, “Bloody America and the fascist Kyiv junta”.

This might be slowly but surely changing. Support for the War in Eastern Ukraine, once as high as 70 percent, has dropped to around 50%. On this subject, Mr. Ponomarev claimed that it would continue to drop but that protests were unlikely. Unlike the introductory speaker, he said that economic problems didn’t create social unrest in Russia on their own, even if they sometimes laid a foundation for it. Pension reform in the 2000s created nearly spontaneous large protests, some bigger than the infamous Bolotnaya protests, and the government had to step in and pump money back into the system to calm things down. In 1998, when Russia defaulted and the rouble was near worthless, protests were scattered at most.

What’s the political impact? Regional elections aren’t looking super hopeful for the ruling United Russia party. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is gaining momentum in Siberia, even winning in Irkutsk, another comparably well-off region. Change, if it is to come, will happen in the developed regions rather than the depressed ones. United Russia will likely keep its majority but lose some seats in the 2016 Duma elections as opportunity pops up on the left side of Russian politics, but whether democratic forces will come into some power is still very much questionable.

The Kremlin seems stuck on ideas and proposals that the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union  are not interested in

Ilya Zaslavskiy of Chatham House suggested Russia may take advice from Iran and Belarus to relieve its economic rut, namely, to reach small but pivotal agreements with the United States and European Union while keeping the broad overall policies and rhetoric intact. Russia’s energy sector, however, has no clear policy to remedy its problems despite a lot of talk of closer ties with China and the chilling effect will remain a thorn in Russia’s side. The “obsessions” of “building pipelines around Ukraine and the new friendship with China” sound like the same old mistakes as the proposed North Stream may be delayed or cancelled if the EU does not choose to cooperate, and not many binding agreements have been made with the Chinese despite extensive effort and talks. Chinese banks have not been loaning Russia as much money as originally hoped.

To distract from that, Mr. Zaslavskiy floated the idea of another area of tension between Russia and the West: Central Asia. The Kremlin seems stuck on ideas and proposals that the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Belarus) are not interested in. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are both facing looming succession crises to their longtime strongman leaders Nursultan Nazarbayev and Islom Karimov, who are 75 and 77 respectively. In addition, Kyrgyzstan seems to be drifting towards a pro-Kremlin autocracy after flirting with democracy, and Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are under threats from the jihadist group Islamic State and its affiliates. Closer to home, the Kremlin is mulling the construction of a military base in Belarus and may decide to “protect its interests” in Moldova, where protests reminiscent of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution are taking place.

766435346

Like Mr. Ponomarev, Sergey Aleksashenko of the Brookings Institution was insistent that Russia’s economic problems have been festering since before the Ukrainian Conflict. He stressed the drop in investment and scathingly criticized the current administration, claiming Putin “destroyed the federation” by 2004 and “Humiliated property rights and the electoral process”.

At the same time, Aleksashenko firmly stated that despite the fact that the Russian economy was not going to collapse any time soon, prospects of growth looked grim. Many Russians point to the large growth the Russian economy saw during Putin’s first two terms in office, but the truth is that those seven years of growth have been followed by eight years of stagnation and decline. Furthermore, the Russian government’s use of reserve funds to prop up the rouble and the budget could have disastrous consequences. Even the usual refrains of bolstering the social safety net, long a campaign promise of many of the large Russian political parties, may be discarded in next year’s Duma elections.

By Kyle Menyhert

 

Featured at the event were Olga Oliker, head of the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS, Vladimir Milov of the Institute for Energy Policy, Ilya Ponomarev, the exiled State Duma MP and the only Duma MP to vote against the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, Ilya Zaslavskiy of Chatham House, and Sergey Aleksashenko of the Brookings Institution. Both Olga Oliker and Jeff Mankoff of CSIS thanked Free Russia Foundation for the idea of the event and invitation of leading Russian experts as panelists.

Vladimir Milov stressed the redundancies of the statements issued by Russian state officials regarding the state of the economy. The Russian economy, already under some strain from low oil prices, mismanagement, and international sanctions, could be headed for even harder times. Milov claimed there was no clear view for improvement of the economy when the sharp decline in domestic demand and consumer purchasing power wasn’t showing signs of improvement. Even in the 1990s, widely regarded both within and beyond the Russian borders as a time of runaway corruption, economic destruction, and weakness, domestic demand and consumer purchasing power was able to rebound.

Real wages and pensions in Russia are sharply declining due to the weak rouble. Low oil prices, by contrast, while certainly part of the equation, may not be as large a part of the economic decline as previously thought. The recession in 2008 also featured a large drop in oil prices, but back then the rouble was stable and there were no international sanctions to speak of.

Russia is also in an international credit rut. Today, in contrast to the economic problems in 2008, banks are much more cautious to lend money to Russia and Russians, even those who are not included on sanctions lists.

“We do not know who Russia will invade tomorrow”. Milov said referring to this reluctant mood.

Are these problems here to stay? It is often argued that a removal or phasing out of sanctions could give the economy a much-needed jump start, but the problems plaguing the Russian economy may be more deeply rooted than previously speculated. Further shocks to the rouble’s stability, already weak, could happen in the future and Russia’s service, industrial, and manufacturing sectors, while still operating very close to their pre-sanctions capability, could be forced to downsize in the future. State authorities, Milov claimed, had implicitly instructed these sectors to stay the course until things calm down.

Whether that stability will come is another question. Domestic car sales, for instance, have plummeted by 40 percent.

In Russia’s large energy sector, things also look grim. Oil fields in Western Siberia are depleted. Growth at the tip of the iceberg, in terms of smaller oil companies, is still present but not very substantial. Large companies with state investment such as Rosneft and Lukoil are starting to shrink.

Milov compared the situation to a matryoshka doll, in that the energy sector’s outlook seems to become progressively worse the further in it is examined.

How does Russia reverse this? The answer is simple-more drilling and investment, but the Kremlin’s look towards heavier taxes and overall under-financing of the industry could hurt that hope substantially. A similar policy, with similarly negative results, was undertaken by the Kremlin in the late 1980s under Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

Budget spending could also be a liability down the road. The Kremlin wants to keep the budget where it is according to Milov, but they’re going to need more money to do that, and they may have to get it from taxes levied on the energy sector. If that happens, there’s a large possibility of the oil industry, still in the black at the moment, to fall into the red.

The federal budgets in 2012 and 2013 were allegedly geared to benefit wealthy Russians rather than teachers and healthcare workers

When asked about his analysis, Mr. Milov stressed the overall atmosphere of uncertainty. In addition to higher taxes becoming a concrete policy enacted by Moscow, the idea of printing more money is also allegedly being mulled by the Kremlin. Over the last ten years, the Kremlin has stressed state investment as the primary way to grow the Russian economy. Unfortunately, since 2008, that growth has been minimal or nonexistent. It’s not corruption to blame, but what Milov claimed was “sunken capital”. Russia’s far eastern regions, for instance in the city of Vladivostok, have seen extensive projects with little use or benefit.

Next to speak was former A Just Russia State Duma MP Ilya Ponomarev. Mr. Ponomarev was exiled and branded as a traitor to his country when he became the lone MP to vote against the March 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Ponomarev, a far-left politician, began his remarks by claiming that the economic crisis in Russia didn’t start with the War in Eastern Ukraine, but the presidential election in 2012. Russia’s social safety net infrastructure, in addition to the public sector’s health, was not very good. The federal budgets in 2012 and 2013 were allegedly geared to benefit wealthy Russians rather than teachers and healthcare workers, Ponomarev explained. As a result, the regions became over-saturated with expenses they couldn’t pay for.

Ponomarev once represented the well-off city of Novosibirsk, Russia’s third largest city and the largest in Russia’s vast Asian region. Novosibirsk was well-off in terms of small business, but in the last few years has suffered from a much-smaller-than-needed budget, “Going from profitable to inept in one year” as he said. Capital expenditures ground to a screeching halt, hurting the regional economies and consumer confidence.

The perception of Siberians and Russians from the eastern areas also changed, he said, from good, loyal producers to “beggars, jumping high to receive subsidies”. To make matters worse, regional debt skyrocketed as well as interest, and state banks were unable to refinance or provide money to remedy the sick economy. Prices also increased.

Rather than blaming the incompetence or mismanagement undertaken by the government, Russia’s extensive media controls drove the blame towards the United States and Ukraine, or as Mr. Ponomarev phrased it, “Bloody America and the fascist Kyiv junta”.

This might be slowly but surely changing. Support for the War in Eastern Ukraine, once as high as 70 percent, has dropped to around 50%. On this subject, Mr. Ponomarev claimed that it would continue to drop but that protests were unlikely. Unlike the introductory speaker, he said that economic problems didn’t create social unrest in Russia on their own, even if they sometimes laid a foundation for it. Pension reform in the 2000s created nearly spontaneous large protests, some bigger than the infamous Bolotnaya protests, and the government had to step in and pump money back into the system to calm things down. In 1998, when Russia defaulted and the rouble was near worthless, protests were scattered at most.

What’s the political impact? Regional elections aren’t looking super hopeful for the ruling United Russia party. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is gaining momentum in Siberia, even winning in Irkutsk, another comparably well-off region. Change, if it is to come, will happen in the developed regions rather than the depressed ones. United Russia will likely keep its majority but lose some seats in the 2016 Duma elections as opportunity pops up on the left side of Russian politics, but whether democratic forces will come into some power is still very much questionable.

The Kremlin seems stuck on ideas and proposals that the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union  are not interested in

Ilya Zaslavskiy of Chatham House suggested Russia may take advice from Iran and Belarus to relieve its economic rut, namely, to reach small but pivotal agreements with the United States and European Union while keeping the broad overall policies and rhetoric intact. Russia’s energy sector, however, has no clear policy to remedy its problems despite a lot of talk of closer ties with China and the chilling effect will remain a thorn in Russia’s side. The “obsessions” of “building pipelines around Ukraine and the new friendship with China” sound like the same old mistakes as the proposed North Stream may be delayed or cancelled if the EU does not choose to cooperate, and not many binding agreements have been made with the Chinese despite extensive effort and talks. Chinese banks have not been loaning Russia as much money as originally hoped.

To distract from that, Mr. Zaslavskiy floated the idea of another area of tension between Russia and the West: Central Asia. The Kremlin seems stuck on ideas and proposals that the other members of the Eurasian Economic Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Belarus) are not interested in. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are both facing looming succession crises to their longtime strongman leaders Nursultan Nazarbayev and Islom Karimov, who are 75 and 77 respectively. In addition, Kyrgyzstan seems to be drifting towards a pro-Kremlin autocracy after flirting with democracy, and Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are under threats from the jihadist group Islamic State and its affiliates. Closer to home, the Kremlin is mulling the construction of a military base in Belarus and may decide to “protect its interests” in Moldova, where protests reminiscent of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution are taking place.

766435346

Like Mr. Ponomarev, Sergey Aleksashenko of the Brookings Institution was insistent that Russia’s economic problems have been festering since before the Ukrainian Conflict. He stressed the drop in investment and scathingly criticized the current administration, claiming Putin “destroyed the federation” by 2004 and “Humiliated property rights and the electoral process”.

At the same time, Aleksashenko firmly stated that despite the fact that the Russian economy was not going to collapse any time soon, prospects of growth looked grim. Many Russians point to the large growth the Russian economy saw during Putin’s first two terms in office, but the truth is that those seven years of growth have been followed by eight years of stagnation and decline. Furthermore, the Russian government’s use of reserve funds to prop up the rouble and the budget could have disastrous consequences. Even the usual refrains of bolstering the social safety net, long a campaign promise of many of the large Russian political parties, may be discarded in next year’s Duma elections.

By Kyle Menyhert

 

Biden Administration Must Accelerate Efforts to Free Kara-Murza

Feb 22 2024

President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden:

We the undersigned write to express a two-fold request of your administration. As we all mourn the loss of Russian democratic opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in Russian custody while unjustly incarcerated on February 16, 2024, we request that you accelerate your efforts to release imprisoned Russian prodemocracy advocate Vladimir Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza is an extremely vulnerable prisoner, and we fear that he may be the Kremlin’s next victim if the United States does not act swiftly.

Kara-Murza is a US lawful permanent resident (which the Levinson Act defines as a US national), a historian and Washington Post opinion writer, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, a deeply principled man, and a passionate advocate for political and civil rights in his native Russia. He is also currently being held as a political prisoner by Russian authorities. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kara-Murza chose to return to his country of origin in April 2022, saying that he must go back to stand with Russian antiwar protesters and against Putin. He was arrested just days after his return to Moscow, and has remained in prison since. In April 2023, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence, on bogus charges for his criticism of Putin’s corrupt and repressive government and the Kremlin’s ongoing, devastating war against Ukraine.

Kara-Murza’s health has rapidly deteriorated while in custody. His wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, has reported that he has lost more than 50 pounds in the last year and is facing paralysis in both of his feet due to untreated polyneuropathy—a condition brought on as a result of the poisonings carried out by Putin’s government in the 2015 and 2017 attempts on his life. He was kept in solitary confinement for several months and is being held in a maximum-security facility.

Many of our organizations have been assured that his release is a “high priority” by several members of your administration; as a concrete demonstration of this claim, we request that Kara-Murza:

1.     Be immediately designated “wrongfully detained” under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.

2.     Be included in any ongoing negotiations with Russia.

First, as a lawful permanent resident (LPR) with significant ties to the United States, Kara-Murza meets the legal criteria to be designated “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act, and the US State Department should do so expeditiously. On August 14, 2023, the State Department confirmed that LPRs have been designated “wrongfully detained” under the act; Kara-Murza should be also. One notable example of a US LPR being designated “wrongfully detained” under the Levinson Act is Paul Rusesabagina of Rwanda, the famed “Hotel Rwanda” activist. Rusesabagina was designated “wrongfully detained” by the US government after his August 2020 flight to Burundi was redirected to Rwanda, where he was subsequently arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 25 years in prison in a sham trial.

Kara-Murza meets 10 of the 11 criteria in the law, which makes him readily eligible for the “wrongfully detained” designation. The law clearly states that designations can be made on criteria “which may include” the 11 enumerated provisions, but nowhere does it state that all 11 criteria must be met.

The Kremlin clearly considers Kara-Murza to be a high-value political prisoner, shown by virtue of the fact that he received the maximum possible sentence for the fabricated crimes pinned on him simply for his opposition to Putin and the Kremlin’s illegal war in Ukraine. For this, we want to stress that “wrongfully detained” designations may be private (as opposed to public). If the State Department considers a public designation to be too incendiary, a private designation is a suitable option.

Second, it is critical that Kara-Murza be included in any discussions with Russian officials regarding prisoner releases. As a US national, as defined under the Levinson Act, and a person who is seen by Putin as a significant prisoner, it is crucial for both Kara-Murza’s well-being and American foreign policy that he be released. We feel strongly that the United States has a clear obligation to prioritize the release of all unjustly detained American nationals, which includes citizens like Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Marc Fogel, as well as Kara-Murza.

Kara-Murza is a hero who has courageously dedicated his life to advancing freedom and democracy. For his vision of a democratic and peaceful Russia, which is deeply in line with US strategic interests, he has suffered greatly at the hands of Putin and his cronies. Kara-Murza continues to sacrifice to defend the principles we hold so dear in the United States, and he is extremely vulnerable in prison.

The tragic death of Navalny underscores the risks political prisoners, especially high-profile ones, face in prison. We urge the Biden administration to act swiftly to bring Kara-Murza home and to increase efforts to seek the release of all Russian political prisoners.

Regards,

Individual Signatories:

  • Michael J. Abramowitz, President, Freedom House
  • Elliott Abrams, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
  • Paige Alexander, Chief Executive Officer, the Carter Center; Vice Chair, Free Russia Foundation
  • Natalia Arno, President, Free Russia Foundation
  • John R. Beyrle, former US Ambassador to Russia and Bulgaria
  • George C. Biddle, Trustee and Chairman, Civil Courage Prize
  • Stephen E. Biegun, former US Deputy Secretary of State
  • Michael Breen, President and Chief Executive Officer, Human Rights First
  • Ellen Bork, Fellow, the George W. Bush Institute
  • William Browder, President, Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
  • Agnès Callamard, PhD, Secretary General, Amnesty International
  • Christian Caryl, Independent Journalist
  • Michael Chertoff, former US Secretary of Homeland Security; member, Freedom House Board of Trustees
  • Honourable Professor Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, OQ, AdE.; former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
  • Uriel Epshtein, Chief Executive Officer, Renew Democracy Initiative
  • Evelyn N. Farkas, PhD, Executive Director, the McCain Institute at Arizona State University
  • Jennifer Finney Boylan, Author
  • Jane Harman, Cochair, Freedom House Board of Trustees; former Congresswoman from California
  • Tirana Hassan, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch
  • John E. Herbst, former US Ambassador to Ukraine and Uzbekistan; Senior Director, the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council
  • Patrick Gaspard, President, Center for American Progress; former US Ambassador to South Africa
  • Carl Gershman, Former and Founding President, National Endowment for Democracy
  • Jon Huntsman Jr., former US Ambassador to Russia, China, and Singapore; former Governor of Utah
  • Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion; Russian opposition leader; Chairman, Renew Democracy Initiative
  • Jonathan Katz, former Deputy Assistant Administrator, Europe and Eurasia Bureau, US Agency for International Development
  • Ian Kelly, former US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to Georgia; Ambassador in Residence, Northwestern University
  • Mikhail Khodorkovsky, founder, the Russian Anti-War Committee
  • Peter Kovler, member, National Democratic Institute Board of Trustees
  • David J. Kramer, Executive Director, the George W. Bush Institute
  • Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Author
  • Leopoldo López, Freedom Activist; Cofounder and General Secretary, World Liberty Congress
  • Tom Malinowski, former Congressman from New Jersey; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
  • Félix Maradiaga, Nicaraguan opposition leader; President, Foundation for the Freedom of Nicaragua; member, Freedom House Board of Trustees
  • Michael A. McFaul, former US Ambassador to Russia
  • Sarah E. Mendelson, former US Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council
  • Alfred H. Moses, former US Ambassador to Romania
  • Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer, PEN America
  • Steven Pifer, former US Ambassador to Ukraine
  • Pedro Pizano, Assistant Director for Democracy Programs, the McCain Institute at Arizona State University
  • Alina Polyakova, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for European Policy Analysis
  • Maria A. Ressa, Chief Executive Officer, Rappler; 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
  • Randy Scheunemann, Strategic Counselor, Halifax International Security Forum
  • Natan Sharansky, former political prisoner in the Soviet Union; recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom
  • John Shattuck, Professor of Practice in Diplomacy, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; former US Ambassador to the Czech Republic
  • Brandon Silver, International Human Rights Lawyer; Director of Policy and Projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
  • Gary Shteyngart, Author
  • Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale University
  • John J. Sullivan, former US Ambassador to Russia; former US Deputy Secretary of State
  • William B. Taylor Jr., former US Ambassador to Ukraine
  • Daniel Treisman, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Daniel Twining, PhD, President, International Republican Institute
  • Peter Van Praagh, President, Halifax International Security Forum
  • Alexander Vershbow, former US Ambassador to Russia; former Deputy Secretary General, North Atlantic Treaty Organization
  • Melanne Verveer, former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues; Executive Director, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security
  • Wendell L. Willkie II, former Associate Counsel to the President of the United States; former General Counsel, US Department of Commerce; Cochair, Freedom House Board of Trustees
  • Damon Wilson, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Endowment for Democracy
  • Marie Yovanovitch, former US Ambassador to Ukraine

Organizational Endorsements:

  • Civil Courage Prize
  • Free Russia Foundation
  • Freedom House
  • The George W. Bush Institute
  • Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign
  • Human Rights First
  • Human Rights Foundation
  • Human Rights Watch
  • The McCain Institute
  • National Democratic Institute
  • National Endowment for Democracy
  • PEN America
  • Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
  • Renew Democracy Initiative
  • Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
  • World Liberty Congress

cc:

The Honorable Antony J. Blinken
Secretary of State

US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Mr. Jake Sullivan
National Security Advisor

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Alexei Navalny’s murder. Statement by Free Russia Foundation team

Feb 16 2024

Alexei Navalny’s death is a premeditated political assassination.

The personal responsibility for Navalny’s death lies with the man who usurped power and declared himself president of Russia. Navalny was murdered by Putin. This murder went on for years, every day, under the cover of lies and impunity. All these years, on Putin’s orders, he was persecuted, poisoned, imprisoned, and finally sent to a prison on the edge of Russia where he was held in torture-like conditions.

We offer our sincerest condolences to the family of Alexei Navalny — his wife Yulia, his children Daria and Zakhar, his brother Oleg, his mother Lyudmila Ivanovna, his father Anatoly Ivanovich, and all of Alexei’s family and friends. Your loss is immeasurable, and we stand united with each of you during this challenging time.

This isn’t merely a shock to us; it’s a deep and profound sorrow.

We call on world leaders, national governments, and international organizations to respond to this act of political terror.

The murderous regime in Russia represents a security threat to all citizens of the free world. It is in the interest of global security and the welfare of humanity to put an end to it.

Navalny’s murder was part of a tragic scenario against the backdrop of Russia’s dubious presidential “election”. Alexei Navalny, a leading critic of the Kremlin for years and a symbol of hope for change, had every chance of being elected as Russia’s legitimate president. This further emphasizes that Putin is an illegitimate usurper. Refusing to recognize him as the legitimate president now becomes not just a mandatory step, but a moral and political duty.

We demand justice for the memory of Alexei Navalny, for his family, and for all Russians who seek freedom. We will not stop until we achieve this goal. As long as tyranny and lawlessness persist, our work to defend human rights and promote democracy will continue.

Justice will prevail in Russia, and Navalny’s perpetrators will be punished.

Free Russia Foundation team.

The Plight of the Kremlin’s Political Prisoners

Oct 23 2023

Please join us for an in-person discussion on The Plight of the Kremlin’s Political Prisoners on Monday, October 30 from 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm at the Victims of Communism Museum located at 900 15th St NW in Washington, DC. The event will give a voice for those who can no longer speak for themselves and will include an interactive exhibit featuring photos and quotes of prominent political prisoners held by the Kremlin.

Space is limited, RSVP is required. The conversation is public and on-the record, members of the press are welcome.

The event will mark the International Day of Political Prisoners and feature substantive updates by:

  • Sergei Davidis, Head of Political Prisoners Program, Memorial Human Rights Center;
  • Evgenia Kara-Murza, Advocacy Director at Free Russia Foundation;
  • Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on Russia;
  • MEP Andrius Kubilius, the Standing Rapporteur on Russia at the EU Parliament;
  • Karinna Moskalenko, Russia’s leading human rights lawyer, Founder of the Center de la Protection Internationale; and
  • Vadim Prokhorov, lawyer for political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Expert presentations will be followed by an extensive Q&A session with the audience. The discussion will be moderated by Natalia Arno, President of Free Russia Foundation. To reserve your spot, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/743473939567?aff=oddtdtcreator

Speakers’ Bios:

Andrius Kubilius is a Lithuanian politician and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). He served as Prime Minister of Lithuania from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He was the leader of the conservative political party Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. Kubilius became a member of the pro-independence Sąjūdis movement, which favored separation from the Soviet Union. He later became the Executive Secretary of the Sąjūdis Council. Soon after the re-establishment of Lithuania’s independence, Kubilius was elected to the Seimas (parliament). Since then, Kubilius has been an active figure in Lithuanian politics. Kubillius is the current Standing Rapporteur on Russia at the EU Parliament.

Mariana Katzarova (Bulgaria) was appointed as Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Russian Federation by the UN Human Rights Council on April 4, 2023. Ms. Katzarova led the UN Human Rights Council’s mandated examination of the human rights situation in Belarus in 2021-22. During the first 2 years of the armed conflict in Ukraine (2014-16), she led the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission team in Donbas as head of the regional office in Eastern Ukraine. For a decade she headed the Amnesty International investigations of human rights in Russia and the two conflicts in Chechnya. Ms. Katzarova founded RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in War) in 2006 after working as a journalist and human rights investigator in the war zones of Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. At RAW, she established the annual Anna Politkovskaya Award for women human rights defenders working in war and conflict zones. She was Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on combating human trafficking, and a senior advisor at the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Evgenia Kara-Murza is a Russian human rights activist and wife of political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza, the twice-poisoned Russian opposition leader, imprisoned since April 11, 2022 for speaking out about the war on Ukraine. She worked as a translator and interpreter in Russian, English, and French for pro-democracy NGOs including the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, the Institute of Modern Russia, and Pen America. She subsequently joined her husband Vladimir at Free Russia Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan international organization supporting civil society and democratic development in Russia. Advocating for human rights accountability and promoting civil society and democratic change in Russia, she serves as FRF Advocacy Director.

Sergei Davidis is Head of Political Prisoners Support Program and Member of the Council at the Memorial Human Rights Center in Moscow, Russia. He was educated in Sociology at Moscow State University and on Law at Moscow State Law Academy. For many years, he was a participant and one of the organizers of the democratic opposition movement. His research interests are closely related to activities to support political prisoners in Russia, and he studies the sociological and legal aspects of politically motivated deprivation of liberty, in particular, in the context of world practice and international norms.

Karinna Moskalenko is Russia’s leading human rights lawyer. She was the first Russian lawyer to take a case to the European Court for Human Rights and won the first ever case against the Russian government at the court in Strasbourg. She founded the Center for International Protection in Russia in 1994. She is a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. While some of her clients are household names: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov, Igor Sutyagin, Alexander Litvinenko to name a few, she has also represented countless victims of human rights abuses. She won more than 100 cases including AH & others v. Russian Federation where she was representing the rights of American families who were in the process of adopting children when Russia banned US adoptions with their so-called Dima Yakovlev law. Karinna moved her family to Strasbourg in 2006 where she founded the “Center de la Protection Internationale,” a human rights litigation NGO focused on litigating cases in international courts, which has filed and won more than 500 cases on behalf of its clients. For nine year, Karinna was a Commissioner for the International Commission for Jurists for which she is an Honorary member. Currently she is a head of the experts’ group, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council for the UN High Commissioner working on the UN mandated examination of human rights situation in Belarus. Vadim Prokhorov is a Russian human-rights lawyer who has defended critics of the Kremlin, including prominent opposition politicians and anti-corruption campaigners. He has defended many human rights activists, such as Boris Nemtsov, Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Vladimir Bukovsky. Prokhorov’s work as a lawyer has made him an important figure in the human rights field, as the Russian government has increasingly suppressed public dissent and oppositional work. This increase in governmental repression gravely impacted Prokhorov’s work, who has been representing human rights defender and opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza for the last ten years. Currently, Vadim Prokhorov continues his advocacy to protect the Russian opposition, political prisoners in Russian courts – online from abroad.

Free Russia Foundation Denounces the Verdict Delivered to the Participants of the “Ingush Case” as a Clear Mockery of Justice

Jul 28 2023

Free Russia Foundation, along with our staff, expresses our deep concern and indignation at the final verdict delivered today, July 28, 2023, by the Stavropol Court in the Russian city of Pyatigorsk, regarding the participants of the “Ingush Case.”

The verdict remains unchanged since December 2021 when Akhmed Barakhoev, Musa Malsagov, and Malsag Uzhakhov were each sentenced to 9 years in a general regime colony. Ismail Nalgiev, Bagaudin Khautiev, and Barakh Chemurziev received 8-year sentences each, while Zarifa Sautieva was sentenced to 7.5 years. They were all found guilty of using violence against representatives of the authorities, establishing an extremist group, and participating in its activities. 

The appeal trial lasted for over half a year, with the defense lawyers presenting their arguments for 12 days during the debates. In contrast, the prosecutor’s speech was remarkably brief, lasting only five minutes, where he simply read out the arguments from the objections, which were concise and fit on just a few sheets of paper.

This stands as one of the most significant political cases in Russian history. It all started on March 27, 2019, when a rally against the alteration of Ingushetia’s administrative border with the Chechen Republic in Magas led to a crackdown on the Ingush opposition. Consequently, administrative cases were initiated against hundreds of participants in the people’s protest, and dozens of them faced criminal charges.

The Memorial Center, an organization that monitors politically motivated cases, has officially designated all those convicted in the “Ingush Case” as political prisoners. According to Sergei Davidis, who serves as the co-chairman of the Memorial Center, this case stands out as one of the most unprecedented political cases in Russian history. He states, “Civil society leaders are being accused merely for being civil society leaders. There is no fabrication involved; instead, they are trying to twist perfectly legitimate actions into criminal acts.”

Free Russia Foundation shares the same perspective as Memorial and urges the international community to take notice of this blatant violation of human rights.

The verdict handed down to the participants in the “Ingush Case” is a true mockery of justice, primarily because the prosecution was unable to demonstrate that the oppositionists had actually formed an extremist group. Additionally, there was a failure to provide evidence of any criminal conspiracy to incite violence against law enforcement personnel. Throughout the indictment, words such as “probably,” “presumably,” and “maybe” were frequently employed, undermining the strength of the case. Notably, the word “approximately” was used more than ten thousand times

A few years back, Ingushetia demonstrated to the entire nation that it was possible to conduct multi-day protests with thousands of people in a peaceful manner, without jeopardizing law and order. However, the Kremlin viewed this as a display of free thinking that clashed with the current regime’s control, leading them to take punitive action against the organizers of the peaceful protest. This move was intended to send a warning to residents of other regions in Russia, showcasing the potential consequences they might face for seeking justice.

The criminal case brought against the organizers is undeniably politically motivated, with the aim of maintaining power and suppressing public activism from critics of Putin’s regime. The verdict delivered today represents yet another step in the direction of quashing constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of not only the people of Ingushetia but also citizens across Russia as a whole. It highlights the authorities’ attempt to curb any form of public activism and dissent.

Free Russia Foundation calls for the immediate release of all individuals unjustly convicted in the “Ingush Case.” Furthermore, we demand that the officials responsible for their unwarranted persecution be held accountable and brought to justice.

We urge the international community, human rights organizations, and all those who stand for freedom and justice to demonstrate their solidarity with the participants in the “Ingush Case.” It is crucial to support their fight for justice and the protection of human rights. Freedom and justice are fundamental and non-negotiable values, and any violation of these principles demands a resolute response and unified support.

We cannot afford to remain indifferent to the ongoing situation, and by coming together in solidarity, we can work towards fostering a truly democratic society.

Free Russia Foundation Statement on the Situation in Russia

Jun 24 2023

Free Russia Foundation is closely following the news surrounding the activities of the Wagner Group inside Russia with grave concern.

The events themselves, the diverging agendas advanced by various Russian power groups, and how they may unfold in the coming days are highly dynamic and uncertain. What is clear is that the political situation in Russia is extremely unstable and volatile, with the potential to escalate quickly and posing risks far beyond Russian borders.

This development, however, is a logical evolution of the lawlessness, violence, and corruption purposefully harnessed by Putin in order to remain in power and brutally wielded against Russian civil society in the form of repressions, and against the people of Ukraine in the form of military aggression.

Free Russia Foundation calls on the democratic world to provide Ukraine with all it requires for a decisive victory on the battlefield against Russian forces and to strengthen its commitment to pro-democracy Russians, both in-country and those forced into exile—as the two prerequisites for peace and stability in the region.