So Putin is making a statement...loud and clear. The gloves are off..and the old Soviet ways are returning. not a huge surprise..Russians love their strongmen...something in them craves it.
However, i agree...let the Russians be Russians. Biden should tell Putin the same. hands off the US...and the use of Social Media to foment division. Then we should smash every hacker out there, if that's what it takes to secure our networks,.
A court on Wednesday designated Aleksei A. Navalny’s political movement as extremist, a remarkable broadside by President Vladimir V. Putin that also sent a message to President Biden ahead of their meeting next week: Russian domestic affairs are not up for discussion.
The court decision — almost certainly with the Kremlin’s blessing — seemed likely to push the resistance to Mr. Putin further underground, after several months in which the Russian government’s yearslong effort to suppress dissent has entered a new, more aggressive phase. Under the law, Mr. Navalny’s organizers, donors, or even social-media supporters could now be prosecuted and face prison time.
The ruling heightened the stakes of the summit in Geneva for Mr. Biden, who has promised to push back against violations of international norms by Mr. Putin. But the Russian president has said that, while he is prepared to discuss cyberspace and geopolitics with Mr. Biden, he will not engage in talks over how he runs his country. The question is how much Mr. Biden accepts those demands.
“Views on our political system can differ,” Mr. Putin told the heads of international news agencies last week. “Just give us the right, please, to determine how to organize this part of our life.”
The Geneva meeting on June 16 will come after months in which Mr. Putin has dismantled much of what remained of Russian political pluralism — and made it clear that he would ignore Western criticism.
Mr. Navalny was arrested in January after having returned to Moscow upon recovering from a poisoning last year that Western officials say was carried out by Russian agents. Since then, thousands of Russians have been detained at protests; leading opposition politicians have been jailed or forced into exile; online media outlets have been branded “foreign agents”; and Twitter and other social networks have come under government pressure.
“The state has decided to fight any independent organizations with total bombardment,” Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation — one of the groups declared extremist on Wednesday — said in a Twitter posting anticipating the ruling.
The Kremlin denies playing any role in the campaign against Mr. Navalny and his movement, and insists Russia’s judiciary is independent. Analysts and lawyers, however, widely see the courts as subordinate to the Kremlin and the security services, especially on politically sensitive cases.
Mr. Putin has already signaled that he will reject any criticism of the Kremlin’s handling of the Navalny case by claiming that the United States has no standing to lecture others. At Russia’s marquee annual economic conference in St. Petersburg last week, Mr. Putin repeatedly invoked the arrests of the Capitol rioters in Washington in January when challenged about repression in Russia or its ally Belarus.
“Take a look at the sad events in the United States where people refused to accept the election results and stormed the Congress,” Mr. Putin said. “Why is it only our non-systemic opposition that you are interested in?”
The Kremlin’s campaign against the opposition gained intensity after Mr. Navalny’s return in January from Germany, where he was receiving medical treatment after the nerve agent attack. Police arrested Mr. Navalny at the airport and a court sentenced him to two and half years in prison on a parole violation for a conviction in an embezzlement case that rights group say was politically motivated.
In power since 1999 as either prime minister or president, Mr. Putin’s tightening of the screws on dissent and opposition has come gradually. In a long twilight of post-Soviet democracy during his rule, elections took place, the internet remained mostly free and limited opposition was tolerated. His system has been called “soft authoritarianism.”
However, i agree...let the Russians be Russians. Biden should tell Putin the same. hands off the US...and the use of Social Media to foment division. Then we should smash every hacker out there, if that's what it takes to secure our networks,.
A court on Wednesday designated Aleksei A. Navalny’s political movement as extremist, a remarkable broadside by President Vladimir V. Putin that also sent a message to President Biden ahead of their meeting next week: Russian domestic affairs are not up for discussion.
The court decision — almost certainly with the Kremlin’s blessing — seemed likely to push the resistance to Mr. Putin further underground, after several months in which the Russian government’s yearslong effort to suppress dissent has entered a new, more aggressive phase. Under the law, Mr. Navalny’s organizers, donors, or even social-media supporters could now be prosecuted and face prison time.
The ruling heightened the stakes of the summit in Geneva for Mr. Biden, who has promised to push back against violations of international norms by Mr. Putin. But the Russian president has said that, while he is prepared to discuss cyberspace and geopolitics with Mr. Biden, he will not engage in talks over how he runs his country. The question is how much Mr. Biden accepts those demands.
“Views on our political system can differ,” Mr. Putin told the heads of international news agencies last week. “Just give us the right, please, to determine how to organize this part of our life.”
The Geneva meeting on June 16 will come after months in which Mr. Putin has dismantled much of what remained of Russian political pluralism — and made it clear that he would ignore Western criticism.
Mr. Navalny was arrested in January after having returned to Moscow upon recovering from a poisoning last year that Western officials say was carried out by Russian agents. Since then, thousands of Russians have been detained at protests; leading opposition politicians have been jailed or forced into exile; online media outlets have been branded “foreign agents”; and Twitter and other social networks have come under government pressure.
“The state has decided to fight any independent organizations with total bombardment,” Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation — one of the groups declared extremist on Wednesday — said in a Twitter posting anticipating the ruling.
The Kremlin denies playing any role in the campaign against Mr. Navalny and his movement, and insists Russia’s judiciary is independent. Analysts and lawyers, however, widely see the courts as subordinate to the Kremlin and the security services, especially on politically sensitive cases.
Mr. Putin has already signaled that he will reject any criticism of the Kremlin’s handling of the Navalny case by claiming that the United States has no standing to lecture others. At Russia’s marquee annual economic conference in St. Petersburg last week, Mr. Putin repeatedly invoked the arrests of the Capitol rioters in Washington in January when challenged about repression in Russia or its ally Belarus.
“Take a look at the sad events in the United States where people refused to accept the election results and stormed the Congress,” Mr. Putin said. “Why is it only our non-systemic opposition that you are interested in?”
The Kremlin’s campaign against the opposition gained intensity after Mr. Navalny’s return in January from Germany, where he was receiving medical treatment after the nerve agent attack. Police arrested Mr. Navalny at the airport and a court sentenced him to two and half years in prison on a parole violation for a conviction in an embezzlement case that rights group say was politically motivated.
In power since 1999 as either prime minister or president, Mr. Putin’s tightening of the screws on dissent and opposition has come gradually. In a long twilight of post-Soviet democracy during his rule, elections took place, the internet remained mostly free and limited opposition was tolerated. His system has been called “soft authoritarianism.”
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