Putin echoes Stalin in 'very, very scary' speech

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 18 March 2022

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MOSCOW - The speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin made on Wednesday bore the hallmarks of unapologetic authoritarianism, Russia experts and observers said.

“We are well post-1934,” said Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of international relations at the New School in New York City, referencing the year when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin began his murderous purge. Putin is an unabashed admirer of Stalin and has worked — successfully, in Russia — to rehabilitate his image, which suffered for years after a posthumous denunciation in 1956 by Khrushcheva’s great-grandfather Nikita Khrushchev, then the Soviet leader.

In his unsettling remarks, Putin lashed out at “national traitors” he blamed for undermining the war he launched against Ukraine.

“Putin really wants to take Russia back to Stalin days,” Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, wrote on Twitter. “He has always emulated Stalin, and this speech is definitely angrier and stronger than previous speeches.”

President Biden said on Wednesday that Putin is a “war criminal”, and the rhetoric the Russian leader used was strikingly similar to the language that authoritarians have deployed to demonise, persecute and kill ethnic minorities and political opposition groups.

Even as Western efforts at diplomacy continue, the Kremlin remains in the grip of profound geopolitical grievance, which could make a peace settlement difficult. Putin said true Russians would “always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors,” presumably a reference to Russians who have protested his invasion of Ukraine in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Thousands with the means to do so have left Russia, which is facing widespread cultural and economic isolation.

Russia “will simply spit them out like an insect in their mouth, spit them onto the pavement,” Putin said of Russian “fifth columnists” with Western sympathies.

“This is very, very scary,” American investor Bill Browder, who has become a nemesis of Putin's after exposing corruption in the Kremlin, said on Twitter. “The language is unbelievable.”

“The whole speech was pure Dr. Strangelove — bodily fluids, purification and what not,” Khrushcheva told Yahoo News, referencing Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 satire about nuclear war. “Very Hollywood, only it’s happening to us, not on screen,” she wrote in an email.

Putin clearly sees Russia as the victim, denouncing the “economic blitzkrieg” of Western sanctions in his remarks, a reference to Adolf Hitler’s favored mode of sudden, overwhelming attack. “I want to be as direct as possible: hostile geopolitical designs lie behind the hypocritical talk and recent actions by the so-called collective West,” he said, according to an English-language transcript of his speech provided by the Kremlin. “They have no use — simply no use — for a strong and sovereign Russia, and they will not forgive us for our independent policy or for standing up for our national interests.”

Putin has maintained that he needed to invade Ukraine to “de-Nazify” and “demilitarise” the country, but he also fears that the Western sphere of influence is increasingly close to Russia’s borders.

The event on Wednesday was billed by the Kremlin as a discussion between Putin and regional leaders about “socioeconomic support.” It was a brief section of Putin’s comments from his introduction, however, that caught the attention of social media users, with millions having viewed a short clip in which he caustically pointed his finger at Russians who have grown rich during his tenure but are now abandoning the country as it becomes an international pariah.

“I do not in the least condemn those who have villas in Miami or the French Riviera, who cannot make do without foie gras, oysters or ‘gender freedom’, as they call it. That is not the problem, not at all,” Putin said, referencing the elevated standard of living that Russians have enjoyed since he stabilised the economy after a chaotic period of unfettered capitalism in the 1990s.

He also played on long-standing Russian feelings of inferiority relative to the West, reminding supposedly disloyal critics of his Ukrainian campaign that they would never be allowed into “the superior caste, the superior race” of Western society. The West, he suggested, sees Russians not as equals but as “expendable raw material” to be exploited.

The speech left Lautman of the Centre for European Policy Analysis stunned. “Everyone soon will be fifth columnists as Putin gets more enraged,” she told Yahoo News in a text message. “There will be a purge from his agencies, military, and everyday citizens. It was really such a dark speech.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe reunited with her husband and daughter

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 17 March 2022

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LONDON - Tears of joy were shed as the families of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were reunited with their loved ones in the early hours of Thursday morning after years of a “long and cruel separation” caused by their detention in Iran.

The pair touched down on British soil at RAF Brize Norton at just after 1am, and a video shared on social media showed the emotional homecoming as Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugged and kissed her young daughter and Mr Ashoori’s family sobbed.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose husband Richard has long campaigned for her release, left Iran with fellow British-Iranian Mr Ashoori, 67, on Wednesday after their release was secured.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained for six years after being accused of plotting to overthrow the Iranian government.

Mr Ashoori, who was detained in Evin prison for almost five years, was accused of spying.

Both have consistently and vigorously denied the allegations.

The pair smiled and chatted as they walked from the aircraft into a reception building at the airport.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was wearing a navy dress and coat, with a bright yellow shawl and matching handbag, waved to the cameras, while Mr Ashoori, who was carrying a magazine, gave a salute and a peace sign.

Mr Ashoori appeared to be taking photos with the pilots in the cockpit on the plane, as they waited to disembark.

He could be seen posing with two men through the windows of the cockpit.

An emotional video was shared live on Instagram by Mr Ashoori’s daughter Elika as the pair disembarked the plane.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s seven-year-old daughter Gabriella was heard asking “is that mummy?” and again shouted “mummy” as her mother walked down the plane’s stairs.

Mr Ratcliffe shook Mr Ashoori’s hand, as Gabriella appeared to run towards her mother, who was out of shot. She then carried the little girl in her arms as they were surrounded by other family members.

Mr Ashoori was then reunited with his family, who were in tears as they embraced. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe then appeared in the video and hugged and kissed her daughter, and asked her “do I smell nice?” before holding her hands.

She also hugged members of the Ashoori family.

Labour MP Tulip Siddiq tweeted an image of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe embracing her husband and daughter with the caption: “This picture makes me so happy and so proud of all 3 of my brave constituents. Thank you everyone for your constant support for this incredible family. #NazaninIsFree”

Foreign Office minister James Cleverly said “yesterday was a good day at work” as he shared a photo of both returned Britons with their families.

Sharing photographs from the flight on Twitter, Stephanie Al-Qaq, director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Foreign Office, said there was “relief and joy” as the British-Iranians and officials left Tehran.

While Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who was also seen in Ms Ashoori’s video waiting for the pair’s arrival, said: “People are in very, very good spirits.”

Speaking at Brize Norton after the arrival, she said: “I think it’s been a really difficult 48 hours, the expectation that they would be released, but we weren’t sure right until the last moment.

“It’s been very emotional, but also a really happy moment for the families, and I’m pleased to say that both Nazanin and Anoosheh are in good spirits and they’re safe and well back here in Britain.”

Asked whether Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori thanked her following their return, Ms Truss said: “Well, I thank them and I thank the families for how stoical they’ve been during this really, really difficult period.

“And we talked about the process that we’ve been through, the difficult last part of making sure that they were able to leave Iran but it’s so fantastic to welcome them back safe and well here in Britain.”

A third British detainee, Morad Tahbaz, has been released from prison on furlough but remains in Iran.

In a tweet, Ms Truss said she was pleased he had been released but his continued detainment was “far from sufficient”.

She added: “We will continue to work intensively to secure his departure from Iran.”

The release of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori follows months of intensive diplomatic negotiations between London and Tehran, including the eventual payment of an outstanding £400 million debt owed by Britain to the regime.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Mr Ashoori were initially taken to the Gulf state of Oman, which has been closely involved in the behind-the-scenes negotiations to secure their freedom.

Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked the Omani Government for its help in bringing the pair home.

Speaking on a visit to Saudi Arabia, he said: “It is fantastic news that Nazanin is out.

“I am thrilled also for Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz who are also out.

“It has been a lot of work by a lot of people. I want to pay particular tribute to her husband Richard.

“It is fantastic that she will be able to come back, see her family, see her daughter Gabriella.”

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was detained on security charges by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at Imam Khomeini airport after a holiday visit to Iran, where she introduced her daughter to her parents.

Mr Ashoori was arrested in August 2017 while visiting his elderly mother in Tehran.

In the Commons, with Mr Ratcliffe and Gabriella watching, Ms Truss set out details of their release.

“It was only when we heard that the wheels were up in Tehran that we really knew it was happening,” she said.

“Their suffering has moved us all, and so does the prospect of their being reunited with their loved ones once again, after this long and cruel separation,” she added.

On Wednesday night Ms Siddiq, who is Mr Ratcliffe’s MP, told ITV’s Peston programme about how Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been able to come home.

She said: “She was contacted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in Iran over the weekend and asked to come in for questioning, and quite apprehensive – she messaged me before she went. To her utter surprise, at the end of the questioning, and there were some scare tactics in there, she was given her British passport back.

“Bearing in mind she hasn’t seen her British passport since the 23rd of April 2016. But just as she was about to leave the door, they said to her, ‘don’t book your own flight, we will sort out the flights for you’.

“So after that, I had an idea that she would be coming back, but it’s always touch and go with these things – we’ve had so many false dawns, I didn’t know for sure.”

Cummings accuses PM of lying in Lebedev peerage row

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 17 March 2022

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LONDON - Dominic Cummings has accused Boris Johnson of lying over his denials that he ignored security concerns to ensure Evgeny Lebedev received a peerage.

The newspaper proprietor, whose father is an ex-KGB agent, became Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia in December 2020.

Johnson has insisted it is “simply incorrect” to suggest he personally intervened to ensure the peerage went through.

According to The Sunday Times, security officials recommended that Lebedev’s peerage be turned down.

In March 2020, the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which vets peerages, reportedly wrote to Johnson advising him not to grant Lebedev – who owns the Evening Standard and Independent newspapers – a seat in the Lords on security grounds.

By June, however, those security concerns were dropped and Lebedev’s ennoblement was approved.

Asked about the allegations that he was personally involved in the process, the prime minister said: “That is simply incorrect. But what I can tell you is, it suits Putin’s agenda to try to characterise this as a struggle between the West and Russia.

“It suits his agenda to say that the UK, that we in Nato countries, are anti-Russia, European countries are now anti-Russian.”

But writing on his blog, Cummings – who was once the prime minister’s top adviser – said: “I was in the room when the PM was told by Cabinet Office officials that the intelligence services and other parts of the deep state had, let’s say, serious reservations about the PM’s plan.

“I supported these concerns and said to the PM in his study explicitly that he should not go ahead. He was very cross and as he does when cross he blustered nonsense.”

Cummings said Johnson “got a stooge to creep into the Cabinet Office labyrinth and cut a deal”.

“I’m confident in predicting nobody would swear under oath the PM is telling the truth – including the PM,” he added.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has called for a senior parliamentary committee to investigate the claims Johnson pushed for the peerage, despite security concerns.

Lebedev derives his wealth from his father Alexander, a billionaire oligarch, who was previously described as a Putin critic but is thought to retain close ties to the Kremlin.

In a statement last week, Lebedev said: “I am not a security risk to this country, which I love. My father, a long time ago, was a foreign intelligence agent of the KGB, but I am not some agent of Russia.

“The editorial coverage in The Independent and the Evening Standard (of which I am also a shareholder) of Russia and its activities, over the time of my involvement in those titles, makes that clear.”

He added: “I may have a Russian name, but that makes me no less a committed or proud British citizen than anyone else in this country of ours. Being Russian does not automatically make one an enemy of the state, and it is crucial we do not descend into Russophobia, like any other phobia, bigotry or discrimination.

“Like you, I pray for president Putin to end the war in Ukraine.”