As Boris & I wrote in 2012, with Navalny's concurrence, foreign pressure like the Magnitsky Act is pro-Russian. Alexei said, "It helps defend us from the criminals who kill our citizens, steal our money, and hide it abroad." wsj.com/articles/SB100…
Many European leaders prefer to leave flowers for dead Russian opposition leaders instead of listening to them while they're alive. In the US, post-McCain, global human rights have become a partisan political show at best.
There are exceptions, and I've been honored to be invited to testify on Putin's Russia & foreign interference in the US, Canada, and the UK. It's all connected. You cannot deter Putin's hostile acts without threatening his grip in Russia.
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Hungary is the fight for the future of Europe. The election promises a change of power, but the Orbán regime and its supporters in the Kremlin will not go quietly. The EU cannot stand idly by. My op-ed in @zeitonline: zeit.de/politik/auslan…
With an aggressive Russia and a complicit America, what will Europe do to protect its values and interests? Is it willing to take on the role of leader of the free world, or will it stand by and watch events unfold, even as they move from its doorstep to squarely at home?
The war in Ukraine has forced European politicians to think pragmatically. For all my emphasis on values, this is good; if moral conviction isn't enough to get Europe’s leaders to intervene on behalf of freedom, but imminent threat of war & democratic collapse will, so be it.
When mail-in voting is limited or eliminated, then selected polling stations are closed or surrounded with "security checks", when poll workers are replaced by ICE "for security", when ballots are confiscated for "fraud", maybe you’ll take it seriously. Too late.
Remember that they aren’t afraid of being caught, or how bad it looks; they’re only afraid of losing power. If you win, you have total impunity—they believe and they’ve been told. Pardons for everyone who is in on the scam, again. So no scheme is too brazen.
Riots at polling stations with emergency crackdowns, boxes of pre-filled ballots, buses with carousel voters, intimidation of poll workers, allies with access to the counting—all the Putin tricks. Why not? They don’t care if they get caught, and it only has to work a few times.
Putin is being helpful indeed. According to accumulating intelligence reports, he’s helping Iran kill US forces. But Trump and Witkoff say that Putin told them he’s not, and it would be too humiliating for them to admit the truth. Congress? Anybody?
Iran and Russia have both confirmed that Russia is continuing to support its longtime close ally in this war. The only people who don’t believe this are Trump and buffoons like Witkoff who depend on Trump and Putin for their livelihoods.
Btw, two days before this war started, I wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the number two most advanced nation in the world for drone tech and tactics was now Russia, and that NATO nations were not prepared because they weren’t learning and buying from number one, Ukraine.
Adding to my thread on why authoritarians like chaos to include Iran itself. Firing on its neighbors is a way of raising the stakes, of trying to show the cautious Gulf states & Western democracies that it is willing to burn everything down. Part bluff, part desperation.
Putin has demonstrated the effectiveness of simply showing the will to use force, to kill and be killed, while the strongest military alliance in history has no such will. This is the legacy of 35 post-Cold War years and a generation of rich and complacent leaders & citizens.
If you aren't willing to fight for your values, even for your own security, you will be bullied by those who are, even if their values are abhorrent. *Especially* if they are, in fact. As true in domestic politics as in geopolitics and war.
I’ve written on this dynamic, and although Iran is Russia’s ally, this attack being "bad for Putin" is not clear unless there are real consequences—military or economic. Chaos usually favors dictators & strongmen who can exploit opportunities quickly and dominate the headlines.
It’s humiliating for another of Putin's thug allies to be taken out like this, and it reduces Russia’s malign influence network significantly for the moment. But dictators don’t care about intangibles, only about being in power tomorrow and the next day.
Without strategic follow-up, a new Iranian leadership equally aligned with Russia may arise. And the price of oil, which Putin actually cares about because it funds his wars and his corruption, almost always goes up during war and uncertainty. Iran attacking so widely does both.
Childish insults only reinforce the fact that Trump hates Zelenskyy on a petty, personal level because Zelenskyy is everything he is not—a man of courage who represents his nation not himself—and refuses to cave into Trump's demands to surrender to Russia.
Blasting aid to Ukraine as a waste also further exposes the lack of strategy in Trump’s chaotic foreign policy and military interventions. Standing with allies & defending the US-led global order by defeating Russian aggression in Europe is in clear US national security interest.
Also note that Zelenskyy immediately offered aid and anti-drone expertise in Trump's war with Iran, a shared enemy responsible for thousands of Ukrainian deaths. No doubt it would’ve saved American lives to consult with Ukrainians earlier. Instead, more insults.