The Russia Conundrum

The West can remove ammunition from the Kremlin spin doctors by differentiating between the crooks in the leadership and Russia as a whole. Be clear who the opponent is; do not use Russia as a scapegoat for the West’s own problems, as has happened in American politics. Yes, the Kremlin sought to meddle in US elections, but its role shouldn’t be exaggerated. Democracy in America is put at risk by the behaviour of its own politicians, by the rise of populism and developments in global social trends, not just by the malevolent force from the East. Superhuman powers should not be assigned to a president who Navalny and many others now refer to as ‘the old man in his bunker’, a leader who makes increasingly rare public appearances and fears the world beyond the Kremlin walls. It’s a mistake to engage with the hysterical polemics promoted by Russian state media, or with the conspiracies propagated by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Trying to refute spokesperson Maria Zakharova’s contention that the British state poisoned the Skripals in order to frame Russia, or that Navalny poisoned himself, only plays into their hands. It is best to deal with the realities and the facts, and to avoid playing into the Kremlin blame game. As Professor Daniel Drezner, author of The Sanctions Paradox

, points out, when sanctioned regimes fear they are failing to keep their population onside by using the ‘common enemy’ tactic, they will increasingly ‘enact repressive measures’.

Recent events have demonstrated that a dictatorship has finally been established in Russia. Any hint of decorum has been cast aside. The electoral process has become a smokescreen. Putin’s political opponents are not allowed to run in the elections, criminal cases are fabricated against them; and, finally, in some cases, they are poisoned. As Putin and his stooges become increasingly helpless and desperate, they openly resort to violence to quell dissent.

Since the original imposition of sanctions in 2014, the West has got better at tailoring and explaining its measures, but there is still more work to do. The Americans gradually pivoted to individually targeted sanctions. That was very painful for those named individuals. But here, too, not enough effort was put into explaining why these particular sanctions were being applied to these people. As a result, their effect was lessened, because the Russian authorities told their citizens their own version of the story, that the Americans were punishing Russia for daring to have an independent foreign policy.

Personal sanctions that target specific people for clearly specified reasons have the potential to curb the influence of Putin, his friends and the regime’s sponsors. Sanctions should target the perpetrators of illegal orders and political repression, individuals who distort the workings of a normal state. That includes judges, security officials, prosecutors, intelligence services, as well as the sponsors and asset holders of Putin’s inner circle. The sanctions’ targets should be people and businesses who directly violate, sponsor or facilitate the spread of corruption, disinformation and illegal influence in the West, or promote human rights abuses in Russia.

Who are these people and how are they affected? Oleg Deripaska, the founder of Rusal, until recently the largest aluminium producer in the world, is an example of someone targeted by personal sanctions against members of Putin’s entourage. To remain as rich as Deripaska has in Putin’s Russia means total subservience to the Kremlin. Few of Putin’s oligarchs are more influential and loyal than Deripaska, as the Mueller Report amply demonstrated. In 2018, the United States Treasury nominated Deripaska for sanctions as a result of his ‘having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, a senior official of the Government of the Russian Federation’, as well as his ‘claims to have represented the Russian government in other countries’. This had a staggering impact on Russia’s main share index, which slumped by 11 per cent when the sanctions came into effect.