Editor’s Note: This feature separates Ukraine’s friends from its enemies. The Order of Yaroslav the Wise has been given since 1995 for distinguished service to the nation. It is named after the Kyivan Rus leader from 1019-1054, when the medieval empire reached its zenith. The Order of Lenin was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union, whose demise Russian President Vladimir Putin mourns. It is named after Vladimir Lenin, whose corpse still rots on the Kremlin’s Red Square, more than 100 years after the October Revolution he led.
Ukraine’s Friend of the Week: Bill Browder
It will have come as no surprise to anyone who knows the story of Bill Browder, whose book “Red Notice” chronicles the deadly corruption of the current Kremlin regime, that the American-born British financier and economist has been put on Interpol’s wanted list.
It was the death in Russian custody in 2009 of Sergey Magnitsky, an accountant at Browder’s investment firm in Russia, that set the financier on a years-long campaign to get countries to pass acts imposing entry bans and bans on the use of banking services on those involved in Magnitsky’s murder.
The United States was the first to pass such a “Magnitsky Act” in 2011, and other countries – the Baltic states, the United Kingdom and Canada – have passed similar legislation. Other countries, including Ireland and Ukraine, are in the process of creating their own Magnitsky laws.
The Kremlin reacted with fury at Browder’s initiative, banning him from Russia and launching criminal proceedings against him. He was tried in absentia by a Kremlin-controlled court and sentenced to nine years in prison for tax evasion.
The sham trial and sentence against Browder are undoubtedly revenge against him by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who appears particularly anxious to see the end of the Magnitsky laws campaign. According to Browder, Putin has accumulated a vast fortune, perhaps as much as $200 billion, though being head of the Russian state. This essentially means that he is at the apex of a vast protection racket, taking a cut of 50 percent of the profits made by Russia’s oligarch class.
“(Putin) keeps his money in the West and all of his money in the West is potentially exposed to asset freezes and confiscation,” Browder said on July 27, 2017 in testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“Therefore, he has a significant and very personal interest in finding a way to get rid of the Magnitsky sanctions.”
Putin himself brought up the issue of Browder during the U.S.-Russia summit in Helsinki on July 16, 2018. During a joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump, Putin accused Browder and his associates of evading taxes on over $1.5 billion of earnings in Russia. Showing a keen understanding of which buttons to press to “trigger” Trump, Putin also alleged that Browder, with the help of the U.S. security services, had channeled $400 million to the campaign of Trump’s rival for the presidency in 2016, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton.
So, again: the request from Russia for Interpol to arrest Browder should not be surprising. It displays a degree of cynicism that we have come to expect from the Kremlin.
But what is ridiculous and infuriating about the request is that it is the seventh such request Moscow has made since May 2013.
The seventh.
Moreover, one of the members of the eight-person commission that will consider Russia’s request on April 15-19 is a Russian lawyer previously involved in drafting previous Russian state requests for assistance in pursuing Browder.
Russia is quite clearly abusing one of the institutions of the civilized world, Interpol, to pursue a political vendetta against one man. It is absurd that this should happen once, far less seven times.
“Something needs to be fixed at Interpol if dictators can go back unlimited times to chase their enemies with bogus warrants,” Browder, Ukraine’s Friend of the Week and winner of the Order of Yaroslav the Wise, wrote on Twitter on April 9.
Indeed. But who will fix it?
Ukraine’s Foe of the Week: Thorbjorn Jagland
Thorbjorn Jagland, who has been Ukraine’s Foe of the Week before, is so again for unashamed pandering to the Kremlin.
This time, the former Norwegian prime minister and current secretary general of the Council of Europe, a body set up 70 years ago, in 1949, at the same time as the NATO defense alliance, is arguing that the issue of the suspension of Russia’s voting rights in the organization has to be resolved.
The council suspended Russia’s voting rights in April 2014, shortly after Russia invaded and started to occupy the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Deprived of its voting rights, the Kremlin pouted and fumed, and threatened to pull out of the organization entirely – but it never did.
Instead, in June 2017 it stopped paying its membership dues, and has now not contributed to the Council of Europe’s budget for nearly two years. Russia’s payments account for about 7 percent of the 47-nation body’s budget, and the lack of money is causing the organization some pain. And according to the council’s own rules, a nation that has not paid its membership fees for over two years should be ejected from the organization.
But Jagland, in his report for the Ministerial Session in Helsinki, 16-17 May 2019, points out that while Russia is not allowed to vote and is not paying its dues, it still participates fully in the organization’s intergovernmental work. To resolve this anomalous situation, he proposes that agreement be reached with Russia to allow it to participate again as a voting member, pay its dues, and avoid being thrown out of the council. He says that even if this were to happen, it would in no way imply recognition of the Kremlin’s illegal takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea.
Jagland argues that the withdrawal of Russia from the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights protection body, would be bad for Europe and Russia, drawing up a new line of division on the continent, and harming the protection of human rights in Russia, whose citizens would no longer have recourse to the European Court of Human Rights.
He adds that reaching agreement with Russia would “be a recognition of the Council of Europe’s pan-European nature and its mission to protect the rights of individuals everywhere on our continent,” and that it would “contribute to lowering tensions on our continent and assist the Council of Europe in its aim, set out in Article 1 of the Statute, to work for greater unity in Europe.”
But these are false arguments.
Russia is flagrantly ignoring Council of Europe rules, undermining the institution. It has made no move to end its occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea – the reason for which it was deprived of its voting rights. Restoring those rights ahead of the return of Ukraine’s control of the peninsula would undermine the institution still further.
Russia is an authoritarian police state, headed by a sinister dictator, and is a country rife with ugly overtones of fascism. Seeking greater unity with such a state would be to deliberately ingest a poison that would taint the entire Council of Europe project – which is indeed the Kremlin’s aim. The Putin regime, as well as seeking to undermine the European Union and NATO, is also participating in the council, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Interpol not in good faith, but in order to cripple these institutions.
We can suggest a much more sensible plan: The civilized world should stick by its principles of upholding democracy, the rule of law – including international law – and human rights and freedoms, even at the expense of suspending Russia’s membership of these organizations, or ejecting the country entirely.
When Russia returns to respecting international law, democracy, and human rights, it can return to the bodies that were set up to uphold these values.
Until then there is no point in trying to “engage” with such a regime. That would be to “engage” with a partner that wants to harm you. Giving Russia its voting rights in the Council of Europe would also be to cruelly betray both Ukraine and the council’s own fundamental values. Jagland is Ukraine’s Foe of the Week and a winner of the Order of Lenin for proposing such a betrayal.
