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By Ariel Cohen & Robert Nicholson
The Heritage Foundation
This week the State Department has placed some 64 Russian officials on a visa blacklist that would prevent them from entering the United States. These Russian prosecutors and policemen all played a role in the death of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the most famous whistleblower in post–communist Russian history.
By Ariel Cohen
Moscow is flush with cash from energy sales and arms producers in France, Italy andGermany are happy to take large chunks of it. They are busily selling Russia advanced weapons, sensitive dual-use systems and military supplies. All this indicates unprecedented Russian openness about (and need to) buy advanced weapons systems.
By Ariel Cohen
Russia has emasculated the country’s center-right. Steps have been taken to split the liberal vote in anticipation of the Duma elections in December. “Right Cause,” a Kremlin-supported quasi-opposition founded in 2008 under the aegis of Anatoly Chubais, the architect ofRussia’s controversial privatization, elected an oligarch as their new party leader. Mikhail Prokhorov,
By Ariel Cohen
Amidst the ongoing aerial campaign against Muammar Qadhafi’s forces in Libya, NATO is struggling with a problem that is affecting the integrity of the alliance. Arms producers inFrance, Italy, and Germany are selling advanced weapons, sensitive dual-use systems, and military supplies to Russia.
By Ariel Cohen
Testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee
My name is Ariel Cohen. I am Senior Research Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
By Ariel Cohen and Donald Jensen
The discussion about democracy, human rights, and the rule of law has careened through at least three phases in U.S. relations with Russia, each one resulting in sometimes jarring shifts in Washington’s approach to Moscow.
In order to reaffirm America’s interests, when dealing with Russia, the U.S. should concentrate on the values of freedom and justice.
By Ariel Cohen
For the past two years, the Obama Administration has touted its Russia “reset policy” as one of its great diplomatic achievements. The President spent an inordinate amount of time cultivating Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and making him his principal diplomatic interlocutor—despite the fact that Medvedev is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s appointed protégé with no political base of his own.
By Ariel Cohen & Sally McNamara
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is on course to secure a third consecutive victory in parliamentary elections this weekend. Polls are predicting that the AKP could secure up to 48 percent of the vote. However, a two-thirds majority of the 550-seat assembly is needed for the prime minister to realize his ambition of changing the constitution...
By Ariel Cohen
The new, Republican-majority Congress is starting its work with a jaundiced eye on what’s going on in Russia. Just a week ago Moscow convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky for crimes most legal experts believe he did not commit. Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov is in jail, albeit only for two weeks, for demonstrating in support of freedom of assembly.
By Ariel Cohen
In early December, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strode to the podium at Brookings’s Saban Center and elaborated [3] on the U.S. role in the Middle East peace process—or, at least, what is left of it. But Russia beat her to the punch in discussions of that troubled region.
01-09-2011
By Ariel Cohen
Since taking power in landslide democratic elections in 2002, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is leading Turkey in a new direction, both domestically and in terms of foreign policy. This direction includes rapprochement with Iran; working more closely with the Islamist regime of Sudan despite the indictment of its president on genocide charges; supporting the Hamas movement which rules Gaza;
By Ariel Cohen
Last Friday, Russian prosecutors asked for a new, 14-year new prison term for the former YUKOS oil company CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev. The two are Russia’s most famous political prisoners. They have already spent seven years in jail for alleged tax violations, an accusation most legal expert find spurious.
By Ariel Cohen
In a recent Daily Telegraph news report, Yulia Tymoshenko, former Prime Minister and opposition leader, has publicly declared [2] that Ukraine’s national sovereignty is being sold away, that Russia is taking over Ukraine, and that the West is letting this happen.
Continued
By Ariel Cohen
In March 2009 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pressed the “reset button” to restart the frozen Russia–U.S. relationship.
Since then, the Obama Administration has hailed the reset as a great accomplishment.
By Ariel Cohen
According to international press reports2, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is planning to visit Russia, Belarus, and Iran later next week. In Moscow, he will sign a series of agreements on trade and technology.
The Obama Administration needs to let its Moscow counterparts know that unbridled support of a mercurial Latin American politician, including weapons and dual use technology transfer, may threaten the “reset” policy between U.S. and Russia.
By Ariel Cohen
On Friday the Kremlin announced that Russia and the U.S. settled all outstanding bilateral issues relating to Russia’s accession to the WTO. “I can say that the United States has removed all the questions regarding Russia joining the WTO,” Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said, assuring the press that Russia will settle all outstanding issues regarding its accession to the global trade organization within four months at the most.
Why Is Medvedev, not Putin, in China?
09-30-2010
By Ariel Cohen
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in China on Sunday to expand energy cooperation1 between the two countries. The new deal includes building a 13-million-ton-per-year oil refinery in the city Tianjin within two years. Russia would supply 70 percent of the oil for the $5 billion refinery in a 20-year deal.
By Ariel Cohen
In Washington last Friday, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced that Russia will supply P-800 Yakhont cruise missiles to Syria, confirming the rumors about the contract between the two countries that appeared in October 2009. The contract was signed in 2007 according to Moscow.
By Ariel Cohen
The appearance of a government-sponsored Putin 2012 cyrillic website [1]s pretty much clinches the major question in Russian politics: Will Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, “National Leader” and the former President of Russia, run for (and, by definition, win) the Russian presidency?
By Ariel Cohen
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently proclaimed Eurasia a Russian "sphere of exclusive interests." Moscow has backed up those words with every available foreign-policy tool: diplomacy (including recognition of breakaway republics), arms sales, defense pacts, base construction—even regime change.
The Manas Base and Challenges to the U.S. Presence in Kyrgyzstan
07-27-2010
By Ariel Cohen
Winning in Afghanistan is a vital U.S. national interest, and since 2001, Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan has been critical to this effort. Manas moves some 500 tons of cargo and 15,000 people per month into and out of Afghanistan.
By Ariel Cohen, Sally McNamara, and James Phillips
Commonly referred to as the West’s bridge to the Muslim world, Turkey has long been a key NATO partner and a strategic ally of Europe and the United States. On his first official state visit to Turkey, President Barack Obama singled out Turkey as a “strong, vibrant, secular democracy.”
By Ariel Cohen
Russian and Iranian energy ministers Sergei I. Shmatko and Massoud Mir-Kazemi, signed a “roadmap” to future economic cooperation in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries [2], according to ITAR-TASS, a Russian news-wire.
By Ariel Cohen
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that ten people have been arrested for being alleged undercover Russian spies. They were charged with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, as well as for money laundering. While not yet charged with espionage, nevertheless, they walked liked spies and talked like spies.
By Ariel Cohen
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will visit the United States from June 22 through 24 at the invitation of U.S. President Barack Obama. Topping the agenda will be the New START Treaty between the two countries, a treaty that is likely to arouse controversy in the Senate. The visit occurs after the U.S. was able to secure a vote by Russia on the United Nations Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran.
