LIVE UPDATES: Sergei Mitrokhin, former leader of the opposition Yabloko party, was detained at the presidential administration as he was taking part in a series of solo pickets demanding the dismissal of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
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Police claimed that the two were demonstrating together, which would violate the law on picketing, although they said they had kept to a distance of 50 meters apart, which is authorized for solo pickets. Mitrokhin said he had not even managed to stand with his poster before he was detained.
A third person arrested with them was Stanislav Belyayevsky, and a fourth was a Party of Progress member whose name was not available. Evidently they will have to appear later in court and face a fine or short jail sentence.
Kalmykova had demonstrated twice against the falsification of the parliamentary elections, twice in support of Ukrainian political prisoner Nadiya Savchenko, and once in support of small business.
Another demonstrator who was a “repeat offender,” Vladimir Ionov, age 76, also fled to Ukraine after facing a suspended sentence of 3 years of labor colony.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
American politician and businessman Donald Trump, who is the leading Republican candidate for nomination for President, has defended Putin. The Telegraph reports:
Mr Trump waded into the case saying he had seen “no evidence” of Mr Putin’s involvement, adding: “They say a lot of things about me that are untrue too.”
The front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has previously said he felt a “great honour” when Mr Putin praised him as an “absolute leader”.
[…]
Mr Trump told Fox Business: “Have they found him (Mr Putin) guilty? I don’t think they’ve found him guilty. If he did it, fine but I don’t know that he did it.
“You know, people are saying they think it was him, it might have been him, it could have been him. But in all fairness to Putin – and I’m not saying this because he says ‘Trump is brilliant and leading everybody’ – the fact is that he hasn’t been convicted of anything. Some people say he absolutely didn’t do it.
Donald Trump defends Vladimir Putin over Alexander Litvinenko murder
But Mr Trump told Fox Business: "Have they found him (Mr Putin) guilty? I don't think they've found him guilty. If he did it, fine but I don't know that he did it. "You know, people are saying they think it was him, it might have been him, it could have been him.
Putin praises 'bright and talented' Donald Trump – CNNPolitics.com
The feeling is apparently mutual. Putin offered high praise for the billionaire businessman-turned-Republican presidential front-runner on Thursday during an annual news conference with reporters. "He is a bright and talented person without any doubt," Putin said, adding that Trump is "an outstanding and talented personality."
Yes, Donald Trump Really Could Be The Republican Nominee For President
Yes, really, honestly, truly, Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination. In fact, some betting agencies now have him as the "odds-on favorite" meaning that if you bet on Trump to win the GOP nomination, and he wins, then you will actually lose money. Donald Trump has been ahead in the national polls since last July.
“We’ve seen him enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalising those who he doesn’t view as friends using state assets. Whether that’s Russia’s energy wealth, whether it’s other state contracts, he directs those to whom he believes will serve him and excludes those who don’t. To me, that is a picture of corruption.”
[…]
Mr Szubin would not comment on a secret CIA report from 2007 that put Mr Putin’s wealth at around $40bn (£28bn). But he said the Russian president had been amassing secret wealth.
“He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man’s wealth, and he has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth.”
“If they leave such official statements without proof, it only casts a shadow on the reputation of that agency.
It is not our job to demand proof.”
“People encounter corruption in local places, so-called everyday corruption. On the whole, there is very much work to do. And it is not a question of achieving any bright victors in this field today
or tomorrow, most likely this is a complicated task, even hard to achieve, but if we stop, it will be worse, we must move only forward.”
“I did not find anything there, at least, in my view, there were no facts, accusing the prosecutor general of violation of some laws — precisely the prosecutor general. It is not worth a hill of beans.”
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Oversight of compliance with legislation in conducting checks and investigations of criminal cases has been established and carried out by agencies of the military prosecutor’s office. The lawfulness of the decisions made had been checked. No basis for their change has been found.
In May 2015, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree making it a crime to reveal deaths of soldiers in peace time, i.e. even in an undeclared war. The Russian Supreme Court then upheld the decree as constitutional in November, after a group of journalists appealed it. Now that the subject of the Russian soldiers killed is designated a state secret, the independent press and human rights groups are taking risks reporting on them.
The number of such deaths reported by relatives, the media and human rights group is at least 500. Recently Gruz-200 (Cargo 200), the group headed by Elena Vasilieva named after the military term for the bodies of soldiers killed in battle, issued a list of 1,858 names of fighters said to be Russian and killed in Ukraine, not all of which have been verified.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Translation: Sergei Mitrokhin and Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko were detained at the presidential administration.
The Russian opposition has been protesting a series of ominous and provocative statements by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in recent weeks, in which he has characterized liberal opposition figures and journalists as “fifth columnists” and “traitors” who should be arrested or put in psychiatric hospitals. Yesterday, as we reported, President Vladimir Putin endorsed Kadyrov, and Kadyrov himself said “any means necessary” should be used to oppose “the non-system opposition.”
Mitrokhin, a past deputy of the State Duma and Moscow City Council remains active in the Yabloko party. In December 2015, Emiliya Slabunova, a deputy of the Karelian legislature, was elected as the new chair of Yabloko at the party’s congress.
Anton Antonovich Antonov-Ovseyenko, a philology professor, is the nephew of the revolutionary Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov-Ovseyenko, the son of Anton Vladimirovich Antonov-Ovseyenko, the famous historian of the revolution and dissident, and himself the author of the best-selling book Bolsheviks, 1917.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick