After listening for the U.S. and European Union complain about Russian meddling in recent elections, 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin complained about foreign interference in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Putin faces growing opposition for jailing 44-year-old dissident Alexi Navalny, currently serving two-year-eight-months in a Russian prison. Navalny claimed he was poisoned in Siberia with Novichok, a Soviet-era neurotoxin used to poison March 4, 2018 former Russian spy Sergei Scripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, U.K. U.S. and European Union [EU] officials have threatened sanctions for using a banned substance for targeted assassinations, something the Kremlin denies. While treated for Novichok poisoning last August in Berlin, Navalny placed the blame for his poisoning squarely on Putin, prompting demonstrations around Russia.
Putin finds himself squeezed between the U.S. and EU, both threatening to apply new economic and travel sanction for Putin’s violations of the Jan. 3, 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, banning substances like Novichok from. Putin threatened Feb. 12 to cut ties with EU if Brussels goes ahead with sanctions. U.S. President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Tony Blinken also threatened sanctions if Putin doesn’t release Navalny from prison, something Putin considers meddling in Russian affairs. Turning tables on the U.S. and EU, Putin said today he would take steps to stop U.S. and EU meddling in Russia’s upcoming parliamentary elections. U.S. and EU officials know that pushing Putin too hard could result in severing ties with the U.S. and EU. Yet German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Feb. 5 that she will not delay completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Invited by 49-year-old mega-billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk to chat on Clubhouse Internet platform, Putin’s tries to influence the U.S. and EU to back off when it comes to Navalny. Promoted as a pro-democracy activist, Navalny’s anything but, only a critic of Putin, claiming he’s plundered Russia for the last 20 years in power, accusing Putin of egregious corruption. “The citizens of Russia will make their choice [at the parliamentary elections] and we must defend this choice from any attempt of external interference,” Putin told political parties in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Putin pushes back on the U.S. and EU for backing Navalny, a known Trotskyike revolutionary who seeks nothing short than toppling Putin’s government. Can you imagine in the U.S. with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot if any known American dissident tried to topple the U.S. government?
Democrats during Trump’s second impeachment trial tried to sell Senators on Trump’s followers trying to topple the U.S. government. U.S. politicians and media always criticize Russia’s press, claiming it’s controlled by the Kremlin. Yet the U.S. press, led by the New York Times and Washington Post claimed that Trump’s hoodlums murdered seven innocent people, including a Capitol policeman. Through Trump’s trial Democrat House managers repeated the big lie that the angry mob killed seven innocent bystanders. Turns out that the only one killed deliberately was 36-year-old Ashli Babbitt, shot by Capitol police. Six other bystanders died on natural causes, including 42-year-old Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick. Yet the New York Times claimed Trump’s angry mob bashed Sicknick’s head with a fire extinguisher. Turns out Sicknick died hours after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot of a stroke.
Putin’s well aware of the new U.S. “narrative” journalism, making up stories to fit Democrats’ political agenda. “We can’t allow an blows against Russia’s sovereignty, against the right of our people to be the master on their own land,” Putin said, rejecting the U.S. and EU criticism about Navalny. Whatever happened to Navalny, it’s not worth destroying U.S.-EU-Russian relations, attacking Putin and the Russian Federation all because the U.S.-EU tout Navalny as a pro-democracy activist. U.S. officials have put pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to halt the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, something Putin rejects. “Why is everyone circling around the Nord Stream 2?” Putin asked, thinking Western countries are punishing Russia for seizing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Putin served the EU and U.S. notice that continuing to meddle in Russia’s internal affairs could result and breaking off diplomatic relations.
Western nations must weigh carefully whether or not they want Russian dissident Alexi Navalny to sabotage U.S. and EU-Russian relations. As of right now, relations with the West could not have be more dismal, short of a shooting war, in places like the Syrian war zone. “They [Western countries] want to force Russia to pay for their geopolitical project in Ukraine,” Putin said, referring to the Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-sponsored coup that toppled the Kremlin-backed government of Viktor Yanukovych. Putin made it clear he would not have annexed Crimea had the CIA not toppled Yanukovych, outsting the duly elected Russian-backed government. Ukraine wants Putin out of Crimaea but they don’t want to cooperate with Putin to get there. As long as Washington and Brussels continue to harass Moscow, Putin will seize sovereign territory believed to protect the Russian orbit.
