LONDON – The tens of thousands of protesters who flooded Russia’s streets this weekend not only put pressure on Vladimir Putin, but also put another president in place: Joe Biden.
Biden’s new foreign policy team is grappling with a myriad of domestic as well as foreign challenges – not least, what to do with the strongman in the Kremlin.
With the first blush, it appears that the new team at the top of the foreign ministry is putting its rhetorical foot down on the demonstrations, which follow the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny with nerve agent Novichok in August and his challenging return to Russia this month. Hours after the first arrests on Russian streets on Saturday, US officials said Washington condemned the “harsh tactics against protesters and journalists”.
Biden spoke to Putin for the first time as president on Tuesday and, according to the White House, also expressed concern about other issues surrounding Navalny’s treatment of Navalny.
“President Biden has made it clear that the United States will certainly act to defend its national interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us or our allies,” the White House said.
The Kremlin’s reading of the leadership call does not mention Navalny.
Russian authorities not only arrested Navalny on his return from Germany to the country, where he was evacuated for treatment after his poisoning; they also detained more than 3,700 protesters and members of the media who were on the streets on Saturday during the biggest discontent show the country has seen in years.
Navalny’s arrest prompted Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, to demands his immediate release. Sullivan called the Kremlin’s attacks on Navalny “an insult to the Russian people who want to make their voices heard.”
“The quick response by the State Department is registered here as a sign that the Biden government will be actively interfering in Russian politics,” Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said on Monday.
The Kremlin “supports it,” he said.
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On Saturday, tens of thousands of people across Russia braved icy temperatures, the Covid-19 pandemic and multiple warnings from authorities to show support for Navalny, who has long been the Kremlin’s harshest critic, and to crack down on the ruling elite, including Putin. argument. himself.
A few days earlier, Navalny’s team had released the report of an investigation that has now been viewed more than 91 million times, claiming to show setback schemes involving Putin. Putin on Monday denied the claims.
Asked if he was considering sanctions against people involved in the poisoning and arrest of Navalny, Biden told reporters on Monday that Washington and Moscow could work together in areas of mutual interest, but that his government could also make it clear to Russia that we are very concerned about their behavior “- whether it be Navalny or any other tensions.
Putin is making Biden’s team more confident than Russia’s predecessors, including in support of Navalny, said Mark Galeotti, a professor at the University College London School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies and a senior fellow. the Royal United, said. Services Institute, a London think tank.
The Kremlin’s efforts are “why we saw a particularly rapid and honest, toxic propaganda campaign to present Navalny exactly as a CIA agent,” Galeotti said. “They try to position themselves beforehand, so then they can say, ‘Aha, you see, we told you this is what’s going on – the State Department is coming in to support its allies.’
While Navalny is in custody and has to spend years in jail in an old criminal case that has been revived against him, his supporters promised to take to the streets again over the weekend to keep pressure on the government to release him.
But Putin is used to pushing right back, Trenin said.
“He never does what others want under pressure from him – in this case he frees Navalny,” he said.
The Biden government will have to come up with more than just statements of condemnation, Galeotti said, or “the Kremlin will rightly see this as a sign of impotence rather than interest.”
Although the Biden government is likely to impose new sanctions on Russia, it will not be enough, he said.
“The lesson of the last six years is that sanctions do not move the government that is prepared to survive them in general,” he said.
Russia has been approved by the US several times, partly due to allegations that it interfered in the 2016 US election and due to its annexation of Crimea, with limited success in curtailing Moscow’s ambitions.
“I think there is political will in Biden’s government, but I’m not sure there is a lot of political imagination,” Galeotti said, adding that Biden would have to look for new ways to apply pressure and surprise the Kremlin. .
“The Kremlin is always the most unhappy if it could not predict the outcome,” he said. “So it’s about trying new ways, because the old ways don’t work.”
Associated Press contributed to this report.