It’s a start, but it’s only the beginning. During his trip to Moscow last week, President Barack Obama made small steps in improving relations between the United States and Russia. Notably, the countries agreed in principle to cut their nuclear arsenals and allow American troops and weapons bound for the war in Afghanistan to fly through Russian airspace. Despite the preliminary agreement to reduce their nuclear weapons, Charles D. Ferguson, an arms control expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said, “Both sides are very aware that it’s going to be very difficult to really achieve something that’s far-reaching and produces really deep reductions in both sides’ strategic nuclear arsenals by the end of the year.”
“Obama has achieved about as much as he could, given the short amount of time in power, the enduring conflicts in interests and deep distrust in the relationship,” argues Andrew C. Kuchins, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Charles A. Kupchan, a senior fellow for Europe studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, believes that the trip was “on balance a success” and that “if it takes ten steps for rivals to become lasting friends, that we just saw maybe step three or four.”
Obama’s star power isn’t the same in Russia and few Russians heard his calls for better relations. But President Obama was able to meet with several leading opposition figures, including Boris Nemtsov.
After his failed bid in the mayoral election in Sochi and around Obama’s visit to Moscow, Boris Nemtsov frequently appeared in the US media. The former deputy prime minister and now prominent critic of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin published op-eds in Newsweek International and The Wall Street Journal, participated in a conversation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and sat down for an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN (the interview is included below).
Mr. Nemtsov contends that “Mr. Putin continues to be the real ruler of Russia and his authoritarian course remains unchanged.” According to him, the difference in the values practiced by the American and Russian governments is an obstacle to “resetting” relations.
“For while the United States promotes the ideas of freedom and competition, the current Russian leaders believe in censorship and monopoly in every sphere – politics, ideology, and economy. Politically, the year that has passed since Medvedev formally assumed the presidency has changed nothing: television coverage remains strictly controlled, elections are heavily manipulated, independent political activity is all but forbidden, judges are wholly subservient to the executive. It is clear that, contrary to our Constitution, which assigns the principal power prerogatives to the president, Putin remains the real ruler of Russia.
“Economically, monopolization and bureaucratization have led to rampant corruption (according to Transparency International, Russia under Putin has descended to a shameful 147th place in its world corruption index) and has severely crippled our economy. Despite relatively high oil prices, the principal source of Russia’s wealth, GDP contracted by 10 percent in April, while industrial production fell by 17 percent in May. Unemployment has already surpassed 10 percent. These are official government figures.”
Image from The Economist and clip from CNN.
