Love is in the air…everywhere you look around…
I haven’t tackled the Trump & Putin love affair up to now, or the mobsters in their immediate circle for that matter, as these relations, that have lasted for decades, would merit a whole pod series on their own; I will, however, jump in here with what promises to be an intriguing, up-coming chat with Olga Lautman. I can’t think of anyone better to kick off the series, especially given the latest developments of the poisoning, trial and imprisonment of the Russian dissident, Alexei Navalny.
To be clear, not all Russian nationals are mobsters, and not all mobsters are Russian. Putting aside my feeble attempt at humour, I’m careful when it comes to stereotypes, owing to the fact that I often got labelled in Toronto, where I grew up, for having prosperous Italian immigrant parents. Many of my classmates thought we were mob. I kid you not.
One of my suspicious-minded classmates at Loretto Abbey High School blatantly asked me, ‘Is your Dad a mafioso?’ Shock. Had I been quick-witted enough, I would have lobbed back something cutting and personal, but that didn’t happen. ‘No’ I mumbled, and then simply shuffled off, speculating on how many other classmates believed the same.
Now I’m wondering if Vanky got the same question when she went to school, and what her answer might have been.
For comprehensive background and detail on the long-standing relationship between Trump, his tribe and Russia’s many shadier characters, there are numerous good reads you can turn to. As an expert on Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Olga Lautman was the senior researcher for some of them: Craig Unger’s House of Trump, House of Putin and his latest work American Kompromat as well as Malcolm Vance’s The Plot to Betray America. Actually, my very first read on the topic was Luke Hardings’s Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.
In conversation with Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa on their podcast Gaslit Nation, Olga reveals that the Russian mob has been in operation, in earnest, in the US since roughly the early 80s, after winning a turf war, almost eliminating the power of the Italian mafia in Brighton Beach and New York.
Back in the Motherland, seismic changes were underfoot. Short on cash, the state began selling off the family jewels- energy resources- and many of the state operated industries ended up in the hands of Russia’s most powerful but unscrupulous men- ex-KGB agents, business magnates and to be frank, Russian mobsters. How could they possibly export the funds they were all skimming off the top of their industries?
I won’t give away the whole story here, but I will say that this is when we began to see large-scale money laundering operations through shell companies buying up real estate in the US.
Where did 14 Russian mobsters buy apartments in 1984? Go ahead, take a guess. It was none other than 721 5th Avenue New York City, or rather, Trump Tower. They’ve been taking advantage of the many loopholes in American legislation, allowing them to legally penetrate the real estate industry specifically, and over time they’ve also been leveraging influence through the exploitation of campaign finance, social media, the tech sector, K Street lobbyists and corporate lawyers.
Incredibly, as Sarah Kendzior has said repeatedly, it’s all been ‘Hiding In Plain Sight.’ What emerges from the mountain of research and investigation is how vulnerable American institutions have been to foreign influence for the past 40 years.
In an up-coming pod with Craig Unger, we’ll be getting into the details of this long-standing relationship between the House of Trump and the House of Putin, their operations, their influence on American politics, and a view to their ultimate endgame.
As I think back on what Unger and others have revealed, I can’t help thinking that the real winner in all this sordid story is Putin. I can just picture him: after he heard the news that his buddy had won the presidency, Vlady must have stretched out on his favourite chaise longue, sipping shampanskoye from a Baccarat crystal glass, admiring the view over Cape Idokopas from the comfort of his now infamous ‘Winter Palace.’
Knowingly or unknowingly, Trump never let him down.
I think the Helsinki 2017 Summit, when the two leaders met, pretty much dispelled any doubt over the true nature of their relationship: this is when Trump took the Russian side over his own intelligence services, saying "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be," in reference to allegations of Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential race. Putin also happens to be the only leader Trump never denigrated via tweet during his whole presidency.
For my chat with Olga Lautman, we’ll be focusing on what’s happening now in Putin’s ever increasing authoritarian regime, and Alexei Navalny’s imprisonment and opposition efforts.
Alexei Navalny’s lifestory has been widely reported in the press, and there has been some criticism in the past calling him an opportunist. This said, his Anti-Corruption Foundation has been releasing entertaining videos for years, exposing an array of thieving kleptocrats- oligarchs, ministers and law enforcement officials- who have been skimming off the system, and they all seem to be linked to Vladimir Putin.
Obviously, Navalny is a persistent and pesky problem for Putin, so he decided to deal with him by getting the special unit for chemical warfare of the FSB services to put Novichok in his underpants. In an stunning exposè, Navalny and investigators working at Bellingcat, The Insider and CNN actually found and contacted one of the agents involved in the poisoning, interviewed him, thus unveiling the whole plot to have him killed. You can’t make this stuff up. It gets better- wait.
While Navalny could have stayed in the West, joining the ranks of many exiled Russian opposition leaders, he chose a different path, challenging Putin directly. In an audacious act, he returned to Russia, knowing full-well that he would be arrested the minute he set foot in Sheremetyevo International Airport, and that’s exactly what happened.
I’ll never forget that Sunday- I was at my computer writing a piece for Notes, and Davide sent me a link to watch Navalny’s return on livestreaming. It seemed at once quite surreal and tragic- he knew what he was up against, and yet, he and his wife faced it with such serenity and courage. When I think about it, I still get teary-eyed at the images of Navalny saying goodbye to Yulia.
[From Meduza, a collection of photos of Alexei Navalny]
It’s no wonder that Navalny’s poisoning, his sham trial and his imprisonment has served as a catalyst for opposition to the regime, setting off nation-wide protests, calling for his release and more. On the day of his sentencing, Navalny spoke out against Putin:
The explanation is one man’s hatred and fear — one man hiding in a bunker. I mortally offended him by surviving. I survived thanks to good people, thanks to pilots and doctors. And then I committed an even more serious offense: I didn’t run and hide. Then something truly terrifying happened: I participated in the investigation of my own poisoning, and we proved, in fact, that Putin, using Russia’s Federal Security Service, was responsible for this attempted murder. And that’s driving this thieving little man in his bunker out of his mind. He’s simply going insane as a result.
(full speech: Alexey Navalny)
From the snow and ice of Yakutsk to St Petersburg, Putin’s home city, Russians are braving the riot police, knowing they can be pulled into the avtozak (police vans) at random, but this doesn’t deter them. In an interview in the Guardian, Yulia Makhovskaya provides a glimpse of the sentiment animating the protesters:
I had stopped protesting for a long time, everything seemed pointless. But something today just made me feel I had to come. Navalny was just the last drop.
Putin is doubling down on them with far more aggressive measures than in the past. Protests aren’t new to Russia: opposition leaders and protesters took to the streets nation-wide most recently in 2011, 2014 and in 2017. It’s really the extent of repressive violence coming from the regime that is remarkable, and most analysts say it signals a weakening of Putin’s power- he seems to be losing his grip.
While the latest polls show that Russians don’t actually want a complete change, they are saying that they are increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of life in Mother Russia, and that Putin isn’t delivering on his promises. Many factions within the opposition are asking for reform: anti-corruption measures and a return to the rule of law. They’re simply fed up with the status quo of inertia and corruption.
Russia is the world’s largest state and its geography is unforgiving; industrial activity of any kind is difficult and expensive. I think my Canadian friends and readers would agree that keeping infrastructure and other essential services going in Canada is extremely costly: the same can be said for Russia. It’s true that Russia is rich in natural resources, and profits derived from the sale of oil and gas, but not much else has been developed. Lastly, as Mark Galeotti has pointed out in a most recent interview with Prof Scott Lucas, “everything that wasn’t nailed down has been stolen”.
During Putin’s tenure in office, Russian essential services have been cut to the bone, everything except intelligence agencies and the military, and my guess is that these are what he’s banking on to a keep hold on his power for the moment. After all, what more would an autocrat want or need? Actually, the more violence Putin unleashes on his own citizens, the weaker or more destabilised the regime looks.
Now that western democracies have a friend in the White House, is this not the right time for the European Union and the US to counter Russian aggressive measures aimed at weakening the West since 2013-14? Would targeted sanctions against key figures in the regime not send an unequivocal message that the western alliances will no longer tolerate human rights abuses in Russia? Is this just not the right thing to do?
These are questions I’ll be asking MEP Sophie in’t Veld of Renew Europe in an up-coming pod chat, as well as what vision exactly the EU has for its future. In’t Veld has been quite vocal on a number of issues concerning domestic and foreign affairs, the latest being, Josep Borrell’s visit to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.
Everyone expected Borrell to express our indignation concerning Navalny’s poisoning and imprisonment as well as other human rights abuses against the protesters, but the opposite happened as Edward Lucas for CEPA reports:
…the inexperienced Borrell behaved more like a supplicant. He meekly allowed the Russian lie-master, Sergei Lavrov, to dominate a joint press conference, setting the agenda and reiterating Kremlin talking points, such as the absurd lie that Navalny’s poisoning was a publicity stunt. In a further humiliation for Borrell, Russia greeted him by expelling three diplomats from EU countries.
What is blocking the EU Commission and/or Parliament from taking a leading role in foreign affairs, thus showing the Americans that they do have a partner in international affairs? Paul De Grauwe, John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy at the LSE’s European Institute and ex-member of the Belgian parliament, hints at one aspect of this issue:
Europe has built up an economic union but not a defence union. The European Union is economically 12 times larger than Russia; a huge potential power. However, this economic power is not converted into military and political power because defence has remained a national matter. By merging their military capabilities, it would be possible for France and Germany to build a credible defence against Russian threats, without having to spend more.
In essence, “Russia is powerful because Europe grants that power to Russia.”
The same ambivalence towards Russia is displayed in our stance towards China: I have no idea what our position is with China at the moment, and I’m dismayed at our silence towards the atrocities being committed in the concentration camps in East Turkistan by China, as denounced in a BBC report by Salih Hudayar, Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile:
For decades Uyghur and other Turkic women in East Turkistan have been victims of sexual violence, rape, forced sterilization, forced abortion, forced marriages, and other crimes perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party.
Frankly put, both the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China represent the two largest blocs with whom we need to clarify our position for various reasons. Besides the continuing human rights abuses and genocide that we cannot close our eyes to, we’ll have to defend ourselves from the real possibility of a joint Russia-China bloc of influence on a global scale: it could become the dominant power bloc. All you need to do is pay attention to their vaccine diplomacy to get an idea of what they’re doing: they aren’t competing against each other- they’re partnering in many theatres across the globe.
Our conversation won’t stop at that: we’ll be discussing internal affairs as well- namely, the benefits of having a stronger EU Parliament, for example, as well as how we should be dealing with our own members that violate human rights.
What seems obvious to me is that the European Union in its current form can’t possibly face the monumental challenges we’re sure to have in the future. I’ll be asking in’t Veld if she agrees with me on the need to move towards further unification of the European Union, perhaps a federation of sorts. What would that entail? What would be the benefits and the costs? What of issues pertaining to identity and culture?
I must add a little personal note to all this: our new PM Mario Draghi gave his maiden speech on Feb 17 in the Italian Senate, pressing the point that his government is fully committed to the EU:
Supporting this government means agreeing with the irreversibility of the choice of the euro, it means agreeing with the prospect of ever closer EU integration which will arrive at a common budget able to sustain countries in times of recession.
After 3 years of populist rhetoric in Italy, coming from all both ends of the political spectrum, I breathed a sigh of relief at PM Draghi’s statements.
A definite listen…
World Unfiltered Podcast with Prof Scott Lucas: Interview with Mark Galeotti
Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin has pushed through changes which could keep him in power through 2036. At the same time, protests over the Kremlin’s poisoning and arrest of opposition figure Alexei Navalny have grabbed headlines. There are serious issues with the economy, pensions, and social security. And while Russian hybrid warfare, military operations, and interventions- including in elections in the US and EU- brought immediate success, they have also provoked pushback and led to new challenges.
The real PM at No.10…
Up-coming pods:
Feb 20: Olga Lautman- Putin, Trump & Navalny
Feb 24: Prof Ruth Ben-Ghiat- Strongmen
Keep your eye on…
As promised…
In my chat with Pierpaolo, I promised a picture of the salters in Siena. This is the most recent model. For those of you that know nothing about my town, it’s a medieval fortress city with very narrow streets, so this little ‘ape’ is quite effective.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Before you go…
I’ve immensely enjoyed chatting with guests who are doing cutting-edge research and investigation and I’m also grateful that they give us a glimpse into their expert worlds. Some are really well-known, while others aren’t in the spotlight of mainstream media. I also realise that these topics are heavy-duty (as my Dad would say): we don’t deal with fluff on CTP. Davide, Rebecca and I spend a lot of time on research and trying to put together pods that open new perspectives for you. We sincerely hope you’re enjoying them, so drop us a line on guests you’d like to hear from and feedback on the ones you’ve appreciated or not. There’s always room for improvement.
Thanks for listening!
Mo, Davide & Rebecca
Feel free to DM me @MoniqueCamarra on Twitter or write us an email: coffeetalkpolitics@gmail.com
Senior researcher: Davide Cortese
Junior researcher: Rebecca Bello (University of Siena)
Thanks for reading!
Mo