Four thousand miles west of Portland, Oregon, running across the Pacific Ocean, there are other political parties that deserve our attention.
In the town of Khabarovsk, in the far east of Russia, near the Chinese border, tens of thousands of angry Russians came for 3 weeks to control the arrest of a favorite young governor. Sergei Furgal got out of his car, took him to Moscow and accused him of murdering a 15-year-old, but his real crime is challenging Vladimir Putin through the definition of a great Kremlin friend in the election.
What makes those demonstrations so surprising is that Putin has crushed similar protests in the remote Moscow region and elsewhere. The Kremlin has also taken strong action against the remnants of the loose press and political activists since Putin organized a referendum on July 1 that would allow him to become president again for his life.
But serious economic problems, the addition of low oil costs and coVID-1 ravages, as well as blatant corruption in the Kremlin, are gnawing on Putin’s legitimacy. The Kremlin was surprised by the wave of public rage in Khabarovsk and has not yet decided what to do.
READ ALSO: By breaking down federalists in Portland for political gain, Trump follows Trudy Rubin from autocrats
Khabarovsk is a reminder of invigoscore that, weakened at home, Putin may be even more desperate to discover that Russia is a wonderful world power. This gives you a strong incentive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. In favor of his fervent admirer, Donald J. Trump.
Get the scoop you like to start your day
Looking at the breeding station of the protests, it is undeniable to feel the fury of the Russians in Putin’s multimillion-dollar circle when Apple’s large medical facilities lack running water or mining and small businesses are being ripped off by the authorities.
Khabarovsk’s banners said, “We hate Moscow”; “Putin resigns!”; They robbed our governor”; and “Get away from our river, our minerals, our resources.” The BBC reports that, according to Levada’s survey, 83% of Russians are very familiar with prochecks and 45% view positively, state-controlled television has ignored them.
If you want to understand how post-Soviet Russia was overtaken by thugs, read Putin People: how the KGB touched Russia and then the West, from investigative journalist Catherine Belton. He explains how Putin and a small organization of KGB agents, mainly from their home in the city of St. Petersburg, took control of the country’s herbal resources and extended tentacles to the United States and Europe.
Reading the book brought me back to a later day in November 1998 when I stood near the stairs of an apartment in St. Petersburg, on a landing full of flowers in homage to Galina Starovoitova. A rights activist from Huguy and a member of Parliament whom he knew well, was shot there more than a day earlier, his crusade in opposition to corruption in the oil industry is said to have been shot. Putin, then head of Russia’s leading intelligence firm and who will become president directly, may also know who ordered the coup, but the killer was never identified.
In the cemetery of Galina, in an icy cold, an endless process of mourning developed, stacking notes and flowers on the site, while the big apple wept in silence. These tears were the prelude to Putin’s two decades of rapacious brutality that Khabarovsk provoked.
The courage of the protesters, and Governor Furgal, will therefore have to be the recognized best friend. Aleven, although Putin’s popularity is at its lowest point since he held office, is nearly 59%, perhaps because Russians see no alternative, perhaps because they worry pollsters. The other Khabarovsk Americans know the dangers of challenging Putin and the slim chances of moving the Kremlin, but they are proving to be.
READ ALSO: In Kiev, talk about Trump’s jolt, Trudy Rubin
But the Kremlin’s abduction of Furgal is a reminder of Putin’s technique and the importance of the 2020 election to the Russian leader. He has openly expressed his direct determination to make Russia’s strength in Europe larger, with political and military provocations. He brabably seeks to undermine NATO and weaken the European Union.
Trump has long helped Putin, denigrating the EU and NATO, and threatening to abandon the security alliance, while urging Putin to resume G-7 talks despite European objections. If Trump were re-elected, Apple’s big European officials assume he would leave NATO. “If Trump wins, it’s never about whether NATO will disappear,” Congressman Brendan Boyle (D-PA), a member of the delegation delegated directly to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, told me. Boyle says this is the corporation’s conviction of pro-American leaders across the ideological spectrum in Europe.
Putin has one and the other interest in intervening in the 2020 election.
“They don’t seek to do much, just to maximize our volatility,” said Fiona Hill, a former security expert across Russia who testified at Trump’s political trial hearings. “If they think Biden is going to win, they’ll review him and weaken him. If the election is close, anything small can also have more consequences.”
Khabarovsk serves as a warning that a wounded autocrat in his home can also attack elsewhere. Think of Galina. Pray for the protesters. And be careful.
Get the scoop you like to start your day