Putin Declares Fighting Magnitsky Sanctions One of His Top Foreign Policy Goals

May 16, 2012

In his first for­eign pol­i­cy move, Pres­i­dent Putin signed an exec­u­tive order on for­eign affairs on May 7, 2012, where he offi­cial­ly declared that fight­ing Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions is now one of Rus­si­a’s top for­eign pol­i­cy goals. In the exec­u­tive order Pres­i­dent Putin said:
“Here­by I instruct to car­ry out active work to pre­vent the intro­duc­tion of uni­lat­er­al extrater­ri­to­r­i­al sanc­tions by the USA against Russ­ian legal enti­ties and indi­vid­u­als.” http://www.kremlin.ru/acts/15256)

This is the first time that the Russ­ian head of state has explict­ly stat­ed that fight­ing the Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions of visa bans and asset freezes on cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials is a nation­al policy. 

“Putin’s exec­u­tive order shows clear­ly that the entire Russ­ian gov­ern­ment is now work­ing in the inter­ests of cor­rupt offi­cials who have com­mit­ted grave crimes. Pres­i­dent Putin is ready to use the full resources of the state to fight sanc­tions but is not ready to do any­thing at all to pros­e­cute his own cor­rupt offi­cials who stole $230 mil­lion and who then tor­tured the whis­tle-blow­er Sergei Mag­nit­sky who dis­cov­ered the theft,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.

Putin’s exec­u­tive order comes ahead of the next meet­ing of the Bureau of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe (PACE) sched­uled on 24 – 25 May 2012 in Tirana, where the motion for an inde­pen­dent inter­na­tion­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the Sergei Mag­nit­sky case will be discussed. 

In April 2012, del­e­gates to the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe launched a draft motion enti­tled “Refus­ing Impuni­ty for the Killers of Sergei Mag­nit­sky”. The motion calls for a ‘ded­i­cat­ed report’ to inves­ti­gate the death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky and was sup­port­ed by 69 mem­bers of par­lia­ment from 29 coun­tries. It is now sched­uled for review by the PACE Bureau at its next meeting.

In addi­tion to the PACE inves­ti­ga­tion, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is also becom­ing increas­ing­ly vocal on the Mag­nit­sky case. The day after Putin’s exec­u­tive order was pub­lished, Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt, the leader of the Lib­er­als and Democ­rats fac­tion of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, and for­mer prime min­is­ter of Bel­gium, called upon Europe and the Unit­ed States to end the pol­i­cy of “polite appease­ment” of the cur­rent Russ­ian polit­i­cal regime and urged them to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly enact leg­isla­tive sanc­tions on Russ­ian offi­cials in Mag­nit­sky case, stat­ing this will have a “sober­ing” effect, and will pro­mote democ­ra­cy and change.

In an arti­cle called “Spring Will Come to Rus­sia” pub­lished on May 8, 2012 by the New York Times, Mr Ver­hof­s­tadt said:
“So far our pol­i­cy of polite appease­ment has not worked. Rus­sia needs access and respectabil­i­ty in the out­side world more than the out­side world needs Russ­ian gas or raw mate­ri­als… The adop­tion of sim­i­lar laws on both sides of the Atlantic to block visas and freeze the assets of those Russ­ian offi­cials, and their imme­di­ate fam­i­lies, involved or com­plic­it in the mur­der of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the lawyer who died in jail after alleg­ing wide­spread tax fraud by offi­cials, would have a sober­ing effect.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/opinion/spring-will-come-to-russia.html?_r=3

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