In this week’s media highlights, Luke Harding details in The Guardian the story of a former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned in 2006 in London. In The American Interest, Lilia Shevtsova takes on the mistakes of the expert community that focuses on Russia both inside the country and in the West. And Maxim Trudolyubov in his commentary for the Wilson Center discusses the drawbacks of the Russian state.
Marina Litvinenko, Alexander Litvinenko's wife, holds a copy of the inquiry into his death during a press conference in London. Photo: PA Wire / Press Association Images / TASS.
Alexander Litvinenko: the man who solved his own murder
Luke Harding, The Guardian
Based on his extensive research of the Litvinenko murder, Harding details the circumstances behind the fatal meeting between the victim and his two killers at the Millenium Hotel in London. He closely tracks Litvinenko’s last days as he was dying in the hospital from an unknown poison, trying to solve his own murder.
So Putin Killed Litvinenko. Carry On.
Peter Pomerantsev, Foreign Policy
Pomerantsev focuses on the duplicity of the British politics that has been once again highlighted in the case of Alexander Litvinenko. There were plenty of reasons to suspect that the Kremlin was involved in his murder, but for years the British government would block efforts for a public inquiry of this case, “seemingly for the fear of jeopardizing its trade ties with Russia.”
Putin’s Pointers for U.S. Democracy
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View
According to Bershidsky, the U.S. should not dismiss some of the criticisms of its political system, voiced by Vladimir Putin and his allies. Some of them—including those of the disproportionate power distribution determined by the electoral college or of the high spending by the candidates during campaigns—have good value despite the fact that they came from an authoritarian leader.
How the West Misjudged Russia. Part1: The Normativists; Part 2: The Pragmatists
Lilia Shevtsova, The American Interest
In this series of articles, Shevtsova argues that the Western expert and decision-making community misjudged Russia and its trajectory due to normative disorientation. In part one, she divides Russia experts into two categories: normativists and pragmatists. The former, who favor value-based approach, failed to develop a dual-track approach to foreign policy, incorporating values and interests. The latter, who rely on rationalism, balance of interests and force, are discussed in part two of the series where the author accuses them of inability to acknowledge the cause-and-effect relations between Russia’s foreign and domestic policies.
Russia Won’t Recover Unless It Reforms Its State
Maxim Trudolyubov, Wilson Center
In Russia, Trudolyubov writes, the state has grown to become “an almost Hobbesian creature that has its aspirations and idiosyncrasies,” as well as the “protagonist of the Putin years.” Today, the state that is usually presented by the government as a solution to all Russia’s problems, might have become a problem in itself causing a systemic crisis in the country. However, the Russian public still needs to acknowledge this fact.
