Russia remains America’s foremost “geopolitical foe,” top foreign policy advisors for Mitt Romney have stressed. They also blasted the Obama administration for, they say, cozying up to Moscow in the wake of the so-called "reset" in relations.

“Russia is a significant geopolitical foe. Governor Romney recognizes that,” Richard S. Williamson, America’s Special Envoy to Sudan and the Romney campaign's foreign policy advisor, told reporters at a panel organized by the right-wing Foreign Policy Initiative.

Williamson contended that the "reset" in relations with Moscow, which had been announced by the Obama administration in 2009, had been a failure.

“They are crowding out civil society, they are trampling human rights, and they are opposed to us in a number of interests,” Williamson was quoted by Foreign Policy as saying. “We have to reset the failed reset policy.”

Another senior foreign policy advisor for Romney, former ambassador-at-large Pierre-Richard Prosper, also expressed his support for the former Massachusetts Governor’s stance on Russia.

“They are our foe,” Prosper stressed. “They have chosen a path of confrontation, not cooperation, and I think the governor was correct in that, even though there are some voices in Washington that find that uncomfortable.”

He also attacked Romney's critics for saying the Republican candidate’s remarks on Russia ignored history.

“Those who think liberal ideas of engagement will bend actions also don't understand history,” Prosper noted. “We're better to be frank and honest.”

The former envoy also suggested that Russia was never “on the side of peace” or “humanity,” and said it was “not behaving like a democracy” despite claiming to be one.(...)

Vladislav Inozemtsev, economist and opposition politician, recently published an opinion piece extolling the virtues of the protestant ethic and calling for the modernization of the Russian Orthodox Church. The article was a response to the sentencing of the three Pussy Riot members to two years in prison on August 17.

Inozemtsev was on trend. In the past several months, many Russian bloggers have compared the slow disaster of the trial to the start of the Protestant Reformation. (...)

The Pussy Riot Trial Begins: Feminist Activists Take on Putin
by Allison Kilkenny
The Nation
July 31, 2012

Three members of Pussy Riot, a group of Russian feminist activists that has challenged the Kremlin, went on trial in Moscow Monday. Pussy Riot is a punk-rock collective that stages political impromptu performances all across Moscow, most recently an anti–Vladmir Putin demonstration inside a cathedral, an act which may now land the women in jail for up to seven years...

(...) Vladimir V. Putin did well in Chechnya, a place that he virtually declared war on after becoming president in 1999, and whose people have suffered grievous human rights abuses at the hands of Russian security forces. The final tally: Putin, 1,482 votes; Gennady A. Zyuganov, the Communist Party leader, one vote.

This result was in itself statistically improbable. But even more difficult for the teachers who had been drafted onto the electoral commission to explain was the turnout: there were only 1,389 people registered in the precinct, meaning that the turnout was 107 percent.

“Look, something is not adding up here,” said Milana Atlanova, the head of the commission, growing increasingly confused.

Analysts of Russian elections say the North Caucasus region is a place where violations of election law are uniquely brazen, from a combination of top-down pressure, cultural factors and, in Chechnya, a fearful milieu of police intimidation.

Fraud that to a Western eye seems outrageous is tolerated and never followed up on in courts. It is also rarely seen by independent election observers, who do not monitor Chechnya for safety reasons.

The flagrant fraud witnessed here in Sunday’s election did not greatly affect the outcome nationally, in that the North Caucasus region is home only to 6 percent of Russia’s voters. But it shows the deep tolerance of undemocratic practices that persists in Russia, particularly in places beyond the reach of Western observers.(...)

Couldn't find the appropriate thread....

Anyone following the 'democratic' development in Russia? Very interesting how Putin and friends define Democracy.

Some may say it's the only way to manage a heterogenous and giant country like Russia, but when I notice how the opposition gets suppressed, how TV, press and broadcast push Putin & Co. and how critical websites have been under attack during the elections, I cannot call Russia a democratic system.

Is this in the focus of the US citizens too, or is it too abstract, too far away?