Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the US on Monday of trying to taint the legitimacy of next week's Russian parliamentary elections by pressing a group of prominent independent election observers to abandon efforts to monitor the campaign.
Putin contended that the monitors, who are deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), had halted plans to appraise the parliamentary balloting at the urging of the US State Department.
Putin's statements in recent weeks have taken on an increasingly nationalistic tone as he has sought to muster support for his party in the elections on Sunday. Speaking to reporters on Monday in St. Petersburg, he once again criticized what he suggested was foreign meddling in Russia's affairs.
PHOTO: AP
"According to information we have, it was again done at the recommendation of the US State Department, and we will take this into account in our interstate relations with this country," he said. "Their goal is the delegitimization of the elections. But they will not achieve even this goal."
If Russia maintains a robust military, Putin said, "we will not allow anyone to poke their snotty nose into our affairs."
US diplomats said they had no role in the cancelation of the election-monitoring mission, and the monitoring group called Putin's assertion "nonsense."
Bush expressed deep concern on Monday over the detention of political leaders, including former chess champion Garry Kasparov, during the weekend in Moscow, St. Petersburg and two other cities.
"The freedoms of expression, assembly and press, as well as due process, are fundamental to any democratic society," Bush said in a statement.
"I am particularly troubled by the use of force by law enforcement authorities to stop these peaceful activities and to prevent some journalists and human rights activists from covering them," he said. "I am hopeful that the government of Russia will honor its international obligations in these areas, investigate allegations of abuses and free those who remain in detention."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Bush's criticism, saying police had responded properly to "provocations" by protesters who refused to remain in an area where city authorities had permitted them to demonstrate.
"All democratic states have laws, and people must abide by them," Lavrov said in Washington, in remarks broadcast yesterday on state-run Vesti-24 television. "I saw nothing in the actions of the law enforcement organs to indicate that they exceeded their authority."
Meanwhile, Russia's top election official appeared to rule out the possibility of Putin exploiting a legal loophole to run for a third term, a Moscow radio station reported.
Some politicians with Kremlin links say if Putin steps down before the end of his term and then runs in a presidential election next year, he would be able to dodge a constitutional ban on presidents serving three consecutive terms.
An election law prohibits a head of state from running in a snap election called as a result of that person leaving office early. But it does not spell out what happens if the president steps down after a scheduled election has already been called.
The election will be officially called today, when the March 2 date is published in the official gazette. According to the theory, that opens up a window for Putin to step down and then enter the race.
But Vladimir Churov, a former Putin colleague who now chairs the Central Election Commission, seemed to rule this out in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio station aired late on Monday.
"After publication of the ... presidential election date, the law prohibiting a citizen having served two consecutive presidential terms from participating in the election goes into effect," he said.
Asked what would happen if Putin tried to exploit this loophole, Churov said: "In that case, the best lawyers and political scientists will be pulling their hair out trying to work this out."
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion