Toronto Star

Putin warns of efforts to destabiliz­e Russia

Russian president says West trying to undermine values that unite society

- VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his nation’s top counterint­elligence agency Wednesday to redouble its efforts to address what he described as Western attempts to destabiliz­e Russia.

Speaking at a meeting of top officials of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main KGB successor agency, Putin pointed at the “so-called policy of containmen­t of Russia,” charging that it includes efforts to “derail our developmen­t, slow it down, create problems alongside our borders, provoke internal instabilit­y and undermine the values that unite the Russian society.”

The Russian president added that those activities by foreign powers, which he didn’t name, are aimed at “weakening Russia and putting it under outside control.”

The United States and its NATO allies have rejected similar previous claims by the

Kremlin that they were seeking to undermine Russia.

Russia’s relations with the West plummeted to post-Cold War lows following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidenti­al election. The recent arrest of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and a sweeping crackdown on protesters demanding his release has been another source of tension.

Speaking in Washington, White House press secretary

Jen Psaki noted that when U.S. President Joe Biden recently had a call with Putin, he “did not hold back in expressing his concerns about the actions of his government.”

Psaki said that Biden has asked his national security team to look into reports of Russian hacking around the 2020 election, the massive SolarWinds hack, as well as informatio­n that Russia had offered bounties to the Taliban for killing American troops in Afghanista­n. “It will be weeks not months before it’s concluded and we have more details about our response,” she said.

Russia has denied involvemen­t in any of those activities.

Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested on Jan. 17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authoritie­s have rejected the accusation and accused Navalny of co-operating with Western intelligen­ce agencies — claims which he has ridiculed.

Earlier this month, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating terms of his probation while convalesci­ng in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzleme­nt conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated and the European Court of Human Rights has ruled to be unlawful.

Navalny’s arrest has fueled a wave of protests that drew tens of thousands to the streets across Russia. The authoritie­s have detained about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 days.

 ?? ALEXEI DRUZHININ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? President Vladimir Putin didn’t name the foreign powers, but Russia’s relations with the West have been tense for years.
ALEXEI DRUZHININ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS President Vladimir Putin didn’t name the foreign powers, but Russia’s relations with the West have been tense for years.

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