Victory will herald a slow succession struggle
Britain blames Vladimir Putin for nerve agent attack, and police launch murder inquiry, as Russian president prepares for another soft election win.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said it is ‘‘overwhelmingly likely’’ that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the poisoning of a Russian former spy in England, in the most direct British accusation against the Russian leader to date.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov immediately shot back, saying that bringing up Putin in the context of the case was ‘‘shocking and unforgivable in terms of diplomatic behaviour’’.
Johnson’s comments yesterday followed Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision on Thursday to expel 23 Russian diplomats from Britain. Russia confirmed that it would expel British diplomats and halt high-level meetings in turn.
‘‘Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe for the first time since the Second World War,’’ Johnson said during a visit to a museum in London.
The poisoning of Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, in Salisbury with a nerve agent identified by British authorities as one made only by Russia has thrown the two countries’ relations into a profound crisis.
Aside from confirming that it would expel some British diplomats, without giving the number, Russia has been coy about its potential responses.
‘‘The Russian side has made its As the largest country on Earth goes to the polls today, there is growing intrigue over who will become president – in 2024.
Vladimir Putin’s victory in the Russian election is so certain that the question of who will take the helm when his next term expires in six years’ time is already being asked.
Early pretenders include the son of the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), a former bodyguard to the president, and a nerdy bureaucrat who invented a space-scanning device called a ‘‘Nooscope’’.
The dreary election campaign has raised fears among Putin’s aides of a low turnout, but the Kremlin can still massage the figures by leaning on factory staff, teachers, doctors and other state workers to cast their ballots. Insiders say the target is ‘‘70/70’’ – a 70 per cent turnout and a 70 per cent win for the incumbent.
Putin’s nearest rival, Pavel Grudinin, a millionaire communist and fan of Stalin, is predicted to get 7 per cent at most.
In the absence of any doubt about the result, Russia’s political elite is buzzing with theories about how Putin’s next and probably final term will play out, and who will succeed him. The coming years are expected to become increasingly dominated by the question as factions struggle for supremacy.
Putin, 65, has been president or prime minister since 1999, clearing the field of any real political challengers..
Alexei Navalny, 41, an anticorruption campaigner and strident critic of Putin, has been barred from running, and the seven candidates who are standing against the president are all governmentendorsed.
Another victory is not in doubt, but Russia’s constitution bars Putin from standing for a third consecutive term in 2024. That
decisions on tit-for-tat measures, and the British side will be notified of them not in the next few hours, but in the near future,’’ Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the Interfax news agency.
Alexander Gabuev, a Russian foreign policy analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said the delay was probably related to today’s presidential election.
‘‘They’re either saving the response for closer to the big day or want to minimise negative news until after the election,’’ he said.
Because May delivered the British response, Putin would want to deliver Russia’s, Gabuev said.
‘‘Simply expelling 23 British diplomats probably won’t be enough. There are other elements to Britain’s reaction, and you need means that he must give up power, raising the prospect of political bloodletting.
Navalny said last month that the principal ‘‘crooks and thieves’’ who were running the country should be prosecuted if Putin was ousted, but the campaigner remains weak and it is doubtful that he can break the chains imposed on him by a corrupted judiciary and bureaucracy.
Analysts believe that Putin will probably anoint a loyalist as his successor and retain a guiding role behind the scenes.
‘‘Putin is already tired and fed up with his job. It doesn’t give him the thrill that it used to,’’ said one analyst, Dmitry Oreshkin. ‘‘But he
to give a ‘mirror’ response to that as well.’’
The Russian government has also been vague about its response to Washington’s expansion of sanctions against Russian individuals believed to have played a role in alleged cyberattacks and attempts to influence the 2016 United States presidential election.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said yesterday that Moscow would expand its own ‘‘black list’’ of Americans, adding that additional measures had not been ruled out. ‘‘Those [American] politicians are playing with fire,’’ he said.
In a separate development yesterday, London police announced that they are investigating as a murder case the death of Nikolai Glushkov, a 68-year-old Russian businessman can’t leave completely because he fears the consequences.’’
Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin adviser, and Ivan Krastev, an analyst, have predicted that the president will start to nurture a ‘‘Putin generation’’ of politicians who came of age during his rule. They have identified two broad camps of rising young hopefuls.
One group of Putin-era siloviki – men with military and security ties – is extending its influence in the financial sphere.
It includes Denis Bortnikov, 43, son of FSB director Alexander Bortnikov; Dmitry Patrushev, 40, son of the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev; and Sergei Ivanov, 37, son of Putin’s
found unresponsive in his London home on Tuesday. A pathologist’s report identified the cause of death as ‘‘compression to the neck’’.
‘‘At this stage, there is nothing to suggest any link to the attempted murders in Salisbury, nor any evidence that he was poisoned,’’ police cautioned in a statement.
London’s counter-terrorism officers were leading the investigation, police said, because of the ‘‘associations Mr Glushkov is believed to have had’’. He was a close friend of Boris Berezovsky, a Russian dissident who himself died in mysterious circumstances in 2013.
Russia also announced that it would be opening an investigation into Glushkov’s death.
In the Salisbury case, Russia has focused its efforts on a campaign former chief of staff of the same name. Alexei Dyumin, 45, a former bodyguard to the president, has also risen through the ranks.
The other clan comprises technocrats, such as Nooscope inventor Anton Vaino, 46, the president’s head of administration; and Maxim Oreshkin, 35, the economy minister.
It was once thought that Putin would hand over the Kremlin to a macho military veteran such as Sergei Shoygu, 62, the defence minister. Instead, he may skip over acolytes such as Dmitry Medvedev, 52, the prime minister, to pluck a successor from the up-and-coming crowd.
Ksenia Sobchak, 36, may yet have a role to play. The former socialite and TV presenter is the daughter of Putin’s former boss and mentor, the late Anatoly Sobchak.
She is running today as the only candidate who openly criticises Putin. She is polling at 2 per cent, but could act later as a trusted intermediary to ease Putin from power ‘‘bloodlessly’’.
‘‘Navalny has been marginalised and is more of a dissident, whose supporters are now mostly teenagers up for a fight,’’ Oreshkin said. ‘‘If a genuine opposition force is to emerge it could come through Sobchak, because she is inside the system.’’
Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision – and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K. Boris Johnson
of denial and counterclaim in which officials at times have contradicted each other.
Ryabkov claimed that Russia had never developed anything like the alleged nerve agent, identified by British scientists as Novichok. Shortly afterwards, a Russian lawmaker alleged that the US stole samples while helping to decommission the facility where Novichok was made in the 1990s. Most statements have fallen somewhere in between the two extremes.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday continued to deny and deflect blame, claiming again that British allegations of Russian involvement in Skripal’s poisoning were groundless and anti-Russian. He said he wished the Skripals a speedy recovery and hoped they could shed light on what happened when they were British Foreign Secretary
better.
Lavrov also lashed out at Britain for not providing consular access to Yulia Skripal, who along with her father is in critical condition at a Salisbury hospital. Several areas in the town are also still cordoned off as police continue their investigation.
Writing in The Guardian yesterday, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called for ‘‘calm heads’’ and warned against rushing into a ‘‘new Cold War’’.
Corbyn suggested that the possibility that the Russians had lost control of the dangerous nerve agent – which May floated this week but has since discounted – could not be excluded.
Corbyn also argued that targeting ‘‘oligarchs and their loot would have a far greater impact on Russia’s elite than limited titfor-tat expulsions’’.
London is something of a hub for Russian dissidents and superrich oligarchs. The wealthiest snap up the city’s luxury homes for eye-popping prices.
Anti-corruption advocates say some of that property is bought with questionable funds. A 2017 report by Transparency International linked Russia to about of fifth of the ‘‘suspicious wealth’’ used to purchase London property. Analysts say this means the Britain could go after Russian interests.
The US, France and Germany have formally backed Britain’s claims that Russia was likely responsible for the attack, calling it the ‘‘first offensive use of a nerve agent’’ in Europe since World War II.