Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Putin doubts Trump can fix ties
Russian fields media questions on Olympics, array of issues
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said he doubted President Donald Trump would be able to improve relations between their two countries because Trump was being held back by his political opposition.
Trump undoubtedly has had some successes as president, including a booming U.S. stock market, Putin said. But, he asserted, reports about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election were being invented to create questions about his U.S. counterpart’s legitimacy. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“There are things that he would want to do but hasn’t been able to so far, like reforming health care or other goals. For instance, he spoke about improving relations with Russia,” Putin said in remarks carried on national television. “It’s clear that, even if he wanted to, he’s not in a condition to do that because of some clear restrictions” created by his opponents.
“I don’t know if he still wants [to improve relations with Russia], or if it’s totally exhausted, but I hope he still does,” Putin added.
The remarks came as Putin, Russia’s former, current and likely future president, sat down with more than 1,600 journalists packed into a Moscow convention hall. The annual news conference, which on Wednesday lasted four hours, provides a sounding board for Putin. The discussion is always broad, though it often lacks depth. Journalists can ask sharp questions, but they rarely have a chance to ask follow-ups.
Addressing the International Olympic Committee’s decision last week to ban the Russian Federation from participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, Putin said the investigation that revealed a state-sponsored doping program in Russia was driven by an attempt to undermine his expected re-election in 2018.
“The scandal is being ramped up in connection with the Russian domestic political calendar,” Putin said. “No matter what anyone says, I am certain, and I know that it is very much so.”
At moments, he showed flashes of anger, such as when discussing Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Rusada anti-doping lab in Russia, who later gave information on the country’s athletic doping program to investigators and journalists after fleeing to the United States.
“It was a mistake” for him to be put in charge of the lab, Putin said. “I know who did it.”
Focusing on domestic politics, Putin also said he would like to see greater competition in Russian politics. But he said it is not his job to build up the opposition in a country he has ruled for 18 years, and likely longer as the new elections loom.
He said his campaign would be largely focused on improving the Russian economy and that he would run as an independent, distancing himself from the United Russia political party that he founded and built into the ruling party.
“The simplest thing for me to say is that it isn’t for me to foster opponents, although I should unexpectedly tell you, that I think that our political sphere, like our economic sphere, should be competitive,” Putin said.
Putin, Russia’s leader since New Year’s Eve 1999, has held a marathon news conference once a year in December for the 13 years he has been president, taking a break for the four years he was prime minister.
The conference was attended by reporters from across Russia and the world, many of whom waved large signs in the hope of being called upon. “Give the Floor to Children,” read one. Another sign, a larger-than-life Russian passport, was held by an attendee hoping to liberalize border crossing rules between Russia and Estonia.
Another sign read “Putin Babay,” an expression of affection from a journalist from Russia’s Tatarstan republic.
Radio host Tanya Felgengauer, who is recovering from a stabbing attack by a listener after her station, Echo of Moscow, was criticized harshly by state-run television, asked Putin why Russia seems to have a legal double standard. She cited the case of Igor Sechin, chairman of Russia’s largest oil company, Rosneft, who was allowed to ignore a subpoena in a high-level corruption trial in which he is a witness.
“All Russians are equal before the law,” Putin responded. As for Sechin, he said, “the courts will decide.”
The hall appeared to have more than its share of Putin loyalists. When a journalist tried to ask a question about alleged human-rights violations in Crimea, Russian voices tried to shout him down. Putin told them to let him finish the question, then blamed Ukraine for the conflict in which Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin has announced that Putin will not participate in debates with other presidential candidates, prompting one of his potential challengers, Ksenia Sobchak, to accredit herself as a reporter from the Internet TV channel where she is a host.
“Why are the authorities afraid?” Sobchak asked Putin, citing the Kremlin’s refusal to debate opponents and the decision to bar anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny from joining the race.
Putin, who never mentions Navalny by name, responded that only candidates who have something positive to offer should run for office.
Then he moved on from the presidential hopeful.
Putin last week said he would run for a new six-year term in a March presidential vote that he is expected to win easily.
“Whenever we speak about the opposition, it is important not just to make noise on squares or privately speak about how the regime is against the people. It is also important to offer something that will make life better,” Putin said. “People are discontented with lots of things, and they are right to be discontented. But whenever people compare and look at what the opposition, especially the extra-systemic opposition, has to offer, they have big doubts.”