Russia Stalls Navalny’s Opposition

VLADIMIR ASHURKOV, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ANTI-CORRUPTION FOUNDATION: The United States and Russia are two major nuclear powers. And I think I would feel safer in the world when they talk to each other and the leaders of these countries talk to each other. So, they have a broad agenda of issues to discuss, obviously, security issues and the terrorist activities and arms control. So, I — some people say that this summit is a present to Vladimir Putin. I don’t subscribe to this opinion.

GOLODRYGA: And yet it’s hard not to be alarmed by the actions of the Kremlin just in the past few months, especially since Navalny’s return to Russia. They have cracked down hard on any dissidents, on any protests, on any opposition political figures, and embraced, really, Lukashenko after bringing that plane down, that passenger plane, and detaining Roman Protasevich, Vladimir Putin even answering, perhaps, we will see, I’m not going to tell you, if Russia was in a similar situation, would he do the same thing? Are you concerned that Russia is in fact moving more and more under Vladimir Putin into a dictatorship and authoritarian state?

ASHURKOV: It’s true. And I think that President Biden needs to understand what’s at stake. I’m sure he does. One of the atrocities that have been linked to Russia’s actions, including 14,000 dead in the Eastern Ukraine as a result of Russian meddling, assassinations in Russia, outside of Russia over the last few years, what if this is just a precursor for more? What if we are now in a situation similar to Hitler’s Germany in the mid- ’30s of the last century? I think that would be the right approach. I don’t have the recipes of how to implement it into a specific position. But I think this is the right approach.