Putin Praises Trump, Assails Sanctions, Vows To Defend 'Great Power' Russia

By RFE/RL

Russian leader Vladimir Putin praised U.S. President Donald Trump as a “balanced” man he can negotiate with, but he also assailed the West for “illegitimate and unfair” Ukraine-related sanctions imposed on Moscow.

"I have no disappointment at all," Putin said about Trump during a wide-ranging interview released on social media on March 7, some two weeks before Russia’s presidential election.

"Moreover, on a personal level, he made a very good impression on me," he added, saying the U.S. president easily understands the specifics of issues and is a good listener.

It was not immediately clear when Putin made the remarks. The interview was part of a documentary titled World Order 2018.

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Not Honky-Dory

Barred candidate Navalny's supporters in the southern city of Krasnodar have been conducting a series of one-person protests in which they stand on a busy street and hold up a sign reading, "Honk If You Are Against Putin."

According to the activists, police generally show up within 20 minutes to try to detain the picketers, even though one-person protests are legal in Russia and there does not appear to be anything inciting or insulting in the content of the signs.

They put together a video of some of the protests and the reactions:

Navalny's Election Monitors Nixed

The Central Election Commission on March 7 refused accreditation to some 4,500 election monitors organized by opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, Navalny has said.

The commission also denied accreditation to 850 monitors from the publication Molniya, which was helping the independent Golos election-monitoring group that has been labeled a "foreign agent" by Russian authorities.

In his blog post, Navalny charged that the Central Election Commission and its head, Ella Pamfilova, made the move because they are "actively preparing" to falsify the March 18 presidential election.

The commission said the observers from Navalny's Leviafan group were ineligible because a court had revoked its registration as a legal organization.

"Of course, we knew nothing about this court decision," Navalny wrote. "No one informed us or summoned us to a hearing. Just a few days ago, in the register of the Roskomnadzor [media monitoring agency] we were listed as accredited mass media."

Navalny, who was disqualified from running because of a felony conviction on charges widely seen as politically motivated, has called for voters to boycott the election.

Nationalist Candidate Has Supportive Words For Navalny

Russian nationalist candidate Sergei Baburin has offered words of support for opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who has been barred from the ballot over a criminal conviction the anticorruption crusader calls politically motivated.

The candidate for the Russian All-People Union Party said in a March 7 interview with Ekho Moskvy radio that Navalny's investigations about the wealth and alleged corruption among Russia's ruling elite are beneficial to the country.

"And when they brush him off as a Western agent, I'd like to say: 'First of all, you should prove that he's a Western agent; and secondly, give him a sensible explanation for the accusations he makes," Baburin said.

Baburin added that he would consider giving Navalny a federal post in his government should he win the election that is all but certain to hand President Putin a new six-year term.

The chances of seeing Navalny head a ministry, of course, are exceedingly slim. The most recent data from Russian state-run pollster VTsIom shows Putin polling at nearly 70 percent, and Baburin at 0.2 percent.

Sobchak's One-Woman Duma Protest

Candidate Sobchak, the only woman in the field of eight, held her own demonstration today outside the State Duma to protest the behavior of embattled senior lawmaker Leonid Slutsky and other legislators.

A number of female journalists have come forward in recent weeks to accuse Slutsky of sexual harassment, prompting some fellow Duma members to defend him but eventually wringing a tepid apology by Slutsky himself.

Sobchak has demanded Slutsky's resignation. Her sign says, "Deputies! We don't want you!"

'Gay Propaganda' Case Over 'Black PR' Targeting Grudinin Campaign Figure

"Black PR" is nothing new in Russian politics. When I covered regional elections in 2007, I remember flyers circulating in St. Petersburg that claimed a local candidate had died (he was very much alive) and, in an apparent play to xenophobic sentiment, that he was not an ethnic Russian.

Ahead of the March 18 presidential election, it appears a campaign official for Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin may have been targeted in a black PR ploy playing not to the racist sentiments of some voters but rather to their homophobia.

Police in the Voronezh region have opened a criminal case into flyers circulating there that purported to be authored by Aleksandr Sukhinin, head of a local headquarters of Grudinin's campaign, RBK reported on March 8. (Our Russian Service cited the RBK report.)

The flyers reportedly urged local men to support the gay-rights movement, citing in part the fact that that Russian composer Pyotr Chaikovsky was gay.

A federal Communist lawmaker in December called the flyers "libelous" against Sukhinin and his party, a good indication of how the gay-rights movement is portrayed in Russia's current political landscape.

Fittingly, police have opened a criminal case under the controversial "gay propaganda" law signed by President Vladimir Putin that rights groups and Western governments call discriminatory against sexual minorities.

Playwright and political analyst Vladimir Golyshev has a new contribution (in Russian) to RFE/RL's Russian Service on "the pre-election myth" of "bowing to the beast."

Five Things Chatham House Wants You To Know About The Election

The results of the March 18 presidential election may not be much in doubt, but according to Chatham House there’s plenty more at stake than people realize. The venerable British foreign affairs think tank has put together a punchy summation that boils down to this:

(1) This is a one-man re-coronation.

(2) Turnout is crucial however.

(3) The opposition is irrelevant.

(4) The international element is important.

(5) What matters are the next six years — and beyond.

Vote To End The Right To Vote

Ultranationalist candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is given virtually no chance of winning, promised in a televised debate on March 8 that he would end "democracy" in Russia and "introduce the most brutal dictatorship."

Zhirinovsky said such a dictatorship is necessary to "punish [unspecified] oligarchs and everyone who steals."

Commenting on Facebook, Russian journalist Aleksei Kovalyov noted via (a private link on) Facebook that Zhirinovsky is "perfectly aware he's losing...against a brutal dictator."

Incumbent President Putin is overwhelmingly expected to claim a fourth term as president.

'A Million Reasons' Plugs Yavlinsky

Someone (the Yabloko party?) has set up a website that randomly generates purported reasons to vote for liberal presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky.

The simple website, called A Million Reasons, features a portrait of Yavlinsky and a single button. Each time the user pushes it, a new reason to support Yavlinsky appears.

"You may not believe in Yavlinsky, but he believes in you," one says.

"No meldonium was found in Yavlinsky's samples," says another.

"The DNA of a banana is 50 percent identical with the DNA of a human. Yavlinsky is no exception," states a third.

RFE/RL has not yet been able to confirm that there are, in fact, a million reasons on the site. But there are quite a few.