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■ Broadcast: CBS Radio FM 98.1 (07:20~09:00)
■ Progress: Reporter Jeonghoon Kim (CBS) (instead of anchorman Hyunjung Kim)
■ Interview: Shin-wook Lee (Professor, Graduate School of International Studies, Dong-A University)
I will also look at news from other countries after a long time. It’s about Russia. President Putin arrested Alexei Navalni, a static opposition leader, and this time even his younger brother. As many of you know, Navalni passed away from poison terror last year and returned home a while ago after being treated in Germany and managed to recover. He was arrested as soon as he returned home and is now in prison.
In response, 110,000 people protested in over 110 cities across the country demanding the release of Navalni. Of these, more than 3,500 are known to have been arrested. Moreover, as Western countries, including the US, are publicly criticizing, it is now becoming a global issue beyond Russia. Let’s listen to an expert explanation of what is going on and how it will proceed in the future. Professor Shinwook Lee, Graduate School of International Studies, Dong-A University. Hello, Professor Shinwook Lee.
◆ Shinwook Lee> Hello.
Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalni comes out of the Khimki police station outside Moscow with handcuffs right after the court’s ruling to arrest for 30 days on the 18th (local time). (Photo = Yonhap News)
-◇ Kim Jung-hoon> Although we don’t know much about Russia, the current President Putin, so to speak, has an authoritarian politics close to dictatorship. Also, the person named Navalni, who was arrested this time, is the central figure of the democratization movement.
◆ Shinwook Lee> Yes. It can be said that after a long time, a central point of a civil political movement in the Russian politics was created. Originally, Navalni was a popular political rookie among young people. Very rarely in Russia, politics has been done through social media such as blogs and Twitter. It appeared in the politics in 2011, criticizing the corruption of Putin and the ruling united Russian party. In 2011, he led the protests in the general election, and in 2012, the Moscow mayoral election was held. I started spreading my name with 27% of the votes. In 2016, the corruption of Putin and high-ranking officials began to be exposed, with former President Medvetep being the main target. You can think of it as a politician who led the democratization movement by focusing on corruption. It can be assessed that the recognition has been increasing last year due to the poisonous terrorism, and this time, by the arrest of Navalni, he has emerged as the central figure of democratization in Russia more and more.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> Such a Navalni, as you said last year, managed to save his life after being terrorized by poison, but he was arrested as soon as he returned to Korea. Was the Putin regime threatened by Navalni enough to do so?
◆ Shinwook Lee> Yes, I think so. In a way, you can think of Navalni as being raised by President Putin. In Russian political history, assassination and terrorism were commonplace. Putin has also removed potential competitors in the form of assassination, imprisonment or expatriation. A close example is Boris Nemchev in the case of assassination. There was a case near the Kremlin, where the leader of the Russian opposition forces, that is to say, the assassination of Boris Nemchev, who served as prime minister in Yeltsin, was. And there were things like confinement or assassination of many reporters. There was also a case of expelling a chaebol named Verzowski, who had pushed him back, to England. In that way, young and novel characters have taken place to eliminate potential competitors through such things as assassination, incarceration, or deportation.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> Western countries, including the United States, are strongly raising concerns about this situation internationally outside of Russia. But I wonder if this is really just for Navalni’s human rights. In the case of the US Biden government, they are pointing out the Navalni problem every day and demanding release. That is to say, in creating a new US-Russian relationship, I think I’m starting to take the initiative and seeing it as the subject matter.
◆ Shinwook Lee> Right. From a Russian perspective, it can be seen as the Western nation’s shaking of Russia. On the other hand, from a Western perspective, it seems to be a natural trend of the spread of democracy. In the case of Russia, human rights issues are very vulnerable due to the tradition of the former Soviet Union. Formally, it has a well-equipped system of three divisions, but it can be evaluated as an authoritarian government led by the government. In fact, it is said that Putin or elite from KGB, Silobicki. They take the form of sharing power, and even when they do business in Moscow, they also take the form of internally organizing and doing business about what family members can do.
So, in a way, I can tell you that it is a political and economic transition. So what is this Navalni case, asking if the Western countries of Russia, which are traditional hostile relations, should somehow spread democracy? I see it as a justification for intervention. The Putin administration is very strongly against this. It seems to be such a view of why you are interfering with the power we have.
Russian President Putin. (Photo = Yonhap News)-◇ Kim Jung-hoon> President Biden of the United States recently made a phone call with President Putin and asked him to just release Navalni. By the way, it seems almost impossible for Russia to accept this request, so are there any steps Western countries can take to further pressure Russia?
◆ Lee Shin-wook> In a way, you can think that there is almost nothing military. Because it is the world’s strongest nuclear power, it still has about 4,000 nuclear weapons like the United States. And, in fact, the means of pressure on Russia is that economic sanctions have been around since the Ukraine crisis in 2014. By the way, the most weak point of the Russian government is actually the energy problem. Although very famous as an energy exporter, the financial weakness of this Russian government could be called energy, gas or oil. Gasprom, a representative gas company, is a major company. It can be said that the incumbent Ministers of President Putin and his aides dominate the Gasprom Board of Directors, and Russia is moving around it. So, the West seems to be focusing on sanctions on Russian gas or oil.
In particular, after 2012, President Putin was aiming for one hegemony by creating gas OPEC centering on Russian gas and oil, but this collapsed when shale gas appeared in the United States. So, in a way, I predict that the US government will not impose sanctions on this gasprom. Again, the Biden government has actually called the North Stream about the Navalni arrest. It is called the Baltic Sea in mainland Russia. They send gas pipes to the seabed of the Baltic Sea, where they send them to Germany. Here’s a project called North Stream 2, which has imposed sanctions on the ships that build this project, and almost 90% of the North Stream is complete, and one sanction is imposed on it, putting pressure on the release of Navalni.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> That’s right. The fact that the popularity of people who oppose Putin’s regime like Navalni is increasing is that the Putin regime’s position in Russia is getting smaller. Can we interpret it like this?
◆ Shinwook Lee> You can think of that. Originally, President Putin’s popularity has been on average since he came to power in 2000. However, after 20 years of long term in office, this year is 68 years old. So now it is showing that the Russian people are gradually getting bored with President Putin, and the popularity of Putin in Moscow and St. Petersburg is now very low, especially for young people and big cities. In the early days of power, Putin’s popularity was the victory in the Second Chechen War, and there were leaders in their 40s, youth images, and so on, so now the Putin generation is called the Beatles generation in Russia.
Born in the ’60s, so the Beatles in the ’60s were very popular, wasn’t it? So, young people were very obsessed with the Beatles at the time. So these generations of Putin and Putin listened to the Beatles songs and yearned for overseas and foreign countries. I had a longing for westernization. With that driving force, we experienced Perestoika and Russian freedom in the 80s and 90s. That’s why the Putin generation is called the Beatles generation, and this generation is now older. That is why a new generation has emerged, and in Russia, the 20s and 30s are armed with the Internet and travel abroad to understand the situation of free countries in detail.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> At the same time, the evaluation itself of the Putin regime is changing a little.
◆ Shinwook Lee> Right. So these young people began to take on an anti-government character like the Perestoika era, and Navalni, who is a system-critical character, is actively using SNS through his blog and Twitter to launch an anti-corruption campaign. It is said that Navalni came to the fore in full swing by revealing the corruption of the President and Chin Putin on the Internet.
-◇ Kim Jung-hoon> There are many people who think of the former President of Korea Park Jeong-hee while watching that President Putin. Are there really similar aspects?
◆ Shin-wook Lee> In fact, in 1998, it can be said that President Putin was the FSB, that is, the National Intelligence Service of Russia. While serving as the FSB Director, I obtained the biography of Park Jeong-hee of Korea. So, there is a story that he actively researched the style of power of President Park Chung-hee while reading it in Russian. So, it can be said that President Putin has done a lot of research on President Park Chung-hee, studied how to extend his power for a long time, and acquired considerable know-how, so that he has succeeded in power until now.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> That’s right. Then the interest in Navalni against President Putin continues to grow. Can Korea create a wind of change in Russia as it used to be in the 80s in the past, centering on Nabalni or other people?
◆ Shinwook Lee> Yes, it probably is. Because now Navalni is in custody, there is probably a Russian presidential election in July 2024. Until the presidential election, it seems that the Putin government will take action to make it impossible to run for house arrest or run.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> The trial will be held today, right?
◆ Shinwook Lee> Yes. So maybe you remember the fact that former President Kim Young-sam was under house arrest when Park Chung-hee was president? Like that, Navalni is probably going to the presidential election in custody. It doesn’t matter that Putin’s popularity is high, but with Navalni’s popularity as high as these days, maybe Park Jeong-hee’s regime collapsed, didn’t it collapse in the wake of the Boomer crisis? When President Kim Young-sam collapsed due to a house arrest, Navalni would be careful to predict that it would provide such a clue that it would cause the Putin regime to collapse considerably.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> That’s right. Russia may feel like a distant country, but in fact, its impact on our country cannot be ignored, right?
◆ Shinwook Lee> Yes, it is. I believe that Russia must remain politically and economically stable and take responsible actions and obligations as a territorial state in the Far East. So, Korea also has to get along well with Russia. In particular, if the North Korean nuclear issue is resolved, what will South Korea, Russia and North Korea be like? Strategic cooperation is expected as a channel to receive Russian energy.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> All right. Professor Shinwook Lee, shall we listen to today’s talk?
◆ Shinwook Lee> Yes.
◇ Kim Jung-hoon> Thank you. I spoke with Professor Shin-wook Lee of the Graduate School of International Studies at Dong-A University.
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