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RUSSIA 2012: INCREASED REPRESSION, RAMPANT

CORRUPTION, ASSISTING ROGUE REGIMES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 21, 2012

Serial No. 112–141

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

The Honorable David J. Kramer, President, Freedom House ............................. 10

Mr. William F. Browder, chief executive office, Hermitage Capital Management ...................................................................................................................... 26

The Honorable Steven Pifer, director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative, Brookings Institution (former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine) .................. 31

Leon Aron, Ph.D., director of Russian studies, American Enterprise Institute . 44

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable David J. Kramer: Prepared statement ......................................... 13

Mr. William F. Browder: Prepared statement ....................................................... 28

The Honorable Steven Pifer: Prepared statement ................................................ 33

Leon Aron, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .................................................................. 46

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 64

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 65

The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress from the 

Commonwealth of Virginia: Prepared statement .............................................. 67

The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York: Material submitted for the record ..................................... 68

The Honorable David J. Kramer: Material submitted for the record ................. 80

Leon Aron, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record ........................................... 85

(1)

RUSSIA 2012: INCREASED REPRESSION, RAMPANT CORRUPTION, ASSISTING ROGUE REGIMES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2012

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room 

2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. The committee will come to order. And 

before we give our opening statements on today’s timely topic, I 

know that my good friend, the ranking member Mr. Berman has 

an important announcement to make. Timing is everything. 

Mr. BERMAN. Timing is everything. Madam Chairman, thank you 

very much. I’d like to make a brief announcement about the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights. We all 

mourn the loss of our dear friend and colleague, Don Payne, one 

of our Nation’s foremost experts on Africa, and a valued member 

of this committee. 

As all of us know, Don’s untimely passing has left a vacancy in 

the ranking member slot for the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health and Human Rights. I wanted to take this opportunity to announce that Representative Karen Bass, the next Ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, has been appointed to serve as ranking 

member of the subcommittee for the remainder of the 112th Congress pursuant to Rule 29C of the House Democratic Caucus rules, 

a document I’m sure all of you are familiar with. 

I’m certain Representative Bass will continue to focus on many 

of the issues that were important to Don, including Food Aid, 

Sudan, DRC, and conflict prevention across the African Continent. 

And I think she’ll do a tremendous job. With that, I yield back. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Berman. And 

you’re so right, while all of us continue to miss Congressman Don 

Payne and everything that he brought to this committee and to the 

institution, we’re thankful for the opportunity to work with Karen 

Bass in her new role. We look forward to her contributions in the 

months ahead. So, welcome. 

Well, thank you. After recognizing myself and my friend, the 

ranking member Mr. Berman for 7 minutes each for our opening 

statements, I will recognize for 3 minutes the chair and ranking 

member of the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia for their 

opening remarks. I will then recognize other members seeking recVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
2

ognition for 1 minute. We will then hear from our witnesses, and 

without objection the written statements of all of our witnesses will 

be made a part of the record. And members may have 5 days to 

insert statements and questions for the record. 

The Chair now recognizes herself for 7 minutes. 

There is an old saying that says the more things change the 

more they stay the same. I’d give it in French but it’s not so good. 

That phrase is particularly apt regarding Vladimir Putin’s recent 

return to the presidency. Although his stand-in, Dimitri Medvedev, 

has occupied the post for the past 4 years, everyone knew that 

Putin still held the real power. And now he has stepped into the 

spotlight again ending the charade. 

Although there was no sign of a significant change in his course, 

this is a good time for us to take stock of where things stand in 

terms of the domestic situation in Russia and in its foreign policy, 

especially regarding U.S. interest. 

On the domestic front there is good news and bad. First the bad 

news. The regime continues to monopolize power with corruption 

entrenched throughout the entire government structure and reaching far into the economy and the general society. 

Moscow persecutes human rights activities and the political opposition including banning parties, forcibly breaking up rallies, and 

jailing and beating those who dare to defy it. 

Several perceived enemies have actually been killed, even murdered, as one of our witnesses will recount today. But there are 

also hopeful signs that the Russian people have begun to stand up 

to the regime and demand their basic rights. 

The massive demonstrations that followed last December’s parliamentary elections which were characterized by open fraud have 

demonstrated that the people are losing their fear and are demanding fundamental political change. On the foreign policy front, however, I’m afraid there is only bad news. 

Putin is escalating his anti-American rhetoric and accuses the 

U.S. of one anti-Russian plot after another. But it isn’t just rhetoric: His actions constitute a direct threat to U.S. interests and 

those of our allies. 

Regarding Iran, Russia continues to block efforts by the U.S. and 

other responsible nations to force Tehran to halt its nuclear weapons program, thereby encouraging the Iranian regime to press 

ahead. 

In Syria, Russia is helping to prop up the Assad regime by blocking U.N. Security Council Resolutions that are aimed at stopping 

the ongoing atrocities. Russia is sending warships to Syrian ports, 

selling weapons to the Assad regime to be used not only against 

its own people but potentially against Israel and other U.S. allies. 

Putin’s determination expand Moscow’s influence was demonstrated most dramatically by the invasion of Georgia in 2008, 

and Russia’s continuing occupation of major areas of that U.S. ally. 

Russia has suffered no significant costs from the West as a result 

of this aggression which can only encourage it to use force in the 

future. Not surprisingly, Russia’s threat to NATO is growing. 

Russia has said that it will aim its missiles at NATO if the U.S. 

does not abandon its efforts to establish a missile defense shield in 

Europe against Iranian ballistic missiles. 

3

Independent experts agree that the planned missile defense 

poses no danger to Russia whatsoever, and Russian technicians 

know this as well. But Russia’s real purpose is to establish a veto 

over NATO policy, as well as to demonstrate to the countries in 

Central and Eastern Europe that membership in the Atlantic Alliance will not protect them from Russian influence. 

In our hemisphere, Russia has become a friend to a number of 

U.S. enemies, including selling large quantities of conventional 

weapons to the Chavez regime in Venezuela. 

I don’t know of anyone who expects Russia’s policy toward the 

U.S. to change for the better, so what should the U.S. do? The most 

important step must be to stop giving Moscow one concession after 

another, and getting virtually nothing in return. In pursuit of this 

so-called reset the U.S. has handed Moscow a one-sided agreement 

on strategic nuclear weapons, removed sanctions on Russian companies known to have aided Iran’s weapons program, and signed a 

very lucrative nuclear cooperation agreement, among many other 

concessions. The most recent gift was U.S. approval last December 

of Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization, including 

pressuring our ally, Georgia, to go along despite the fact that Russia continues to occupy its territory. 

Russia’s entry into the WTO with U.S. support is astounding 

given that Russia continues to be one of the biggest violators of intellectual property rights, robbing U.S. citizens and U.S. companies 

of billions of dollars every year. For years, the Russian Government 

has promised to stop this piracy, but too many of the regime supporters benefit from it, so the theft continues. And now the administration is seeking to give Russia Permanent Normal Trade Relations. This requires lifting the restrictions of the Jackson-Vanik 

Amendment. 

That Amendment has long been a symbol of U.S. commitment to 

human rights and democracy in Russia. Removing Russia from its 

provisions would be interpreted in Moscow and elsewhere as a seal 

of approval from the United States Congress, even as the human 

rights situation in Russia continues to deteriorate. I hope that Congress will not grant one more concession to Russia without first 

holding Moscow accountable for actions that run contrary to U.S. 

national security interests and to such foreign policy priorities as 

the promotion of human rights and democracy. 

There are many more issues with Russia that could be added to 

this list, and I look forward to discussing these and other issues 

with our distinguished panel. 

I now turn to the ranking member, Mr. Berman, for the remarks 

of his opening statement. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

This hearing on Russia 2012 comes at an important time in our 

bilateral relations. During the past 3 years, there have been some 

important successes in our new engagement with Russia, but there 

also have been some disappointing setbacks on democracy, human 

rights, and the Rule of Law, as well as foreign policy. And I’m 

afraid the return of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s President will make 

further progress more difficult. 

In the run up to Presidential elections earlier this month, Putin 

once again resorted to the anti-American rhetoric that was the 

4

trademark of his nearly decade-long relationship with the Bush administration. 

Putin may be the same authoritarian ruler that he was before, 

but as the chairman pointed out, there are hopeful signs that the 

Russian people’s tolerance for this type of rule has changed since 

he first assumed the presidency in 1999. 

The clearest signs of this change are the protests that occurred 

after the most recent parliamentary and Presidential elections. 

Neither of these elections was ‘‘free and fair’’ by international election standards. Both were marred by efforts to deny opposition parties and candidates the ability to run, the use of overwhelming administrative resources in favor of Putin and his United Russia 

party, known in the Russian blogosphere as the ‘‘Party of Cheats 

and Thieves,’’ and voting day irregularities that have become a 

hallmark of Russian elections. 

In response, over 100,000 people demonstrated near the Kremlin 

in sub-zero temperatures against the conduct of the December 2011 

parliamentary elections. In the months that followed, smaller demonstrations occurred in Moscow and throughout several cities 

across Russia demanding election reform. It’s too early to tell if this 

movement will continue into the spring, but we should support the 

Russian people and their renewed civic activism. I, for one, am 

hopeful that this burgeoning civil society will prove stronger than 

Putin and his former KGB cronies. 

On the international front, I’m troubled by the repeated statements of Russian officials that Moscow will not support additional 

sanctions at the U.N. Security Council to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability. On a somewhat more positive 

note, the Russians recently reaffirmed their September 2010 decision not to provide the advanced S–300 surface-to-air missile system to Tehran. 

Russia’s policy on Syria is simply wrong and indefensible, and I 

share Secretary Clinton’s sentiment that the Russian and Chinese 

veto of the Arab League proposal in the United Nations Security 

Council was despicable. The Russian Government must immediately cease its supply of weapons to the murderous Assad regime. 

The chairman’s bill, the Syria bill includes an amendment I offered 

that would sanction those Russian companies complicit in this 

deadly business. 

Russia’s accession package to join the World Trade Organization 

is the toughest ever negotiated for a prospective member, thanks 

to the perseverance and leadership of U.S. negotiators. But make 

no mistake, Russia is going to get into the WTO this summer. 

Since 1994 successive U.S. Presidents have granted Russia annual waivers from the application of Cold War era Jackson-Vanik 

trade restrictions. If the U.S. Congress does not completely graduate Russia from Jackson-Vanik and grant permanent normal 

trade relations, that won’t stop Russia from joining the WTO, but 

U.S. companies and American workers will not get the full benefit 

of Russia’s membership in the WTO, and the tough accession package we negotiated. 

Like the chairman, I have serious reservations about the protection of intellectual property in Russia, but believe that the USTR 

can finish negotiating an action plan to strengthen the rights of 

5

American intellectual property owners before Russia joins the WTO 

this summer. 

Madam Chairman, there is no denying the fact that we have significant areas of disagreement with Russia, including Russia’s 

record on human rights, democracy, and the Rule of Law, its conflict with Georgia, and Moscow’s arms sales to dictatorial regimes. 

But focusing only on these issues creates a distorted picture of a 

complex U.S.-Russia relationship, nor does it serve our interest to 

become so fixated on the occupant of the Kremlin that we lose sight 

of other developments in Russian society. 

I look forward to hearing the views of a very distinguished panel 

and their recommendation for how we can best support the aspirations of the Russian people to build a democratic, stable, and prosperous Russian state. I yield back. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Berman. 

Now, we will yield for 3 minutes each to Mr. Burton, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia, to be followed 

by Mr. Meeks, the ranking member on that committee. 

Mr. BURTON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

In December 2011, the Russian people took to the streets to protest what they perceived as an injustice and an affront to their 

democratic rights. Among allegations of widespread corruption during the parliamentary elections, the Russian people decided that 

they’d had enough. Since then, we witnessed months of peaceful 

protests throughout Russia. These protests have not been facilitated by or in support of any one political party. And these protests 

have not been driven by western influences or special interests. 

These protests are the work of every day Russians who want a better life through a stronger democracy. 

As Americans, we naturally identify with those who seek a 

strong democracy. We’re presented with a special opportunity to 

help the Russian people as we did during the fall of Communism 

in the next steps of their natural progression toward democracy 

and open markets. It’s easy to forget that Communism only ended 

two decades ago. Russia is still a young democracy. 

As the Russian people push their leaders toward reform we can 

make a choice to engage Russia or to confront Russia. Russia, in 

my opinion, deserves to be engaged. The Russian economy is eager 

for U.S. investment. The Russia people have a growing appetite for 

movies, our movies, our music, our brands, and for most aspects of 

Western culture. 

Last July I was in Moscow, and as I was walking the streets of 

Moscow, I could have mistaken the people shopping, and dining, 

and commuting as people from Indianapolis. 

Let me be clear, I don’t want to grant Russia a free pass. The 

administration’s reset has failed. We are no closer to an agreement 

on missile defense than we were 3 years ago, and Russian peacekeeping troops still illegally occupy portions of Georgia and 

Moldova, while Russia still supports regimes such as those in 

Tehran and Damascus. 

As we engage Moscow, we must be clear that the status quo on 

these issues is not acceptable. As part of this engagement, I hope 

we will continue to look for ways to help the Russian people get 

the democracy and the human rights that they deserve. 

6

The Russian market really presents an opportunity. I’m convinced of that after meeting with AmCham, the American Chamber 

of Commerce, when I was over there. As Russia enters the World 

Trade Organization, growing demand for American goods and services can support over 50,000 U.S. jobs within 5 years, so we need 

to look for ways to create opportunities for us to be able to work 

with Russia to solve these problems. That doesn’t mean we should 

not put pressure on them regarding human rights, and the need to 

really have democratic reforms. 

We could work to improve U.S.-Russian relations to the benefit 

of both the U.S. and Russian people; however, this is only possible 

through engagement which right now don’t really have, have not 

yet achieved. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Burton. 

Mr. Meeks. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

The U.S.-Russia relationship remains at the top of our foreign 

policy agenda where it had been for more than half a century. During that time, the United States and Russia have cooperated on important matters, like we were allied in our fight against the Nazis 

60 years ago, and our fight against terrorism today. 

The reality is, of course, that the United States and Russia do 

not and have not always seen eye-to-eye on important international 

concerns. The good news, however, is that our leaders are no longer 

locked eyeball to eyeball, missiles aimed in each other’s directions 

waiting for one to blink. 

My goal as a member of the United States House of Representatives is to do all that is possible to move the relationship toward 

the end of the spectrum that involves bilateral and multilateral cooperation. I am hopeful that we are headed in that direction despite the many, many challenges that remain. 

In fact, on some of the day’s most urgent concerns we may be 

getting closer to an agreement. Yesterday’s press reported the Russian Foreign Minister said Russia is ready to endorse a U.N. Security Council statement or resolution backing Kofi Annan’s Syrian 

peace mission. 

It has more than two centuries for the United States to achieve 

the imperfect form of democracy by which we govern ourselves 

today. As far as I’m concerned, U.S. democracy is still a work in 

progress. Any African American would agree. We look at a case 

that’s happening now in Florida. Any American woman would 

agree that we are still a democracy in progress. 

In less than 100 years Russia has emerged from the grim control 

of czars and dictators to a democratic rule, though it is certainly 

imperfect, and at times even at risk. Let’s be realistic, the Russian 

democracy is a work in progress. Realism does not mandate that 

we ignore or make excuses for serious shortcomings of our partners, quite the opposite. It means we address them. 

In the interest of Russian democracy and the welfare of the Russian people it is our responsibility not to disengage from Russia, 

not to turn our backs on them because of our own domestic policies. 

We have a tremendous opportunity to deepen our engagement with 

Russia to the benefit of U.S. businesses, U.S. jobs, and Russian 

Rule of Law. It is our responsibility to take advantage of this opVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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portunity, and I believe granting PNTR to Russia is one of the 

most important ways to encourage and support improvements in 

the Rule of Law. The U.S. has worked for nearly 25 years to that 

end by assisting Russia’s WTO accession process. We shouldn’t pull 

back now. 

In closing, I’d like to submit for the record several documents 

that the committee should consider, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Russia PNTR Premier, letters from prominent members of 

Russian civil society and opposition leaders that want to see Jackson-Vanik lifted, and a letter from 171 U.S. companies that are 

ready to take advantage of Russia’s WTO accession. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Without objection subject to the length 

limitation in the rules. 

Thank you, Mr. Meeks. 

Mr. Smith is recognized for 1 minute. 

Mr. SMITH. I want to thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this 

very timely hearing on Russia. 

The Russian Government has on many occasions accepted and 

even solemnly agreed that issues of human rights and the Rule of 

Law are of international concern and do not belong exclusively in 

the realm of internal affairs; yet, the same Russian Government 

never tires of accusing our Government of meddling when we raise 

human rights issues. 

At this moment, allow me to touch on one issue. While the war 

in Chechnya no longer rages the situation on the ground there and 

across the Northern Caucuses is far from settled. Journalists and 

activists in this region continue to be killed, disappeared, beaten, 

or forced to flee for their lives, so we have very little credible information on what is going on there. I look forward to hearing our 

witnesses’ assessment of that situation and their suggestions for 

Congressional action. I yield back. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much. 

Mr. Deutch is recognized. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Ranking Member 

Berman for holding today’s hearing. 

There is no doubt that the U.S.-Russia relationship is facing its 

share of challenges. Russia is facing domestic challenges as the 

aftermath of the December parliamentary elections followed by the 

re-election of Vladimir Putin has spurred opposition protest, the 

strength of which will likely be determined in the coming months. 

It’s my hope that Russia’s leaders choose to meet these challenges 

with respect for human rights and the democratic process. 

Like most of my colleagues, I remain seriously concerned about 

Russia’s sale of weapons to Assad’s forces in Syria, and it’s outrageous obstruction at the U.N. Security Council. Russia’s insistence on watered-down resolutions at the Security Council and at 

the IAEA on the Iranian Nuclear Program undoubtedly sets it at 

odds with the U.S. and our western allies. 

Last summer I joined Chairman Burton in Russia where I had 

the opportunity to discuss at length an area of particular concern, 

the protection of intellectual property rights and Russia’s failure to 

sufficiently take on those who traffic in the sale of American creative content. I also visited the Schneerson Collection, and I believe 

8

that we must continue to press for these important writings to be 

returned to the Chabad community. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about ways we continue to develop our relationship as we simultaneously address 

these challenges, and I yield back, Madam Chairman. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Rohrabacher is recognized. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, 

and thank you for holding this hearing. And first of all, I want to 

say that I was proud to have been on that team under Ronald 

Reagan that brought down the Soviet Union, probably the thing 

I’m most proud of in my whole life. But it is disturbing to me that 

so many decision makers in Russia and in the United States are 

still locked into a Cold War mentality. We constantly hear exaggerations of Russia’s shortcomings, and using the most sinister 

words to describe imperfections that need to be worked on. 

What we are doing this way is we are undermining the broad 

area of cooperation that would be mutually beneficial to our two 

countries, not just economic cooperation but also in our national security cooperation in dealing with China, which is a major threat 

to both of our countries, and dealing with radical Islam which, of 

course, is a threat to both of our countries. 

I am heartened yesterday by the Russian Foreign Minister’s 

statement that they may be cooperating with us in providing supplies to our people in Afghanistan. That’s the type of cooperation 

we need. Let’s reach out to the Russians rather than punching 

them in the nose all the time. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And I certainly 

take our colleague’s remarks just now to heart, but I think we have 

a difficult challenge here. I think that it’s vitally important, frankly, that the United States and Russia work out a modus vivendi 

that works for both of us, and that hopefully adds to international 

security, whether it be terrorism, whether it be Middle East peace 

process, whatever. 

But I think we can’t do that by glossing over some of the stark 

differences and some of our legitimate concerns about the nature 

of the Russian Government and its polity, and its foreign policy. 

It’s hurting us in Syria. We have a legitimate reason to be concerned about human rights crackdowns, and jurisprudence in Russia. And, frankly, the recent election is also of concern in terms of 

its process and the obvious corruption that accompanied it. 

So, I think that we have to assert our values while trying to 

make this relationship work. And I think that’s really the challenge 

moving forward. I thank the chair. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. Royce is recognized. 

Mr. ROYCE. The Obama administration I think is wrong when it 

says nothing should replace Jackson-Vanik’s repeal. The administration’s argument is trust us, we’ll promote democracy and human 

rights. But as witnesses will testify this morning the State Department falls far short. 

9

It’s clear that human rights and rule of law legislation should follow Jackson-Vanik repeal, in my opinion. For example, in 2008 

Sergei Magnitsky uncovered evidence of police corruption and embezzlement. The police put him in prison. Even the Russian Government Human Rights Committee that investigated his death 

found that he was severely beaten and denied treatment, and recommended that his prison doctors and interrogators be investigated; instead, they were given promotions. So, something needs 

to replace the repeal of Jackson-Vanik that’s focused on the rule of 

law in Russia. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you witnesses. 

I, like many Americans, grew up during the Cold War. And in 

1991 we greeted the collapse of the Soviet Union with great relief. 

I’ve had the occasion to visit Russia seven times, Georgia once, and 

six times all on business. I’ve had firsthand knowledge trying to do 

honest business with partners like PNG and American Entertainment Companies to get a reasonable deal done. It never worked, 

but I did get some firsthand knowledge and some almost unbelievable experiences in Russia and Georgia. 

The disappointment that there is no Rule of Law, that there is 

no system where people can rely on their courts and justice is most 

disappointing. And I think this is the way Mr. Putin likes it, crony 

capitalists stocked with ex-KGB men, industrial oligarchs all combining to make this system unworkable. 

I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Thank you. I 

yield back. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chabot is recognized. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The modern American-Russian relationship is an important one 

and should be a constructive one, and a mutually beneficial one. 

This is particularly true when one considers how far we’ve come 

since a decade’s long Cold War when we were on opposite sides on 

virtually every issue, and for the most part bitter rivals. Unfortunately, as my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have already referred to and indicated, and I would agree with, Russia, particularly with Putin continuing to pull the strings is a very challenging 

partner. 

True democracy continues to be suppressed, human rights and 

Rule of Law are too often an afterthought, and their actions around 

the globe especially with respect to Syria and Iran are particularly 

unhelpful; in fact, downright infuriating. 

I look forward to hearing from the panel members on how we 

should deal with this matter. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, and I thank all of the 

members, including Mr. Modus Vivendi for sharing that insight 

with us. 

We’re not going to forget that any time soon are we, Mr. Chandler? 

10

I’d like to introduce our witnesses this morning. We are very excited to have an excellent panel of experts on the issue of Russia. 

David Kramer, we’ll begin with him, is the president of Freedom 

House. He joined in October 2010. We all know him in his previous 

slot as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights 

and Labor from March 2008 to January 2009. He was also Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs 

where he was responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and 

Belarus, as well as regional non-proliferation issues. Previously, he 

served as a professional staff member in the Secretary of State’s 

Office of Policy Planning. Welcome. 

We will then hear from William Browder, who is the founder and 

CEO of Hermitage Capital Management. Mr. Browder was the 

largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005 November, where he 

was suddenly denied entry to the country and declared a threat to 

national security by the Russian Government. 

In recent years, he has devoted much of his effort to promoting 

the cause of Sergei Magnitsky, who was brought up by Mr. Royce 

a few minutes ago, a lawyer working for him who while investigating high-level corruption was arrested in Moscow in 2008 and 

later died in prison. Welcome. 

Next we will hear from Steven Pifer, who is the senior fellow at 

the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe, and director of the Brookings Arms Control Initiative where he focuses on 

arms control, Russia and Ukraine. 

From 2001 and 2004 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of 

State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for Russia and Ukraine. He also served as a U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, and as a Special Assistant to 

the President and Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia 

on the National Security Council from ’96 to ’97. Welcome, Mr. Ambassador. 

And last we will hear from Leon Aron, who is the resident scholar and director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Aron earned his bachelor’s degree from Moscow State 

Institute and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is the author 

of many books, articles and essays including the First Scholarly Biography of Boris Yeltsin. His latest work is the forthcoming book 

entitled, ‘‘Roads to the Temple, Memory, Truth, Ideals and Ideas in 

the Making of the Russian Revolution,’’ which will be published by 

Yale University Press this spring. Congratulations. And we will 

start with Mr. Kramer. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID J. KRAMER, 

PRESIDENT, FREEDOM HOUSE 

Mr. KRAMER. Madam Chair, thank you very much. Thanks for 

the opportunity again to appear before this committee. 

When we talk about this, I think it’s very important to distinguish Russian’s leadership and officialdom from the rest of Russia. 

The leadership I would describe as thoroughly corrupt, rotten, and 

rotting. And that kind of leadership, I would argue, poses severe 

obstacles for the kind of cooperation we would all like to see in 

U.S.-Russia relations. 

11

Russian officials from the very highest levels to the lowest ranks 

have become unbelievably greedy over the years and view the 

State’s coffers and assets as their own personal trough. Personal 

enrichment, the get it while you can kind of attitude, has become 

the reason to serve in government for many officials. The INDEM 

think tank in Russia estimates that corruption costs the economy 

somewhere on the order of three hundred to $500 billion a year out 

of a GDP of $1.5 trillion. 

A growing number of Russians talk about emigrating from Russia as a result of the pervasive corruption. Capital flight last year 

was $84 billion, and in January alone of this year it was $13.5 billion. All of this, I would argue, explains why Mr. Putin has no willingness to relinquish his grip on power. 

Thus, it isn’t surprising that the regime shows total disregard for 

human rights and democracy, and the human rights of its own people, or people in other countries. And the evidence of that, I would 

argue, comes with the arms sales to the regime in Syria. 

For more than a decade, Freedom House has been documenting 

the decline in democracy and human rights in Russia, a period that 

overlaps with Mr. Putin’s reign, and Russia is deemed no free in 

our Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press reports. 

The lack of accountability for human rights abuses and the grossly politicized legal system create an environment wherein such 

abuses are not only condoned but they’re expected almost as a demonstration of loyalty to the regime. Essentially, Russian leaders for 

more than a decade have shown no respect for human rights, accountability, independent institutions, justice, and they refuse to 

allow a viable opposition to take root. They create an environment 

of impunity. And we’ve already seen a crackdown since the March 

4th selection, not least the denial of a rally calling for justice in the 

murder of Sergei Magnitsky that’s supposed to take place this 

weekend. 

Vladimir Putin heads a leadership, I would argue, that is assertive, arrogant, and aggressive on the one hand but paranoid, insecure, and hypersensitive on the other. And this is a dangerous and 

volatile combination. It explains why Putin cannot leave power. In 

a sense he’s become hostage to his own system. He’s the glue that 

holds it together, and were he to step down, he and those around 

him who have benefitted so handsomely from their positions of 

power would likely have to face investigations, if not worse. They 

have too much at stake to allow some new person to be elected 

President of the country. 

And it’s the combination of arrogance and paranoia, I would 

argue, that explained the decision last September 24th when Putin 

and Medvedev announced they would switch positions. It explains 

why elections are predetermined before they take place. It explains 

why opposition parties, such as PARNAS, or opposition figures 

such as Grigory Yavlinsky are not allowed to complete fairly in the 

elections, or compete at all for that matter. 

And the paranoid side of Putin, I would say, also leads him to 

blame the United States and even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for instigating last December’s protest. And this is not just a 

function of Putin’s paranoia, but of a likely perception of an emerging threat that he faces within his own country, and he wants to 

12

finger the United States and scapegoat us. And since his early 

years as President, Putin has always blamed the west for threatening Russia, rather than face the shortcomings of his own leadership. 

Now, without giving in to despair, as a number of you have 

pointed out, there have been some positive developments, not least 

the impressive turnouts in December and February of this year 

protesting the rigged elections for the Duma last December and the 

Presidential elections. And I think these protests have, in fact, 

been a source of inspiration and optimism as we look at Russia. 

The protests were really the loudest and clearest manifestations 

of ordinary Russians’ increasing frustration with the lack of dignity 

and violations of their rights which have become routine under 

Putin. And they’ve said, essentially, enough is enough. 

And I would argue that there are three important conclusions to 

draw from the election; that Putin may claim victory as he did on 

March 4, but he has lost his unquestioned sense of legitimacy as 

more and more Russians suspect that he remains in power through 

illegitimate means. He’s also lost his all-important aura of invincibility. That’s been badly damaged. And finally, he has seen his use 

of fear eroded as more Russians come out in protest against his 

rule. 

Now, the future of Russia is going to be decided by Russians but 

there are things for the United States to do, not least is to speak 

about the situation on the ground inside Russia very candidly. And 

I commend Secretary Clinton for her remarks after the Duma elections last December which obviously got Mr. Putin’s attention. 

I would like to see similar kinds of words coming from the President. The President, after all, has invested a great deal in developing U.S.-Russia relations, and yet his silence since a very good 

trip to Moscow in July 2009, silence when it comes to democracy 

and human rights concerns in Russia, I think has been unfortunately rather deafening. 

There is something for the Congress to do, I would argue, and 

I will end with this, Madam Chair, and that is to move forward on 

the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Act. I strongly recommend its 

passage, and I know Bill Browder will talk about this more. Thank 

you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kramer follows:]

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Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Browder. 

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM F. BROWDER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICE, HERMITAGE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT 

Mr. BROWDER. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, 

thank you very much for inviting me to speak today. 

The story that I’m going to share with you today will leave you 

in no doubt that Russia doesn’t function as a normal state as we 

know it. It functions more akin to a criminal enterprise. The story 

that I want to tell you is about Sergei Magnitsky, who was my lawyer, who died in horrific circumstances in Russian state custody 

21⁄2 years ago. It is my duty to his memory and to his family to 

make sure that justice gets done in this case, and that this story 

gets told widely across the world. 

The story starts out 15 years ago. I moved to Russia and set up 

an investment fund called Hermitage Capital Management, which 

eventually grew to become the largest foreign investment fund in 

the country. In the process of investing, I learned that all the companies I was investing in were losing money through massive corruption, and I decided to fight the corruption by exposing it 

through the international media. 

As you might imagine, this created a number of enemies and as 

you mentioned in my introduction, I was expelled from the country, 

I was declared a threat to national security, and that’s when the 

real trouble began. 

In 2007, my offices were raided by 25 police officers from the Interior Ministry of Moscow, which is the police department. They 

took away all of our corporate documents, and those corporate documents were then used to expropriate our companies. And then 

through a very complicated scheme, they then used those corporate 

documents to steal, not from us but from the Russian State, $230 

million of taxes that we had paid in the previous year. 

I went out and hired a young lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky 

who worked for an American law firm called Firestone Duncan, to 

investigate. And Sergei went out and investigated, and found documentary evidence proving the involvement of high-level officials in 

the theft of the $230 million. 

Instead of turning a blind eye as many others in Russia would 

have done, he decided to testify against the officers, and he testified against them in October 2008. One month after his testimony 

he was arrested by the same people he had testified against, put 

in pretrial detention, and then tortured to withdraw his testimony. 

They put him in cells with 14 inmates and eight beds and left 

lights on 24 hours a day in order to sleep deprive him. They put 

him in cells with no heat and no window panes in December in 

Moscow and he nearly froze to death. They put him in cells with 

no toilet, just a hole in the floor where the sewage would bubble 

up. 

After 6 months of this, he became ill, he lost 40 pounds, he developed pancreatitis and gall stones and he was prescribed to have an 

operation on the first of August, 2009. One week before the operation his jailers came to him with a Faustian bargain. They said 

if you sign the following confession saying you stole the $230 milVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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lion and you testify against Bill Browder, me, then you can then 

have the medical attention you need. In spite of the unbearable 

physical pain, Sergei refused to sacrifice his integrity, and didn’t 

sign the paper. As a result, they abruptly moved him to a prison 

called Butryka, which is known around Russia as being one of the 

toughest and most unpleasant prisons in Russia. And most significantly for Sergei, Butryka had no medical facilities whatsoever. 

And at Butryka his health completely broke down. He went into 

constant, agonizing, ear-piercing pain. He wrote 20 different requests for medical attention. All of them were rejected by the authorities. And on the night of November 16th, 2009, Sergei 

Magnitsky went into critical condition. Only then did they move 

him to a prison that had an emergency room, but instead of treating him they put him in an isolation cell, chained him to a bed and 

allowed eight riot guards with rubber batons to beat him for 1 hour 

and 18 minutes until he died. He was 37 years old. 

How do we know all this? We know it because Sergei did something very unusual, he documented it all in 450 complaints during 

his 358 days in detention. And as a result of that, we have the 

most well-documented, human rights abuse and extrajudicial killing case in the history of Russia. 

Now, this is a tragic case and a heartbreaking case for me and 

his family, and for anyone around him, but the reason why this is 

politically significant is not what they did to him. This happens all 

the time, it’s the cover up that the government embarked on afterwards. 

The Russian Government on the day he died, said that he had 

died of natural causes. They said they weren’t aware that he was 

ill. They’ve since exonerated all of the police officers, Interior Ministry officials, prosecutors and judges from any liability. Some of 

them have been promoted, some of them have been given state 

honors. 

To add insult to injury, instead of prosecuting anyone who tortured or killed him, they’re now prosecuting Sergei himself. Two 

and a half years after his death, they’re now prosecuting Sergei 

Magnitsky for the trumped up crimes that they arrested him for 

in the first ever posthumous prosecution in Russian history. Not 

even Stalin did that. 

It’s clear that there’s no possibility of justice in Russia for 

Sergei’s case and many, many other cases like it, and as a result 

I’ve sought justice outside of Russia. There are 11 Parliaments 

around the world that are now considering visa sanctions and asset 

freezes on the people who killed Magnitsky as well as other gross 

human rights abusers. And most significantly, this Congress is also 

considering the same thing. 

I would argue that in the absence of any possibility of justice in 

these cases that something needs to be done, and that’s the thing 

that needs to be done. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Browder follows:]

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Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you 

for that powerful testimony. 

Mr. Ambassador. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE STEVEN PIFER, DIRECTOR 

OF THE BROOKINGS ARMS CONTROL INITIATIVE, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION (FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO 

UKRAINE) 

Ambassador PIFER. Thank you, Madam Chairman, Representative Berman, distinguished members of the committee. Thank you 

for the opportunity to speak today. I have submitted a written 

statement for the record and will summarize it now. 

The committee is hearing about democratic regression and pervasive corruption in Russia, and troublesome aspects of Russian foreign relations. I would like to place this in the context of broader 

U.S. policy. The goal of Washington’s policy toward Russia should 

be to cooperate and make progress on those issues where interests 

coincide, while protecting American positions and managing differences where interests diverge. 

The Obama administration’s Reset Policy has, by any objective 

standard, improved the U.S.-Russia relationship since 2008. The 

new START Treaty, expanded transit rights through Russia to Afghanistan, and Russian support for an arms embargo on Iran all 

advance U.S. interests. At the same time, Washington and Moscow 

disagree on a number of issues. The bilateral relationship will for 

the foreseeable future combine a mix of questions on which the 

countries agree, and questions on which they do not. 

On May 7, Vladimir Putin returned to the Russian Presidency. 

As you noted, Madam Chairman, Mr. Putin held the real power 

over the past 4 years; thus, his return should not entail a change 

in the strategic course of Russian foreign policy, though the tone 

may change. 

Mr. Putin will have to confront domestic political, and economic 

challenges that may affect his foreign policy choices. We will have 

to see what that means in practice. It remains in the U.S. interest 

to engage Russia to advance American policy goals. In doing so, the 

United States will at times have to be prepared to take account of 

Russian interests if it wishes to secure Moscow’s help on issues 

that matter to Washington. 

Looking forward, the United States should pursue further reductions of nuclear arms including non-strategic nuclear weapons, continue to explore a cooperative NATO-Russia arrangement on missile defense, and seek jointly to deal with proliferation challenges 

posed by North Korea and Iran, areas in which Washington and 

Moscow have found common ground in the past. 

Washington should explore ways to increase trade and investment relations with Russia. While Moscow’s decisions about its investment climate are the most important factor in this regard, Congress should now graduate Russia from the provisions of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Russia long ago met the requirements by 

opening up freedom of emigration. Its continued application provides no leverage with Moscow, will hurt American business, does 

nothing for the opposition in Russia and degrades the value of the 

threat of Congressional sanctions in the future. 

32

Where interests diverge, the U.S. Government should make its 

case, encourage change in Russian policy and be prepared to manage differences that persist. Washington and Moscow, for example, 

disagree sharply over Syria where the Russian Government has 

misguidedly attached itself to an autocrat whose days may well be 

numbered. U.S. diplomacy should seek to persuade Moscow to 

adopt a different course. 

U.S. and Russian interests differ in the post-Soviet space, the region most likely to generate a major crisis in bilateral relations. 

Moscow seeks to gain inordinate influence over its neighbors, the 

United States rejects that notion of a sphere of influence and supports the right of each post-Soviet state to choose its own course. 

Some tension between these two approaches is inevitable. It would 

be wise for Washington and Moscow to consult closely and be 

transparent on their policies. 

One other difficult issue is the democracy and human rights situation in Russia. While Russian citizens today enjoy considerably 

more individual freedoms than they did during Soviet times, they 

have fewer freedoms, are more subject to arbitrary and capricious 

state action, and have less political influence than during the 

1990s. This regression is sadly epitomized by the flaws in the recent parliamentary and Presidential elections, and the appalling 

treatment of Sergei Magnitsky. 

Democratic and human rights values are properly a part of U.S. 

foreign policy, and it is difficult to envisage a bilateral relationship 

with Russia becoming truly normal while these problems persist. 

U.S. officials should make clear American concerns publicly and 

privately with Russian officials. The U.S. Government should, as it 

is doing, maintain a policy of denying visas to Russian officials associated with the Magnitsky case. And this is a tool that should be 

considered in other egregious cases. 

Washington should examine other ways to support the growth of 

a robust civil society in Russia. U.S. officials should maintain contact with the full spectrum of Russian society, and Members of 

Congress themselves should engage directly with their counterparts in the Russian legislature on these questions. 

Washington should bear in mind, however, that its ability to affect internal change in Russia is limited at best. Hopefully, the opposition movement that is now emerging will strengthen and grow 

into a vehicle through which ordinary Russians can gain a greater 

say in their politics and governance. The United States can encourage this on the margins but this is an issue that the Russians 

themselves must drive. 

Madam Chairman, the U.S. Government should raise its democracy and human rights concerns and challenge Russia where positions on other interests diverge. At the same time, the United 

States should continue to work with Russia to advance American 

interests, and to build a more positive sustainable relationship. 

Doing so will increase American influence with and in Russia. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Pifer follows:]

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Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. 

Dr. Aron. 

STATEMENT OF LEON ARON, PH.D., DIRECTOR OF RUSSIAN 

STUDIES, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. ARON. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, Mr. Berman, distinguished members. 

Among the top, the very top priorities of U.S. Foreign Security 

policies, I doubt there are many, if any, objectives more important 

than a free democratic, stable, and prosperous Russia, peace at 

long last with its own people, its neighbors, and the world. 

Assisting the emergence of such a Russia is or should be among 

the top U.S. geostrategic goals to which shorter terms policy should 

be attuned and adjusted. Always a hard job requiring skill, patience, perseverance, and a great deal of expertise. 

Of late, this task has gotten even more complicated. On the one 

hand we have seen, and will continue to see without a doubt in the 

coming months and years a brilliant outburst of civic activity, a 

quest for democratic citizenship by the tens of thousands of Russians who demonstrated in the country’s largest cities and by the 

millions who think like them. The civil rights movements will eventually crystallize politically, in effect another attempt at a democratic breakthrough following Russia’s revolution of August ’91. 

On the other hand, after effectively 12 years in power, the Russian President, turned Prime Minister, turned President has engineered an election from which he barred every leader of pro-democratic opposition and limited the exposure of the majority of the 

Russians who get their news mostly from television to what a leader of the protestors and one of Russia’s most popular writers, Boris 

Akunin, called Shameless Propaganda of Vladimir Putin’s candidacy. 

Fresh from the spectacular and well-documented falsification of 

the results of the previous election, the December 4th parliamentary election, the wholly-owned Kremlin subsidiary by the name of 

the Central Electoral Commission stood by to draw as they say in 

Russia whichever number the boss ordered. 

Among the many troubling aspects of this so-called Electoral 

Campaign was anti-American propaganda, the likes of which we 

may not have seen since before 1985. Troubling, but hardly surprising, just as all politics is local, so in the end much of foreign 

policy is domestic politics. And whenever domestic politics is dicey 

the Kremlin, like all other authoritarians resort to a tried and true 

tactic, alleged external danger to rally the people around the flag, 

to smear and marginalize pro-democracy opposition as agents of enemies from abroad. 

Putin’s enemy of choice has always been the United States; 

hence, Secretary Clinton as a signaler to anti-Putin opposition. 

Hence, also, a number of policies that have already been mentioned 

so I’ll only go through them very briefly. 

It’s been almost 2 years since Russia has criticized—has supported U.S. and Europe sanctions against Iran. Of late, it deplored 

these sanctions, unilateral sanctions aimed at Iranian oil exports. 

This past November Russia condemned the International Atomic 

45

Energy report that provided further evidence of Iran’s Nuclear 

Weapons Program. 

Moscow continues to sell arms to Bashaw al-Assad’s murderous 

regime even as it butchers its own citizens as the world watches. 

Along with China, Russia has vetoed two Western and Arab 

League-backed U.N. Security Council sanctions, resolutions threatening sanctions against Damascus and calling for Assad to step 

down. 

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, called 

the February 4th veto outrageous and accused Moscow of standing 

with a dictator. Yet as late as March 13th, a senior Russian official 

confirmed that Moscow had no intention of rethinking its weapon 

sales and military cooperation with Syria. 

Finally, despite untold hours of briefings, including at the highest level of U.S. Government, to demonstrate that Moscow worries 

about the U.S. missile defense in Europe are totally unfounded, 

this past November on national television President Dimitri 

Medvedev reiterated an earlier threat to station short-range ballistic missiles in the Kaliningrad region, and even to withdraw 

from the New Start Strategic Arms Treaty if the U.S. proceeds 

with the missile defense deployment. 

So, what next for Russian foreign policy? Of course, nothing is 

certain in these types of predictions, but domestic politics may 

again provide some solid clues. The regime’s post election strategy 

thus far has included a few concessions to the pro-democracy 

protestors such as the nominal return of the gubernatorial elections, and the recent registration of a Liberal Republican party of 

Russia. But a stronger and broader trend is clearly the one of authoritarian consolidation including selective persecution of some 

key leaders of the protestors, the reestablishment of the Kremlin’s 

unchallenged control of television, and anti-American propaganda. 

If this strategy which reminds one of the title of Lenin’s article 

‘‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward,’’ continues to guide the 

Kremlin, then Russia is likely to maintain an assertive anti-U.S. 

posture in order to shore up its increasingly shaky legitimacy at 

home by lending as much credence as possible to the narrative of 

protecting the motherland against the scheming enemies of Russia 

on the outside and the fifth columnists from within. And as a result, occasional gestures such as goodwill toward the West and the 

United States, especially in the areas of deep security concerns for 

Russia such as Afghanistan, are going to be few and far between. 

I wish I had a more cheerful forecast for U.S.-Russian relations 

for the remainder of this year but the preponderance of evidence 

points to a chill with possible frost on the ground. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Aron follows:]

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Mr. ARON. Madam Chairman, I would like to enter into the 

record two articles dealing with the domestic roots of Russian foreign policy, one from 2008 titled——

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Without objection subject 

to the length limitation and the rules. 

Thank you so much, and thank you to all of our witnesses for excellent testimony. 

I will start the round of questions where each member will have 

5 minutes to ask questions. I wanted to focus on the Assad regime 

in Syria, and wanted to ask you, you all discussed it, but why is 

Russia so aggressively supporting that regime? What benefit, what 

is the end game? How does Russia see this playing out to benefit 

the nation? What are we to make of reports that Moscow has sent 

elite troops, units of Russian Marines, special operations forces to 

Syria in order to conduct antiterrorism missions in the country, 

whatever those may be? And if you could comment on news that 

we’ve read lately that Russian experts upgraded the long range 

radar systems in Syria in order to help Iran with an early warning 

system in event of an attack on its nuclear facilities. And, also, as 

Russia appears to be actively supporting both Iran and Syria, 

would you agree that our efforts to gain Russian cooperation regarding these countries have been a true failure? We’ll start with 

Mr. Kramer. 

Mr. KRAMER. Madam Chair, I think these are like-minded regimes, and they come to the aid and protection of each other. I 

think Mr. Putin was scared when he saw what happened to Ben 

Ali, and Mubarak, and Qaddafi, and he doesn’t want to see the 

same thing happen to Assad in Syria. These kinds of leaders need 

to stay together. 

Russia has not only vetoed the U.N. Security Council Resolution, 

as you and others have indicated, they are selling arms to the Syrian regime which the Syrian regime is in turn using to slaughter 

its own people. Russia has a base in Syria. Russia has continued 

to provide military support. 

I’m afraid this doesn’t come as a surprise. When you have the 

kind of regime you have in Moscow, I think it tries to come to the 

aid and support of a regime like we see in Damascus. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Mr. Browder. 

Mr. BROWDER. The Russian Government and the Russian State 

functions off the back of oil. That’s the main fuel that fuels the 

economy. The Soviet Union ended when oil prices went down to 

$10 a barrel and Russia is flexing their muscles with oil at $120 

a barrel. 

It’s in their interest to have instability in the Middle East because it keeps oil prices high, and so Russia is not playing a game 

of—they’re not playing sort of good world stewards when they’re 

voting at the Security Council. They’re making sure that they can 

spoil the situation so oil prices stay high. And I think that that’s 

a very important part of their calculus. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Excellent point. Ambassador. 

Ambassador PIFER. I think Russian policy toward Mr. Assad has 

four reasons. First of all, they see him as an ally, unfortunately, 

and they don’t have many allies left. They’re reluctant to throw 

him over. A second part of this is payback to the West over Libya, 

50

where they believe that the West took a U.N. Security Council Resolution and stretched it in its action in Libya. Third, and I think 

this is a bit more legitimate reason, is they don’t know what comes 

after Mr. Assad. And I think that is a legitimate concern. 

Finally, there is a rather paranoid view here, which is if you look 

at how the Russians talk about Syria it fits into a pattern of how 

they talked about the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, Tunisia, 

Egypt, that these aren’t indigenous movements, that they’re somehow directed, funded by the United States, and that they’re somehow directed against Russia. And it seems very paranoiac, but 

when you look at what they say in Moscow, they say it so many 

times that you think they really must believe it. 

I think the Russian policy is wrong. It’s also misguided and selfdefeating. It’s going to position them badly with the Arab world, 

and if and when Mr. Assad goes down it will position Russia badly 

with his successors. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you. Dr. Aron. 

Mr. ARON. Very little to add to what’s been said by my colleagues. I think it’s one of the clearest cases of the uses of foreign 

policy for domestic politics. I think Vladimir Putin feels that the 

support for these types of regimes, and not so much specific support for specific regimes but opposing the U.S. and the West in the 

areas of not just strategic but moral concern is somehow bolstering 

his domestic political standing. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. Excellent answers. Thank you. 

Mr. Berman is recognized. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you very much. Hopefully, a quick response. 

Does the future of the Reset impact at all about whether Medvedev 

is made Prime Minister or not, or is that sort of irrelevant to the 

future of U.S.-Russia relations? 

Mr. KRAMER. Mr. Berman, I would say it’s irrelevant whether 

Medvedev becomes Prime Minister or not, and I don’t think the 

Reset will have any bearing on that. 

Ambassador PIFER. I would second that. I think that Mr. 

Medvedev will become Prime Minister. I think Mr. Putin will make 

that appointment. How long he remains in the position will depend 

on his success at grappling with the very difficult economic challenges that Russia faces, but I think that really is not related to 

the Reset question. 

Mr. ARON. I think Putin has completely destroyed Medvedev as 

a political figure on the 24th of September when speaking to the 

United Party, United Russia Party. He put his arm around him 

and essentially said I had this boy warming up the seat for 4 years. 

And, in fact, when the protestors were polled, both by the survey 

firms but also anecdotally that moment to many of them was one 

of the most shameless moments in Russian political history, and 

propelled them to protest 2 months later. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you. I want to get to the Magnitsky issue. 

And, Mr. Browder, I mean, I’ve read about this a lot, but your testimony was—put it all together in its most graphic sense. 

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ers either generally, I’m not sure before in a specific case but 

maybe, and asset freezes. Does it makes sense to do this in a more 

general sense rather than specifically as to Russia, specifically 

about Magnitsky, to essentially set a process where we expect the 

appropriate agencies in the State Department to compile lists of 

human rights abusers in cases that we learn about where they’re 

denied visas and where assets are frozen, or is doing it this way, 

specifically about Russia, specifically about this case, the preferred 

way to go, or should we be moving ahead on graduating and put 

this aside for now? 

Mr. BROWDER. The answer is that this initiative, asset freezes 

and visa sanctions, is not just specifically for Magnitsky. It started 

out specifically for Magnitsky in the U.S. House of Representatives 

when I first testified in front of the Lantos Human Rights Commission, and it was then put into the Senate as well, just on 

Magnitsky. And what happened was that many, many other victims of human rights abuse in Russia came forward and said this 

is the most powerful tool that we’ve ever seen to challenge the impunity that’s been washing over our country. And as a result, the 

decision was made by Senator Cardin, McCain, Lieberman and 

Wicker to broaden the legislation, not just for Magnitsky, but for 

all gross human rights——

Mr. BERMAN. But still Russia-specific. 

Mr. BROWDER. Well, it doesn’t say so in the legislation. 

Mr. BERMAN. Oh. 

Mr. BROWDER. I believe just—and this is my personal belief, that 

we found the new technology for fighting impunity in the rest of 

the world. Many, many of these crimes are done for money, and 

these people like to spend their money and travel, and enjoy the 

fruits and freedoms of the West. And when they can’t, that touches 

them in the most profound way. 

Mr. BERMAN. Anybody else have a 30-second thought on this? 

Mr. KRAMER. Mr. Berman, if I could, I actually support graduating Russia from Jackson-Vanik, but I would argue only as a 

package with the passage of the Magnitsky bill. I think it would 

be a major mistake to grant Russia graduation without bringing up 

to speed legislation that deals with current day Russia’s problems, 

and I think that’s exactly what the Magnitsky case does, or the 

Magnitsky legislation. 

If I could, also, there are two—there’s been a lot of confusion 

about the position of opposition leaders when they issued a statement about a week ago in support of lifting Jackson-Vanik for Russia. There are two articles, if I may, Madam Chair, suggest entering into the record by Gary——

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Without objection subject to the 

length. 

Mr. KRAMER [continuing]. Both advocating very strongly for 

Magnitsky replacing Jackson-Vanik. 

Mr. ARON. I think the Russian—the people who put their bodies 

on the line protesting in Russia know better, and they all while 

supporting, definitely supporting pulling of the Jackson-Vanik, and 

have also advocated very strongly some sort of legislation that both 

will show a moral concern by the United States about the human 

rights abuses both in Russia and the world, but also target specific 

52

individuals whom Russian justice system simply is not capable of 

punishing. 

Ambassador PIFER. I would just add that I think that visa and 

financial sanctions have proven effective in the past. Dave and I 

worked on these years ago, for example, with regards to Belarus, 

and I think that they have had an impact. 

That said, I would urge that if the route is chosen as a piece of 

legislation that Congress write the legislation so that the sanctions 

are lifted, in fact, when the behavior is adjusted in the way that 

you wish. I think that’s been one of the drawbacks of the JacksonVanik provision and its application to Russia, is 15 years after Russia met the requirements it still remains under that sanction. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. Mr. Smith is 

recognized. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Let me just—Secretary Kramer, you point out that since his laudable speech in July of ’09 in 

Moscow in which he spoke about Russia’s shortcomings in the area 

of human rights, Obama has been virtually silent on Russia’s deteriorating political situation. Very strong criticism, and unfortunately in a whole host of human rights abuses around the world, 

including China; the President has been unbelievably silent when 

it has to come to human rights abuses. 

My question, I’d like to delve into the Magnitsky case. You know, 

the administration as best as I can tell, does not just believe that 

the legislation is unnecessary, but as you pointed out, they’re 

against it. As you know, the information that was leaked, or however it became known, in their analysis makes it very clear that 

the administration believes that the Immigration and Nationality 

Act already bars admission to the U.S. of aliens who have engaged 

in torture, in extrajudicial killings. 

Back in 2000, I was the author of the Admiral Nance and Meg 

Donovan Foreign Relations Act of 2000, and we had a specific provision in there dealing with making inadmissible, in other words, 

visa bans on those people who engage in a number of human rights 

abuses, including forced abortion in China. 

The problem has been when it’s not country-specific nobody gets 

banned, or very few people get banned. For example, under the Admiral Nance and Meg Donovan Foreign Relations Act there was nobody under the Bush administration coming out of China or under 

the Obama administration who has been told, ‘‘Uh-uh, you’re not 

coming here.’’ And I’ve raised that I have a new bill in H.R. 2121 

that is specifically focused on China because as we did with the 

Belarus Democracy Act. If you don’t have specific country named, 

it seems that the administration is less enthusiastic about doing 

what they ought to be doing. 

Now, the administration claims that they have denied visas to 

some people involved in the Magnitsky case. It’s unclear how durable that is, how expansive it is. But as, Mr. Browder, you pointed 

out, his case has become the most well-documented and emblematic 

case of torture, heavily documented by himself as he was going 

through it. 

So, my question really comes down to the administration. Is it 

your view that they’re against it as this leaked document would 

clearly suggest? They talked about fears of retaliation, they talked 

53

about ambiguous language with regards to the asset side of it. It 

seems to me that’s why you put this into place so that we’ll do our 

due diligence to ascertain whose assets ought to be frozen, as well 

as who ought to be barred entry into the United States. 

So, again, it’s like ‘‘Magnitsky Light’’ in terms of the legislation 

being supported by the administration which is not enough at all. 

I would hope, as you pointed out, that if the MFN were to go forward or the waiving and ending of Jackson-Vanik, this needs to be 

part of a package because otherwise, unfortunately, we will miss a 

significant opportunity. We didn’t do it with China. They got PNTR 

and they got ascension into WTO with no linkage whatsoever to 

human rights. We created the China Commission, and I chair it, 

but I voted against the legislation, frankly, because China is the 

most, as Mr. Rohrabacher said yesterday, the most egregious violator of human rights globally. Nothing got better when the trade 

began to become unfettered. 

So, your thoughts further because, again, this document, are they 

against it, as far as you know, the administration? Will they veto 

the legislation, maybe kill it before it ever comes out in the Senate 

or in the House? 

Mr. KRAMER. Mr. Smith, first of all, let me express my thanks 

to you for your leadership on human rights issues. When I was in 

the government, your championing of the Belarus Democracy Act 

was invaluable to our efforts to go after people in the Lukashenko 

regime. As Steve Pifer mentioned, both of us were involved in that. 

This kind of legislation I think is critical. It is very important to 

go after Russians. And the thing about this is that it is very targeted. It doesn’t go after the entire country. It goes after Russian 

officials who engage in gross human rights abuses, who kill journalists, or lawyers, or human rights activists. And if they don’t do 

that kind of thing, they won’t be on the list. 

And it’s also very important, I would argue, not only to put them 

on a visa ban list, but to go after their assets. As I mentioned with 

the capital flight, there was $84 billion in capital flight last year. 

Russian officials don’t put their ill-gotten gains in Russian banks, 

they know it’s not safe and secure. They put them in Western 

banks, so by going after these assets it’s critically important. 

You’re absolutely right, when China was granted PNTR, the 

China human rights situation did not improve, so graduating Russia from Jackson-Vanik won’t improve the human rights situation. 

Mr. SMITH. Is the administration against it? 

Mr. KRAMER. My impression is the administration is, based on 

what Ambassador Mike McFaul said last week in several different 

meetings. I had been under the impression the administration was 

moving toward a deal, but McFaul’s comments last week suggested 

that they, in fact, were not. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 

Smith. Mr. Meeks is recognized. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

You know, for about 20 years, and I’m listening, it’s a very good 

hearing. Russia has sought entry into the WTO, and for just as 

long a period of time the United States has prioritized Russia’s admission to the WTO. So, the first reason you ask yourself is why? 

Just because want to be—no, I think it’s because the WTO memVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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bership required that Russia reform some of its law and its legal 

systems, and reform Russian trade policy and practices, and 

strengthen Russia’s Rule of Law. That was some leverage that we 

had to get them to the WTO. And at the end of this 20-year path, 

you know, we see some laws and rules that Russia would have to 

abide by by being in a body such as the WTO. 

Now, by granting PNTR I don’t think that we in no way can endorse or take in, or agree to allow human rights violations, and objections, and some of the objectionable, and even some of the despicable foreign policies or acts, what is happening on the ground 

in Russia. 

Though, it is by recognizing and taking advantage of an improved law in a business climate that we look at one end deepening 

our economic trade the relationship allows because I always say 

that there are two forms of relationships that a country has, one 

is trade, the other is war. I don’t like the scenario we had going 

back to the Cold War where we’re at one another and we’re looking 

at one another, and threatening one another, no need in going 

there. I don’t want that—we can improve trade relations, then that 

gives us opportunities to move forward. 

However, understanding the struggles that we’ve had within our 

own country, I admire the people of Russia, especially those who 

are standing up for their civil rights, especially those that are 

standing in the streets, especially those who are willing to lose 

their lives as people stood up in this country. And we should stand 

by them, and we should make sure that they are strengthened. But 

there are two tracks that we’re taking here from what I see. And 

I don’t want to cut off our nose to spite our faces. 

And when I hear people talking about PNTR, that’s going to 

hurt. Well, maybe that’s the question I’ll ask. If denying Russia 

PNTR, is that going to hurt Russia? Because the facts that I’m getting in, it’s not going to hurt Russia. It’s not something that makes 

them change. It’ll make us, or put us at a competitive disadvantage 

with our other competitors around the world because we’re now in 

a global economy. 

So, I’ll start with Mr. Pifer, does that—since Russia will be in the 

WTO this summer, is not granting PNTR, would that hurt Russia? 

Ambassador PIFER. Well, first of all, let me say that I think getting Russia into the World Trade Organization is an American interest because that will force Russia to play by trade rules to which 

most American companies are accustomed. It will improve the 

trade environment there. 

Second, if the United States does not grant Russia Permanent 

Normal Trade Relations status after Russia is in the WTO, that 

will mean that American companies will not be able to take advantage of certain WTO trade benefits, or WTO dispute resolution 

mechanisms. So, it’ll be the Boeings, the John Deeres, it will be 

American companies that are then sanctioned, in effect, because 

they will not have the full benefits of WTO. 

But having said that, there’s no reason why you can’t move to 

graduate Russia from Jackson-Vanik, and still take other measures 

to make clear American concerns about human rights issues within 

Russia. I mean, we ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the 

55

same time and do both. It’s not—and it should not be—an either/

or situation. 

Mr. MEEKS. Dr. Aron. 

Mr. ARON. Well, you know, I was really very pleased to hear you, 

and I think these are very related issues, to talk about the protest 

in Russia, civil rights movement. You and I—I’ve written about 

this. The similarities are incredible. You know, look at their slogans, don’t lie to us, don’t steal from us, listen to us, don’t step on 

us. 

Mr. MEEKS. Absolutely. 

Mr. ARON. They are against effective disenfranchisement, and 

they are for the equality before law. I think it’s extremely important for all of us to understand that while you can call them political opposition, they’re more like civil rights movements. 

Mr. MEEKS. Absolutely. 

Mr. ARON. And that is both good news for the regime and bad 

news. It’s good news because they’re not crystallizing politically, 

they’re not—you know, you can’t really—they have trouble developing national leaders, developing a political agenda, but the very 

bad news for the regime, and the good news for the world and the 

people of Russia is that they’re deeply morally committed. This is 

a movement for moral renewal. 

Mr. MEEKS. Which means the fight will never stop until they 

win. 

Mr. ARON. It’s very——

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. The fight may stop, but the 5 minutes 

brings this to an end. 

Mr. MEEKS. Okay. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much. Mr. Dana Rohrabacher. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

And, again, I think my commitment to human rights is very evident and I would, of course, support legislation that would hold 

human rights abusers in Russia or anywhere else, specifically 

aimed at Russia or other countries, I’d be very happy to support 

that. 

But in saying that, I’m really appalled at the double standard 

that we use toward Russia. I mean, Chris mentioned it just in 

passing. I mean, there are no opposition rallies in China. There are 

no opposition parties. There’s no newspapers that criticize the government. We have people who are being arrested for their religion 

and having their organs—murdered and having their organs taken 

out and sold, and we’re not even taking that problem seriously. I 

mean, the double standard is incredible to me. And even the double 

standard we have to our own system. 

Look, there’s lots of shortcomings that Russia has, and we should 

be pushing them on them, no doubt about it. But let’s not use the 

most sinister words that we can possibly think up to describe 

things that are not quite that sinister, that if we use the same 

standard on us would seem sinister. 

How many people died in Waco? How many innocent citizens 

were incinerated, kids in Waco? Well, I want to tell you something, 

that can be described in very sinister terms. The guy who shot the 

woman who was holding her child at Ruby Ridge was given a proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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motion by the Clinton administration, as was the person who gave 

the orders to burn down those families in Waco. 

Now, does that mean that our system is very sinister, there’s a 

sinister part of America—no, that means that people make mistakes, and we’ve got to make sure we hold them accountable for it. 

And we’ve got to expose it. 

Now, let me ask this, with all the talk I’ve heard so far, of these 

rallies, of which we can proud that Russia now has rallies against 

Putin, how many of their leaders have been picked up by the Putin 

administration and jailed. How many are in jail right now for those 

rallies that we’ve just seen on television these last few months? Are 

there any? 

Mr. ARON. They are harassed. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Harassed. 

Mr. ARON. No, no, no. And you’re absolutely right about double 

standards with regard to China. And the answer to this is, first of 

all, life is not fair. And, secondly, I’ve been thinking a lot about 

this. You know, we did not spend untold amount of Treasury opposing China for 50 years in the Cold War. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, well, I’ve got to—listen, my time is 

going to be used up on China, and we’re talking about Russia 

today. And I don’t think Russia is being dealt a fair hand. Because 

I will tell you, Putin is not a good guy, we all know that. He has 

a background that would lead him to decisions and to an arrogance 

that we would not accept here. I mean, I think the self-inflicted 

wound of having to run again is going to hurt Russia. And I’m 

sorry they made that decision, but let’s go back to number one, the 

level of repression in Russia. 

I have asked over and over again, Madam Chairman, for lists of 

names of people who are political prisoners in Russia, and when I 

get the list almost all of them deal, and all of the journalists that 

have been repressed, almost all deal with the Chechnyan War. And 

let me just note that we have our own situation now where the police chiefs of New York City—oh, there must be massive repression 

against the Islamic community in New York because after 9/11 

they started surveilling the Muslim community in New York. 

Well, in Russia there was a school where they blew up a whole 

bunch of kids, the Chechnyans did, they went into a theater, they 

have been conducting terrorist activity in and on Russians. 

Now, yes, that leads people to overreact at times, but almost all 

of the political prisoners, Madam Chairman, where I’ve asked to 

get the list from and all the sinister discussion of all the political 

prisoners that they have now, and the journalists who have been 

assassinated, almost all of it is traced to this war with radical 

Islam, and especially the Chechnyan War. 

Now, I don’t think that is fair for the American people not to 

know. I think it’s okay to say okay, they got political prisoners as 

a result of this war with radical Islam, but American people are 

given the assumption that the political prisoners are all just democratic reformers who are out protesting against Putin. That’s not 

a fair comparison. 

Look, I want to—again, let’s hold the Russians who are involved 

with human rights violations, hold them personally accountable, 

but let’s not create a false image here that creates a—we should 

57

be best friends with Russia in dealing with the China threat and 

the radical Islamic threat. That’s what’s on both of us. Instead, 

we’re pushing them away, and pushing them into the arms of 

China. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. 

Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Connolly is recognized. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Well, gosh, I certainly take a point from our friend from California, but we just had 

some of the most powerful testimony this committee has ever heard 

about a political prisoner who was not from Chechnya. He had the 

gall to actually try to practice law and represent a defendant falsely accused on trumped up charges to cover up massive corruption. 

And that is not an anomaly in Russian jurisprudence sadly. 

So, right here in this hearing we actually have an example, Mr. 

Rohrabacher of exactly what you’re saying, give me proof. And it 

isn’t just an example, it is a horrific example of the worst kind of 

totalitarian justice, frankly, and it needs to be singled out and condemned——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Would the gentleman yield for just one moment? 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I’d like to be on the record to make sure I 

am appalled at that type of activity, and just don’t let anybody 

think by my remarks that I in any way excuse that type of thing. 

So, thank you. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank the gentleman. But let me go to the Ambassador. Ambassador, you said in your testimony, and I know you 

weren’t suggesting therefore do nothing, but you said, frankly, our 

ability to influence practice within—domestically within Russia is 

limited. And I think back to the Cold War era which, sadly, I’m old 

enough to remember vividly. 

We did, we adopted Vanik-Jackson, Jackson-Vanik. We supported refuseniks. We singled out Sharansky and some other high 

profile dissidents and by doing so protected them from what Mr. 

Browder described tragically that happened to Mr. Magnitsky, so 

we were able under the Communist era to somewhat influence behavior. We can’t be delusional about how much, but—and maybe 

it had counterproductive impacts, as well. I don’t know, but how do 

we solve this balance, though, between the moralistic instincts of 

U.S. foreign policy that have always been with us in the bounding 

of the Republic, and the politics of Realpolitik where we have to 

pursue our own self-interest economically, and politically, and geopolitically. And maybe what we should do is just turn a blind eye 

to all that stuff, unpleasant though it is. 

What’s the balance in Russia? And I wanted to give you an opportunity to sort of expand a little bit on that so we don’t misconstrue what you meant. 

Ambassador PIFER. No, I think your question is a very good one. 

And it’s one of the challenges that this administration has faced, 

and really every administration for the last 30 or 40 years has 

faced with the Soviet Union, or Russia, is how do you strike that 

balance between on the one hand engaging on issues where you can 

work with the Soviet Union or Russia to advance interests, while 

58

also being clear about problems that you have on the human rights 

side. 

I think if you go back, for example, to the Reagan administration, during the Reagan administration there was a four-part agenda: Arms control, regional issues, bilateral questions, and human 

rights. And I think the experience of those 8 years was that as you 

made progress on some of the positive issues it, in fact, increased 

your ability to have impact on human rights questions. 

I served at the Embassy in Moscow from 1986 to 1988 during the 

Reagan administration’s second term, and at that point we saw 

progress, in fact, increasing our ability to push and help make 

change on the human rights side, and you were seeing a good number of refuseniks beginning to get out and such. So, this is one of 

the challenges is, in fact, finding a relationship where if you can 

work to find interests which coincide and you can broaden that relationship that, in fact, may give you a greater ability to affect the 

Russians’ decisions on questions like human rights where we have 

real problems. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And I understood from your testimony, too, we 

can’t frame this as an either/or. Either we pursue our self-interest 

very callously and turn a blind eye to all this human rights stuff, 

or we pursue this high moral ground at the expense of our self-interest. That’s a false choice. 

Mr. ARON. Exactly. 

Ambassador PIFER. That would certainly be an easier way to do 

the policy, but it’s the wrong policy for the United States. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Kramer, thank you. Very little time here, but 

you gave pretty blunt assessment of Russia and its governance. 

What is your prescription for U.S. foreign policy given the characterization you made of the Russian leadership? 

Mr. KRAMER. Mr. Connolly, when I was in the Bush administration, we tried to pursue areas of common interest with Russia 

while also pushing back wherever we had differences. I would 

argue that policy should remain the same. I think the current approach has been with much more emphasis on pursuing common 

interest, and not on the push back. I would apply that not only to 

the area of human rights and democracy problems in Russia, but 

also toward Russia’s neighbors. 

If I can, I know we’re out of time, but I’m sorry Mr. Rohrabacher 

left. I do worry——

Mr. CONNOLLY. This is going to cost me chocolate. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Don’t bring him back, come on. Have 

pity on us. 

Mr. KRAMER. Madam Chair, I do worry that there was a demonization of Chechens in the comments that he made. In 1994 to 1996 

when Russia invaded Chechnya, there were tens of thousands of 

Chechens slaughtered. In 1999 when the war resumed with 

Chechnya, there were tens of thousands of Chechens slaughtered 

again. This is how Putin came to power. It is impossible to separate the problem in the North Caucasus. It is impossible to separate the issue of Chechnya from Putin’s current position. This is 

how he came to power. 

So, while, of course, the Magnitsky case is not related to 

Chechnya, what happened in Chechnya is appalling, and the curVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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rent leader of Chechnya is one of the worst human rights abusers 

in the country, if not in the world. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you, Mr. Connolly, and thank 

you, Mr. Faleomavaega. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Thank you, Madam Chair. My apologies, 

terrible schedule today of having to have two committee hearings 

at the same time. But I do want to thank you for calling this important hearing on Russia, and my apologies to our expert witnesses here this morning that I wasn’t here to listen to their testimonies. But just a couple of questions, I would appreciate from our 

witnesses. 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that we spent well over $5 trillion to win the Cold War against the former Soviet 

Union. And correct me if I’m wrong again, it appears that we were 

not anticipating that this would happen to the Soviet Union’s 

downfall. And my question is with all the spying, and the intelligence, and things that we’ve done for the 40-year period during 

the Cold War, why is it that our national leaders never realized 

that something was going wrong, that the Soviet Union would just 

collapse. Can anybody—maybe I’m wrong. Can anybody tell me—

we’re pretty good at keeping eyes on the atomic weapons, their missiles, and all the military might, but we couldn’t even predict the 

fact that they would fall. Am I wrong in this? I would appreciate 

the witness’ response to this. 

Ambassador PIFER. Congressman, I have to admit guilt. I served 

at Embassy Moscow from 1986 to 1988 and we did not see at the 

end of 1988 that the Soviet Union would not be in existence 3 years 

later. 

Mr. BERMAN. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I gladly yield. 

Mr. BERMAN. There’s one exception to what the gentleman said. 

I heard Daniel Monynihan give a speech in January 1985 where he 

predicted—he was a little wrong because he predicted by the end 

of the century the Soviet empire would disintegrate because of its 

own failings. 

Ambassador PIFER. I think there was one American analyst, 

George Kolt, who made the prediction but he was very much of a 

minority view at the time. 

Mr. BERMAN. Imagine a politician making it. 

Mr. ARON. If I may, this is very gratifying to me because in the 

new book that Madam Chairman so kindly mentioned published by 

Yale this June, the first chapter is precisely dealing with the issues 

of why nobody could predict it. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Out this spring. 

Mr. ARON. And the reason for this, very briefly, is that we looked 

in the wrong places. We’re all trained to look at the economy, military, security, we never look at the morality. And this regime, like 

all authoritarian regimes, like Arab Spring, like any other fall of 

authoritarian regime, ultimately starts, the spark is moral revolution. And I think this is what Gorbachev’s glasnost did. And that 

nobody could predict. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I think my colleague from California mentioned about the good Senator Monynihan from New York, but just 

one leader in our Government was able to make the prediction? 

60

That amazes me. With all the Rand Corporations, and all the experts and everything that we have in our capacity to look at—especially as the only other super power, it was our rival, and we were 

not able to see this coming. Because the next thing that leads to 

my next question, this was basically a socialist-Marxist society as 

a country, and their idea of a free enterprise, free marketing system unlike the Chinese, there’s about $300 billion worth of assets 

that Chinese business people had outside of China which enabled 

China, in my humble opinion, why the economy is able to do it, because you’ve got multi—hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese 

investors that go into it from Taiwan. You know, maybe they all 

don’t realize Taiwan and China, even before the better relations 

they now have, they were having 100-billion trade relationship, unofficial they call it. 

My question that I wanted to raise on this is that did it seem 

that—and it didn’t matter what administration, we failed—our 

Government failed to give the Soviet Union or Russia the necessary 

resources to bring itself back to regain its sense of stability, if you 

will. Am I wrong on this, because I seem to get that—whether 

Democrat or Republic administration, in my opinion we failed to 

give Russia the necessary resources to regain itself in terms of 

what happened when they tried to work in a Democratic system. 

They tried to work getting to the free market system, but it seems 

that our Government just didn’t seem to give them the resources. 

Dr. Aron, am I wrong on this assessment? 

Mr. ARON. It’s very complicated. Let me just remind you that Russia is making $900 million a month from the sale of oil. I think 

the resources it not exactly the issue. I think it’s inability of the 

Russian civil society to mature and to watch over executive, which 

is why the current protests are so hopeful because that may be a 

sign of an evolving civil society, which is our best hope. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. I’ve got 50 more questions, but I’ve got my 

20 seconds left. Madam Chair, I will have written questions. I just 

wanted to ask if the Obama administration made the right decision 

not to hold a missile defense system built in Poland, the Czech Republic years ago. But my time is up, I’m sorry. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Maybe we have time for a yes or no. 

Mr. KRAMER. They handled it the wrong way, but their current 

system is not a bad one. 

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. All right, thank you. Thank you, Madam 

Chair. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you so much. Mr. Sherman is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, doctor, and I think you’ve hit on something, and that is you need a unifying ideology to keep an elite, and 

an entire society together, an agreement as to who should rule, 

that can be theocracy, the Division Right of Kings, Communism 

when you believe it as a religion, or something very close, democracy has a lot of appeal. And I would comment that the ideology 

that gives the Communist party of China the right to rule is we’re 

a bunch of—we’re a Communist party that no longer believes in 

Communism. This is not an ideology or a morality, if you will, 

that’s going to hold water. Their second reason is we bring you 7 

percent growth, and as long as they do they won’t have an ideologVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:18 Jun 07, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\032112\73456 HFA PsN: SHIRL
61

ical problem. But I doubt very much whether there’s an ideology 

that will help that government survive bad economic times. 

My first question is to the entire panel. There’s a tension in foreign affairs between self-determination on the one hand, and territorial integrity on the other, the two great wars fought on American soil, one in 1776 was our war for self-determination, and in 

1861 began our war for territorial integrity. 

Now, we took the side of self-determination vis-a`-vis the individual republics of the Soviet Union, the republics of Yugoslavia, 

and the Serbian region of Kosovo. We took the side of territorial 

integrity with regard to Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Trans-Dniester 

Moldova, the Krajina region of Croatia, and the northern parts of 

Kosovo that wanted to break off from the newly independent 

Kosovo. Is there any consistent them in all that? Does anybody 

have a theme? 

Ambassador PIFER. I’m not going to argue that the policy was always consistent. I think with regard to the specific case of the 

breakup of the Soviet Union, the decision was to recognize the 

states that emerged in their territorial boundaries at that point, 

because redrawing one of those borders would open up a can of 

worms. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I would say there is a consistent theme, and I 

agree, the individual decisions can be justified. But in I believe it’s 

like 15 different cases or close to that, we took the anti-Russia position whenever we had to decide between territorial integrity and 

self-determination. The Krajina region of Croatia had to stay with 

Croatia because the Serbs there wanted independence. Northern 

Kosovo could not rejoin Serbia, et cetera, et cetera. 

I realize that—so whether it was—I mean, Kosovo was never an 

independent republic, and yet we—and for very good individual 

reasons. But when you lay out a whole plan like this, it seems like 

the reflex from the Cold War of taking the anti-Russian position is 

also a theme underlying our individual decisions. Dr. Aron. 

Mr. ARON. Just to remind you of one exception to your rule, and 

perhaps the one that mattered the most to Russia. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Chechnya. 

Mr. ARON. Chechnya, yes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. No rule is any good without one exception. 

One thing that’s important at least to a lot of Americans are the 

Schneerson Collection of papers. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with those. We returned the Smolensk Library to Russia. Do 

any of you have any ideas as to why the Russians are so stubborn 

on these papers and/or what we could do to change their minds? 

Dr. Aron? 

Mr. ARON. Well, it’s the inability to come to terms with the 

crimes of Stalinism, of which by the way the Smolensk Archive is 

one of the key evidences. It’s all written, it’s all there. It’s the archive of the Obkom which is the regional party committee detailing 

all sorts of——

Mr. SHERMAN. Are you saying that our return of the Smolensk 

Archives was somehow harmful to Russian interests? 

Mr. ARON. No, no, no, no, no. What I’m saying is in the case—

no, it’s a good thing that we returned them. It’s just the uses that 

62

Russia refuses to make of its past is continuing to poison the situation in the country. Katyn Massacre——

Mr. SHERMAN. A few religious documents cannot be released? 

Mr. ARON. No, no, no, they’re not religious documents. 

Mr. SHERMAN. The papers of the Chabad Rebbe? 

Mr. ARON. Oh, I see, I see. Sorry. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes, sorry, wrong answer. 

Mr. ARON. There is a——

Mr. SHERMAN. Doctor, perhaps—does somebody have a comment 

on the papers I was talking about? 

Mr. ARON. Right, okay, sorry, I take it back. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Great answer, but not to my question. Anyone 

have a comment? Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Thank you very much, and I thank the 

members, I thank the audience, I thank the panelists. And the trial 

starts Saturday. 

Mr. BROWDER. The rally scheduled for Sergei Magnitsky was—

the first rally that they have rejected, they’re not allowed the rally 

for Sergei Magnitsky on Saturday, and they’re going to be starting 

the trial imminently, we don’t know when, again Sergei and 

against myself. Sergei dead, me in absentia in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history. 

Chairman ROS-LEHTINEN. Amazing. Well, thank you very much. 

Thank you for excellent testimony, and the meeting is adjourned. 

Much success. 

[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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