Many U.S politicians breathed sighs of relief as U.S Secretary of State Clinton made multiple achievements with Russia’s Prime Minister Putin in their first meeting. After volleys of political chatter, Putin through his deputy chief of staff Yuri Ushakov announced that Russia may follow with the fourth and new series of sanctions on one of their close trade partners Iran due to their defiant and concerning uranium enrichment program. This is enough to be considered a political victory for the U.S as the government of Russia stood firm on its position that sanctions were of no use alongside its friend China.

U.S Secretary of State Clinton with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. (Associated Press)

Russia has been unhappy with its trade being cut down with its closest trading partners including North Korea, Iran, and Syria by harsh sanctions but due to Iran’s rejection of Russian plans for the reduction of Iranian enriched uranium along with the sanctions specifically targetting Iranian Revolutionary Guards instead of the Iranian people as the Russian government wants, Russia is much more inclined to to follow the U.S-led sanctions on Iran despite some reluctance to do so.

Clinton also managed to get the Russian government closer to signing a nuclear arms-control treaty possibly in the month of April to replace the expired treaty. Cooperation between the Russian and American government still remains to be difficult however due to the escalating tensions and disagreements over some of the world’s affairs.

 

As soon as Clinton’s two-day trip to Moscow ended, more than forty nine protests arose today across Russia in many of its bigger cities including St. Petersburg. Dubbed the “Day of Wrath” thousands of protestors with waving banners, posters, and raised fists demanded for Putin and his party’s resignation. Russia remains to be one of the most economically challenged nations in the world as its unemployment rates are above 9% and is still struggling to make its ends meet in the world’s economic storm today. Hundreds of protestors criticized the Kremlin, a former name for the government of the Soviet Union and used to refer to the current executive members of the Russian government including Putin, for its ‘dreadful’ economic policies including the recent reduction on foreign imports, these protests also reflected many Russians’ fears of their financial welfare and living standards.

Russia is infamous for its economy that is hazardous for small businesses and for those who cannot bribe some of the corrupted Russian tax authorities, your business is nothing. Some have blamed the Russian government for political corruption and restricting the people’s freedom. Chanting for more political freedoms, protestors faced off with Russian police at one of the protest sites in downtown Moscow.

Russian protestors being stopped by Russian police to unfold a banner (Photo Credit: Associated Press/Pavel Golovkin)

The protests in Moscow were banned by the Russian government and riot police was authorized to subdue their protesting counterparts. Protestors had applied for a permit but was denied by the city, yet they argued that they had a right to assembly as declared by the Russian constitution.

Angry protestors took out banners and chanted harsher anti-government slogans and the tumult increased as Russian police pounced on some of the crowd arresting them, then detaining them into paddy wagons. Those in the crowd screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as they saw the police drag away some protestors while others insulted the Russian police by yelling out “Fascist bastards!”

The rather ‘small’ protests however failed to make their expected dent on the Russian government as domestic media coverage on the protests were little or had completely ignored it. The Russian protestors also had conflicting internal problems such as the range of issues they wanted to derail the government for, but the core reason for protesting remained the same: The Russian government is definitely not working for the people.

(Cover Photo Credit: Yuri Maltsev/Reuters)