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Powerfully argued piece about the impact that sanctions are having on Venezuelans' food supply. Trump should be shaming Putin, who leads a grain exporting powerhouse, into doing all he can to alleviate human suffering nyti.ms/2JsiY03
Russian grain exports to Venezuela plummeted in Q1 2019, down 60% va same period in 2018 nytimes.com/2019/06/17/wor… @AKurmanaev
Moscow promised to sell Venezuela 300,000 tons of wheat in 2018 but only delivered 257,000 per official trade data. reuters.com/article/us-ven…
Venezuela is obviously cash-strapped but this is a classic example of how the Kremlin frequently postures as a global power on the world stage—but wants someone else to cover its costs.
Carnegie’s Nate Reynolds delved into this peculiar aspect of Russian global activism by looking at how the Kremlin’s new mercenaries are expected to self-finance their operations END carnegieendowment.org/2019/07/08/put…
ADDENDUM: As Reynolds explains, “This [pattern] started in Syria in 2016–2017, when the Assad regime agreed to pay for the military services of a Wagner front company controlled by Prigozhin..[and] give Prigozhin’s company 1/4 of the profits from oil and gas fields it seizes.”
“When Wagner subsequently deployed to Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR), the Russian government helped reach agreements for the rights to potential diamond and gold deposits for Prigozhin-linked companies.”
What I find esp fascinating is Reynold’s account of how these self-financing arrangements connect to the feudal court politics around Putin (Konstantin Gaaze’s work on this topic is crucially important to our understanding.)
Acc to the unwritten rules of the Kremlin’s court, “elites around Putin...curry favor & help protect his political control in return for patronage.” Self-enrichment, not ideology or geopolitics, is a key motivation for the people who run the Kremlin’s off-the-books activities.
”By using Wagner and the troll factory to support Putin’s domestic and geopolitical ambitions—and prove his personal worth—Prigozhin can strengthen his claim on valuable state resources and power. The more Prigozhin pleases Putin, the more he gets.” END (for real this time)
