Vladimir Putin is obviously corrupt and aggressive and countless world leaders maintain the evidence, include the International Criminal Court at the Hague. In 2014, an international court has awarded the shareholders of the now-defunct Yukos oil company more than $50 billion, ruling that the Russian government wrongly seized the company from one of the country’s most powerful oligarchs.
The award by a tribunal in The Hague — the largest ever in international arbitration — is the latest chapter in a dispute that began in 2003 when Russian authorities arrested Yukos’s chairman, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, and sold off his company over the next several years.
There are also negative implications for Russia was the European Court of Human Rights finding that Armenia had occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and was thus liable for the destruction there. Regardless of the merits of each side in that war, there is no reason why Ukraine cannot now appear before that court to find Russia guilty of occupying Ukraine and therefore liable for the destruction and loss of life there. Moreover, upon invading Crimea, Moscow immediately seized all the assets of Ukraine’s energy explorations there and took them over (that may have been a motive for the invasion of Crimea).
Another matter is the legal and political action against Moscow, not only by international courts but by the European Commission for there is no doubt that Russia’s projected Turk Stream pipeline will contain some of that gas as do Russian oil shipments to Europe, If the Commission could block South Stream on the grounds of its failure to conform to EU guidelines, it can certainly block a pipeline that utilizes the fruits of unmitigated aggression. And courts can easily declare those as stolen assets and impose penalties on Russia and anyone benefiting from them.
Then there is the case of the Malaysian flight 17 that was shot down which continues to be investigated.
The case against the Russian aggression continues to build and it is questionable whether Putin has any concerns on how this will play out for the future of the country or whether he takes it all in stride for a larger mission.
The matter of Crimea has not subsided nor has it been settled. From the Daily Beast in part:
‘Under occupation Crimea has become a cesspool of human rights violations, but a new report offers some hope. An international team of lawyers, working with Razom, the Ukrainian-American human rights nonprofit, compiled investigations by Human Rights Watch, the U.N., and other leading organizations as well as accounts from journalists and Crimean residents, into a single report— Human Rights on Occupied Territory: Case of Crimea. The 68-page report is conveniently structured to provide a clear legal framework for Crimeans and policymakers to bring Russian aggression to justice. It also provides a section called “Human Rights Protection Guide,” which includes peaceful resistance tactics including some used during the Soviet Union.’
Defense Secretary Ash Carter is on a Eastern Europe tour as positioning of military equipment is occurring in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.
From the WSJ:
‘The equipment, which includes a total of 250 tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and self-propelled howitzers, is headed to temporary sites in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, Mr. Carter said here, flanked by his counterparts from three of the most anxious Baltic nations; Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
The full complement of equipment, which includes noncombat related cars and trucks and other equipment for an armored brigade combat team for as many as 5,000 troops, includes roughly 1,200 vehicles, according to a senior military official.
“American rotational forces need to more quickly and easily participate in training and exercises in Europe,” Mr. Carter told reporters in Tallinn.
The long-awaited move won’t place American troops in those temporary bases, even though Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had specifically requested that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization do so. Instead, American rotational forces, which have been used for months for a series of exercises called Operation Atlantic Resolve, would fall in on the equipment housed at the different sites across the six nations. The idea is to save shipping costs for the Pentagon, which has had to move equipment to and fro for each exercise. But basing the equipment at the sites also helps demonstrate American resolve in the region since Russia annexed Crimea last year.’
