On Tuesday July 7th, US President Barack Obama met with representatives of the Russian opposition in Moscow. The lunch meeting, which took place in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, brought together a wide group of politicians not connected with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. Notables on the invite list included Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, United Civil Front leader Garry Kasparov, Right Cause chairman Leonid Gozman, and Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin. Each representative was given five minutes to speak.
Topics of discussion included the new trial against jailed Yukos oil company bosses Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, and the US missile defense system.
During his talk, Garry Kasparov presented Obama with a list of opposition figures who have been persecuted and killed recently, as well as a list of prisoners serving politically-motivated sentences in Russia. (Download Kasparov’s full statement in PDF format here.)
“The US president is prepared to establish relations, not just between the White House and the Kremlin, but between the ...