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Navalny's health and US-Russia tensions
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody, Ian Bremmer here, kicking off your beautiful spring week from New York City. A little Quick Take. I thought I'd talk today about Russia, going to be in the news this week. Putin doesn't like it when they're out of the news for too long, certainly plenty going on between the US and Russia right now.
I'd say, first of all, to start off, the relationship is in the toilet. We know this. It is the worst it's been since the early '80s. That was true even under Trump. Trump and Putin personally had a pretty good relationship, but Trump wasn't able to get anything really done for the Russians, because both the Republicans in Congress, key members of cabinet under Trump, massive amount of constraints on what Trump could actually do, whether it's trying to bring Russia back into the G7 or recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, or remove or reduce sanctions. None of that actually got done. In fact, the relationship deteriorated over the four years.
But now we've got Biden and the focus is of course, more on human rights. The focus is more on climate change, which means that Russia as a massive energy exporter and particularly in terms of their influence on Eastern Europe and Western Europe on the downstream for gas delivery, for example, something that Biden is much more focused on. So a lot more pressure on the Russians, and the Russians don't care. Their willingness to hit back and show that the Americans are not willing to take any significant risks to constrain the Russians is also fairly significant. And this is playing out in a number of ways.
And perhaps most importantly, for the media this week, will be Alexei Navalny. He has been in jail. He's still very much incarcerated, but has just in the last few hours, been moved to a hospital. Some doctors who have not been able to see him directly say that his health is in danger, that he could potentially die. I have no way of knowing whether that's true or not, but we do know the Russians tried, indeed did poison him before and could have killed him but did not because of some quick thinking medical response. And that, that means that their willingness to assassinate him certainly is there.
Now the consequences, they say ... Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor of Biden says that there will be consequences if Navalny dies in Russian custody. I think the consequences there would be, would be additional sanctions. But they probably wouldn't be all that great, certainly not more than the Russians would expect or be willing to tolerate. What's more interesting perhaps is that over the course of the next couple of days, Navalny's supporters are organizing nationwide demonstrations. They were planning on holding off until the summer, but they pushed it up, because of the health decline. And the date of this, on Wednesday, coincides with the date of Putin's annual State of the Union speech, which goes on for hours. And he takes all of these questions from the media, and he shows what a wonderful guy he is, and how he can talk about just about anything, because he, of course, is the absolute authority in Russia, and nothing he says can or will be used against him. He's not going to like a backdrop of big demonstrations, which means the potential for large scale arrests and violent repression is pretty high. That is going to indeed continue to worsen the relationship between the two countries as well as Russia and the Europeans. But I still don't think this is going to move the needle very much.
A couple of points here, one, all of the sanctions that the US have put against the Russians so far have paled in terms of response to Navalny, compared to what the US did to the Saudis following the Khashoggi assassination. There, you had 76 members of the Saudi government that reported directly into Mohammed bin Salman that were personally sanctioned. The US has done none of that to people that are close to Putin. In fact, they've assiduously avoided putting sanctions on any oligarchs that would embarrass or cause problems for Putin directly. And that's the message, right? I mean, the Russians know that the Americans are capable of doing that, and they also know that it would have major knock-on economic effects. So, Biden doesn't want to do that.
Also, I want to say that as much as it disturbs me, it even repulses me that Navalny is being treated, has been treated the way he is, there is no effective opposition in Russia. It is an authoritarian state. It is like China, and many other authoritarian governments in that regard. And there are many things the Russians have done that are far more brutal and consequential for human rights around the world, like the war, the intervention, the invasion in Georgia, like the cyberattacks against Ukraine, like the invasion into Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, and much more impactfully and importantly, the little green men into Southeast Europe, where they continue to occupy territory, and where there has been a massive military buildup on the border just over the last couple of weeks. These are bigger deals.
The media and the Americans focus more on Navalny. He speaks English. He is sort of charismatic. He's tall. He's attractive. And I mean, he gives lots of interviews. And so, the Westerners like that. But these other stories affecting poor people that don't get the media time actually matter a lot more. And even there, the willingness of the US to engage seriously, the US was planning on sending ships to the Black Sea. They demurred. They decided against doing that because the Russians told the Americans that this was just two weeks of military exercises, and then they were going to stop. But they still occupy Ukraine. It's a sovereign nation. And the Americans indeed had said before, along with other countries, that if they got rid of the nuclear weapons that the sovereignty would be respected. That was a treaty. So much for that.
So, I mean, I think those are more significant things. Just like in Saudi Arabia, the war in Yemen has been much more consequential than Jamal Khashoggi. But Yemenis aren't writing for the Washington Post and Khashoggi was, so there you have it. I think that's significant. I mean, my friend, Mike McFaul, the former ambassador to Russia, and a very good guy, came out and posted that if Navalny is killed, that no leader that focuses on human rights, cares about human rights should ever meet with Putin again. That's wrong, and that's wrong because you have to meet with leaders that do repugnant things in a world where national security means that we are dependent on each other. There's mutually assured destruction that we don't want these much greater consequential issues to impact us.
And also, just the fact that we focus so much on these issues around consequential individuals, as opposed to masses of people that end up suffering so much is one of the big problems that we have in society today. And we'd all be much better off if we were spending a lot more time focusing on the occupation in Ukraine, for example. I do think that ultimately, even though the Russian/US relationship is not about to break, it's not about to explode. I didn't mention the cyberattacks yet, and we didn't do much in response to the cyberattacks on the US except that we engage in cyberattacks against Russia all the time. And our cyber capabilities are every bit as great as Russians on the United States. And so they hit us with SolarWinds, it's embarrassing. That becomes public. We're engaging in espionage all the time, and we're not destroying each other's critical infrastructure.
I think the bigger issue is the fact that Russia is a country in decline, that their economy is doing poorly, that that makes it worse for their pensioners. It makes it worse for the average Russian member of the middle class. It means that Putin's support levels, which were very high when they annexed Crimea have gone down, and they're likely to continue to. And that means that Navalny or not, there are going to be more demonstrations. There's going to be more willingness to go against the existing regime. At the same time that Putin has just forced through a law that says that he can basically be president through the 2030s, because heck, why not? It's not a real democracy. We can do whatever we want.
A sad state for an important country. Opportunities that were missed, the whole "who lost Russia debate" back in 1991. The Soviet Union collapsed and there was lots of ideas that the Russians would eventually integrate, become part of the United States. The Russians mishandled their reforms. The Americans didn't provide much support. And now we're in a situation where the relationship is very much back in cold war footing, except the Russians are much less consequential than they used. They still got lots of nukes though. We still have to pay attention to them. They can cause trouble in their country, and around their borders. And they are still doing that. And as a consequence, that's why we're talking about them today.
So that's it for me. Be safe, avoid fewer people. We're coming out of this. Talk to you soon.
Alexei Navalny's jail sentence; EU slow on vaccine distribution
Ian Bremmer discusses the World In (more than) 60 Seconds:
First, what's the update with Alexei Navalny?
The, well-liked around the world, very popular among the West, less so in Russia, but still the closest thing you have to real opposition to Putin in the country, just got a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence. Some of that is house arrest, but most of it is actually in prison, and this is a much harder line than we've seen before with suspended sentences and house arrest, and clearly, it's because Navalny has become more of a household name and has caused more of a problem for President Putin at a time when President Putin's approval ratings are lower than they were. They're in their low 60s, which in Russia is not so great for Putin, and the economy is doing worse, and people are angrier about their pensions that aren't worth as much and wages that don't go as far, and Navalny has done everything he can, including flying back to Russia after not dying from the poisoning attempt at the hands of what almost certainly was the Russian Special Service.
So, you put all of that together, and now Navalny is a significant thorn in Putin's side and is a reason for the Americans and many Europeans to want to increase sanctions against Russia, which we will now see. They'll be primarily not against Russian sectors of the economy or key businesses. They'll be mostly against individuals, Russian elites, close to Putin, any of those seen as involved in the Navalny case, and probably some ministers and maybe some oligarchs. Which the intention would be to embarrass Putin and to undermine some of his elite level support, because that's the only way you put pressure on Putin. The mass level opposition isn't there. Let's also keep in mind the demonstrations we're seeing in Russia in support of Navalny, as dramatic as they've been, and we've had 5,000 arrests across Russia in the last week, but they're tiny compared to Belarus. They're tiny compared to the arrests for the demonstrations you saw on Khabarovsk just a year ago in Russia. So, it's not as if... as big of an issue as this is for Western headlines, the fact is that Putin is still pretty solidly entrenched in Russia itself, and his willingness to take a hard line and crack down to ensure that remains the case is pretty much complete.
Okay next. Why is the EU struggling with vaccine distribution?
Well, in part, because the EU is working together. It is coordinated, all countries are handling vaccine appropriations and distribution as one European union. In principle, that gives them a lot more market influence, but it also means it's big it's bureaucratic, and it took them a while to get behind making big orders, which meant they were behind the United States and the United Kingdom. And so now, you have the U.S. moving towards 10% of the population vaccinated, while Europe is more like two or three, and there's no question that Europeans are frustrated about that. It does mean a couple of months of greater spread in Europe, as these South African and other variants that are much more transmissible come out, while the United States in the coming months should look a lot better. Vaccine distribution you already see in Israel with over 50% of the population having been jabbed, the percentage of case spread is already going down meaningfully. That's really, really good news, and for the EU, it's going to lead to some backlash. There's no question, but overall, I think they'll get through this. The European leadership will get through this, and by the middle of the year, as they get vaccines also rolled out across the population, they will see the same level of restriction in terms of mortality and hospitalizations. The vaccines, the level of capacity of these vaccines, just a fantastic story for everyone as they get rolled out.
Is the Republican Party fracturing?
I don't think so. I mean, I see now Senate Minority leader McConnell going after Marjorie Greene, the crazy QAnon member of Congress, but remember McConnell also did that initially in terms of Trump and impeachment, and then backed away when he realized that the party wasn't with him. So, I think it's pretty clear that some of the leadership of the Republican party would prefer if they could dump the crazier, Trumpist pieces of the party, but if it turns out that the party is not there, and that the population that supports the Republican party isn't there, then they're going to back down to ensure unity of the party. And so, let's remember that whatever they ended up doing, the leadership of the Republican party is not going to risk political power. They're not going to risk their party fragmenting. They took a hit in Georgia. They lost two seats and lost control of the Senate, largely because the Trumpist wing of the party was too large, they couldn't prevent Trump from making many voters in Georgia feel like this election was rigged, so why should they turn out, and certainly Marjorie Taylor Greene has the potential to cause problems at the margins, but not to fragment the party, because the leadership won't allow that. So, the answer to is the Republican Party fracturing, in my view, is a very, very strong no.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day, six more weeks of winter, and what else?
Oh, it's got to be lockdown, six more weeks of lockdown. Why? Because it's a horrible pandemic year. And so, I think of Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, that means, he's stuck underground for another six months, nevermind snow.
Putin's gulag gamble with Navalny
The Kremlin is taking zero chances with opposition leader Alexei Navalny. On Tuesday, a Moscow court sentenced him to nearly three years in prison for violating the terms of his parole in connection with an earlier graft conviction.
To refresh, Navalny is Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic. He is an outspoken anti-corruption crusader who was poisoned, allegedly by state officials, in Russia last fall. After recovering in Germany, he returned to Russia where he was promptly arrested. Since then, there have been two weekends of relatively small, but uncommonly widespread, protests across Russia in his support.
The extended jail sentence is a change of tack for the Kremlin, which has previously jailed Navalny only for short stints or suspended sentences. (You might also say that attempting to kill him was a "different approach" too, but we leave it to you to evaluate that allegation here.)
Now Navalny will languish in a remote penal colony for at least several years, meaning he will be out of the picture while Russia holds legislative elections this fall, and also during the the run-up to the next presidential election in 2024.
By taking the gloves fully off with Navalny, Putin is betting on a couple of things:
First, by packing him off to prison, Russia's president believes he can silence Navalny's uniquely charismatic, media-savvy, and fearless voice for good. Will Navalny — or his family and his fellow anti-corruption crusaders — find a way to stay relevant now? The internet, which is where Navalny lives most comfortably, is still relatively free in Russia.
Second, Putin calculates that his own support is strong enough where it matters: among the two-thirds of Russians who still approve of him after two decades in power, among the police who will will keep a lid on the streets, and among his wealthy cronies who still have much more to lose by turning against him than by sticking with him.
Third, by seeking to crush Navalny, he is forcing Russians to accept that any change to the system can come in only one of two ways: on Putin's terms, through a voluntary decision to cede power after 2024, or on the terms of the streets, through a kind of revolutionary upheaval from below that very few Russians would wish to see.
And fourth, Putin is betting that he can brush off whatever measures the "West" unveils in response to Navalny's plight. Strongly worded statements will abound, and specific Russian officials may be sanctioned. But will Western capitals really have the stomach to rankle financial markets by sanctioning, say, Russia's sovereign debt, or mess with energy markets by hitting Russian oil and gas?
Ranged against all of this, Navalny and his supporters are betting that while the Russian president may be correct in the short run, he faces a longer term loss of legitimacy that will eventually turn the tide of opinion — both popular and elite — against him as he nears a quarter of a century in power.
High stakes for both sides, but for the foreseeable future, only one of them will be gambling from prison.
- What happens if Alexei Navalny dies? - GZERO Media ›
- An inside look into how Russians see Putin’s war - GZERO Media ›
- Alexei Navalny dies in prison - GZERO Media ›
- Navalny's death is a huge loss for democracy - NATO's Mircea Geona - GZERO Media ›
- Alexei Navalny's death: A deep tragedy for Russia - GZERO Media ›
- Navalny's death is a message to the West - GZERO Media ›
- Understanding Navalny’s legacy inside Russia - GZERO Media ›
What We're Watching: Putin's next move, jabs for Palestinians, Wine goes to court in Uganda
What next for Navalny? Thousands of protesters supporting jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny braved an overwhelming police response on Sunday, turning out in more than 80 cities across the country to demand his release from prison. It was the second protest to occur in the two weeks since Navalny was jailed after his return from Germany, and more than 5,000 people were arrested nationwide. The intensity of the police response shows the Kremlin is taking no chances with the protesters, even though their numbers are still relatively small — nowhere near, say, the hundreds of thousands who poured into the streets of Belarus' capital last fall. And it's hard to imagine Vladimir Putin agreeing to release Navalny under pressure from the streets. In fact, it looks like his kangaroo courts are gearing up to lock up the nettlesome anti-corruption crusader and throw away the key. Europe and the US have threatened action if that happens, but sanctions against Russia have proved ineffective in the past. Lacking a political party in a system that is rigged for the party in power anyway, Navalny only has the streets: can they really shake things up enough from below that power starts to crack at the top?
Israel delivers some COVID vaccines to Palestinians: Israel has agreed to send 5,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Palestinian front-line workers in the occupied West Bank. After rolling out the world's most successful vaccination drive, having already inoculated more than 57 percent of its entire population, Israel came under fire in recent weeks for failing to include Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in its ambitious inoculation scheme, though Israeli Arabs and Palestinians living in East Jerusalem were given the jab. Israel, for its part, says that under the terms of the Oslo Accords, the de-facto law of the land, the Palestinian Authority (PA) should oversee healthcare for its people. But critics say that the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an occupying power (Israel) has a clear responsibility to assist those living under its occupation (the Palestinians). While Israel's approval of the transfer is a positive development, the PA, which governs the West Bank, is still waiting on millions of doses to vaccinate its 2.5 million people. This deal also doesn't include the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which already has one of the worst healthcare systems in the world. Palestinians (in the West Bank and Gaza) have inked deals for Russia's Sputnik V vaccine, the AstraZeneca drug, and are also waiting on batches through the international COVAX system which aren't expected to arrive until March.
Mr Wine goes to court: Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine has called on his country's Supreme Court to nullify the results of last month's election in which president Yoweri Museveni — a former rebel leader in power since the 1980s — was declared the winner. Wine and his supporters allege ballot-stuffing and other fraud, and argue that violence directed at Wine by Museveni's forces during the campaign made it impossible for the election to be free and fair. By taking his arguments to a court packed with Museveni appointees, Wine — a former pop star who is popular with younger, urban Ugandans — runs the risk of having his objections formally stricken down altogether. But he and his supporters are making the gamble that the opportunity to present their arguments is, by itself, worth the effort in order to expose the president.
Quick Take: Pro-Navalny Russian protests make Putin defensive; AMLO's COVID diagnosis
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Russian opposition leader Navalny in jail. Hundreds of thousands demonstrating across the country in Russia over well over 100 cities, well over 3000 arrested. And Putin responding by saying that this video that was put out that showed what Navalny said was Putin's palace that costs well over a billion dollars to create and Putin, I got to say, usually he doesn't respond to this stuff very quickly. Looked a little defensive, said didn't really watch it, saw some of it, but it definitely wasn't owned by him or owned by his relatives.
And in the investigation itself, it said it was actually in a holding company by people linked to the Kremlin as opposed to Putin himself. But the hundred million people that have watched it, don't find Putin very credible on this. The interesting thing is the Kremlin clearly sees Navalny as a threat. They're responding in a more defensive way than I've seen the Kremlin respond to really anything since Putin has been president on the domestic front. And I don't know if that means that they can't kill him while he's under detention or whether they feel like they have to. Certainly, it makes it much harder for them to let him go. I think it makes it more likely that he's detained for a longer period of time or he's convicted of some ginned-up crimes. But the influence that he has across the country is actually growing.
And that probably means a harder fist from the Russians in the kind of response to local opposition. Keep in mind the economy's not doing very well. Nobody's is, but Russia's in particular right now, and Putin's approval ratings are not what they were when he first annexed Crimea for example.
Final point Mexico, you may have seen the news, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the president has contracted COVID. So many world leaders have come down with it. Even with the most extraordinary capacity to try to protect these people, coronavirus is incredibly transmissible. And a lot of these leaders in the governments aren't taking it as seriously as they should. That certainly is true of the Mexican president or the Brazilian president or the American president or the UK prime minister. All of whom have gotten coronavirus, though, I would say the French president's taken it quite seriously and he still got it.
But specifically in Mexico, this is important because Lopez Obrador himself controls so much of the decision-making in the country. There's no real functioning cabinet in Mexico, it's all the Mexican president. And the direction and the details of policy in Mexico are not about his ministers, it's about him. So, if Trump had been incapacitated for a few weeks, it wouldn't have much impact on American policy. He didn't do it.
In Brazil, same thing. All the economic policy was largely given to the key ministers Bolsonaro Doesn't really understand economic policy. In Mexico, whatever you think of Lopez Obrador, he's doing it. And so if he's laid up for a long time or in the worst case, if he dies, this is actually going to be a really significant problem for the Mexican government, where there is no obvious successor and very little capacity for governance outside of the Mexican president himself. Let's keep in mind, he's 67 years old. He had a heart attack in 2013 and supposedly suffers from hypertension. So, you put all that together, this is actually something to watch. He gets the best medical care of anybody in Mexico, but it's still something to be concerned about and I suspect we're going to see market reaction to that.
Putin’s nemesis
Over the weekend, some 40,000 people in Moscow and thousands more across Russia braved subzero temperatures to turn out in the streets in support of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. More than 3,000 protesters were arrested, and Navalny called on his followers to prepare for more action in the coming weeks.
But just who is Alexei Navalny, and how significant is the threat that he may pose to Vladimir Putin's stranglehold on power in Russia?
A longtime thorn in Putin's side. Navalny, 44, is a prominent and charismatic anti-corruption crusader with a penchant for social media. He made his mark on Russian politics ten years ago, when he led tens of thousands of people in protests that began over election fraud and corruption but morphed into a broader outcry against Putin.
Since then he has remained a key player in the opposition to the current regime, often publishing exposés detailing corruption among elites close to Putin or the president himself. In 2013, he came in second in the race for mayor of Moscow, getting 27 percent of the vote. A year later he was convicted of graft in a trial viewed as politically motivated, and in 2017 he was briefly detained for protesting against the astonishing wealth of then-PM Dmitri Medvedev.
Last year Navalny was poisoned with a rare Soviet-era nerve agent in an assassination attempt that he and independent observers say was carried out by state security agents. After recovering in Germany, he returned to Russia this week — knowing he'd be arrested upon arrival.
Popular… for some. Navalny has struggled in all his attempts to run for elected office because his support is strongest among urban and younger Russians. Overall, only about 20 percent of the wider population agree with him, and 50 percent oppose his actions. What's more, half of Russians believe his poisoning was either a hoax or that it was carried out by the West.
So, why does he worry Putin? For one thing, Navalny is laser-focused on an issue that affects all Russians — corruption — and has a knack for getting his message out. That can help him broaden his base beyond the the laptop-toting "creative" urban class, and potentially unify Russians from all walks of life across 11 time zones.
As for his other politics, Navalny often takes positions that many in the West would characterize as nationalistic, yet are quite popular in Russia. He defended Russia's invasion of Georgia in 2008, the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, and in the past made disparaging comments about Central Asian migrants.
Is this time different? The 2011 protests petered out largely because Navalny then lacked strong support outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, in recent years anti-Putin rallies have increasingly taken place in a host of mid-sized cities, including in remote parts of Siberia.
With Putin — now in his 21st year in power — showing approval ratings near all-time lows (by his own standards) ahead of Duma elections this fall, Navalny has a window of opportunity to raise the stakes. After all, Putin has cleared the way to stay in power until 2036 if he wants.
But let's keep things in perspective. While Navalny's level of support is rising, it's not (yet) enough to pose an existential threat for Putin. Russia's president is not as popular as he once was, but still enjoys an approval rating of more than 60 percent, controls a massive and loyal security apparatus, and has brought the entire business elite to heel.
Navalny's challenge is to put enough people on the streets to scare Putin's cronies and security men into thinking twice about continuing to support him — no easy feat in a country where political apathy is widespread, and fear of 1990s-style instability is real.
The next big test for Navalny will come at Sunday's protest. The turnout will determine his immediate fate as Putin's nemesis.Note: Story corrected to reflect attendance of protests outside Moscow.
Anti-corruption protests will rattle Russian regime
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on the recent protests in Russia on Europe In 60 Seconds:
What's happening in Russia?
What we saw yesterday in Russia was, of course, massive demonstration. And what was most surprising was, they were all over the place. I mean, in more than 100 locations was demonstrated on social media, was demonstrated in fairly big numbers. Not that people are necessarily surprised that there is high level corruption, they knew that, but now they seemingly demonstrated. Navalny's video has been seen by now, close to 85 million people. That's a lot. And it has demonstrated the utter incompetence of the regime. Will it change? Well, I think there will be more repression, sorry to say, that's the only way the regime can react short-term. But I think it will rattle the internal structures of the regime. They're clearly mishandling the issue. And I think there are lots of people also in the inside who are not entirely happy with the corrupt clique that is so powerful in Russia.
Keystone XL halt is no threat to US-Canada ties under Biden; Brazil's vaccine shortage
Ian Bremmer discusses the World In (more than) 60 Seconds:
Biden's first scheduled call with a world leader will be with Canada's Justin Trudeau. What's going on with the Keystone Pipeline?
Well, Biden said that that's it. Executive order, one of the first is that he will stop any construction or development of the Keystone Pipeline. This is of course an oil pipeline that would allow further oil sands oil to come to the United States. The infrastructure is significantly overstretched, it's led to backlogs, inefficiency, accidents, all the rest, but it also facilitates more energy development and keeps prices comparatively down if you get it done. So, there are lots of reasons why the energy sector in Canada wants it. Having said all of that, Trudeau, even though he's been a supporter of Keystone XL, let's keep in mind that he did not win support in Alberta, which is where the big energy patch in Canada is located. This is a real problem for the government of Alberta, Canada is a very decentralized federal government, even more so than the United States. The premier of Alberta is immensely unhappy with Biden right now, they've taken a $1.5 billion equity stake in the project. I expect there will actually be litigation against the United States by the government of Alberta. But Trudeau is quite happy with Biden, his relationship was Trump was always walking on eggshells. The USMCA in negotiations ultimately successful but were very challenging for the Canadians, so too with the way Trump engaged in relations on China. All of this, the fact that Trump left the nuclear agreement with Iran, the Paris Climate Accords, WHO, all of that is stuff that Trudeau strongly opposed. He's going to be much more comfortable with this relationship. He's delighted that the first call from Biden is to him. And it certainly creates a level of normalcy in the US-Canada relationship that is very much appreciated by our neighbors to the North.
Biden has promised 100 million COVID vaccine doses in 100 days. Meanwhile, Brazil is experiencing a shortage. What is happening?
Well, the president of Brazil has not taken coronavirus seriously at all. At least in the United States even though Trump was downplaying coronavirus, Operation Warp Speed was really significant, a major effort to build up and invest and acquire vaccines, the administration did a very significant job around that. In Brazil, the entire Bolsonaro administration basically abdicated on coronavirus. So, they've got well over 200 million people, they've got 6 million vaccines they've acquired so far. That's really been the result primarily of the governor of Sao Paulo not the Bolsonaro administration. This is an enormous problem for Brazil, it's an enormous embarrassment for Bolsonaro. You see calls impeachment that are rising yet again, his approval ratings are now in the low 30s. If they start slipping towards the 20s, he could start peeling off a lot of congressional support and impeachment could become a real issue. Certainly, elections coming up in Brazil, presidential elections in a year are going to be very, very challenging. And I watch that space pretty closely, brazil is going to suffer on the back of this more than a lot of other countries.
A video of Navalny posted after his arrest is going viral. He calls for supporters to "take to the streets" on January 23rd. What is going on?
Well, Alexei Navalny is the most well-known and popular of opposition figures in Russia. The biggest mass demonstrations against Kremlin we've seen in years was the last time Navalny called for mass protests, was mostly Moscow, but you got cities across the country, urban intellectuals, primarily younger people, elites. But Navalny is still quite popular, he still has a significant social media following. Nothing close to a majority, this is not a threat to President Putin, it's nothing close to what you've seen experienced in Belarus for example in the past six months. But nonetheless, it is a significant aggravant for Putin, and that's why Navalny has been detained. I suspect that with the show trials that will go on, he'll probably be given a more significant sentence. I think given he's upped the ante by calling for these demonstrations and by releasing a bunch of videos that are embarrassing to Putin personally, and all of that, the Kremlin has the power. Even though Navalny has a strong international support base, the willingness of Americans or Europeans to significantly and meaningfully increase sanctions against Moscow in a way that would matter to Putin, just isn't there. There just really isn't a stick to hit the Russians that would matter enough. Navalny doesn't matter enough, human rights in Russia don't matter enough to move the needle, especially given the level of economic, trade, and energy dependence that many of the Europeans have with Russia, the East Europeans have with Russia. The ideological orientation of Hungary in the EU, for example, towards Russia, they've just announced that they're getting the Sputnik V vaccine for their people, even though only 11% of Hungarians say that they would take a Russian or Chinese vaccine, over 50% would take Pfizer or Moderna, but they're not that one, and the fact that the United States is focused mostly domestically. So, all of that makes it a lot harder to move the needle on Putin when it comes to Navalny. And very sad for Navalny as a consequence, an incredibly courageous man who has faced, is facing, and will face an extraordinary amount of personal peril.