RUSSIA

DANIEL LAZARE—Finally, they threw in the towel, surprising everybody except the few who saw it coming all along. “In light of the defendant’s conduct,” the prosecution announced, “…its ephemeral presence and immunity to just punishment, the risk of exposure of law enforcement’s tools and techniques, and the post-indictment change in the proof available at trial, the balance of equities has shifted. It is no longer in the best interests of justice or the country’s national security to continue this prosecution.”

What the impeachment hearings are concealing is an effort — by the military, the “intelligence community” and the imperialist ruling class they serve — to push for an even more aggressive foreign policy — with or without Trump.

Journalists, including those from other countries, were shown the new Russian military base in the Arctic for the first time. “Northern Clover” on Kotelny Island, it’s 300 miles from here to the mainland. One can get there only with a helicopter. There’s no internet or cell network there. Only polar bears and eternal frost around. It’s comfortable to serve there, though – a modern military base has been built for servicemen.While the above is a straightforward, and non-hostile reporting on the base, observe how the situation changes immediately when the same story is “reported” by a notorious disinformation outfit from the West, the American network CNN.

The 1993 constitution guarantees the presumption of innocence for criminal defendants as well as the right to counsel (Henderson 2011). During Putin’s first two terms as president, he introduced or oversaw the implementation of the rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury, and increased rights to exculpatory evidence (Petro 2018). After certain reforms made by Putin to the criminal code, acquittal rates in bench trials (only heard by a judge) doubled and acquittal rates in jury trials tripled, contributing to a 40 percent drop in the overall incarceration rate and a 95 percent drop in the juvenile incarceration rate since 2001 (Petro 2018).

President Putin’s announcement in March that Russia was in possession of hypersonic weaponry was heralded as a strategic game-changer of the highest order because of the implication that the US’ decades-long “missile defense” investments were now suddenly rendered null and void, thereby restoring the nuclear balance that had been at risk of disruption by America’s moves to safeguard itself from a speculative nuclear second strike and theoretically one day give itself the prerogative to carry out a first one with impunity. Russia and the rest of the world were on track to become the victims of nuclear blackmail had this trend been allowed to continue uninterrupted, which is why Moscow’s development of hypersonic weapons technology was such a big deal.