US Magnitsky Law draws Kremlin ire – but many Russians support it

Russia's State Duma will take up a stern new bill Tuesday, the Dima Yakovlev List, aimed at punishing US officials who are implicated in human rights violations against Russians, including adoptive children who die at the hands of American parents and others allegedly abused by the US justice system.

The Duma bill appears to be pure retaliation for the Magnitsky List, targeted against Russian officials involved in the 2009 prison death of Russian anti-corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, which was signed into law by President Obama on Friday.

The Yakovlev List, named after one of about 15 Russian children to die at the hands of their adoptive US parents in the past two decades, will levy tough economic and visa sanctions against American officials perceived to be involved in mistreatment of Russians.

While most Americans seem likely to ignore the Yakovlev List, a recent poll suggests that a plurality of Russians may be delighted to see their own officials squirm under the pressure of the Magnitsky Act. A late November survey by the independent Levada Center in Moscow found that 39 percent of Russians fully or mostly agree with the import of the US law, while just 14 percent reacted negatively toward it. Another 48 percent of Russians said they were undecided.

"This suggests that as much as people may dislike the idea of the US interfering in our internal affairs, they hate their own officials more," says Masha Lipman, editor of the Moscow Carnegie Center's Pro et Contra journal.

"Apparently much of the public would be happy to see corrupt Russian officials punished, however and by whomever....  What we see at work here is growing public anger against [the bureaucracy]. It may not show up as street protests, but it's a very real factor," she adds.

This cold war-style legislative tit-for-tat is erupting at what might have been a positive moment in US-Russia relations. After nearly four decades of hexing the ties between Moscow and Washington, the much-resented Jackson-Vanik amendment was abolished by the US Senate in early December, and along with it the humiliating requirement that Russia obtain annual certification of its human rights record in order to enjoy normal trade relations with the US.

But senators replaced Jackson-Vanik with the Magnitsky List, which more narrowly targets Russian officials implicated in Mr. Magnitsky's case and other alleged human rights violators. The reaction of official Russia last week was white hot. Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that the Magnitsky List amounts to "open meddling in our internal affairs and is a blind and dangerous position." President Vladimir Putin told Russian TV viewers last week that the US law was a "purely political, unfriendly act."

"The [Magnitsky List] is a crazy precedent, because a legislative body has taken over the functions of a court," says Andrei Klimov, deputy chair of the Duma's international affairs commission, which was responsible for drafting the retaliatory Yakovlev List.

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