Russia: "Despite all its drawbacks, serfdom was the brace holding together the nation's internal unity,"

Putin reinstates serfdom

By Leonid Bershidsky

A proposed bill now backed by the government and Vladmir Putin’s United Russia party aims to compensate those whose foreign assets have been confiscated under recent sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe. Bloomberg View takes the stance that “Russian citizens are openly being treated by property by the state,” citing Valery Zorkin’s (Constitutional Court Chairman) recently expressed regrets over the abolishment of serfdom in 1861.

...................

If the U.S. and Europe ever get serious about finding and freezing the assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, they should keep it in mind that it will be ordinary Russians who might be forced to reimburse them.

Next week, Russia's rubber-stamp parliament will consider, and probably pass, a bill that envisions government compensation for Russians's seized overseas assets.

The idea began circulating among allies of Vladimir Putin 18 months ago, after the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, which empowered the U.S. government to freeze the assets of Russians guilty of human-rights violations. The 2013 bill, almost identical to the one under consideration now, allowed Russians faced with "illegal" property seizures by foreign courts to seek redress from the Russian government.

That bill died, but the new Cold War changed things. On Sept. 23, Vladimir Ponevezhsky, a member of the pro-Putin United Russia party which dominates the legislature, reintroduced the bill. This time, the government backed it, pointing out that Russians' property could be seized by executive order, not just through the courts, and the victims should be compensated in these cases, too. "The sanctions imposed by European countries and the U.S. have nothing to do with international law," Vladimir Pligin, head of the parliament's constitutional legislation committee and another United Russia member, said after the committee voted to support the bill on Sept. 30.

The backing of United Russia and the government usually makes a bill a shoo-in. The legislature will consider it on Oct. 7, Putin's 62nd birthday..............

...........

Read more: www.bloombergview.com