Clark and Gevorkian on Illarionov's resignation

[occuserpens]

Readers of the Guardian and Gazeta.ru are not supposed to compare what they see in these newspapers. Even less they are expected to track what is going on systematically. However, once this is done, a few things become clear.

-- Russian pro-Western liberals act in full sync with New Labour. The timing of the articles is perfect, their rhetoric is strikingly similiar.
-- Illarionov is not the last neoliberal on Russian top, Gevorkian and others must have a high level sponsor inside Russia.
-- In practical terms, discussions of "Russian image" boil down to the issue of Russian membership in G8 - among other things.

1. N.Gevorkian. Illarionov's resignation: let us be patient: http://gazeta.ru/column/gevorkyan/508184.shtml

2. GU. David Clark. Russia's autocrats must feel the weight of world opinion: http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1674718,00.html
...the conditions for Russia's free internal development have been eroded. The scale of that erosion was made clear this week, with the resignation of Putin's economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, one of the few remaining liberals in the inner circle, saying that Russia was no longer free or democratic.
The price of international silence about Russia's authoritarian turn is high. On the day Putin returned from the G8 summit at Gleneagles to boast that not a single leader raised the Khodorkovsky case with him, the Russian prosecutor's office opened a criminal investigation into the finances of Mikhail Kasyanov, the former prime minister and favourite to represent the liberal opposition in the 2008 presidential elections.
David Clark is a former Labour government adviser and chairman of the Russia Foundation