Thursday, 30 June 2011

A new job for Putin?

Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York, offers Russia´s present ruler, former KGB spy Vladimir Putin an excellent piece of advice:

Putin, however, would be well advised to listen to Biden, who is rumored to have offered him important international positions, such as chairing the International Olympic Committee, or perhaps even leading the United Nations. After all, Putin knows well the old Soviet playbook: the fate of previous KGB functionaries may await him.
Dreaded secret-police chief Lavrenti Beria, who operated the machinery of repression under Joseph Stalin, was executed by the system he perfected, after being sentenced to death in 1953 for “spying against the state.” In his decade in power, Putin has consolidated and strengthened the security forces, intimidated and jailed opponents, and muzzled the media and courts. If he doesn’t step down or aside so that Russia can move forward, the system he has created may turn his own methods against him.

Read the entire article here

PS

One wonders why Biden did not offer Putin a job at FIFA? If one looks at recent FIFA happenings, this organization would appear to be the ideal working place for somebody with Putin´s merits and background. One big advantage for Putin is that he already has extensive knowledge about how FIFA corruption works, having secured the World Cup 2018 for Russia.

But, of course, in reality neither the IOC nor the UN differ very much from FIFA in this regard ....



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