Leading Political Experts of the Country Talk about the Purpose of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s Visit

A forthcoming visit to Moscow by Joe Biden, the U.S. vice president, has generated plenty of rumors regarding its purpose. In the halls of the State Duma a theory that a high-ranking American intends to support one of the potential presidential candidates in Russia has emerged. Interlocutors of Novaya Gazeta find this statement very doubtful. However, the article called “Biden’s visit: Sign to elites” (Novaya Gazeta issue of March 5, 2011) has received wide publicity, and the newspaper carried on with its poll of experts insisting that the rumor brought to life on the Ohotny Ryad is groundless.

Let us remind you that the rumor of secret negotiations by Mr. Biden about presidential elections with the members of the governing tandem was suggested by Novaya Gazeta’s source, a State Duma interlocutor. He preferred his name to remain unknown (The record of the conversation is at the editorship’s disposal.). This interpretation of the visit has immediately appeared to be unconvincing to Olga Krishtanovskatya, head of the Centre for Elite Studies of Sociology Institute RAN, and Nikolay Petrov, a member of the scientific board at the Carnegie Moscow Centre. During the interview to Novaya Gazeta, Krishtanovskya called the State Duma’s version “ludicrous.”*

Dmitry Orlov is a director-general of the Political and Economic Communications Agency. It is his opinion that discussion of 2012 elections during Mr. Biden’s visit to Moscow was not just irrelevant: “If the issue was raised during the talks with representatives of the public, it would mean interference into Russian internal affairs. The process of discussing a candidacy of a future president is going to be difficult, and any influential interference of outside players is excluded.”* The form of the visit, emphasizes Orlov, does not allow Mr. Biden to discuss the issue of Russian elections with the members of tandem.

This process, the Novaya Gazeta’s interlocutor believes, will include a number of closed consultations inside the governing elite: “If head of the ‘Effective Politics’ foundation Gleb Pavlovsky thinks that a definite decision already exists, then I am certain that dealing with this issue has just begun.” Incidentally, it is Orlov’s opinion that ‘a proposal of a third election candidate version does not look so marginal, if it has approval of the tandem that will be announced clearly and without any ambiguity.’”*

Aleksey Malashenko, a member of the scientific board at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, is sure that springing up of various kinds of speculations about Mr. Biden’s visit to Moscow is not accidental: “Every author of an ordinary version wants to turn it to their advantage which exactly confirms his very position. As if your thigh touched the election situation by chance. …”* In fact, the Novaya Gazeta’s interlocutor is confident that everything said by Mr. Biden, Medvedev or Putin will later “be interpreted by observers at a 180-degree angle regarding its meaning”*: “Here, the fact of the visit itself is weighty. It shows Mr. Obama’s interest in our elections, but it is far from spying; the Americans are just “sniffing around” the situation.”*

Aleksey Makarkin, deputy director-general at the Political Technologies Centre, is interested not in the content of the future negotiations of Mr. Biden with the tandem members but in reasons for different rumors’ origins preceding the visit. The expert holds that such bits of “information”* are aimed to “emphasize patriotism of the vice president as a future possible presidential candidate”:* “Our society has a rather complicated attitude toward the U.S. Many do not like the country at all. And in the current circumstances, rumors that Americans do not wish to see Mr. Putin as our president just work to increase his popularity. This version is being spread out into the public to emphasize the patriotism of Russian politicians.”*

Alexander Cipko, a leading research officer at the RAN Institute for Economics, does not believe the rumor of Mr. Biden’s visit’s secret meaning: “The U.S. is not that interested in Russia’s internal affairs.”* “Neither Russia nor the U.S. has a consolidated policy concerning future presidential elections,”* points out Mikhail Delyagin, director of the Institute for Globalization Problems, in his interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta. But from the expert’s point of view, Russia has always been open to external influence, and the policies of its elite are “half defined by external and internal factors.”* That is why Delyagin thinks that discussion of 2012 elections during Mr. Biden’s visit to Moscow is possible.

Leonid Gozman, a co-chairman of the “Pravoe delo” (the Right Business) Party, called the State Duma’s version of Mr. Biden’s visit “a complete nonsense that does not have anything to do with reality.”* “The government of any country can have these or other preferences in the area of international policy. However, neither the Russian president nor the prime minister is going to discuss the issue of the 2012 campaign with the U.S. vice president.”* Furthermore, Americans “do not posses real possibilities to influence events in our country,”* stressed the interlocutor of Novaya Gazeta.

A so-called existing secret meaning of Mr. Biden’s visit is “a throw out of nowhere,”* confided Evgeny Gontmakher, deputy director at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations: “It is not a reason to draw to any serious conclusions.”* He says that such information is a result of deep uncertainty in Russia’s domestic policy. “We have no certainty of who is going for the presidential elections; we have no idea of future government’s configuration.”* General uncertainty of the governmental structure in a new political cycle gives reasons for ungrounded thoughts around such events like Mr. Biden’s visit to Russia: “Putin is visiting European countries. Do you think that he is going to introduce his persona by doing so? We can only take shots in the dark. …”*

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, though accurately translated, could not be verified.