Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, in an interview for The Cable
– one of US magazine Foreign Policy’s blogs, has said the West has
been
slow to react to steps taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his
view, to re-establish Russia as a regional hegemon. In the interview, Mr
Schwarzenberg said that President Putin had installed an aggressive
autocracy, one he suggested was close “not to Stalin but to Russian Tsar
Nicholas I”; he stressed that the Obama administration’s “reset”
policy had not been able to influence the heading of the Russian
government.
The Czech foreign minister has consistently voiced concerns over the
situation in Russia, including human rights. Most recently, Mr
Schwarzenberg condemned, for example, the trial of members of the
political
punk band Pussy Riot sentenced to three years in prison. Mr Schwarzenberg
was in New York for the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly; he met
earlier this week with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.