What Daniel Ortega is looking for in Russia: Dictator’s sons posed with statue of Stalin in Moscow and trade mission visited Crimea

“The Nicaraguan delegation was able to verify an exemplary democratic electoral process, safe, orderly, efficient and participatory»Concludes a press release published this Sunday in the official bulletin 19 Digital on Nicaragua’s official visit to Russia, which includes two sons of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

The group of Nicaraguans were invited to participate as “Electoral companions” in the parliamentary elections held in Russia from September 17 to 19 to elect the 450 seats in parliament.

At the same time as the Nicaraguan electoral mission wandered through Moscow, another delegation of “commercial economic” interest visited Crimea, a territory in conflict with Ukraine held by Russia. “A vast program of solemn activities organized by the Embassy of Nicaragua in Russia and the administration of the Republic of Crimea in the historic city of Simferopol has been carried out”, sums up another official press release.

Although Nicaragua and Crimea signed a trade and economic cooperation agreement last June, trade between the two countries is virtually nil. and, according to specialists, it has little chance of prospering. The distance, the costs, but above all the scarcity of the relationship between what one country produces and what the other consumes, make a vigorous trade relationship difficult.

On another side, the rapprochement with Crimea harms Nicaragua’s relations with its largest trading partner, the United States, which does not recognize Crimea as part of the Russian Federation.

“The United States does not and will never recognize the alleged annexation of Crimea by Russia,” insisted Secretary of State Antony Blinken in February this year. “Crimea is Ukraine”, noted. Likewise, Blinken called on Russia to “immediately end its occupation of Crimea, release all Ukrainian political prisoners it unjustly holds and return full control of the peninsula to Ukraine”.

Following the overthrow of Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych on February 22, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin and pro-Russian leaders on the Crimean Peninsula signed a treaty by which Crimea and Sevastopol became part of the Russian Federation . The dispute was reopened soon after when the new Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, demanded the reincorporation of the territory under Russian control.

In 2015, then Nicaraguan Ambassador to Russia Juan Ernesto Vásquez Araya became the first foreign ambassador to officially visit Crimea after its annexation to Russia.

Ukraine has won the support of 46 countries, including all members of the European Union and Turkey, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to reclaim the disputed area.

In February of this year, Ukrainian parliament approved sanctions against Nicaragua for its decision to open an honorary consulate in the Crimean peninsula, which Kiev considered a “violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine.

Daniel Ortega’s government has also was among the first to recognize the independence of the breakaway republics of Ossetia and Abkhazia, in September 2008. The other countries which recognize it are Russia, Venezuela and Nauru.

The current Nicaraguan representation in Russia is headed, according to official information, by the electoral magistrate Alma Nubia Baltodano and the children of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, Laureano Ortega Murillo, presidential advisor for investments, trade and international cooperation, and Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo, whom they identify as “representative of the media of citizen power”.

For the former Nicaraguan Minister of Foreign Affairs Norman Caldera, since his return to power, Daniel Ortega undertook a policy of flattery towards Russia in order to gain its political support. “This has been done from the recognition of Ossetia and Abkhazia to Crimea,” he said.

“Daniel Ortega is here looking for a way to flatter Russia,” he said. “He is an aspiring vassal, because he does not even reach this condition”.

However, Ortega’s calculations aside, Caldera agrees with Russia in the Crimean conflict it has with Ukraine. “Crimea has been a historically Russian region,” he says. When (Nikita) Khrushchev (was president of the Soviet Union), who was Ukrainian, the Kremlin, to be kind to him, gave Crimea to Ukraine, to have its spa in the Black Sea, but it has been Russian territory for life. “

He also believes that Nicaragua’s commercial and military interests with Russia are unimportant. “It’s like when I was Minister of Foreign Affairs, someone said to me: let’s sign a trade agreement with Argentina. And what are we going to sell them? Meat? With the Crimea, the same. Maybe wheat for meat, but industrial products I don’t see anything that can be sold ”.

Early 2016, Nicaragua bought 50 T-72B1 main battle tanks from Russia, for an estimated value of $ 80 million.

“I do not see what the military relationship with Russia can be used forHe said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with the floats that are being sold. These are only good for parades. What they had besides the equipment they sold. to get rid of them and say that they were equipping the Nicaraguan army. There are other areas where they could have made a much more important contribution: ships to patrol the sea, for example “.

Ortega’s main goal, according to Caldera, is have the support of Russia if the Nicaraguan affair reaches the United Nations Security Council again. In September 2018, the Security Council considered the case of Nicaragua and Russia and China used their veto power in the corps to torpedo a resolution.

“Ortega wants to have the support of Russia like Cuba does”said the former chancellor. “With Cuba, there is an agreement that the United States does not invade the island in exchange for the withdrawal of nuclear rockets by the Russians. This commitment does not exist in Nicaragua and it is possible that he (Ortega) is looking for ways to get more into the Russians to have something to negotiate with the United States in return for their non-involvement. “

“Daniel Ortega is the only person in the world to consider that there is a possibility of an American military invasion of Nicaragua,” he concludes.

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