Archive - April 2005

In the last seven days: President Putin gave a rambling and largely pointless speech to the nation, ex-Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky was told he must wait until after George Bush has visited before his guilt is...

President Vladimir Putin presented his annual State of the Nation address yesterday( transcript here).  The content of the address has been somewhat obscured by the rather inflammatory ‘money’ quote:...

Hogging the news this week are Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Moscow and Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to the Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.  Someone whacked Garry Kasparov over the head with a chessboard, too...

eDefenseonline takes a look at how European forces are developing, or in Russia’s case, not developing 21st century infantry programmes to fight in the low-level conflicts prevalent today.  Despite 25 years...

Pavel Felgenhauer’s always excellent defense column in the Moscow Times notes that the army is dissatisfied with Russia’s government: Last week, newspapers discussed the results of secret opinion polls made...

Residents of three Siberian regions voted overwhelmingly this weekend to merge into one super-region. The new region, made up of Krasnoyarsk, Evenki and Taimyr, will be six times the population of Germany, but with a...

Yes, you read the title right.  Kasparov was busy signing chessboards for fans – like you do when you’re a former world chess chamption – when one of them turned around and bashed him on the head...

As another week draws to a close – on a Wednesday, of all days – it is time to investigate what’s been happening since the last week ended – also, co-incidentally, on a Wedesday.  Domestic...

Following last week’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, many observers – myself included – chose to make fun of the way in which Lukashenko...

Anatoly Trofimov, a former Colonel-General who headed the FSB’s Moscow region during the Yeltsin presidency, was assassinated on Sunday. His wife died in hospital today of her injuries.  The most widely...