The Russia Blog
The MIT World Policy Journal is celebrating its 25th anniversary by making access to its Fall 2008 journal for free until the end of November.
The 25th anniversary issue looks ahead to the next 25 years and, in Russia’s Rotting Empire, Nina L Khrushcheva (yes – before you ask – she’s Nikita Kruschev’s… Read the rest
Is it just me, or does Vladimir Putin’s latest public statement make it seem like he’s completely off his rocker?
Am I a ‘pure democrat’? Of course I am, absolutely. But do you know what the problem is? Not even a problem but a real tragedy? The problem is that I’m all alone, the only
Almost half of Russian voters think that this year’s parliamentary elections will be marred by fraud, and will not reflect the will of the people, is the key finding of a suvey by the Levada Centre.
Some key stats:
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that pro-Putin party United Russia came first in 13 of the 14 regions, with around 46% of the vote. Nor will it surprise you to hear that newly formed pro-Putin… Read the rest
Ruminations on Russia has taken La Russophobe’s recent interview, and run with it, in “an attempt to lift the La Russophobe debate out of the mire.” And he’s picked a pretty controversial topic – democracy in Russia.
He manages to cover a wide spread of issues in just one post including – most impressively… Read the rest
The move puts Ivanov on a par with Dmitri Medvedev, the other leading candidate who, until this morning, held a nominally higher government office than Ivanov. Promotion also means that Ivanov… Read the rest
This weekend saw three major demonstrations in Moscow.
It’s been a busy weekend for post-Soviet election watchers with not one, but two elections taking place – a referendum on a new constitution in Nagorno-Karabakh, and a Presidential election in Transdniester.
Nagorno Karabah
In Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave of (mostly) Armenians stuck in the middle of Azerbaijan, they’ve been voting in a referendum on their… Read the rest
The quite excellent Europhobia has also had a re-launch of sorts in the past few weeks. He’s shifted his focus back to broader European issues, resulting in posts like this second-and-a-bit anniversary of the Orange Revolution post. It’s not all doom and gloom, he concludes, but nonetheless:
There are moves afoot
I’ve held back from commenting on yesterday’s Chechen parliamentary elections, mainly because I’m pretty sure they’ll be… how can I put this?… unrepresentative. For anyone who hasn’t already worked out the lie of the land – pro-Kremlin party United Russia currently leads the way with a (clearly representative) 60% of the vote, from a 66%… Read the rest
The Moscow Times reports that Rodina, the nationalist (but not quite as ‘nationalist’ as Zhirinovsky’s mob) party have been barred from participating in the upcoming Moscow Duma election, amid claims that they are gaining ground on United Russia, the pro-Putin, pro-Kremlin, and pro-Moscow City Hall party.
The Moscow City Court ruled on Saturday that a
Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov has all but declared his intention to run for the Presidency in 2008. The Moscow Times reports a speech he gave on Monday:
“The party elected me leader, and as the leader I must carry out the party’s assignment to run for president,” Zyuganov said at a news conference where
Last week I wrote about the disgraceful number of closed cities in Russia, another of those leftovers from an anarchic age that Russia remains addicted to, despite (or perhaps because of) the restrictions it places on the human rights of their 1.7 million residents.
In a rather timely decision, the BBC have just… Read the rest
If you thought that the demise of the Soviet Union meant the demise of closed, or secret cities, then you’d be wrong. Today, it is thought that there are up to forty closed cities (also referred as ZATO’s, or Zakrytye Administrativno-Territorial’nye Obrazovaniia) in Russia, although the Russian government will only confirm the existence of ten.… Read the rest
Vladimir Putin once again managed to throw Kremlin watchers into a tizz, by giving another cryptic answer to the question of what he intends to do in 2008 when his second term as President runs out.
Asked if there should be a referendum about whether he should run for a third term, Putin replied:… Read the rest
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos boss and now full-time jailbird, has been pretty busy over the past couple of weeks. Yesterday saw the beginning of an appeal against his conviction for tax fraud and, predictably, the day ended in farce.
Cast your minds back to the original trial, earlier this year, and you’ll remember… Read the rest
OSCE delegates are considering a raft of Russian proposals to make the organisation ‘more effective.’ Russia effectively held a gun to the OSCE’s head a year ago, when it threatened to withold it’s budget contributions unless it’s proposals were taken seriously.
In particular, Russian diplomats want to force changes to the Office of Democratic Institutions… Read the rest
Sitting in Glasgow airport’s Burger King (everything else was closed!) yesterday, this Times interview with President Putin caught my eye. Actually, it’s not a transcript of an interview, more a number of quick quotes that summarise Putin’s view on pretty much every major issue facing Russia today.
This, in particular, was interesting – simple,… Read the rest
According to this Moscow Times report, the Russian government has decided that it should no longer supply gas and oil to Former Soviet states at a discounted rate.
"As market reforms proceed in our countries, we will be increasingly basing our intergovernmental … and economic relations on world practices," [Foreign
Lyndon has been writing more about Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the speculation over whether he will – indeed, whether he can – run for a seat on the State Duma. Lyndon’s opinion is that he won’t be allowed to run, but hopes that he does:
If they [the authorities] use clumsy enough methods (and
