The Russia Blog
Outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev used his final State of the Nation address to promise a “comprehensive reform” of Russia’s political system.
Key proposals include directly elected regional governors, making it much easier for new political parties to register for parliamentary and presidential elections, and a form of proportional representation in the State Duma.… Read the rest
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) today announced that no-one will be able to establish military bases on the territory of a CSTO member state without the express agreement of all other member states.
In practice, this is a setback for the United States, who will find it next to impossible to establish… Read the rest
Mikhail Prokhorov’s dramatic entry into the 2012 Russian Presidential race has caused confusion among analysts. Put simply, no-one can fathom why Russia’s third richest man would want to have another stab at entering Russian politics.
After his humiliating failure this summer – Prokhorov announced to great fanfare that he would turn Right Cause into a… Read the rest
Protests took place in Moscow on Monday as people unhappy at United Russia’s manipulation of Sunday’s Russian Duma election took to the streets.
Numbers are difficult to judge, but it appears that around 5-6,000 people protested earlier in the day, breaking off into a smaller group of around 1,000 that then went on to… Read the rest
United Russia won 49.54% of the popular vote in this weekend’s Duma Election, which was just enough to secure it an overall majority in the Duma.
By and large, election observers felt that the ballot itself was run fairly across the country, BUT, there were a few ballots in which the results were just absurd.… Read the rest
The big story of this year’s Russian Duma election is that United Russia’s share of the vote has dropped below the psychologically critical 50% mark. With 95% of ballots counted, United Russia has 49.67% of votes which, because of the 7% threshold needed for parties to enter Russia’s Duma, means that United Russia will actually… Read the rest
The 2011 Russian Duma elections are underway today.
Results (even preliminary results) are not expected until late this evening and tomorrow. United Russia, the party led by Vladimir Putin, has slipped slightly in the polls recently and is expected to lose the constitutional supermajority that it currently holds – it is, however, still expected… Read the rest
There was more unrest and behind the scenes politicking in South Ossetia today, following the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to annull the results of the election and ban Alla Dzhioyeva – the opposition candidate who looked to have secured victory – from participating in a re-run.
Dzhioyeva has refused to accept the Supreme Court’s decision,… Read the rest
The South Ossetian Supreme Court has dramatically and controversially annulled the results of its Presidential election. In announcing its verdict, it also banned Alla Dzhioyeva – the opposition candidate who appeared to have won the election – from competing in a re-run of the election scheduled for March 2012.
RIA Novosti reports that
The Russian Navy has confirmed that its aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, will visit the Syrian port of Tartus, where Russia has its only Mediterranean naval base.
The Kuznetsov and its small supporting battle group is currently in port in Murmansk and Severomorsk, but will shortly set sail for the Mediterranean. As well as Tartus,… Read the rest
The South Ossetian Presidential election looks like it will descend into bitter recrimination as both candidates have claimed victory.
With more than 85% of the votes counted, opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva is reported to have secured 56.74% of the vote. If correct, this would leave the Emergencies Minister, and leader of the Unity… Read the rest
After a slow start, Russia has now officially got the largest number of web users in Europe.
According to the latest Comscore report, 50.8 million Russians have access to the internet through either a home or work connection. This means that, for the first time, Russia has more internet users than Germany, which… Read the rest
In a startling display of sycophancy, the Russian Defense Ministry has just announced that it will buy 10,000 badminton rackets and shuttlecocks – all because Russia’s President loves the game.
“Playing badminton uses the same muscles as throwing grenades, knives or other objects,” said Colonel Alexander Shchepelev.
I’m really beginning to enjoy Dmitry Medvedev’s no-nonsense approach to assessing Russia’s weaknesses and to telling people off.
He certainly doesn’t mince words, but what I particularly like is that he doesn’t restrict his criticism to safe, relatively unimportant targets. Take, for example, his lambasting of Russia’s prosecutors following the shambolic trial of Anna Politkovskaya’s… Read the rest
Dmitry Medvedev caught on video playing with his black market iPhone during a press conference with French President Sarkozy.
