The Russia Blog
After all the fuss, Putin actually won the Russian Presidential Election pretty comfortably. As I write this, 99.3% of the votes have been counted, and Putin got 63.75% of them and his nearest challenger (Gennady Zyuganov, of course) scored a mere 17.19%.
There’s a lot to think about after the election, and I thought… Read the rest
Dmitry Medvedev has submitted a draft law proposing the formation of new electoral districts to the Russian State Duma.
However, his initiative comes amid signs that his ambitious proposals for electoral reform may be coming up against sustained opposition within the Duma.
225 new electoral districts
The draft law is the latest of… Read the rest
Moscow is gearing itself up for more protests and rallies on 23 February. Approval has already been given for two large rallies – one pro-Putin and one pro-Communist – and decisions are due shortly on a number of other rallies.
What are the political parties doing?
Saturday saw Muscovites take to the streets in a duelling pair of rallies expressing both support and opposition for Vladimir Putin and his campaign to return to the Russian Presidency.
The rallies attracted between 75,000 and 200,000 people in total, but no-one really knows for sure how many attended. With all the different claims and… Read the rest
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has confirmed liberal Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky and independent candidate Dmitry Mezentsev will not be allowed to enter the 2012 Russian Presidential Election.
Although both candidates claimed that they had obtained the 2 million signatures needed for a candidate from a party not represented in the Duma to secure a… Read the rest
Opposition politicians Mikhail Prokhorov and Grigory Yavlinsky have each announced that they have collected the two million signatures needed for them to enter the 2012 Russian Presidential election race.
Prokhorov, who with $18 billion to his name is Russia’s third richest man, plans to run as an independent candidate with no party backing and Yavlinsky… Read the rest
It’s been a busy few days for Russian elections news, so I thought I’d roundup a few of the key stories that caught my eye.
Webcams in every polling station
In his recent marathon TV interview, Vladimir Putin proposed placing webcams in every single polling station during March’s Presidential election. The proposal came in reaction… Read the rest
When you think of some of the classic vehicles to emerge from the Soviet era it’s easy to build an image of a lumbering stereotype; a kind of dull, functional car that looked and felt extremely similar to other models.
While that may be true to some extent – it has to be said… Read the rest
Much is known about the Russian Prime Minister’s political and military career but until very recently, his family life was largely unknown. All that was to change however when Vladimir Putin’s daughter Maria burst on to the celebrity stage.
Family rebel?
One of the most used photographs of Maria Putin dates from 2009 and shows… 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 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
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 Western press has been gleefully reporting that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was booed when he addressed the crowd after Russian Fyodor Emelianenko beat American fighter Jeff Monson.
US paper the Washington Post called it a “rare show of public disapproval”, while British paper the Daily Mail explained the event as an… 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.
Now here’s an interesting rumour circulating around the Russian language blogs – 26 year old Russian Olympic gymnast turned Duma Deputy Alina Kabaeva has just given birth to Vladimir Putin’s son.
