Archive - 2004

Yeah right. Early results coming from the far east of Russia show that Putin has 66.5% of the vote. Communist Party candidate Nikolay Kharitonov is Putin’s closest challenger with 14.7%. Interesting to see that...

Chechnya’s former Defense Minister, Magomed Khambiyev, surrendered to Russian forces last weekend. He was one of the closest allies of seperatist leader, Aslan Maskhadov. He has now been followed by the surrender...

From Mosnews.com comes the story that Russian company Energia is developing a new reusable spacecraft – the Clipper, which will combine the best of the Soyuz and Buran spaceships. (The Buran, for those not in the...

The BBC has an article from Maria Lipman and Dmitri Gubin who go ‘head to head’ and tell us exactly why they think Putin is great. Or not. Once you get past the annoying formatting (two columns side by side...

Russian peasants used to write letters to the Tsar in the hope he would be able to address their grievances. The Guardian reports that this tradition has been reinvigorated under President Putin, who receives 11,000...

I know that everyone in Russia is supposed to love Putin, but does anyone else find it just a little bit suspicious that three British news organisations all have articles out this weekend comparing young Vladimir to...

A couple of days ago I linked to the story that the CIA was responsible for a massive gas pipeline explosion in Russia during the Cold War. The Cold War is finished now. Seems like ancient history. Its easy to look back...

A poll conducted by mobile phone in Russia suggests that Vladimir Putin will comfortably win the upcoming Presidential election. Although the poll is obviously unscientific (I know, all polls are unscientific) the...

Speculation about the identity of Russia’s new Prime Minister has been resolved today. Vladimir Putin’s choice of European Union envoy Mikhail Fradkov has suprised many analysts, who had thought that Putin...

The Financial Times (subscription required, but article also available from here) has an in-depth analysis of the increasing role of the siloviki (strong men/men of power) in the Russian government… When Mr Putin...